A/N: Ack! I'm terribly sorry to keep you waiting, I have a whole list of excuses. Take your pick:

1.) I had horrible, horrible writer's block. I had no idea where to go next. I have the next few chapter slightly planned out, but I still need to work on where I want to go.

…Well, actually, that's really the only good one. I could not break through. So sorry. Hope the fluff makes up for it.

Disclaimer: I only play in the HP universe. I didn't make it.

Tickle Fights, Compromising Positions, and Snape, Yet Again

We spent ten more minutes on the Astronomy Tower, though it felt like an eternity. I marveled at my body's reaction every time James kissed me. I didn't think I'd ever tire of the feel of him against me, the smell of Quidditch and his cologne, plus something so indescribably boy that I couldn't identify. It all mixed together to create an intoxicating scent that made me feel calm and safe. If I could have spent the rest of my life in James' arms, I gladly would have. Unfortunately, my body's high intolerance of cold got in the way of those plans.

"You're freezing," whispered James, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"N-no-no I'm not," I said, teeth chattering.

James merely raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, yes I am," I admitted, burrowing closer to him. I pressed my cold nose against his warm neck, causing him to squirm away.

"How about we go to the common room?" he suggested, rubbing his throat. He took my hand and pulled me down the stairs. Once I drew level with him in the hall, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close.

I didn't mind in the slightest, but I gave him a confused look anyway.

"I didn't think I'd ever get to hold you like this, ever," he explained. "Now that I can, I don't want to stop."

I blushed pink. I still couldn't believe that he'd loved me all those years, all this year.

We walked to the common room in silence, walking side-by-side. I fit perfectly against him, like a missing jigsaw piece. When we reached the Head portrait hole, James held up a hand to help me inside. I ignored it and walked past him, climbing through myself. We may have been dating, but that didn't mean I needed his help for everything.

I suddenly froze. Were we dating? Yeah, we kissed. Okay, more like snogged. A lot. But did that mean we were dating? I fervently hoped so. I was not going to be some secret fling.

Though I did worry about how the rest of the school would react.

Great. I thought all my problems would be solved when I told James how I felt, but now I had a whole new can of worms to deal with.

Damn you, over-analytical brain.

"Lily? You alright?"

I realized that I'd stopped in the portrait hole. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine," I croaked out, my voice hoarse. I finished crawling through and took a seat on the couch, staring at the fire.

James sat next to me and threw an arm around my shoulders. I just sat there, not responding. I was too busy overanalyzing everything that had happened that day.

James tried to make conversation, but his lame attempts fell short. We sat in an awkward silence before the fire.

"Y'know, this doesn't have to be awkward," James said after a particularly painful five minutes.

I said nothing.

"I mean, we're still friends. We're just snogging now."

I shifted to the other side of the sofa in alarm. "Are you trying to say this is a friends with benefits thing? 'Cause I will tell you right now that there is no way I am agreeing to that."

James looked at me in alarm. "What? No, no! I phrased that really badly…"

I blew out a breath. "Yeah. Yeah, you did."

James thought for a bit, then turned abruptly to me. "I know what's wrong."

"What?"

He looked straight into my eyes, hazel meeting green. I felt a little weak from the intensity of his gaze. "I will ask you, for the very last time: Lily Evans, will you go out with me?"

I glanced at my lap shyly, unable to look at him. "Yes. I will."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw James' face split into a huge grin. "Knew that would do it," he said, leaning back with his arms tucked behind his head. I was suddenly reminded of that day on the train, when I'd second-guessed every movement, looking for an ulterior motive. Things had certainly changed since then.

"Girls always get a bit nutty when you don't 'define the relationship'," he said, adding air quotes to the last part.

"I was not going nutty," I said indignantly, crossing my arms.

"You were," replied James smugly. His arrogance was betrayed by the happiness in his eyes; he really was glad he'd cleared the air.

"Was not!" I protested huffily, poking his side. For the second time that day, James gave an almighty spasm and fell to the floor with a 'thump'.

A wicked grin grew on my face as I remembered the useful piece of information I'd tucked away: James was ticklish.

"Don't—you—dare," threatened James, inching away from me.

I held still for a moment, then launched myself at him. I poked every inch of exposed rib I could reach, trying to get revenge. I did not like being called nutty.

We tussled around on the floor, me poking, James grabbing my hands and trying to poke back. Unfortunately, I was ticklish as well. This tickle fight was not turning out well for either of us.

James had rolled over, trying to defend himself, and I saw my opportunity. I sat on his chest, pinning his arms down with my knees.

"I've got you now," I crowed triumphantly, reaching down toward his exposed sides.

"What the bloody Merlin is going on?" cried a stunned voice.

I whipped around to find gleeful-looking Sirius and a shell-shocked Remus standing in front of the portrait hole, looking at us in disbelief. For a second I wondered why they looked so bewildered, but then I realized how we must have looked. I was sitting on James. On top of James.

Oh bugger.

I scrambled away. "Uh…tickle fight?" I supplied sheepishly, knowing they wouldn't buy it, but hoping they would at the same time.

They didn't. "Yeah, right," Sirius scoffed. "Friends don't do that."

"Mind telling us what's really happened?" asked Remus faintly, having finally found his voice.

"Yeah, mate. You've been gone all day!" Sirius added, pouting.

I was wracking my brain, trying to find a logical explanation for what they'd seen, when James came up behind me, slipping his arms around my waist. He set his chin on my shoulder and just looked at the other Marauders, doing that silent-communication thing they'd perfected.

"No way…" breathed Sirius.

"So soon?" questioned Remus, looking skeptical.

I squirmed uncomfortably under their gaze, not liking the way they were looking at me.

"Yes!" crowed a triumphant Sirius, his fist pumping the air. The sudden cry made me start. "I win! Pay up, Moony!"

Remus sighed dejectedly and pulled out a few Galleons, slapping them onto Sirius' hand.

"You—you bet on us?" I cried indignantly.

Sirius nodded. "We wondered how long it'd take for you to fall for the new and improved Prongs. Remus here thought you'd last until spring, but I bet it'd only be 'til winter. And I was right!"

Well, I hadn't been sure how the other Marauders would take to James and me dating, but I hadn't been expecting this.

"Next Hogsmeade trip, we'll all go to the Three Broomsticks to celebrate. It's too cold now, else we'd sneak out. Moony'll buy."

"You just took the last of my pocket money, Padfoot," said Remus sourly.

"Oh yeah," said Sirius, staring down at the money in his hand. "I'll buy then."

"Yeah, right," muttered Remus, pulling Sirius out of the common room. He gave me a look that said you owe me.

I thanked him silently for leading Sirius away. I did not feel as hostile toward him as I did in the beginning of the year, but I still felt that it was best to handle him in small doses.

"Well," James said. "That was…interesting."

"To say the least," I added, and suddenly, all the tension was gone. We were as close as ever; closer, even. We stayed in the common room all day, talking on the couch (there may or may not have been some snogging thrown in). We only left when a massive growl erupted from James' stomach.

"C'mon," I said, pulling him up.

"What? I want to stay here with you," he pouted.

"Well, your stomach doesn't. And an unhappy stomach means an unhappy James."

He sulked a bit.

"James!" I cried in irritation. "I'm coming with you!"

"Oh yeah," he said, looking a bit embarrassed.

"Honestly," I grumbled, pushing him toward the door, "You're so thick sometimes."

"But you love me anyway," he said cheerily.

"Don't know why." I continued with him down to dinner, but my mind was elsewhere. It'd taken me a long enough time to concede that I may have fancied him, and know here I was, steadily accepting and admitting that I loved him. This swift change in emotion scared me. I'd never felt or acted like this around any other boy, then this one waltzes along, a boy I'd sworn to hate, and now suddenly my life was upside down. I'd fallen, fast. It felt great now, but who knew how long it would last?

I just hoped I didn't get hurt.

The next problem I had to tackle was how to tell Alice and Marlene. I ruled out owl, as this was something best done face-to-face. I could just imagine the letter. Hello, hope you're having a nice break, and did I mention that I'm now dating James Potter? Yeah, that wouldn't go over so well. I needed to tell them soon, before they walked in us like Sirius and Remus had.

I was driving James up the wall with my stressing, I could tell. But I couldn't shut my brain off. I kept running through possibilities.

"Lily?" James called from my left. I was in the middle of wondering whether an immediate confession was better than a procrastinated one. I turned, breaking free of my thoughts, to find that James' lips were suddenly on mine.

I responded enthusiastically, sighing as I let all my worries crash to the floor and shatter. "How do you do that?" I demanded once he'd pulled away.

"Do what?" he asked, his grin just a tad mischievous, as if he already knew what my answer was.

"How do you manage to make me forget everything as soon as you kiss me?"

He leaned closer, and his smell washed over me, causing my breathing to hitch and my pulse to leap.

"I guess I just have that effect," he murmured, kissing my neck.

I closed my eyes and took a shuddering breath. Then they snapped open, and I decided that it was unfair that he relished the fact that he had such an effect on me. It was time to know how much I affected him.

Two could play this game.

I pushed him away just a bit, enough so he was in front of me. I locked eyes with him, and gave him the most penetrating stare I could. "And what about me?"

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. "What about you?" he asked hoarsely, his voice just a tad higher.

"How do I affect you, James?"

He was rendered speechless as I ran my hand down his cheek. A muscle twitched in his jaw, bringing my attention to the small scar I'd noticed in the common room so many months ago. "What's this from?" I asked, running my finger along it.

"What?" he said blankly, still staring at me.

I lowered the force of my gaze and said, "Your scar."

"Oh. That," he said, looking down. He didn't answer.

"James," I said softly. "Please tell me."

My pleading must have worked, for he brought his eyes back to mine and started talking.

"Do you, uh—do you remember that day, down by the lake? After O.?"

I knew immediately to what incident he was referring. "Yeah."

"Do you remember the curse Snape threw? The one that hit me?"

I did. Snape had thrown a hex I hadn't ever seen before. He had drawn blood, hitting the side of James' face. A pit of dread grew in my stomach.

"Well," said James, not wanting to continue, "That's the scar it left. Madame Pomfrey doesn't think it'll ever go away."

The pit of dread in my stomach turned to ire. My hands balled up to fists on either side of James' face. I felt so angry at Snape at that moment, more than I'd ever felt before. While the jinxes James and Sirius had thrown were humiliating, they weren't designed to injure. Snape had meant to purposely harm James.

James took my hands and gently guided then away from his face. He kissed them and said, "Please just forget about it, Lily. It was a long time ago."

My anger dissolved into sadness. I sighed, defeated. There was nothing I could do about what had happened. The past was the past.

"But, Lily—" James said hesitantly. He paused, then tried again. "I have to know. Were you two ever—?"

But I was already shaking my head. "No." I thought for a moment. "But I think he wanted to."

"I know he wanted to," James said fervently. "He looked at you the way I do."

I blushed and looked down. James lifted my chin up gently and said, "But enough of this serious talk. Don't you have some worrying and stressing to do?"

I gasped as I realized that I still hadn't figured out how to tell Alice and Marlene. My brain kicked back into overdrive.

"Lily? Uh, Lily? I wasn't serious…ah, dammit."

A/N: More fluff than I intended, but who doesn't love that? Marlene and Alice will find out next chapter. The rest of the school? I'm not really sure yet. Reviews are lovely! I hope to beat my record of 139 for one story. I'm getting close!