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The quill lay forgotten on the desk in the Great Hall where James had just finished his last exam for his sixth year at Hogwarts. Despite the relief of no more school and the excitement of a summer-in-waiting, he was disappointed.
Another year had passed with another failure in his attempts to woo the beautiful Lily Evans, the woman he was convinced was the love of his life. They were on more friendly terms since the whole 'let's show Snivellius's underpants' incident, but still they weren't anything remotely related to friends.
There was little time left after the exams for further wooing attempts. The train ride back to Kings Cross was only a day away. This had caused James to fall into another Lily-induced gloomfest. It had happened a lot over his years at Hogwarts, but they had grown more pronounced every year. He was growing desperate. One more year and they would graduate. Who knew when he would see her again then?
As he sulked in the dormitory that night, his friends tried their best to cheer him up. Remus tried to distract him by talking about the exams and their plans for that summer. Peter brought him treats from the kitchens and even sneaked in a little Firewhisky to lift his spirits. It was Sirius who'd first stolen the Firewhisky, and after his third shot, came up with a plan, so crazy that it might just work. James thought it sounded like a good plan too after his fourth shot.
The next morning at breakfast, James set Sirius's plan in motion. He purposefully sat down next to Lily and her friends but kept his back turned to her. He then initiated the dialogue they had rehearsed the night before.
James sighed artfully, holding a crumpled letter in his hand.
"What is it, James?" Remus asked with just enough concern in his voice to convince those around him.
"I got a letter from my cousin Jamsina yesterday." James waved the letter for the others to see. "She is staying with us over the summer. Her parents are going on a trip and won't let her stay on her own, and she is upset about missing out on some girl time with her friends during the summer."
Sirius looked at James with a gleeful look. "Jamsina is coming? She's such a babe!"
James gave him a scornful look. "Don't get any funny ideas!" James chucked the letter at him, hitting him squarely in the head.
Remus looked from the four of them over to Lily and, as the only one of them who was properly friends with her, he broached the subject. "Hey, Lily, would you be available to show James's cousin around? She is staying with him over the summer and doesn't know anyone other than James and Sirius." He smiled at her and gave her a pleading look. "Poor girl having to spend all summer with those two."
James and Sirius pretended to be offended. "Hey! We're a lot of fun!"
"Sure, I can show her around; anything to get away from my sister." Lily grimaced. "I'll come over to your place on Monday if that's okay, James?"
James nodded with a smile. "Thanks, Lily. That would be great. I'm sure that she'll really appreciate it."
As soon as they got home to James's, and much to the displeasure of James's mother, Sirius and James Apparated out to the nearest clothes store. They needed to find clothes that would work to change James convincingly into a woman. They found a Muggle clothes shop, and they came prepared with some converted money so they could buy the clothes away from prying eyes.
"What about this?" Sirius held up a very short dress in hot pink. "Jamsina would look smoking hot in this," he said with a sly grin.
James scowled. "You remember that I will be the one wearing this, right? I may play quidditch, but I think my hairy legs would be a dead giveaway." He went on to examine a rack of dresses which covered a lot more. Some were long floral dresses, but there was one colour that stood out to him.
He pulled it out and held it up; it was a stunning full-length button up dress in a mustard yellow. He could hide his legs and pad the breast-area so that it looked like he had some cleavage. He pulled out a few similar dresses, all were the same colour. He thought it would make him look classy and respectable as the older cousin of a pureblood family. Sirius was still pulling out provocative dresses, and holding them up to himself. He evidently didn't want to miss out on all the fun.
James collected up his bundle of dresses and paid for them with a few muggle notes, the sales assistant noting that he had excellent taste and that his mum would surely love them. Sirius then paid for his little hot pink number, and James hoped inwardly that he wouldn't be joining Jamsina and Lily on their outing.
Monday came far too quickly, James had practised talking as Jamsina whenever he got the chance, but he felt woefully underprepared and the Irish drawl he had tried to give Jasmina was shaky.
He had commandeered one of his mother's bras so that he could feign having breasts. James pulled it on, and with some help from Sirius, who was more used to taking bras off than putting them on, they managed to close it. He then proceeded to stuff it with tissues. When he was finished, Sirius grabbed another handful of tissues. "It has to look convincing," he said with a shrug.
"How on earth do girls wear these all day?" James wiggled and pulled at the band. "It is so tight and restricting."
"Yes, let those babies run free I say," Sirius said, staring a little too much at James' newly made cleavage.
He now knew how all those girls felt like at Hogwarts, so he held his favourite mustard yellow dress in front of him. "Will you please stop ogling me? I am not a piece of meat!" James huffed and proceeded to pull the dress on. They used a spell to grow his hair out and transfigured his glasses into a more feminine pair.
He stood in front of the mirror and realised that he was the ugliest woman he had ever seen, but he didn't look exactly like himself, and that was the point. "Hey, Sirius?" he said, looking over at his friend who was examining the selection of makeup products they had picked out while shopping.
Sirius nodded and looked over at him. "What is it, mate?"
"What if this doesn't work? If she finds out, she might not speak to me ever again." A wave of disappointment rolled over him; he did not want to feel this way in a year when they graduated from Hogwarts.
"It will work. Once I am through with you, Lily will be best mates with 'Jamsina,' and then she can talk you up. Lily is bound to fall for you, trust me!" Sirius wielded a makeup brush ready to paint James face in foundation and mustard eyeshadow.
James still had his doubts, but he had to try, and it was too late to turn back now.
A pop sounded in the room, and Bopsy, his family's house elf, appeared. "Miss Lily Evans is here to meet with Jamsina. I did what you asked of me Master James and pretended she existed."
James smiled at Bopsy. "Thanks. Tell Lily that she'll be right down."
With a bow and another pop, Bopsy was gone. They hastily applied the last of the makeup and James put on a pair of mustard high heels. He had practised wearing them, but he still looked like a baby deer learning how to walk.
Soon James stood in front of Lily, and the show was on. "You must be Lily!" he said in the practised Irish brogue. "Thank you for agreeing to spend time with me."
"It's not a problem, I'm glad to get away from home as well." Lily smiled at him, but he could tell that she felt nervous as she was wringing her hands and shuffling her feet just a tad. "What do you want to do today then?" Lily asked, looking around at the entrance hall to James' expansive home. It was the first time she had been there, James realised. Perhaps the first time she'd been in any home like his.
"Well, how about I show you around the house today, and then we can have some lunch?" James gave a smile to rival a hostess and began to lead the way after Lily had agreed. He lead her around the house, showing her the many rooms, the paintings and other interesting objects around the house.
"So Jamsina, where do you go to school?" Lily asked as they passed through the drawing room.
"I graduated from Ilvermorny last year." At the questioning look from Lily, he continued, "Oh the accent? I get that a lot. I grew up in Ireland, and then we moved to America when I was about ten. So, I went to school there instead of going to Hogwarts." He shrugged, maybe a little too much like he would have done as James, but he quickly distracted her by pointing to a portrait of his great-great-grandfather.
"That's a shame. Maybe with you around, you could keep James in check," Lily joked, or at least James hoped it was a joke.
He tried to laugh in a light girly way. "I know he's always been a little troublemaker, but I was surprised at how much he's grown over the last few years."
Lily nodded to James's surprise. "Yes, I'd noticed. He still has a way to go, but I like him more now than I did before."
James's heart fluttered, and the disappointment of the last year dissipated just a tad.
They began to head upstairs, and Lily looked apprehensive.
"James isn't home right now. He had to help Aunty Euphemia with some shopping. I'm not sure if Sirius went with him though."
He made Lily wait while he quickly headed over to Sirius's door and knocked daintily. He poked his head through to see Sirius dressed in his little pink dress from the other day, inspecting his own backside. He quickly shut the door. "Nope, Sirius isn't home either."
"Good," Lily said with what seemed to James to be a sigh of relief. "I don't think I could deal with Sirius without James as a buffer."
Jamsina laughed. "Yes, he's a sweet, fun-loving boy, but he can be very tiring."
Lily nodded as they headed back downstairs to have some lunch.
James showed her into the dining room where a small spread of sandwiches and cakes were placed on the table. James looked out of the window where the sun was shining and had a flash of brilliance. "It is such a lovely day, why don't we have a picnic outside?"
"That sounds like a great idea." Lily smiled.
James called Bopsy to bring a picnic basket, and soon they were sat under the giant oak tree in the garden on a large gingham blanket. James felt awkward; he was sitting alone with Lily, and he was dressed as a woman. He had no idea how uncomfortable and inconvenient it was to sit down on the floor in a dress. Where did he put his legs? He just followed Lily's lead and tucked them beneath him.
James thought that it was going well. Of course, she wouldn't open up to Jamsina right away, but generally, he felt like he was making progress.
"Anyway, back to James. I got the impression from him that he has a bit of a thing for you."
"Oh, I know he does. He keeps trying to get me to go out with him."
"We've talked about how James feels; how do you feel about him?" James tried to act like he was trying to get some juicy gossip from her.
Lily seemed to shuffle where she sat a little. "Well, this stays between us girls," Lily started, placing a finger on the lips James so desperately wanted to kiss.
James moved in closer as if they were gossiping in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.
"I've been tempted to say yes. I can see he's changed, but…" She sighed and looked away, taking a sandwich from the basket and taking a bite while she thought.
James's mind was going into overdrive at that moment. She wanted to say yes, so why didn't she? What was stopping her? Unable to take the suspense, he grabbed a chocolate cupcake from the picnic basket filled with goodies and crammed it in his mouth. He had forgotten momentarily that he was supposed to be acting femininely. Stuffing cake into your mouth was not exactly ladylike.
"I wish he would stop trying so hard," she said looking directly at him. "He comes up with these grand schemes to try and win me over, and I just want him to show me the real him."
James was speechless: she knew. His cheeks heated, turning red, and he clutched the fabric of his mustard coloured dress. Why did he allow himself to get talked into these schemes by Sirius? Because he was a lovesick fool, that's why. He was desperate to stop the disappointment, to prevent the regret, and he desperately wanted to love her.
"Lily…" he started and turned to look at her.
"James, go get changed and come back out. If you had just asked me out for a picnic, I would have said yes." She chuckled and looked over at him in his sorry state. "I'm sorry, but you are the ugliest woman I have ever seen, and mustard yellow is really not your colour."
If James was red before, it was nothing compared to now. He was absolutely mortified but, under it all, he could feel his heart soar. Despite the failure of this idiotic scheme, she still wanted to spend time with him. "I'll be right back!" He rose and began to run towards the house. This proved difficult with the high heels so he tossed them off after the first time he fell.
Once inside the house, he started to remove the clothes before he had even made it up the stairs. The dress hung on the coat rack and his mother's bra on the bannister. He was glad to be rid of it. He could now appreciate the lengths girls went to dress as they do.
He burst into the room and saw Sirius had changed out of the dress again. Sirius looked at James, standing there in his underwear and raised an eyebrow. "Did it go that well then?" He wore an expression James read to be pride.
"No… well not exactly." He took out his wand and cast finite on both his glasses and hair. "She saw through it, but she still wants to spend time with me." James couldn't stop smiling despite the fact he was still beetroot red from the embarrassment of it all.
He threw on his usual summer clothes, a scruffy t-shirt, a pair of jeans and trainers. "I think in some weird, twisted way, your hairbrained scheme actually worked. Thanks, mate," he adjusted his hair in the mirror and tackled Sirius with a bearhug.
James took a deep breath and headed outside to Lily, he was going to show her the real him. He won't blow it, he won't be disappointed this time.