"I don't know how to love him."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lily Evans was having a dilemma.

As a member of Professor Slughorn's 'prestigious' Slug Club, she had been invited to a dinner party tonight. The only thing was: through his quivering jowls, the Potions professor had advised her to bring a date. A date. Not a companion, or a plus-one, a date. For the last few days, Lily had been fretting about who she wanted to bring, as she knew Slughorn would be disappointed should she turn up alone. She knew just who she wanted to bring, but still, she pondered. He'd know he'd be going as her date, and Lily was anxious about that for some reason she couldn't quite place.

Earlier that day, she'd asked Bell to go with her but was turned down with a disappointed shake of the head and a teasing grin. "Coward," she'd asserted and wagged her finger at Lily, "just ask him, you know he'll say yes." And so Lily had thought it over, but now the afternoon was growing late and she still hadn't made up her mind. Scribbling out a spelling mistake on her paragraph on pygmy puffs due tomorrow, the redheaded Muggleborn shook her head at herself. She was an independent woman and she would not let Potter, of all people, fluster her at the idea of asking him to a fancy dinner.

"Gooooood afternoon!" 

The corners of Lily's mouth curved up despite herself and turned her head. As expected, James Potter was leaning on the back of the couch, now a familiar hangout for the group, smiling at her.

"And how has my dear Lilyflower's day been?"

"First off, I'm not your anything-"

"Yet!" Sirius chimed in from behind James and immediately thereafter was dragged off to the side by Bell, who, quite contrarily, was winking fervently at Lily.

"Anyway, it was good."

"Good." James sounded genuinely pleased to hear she'd had a decent day and it brought a smile to her face. He grinned back, and a moment of silence fell between them. Lily swallowed and fought back the butterflies in her stomach. Too late, she realized she hadn't asked him how his day was, and blushed as she quickly offered the question.

"Eh, it was fine." Lily frowned. There was no dramatics entailed in his answer, no 'better now that I've seen you' like usual, and it felt off.

"Fine?"

James hesitated. "Sniv- er, Snape wouldn't leave me alone all day. Dunno why. I mean, we have two classes together on today's schedule but even during break in the library he was one table over. It was weird."

Lily blinked. "Do you think he was trying to prevent you from writing another cheesy love poem to me?" she offered, weakly joking, and James walked around the side of the couch and plopped down beside her, giving a sigh.

"No clue. It was kind of creepy, though, put me off of my lessons today. Nearly blew up a gerbil in Transfiguration, even." He winced. "McGonagall wasn't too happy about that."

Lily frowned and reached out to touch his arm. Immediately his own hand came up to cover hers and a smile appeared on his face. Before she even realized it, Lily was blushing at how sweet she thought that was and fought with herself not to retract her hand.

"Tomorrow will be better. And whatever he was up to, I doubt he'd have the guts to pull it off."

James' mouth formed an 'o' for a moment, then he grinned. "I never thought I'd see the day!" He gave a laugh. "Lily Evans, insulting someone. Then again, it's Snivellus, so why am I surprised-"

"Don't push it, Potter."

"Alright, alright!" James raised his arms in a defensive manner, which gave Lily the chance to draw her hand back. She picked up her quill again and wrote a few meaningless words on her paper to make it seem like she'd had a thought, then wondered why she'd done that- it wasn't as if she was worried she'd offend him by pulling back. Right?

"Don't you have Quidditch practice tomorrow right after classes get out? Better get to work on that homework, James." Lily noticed how he smiled at her calling him by his first name and stifled a soft sigh. How about she ask him about the party tonight now? He was right here, no better chance had shown itself, and time was a-ticking- but then he started humming to himself as he dove into reading the chapter they'd both had assigned for Defense Against the Dark Arts, Bell and Peter appeared, carrying Sirius between as all laughed, and Remus asked Lily what a good synonym for 'goal' would be, and so she forgot.

Hours passed and Lily stretched her arms wearily, having just finished her last piece of homework for the day. Half her friends had already gone to supper, but Remus and Persephone remained, snuggling by the fire in an armchair (it was quite a chilly day, and even inside the castle one could feel it), oblivious to those around them as they murmured something about  the best kind of chocolate to each other. Lily thought that was just adorable. As she slipped her Charms textbook into her bag, she noticed that James was nodding at Peter to head along without him. He was waiting for her, and Lily fought back a blush.

"Hey, lovebirds!" Persephone looked up and Remus followed suit. Lily grinned at them. "I'm afraid you've got to take a break for dinner. We'll reserve your spot until you get back, though."

"Oh, we're not going to dinner," replied Persephone, blushing at Lily's teasing. "We're going to Slughorn's party later."

Oh, shit.

Lily had just about completely forgotten. She looked back and saw James leaning against the wall by the portrait door, staring at the mantel to her right as if he was pretending he hadn't been watching her. Well, now or never. She walked up to him and he offered to take her bag, like a gentleman, but she shook her head. How should she phrase this? As she paused, he spoke up instead and turned toward the portrait of the Fat Lady, starting forward.

"Aren't the lovebirds coming?"

"No- James wait- neither am I."

James turned back. "Not hungry?"

"No, no, uh, neither are you."

Now he just looked confused. "What?"

Lily was pretty sure her cheeks were the color of her hair by now. She gritted her teeth and tugged at James' sleeve clumsily, pulling him back toward her, a movement which he hardly resisted. She raised her chin and tried to play it cool.

"You're coming with me tonight. To Slughorn's party. And that's that."

Both of James' eyebrows shot up with surprise, but they lowered back down as a wide grin spread across his face. "Really?" He sounded genuinely excited, and Lily regretted not having asked him sooner.

"I hope you own a dress shirt, Potter."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lily shifted on her feet by the portrait door an hour later, in the same spot she'd pulled James back towards her by the sleeve of his robes. She wondered if there would be dancing tonight. And if so, he'd probably want to dance with her. Unless he didn't like to dance. But he probably did. Then again, slow dancing was different than going crazy to an ABBA album or a Fleetwood Mac record blasted loud enough to send someone's ears ringing. The redhead tugged on the side of the ivory cape she had draped over her shoulders to fend off the chill in the air tonight which had only worsened with the sun going down.

"Wow."

Lily turned around from where she'd absentmindedly turned her gaze to the windows. She raised an eyebrow at James, but a smile still crept onto her face.

"Wow?"

"Wow."

He looked nice, she thought, no, he looked dapper. For the first time she'd ever seen, it looked like he'd made an attempt to tame his messy hair, and he'd done a decent job, though it still stuck up here and there. His shirt was half-tucked into his pants (which looked like they'd been ironed- probably a bit of nifty spellwork on Remus' part) and it was relatively smooth compared to the wrinkled button-ups he wore each day as part of the school uniform. He even wore a tie, though Lily recognized it as Sirius', who was the only one she'd ever known to own this very same navy tie adorned with little cactuses. He wore a set of dress robes that looked like they'd never been worn.

Lily herself wore a pale green dress with few embellishments and a train that scooped down in the back to her knees where in the front it ended halfway down her thighs. Her hair was half-done up in a bun on the back of her head, held by a silver clip Bell had lent her (the hairstyle itself was courtesy of Marlene) and she tugged at a loose curl as she stood there with James. He offered her his arm and she took it, which seemed to surprise him. She recalled how he'd refused the gesture a week ago in Hogsmeade and realized that must be it- he must think he was making progress with her. Not like she'd tell him he was right.

"Of course, you're always 'wow', sweet Lilyflower-"

"Oh, shush, James."

Down the Grand Staircase they went, through halls, ignoring a Ravenclaw prefect who babbled at them about being out after curfew (they were Head Boy and Head Girl, after all) and soon enough, they made it to the door of the Potions classroom. Music played from inside and Professor Slughorn waved at them through the doorway but didn't come to greet him because he'd just been accosted by a trio of third years holding up vials of something blue.

Lily stopped James right outside the door. "Hold still." She she reached toward his side, he tilted his head at her, but didn't turn away. She tugged at something and he started to protest that she'd rip the robes- but then she held up a tag and shook her head, smirking at him.

"I had a hunch you'd never worn these before."

James shrugged and leaned against the stone wall beside him leisurely. He returned her smirk and Lily's own faded under his look. "Think we could wait out here for a moment, I could steal a kiss or two-"

"In your dreams, Potter." And mine. No way she would say that aloud, though.

James stared at her, smirk immediately fading. "You mean that?"

Lily stumbled for an answer. "What- no- hurry, we're late." They weren't really, but Lily had leapt at the excuse, the only one that came to her flustered mind in the moment. She hastened inside, face burning and most assuredly bright red. Taking shelter in a sudden conversation on 'Nargles' with a Ravenclaw named Pandora whose last name she could never seem to recall and who Bell seemed to know to some degree, Lily took subtle deep breaths and little-by-little forced her blush to fade. Apparently she had said that aloud. She hadn't meant to, of course. And now what would he think of her? Dreaming about him? What kind of fool was she, to blurt out something so obvious to the boy who'd been pining after her for years? 

Lily's hand subconsciously came up to grasp the silver lily charm she wore around her neck. It was the one James got her at Hogsmeade. She'd worn it every day since. Somehow, it reassured her, and when he approached her after ten minutes or so, having the good sense to give her a bit of breathing space, she'd collected herself once more. They sat down for dinner, Lily noticed James was using much better manners than she saw him at meals in the Great Hall, James didn't flirt with her even once at the table and exchanged pleasant and quite well-thought conversation with Professor Slughorn when prompted to, Remus and Persephone, both blushing, revealed to those unknowing of their relationship and Slughorn clapped cheerfully at the news.

The meal wrapped up, they had ice cream, James challenged Remus to a dance off which was refused by Persephone, who said she wanted to dance with her boyfriend. Lily had the thought that she rather wanted to do that too, then scolded herself inwardly for thinking the word 'boyfriend' when connected to 'James Potter'. Her nerves all night had been building, and her blunder, though only she knew of it, set her on edge. James asked her to dance after Remus and Persephone, to most people's surprise, took the first step onto the dance floor, and Lily accepted, not because Slughorn was beaming at her from behind James and showing her two aggressive thumbs-up, but because she thought maybe she could relax a bit from it.

Turns out she was wrong.

The first song was much too fast for her liking and though she managed to keep up with James, he kept spinning her when she didn't expect it and laughing when he accidentally stepped on her toes. There was barely a pause before a slow song started and James didn't bother to ask if she wanted to dance to this one too- he just wrapped his arms around her waist and stared into her eyes, and Lily saw something there that delighted her so much, it terrified her. He loved her. It was obvious. He hadn't been joking, all these years. Merlin- Panicking, she pushed him away, wide-eyed. 

Immediately he started to apologize and she shook her head, silent, needing to get out of there, to think. She ran to her chair, grabbed her cape, and darted for the door. James snatched the cape just as she stepped across the threshold and with a terrible sound, it tore, and she turned to him with gritted teeth.

"Leave me alone, Potter-"

"Lily, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"Forget the cape, just go-"

"What- but you invited me-"

"I wish I hadn't!"

James stared at her and she held her glare. She didn't mean it, but her pride wouldn't let her go back on her word now. She seized her ripped cape from his hands and hurried away down the hall, stumbling once on her heels due to her quick pace. James was watching her go, she could feel his eyes, and she resisted the urge to turn around and run back and hug him and say sorry, she was just so uncertain what to do about these feelings after so long of turning down his advances, fearful of how he loved her, he loved her, he loved her- but she didn't. She kept going. 

Her fingers gripped the pendant of the necklace she wore. The lily flower. And she didn't let it go until she was in her dorm room, cheeks red, tears falling, hands shaking, heart pounding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"What did I do?" James asked this to an empty hallway. His voice seemed to bounce off the stones in a distant, unfriendly manner. He crossed his arms over his chest. Regulus Black appeared beside him. The Slytherin didn't say a word, just stood there for a long moment. James was surprised at himself to realize in that moment that he disliked Regulus probably the least of any Slytherin. His 'group' contained Bellatrix Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy, and Antonin Dolohov, true, but he'd come to Sirius' aid that night of the full moon and James supposed he should get some credit for that. He'd stuck by the side of the only good person in his family (in James', and most people's, opinion), though he'd probably suffered the consequences among his 'group' later.

"What did I do?" Regulus was clearly caught off-guard to be posed the reiteration of this question. He shuffled his feet as if uncomfortable.

"Erm..."

James shook his head. "Nevermind." He started off down the hall. It was probably best to give Lily space right now, so he wasn't much heading to catch her, but to go back to the dorm, try to sort out what had caused that sort of reaction in her.

"I think she-"

James looked back and Regulus cut himself off. They stared at each other for a long moment.

"She looked scared. Of what I don't know."

Scared? James reflected briefly. Regulus was right. Oh, Merlin, had he frightened her somehow, and enough to cause such a backlash? He had a sinking feeling that was exactly what he'd done. But how? He hurried away, down the hall, then the next, and took the stairs of the Grand Staircase two at a time, nearly falling off a flight when it abruptly started to swing toward another landing than the one he wanted to go to. Was it something he'd said earlier? Had she been scared by all the love in his eyes he hadn't been able to hide as he tried to slow dance with her? That was it, wasn't it? He'd gone too far, unintentionally, and he'd thought they'd been making real progress- not like he could help his love of her, as if that knowledge helped at all-

James stumbled on the steps up to the boys' dorm and sank down to just sit on one, dropping his head into his hands on his knees. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Heyyy, Prongsie, how was- oh, shit."