Take A Chance On Me ━━ James Potter & Lily Evans

01. Rock Me

"What do you mean you only bought two tickets?" James asked in disbelief.

It was an outrage, a scandal! He could not believe what he was hearing. Positively nonsensical claims had just spilled from the girl's mouth. Only two tickets? Ridiculous. They were supposed to get seven.

"That's all that was left!" Marlene responded defensively.

James narrowed his eyes skeptically at his best friend, analyzing her body language. He'd known her his whole life, and had thus developed an uncanny ability to determine whenever she wasn't telling the truth.

"You're lying," he decided.

He was expecting a defeated sigh from the blonde, but instead was met with an amused smile — as if she was somehow proud that James had detected her lie.

"You know me so well."

"You couldn't use the Confundus Charm or something to misdirect the muggle ticket vendor?" He wondered aloud, ignoring her stupid grin.

"That's unethical, James," she scolded him, though she seemed very unserious about the matter. If James didn't know any better — and he did — he would have said that she was feigning her suddenly conscientious attitude. "Totally immoral, very against the rules."

"So is using my cloak to sneak out and buy the tickets, but you and Sirius didn't seem to have a problem with that," he countered accusingly.

"Hey, we were just taking one for the team," Marlene retorted, attempting to justify her adventures. "The rest of you were too preoccupied with your extracurricular activities."

"You were supposed to be helping me run Quidditch practice," he reminded her irritatedly. "I only let you ditch because we needed the tickets and Remus said I wasn't allowed to let Sirius sneak out alone."

"Trust me, I would much rather have been at practice than spending time alone with Sirius," She said derisively, though James was certain she didn't actually mean it. "What's the real problem here? Couldn't control the team without me, Captain?"

"We were supposed to all go together!" He whined, disregarding her unsubtle dig at his leadership skills — or lack thereof. "Now what are we going to do?"

"Don't even worry about it. We've got it all sorted out."

James raised his eyebrows quizzically. "We?"

"Yeah, I've already talked to Mary and the boys about it."

"And why wasn't I included in this conversation?"

"Because you would have protested our decision."

"Which is?"

Marlene grinned. She seemed as if she had been impatiently waiting to announce this. "You're gonna take Lily to the concert."

James' mouth fell open, and he stared at her, trying to determine whether or not she was lying again. This time, she was not.

"Are you ruddy insane?"

"It feels like a fairly obvious choice," she told him honestly. When James then proceeded to furrow his brows in confusion — he expressed a lot of emotions with his eyebrows, she'd noticed — Marlene decided to spell it out for him. "It's for Lily's birthday, the tickets were your idea for a gift, and ABBA is kind of your thing together. I mean, don't get me wrong, we all love their music, but you and Lils are the real super fans out of the lot of us. It should be you two who get the tickets."

"Me and Lily? Alone at a concert? Two days before Valentine's Day? While Björn sings Rock Me?" James' voice raised a pitch with each stress inducing statement. "She's going to think I'm trying to seduce her!"

Marlene covered her mouth with her hand, very visibly struggling to stifle a laugh. Ultimately failing, she sniggered at him, letting out a snort. "Oh, I'm sure she'll find you very sexy."

"Marley, cut it out. I can't take her to the concert alone. She's going to think it's a date!"

"Then tell her it's not." Marlene shrugged nonchalantly, still fighting the smile floating across her face. She didn't get why James always made such a fuss over these things, but she blamed his increasing flair for the dramatics on spending far too much time with Sirius. "Unless you want it to be. Then just ask her out."

James snorted. "Yeah, tried that. Didn't work out so well for me."

"Oh come on, that was like a year ago. And you know I love you, but you have to admit that you were a total twerp back then. It made complete sense that she wouldn't want to go out with you," Marlene stated frankly. She had always been straightforward with James, and usually (this specific instance excluded) he appreciated it. "But you're friends now—"

"Yeah, we're friends," James interrupted, in a tone that was apparently meant to mean something to Marlene.

"I don't— Okay? What's your point?"

"I'm not gonna jeopardize our friendship by asking her out again!" James cried passionately. "Lily and I are getting along so well right now."

"And you think if you try to make it more, you might wreck it," Marlene interpreted, nodding sympathetically.

"Exactly."

"Alternatively—" She started, and James immediately rolled his eyes, "—You could get the one thing you've wanted since you were fourteen."

"I would never get Lily," he objected immediately. "That makes her sound like a prize to be won. I just want to earn her trust and—"

Marlene raised her eyebrows and folded her arms across her chest in a very intimidating power pose. "Are you seriously about to explain the objectification of women to me?"

James' eyes filled with panic and he could have sworn, in that very moment, he saw his life flash before them.

He gulped. "No."

"Good." She nodded approvingly. "You know that's not what I meant anyway. I'm just saying, why are you in Gryffindor if you're going to be such a pussy?"

"Harsh!" James protested. "I'm plenty brave, thank you very much. The epitome of a Gryffindor, some would say."

Marlene rolled her eyes, chuckling. "Your mum doesn't count, James."

"Other people say it too," he mumbled sheepishly, turning to look at no one in particular for the sole purpose of not having to make eye contact with Marlene as he very blatantly lied to her.

"Well then, those people would be wrong."

James paused for a moment, calculating her transparent tactics. "Are you trying to manipulate me into taking Lily to the concert?"

"Is it working?" She shot back.

"No." He shook his head firmly from side to side until it eventually transitioned into a slow nod. "Maybe."

"So you'll take Lily to Glasgow then?"

James scrunched up his face, contemplating for a moment whether or not he was going to knowingly let himself be manipulated by her just to prove a bloody point. Eventually, he heaved a defeated sigh, deciding his house pride would not allow him to back down from any sort of challenge.

"Fine."

"Brilliant," Marlene cheered gleefully.