Late spring, June of 1977, the graduating class of Hogwarts was leaving for the last time tomorrow. Some were eager, but there were others, take the marauders for example, that never wanted this chapter in their life to end, because they knew they after this day, they needed to grow up and start a life, that they would no longer live together, and pull pranks on the unsuspecting Slytherins, because in life, they no longer lived by those labels, but by their occupation. Auror, Healer, and for some that chose the dark path, Death Eater.

One of the Marauders sat in his favorite arm chair by the fire in Gryffindor Common room, perhaps for the last time, waiting for the love of his life, under the current status of girlfriend, to meet him for a walk. Every now and then he would realize what he was about to do, and his heart would painfully protest this change that could turn bad.

You see, James Potter was determined to change his girlfriend's status of, well, girlfriend. He hadn't even told his best friends yet, which was what made him so indecisive. Based on the reactions of Moony, Wormtail, and most importantly (and usually humorously) Padfoot, he would know if he was doing the right thing for sure or not. Because that's how they worked.

He felt two small hands rest softly on his shoulders, and he looked up at the smiling face of Lily Evans. As usual, she had a profound influence at him. Sweaty palms fast heart rate, the feeling that he might faint of ecstasy, the works.

"Where are you James?" she asked, and he realized she must have been observing him for a while, when he was zoned out.

James Potter stood, stretched and yawned, before answering her. "My happy place."

"Really?" The beautiful red head asked, as she took his hand and they started for the portrait hole. "You looked troubled." Her eyes were searching his, and he looked over at some second years tossing a fanged Frisbee.

"Hand it over," James said, taking on his 'Head Boy voice' as Sirius refers to it, and walking toward them.

"Aw, come on James, it's the last night before we leave!" One boy named Stephen, whom he had once tutored, complained, "Cant we have some fun?"

As Head Boy, and boyfriend to the biggest rule-follower there is, he knew he should take it, but instead he pursed his lips, and moved aside a tapestry, revealing a door that blended in with the wall, one the marauders had found a week into school, and was quite handy for everything from dueling to intense snogging sessions. "At least avoid doing it where a teacher, of McGonagall, could find you."

After the boys expressed their awe at a hidden room, and their thanks, they ran into the room, closing the door behind them.

"What?" James asked innocently. "Don't give me that look." Lily had an arched eyebrow and a scolding look on her face, but there was a hint of a smile. She just shook her head.

For the next ten minutes, making their way onto the school grounds, they talked about their career goals, Lily explained that she was going to stay in her parent's house for a couple weeks, until she could find an apartment close to the Ministry of Magic. And with each step, the small package in James' cloak pocket felt heavier and heaver.

Slowly and discreetly, he turned the conversation to them. When they would have dinner together and he even jokingly suggested sleepovers. That had earned him a shove, a small giggle, but a long, awkward silence none-the-less.

He took a deep breath, and pulled her to a stop beside him. "Lily, I don't know what I'd do without you in my life. Once we leave here, it'll be so hard just to miss you for days at a time, especially when I'm used to this," he tightened his grip on her hands for a second, "every day. I know I've been saying it from day one, and maybe on day one I didn't mean it like I do now, but every day since, it's become more and more clear to me that we were meant to be together. Lily--"

Lily gave him a small questioning look as he took her other hand so that he was holding both, but then her expression froze, eyes widening only slightly, as he got on one knee.

Either his throat was swelling, or his heart was trying to regurgitate itself, but for a second he couldn't speak, and then it all fell out, maybe a little too fast, but with enough emotion to show that he was sincere. "I love you, with all my heart. I promise to love you every day for the rest of our lives. Would you do me the honor, of being my wife?"

He let go of one of her hands so that he could fumble for the little black box that was in the pocket opposite of the one he uses for his wand, and he opened it to reveal a diamond ring.

When he mustered up the guts to look her in the face, he saw that she was crying and covering her mouth with her free hand, her eyes squeezed shut, and she was shaking ever so slightly.

Suddenly he got that feeling, gut instinct you could call it, that it wasn't an emotion filled 'I'm-crying-my-eyes-out-but-yes-I'll-marry-you," kind of cry.

After a minute, when his knee was damp from resting on the ground, and his arm had slacked in showing off the ring, when she had gained only enough control of herself, did she answer him.

"I-I'm so s-s-sorry J-James." Her voice stuttered, along with his breaking heart, "I c-cant. I'm not-we're not-you-I" she carried off incoherently, as he slowly stood up, the ring falling from his limp hand, little velvet box and all.

And he feared, that as she had only six months earlier, that she was infatuated with someone else. That someone was a no good, greasly little--

.:January of 1977:.

James looked up from his conversation with Moony to a hand from his left hitting his shoulder.

What the bloody hell has you hitting me Pads?" James asked his best mate, looking at Sirius bouncing around like a mad man.

"Remember when you told me that you think Evans might be warming up to you?" the bouncing man asked excitedly.

James answered slowly, the topic random and surprising, as they had talked about this two weeks prior. "Yes….why?"

"Because, I dare you to ask Evans right…..now!" and James looked up to see the familiar red-head marching toward him, Head Girl badge gleaming in the sunlight from the nearest window. "No take-backsies!" Sirius said, snickering.

James sighed. Yep, this was exactly what he needed, to get on her bad side once more, after they had been doing so well. She had even started calling him James. Damn Sirius. Damn him to the fiery pits of Voldemort's house.

"Hey Evans!" James cried, catching her attention. Instead of snapping at him to go do something vulgar, as had been customary all six years previous to this one, she merely sighed and said, "Yes James?"

Ah, he would never get over the way she said his name, and how it made him feel. "I was wondering, if maybe you would go on the next Hogsmede trip with me? As—"

"No Potter." And there went their teetering relationship, spiraling back down into the unfair black hole that was all teenage relationships.

"Why no-ot?" he whined. And here was James Potter, back to making a fool of himself in front of the love of his life.

She looked slightly hysterical, and now that he thought about it, she did look troubled when she was walking before. Nice timing Padfoot. "Because!" she snapped. "I like someone else!"

"Who?" James and Sirius both asked at the same time. He had forgotten his friends presence, and wanted to die. He hated to be rejected yes, but it stung even worse when he had an audience. Well, at least there wasn't any name calling going on….yet.

"Snape."

The word hung in the air for a moment, until Sirius started to laugh. "Your joking Evans! Who would date a slime ball like Snivellus!?"

Quite suddenly, Sirius was on the floor, coughing up butterflies, and Lily had stalked off, clutching her books to her chest with her head down. She was close enough that James heard a sniffle, but that was it.

"Smooth guys." Moony said, as he helped Sirius up.

If that was shocking enough, and for the marauders, there was nothing more shocking then a Gryffindor and a Slytherin in potential dating status, it actually happened the next day.

The story was all over the school, and James felt himself lost somewhere between murderous rage and a defeated depression. Lily had apparently went to Snape immediately fallowing James asking her out again, and confessed her feelings, fallowing in a—*gag/sob*-- snogging session.

So not only was James forced to watch a Slytherin and a Gryffindor flirt obnoxiously, in a way that no one knew Lily Evans was capable of, but it was his Soul Mate and his Enemy. Surely someone upstairs was having himself a good laugh.

Weeks passed, and James grew constantly more hopeful, yet worried. It all started when it began to be very obvious that Lily was either scared of, or not wanting her current relationship. She walked around with a small frown, or when she's in the company of her *dies* boyfriend, a forced smile.

Then one day, when Lily reached for her quill in the middle of Transfiguration, James noticed (of course he wasn't staring at her!) an angry purple bruise on her arm, the size and shape of your average thumb. At the time, it could have been written off as an accident, but then one appeared on her jaw line, her wrist, and maybe other places that clothing didn't reveal.

The Marauders watched the young Miss. Evans closely the days fallowing the announcement of James' observations. And yes, now he was stalking her, but it was for good reason. Had he not fallowed her to the library one Friday after classes, who knows what would have happened?

He was in the next row over from Lily when Snape walked in, looking furious. He heard a soft and timid "what's the matter love?" And then the Hideous git opened his mouth in a rush of insults.

"You little whore!" And that's all James really registered before he was around the corner. He froze, the sight before him replacing the air in his lungs with lead. Lily was lying on the ground, and angry bleeding wound on her temple, her gorgeous hair stained with it, her lip swelling rapidly, and an old bruise revealed on her collar bone.

The library had come to a ghostly silence, and Snape was just turning to face the crowd that had accumulated, James Potter standing in front, an all consuming rage coming over him as he pulled his arm back and let it snap forward. He hadn't been aiming, and his fist connected with the Son-of-a-Bitch's throat.

Snape made a gurgling noise of pain and sank to his knees. James kicked him in the gut before stepping over him and bending over Lily. With shaking hands, he checked her pulse, a little uneven, but still strong. He cupped her cheek just as her eyes opened.

"James?" she whispered, her eyelids were flickering like it was a struggle to keep them open, and she raised a hand to her head and gasped in pain a little.

"Careful Lils." James said quietly, using the name her friends called her by. Endearing and fitting for her. "I'm going to get you to the hospital wing."

Her hand dropped, now covered in her own blood, to the floor, and he, as gently as he could, slipped his arms under her to pick her up. Without acknowledging the crowd that parted silently for him, he went strait up to the Hospital Wing, hoping he had managed to murder that sick, perverse little—

"Oh my!" Madam Pomfrey gasped as James set Lily down softly on the closest cot. Trying his hardest not to cuss and kick things, he explained what happened, and was promptly kicked out after Poppy drew the curtains around Lily's bed.

So James wandered back to the opposite side of the floor to the common room, not knowing what else to do.

"Mandragora." He said lamely to the fat lady, all rage drained out of him after about five steps, along with any other emotion. He couldn't feel anything, except perhaps worry about Lily.

Someone smacked him playfully on the back of the head, three guesses who, and cried "Where ya been Prongs?"

But before he could even try to answer, the sharp, ringing voice sounded throughout the common room, causing the second room wide silences he experienced that day. "James Potter?" He looked over to the entrance to see who else but McGonagall looking right at him. "Come with me."

"I didn't do it!" Sirius said rather obnoxiously, earning him a deathly glare from James that communicated this was serious, and Sirius immediately sobered up. "I mean, don't be too hard on him,"

James sighed and fallowed the teacher out and silently the pair walked to her office, frequented many times by various combinations of the marauders. She pointed at a seat on the opposite side of her desk as she took hers, and once he had sat, she said, "Explain why I have two students suffering not from magical wounds, but wounds from plain old muggle dueling?"

James put his head in his hands for a minute, then started. "I was studying when I heard Snape screaming insults at Lily. I stood up to investigate and by the time I got there, Lily was o-on the g-ground." He took a steadying breath. "He beat her, so I beat him back for her. It was self defense," he said, "I didn't know if he was going to hit me, and quite frankly I just wanted to help Lily, and I didn't need his-his—" He cut off in anger.

McGonagall's face was white and grave. "How long has this been going on?" she asked.

"Pardon?"

"How long has been…abusing Miss. Evans?" she asked reluctantly, like it was bad to even speak of it.

"I noticed a few days ago…Professor." He said, hating it. "I should have reported my suspicions, but I wanted to be able to prove it I guess."

McGonagall was quiet for a few minutes, writing what he thought was a detention slip or worse, but then she looked up. "You may go Mr. Potter. But let us teachers deal with Mr Snape for now on. I believe Miss Evans is awake and asking for you."

:.:.:.:

"Thank you."

Those were the first words that she got out upon James' arrival before she started to cry. He didn't care at that point if she pushed him away, hexed him, or swore to cut off his genitalia with a spoon, he wanted to make her feel better, so he kneeled next to her bed and hugged her.

Many different sensations ran through him as she wildly wrapped her arms around him and sobbed in his shoulder. All the ones that mattered, like love, and surprise, and just pure joy in holding her in his arms for the first time. But with them came hate for Severus Snape, for putting her through such profound trauma that she didn't care who she sought comfort from. She had always swore up and down that the day she touched James in any sort of intimate way would be the day Hell froze over, melted, and froze again. And the best this year had done for that promise to herself was that maybe hell would have just frozen over, no melting.

Still, he held her until her crying turned to just sniffles, and her hold on him slackened, and then, to his regret, left all together.

He leaned back to observe her, and she was looking at something over his shoulder, he thought, until she said in a small, squeaky voice, "Oh, I've ruined your shirt."

He looked down at his left shoulder to see it was soaked with various bodily fluids. He merely shrugged. "I guess it's a good thing I own more then one shirt then." which earned him a shaky laugh and a less-then-half-hearted smile.

They were quiet for a few minutes.

"Why?" she asked quietly.

"Why what?"

"Why did you defend me like that? Anyone else would have been scared to step in, and would have just waited for a teacher to help." She had a depressing shrunken look to her, that made him start to reach for her hand, then he thought better of it, and Lily watched as he drew his hand back.

He chose his words carefully, knowing she was already in a fragile state. "Well, maybe it's just the Gryffindor in me?" it was pathetic, and be couldn't make himself meet her eyes. "Okay, so you've known for years now, that I feel more for you then I have for anyone. At least, you know that's what I claim, and it's true, weather you believe it or not."

She was quiet for a few minutes, her bottom lip trembling, but she bit it to stop the vibrations while she closed her eyes.

Taking a deep breath to work up the courage, he reached out and took her hand. She didn't return the gesture, except for a small twitch that oriented their fingers in a slightly more comfortable position. It was encouraging to her that she didn't take her hand back.

After what felt like an eternity, her head rolled to her left so that it was facing James, and he could now see that she was asleep. He brought her hand up to his face slowly and kissed her fingers, before placing her arm next to her and standing to leave.