I am SO sorry about the delay! Three new fics, a lousy case of writers block, multiple tests and voluntary wor at the stables has left me with no time or inspiration for this fic. I'm tired, but I just forced myself to sit down and write.

The weeks following Marnie's death passed in a blur for Lily. she threw herself into her studies, and rarely closed her books and collapsed into bed before the early hours of the morning. She barely spoke unless it was to answer a question in class, and was slowly drifting from those who cared about her.

She was numb, and angry at herself for not feeling pain. It was not the staggeringly raw agony that had nearly consumed her after her parent's death, it was a dull ache that she only felt in the dead of night. She found herself avoiding Alice, as the other girl was dealing with her grief slightly differently. Her pain was closer to the surface, and she had only to look at Lily to burst into tears. Lily was sure her friend thought she didn't care about Marnie, and she couldn't bear to look into Alice's swimming blue eyes and see a part of herself in there.

She found herself forcing James away. She got furious whenever he gently tried to prise her away from he revision, but he didn't take it personally. Neither did he raise his eyebrows and shrug it off. He simply didn't give up, not nagging exactly, but simply remiding that he was there for her when, not if, she needed someone to talk to. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before she let herself care again, James put into action what he'd been planning for several weeks.

Remus awoke at 5am to see James pacing up and down the doorway, swearing under his breath. Disjointed words floated across the room to Remus's baffled ears.

"Lily... need to tell you... bloody hell!... it's been amazing... oh, sod it!"

He spun around, reaching into the pocket of his dressing down to draw out a black velvet box, and almost collapsed onto one knee.

"I love you, will you marry me?"

James hadn't noticed Remus's return to conciousness, and was greeted with his best friend's startled gaze.

"Bloody hell, mate, I like you and everything, but honestly..."

James suddenly realized how ridiculous he looked, and he wasn't comfortable kneeling on one knee. He wobbled, and then collapsed. Remus burst out laughing.

"Seriously, Prongs, I'd try not to fall over when you do it for real."

"I'm screwed," James said from his position on the floor. Remus nodded.

"Yup. You really are."

James rolled over so he was propped onto an elbow, and glared at his friend through narrow eyes.

"That, Moony, was not what you were supposed to say. A pep talk would really have been in order."

Remus laughed again,"No, really, Prongs, I'm happy for you. The sight of you down on one knee will probably shock her back to life."

"D'you think she'll say yes?" James asked hopefully, getting up from the carpet and dusting himself off. Remus snorted.

"Mate, if I thought she'd say no, I wouldn't laugh at you. As it is..."

"She'll say yes?" James asked excitedly, leaping onto Remus's bed and yanking his head toward him in a rough hug, resembling more of a headlock, "Oh, Moony, I knew I liked you better than Padfoot!"

"Hey!" Sirius voiced grumpily, "I am awake, you know!"

James released Remus and turned to face Sirius,"

"Oh, sorry, Padfoot. You know I didn't mean it,"

"Course you didn't," Sirius agreed, at the same time as Remus interrupted grumpily, "Hey!"

"So our little Prongs is finally popping the question," Sirius said happily, sounding uncannily like someone's grandmother, "You know, he's been planning this since he was this high."

"Shut it," James told him good naturedly. Sirius ignored him.

"So what will it be? Are you going to go with your original plan? Take her up to the Astronomy Tower, get her to look down, and below you'll have all the house elves standing on the ground, spelling out MARRY ME LILY? Or will it be the plan of getting her to marry you when she's drunk,and then she can't escape."

"My Lily does not get drunk!" james told him indignantly, and Remus piped up, "He's been planning this?"

"Only since day one," Sirius informed him, reaaching out and snatching the box from James's hand. He opened it and said in awed tones, "Blimey! Look at the size of that rock! But you're not planning on blinding her with it, are you? Because she won't marry you if you do that."

"Nice, isn't it?" James agreed, "I picked it all by myself,"

Sirius applauded him with raised eyebrows,

"Wow, Prongsie. Soon you might be able to tie your shoelaces."

"Hey!" James replied, cuffing him, "I learned that in fourth year!"

He noticed Remus staring at him, and said defensively, "What? It's hard!"

Remus smacked own his forehead with the heel of his palm.

"What is poor Lily marrying?"

"Who's Lily marrying?" Peter asked sleepily, rolling over and opening one eye.

"Flitwick," Sirius told him without missing a beat.

"Oh."

Peter turned over again, and went back to sleep. Remus watched him with an expression similar to resignation.

"Poor sod. So young. So gullible."

"What is it next? Defence?" Lily asked her boyfriend. He merely nodded vaguely.

"James?" Lily frowned, "What's up with you? You've only been half here all day. I don't know what's up with you. I mean, you've been amazing for the past few weeks and I'm sorry I've been how I have, it's just Marnie..."

She trailed off when she realized that James was no longer beside her, and looked around.

He was kneeling in the middle of the corridor, a truly terrified expression on his face.

"Lily..." he said helplessly. The two defnece teachers came out of the classroom, alarmed by the sudden silence tat had swept over the corridor. When they saw James kneeling in the corridor with the ring box now in his hand, Ginny stopped in the middle of her sentence, something incomprehensible about turnips.

"Lily." James repeated, this time in a stronger voice, "From the expression on your face, you weren't expecting this. And I don't blame you, I mean, maybe for you, this is just a school romance. But not for me. I... I've known since I first saw you that I'd spend my life with you. And maybe you don't feel the same, which, you know, is okay. Well, actually, it's not, I'll find a barn to crawl into and die if you say no. But not till I've killed Remus, because he swore you'd say yes, so..."

"Get on with it!" Someone voiced from the gathered crowd. James blushed crimson, but said, looking straight into Lily's eyes,

"Marry me, Lils?"

Lily said nothing for several moments, but then said in an amused voice,

"Get off the floor you git. Of course I'll marry you."

James was fairly sure that he'd gone deaf, as he couldn't actually hear a thing. How come people appeared to be clapping, but they weren't making a sound? And his knees were really, really hurting him. He was considering taking his gorgeous Lily's advice and get up.

Hang on, what had she said after that?

He looked into her face, only to see that her green eyes were spilling huge tears. Why was she crying? Lily wasn't supposed to be crying!

Getting slowly to his feet, still temporarily deaf, and leaned forward to kiss her.

I won't go into much detail, but I will tell you that they only came up for air after Professor McGonagall came along and dealt them both a detention for canoodling in the corridors.

"Are you lot ever going to calm down?" Harry asked of his class ten minutes later. He couldn't really hope for an answer other than,

"Probably not."

Harry considered.

"Fine. Fair enough, I suppose. Potter, Evans, I'm giving you the hour off. Use it to read romantic poetry to each other. Or snog. Whichever, I suppose."

The two engaged didn't need telling twice. The left the room so fast that Harry could swear he heard a distinct whistling sound. He turned back to his class, hoping that they might be slightly more teachable now.

His hope was futile. He realised this when Sirius asked loudly,

"Sir, would I get time off if I proposed to say... Hatfield?"

Harry sighed.

"No Black, you would not. You'd get a detention for breaking half the school's hearts. Now shut up and get some work done."

Poor Mrs Marnie's mum got a LOT of slagging in my reviews! She isn't evil, though. Imagine how hard this is for her, and she thought she did the right thing. I wrote a one soht about Hermione's mother recently, and this was partly modelled on how the mother of the character of Marnie would have felt.

Well, this was a pretty light, fluffy chapter, but you won't BELIEVE how hard it was! urgh, I just wasn't FEELING it! i've published THREE new stories in the space it took me to update, so I haven't bee totally idle. Check out my new stuff if you have time, my Mediator (Meg Cabot) HP crossover, my diary of trewlany, and my one soht about hermione's mum. Also, if anyone cares, I updated my Blackadder fic. I'm shamelessly self promoting, but PLEASE take the time to read and review them!

I haven't got time to thank everyone i'd like to thank, so I'm just answering questions, I think. Thankyou to everyone who's read, reviewed, put me on alerts or favourites. you all rule, and I love to hear from you. Especially ramblings, as lots of people have left some yummy long reviews.

so thankyou!

ttm: no. don't mention daniel radcliffe. DR is the bane of my life

robbie cupcake-girl: yep, marnie's mum dies as well

PoTtEr-FaN-fOr-LiFe: tee hee!

TiCkLeDoRaNgE: soz, american money aint no good to me!

JasonDaughter01: Hope your exams went OK! sev and lily? oookay

heenie: good time in new zealand?