Thank you very much for the reviews! And Lily is now starting to feel something for James, but she's in denial.

Chapter twelve

Lily started the next morning greatly dreading the day ahead and she had good reason too.

Lily's reasoning as to why she suspected this day was not going to be the most enjoyable one, was simply because of Dom and what she was thinking of doing to him. Breaking up with him would solve her problems. And yes, of course he would be hurt, but Lily just didn't see her relationship with him going anywhere. Dom obviously did and Lily thought it would be cruel of her not to end the relationship now.

Yet there was still some doubt in her mind about this. She had never broken up with anyone before and feared of what it might do to Dom and hers friendship.

Would they be able to go back to the way they were before they're disastrous period of dating? Lily doubted it. To her he was now an entirely different person, one that she was not particularly fond of.

She just had to go through with this. She had seen the way Alice and Frank were when they were together and she felt the adoring love between them, something she knew was missing with her and Dom's relationship.

After looking through all the pro's and con's of breaking up with him - and finding only one pro - Lily made up her mind to do it the next time she saw him.

It wasn't until the end of the day that she did see him.

And a lot of events happened in between.

The first unusual case that occurred happened very early on in the day. Lily was just heading down the stairs leading up to the girls dormitory where she suddenly heard a large amount of yelling coming from the boys room.

The oddest thing was that the two arguing voices sounded as though they were coming from James Potter and Sirius Black; best friends who were hardly ever known to disagree on anything.

Lily fought hard to resist the urge to eavesdrop, and in the end she lost her battle and snuck up the spiral staircase leading to their dormitory.

The boys voices were very muffled and it was near impossible to translate anything they were saying, no matter how hard Lily pressed her ear to the door, but it sounded like James was the one doing most of the yelling and Sirius was mainly trying to defend himself.

Disappointed she hadn't been able to make anything out, Lily clambered back down the stairs and emerged into the common room.

She had woken up to find all of her roommates already up and out of bed and she correctly assumed they were all down eating breakfast and though not hungry herself, she proceeded out the portrait hole and down a hall.

She walked through the halls quite slowly and stopped abruptly when her eyes fell upon a familiar friend of James and Sirius.

"Peter!" she called and sprinted up to him.

He turned around looking slightly surprised. "L- Lily?"

"Hi," Ok Lily, try to sound nonchalant. "I - er - how's everything up on your end?"

"Fine..." Peter said slowly. "Are you alright?"

"Oh I'm good. I - er - was just - uh - heading to the common room and I heard a lot of shouting coming from your dormitory. I was just wondering what on earth happened. And - er - well I am head girl and I have the suspicion James and Sirius where doing something last night they weren't supposed to be doing. So - um - do you know anything about this?" Still nonchalant Lily...

Peter didn't say anything for a moment until -

"They'll - they'll get in trouble I suppose?"

"Well - yeah... buy it is really important that I know. Dumbledore trusted me to make sure any injustices were punished."

"I - " Peter looked hesitant. "I don't know..." and he turned around and started walking away from Lily.

Lily wasn't going to give up that easily. She ran back up to Peter and blocked his path. "Please Peter..."

"Fine," Peter squeaked. "Just don't - don't tell Sirius I told you ok?"

"Sure, anything."

Peter looked over his shoulder nervously before speaking. "Last night..." he gulped. "Last night Sirius almost killed Snape."

"What!" Lily screamed. She stood there numb for a few seconds trying to let the words sink into her. Had she heard him correctly?

"Keep it down!" Peter whispered worriedly.

"What did you just say!"

"I - nothing. I - I was just kidding. Haha. I - um - have to get down to breakfast."

"Oh no you don't!" Lily said, blocking his path again. "Tell me what happened!"

Peter's eyes darted down the hallway before speaking. "He - um - well - er - did you see that beautiful full moon last night? Gorgeous don't you think?"

Lily could tell by Peter's expression that he was testing her.

"I know Remus is a werewolf," she said calmly. "Did it have to do something with him? Stop stalling!"

Peter nodded slowly. "I don't know exactly what happened. I was just sitting in the common room with James and then Yancy Bleats - you know, that Gryffindor chaser - came up laughing his head off saying something about Sirius, Snape and the whomping willow and that he'd gone to see for himself and saw Snape poking the tree with a long stick."

Lily could feel her insides doing somersaults as the story washed over her stunned mind.

"And then James leapt out of his seat," Peter continued. "And ran after Snape."

"Was Snape - was he bitten?" Lily asked, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

"No, James caught up with him at the last minute. Managed to pull - pull him back."

"But," Lily thought back, "What on earth did the whomping willow have to do with it?"

"Can't tell you," Peter said. "I shouldn't have told you anything at all."

"Peter one more thing couldn't hurt. Where does Remus go when he transforms?"

Peter jumped as four third year girls heading down to breakfast laughed and ran passed the two of them.

Lily waited until they were out of earshot. "Peter?"

"There's a secret passageway under the whomping willow," Peter answered. "The tree was built for Remus," he wiped some sweat off his brow before continuing. "He ends up in the shrieking shack every full moon."

"So what the villagers hear every month is actually - "

Peter nodded.

Lily stood there for a moment staring down the hall, still pondering what she had just been told. She turned to Remus, now fully amazed, "And James, he - he saved Snape's life?"

"Yeah..."

"I can't believe it. He risked his own life to save Snape's?"

Peter didn't say anything. He simply watched Lily closely with his small watery blue eyes.

"He's - really changed..." Lily finished.

"He was waiting for you to notice that."

"He was?" Lily questioned and a strange fluttering feeling in her stomach was suddenly present. "Why?"

Peter laughed a little, "Yeah, like you really don't know. Stop denying it. Frankly I'm glad James has given up on you. It was sad to watch him suffer. Well not exactly suffer, but, you know, he was kind of depressed he didn't have everything."

"Mmm... When...when would you say he gave up?"

Peter shrugged, "I dunno, this year? Sirius told him to move on and then James started going out with Amy."

"Oh... Well, it's - er - good for his health. I'm glad he figured it out sooner or later..."

"Some days all I would hear from him were Lily this and Lily that, then Sirius would suggest some prank and he would forget about you for a bit." Peter slid down to the floor and Lily joined him.

"How's Amy doing with you guys?" Lily asked, wondering why she was even bothering to.

"Oh...fine. I've never actually talked to her. She's usually more interested in James..."

Lily laughed, but there was not a trace of humour in her voice. "I thought you'd be sick of her by now."

"I am!" Peter said loudly. "But what can I do."

"Nothing I suppose. Just wait for them to break up and the peace will return," Lily said, again wondering where these words were coming from.

Now it was Peter's turn to laugh without amusement. "Them? Break up? Yeah right!"

And that feeling in Lily's stomach returned, stronger than ever. She didn't know what on earth it was. Was she hungry? Yeah...that was most definitely it.

"Have you seen Dom?" Lily asked while standing up.

"Who's Dom?"

"Never mind... I'm going for breakfast, I'll see you later I guess," she waved at him and he waved back.

Lily then continued down the hallway, marveling at how different Peter's personality was compared to the rest of his friends'.

That thought suddenly brought back the story Peter had told her. Sirius Black almost killed Severus Snape...

Lily had never been particularly fond of Snape - well, no one really was - and she usually tried to avoid him as much as possible. He was not nice person when it came to muggleborns.

Lily had known since her first year at Hogwarts the hatred that encircled James, Sirius, and Snape and had seen them cursing each other quite often before. But this year the fights looked as though they had calmed down; she had certainly never seen any combat between the tree boys since last June.

She had been relieved they had changed their ways and as it turned out, they hadn't.

Well, perhaps James had... and Lily wondered what effect it would have on their mutual hatred of each other. But Sirius...

She simply didn't know what to do with him. What could she do with him? If word got out he would probably be expelled and Lily just wouldn't feel right ratting on him... but he couldn't just get away scott free...

Maybe she didn't have to worry about punishing him after all, maybe that was what head boy James had been doing in the dormitory.

So was the answer then don't worry about it, James can handle it?

No, probably not, but Lily liked to think that it was and decided to block that unpleasantness from her mind and concentrate on breakfast.

xxx

Lily had been searching for Dom, without success, until half past noon and it was then when she decided to give up. She also hadn't seenhie norhair of Amy or Bridget and only managed to say a few words to Alice before she left with Frank in search of privacy.

So Lily spent most of the day alone in the library; another odd event.

She was doing her best to study charms, but felt her mind constantly slipping away into daydreams. She soon gave up on that and decided to write a note to her parents, remembering that she hadn't heard from them for awhile.

While in the owlery, selecting an owl, Lily stumbled upon another person she had never really spoken to.

"Snape?" she asked, not entirely sure how she was supposed to address him. "How's - er - lovely day isn't it?"

Snape didn't reply; in fact, he pretty much ignored her, sweeping over to one of the owls and tying a letter to its foot, greasy hair flapping against his face.

"Er - that's not a school owl," Lily pointed out awkwardly. "It belongs to someone. The school owl's are over there," and she directed him in the direction of a clump of brown barn owls.

Snape's sallow skin burned red with embarrassment and he promptly dropped his letter to the ground. He scrambled to pick it up, head down, avoiding Lily's gaze.

The snowy owl he had been tying his letter to screeched and bit Snape on his long nose.

Snape leapt back, rubbing his nose and swearing. He turned his tomato red face towards Lily. "What! Stop staring at me! Take a picture why don't you, mudblood!"

Lily narrowed her eyes at him. Why did he even bother. "I suggest you stop calling me that as I've asked you many times in the past."

"I don't listen to mudbloods," Snape growled, furiously tying up his letter to that of a mahogany coloured owl.

Lily rolled her eyes, but decided not to reply. She headed back towards to door of the owlery, giving Snape a cold look before she left.

She knew he was probably not feeling too happy at the moment, but sometimes he could really tick her off. Still, Sirius had no reason to do what he did.

James was decent though - well now he was. The same couldn't be said for him in their fifth year...

xxx

There was a storm that night. To Lily it felt a little like foreboding. There was a strange miasmaaournd her; feelingsomething was about to happen that wouldn't be good.

Lily had never been good at divination - no one really was - and had some difficulty believing that anyone could actually correctly predict the future, but usually whenever something bad was about to happen, Lily would receive a dull aching pain on her left thumb. This was her warning and it had been ever since she was a little girl.

Lily knew the chances of anything bad happening to her that day were very high, but wasn't sure which one of these terrible things would happen.

First there was her decision to break up with Dom. She would obviously feel relieved, but Dom on the other hand...

Then there was the tension between her and Amy. Lily knew that their problems were far from over.

And lastly there was Bridget, and although finding out what mysteries surrounded her would be a great relief on Lily's part, Lily knew that the news wouldn't be good. It wasn't as though Bridget was planning any surprise parties or anything.

As Lily walked past Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, she heard a large amount of crying coming from the door and tutted slightly. Moaning Myrtle had a lot of problems that apparently even death couldn't solve.

The hallways were silent except for the soft footsteps Lily's boots were making on the stone floor and the muffled thunder outside. She didn't really know where she was going and preferred it that way. She needed as much time as she could get to figure out her many predicaments.

Though Lily was starting to fell slightly cold and started to speed up her pace, regretting the fact she had left her cloak in her dormitory.

And about five minutes later she managed to bump into Bridget; literally.

"Bridget! S - sorry. I wasn't really watching where I was going," Lily quickly apologized, trying to read her friends face. There didn't appear to be any anger in there...

"Oh, Lily..." Bridget looked a little awkward.

"I - er - heard you were looking for me..."

"Yeah...yeah I was..." Bridget trailed off, looking down at her shoelaces.

Lily wasn't sure what she was supposed to say next so she patiently waited for Bridget to finish her sentence.

"I wasn't really sure if - " Bridget cleared her throat. "I have to talk to you"

Lily's jaw dropped and the second she realized she was gaping at Bridget she quickly closed it and tried to pull her face into a look of puzzlement.

Was this finally it? Was Bridget about to tell her everything? Where she had been sneaking off to all the time, who she saw die, what the letters addressed to her said?

Lily didn't think she'd be able to hold her excitement in for much longer and forced off her impatience, knowing that she had to be silent if she wanted Bridget to talk.

Bridget was still avoiding eye contact with Lily and she was tapping her foot nervously on the ground.

Lily didn't take her eyes off her friend. A rumble of thunder was heard outside.

"I don't think I shouldn't tell you," Bridget said softly. "But I don't want you to know... I still want to be friends and - "

Lily had to say something, "You're not mad at me? For having Sirius and James stalk you?"

"What?" Bridget looked distracted. "Oh, no. I know I've been acting weird lately and I don't think I can keep this up anymore."

She looked up at Lily, brown eyes full of seriousness. "I can see the threstals and they just keep reminding me of - of..." she pulled back a strand of brown hair behind her ear and continued. "There's something you should know about me..."

Her eyes were back on the floor. Lily's heart was racing and she swallowed. "Yes?"

"Can you make me a promise first?" Bridget asked.

"S-sure, anything."

"I want you to promise me that no matter what I tell you, nothing will change between us."

"Bridget what on earth do you have to tell me. You're really scaring me."

Bridget looked back up at Lily. "You have to promise first. No matter what I tell you, we'll always be friends. Promise?"

"Well, well I - " Lily stopped for a second. "I can't just promise. If its really serious I - I mean, yes I promise."

Bridget deepened her gaze and Lily blinked. "You don't mean that," Bridget said. "I need you to mean it."

"I do mean it," Lily said, still not sure whether or not she was telling the truth. "I promise."

Bridget still looked hesitant, but now there was a hint of anger etched in her face. She drew a deep breath and whispered. "I need to tell you something."

Haha, cliffhanger! You find out about Bridget in the next chapter and I don't know how soon that will be out. I have a cold now:( and that's not the best thing to have distracting you while writing so the next chapter may take a bit longer to get out...

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