Lily didn't bother with passing notes the next day. James had a Quidditch practice that evening and he liked to get there early, so Lily laid in wait for him outside the Gryffindor portrait. As soon as James left, she grabbed him, dragging him down the hall.

"Holy Hippogriffs, Lily, what are you doing?" he said.

"We need to talk, right away." said Lily.

"We can talk later-" James began.

Lily shook her head. "No, no, it's important." She pushed a portrait open to the darkened passage beyond and pulled him in. "We can't let anyone overhear, either."

"What?" James said, panting, and only when his breath hit her ear did Lily realize how close they were. "What's going on?"

Lily edged down the passage, away from him. "Your friends figured us out."

"Already?"

"I don't know how either." whispered Lily. "I think they must've seen us looking at each other or something. But we've got to stop. They've apparently decided that we're messing with them, and whatever we do to them, they're going to try and do back to us. Remus wanted to try and make us kiss!"

"No, no, this actually isn't so bad." said James.

"What?!"

"Just hear me out, all right?" James said. "All right, so what you're saying is that the two of them, whenever we try to matchmake them, are going to spend more time together to work out ways to get revenge on us?"

Lily licked her lips. "I mean, when you put it that way..."

"Exactly!" said James. "This is perfect! We don't have to work out many ways to keep them in close proximity, they'll be doing that themselves as long as we keep the game going! And it's- it's not like there's anything between us, so it won't matter what they do to us, we'll just have to put up with a little embarrassment for a few weeks."

"What about Mary?" Lily whispered. "Won't she get upset?"

"Nah." said James. "I think she'll understand that they're just playing pranks on us."

Lily squeezed her eyes shut. Spending time with James was bad enough, but the type of pranks that Remus and Sirius wanted to play on them-

"Look, I know this- this friendship is still pretty new." whispered James "But I think this could work. And I know how you feel about me, you made that very clear last year, so there shouldn't be any weirdness, right?"

And there it was. She had no good way to refuse. "Fine." she said. "But if it gets weird, I'm backing out."

"Of course." said James. "See you around, Lily."

After he left, Lily stayed in the passage for a few more minutes, taking deep breaths.

So they continued their game- Lily kept making comments, and she assumed James did the same as well. They also tried to get the pair to sit close to each other whenever possible. Lily wasn't sure, at first, whether or not to be more obvious so that Remus and Sirius would plot revenge, or stay subtle so that neither of them would realize that James and Lily were planning to use the situation to their own advantage. She settled for the latter. She didn't want them to retaliate that badly.

It was hard enough just to be around James. Even when she managed to lose herself in the conversation and enjoy his presence, she always felt guilty afterwards because she couldn't help but wonder if she was enjoying it a little too much. Sure, it was good to be friends with him, and good to do the work they were doing, but she was worried that he might figure her out, or that she or Mary might end up hurt if Remus and Sirius went too far. She was still doing her best to get over him, but it was difficult when they spent so much time together, and Remus and Sirius weren't helping any.

Their retaliation started subtly. Suddenly, whenever Remus and Lily had a conversation, Remus would make little comments about how everyone thought James was so attractive, how Remus was his friend but he did have nice eyes, how he was a pretty good boyfriend to Mary, how he must be a good kisser since he'd had all those girlfriends-

At that last one, Lily nearly set the teacup she was supposed to be Transfiguring on fire. "Is this about Spin the Bottle?"

"What do you mean?" Remus asked innocently, practicing the right way to wave his wand.

Lily pursed her lips. "The four for four comment, what else would I mean? Although I don't know why you would possibly care-"

"I don't." said Remus, waving his wand and reciting the enchantment. His teacup remained unchanged. "It was just something I was curious about, that's all."

"You know, Black probably is a good kisser too, now that I think about it." said Lily. "When he's sober, anyways. He's had more girlfriends than James, hasn't he?" Lily smirked to see that Remus's cheeks were tinged with red. "He gave you an actual kiss at your birthday party, how was that?"

"He was drunk." said Remus, and his next attempt at the spell was much sloppier than his first. "I- I couldn't really tell."

"Curious?" Lily muttered.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing." Lily rested her head in one hand, trying to hide her smile.

And then other, stranger things began happening. Lily became clumsier than usual, and almost always around James. Normally, she wouldn't really have noticed, except it got a bit excessive- she had three particularly spectacular falls in two days, and, somehow, two of those falls ended with her crashing into James.

The third big fall landed her right in his arms.

"All right, Lily?" he asked, setting her back on her feet.

Lily backed away, eyes narrowing. "Yeah, fine, for the third time this week. I just seem to be extra klutzy lately." She wanted to glare at the two idiots standing on either side of James, but no doubt they would have perfected their poker faces from long years of being with the Marauders. Anyways, she didn't want them to know that she knew that they knew about her and James's plan.

"Lucky I keep being around, then." James said without dropping his grin. "Hey, so, I've got a Potions question actually, and I figure since you're Sluggy's favorite you'd probably be able to best help me. Wanna meet during a free period? In that empty classrooms?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess." said Lily. "I've got some History of Magic to do, so it can't be long, but..."

"Great." James said, nodding, and the Marauders headed into lunch.

Alice frowned. "Are you okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"You've been falling a lot lately." she said. "You don't think it's the Slytherins trying to jinx you again, do you?"

Mary immediately tensed, glancing around. "Oh, Merlin, I hope they aren't coming after us again. I don't care what the rules are, I will actually hurt one of them this time-"

"No, no, I don't think so." said Lily. "I- I'm not sure. Honestly, I think it might be James trying to pull something. We've been getting along too well lately."

Mary snorted. "Wonderful. I figured it was too good to be true."

"You don't have to get involved." Lily said quickly. "I can just talk to him about it later. This is between us, don't worry."

Mary nodded, but Alice pulled Lily back for a second as they walked into the Great Hall. "You sure you're all right? You've been a little distracted lately."

Lily bit her lip. "I...sorry. I guess I've been a bit busy. With dealing with Peter, and all."

Alice smiled. "Oh, I understand that might be a bit overwhelming. If you need to talk, though, you know we care about you."

"Thank you." Lily said, nodding. "Let's go, Mary must be waiting."

She met James in the same abandoned classroom they'd used before. James was waiting for her this time, sitting on the front desk.

"Do you ever feel a bit weird using these abandoned classrooms?" he asked by way of greeting. "Just think, there are probably professors who come in here to shag for a thrill. Maybe even some ghosts, too."

Lily wrinkled her nose. "You're gross. As usual." She perched on one of the desks. "So, what are we going to do about them?"

James grinned. "What, you mean you aren't trying to fall into my arms?"

"No, I am not." said Lily, ducking her head. "And also, if these were any other circumstances, I'd fully believe that Remus fancied you with the way he keeps talking about how attractive you are. It's actually disturbing. He tried to tell me how you were such a good kisser the other day, so I ended up asking him how Black was to shut him up."

James laughed. "Nice. Yeah, they've been making some similar comments about you, actually. Somehow, even though I've never heard about it before and they're shit at hiding things like this from me, they both fancied you once upon a time. Every time they start talking about it, though, I just figure out a way to get them to run into each other."

Lily snorted. "Thus, their countermove: tripping me into you every chance they get. So you can catch me like a knight in shining armor."

"Oh, really?" asked James, grinning. "Never been called that before. No, that's a lie-"

"Shut up before I throw something at you." said Lily. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Escalate, of course." said James. "I mean, that's the point of this whole thing, right? Then they'll have to figure out how they want to escalate back."

"How? We don't want to go too far..." Lily rubbed her forehead.

"I actually have an idea about that." said James. "What we could do is pretend to be secret admirers for them, from the other. Write fake love letters or something."

Lily tapped her chin. "Hmm. I mean, why?"

James shrugged. "The problem is that they can't spit it out, right? So if we give them a little push, let them know how the other feels..."

"Yeah, but...they know we're messing with them now." said Lily. "They might find it sort of suspicious that suddenly they're getting these notes. They'd probably ask the other about them, and the other could just deny it."

"I guess you're right."

"I mean, I think that sort of thing could work." said Lily. "We have to convince them that the other liked them somehow. It's not like we could just tell them, either, because now they won't believe it, but maybe if...if we were having a conversation about it and they happened to overhear it? We could acknowledge our plans and everything so it really seems like an accident-"

"Maybe." said James. "It would be tricky, but it could work. But I think that should be secondary for now, because it doesn't really keep the game going, does it? We have to try it on top of something else so they don't know it's our next move and think it's fake."

Lily nodded. "Right. So we're working on building them up to each other, and we're getting them to touch each other a lot, so now we just need to get them alone together. We could just lock them in a closet-"

James shook his head. "No, no, no, that's not nearly original enough. There's got to be some other way than that." He stared into space for a second. "Hmm...I could destroy one of their beds so they'd have to share, but the house elves would fix it pretty quickly, so maybe not." He snapped his fingers. "I got it! We make up some real-sounding disease, use hexes to give Remus and Sirius the symptoms, and report it to Pomfrey! She'll have to quarantine the two of them, and voila! They're alone."

Lily couldn't help but grin. "Really, James?"

"It's not a bad idea." said James. "Might cause a bit of a panic, and I'm sure we'll all be expelled when she discovers it's fake, but they'd be alone together for a while before then, and that's what matters, right?"

"Be serious." said Lily. "And no, don't you dare make that joke."

"Don't worry, I got tired of it around fourth year or so." James said, smiling at her. "Although it is how Sirius and I occupied an entire week of detention with Wood...huh. There's a thought."

"What?"

"Well, what if we could somehow get them in detention together?" James said. "Depending on what they do, it'd be just the two of them, alone, performing some long, monotonous task like organizing Slughorn's cabinets or something. That'd qualify as close proximity pretty well, wouldn't it?"

Lily narrowed her eyes. "I'm just struggling with the 'get them in trouble' part here."

"Oh, right, because you're little miss Prefect." said James. "You know, they have been tripping you on staircases all week."

Lily flipped her hair back."Doesn't mean I have to sink to their level. Look, how about this- you figure out how to land them in detention again, since you're the expert in that area, and I work out how we can get them to overhear us talking about them without it being suspicious. We meet again in a few days for more 'Potions homework', and work on whatever we have then. Sound good?"

James shrugged. "Fine with me. Although if I do happen to need your help with the detention plan-"

"I will." said Lily. "I just prefer to know as little about it as possible. That way, if it gets us all hauled before Professor McGonagall, I can blame you for everything."

James smiled. "Lily Evans, you're ruthless."

"Just trying to hold onto my reputation despite all these secret dealings." said Lily, leaning forward. "I mean, I do kind of want Head Girl next year, so-"

"Right." said James, sliding off the desk. "'Kind of' want. I'm sure they've picked you already."

Lily shrugged. "I don't know, Emmeline Vance would do pretty well-"

"Relax, Lily, you've got this." said James. He slung his bag over his shoulder. "And I suppose I'll do my best to not mess your chances up too much, because at least if you're running this school I can count on some nepotism."

Lily leaned back. "I don't know about that."

"Of course you do." said James, grinning. "Now, as much as I'd love to hear about all the favors you'd be willing to do for your best friend's boyfriend, I actually promised Mary I'd meet her in a few minutes, so I've got to go. See you around."

"I'll keep brainstorming!" Lily called as he left.

While Lily brainstormed, she tried to spend more time with Mary and Alice. The fact that Alice thought something was wrong worried her. Alice was pretty perceptive when she came to these things, but Lily didn't really know what she could say if Alice pressed her about it later. She was sure Mary thought something was up, too. Mary and Alice shared pretty much everything with each other.

And indeed, Mary sat down across from Lily on her bed one night. "So." she asked. "How are things with you and Peter?"

"Um, fine. " Lily said. She couldn't tell from Alice's back whether the other girl was eavesdropping or not. "We're just...going a bit slow, I guess. Why do you...why do you ask?"

Mary shrugged. "I don't know. Just wanted to make sure that was going okay, I guess. Peter said he couldn't really tell what was going on."

"Oh, he did, did he." Lily muttered. "When were you guys talking about that?"

"Just...the other day." said Mary. "He really is a nice guy. I mean, obviously I don't think anyone's good enough for either you or Alice, but he's a pretty good guy. I think you'd do well."

"It's still Lily's choice." said Alice, coming to sit down beside Mary. "She wanted to take it slow, and that's what she and Peter are doing."

"I know, I know." said Mary. "I just wanted to make sure everything was okay, that's all."

"Well, I'll talk to him, then." said Lily. "Don't worry about me, Mary, I'll be fine. You two worry about your own happy relationships with your wonderful boyfriends."

Alice smiled, but Mary just wrinkled her nose. "Yeah." she said, tracing a pattern on her blanket. "Will do."

Lily and Alice traded worried glances, but neither of them wanted to push the topic. Instead, Alice changed the subject, and they continued talking until bedtime.

"Well, it's done." said James, sitting down next to Mary as she, Lily, and Peter worked through the next Transfiguration assignment. He pressed a kiss to the side of Mary's head.

"What's done?" asked Mary, interlacing her fingers with James's.

"The Potions assignment." said James, nodding towards Lily. "I got it done."

Lily met his eyes, confused, and then realized. "Oh, oh yeah. Good job with that."

"Thanks." said James, smiling.

Mary slung an arm around him. "Awww, you figured it out."

"Yeah, I did." said James, still looking at Lily. "And did you figure out- that assignment you were working on?"

"I'm still thinking about it." said Lily, looking over to where Remus and Sirius usually sat with the other Marauders. Their table was conspicuously empty.

James nodded, and finally turned to Mary. "So what are you guys working on? More Transfiguration?"

"Mary wanted me to help her with it." said Peter. "She's been helping me, too."

James grinned. "Nice. You're finally beginning to discover Pete's charms, aren't you, Mary?"

Mary made a face. "What do you mean by that? Lily's his soulmate."

James's grin faded somewhat. "Just a joke, that's all. But thanks for helping Wormy out. He's great at Transfiguration, but McGonagall was worried about letting him in this year for some reason."

Lily glanced over at Peter- he hadn't said anything, but his cheeks were a little red. "Well, that's sort of a personal thing to tell someone else." she said, folding her arms.

"It doesn't matter." said Peter, smiling after a moment. "Prongs is right. Mary is helping me."

Now it was Mary's turn to look down at her paper. "Well, that's- that's good."

"Yeah, great." James said, clapping Mary on her shoulder. "I've got a girlfriend with a good heart."

Mary laughed, meeting his eyes, and Lily braced herself for more kissing, but surprisingly, it was over quickly. James smirked across the table. "And of course, these two are the cutest pair of soulmates we've ever had."

Lily and Peter were silent.

"Don't make them uncomfortable." Mary chided. "Let them figure it out."

"Sure." James said, leaning forward to kiss her. Mary acquiesced, and then he pulled away, standing up. "I've got to go."

"Aww, already?" Mary asked, reaching for him.

James shrugged, stepping back. "Got practice tonight, don't I? Got to get ready for that."

"Right." Mary turned back to her work.

James, sensing her tone, glanced over at Lily. "Don't worry, it'll pay off when we get the championship." he said. "We can talk after practice."

Mary didn't look up. "Okay. Bye."

Lily frowned. She'd thought they were doing better than before. Before James could fix anything, however, the portrait door opened and Remus and Sirius walked in, looking disheveled.

"You'll never believe what just happened." Sirius called, loud enough for most of the Common Room to turn and stare.

James hurried over to meet them. "What?"

"Padfoot and I just got detention." Remus said. "Right after you ran off. Scrubbing McGonagall's desks." He slumped down at the Marauder's usual table.

Peter stood, looking at Mary. "Sorry, but I'm going to go-" he gestured towards where the other three were talking.

"That's fine." said Mary. "Just- come back, all right? I still need your help!"

"I can try and help you." said Lily as Peter walked away.

Mary shrugged. "Nah, it's fine. No offense, I just like the way Peter explains things."

"Hmm." said Lily, returning to her work. After a moment, she asked, "Everything all right?"

"No, you don't need to go tell him off again." Mary said quietly. "I just...maybe we weren't meant to last more than a few weeks."

"Don't say that." said Lily. "You two are all over each other all the time, you like each other."

Mary shrugged. "Maybe. But also..." She paused, laying her quill down. "I think...would it be totally weird if..."

Lily watched her for a moment. "If what?"

Whatever Mary was going to say, she seemed to change her mind. "Nothing. Never mind. If I told James to go ahead and get his tattoo?"

Lily immediately tensed, although she did her best to keep a smile on her face. "I think...I think that's between you two. But...if you're a little worried about you two already, wouldn't it be best for him not to? If you guys break up, you can get it then."

"Yeah, I guess." Mary said, picking her quill up again. "I just think it might be easier to know, sometimes, you know? To just get it over with."

"That type of attitude didn't help Black." Lily said quietly, glancing over at where he was telling James the story of their run-in with McGonagall. James was doing an impressive job of pretending to be surprised.

Lily realized Remus was watching her watch James. She colored, looking back at Mary, who, thankfully, was still absorbed in her paper.

"Yeah, maybe." Mary said. "I don't know which would've been better...Marlene letting their relationship run its course first and then getting together with Ludo soon afterwards, or just breaking things off then before they got more attached." Mary tapped her quill against the tattoo. "Although I guess it might've been worse if Marlene had waited to say anything until she got her tattoo. What do you think?"

"I..." Lily met Mary's eyes. "Um...well, you're waiting to get your tattoo until after you and James break up, aren't you?"

Mary looked back down at her paper. "Of course, yeah, obviously. But Marlene already knew she wanted to be with Ludo. So why would she wait to be with him?"

That question, at least, was easier to answer, although Lily wasn't sure why Mary was asking it. "Well, if she was strongly interested in someone else, she should've broken it off before the tattoo debacle started."

Mary frowned. "What if she wasn't sure? I mean, everyone gets interested in other people every once in a while in a relationship."

"Um..." Lily played with her quill. "Well, it didn't seem like Marlene was just sort of interested in Ludo, did it? She told me she was pretty sure he was her soulmate, and Remus and James both thought she might've been using Black to make Ludo jealous."

"Oh, okay." Mary said, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. "I guess that's...wait, when did she talk to you about all this?"

Lily opened her mouth and closed it, not wanting to discuss that particular conversation. Finally, she shrugged. "I, uh, may have run into her at one point. And I may have made a comment about the way she dumped Black."

"Lily." said Mary, leaning across the table. "I was hoping you two would stop fighting!"

Lily shrugged. "Sorry, I just...it was right after they made that scene in the Great Hall, so I was still a little shocked."

"Right." Mary said, returning to her work, and Lily thought their discussion was over, until Mary asked, "So you think she was wrong? To leave Sirius when she figured out what was going on between her and Ludo?"

"That abruptly, yeah." said Lily. "I think some things are better staying secret."

"Even if they're going to come out eventually?" Mary asked.

Lily's throat closed up- but no, there was no way Mary could know. "Well, then, it's better to wait for that eventually, isn't it?" Lily asked. "Who knows what might've changed by then."

Mary nodded. "Right. Thanks, Lily."

"For what?"

Mary shrugged. "Just- interesting conversation, that's all." And that was the last thing Mary was willing to say in the topic.

Remus and Sirius's retribution for detention was as swift as it was horrible.

"Oh my God!" Lily said, covering her eyes. "Oh my God, I am so sorry, I did not know you would be in here, Remus just sent me up here to borrow a book-"

"Lily, relax." said James, but Lily kept her arm over her face until he sighed. "All right, I've got trousers on, you want to come get the book?"

"Yeah." Lily said, dropping her arm. Unfortunately for her, he was still shirtless, and she really did not need to see what years of playing Quidditch had done to his physique right now. "Would you put on a bloody shirt?"

James grinned a bit halfheartedly as he pulled on his shirt and buttoned it up. "What, you don't like what you see?" He flexed, and Lily flushed all over again.

"Not now." she said. "Please."

"All right, all right, just teasing." James said, raising his hands, and even though he had a shirt on, Lily still swallowed, unable to get the image of what he looked like underneath out of her mind. He'd at least been in his underwear when she walked in, thankfully, but what she'd seen of him was still far too much.

She closed her eyes, and when she reopened then, turned away from him to go search Remus's area for the book. "I'm going to kill them, I swear." she said.

"Hey, it's not so bad." said James, voice coming closer. "You've seen me shirtless before."

"Yeah, it's just embarrassing, that's all." Lily's hands weren't quite steady as she struggled to open Remus's trunk. She took a deep breath. "Which is exactly what they want."

James snorted. "Yeah, I have to give them credit, this one was actually pretty well planned out. Here, let me help you with that." He was suddenly next to Lily, undoing the clasps on the trunk. She backed away as much as she could, although she was trapped in between him and the nightstand. "Sirius, the git, managed to accidentally spill some pumpkin juice all over my clothes at the exact right moment. And I'm guessing Remus magically found a really interesting book for you to read a few days ago, and told you to go up and get it?"

Lily snorted. "He started talking about the book the day you got them detention, actually. They've caught on far too quickly."

James laughed and opened the trunk. He stepped back while Lily examined its contents. "We're going to have to get them back for this."

Lily nodded as she shuffled through the books. Her heart rate was slowly returning to normal, although the room still hot. "Oh yeah. Something obvious, too. I think that's the only way we'll be able to pull off them overhearing us talking about them without seeing it as a move on our part."

James leaned against Remus's bed, making it squeak. "Oh, right, yeah. Any more ideas about that?"

"Well, we've got to find a time when one of them is alone." said Lily. "If they're together, they're never going to believe it, they'll look at each other and start laughing and then it'll become a joke. The best time I can think of is when Remus and I come back from Prefect duty, or if you somehow manage to keep Sirius late after a Quidditch practice. One of us will stay up late waiting for the other, and give some really obvious line about wanting to talk. With any luck, they'll still be in earshot and try to overhear us, and then we can have whatever conversation we want."

James nodded. "You know, that's actually a really good idea. I would have never thought you would be good at this stuff, Lily."

"Well, I'm no Love Healer." said Lily, grinning at him, but they held each other's stare for a little too long, and she was suddenly keenly aware that she was alone, in a bedroom, with a highly attractive boy who had been nearly nude a few minutes ago. And who was dating her best friend. She cleared her throat, dropping her eyes. "So...yeah. We can start with Remus's and I's next patrol this week, if you want." Lily pushed past him to leave, but he caught her wrist.

"Wait." said James. Reluctantly, Lily turned around- he was still standing way too close to her. "We, uh, we have to talk about what else we're going to do."

Lily took a step back as subtly as she could, trying not to blush again. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if we do this overhearing thing right now, they'll just think it's our next move, won't they?" James said. "So we've got to do something else obvious before then so they think that's our move."

Lily tapped her lip, trying to think of every matchmaking ploy she'd learned or seen throughout the years. "Hmm...you know, I'm not sure how to make this happen, but I think I have an idea."

Lily read Remus's book as quickly as she could. It was fairly interesting, a biography of one of the biggest innovators in Potions history, but she also wanted to get the next step going as quickly as possible. Once she finished, she alerted James and left the book in the place they'd discussed. After about a half hour or so, she went to go tell Remus. As expected, he and Peter were sitting alone, playing a game of Exploding Snap.

"Hey." she said. "I finished your book."

"You did?" asked Remus as Peter took another card from the stack. "Did you like it?"

Lily nodded. "Yeah, it was really interesting, thanks. Let me just..." She reached into her bag, pretending to search. "Oh no!" Lily slapped her forehead. "I am so sorry about this, but I think I might've left it out on the grounds when I was reading out there today."

Remus shrugged, eyeing the tall tower of cards on their table. "That's fine. You can get it back to me later."

"Yeah, but I think it's about to start raining." said Lily. "And I don't have time to go right now, I promised to meet Mary and Alice before dinner. I'm so sorry about this, but would you mind terribly...?"

Remus met her eyes, and Lily struggled to look as sincere as she could. She knew the whole thing was an obvious set up- that was part of the plan, so they didn't expect James and Lily to try another move soon after. She just hoped Remus's love of books would rule over his desire to avoid whatever James and Lily were trying next.

"On the grounds, you say?" Remus stood, gathering his cloak around him.

Lily nodded. "Yeah. Near that tree overlooking the lake, the one James defaced last year. I'm so sorry, Remus, I really am-"

Remus shrugged. "Accidents happen. I'll be back quickly, Wormtail."

"All right, cheers." said Peter, as Remus gathered up his things and left. Peter turned to Lily. "So you're meeting Mary and Alice?"

"Yeah." said Lily, smiling. "I've got to go really soon, so-"

Peter shrugged, not seeming all that interested in having a conversation with her as she'd thought. "Oh. All right. Say hi to Mary for me."

"Right." said Lily, waving as she hurried up to her room to grab a thicker coat. She pulled on her coat, tying her bright hair back into a bun so it would be less obvious, and then clambered back downstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

On her way out of the portrait, she ran into Alice and Frank in the hallway.

"You're in a hurry." said Alice.

Lily smiled. "Yeah, I just forgot something out on the grounds and I wanted to get it before it started raining. Talk to you tonight."

She walked quickly out the the grounds, putting her hood up. She would have to take a circular route to where she wanted to be so no one would see her, but hopefully Remus and Sirius wouldn't be paying much attention to her anyways.

Finally, Lily found the right spot. She lay down on her stomach next to James, at the perfect angle to observe Remus and Sirius across the lake.

"Hey." he said.

"Hey." Lily wriggled forward a little, until they were side by side. "What'd I miss?"

"Moony took a while to come out here, so not much." whispered James. "Think he knew what we were gonna pull. Pads just discovered that we are not, in fact, having a Marauder picnic on a cloudy day in March, as I previously told him."

Lily snorted, stretching her neck a little to watch where Remus and Sirius were sitting. They'd actually set up a picnic under the tree, but not for four platonic friends- they'd done everything they could to make it as romantic as possible, including arranging flowers around the area, and lighting a few scented candles. The candles belonged to James, and were enchanted to sing shrill love songs whenever they were lit. Lily didn't ask why he owned them.

"What is this, then?" Sirius asked loudly, voice floating over the lake towards them.

"James and Lily." said Remus, turning towards them.

James swore and ducked down, and Lily followed suit, turning her head to face him so she could lay flat. For a long, frozen moment, they stared at each other, eyes wide and terrified. Gradually, Lily felt herself turning red- James's breath was hot on her face, and she had to stop herself from looking down at his lips.

"It's one of their plans." Lily dimly heard Remus say. "Like getting us in detention together."

Lily dragged her eyes away from James's face and put as much space between them as she dared, peering back over the hill at Remus and Sirius. "I think we're good." she whispered. "He was just talking about us, he didn't see us."

"Right." James said after a moment, sliding away from her and looking back at Remus and Sirius.

The two under the tree were discussing what to do. "Well, there's no need to waste good food." said Sirius, opening up the picnic basket. "Prongs actually got us food for this, we might as well." He held up the candles. "Oh, look, he really went all out for this one!"

"Yeah, they went surprisingly far." said Remus. There was something uncertain about his tone, but he sat down across from Sirius, reaching into the basket. "He even got us chocolate."

Sirius grinned. "What do you say? Wanna have our own Marauder picnic?"

Remus laughed, but Lily was distracted from the rest of what he was saying by raindrops on her back. "Oh, no." she whispered.

"What?" asked James, eyes still on his friends.

"It's starting to rain." Lily said. "They're not going to stay out here."

James shook his head, waving a hand at her. "No, no, no, this is perfect, look." Lily scooted back up beside him- Remus and Sirius were pulling the picnic blanket further under the tree, glancing up at the sky. "They're gonna wait the storm out under there. They're trapped until it stops raining, or until they decide to brave it. This is so much better than I expected."

Even Lily couldn't help but smile. "You know, that's actually kind of romantic. A picnic in the rain. But what about us? I'm not staying down here until they leave."

James was still watching Remus and Sirius as the rain picked up, but his eyebrows were furrowed. "Well, I've got this- this cloak."

"What's that?" Lily asked, raising her voice to be heard over the rain. She was quickly getting soaked, cold water seeping through her clothes.

"It's just a cloak with a Disillusionment Charm, that's all." James said quickly. "Aw, shit, you'll see, we just need to get out of here before they see us." He dug a large piece of silvery fabric out of his robes and pulled it over the two of them.

Lily watched as most of their bodies completely disappeared, feeling his arms brush up against her black. "Well, that explains quite a lot."

"Yeah." whispered James, kneeling and holding the cloak up with his hands. Lily followed suit. This close, she could make out tiny droplets of water in his eyelashes. "It won't cover all of us, but it should help us get back quickly without getting wet, and they probably won't be able to see our feet from where they're sitting. Just stay close to me. Ready?"

Lily nodded. She could feel dampness already starting to seep through the cloak. They stood, her stepping as closely to him as she dared, and hurried back to the castle doors, stumbling occasionally because of the difficulty of running underneath the cloak. Lily did her best not to notice their proximity- really, she didn't need another reminder of how good he smelled or another excuse for her rebellious mind to picture what he would be like shirtless this close to her. She wished Remus and Sirius's plans weren't succeeding so well.

Once they snuck indoors, James pulled the cloak off of her and stuffed it back into his pocket, looking down at the floor. "I gotta go." he said, jerking his thumb vaguely over his shoulder. "Good plan, though."

"Thanks." said Lily, smiling wanly. "And, um, let me know about the eavesdropping plan, all right? We should do it soon, before they retaliate."

James nodded, already turning away.