She smiled thinly at Remus, and spoke a few words to Jac, none of them truly able to raise their voice above a low murmur, the circumstances meaning that few of them could feel any real levity. Peter and Karen half-heartedly tried to strike up a conversation about their summer plans, but their compartment was still rather dull as the door slid open unexpectedly, and James came in and took a seat alongside Peter. Lily could see that everyone else was surprised, or rather uncertain of how to proceed, and they all gave little glances to the others to see how best to react.

Lily ought to have said nothing, wherever Sirius was, by himself in some compartment no one else dared enter, imposing himself on a carriage of giggling and flattered fourth years or dangling off the back of the train, he deserved not to have a friend by his side. Still, she knew that isolating someone, an d making them feel as though they had no one who cared for them, was a dangerous game and only drove people to dark places. She had no desire to have the mistakes she had made with Severus repeated by James with Sirius. He had been stupid, she certainly didn't care to be the one to talk to him – she feared it would end with one or both of them suffering intensely from some hex or jinx, and she didn't want to be picked up by Petunia and Vernon suffering the after-effects, though part of her would have been pleased by their affronted and disgusted expressions if she were to greet them while sporting head to toe boils, or with her skin a bright green.

She wasn't sure that she had any interest in speaking to James, or for Sirius. Still, her guilt at the front of her mind, she spoke, breaking the tense silence.

"James?" she said, her voice only a little above a whisper, but his eyes snapped up to meet hers. "Could I speak to you, just for a minute?" She gestured to the door, and he nodded. She didn't look at any of the others as they left the carriage, thinking that no-one there would be minded to be as pitying towards Sirius as she was.

She exited the compartment, and stepped into the carriage passageway, stopping immediately to avoid crashing into a running group of first years. She felt James bump into her back, which prompted her to yell, rather more irritably than she otherwise would have, "Slow down, no running!"

More cautiously, she exited the compartment and walked up to one of the doorways, leaning against the side which was closed, and beckoning James to follow, hoping to keep their conversation out of sight, or hearing, of the general population of Hogwarts bustling up and down the train.

When she looked at James finally, feeling entirely uncertain as to what she was going to say, he was wearing such a strange expression that she frowned.

"What?" she asked, scrutinising his face, which seemed a mixture of dazed and mistrustful. Not at all appropriate for what she wished to talk about.

"Nothing, nothing..." he shook his head, and rearranged his expression into one of mild interest, though there was a quirk to his lips which suggested amusement, she rather thought. "What was it you wanted to talk about, Lily?" She was surprised to hear a gentleness in his voice, which she would have called friendliness in anyone less openly antagonistic than James Potter. She couldn't dwell on that, she would never get to her point.

"Have you seen Sirius?"

His jaw clenched and his expression changed once again, this time to a far less pleasant one, though he didn't seem to be angry at her. He leaned back against the wall, and shrugged his shoulders, but she was relieved to see that he seemed at least affected by it. Anger was better than indifference where a friendship was to be salvaged. James didn't speak however, he seemed to think that the shrug was enough.

"I think you should go find him."

He looked at her for a moment. Was that disappointment in his eyes?

"Look, Evans, if you wanted rid of me, you could just say that..." He straightened up and turned a little to leave, his head downwards. She grabbed his arm, and pulled him back a little, ducking her head to meet his eyes again.

"That's not what I meant- I'm sorry, look, I just don't think..." she paused, summoning up the right words. "I don't think that he should be alone."

"He should, though..." James said, his voice back to anger. "I'm livid with him, I don't even want to speak to him, and you, you punched him!"

"I know that... I do, it's just..." she paused again, realising that she couldn't explain her guilt and worry about Sirius being isolated without mentioning Severus. Not just mentioning him, but discussing her feelings, still very raw feelings, about the end of their friendship with him. With James Potter.

It was hardly ideal, but she knew that her conscience would allow nothing else. So she took a deep breath and explained.

She was surprised to find James listened, cautious as a deer approaching a clearing, without comment. No snide remarks about 'Snivellus' or jibes about her feelings, which she attributed to the depths of his misery about Sirius. She came to the end of her curtailed version of events, that her drifting apart from Severus, and his resulting isolation drove him towards the sorts of friends and ideas that now enveloped him.

"I regret every day that I didn't do more to stop him, and I think you will too, if you cut Sirius out."

James was silent – uncharacteristically and somewhat unnervingly so – and she watched him chew over the words carefully, taking it all in. It was rather a lot to dump on a person in one swift flurry. She had the impression that he was choosing his words rather carefully, but was grateful when he eventually did speak.

"It wasn't your fault that Snape chose – what he chose. You've got to let people's choices be theirs. Sirius made his choices."

"Yes, he did, stupid, selfish and cruel choices that I don't pretend to agree with, but you... you have to choose too, whether to leave him alone, isolated and completely friendless, or to- I'm not saying forgive him, that's a lot to ask and I have no right- no place to- ask-I'm not... I don't want to intrude on your- I mean..." She winced as she stumbled over her words into silence. Then, determined, she took a deep breath, and spoke. "If I had been given the chance, I would have wanted my friend to know that there was hope, and that there was a future, brighter than the one I'm sure Sirius is seeing right now."

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?" James asked, giving her an evaluating look, but she was heartened to see that he was smiling, just a little, but it was there.

"I've had some time to think about it. To be honest, I mostly just feel guilty about punching him. It wasn't my place to intervene, and I – well, I suppose I'm just trying to do something nice for Sirius to ease my guilt."

"Careful, Lily, someone might think that you actually like him!"

"No. I'm still furious with him, but I like Remus, and Peter, and... well, Sirius was wrong here, but the one thing I've always admired about you lot was your friendship. You've always got one another's backs, and that's... rare!"

James just smiled, rather dopily at her, as though he had been hit on the head recently. It took her flushing a brilliant red to bring him back to attention, which he did with a hand ruffling his own hair and a sheepish grin. His mouth gave a sharp twist and he still looked unconvinced. She lifted a hand to her own hair, which was in as much disarray as James' after her late waking and harried preparations to leave.

"Look, if you won't do it for Sirius, would you do it for me?" she asked, and then, in a slight panic, elaborated. "I should think that you owe me at least a small favour after you caused my best friend to call me a Mudblood in front of half the school."

At that, James looked suitably ashamed, and after a long moment, nodded. She was floored that he hadn't argued at all at that, she had been prepared to concede that it hadn't really been James' fault, even though he was bullying Severus, the word was Severus' choice to speak, and she blamed him for it in the first instance.

"You've saved me from a considerable amount of guilt and a summer of dwelling!"

"Well then, it seems that the sacrifice of your company for the journey home is worth it." He said, this time with more typical arrogance and swagger, as his hand raked through his hair again. She couldn't spot the insult or taunt in his words, but everything about his attitude and bearing was so very much Typical-James-Potter that she narrowed her eyes and glared.

"No need to be sarcastic, Potter, don't do me any favours." She turned on her heels and marched back to the compartment. She rolled her eyes at herself as she realised that she had just asked for a favour, but there was no going back.

"Lily, I didn't-" She heard James say behind her, his words cut off by laughter and chatter of students passing down the corridor in search of a free compartment. With a little jolt to her stomach, she realised what had been odd in his voice before. He had called her Lily. Not Evans, or Ginger, or Freckles, or Carrots. Lily. She wondered why she hadn't noticed that, and why he had done it, but it seemed obvious now. Another particularly rowdy group of students pushed their way between James and Lily, so that when she turned back, startled by her realisation, she couldn't see him. She pressed herself against the compartment door to let the others pass, and James was waiting when they did. Despite his return to his usual, insufferable self, he was doing a nice thing, and she was still grateful.

"James," she said, her voice softer than she would have liked, "Thank you."

He smiled, a crooked, irritating smile as he tucked his hands in his pockets and winked at her. "Anything for you, Lily!"

"You're insufferable, Potter. Truly." She grumbled, and swept back into the compartment as James approached, sliding the door closed and taking her seat again before he could get too close.

Not that she cared about him getting close to her, but she knew he would make some comment about her fancying him, or how invested she was, or something else which would make her want to hex him. Though she felt that their conversation was somewhat incomplete, and that she perhaps ought to have explained better how James should speak to Sirius, or why she cared, she couldn't bear to keep speaking to him. Better to leave things unsaid than to have their civil agreement turn sour. This was, she thought as she watched him pass by the glass door on towards the back of the train, perhaps the most civil and least infuriating conversation she had ever had with James Potter. This, surely, was a sign of their great maturity and growth.

She took a square of the chocolate that Jac was passing around, and bit into it with great satisfaction at a job well-completed. Perhaps James and Sirius would be friends again by the time the train reached King's Cross. Or else they would all die in a fiery train crash after the two engaged in an explosive and devastating duel.

Either way, Lily was feeling better about the future than she had in days. There was a great deal wrong with circumstances, so she couldn't feel entirely pleased, but there were so many paths opening up before her, friendships and opportunities and wonderful possibilities that, for the first time in a while, she was filled with a sense of wonderful hope.

You could get very far on hope, she had found. And she intended to do just that.