The next time Lily was in the Transfiguration classroom was in her lesson.

The lesson where she sat next to James Potter.

'Evans,' James hissed, leaning on one elbow and tapping his quill on the desk to get his attention.

Lily sighed, deliberately tossing her hair in his face and then turning to face him. 'What, Potter?'

Blinking, James bit his lip. The early morning light filtered through the window, making his eyes gleam. 'Look, Evans, I just wanted to say I'm sorry. For walking in on you upset and not doing anything about it.'

'I wasn't upset,' Lily hissed, her ears turning scarlet. Her quill tore across the page, leaving ink spots over the parchment. 'I was fine, Potter.'

Some part of James knew he should leave it, turn away and let it go. But he couldn't. 'I just want to know you're okay,' he said, stung.

'I'm fine, Potter!' Lily snarled, crumbling her parchment into a ball and scowling at him. 'Why won't you just leave me alone?'

James flinched. 'Why can't I leave you alone? Because, Evans, I care about you! Why do you think I've been asking you out since first year?'

His voice had risen, and Lily was dimly aware of the entire class listening in- but all she could hear was the blood pumping in her ears and the rage flying through her bones. 'Because you're James Potter!' Lily cried furiously. 'You do it to annoy me, you do it for attention, you do it as a joke! Don't give me that crap about caring- if you did, you would have tried to make friends with me rather than hanging on my every word like a lost puppy!'

Her words rang through the air. As soon as she'd spoken them, Lily knew she'd gone too far- regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. No, I didn't mean that.

But the words flew from her mouth like bullets. 'You don't care about anyone!' Lily added, her hands balled into fists. 'Life's just one huge joke to you, isn't it, Potter?'

'Life's one huge joke to me?' James laughed cruelly. 'I'd rather live life laughing than never do anything fun! Let's face it, Evans, your life is boring. Little Miss Perfect, always does what she's told, never has an ounce of fun-'

'Enough!' The word rang through the classroom. The two turned to see Professor McGonagall standing at the front of the class, arms folded, peering down her nose at them. 'I'm sick of your childish bickering, both of you. Detention, every Friday for a month- together. You two need to learn to co-exist with people you don't like or you'll never get anywhere in life.'

She tapped her long-nailed hands on her desk irritably. 'Now, for today, Potter, you move next to Longbottom. Evans, stay where you are, but next lesson I'm moving you next to Potter again.'

James gathered his books, not noticing the tears welling in Lily's eyes.

Two weeks later, detention #2..

In the first detention, they'd ignored each other. McGonagall had glared at them but said nothing, and the detention had been them silently writing I must learn to put up with people I don't get along with.

This detention, however, McGonagall was late, probably purposely.

James was alone, sitting on the corner of a desk and chewing on the end of a quill thoughtfully when Lily came in, red hair swinging, green eyes flashing. She stopped short when she saw McGonagall's empty desk, then hesitantly stepped forwards again.

Lily wondered if she should apologise- she didn't know why. Why should she apologise to Potter? He'd started it.

Or had he?

She couldn't remember.

James wondered if he should apologise. What for, he didn't know. He just wanted her to see he'd changed... that he wasn't the same arrogant jerk from last year. (And the year before. And the year before that.)

But he'd just made it worse, yelling at her, calling her names... He knew what she hated about herself, knew it, and exploited it. He just wanted to make her feel something for once...

He'd gone too far. He knew that now.

Had gone too far, and now she was never going to forgive him, never going to see that he really was changing.

'Lily-' James began, just as Lily said 'Potter-'

They both paused.

'I'm sorry,' Lily blurted out quickly. Her red hair fell over her shoulder as she talked, as she breathed. Every time she moved it shifted in such a way that James couldn't stop looking at it.

Her hair was the first thing I noticed about her, James thought. Her hair.

'I'm sorry for what I said about- about you not caring. I mean, I've seen you with Sirius and Remus and Peter, and you care about them, obviously...' Lily looked flustered, and hitched her bag strap further up her shoulder. 'I've seen you trying, ever since September, to be a better person. Maybe you aren't even trying, maybe you're just changing as a person. Growing up. I don't know. Whatever reason there is for it... I...'

There was a pause, and James tried not to look like everything he'd ever wanted was happening.

Lily Evans, talking to him. Without shouting. They were holding a civil conversation.

She had forgiven him for what he'd said- or at least was trying to.

A small smile crept onto James' face. 'I am trying,' he said quietly. 'Some pranks... I think they were taken too far. I'm trying to be a better person now, I guess. Turn over a new leaf. For what it's worth... I'm sorry too. For calling you boring. I don't think you are boring, you know.'

I think you're the most interesting person I've ever met.

Lily nodded. 'Thank you... James.'

She offered him a small smile, and James smiled back.

'Maybe we could try and be friends?' James asked hesitantly.

Lily blinked, her eyelashes casting shadows on her cheekbones. 'I don't see why not, James.'

Her grin shone.

I would fight wars for that smile, James thought. I would fight wars for her.

OKAY SO IM GONNA DO THIS THING DONT STOP READING

So I'm such a bad author, okay? I have slow updates and I'm basically really bad LOL. Anyway, I'm going to try this thing for Christmas.

Basically a jily advent calendar thing, with an update every single day for the 24 days leading up to Christmas.

I'm starting to write the one-shots now. (I say that. I wrote a secret Santa thing for Tumblr which doesn't really count. But still.)

So, it's kinda a big thing. I'm gonna need to pre-write a lot of stuff so I don't get swamped.

And I need ideas. So any prompts you guys have, things you would like to see, parts of song lyrics that could inspire me, etc...

Please comment them here.

I'll try and do every one, but if I think that I couldn't write it, I won't. (I also don't do smut.)

Ideas I already have are:
• part three of classroom (and maybe part 4? I don't know)
• superhero AU
• YouTuber AU
• mini social media series thing- where they're both famous actors and fans ship them (that'd probably have parts to it, too)

Let me know if you don't want any of those.

But all of these will either be quite long or have more than one part. So I'd like some ideas of things that could be shorter, e.g around 500-1000 words. (Because I don't wanna be writing 2000 words a day, however much you guys might like that.)

Okay, Charlotte out! I hope you'll enjoy my little advent calendar (if you don't think you will and think no, charlotte, why would you do that, plz stop and let me read in peace without blowing up my Wattpad notifications every day please let me know)

Unedited

xxx Charlotte