A/N: Harry Potter, and all JK's other works of brilliance, sadly, do not belong to me. As much as I would like them to. Ah, well, life goes on.

Love is a Funny Thing, Chapter 13

Lily gathered her books together, pressing the heavy stack to her loudly beating heart. It seemed to be rocketing around in her ribs like a cannon, shooting at anything within its range. She caught the others' drift and lingered in the class for a few extra moments, when most students had already left. It would be integral to their plan to have everybody walking together.

Lily felt horrible about the plan. It was wrong, and on so many different levels—if Remus and Hazel wanted to get together, they'd do it in their own time. Granted, it might take a while (due to both of them being pretty shy) but it would happen. Wouldn't it? And taping the conversation…that was just wrong. What kind of friend was she, anyway?

The kind who goes along with things, Lily inwardly sighed, as she followed the others out of the class in such a way which left no choice to have Remus and Hazel on the outwards side. The left-hand side, facing the wall.

The pack of eight pushed their way through the crowded, congested hallways—elbowing a student here, "accidentally" (in Sirius and James's cases) tripping a Slytherin there.

James sidled up next to Lily, while the rest chattered and laughed loudly. "Lily, calm down. It'll all go fine, it's not like we're going to be expelled." James grinned teasingly. Lily blushed rather fiercely, embarrassed.

"And who says I'm not perfectly calm?" she asked defensively.

"Written all over your face." James smirked.

"Am I that obvious?" Lily asked, sighing dramatically.

"Yes." James answered, which earned him an (albeit fake) smack from Lily.

Just then, Sirius stomped his feet rather loudly. This was the signal for all who were involved with the plan to concentrate on the needed cupboard. Lily had to suppress a smile as she looked a Michelle, whose forehead was wrinkled in concentration. If that girl wasn't careful, she was about to walk into a wall.

Only Sirius managed to keep up a steady stream of enthusiastic conversation. He must be practiced at this, Lily thought to herself.

Suddenly, a cupboard appeared. As per Sirius's prediction, it was door-less. Without wasting a moment, Sirius promptly pushed a stunned Remus and Hazel into the cupboard. A door snapped shut before the two could protest.

A rather uneventful afternoon followed "plan OGRAHTOAFA", as Sirius had christened it. Everybody was eagerly awaiting the listening of the tape that James had placed in the cupboard. Sirius, whining ("why couldn't we have stayed and listened, mate?") had asked James about fifty million times why they couldn't just have stayed and listened in.

James had brushed the previous plan off as "too privacy-invading", much to the annoyance of Peter and Sirius. The tape recorder was a contraption similar to the muggle version, except it was magically equipped with thousands of tapes that never run out, and had some special charms.

James hated to admit to himself that he'd done it all—well, for Lily. She'd just looked so upset about the plan. Maybe this would make it easier.

He didn't want his friends to see him as a sissy-boy, or anything.

And so, later that night, the involved people gathered in the common room—to go retrieve the tape. And, of course, to listen to it.

Lily was tired. The boys had specified that they all had to be in the common room by 12:00 pm. Lily tried to suppress a yawn, but failed. The common room slowly emptied, various people tiredly walking off to their respective dormitories. Finally, only James, Peter, Sirius, Michelle, Lily and Amanda were left.

The boys looked kind of cautious and worried, which seemed a first. All three were sitting on a couch, whispering to each other with concerned looks on their faces—and they seemed to be holding something between them—what in the world could it be?

Finally, the boys came over to the couch that Michelle, Amanda and Lily had been communing on.

"Ok, guys. We're ready." James whispered. Some of the fire's light flickered onto his features, Lily noticed.

The girls nodded in unison.

"You have to promise—mind you, we're really, really serious here—not to tell anybody." Sirius said in a hushed voice.

"We promise." The girls all said.

"Ok. Now, this—"Sirius proclaimed grandly, pulling something silvery out, "and this" he pulled out a blank sheet of scrap parchment, "are the secrets to our success in professional troublemaking."

Lily looked at Sirius blankly. She had plenty of scrap parchment lying around, and SHE certainly wasn't "a success in professional troublemaking."

"See, this" (James brandished the silvery thing) "is an invisibility cloak. Given to me by my father—passed down all the generations. Anyway, it has enabled us to sneak around at night, unseen. And this" (he held up the parchment) "we created this, we did. Took a fair bit of work from of all of us. It's a complete, moving map of Hogwarts-shows where anybody at all is in the castle and its grounds. It's so we won't run into anybody—not a soul."

"So, what we're doing, is that James—well, since it's his—and somebody else will go to the closet in the cloak, with the map, get the tape. Simple. Presto, we have the tape." Sirius said, allowing a smile to creep across his lips.

"But why only James and somebody else?" queried Amanda from the couch.

"Well, it's James's cloak, so obviously he has the right to go—and, well, me and Pete are too tall to go with James. We'll bump into each other."

"So, who will go as well?" asked Michelle.

"Dunno…any volunteers?" said James.

"I'll go." Lily found herself saying. She wasn't really expecting the words that came out of her mouth. Maybe she was just so tired that nothing seemed real at all.

"Erm…alright," Peter said hesitantly after a moment of silence had passed. "Erm…Lily, are you sure you want to? There's a small chance you and James could get caught."

Lily nodded her head, accepting the "mission."

"Ok, well, off with you too—don't get sidetracked, if you know what I mean…" Sirius winked and grinned cheekily.

"Sirius!" James exclaimed. "Shut up!"

Lily smiled a little. James had turned the color of a rotten tomato—a sort of purplish red shade. Very becoming, she thought, inwardly giggling.

"Alright—well, Lily, shall we?" he said and offered her his arm. Lily took it, trying to quell those stupid, stupid butterflies that seemed to rise whenever she so much as touched James.

"We shall."

"Okay. Now, we've got to be really, really quiet—Filch and his nasty cat, Todis, are always walking about. So, we've got to keep really close together, so we're not seen—okay?" he said.

"Why do I feel like I'm jeopardizing all my chances for the Head Girl position?" Lily said in whispery tones, but she was smiling.

"Dunno, but get those thoughts out of your head." James said, also grinning.

There was a moment of silence. Then they remember the current mission they were supposed to be working on.

"Alright, we should go." James whispered.

They exited the common room by way of the portrait (still arm in arm), with the invisibility cloak around them two. James had been right—Lily needed to be pressed right up into James for them not to be seen. The hairs on the back of Lily's neck involuntarily stood up, one by one. It wasn't a bad feeling, she noted.

They passed ghostlike through dark corridors, moving cat-swift and quiet-footed all the while. They were surprisingly good and coordinating their steps. Three times Lily thought she heard a noise far-off—a teacher coming to expel them?—but she figured she must be imagining such things.

They passed a bit more through the dark, empty hallways—so different than they were in mornings—filled to the brim with loud and chattering students, full of light. It was difficult to navigate in the darkness, but James seemed to know his way around just fine. Lily followed his lead, her back still pressed into his chest. He was warm and solid, something a boy should without a doubt be. They passed a few minutes in silence. When James finally whispered softly into her ear, it sent chills down her spine and made her almost jump.

"Relax!" she could hear him give a soft chuckle. It felt like her heart was being used as a hockey puck.

"And who says I'm not relaxed?" Lily questioned, whispering too.

"I can feel your heart beating about a million times a second." James replied. It sent an involuntary avalanche of chills down to Lily's stomach.

"Oh." Lily replied, at loss for words.

Suddenly, the sounds of slow, heavy footsteps made themselves heard. Filch's footsteps. And a light, almost inaudible tapping of cat's claws on the floor.

In one swift motion, James pulled Lily by the waist into an empty but half-open classroom. Lily was pushed against James even more, setting those darned butterflies amok in her stomach. The two were pushed against a cabinet with less important potion materials. James held Lily close and both stayed still for a while, neither moving a muscle.

She could feel his chest rising and falling with easy, slow breaths. Much unlike her frequent, rapid-fire heart, which seemed to be as loud as a shooting cannon. Or louder, she concluded.

Which divine force places me in so many conveniently romantic positions with Potter? Lily wondered, acutely aware of his strong, muscled arm that was slung lazily along her shoulders. Is it fate? No, there was no such thing. She squashed the ridiculous notion.

After a few more long, totally silent moments, James spoke in a soft whisper. "I think we can go now."

"Okay." Lily whispered back, not moving. She didn't mind the feel of his strong, muscled body cradling her small, petite one. It was rather nice, actually. After a moment, she turned and faced him.

His hair was sticking up, like always, and his eyes were as nice and sparkling as ever.

"Lily?"

"Hmmmm?"

"I think we set a record for staying still the longest. We could become professional statues."

"Hmmm, ya think?" Lily asked, grinning.

"Yes, we'd travel the globe with famous circuses and stuff."

"It's an idea, but what would be our best pose?" Lily jokingly asked.

"I like this one." James said softly, as he leaned his head a little towards hers. Lily's heart started beating abnormally quickly.

"I like it too." Lily murmured, leaning forward a bit as well. Her lips were just a few agonizing inches from his…

And suddenly James crashed backwards onto the Potions cabinet, effectively ruining what could have been a very romantic moment. Lily had accidentally fallen on top of him. Lily rolled over so that she was next to him. Their legs were splayed out in front of them.

They laughed and laughed until Lily started to cry from the laughter.

"Ah, everything is a first with you, Lily." James said, wiping a laughter-induced tear from the corner of his eye.

Lily didn't need to say anything. Because she knew exactly what he meant.

And besides, she was too busy laughing to speak.

"No tape." James said as he and Lily took off the invisibility cloak.

Sirius leapt up from the puffy velvet couch he'd been lazily splayed across.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"NO TAPE?"

"What we found," Lily continued from James's right, "was this." She held up what used to be a tape recorder, smashed apart into pieces, connected here and there by twining wires and such.

"Awwwww, don't tell me Moony found it and crushed it with his shoe!" Peter whined disbelievingly.

"Bad luck." James simply said, shaking his head from side to side.

In spite of her friends' dismay, Lily felt a twinge of relief in her stomach.

"But what happened with them, I wonder?" Amanda asked as Sirius plopped back down alongside Michelle on the couch.

"Dunno...I suppose we'll see them in the dormitories, though." Lily responded.

"Guys, what do you say, full-on interrogation session? With the threat of his "blankin" if he refuses?" Sirius asked rather evilly, a twinkle of humor in his slate-grey eye.

"Ah, I'd say that's an excellent plan, Padfoot old boy!" Peter slapped Sirius on the back.

"I'd have to agree." James said too.

The girls looked rather confused, but then that was their right.

"What's his 'blankin'?" asked a confused Michelle.

"Well, Moony—I mean, Remus, whatever—has got this blanket in his trunk. Never takes it out, mind you, but we know it's there. It's got moving—what are they called, Lily- ear-plans?"

"You mean airplanes?" clarified Lily, a small grin on her face.

"Yeah, those. Anyway, some wizard artist gone mad made this blanket with moving airplanes and kids happily driving them, really weird—anyway. Remus has had it ever since he was, what, three maybe? He has to keep it near. It's fairly hilarious."

"More than fairly." James said, sniggering slightly.

"Only too true, James, too true." Sirius replied in mock-seriousness.

After a good while of lazy, comfortable chatter about nothing in particular, the group began to dissipate and go up to their respective dormitories—not without a firm promise to find out exactly what had happened between Hazel and Remus in that closet.

They did not get a chance to talk to Hazel that night, much to all three girls' disappointment. As the three trudged back into the common room at about one o'clock, they saw Hazel splayed out on her bed, sleeping. Her elbows and knees stuck out at odd angles and she looked strangely white and pale. She hadn't even bothered to undress from her usual school robes.

It wasn't as if they had really expected Hazel to be up and eager, ready to tell them all about the day's events. Well, maybe that had been a very prominent hope. All they could do was wait till morning—and then they'd know what really happened between the two.

But morning came, and much to the girls' dismay, Hazel was not present in the dormitory. Her bed was neatly made, pillows plumped, sheets folded over in precisely the correct manner. A long finger of sunshine stretched across her empty bed. Lily felt a twang of disappointment and also worry in her stomach. This wasn't like Hazel. The four almost always waited for each other to go to breakfast.

Nor was Hazel to be seen at breakfast. Lily looked and looked along the long rows of chattering students, busy eating and drinking various breakfast foods. There was no familiar beautiful freckled face, though. Where on earth could she be?

Lily found the answer, forty-five minutes later, in Ancient Runes class. Hazel was sitting, same as always, in the seat right in the middle—next to Lily. She looked thin and pale and very tired. There were purple bags under her eyes, making her normally pretty and lively face look drawn and wan. She sat with her backbone as straight as a broomstick, which was odd for Hazel. Normally she was relaxed during classes as boring such as these. Lily got the feeling that Hazel was really trying her hardest to concentrate.

She most definitely did not look like a girl who'd just gotten together with her long-time crush in a romantic closet affair.

Lily grabbed her quill and began to write on the special note paper James had. She'd forced James to give her a nice supply of the paper. Hazel also had a matching sheet, in case there was ever a need to talk during class.

(A/N: Same as last time—only, Hazel's italics and Lily is normal. Sorry if I'm confusing you. I'll try to use references to the other person. This should be much easier, though, seeing as it's only two people writing.)

Hazel?

Sorry, Lily, I'm trying to pay attention to Professor Linds, okay? We can talk later.

No, Hazel. You're very upset and we know it, too.

And why would you think that? I'm perfectly fine. I'm just trying to concentrate, that's all.

Hazel. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when was the last time you paid attention in Ancient Runes? Whatever happened to the beauty sleep theory?

Well, maybe I'm turning over a new leaf.

Hazel. I've been your best friend since first year. You are NOT turning over a new leaf. You're really upset about something, and I'm not resting till you tell me what it is.

Well, then you'll be going without rest for a long, long while. '

Hazel. Is it Remus?

Don't mention that name to me, ever, ever, again. Not even when I am an old woman.

So it was Remus.

Lily, please. I'm trying to pay attention.

No, I will not let you "just pay attention"! What exactly did Remus do?

I told you, I'm not talking about that horrible person who goes around kissing people then saying they can't ever be together and—oh. Oops.

Hazel! I'm so, so sorry. Tell me all of it.

Okay. It was terrible. We were locked in the closet and we were all stiff and polite, you know what I mean? Then I just about broke down—he was being so goddamn professional and polite, as if we'd never had any history together.

Go on.

Then I just about broke down and lost it. We were trying to figure out a way to get out—couldn't, though, it was locked and Alohamora didn't work. Anyway, I just started—urgh, it really sounds wimpy here on parchment—

C'mon, it's okay. I won't make fun of you, you know that, Haze.

Okay, fine. So I started—crying, yes, it sounds unbelievably wimpy. Anyway. I was sitting down on this random stool, and he comes and sits next to me and comforts me. And I didn't know what to say, really, and I guess neither did he, because we hadn't been really speaking to each other much. He had his arm around my shoulders and he was patting my head and then…

Yes? Then?

Then he turned my chin towards his, and I must have looked horrible because I had been crying…I probably had tears all over my face and my eyes were definitely red and my nose—ack, it might have been running!

Haze, I'm sure you looked fine, you're always beautiful.

Not always. Anyway, he turned my face up, towards his, and he looked all serious and…maybe this is the wrong word, but he looked kind of purposeful? And so…he kissed me and I kissed him back and it was really, really nice…even though I'd been crying. He's a really, really good kisser, that prat.

Ooooh. And then what?

Well then he just kind of realized what he was doing, I guess-and he just broke it off. It was really sudden and we were all dazed. So then he said we couldn't date, even though I've told him I don't care he's a werewolf. He said it would all end in tears or worse, violence. He asked if we could be friends because he really liked me. LIKED me, Lily. LIKED me, as a FRIEND. What world does he think I live on?

Aww, Haze. I'm so sorry.

Not your fault…it's his fault. The idiot. Can't he understand I don't care about the whole werewolf issue?

Don't worry, Hazel. Boys are just thick. I think it comes naturally, or something.

I'd have to agree.

But, Haze?

Yeah?

You know what I can tell?

What can you tell, O Lady Divination?

Hardy har har. But seriously.

What?

He's a thick boy who cares about you, like, a lot.

Oh? And why is that?

Think about it, Haze. If he didn't care about you, he'd spring right into a relationship without worrying at all about being a werewolf once a month. But he cares about you and even loves you…and he doesn't want to hurt you. That's the last thing he wants to do. So, he figures in not having a relationship at all, he's saving you the trouble and stuff.

Oh, yes?

However, he's a boy, and boys are thick, so he's got the wrong solution.

Ah.

I do have faith that you guys will be together in the end.

Hmmm, once we get him a little less thick and caring-y.

Yes.

And, while we're on the topic, why don't we discuss your special someone?

Hazel, be quiet about that!

Ah. Boys aren't the only thick ones around here…

A/N: I liked writing the notes, a lot. I don't know, they're just so…fun to write! I know, aren't I explicit? Haha. You guys let me know if you like the notes, then maybe we can incorporate more of them, or something…?

I think I liked that chapter fairly well…hope you did, too! As always, reviews are hugely appreciated. Ideas, rambles, criticisms, and whatevers are ALL welcome! They encourage me SO much and make me write much, much, much faster. So, if you want a chapter any time soon…review! Long ones are nice …yes, subtlety is not my best trait.

Oh, and my famous imaginary cupcakes to distribute to lovely reviewers! Vanilla or chocolate with sprinkles .

Ok, on to my amazing reviewers…you guys are the best! You keep me going. I can't believe I had such a great response to the last chapter, keep it up!

Travelledtheworldandthe7seas: Wow, that's awesome! I can't believe you're a gymnast; I've always wanted to be one! I'm glad you like the story. I do think I might start gym, and see if I like it. I've been in gyms a few times, and I really like the trampoline and bars! If you want to email me and talk about gymnastics and other stuff, you can email me at Lily Jane: Ah, that would make sense. Too bad I'm not a very logical person! Lady Emily: Hope you're not disappointed by the "plan"! SweetSouthernGal : Sorry for the confusion about the notes. Nix707, Ashley: I'm glad you like it, Siriusly Sirius Lily Black : I'm glad you like the fic and I'll try to remember to read your story…may take me a while, but I'll try to remember… ElizabethMorgana: I'm sorry about the confusing notes thing…and I'm glad you liked the story, though! Caleigh: Sorry it doesn't go exactly according to the books, but I just saw him as a chaser. Miss Lady Maurauder: Haha! I'm awaiting the kissing booth chapter too, I hope it's good … Antonio Vandick, Vicki: Aww, I'm honored! Angie: Thanks, and I'm sure your stories are good! Tinkerbell22, badbluekit : Snogging is kissing…I'm not English (from the UK) either, so I'm just picking up UK terms and stuff… lilypad007: Your reviews aren't stupid, I love them! Lady Kristaline, The Lady Knight of Fort Nash: I'm glad how you liked my ideas about the story and everything. Sorry about the spacing mistakes, also. N123s456: Please. Comment on my story, but do not EVER call me brain dead. I am NOT. And would you care to point out my spelling mistakes, since you say I have so many? Taniita: Yeah, I can't wait to get them together…they're so clueless, right? The figg's neice: Sorry if the note-passing was kind of confusing… Bre, shadowy dreamer, .:Reviewer:.: Ah, if it were only that simple! Tanya J Potter: Sorry there's not much Remus…I'll try to work more of him in. 702 Steelo: Thanks a bunch for your many reviews. Sorry about the self-confidence issue , and thanks for the compliments and stuff! Also sorry about the chaser thing…I don't know, I just pictured him as a chaser, not a seeker. Laylana-Fairyweather, genius04, Steelo, mgirl: Thanks!