The class was filing into the charms classroom. There were three more minutes till class started so Lily made her way up to Professor Flitwick's desk.

"Professor, may I ask you a question?" Lily asked as she approached his desk where he was looking over his lesson plan.

"Why, of course, Miss Evans," Professor Flitwick squeaked as he looked up at Lily.

"I was wondering if you still have a spot open in your advanced charms class." Lily said nervously.

"Why yes I do have a few open spots. Have you decided to take the class?" He asked.

"Well, yes I was hoping to." Lily answered letting out the breath she didn't know she was holding.

"That's wonderful!" Professor Flitwick squeaked loudly. "I'll talk to Minerva about fitting it into your schedule."

"Thank you so much" Lily said as she turned around to go back to her seat. She started walking toward the desk that Cat and Jo were already sitting in, in the second row. Anna and Sam were sitting at a desk behind them.

"So, Evans, you decided you weren't smart enough and had to take more classes." A voice came from the back of the other side of the room. It was James. Who else would it have been? He was taking his seat at a desk with Sirius while Remus and Peter took the desk right next to them.

"You're an arse. You know that?" Lily shot back taking her seat between Jo and Cat without looking at him.

"But a cute one," James smirked and winked. Lily's face lost all of its color then turned a very flattering shade of red in James' opinion. She didn't even have to turn around in to look at his face to know he was smirking, she could hear it in his voice.

"How could you say that?" Lily said immediately turning to Anna. She was trying her best not to scream her head off.

"How do you know it was me?" Anna replied defensively.

"Because Sam was at the Hufflepuff table, Jo doesn't say very much to people, and Cat knows I would kill her." Lily said in a matter of fact tone.

"Well I didn't mean to." Anna said still trying to defend herself. "It just popped out!"

"Whatever…" Lily muttered. She slouched down in her seat wishing she could disappear and never reappear... well not in front of James anyway. 'Why do I even care what he thinks? I don't! Really, I don't. He can think whatever he wants! I don't care!' That's what she told herself anyway.

On the other hand James couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day, Sirius was on the verge of hurting himself from laughing so much; he laughed every time he saw Lily. Her face was pink for the rest of the day. Remus just shook his head at Sirius and James, and Peter... well Peter was Peter.

Lily avoided James for the rest of the day and most of the next. Unfortunately, they had to conduct a prefect meeting, which meant that not only did she have to stay in the same room as James for a prolonged period of time but she also had to talk to him. This was going to be complete and total torture. She had been determined not to like James Potter. He had every other girl in the school wrapped around his little finger. She was not going to fall for him. She wasn't going to like him. She was going to hate him.

And it was pretty easy the first four years of Hogwarts. They had different friends. He was easy to ignore. She knew he existed. She knew his name but they never really talked. Then fifth year had to come. Remus became a prefect and through knowing Remus she met James. She thought he was kind of cute, nothing more. Then he had to get that stupid little crush on her. I mean, what girl wasn't flattered when a guy has a crush on them? Especially, when it happened to be the most gorgeous and popular guy in the entire school.

She was always torn over whether to hate him or love him. He always hexed people in the hall and was always playing pranks and in detention. But he was cute, tall, smart, and had a great body from quidditch. Not that she looked or anything. And then he had to go and save Snape's life in sixth year. He just had to have a conscience. If he had let Snape get into danger she would have been able to hate him. But no she just couldn't. Why did life have to be so hard?

Lily sat in the prefect common room and stared into the fire while thinking all of this. The prefect meeting wasn't going to start for another fifteen minutes.

"Hey Lily," a voice came from behind the chair she was sitting in. She looked up and saw that it was James.

"Hi," she said softly coloring a bit. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, last I checked there was going to be a prefect meeting tonight." James smiled.

"Yes there is, but it's not for another ten minutes," She explained what she meant as she looked down at her watch for the time.

"Oh yeah, well Sirius was busy flirting with Catherine and Remus was helping Jo tutor Peter." James explained. "I didn't want to be there when Cat finally exploded at Sirius. Her patience was running short when I left. And I didn't think it was possible for someone with skin as dark as Jo's to turn as red as it did when Remus sat next to her."

"Oh" Lily didn't really know what to say. It was weird that she had James had been in the same room for three whole minutes and were still being civil to each other. "Well, Jo sort of likes Remus."

"I've been telling moony to ask Jo to be his girlfriend for a while now." James replied as he took a seat in the couch across from Lily. "But we won't because of his... you know cause of his... um... health problem"

"Well, he shouldn't worry about that. She's not an idiot." Lily told him. She didn't exactly want to say that Jo already knew he was a werewolf. You don't exactly have to be a genius like Dumbledore to figure it out. And Jo wouldn't have broken up with Remus even if she did find out while they were dating. She wasn't that kind of person.

They sat in silence for a while. Both thought it was really nice that they have been sitting in the same room for five minutes and they weren't at each other's throat, though they would never admit this to each other. They both had too much pride.

"So..." James started and really couldn't think of anything to add.

"So..." Lily repeated. It seemed like the right thing to say.

"What do we have to tell the prefects about at this meeting?" James asked. He thought he deserved a pat on the back for coming up with that question. It was a totally valid cause he had never been at a prefect meeting so it wasn't a stupid question.

"Oh, well we have to give them the patrolling schedule so they know when they have to patrol the corridors. And we have to have to notify them that our first Hogsmead trip is October 31st because Halloween is a Saturday this year. There's still going to be a feast that evening too. And..." Lily paused. There was something else Dumbledore wanted her to tell the Prefects. "Oh yeah, there's going to be a Christmas ball for the fourth years and up the night before the Hogwarts express is leaving to take everyone home." She finished.

"That's cool. We've never had a ball before." James said with a dreamy expression taking over his face. He could take Lily to the ball! He had to tell Sirius so they could start planning something to liven up this ball that would most likely be boring.

"Yeah, I guess. But we have to organize it and that's going to be a lot of work..." she trailed off noticing the dreamy expression on James' face. That's never good.

"James, what are you thinking about?" Lily asked a little scared.

"What?" James was jerked out of his thoughts. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that I have to tell Sirius."

"Why?" Lily asked. She was getting a little worried. "What are you going to do?"

"Why, Evans, don't you trust me?" James said with an innocent smile. "What if I just wanted to tell Sirius so we can figure out who we're going to take to the ball." He finished. He was going to take Lily. She just didn't know it yet. He would tell her later.

"Yeah right!" Lily laughed out loud. "First of all, it won't take you four months to get dates because, for some reason beyond my knowledge, girls in this school tend to be attracted to you. And second, don't put that innocent look on your face because I know, along with the rest of Hogwarts, that you are anything but innocent." She finished.

"What gives you the idea that Sirius and I aren't innocent?" James inquired.

"Please, every other week you're blowing something up and when you're not in class or playing quidditch, you're in detention." Lily started. "Plus, somehow you find time to have a different girlfriend every week doing god knows what in the astronomy tower."

"Evan, Evans, Evans," James tutted. "Who was my last girlfriend?" He asked.

"I don't know, nor do I want to." Lily said. She actually could recall who his last girlfriend was. "I'm not part of your fan club, Potter. I don't keep track of every little insignificant thing you do."

"Well, I'll have you know that I have not had a proper girlfriend since fifth year." James explained.

"That's not true." Lily said because she'd heard all the rumors. That happens when you live in the same room as Sam. "I've heard that you take girls to the astronomy tower almost every night."

"Yeah well I used to, but not since Christmas of sixth year. I have grown up contrary to your belief." He defended himself.

"Yeah... sure." Lily said. People can't change, especially this one, then as if James had read her mind.

"People can change, Lily. I can change. I have changed." James was trying to keep his voice from rising. 'Why can't she just give me a chance?' he wondered.

Lily didn't know what to do. He seemed so sincere but he's also the same person who hung Snape upside down in the air. All of the sudden Lily realized there was a war going on inside of her. Half of her wanted to just say 'yeah right' and laugh in his face but that other half believed him and wanted to give him a chance. She was so torn. James could make her madder than anyone else. He could also make her laugh harder than anyone else, though she would never let him see that. James could make her so emotional and now he was doing it again.

"James, I..." she had no idea what to say to him. But thankfully the prefects started filing into the room. Lily was thanking God. Actually she was thanking every God there was from every religion she could think of at the moment. She knew no matter what she said she would have regretted it.

Lily sighed and waited till all the prefects were seated to begin.

"Ok, I know that for some of you this is your second year as prefect. So, I'm going to try to make this as short as possible." Lily started. "First of all you are all to change the password to your common room once a month and you must tell your head of house before you change it." Lily stressed and then turned to James for the next announcement.

James, who had been staring into space thinking about Lily, looked up. "Oh... erm... oh yeah." He finally remembered what he was going to say. "Everyone has a time they are supposed to patrol the corridors. All the prefects have time scheduled on weeknights." The entire group of prefects let out a collective groan.

"Come on people!" Lily snapped. "It's only from 9pm-11pm. If you weren't patrolling you'd just be sitting in your common room pretending to have a life."

"And Dumbledore has scheduled our first Hogsmeade trip for October 31st, more commonly knows as Halloween, since it's a Saturday this year." James cut off Lily's ranting. "As always its third years and above. And yes there will still be a feast. You are all in charge of posting this in your common room."

"And last, but certainly not least, Dumbledore has decided to have a Christmas ball this year." Lily said after she had calmed down. "It's for fourth year and above and takes place the night before the Hogwarts Express leaves to take everyone home for the holidays."

"As we get closer to the ball we will assign jobs to each of you to put it all together." James finished. Somehow he ended up being the one to put a damper on everyone's party (that was usually Lily's job). Lily had gotten to break the big news and he had to tell them there was actually work involved. So not James Potter. "But this information is not to leave this room." James had to add. "No one is to know about it until Dumbledore announces it."

"Um, so I'm pretty sure that's it." Lily said while she counted on her fingers all the things they were supposed to tell the prefects. "Oh, the schedule for patrolling is posted in this room and has been posted in the prefects' bathroom for your convenience." Lily finished. She had to admit how professional James had acted during the whole meeting. It wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be. 'I'll just have to make sure I leave right after the meeting so we can actually leave a conversation on good terms' she thought to herself.

"Ok, I know everyone has something better to do than sit here so you can leave." James dismissed the prefects. He hoped to get a few more words in with Lily but the fifth year Gryffindor prefect had walked up to Lily and they were now talking very heatedly about something. Damn, He didn't even get a chance to mention the whole ordeal about her calling him cute yesterday.