Funny how the heart can be deceiving

More than just a couple times

Why do we fall in love so easy

Even when it's not right

Pink


"That's a five, I'm not really into brunettes," James commented watching a girl that was passing by. The Marauders were currently sitting on a bench in a corridor rating every girl that they saw. It was one of their famous games which they played to pass the time ever since their first year at Hogwarts.

"Prongs, we all know you're not into any girl who doesn't have 'fiery red hair and emerald green eyes' so practically anyone who isn't Evans," Sirius mocked and James shot him a sheepish smile. "And that's totally a six. Look at her legs," he continued but James shook his head.

Peter, though, nodded quickly in agreement. "She's definitely a six, Padfoot."

"She's pretty. I'll give her a seven," James said assessing the next girl, a petite girl with black curly hair.

"No way, that's a five. She doesn't even come close to my high standards," Sirius told him.

"That didn't stop you from snogging her in third year," Remus added trying not to laugh but Sirius just waved him off.

"I was young and misguided," he said. James, Peter and Remus shared a knowing look. That was Sirius' excuse for snogging any girl, even if it happened the week before.

"Why are you not playing, Moony?" Peter asked.

"He thinks this is 'objectifying women'," Sirius explained. "His words, not mine."

"He has a point if you think about it," James began." Oh, that's definitely an eight," he added quickly, referring to a brown haired girl with a really nice smile.

"Rhona Darke, she's a pretty good snogger. I'll give her a seven too, I think," Sirius said looking at the girl and debating his rating until she was out of sight. Then, he turned to the other end of the corridor and saw Lily, Marlene and Dorcas approaching. "I give them all tens," he said seriously and turned to his friends.

"Why, Padfoot, how do they all measure up to your high standards?" Remus asked him smiling.

"They're not all tens, actually. They're not perfect but I can't give them any other ratings. For starters, I can't give Lily less than a ten without being hexed into next week by this lovesick bloke," Sirius said pointing at James. "I know for a fact you fancy Dorcas," he told Remus. "And let's face it, McKinnon is hot," he finished.

James laughed at his explanation. "Translation, Moony: He's got the hots for Marlene."

Remus grinned at James. "Oh, I think we all figured that out when he was mentally undressing her at the Halloween party."

"I was not!" Sirius quickly defended himself but seeing his friends' raised eyebrows he started laughing. "Ok, maybe I was. But, Merlin's pants, it should be illegal for someone who looks like her to wear a costume that tight," he said and Remus shook his head. He looked over Sirius' shoulder at the approaching girls and figured he still had time before they were within earshot.

"Since she's that hot, you broomheaded idiot, why on earth are you scared to ask her out?" Remus asked exasperatedly and Sirius looked offended.

"If I am scared to ask Marlene out than so are you to ask Dorcas," he said quickly under his breath.

"That's different," Remus said tensely.

"Your 'furry little problem' doesn't make any difference at all," Sirius whispered back and Remus kicked him in the shin to make him stop talking.


"Hi, Doe, sorry for being late. I had Prefect duties to take care of," Remus apologized as he sat down at a table in the library, near the girl. Dorcas had been waiting for fifteen minutes for him -not that she was keeping count or anything. She quickly hid the piece of parchment on which she had started doodling while waiting for her tutor and took her potions book and more parchment out of her bag.

"It's okay," she said as she opened her book. "I haven't been waiting for long." The truth was that she had been preparing a bit more than usual for her study date with Remus. She had even taken an extra couple of minutes to make sure her brown hair looked perfect and she had arrived five minutes early to make sure she wasn't going to make Remus wait. She had also been so close to asking Marlene if she should put some gloss on her lips but she had dismissed the thought when she realized she was stressing too much over a simple study date.

It's not as if he offered, she quickly thought. He's just being a good house mate as he is to everyone.

"I'm sorry for bothering you with this, I know you're really busy with Prefect duties and all. I would have asked someone else to help me, I still can if you're too busy. Marlene and her big mouth, she shouldn't have said anything to Slughorn when you have so much to do…" she rambled, nervously tucking her hair behind her ear.

"Hey, hey," Remus interrupted her, trying to hide his smile. "It's okay. You know, Lily or I would have helped you anyway. And I'm actually glad I'm doing this. I enjoy spending time with you, Dorcas," he said as he put his hand over the girl's to comfort her. Dorcas felt her face get hot and she thanked her parents for her inherited tanned skin tone which was able to somewhat hide her blush. She still looked down and averted Remus' eyes.

"Um.. that's... Thank you. I mean, I enjoy spending time with you too," she stammered and looked at the boy who was smiling at her.

"I'm glad to hear that," Remus said and finally let Dorcas' hand go and grabbed his potions book. He was quite proud of himself for admitting to Dorcas that he enjoyed her company, especially after his conversation with Sirius that morning which definitely made him think. He didn't have to commit to anything by spending time with Dorcas or even by asking her out. Sirius used to go on dates all the time, it's not like you have to marry the girl you go on a date with. He could hang out with Dorcas without anything getting too serious and he wouldn't have to tell her about his werewolf problem. But still, he wasn't Sirius and he only went on dates with girls he really liked. And he really liked Dorcas and it seemed like she liked him too. If he asked her out, it would sure turn into something more and it wouldn't be fair of him to hide such a big thing as his lycanthropy from Dorcas then. But why would Dorcas want to go out with a monster like him if she knew the truth…

He sighed and tried not to overthink what was happening for once in his life. "Let's get back to potions," he said and Dorcas nodded, oblivious to his internal struggles.


"I never thought I'd say this but patrols are starting to become really boring," Lily admitted. "I was actually thinking of skipping tonight's patrol, can you believe that?" She laughed and James smirked at her.

"What did you expect it to be like? Orgies in the dungeons, criminals on the loose, a troll invasion?" he teased. "Were you hoping to be some kind of vigilante master mind? Lily Holmes, maybe?" The girl threw her head back and laughed genuinely at James' muggle reference.

"A bit like that, to be honest. I always imagined that there had to be a lot of unauthorized parties and rule breaking at Hogwarts and I simply didn't know about them because I wasn't involved in such affaires."

"Oh, believe me, there is a lot of rule breaking at Hogwarts. I should know, since I am the one who does most of it." He paused expecting to be scolded by the Head Girl but Lily merely regarded him with an amused expression so he went on. "This stuff is just a lot more elaborate and the chances of someone catching us are rather slim," he bragged.

"But it still happens," Lily laughed. "Quite a lot, actually!"

"A lot more than I would care to admit," lamented James but he was still smiling. His patrols with Lily were going a lot better than anyone would have ever thought. There was no screaming or hexes involved. Actually, Lily seemed to be enjoying herself. She was laughing at all of James' lame jokes and she wasn't her uptight goody-two-shoes that James had grown used to. This was a new side of Lily and he loved discovering it. He thought his crush on Lily might have subsided over the summer, but seeing her again this year, he realized that he fell in love with her all over again and he had fallen worse than falling off of the astronomy tower.

What a girly thing to say! The voice in his head – which, no surprise, sounded quite a bit like Sirius –scolded him. Get it together, Prongs! Should I be worried that you're turning into a chick?! And speaking of the devil, his best mate was right in front of him ducking and peeking through the library door with Marlene and Peter.

"What are you doing here?" Lily demanded, knowing the three were up to something. James, however, instantly recognized what his friends were doing. "Are you spying on Moony and Dorcas' study date?" he asked.

"Yup," Peter said, unperturbed.

"Totally," Sirius continued. "And let me tell you something, that potions book has been long forgotten for the past half hour. They are talking and laughing and we," he said, addressing Marlene, "are bloody matchmakers." The girl smirked and high-fived him, but James shook his head at their antics.

"You should match-make yourselves together, idiots," he muttered but Marlene and Sirius were too busy to notice. Lily, however, caught James' eye and tried to hide her smile. Peter, too, caught James' remark and he frowned a bit but no one noticed him.

"I'm not going to tell you that spying on them is not nice-" Lily started.

"You just did," Marlene interrupted.

"-but just make sure that you get back to the Gryffindor tower before curfew, which ,by the way, is in half an hour," she told them and then signaled for James to follow her to the Ravenclaw tower, from where they would start tonight's patrol.

"I'm actually glad that Moony and Doe are spending time together. Even if it's just studying for potions," James told Lily after a while.

"Me too. I'm relieved Marlene and Sirius told Slughorn that Remus would tutor Dory in potions or else I don't think she would have ever asked Remus. She's just too shy," Lily responded. "But speaking of Marlene, she and Sirius are driving me mad. They are such idiots!"

"Merlin, I know!" James agreed. "It's bloody obvious they both like each other so I don't see what they're waiting for. What Sirius is waiting for, I mean," he explained. "He's the one who should ask Marlene out and I have no idea why he hasn't done it yet. He should take some props from me. Asking the girl you fancy on a date isn't that hard. I've done it about 100 times, give or take. Well, every time was unsuccessful but that's another story," he said shooting Lily a sheepish smile and the girl had the decency to blush.

They walked in silence after that for almost all their patrol and James was really starting to worry. He was thinking that he said the wrong thing and completely ruined his relationship with Lily, when it had just started to get better so Lily completely surprised him when she said "You know, James, you're not a bad guy."

He was stunned for a moment, but relieved to see that the girl wasn't mad at him. "Huh," he exclaimed, smiling. "It only took me seven years to get that out of you." James was beyond confused at Lily's sudden confession but he was smiling at her. Lily, however, still had a slight frown line between her brows – the one she always got when there was something on her mind which James found incredibly adorable. She was silent again and that made James nervous. Did he say the wrong thing again?

"Why did you suddenly stop asking me out?" she blurted out, surprising him once again.

"I thought that was what you wanted," he said cautiously.

"I thought so too. I mean, when you did, I was relieved," she started and James' heart sunk. "And I figured that it was for the best if you got over your crush on me since we had to work together as Head boy and girl." She stopped to gather her thoughts and then started again. "Then we started hanging out during patrols and you were so nice and after that we started hanging out even when we weren't on patrols and I kind of started to wonder if you've stopped asking me out because I told you to. But that doesn't really seem like the right answer since I've told you to stop before and you didn't listen to me- you never listen when people tell you to do something," she added as an afterthought. "So the other logical conclusion would be that you've stopped asking me out because you stopped liking me. And that would be unfortunate but I guess if that's the case I rather deserve it and maybe the universe is getting its payback on me." She realized that she was rambling so she stopped once again and decided to just spit out what she was trying to say. "The idea is, James, that I … I kind of like you."

If James was surprised before, now he was truly speechless. He realized they were right in front of the Gryffindor tower, the last stop of their patrol, and the Fat Lady had witnessed Lily's confession and was regarding the Head Boy and Girl with amusement and what almost seemed like pride. Fortunately, she realized that James wanted a little bit of privacy and so she opened the door to the Gryffindor tower without waiting for the password – a rare exception - letting the two students in the common room which was thankfully deserted.

He quickly went inside and tried to think of something to say since Lily was getting nervous because of his lack of response. "Do you think you… like me enough to be more than friends?" he tried.

"I think I like you enough to try," Lily admitted and smiled shyly at him, quickly heading upstairs to the girls' dormitories, leaving a love-struck James behind.


AN: Long time, no see, I know. I am well aware of that and I sincerely apologize for the obscenely long hiatus but fear not because I am not abandoning this story. So, to make up for the long wait I have brought you a really long and (hopefully) really nice chapter.

Thank you again, lovely people, for still reading my story and for the reviews and messages you have sent, I really appreciate them.

But getting back to this chapter: did you enjoy it? I hope I am not too out of practice and that you like where the story is going so far. Let me know in a review what you like or don't like about this story.

Thank you so much!