James sat up carefully, opening his hazel eyes blearily, and attempting to take in his surroundings unsuccessfully. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped them with the side of his dewy sleeve, and then put them back on.
Ah, he could see.
He took in his surroundings- trees, playground equipment, the early morning sun just rising off to the east. He shivered a little, and then breathed out slowly, watching his breath in the cool air.
All in one movement, he stretched his arms up above his head, his elbows cracking from the cold, and then swung his legs off the bench, kicking something on the way, so that he was sitting on the bench.
He blinked a couple of times, and looked over to his left.
What had he kicked?
Something soft… It couldn't possibly have been the bench, or a lose screw on the bench…
"Agh!" screamed James, a noise barely escaping because his throat had constricted from the cool night air.
He saw what- or who- was sitting on the seat, and fell forwards off the seat, landing sideways on the ground, staring up at the person, who had one arm resting on the side of the bench, and their head leaning on it.
"Hi, Potter," said the person softly, yawning gently and looking James right in the eye.
"Evans? I… what? Why? Is this some sort of sick joke…?" spluttered James from his current seat on the floor, looking up at Lily in a mixture of wonder, embarrassment, and confusion.
"No Potter, it's not a joke. It's rather a long story really. Why don't you come sit on the seat, like a normal person, and I'll explain?" she said, jokingly but still gentle, unlike the Lily Evans that James had come to know and fear.
James flushed a beautiful shade of pink, and scrambled up off the floor, nearly slipping over again, but managing to catch his balance on the side of the bench.
He sat down on the seat, head down, face still a terrible red. Lily laughed softly, before removing her hand from her hand and sitting slightly more upright, resting her hands in her lap.
"Well," mumbled James, "Are you going to explain what you are doing here? Just felt like an early morning stroll, and decided that James Potter needed some more taunting?"
Lily looked at him in disbelief.
"No Potter," she started, trying to keep herself calm, "I came here to check that you were okay."
"What? What do you mean if I'm okay?" he said in confusion, she couldn't possibly know about him and his father…
It was bad enough that Lily Evans, the girl that loathed him most in the world, had found him sleeping on a park bench and would most likely tell the entire school, but for her to know about his father too…
"Remus owled me."
"So? What does that have to do with me?" James wasn't really surprised at this, because it was a well-known fact that Remus and Lily were friends. Not all that close, but still on friendly terms.
Lily sighed exasperatedly, as if James was missing something completely obvious.
"Ok. Your mother owled Sirius, because she was worried about you, and knew that Sirius would know where to find you, and asked him to come and look after you, because she couldn't find you anywhere."
At this, James just raised his eyebrows, and seemed to be fighting not to say something, but motioned for Lily to continue.
"But, Sirius wasn't able to come, because his parents have put him under house arrest, for insulting some ancient family member. He even tried to get out the window on his broom, but they had put protection spells all around the house so that he couldn't escape."
James grinned a little at this, imagining Sirius doing just that. He waited patiently for Lily to continue, shivering a little, and bringing his frozen hands up to his face and blowing warm air on them.
"Oh! I just remembered, I brought you a coat, it's absolutely freezing out here. I don't know how you can stand it!" said Lily, motioning towards James's freezing figure, and then retrieving a warm woollen coat from a backpack a the side of the bench that James hadn't noticed before.
He took the coat from her gloved hands thankfully, putting it on straight away, thanking her profusely. Although, he still wondered why on earth Lily Evans, of all people, was being nice to him.
"Anyway," she started again, waving off his thanks nonchalantly, "Sirius, of course, owled Remus, asking if he could go, but last night was Remus' time of the month, if you get my drift."
James gasped, and put his hand to his mouth. He had completely forgotten!
Lily just held up a hand, and continued.
"And, Remus told me to tell you that it didn't matter, he didn't need you to come anyway, he was fine on his own. So, after Sirius owled Remus, and Remus couldn't come, Remus tried owling Peter, but Peter never owled back. So, to Remus, the next logical person was me. He knew that no matter how much we dislike each other, I would still come to check you were okay. So… Here I am."
James just gaped at Lily.
"All of that," he started croakily, "Just for me?"
Lily looked a little embarrassed, but replied, " Hey, it's no big deal. Couldn't have the ever popular, top Quidditch player of Gryffindor, freezing to death in the cold, could we now?" she said, half jokingly, half sincerely.
James' heart dropped from his chest to his feet in about three split seconds. 'Ever popular, top Quidditch player of Gryffindor.' That's all this was about. He was James Potter, and nobody could let anything happen to James Potter, not even Lily Evans.
She didn't care that he was out there, freezing, she just cared that he would come back and play Quidditch, and be…well, James Potter.
He sighed softly and put his head in his hands, suddenly miserable again.
Lily seemed to sense his sudden change in mood, and asked him why, misreading his mood change a little.
"Did you want to talk about why you're out here? Why you're not, you know, at home?" she said softly and hesitantly, not wanting to bring up anything too painful.
His head shot up quickly, his eyes suddenly fierce, and defending.
"Why should you care?" he spat, wondering why she was even bothering. She didn't really care, she was just a busybody, like the rest of those girls, ready to gossip at the first sign of a scandal.
Lily looked as if she had just been slapped in the face, and her eyes grew as fierce as James's.
"Well, obviously, I shouldn't. I'm terribly sorry to bother you, King Potter," she spat, getting up and swinging her bag over her shoulder, bowing to him mockingly, and starting to walk away.
James sighed, torn between following her and letting her go.
How could he trust her?
How could he know she was for real?
But she was all he really had right now…
"Wait, Evans!" he said, getting up and running after her.
She ignored him and he called again, catching up to her.
"Evans! Evans!"
He reached her, and stood next to her, panting for breath.
"Ev- Lily. Lily, please stop."
She stopped suddenly, not because he had asked her to, but more because he had called her by her first name. There was definitely something wrong if they were on a first name basis.
"Why should I, James?" she said angrily, stopping in front of him and looking up at him menacingly.
"I- I'm sorry. I just thought that you- that you were like all those other girls. You know, just waiting for a scandal to owl to all their friends. I- I'm not right though, am I?" he said, more questioning himself than her.
She answered anyway. "No James, you aren't. I truly did- do, care. I mean, we may hate each other, but even you deserve someone to talk to."
He felt somewhat more at ease with her answer, no matter how snide it had been.
"Well I- I'm sorry. Lily. Please just come and sit down with me again?" he said cautiously, not wanting a slap if he was being too forward, and leaning back a little.
She seemed to think this over for a minute.
"Okay James, but next time you do something stupid…" she started.
"I know, I know, I'll get a slap," he recited, grinning a little and shuddering at the same time.
They started walking back to the seat, and Lily replied with "Actually, I was going to say I'm leaving, but I think that's even better."
James chuckled a little, and once they reached the seat, he mockingly cleared off the seat for her, bowing a little as she sat down.
"Oh don't be an idiot, Potter," she said, jokingly.
He smiled a little again.
"Oh, back to last name basis again, are we Evans?" he grinned.
"Well, I don't believe you have earned the right to call me by my first name yet, Mr Potter. Before was just a momentary lapse in judgement," she smiled back, suddenly enjoying joking around with one of her worst enemies.
And that was how it came to be that James Potter, son of famous Auror, good student, fantastic Quidditch player, friend to all… Spent the day in a park with the one and only, Lily Evans.
A/N: Please, please, please review and give me your thoughts! Even if you want to say this fic is absolute crapola don't bother continuing :P. Anything. AT ALL. Tell me about your day. Tell me that you have six toes. JUST. CLICK. THE. BUTTON.