A/N: Hello all of you beautiful people! I'm terribly sorry for the delay in this chapter. Thank you very much to Married-to-Punk for helping me out with this Chapter! :). Thank you, once again, to all of you who reviewed or favourited my story or put it on their alert list. It makes me so happy that you guys enjoy reading what I write.

Now, on with the show!

Previously: Once the letter was finished, Mikaela tied it to the leg of her tawny owl, Ezra, and sent it off to Remus. She turned to look at Alice and Kirra-lee, "And now we wait."

The Things We Do For You Two

Following her happy exploration of her new room and her short respite on her luxurious bed, Lily's mood was somewhat dampened by the sight of a familiar owl at her window. Sighing, she opened the window to let Alethia, James' owl, inside. She had named Alethia herself, at James' request. It meant 'wisdom' in Greek and was very fitting for the regal-looking bird.

"Hey girl, another letter for me?" she petted Alethia, smiling gently as the owl cooed at her. She wasn't really mad at James. Not anymore at least. But the presence of Alethia had reminded her of the relentless barrage of thoughts and turmoil that she had been striving to keep under wraps since Mikaela, Alice and Kirra had spoken to her earlier on. She wasn't ready yet to face the implications of what they had said, even though she knew with growing trepidation that the time was drawing near when she wouldn't be able to ignore it any longer.

Although they argued often about petty things, James was still Lily's closest friend, the one constant that had been in her life even before her girlfriends. He knew her inside and out and she found it hard to conceal anything from him. She certainly could, but she didn't like to do it unless there were good reasons.

She could almost guarantee that he would notice she was uneasy in his presence, because of this and the thought of having to lie to him until she was ready to talk about it pained her.

The letter that Alethia brought was just so James, that it had Lily chuckling despite her worries.

Lily-bean,

You're not still mad are you? How long can you stay mad at your bestest friend and favouritist person in the whole world? If you don't reply with an acceptable response I'll be forced to take drastic measures and fly over there myself, and I won't be happy about it young lady!

Who are we kidding, I love flying...and sneaking into your room? Even better. That last deserves a wink but that's a bit of an awkward face to put on paper. Anyway, I think I deserve to see your room.

Be there in 5?

And just remember, love means never having to say you're sorry – and you know you love me, therefore I should be automatically forgiven, yes?

Your Bestest and Favouritist Friend,
Jamie xxx

No matter how mad he made her, he always knew exactly what to say to make her laugh and once she had laughed she found it hard to go back to being angry.
She knew that if she didn't reply soon he would actually come to her window, so she penned a quick reply saying that they were fine and that she would see him at dinner, not at her window, and sent Alethia on her way.
As she watched the majestic owl fly across to the house next door her thoughts flew unbidden to what Mikaela had said. She stole another glance at James' letter. How could there possibly be another reason for James' behaviour over her. So he was protective? She was protective of him too. He was her oldest friend for Merlin's sake! No, her friends simply didn't know James as well as she did.

Even as she thought this, she stole another glance at his last words, reading them over and over again as her pulse increased and her breath hitched in her throat. Just friends, she thought firmly. Just friends.

Remus was in his room picking out some clothes to wear for dinner. He found that dinners with the Potters, while highly enjoyable and humorous, often called for some formality. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden tap, tap, tap at his window. His head jerked up at the noise and he spotted an owl hovering outside, wings flapping as it tried to stay in his sight. He opened the window and allowed it to fly inside, noticing that it had a piece of parchment attached to its leg with his name on it in neat cursive. Curious now, he removed the string from the owl's leg and opened the letter:

"Remus,

Throughout the course of the afternoon we managed to initiate the plan to get Lily and James together (which we have decided will formally be known as Operation 'Make a Move, Lovebirds!' – MAML in code)."

"..Lily told us that she finds James annoying, but I think we all know that she really cares for him quite a lot, just as she loves the rest of us. Moreover, we have reason to believe that her annoyance could stem from an underlying affection which cannot simply be put down to their platonic relationship as best friends. Once we determined this, we hinted that James might have feelings for her. In order to save time (and effort) this is all we'll tell you about our conversation with Lily for now, as we believe this contains the most important information that you will need to share with Sirius and Peter when you bring them up to speed with the plan. Please do this before dinner tonight as we plan to have a meeting shortly after. Once you have spoken with Sirius and Peter and they have given the all clear we will send you details of when and where the meeting is being held. Feel free to owl us if you have questions!

Mikaela, Alice and Kirra-lee."

Remus smirked at their code name for the plan before finding a quill, parchment and ink to scrawl a reply:

"Girls,

I'll talk to Sirius and Peter right away. Expect a reply in about 10 to 20 minutes.

Remus."

He tied the parchment to the owl and watched it fly across the way to the house next door. Walking to his bedside table, he picked up his watch and took note of the time whilst placing it on his wrist. "Hm, quarter past five. Better get a move on" he muttered to himself. He dressed quickly and, making sure to grab the letter, he left the room, shutting the door behind him without a backwards glance. Making sure that James was nowhere to be seen, he knocked quietly on Peter's door. "Wormtail...Wormtail...oi Peter! " He hissed. He heard a faint grunt of acknowledgement from inside, "Get out here!" A few moments later the door opened to reveal the mousy looking boy, "come on, we've gotta get Padfoot."

They walked silently to Sirius' door and Remus knocked quietly. They heard a faint "Come in" from within and Remus opened the door, hurried Peter inside and closed it after once again making sure that James was out of sight. When he turned, Sirius was watching his quick and careful movements with interest. Peter sat on Sirius' bed while Sirius lounged in his desk chair, "So, what's with the hush hush Moony?"

Remus checked his watch, 5:20 PM, the girls would be expecting a reply soon. "Okay, I need to explain this quickly to you because we don't have a lot of time. I know you're probably going to have things to say, but I'd ask that you leave it until the end of my explanation so that we don't keep the girls waiting."

"The girls? What? What do they have to do with anything?" Sirius said, both concerned and puzzled. "I'll explain in due time Padfoot. Now, earlier this afternoon when you both left I was talking to the girls. We were watching Prongs and Lils fight, as they were when you left. Mikaela suddenly suggested that we should try and get them together. The girls are pretty determined and they want our help. They asked me to talk to you guys about it so they could decide whether or not they should go ahead with it. They've already talked to Lily a bit, as far as I know. But I only know a little bit from this letter that they sent me about five minutes ago," Remus said, waving the letter around. "I told them to expect a reply in ten to twenty minutes."

The room was enveloped in silence. Remus stared at Sirius, gauging his reaction while Sirius stared blankly in Remus' direction. Peter kept glancing back and forth at the both of them. Finally, after what seemed like an age, Sirius cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak. The other two waited with bated breath. "So... let me just see if I have this correct. The girls are devising a plan which they hope will result in our mate, Prongs, and Lily, entering into a romantic relationship, without them knowing that we've had a hand in it? A plan which will most likely involve us planning out various romantic scenarios in the hope that the two will eventually kiss and live happily ever after? And they want our help to do it?"

Remus blinked once, amazed at the rare seriousness and intelligence Sirius had just responded with. "Yes. That's exactly right."

Sirius was silent once more, thoughtfully tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair. Remus and Peter were slightly concerned. Sirius was hardly ever silent, let alone thoughtful. Remus saw Peter open his mouth to say something in the corner of his eye and quickly stopped him with a sharp look and a firm shake of his head. They were in unknown territory here, it was best to let Sirius make the first move. Remus wasn't sure how he would respond to being asked to interfere in his best friend's love life. Of course, Sirius wouldn't mind hooking James up with a random date with a good-looking bird, but they were talking about getting ladies man, James Potter, into a serious relationship with the studious, responsible Lily Evans.

"Tsk. I don't like this Moony" Sirius said. "Go on" Remus said. Sirius sighed, "I don't know Moony. There are a lot of factors to consider here. First and foremost, is this right? Is it right for us to interfere here? We'd all be influencing the both of them, their emotions and their thoughts - it's practically coercion."

"I agree that we'd be influencing their thoughts, but think about it. The way James reacts around her? While we Marauders always enjoy a good prank fest, the extremes that he goes to for her are more than he does with anyone else. Like that Valentine's day stunt? If that were anyone else, he would never have bothered with it. In fact, he'd probably encourage a guy to ask any other girl in our year out. Any girl except Lily."

"He's protective over the other girls too" Sirius rebutted. "Yes, and yet none of them are able to make him act the way Lily does. Who else but Lily can get him to shut up or to think about what he's done. I mean, you saw what happened this afternoon! If that were anyone else, even the other girls, James would have been arguing back, retorting witty snips at them; not quietly taking it as he did with Lily. She has power over him that no one else does."

"Fine, I admit that this is true, but who's to say that their relationship is actually based on feelings other than deep friendship? They've been best friends since First Year for Merlin's sake! She's as close to James as I am, maybe even closer."

"Exactly!" Remus pointed out, "Doesn't that make them perfect for each other?"

Sirius sighed and passed a hand over his face, "I don't know Moony...Another thing, why does it have to be a secret? If what you're saying is right, why can't we just tell Jamie outright? We're his friends, he'd listen to us. Just as Lily would listen to Miki and Ali and Kirra."

"You're right, but what do you think is going to happen if he asks Lily out? He'll probably act like his usual playboy self and that would offend Lils. Furthermore, I imagine that if the girls suggested that James like Lily and vice versa to Lily herself, she'd run like a deer in headlights. She's a smart witch, but sometimes she can be clueless. With us to guide them, to be their mediators, I think they'd be more willing to open up to each other about whatever possible feelings they might have. Who knows, there might be nothing there, but at least this way we'll know either way."

"I guess you're right," Sirius grudgingly admitted. Remus could tell that Sirius was beginning to relent. "Just say that I agreed to this...theoretically... how would we keep the two from discovering our plan? That's going to be mighty hard considering how close we all are. Particularly our actual close proximity this summer."

"Now that, I don't know the answer to. The girls have a plan apparently."

"Fine" Sirius said. "...Does this mean you agree?" Remus asked cautiously. "Yes, yes, fine I agree to the stupid plan. If they're going to do this they'll need our help." Remus grinned, "That's for sure."

Mikaela was in the middle of throwing her clothes around her room in an attempt to find an outfit to wear to dinner. After she had sent the letter to Remus she realised what little time she had to prepare. When she, Alice and Kirra-lee had separated ways it was already quarter past five in the evening, leaving her with a mere 45 minutes to shower, dress, apply some light make-up and tame her wild raven locks.

Currently it was now 5:30 PM, thirty minutes before dinner, and Mikaela still hadn't done any of those things. She had spent the last 15 minutes trying to find an outfit to wear. Apart from that she was still waiting for Remus' reply to their letter. If and when the girls were given the green light to set MAML in motion, Mikaela would also have to find the time to persuade her parents to let them stay out at the beach after dinner. Needless to say she was feeling a little stressed. Finally she let out a yell, throwing yet another failed outfit attempt in a random direction behind her.

Unfortunately, Lily chose this moment to open the door and was hit directly in the face with the flying pile of clothes. "Um...hi?" she greeted her best friend cautiously. Mikaela gasped with shock, turning fast enough to give herself whiplash. With her hand on her chest she glared at Lily, "Woman! Has no one told you never to sneak up on a girl while she's on a mission?"

"Um...no..." Lily let out an indecipherable set of muffled noises as she tried to speak through the pile of clothes still on her face. Mikaela stared at her blankly, "You're going to have to repeat that, in English." Lily slowly peeled the clothes off, one by one, and repeated herself, "I said, no; no one has ever told me that because I'm fairly sure that's not a real saying!" She placed her hands on her hips and stared hard at Mikaela, "Now, what's with the flying clothes? You seem stressed, which is a highly non-Miki thing to be. What's going on?"

Mikaela let out a frustrated groan and flopped onto her bed. "Ugh, it's 5:30 and I still haven't found a freaking outfit, not to mention that I let Ali and Kirra have the shower first since I know I take a fairly long time and I figured it would give me time to sort an outfit. Kirra's still in there and you know how long my hair takes to fix when it's wet!" Mikaela wailed. "Not to mention that the boys are taking forever to reply! How hard is it to scrawl out a message saying YAY or NAY?" she growled in her head.

Lily, completely unaware of Mikaela's internal yelling, sat on the bed next to her and patted her on the arm. "Sssh, it's going to be fine, silly! You have half an hour to get ready. Kirra should be out of the shower soon and I know Ali is already ready so how about we help you find an outfit? Then after you finish showering we'll even do your make-up and hair for you. How does that sound?"

Mikaela smiled at her best friend. Even though Lily had no idea about the true source of Mikaela's stress, she still managed to make her feel better. Lily was the kindest person she had ever met, and the best friend anyone could ever have. Mikaela wanted her to be happy and she just knew that James, as annoying as he was sometimes, could be the person to make that happen.

"That sounds awesome. Are you sure? Have you finished getting ready?" Mikaela asked. "You know me right? I was finished about 10 minutes ago" Lily smirked. Mikaela sat up and rolled her eyes, "Of course you were." Lily hugged her, smiling and stood up to walk out of the room, "I'll go and get Ali."

Just after Lily left the room Mikaela heard a familiar tapping noise on her window. She quickly opened it to find an unfamiliar owl in. She had never seen an owl like it before. She made a mental note to ask whoever owned it what kind of owl it was the next time she saw him. She untied the parchment from the owl's leg and opened it, her eyes skimming across the neat scribble on the page:

"Hello girls,

We're in, however, Sirius has some concerns which he insists you take into consideration before we commence with anything major. He also asks me to tell you that if you would like our help (which he believes you will fail without) then he has some conditions that must be met.

Yes, I told him that sounds a bit like blackmail but he insisted that I tell you.

Yes, he is insisting a lot of things today.

Anyway, send Finn back with the details of when and where to meet you.

Remus"

Just then, she heard Alice and Lily in the corridor, laughing at something. She wouldn't have enough time to send a proper reply, but she couldn't not send a reply because otherwise Remus' owl wouldn't leave. Alice and Lily's voices grew louder and Mikaela knew she only had a few seconds to send some sort of reply. Grabbing a piece of parchment she hastily told Remus she'd send the details when she knew them.

She quickly but carefully shoved it into Finn's mouth and urged him out the window. The owl let out an indignant squawk as Mikaela poked his back to try and make him leave faster. "Alright, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just please, go now!" Mikaela muttered. Just then, the door opened and the sound of Alice and Lily's happy laughter flooded the room. The laughter suddenly stopped as the two spotted the owl. "Oh! He's beautiful Miki!" Lily exclaimed. "Whose owl is that?" Miki could hear the hidden question in Alice's words. Mikaela glanced at them and back at the owl desperately. The owl stared back at her with contempt before pushing its talons off the window sill and expanding its wings, gracefully flying off.

Mikaela glared at the bird for leaving her with the problem of having to explain its presence to Lily, who would no doubt be very curious about it. "Ohh, I was hoping to get a closer look at him. Do you know what kind of owl that is? Whose owl is that anyway?" Mikaela blinked, bemused at Lily's reaction but relieved at the same time. 'Crisis averted!' she thought, congratulating herself. Classic Lily being more interested in the owl itself more than whose it was or what it was doing in Mikaela's room. Mikaela caught Alice's eye and subtly jerked her head towards her cupboard. Alice got the hint and walked over to Mikaela's cupboard and opened it. "Lily come over here, we need to help Miki find an outfit, remember?" Alice said, successfully distracting Lily. "Oh yes, that's right," Lily checked her watch, "oh shoot, you've got twenty minutes until dinner." Mikaela's eyes grew wide, "what?" she yelled and started zooming around her room, muttering things to herself. Alice and Lily looked at each other, shaking their heads at her behaviour. Lily walked over and grabbed Mikaela by the shoulders, "Miki! It's okay, we have time. We'll make it work," she soothed. Mikaela took a deep breath and nodded, sitting on her bed. "Now," Lily said, "I'm going to go check on Kirra. Alice, you find that outfit and Miki, get your stuff together so you can shower as soon as Kirra's done." She left the room once more leaving Alice and Mikaela alone.

Alice opened the door and looked around to make sure that Lily was out of earshot before her and Mikaela started discussing MAML. She cast a quick muffliato on the room just to be sure. She went and sat in front of Mikaela on the bed, "Was that Remus' owl?" she asked. "Yes! Great job on distracting her by the way," "I try." They grinned at each other before Mikaela continued, "Anyway, he said that they're in but that Sirius has some worries about it. Apparently Sirius is saying that he won't help us unless we do what he says pretty much." "Seriously?" "Here, read the letter" Mikaela handed her the letter. Alice read it, pursing her lips in thought once she had finished. "Hmm, well I'm sure it won't be anything weird or unreasonable. It's an odd request...or threat, according to that letter, from Sirius." "You're right. In any case, I haven't sent a proper reply back yet, I heard you guys coming down the hall so I had to postpone sending the details. I just sent Remus a letter saying we'd get back to him about it." "Oh okay, well did you want me to write one while you find an outfit? Or should I find you an outfit while you write back?" Alice asked, standing up. "Wait, what are the details? How are we meeting with them without James and Lily?" Mikaela stood up and, after walking back to her cupboard, started rifling through the copious amounts of clothing within it. "Okay, how about you write the reply while I try and find an outfit. You just need to say yes or no, okay?" "Aye, aye, Captain!" Alice said, mock-saluting her back. "I saw that." Alice smiled sweetly, "I didn't do anything." "What a liar. Anyway, the plan is that I'm going to ask mum if we can all hang at the beach after dinner, you know, campfire, marshmallows – all that jazz. When she says yes we can send Lily and James to the beach first, tell them to find a spot for us while we grab the supplies. Then we'll have the meeting."

Alice frowned, "Okay, but what guarantees that your mum says yes? And won't they get suspicious that we're sending only the two of them? We don't really need that many people to grab some food..."

Mikaela turned around, holding a form-fitting blue cocktail dress in front of her figure, "What about this?"

"Too formal. Now answer my question."

Mikaela threw the dress aside and continued rummaging through the cupboard, "Mum's fine if we do whatever so long as we tell her where we're going and around what time we'll be back. And if you really think they're going to get suspicious we can send someone else with them. I know, we can send Kirra and Peter with them!"

Alice, seeing that Mikaela was getting nowhere with her search, put the letter she had been holding aside and stood up to help her. She waved her wand and muttered a quick spell, nodding in satisfaction as the giant mound of clothes that was beginning to build up instantly cleared, setting themselves in a neat pile of folded clothes on the bed. Next, she grabbed Mikaela and spun her around, "Go sit down, silly girl. I've got it covered." Mikaela sat down and observed as Alice waved her wand again and clothes started aligning themselves into prospective outfits in the air. "...Or I could've done that" she sighed. Alice chuckled, "You're useless when you're stressed out. Now, look at these outfits while you tell me how sending Kirra and Peter is going to help us when it makes the whole plan of us having a meeting and Lily and James being excluded out of it. Make it snappy since Lily will probably be back with Kirra at any time now and we still need to reply to Remus."

"Ew. I'm not wearing that shirt. Actually, just take out everything green." A number of green clothes flew removed themselves from the outfits and folded themselves, landing in a small pile on the bed.

"As for the plan, it's perfect! We can send Peter and Kirra with them so that they don't get suspicious and once they find a spot, Peter and Kirra can tell them that they'll go back and get us to lead us there. Really though, Kirra and Peter will go and hide somewhere to watch them. This gives Lily and James a chance to interact. While all that's happening, we'll be here at the house having the meeting where we'll explain all the logistics to the boys and also what Lily told us about. Tell Remus that we'll show them the memory of what happened at the Leaky Cauldron this afternoon. Once we're done we can send a message to Kirra and Peter to come and get us."

"Right, well that sounds good. Except that won't it be weird that Peter and Kirra come to find us when they could just send us a patronus? Peter might not know how to do one but Kirra and Lily definitely know how to. James probably does too."

"Oh right, I forgot to tell you, this neighbourhood has both a muggle and a magical community. While we're fine to do magic in the house, the beach would be too exposed. I'll warn them before they leave for the beach."

Alice stopped flicking through the outfits to stare at Mikaela. "Wow. I must say, this plan is actually pretty brilliant." They both grinned at each other again. "Right," Alice said, "I've narrowed it down to these 20 outfits, you look through them while I write back to Remus. If you can't decide, make it a process of elimination, discard the outfits you definitely won't wear and then we can decide from there."

"Thanks Ali! You're a lifesaver."

Alice sat down and accio'ed a quill and some parchment. She wrote:

Remus,

Mikaela would like to apologise for the delay, unfortunately when your owl arrived Lily was about to enter her room and as such she had to send that small note instead of the details.

The plan is for tonight is that following dinner we go to the beach. We will send James, Lily, Peter and Kirra to find a spot at the beach first while the rest of us stay here at the house to get supplies – whilst also conducting the first meeting of MAML. Peter and Kirra need to find a way to break away from the other two (we will explain how this is to happen to Kirra) in order to watch how they interact with each other and report back to us.

This will give them time to themselves and also allow us to discuss what happens next with MAML.

You probably have a lot of questions but for now, this is all you need to know. Let us take care of the rest. However, if there are any pressing questions it's probably better to wait and ask us at dinner (somehow). Lily should be coming back any time now and we won't be able to reply to you while she's here. Also, she's very curious about your owl. She may ask you about it later.

See you at dinner,

Alice.

The girls came out of Mikaela's room, each looking stunning and all of them talking and laughing happily as they usually did. James watched Lily laugh, her head thrown back with a wide grin on her face, fiery, curling locks falling gracefully over her shoulder, and couldn't help the smile that spread across his own face. Her smile had always been contagious.

Sirius wolf-whistled, drawing the girls' attention. They looked up in surprise, "Hey guys! When did you get up here?" Mikaela asked. Sirius winked at her and said, "That's for us to know and you to find out!"

The rest of the teens looked at him with blank faces. Even James looked over to his mate with a quizzical brow raised, "not one of your best mate." He remarked

Sirius pouted, "it was funny to me okay." The others chuckled at him and Remus patted him on the back in comfort.

"Seriously though, how long have you guys been here?" Lily asked

This time James winked at her and said, "Well, since we all know a gentleman never keeps a lady waiting, we decided to come early."

Lily rolled her eyes, "The only gentleman I see here is Remus, so I wouldn't expect you to know about chivalry Jamie-pie"

James poked his tongue out at her immaturely. "Exhibit A," Lily said smugly to the others, pointing at him.

While all this had been happening, Kirra had gone into the kitchen and came back out with a small bar of Honeydukes finest chocolate. As she walked back to the group, sitting around in front of the bookcase/entertainment cabinet, Alice noticed what she was eating and let out a short burst of laughter. "Kirra, you know we're eating dinner soon right?"

Kirra, through a mouthful of chocolate replied, "DINNER IS LATE. WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO WAIT FOR IT?"

Suddenly Sirius interjected, "WOMAN. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FROM?" He indicated to the chocolate bar, eyes wide with envy. Kirra nodded her head in the right direction and mumbled, "kitchen?"

Sirius' and Peter's jaws dropped, "YOU GUYS HAVE YOUR OWN KITCHEN?" they asked simultaneously. Even Remus looked impressed. Kirra nodded and motioned to the three boys to come and see it. Mikaela, seeing an opportunity, decided to leave the lovebirds alone.

"Hey guys, Alice and I are going to go see what's taking so long with dinner. Be back soon!" With that, she grabbed a slightly confused Alice and went downstairs. Both James and Lily watched them leave, knowing that without their friends to act as a barrier they both might have to face the thoughts they'd been avoiding all day.

James was the first to make a move, clearing his throat and casting a scrutinising look at Lily. Lily looked back at him with a seemingly calm facade. He raised his eyebrow at her in a silent question – Are we okay?

Lily smiled back at him and inclined her head in affirmation. James grinned his usual cheeky grin and opened his arms to her for a hug, this time wiggling his eyebrows at her – You know you want to! Lily rolled her eyes but her smile grew wider despite herself, and she found herself in his arms. Even if, sometimes, this boy made her want to strangle him, it was moments like these that she knew she'd never give up on their friendship.

Of course, James had to ruin the moment by tickling her mercilessly. Lily squealed involuntarily and jumped away from him. She glared as he had the audacity to pretend to look innocent. "This is war Potter" she growled, and proceeded to throw a pillow at his face.

The others in the kitchen, having heard the commotion, arrived back at the main room to find various pillows strewn about the room and James chasing Lily as the redhead screamed and ran away, chucking pillows behind her in an attempt to deter her pursuer.

"...We left them alone for like 5 minutes..." Kirra-lee said. The four stood in silence for a few seconds before Sirius said, "...who wants to sit on the couch and watch the show?" Peter started for the couch calling out "I've got the popcorn!"

15 minutes later...

As Alice and Mikaela reached the landing on the girls' floor, they were shocked to find a red-faced Lily pinned underneath James, who was tickling her mercilessly as she weakly attempted to fight him off, and the rest of the group sitting on the couch opposite the pair, laughing as they watched the scene in front of them. Looking at each other, they shook their heads in exasperation before moving in to save Lily.