Try Too Hard

A/N: I wrote this for Procrastinator-starting2moro's birthday so with her permission I posted it here. The song is “I've Found Someone” by Barry White and that scene is partially inspired by Garth's daydream in Wayne's World. Thank you for reading! Oh and it's un-beta'd so all mistakes, Americanisms, blah blah blah. Yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Prongs! Prongs! James! What're you doing?!” Remus hissed watching his friend step up on the bench then onto the table.

“LILY EVANS!” James bellowed, his voice reverberating in the Great Hall. It was dinner time and the benches were packed and now suddenly silent.

The red head snapped her neck around from where she sat down the table and glared at James, refusing to answer.

“Mr. Potter!” McGonagall's affronted voice did reply. “Get off the table this instant!”

“LILY EVANS, WILL YOU GO OUT WITH ME?!” James bellowed, ignoring the professor.

Lily's face went red, but James wasn't sure if it was from embarrassment or anger. He'd bet his money on the latter.

“WELL?!”

“No, James,” Lily sighed and returned to her friends and her meal.

“Mr. Potter, you have detention in my office after dinner. Now get off that table now!” McGonagall barked.

“Was it worth it?” Sirius smirked.

“To see that shade of red? Always,” James replied, glancing down the table to Lily. She glanced over at him and with a roll of her eyes, looked away. The smirk on his face slipped and he returned to his dinner.

**************

“Hey Padfoot, you know what American Muggles call sanitary napkins?” Remus asked with a smirk.

“Um, no Moony, I don't believe I do.”

“Pads.”

“That's just - no, that's - you're - baby head!”

“I think that should be Padfoot's new nickname, Sanitary Napkin, Sani for short,” James laughed trying not to choke on his chicken.

“I - I - no - you're both mean!” Sirius pouted across the table.

“Hello Evans, love of my life, light of my world, purveyor of all my most intimate fantasies,” James leaned back in Lily's way as she was walking past.

“What Potter?” Lily sighed.

“I was wondering if we could study for that Charms exam day after next.”

“Okay.”

“And afterwards you could never speak to me again.”

“Okay!” she replied a bit too eagerly.

“And never see me again.”

“All right!”

“And go out with me on a pad.”

“O - what?”

“I mean date! Date! Go out with me on a date!” he called after her as she shook her head and walked by. “Dammit Remus!” he glared at his friend next to him.

Remus put up his hands in defense. “I have no control over what comes out of your mouth, so if you mess up asking Lily out on a date, then that's entirely your fault. It says so in my contract.”

“Where?”

Remus dug around in his book bag and pulled out a tattered piece of paper. “Clause II subsection A.”

“Bugger.”

**********

“Prongs,” Peter sighed watching the other boy fiddle with Remus' record player.

“Trust me! What woman doesn't love music?” James asked leaving the record player alone and flipping through Remus' selection of records. “Crap, crap, crap . . . huh? Crap, crap . . . hm, this looks like Padfoot's,” he muttered pulling out a cover that satisfied his requirements of not being jazz, swing, classical or crap.

“James, you do realize that if Moony sees you with his record player, he is going to mutilate you.”

“I am attempting to perpetuate our species here, Wormtail and reinstate the sacred code of chivalry! My efforts should be lauded in the annals of human kind!” James said passionately, standing and clapping a hand on his chest. “I am paving the way for all men everywhere -“

“Prongs!” Peter interrupted before James really got going which was all too easy these days as the tension mounted between the Head Boy and Head Girl. “Just take the bloody record player and do whatever insanity you plan on doing.”

James bent to collect the bulky machine and record hiding a smirk from Peter. “I'll have this back before Moony returns, don't fret.”

“What's Padfoot doing to distract him?” Peter asked following him down to the Gryffindor common room.

“The question should be `What isn't Padfoot doing to distract him?'” James replied with a mischievously evil and knowing grin.

Peter gulped. That sounded ominous.

Lily was sitting on the couch talking to Alice Walker, probably about Frank Longbottom who had been a year ahead of them and had already graduated, and oh isn't he dreamy and I miss him so much, blah blah blah. He needed her attention now; Alice could get it when they went to bed . . . must. not. be. distracted. You're on a mission, remember that, said a determined voice that curiously sounded like Sirius's in his mind.

James glanced over at Lily as he set the record on the turntable and placed the needle in the second groove. “Miss Evans,” he called out in the crowded common room as the first chords of the song blared out from the large cone on top of the record player.

Lily looked up just in time to see James begin to “sing,” walking slowly toward her with a sultry look in his eye. “It's not everyday,” he started, “you can find something in your life/ That is worth all the money in this world/ Happiness.”

Lily looked over at Alice with what he thought was an impressed expression but was actually muted horror. “And for the first time in my life/ I find it hard for me to express myself/ Or the way I feel -“ James continued, shrugging a shoulder out of his school robe and seductively licking his lips.

Lily buried her face in her hands while Alice couldn't stop giggling.

James continued to lip synch and quasi dance which mainly consisted of winks, lots of hip shaking and thrusting. He pulled a spectacular hip thrust at one point in the song to emphasize the lyrics, but quickly realized he couldn't stop. He didn't stop singing, but his face showed his confusion over his uncontrollable hip thrusts. Why couldn't he stop?! Oh Merlin! It was beyond all his control. He looked around trying to find who hexed him, but the room was too crowded. He kept moving forward closer and closer to a mortified looking Lily and a hysterically giggling Alice.

“James . . . James!” Lily had to shout over the booming baritones that were shaking the windows.

With a screech of a needle across vinyl the music stopped and thankfully so did his hips, James knelt in front of Lily expectantly (and with a fair amount of relief). “Yes, the love of my life?”

“Was that -“ she began before stopping and adjusting his school robe over his shoulder. James could see that she was biting the inside of her lip, her eyes watering with what he hoped was joy. “Was that Barry White?”

“Er, yes?”

Lily snorted softly and a giggle escaped dashing all of James's hope that this attempt at seduction had worked. She cleared her throat and nodded. “No, James. I won't go out with you.”

James looked and felt as if Christmas had been cancelled and his favorite broom had been turned into toothpicks. Barry White hadn't worked?! But - but - “But Barry White always works!”

“For whom?” Lily asked. “You or Sirius? And what kind of girl does it work on?”

James sat back on his heels and thought. “You have a point.” He sighed and groaned softly, scrubbing his face with his hands. “Could you, you know, give me a hint or something?”

Lily leaned down, folding her arms on her legs. “You try too hard,” she whispered before standing. “Good night.”

James watched Lily and Alice walk away with a baffled expression. What in the world? What did that mean? He tried hard because he really wanted Lily, wasn't that a good thing?

“Things didn't go so good?” Peter asked stepping into the common room once the laughter, whispers, and talking had calmed following James' latest attempt.

“Noooo,” he groaned moving over to the couch and burying his head in his hands.

“Hey Prongsie,” Sirius called out, walking over to the couch pulling a few exaggerated pelvic thrusts.

James' mouth fell open. “YOU! YOU HEXED ME!”

“No, actually it was Moony,” Sirius said stepping aside to reveal an unrepentant Remus.

“That'll teach you to mess with my record player,” Remus replied walking forward and deftly snatching up his machine from where it sat on the floor. “I am going to bed.”

He turned on the ball of his foot and marched upstairs.

James looked at Peter and Sirius who was still chuckling. “He's so dead.”

*********

“Do you promise never to touch my record player again?” Remus asked while he was studying and James was moping in the library. “And throw away that vow you made in tomato juice (because you were too much of a pansy to write it in blood) to exact revenge upon me and my future children?”

“Yes to both,” James sighed. “Just tell me the answer to the riddle, Girly-Sue. What did she mean by I try too hard?”

“It means that jumping on the table in the Great Hall during dinner is not the way to a girl's heart if she's embarrassed by attention,” Remus replied rolling his eyes. “So the next time you ask Lily on a date, do the exact opposite of all your instincts.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

So James thought and thought and thought about what Remus said. He thought during Potions and Transfiguration and did some more staring at Lily Evans at lunch. And like a light bullet over his head it came to him. Light dawned and a heavenly choir sung to him. “I'VE GOT IT!” he shouted in the middle of Charms.

“Excellent, Mr. Potter!” Professor Flitwick squeaked. “Now please show the rest of the class.”

“Ummm . . .”

******

“I see you Ms. Duffit!” James called out to the retreating backs of a couple scurrying away from the Head Boy and Head Girl on their rounds. “And don't think I don't know what the backside of your head looks like Justin Daltry!”

Lily rolled her eyes. “I swear the Charms classroom is like a Mecca for couples. Why is that?”

“Larger desks,” James replied knowingly.

She cocked her eyebrow and looked at him in askance. “Do I really want to know?”

“Do you?”

“Do I?”

“Probably not.”

“You are a rake,” she said with exasperated disbelief.

James smirked. “I assure you my reputation has been grossly exaggerated.”

Lily gave a non-committal hum which still said a thousand words.

“Although, I wouldn't mind giving a real relationship a try,” he added sincerely, stopping and turning toward Lily. “And I'd like it if you were my first.”

James held his breath while Lily really looked hard at him as if she were seeing him for the first time. “For real?” she asked softly.

“It's always been real,” he murmured.

Lily looked away, worrying on her lower lip then looked back up at him. “Ok,” she finally said softly with a nod. “Ok.”

James felt light and heavy, buoyant and scared all at once. “Ok.” Just like that.

“But leave the Barry White in your room.”

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