Gazing at the Stars

After that the rest of the week seemed to pass in almost no time. They were inseparable for the rest of the week. Lily could not remember laughing that much in one week. Every thing that James did seem to make her happy. It wasn't even the big things. Just the fact that she trusted him and that he would never hurt her was enough. As for James he never thought this day would come. And he couldn't have been happier that it was here. They didn't even stop to think about how their friends would react. They were quickly reminded of that small detail when they walked into King's Cross on Sunday.

Aimee and Sarah were standing there with equal expressions of shock on their face. "Now your laughing and talking with him." Aimee said in a awed voice.

"So your friends now.?" Sarah asked. Lily cringed realizing that her friends knew nothing about what had happened between them.

"Actually," she said in a small voice, "We're dating." Sarah and Aimee looked as if a feather could knock them over.

"So the whole 'I hate him and will never ever go on a date with him ever' meant ever was just till seventh year." Aimee asked.

"Yeah," Lily answered meekly, thinking that there was no way that there were going to let this go without further complaint.

Apparently she was wrong because they turned around and headed for the train. At that moment James spotted Sirius. He said a hurried goodbye to Lily and ran to where Sirius. The two greeted each other as if it had months instead of days. Of course it was the longest time they had been separated since they had met at the age of seven. So maybe it was a reasonable greeting.

Lily caught up to her friends. "Hi." she said. They had never said hi in-between the explanations.

"Hey yourself. So how did you and Potter, excuse me James, hook up over break." Aimee said suspiciously.

"We met in Mexico."

"I thought you said that you were going to France." Sarah remembered.

"I did but then we went to Mexico spur of the moment." Lily invented. "Look as a favour to me can we just drop it. Please." She added.

"Okay. But one last thing."

"What?" Lily asked warily.

"Does this mean it's okay for me to date Sirius?" Sarah asked.

"Why do you have to ask me?"

"'Cause you hated his best friend."

"It's okay." Lily said, glad this conversation was over. They found an empty compartment and sat down.

"No Head duties?" Aimee asked.

"Not since officially we weren't supposed to be here. Professors are taking care of it."

"Did you hear the reason why the school was closed?" Aimee asked.

"No." Lily answered.

"Dish." Sarah ordered.

"Well apparently Dumbledore suspected that one of the other teachers was behind the murder of Professor Serirgro. Turns out that he was right. You know the D.A.D.A professor, Fringto." Lily and Sarah nodded. "Well apparently he's been in league with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Names for years. He had a trial and is currently serving life in Azkaban. It also turns out that he had a plan to kill all of the students last Friday and Serirgro found out about it so he had to die." Aimee leaned back, her story complete. Lily and Sarah stared at her in disbelief.

"So that's why Dumbledore closed the school. I didn't think that would ever happen." Sarah added. They would have continued this conversation but at that moment the Marauders burst through the door. James claimed the seat next to Lily as Sirius slid next to Sarah. That left Remus to sit next to Aimee and Peter on Remus's other side.

"So what did you guys do over spring break?" Sirius asked, starting the conversation. Lily of course lied when it came to her to answer. Since Sirius knew she had been at James he gave her a suspicious look but James had asked him not to mention the incident so he kept his mouth shut, for now. They talked until they reached the school. Since this was not a special day there was no feast so after dinner everyone returned to their dormitories. With the exception of Lily and James. Dumbledore called them to come to their office.

James led Lily to where it was from memory. He had certainly been there enough times before. They didn't know what to expect. James being James was expecting to hear about some prank. Lily was expecting to hear extra patrolling. Neither of them were expecting to hear what they did.

"Sit down." Dumbledore offered. They both took a seat and Dumbledore sat down on the other side of his desk. "I called you here to discuss Halloween. I want to have a ball."

"A ball?" James repeated skeptically.

"With costumes?" Lily asked.

"That's for you to decide, Miss Evans. And I want you to host it. Put house prefects in charge of different things. I will book the entertainment but other then that I give you full reign over the planning."

"Yes sir." Lily and James said. They stood up and left.

"So what do you think?" James asked.

"I like the ides. So costume or not?" Lily replied.

"Oh definitely costumes. We'll discuss the rest of the details at the prefect meeting tomorrow."

"Sure." Lily agreed.

"Until then what do you want to do." James asked.

"Aren't we supposed to return to the dormitories"

"So?" James replied. "Don't we get special privileges as Heads?"

"Okay where to?"

Fifteen minutes later they were on top of the astronomy tower via a passageway that James knew. They were laying on a blanket with their hands behind their head and looking at the stars,

"I never realized how pretty this was." Lily observed.

"Yeah," James said. He wasn't looking at the stars. He sat up and leaned on one elbow so he was staring down at Lily. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

"How could I forget? It was on the train. You and Sirius had eaten so much candy off the trolley that you were on permanent sugar high. You started running up and down the corridor and then when I opened the door to tell you to stop you ran into the door and pretended to pass out. When I tried to wake you grabbed me and pulled me down next to you. Then I hit you so hard that you did pass out."

James laughed. "Okay how about the first time we actually had a conversation?"

"You told me that if I would go out with you that you wouldn't set off the dungbomb. I ignored you and a professor the dungbomb away before you could do anything with it."

"My first year was not the most mature year of my life" James admitted.

"Well then I am very glad that you grew out of it." Lily commended. "Now it's my turn to ask the questions. Why are you and Sirius best friends?"

"It's kind of hard to explain. We first met at Diagon Alley. Our parents hated each other so naturally we had to become best friends. The whole rebelling thing. We were seven at the time, I think. Anyway Sirius used to sneak out of his house and come to ours. My parents learned to love him and when he was fifteen or sixteen he moved in with us."

"Next question. What do you want to do after you graduate?"

"I want to be an auror, obviously. And I don't know. It might be nice to have a family and a little boy that I can teach Quidditch to. I would live in my parents house and my kid would be able to grow up without Voldermort. And one day my little boy, James Jr., would be the star seeker of the England Quidditch team."

"James Jr.?"

"Or whatever name my wife wanted to call him."

"That sounds nice." Lily agreed. For the next hour they talked about everything from their favorite Quidditch team to their parents and in Lily's case siblings. They felt like they had known each other forever. It didn't occur to either of them that just two short weeks ago they hadn't even had a conversation that didn't end in someone being hexed. In the end Lily was the one to end the night.

"We really should be going back." She commented, looking at her watch.

"So soon?"

"It's been over an hour." James just looked at her. "Someone is going to begin to wonder where we went."

"Fine," James finally agreed, standing up. "Let's go."

They walked down the corridors until they were standing in front of the Fat Lady. "I had fun tonight." Lily said. She then turned and walked into the common room, leaving James behind. Since it was nearly eleven thirty Lily headed up the stairs to go to sleep. A moment later James repeated the gesture and went to the boys dormitories.

When Lily walked into her dormitory Aimee was lying on her bed reading a Quidditch magazine. Sarah was sitting on a chair reading a fashion magazine and debating what color dress robe she would need. When Lily walked in they both dropped their magazines on the floor and turned to look at her.

"Where've you been?" Sarah asked.

"Around," Lily answered vaguely. She walked over to her trunk and pulled out her pajamas. She changed into them and sat down on her bed.

"Around with Potter, you mean." Aimee said, filling in the blanks.

"Maybe," she admitted.

"Where did you guys go?" Sarah asked. Lily broke and before long they knew everything that had happened that night. After a half hour of gossip Kendra and Megan, the other two seventh year girls, came in and told them to shut up. The six of them lay down and curled underneath their covers. Lily was smiling as she went to sleep. And her dreams with filled with stars and rain.

James walked into the boys dormitory and was greeted by Remus and Peter. "Where's Padfoot?" He asked.

"Where he always is." Remus replied. "Entertaining some girl."

"I think it's Bella, this week." Peter chimed in.

"So how did you do it Prongs?" Remus asked.

"Do what?" James repeated stupidly.

"Convince Lily Evans to go out with you." Remus clarified.

"I showed her that we were made for each other."

"You've been trying to do that for about six years. What made her believe that now?"

James hesitated, remembering what he had promised to keep a secret. After a lot of begging from Remus and Sirius when he came back and some occasional whining from Peter he gave in. He told them as much as he could and still keep the secrets that Lily had asked him to. He even told them that they had met in Mexico. At that part of the story Sirius glared at him and James looked the other way. He would have to find a way to explain it to Sirius without giving away all of Lily's secrets. Then Sirius, of course, had to share exactly what he had done that night, at which all three guys threw their pillows at him at went to sleep. That night all James dreamt about was the house he was going to live in, James Jr., and his redhead wife.