A huge thanks to those of you who have reviewed so far!

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I own nothing. Every character mentioned here came from the genius mind of JK Rowling and her wonderful series. :-)

What?

Once we arrived at Hogwarts and were sitting at the Great Hall, Dumbledore made his usual beginning of term announcements. At that moment I looked over at Lily's direction out of habit I guess, and was surprised to see that she was looking at me too. I immediately expected her to scowl at me when I waved and smiled at her but instead she surprised me even more by returning the smile. Wait a minute, was this the same girl who yelled at me earlier, or was this a different Lily? As soon as I looked into her beautiful emerald eyes she turned away and continued her conversation with Alice. That was strange. Just then Sirius poked me hard on the ribs to get my attention.

"So Prongs, what do you think about going out to the Forbidden Forest next full moon?"

"Sounds good Padfoot."

"Are you alright Prongs, you're acting a bit strange," Peter asked me.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Remus asked.

"I'm fine Moony, just tired," I lied.

"If you say so," he responded.

Sirius then went on about some new spot in the Forbidden Forest we hadn't yet explored while Peter praised the idea, but I really wasn't listening. Lily Evans was still on my mind. I noticed that Remus was studying me, and I quickly shook all thoughts of the beautiful red-head out of my mind and dove into the conversation.

Once dinner was over, we all began making our way into our dormitories. As the other Marauders and I made our way towards the portrait hole I heard Lily call my name.

"Potter, can I speak to you about the prefect meeting earlier?"

"Sure," I responded trying not to sound too shocked.

Sirius smirked at me before he, Remus and Peter walked into the common room laughing.

I hesitantly walked towards her when she grabbed my arm and began pulling me down the corridor. It dawned on me then that Lily Evans was holding my arm. The only time she had ever touched me was when she was trying to push me away from her, but this time she was willingly making contact with me. Shocked, I let her lead me around the corner before she stopped and looked up at me with those gorgeous eyes. She was so beautiful. She was at least six inches shorter than I was and I really couldn't take my eyes off her.

"Look Potter, I want to talk to you about the prefect meeting…."

"Okay, I'm sorry I took over the meeting earlier today Evans. I know that's your thing and the last thing you needed was to have a prat like me make you look foolish, etc, etc." I said with a sigh. "Look, I really wasn't trying to show off, I swear, I just figured you wouldn't believe I was up for the challenge, so I took over so you wouldn't have to."

"What? You took over because you thought I didn't think you were capable of it?"

"Well, yeah. I mean I admit I like pranks a little more than the average guy and judging by what you said to me afterward, I guess I was right in believing that you thought I was incapable of being responsible," I said to her while running my hand through my already messy hair. "I figured I would try to impress you, but obviously it backfired."

"You certainly caught me off guard, but that isn't what I want to talk to you about," she responded shaking her head.

She then turned her back to me and walked a few feet away. I was about to ask her what she wanted to talk about when she turned back around.

"Potter, I'm sorry about the way I treated you earlier. I had no right to yell at you like that when you were only doing your job and I'm really sorry."

"Evans, it's ok, I….."

"Listen Potter, I live with muggles over the summer. I don't really get any news about what happens in the wizarding community back home and so I hadn't heard about what happened to you this summer," she said looking up at me as if expecting me to yell at her.

I immediately looked down at the floor as if it was calling my name. I really didn't want to talk about what happened to my parents over the summer. Besides, I wasn't supposed to look weak in front of her. What would she think of me? Growing tired of the uncomfortable silence, she spoke to me again.

"Potter, I'm sorry about accusing you of not growing up. I really am. I just had no idea…"

"Forget about it Evans," I interrupted with a bit of an edge to my voice. "You don't have to be nice to me just because you pity my situation or because you feel bad for yelling at me. I've gotten too many unwanted sympathetic looks from everybody else already. I really don't need the sympathy from you too because I've proven that I'm more than capable of dealing with it without anyone's help."

I should have been happy that she was apologizing to me, but I felt angry for some reason and I was lashing out at her. I wanted her to talk to me, but if she was only doing it because she pitied me, then I didn't want her attention at all.

"I don't pity you James," she said with a hint of impatience in her voice.

Wait a minute; did she just call me James!

"I know how you must feel right now and I know you don't need the pity but you also have to stop trying to pretend everything is fine. You're going about it all wrong if you think you can handle this without anyone's help. You don't have to prove that you're strong you know."

"You're right, I don't need the pity, and I'm not saying that because I feel the need to be strong all the time. So if you're done, I need to get some rest," I responded starting to walk away.

"Look," she said coming up to me and looking me in the eyes, "I know we haven't exactly been friends over the years, but I really feel bad about the way I treated you. Even you don't deserve that."

"Gee, thanks a lot Evans, and here I thought you were actually going to play nice," I said sarcastically forgetting all about my previous anger. How could I be angry when she looked at me like that?

"Okay, I'm sorry, that wasn't what I meant. It's just that you have this way of bringing the worst out of me for no apparent reason," she said blushing slightly.

"You hate me that much huh?" I asked running my hand over my hair again.

"I don't hate you Potter. It's just that you make my life so miserable sometimes and I don't understand why you do it."

"Well I wouldn't make your life so miserable as you put it if you gave me an opportunity to prove myself to you. Accepting one of my Hogsmeade invitations wouldn't hurt you know?"

"You call annoying me an invitation? Honestly, the way other girls go on about how charming James Potter is and how he is so sweet and adorable. Then I'm subject to the way you ask me out and I don't see what those girls are talking about."

"That's because you make me nervous," I told her with what I hoped was a normal tone of voice. It was true. She did make me nervous. Smooth talking James Potter became a babbling fool who couldn't even string two sentences together when it came to Lily Evans. She made me go weak in the knees, and I just wasn't used to being so helpless around any girl.

"James Potter nervous in front of a girl? Now I've heard everything!"

I suddenly broke away from my thoughts. She was laughing at me, and I didn't even care. This was the first civilized conversation we had ever had. Usually the conversations were between me and the back of her head, but this time she was actually talking to me.

"Alright, alright. I get it. So you've heard stories about my charm. Big deal, girls talk too much about that stuff anyway. You only make me nervous because you've made a fool out of me so often that I'm afraid you'll ruin my reputation," I told her through a large smile on my face.

"No, I certainly wouldn't want to do that," she said sarcastically.

There was a short uncomfortable silence before she spoke again.

"Look Potter, as I said before, I'm really sorry about the way I treated you earlier. It's not like me to yell at someone like that even if it is you."

"That's alright Evans, I could never be mad at you," I said smiling at her.

She smiled back at me, "You know Potter, we've been alone in this corridor for about ten minutes and you haven't hit on me once. I think this is the first time we have ever had a normal conversation too. You're in danger of becoming a good person," she teased.

"What are you talking about? I'm already a good person, you just haven't given me a chance to show you my good side," I said making her break out into a larger smile.

"I didn't think you had a good side," she laughed.

"Ha, ha," I said sarcastically through a large smile on my face. Another uncomfortable silence followed before she interrupted my thoughts again.

"Um…I was thinking Potter that since we're Head Boy and Head Girl now, that it would look really bad if we didn't get along. So…do you think that maybe we could put the past behind us and try to be friendlier towards each other?" she asked me looking down at the ground.

What! Lily Evans was asking me to be her friend?

"Oh, of course," I managed to say a little too eagerly.

"Well okay then, I guess we should go in before we get in trouble for being out in the corridor after curfew."

"We're Head Boy and Girl Evans, I don't think we'll get into too much trouble," I laughed.

She laughed too, "I guess you're right. It's just habit for me to worry you know?" She looked into my eyes just then and said, "Good night James."

I looked deep into her eyes and was somehow able to say a barely audible "Good night Lily."

She smiled at me when I said her name and then she walked through the portrait hole. That was the most amazing conversation of my life! Lily Evans had actually spoken to me without yelling AND she wanted to be friends with me! So far what started out as a bad year began looking better.

It took a couple of minutes for me to recover from the initial shock of being Lily's friend. When I finally came out of my daze, I walked through the portrait hole to see the other Marauders huddled in a corner. I hadn't even taken a few steps when Sirius ran over to me.

"You okay Prongs?"

"Padfoot, what are you talking about?" I asked, confused.

"Well we saw Evans walk in and then we didn't see you come in after her. We thought she had hexed you and left you unconscious out there," he said walking in circles around me while looking me over.

"What did she want to talk to you about?" Remus asked ignoring Sirius.

"Oh, um, she just wanted to tell me that we had a meeting with Dumbledore tomorrow."

"And it took you that long?" Peter added.

"Yeah, well, she was telling me what she thought the meeting would be about," I lied.

"Sure," Remus answered raising an eyebrow.

Damn. Remus always knew when I wasn't telling them the truth.

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