Art of Awkwardness

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They are all property of J.K. Rowling, and I am in no way trying to steal them.

Most people thought that Lily Evans hated James Potter and that was the end of it. They thought that she yelled at him and criticized him for all the things he did, and then went off on her own, pleased as ever. Regret was never put into the picture, and nor was guilt. There was a simple reason for this, of course, and that was that people didn't delve deep enough into their relationship to consider such trivial things as remorse repentant.

They were wrong, though. Every single one of them made assumptions, and they were assumptions that none of them had a right to make. No, Lily wasn't always happy about the things she said to James, despite what people thought. Sometimes after a particularly brutal fight, she would go back to her dorm, sit on her bed with the curtains drawn and just think. She would think about what she said and what he said, and then she would think about past fights they had, and more often than not, they would make her sick. She wasn't a bad person, and to think she would say such things to anyone—even James—made her feel an unbelievable amount of guilt. She hated it, and so no matter how often she felt this, she always kept it to herself. Besides, before she knew it, she would get carried away once more in a fight and some insult would spew out of her mouth, and that night she would feel the same. It was an endless cycle.

Today had been no exception. The fight had been brutal enough with plenty of insults flying, red-faced screaming, and endless anger. They had almost hexed each other senseless, but Remus, the sensible one of the group, came forward before that happened and separated them. Lily began to stomp back to her dorm while James stayed there, but once she reached the Seventh Floor she had an epiphany and she knew she had to turn around. This time, she would apologize. She would make things right, for once. She would do the right thing.

She hurried as fast as she could because she feared that he would have already left. If he left, she had no chance of finding him until tomorrow, at which point the damage would have already set in. Afterall, the sun had just set and who knew where those Marauders went once the sun went down.

It didn't take long for her to retrace her footsteps and find the door that led into the classroom where this specific fight had taken place. Putting her hand on the doorknob, she prepared herself to face him once and for all, but stopped suddenly when she heard voices inside the room. They were quiet—so quiet that she couldn't make out the words. Determined to find out who was speaking, she pushed her ear to the door, and with just a bit of strain, she could hear the voices.

"It's only April, mate," someone said, who she identified immediately as Remus.

"And then it'll be June and then it'll be Seventh Year and she still won't care," the second voice, James', said.

"Who says she won't fall for you by then?" the third said. This one was Sirius.

"Yeah! She's bound to realize that she's being stupid soon!" Peter. Yes, all four of them were there now, and she had no intention of showing her face in front of them. She would simply make a fool of herself, and she knew it. Instead, she silently sat down in front of her the door, leaning against it to hear what they were saying. Soon enough, she was so caught up in their words that she forgot completely about the odd glances she was getting from the students passing by.

"You guys have been saying that since Third Year. You know it's not going to happen," James said sullenly.

"Now, let's not be negative, mate. If worse comes to worse, you can always find that Lauren girl. She seemed to like you plenty!" Sirius suggested, but the silence to follow seemed to indicate that this wasn't the right thing to say.

"Do you think before you speak, Sirius?" Remus hissed. "Don't answer that," he corrected himself, and she could just picture him rolling his eyes to himself.

"I really like her," James continued as if they hadn't spoken.

"We know, Prongs," Remus said.

"Yeah," Peter added in that eager voice so characteristic to him.

"No, you don't! Every time she calls me an idiot or ignores me, I just…I can't even describe it."

"Have you ever thought of… Changing?" Remus asked slowly.

"A few times, I guess."

"No, mate, you can't change who you are for a girl. That's against Marauder's code, and you know it. She can't be that worth it," Sirius countered.

"But she is! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think I might actually change for this girl."

"Prongs—…" Sirius began, but James immediately stopped him.

"No, Padfoot. This is what I want to do. If this is what it takes to get her attention, then so be it. Worst case scenario is that I end up hating her, and she'd be perfectly fine with that, I'm sure."

"Are you sure you aren't getting a bit too drastic here?" Peter asked him hesitantly.

"No," was his simple, short reply.

"James… Look, don't get me wrong. You may really like this girl, but I think this is just getting unhealthy… I have this great friend named Maria—…"

"The Maria you slept with? Yeah, great friends."

"That's beside the point, Moony. Anyways, I'm sure she'd be more than happy to go on a little date with you. Why don't you just… Give up Evans for a few weeks and see how it goes?"

"No… No, I can't do that," James said firmly.

"Why not?" Sirius demanded.

"Because…Because Lily's the one. I know it." At this point, she heard him stand up, and she slowly leaned her head against the door as guilt continued to boil in the pit of her stomach.

The one. Hearing him talk like this made her feel even worse because this meant that he actually liked her. It wasn't how she had said it was. He didn't just want to win her for the sake of winning her, and he didn't just enjoy teasing her, and he wasn't going to date her and then dump her to humiliate her. He really liked her…

These thoughts left her as quickly as they came when she suddenly felt the door she was leaning on begin to open. Whoever was attempting to open this door immediately felt whatever was stopping it and pushed a bit harder. The door hit her head and she let out a defeated, "Ow!" before she stood up quickly, taking a few steps away from the door.

Sirius was there, having just opened the door. The other three were slowly walking to the door to see what the problem had been. When they all saw Lily, they each had different reactions, none of which she was all that pleased with.

Sirius looked furious. He obviously wasn't happy about what Lily had done to his best friend, and he was quite keen on showing it to her. His glare was menacing as ever, and her guilt only grew. Remus looked a bit irked, but more sympathetic than any of the rest of them. He was the most like Lily, and seemed to understand her dilemma. Peter didn't look all that happy, but she was fairly sure that was just because Sirius was glaring at her, so he decided to copy him. Potter… He looked a bit uncomfortable, at best. He looked embarrassed to have been caught, and just a bit on the sad side.

Merlin, what she wouldn't give to bury herself in a hole and just die.

Sirius was the first to speak. "Do you have something to say, or are you just going to stare at us stupidly?" he snapped, narrowing his eyes dangerously.

"Sirius…" Remus said quietly, shaking his head.

"I wanted to…Talk to James…" Lily said quietly, her eyes moving over to Potter, who looked just a bit surprised, likely because of how meek she sounded.

"Haven't you done enough damage?" Black asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I'll meet you guys back in the dorm…" James said slowly, his eyes trained on Lily. She, in turn, looked down at the ground as they both walked back into the classroom. James closed the door behind them, but not before he gave the other three Marauders a short glance. "I'm sorry about him," James said, taking a seat on top of one of the tables in the classroom.

"Sirius?" Lily asked, at which he nodded. "No…I deserved it."

Thankfully, he didn't counter that by saying that she didn't. She didn't need him to be nice to her right now, because she, once again, didn't deserve it.
"What were you doing on the floor?" James asked her, raising his eyebrows just a bit.

"I was…Um…" she stuttered, looking down at her feet in embarrassment. Something wasn't clicking in her brain…She simply couldn't come up with a quick response to answer him with.

"Listening to us?" he asked suddenly, letting out a slow sigh.

"Well, I… Uhm… Maybe," she said finally, looking back up to him.

"How much did you hear?" he asked hesitantly, giving her an awkward glance.

"I…I don't really know. I mean, I was only listening for a few minutes," she told him, averting her gaze once more.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that… I'm sure I sounded like some desperate idiot, as you called me earlier today."

"No, no… I mean, I came here to apologize about that. I shouldn't have said those things. I didn't mean to be so rude," she told him. "And also…You were talking about changing for me," she said slowly, taking a deep breath. "It's really nice, and I'm honored that you would do that, but…I don't want to be the one at fault for changing James Potter into someone different. I don't normally care what other people think, but I just…I'd feel bad."

She was almost positive that he would say something along the lines of that has never stopped you before or you feel bad? Hah! No such response came. Instead, he said, "Well, I've made up my mind."

"So you won't change?" she asked quickly.

"You…You just forget about it, alright Lily?" he said, looking to her with a smile.

"Right…Okay," she agreed with a nod. "Well, I should probably be going. I just wanted to…Apologize, you know?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry too," he responded,

And that was that. She left the room and he left the room. They went their separate ways and the school year went on just as it had before. Of course, there was a considerable decrease in the amount of fights they had, and Lily was proud to say that it was partially due to her apologizing. It was just about as hard for her to admit she was wrong as it was for James, and so knowing that apologizing had actually helped made her feel better than ever. If only she knew what was in store for her in the coming year…

And we have another one! I leave in less than a week now, so I don't know how many more you'll get before I leave. Hopefully I can get out one or two more, but that's if I can come up with some ideas. Anyways, for the last chapter I got two or three "wows" and I hope that they were good wows! I don't like this chapter half as much as the last one, but I hope you enjoyed it all the same. Until next time!

-Christine