Lily spent Ancient Runes thinking about what Emmeline had said after breakfast.

We don't know what's going to happen.

People are starting to disappear daily.

We could be taken out any day now.

She felt herself begin to tense with anger. Why was this happening to them? Why were people so small-minded? Over the past few years she had witnessed people start to change over the growing danger. Some grew dark, hexing muggle-borns who were defenceless; some younger students were even taken out of school early. Emmeline was constantly looking over at her, sensing her growing rage.

"Lily." Emmeline whispered to her, glancing at her, and then back at Professor Wenting, who was currently copying symbols from Advanced Rune Translation onto the chalkboard at the front of the classroom, describing them as he went along.

"What?" She responded, writing out the Acromantula symbol, with the professor describing it.

"Now why does the Acromatula rune represent the number eight?" Professor Wenting asked aloud, going to sit in front of his desk. Professor Wenting was extremely old, but still a great professor in Lily's eyes. He was extremely patient, but still held a no-nonsense attitude, which reminded Lily of her grandfather.

The class remained silent, Lily would usually respond, but today she was most definitely not in the mood, and was barely paying attention anyway.

"Miss Vance?" Professor Wenting pointed his wand at Emmeline who, luckily, was paying attention.

"There are eight eyes on the Acromantula symbol, which is why is represents the number eight, although some believe that the symbol has eight legs, since it looks like a spider." Emmeline was very intelligent, and Lily enjoyed studying with her, because Mary and Marlene usually got distracted.

"Brilliant, Miss Vance, I hope you all take note and remember to speak up in class, don't be afraid to be incorrect." He pushed himself back off his chair and removed the notes on the chalkboard with his wand. Lily began scribbling on a spare piece of parchment.

"Lily, stop."

"Stop what?" Lily said through gritted teeth.

"Overthinking. You'll only make yourself angrier." Emmeline reached over Lily to grab an extra piece of parchment, allowing her to face Lily more directly.

"Em, how can I not overthink this? What you said earlier was true, we're in the midst of a war here, but instead of preparing ourselves, we're sat in Ancient Runes learning about this spider rune." Lily gestured to the rune she had just barely copied.

"Lily, I'm just emotional over this being our last year. Yes, things are getting dark outside Hogwarts, but right here, we're safe. We need to be fully prepared for this, which means, unfortunately for you, we have another year here."

"How is Ancient Runes going to help?" Lily crossed her arms and frowned at her work in front of her.

"I'm sorry; I thought I was talking to Lily Evans, Head Girl, you know, the smartest student at Hogwarts? Not the smartest muggle-born, the smartest student. Lily, you're smarter than any ignorant pure blood at this school." Emmeline's voice was growing from a whisper to a murmur.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that the idiot wanna-be death eaters are hardly going to look into Ancient Runes to help them annihilate all muggle-borns, but we're smart enough to know we could get the advantage in that field." Emmeline looked at Lily and gave her the warm smile she loved so much.

"You're such a moron, Em." Lily couldn't help herself from giggling, and caught the attention of Professor Wenting.

"Is there something wrong, Miss Evans?" Professor Wenting's eyes appeared above his extremely thick glasses that magnified them enormously, and was looking in Lily and Emmeline's direction.

"Oh, no sir, sorry. We were just discussing the importance of Ancient Runes." Lily used the innocent smile that tended to work on most teachers, but she barely needed to use it anyway.

"Ah. Although I am glad you are still appreciating the art of Ancient Runes, however, could you please do it in your own free time?" Professor Wenting chuckled and continued to talk about the ninth rune, Hydra.

"You're such a kiss ass, Red." Emmeline rolled her eyes and laughed under her breath.

"Shut up," she hit her friend playfully with her textbook and then smiled at her "thanks though, hippie."

James was listening to Sirius talk about a Ravenclaw girl he'd been seeing for the past few days when it happened. There was a loud crash, followed by roaring shouts. James and Sirius turned simultaneously, pulling out their wands; it was almost instinct for James. He looked at where the noise had come from, and noticed the familiar red head being the source of noise. Although Lily and Mary were only a few desks away from James and Sirius, he almost sprinted to see what had happened. Having the tall advantage, he was able to look straight over the back of Lily's head to look at the heap on the floor in front of her feet. It was Alecto Carrow, Slytherin. She was clutching her scalp with her hands, for a moment James thought Lily had performed a scalping hex on her, and he laughed inside, how could Lily hex anyone? Then he noticed something sprouting from Carrow's head. What on earth… Horns? He stepped beside Lily to get a closer look and saw that there were, in fact, horns growing through Carrow's hair and were still growing, rapidly.

"MISS EVANS! What is the meaning behind this?!" Professor Slughorn was stood at Carrow's head, completely bemused at his star pupil.

"I'm sorry Professor; Alecto was just saying that we should create some visible sign to show that muggle-borns are different to those of pure blood, so I created one for her." James noticed Lily's flushed cheeks, he had seen her angry at him many times over the previous years, but had not seen her this angry before. She had been called "mudblood" probably a hundred times during her time at Hogwarts, and each time James had heard the word, he would usually do the hexing, to her irritation, so why was she reacting like this now? Her hands, which were still clutching her wand, were trembling. Sirius slipped his hand under hers and removed her wand, placing it on her desk. James was surprised that Lily did not whip round and yell at Sirius, but he believed that Lily probably thought it was for the best.

"Miss Evans, I am incredibly disappointed in you. I do not expect you, out of all pupils, to succumb to violence to make a point. Headmasters office, now." Lily grabbed her bag, shoved her work and wand into her bag, and stormed out the classroom. Slughorn looked down at Carrow and glanced up at the remaining pupils.

"Mr Potter, would you mind alerting the hospital wing that Alecto Carrow has been hit with what seems to be an extreme anteoculatia hex." He mumbled, almost drowned out by Carrow's howls of what James believed to be more embarrassment than pain, giving him an uncontrollable smirk.

"Yes sir." James responded, jogging out of the classroom. He quickly ran after the door was closed. He was lucky to have such long legs, and Lily's being so much shorter, he managed to catch up with her within a few seconds.

"Well…That was certainly something…" He began, making Lily jump and shake her head in disapproval.

"Aren't you still supposed to be in class?" Lily sighed and readjusted her bag from falling off her shoulder.

"I've been sent to the hospital wing to alert them of your… well...mess. Anyway, I don't think you should be lecturing me on good behaviour, since you've just hexed someone." James' tone was filled with pride, which seemed to irritate the red head more.

"Oh please, I hex one person throughout my time here, and it's going to be used against me for the rest of my life. You, however, hex probably five people a day and you're treated like a celebrity." They turned off at the end of the hall and up a small staircase, their arms constantly brushing each other.

"Why'd you do it anyway?"

"I said why. About five minutes ago?" Lily's eyes were focused on the steps below. James felt a sudden need for her to look at him.

"But why now?"

"What?" She looked up at the remaining stairs, it seemed that she was completely avoiding his gaze.

"Why now? These past seven years you've dedicated your life to lecture me about hexing Slytherin bullies, when they've called you that name. But why are you hexing them now?"

"Because I realised they're never going to change ,"Lily finally looked up at James; she gave him a distressed look "we've spent seven years with these people, James. You would hope that spending that amount of time with people would change them, that they would see we're no less than them. How long did it take Sirius? Minutes? Seconds? He was raised in the Black family for goodness sake."

"Well… Sirius has always been impressionable. I'm just a very influential part of his life." They finally reached the top of the staircase and Lily raised an eyebrow at James. "What?" he asked.

"I was just thinking, if Sirius was here, he probably would have hexed you."

"No, he would have punched me; he's a very hands on person, if you know what I mean." A smile stretched across Lily's face and she began to laugh. James had heard her laugh like this many times, and it would often cause a sinking feeling in his chest. He wanted to be funny for Lily Evans, but she never found him amusing. Now that she was laughing at him, the feeling in his chest seemed to disappear, but now his palms were sweaty and the back of his throat was dry. He coughed and looked ahead, noticing that at the end of the corridor they were to turn separate ways, he quietly thanked the universe.

"So…Have fun with Dumbledore, I'm sure he'll let you off easy anyway. You are Lily Evans." What the hell was that, James?

"Um, thanks. Have fun in potions, I guess it will be a lot more interesting for you now." Lily brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and blushed.

"I'm so glad you had my main interests at heart. See you later." He quickly turned on his heel and walked down the opposite hall, cursing himself. Get yourself together, Potter. He quickly looked over his shoulder to see if Lily had begun to walk down the corridor to the Headmasters office, the corridor he knew so well. She had. Her back faced him and she was once again readjusting her bag back on her shoulder. He quickly tuned back and shook his head, he had to stop this; she hadn't shown any interest for seven years, she wasn't going to start now.

If he had kept looking for a few seconds longer, he would have seen her look back as well.

A/N:

Hi everyone, I know I haven't updated in a while and now I'm uploading two chapters within a couple of days again. I've set up a Jily tumblr if anyone wants to follow (although I've literally just set it up today so there's barely anything on there)

Sorry to be highly annoying but please, please, please give reviews, I will not cry if you think this isn't very good, that's what this is all about

Thank you all for reading!

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