Disclaimer- I don't own anything, yada, yada, yada.

Summary- James has always been in love with Lily, and Lily has always though that James was a bigheaded toe rag. It is there last year at Hogwarts, and James knows that it is now or never to finally get Lily. James even has the advantage of being head boy and Lily being head girl. Well we all know that he gets her in the end…but here is how he did it.

Chapter 36- Carpe Diem

James looked at his clock; it was 4pm, still a couple hours before they should head off to Hogsmead.

Then something dawned on him. How could he have forgotten?

James immediately threw open his nightstand drawer, and started fishing around in it.

"James…what are you doing?" Lily asked, sitting on the edge of his bed.

"Where is it?" James said, mostly to himself, as he rummaged through his nightstand drawer. "Aha! Little bugger." James exclaimed.

"What were you looking for?" Lily asked.

James handed her a box wrapped in silver paper. "This is for you." He said. "I was going to give it to you yesterday, but um, little…disputes…shall we say, got in the way."

Lily just glared at him.

"Which I totally take all responsibility for!" James replied, as if reading her mind. "Just open it." James said softer. "It's a 'thank you' for the most wonderful six months of my life." He said smiling.

Lily smiled sweetly back at him, and then opened the box.

What she found was a silver heart imbedded with (what looked like, and probably were) diamonds, dangling from a silver chain. Lily held up the necklace and looked at it in awe.

"Oh my god, it's beautiful!" She said. "Thank you so much!" She said, wrapping her arms around James' neck, giving him a huge hug.

"I'm glad you like it." James said grinning.

"I love it!" Lily said. "Can you put it on me?"

"Sure." James said.

Lily turned to the side, still sitting on the bed, and pulled her hair up, so James could put the necklace on her.

James reached around Lily's neck, and then fastened the clasp on her necklace.

"Okay." James said.

"Thanks." Lily said, and let go of her hair.

Lily's hair brushed past James' hands, as she let it go. He then brushed her hair to one side, and started kissing down her neck.

'Damn.' Lily thought. 'Weak spot.'

'Score.' James thought. 'Weak spot.'

Lily didn't even try to pretend anymore. She had fallen for the Potter charm. Heck, she had practically surrendered to it.

'I don't know how the hell I resisted this last time. Oh right. My food was burning.' Lily thought.

"James…" Lily whispered.

"Shhh." James whispered back.

Lily felt herself turn to jello inside. She leaned back to him, giving him full advantage.

James maneuvered himself so that Lily was now facing him, and he was leaning over her, Lily then leaned back, and James leaned forward, to the point in which they were both laying down.

James just stared deep into her eyes, and she stared back into his. They hadn't even kissed yet, but Lily was already breathless.

James leaned down, and kissed Lily with everything that he had. If possible, he poured all of his love for her into that one kiss.

Lily slowly lifted herself up, and put her arms around his neck.

After a while, James decided to go for it.

He started to reach up, and unbutton her blouse. She didn't stop him.

'Okay Potter, you can do this.' James thought. 'She didn't stop you…yet, just go for it, it's now or never…right? Oh shut the bloody hell up.'

Lily broke away, and just stared deeply into his eyes. She didn't tell him to stop, but breaking away probably didn't look like an encouraging sign, but she knew exactly what he was doing.

"You don't have to do this, you know." James said.

"I know." Lily said.

"I said I would wait as long as you wanted, and I meant it." James said sincerely.

"I know." Lily repeated. "I want to…but we are supposed to go to Three Broomsticks with Sirius really soon." She said.

"Yeah…" James said, realizing she was right.

"And you can't let Sirius down, after Alyssa just broke up with him." Lily said.

James smiled. "That's my girl…always putting others first."

James started to get up, off of Lily, but she grabbed his arm.

"But that was no signal to stop kissing me!" She said.

James laughed, and Lily smiled.

So they snogged for a bit longer, until it was finally time to force Sirius off to Three Broomsticks for some down to earth drunken times.

After long enough, Lily finally broke away again. "Come on, let's not leave him hanging." Lily said.

"Alright." James said reluctantly and got up.

Lily got up, quickly buttoned the few buttons that James managed to undo, and started to head out of his room.

"I'm gonna go get my bag, you should go get Sirius." Lily said. She then paused in his doorway. "And, if you want to continue this later on…don't even think about getting drunk." She said pointing his finger at him.

"Sure thing my dear." James said saluting.

But Lily kept a stern face. "I mean it." She said, and then went across the hall to her room.

James then took a look in the mirror. His hair was messy, but that was nothing new. Otherwise, he just brushed off his shirt, and headed to Sirius' room.

"Padfoot, 'ol buddy 'ol pal, time to go!" James said pounding on his door.

"Jesus Prongs! I never protested, don't go knocking the bloody door down." Sirius said, opening the door.

"What the bloody hell happened to you?" James said.

"I found some chocolate under my bed after all." Sirius said, looking overly stuffed.

James let out a half sigh, half laugh. "Let's clean you up then."

After a couple minutes Sirius was looking quite smashing, and Lily came to his door and knocked.

"Just a second!" Came James' voice.

Then James came out, dragging Sirius along with him.

"Padfoot here found some chocolate after all, so I had to clean him up a bit." James said.

Lily laughed. "Alright then." She said. "We should probably get going."

"Are you alright to aparate?" James asked Sirius.

"Yeah." He said.

"Okay then, let's be off." James said.

The three aparated to Three Broomsticks, and went inside.

They got seats at the bar, all of the tables were taken, and they ordered drinks.

"Firewhisky." Sirius said.

"Butterbeer please." Lily said.

James, who was sitting between Lily and Sirius, looked from Sirius, and then back to Lily.

"Butterbeer." He said.

"What's up with that?" Sirius asked. "What about getting rip roaring drunk?"

James then whispered something in his ear, and Sirius started laughing.

"Hahaha, alright then, go sober on me, by all means." Sirius said laughing.

Lily glared at James.

"Well at least it cheered him up." James said.

Lily let out a small smile and laugh.

Their drinks soon came, and they all sipped away.

"Whoo!" Sirius said. "I needed that!" After drinking a large amount of his firewhisky.

After a while, Sirius was indulged in his drink, and James was explaining some quidditch tactics to Lily.

Someone then came and sat down in the empty seat next to Sirius.

"Firewhisky please." She asked.

Sirius looked over, and saw a very pretty girl with dark brown hair, chestnut eyes, and she looked about his age. Funny how that is.

"Hey." She said, smiling.

"Hey." Sirius said, returning the smile.

"I'm Scarlet." She said, rather giddy.

"Sirius." Sirius said.

"Oh, is it Sirius Black, the infamous Marauder?" Scarlet asked in curiosity.

Sirius turned a bit towards her. "That's right." He said. "You've heard of me?"

"Hasn't the entire school?" She asked.

Sirius laughed.

"I don't remember you…you go to Hogwarts?" He asked.

"Yeah, I'll be going into 7th year. I'm in Hufflepuff." She said.

"Oh." Sirius said. "I don't remember seeing you."

"Well, you would have, but you were going out with that Alyssa girl for a while." Scarlet said.

"Yeah…well that ship has sailed." Sirius said, taking another sip of firewhiskey.

"Really?" She asked.

"Guess commitment isn't quite my thing." Sirius said with a dry laugh.

"Yeah, I can relate to that." Scarlet said.

James and Lily were absorbed in conversation, when Sirius tapped James on the shoulder.

"Prongs me and uh…" Sirius said, forgetting her name. "Uh…Scarlet!" Sirius said. "That's right." He said under his breath. "Yeah, me and Scarlet here are gonna take a bit of a walk."

James eyed him. "Alright. You want us to wait?" James asked.

"No that's okay. I'll meet you back there." Sirius said.

"You too drunk to aparate back there?" James asked.

"Nah, I'm fine." Sirius said, and then dropped his voice. "But I have my two way mirror incase. You have yours?"

"Yeah it's in my room." James said.

"Right then." Sirius said, in normal volume. "Be seeing you later then. Don't have too much fun without me." Sirius said with a wink. James took the hint.

Sirius and Scarlet then walked out of Three Broomsticks.

"Well I'd say that was successful." Lily said.

"Sure was." James said. "We wanted to cheer him up, and we got him to go off with another girl. Excellent."

Lily laughed. "You two are hopeless." She said.

"Oh really?" James asked. "Well I as a matter a fact, didn't have any firewhisky."

"I noticed." Lily said, almost proudly.

James grabbed Lily's hand. "Ready to go back?"

Lily smiled. "Yup." She said.

They then went outside, and aparated back to the Potter Estate.

They arrived back, in the Potter's front yard. James knew that his parents were and an Auror meeting, so he had nothing to worry about.

James looked over to Lily, who was grinning.

She then gave him a quick kiss on the lips, and then started running to the house yelling over her shoulder, "Catch me if you can!"

A grin spread over James' face, and he immediately started running after her.

Even though James' legs were much longer then Lily's, she gave him a bit of a run for his money.

He chased her up the stairs, and when he reached the top, he lunged out for her hand, which he caught, and pulled her back, causing her to spin inward towards him.

Their lips immediately met, but then Lily pushed James off playfully, and started running again.

James chased her all the way down the hallway to his room. When they got there, James once again seized Lily's hand, and pulled her towards him, causing them, again, to kiss. James put his hand up to Lily's cheek, and deepened the kiss.

After a while, she broke away again, and ran over to his bed, bouncing down on it, and kicked her shoes off. James came right after her, kicking his shoes off as he came over to her, leaning over her. At that moment he just bathed in her beauty. He had always know how lucky he was to be with Lily, but he then realized that he was the luckiest guy in the world to be with Lily. He then leaned down and kissed her with more passion then he even knew was possible. He could have stayed there kissing her forever, but realized what he was getting to was even better.

He finally broke away and gazed into her eyes, realizing all over again how lucky he was. He then started to pull her shirt off over her head, and then continued kissing her until she helped him off with his shirt too.

James half expected Sirius to come bursting into his room for some unknown reason, but luckily there was no disturbance.

James reached down to help Lily off with her skirt, as did Lily with his pants.

After they skimmied out of the rest of their clothes, it was nothing but them, and that was just fine.

Little did they know that not too far away, Sirius, his old self again, too was having a hell of a time.

(A/N: Thanks for all of the awseome reviews! And just thought I'd let you know, I was listening to this one song, and it fits so perfectly with the whole Lily/James thing. In case anyone wants to listen to it, it's called ' In This Life' by Chantal Kreviazuk. Enjoy lol.)