AN: This chapter is told through Lily's perspective. It's not really what I wanted it to be - she's sort of dislikable here, but it's all in good spirits. I re-read SB and I saw that on one of my comments, I wrote that Lily wasn't growing at the pace James was, and I never really worked on that, so here it is...

This chapter is also pretty, not deep, not thoughtful or sombre, basically, it doesn't have much homour, and I apologise for that. I will make up for it with this briliant scene in my head which I know (or at least I desperately hope) you will all appreciate.

Once again, please enjoy yourselves, and if you have any comments, any suggestions/criticism, please feel more than free to write! And I thank those who do!

Yours Truly

Chapter 4 - I thought you said he was bright!

It actually took him a very long time to squeeze out any meaning behind Lily's disappointment in his words. Heck, even after they had argued for an hour, he still showed a lack of any real sort of understanding, a feeling much akin to there being an odour in the air yet being unable to distinguish it from the rest, therefore failing to pinpoint exactly what odour your nose detects. He quickly became flustered, demanding of her an explanation as to why she would suggest such unheard of, ungodly ideas. It aggravated her more than anything, though, that he would have to question her reaction. As if he didn't know!

"I don't know if he really wants to not understand or if he's really that clueless!" she exclaimed as she let herself fall upon her untidy bed. She quietly felt ashamed of herself knowing full well what impressions James had of her (a neat, tidy, very organised girl) when in all actuality, she found herself to be a bit scattered and at times, unbelievably irresponsible.

"He doesn't get it?" asked the raven-eyed girl in the darkest corner of the dorm. "After all that screamin' and yellin'?" Lily sighed exasperatedly, not really wanting to answer that question.

"Geezus, Lily, I thought you said he was bright!" chimed another girl mockingly, the one that Lily had taken to be her second to best friend – that is, until she found out that she had previously dated James. Lily had quickly made her her 'bestest friend ever'. Why? Lily wasn't quite sure herself, but she knew that James could probably over analyse it and come up with a decent answer. At least, he could do that concerning every other thing.

She sighed once more. "My head huuuuurrrrts. I wanna go to sleeeeeep!" she whined, letting her calm and composed, yet shaken, exterior deteriorate to the point of leaving her with the same emotional capacity as a six year old. Rolling over on her side, she grabbed the pillow that had been recklessly shoved against the wall during her sleep, and slapped it atop her head. "EYE EEEE?" She moaned. Why me? She asked herself.

She waited until she knew no one was moving, kept her thoughts clear of any ideas, especially those which would inevitably lead her back to James. Unfortunately for her, James could pretty much be the result of any thread of thought. For example, last night, one of her roommates began talking about her new broomstick. Lily's mind went like this: Broomstick equals Quidditch equals James. James probably would like a new broomstick for Christmas. He'd be so happy… And when she came back from her private shopping list, someone yelled out "NO WAY! PINK?" And so, Lily's head spun off again. Pink, like when James blushes, his cheeks go pink, but sometimes go red and…I'm a hopeless case! And now, underneath her pillow in the dark refuge of her curtains, she fought and battled against her better self. Think of anything else, Lily, anything…anything at all!

So as she undressed and pulled on her lovely yellow pyjamas with little bluebirds, Lily reminded herself of James' pyjama bottoms he had worn that day those three boys had come to his house. At this point, Lily recognized defeat, and knew that the only way for her to get her thoughts away from James, would be to address why she was thinking about James in the first place…apart from the fact that he was her boyfriend, that is.

The answer was simple and clear: he hated her. Okay, so she was being a slight bit rash, but the way he had thrown himself on the couch when she had stormed up to her dormitory, she knew that he had been upset. No, no he had been more than upset. He was furious! James was furious because of her, because she was upset by him….AHHH this was such madness! Why would she care so much about what James thought, anyway? If he wasn't happy, he should just not date someone who most people could have sworn belonged in Slytherin. No! Now she was making excuses, actually sounding exactly like what she had been angry with James about in the first place. O, but this was such a cruel world, after all. What did he expect her to do, anyway? He was the one who made her upset…but why should she be upset if he would sacrifice his friends for the sake of protecting her, to protect his and her relationship? Should that not be taken as a compliment? Should she not have "awww-ed" and thanked him for being so sweet (like normal girlfriends would surely be inclined to doing), then taken him by the hand, led him to the couch, snogged for a half hour then have told him that it would make her beyond happy to have him and his friends get along again.

Bullocks! Lily wasn't like that. In fact, in the few months (almost three, now!) that they had dated, Lily and James had never full-fledged snogged. She had set up boundaries, or at least, she liked to believe that she had set up borders, across which James could not go. Oh, of course, sometimes she found herself lust for his lips in the middle of class, or even dreaming about him whisking her off to some romantic place in the Forbidden Forest where they would snog for hours… I am demented! She once had tried to explain to herself why it was she was keeping James at such a distance when he had proved over and over to her how devoted, charming, and trustworthy he was, and found herself baffled, speechless, and unable to conjure even one fake explanation. And so, like most "demented" people do when they have no way out, she had blamed it on her own dual personality.

When it came down to it, she knew it was true. Lily, her friends often pointed out, was a very ambivalent person. Almost double faced, to the point of having two different sets of attitudes. Of course, Lily claimed it was all due to her inability to find a good way to mesh two personality types into one mega personality. She also claimed that her real character was the brash one, the one she took up when it was only her and her best mates.

"And what about when you're with James?" The pink, puffy cheeked Slytherin had asked not too long ago.

"Yeah," echoed her best mate, a very narrow faced and beady eyed Ravenclaw, "you're all calm and stuff…like, quiet, super shy Lily!" The lot of them indulged in an uproar of laughter, as though the words "shy" and "Lily" shouldn't even share a dictionary, even if they were separated by hundreds of pages.

Still, the question had been very real to her then, just as it was now. Unable to answer with something decent and believable, Lily had joked it off, something about not wanting to 'scare the poor pup away' as she had put it. But was that really it?

James could evoke in her a feeling of rest, of peace, of an almost harmonious rhythm inside. Even when she was first confronted by her parent's absence, Lily had found something soothing about her banter sessions with James. His ability to rile her up in ten seconds and then keep her screaming at him for another forty five minutes was something she cherished as it was these sessions that had, at first, helped her relieve her anger and stress when her father had passed. And when she had stayed at his house last summer, the way he would blurt random thoughts and ideas and still, miraculously, not only stay on topic, but manage to soothe her pain or anxiety, was something that had perplexed then suited Lily, thank you very much.

But she didn't love him. Nooooo thank you sir. And she actually felt bad for it. He really, honestly tried so hard, so anxious to put a smile on her lips, or to woo her with small gestures of kindness. Still, she couldn't help but get the sense that he had a much deeper fondness of her than she had of him. He depended on her much more than she depended on him, what with his mother's condition. He was an only child; he needed her support, her attention, he needed her. And sometimes, oftentimes, Lily almost wanted to drown herself in the toilets at her predicament: should she lead him on further?

Not to get her wrong. Lily liked James, in fact, she probably liked him the most out of all the boyfriends she had had. But, again…she was not quite sure whether she had really wanted this relationship to happen, to blossom. Oh, at James' house, it had all been magnificent. It had actually been almost like a romance novel or movie of some type, what with her being somehow forced to stay at his place, he being an only child had nothing better to do than to look after his guest, and then, randomly, they fell for each other. Or, rather, he convinced her to fall for him. "Fall" should actually be replaced with 'develop an admiration and something akin to a friendship, but with one party feeling the guilt of knowing the other party has something more than friendship in mind'. Yup, that seemed about right.

Lily looked over at the glow-in-the-dark clock set on the dresser beside her 'new best friend'. It wasn't quite midnight yet…there were still chances that James had passed out on the couch. Just the thought of seeing him asleep on the couch with his glasses all crooked, his lips slightly parted allowing for only the slightest snore to come out was too much for Lily to bear. Her mouth instantly curved upwards into a foolish grin, and, heart pumping and all, Lily stepped into her slippers and carefully tiptoed out of the dormitory, making sure no one was awake to witness such an event.

As quiet as a mouse, Lily made her way down to the bottom of the stairs where she saw, to her dismay; no one was on the couch. The fire was now just a pile of glowing embers, and the little light it did emit was trying on her eyes. She silently cursed herself for having waited so long, wasting her time convincing herself that she was still the old Lily, still the borderline snobbish yet very helpful and dedicated student she had originally been. She should have been down here instead, making amends with James, working very hard to come to a mutual understanding. Knowing that he had probably fallen asleep angry at her, Lily sighed and walked towards the couch. She almost yelped when she saw that she had been about to sit on a dark haired student…

It opened one of its eyes. "Evans?" it grunted. So that means 'it' was a 'he'.

"Oh. Black," she exhaled as she took a seat opposite him. "What are you doing on the couch?"

He growled something, pushed his face into the arm of the couch, growled another something, then grudgingly sat up, setting his feet on the poof in front of him. "You?"

"I'm sorry," she replied, "I didn't hear that." Something flashed in his eyes, something reminiscent of annoyance, and he leaned forward and gave her a look that almost made her freeze. Almost.

"You're something else, aren't you, Evans?" he started, leaning back as he originally was. Sirius Black was, hands down, the oddest person to hit this planet. She raised an inquiring eyebrow, requesting him to elaborate. "I mean, you have to be, getting James all worked up like he is."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her heart refusing to beat lest she miss something due to its overly loud pounding and Sirius' very baritone voice.

"Potter. James. James Potter. My best mate? Ring a bell?"

"Sirius –"

"What did you say to the poor guy?" Poor guy? Wasn't he the richest….no that wasn't the point. Poor guy…that meant that Sirius was pitying his friend, which only meant that they were now on speaking terms. She hoped against hope that they were. Unless, the whole reason behind their making up was along the lines of James going up to his dormitory and crying so loudly that Sirius had been forced to apologize because he couldn't bear hearing his best mate blubbering like a two year old.

"I…I…"

Sirius barked a laugh. "HA! Don't act the innocent, Evans! You two were down here arguing – the entire house heard you – and not twelve minutes later Prongsie's knocking at the dormitory door explaining to Remus that he had been wrong to snap, yadi-yadi- yadda." Lily couldn't help but smile inwardly at this. "Then he comes up to me, punched me in the arm, and yells at me that I've been acting like a spoiled kid. Then the guy EXPLODES about how I need to respect whatever it is he does with his time with you. And then…well, we'll just conclude by saying that we're now, officially, all good again."

It took all her efforts to say, "Huh?"

"Geezus! And he keeps saying how bright you are! Honestly!" he rubbed his under arms as he yawned something awfully loud, stood and walked towards the boys' stairs, only to stop midway through to turn and walk directly towards her. "Now you listen here, Evans! James is going to tell you something when you allow him to talk to you again, and I want you to take this very seriously, Okay?" His right index finger found its way numerous times to her shoulder. "You might not like it, you might disagree, but you will do well to respect the boundaries that separate you from me and me from you, clear?"

Again, she had to dig into the depths of her strength to muster up the word, "Uh-huh." Why was Sirius so taken, so infuriated? Never had she seen him act so vivid before. Never had he ever dared to lay a finger on her!

"Good. James seems happy with you…and I want…I like that." She scarcely heard the "Thanks" he whispered before he climbed up the stairs.

It was probably an hour later that Lily realised she was still in the common room, sitting transfixed on the single seat she had sat on a while ago to listen to Sirius. To Black. Sirius Black. In any case, time had ceased to stop for her when he had said something about James and happy. Or was it James being happy? It was something like that, and it scared her so much she was forced to retreat to her own little world inside her head, to try to find the voice of reason.

The information she had gathered from Sirius' little stint proved itself more valuable, more…significant than any smile from James, any of the times he had pulled her up by the hand, than any time he had set his hand at the bottom of her back to lead her across a hallway or through a door. It was easy to act a certain way around the person you were trying to impress, but when they are gone, what's the point of keeping up the act? They can't see you, right? That only means that they can't pass judgement, even if what you've done is later relayed to them through the grapevine. But James had actually carried it over. He had done what she had told him to do once (at the very beginning of the argument) and had later decided against. Besides, what's the point of apologizing if you haven't a clue what you are apologizing for? But he had pulled it off, understood, all by his lonesome, why he should be apologising, and going farther than that: he made amends with all who were involved!

It could have been that James had realised that, with Sirius, Lily, and Remus mad at him, he would have few people he really cared about to spend his time with, and thus had concluded to patch things up with the ones whom he had known the longest: With his best mates. But somehow, Lily denied this and instead reckoned he had done this because it had been important to her. Her reasoning was definitely faulty, she presumed, as it was getting later and later into the night, but she still couldn't help but feel like something major had just hit her in the face. No, rather, it had hit her in the chest. James was so sweet, so kind, compassionate, yet still able to maintain an air of (was it pride? Dignity? Composure?) around his friends and her, and he still found a way to do something some (like her father) would have regarded as 'girly' by admitting to being in the wrong and making up for it with a decent apology all the while staying composed. These were, without a doubt, fantasies which she encouraged as she trudged up the stairs to her dormitory, walked heavy-footed to her bed and climbed between the bed sheets.

James, she thought for the millionth time this day, I don't know what to make of you. Should she make a resolution to be true to herself as she is around him? Or, should she continue with life as it had always been? Wanted or not, Lily now realised that she, too, was changing, that James was affecting her much like she was affecting him, if only in a more subtle manner (as Lily had always been resistant to change). Change, as it were, was always undertone with a sense of something negative for her, what with the last two major changes of her life revolving around the loss of the two people she had cherished more than anything. Yet here she was, catching herself smiling in the dead of the night at nothing of particular interest. She was merely smiling because she felt like smiling. James had apologised, of all things holy, he had done it! All on his own! No whining, no complaints, just an argument (based on the fact that he didn't understand what he'd be apologising for), yet once he figured that small problem out, he had done it.

Perhaps, she thought, tomorrow will be a good day. Maybe tomorrow, I'll wake up early and watch the sunrise. She snorted. As if she'd cut back on precious sleep! No, tomorrow would be executed much the same as the previous day, and the day before that. Only, only this time, she felt like she needed to do something different. Something minor, something trivial that would not necessarily mean much to those around her, but something that would mean a great deal to her. She wanted to surprise James much the same way he surprised her.

Then it dawned on her as her conscious thoughts began slipping away further and further into the oblivion of the land of dreams. And before she officially visited this land, she knew exactly what she had to do.

She would admit that she depended on him as much as he depended on her, that she needed their relationship as much as he did. No one had the upper hand in this relationship and she would be the first to admit that tomorrow.