A/N: Heh, I know it's been ages since my last post, but I have been really really busy. I apologize a thousand times over. Anyway, the long-anticipated third way is here: let's see if James can possibly embarrass himself any more, shall we? Things are starting to fall apart for poor James, but have on fear, way four is on the way and bound to be interesting. I just uploaded this with Wordpad, an interesting experience. I prefer Microsoft Word vastly.
Disclaimer: I own nothing… especially not Harry Potter.
Happy Reading!
Way Three: "No" means "Yes" and "Get the hell away from me" means "Take me, I'm yours"
> > > > > > > >
After days of careful planning and scheming, James had a plan.
"I have a plan!" James announced to Remus, who had been sitting in the common room, studying with Peter.
"You're going to apologize?" Remus said hopefully.
James's smile flickered for a moment and he ran a hand through his hair uncertainly. After this awkward moment, however, his broken smile was back upon his face and his air of confidence had returned.
"No," He said, "I'm going to take step three into action. I'll get her alone and then we'll have a nice little talk."
Remus groaned and hit himself in the forehead with his palm rather forcefully.
"What's step three?" Remus asked in exasperation, rolling his eyes at a sniggering Peter.
"To summarize: no means yes, which I'm sure it does with most women, right?"
Without responding, a very frustrated and incensed Remus gathered up his books and began up the staircase.
"I'm going to bed," Remus announced, "I am afraid I can no longer sympathize with your situation, James; someone's going to get hurt before the end. You can come back to me when you realize that your list is wrong."
"You'll see, Remus!" James called after him, "The list is never – usually – wrong!"
The room fell silent and James looked around, apparently deep in thought. Peter, after watching James apprehensively for a moment, got up and followed Remus out of the common room. James felt his confidence level diminishing slightly and wondered vaguely of Remus was right. After all, though James usually got slightly better grades than Remus, Remus was often a much better psychologist. What if no really Lily really meant 'no' when she said 'no'? James figured he'd have been with her for years already if that was true. Or perhaps the list was just a clever way to get Lily to like him. Or maybe, and James couldn't help but feel a surge of pride at this, maybe Lily was just beyond all this pitiful flirtation that Sirius wreaked on the female race. James didn't know, but Sirius had never let him down before this list and had always been full of usually good advice. Why wouldn't it work now?
"The list works," James whispered to himself, "The list always works."
"What list?" came a voice from behind.
James spun around and saw one of Lily's friends standing in front of him.
"N-nothing," James stuttered, red-faced, then darted out of the common room.
The next day, James saw Lily walking down by the lake with a group of friends. He started off to set Way Three into motion when he felt as if a root had come out of the ground in front of his foot. He stumbled, tripped, and fell face-fist onto the ground. The group of girls laughed, minus Lily, who merely glared at the person who had caused James to trip. James stumbled to his feet and saw Snape standing a few feet away with his wand raised and a grin on his thin lips.
"Trip jinx, Potter," Snape drawled in his icy voice, "Nice lip."
James's hand twitched towards his pocket, but he stopped himself on Lily's behalf; he knew that she would be less inclined to like him if he attacked Snape in front of her. James straightened up and licked the blood off his bleeding lip, then turned his back to Snape and approached Lily.
"Could I have a word?" James asked coolly, touching his lip with the tip of his wand and healing over the cut.
Lily, who was obviously still upset over their last conversation, said, "No."
"Excellent," James exclaimed, and hauled her away from her group of friends, who were all giggling madly.
"What are you doing, James?" Lily asked with exasperation.
"Will you go out with me?"
"No."
James grinned and grabbed her hands.
"That's great!" He exclaimed happily, "I'll book us a table at the Three Broomsticks and everything. I won't let you down!"
Lily, who had been too surprised to retort until this point, gently pulled her hands away from his grasp.
"James," She said gently, "I really just want some personal space. You really just need to get away from me and stay there."
"Wow," James said in awe, "you're really something else, you know that?"
With that, James took Lily in his arms, dipped her like a tango dancer and kissed her. She gasped and pulled away from James, and turned her back to him.
"You prat!" She said as she marched off, "Don't you get what I tell you?"
James mentally smacked himself in the face; Sirius was going to need a nice talking-to.
At dinner, James told Sirius what had happened and he listened carefully, a look of puzzlement on his face. Remus was sitting a ways away with Peter, who was watching James and Sirius gloomily.
"That doesn't make sense," Sirius said, "The list works. It always works."
James looked up and saw that Lily would be passing their bench by in just a few moments.
"Oh yeah, Padfoot?" James said, "Then you try it. Here she comes."
Sirius grinned and spun around to face Lily, who was just walking by. He grabbed her bag and she turned around. When she saw James, her expression flickered, but she turned her eyes to Sirius. In her hands was a small box of Honeydukes chocolates, and she had one in her hand as if she had been about to eat it the moment Sirius had summoned her.
"Hello Evans," Sirius said coolly, suavely, "Can I have one of those?"
Lily laughed quietly to herself.
"Black, these are way too expensive to be handing out."
"Please?"
"No."
"Brilliant!" Sirius said, and held out his hand like a child eagerly awaiting a treat.
Lily rolled her eyes and placed the chocolate in her hand onto Sirius's outstretched palm. Sirius took a bite out of it and gave a sidelong smirk to James, whose mouth was slightly agape.
"See you at eight!" Sirius called after Lily.
As Lily walked off, Sirius turned back to James, smirking and eating the chocolate. James watched his best friend with a curious expression of disbelief and mingled fury.
"How'd you do that?"
Sirius laughed.
"Prongs," Sirius said happily, "the list never lies."
Upon seeing James's slightly saddened demeanor, Sirius's smile seemed to fade and he rounded his shoulders. It looked to James as if Sirius had been convicted of a crime or had to do a really hard job.
"Look, Prongs, I have to meet her at eight for a project. I'll talk some sense into her, alright?"
James sighed and spun his fork in his Shepard's pie, but found that he had lost his appetite. Sirius took this as a 'yes, please'.
At eight, as Sirius was meeting with Lily, Remus was angry, and Peter was avoiding James, James went up to the library to do some research about women. The things he found out were not encouraging, to say the least. The most heartening thing, however, was written by an ammeter writer who had been later killed by his girlfriend. He wrote: Once women are interested, they will love you forever. With a sigh, James gave up and went back to the common room to sulk about by himself; he was beginning to feel sorry for the friendless Snape… okay, well, he wasn't that sorry, but he had never really been on his own before.
James arrived in the common room to see Sirius and Lily sitting in a loveseat by the fire, a piece of parchment spread out on the tale before them. Sirius had the tip of his quill at his lips as if he were thinking hard. Lily's red hair was falling into her face and over the parchment. Mostly they stared at the paper, deep in thought, but would sometimes mutter something or make a note on the parchment, though James was well out of earshot. Finally, Sirius made a motion as if he had a brilliant idea, said it to Lily, who nodded, and scratched something out on the parchment. Sirius looked up and saw that James was standing at the portrait hole, watching them glumly, and stuffed the paper casually into his back pocket. He arose from his seat, bid Lily good day, and strode over to James.
"I hate Arithmacy," Sirius confided as he got up to James, "But we've just about got our project settled."
"Can I see it?" James asked as they began up the stairs.
Sirius tripped slightly and caught himself on the rail.
"Blimey I'm tired," He said, yawning, "Yeah, you can see it when it's finished. Right now It's pretty much rubbish."
"Right," James said, feeling once again rather gloomy; apparently, Sirius had forgotten to have the talk with Lily about her love life.
James settled himself into bed after pulling the closings around his four-poster, pausing only to take the list from under his pillow and scratch the third way off the list with a quill. He rested his head down on his pillow and shut his eyes, but was unable to fall asleep. He had kissed Lily Evans today, but the kiss hadn't been as he had planned; in his mind's eye, Lily had always been kissing him back.
James tossed and turned, unable to sleep due to his desperation. The only possible explanation for this was love – love, or infatuation. At this point, James wasn't sure which was worse. All James knew was that if he didn't get to hold a willing Lily Evans in his arms soon, he might just go mad for the cause.
A/N: Poor, poor James. What good can come of this? Stay alert and find out!
