It became a habit for James to wander around the castle after curfew whenever Lily rejected him.

After that time Lily had rejected him—calling his love suffocating—James became obsessed over every word she uttered after, sleep eluding him until late into the night. Rather than stare at the canopy of his bed, James decided to make use of his Invisibility Cloak and Hogwarts map to roam around. Since he couldn't sleep, he might as well do something out of it.

Of course, the first time he did, he was caught by Granger, but that was only because he wasn't alert and conscious enough to notice her presence or name in the map. He figured that the second time wouldn't be too bad, as long as he paid attention to the names in the map, particularly Granger's.

And true to his assumption, it wasn't so bad after. He hadn't been caught after the second or third or fifth time, so he unconsciously made a habit of his newfound past time. None of the others knew about his new activity and he didn't seek to inform them about it.

It felt nice to have something that was his own, without having the need to share it with Sirius or the rest of the marauders. It wasn't because he was afraid that they wouldn't understand this hobby of his, but rather because he didn't find the need to give an explanation.

Most of the time, in the late night, all alone in the darkness, James appreciated the quiet serenity of the castle. It was rare for Hogwarts to be this silent, bustling with noise as it was with young wizards and witches, old professors, sentient portraits, and strange creatures. It rarely had a moment of peace, even in the cold and dusty corners of the library. But Hogwarts at night was a different scenery, in the looming darkness and slumbering stones.

It was calm and quiet—something his mind had never been.

The peace of the night afforded him with the chance to think things carefully—things being Lily. He would sometimes go over their interaction, berating himself for acting the way he did, finding a million other ways to respond differently now that the situation had come to pass. He also couldn't help but take notice of all the things she said just to spite or hurt him, as if her rejection and palpable disdain for him alone weren't enough to stab his heart.

Lily took the chance to hurt him in the most brutal ways, unapologetic in her speech and actions, since the moment he revealed his feelings for her. He wondered what was so wrong with him that she detested his existence. Even when he hadn't started his rivalry with Snape, Lily had always disliked him.

James always thought that his sincerity and dedication would win her over eventually. He thought that her dislike over him would change over time, once she saw that he was a capable and worthy wizard of her, but it only steadily became worse after.

Not for the first time, James wondered if his love was worth it—if she was worth it—but she had to be, right? He longed for her the same way a werewolf longed for the full moon, the same way the sky longed for the sun. He thought it—his pain, suffering, loneliness, and insecurity—would all be worth it in the future when she realized that he truly, sincerely loved her.

All that he wanted was to become the person who made her smile the widest and laugh the loudest. He wanted to take care of her, to have her depend and rely on him from time to time, and to be her strength when she had none. He wanted to be one of her people, the ones she considered precious to her.

Lily could give him a single drop of water after a long heatwave, and he would only utter thank you.

What was so wrong with him? What made him so appalling to her?

All James ever did was fall in love with Lily Evans, so why was she punishing him so harshly for it?

James stopped in the middle of the corridor and sighed deeply, his heart heavy thinking about Lily. He knew that she didn't owe him anything, that she wasn't entitled to love him just because he loved her. She had already made her feelings and stance clear with her rejections, so he knew that the one thing he had to do was let her go. Otherwise, whatever scrap of affection she could muster for him would vanish, and he'd be nothing more than the wizard who harassed her when she was at Hogwarts.

He couldn't help sulking near the wall, leaning one shoulder against a portrait of a snoring medieval knight slumping over its sword.

And of course, just as he was wallowing in his own misery, distracted by his own damning thoughts and depressing feelings, the one person he wanted to avoid the most came bearing down on his neck

"James Potter"—Hermione Granger's voice intruded into his thoughts like alarm bells, startling the shit out of him, nearly to the point of jumping out of his skin. Luckily, he had managed to contain it with a dignified yelp instead—"You got caught."

He turned around, the hairs of his neck standing up when he saw Granger standing behind him, one arm behind her back and the other arm raised to bathe them in the warmth of her Lumos spell. James could barely pick up his jaw from the floor. How did she manage to stay stealthy when she was holding a light in her wand?!

"I'm a bit disappointed," she continued with a tilt to her head, a light sigh leaving her pursed lips, one brow raised containing her dismay. Her gaze remained intense under the moonlight, glowing like the murky reflection of the moon over the Black Lake. "I thought you would do better than this."

"I'm sorry for disappointing you?" James' raised his voice questioningly at the end, snapping out of his trance.

"Apology accepted," she accepted with the same blank expression that was plastered on her face every single day for six years straight. She shifted her feet, turning sideways, "now, shall we?"

James scratched his hair, jostling the glasses perched on his nose when he dropped his arm after. "You're not going to deduct points?" He asked. "Or make me go to Professor McGonagall? Or… hang me by my ankles?"

He was sure there was a rumor somewhere about Granger casting a sticking charm on the feet of at least fifteen students.

The sticking charm wasn't the problem.

The problem was that the students were stuck on the ceiling, with their wands below them on the ground like spikes ready to pierce them when they fall.

The ceiling that was at least fifty feet high.

Granger blinked her eyes at him, looking at him like he was a bug at the bottom of her shoe. He tried not to take it personally since truthfully, that was the usual way she looked at people.

"Do you want to?" She asked.

"No," he answered hastily with a shake of his head.

She just gave him another look before turning on her heel and walking away, expecting him to follow her.

Which he did.

He wasn't a coward, but he held a deep respect and fear for Granger. His instincts—only made sharper when he became an Animagus—practically screamed at him to listen and obey her orders, no matter how silent they were.

Granger had always been a different species from the rest of them. While they were learning tickling charms and lumos spells, she was already able to cast without using a wand. While they were flying on brooms, she was flying on thestrals (which honestly scared the shit out of them because everyone knew thestrals were bad omens). While they were goofing off and playing pranks on other houses, she put the fear of death in everyone else with just one stare.

It didn't matter that Granger had isolated herself from them, because unlike the rest of them, she was capable of being alone. When friends needed each other to rely on a number of things—like knowing where the bathroom was or what the next assignments are for next week—she didn't need people to figure things out, independent as she was.

She had shown at the mere age of eleven that she was confident with her abilities and with herself, while everyone else was stumbling around trying to find a place. She walked in the hallways with the certainty of belonging outside of the sea of insecurity. She mostly kept herself alone and distant from everyone else, but in no way was she incapable of taking care of herself.

In some ways, James admired that part of her. But he always wondered if she ever felt lonely being alone all the time, with no one to talk to aside from a few perfunctory phrases to people you could count only in one hand. Fear of her kept them at bay and it was truly a justified fear. Granger might not have a reputation of being cruel, but one couldn't deny her ruthless and cold methods when she was provoked, as evidenced by the scars across Sirius' hands.

He remembered that they had tried retaliating once after what happened. Sirius had wanted to avenge himself, for the slight against his person, and James had been all too willing to help his friend, although Remus nor Peter wanted nothing to do with it. But when all of their retaliations rebounded on them instead, and never on her, it became an eye-opener for the rest of them, especially when she became a Dueling Champion the next year after and the next years after that, and the rumors of her ruthlessness sprang up.

Hermione Granger was a person not to be messed with, not when you wanted to graduate from Hogwarts with all of your body parts intact.

"Do you usually patrol around these parts of the castle?" He asked, just to mark it on his map to avoid her, the sound of her footsteps a neat "click" against the floor.

She didn't answer him. James would usually be annoyed whenever someone ignored him—case in point: Lily Evans—but he tried to push down his own annoyance, not wanting to get into Granger's bad side tonight.

With the darkness of the castle and stillness of the night, her footsteps blended with the serene ambience as if she belonged to the peace that only existed as soon as the sun disappears and night reigns. It was quite strange to think of peace and Granger in one sentence, but James relaxed nonetheless, his shoulders dropping.

Once again, Granger brought him back to the Gryffindor tower. She watched as he stood in front of the Fat Lady and for some reason, he paused just after whispering the password, waiting for her to say something.

And she did, eventually, after making him sweat a bit.

"Wallowing won't do you any good if you want Lily to take notice of you," Granger told him, eyes casting a familiar serious glow. "Lily likes the chase as much as you do, except she's not willing to admit that she's getting tempted and swayed by you. Seeing as you're so eager to throw yourself into her shit and thank her for it, she's not going to respond anytime soon, and you'll always be that guy who's pathetically in love with her to the point of stupidity. If love is a tragedy, then yours is a Shakespearean play, and that is an insult to Shakespeare."

A frown pulled the tips of James' lips downward, creases forming between his brows at her words. "That's the longest thing I've ever heard you say to someone," he said, nodding solemnly to himself, not pointing out the insult or the right points that she had pointed out for him.

Granger shrugged her shoulders, one stray hair curling on the curve of her shoulder. "Not as long as you chasing after Lily, apparently. It's tiring watching the two of you. I want to end it already and get it over with."

James cleared his throat. He didn't think that something as trivial as this was bothering Granger, who appeared to be so unattainable and untouchable to everyone else. It was a bit embarrassing.

"Didn't think it would bother you," he mused aloud.

"It's shoved down my face everyday for the last six years," Granger remarked, voice as bland as a stream of water. "Do something about it."

"I am," James insisted, shifting on his feet to face her fully. "It's just… Lily is rejecting me."

She raised one cool eyebrow. "If she rejected you, then stop."

"I can't." He couldn't believe that he was whining to Granger of all people, but here he was. "I love her so much. I can't let go of her when I've already spent so much time trying to pursue her."

"So, you don't only continue to chase after her because you love her, but because you've spent so much time and effort investing on her that you think it's a waste to stop now?" Granger summed up his thoughts perfectly, making him press his lips tightly against each other. "You don't think you've wasted enough time as it is? You had plenty of time trying to convince her to say yes to you, which has failed over and over again, and now you're not willing to give yourself or Lily enough respect on yourselves to stop

So, what if you invested years waiting for her despite her clear rejections?" Granger snorted. "That's on you, not on her. If you truly cared about her, you should've stopped the moment she said no. At this point, you're either forcing her to be with you despite her clear dislike for you, or you're tiring her to the point that she'll have no other choice than to yes, which is not the best way to start a relationship, mind you. What? You think your efforts and sincerity will win her over? Please, it's been six years. Everyone knows you're sincere, and Lily's not exactly stupid either not to see it, so it's only a matter of time before you give up or she gives in, and honestly, I don't see the latter happening so soon if you don't have enough self-respect."

His ears felt hot as he listened to Granger's damning words. As if his thoughts alone weren't enough to put him down, Granger had to add her piercing and unapologetically sharp tongue as well.

"What do you know about love, Granger?" James couldn't help but shoot back, sulking, his shoulders slumped.

"More than you, since you're the one who couldn't get the girl after six years," Granger retorted, crossing her arms over her chest, still with that inscrutable expression across her face, not letting him glimpse her thoughts or hint it at him. "You're a lovable guy, James. You're an idiot, too, but that's neither here nor there. You have so much love to give, but you have to remember that you have to give some love for yourself as well. A person like you shouldn't beg for someone's affections, and a person like Lily shouldn't be forced to be with someone she doesn't even like. Do us all a favor: either give up or change your plans to actually appear likable in front of her. Don't waste her time, or ours."

She shrugged on her shoulders, as if she hadn't dropped bomb after bomb to leave him as hollow as a moon's crater. James didn't want to dwell on her words—which sounded so right that he could barely muster the right words to correct her—so he merely muttered something unintelligible before storming into the Gryffindor common room, the portrait shutting close behind him.

It was only when he left that it dawned on him that he was still wearing his Invisibility Cloak.

And she still managed to find him.