A/N : This is my first fanfic and I'm very excited to share it. I had a lot of fun writing it and hope you enjoy reading it just as much. If i get a good response, I'll immediately update the next chapter. It is already written and waiting to be published. As is most of the story. I love James and Lily and hope I did justice to their fantastic characters.

Disclaimer - I do not own Harry Potter. But I love it very very very very very much.

Lily Evans was all alone in her dormitory. Unless you count her friend Mary Macdonald who was sleeping off a headache. Her friends Vera Adams and Alice Stewart were both Merlin knows where with their boyfriends. She was reading her charms book. Even though she already knew everything in that book, she didn't want to take chances during her seventh year. She didn't even have patrol that day. Being Head Girl, she had to patrol only on weekends and Mondays. Too bad, she thought, James would have lifted by boredom within minutes.

Lily smiled at the thought of the Head Boy, James Potter. She still remembered the time when she couldn't stand the sight of him. How she detested his arrogance and his constant attempts to ask her out. By the end of fifth year, she couldn't stay in the same room without exploding. But something changed in the middle of their sixth year. James was just a little more mature, a little less of an arrogant toe-rag. The frequency of offers to date her reduced. They became closer and closer and they parted for summer at the end of sixth year as very good friends.

When she walked in to prefect's compartment on September 1st, wearing her Head Girl badge proudly, she was surprised to find James as the Head Boy. But she didn't doubt his qualities as much as she would have even a year back. Taking both of them by surprise, she congratulated him and they carried on with their duties without word about Dumbledore's obvious mistake. Their friendship strengthened as they spent more and more time together and now James was one of the most important people in her life. As were the rest of the Marauders.

James hadn't completely matured of course. How could he with Sirius Black as his best friend? Hogwarts wouldn't be the same without occasional pranks by the Marauders. James still got into detention. But these things never bothered Lily anymore. Even his habit of running his hand through his hair was now endearing. James was still a kid most of the times but when it really mattered, he could step up and be mature toe-rag ( as opposed to an immature toe-rag)

Lily was pulled back to reality when Mary suddenly called out "Unicorns!" and promptly went back to sleep. Chuckling softly, Lily gave up on re-reading her book and decided to find solace for her boredom in the Marauders's dormitory.

Lily walked up the stairs to the boys' dormitories and stopped outside the Marauders' dorm. She wasn't surprised to hear the loud noises coming through the doors. She knocked twice and waited a few seconds before opening the door and entering without invitation. She closed the door behind her.

Three out of the four Marauders were sitting on one of the beds playing exploding snap and laughing. They looked up when they heard the door close and, seeing that it was Lily, smiled widely at her.

"Flower!" Sirius exclaimed, coming to greet her with a tight hug, "What brings you here at this hour? Looking for James?" he asked, eyebrows wiggling and a smirk on is face.

Lily laughed. "I was actually looking for you. You know my heart belongs only to you."

Grinning, Sirius led her towards the bed where Remus and Peter were sitting.

"Hello Remus. Hi Peter."

"Hello Lily." they chorused.

"I hope I'm not interrupting. All my friends decided that today should be spent only with their boyfriends and not with their best friends."

"What about Mary? Last I checked, she didn't have a boyfriend." said Remus.

"Oh she has a slight headache. She went to the hospital wing for some medicine and went to bed early."

"Is she alright?" Remus looked worried.

"Yes Remus, she is fine" Lily said, smiling to herself at his concern for her friend.

"Where's James?" she asked.

"Detention." replied Sirius.

"Oh." she was disappointed. "How come you aren't with him?"

"McGonagall decided that we weren't learning our lessons by serving detentions together. I have mine tomorrow."

He looked so offended it was comical.

"If you ask me, she did the right thing. You guys were just using detentions to cook up more pranks." Remus said, smirking.

Sirius huffed. "No one asked your opinion Moony."

Remus rolled his eyes and turned to Lily.

"Join us for exploding snap. We'll stack the deck again."

Lily nodded and went to sit next to him on the bed. Playing with the Marauders and laughing at all their silly jokes, Lily didn't notice time fly by. They were more intent of talking nonsense than actually playing. She was practically rolling on the bed with laughter. In the middle of a conversation about wizard singers, out of the blue, Sirius decided that he must starting singing immediately. And he started belting out the lyrics of Celestina Warbeck's "You charmed the heart right out of me" at the top of his voice. And the fact that he was terribly off-tune didn't help the others control their laughter.

"Oh, my poor heart, where has it gone?" he sang.

"It's left me for a spell." Remus suddenly joined in.

"And now you've torn it quite apart!" All of them were singing now.

"I'll thank you to give me back my heart!" they finished in a high lingering note and immediately dissolved into fits of laughter. It took a long time for all of them to get a grip on themselves. When Lily finally took a deep breath and was sure that she wasn't going to start laughing all over again, she glanced at her watch and was surprised to note that it was already nine.

"Shouldn't James be back by now?" she asked, looking at Sirius.

Sirius looked at his watch too. "Yeah, he should have been back ages ago actually. Hold on, let me check the Map." he said, referring to the Marauder's Map.

He took out a worn looking parchment and opened it. Pointing his wand at it, he muttered "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good." Immediately, black lines appeared on the parchment, twisting and turning like little snakes till the entire map of Hogwarts stared back at them with thousands of tiny dots that showed where each and everyone was. Sirius started to scan the map to find the dot of his best friend.

"Aha!" he said, several seconds later, his finger on a particular section of the map. "He's in the library."

"What's he doing in the library?" Lily asked, peering at where he was pointing. Sure enough, James was sitting in the library. But he wasn't alone. A strange sensation settled in Lily's stomach, one she couldn't understand, when she saw a dot labeled "Olivia Smith" next to James.

Olivia Smith was one of the chasers of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. She was a seventh year and stayed in the dorm next to her own. Olivia had never liked Lily much and Lily was only happy to return the favor. Her friends got along with neither Olivia nor her friends.

Olivia was from an old pure-blood family. She was tall, taller than Lily, with straight blond hair and beautiful violet eyes. She had soft features and was considered by almost everyone as one of the most beautiful girls in Hogwarts. But she was no dumb blond. Unlike the expectations of most people, she was very smart. She never got less than an E in all her assignments and rare As in transfiguration. She knew exactly how to make a guy fall for her. And she never did that by just batting her eyelashes and pouting her lips. She was charming and smart. But she didn't have too many people in the trail of broken-hearts she had left behind. She was incredibly picky about the boys she dated. It was common knowledge among girls that the one she really wanted to date was James. Which was why she hated Lily for having being the object of James' affection for so long.

"Well," she said, "looks like he is busy." Her voice was slightly squeaky and she couldn't understand why. Maybe she had a sore throat.

Remus and Sirius were frowning at the map. But sensing Lily's discomfort, they soon masked their expressions.

"Let's just continue to play. He sucks at this game anyway." Sirius said, smiling at Lily.

"We aren't even playing properly Sirius." Lily said, trying and failing to sound happy. All the joy in the air seemed to have disappeared in just minutes.

"That's alright. That's how we always play anyway." he said.

Lily nodded. Soon, the earlier atmosphere of childish abandon and glee returned though Lily's thoughts kept returning to the hazel eyed Marauder who was in the library with a girl who wasn't her. Her laughs shorter and smiles feeble. After about half-an-hour of not waiting for James to return (No, she wasn't waiting for him), she decided it was late enough to go back to her dorm.

"I better go. I'm sure the girls would be back by now."

The boys nodded and wished her goodnight.

"Good night guys." She smiled at them and walked to the door. She opened the door and was surprised to see James standing with his hand going up, as if to open the door.

He was surprised to see Lily there.

"Hi Lily." he said.

"Hi James," Lily replied. "I was just leaving. Good night."

She walked past him and down the stairs without waiting for a reply.

A/N : This is it. Hope it was a good start and you will continue to read the story. Please leave a review and tell me where I can improve the story. The next chapter should be up in a few days.