Title: James & Lily

Characters: James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.

AN: So, lately Lily and James has become such a complicated couple for me. Lily has become a really complicated character too. I guess that's part of the reason why I'm writing this. I want to try it and see if it feels right. I haven't even tried to plan this so we'll just have to see what it turns into.

Also, I know that the manbun wasn't popular when the Marauders were kids but Sirius Black in a manbun. I just really don't care although you are probably right. I love the image of Sirius with a manbun too much.

I am not trying to bash on any character. I am merely trying to point out that Lily, for example, is not a perfect character. We need to bring the woman down from her pedestal and make her a little more human. Okay this was a lie; I am bashing on Snape a little bit. But no one else.

The fact that this story is called James and Lily doesn't mean that they are end game in this story.

Word Count: 1, 928

James didn't know what made him feel the way that he did. He didn't know what it was about Lily Evans that made him feel giddy now and he didn't know what had drawn him in, the first place. All he knew was that there was something about her. There was something that he, not liked, but loved. Her smile for starters. She rarely smiled at him but that didn't mean that she never smiled when he was around. The way she sat confidently in the back of the classroom because she had probably spent the day before reading up on the material they were going to talk about. James himself hated conflicts but Lily didn't. She faced them with her head first seemingly fearless and James could only hope that she would get out of it with all her limbs attached to her fit body. Because yeah, she was beautiful too.

It was a shame really. James thought as he saw her red hair out of the corner of his eye. He was looking for a book. Even if he couldn't see her completely his hand seemed to find its way to his raven hair. His hazel eyes glimmered underneath the glasses and he stood on his toes to reach the book further up. Lily looked between her own book and him. It was a real shame that she didn't feel the same way about him.

James scoffed.

"Not all pureblood families are cruel," Sirius Black argued from next to him. "Some of them are terrible privileged assholes with absolutely no understanding of what non-purebloods may experience but some of them are the best people there ever were and you have no right to trash talk them. Not in front of me."

His brown hair was pushed back into a bun, the grey eyes were stormy and he had changed his normally leaned back posture for one that was leaned across his desk; towards the person he was currently arguing. His lips were pulled upwards while he was showing all his teeth and wrinkles covered his forehead. His fists were clenched and the nails scratched the top of the desk. Lily Evans looked as angry as Sirius did but showed it in a completely different way. She bit her lower lip and her eyebrows were bent crookedly while she glared at him as if she was hoping that her stare alone would make him give up. James knew that wasn't going to be enough. She had insulted the two people she should never have insulted and Sirius was not going to let it go. Neither was James.

"You're just saying that because you're pureblood. You've probably never experienced anything bad in your entire life."

Sirius became scarily still. James almost held his breath as he waited for his best friend to react. If they had been in class then Sirius would have been able to hide behind a smile. But they weren't in class. There was no reason for him to stay. So, Sirius stood up. He hit the desk with his fist on the way up and he snarled at Lily.

"You know best Lily Evans." He said in a hissing tone that didn't suit his warm, full voice.

James remained still for a few minutes. He looked at Lily. Her cheeks had turned even redder. She was beautiful. But in that moment his crush on her had lessened.

"What?" she spat out the words. In that moment, she reminded him so much of Snape.

James shook his head as he stood. "Nothing at all."

Lily and James first laid eyes on each other when they were eleven years old. He fell for her even if he couldn't say those exact words. Maybe his childish mind didn't really understand what was going on inside of his small body. Maybe he wasn't meant to realise what his feelings were until much later. Lily was, for a very long time, convinced that she disliked him from the moment that she laid eyes on him. But that all changed when they were sixteen.

Lily Evans had a habit of reacting in the moment. She rarely stopped to think. She had yelled at James and his friends so many times when they started their sixth year because of things she thought that they had done. She had always managed to find herself at the wrong place at the wrong time. James knew this. But he never told her. He never tried to explain that what she saw was only partly the truth.

"Are you threatening me?" Snape asked. His black hair hung against his cheeks, giving the skin no possibility to breathe, and his pointy nose could probably poke someone's eye out.

Sirius nodded at the same time as Remus shook his head. Peter, the chubby boy whom puberty seemed to have forgotten with the dirty blond hair and blue eyes, stood completely still as his eyes went back and forth between the boys who stood in front of them. He was the only one who looked terrified.

"We're not threatening anyone," James answered. He could see Lily behind Snape and his friends. "You were bothering Peter here and we are just telling you to let him be. We're not looking for trouble."

"You're just saying that," Snape hissed with a venomous tone in his voice. "I know what kind of person you are. You're a spoiled brat, prancing around like you own this place. Well, I have some news for you; some day that is going to catch up with you and you'll pay for what you've done."

James rolled his eyes. "I'll mourn when that day actually comes."

James asked Lily out when they were in their fifth year. Up until that moment all he had done was talk about it. He had asked other girls on dates. Emmeline Vance for example. A girl with dark, curly black hair, pitch black eyes and a contagious smile. She was kind. She was brave and best of all she didn't want him to change himself. Emmeline Vance was not the only girl he took out on a date. But the beautiful Hufflepuff was the only girl he truly cared about. By the time he asked Lily out several rumours claimed that he had done so several times during the years.

Lily turned him down the first time.

She asked him out when they were in their sixth year. She asked him with a certain level of confidence. Almost too much confidence as if she was sure of the fact that he was going to say yes. He did. But James didn't like the fact that she was so sure that he would.

"How was the date?" Sirius asked from his seating position on his bed. He leaned forward so that part of his face was almost entirely covered by his hair.

James shrugged and didn't bother taking his clothes of before laying down on his bed. A moment of silence followed and then his bed cracked underneath the weight that was added to it when Sirius laid down next to him.

"I thought I was going to be happier." James said as he leaned his head onto Sirius shoulder and rested his hands against his stomach.

Sirius nodded. "I thought you were going to be happier too. You finally got to go on that date with her."

"Yeah," James agreed. "I did."

The silence said everything James didn't know how to say with words. It was nice, he thought. It was nice to have a relationship with someone when you didn't actually have to say anything and still be understood.

Their first kiss was nice.

James really wished that he could have thought that it was better than nice but he couldn't convince himself to think that it was any better or worse than that. It wasn't an amazing first kiss, it wasn't bad.

It was just nice. It was a nice first kiss.

"I don't want to argue with you Lily," James said as he walked into Common Room. Sirius, Peter and Remus looked up from where they sat on the couch with books in front of them as they wrote on essays in three different subjects. "I already told you that you won."

Lily followed shortly behind him. "I don't want to win. You're still mad at me. I want to fix this."

"Fix what?" James asked as he angrily ran his fingers through his hair and eventually put them to rest against his hips. "We don't agree about something. Why does that need fixing? Can't we just accept that we don't think the same way?"

"But your argument is illogical." Lily said while wagging her finger at him.

James shook his head as he gestured at her with both hands. "But your arguments are emotionless."

"What does emotions have to do with any of this?" Lily shouted angrily.

James opened his mouth to shout back but quieted himself. "I don't want to argue with you Lily. I am going to my room and I don't want you to follow me."

Lily laughed. "James Potter running away from an argument."

"Yes," James replied before turning his back on her. "And if you're surprised about that sweetheart than maybe you don't know me as well as you think that you do."

Lily and James. James and Lily.

They had an expiration date. Six months after their first date apparently. They had been a couple for six months when they broke up. The relationship that the entire school had been interested in. It had been exaggerated that people had bets but there were people who guessed what was going to happen to them. Most believed that they would end up marrying and having children. Some were even hoping seeing as the rumours had made James sound like a lovesick puppy who thought of no one else but Lily Evans. No one was going to believe what had actually happened. They only wanted the story that fit with what they believed to be the truth.

"You broke up with her." Sirius stated with a cigarette hanging between his lips.

James nodded.

"But everyone's thinking that Lily broke up with you?" Sirius breathed out the smoke and leaned against the wall. "How come you haven't corrected anyone?"

James shrugged. "People are going to believe whatever they want to anyway. It doesn't matter what I tell them."

Sirius looked at his best friend with a smile on his face. He knew that even if James told everyone that he was over her there was still a part of him that felt something for the redheaded girl even if that part was much smaller than before.

"I think it was a good choice mate," he said. James raised an eyebrow as he breathed out smoke as if saying, oh yeah? "Besides, James and Lily didn't sound that good anyway. James and Lily, Lily and James."

He repeated their names as if tasting them and every time a frown appeared on his normally beautiful face. "See what I mean?"

"Yeah," James played along. "I see what you mean. What do you think sounds better, do you have any thoughts?"

Sirius winked at him as he put the cigarette out. "Oh yeah, how about James and… Emmeline maybe?"

"Yeah," James laughed. An image of the beautiful girl appeared in his mind and he couldn't help but smile. "It sounds almost as right as Sirius and Penny."

Sirius nodded. "I couldn't have said it better myself, brother."

The end