So, I am doing this. Writing a fanfiction series. Whew!

First time trying to do this, so please, please leave reviews and let me know how the first chapter came along. Enjoy! :)

Chapter 1

O.W.L.s

"Lily", yelled James, running after the redhead. The entire evening had passed in a blur for James, and he had to talk to her after everything that had transpired that day. She, however, it seemed, wanted nothing to do with him. She had religiously avoided him all day. It had come to a point where James had to steal Lily's Potions textbook and hide in the Potions classroom, begging to every god there was that she would come down to the dungeons looking for the book, and he could have a decent conversation with her. She, nevertheless, had taken one look at him, a look laced with contempt, and muttering an 'I should have known', had turned around to make her way back up.

James pushed his way through the first-years, and finally catching up with Lily, got hold of his wrist to pull her back from her furious march. Lily turned around, and James immediately launched into his apology. "Listen to me Evans, please, I'm sorr-" James began, but Lily's eyes flared at his words and- SMACK!

Lily slapped James with all the strength she could've mustered. James staggered as the entire corridor around them, earlier abuzz with the sound of chatter and laughter, and an overall relief at the end of the OWLs examinations, went deathly still.

"Bloody git, Potter", swore Lily, a hatred in her voice James had never heard before. "You think apologising is going to make all of this- everything you did to Severus today- alright?" Lily was shaking with anger, and students all around her slowly began to back away. "You humiliated Severus, you humiliated me, and you broke my oldest friendship ever, and you think saying sorry is going to fix everything, win me back over?" Lily questioned, her voice dangerously low.

"Evans, if you would just please listen to me-" "Why, why should I, Potter? Give me one damned good reason." James ran a hand through his hair in frustration, a habit governed by his impulse. It was a long time before he spoke.

"I'm sorry. Okay, I am sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have done it. But what he said, everything that he did, Evans I didn't make him do it. He was being a git, and yeah, maybe I shouldn't have hexed him without any reason, but you can't possibly think I'm the worst man coming out from all of this. Merlin, Evans, why do you have to delude yourself when it comes to him so goddamn much-"

Impact! James backed a little, his cheek flaming under the pain of yet another slap, but he didn't so much as wince. He turned defiantly to face Lily.

Lily gave him the most hateful look she could possibly muster. Why do you have to delude yourself so much? Bloody egotistical git. Her eyes were wide and ablaze, her chest heaving under the strain that it was taking for her to breathe. She leaned forward so that she was dangerously close to him. She wanted him to hear what she said very clearly, wanted him to know that she meant every single word of what she was saying. "Go to hell", she hissed to James, every word ringing with conviction, before turning around and marching off to the Gryffindor Tower.

James watched her go, his defiance and anger seeping out of his body with every breath that he took. Sighing deeply, he sank against an opposite wall. People around him were muttering things, talking amongst themselves in hushed whispers, but he was oblivious to it all. Completely, blissfully oblivious to everything.

"Fan-freaking-tastic!"

"Lils, don't do this to yourself", said Alice softly, cradling a sobbing Lily, trying to comfort her, while she nearly choked on her tears. "Snape was bound to show his true colours, sooner or later, he didn't deserve to have a person as gloriously wonderful as you as his friend."

"She's right Lily", said Mary, running her hand through Lily's hair. "I am sorry you had to hear everything he said to you, but you are so much better off without him."

Slowly hiccoughing herself back to normalcy, she sat up. "You don't understand, he- he was the first one to introduce me to all of this; to magic, to Hogwarts. He was"- Lily's voice trailed off.

"He was a son of a bitch then, just grew into a bigger one now", said Marlene, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I don't think that's helping, Marls", said Alice, frowning at her friends, but Lily gave a weak chuckle, which caused all the three girls to visibly relax a little.

"You're right, I am overreacting", said Lily, lying back down. "He chose his path a long time ago, all of this, it's not new to him, it's probably what he has been thinking of me for ages."

All the three girls had identical sad smiles on their faces, and Lily, despite herself, couldn't help but grin at the sight.

"Lily-" started Alice, but Lily cut her off, knowing pretty well what was coming. "Don't, Alice, please. He deserved it", said Lily, though she had to admit that it felt more like she was justifying her actions to herself rather than her friend.

"Maybe he deserved a slap on his face, Lils, but you knocked him across the room with everything you said. He was being mean, but he still did try to look out for you when Severus called you you-know-what", Alice calmly reasoned to her friend. Lily sighed. "Maybe, that's true Alice, but I really don't want to think about it now, I'm too tired for that. Can we please just call it a really, really terrible day, and sleep on it?" Lily asked, her voice cracking by the end. Marlene smiled and leaned forward to kiss Lily on her forehead, the way she had been doing since they were eleven. "Of course, sweetie", she whispered and got up from her bed. Mary squeezed Lily's hand, and Lily squeezed back, grateful that Mary did not insist on talking any more than they had already. All of them got up and silently made their way towards their own beds, muttering quiet good nights to each other, before Lily pulled her drapes shut, and collapsed on her bed.

The golden snitch, very much to James' annoyance, was doing nothing to clear his mind today. He would let it go, and catch it a moment later, and the rush of reflexes would do nothing to clear the pain etched in James' mind. His heart ached for Lily, and yet, he couldn't find it in himself to walk over to the staircase leading to the girls' dormitory and call out to her, as he normally did (very much to her annoyance). The other Marauders had retired to their own beds, knowing fully well that given the state he was in, there was no way of talking James into peace. He would find it for himself, eventually. Not today, thought James bitterly. Peace seemed like the last thing he could hope of attaining at the moment, right after sleep that is. As the snitch zoomed out of his hand for the umpteenth time, a small creak made him instantly grab out the snitch. Someone was there, and James was sure that he did not want to explain why he was sitting in front of the fire in his common room, toying with a snitch. He looked around to see who it was and felt his heart heave outwards.

Standing at the bottom of the stairs to the girls' dormitory, dressed in cute little pyjama bottoms and a Gryffindor top, her eyes puffy and red, tear stains all over her face, and her red hair sticking out in a mess, was Lily.

An involuntary smile crept onto James' face, a smile that only Lily could illicit, and his mind went blank with giddiness. But with the force of a hypogriff, the memories of the day came rushing into him, and the smile vanished off his face. He looked away from Lily and at the fire one last time, before getting up and awkwardly clearing his throat. Avoiding the rush of emotions that he felt racing through him, he awkwardly cleared his throat. "Sorry, er- I'll, um- yeah, I'll go upstairs", he mumbled, risking one more glance at Lily, before turning around.

It was the last glance that made Lily's heart break. That expression on Potter's face was too much for her to handle. His eyes, usually lit with mischief, were filled with pain and hurt, and she knew that he wanted her to understand him and his actions today more than anything. And to think that all the usual traces of joviality were gone from his face because of her and that she had managed to hurt him even more than she had that afternoon, in ways more than one, was more hurtful than she could imagine.

"Potter wait- James stop", called out Lily to stop James from leaving. For a moment there was total silence, a silence where they both seemed to digest her words. James. James. She had called him James. After five years of calling him Potter, or better still- that arrogant toerag, 'James' felt funny rolling off her tongue. James slowly turned around, an amused smile on his lips. Any other time, this smile would've caused Lily to scowl at his direction, but this time, she just felt happy that he wasn't hurting anymore.

"Did you just-" James began to ask, but Lily broke him off. "We're definitely not going to talk about that", she said, sighing and making her way to the couch before plopping down on it. She gestured to the seat beside her and asked, "Sit with me, will you?" James' eyebrows shot up, and his smile widened even more. She sighed yet again, albeit this time she couldn't hide the smile that crept across her face.

James crossed the length of the room and sat down beside Lily, trying his best to think of something sensitive, something caring and comforting. Apparently, all of that did not come naturally to him. Damn! Where is Moony when you need him?! He cleared his throat awkwardly and began to say something along the lines 'I know today was hard for you, and I am sorry for my part in all of it', something that sounded genius in his head, when Lily cut him off. "Look, Potter, today was hard for me. And despite the fact that you did have a major part in it, I- I should not have yelled at you the way I did. I guess I just needed to vent out all the frustrations I had because of Se- Snape."

James' eyebrows shot up to his hairline., and stayed there for a while. After a few seconds of not getting a response, Lily frowned and glanced at James. The expression on his face made her laugh loudly. After the day she had had, the laughter warmed her up like a mug of butterbeer. James' quizzical expression dropped, and he gave a little chuckle of amusement before sobering up. "Lily, you don't have to apologize. I know what I did was immature and mean, and just plain wrong, but I had no intention of hurting you or ruining your friendship", James said apologetically. "Though I still think you're so much better off without that git", he added, which caused Lily to give him a stony look. "He's not half as bad as you four make him out to be-" started Lily, but James cut her off. "Listen to me, Lily. I know you're hurting, for yourself and for Sniv-Snape", James hastily corrected himself, before continuing forward. "The truth is, what we did today, was not totally uncalled for. After what he and his friends did to Elena from Ravenclaw the other day, this had to be done and seeing that the staff did not have any evidence as to who actually did it, our grudge for them intensified, and today, well today we might've had the wrong intentions, but any time had we found them so much as try to tug at someone's hair without their permission, well, things would've gotten much nastier than they did today. So, you may or may not accept my apology for breaking your friendship, but I am not going to apologize for what we did to him. And before you reprimand us for how we did it, I'll just admit that we all know what we did was wrong, and it shouldn't have happened. And believe it or not, we've decided to, um- well, we've decided to stop all of this. Hexing people behind their backs just for the fun of it, I mean."

Lily stared at James for a long time after he ended his little speech, her eyes so wide the tears glistening in them reflected the firelight. Everything that he had said, even though she knew that James crossed the line every day for breakfast, that he would easily manipulate others for some elaborate prank, that lying to people for his amusement was second nature to him, everything he had said was so natural, so sincere it made Lily's heart melt.

James grew increasingly uncomfortable under Lily's wide-eyed gaze, and for a moment he feared she would slap him again for insulting her friends, for saying such nasty things about him, for mixing his name up with people who were pure evil. But what she did shocked him beyond anything that had happened that day. Lily leaned forward and- hugged him. Tightly. Very tightly in fact. "Uh, Lily, choking up here", James croaked, and Lily let out another laugh before breaking off the hug. Arms still around his neck, she looked at him with so much affection that James' heart sank. He could not believe that he had hurt this girl so bad, and she was still ready to forgive him.

"So, no more hexing people just for the fun of it?" Lily asked James softly. James smiled before shaking his head. "No more being purposefully mean to anyone?" Another nod. "And no more pranks?" Lily asked, smiling, knowing well enough that she was pushing it too far. And sure enough. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! You wanna rethink that missy", chided James playfully, and Lily let out another laugh. James soaked it all in, the way her head tilted back, and her nose wrinkled just a little. God, that laugh was becoming his favourite sound in the world.

As though suddenly becoming aware of the fact that her hand was still snaked around James, she let go quickly and cleared her throat.

Suddenly James said, "So seeing that you lost a friend because of us, and the fact that we have made some serious promises about our remaining time at Hogwarts, and the fact that being with us will very effectively get you through many locked doors, how would you like to have four more friends in your life?"

Lily bit her lower lip. Being friends with James Potter and the rest of the Marauders was the last thing she would've wanted so much as an hour ago. Well, except for Remus maybe, but the rest, not so much. Thoughts raced through her mind.

He is genuinely sorry for what he did.

But it wasn't the first time, he is constantly doing it.

But he promised that he would stop doing that.

But he is not going to change who he is just because of me.

But he really did feel sad for me while he was down here before me.

Knowing that having all these thoughts would get her nowhere, Lily decided to do something she hadn't done in a long time. She decided to do something she had gotten really sure she never should do again. She decided to act without thinking.

"James?" Lily called softly. His smile faded a little. "Yeah?"

"I would love to be your friend."

Finally! Spent a lot of time just trying to come up with this first chapter, kinda get why people find this so exhausting already. Don't know why I keep pointing this out, but- first try in writing series fanfiction guys, please don't forget to review. Also, I have a brief outline as to how the story is going to proceed, but any suggestions for the story are welcome as well.