It had been no secret that James Potter had had a crush on Lily Evans for years, and it was no secret that Lily Evans had hated him for almost as long. But during her sixth year, something changed. It happened slowly, of course, and for a long time she didn't realise it was happening.

At the start of the year, Lily had been made prefect along with Remus Lupin, who just so happened to be one of James Potter's best friends. Lily had always liked Remus who worked hard and seemed to be the sanest out of the group, there were times when Lily didn't really understand why he was friends with them as she watched him attempt to do his homework in the common room surrounded by Sirius Black, James, and Peter Pettigrew who were all trying to stop him from managing this.

And yet, when she sat in the prefect carriage on the way to Hogwarts in September, she saw Remus alone for the first time. She saw how miserable he looked at not being allowed to see his friends and when they were sent off to patrol the train, they both walked towards easily the noisiest carriage on the train and she saw how his face lit up when he saw them and she found herself smiling and realising that they couldn't be that bad. In fact, she encouraged Remus into the compartment to spend time with the people who relaxed him.

"Are you sitting with us Evans?" Potter asked, his hair as untidy as always. She rolled her eyes and sat on the empty seat nearest the door, but secretly she was happy to be there.

"Well, I best keep an eye on the lot of you, as a prefect." She mumbled, keeping her secret smile beneath a slight scowl.

Lily watched the boys as they joked and carried on and talked about their summer holidays. She learned that Potter had allowed Sirius to live with him, away from the notoriously magical puritans of the Black family. He was the only Gryffindor from his family and clearly had very different values as he was never cruel to Lily or any of the other muggle born students at Hogwarts, well at least no more than he was to everyone else.

Reluctantly, as they neared Hogwarts, Lily had to remind Remus that they had to head back.

"Remus, we have to head back now, we weren't supposed to spend this long in one place and we need to get back to the prefect carriage." She stood and opened compartment door and saw Remus stand and wave to his friends.

They walked in silence most of the way back until she saw her ex-best friend stood in the corridor his hair was black and he looked hurt as she walked towads him and immediately struck up a conversation with Remus.

"So, Remus, how was your summer?" She asked but before he could answer, Severus interrupted.

"Lily. I see they make mud-bloods prefects now." He said, she flinched at the insult but she had grown accustomed to it over the past year as Snape had decided to comment on her blood status pretty much every time they spoke, hence their falling out last year. The two of them hadn't spoken since despite his letters over the summer. She wasn't about to break her vow of silence now and so ignored him, but Remus had made no such promise.

"Yep, because Professor Dumbledore knows that being a decent person has nothing to do with your blood status or who your parents are. I see you didn't make the cut." Remus took Lily's arm and guided her forwards as she was stunned, no one had stuck up for her like that before as she had been tormented by so many people about her blood status as the Dark Lord had grown in power and put his ideas in other people's heads.

"Thanks." She said, unsure of what else to say.

"It's no problem, there's a reason that we don't like him, and that's because we like you." Remus told her.

They walked back to their carriage in silence and once the train stopped, they got off together and helped guide the first-year students towards Hagrid, the groundskeeper who would take them to Hogwarts across the lake. After, there were only two carriages left to take them to the school each would take only six students and one way already half full. As the majority piled into to empty carriage, Remus dragged Lily towards the other which just so happened to have three of the marauders inside.

"Hello again Evans." James commented waggling his eyebrows as she clambered inside. James had always had a kind of confidence that meant he never felt the need to keep his feelings for her secret. He made it so obvious, there was a large part of Lily who was fairly sure he was just teasing her.

"Good evening." She replied as she sat in the only available seat which happened to be next to James as Sirius had decided he needed two seats, forcing Remus to perch on the end of the bench so that Lily could have a full seat. On James' other side sat Peter who was a quiet boy with mousey brown hair.

"So how was your summer Lily?" Sirius asked.

Lily thought back to her summer which had been as awful as it could have possibly been. Her sister had got herself a boyfriend during the school year and had now decided that she hated Lily even more because she was a 'freak' and therefore unfit to meet him. Both her parents had met Vernon but seemed unimpressed by him. Not that that had stopped Petunia spending every day of the holiday with him, despite Lily's almost constant requests to do something together as she hadn't seen her sister for months. Then there was Severus who had been sending letters apologising for his behaviour as he tried to 'fit in with his friends' and begging for her forgiveness. Lily had not replied, deciding that it was no excuse and judging by his behaviour on the train, he hadn't changed and was therefore unworthy of forgiveness. Lily decided not to bore the boys with this quite private information instead she shrugged and said "Let's just say I'm glad to be back."

Before they knew it, Lily and the Marauders were walking up the familiar stone steps up to the Great Hall ready for the feast. As the last to arrive, there were very few seats left and so she ended up sitting with the marauders again for the feast. Silence fell over each of the four long tables as Professor McGonagall entered with the trail of first years behind her, there seemed to be a good number this year, more than there had been as about sixty students walked in. McGonagall placed the old sorting hat on the stool and it began to sing a song that seemed to be about unity. Lily struggled to concentrate on the hat's words as her eyes kept being brought back to the smiling boy with messy dark hair and glasses that sat in front of her. In fact, she only managed to pick out a couple of lines like They built this together and so we should stay which was the first like and then was brought back to reality by the last line And so my song shall end but we shall stay together.

There was a round of applause as McGonagall took her roll of parchment from her pocket and began calling the first years forward to be sorted. Each time someone was sorted there was a roar of applause from their prospective house and the Gryffindors seemed to cheer the loudest as they stood up enthusiastically to welcome their new team member. Each time someone was sorted into Slytherin, Lily found herself looking at Severus who was watching her in return. She still cared for him, they had been friends before she even realised she was a witch and that wasn't something that just disappeared overnight, in fact she was fairly sure that she would be friends with him again if he could just remove himself from the group of boys he was friends with that she was fairly sure would become death eaters, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's followers. Until then, she couldn't bring herself to do it as she tired of the insults he threw at her and she was fed up of everyone being cross with her for being upset about it and yet still being friends. Their friendship was over, possibly forever, the ball was in his court and there was nothing else she could do.

As the last student, Andrew Zane, was placed in Hufflepuff and sat down at the table with the yellow banner and black badger, countless plates of food appeared on the table and the room erupted into conversations at a deafening level. Lily scanned the table and found her friends from last year whom she shared a dormitory with. Abigail, Helana, Winnie, and Glinda. They were all sat together and hadn't seemed to notice Lily's absence. They were probably still friends, but Lily hadn't sent any letters to them, they hadn't to her either, and she hadn't gone to them on the train. Of course Lily understood, and to be honest she had secretly enjoyed her time with the marauders. There was no judgement about her blood, or her hair, or anything. The boys simply enjoyed having fun, it was as simple as that.

As the feast drew to a close and the Gryffindors marched up the stairs towards the dormitory (whose new password was Draconis), Lily walked alone and sat alone next to the window. She daydreamed and thought about what was going on in the wider Wizarding world. There had been countless reports almost daily about people being tortured, controlled, killed, or worst. Lily knew that she was safe at Hogwarts but she feared leaving at the end of next year as there was no promise of even a job for a muggle-born like her. If Voldemort came to power, then there was a high chance that she would be killed or exiled from the Wizarding world…if she was lucky.

Lily was pulled from her thoughts as four faces appeared in front of her. Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James. She gasped at the surprise but then smiled. Sirius and James sat on the couch opposite her and Remus and Peter perched themselves on the window seat.

"We thought you looked lonely so we thought we'd come and join you." Peter told her and she smiled again. Why had she hated these boys for so long when they were such nice people and they actually seemed to like her?

"What'cha reading Remus?" Lily asked Remus who had his nose in a book. He held up the cover but didn't pull his eyes from the page except to write something down on his parchment.

"He forgot to do his homework for Slughorn, so he's trying to write two feet on 'love potions and their antidotes' by first thing tomorrow. Knowing him he won't sleep tonight until it's done so there'll be a light on in the dormitory until Merlin knows when." James explained.

"Yeah, that was a tricky one, I spent quite a while on that myself. At least it's a full moon tomorrow night so you won't need too much light." Lily said, trying to sympathise but it just seemed to worry him more. Now it felt awkward as each of the boys attempted not to catch her eye. "Well, I'm tired. I think I'll just go up to bed." Lily said softly as she stood, not wanting to do anything to make this even more awkward with the people that she kind of wanted to become her main friends.

"Lily, wait." James caught up with her. He saw the slight tears that were in her eyes. "Have breakfast with us tomorrow?" He asked with both hands on her shoulders. She nodded and he smiled. He embraced her slightly and whispered good night.

As Lily tried to fall asleep that night, her thoughts kept returning to James as she realised just how wrong she had been about him and Sirius. Last year, they were the people that she dreaded seeing in the morning, and now, she was actually slightly excited at the prospect of having breakfast with them in the morning. For the first time in a long time, she fell asleep with a grin on her face.

Hello, thank you for reading the first chapter of my first Harry Potter fic. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope to see you for the next chapter which I will probably have up quite soon as I am enjoying writing this fic a lot. Thank you for reading and please review – Chescaannie x