Courting Lily

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Courting Lily
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-Chapter 1-

James Potter stomped off to his dormitory in a foul mood. Not only had he just taken his Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL, he'd been told off by Lily Evans for being a conceited jerk in front of nearly half the school. He sighed loudly. So what if I was picking on Snivellus again? He's just an outcast, a greasy little teacher's pet with the personality of an onion. Who's she to blame me? Nobody likes these bloody OWLs, Outstanding or not...I just wanted to have a little fun, to cheer Sirius up a bit. No harm in it, anyway...

He continued the inner dialogue all the way to his bed, which he promptly flopped down onto. Several minutes later, he rolled over and got off the bed with a bleak look on his face. His own arguments sounded hollow to him, and prolonged thinking was in danger of revealing to him exactly how right she was, not only on the topic of Snivellus, but on other more sensitive ones as well.

James came down the stairs into the Gryffindor Common Room to find Sirius, Remus, and Peter still waiting for him. They stared at each other for several moments before Sirius broke the silence.

"God, Prongs, don't look so depressed. She's just a girl, anyway..."

"Yeah, Sirius's right! She's just another girl, anyway," Peter chimed in, repeating the first thing that came to his ears.

James made no sign of having heard either of them. "Siri--no, wait. Remus, what she said was true, wasn't it?"

His handsome friend looked away and didn't reply.

Sirius broke in. "James, you're being ridiculous. It isn't and you know that's so! Snivellus is just a foul little rat--sorry, Worms--and if you hadn't made the first move, well, he'd have provoked you sooner or later anyw--" James held up a hand and Sirius dropped silent for a few seconds before starting again. "Well, all right," he admitted grudgingly. "Maybe today's incident was sort of your fault--and I never did approve of your snitch games--but still... Since when did Lily Evans become the Minister? Not everything she says is right, James, and--"

"And unfortunately, she was right today. We're going nowhere with this. I'm hungry; let's just go eat before all the food's gone, okay?" James started down to the Great Hall without waiting for a reply. Sirius looked at Remus with a certain gravity, then both started down the stairs after James, with Peter hurriedly following.

~*~

"Lily!" hissed Leigh, elbowing her auburn-haired friend. "It's Potter and Company..."

"Goodness, they're late," commented Joanna noncommittally from across the table.

"Poor Potter," murmured Lily, her expression clearly showing that she felt nothing remotely akin to pity for the boy who'd just walked in.

Leigh and Joanna were two of Lily's closest friends, and together with Alice, they formed an inseperable foursome that did everything together. Joanna Chang had shoulder-length black hair that shimmered when she moved, her eyes were a many-hued melt of chocolatey shades, and, along with Lily, she was commonly regarded as one of the prettiest girls in the school. Leigh Delamere was tall and svelte with ice-blonde hair and piercing, grey-blue eyes. Notoriously unattainable, Leigh was the mastermind of the foursome, and generally considered boys to beneath her dignity, which was the only reason her admirers were fewer in number than those of Lily and Joanna. The last girl was Alice Fairfield. She had a round, similing face, softly curling golden hair, and sweetness to match her looks. Her features, though nice enough, paled against the dramatic beauty of her three friends. Thankfully, she wasn't one to care much about such things.

It was Alice who spoke now; never comfortable with the way her friends treated boys, she felt she had to say something for 'poor Potter', who wore a distinctly dejected look on his face from where he sat at the end of the table. "But Lily, I really do think there's something more than just tantrums and sulking to him today," she protested. "I think he really took your words to heart."

"About time," scoffed Joanna.

"Jo!" Alice looked indignant.

"What? It's true, Alice. James Potter"--Lily pronounced the word with distaste--"is quite possibly the biggest jerk in the school."

"Or at least he's tied for that particular honor with that insufferable Sirius," added Leigh, rolling her eyes. "God, wouldn't I just love to take a sledgehammer and whack that perfect, blown-up head of his... You never know; it might actually do something about that ego." She smirked slightly as Lily and Jo laughed."Come to think of it, the only Maruader who's even half tolerable is Remus, but I've heard he's the one who comes up with all the really good pranks they pull, so he's out too..." She sighed dramatically.

Alice looked at her friends, all framed in various poses of contempt, and shook her head . "You are all being just as bad as them, in case you haven't noticed," she said quietly, not looking at any of the other girls directly. She could tell from the ensuing silence that they'd heard her clearly. It seemed a good time to leave.

"Good night," she said, without looking any of her friends in the eye, and went alone up the stairs to the portrait of the Pink Lady, wondering when her friends would realize how horribly they were acting.

~*~

"James, you up?" James woke with a start at the whisper in his ear. Turning his head, he saw Sirius peering in at him. "Gotta talk. Come on, before everyone else wakes up!"

James nodded and quickly dressed, then followed Sirius down the stone steps into the Gryffindor Common Room. They lost no time in choosing the squashy armchairs in front of the still-blazing fire, cursing the cold edge of summer nights in Hogwarts. Sirius produced a package of chocolate frogs, and the two dug in.

"Okay, Prongs. I've been thinking--"

"Really?"

Sirius glared and continued. "--that we both agree that pining away for Evans isn't a healthy use of your time, right?" Without waiting for a reply, he went on. "So logically, you've got to do something about that--"

James sighed impatiently. "Sirius, if you woke me up to have another Evans-bashing session, I'm going back to sleep. You know perfectly well that if I could have gotten over her by my own will, I'd have done that months ago!"

"No, wait! James, you dolt, this is important! She thinks you're the worst thing that ever happened to her. You can't get over her. So what are you going to do?" Sirius waited expectantly.

James stared at his friend blankly, not comprehending.

Sirius exhaled. "Good god, James, you are a dolt... If you like a girl and she doesn't like you back, you make her like you," he said with the air of an adult explaining something to a very small child. "So, if you like Evans and she doesn't like--OW!"

James put down the cushion he'd beaned Sirius over the head with. "Padfoot, hate to break it to ya, but," he leaned in closer and whispered, "you're a dolt too." He drew back. "Sirius, the whole point of Evans is that she's not like all the other girls. She's--she's perfect, and sweet, and kind, and smart, and drop-dead gorgeous. And there's no way she's falling for me if I just carry her books around for her." He looked at his friend flatly.

Unconcerned, Sirius put his feet up on the rickety table between them with deliberate thuds and grinned that daredevil smile of his, the one that melted an average of five girls every day. "Who says you're just going to carry her books for her?"

~*~

Lily, Jo, Leigh, and Alice came down the stairs together early Friday morning to a most unexpected sight.

The entire Common Room had been done up in shades of purple--even the fireplace was belching fuschia flames. Jo's eyes grew wider with every passing moment, Alice's mouth had formed a perfect O, and Leigh had screwed her eyes tightly shut, as if willing the scene to go away.

As for Lily--well, she was reacting in the only way possible for a girl who had just seen her name surrounded by little lavendar hearts scrawled in bold, shimmering letters all over the walls, ceiling, and floor.

"AAAAUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Two seconds later, Leigh cautiously opened one eye. "Well, thanks for waking up everyone in the school, Lily..."

"James Potter is a freak," snarled her fuming, green-eyed friend, to which Jo, Leigh, and even Alice nodded in agreement.

The foursome hastily exited the humiliatingly purple mess that was the Common Room, shielding their eyes from the banners that proclaimed "I LOVE LILY EVANS" in flashing letters of flourescent-violet cursive.

Underneath the cushions of a disembowled couch, Sirius winced at James. "Oops."

James eyed his friend with a pained expression.
"Padfoot, why didn't we consider the embarassment factor?"

~*~

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