Lily Evans had eight essays to do, and three of them were due the next day. She wondered for the first time if she had bitten off more than she could chew with her enormous load of sixth-year classes. She also wondered if she had ever been more disorganized. The round table near the fire was completely covered with her books and scraps of parchment, and two more coffee tables were pulled over to form a large, lopsided, mess of a table. A large quantity of Muggle Post-It Notes were clinging to every surface, with facts about everything from antidotes to poisons to the greatest goblin leaders in history.

"Reparo," she sighed for the third time as her quill broke again. As she bent down to get her wand, which had fallen as she returned to her essay, two books fell off the table.

"Great," she muttered, leaning down to retrieve them.

The last thing she needed was James Potter walking into the room.

Potter made himself comfortable in the chair beside her, sitting on a spare quill. "Hey, Evans. Looks like you need to cut loose."

"Go away, Potter. I've got a lot of things on my agenda and none of them involve you."

James ignored her, and moved around the table, standing in front of her. "You could do with a Cheering Charm. I could do the honors."

"I said go away! And by the way, you've got ink on your rear end now, did you know?"

James smirked. "Oh, so you were looking at my—"

"Get out! Go torture some first years or whatever it is you do. Just go!"

"Silly girl. You don't know what you're talking about," he said, and he kissed her. As she struggled, he held her head tighter until she finally threw him off.

"GET OFF ME, YOU DISGUSTING PIECE OF SCUM!" She punched him several times and threw a lamp at him before remembering her wand. "Petrificus Totalus!"

She kicked him as he lay immobilized, until Remus Lupin, who had run over upon hearing her yell, pushed her back and dragged James to the Boys' Dormitory.

Fuming, she sat down at the table where she resumed writing with one hand and trying to find a station on a Muggle radio with the other.

"Allow me," said a voice behind her, and a hand replaced hers on the knob. She looked questioningly at Remus as she picked up the quill that she had once again dropped.

"Don't worry," he said, "I performed the countercurse."

"Trust me," said Lily, looking away. "I wasn't worrying."

Remus chuckled, and a moment later, found a radio station on which soft, French music was playing. Lily couldn't understand a word of it, but it was music. For a second she wondered if he had somehow done it by magic, as she remembered that such things as radios didn't work at Hogwarts. She returned to the essay.

There were a few moments of surprisingly awkward silence, so Lily breathed, "Reparo" at the lamp she had thrown at James.

"I'll be back," said Remus, and he went through the portrait hole.

Lily was on the last essay, but it didn't help her stress level at all. A moment later her cup of hot tea spilled, burning her leg and then dripping to the floor. She gasped and took a scrap of parchment to wipe up the mess, not remembering any spell to mop up liquid. As she put the scraps back on the corner of the table, she realized they hadn't been scraps at all; they were letters from home. That's just my luck, she thought bitterly. Nothing had gone right all evening. She was on the brink of tears when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

"Thought you might like this," said Remus as he placed a single perfect-looking cupcake on the table, directly on her essay, as if to say that she needed a break. It was the oddest of gifts, but Lily, in the state she was in, found it unspeakably significant.

"Remus...thank you..." she turned and looked at him, wondering what else to say.

"No problem," he said, beaming. "I found it in the...I mean, I found it...you know, around."

Lily found herself giggling, knowing that the word he had been about to say was "kitchens". She was both appalled and flattered that he had broken rules just because she was having a bad day.

"You amaze me, Lily Evans. All those NEWT classes? And you're the star of all of them! How do you do it?"

She knew that he was just trying to make her feel better, (since he was taking most of the same classes she was), but she put her quill down anyway, and hugged him, saying, "I get by with a cupcake and a friend."