A/N Another present, this time for Valentine's day, it will be on Tumblr tomorrow. For Stacy (m0nstersandlipgloss), enjoy!

Reviews are having fanfiction to comfort you when you're alone.

Black and White
or
A Beginning

The photo is a simple one, black and white. It's taken at the first prefect meeting of the year, when an overly enthusiastic Hufflepuff fifth year, Ewan Jefferson, informs them that he wants a photo for his scrapbook of his time at Hogwarts.

In Lily's presence, and with his still fresh head status resting heavily on his shoulders, James keeps his amusement to a bare minimum. Still, he can't hold himself off completely, and he joins in the chuckles that follow. "Seriously, Jefferson?" He says over the jeers from the Slytherins, but when Lily shoots him a look, he adds quickly, "You really want a photo with Snape in it?"

Lily still looks disapproving, but laughter flashes through her eyes. James grins as a result, and lets her take over. "We'll take a photo at the end of the meeting," she tells the now evidently embarrassed prefect. She looks back up at the group, and James sees that leadership spark he loves. "Now, does anyone have any problems with who they're doing their rounds with?"

Stephanie Michaels hesitantly raises a hand. "I can't work with Davies," she mumbles, and James groans inwardly. The meeting's been built on silly questions with simple answers, and he's thoroughly tired.

"Why?" he asks wearily.

"I ... I just can't."

A few of the girls have begun to shift uncomfortably, and Moony looks at him significantly from the back of the room; warning signs James doesn't realise. He doesn't pay much attention to gossip, and what he does he doesn't remember. And right now, his attention is now focussed on counting down the seconds until he can get on a broom and forget all about these schedules, all these meetings, all these rules he now has to enforce instead of break.

"Merlin's sake Michaels, you have to have a good reason if you need a change in schedule, and you have to have it right now."

Stephanie looks as though she might cry, and she's some sort of a hero in James' mind for what she says next, in a voice that's somehow furious despite its slight tremble. "Because the bastard was my boyfriend theafternoon OWLs ended last year, but the night after the OWLs had ended I walked in on him having an end-of-exams shag with Connie Moore in an abandoned classroom on the third floor. The relationship ended."

There's a stunned silence, and James can't even look at Davies, though he's later informed that the bloke had turned colour of off-porridge in the space of a few seconds. A low whistle comes from the back of the room, and while Michaels resembles a pale tomato, she looks rather triumphant. James makes a mental note to tell Sirius, who'd been making his way through the 'advanced intelligence' of the Ravenclaws, to leave this bird alone.

"Er ... right then," Lily says, realising that James hasn't yet picked his jaw off the floor and isn't likely to be of any use. "Steph, you'll be with Grace. Davies, Snape. And erm, Ewan? Where's that camera?"

As the prefects roll their eyes and begin to form a group, James quickly pulls Lily aside. "Sorry for making the first meeting such a cock-up," he says, eyes scanning hers to make sure there's no blame there. "I'm still getting used to this."

Lily shakes her head, her eyes looking amused rather than angry. "Don't worry about it; they're all a bit bizarre. The heads in '74 were even more Quidditch mad than you. They decided they wanted us to be a real 'squad', and we spent the first term of meetings doing push ups and laps of the fourth floor."

James laughs, and he's about to reply when Jeffries grabs both their arms and drags them to opposite sides of the main desk; a cluster of student leaders having formed around it. Ewan begins to busy himself setting the timer on his camera, and the fact that most of the group are looking rather bored causes James to feel a flash of sympathy for the boy. A moment later Ewan has positioned himself in the front row, and in an attempt to coax some good nature into the photograph James calls, "Be careful not to let all your enthusiasm show, ladies and gents. People could easily be blinded by the strength of your current smiles."

There's some reluctant laughter, and most of them straighten up and attempt to look somewhat happy to be there. And James starts to wonder - because maybe he's doing a good job and maybe Dumbledore didn't make a mistake, because did he really just get Lily Evans to chuckle – whether he's going mad in thinking that this moment is somehow ... right.

As the flash goes off, Lily Evans catches James Potter's eye, and she gives him an approving nod.

"She's smiling at me."

"No, she's not."

"Yeah, she is! Look ... right there, you can see it, it's obvious."

"She's not."

"You're blind, Padfoot."

"James, I highly doubt she is."

At the sound of Remus' voice, James tears his gaze away from the photograph he's shoved in Sirius' face. Remus is looking at him wryly from the fireplace, his thumb marking his place in the book he's reading. Peter's in detention with Slughorn, it being his turn to take the fall for a prank, and Lily is mercifully tutoring a third year. James has no idea where, but he's grateful she isn't in the room. If she were, he wouldn't be able to analyse every detail of this photograph as he is now doing.

The photo is a simple one, black and white. It had been taken at the first prefect meeting of the year, just last week, when an overly enthusiastic Hufflepuff fifth year, Ewan Jefferson, had informed them that he kept a scrapbook of his time at Hogwarts. Ewan had proudly presented James with a copy the day before, which he'd carelessly tossed on the Head's common room table. Lily had picked it up and looked at it briefly that afternoon, glancing up at him wryly to comment that it was a lasting memory of a rather odd evening. Looking at it now, James wonders whether it was even odder than he realised at the time.

Because they're all there in it; the entire student executive, and Davies looks furious and Michaels satisfied and Ewan like a first year at the welcoming feast. Remus looks relaxed and his lips are quirked ever so slightly and Snape's glowering - James swears that you can see the grease in his hair. Most are smiling politely. And on either side of them all, the Head Boy and Girl are standing, looking at each other across the room; both with a kind of wondering half-smile on their face.

James knows why he's wondering, but he'd give anything to know Lily's reason.

"There's definitely something going on there." James is startled from his reflection by Remus' voice behind him. Now the three of them are all staring at the photo in his hands, James wishing that he'd gotten Lily to laugh or that the photo had been more candid so there'd be more movement between the pair of them. Ideally, photo James would have broken down the walls of photo Lily's heart and the two of them would be heatedly snogging on the desk, the other prefects having left the room, deflected by the strength of their passion.

But photo James is just as reluctant to be turned down again as real life James, and the walls of photo Lily's heart are just as well cemented as those of the Lily who walks through the door at that moment.

"What are you three looking at?" she asks, and the photo is swiped behind James' back and the trio utter a chorus of "nothing" so quickly that her eyebrow is instantly risen in scepticism. She rolls the eyes beneath it. "Who's on page three in Wandless Witches this month then? Voldemort got more to show than you originally thought?"

They snort. James stuffs the photo in his pocket and takes several steps towards her. "If I ever," he says emphatically, "express an interest in the nether regions of that specimen, you have my direct permission to murder me in the most unforgiving way possible."

Sirius and Remus chuckle behind them, relieved the tension's passed. Remus picks up his book again, and they both make to sit down, but Lily's eyes turn from James' face, her smirk disappearing and her red hair whipping across her shoulders as she stares them down and points a finger at them.

"No," she says dangerously, though her eyes are laughing slightly. "I have not spent the last six years desperately trying to get away from the loudness of you marauders, only to finally escape you lot and have our private common room turned into the new headquarters!"

Sirius plops down in an armchair and kicks his feet onto the table in the middle of the room in response. Lily glares at him. "Out! The pair of you! And tell Peter that you can go back to using your abandoned classroom on the second floor for your meetings."

The trio frown, James voicing the thought that comes to all their minds. "Hang on, how did you know about the classroom?"

Lily shakes her head. "Did you ever think it was weird that you were never caught there? I worked out your basic schedule in fourth year; I made sure I was on rounds whenever you snuck off to plan something."

Sirius shoots James a quick look; one he easily reads as 'I kind of see what you've been chasing after all these years'. And though it might not mean much to Lily, James appreciates the full significance of his best mate's next actions; getting up from the chair without another word and heading towards the door. "C'mon, Moony," Sirius says, as though Remus was the one trying to outstay his welcome. "Let's go rescue Wormtail."

Another moment and they're gone. James turns to his Head Girl, a grin spreading across his face.

"What?" Lily asks with a slight laugh.

"You said 'our' common room." He flashes her a wink and walks towards the stairs. The sound of her voice makes him stop. "James?" she calls. "I've seen the photo; I'm no page three girl. I've got no idea why you were hiding it behind your back."

It's Lily's turn to wink – an exaggerated impression of his from moments earlier - and turn away. James had counted on her being the one left breathless, not him.

The photo is a simple one, black and white. It was taken at the first prefect meeting of the year, an event which seems decades ago, now. James finds it as he's packing to leave Hogwarts for the last time, crumpled at the bottom of his trunk between a pair of dirty socks and the first letter Lily wrote to him and signed, 'love'.

He stops his frenzied last-minute folding of clothes and turns it over in his hands, smiling. He studies the faces, perhaps even more intently than he did that time in the common room. James feels a pang of regret in his stomach; they all look so much older now. Every one of them has felt so much, been affected so much, in this past year.

This photo, he reflects, was truly the beginning. Of his time as Head boy, of the hardest year the Hogwarts prefects ever had to endure, to lead through, to stay strong through; of his and Lily's relationship.

He now knows the nature of Lily's wondering smile; she's told him that – though she'd never doubted Dumbledore's decision to make him Head Boy – at that moment it seemed as though there was no one better suited to the role. James has never believed her, he's fucked up – or close to it – so many times this year, but often he's said something, made a certain decision, brushed a lock of hair behind her ear or flown his broom into the stands after Gryffindor had won the Quidditch final to kiss her when and where he wanted to, and that same quirk of the lips has appeared on her face.

Because, as he looks at the photograph now, they're still not snogging on the desk; photo James and photo Lily will always be trapped in that moment in time when they were just a beginning. Yet there, in both of their wondering smiles, is just that; a beginning.