Summary: "Meant to be? After that night, I was never too sure." A short oneshot featuring what James was thinking when he decided to "deflate" and why exactly Lily thought he didn't deserve a chance.

Forenote: All in all, I am very tired of reading fics where Lily hates James just because he bumps into her, or some other nonsense like that. I am very tired of fics that have him as a completely likable human being, leaving Lily's only excuse for hating him to be that she is stupendously thick. In OotP, James was far from agreeable – I thought he was a pig-headed jerk. Maybe I wrote this short piece to make up for the others fic that don't make sense. Well, here it is, and I hope it doesn't disappoint.

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Turning Point
Rasielle

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Everyone said that we were predestined, meant to be, despite her obvious disdain. I honestly had no trouble believing it; I was a prat that way. And whatever I said, people – well, most people – took as law and truth.

In the past, I always took her scathing comments as signs that she was vainly denying her secret passion for me. I always laughed off her assurances that she would sooner date Professor Dumbledore. And I never seemed to fail in sending her romantic signs, no matter that she burned the love letters and gave away the jewelry.

I was never receiving the message that she wanted nothing more than for me to leave her alone.

And, looking back, I think she hated it.

I wrote a letter of apology to her once. There are only three people in the world that I apologize to – her, Sirius, and Remus. Peter – well, Peter was always somewhat pathetic. She and I had gotten into a stupid row over hexing random Slytherins again, and the way she didn't even bother to raise her voice frightened me.

So I sent her the letter. It was heartfelt, really – even if Sirius said I sounded even more conceited on paper, but then, Sirius is Sirius. I snuck up behind her and her best friend one night, and they never saw me. To my surprise, she bothered to read it instead of tossing it straight into the fireplace.

When she was done, she looked more repulsed than I had ever seen her before.

"See, Fiona?" she had cried out, waving the parchment in her best friend's face. "This is what I am talking about! He has no sense of humility at all; Merlin's beard, he compliments himself twice! What a conceited, lying moron…" and without a breath, she pulled out her wand, tapped it on the parchment, and muttered, "Incendio." It burnt neatly with a single flame.

Her best friend was whispering. "Why don't you just give him a chance? He might change."

"A chance? Fiona, people like him don't deserve chances."

"He isn't completely hateful. He's funny and smart, and around his friends he's probably the most loyal person we know – "

"Around his friends. Well, what about around ordinary people? What about the people whose marks can't compare with his? What about the people who can't execute those clever and ridiculous pranks? He treats them like inferiors. Hate may be a strong word, but it's damn near close to what I feel for him."

Meant to be? After that night, I was never too sure.

I didn't tell my friends what I witnessed that night. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was determination that everything may yet change. I don't know. What I do know, though, was that as I watched her the next day, watched the way she spoke to others and how she was civil even to Slytherins, I began to wonder if I deserved her.

I guess it was because of that I decided to change.

Or maybe it was the way she smiled – slow, surprised, but genuine – when I defended an unusually sweet Slytherin first-year from a few Gryffindor fellows.

Maybe it was the way she let me call her Lily after I told her my dream was to be an Auror, to protect even the most ordinary of people (including Muggles.)

Maybe it was the fact that I later realized how close I was to losing such an amazing girl.

Maybe it was because whatever happened, I was determined to prove to the world – and to myself, perhaps – that we were, despite all, meant to be.

In retrospect, I really think we were.

Fin.

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Afterthoughts: Insightful and moving? Or boring and long-winded? I'd like to know.