A/N: Hello! So, this is my first ever James/Lily fanfiction. I posted an extract of this story on my tumblr , and all my followers seemed too really like it! So, I decided to start posting a whole story version. The introduction is completely from Lily's point of view, but the rest will be in third person, except perhaps if I want Lily, who's telling the story, to speak from her point of view. So, that's about it. Oh, I don't own Harry Potter. JK Rowling does. That's obviously not me. Well... Enjoy the story!

Note: Thank you SO much to my amazing beta reader ( and she's a rather amazing person if you ask me) faithless98! She has given me so many tips for this story, so you should all go check out her story ' The Missing 19 Years '.

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If you had asked me, six months ago, how I thought my seventh year at Hogwarts would go, then I would probably have been able to give you a rather detailed outline of my year. Well, I suppose it's more like a set of rules than a wish list, but the point remains.

1. Carry out my Head Girl duties with the upmost respect and authority, just as the post requires and deserves.

2. Pass all my N.E.W.T.s (preferably with all of them Outstanding, probably not, but one can dream!)

3. Have some REAL fun this year, and let Marlene and Alice help me relax slightly (But not too much relaxing and fun… maybe we'll review this one. Oh bugger it. Never mind.)

If you had even bothered asking me about where James Potter and the marauders would come into my year, I would have laughed.

Really laughed, and told you this.

4. Rule number four, probably the most important rule there is: I will not let James Potter, or his little band of friends, affect me in any way this year.

None at all.

I'll stay away, and get on with my life. And it will all be absolutely fine.

Funny isn't it, the concept of plans? If there's one thing I've learnt this year, it's how very little control we actually have over our lives.

My hopes for that particular plan unfolding effortlessly were crushed the moment I stepped onto the Hogwarts Express, to start my final year of school.

And now, if you walked past me, six months since you'd asked me about how my seventh year would go, you might be surprised to see me sitting alone.

In a corridor.

Crying.

You might stop and ask me what's wrong.

Where it all went wrong.

And I've come to the conclusion that there's no way I can answer than in just a few sentences.

So, you better take a seat, metaphorical person, and listen up. We'll need to go right back to the beginning, all the way back to the first day of term. The day when James Potter came into my life, and refused to leave. And now he's not going to leave. Partly because I don't want him too anymore.

September 1st, 1978.

"LILY EVANS! GET YOUR HEAD GIRL BUTT OVER HERE NOW!"

Lily spun around, her eyebrows raised at the person shouting at her.

"No need to shout, Alice!" She teased, sticking her tongue out.

Alice Prewett simply shook her head, strands of blonde hair flying wildly around her face as she did so.

Lily let out another laugh, and ran towards her best friend, throwing her arms around her.

"It's been so long!" Lily squealed into Alice's shoulder.

Alice giggled in response. "It's been a week, Lil."

"So?" She exclaimed, pulling back and studying her friend at arm's length.

Alice shrugged. "Good point." She said before hugging her again, laughing.

"Oi, ladies! Where's my hug?" Lily and Alice broke apart, and scanned the platform for the owner of that familiar voice. Quickly finding it, the two girls sprinted towards their friend.

"Marlene!" Alice exclaimed, enveloping the dark haired girl in a hug.

Marlene McKinnon winked a grey eye at Lily.

"Hello there, Head girl." She smiled.

"Hello there." Lily grinned back as she moved past Alice to hug her friend.

A great deal of excitable squeaking later, the girls, still exchanging pleasantries, headed towards the train.

"Morocco was amazing, girls. We all need to go once we're finished with school. It's definitely getting added to the world trip list." Marlene said decisively, leaning her head back to examine the sky.

Lily and Alice exchanged a meaningful look. It was the same every summer. Marlene would jet off somewhere exotic, and then, when they were back at school, she would add it to her ' Lil, Al, and Marlene's World Tour ' list. The list was very, very long now, after seven years of the same routine.

"The food there was brilliant too." She said dreamily, smacking her lips together. "So were the locals, if you know what I mean." She smirked, waggling her eyebrows suggestively at the pair.

Lily and Alice rolled their eyes and laughed, as they turned the corner of the station. Seeing the Hogwarts Express again, Lily found she couldn't help the grin that took over her face. Every time she saw it, was like the first time. She loved the train so much. It was her transport, her very first solid bit of proof, her first connection to a new, amazing, brilliant world, a world that was all hers.

The three girls continued to chat as they boarded the train, sliding into the nearest empty compartment. They all flopped down on the seats, trying to get comfortable as Marlene continued to talk about Morocco. "They had the best markets too." She commented, as she whipped out a compact mirror and a lip gloss from her bag. "Dead cultural, you know?" She applied her lip gloss as she spoke, which muffled her voice. "So, enough about my summer. How was your summer, guys?" Marlene smiled as she asked, still inspecting her make up in the mirror.

Alice sighed slightly. "Wales was alright. Quite wet. And gloomy. So no marks for the weather." She pursed her lips as she ran her hand through her blonde hair. "It was peaceful though. Good for walking, and just taking a break. No hustle and bustle. Mum and Dad loved it." She said. "I mainly hung around with Fabian and Gideon though."

Marlene's eyes lit up as she snapped the mirror shut. "Those two are hilarious. They had to brighten up the trip, right?" Marlene offered.

Alice grinned and nodded. "Yup. They were fun. It was great. Especially as I haven't seen much of them since they left for this job." Alice said softly.

Lily brought her legs up so she was sitting on top of them on the seat. "How is that job going, anyway?" The red head asked slightly cautiously.

Alice sighed, and tilted her head. " Good. Great, apparently. They can't talk much about the order, for obvious reasons, but they said that they were doing great things. Productive things." Alice said, before looking down at the floor.

Seeing the familiar look of fear that flashed in Alice's eyes at the mention of her brothers, Lily reached over and gave her a sympathetic squeeze on the arm. Both Marlene and Lily knew how much Alice fretted over her older, twin brothers. She tried not to show it, but it was only natural to worry about them. There was a war going on, for Merlin's sake and Fabian and Gideon were as involved with fighting against it as it was possible to be.

After a little silence, Alice looked back up again, and forced herself to smile at Lily. "How about you Lils? An eventful summer?"

Lily gave a snort of derision and lay back in her chair. "Hardly. Mainly tried to stay out of Mr and Mrs Dursley's way." She pulled a disgusted face at the mere thought.

Just before Christmas, while Lily was still at school, Petunia and Vernon had tied the knot. Lily had not been invited. Not that she'd expected or wanted to be.

Marlene shook her head sympathetically at her friend. "I mainly spent the summer with Mum." She said gently, not making eye contact with either of them.

"How… how is your mum?" Marlene asked, quietly.

The half-smile on Lily's face disappeared. "Oh. She's..." Lily sighed, "She's not doing very well, really. They think...they think the cancer might have spread more." Lily took a deep breath to calm herself.

Late last year, her Mum, her beautiful, smiling, strong mother, had gone to the doctors for a regular check-up, nothing out of the ordinary. She had come back with the devastating news that she had breast cancer. Lily had cried for hours when her Mum had owled her, telling her the news. 'Nothing to worry about dear, really!' She'd wrote. Lily hadn't believed her, and she was right not to. Looks of concern appeared on her friends faces.

"Oh Lil! I'm so sorry." Alice exclaimed, patting the red head comfortingly on the knee.

"Me too, Lily. That's awful." Marlene added.

Lily gave them both a grateful look. "Yeah...everything that can be done has been done, there's nothing that anyone can do now. We just need to... make her comfortable, I suppose." She smiled sadly.

A melancholy silence engulfed the carriage once more broken only seconds later by Lily's sudden jump from her seat and cry of, "Crap! I need to go. Prefect briefing in five minutes!" All sadness left as quickly as it had entered and Alice and Marlene chuckled as they watched Lily flap around the carriage, flustered.

Go get 'em, Head girl." Marlene joked, playfully punching her in the arm.

Alice giggled. "Who do you think head boy will be?" The blonde asked excitedly.

Lily paused to think this over and shrugged. "Diggory most likely. He was prefect last year. Or maybe Remus."

The girls nodded in agreement, although Marlene raised an eyebrow. "A Marauder? Unlikely. Unless Dumbledore's completely lost it!"

Lily laughed. "Remus is the only one I can stand, really. And maybe Peter and Black. Don't even get me started on Potter." She grumbled.

Alice and Marlene exchanged an annoyingly knowing look and Lily furrowed her eyebrows at them. "What?" She asked innocently.

Marlene smirked. "You do like Potter a bit though, don't you?"

Lily groaned. Ever since before the holidays, when Lily may have let slip that she found Potter the teeniest, tiniest, bit attractive, the girls hadn't let her live it down.

Alice and Marlene burst into giggles. Lily shot them an aggravated look and gave them a wave. "See you later, girls!" She exited the compartment, closing the door behind her.

Lily began to walk to the prefect's compartment and as she mulled things over in her head, she sighed once again. She really hoped this year would be good. She needed a break. She'd spent nearly her whole summer looking after her Mum, and it really hurt Lily to see her mum look so frail and broken… but her mum put a smile on her face, regardless.

Lily admired that about her mum.

A lot.

When Lily reached the compartment door, she slid it open and stepped inside, only to have her vision filled with a tall, skinny figure. She looked up.

"Potter."

As she observed him she decided there was no way you could blame her for finding him attractive. He just had this whole… thing going on. Secretly, she found his messy hair a little bit endearing; she liked his hazel eyes, how they always seemed happy, and his body...

Well. He does play Quidditch, doesn't he? She thought to herself.

Whatever her opinions on his body, hair or eyes may have been it didn't change the fact that Lily still thought he was an arrogant, rude little toe rag.

"What the hell are you doing here?" She said, exasperatedly.

James Potter smiled down at her, catching Lily off guard.

He's smiling? Where's the smirk? She thought, suspiciously.

"Lily! You're looking well!" He grinned.

Lily scrunched her nose up.

"Potter… I see you didn't break a limb during break."

James laughed.

A real laugh, not a patronising one.

What in Godric's name is going on here?

"You see correctly, Evans." He smiled.

The red head put a hand on her hip. "You still haven't answered me. What are you doing here?"

James gave a bewildered smile. "You really don't know?"

Lily felt her mouth go dry. "Know what...?" She asked, her voice slightly higher than normal in her panic.

James adjusted his robes, and as he did so, a glinting, metal object caught her eye.

Good god.

No.

No.

NO!

Because sitting there, right on the left side of his robes was a badge.

The engraved swirling writing upon it read two words: Head Boy