Amiable Acquaintances

Amiable Acquaintances

James Potter was noticeably bored. He hadn't had Quidditch practice that day, and he had, surprisingly, finished both of his Transfiguration essays the day before and was leaving Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts to Sunday night. Sirius was off, raiding the kitchens with Peter, and Remus was being sensible, meaning swotty, and was actually studying for that Charms test they would have on Tuesday. Not that James wasn't planning to study, too; of course he was; he wasn't Head Boy for nothing, after all, but that was what Tuesday's lunch hour had been made for. No. He was bored, procrastinating, and lounging in a swell of laziness.

"Bugger," he said loudly, trying to catch Remus' attention. "I'm bored."

"Go study, then," Remus shot back at him. "You're terrible at Charms."

"I am not terrible!" James protested. "I got all of eighty-four per cent on that last exam, thank you very much."

"And you griped about it for weeks, you idiot. Look, you're Head Boy; go pick up a book once in a while. Set a good example for the first years. Do something."

James yawned lazily. "But it's homework, you prat."

"Yes," Remus said dismissively. "Do it now, and you won't be spilling pumpkin juice over four unfinished essays at breakfast."

"I hate it when you're right," James grumbled amiably, "and when I know you're right."

There was a slight pause.

"Actually, you know," he added, "I hate it even more when I follow your stupid advice."

Running a hand through his everlastingly mussed hair, he stood up with a loud sigh and tramped up the staircase to his dormitory, emerging again a few minutes later with his Charms book clamped under his arm and a quill and a roll of parchment in his other hand.

He sat back down in his armchair, pulled a table towards his right side, and spread the book open on his lap, casually opening his mouth.

"Pages three hundred and sixty five through three hundred ninety-six," Remus informed him, not looking up from his own notes. "You should write things down more often."

"I should go boil my own head more often," James sighed. "No, I take that back. I do. I don't hate studying...it's just...I guess people make you think it's horrible, so you start to believe it. And I can't help it. I believe it quite strongly indeed."

"Oh, come off it," Remus frowned, looking up from his thickly inked parchment. "Make yourself like studying. Pretend you're looking for some higher goal, like--oh, the Snitch or something stupid like that."

"I'm okay once I've started," James shrugged, twiddling his quill so that it flitted in and out of his left nostril. "It's the getting-started part that I don't like."

"Want some cheese with that whine?" a girl's voice shot at him from the red, plushy couch ten feet away. "Oh, no; forgot--for the Quidditch star it would be caviar, wouldn't it?"

Interested, James looked up and caught the half-amused, half-disgusted stare of his fellow Head student. Lily Evans. He used to ask her out all the time, mostly to annoy her, and she finally exploded when she went off on him about being deservedly evil to Snivellus Snape. Since then...well, since then he hadn't really found the initiative to annoy her any more. It...oh, he didn't know. It just seemed so stupid...so really pointless, and...yeah, he had just stopped.

"Caviar and champagne, lady," he grinned at her. "Studying for Charms?"

"Arithmancy," she said, blinking. She had very, very long eyelashes, and they were lots darker than her hair; almost dark brown. "Why?"

"Topic of conversation," he shrugged. "I don't really want to study."

"Yes, I heard," she said calmly, raising an eyebrow. "You could pretend to be studying, though, so that the poor first-graders won't get the impression from you that their supreme goal in seventh year is to fail their N.E.W.T.s with a T."

"Ugh," he muttered, setting his quill down, taking off his glasses, and rubbing his face vigorously with his hands. "I suppose I could..."

And, with that, and much to Lily's surprise, James Potter actually followed her advice, turned a few pages in his textbook, dipped his quill in the inkpot, and carefully wrote down the name of that chapter, with the word Notes underneath it. And he actually started taking notes, too; flabbergasted, Lily sat and watched him for a good five minutes before she opened her mouth again.

"You...you...I...just..."

"Hmm?" James asked off-handedly.

"You...did...what...I suggested?" she said faintly. "Remus said the same thing to you earlier, and you ignored him."

"Mmm," James responded intelligently, meticulously drawing the outline of a levitation chart.

"Ungh," Lily said coherently, and turned back to her own homework. Unfortunately, she started to find it rather hard to concentrate; she kept staring over at the Potter kid to make sure he wasn't shamming. Apparently, he wasn't, which was slightly scary.

One and a half hours later, Remus had gone to bed, as had most of the people in the common room except a few fourth years, who were still practicing Switching Spells in a corner. At the same moment, Lily and James both dotted their last period, blew carefully on their notes to dry the ink, and placed them inside their bags. That is, Lily placed her notes inside her bag, and James stuffed them, meaning that they got rather wrinkled.

"Going to bed?" he ventured, watching her sling her bag over her shoulder.

"I was going to, yeah," she shrugged. "It's late. Why?"

"No reason. I just..." He paused. "Well, it was nice studying with you, anyhow."

"Yes, things are indeed lovely when you aren't constantly asking me out," Lily agreed. "I've really enjoyed the peace and quiet of the past year and a half."

Touché, James admitted to himself. "Yeah, well, it got to the point where it just seemed kind of stupid."

"It was," Lily agreed. "Very much so. It irritated me to no end and had all the girls teasing me and no boy would come near me because they all thought that I was somehow madly in love with you."

"Oh," James blinked. "Er--really?"

"Yeah," Lily said dryly. "Really."

"Oh," he said again. "I--er, I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"You wouldn't," she shrugged. "You're nice, but you're very self-absorbed."

James started to interject something in the area of "excusemewhoareyoucallingself-absorbed?" before his brain processed the first part of the sentence, and he just stood there and stared at her.

"You just said I was nice," he managed.

Lily shrugged for what had to be the twentieth time that night. "You are. Well, to people you like, anyhow."

"You just said I was nice."

"Yes," Lily told him, the corner of her mouth twitching.

"You just said I was nice."

"We have established this groundbreaking fact. James, you are nice when you're not trying to be snarky, but you're still really, really stuck up."

"If I was nice," he said, trying to process this very interesting bit of information, "why wouldn't you go out with me when I kept asking you to?"

"Because it was a game to you," she sighed, setting her bag down on the floor. "Tell me honestly, if I had said 'yes' and meant it--said yes in a way that might have meant that I liked you a tiny bit, wouldn't you have made fun of me?"

"I would not!" he mock-gasped. "Never!"

"Tell the truth."

"I wouldn't have!"

"No, seriously. Tell me."

"I really wouldn't have!"

"Right," Lily muttered, giving up. "Yeah, you would. But it doesn't matter, anyway, I guess."

"It doesn't?"

"Well, I never said 'yes', did I?"

"Unfortunately not," James admitted. And then, with only a glimmer of a smile in his face, he took her hand. "Lily, would you go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"

"Oh, give up!" she scowled, yanking her hand out of his, picking up her books, and starting to march away, towards the girls' dormitories. But James, leaping over the back of her couch, managed to slide in front of her before she reached the stairs. "No, seriously, I mean it!" he protested. "Look, I'll invite Remus to come along, if you want him to. Or Sirius and Peter, too, and you could bring some of your friends. It wouldn't be a date, I promise!"

"Oh, Merlin!" she hissed furiously. "I don't like you, you bloody, arrogant, stuck-up bastard, why won't you just leave me alone? I don't want to go on a date with you, don't you understand that? Just go away, James--just go and snog Sirius if you'd rather have him laughing with you than someone else being friendly with you. Go away."

Her glares weren't really deadly, James thought, watching her in the silence that ensued. Just...really, really attractive. Her face was flushed, her eyes were slightly reddened, and she looked as though she wanted to smack him very, very much.

"Er," he managed. "I...listen, Lily, that's not what happened."

"What's not what happened when?" she snapped, scowling at him.

"I mean--er, you know..." He cleared his throat nervously. "You know, when I kept asking you out. It wasn't really to make fun of you, you know, it was just..."

He trailed off, staring at her hopefully, and his face fell almost comically when she set her jaw and readjusted her bookbag.

"I'll start talking to you when you start telling the truth. Goodnight, Potter."

"No!" he almost shouted, trying to grab her shoulder and missing. "No, Lily, wait!"

Peeved, she paused, one foot on the girls' staircase. "What?"

"I'm sorry, okay?" he blurted out without thinking. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I teased you and I'm sorry I made fun of you, but...bloody hell, Lily, I wouldn't have done that if I didn't like you! I just...I don't know, stuff just came out of my mouth, and I really wanted to annoy you, but I hated seeing you mad, I really did. I'm sorry I made your life miserable. I'm sorry. Just don't--don't storm away like that, please don't, because--"

Suddenly, he realized that the group of fourth years was watching him intently, and he stuttered to a stop, highly embarrassed.

"Yes, right, then," he muttered. "I'm going to bed."

Feeling like the largest prat that had ever had the misfortune of being born, James stumped off towards his own staircase. Midway there, he realized that he had forgotten his books on the sofa he'd been sitting on, but figured he'd look even stupider if he turned around and got them now. Trying not to think of the rumors that would be flying around Hogwarts by tomorrow morning about his pledging of undying love to Lily Evans, he started up the stairs.

And then, suddenly, the miraculous happened.

"James?" a small voice on the other staircase asked meekly.

Then, of course, he spun around so quickly that he almost lost his balance and went flying onto his face. "Yes?"

"Did you mean that?"

"Mean what?"

"That part where you said...where you said you wouldn't have done those things if you hadn't liked me."

"Oh," he said, feeling rather stupid. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"Oh," she repeated, and James suddenly noticed that her cheeks were still bright red.

"So," he said, gritting his teeth for the worst, "do you want to go to Hogsmeade with me?"

Lily twitched her eyebrows together and stuck her tongue between her teeth. "You mean it?"

"I promise," he repeated sincerely.

To his great surprise, her face broke out into a grin, and she hugged her books to his chest. "Yeah, that would be nice," she beamed. "Meet you down here?"

"Sounds great," James nodded. "I--uh, yeah, I'll see you, er, tomorrow, then, right?"

"Yeah," Lily agreed.

"And--we're friends?" he ventured as a final gesture.

"Amiable acquaintances," Lily winked, turning again to walk up to her dormitory.

"Very amiable?" he asked hopefully.

"Goodnight, you!" she sent back down the stairs, and a few seconds later, he head a door click open and closed, but he still didn't move.

"Wow," he said vaguely, looking slightly dazed. "I'm going to Hogsmeade with Lily Evans."

Apparently, he hadn't ever gotten over his fad of asking her out at every possible opportunity.

And in this case, that was a damn good thing.

Because now his only problem in life was to remember to act like an amiable acquaintance, and not like some git who didn't really fancy that girl at all, not in the least, thankyouverymuch.

In her dormitory, Lily slung down her bag with a firm hand and very firmly did not think about the fact that she had just agreed to go to Hogsmeade with someone who really was a supreme git, in spite of the fact that he had just given her the first hint that he might actually be a somewhat decent human being.

"Lily, I wouldn't have done that if I didn't like you!"

...He was, after all, still a git, thankyouverymuch.

LA FIN