A/N:

It has been over 5 months since I last updated the story I wanted to have finished in 8 days time. I was going to post the last chapter on January 6th . . . Yikes.

This chapter was rather difficult to write; I just had a ton of ideas and several of them I carted off to be separate one-shots that I'll write sometime in the future. Plus, the semester was ending at school and I was a little in over my head. And then my sister had a baby. And then I started the Divergent trilogy and I was reading FF for that and I just got caught up in obsessing over Fourtris. And then more schoolwork. And then I was just reading Jily FanFiction myself. And then The Fault in Our Stars. And driving school. And the end of the school year. And then . . . well it all just led up to me not writing this. But now summer is in session, so I will get this done.

So . . . yeah. I apologize for the long update time. :[

As a shout-out to my reviewers/followers/favoriters for the support and the urge to update, even if it did take forever, I present to you a virtual cookie. Stay awesome. :D

Disclaimer: Still a peasant, Queen J.K. still owns.

Floral Rants

Fourth Year

Gryffindor Boys' Dormitory

James stumbled into the dormitory, a dazed and slightly panicked look in his eyes, and passed by his friends without a glance in any of their directions. He sat down on his bed, only to stare at the wall without blinking. His mind was racing. There was no possible way that that could have just happened. He continued to sit there and stare for the better part of ten minutes. His friends were all getting worried, this much James could tell, but at this moment he found that he didn't particularly care. It was only when his eyes started to glaze over that they decided to intervene.

"You alright, mate?" Sirius asked hesitantly, waving a hand in front of his best friend's face.

James still refused to move his eyes from the wall, feeling as if he would lose what little remained of his sanity if he did, and let out a grunt as his response, though it resembled more of a whimper.

Sirius shared a look with Remus and Peter, then returned his eyes to James' shocked features. "Er, I'm going to take that as a no . . . ?"

James remained frozen.

"Shouldn't we take him to Madam Pomfrey?" Peter asked.

"I think he's just in shock Pete, he'll be fine." Remus responded, though not sounding all too certain. He stood and set down his book on an end table before going over to kneel by James' form.

"James," he began shaking James' still form. "Blink twice if you can hear me." James did as he was told.

"Good. Now, could you tell us what happened?" Remus backed away.

A pause, and then James muttered, astonished, "I . . . kissed her."

"Who?" Sirius asked, eyebrows raised.

James spoke normally, but he still looked stunned. "Lily."

The room was silent for a moment. Remus, Peter, and Sirius sat with their mouths gaping in disbelief.

Peter was the first to recover his voice. "You kissed Evans?!"

"Yes!" James nodded his head frantically.

Remus looked skeptic. "And you aren't mortally wounded?"

"No!" James shook his head frantically.

Sirius stared at him, much resembling James from a few minutes prior. "What the bloody hell happened?!"

"You are so annoying Potter, are you ever going to grow up? Well, apparently not since you act worse than the first years on a regular basis! . . . I mean really, Potter, your spellwork is impressive, even I can't deny that, but when you use it to antagonize other students its honestly not very awe-inspiring."

James snorted and rolled his eyes. "Thanks Evans."

"Seriously Potter, I thought one of the third years was going to explode she had so many boils! You're endangering other students' health! I'm surprised you only got detention for the week -"

"Oh dear Merlin, would you shut up Evans? You've been at this for over an hour." James sighed, exasperated, he'd heard this speech a thousand times today alone.

Lily looked slightly offended, but there was also a glint in her eyes. "I'd like to see you make me, Potter." Lily challenged with her hands on her hips.

As James had mostly just been ignoring her monologue and was checking her out the whole time, he agreed. "Fine!"

James leaned in and kissed her.

After a few seconds, when he was about to pull back thoroughly impressed with himself, Lily started kissing him back. This further fueled his ego, and shocked him immensely, but it only happened for a moment or two before she realized what exactly she was doing and pulled away, blushing profusely and muttering something about a Herbology essay.

"Then she walked away." James finished with a shrug.

Sirius, Remus, and Peter blinked.

"She just walked away?" Sirius asked.

"Er, Yes?" James answered, confused.

Remus dragged his hands over his face. "Let me get this straight. You've asked her out for the better part of a year, you kissed her, she returned the sentiment, and then she walked away and you didn't do anything?"

James thought about it. "Pretty much." He nodded.

Sirius cuffed James around the head. "James, you dolt!"

"Ouch! What?" he asked indignantly.

"You've just given a bird like Evans time to think things through. She'll convince herself that kissing you was just a lapse in her judgement."

"She'll never go out with you. You just set yourself up for at least three years of denial!" Peter chimed in.

James stared at each of them in turn, questioning his friends' sanity, and snorted. "Right, like that would ever happen. No one could possibly turn me down for that long."

His friends looked unimpressed, so he just shook his head at them.

"I'll ask her out tomorrow morning. You'll see."

On to the chapters for Fifth Year!

Those chapters should be up a lot sooner as I actually have a semi-solid idea . . . I think.

Review?