Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe. All characters belong to the amazingly talented J.K. Rowling.

apoorvam77: Thank you very much, this is my first fan-fic so I was a bit worried

Chapter 4: A new view point

Lily

The rest of my day was spent with Sirius, hiding in the room of requirement. We played exploding-snap and gobstones, ate chocolate, talked and even practiced duelling for a bit. To be honest it shocked me how well I got along with Sirius when we were alone. I felt a billion times lighter for telling him my problems and he seem lighter too. By around 4 o'clock we were sitting on the couches just talking about anything random that came into our heads, when he suddenly turned serious and said "Just a question Lily dear, why do you call James, Peter and I by our last names but Remus by his first?" His eyebrow raised as he asked the question, making me wonder if he practiced raising his eyebrows.

"Well, I guess it's because I am friends with Remus where as you, Potter and Pettigrew were all annoyances instead of companions." I couldn't help but blush as I said this. For some reason it made me feel guilty.

He just chuckled and answered "Well I guess that is fair."

We talked for a while longer before he started staring down and his hands and said "You know Lily dear, if you told any of the marauders that you were being bothered by other people, you know, the ones who are calling you the 'm' word, we would do something to stop them. It's not right that they are trying to upset you and we would put a stop to it."

I thought about this for a moment. "To be honest Sirius, I already knew that you would help if I told you, but I don't want to cause more problems within the school. I don't want to seem weak and to have to have you guys stick up for me. I also didn't want for you guys to have another excuse to hex people, there is already division among the houses, I don't want to contribute to it more."

He looked at me and nodded. "I guess that is fair." After that we went back to mucking around.

By the time dinner came around we were both feeling a lot better so we decided to go and join our respective friends. As we started walking out the door, Sirius grabbed my arm and turned me towards him. "Lily dear, if you ever need to talk to anyone about this stuff, or just vent in general, remember that I am here and willing to listen. I will help you out whenever I can as well, without hexing people as well." Without thinking I wrapped my arms around him in a hug. He returned the gesture and we continued our way down to dinner.

When we got to the great hall we began to separate before seeing that our friends were all sitting together so we walked together to their part of the table and sat down. In the end I was between Remus and Sirius with Potter staring at me as if I had grown an extra head.

James

I couldn't help it, I just stared at Lily sitting between Padfoot and Moony. She seemed not to mind them talking to her. Okay so I understood her talking to Remus, they were friends after all, but Sirius? Since when could she stand being near him without hexing him? Nothing made sense today. I know that he hadn't been hooking up with her otherwise he would have boils on his skin and bright pink hair. Long story short for that was that last year my fellow marauders signed a contract saying that no one apart from me would ever kiss Lily on the lips, we bound that contract with a spell that would affect any person who broke the contracts' appearance. Plus I trusted Pads, he knew that I was in love with her and as my brother he wouldn't go against me. I couldn't help but be worried.

When Susan turned up to first period Transfiguration without Padfoot, I assumed that she had simply refused to miss class to continue hooking up with him, but when he didn't turn up by the end of first period I started getting worried. He hadn't contacted me via the mirror and he wasn't on the map. I figured that he must have been upset and didn't want to tell us yet, so I left it alone, but now that he had walked into the great hall beside Lily with no trace of sadness or anger it made me wonder what had happened today.

I kicked Padfoot in the shins and he raised his head to look at me in the eyes. He knew I was asking what had happened today so he just nodded and jerked his head to the side. I knew what he meant, it must be a marauder thing, we could practically read one another's minds. He was saying he would tell me later but couldn't in the present company. I relaxed then and continue to eat, not risking speaking in case Lily decided to hex because I said something stupid. To be honest I was just enjoying having all the people I cared about around me with no fighting. It was nice to be able to hear Lily laugh and talk with my friends, it reminded me of how good it would be if I did end up dating Lily, she fit in so well with everyone who was a permanent fixture in my life, namely, the marauders.

Lily

I was actually enjoying dinner. It was nice to have all the fifth year Gryffindors sitting together, all talking freely and mucking around together. Potter was abnormally quiet but I wasn't going to complain, it was nice not to have to yell at him for his stupidity. Sirius and Remus were razzing me for ditching class while Marlene, Mary and Alice were "defending my honour". Trust me those were their words not mine. I couldn't help but laugh. I felt so much lighter than I had this morning. I felt supported and cared for. Part of that was Sirius, he seemed to want to force me into the camaraderie.

Eventually the conversation changed to one about quidditch, so I began only half listening. Potter became more vocal in this conversation, but to be honest it was kind of fascinating to see the passion he had for the game. As he began exclaim about how Gryffindor was going to slaughter Hufflepuff this Saturday I felt a tap on my shoulder. I spun around to see Severus, I smiled brightly, happy to see my friend, while the rest of the table grew quiet, Potter shutting up abruptly in Sev's presence. I felt Sirius flinch in a moment to his wand, but I tapped his knee and shot him a look as I spun fully on the bench. Sev didn't return my smile instead he seem angry as he said "Where in Merlin's name were you today? You weren't in potions or Runes. So where were you?"

My smile dropped at his harsh tone. "I wasn't feeling too well this morning, Black was kind enough to give me some anti-nausea potion he had this afternoon, allowing me to come down to dinner. I'm sorry I wasn't there but I couldn't really help it." I felt bad for reverting back to the use of Sirius' last name, it made him flinch away from me for a second, but I think he realised that calling him by his first name would not help my situation with Sev. "Are we still on for studying tomorrow afternoon?"

Severus paused for a second, his eyes attempting to read my face. His pause made me feel uneasy, he had never had to think about spending time with me before.

James

I started reaching for my wand when I saw Snape but Sirius and Remus both kicked me in the shin and shook their heads. I guess they were right. Lily had just started spending time with us without yelling at us, I really didn't want to spoil that yet, but Snape made me so angry. I had always wondered why Lily was friends with him. It was obvious that he was a wannabe death eater. But she would kill me if I ever tried to question her about it.

I sat there seething at the tone he was using to speak to her. Lily just responded calmly and evenly, just the way that she always does, but the worst part was when he paused after she asked if they were meeting up. Her face looked as if her heart was breaking. It looked like her worst fears were coming true, and I felt guilty that there was nothing I could do to protect her from this heart break. I mean the guys and I had stopped many guys from dating her. Of course she had still had one or two boyfriends but whenever we had discovered a flaw in the person or their intentions towards Lily we had got rid of them. It wasn't an 'if I can't have her no one can' situation, I still wanted her to be happy; even if it wasn't with me, instead it was a matter of us not wanting for her to suffer from a broken heart.

Finally Snivellous answered with "Yeah Lily we can but I can't stay for too long I have to get back to my housemates, besides with all these guys around I doubt you will miss me." He stormed off after that comment. Lily quickly ran after him declaring "It's not like that I swear Sev."

I looked over at Sirius. He was watching after Lily with a pained look on his face. As if sensing me watching he looked back at me and shook his head. This wasn't good, obviously some of the information Sirius new was relating to the relationship between Lily and Snape.

Around twenty minutes later, as we were all getting up to leave the table, Lily walked quickly into the room. It was mostly empty with dinner being mostly over, but she walked straight over to Sirius, flung her arms around him and sobbed into his chest. I felt my heart break at this. Sirius began whispering into her hair but the sobs didn't subside. It hurt both to know that she was upset and to realise that she would never come to be and let herself fall apart. It seemed to shock all the girls as well.

Remus being the intuitive one, whispered something to Sirius obviously about getting Lily out of here and then turned to the rest of us and whispered "We are all leaving, Lily and Sirius will meet us in the common room soon. Off we go, come on."

As we walked towards the Gryffindor common room Mary asked "Has anyone ever seen Lily do that before?" Everyone just shook their heads in response so she continued "I have never even seen her cry before, even when she has been mocked for being a muggle-born, she has never cried and I have definitely never seen her break in front of other people. It's weird I didn't think she even liked Black, let alone trusted him enough to allow herself to cry on him. Whatever happened today is a major change. I think she is beginning to see people from a whole new view point."

We all walked quietly contemplating this until Marly decided to elevate the tension by saying, "Yeah tonight was weird, I mean Lily sat near James without hexing or insulting him. I mean I didn't hear her say arrogant toe rag even once. Are we sure she isn't under the imperious curse or something, it was very un-Lily-like." We all took the comment with relief and began to laugh and chat again as we continued our way to Gryffindor Tower.

Once we arrived we all grabbed kind of work and plonked ourselves down in front of the fire. It was nice to have everyone helping one another with the homework and being able to get it done quickly. Everyone was asking questions and sharing answers and books to get it all done faster. Alice started help Peter to accomplish the Aparecium charm, to reveal concealment charms, that he hadn't quite gotten in class and for the first time I felt like Gryffindor really was a family. I couldn't help but smile distractedly until Mary whacked me across the back of the head and told me to focus on my defence essay.