Hello, readers, and thanks for joining! Basically I had a week alone in a youth hostel with nothing but a pad of paper and a pen to keep me entertained... The result was inevitable.

First things first, you may have guessed this already but I do not own Lily Evans, James Potter or any of the other characters who will be featuring in this fic. Apart from Jackie, who is an OC I invented to make up the numbers (I suspect she may be related to Bertha Jorkins, but haven't bothered to investigate this further).

Just a quick note to start with - this fic is headed towards Jily with all the inevitability of a cauldron explosion in a Potions class containing all four Marauders, but it will be detouring via a couple of other ships on the way. For diehard Jily fans, don't worry, we'll get there in the end, and for people who ship the other pairings, I am not writing this to shoot holes in your ship - I have read and enjoyed most of them (okay, not LE/PP...), but I will always be a Jily girl at heart and that's just not the way this fic is going. I know how defensive people can get over their ships but this is not meant to offend anyone!

This fic has been completely written, proof-read (by me, so sorry if I've missed any errors...) and uploaded as docs on this site, so I will be posting one chapter a day (UK time) from now until Saturday.

Rated for some fairly mild language.

Hope you enjoy!

It was 9.30pm, and Lily Evans was already in bed. Not that this was something she made a habit of, but she'd been caught in the rain on the way back from helping Professor Kettleburn de-louse a batch of Nifflers (she had always had a soft spot for the barmy old teacher), and after a long, hot shower it would have been daft to get dressed again, so there she was in her faded old pyjamas, re-reading The Twins at St Claire's. When she had been little, going to a boarding school had seemed such a romantic idea. She had since found that the reality was a little different from what Enid Blyton had described – but then, perhaps that was just all the magic.

Her peaceful reverie was broken when the dormitory door burst open and not one, but all four of her roommates fell through it. Alice, Mary, Marlene, and Jackie. She loved them all, but she couldn't help wishing that they could have held off just for another half hour.

"All right, Grandma? Get your old bones out of bed and listen to this." Marlene's signature rudeness ringing in her ears, Lily set aside her book, making no attempt to hide her disgruntlement. "What have you done now?"

"Not me," Marlene corrected her significantly. "Mary."

Lily's eyes flickered to the brunette, arching an eyebrow. Of all her roommates, the serious, anxious Mary was the least likely to do anything stupid. Alice was also fairly sensible, but Marlene considered the day wasted if she hadn't done at least six outrageous things before breakfast, and poor, bumbling Jackie just didn't seem able to help herself.

Sure enough, Mary was blushing furiously. "SiriusBlackmighthavejustkissedme," she garbled.

Lily supressed an eye-roll. Of course, only the great Sirius Black could turn a girl that shade of magenta, though Merlin knew why. "So?" she said, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice. "Black kisses most people eventually." That's three out of the five people in this room, she added silently, but thought it would be antagonistic to say so out loud.

"But," said Marlene dramatically, "That's not everything, is it, Mary?"

Oh dear Merlin, begged Lily silently, I don't want to know where this is going.

Mary turned a yet more violent shade of purple, if such a thing were possible. "It may have been my first kiss."

"Her first kiss! Aged sixteen! Isn't that embarrassing?" crowed Marlene.

Alice, never one to join in with teasing, looked away awkwardly as Jackie nodded in agreement, and Lily, feeling herself redden slightly, buried her nose in her book again.

"Oh shut up, Marlene!" snapped Mary, her nose crinkling with irritation. "Just because you were, what, nine?"

"Eight and a half," corrected Marlene smugly. "Kingsley Shacklebolt. He was ten and I was completely in love with him."

"So in love that you've since rejected him six times," Jackie pointed out dryly.

"Well, he went and got all serious and hardworking, didn't he? How dull."

"So, Sirius Black, and Kingsley Shacklebolt," said Jackie, pointing first to Mary, then to Marlene. "And, er, Sirius was my first kiss too, actually…"

"You never told me that!" exclaimed Marlene indignantly (Marlene had had the rare and dubious honour of not only kissing Black, but actually dating him for a whole six weeks back in fourth year). Jackie grimaced guiltily at her. "It was before you went out with him," she amended apologetically.

Lily had scarcely had time to marvel at the fact that Jackie had managed to hide this revelation from Marlene for over a year, when Marlene had rounded on her. "And sweet, monogamous Alice has only ever had eyes for Frank, so that just leaves you, Lily Pad, who I suddenly realise has never revealed the identity of her first kiss!"

Lily was suddenly blushing more even than Mary. "I don't like to talk about it," she said hurriedly, keeping her eyes fixed on her book.

The other four girls exchanged looks. "It wasn't Snape, was it?" asked Marlene, barely keeping the contempt from her voice, and Lily recoiled at the derision with which she spoke of her best friend.

"No," said Alice, who was watching Lily intently. "My money's on Remus."

"Statistically you must have kissed Sirius Black at some point," remarked Jackie matter-of-factly, earning herself a poke in the ribs from Marlene.

"Or Benjy Fenwick!" interjected Mary triumphantly. "He's always had a thing for you."

"Just so long as it wasn't Peter Pettigrew," snorted Marlene, and the four collapsed in fits of giggles.

"I think Pettigrew is the second least-likely candidate in school, after the obvious," said Alice eventually, when she had recovered herself.

"The obvious?" repeated Jackie, looking confused, as Marlene began to cackle gleefully. "Potter! Imagine, eh, Lily?"

"Yeah," agreed Lily, the knot in her stomach tightening. "Imagine."

x-x-x-x-x

Eventually the girls had realised that Lily wasn't going to be giving up the identity of her mystery kisser, and had subsequently lost interest. Now, several hours later, they were all asleep, Jackie snoring gently, but Lily lay wide awake, staring up at the hangings of her four-poster bed and thinking hard.

She had always told herself that she wanted her first kiss to be special, that she was waiting for the right boy, that she wouldn't be pressurised into doing something she didn't want to do. So why, she asked herself sternly, had she not just told them that?

She knew exactly why. Marlene's words – Her first kiss! Aged sixteen! Isn't that embarrassing? – echoed around her head. Was it embarrassing, that she had never kissed anyone? For the first time in her life, Lily began to believe that it was. For the first time, she felt that she did want her first kiss to happen, very much.

And so, swept away on a wave of teenage pride, Lily Evans made herself a promise. Today was Sunday – well, it was probably the early hours of Monday morning now, but that wasn't important. Lily Evans made herself a promise that by the next Sunday evening, she would have had her first kiss.

As for who would have the honour, she hadn't decided yet. Well, she had a few ideas, but she wasn't completely sure about any of them. One thing, however, she was very, very clear about: James Potter, the vile, arrogant, bullying toad who had so often professed undying devotion to her, would not be the lucky man. Never in a million years.