Chapter Four

"I'm so glad you're in Gryffindor with us!" Marlene squealed, hugging Lily as she sat down next to her and Alice. "We're going to have so much fun this year, and we'll introduce you to everyone, we promise. You're going to have the greatest time!"

Lily forced a smile, though her mind was in a haze. "Yeah," she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. "It's going to be tops!" Her eyes flitted sideways, looking back up the table to where James and the other boys were sitting. James's jaw was clenched and he was gripping his fork like he was holding a grenade. How is this possible? She wondered. And then it all came rushing back to her. She could even feel the summer breeze on her face again…

"We also go to school in Scotland…maybe I'll see you around, Lily."

"Lily, are you all right?" Alice looked at her new friend concernedly. Lily's smile had grown rather fixed, and shock was beginning to edge into her face.

"What?" Lily snapped out of her thoughts, blinking a few times. Her eyes had glazed over while she was far away in her disturbed reverie. "Oh. I'm fine, yes." She reached out to the platter in the center of the table and skewered a piece of roast beef onto her plate rather violently with a silver serving fork. She dragged the smile back onto her face. "So, uh…who were those blokes sitting with Remus Lupin?"

"What blokes?" Marlene's brow furrowed as she craned her head over the fifteen or so people separating the girls from Remus and his friends. "Oh, you mean them. The Marauders."

"The Marauders?" Lily asked confusedly, following Marlene's gaze to where the boys were sitting. She saw the side of James's head and a strange feeling bubbled inside her stomach. She flicked her eyes back to Marlene quickly and willed the bizarre sensation to go away. "They fancy themselves to be pirates or something?"

"Something like that," Marlene grinned. "I can't blame you for noticing them. They're simply gorgeous, aren't they? Except for that Pettigrew bloke. The boy's nice and all, but I don't really understand how he ended up running with the likes of them. I mean, they're all absolutely brilliant, and he's rather boring."

"I don't think it was Peter that she wanted to know about, Marly," Alice interjected, giving Lily an apologetic look as she turned to her. "See, those boys had this little circle since we were all first-years. They nicknamed themselves the Marauders for whatever silly reasons that boys have for doing those things. They're all in Gryffindor with us. It's Lupin, who you met earlier, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, and James Potter." She noticed Lily blanch slightly at the final name she listed. "Is something the matter?"

"Oh, no, go on," Lily said quickly, wiping the pained expression off of her face as quickly as it had struck her. She cut her chunk of roast beef as nonchalantly as possible, mentally begging Alice to continue.

"If you're sure…" Alice looked at her dubiously, but she went on. "They're the smartest boys in our year, even though I don't think I've ever seen one of them pick up a book and study, besides Lupin. They used to pull all these absurd pranks on people, especially the Slytherins. Most were harmless, but some of the things they would do were just cruel. They've mellowed out since then, though, now that Remus is Prefect and Potter's Head Boy, however the hell that happened—are you sure you're okay, Lily?"

Lily appeared to have choked on her roast beef. She sputtered as Marlene slapped her on the back, her face rapidly turning red. "I'm fine, sorry. Went down the wrong way," she muttered when she was finally capable of speaking again. "So, uh, you said Potter is Head Boy? And he's friends with…with Black?"

Alice looked very suspicious of Lily's behavior and exchanged a glance with Marlene. "Yes," she said slowly. "Do you know them already?"

"No, course not," Lily replied hastily. She answered a little bit too quickly, as Alice raised her eyebrows at her questioningly. She cleared her throat awkwardly. "I mean, unless they went to Beauxbatons at some point, I don't think I've ever met them before in my life."

"Really? Because you're really acting strange about this," Marlene said bluntly, looking intently at Lily. "If there's something going on, you can tell us. Did those boys bother you or something? It'd be right up their alley if they did…" A knowing look crossed her face suddenly. "Oh Merlin, I think I know what it is." She turned to Alice. "I bet it's Black."

Alice groaned and shook her head, choosing to say nothing and instead grabbing some string beans from a nearby platter.

"You didn't sleep with him, did you?" Marlene winced, and didn't wait for an answer. "Look, doll," she began, reaching out to pat a very confused Lily's hand comfortingly. "Sirius Black is bad news. He eats women like candy, and if you two had a fling or something, I want you to understand that the bloke is a womanizer and you should steer very clear of him because he is—"

Lily couldn't help but giggle at the irony of the situation, despite her shock. The corners of her mouth twitching upwards ever-so-slightly, she said, "I didn't sleep with him, I promise."

"Oh, thank Merlin," Alice looked relieved. "I really suggest you don't in the future, either. It's just a bad idea all around. He charms the pants off of girls, makes them fall in love with him, and walks away. I mean, I heard he's bloody amazing, but don't become one of his victims."

"As president of the I-Shagged-Sirius-Black-and-Regretted-It Club, I second that motion," Marlene snorted, stabbing at a potato on her plate and stuffing it into her mouth aggressively.

"He regretted it too, Marly, after you wrote a poem about it on the wall of the fourth floor toilets, and every girl in the school read it," Alice chortled.

"As far as I know, it's still there. I charmed it so the elves can't scrub it off!" Marlene snickered. Her eyes lit up suddenly and she turned to Lily eagerly. "You want to see it?"

"I'll be fine," Lily continued chewing her roast beef as calmly as she could. The food was delicious and was almost as good as her mother's home cooking, and it offered her some much-welcomed comfort. "So what happened between you two?"

"Exactly what always happens when you get two horny teenagers alone in a dark Common Room over Christmas break," Marlene snorted through another mouthful of potatoes. "We shagged." Swallowing her food, she beamed widely. "And it was great."

For the first time since she saw James minutes before, Lily smiled—a real smile. "I thought you just said that you regretted it!"

"Well, the actual shag itself was fantastic, but the aftermath was awful," Marlene conceded, making a face at her now-empty plate. "He should have told me that he didn't want me to write an ode to his sexual prowess on the wall."

"It wasn't just that, you also called him an arrogant, toad-eating piece of dirt because he didn't offer to take you to Hogsmeade the next weekend." Alice winced at the memory. "Don't forget I had to go up to Remus and beg him to put a Restraining Charm on Black to keep him from strangling you."

"Oh, he wasn't actually going to hurt me," Marlene said dismissively. "He was too desperate to get some more—"

"No, actually, Marls, I'm pretty sure he was going to murder you." Alice's gaze flicked back to Lily, who looked mildly amused at the exchange, before they got too lost in discussion of Marlene's past flings. "So you're sure you're all right?"

"Yeah," Lily nodded. The girls' humor had brightened her mood. "It's just a lot for me to handle. New school, new country, a language I haven't spoken regularly in years, and then" –she grinned devilishly, her personality shining through at last— "handsome prankster boys in the same house as us."

"Now you're talking!" Marlene beamed, slinging an arm around her. "We'll give you a tour of the castle after the feast, how does that sound? You won't be nervous one bit when we're through with you, I promise."

"Prongs," Sirius was saying. "Prongs, listen to me, I know this is hard for you, but..."

James was staring down at the ceramic plate in front of him, barely listening to a word coming out of Sirius's mouth. His eyes were dark and moody behind his glasses that had been slowly sliding further and further down his nose. He did not seem to care and had not moved an inch in the past half hour, his gaze fixed intently on his empty plate as his friends wolfed down the food of the banquet laid out around them. Very little had been said since Lily made her appearance in the Great Hall, and it did not look like that would change.

"Come on, mate," Sirius heaved a slab of pork onto his plate. "You can't turn up this food. You know you want it. Just smell it, the delicious, aromatic wafts of—"

"Sirius, shut the hell up," James growled at last, his head finally snapping up and turning to face Sirius with such ferocity that Remus and Peter leaned back slightly. Sirius did not even flinch.

"It speaks!" Sirius threw his hands up in mock surprise, but he very clearly wasn't amused. He dumped a small mountain of mashed potatoes on his best friend's plate, so large that it covered most of the pork.

James just glared, saying nothing, though pushing his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. He reached for his knife and fork and wielded them both like weapons (in Sirius's direction) in a way that made Remus and Peter wince. He stabbed the pork as if it had done him some kind of grievous injury, and hacked at it viciously before stuffing it into his mouth and gulping it down with aggression.

Peter made a face and looked at Sirius. "What happened?" he mouthed. This did not escape James's notice.

"What do you mean, what happened?" James snapped bitterly. "Found a girl, got rejected. Not much more to it than that."

Peter faltered a bit and shrank back against the harshness of his friend's tone. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it, Prongs, but—"

"But what?" James stabbed another piece of pork with his knife. "It's not that complicated." His shock from the beginning of the feast had long since faded into anger. "I liked her more than she liked me, and she didn't even think to give me any type of closure about the whole damn thing." He stared at some of the platters that sat on the table before him. There was a duck confit dish in front of him, clearly with French origins, along with a meter-long baguette sliced into several smaller pieces. Probably in Lily's honor, he thought. Of course. He couldn't help but glance down the table at her subtly. She was sitting with Marlene and Alice, laughing at something they said.

Remus glanced at Sirius and shook his head slightly. He reached under the table and pulled a piece of parchment out of his pocket along with a magical quill. He scrawled something discreetly on the parchment while James continued to mangle his food, and slipped it to Sirius underneath the table. He subtly reached out to take it, and his eyes skimmed the words on the page.

How does he know her? It read.

We went to Cannes for his uncle's birthday party, Sirius wrote back hastily, eyeing James covertly, who had not noticed the note-passing taking place beside him, his gaze still fixed on his food. Met her and her friend in a restaurant. Went to a bar together. He liked her, they kissed, and she promised to write but never did. He took it personally. The end.

Sirius kicked Remus in the leg and stuffed the piece of parchment into his hand just as James looked up, still oblivious to the silent communication next to him. Peter was watching the entire exchange awkwardly from his spot at the edge of the group, his mouth opening as he tried to come up with something to say, and closing like a guppy's as he failed.

"So she's in our bloody house, too," James mumbled angrily to Sirius, forcing down some of the buttery mashed potatoes. "This entire year is going to blow. Why couldn't she just stay in her own damn school? Why the hell did she have to come here?" He did not notice Remus's brow furrowing as he read Sirius's response.

"I dunno, mate," Sirius said as comfortingly as he could. "But at least now you know she's a bitch, right? You're not really missing anything by not being with her."

James stiffened. Not missing anything? He was missing a chance at repeating that magical kiss in Cannes. He sighed heavily and tried to put faith in Sirius's words. "You're right."

Sirius looked surprised. "Wait, I am?" He glanced at Remus. "Hey, Moony, you hear that? I'm right about something! My advice was valuable for once!"

"Maybe I'll chat up Audrey Clearwater again," James said contemplatively, doing his best to replace all thoughts of Lily with the petite blonde Audrey, an old flame from the previous year. "I could strike things back up with her again…"

"Good on you, Prongs!" Sirius clapped him on the back. "See? You don't have to moon over that Evans girl!"

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea—" Remus started disapprovingly.

Sirius glared and kicked him under the table.

"You know what?" James stood up abruptly. He was already making eyes at Audrey over at the Ravenclaw table, and she was waving him over with a sly smile. "I think I'm going to go talk to Audrey right now."

"James, you've got to lead the first years up to Gryffindor Tower after dinner," Remus glared. "This is your first major duty as Head Boy, and you're just not going to do it?"

"Nope," James smirked. "You're going to." Remus was about to protest, but James was already on his way over to the Ravenclaw table. "The password's Bouncing Bowtruckles. Have fun, Moony!"

Remus, Sirius, and Peter were left sitting at the table, in complete silence. Sirius watched with black amusement as James whispered something into the blonde girl's ear, before taking her hand and leading her out of the Great Hall—for a snog in the Room of Requirement, no doubt.

"He doesn't really want to go back to Clearwater, does he?" Remus asked, looking skeptical. "Wasn't she a bit of an airhead?" He was perturbed by James's behavior.

Sirius narrowed his eyes, glancing down the table at Lily, Marlene, and Alice. He was actually upset at how happy Lily looked. He knew James better than anyone, and even if he did just saunter out of the Great Hall with the beautiful Audrey Clearwater on his arm, he knew that James's heart wasn't in it.

"Of course he doesn't," Sirius shook his head. "But if it helps him put Evans out of his mind, then by Merlin, so be it."

"You just encouraged him to do it, Padfoot," Peter murmured, eyes wide as he stared at Sirius. "He values your advice."

"I know he does," Sirius snapped. He softened immediately, regretting his short temper. "It's just…she was all he'd talk about after that night in France. They had danced all night and they just acted like they didn't see anyone else in the room. You lot know as well as I do that James has never had that with anyone before."

"What happened, exactly?" Remus asked curiously.

Sirius sighed. "We met her with her friend Céline in this restaurant in Cannes, and we all got talking and wound up going to a bar after dinner. He fell hard for her, mate," Sirius looked up at Remus and shook his head slightly. "I don't get how he can be so smitten with a girl he barely knows. I know he liked her a lot. You should have seen them together; it was like they had some kind of instant bond with each other. But still, it's not like him to be so upset like this all because some French broad didn't write him a bloody letter."

"Maybe he's just shocked," Remus mused. "She probably had a good reason for not writing to him."

"Yeah, but she just left him hanging like that! She didn't even give him any closure!" interjected Peter indignantly.

"But a week really isn't a long time," Remus said reasonably, glancing down the table to where Lily sat. She was engrossed in conversation with her friends, and she looked genuinely happy. "If he just talked to her about it, I'm sure things would be fine."

"She's had ample time to talk to him in the past hour," Sirius grumbled darkly. "And she obviously hasn't taken advantage of the chance to explain herself." He saw that Remus was opening his mouth to speak again, and continued before he could say anything. "Look, Moony, I hate to say this, but you weren't there. She acted like she really, really liked him, and he made it pretty damn clear that he did, too."

Dumbledore stood up and the rest of the students stopped talking, hearkening to their headmaster's words as he instructed them about their schedules for their classes the next day. Sirius did not cease speaking, but instead dropped his voice to a whisper.

"She promised to write to him. It wasn't like some kind of quick 'kiss-and-move-on' type of thing. She ran back into the bar and ditched her best friend in the street to come back and kiss him. She couldn't even have sent him a note saying she wasn't interested?"

Remus couldn't think of much to say in response to Sirius's words as Dumbledore dismissed the students from the Great Hall to their dormitories and benches scraped backwards against the stone floor. His best friend was right; he hadn't been there when the whole situation unfolded, and if the matter of Lily Evans was bothering James this much, when he could never even remember a time when the hazel-eyed boy was upset about a girl, then clearly something had to be done.

It was almost as if Sirius could read his mind, and the next words that the boy spoke as the students shuffled toward the large oak doors caused a shiver tension to emanate down Remus's spine.

"That's it," Sirius said grimly, his stormy-grey eyes suddenly darkening with anger. "I'm going to go have a word with her."

Remus stared at him. "Padfoot, that's a terrible idea."

"Not to me, it isn't. That girl's got some explaining to do." He made his way out of the Great Hall with Remus on his heels, and started to push his way through the crowd in hot pursuit of the girl with dark red hair who was slowly disappearing into the crowd flooding into the corridors and stairways.

"Sirius, I mean it, don't do it—Sirius, STOP!"

But it was too late, and the tall, slim boy was already out of sight, making his way towards Lily.

"Get out of my way, midgets," Sirius grumbled, shoving a terrified-looking first-year girl to the side as he stalked towards Lily. "You kiddies need to learn some respect for authority."

Sirius was so close that he could hear her melodic voice, tinkling like bells over the din of the students that filled the corridors. He spotted Marlene and Alice at her side and rolled his eyes. Now I'll have to contend with McKinnon, too, he thought ruefully, but the thought of dealing with his old flame did not deter him from his quest as he continued forcing his way through the crowd.

"Evans!" he shouted through the crowd.

He saw her stiffen. Her shoulders tightened and for a split second, it looked like she was going to turn around, but she didn't. Instead, she picked up her pace ever-so-slightly, hurrying her gait with her two new friends. Sirius's lip curled, and he pushed past the remaining students between them to catch up with the girls ahead of him, he was directly behind them now, and he could tell that Lily knew it when he reached out and tapped her on the shoulder lightly.

Lily stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around and met his eyes with a look on her face reminiscent of a terrified doe, but the expression was fleeting and she quickly replaced it with the same hard, cold gaze she had given to Severus Snape on the platform that morning. Marlene and Alice had kept walking, pausing a several feet ahead of the two, once they realized that Lily was no longer beside them.

"Bonsoir, Lily Evans," Sirius drawled slowly, a sardonic smirk spreading across his haughty face. "I've got to say, you look lovely."

He could see the fight-or-flight instinct building in her eyes, but in a moment, her decision was obvious. She stood exactly where she was as Marlene and Alice turned around curiously. "I'm not one to turn down a good compliment," she said coolly. "But am I supposed to know you?"

Ordinarily, Sirius would have been taken aback, even a little offended, by the coldness in her tone, but now, he just plowed on, the iciness hardly affecting him. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, you are supposed to know me," he snapped. "I didn't think you would forget what happened so quickly. I mean, James certainly hasn't."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lily crossed her arms. Marlene and Alice were making their way through the throng of students back to Sirius and Lily, who were now having a stand-off in the middle of the corridor. A few students looked on curiously, watching the red-haired French girl in interest.

"Oh, don't play dumb," he barked. "In fact, you look almost as lovely as you did in Cannes." He saw Lily tense up slightly, and he smirked in satisfaction. "Yeah, you and your little blonde French friend, Girard. Where is she, anyway? You two looked so attached at the damn hip that I would have thought she'd be here with you."

"She's in France," Lily replied, meeting his gaze, green eyes devoid of emotion.

"In France, or at Beauxbatons?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lily repeated firmly.

"Oh yes, you do. I know you weren't that drunk that you forgot everything." His silvery-grey eyes glinted with borderline malice at the girl as she held her ground. "The dinner, the dancing…Especially the part where you kissed—"

"Hey Black, what do you think you're doing now?" Marlene shouted as she drew closer to the tense pair, Alice in tow. She did not appear to have heard what Sirius was saying when she interrupted him, and she fixed him with a dark smirk. "Already trying to chat up the new girl, are you?" She slung a protective arm around Lily. "I told her all about you, don't worry."

Sirius rolled his eyes, in spite of his anger. "McKinnon, leave."

"Why should I?" Marlene stamped her foot like a little girl. "You can't tell me what to do!"

"I will bloody make you if you don't, that's why you should," Sirius's cold fury was rapidly being replaced with annoyance at Marlene's interruption. "Act your age for once."

"Oh, shut up," Marlene said irritably. "I thought that maybe you'd finally grow up over the summer, but it looks like I'm going to be disappoint—"

"Marly, calm down," Alice placed a placating hand on her best friend's shoulder. She smiled apologetically at Sirius. "Sorry Sirius, she's a little…fired up tonight."

But Sirius by now had looked away from Marlene, who was still fuming despite Alice's comfort, and focused his gaze back on Lily. She forced herself to stand at her full, rather intimidating height and stare back at him stonily. For the third time that day, every single student still in the corridor was watching Lily Evans.

"That's just fine by me, Prewett," Sirius said slowly, cold fury in his voice that made Lily stiffen even more. "But I have a conversation I need to finish with Mademoiselle Evans here."

Alice's attention flicked back and forth between Sirius and Lily, and if she was confused by the apparent animosity that they felt for one another, she did not show it. "No, you don't," she said firmly. Noticing quickly that almost everyone was staring at this point, she let go of Marlene and grabbed Lily's hand, squeezing it gently. "Come on, Lily," she whispered. "He's not worth it." She did not wait for her new friend to respond, and tugged her hand toward a nearby staircase, with Marlene at their side.

Lily let her two friends pull her away, but she kept her eyes on Sirius as she passed him. "Autres temps, autres moeurs," she murmured to him, smiling cynically at the confusion on his handsome features. Other times, other customs, she had said; times change.

Lily did not speak to either of her friends on the walk to Gryffindor Tower on the seventh floor. Her encounter moments before with Sirius Black had rattled her, and so far that day, she felt like she had made herself far more noticed than she had intended. In between being the new girl, arguing with two Slytherin boys, and being confronted by Sirius, it appeared that everyone in the school already had an impression of her, which made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Alice and Marlene had shot her several furtive glances in the past several minutes, but they had said nothing since they pulled her away from Sirius, and she was grateful for it.

To distract herself from her thoughts, Lily busied herself, as she walked, in the decorations of Hogwarts. The stone walls were hung with tapestries bearing the school's coat of arms, and as they drew nearer to Gryffindor Tower, the wall hangings were increasingly gilt with red and gold, the house colors. The torches set in brackets on the walls flared, filling the corridor with light and warmth as the Gryffindor students climbed ever-higher up the stairs to their dormitories.

This is nothing like Beauxbatons, Lily thought admiringly. Beauxbatons was palatial, and had been clad entirely with pale blue, grey, and light gold hangings, with well-waxed, hardwood floors and vases of flowers on every corner.

"Lily…Lily!"

Marlene was tapping her on the arm repeatedly and was staring keenly at her face. Lily jumped a bit and turned to face her.

"You didn't hear me talking to you, did you? You keep doing that!" Marlene asked, furrowing her brow. She did not wait for Lily's reply and plowed on. "I was asking, do you know what classes you're going to be in?"

"I've no idea," Lily winced as the hoard of students slowed. They were now standing in front of a large portrait of an immensely fat woman in a pale pink dress, who was staring at them with a chagrined expression. "In the letter I got over the summer, they said that they'll have me take a placement test first thing tomorrow morning to check my progress." There was a murmur of discontent emanating through the students in between them and the portrait. Confusedly, she asked, "And um…what exactly are we doing out here?"

"Waiting to get into Gryffindor Tower, apparently," Alice said drily. "The Common Room and house dormitories are on the other side of the portrait hole and we seem to be stuck out here because—"

"Does anyone know what the hell the password is?" Caradoc Dearborn shouted, annoyed, from the front of the crowd. His demand summed up the rest of Alice's interrupted statement. "Or are we all going to have to sleep in the bloody corridor tonight?"

"Excuse your language, young man," the portrait spoke sternly, turning her painted nose upwards. "You should not say such words when there are ladies present!"

Lily twitched when she heard the Fat Lady speak. She had grown accustomed to magical paintings when she first entered the Wizarding World, but the talking aspect still shocked her sometimes.

"Oh, shut up, you dumb broad," Caradoc muttered as he pushed his way through the crowd, away from the portrait. "Does anyone know where Potter is?" he called, his eyes scanning for the bespectacled young man who was nowhere to be found. "I thought our Head Boy was supposed to be in charge of this!"

"That's James for you," Marlene snickered to Alice and Lily. "You can never find the bloke when you need him."

"He was getting better towards the end of last year, you know," Alice said reasonably. "He stopped hexing the living daylights out of everyone that got within fifteen feet of him, and you have to admit, that's always an improvement."

"And that means he's responsible enough to be Head Boy?" Marlene snorted. "If you ask me, it should have been Lupin all along."

Lily was listening to the conversation in rapt attention. Hexing the daylights out of people? she wondered confusedly. That doesn't sound much like the James Potter that I met…

"Well, no, I guess it doesn't mean he's responsible," Alice began. "But—"

"Coming through!" yelled the familiar voice of Remus Lupin over the din of disgruntled students congregated in the hallway, spilling out into the moving staircases of stone. "Everyone, calm down! The password's Bouncing Bowtruckles!"

Upon Remus shouting the password from the far end of the corridor, the Fat Lady sighed theatrically and swung open. A sigh of relief waved through the flock of students as they clamored eagerly through the passageway.

"Come on," Alice said excitedly. "You finally get to see where you're going to live for the rest of the year!" She grabbed Lily's hand and pulled her through the portrait hole. As they passed, Lily heard the Fat Lady exhale resignedly.

"The students just get ruder and ruder every year," the centuries-old woman breathed melodramatically. "You would think they were being raised by a tribe of forest trolls!"

Chuckling a little at the scandal in the Fat Lady's tone, Lily stepped through the portal and into what seemed like a completely different world. Almost everything in the majestic Common Room was covered in red and gold decorations, with lion symbols on the sofas and armchairs set in front of a roaring, warm fireplace. There were Wizard Chess sets already set up at cozy tables in the corner of the room, just waiting for leisurely students to sit down for a game. There were crimson-cushioned window seats on the sills of the glass-paned apertures to the outside, facing the rolling hills of Hogwarts' grounds. Already, Gryffindor students were reclining on chairs and chatting animatedly about the day's events, while first-years stared around the scarlet room in amazed wonder.

"Isn't it great?" Marlene beamed. "Honestly, I feel more at home here than I do at my actual house sometimes." She sat down on an available sofa and beckoned for Alice and Lily to join her. With Lily in the middle, she continued speaking. "So what do you think so far? How does it compare to what you had in France?"

"It's a lot different here," Lily admitted, relaxing on the suede sofa. "Beauxbatons is more like a kind of princess-palace, which is really lovely, in its own way, but this is grand. It feels like some kind of medieval castle, but even better."

"I wouldn't mind going to school in a palace," Alice said dreamily, resting her head back and staring at the high ceiling.

"It reminded me a bit of something out of a fairy tale," Lily went on, twirling a lock of dark red hair between her fingers and crossing her long legs over one another. She was conscious of the fact that a few students were still glancing at her curiously, interested in whatever it was that the new girl was up to now, after having established herself so well over the course of the day. "We had stables of flying horses, and we would take them out for rides on the grounds. We had servants too, as well as house-elves, and gold and crystal chandeliers in the classrooms." She grinned a bit at the expressions of wonder on the other girls' faces. "It's much different from here, so far. If you ask me, Beauxbatons over-decorated a bit."

The response to her words did not come from the girls on either side of her; instead, catching Lily off-guard, an amused, masculine voice suddenly resounded from behind them. "So you lived like royalty at your old school?"

"Why, if it isn't Frank Longbottom!" Alice exclaimed with a teasing note in her voice. "I haven't seen you at all today, and I was starting to wonder if you had dropped out of Hogwarts!"

"I'm still here," Frank grinned, crossing his arms and moving to sit down on an armchair adjacent to the sofa the girls sat on. He directed his attention away from Alice and towards the tall redhead. "So, you're Lily Evans."

"That's me," Lily said a little bashfully, bobbing her head with a small smile. Frank was admittedly quite handsome; he was tall with light brown hair combed neatly over his brow, and he had warm, chocolate colored eyes that smiled at her in the most welcoming way she had experienced all day. "I guess everyone's heard of me by now."

"You're the talk of the school," he agreed, laughing lightly. "You might as well be a Hogwarts celebrity, especially after the thing with Snape this morning."

"Does everyone know about that?" Lily made a face. "This is embarrassing."

"Well, at least you've made a name for yourself," Alice chuckled. She gave Frank a doe-eyed look out of the corner of her gaze, and Lily recognized it at once; she had seen that look on many of her girl friends' faces at Beauxbatons over the years. It was an expression of a romantic, pure infatuation. It was obvious to Lily just from her friend's countenance that she had a crush on Frank.

"So you come from princess school, don't you?" Frank asked, leaning in slightly from his seat beside the fire. He did not even seem to have noticed the look Alice gave him, and Lily saw her face falter.

"If you want to call it that," she said nonchalantly, smirking a bit. "But if it were real princess school, we would have had more pet unicorns, and fewer classes in Defense Against the Dark Arts." She beamed widely at the slight surprise of Frank's face. "We had two hours of Defense classes each day, practicing against the boys."

Underneath the thin layer of surprise, Frank looked genuinely interested. "It's optional here, after the first five years," he said, leaning in closer and resting his elbows on his knees. "Are you going to continue your study in it here? I'm planning on becoming an Auror and I'm taking NEWTs—English Wizarding exams—" he added quickly to dispel the confusion clouding on Lily's face "in Defense, Transfiguration, Charms, and Potions."

"Stop bragging, Longbottom," Marlene scoffed at him. Alice was staring off dreamily in the other direction. "We all know you're smart, trust us."

Frank was about to respond with some kind of joking taunt when a cheer rose up through the Gryffindor Common Room. It appeared as if someone was making a dramatic entrance, at last. Lily looked up, her head craning to see who everyone was staring at. Unable to see over her peers' heads, she stood up. Marlene and Alice followed suit, curiously trying to see what the commotion was about. Lily's heart dropped when she saw who it was standing in the portrait hole. It was James Potter, and he was grinning as Sirius Black ran over to him and slung an arm around his shoulders.

"We knew you'd show your face eventually, Head Boy!" called Benjy Fenwick, a sixth year boy.

"What, did you think I was going to hide away all year, Fenwick?" James shouted back. Lily's heart fluttered at the sound of his voice, hearing it for the first time since she had kissed him goodbye in Cannes.

His eyes were passing over the crowd with disinterest, but it was obvious to Lily that he was looking, as casually as possible, for someone, and she had a lurking feeling that that someone was her. She sat down quickly and prayed that his eyes had not yet lit upon her. She had no idea how to go about talking to him.

"That's the Head Boy, James Potter," Marlene informed Lily. "I think you've heard about him enough tonight." She smiled and grabbed Lily's wrist. "Come on, want me to introduce you? You already talked to his best friends today, it's about time you met the ringleader—I mean, he's staring at you, look!"

Lily's head snapped up before she could stop herself, and immediately met a pair of luminous, hazel eyes behind reflective, wire-rimmed glasses. He was standing there, all of twenty-five feet away from him, arms crossed proudly with his insouciant best friend beside him. Her mouth opened slightly and she looked away as quickly as she could. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, that the boys were slowly making their way closer to her. She had absolutely nothing prepared to say, and was not about to flounder for words to say to them in front of her friends.

"I, uh…" Lily started, speaking rapidly. "I think I need to go lie down, before it gets any later, Marlene." The other, shorter redhead looked at her strangely. "I'm really tired," she continued, trying to force her voice down to a more normal tempo. "And I don't want to leave a bad impression on them. I've got to be up early tomorrow because McGonagall is having me do a placement exam before breakfast. I'll see you in the morning, okay?" She rushed away before Marlene could elicit any further explanation from her.

Lily was prepared to escape to her dormitory with little notice, until she realized that she had absolutely no choice but to pass the pair of dark-haired boys on her foray to the stairs. Her heart sinking, she kept her head down as she drew nearing to them, until she heard Sirius give a small but rather dramatic cough as she passed. She couldn't help but look up and saw him giving her the slyest smile, and her eyes flashed to James. She unwittingly slowed her pace, and she tried to conjure something to say to him. She knew she would have to, sooner or later, to clear the air with him about everything that had happened. However, she had no idea how she was going to go about it.

A delicate smirk, laced with the slightest hint of sadness around the corners of his lips, graced James's features as he met her eyes and whispered, "Hey, Lily."

When she heard him say her name, she abandoned all hopes of finding the right words to say to him. Instead, like a frightened deer, she turned around and sprinted up the girls' dormitory stairs, as the life in the Common Room roared on around her, unnoticing of her blatant horror.

Lily had just found her way to the seventh year girls' dormitory and flopped face-down on one of the beds, long limbs sprawled haphazardly when she heard footsteps hurrying rapidly up the stairs behind her. She groaned quietly, wanting to be alone.

"Lily? Lily, it's me." Alice was standing in the doorway, watching her new friend. She walked over and sat down next to the redhead. "Come on, you can tell me what's the matter."

"Nothing's the matter," Lily sat up, hugging her knees to her chest.

"I doubt it," Alice said, furrowing her brow. "It's something about the Marauders, and Marlene and I can both tell. You can tell us what it is. I promise that whatever it is, we can help you. We've known them for years, Lily. It's nothing we can't fix." She stroked the other girl's hair gently, like a mother. "Come on, you can tell me."

And that was when the story came out.

"I was out with my best friend in Cannes, and she was taking me out to eat at a Muggle restaurant to treat me for my last few days in France," Lily rushed. "And they came in minutes after us, and they sat at the table next to us. We got talking and everything just seemed so nice. We were sharing champagne and laughing, and they took us to a bar afterwards. I lost a drinking contest to James and promised to kiss him, and I wasn't going to do it. My friend and I left the bar but I ran back in and I kissed him and he gave me his address and I promised to write him, but Alice, I didn't and I was never going to." Lily's eyes were starting to tear up, and her speech was reduced to mere blubbering. "He really liked me, he did, and I liked him too, but if I only met him for a couple hours, I didn't think it could possibly mean anything. I thought he was a Muggle and I thought it was never going to work out."

Alice stared at her, shocked by Lily's abrupt outpouring of emotion.

"Oh, darling," Alice reached out and hugged her. "I didn't realize it was something like this. You should have told us earlier! We could have talked to him for you!"

"But it wouldn't have worked," Lily mumbled into Alice's shoulder. "Sirius came over and yelled at me. That's what he was confronting me about in the corridor before. He was telling me how James was upset, and it was awful. I tried to keep a good face at the time, but I feel so guilty about it."

"Don't," Alice said placatingly. "You did what you had to do. You're right, it wouldn't have worked out between you two. You did the right thing."

"Yeah, well," Lily sniffed. "He thought I was a Muggle too, and he was willing to go through the trouble that I didn't want."

Alice sighed. "I promise it will all work out. Just go up to him tomorrow and talk to him about it. He's a reasonable bloke, and I'm sure he's only surprised for now, and you two can straighten everything out."

Sniffling a little, Lily looked at Alice, like a little girl. "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," Alice soothed, stroking her friend's hair one last time. "Marlene and I will help you fix it. But for now, don't worry about it. Everything is going to be okay, I'll make sure of it. But you need your sleep, because you have a long day ahead of you." She looked at Lily, who was still sitting up with her knees to her chest. "Are you going to be okay?"

Lily nodded.

"All right," Alice stood up. "I told Marlene I'd be back quickly. She told me it would be a bad idea to follow you and try to talk, but she's never been very good at consoling people anyway, so I figured that I'd do a better job than she would, if anyone was going to do it at all. I have to run back down and see her before she panics and comes up, too." She smiled at Lily comfortingly. "If you need anything, I'll be downstairs in the Common Room, and we'll all probably be coming up in a few minutes, anyway. If you still want to talk about it, just say the word."

"Thank you," Lily felt rather badly for, literally, crying on her new friend's shoulder, but at least the other girl had been kind about it. "I'm going to go to sleep. It's been such a long day," she sighed. "And tomorrow probably won't be any less…stressful."

"I understand," Alice bobbed her head with a wry smile. "Relax while you can, because it's only going to get wilder from here." She turned out the lights and left the room, leaving Lily alone with her thoughts, in the dark room.

Alice, Marlene, and a couple other seventh-year girls had long-since filtered into the moonlit room, their voices hushed so as not to disturb Lily, who lay in her bed with the curtains drawn around her, fully awake. She could hear snippets of Alice and Marlene's conversation, and it appeared as if Alice had already told the other girl what had happened. After a while, the voices died away, fading into the sounds of sleep and the Scottish nighttime.

As Lily lay in her bed that night, before she fell asleep, there was an ache in her heart, and after the day's events, she had never wanted to talk to her best friend so much in her entire life. Sitting up, with the bed curtains still drawn around her, she gazed into the darkness and thought of Céline, their old Beauxbatons dormitory. Loneliness struck her heart at the thought of her old friends, together without her, miles and miles away across the English Channel.

This thought caused a twinge of sadness to grow inside her, and she realized that at that very moment, Céline was whispering with all of their friends while she sat in their dormitory. She could envision her best friend, platinum-blonde hair falling about her face as her round blue eyes glittered excitedly in the candlelight, and she immediately was hit by a strong desire to cry from loneliness.

Suddenly, Lily got out of bed and tiptoed quietly to her trunk, where she pulled out a quill, some ink, and a piece of parchment. Careful not to wake anyone, she strode silently across the dormitory floor back to her bed and drew the curtains about her once more.

"Lumos," she whispered. Though it had to have been midnight, light flooded her little cell, and she dipped the quill into the inkwell and began to write.

"Chère Céline," Lily wrote in loopy script, her quill scratching out the French words quietly against the parchment. "You'll never believe who goes to Hogwarts."