For the love of Quidditch!

"Lily! Lily, please? Just one date? That's all I'm asking!"

Lily Evans resumed her brisk walk towards her class.

"Potter, that would be a 'no' you're expecting. And that's final!"
With that, she walked into her Potions classroom while James Potter headed straight for the wall.

As he collided with the wall, both he and Lily muttered simultaneously, "Bloody hell."

"I don't get it, Padfoot! How can Lily not want to go on a date with me?" James asked, stressing his last word with frustration. He was, after all, one of Hogwarts' most extraordinary flirts, the other being Sirius Black, his best friend. The girls all wanted him, while the guys all wanted to be him. The simple fact that Lily Evans, the girl he fancied, did not like him at all, just did not register in James's mind.

"I get it."

"Not helping, Sirius," said Remus.

"Oh, wait, I have an idea!" Sirius, or Padfoot as his fellow Marauders liked to call him, exclaimed excitedly.

"Why don't you confess your undying love for her at breakfast tomorrow?"

"James? You secretly love me? That's so sweet! I feel wanted!" squeaked Peter Pettigrew, eyes widening in surprise and delight.

James, Sirius and Remus looked at him oddly, a mixture of disgust and shock mingled on their faces.

"Peter, I do believe that Padfoot here is talking about Lily."

With that, Peter's look of joy vanished.

Frustrated and angry, James kicked his foot at the wall. As a bolt of pain passed through him, he was reminded of his earlier incident with the wall outside their Potions class.

"Help! Intense pain. Must stop inflicting pain upon oneself!"

Clutching his foot, James hobbled around the Gryffindor boys' dormitory.

With a quick glance towards his bespectacled friend, Remus managed to say in between laughs, "James, your use of words is really very good when you've hurt yourself, isn't it?"

"Lily, why don't we just go to watch Quidditch practice, just for once? Frank's going after all."

"Alice, that sport is boring! I'm not going, and that's all I have to say about it!"

Somehow, Lily found herself seated beside Alice half an hour later, watching the Gryffindor team's Quidditch practice. Miraculously, she had managed to stay awake for the past ten minutes of this session.

Meanwhile, on the quidditch pitch, James had noticed a fiery redheaded someone watching them. He floated in mid-air on his broom, surprised that she had taken the effort to watch her apparent enemy play.

In many years, James would never be able to explain how the next occurrence had happened. Being Quidditch captain and Head Boy, he was certain that this amount of inadequacy had never before been shown in the history of Hogwarts.

While staring at the redhead, James had forgotten the small fact that he was in the middle of a quidditch pitch, surrounded by Bludgers, Quaffles and the small Snitch. One moment James was sitting on his broom, and the next, he found himself free-falling, hurtling towards the ground in intense pain. After all, what else was new?

Lily stared at the falling figure, paralysed in fear and shock. Running towards the field, she saw that it was James Potter, the boy who annoyed her the most. At this moment, though, Lily felt anything but annoyed.

"Hey, Lils, he'll be fine. He's just knocked out, that's all," comforted Sirius, though his plan of assurance didn't work out quite as well as he would have liked.

"Knocked out? That's all? Black, he needs to be conscious as soon as possible! We have patrolling tonight!" exclaimed a furious and red-faced Lily. In reality, Lily only wanted Potter to be conscious so that she could make sure he wasn't seriously injured, but she could not, for the life of her, let anyone else know that.

I mean, think about it. People will start thinking that I actually care about Potter, and that's the last thing I need. My reputation will be gone!

As they carried James off to the infirmary, Lily trudged up to her room in the Heads dorm, reasoning with herself as to why she should or should not visit James.

"She's mad, that one. Mad, I tell you!" whispered several third-years when they saw their Head Girl muttering to herself and shaking her head.

James awakened to the worst headache in his life, and yet to the most wonderful sight possible. Lily, his sweet Lilykins, was holding his hand while asleep in her chair beside his bed.

"Evans, wake up."

Lily shook herself out of her slight slumber to find hazel eyes staring at her. All thoughts of hating James fled her mind as she took in his appearance.

Smirking, James inquired, "Like what you see there?"

He was rewarded with a slap to the head.

"What were you thinking? You could have died out there James! Flying around doing who-knows-what! Yes, I know it's Quidditch, don't you dare tell me that! You were 'knocked out' according to Sirius, by a Bludger! A Bludger! Aren't you Quidditch Captain James? Shouldn't you know better than to float around in mid-air on a Quidditch pitch filled with hazardous objects flying around? And we still have patrolling duty to do tonight! What were you…"

Lily's ranting was cut off due to James kissing her. Although this was supposed to be a form of silencing Lily Evans, fabulous Head Girl of Hogwarts, in Lily's mind, this was probably the most effective method of brainwashing possible, for suddenly, Lily realised just how much she loved Quidditch.