James and Lily were walking down the many flights of stairs and had hardly said enough words to consider it a conversation. It made James uncomfortable, and he resulted in talking about Quiddich. He was rambling and he knew it. Lily seemed interested until she froze half way down the flight of stairs, and very near the middle of nowhere.

Lily POV:

Lily was not at the point in time where she wanted to openly talk with James, whether about Quiddich or not. That was not why she froze.

As James spoke, Lily made it look as if she was listening, but she found it hard to pay attention. She heard the words, but didn't entirely comprehend them. She wasn't focusing completely and he spoke with a professional perspective. She supposed with all the debates and the breakfast catastrophe, and nearly two months separating then and now, she missed the fact that James was… handsome. The realization came to her suddenly and heavily and left her with an element of surprise. That was not why she froze.

James POV:

"I'm sorry, you don't want to hear me talk about Quiddich do you?" James said, reacting to her sudden stop.

"No, please, go on." She said, holding back a laugh.

"Okay then, well… let's go."

Lily giggled and shook her head as if to say, 'sorry, no.'

James laughed in confusion. "And why not may I ask?" No sooner had he said it did he realize what happened. His face went blank in astonishment, but in hearing Lily laugh he couldn't help but do so himself.

She had frozen because she had forgotten to miss a step.

"I'll go get someone to help!" he exclaimed.

"Why would I want you to do that?" she shook her head.

"Do you want to be stuck here all day?" He asked.

"Here I am, in the middle of nowhere," she observed as she sat down, "With a great excuse for not doing homework or having to talk with someone I might run into at Hogsmade… here I am with a perfect excuse for not having to do anything, why would I want to pass that up?"

She was so weird, yet that kind of made sense.

"So, we're just going to sit here and do nothing?" he asked.

"Yeah, every time I'm doing nothing I always feel a little useless, but now I have an reason for doing nothing." She was still smiling a little. He sat down in front of her. And they were silent for awhile.

"So, you know Snape? The one in the breakfast hall?"

"Yes," she replied quietly.

"Just to let you know, he's a git. He's more than a git. In our first year he-"

"You know James, I don't know what you parents do."

"Oh," he gave, surprised he hadn't told her before. He held his head high: "My parents are Aurors."

"Wow, I'm sorry." She said.

"Why should you be sorry?" he asked confused.

"Well, don't get me wrong, I want to be an Auror too. But it must be hard to have your parents, you know, always in danger."

"Oh, they're never in danger!" he exclaimed. "My parents are the best Aurors that ever lived!" Lily smiled. "What do your parents do?"

"Oh, umm… they own a grocery store."

"They're muggles!" Lily nodded at his surprise. " That must be… difficult."

"Not at all. Besides," she gave, "My parents are the best muggle grocery store owners that ever lived!" she wore a smile in her face. He laughed there was a pause.

"Lily about that day at breakfast -"

"James, let's just forget about it okay?"

"Okay." He said sincerely.

"Now," she started. "Favorite color."

He laughed. "Red and Gold, what else!"

"You truly are a Gryffindor-ian."

"well, yeah… actually…" He blushed.

"Change your mind?" she asked.

"It changed the day I saw the color of your eyes."

Lily's smile faded. In the next instant it re- appeared and she started laughing. Then, of all things, she snorted, which caused James to start laughing, too.

After it had subsided, she said, "Thanks for the compliment."

"Yeah, well… Okay! Chocolate or vanilla?" he asked. "Because if you're a chocolate lover, then maybe it's a good thing we aren't going for ice cream anymore."

"I like both." She replied with her hands in the air as if surrendering.

"Both?" He exploded. "How can you like both? It's either one or the other."

"Not everything is black and white, Potter. Even old muggle movies have gray in between…"

Throughout the course of the day James realized how much he didn't know about Lily. They talked about books and teachers he found out what day her birthday was and that her favorite muggle- invented food was clam chowder and that she had an apple tree in her backyard. And he confessed that that he never knew that apples came from trees until he was seven- he always thought that they just appeared in his kitchen and then Lily pointed out that they probably did just appear in his kitchen, considering both his parents were magic folk.

He became more observant during their conversation- noticing things like how she never looked down when she talked and in mentioning this she said, 'Never look down, you never know what you could be missing in doing so… yet you should always look down, because you could be missing something down there, too.'

And while realizing that he had never known much about Lily Evans until today, he also realized that Lily was just as clueless about him, yet she seemed to know that she didn't know much. The day came to an end when Sirius and Jessica showed up around 4:30.

"What are you guys doing here?" asked Lily.

"We um, decided to take the long way to the library before we went to dinner." Sirius explained.

"Sirius …and Jessica… going to the library?" Asked Lily skeptically.

James knew Sirius had turned to the map when in wondering where he was, recognized this area as a place where the staircase changed and needed an excuse to 'run into them' before getting a teacher to help, otherwise Lily and the tag-along- Jessica would wondering how he knew.

"Looks like you're stuck." He smiled. "I'll go see if Hobbs is still in his classroom."

Lily got off with nothing but a sore ankle, and received a piggy- back ride from James to the great hall, where she was happy to find clam chowder as the main choice for dinner…