James and Lily get paired up in Transfiguration in 6th year, and at first thing are tense. After what happened in their fifth year, they’ve stopped acknowledging each other completely and neither is too enthusiastic to break that silence.
Finally Lily rolls up her sleeves and Transfigures James’ features, giving him a large nose and bushy eyebrows, very reminiscent of Count Olaf. She stares at him for a few seconds and then she almost falls off her stool from laughing. When she offers to change it back, James refuses because it made her laugh and it was the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard and he doesn’t want it to stop.
James is so distracted by the fact that he made her laugh that he totally messes up Transfiguring her and McGonagall has to step in and fix it.
Then a few days later, Lily asks James for help with an assignment because he was such a great partner and none of her friends will help her (and she has a sneaking suspicion as to why). So they work together, and it’s really quite nice and Lily realizes maybe James isn’t as bad as she thought, and James is falling head-over-heels for Lily.
Later, the other Marauders tease him about it and James actually has a minor freak-out because holy shit I think I love her, and the Marauders are completely stumped on how to respond.
It’s another week before Lily approaches James again, and he’s a nervous wreck, thinking he’s done something wrong and his friends are about ready to murder him. And Lily offers to help him with some assignments, because Lupin mentioned how he’s falling behind due to Quidditch, and Lily wants to spend more time with him.
They stay up late into the night and the next day, Lily can barely keep herself from face-planting into her eggs and her friends are laughing and joking about it, but Lily doesn’t care because she got to spend the time with James and it was worth getting called out in Charms for falling asleep during the lesson.
Then that night, James appears with two mugs of tea to thank Lily for her help, and invites her to sit with him and they end up talking for a long time.
And Lily tells James about the first time she used magic, and how their cat scratched her sister and she healed it while comforting Petunia. And James is amazed because the first time he used magic, he accidentally disappeared his mother’s pearl earrings.
After a few more minutes of talking, James drums up the courage to ask Lily out to Hogsmeade and Lily replies with ‘yes, of course, why did it take you so long to ask?’
James laughs at her response and leans closer, brushing her hair out of her face without thinking and then he leans in a bit closer, stopping a few inches from Lily, giving her the choice to kiss him or not.
And Lily leans in too, closing the space and kisses him quickly, more a brush of their lips than a proper kiss and then she’s pulling away and blushing.
Suddenly Sirius appears out of nowhere and wolf-whistles at them, leaning against the back of the couch with a shit-eating grin on his face. James leans back, giving Lily a small smile as she ducks to hide her blush.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?” He asks, making a kissy face at James.
“You are terrible,” James responds, shoving Sirius away from them.
Unfortunately the moment is effectively ruined so Lily bids James goodnight, leaving him and Sirius lying in a tangled heap on the couch.
They spend the next few days until the weekend sitting together during meals (unfortunately they distract each other too much to be together during class) and Lily can’t believe how much James has grown on her, and James can’t believe that Lily wants to spend time with him after five years of him being a nuisance to her.
Finally Sunday arrives and it’s the first snowfall of winter and so this just makes it even more romantic and the two of them spend their entire trip being sickly in love.
Lily discovers that James is a huge sap who takes her to all the romantic places in the village and under different circumstances she might have laughed at him for it, but he’s doing it to make her happy and she is absolutely floored by how much effort he is putting into this.
They end the day with a walk through the Hogwarts grounds, following the path along the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The snow had been falling all day and is now a few inches deep, but it’s mostly untouched on this side of the castle. It’s absolutely beautiful and as Lily walks alongside James she realizes this is the happiest she’s been in a long time and she wishes she could freeze time and live in this moment forever with him.
Slipping her hand in his, she stops and turns to James, pulling him around to look at her as well.
“Thank you,” she says, smiling at him.
He smiles back in return and it’s like looking at the sun, it’s so bright.
Taking a step forward, Lily stands up on her toes and leans forward, kissing James properly.
At first he doesn’t respond, too surprised to do anything but after a second, he’s kissing her back and one arm is around her waist and the other has dropped her hand and is tangled in her hair.
The kiss lasts a few minutes and when they break apart Lily feels breathless with excitement. James’ cheeks have turned pink and his glasses are slightly askew and Lily laughs at his appearance, not really able to process that she really just kissed James Potter.
James just grins back at her and rubs a hand through his already messy hair. Reaching up, Lily straightens his glasses for him and takes his hand again, and they continue their walk together, both feeling elated at what just happened.
They get back to the Common room as the sun is setting and end up spending the rest of the time until dinner sitting together on a couch by the fire, Lily lying back against James, who’s leaning against the armrest.
They sit together at the Gryffindor table, Lily leaning against James as the other Marauders watch them from a few seats away, making jokes to each other.
They spend the rest of the evening together in a secluded corner while their friends watch from the other side of the Common room together. The two of them stay up together well into the night, not even noticing as the Common room empties around them and suddenly it’s only them and a couple last stragglers left.
Leaning forward, Lily kisses James lightly on the mouth, pulling back before they get caught up in the kiss. He pouts at her and she laughs and smiles at him, promising that if he plays his cards right, she might kiss him again soon. Standing, she bids him goodnight and disappears into her dormitory. And James goes to bed soon after.
It’s only later, as they’re both lying in bed, thinking over all the things that happened that day that they both realize they’re falling in love.