The midsummer sun baked the pavement, beaten by the footsteps of passers by. On one of the tables outside the cafe, cooled by the shade, sixteen year old Lily Evans sat waiting for her mug of tea to cool. Indulging herself in her favourite book, she let her imagination drown out the noise of the passing traffic.

Stirring her tea, she missed the stares from a handsome teenager who walked by her table and into the cafe. She wouldn't miss him the second time though, as moments later he pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.

Taller than her, with rimmed glasses and a mess of jet black hair, she recognised him instantly. A boy in her year at school. A boy who incessantly made it his mission in life to annoy, pester and beguile her at every opportunity. A boy who asked her out at least once a week in the last school term. A boy who lost her the best friend she'd had since childhood.

Although that wasn't technically correct, and she knew it, she much preferred to apportion the blame directly at the James Potter's feet. So she did.

'No,' spat Lily.

'I haven't even said anything,' protested James.

'Well, the answer's still no and if you wouldn't mind; you're ruining my day'.

James pondered her words

'Sorry.'

'What?' said Lily, snapping her book shut.

'Sorry,' repeated James. 'It isn't a question, so the answer can't be "No". It's a statement. A truth. Unquestionable and indomitable.'

'But rejectable,' said Lily, 'as apologies can only be offered, never forced. So 'No' actually was the answer.'

'Actually,' said James, not helping himself, 'apology comes from the Latin, apologia, which means "a speech in my defence", so it's neither offered or forced.' This left Lily momentarily speechless.

'How the bloody hell do you know Latin?' she finally managed, 'and how the hell did you find me?'.

'Well, one of those answers is, unfortunately, a less thrilling tale than I'd care to admit,' said James. 'But if you really must know, most pureblood families know Latin, as it's used in the family crests,' added James upon seeing Lily's raised eyebrow.

'And finding you was trickier than I thought it would be. I had to use every inch of my skill, wits, knowledge, determination and -' boasted James.

'- You got Sirius to ask Mary? -'

'- I got Sirius to ask Mary,' admitted James.

'Traitor,' she muttered under her breath.

'I wouldn't blame Mary, Sirius is far too persuasive for his own good. Six weeks he's been at mine and he's already got my parents wrapped around his little finger' smiled James.

Lily calculated the few weeks since they left school, 'He didn't go home?'

'Oh yeah' beamed James, 'lasted a whole three days before he had to run away. He lives with me now!' James said the last bit with so much pride, it nearly burst from within him. Lily couldn't help but admire it. It was widely known that Sirius disliked his family, but she didn't realise it was to the extent of him having to leave home.

'Well I'm glad you two have finally found love, but underage secret lovers living together will be a front page scandal. Especially from such prominent families as yourselves' she jested.

James laughed, 'Oh you have no idea. Moony said exactly the same thing'.

Lily smiled at the mention of Remus, her fellow prefect and the only member of the self styled "Marauder's" she could tolerate for an extended period. Peter also fell under the same branch, but mainly due to the fact you'd constantly forget he was there.

'How is Remus?' asked Lily.

James shrugged, 'Dunno, not seen him yet. Me and Sirius are going for a visit on Saturday.'

Lily nodded. Saturday was the full moon, just three days from now.

'Well, I hope he feels better soon'.

James looked at her full of curiosity.

'I didn't say he was ill?'.

Lily gave nothing away.

'No, you didn't. But I know why you're going on Saturday of all days. His furry little problem as you so eloquently put it. So I know he'll be feeling terrible on Sunday.'

James eyes widened as she revealed their secret. He quickly glanced around at the other patrons, hoping they weren't listening in.

He leant forward, looking furious, 'Have you told anyone?'.

Lily wasn't expecting the level of intensity in his look, and was momentarily taken aback.

'No!'

'No-one?'

'No, not a soul'

'Good' finished James.

He took a deep breath and relaxed back into his chair, 'How long have you known?'

'Since Christmas,' said Lily, 'I went to the Hospital Wing to drop off a message from Professor McGonagall and he wasn't there. I already suspected but that was the confirmation.'

'He doesn't know you know?'

'No.'

'Good. I'd like to keep it that way,' proposed James, 'for the time being at least.'

Lily look perturbed. James sensed her curiosity.

'Snape knows'.

'He doesn't, but he thinks it' said Lily.

'Nah, he knows,' dismissed James. 'That's where Remus goes every month, the tunnel at the end of the Whomping Willow.'

Lily covered her mouth with her hand to mute her gasp of shock.

'He saw him.'

'Yep,' grimaced James. 'Remus didn't speak for nearly a week when he found out and then I spent the next two weeks convincing him to stay at Hogwarts rather than run away. If he found out anyone else knew ….'

Lily nodded in agreement. The earnestness of James' plea to spare his, and her, friend was honest. She was aching to know why he saved his enemy.

'Is that why you saved him?' asked Lily.

'Snape?' said James coldly.

'Yes.'

'Honestly, I don't know,' admitted James looking away from her, as if almost ashamed of himself. 'I'd like to think I would have saved him, even if it wasn't Remus down there, but I don't think that I could say for sure.'

'You really hate him don't you?'

James shook his head dismissively.

'I pity him,' said James. 'I don't hate him, just what he stands for. It's the foundation of what Slytherin house is built on, the idea that power makes you a better person.'

'It doesn't?' asked Lily.

'No, not at all,' remonstrated James. 'Look at Dumbledore, he's the greatest Wizard in the world. Not because of what he can do, but because of who he is. Power only makes you powerful, which in turn makes you fear losing it.'

Lily leaned into her chair, contemplating James' words.

'I think Voldemort might disagree with you there,' smiled Lily finally.

James laughed.

'Yeah, I suspect you're right,' he said, 'as always.'

They slipped into an uneasy silence, only broken for a few minutes by the chinkling of their tea cups on their saucers.

'How did your OWL's go?' asked Lily. She usually held her nerve and waited until someone else told her James' results. She would never admit it but she relished the competition between herself, James and Sirius as the best student in the year; despite the fact that both the boys never seemed to even try, they still managed to beat her in some subjects.

'Oh, you know,' said James cockily, 'They're still letting me back in next year. You?'

'Nine O's' said Lily; trying not to sound too pleased with herself.

James laughed.

'No surprises there then,' he said, 'although, me and Sirius were shocked we got an E in potions. You know, considering we guessed for the most part.'

This time it was Lily's turn to laugh. Both James and Sirius were notorious in her Potions class for introducing random ingredients to their potion's as means to alleviate boredom, including a memorable time where Sirius added Boomslang Skin to a Confusion Concoction which instantly vaporized his cauldron and the table it was on.

'Definitely a surprise,' said Lily, making James smile. 'How many O's did you get then?'

James rolled his eyes at her relentless inquisitiveness.

'I got the five I wanted,' he said, ticking them off on his fingers, 'Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, Defense, Herbology and Transfiguration. Also scraped a pass in Muggle Studies, but I was only taking that to help Sirius get an O'.

Lily looked questioningly at James for his last bit.

'It's the only subject he really cares about,' he explained. 'Sirius likes to piss his parents off by acing Muggle Studies, so I thought I'd help him and also it's pretty boring waiting around for him to finish.'

'So you're not actually taking it for a serious reason?'

James smiled giddily and Lily tried to catch herself before he did.

'No -'

'- that is a Sirius reason!' exclaimed James, joyously.

Lily sighed in defeat.

'No, but seriously I usually spend most of my summers in the Muggle side of London, so I'm fairly clued up'.

Lily eyed him suspiciously.

'That's not a brag,' said James, holding his hands up.

'If you hear hooves, you think horse,' said Lily.

'It's not - wait what?'

'Hooves,' said Lily, this time slower as if James had never heard the word before.

'Yeah, I got that bit,' said James, rolling his eyes.

'When you hear hooves, you automatically assume it's a horse'

'Well, yeah'

'Could be a Zebra. Or a Donkey. Or a Camel.' explained Lily.

James sat back, staring at Lily. His eyes narrowed as if surveying her, wondering on his next move.

'Occam's razor says that the simplest explanations are usually the best,' countered James.

'I forget you're suspiciously intelligent,' said Lily warily.

'Was that a compliment, Miss Evans?' laughed James.

'I like to think it's still an insult,' said Lily, 'your intelligence manifests itself with ill intent.' James laughed even louder to this.

'Oh, definitely a compliment.'

Lily let out of a low chuckle that was music to James' ears.

'I still need to apologise,' said James.

Lily hated this about him. He would never be consistent, he could say something nice and then a minute late be horrible and vice versa. He couldn't just let them have a normal conversation for just a few seconds.

'I thought you already had,' replied Lily coolly.

'You didn't accept'

'-You said I didn't need to-'

'-You don't,' said James, 'but I'd like you to anyway.'

She could see he meant it, in his eyes but she wouldn't let him off lightly. Lily waited, letting him squirm under her expectancy.

'What if I don't?' asked Lily.

'Then I'll apologise everyday until you do,' said James.

'As well as asking me out everyday? I don't think you'll have much time for schoolwork then!'

'Yeah' said James, abashed. 'Don't think I'll be asking you out so much this year.'

Lily raised an eyebrow.

'Not through choice, I suppose,' said James glumly. 'Remus may have threatened me with violence if I continued.'

'You're scared of Remus?' asked Lily.

'Don't be fooled by the books. He's nearly as scary as you!'

'I'm scary?'

'Terrifying' said James. 'A tempest with the intelligence to match the ferocity. What's not to be scared of.'

James could sense Lily's downheartedness, despite his jovial intention.

'Oh don't worry, you've got plenty of good things going for you too. Brilliant, kind, friendly and breathtakingly beautiful.'

Lily eyed him suspiciously again.

'Sorry, couldn't help it,' said James.

Inwardly, Lily was smiling. For all his annoying habits, James never minced his words.

'Anyway,' drawled James. 'Back to my apology. You need to accept it.'

'Or else?' queried Lily.

'Well, imagine if you don't and then so as to not annoy you further, I stop trying in classes to make you feel better when you beat me. But then you don't need to try as much because you're already beating me so your grades start coming down and then I have to try less to keep you beating me and then you don't need as good grades even more and then all of a sudden neither of us end up being the best.'

'Assuming Sirius decides to stop trying also,' reasoned Lily.

'Yeah, he genuinely only does it to annoy McGonagall,' said James shrugging.

Lily pursed her lips in annoyance.

'So I have to accept your apology to maintain my own intelligence?'

James nodded solemnly.

'I'm afraid so.'

'I'll accept your apology on one condition,' she offered. 'You tell me how you and Sirius pass every test without even trying.'

James eyed her warily.

'I dunno,' said James. 'That's asking alot.'

'Fine,' dismissed Lily.

'Fine,' said James. 'We study. There.'

'That's it, you study?' said Lily.

James nodded.

'You expect me to believe that, don't you?'

James nodded again.

'When? You lot don't even read!'

'We did,' said James smugly. 'Well in the first couple of years at least anyway, needed to figure out how to conjure some pranks and most of them actually require more advanced magic than you think.'

'I'm not going to compliment you.'

'Fair enough, deserve it, I suppose.'

'I don't believe you, by the way.'

'Oh, I know,' smiled James. 'But only because you're on the straight and narrow.'

Lily pursed her lips.

'I'll explain, ok?"

Lily nodded.

'Remember the prank we played at Christmas? With the exploding puddings?'

Lily did, as they had managed to make every single pudding levitate simultaneously and explode, drenching the entire Great Hall in cake and custard.

'Well, you probably think that was pretty easy, don't you?'

'I wouldn't say easy, but it was hardly spectacular magic.'

James smiled condescendingly at her, it irked her when he did that.

'But you didn't consider the timing, because the food was created by House Elves meant that we couldn't just charm the food. We couldn't do the plates either because that could have gone off too early and we'd just have everyone covered in gravy. Not nearly as appealing.'

James lounged back into his chair, looking every inch like a criminal mastermind revealing his plan of global domination to a captured, but soon to escape spy.

'Nor could we do it in the hall,' he continued. 'We had to also be victims of it, else we'd arouse suspicion.'

'Everyone knew it was you,' said Lily. 'Sirius even took a bow.'

'Not the point. Focus!' snapped James, playfully. 'Anyway, we eventually had to create a delayed action Vacuum charm, that would only affect the pudding from above and only directly above a pudding. We didn't need any flying goblets again.

James smiled, reminiscing over a previous caper he had pulled off.

'Anyway, we researched it for months, managed to tweak the vacuum charm to react to the desert plates themselves. Took us nearly a week to actually cast all the charms in the hall.'

'A week?'

'Yeah, we worked shifts,' said James, glumly. 'Remus likes it, but he's just weird.'

'He's not weird,'

'It's OK,' said James sympathetically. 'But, he is though.'

Lily laughed in spite of herself.

'Well, I never knew just how much planning and thought you put into them. I just assume you guys were making it up as you go along.'

'We do generally, to be fair,' said James. 'But now and again, we like to make a statement.'

Lily nodded her head in agreement, true to his word, they did on occasion, make a statement as he put it.

'So,' said James.

'So?'

'Do you accept?'

'What?'

'My apology, do you accept it?'

'Fine,' said Lily.

'Fine what?'

'I accept your apology.'

'There we go,' said James. 'Wasn't that hard was it?'

'Yes,' snapped Lily, making James laugh.

He took a sip of his drink and lingered with putting it back down, 'So.'

'So, what?'

'So, with you accepting my apology and me not asking you out, then maybe we could be friends this year.'

'I don't think so.'

'That's not a no,' said James hopefully.

Lily tried to retort, but James cut her off.

'Never mind, I'll take it,' he continued, standing from his chair, 'Enjoy the rest of your summer Lily, but you know, don't spend too much time in the sun.'

Lily looked puzzled, so James just shrugged.

'I like your freckles,' he added and walked off, leaving Lily more than a little shell shocked, and typically that was always the way she felt after an encounter with James, but somehow this was different. Or he more to the point, he was different. Almost like he knew his own ego, and was pitting himself against it.