Disclaimer: Harry Potter does not belong to me, unfortunately… It all belongs to J. K. Rowling.

Trying
By DreamingFantasy


He didn’t believe in “love at first sight.” To him, it seemed so shallow to fall in love with someone before getting to know that person first. So, it was no exception with Lily Evans.

He remembered seeing her walk on the train, amber hair all ruffled, looking rather apprehensive about what was to come. She fell over with the sudden lunge of the train as it sped towards Hogwarts, and he offered her his hand. Afterwards, they met Sirius, Remus, and Peter and spent the rest of the ride talking.

He remembered feeling ecstatic when they were all sorted into Gryffindor. They would have classes together, and he would get to know her better. He had known then that she was different from the rest.

But things had changed once classes started. Lily quickly became friends with the other Gryffindor girls and spent all her time with them. She would only talk to him in class when they worked together, and even then, it was only about the task at hand.

First year had passed by quickly, and Lily was still a mystery to him. He promised himself that it would all change.

Second year, he began to observe her carefully, as if trying to grasp hints of her personality through her physical actions and facial expressions. It was then he noticed how captivating her smile was. Sure, she wasn’t the prettiest girl in the school. In fact, she was rather far from it. But there was just something about that smile… He wanted her to always be like that, with her eyes shining and crinkling at the corners, hair pulled up in a ponytail, and face filled with absolute joy. That’s when it hit him: she was the one. It had always been there, that kind of feeling, even when they first met. Sparks hadn’t flown that day, but he had known, since the first moment, that she was a part of his destiny. He had followed his intuition, and in the process of getting to know Lily, he had found the answer.

But he couldn’t be in love with her just yet; he still had to see all of her. And he did. As time passed, James discovered that she fit all of his expectations and more. Smart, nice, sweet, caring, responsible… All of those adjectives were insufficient in describing her. And with her hung an atmosphere of maturity that none of the other students had. He found that she was the only girl he could respect (besides his mother and grandmother). But what he really liked was that she was always smiling that smile of hers; she always held a faint scent of optimism in whatever she did. “Giving up,” “failure,” and any other word of the same connotation did not exist in her dictionary, and he admired her for that.

So his goal in third year was to get Lily to notice him. Of course, for him and the other Marauders, that should be no hard task. And yet while the majority of the school, including Lily’s best friends and excluding the Slytherins, found their antics highly amusing, she never paid any attention, not even smiled at what they did. In class, while surrounded by a fan club of squealing girls, he would show off his prowess at Transfiguration and other subjects along with Sirius. While everyone else clapped for them, Lily sat in the corner either studying or moving onto the next task. Although it pleased him to see her master the spells as quickly as he did, he couldn’t help feeling hurt that all his efforts were for nothing. So the rest of the year progressed the same way with James striving for Lily’s attention and Lily ignoring him. By the end, the only thing that changed was the huge boost in James’s popularity.

He tried even harder in fourth year. He stretched himself to the limit, pulled every trick short of asking her out, and still, she didn’t pay any attention to him. Heck, he probably didn’t even exist in her world…

He didn’t know what to do; Lily hung in all his thoughts. Everywhere he went, he looked to see if she was nearby. Just one tiny glimpse of her put him in a good mood for the rest of the day. His feelings drove him crazy. They were like insect bites that worsened when scratched. He often wished that one day he would just wake up and not care about Lily Evans, but affection was a stubborn little thing. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t a scab that he could just pick off and flick away; it wasn’t extra baggage that he could just leave behind.

He was also exceedingly jealous of all the guys Lily talked to, especially Sirius, Remus, and Peter. These feelings bubbled crazily inside of him whenever he saw one of them with her. Didn’t they know how he felt? He was often in a bad mood afterwards and would act especially cold to the offender. It was not fair; it seemed as though she was willing to befriend anyone but him.

As fifth year hit, he gathered enough courage to ask her out, not once, not twice, but sixty-seven times. After all, being direct was supposed to work. Yet, unfortunately for him, every single one of those came back with a “no” and sometimes, a stinging insult as well. This continued on until the end of sixth year. In that time period, he had tried to change for Lily, but it didn’t work. Each time, just as he was starting to grow in her opinion, something (or someone) would come along.

And now, he had one year left. He wasn’t about to give up; that didn’t exist in his vocabulary either. He would do whatever it took to win over Lily.

The problem was she didn’t really know him. In her eyes, he was a showoff who never put any effort into what he was doing (outside of pranks). In her eyes, he was an “arrogant, bullying toerag” who never took others into consideration.

But he wasn’t like that.

He sighed. She didn’t understand him… All of those things… Showing off, ruffling his hair, pranking people… He only did them so that she would notice him. Whenever she was near, he just couldn’t stop acting up; he couldn’t stop making a fool of himself…

It all came down to this last year. He would deflate his ego. He would stop hexing Slytherins in the hallway. He would do anything and everything to allow Lily Evans to see the true James Potter. There would be no failure because she was worth it.

And it would all start with the shiny “HB” badge in his hand…



-Fin

A/N: Compliments? Criticisms? Thanks for reading!