A/N: This was a story I wrote to a writing contest on a Norwegian Harry Potter-site. L/J-thingy.

All the characters belongs to the almighty JKR! bows

Insert title here

"Hey, Evans!"

James Potter was walking faster down the hall to catch up with the witch with the long red hair and deep green eyes. He had always loved those eyes of hers. The boy with black, bushy hair and glasses threw his backpack over his shoulder and hurried after her from the dungeons, ignoring the fact that Snape was walking down another corridor with difficulty. He forced his mind off possible pranks, and sped up towards the red-head.

As Lily turned to see who was calling her, James could see her eyes rolling, but her lips were forming into a little grin, and she stopped to let him catch up.

"Yes, Potter?" Her eyebrow rose, but the smile was still visible on her lips, and it filled James up with confidence.

"Friends call me James."

He made a deep bow before her, and couldn't help but grin. When he saw her slightly amused smile, he felt even more encouraged, and continued, even though he knew perfectly well that she knew just as well what he was about to say. He went through the same thing about once a month, but that didn't discourage him from trying again. And again.

"Well, you see." His hand automatically shot up to his head, but the last second, he managed to control it and lowered it again, meeting her eyes without looking away. "This Saturday is a Hogsmead weekend, and I was wondering if you'd like to go there with me?"

That's good, James. Nice and polite. Not big-headed like you used to be. My oh my, how you've grown these last couple of years. Even Sirius wouldn't recognize you right now.

To James' delight, it didn't take Lily as short time as usual to answer. Normally it was just a short "No." and that was that. He continued to fight the urge to drag his hand through his hair, and kept his hands still as he was wondering if Lily was going to answer soon, hoping she was at least thinking about it. When she finally opened her mouth to speak, she was smiling. Not just faintly, but perhaps a bit teasing.

"You know what… James? I think I will."

James' jaw fell down to what felt like his knees. He stared at Lily for a few seconds, not really believing that she had actually accepted his invitation. After three years of rejection. Then he felt the truth leaking into him, inch by inch. He had a date.

James could remember the first time he asked her. It was at the end of fourth year, right after a Quidditch match that Gryffindor had won. He had always admired the beautiful redhead who was professor Slughorn's all-time favourite despite the fact that she was muggle-born and he was the Head of Slytherin. She had refused James at once. Not that he hadn't expected it: she had another boyfriend at the time, and he knew she had several other admirers. But he had not let go of the thought of going out with Lily Evans, and continued to ask her over and over again, getting the same answer every time. Still, the more she refused him, the more fascinated he was by her – even though he knew that she disliked him: the way he acted and behaved towards other students, particularly Severus Snape. James had – after almost two years - finally realized that she wasn't going to accept his proposition unless he tried to change his behaviour (at least in front of her), and all year he had tried to stop himself for cursing people when they walked down the hall.

And now, here he was with a "yes" to at date with Lily Evans.

"Wow! That's just - What took you so long?" he could not keep himself from joking. Even though his insides were in the middle of a celebration-dance, his sense (the tiny part of it that wasn't dancing) kept yelling that he had to keep calm and not spoil it, but it was no use.

Luckily for James' sense, Lily seemed to be in a joking mood too, because she only smiled at him.

"Soo –" He couldn't resist anymore, and his hand shot up to his head to mess up his hair.

"Say we meet in the entrance hall at… Twelve o'clock? Saturday?" He tried to calm himself down by deciding that he would take a long trip on his broom afterwards to get rid of some of the energy that was pumping through his body. When Lily, still smiling at him, gave him a snort nod, James' smile was so wide it almost hurt.

"Well – great. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and clean my best party robes for the big day." He gave her a wry grin, and was thrilled to see her smile back at him as he walked away.

"See you, Evans!"

"Friends call me Lily."

---

"I'm really sorry, Sirius!"

Remus Lupin was looking anxiously over at Sirius' arm, which was torn up by the elbow. The black-haired boy opposite him just shook his head and smiled faintly at Remus. "Stop it, Moony. You know just as well as me that you didn't know what you did." He pulled down his sweater to cover the wound, and ignored Peter, who was staring at his arm.

The previous night, the Marauders had been out exploring the school grounds in the moonlight, like they used to do every month. But last night had been one of the less funny nights; in fact, it had been rather dramatic. A little third-year-student had been out in the grounds for God-knows-what reason, and Remus had lost control over his behaviour. Being a werewolf, it was in his nature to attack when he had the chance to get blood. Bite someone. Make another werewolf out of an innocent child.

This was one of the good things about the fact that James and Sirius turned into such large animals – they could prevent from being hurt if Remus should ever lose control.

Sirius and James had managed to turn Remus' attention away from the boy by chasing him into the forbidden forest, but both of them had gotten some pretty bad wounds during the fight. They hadn't seen Peter until the morning after, and Sirius claimed that he'd hid in the kitchen while Peter himself insisted that he had been thrown into a tree during the fight and fainted. None of the others really believed him, but they usually let Peter have his far-out explanations of what happened whenever he chickened out of something.

"Remus. Calm down." Sirius said again, as Remus started to suggest that Sirius should go to Madam Pomfrey. "First: She will recognize the wound, and then there'll be no more exploration-trips for us. Neither of us wants that, right?" Peter nodded enthusiastically. Sirius ignored him, and continued. "Second: You know better than me that you don't have control when the werewolf-nature gets over you like that. There was nothing you could have done to prevent what happened. Third: Where the heck is James? I haven't seen him since we left potions class and he stayed behind."

"I haven't seen him either." Peter said, and looked around the room as if he expected James to jump out from behind the curtains (which Sirius and James had done once and scared him half to death).

Remus leant back in his chair by the fire and sighed. Some part of him wanted – like it always did when such an accident almost occurred – to refuse any more night wanderings with his friends. He put many people's lives at risk every time he left the Shrieking Shack where he was supposed to stay the whole time he was transformed. Remus knew he would never be able to forgive himself if anything happened to anyone. What if he bit another student, and destroyed that person's life forever! Or worse – killed someone! The worst feeling he could ever have was when the night as werewolf was over and he knew he had attacked someone, but could not remember. He would walk around all day, waiting for Dumbledore to announce the death of a student, or professor McGonagall calling him to her office and letting him know that an attack on a fellow student was unacceptable, irresponsible and dangerous, and that he was expelled. The fear of exposing another person to the werewolf-life he himself was forced to live was a dreadful thought.

Remus sighed and buried his face in his hands. "Remus. Calm down." He heard Sirius' voice say again, and he knew he was probably overreacting. It just – wasn't that easy to judge situations when he had the guilt in the back of his head all the time. Remus sighed once again, and decided not to think any more about that at the moment, but leant back in his chair with a Potions-book.

Peter jumped as the door to the common room burst open, and a red-faced, but yet thrilled-looking James entered with his broomstick. "What's happened to you?" Sirius grinned like a maniac as James threw himself down in the nearest chair and looked into the fire. "You'll never believe it!" he sounded dreamy – as if he had just woken up from a three year long sleep. "Never!"

"Snivellus has finally washed his hair?" Sirius suggested, and Peter laughed – or giggled, it seemed. Remus looked up at James, and ignored the feeling of guilt as he saw the wound by James' ear.

"She… she said yes!" his grin widened even more, even though it almost went from ear to ear now, and you didn't need to have the order of Merlin first class to understand who James was talking about. "She said YES!"

Apparently the flying trip wasn't enough, because at this moment, James got up in his chair and started to jump up and down while laughing. Sirius grinned almost as wide as James.

"Without love potion? Congratulations, Prongs!" His head went up and down as he followed James in his chair-jumping. "Not bad, James. When will you go out?" Remus said, smiling widely at James, whose glasses were askew, but grin still like glued to his face. "Saturday! Hogsmead!"

A couple of girls were on their way down from their dormitory, and their eyes moved from the jumping James to the grinning Sirius and Remus. Peter was silent, and his sweater was almost the exact same colour as the chair he was sitting in, so it was no wonder no one noticed him, even though he himself seemed to feel overlooked. When the girls heard the song James now was singing at the top of his lungs, they giggled, and hurried out of the portrait-hole.

"You know," Sirius grinned. "That those girls will go straight to Lily and tell her about your performance, Prongs?"

But James paid no attention to any of his friends at the moment. He was busy dancing with his broomstick and singing the "I've got a date with Lily Evans."-Song.

This was going to be a good week.