A/N: Hi! Sorry it's taken me so long to update, and i know I said there'd be a lot of Jily in this chapter but i couldn't fit it in without it seeming awkward, so i'll try next chapter, promise!

Lily couldn't breathe. But why couldn't she breathe? From the Ravenclaw table where she was sitting helping Greta Catchlove with her Potions homework, she watched Potter practically run out of the Great Hall followed by That-Stupid-French-Bimbo, obviously setting off to find some broom cupboard in which to have crazy sex. But why did that bother her? Why did she care? She didn't like Potter did she? She wasn't sure what was going on with her lately. Her body seemed to be reacting differently to her head. Like in lessons when James would laugh and smirk at her and run his hands through his hair and her stomach would tie itself in knots when her head was just thinking about how much of an idiot he was. Or in head meetings when he would stretch exaggeratedly just so the fifth years would see his stomach, and she could feel her hands get clammy as she thought about how vain he was. Weird.
Lily snapped out of it quickly as she saw Marlene stand up from the Gryffindor table and walk towards the door. She said goodbye and made her apologies to Greta, making some excuse about a Transfiguration essay and jogged after Marlene, catching her just as she got to the door.

Over the last couple of days Marlene had noticed some weird things happening. Firstly she never seemed to see Marcus anymore. He'd missed nearly all the lessons they had together since what everyone was now calling "The Marcock Dickby Incident" ("Very mature Sirius") and he seemed to have spent an extraordinary amount of time in the hospital wing, having been "accidentally" jinxed by nearly every member of Hufflepuff, Gryffindor and even some of Ravenclaw seventh year. She also didn't seem to be able to go anywhere outside Gryffindor Tower without at least one person running after her and proclaiming they were going exactly the same place as she was, how weird! Normally she was joined by James or Sirius, who seemed weirdly enthusiastic about visiting the Owlery to send letters to their Mums, or visiting teachers for subjects they didn't take. Sirius even waited outside the girls' toilets twice because she needed to go in between seeing McGonagall and Slughorn and on the way down to Lunch one Saturday.
She seemed constantly in the company of one of the Marauders. Or Lily. Or Lucy. Or random sixth years to whom she'd never said a word. She knew it was because of what she'd said to James, but she didn't want to mention it in case he hadn't actually divulged the reason to everyone he was getting to follow her. He wouldn't have had to so he might not have. Once the entire year followed a first year around for a week and a half because he had told them to. James Potter was scarily good at having people protected. Before the Quidditch Cup Final two years before he made sure that every member of the team had at least five people around them at all times, all of them having learnt enough defensive spells to get them into the Auror program. Last year it got to the point where you could barely see the team members from all the people crowding around them, and for one or two he even resorted to charming their faces to change their appearance so no one would know who they were. He was well and truly mental, but he made everyone feel safe, including Marlene, and she was grateful he was trying to protect her.
Speak of the devil, James appeared from nowhere as Marlene walked out of the portrait hole.
"McKinnon!" Marlene turned and smiled.
"Hey stranger, God it feels like I haven't seen you in ages! How long has it been, an hour and a half?" They both laughed and she punched him in the arm.
"Yeah, I've missed you mate." He smirked and nudged her with his shoulder. "Seriously though McKinnon, are you ok?"
"'Course I am, you've had me followed for nearly a week! Yesterday a third year boy followed me into that loo!" Marlene pointed to her left at a small door with the word "witches" engraved.
"It wasn't Toby Williams was it? He's an idiot. I've been tutoring him for two years and he's still completely rubbish." Marlene laughed and shook her head.
"No, it was Alex McGuire. I swear Bellatrix Lestrange nearly jinxed his head off!" James laughed, but his smile didn't reach his eyes. "What's wrong?"
"What? What are you on about?" James looked shifty.
"James Charlus Potter,"(James winced at the middle name he hated so much) "I have known you for years, I know the face you make when there's something wrong. Now tell me or I'll be forced to take action." James instinctively jumped backwards.
"Don't you dare tickle me, you know it's my ultimate weakness." Marlene cackled and wiggled her fingers at him.
"I know, so tell me, you idiot." She took a step forward, causing James to jump backwards into a suit of armour.
"Fine, merlin, fine, just don't tickle me!" Marlene laughed, and then James laughed, and then they both stopped.
"Well isn't this cosy?" Marcus Digby sneered from the other side of the corridor, stepping forward from the group of other gigantic Ravenclaws. "You know Marlene, I always thought you had a thing for the other one, you know, the pretty one with little to no brain capacity?"
"Piss off Marcus." James said wearily. Marlene looked so scared and he hated anyone talking about Sirius like that, but he was outmanned and needed an out. Luckily, being the main marauder researcher for a certain map, he knew all the Hogwarts secret passages, and it just happened that they were standing right next to one. He could hear Marlene practically have an aneurysm next to him, and could almost see her heart beating out of her chest.
"...But apparently you've got a thing going with Potter now?" Marcus continued, walking slowly closer and closer toward Marlene, looking at her like she was a delicious meal and he hadn't eaten in years. "I should have guessed, you two were always so… close." He dragged out the last syllables. James had to act quickly. Shit, he thought, this is going to be so bad.
"Yeah well the thing is Digby, I know how to please a woman, something I hear you fall rather… short… on." Marlene looked like a mix between thoroughly confused and scared for her life. James pooled all his courage and turned to Marlene. He leaned towards her, his left hand reaching past her to pull the arm of the suit of armour he had fallen into. He got one last look at the scandalised and furious look on Marcus' face before whispering "Hold on" to Marlene, pressing his lips against hers and feeling the floor disappear from beneath them.
They landed with a thud on the old bedraggled carpet of the abandoned fourth floor corridor. Marlene rose to her feet quickly, wiping her mouth and sneezing at the tremendous amount of dust that had fallen through the roof with them.
"What the FUCK Potter?! Did you just kiss me?! EUGH!" Marlene punched him in the arm wiped her face.
"Glad to know I have the same effect on the ladies as ever, McKinnon." James started brushing the dust off both of them.
"How the hell did you do that?" Marlene looked upwards, half expecting to see a huge hole in the ceiling and Marcus looking down at them with his cronies.
"Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, McKinnon. Come on, we'd better go." He got to his feet and started walking towards the door to the stairs.
"James?" He turned around and saw Marlene sitting on a window seat looking towards the grounds. "Come talk to me?""What about?" He retraced his steps and sat down next to her, wiping dust and grime off the window with his sleeve.
"Something's wrong with you, I can tell, and I'm not leaving until you tell me what it is."
James looked out over the grounds and stayed silent for well over a minute. Marlene didn't move. Like she said, she wasn't leaving until he spilled. She would stay there all night if she had to.
"Do you ever feel like it's too much? All this pressure?" He still wouldn't meet her gaze, but she nodded and he carried on. "It's like they have no idea how difficult it is, you know? I sometimes wish I could be more than one person, then maybe collectively we'd have a chance of doing everything I have to do as one single person. I mean why the hell would you make one person both Quidditch Captain and Head Boy?! What with picking teams and organising practices I barely have time to organise the prefects' schedules, count up house points and complete all the detention paperwork. Plus we have all the extra pressure that goes along with studying for our NEWTs. As if that's not bad enough Lily is being really weird around me and acting like I'm going to kill her when all I really want to do is ask her about our Charms homework, and on top of all that we've got this stupid war to think about, people my parents know going missing every day, and idiotic death eater propaganda is being put up in the Slytherin common room, not that I can do anything about that, it's not like I can ask the Slytherin prefect to take it down, Avery's probably the one who put it up there in the first place! I just don't think I can handle it, I'm falling apart here, and Sirius isn't helping, all he ever talks about nowadays is you and-" James froze. He shouldn't have said that. He should not have said that. He looked up at Marlene. She felt as though she had gone the darkest crimson colour imaginable. She felt flustered, but decided not to dwell - James was having a crisis, now was not the time to think about herself.
"Well, have you talked to Dumbledore about any of this? Maybe he could help? Maybe he could show you a way to delegate tasks to other people to save yourself some time and energy? I don't know how much he could help on the Lily front though." She laughed nervously.
"I dunno, I don't want him to think I'm not up to the job, I don't want him to second guess his decision, I feel like he already kind of wishes he'd picked Moony to be head boy. He'd think I was way out of my depth."
"James, you are way out of your depth!"
"Well I don't want Dumbledore to know that!"
"You are such an idiot!"
"Yeah whatever McKinnon, can we go now? It must be nearly time for dinner and I'm starving!"
"Fine, but I still think you should go talk to Dumbledore."
"I'll think about it, ok?"
"Good."
"Good." James wrapped his arm around Marlene's shoulders and they walked down to dinner together.

Remus Lupin hated confrontation. This surprised a lot of people considering who he chose to be friends with, but he actively avoided confronting many things - duels, detentions, and in the case of Ella King, his feelings. She seemed to be sharing the same tactic, avoiding his gaze, and many times, him entirely. This was proving rather difficult as she was the only other person sitting near him at the Gryffindor table and he didn't want to seem mean by ignoring her.

Ella King hated confrontation. She would rather bury her feelings than admit that she had a thing for Remus Lupin. He was a Marauder for God's sake! He also happened to be the only person seated near her for dinner, no one else had come down yet.
Please don't talk to me.
Please don't talk to me.
Why isn't he talking to me?
He's just going to ignore me?
That's so rude!
Not that I want him to talk to me.
But still! Rude.
Just as Remus was opening his mouth to say something, James appeared with Marlene and sat down, already in mid conversation. Remus was relieved - he didn't actually know what he would have said. Lily and Sirius arrived next, twenty minutes after the meal started.
"Where were you two?"
"I was just doing stuff." said Lily quietly.
"And you?" Remus asked Sirius
"I'm stuff." He joked, nudging Lily's shoulder. Seeing the look on James' face, he immediately added "Kidding."
They all ate quickly and returned to the common room. On the way, Lily grabbed Remus' arm and held him back.
"What's wrong?"
"What are you on about?"
"You barely said a word during dinner"
"Yeah well after Sirius' joke about the two of you I rather lost my appetite."
"Funny, but seriously, what's wrong?"
"Nothing!"
Lily gave him a look.
"Fine. Things have been really awkward with me and Ella after we spent that afternoon together."
"What afternoon?"
"Oh, well she was really upset and we went for a walk and it was really nice."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I thought you'd be angry, you didn't want me getting involved with her in the first place, remember?"
"Oh yeah. Well as long as you don't screw her over, it's fine with me."
"Wow thanks for your permission."
"Oh shut up. Did anything happen between you two?"
"No, not really. It was really nice though, and she hasn't said a word to me since."
"Well have you talked to her?"
"Well no, but-"
"Well then there's your problem! She probably thinks you don't actually like her because you haven't said a word to her since!"
"Maybe, but she could have talked to me!"
"Remus, I know this may be hard for you to understand, but you Marauders have a bit of a reputation and you can be quite intimidating to talk to. It's not normally you but you know what James and especially Sirius can be like when they're showing off."
"Oh." Remus said as they rounded the corner to the portrait hole.
As they walked into the common room they were greeted by a most surprising view. James Potter was doing his homework the night it was set.
"Are you ill?" Remus asked, sitting down next to him.
"No, but I've been quite stressing about everything I have to do and Marlene's helping me with my 'time management.' Apparently it's horrendous. Wormtail? Is my time management horrendous?" He directed his question to an approaching Peter, who seemed to be looking all around the common room for someone.
"No comment. Has anyone seen Lucy? I haven't seen her all day."
"No sorry. She might just be upstairs, she's not been sleeping well so she might be having a nap."
"Not sleeping well?"
"Yeah, she's never in her bed before me and is out of the dormitory by the time we've woken up."
"Weird."
"Yeah well, she's always done her own thing, I'm sure she's fine."
Lily got up and headed over to the sofa by the fire, where Sirius and Marlene were flirting outrageously.

The next day brought the Gryffindors' first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson with Professor Malfoy. Lily walked into the dimly lit room with a sinking feeling in her stomach. She remembered Lucius Malfoy from his time at Hogwarts, especially a comment he made to her when she was in first year. He had walked straight into her in the corridor on her way to potions with Sev, looked her up and down, turned to Sev and just said "A mudblood? Really? How disappointing, Snape." And walked off with his friends. It was the first time she had heard the slur referring directly to her, and it made her want to throw up and throw something at the same time. How dare he return and teach here? How could Dumbledore let him? There had to be some kind of mistake.
She and Lucy crossed the room and Lily felt Malfoy's gaze nearly burn a hole in the back of her head. He was leaning against the wall behind his desk, smiling as the class filed in. Lily threw her bag on the table she and Lucy had occupied since 3rd year, and sat down in a thoroughly bad mood. Lucy looked surprisingly upbeat, but DADA had always been her favourite subject.
"Hello class, I'm Professor Malfoy." He paced around his desk and grinned at the class. "I'm really excited to be teaching you this year, I know I'm not a very experienced teacher but I'll try my best, and I'm told anyone's better than Professor Remmings, who apparently tried to kill you all with a Kiyaka he thought was a boggart? I never met the bloke, but he doesn't sound like the best teacher to be teaching you for your NEWTs, so you're stuck with me, I'm afraid." A smatter of laughter rang out through the classroom, and Lily was taken aback. Deatheaters aren't supposed to be charming? It must be a tactic, she thought.
However, as the class progressed, Lucius Malfoy showed himself to be a very funny, nice, and interesting teacher. Lily was gobsmacked. This was not the Slytherin who had called her a you know what and been so rude to Sev. This was a witty, engaging, and frankly, very attractive young man with some fascinating stories to tell about his studies in Albania.
At the end of the lesson, Lily was packing up her bags and he walked over to her desk.
"Lily? Hi, we haven't been properly introduced, I'm Lucius. I thought I'd come say hello, meet the newest Head Girl." He smiled widely, and Lily tried not to show how uncomfortable she was feeling.
"Um… Actually, we met when you were a student here. I used to be friends with Severus Snape?" She looked up at him awkwardly, trying to gauge his reaction. His eyes suddenly widened and he basically slapped himself in the face with the speed at which he covered his mouth with his hand.
"Shit. Oh my God Lily I'm so sorry I had completely forgotten about that. God, you must think I'm such an arse. I can't apologise enough for how awful that must have been for you, I was stuck in a very toxic group of people and I thought I knew everything back then. I was completely wrong and I can't begin to think about how much I wish I hadn't been like that, and how glad I am I no longer am. I just hope you can believe me when I say I'm entirely different now. Merlin. I completely understand if you don't want to be taught by me anymore." he looked genuinely upset and stood up. "I'll let you think about it, but I honestly just hope you know how sorry I am for how awful I was."

Marlene and Lucy were waiting for Lily in the entrance hall before supper.
"Where've you been, we've been here for ages and I'm dying of starvation here mate!" Marlene was practically dragging Lily through the door to the great hall, and the three girls sat down at the Gryffindor table with the Marauders.
"Malfoy wanted a word" Lily replied nonchalantly.
"I'd give him more than a word if I were you, he's dishy." said Marlene, with a cheeky grin. Lucy gave Marlene a distasteful look, and Sirius looked over, shocked.
"He's a Slytherin Mar, what are you on? He called Lily a you know what!" He didn't even try to hide how offended he was by this blatant betrayal.
"To be fair, he did apologise to me for that. He was really sweet actually, it was a real surprise." All four Marauders whipped their heads simultaneously and stared daggers at the head girl. Lily felt her cheeks start to go pink. "I'm just saying, he seemed really sincere! He seemed like he really regretted saying it, and lets be honest, we wouldn't expect anyone to judge our character on how we acted when we were in fifth year! He was young and stupid and hanging around with the wrong people! You can't blame him for wanting to fit in, we've all done stupid things we regret." Lily was now crimson and felt very awkward. Ella King seemed to appear from nowhere to chime in.
"Woah, we seem to have travelled back in time to third year, Lily Evans defending a Slytherin who was nice to her once, my time machine worked!." This stopped Lily mid-breath. No one had mentioned her friendship with Sev since fifth year. It was unspoken law that he was not to be spoken about in front of Lily. Remus, desperate to get off the topic, said:
"How's everyone's potions essay going?"
Silence.
"I still think he's fit."
"Well that's really helpful Marlene, thanks."

A/N: this chapter wasn't as long as I'd hoped, but next chapter should be coming shortly, promise!

Reviews are better than chocolate xx