Hey everyone! This is the first Jily fanfiction I've ever published, written in part because I love Jily but mostly because I enjoy writing much more than studying for finals. Reviews are amazing and so are you. Hope you enjoy! Chapter 2 coming soon.

Chapter 1

"Get off me!" Lily shrieked, punching and pummeling Marlene with her fists. "You bloody-get off me!"

Marlene only sprawled out more on Lily's bed, letting one of her hands fall right on top of Lily's face.

"I shall not," Marlene announced with dignity, easily fighting off Lily's attempts to unseat her. "I am quite comfortable here, thank you."

Lily growled and managed to extricate one arm, grabbing her wand from her bedside table. "Flipendo."

Marlene was thrown screaming from Lily's bed, landing in a painful heap on the floor. "Maniac!" she yelled up at Lily, who searched around for any guilt within herself but found none.

"You're the one who woke me up before sunrise on a Saturday, Marly," Lily reminded her grumpily.

"Fair enough," Marlene allowed, climbing to her feet and facing her friend, now keeping a slightly wary eye on Lily's wand.

"Who screamed? What's going on?" came Alice's sleepy voice from within her four-poster.

"Lily's trying to murder me," Marlene replied promptly.

"Excellent," an annoyed Mary snapped. "Get on with it, will you, Lils? I'm trying to sleep."

"So was I," Lily groaned, sinking her face back into her pillow. Marlene poked her in the side, and Lily turned wrathfully back to her. "What in Merlin's name is wrong with you?"

"Quidditch tryouts are coming up soon, and you said you'd come practice with me," Marlene whined.

Lily remembered now, although she still wasn't happy about it. "But we've barely been at school a week," she complained.
"Every second counts, Lils," Marlene insisted. Lily realized at this point that no matter what she said, Marlene was not going to go away.

"Fine," Lily decided. "Give me five minutes to change."

Marlene lit up. "Yay! I'll go get your broom," she said, dashing out of the room. She paused at the door, turned around, and blew a kiss back to her best friend. "You're a saint!"

"I'm well aware," Lily agreed, pulling a sweatshirt on over her tank top and throwing her hair into a loose ponytail.

Within ten minutes, the girls were on the pitch. The cool, crisp morning air hit Lily's face, and after the initial jolt, she found herself enjoying it. Her eyes were bright and alert now, her cheeks pink from the wind, and a few tendrils of hair had escaped from her ponytail and were dancing around her face. "Well, let's get this over with."

She climbed onto her Cleansweep and kicked off, enjoying, as she always did, the swooping feeling in her stomach as she left the earth suddenly behind her and soared into the sky, towards the sun that was just beginning to rise. She had missed this. Lily had never played Quidditch-organized sports never had been her style, especially not with a manic James Potter as the Gryffindor captain-but she adored flying. She was good at it, too, and she and Marlene had spent many an afternoon on the pitch, throwing a Quaffle back and forth and practicing dives and flips. Marlene slowed to a stop at her side now, Quaffle under her arm.

"Let's go."

Lily lost track of the time as they flew, weaving in and out of the goalposts and alternately diving to catch the Quaffle before it could hit the ground. Marlene had decided early on that she was too good for the Gryffindor team already and did not really need practice, so now they were racing each other around the pitch, Marlene in the lead but with Lily not far behind. As Lily passed the goalposts at the far end of the field, a glint of scarlet below caught her eye. She chanced a glance downwards and realized with a start that it was James Potter, standing on the field in his Quidditch robes, holding his broomstick and watching the two girls as they streaked across the pitch. He caught Lily's eye, and she swore she could see the golden glint of his hazel eyes even from this distance.

Lily was forced unceremoniously back to reality as the tip of her broom hit the edge of Marlene's and sent both girls into a tailspin. Marlene regained control easily and grabbed hold of Lily's broom to stabilize it. "Merlin's beard, Lily, pay attention!" she yelled over her friend's shrieks.

"Are you okay?" James called from below. Lily quickly regained her composure.

"We're fine, no thanks to this idiot!" Marlene called cheerfully.

Under normal circumstances, James may have called out to Lily as well, to make sure that she was alright, but he stayed silent. Lily didn't look, but she may has well have-she knew that somber, defeated expression of his all too well. He wore it every time he saw her now.

Ever since the end of fifth year, when Sev finally lost it, Lily had been avoiding James just as energetically as she avoided Severus. Avoiding James was not precisely a new development, but for the rest of the year, quite uncharacteristically, James did not seek out Lily either. She was grateful for this, as she didn't think she could handle him tailing her around on top of everything else. But on the very last day of term, as they stood at the platform waiting for their parents, James had come up to Lily, looking unusually serious, and apologized for the day by the lake, both for being a prat and for pushing Severus over the edge. For once in her life, she was shocked into silence, and James went on to say, determinedly staring at the ground and looking more humble than she'd ever seen him, that he would leave her alone from now on. He left before she could find the words to respond, and she had simply watched him go, his arrogant swagger gone and his hands jammed in his pockets. Over the summer, she came to the realization that the end of friendship with Severus had really not been James' fault. It had been coming on for so long...but, she reminded herself. James had been, and always would be, an arrogant prat. And she pushed the image of his broken, pleading expression as he apologized out of her mind.

They barely interacted at all during sixth year. James stayed true to his word and left her well alone, and if she felt a pang when he walked past her without a word, if she missed hearing "Alright, Evans?" two or three times a day, or seeing the way his eyes lit up when he saw her coming, she didn't allow herself to dwell on it. "You're just missing all the attention," she told herself sternly. "Merlin's pants, you're as self-absorbed as Potter is."

So sixth year came and went, and Lily returned to the Muggle world for the summer. When the owl delivering her Head Girl badge came, she screamed so loudly that even Petunia came running, honestly scared that Lily had fallen and fractured her skull. Petunia tried valiantly to manufacture a smile as Lily's parents proudly hugged their youngest daughter, but quickly gave up and slunk away, scowling. Lily was touched by the effort, but when she knocked tentatively on Petunia's door later, she was answered only with a surly "go away." So Lily had given up and gone to write to Remus, telling him the good news and asking if he'd gotten Head Boy. When he replied, she sat in silence for a full ten minutes, staring at the letter in shock. James Potter-of all bloody people-was going to be Head Boy. Merlin's bloody pants.

She supposed, she reflected, chancing a second glance at him now as Marlene flew down to retrieve the Quaffle, the appointment made a little bit of sense. He had grown up quite a bit since fifth year. But that still didn't mean she was thrilled about having to work with him, or about the meeting the two of them would have with Dumbledore tonight to discuss their new responsibilities. Responsibility and James Potter...now that was a new concept. But Dumbledore had to know best, right?

James caught her looking at him again and turned away quickly when he saw her gaze on his. She averted her eyes as well, impatiently throwing her windswept hair over one shoulder and feeling her face flame red. Oh, yeah. This meeting was going to be great.

"Kill me now," she moaned to Marlene, who caught on immediately.

"Absolutely not. This will be hilarious," she grinned.

"You mock my pain," Lily accused.

"One of my favorite pastimes, darling."

The two girls stumbled into the dormitory a few hours later, sweaty and sore. Marlene immediately collapsed face-first onto her bed while Lily made a beeline for the shower to clean up before lunch.

As the warm water washed over her, she closed her eyes and began, not for the first time that day, to think of James Potter. He had evacuated the pitch rather hastily after their awkward encounter, and now she was more nervous than ever for the meeting that evening. This would be the first time they'd been in close contact since the end of fifth year and Lily had no idea how to handle that. What was she supposed to say to James Potter, of all people? They would have to work together for the next year, plan prefect rounds, organize inter-House celebrations, and oh, Merlin, she'd forgotten about the Head Dormitories. Of course, she hadn't really used them yet. They'd only been back at Hogwarts for a week, and Lily had decided she'd rather deal with Mary's incessant snoring and Marlene's hour-long showers in their shared bathroom than risk running into James Potter every morning if she chose to live in the luxury dormitory that was offered to the Head Girl every year. But even without living in close quarters, this year was setting up to be an absolute bloody mess.

When Lily got out of the shower, having blow-dried her hair with a simple Heating Charm, it was to find Mary sitting on her bed waiting for her. "Marlene and Alice went down to lunch," Mary said. "I said I'd wait for you."

"Thanks," Lily said, checking her eyeliner one last time in the mirror.
"Hey, Lils?"

"Yeah?"
"What are you going to do about James?"

Lily turned warily. "What do you mean?"

"Marlene told me about the incident on the pitch today. So you two still aren't talking?"

Lily shook her head. "I haven't really seen him at all."

"You mean you've been avoiding him."
Lily's protests died on her lips. Mary smirked. "I know things are weird between you two, but you really need to talk to him."

"And what would I say?" Lily demanded. "What can I say?"

"Lily, why won't you talk to him?"

"What? I just told you…"

"No, forget about not knowing what to say, because you know that's not it. Why won't you talk to him?" Mary asked. "You don't blame him for Severus, do you?"

"Well…no," Lily spluttered. "Sev made his own choice. But James was being an arrogant, narcissistic…"

"James changed, Lily!" Mary interrupted. "And you know that as well as I do."

"That doesn't make it alright," Lily said angrily.

"No, it doesn't. But you can't hold the mistakes he made in the past against him now," Mary said gently.

"I know," Lily admitted. "I know he's different now."

"So?"

"He won't talk to me," Lily whined, vaguely ashamed of how child-like she had just sounded.

Mary laughed. "Lily, he's James. He'll always want to talk to you. He just needs to know you're open to being friends with him. He knows he made a mistake, and he thinks you never want to see him or talk to him again. Is he wrong?"

"Well…"

"Is he wrong?"

"Yes, he's wrong. I…" Lily took a deep breath. "I don't blame him at all."

Mary smiled, satisfied. "Then tell him so."

He's late.

It was ten minutes after she and James had been asked to meet Dumbledore in his study, but she was standing alone outside of the Headmaster's door, trying to control her nerves by imaging ways she could murder Dumbledore for deciding that James Potter would make a good Head Boy. She was halfway through a particularly gruesome fabrication involving a few piranhas and a vampire or two when she heard footsteps approaching and turned. It was James, who ran one hand through his hair nervously as he came to stand in front of her and stared fixedly at the wall to her right.

"Alright, Evans?" he said in a low voice.

Maybe it was the way he said it, with a horrible undertone of defeat that was so unlike his usual laughing, joking tone, that gave her the courage to speak.

"Potter?" she began.

His mouth twitched slightly at the use of his surname, and his eyes shifted for a moment to hers.

"Yes?"

"I wanted you to know that I don't blame you," she blurted out. Immediately, she wanted to slap herself in the face. Seriously? That's how you decided to start out?

But James didn't laugh. He looked slightly stunned and opened his mouth as if to respond, but Lily cut him off before she could lose her nerve.

"About Severus. You were being an arrogant prick, of course…"

James was beginning to smile now.

"…but what he said was not your fault. I know that now. And I know it's unfair to hold that against you. So starting now, I'm hoping that we can maybe be…" her voice trailed off, but James, who was definitely amused now, finished the sentence for her.

"Friends?"

"Yes," said Lily, turning slightly pink and now staring fixedly at the wall herself. "Since we'll be working together and all, I mean…"

James cut her off. "Lily Evans," he began, and when she turned involuntarily to look at him, she saw him smiling genuinely at her. It was so different from his trademark smirk that she was caught off guard for a second. "I would be honored to be friends with you."

And Lily found herself smiling right back at James Potter, realizing, as she did so, that he had grown over the summer. He was now at least six inches taller than she was, and she had to bend her head back slightly to look at him.

"So does this mean you'll go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend? As friends, of course?" James asked.

Naturally, he had to go and ruin it. Lily started to retort angrily, but he stopped her.

"I was joking, Evans. Joking," he said, hands in the air in a gesture of submission.

Lily took a deep breath, imagining Marlene's and Mary's horrified expressions if she told them she'd hexed James Potter during their very first conversation since fifth year.

"Don't push your luck, Potter," she finally said.
James grinned. "Don't worry, I've learned my lesson."

"I would hope so. It does take a lot to get anything through that thick skull of yours."

The obnoxious prat laughed at that. "So I've been told."

"I bet you get that from Remus a lot."

"I do, as a matter of fact. He reminds me of you quite a bit, sometimes."
"I knew there was a reason I liked him. Very well, I approve. You have good taste in friends, Potter."
"Yes, I do," he replied, smiling at her, and she realized with a jolt that she fell into that category now. Galloping gargoyles. What had she gotten herself into?