Chapter 7

"Lily--" she looks up, from her Charms textbook. James is sitting on the couch. She is sitting on the couch.

In fact, both of them are sitting on the same couch, alone, in the common room. Granted, she is as far from him as is physically possible, but they're still together. It's a miracle she hasn't gotten annoyed, or angry yet. But then again, this is the first time since that morning that he's opened his mouth to talk.

"What is it?" Her voice is sharper than she'd meant it to be. Years of snapping at him had made it a habit.

"About this morning—with Sirius, in the dungeons—I'm sorry you got involved."

He was apologizing? She raises an eyebrow.

"And—I think—you deserve to know what happened."

Both her eyebrows are raised now. "James, I thought Sirius," (there it was, using their first names again!) "already told me. Although I have a few qualms about believing his version."

"Oh, Sirius is normally a pretty good liar, but given the circumstances earlier…you probably understand why his story-telling wasn't in top form." He pauses, and takes a deep breath. "Whatever I tell you stays between us." It wasn't even a question, but she nods, reluctantly, and he continues. "Sirius was being honest about the first part, his brother hates him, and he returns the favor most of the time. And they do have occasional brotherly… fights. But this wasn't even about them." He seems to pause and steel himself before his next revelation, "It was about Remus."

At the sound of his name, Lily's voice catches in her throat.

"Lily, how well do you know Remus?"

There was only one answer to that question.

"Well enough to know that he's—he's…" she can't bring herself to say it.

There's a long pause between them.

"He's a werewolf. You know then." A weight seemed to have disappeared from James' shoulders, and he seems more willing to continue with his explanation. "Sirius and Snape get into fights. Me and Snape get into fights. Peter and Snape get into fights. But Moony—Moony's too nice. He doesn't do that sort of thing. But Snape," and James said that name like it was trash, "hates us collectively. And he noticed, about how Remus disappeared once a month, and came back sick and drained. He had a theory as to why that was. He wanted to prove his theory. And we found out. Sirius was all for it. Let Snape try to prove his theory. Let him go to the Shrieking Shack and see what's in there." He pauses, and looks at her, straight in the eye. His eyes are brown, she notices, the nicest shade she's seen of the color. "Sirius is a great guy, but sometimes… he doesn't think. I told him not to provoke Snape. I thought he wasn't around today, he said he was going to Hogsmeade with a Hufflepuff. When I found out he was down there, in the dungeons, I knew what he was doing. It was stupid, really. He was being stupid. But he's my best mate, you know? I would've backed him up either way."

This, Lily concludes, is the longest conversation she's ever had with James. Potter. James Potter. It isn't so bad.

"Well." She still isn't used to saying anything normal to him, she feels awkward and wonders if he does too. "What's going to happen now?"

" Nothing. Unless Snape decides to be stupid. But there's no way he can get past--" he hesitates again, not sure how much to tell her. He doesn't know that she already knows everything Remus related. Everything.

"No way he can get past the Whomping Willow, you mean?"

James gives her an assessing look, and Lily almost bites her tongue. Now, he would be wondering how she knew what she knew.

She decides to change the topic.

"I'll keep a closer eye on Severus, and you make sure to keep a close eye on Sirius. How about that?"

"Right." He pauses, and his eyes narrow at the unfamiliar name. "Did you just say Severus?"

"If you'd bothered to call him names other than Snivellus, or whatever it is you call him, you would know he had a first name, Potter." She crosses her arms over her chest defensively. It irks her, that they can be so mean to him. No matter how heroic they played out to the school, the Marauders really were first class bullies when they wanted to be. Except maybe Remus.

"And you know him pretty well then, do you?" There's a note of contempt in James' voice. The tips of his ears had gone pink.

"Better than I know you," she throws at him. And she'd thought they were being civil. The redness had now spread to the tip of his nose.

"Stay away from him, Lily. He's not a good person."

Oh, Severus wasn't a good person? She shakes her head. He can be so dense.

"And you think you are? Bullying him? Ganging up on him any chance you can get?"

"It's just a few jinxes, nothing dangerous." He brushes it off. "Have you seen the spells he uses, Lily? Look what happened to Sirius, for Merlin's sake!"

He has a good point in that argument, somewhere, but now she's just too angry to care.

"At least he isn't an arrogant, self-obsessed toerag, Potter." She gives him a glare for good measure, slams her Charms textbook, stands up and leaves.

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A/N:

Wow, I've been on hiatus for quite some time! Thanks to everyone who reviewed, the reviews really do keep me going :) Chapter 8's pretty much done, and Chapter 9's in the works! Rest assured this story is not dead!

It takes her a while to realize she's gone back to calling him Potter.

At least things were back to normal.