She isn't sure when it changed. When she went from being perfectly friendly – which was, to be honest, already a significant step up from despising the very sight of him – to wanting to spend all her time with him. All she knows is that when she sees him in the prefect carriage on September 1st, she has a sudden urge to wrap her arms round his neck and kiss him until she saw stars.
But she's spent the best part of six years making her distaste clear. Turning down any romantic gesture. Calling him all sorts of harsh and imaginative names. So she's not sure how she can spark his interest again.
She's going to need a plan.
Time alone. There was plenty of that, she supposed, as they went about their Head duties. But it had to be the right kind of time alone. Filling in prefect rotas and writing up recommendations from the recent pupil survey were not exactly activities that invited feelings of romance.
This is why they are sat outside, under a blanket of stars, the huge castle doors behind them. Lily is perched on one of the steps, clutching her robes closer to her and watching with distracted interest as Potter paces up and down, his breath forming little clouds that momentarily steam up his glasses.
They haven't said anything for a while now. She supposes she should be the one to break the silence. "Okay. Maybe we didn't need to do this," she allows.
He shoots her a knowing grin. "Oh, do you think so?"
She rolls her eyes. "Look, I just thought – you know, they were worried about students sneaking out so often – we could've made a difference."
"Anyone bold enough to sneak out through the main castle doors deserves to wander off and enjoy themselves," Potter decides. "Plus, and I don't know if you'd noticed this, Evans, but it's November."
"I had noticed that, yes," she replies.
"Anyone in their right mind is in front of a fireplace right now." He glances at his watch. "Or tucked up in bed, maybe."
"Am I keeping you from story-time with Black?" she asks lightly.
He smirks. "I can't help it if he can't get to sleep without a story and a cuddle."
"You're such a good friend."
"It's a blessing and a curse." He stops his pacing, meeting her gaze. "This is mad. Let's go in before you turn to ice."
"I'm okay," she tries to stop shivering. It's harder than it should be. "We told McGonagall we'd be out here till eleven."
"There's no way she thought we'd be stupid enough to actually do it," he replies, and shrugs off his outer robes, draping them round her shoulders. She has to pause a moment, adjust to the scent of him, to the warmth that she knows came from him and him alone. "I bet her and Dumbledore are laughing their arses off at us right now."
She tilts her chin up to study his face. "Well, now you're going to turn to ice," she points out, drawing his robes around her nonetheless.
"I'm made of hardy stuff," he promises, dropping on to the step next to her. "Weirdly high internal temperature. Moony says I'm like a furnace."
She smiles slightly, and leans into his shoulder. This. This is the sort of time alone she was thinking of. "Is that his way of saying you're hot?"
He laughs. "No, I think our Moony's attentions are decidedly elsewhere."
"Who? Do you have gossip?" she asks.
"I could never tell," he replies with a self-conscious smile. "You'll have to pester him yourself."
"You know I will."
"Of course." He smiles at her, both of them quiet for a long moment. She half wonders if maybe he is getting up the courage to kiss her, and thinks that she really would rather like that, here under the stars, even if her extremities are going numb from the cold. "Okay. Enough." Abruptly, he stands up, and pulls her up by the elbow. "We're going in. No one can say we didn't try."
"Oh," she says, and follows him back to the doors. "Okay. If you're sure."
"I'm sure," he nods, holding the door open for her. "Time for bed, Evans."
"You want me to what?"
She casts a furtive gaze around them, but nobody is paying any attention. Dinner on a Thursday is not usually when interesting scenes present themselves, and the Head Girl talking with a Ravenclaw prefect is not exactly newsworthy. She leans in a little closer to repeat herself. "I want you to ask me out. Publicly. Or…a snog would do, to be honest."
Owain Ollerton raises an eyebrow. "No offence, Lily, but you're not my type."
"You're not really mine, either," she offers cheerfully. "This arrangement would be more about…drawing attention."
His gaze is brutal, she realises, and shifts slightly on the bench. "And whose attention are we trying to draw, exactly?"
There's no way in hell she's going to admit to that, but her traitorous eyes shift against her will towards the cluster of Marauders over on the Gryffindor table, currently engaged in a competition to see who can eat the most sausages in one sitting.
"Ah," Owain says, with the hint of a smirk. "I see."
She flushes. "Look – "
"No need to explain," he saves her with a gallant flick of his hand. "But I'm afraid it won't work. You see, Potter knows you're not my type, too."
"What? What do you mean?" she frowns.
He digs his fork into the mound of mashed potato on his plate. "He walked in on me and his precious 'Moony' with our hands down each other's pants last summer," he says lightly. "So he knows my type rather well."
Her mouth gapes a little. "Wait, you're - ?" she says, then, blinking, "And Remus - ?"
"Oh, yes," Owain confirms, taking maybe a bit too much pleasure in the discussion. "As gay as the day is long. I think he was rather hoping to draw a bit of attention, too, but it didn't work as he had planned."
This was a lot of new information to get in a short space of time. She could only nod. "Okay. Well. You're right, that wouldn't work."
He patted her on the arm sympathetically. "Keep trying, Lily. I'm sure you'll get there."
In the end, she opts to send herself – yes, this is the person she seems to have become, and no, she doesn't want to analyse that in any depth, thank you – a single red rose and a note which reads 'Always, yours'. The owl arrives at breakfast a few days later, and she is starting to wish that someone had stepped in to save her from herself when Potter leans over from his space a few seats down the table.
"Nice rose," he offers, with a friendly smile.
She blushes. Of course she does. "Erm. Thanks."
His gaze lingers on the note for a moment, and he draws in a deep breath – her stomach starts fluttering – before finally speaking up. "Evans," he says, gently.
"Yes?"
"Could you pass me the strawberry jam?"
The rose ends up shoved down to the bottom of her school bag, and Mary and Marlene thoroughly enjoy a day of teasing her mercilessly.
It's not like she's trying to listen in, but these days her ears do seem tuned into the timbre of his voice. Frankly, it's getting a bit inconvenient, especially when she should be concentrating on lessons. For now, though, she doesn't mind.
A few tables away, across the quiet common room, Potter sits with his friends. Remus seems to be doing a stellar job of ignoring everyone around him, his nose buried in a tattered copy of Advanced Runes. Pettigrew, Black and Potter seem to be battling against their set Muggle Studies essay; judging from the discussion she has overheard, even the title is outfoxing them.
Helping someone is attractive, she decides, and closes her own book. And also it's a nice thing to do, and not just an excuse to sit next to him. Duly convinced, she stands up and crosses the room.
"Chaps," she greets them, and they all look up in distracted surprise. "Maybe I can be of assistance."
Potter smiles, and shifts along the sofa – squashing Black against Remus in the process, but he doesn't kick up a fuss, oddly – to make room for her. "You're a life-saver."
She slides into the space next to him, and glances at the parchment in his hand. "'Explain, with examples, the Muggle relationship with magic as a fictional concept'," she reads, and nods. "Heavy stuff for a Tuesday."
"It's not that I'm incapable," he replies with a sigh. "But, well, as you said – Tuesday. All I can think of so far is, they like it."
She purses her lips and tries not to get distracted by the sweet way his brow has furrowed. "It's more complicated than that, isn't it," she offers. "Muggles use fiction as a way of exploring and understanding things that seem too complex. Magic, that is, fictional magic, is both a great healer and a great evil."
He nods, jotting something down on a spare bit of parchment. "So it's a way of understanding that people are awful."
"Well, partly," she allows. "In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – which is all a big allegory for Christianity, anyway – the White Witch uses magic to bring a whole kingdom under her tyranny. She turns dissenters into statues."
"Not very friendly," Pettigrew pipes up, helpfully.
"No," Lily agrees, because it would feel too harsh to reply with anything else. "But then in Lord of the Rings, you have magic for good and for evil. Maybe it's a way of looking at the world to show that anything, anyone, is corruptible."
"The duality of man," Potter notes, which prompts a snort from Black.
"My little cousin, she's nine, and she was reading a book called The Worst Witch last summer," she adds. "I read it with her when we visited. It was very sweet, a bit of a different take on the word 'witch'. Muggles often use that to mean a horrible old woman."
Potter's eyes light up. "If I bring feminism into it, Professor Wright will wet herself with delight," he points out. "I'm sure I can make it fit the brief somehow."
"I'm sure you can," Lily agrees. "Honestly, Potter, just go to the Muggle Studies section of the library and you won't be able to move for fiction books with a magic theme. There'll be tons of things to reference."
"Evans," he sighs happily, "you're a gem."
"Why aren't you doing Muggle Studies at NEWT level, Evans?" Pettigrew asks. "Surely it'd be an easy O."
Lily bristles slightly, and is about to reply when Potter does instead. "Because easy is boring," he replies, and glances briefly at her. "Some of us prefer a challenge."
She excuses herself soon after, and it's the words 'prefer a challenge' that seem to keep her in the dorm showers that evening for at least forty minutes. She doesn't realise she's forgotten the silencing charms until Marlene hammers on the door, shouting, "Sorry to interrupt what sounds like a bloody good time in there, Lil, but if I don't get to a loo soon I will end up pissing myself and it'll be all your fault."
Her cheeks are flushed with not just embarrassment as she unlocks the door and hurries to her bed.
She needs to change things up, is her next conclusion. Surely there's only so much eroticism available when you're only ever seen in school robes. A post-match party gives her the perfect opportunity – another Gryffindor win, not that she felt able to pay much attention to the score when he looked just so distracting on a broom – and she was damned if she was going to waste it.
She had found a gorgeous mini dress on one of her charity shop trawls in the summer, a dress so short that her mother had asked if it was a shirt. It balanced the rather daring flash of leg with long sleeves and a sweet floral pattern that Lily knew emphasised her green eyes. A flash of mascara to remind people that yes, she did have eyelashes, and a smear of one of Mary's lipsticks to make her lips look flushed and kissable, and she is ready to go. There's surely no way in hell that Potter won't notice her tonight.
The common room is already raucous by the time she makes her way down from the dorms. The entire Quidditch team, still in muddy robes, are gathered around the drinks table and surrounded by their ecstatic housemates. Potter, the captain of the team, is being fed shots of firewhiskey from all sides. This is going to get messy, she realises.
She sidles over, elbowing her way through the group until she just happens to be opposite Potter and Black. "Oh, hello," she says, as if she hadn't expected to find him there. "Congrats on the win."
Potter looks away from his friend and his eyes widen slightly at the sight of her. She smiles. "Oh! Thanks, Evans," he grins. "It was a bit of a nail-biter, eh?"
"Very exciting," she agrees, and reaches for a glass. "That last goal was amazing."
He sloshes some firewhiskey into her glass, automatically the gentleman. "Thanks. But it's a team effort."
"Of course," she smiles, and holds his gaze as she lifts the glass to her lips. "Well, cheers to the team, then."
"Cheers," he echoes, and watches as she downs her drink in one.
She turns, pausing to say over her shoulder, "I'll be over here if you need me," before walking away and giving him a proper view of her bare legs. Excitement and nerves are pulsing through her as she sinks into an armchair by the fire. She hears footsteps behind her, and smiles, lifting her face to see –
"Lily 'The Legs' Evans," Black greets her, lounging on to the arm of her chair. Her smile fades just slightly. "Bloody hell, you've been hiding those things away, haven't you?"
"I've always had legs, Black," she shoots back irritably. "Don't be a perve."
"I'm commenting from a purely aesthetic point of view, as one would appreciate a fine artwork," he tells her lazily. "You're not really my type."
She huffs in frustration. "Why do blokes keep saying that to me?"
"Maybe you're not talking to the right blokes," Black smirks.
"Well, you're definitely not the right bloke," she agrees.
Across the room, a great cheer erupts, and they both turn to look as the crowd parts to show Lisette Ford, a sixth-year, having thrown herself at James Potter and now snogging him without mercy. Her stomach drops.
Black just shakes his head. "Ford, of all people," he sighs. "Where are his standards?" He turns back, and catches sight of the look on her face. "You alright, Evans?"
"Hmm? Yes," she replies. The party spirit seems to have vanished out of her. She feels pathetic. "Might be partied out for the evening, though." She stands, self-consciously tugging her skirt down as much as she can. "Try not to completely trash the common room, yeah?"
She knows he's watching her as she walks away, head down as she dodges round the cluster of people and makes a break for the stairs back up to the dormitory. She tries very hard to care.
This is becoming an official Embarrassment. Now it just has to stop.
The next day is a Sunday, the breakfast table is quiet and Lily is applying all her focus to spreading marmalade on to her toast. Most of her fellow Gryffindors are still in bed, nursing their hangovers, and honestly she's relieved not to have to deal with the post-party gossip. Last night had felt like a low point. She's starting to realise that maybe this had been how he had felt before, asking her out and being routinely shot down. It is not a pleasant thought.
She doesn't look up as someone sits opposite her, until that someone speaks. "Looks like 90% of our housemates drank themselves into oblivion last night." Potter is reaching for the platter of bacon, wearing an easy smile and showing no signs of suffering himself. "This must be why you and I are Heads, you know. Paragons of virtue and restraint."
She stares at him for a moment, frankly a bit baffled. "I thought you were necking shots with the rest of them."
He shrugs, sliding two fried eggs on to his plate. "I had a few to start off with, but I don't like feeling like crap the next day. Switched to butterbeers and – " he leans in, lowers his voice to a whisper, " – don't tell Sirius, but I also drank a lot of water."
She wants to laugh, to smile with him. Her heart doesn't seem so sure. "At least you're well hydrated, then." She watches as he digs into his breakfast. "Not with Lisette this morning?"
He looks up and cringes, rolling his eyes. "Merlin, that was weird, wasn't it? Can't a man talk about his extraordinary goal-scoring skills without some sixth year trying to stick her tongue down his throat?" He shakes his head. "Luckily I was able to peel her off me after a few seconds. Tenacious girl, truly."
Lily swallows, reaches for her mug of tea. "So you're…not seeing her, then?" she asks quietly. "You two didn't…"
He spears a sausage with his fork and shakes his head with vigour. "We certainly did not," he confirms. "To be honest, I spent most of the night hiding from her and playing exploding snap. A classic party."
She can't help the smile that blooms across her face. "Good."
He quirks an eyebrow, pausing in the demolishment of his breakfast. "Good?"
She knows she's blushing. But maybe this is what was needed, all along. "Yes. It's good. That you're not…" She isn't quite sure how to finish that sentence. "I wanted to spend some time with you at the party."
He has set his cutlery down now, seeming to realise that there is more to this conversation than he initially thought. "You did?"
"I did," she agrees. "Maybe we could…spend some time together today. Instead."
His smile seems to match hers, a slow spread that makes him glow. "Sounds like a plan to me."
She reaches for his hand, surprised by her own boldness. "Me too."