Historical A/N: This chapter is rated M. Not 'oh-wow-that's-explicit' M but M all the same.


Oct. 19, 1977

"James, are you sure you're okay?"

"I said I'm fine."

"You don't seem fine…"

"Lily!"

"I'm just trying to help."

"…I know…just give me a minute, okay?"

Lily retreated to the far side of the Heads' office and waited for James to tell her it was okay to talk again. They'd agreed to meet in the Heads' offices to catch up on the work that they hadn't been able to accomplish due to Lily's vexing detention the day before. Opportunists the both of them, they'd also used the time to thoroughly reacquaint themselves with each other. Reacquaint in the most physical sense of the word.

Things had been going well, better than well in fact. All of the normal adjectives to describe an experience felt too bland, too lackluster compared to how vigorously snogging James felt. The more descriptive adjectives, however, made her blush just thinking them – a mixture between embarrassment at the ribald and humor at cheesy romance.

She'd been sitting on the desk, James standing between her legs when he'd given a little thrust upwards, perfectly aligned to brush against where she was most sensitive. To her never-ending shame, she hadn't exactly pushed him away. In fact, the casual observer might have noticed that she'd pulled his hair and kissed him all the more enthusiastically for the motion. Taking it as encouragement, James had done it again, this time harder and with a longer grind.

That had been more than enough to send Lily hurtling back to reality. A reality in which she and James weren't dating, just messing around with one another. There were rules – ones she felt no need to share with him – that she'd have to adhere to here if she wanted to maintain any sense of personal decency. Letting James slide between her legs, rutting until she wanted to keen from the pleasure, was decidedly not decent.

Lily had told him that they needed to stop snogging and get back to work, which had led to a very frustrated, unhappy James who was now slumped over the desk, both hands in his hair, as he tried to calm himself back down again. The pitiful sight was enough to make her feel rather guilty, but he'd already told her there was nothing she could do to help. Well, nothing she was willing to do anyway.

"Just talk about something," James begged, words muffled by the desk.

"Like what?" Lily asked, mind drawing a complete blank as to what she could say to distract him.

"Anything," James bit out. "Tell me about your parents."

"My parents? Well, I dunno, there's not much to say about them. They're just normal, I guess," Lily said.

The Evanses weren't fantastical in any way. They weren't wealthy or powerful or eccentric or magical or any of the things that made the Potters such a well-respected family. Even as a child when her parents were supposed to be her entire world, Lily had recognize that they were simple people. That there was something bigger and greater just beyond her reach, and that her parents couldn't even see it, let alone consider trying to grasp it for themselves.

To aid in James' plight, Lily tried to come up with something all the same. "My mum likes crafts. Making things with her hands and art supplies, though I wouldn't really call anything she does art. She quilts a lot. She and the ladies from our church all meet twice a week, and they sit in this big circle and quilt. I don't know how to quilt at all but they have these big, wooden hoops and they sit there for hours just talking about their kids and their husbands and the other ladies from church."

"Does she ever sell them?" James asked.

"No, never. Though you'd think she would considering a little extra money would be nice. If we sent her to a craft show, she'd just spend all the money she made plus extra on baubles though, so I guess it wouldn't make much of a difference," Lily said. "She gives everything she makes away as gifts. And any extra clothes or quilts she makes go to charity."

"Your mum sounds nice," James said.

"She is," Lily agreed, though secretly she thought it took very little to be considered nice and there were much loftier compliments to aspire to.

"Your dad?" James asked.

"He's quiet, hardworking. He never has a lot to say about anything. Well, except about the things he disapproves of. Get him on the topic of the Soviets or atheists and it's impossible to get him to stop talking," Lily said.

"Funny how all parents are like that," James said.

Lily tried to imagine the types of things Mr. Potter must complain about to his family. Did he sit at the kitchen table, eyes narrowed at the Sunday paper like her father did? Mutter under his breath about the steady dissolution of his country's values? Lily couldn't picture the man she'd seen on the train platform all those years ago – composed, uninterested in everything around him – engaging in the same behavior as her father. The difference was that Mr. Potter was a man who could react to the changes that earned his disapproval. People would care what opinions he held. No one was interested in the opinion of a construction foreman like her father.

"You have a sister too, right? What was her name again? Daisy? Blossom?" James' eyebrows drew together as he ran through his catalogue of flower names.

"Petunia," Lily corrected.

He was looking a lot better, sitting up and giving her his full attention now, so Lily sat down at the desk opposite him. James gave her a small, close-mouthed smile, one that conveyed his bashfulness at the absurdity of the dramatics minutes before and had her chest thudding at how sweet he could look when he wasn't strutting about arrogantly.

"I always wanted a sibling, but it was really hard for my parents to have me. They're both pretty old, yeah? I used to hate it, running about the house with no other kids to play with. I was never lonely," he said stressing the word. "There were always people around, but there's nothing like someone your own age to play with."

"That's kind of sad, James," Lily said.

He shrugged and started to unwrap a chocolate frog. "I got the brother I wanted in the end, so it all worked out."

The chocolate frog hopped away from him and Lily reached out to snag it before it could take off and track chocolatey footprints all over their paperwork. Graciously, Lily stretched out her hand to offer it back to James only to pop it into her mouth at the last moment. James squawked in outrage at the loss of his treat, but Lily hardly cared.

"How dare you!" he cried.

"That's how I know you're an only child. You never learned to share," Lily crowed triumphantly.

James had no legitimate reason to complain anyways, she learned a moment later as he pulled a second chocolate frog out of his robes. She realized that she oughtn't to have eaten the candy in the first place seeing as it was a Wednesday not a Friday, but she'd reacted automatically. Too excited for a chance to torment James a little to remember that she shouldn't be indulging.

"And you're clearly a younger sibling. Spoiled," James said.

"Trust me, it's never been said that Petunia spoils me," Lily said, rolling her eyes. When James raised an eyebrow, Lily explained, "Our relationship is a little…strained. Petunia's kind of an exacting personality, and I don't quite meet her standards."

"Wait, you're not good enough for your sister?" James asked, sounding flatteringly shocked.

"Well…I mean…she wrote me a letter Sunday, so I really think we're on track for things to get better…" Lily trailed off unconvincingly. The contents of the letter had been the exact opposite of promising.

"No, I just meant, how high could her standards possibly be? You're like fucking perfect," James said.

Lily thought boys should be required to provide a written warning three days in advance before saying something like that. Such effusive praise, delivered with a tone of voice that implied it was the most obvious thing in the world, was enough to leave Lily speechless. Speechless and warm.

James' next words did a lot to crush that.

"I mean obviously you're one of the most obnoxious people I've ever met. You have enough flaws to fill a thousand-page book, but like on the surface-level stuff, you're damn near perfect," James finished.

"Wow, you really know how to romance a girl, Potter," Lily said drily.

"Clearly," James said with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows. "If it makes you feel better, I think your sister just doesn't like you because your parents clearly love you more."

Lily spluttered. That was certainly a complaint Petunia had voiced several times, but Lily had never thought there was much of a basis for it. And how on earth would James know something like that? The only facts he knew about her family were the ones she'd just shared with him. She couldn't fathom the kind empathetic abilities it would have taken to figure something like that out.

"They do not," Lily said.

"Of course they do," James said confidently. "They named you Lily and her Petunia –" he managed to make her sister's name sound disgusting rather than the name of an aesthetically pleasing flower. "– they obviously hated your sister from the moment she was born and loved you."

"Petunia is a lovely name," Lily said in a voice that only partially succeeded in hiding her amusement.

With a wrinkled nose, James emphatically said, "No, it's not. Tun, pet, nia. Those are hideous sounds. Compare that to your name. L's a great sounding letter. You're the clear winner."

"Well your parents clearly thought you were going to be an accountant. What kind of unoriginal name is James? It's so boring," Lily said. She was feeling just a little defensive of her parent's naming abilities.

"Excuse you, my full name is great: James Fleamont Potter. Good, strong name, for their good, strong son," James said. He had to kind of shout the second half because Lily burst out laughing upon hearing his middle name.

"Fleamont? What kind of awful name is Fleamont?" Lily gasped.

"My father's name," James said without a hint of shame. "And my grandfather's before that."

"I'm just saying it's like someone took a bug and tried to make it sound posh," Lily said drily. "If you'd had a brother, would they have named him beetlemont?"

"Unlike some people, my parents don't believe in themed names for their children," James said.

It was annoyingly difficult to come up with any kind of retort to that, so Lily settled for a childish, "Whatever."

"Let's play a game," James said suddenly.

"All the hairs on the back of my neck just stood straight up," Lily said.

James rolled his eyes. "It's not anything bad. Just a friendly game of would-you-rather."

"Alright, James Fleamont," Lily agreed even though she knew he was only trying to skive off doing work. It would only help her win the damn bet.

"Would you rather have to fight a swarm of hundreds of rats or one three-hundred-foot rat?" James asked.

Lily gagged. The mental image of all those scurrying paws, of them knocking her down and overtaking her, was disgusting.

"I can use magic?" Lily clarified.

"Course," James said because he was a pureblood. Lily always forgot that they viewed magic as a guaranteed extension of themselves. Not having magic would be something to comment on.

"Definitely the big one then. Easier to hit a larger target and all. Besides, a part of what makes rats so disgusting is how small they are. I don't think I'd mind a Godzilla rat so much," Lily said.

She then had to spend five minutes explaining what Godzilla was before James was satisfied with her answer. Wizard or not, boys were still boys and enormous rampaging lizards always held their interest.

"Okay, my turn," Lily said. "Would you rather eat nothing but pork for the rest of your life or never kiss a girl again?"

"I don't see how those two things are related," James laughed. "But, easy. Never kiss a girl again."

"Seriously?"

"You should have made it tougher. Plenty to do besides kissing," James shrugged.

"Okay…then, shagging," Lily said, fighting against her every instinct that said shagging was a subject she should not be discussing with James Potter.

"Still not living on nothing but pork for the rest of my life. I'm not about getting scurvy," James said.

Lily had assumed James would never pick the sensible option in a game like this. She was rather impressed that he'd answered so reasonably.

"Would you rather go on a date to Hogsmeade with our noble caretaker, Argus Filch? Or have to hang upside down by your toes in his dungeon for an hour during detention?" James asked.

Lily looked at him askance. "What kind of –? Obviously, I'd prefer the date."

"It's not a given, Lily. He's gross!" James protested.

"He's perfectly sweet, and I don't know why you can't be kinder to him," Lily chastised. "By my toes, indeed!"

James muttered something about barmy witches, but Lily wasn't paying attention, too busy trying to identify her next question. "I've got it. Would you rather not speak to Sirius for a year, but you can talk to anyone else, or only be able to speak to Severus for a month?"

James blanched. "What kind of sick –? How could I possibly choose one of those?"

"It's your game," Lily shrugged.

"Okay, I've just gotta be logical here," James said, running his hands together like he was getting down to business.

"Yes, because this is surely a game that requires deep analysis," Lily said sarcastically.

James shushed her before asking, "Can we write each other? Shout through walls? What if he's in the room with me, but I address all my comments to Remus as a middleman? Do I have to talk to Snape or can I just not talk to anyone for a month? Complete isolation."

"Umm, you can't communicate with Sirius at all and you'll have to spend at least three hours with Severus a day," Lily said.

"I don't think Sirius could make it a year without me, so Snape it is," James decided. "What would you do if it was your best mate and person you hate most?"

"I'd go without seeing Shelia for a year. No question," Lily said.

"That's cold, Evans," James said.

"Well, seeing as the person I hate most wants to assault and murder me, I think my answer is pretty justified," Lily said glibly.

Only James didn't find much humor in her words at all, judging by the way his face darkened and knuckles paled. Each finger in his clenched fist looked like the nub of an eraser.

"What are you talking about?" James demanded.

"Nothing," Lily said quickly, pretending to take an interest in the already perfected prefect's rounds schedule.

"Lily, what were you talking about?" James repeated, evidently unfooled.

"I'm a muggleborn, James. That's how it is," Lily said in a voice that brooked no argument. "I think we should snog some more."

Something told her that distracting him from this subject was going to be a battle, and she couldn't think of anything more effective than preying on his hormones. Lily ran her foot up his calf, but James abruptly shoved his chair back to force an unbreachable distance between them.

"Who's been bothering you?" James practically shouted.

"I never said anyone was bothering me. There are plenty of people at this school who I know support Voldemort even if they've never done anything to me personally," Lily said.

It was true. She could name seven students off-hand who would view her death as a cause for celebration. That one of them had taken to threatening and intimidating her was none of James' business.

"If someone is hurting you, Lily, you have to tell me," James insisted again.

He was red-faced and wild-eyed and maybe if Lily hadn't been so overcome herself, she would have felt sorry for him. The idea that she was suffering was clearly hitting him hard. This was, however, a taboo subject for Lily, and James' refusal to heed her wishes had not done much to arouse her sympathy.

"There's nothing I have to tell you," Lily snapped.

"Bollocks! I don't know why you have to be so bloody stubborn, but –"

"We're just snogging! I don't owe you explanations," Lily shouted.

James burst to his feet. "Are you out of your fucking mind? Just snogging? You know how I…I don't need to be your boyfriend to care about you!"

Something hot and terrible swelled in her chest and Lily worried she might start crying at any moment. There was too much meaning in what James had left unsaid.

Before she could stop herself, Lily asked, "Do you want to be –? What do you want, James?"

The desperation in her voice wasn't enough to calm him down, wasn't enough to convince him to retake his seat, but it did make him soften somewhat.

"You shouldn't hide these things from people. From me," James said, effectively sidestepping her half articulated question.

"I'm the one who has to live with this shite, so if you could stop making me feel worse about it, that'd be great," Lily spat.

Now James sat down, and Lily was filled with the terrible fear that she'd broken him. The only time she'd seen James this miserable was the night Peter broke his spine. These two incidents shouldn't have been of comparable severity.

"It's just not fair," James said miserably, slumped over the desk.

"I know," Lily agreed because it wasn't.

"We're friends, Lil. I really would care even if we weren't snogging. Hell, you know I'd care if we weren't friends at all. You know that," James said earnestly.

"I know," Lily agreed softly because she did.

The silence that descended over them wasn't awkward, but it was oppressive. Lily wasn't sure what she could say to comfort him that wouldn't give him too much power over her.

On a purely rational level, Lily knew that she ought to tell someone, anyone, about Nott. There was nothing to be ashamed of on her end, and yet…Nott made her feel powerless. Tattling to James and letting him fight her battles wasn't going to make her feel any more empowered. Beating Nott on her own terms was the only way she could think of accomplishing that. As much as she cared about James, she wasn't willing to sacrifice that for him. He may feel awful finding out that Lily was being harassed, but Lily was the one living through the abuse.

Finally, Lily stood up from her chair and slid into James' lap instead. He looked startled and then recalcitrant, like he knew she was going to try to make him feel better, and he refused to cooperate. She sat facing him so that her hands wound around his neck and her feet dangled in front of his.

She pet at his hair, watching as the untidy strands flattened and then shot up again defiantly. Despite her petting, James continued to scowl into the distance, so Lily dropped her chin to his shoulder and waited. She didn't need to wait long before James started to rub soothing circles into her sides. Lily basked in the feeling even as her mind began to scream at the realization that she and James were officially cuddling.

As much as she wanted to be strong, Lily realized she needed a little comforting too.

Lily kissed him once more, confident that he was no longer pouting. With a surprising amount of enthusiasm considering he'd seemed so tired of the world moments before, he reciprocated. He put a lot of strength into the kiss as if to convey a message, though what that message might be, Lily wasn't sure. He wasn't frenzied exactly, but when his tongue moved demandingly into her mouth, it did so with enough passion to make her keen quietly in the back of her throat.

Like before, there came a moment where James' hips unintentionally thrust upwards, the natural response to what they were doing. What was different was that this time, Lily didn't panic. All her rules about propriety had been built around the idea that this was casual, emotionless snogging. That James didn't care. At least, not enough. The past twenty minutes had proved that was hardly true. So if James wanted to rub his prick along the crease of her inner thigh a bit and Lily wanted to circle her hips a little in return, well, there was nothing wrong with that.

The way his trouser-covered cock collided with her lower body sent wonderful shivers down Lily's spine. Unthinkingly, her nails dug into the hard muscle of his shoulder. In retaliation, he nipped at her lower lip until it swelled, one raw nerve ending. His lips weren't faring much better, and in between kisses, she marveled at how ruddy they were, all the more striking as his face grew pale from the blood rushing downward.

Liking the redness of his lips, Lily decided she might appreciate the color in other places as well. She flipped her mass of curls to the side – James watching their descent over her shoulder like he'd been mesmerized – so that she could gain access to his neck. James bared it eagerly so that Lily could suck, bite, and lick at the skin around the vein that pulsed there.

A particularly sharp nip had James resuming his grinding motions from before. Only this time, Lily didn't think there was anything accidental about it. With both hands, he gripped her hips and encouraged her to slide along in time with him. Each buck of his hips sent her pelvis colliding into his, and she very quickly ran out of breath at the awful building inside of her. Lily had to stop her assault on his throat – now nicely marked with two little love bites that bloomed just south of where his robes would cover – so that she could focus on her breathing.

"James," Lily panted. "Can I give you a hickey where people can see it?"

His immediate answer was to slam his cock into her hard before growling, "Fuck. Do it."

She mapped out the spot where she wanted to mark him with as clinical an eye as she could manage given she was quickly coming apart. Her eyes landed on the spot just beneath his jaw. She recalled seeing a hickey to the right of it just a few weeks ago. No amount of mounting territorialness would convince her to put it in the exact same spot, but right above it – where he would be forced to remember this moment every time he looked in a mirror – would do.

With the hand that wasn't guiding her movements, James began a cautious quest beneath her robes. His movements were hesitant as if he knew a wrong move would bring their fun to a screeching halt. At first he resigned himself to familiar territory, smoothing over her sides, kneading her back. James wasn't exactly the timid sort though, so Lily was hardly surprised when a daring thumb slid along the right-side of her breast. She didn't stop him, and the thumb turned into a palm.

"Fuck. So soft," James groaned.

He didn't move inward toward her peaked nipple, which might have been enough to startle her, but instead contented himself with caressing the undersides through her shirt and bra. It was torturous enough though that while Lily wasn't certain she was rationally ready for James to have free access to her breasts, she was moments away from forcing his hands to stimulate her nipples anyway.

Her body temperature spiked to the point that their drafty office now felt like a sauna. They were both sweating and between the litany of 'Gods' and 'ohs' that encompassed most of her thoughts came the errant worry that she wouldn't have time to change robes before the prefect meeting at eight.

That thought was effectively chased away when her clit brushed the hard fastenings of James' trousers. As good as it felt, it made her wonder whether everything would feel even better without clothes in between them. For the first time in her life, Lily imagined James Potter naked, and the picture she drew of him was very pleasing and only made the tingling in her pussy worse.

Lily abandoned his now bruised neck so that she could sit back and take over the angle of their humping. It took less than a minute of her slamming her pelvis into his to feel her orgasm start crashing down around her. As the world narrowed in focus and her breathing became labored, she kept eye contact with James. She soaked up the sight of him – glasses askew and mouth parted – as she came twitching in his lap.

James wore the expression of a man who had just witnessed magic for the first time.

She collapsed shuddering into his chest and James peppered kisses upon the crown of her head. His thrusting remained unrelenting, and Lily oscillated between overwhelmed aftershocks and spasms of reluctant pleasure as James sought his own satisfaction.

Lady Luck, who had so favored James throughout most of his charmed life, abandoned him then. The door loudly opened, and Lily went flying out of his lap. James' hands thoughtlessly stretched towards her as if to bring her back even as he registered that they'd just been interrupted.

Looking respectively amused and alarmed were Remus and Dorcas.

"Well, well, well. What have we here?" Remus asked smugly.

"Have you never heard of knocking?" James growled.

"We did," Dorcas said apologetically.

Lily wanted to die. She stood perfectly still as if they might forget she was there and what they'd just witnessed. If Lily were to write a list of the best people who could walk in on her during a round of heavy petting, Remus and Dorcas would be towards the very top. They were both kind and circumspect. To Lily, however, it hardly mattered though because anyone walking in on her qualified as one of her worst nightmares. She wanted to pat her hair out of what she was sure looked like a sex-crazed tangle, but she worried the motion would draw attention to herself.

"The prefects were wondering where their leaders were and why they'd abandoned us," Remus said, still obnoxiously amused.

Alarmed, Lily forgot she was meant to be playing statue and grabbed James' wrist. He hissed a little as she twisted it around to see the face of his watch. Any other time, she would have taken a moment to study it as wizarding watches were fascinating. James' watch had three faces – gold, silver, and bronze – with one telling the traditional time, one relating somehow to Quidditch, and one that was a ticking countdown towards some mysterious event. She'd have liked to ask James about it, but the time – half past – stole her attention.

"We're half an hour late!" Lily screeched.

"We'll of course lie about what kept you," Dorcas offered awkwardly.

"This is –! I –" Lily rounded on James. "This is all your fault!"

"Right. We'll tell them you're coming," Dorcas said quickly, dragging along Remus who appeared reluctant to miss the show.

Lily frantically righted herself as best she could though there was nothing to do for her visibly kiss-bruised lips. Only when she finished did she notice that James was making no effort to get ready.

"What are you doing? We need to go!" Lily cried.

"I'll follow in a few minutes," James said.

"James, you have to take this seriously," Lily began to lecture, only to stop when her eyes landed on tented robes. "Oh."

"Oh," he parroted back.

"Right, don't be too long, then," Lily said uncomfortably. She took three steps out of the room before she spun back around to ask from the doorway. "Are you going to think about…just now, while you…?"

James laughed loudly but his answer didn't sound like a joke when he said, "Yeah, I'll be thinking about you."

Heat spread through her and it would have been just as accurate to call it embarrassment as arousal. No one had ever thought about her while they…pursued their own pleasure before. At least not that she was aware of. Never before had there been someone she wanted to think about her either.

"I'll see you in a few minutes," Lily said quickly, whipping out of the doorway so he wouldn't catch her embarrassment.

"You can bet on it," James called after her.


Returning to the girls' dormitory after what could only be described as an unmitigated disaster of a prefect meeting, Lily had found that all the girls except Alice were out. It had been a while since the two girls had spent any time alone together that wasn't spent in stony silence or fits of melodrama. For half a second, Lily had considered making her excuses and going to the library, but something about Alice's Gryffindor red-and-gold pajamas set her at ease, so Lily had crawled in bed alongside her instead.

Now they sat on opposite ends of the bed, the blankets rucked up around them and textbooks strewn in the space not occupied by their bodies. Alice was being a blanket-hog, so Lily had tucked her toes under her friend's thigh to try to steal some of the warmth off of her. To an outsider, they'd look like two girls who had never had so much as a difference of opinion before.

Lily looked up from her Runes textbook long enough to notice that Alice's quill was looping across the parchment, leaving shapes that in no way resembled letters of the English alphabet.

"You're not even pretending to revise are you?" Lily asked.

"I'm working on something much more important," Alice said. She flipped around her sheet of parchment to show a crude sketch of Mulciber being eaten by the mermaids in the Black Lake.

"Eww. That's cannibalistic," Lily said.

Alice shook her head. "Completely different species, Evans. Nothing cannibalistic about it. Mermaids are perfectly free to take a bite out of a nice, plump death eater."

Lily wrinkled her nose at the drawing once more because regardless of how much she despised Mulciber, she wouldn't like anyone to be eaten by a mermaid. Or any other creature for that matter. Eaten alive seemed a terrible way to go. All of that chomping.

"Is there a reason you're offing Mulciber in your imagination rather than focusing on Charms?" Lily asked.

"Is there a reason you're being a nosy stick-in-the-mud rather than focusing on Runes?" Alice retorted.

"Yes, in fact there is," Lily said. When Alice looked at her questionably, Lily leaned forward to whisper, "It's because I am, in fact, a nosy stick-in-the-mud."

As Alice guffawed, Lily felt a rush of contentment, more comforting than a warm blanket, spread throughout her body. Immediately, the feeling of happiness was replaced with one of alarm. Some of her contentment could be directly traced to finally having things return to normal with Alice. Lily had no issue with that. No, her newfound alarm related to the fact that she was preening under Alice's approval again.

She had thought that after explaining her insecurities around Alice out loud to James, she would have been able to move past those feelings. Once you recognized your irrationality, it should be easy to correct it, right?

With absolute confidence, Lily could say that she wanted to be Alice's friend. She did not, however, want to return to a time where she measured her every word to try to gain Alice's approval. It wasn't healthy. Yet here she was, taking an extra moment to make sure her banter was as sharp as can be, tailoring her responses to what she thought would make Alice laugh, and then basking in the afterglow.

Something of her panic must have shown in her face because Alice's laughter trailed off unnaturally. To Lily's relief, Alice steered the conversation back onto course for her by asking why she needed a reason to hate Mulciber. Lily didn't know how she felt about the realization that she hadn't matured past her insecurities and wasn't ready to talk about it yet, so the distraction was welcome.

"You don't need a reason," Lily said. "But you've never really skived off your work before."

Of their year, Alice wasn't anywhere near the top, but she wasn't a poor student either. Unlike most of their classmates, she didn't find revision a chore, and tackled her schoolwork without complaints. Her interest only stretched so far, of course, which may have been the best explanation for her average marks. What Alice lacked in natural talent, however, she made up for in discipline. Alice didn't need someone to police her – like say Marlene who needed to be reminded to return to her schoolwork every five minutes or Shelia who had to be practically held down while a book was shoved in front of her protesting face – she was perfectly capable of handling herself. It was something Lily had always admired about her.

"I don't see the point," Alice said simply.

"The point?" Lily asked because the only point she was struggling to see was Alice's response.

"Yes, Lily. The point," Alice said brusquely. "Let's say I spend all these hours revising and get good NEWTs. So what? What exactly am I planning to do with these great scores? I have no goals. No plans, and even if I did, it's not going to matter much with a bloody war on. No one's going to be hiring when the world is falling to pieces."

If Marlene had been there, she would have reminded them it was only wizarding Britain in shambles. The rest of the world was trucking along just fine.

"You can't not work after we leave Hogwarts. What are you going to do for money?" Lily asked aghast.

Pureblood though she may be, Alice's family was not wealthy by anyone's standards. They wouldn't be able to support her if she came home. Worse, who would want to return to living with their parents after spending nine months out of every year at Hogwarts? The return would be stifling, soul-crushing. Going home would require a witch to shrink herself to fit her family's life, and Alice took up more figurative space than just about anyone Lily had ever met.

"I don't know, Lily!" Alice said, throwing her arms out in clear exasperation. "I just know everything is shite, yeah?"

It was hard to argue with that.

"Say there was no war. Just imagine it. What would you want to do then?" Lily asked.

Alice's hard jaw jutted upward and she scowled but it was aimed at the world more than at Lily. "Fuck if I know."

"I know how that feels," Lily agreed, glumly slumping backwards into the pillows propped against her back.

The door opened, signaling the return of Shelia and Marlene who entered just in time to catch Lily's dramatic drop onto the pillows.

"Is Lily moping over her failed prefect meeting?" Shelia asked cheerfully.

"You heard about that?" Lily screamed.

"Doreen Myers told Kate Nwaneri who's told pretty much everyone in Hufflepuff that you and James blew off the first half of the meeting to either shag each other or go rampaging through the Forbidden Forest with a gang of giants. That part's not clear. It's generally agreed upon though that James came in shirtless and covered in bruises, and that you barely got anything done, succeeding in wasting everyone's time," Shelia recounted with far more eagerness than was strictly necessary.

Lily flipped over so that she could bury her face in the pillow and let out a stifled moan of despair. All her hard work over the years, and this – these outrageous, exaggerated lies were going to be what people remembered her for.

"Hewaswearingashirt," Lily grumbled into the pillow.

"Sorry, dear. Couldn't quite catch that," Shelia said, plopping down on the bed and forcing Lily to begrudgingly scoot over.

Lifting her head off the pillow, she repeated, "I said, he was wearing a shirt."

"I kind of assumed that part was exaggerated," Marlene said, launching herself onto the bed as well with little regard for the limited space and the way it was sure to cramp their limbs.

"I dunno, it is Potter. He's not one to miss a chance to show off," Alice said, joining in the fun. If harassing their good mate Lily could even be qualified as such.

Lily resembled nothing more than a blanket-swaddled tomato as she tried to burrow away from her friends and the horrible lies that had them in fits of giggles.

"What actually happened?" Shelia asked kindly.

Head peeking above the blankets, Lily muttered, "We may have been a little on the late side…and there may have been some snogging."

As any occurrence of Lily's lips being in the same vicinity as James' was an impossibility as far as her mates were concerned, this set off a round of squealing and exclamations. Only Shelia, who had already known about the Heads' newfound randiness for each other, remained quiet. Dutifully, Lily gave a quick rundown on her relationship with James as her friends leaned forward in rapt attention.

"I'm so proud of you," Marlene sighed, snuggling into Lily's side.

Lily was saved from having to point out that she'd done nothing worthy of praise by Alice, who sensibly asked if they'd managed to get anything accomplished in the prefect meeting after their late entrance. The short answer was yes. The long answer was that it had been nearly impossible to regain control of the room after their rumpled arrival. By being late, Lily and James had sacrificed all authority over the group of vicious teenagers that made up the top students at Hogwarts, and they'd had to fight down accusations and attempts to belittle their leadership from the Slytherins. All while also fielding invasive questions from the gossipy fifth-year prefects from across the houses. It had been against all the odds that they'd managed to come to any decisions.

"At one point, I think they held a vote of no-confidence on my post as Head Girl. I think there was a coup!" Lily related miserably. "I'm surprised they let me leave the room with my badge. I suppose I'll have to go return it to Dumbledore tomorrow."

Shelia rolled her eyes. "Now you're just making things up. We would have heard if you'd actually lost Head Girl."

"It's not like the prefects get to decide that anyway," Alice agreed comfortingly.

"And even if they did, you'd be fine," Marlene added. "Besides look at it this way, a failed prefect meeting on James' watch just means he's failing the bet."

Reluctantly and with a great deal of dramatic sighing, Lily emerged fully from her makeshift hideaway. Technically speaking, they hadn't actually tried to depose her. Her mates were right and she was just being a big baby.

"We're going to have a scavenger hunt on Saturday as one of the events Dumbledore wanted us to organize. It's mostly for the younger students, but everyone will be free to play if they want," Lily said.

"Sounds like a brill use of a Saturday," Shelia teased.

Ignoring her, Marlene said, "That doesn't give you much time to prepare."

"The planning committee already took care of most of the details. Honestly, it's super nice. I barely have to lift a finger," Lily said. "Adrian's the one who put it all together."

This revelation set the girls off into a round of kissy noises that Lily bore with a temperance she had not known she possessed.

"We're also doing a Quidditch turney in November. I'm not even touching that one. James is going to handle everything there. I think they're starting the team planning next week, but who knows?" Lily continued.

"I liked the auction better," Marlene muttered.

"You don't need to ogle cute boys. You have Black," Shelia reminded her sternly. "None of us – well, except Alice – need a man right now. For the first time, none of us are single and we need to appreciate it."

There were a few logical fallacies there that immediately jumped out at Lily.

"I'm pretty sure I count," Alice snorted.

"You've said several hundred times that you never plan to date again, so no, you don't," Shelia said dismissively.

"I'm single!" Lily protested.

"Mhmm," Shelia drew out the syllables in a way that conveyed pure disbelief. "I'm adding Erik and James together. Between the two of them, I think you've got yourself a whole boyfriend."

Lily frowned because she was fairly certain that relationships didn't work like that. Two non-boyfriends did not a significant other make. She said as much.

"Between the two of us, who knows more about dating, Lily?" Shelia asked imperiously, hands on her hips. "Trust the expert. You're practically married by now."

"Well then, what about you?" Marlene challenged. "You're single too!"

Lily suspected that addressing this specific subject had been Shelia's goal all along. At Marlene's words, she grew coy, tracing patterns into the fabric of the blankets and refusing to meet their eyes. It was a routine every one of them was familiar with.

"Do you have a new boyfriend?" Alice asked in a bored voice after the suspense had built for a few moments.

Sighing dreamily, Shelia announced, "No, but I am in love."

"Oh, come off it!" Alice cried at the same time Lily rolled her eyes.

Lily wanted to grab her beautiful friend and shake her by the shoulders until a kernel of sense dropped into her empty brain. No matter how many times she repeated the same soul-crushing cycle of gaining and losing a boyfriend, Shelia never learned her lesson. As much sympathy as Lily had for her friend every time she was chucked and broke down crying, there was a limitation on how long Shelia could continue living like this.

"It's true! I love him," Shelia snarled, sounding more like a person on the verge of murder than a woman in love.

"You can't possibly," Lily argued.

"And why not?"

"Because you've only just met him! It's Wednesday! The party where you two connected was Saturday!" Lily cried.

"I've known him for years. It's just we've only now started talking," Shelia explained. Her voice then took on a dreamy tone that made Lily's stomach clench with want no matter how much she contested Shelia's claims, "Trust me. This is…I've never felt like this about anyone before. Everything before now was just pretend, just practice."

Against her better judgement, Lily asked quietly, "Well, what does it feel like? How do you know?"

"I've always thought there were two types of blokes. The boys who just pretend to agree with everything you say because they're not even listening and the ones who have to argue everything. You know? The kind that have to prove they know more about you on every single subject?" Shelia began.

Everyone nodded. Lily personally preferred the ones that were too busy staring at her tits to the ones that never shut up.

"Well, he's something else entirely. He challenges me on the things we disagree on, but it feels like he's pushing me to grow somehow. Not just trying to get me to capitulate on a topic, if that makes any sense. I could talk to him for hours," Shelia said.

Absolutely no one came to Lily's mind upon hearing Shelia's description. No one. She would swear to it on her Grandmother's grave.

"He's not fooled by me at all either," Shelia explained softly. "It's like in three days he's managed to see into the depth of my soul and just know who and what I am with such certainty…and what's maddest of all is that he likes what he sees! Because that's the difference you know. Most boys only like me until they get to know me and then they just stop. He's different."

Butterflies and rainbows and a million other beautiful metaphors bloomed in Lily's stomach. She was intoxicated. Everything Shelia discussed, Lily wanted. And God did she want. She felt like her body was splintering into pieces under the sheer force of the wanting inside of her.

"Now you have to tell us who he is," Marlene declared, but Shelia remained enigmatic.

She wasn't yet ready to share her mysterious new lover. He belonged to her in a special, private place and they'd just have to become accustomed to waiting. Her refusal to share, more than anything, did wonders in convincing Lily that Shelia was serious.

All conversation was cut short when the final Gryffindor girl, Mary, entered the room.

With a raised eyebrow, she said, "Lily, I heard you and James tried to turn the prefect meeting into an orgy and started throwing hexes when people refused. Want to give the Hogwarts Daily Mail an exclusive?"

"Oh my God!"


Historical A/N: Whew! So who thought Lily was going to ruin everything for a second there? Even I wasn't sure for a moment, but all is well. Review, drink plenty of water, and have wonderful weekends!