disclaimer: written by toonsta

He runs his fingers though his hair in frustration as he sits in the library trying to finish a potions essay while she flirts with Roger Ford on the other side of the room. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks are flushed and her mouth curls slightly at the corners though she's pretending to pout. She's a horrible actor and a terrible flirt but he wishes she would look at him like that.

And apparently Roger Ford doesn't mind her clumsy flirting either.

Miserable louse!

Lily had called him that this morning in transfiguration. They'd been sitting next to each other. (You had to love McGonagall's new assigned seating arrangement... although Lily hadn't been all too fond of it.) He'd been lazily transfiguring his rat into a multitude of household objects while she glowered at her furry grey teacup. And then she had (of course) told him off.

"Stop showing off you miserable louse!" She had huffed.

Hmph! Him a miserable louse? Why was he lumped into the miserable louse category while Roger Ford, who was incapable of transfiguring his toenail, was deemed worthy of flirtation?

James scowled at his messy bit of parchment, which so far only had half a sentence written at the top of it. (Though it was also covered in numerous large ink stains and had a rather suspicious looking snitch in its upper right corner).

Lily laughed far too loudly from her side of the room. The librarian didn't even bat an eyelash. She was such a teachers pet! He stabbed his quill into his book irritably.

"Mr. Potter!" Came the shrill voice of Madame Pince from behind him. He jumped. "Did you not see the notice at the front of that book?!" She demanded.

He looked down. Apparently he had stabbed a library book. Um... ooops?

The young librarian began on one of her infamous tirades, gaining momentum by the second. He should have listened to Sirius, who insisted that the library was only to be used in the gathering of information for mischief making... clearly trying to do real work here was a complete bust.

He flicked his wand to restore the book to its previous condition and then cut Madame Pince off with an apology before she could really get going. She scowled at him and shooed him out of the library.

He rolled his eyes. Now that was punishment! His heart would surely break at the mere thought of being barred from the library!

He gathered his things hastily; thankful for an excuse to put off his work and get away from the giggling that was now coming from the other end of the room. He shot Roger Ford a parting glare as he dragged his bag onto his shoulder and then escaped the confines of the library.

He decided not to go back to Gryffindor tower. Sirius and Remus were in the middle of another one of their rows and they would either be completely ignoring each or bellowing at each other... and he didn't much feel like putting up with either. He took a detour into an empty classroom and pulled out the books he had shoved haphazardly into his bag (as well as a new piece of parchment since the old one was suffering from multiple stab wounds).

He was on his third paragraph when he heard her footsteps coming down the corridor. He found the fact that he knew they were hers rather disturbing. His quill paused mid-sentence and his eyes lost focus as he unconsciously listened intently to her shoes hitting the stone. They paused in the doorway.

"Potter?" She asked. He looked up.

"Evans." He replied by way of greeting, inclining his head slightly forward.

"Are you working on that potions essay?" She asked, leaning on the door frame.

"Yeah." He replied with a grimace, looking down at the pitiful two and a half paragraphs he had written in the previous forty five minutes.

"Not going so well huh?" She asked sympathetically. He hoped her flirting had gone as well as his writing.

"Perceptive aren't we?" He joked.

"Need some help?" They appeared to be having a wonderful conversation in questions. Immediate thought; answer no... James Potter doesn't need help from anyone... but... if he said yes he'd get his essay done quicker and she would be voluntarily spending time with him. Hmm... there did not seem to be a down side to this new plan.

"I could use some yeah." He replied casually, quickly scribbling over the new snitch he had drawn in the corner of his page as he answered her.

James quickly discovers that working on a potions essay together is ideal because in order to actually read it they are forced to sit rather close to each other. He notes that she has rather nice cleavage and hopes that Roger Ford didn't have the chance to find that out too.

She looks up at him with those mischievous/innocent oxymoron eyes of hers when he doesn't answer something she's asked him because he's looking down her shirt.

And suddenly he finds that their proximity is rather more proximal than he'd imagined... and he discovers that she's rather irresistible up close.

And apparently someone has body-bound her because she's not moving a muscle; even though generally if he got this close he'd be on the receiving end of a rather spiteful slap. And for some reason, some entity that is not his brain decides to take advantage of their very proximal proximity... and when his brain finally switches on he finds himself snogging Lily Evans in an empty classroom at eleven o'clock on a Tuesday night.

And she doesn't seem to be complaining.

But his irritating brain refuses to switch back off, instead opting to pester him with images of how horribly awful transfiguration tomorrow will be when Lily is back in her right mind and not body-bound.

He breaks away from her, breathing heavily and taking in her flushed cheeks, unfocused eyes and swollen lips with a small amount of pride... but mainly with a whole lot of sensible fear.

"Lily I am so sorry!" He says.

He can see her brain switching on... and she promptly flees the classroom. He knows there is now no hope for his almost finished potions essay because there's no way he's ever going to allow his brain to switch on again.

Transfiguration the next day is just as uncomfortable as he'd known it would be... though not quite as painful. He surprisingly doesn't receive the physical violence he believed was coming his way.

He gets his potions essay back a few days later and next to his grade (a rather good one he thought) is an irritable comment about 'running out of steam' and 'getting distracted' and 'wasted potential'... 'pay more attention to your conclusions' exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark! He rolls his eyes and shoves the parchment into the bottom of his bag not caring if Slughorn's comments and his rubbish essay are crumpled past the point of being recognized as such... in fact he rather hopes they are.

She runs into him in a secret passage nearly a week later. They do the awkward dance that everybody seems to do when there's a mile of space on every side and only one tiny person right in front of them.

"Stop!" She finally says after a few too many sidesteps, clapping her hands down on his shoulders. And he thinks that she's going to use her grip on him to push him one way so she can get past him. At first it looks as if she thinks that's what she's going to do as well.

But then she doesn't... instead she just stands there staring at him with her hands on his shoulders and he becomes more befuddled by the second.

And then she does the incomprehensible. She leans forward and kisses him.

And this time she doesn't even have the excuse of being body-bound. And this time his brain is fully functional during the entire kiss but it isn't quite so irksome as it doesn't conjure pictures of the bodily harm she's going to do him in transfiguration after lunch... because she started this one and therefore obviously doesn't intend to inflict bodily harm.

She pulls away and looks like she's come to her senses. He wishes she wouldn't do that.

"I'm so sorry!" She says before she flees down the passage.

He decides he likes being the one that pulls away and apologizes better than being the one who gets pulled away from and apologized to. He feels like he's done something wrong. And for the rest of the day his laugh rings hollowly in his ears whenever Sirius cracks a joke and he pretends nothing's wrong when Remus asks.

By the end of the next week he's chalked Lily's actions in the secret passage up to temporary insanity and has done his best (rather unsuccessfully) to forget about their 'dalliance'. This theory and plan go right out the window when they run into each other again, this time behind the greenhouses, and are snogging almost before he's realized who he's run into.

They repeat this process in the Gryffindor boys' stairwell two days later and on the Quidditch pitch the day after that.

It becomes such a strangely regular occurrence that he doesn't really think about it or what it means... it becomes normal... though a rather exciting distraction from the rest of his normal day. The fact that he goes out of his way to meet her in deserted places is inconsequential, and so is the fact that he's walking around with a smile as wide as Slughorn's middle on his face.

It's about a week after their 'meetings' become daily that James is jolted back down to earth. They're in transfiguration again and McGonagall is lecturing them on something mind numbingly boring... when you know the entire text book from back to front class becomes a most unfortunate necessity. He and Sirius are planning their next moonlight caper by way of note throwing, an unoriginal but effective manner of communication. Lily is sitting next to him and slowly turning almost violet in her fury. The corner of James' mouth is turned up in amusement as he scribbles back to Sirius.

When, for the third time, Sirius' reply accidentally-on-purpose hits the side of Lily's head, she finally snaps. She whips her head around, fixes him with a look of pure hatred, and in her most venomous whisper calls him a 'snot-nosed berk' and threatens to do some excessively violent things to him.

This not unusual occurrence finally knocks some sense into him. People don't call people they snog 'snot-nosed berks', at least he didn't... and as much as he enjoyed (fine... absolutely completely loved more, probably, than the very air he was breathing) kissing her in every broom closet and secret passage Hogwarts had to offer, he frankly thought that one should respect someone you liked enough to kiss. And calling him a snot-nosed berk, in all seriousness too, was not in James' humble opinion a marker of such respect. Which meant Lily had stuck him squarely in the box of on-demand snog-buddy.

James Potter was nobodies on-demand anything, and most unfortunately for Lily, perhaps the only two things bigger than his need for her were his pride and his desire for respect.

The next evening he's in the library with Sirius, making proper use of it, when Lily walks in. She makes no acknowledgement of their presence, but about half an hour later she makes for the divination section. Lily Evans does not take divination. Nor does she have any interest in the subject. In fact, he had once overheard her saying that the only thing anyone ever 'divined' in that section is the location of somebody else's tonsils.

James grits his teeth and remains in his seat. Evans may be waiting for him in amoung six hundred year old books, but he isn't at her beck and call. She won't be divining the location of his tonsils tonight.

Three days later he's dragging himself through a secret passage, covered from head to foot in mud and exhausted from Quidditch practice. He runs into her near the top of the stairs. This time, without so much as a word, he flattens himself against the wall so she can pass. She steps onto his stair and turns to face him with a cheeky grin on her face. For a moment he can't think at all. Then her harsh voice echoes in his ears, whispering 'snot-nosed berk'. He looks away from her, side steps onto the stair above them, and then rights himself to continue up the staircase.

Before he can get through the tapestry at the top of the stairs her incredulous voice reaches him.

"What the hell James?"

He pauses for a moment, considering completely ignoring her, but he can't resist turning his head back and answering her over his shoulder.

"Don't you mean snot-nosed berk? Or miserable louse?" He asks scornfully.

She laughs, and the laugh contains something between distain and disbelief.

"What are you five? Get over it. Or is your ego on another power trip?" She spits.

"So says Queen Lily during a tantrum over her snog-buddy refusing to co-operate or put up with being treated like something that came out of a flobber worm's arse." He replies calmly, and then he turns his back on her and walks through the tapestry with a feeling of grim satisfaction settling in his stomach.