Author's Note: Well, I've gotten into two schools, so I've got options right? Enjoy this next chapter. And thanks to everyone who beted it for me. You guys are pretty awesome!

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Will You, Miss Evans?

3: In which Lily is very sick

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James straightened his robes one final time and then reached out to knock on the worn door.

He was currently standing outside of Lily's flat. The ring was secured inside a pocket in his robes and in his left hand he was holding a bouquet that he had picked out especially because of the white lilies. In his right hand James was holding a carton of curry that he had slaved over all day.

"Who is it?" a gravely voice asked.

"James," he responded. He shifted the carton underneath his arm pleading with himself to be sure to not drop it.

The door swung open unexpectedly fast and James almost lost his balance. Luckily, he was able to maintain control of the carton of food, however, the flowers weren't so lucky.

The bouquet had landed right at Lily's feet. James tried to bend down to get it at the same time Lily did. Their heads bumped and James looked up to meet her eyes.

"It's nice to see you." James smirked as he rubbed his forehead. He handed the flowers to Lily.

That was when he realized that Lily didn't look herself. Her hair was pulled loosely back into a ponytail and her face seemed flushed.

"Are you feeling alright, Lily?" James asked as he stepped inside.

"I think I might have caught the flu. It's not much," Lily sniffled as if to prove her point.

The two moved into the kitchen where James set the carton of food down on the counter.

"I cooked." James smiled broadly. "It's curry."

Lily suddenly looked greener than she had when James walked into the room. In James' eyes, this wasn't a very good sign.

"Flower, are you alright?"

Lily nodded her head causing some of her hair to be freed from the ponytail.

"No, you're not," James observed. "Have you taken a potion yet?"

"I've been busy," Lily responded.

James gaped at Lily before moving her out of the kitchen and to the sofa. He made sure that Lily was resting with a pillow and a blanket he summoned from her room.

"I'm going to get you a potion. Do you feel up to curry?" James asked hopefully.

Lily shook her head.

"What about soup?"

Lily nodded gratefully.

"Tea?"

Lily smiled in response and rested her head on her pillow while James trudged back into the kitchen.

Arabella was already in the kitchen smelling James' curry. He glared at her and went about making soup.

"You went to a lot of work," Arabella finally spoke.

"It's alright." James brushed off the comment to avoid his own disappointment. He felt as if his heart had dropped into his stomach. He had spent so long trying to perfect the dinner and he had imagined how proud Lily would be of his cooking. After all, she had helped to teach him.

That could be another possible scenario.

James pushed the thought out of his mind. He had worked hard cooking but this was something that could easily be planned again.

"You're not the greatest cook, but it smells safe," Arabella teased as she eyed the curry.

"You can have it. Lily and I will be dining on chicken noodle soup tonight."

Arabella smiled sadly at James. 'If I were you, I would ask her tonight anyway. Lily isn't the type of girl who needs the fancy dinner or the big proposal. I think she would love for you to ask her right here right now."

"She's sick. I can't put her in a position like that," James protested.

"It's not an awkward position, James. I'm almost positive she'll be thrilled when you propose," Arabella reassured James.

"You're almost positive." James stirred a cup of tea. "I put a sleeping draught in her cup of tea. She's not going to be in any mood to be proposed to tonight."

Arabella glared at James. "Why do you keep chickening out?"

"I'm not trying to avoid proposing!" James hissed.

Arabella just grabbed the curry and left the kitchen without another word. James didn't have anything to say to her retreating figure so he went about pouring the soup and in a few moments he was sitting beside Lily on the sofa.

"Are you feeling any better?" James asked tenderly as Lily drank her soup and tea.

Lily smiled. "Yes, thank you."

"Are you tired?" James asked with a yawn.

"I'm exhausted, but that's just my virus." Lily looked alarmed.

"What's wrong?" James slurred.

"Are you sure you haven't caught anything, James?" Lily asked as she eyed James.

"I felt fine a few minutes ago. I just made you soup and tea and mixed something in yours to help you sleep. I just had a hard day today," James continued to slur on, but Lily had already stopped listening.

"What did you put in my drink?" Lily asked. "James?"

James was already asleep on the sofa. His messy hair was flopped over his eyes and he was leaning back on the sofa, his arm resting right next to hers.

"What's wrong with him?" Arabella asked as she walked through the room with the empty carton of curry.

"He put something in my tea and then forgot which cup it was." Lily smirked.

Arabella laughed. "Do you think he'll ever grow out of doing things like this?"

Lily laughed and shook her head.

"I can see him doing this when you're old."

"What's that?" Lily asked.

Arabella watched her; she had been vaguely distracted by James' sleeping form. There really was no reason for James to be afraid, it was clear that Lily had learned to adore him as well. She didn't watch him in a way that would suggest a negative response to James' proposal, even if it were plain and boring.

"Can't you see James doing this when you're old?" Arabella asked again. She needed her own confirmation that Lily did think of a future with James. She didn't want to see James suffer, no matter how funny it would be.

Lily smiled for a second. "What makes you think we'll still be together when we're old?"

"Well, don't you want to marry him?" Arabella asked.

There it was, out in the open. James was knocked out and was certain not to hear this conversation. Lily would try to dance around the question and if it were necessary to calm her down, Arabella knew that the ring was in James' pocket and could easily whip it out.

No, I couldn't ruin the surprise for Lily. She'd hate me, not to mention that James would personally kill me with his bare hands.

Lily smiled. "I don't think he's planning on asking me."

"I'm not asking you if he's going to ask you, I'm asking what you want."

Lily didn't respond, but instead she looked back at James' sleeping figure. She pushed his hair back off his forehead. When Lily looked back up, Arabella had left.

XXX

"I have the best proposal idea," Sirius gushed.

"What is it then?" James grumbled as he caught Arabella's eyes. It was a look of fright, but she was attempting to hold in laughter.

"You should propose to her while you're shagging!"

James, Arabella, and Remus all stared at Sirius in a moment of complete shock.

"I am not shagging Lily!" James shouted. "You know that!"

"Well, you could shag her and then propose. At least she'd know you weren't just using her," Sirius offered.

Arabella looked at Sirius as if he were from another planet. "Are you crazy?"

"I'm serious!" Sirius laughed, but everyone else remained silent. "Is something wrong with my idea?"

"Well," Remus began. "Lily wants to wait until marriage and James is respecting her decision."

"Well, my idea will never work if they wait until marriage," Sirius retorted.

Remus sighed and continued. "Sirius, Lily would not appreciate James proposing in that way. I think we should just drop the act and have James just ask her."

"I agree with Remus," Arabella said.

Sirius ignored Arabella's comment. "James, Remus doesn't know what he's talking about. He's never been in a situation where he's going to propose and he doesn't know Lily as well as you and I do."

Remus glared at Sirius' back. "Arabella's Lily's best mate. She knows Lily better than you do. James is asking for our advice. I was friends with Lily before both you and James, so I don't think that you can claim you know her any better than I do."

Sirius hunched back into his chair and glared at the occupants of the room. "Why don't you propose while you're snogging?"

"That's just as ridiculous, Sirius," Remus responded.

"It's not ridiculous! Prongs and Lily snog all the time."

Arabella finally took over. "Sirius, I don't think Lily wants to be in the middle of snogging James and then have him propose. It just won't get the message across right."

"I think it would get the message across fine. I wouldn't mind being proposed to in the act of snogging," Sirius told the room.

Arabella rolled her eyes.

"The proposal is completely indecent," Remus began. "She wouldn't want that. She wants to be able to tell everyone how James proposed. She can't tell her parents that they were in the middle of snogging when he just sprung it on her."

"He has a good point," Arabella added.

James nodded. "Padfoot, I do want it to be special; I just don't think Lily would want me to propose like that."

Sirius finally agreed. "Alright, I'll work on another idea."

The others seemed satisfied and ignored Sirius huff about how bloody brilliant his idea had been.

"You didn't give it any bloody justice."

XXX

"Do you have any ideas?" James pleaded. He was standing in front of his parents. The room was oddly silent, which was due to the fact that James had left Sirius back at their flat. He didn't want any more ideas of proposing while he was doing something indecent. His parents didn't need to hear about those.

"Why don't you just try proposing the traditional way? I don't see what's so wrong with that," James' mother said. James was sure that times had changed and that the standards for proposing had become higher, but he wasn't sure how to break the news to his mother.

"I just wanted to do something different. I'm so lucky that she's even given me this chance to be with her. I don't want to mess it up," James mumbled.

"I'm sure you won't mess it up, honey. Lily loves you; she wouldn't mind a traditional proposal. I've always seen her as a girl who would prefer one," Mrs. Potter added.

"Why would you think that?" James asked.

"She's very private when it comes to her life, James. She doesn't strike me as the type of girl who's going to go gossip to her friends about how you proposed."

James had to admit that his mother had a point.

"Sirius thinks that I should make the proposal extravagant," James said.

"Sirius isn't going to propose to anyone anytime soon, I don't know if he's the best person to be taking advice from," Mr. Potter added with an affectionate tone.

"A lot of wizards are stepping up and trying to make their proposals more original. I don't want to disappoint Lily by making it plain," James admitted.

"What have some of your ideas been?" Mr. Potter asked.

"It doesn't matter, none of them have worked out," James mumbled.

"You've already tried to propose?" Mrs. Potter asked with concern.

"Well, not exactly, I was planning on proposing many times, I just never managed to get the question out," James explained.

"What have some of your ideas been?" Mr. Potter asked again.

"Well, first I tried to take her to Bermuda because I thought it would be a more romantic setting, she didn't want to go though. She wanted to know why I wanted to go to Bermuda, as if I were trying to take advantage of her."

"What else would she think?" Mrs. Potter asked with a disapproving look.

"Her parents probably wouldn't have appreciated that either," Mr. Potter added.

"I've found that out now," James murmured. "I also tried to owl her a note while I was in the room because I had problems trying to work in how to ask her. Arabella figured that if she already had an idea of what I was going to ask it would make it easier. But my bloody owl flew into the window and didn't mail the letter."

Mr. and Mrs. Potter laughed at the story.

"I even tried to learn this complex charm so that the words would magically appear in the sky written in the clouds. Sirius went and had Lily teach him the charm; he pretended that he was proposing to Arabella. But then I didn't learn the spell right and it came out all wrong. So aside from the fact that I still haven't proposed, Lily now thinks that Sirius is planning on proposing to Arabella."

Mr. and Mrs. Potter laughed harder.

"It's not funny! I need your help!" James whined.

"I think you should learn from your mistakes, love," Mrs. Potter said.

"I'm not going to be trying those ideas again." James closed his eyes in frustration.

"I meant that you should try a different approach to proposing. I don't think that you're going to pull off something extravagant. I don't think Lily will like that. Maybe all these silly little mistakes are a sign that you shouldn't try," Mrs. Potter suggested.

"You sound like a kooky Seer," James sighed.

Mr. Potter spoke. "I agree with your mother, James. I don't think Lily wants an extravagant proposal. I think you should stick to something simple. You don't want to make your proposal public; it makes things much more complicated."

"What do you mean by that?" James asked.

"James, have you ever considered what you'd do if Lily said no? You don't want to put her on the spot in front of a crowd. You want it to be small and private. That's what she's going to want and I don't know how she'd react to an overproduced one that you're planning on using."

James just looked at his parents before finally announcing he had to be leaving.

XXX

"James, I've been thinking about trying to combine something different and a simple proposal," Arabella began. "I think I have a good idea."

"It's bloody brilliant!" Sirius added. James smiled. Sirius had been trying to get back on Arabella's good side for a few days now.

"What is it?" James asked hesitantly. His parents' warning had remained in his head causing him to shoot down most ideas that Sirius brought up.

"A scavenger hunt." Arabella smiled proudly.

"What?" James looked around the kitchen. Arabella seemed quite pleased with herself; Sirius wasn't making any complaints about how boring the proposal was, and Remus was sitting quietly without any reasons for why the proposal would be all wrong.

"Make a scavenger hunt," Arabella urged.

"All of you think this is a good idea?" James asked, almost afraid that one of them would burst out a complaint they had been holding in.

The room stayed silent.

"It's actually a very clever idea," Remus began. "I don't think Lily would want something over the top and this idea keeps the proposal between you and Lily, but also has some excitement to it. Plus, she'll be able to tell her parents."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"This is enough for you?" James asked Sirius.

"I think it's brilliant," Sirius responded.

James sighed. "How would this work?"

"You could write the clues so that you send her to different places that have made a big impact on your relationship. It'll be really sweet," Arabella said. "And the final place can be where you're waiting for the ring."

"I'm no good with riddles," James mumbled.

"I wasn't planning on actually making you write them." Arabella smirked.

She then promptly whipped out a piece of parchment and began to write out clues for James, who was staring helplessly at the table.

XXX

"Is that James' owl?" Arabella asked as a sleek brown owl flew into the room and dropped a letter on Lily's lap.

Lily nodded and gave the owl a piece of toast.

"What does he want?" Arabella asked with a perfectly inquisitive face.

Inside, however, Arabella was smiling. The plan was finally about to play out. Lily and James would be engaged by the end of the day and Lily would know all about Sirius' lie about proposing to her. She had to admit she was a little tired of Lily's indirect marriage questions.

"Do you understand this, Bella?" Lily asked as she handed over the note.

Arabella took the piece of parchment and quickly scanned the contents.

"I like coffee, I like tea, I saw you, and you saw me."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "I don't understand."

"Maybe it's a scavenger hunt," Arabella suggested with a smile breaking out on her face. "That'd be so much fun!"

"What in bloody hell does this mean then?" Lilly asked.

Arabella smiled, she couldn't give away the fact that she knew the place so fast. "Well, you saw him there and it involves coffee and tea."

"I see him a lot of places that involve coffee and tea," Lily argued.

"Just think about it. I have to get into work."

Arabella Apparated from the spot before Lily could open her mouth to argue that it was Saturday and Arabella normally had the day off.

"Bloody hell!" Lily breathed as she went to read the letter once again.

XXX

Once Lily had set her mind to the task at hand she realized the place James was hinting at was the coffee shop they had reunited in. There, she had been handed a note, which had sent her to a Muggle park. She had since traveled to various restaurants and spots that she and James had visited and was currently standing at her own flat.

Why would James have sent me back here? Lily wondered as she let herself into her flat to find it completely empty.

"James?" Lily asked softly. "Are you here?"

Lily sunk down on the sofa after discovering that James was not in her flat.

What has gotten into him lately?

XXX

"Bloody hell, Arabella, you said she'd be here by now. Where is she?" James demanded as he paced back and forth in his living room.

"I don't know, James, I thought she'd be here too." Arabella responded harshly.

"Maybe she's been attacked by Slytherins trying to foil your plan to pass on the Potter line," Sirius joked.

James glared at Sirius from behind his glasses. He wasn't in the mood to have Sirius joking about Lily being hurt or not showing up because she didn't want him to propose. He didn't need any more insecurities. He had already created enough on his own.

"Do you think it's possible she ended up in the wrong place?" Remus asked thoughtfully.

"That's true, maybe she missed one of the clues!" Arabella exclaimed. "We should go find her. We may be able to just pretend that you were late."

The group began to backtrack. The notes were always gone and Lily was never there.

"What if she's avoiding me?" James asked.

"She's not avoiding you. She bloody wants to marry you," Arabella responded angrily.

"Has she told you that?"

"She's told me enough for me to know that she'll say yes. Don't worry, James."

Without any other ideas of where Lily could be they Apparated back to Lily and Arabella's flat.

XXX

"Where have you bloody been?"

James, Remus, and Arabella stood shocked in the doorway to the flat.

"Well?" Lily demanded.

James looked sheepishly at Arabella and Sirius. "You've been here the whole time?"

"You've just sent me in a huge circle and now you ask me why I'm still here? I was under the impression that I was taking this tour for a reason."

James shrugged.

"You know what, Sirius and I need to go check something in my bedroom." Arabella promptly grabbed Sirius' hand and pulled him away from Lily and James, who were standing with quite a considerable distance between them.

"What has this all been about?" Lily asked in a lower tone.

"Why have you been here?" James asked with a frown.

"You sent me here!" Lily shrieked.

"I didn't send you here. The note was clearly for you to meet me at my flat."

"No, it wasn't." Lily crossed her arms.

"I wrote it," James retorted.

"James, you asked me out here," Lily gestured around the room. "How could you forget that?"

"No, Lily, I asked you out at my flat." James frowned.

Why did she forget? Is this something I should take into consideration?

"I think you're wrong."

"Lily, you Apparated into my flat at a mad early hour to demand that I ask you to be my girlfriend. I remember that quite well, I wasn't even fully dressed." James blushed at the thought.

Lily's eyes widened.

"You must've forgotten," James mumbled. Despite how much he wanted to propose to the woman standing in front of him, at the moment, he just didn't have the heart.

Girls always accused boys of forgetting dates and places that were important to a relationship, and here Lily had gone and forgotten one of the most important places in their relationship.

James looked up to meet Lily's eyes, they were glinting with some emotion that James didn't feel the need to read.

"I'm sorry I forgot," Lily said simply.

"It's alright." James shrugged as if it were no big deal.

"It's easy to forget things when you're preoccupied." Lily smirked.

James' mind was screaming that he didn't forget. He still remembered the tiny details. Snogging wasn't the only important thing to him in the relationship.

Lily seemed to have sensed what he was thinking and the glint in her emerald eyes became stronger.

At that moment the glint in Lily's eyes became crystal clear. She took a few steps towards him and pushed him solid up against the wall.

Once her hands had found their way into his hair, James realized that she remembered a lot more than he expected she did.

XXX