Another complete re-write. Won't go into it, but it was an ordeal.
For someone who considers themselves quite intelligent, it takes you an embarrassing amount of time to work out how you feel about James Potter. At first, you think it's a weird, split personality thing that you never recognised before. To your surprise, James Potter is not always a prat. He's not always mature either, to be fair. But he seems to be a lot less arrogant and a lot less of a bully than you perhaps once thought.
It may be that he is taking his Head Boy role more seriously than he lets on (the random collection of pastries that occasionally frequent your shared dormitory would suggest he has not yet ceased sneaking off to the kitchens), or perhaps he is really just becoming more of a normal human being. Wonders may never cease.
The other fortunate thing about this apparent personality transplant is that he is far more relaxed around you. You suspect this may have something to do with the lack of opportunities for peacocking around Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. However, it could also be that prolonged exposure to you has inevitably given him more of your attention and he doesn't feel like it's a challenge to obtain it anymore.
In general, that thirst for your attention confuses you greatly. Practically any female at Hogwarts, save for Professor McGonagall and maybe a couple of Slytherins, would gladly lick your big toe to go to Madame Puddifoot's with James Potter (then again, he is a pureblood so maybe the Slytherins would also accept). Christ, Marlene would probably say yes. However, the only person that Potter appears to harass consistently for a date is you.
You can't help but think the challenge aspect may be a big drawcard for him because there really is no other explanation. You are intelligent but you're also prone to stress-related outbursts, bad hair days and breakouts that even Tolipan Blemish Blitzer won't fix. You wouldn't say you're ugly, but you're far from being the fairest of them all (or at least, in the Hogwarts castle).
The other confounding factor is the amount of time you now spend thinking about James Potter and his supposed transformation. You're not sure when he became such a feature in your day to day thoughts, however you stop yourself midway through a potions essay on the potential uses of Boomslang skin when you find yourself writing a sentence on how the ingredient can be used as a metaphor for the shedding of the old skin to grow into the new. This is, of course, completely irrelevant to potion making, although Slughorn will probably give you points for "ingenuity". What really shocks you is that it's only November and your solid, unshakable belief in Potter's poor attitude and undesirable personality is quickly unravelling.
This is particularly alarming for an obsessively organised person who likes to categorise their opinions into discrete, mental boxes. Chocolate? Good. Every-Flavour-Beans? Bad. Dumbledore? Good. He Who Must Not Be Named? Bad. Marlene? Lovely. Potter? Bad, but in a lovely way?
You're still trying to wrap your head around these conflicting love-to-hate type feelings when you walk side by side down down the corridors on prefect duty. James likes to come with you these days, even when it's not his allocated night. He says it's for your protection (from what exactly, you're yet to determine), but really he just likes to prattle on about things. Shockingly, you've found you don't really mind the company.
He struts alongside you, looking at ease even in the darkness of the castle. You figure this is because he has spent so many of his six and a half years sneaking around. You have to admit, you're unsure how he gets away with it so often but it is somewhat impressive. In an uncharacteristic display of adherence to the rules, he's actually doing his job tonight. He's been relatively successful at looking out for misdeeds, actually. Not twenty minutes ago he located a broom closet being used for nefarious purposes and another student out of bed. Takes one to know one, you guess.
You, on the other hand, have been completely useless, because all you can think of is the bloody Boomslang skin essay and what it means that you're now inadvertently writing observations on Potter's personality traits into your schoolwork.
You wonder if he actually takes Hogsmeade dates to Madame Puddifoots. To James' credit, it doesn't really seem like he would. He seems like the type to want to do something more illegal and adventurous, like poke around the shrieking shack. Madame Puddifoots wouldn't be for you, of course. The amount of pink in that shop would clash awfully with your hair and-
You stop yourself mid-thought in horror and have a small, internal crisis. Somehow, you manage not to make the panic evident on your face, but clearly just considered going on a date with James Potter.
Perhaps, you think, it's time to resign yourself to your fate. Perhaps, you have started to fall under the Potter-spell. Perhaps Potter isn't really having a well-needed period of personal growth; you are simply becoming immune to his prattishness because you fancy him.
Yes, fancy him.
It is true that during the first Quidditch game of the season, you actually bothered to attend. At the time, you reasoned that it was necessary for the Head Girl to at least pretend to participate in co-curricular events. However in retrospect, you never bothered to check up on the Gobstones Club or the latest Wizard's Chess Championship.
You did, however, get a very sick feeling in your stomach during that Quidditch game when Potter almost got knocked out by a bludger that managed to get past Cobb and Burgess. He missed it by an inch, but it did make you want to be sick all over the Gryffindor banner strung over the stands. You thought, at the time, it was just a lack of appreciation for the sport. Maybe in fact, you were worried about him.
It's also true that sharing a dormitory with Potter is far from the painful experience you had envisaged the day you found out that Dumbledore had chosen him to be Head Boy. You were shocked to discover that he cleans up after himself more than you do, owls his mother religiously and likes to read muggle novels.
At some point, you establish a solid Sunday night routine with Potter. You prop yourselves up on each end of the battered, comfortable couch in the common area and flip open a book, legs stretched out. At first, you were very careful they didn't touch, which was not a difficult feat given that the couch is so wide. However, you have noticed as time has gone on, that they have become a lot more haphazard. Lately, your legs have become a bit of a jumbled mess, with definitely no rules about touching.
In all honestly you like touching Potter. Mostly because you get so cold you're practically a reptile, and James is so hot he could be a warming charm. Admittedly, you also enjoy the heady rush of adrenaline you get when his skin brushes against yours, despite how innocent it is. You're not sure if Potter ever feels it, but it's almost as if you have a little electric current under your skin that sparks at the point of contact.
Potter also has some interesting quirks, you think. You've known about the anxious hair pulling since second year, but you've never looked closely enough to recognise the way his smile is slightly asymmetrical, or the fact that he goes through quills like they're going out of fashion because he chews on the end of them. Something which is absolutely abhorrent and unhygienic but is interesting nonetheless.
On the other hand, there remain some definitive character flaws about James Potter.
His arrogance, for one. It seems to dissipate slightly when he's not in front of anyone else, but it still exists nonetheless.
He knows that the vast majority of the student body are in love with everything he and Sirius do. He knows he's a talented Quidditch player and annoyingly intelligent given his blatant lack of regard for school work. He knows he's on track to break every single school rule ever envisaged and get away with it. He knows he's disgustingly good looking.
You wouldn't be surprised if one day he declares that he can solve He Who Must Not Be Named's deep seated mental issues or divide by zero.
James Potter is a prat. A very irritating prat, who looks across at you intermittently as he chatters on about something you're blatantly not listening to, consumed by your self-psychoanalysis and slight delirium.
You're not sure you could ever love James Potter. But then again, you never thought you could have liked him either and yet here you are.
Where does that even fit, you wonder? Is there a continuum you can place a little dot on in ink and be done with it? Can you prevent it from getting wet and seeping further up the page?
You're still absentmindedly staring at him when you approach the final staircase of the night. You're so immersed in your qualitative analysis of whether James Potter is an unfortunate phase or a deeply ingrained issue of attraction that you've totally submitted to your thoughts over your reality.
Unfortunately, reality has a way of springing itself on you, no matter how hard you think.
You're not really aware of falling until you feel a sharp pain in your head and the clanging of a suit of armour that has somehow become a casualty of your clumsiness. The pain tells you that you manage to hit something relatively hard on the way down and the wooziness says you do it in a fashion which probably looks spectacularly uncoordinated. When you look up and see a flight of stairs hazing in and out from above you, you cringe.
Things are getting a bit fuzzy. Black spots appear in your vision and you start to become a bit more concerned about potential brain injury. You've always been a mild hypochondriac, but you've never actually managed to fall headfirst down a flight of stairs before. You are somewhat unsure how seriously you should take the pounding in your head.
A concerned face appears into your vision, swimming in and out of focus. It smirks slightly. You can't even blame him because you suppose the sight was at least mildly funny.
"Evans?" he says inquiringly, scooping your top half up with his arms and lifting you into a seated position. Potter is evidently uneducated about spinal injuries. You thank Merlin that you appear to have hit your head, rather than fractured your spine. Potter could have paralysed you for life in two seconds flat.
"Lily?" he repeats, a little less sure of himself. His dark eyebrows knit into confusion, his top teeth biting down on his bottom lip.
"Must have missed the top step," you mumble, somewhat coherently. He snickers and runs a hand over the top of your head.
"Should I take you to the hospital wing?" he asks. "I can tell them that we got attacked by a rogue broom closet and you fell while saving me from its perilous grasp."
Despite the tenderness in the back of your skull you swat at him with your left hand, which he deftly avoids. "If you make me go to the hospital wing or dare repeat this incident to anyone, I'll use your broomstick for firewood."
He grins and silently runs his fingers across his lips. Before you can truly appreciate what is happening, he picks you up gently in his arms. You only let him do it because it's another fifty metres to the Heads dormitory and you don't feel like walking. That's what you tell yourself, anyway.
In reality, you can feel that ink dot moving, and it seems to be totally out of your control. Either that, or you don't want to control it, and honestly you're not sure what is worse. Lily Evans, the final frontier in the staunch aversion to James Potter's charms, has capitulated. Raised the white flag. Totally given up.
In any case, you've literally just fallen head over heels at the mere thought of him. Boomslang skin be damned.