"James! Pssst, James! Wake up!"

James raised his head slowly, unsure of where he was and of what he was supposed to be doing. Through his sleepy eyes he barely managed to recognize he was in the library, and that he had apparently used the school's copy of Advanced Potion-Making as a pillow.

The sun was setting and projected a soft orange glow through the windows, directly onto Sirius, who was holding James's shoulder and still shaking it gently.

"You good mate?"

"Yeah, yeah, m'fine," answered James, quickly wiping the drool off his chin. "What's up?"

"I've been looking all over for you," said Sirius precipitately, lowering his voice and looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening. "I stole Sluggy's bottle of Blishen's Firewhisky, I need you to hide it."

"What?"

James shook his head to chase the confusion caused by his unprompted nap, and finally recognize the shape of what Sirius was hiding underneath his robe.

"What?" James repeated, trying to wrap his head around what he had just heard.

"I need to get back to the dungeons for my detention, Sluggy could come back any minute, just... just hide this okay?"

Sirius shoved the glass bottle in James' hands and ran off without waiting for an answer. James stared blankly at the label which proclaimed "King of Whiskies" before coming back to his senses and quickly move the bottle under the table, out of sight of the other students.

Just a few seconds ago, he was apart of a wonderful dream involving copious and unhealthy amounts of chocolate frogs and sugar quills. Now, he had been dragged into a serious crime and made an accomplice by association. James smiled.

Finally a prospect for an exciting evening.

He jumped to his feet, closing the school manual in the same movement. The library was almost empty of people, as it was still very early in the school year and curfew was coming up for the younger students. James tried to remember the reason as to why he was in the library in the first place, but failed to come up with a reasonable explanation.

"Guess I'm just going crazy then," he mumbled to himself.

His school bag being nowhere to be seen, James had no other choice than the hide the bottle behind his back and walk like a crab past Madam Pince's desk.

Once in the thankfully empty hallway, he got out his wand in an effort to downsize the bottle to make it easier to carry, a quick second before remembering Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration. Unsure of what exactly was the exception and of whether or not whisky could be considered as food, James chose not to take the risk and rather hide the bottle inside his robe like Sirius had done minutes before.

He was briskly walking in direction of the Gryffindor Tower when his brain started racing.

Sirius was alone in detention with Slughorn, who would notice probably immediately that his whiskey was gone. His suspicions would be drawn to the closest person by, and then it would be too easy to send an elf to their dorm room to look for the bottle. Not to mention that the vials of Polyjuice they had stolen the year before were still sitting underneath Remus' bed.

James picked up the pace. The stakes were higher than he had anticipated.

He ran back to the common room, still clutching the bottle under his robe. Once in the dorm, he laid on the floor to pick up the dusty vials of Polyjuice and threw them all in his schoolbag along with the whiskey bottle.

The one place they used whenever they needed storage was the abandoned classroom on the second floor, also known as Peeve's room. No one other than the Marauders ever dared to come in and risk getting on the nerves of the poltergeist, who was surprisingly very comfortable with letting four Gryffindors use the place as they wished.

James threw his bag over his shoulder and left the common room in a hurry. What he had not thought of was that each of his movements triggered an alarming sounds of glass bottles knocking into each other.

Either he could move suspiciously slow to avoid any unwanted noise, or he could race across the hallways and take the chance that none of the bottles would break and that no one would dare to stop him. He tried the first option for a short while, before running out of patience and sprinting like a madman to the second floor.

As he busted in Peeve's room, panting, he came to an abrupt stop. For a moment, he wondered he if was still dreaming, which would be the only way to explain the absurdity of the situation.

Lily was here, as white as a ghost, stood on top of one of the desks, a letter crumpled up in her hand.

They stared at each other without saying anything for a few seconds which seemed eternal to James. It was Lily who finally broke the silence.

"I can explain."

"Please do."

"There is justification for all of this."

"I bet."

James was desperately trying to stay as still as possible to keep the glass bottles from moving around in his school bag and draw Lily's attention.

"I came here to write a letter for my sister," she explained with a shy smile. "I've been using this room since you showed it to me last year. Peeves doesn't bother me much since he saw me talking to the Bloody Baron one time. Besides, it is so much quieter here than in the common room and Madam Pince wont allow me back in the library ever since I accidentally, totally not on purpose threw House Elves & How to obtain their submission into the fire."

"Bold."

"Thank you."

"Doesn't explain why you're standing on the table though, does it?"

"Oh yeah, I saw a huge spider over there and I have no idea where it went."

"WHAT?" exclaimed James, scrambling onto the nearest chair.

He threw a panicked glance over the entire room before realizing just how noisy his precipitated movements had been, and that Lily was now eying his backpack suspiciously.

"Mind telling me what's in there?" she asked innocently.

"How about I don't tell you, and in exchange I don't tell anyone you're scared of spiders?" negotiated James.

"Deal."

"Well, that was easier than anticipated," he laughed nervously.

"Shut up, I need this, I have to keep my reputation as a badass."

"You have a reputation as a badass?"

"No," answered Lily, smiling from ear to ear this time. "I really want one though."

Their shared laughter echoed onto the walls of the small room before it returned to an unbothered silence that lasted an awfully long and awkward minute.

"Thank you, for what you said to Marlene at the try-outs," said Lily finally, the corners of her mouth lifting just slightly. "It was... well, it was kind."

James shrugged, embarrassed.

"She told you about that?" he asked, ruffling up his hair with his free hand in an effort to look less awkward.

"She did. She told me she was insecure and you made her feel better. That's not something I ever expected to see from you so I was pleasantly surprised."

"What can I say, I guess I'm growing up," James smiled.

"I would like to see that," said Lily quietly, as James wiggled uncomfortably on the chair, causing the bottles to rattle once more.

Lily was smiling but her eyes looked sad and James tried to remember the last time he had heard this tone coming from her mouth. Perhaps even it was the first time her voice had ever been this soft.

"I'm gonna go," she continued, "something tells me you have important business to carry with whatever's in that bag."

She got down from the desk carefully and walked to the door with an extra bounce of confidence which was probably just compensation. James was still debating whether or not he should say something when she closed the door behind her.

Immediately coming off whatever spell he seemed to be under when Lily was around, James leaped from his chair as far away as possible from where the spider supposedly had been. He quickly took all of the bottles out of his bag before lining them up in a corner of the room and placing an old and dusty map over them.

He then ran out of the classroom, hoping to catch up with Lily and potentially walk back to the common room with her. And for the second time that night, he stopped dead in his tracks when he was confronted to the situation on the other side of the door.

Severus Snape froze as well and his eyebrows rose high on his forehead as he stared down at James.

"What were you doing in there with Lily?"

"Well that's none of your business now, is it?" blurred out James as his cheeks turned red.

"Don't get smart with me. You're forgetting I know what Lupin is," Snape spat. "I haven't said anything because of what happened back at the Willow. Because I thought I owed you. Then you and your little puppy had to humiliate me in front of the school. In front of her. I don't owe you shit."

"The thing is..." started James between grind teeth, anger rising fast inside his chest, "you haven't really been keeping your mouth shut, have you? Otherwise I wouldn't have been forced to do what I've done."

"Keep giving yourself excuses for being a worthless bully. You think you're so much better than me? You're not."

James bit his tongue. He thought about that a lot. Was he really better? Or was he trapped in an endless circle of violence and bullying, condemned to always do exactly what he knew was so wrong, because Snape appealed to his ego and pride.

"Actually I am," he replied finally, turning his face ever so slightly to show the thin scar that spread on his left cheek. "You did this to me just a few months ago."

"I was defend-"

"Shut up and let me finish," interrupted James coldly.

He opened the first few buttons of his shirt and tugged at the collar, revealing the extremity of a much larger silver scar starting from his collarbone.

"You did this to me too."

"I didn-"

"Yes, you did. I don't care that it was Sirius's fault that I got hurt. You left me there to die. To bleed out on the floor. You did that in cold blood and for what? Some petty school rivalry? Better yet, for Lily? Wake up Severus, there is a war going on as we speak. And from what I can tell it's pretty clear which side you're on."

Snape's face had turned greyish and he looked as sick as ever, standing there with his arms at his sides, his greasy hair falling flat on his cheeks. For the first time in years, James didn't see the enemy in him. He just saw a boy.

"Listen," James continued, softening his tone just a little bit. "We can go back and forth arguing about who's the bigger dick here but it would last forever. How about we just leave each other alone for a minute?"

After a few seconds, Snape nodded so imperceptibly that James would have missed it if he had blinked.

"Please don't tell anyone about Remus," he continued. "He's not dangerous. Dumbledore knows it."

Snape's jaw remained firmly clenched as he turned heel and walked away.