James woke up with a start as something soft and tiny poked his cheeks. He looked around and noticed his glasses were perched on the top of his chest. He put his glasses on and looked at a small boy standing beside him, looking at him expectantly.

"What?" asked James, groggily.

"Your friend, the one with long black hair, told me to wake you up after the Prefect girl had gone down to breakfast." he said it in one breath. James noticed he seemed to be in a hurry.

"What? But why?"

"He thought it'll be funny." the boy said, with his foot gently tapping the floor in impatience.

"Git." muttered James. Had Lily seen him spread out half on the sofa, half on the floor, early in the morning? He groaned at the thought and he put his face in his hands. He then looked up and saw the boy still standing there.

"Why did you even listen to him? You should've gone down to breakfast."

"Your friend said that you'll let me fly on your broomstick later in the evening." the boy said, now smiling widely, all signs of impatience gone.

"That wanker. Fine. Meet me here, around five." said James, as he waved the boy off. He got up and left for his dormitory to get a shower. He thought about last night. He thought about his dream. He was flying on his broomstick and Lily was smiling at him. Smiling. Like she had smiled at him last night. The smile on his face quickly turned into a soft scowl as he remembered that Lily had probably seen him lying about ungracefully in the common room. Now even if she did see him flying gracefully on his broomstick, she'll never smile at him. The thought of flying brought another train of thoughts into James' mind. Who'll be captain this year? There was a good chance of Dorcas becoming a captain. Dorcas even became their captain for at least two matches when their captain was injured. She was a seventh year too. And while he'd have love to have Dorcas as captain, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy at the thought. The thought of becoming a quidditch captain seemed far fetched when he thought about Dorcas and her experience, her skills, her tact, but the thought also seemed hyper real when he thought about just how many times he had designed plays to beat other teams and the plays have never failed them or how he had been the one who had trained most of their new recruits late into the evenings. He too had put in a hell lot of work for his team, as much as Dorcas, he noted. He sighed as he dismissed the thought thinking that he still had his seventh year to look forward to as a captain, while for Dorcas this was the last year at school.


Lily had woken up half an hour later than usual and had hurried down hoping to avoid one dark haired boy only find him sleeping on an armchair in the common room. At least he's asleep, she thought in relief. As she got down, she got a closer look at him. One of his legs was perched on the arm rest, while the other was thrown carelessly on the floor, his mouth was slightly agape, his glasses were almost about to fall off the end of his nose, and so was his wand from his pocket. He looked flushed and Lily knew without even having touched him that his skin must be warm. James stirred in his sleep pulling Lily out of her thoughts. She looked at him and was about to leave when her instincts to correct disorderly things tickled the ends of her fingers. She looked around for anyone that may see her committing what she would consider an offence. There was only a first year, everyone else had gone down to breakfast. She hesitated as the first year looked at her as if he knew something, but another look at James softened her a bit. His glasses were now pinching his nostrils and he was having trouble breathing. She carefully slid his glasses off and saw James take in a deep breath through his nose and almost automatically closed his agape mouth. She put his glasses on his chest, pushed his wand back in his pocket, she grabbed the wrist of one of his hands that was dangling down and placed it carefully on his chest. His skin was warm. If Satan knew his kid looked so innocent while sleeping, he'd disown him, Lily thought to herself. James stirred again. Lily turned around and almost sprinted towards the portrait hole hoping James wouldn't get a glimpse of her. She made her way to the Great Hall and after spotting her friends she went over to sit down with them.

"Why didn't you guys wake me up?" asked Lily as she sat down between Peter and Mary. Lily had cordial relationship with Mary, one of her four dorm mates. Mary too was incredibly good at charms and Lily loved exploring and practising charms books and spells with Mary when they had some free time on their hands. Marlene and Hestia sat across from her.

"It's Saturday Lily, plus you returned from your patrol so late. We thought we'd let you sleep in." replied Mary, kindly.

"Did you see, James? Sprawled out like a sloth." giggled Marlene.

"Maybe he got kicked out of his dormitory." joined in Mary.

"What'd you think he did?" asked Marlene.

"Insulted Black's pretty face." said Hestia rolling her eyes.

"Look at that, Jones thinks I'm pretty." came Sirius' rich voice from behind them as he slipped between Lily and Peter, now sitting directly in front of Hestia.

"Pretty barmy." replied Hestia, with her characteristic straight face on.

"Where have you been?" asked Marlene as she buttered her toast.

"Nowhere you need to know." replied Sirius a bit curtly. Marlene was taken aback at this. Sirius had just gone to visit Remus in the hospital wing. His basic instinct was to snap at anyone who asked about his whereabouts in general let alone when he went to visit Remus before the full moon. Sirius looked cowardly at Marlene, but she had gone back to buttering her toast, more forcefully than before, Sirius noted. He turned to Lily.

"So Lily, enjoyed the beautiful view in the common room?"

"I'd hardly call it beautiful." replied Lily rolling her eyes, although she could feel the insides of her wrists tingling at the thought of James Potter sleeping, his hair falling into his eyes. He looked so huge sprawled out like that. Lily couldn't ever remember looking at him and thinking that's one big boy. She had always thought she could take James down in a fist fight without breaking a sweat. But today he looked huge almost like a troll. A very pretty troll though, a voice in her head said. His arm was so long that his hand that had been dangling down the armchair was almost resting on the floor. He had long fingers too. She could almost imagine his fingers always itching to annoy someone.

"Morning everyone." said James as settled next to Marlene. Lily looked up at him as he helped himself to some eggs. He was avoiding her. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. At least now she wouldn't have to avoid him. Nobody spoke for for a few moments until Hestia broke the silence.

"Wrong foot, Black." she drawled, not looking up from her newspaper. Everyone looked up at Sirius curiously, Marlene had a small smile playing on her lips, James was laughing, Sirius had choked on his tea, Lily and Peter were desperately patting Sirius' back hoping to stop him from coughing.

"What do you mean, wrong foot?" asked Peter as he now passed a clean napkin to Sirius to wipe off his mess. Marlene looked alarmed, Sirius did too but he was in no state to speak.

"If you're going to be playing footsie with your boyfriend, at least familiarise yourself with his foot." replied Marlene, looking a bit flushed.

"Okay, we may let you joke about Sirius being my boyfriend but we sure as hell don't play footsie." defended James.

"You keep telling yourself that." replied Hestia, smiling. Everyone except James and Sirius laughed.


The rest of the day went by peacefully. It was a sunny day outside and most of the students had brought their boards games and books to the grounds. Marlene and Sirius had spent half their time debating whether the Slytherin boys would look better wearing skin fitting cloaks or if the girls would look better with a collar bone length beard. They still hadn't come to a conclusion. James and Peter were huddled away from where Sirius, Marlene, Hestia and Lily were sitting, talking quietly. Hestia had been avoiding meeting her boyfriend, faking a headache and pretending to look sick. When Marlene and Sirius had left to put their plans for Slytherins to test, Lily had closed the book she had been reading and turned to Hestia.

"Hestia is there something you want to talk about?" asked Lily, looking at Hestia.

"Not really. Why?"

"You've been avoiding Rufus."

"I haven't been avoiding anyone. I'm just sick." defended Hestia.

"You know it's really difficult rolling one's eyes that far back in the head when one has a headache." said Lily, trying to suppress a smile. Rolling eyes whenever Sirius and Marlene were around had become Hestia's second nature.

"I just don't feel like being around him for some time." replied Hestia, not giving away everything, but not lying either.

"Why?" asked Lily.

"I don't know why." said Hestia, looking down on her lap, hoping Lily wouldn't probe further. Nothing made her more uncomfortable than people probing her to tell her feelings out loud. She could easily tell people off, but Lily was her friend. And she knew that friends tend to share (in her opinion over share) things, thoughts, feelings. Hestia had never been someone to share her feelings. She liked them hidden away, known only to her, so her friends won't look at her with pity when things don't go the way she wants them to. The pressure and tradition of sharing one's thoughts with their friends had made her pull a straight face at all occasions so no one would know her enough to tell when she was troubled. But as they say, she thought with an internal sigh, friends know you better than you do yourself.

"I'm just asking to know if it's okay if one starts feeling differently about a person out of the blue." said Lily.

"I suppose yeah. But I can't say for sure. Sometimes you think you've successfully suppressed some feelings, but they just come right back up, unannounced." replied Hestia, her mind slightly wavering off to the thoughts of Remus in the hospital wing.

"You don't feel the same for Rufus?" asked Lily, knowing she was treading on thin ice. Hestia didn't like letting anyone in on the things she decided to stow away in her mind. The situation with Rufus seemed to be one of them.

"I do. I mean, I still adore him, but it's sort of gone you know? Earlier I used to love listening to him talk. And I feel horrible admitting it, but now I just can't take it anymore. I feel like I've reached my saturation point of listening to him. Merlin, I feel so pathetic just saying that out loud." answered Hestia, as she put her head in her hands. Lily reached out and grabbed Hestia's hands and pulled them away from her face.

"There's nothing wrong in being exhausted, or being just done with it. You're only human. You're not pathetic. You're one of the kindest people I know and it's okay if you're tired and need some time to yourself to think things through." said Lily, consolingly. Hestia didn't look up. She quietly pulled her hands from Lily's and got up.

"Yeah you're right. I think I just need to be alone for a while. Will you be alright here? Do you wanna come too? Don't suppose Marlene and that chipmunk are gonna show up anytime soon." offered Hestia, making an attempt at a smile.

"I'll be fine, go ahead." replied Lily, smiling kindly at her. Lily watched Hestia's retreating figure. Hestia was a confident, bold girl, that had, nearly four years ago, told a fourth year Lucius Malfoy to go fuck himself when he had called Lily a mudblood. While Lily and Marlene had been the best of friends right from the first night at Hogwarts, Hestia had pretty much kept to herself, until that day. It was their second year and the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts were taking place. Marlene was flying with the rest of the players while Lily and most of the Gryffindor kids were watching them from the stands. Lucius Malfoy had shown up and had asked Lily to leave, as the sport was too sacred to have any filth lying around it or its spectators. But before he could finish the word Mudblood, Hestia was on her feet, pushing Lucius to the ground.

"At least none of us has to walk around with the filth that fills your head and is stuffed up your bottom. I'd tell you to go fuck yourself but you're too thick to do even that." Hestia had spat at his lying figure on the ground. Lucius had scurried off, muttering something along the lines of "you'll pay for this".

Lily had been so scared because she didn't understand what was so bad about whatever that had happened that the quietest girl in their class had to say things that could land her a detention if she said them in the presence of a teacher. Lily had started packing her bag to leave. Maybe the boy was right. She had no knowledge or interest in the game, she was there only to watch her friend try out for the team. Maybe the people who didn't have much care for the game weren't allowed near it, some sort of tradition maybe, she had thought. Hestia, however, had different plans. She had grabbed Lily's bag and sat her down. For the next hour, Lily had listened to Hestia telling her all about the rules of Quidditch, the balls, the players. Then she had told her about the school teams, after that the quidditch clubs and then the national teams and the Quidditch World Cup. Lily was sure she had listened more to Hestia in that one hour than she had listened to her in the past school year.

Hestia had then told her about the M-word Lucius had used and all she could tell her about the pureblood mania that was slowly gaining momentum. It was the only time Lily had seen the calm on Hestia's face disturbed. Hestia had told Lily to make herself an indispensable part of this world. To not think of quidditch as just a sport you couldn't care for. To know everything about everything, because when time would come, the purebloods would use anything and everything to justify why the muggle borns shouldn't be a part of this world. And no muggle born should give them that pleasure, Hestia has told her. Lily had held on to that advice and the adviser for her dear life.

That day Lily had kept awfully quiet while Marlene had talked about her tryouts. Later at dinner time, some more Slytherins had cornered Hestia in the Entrance Hall. Marlene had noticed the ruckus and had called James, Sirius and some of the Gryffindor seniors to the Entrance Hall. The Gryffindor Prefects had sorted the matter out, however, Marlene, James and Sirius had rounded up on Hestia to ask what the matter was. When Hestia had finally told the group what had happened earlier that day, Marlene had hugged Hestia and had told her that she was a badass that Marlene wanted to be. Marlene, Sirius, James, Peter, Hestia and Remus had gathered all the Gryffindors in the common room around Lily to tell her that this castle was home to her just as much as it was to everyone else and before she could tell, she was drowning under the weight of all the hugs she was receiving from everyone. Although admittedly, that weight was far more comforting than it was painful. James and Sirius had taken it upon themselves to tell everyone how Lucius was kicked to the dirt by a second year Gryffindor for bullying. James and Sirius had been extra protective of Lily and Hestia from then on whenever they had their lessons with the Slytherins (they still very much are).

Getting Hestia to come out of her shell was difficult. She wasn't used to the normal ways of showing affection. She wasn't fond of hugs, while Marlene practically distributed hugs throughout the school to anyone who might need it or even to those who didn't. Hestia rarely talked about her family or anything that could give away the nature of her relationships with anyone she was close to. Very soon, after small quarrels and days of not speaking to each other, they had realised that every one had their Achille's heels. The three girls had found friendship to be one of those gambles of life where one has to risk it all and hope for the best. They carefully avoided conversing about topics that any one of the three might find uncomfortable. They adopted to each other's way of showing affection. Hestia would give Marlene a hug whenever they'd meet after holiday breaks. Marlene would let Hestia sleep in her bed on whenever Hestia was on her period (everyone knew better than to even sit on Marlene's bed which she was unnecessarily possessive of). On regular days, Hestia would always keep something packed from the kitchens in her bag, knowing Marlene gets hungry during lessons. Lily would prepare a timetable for all three to follow, for which Hestia was eternally grateful for, because Merlin knew how much Hestia despised making timetables. Marlene and Lily would make sure to unclutter their dormitories every weekend. Hestia in their first year would do it herself every weekend and she continued doing it in till their third year, without asking anyone to help her. Marlene and Lily didn't know just how much cluttered spaces bothered Hestia until one day when she had the flu and she asked them to unclutter it. The two girls had set off to work almost immediately because this was the first thing Hestia had asked of them ever since they became friends a year ago. However, when they were half way through with uncluttering, they realised it wasn't half as easy as they thought it was.

"Merlin Lily, where does all this stuff come from? What do the elves do?"

"They only have to clean the space, take out the trash, straighten the sheets. They don't touch the stuff that we use but keep thrown under our beds." Lily had replied, pushing her hair back.

They had resolved that they would do this every weekend because no one should be left with this task alone. And so they did. Hestia of course noticed it, because Lily and Marlene would find a bowl of pudding at their side tables that day right before bedtime. Marlene and Lily had realised that while Hestia had earned herself the reputation of someone who doesn't show much affection, she, of the three of them was the one that showed most of it, in her actions more than in words.

Lily dragged her thoughts away from Hestia and realised that she too had some business to take care of. She grabbed her bag and pulled out James' jersey and his sweatpants that he had lent her. There was also the note she had found in his pocket, that had her initials on it. She looked down at it. She was sure that the initials scribbled on it were L and E. But she had spent quite some time figuring out what else the letters could be. She had shown the parchment to a first year and without so much as a second look he had told her it was L.E. and that she should consider getting her eyes checked by madam Pomfrey. For some reason her pulse was getting a wee bit quicker, as she looked over at where James and Peter were sitting. It could be anyone's initials, she thought, and placed the parchment on the top of his jersey, as she walked towards where James and Peter sat under the tree.


A/N: I'm so sorry for updating so late. I've been drowning in work. Who thought staying at home would turn out to be more busying than attending regular university? Not me.

Anyway CharlotteReading and the guest, Validray, thank you for your review, it made my day!

There was another guest review, I'm guessing it's Validray again? Do correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway so the guest review on chapter 8 saved my life (not literally lol) because i remember proof reading the chapter and having to change the name from Hestia to Marlene at some point, and I can't believe i did that mistake twice and just skimmed over it while proof reading (I've updated the chapter with the correct name) Thank you so much for pointing that out.

Regarding the perspective thing, i do seem to have a problem, because i keep messing it up(?) because i so want to write about what the other character is thinking while we're still in someone else's perspective. It's a stupid urge that i always give into but i suppose it'll have to stop, too many people have pointed it out now xD.

Hope you guys enjoy reading this fic. Love ya so much xoxo