A/N: *shakes head* a note to the reviewers asking about the emerald- the last chapter had a comment in the author's note about - I haven't forgotten about it, ive got mucho big plans for it. But u just gotta wait and see!!!!!!

SEVEN-AN OWL AT MIDNIGHT

James, Lily, Maggie, Sirius, Remus, Elisabeth, Peter, and Julia wandered the corridors later that night. They were making more noise than they perhaps should have been, but it wasn't yet late enough for them to be in trouble for being out of bed.

Outside the grounds had frozen, the now hard footprints making trip- holes in the mud. The sky was misty; a cold, wet mist that sent shivers up their spines.

But inside the castle it was warm, and the lanterns burned brightly in the hallways, sending light dancing merrily on the walls.

The eight friends were walking in a close group, the girls thinking they were just killing time before bed. But the boys had other plans; later on they were going to get back at the girls for that awful prank they'd played earlier in the year.

James and Lily were both making an effort to keep up with their friends, and not spend too much time talking with just one another; they were still slightly embarrassed about earlier that day. Then again, that didn't mean they wouldn't take the chance to ditch down a corridor and walk alone, should the opportunity present itself.

"D'you know, I think it would be nice if the group of us went somewhere Christmas break," Julia said after a break in the conversation. "Nowhere crazy, like the states or something- but how about if we went to Paris for a night?"

"Um, Julia? That IS crazy," Maggie said, raising her eyebrows. "How would we pay for it? What about getting there and back? And honestly, eight seventeen year olds alone in a hotel-"

"Okay, okay," Julia interrupted, throwing her hands up. "Sorry I suggested it. But it would be fun, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah," Lily and James said in unison, and the others burst out laughing as James and Lily blushed. They'd both been thinking along the same lines; a week together without teachers or parents watching them.

"Maybe we shouldn't, we don't know what these two will get up to," Sirius said, gesturing at Lily and James. The others laughed again, encouraging Sirius, so he continued, "I mean, the way you two have been acting-"

"Shut it, Sirius," James said, and Lily had to laugh along with the others at the tone of warning in his voice. He'd obviously just confirmed their suspicions.

Not that he was thinking about jumping into bed with Lily, like he had with some of his previous girlfriends; this was quite the opposite. He was content just to be around her-

"-you and Maggie we should be keeping an eye on," Lily was saying, and from the red in Sirius's face James decided Lily had just got back at Sirius. As the group sniggered at Lily's comeback, James couldn't help but notice Sirius and Maggie glance at one another and look away quickly.

Interesting.

"Well, anyway," Remus said, feeling sorry for his tortured best friends and changing the subject, "We've got exams to worry about first."

"Oy, don't remind me," Julia groaned. "I hate studying."

"At least we haven't got as much pressure on us to do well as James and Lily do. Head boy and girl, have to set an example you know," Elisabeth said, looking genuinely glad.

"Yeah, thanks for reminding me," James said, making a face. They laughed.

"Luckily we don't have to do many things very differently," Lily said. "I mean, besides the exams. Scold a few prefects, use their nice lavatory, roam the halls after lights out, skip class to talk to the headmaster-"

"Okay, okay," Elisabeth said, holding a hand up to stop her friend. "You're making Sirius wish for the first time that he was head boy!" Sirius's eyes had definitely taken a dreamy look to them after that comment of "roam the halls after dark." The others laughed again.

By now the group had reached the third floor corridor, and were walking along a hallway that looked out over a courtyard. Despite their attempts not to James and Lily had ended up walking next to each other, and quite closely at that. When the others weren't paying attention, Lily slipped her hand into James's. She grinned back when he smiled at her.

"I'm bored of walking," Peter, who'd been quiet until now, announced. "Let's go back to the common room and play a round of Exploding Snap."

"I'm in," Remus said; he, too, was bored of walking around.

"Okay," the other's agreed, and they headed for the common room, the boys eagerly anticipating their prank.

********

The Gryffindor common room was brightly lit, and combined with the scarlet red and golden tapestries the room was a very cozy place. The crackling and snapping fire in the fireplace was burning away as if it'd just been lit. Impossible though, it was nearly ten o'clock and the house elves lit the fires around five.

The group of seventh years quickly settled onto the couch and armchairs surrounding a low table in front of the fireplace. The only other students in the room were a few fifth and sixth years sitting at tables in the back, bent over books and astronomy charts as they hurried to finish their homework.

Sirius pulled an Exploding Snap deck from his robes and took care of dealing cards out, while talking in a low voice to Maggie, who was grinning.

Lily and James were sitting next to each other on the couch, their legs touching and James's arm across the back of the couch, somewhat around Lily. Julia was sitting on Lily's other side, shooting her friend smiles to tease her about James. Lily grinned as she rolled her eyes in response. She leaned in to James a little bit, and he smiled, looking at the floor. He was kind of embarrassed, but it wasn't exactly a bad feeling. Julia covered her hand to hide a giggle at her friends.

As they began playing their game, Remus couldn't help but bring up a conversation from earlier that day.

"It's scary isn't it," he said, and the others looked at him curiously.

"Sorry, what is?" Elisabeth asked after a moment. Remus took his turn before saying, "You-know-who. I mean, how do we know what he's doing right now? What if he's out killing more witches or wizards? What if he's plotting some sort of mass murder against muggle-borns?" James tightened his arm around Lily at this, and she leaned in to him even more.

"Remus, honestly, do you have to be so depressing?" Elisabeth asked, taking her turn.

"Yeah," Remus responded, looking at Elisabeth evenly. "He's crazy- what if He tried to get into Hogwarts? You can't just ignore it, what if something happens to us? To our families?"

"I think Remus is right," Sirius said, serious for one of the few times in his life. "Like Dumbledore said at closing feast last year, 'there's dark times ahead.' Who knows where we'll all be in ten years? What if we're in hiding? What if we've got nothing left but friends, because our family and possessions have been destroyed? What if he kills one of us?"

This whole little speech was so out of character for Sirius that the others fell silent, but that wasn't the only reason. What he'd said was a good point- where WOULD they all be in ten years? Twenty years? Would they have nothing left but their friendships? Would they have even that? Would they be dead?

Peter was particularly quiet after this, thinking. A new question had entered his mind, one that he was scared to answer. What would he do if Voldemort gained so much power that he ruled over most of the wizarding world? Would he join him? Or stay loyal to his friends?

James sat silently, his arm still protectively wrapped around Lily. He liked to think he'd still be alive in twenty years, but Remus was right. None of them were particularly sure what they'd be doing.

After a long while of silence, in which everyone tried to imagine what they'd be doing in the future, Maggie cleared her throat and said, "Well, it does us no good to worry about it. Whatever happens, happens. We can't change it."

"But maybe we can," James said, and the others looked at him curiously.

"We could become Aurors," James pressed on. "Or spies. Or start an order against him, like a band of anti-Voldemort supporters."

"Yeah but James, being an Auror is such hard job. It's impossible to train for, endless hours of bookwork- just look at Frank Longbottom, that fifth year who's forever writing things out and studying in the common room and library. It's too late for any of us to try that," Elisabeth pointed out sensibly. "Not to crush anyone's hopes," she added after a moment, and a couple of them smiled faintly.

"But we could still start some sort of Anti-Voldemort group," James said. It was sounding better and better to him; if he really did start something like that, then they could have a network of spies working against Voldemort- disguising themselves and sneaking in to his highest groups of death eaters.

"I like that idea," Lily put in. "It might work really, really well."

"Or totally cave in on itself," Maggie said pessimistically. "Suppose you got a group like that together. How do you know people would stay loyal?"

"Trust," James said. "It would only work if everyone knew each other very well, and there was a large amount of trust."

The others thought about this, and as they did so the clock struck eleven. Their game of exploding snap lay forgotten on the table, and the few people that had been working had long since gone to bed.

Clearing his throat, Sirius looked at his friends and said, "Great idea James, you'll have to do something to put it into action. But somehow I don't think it'll happen tonight. So how about if we all get out of this little conversation-thanks to Remus-and have a bit of FUN?"

Catching on to what he meant by fun, Peter and Remus pushed aside thoughts of Voldemort and grinned; at midnight they would put their plan into action. They just had to keep the girls up a bit later.

James was also happily anticipating their prank, but he was less quick to get his mind off of Voldemort. He liked his plan, and one day he really was going to start an organization like that.

Lily nudged James gently with her elbow as the game resumed, Julia, Peter, Elisabeth, Maggie, Remus and Sirius laughing as Peter was beaten badly by Remus.

"You okay?" Lily asked softly, and James nodded.

"You?"

"Yeah. Just, you know, this Voldemort stuff- what about my family James? I'm worried."

James pulled Lily closer, closing the small space that had still been between them, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"It'll be all right, Lil," he said.

"I hope so."

"It will."

For the next half-hour the eight of them happily played their game, though Peter was upset when he got out. At eleven thirty the boys began itching to pull their prank- but it was necessary they wait until twelve, or it wouldn't work.

At about eleven-forty five the sound of someone yelling in the corridor outside the portrait hole startled the group, and James and Lily jumped up to see what was going on. As head boy and head girl they were expected to put a stop to any rule-breaking, and being out in the halls at night was definitely not following the rules.

Pushing the portrait hole open and hurrying into the hall, there was absolutely no one in sight. Confused, they split up and walked to the end of the corridor, checking down the adjoining halls.

As James turned to shake his head, signaling to Lily that there was no one down that corridor, he saw who'd made the noise and groaned. Lily looked up and noticed, too, and the look on her face was one of dislike.

Peeves was floating in the air above the portrait hole, singing a dirty little rhyme.

"Peeves," James said, approaching the poltergeist, "go away. Do I have to go find the Bloody Baron?"

"Sleeping, the Bloody Baron is, I saw him myself," Peeves cackled, abandoning his rhyme and flipping upside-down to look at James. "But don't worry, Mr. Bighead boy, sir, I'll not stay long. I've just finished up in the charms classroom, and I'm off to see the dungeons. But you won't go anywhere for a long time!" Sniggering loudly, Peeves pointed at the portrait hole, where the picture of the fat lady had swung back into place.

But the fat lady was gone, probably off visiting her friend Violet.

"Rotten luck," Peeves said very un-convincingly, and snapped his fingers. "Well, I'm off!"

With a whoosh and a rude noise, he was off down the corridor at the far end of the hall. Lily had reached James by now, and, looking at the empty portrait, she sighed.

"Well, looks like we're spending the night out here!" she said, and James grinned at her.

"Won't Sirius have fun with that," James said, and Lily laughed. Deciding it was best to wait for the fat lady to get back rather than try to knock (they wouldn't get anywhere, their friends were making too much noise to hear them at the entrance), the two of them stood near the wall, talking together.

A minute or two later, when they'd fallen silent, James cleared his throat and said, "You're lucky we're not in there, anyway."

"Oh?" Lily asked curiously. "And why not?"

James figured he could tell her about their prank, the fat lady may not be back by then. And no one would go looking for them, they'd probably just assume James and Lily had gone off to bring the troublemaker that was in the hallway to Dumbledore.

"Oh, just a little prank," James said, grinning. "To get you guys back."

"Really?" Lily asked, smiling back at him. "Good luck topping ours, that was bloody brilliant."

"It was all right," James replied, and Lily laughed. He couldn't help but add, "But it's fine with me we're not in there, I was kind of hoping we could get some time alone."

"Yeah, me too," Lily admitted, turning slightly pink and smiling. "I was gonna make sure we did, actually."

"And just how were you going to do that?"

"Tell you we had to discuss some Head Boy / Head Girl business."

"Discuss things, is that what you think we should do?"

"Of course not," Lily said. "I was thinking something more like this."

And before either of them realized Lily had the nerve to do it, she'd slipped her arms around James and kissed him, full on the lips and everything. James put his arms around Lily, too, surprised but thinking happy thoughts to himself as they kissed in the dim corridor.

It was a sweet kiss and they stopped quite quickly, but neither let go of the other. James looked into Lily's green eyes; they were sparkling and dancing merrily, and Lily smiled slightly at him. This time she didn't blush a bit- she just held his gaze.

James gently pulled Lily closer, so that their bodies were touching, and kissed her again. This time it was a lot longer, both of them lost in the moment. Eyes closed and arms tightly around each other, neither of them seemed aware of where they were or what was happening. All that mattered right now was that they were together, finally, like they were meant to be.

It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour; they wouldn't know, but eventually they broke apart again, their cheeks slightly flushed and arms still around each other lovingly. James brushed a strand of Lily's auburn hair from her face and whispered, "Definitely better than discussion."

Lily grinned and whispered back, "Definitely."

They stood together like that another moment or so, reluctant to let go but suddenly more aware of the time and the fact that they were still in the corridor.

"It's gone quiet in there," Lily said a moment later as they finally broke apart, turning towards the portrait hole. "We could knock."

"Or we could just stay out here," James said, slipping an arm around Lily's waist. She smiled and faced him as she put her arms around his waist, saying playfully, "Well, that's fine with me, if you want-"

But before anything else could happen there was the sound of rushing footsteps coming towards the portrait hole. The painting banged open, and, startled, Lily and James turned to see what was going on.

Peter was standing silhouetted in the entranceway, panting slightly and saying, "There you are, James, Lily, come quick! An owl just came, they're all up in our dormitory comforting him-"

"Peter, slow down, what's going on?" James asked, letting go of Lily as the two of them hurried quickly towards their friend.

"It's you-know-who," Peter said urgently, his beady little eyes round in fear. "He's killed Remus's parents."

*****************

A/N: Ahh, they kissed!!! *Sigh* so sweet- okay sorry, carried away there! :- ) and also now u know why I kept talking about Voldy, and who the Order of the Phoenix is going to be started by - - - Eeee, so many more things to continue, I guess I'll just have to hurry with the next chapter! Review Review Review, give me feedbacK!!!!!!!! I'll love you forever!!!!!!!! Luv, Cassi~