That morning, James woke up with a heavy heart. Finally pinpointing what he had been feeling meant he couldn't ignore it any more. He had to address it head on, and he knew it, and it scared him.

He was ashamed about crying the night before. He knew for sure no one heard him, because his friends would definitely have confronted him about it, had they known. But he still felt weak.

There were days when he felt he couldn't be further away from the little boy so certain to belong in Gryffindor. There were days he felt like he shared nothing with his younger self. Except maybe a body, and memories.

He had lost the confidence, the arrogance. What remained was his sense of self, and his need to maintain his image.

So he slapped a self-assured smile on his face, ruffled up his hair and ran down the dormitory staircase to the common room where his best friends were waiting for him. He tried not to notice that Sirius was standing very close to Remus, buried his jealousy deep down for the moment and began to lead the group to the Great Hall for breakfast.

What he had not anticipated was stumbling on Lily as soon as he slid through the portrait hole leading the corridor.

She was alone, which did not happen often, and James figured her mind must have been elsewhere considering she only noticed him after bumping into him.

"Oh sorry", she blurred out, a second before recognizing the familiar face. "Oh it's you."

James opened his mouth to say something, but remembered their confrontation from weeks earlier and the fact that they hadn't spoken to each other since. He remembered his dream and the past four years, and decided to not tease her today.

"I'm sorry," he said really fast, before walking away as fast as he could without looking like he was running. He had left his friends behind once again but he figured they would understand why. They always all understood the "Evans' Crisis", as Sirius liked to call it.

He waited for them at the turn of a corridor, and surely enough they all had smiles up to their ears when they caught up to him.

"So...?"

"Did you talk to her?"

"What did she say?"

James rose his eyebrows and faked confusion.

"Who?"

Sirius laughed and punched his shoulder.

"The girl you are madly in love with and won't shut up about. Ever."

"Oh, her? She was here?" James turned around, pretending to look around. "Must have missed her, sorry guys."

"Prongs, you really are the worst liar." said Remus, shaking his head.

"She looked rather confused while entering the common room, I hope you didn't accidentally propose or something."

"Haha. I am chocking with laughter Peter," James said with a perfectly straight face, "besides, I already asked her out three times, which is a perfectly healthy and normal amount of times to be rejected, so I'm not looking to increase the number just yet."

He had indeed been rejected by Lily three times before. But what he kept telling himself was that each one of those failed attempts was caused by peer pressure, and phrased as jokes. Nothing heartfelt or even sincere. Just light-hearted banter. So his dignity was safe.

"You're right James, let's keep it at three for now, until Sirius and I teach you how to properly talk to women." Remus said, while Sirius roared with laughter.

James's heart tightened in his chest. Was this a private joke? Did his friends talk about him and his awkwardness around Lily when he was not around? His head started to spin and he knew he was overreacting. It was just an innocent joke.

"I'm hungry," he said coldly.

"You're always hungry," retorted Remus before following him down the corridor.

At the breakfast table, James sat next to Peter while Sirius and Remus sat in front of them. They were all laughing about something Sirius had said, but James was distracted. He was dutifully crushing his already scrambled eggs under his fork when he heard something that made him raise his head.

"Are we talking about Snivellus?"

"We have been for the past ten minutes Prongs, keep up," snorted Peter. "He knows something's up with Moony."

"What?"

Sirius rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.

"You seriously need to get Evans out of your mind for a solid minute and focus on what really matters. Pranks. Making Snivellus feel bad about his greasy face. Quidditch. More pranks."

James made a very serious face.

"You are so right. I can't believe I've been so blind to this world of fun. Evans is forgotten forever."

"That's what I like to hear!"

James laughed before lowering his voice drastically.

"Now catch me up. Snivellus knows about.."

He didn't finish his sentence but gestured vaguely in Remus' direction. Remus rolled his eyes, a habit he picked up from Sirius, and answered in a similar ton of voice:

"Padfoot seems to thinks so, but you know him, he'd say anything to get us to pick on Severus."

Sirius let out a sound of indignation.

"Excuse you, I know what I saw! And I'm not saying we need to pick on him, I'm saying we need to scare him enough for him to stop digging into holes that don't belong to him."

"Firstly, I don't think that's the saying Padfoot. Secondly, no. Thirdly, I'm a prefect, so definitely no. And lastly, what exactly did you see that could make you think that?"

Sirius smiled and leaned forward, inviting his friends to do the same. He took his time before starting his story, making it more dramatic and suspenseful than needed, in typical Sirius fashion. Intrigued, James had totally forgotten about his eggs, and even Lily was far on the back of his mind.

"The year was 1975. In Britain, in a huge beautiful magical castle.."

He was interrupted by a slap on the back of the head coming from Remus, who was looking at him with a mix of fondness and exasperation.

"Can you get to the point, please and thank you? We have classes to attend, we don't have all day."

"Fine. Your loss, I'm a great storyteller when I'm not rushed," Sirius grumbled. "Last night when I was coming back from... well it doesn't matter, I was coming back to the common room late at night and guess who I saw sulking in the shadows in front of our very own Fat Lady? Snivellus himself. Of course, as soon as he saw me he tried to pretend like he wasn't here to spy on who was coming and going from the Gryffindor common room and tried to leave. So when he walked past me I may or may not have - Remus close your ears - tripped him. Everything he was carrying fell on the floor, and I managed to catch a glimpse of his notebook. And I swear to Merlin this is true, but he is keeping a calendar of the moon cycle. Knowing what I know about our dearest Moony here, I don't need to be a genius to understand why this slithering snake was outside the Gryffindor tower with a calendar of the moon cycle."

The group remained silent for a few seconds, processing the information, and trying to come up with a better explanation as to what the hell Severus was doing. It was Remus who broke the silence first.

"Do you think he's gonna tell anyone?"

Peter snorted.

"Do you really expect him not to? Have you met him? Have you met his friends? Sorry Moony, but I wouldn't count on it if I were you."

Remus put his elbows on the table and his face in his hands. The next full moon was a week away and he was pale and skinny. He looked defeated. Sirius placed a protective arm around his shoulders and for once James was glad those two got closer. Remus needed all the support he could get from his friends in this moment.

"I knew this day would come, we couldn't have kept it up forever. But I don't want to leave Hogwarts. I... I don't want to leave you guys."

"Hey, it's not over yet! There's gotta be something we can do to prevent him from outing you!" James started thinking out loud. "Dumbledore is on our side anyways, and so is McGonagall. But we don't have to run to them just yet if we could simply convince Snivellus that Moony is definitely not a werewolf. Feed him made up proof. If he really is as dumb as he looks it won't be difficult."

Sirius kicked him under the table.

"Keep your voice down," he whispered. "And don't say the W-word out loud, you never know who could be listening. Besides, I have a great plan to scare his dirty pants off him, don't you worry Moony, he won't bother us after this."

Both James and Remus frowned, while Peter nodded in approval of Sirius' mystery plan.

"Padfoot, I think you're forgetting something," said James. "Snivellus is Lily's friend and there is no way I'm risking her hating me over another one of your pranks."

"I thought I told you to forget about Evans! Merlin you really must be madly in love if you're choosing her over me and my master prank."

"Shut up, I'm not.."

"I'm not hungry anymore."

Remus had pushed away his plate and stood up. In the flickering light of the magic ceiling, he looked way older than he was. Sirius leaped on his feet and joined him as he walked away from the Gryffindor table.

Peter and James looked at them leave then exchanged a meaningful glance.

This was going to be a difficult year.