A/N: This is the first chapter sixteen-year-old me has posted because as of today, I am sixteen! Exciting, huh? Now you know how old I am. Please feel free to use it as an excuse when I say something particularly silly in this story.

Enjoy.
Xx

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October 2

9:45 AM
Status: In disbelief

Today, in Charms, we had to work in partners on a spell that made inanimate objects dance across our table. And, needless to say, it was a bit of a disaster in our room.

Alice paired up with Frank, who asked her to please spare him from William Gossamer, who had been eyeing him hopefully. Livvy paired up with Daniel Yetter from across the room, a mutual acquaintance of ours. James paired with Black, of course, and Pettigrew paired with Lissie Elmhurst, which left me with fewer prospects than I would have liked.

I ended up working with Remus, who has been my good friend ever since third year. This was a good thing – I adore Remus. He's an absolute sweetheart.

I gestured for him to come to my table and he shrugged, coming along since he had no one else he particularly wanted to be with. He smiled as he sat down, his lovely brown eyes bright as ever.

"Hey, Lily," he said. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, I'm ready," I said. "This shouldn't be too bad, should it?"

"No," he said. "We have to hold the wand like this, right?" He demonstrated a pretty good representation of the movement.

"Move it a little more to the right," I suggested. "And make your motions a bit more…brash, you know? You're doing it quite lightly."

Remus tried again. I told him it was good and he tried it on his quill. It moved feebly, as though attempting to rise, but it fell back down. Remus sighed.

"It's not really working," he said.

"I told you, be more assertive," I said, somewhat pleased that I could teach clever Remus something, for once. "Like…like this."

I waved my wand in a particularly grandiose movement; but I was a little too enthusiastic, because my wand accidentally hit Remus's bag and made a couple of sparks come out of it. Remus chuckled.

"Careful there, Lily," he said cheerfully.

I giggled, embarrassed. "Well, it's something like that, anyway."

"I think I get it," he said.

And it went on like this – polite, productive, a tad bit awkward but nothing too bad – for quite some time. I had an enjoyable period, because while I love Livvy and Alice to bits, they can get a little off-task (particularly Alice) and can irk me to no end.

Remus isn't like that, though. He does what he has to do and he's very amiable about it all. No jokes, no off-hand conversations – all pleasantries and work.

We were going along very, very well for, as I said, quite some time. However, halfway through the period, we were startled by a very loud bang from James and Black's corner.

Apparently, James and Black got bored with the dancing charm and decided to try out some other charms in our book; and one of them went a little off and caused an explosion, as well as an odor of rotten eggs. They were both laughing hysterically and Flitwick – irked as he was – assigned them detention. They took their punishment merrily and continued to chuckle.

I watched this in disbelief for a few seconds and turned back to Remus for his opinion. To my surprise (or maybe not) Remus was chuckling too – hard, at that.

"They are too funny sometimes," he said affectionately.

And then all I could do was stare at him. I mean, he was the good guy in their clan of trouble-makers! He was supposed to even them out, be the voice of reason. They've obviously corrupted him through the years; and I still find it difficult to believe that wonderful Remus finds smelly odors to be 'funny.'

Oh, the world I live in…

2:30 PM
Status: Tired

As of a few minutes ago, Professor Slughorn has invited me to another one of his Slug Club dinners on the fifteenth. He said he would be delighted to have me, dear girl, absolutely honored.

Well, when he says it like that, how can I not accept?

So, despite the fact that I am exhausted and not in the mood for any parties whatsoever, I said all right, I can come. Slughorn beamed and walked off before I could change my mind and make something else up.

Ah, well. At least it'll make someone's day…

11:35 PM
Status: Surprised

My goodness do I have things to write about at the moment! This morning I was bored (hence the earlier entries of today), but this afternoon, an enormously astonishing (to me, anyway) development occurred, one that has Livvy and Alice chattering away, analyzing what this could possibly mean.

See, Jonathon Sanders, the Ravenclaw prefect, asked me out.

It was actually kind of sweet, the way he did it. He caught me when I was coming out of Charms, walking outside and chatting with Marlene McKinnon.

"Can I have a word?" he inquired upon seeing me. "Alone?"

"Erm…" I looked awkwardly at Marlene. She instantly got it.

"That's fine," she said. "I'll catch you later, then, Lily."

"Bye, Marly," I said, waving. I then fell in stride with Jonathon, who was walking a bit fast, probably out of nerves. I waited politely for him to initiate the conversation, since it was he who sought me out.

"I'm so incredibly sorry about the Bludger incident, Lily," he said at once, not really into bullshitting around. "That was absolutely awful and I hope you'll forgive me for it."

"Of course, Jonathon, I'm all right," I said.

"You cracked your skull open in front of the whole school because of me," said Jonathon, his beseeching blue eyes downcast. "I almost killed the Head Girl."

"Believe it or not, I've done worse," I tried to comfort him.

"Yeah, but still," he said. "I feel bad. Really bad. I'm not usually in the habit of accidental murder."

"I understand that," I replied with a smile. "Don't worry about it. I won't hold it against you."

"Well…I was kinda thinking about it…" he said, "and I was wondering…would you allow me to take you out for lunch next Hogsmeade visit? To make it up to you?"

I felt my cheeks go instantly red. "Erm…no, it's quite all right…"

"No, I want to," insisted Jonathon. "Please say you'll say yes. I'll feel awful if you don't."

Merlin, that boy was good. He had me feeling utterly guilty and his blue, blue eyes didn't help. I didn't want to be rude, after this display, so I sighed, blushed harder, and said, "All right. I'll come with you."

"Excellent," said Jonathon with a broad smile. "I checked the date – it's the twentieth of October."

"Sounds good," I said. "But really, you don't have to do this."

"I want to," he assured me again. "Anyway, I've got to run to Charms now. I'll see you later, Lily!"

"Bye, Jonathon," I said.

Jonathon flashed me a brilliant smile and bounded off in a way that told me he had sacrificed a lot of time to talk to me. I had to go too and the moment I got to my next class – History – I immediately began to fill Livvy and Alice in on the details.

They were…amused, to put it lightly.

"Your fifteen-year-old almost-murderer asked you out on a date and you agreed?" Alice asked through her crippling laughter. "Honestly?"

"Well, I think it's sweet," Livvy said resolutely, giving Alice a look. "Good for you, Lily."

"I just didn't want to be rude," I said honestly. "He was so earnest about it. He really wanted to make it up to me."

"Or he fancies you and this is an ideal opportunity to get you alone," suggested Alice.

"You're being silly," I said. "I'm not that fanciable. He's simply being overly-nice. Nothing else."

"He likes you a little, maybe, but it's nothing big, I'm sure," Livvy said. "It'll be a cute date to tide you over, if nothing more. He seems like a good kid."

"He is a good kid," I said. "This was simply taking it a bit far."

"Try too far," said Alice, still snorting. "He has some nerve!"

"Alice, don't be so obnoxious," Livvy scolded her.

"Just drop it," I said, tired already of their bickering. "We don't like each other in any way other than as mutual authority figures. This is one tiny date, it doesn't even mean anything."

"True," said Alice with a shrug. "A free lunch is always good."

Livvy rolled her eyes, but we didn't really have any more to say on the subject for the rest of the class period. We had other things to talk about – like how hideously bored we were and how much we wished to be doing other, more useful things.

The rest of my evening passed fairly uneventfully, with me and the girls doing our homework, until I had to go for my patrol. I bid my friends good-bye and met with the prefects and James at our usual spot. We split up and James and I began to walk to the sixth floor together. As we did so, James began by expressing concern over my Quidditch accident yesterday.

"I'm so sorry about that," he said. "You were really out of it."

"I was," I said, "but I'm all right now. Madam Pomfrey was brilliant about fixing me up."

"I'm glad," he said genuinely.

"I…heard you dropped by to see me," I mentioned.

"I did," he said unabashedly. "I mean, I wanted to make sure you hadn't died or something."

"That would've been bad," I agreed.

"I know," he said. "I mean, who would patrol with me in the evenings? And groan when I leave early?"

I laughed, in spite of myself. "Well, I'm glad to know I'm appreciated."

"Of course you are," said James, giving me a poke in the arm.

I laughed again. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." He grinned. "I'm happy you're okay."

"Me too," I said. "You know, the Beater who hit me, Jonathon, felt so bad about the whole thing, he asked me out this afternoon."

James blanched. "No way! He asked you out?"

"Yes," I said, a little indignantly on his part. "What's wrong with that?"

"He's the prefect, right?" he asked. "From Ravenclaw?"

"Yeah," I said.

He began to laugh. "Merlin, yeah. Ha. And I assume you said yes to going out?"

"I don't see what's so funny about it," I said, cross. "I mean, he's a nice kid, he feels bad about a freak accident, and he wants to buy me lunch. Big deal."

James stared at me as though I'd informed him one and one made eight. "Lily, he could have given you flowers or something and finished with it. But he chose to go on a date with you. In guy language, that means he'll want to have lunch with you again. He likes you."

"Maybe with you, that's the case, but it doesn't have to be with everyone," I said. "There's such thing as a platonic relationship between guys and girls. Jonathon and I aren't any more than that."

"Doesn't mean he's happy about it," said James cryptically.

"He's barely ever spoken to me," I said. "The Head meeting was basically it."

"Guys watch from afar like girls do," James told me. "We're still human."

I sighed. "You're wrong. I'm not going to date Jonathon."

"Then don't lead the poor guy on by agreeing to lunch," said James. "Cancel the date if you're not serious."

"It's just lunch!" I said, exasperated. "Merlin's beard, you are just like Alice!"

He raised his hands up. "Whatever you say, Lily…"

"Yes," I said impatiently. "Whatever I say."

We left the topic at this point, moving on to other things, and our patrol went otherwise quite smoothly. James doesn't seem to like any quiet or slightly awkward moments at all, filling every second up with noise and chatter and laughter. He was determined to be friends with me and he made every effort to do so. I wasn't sure whether this was exciting or mildly disconcerting.

When I got back up to the common room, I was surprised to find Alice and Livvy still awake. They were studying for our Transfiguration quiz tomorrow. However, when they saw me, they looked up good-humoredly, happy to see me.

"Hey, Lils," said Livvy. "How was the patrol?"

"Fine," I said. I told them a little bit about our general, easy-breezy conversation and we discussed it, and it wasn't until much later in the conversation when I remembered the bit about Jonathon.

"Oh, by the way, Alice, you've got a supporter in James," I said.

"What about?" she asked, perplexed. Alice and James don't really know each other very well.

"About my date with Jonathon," I clarified. "He thinks it's ludicrous that I'm going out with him. He told me not to go if I don't mean anything by it, because obviously lunch means he wants to jump me, and that I'm silly to think we can be platonic friends. He even laughed like you did when I slipped in the fact that he asked me out."

Alice was completely floored by this new bit of information.

"Did he really?" she asked excitedly, leaning in, Transfiguration forgotten.

"Yes," I said, confused.

"Oh, Lily, this is wonderful!" Alice chirped. "James is still in love with you!"

"What are you going on about now, Alice?" Livvy, like me, sometimes lost her patience with Alice's fanciful theories on love.

"Don't you see?" she demanded, reminding me of that face James made at me today, the one that seemed to be a response to the proclamation that one and one make eight. "Lily, the boys is infatuated with you. He doesn't want to let you go."

She waited for Livvy and I to be impressed and understand her logic. To her great disappointment, we were not. Livvy stared at her dumbly, mouth half-open, and I sighed.

"Oh, all right, Alice, I'll bite," I said. "Why do you think James is infatuated with me and doesn't want to let me go?"

"Because," Alice said theatrically, "I mean, look at his initial reaction to the Jonathon news. You said he laughed. That means he was either amused you could consider going out with anyone else or he was trying to cover up vast feelings of disillusionment that you could consider going out with someone else."

"In case you've temporarily forgotten, Alice, we do not live in a soap opera," Livvy reminded her. "Guys don't do that sort of stuff."

"Of course they do! Why do you think affairs and relationship problems run so rampant in this school?" Alice dismissed. "Anyway, there's more, too."

"Oh good," I said, rolling my eyes. "Well, as long as you're not too involved with the whole thing…"

Ignoring me, Alice continued, "He was basically trying to get you to break up your date on the basis that it's mean to lead people on when you don't mean anything by it. It's a very subtle but provocative insight into his guyish mind – which is, as you know, a strange mixture of Neanderthal and complex homo sapien. He doesn't want you to be with anyone else, as mentioned before, because he's in love with you, and he doesn't want you wasting time making other guys miserable when he's bee the right guy all along. Plus, he knows how it is to think you have a chance with someone for a while, only to have them crush you in the end. He's trying to save emotions here and have you ride off into the sunset with minimal entanglements along the way."

Livvy and I exchanged glances and said in unison, "You're mad, Alice."

"That's the strangest analysis you have ever come up with in the history of our friendship, Alice, and I have a lot of candidates to choose from," I said.

"James isn't that kind of guy," added Livvy. "Remember, I've dated him. The guy is straightforward about pretty much everything. If he wants to be with Lily, he'll tell her as much. He doesn't send coded messages like that."

"Maybe Lily's different," suggested Alice. "Maybe he wants to be subtle at first to figure out how Lily feels before he makes his official move."

"Trust me, James is about as subtle as a blunt axe when it comes to his emotions," said Livvy with a wry smile. "When he's trying to give you hints, you'll know."

"There you go," I said, "coming from an ex-girlfriend herself. James doesn't fancy me anymore, Alice. He wants to be friends because we have both failed miserably at maintaining a decent relationship. That's it. He even told me so."

"You're wrong, Lily Evans," said Alice. "James is in love with you and he'll tell you that, too, when the time is right."

By this point, I was fed-up with Alice's relationship theories. Irritated, I stormed up to bed with a very stormy good-bye and now I'm up here, writing about it all. I know Livvy's got her head screwed on right when it comes to such matters, but I'm not sure about Alice. Alice is a bit of a mad-cap. We never know what's going on in her mind.

Eh. Well. There you go, I guess – it takes all kinds to make this world, and I suppose the Alice kind is no exception to the rule.

New question to ponder: Why does everyone think girls and guys can't be platonic friends? Particularly people who are friends with me?

Will get back to this when I have an answer. For now, am too tired to write much more.

'Night, then.

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A/N: Review, review, review! They work as birthday presents for crazy writers who bear questions about their sanity everyday for spending so much time at their laptops…and this is a particularly big one for me…