The four boys sat together for the start of term feast and sorting.

"How come all the girls sorted so far have either gone to Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw?" asked Sirius with a bit of a sigh.

"It's a dull bunch this year." replied James with a frown.

"Maybe they're all just scared of you." said Lily looking over to James.

"Maybe they're all scared of you, Evans." replied Sirius with an egotistical grin.

"Stay out of this, Black."

"Use your own advice, Lily." snapped Sirius, turning his back on her to reply to a question Lupin was asking Peter which he clearly didn't understand.

"Lilyyyyyyy—" whispered James into the redhead's left ear.

She spun around to reveal her flushed cheeks and spoke with a tone a mother would use after you did something very horrible.

"Go away, Potter. I'm trying to do something productive." she said and turned back to her food.

"What? I just wanted to say hi…and ask if you wanted to go to Hogsmeade with me on the first weekend?" he asked with an ounce of hope in his voice.

"No," she replied immediately.

"Why not? And please give me a legit answer." said James with his best, subtle puppy dog face.

Lily felt awful. "Because I'm already going with someone." she replied quickly and shooed him away without question.

James went back to his seat feeling lower than he had in his life. The girl he wanted more than anyone else was going out with another guy. He had to do something about it.

"Boys!" he practically yelled to his friends, "We are going to make a pact. Let's all pick a girl we like and this year we must go on a date with said girl. If we don't, well…serious consequences will be later established. So, who's in?"

Peter smiled, "I'll do it, James."

"Great! C'mon Sirius, Remus!"

"Oh fine." said Sirius and Lupin nodded his head in agreement.

"Excellent. I want Lily." said James defiantly.

"Yes, yes we know that." replied Remus.

"So…Sirius?" asked James with raised eyebrows.

"Winnifred Anderson." said Sirius with hidden giddy-ness.

"The Ravenclaw?" asked Lupin, now more interested.

Sirius blushed and smiled.

"Great! Moony?" asked James, turning to Lupin.

"Do I really have to?" asked Lupin, looking down and poking at his chicken.

"Of course you have to! We have to make sure we don't pick the same girl!" exclamed Peter, talking for the first time in a while. James already missed his silence.

"Annaleeya Smithsfield." said Lupin quietly.

"A Huffy?" shrieked Sirius excitedly.

"Shhh!" said Lupin hiding his face as a few second year Hufflepuff girls looked over at the Gryffindor table.

"And now you, Pettigrew." said James, hungry for the words Wormtail was about to speak.

"Barbacia Gluconan." said Peter in a high voice.

Sirius looked mortified. "She picks her nose during class!"

"Well then, they have something in common." said Lupin matter-of-factly.

Peter looked over to a young Ravenclaw girl who was nervously twitching as she ate her fish.

"Isn't she amazing?" asked Wormtail in the same way James was acting on the train.

"You must be joking," laughed James, "Really, which girl?"

"I'm being serious!" Peter frowned. "I think she's gorgeous!"

"I personally think she's a little out of your league, Worm." laughed Sirius, "maybe we should have you go out with Ol' Snivells over there." Sirius pointed over to the Slytherin table where Snape was sitting, not talking to anyone, and not eating. He was just sitting there quietly in front of an empty plate. He looked helpless and pitiful.

All of a sudden, he stood up abruptly and left the Great Hall.

"Maybe he's gone to go cry because he has no friends." said Sirius, who, like James, had been staring at Snape.

James casually looked over to Lily. She had also been staring at Snape. Her glowing face had turned dull and her angelic smile was now a solemn frown.

"Oh stop, Lily, honestly that boy is trouble. He'll do no good for you." James overheard her friend telling her before he turned back to his own friends.

The feast went on and the Great Hall bellowed with booming voices telling tales of their long summers apart from friends. The occasional talk of quidditch arose and fell around James, but all in all, he couldn't really focus on the conversations. He was too busy thinking about one little thing.

Who is she going out with? thought James as the scene replayed over and over in his head, his shaky, nervous voice taunting him with every word. Why can't I just be normal around her?! What makes her so different from all the others?

James had had many girlfriends over his past three years at Hogwarts. Just about every girl in the school (even some Slytherins, though they denied it) were absolutely in love with James Potter. One thing that struck Lily as so interesting to him, was that she didn't rather care for him. In fact, she found him extremely conceited. This made James want her more.

"You always want what you can't have." he remembered Sirius telling him second year when he had unsuccessfully asked out Lily for the thirteenth time.

Last year had been the worst, though. Lily had had her first boyfriend last year. James and Sirius' Hogsmeade trips were always rudely interrupted by seeing them together and James would always become very tense. Lily would never admit it, but it was really James' constant bugging of Brandon Breacher, the boy in question, that led to their break-up three days before school ended.

James spent his free summer time writing unanswered letters to Lily when he wasn't playing quidditch. Most of them were along the lines of:

"Maybe you haven't gotten the last six letters, but I really miss you! Got to go play more quidditch! Bye!"

He had been absolutely fine up until when he saw her again before boarding the train. It was as if he had forgotten why he wrote to her all summer, and he just did it for the sake of writing.

But now he remembered. And it made him feel all giddy inside.

Throughout all his reminiscing, he hadn't even noticed that the feast had ended and everyone was leaving.

"James?" He knew only one person with a voice as beautiful as the one who had just whispered his name. The girl put her hand on the back of his left quidditch-toned shoulderblade.

"Hello Lily." he said, trying his best to keep his cool.

"I just wanted to tell you…" she started, "that I'm sorry."

"About what?" James was dazed. Why was Lily Evans apologizing to him?

"About Hogsmeade." she replied, "I just, don't want to disappoint who I'm going with. It wouldn't be fair. You understand, right?"

"Of course, yeah." said James as he got up. "But do you mind if I walk you to the common room?" he asked, offering his hand to her.

"Uh, no thank you." she said and hurried away.

James sighed. He was alone in Great Hall, accompanied only by a bewitched ceiling revealing thunderstorms and heavy rain.

He looked around again, unable to find a single person to talk to when he had so much he needed vent out.

And at that very moment, James understood the loneliness that was felt every day by Severus Snape.