[Cinema Competition: Titanic - Write a romance]

[Fanfiction Categories Competition: Canon - Write about something that goes exactly how someone wanted it to go.]

[Legendary Gods & Goddesses Challenge: Hanuman - Write about someone who is devoted.]

[Interesting Words Challenge: Sarang - "I wish to be with you until death"; love]

[Star Light, Star Bright Challenge: Red Dwarf - write a romance about your favorite pairing.]

"So what are you going to do?" asked Alice for the thousandth time.

Lily didn't look up from her notes. "Dunno."

"You must have some idea," Alice pressed, leaning over Lily's work.

Lily frowned. "Stop that, you're going to smudge my notes."

"Lily. Focus." Alice grabbed her friend's face between her palms and drew it up away from her parchment. "What. Are. You. Going. To. Do."

Lily threw her quill on the table. "I don't know yet, alright? I've been trying not to think about it."

"You have to think about it," said Alice, looking quite cheered that Lily was engaging. "You only have three days left!"

"And two exams, as well, so if you could stop bothering me for one second, please?"

"Fine." Alice put up her hands in surrender and backed out of the Common Room. "But you're going to wish you'd thought about it more when you're stepping off the Hogwarts Express for the last time and have no idea where you stand."

"Hopefully I'll be standing on solid ground," Lily said with a grin.

"That's not what I meant, Evans, and you know it."

"So what are you going to do, mate?" asked Sirius.

James shrugged. "I'm going to ask her to marry me."

"What?" Sirius dropped the stack of books in his arms, earning himself several glares.

"Would you keep it down?" a Hufflepuff boy asked. "We're trying to study."

"Yeah, well, I'm trying to have a conversation, and you aren't making that easy, either," Sirius shot back. Then: "James, you right prat, you're going to ask her to marry you?"

"Well, yeah." James shrugged again. "I love her."

"Lily Potter," Sirius said, and then made a face. "Sounds weird, mate. Better let her keep her own name."

James smiled. "Whatever she wants."

"So how're you going to do it?" Sirius asked eagerly, leaning forward.

James smirked. "Careful, Padfoot, you're drooling."

"Shh!" said the Hufflepuff boy.

"Shh!" Sirius said back.

"Really," a Ravenclaw girl said from a few tables over. "If you're going to talk, why don't you just leave the library?"

"If you're going to be a tight-arse, why don't you just - " Sirius started, but James grabbed his sleeve and tugged him out into the corridor. "Ravenclaw girls," he said with a shudder. "They're terrible, Prongs. Good choice going with a Gryffindor, otherwise I'm not sure I could stand to be your Best Man."

James looked amused. "Who said anything about Best Man?"

Sirius shoved him playfully. "Oh, like there's anyone else for you to choose?"

"Moony. Wormtail."

"Wormy would get so nervous up there that he would wet himself," Sirius said immediately. "And you can't let Moony do it, he's had a crush on Evans for years."

"Moony doesn't have a crush on Lily."

"He does," Sirius said. "He's told me all about it. 'Oh, Padfoot, I simply can't go on!' he says to me. 'I must have her! I dream of her in my arms, whispering my name: Moony, Moony, Moony!'"

"I'm sorry, was that supposed to be an impression of me?" Remus asked from behind them.

Sirius jumped and spun around. "There you are, mate! Listen, Prongs is engaged, and he wants me as his Best Man. No hard feelings. I hope we can still be friends." He stuck out his right hand.

Remus didn't shake it. "What?" he said, looking past Sirius at James. "You're engaged? When did this happen?"

"It hasn't yet, actually," James said, rolling his eyes at Sirius. "I was going to ask her in a few days. Once exams are over and everything."

Remus smiled. "Lily Potter. Nice ring to it."

"I think it has a lousy ring to it," Sirius offered. "Speaking of rings, Prongs, do you have one for her?"

James nodded. "It's up in the dormitories," he added when Sirius began to paw through his robes. "Sirius, stop that."

"What's it look like?" Remus asked.

James shrugged. "I dunno. Shiny? It was my mum's."

A slow grin spread over Sirius' face. "So . . . it'll be like you're proposing . . . to your mum."

"Yes, Pads, exactly like that."

Sirius nudged Remus. "Good news for you, then, mate. If James is marrying his mum, Evans is up for grabs!"

"What? I don't fancy Evans."

"Of course you don't, Moony," Sirius said with a giant wink. "Of course you don't."

"So?"

Lily looked up to see Alice plop down in front of her in the Great Hall. "So . . .?" Lily said.

"So," Alice repeated, grabbing a piece of toast from the middle of the table. "What are you going to do?"

Lily sighed. "Well, I'm going to eat my breakfast, and then I'm going to run up to Transfiguration to take my exam, and after that I'm going to study a bit before Charms, and then - "

"I mean what are you going to do about James?"

Lily smiled. "I know what you mean."

"So answer the question!"

"It hasn't changed since yesterday," Lily replied, biting into an apple. "I still don't know. I'm still not going to think about it until exams are over."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Avoiding the problem is not the answer," she said.

"Well, what about you?" Lily asked. "What are you going to do about Frank?"

"Oh, that's easy. I'm going to tell him I'm pregnant."

Lily spat a chunk of apple across the table. "Are you?" she asked.

"Oh, Merlin, no." Alice delicately picked up Lily's apple slice and set it back on her friend's plate. "But if I tell him I am, he'll have to move in with me, at the very least."

Lily began to laugh. "That poor boy. I'm telling him what you're up to."

Alice shrugged. "Go ahead. All I have to do is walk downstairs with an engorgement charm on my stomach and say, 'We need to talk, Longbottom,' and then he'll have to ask me. Just to keep up appearances. He can't very well go around being known as the man who got his girlfriend pregnant and then dumped her."

Lily drained her glass of pumpkin juice and stood up. "Good luck with that plan, Alice," she said, gathering her notes. "I'm off to Transfiguration."

"Have fun," Alice said with a wave. "Don't let Potter distract you too much!"

Question 1. What is the proper charm for transforming a solid object into a liquid?

James slowly wrote two lines of text that he was fairly sure had nothing to do with the correct answer. "Prongs," hissed a voice at his shoulder. "What'd you get for number one?"

"Mr. Black," McGonagall said from the front of the room. "Eyes on your own parchment, if you please."

Sirius muttered a curse and leaned back over his own exam.

Question 2. Give the exact definition of a Switching Spell.

"Moony," James heard Sirius ask. "What'd you get for number two?"

"Mr. Black."

"Sorry, Professor."

Question 3. Are we still on for our date tomorrow evening?

James let his eyes slide to his left. Lily smiled and winked at him, then tapped her wand. "Tampering with the exams, Evans?" he said as quietly as he could. McGonagall, who had her eyes locked on Sirius, didn't hear. "That's cheating."

She winked again and leaned back over her parchment. When he looked back at Number Three, it had transformed into a different question entirely.

The Charms NEWT flew by surprisingly easily, and then suddenly it was over. Lily had finished everything. There were no more exams, no more classes, no more homework assignments - it was done. And not just for the summer: she was done for good. She walked down to the lake and spread out on the grass, watching first years tickling the Giant Squid's tentacles. "So?" Alice's voice echoed in her head. "What are you going to do?"

"Lily," said a voice behind her. She turned and found herself face to face with Severus.

"Oh." She bit her lip. "Hi."

"I know we, er, aren't friends," he said quietly. "I just - I don't want to end on bad terms. I wanted to say - I wanted - I'm - I didn't mean to - "

Lily gave him a smile. "I forgive you," she said. "Have a good summer, Sev."

"I - no, that's not what I - Lily, I'm in - "

"Evans!" James called from across the lake, and Lily jumped up and ran to him. He caught her by the waist and swung her around in a circle. "We," he said, dropping a kiss on her lips, "are," - another kiss - "officially" - and another - "graduated."

She laughed. "Not officially," she reminded him. "There's still the feast tomorrow."

"Well," he said, slinging an arm over her shoulder, "there are no more exams. No more school. And that's my definition of graduated."

Lily leaned into his side. "We're really done," she said quietly. "This is really the end of all this."

She had a fleeting vision of Alice's plan to get Frank to marry her.

Marriage.

It was so extreme.

"It's not really the end, though," James said. "I mean, we'll all still see each other around. Sirius and I are going to be aurors, so we'll be working together every day at the Ministry, and you - well, I have no idea what you want to do, actually." He squinted at her. "What do you want to do again?"

Lily smiled. "Journalist," she reminded him. "Maybe. Although I change my mind about once a week."

James pulled her in tight again. "Oh, that's great. Then maybe we'll see you at the Ministry, too, inerviewing people."

"Yeah." Something about that sentence bothered her, though. "James," she began, but then instantly changed her mind.

"Yes?"

"I haven't seen Peter all day. Where's he been hiding?"

"Last call for the Hogwarts Express," called the conductor, and Sirius scrambled aboard just as the train began to rumble down the tracks.

"Cutting it close, eh, Padfoot?" James said with a grin.

Sirius shrugged and took his seat in the compartment. "Where's Evans?"

"She's sitting with Alice."

"Instead of her fiance?"

"You asked her?" Peter looked astonished. "When?"

"I haven't asked her yet." James fished in his pocket to make sure the ring was still there.

"You still haven't asked her?" Sirius shook his head. "You're running out of time, mate."

"I'm nervous," James admitted. "I was going to ask her last night, at the lake, but - I don't know, we started talking about our careers, and our futures, and what if she says no?"

Remus shook his head. "She won't say no."

"And even if she does, at least then she's available for Moony."

"Sirius, I don't fancy Evans."

"Just keep telling yourself that," Sirius said knowingly, propping his feet up and leaning back to watch the world rush past through the window.

"So?" Alice asked eagerly. "What did you do?"

Lily looked out the window. "I think he broke up with me."

"What?"

Lily shrugged. She still wouldn't meet Alice's eye. "We started talking about the future, and our careers, and . . . I don't know, it didn't sound like he thought I was going to be a part of his life."

"Oh, honey," Alice said, coaxing Lily into a hug. "If it'll make you feel better, I'll break things off with Frank so we can be single together." She poked her head out of the compartment. "Oi! Longbottom!" she yelled. "I'm not pregnant! You can have your stupid ring back!"

Lily laughed, but there was sadness behind her eyes. "Don't do that," she said as Alice struggled to pull her new engagement ring off her finger. "Just leave it. I'll be okay. Teenage love doesn't last for everyone. I knew it was bound to happen, and - "

The compartment door slid open. "Lily?" James said, looking terrified. "Can I - erm - can I talk to you? Alone?"

Lily felt tears beginning to well up behind her eyes. "Sure," she said, standing and leaving Alice, who was trying to bite the band off her finger.

They walked up and down the aisle until they found an empty compartment. "I love you, you know," James began, leaning forward to take her hands. "I love you a lot."

She tried to smile. "I love you, too." At least there was nobody else here to see her cry.

"And I just - hang on, why are you crying?"

Lily swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Oh, you know," she said with a shrug. "Leaving Hogwarts, and all that."

"Right." He started to reach for her, and then thought better of it and put his hands in his pockets. "Listen. Lily. I love you more than I have ever - that I ever thought it was possible to love another person. You are everything I've ever dreamed of. If I could, I swear I would be with you until the day I die. And when we step off this train today - "

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered.

" - I want - what?"

"Why are you drawing it out like this?" She stood. "Why are you telling me so many reasons you love me if you're just going to break my heart in a moment anyway?"

"Break - Lily?"

"I got the message," she said, tears pouring down her face, "when you told me at the lake. I understood that that was the end, that m-maybe we would see each other at the Ministry, but that other than that, we were done. You don't have to do it properly, with a big break-up speech."

"Break-up speech?" James looked alarmed. "No, no, no, Lily, that's not what this is."

"Oh, then what is it? An 'I-hope-we-can-still-be-friends' speech? An 'it's-not-you-it's-me' speech?"

And then he was on one knee, holding out a box for her. "A 'will-you-marry-me' speech?" he choked, suddenly she was crying for quite a different reason.

"James."

"Will you?" he asked, and behind his glasses she saw his eyes overflow.

"Say yes!" shouted a muffled voice from out in the aisle, and Lily whirled to see Sirius, Remus, Peter, Alice, Frank, and just about everyone else on the train pressing their noses against the glass. "Say yes, or say no and date Moony!"

"So?" James asked, and his voice trembled a little. "What are you going to do?"

Lily smiled through her tears. "I'm going to marry you, of course," she said, wiping her tears away with her thumbs. "I love you."

And then she was in his arms, and he was kissing her, and nothing in the world had ever felt quite so right.