Chapter seven: The Christmas Party

A/N: For those of you who were waiting for this, there is a little bit of Jily friendship in this chapter (you'll have to wait a bit for the romance) and even a small spat. Enjoy! And I'm sorry about all the spelling/grammar mistakes in the previous chapter for those who read it as soon as it was published, but I did re-read it and fixed the errors. Sorry about that!

As expected, once Slughorn found out I was here, he immediately invited me into today's Slug Club, and since the Christmas holidays were starting in a couple of weeks, I was invited to his annual Christmas dinner. I accepted, of course, since some of his gatherings were actually quite fun, although there was one problem. James was invited too. I honestly have no idea why; he was not extraordinarily skilled at potions, but he had somehow managed to charm his way in.

Either way, he walked down the corridor with Harry and I, when we saw Harry's date-as-a-friend Luna Lovegood standing near the Ravenclaw Tower.

When she joined us, she spoke up: "I'm sorry about your godfather, Harry."

James and I exchanged confused glances.

"Your godfather? What happened to him?"

"He was Harry's father's best friend, Sirius Black. A nice man, but people thought he was evil, they thought he was one of You-Know-Who's followers. He died last year in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries," Luna explained in her usual dreamy voice.

Upon hearing this news, James turned white as a sheet and rushed off towards the Gryffindor tower. I followed, knowing fully well how much he had cared for his best friend. We probably alarmed Harry and Luna with our reaction, but at this point, I didn't care much; the announcement had startled me, too. As annoying as the Marauders were, they weren't bad people.

"I'll join you lot there," I said, not wanting to explain my sort-of enemy's reaction just yet.

I sprinted through the deserted corridors in pursuit of James. This proved to be difficult since his legs were much longer than mine, and I was not much of a runner, myself. When I finally arrived, I was shocked at the scene before me. Something I had never thought I would ever see. James Potter. Slumped in an armchair. Crying.

Wordlessly, I signaled for him to scoot over and sat down beside him, letting him cry into my shoulder. It wasn't really on my own volition; it was more like an instinct, one that told me to comfort someone when they were distraught.

"It's okay. I know it hurts, but it's okay, you'll be okay," I murmured a string of soft-spoken, comforting words into his ear.

After a few minutes of this, James seemed to finally realize what was going on and that it was I, his long-time crush, who was sitting so close to him, since he sat up abruptly and tried to compose himself.

"Evans?" he asked. "Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me, you hate me."

I sighed.

"I don't hate you, Potter, and let's just make that clear. You annoy the hell out of me, but I don't hate you," I didn't want to hurt him further at the moment. "And I'm helping you because, well, because I know how much you love Sirius. It must hurt more than I could imagine to hear that he's died."

"Thanks," was all he seemed to manage, but I took it nonetheless and he relaxed into the armchair again.

For a while, we just sat there, talking. Strange, how only something as significant as a death could get me to reach out to him, if only as a friend. I still couldn't see us becoming anything more.

"You know, though, Sirius isn't really dead in our time. He's still your best friend," I said after a couple of minutes.

"Yeah, but just to know he dies so young, and while most of the population thought he was a Death Eater as well…"he trailed off. "And at this point, I don't even know if we're going to get back to our time anyways. We got here by freak accident, and Dumbledore won't send us back until he's sure it's safe. What if there is no safe way to get back? What if we get stuck here forever? I'll never get to see Padfoot again. And what about Moony and Wormtail? What if they're dead too?" his emotions seemed to get the better of him, bringing out all of his worries.

"If any of that is the case, then we will deal with it," I said soothingly.

"Alright."

"Now, why don't we get to that party? There is no need to worry about this now, and people are going to wonder what happened to us."

As we walked to the dungeons, James returned to his old self.

"So, hanging out in the common room sweet-talking. A pretty good first date, huh?"

I whirled to face him, checking to see if anyone was nearby, including looking at the ceiling for Peeves, the notorious poltergeist.

"James Potter. That. Was. Not. A. Date." I said forcefully. "You were upset, and I was comforting you. I honestly thought we could be friends with the way that went, but you just had to go along and suggest a romantic attachment, didn't you?"

"Lily, I'm sorry, okay. I just got caught up in the moment," he said, the sadness back in his eyes. I guess he did, in fact, realize how strong my conscience is on that first day when I yelled at him, after all.

"I'm sorry," I said with a sigh. "Now let's just go."

James smiled as we walked, clearly satisfied with how his guilt strategy had worked out. Eventually, we arrived at the party where I saw an uncomfortable Hermione with a happy Cormac McLaggen, the repulsive boy from the Keeper tryouts, near the mistletoe. I abandoned James to go help her out.

"Hey, Hermione!" I said as casually as possible. "There's some amazing food over there," I gestured to the opposite side of the room as the mistletoe. "Why don't we go get something to eat, I'm starving."

"Sure. I'll be back in a minute, Cormac," she tried to sound cheerful, although the gratefulness I saw in her eyes showed me she really wanted to escape.

"Thanks," she whispered once we were out of earshot.

"Not a problem. Just one question, though," I replied. "Why are you here with him anyways? He's the biggest prat I've ever met, and he doesn't seem to be charming you either."

"I thought he would annoy Ron the most, with him going out with Lavender and all." I had almost forgotten Ron and Lavender were together, seeing as I had my own issues to deal with.

"I knew you liked Ron!" I exclaimed, changing the tone of the conversation. I really did love being right.

"Yes, well Harry told me you disappeared with Kyle on your way here right after Luna mentioned how Sirius Black died," I should have expected that.

Crap. I thought. How am I going to get myself out of this one?

"He, um, he had a stomachache," I answered lamely. "I had to take him to the hospital wing. He's fine now, though."

"All right, then," Hermione tried to sound cheerful and relaxed, but I knew she didn't believe me.

After the celebrations were over, and Harry had mysteriously disappeared after the Slytherin boy, Draco Malfoy was caught gatecrashing; I walked through the corridors with James, talking. We used our real names, since we were certain there was nobody nearby. We were wrong, however, Ginny Weasley was only a few meters away, and she heard every word.

Ooh, cliffhanger! Sorry about that, but I thought the rest of my chapters were somewhat lacking there. I might not be able to update tomorrow, I'm going to be really busy, but chapter eight will be up ASAP.