AN: Sorry for the wait, I made this one a few hundred words longer and added partial nudity to atone for it. Enjoy.

"You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation."
― Brigham Young

Day Three:

Dear L

I suppose you may have some questions by now. The Potters aren't close with my particular branch of the family tree, though they are familiar with us by name. And Everyone knows the Blacks. But I'll do one at a time.

Potters: They're like a super old family that has always stuck up for muggles and muggleborns. From what I've heard, James is sort of a showboat, but he's a 'decent boy' (my father's words.) His father is the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, so hopefully your future boss, and he's been very influential in the implementation of legislation protecting the rights of muggleborns because that's what Potters do. Now Mrs. Potter, she's a hoot and half. She is on the Wizengamot and used to be the undersecretary of the Minister of Magic for almost three decades, so you think she'd be all serious and whatnot, but she exactly the opposite of what you'd expect someone in her line of work to be. Very interesting people from what I've heard.

Blacks: Now this family is the exact opposite, which is why it gave me a moment of pause when you grouped their names together. Sirius was always said to be the black sheep of the family, but I find it hard to believe that he would be rooming with James civilly. Anyway, the Black are big supporters of You-Know-Who, one of his great aunts even tried to pass a bill that would make it legal to hunt muggles. Really, really, horrible stuff.

And now my family: I don't know if you know this, but my dad hasn't talked to his brothers in a very long time. His sister (Gwen's mum) is the only one of his siblings that really keeps in touch. They wanted him to become and Auror, so he became a Healer, they wanted him to speak out against You-Know-Who, and then he moved us all up here in the middle of nowhere. It's a bit of a touchy subject with some of the decent purebloods and I shouldn't have sent you out there without telling you that. We've tried telling him that we want him to stand against the death eaters, but Jeremy is three, and, well I can't really blame him for wanted to make sure that we're safe.

Anyway, yes, Beauxbatons still sucks and my least horrible class is about child care and that's only because I'm a sucker for children. (My most horrible class is entitled, 'Training your servants.' The first chapter was about how locking house elves in a cupboard for a few hours is a good way to teach the young ones when talking is not acceptable.)

Love (your friend who tried her damnedest to get you on a broom),

Mars

"I really don't know what you think you're going to accomplish." Lily said, pushing her short hair back away from her face even though it was now too short to be in her eyes. It was a habit she'd had her whole life and one she didn't think was going away anytime soon.

"I'm going to accomplish getting you on a broom." James said, once again pushing an old school broom out for her to take.

"You don't think people have tried to get me on a broom before? I've got five siblings and Gwen Jones is my cousin. They all play Quidditch."

"You will learn to fly a broom."

"I know how." Lily rolled her eyes.

"Really?"

"Well," She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled a bit. "I've seen people do it. I've been told how to do it. So yes, I know how."

"Alright," James smirked at her. "Tell me what you do first."

"First you have to get the broom in your hand." James held the broom out for a third time. Lily felt like rolling her eyes again, but this time, she took the broom.

"And then what?"

"Well then you get on the broom but I don't want to do that."

"Is the heights? Are you afraid of heights?"

Lily shook her head. "I'm not afraid." She didn't think boys would admit to being afraid. She however had no problem telling people that she was frightened of heights.

"Really?"

Well, if he was going to goad her, "I'm terrified." James laughed and Lily's smile got bigger.

"Alright, well you don't have to get very high off the ground to actually be flying. You can just get up like one or two feet, can you do that?"

Lily pressed her lips together and tried to keep from smiling, because of course she could do that. Probably. She was actually starting to think that James was the reason she was smiling so much. That knocked the smile off her face. "I can try." She said, reluctantly.

"Then do it." He said in quite the patronizing voice. Lily took a moment to mock him and then swung one leg over the broom and gripped the handle tightly.

"Loosen your grip."

"Nah, I'm good."

"Look, the only way you're going to fall off is if you don't listen to me." Lily huffed, but loosened her grip, only slightly, but she still loosened it. "Alright, now on my count, I want you to kick off the ground, just a little bit. One, two, three!" Lily kicked off the ground and was surprised at how quickly she shot into the air. She was only three or four feet above where she had been a moment ago, but her feet were now dangling and her grip tightened again so she was now white-knuckling the handle.

"Loosen your grip." James reminded her, not seeming to notice that she was on the verge of having a panic attack.

"I can't get down," Lily shouted. "I can't get down!" She started kicking her legs and reaching towards the ground, however when she went to tip her feet towards the ground, she pulled the broom handle towards her chest. She could feel the broom start vibrating and she shot up less than a foot before James had jumped up and grabbed the handle, pulling her back down to the ground. Lily fell off the broom and into James, causing the both of them to fall in a heap to the ground.

They laid there for a moment, both a bit winded.

"I thought you knew how to ride a broom."

"I thought you were teaching me how to ride a broom."

"Pulling the handle up, makes the broom go up. It's quite simple."

"You'd think." Lily agreed. "But I did not like that at all."

"I could tell." James shook his head and laughed. "You weren't kidding about the heights thing, were you? How do you climb up stairs? Or stand on balconies."

"That's different, it's when there's nothing under my feet when it starts to bother me. Or when what's under my feet doesn't have anything under it. Okay, so, some balconies scare me." He laughed again and Lily smiled. Damn him.

"Hey," He stopped smiling and sat up. "You're not still sore with Sirius are you? About him saying what he did about your dad?"

Lily sighed and pushed herself up so she was on her elbows. "Honestly, I'm more annoyed with him about everything he did after that." James grinned and nodded. "And you can't tell him that I'm saying this, but I understand where's he coming from. I even agree with him sometimes you know. People are dying and he's- well, he's hiding. And I know why, I know it's because my little brothers are three and five and they can't do anything to protect themselves, but- I don't know. He's my dad though, so I can be upset with him."

"I get that." James nodded. "And so does Sirius for what it's worth. He talks shit about his family all the time, but say one bad thing about his little brother and he'll probably clock you."

"What did you say about his brother?"

"I didn't-" James sighed. "I said I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a death eater." Lily gasped and hit James on the arm.

"That's a horrible thing to say about someone's brother." It wasn't until she saw the look on James' face and replayed what she had just done in her head that she realized that swatting at him and using inflection as she had was very feminine. "I mean, from what I've heard about the Blacks, maybe not surprising." She would just pretend it didn't happen and maybe James would too.

"Yeah, Reg is probably a death eater by now, but it's still a sore spot for Sirius so don't mention it. They used to be close."

Lily nodded empathetically, but then she shook her head. "Wait, what do you mean he's probably already a death eater? We're in school. We don't go to school with death eaters."

James gave her yet another funny look. "I promise you that we do. Nott, Rosier, Dolohov… they're all death eaters."

"You mean they will be-"

"No. They are, right now."

"Then why aren't they expelled?"

"Well, they haven't done anything that anyone can prove." James shrugged. "Besides, Dumbledore is hoping that if they stay here longer, some of the will change their minds."

"Right, like Voldemort is going to let them change their minds." She scoffed and James grinned.

"You used his name."

"Sure did." Lily said, nodding her head. "I'm going to fight this guy one day pretty soon, and I'm not going to be calling him He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named when I do. That's ridiculous."

"I agree." He said. With another strange look, he said, "You're an odd bloke, Marcus."

oOoOo

Lily was asked by Remus to join him in the stands during the Quidditch tryouts. "James and Sirius make me and Peter come along, but Peter likes going and is always down on the field."

"You don't like going?" Remus shook his head.

"Flying would be fun if it didn't make me so sore."

"Was that a jab at me because James told you I fell of the broom today?"

"Yes. But also flying makes me sore." Remus laughed. "We can bring our Transfiguration homework and I'll help you with it."

"There's no need to bribe me. I was going to come with you." Lily grabbed her book bag. "But now we're definitely doing that." She laughed and shook her head. "How sad is it that we've only had one class of Transfiguration and I already am easily bribed with an offer of help on the homework?"

"Yeah, we're going to be able to get you to do anything, aren't we?"

"Yes."

They walked down to the stands and nabbed a couple of seats at almost the very top of the stands, sitting on the benches sideways so they could use the benches behind them as a table. They didn't really pay much attention to the tryouts, and split their time between talking and doing their homework. Lily with her pencil and Remus with his self-refilling quill.

"It's not so bad when it refills itself." Lily said, having took the quill to try it out. "I mean, I still make a mess with it-"

"I didn't notice that you were left handed." Remus pointed at her hand. Lily held it up and nodded. Even though she had only started writing with the quill a few words ago, there were already streaks of ink across the bottom right corner of her palm.

"It's a pain."

"You need to get some instant drying ink." Remus said.

Lily was about to ask where she could get some of that, because really, she had had just about enough of getting ink stains all over her hand. However, before she could open her mouth, her attention was captured by something on the field.

There had been shouting the entire time of course, mostly James', but Sirius got a few good shouts in as well, but this was different. It was as though the field had suddenly erupted and everyone was trying to shout over each other, grappling to be heard.

"What the hell?" Lily stood up to get a better view.

"Oh Merlin." Remus sighed, starting his way down towards the field. "It's the Slytherins."

"What?"

"They do this, every single year and James lets it get to him, every single year."

"What did they do?"

"They show up and they add their two sense and normally they talk some Hufflepuff into trying out for our team, or they jinx some of the school brooms to only fly backwards or some other stupid, inane thing that starts a prank war between our houses that lasts the rest of the year. And I know you don't know James and Sirius very well yet, but they take this very personally and very seriously."

"It seems harmless."

"Not to James, and because of that, not to Sirius. James loves Quidditch more than just about anything, and now that he's captain, he takes their stupid jabs even harder than before. It's all childish, but- I don't know. It could be worse."

When they got closer to the field they could see more of what was actually going on. James was standing in front of a group of younger years with his broom in one hand and a school broom in the other hand. It was snapped in half, a few splinters keeping the different pieces together.

"Who are they?"

"Evan Rosier." Remus sighed. Lily could tell by the tone of his voice that this particular Slytherin had a history with them.

"And here comes the fourth one." Evan said, turning his sharp gaze towards Remus. "And now we have the entire set of Marauders." Lily wasn't sure what that meant, but he said it like a taunt. There were two other boys with Evan that Remus hadn't thought important enough to name. One had shoulder length black hair and wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, or giving himself the opportunity to. He kept his eyes glued to the ground. The other boy was taller and broader than Evan. If Lily had thought that Sirius was too broad to only be seventeen- well he had nothing on this kid. Lily wouldn't be surprised if he had been held back a few years.

"I think you've had your fun, Rosier." James said sternly, gripping his broom more tightly and tossing the broken school broom to the side.

"I don't think so." He looked up at Lily now, his brow cocking up. "They aren't shunning you? I didn't think they had any room left in their strange, polymorphous relationship."

"I think you mean polygamous." Lily said, narrowing her eyes. "And you know, they kind of have the view point of the more the merrier." Sirius let out a quick, sharp laugh and nodded.

"Absolutely, Marcus." He winked at him and Evan sighed.

"And you can leave now, yes?" James used his broom to point off the field.

"I had a whole thing planned." He feigned picking dirt out from under his fingernails. "But now that I've seen what you're working with this year and I have to say, it's so pathetic that I can't even find it in me to sabotage you."

"You just knocked one of our best players off their broom!"

"I can't believe one of you 'best' players rides a school broom still."

"Shut up, Rosier." A red headed boy spat. He was holding his arm and had blood dripping down from his nose. Lily wasn't sure how she hadn't noticed him before.

"Piss poor." The monster student standing next to Evan said in a low, gravelly voice. "That's how."

"Fuck you." Sirius said, taking a step forward. James reached out.

"Not now." He took a deep breath and pushed his glasses up his nose. "Rosier, Snape, Dolohov, get off my pitch or when Slytherin has the field in a couple hours, I'm make sure to lay down some permanent sticking charms before I leave and drop a few dungbombs in the locker room. Don't fuck with my tryouts."

"Someone still a bit sore that they didn't win the house cup last year."

"Sorry, I had been under the impression that we were going to actually play by the rules. I won't be making that mistake again."

oOoOo

Lily stood in front of the loo mirror when she finally made it back to the dormitory after dinner that night. She still wasn't used to her new face. Her sharp jaw line, her hooded brow, short hair, Adam's apple… it was just all so strange. She sighed and ran a lock of hair between two of her fingers. It would grow back, a simple spell would hasten the process to about ten seconds and yet she missed it anyway.

"Oi," Lily turned around to see Sirius standing in the doorway.

"I was just finishing up. It's all yours-"

"I'm sorry I called your dad a coward." He said, now pressing his lips together and looking at Lily's left ear. She got the feeling that apologizing wasn't something that he normally did.

"I'm sorry I was overly sensitive about it." There was no need to prolong this uncomfortable exchange so Lily just accepted the apology. Had it been Marlene who was apologizing, she would have dragged the whole thing out, seen what she could get from the other girl before saying that it was all fine.

"Yeah, well-" He scratched at his head. "It's family. I get weird about my family sometimes. My brother anyway."

"It's alright. Let's just forget about it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Kay. You done in here?"

"Yep, all yours." They brushed shoulders when they passed each other and Lily quickened her pace. Boys were strange, foreign creatures and she was definitely going to get caught.

"You two made up all nice?" James asked when Lily reached her bed. His bed just happened to be the one right next to his.

"You send him in there?"

"He was going to wait till tomorrow." James shrugged.

"We're good." Lily nodded.

"I owe you an apology too." James said, a smirk forming.

"For what?"

"Making you get on a broom." Lily laughed and chucked her potions textbook at him. He caught it easily and laughed at her.

"Watch it McKinnon. I need to keep in peak physical condition so we can trounce Slytherin in two weeks."

"Say 'peak physical condition' one more time." Sirius said, walking back into the room.

"You're just jealous that I'm stronger than you."

"In your dreams maybe." Sirius laughed, pulling his shirt off and tossing it at the foot of his bed. "You're a twig, prongs." Sirius flexed and James rolled his eyes.

"I'm the lead chaser on the team, Sirius-"

"I'm a beater!"

"I think I've got some upper body strength. 'Sides, I was able to pin you this summer."

"You two still wrestle?" Remus asked, sounding exhausted. "Aren't you a bit old for that?"

"Hush, or we'll come after you." Sirius turned to glare at him. "Pushups?" He asked when he turned back to James.

"You're on." He pulled his own shirt off and it landed in a pool at Lily's feet. She quickly averted her gaze and bit down on her tongue. They were making things difficult for her. Very, very difficult.

AN: Reviews are sublime.