James had an exceptional talent for being able to make her angry. Lily was convinced he knew exactly what he needed to tell her to make her stamp her feet in frustration and storm off to her dormitory. She never understood why he constantly bothered to shout his usual "Hey Evans, how about you go out with me?" she always assumed that it was to annoy her and remind her that he was an immature show off.

Admittedly, Lily had started to realise, he had been much more well-behaved this year. It had been two months since he tried to torment his last Slytherin, and he was beginning to resist the way he ridiculously fluffed his hair every time a member of the female population graced him with their presence. He was becoming tolerable, but Lily still knew that despite his seemingly appropriate exterior, he was still a conceited chauvinist beneath the surface.

Why he always seemed to never have a girlfriend was a question Lily constantly asked herself. He was good looking, she knew that was a fact, but he never had girlfriends. Sirius had once joked that it was because James was hopelessly in love with her, but Lily knew that this was indeed a load of rubbish. If he really did like her, he would make some effort, instead of yelling a trademark line to her every second evening.

Remus tried talking to her about James once, she remembered. While doing prefect duties together, he asked her why she hated him so much, and she proceeded to explain for almost half an hour about how much of a useless, annoying and rude person he is. When she had finished, Remus simply smiled at her, and said that James really wasn't bad when you got to know him and if she would only speak to him, she might learn some things that would entirely change her opinion about him. Had he been right?

Even little Peter tried saying something to her. On a particular evening in the Gryffindor common room, the tiny boy tried telling her that she would upset James if she kept saying awful things about him. Lily thought it was kind of Peter to stand up for his friend, but she would never stop hating James, until he started treating her, and other people with respect. Then, on that evening, James shouted his line across the common room; she thought that he would never learn.

That same night, when everyone had left the common room, after little Peter hopelessly tried to convince her that James was decent; Lily was left alone doing her homework, with nothing to entertain her except the crackling of the fire. She could barely concentrate, she was so tired, and annoyed that James had the nerve to bother her again. As she ruffled her pieces of parchment to put them away, and leave the common room, her gaze passed over the table where James and the other Gryffindor boys usually sat. She paused, stunned for a moment, when she saw that repeatedly carved on the table were neat, small initials. 'L.E.' Her initials.

Still extremely shocked, she wondered who would be doing this. It couldn't have been a coincidence; her initials were there six times. She counted. Holding her parchment in one hand, she traced her other fingers over the carvings, they were deep, as though someone had been etching them deeper and deeper for a long time. Her hand slid to the end of the table, where she felt the straps of a bag lying on the floor that someone had forgotten to return to their dormitory. Picking it up to return it, she noticed that it was James', and she suddenly felt an urge to open it. Just to see what he had inside. It was most likely some spell book telling him the best hex for tormenting the Slytherins next, she thought.

Placing her parchment on the table, she opened the bag, preparing to see nothing less than expected spell book. Instead she found several quills, 'Transfiguration at NEWT Level', a large piece of parchment which looked very old and useless, and underneath that, what looked like piles and piles of notes from class. Lily was impressed, she thought that James did nothing but interrupt and occasionally jeer at her in class. She lifted out the parchment, looking forward to seeing notes that could have possibly helped her. She read them and let out a small gasp.

The first piece was obviously from History of Magic. A very very poor drawing (though Lily believe he intended it that way) of Professor Binns graced the top half of the parchment. What made her gasp was not Professor Binns though; it was that her name was written on the parchment, neatly, and not just once. 17 times. The second piece of parchment was similar, with the letters 'J.P & L.E' repeated. She sifted through the rest of them briefly until it had sunk in, that James had at least 12 pages of parchment completely dedicated to drawing her name.

Sitting down, rather confused, she placed the things back in James' bag and returned to staring at the table looking at her initials. James had done this. James, who she had spent so much time hating, and ignoring every moment that he hinted that he might have liked her. Gazing into the air, she thought about this, while absent-mindedly tracing her fingers over the letters on the table.

"There's one for every year," a soft voice said behind her.

Shocked for the second time that night, Lily didn't need to turn around to figure out who was speaking to her.

"There's probably about 50 other desks in the school with the same thing on them as well," he spoke again, this time grinning mischievously.

"Bu- but you like to make me miserable!" Lily spluttered, turning around to face James Potter, who was still wearing striped pyjamas.

"You like making me feel like a snobby know-it-all, and that I'm really stuck up and…" Lily trailed off as James began to shake his head.

"I happen to hate making you feel like that," he paused, "Lily."

"Y-you do?"

"I would think that it would be obvious, to someone as incredibly smart as yourself. I can't stop thinking of you, and I can assure you that every single thought I've had has been wonderful," he smiled at her.

Lily felt so confused that she wanted to stop thinking all together. One part of her was urging her fight with him, to tell him that no matter what he said she would still think he was a toe rag. But the other part of her was realising that he was in actual fact, quite serious. That he had liked her for 6 years, and that he did want to go out with her. She snapped out of her thoughts, however, when she realised that James was still smiling at her.

"You look so cute every time you have an inner battle with yourself like that Lily."

Turning bright pink, she tried so hard to force herself to say her usual "Shut up, Potter," and leave the common room with her homework which was now lying neglected. Instead, she could simply muster a stuttered,

"I do?"

He nodded at her, and stepped closer to her, his striped pyjamas and messy hair becoming so much more attractive suddenly. Lily couldn't manage to say anything further, she was starting to realise that so many things about James really weren't so horrible, and that he was being genuinely gorgeous. Opening her mouth to tell James that she thought he was equally as cute in his pyjamas, she found herself held in one of the tightest and most wonderful embraces she had ever been in.

"James…"

"Lily?"

"I, I don't think I hate you anymore."

"Well, this is a nice start," he responded cheekily.

"James, I really quite like you," and she hugged him tighter.

"Lily, I absolutely adore you," and he kissed her.

A/N: Only one left to go now… :)

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