A/N: Okay so right away I'm going to give a heads up about the M rating. This will have cursing, unpleasant situations, and very pleasant situations. This, of course, is my hopeful attempt at a Marauder-era story. While the main focus of this is the epic lovers collectively know as Jily, I'll be recharacterizing the old, introducing the new, and developing the unimportant.

Disclaimer: I wish I could've written something as well as the books this is based off written by JKR.

Chapter One - Glimpses

or

Human Nature

There are things in life that make you smile. Maybe you've just had a fantastic day, maybe your favorite song played on the radio, or maybe it was something as simple and arbritary as having a stranger give you a small smile.

While these small things can affect your mood tremendously well, the same goes for the unfortunate events that may grasp at you. Maybe you tripped going up the stairs, had to sit alone while your two friends paired up, maybe you forgot you had a test, or maybe you caught a stranger glaring at you.

Either way, these small things no one recollects later in life can shape your nature, just a bit. And if the same thing happens again and again, it builds up.

Maybe Lily's constant rejections were what changed James teasingly, belligerent nature. Maybe the changing world had a hand in it or maybe the prejudice and unfairness of everything finally got to him. Maybe he realized he didn't want to be looked at the way the second years he hexed looked at him.

It could've been any of that. But one thing was certain, by the end of seventh year James had become very different from the boy he was at beginning of his first year at Hogwarts.

I would be lying, of course, if it wasn't outright stated that Lily may have changed a wee bit as well.

Of Hearts, Of Minds

Severus Snape was not truly in love. No, he just had a frightening and unhealthy obsession.

Sirius Black had never allowed himself to feel more than the occasional fancy for many different birds.

Remus Lupin felt hesitant at the idea of receiving or giving such strong feelings and the secrets that would have to be revealed if he commited to such a thing.

Peter Pettigrew believed in love, but didn't care enough about it and the people he loved, as would be proven in a few years time.

Frank Longbottom thought he just wanted to be mates, then best mates, then even closer, so although it was a bit of a shocker to him when he finall realized what he wanted, everyone else had seen it all along.

Marlene McKinnon thought she was in love, as many teenagers do, and she was deeply so. So much, that she brushed off or just didn't notice the red flags and the unhealthiness surrounding her partner.

Mary MacDonald had her fair share of the lot, but she knew that she couldn't last forever bouncing from boy to boy. She also knew she couldn't afford the chance of a repeat of her first and only disastrous long term relationship.

Dorcas Meadowes found the idea of falling love and love at first sight perpostrous. She fancied some quite a bit, but love? No, not yet at least.

Alice Prewett was satisfied with where she was at but was nervous to get more serious as she had always felt a small nagging in the back of her mind about her boyfriend...

Lily Evans fell slowly, over the course of such as many events and years. Lily was also in such a desperate state of denial, that by the time the realization struck her, it may have been too late.

James Potter knew without a doubt he was head over heels, yet he somehow owned it and made the target of his affections feel the embrassment that he rarely showed.

Nothing lasts forever, and these students views of love are not exempt from that statement.

All of these teenagers paths would intertwine and connect over the next two years, their last two, at Hogwarts, but we will not be starting this story there. Not yet.

No, we'll start this story where it all began for our main couple.

We'll start where Lily's carefully built friendships crumbled and where James actions began to have serious consequences.

We'll start when the first big moments in the students at Hogwarts lives began, and where the outside world grew more and more twisted at the whispers of an impending war.

We'll start in 5th year, 1975.

A/N: Here is the prologue for my cliche Jily fanfic. Hopefully I'll have the first chapter up in the next week, but as I'm planning on making them a bit long there may be some of a lag.

Reviews are typing up and publishing this prologue in less than two hours.

-Callie