Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does. Big surprise I'm sure.

A/N: This is possibly my favourite chapter. I hope you like it.

Dandelions

Chapter 3: Love and Hate

"You're reading my book."

She didn't know why she'd said it. If it had been anyone else she'd have been too polite to say anything.

"So?" He blinked at her.

"Give it back." She was absently aware of the fact that she was being rude but she couldn't help it. He wasreading her book. "Now."

"No." He returned to reading the book.

She slammed the six books piled up in her arms down onto the table. "Give it back."

He grinned, his eyes crinkling up pleasantly. It annoyed her beyond expression. "What's the magic word?"

"Crucio?"

"No, the other one. The lovely one I always want to hear. It begins with 'p' and ends in 'lease.'"

She gritted her teeth. "Please."

He glanced up, thinking about it. "No."

"Oh, for goodness sake, Potter! Why do you have to do this? Just give me my book back!"

"I'm sorry," he said condescendingly, looking at her over his glasses. "Perhaps you weren't aware- this is the library. You can't claim ownership over a library book. They belong to the student body as a whole, therefore I have as much right to read it as you do."

She stamped her foot. "But it's not a library book, its mine!"

"It doesn't matter. It's in the library. It's under the same rules as a library book." He leaned back, balanced his chair on two legs and put his feet up on the table. "Now, if you don't mind. I'd like to read my book."

"Stop being ridiculous. Please give me my book back."

"Why should I? You were very rude to me."

"And I've apologised," she said through gritted teeth. "Obviously you're not willing to be reasonable. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you. Keep the book."

He just grinned at her. As calmly as she could under the circumstances, Lily turned and strode away down a long aisle of bookshelves, and seated herself at a table at the far end of the library.

She was enraged. She knew that he was sat over there right now reading her book with a smug grin on his annoying face. Just the thought of it made her want to scream. It was always the same. As soon as she saw that quirk of his lips her brain began to overheat and she exploded with a huge mess of bad language and inappropriate behaviour.

She was not that sort of girl. She was not a girl who routinely harangued and fought with people. She was not a girl who was prone to violence or anger. She hated that girl, the shrieking harpy she was when she was with him.

She had often promised herself she would be better. She would stay calm; she would be mature; she would not let him get to her; she would act like an adult instead of a bitter old harridan. However, trying the calm and civilised approach with James Potter was like trying to reason with a piranha. One look, one smug grin from him and the walls of her self-discipline came crashing down.

She hadn't always hated him with the fury of a thousand banshees. She didn't used to care one way or another about him, except for occasional mild disapprobation. However, the year they both turned 15, something changed, something that seemed to incite violence and a burning hatred in both of them. Lily didn't know what had happened. All she knew was that gradually they had gone from barely being on speaking turns to arguing approximately every five minutes.

Lily's logic told her that he wasn't as bad as he had once been. She knew that he no longer bullied younger students, and she knew that he felt bad for having once done so. She knew that he didn't go out of his way to cause trouble anymore. She knew that he worked harder in class. She knew that if she didn't hate him so much, she would probably admire him for his strong friendships and his likeable, easy manner. She was not ignorant of his good qualities.

But there was just something about him… something that called to her baser instincts. The curl of his lip, the quirk of his eyebrow…it made her shiver with fury. It set her on edge, it made her want to do something, anything, to wipe that feeling away, even if it meant resorting to bodily violence.

She shook her head. She was sick of the fighting. There were so many worthwhile things to fight for, so many things that she would have to fight for as soon as she left Hogwarts, and yet she was wasting her last precious days of peace in daily pointless battles with a boy whose grin annoyed her. She was irritated at herself for being so foolish. The best thing she could do was grit her teeth and endure his presence. They only had two weeks left at Hogwarts before they would be thrust into the big, bad world. She could survive two weeks.

"I don't get it."

Lily's head snapped up painfully from her position lying upon the sofa to stare at the disturber of her peaceful solitude. She sighed, wearily. "What do you want, Potter?"

"I just don't get it, Evans." He threw himself into the chair opposite and frowned seriously at her.

"Get what?"

"This." He waved the book he had fought so hard to keep in front of her face. "This is a weird book."

"Potter," she said, resignedly, "please, just leave me alone."

"No, I want you to explain it to me."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Potter." She pushed herself up onto her elbows and brushed her hair back in annoyance. "It's a book. A story. You don't need me to explain it to you. Read it and figure out what it means for yourself."

"That's the point!" he exclaimed, with a flourish. "I've read it and it makes absolutely no sense."

"Why?" She rubbed her eyes and wondered why she always ended up having lengthy debates with him about random topics. These debates usually descended into heated arguments, which then descended even further into some form of duelling match. She didn't think she had the energy tonight. "Go on, tell me; you know you're dying to. Why doesn't it make sense?"

"Well, this Lizzie chick. She's obviously slightly deranged. Either that, or stupid."

Lily spluttered. "What?"

"Well." He stretched his legs out onto the coffee table and folded his arms, thoughtfully. "Any fool can see that Lizzie likes Darcy from the beginning. She thinks he's cute, she thinks he might be a good dancer, she's patiently waiting for him to ask her to dance (since she knows she's the hottest girl in the room- barring Jane, of course). Okay, he says something stupid to his mate about her, but what bloke hasn't done that by accident?"

"Yeah, what bloke?" she echoed in amazement at his critical evaluation of one of the most loved novels in the English language.

"By this time Lizzie has already decided that since he's not falling over himself to worship at her feet, then he's got to be one of the most despicable men in England. So she hates him. For, like, the whole novel, until she conveniently 'falls in love'," he said, using his fingers as quotation marks and pulling a face, "-just when she first checks out his bloody great castle-"

"It's not a castle-"

"- And my point is why didn't she just say yes the first bloody time he asked her to marry him?"

"Because then there'd only be half a novel?" Lily said, feeling rather odd. She felt something strange bubbling up inside her. She continued to stare at him and his earnestly confused face, and before she realised what was happening she issued a loud, involuntary giggle.

He looked as startled as she was, which somehow made her laugh even harder. It was only when she glanced up to see him grinning brightly at her that she stopped laughing abruptly. She didn't like him smiling at her. That was far too dangerous.

She coughed and pushed herself up into a sitting position. "You're completely missing the point."

"And what's that?"

"She doesn't like him. She hates him." Lily stopped and considered. "Or at least she thinks she does. It's easier to deal with hatred than with all the complexities of love. You know, love and hate can be easy to confuse." Her eyes involuntarily drifted across to meet his and her breath caught. He wasn't smiling now. He was staring at her, right into her with an expression she'd never seen before. Like he was seeing her for the first time. She was abnormally aware of the blood pumping through her veins; the heat rushing through her body; and that whisper, that shiver, the one that usually incited her to violence, shooting across her senses. She didn't know why she was reacting this way, or why he was looking at her with such intensity, all trace of amusement erased from him.

A sort of unknown terror overtook her then and she laughed, slightly hysterically. "It's just a book." Her eyes darted away from his, nervously.

Potter sighed and leaned forward towards her. "Just a book?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "It's just a book. Real life isn't that simple."

He stood and stared down at her seriously. She'd never seen him like this before. The look in his dark eyes…it meant something. She didn't like it.

"Isn't it?" he asked softly. "I think it is that simple."

Without giving her a chance to retort, he strode out of the room. She gazed after him, her mouth open and her thoughts scattered.

A/N: I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. The hardest bit about writing it was trying to think up a chapter title! Let me know what you thought. Thanks for reading.