Chapter Four

Lily Evans wasn't sure why she wasn't sitting with Celeste Jones for her ride to Hogwarts. She hadn't on the way home from Hogwarts after her third year, either. Part of her said that it was because Celeste had gone on five dates with James Potter the year before. But part of her thought that that was just a ridiculous reason to not sit with someone.

For one, the dates had been inconsequential. The couple in question hadn't even kissed until the fourth one. Also, there wasn't any reason to be jealous of Celeste, being as she was quite boring and she had dated James Potter, who was quite annoying. Lily told herself that the only reason she'd stopped sitting with the Hufflepuff girl was that she was boring and didn't know how to tell a decent young man from a complete arse of a boy.

And so now Lily Evans was heading down the corridor, trying to find a compartment with a friendly face in it that did not belong to Celeste (or her two older sisters).

--

James Potter didn't really mean to bump into the redhead before him. Yes, he had been looking for her, but no, he hadn't meant to cause her to drop her cauldron on his foot. "So sorry!" she exclaimed.

"No, my fault, my fault!" he responded, ignoring the dull ache in his foot and helping her gather up her things from the train floor.

Lily looked up at him, her face flushed pink, and smiled slightly when she saw he was carrying his belongings as well. "Let's find a compartment," she said. The idea struck him as funny, since Lily claimed to hate him, but he complied and took a step ahead.

He led her to the large compartment in the back where they shared memories, although really the memories were all rather trite and silly. "How was your summer?" James asked, feeling a blush form on his face. His feelings for Lily had resurfaced over the summer, or at least they had in the past two minutes. She'd grown a bit. He was still taller than her, yes, but her body had changed. She was beginning to hold some of the curves of a woman.

"Good," Lily said. "I went to France with my family, although Petunia was a bore." She rolled her eyes at the mention of her sister. "You?"

"Alright," James said. "I went to the seaside."

An awkward pause ensued. Finally, Lily blurted something out, although once she'd said it, James wished that she hadn't. She couldn't even look him in the eyes as the words came out of her small, delicate mouth. "Are you still…uh…seeing Celeste Jones?"

"No," James spat out immediately. "I wrote to her over the summer, and she to me…but I broke it off with her in early July." Lily found the courage to look up at him, and he saw that the red color on her cheeks had faded, making her look even more radiant with that striking red hair of hers. He couldn't help but add, "She wasn't like you."

"James…" Lily sighed. "I don't…you don't…"

He resisted the urge to make fun of her. He resisted the urge to kiss her. Instead, James scooted over so that he was seated next to Lily. "Remember when you woke up covered in maple syrup?" he whispered.

"James!" Lily groaned. "You're infuriating! I nearly forgot about that!" But she said it with a laugh, too, and when she looked at him, he saw the laugh dancing in her eyes.

That was the moment when James Potter knew that he was falling in love with Lily Evans.

--

She hated to admit it, but she liked the feel of him sitting next to her. She liked when he reached back to mess up his hair and accidentally brushed his arm against hers. She liked when he teased her.

However, Lily didn't like when James made her feel like a fool.

"So why did you care about me and Celeste?" he asked in that cocky, off-hand manner of his. She hated when he acted that way, especially in situations where he had previously been acting perfectly amiable, such as in this one.

Lily resisted the urge to cry out. Instead, she calmly shrugged her shoulders and said, "I just wanted to know how things were going with you. That's all." She turned to face James, who was smiling at her rather arrogantly. "It's not that I particularly cared about you," she spat. "Finding out information on you isn't at the top of my priorities list, you know."

"Touché!" James said with a chuckle. Lily rolled her eyes, and couldn't help but notice that James was reaching for the pocket of his robes. "You know," he said, his voice now softer, "I think now is a good time for me to give you that present from…what was it? Two years ago?"

Lily laughed, her heart suddenly skipping a beat. She'd been intrigued as to what James had intended to give to her for a long, long time. "Well, alright then," she said in the same soft tone.

Abruptly, the compartment door slid open to reveal Sirius Black. "I knew I'd find you two hear!" he nearly shouted. "Prongs, Moony says he needs to talk to you about you-know-what."

"Prongs?" Lily asked, perplexed. "Moony? You-know-what?" She looked from Sirius to James. "What sort of code is this that you and your little clique are now sharing?"

Sirius let out a guffaw. "Clique is hardly the right word." James stood up, taking his hand from his pocket and preparing to move his baggage.

"Posse then," Lily said in an off-hand matter.

"Lily!" James gasped. "We are not a posse! We're the Marauders!"

Lily rolled her eyes as the two boys moved to leave the compartment and stood up. She didn't want to sit by herself and planned on finding a compartment full of Gryffindor girls to gossip with about James. He truly was infuriating. But just as James' body left the doorway, Lily remembered something. "Potter?" she asked. He turned around to face her.

"Yes, Evans?"

"My gift?"

James let out a soft chuckle. "We have seven more train rides, Lils." And with that, he exited the compartment, causing Lily to roll her eyes and moan slightly in frustration.

--

In the compartment with the three other Marauders, James couldn't help but get lost in thought. He wasn't sure what attracted him to Lily. Was it her beautiful emerald eyes? Her ruby red hair? He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black velvet bag. The others were so distracted in talking about preparing to become Animagi that they didn't even notice as he pulled the necklace out of the bag. It seemed silly that he'd waste an entire summer's allowance on it now, but at the same time, he quite liked that his gift was eluding Lily, just as she eluded him. "Fair is fair," he muttered, gazing at the small pendant on the necklace—a white flower with a yellow gem in the middle.

And as he placed the necklace away, he promised himself then and there that the day she stopped running would be the day that his gift would hang comfortably around her neck, resting between her breasts, a treasure finally won.