Disclaimer ok, fine, I don't own the frigging HP stuff. do you HONESTLY think I would bother typing my stuff up rather than just sending it to my editor if I was JK?

A/N this should be a two-shot (just so peeps know)

If Things Were Different

She walked down the hall. Minutes past, and she just kept walking. Down one hall, and then another. Thinking, just thinking, pensive all the while. Suddenly she was pulled out of her reverie. "Wha? What… Huh?" stumbled Lily. Then she realized it was James. "Oh, hello you," she said. "I didn't see you there."

"Hm? Oh. Yeah. Well….ummm… yeah."

"Well, see you around."

"Right," replied James

"Bye!"

Crud she's gorgeous James thought, why don't you just ask her out? For old times' sake? No, I can't that's what she hated most about me. Just let her go James, just let her go.

 James thought,
As Lily started walking away, her mind strayed to how this year was different from last. Her whole life at Hogwarts, Lily had always been shunned by the majority of the school. Sure, she had her tight knit circle of friends, but they were few. However, this year, thing were different. People were actually talking to her, they acknowledged her existence. This change was one of the most welcome things that had ever happened to her. Also, James had stopped pestering her all the time and considering every day that he didn't ask Lily Evans out as a day wasted. Thank goodness for that.

Finally everyone else seemed to be settling down. It felt so good to have a whole bunch of friends as well as her close ones too. No more looking in from the outside and wishing she was part of it all.

"Wait!" she thought, "I never wanted to be part of 'it all.' I just wanted them to be my friends. Yeah, that's it."

That night, after she'd finished rounds, Lily clambered through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor Common Room. She collapsed on the armchair nearest the fire, and draped her legs over an arm with a sigh. "Finally some peace!" She sat there staring into the fire. She grabbed her book off the table where she'd left it earlier, and started to read.

James woke up. His stomach growled menacingly. "Fine! Kitchen it is." He threw on his invisibility cloak, and snuck down the stairs and into the common room. There he saw her. Sitting in a chair by the dieing fire. Reading, just reading. He stood there watching her, wondering. Wondering why she turned him down all those times he asked her out. She was the one and only that had ever done that. Why? was the constant question that battered his mind. He sat down on the boys' staircase and just sat there, watching her.

Eventually, Lily shut her book with a yawn, conjured up a blanket, curled up in the chair, and fell asleep.

James still sat there watching her. Soon enough he went back up to the boys' dormitory, his hunger long forgotten.

A week later, James's stomach woke him once again. And, once again, he grabbed his invisibility cloak and made his way down to the common room. He went out the portrait hole and down to the kitchens. There, two house-elves served him a waffle with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Satisfied, James returned to the common room. He was about to ascend the boys' staircase, why he did a double-take. There was Lily. Reading as before, and as before, James just stayed there until she went up to bed.

Night after night James would come downstairs to watch Lily from underneath the Invisibility Cloak. Each night, Lily would tiptoe downstairs and sit in her favorite chair. Sometimes she'd read; sometimes she'd just sit there, staring into the fire, deep in though; sometimes she'd even start dancing around the common room like a little girl, twirling, and leaping, and humming to herself.

James would sit there each night until the either went up to bed or fell asleep in the common room. When she fell sleep, he'd still sit there watching her. Astounded by this side of her that he'd never seen. The girl who didn't yell or scream at him to "Go away!" This peaceful girl, the quiet side of the fighter he knew only too well.

After this ritual had been going on for a month, James finally lost his nerve.

A/N I'm sorry this is so short, I have half of the next chapter written, but figured I might as well get this one up. The other chapter will be up soon (this should only have two chapters, but if people want more after the next one, all you need do is say the word)