Lily sat anxiously on her four-poster bed. Her room was a near copy of her one at Hogwarts, all deep maroon and splendid gold, banners hanging on the posts, flags draped over her armoire, scarfs and rosettes littering her cluttered desk, stashed with letters from her best friends, Alice Jones and Melanie Wood. Her friends were polar opposites, Alice all bows and sweet smiles. It all would've been very annoying if Alice wasn't actually that nice. She never spoke a mean word of anyone, and she and her boyfriend, Frank Longbottom, were the school's official poster couple.
Melanie was anything but. Loud, brash, and utterly gorgeous, with mermaid-wavy hair and sharp gray eyes, she turned heads everywhere she went. She was also a notorious dater, and had a new boyfriend practically every week. You couldn't say she was immodest though, she kept her relationships strictly in check, as they wouldn't make her stray from her vigorous schedule as she trained to be a Healer at St. Mungo's. She was also the Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and she said that she would determinedly train her newly-born nephew Oliver for the game she loved so dearly. Her nickname, affectingly dubbed so by the student body, was Marauderette. She had succeeded with having a fling with every boy in the Marauders, something no one else had accomplished. The one with Peter was one that happened after a bit too much Butterbeer on her part, Lupin when she had a brief thing for smart boys, and Sirius because, well, they fit together almost perfectly. They were both brash, opinionated, and had dated their fair share of people. No matter how much she tried to tell Melanie, she simply said she didn't want to do-over date (she had a strict policy against it), and besides, even if she did have feelings for him (This part made Melanie blush and Lily snicker), there would be no time for snogging what with her extensive workload. (Then that part had made Lily blush and Melanie roar with laughter.)
But the fling with Sirius wasn't what preoccupied Lily most about her friend. It was the one with well…you know who. (And not the evil dictator who was threatening to take over Lily's world.)
When Melanie had started dating James Potter in the last few months of their sixth year, Lily had been well…jealous. Even though it had always been her who had rebuked James's advances, everytime she saw them snogging, she had felt her emotions flash inside her. Their relationship had ended quicker than it had begun, but her emotions didn't go away. She felt jealous everytime she saw James even talking to another girl, even if it was Alice, who was happily in a long-time relationship, her heart would squeeze up tight. And then there was just James himself. Every time she looked at him, she would notice how his hair was messy in a way that was all too fascinating, the way his broad shoulders grew even broader when he dived for the Quaffle in Quidditch, and the way his eyes, those beautiful brown ones, looked like the pools of piping tea she always drank when she wanted to relax and calm down. James's eyes did anything but; instead her heart sped up everytime she saw him.
In the last weeks of the term, she noticed the castle become more excited than usual, and some sort of anticipation hung in the air. It wasn't the normal pre-exam buzz, instead it felt like people were looking forward to something, as opposed to dreading. Her best friends in particular seemed jumpy and secretive, and she frequently found them both looking guilty, Alice's round face pink in the cheeks, and Melanie tugging her shirt collar anxiously.
Even odder was that she now found Melanie and Sirius together, whispering wildly fast, their eyes darting to and fro as if on the lookout for someone. One night, to alleviate a bit of her worry, she teased Melanie about the fact that she and Sirius looked almost like a couple again. Melanie gave her a calm, startling glare, and said quite frankly. "Well Lily, love, I've told you I've given up boys. I can't be in a couple right now! However, I reckon any day now we'll be seeing a new one. I'm sure you'll be delighted when it happens. Quite sure. In fact-"
She looked like she wanted to say more, a lot more, but Alice dove across the room as quick as the Giant Squid, and gave Melanie a look. "Not one word more, Melanie Wood! If you don't keep your tongue in check, she'll find out everything! And what a shame, after all our hard work." Melanie gave a toss of her silky hair, and then gave Lily a bright smile. Instead of relieving her, Lily felt worry edge its way down her spine. If Melanie ever resigned herself from something, especially an argument, it wasn't because she had given up. It was because she had something much, much more frightening planned. If there was anything Lily Evans had learned at Hogwarts, it was that when Melanie gave her "giving up" smile, stuff was about to get real crazy really fast.
However, the rest of the year flew by faster than the Golden Snitch. On her last full day at Hogwarts, sunny and picturesque, she resolved herself to the fact that nothing was up, and that she had just been imagining things.
Oh, how very wrong she was. She should've known better than to doubt the collaborating minds of Melanie Wood and Sirius Black.