Disclaimer: I don't own HP, JK Rowling does *looks away wistfully*

James POV

I stood frozen next to the tree for what seemed like ages, watching her sprint back up to the castle, red hair whipping angrily in the wind. If I strained my ears I could just make out the sound of sobs that followed her up to the entrance way. Hardly believing what had just occurred, I slid down onto one of the roots attempting to organize my thoughts.

Lily loved me. . . . what?

That couldn't possibly be true. After all it was just a few weeks ago that Sirius had told me about Lily's little plan to break me and my heart. He had heard Alice and Mary talking in the common room, whispering about the girl who had finally decided to take on the challenge of James Potter from the inside, knowing just how desperate he was to get a date with her.

I had been furious when I had heard, immediately doubting Sirius' ears, or the girls' information. But finally I had been forced to admit that it had to be true. How could Lily have finally fallen for me? It didn't make sense.

They had only developed a friendship, and then suddenly she had been ready to accept my offers to Hogsmead and had soon become my girlfriend.

The only explanation was a bet of some kind, that she could tame the wild James Potter. That was at least what the Marauders and I had come up with, and though I still knew that my feelings for Lily were stronger than anything I had ever felt for a girl, I began to let my eyes wander when I was with her, looking for someone who would be able to numb the pain of the heart break Lily was sure to cause.

The breaking point came after an excursion to the library. Lily, unaware of my presence in the stacks of transfiguration texts, was going on and on to Alice about how wonderful I had become, how much I had changed since the beginning of the year, and even more since the beginning of our relationship.

I couldn't bear it anymore. Here was the love of my life gloating to her best friend about changing me, while I watched on. There was only one thing that could be done at that point….

…when Lily found Marlene and I in the broom closet during her Prefect duties, I expected her to be more relieved, or at least angry that she hadn't been able to win whatever bet she had made about me. But all she had done was deduct house points, tell me that we were no longer a couple, and storm back towards Gryffindor Tower.

By the time I returned later, she was curled up in a chair by the fire. The moment I walked in she proceeded to throw her book at me, began to cry in earnest, and ran up to the dormitory.

These actions puzzled me the most, and I began to question my actions. Her behavior seemed to show real hurt, like she had possessed real feelings for me….

The silence from Lily over the next few weeks quickly erased any doubt in my mind that the whole thing had been a joke for her. She didn't talk to me in the halls, refused to work with me in classes, and began to pick fights again with me as if nothing had ever happened.

Though after a week or two the fighting stopped all together, and she made it a point not to be near me at all, almost as if my presence brought her pain.

And a Lily in pain almost certainly meant problems for whoever had caused it, which was what had lead me out to the stupid tree in the first place. She had skipped lunch entirely, which was not like her at all. When I had finally found her, she had been too absorbed in her sorrows to hear me approach, which I took as a good sign. But what she had said to me was not what I expected, which brought me back to my current dilemma.

Lily.

In love with me, James Potter. I couldn't believe it, but no one was that good of an actor. No one could pretend to be in so much pain as Lily's face betrayed she was in. And I had caused her that pain.

Me, the one person who was supposed to take care of her. But no, I blew my chance with her, once again, but on a larger magnitude than ever before. Lily had fallen in love with me, and I had ruined it.

But she did have feelings still, that much was clear. I would just have had to muster up the strength to endure one of Lily's tirades and tell her just how much of an idiot I had been in the past month or so.