The first time James saw Lily run, he had the naïveté to think he could catch her.
To be fair, it wasn’t such a far-fetched idea: his muscles were strong from passing quaffles and dodging bludgers, and he had all the motivation of a sixteen-year-old who had never met a goal he couldn’t reach. On top of that, he had recently decided that, one day, Lily Evans would go out with him”and what better way to hasten that inevitability than if she just happened to meet him running shirtless in the woods?
He had been gazing out the window avoiding his potions essay when he saw the glint of red between the trees. He looked closer, and realized it was Lily, out for a run along the edge of the forest, her bright hair in a ponytail dancing behind her. Hastily James tore off his shirt and laced up his running shoes, sprinting down the staircase and out onto the grounds. He felt an ache in his side, but forgot his fatigue when he noticed Lily disappearing round the bend ahead.
James took off running. As he felt the cramp in his side worsen, he realized that, while Quidditch had done wonders for his upper-body strength, he spent most of the game seated on his broom. His cardiovascular endurance was sorely lacking.
He came to a halt just before the bend and knelt over, resting his hands on his knees. He hoped Lily wouldn’t double back for the castle just yet and find him here, hunched over and clutching his side.
He needn’t have worried. The next day in Herbology, Lily was able to describe the Agapanthis floreana with astonishing accuracy, even mentioning the small white flowers that had bloomed only a few days before. Merlin! She must have run a full six-mile loop to make it as far as the Agapanthis greenhouses! James thought. How else would she have known the flowers were blooming? Maybe it was best he hadn’t had the strength to catch up with her”there was no way he could have kept pace with her for six miles!
But what if he were able to keep pace with her?
And his thoughts drifted from the Herbology greenhouses to the Agapanthis ones, where perhaps one day they might sit together and share a kiss before running the final three miles back to the castle.
He recounted the story to Remus later that day, wanting to tell someone but reluctant to endure Sirius’ taunts and unwilling to tarnish his reputation in Peter’s eyes.
“Maybe you’re more of a sprinter,” Remus said in a conciliatory tone. (His eyes twinkled, though, and James realized he had not spared himself all humiliation by avoiding Sirius.) “You know”short distances. You could probably keep up with her for the first five feet or something,” Remus finished laughingly. James simply glowered.
Say what you will about James Potter the summer before his sixth year: call him arrogant, immature, insensitive, or a dapple-faced dingbat”but he was nothing at all if not determined. And so he spent that summer in training, building up his stamina until he could run three or four miles without collapsing. Back at Hogwarts, he worried that he would bump into Lily running on the grounds before he had the stamina to keep up with her. So he practiced in secret, jogging back and forth through the underground passageway to Hogsmeade. By Halloween, he had reached his goal. He ran six miles every day. It was routine now. In fact, somewhere along the way, he almost forgot that he was doing it for her. Running became something he actually enjoyed, something to clear his head when life threatened to cloud it.
James had to admit, his Valentine’s Day had not gone exactly according to plan. “Lily Evans receives valentine, abandons boyfriend, and falls for James Potter” was a bit optimistic, certainly”but was two out of three really so much to ask for? Well, at least she received the valentine, he thought brightly, remembering their banter. And the weather had been unseasonably warm now that it was March; perhaps one of these days he would finally get to go running with her.
It happened sooner than he could have expected. That evening, studying the Maurauder’s Map, James noticed a dot labeled Lily Evans moving around the edge of the grounds. He threw on his running shoes and jogged outside (not even breaking a sweat), following a trail that he knew would merge with Lily’s within a mile. Sure enough, as the paths merged he noticed her bright red hair through the trees.
“Hey, Lily,” he greeted her, feigning surprise that they should both be out running at the same time.
“Hi, James,” Lily replied. Her surprise was real; she had run on this path scores of times without ever meeting anyone. She recovered from the surprise soon enough, though, and they fell into step beside each other as they jogged along, chatting amiably.
“So what did you think of the Quidditch match yesterday?” James asked.
“You win some, you lose some,” Lily replied. “The weather was really good, though.”
“Your boyfriend put up a good showing for Ravenclaw,” James observed.
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you acknowledge his existence?” she said smiling.
James shrugged. “Only when it’s relevant.”
“So…it’s relevant when you’re playing him in Quidditch, but not when you’re asking out his girlfriend,” Lily commented, looking bemused. “What does it have to do with Quidditch?”
James’ dry wit kept the twinkle from his eye. “Well…he is your boyfriend…and he is on the other team…and we did lose…”
“You suspect me of foul play?” Lily was familiar enough with James’ humor not to take him seriously, but she wondered where he was taking this.
James shrugged as if he were an impartial observer (though a more interested party there never was). “I merely present for your consideration a possible explanation as to why the Gryffindor team, which is clearly awesome””he indicated himself and Lily”“should lose to a bunch of wimps like Ravenclaw.”
Lily looked at him askance, though she did not stop running. “Let me get this straight. First you’re saying that I cheated. And then you’re implying that I played so poorly on Saturday that I was obviously trying to help the other team.”
James watched as his joke tripped, fell through the air, and landed flat on its face. He quickly attempted to backpedal.
“No, Lily! No, of course not, you played brilliantly on Saturday. You always play brilliantly,” he babbled. “I was just making a stupid joke.”
Her face softened.
“You know, like the way it usually is with us,” James continued. “I say something funny, and you laugh.”
He paused deliberately, giving Lily time to raise an eyebrow, before finishing: “And then you come back with an even funnier response, and everybody laughs.”
At this Lily chuckled, and James, relieved to be back in her good humor, was content to keep the conversation to less volatile subjects for the remainder of the run.
The next day, James caught up with Lily as they walked to Transfiguration. “I had fun running with you yesterday.”
“Yeah, me too,” she responded simply, though James couldn’t tell whether she was being genuine or just polite. Lily’s character combined kindness and honesty such that James had recently been finding himself quite befuddled as to which was which. She wasn’t walking away from him, though, so he decided to continue.
“That was kind of like a date, wasn’t it?” he began with a grin. “You and me running along the forest together? What do you say we go out running again tonight?”
Whenever James talked to her, Lily noticed, he managed to blend seriousness with humor in a way that frequently left her wondering which was which. Unwilling to ignore his comment, though (she did enjoy talking to him, after all), she ventured a response.
“I thought people in your world only went on dates on Thursdays,” she said, remembering their conversation of a few weeks prior.
James breathed an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes. “Oh, Lily. Do you ever listen to anything I say?”
Lily feigned surprise at the realization that he had been speaking to her. “What? Are you talking to me? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch a word you just said,” she replied grinning.
“Aw, shut up,” James laughed, rolling his eyes genuinely this time. “No, people can go on dates any day they want to. They just only say yes on Thursdays.”
“Well, I guess there’s your answer, then,” Lily chuckled. “Last I checked, today was definitely Monday.” And she strode ahead of him to greet Professor McGonagall.
“Nice going, mate,” Sirius whispered sarcastically to James as they entered the classroom. “You’ve got the theory down pat, but you’re kind of awful at putting it into practice! What were you thinking, asking her out on a Monday?”
“Shut up, Padfoot. I thought I had some momentum, all right?” James laughed. “Anyway, I’ll talk to her again at Quidditch.”
Sirius, catching a glance at James’ planner, was pleased to see “Practice” penciled in under Thursday of that week.