~ROAC~ (incomplete)

~THIRTY-ONE~

"I don't know how to love him."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lily Evans was having a dilemma.

As a member of Professor Slughorn's 'prestigious' Slug Club, she had been invited to a dinner party tonight. The only thing was: through his quivering jowls, the Potions professor had advised her to bring a date. A date. Not a companion, or a plus-one, a date. For the last few days, Lily had been fretting about who she wanted to bring, as she knew Slughorn would be disappointed should she turn up alone. She knew just who she wanted to bring, but still, she pondered. He'd know he'd be going as her date, and Lily was anxious about that for some reason she couldn't quite place.

Earlier that day, she'd asked Bell to go with her but was turned down with a disappointed shake of the head and a teasing grin. "Coward," she'd asserted and wagged her finger at Lily, "just ask him, you know he'll say yes." And so Lily had thought it over, but now the afternoon was growing late and she still hadn't made up her mind. Scribbling out a spelling mistake on her paragraph on pygmy puffs due tomorrow, the redheaded Muggleborn shook her head at herself. She was an independent woman and she would not let Potter, of all people, fluster her at the idea of asking him to a fancy dinner.

"Gooooood afternoon!" 

The corners of Lily's mouth curved up despite herself and turned her head. As expected, James Potter was leaning on the back of the couch, now a familiar hangout for the group, smiling at her.

"And how has my dear Lilyflower's day been?"

"First off, I'm not your anything-"

"Yet!" Sirius chimed in from behind James and immediately thereafter was dragged off to the side by Bell, who, quite contrarily, was winking fervently at Lily.

"Anyway, it was good."

"Good." James sounded genuinely pleased to hear she'd had a decent day and it brought a smile to her face. He grinned back, and a moment of silence fell between them. Lily swallowed and fought back the butterflies in her stomach. Too late, she realized she hadn't asked him how his day was, and blushed as she quickly offered the question.

"Eh, it was fine." Lily frowned. There was no dramatics entailed in his answer, no 'better now that I've seen you' like usual, and it felt off.

"Fine?"

James hesitated. "Sniv- er, Snape wouldn't leave me alone all day. Dunno why. I mean, we have two classes together on today's schedule but even during break in the library he was one table over. It was weird."

Lily blinked. "Do you think he was trying to prevent you from writing another cheesy love poem to me?" she offered, weakly joking, and James walked around the side of the couch and plopped down beside her, giving a sigh.

"No clue. It was kind of creepy, though, put me off of my lessons today. Nearly blew up a gerbil in Transfiguration, even." He winced. "McGonagall wasn't too happy about that."

Lily frowned and reached out to touch his arm. Immediately his own hand came up to cover hers and a smile appeared on his face. Before she even realized it, Lily was blushing at how sweet she thought that was and fought with herself not to retract her hand.

"Tomorrow will be better. And whatever he was up to, I doubt he'd have the guts to pull it off."

James' mouth formed an 'o' for a moment, then he grinned. "I never thought I'd see the day!" He gave a laugh. "Lily Evans, insulting someone. Then again, it's Snivellus, so why am I surprised-"