Again, I'm a BAD updater. But I'm also a newbie, so I was hoping you'd cut me some slack! (: Here's the rest of the exams!

CHAPTER ELEVEN: NEWTS: Part Two

After the first day of NEWT exams, all seventh years began to loosen up a little bit. The Great Hall the next morning was no longer filled with pin drop silence; and all last year students began to eat and talk again. Lily and Remus however, were still just as nervous as they were the day before, and were anxiously looking through sheaves of notes and textbooks to prepare further for the day's exams. James and Sirius, who were normally never scared for exams to begin with, had gotten over their fears of final year testing with their exams yesterday. They pitched in to offer better words of comfort to Remus and Lily, and of course, poor Peter, who still looked like he would rather jump into the Black Lake infested with merpeople, than take his only examination of Divination today.

"All right gang. Today we have Potions and Divination. And Care of Magical Creatures," James added hastily. "Old Sluggy will be easy, but he's sometimes thrown in potions that we haven't covered… and you can never trust the old bat Trelawney… who knows…she'll make us know what happens when Uranus and Mars get too friendly, or when all of Jupiter's moons are aligned…Hey!" he shouted when wet cereal and soggy pieces of bread flew his way.

"Scourgify," Lily muttered glumly, and James was clean of toast and oatmeal.

"I was trying to help!" James said indignantly.

"Okay, then help us by keeping your trap shut nice and tight." said Remus.

"Yeah, just don't listen to Prongs and you'll be fine," said Sirius, throwing one last piece of egg at James.

James was in a rather sulky mood for the next few minutes, but as they walked down to the dungeons for the potions exam, and the pretest jitters began to set in, he took Lily's hand. Lily squeezed it firmly, and tried to give and encouraging smile to him, though she felt like puking herself. They entered the dimly lit room for the theory exam, and everyone stumbled to find their desk. Lily found hers, and began the calming process she had mastered yesterday. Slughorn was proctoring this exam, and as he crossed the room to get to the front, he gave Lily a wink and patted her back. Lily took a deep breath, and plunged into the exam.

After the theory and practical of Potions (both of which were super easy for Lily), the group of friends went by the trees near the lake, and studied for their upcoming Divination and Care of Magical Creature examinations. As they found a spot in the shade, they saw that Snape was sitting not too far away, his greasy hooked nose nearly touching the parchment he was intently writing on. A horrible feeling of déjà vu was in the air as Sirius began towards his target. Lily reached out and grabbed his arm.

"No, stop! Don't go towards him! I don't want anyone hexing the other!" Lily said firmly.

"Who said I was going to hex him?" said Sirius, surprised.

"Were you?" Lily asked tiredly.

"Well, I… uh…what's it to you anyway? This is our fight. The slimeball needs to be taught a lesson anyway, spending all his time with gits like Mulciber and Avery," said Sirius, as he began towards him again.

Lily grabbed his arm again, and yanked him back.

"Stop! I'm Head Girl, and I'll make sure you're doing detention every night for the rest of your Hogwarts year." said Lily.

"Detention? Bring it." said Sirius with a vindictive smile.

"James!" said Lily.

James gulped. He'd been dreading this. Even he'd hoped that Sirius would just back off, because he knew it was only a matter of time before Lily would pull out the 'Head Girl' card. And what went with the Head Girl card? Yes, the Head Boy card.

"Er, yeah maybe you shouldn't…" began James, and Sirius shot him a look. "I mean, he is a cretin, and deserves—" James fell silent when he caught Lily's eyes. "But that doesn't mean that you should…" he stopped speaking and awkwardly twiddled his hands.

"Listen. You back off, or I'll make sure… that you won't be able to play in the Quidditch final." said Lily with a vindictive air.

"You wouldn't." breathed Sirius, as he took a step forward.

"Try me." Lily said, stepping forward as well, almost nose to nose with him.

"Okaaaaay." said Remus, trying to ease the tension. "Exams, remember? Let's go study."

He reluctantly dragged Lily and Sirius, James and Peter coming in tow. They opened their books, and soon became lost in the world of planet rotations, Thestrals, moons, and Hippogriffs.

The next day was the final day of exams, and everyone at Hogwarts was immensely happy for that. James and Sirius had already planned an end of exams prank; Remus and Peter were too nervous to participate. Once Remus and Lily had finished their Runes and Herbology exams, everyone once again met in the Great Hall foyer for their last and final NEWT, Defense Against the Dark Arts practical. Before Lily and Sirius could go for their test, James pulled aside Lily, and said,

"Once we've both finished meet me near the edge of the Black Lake. I have something to ask you."

Lily looked apprehensive, but James gave her a smile as if to say it was no big deal. With this new development in the back of her head, Lily once again walked with Sirius into the Grand Foyer, where the examiner, this time a middle-aged wizard in no nonsense black robes, was standing. Once again, he asked the students to perform basic charms, and they each had to face a Boggart.

"All right, now for the final test. If you could all please produce a Patronus."

The first few students all had different strengths of the charm. Some were feeble, some managed to produce a corporeal one, and others could only produce a shield.

As Lily stepped up, she thought of the happiest feeling she could, which happened to be her meeting with James after exams were finally over. But, instead of the cheerful terrier that was supposed to burst forth, a silvery doe began prancing around the room. She heard Sirius guffaw from the back of the room, and felt her cheeks burn bright red. The examiner noticed nothing however, and gave her a small smile before marking his clipboard.

"Oh, well that's pretty obvious." Lily thought to herself.

Once the exam was complete, she and Sirius walked out of the room, where they saw that only Remus had completed his NEWT, and he started to make his way towards them.

"Did it go okay, then? I personally found it much easier than I expected to be," he said shrugging.

"Yeah, I think it went mostly okay. Though I think Lily enjoyed conjuring her Patronus ," Sirius said, winking.

"Why's that?" asked Remus.

Before Sirius could answer, Lily socked him in the arm, and ran along the path to the Lake. When she arrived, she saw that James was already there, which was slightly surprising.

"Hey!" Lily called out. "How are you here before me?"

"Oh, a few kids got a really bad case of spattergroit, so there were only a couple of kids in my group. They'll be making up their exams tomorrow." said James shrugging. He obviously had a more pressing matter to talk about.

Lily decided to broach the topic first.

"So what's up?" she asked.

"It's really nice weather isn't it? It would be great to go for a swim," said James idly.

"James, stop beating around the bush. I know you obviously have something you need to talk to me about. So, out with it." said Lily, crossing her arms.

"Okay. I was just wondering what we're going to do after Hogwarts," said James.

Lily laughed before answering. "Oh, that's what you're getting at? I thought we already discussed this at your house? We're both going to be Aurors right, join the Order of the Phoenix?" said Lily.

James shook his head. "No, I don't think you understand. I mean what are we going to do? I mean, I obviously want to be together after Hogwarts, but I don't know how you feel." he said, looking at her solemnly.

Oh, oh. He was talking about them after Hogwarts. Lily knew that her and James would obviously have a future together after Hogwarts, and they had even joked about it at Petunia's wedding, but she just assumed that this would come way way later in life.

"So, what do you think? Would you want to marry me?" said James, asking the question Lily was anticipating.

Lily felt like she was hyperventilating. She knew that if she didn't talk soon, James was going to assume that she had gone into the shock. She tried to unglue her mouth.

"Wait, are you proposing to me?" she blurted.

"Well, yeah kind of. But we don't have to get married right away, I mean, I just want to let you know, er, am I supposed to talk to your father? Um, I didn't buy a ring or anything…" said James hurriedly.

"Erm, yeah, I mean," said Lily, clearly unable to form a coherent sentence.

"Let me know when you're ready," said James, nodding. "I just wanted to get it out there."

Lily nodded also, but she still didn't know how to react. James Potter had just asked her to marry her. The time had come for Lily Evans to decide if she wanted to become Lily Potter.

Also, I had originally planned to have a run-in with Snape, and kind of find out whats going on with him, but it didn't really go with the whole flow of this chapter... so that will be coming up in the next one!

Thanks, and I'll try harder with the updating!

-avadakedavra

P.S. I also realized that I'm on 20 alerts, but there are only 16 reviews... hmmm. Keep it coming, please! (: