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ONE
The first time James asks out Lily is when they’re both fifteen, two days after his birthday.
James knows he’s popular—he’s the best Quidditch player in the school, and his pranks against the Slytherins are legendary. Almost everyone in the school adores him, everyone except his exasperated teachers and the targets of his endless pranks, the Slytherins. Everyone adores him, everyone except Lily Evans.
Lily bothers James. He hates the way that she’s friends with Snape, even though he’s an absolute git, and he hates that she never passes up an opportunity to insult him. He hates the way she talks too fast and he can barely keep up sometimes. He hates that she doesn’t like Quidditch.
There are things he likes about Lily, though. He likes her laugh, it’s light, and bubbly, and full of warmth, and he likes her smile, the one she gets whenever she’s excited, the one that stretches over her whole face and makes her eyes crinkle. He likes the way her face screws up in concentration whenever she’s thinking too hard about something. He likes how she’s so smart, always having the answer at the ready when a teacher asks a question. He likes her vivid red hair, and the smattering of freckles on her face, and her bright green eyes, and her soft, pink lips he so desperately wants to kiss.
It’s only after Sirius starts dating Marlene McKinnon, a Gryffindor in the year above them, that he finally works up the courage to ask her out. There’s a Hogsmeade weekend coming up, and luck is on James’s side, because he and Lily had somehow been paired together for a Potions assignment.
They’d been taking turns checking on their potion each night, and it’s James’s turn that Wednesday. When he enters the Potions classroom, however, Lily is already there, carefully adding a pinch of powdered Bicorn horn into the cauldron.
“Thought I was s’posed to check it tonight,” he says, and Lily jumps as her ears tinge a light pink. She looks up from the cauldron guiltily.
“Yes, well, Mary said Sirius had detention tonight, and when one of you has detention, usually both of you do.” James supposes this is a fair point; the only reason he hadn’t gotten detention when they’d set off dungbombs in the corridor near the Slytherin dormitory was that he’d been able to slip under his Invisibility Cloak and avoid Filch. Sirius hadn’t been so lucky.
Still, he’s irritated that Lily wouldn’t just ask him or trust that he would’ve told her if he had gotten detention. “I would’ve told you if I’d had detention,” he says irritably.
Lily crosses her arms and a sour look takes over her features. “Whatever. I added the Bicorn Horn already, so you can leave now.” Annoyance seeps into her voice, and James runs a hand through his hair in frustration.
Even though she’s looking at him like he’s the last person on the planet she’d like to be talking to—and he probably is—, she’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
“Will you go out with me?” he blurts out, and Lily looks absolutely dumbstruck.
It takes her an agonizingly long fifteen seconds to regain her composure, then she stands up straight and shakes her head. “No.”
“What do you mean no?” James asks. He’s never been rejected before—it’s a new feeling, one he doesn’t think he enjoys.
The shock of it all is wearing off, and Lily once again has a sour look of irritation on her face. “I mean no. You’re an arrogant prick, and I have absolutely no desire to go out with you.”
She then storms past him and out of the Potions classroom, leaving behind a crushed James.
TWO
It takes James all of one day to get over her rejection. He’s decided that the fact that she wants absolutely nothing to do with him makes him like her even more.
For the next two months, he takes all of her insults in stride, meeting them with grins and good sportsmanship. This seems to aggravate her even more, and James decides that he loves her look of frustration and fiery glare that quickly becomes reserved just for him.
For the next two months, he plans. Lily just needs to see how much he fancies her, then she’ll go out with him. He enlists Sirius, and Remus, and Peter, even though they all grumble and groan about having to hear him talk about Lily again, even though they already know all the little things he likes about her.
James plans, and he watches. He notices that Lily’s favorite candy isn’t anything you can buy at Honeydukes, but Muggle chocolate called Cadbury, because when she receives a package of it from her mum, she lights up and takes a bite immediately. He notices that she drinks Pumpkin Juice with every single meal. He notices that she needs reading glasses, how she puts them on in the Common Room when she’s studying and she thinks no one is looking.
Remus is the biggest help; he gets his mum to send him some Cadbury chocolate for James to give Lily. Sirius is the least help—he just grumbles and says he doesn’t understand why James is so insistent on getting Lily to go out with him, even though she clearly doesn’t like him and he could get almost any girl in their year (or even a year above, Dorcas Meadowes in Ravenclaw fancies you, Marlene told me).
James fancies Lily, though, and so he gets to work. By the time he’s got everything worked out, he’s confident she’ll say yes.
He wears his new robes, the ones his mum bought him over winter break because he’d grown and his old ones were too short, and he tries to do his hair like Sirius taught him, using his dad’s Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion to smooth down his unruly hair.
Lily’s reading a comic book her dad sent her in the Common Room when James approaches her. Her red hair is in two twin braids James knows Mary did, because Lily doesn’t bother with styling her hair unless she’s indulging her friend. His shadow blocks the light she’d been using to read, and she looks up with a familiar look of annoyance.
“Did you need something, Potter, or are you just standing there to be a nuisance?”
He thrust the flowers and chocolate in her direction before he could chicken out. “These are for you. Lilies, like your name, and Remus helped me get Muggle chocolate since I know it’s your favorite.”
Lily narrows her eyes at the gifts, as if she thinks the flowers will animate and bite her (and if Sirius had gotten his way, they would have).
“Will you pretty please go out with me?”
There’s a look on her face he hasn’t seen before, and faintly, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows she would’ve said yes if it was anyone else doing the asking. It’s him, though, and he clings onto hope until she finally says, “No.”
He deflates instantly. “Why not?”
“You can’t just give me flowers and chocolate and expect me to fall at your feet like every other idiotic girl in our year!” she says indignantly. “You’re still snobby and pretentious and obnoxious, and I don’t want to go out with you, not now, not ever.”
The words sting, but it’s Lily, and she’s not entirely wrong—he doesn’t think he’s snobby or pretentious, but he’ll claim obnoxious. James thinks that if he has to get rejected, he wants Lily to be doing the rejecting.
THREE
James doesn’t see Lily much for the next month. It’s exam season, and she’s usually holed up in the library studying, while James is pointedly ignoring his homework and goofing off with Sirius and Peter (Remus isn’t ignoring his studies, much to the chagrin of the other three boys).
He aces his exams with little preparation, irking everyone in their year who had spent weeks poring over their notes and books, trying to cram every bit of knowledge into their brains. He’s restless, and he gets his energy out by waking up at the crack of dawn to practice Quidditch every morning. He’s only sometimes able to drag Sirius out with him, but he likes being alone, with nothing but the morning dew and his thoughts.
The early morning Quidditch practices tremendously help Gryffindor during the final match of the year, and despite their shitty Seeker, Gryffindor is able to win against Hufflepuff, thanks to James scoring an exorbitant amount of points and the Hufflepuff Seeker not checking to score before closing her fingers around the Snitch. James is hailed as the Gryffindor Quidditch Hero, and he soaks in the applause.
It’s at the celebration in the Common Room that night when James asks out Lily for the third time. Exams are over, and Gryffindor won the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup, and even Lily, who normally hates parties, is there, and she’s smiling her beautiful smile, the one that makes everything else seem unimportant, that sets off fireworks in his brain, that makes his stomach do flips and makes him weak in the knees.
He can’t help himself; he walks over and plants himself on the couch next to her.
“Did you watch the game?” he asks, and Lily looks at him, only just now realizing he was next to her. Her beautiful, amazing smile fades, and he braces himself, waiting for the familiar expression of irritation, but to his pleasure, her face stays a lovely neutral.
She nods. “I kinda feel bad for Vance.” Emmeline Vance—the Hufflepuff Seeker who’d cost them the game by not paying attention to how many goals Gryffindor had scored.
“I want to give her a kiss,” James professes happily. “I honestly didn’t think we’d be able to pull out the win.”
“Nah, I knew we would,” Lily says with a smile, and James feels his heart soar.
“Oh, really? Why’s that?” He’s got an annoying, arrogant smirk on his face, but he feels as if he’s earned it, just this once.
Lily rolls her eyes, but for maybe the first time, she doesn’t seem actually bothered by him.
“Lily,” he says, suddenly nervous, “will you go out with me? Please?”
She smiles, not the magnificent face-splitting smile he’s grown to love, but a tight-lipped smile that tells him she is both amused and desperately wants to be anywhere but talking to him.
“How many times are you going to ask me that before you get it through your thick skull that the answer is no?”
James knows he should be disappointed, but her tone isn’t full of irritation, it’s more like a mix of exasperation and barely-concealed amusement. He’ll take it.
“As many times as it takes.”
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, but he sees the way she’s fighting a smile, a real smile.
FOUR
James plans to ask Lily out for the fourth time on the Hogwarts Express. He figures that if he asks her every week, she’ll say yes at some point (this is probably a bad plan, and the best way to get hexed every week, but James is fifteen and in love).
Marlene and Sirius had broken up over the summer, and he’s already dating Emmeline Vance. Peter’s been exchanging letters with a Hufflepuff named Lucy MacDonald. Remus is perpetually single, and James is still head over heels for Lily Evans.
He spotted her red hair on the platform, but his parents were still fussing over him, so he didn’t go say hi. He sits in a compartment with Sirius, Peter, and Remus, and to his surprise, and delight, Lily walks into their compartment.
“Oi, Evans!” Sirius exclaims before he has the chance to ask her how her summer was. “Come to finally let Potter take you on a date?”
James blushes a deep shade of red and shoves Sirius. He resolves to start asking out her next week.
Lily just rolls her eyes and drags Remus (Moony, a Prefect, they could hardly believe it) out.
He asks her out a week later with little fanfare. She hadn’t bothered to put her robes on for breakfast, and she’s wearing Muggle clothes—sweatpants and a t-shirt that read ABBA (he’d have to ask Moony what that meant later). She’s chatting with Marlene about something called a movie, and Mary is braiding her magnificent red hair. There’s a soft smile on her face, and she looks so wholly comfortable and undeniably Lily that James’s heart is bursting.
“Will you go out with me?” he says, grabbing the attention of all three girls. Mary looks over the moon, and Marlene has amusement written all over her face. James, however, is only looking at Lily, who is rolling her eyes.
“Maybe next week.” And so it becomes tradition: James asks out Lily every week, sometimes with flowers, or chocolates, or once, when Sirius had been involved, Filibuster fireworks (that had landed him in detention for two weeks). Lily, depending on her mood that day and how obnoxiously he asks, either rolls her eyes and says no or hexes him.
FIVE
Him and Lily becoming friends is an unexpected development that puts a halt in his weekly tradition. He’d been committed, fifth year, and he’d never missed a week, but after the fallout from Snape and him calling Lily a …, well, saying nasty things to her and him and Remus and that whole issue, well, James is more determined to be Lily’s friend than go on a date with her. He figures that’s what she needs: a friend, not an annoying arse who asks her out every week.
So that’s what he does. He writes to Lily over the summer and tries to not be deterred by the lack of response. She does tell him she appreciated his letters on the train, though, so that’s something. He asks her if she wants company studying, and she shares her love for Spider-Man with him, letting him borrow her comics as long as he promised to be extra careful.
Though he’s first very weirded out by the stagnant pictures of the comics, James reads the issues of Spider-Man she lends him, and he understands why she likes them so much. His favorite part is the love story between Peter and Mary Jane, and secretly, he hopes that someday, he’ll be able to end up with the pretty redhead, just like Peter.
Lily seems to like him more, now that he’s not asking her out every week, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve gone with the friends route last year.
He’s still hopelessly in love, though, and he’s reminded of this fact every time Lily laughs her bubbly laugh or smiles her stunning smile, especially when he’s the one to make her laugh, when he’s the one to make her smile. It’s like the wind is knocked out of him, and he falls in love all over again.
But Lily doesn’t need someone to be in love with her. She needs someone to be her friend, especially now, after the shitty year she’s been through, with Snape and the war they shouldn’t even have to be worrying about because they’re seventeen.
James pushes his feelings down, he locks them away into a corner of his heart, and he’s friends with Lily, no matter how much it pains him that he can’t push her hair behind her ears when it falls in front of her face, he can’t hold her hand, he can’t take her face in his hands and kiss her, like he’s been dreaming of since he was fourteen.
James shoves all his feelings aside, and when Marlene comments at breakfast one morning in May that she’d like to see James get rejected just once more before she graduates, he just smiles and laughs.
“Well, I suppose my ego can take it once more,” he jokes, then turns to Lily. He pulls his wand out and conjures a bouquet of pink roses from its tip. “Lily Evans, will you do me the honor of going on a date with me?”
He asks the question overdramatically and ridiculously, partly for Marlene’s amusement and partly because he thinks it might kill him if there’s even an ounce of sincerity in his voice and Lily still rejects him.
Lily laughs, her amazing, wonderful laugh that he wants to hear every day for the rest of his life.
“No, I will not do you the honor,” she replies, and James knows it’s for the tradition, it’s for Marlene, it’s for the joke. It still stings.
PLUS ONE
James is trying his best to avoid Lily. He spent all of sixth year becoming her friend, slowly but surely, and they exchanged flirty letters over the summer, and no matter how much he tries to convince himself he’s perfectly okay with being just friends, he can no longer deny the fact that he is irrevocably in love with Lily Evans.
She doesn’t like him back. He knows this—she hasn’t liked him back ever since he developed The Crush That Just Won’t Go Away. And so he avoids her.
It’s easier than facing her and knowing that he’d never be able to have her in the way he wanted.
Unfortunately, Lily has always been smarter than James. Two weeks of avoiding her is all he gets, and then he’s playing chess with Peter when she tells Peter Lucy’s looking for him and takes his seat once he’s scurried off to find his girlfriend.
“I, um, I gotta meet Sirius,” he says quickly. He ignores the fact that her eyes are rimmed with red and that she’s probably been crying, and oh, Merlin, has she been crying over him? He should’ve just figured out how to ignore his feelings, because he didn’t mean to hurt her.
“He’s in detention.”
“Oh.” He pauses, then, “I’ve got Quidditch training with Donna—” he nods, growing more confident in his excuse, “—yeah, that’s it. She asked for some extra training, and I’ve got to go help her.”
Lily’s glaring at him, the irritated look and fiery glare reserved for just him that he hasn’t seen since fifth year. “Bullshit.” He swallows and stays in his seat.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she states angrily. It’s not a question, but James denies it anyways.
“No, I haven’t. I’ve just been busy, that’s all.”
Lily looks at him. “Yesterday you said you couldn’t study with me because you promised Mary you’d help her with Muggle Studies. Mary’s a Muggle-born.”
James grimaces. It had been a poor excuse, he’d admit it. “Sorry,” he says meekly.
“Are you mad at me or something? I don’t know what I did to make you not like me anymore..” The anger in her eyes dissipates, and it’s replaced by sadness, and something in James snaps.
“Fuck, Lily.” He runs a hand through his already messy hair, trying to get his frustration out. “I’ve been avoiding you because I like you so bloody much, and I know you don’t like me like that, but every time I’m with you it kills me that I can’t just kiss you.”
Lily blinks, clearly not expecting this much information. He’s gone and fucked it all up, and now he’s not even going to be able to be friends with the most amazing, wonderful person he’s ever met.
“Fuck, I’m sorry. Please pretend I did not just say any of that. Please forget I just said that, because not being your friend would be worse, and I just…”
He trails off, keenly aware of the fact that Lily is leaning over the chessboard, closing the distance between them. She grabs his tie, forcing him to meet her in the middle.
“You’re an idiot,” she says softly, and then her lips are on his.
His brain short-circuits. It’s everything he’s ever imagined it to be, and more. He kisses her back, neither of them caring that they’re in the middle of the Common Room, that Mary is whooping and wolf-whistling, that they’re probably traumatizing some poor first year because, after years of pent-up desire, the kiss is definitely not a simple PG peck on the lips.
When they break apart, Lily’s cheeks are bright pink and her eyes are shining brightly. She smiles his favorite smile, her gorgeous green eyes crinkling with happiness. She looks positively radiant.
He’s blushing too, and he’s certain that there’s a stupid love-sick grin on his face that won’t be going away for weeks, months maybe.
“Will you go out with me?” he asks, because he knows the answer will finally, finally be yes.
She smiles, that face-splitting wonderful, amazing, magnificent smile that makes sparks go off in his brain. He knows that he’ll never get sick of making her smile, not in a million years.
“I’d love to.”