Disclaimer: Still not Jo Ro :)

A.N.: Hooray, updating! Um... Not much to say, really. I've been neglecting my summer homework, so I may not be updating for a while sorry

Golden sunlight slipped across the faded floral bedcovers in Lily Evans' bedroom. It melted down the walls and sluggishly crossed the floor, the packed trunk at the foot of the bed, and the rumpled figure lying across it. Lily, for it was she who laid so brokenly on the bed, played idly with her wand, her burning red hair splayed out around her in an auburn halo set to fire by the sinking sun. Her green eyes were catlike in the single ray of sunlight that fell over her face, setting the rest of her body in shadow.

Lily's bedroom was mostly neat. Her bed was underneath the only window in the room, but it was a large window that lit the space nicely. Thin curtains fluttered in the breeze from the open window. An overstuffed armchair stood in a corner of the room, covered in books and a black cloak with a scarlet lining. Next to that, there was a heavy, oak wood desk against the wall directly across from her bed with scattered pieces of parchment and the pieces of a broken ink bottle glinting feebly in the dying light. Ink was splattered against the wall from where the bottle had shattered on impact after Lily threw it in her anger before collapsing on the bed. She knew she would have to get up to clean the spilled ink before it stained her carpet, but she was simply too frustrated to care. It was late August of 1977, and Lily Evans was to start her sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in a day's time.

Part of the shadows detached itself from the farthest corner in the room. The shadow slunk across the floor, amber eyes gleaming. It hesitated under the armchair, wary of more flying objects. The shadow lifted its dusky head and sniffed at the air, trying to catch the scent of anger. It didn't seem to scent it, and padded slowly closer to the bed. It's smoky tail twitched. With a moment's hesitation, it leapt onto the bed and nudged Lily's arm with a nose like sandpaper.

"Mrow?" The cat placed a dusk-black paw on Lily, and jumped over her to nose her in the face. Lily sighed.

"Go away, Titus." The cat warbled in its throat. "You already ate." Titus head butted Lily's shoulder, meowing in annoyance. Lily rolled to the side. "I don't want to talk about it."

A crumpled piece of parchment fell out of her hand onto the floor. Lily blinked at it in dull recognition, then flopped over onto her other side and gathered Titus up into a furry hug. He meowed at her and buried himself in her arms while Lily tried to ignore the burning tears she refused to let spill. The sun was really setting now. It illuminated a couple of photographs in the room of the same group of happy people smiling and waving at the camera, and then it slipped from the bedroom and out of sight, leaving Lily and Titus in the darkness. Lily closed her eyes and tried to forget.

"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" He said it quickly, a flashing, biting whip of a word. Mudblood. Mudblood, Mudblood, Mudblood. It echoed in her ears. She blinked, shocked, and then narrowed her eyes at the culprit: her betrayer and her best friend. Severus Snape stood shaking in the light of an early June afternoon. To make it worse, Potter and Sirius were there, and they were surrounded by a ring of people desperate for new gossip. Lily, however, only had eyes for Snape.

"Fine," she said coolly. "I won't bother in the future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus." But of course, James had to step in. Stupid, conceited Potter.

"Apologize to Evans!" He roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him. Lily's blood boiled.

"I don't want you to make him apologize! You're almost as bad as he is..." James' eyes widened.

"What? I'd NEVER call you a—you-know-what!"

"Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you've just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can—I'm surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK!" And then she turned away, walking as fast as she could without actually running away.

"Evans! Hey, EVANS!" But Lily ignored James because she knew he was right. Arrogant and pigheaded he may be, but James would never have called Lily a Mudblood, and she knew it down in her very bones. The fact that it had been Snape to say that only added insult to injury. Everybody said she was crazy for being his friend. Everybody said he was another Death Eater wanna-be. And she knew, god did she know it now. Mary always said he was no better than the rest of the Slytherins and Marlene always backed her up. And now Lily knew they were right, now that Sev had betrayed her.

She nearly flew in her haste to get away, dashing up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower, for some peace and some solitude. She shut herself away in her dormitory and when Alice and Marlene walked in two hours later, they were kind enough not to say a word about it. They just let Lily cry and vent in succession about James and Sirius and Severus and stupid Remus, he could have stopped them and about how she no longer had Sev as a friend. She wondered aloud if she deserved it and then decided that Snape wasn't worth it, but Lily was a mess.

It wasn't until Mary came and told Lily that Severus was outside the portrait hole, asking for her, that Lily pulled herself together. She pulled on her dressing gown and glanced out the window. It was dark; night had already fallen. With trepidation in every step, Lily left the dormitory and passed through the Common Room. Was everybody staring and whispering, or was it her imagination? She pretended to ignore the Marauders in their usual armchairs by the fire, and opened the portrait hole. Snape was there, waiting for her. Without preamble, he spoke:

"I'm sorry." Lily blinked at him, almost surprised at the words, pulling closed the Fat Lady's portrait behind her.

"I'm not interested."

"I'm sorry!"

"Save your breath!" Lily glared at the boy she thought she had known, hands curled into fists. "I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here."

"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just—"

"Slipped out?" Lily was furious. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends—you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be!" Lily's voice had risen to a shout. "You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?" The silence rang in her ears, accentuated by her heavy breathing. Snape opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. Lily took a deep breath, steadying herself.

"I can't pretend anymore." Her voice was cold with resignation. "You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."

"No—listen, I didn't mean—"

"—to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?" He flinched at her words and struggled with speech, but Lily turned away and climbed back through the portrait hole, closing it in his face.

The worst thing of that day, though, was James. When she climbed back through the portrait hole, anger and betrayal blazing in her eyes, he was there. And she knew he had heard everything she said, and it made it twenty times worse. And the words he said next broke her apart.

"Evans..."

"Go AWAY, James, I don't want to talk to you!"

"Just hear me out!"

"NO!" She pushed past him, heading for the sanctuary of her dorm. He refused to be ignored, grabbing her arm gently enough for her to break away if she wanted to.

"Evans, come on!" She shrugged him off, focusing on the stairs past the angry tears in her eyes.

"I said leave me alone!" Her voice cracked. "Why can't you just listen to me for once, Potter?"

"Lily, I'm sorry!" Lily stopped dead, one foot on the bottom of the stairs to her dorm. Her shoulders shook, but she fought the emotion, and she remained silent.

"I'm sorry, okay? I know you probably don't believe me, but I said it, and I mean it! I'm a jerk; I've always been a jerk. I'm a complete asshole. I know that. And I realize I just destroyed your friendship out of—out of spite, or, or jealousy or something, I don't know! I don't know what I'm trying to say but god, Lily, I am so sorry, and... Please, believe me; I never wanted any of this to happen. It's all my fault and I guess... Well, I guess I get why you hate me." Lily was still silent and James took a deep breath and continued like he'd wanted to say these things for hours. "I know I provoked him or whatever, I know I've been downright horrible to him ever since he stepped foot on the train, and I'm sorry for that, too, because he was your friend. But he never should have said that to you, because it's just—well it's just not right! It's not right for friends to turn on each other and—and hate each other and hurt each other and I'm sorry that he said those things and I know you're not going to forgive him and I know you're upset and I'm sorry for that, too!"

Lily stepped down from the stairs and turned to face him. She met his eyes, and she knew that he was telling the truth. She could see his remorse written there as clear as daylight, and she hated that he felt sorry for her. He despised his pity, but she hated herself more.

"It's not your fault, James." Her voice was flat, emotionless. He stared at her in shock at the use of his first name. "I knew this was going to happen someday. I just didn't want to believe it." She walked away, back to her dorm, but paused half-way up the stairs. "Thank you," she whispered, and ran back up the stairs to her room and her friends. She wasn't fast enough, though. Just before the door shut behind her she heard James' reply like a whisper on the wind.

"Please, forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you..."

Lily's eyes blinked open. She buried her face in Titus' fur for a few seconds longer, and then sat up. Her eyes felt puffy and raw and she was a little bit dizzy from lack of sleep, but she pushed that away and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The crumpled parchment on the floor caught her attention. She picked it up and smoothed out the creases, tracing her fingers over the raw edge of the parchment. A strangely familiar handwriting leapt off the page at her. She rubbed her eyes and read the letter again, the words she had read over and over again as familiar as her own heartbeat by now.

August 24, 1977

Dear Evans,

I know I'm a prick, and I know I need to stop apologizing. Maybe you should answer my letters? You probably won't. I'm not even really sure why I'm writing this, if I'm being completely honest. I guess I thought we might be able to be friends or something.

Anyway, we came back from the cottage today. Well, it's not really a cottage, but it's a house in the countryside so Mum likes to call it the cottage. It's actually quite pretty out there. You might even have liked it. Sirius and Remus came out to visit. Peter couldn't because of his mum. She doesn't trust us, for some reason. She seems to think we'll get in trouble. I have no idea where she got that assumption... It might have something to do with all the owls home from McGonagall... Hmm, no, probably not.

But since Sirius was there, we decided to have a little bit of fun. Mum wasn't too pleased with us at the end of the day, though. Padfoot swears he has no idea how the rose garden caught on fire, and Moony double-swears he had nothing to do with it. Funnily enough, out of the two of them I only almost believe Moony. Almost.

How's your summer going? It's getting near the end now, so I could probably wait a week and ask you in person, but I don't know if my chances of you responding will be any better face-to-face, either. I guess I'll see you around, then.

—Prongs (James)

Lily had read the letter too many times by now, and she had eventually sent a response back with the same handsome tawny owl that had delivered all of James' letters so far. His name, she had gathered from the very first letter she'd received, was Archimedes. Lily thought it was a rather pompous name for an owl, but Archimedes was a rather pompous bird. Everything about him seemed vaguely regal.

August 27, 1977

Dear James,

I suppose I should thank you for all of the letters, even the mildly annoying ones. I didn't realize it was even possible to plead through the post, but I should have realized you would figure out a way to do it. One of these days I'll stopped being so surprised that you always manage to do whatever you put your mind to.

My summer's been... Well it's been as good as it possibly could with Petunia. I think she hates me even more now that she's got herself a boyfriend—oops, fiancé. His name is Vernon Dursley. Atrocious name, isn't it? He's worse than she is, though I'm not quite sure how that happened.

I'm sure it hasn't been as exciting as yours. How on earth do you set fire to an entire garden? On second thought, I'm not sure I really want to know.

—Lily

It was the fifteenth letter she'd received so far, and the only one she'd answered. James wasn't the reason she's thrown her inkwell at the wall, though. The reason for her now-stained carpet was Severus. She'd half-expected him to write to her nearly every day, pleading with her to forgive him like he had done every other time they had fought. This time, though, he hadn't sent a single letter. Lily was so furious she'd thrown her inkwell at the wall and probably stained the wallpaper, but she was mostly mad at herself. It was so infuriating to have James Potter, someone she was hardly even friends with, write her more often than her best friend.

He's not your best friend anymore, Lily, she reminded herself. You would both be better off if he hated you like all his other friends do. Lily sighed and tried to work some of the creases out of the parchment. After a few minutes of getting steadily more annoyed with it, she gave up and walked over to her desk. The right bottom drawer had a shoebox in it full of all the letters she'd received since starting Hogwarts. It was a little bit difficult to fit anything new in it at the moment. Lily sighed again and reminded herself to get a new shoe box for the fifteenth time.

Going back to her bed, she stared out the window. She had discovered over the years that if she lay down at an awkward angle with her legs out the open window and her head tilted just so she had a beautiful view of the stars. Lily contorted herself to the same space, looking overhead for any constellations she knew. Titus shifted and yawed, then snuggled into her side. Lily smiled down at the cat, and stroked his fur.

"Hey, Titus," she whispered. "Look up. See those three stars, right there? That's Orion's belt. And if you connect all those stars together, that's Orion." She smiled with one arm outstretched as she traced the outline of the constellation. "Orion the hunter," she whispered. Titus wasn't interested, and Lily let her hand drop, keeping her eyes fixed on the stars.

Somewhere between her third and fourth years, James had decided his time would be best spent trying to ask Lily out on Hogsmeade trips. He came up with some really stupid things, too. During an Astronomy lesson in their fourth year, he kept passing her notes. They were silly little things, and Lily mostly ignored them, except for one. James wrote it on her star chart when Sirius distracted her for a moment. She turned back to finish Orion, and there it was, written in ink that was still wet enough to smear:

I will do anything to go to Hogsmeade with you. I'll bring you a star, if you ask.

Lily blushed in embarrassment and glared at James, who was busy pretending to look at something through the telescope. With a sigh, Lily scratched the note out with her quill. She got two points off for "communicating on schoolwork" and ignored James for the rest of the week, even when he got stuck in a trick step while he was walking backwards trying to get her attention. She walked off without a word, but giggled about it hysterically with Marlene in their dorm that night.

Orion, however, was fitting. She thought it through later, when she was doing some research. Muggles and the Stars briefly mentioned Orion: "Orion is known, in Greek Muggle mythology, as the Hunter, for he once claimed to kill every beast on Earth. He was immortalized in the stars by Zeus, the highest of the Greek gods and goddesses, in order to forever continue the Hunt. In Homer's Iliad, the star Sirius is mentioned as his dog." Lily smiled to herself then, closing her textbook. It was fitting that James should pick Orion. She supposed he hadn't thought of it that way, but it seemed as though it was a sign that he would never give up the hunt. And the part about his ever-faithful companion, Sirius; well, that was just perfect. Lily shook her head, trying not to laugh. Sirius was rather dog-like, when she thought about it.

What she didn't know, at the time, was that James had thought all of these things before he wrote the note. It was sign, though neither of them fully recognized it.

Lily frowned vaguely at the memory, and shook her head. She didn't want to think about James. She had other things to worry about. Regardless, her thoughts continued to wander back to him. Lily groaned, and rolled over to look at her clock. It was one in the morning. She pulled her legs back indoors from her window. The train would be leaving in ten hours, and she didn't want to be tired on her first day back. After a disgruntled sigh and some shifting around to find a comfortable position, Lily finally drifted off to sleep. Through her window, Orion winked delightedly from the heavens.

A.N.: Yeah, new chapter, hooray! A big thank you to the two people who reviewed :) Guest and Erin, you guys rock. SO MUCH. Tell me what you think, pretty please. I promise that this will pick up... after I get some homework done, yikes!

Love,

Em