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Lily followed him out of the hall, bewildered. What could he possibly have to ask that was making him so nervous?

They walked across the Entrance Hall, and into one of the unused classrooms near the marble staircase. Brad lit the candles with his wand and they both sat down on one of the desks.

Lily opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but Brad cut her off.

"Lily, I really like you, and I wanted to know…will you go out with me?"

Lily was shocked and didn't know what to say. Brad was gorgeous, funny, sweet, charming…but there was something holding her back and she didn't know why. She remembered what James said when Lily had told him who she was going to the dance with.

"After all that shit you give me and Sirius about being Playboys, you're going to the dance with Brad Davies? He's worse than us! Well, no he's not, but he would be if he had our skills…"

She knew that James was probably exaggerating. Brad was the Ravenclaw quidditch captain, and James was the captain for Gryffindor, so they had disliked each other for a while. Plus, Lily could tell that Brad really liked her, or else he wouldn't be so nervous. So if it wasn't what James had said that was stopping her what was it? Brad was like the perfect guy, but it just wasn't enough. He wasn't…James.

Lily felt her heart drop down into her stomach as that thought ran through her had. She had known somewhat in the very back of her mind for weeks now, but she chose to not believe it. But now, she had admitted it to herself and there was no going back. She, Lily Evans, had fallen for James Potter.

"Lily say something," Brad said, uneasily.

"I-I'm sorry, I can't," Lily said, tears forming in her eyes and threatening to fall.

She turned and ran out of the classroom, but instead of going back to the dance she went upstairs to Gryffindor tower. She couldn't handle being around other people right now; she needed to be alone to sort out her feelings. Lily stepped into the Common Room and immediately made her way up to her dorm; ignoring the questioning looks she was getting from all the Gryffindors below sixth year that weren't allowed to attend the dance. She stepped inside and fell backwards onto her bed, the tears slowly falling down her face.

Lily couldn't believe she had let this happen. She was always the sensible one of the group. How had she fallen for James Potter, the infamous marauder, playboy extraordinaire, who she had utterly despised ever since she was eleven? And of course, she couldn't have fallen for him during the six years he had been trying to win her heart, it had to be as soon as he finally got over her and began to like someone new.

Lily felt sick as she remembered what she had done to him at the beginning of the year, how cruel she had been the morning she had dumped him; she had completely ruined her chances with him that day. On top of all this, she was now beginning to feel guilty for hurting Brad like that; she had just waked out on him with no explanation.

She decided to go back to the dance and explain to him what had happened. She got up off of her bed, fixed her makeup, and descended the stairs to the common room. In the common room she again ignored the weird looks the younger Gryffindors were giving her as she made her way towards the portrait hole. She climbed out of it and walked down towards the Great Hall, going over what she was going to say to Brad in her mind. She desperately needed somebody to talk to, but she was going to try and wait until the morning; she really didn't want to ruin anybody else's night.

Halfway down the second floor corridor, Lily heard somebody call her name, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Lily, why aren't you at the dance?"

She looked up and spotted Remus walking towards her, looking as depressed as she felt. Her heart leapt when she saw him, he was the perfect person to talk to.

"Remus! We need to talk, now." She grabbed him by his arm and pulled him into an empty classroom. As soon as he was sat down at a desk, Lily immediately began to explain the events of tonight as she paced back and forth.

By the time she was finished, she saw that Remus was grinning.

"It's not funny!" she cried indignantly. "Now on top of knowing that I like James and that I completely ruined any chance I had with him, I feel horrible for hurting Brad like I did."

Remus laughed, "Yes, it is funny. James has been chasing you around for six years. Now that you think he's finally over you and likes somebody else, you like him."

Lily stopped pacing and stared at Remus. "What do you mean now that I think he's over me? He likes Jenna now, doesn't he?"

"He says he likes her, but come on, you can't just get over a six year crush in a few weeks. I know he still has feelings for you. You need to tell him how you feel."

"But that could ruin our friendship…"

Remus laughed again. "Didn't we have this exact conversation a few hours ago about me and Sammi?"

"Yeah, but…it's different with you two."

"No, it's not. You were right; we can't live our lives regretting things like this. You're going to tell James, and I'm going to tell Sammi, and we're going to hope for the best."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But what about Brad? I feel so bad about what I did to him."

Remus rolled his eyes. "He got over it pretty quick. He came up to Toni and asked her to dance. She asked where you were and he said you weren't feeling well and left. She went to dance with him and they were looking pretty cozy together, so I decided to come and look for you;  I didn't feel like staring at Sammi and Amos anymore and I could tell Brad was lying anyway."

Lily felt slightly better now that she knew that Brad was most likely faking liking her. Normally that would have pissed her off, but right now she had bigger things to worry about.

"Right, then I don't think I'm going back to the dance. Want to go back up to the Common Room and play some chess? We'll just tell everybody at the dance that we didn't feel good and needed to lie down."

Remus smiled and nodded. "Best idea I've heard all night."

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*Two weeks later*

            Lily sat in Charms lost in thoughts about the boy in front of her. It had been two weeks, and she still hadn't told James how she felt. With each passing day her feelings for him were getting deeper and more painful, but she just couldn't tell him. He and Jenna were now a happy couple, and it killed her every time she saw them together. She loved everything about him, and she didn't understand how she had despised him for so long. All day and night she sat and thought about how she had hurt him in the beginning of the year, and she hated herself for it.

            "Hello, earth to Lily!"

            Lily looked up and saw her friends standing over her, laughing. The class had ended and everybody else had left. She blushed and stood up, gathering her things.

            "Oh, sorry, I'm just tired."

            As she, Sammi, Dylan, Ashley, and Toni walked down to the Great Hall for dinner, Dylan suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty classroom. The other girls followed.

            "Talk," Toni said, as she, Dylan, Sammi, and Ashley stared at Lily.

            "What?" Lily said, bewildered.

            "You've been acting really weird lately, something's up. Talk to us, we're your best friends, we're here for you." Ashley said concernedly.

            Lily bit her lip, she couldn't decide whether to tell them or not. They were her best friends, but she just didn't think they'd understand; she still really didn't understand how it had happened herself. She racked her brains for a suitable excuse to her behavior that she could use until she was ready to tell the truth.

            "Nothing, it's nothing. I've just been thinking about my parents a lot lately. I'm turning seventeen Saturday, and they're not around to see it. Come on, let's just go to dinner."

            She walked out of the room before the other girls could respond and they had no choice to follow her and wait till later to talk more.

            The five girls entered the Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table with Remus, Peter and Sirius. Lily stared at her plate, once again lost in thought about James while everybody around her talked and laughed. She didn't know how much more of this she could take; it was destroying her life. She was suddenly snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Sirius yell across the hall, "Hey Prongs, mate,"

            Lily looked up and spotted James walking towards them, his arm around Jenna's waist.

            "Umm, I'm not feeling good, I'm going to go,"

            She jumped up and headed quickly towards the doors of the hall, staring at her feet as she went.

            Sammi slammed her fork down in frustration. "Why won't she tell us what's wrong?" she growled.

            "She's just having a hard time dealing with her parents' death," Remus said, shaking his head. "I'll go talk to her, I'm not hungry anyway."

            He jumped up and followed Lily out the door.

            Dylan stared after him with an eyebrow raised. "Does anyone else here think there's something going on between them, or is it just me?"

            "They've been spending an awful lot of time together recently," Ashley said, nodding.

            "Naw, Remus would tell us if there was," Sirius said, moving his bag away so James and Jenna could sit down.

            "And Lily would tell us," Toni said, reassuringly.

            "Lily would tell you what?" James asked Toni, grabbing everything within his reach and putting it on his plate.

            "Oh, nothing, we were just trying to figure out why she's been acting so weird lately."

            "Yeah, she has been acting really weird," James said thoughtfully. "Kind of depressed. No idea why?"

            Dylan shook her head. "She says it's because of her parents, but I'm not so sure she's telling us the truth."

            "Well whatever it is, we need to cheer her up," Sammi said, worriedly. "I've never seen her like this before."

            "I've got an idea!" Ashley said, her eyes oddly bright. "Her birthday is Saturday, how about we throw her a surprise party?"

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Remus walked through the corridors searching for Lily. He still hadn't found her by the time he had arrived at the portrait hole, so he figured she was in the common room. Sure enough, as soon as he said the password and the portrait swung open, he glimpsed her fiery red hair over the back of one of the armchairs.

"Lily?"

Lily jumped and turned around, but breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it was only Remus. Remus could see the silent tears slowly pouring down her face and knew that she was one of the only people who knew exactly how he felt every time he looked at Sammi. She wasn't going out with Amos yet, but the way she always talked about him hurt exactly the same as it would seeing them together.

"Lily, you have to tell him, you can't do this to yourself. Jenna's my cousin, I love her, and I don't want her to get hurt, but I know the feelings she has for him don't even compare to yours. He's more of a trophy for her than a boyfriend."

Lily shook her head. "I can't tell him…I just can't."

"Well you're going to have to."

"You haven't told Sammi,"

"Well I've tried. It's just hard to get a word in with her babbling on and on about Diggory."

Lily smiled weakly. "It's kind of funny how we always have the same exact problems."

Remus smiled back. "Now we just have to help each other find the solution."

Lily wiped her eyes and stood up. "Wanna go back down to dinner, the others are probably finished by now?"

Remus nodded and they headed down to the Great Hall together.

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YAY! LONGEST CHAPTER YET! OVER 2300 WORDS! Lol sorry I get overly excited about small things. Alright, I know this chapter wasn't up to standard quality wise, none of my recent updates have been, and I'm sorry. I've been extremely stressed out about midterms, and I'm having trouble balancing schoolwork, sports and a social life. That leaves very little time for writing and doing other things I want. There's probably a lot of typos in this chapter, because like I said I have absolutely no free time and I didn't have time to edit this. I'm extremely sorry to say that the next chapter will most likely take two weeks. Midterms are this week and next week, so I'm going to put all of the little time I have into studying.But I assure you, as soon as they're over I'm going to update A LOT more, and the quality of the chapters will be much better. Thanks for being so patient with me! Please review! - Britt