I'm so sorry I haven't updated in a long time – I haven't had a lot of time on my hands or feet or knees or on any part of my body.

Mood Swings

The next morning James lay face down in his pillow. He felt like two bludgers were doing an ungainly tango in his skull, bumping against his forehead repeatedly. He turned onto his back and tugged a hand through his thick black hair and groaned out loud as he thought of the night before. Lily's determined little voice kept spinning around in his mind, saying again and again:

"Remus isn't like that!"

James groaned again, glaring at the ceiling through blurred vision as his mind swam with cloudy thoughts.

The bedroom was still dark, clearly no one had stirred yet as he could still hear Peter's nasal snores pound the other side of the room relentlessly. Peter was curled up in a little ball in his bed, as usual, his body twitching every so often, like a nervous little dog. He looked over at the bed next to him; Sirius was lying spread-eagled on his bed, his feet dangling over the side of the bed, mouth wide open, but hair still bizarrely perfectly sculpted. Then, in the bed opposite his, Remus lay on his side, one arm around his pillow, a little smile on his face. A little smile which wasn't a very Remus-like smile.

Suddenly James was wide awake. As he glared over at Remus, he suddenly felt that he couldn't stand to be in the same room as him. He slid out of bed and changed into his day-wear robes, which were brand new, and still smelt of Madame Malkin's powdery scent. James slid down the banister into the common room, which was empty, as it was 6am on a Monday morning, and people usually didn't come down until 7 at the earliest, least of all James, who often didn't rise before 8. The common room would be empty for ages. Or so he thought.

The first day of school was always a big thing for Lily, and now that she was Head Girl, it was even more so. She sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn, a big smile on her face, and she bounced up to the paisley curtains that hung over the windows and ripped them open, letting in the yellow morning glow.

"Lily, its bloody 6 am, go back to bed like a normal person!" Lydia growled from her bed, her voice croaky and disgruntled. She was not a morning person.

Lily laughed, and began to make her bed, humming 'green sleeves' to herself at a very high pitch. She picked up her robes, and pulled them on, smiling at the little Head Girl badge that glinted on her chest. Today was going to be good day. She looked around at her other room mates, who were all asleep, except for Lydia, who had covered her head with a pillow, and from the sound of things, was having trouble breathing. Lily decided not to try and get her up; she knew that Lydia might jinx her with that bloody awful spell that makes small spuds grow out of your nose, so she left the dormitory alone.

James was lounging on a red plush sofa by the fire that morning when he saw Lily sauntering happily down the stairs. He rarely saw her with a smile on her face, and he thought it suited her more than the self righteous frown she often wore when she saw him.

Lily hadn't noticed James watching her closely as she euphorically went down into the Gryffindor common room. Had she noticed he was there, she wouldn't have done a little twirl on the bottom step, thus losing her balance and stacking it spectacularly on the floor.

James roared with laughter, he didn't mean it unkindly though, he had just never seen Lily looking so…ungainly. Lily turned round so fast when she heard this, her face turning bright red with embarrassment when she saw who was laughing at her.

"Happy, by any chance, Evans?" James asked cheekily, grinning at down at her, and offering his hand to help her up, which she promptly slapped away and got to her feet, her face still bright red.

"I was happy, until I saw you. Is it in any way possible for you to leave me alone today?" Lily retorted angrily. She hated that stupid arrogant Potter with his stupid big grin and his stupid messy hair and his stupid stupid big head.

James laughed even more at this, "You might want me around one day, Evans, and then you'll regret saying that to me." James teased, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"Impossible. And anyway, you're so conceited that I doubt you'd even be able to acknowledge another human being is even present!" Lily replied coolly, her face going back to its usual porcelain colour.

Then suddenly James could hear her voice again, echoing in his head

James Potter is an insensitive, rude, underachieving, conceited, lowlife!

He narrowed his eyebrows, his grin leaving his face in a flash. "Maybe if I was a bit more like Remus…" He said irritably.

Lily was quite taken aback at this reply, and surprised that she had seemed to have gotten to him a bit. She couldn't possibly have imagined that he had heard her talking to the girls last night, and would have been ashamed had she known, she never intended for people to find out what she really thought of them.

"What does Remus have to do with anything?" Lily asked, her heart beating a little fasted as she thought about Remus.

"Nothing. Forget it, Evans." James snapped, not wanting to reveal that he had been eavesdropping, or that he cared that Lily might have a thing for his friend, and he walked back to the sofa and flopped down onto it angrily.

Lily shrugged, hoping against hope that James didn't suspect that she might feel something for Remus. "Whatever, Potter." She said, trying to sound casual and flippant.

James glared at her back as she slipped out of the common room leaving him alone. He sprang to his feet and grumbled to himself about Remus under his breath, what did he have that James didn't, anyway?

Breakfast that morning was very tense. James sat stonily at the Gryffindor table, prodding a single sausage around his plate, completely devoid of appetite. He was sitting between Peter and Sirius, and both were bolting down their third helpings of eggs, bacon and black pudding, neither noticing James's rare lack of response to food. Remus, however, did. He also noticed how every five minutes James shot a glare his way, and then looked at Lily even more mutinously, before looking back at his sausage and prodding it even harder with his fork.

Audrey noticed James's stony expression from the other end of the Gryffindor table. She rolled her eyes when she saw James shooting longing glances at Lily, as if trying desperately to get her attention, but he wasn't succeeding. Lily's mood seemed to have deteriorated greatly since the morning, and she didn't seem to be talking to her at all, so she tried to test the water.

"Hey, Lils, would you pass the toast?" Audrey called to Lily, trying to sound cheery and natural.

Lily didn't make any reply, and simply pushed the toast platter over to Lydia and murmured "Pass it along," not looking at Audrey once.

Audrey looked at the toast platter and suddenly had no appetite. "You know what, I think I'm done. See you girls in Transfiguration." And with that she collected up her bag and headed for the exit of the Great Hall.

At the same time, James had decided that he had had enough. He was sick of Lily ignoring him for one morning, and so he left the table, closely followed by Audrey.

"Hey James! Are you going to Transfiguration?" Audrey called to him as they went through the doors from the Hall, running to catch up with him.

"Um, yeah." James replied, surveying Audrey and his face breaking into a smile when he remembered her defending him the night before. "Want to walk there with me?"

"Yeah, that'd be great! Thanks." Audrey said brightly.

Lily and Lydia arrived at their transfiguration classroom together. Lily checked her watch as they approached the door.

"8:30! Right on time. Always a great was to start a new term, don't you think?" She commented happily.

"You cheered up quickly, fifteen minutes ago you were a grumpy badger." Lydia replied, jokily nudging Lily as they walked into their classroom.

As she surveyed the room, Lily's smile rapidly melted from her face. Audrey and James were beside one another in the centre of the room, chatting and laughing together, and for the first time, he didn't acknowledge Lily walking into the room. Quickly, she snapped her eyes away from them. She was being ridiculous, she didn't even like James, and it's not like she wanted to be the one laughing with him…she just didn't like seeing Audrey laughing with him.

She took her seat right at the front of the classroom as usual and took out all her books, her parchment and new purple feathered quill and placed them all neatly on the table. Usually doing this would make Lily feel happy and relaxed, but she could still hear Audrey's raucous laughter in the background and it made her uncomfortable.

"Are you OK, Lils? You're gripping the table awfully tightly." Lydia asked as she placed her stuff on the table next to her.

"Yeah. Fine." Lily answered stiffly as she heard Audrey snort with laughter again at some joke James was telling her. She took a deep breath and turned to Lydia with an unnaturally large smile on her face. "Everything's absolutely fine."