They arrived at the Defence class room in record time, James's eyes frantically scanned the hallway where only a few student were currently queuing.

"Excellent, she's not here yet, that means I won't miss her and when she does turn up she won't be able to escape."

"Um, not to put a downer on it or anything, but what if she doesn't come?" Peter asked quietly, a little fearful of James's reaction to his question.

"Not even I could scare Lily out of coming to class," James assured him confidently before frowning concernedly. "Could I?" he asked, nervousness entering his voice.

"I doubt it," Remus reassured kindly.

They waited and waited, but she didn't turn up and before James could think of an excuse to leave before the lesson started, so he could keep looking, Professor Hoon was striding down the corridor and they were being ushered into the classroom.

"Fuck, bugger, shit, - fuck I'm so messed up I can't think of anymore expletives!"

"Wait, you can use the word expletive but you can't come up with any more swear words?" Remus chuckled incredulously. "Wow, this is more serious than we thought!"

James sent Remus an evil look.

"Wanker," Sirius supplied cheerfully with a smile, distracting James attention from Remus before one of them got hurt.

"Crap," James added with a small smile.

"Bollocks," offered Remus, as a peace offering

"Stink nuggets?" Wormtail thoughtfully tried.

All the others turned to him and looked at him weirdly before James let out a loud snort quickly followed by Sirius and Remus.

"Thanks guys," he said gratefully once he'd calmed down. "I needed that," he told them before sighing and turning his attention to the front of the room, ideas for ways to get incapacitated enough to be allowed to leave Hoon's class within the next hour running through his head.

Just as he was contemplating asking Sirius to hex him there she was—out of breath, ten minutes late and radiantly flushed.

With a quiet "Sorry Professor" and one scorching, indecipherable look in James's direction, she took a seat three places down from him, next to Jennifer.

His eyes tried to burn a whole through the side of her head, but she desperately and stubbornly avoided all eye contact, refusing to turn her head in his direction.

After the adventures in trying to find her that day, finally seeing her made him feel like what he assumed a starving man feels like when he has food in front of him again. She's so beautiful,he thought to himself, unable to take his eyes off of her, his gaze drawn the soft lips that had only hours ago been pressed against his.

He allowed the class to continue, drowning out the Professor's voice and not paying the slightest bit of attention to anything but the side of Lily's head. He even went so far as to lay his head on his hand, hoping to catch her sneaking a look at him.

But she didn't turn and soon the rest of the class was preparing for a practical session.

That was when he decided he'd finally had enough. He couldn't wait any longer, the professor be damned.

He wanted it to end then and there.

"Psst… psst! Lily?!" he whispered leaning even further forwards to look around Sirius and Jennifer who were sitting in between them.

"Oh come on, Lily, please!" he begged quietly, sending a wary eye around the classroom looking to see where Professor Hoon was and giving Sirius a smack to the back of the head as he snorted at James's pathetic begging.

When she still didn't respond he sighed angrily before tearing a corner off of his notes and scribbling a quick note pleading with her to talk to him after class. He threw it and it landed neatly right beside her arm.

She noticed it and his heart soared, only to sink past his feet, as she picked it up and lobbed it into the rubbish bin a few feet away from her.

He felt heartened again, though, when Jennifer leaned towards Lily, after casting James a pitying look, hoping she may convince her to talk to him.

It was just wishful thinking, though, because after a furiously whispered conversation between the two girls Jennifer's shoulder slumped and she turned sympathetic eyes on James before mouthing "Lily says; STOP IT or we'll all get in trouble"

James ignored her. "Psst, Lily?"

"Is there a problem, Mr Potter?" a deep voice said from right behind him, startling James into sitting up straight and nearly breaking Sirius's nose.

James quickly tuned his head to find Professor Hoon leaning directly over his shoulder and into his personal space. "Of course not, Professor!"

"Don't lie to me, please, Mr Potter!" hissed the professor. "I am not in the mood for your games today, so tell me, before I get annoyed enough to give you a detention, why were you making a sound like a deflating balloon? Do you have some kind of abnormality I have yet to be informed of?"

"No, of course not, Professor, I was just – just exercising my mouth muscles," said James, finding the eyes of almost the whole class on him by then.

"I see, care to explain why?"

"So that they are fully prepared to annunciate the spell correctly, of course, I find it terribly useful" James said seriously, nodding his head for emphasis.

"Psst, psst," James demonstrated, forming his mouth into various distorted shapes. "It's all in the movement, see Sir?"

"Not really, Mr Potter," Professor Hoon said with a long suffering sigh. "But I trust you are quite finished now?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well then, ten points for wasting my time with your drivel. Now get back to work and please try to concentrate, I know that's difficult for a person with the attention span of a goldfish, but this spell is rather delicate and has a tendency to backfire if not done properly. I would hate to have to deduct more points from you for time wasting because you got injured."

"Yeah, never mind my health," James whispered to Sirius under his breath as the Professor arrogantly strode away.

Sirius laughed quietly before turning away from James, his face morphing into a picture of concentration as he held his wand aloft and pointed at the object in front of him.

As soon as James was left to his own devices he tried again to get Lily's attention

"Come on, Evans, please, we need to talk—" Seeing the Professor's eyes on him James froze mid word and quickly and sloppily tried the spell hoping to appear like he was working but just having a difficult time mastering it

The problem, however, was that the Professor hadn't been lying when he'd said the spell required concentration, so when James made his half arsed attempt it surprised no one but James when his wand backfired—sending a shot out of the end, followed by a loud bang and a rebound that sent James's body crashing back in to the desk behind him, causing him to hit his head astonishingly hard.

"James!" cried out several voices.

Within moments Sirius worried face came in to focus and just as darkness began to swim at the edges of his consciousness, he, perhaps a little foolishly, thought he could hear Lily's voice in the mass of noise, before he dismissed the idea, his much abused head must have been mistaken…

But just as his eyes closed he could have sworn he saw auburn.

--

As James slowly came back to consciousness he became very aware of a painful methodical throbbing in the back of his head

"Okay, ow!" James groaned, finally opening his eyes fully after laying quietly for a minute or two trying to adjust to the pain and his new surroundings

As soon as they were open he desperately tried to scramble further back into his pillow – having woken up to Sirius's face looming over him.

"Dude, thank goodness you're alright," Sirius said, without giving James time to adjust and sounding incredibly relieved.

"What—?" James started before smacking his lips together, his mouth feeling incredibly dry.

Noticing, Sirius passed him a glass of water.

James gulped it greedily before trying again. "What happened?"

"You weren't paying attention in Defence and your wand backfired, the explosion knocked you backwards and you hit your head, there was loads of blood – literally a puddle of it… I have to say, you had me really worried," Sirius said, avoiding James's eyes a little.

"Oh."

"But at least we got out of Defence," Sirius joked trying to lighten the mood.

Disregarding the seemingly unimportant facts of his cranial damage and missed class James quietly asked "What time is it?"

He'd said it inaudibly, almost hoping Sirius hadn't heard him, already knowing what he was going to say and desperately not wanting to hear it – to hear that his time was up.

"Six o'clock," Sirius said in voice that matched James's. "Sorry, mate," he added, truly concerned and sorry for his friend.

"That's okay," James said, gulping. "I just – guess it's over."

--

A/N;

Well the elusive Evans returns – but I'm guessing it wasn't quite the reunion you were expecting – MWHAHAHAHA!

Patience, readers, patience

Was my chap title appropriate?

Only one more chap and an epi to go! So please please review!