It took me a ridiculously long time to update and I'm so so sorry! School got really busy, and then I was pretty sick for a while and did nothing but do homework and sleep, but that's still no excuse to take this long to update, so I'm sorry _. I promise the next update will come sooner!

So, as usual, I'd really love to know what everyone is thinking! Reviews are better than finally getting to sleep because it's the weekend. Thank you so much for reading!

The next morning dawned bright and crisp. The wintery edge of November was just beginning to stretch its frigid tendrils toward Hogwarts. In true Saturday-morning form, five of the residents in the seventh-year girls' dormitory were still sound asleep come 9:00. The sixth resident, one Lily Evans, was already walking down a chilly corridor on her way to the Heads Office. Because James, who was Quidditich captain as well as Head Boy, felt the need to schedule Quidditch practice almost every night, they had been having prefect meetings on Saturday mornings, much to the chagrin of all involved.

When Lily arrived, the Head students' office was empty, but she wasn't surprised. She had arrived about ten minutes early. She pulled a few relevant papers from the bag she had slung over her shoulder and laid them out on the table, then sat down in one of the high-backed wooden chairs and extracted quill, ink, and parchment from her bag. She had just begun to draft a schedule for the meeting when a thin, brown-haired boy of medium height and unassuming, pleasant disposition entered the room. Remus Lupin. Lily looked up and grinned.

"Remus!"

"Hey, Lily," he smiled a pleasant, slightly weary smile and sat down in a chair near Lily's.

Lily noted his pallor and the deep bags under his eyes. "Are doing alright, Remus?" she asked. Then she leaned over the table toward him, lowering her voice, and said, "The full moon's in a couple of days, right?" Lily was one of the few Hogwarts students who knew about Remus's unfortunate condition; namely, that he was a werewolf. She had worked it out last year, finally piecing together his absences, which occurred, like clockwork, every full moon, and finally worked up the nerve to ask him about it. At first, he was horrified, but after much assurance that Lily had no intention of telling anyone and thought no differently about him because of it, his horror dissipated. Now he was glad he had someone besides the other Marauders to confide in. They may have been his best friends, but they weren't precisely the best of listeners.

Remus nodded. "Yeah, two nights from tonight," he said. "But I'm fine." The ensuing smile was clearly meant to convince Lily of this.

Lily noticed the strain in Remus's smile, but, in a valiant effort to preserve his pride, said nothing. She gave him an encouraging smile of her own before returning to the meeting schedule. However, she had only been working for a minute or so when she lifted her head again, meeting eyes with Remus. If anyone understood James and Sirius as well as they understood each other, it was him. "Remus…?" she started hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

Lily faltered. Perhaps she should not tell him. She couldn't just go asking every Marauder about James—they might begin to get suspicious. As soon as Lily thought this, her brown creased almost imperceptibly. Suspicious of what? What had she been thinking? Before Lily had had a chance to set her thoughts straight and answer Remus, the door creaked, announcing the arrival of another prefect and saving Lily from having to answer at all. The newcomer turned out to be Severus Snape, who was one of the Slytherin prefects. He shot Remus a look of contempt and chose a chair on the other end of the table. He didn't meet Lily's eyes, and Lily kept hers steadfastly locked on the meeting schedule in front of her, but his entrance had reminded her of what she had been upset about in the first place last night, and she suddenly felt that it would be nearly impossible to follow Sirius's advice.

By the time James came into the room, there was only a minute before he would have been deemed late, and all but one of the prefects had arrived. He looked apologetically at Remus and avoided Lily's eyes. He had too much to apologize to her for. A look would not suffice. He always teased Lily, but saying what he had about her and Severus and been going too far. He felt awful, so he would deal with it the way James always did. Never mention it again. He would cover up his guilt with more teasing smirks. He headed towards the chairs in the middle of the table that were reserved for the Head students, and sat down next to Lily.

Lily wasn't even irritated at James's tardiness. By this point she was used to it. When she heard the door open, she looked up. James was looking away from her, already making his way around the table to his seat. The memory of what had happened in the Great Hall last night now fresh in her mind again, she had expected to feel a stab of anger at the sight of him, but instead she felt a thrill of nervousness, which was only heightened when he sat down next to her.

It must just be her confusion at what Sirius had told her, made more real by the sight of the boy to whom he referred. That's what she told herself.

The prefect meeting passed smoothly in discussion of patrol schedules and house points, although for Lily it was marked by nervousness and confusion. When they finished, James and Lily thanked the prefects and dismissed them. As they all flooded out, Remus gathered up his things and approached Lily.

"Hey, Lily?"

"Hey, Remus. What is it?"

"Were you about to say something earlier? When Snape came in?" She had, in fact, but she shook her head and smiled.

"No, Remus. It was nothing." Remus frowned slightly at Lily, and her heart sank. He had seen the conflict in her eyes earlier, and he was too perceptive to believe her dismissal of it now.

But he was also too considerate to pry if he sensed it was not something she wanted to discuss, so he smiled warmly and said, "Okay. See you later, Lily. Bye, James." Lily waved, and James said goodbye, and Remus left with a knowing smile on his face.

James and Lily still had a few things to finish up, and Lily's heart was pounding. She sat back down in her chair, from which she had stood up when Remus came up to her, and began to shuffle through some papers, not really looking at any of them. What was wrong with her? Why on Earth was Sirius's advice making her so nervous around James? What should it matter what he said, anyway? He was Sirius Black, git of the century.

"Hey, Evans?" James's voice cut into Lily's thoughts, and she looked reluctantly up from her pile of papers. "I'm… er…. I'm sorry about yesterday, what I said about Snivellus." He realized suddenly that the use of this demeaning nickname might not exactly contribute to the sincerity of his apology, so he quickly corrected himself. "Er… I mean, Snape."

Lily's eyes widened. Was James Potter apologizing for something? Sincerely? "It's okay, Potter. Forget about it."

James stared at her. Lily was not precisely known for her cool temper and willingness to forgive. He had fully expected her to stay angry at him for at least a couple of days, and then maybe return to her unusual state of only mild loathing. "What's wrong with you, Evans?" he asked, widening his eyes in mock-surprise. "Did you start taking some new anti-bitch medication?"

Lily gave him a withering look. "Shut it, Potter. Perhaps I'm just feeling particularly merciful today. I wouldn't push it, if I were you." She said this was a feigned teasing tone, wondering what, in fact, was wrong with her. She knew she should still be furious with Potter. So why wasn't she?