The 17 Step Plan To Become Lily Potter

Step Eight: Be Stood Up

❀ word count: 2890 ❀

The Café and The Evans' Home
Summer 1975
Before Fifth Year

It had all started when James and Sirius tumbled through her window, three days before the "date." The boys had stayed at Lily's house for three nights - much to Lily's protest - including the first night they arrived. Lily told them to go home multiple times, but her parents insisted that the boys stay. Petunia was definitely not thrilled to have the boys there; she spent the three days they were there calling them freaks and avoiding them as much as humanly possible.

Over those three days and three nights, Lily was surprised to see that James was actually not that much of a bother to be around. He kept her room clean for the one night that he stayed there, he moved to the couch the night after that and let Lily have her room back, he changed her sheets when he moved - he said he guessed that she probably didn't want his "James germs" on the sheets - he helped her mother cook dinner, he didn't pull a single prank (Sirius was a different story, and Petunia certainly paid for calling him a freak), and he didn't ask her out at all.

Until the last day.

Just as he and Sirius were walking out the front door, calling their thank you's over their shoulders, James stopped and pulled Lily aside.

"Hey, I pretty much already know your answer, but I was wondering if you wanted to go to that little French bakery down the street tomorrow? I walked by there the other day on the way to the bookstore and I thought maybe... I don't know, just thought I'd ask." James smiled nervously, blushing as he lost his train of thought.

Lily considered his offer. Sure, he was being super nice and respectful those few days, but was that just an act for her parents? Would he go back to being a complete asshole as soon as they returned to Hogwarts? Plus, she still wasn't romantically attracted to him. Sure, he was funny (sometimes) and cute (Lily would never say it out loud, but yes, she admitted in her head that he was attractive), but she didn't want to dive straight into dating him. She wanted to be friends first.

"Sure," she smiled, "I'd love to. But it's strictly platonic."

James grinned, his eyes wide. "Yeah, of course. Cool. See you then."

If soon-to-be-fourth-year Lily told first-year Lily that she would be accepting a date offer from James Potter, first-year Lily would assume that soon-to-be-fourth-year Lily was James in disguise and would throw soon-to-be-fourth-year Lily out the window. But there she was, soon-to-be-fourth-year Lily, standing outside of the French café down the street from her house the day after the boys left her house, waiting for James to show up.

He was five minutes late. Lily was beginning to worry that she had been stood up. It wouldn't be the first time she had been stood up, unfortunately, but it still felt terrible as the five minutes turned into ten, the ten turned into fifteen, fifteen turned into thirty, and thirty minutes turned into an hour of Lily standing in the summer heat, waiting for James to show up.

He never did.

Lily walked home, head hanging down, wondering how she could've been so stupid. It was probably just some elaborate prank planned out by James, trying to see how gullible she was or something. The week of kindness and respect was to butter her up and gain her trust, then he would break her heart by standing her up. Lily wouldn't exactly say her heart was broken, but it was pretty cracked and bruised. She wasn't even attracted to him, so why was she so upset?

"You're so stupid," she whispered to herself. "This is all so fucking stupid."

A tear rolled down Lily's face and dropped in front of her on the sidewalk. She hadn't realized she had been crying, but when she reached up and wiped her fingers across her cheek, they came away wet. She quickly wiped her face on her sleeve and sniffed. She lived in a small neighborhood where everyone knew each other, so if one person saw her crying, everyone would know, and Lily was not interested in that happening.