Ways to Ask Out Miss Lily Evans

By: neen

Author's note: James, James, James…what will I ever do with him? Yes, Lily is very much stuck in the boys' room…but how will the story continue? Read on…

Hope you all like this! Please review as well…(I accept anonymous reviews, so no need to login if you don't want to…and guests, you can review now too!)

Enjoy!

Chapter Six: Maturity?

"Lumos," the voice whispered softly after he had stupefied the disturbance behind him.

The wand lit up to shine on an unconscious girl's body.

"Blimey! Evans—what the hell are you doing here in the nick of night?" the boy muttered under his breath as he laid an Invisibility Cloak onto her and laid her down on his bed, thanking silently that it was on the bottom.

"S'matter, Prongs? Snivellus attacking you? I'll duel him in a minute—I gotta finish this dream to see if I end up snogging her," Sirius muttered groggily, rubbing his eyes. He stifled a large yawn. There were a few other people murmuring things that James could not make out.

"Nothing, nothing, Paddy. I just tripped on myself—clumsy," James said hastily.

Sirius did not think anymore of it and returned to sleep, emitting a loud snore again.

"Ennervate," James murmured quietly, flicking his wand towards his bed.

Lily woke up and began to cough violently.

"Silencio."

Lily blinked a couple of times before her mind cleared. Of course. She was in the boys' dormitory. "Why, though?" she thought quickly as she saw James Potter in front of her. Her eyes rummaged through the dark and found the gleaming gold script, Hogwarts, A History and immediately remembered. She had come back for her Charms essay with—yes, just her Charms essay.

James finally took the Silencing Spell off of Lily once he determined that everyone else was asleep.

"Potter," Lily began loudly before James patted the bed around him. He aimed in the higher open space and felt Lily's hair.

"Evans. Shut up," James said through gritted teeth as he felt her mouth.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Potter?" Lily yelped, pushing James's hand away from her face.

"Well, see, you have this thing called an Invisibility Cloak on you and well, I can't exactly see you, now can I?" James muttered, exasperated.

"Invisibilty Cloak?" Lily repeated, thunderstruck. "Why is it that I have an Invisibility Cloak on me? Trying to smuggle me in your bed, were you?" Lily asked accusingly, her eyes flashing.

"No. The other guys might have seen you and that will lead to trouble, obviously," James explained smugly, beaming about the fact that he was explaining things to the supposedly brightest student in Hogwarts.

"Oh—yes—well, I—I—" Lily stuttered, blushing with embarrassment, glad it was dark and that James could not see through the Invisibility Cloak.

"Be quiet now, will you? Anyways. What are you doing in the boys' dormitory in the middle of the night?" James asked after Lily slipped the Invisibility Cloak off of her.

"I—I—" for a moment, Lily forgot her excuse. "—I was getting my Charms essay that's due tomorrow, and I didn't want to disturb you." Lily snapped, back to her old, confident self.

"Oh, is that so?" James asked, smirking slightly. "Is Charms that important to you? Or is something else important?"

"I have not the faintest idea what you're talking about, Potter. Hand it over," Lily scowled terribly, her pretty face distorted in anger.

"Ah. Well, I'm terribly sorry, my dear Evans. It seems that I have disposed of it. I thought it was rubbish y'know, from last week—didn't need it anymore," James shrugged lightly, not exactly knowing why he was being such a prick to her.

"Potter. I know you have it. Please give it to me," Lily said with forced politeness, her voice straining.

"I might if you answer something for me," James grinned.

"Potter, if you want me to go out with you, the answer's the same—no," Lily glared at him, daring him to ask her out again.

"Actually, no, it's not. Something, ah—more sensible, if you will," James said.

"Evans. What is the precise reason," James began, "that you hate me so much?"

Lily blinked a couple of times before registering the question in her head.

"Reason?" she repeated, her voice suddenly going hoarse.

"Yes—reason," James said impatiently.

"You—you—Potter, you're just so—so, so—arrogant! You're so full of yourself and you tease and humiliate others for fun—it's absolutely disgusting," Lily said, a thoroughly sick look on her face. "Not that I really hate you or anything," Lily said in a very, very quiet tone.

James didn't hear what she said because he was concentrating on Lily's face. How beautiful she was when she was looking thoughtful, happy, sad, shocked—hell, she looked pretty all the time, even when she was angry with him.

"Well, I suppose it'll please you greatly to be informed that I have officially given up on pursuing you, Evans. Good night," he said pompously as he led her silently out of the door, minding to step over the squeaking piece of floorboard.

There was no doubt about it. Lily Evans was shocked. Her eyes were extremely wide in surprise as James walked with her out of the boys' room.

James hurried back, wondering what in Merlin had possessed him to say what he said to Lily.

"Prongs. Were you being serious with her?" a voice asked quietly. A voice full of disappointment. A voice James recognized like the back of his hand. Quiet, sensitive Remus.

"Moony—I—" James started and noticed Remus was shaking his head rather sadly.

"I thought," he said, "that you liked her. Didn't you say that you liked her like no other girl? You said that Lily was special to you. Why are you giving up now? When you've tried so many other times?"

"Now, listen to me, Moony—I—I," James said again, but found out he could not find any excuses.

"James. Go after her," Remus said in his same quiet voice.

James stared hard at Remus for a moment. He could tell that Remus was very serious since he had called him by his first name.

He was stepping into the Common Room before he spun around as if to tell Remus that it was stupid—completely ridiculous—Lily was in the girls' dormitory—there was no way he could get up there—when he noticed flaming red hair, glowing even more brightly red in the light of the hearty fire. It was Lily, sitting in his favorite squishy arm chair, head bent down, writing something James somehow knew was a Charms essay.

"Evans," he called out softly, not wanting to break the blissful silence between the two of them.

Lily's eyes darted and saw him. "Potter," she addressed acidly before attacking the parchment once more. She had already finished a paragraph, which was at least five inches.

James shuffled his feet so that he was now much closer to Lily.

"Here," he said gruffly, scooting the Charms essay he had kept in front of her new one, in case Lily started thinking that James was getting soft.

Lily blinked at her old essay. "I can't believe I didn't spot this before," she said, somewhat surprised.

"I just added it," James said hastily and once he saw the look on Lily's face, knew that she had not been talking about the thing he had written on her paper. "Never mind," James muttered, looking at the ground.

"This paragraph clearly needs revision…I'm glad that you gave this to me, Potter. Good night," Lily acknowledged James and bent down once more, concentrating hard on her essay.

James stood there, rooted to the spot. He was longing to burst out his feelings for her, knowing that she would be greatly horrified. He was biting his lip and ruffling his hair absently, habits he had.

His face was struggling on how to place itself. James finally just decided to smile. "I lied. I'm still going after you. G'night, Lily," he said quickly before running up the stairs.

Lily glanced at him as he left. She gave him a secret smile. He had called her Lily. James Potter was maturing.

Then her eyes wandered to the corner where she had absently written someone's initials. Her eyes widened. JP. James Potter. Then she noticed in miniscule, untidy handwriting, someone had written something else under it.

She swore angrily. James Potter had seen what she had scribbled onto the parchment and he had written back. JP+LE. The stupid, arrogant git. Lily ripped it off quickly and tossed it into the open fire. Lily watched with grim satisfaction as the piece of paper immediately withered into smoking ash.

She then remembered that it was she who had written JP on that parchment.

"But why?" she thought silently. She had no romantic feelings toward Potter whatsoever.

"It was just a fluke. I was sleeping when I wrote that anyways," Lily managed to convince herself. But how was she going to convince Potter?

As if she would ever fall for that—that prick.

Right?

Author's note:

Well. Sorry I haven't put in anymore tactics yet…I will, don't worry, coming up next chapter, I believe!

Reviewers:

: Owl and Crow : This one wasn't as funny…but I'll add up another chapter soon!

: AimeeK : Yep, James is just an arrogant guy, what can I say? I love him all the same though!