A/N: Written for the Hogwarts Forum's March-Monthly-Event-Wicked-Bake-athon. The Prompt for this one is Confuddled
He growled in exasperation at the equation before him. He didn't take Arithmancy, but he knew that Evans appreciated smart guys, and while he was a whiz at Transfiguration and Quidditch, everything else he struggled with. Oh, his grades were good enough to stay on the quidditch team, but he'd never be top of his class, not unless he gave up his favorite sport, and, well, that wasn't happening anytime soon. But he could study up on topics in his free time to try to have extra conversation topics to share with the girl he's been crushing on for the past three years, since he first saw her at King's Cross Station.
Sure, Snape and her always seemed to be attached at the hip, but that was because they were best friends since before Hogwarts. James had learned, last year, that Snape lived in an abusive household, and he convinced his friends to stop any and all pranks and abuse they had planned for him. Sirius came from a similar household, so he understood, and the two planned on slowly easing tensions between the two groups. Snape might be a Slytherin, but now might be a good time to start drawing him in, away from the bad Slytherins he was hanging out with. Perhaps he could be saved.
After all, Professor Dumbledore always said that people deserve second chances. James realized that Snape really hadn't had his first chance yet, and was hoping that he could prevent it from happening at all.
So here he was, trying to learn Arithmancy, to get into Evans' good graces, and to hopefully apologize to Snape and make it genuine. But this problem made his brain hurt. He was sure the Hamsters running his brain were on fire, if not smoking, at the moment, with how much the equation swam in front of his eyes. He had always been a creative person, not a numbers person. A shadow falling across him made him look up, and he nearly gave a sigh of relief as he saw it was Snape who had appeared.
"Hey, Snape, you're smart, can you help me understand this?" he asked, just as it looked like Snape was about to open his mouth with a sarcastic comment.
"What would I get out of it?" came the Slytherin's reply, and James raised an eyebrow at him.
"You take Evans out on a date first, because I know you like her that way. I'm sorry, by the way. I've been horrid to you, because I was...am jealous of your relationship with her. I'm sorry, and I'm trying to be a better person. So you get first dibs, and if things don't work out between you two, you let me know and it'll be my turn. Deal?" he asked, and he held out a hand for Snape to take. The Slytherin narrowed his eyes, thought for a moment, and then took the proffered hand.
"Deal." Snape then moved closer to look at the problem at hand, and James pushed the book over to let him see better. "Okay, so for this problem, what you do is-"
And as Snape explained his way of doing the problem, which seemed to contradict the book's way of doing the problem, James couldn't help but be glad for his change of heart on the Slytherin. The other boy was clearly important to Evans, so if he was worth her time, James could tolerate him as well.