A/N: Hey guys! It appears I'm the worst author ever! :( I'm SO SO SO SO sorry about my apparent abandonment of this story, I really didn't mean it that way, but shortly after I posted my last chapter I was given the opportunity to travel out of the country, and when I returned I found out my sister is expecting, and it's been incredibly hectic around here. Anyway, I have never forgotten Athena, and I hope you guys are still so receptive to her, even though she has been unfairly neglected for so long.

Athena and Sirius sat together at the Gryffindor table for lunch. Things had changed a bit in the days following the Hogsmeade trip, starting with James and his new 'No Lily Evans' policy, which meant that wherever Lily Evans showed up, it was a garuantee that James Potter would not be there. Which was of course, quite annoying to the rest of the group because it meant that more times than not, James would be off with one giggler or another. Athena however, was the only person who noticed the hurt and confused expression that would cross Lily's pale features every time she would walk into a room, and James would swagger out, with his arm around whichever girl happened to be closest.

Marlene had been commandeering Remus more and more often, much to Matt Gallaghers obvious annoyance, in fact Remus and Marlene were currently sitting next to each other, heads bent over a piece of parchment, whispering quickly back and forth about whatever strategy Marlene had dreamed up for what must have been their fifth or sixth appeal. In the back of her mind, Athena wondered if Remus' feelings would be hurt once Halloween was over and Marlene inevitably went back to whatever it was that she did all the time.

Lily, now spurred by James' uncharacteristic rejection of her presence, was making herself scarce around the Gryffindors, and she chose to spend her time with a group of Ravenclaw girls and rumor had it, with Amos Diggory.

Peter, by the grace of gods had finally found himself a girlfriend. Molly Orange, a short and very curvy fifth year Hufflepuff had become quite taken with him, and he spent all of his time at the Hufflepuff table, or out and about with Molly.

So, Athena was incredibly relieved when the new relationship that Sirius had begun with Peppa Parker, didn't seem to cut into their time at all. In fact they were spending more time together than ever, they sat together in classes, they ate together, they did homework together. A year ago Athena would have thought that she would have gotten sick of being with Sirius all that time, but somehow, it worked. She enjoyed spending time with him, and they got along better than ever before. Sirius had apparently decided to drop the invincible act around her, and he even began sharing bits and pieces about his life with his family. Which Athena felt rather privileged to know about because she knew that even James had a hard time getting information about what Sirius went through every summer.

But, as much as Athena was enjoying her time with Sirius, she missed the other boys, and finally she had enough.

So she wrote an anonymous note to James, Sirius, Remus and Peter all to meet at the room of requirement one night, and waited for them to show up.

"What are you doing here?" Athena heard James' voice ring out in the hallway.

"I got a note saying to come here." Remus said, but by the tone of his voice, Athena could already tell that he had figured it out.

"Oi! What are you guys doing here?" Sirius said, joining the other two in the hall.

"We dunno, we all got these notes to be here." James said, and Athena could see him in her head, shrugging and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose like he always did.

"Hey guys. What's goin' on?" Peter's voice finally appeared, always the last one to arrive.

Athena waved her wand at the door, slowly opening it, and the four boys crept inside the room slowly.

"HIYA!" Athena shouted, jumping up from behind a convienetly placed couch. Doubling over with laughter when each of the boys nearly jumped out of their skin.

"What the hell are you playing at Athena, we could have hexed you!" James shouted, shoving his wand roughly back in his pocket.

"Sorry." Athena said kind of sheepishly.

"What's all this 'Thena?" Sirius asked, sitting down on the couch that she had just jumped out from behind. Athena sat down next to him, and the rest of the boys followed their lead, sitting on various pieces of furniture that were scattered around the large room.

"I just wanted to call it to your attention that this is the first time that we have all been together since Hogsmeade." Athena said, frowning.

"What? That can't be right." Remus said scratching his head in thought.

"It is! Blimey, I'm sorry Teensie." James said.

Athena shrugged "You don't have to apologize, it's just strange is all. I don't like it."

James gave her an appraising look, he knew deep down that Athena was probably more attached to group than she would ever let on. He thought a lot about how protective Athena was over practically everything that she held dear, from himself and her uncle, all the way down to the Gryffindors and some other first years. Sirius had told him once a while ago that he reckoned that Athena was so protective because she was afraid they would be ripped away from her, much like her parents were when she was a baby.

Sometimes James had to remember that the happy, strong and sometimes argumentative girl that he saw all the time wasn't the only side there was to Athena.

"I'm really sorry Athena, I've been so focused on not being around Evans, I didn't realize I wasn't around you either." James said, and he stood up and wedged himself in between Sirius and Athena.

Sirius frowned, an accurate depiction of his life indeed.

James moved to put his arm around Athena, knocking Sirius off of the couch. Sirius sent him a halfhearted glare, before taking the seat next to Remus.

"Yeah Athena, we're sorry too. I've just been so occupied with all of stuff for the Halloween Ball.." Remus trailed off.

Athena raised an eyebrow "Yeah..How's that coming along?"

"It's coming along okay I guess. I never imagined that Marlene would be so focused and persistent on something, but I'm afraid that it's probably for nothing."

"Just be glad you're not Gallagher. He's got to deal with her all the time." Sirius said grinning.

Athena rolled her eyes "Honestly, If she put half as much time into her school work she would be at the head of the class."

"Ick. That was such an Evans thing to say." James said, making a face.

Athena frowned, she was hoping that his 'hatred' of Lily would have passed by now, but rather unfortunately, it only got stronger every day that there was a new rumor about her and Diggory.

She opened her mouth to dispute what James had said, but Sirius sensing this, rapidly changed the subject.

"Hey, I never told you guys about the new spell I learned, It's supposed to make a person inflate to twice their size!"

After Athena's talk with the boys everything went basically back to normal, although James still blatantly refused to be around Lily.

"I don't understand why he's acting like this!" Lily finally screeched after James promptly left the library when she entered it.

"I've rejected him at least a hundred times, why does it finally matter!" She said as she threw herself down in one of the libraries old and rather rickety wooden chairs.

"Miss Evans, Please! Control yourself before you break Library property!" Madame Pince repremanded from across the room.

Lily turned a violent shade of red, but her embarassment was significantly lessened by the fact that she, Athena and Remus were the only ones in the Library that evening.

"Uh.. I'll let you handle this." Remus said, giving Athena a stern look, before gathering his books and parchment and marching out the door.

He, as both James and Lily's friend, had been after Athena for days to find a way to fix the tear in the group.

"I just don't get what's so different about this time." Lily said, frowning.

"Well, look who suddenly cares." Athena teased, grinning. Lily gave her a fierce glare. "I don't know Lils. All the other times you rejected him were different." Athena said as she packed up her books, knowing that she wasn't going to be getting any more work done tonight.

"How?"

"For starters you rejected him in front of the entire school." Athena said, mentally cringing at the memory.

James had crafted an elaborate ploy to get Lily to finally say yes. He jinxed the candles that floated in the Great Hall to come together and spell out 'Let me take you to Hogsmeade Lily!' with an arrow pointing down to James' seat, where he was beaming and looking rather smug.

Tons of girls in the Great Hall were swooning, but Lily was unmoved, and hastily waved her wand, rearranging the candles to spell out 'NO!'

"I've definitely rejected him in public before." Lily said.

Athena strained her memory, but eventually decided that Lily was probably right.

"But, you've never rejected him publicly, and then had gone with another boy." Athena reasoned.

A look of comprehension dawned on Lily's face. "He's doing this because I'm seeing Amos?"

Athena nodded, shrugging. Honestly, for a smart girl Lily could be so daft sometimes.

"Well forget about it then. I'm not breaking up with Amos just to please Potter. I can't even stand Potter. I can't even believe I wasted time talking about this!" Lily said, standing up abruptly and gathering her things, before stomping out of the library rather loudly.

"Merlin." Athena whispered, before cracking into loud giggles.

"Out! Dumbledore!" Madame Pince called, and Athena shoved her stuff into her bag as quickly as possible, and raced to Gryffindor tower.

When Athena got to the common room Lily had positioned herself in a chair in the far corner, she was apparently attempting to read, but she was stopping every few seconds to glare maniacally at James, who was sitting on the couch in front of the fire, having a very animated conversation with Sirius and Peter.

But, When Athena walked up to the group, James stopped talking immediately.

"What's up guys?" She asked, flinging her well worn canvas messenger bag onto the plush carpet of the common room.

"Uh.. nothing." James said, and Athena saw him give Sirius and Peter a harsh look.

"What were you guys just talking about?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Uh.. nothing."

Athena crossed her arms and looked at the three boys harshly. There wasn't much that they wouldn't tell her, but when they kept secrets, it was incredibly irritating to Athena. Although that was rather hypocritical of her, seeing as she was keeping a secret as well..although the fact that they hadn't put it together yet was still baffling to her.

"Oh really?" Athena murmured, scanning each of their faces. They all wore the same expression of feigned innocence. She was about to question them further when out of the corner of her eye she saw Lily give her a signal that she had heard part of the conversation and would relay it back to her later.

"Really 'Thena it was nothing." Sirius said, cool and confident.

"Alright then." She said, much to their surprise. She stifled a grin as she saw each of the three boys exchange looks of bewilderment.

Just at that moment Marlene stormed into the common room with Remus trailing behind her, both out of breath.

"He said yes! Dumbledore said yes!" Marlene panted, before streaking up to the girls dorms. Various shrieks and screams could be heard from the stairs.

"What the hell?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow at Remus who flopped down on the couch next to him.

"Dumbledore agreed to the Halloween Ball." Remus said, he was smiling, but Sirius could tell there was an undercurrent of disappointment, perhaps he realized that he wouldn't be seeing much of Marlene McKinnon anymore.

"He agreed to the ball? Halloween is tomorrow." Athena said in shock, exchanging looks of pure terror with Lily, who had come from the other side of the common room and sat herself on the edge of Athena's arm chair.

"You can't be serious." Lily gasped.

James rolled his eyes, "What do you care Evans? It'll just give you an excuse to cuddle up next to your bloody boyfriend." He said waspishly, before stalking off to the boys dormitory.

Lily looked like she had been smacked across the face, Athena, Peter, Sirius and Remus all regarded each other in shock.

"All right Lily?" Athena asked, putting her hand on her friends shoulder. Lily nodded mutely. "How about we go upstairs and discuss what the bloody hell we'll wear tomorrow evening?" Athena said kindly, leading the red headed girl away from the three boys. Who were still sitting in silence.