DISCLAIMER: The only thing I own is my twisted sense of humour

A/N: Just a little bit of light-hearted fluff to celebrate (not) going back to Hogwarts in September. Waa. Enjoy!

Part One

In Which James Potter is a Crazy Person

The morning of September the second at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was almost always a quiet affair. Year after year students old and new shuffled into the Great Hall, greeted by a celestial ceiling open to the heavens and the smell of breakfast: wafts of coffee, whiffs of eggs and sausage and the occasional rose shampoo-

It really only took a second. A second of confusion, then of a dawning realization that drained all colour from the young boy's face. He groaned dramatically, smacking his forehead on the Gryffindor table before him with a loud thump.

Ouch.

He winced at the pain but did nothing to act upon it; too miffed at himself to attempt to remove the splinters that had surely impaled themselves into his brow region.

"Now really, if you didn't want me to sit here you could have just said something," a humoured voice momentarily lifted James Potter from his self-induced migraine. Looking up at the source of the voice, he ruffled his shock of raven hair out of his eyes to shoot one Sirius Black a disgruntled glare.

"I'm doomed," James huffed.

His new friend simply cocked his head to the side questioningly, his own dark curls swooping handsomely over one glittering eye. "Why? Is our timetable unbearable? We'd better not have anything that requires actual brains in the mornings, or else I'm going to off myself."

James shook his head frantically, then paused for a moment before beginning to nod furiously. "No. I mean, probably. I haven't looked at it."

"So the matter of offing myself is still undecided," Sirius absently buttered a piece of toast, "could you pass the tomatoes?" Behind him, Professor McGonagall continued down the Gryffindor table, having finished distributing the first-year schedules.

"Never mind the schedule," the bespectacled boy pushed his rather large wire-framed glasses up his narrow nose, rubbing his forehead where it had made unfortunate contact with the table. "Do you see that there?" he jerked his thumb to his right.

"Our classmates?"

"No, no, I'm talking about Lily Evans!" James leaned forward until he was uncomfortably close enough to Sirius for him to have no choice but to look into his eyes.

"Er…what about her?" Sirius leaned back to create a sizable distance from their noses, wondering if he had accidentally befriended a crazy person on the train the previous day. He stretched out one gangly arm to the side, lightly tapping Remus Lupin on the shoulder.

"Could you pass the tomatoes?"

The sandy-haired boy handed him the plate without so much as glance up from his schedule, seemingly correlating classroom locations to his map of the castle.

"Forget the tomatoes, Sirius!" James hissed, "look at Lily!"

Sirius slowly turned his head to his left, peering at the small girl moving scrambled eggs around her plate, "Er…her hair looks like the colour of these tomatoes?"

"Yes! Doesn't it?" James moaned, clasping his hands together in a manner very unbefitting an eleven-year-old boy, "look at the way it catches the light!"

"Uh…" the concerned boy lifted an eyebrow in confusion. Despite the sheer number of similar remarks he himself would make in future years to come, the young Sirius Black was about as versed with the fairer sex as he was with dragons.

"Do you think she's pretty?" James asked eagerly.

"I…what?" Sirius watched the momentarily delighted expression on the other boy's face slip before he let out another dramatic sigh.

"I'm doomed," he repeated sadly, pressing one check into the palm of his hand. For you see, how could he expect his new mates to understand? Yesterday he was carefree, happy; like all other boys his age. His main interaction with girls involved awkward ballroom dancing with the flower girl at his aunt's wedding and stealing his cousin Maggie's hair berets because it made her scream. And then Lily Evans had to walk into his life and ruin it all.

It wasn't as if he didn't know what a girl was. Girls wore skirts and hair clips. Girls didn't like playing in the mud. Girls didn't like it when you pushed them or pulled their hair. But when Lily Evans walked into his train compartment on the Hogwarts Express the day before, he had an inkling feeling that she wouldn't merely squeal if he pulled one of her dark red locks. He had a feeling she could make his life hell, and he loved the thought of it.

It was then that Remus spoke for the first time that morning, "I don't think taking a fancy to Lily makes you doomed James," he said softly, taking back the tomatoes from Sirius to stab several with his fork.

"Remus, you don't understand! Every time I look at her, my heart leaps in my throat! Look at how sweaty my hands are right now," he shoved his palms in Remus's face, "the Potter curse is real!"

It was now Remus's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Potter curse?" he inched away from James's positively clammy palms.

"Potter curse," James repeated exasperatedly, "I didn't believe it before. I reckoned if the lot of you thought Lily was pretty too, then it wouldn't be true!"

"Er-" Sirius began, but Remus, shockingly socially intelligent even at eleven, interrupted before Sirius caused James to have a meltdown.

"It's not that we don't think she's pretty, James," Remus chewed on a tomato thoughtfully, "We're just not as er-passionate about it as you are. Why do you think you're cursed?"

"Potter men are cursed to fall in love with redheads," James spoke once he placed his hands back in his personal bubble, "my gran always said so."

"Yes, because grans are always leading the front on logical thought," Sirius cackled.

"Sirius!" James threw his arms up in the air, "my mother is a redhead. My gran was a redhead. Almost every woman married into my family is a redhead! Do you call that a coincidence?"

"Depends," the black-haired boy smirked, "are you Irish? You don't sound Irish."

"Do you want to die right now?" his friend looked ready to upset a platter of eggs.

"Complicated question really," Sirius said, eyeing a jug of pumpkin juice down the table, "I think-"

"Relax, James," Remus cut Sirius off again, "ginger hair isn't exactly hard to find in Britain. It could very well be a coincidence. And it can't be as bad as a curse – it isn't as if everyone with red hair is a dragon wanting to burn your skin off."

"Oh, I don't know about that-" Remus ended Sirius's gleeful interlude with a pointed glare.

"Besides, Lily looks nice." The werewolf finished cheerfully before reaching to pass Sirius the jug of pumpkin juice, effectively saving the table and its contents from the young Black's wildly grabbing hands.

"Yeah," James dolloped scrambled eggs onto his plate a little too enthusiastically, "yea, maybe I'm not cursed. She might be nice." He stabbed his eggs so violently with his fork that they went flying, landing on the lap of a nearby second year.

How wrong he was.

Part Two

In Which James Potter Attends a Lesson but Fails to Learn Anything

"Mr. Potter, if you're going to continue to throw parchment pellets at Miss. Evans, kindly write down the preferred date of each of your successive detentions on them before you do so. I'd hate for all that perfectly usable parchment to go to waste." Professor McGonagall said casually from the front of the quiet classroom, not even bothering to turn around from the blackboard.

October sunlight streamed into the room, bringing with it the faint chirps of migrating birds and a cool, pleasant breeze. No one in class even batted an eye, save for the quiet snicker of Sirius Black. By now most of the third years were impartial, if not bored of James Potter's infatuation with Lily Evans.

"Er, no Professor, that won't be necessary," he stammered, the tips of his ears pink.

"Good," came her curt reply.

The minute McGonagall ended her lecture to assign them classwork the sounds of conversation broke out and said object of James's affections whipped around to glare at him, her green eyes flashing dangerously. Immediately his heart began its usual pat patpatpat routine, reserved especially for when apple-of-his-eye Lily Evans graced him by looking his way. He smiled nervously, wiggling the finger of one hand in a little wave. Her eyes narrowed as she turned back to face the front, slowly gathering the pellets he'd thrown at her in a little pile at the corner of her desk.

He continued to stare. He couldn't help it; her hair was extra shiny today. It was burgundy with streaks of golden flame, and like a salamander, he was attracted to fire.

He poked Remus sharply in the side, who was concentrating on turning a tortoise into a teapot.

"Ouch! James, do you ever clip your fingernails-"

"Look how shiny her hair is," he interrupted in a mock stage whisper, meaning that Lily, sitting only two rows in front, most certainly heard him, "do you reckon she does it on purpose?"

"Yes Potter, I do it to attract dogs like you," she drawled, not turning around, "I'll be using it to hypnotize you into hurling yourself out the window."

A choked sound of laughter came from James's left. When glared at, Remus merely smiled sheepishly. "It was funny," he said as a way of defence.

"Good one, Lily," Sirius piped from James's right.

"If I hurl myself out the window and survive, will you fall in love with me Evans?" James asked hopefully.

He could tell from the way she tensed her shoulders that he had said something very, very wrong. Without bothering to answer, she put down her quill, pressed the parchment pellets James had thrown at her into one large one and threw it at him with a force he didn't know she possessed.

It hit him sharply in the nose, knocking his glasses askew. Ouch. She smirked, but he wasn't even angry. Even her little half-smile was enough to send him into a daze.

"Miss Evans!" Professor McGonagall snapped as he rubbed his nose, "Would you like detention too?"

"I'll take mine whenever she's having hers," James raised his hand helpfully. This time, his response gathered a few chuckles from the rest of the class.

"I should think not," Lily snapped as the bell for lunch rang.

James sighed pitifully as he watched her gather her things, smiling gratefully at Edgar Bones when he passed her a quill she'd dropped.

"Why can't she ever smile at me like that Sirius?"

His friend barked with laughter. "Tough luck mate."

James groaned as it was his habit to do, and thumped his head on his desk. "I'm cursed," he moaned.

"We've been over this-"

"-I'm cursed because she doesn't love me!"

"Yeah, we know," Remus smiled sympathetically, "Come on, I'm starving."

Part Three

In Which James Potter Doesn't Attend Class but Finally Learns a Lesson

"Evans!" James called frantically as he chased after the lithe redhead in the throng of students pushing themselves onto the Hogwarts Express, "Lily! Oi!"

"What do you want now, Potter?" she snapped when he finally caught up to her outside the Prefects' compartment, "because I haven't really got any-why are you panting?" She looked at him oddly as he heaved over, gripping the compartment handle in an effort to catch his breath. She hadn't changed out of her muggle clothes yet, and James immediately noticed that her flowy top revealed freckled shoulders that he'd never seen before.

"Why…wouldn't I…" he clutched his chest, sinking to the floor in a very dramatic manner, "I chased you…from the muggle platform to here."

"Aren't you Quidditch captain?" Lily raised an eyebrow.

"So?" he stretched out his long legs, effectively blocking most of the narrow corridor. It was only luck that the Prefects' compartment was at the head of the train and too few students frequented here for Lily to tell him off.

"So aren't you supposed to be good at exercise?"

"Ha! Quidditch is easy, Evans. You just hop on a broom and fly. You don't actually use your legs," he grinned up at her, admiring the way her jeans hugged her body, "plus, you always manage to make me catch my breath anyway." Wizarding robes had nothing on muggle trousers.

"Ugh," she scoffed disgustedly, making her way to enter the compartment, "well if that's your clever way of a pick-up line-"

"No!" James scrambled, catching her forearm as he stood up, "wait, Lily. I came here to apologize."

"What for?" her attention was now caught.

He took a deep breath. He'd been practising his little speech all summer. "For how I acted at the end of OWLs last term. For how I've acted for the past five years, to be honest. I shouldn't have subjected you and Sniv-er Snape to that. It was immature and inconsiderate, even if he did call you a you-know-what. I'm sorry."

He hung his head. He truly was. Through all those years of teasing, pranking, and general harassment of Lily Evans, he had never seen her quite so angry as that day. They fought daily, they screamed, she called him obscenities, he constantly asked her out, but generally, by the morning, they were back to square one, ready for another day's antics. But not that time. She had pretended he simply didn't exist for the remainder of that term, too furious to even brawl with him. She'd returned all his letters unmarked and unopened during the summer, not even bothering with a curt reply.

"All right," her voice snapped him out of his rather depressing memories.

"What?" he asked, shocked. He couldn't believe his ears.

"Apology accepted, Potter," she said with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"Really?" he felt like he could fly. All he'd wanted was for them to return to their usual 'I hate you but I'll still give you the time of day and insult your general lack of incompetence' relationship. Never would he have dreamed that she'd forgive him.

"Really," she smiled grimly, "I don't condone your bullying, but I've come to realize that maybe you were right about Severus. He always had an obsession with the dark arts that wasn't healthy. And this summer, well, I think he went irreversibly far. He's chosen his side. And I've chosen mine."

"Er-sorry to hear that?" nothing could burst his bubble. Nothing.

"No, I don't think you are, but thanks for the attempt." Her face remained stony, but he could swear he saw a twinkle in her emerald eyes.

"So…does that mean we can be friends?" it was a grab in the dark, but he knew he had to try.

Her eyes immediately narrowed. "Are you going to keep hexing people in the hallways?"

"Nope," he answered immediately, "the new and improved James Potter isn't familiar with the word 'hex.'"

"Are you going to continue to bully first years?" she didn't miss a beat.

"I'm going to save the first years from bullying second to fifth years, Evans. James Potter to the rescue!" he thrust one fisted arm into the air in a comical imitation of characters in the muggle comic books Remus had lent him.

"Are you going to keep pranking?" she asked with a smirk on her face.

He cringed. "Er-I won't be performing pranks with lasting side effects?"

She tilted her head to the side; calculating. Then she stuck out her hand for James to shake. "Friendly acquaintances; that's what I'm offering you."

He shook her hand much too enthusiastically for someone who'd just been offered to have a 'friendly acquaintance', a large grin on his face. "And a date in Hogsmeade?" he couldn't believe his luck.

"Really, Potter, I'd rather stick pins into my eyes."

"Well I'm sure your eyes will still be lovely even with pins in them," he continued to shake her hand with no signs of stopping.

"That's nice," Lily looked positively disturbed, "you can let go of my hand now." He was shaking her whole arm now.

"But your hand is so soft-"

"Potter, I'm warning you-"

"Right," he let go of her arm smartly, dusting her shoulders off as she looked rather frazzled, "I'll be going now." He couldn't wait to tell his friends, the world, anyone who would listen really.

"I think you had better," she turned around to enter the prefects' compartment at last, "see you around James."

His ears perked up at the sound of his name coming from her lips. He couldn't see her face, but he could swear he saw a cheek lift in a smile as she entered her compartment.

"See you," he trailed off. And then quite like the maniac he was, he skipped his way to his own compartment.

"Everybody!" he yelled excitedly as he slid the door open with such a force that it reverberated off the frame and nearly closed again, "I have news!"

"So do I," Sirius Black said as he gracefully untangled himself from where he was holding Peter Pettigrew in a headlock, "I need a piss. And to pay that lovely Ravenclaw seventh year a visit." He winked roguishly, flipping his dark locks out of his eye with a finger.

"Nope," James promptly kicked Sirius into the seat closest to the door, holding him down with one arm when he began to struggle, "stop picking your nose Wormtail, and put away the book Moony," he paused dramatically, "Lily and I are now friendly acquaintances," he said smugly.

A pause, and then all three of his friends immediately burst into laughter. "When are you sending out the announcements?" Sirius snickered from underneath James's arm, kicking out his feet until they made contact with Peter's shins, who was chuckling.

"Stop laughing, you useless sacks, this is important!" James finally let go of his grip on Sirius, only to pirouette his way into his own seat across from Remus, "I apologized, and she forgave me!"

"Really?" Remus sounded impressed, "I'm proud of you James." Peter nodded frantically in agreement.

Only Sirius, who was now wheezing with laughter, rolled onto the floor. "Took you only five years to get her to go from hating your guts to only hating you slightly," he choked, tears of mirth streaming down his face.

At once James's face fell. "You're right," he groaned, dropping his face into his hands, "how long will it take her to actually like me?"

"You're cursed!" Sirius cackled from the floor.

"I'm cursed!" he repeated dramatically, dropping to his knees.

"Oh come now, Prongs," Remus said as he retrieved The Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six from underneath Peter's seat, "I'm sure she doesn't hate you anymore."

"But Padfoot is right, Moony!" James dry sobbed as he crawled across the floor to clutch Remus's trouser leg, "how will she ever love me? I'm cursed!"

"Oh, cheer up, mate," Remus patted his back nervously, "do you want a cauldron cake?"

A moan of agony was his only response.

Part Four

In Which Lily Evans is a Crazy Person

The morning of September the second at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was almost always a quiet affair. Year after year students old and new shuffled into the Great Hall, greeted by a celestial ceiling open to the heavens and the smell of breakfast: wafts of coffee, whiffs of eggs and sausage and the occasional musky cologne-

It really only took a second. A second of confusion, then of a dawning realization that drained all colour from the young woman's face. She groaned dramatically, smacking her forehead on the Gryffindor table before her with a loud thump.

Ouch.

She winced at the pain but did nothing to act upon it; too miffed at herself to attempt to remove the splinters that had surely impaled themselves into her brow region.

"Now really, if you didn't want me to sit here you could have just said something," a humoured voice momentarily lifted Lily Evans from her self-induced migraine. Looking up at the source of the voice, she tossed her mane of dark red hair out of her eyes shoot one Marlene McKinnon a disgruntled glare.

"I'm doomed," Lily huffed.

Her friend simply cocked her head to the side questioningly, her own dark curls swooping over one amber eye. "Why? Is The Prophet that bad today? There better not be any news of killings today, or else I'm going to curse the Slytherin table into oblivion myself."

Lily shook her head frantically, then paused for a moment before beginning to nod furiously. "No. I mean, probably. I haven't looked at it."

"So the matter of cursing into oblivion is still undecided," Marlene absently buttered a piece of toast, "could you pass the tomatoes?" Around her, students across the Great Hall anxiously opened their mail.

"Never mind The Prophet," the petite girl pushed her rather long sleeves up her elbows, rubbing her forehead where it had made unfortunate contact with the table. "Do you see that there?" she jerked her thumb to her right.

"Our classmates?"

"No, no, I'm talking about James Potter!" Lily leaned forward until she was uncomfortably close enough to Marlene for her to have no choice but to look into her eyes.

"Er…what about him?" Marlene leaned back to create a sizable distance from their noses, wondering if the Head Girl had become a crazy person overnight. She stretched out one arm to the side, lightly tapping Remus Lupin on the shoulder, who had just sat down.

"Could you pass the tomatoes?"

The sandy-haired boy handed her the plate without so much as glance up from his bookbag, seemingly searching for his copy of Advanced Transfiguration. "Morning Lily, Marlene." He muttered, placing a pile of quills on the table, followed by a jar of ink.

"Forget the tomatoes, Marlene!" Lily hissed, "look at James!"

Marlene slowly turned her head to the left, peering at the tall boy furiously scribbling the last of his transfiguration essay, tongue between his teeth. "Er…he's finishing his holiday homework?" Despite their rather close proximity, he didn't look up at the sound of his name. Clearly, the new Head Boy was trying to make an impression on Professor McGonagall.

"Exactly!"

A look of concern spread across the brunette's face. "Should he not be doing it?"

"No, no," Lily waved her hands exasperatedly, "I mean, do you think he's intelligent?"

"Well, …he's Head Boy. I would assume so?" she raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Marlene," Lily whispered now, shoving her mouth into her friend's ear, "do you think he's handsome?"

"Er…well…the walls of the girls' toilets seem to think so," she smirked now, realizing where the conversation was going.

Lily let out another dramatic sigh. "I'm doomed," she repeated sadly.

This seemed to finally grab Remus's attention. "You know Lily," he said smiling slightly as he closed the clasp on his book bag, "I seem to recall having a very similar conversation to this with James some years ago." He pulled the plate of tomatoes towards himself, stabbing several with his fork.

"Similar how?" Lily finally seemed to decide it was a good idea to return to her seat and give Marlene her personal space back.

"He seemed to think he was doomed as well."

"For what?" her curiosity peaked.

"For being in love with you," Remus answered simply.

Her face blanched when she caught his meaning. "I am not…I'm not in love with James!" she sputtered.

"Oh, but you are," Marlene smirked evilly.

"Oh come now, Lily," Remus chuckled, now making himself a marmalade sandwich, "this is the first time I've heard you use the words 'intelligent' and 'handsome' in association with James Potter. Clearly, something's changed."

"But, but-" She hadn't meant to fall for James Potter. All she had wanted was for them to be able to spend fifteen minutes in the same room as each other and not land anyone in the hospital wing by a rouge curse. They had mutual friends; she had wanted them to be civil for their sakes. But then she had gotten to know him. He was kind and fiercely loyal, funny albeit possessing the overdramatic behaviour of a fourteen-year-old witch at times, and often smart enough to give her own brain a run for its money.

By Christmas during the sixth year, she had noticed that he was no longer a gangly pre-pubescent boy, and by the end of term the image of golden eyes flecked with green and darker brown had been permanently engraved into the back of her brain. All through the summer holidays she kept reminding herself that she would not fall for the Potter charm as they exchanged snarky letters, but all he had to do yesterday on the Hogwarts Express was to flash a bright smile at her to make her stomach drop. It was then that she realized she had certainly, definitely fallen for that Potter charm, and she was completely, irrevocably doomed.

"Really, Lily," the sandy-haired werewolf interrupted her smoothly, "sometimes I feel like you and James are the same person trapped in two different bodies. What could be so bad about being with him?" He mentally shook himself of the severe déjà vu that was tickling his memory, recalling a breakfast he had spent exactly six years ago at this very table.

"Because I've spent six years convincing myself I hate him! I can hardly go up to him and say 'James, darling, sorry to interrupt, but I'm madly in love with you.'" she clutched her red locks in frustration.

"I have a feeling that's exactly what you need to do," Marlene took a sip of her tea.

"But what will people think?"

"Who cares? James himself will probably die of happiness, to be quite honest with you," Remus checked his wristwatch.

"Remus!" Lily suddenly stood up, grabbing his collar so that they were nose to nose, "you're not going to tell him, are you?" she asked furiously.

"No," he answered calmly, loosening her grip on him so that he could breathe, "but you are,"

"I will not!" she stamped her feet in a manner very unbefitting of the Head Girl.

"Yes, you will," he said firmly, "otherwise it's going to eat away at you for the rest of the year, and it's only September. Do you want to go crazy?"

"I'd argue that she already is crazy," Marlene piped up helpfully.

Lily shot her daggers with her eyes.

After several weeks of childish tantrums, shower mopings worthy of Moaning Myrtle, and numerous dire threats courtesy of Marlene, Lily straightened herself and caught up to James and his friends on their way down to the Halloween Feast.

"You can do this," she whispered to her reflection in a hallway mirror.

"That's the spirit!" the mirror wheezed, "unless it's murder. Don't commit murder!"

"Hey, James!" she called, running after him in the second-floor corridor, "can I talk to you for a minute?" she uttered before she could lose her courage.

He turned around, surprised. "Sure."

She waited patiently for his mates to move along, but only Remus seemed to get the memo. He smiled at her encouragingly as he pulled Sirius away, whose jaw had just dropped. "Cursed, eh, Prongs?" he snickered as the two of them disappeared around the corner, leaving them in the empty passageway by themselves.

"So, er-is this about the prefects' schedule that I messed up?" James ruffled his hair nervously. A year of steady friendship wasn't nearly long enough to excuse him from the terror of Lily Evans's wrath. "I promise I'll fix it. You can tell McGonagall that I swear-"

"It's not about that," Lily gulped.

"Last week's detention slips?"

"No."

"Oh."

Silence. He was probably wondering what other pressing head student or school-related business she could possibly want to talk about when the smell of the Halloween feast wafting up from the Great Hall was so enticing. Go on Lily, she told herself. Say it. James, sorry to interrupt, but I'm madly in love with you.

"Curse?" she started nervously. Bad Lily.

"Oh er-" he chuckled, "some joke courtesy of my gran."

She raised her eyebrows.

"She used to say that Potters are cursed to fall in love with redheads," he smiled nervously, "my mother's a redhead, my gran's a redhead, you get the idea."

At that, Lily unconsciously touched her own very red hair for a second before speaking. "How's that a curse? It's probably a coincidence, really. All you'd need is one family with red hair and a few generations of pure-blood inbreeding," the logical forefront of her brain clouded her nerves temporarily as she spoke, unknowingly echoing Remus's reasoning from long ago. Either his grandmother was just as overdramatic as he was or she just had a remarkably twisted sense of humour.

He laughed. "Spending half your life chasing after a redhead who doesn't love you back will make you believe anything, Lily," he winked, "but you're right. It's not a curse. Difficult and wonderful and frustrating, yes, but not a curse."

"Oh." Her heart began to patter violently as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, cocking his head to one side curiously. She was suddenly very jealous of how easily he was able to use the words love and wonderful in relation to her. Lily Evans was a witch of many talents, but speaking candidly about her feeling was not one of them.

"Lil?"

"Yeah?" she choked out. Had she ever noticed that he had a single simple on his left cheek before?

"You were going to say something." His eyes burned into hers.

Was the cohesive hair colour of the women in his family a coincidence, as she'd claimed confidently moments before? Or did all redheaded females collectively and genetically have a soft spot for messy, raven hair? A love for the clash of Quidditch muscles and bookish spectacles?

"Right. Er-" Say it. Sorry to interrupt, but I'm madly in love with you. The small, sweet smile on his lips didn't leave his face as he waited patiently for her to respond. Say it! Her mind went blank before she finally blurted: "-She never said she doesn't love you back." Damn it, Lily!

His eyes bugged out of his head. Then suddenly, he began laughing. "Sorry, I need you to repeat that. I completely misheard. I thought you just said you love me-"

"James, I-"

"Crazy, right? Merlin, I'm really losing it-"

"POTTER!" she shouted, effectively shutting him up.

"Yes?" he asked weakly, looking stunned.

She huffed. She no longer trusted her mouth to formulate the appropriate words. So she stomped forward, grabbing his face and bringing his lips down to hers in one swift motion, surprising even herself.

And it was a dream. He stayed frozen for about a quarter of a second before he responded just as enthusiastically, looping his arms around her waist and pulling her to him. As her fingers curled around the nape of his neck, she finally understood why his hands were always in his hair; she'd always be ruffling hers if it was that soft too.

Too soon, they parted, but he didn't open his eyes. "I must be dreaming," he muttered to himself, still holding her in his arms, "Lily would never kiss me. Someone pinch me."

So she did. "I think you'll find that she would."

"Ouch!" he yelped, jumped back. Eyes open now, he stared at her in shock for a long time. Then, just as suddenly, his face split into a wide grin.

"You," he pointed at her, "just kissed me."

"That I did," this time, she allowed a small smile to break on her face.

He bounced on the balls of his feet for a few seconds, biting his bottom lip nervously. Then he eagerly closed the distance between them again, twisting the locks of hair he'd yearned to touch for so long around his fingers as he cupped the side of her face with one hand. He leaned down and kissed her, deeper this time, as if he'd been aching to do it for a long while. After a moment, he pulled back enough to rest his forehead on hers. "You're lucky I'm crazy about you," he whispered, "otherwise the snarky technicality of 'she never said she doesn't love you back' after years of professing my undying love could be very disappointing. How would you ever make it up to me?" He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tight.

"Don't make me regret saying anything, you prat," she cringed at her own words, slapping his arm lightly, "It just slipped out. I meant to tap you on the shoulder and to say something along the lines of 'sorry to interrupt, but I'm madly in love with you.'"

He laughed quietly, his breath tickling her eyelashes. "Madly, eh?"

"Are you going to continue being this intolerable? Because-" James stopped whatever threat she was about to spew out of her lips with his own, rendering conversation impossible for a moment. Lily closed her eyes again, letting out a small sigh of satisfaction.

"Of course not, love," he muttered, peppering her face and neck with kisses, "I'm going to be far too busy snogging you to be intolerable."

"Hmm," was the only reply she could manage under his ministrations.

"Actually," he pulled back, much to Lily's disappointment. "Give me a second." he whirled around, striding to the window before whipping it open.

"I JUST SNOGGED LILY EVANS," James yelled into the chilly October sunset.

Her jaw dropped in disbelief. The insufferable twat.

"LILY EVANS SNOGGED ME" he continued to scream. She swore she could hear some shocked laughter and wolf whistles echoing their up from the floor below in response.

She walked over to the window and dragged him away, a difficult task as he was much taller than she. "James, what in the name of Merlin do you think you're doing?"

"Yelling it out so you can't deny it later!" he said excitedly.

"I won't have to deny it later if I kill you first-"

"Lil, how will McGonagall give me detentions for doing highly inappropriate things to you in public if you kill me? Don't refuse her that kind of pleasure." He grabbed her hand, and a warmth she never knew existed spread from her fingers to the tips of her toes.

"Urgh," she made a face, "fine," but then smiled slightly at his touch.

"Do you think McGonagall is going to die from shock when we walk into the feast together?" he asked as they made their way down to the Great Hall hand-in-hand.

"You have a weird obsession with McGonagall."

"I have a weird obsession with you."

She laughed, squeezing his hand. Remus was right, who cared what anyone else thought? This was easy, this was natural.

This was right.