Lily was sitting at her desk listening to her Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, professor Millet, explain the mechanics behind producing patronuses.

"Happy memories are essential in this spell. You won't get anything without it and only very little if it is a weak memory," he said as the class scratched noted into their books, "if you have a somewhat stronger and happier memory, you may produce an amount of silvery mist. This will help against a dementor, perhaps two if it is especially large, but it will not drive them away. A corporeal patronus is achieved when one focuses on one of the happiest moment of their life. If that memory is allowed to consume you, your patronus will take the shape of an animal, such as a lion, a cat, a goat, something that represents your spirit. Each patronus is unique to the witch or wizard who casts it, though some people may have similar ones. These are rare and the producers are said to be soul mates of sorts."

Lily finished copying what Millet had said before looking up. He described the wand movements and the incantation, expecto patronum. He also said that it would be unlikely that many people would produce much more than mist and to not be disheartened if that was the case.

He clapped his hands together and said loudly "very well then! Let's get to work!"

The chairs scraped as students put away their things and, with a wave of his wand, Millet sent the desks to the edges of the room, leaving a wide area for the class to practice.

"OK, OK" Lily said to herself, "you can do this."

She thought of all her memories, of playing with Petunia as a child. Learning of Hogwarts from Severus. Seeing Hogwarts for the first time. She gave each memory a try but all she ended up with was mist. Looking around, she was relived to notice that everyone was at a similar stage to her. She did not, however, miss the fact that Potter and Back were making no attempt at the spell. The professor seemed to have noticed as well as he made his way over to the group.

"How are you boys going?" He asked.

"Fine sir," Sirius answered with a shrug, leaning casually against a table.

"I noticed you haven't done anything and so I can only assume you have perfected it already?" The professor raised his eyebrows, telling the boys that they had better be able to do just that.

"Of course," Sirius replied, and with a casual flick of his wand, a large dog erupted out of his wand.

The class was awestruck as the dog bounded around the room, nipping at ankles and running under legs. After a few moments, the dog disappeared and professor millet took a few seconds to compose himself before turning to Potter.

"What about you?" He asked, almost warily.

"Very well," Potter straightened himself up, waved his wand and said "expecto patronum."

Immediately, a magnificent stag leaped from the tip of Potter's wand and pranced around.

A second later, another bright shape appeared, but from the other side of the room.

Lily and the other students turned around just in time to see an elegant doe appear out of the end of Snape's wand. Silence fell over the classroom. Looking back at the marauders, Lily saw that Potter's eyes were wide as saucers. Black looked shocked as well, but a smirk was quickly growing on his face. She remembered what millet had said about matching patronuses.

Lily smirked.

"Professor?" She called, "isn't it only people truly meant to be who can produce matching patronuses?"

With that, Black burst into laughter, gripping the table and Potter for support. Potter shoved Black's hand off and gave him a deadly glare, which did nothing to stop his friend's laughter. Lily saw Remus next to the pair and noticed he seemed to be struggling to contain his laughter as well as Pettigrew.

In the middle of the classroom, the stag and doe disappeared.