News spread quickly at the feast that Lily Evans and James Potter were Head girl and Head boy together. It was no secret that they struggled to get on. In fact most of the school started to place bets on how soon they would have a public row. Louis Mann put 2 gallons on the day before the Halloween feast, Josiah placed 2 gallons and 3 sickles on November 1st, Sirius put 3 Gallons on the next day and Dumbledore himself bet that they would never have a fight in public.

Their first meeting with Dumbledore went smoothly and he informed them of their duties. They arranged meetings to organise the prefect's patrols and plan their bi weekly meetings with them. Lily was surprised at how well they got on. She could honestly say that James Potter had matured. When he met her he was surprisingly organised. But he was also considerate. He remembered when the prefects had astronomy and planned so that they would not be on patrols the night after ("they can't have two bad nights sleep in a row. How will they do classes the next day).

Dumbledore had requested that they spend some time getting to know each other, and James certainly had no objections. So for after they arranged to have patrols together. The first few nights had been awkward, with James determined to impress Lily and Lily determined to have as little to do with James as possible. After a few two weeks on patrol, they reached a comfortable stance.

On their patrol on the fourth week of term James was unusually quiet. He was tired from the night before when he had spent the night with Moony, Padfoot and Wormtail in the cliffs outside hogsemade. It had been a successful night, with them discovering the new cave and an unusual breed of niffler who lived there. Unfortunately he had hurt his arm at some point during the night and while he was great at healing it was still causing him some pain.

He yawned and stretched his arms out only to groan in pain.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You, basically just yelped. Are you hurt or something."

"No I am fine." He replied stiffly

"Great! Then you won't mind me doing this." She said, before leaning over and hitting him on the arm as she continued walking.

"Hell! Evans!" he yelled in pain, "What did you do that for?"

"You said there was nothing wrong with your arm…."

"You don't hit people just because they are ok." He sighed and kept on walking.

"Why don't you let me look at your arm."

"No,"

She stopped walking outside a classroom and said in a stern voice that kind of resembled professor McGonagall; "Potter. You are going to go into this classroom. You are going to sit down. And you are going to let me heal your stupid arm."

He stopped, he turned around and stared at her in surprise. He meet her determined gaze and once again decided she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen before wandering into the class room and sitting on a chair.

She walked over to him, when she stopped just in front of him she said "Take your shirt off."

"Evans, I didn't have you pegged as this sort of girl." He teased

"Shut up and take of your shirt."

He obeyed unbuttoning his shirt and sliding it of his arms, only hesitating when pulling it off his injured arm. Lily didn't notice his discomfort, she was too busy acknowledging for the first time that Potter had a great body. It was a fact that everyone else had already agreed upon, but Lily had been too busy hating him to notice how athletic he looked. She quickly suppressed those thoughts and chided herself on not being ridiculous.

She leaned forward and looked at his left arm. Even though he had performed healing spells the wound was still far from being better. She wanted to be a healer and so had spent the summer studying healing books while looking after her mum, so after a few seconds of trying to recall the spell for banishing infections she pulled her wand out of her pocket and started to wave it around his arm.

She furrowed her brow as she concentrated. Meanwhile James was revelling in having the girl he had fancied for so long look after him. She was unbelievably caring. Although he already knew that. But even he was surprised it extended to people like him who she did not particularly like.

After about twenty minutes and eight different spells the wound in his arm was completely healed, leaving no scar.

"That is amazing. It doesn't even hurt anymore. Cheers Lily" James exclaimed staring down at his healed arm

"You're welcome James. Now are you going to tell me what happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"How did you get hurt."

"Ehh… Ermm… I… I can't… actually remember… yeah."

She looked disappointed, "Potter." He noted the use of his second name, "You can tell me."

"No, I can't. It's not really my secret to tell."

She stared at him, he had sounded sincere and his eyes pleaded with her to drop it.

"Ok."

Twenty minutes later as they finished their patrol of the sixth floor corridor and started to head back up to the dorms James turned around to Lily and boldly asked; "are we friends now."

"I hadn't really thought about it. Do you want to be my friend?"

"You know I do." He responded.

Lily couldn't help but blush, "Ok then. James Potter. We are friends."

They walked the rest of the way in silence, but James had a massive grin on his face. A year earlier Lily Evans had hated him and now she had agreed to be his friend. She was definitely warming to him.