Lily descended the stairs from her dormitory, just like every other morning since she'd began at Hogwarts, having got up early and dressed without waking her roommates or battling them for the bathroom, just like every other morning and just like every other morning, she'd find a quiet corner and finish off some homework or read a book until the morning bustle of the common room just got too loud to cope with, in which case she would slope off to breakfast and ready herself for the day.

As she reached the last few steps, she could see a pair of feet dangling off one the couches. One of the 7th years, she thought, had maybe been drinking all night and crashed out on a sofa.

She would wake them up and get them back to their dormitory before the loudness of the first years did that for her.

As she rounded the couch, she that it was someone she completely did not expect it to be. James Potter.

As if almost passed out, James was sprawled on the couch, with a pillow from one of the beds, hair spraying out over it, at the most peculiar angles, but that was not what caught her eye.

His shirt was torn and covered in streaks of blood, James' face had not escaped the splatter, and more so, one of the rips was quite large at the bottom of his shirt, revealing his stomach quite unobtrusively.

Lily noted, that for once, the Hogwarts rumour mills were true, James did have a well defined stomach, and Lily, try as she might, could not stop staring.

James let out a soft snore, and tossed in his sleep, which broke Lily out of her catatonic state.

She definitely would not let James be found here, lest so, like this, by one of his admirers. She stuck out her foot and gently nudged his dangling shoe. It barely registered with him.

She tried again, this time with a gentle kick, but it did not wake him. So she went a little harder this time, with what she classed as a 'definite kick', but James slept on.

'Sod this,' she thought, and swung her leg to kick him quite strongly, but completely misjudged her own abilities. Instead, she missed his nearest leg as her's swung upwards, and instead fell forward, effectively stamping on his other leg.

'AAAAARGH,' screamed James as he sat bolt upright, whilst Lily nearly fell back off him. 'What the bloody hell, Evans?'

Lily stumbled back away from him and attempted to stand up straight, presenting herself quite poorly as having not done anything.

'About time,' said Lily, as if nothing had happened. 'I've been trying to wake you for ages. You can't sleep here.'

James looked bewildered, before realisation set in.

'Oh, sorry, thought we were in my room.'

'What would I be doing in your room?'

James smiled, 'Well …..'

'Never mind,' said Lily hotly. 'And get off the couch, people have to sit here you know.'

'Yeah, yeah,' said James extracting himself off the couch and moping towards the stairs.

'Potter,' Lily offered, just before he reached the stairs. 'Why are you covered in blood?'

Potter grabbed at his shirt and lifted it into his view.

'Oh, yeah,' he muttered, more to himself than her. 'Got into a bit of a caper last night, nothing much. Not even my blood.'

'You sure?'

'Yeah, it's fine,' he added lamely. 'You should see the other guy.'

Lily let it go and settled down on the couch, reading her Charms textbook.

Less than two minutes had passed, before the thunder of footsteps could be heard on the stair, far too loud for an early morning.

Potter jogged back into the common room, freshly changed but with Sirius in hot pursuit.

'James' pleaded Sirius as he chased him, but James continued towards the door, without acknowledging him or Lily. Sirius finally caught up to him just before the exit and grabbed at James' shoulder to stop him. James wrenched his hand off him, turned and threw Sirius to the floor, wand now pointing down at his friend.

'Don't,' spat James, seething. 'Not today.'

'Please, James' begged Sirius, more feeble than Lily had ever seen or imagined.

'Don't push it. You've already done enough.'

'Just let me help'

'How Sirius? It's your fault, Sirius. You've ruined everything and you don't even really care.'

'I do.'

'Then why did you do it, then?'

'I didn't think,' protested Sirius.

'Yeah, you did. You and I both know you're smarter than that. You knew exactly what you were doing and that makes it ten times worse. Maybe, you're more like your family than you let on…, Black.'

James put so much venom into his words than Lily thought Sirius would breakdown into tears, he certainly looked like it, but James pocketed his wand and headed out the door, not before adding.

'Morning, Evans.'

Sirius turned to her, bewildered, having not seen her sat there and stared at her for a few seconds, uncomfortably before standing and brushing himself off.

'Evans,' he nodded politely before heading back upstairs.

Lily thought she would never, ever figure out what went on in boys heads after that, frankly, weird exchange.