A/N: Heres the deal. This is a sort of pilot for a story. I really really like this and I warn you I've only written one other chapter to it but I want to see what you think. This is not going up anywhere else for a really long time so feel privileged (joking). I wasn't going to put this up yet but I want opinions on it. I know I could get a beta but I think people who read not looking for thing to pick at are better judges. I hope you enjoy it.
Prologue: Love Is
A wise man once told me that love is organic. After you get past the fact that that man must have been a complete moron to compare love to non-fertilized produce, the idea starts to make sense. I suppose what he meant was that sometimes love can grow gradually, slowly with time, it can transform from one state to another almost imperceptibly but the point is that it develops and evolves into something…else…
Its difficult to explain.
See, I always believed that when I fell in love it would be immediate, I never banked on the organic growth thing. I wanted the cliché- love at first sight, instant connection, a clap of thunder and a deep voice booming "This is the ONE!"
Well, when I say I wanted it all I mean I wanted it up until my 15th birthday. Then I grew up. Of course, I wouldn't't particularly object to the whole Juliet, fairy tale, love story thing but, lets face it, it just wasn't going to happen. So at 15 I grew out of happily ever after and decided that true love was basically just an illusion, a convenient excuse for comfort and security and children. I was a cynical, sarcastic 15-year-old smart-arse who believed more in the Easter Bunny than true love. However, I wasn't just being your average irrational teenager- no, I did have my reasons.
Firstly, my sister, Petunia, was supposedly 'in love' with a pig of a man, which, besides being revolting, was just untrue. It was physically and cosmically impossible for anyone to truly be in love with that closed-minded cretin. I knew Petunia and I knew what she 'loved' most about Mr Vernon 'I have an intellect to rival garden tools' Dursley: a) his house; b) his car; and c) the bank balance that was higher than their combined IQ.
Secondly, in my 15th year of being my parents split up. Yes, I know- classic broken family syndrome: kid isolates him/herself, stops believing in conventional ideals blah blah blah. That is not what happened to me. Mum and Dad loved each other apparently but they just 'grew apart as people'. I figured that it was all about complacency. People get married, then they get complacent, then they get bored. That is the cue for them to get an electric guitar/tattoo/new boyfriend and the next thing you know they need to 'find themselves' and 'explore other avenues'. Yeah right, mum. More like 'explore the postman.'
But that isn't all. This last one isn't really a reason why I don't believe in love, but more why I don't want it. As I mentioned before, I always believed I would fall in love like any other girl and it would all flow perfectly into the fairy tale romance. No one ever told me about unrequited love.
You remember the thunderclap? The one that tells me who to love? Well, it just so happens that it indicates who to hate too. The split second that I caught sight of his annoyingly messy hair and obnoxious grin that booming Voice rang in my ears (sounding, strangely enough, like Dumbledore) and said "He is a prat! Hate him!" And so my hate was immediate. Ironically, the Voice that spoke to me resounded in his head too. As far as I can gather it said "She is The One! Torture, torment and annoy her until she is yours!"
Potter's actions as he continuously threw himself at me got me to thinking. If he is an example of what liking someone a lot can do to you, why would you want to bother with the real thing? I mean, if all it did was make you act like a complete moron then what is the point in it at all?
So the organic love thing was disregarded. How can I believe in some sort of love for vegetarians when I don't even know if I really think the real beef-steak-type love exists?
After this stupid person told me this and I'd brushed it off accordingly I went on through my 5th and 6th year as my normal self with a few extra… edges. I was friendly but you dreaded the day you pissed me off; I was intelligent but rather snappy; I had friends but I was quite guarded with who I let into my life; and I was approachable but, let's face it, a bit of a bitch. To James Potter anyway. Strangely enough though, he was the one person who never gave up on me- no, he maintained that he would be the one to melt my frozen exterior and win my heart.
There was only one problem with that plan.
I wasn't even sure I had a heart anymore.
Maybe I'm just being melodramatic, but at that point in time I seriously doubted my ability to really care about someone, in every sense. Sure, I really liked- no, more like endured- my parents, but love? What is love? I had no idea. It makes me sound cold hearted and abnormal but I truly didn't have a clue what love was, let alone the romantic kind of love.
And that's the reason why it came as such a shock in my final year at Hogwarts when that Thunderclap hit me for the second time in my pathetic and empty life and told me that that little flutter that I felt in my stomach, that rapid pulse, that aching in my chest that I'd put down to indigestion, was a clear and definitive result of love.
I was In Love.
And it was Organic.
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Sirius once told me that love was like a poker game- high stakes, winner takes all, extremely addictive…That always confused me. I could never understand why muggles find it so damn entertaining to play a game where you are almost guaranteed to play and play and play until you lose every worldly possession. Actually, now that I think about it I can see the similarities.
Cliché as it is, I figure that love is like Quidditch. The danger, the adrenaline rush, that fantastic soaring feeling, the possible loss of limb…
Maybe that's just in my case.
See, the girl that took my fancy has always been a little spitfire. Of course, if I ever said that to her face she would throttle me, but that would just prove my point. And that fiery spirit was what caught and held my interest throughout the years.
The first time I laid eyes on her I was done for. She was sitting all alone in her train compartment in blue dungarees and her scuffed knees were brought up to her chest. Her hair was what struck me first; a gloriously messy mane of red that surrounded her like a halo yet the worried frown and smudge of dirt that adorned her face convinced me that she wasn't an angel, a figment of my imagination, but a real live lovely girl. You may think its strange that I remember such minor details from so long ago so clearly but in the second that I saw her everything changed for me and my whole future altered drastically.
Before that moment I could never understand the point of 'love' and 'marriage' and all that nauseating stuff. To me, girls were terribly…girly and wore too much pink, love was illogical and the fact that my parents were forever smiling at each other with doe eyes was just completely sickening.
However, when I saw her for the first time my whole perspective changed. Because she was no ordinary girl; she had rips in her clothes and dirt on her face and leaves in her hair. She was the first girl I'd ever seen that seemed like she'd prefer a good arm wrestle over a tea party any day and I was besotted instantly, all my previous anti-love and anti-girl ideas flying out of the window.
Of course, she hated me. I can't say I blame her as I was an annoying little smart-arse for years and years. It was just a typical immature male's response to liking someone- hurt/ torment/ pick on chosen object of desire in order to convey affection. Since the Universe was created this method has never ever worked and it will continue to not work until the end of time. Trust me, I discovered this after five years of unsuccessful torment/ admiration of Lily Evans.
At the age of fifteen I realised where I was going wrong and so I adjusted my tactics accordingly. I ceased picking on her and started to flatter her and when that went wrong I began to watch her. Not in a stalker way, in a trying-to-get-to-know-her-better kind of way. In watching her I discovered that while I had had plenty of realisations over the years she must've had a fair few as well.
I know I said she wasn't a girly girl and she wasn't- but she was enough of a girl to read romance novel after romance novel and sigh dreamily when she thought no one was looking. However, as I observed her I found that they had disappeared from her regular reading material- gone was 'The Tender Stranger' to be replaced forever by 'An In-Depth Political Study on How to Control the Country (If Not the World) in Under Five Years.'
I tried and tried with her, but even the most steadfast and determined man in the world would eventually lose hope and so I did too. I'd been so besotted by her for so many years and she still slapped me down continuously so I decided to let her go. She was just too much effort. But the Summer before my final year at Hogwarts I wrote her one last letter pleading for a chance and when she sent back a reply that more or less called me a worthless twerp I knew it was time for the obsession to end.
I had the best intentions in the world but it was much harder to stop than I had originally thought. I'd spent a good part of my life asking her out and it was terribly difficult to stop it so I just kind of…carried on. She didn't seem to mind as she'd gotten used to saying no as much as I'd made a habit of asking, and it was all comfortable between us for once in our lives as I half-heartedly annoyed her and she half-heartedly berated me. I would even go so far as to say that when we had to share the Head Boy and Girl's Quarters we became rather good friends in a twisted sort of way, if you count insulting each other continuously as a form of relationship.
But then a lightening bolt struck me and something happened, something very very unexpected, and, to an extent, unwelcome.
I began to fall. It was something far surpassing what I'd felt before- it was stronger, it happened quicker and it was much more lethal.
This isn't a long story and it isn't that exciting, but its my story- no, our story and that is why its important. My name is James Potter and I have just one more thing to say.
I've fallen in love with Lily Evans.
And I think she loves me back.
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A/N; So what do you think? Is it a load of crap? Or something worth carrying on? You are my test audience so feel free to be mean. But if you read it please please let me know what you think.