It finally was all too much. Lily's furious stomping only came to a stop when she had reached the suit of armour guarding the Head's common room, barely catching her breath before muttering the password and slipping in. It took mere seconds for James to enter the room behind her.
"Lily, what is it?" he asked stopping in front of her where she turned in the middle of the room.
A girl could only take so much. Without so much as a second's worth hesitation she just flung her arms around him and collapsed into his startled embrace. He rubbed her back soothingly and whispered softly in her ear.
"I'm sure everything will be all right. Want to talk about it?"
She nodded against his chest and he steered her to the couch in front of the fire.
It took some time until she was capable of coherent speech again without interrupting herself with hiccups.
"I'm lost, James, I feel so lost in my own life. Does that make sense?"
He nodded dumbly and listened quietly as she let it all out. How the exams were getting to her and the growing tension outside the castle with the war going on and Head Duties and her in the middle of it.
"And then there's you!" She sounded almost exasperated at that and for a moment he wondered what he could have done without uttering a word to infuriate her again.
"I mean how can you handle all this as if it were nothing? You have Quidditch practices to plan and execute, matches to win, a werewolf friend you take for a walk every once in a month! People call you a blood traitor! How can you deal with all of this and not break under so much pressure of expectation and everything? Everyone seems to see the Cup in Gryffindor's hands already but there still are four matches to win. Four! And with your family knowing how you do as Head boy. Not that my parents don't care about that, but they don't know a thing I do here, they wouldn't get it if I blotched this all up! Having your head free of these things in order to be there for Remus when he isn't himself so he doesn't hurt you or Sirius or Peter! How do you do it?"
Finally she took a breath and James was grateful for that so his thoughts could catch up with what she'd said.
"You know about Remus?" was the first thing he could decipher from her speech, "And you're ok with that? Usually people make a run for it as soon as they find out. And you know the rest of us are out with him? Merlin, are we that obvious?"
Her expression softened as she followed his lead to change the subject away from her own problems. "You forget I've been friends with Remus since fifth year. You can't blame me for noticing this about a friend! I don't think anyone else knows, at least not about the rest of you being involved, so don't worry, I wouldn't tell anyone. I know how people can be about this particular 'health problem' of his."
He stared at her open mouthed. "Health problem," he murmured in awe, "Do you know … how exactly we're being with him?" he asked her quietly as if he feared an explosion.
"I've known it for a few months now. And I know about Severus, too, James," she added quietly laying a reassuring hand on his arm. He should know whom he was talking to. She had seen their Animagus forms and she knew about Severus' stupidity and James' rescue.
He gulped and bowed his head. "I'm sorry for that."
"Sorry, what was that?" She didn't trust her ears. James Potter didn't apologize, much less for things like this, which wasn't even his fault!
"I'm sorry for the thing with Snape."
"You have nothing to be sorry for! I'm sorry for not thanking you properly. He'd be dead now if you hadn't helped him. And Merlin knows you had no reason to safe him and risk your own life after all that's happened between you."
He sat there for a while, trying to sort out his thoughts and feelings. But then he decided that he'd deal with this later, preferably when he had all the Marauders filled in on it.
"But you didn't come stomping up here to talk about Remus or unregistered Animagi or Snape," he noted dutifully. If he didn't talk her out of her self-doubts, she'd break down again tomorrow or the day after and maybe he couldn't be there for her then no matter how hard he wished to be always there for her.
Her shoulders sacked as she remembered the reason she had come and trailed him behind her.
"Listen, Lily. You must know I'm always there for you. If ever you need help with anything, you can count on me, right?"
She nodded and leaned against him. Hesitant at first, but growing more confident by the minute, he put an arm around her shoulders and draw what he hoped to be comforting circles on her back.
"Maybe you shouldn't try and study all on your own. I'm sure it must make things so much harder. You don't know how far back in our revising the rest of us are. I know that's no excuse, but I'm almost sure we don't need to learn all the textbooks we ever had and more by heart! Come out and study with us."
She snorted, which bordered on a laugh despite the tears that had gathered in her eyes again.
"Ok, maybe we can leave out Sirius. He often is too hyper to notice when he turns over the table by accident … and maybe we should dump Peter at the kitchens first. The pace he's going and you'd be asleep before we even got two pages of Transfiguration done. And we shouldn't do it near the full moon or Remus is out for good, too. And if you start too early on weekends, you'd have to do without me and you'd be alone again."
She was outright laughing now.
"So, if you get really lucky, we would be happy to study with you."
Mission completed for now, he thought as she clutched her sides, which were undoubtedly burning from her laughter.
"And promise me not to worry about Head duties, ok? I'd tell you if I didn't get along with your work, which isn't the case. And you tell me if I do something wrong, ok? We can talk about this any time!"
"Thank you so much, James. I couldn't imagine a better friend." Then she kissed him on the cheek and settled on the sofa for a nap.
James smiled at her fondly. "That's a good start. Take a nap and I'll be here when you wake up. We can go through the patrolling schedule for the prefects afterwards."
She smiled back and almost immediately fell into the first relaxing slumber for weeks.