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The first time James Potter asked Lily Evans out, she just scoffed at him.
He thought it was simply because she thought he was immature.
She thought it was just another one of his pranks.
He'd asked her in the middle of the Great Hall, his friends right behind his back, watching them, waiting for her answer.
He knew they were there because he'd been telling them about his crush on Lily for years and they had talked him up for hours the night before.
She thought they were there to witness the prank, see her getting hurt.
And she was hurt. She had thought better of them. At least Remus. She hadn't thought he'd stoop quite so low.
They'd been friends since their fourth year, had studied together for their OWLs and gone to Hogsmeade together a few times when he hadn't felt like hanging out with the rest of the Marauders.
He had even stood up for her when the boy she thought was her best friend had made the same comments she was almost expecting from James right then.
Lily was the last one to leave the Common Room that Friday night.
Mary had fallen asleep on the couch next to her, her head in Lily's lap, who had put away the pillow she had kept on her thighs - to balance the papers she was reading of course.
Lily had woken her and sent her and Marlene upstairs. The two of them had to get up early the next morning anyway, Marlene had Quidditch practice and Mary wanted to secure herself the best spot in the library. She was more of a morning person than Lily anyway.
So her two friends left and Lily finally relaxed on the couch. She leaned back and drew her feet up. She had a few more pages of parchment to get through before she wanted to go upstairs.
Then, she heard footsteps behind her and straightened back up. Maybe it was another homesick first year. She had used her Prefect badge to go down to the kitchens to get hot cocoa for a little girl that had cried in her arms a few nights before.
But when she turned around, it was Potter. He was wearing pyjamas, his glasses slightly askew, his hair in the usual mess.
"Hey, I just..." He wrung his hands, looking to the ground.
"I just wanted to ask you again, if you'd like to get a butterbeer in Hogsmeade next Saturday?"
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Potter, I-"
And then she heard their voices. Peter, laughing lightly. Sirius, whispering, she could hear the smirk in his voice, coming from the dark of the staircase leading up to the boys' dorms: "He's actually doing it again!"
Her face must have shown her feelings pretty clearly because Potter turned around and ran up the stairs, ushering Sirius and Peter in front of him, before she could draw her wand and hex them to kingdom-come. (Of course, she wouldn't have actually hurt them. A few sparks here or there should have done the trick.)
Tears started to sting in her eyes and she looked around quickly, making sure there was no one to see her cry, and just let them fall.
She was so tired of this happening over and over and over again.
The first time a boy had pulled that same prank, she hadn't even understood what was happening. One of the popular kids, asking her to be his girlfriend in primary school, his friends standing just a few feet away, snickering, laughing at her hopeful response.
It wasn't the last time it happened. By thirteen she had just accepted that anyone asking her out did it as a joke for his friends.
By then, she had long accepted that most people had a problem with her appearance, thought less of her or were embarrassed to be friends with her. They might not show it directly, but they did. She could feel it in their way of interacting with her.
It had taken Mary and Marlene months to convince her that they actually, truly, wanted to be friends with her after the other girl in their dorm had made a joke about Lily "not fitting into their friend group- literally!".
When Severus turned out to have the same views - or at least being comfortable letting his friends say the same horrible things about her - as so many others she had encountered, it had hurt. She had thought he'd stand by her side. But once she realized he wasn't actually different from the people he hung out with - and just how horrible they were - she ended their friendship. Sometimes, she still couldn't believe how well he must have hidden it. Or how stupid she had been not to see it coming.
"Hey."
The word was so softly spoken, Lily wasn't even sure she had heard it and not just imagined it.
She tried to wipe away the tears but before she could, Remus handed her a handkerchief. She took it and dried her tears, blew her nose and used her wand to scourgify it afterwards.
"Are you okay?" He sat down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
Lily gave back the handkerchief and nodded, shifting slightly so his hand touched less of her.
With a tilt of his head, he said, still very softly and in a low voice, "No, Evans, you're not. What is it?"
"Just," she shook her head, "Potter trying to make fun of me and, you know."
"What?" The questioning look in his eyes made her laugh tiredly.
"Oh come on, as if Potter -
Potter!
- would ever ask me out! What did you guys bet on, huh? What does he get if he gets me to go out with him, huh?"
Remus shook his head, opening his mouth and closing it a few times before: "What - I - Lily - What do you mean?"
"Remus, he's not the first to do that, trust me. 'Come on, let's ask out the fat girl and when she shows up we'll hide and watch all of her hopes shatter, haha', it's an old trick!"
By the time Lily had finished, Remus was blinking his eyes rapidly, still shaking his head.
"God, no, Lily, that's not what's happening here! Merlin, who would do that?!"
She scoffed and the rough sound seemed to violently rip through the silence engulfing Gryffindor tower.
Remus put his hands up, fingers crossed, "Lily Jane Evans, I, Remus John Lupin, swear to you, on a lifetime's worth of Mars bars, that James was not trying to make fun of you! For once in his life, he was being a thousand per cent sincere! The boy is up in our dorm crying because you didn't say yes!"
"Huh?" Lily wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that she had read the situation wrong, even though she had been so sure.
"Sirius spent
hours
last night trying to talk James into asking you out because he's been annoying us for years with all his 'Merlin, didn't Evans look great today' and 'did you see her dress' and he finally got the courage to ask you and you just... scoffed?"
Now it was Lily's turn to blink unbelievingly.
"Evans, the boy has been in love with you since year two!"
"What?"
"We've all been listening to him whine about it for five years now, Lily! I've had everything about you - including your lips - described to me in excrutiating detail, for Merlin's sake! He's just been too scared to ask you out because he was convinced you thought he's too immature - which I supposed tonight has proved," he finished quietly. "Lily, I'm so sorry that seemed like... The fact that you even thought - the fact that some people even do that - I -"
"Stop!" She cut him off, shaking her head. "Are you sure? Are you sure it isn't a joke?"
He didn't answer immediately, clearly sensing that this was a very sore spot for her since his first and second assurances had been of no avail. "Lily, I swear to you, if it was I would kill him myself."
The serious look in his eyes struck a chord deep in her and she nodded. "Okay," she said, "okay."
The first time Lily Evans asked out James Potter he didn't answer her. It was the morning after the last time he had asked her, the Marauders had run into Lily in front of the Great Hall when they had left it to go see if they could still get a spot in the library and she had just gotten out of bed. James quite literally ran into Lily and felt his cheeks grow hot when they stepped away from each other.
The other boys watched the two of them stare at each other for a few seconds and Remus pushed Peter and Sirius towards the stairs. "Come on," he said softly, giving them no chance to stay back.
Once Lily was convinced they were out of earshot, she scraped together every ounce of courage she had in her body. A tiny voice in the back of her head kept whispering the same things she'd been thinking for years now. The same things that had crushed every previous bit of hope, had made her push down and ignore every single crush she had ever had, including - or especially - the one on James Potter. But another voice, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Remus', kept telling her
Evans, you're a Gryffindor, just do it
and with a deep breath, she decided to focus on that voice. For the first time in her entire life, she was determined to not let that stupid little voice, which she was sure sounded a tiny bit too much like her sister to be a coincidence, rain on her parade.
"So, Hogsmeade? Next week? We could go to Puddifoot's, if you want to?"
And James simply stared at her.
And then ran off.
Lily still stood right there, in front of the Great Hall's entrance, when James came back. He looked like a child that had been chastised, a dog with its tail between its legs. He came to a halt in front of her and rattled off, as if he'd practised it or had been coached through it:
"I would love to go to Madam Puddifoot's with you, Lily, I hope you can excuse my earlier reaction it in no way reflects how much I'm looking forward to next Saturday."
With a smile, Lily shook her head and then nodded slightly. "Me too, Potter, me too."