A/N: Erm… I don't really have one. Isn't that interesting? Well, I'll give you a lovely factoid, seeing as everyone could use a bit of extra knowledge. Did you know that during the Pleistocene era, there were camels in Canada? Read and Review please (the story, not the factoid)!

Disclaimer: Most assuredly not mine.

Roping Me An Evans!

There's a girl's hand clasped in mine right now. She smells very good. Her perfume isn't quite what I smelled in the Amortentia potion old Sluggy had us brew a few weeks back, but it is fruity and flowery and close enough to what I know is the real thing.

Marianne McQuinn: Her name rolls off of the tongue, doesn't it? Marianne's a seventh year, just like me, except she's in Ravenclaw, unlike me—I'm a proud Gryffindor. She's very pretty; not as pretty, mind you, as one Head Girl, but she's definitely pretty enough for what I've got in mind. Long, flowing brown hair and deep, blue eyes… she's just the thing.

At the moment, she's clinging to my arm as I lead her down one of the dark, deserted corridors of Hogwarts.

"James," she simpers at me. "Where are we going?"

"Oh," I reply, nonchalantly—it's a tone the ladies of Hogwarts can't seem to get enough of… And oddly enough, Peter taught me how to do it properly. "I just thought we'd pop down to the kitchens for a nice, warm pan of bubble and squeak."

"Oh James—sneaking down to the kitchens," Marianne says. "You're so naughty!"

I try, really I do, not to roll my eyes at this. But honestly—birds these days! They are just so silly… Well, most of them are. I can think of a certain redhead who lacks all of the frivolous feminine wiles that my sex utterly despises.

Instead of replying to Miss Marianne McQuinn, girl with the rolling name, I just laugh in my most masculine of vocalizations, and tug her along while she giggles absurdly. We're almost there anyway. Not quite to the kitchens, but nearly in the corridor a certain Head Girl patrols methodically every night, convinced there's something "absolutely dodgy" about that specific hallway.

Don't ask me why she's so suspicious. Does the flower question the sunlight it thrives upon? No, I would say that a flower would do no such thing.

Just as I'm thinking this, and just as Marianne hits a crescendo of high-pitched, girly giggling, I get a glimpse of a dark, delicate, bloody-gorgeous figure at the end of the corridor we've just entered on our way to the kitchens.

Ah, Miss Evans, how you're bright, coppery hair glows… Like a lighthouse, some might say… In a tempestuous storm… When a sailboat is lost at sea… And the fisherman can't seem to radio in to the shore for help because of the high waves and the lightning and the wind…

"Potter?" Lily's voice rings out—I wish I could say her voice at this moment sounds like a choir of heavenly-spirits, but, alas, it's more of an angry, outraged cat yowling. "POTTER?"

"Evans?" I ask, feigning surprise. "Is… is that you, Evans? What're you doing out at an hour like this? And in a darkened corridor alone?"

Lily, who's standing right in front of Marianne McQuinn and me suddenly, glaring freshly sharpened daggers at me, spits out, "None of your business, Potter. I could ask you what you are doing out at an hour like this…in a darkened corridor…most certainly not alone, you know!"

"Indeed you could, Evans," I reply coolly. "But, the real question is…are you asking me that?"

Beside me, Marianne is tugging on my arm again and batting her eyelashes. "Oh, come James, let's go to the kitchens shall we? I've never been you know, and I was so hoping that you'd be the one to be with me for my first time."

Let me say right now that even the finest playwrights in the whole of the British Isles cannot write lines as well as the slop girls like Marianne McQuinn spout daily. Really, even Padfoot couldn't have come up with a better sinker! And as I watch Lily Evans swell with suppressed disgust, rage, and, delightedly enough—jealousy, I can't help but commend myself on a job well done. I can really pick them, can't I?

"Marianne, isn't it?" Lily asks calmly and politely, looking as if Marianne is the last thing in the world she'd like to rip apart at the moment. She's quite the actress, I must say. "I don't suppose you've any idea of the time, do you my dear?"

Marianne shakes her head 'no', and looks around, as if she's going to spot Peeves the poltergeist soaring down the dark corridor, waving a large grandfather clock about.

"Of course you don't," continues Lily. "Because, if you did know what time it was, you would know that you are out at exactly twenty three minutes past curfew."

Marianne gulps, and her large blue eyes widen noticeably.

"And," points out Lily, "I would really hate to have to dock points from you for it. You're such a nice girl. So, why don't you say goodnight to Potter here, and scurry along, yeah?"

Marianne doesn't so much as glance in my direction as she tears down the hallway, her brown hair streaming out behind her like ribbons on a maypole. "Bye then!" I call after her.

As soon as she's gone, Lily whips around to stare at me.

"What?" I ask, this time putting on a look of confusion.

"What? What do you mean, 'what', Potter?"Lily asks incredulously.

My plan is working brilliantly, and it's high time I revert into the same tone I've held all year long—the cruel, uncaring, and dispassionate young man, who's tragically lost his heart one too many times to be motivated to look for it once more…

"I mean," I say in a frigid voice, "why did you just run my girl off like that? Rather rude, wasn't it?"

Lily sputters for a moment, and I certainly hope I don't need to conjure a paper bag for her to hyperventilate into. "Your…your 'girl'? That ridiculous specimen of the human kind is your girl?"

I sniff and nod. "She most certainly is. And I'll ask you not to look so repulsed, Evans. Marianne is a lovely girl. She's the brains to rival your own, you know."

Lily bursts out laughing, slapping her knee and squeezing her eyes shut against the obviously tremendous waves of hilarity crashing over her petite, pretty form.

"Oh, oh yes," she manages to choke out. "I'm quite sure she's got brains, Potter. I only wonder where the poor girl keeps them!"

And she's off chortling again. Merlin, she's pretty when she laughs.

"Well I'm sorry you dislike her so, Evans, but it's really no matter to me what you think."

This sobers her up quickly. Lily looks very disheartened by my statement and nods dejectedly. "You're right, James. I'm sorry. It's not my place to judge you."

As unexpected as Lily's reply is, I certainly cannot let her charming, kind, lovely nature get to me, even though she used my first name. I must stay strong. Lily Evans cannot be allowed to just break down my defenses so quickly you know. It's not to be allowed. I've a plan, you see.

"You're… You're wh-what, Lily?" I stutter. So much for staying strong, eh?

"I said that I'm sorry, James," Lily says, brushing away some of her hair and looking around the corridor, anywhere, it seems, but at me. "You see, I thought for a moment there that you weren't, in fact, completely shot of me. But, I was wrong, and I'm sorry for taking your feelings so lightly. I'm sure Marianne isn't swotty at all."

"What do you mean, 'completely shot of you'?"

"I mean," Lily sighs, "that you don't fancy me anymore. You don't ask me out constantly. You don't put unpleasant things on my seat anymore. You don't sing me ballads. You don't pull pranks in 'the name of thy fair Evans!' any longer. And, you've now got Marianne. Suffice to say, James Potter, that you are successfully shot of me."

I stand there for a moment, utterly stunned by two things.

The first is that Lily Evans, light of my life, apple of my eye, flourish to my flounce, shine to my kettle, is staring at the stone floor of the corridor while she bumps up against the wall, looking miserable—as if her heart has been ripped in two by an angry grindylow. She's actually disappointed!

The second is that my grand scheme, the one Peter, Remus, and Sirius all said I was mad for trying to attempt, the one they pointed out would surely backfire on me, really worked!

Well, I am amazed… Simply and utterly amazed! And so, without a doubt, there is only one more thing left to do before the great plan to, in Sirius's words, "rope me an Evans!" is complete.

I walk up close to Lily, so that the front of her coppery fringe is almost brushing my chin. Except, she doesn't look up at me, as I thought she would. Oh dear—moment of slight panic… Obviously she's supposed to look up at me. Hasn't she seen the movies? Doesn't she know how this romance business goes?

No, apparently not, seeing as she seems to be distracted by one of the tiny rips in my robe that I received from a jaunt in the Forbidden Forest last detention session. Well, I suppose I'll have to grab her attention, eh?

"Bullocks." I say simply.

Now she looks up at me, quite perplexed. Her mouth is moving as if she's a fish out of water. "What?" She asks.

"Are you a complete plonker, Lily Evans?" I ask her.

"I…"

"Because if you are not, then I can't possibly forgive you for thinking for a moment that I, James Potter, would ever, ever, ever not want…"

Lily looks at me expectedly. Her eyes are wide, her freckles are pronounced, her hair is slightly disheveled, and she's breathing very shallowly. Dear, dear, Miss Evans, when did you get to be so very banging in the looks department?

"'Ever not want'…what, James?" She says timidly.

I put my hands on either side of her face and my mouth swoops over hers. As my lips gently brush her own, I can't help but think that Lily Evans' lips are the softest things I have probably ever come into contact with. Suddenly she makes some sort of a surprised noise and I pull away from her slightly.

Lily is staring hungrily at my lips, and I lean toward her again and whisper happily, "You, Miss Evans. 'Ever not want' you."

But she's hardly listening to me, as her lips are inching closer to mine once more and her arms are wrapping around my neck. It took me nearly seven full years, but, I think to myself, I've finally roped me an Evans.