Disclaimer: Duh. I'm not JKR and you all know it. I don't own Harry Potter or James or any of this other stuff unless you don't recognize it-then I do own it. LoL.

Yes this story is rated R for sex scenes and violence and LANGUAGE. So please, don't read it if you don't like that kind of stuff.

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Dom strode into the room and asked jealously, "Are you dressing to please Niall Burke, Skye?"

"Rather to please you, my lord,"she said smoothly,"but if my gown displeases you I will change to whatever gives you pleasure."

He eyed her carefully. He knew there wouldn't be a woman at tonight's banquet to compare with her. She would be the fairest creature in the hall. And she

---"Okay okay! Lil, get out of your 'romance world' and let's go." Hilary's annoyed voice snapped. They had been in the car for a while, riding all the way to King's Cross-Station in London. Lily had become absorbed in her latest cheesy romance novel, Skye O'Malley, completely forgetting the world around herShe hopped out of the car, joining Hilary outside. She breathed in deep the smell of trains as they hauled their trunks through the barrier onto Platform 9 3/4. Lily grinned. She was going home.

They were all there, the people that she knew. Friends greeted each other with smiles, hugging, and laughter. Lily loved friendship and the way people worked together, but she had never really experienced that close of a bond with anybody.

That was why she had befriended Hilary, who had once been a shy person. She had been wallowing in her self-hatred and depression, not even attempting to make friends. Hilary needed to be within Lily's incredible confidence in order to become her true self.

Lily looked around, unconsciously pulling her shirt down as she did. Today she was decked in her favorite casual outfit, a black T-shirt and pale grey pants. The shirt, unfortunately, had shrunk in the wash. Hilary had laughed and laughed, seeing Lily's midriff and knowing her friend's loathing at looking like a slut.

Lily's head was spinning. She had just spent the better part of two hours reading in a car, something that always made her feel ill, and she was definitely not looking forward to spending the rest of her day in an enclosed compartment with Potter.

Little did she know that, miles away, he was thinking the same thing.

---

She's mad at me.

He pulled his shirt on over his messy hair

She's really hacked off this time. I shouldn't have called her a bitch.

He grabbed a pair of dark stonewash jeans off the floor and pulled them on over his boxers

She's going to kill me.

"JAMES!" a voice called from outside his door. He jumped in the motion of attempting to comb his hair and opened the door.

"Hi Remus." he said with a relieved sigh, not really wanting to be bugged by Sirius at this time of day. If it had been Sirius, he probably would have thrown something rather large and heavy at his head.

Remus was looking rather ill this morning. His sandy hair hung limply into his glacier-colored eyes, and his pale complexion and drawn face added to his rather wan appearance.

"What's wrong?" both boys asked each other at the same time. James grinned slowly, answering first and telling Remus about how he had to share the Head's compartment on the train with Evans.

"Don't worry. She probably got over the whole episode from yesterday." Remus said, shrugging in his normal good-natured fashion.

How did you know about that?" James asked, remembering with displeasure his meetings with Eryn, and then Lily yesterday.

"Prongs." Remus answered breezily. "Don't worry, she will probably just ignore you the whole time."

"Optimism." James said boredly, trying fruitlessly to flatten his hair. "It's something I could use right now

"Well I can't help you with that." Remus replied, a ghost of a smile on his pale face. He leaned down and picked something up off the ground, tossing it at his friend. "But that should help your hair problem."

It was a white cap with blue lettering. James shrugged and crushed it gratefully on his head.

"Now. Tell me what's got you looking so peaky." James said, turning back to Remus.

"Guess." Remus said lamely, brushing his limp locks off his forehead. When James didn't reply, he continued. "It's that time again…So I'll be staying here. Your parents said they would set up...facilities for me for the next few days." He shrugged, looking anywhere but at James. "Rather nice of them, really."

James understood why it was so hard for Remus to accept favors from adults. Remus had told him long ago a secret that he vowed on his life never to tell a soul. Remus had been kicked out of his own family when they found out what had happened to him. He had been living with a partially insane uncle ever since he was eight. But recently, he had taken to spending most of his summers at James' house, along with Sirius.

James knew he had to break the somewhat awkward silence by changing the subject.

"So, you going to get back together with Madellin?" he asked offhandedly, tossing his last pair of socks into his trunk.

Could we talk about anything else?" Remus said, pulling a rather amusing grimace. "Oh yes! Your mum said to go on downstairs, it's time to floo to the station."

James grinned, hurriedly clamping his trunk shut and dragging it out of the room.

"I'll see you on Wednesday, Moony." he called back. He did not see the pained expression on his friend's face as he sat down into a chair.

---

Lily finally found a doorway of the train that was not being filled with people, and she dragged the cart containing her trunk over to it. She pulled the trunk off the cart and began to struggle in pushing the heavy trunk up the steep stairs to the train.

She almost had it when her hair-tie slipped out, momentarily blinding her with a shower of her own hair. This caused the huge trunk to slip all the way back to the ground, avoiding her toes only by her catching it hastily. It was dangerously close to hitting the ground when she sensed someone behind her. Lily whirled, forgetting the trunk and dropping it painfully on her foot.

"Hello." James Potter said kindly, apparently not seeing that Lily was in extreme pain. "I wanted to apologize for calling you a bitch yesterday."

Lily glared at him, making her way toward him but tripping, because she was still hopping on one foot. She ended up falling rudely onto her bum on the pavement, staring at the looming form of James Potter

He smirked down at her, and Lily glared all the harder.

In actuality, he was trying to grin sympathetically, but he was struggling to hold back a laugh. His eyes were hidden from her view by his white cap, so she didn't notice that twinkle that had momentarily been kindled there.

He held out a hand, which she refused rather blatantly, pulling herself up and wincing as her foot hit the ground.

"What do you want this time, Potter?" she snapped, going back to her chore of heaving the huge trunk up the stairs.

"I told you, I wanted to apologize."

"Sure." Lily hissed in reply. Even without looking at him she knew that he didn't mean it. All she wanted right now was to be on the train, her stupid trunk tucked away where she couldn't look at the cursed thing.

James watched her struggle for a minute before speaking again.

"Did it ever occur to you to ask for help? Or is that out of almighty Lily's code of conduct?"

"It's Evans." She snapped distractedly. "And no. Besides, no one would bother helping anyway."

James moved forward, quickly pushing her trunk up the seemingly impossible stairs with ease. He then turned to grin at her.

"That's where you're wrong.," he said softly, leaning close to her ear. Lily raised a hand to slap him, but he had already disappeared into the throngs of people boarding the train. She watched with a glare as his muscular back faded into the crowd.

She turned, deciding to head on up to her compartment, when she was interrupted by Hilary, who was standing on the steps, arms crossed.

"So there is a boy." Hilary said, her mouth quirking with humor. "But Lily, of all boys...that boy? I never even imagined-"

Lily cut her off with a quick clearing of her throat.

"Of course not!" she said acidly. "I could never feel anything but loathing for the despicable Potter."

Hilary grinned, not saying another word.

---

"Why don't you just ask her out?" Sirius asked, handing James a Treacle Tart.

"Are you taking the mickey?" James said incredulously. "She'd rip my head off!"

"I'm not even going to bother asking 'which one', because I've recently discovered that dear Lillikins is, in fact, a virgin." Sirius said smoothly, inspecting a creamy confection before popping it into his mouth. He looked across the compartment at Peter, who was reading a magazine.

"Want one, Wormtail?" he asked.

Peter looked up, shaking his head.

"I'm just getting to the good part, Sirius." he said in an annoyed manner, nosing back into his magazine.

"Sure." Sirius said, his attention going back to James, who had been staring open-mouthed at him for the past two minutes.

"A virgin! She's a virgin?"

"No shit. I wonder where you heard that." Sirius said, copying Peter's annoyed attitude. "You think I would lie to you?"

"No, but still." James was staring rather hard at a wall. "That's very...interesting."

"Hm." was all Sirius replied, glancing back into his pile of sugary-sweet candies. "You should be getting to the Head's compartment."

"Thanks. I can see where I'm not wanted." James said in a mock-huffy manner, smacking Sirius upside the head. "You know where I'll be." he stood up and backed out of the compartment, making his way towards the Prefect's car, where the Head's compartment was located.

---

"Don't bother saying 'hello'." she snapped, as soon as he walked in. "I can't hear you, besides."

She was stretched out across one side of the compartment, leaving the whole other seat to James. Her tennis shoes were pressed up against one wall, while her back leaned up against the outside window. Her muggle headset was turned all the way up, and she was drawing in what James recognized as a sketchbook.

"Hello." he said lamely, sitting down across from her. He bunched his legs up in the small space, staring at her all the while.

He took in all of it, looking at her hard and trying to see how much she had changed over the summer. He had every plane of her face memorized in his brain, and it was all the same.

Sirius had often laughed at him for his mild obsession with the girl, and they both had thought it had disappeared these past two years.

...They were wrong.

After losing Eryn, James fell hard and fast for the gorgeous redhead that had haunted his dreams for so many years. He knew he had never really loved Eryn, she had just been a rebound.'How can you have a rebound relationship when you never really dated the girl you were rebounding off of?' --Sirius had asked him that once.

It's because he had been so upset over what she had said to him that night, the night James had caught her in the library with...

A pair of green eyes staring directly into his cut James' reminiscing short

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked, yanking her headphones off.

"Nothing else to look at." James answered irritably, still caught up in memories of last year.

Listen, Potter. I don't know what Dumbledore's got in his crazy old head. But this whole Head Boy/Girl thing is not going to work." Lily stated acidly, closing her sketchbook and sitting up. "I can't bear to be even this close to you, so-"

"What's wrong, Evans?" he hissed, memories forgotten. "Is my pure-bloodedness not good enough for you?"

She regarded him calmly through those amazing green orbs.

"Actually, it's your swollen head that gets me." she said coolly. "The whole pure-blooded, half-blooded mania really never bugged me, actually."

That hit James rather hard. He had always thought that she had detested him for his lineage. Apparently he was wrong.

"Why do you hate me so much?" he asked, looking at her face from underneath his cap. He noticed her defenses tighten, and she looked even angrier than before.

"Because you are a crazy psychopath stalker who never lets me forget--" her voice broke off and she glared. "Because you are a spoiled little maniac who goes out of his way to ruin my life."

"Never let's you forget what, Lily?" he questioned.

She sighed angrily.

"See! There's my point! You completely disregard any insults I have for you just so you can pry into my life. And it's EVANS."

"Do you act like this toward all your friends?" he asked, changing the subject. He knew from experience that she was about to fly off the handle.

"For your information, Potter, you aren't included in the category, so it shouldn't matter, should it?" she snapped. Who did he think he was, provoking her and being a nosy prat all the time?

"What category am I 'included' in?" he asked, unable to resist the temptation of irking her further.

"The nosy, annoying, twat category, you fucking idiot." she hissed, dragging her headphones back onto her ears once more and turning towards the wall.

---

All he could do was stare. She was absolutely beautiful.

Lily Evans was sprawled out across a train compartment seat, one knee bent, and the other leg falling onto the floor. Her hair had come out again, lying on her shoulders like a fire-colored halo.

His chest tightened and he sighed wearily as he gazed at her sleeping form. He pulled his hat off and raked his fingers through his thick hair, trying to calm himself down. What he wouldn't give to touch her, to tell her how he felt.

His gaze traveled up her slender feet all the way to her head, taking in every detail and remembering it.Am I really a crazy stalker? He asked himself. He grinned inwardly. Did she know how drop-dead gorgeous she was when she was angry? The significance of her hurtful words seemed to slide away as he realized her pretty face flushed pink in anger, and he hoped against hope that she didn't mean it.Maybe I should give up, he thought miserably. Maybe there really is no chance for us to become 'James and Lily'.He glanced at his watch, and then looked outside. They were about ten minutes away from the castle, and Lily was still sound asleep. He really didn't want to, but he would have felt bad if he didn't. He leaned forward and placed on of his large hands on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

"Evans. We're almost to the castle." he said gruffly, forcing his heart not to lurch as her eyes opened in surprise.

She nodded, pulling the headset off and placing it on the seat. Then she turned around, digging through her small duffel bag.Shit. Why didn't I change before I got on the train? She mentally punched herself, pulling out her robes.

She glanced over at Potter, who was innocently twiddling his thumbs and looking out the window. She glared, knowing he would be watching her every move.

Oh well. Let him stare.

She pulled off her T-shirt, quickly strapping on her button-up school blouse. She inched her sweats off her legs, kicking them away and grimacing when they landed on Potter's shoe. For the moment, Lily ignored that, throwing on the rest of her uniform and refraining from exposing her body to Potter for a prolonged period of time.

"Very nice show you put on." James said, peering out from under his hat. Lily ignored him, not having forgotten their argument from earlier. He actually hadn't looked, respecting her privacy. But more…he wanted to prove that he wasn't a crazy psychopath stalker. In saying that, Lily had unknowingly challenged him.

And James Potter never could turn down a challenge.

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