A/N: Sorry, you guys! Finals week has been killer. Needed a quick break. Anywho, I hope you like this one! And I promise the next will have even more Lily/James moments as I trickle to the end... oh and (slight sort of spoiler?) also will finally/probably reveal what James did with the cloak... kind of ;)

Also, special shout out to the ever lovely EnchantedWords17! Sadly, I doubt your opinion on Jacob will improve this chapter (sorry) but I love the idea for our double-wedding! I'm so jealous you got to meet Dylan! I think I'm plenty brain-cells dead enough to outright drop on one knee. All I need is a ring... for Brian of course. I wouldn't dream of stealing away your men :] That's right, you get both because you, my friend, are an amazing reviewer and deserve as many Star Kids as you like. I'll even throw in Darren. Only post G.L.E.E, though. Unfortunately, I'm terribly in love with the Disney singing dork. In all honesty, I'm probably only a review away from gifting you him as well *she said crazily as though she had the power to give away people*


"You'd better watch out,

'Cause one of these days I'll turn and ask you on a date"

The Zolas, Watch Out


"I do."

"I didn't propose, Jacob," I tried joking.

"Fancy her I mean."

"Who?"

"Quit beating around the bush, Potter." I sighed forlornly.

"Since when?" He shrugged so casually I wanted to hit him.

"A while now, I suppose."

"And, what are you going to do about it?"

"What do you propose?" I glared at him.

"I told you I wasn't proposing."

"Pity. I thought we made a cute couple,"he winked at me. Great, why don't you hit on me right after telling me you were competition for the girl that I've been in love with since like third year. The guy is far too cavalier with all of this who he likes business, he thinks it's fair game to pretend liking anyone. Lily deserved someone who took love seriously. Okay, fine. I'm being a fair bit pretentious and I'm not exactly the most serious guy, even when it comes to Lily. At least not behavior-wise. Still, he must have noticed my annoyance because he quickly changed tactic.

"Okay, well... seriously where do you think this is going? You're the one who asked me if I liked her and now you expect me to also tell you all of my plans?"

"Are you going to ask her out?"

"Are you?"

"I tried that all last year. Didn't really work." He eyed me sternly, as if checking to see if I were joking. What? It was a disaster. Especially the last try which has resulted in her declaring love to a giant squid. Alright, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but she wasn't exactly my biggest fan at the time. That had been the worst summer ever. Somehow, though, when we'd returned, she'd suddenly been much less hostile to me. Told me it wasn't my fault. It was inevitable that she and Snape would have broken off their friendship. Luckily, I'd not been dumb enough to actually verbalize the "told you so" that I had been thinking so much I was sure it would come out on its own.

"Seriously?"

Apparently he couldn't read my face.

"Yes, seriously. Did she date me last year? No."

"You liked her last year?"

"Are you being serious? What Jacob, are you daft? Of course I liked her. Thought it might have been a bit obvious after all that, you know, asking her out."

He actually looked befuddled. I hardly ever get to use that word. Then again, people are rarely befuddled by me.

"Potter. Everyone thought that was a mean joke."

"What! I thought that was just Lily!"

"Nope. I mean we all thought you meant it at first, but after she turned you down it seemed like maybe the whole thing was just meant to pull her leg. Espcially that last bit with Snape. I mean bullying her best friend and using that as blackmail to score a date? Sounds a bit harsh."

"Well..." I honestly was at a loss of words. When you put it like that...

"Then this whole year was you switching tactics I suppose?" I nodded confirmation. "Well, I thought that was just you realizing that you really did like her."

"I've always liked her!" My voice may have been a tad loud.

"I know that now."

"Fine. Glad we cleared it up. Spread the word and what not. But, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Nothing."

"Well then why'd you bring it up?"

He shrugged and looked bored once more.

"Curiosity." I scowled.

"You know that kills, right?" He grinned at me again.

"I'm not cat. And I'm also not going to help you get with Lily. I like her, remember? Any information is good information at this point. I'm just testing out the waters."

"So you are going to ask her out."

"I never said that. We'll have to see, won't we?"

I was mere moments away from begging him not to. But I do not beg. And Lily would never say yes. I don't think.


Jacob and Potter have been acting weird ever since their conversation this morning and it's getting irksome.

"What's up with them?" Mary asked, annoyed. They kept looking toward us down the table, Marlene was off on a detention and so I'd decided not to sit with them. Well, not that they were sitting together, just further down on my right side. Potter was closer, though. And so every once in a while I would catch Jacob watching Potter watch me and I could see why Mary was getting annoyed. It was distracting.

"I dunno."

"You obviously did something."

"Did not."

"Used your feminine wiles, mayhap?"

"You're bonkers, you know?"

"I have been told."

"This is nice though, eh? Some you and me time."

"Sure, sure. So, when is operation X again? Today?"

"Tomorrow, that's when Craigs will be back as usual."

"He already is back as usual."

"I know, but it will have been a day. That establishes normality, trust me."

"I'm still mad we had to unspell all of our work from the prank last night. That was stupid. Damn Potter, ruining our plans. And now I'm exhausted from running around instead of sleeping."

"I'm sorry," I patted her back sympathetically; "This is my fault."

"It's your fault for being a nice person and being born into a muggle family? No."

"I know that's not my fault. This whole plotting thing. The marauders say I'm crap at pranks."

"What do those arses know? Who cares if they're considered prank Gods, they are just sneaky, that's all. I, for one, am fine with not being sneaky."

"They called it being subtle."

"Who?"

"Oh you know… a couple of the guys…" I motioned my head toward Remus, Potter, Peter and Black.

"Why have you been having therapy sessions with the marauders?"

"I have not. It was just something I overheard."

"Sure."

"No, it was. Potter was saying 'She's clever and funny, but not very subtle.' And Sirius nodded all vehemently."

"And so you decided to ignore the compliments and just focus on the one sort of flaw." My cheeks flared slightly, and I regretted having mentioned the nice things, I just didn't want her to think Potter was being a total arse. He might be one, but he wasn't acting it at the time.

"I pride myself on being subtle," I defended. Mary rolled her eyes.

"Just yesterday you were going on about being funny."

"Well, a person is always supposed to be improving themselves."

"Uh-huh." I decided this conversation was going nowhere, and checked down the table to see if Potter and Jake were still going at it. Instead I saw Potter glaring behind me, confused I whipped my head around and was face to face with Jacob.

"Hey, Lily. Mary." He nodded at Mary and then slipped onto the bench by my side. I grinned in greeting.

"What's going on with James and you?" Jake looked surprised for a moment but quickly sobered.

"Oh, you know… boy stuff."

"Boy stuff," I repeated dully.

"Yeah, like brooms and firewhiskey… and er… fit girls."

Mary rose her eyebrows and my mouth fell open slightly. Although quite handsome, Jake was really more of the quiet bookish type. I knew he was joking, he was known for being a bit of a laugh, but hearing him list off all of those things sounded distinctly odd. He looked slightly irked at having been met with such a reaction.

"I am a guy, you know."

"Yeah, but those are like Marauder-guy activity."

"Remus isn't obsessed with those things either."

"You are kind of like Remus," I replied with a small smile. "With less irritating friends."

"Not like James, then?" I looked down the table to see Potter throwing food at Remus. As if sensing my gaze his hazel eyes met my own green ones. Startled for a moment I finally turned back to Jacob.

"No, not like Potter." For whatever reason my response seemed to annoy him, even though I would have thought nobody would want to be like that oaf. I was about to ask what this was all about when Mary cut me off.

"So, operation X is tomorrow, yeah?" Jacob looked at me in surprise.

"Why so soon?"

"It needs to happen quickly."

"Established normality," Mary added knowingly. I glared at her half-heartedly to show my displeasure at having my phrase being used, and wrongly at that. She pointedly ignored this.

"Alright, then." He ran his hand through his light brown hair and grinned crookedly at me. "Common rooms, then?"

"Common rooms," I confirmed.

He paused for a moment, looking torn between saying something and not saying something. Mary was staring at him, furrowing her brow, and looking rather concerned. She looked at me and rose her eyebrows. I was never any good at reading eyebrows. I shrugged and she rolled her eyes. Seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

"I'll leave you be, then." Now I was even more confused. We had Transfiguration next, and always walked together. I shot her a look, which she ignored, and she ran off before I could question her. Normally I'd have darted off after her, but Jacob was still staring at me rather intently, looking to be going through some sort of inner-debate. It seemed rude to run off on him. I waited patiently for whatever he was trying to do, doing my own little debate on whether or not it would be rude to yell at him to get on with it.

"LILY FLOWER!"

Oh, joy.

"Potter."

"Every time."

"Every time, what?"

"I give you a pet name, and you respond with my last name."

"She's probably practicing for when you both get hitched. Letting the name feel natural." Potter looked annoyed at Sirius, but his hazel eyes flickered to mine hopefully and even a bit apologetically. I sighed. It wasn't his fault that his friend was a twit.

"I thought we were going to be called Lames? Why would I need his last name?"

Sirius roared with laughter at my response and Potter looked delighted. Jacob meanwhile looked as though he were losing that debate of his and seemed very downtrodden. Probably all of this noise. Poor boy.

"Look, we've got to go, so I'll see you in Transfig." They all looked startled at that.

"Who's we?"

"Jake and I."

"He's not in that class."

"That's why we're hanging out a bit before hand."

They all still looked slightly shell-shocked. Oh, bother. I grabbed Jacob's arm and pulled him up with me. Still no reaction from any of them. They were all eying me with odd expressions.

"Well, er… toodles!"

I quickly walked off toward one of the hallways, pulling Jacob for the first few steps before he finally seemed to recover and start walking with me. He half-jogged to keep my pace.

"How… are … you walking … so … fast?"

"My legs are long."

He didn't respond, but from the corner of my eye I saw him smirking slightly.

"Where are we headed?" I finally stopped outside of the transfiguration class room, allowing Jacob to catch his breath and looking at his very long legs rather skeptically. That boy needs to get out more if a quick get away takes his breath away. He caught my glance and quirked his eyebrows.

"Checking me out, Evans?"

My eyes rolled of their own accord. If only my stupid cheeks didn't betray me, I swear I'd look almost casual about the whole thing.

"You wish, Jacob." He grinned.

"I was just kidding, Lily." I nodded, but still didn't dare quite look him in the eye. I heard him sigh. "Okay, here goes nothing."

"What?"

"After this whole thing," I finally turned to watch him and saw as he waved his arms around to refer to this 'thing', "...is over, do you maybe want to… I dunno…go out on a hogsmeade weekend?"

My breath got caught in my throat and suddenly my forehead felt quite clammy. I stared, doe-eyed, as one of the most gorgeous seventh-years asked me, Lily Evans, to go out with him. He was wonderful, really. I mean… what was wrong with him? Nothing. He was intelligent, helpful, funny and fit. Nothing was wrong. And yet… I felt quite nauseous.

"I think… I'm coming down with something." Jacob looked incredibly concerned.

"Are you…"

"Yes!" I'd practically shouted it and heard almost distantly my voice echo down the nearly empty hall.

Suddenly I remembered that lunch was almost over. I pictured in my head that we only had about 2 minutes before the halls were full.

"Yes… you'll go out with me? Or yes you're sick?"

"Erm… sure. The former I mean." I was looking anywhere but at him, and yet when he replied, his voice betrayed his expression. If I had to guess, I'd say that he were making a ridiculously happy face.

"Great! So, I'll… uh, see you after class." He paused for a while next to me awkwardly and then did a sort of half hug. I barely participated, but he didn't seem to mind.

Of three things I was certain as I pathetically settled into my transfiguration desk 15 minutes too early: I was not good at handling interactions with boys, I was decidedly uncertain about how I felt about Jacob, and then there was Potter.

I know that last thing is not really a thing to be certain of. It certainly doesn't make any sense to me, but for whatever reason, no matter what I tried, I couldn't get that stupid bespectacled face out of my mind.

And so, I suppose, the thing I was really certain of was that continuously thinking about Potter was not good.