Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking - God, Lily, you two just had the worst fight of your entire lives, and now you're jumping straight into "I like you"?

Just let me explain.

Our worst fight was also our last fight. Ever.

I'm not sure how exactly it happened. Obviously, we both hated each other's guts when we went to bed that night. But then, in the morning, we seemed to have come to some sort of unspoken agreement that we weren't going to discuss it again. And we didn't.

We certainly weren't friends, of course. In fact, we hardly even spoke for the entire beginning of sixth year. I ignored him, and he ignored me, and we were both perfectly content with that.

Then, our stupid friends had to get involved.

I suppose I should introduce to you our friends.

His best friends are, and always have been, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. My best friends are Emmeline Vance, and Marlene McKinnon - although, granted, I wasn't very close with Emma and Marlene for a very long time (they didn't approve of me hanging out with Snape, and I didn't like that they didn't approve of me hanging out with Snape, and, well, you can see what I'm getting at with this).

Now, for a very long time, Potter and his friends were one group, and me and my friends were one group. We didn't mix. Sure, we had the occasional breakfast together in the Great Hall, or the occasional study session before a big exam, but other than that, we were two separate entities.

That all changed when Marlene and Emma decided (without my stamp of approval, may I add), that they LIKED the boys. As in, they wanted to be FRIENDS WITH THEM. As in, they wanted us to HANG AROUND THEM MORE.

I was absolutely flabbergasted. Boys and girls, in one friend group? It just did not seem possible. When I expressed my doubts to Marlene, however, she hit me with this:

"Stop being immature, Lily, we aren't in the third grade anymore."

Well, that certainly convinced me. If anyone was going to be accused of immaturity, it would NOT be me. Pah! Me, immature? I'm the most mature person I know!

And so, the two friend groups merged into one.

We started hanging around the common room together, late into the evenings, playing cards and eating stolen food from the kitchens and talking about anything we could possibly think of, and slowly, very slowly… James and I became friends.

Yes, friends! After all we'd been through! Can you believe it? I couldn't believe it.

We became such good friends, in fact, that we would frequently hang out alone, eating lunch together, working on assignments together, you know, all those friendly things you do with friends!

I can only assume that James was ecstatic about our rekindled friendship. He has told me, many times, that fighting with me was "the darkest period of his life" (and people have the audacity to call ME dramatic! Clearly, James is the drama queen here!)

Anyway, I'm getting off the subject.

Slowly, I began to notice what everyone else at Hogwarts had been seeing for years… no, James Potter wasn't immature, or childish, and no, his ego wasn't the size of the Great Lake… he was actually, well, a completely normal bloke. He was kind. He was funny. He was smart. He was - dare I say it - attractive? And then, suddenly...

Here it comes, folks… the moment you've all been waiting for...

I realized I fancied James Potter.

Believe me, it came as just as much of a shock to me as it does to you. And I was absolutely ashamed of it. I thought, if I ignored the feeling, it would go away. But it DIDN'T. How could it, when he was just so sweet to me, and when his smile was just so damn CUTE, and when he was - he was - well, he was JAMES. He was bloody PERFECT.

Luckily, I considered myself a very good actor. No one would know about my newfound feelings for James - absolutely nobody (well, I did tell Emma and Marlene, but that was mandatory, considering they were my best friends).

And so, I lived out the rest of sixth year with a secret, James-Potter-loving identity.

James fancied somebody as well, but he was much worse at keeping it a secret than I was. We all knew it. It was the most obvious thing in the world. I'd never seen the boy so lovesick in my entire life. And I was determined to find out who the lucky girl was, so I could kill her.

I mean, what?

No. I would never do such a thing.

Anyway, to recap - James and I were friends, and I was in love with him, and he was in love with some other mystery girl, and I had to learn to live with that constant pain. How cliche, right?

Now - back to the story.

It all started, I suppose, with a bet. We tended to make bets a lot - it drove our friends mad. We would bet on absolutely anything - what color robes Dumbledore would be wearing at breakfast, how many times Peter would make something explode in charms class, what flavors of tart would be at dinner on any given evening… really, if you hadn't known better, you'd think we both had gambling problems.

On the last evening 6th year, the Gryffindor common room was a madhouse. It seemed that absolutely everybody had saved packing their bags for the last possible moment - everyone except James and I. This left us alone on the couches of the common room, heavily involved in an intense tournament of Exploding Snap.

"We should be off to bed, Lil," James said, shuffling the deck after what seemed like the 50th game.

"No," I said sternly. "Absolutely not. You just want to quit because you won the last game."

He grinned cheekily at me as he began dealing the cards out again. "Ah, you've caught me," he said. "Okay, one last game. And this game determines the winner."

"Fancy a bet on it?" I asked, my eyebrows wiggling. His grin grew even wider.

"Five galleons."

"No way. That's so conservative. Higher."

"Ten galleons?"

I pondered this for a moment. Then, an idea came to me. It's an idea I'm still proud of, to this very day.

"No. No more betting with money. Something else."

James' eyebrows practically shot into his head. "Something else? If you want to snog me, Evans, you just need to ask."

I hit him. "That's not what I'm insinuating!" I exclaimed, trying to ignore the flutter of my heart at his words. He laughed, swatting my arm away.

"Okay, fine. What are the stakes, then?"

I let myself smile mischievously. "I win, and you have to tell me which girl it is that you fancy."

Had I been paying closer attention, I would have noticed that James' face paled considerably at this, the smile slid off his face, and he looked positively ill. "No, Evans. Anything but that."

"Tsk tsk! James Potter, scared of a bet? What, you don't think you'll win? Because we can just call the winner right now."

"No," James said immediately, and I smiled. If I knew James Potter - and I did - he couldn't stand anyone calling him a quitter. And he could never back down from a challenge. "I'll do it. But if I win… which I will… you tell me who you fancy."

Um. No. Absolutely not. "What is this, Potter, a prepubescent slumber party? We're just going around talking about our crushes, now?"

James was aghast. "You were the one who brought it up in the first place!" he exclaimed with amusement.

"Well, you'll have to think of something else for me to do if you win, because I don't fancy anybody."

James scoffed at me. "Right. Like I'll believe that."

"It's perfectly believable, James Potter! You can't just automatically assume that every teenage girl is currently crushing on somebody, that's ridiculous!"

"I know that, Lily," James said, with a roll of his eye. "You, however, are not like every other teenage girl. You are so obviously lovesick, Evans, it isn't even funny. You didn't seriously think none of us noticed, right?"

My jaw had dropped open. "Am I really that obvious?"

James shrugged. "Maybe not. But I also heard Emma and Marlene talking about it, so there's that."

Oh, curse you, Emma and Marlene. You two have ruined my life!

At this point, I had two options:

Assure James that Emma and Marlene were severely mistaken, and that I did not currently fancy anybody.

Tell James that I did currently fancy someone, and play Exploding Snap. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing, I suppose, because I was going to win.

"Fine. You're on."

Sometimes, my overconfidence gets the best of me.

And so, we played. We played hard. We played dirty. Tears were shed. It was the single most dramatic game of Snap I have ever been involved in, which was truly a shame, because none of our friends were even there to see it!

It was a close game, very close. But in the end…

I lost.

Yeah. I lost. Turns out James Potter actually knows a thing or two about Snap.

As I sat there, my eyebrows singing (James had burned them off midway through the round), my mind was spinning.

Maybe he would forget about the bet. Maybe, if I just congratulated him, and snuck up to my bedroom very quietly, he would not even realize that I had backed out on him. Maybe, I wouldn't have to tell him who I fancied at all.

"Alright, tell me."

Bugger. He'd remembered the bet.

"You sure the ten Galleons won't do?" I asked.

James shook his head with a smirk. "Nah. Information about the mysterious Lily Evans is so much more valuable than money these days."

Psh. I didn't realize the inner workings of my mind were so high in demand.

At this point, I once again had two options:

Lie to James Potter about who I fancied.

Tell him the truth about who I fancied, and then proceed to drown myself in the Great Lake.

Obviously, option one was a much easier way out. But who would I even say it was? Sirius? Remus? Peter? I could make up a random Muggle boy from my hometown, but he'd see right through that.

I was just about to fake my death and escape to another country to get out of the situation, when I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of boldness.

What did it matter if James Potter knew that I fancied him? He'd asked me out for practically five years straight. And it was the last day of school. Worst case scenario, we'd be able to forget all about it over the summer, right?

Yeah, I don't know exactly where that bout of insanity came from. Suddenly, however, I was completely prepared and determined to confess my feelings to James Potter.

Shocking, isn't it?

"Okay. You may want to sit down," I said to him.

He blinked, then blinked again. "I am sitting down, Lily. I've been on this couch for the last four hours."

Oh. Right. God, my feelings really were playing tricks on my head.

"I really don't know how to say this, but-"

"It's Diggory, isn't it?"

Geez, Potter. Interrupt people much? I'm only about to confess my feelings to you, after all, you might consider showing some respect!

"Diggory?" Ha. Diggory. What a preposterous thought. Did he really think me so vain as to assume I could ever fancy that blue-eyed bimbo? "No. It is not Diggory."

"Oh, good," James sighed. "I'd hoped you weren't so vain as to fancy that blue-eyed bimbo."

Wow. Great minds think alike.

"So, who is it, then?" James prodded.

"Stop rushing me."

"You're the one who's stalling."

Stalling? STALLING? "I am not stalling. I am just trying to find the right words to convey my emotions."

"The right words? You just have to say his name, Lil, it really isn't that hard."

"James Potter."

"Yes?"

"James Potter."

"What?"

Wow. He wasn't getting it. Idiot.

"James Potter," I pressed, vaguely aware of my cheeks starting to get hot. "You said all I have to do is say his name. So I'm saying his name. James Potter."

Finally, my implications must have gotten through his thick skull, because his jaw dropped open.

"James Potter?" he asked faintly.

"Um, well, yes. That's sort of what I just said."

We stayed like this for a moment, James staring at me incredulously from the couch, looking as though he'd just been petrified, and me sitting across from him, staring back, trying not to have a panic attack. He wasn't saying anything. Why wasn't he saying anything? SAY SOMETHING, POTTER! DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THIS!

This is when I realized the intensity of what had just happened.

I told James Potter that I fancied him.

Why had I done that? Was I mad? This was James Potter we were talking about! Infamous prankster! Master of mischief! And I'd just given him enough ammunition to last a lifetime!

My breathing became very labored, and my heart rate spiked at an alarming rate.

"Lily?" Oh, was he finally talking to me, now? Tough luck, Potter, because I was in no state to talk back. "Oh Merlin, Lily, are you okay? Don't die on me now, Lily, how will I ever explain it to Madam Pomfrey? 'Sorry, Poppy, it was my stunning good looks and overall sexual appeal that killed her! I had no control over it!'"

This comment made me burst out laughing. James seemed relieved that I was not, in fact, dying, because he laughed too.

"You're not angry with me, then?" I asked once I'd regained control of myself.

"Angry with you?" he asked, incredulously. "Lily, you don't even understand how long I've been waiting - I mean, really, this is just a shocking piece of information you've just provided me - and here I was thinking it was going to be Diggory, but turns out it's been me all along - I mean, how can I be angry at that?"

"So we're still friends, then?" I asked tentatively. "I mean, you won't go telling everyone I like you, right? Because you can only imagine what that would do to my reputation."

The smile slid off James' face. "Friends? No, Lily, we are no longer friends."

"What?" I couldn't believe him. "But I- but you- you just said you weren't angry-"

"I'm not angry," James said. "I'm ecstatic, Lil. You can't honestly be so daft as to not realize that I'm infatuated with you, right?"

Excuse me? "Excuse me?"

I was shocked to find James' cheeks faintly tinged pink. "I mean, well, I thought I was being obvious."

"Maybe you were. But it just so happens that I am perhaps the most oblivious person at Hogwarts, you see."

He laughed. "I've noticed. So, Lily, you can see now why we can't be friends. Because you're loony if you think I'm not going to force you to be my girlfriend instead."

I scoffed at this. "As enticing as that may sound, you cannot force me to be your girlfriend."

James was shocked. "But - but you just said that you fancied me!"

"And I do! But you'll have to work harder than that!"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," James groaned. "Okay, how do you say we proceed then?"

Hm. How would we proceed? "Well, we have to go on a date, first."

"Spectacular. Let's go out tonight."

I gaped at him. "James Potter, it's nearly midnight!"

"There's no wrong time for dates with Lily Evans, if you ask me! Come on, don't pretend you don't want to!"

He was right. I did want to. Really, really bad. But walks through the corridors of Hogwarts at midnight did not seem very date-worthy, and if Potter and I were going to be the next great romantic saga of this century, we'd have to start off with something more exciting than that. "No. We'll just have to meet up somewhere over the summer, okay?"

James sighed. "Deal," he finally said. "And then you'll become my girlfriend, right?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe? You fancy me, Evans! You just said so yourself!"

"You're missing the point, James, it's not about who fancies who anymore. It's about if you can prove yourself to me."

He groaned. "This is all becoming very complex. I miss when we were just playing Exploding Snap, completely ignorant to our crushes on each other."

"Well, touch luck. It's your fault for enforcing the bet."

James pondered this for a moment, then looked back up at me, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Okay. Ten Galleons says that you're my girlfriend by the start of next term."

Of course he'd bet on us. What had I been expecting? He bets on everything.

"You're on."