Lily Evans was thoroughly exasperated.

Two months.

Two months.

That was how long she'd been flirting with James Potter.

And how long had he not noticed it? Oh, right.

Two months.

Honestly. The boy had been in love with her for years, and yet when she tried to subtly show him that she returned those feelings, he didn't even notice.

Admittedly, it may not have been all James' fault. After all, there was one tiny flaw in Lily's amazing plan to flirt with James- the fact that Lily Evans didn't know how to flirt.

Her last boyfriend had been six foot, a Beater on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, and hadn't seemed to really care if Lily flirted or not. All he cared about was telling everyone how great he was, and as his girlfriend, Lily had been forced to listen to him waffle on all the time. (Needless to say, Marlene and Alice had set her up with him, and Lily hadn't quite known how to gte rid of him- until, of course, he tried to punch James in the face. Then Lily had punched him in the face and told him that she never wanted to see him again.)

Lily's list of boyfriends was respectable- nowhere near Marlene's (although Marlene's list also included a large amount of girlfriends), but longer than Alice's. She'd never really been into any of the boyfriends, though.

Maybe all along she'd been into James, and just hadn't realised.

'Hey, Lily,' James said as she walked into their Charms classroom. He was grinning, his hazel eyes alight, and Lily's heart jumped painfully in her chest.

'Hey, James,' Lily said, smiling and winding a lock of her hair around her finger like she'd heard you were supposed to. Please work, she thought, feeling ridiculous. Oh my God.

James didn't even seem to notice her or her hair as he started to write down the homework that was on the board.

Lily quickly dropped the lock of hair she was still twirling about in her hand as she noticed Sirius Black staring curiously at her from across the classroom. Instead, she started to chew the end of her quill, trying to think of something flirty and cool to say.

She came up with nothing, unsurprisingly.

'Class,' Professor Flitwick began, marching to the front of the class and peering over the top of his glasses thoughtfully. 'Please settle down. Today, we'll begin with Disarming Charms as a warm up, and then move on to some work on Sleeping Charms.'

'Hey, Lily,' James whispered, leaning across so his breath was hot on her neck. 'Wanna go in partners?'

'Sure,' she whispered back, testing out one of Marlene's tricks and leaning closer to him, her lips almost brushing his ear.

This is so embarrassing, oh my God, and I'm 98.6% sure that Sirius is staring at us. Oh fuck, I don't want James to find out from Sirius! How awkward would that be?

Across the room, however, Marlene was giving her a large and incredibly non-subtle thumbs up.

Kill me now, please, Lily thought, as James returned to copying the homework down, his cheeks flushed a dark pink.

Keep trying, Marlene mouthed, winking.

Shut up and go away, Lily mouthed back.

Fuck it, Lily decided. Go big or go home, right?

(Lily seriously felt like going home at that precise moment as she leant over James for a ink pot, getting as much of her skin on him as physically possible.)

Marlene gave her a look of disappointment. She obviously thought that Lily should have given James a lap dance or something ridiculous like that, but that was pretty much as far as Lily was willing to go.

How stupid could the boy be, anyway? If he hadn't figured it out by now he was probably pretty oblivious.

Lily dared a look at James. He was scratching the back of his neck, his cheeks still tinted pink.

Except... maybe he wasn't oblivious at all. Maybe he just wasn't interested anymore.

After all, he'd fancied her since the first year. Now, with six years filled  with no signals whatsoever, maybe he'd just... given up on her.

Suddenly feeling incredibly self conscious, Lily wrapped her arms around herself. Perfect.

She'd probably just ruined a great friendship.

****

They worked as partners, like James had asked, and Lily just barely managed to keep up her subtle flirting (maybe he was just really oblivious, after all) and the rest of the lesson passed without incident.

Lily was walking down the hallway when James shouted after her. 'Hey, Lily!'

Oh, fuck. This is going to be his 'let's be friends, I don't have feelings for you,' speech, right?

Lily walked faster and pretended she hadn't heard him.

'Lily!' He spun her around, his hazel eyes sparkling. 'Didn't you hear me?'

'Hmm?' Lily tried to look confused and innocent but probably only ended up looking like a mute potato. 'Um, no. Whoops.'

'I wanted to talk to you,' he began.

OH SHIT.

'Look, I didn't realise it, but Sirius said you were-' he broke off at the completely mortified look on Lily's face.

Let's handle this like adults, right? Just chill, Lily.

'Um. Anyway. I mean, I-' he blushed furiously and then shrugged. 'I- Marlene also talked to me. Maybe.'

I'm totally fucked.

'And they told me everything, between them. And-'

'James,' Lily interrupted. 'Look, I understand if you don't like me anymore. Six years is a long time to care about someone when they're nothing but mean to you back-'

'Like you?' James laughed quietly. 'Lily, are you blind? I don't like you, I love you. And I have for five and a half years.'

Lily felt frozen into place. 'Oh,' was all she managed to say.

'So,' he grinned, that slow, soft grin that made her insides melt. 'Go to Hogsmede with me?'

'Of course,' she replied, feeling slightly dizzy. What the fuck just happened?

Word count- 994

What do you call someone who has no fucking clue about their sexuality or life problems or homework answers?

Oh, right. Me. Another word for one of these people is 'fucked'.

I'm so messed up lmfao