Lily sighed.

"I just don't understand it. I'm sorry, I know I keep bringing it up… but bloody hell! WHY can't he give it a rest?" she said, pounding the table with her fist.

She was in the library trying to work on Slughorn's Potions essay. Her best friends Serena, Rosalie, and Alyssa were with her. The four of them each had their copy of Advanced Potion-Making open on the dusty table in the back of the library. Their essay, which required two feet of parchment on the properties and magical uses of dittany, were half-way done.

"Look, Lily," said Alyssa. "I don't know why, but Potter seems to be pretty determined to get you to go out with him. He's been asking you out daily for what, the last four years?"

"Yeah, thanks. I hadn't noticed," said Lily sarcastically.

Serena smirked at her. "I believe I've said this before, but why don't you just say yes, just for the fun of it?"

Alyssa and Rosalie giggled at Lily's furious expression.

"And where exactly is the fun part of that, Serena?" Lily said, glaring.

"Well," Serena said with a mischievous grin, leaning forward across the table. "Between you and me, I've heard he is fabulous when it comes to snogging…"

The girls cracked up. Even Lily, who was routinely teased by her friends about James, thought the idea of herself snogging Potter was downright hilarious.

"Right, I'll keep that in mind the next time he asks me out," Lily said as her laughter subsided.

"Incoming!" sneezed Alyssa as a group of handsome boys approached them.

Who else? It was the Marauders.

"Lily!" called James, with a bad attempt at a surprised look. "I didn't think we would see you here!"

"Completely shocking. Hadn't an inkling, not one. This is smashingly weird. Bloody hell, of all places! It's miffing! I have to say, I'm quite flabbergasted!" Sirius said, looking ridiculously perplexed.

Serena raised her eyebrows. "Why Black," she said scornfully. "We are utterly bamboozled by the uncanny coincidence as well! What were you innocently planning to do – in a library of all places!?"

"We were looking for a book!" exclaimed Sirius.

"Yeah, a book!" mumbled the boys around him.

"Ahh," said Rosalie. "Perhaps we can help. What book were you searching so conveniently for?"

Sirius' face turned bright red. "Huh, um well, James! What was that book called?"

"Er, slipped my mind," said James, turning red also. "Peter?"

"Forgot. Remus?"

"It was the Unabridged Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs and Their Practical Uses in Modern Medicinal Techniques, by Richard Stone."

Everyone gaped at Remus.

"I'm sorry, but you can't have it," said Lily.

"Why not?! We obviously went out of our way to look for it, didn't we?" said Sirius in an attempt at outrage.

Lily held up an ominously thick tome. "I'm using it. Sorry."

The gaping made a reoccurrence.

"Was there anything else you needed?" asked Alyssa, in such a suggestive way that the girls rolled their eyes and James made a puking sound behind Remus' back.

"Nope. We're good. Gotta run. Bye ladies!" said Sirius, running away with Remus and Peter at his heels.

James gave the girls a heart-melting smile. "Lily," he said, giving her a salute. He then turned and disappeared amongst the stacks.

Serena turned to Lily. "Ow ow!" she exclaimed, waggling her eyebrows.

Lily hit her in the arm. "Grow up," she muttered under her breath as the others giggled hysterically.

"Lily!" said someone in an impatient voice. "I need help!"

"Relax, Serena. I'm going to help you," said Lily, lazily. She and her friends had moved from the library to sit by the fire in the Gryffindor common room. They had all been dormmates up until this year, when Lily went to sleep in the Head Dormitories.

"What's with you today?" asked Alyssa. "You're not usually this tired."

"Patrol…" said Lily, yawning.

Alyssa rolled her eyes. "I'm so lucky. I don't have to do those stupid patrols like you. That must suck."

Just then, Sirius Black walked into the common room. Alyssa jumped up to ask him a question about something or other. While her back was turned, Lily scowled in her direction.

Bitch, mouthed Serena. Lily smirked and Rosalie sniggered.

"Ok, then," said Lily. She stretched her arms and legs and leaned forward in the overstuffed armchair she was sitting in. "What's the assignment?"

Serena gave Lily a thankful look and showed her the parchment she was working on. "Burbage assigned us… writing," she said vaguely.

"Oh, come on! It's Muggle Studies, it can't be that hard," said Lily scornfully. Unlike her wizard-blooded friends, Lily had been brought up by muggles and knew quite enough on the subject.

"It's not an essay," explained Rosalie. "We're being assigned muggle pen-pals. I guess Burbage though that we would better understand how muggles live by actually writing letters to them."

Lily looked surprised. "That's actually a pretty good idea," she said. "You'll have to be careful to act like a muggle yourself."

"Yeah, Burbage explained that to us in class," said Serena, staring in frustration at her blank parchment. "The thing is, I have no idea what to say to a muggle!"

Lily laughed. "I'm sure I can help you with that," she said. "Rosalie, you wrote something already. Let me read it."

Rosalie handed Lily her quarter-foot of parchment.

"Dear muggle," she read out loud. "My name is Rosalie Freeman. I attend the Humphrey Oliver Gladwell-Windram Academy for Rare and Talented Students. I am seventeen, medium tall, brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, freckles, and I hate reading and I was born in Whales–" Lily paused, looking up. "Wait, that's a really bad run-on sentence."

Rosalie rolled her eyes. "It's rubbish," she said.

"Well," said Lily, laughing. "You were a bit blunt about the details, yes. And you really can't call her 'muggle,' you know. She's not supposed to know you're a witch!"

"Oh, right," said Rosalie. She tore off the top of her letter and threw it into the fire.

Dear Olivia, she began again.

Lily turned to Serena. "Now, you're an excellent writer when you have an idea. I'm guessing the idea is the lacking part?" she asked in a knowing voice.

"Yeah, pretty much. I can't think of anything to say!" cried Serena in distress.

"Just introduce yourself," said Lily. "Hi, my name's Serena, I'm blonde, I have dark eyes, I love Quid– I mean football–"

"What's football?" asked Serena.

"It's like the muggle version of Quidditch. There's a white and black ball and two teams kick it up and down a field and try to get it into nets," explained Lily.

Serena started scribbling a letter.

"I think I better check it when you're done, just in case," Lily said with a smile.

"I'm bored!" yelled Sirius at an innocent–looking second year. The boy dropped his books and ran away.

"Now look what you did!" Sirius yelled at James. He kicked one of the books.

"You're right, what was I thinking?!" said James, knowing better than to retort. Sirius was always in a terrible mood when he was bored.

With a swish-and-flick, James levitated the books and stacked them on the table next to him.

"Hey, you there!" he called to a second–year girl who had been watching him and Sirius out of the corner of her eye. She looked up innocently from the book she was pretending to read. "Can you take these to that boy that just ran out of here?" He handed the books to her and winked. She blushed and ran off with the books.

Sirius started muttering something.

"Yes, Sirius, I'm bored too," said James before his friend could do anything more rash.

"Well, DO something about it!" yelled Sirius.

"OH!" said James. "Let's have a party in the Head Dormitories!"

"With food!" agreed Sirius, perking up instantly.

"Come on, let's get Moony and Wormtail!"

And with that, the two boys bounded out of the library.

Lily gathered her books and slid them into her bag. She stretched and smoothed out her skirt.

"Coming, girls?" she asked.

A few sleepy moans came in response.

"Who knew writing a letter could take so llooong?" said Serena, yawning.

"Well if you hadn't kept mentioning how you're a witch, and talking about magic, things might have gone more quickly!" teased Lily.

"It's hard to talk to muggles!" said Rosalie.

"Try living with them," muttered Lily.

Hope you liked this chapter! Please let me know what you think!

Yours, Juliane