A/N: Hey! Again, mass apologies for lack of updates, I'm not going to bore you with the excuses this time, like starting school, getting a new computer and not to mention… whoops, better stop before it gets out of hand :P OK, I'm going straight to the thanking of the reviewers – so, yeah, GraceyLou-Freebush101 (You said it!), webling-girl05, GiddyGirlie, Raekitty13, writerchick13, Luna32, PremzaWitchOfWeirdos and -harlEE- rock my toe socks. Heheh… toe socks.

Disclaimer: If I was JKR, I'd sure as hell be reading Deathly Hallows!

"Oh my God!" said Remus, and he plopped himself down on the floor. Lily and James, who had been enjoying some 'alone time', looked up in confusion and annoyance.

"Yes?" said James in an irritated impression of politeness. Remus was too busy looking appalled to notice.

"My owl's–"

"Pregnant?" Lily suggested, and glanced sideways at a grinning James.

Remus raised an eyebrow. "Yeah… how'd you know?"

"Sell the baby owl." said James. "Snowy owls can be worth heaps."

"Hermia's not a snowy." said Remus, stating the obvious.

"Yeah, but the father is." said James.

"We saw them." said Lily, lip bitten to prevent a sudden outburst of giggles at Remus' face. "Detention."

"Oh, OK." said Remus. "Then I don't need to bother myself with useless suspicions, and begin looking under James' mattress for adult magazines designed for owls."

"Nope." said James casually. "C'mon, we have…" he checked his timetable. "Lunch."

"How could you forget?"

The three walked down Gryffindor Tower and towards the Great Hall, and were joined on the way by Sirius and Kim. The Entrance Hall rang and echoed with the sounds of students at break. They eventually found seats at the Gryffindor table, and dug into a lunch of soup – perfect for the cool weather. Kim pulled out the few questions they were supposed to answer for Assero.

"Hey." Peter had arrived. He sat down in a spot Remus and Sirius had saved for him between them.

There were mumbles of greeting in reply; everyone was more intent on their lunch.

"I didn't get the part about shield charms in Defence Against the Dark Arts." said Peter, glancing at Kim's parchment.

"I didn't hear the part about shield charms in Defence Against the Dark Arts." said Sirius.

"I really didn't understand that whole werewolf thing… in Defence Against the Dark Arts." said Remus quietly. Lily was the only one who heard, and she chuckled. Remus grinned toothily back.

"If you were being attacked by a muggle, you would…?" Kim asked.

"Defence with magic then modify his memory." James reeled off. He turned to Lily. "Hey Lily, I forgot, did you get an invitation to Slughorn's final seventh year party… thing tonight?"

"I thought he'd stopped the stupid things." muttered Sirius. "It's like… The Return Of The Invites From The CPLT."

"CPLT?"

"Crystallised-Pineapple-Loving Teacher."

"Yeah…" said Lily, then continued. "I got one. I don't think I'll go, though."

"I've had it with stupid invitations." said James. "Slughorn... weddings… Sirius' bachelor party… Oh yeah, you heard right, Sirius' bachelor party." He added, as Lily and Kim turned quickly around.

"You're not supposed to have one until the night before you get married!" said Lily exasperatedly, and then looked at Kim. "Hang on, is there something you're not telling me?" she joked.

Sirius shrugged. "Hey, all it says in the name is bachelor party. I'm a bachelor, aren't I?"

"I guess." said Kim. She hit him over the head with a bag that thumped. "No bachelor party."

"Aw." Sirius whined. Kim ignored him and instead read out;

"'If dealing with the Imperius curse what's the best way to avoid total control?' Man, when did we do these? Fifth year?" She wrote something down on her parchment.

"Yeah, but NEWTs are, like, a revision of everything since first year." said Remus.

"Oh." said Sirius, and simply swore.

----------

Despite what they'd said, Lily, James and Sirius all headed down to Slughorn's office that night. As usual, it had been magically enlarged to fit plenty of people, although this party was supposedly only seventh years. They were late – on purpose – and the party was already in full swing when they arrived… or, at least, as much of a full swing as it was likely to get in to.

Some music was playing on an old wireless in the background, and the chatter was short and quiet. A table of finger food draped in a deep purple tablecloth with a thick golden hem was in the corner, and this seemed to be where most of the students were lingering. Slughorn, however, seemed to be having a marvellous time, his walrus-y moustache covered in crumbs from what Lily suspected was cake.

James coughed.

"I'm going to go get something to eat…" muttered Sirius, carefully avoiding Slughorn as he madehis way towards the snack table.

"Hi Prongs, Lily." said Peter.

"Hi?" said Lily, surprised, and turned around to look at him.

"I'm here with Nicky." said Peter. Sure enough, a girl stood behind him. Lily realised she'd never actually seen Nicky up close before. She was quite… well, averagely tall, averagely thin, had averagely cut brown hair, was averagely pretty and just average overall.

"Hi." she said brightly.

"I'm gunna see Sirius." said Peter, and left Lily alone with James and Nicky.

They stood awkwardly for a few seconds.

"I've always been curious," said Nicky, addressing James. "How did you guys get your nicknames?"

"Oh!" said James. He turned to Lily and muttered in her ear; "Why do you girls always want to know that?"

Lily shrugged.

"Well we made them up when we were bored one day. I got 'Prongs', 'cause they said my hair stuck up like a fork's. Peter got 'Wormtail', uh, because his favourite animals have always been rats." said James. Lily was impressed.

"And Sirius and Remus?" she asked.

"Well, Remus is 'Moony' because he was born at a full moon. And Sirius is really good at, like, sneaking around, so we gave him 'Padfoot'."

"That's pretty cool." said Nicky.

"Well we always thought so… or hoped." said James, grinning. Nicky laughed, showing averagely straight teeth.

"I suppose I'd better get back to Peter. Nice to meet you, James… Lily."

They waved as she walked off.

"What was that?" Lily asked.

"I don't know!"

Lily glared.

"I don't know!" James repeated.

She sighed, rolling her eyes dramatically.

"So what did you think of her?' said James.

"She was OK…" said Lily. "Kind of neutral."

"I get what you mean." said James. "She was averagely… average."

"Mmm. Like this party." said Lily, indicating the room in front of them.

"No, this party is lamely lame."

"Uh-huh."

"That didn't make sense, did it?"

"Nope."

"And if it isn't our Head Boy and Girl!" boomed Slughorn. He waddled their way slowly.

"Oh, damn." James whispered. Lily snorted reluctantly.

"Hi, Professor Slughorn." said Lily. James half-heartedly waved his hand.

"Good evening, good evening." said Slughorn. "Doesn't it seem like a long time since we were in here, having one of my little parties?"

"Oh, yeah." said James. Lily hoped Slughorn didn't notice the sarcasm, but if he did he didn't show it.

"I just couldn't let you all graduate before having one last get together." He said. Lily and James nodded. Slughorn cracked a smile "So you two finally got together! I always knew you would, you know. All those years chasing her, Potter! But you've made a good choice, you know, Lily."

"That's what everyone's saying…" said Lily.

"I don't suppose anyone will know what it was that brought you two together?"

"No one but us, sir." Lily's voice was lilting with humour. She smiled as she imagined the Potions professor's face if she'd told him all about

"Yep." said James shortly.

"I'll go and have a little chat to Miss Jones, then." said Slughorn. "Enjoy yourselves!"

James waited until he was out of earshot until he let out a sharp, irritated breath.

"What's up with you?" asked Lily.

"I don't like him that much, you know that."

"But why?"

"Because! He's warm to you and me and Sirius etcetera, but he's not as nice to Remus, or Peter, or Kim! And he's Head of Slytherin!"

Lily blinked. "Okay, fair enough."

"I'm gunna go get a bite, do you want something?" said James casually.

"Yeah. Just grab me something small – I had heaps for dinner."

She listened to the music, bored, and waited until James returned. When he did, Sirius came with him.

"Hey," said Sirius, crumbs spraying from his mouth. "Just met Nicky."

"What do you think?" said Lily. Sirius shrugged, and swallowed.

"She's alright. Nothing too special."

"She must be something special, or Slughorn wouldn't have invited her." said James. Lily had to admit that this was a good point.

"She's probably really smart or something. Makes you wonder why Peter liked her in the first place." said Sirius, and took another bite if a brown, spongy cake that was part of the pile he was holding in a napkin. "Prongs, you've got to try this mud cake, man."

"I'm fine, thanks." said James. The remaining mud cake, which was a brown pile not yet properly digested by Sirius, didn't look that appetising.

"Your loss. Why d'you reckon Remus' never been invited to one of these?"

"Dunno."

"'Cause, you know, he's, like, really smart." Sirius finished the sentence along with the mud cake.

"I guess he's just not invited because of his furry little problem." James said. "It's going to be hard for him to find good work, and Slughorn wouldn't suck up to him if he didn't expect to get anything in return."

"James…"

"And Kim." Sirius added. "And Peter can be pretty smart, when he's paying attention."

"No he can't." said James, and they laughed hysterically.

"Merlin," said Lily. "You know, sometimes I feel like you and Sirius would make a better couple than we do!"

"That's probably true." said James, and when Lily put on an angry face, he continued; "Sorry?"

"You should be. If that happened, I'd have to pair up with Remus."

"Or Kim." joked James.

Sirius slapped his hand on James' arm for attention, staring off into space. "You know, mate, that's not really a bad idea."

"Ugh." said Lily. "I'm going to be searching for intellectual company."

She took a bit of a walk around the office. She was cornered again by Slughorn, chatted vaguely with a few Ravenclaw girls she knew from Arithmancy, journeyed to the snacks table (and found that Sirius had indeed been right, when not reduced to regurgitated mush, the mud cake was fairly good), and grumpily made her way back to the two boys in annoyed resolution that they were really the most interesting people to be with at the whole party.

A/N: Look, I know updates are taking a while, truth be told, this is the LAST chapter I'll ever write that should take this long – coz every other chapter is planned out, and more interesting than the last few, hopefully. To be totally honest, I was running out of some ideas for chapters! That problem, however, is fixed now, so much faster updates are probable – but no promises. No matter how long the wait, you can be sure that this fic will definitely be finished – if only, but certainly not just because, one of the things that annoys me the most is writers that leave fics unfinished. Soo… review and you'll get a parcel of chocolate in the mail.