I looked up at the unruly James Potter as he sat down beside my arm chair. I raised my eyebrow as I gave him my signature 'what are you doing' look. We stared at each other for the next view minute before he recovered his previously lost courage. James swallowed, "So lily, what keeps you here inside on a lovely Saturday when you should be at hogsmede?"

I looked at him, glanced down at my book, waved to the empty common room and looked at him again. "What do you think?"

"Homework is never a reason, just an excuse," he replied while smirking at me. "Why are you here?"

"Why are You here? And don't start that I asked you first crap."

"But I did ask you…," he trailed off after looking at my face. "ok, Sirius's got a date, Remus is in the hospital wing, and Peter is still sleeping and probably will continue to sleep for the rest of the afternoon."

"No date for you huh?" I playfully smiled at him.

"No date for you either I see"

My smile morphed quickly into a glare. "As I said before homework, and Alice has abandoned me for Frank."

"They're getting pretty close aren't they, eh?"

"they are just friends."

"yeah, right now."

I looked back down at my book Guide to Advanced Transfiguration and tried to resume reading it. After reading the same sentence twenty times I looked up to see James still sitting in the arm chair and looking into the fire. I looked at, examined him, trying to see what lay beneath the mask of James Potter.

"What are you doing?" I asked him brining my attention back to me.

"Just looking into the fire," re replied

"No I mean…."

"You mean what?"

I looked at him and then looked back at my lap; I didn't know how to phrase my words. "it's just that we haven't spoken since that incident last year by the lake."

"Oh, well, I, I thought that maybe we should change that. I don't think either of us enjoyed last year in both the class and the social scene."

I just stared at him amazed at what he was saying. Last year we were so competitive, especially in the class room, so much so that some our teacher gave us each a quota of how many times we could raise our hands to speak. He dominated the social scene and I avoided it for we would start arguing about anything if we were in hearing range of each other.

"You kept on my toes last year. You have no idea how many hours I had to study for class to keep up with you."

This shocked me even more. I thought he had never studies and that I was the stupid one that had to try to keep up. "You study?"

He burst out laughing. "You sure shock me Lily Evans."

"I shock you? No James Potter you shock me,' I smiled at him. "I guess we could call it a truce."

"I don't want a truce."

"You don't?"

"No I want a-"

"Please don't say friends," I spew out quickly before he can finish his sentence.

"Why not," he replied taken aback.

"It's too soon. How about we say acquaintance and work our way up from there."

"Are you telling me you need a trial period?"

"I think Hogwarts needs a trial period. They are still not over the fact that were still fighting and becoming 'friends' might give them all a heart attack."

"ha ha true enough. So my new acquaintance Lily what say ye to a fine day at Hogsmede?" I looked at him and smiled. "yeah I know you have to study, I'll see you around right?"

"yeah, going to hogsmede?"

"Maybe," James Potter replied with a shrug. I looked back at my book and began to read again.