Disclaimer: All things HP belong to JK Rowling and not me. Just borrowing her world for my amusement and (hopefully) your pleasure.
The Road to Red Roses
Chapter One: The First Step or The Reason
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"Hi, Evans."
Lily looked up from her Charms assignment to see just about the last person she wanted to see at this moment. "What do you want?"
James grinned easily at her. "I want you to come to Hogsmeade with me on Saturday."
Lily rolled her eyes. "No."
His smile didn't falter. "Then will you take a break from studying and come walk with me down to the lake?"
"No." Would nothing discourage him? Lily gathered up her books and papers, intending to head back to her room where she could get some work done in peace. Thank goodness for Head Girls having their own rooms.
She had been half hoping that he would leave her once she left the library. Silly of her, she supposed. Potter was nothing if not determined. She was halfway back to her room and he was still following her.
"At least give me a chance, won't you, Evans? I think you'd get to like me if you knew me better," he said with a half-teasing smile.
Damn his persistence, anyway!
Lily stopped and swung around to face James in exasperation. "Potter, why won't you stop asking me out? Why do you even like me when I've made it clear from the beginning that I don't like you?"
Her green eyes were shooting angry sparks, annoyance radiating from every line of her tense figure. She looked positively magnificent when she was angry, James thought in some small corner of his mind, even as he thought of the answer to her question.
He had tried to figure it out himself, why Lily was somehow the only girl in the world for him when she'd never done anything to encourage him and in fact rather actively discouraged him. It wasn't as if he enjoyed being rejected. And yet he kept on coming back.
He opened his mouth to say something flippant, something like, "You're even pretty when you're angry" but instead he heard himself say, "I think I need you."
He stopped, his thoughts brought up short with that inadvertent confession. He needed her. Yes, that was it. Somehow, for some reason, he did need her… And his heart had apparently recognized that long before his conscious mind did.
Lily stared. Of all the answers she'd been expecting, this was the one thing she'd never have dreamed of hearing James Potter say. James Potter, the always-confident; the arrogant Potter; the one so smiled on by the Fates. She had never imagined that he could be so-vulnerable. That was the only word for the tone of his voice, the look in his hazel eyes, devoid for once of any hint of laughter or teasing and instead filled with something like nervousness.
He needed her? She didn't for a moment think that it was just something he had said without meaning it; the look on his face, the surprise that had flashed in his eyes before being replaced by acceptance, told her better than anything else that James hadn't consciously meant to say it, hadn't even consciously realized it until he'd said the words. But she knew, with a certainty that amazed her, that it was true. He did need her…
"Why?" The question slipped from Lily's lips automatically.
James blinked a little, but he met her eyes directly. "I don't know," he admitted, slowly. "You're smart and caring and brave and honest." He paused for a minute, reflecting. "You make me want to be a better person. And somehow, you make me feel as if, with you, I would be a better person."
Lily let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, suddenly aware too that her knees actually felt a little weak and that a treacherous warmth was building in her heart. It wasn't so much what James had said, although the words were the nicest things anyone had ever said about her to her face. It was more the realization that she had been wrong about him. All these years, she'd judged him by his public persona, the careless charm, the easygoing vitality, the mischievous humor. She'd thought he was an arrogant, shallow, and vain athlete, completely taken with himself and only himself. Now, because of what he'd said and the way he'd said it, she knew that she was wrong. He was a prankster and there was a certain brash confidence about him that could be considered arrogant; but that wasn't all he was. He was more than that.
He was, she thought with something of a shock, very like her in some ways. He too valued intelligence, kindness, courage, honesty in other people. And that told her something else about him; for all his faults, he possessed those qualities too. He had to, or he wouldn't have been able to recognize them or to fully appreciate them either.
She had known that he was smart; his consistently high marks were proof enough of that. He was brave, a true Gryffindor in that way.
He was kind too, in his way. She suddenly remembered a scene she'd witnessed last year, which she'd dismissed as being an aberration but now thought should have told her something of James' character. Snape and two other Slytherin sixth-years had been tormenting a group of Hufflepuffs, in their first, second and third years and all Muggle-born. She had taken out her wand and opened her lips to say, "Expelliarmus" when she saw another wand pointed and heard another voice say the Disarming Spell, sending the Slytherins' wands flying out of their hands. James had been coldly furious as he faced the scowling Slytherin bullies, informing them angrily that he'd tell Headmaster Dumbledore and that they were the worst sort of sniveling cowards to pick on those younger than them, adding with scathing contempt that he never expected anything better from Slytherins. He'd sent them off with a dose of the Nose-bleeding Hex each. They'd left, casting fulminating glares at James and muttering threats, which James shrugged off. She'd realized as she watched, out of the opponents' line of sight, that James' defense of the Hufflepuffs was infinitely more powerful than her interference would have been because he was a pureblood himself. She'd been pleasantly surprised at the mildness of the physical punishment he'd inflicted but she realized too that it had been for the watching Hufflepuffs, who had had enough of curses and hexes, even aimed at their tormentors on their behalf, for one afternoon.
The real surprise had come when James turned to the group of Hufflepuffs. She had rather expected him to just make some flippant remark as he returned their wands, which he'd taken back from the Slytherins. Instead he'd been completely sober, sympathetic and, well, kind as he told the kids that they should never allow anyone to make them doubt their ability or their right to belong to the magical world. He'd injected just enough needed lightness into the moment by cracking a mild joke about how ugly the Slytherins were, that had gotten a few small smiles from the Hufflepuffs.
Remembering the incident now, she realized with a clarity she'd never had before just how much it revealed the true James, the one he tended to keep hidden from others behind his jokes and his pranks. He was kind, even if he could be careless at times about some things. But he wasn't a bully of the sort that Snape, Lestrange and Avery tended to be. He only hexed people their year and above, who could defend themselves, and his favorite targets tended to be the ones that bullied those weaker than them.
James Potter was nice.
And he needed her.
For the first time in the past six years, she felt flattered by James' crush on her. Flattered and a little grateful that he apparently cared enough to persist even in the face of her continued discouragement.
"Oh," she finally said a little lamely, realizing how long the silence between them had stretched. "Thank you. James." It was the first time she had ever called him by his name.
Then she smiled at him, sincerely, the smile that made her eyes shine, a smile she'd never before aimed at James.
He smiled back, not his usual grin but a frank, friendly smile.
Neither of them said anything for a moment but the exchange of smiles broke through the walls she'd always kept between them. And she thought, Maybe we can be- friends. That would be- nice.
And James felt the first real flare of hope. Maybe they really could be more than friends…