The red and green blobs in Lily's dream in the second chapter stand for anger and envy.

And now, on with the next chapter, shall we?

"Did you see that?"

"Yea, weird."

"I know. I wonder what happened."

"I heard they had a secret affair that went bad."

"I heard that he caught her with Sirius and he's mad at her now."

"No, that's not right. Otherwise he'd be mad at Sirius."

"Not if it was her fault."

James was followed with these sort of whispers ever since he started ignoring Lily. Not that he was avoiding her; they had far too many classes together for that to even be possible, and it would be far too difficult and time consuming and just plain stupid for him to attempt that. So instead, he simply pretended she wasn't there.

Which, of course, had the whole school whispering.

Lily wasn't sure how to feel. On one end, she didn't have tens of jealous girls glaring at every move she made, and she didn't have James' annoying nagging following her everywhere. On the other hand, she really did fancy James by now, and he refused to talk to her or even look at her … and she didn't have James' annoying nagging following her everywhere. She sort of missed it, ironically.

"I'm really not sure what to tell you," Alice said after Lily had explained the fight through a series of whispers and note passing.

"Gee, thanks," Lily muttered dejectedly, slumping down in her chair and pretending to take a few notes on the goblin rebellion.

"Hey, James isn't even here today," Alice added curiously. Lily glanced around and sure enough, the chair that was usually occupied by James Potter was empty. Sirius and Remus, too, were missing in action.

Well, missing in inaction, actually.

Sirius, James and Remus were in fact currently occupying a couch a story and a few classrooms away, a couch which happened to be in front of a fireplace in the middle of the Head common room. James sat in a chair, to be exact, while Sirius and Remus were snuggled into the couch. James ignored the fact that they were practically on top of one another, although there was an entire couch to stretch out upon. It wasn't exactly a secret between the three of them that the dogs fancied each other.

But James was so tired of talking about people fancying other people.

Unfortunately, he wasn't getting away from it today. Remus leaned forward seriously and inspected James' removed expression. He watched James pensively. Sirius was the one who went in for the kill.

"Okay, spill," he said to James, much like the girl counterpart of their age group might say to a best friend who had just returned from a much anticipated date.

James turned his head and slowly regained focus on his friends' faces. They both contained a mix between curiosity and concern. James sighed. The gossip couldn't even stay away from his closest friends.

"We had a row, and I'm not talking to her anymore. What's the big deal?"

Remus coughed. Sirius gaped. "Prongs, I thought what you said about giving up on her, you know, what you said this summer … I thought you were just kidding."

James shook his head. "I laid it on the line. I told her that I didn't intend to waste my last year following her around if there was no point in it."

Remus, of course, had been filled in on this discussion as soon as James and Sirius had had it over the summer, so he was well aware of what was going on. Still, he was surprised at James' nerve to go through with it, especially after the news he had just gotten. Sirius was more … shocked.

"So that's really the end of it then?" he asked, still rather taken aback and James' sudden resolve. He wondered if it had anything to do with recent events, and wondered why James would be so stupid to uproot his entire life on purpose.

It hurt James too much to answer with words, as if they were eternally condemning, so he gave a simple nod of his head.

Remus, who hadn't spoken for quite a while, looked directly at James. "I think," he said wearily, "that James might be right about this." Here James looked at Remus questioningly. "Well, I mean, I'm sorry pal but … you just don't look to have the energy to go about chasing her around all the time. And well, say, like always, she says no … I mean, that can't make things better. And say she says yes but decides to break up with you … that would only make things worse."

He waited for James' reaction.

"Yea, I think you're right Moony."

He was surprised. But he had known he was right. It was just good to have spoken agreement.

Sirius wasn't convinced. "I don't know, man. I mean, you can't just go disrupting your whole routine…"

"I didn't want to. Voldemort did that for me," James said bitterly. Sirius winced, not at the name, but at the reference to the occasion.

"I'm sorry James." Remus could tell how things were going to happen already.

He nodded his head at the consoling words and stood up. "I think I'm going to sleep for a while," he said. "You guys can stay here if you want."

Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance as James disappeared into his dorm moments later. The latter sighed. The former frowned deeply.

"I don't know what to do. I mean, I was almost as close to them as he was and I just don't even know if there's anything I can say." Sirius sighed.

"I don't think there's much you can do," Remus replied. He leaned over and swept a lock of Sirius' hair behind his ear; Sirius looked up sadly and met Remus' brown-eyed gaze. They exchanged a soft kiss and Remus pulled Sirius into a tight hug while Sirius sniffled a little. "It'll be alright," he murmured against Sirius' neck. Sirius nodded, and then stood up, taking Remus by the hand.

"Come on, we've already missed most of History of Magic … we might as well make it to Potions, at least."

Remus nodded and followed Sirius quietly out of the room.

Lily had been successfully ignored for over a month. It was now the first Friday of November, and Lily was quite sure that James was in serious danger. He missed about half of his classes, and showed up for less than that amount of Prefect meetings. Lily was feeling extremely stressed under Newt pressure, Head Girl duties, and the enormous piles of homework she constantly received, and she still found time to worry about James.

Lily was slowly making her way to the Head dormitory, lugging a huge stack of books and fully intending to do some homework, but she couldn't stop her mind from straying back to thoughts of James. The last time she had seen him was … well, yesterday of course but the last time she had seen him in class was Wednesday. He had come to Charms, fallen asleep on his homework and drooled all over it, causing it to be illegible and worth nothing. Lily had been assigned the spot next to him in Charms this year, because he had to pass or else he wouldn't graduate, and James was horrible at Charms whereas Lily was the best in their year.

While James slept, Lily scribbled down a quick (but perfect, as we know our Lily) essay. James woke up about ten minutes before the bell was going to ring and glanced over at Lily unconsciously. She noticed how pale and disheveled he looked. She wondered when was the last time he had changed his socks, if he had washed his face this morning, if he had eaten anything in the last week, how he possibly had enough energy to be the Quidditch Captain, let alone do the extreme workouts that the Quidditch players always performed.

James blinked, still half-asleep and unaware that he had made a resolve to ignore her. He wondered why she was looking at him so pityingly, as if he was one of those ghosts that didn't realize he was dead and went about his routine pathetically, even though his life was already gone. Lily reached out and straightened James' glasses, giving him a weak smile. She pointed to his essay, now ruined, then pushed the new one at him. James recognized the handwriting of Lily Evans. He blinked again, confused, and looked up at her. She smiled painfully, trying not to take in his slightly sunken cheeks and bloodshot eyes.

'Thanks,' he mouthed. He printed his name at the top of the paper as neatly as he could, crumpled his original paper into a ball, and prodded it with his wand, setting it on fire instantly. Lily gave a slight gasp.

"What's going on here?" Professor Flitwick squeaked from behind the desk. He had apparently been walking about the classroom. "Miss Evans, you're supposed to be helping him with the disposal charm."

"I – er – sorry professor. You know he's not all that great at Charms." Lily shot an apologetic smile at James. "We'll keep trying."

"Good, good," he grinned, and ambled off to make sure Peter was not blowing anything up.

Lily looked back at James. He was scanning the essay to see what it was that he was supposed to be learning. She sighed. She wanted so badly to ask what was wrong, but the last time she had tried that had not worked out well for them at all. She wondered what could possibly be so bad that it had kept James Potter down for two months. She had never known anything to keep him or his friends in the dumps for more than a day or two.

Just when Lily thought she might be able to get away with asking James a simple question, like "how are you doing?" or "can I help you with anything?" the bell rang. James jumped up and crammed his things into his bag. He gave Lily a quick thanks over his shoulder and handed Flitwick the paper on his way out the door.

Lily glanced to her left and caught Sirius watching her carefully. She gave him a questioning raise of an eyebrow, and he gave her a half-scowl. She decided it would be best to get to her next class. She was pretty sure, now, that she wouldn't be seeing James in it.

Lily was quite right in guessing that she wouldn't see James for the rest of the day. Well, she saw him at lunch – poking at a few potatoes but not really eating anything. She thought she saw him have a piece of toast. Maybe even two. Hey, the kid had to have some sustenance. It wasn't that she believed he wasn't eating at all … she just wasn't sure when or how much he had had lately. Nevertheless, she was glad that he was eating something.

Alice and Katie were conversing about the upcoming Quidditch match. Katie happened to be the Keeper.

"How's James doing?" Lily asked suddenly, tearing her eyes from the grave-looking Marauders to fix them on her friend.

"Umm, what do you mean?" she asked, peeling an orange. Lily was a health nut. She had sort of forced them to eat healthily back in their third year, under penalty of a rather nasty hex.

"What do you mean, 'what do I mean'? I mean what I mean." The two girls stared at Lily, perplexed. "Sorry," she added. "I guess I just don't understand how he can handle the physical exertion when he's … not eating anything."

Katie's mouth formed an 'O' and Alice grinned. Of course Lily would be the one to ask how something could work if it didn't seem to be able to be physically or healthily possible.

"Well, I suppose he's pretty tired after the practices. But we all are, so I guess I never really noticed." She shrugged and popped a slice of orange into her mouth.

Lily wondered how someone could not notice obvious exhaustion when it was practically jumping up and down on them, beating their head with a broomstick.

Lily didn't see any more of James after lunch. He was missing from DA, which was really no surprise. The teacher was quite fond of him and seemed to pity James for whatever was going on in his life. And James was so naturally talented in Transfiguration and DA that he really didn't need to take them other than for the reason that he needed the marks to pass, not just the skill.

She hadn't expected to see him at dinner, and therefore wasn't surprised when she didn't. She was somewhat taken aback at the way the other three Marauders were joking and seemed to be enjoying themselves, though she supposed that it wouldn't be right for James to drag them all down with him.

She hadn't seen him at all on Thursday, and so far not yet today, either. Classes were over for the day, but seeing that she was going to the Head dorms, she figured she might catch him there. She blinked and realized that she was already standing outside the doors to the Head Boy and Girl rooms. She wondered how long she had been standing there, thinking about James. She decided it really didn't matter; it was already six o'clock and she couldn't turn back time … and she really needed to get some work done. She pushed the door open and found James asleep on the couch in front of the fire.

Setting her backpack and the pile of books down on the coffee table, she sat down next to James' sprawled out form. Even in sleep, he looked slightly troubled. His brow was just barely furrowed, his eyebrows slightly pulled together, and his nose scrunched up. Lily cupped his cheek so softly that she was barely touching him. Suddenly, his hand shot out and grabbed the one that wasn't on his face.

"Don't go. Don't leave me. No! Stay. Please!" he whispered frantically. He continued mumbling in his sleep, but Lily could no longer understand him. Her heart clenched painfully as she pulled her hand out of his grasp, causing him to twitch and frown deeper. Lily ran a hand through his hair and wished there was something she could do to help him. However, at the moment, it hurt too much to watch him like this. She quietly picked up her things and headed to the Gryffindor common room, hoping to get a little study time in with Alice and Katie.

Lily spent the evening in her favorite old chair by the fire, peacefully doing her homework without having to worry about James. She helped Alice with her Potions essay and the three of them studied for the upcoming test in Transfiguration. Before Lily knew it, she was alone in the common room and it was well past her usual bedtime. She got up and stretched, about to gather her things up, when she realized that she was indeed not alone after all.

Sirius was sitting in a chair by the door, watching her with narrowed eyes.

Lily crossed her arms. "Okay Black, what is your problem? You've been watching me for like, three days now, and it's starting to get creepy."

Sirius folded his arms across his chest and scowled at her.

"What gives?" she repeated. She was really trying rather hard not to get annoyed.

"Listen, Lily, I know about that fight you and James had."

Lily frowned. That was, like, months ago. "So does the rest of the school." He didn't seem phased in the slightest. "What's your point?"

"My point, is that I know what you're trying to do with James."

"What do you mean, 'what I'm trying to do with James'? What am I trying to do with him?"

Sirius glared at her, not willing to believe her confusion. "You're taking advantage of his downtime. I happen to know you like him quite a bit, and you think you can just come in and pick him up when he's down."

Lily grimaced. "I am not!" she whispered harshly, trying not to wake up the whole dorm. "But you don't seem to be doing a very good job either!"

Sirius stood up angrily and marched over to Lily. "I happen to be doing a much better job than you are, for your information." Lily narrowed her eyes threateningly. "He doesn't need your shit. He's already got a pretty fucked up life, and he doesn't need you to screw it up even more. All you're doing is hurting him. You have no idea how fucking brave he is … and he's trying so hard to get over you and you just keep showing up and flaunting yourself in his face. He can't handle that right now. So just stop it, okay?" Sirius' face was slightly flushed and he was breathing somewhat heavily.

Lily stared at him with wide eyes. "I didn't realize …"

"Yea," he spat, then said more calmly, "His parents were murdered, and not like it's bad enough that he hates the first day back anyway, but then he had to find out on the first day of school. It wasn't great. And they were the only ones he had. So … look. Just, please, stop messing with him, okay? He's going through some really rough times and … he doesn't need you to hurt him even more."

"I wasn't trying –"

"Lily, just … drop it, okay."

"Yea …"

"Lily, if I find out you've hurt him, I'm never going to forgive you." He gave her such a meaningful look that she could have almost cried. His look was so worried, so scared, so serious, so caring that she couldn't understand why she had ever questioned what his friendship with James was based on, if not pranks and catching girls.

It occurred to her that some guys could be much more sensitive than they ever let on.