A/N & Disclaimer: I know, I kind of settled the whole disclaimer crap, but here, my beta did a great job (A/N WITHIN AN A/N: Hi, Belle!) and she's doing a great job on the prequel... Le Chat Qui Garde La Lune!

  Lily gasped and her eyes widened. There was James, fumbling through her papers calmly, as if he had immediately expected this. As if.. She took a deep breath and stepped into the room, her eyes filling with tears.
  "Hello, Lily." He sort of murmured, meeting her eyes that looked like she was going to cry. "Go ahead, Lily. Explain. I'm ready."
  "Well, it all began when I was running away from Sirius's house." She took a deep breath. "What are you doing here""
  "I was looking for Belle. I guess I found her." James ran his hand through his hair quickly, moving the hand to his neck to massage it nervously. "Continue."
  "I was sitting on a iron bench, all alone and my face stick with tears. And I looked up and saw a pin-up of the Eiffel Tower. So I went to France. That's it." Lily's cold demeanor had returned and she was the high society's queen in a matter of seconds.
  "Is that it, Lily?" James muttered in a low, dangerous voice. "Nothing about coming back as a totally different person and fooling everybody for months?"
  "Not everybody, exactly." She whispered, looking down on the floor. "The others know."
  "Are you telling me that you deceived me? What on earth compelled you to do that?" He roared. "What makes you so special?"
  "How dare you?! You would hardly know what I felt and you hardly have the right to criticize me!" Lily shrieked in reply.
  "I do think I gained that right when you pulled the silk over my eyes and led me to believe you were in France." James spat.
  "I was in France!" The tears were flowing now.
  "You don't get it, do you?" He looked bitterly at the floor and then looked back up.
  "No. YOU don't get it. Do you know how long I cried over you?" Lily spat in response.
  "Probably as if your favorite pet swan had died." James muttered coldly.
  "No, I cried every night for a month. When I stopped crying, I stopped remembering. I stopped remembering the heartbreak, the good times, and it wasn't until my last day in France that I realized that coming back to Hogwarts would mean coming back to you. The identity was never meant to deceive anyone, it was just a defense mechanism." Lily said flatly.
  "Oh, really?" James crossed his arms, not believing a word.
  "You know, I cried that I was away from home, away from Hogwarts, away from my friends and everything I was used to, but the thing I cried about the most is that you didn't come after me." Lily said, choking back a sob. "Are you such a huge hot-shot now?"
  "No. But you, you're a trophy. Kudos to the man that actually captures your attention." James muttered. "You've made a fool of me."
  Lily wanted to tell him he should congratulate himself, but she was too angry. "I am not a conquest, James!"
  "And neither am I!" He shouted.

  "I am not a conquest, James!" The voices flew down the stairs and the accent was in perfect English.
  The Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws looked at each other worriedly.
  "And neither am I!"
 

  "You know what the worst part is about your deception, Lily?" James spat.
  "What?" Lily was crying, she was both sad and angry at the same time.
  "That it worked. Merry Christmas." He thrust a wrapped package into her hands and left the room quickly. Lily made it towards the bed and broke into tears.

  "You!" James spat as soon as he saw Sirius. "You are supposed to be my best friend. All of you are supposed to be my friends. My friends wouldn't lie. My friends wouldn't let me write these letters and, urgh! She was probably laughing every time she received a letter. "Oh, look, there's pitiful little James again, pouring his heart out!" Well, you know what? I did pour my heart out and only to be publicly ridiculed!"
  There was a slamming of a window that made everybody look up.
  "Oh, God. She's going to run." Sirius muttered, darting up the stairs. James and the others followed in pursuit.
 
  "The room is empty. Entirely empty." Coco said. The dresser was no longer white, neither was the bed. In fact, it looked like a fairly normal dormitory. With five beds. She ran her fingers over the sash of the window. The window was making clapping noises in the wind.
  "What's that?" Munguldus asked.
  Remus walked over to where he was pointing. A piece of fluttering parchment could barely restrain itself.

Dear Sirius-
  I do not know if I shall be returning to Hogwarts, but I am pretty sure I will. Send my apologies to all I've hurt, and I will be back on Christmas. Send my love to everyone, and I will catch up with my work at home.
Sorry the letter is so short, but I had to leave quickly.
Love Forever and Always,
Lily

  "James, you know when you asked me a couple of months ago whether I blamed you for chasing Lily away?" Sirius asked after hearing Remus read the letter.
  "Yes." James spat.
  "At that time I didn't blame you. Eh, maybe you could have gone after her, but for all we know she would have refused to come back. But now, I blame you. And if you don't go after her, you can consider our lies even. Mine were public and yours are still on the cruise line down denial." Sirius said wisely. "Well, what are we waiting for? There's homework to be done, Quidditch practices to attend."
  The occupants of the room grumbled and slowly filed out. All except for James. He went over to the window and looked out of it for a moment, then closing it quietly. "I guess you're calling it even, Lils. I guess you're calling it even." He whispered.