"Did you remember number 5?" James asked Remus as they walked out of the Charms test the next morning, "About Cheering charms?"
"Yes" Remus replied, "But I had a little trouble remembering the 3 different summoning charms"
Sirius was walking behind them yawning, it was quite obvious that he'd found the test to be easy, and wasn't wanting to talk about it at all.
"I don't know if I'll pass" Peter said trying to stop things from falling out of his bag.
Sirius looked at him in disgust, "You studied last night with the best in the class Peter, how could you not of passed"
"You're not the best in the class though 'oh great' Padfoot" Remus said teasingly, "That honour belongs to Lily Evans".
James' face dropped at the mention of Lily, and Sirius scowled at Remus. "Did you have to mention her name? Prongs is going to sulk for the rest of the day"
"No I'm not" James complained, "I'm not sulking"
"You've barely said a word all day" Sirius laughed, "Too busy thinking about her"
They walked all the way to the Gryffindor common room, where other people were quickly getting ready for the end of year party. The main organisers of this were Lily and Remus as they were the prefects, but Frank Longbottom and Alice Campbell were helping.
Lily was already in the common room putting up streamers with Frank. They'd charmed a banner to say "Goodbye Seniors" and "Happy End-Of-Exams day" whenever anyone walked in the door.
"How did she get up here so quickly?" James asked on seeing Lily.
"She finished her exam before everyone else, and asked to be excused straight away to help decorate" Sirius explained. James looked at him dubiously, so Sirius had to explain how he knew, "She was seated behind me in the exam Prongs, I'm surprised you didn't notice"
"I wasn't looking at her" James protested.
"Prongs you would have finished your exam half an hour earlier if you hadn't been dreaming about her" Remus teased.
"Her hair was gleaming in my eyes with the sunlight hitting it" James complained, "I couldn't concentrate with that happening"
"Yes Prongs" Sirius nodded his head, though not really believing him, "I'm sure that was what was causing you to look at her"
"We need one of you to do something" Frank said walking over to the 4 of them along with Lily, "We need you to get us some food from the kitchens"
"Isn't that breaking rules though?" Sirius said sarcastically looking straight at Lily, "I wouldn't want to do that".
Lily looked at him sternly, "It's not as if you haven't done it before Black, but this time it'll benefit all of Gryffindor, instead of yourselves"
"Evans" Sirius said in mock protest, "We would never do something like break rules"
Lily raised her eyes in angry disbelief, "But you would do something to help this party be more enjoyable surely?"
"Of course he will Lily" Remus said stopping Sirius from saying any thing else, Sirius seemed to love to wind Lily up, "Sirius will go and do that now"
"I'll need some help" Sirius whined.
"Take Peter with you" Remus replied, "James can stay here and help". Remus pushed Sirius and Peter towards the entrance way, and Frank went back to putting up streamers.
"As if he would help anyone but himself" Lily muttered under her breath, it was only just audible but it clearly expressed her dislike of James.
"James can transfigure some chairs and tables out of some sticks I collected from the grounds earlier" Remus said firmly, pointing to the pile in the corner of the room.
"But that transfiguration is on the NEWTS test?" Lily said in surprise.
"He's been able to do that since 3rd year" Remus replied nonchalantly. Lily looked at Remus in disbelief, and then she looked at James, mildly impressed. James noticed that her look of dislike that she showed him was dwindling slightly, but still clearly there. Even so James knew she wasn't going to be rude to him without cause, and he was determined not to give her a reason to hate him even more, particularly in front of all of their house.
James walked over and grabbed a few sticks and then walked back to Lily and Remus. "Where would you like the tables?" he asked.
"Well we'd like another 3 tables here next to the others" Lily told him pointing to where the usual study tables were situated in the middle of the room. "And then we need about another 20 chairs throughout the room"
"Easy" James smiled, liking the way that he had manage to impress Lily. He walked over to where the other tables already were, placed down 3 sticks and drew his wand and said, "Tabimorphius" at each of the sticks. In turn, the sticks turned into tables exactly the same size as the others there. He then placed a number of sticks through out the room, and pointed his wand at them and said, "Lounimorphius". Lounge chairs popped up from the sticks and James plopped down in one to test it out. "See!" he said to Lily, "They're even safe to sit on"
"Potter, that's almost impressive" she said in complete awe of his transfiguration skills. James knew that transfiguration was his specialty, he was always being told that. He was often referred to as the best in their class, though he had the utmost respect for Lily in regards to charm work.
"What's this almost bit?" he said pretending to be insulted. Lily gave him a small smile, and walked away to organise more decorations. At the sight of the small smile, James' heart had leapt for joy. He thought that it showed that she didn't hate him as much as she'd tried to convince him the day before. It didn't mean that she liked him at all, but anything but the hatred she'd shown him the day before was a good thing.
It wasn't long after that Sirius and Peter returned carrying us much food as they were able. Lily seemed quite impressed that they'd been able to get so much, but she didn't ask how they'd gotten it.
At the arrival of food, the party started. The entire Gryffindor house was in the common room dancing around to music, eating as much food as they could and playing different games. They had games like pin the tail on the dragon, there were fireworks going up around the room and there was even a dance competition. All in all, everyone had a good time, went to bed late, and woke up tired.
James woke the next day bright and early. He'd gone the entire night without Lily yelling at him, and he felt great because of it.
He jumped out of bed, got dressed and then started to pack up his trunk.
"Can't you be any quieter?" Sirius groaned from his bed. He'd been up later than everyone else, doing something he wouldn't tell James about, so was very tired.
"I could" James said cheerfully, "But I'm not going to be"
"Seriously Prongs mate, just another hour" Remus complained.
All Peter could do was groan as he rolled back over.
"Well then" James said in a little bit of a huff, "I'll just go down to breakfast without you all"
He left the room to a chorus of 'please do', it appeared that no one else was as happy as James that morning.