A/N:

First off-Okay, so I lied about not doing Potter's perspective. Oops.

Second: Please review, my lovely readers! I will seriously be indebted to you. Even the tiniest most random "Sup, I read your story" is perfectly dandy by me. Honestly. It doesn't even have to address the story. No need for any critical analysis or whatnot.

Even if all you say is, "Why does James keep calling Jacob, by Jacobs?" And I'll be all: Thanks, dear reader. Drat. I did not mean to do that and will fix it with haste (I will, promise) and heck, I might even explain that originally his last name was going to be Jacobs and his first name maybe be something else random before I decided to make him Marlene's brother. See? Fun fact. Aren't you having fun?

Seriously though, all you have to do is write "poop" and I will thank you in my next update. No joke. Poop. That's all. In my head it will translate to: read your story! And sort of liked it enough to review but I'm busy and so all I wrote was poop. Actually, I'll probably think you were calling my story poop, but hey! That's okay too. Criticism welcome, even though poop isn't terribly constructive.

...On second thought, maybe write something more benign to avoid confusion. Like rhubarb or doorknob. Unless, of course, you think my story is poop, then go right on ahead and write that. Thanks in advance!

Chapter title is a reference to Weezer's "Perfect Situation" and the last one was a reference to Voxtrot's "The Start of Something"

Also I think I'm long over due for a disclaimer: I own none of JK Rowling's characters only the plot is my own (and I guess Jacob and Craigs are too) none of which would be possible without the Rowling World in which i write in. Also I own none of the song lyrics that I post to go along with some of the chapters-to quote a song by JayMay, "What can you do but steal when what you want to say has already been written?" Anyway they're all wonderful songs and I recommend a listen!

"And everybody's saying you'll take the news gracefully,

Somehow I don't think I'll be getting off that easily"

~The Decemberists, The Apology Song~

So she's seeing someone-so what? He's a seventh year, he'll be gone soon. I mean, the year is almost over. He's going to be going crazy with NEWT testing in a week and then she will think he is nerdy and boring and turn to me for comfort...I hope.

Oh! And then Remus will be Head Boy with Lily and help me get an in. I can totally wait another year. This is fine. Totally fine.

So why is everyone around me acting as though I might explode?

"Prongs, want me to hex him?"

"Do not hex Jake, Padfoot. James has moved past that stage, right?" Remus looked at me proudly and I smiled at him, grateful that there was at least one person who didn't think I was on the verge of a mental breakdown or explosion.

"He's not even on the Quidditch team, Prongs! No worries, mate."

"Yeah, thanks Worm-tail. Missed that the first dozen times you said it," Sirius rolled his eyes and flipped his long black hair behind his shoulder. Still, I smiled at Peter and he grinned back in a silent agreement to ignore Padfoot. It was as if Sirius were the one in love with Lily; honestly, he was taking this whole thing rather badly.

"Calm it, Padfoot."

"Howare you being so casual about this! Don't we normally DO something? Why are we doing nothing! Have you given up on her? Seriously? Five years of this love crap and all of a sudden you're done?"

"Merlin, Sirius. What's got your knickers in such a twist?"

"Answer the question, Prongs. Are you giving up?" He was being so oddly serious I decided to give him a bone.

"No! I already told you, the plan is to give her space. I honestly think things will work out. This is the first year that I've decided to let fate run its course and I've made more progress in the past few months than I have during all my years chasing her. I just found out she thought I was joking all those times I asked her out, for Merlin's sake. I need to take things slowly this time."

"Alright that's all you needed to say," he grinned at me. I was slightly unnerved. I had taken off my glasses and been rubbing the bridge of my nose, but quickly shoved them back on, eying him suspiciously.

"What are you going to do?"

"Well, now that I'm in on the plan, finally, I can help."

"What do you mean, 'plan'? The plan is no more plans! How can you help?"

"No, the plan is pretend to have no more plans. Be hard to get. You said nothing about actually having no more plans."

"I'm pretty sure he also said nothing about playing hard to get."

"Can it, Mooney."

"Nah, I think he's right, guys. James never said nuthin' about pretending to not have plans."

"Peter, would you rather sit around and do nothing or actually help James."

"I don't need help!"

"Shh… we're talking."

"About me!" I was beginning to panic.

"Calm down, already."

"Actually, James, I think Sirius may have a point."

"What!" I was stunned that Mooney, after spending all these years telling me to quit trying so hard and plotting, was actually voting to plot. I glared at him. This wasn't even a voting situation! My love life is not a democracy!

"No, hear me out. I never said don't do anything. I said stop acting like a prat. You did that, but that doesn't mean you stop trying altogether."

"What does that even mean!"

"It means don't act like a love-sick rejected puppy." I scowled at Sirius to let him know that he was not helping.

"I wasn't going to."

"Still, you've made a lot of progress this year," Remus started, "Lily really seems to like you, she just hasn't realized it yet. She's gotten in the habit of hating you. Sure, dating the wrong guy will probably help some, but Jacob isn't a bad guy. It may take a while. It may take too long. She needs a wake-up call."

Now I was starting to become concerned. They were really sucking me in. Forget kryptonite, Lily was like a drug and these guys were trying to push me off the wagon. And it was working! I looked over at Peter to see if he would help me out, stick with the original plan, anything. He simply shrugged at my pleading face.

"I'm with them, Prongs. Doing nothing is boring." I rolled my eyes.

"Great, now my love life hinges on the attention-span of Peter."

"Nah, you've got us at well." I sighed, resigning to my fate of being pawn. Remus, at least, had helped me this far. I knew I should trust his judgment. Still, it felt wrong playing games. I wanted to be past that. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment and prayed silently, not unlike how my mom and Lily used to react around me.

"What did you have in mind?"

"We're not dating."

"Does he know that?" I couldn't help it, I squeaked a little, feeling rather guilty.

"It's just Hogsmeade."

"You never went there with James when he asked you… I thought you guys were friends." At Potter's name my heart clenched painfully.

"That's different. He'd get the wrong idea." Mary eyed me pointedly. I gulped.

"Okay… okay. I'm a slag!" I wailed.

"You're not a slag."

"Yes I am. I am doomed to the slaggy life-style. Here, help me hem my skirt up two inches and unbutton my blouse. Might as well start looking the part."

"You're not a slag. If anything you're just a strumpet."

My head jerked back toward the door from the awkward position I had been in, strewn sideways with my head hanging off the bed. I stared at Marlene for a moment, dazed and feeling even more horrid than before. I wanted to cry.

"Don't make that face, Lil. I was only joking."

"What's a strumpet?" Mary asked, looking between us, irritatingly unconcerned that the sister of the boy we were talking about had probably heard a good deal of our conversation.

"It's the Shakespearean term for a tease," I explained, not taking my eyes off of Marlene as I moved into a sitting position, pulling my pillow into me and clutching it onto my chest. "How much did you hear?'

"Only that you were doomed to being a slag," she admitted, throwing her school bag to the floor and kicking off her shoes. "I simply assumed you were talking about my brother."

"So he does think we're dating then?" She stared me down hard, quite disturbing as her blue eyes were very similar to Jake's.

"Aren't you?"

"I… I don't know."

"Do you want to?"

"I… I…."

"Lily!"

"What?" I turned to Mary, hoping she would rescue me. She shook her head resolutely.

"Fine. Not really."

"What do you want?"

"To be mates and maybe potentially more than mates, but never actually more than mates until I stop feeling sick every time I think about being more than mates."

Both of them looked at me as though I had gone insane. Who knows? Maybe I had.

"Is there anyone who you can think about being more than mates with without getting sick?" They were both staring at me rather intently now, Marlene looked almost eager and Mary was making the same face she had made right before Jacob asked me out. It was as if they knew something that they also thought I knew, or should know. I had no idea.

"Er….I dunno." Mary groaned and Marlene smiled wryly.

"Let's just give it a bit, then, hmm? Aren't you doing a secret mission with my brother?"

"He told you!"

"That scum! Lily, don't date him. He's a snitch." Marlene shook her head at our reactions.

"It's not as if I would tell on you. And I don't know, I just guessed. He's been hanging with you guys a lot lately, and besides, I heard you threatened Craigs." I nodded, having had forgotten that I had such a moment of bad-assery. Good to know that others hadn't.

"Don't look so proud. It was a mistake. Now people are going to blame you when something happens to Craigs." I shrugged, though part of my froze at hearing this.

Remus had already said as much, but it felt differently coming from so un-biased a source. It wasn't as though Marlene didn't care if I got in trouble, rather she didn't treat me like I was some delicate flower and she never teased me about the whole Peeves incident. Doubt began to gnaw at my already upset stomach.

"A word of advice, Lily?" I nodded and Marlene continued, "Tell my brother where your head is at. He deserves to know, and it won't be a complete surprise, I mean he told me you looked rather green after you accepted and told me he thought you were going to take it back."

"I wouldn't!"

"I know. But tell him that you want to look at it as just a meeting between mates, alright? He'll understand, but you have to tell him." Once again I nodded.

"Also, reconsider who you might have feelings for if not for my brother. I might be biased here, but he is kind of awesome and so there might be something wrong with you if you don't like him." I glared at her, "Or, you fancy someone else maybe." At this I became confused. Fancy someone? Who? Jacob was fit, but I really was beginning to doubt I fancied him in the slightest. Who else was there?

"Okay." She eyed me suspiciously, but my answer must have been satisfactory because she moved on to her next bit of advice.

"Also, don't do the prank."

"Hey!" Mary and I shouted together, equally enraged. Why were people so set against this?

"Listen, Marlene. Really good job on the first two bits. That's what I have been trying to tell Lily for weeks. Well, not the bit about Jacob obviously, that's only been for the last few hours. Anyway, I guess I never tried just being really blunt about it. Subtlety is completely lost on Lily."

"Hey!" I cried out indignantly. First I'm not subtle and now I can't even handle subtle. Gee, thanks people who are supposed to be my mates.

"What? You can't. But, as I was saying before Lily interrupted me, That last bit is just wrong. We have it totally under control. No worries. If Lily gets in trouble, we all do, and they can't expel all of us." I had been nodding along with her speech until this last bit, which sounded not quite right. Marlene looked equally unimpressed. Perhaps sensing our dissatisfaction Mary added onto her defense,

"And if we do, so what? Better be expelled for a good cause then sit around doing nothing to defend Lily!" I stared at her open mouthed, she apparently had convinced Marlene who was now eyeing us with a slight sense of awe. She gave us both thumbs up before heading toward the loo. I glared at Mary.

"We're not being expelled."

"I know, but if we do…"

"We're not…"

"Lily…"

"Not. Happening. We have it all under control." Mary shrugged. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have two bits of advice to get started on." She smiled.

"How did the talk with Jake go?"

"Are you dating Potter?"

"Answer my question."

"You answer mine!"

"I asked first."

"Marlene!"

"Lily, he's my brother and he likes you. Do you really think I would give into your jealous questions about another boy before I found out about my brother's well-being?" I glared at her with as much viciousness as I could muster, hoping my eyes were as frightening as Potter had claimed when I was angry (and quite pointedly ignoring that he had also called them beautiful).

"He's fine! Why wouldn't he be?"

"Because he wants to date you and you don't want to," she retorted bluntly.

"Don't you have a detention to serve?" She shot me an amused look before shaking her head.

"That didn't count as an answer, Evans." I sighed.

"Okay, okay. So it went like...

"Hey, Jake!"

"Hey, Lils."

"How are you on this wonderful evening?" He smiled sadly at me, my own smile faltered.

"Fine...I figure you want to take back your answer, then? It's okay. I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that."

Wow. I wanted to cry all over again.

"No! No! Nothing like that. What sort of girl do you think I am?" He grinned at me, more hopefully this time.

"The kind that sad she was coming down with something right after I asked her out."

"Erm... yeah, sorry about that." He shrugged.

"So, what is it then?"

"Well, I suppose I shouldn't have said 'nothing like that', it was a bit misleading, really."

"Nah, whatever you have to say is fine Lily. I'm down with anything. Just be honest."

Honest. That's me. Honest subtle Lily. Oh, bother.

"Ha! Yep, honesty. Er... well, maybe we could just go as mates if that would be alright. Like just a friend thing?" He quirked his eyebrow at me.

"But you do know I would prefer to go as more than friends?" I nodded guility.

"I'm a such a strumpet!"

"What! Who told you that?"

"Your sister." He scowled.

"You told him I said that?" Marlene interrupted.

"Sorry! You did call me that, though."

"Yeah... but... I was kidding."

"Want me to go on or not."

"There's more?" I glared at her. "Go on, then. Sorry.

"As I was saying... or rather as Jacob responded:

"Marlene needs to mind her own business. She's just a bit protective of me, I guess."

"Yeah, but that's nice. To have a good relationship with your sister. I wish I had that."

"You have a sister?"

"That's exactly what Jacob asked."

"And what did you say?"

"Exactly what I'm saying now, yes, but I don't really want to talk about it."

"Fine. Go on..."

"Okay, I get that. You don't know me very well, anyway."

"It's not that, it's just... I don't really talk about her to anyone."

"Does Potter know about her?" I didn't really want to tell him the truth... but he did say he valued honesty. Still, he was sure to take this the wrong way.

"Yeah," his face fell immediately, "but it's not like that. He found out by sticking his bush of hair where it didn't belong." Jacob did smile at that.

"Alright, then. Anyway, we're on for Saturday still?" I nodded.

"And tomorrow the prank is a go?"

"Yep!"

"So there is a prank, then? And it's tomorrow." Whoops.

"Erm... No. Haha, he didn't say prank... he said... frank."

"The Frank is a go?"

"Yeah. You know, Frank Longbottom." She eyed me skeptically for a few moments, her arms crossed. "Fine... fine. I never said there wasn't a prank anyway."

"Yeah, and Mary already pretty much confirmed it." I nodded.

"Listen I shouldn't have freaked out before. Need help?"

"With what?" She sighed. What? I could be sneaky.

"You're so annoying," she said it with a smile, so I knew she didn't really mean it. "Good luck, alright?." I smiled back gratefully.

"Thanks."

"For what?

She started walking away—a perfect exit, I'm sure—but suddenly I remembered why I had come to talk. And it had not been to give her a play-by-play of my conversation with Jacob.

"Hey!" She didn't stop walking, but merely turned around and continued leaving backwards. I angrily stalked toward her.

"Are you dating him or not."

"Oh, yeah."

"Oh, yeah what? Oh, yeah—you forgot the question?'

"More, oh, yeah—I forgot I was dating him." I looked at her in surprise.

I'd thought this was me over-reacting to a bit of first-year gossip. A stupid rumor-nothing more. They were dating! Part of me that I hated felt like shouting I told you so at everyone who had ever told me to give James a shot. I knew he was bluffing when he told me that he'd never fancy anyone else as he was far too in love with me. His using the word so easily made me want to smack him. He didn't love me. He couldn't love me. We hadn't even dated yet. He was merely misusing the word as millions of people did, which, quite frankly, was one of my biggest pet peeves; it's as though they were belittling it. Every time it got used incorrectly by some pimpled teenager, it lessened the impact of when someone said it and truly meant it. Oh, you love me? The same way that 11 year old is in love with the blonde kid that sits in front of her in Potions? Wow. So meaningful.

Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh. I'm all for spreading the love, honestly. I'm just a bit skeptical. And I guess I shouldn't be one to talk. What do I know? Just because I've had my fair professions of love (all from the same boy) didn't by any means make me an expert.

You see, I'd never been in love. Sure, I'd fancied a couple of boys here and there and, loathe as I was to admit it, seemed to have this weird sort-of-fancy-him relationship with James, but I'd never really been in love. I love my parents. I love Mary. I even love Petunia. But, in love? Falling madly, deeply, irrevocably in love? It hasn't happened yet.

Bitter much?

"Oh." Was all I said.

"Are you okay with that? With us dating?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" I swear she looked mad at me before her face fell into a mask of indifference.

"No reason. Just making sure. He is my boyfriend after all." I scowled slightly.

"You're forgetting that he's the one who asked me out all of those times. Not the other way around. I'm not vying after Potter."

"Me thinks the lady dost protest too much." I glared at her.

"Forget it alright? And stop with the Shakespeare references while we're at it. I'm sorry I asked if you were dating. There's nothing between Potter and I. I know he was joking all those times before and I was just saying that to rile you up." She stared at me sternly before finally responding.

"He wasn't you know."

"What?"

"He wasn't joking."I was about to object to this absurdity when she cut me off. "That's not to say he still wants to ask you out. I'm just letting you know he did really fancy you before. But you had your chance. He's dating me now." Part of me withered up slightly at that statement and quite suddenly I felt like crying.

I didn't even like the prat. (I don't think.) But the way she said it was so final... My throat felt entirely too tight and for a panicked moment I actually thought a tear might escape. With as much subtlety as I could muster I put my pinky finger up to my eye to gather any stupid salt-water that had gathered there. Marlene looked unconcerned at the whole affair, which I thought was fairly callous of her, but whatever. She was the girlfriend, I was the cliché idiot who suddenly wanted what was no longer available.

I needed to get out of there.

"Okay. Bye, then." She didn't respond, simply studied me, her blue eyes emotionless. I turned on my heel as quickly as possible and started down the hall, quickly trying to think of any places where I might actually have some privacy. I didn't really want to talk to Mary right now and my room was off limits as one of my roommates happened to be who I wanted to avoid.

Two of the other people I also most wanted to avoid crashed into me at that very moment.

"Wotcher, Evans."

"Are you alright, Lily?" I nodded numbly to Jame's question, not even bothering to berate myself for mentally calling him by his first name.

"Fine."

"You don't look fine."

Why, thank you, Black. You're the King of Chivalry.

"If she said she's fine, then she's fine," Marlene cut in dryly.

James looked inexplicably angry at his girlfriend, and for whatever reason I felt a surge of panic. Did he know? How could he know? If they broke up would he still want me? I hate myself, I really do.

"I'M FINE!"

"Fuck, we heard you the first time," Sirius assured me, putting his finger to his ear dazedly. Perhaps I hadn't needed to be quite so loud.

"Sorry, it's just. Have to be off to... study Potions." James quirked his eyebrow and I groaned internally. I shouldn't keep using that line to get him to back off, it was becoming suspicious.

Potter looked very upset about something, and was still kind of glaring at Marlene, but it wasn't my job to know what that was about. I mumbled my poor excuses before racing down the hall toward the grounds. There was a tree near the forest I knew would be hidden enough to grant me some privacy. As I was greeted by the cool burst of air, I allowed myself fee better somewhat at having reverted back to calling him Potter in my head before succumbing somewhat to the inexplicable sadness I felt. Inexplicable because it's not as thought I were in love with Potter. I merely sort of fancied him. Probably. And I'd get over it. I think.