Author's note: Hi! Since this is my first time posting in the HP fandom in... seven years, and back then I hadn't really written fanfiction before, I feel kind of nervous! I feel like it's inherently different from the other fandoms I write for, like the audience will be completely different. Wow, I hope I fit in!

So this isn't the most original of premises. Body-switch stories are done on a daily basis, but I really hope I'm doing this in a way that others haven't. More than that, I hope people enjoy my way! I started writing this a few years ago now, in a time where I had a bizarre fascination with break-ups and colour blindness.

And as a general note about how this story goes: it's not going to be a long angst-fest about how Lily's and James's relationship deteriorates as they break up. Not really. Because duh, I don't want them broken up! Unfortunately, it had to happen for the rest of the story to happen, but you already know they've got to have a happy ending! I like a little bit of angst, but I can't handle angsty endings.

Oh, and one question! If you want to say that something belongs to James, do you say James' or James's? It's such a huge issue when writing Marauders fics! In my draft I used the former, in this final copy I've used the latter, but I'd rather use whichever you prefer. I don't have much loyalty to one over the other, though I do lean towards James's. I find it clearer.

Speaking of clarity... this site keeps messing with my formatting! I'm so sorry if it looks unintelligible, I'm trying my best to work out all the problems!

And now I'm talking too much. Please read and enjoy!

The Bond

It was on a cool April afternoon in the library that James Potter was about to experience heartbreak. Lily Evans was about to dump him.

None of his friends would find it altogether shocking; they had still been getting used to the fact that Evans had agreed to go out with James in the first place. That she was reneging barely six months later would come as no surprise to anyone except James himself.

He was still convinced everything was fine upon walking into the library after lunch that day, upon seeing his girlfriend's pensive face - even upon hearing her say the words, "We need to talk."

James had spent the last six months in a blissfully ignorant paradise, and was in for an unpleasant dose of reality.

As soon as the leering librarian was out of earshot, Lily said in a low voice, "James, this is really serious. I think we need to break up."

The words hung in the air for a moment, and even James was perceptive enough to realise that Lily was not joking.

"Could . . . could you repeat that?" he asked faintly.

"I've really loved the past six months, but it's just not exactly working, and I think we should end it," Lily said, a firm edge in her tone. "There's just something not there that should be."

James needed to blink a few times, slowly. He felt his stomach begin to plummet, the colour drain from his face, and it took him a long while to be able to respond.

"I - I don't think I quite understand." He tried and failed to swallow his stammer.

"I'm sorry."

She couldn't mean it, she couldn't mean it, she couldn't mean it . . .

"It was fun, I know - well, more than fun- but surely you could sense it had to end."

She was starting to feel awkward, James realised hollowly. He could always tell when she was starting to feel awkward after watching her interact with Professor Slughorn so many times. But she had never been awkward around him, James, before. It just added to the blow.

"Besides, we have our NEWTs to think about. We really need all our energy on this one thing, and we really won't have time for one another."

He had heard of other couples breaking up for that reason, but he knew it was just an excuse. He would have considered Lily his top priority all year, even if his exams started the very next day.

"James, say something," Lily urged.

James forced down the lump in his throat. "Is this - is that it? That's it, that's everything? Just like that?"

"Just like that," Lily agreed sadly. James's eyes were downcast throughout this, but he could see Lily's almost-regretful expression clearly in his mind. However he knew that she was not regretting her actions, only that they were hurting him.

"It can't be that simple," he said weakly, but he knew his battle was lost. He raised his head so that their eyes met. "Six months . . . "

"Merlin, James, don't make this harder than it already is!" Lily burst out, looking miserable. Her volume earned her an audible, "Sssh!" from the next aisle, so she lowered her voice. "I knew this wasn't going to be easy and you wouldn't understand right away, but this has to be done. We can't be together any more."

James retreated back into silence.

James Potter, you have officially failed at life. You had Lily, and you screwed it up.

His mind was in a blur. This just wasn't possible. This wasn't just some stupid teenage fling; he loved Lily. He actually loved her and couldn't conceive how his life was meant to function for the first time in so many months without her. It didn't work, it didn't click, this wasn't supposed to happen!

"This can't be real." He wasn't even trying to control the shaking in his voice now. "This can't happen. Please, Lily, whatever it is, I'm so sorry and I'll fix it straight away."

"James . . . " Lily took a pained step back, turning to leave, but James refused to let it happen. He rushed towards her and wrapped his arms tightly, pleadingly, around her shoulders.

"No, please, please, no," he begged, his eyes actually becoming wet with tears. "I'll do anything, please, anything . . . "

"James!" Lily cried. She pushed him away from her. "This isn't something that can just be fixed!" A single tear made a trail down her cheek, barely missing her mouth. "I have to do this. I'm sorry I've hurt you, but it's over."

It's over. James slowly closed his mouth, realising he had nothing of any value to counter that damning statement. He gazed at Lily helplessly, relishing her ever-present beauty, longing to hold her face in his hands as he kissed her. Now he could never do that again.

"It's really over," he whispered mournfully. The truth set on him like a black shroud when uttered in his own voice. He sank down to the floor and closed his eyes to stop the now steady flow of tears.

When he opened them, everything had changed.

Something had definitely changed, and in a big way. It was almost overwhelming James to try to take in everything at once, and he was scared that while closing his eyes he had somehow damaged them.

Colour.

James wasn't colourblind before, but the blast of new colours he now saw burned themselves into his visual index with terrifying intensity. The carpet - red, bright red, a richness he didn't know existed. The bookshelves - until now, he had never been quite sure what 'mahogany' really was. And the books themselves! Every colour imaginable, even several he couldn't identify.

The impact was so great that James almost fell off-balance - then he remembered, hadn't he been sitting down despairingly a moment before?

Then everything else hit him at once.

Standing.

No glasses.

Shorter.

Clothing different.

Tighter.

Lighter.

Long hair.

And the mirror image of himself kneeling on the floor some paces in front of him.

The shock to his system was enormous: his heart raced, his hands shook and his breath was coming out in gasps, in what he knew was not the sound his own throat made. He knew without doubt what had just happened, but he could barely bring himself to believe it.

He breathed, just breathed, focusing on the figure at his feet. The figure was staring silently, mouth open, at the floor, before extending this view to their surroundings. The figure's gaze finally found James, and stared long and hard.

"James," the person said softly, in his voice, "I think we need to have another serious talk."

James nodded, with what he knew was Lily's head. "Agreed."

Lily slapped herself on the cheek, so hard that the glasses flew off her - her? - face.

"What are you doing?" James asked.

"Making sure I can't just snap out of this, like a bad dream. Oh, Merlin, this is ridiculous . . . "

"Well, don't slap it too hard," James said sullenly. "I don't want to bruise."

They had relocated to an empty classroom where it was certain no one would bother them. If at any point another student walked in, they would most certainly mumble an apology and hastily leave, thinking they had interrupted something much more private than conversation. No one knew yet about the recent break-up. Meanwhile they were addressing the dire issue at hand: how they had managed to switch bodies, and how they were going to switch back.

"No potions, no rituals, no incantations." Lily shook her head despairingly. "I give up, James. How did you do it?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I get it, payback, but this could have terrible consequences if you don't tell me how to reverse it."

"You think I did this?" James stood up, his voice rising even above Lily's usual pitch. "To get back at you for breaking up with me?"

"What else am I supposed to think?" Lily stood as well, habitually drawing herself up to attempt to match her opponent's height; it made her falter to discover that now, in James's body, she dwarfed James in hers.

"I ought to kick you where it hurts," James snarled. "Payback? You think that's the sort of person I am? No wonder you dumped me."

James had never seen himself flinch before, so it was quite a moment seeing Lily pull back as if she'd been hit. She bowed her head so low that if the glasses weren't already lying on the floor they would have fallen off.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" James snapped. "For blaming me, or for dumping me?"

He was lashing out, and he knew he'd regret it later. He fully expected Lily to come back with an equally spiteful remark, but perhaps just to add to his guilt, she did no such thing.

"It could always just reverse itself at some stage," she said quietly. "If it's a spell. Or the caster could get bored of the joke and reverse it."

James sobered quickly from his anger. He could at least try to be helpful. "It could be a variation of the Polyjuice Potion. They might have given it to us at dinner and made it have delayed effects."

Lily shook her head. "Unlikely. The Polyjuice Potion takes a long time to produce, and the transformations aren't instantaneous like ours were. Plus, a student experimenting with variations of already complex potions? That is serious, and seriously dangerous. Nobody would go that far for a joke. This is all too much just to see us embarrass ourselves. No; I think that who or whatever did this had some strong magic and a good motive backing them."

Lily stopped, looking at James, who had a strange smile coming over his face.

"Did I say something stupid?" she asked. James shook his head.

"I love you."

"Oh, James, please don't do this. We're not together any more," Lily groaned, shutting her eyes.

"I still do, though. And I can tell from the way you speak that it's you, not me, regardless of the whole body switch."

"Probably something to do with the fact that you're you, so it logically follows that I'm not you."

"It's more than that." And it was true. James knew Lily so well after the last six months that all her tiny mannerisms, from her almost-but-not-quite-sarcastic tone to her careful choice of words, became beacons of her personality shining through a deceiving exterior.

Lily sighed shamefully. "This couldn't have come at a worse time, could it? It makes the break-up more awkward than it already was."

"Still, better I have your body than someone who hadn't already seen it," James said, risking a little fun. Lily didn't appear to see the humour though.

"Oh, we're going for the cheap shots now, are we? Ha ha, you have breasts. I have a penis. Isn't this just hilarious." She said it flatly; definitely not a question.

"You're grumpy."

"And you're bipolar. Five seconds ago you were at my throat, and now you're saying you love me and making sex jokes."

"It's kind of a funny situation."

"I'll think of it that way in ten years' time when it's a very distant memory. For now I'm going to mourn the loss of my breasts and eyesight."

She reached down to pick up James' glasses, but James knew that they wouldn't give her the kind of sight she craved. Her eyes had the most amazing colour spectrum, and now she was forced to endure the flatter, fewer shades to which James was accustomed. It struck him that he would at some point have to go back to that semi-blindness, and for some reason the thought was cold. He'd never known before how differently two people could see the world.

"So we're just going to live with this?" he asked. Lily threw him an icy look.

"Of course not. You think I want to look like you for the rest of my life? We'll go to Dumbledore. He'll be able to get us out of this."

Her solution was met with silence, and she saw that James had produced a forlorn expression alien to her face. He was not keen to take this up with Dumbledore. He didn't know if it was humiliation, but something in him was urging him to keep this his and Lily's secret.

Lily glared with James' hazel eyes. "You have a problem with going to Dumbledore?"

Anyone else at Hogwarts would have winced and shaken their head vehemently. James looking furious had that effect. It was a shame, therefore, that James himself was the recipient of this glare and wasn't in the least scared of himself.

"How about we wait a while? I mean," he rushed, as Lily prepared to interject, "this thing might wear off of its own accord. We might just be needlessly embarrassing ourselves going to him."

"Forgive me for finding this more embarrassing than the prospect of telling Dumbledore!" Lily snapped.

"I'd rather tell as few people as possible, personally."

"What, you think Dumbledore will announce it to the school over dinner?"

"He's not the only one who would find out!"

Lily stopped. "What do you mean?"

James's train of thought had told him that admitting the body switch in Dumbledore's office would allow the portrait of Phinaeus Nigellus to hear, and that interfering old man would spill everything to Sirius's relatives. Regulus would tell Sirius and probably all the Slytherins as well, and the whole school would find out. He explained this all to Lily, who groaned.

"But surely whoever did this to us will tell everybody anyway. What's to stop everyone finding out?"

James shook his head. "You haven't learned a thing about pranking in the entire time we've been going out, have you?"

"I never considered it quite as worthwhile as my other goals. Wasted potential, I'm sure."

"Whoever did this will want to brag. But with a prank like this, no one will believe him unless it's really obvious we've switched. So if we were to act as if we really are each other . . . "

He waited for Lily's comprehension. She was running her fingers through her hair as though frustrated it was short. Eventually she said, "You just said no one will believe him if he tells. Why do you think it's a he?"

James arched an eyebrow. "You think it's a girl?"

"Well, your gang's pranks generally involve Slytherins growing multicoloured tentacles and singing about their underpants. Calling that the average male's maturity, I'd say this definitely has the subtlety of a female's work."

"Blimey, you have learned something." James was impressed, and not in the least insulted by Lily's jibe at the male intelligence.

"And if it was a girl," Lily continued, her voice as low as James's deep pitch would allow, "then this was probably meant as an attack on me."

"That's stupid," James protested. "Why would anyone - "

"Believe it or not, James, some people don't like me any more than you like the Slytherins."

There was silence. Then:

"James, I want to find out who did this."

They looked at one another, the fact that they were each staring into their own eyes making them feel strangely numb.

"We're not going to Dumbledore, then?" James asked.

"Not unless we absolutely have to," Lily responded grimly. "Not until I find out who and how."

Exhaling loudly, James tapped his fingers loudly on his knees. "To think I'll be spending very close time with these knees. These fingers too."

"Oh, shut up. I don't even want to know where your fingers have been. I think we need some ground rules."

James considered this. "No, I think we're good."

"Well, I've got one," Lily said, glaring. "No sexual advances on my body."

James raised his eyebrows. "You think I'm going to let a million guys have sex with you? My girlfriend?"

"Ex. Ex-girlfriend now. And you have to treat me as such. My body isn't open for inspection."

"Oh, I see. You meant no advances from me." He wasn't impressed by her deductions. As far as English teenagers went, he was one of the most respectable around, and he thought she knew that. Hell, he thought that was why she'd agreed to go out with him. The idea that his morals would be so loose as to try anything with her - not even her! With just her body! It seemed unthinkable that anybody at all would be so unscrupulous.

He felt deflated by her lack of trust. Still, he kept his expression firm as he answered, "You have nothing to worry about. I promise: no looks or touches that aren't purely functional."

Lily winced a bit, as if regretful that he had stated the 'functional' aspect out loud. She wasn't a prude, James knew, but she certainly believed very firmly that some things were reserved for absolute privacy.

"And," she said, perhaps a little louder than normal, "no deliberate humiliation, please."

James gritted his teeth, but kept his mouth shut. "Okay."

"I think that's all."

"Okay," James repeated. "So, what do we do?"

"Well, now's the fun part. We go and we be each other."

They sat in discontented silence for the better part of a minute, staring at the hands they would be living with for an indefinite amount of time. Time ticked on and it was dark outside by the time they were ready to trudge back to Gryffindor Tower. If it were any consolation, the Fat Lady noticed nothing out of order as they announced the password and climbed through the portrait hole. She simply scolded them for being out after hours.

Once inside, James paused. "You know, guys can't get into the girls' dormitory. If the staircase can tell who's who, I'm going to have to think up excuses for sleeping in the Common Room every night."

"Studying, crying, love letters," Lily said grimly. "They'll believe anything, trust me."

"You've told the girls in your dorm that you've stayed up all night writing love letters to me?" James grinned cheekily. He had no idea what it must have looked like on Lily's face.

"No: I've told them that I felt so trapped in our relationship that I stayed up all night writing love letters to other people."

She obviously intended it to be sarcastic, but mere hours after their break-up was not an opportune moment for sarcasm. James stopped dead in his tracks. All traces of his previous grin gone, he stared tensely into Lily's - his own - hazel eyes.

"Is that what this is about? You fancy someone else?"

"What?"

"Was he worth throwing away a relationship?" he demanded.

"James!" Lily looked furious at the accusation. "Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am? It is nothing like that and you know that perfectly well! Don't you dare say anything of the sort about me."

They stared daggers at each other for a second before the reality of glaring at themselves became too much to handle. James couldn't believe how quick to rise that anger had been. Was this what a real break-up was? Normalcy, slowly deteriorating into fighting, then eventually hatred? He didn't want that with Lily. He refused to accept that all their love would just die like all the other, common couples out there. They weren't common.

"I know," he said in a low voice. "That was stupid of me. I don't know what I was thinking."

Lily softened. "Right. Just try the stairs, okay?"

James approached the staircase to the girls' dormitory with trepidation, but when he gingerly touched the bottom step with his toe, nothing happened. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"Wish me luck."