Chapter Four

James sat down in the chair nearest the window. He just sat there and smiled. He had the most amazing night and he was too excited to sleep. He just kept replaying the last two hours in his head, how Lily opened up to him, how she smiled at him. How she seemed nervous to look at him as if she liked him. It almost made him nervous.

He stayed up so late thinking about it all, that he ended up falling asleep in the chair.

"James? James, wake up, we have class soon." Lily's voice echoed in his head. It took a few shakes to wake up. How surprised and delighted he was to have Lily's face be the first thing he saw.

"Sorry, I guess I fell asleep down here." He said as he stood up and stretched. He noticed Lily looked a little nervous around him again. He almost thought that maybe she felt uncomfortable after last night. He hoped not. She walked over to her desk and started getting her school books together.

"Hey, thanks for opening up to me last night. It meant a lot." James said, walking up behind her, wanting to grab her waist and pull her into a hug. But instead just went up beside her.

"Thank you for listening. It feels good to get it off my chest." She smiled lightly towards him. They stood there for several seconds, which felt more like minutes, just looking into each others eyes. Until a knock came at the door.

James sighed, and walked over to the door to open it. Sirius and Peter were on the other side.

"Hey usually your already down in the main hall for breakfast by now. You coming?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, uhm.. I will meet you down there soon, okay?" After a confused nod from his friend, he closed the door.

Walking back to where Lily was standing, he noticed she was tensely looking down at the ground as if she was fighting a million thoughts. James immediately thought that maybe he had done something to upset her or if she was mad at him about something.

Trying to lighten the mood he decided to invite her to breakfast with him.

"Thank you, but I'm not terribly hungry. I think I am just going to head straight to the class room." She said, looking at him anxiously.

So much for that. So instead, James waited to go down to eat breakfast until he knew that his friends wouldn't be there anymore, so he could be alone. He sat there, barely touching his toast or eggs. He was trying to think of all the reasons Lily could be so uncomfortable and scared with being his friend.

He tried to recall every thing he ever did to her, but his thoughts immediately went to 5th year.

He was so furious that Lily wouldn't give him the time of day, and that she was constantly over looking Severus's dark side, that he decided to really take it out on severus.

He found him sitting under a tree by himself and he hexed him so bad that he was hanging in the air upside down. Lily was enraged when she saw this and came running over, screaming at James and Sirius, who was helping him.

"Stop it! You're hurting him! Why are you such a jerk, Potter?"

"Go out with me and I'll stop!" James yelled back. He should have known better than to try that with her.

"I would never go out with scum like you!"

"Fine then..." With that, James flew Severus higher and then Sirius took James's hint and hexed Severus's pants off. So there Severus was, 20 ft in the air with his pants at his ankles and his bright green boxers shown to the whole school. Every student in the area burst into laughter all at the same time.

"James Potter, if you don't put him down right now I will get you expelled!" Screamed Lily. Looking over at Lily, James could see that she was very, sincerely hurt, so he decided enough was enough. He dropped Severus from the 20 feet he was at, letting him just fall to the ground.

"Lucky for you, your little friend just saved you." James said, Sirius laughing behind him.

Severus stood up, spat on the ground, looked over at James and then to Lily who was walking over to him. "I don't need help from anyone! Especially a mudblood!"

Lily stopped as if she hit a brick wall, with a blank look on her face. She took a deep breath, exhaled and said, "Fine. I don't need a friend like you anyway." And started walking... well almost running away, towards the castle. But James already saw the tears streaming down her face before she was out of sight. He wanted to make sure she was okay, so he ran up to her.

"Lily! Are you okay? I promise I will make him pay for that one!" But she spun around looking more offended than ever.

"Don't you dare do anything. It is time you stay out of other peoples business! You are no better than him! You hurt people with no reason, you make fun of and damage other peoples feelings with out any thought of anything other than yourself! You are just as cruel as any Slytherin!"

"Lily! That's not fair! I would never call you that, ever!"

"It doesn't matter. None of this would have happened if you hadn't bullied him for years and pushed him to this point! Don't ever talk to me again!" And then she started running towards the doors, this time not hiding her tears.

James felt so guilty over what he had done, that he did what she asked, and didn't talk to her for the rest of that year. He was told by several of their mutual friends how sad and depressed she had gotten since the incident. He really saw himself as the selfish, cruel person that she saw. That's when he knew he had to change his act. Smarten up.

It took him over a year to do it, but he accomplished becoming a better person. And she was starting to notice, slowly but still noticing.

He had tortured hers and Severus's friendship since the moment he met her, and after the big incident, it was no wonder that she had a hard time trusting him. He hated himself for it. All he wanted was her but all he did was push her away.

After managing a few bites of his toast, James headed to his class. He saw Lily sitting at her table, reading her book. He wanted to go over there and apologize for everything a thousand times but thought better of it. He decided he would give her space that day and wait for her to talk to him. He didn't want to make her more uncomfortable that she probably already felt. Instead he would just wait until she really needed a friend again.