A/N: I'm sorry to those of you who feel as if Lily and James should be together already, because Lily expresses her doubts and puts them into action. I'm still trying my hardest to follow J.K. Rowling's original story plot line thing…

Disclaimer I do not own Harry Potter

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"I've lost control of my life," Lily groaned to no one, but the two girls surrounding her heard.

"What makes you say that?" Amanda calmly asked.

"I mean," she began, "that I never should have asked James out. I should have waited until I was positive."

"You aren't sure?" Alice questioned.

"Well I'm SURE but I wasn't at the time."

Alice and Amelia looked at Lily with eyebrows raised.

"It made sense to me!" Lily proclaimed. Amelia didn't let the eyebrow rest. "So I'm having doubt about my relationship," she mumbled. "After all, I only began talking to him exactly three weeks ago. There's no reason I shouldn't have doubts."

It was January 15, a beautiful (yet chilly) Saturday morning. Lily had remembered her detention before she even awoke and, for the first time in weeks, dreaded it. She hadn't given much thought to it before, but cleaning the entire trophy room with no magic was NOT the best way to spend a Saturday evening, especially because James was assigned a different detention.

"What if I told Potter that I really don't want a relationship with him right now?" she wondered aloud.

"A lot of good that'd do you," Amelia scoffed. "He'd never leave you alone until you were ready to take him back, and then you'd be stuck with him."

Lily groaned with aggravation. "I don't like who I've become. It's someone different from who I was less than a month ago, and this someone makes horrible, terrible mistakes constantly." She picked up her book off the bedside table. "I'm going to go read in the library."

However, she didn't go to the library. Instead, she walked through the frozen snow towards a shabby hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"Com'in," said a booming voice from within when Lily knocked on the front door. "Well hullo there Lily!" Hagrid beamed when she came in. "It's been a good couple o' weeks since yer last visit."

"I'm sorry Hagrid," she said, putting her book on the table and taking a seat. "Things have been…different."

"Life's finally changin' on yeh?" he asked, offering her a plate of his famous rock cakes, which she kindly declined.

"I guess you could say that, but it's more, I think, that I've finally changed on life."

"Oh?" he questioned, sitting across from her, his chair sinking at his size. Since he was a half-giant, he made everything seem smaller.

"Well, a short while ago, James Potter and I met," she began, pausing to think over those words. "Well, he and I met before, but then we forgot and then we met again and then we remembered that we already met and I wanted to be only friends with him but now we're dating and I don't think I want to be more than just friends with him but I told him I was and I don't know what to do!"

Most people wouldn't have been able to say that all in one breath. Lily wasn't like most people.

Most people wouldn't have been able to understand what Lily had said. Hagrid was like most people.

"I din't understand a word you said," he said, laughing. Lily's expression looked dismayed and frusterated.

"What I'm saying is that I'm in a relationship with someone I really do love, but not in the way I thought I did and I want to get to know him better before it continues. I really don't know what to do."

"Well," Hagrid said, his kind eyes laughing gleefully at being trusted so, "it probably would be best ter tell 'im how yeh feel."

Lily sighed. "I was afraid of that. I guess the problem is that I CAN'T tell him how I feel."

Hagrid's face wrinkled with thought. "I don't think I could held yeh there."

Lily sighed again. "I appreciate you trying. Thank you Hagrid, this really was a help." With a smile and a quick wave, she grabbed her book and was gone, rushing back to the castle.

If Lily had learned anything in her life, it was that there's always an alternative.

Always.

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James looked wistfully at all the suits of armor on the floor. There were at least 20, all ready to attack and poised for battle.

And I have to clean every last one.

The prize for his labor, he would be alone with Lily afterwards.

But, after slaving for nearly three hours trying to make each and every reluctant, resisting, stubborn suit of armor spotless, after rushing down three flights of stairs to the trophy room, after searching each corner and hiding spot nearby, Lily was nowhere to be found.

She was probably just too tired and decided to go to bed early.

However, when he knocked on the girl's dormitory there was no answer, no sudden hushing for silence, no whispers, not even a breath to be heard. One look at the Marauders Map told him that no one was in the room.

In fact, Lily wasn't even on the map.

He walked down to the common room, puzzled and too busy thinking to notice Sirius looming before him.

"Romeo!" he yelled into James's ear.

"Where's my Juliet?" James snapped back.

"How should I know?" Sirius scowled.

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Lily looked comfortably at her surroundings. She didn't know how she had found the room, but only that she had been looking for a place to hide from James, and found a room on the seventh floor that she had never seen before.

There was a blazing fire in the hearth, with one large couch in front of it that Lily laid on, a book open in her hands. It was quaint, cute really, and very comfortable.

James had probably looked for her after their detentions, but she wouldn't be back to Gryffindor Tower until late at night, when she could be sure that James wasn't there.

Sweet as he was, she just couldn't face him, not for a while anyway. Only two days into their relationship and she already needed a break. There was only one word for it.

Pathetic.

Lily knew she was turning something small and simple into a large and vicious monster. But she wanted to take the easy way out.

So what's the easy way? Running away from your problems? A relationship of ANY kind is based on trust and communication.

Lily despised this now cowardly side of her. She had once faced her problems head on, and now retreated to the protection of her shell.

Disgusted with herself, she threw the book on the floor and sulked.