James
The next time the four of them met was to discuss James’s attempt, at the end of the day. When Prongs entered the room his expression was unreadable. He bee lined for his bed and accio-d himself a cup of water.
“Sooooo” Sirius began curiously, “How’d it go?”
James simply turned over his shoulder and glared at Sirius. Padfoot chuckled playfully in response,
”That good?”
”He said no?” Peter asked, none of them could tell if he was genuinely surprised or being sarcastic.
With an angry sigh James groaned,
”Yes! He said no! Happy?”
The fact that James was so upset about it seemed to deeply amuse the other marauders.
”Calm down man, you act like Evans has rejected you again, it’s only Snivellus relax” Sirius consoled his best friend, flopping onto James’s bed and wrapping an arm around him.
”But I wasted my whole day on this! It’s so annoying! Ugh and he’s probably gone and told Lily and everything”
”Wait you’ve spent all day doing this?” Remus asked from his dresser, “Didn’t we agree we only got one chance to flirt and one chance to ask him out?”
”Wait… YEAH WE DID!” Sirius suddenly exclaimed looking absolutely taken aback. He pushed James with an appalled look on his face, “YOU LITTLE RULE BREAKER HOW COULD YOU”
”I mean if there’s anything that we know about Prong’s uh… style of flirting… it’s that it’s based on stubbornness” Peter pointed out.
James glared at Wormtail before he clarified,
”Hey no, I did technically use the rules! I chose one method of flirting and then asked him out a few minutes ago”
”I dont think that’s how it works” Remus interrupted before James shushed him,
”I tried going anonymous most of the day by sending him notes.”
…
”You spent most of the day writing love notes to Snape?” Remus asked incredulously. The other two started choking on their own laughter and James’s face burned a bright red as they all realised how ridiculous that sounded
“you know what” Sirius eventually said through deep breaths, “I’ll allow it because that’s fucking priceless!”
”Whatever! It doesn’t even matter anyway since APPARENTLY he didn’t appreciate my notes”
Severus was never the type of person to receive love notes (not even close). So when a small origami butterfly landed on his hand during lunch he was immediately suspicious. When he unfolded the paper a message read,
You look nice today ;)
to which Severus simply rolled his eyes at the obvious prank before scrunching up the paper and kicking it under the table.
Not even five minutes later another one landed on his other hand.
What’s your favourite type of food? (Write your answer on the back)
once Severus had finished reading the paper refolded itself into its insect shape. He tried to ignore it but it continued nuzzling affectionately into him. Eventually he gave in, pulling a pen from his pocket as the butterfly spread its wings to make an easy surface to write on.
Blancmange
was the only thing he wrote, but it seemed to be enough for the butterfly which flew off as soon as he was finished. Severus tried to watch who it flew to but it slipped out of the great hall so he couldn’t follow it.
the next letter came about half an hour later when Severus was in the potions labs. Slughorn sometimes let Severus use the labs outside of lessons (on account of his fantastic grades) on the condition that he leave the room spotless.
This time the note landed on his nose, he huffed in annoyance as he unfurled the letter,
You look good like that, you should tie your hair up more often
Severus immediately turned around to scan the room, checking that nobody was in there. Yeah he had tied his hair up because getting hair in your potions normally doesn’t go too well. How did they know that?
Severus turned back to the table where he’d left the note and stared at it for just a few seconds when suddenly,
”Hi Sev!” Lily’s head shot over his shoulder.
Once he’d calmed down from the sudden jump scare he wanted to ask her if she’d sent the letters but he got his answer before even asking it. Her arm shot to the desk, grabbing the note and reading it in disbelief.
”No way! Seevvv! Why didn’t you tell me you had a secret admirer?!”
The slytherin’s face flushed at the insinuation and he snatched the note back from her.
”I don’t! This stupid prank only started at lunchtime when you left. It’s not a real secret admirer!”
Lily’s brow furrowed,
”How do you know?”
”They keep lying to me”
”How?”
”They keep saying that I look nice” He said it before he realised how pathetic it sounded. A determined expression overtook her face before she suddenly enveloped him in an aggressive hug,
”AND. THEYRE. RIGHT!” She said ruffling his hair, an action to which he squawked in protest. After a few more minutes of Lily trying and failing to convince him that the admirer was real another butterfly floater in.
Sev snatched the paper before Lily could and began to read,
You like potions a lot right? What’s your favourite ingredient?
What.. a weird question. When he picked up his pen to write back Lily smirked.
”What?” He asked,
”It’s not real but you’ll still write back?”
”Hey! These things don’t leave until I write back”
with a snickering Lily in the background he wrote simply after a moment of consideration,
Asphodel
the paper insect flew away and in under two minutes the same one returned with more writing on it,
that suits you
Now confused about what had to in some way be an insult, Snape wrote again
How?
The reply wasn’t what he had been ready for,
It’s pretty, and so are you ;D
Severus’s face burned in embarrassment (yes. Embarrassment.) as Lily, who had been reading over his shoulder giggled smugly at him. Sec decided that that was enough potions for one day.
The messages continued throughout the day and Sev couldn’t for the life of him figure out the joke. A small small part of him may have actually been starting to believe Lily. But it was towards the end of the day when he thought he understood.
He had been reading under a tree right beside the school when suddenly a swarm of butterflies descended on him. They carried with them a small package, he gingerly took the bag, opening it to find a fresh Blancmange in it. He quickly checked to make sure it wasn’t poisoned or hexed and he found a stupid smile stretching across his face when it was fine.
the butterflies began to land on him and his stupid smile grew when he opened them to find that each had a different compliment written on it. It was so sweet, nobody except Lily had ever made him feel so happy.
the final butterfly’s message was written on its wings so he didn’t need to unfold it,
Would you go to Hogsmead with me?
Once he’d read it, it flew upwards to where Severus saw it land on a hand that was stretched out from the balcony above him. He jumped up to see who the sender was.
…
”Heeyy Sev~” James grinned down at him. Severus’s face fell. James was used to Snivellus looking at him unhappily but Merlin, seeing the Slytherin’s face morph from looking so.. happy to being filled with the most unfiltered hatred he’d ever seen made him feel… strange. He didn’t like it.
”oh… oh you think you’re sooooo funny don’t you Potter?” the snake hissed spitefully at him. James flinched, what was happening? He seemed to like the notes, what went wrong?
”What’s the prank this time? Humiliation? ‘Look at Sniv, actually thought I’d want to go out with him’?”
James felt his throat tighten, that was more or less what he would have done if Snivellus had said yes.
”Bravo! You’re SO CLEVER!” Snivellus grabbed a handful of the pieces of paper before wandlessly incendio-ing them. James might have been impressed if he wasn’t focusing on the unfamiliar pit growing in his stomach. “PISS OFF! LEAVE ME ALONE!”
as Severus began storming off, James leaned out over the railing of the balcony and shouted the slytherin’s name. His actual name. He didn’t know what he was going to say, there wasn’t really anything to say was there but he felt like he needed to say something. Severus didn’t agree,
”DIE!” He shrieked as he threw a stinging hex at the boy, which barely missed.
James trudged back to the dorms in an awful mood, more angry about the still deepening pit in his stomach more than anything else