"Lonely, that's what I've been."

-Waiting for My Ruca by Sublime

James rolled out of the entrance at the bottom of the Whomping Willow, panting and covered in sweat; it began to cool as soon as the early morning air hit his skin. Sirius clambered out after him, laughing breathlessly in disbelief with James' Invisibility Cloak in hand.

"I never realized how hard it is when we're one man short," he said to James. "What was Wormtail's excuse, anyway?"

"Said he hadn't slept much last night, afraid he wasn't going to be of much use if he couldn't keep his eyes open," replied James. He held his hand out to help pull Sirius off of the grass. "You need to lay off the food a bit, mate. You're quite heavy."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Maybe your arms are just tired from fighting off our furry friend tonight. Or maybe you're not as committed to your Quidditch workout regimen as you make everyone think you are."

A mock-offended look overtook James' face. "I've been accused of many things, Padfoot, but never being lax about Quidditch. I—"

"Yeah, I've heard it a million times, Prongs. You live, breathe and eat Quidditch. You'd probably cut a hole in the quaffle and shag it if we'd let you," Sirius interrupted.

"I resent that last bit."

Sirius just barked out a laugh, clapping James on the shoulder as they made their way back up to the castle. James groaned in pain.

"Don't play rough with me, tonight was rough enough as it is," James whined.

"Can't keep up with Moony and I without Wormtail to help out?"

"No, with it being the first night of school and all, it's just… a lot," he responded, sighing a little. Sirius rolled his eyes at James once again.

"I know that sigh," he said. "That's the 'Lily Evans problem' sigh. That's the pitiful sigh I've heard every day of my miserable existence since fifth year—"

"Again, I resent that—" James interrupted.

"—and now you have to share a common room with her, alone, and I won't hear the end of it until after we've graduated," Sirius finished, talking louder to drown out James' protests. "Am I right, or am I right?"

"Okay, you're right," James snapped, then faltered when he saw Sirius recoil at his tone. "Sorry. It's just… hard, you know? We're friendly now, but…"

"But she still doesn't feel that way about you, and you can't just make your feelings magically go away," Sirius finished for him. "Hey, I can be sensitive too, you know," he said in response to James' surprised expression. "I've also heard you talk about your feelings about Evans for the past two years."

They stopped in front of the doors to the Entrance Hall while Sirius placed the cloak over James and himself.

"We are getting too bloody big to fit under this thing together," Sirius commented as they walked into the castle, trying to avoid stepping on one another's toes.

"I've already proposed you go on a diet, Sirius, I don't know what else you could possibly want from me."

After walking up several flights of stairs, they went to move in the direction of the Gryffindor common room when James stopped abruptly, the cloak almost slipping off of him completely.

"What is it?" Sirius hissed impatiently.

"We forgot, I'm not going up to Gryffindor Tower. Remember?" Sirius sighed.

"Do you want me to drop you off at the dorm and take the cloak with me?" he proposed. "I've got further to go than you have."

"No, it's alright. Lily will probably be asleep, anyway. You're more likely to get caught without it. I haven't got long to go, like you said." James replied. Sirius was apprehensive; they weren't used to having to split up on their little excursions. "Just give me the map in case Filch comes along, it'll be alright. Suppose we'd best get used to doing it like this. We don't have time to be stopping along every floor in the castle."

Sirius conceded, and James slipped out from under the cloak after taking the map from him.

"Treat her well, mate," James told the empty space where Sirius stood under its shroud of invisibility.

A hand stuck out of thin air and gave him a thumbs up before disappearing again.

James walked the unfamiliar path back to the Heads' dorms. He supposed he'd get used to it after a few weeks. The dorms were not all that different from the ones he'd stayed in at Gryffindor Tower since his first year. Dumbledore had even informed him, with a little glint in his eyes, that the same rule applied to the staircase to the Head Girl's dorm. James, despite himself, had blushed a bit when the Headmaster had brought it up. Not that he would've tried to get up there, anyhow; Evans would hex him the minute she thought he was trying to intrude on her privacy without her permission.

She might give you permission now, James thought to himself before shaking his head. No, we're just friends. Friendly friends who are friendly. No romantic-like things involved. No hand holding, cuddling, kissing…

He arrived at the Heads' dorms before that train of thought led him to a cold shower.

"Pygmy puff," he whispered to the old wizard in the portrait guarding the entrance. "What a stupid password," he added to himself.

Apparently, the old wizard heard him.

"Oi, well you're the one who's in this late, aren't you? Quite stupid yourself! You young wizards these days have no respect for—"

"Just open the door, please," James cut him off tiredly. "I'm not in the mood to argue with a portrait tonight." The portrait swung out of the way with a huff from the old wizard.

The first thing he saw as he walked in was Lily Evans spread out on the longest couch in the common room, her red hair spilling over the edge due to the crooked angle at which her head was resting. James' chest felt tight, like his heart was threatening to burst straight from its cavity right out onto the floor. This is what he would be coming back to for the rest of the school year. He would have to suffer through her looking absolutely adorable and resist making any sort of move on her if he wanted some semblance of a relationship with the girl.

She jerked awake when his foot caught on the edge of a rug adorning the carpet next to the couch; he must've subconsciously been moving closer to her.

"Potter? What time'sit?" Lily's words slurred together as she woke from what seemed like a short nap.

"Er…" James looked down at the watch on his wrist and cringed. "Half-past five."

"In the morning?!" she asked incredulously, rising from her place and wincing at the crick that was no doubt in her neck from sleeping in such a position. "What the hell were you doing out at this hour?"

"I could ask the same," James stated, attempting to evade the question. He should've known Lily would see right through that.

"No, you couldn't, I've been in the dorm. You've been… Merlin knows where," she replied. "Already, James, really? You can't get detention on the first day of school anymore, you're Head Boy."

"I wasn't doing… that," he trailed off weakly.

"Then what were you doing?" Lily said, confused. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and really got a good look at him. She gasped.

"James! What did you do to yourself?"

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"You expect me to believe you weren't out causing trouble when you come in bleeding from your side? James, that looks like a lot of blood…"

He looked down at himself and saw the side of his gray t-shirt darkened with what was most definitely his blood. Now that she mentioned it, he was feeling a little lightheaded. Why hadn't Sirius noticed that? Oh, that's right, because I told him Lily would be asleep and here she is, awake and staring at me…

He swayed and Lily jumped up to help him take her place on the sofa. Little black spots dotted his vision and he blinked them away as she knelt in front of him.

Lily pulled up James' shirt to examine his wound. Although when he became 'James' and not 'Potter,' she wasn't sure. Her mouth fell open at the three gashes that were quite deep on his flank. Blood was flowing out of each; not quickly enough to rush him off to Madame Pomfrey and risk him getting into trouble for whatever happened here, but enough for her to be shocked he had walked so many flights of stairs without passing out.

He hissed in pain when she put her fingers too close to one of the openings, and she retracted her hand quickly.

"James, what did you do? Is this an enchanted wound of some kind? Can I fix this with a simple healing spell?" She fired off the questions at him one after the other, and he huffed out a laugh before wincing and no doubt regretting the chuckle he had let escape.

"A healing spell and some dittany should clear it up in a few hours," James said, as though it was a process he'd performed a million times before. "I've got some dittany up in my case in my dorm. I'd get it, but I don't know that I can make it up there at the mo'," he said lightly, as though joking would make Lily feel better about the situation. She scoffed at his attitude.

"I'm going to get it and fix you, but we are going to talk about this, Potter," she demanded, pointing her finger in his face before turning on her heel and up the stairs to his dorm room. In his blood-loss-induced drowsiness he couldn't be bothered to remove his eyes from her arse as she walked away.

Lily looked about James' dorm; it was just as tidy as hers was, seeing as neither of them had really set foot in the dorms (other than to drop off their cases) since they got to the castle that morning. His case was already opened at the foot of his bed, and she slid to the ground and began rifling through his items quickly to find the dittany. She blushed deeply when she had to dig through a whole layer of his boxer shorts. Her hand stopped and rested of its own accord on a particularly catching maroon and gold pair that would look great under his Quidditch uniform.

Why are you thinking about what's under his Quidditch uniform at a time like this?! Or at all? Get yourself together, Evans! She snatched her hands away from the boxers and kept searching.

"Aha!" she cried to herself, raising the dittany into the air in triumph before bounding back down the stairs to James' prone form. His eyebrows were scrunched up in pain, and he was breathing gingerly so as to not disturb the cuts any further. He had taken his shirt off completely while she'd been upstairs; it was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor next to the couch.

"How are you feeling?"

"Never better," he said sarcastically.

"Oi, I'm helping you, aren't I? Don't be a prat," she told him, uncapping the bottle of dittany and applying it to the cuts none too gently. He cried out briefly before clamping his mouth shut.

"Fuck," he let out, gritting his teeth.

Lily wanted to make a smart remark to him, but she was actually quite worried. The scratches were most certainly from an animal; definitely a large one with sharp claws. If she didn't know better, she'd say they were from a…

"James, are these from a werewolf?" she asked bluntly.

His eyes snapped open, and he shot up to a sitting position that made him yelp when it put pressure on his injuries.

"What? No, of course not, Evans. Why would you think that?" She gave him a look that clearly expressed how unimpressed she was by his reactions.

"Besides the fact that one of your best friends is a werewolf? I'm not an idiot, Potter. I studied about them in Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts just like everyone else did. I could rattle off the characteristics of werewolf-inflicted wounds to you, but somehow I don't think you'd like that very much," Lily told him.

"Remus isn't a werewolf," James said snidely, looking as though he was working up to getting up and storming off. She held her hand up to his chest to stop him, forcing him to lie back down so she could finish taking care of the wounds.

"Then Remus has some serious delusions about his life, because that's straight from the horse's mouth." James stared at her as she grabbed her wand and began the healing spell. "Also, I never said Remus, so even if I didn't know before, now I would definitely know you're lying."

James' eyes slid closed in defeat.

"Remus told you?" When his eyes opened back up again, Lily was surprised at the hurt in them. "He never told me that you knew."

"I had my suspicions, but I didn't know for sure until I was in the hospital wing after one full moon," she admitted. "I confronted him. Told him it didn't matter to me, and that he was incredibly brave for having to live with that condition, what with the state of how society treats people like him. He broke and told me."

"How long?"

"About two years. Sev… Snape always had his suspicions, as well, but I never asked Remus because I knew that Snape would want the truth if I knew, even if I was still friends with him. After fifth, well, you know what happened. It wasn't too long after that."

James refused to look her in the eye; no doubt remembering that day by the lake just as she was.

"Snape is a git, and he needs to keep his greasy nose out of our business."

Lily put her wand down, finished with the spell. "I know. I really do. But that's not the point here. James, you can't go running around with Remus in his werewolf form. It's not safe, even if he is your friend. He probably has no idea who you are when he's in that state."

"I can take care of myself, Evans. Don't you fret your pretty head over little old me," James told her, that crooked grin overtaking his face. It made her want to punch him in the wounds that were currently trying to heal themselves. Also maybe kiss the smile right off his smug face.

Wait, what?

"Thank you for this, anyway," he said, sliding up into a sitting position and grabbing his shirt off of the ground before standing up. "And thank you for not telling anyone. You know, about Remus'… furry little problem."

"Furry little problem?" Lily had to grin at his phrasing. "That's a bit of an understatement, I think." James shrugged.

"It makes him laugh."

She didn't have a response to that. It was already clear that James would go to any lengths to help his friends, even if that meant getting mauled to death by one of them. It was at that point she noticed that James still did not have a shirt on and he was fit. Like, all her boyfriends throughout her time at Hogwarts had not been that fit. Like, he had a real-life six-pack fit. Did blokes really get that fit from Quidditch? No, she had dated other Quidditch players and they did not look like that. And now he was grinning at her.

Because you're ogling his incredibly fit but injured body, you nitwit.

She blushed furiously. He looked like he might say something else, but ultimately decided against it. He looked at his watch.

"Well, class starts in a few hours, so I'm going to bed. Thanks again, Lily," he said, his tone deep and genuine that had Lily blushing even harder.

"Anytime," she replied. He raised an eyebrow. "I mean, not anytime, please don't get injured like this again, but you know…"

He nodded slowly, still looking amused, before heading up the stairs to his room. Lily blew a strand of hair away from her face.

What is wrong with you, Evans? It's only Potter.

"You look a right state. Did you sleep at all last night?"

Lily picked her head up off the desk at the sound of Marlene McKinnon's voice. Marlene stood with a hand on her hip, the other hand dropping her book bag to the floor of the dungeon. Lily only groaned in response to Marlene's question.

"No, no, wait, don't tell me. You and Potter stayed up having a wild night of partying together for your first night in the private dorms," Marlene said, waggling her eyebrows in Lily's direction.

"Oh, shove it," Lily responded. "I just couldn't sleep, is all. It's weird not being in Gryffindor Tower." Marlene looked put out that she and James hadn't actually stayed up all night partying together, but seemed sympathetic all the same.

"Don't worry, Lil. I can come up some nights and we can have sleepovers together. We can even get some sweets from Honeydukes and stuff ourselves full of chocolate all night."

"Hogsmeade visit's not for weeks yet. How do you suppose we'll get the sweets?"

"I have a connection," said Marlene, waving her hand about in a nonchalant fashion.

"You mean the Marauders," Lily replied, her eyes turning to the door of the dungeons as the men in question arrived to Potions.

"Black's good for some things, y'know," Marlene told her as she watched Sirius and James get closer to the desk behind theirs. "And he's not half-bad to look at, either."

Lily's head whipped around to scrutinize Marlene.

"Did you just say that Black is sexy?"

"Oh c'mon, Lily, every woman with eyes and working sexual parts can see that he's attractive."

"I just never thought I'd see the day when you'd admit that Sirius Black is sexy—"

"For the record, I didn't actually say the word, 'sexy.'"

"Sexy, attractive, whatever, Marlene, it's all the same to me."

"Good to know," James interrupted. "Also, who exactly is, 'sexy, attractive, whatever'?"

"Yes, please enlighten us, Miss Head Girl," Sirius joined in, eyeing Marlene for a moment before turning a somewhat icy gaze onto Lily. Both of the boys took a seat at the table while waiting for her answer.

"A lady doesn't kiss and tell," Marlene answered for her, smirking at Sirius as he began to balance his chair on its two back legs.

"I didn't take you for a proper lady, my mistake, McKinnon," a similar smirk took residence on his face once his gaze was back on Marlene. "The way you behave on the Quidditch pitch, I quite thought you had ditched the concept of being a lady entirely."

"It's not my fault you get so distracted by the females in the crowd that you can't keep your eye on the bludger, Black."

"We both know I always come through when you really need me out there," he shot back at her. "Besides, how could I ever let poor James down? The poor kid practically live-"

"Lives, eats and breathes Quidditch, Padfoot, ha-ha," James fake-laughed. "Just wait until this season's practice starts, you're going to get it—from me, the Quidditch captain, and McKinnon, your fellow beater who is far superior—"

"What!" Sirius interjected. "Do you not remember that time when—"

Lily lost track of their conversation when Severus—Snape, she still had to correct herself in her mind—walked in. His dark eyes turned to her, as if he was drawn to her the second he knew she was there. He watched as Marlene conversed with Black and Potter, and his eyes narrowed in irritation. She quickly turned away from him, only to meet James' eyes. He had clearly seen the look on her face and swiveled to see Snape getting settled at a table with Rowle. His posture suddenly turned stiff.

"Is there a problem?" James asked Lily quietly, unheard by Marlene and Sirius, who continued to argue about their most recent Quidditch performances.

"James…" she warned him, knowing what would come next. The last thing she wanted or needed was the two of them in getting into a row because of her. Especially not when it seemed as though they had finally laid off one another in the last year or so.

"I'm not going to do anything," he said. "He just shouldn't be making you uncomfortable."

"I'm not uncomfortable," she assured him. "Just seeing him and not being friends with him still… throws me off sometimes."

James nodded, but still did not look convinced.

"If he does bother you, just… really give it to him, okay? He's a right git for treating a friend like you that way."

Lily softened at that, and James smiled at her; there was a dimple in his left cheek that caused her heart to flutter strangely.

"Thank you," she replied, not knowing what else to say.

"Anytime," he said, mimicking her from that night—or rather, that morning. They were still just smiling at each other when Professor Slughorn came striding into the classroom.

"Alright, settle down, class," his voice boomed and the students quieted down. "Quite exciting, isn't it? This is your last first Potions class here at Hogwarts!" A few people's expressions sobered at this proclamation. "Oh, don't look so sad. We will have plenty of interesting classes before the year is up."

He turned to the chalkboard behind him, waving his wand and charming the chalk to begin writing the notes for the class period.

"I know today is the first day, so I'm going to go easy on you. We're all going to make a batch of Pepperup Potion for Madame Pomfrey to add to her stock in the Hospital Wing. I think you're all more than capable of handling this assignment," he was answered with most of the class sighing with relief that they wouldn't have to start any hard lessons that day. When most of the class began to move around to get their ingredients, he stopped them. "No working with your desk partners today," he said. "Work with the person sitting directly behind you—if I'm going easy on the material, you need to be challenged to work with people who aren't your best friends."

Lily groaned internally before turning to face James.

"Partner," he greeted her, a smile lighting up his face. Sirius looked back and forth between them, a sour look crossing his features.

"Looks like I'll be saving your arse off the pitch as well as on it," Marlene told him, tearing his gaze away from them.

"I'll have you know that I could brew this with my eyes closed, if I felt so inclined," he said before getting up to move to Lily's seat. "Shove over, Evans, hop into my seat there."

Lily was a little off-put by Sirius' behavior towards her; while they had never gotten along, she'd thought that had more to do with the tension between James and herself. Now that she and James were, dare she say, friends, he still didn't seem to like her very much. James didn't seem to be bothered by his friend, however; he nodded his head in the direction of Sirius' previous seat, indicating she should sit down.

"The view's much better from the second row," he said jokingly. "From the first table, all I can ever concentrate on is the fact that Slughorn's spit is so close to flying onto my parchment."

Thirty minutes later, done with all of the other steps, they were allowing the potion to cool in order to pour them into the vials. Lily was surprised by how adept Potter was at brewing Potions.

"Don't look so surprised," James said, trying to sound offended, but there was a small smile adorning his lips that made her own tip upwards.

"Was I that obvious?"

"Just a little." He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose to prevent them from falling further, ruffling his hair before letting his hand fall back into his lap. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, the heat from their cauldron making the long sleeves of his uniform feel too stifling. When she looked back up at his face, she realized that she had followed his hand throughout the entire sequence. She felt her face heat slightly.

"It's not that I thought you were stupid," she quickly reassured him, trying to cover up the silence that had ensued while she was ogling his forearm. "I just didn't think you had any interest in Potions."

"I don't, not really," he admitted. "I come from a family of Potion makers. Apparently one of my ancestors laid the foundations for Skele-gro and… the Pepperup Potion, actually."

"That's really impressive, Potter," Lily told him, and she meant it. She knew that Potter had come from money, but she had always assumed it was some other type of pureblood business venture.

"My dad invented Sleakeezy's Hair Potion; he's retired now, though." Lily burst into a laugh.

"Your dad? Sleakeezy's?"

"And why is that so funny, Evans?"

"James… look at your hair. There is no way you have used a drop of that in your entire life."

"Hey," he pretended to be hurt. "I'll have you know that a lot of people envy this mane."

Lily burst into laughter again, but stopped when their table scooted a couple of inches, making their cauldron teeter before righting itself once more; Severus had bumped into their table as he was walking past. James had seen it also, and his face darkened. He remained seated, much to her relief, but clenched his fist and whispered, "Git," under his breath all the same.

Marlene watched Lily, who was staring at James; or, more accurately, was staring at James and Amelia Bones. The Hufflepuff was laughing at something James said, leaning forward and placing a hand on his forearm in a manner that was clearly meant to be affectionate.

"Something on your mind, dear?" she probed Lily. She had been friends with James for a while; their families knew one another, as many pureblood families do. They were never best friends, as kids, but once they got to Hogwarts they had forged a closer bond; even more so when they both joined the Quidditch team.

"What?" Lily said, still looking at James and Amelia.

"Lily, there's a maggot crawling around in your potatoes."

"What?!" That got her attention. Her head whirled to her plate, her hair whipping Marlene in the face. She sputtered to get the hairs out of her mouth.

"There's no maggot on your plate."

"Yes, I'm aware of that, Marlene, as I have eyeballs and can clearly see that my potatoes are perfectly fine. Why would you tell me that?"

"Because you were glaring so hard at Amelia Bones that I was worried you would acquire some type of heat vision that might melt her where she stands."

"What—that's not—I wasn't—" Lily stuttered, trying to settle on an answer that made her sound the least guilty.

"You can live in the land of denial for as long as you want, but I saw what I saw, Lil," Marlene told her, reaching for the butter to put some more on her bread.

"But—"

"I actually quite approve, Lily. James is my mate and I've been waiting for this day for quite some time—"

"I don't like Potter," Lily stabbed her potatoes as she said this, making Marlene doubt the validity of that statement. "I mean sure, he's good-looking, but—"

"Wait a minute, did I hear that correctly? You think that James Potter is good looking?"

"Yes, Marlene," Lily said, frustrated. "It's the same as what you were on about with Black, earlier. I saw him without his shirt on—"

"Wait, Sirius or James?"

"James, and—"

"Merlin, Lily, how did you not tell me about this?!" Marlene asked incredulously.

"It's not a big deal, Marlene; my point is, he may be fit, but I don't like him like that."

In the midst of their conversation, James had sauntered back over to the Gryffindor table and taken a seat next to his friends. Sirius whooped and Remus high-fived him before they went back to their meals.

"Amelia is a nice girl, Prongs, she's aspiring to work in the Ministry once she's done with school here," Marlene heard Remus tell him. She could tell Lily had heard, too; they both silently agreed to eavesdrop on this conversation.

"Her bum's quite nice, as well," Sirius added, ducking a potato that was flung from Remus' fork into his vicinity.

"It's just Hogsmeade, for now," James told his friends. "But you're right, Remus. She is nice. She's really smart, and she wants to give it a go. Why not, right?"

Marlene sighed as she watched Lily look down at her plate, clutching her fork tightly.

"I'm sorry, Lil."

"I don't like Potter," she replied, although it sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than she was Marlene.

Author's Note: So I haven't written any Jily fic in quite a while. I'm finally getting around to posting this story here - it was originally on AO3, and it is still available there. I've been having problems uploading to this site with my browser, which is why I didn't upload it here also. Anyway, I know Remus and Peter aren't in this chapter, but keep reading because I don't neglect them. The rating for this story may change to Mature if I end up writing some scenes with mature themes. Reviews and faves are my shit, so please do that!