Hello! You know that relatable moment when you delete all of the old fics on your account because you suddenly hate them and then you spontaneously create a brand new account to post your new fic on because for some reason you think a fresh slate (read: new account) will make a difference? Well, I've recently experienced something very similar.
Rating is T for language. It's a pretty pg story, but there are some f-bombs.
This is quite a silly idea, and I genuinely don't remember how I came up with it, but I'm quite pleased with the net result.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy :)
It all started on a Monday.
Lily remembered this because she had been walking to lunch at the time and looking forward to the mushroom soup that was served on every first Monday of the month. She had almost reached the Great Hall when somebody bumped into her and she dropped the potions textbook she was carrying. She bent down to pick it up, but before she could, it was snatched up by James Potter, who then presented it to her with flourish. She hadn't even seen him in the corridor.
"Oh, thanks," she said as she took it from him. She supposed it was nice of him to pick her book up for her, but it was also rather unnecessary because it had only fallen about six inches away from the toes of her shoes.
"No problem," he replied. He flashed her a surprisingly genuine smile and walked into the Great Hall.
The whole thing was a bit odd, really, but Lily didn't think much of it.
Not until Sirius Black came up behind her and slung an arm around her shoulders casually, as though they were great friends. But they weren't, so this action confused Lily.
"What are you–" she tried to ask, but he started talking over her.
"Holy shit, Evans! Did you see that?"
He said this with such sincerity that Lily immediately wondered what she had just missed.
"See what?" she asked.
"The incredible poise and chivalry of one James Potter, of course. Picking up a girl's books for her? Absolute classic. You should feel lucky. You are lucky. Wow. That was amazing."
And then he walked away, and Lily was left wondering if he was fucking with her or not. He had to be. Why else would he say that?
The Marauders were such weirdos.
She walked into the Great Hall, sat down next to her friends, and served herself a heaping bowl of mushroom soup.
James and Sirius sat at the opposite end of the Gryffindor table with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, talking and laughing seemingly inconspicuously. She wondered vaguely if they were up to something.
The next day passed uneventfully. That evening she met with Remus Lupin in the common room for prefect rounds.
She enjoyed doing rounds. It was basically just a relaxing walk around the castle that she was required to do twice a week as part of her sixth year prefect duties. Remus was a good partner. He was nice, and companionable, but also responsible, and they never ran out of things to talk about.
Remus arrived right on time, as per usual. She smiled at him in greeting, and he smiled back weakly, not making eye-contact.
Lily frowned.
As soon as they exited the portrait hole and began making their route, Lily turned to look at him. "Are you alright, Remus?"
He took a deep breath and then something seemed to come over him. Something that Lily could only describe as "the Marauder persona."
"I'm great. Fantastic, even. You know who else is fantastic? James. What a wonderful guy. Did you know that he tutors first years in his free time? "
Lily scowled. "Okay, what the hell is going on? First Sirius, now you? Did Potter put you up to this?" she said.
Remus shook his head fervently. "I really don't know what you're talking about. The only thing going on here is James's generosity. He's the best friend anybody could possibly ask for."
The rest of the patrol passed much in the same way. Remus refused to stop spewing praise for James Potter for a single second. They ended their evening together with Remus shouting nonsense about Potter's Quidditch skills at Lily's retreating form as she stomped up the girls' dormitory stairs.
She angrily brushed her teeth and washed her face. Then she climbed into bed. She lay there stewing for a moment. And then she started to giggle.
In hindsight, she couldn't not laugh at Remus. The suffering expression on his face while he frantically rambled on about James Potter would be forever burned into her mind.
But she sobered as she thought about the boy in question.
What the fuck was he up to?
In the grand scheme of things that he had done to her throughout their years at Hogwarts, whatever this was was looking to be on the more harmless end of the spectrum. But was it asking too much for him to just leave her alone? He had been doing pretty well this year – in fact, now that she thought of it, the last time they had fought was that fateful day after their Defense OWL during the previous year, which was a new record, for sure – but there was definitely something fishy going on now.
She wasn't sure what to expect for the following day, but she tried not to dwell on it as she tossed and turned and tried in vain to fall asleep. She would later realize that it was not yet nine o'clock, which was probably why she was having so much difficulty.
She went about her morning warily, keeping an eye out for any and all Marauders, but nothing happened.
Until her first class of the day ended and she was immediately approached by Peter Pettigrew, that is.
She gathered her belongings and walked out of the classroom. As soon as she was in the stone corridor she heard the quick patter of footsteps from somewhere not far behind her and when she turned to look for the source of the noise, she saw Peter running after her.
"Where did you come from?" she asked as he caught up to her.
"Oh, you know," he replied vaguely, panting.
She didn't know.
"Say, Lily," Peter said, "would you mind if I walked with you to your next class?"
Lily blinked. "But you're not in my next class."
"Well, no, I'm not," he admitted. "But I had something I wanted to talk to you about."
"Let me guess," Lily said dryly. "You want to tell me that James Potter is the most amazing person you've ever had the pleasure to know, among other things."
"Yes, actually," he said. He wasn't wearing a backpack. She found that odd.
"Alright, Peter. Let's hear it," she found herself saying.
When her second class, ancient runes, ended, she found Peter waiting for her outside the classroom. Was he skipping classes all day for this?
"Oh! Hi, Peter…" He had startled her.
"Hi, Lily!" he replied. He had no preamble this time, jumping straight into it.
"Did you know that James scored eight outstandings on his OWLs?"
"No, I didn't know that."
"Well, he did. James is very smart. He had the highest transfiguration score out of anybody who took the OWL that year."
"Wow."
"I know, right! James is also very good to his parents. He helped Mrs. Potter with her gardening all summer."
"Did he now?"
"Yes! And did you know that James tutors first year students in his free time? He's so great with kids."
"Remus already told me about that one."
"Oh. Well, did you know that James also tutors second years?"
"No."
"And James helped raise money for not one, but two different charities over the summer."
"Yeah? What charities?"
"Um… I'll have to check back in with you on that."
Peter dutifully kept this up for the rest of the day, going as far as to walk with her to dinner, even when she tried to ditch him by insisting on a detour to the restroom, the library, and then to her dormitory. He waited patiently for her to return each time (except for the library, where he followed her around as she pretended to be looking for a book, merely continuing his tirades in a lower volume), and then launched back into his acclamations as soon as they were striding down the corridors again. As such, she learned plenty more information about James Potter that day, including his haircare routine ("James doesn't use any product in his hair, it just naturally looks that cool! Can you believe it?"), and the locations of his most recent family vacations ("James has been to France, and Spain, and America, and Germany, and Italy, and even India! I hope to be that cultured one day.").
The next day, in addition to Peter's dogging, Sirius Black saw it fit to pass Lily notes about James throughout the entirety of every class that they shared (which admittedly was only two, but still).
Perhaps "passing notes" isn't the right phrase. He lobbed crumpled balls of parchment at her head, and they happened to contain writing within them.
This proved to be much more irritating than anything Peter Pettigrew had done, something that Lily wouldn't have believed possible until the moment the first note hit her. That was when she knew she was in trouble.
In one of these classes, James sat beside Sirius, though he appeared not to notice the barrage of paper.
But Lily was pretty sure that, after one note had smacked her particularly hard in the ear, she saw James gesticulating furiously at Sirius out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned around, they weren't so much as looking at one another. James was watching the professor with (suspiciously) rapt attention, and Sirius looked dreadfully bored, the latter of which was pretty typical. As she watched them, James jotted down notes (definitely suspicious), and Sirius stretched in a cavalier manner.
When she turned back to face the front of the classroom, though, she was immediately pelted with another ball. She scowled, but opened it and smoothed out the wrinkles.
It read:
James can hold his breath for over two minutes without passing out.
That was all it said.
That was the other thing about Sirius's notes: they were odd. Both Remus and Peter sounded like they were reading off of a script, a slightly bizarre, but highly complimentary script. Sirius, it seemed, was just saying whatever the hell he wanted to. She wasn't sure if any of his notes even constituted compliments.
That night, Peter did not insist on walking her to dinner, which she counted as a small mercy. Instead, she walked down to the Great Hall with her friend and dormmate, Mary MacDonald. They chatted pleasantly about a Charms paper that was due soon on the way down, and then sat at the Gryffindor table in their usual spot, near their other friends.
A few minutes later, the Marauders walked into the hall, laughing and talking loudly, as per usual. Then they sat down at the Gryffindor table on the side of Lily that her friends did not occupy, quite near to her, which was very unusual, indeed. The Marauders sat in the same place every day, for every meal (unless they were conspicuously absent, which was not an uncommon occurrence), at the very far end of the table. Nobody ever even tried to sit in their seats, whether they were in them or not, because it was an unspoken rule that they firmly belonged to the Marauders. And yet, here they were, sitting somewhere else for the first time Lily could remember in recent memory. She was giving them an odd look, and she could see that others were, too, but they seemed not to notice.
She angled her body towards her friends, and tried to ignore the Marauders, but this proved to be difficult. Mostly because she had the oddest sensation that they were watching her, that their hushed whispers were about her. And yet every time she glanced their way, they seemed completely unaware of her presence. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have convinced herself that she was being paranoid, but after the events of the past few days, she wasn't so sure.
Lily went to reach for the dish of roasted potatoes, but it was just out of her reach. She extended her fingers as far as they would extend, and strained herself, but her fingertips barely brushed the dish.
Peter Pettigrew sat to her immediate left, and the potatoes were directly before him. He could easily hand them to her, if she asked him to. She wanted those potatoes, but did she really want them that badly? Badly enough to draw attention to herself while the Marauders were leaving her alone?
She thought it over for a moment, and then decided that she did. She tapped Peter on the shoulder, and was immediately met with four sets of curious eyes. She hated when they did that: acted as though they were one collective being. It was so creepy. She immediately felt self-conscious under their gazes. She cleared her throat awkwardly and tried to focus only on Peter.
"Um, hi. Could you pass me the potatoes, please?"
Peter nodded brightly and made to reach for the potato dish, but Sirius smacked his hand away.
Uh-oh, Lily thought.
"James!" Sirius hissed, "Lily needs the potatoes." And he paired these words with an equally unsubtle elbow to Potter's ribs.
James ignored Sirius, but rose from his seat anyway (he was even further away from the potatoes than Lily was). He went to grab the potatoes, and was forced to fully invade poor Peter's personal space in the process. He put the dish down in front of a mildly embarrassed Lily, who had not intended to cause such a commotion, but couldn't find it in herself to be surprised.
"Thank you," she murmured, forcing herself to look up at him.
He smiled at her – it was the same smile he had given her the other day, very warm and open and earnest. Something about it had her transfixed, unable to look away. She felt herself heating further under his gaze, which lasted too long to be casual. He seemed to realize this, too, because he tore himself away very abruptly and went back to his seat, without so much as a word.
With a start, she realized that Mary was talking to her, and that she was still watching Potter.
"Lily!"
"Sorry, what?"
"What the hell was that about?" she asked, her brows furrowed suspiciously.
"I have literally no idea," Lily answered honestly.
The following day passed in a similar fashion, to Lily's frustration. She wondered for how much longer they would keep this up. She endured Sirius's notes, Peter's stalking, and the Marauders' collective proximity during all three mealtimes, and by the evening, when it was time for prefect rounds, she was thoroughly exhausted from the week she'd had.
She took the dormitory stairs down to the common room somewhat apprehensively. She wasn't sure she would be able to stand if Remus insisted on talking about James Potter for the entirety of their rounds. Again.
She saw that he was waiting for her near the portrait hole. He looked tense. He had his hands in his pockets, and he kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Lily was filled with a ridiculously dramatic sense of foreboding.
As Lily approached him, he straightened up, and gave her a pained smile. She returned it with equal trepidation, and they set off.
They walked in heavy, uncomfortable silence for several minutes. Remus kept his eyes on the floor, but Lily's kept straying to his face, eyeing him suspiciously.
Eventually, Remus cleared his throat.
Lily prepared herself for the onslaught.
"Look, Lily," Remus said, meeting her gaze. "I don't want to do this."
"Yeah," Lily replied, surprised. "I mean, I kind of figured."
Remus exhaled a chuckle and ran his hand through his hair, a habit he had obviously picked up from Potter.
"I meant what I said, though, you know," he said. "James really is a wonderful friend. But he's also an idiot sometimes. I may not always agree with him, but I try to support him, because I owe him so much."
He looked at Lily again.
"But you're my friend, too, so I'm not going to torture you during patrols anymore."
Lily grinned at him. "Oh, thank Merlin."
Remus smiled in return, much more open this time. "Well, I figure you're getting enough of it already between Peter and Sirius that I can afford to shirk my duties. But officially, you and I spent the entire hour discussing a rundown of James's top fifty best qualities, got it?"
"Sure," Lily said. "Wait, that's not a real thing, is it? You're joking, right?"
"Nope!" Remus chortled and pulled a thick wad of folded parchment out of his trouser pocket. "We've each got a hefty list of talking points."
He waved it in front of her demonstratively, and then shoved it back into his pocket.
Lily frowned. "What is this, Remus? Why is he doing this?"
Remus's expression sobered, but he didn't say anything. Perhaps he would have, but Lily didn't give him the chance.
"I mean, the last time I even spoke to James-sodding-Potter was last May, and we all know how that went, and then nothing for six whole months, and now this, whatever this is! How am I supposed to keep up?"
Remus sighed. "I shouldn't say anything," he hesitated. "You should talk to James."
Lily groaned.
"I know, but I think that's going to be the only way to resolve this… situation."
"This is ridiculous."
Remus held up his hands placatingly. "I agree, and I told him I didn't think it was a good idea. He never listens – I'm sure I don't need to tell you that."
And that was all Remus would give her. When she pressed him further, all he would say was, "Talk to James." He seemed truly convinced that doing so would solve everything, but Lily wasn't.
Remus had put it perfectly: James Potter never listened to anybody. For years she had asked him to stop doing things, whether that be picking on other students, hexing her former friend Severus Snape, bothering her all the goddamned time, or literally anything else, and he had never abided by her wishes. If anything, her negative attention egged him on. Lily wasn't blind, and she tried very hard to be unbiased, so she knew that James had grown up at least a little bit since that day by the lake. She could see that he was changing, slowly maturing out of obnoxious adolescence. And for that reason, she couldn't bear to confront him about this – for lack of a better word – harassment. Because a part of her hoped, as it always had, that James Potter would eventually become a good person. And as she had watched him this year while he carried himself taller, and displayed small random acts of kindness, and, at one point, deescalated a potential fight instead of throwing the first punch, she'd had this cautious optimism that it was actually happening. But this, this felt like a relapse into old-James behavior. Old-James loved frustrating her (check), he loved playing confusing mind-games at the expense of innocent victims (check), and he loved receiving negative attention in response to his behaviors.
Lily didn't want to talk to James because she didn't want to be disappointed when he didn't listen to her.
So she didn't.
But by the next morning, she was almost wishing that she had.
She woke up, feeling something akin to smug relief.
It was a Saturday. A glorious Saturday. Not only were there no classes, and therefore less opportunities for Marauder stalking, but that particular Saturday was a Quidditch match. And not just any Quidditch match; the Slytherin v. Gryffindor match that the entire school had anticipated all year, as they did every year.
James Potter was the captain of the Quidditch team, and his friends were his biggest groupies. There was no way any of them would bother with her on this particular Saturday. They wouldn't have time between the match and either the massive sulk or the enormous festivities that would ensue following the match.
She took her sweet time getting ready that morning, luxuriously showering, dressing, and humming all the way. The only thought that was nagging at her was that Mary wasn't in the dorm. When Lily woke up, Mary was already gone, which was highly unusual. Normally Lily would have to drag Mary out of bed on Saturdays, even on Quidditch days. But today, even though the match wasn't starting for another two hours, Mary was nowhere to be found.
Lily had been planning to skip breakfast before heading to the match – while she was confident that the Marauders wouldn't bother her this day, there was no need to tempt fate – but it occurred to her that perhaps Mary had been struck by hunger and gone to breakfast uncharacteristically early. Lily and Mary always sat together at Quidditch matches, and so Lily went down to find her, and to possibly snag some pancakes while she was at it.
When she walked into the Great Hall, a brief scan located Mary. Lily began walking towards her, and then noticed who she was talking to. Peter Pettigrew, upon seeing Lily walking towards him and Mary, squeaked and scurried from the hall. Lily looked, but didn't see any other members of the posse.
She took a seat next to Mary and eyed her suspiciously.
"Morning!" Mary said nonchalantly, busying herself with the platter of sausages.
"Morning…" Lily replied. "What was that all about?" She speared a stack of pancakes onto her plate.
"Hmm?" Mary asked, cutting a sausage with more fervor than necessary. "Oh, you mean with Peter? Yeah, he was just asking if I'd seen Claudia anywhere."
Lily frowned as she buttered her pancakes. "Why was he looking for Claudia? He's sort of been avoiding her since they broke up, haven't you noticed? I'm not really sure what's going on there, but he runs for the hills every time she walks into a room."
Mary made eye-contact with Lily for the first time since she sat down. "They broke up? I had no idea! When?"
"Like, a month ago."
"Oh. Well, maybe he was asking if I'd seen her so he could make sure he didn't. I don't know, I didn't ask. That's a bummer, though."
"Yeah," Lily replied vaguely. She took a bite. "You're up awfully early."
"Ugh, Mindy stomped to the bathroom like an elephant at seven and then I couldn't get back to sleep. I thought I might as well get some food before the match so I'm not cranky all day."
"That's a good call. Last time you started shouting at Madam Hooch because your blood sugar got too low."
"Well, she was making poor decisions."
An hour later they were getting ready to head down to the pitch, making sure to leave early to get desirable seats.
They walked together across the grounds, discussing the current Slytherin lineup. Right before they reached the pitch, Mary stopped.
"Oh, bugger," she said.
"What is it?" Lily asked, alarmed.
"I need to take a piss."
"What? Now?"
"Yeah, it's urgent," Mary insisted.
"Why didn't you go before we left the castle?"
"I didn't have to then! Listen, you head in now and get us good seats, I'll run back and pee, and then I'll come and join you."
"Are you sure?" Lily asked. "I can come with you, we're still pretty early."
"No!"
Lily narrowed her eyes. "Is everything okay, Mare?"
"Yeah! Of course it is. I just need to pee. Go sit down!"
"Okay, weirdo. See you in a few."
And with that, Mary hurried away.
Lily shook her head and continued towards the pitch. When she arrived at the stands, not many people were there yet, so she was able to sit in the highly coveted middle area of the Gryffindor stands. If one sat any lower than that, most of the action was above them, and they would therefore have to crane their necks upwards for the entire match. Nobody wanted to sit much higher than that either, because many of the stands above were rather rickety and less comfortable.
She had with her that morning's paper from breakfast, and perused it while she waited for Mary.
A few minutes later she heard footsteps approaching, but when she looked up it was not Mary, but Peter walking towards her.
She groaned internally. She had been banking on them ignoring her all day!
"Hi, Lily!" he said brightly.
"Hi, Peter."
"Do you mind if I sit by you?"
"Go ahead. But I'm waiting for Mary, and she and I are really looking forward to the match," Lily informed him, hoping that it would put him off of wanting to talk about Potter.
"No problem!" he replied. "I'm just gonna sit myself down right here and be nice and quiet," he said, as he sat down beside her.
"Sounds good." Lily went back to her newspaper.
A few minutes later, Lily heard another pair of footsteps. She looked up hopefully, but this was also not Mary. Instead, Sirius Black. It just got worse and worse.
"Ah! Peter, Evans, lovely to see you both on this fine day. Looking forward to an exciting match?"
"Mhmm," Lily replied.
He took a seat on Lily's other side. "Mind if I sit here, Evans?"
"Yes, actually," she replied. "I'm saving that seat for Mary."
"Ah, I see. Well, when she shows up, I'll move. How about that?"
"Whatever," she replied, not in the mood for a Sirius Black argument, which always entailed finagling and endless semantics, and usually ended with him getting what he wanted.
A few minutes later, Remus approached and took a seat beside Peter.
"Mary's not coming, is she?" Lily asked them.
Remus gave her an apologetic smile.
"Another goal for Gryffindor! Potter is in rare form today!" announced Hufflepuff Gerald Buckley from the commentator's booth.
The three goons beside Lily cheered.
"Do mine eyes deceive me, Moony, or was that a perfectly executed Woollongong Shimmy James just pulled off?" Sirius shouted over Lily and Peter to Remus.
"You'd know better than I would," Remus replied, casting an amused look at Lily, who was rolling her eyes.
"Oh, come on. You're making these up now," Lily accused.
"Oh ho," Sirius said, "someone's behind on her Quidditch Through the Ages."
The Wooly Gong Shimmy, or whatever Sirius was going on about, was the fifteenth or so ridiculously named Quidditch tactic they had attributed to Potter's playing since the match had started twenty minutes earlier.
"Oof!" Buckley exclaimed. "Gardner takes a massive hit to the elbow from the Gryffindor Beaters. An excellent shot with that Bludger, but Gardner looks worse for wear. Will Slytherin have to send in their reserve Seeker? No, she's shaking it off. Good on her!"
Peter turned to Lily. "That reminds me of that time last year when James took a Bludger for Henry Hornbeam. It was his first match, and he was only a third year. James broke a rib and still managed to score eight more goals before going to the hospital wing. James is such a great captain!"
Sirius snorted. "Hornbeam still wets his pants with awe and gratitude every time Prongs so much as looks at him."
"James has always had a bit of a savior complex," Remus added.
"Hmm," Lily replied.
This was the third story they had told her about what a wonderful team captain he was. The first involved him personally tutoring one of the team Beaters so his grades were high enough to stay on the team and the second was about a time he let the Seeker borrow his own broom for a match after hers was damaged, using one of the school's outdated models for himself, and securing a Gryffindor victory regardless.
It was very annoying, as was this entire experience. But if Lily was honest with herself, the most annoying part was that it was working on her. They obviously wanted her to be impressed by James's Quidditch skills, and goddamnit, she was. There was no mistaking that he was a fantastic flier, especially with the three stooges ranting about it in her ear. She'd always known this, but watching him flying in this moment while hearing about how talented he was and how caring he was towards his team was starting to affect her. She could see how well the seven of them worked together, how much they all respected Potter. She found herself watching him more than the game as a whole, as she normally did. He really was amazing on that broom…
"Did you know that James has scored more goals during Hogwarts matches than anyone in the last twenty years?" Peter asked her.
"Really?"
Remus nodded. "Yeah, actually. He reached the milestone last year. If he finishes strongly this year and next, he might be the highest scorer in over fifty years."
"Well," Lily replied, "that's certainly… impressive."
She saw Sirius and Remus exchange a look that irritated her immensely. She added, "If one is impressed by that sort of thing, I guess," for their benefit. Sirius flashed her a smug, knowing grin, which made her even more irritated.
Potter scored again, and the stands around her erupted into cheers.
The game ended about thirty minutes later when the Gryffindor Seeker caught the Snitch. It was a Gryffindor victory of 390 - 120. It would seem that this was a festivities kind of day.
Lily exited the stands with the three Marauders chattering excitedly about James's performance and Gryffindor's odds for the Quidditch cup. Sirius threw an arm around Lily's shoulders and began guiding her away from where the Hogwarts population was meandering back to the castle.
"Where are we going?" Lily asked, suddenly suspicious.
"To congratulate James on his splendid victory, of course."
"Um, no, I think I'm alright."
"Relax, Evans," Sirius said. "You enjoyed the match, yeah?"
"Sure," Lily replied.
"Okay, well tell James that. It'll make his year. Five seconds, in and out."
Lily reluctantly allowed herself to be led to the Gryffindor team locker room. She told herself she was just avoiding another potential Sirius Black argument.
Lily had never been in any of the Quidditch locker rooms before. When the four of them entered, there were only four members of the team remaining. Two of them were changing out of their Quidditch robes and getting ready to leave, and in the corner, Potter was talking to one of the Gryffindor Chasers. Lily could just barely hear him complimenting her on her improvement.
"Oi, Prongs!" Sirius called.
James looked over at them and did a double take when he saw Lily, which Lily might have found amusing if she hadn't felt so awkward.
He walked over to greet them, and as he got closer, Lily could see that he was sweaty, but not in a gross way. Rather, he looked like he'd just finished winning a sports match, which he had. His curly black hair was even messier than usual, the wind having ruffled it much better than his fingers could. As she had that thought, his right hand made its way into his hair, running through it a couple of times. He still wore his Quidditch robes, though he'd removed his elbow and knee pads. Overall, he looked… maybe she should quit that thought while she was still ahead.
"Evans," he said as he approached.
"Hi," she replied.
Nobody said anything else. The last team member left the locker room, and then it was just the five of them. And nobody was saying anything. She could tell she had caught James off guard by the way he was looking at her. She could feel the other Marauders' eyes on her expectantly. Sirius cleared his throat. That was her cue.
"I – uh – enjoyed the match," she said.
"Yeah?" James asked, sounding a bit dazed.
"Yeah," Lily replied. "You played really well."
And then she turned on her heel, heart racing, and fled the locker room. She speed-walked all the way to the castle. What the fuck was going on?
Unfortunately for Lily, the next week passed similarly to the previous one. There were some key differences, though.
Peter still stalked her, and still insisted on rattling off compliments and facts and figures about James Potter, but before where they had been mostly believable, they were now flat-out lies.
On Tuesday, as they were walking to Lily's transfiguration class, Peter insisted that James had read over 5,000 books, that he spoke four languages, and that he was friends with every merperson in the lake.
When Lily asked him to bolster these claims he began talking over her about how he really hoped there would be brussels sprouts at dinner because those were James's favorite vegetables.
Sirius continued with his note passing, but he no longer stopped at merely chucking odd notes at her during their shared classes. Firstly, they were no longer just odd facts about James. It would seem that Sirius had grown bored of that, because the notes had become mostly either insults or embarrassing things about Potter. As well, Lily now found his notes in her personal effects on a regular basis.
She reached into her pocket to retrieve a hair tie in potions, and instead retracted one of Sirius's notes. That one read:
When James was twelve, he ate so much ice cream that he vomited on Mrs. Potter's antique rug.
When she opened her arithmancy textbook to the assigned reading, one of Sirius's notes was neatly tucked on the precise page she needed reading:
He has the singing voice of a grievously ill Frank Sinatra.
How Sirius knew who that was she had no idea.
She found several loose in her backpack over the course of the week. Standing out in particular were:
He's always tapping his fucking feet and it's so fucking annoying.
And:
He ate a flobberworm once on a bet.
And one time, a confused first year handed her one that read:
He definitely cheats at Wizard's chess because there's no way someone that stupid is actually better than everybody at chess.
She had no idea how he was doing it.
By far her favorite part of the situation had become her Prefect rounds with Remus. Remus still felt obligated to talk about Potter, but rather than read off of his script, he had quickly devolved into regaling Lily with classic James-related shenanigans that sometimes made her laugh so hard her stomach hurt. It was these that endeared her to James more than anything else these bozos were subjecting her to. In these stories she saw him through the eyes of his friends, the people who cared about him the most. She saw him being human, and humbled, and clever, and stupid, and kind. It was these stories that she was thinking of when, on occasion, during a class she shared with him, or during a mealtime (the Marauders were still sitting near her), or when they happened to be studying near each other in the library, she found herself watching him with a smile playing on her lips.
Another change was Mary, the traitor. After the Quidditch match, it became apparent that they had somehow recruited Mary to their cause. Lily didn't see Mary very often (which was exceptionally odd, considering they shared a dormitory), and when she did, Mary would ignore Lily's questions and accusations until the subject was changed, and Lily would be forced to let it go if she wanted to spend time with Mary, which she did, even if she was a traitor.
Lily was still irritated by the whole ordeal, which hadn't changed. Well, maybe it had. For some reason, it was harder and harder to be irritated by the whole thing. Peter's claims were all ridiculous, as was his behavior. Sirius's notes made her chuckle. And Remus's stories made Prefect rounds more fun than they already were. For some reason, she was having a hard time remembering why this had been driving her crazy only a week before.
That all changed on Thursday evening.
Lily was getting ready to take a shower before bed. It was only eight, but she'd had a long day, and had just finished an exhausting essay. She collected the clothes she planned to change into after her shower absentmindedly as she hummed a wizarding song she'd heard on the wireless earlier.
She opened her underwear drawer and stopped dead. She picked up the note sitting on top of her bras and opened it. She recognized the hand-writing as Sirius's and didn't even bother to read the note itself. She dumped the clothes she was holding on her bed and stomped down the girls' dormitory stairs, down to the common room.
She located the four Marauders in their corner, by the fire. She strode over to them. Sirius was the first to notice her. When he looked up, the others did, too (there was that collective-being creepiness again). She threw the note down on the table between them and said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
They looked taken aback.
"Lily–" Remus began.
"I found this in my underwear drawer."
Sirius looked amused, but James looked horrified. Peter was blushing.
"I can't do this anymore," Lily said, the brief anger at the violation of her privacy fading, replaced by the day's exhaustion.
"I've been a good sport for whatever this nonsense has been, and I don't have any hard feelings, but this crossed a line. I'm done. I want to walk to class by myself, and not have to worry about how Sirius is putting notes in my pockets, and have Mary stop avoiding me because you lot have got her playing double agent. I'm done."
And with that, Lily walked up to her dorm, took her shower, and went to bed.
Lily was wrong. James did listen to her.
The moment she asked them to stop, everything stopped. The Marauders went back to their normal seats for mealtimes, Peter stopped following her around, and she didn't receive another note, either during class, or somewhere amongst her belongings.
Mary, who had been in the common room during Lily's outburst and had thus heard the exchange, had immediately rushed to confess that she had been the one leaving the notes, including the underwear one, which did make Lily feel better.
But Lily still felt off about the whole situation. Now that it was over, she sort of missed it. The Marauders all avoided her now, with the exception of Remus, and for some reason, she felt worse, rather than better. It wasn't that she missed all of the ridiculous things they were doing, but rather she found herself missing their presence in her life. More than that were her… feelings towards James Potter. Things were shifting, changing in some way that she either couldn't understand, or wasn't ready to let herself understand. The entire thing felt… unresolved.
There was only one thing to do. She hated how Remus was always right.
James entered his dorm with a yawn. He closed the door behind him. Then he turned around.
"Good Godric!"
"It's not fun to have your personal space invaded, is it?" Lily asked from atop James's bed.
James looked like he was having an aneurysm. "What are you- I swear- why- I didn't- I'm sorry- underwear- you're on my- what is-"
Lily took pity on him. "I know that Mary was behind the notes. You can stop glitching, I'm not mad about that anymore."
James nodded dumbly. "You're on my bed."
Lily pretended to examine her surroundings in confusion. "Huh. So I am."
"Why are you on my bed?"
"Because I wanted to talk to you. I figured I'd take the opportunity to do something weird and unnecessary and privacy-invading while I was at it. You know, as a really lame form of revenge."
James seemed to get a grip on himself while she was speaking. He sat across from her, on Sirius's bed, looking somewhat mollified.
He couldn't seem to stop looking at her. His eyes were glued to her face, like how they'd been in the locker room the week before. Like then, she found herself looking back.
After a moment, he cleared his throat and seemed to realize where they were. Again.
"We're in my room."
"Yep."
"You're on my bed."
"Yep."
"How'd you know which one was mine?"
She raised her eyebrows. "It was pretty obvious." She gestured to the Quidditch posters around the bed.
"Yeah, that makes sense."
"Yeah."
"So... what did you want to talk about?"
Lily took her time to answer. She thought about the events of the last two weeks and how she felt about them.
"I guess my biggest thing is why. You constructed this... bizarre scheme to have your friends talk you up to me at every possible moment. But why? Why would you do that? I just don't get it. I've wracked my brain about this. As far as pranks go, it was pretty harmless. Weird, but harmless. But what was the point? I don't get the joke."
James looked at her like she was stupid. "It wasn't a joke."
"What?"
"It wasn't a joke. It wasn't a prank, either."
"What?"
James rolled his eyes. "For someone so brilliant you can be quite thick sometimes. That's the whole reason I've had to do all this."
"What on earth are you on about? Of course it was a prank. You had Peter following me around spouting nonsense. You had Sirius chucking notes about you eating flobberworms at my head."
James scowled at this. "I'm gonna fucking kill him. That wasn't the plan. None of that was the plan. That was just my friends being useless idiots."
"What plan? I'm so confused."
James sighed. "Merlin, this is humiliating. Okay, I… suggested to my mates that perhaps they could help you see some of my... better qualities, and they muffed it all up because they made a big joke out of it. When I told Sirius to stop throwing parchment at you, he got MacDonald to start leaving it in your pockets. When I said Peter could walk with you to class if he needed an excuse to talk to you, he apparently took that as a request to stalk you. And don't even get me started on Remus. I give him a list of potential talking points and he reads it verbatim like some passive-aggressive robot. Useless, the lot of them."
Lily shook her head. "I don't understand. Why would you ask them to do any of that?"
"Well, I didn't really want to," James said. "This was plan C."
"If you don't start giving me straight answers I'm going to… get frustrated," she finished lamely.
James laughed. "We can't have that, can we?" He ran a hand through his hair. "To put it simply: plan A was to ask you out. That was the strategy I employed last year. As you and I both know, it was a rather unsuccessful campaign. Plan B was to 1.) be less terrible and 2.) have you notice. The first part of that plan has since been accomplished, but I was struggling with the second part, so I employed my idiot mates for plan C to remedy that. And well, you saw how that went. I suppose you could say that now I'm operating plan D: somehow manage to get Lily Evans alone with you in your room and realize that you should probably be honest about how much you like her and how much of an idiot it makes you because that's the best way to explain all of the stupid things you've done now that she's asking you about them."
Lily's heart pounded. Her face flushed. Her stomach was consumed by butterflies. "You… like me?"
"Merlin, is that the only thing you got from all that?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
James smiled. "Yes, I like you. Always have done, I reckon."
"You liked me last year?"
"Yeah, 'course I did. Why do you think I asked you out all the time?"
"Well, I don't know. As some sort of terrible prank, I suppose. All we did was fight last year. And actually every other year we've known each other."
"Yeah, I know. I hadn't quite figured out how to not be a berk yet. And I liked making you pay attention to me. Even if it was negative."
Lily frowned. "So you being a decent human this year… that was just to impress me?" Though James's confession thrilled her for reasons she was not yet ready to accept, this particular prospect disappointed her immensely. Because she had noticed that he had matured. And she had been glad of it, regardless of the circumstances or her own feelings. She was glad that this boy who had always had so much potential was finally becoming a man who was worthy of it. But if it wasn't genuine, if he'd had an ulterior motive, then it lost its meaning.
"Nah. There were a lot of different things that made me realize I needed to grow the fuck up. That's a different story, though. But once I had grown the fuck up a bit, I realized how disrespectful I'd been to you. I mean, if I liked you as much as I thought I did, then why was I trying to provoke you all the time? Why was I asking you out when you'd made it clear you weren't interested? If some other bloke was pulling that shit on you I'd have hexed him into another decade."
Lily gave him an unimpressed look.
"I tried to give up on you altogether," James went on. "I told myself all summer, 'you've never even had a proper conversation with this girl. Just let it go.'"
Lily raised an eyebrow. "How did that work out for you?"
"Oh, terribly. The moment I saw you on the train platform I crumbled. So I thought instead I would try to show you that I'd changed, and that in turn maybe you would change your mind about me. But that didn't work at all. I may as well have been invisible this year for all you noticed me."
Lily furrowed her brows. "That's not true at all. I noticed that you had matured. I was really glad to see it. That's why I was so confused when all of this rot started. I thought you were having some sort of mischief relapse."
"Oh," James said. "Well, you didn't show it. I kept going out of my way to make a good impression, but you kept ignoring me."
Lily had absolutely no recollection of this. "I don't think that's right. What specifically were you doing? I definitely have not been deliberately ignoring you."
"Well, I started sitting near you in classes so you could see that I was putting more effort into my schoolwork. And I would look at you sometimes in the common room in case you happened to look over at me so I could start a conversation with you without making you uncomfortable. And I made sure to loudly talk about how I hadn't had detention since fifth year once when I passed you in the hallway."
Lily laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"You're ridiculous."
"What? How so?"
"Of course I didn't notice any of that! Why would I have noticed any of that? You were so ridiculously subtle, I'd have to be practically stalking you to pick up on any of that. Why didn't you just talk to me, you weirdo?"
"I didn't think you wanted me to!"
"Well, I probably didn't. But I believe in second chances." Lily smiled. "I saw the changes in you this year. If you had made polite small talk with me I would have made polite small talk back."
James groaned. "Godric, I'm a prat. I could have just asked you what you thought of the weather this whole time? Ugh, I didn't even need to go through that whole plan C disaster, which has undoubtedly done more harm than good."
"Well, I don't know about that."
James raised an eyebrow. "Sirius told you about the time I ate a flobberworm. How on earth has this done any good?"
"I'm sitting here right now, aren't I? We're making conversation."
"The conversation in question is one where I embarrass myself – even more than my friends already have over the past few weeks – via uncharacteristic honesty."
Lily looked down at her hands, not quite comfortable with the idea of saying the things she was about to say. "I saw a side to you I'd never seen before thanks to your silly plan. In a way, you were right. I'd never truly paid attention to you until you and your mates gave me a reason to. And once I started looking, I realized I… liked what I saw."
She felt James's bed shift as he moved to sit next to her. Her heart, which had previously calmed down a bit, had begun to beat at a frantic pace that was almost alarming.
"Yeah?" He asked quietly.
She looked up at him, not able to refrain any longer. The way he was looking at her… She wasn't sure if he had only started looking at her like this a couple of weeks ago, or if she had only just begun to notice it. Whenever he looked at her now, it was like he was looking inside of her, like he saw her. It was like he almost couldn't believe she was looking back at him. There was something so warm and open about it. She had noticed this look throughout the last two weeks, but it now meant so much more after he had shared his feelings with her. This particular look was different than the others, though. This time, his eyes were swimming with hope.
She took a deep breath. "Yeah," she affirmed.
Before she could process anything, he had drawn her face in his hands, and slowly, ever so slowly, he inclined his face towards hers, as though to give her time to stop him. She realized that she must have leaned into him, as well, because their lips touched sooner than she would have expected based on his pace.
It was a relatively chaste, closed-mouth kiss, and it awakened something inside of Lily. All of a sudden, she was mad about James Potter. Perhaps this had been building for a while, but she was only able to acknowledge these feelings to herself in this moment, stripped of all of her defenses, kissing someone that previously would have been the last person she would have ever thought she would kiss. Ever. As she moved her lips against his, she decided that this kiss was undoubtedly the best kiss of her life thus far. How strange, to suddenly happen upon something that can make you inexplicably happy. And how strange that that something should be James Potter.
James pulled away, for he was smiling too hard to kiss properly. He rested his forehead against hers. When she opened her eyes, she saw his face, more radiant than she had ever seen it, even after winning a Quidditch match. He was beaming at her tenderly, and she felt her chest squeeze at how beautiful he was. Had he always been this beautiful? His hands had made their way to her waist, and their foreheads were touching, and they were sharing breath.
He pressed one last quick kiss to her lips and pulled away from her. "Lily Evans," he said, with that silly, beautiful grin. "Will you go out with me?"
"No."
His smile, moments before seeming irrepressible, faltered.
Lily had not thought about her answer before she said it, but once she had, she knew it was the right one.
"You've had a long time to come to terms with your feelings, but mine are new. Everything about you in my mind has been in constant flux this year. I need some time to adjust. There's so much we don't know about each other, and this is too… important to just jump into. This has all happened so fast, and maybe you think I'm overthinking things, but I need to take some time."
James cleared his throat and nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense," he said, smiling weakly in what was really more of a grimace.
Lily cupped his face, forcing him to look into her eyes. She pecked him one more time on the lips. "Ask me again when I've had some time. I'll probably say yes."
His smile became more genuine. "Probably?"
"Okay, definitely."
They smiled at one another.
"You know," Lily said at length, "I think your 'idiot mates' actually make pretty good wingmen."
James sighed faux reluctantly. "I suppose they did alright. I could have done with a little less flobberworm talk, though."
Lily laughed, and when she did, it was full of joy and excitement and hope for the future. It was a laugh that said there would be more to come.