Hogwarts in the Spring
The Eternal Optimist

It had been a few weeks since he and Lily had cleared the air, so to speak, and James was still unsure of exactly how to act around her. Though he had liked her before, and had had more than one fantasy about what, precisely, it would feel like to have her lips on his, he realized didn't really know her. How could he get to know her when she was always yelling at him? A lesser person would have given up and moved on, and James had considered it a time or two, but then he'd see her with Natalie and Olivia, talking, laughing and tossing her hair about, and appearing to be genuinely enjoying herself. Then, he'd think that there must be more to her than she'd been letting on in his presence, and he was sure it was something special. Something worth working for.

Of course, even with his newfound maturity, James was still a bit reluctant to admit that before he'd been working at it the wrong way. Lily had obviously not been as flattered by all of his advances and innuendo as he would have been had the tables been turned. He was quite sure he'd have been ecstatic. However, now his biggest concern was actually talking to her. He wanted to be clever and charming and witty all at once, but instead found it difficult to string together a coherent sentence in her presence. This was, of course, not because he wasn't clever, charming or witty. He was quite sure he was. Plenty of girls thought so, too. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to count Lily among those numbers, a fact James was acutely aware of every time he opened his mouth in her presence. So instead of wooing her with his charisma, what came out was a mixture of nonsense words and grunting noises that sounded suspiciously like rude bodily functions.

"At least you still have your boyish good looks to fall back on," said Sirius, sympathetically patting James on the back after witnessing one such encounter in the common room on a Sunday afternoon in mid-May. Lily had merely asked James when the last Quidditch match was. James responded by nearly drooling on her. Even now that she'd gone back to her corner of the common room, James couldn't remember that the Quidditch season was already over.

"I don't think that will help," Peter replied, eying James appraisingly. The four boys were now heading up the stairs to their dormitory, silently agreeing that the common room, with all those prying eyes and listening ears, was not the best place for this conversation.

James glared at him over Remus's head. "What would you know about the effect good looks have on girls, Wormtail?" he asked with a smirk.

"I think by Wormtail, he means rat-faced prat," said Sirius with a confident nod, opening the door.

Peter opened his mouth to retort, but Remus held up a hand to stop him, not wanting an argument to break out, however good-natured it may have been. "You should just be yourself," he said while taking a seat near the open window.

"Hasn't helped him before. Girls have always thought Peter has a bit of a pointy face. Me too, actually," Sirius commented, lying on his bed and resting his arms behind his head.

"I meant James," said Remus in exasperation.

"In that case, I agree with Sirius," said Peter. "It hasn't helped him before."

James flopped onto his bed, looking sullen. "What am I going to do?" he asked desperately.

"I think you should be Remus," supplied Sirius helpfully. "Girls like Lily seem to go for him. He's mysterious, yet...responsible." Peter snickered at this, and Remus poked Sirius in the arm, giving him a reproachful look.

James also did not find this advice helpful. In fact, he found it somewhat infuriating and glared at his best friends by way of a response to their fun at his expense. How was he supposed to appear responsible anyway? Sure, he was a prefect, but he didn't exactly take the duties that came along with the job as seriously as he should. (Unless, of course, those duties involved spending time with Lily. He was more than happy to attend to those.)

"Actually," Remus's logical and no-nonsense tone broke though James's reverie, "I don't think James has ever been himself around Lily."

"I haven't?" asked James.

"No, well, you tend go to out of your way to impress her, and most of the time it...well, it sort of..."

"Blows up in his face like one of those poor, unfortunate victims of cross-breeding by Professor Kettleburn?" supplied Peter.

"That's the understatement of the century," mumbled Sirius.

"Thanks, you two, you always did have that special and rare gift of diplomacy," said Remus sardonically.

They were back to teasing him and each other, and James tuned them out without offering a response. Instead, he thought about what Remus had said--had he ever really been himself around Lily? If he were honest, he'd immediately answer no. He had wanted to impress her, and talking to her just didn't seem that impressive, so he usually supplemented it with some crazy stunt or prank (usually with Snivellus as the victim). But that didn't seem to work either. That just usually made her mad. Though sometimes she would almost laugh. James had been sure that if he kept at it enough, he'd eventually succeed in making her laugh--really laugh, but after more than a few years trying, he'd finally conceded that wasn't going to happen. Well, he supposed he could try just talking to her without trying to be charming. Maybe he'd have some luck and be able to form a simple sentence in her presence this time.

The last thing James heard as he excused himself from the dormitory was Sirius scolding Peter for running him from the room. When James reached the common room, he discovered that Lily wasn't there but her best friend Natalie was sitting in front of the fire. James considered whether to go over and ask if she knew where Lily was. He'd really rather not, but if Lily had already gone up to her dormitory, James could be wandering around the castle for hours.

"Um, Natalie...doyouknowwhereLilyis?" James asked nervously. (Though he was unsure why he was nervous. It certainly wasn't because he liked Lily and was afraid people would start asking if she was to be his "spring fling" again. That had gone on for days last time.)

"Excuse me?" Natalie asked, raising an eyebrow at James's uncharacteristically, less-than-confident demeanour.

"Lily? Has she gone to bed?"

"No, James, Lily rarely goes to bed at seven-thirty." Natalie suppressed a giggle he was sure was at his expense.

"Er...do you know where she is then?"

"My guess would be the prefects meeting they've been having every other Sunday night since...well, all year."

James cursed to himself as he dashed out of the portrait hole and headed towards the meeting room. He was definitely in trouble now.

Lily sat in the prefects meeting room, listening to the Head Boy drone on and on. Sometimes these things were so dull. How many times did they have to be reminded all the signs of O.W.L. induced exhaustion? Lily sighed and shifted so that her chin was resting on the heel of her hand. As she did so, she glanced at the empty desk next to her. Normally, she'd be upset that James had skipped out on yet another meeting, but tonight she envied whatever it was he had in him that gave him the courage to skip. She was quite sure that if she'd decided not to show up to even one meeting, she'd be racked with guilt, but James was probably up in his room planning more ingenious ways to torture Snape. As the meeting was finally adjourned, Lily idly wondered what they would do if she'd followed them up their earlier and joined in on the planning.

"Probably die of shock."

Lily looked up, startled, into the smirking face of her fellow sixth-year prefect. "Oh..." Lily said blushing. "I hadn't realized I said that aloud. You made it to the meeting just in time, by the way. Did you come all the way down here just to walk me back to Gryffindor Tower?"

"No!" James said a little too quickly and now it was his turn to look embarrassed. "I kind of...forgot...about...the meeting."

"That was obvious," she replied. "You didn't miss much though. Just the usual."

"Oh..." James looked around the room, which was now empty. "Well, since came all the way down here for nothing, can I walk you back to the tower?" he asked, offering Lily his arm. He almost fainted when she mumbled thanks and actually placed her hand in the crook of his elbow instead of rejecting his offer with her usual amount of spunk. Surely this small amount of contact would turn him into a stuttering idiot again. "Er...um...how was the meeting?" he asked trying not to look too proud of himself for actually asking the question while she was touching him. Lately he hadn't even been able to accomplish anything that resembled a complete sentence if she was merely looking at him.

"Oh...you know...boring," she said with a dramatic sigh.

"Why do you always go? It's all right to miss one on occasion."

"I suppose. But at least one of us should be there."

"And you don't think I'll ever be there?" James asked, pretending to look offended.

"Well, you did miss tonight's meeting," she pointed out.

"Yeah, sorry about that," James said. After a brief pause in which he seemed to be contemplating something, he added, "I'll make you an offer. I promise I'll be at the next meeting if you promise me you'll do something fun with your time off."

Lily laughed. "That's definitely an offer I can't refuse."

"You can't feel guilty for not being there."

"I won't. Besides, I'm sure you'll take impeccable notes," Lily teased.

"'Course I will," James said confidently, then added, "and you can't study,"

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"So, what are you going to do, then?" he asked.

"I don't know. I think I might read a book."

James stopped and turned to her with a shocked expression. "Reading counts as studying!"

"Oh, it's not that kind of book," Lily said with a smirk. "It involves daring heroics, and dashing gentlemen rescuing damsels in distress, instead of the usual Hogwarts fare of potions ingredients, incantations and goblin rebellions."

James looked disgusted. "Yuck! I thought only third-years and my mother read books like that!"

Lily turned and began walking again. "Oh, they have their merits," she said airily. "Frankly, I don't have the time to indulge in them often, but since I have some free time coming now, it'll be just the thing to help me relax."

"I'm sure I'd so something more productive with my time off," James said.

"I'm sure you would," Lily responded. "So what did you do tonight, then? Come up with another dastardly plan to humiliate the Slytherins?"

"I can't tell you, you know that," James said, hoping she wouldn't guess that they had actually been talking about her.

"Yes, I know," she said as she glanced at James. She was surprised to see him looking so mortified. What had they been doing? Deciding she didn't want to know, she let the subject drop. They'd finally reached the portrait hole anyway. Instead of giving the password, Lily turned to face James. "Thanks for walking me back," she said.

"You're welcome," he said. "Shall we go in?" he asked as he stepped towards the Fat Lady, ready to give the password.

Lily wasn't sure what had come over her. Maybe it was that fact James was acting...normal, maybe even charming that caused Lily to stop him just as he was about to say the password, and blurt out, "James would you like to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

He stiffened and turned slowly to face her once again. Lily noted his shocked expression and immediately began to think she'd made a mistake. "Now?" he asked.

"No! Not now. After exams, there's a scheduled visit." Lily could feel her entire body turning red with embarrassment. What had she done?

"Oh, yeah. That would...um...be great," James said lamely. (Though he was just grateful he'd been able to get the sentence out. For a few seconds, he'd been sure he was going to revert back to the boy who couldn't form an answer to a simple question that he had been earlier this evening.)

"Great," she said, smiling awkwardly. She stepped past him and into the common room. James remained in the hall, pinching himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

He wasn't.

To be continued...

A/N: Thanks again to Anne and Mysterious Muggle for the betas. If you're interested in reading other L/J or MWPP fics, please check out my recently opened site,