Yes, I have finally posted something! I'm sorry I've kept you all waiting for so long, especially since this is my most popular fanfiction, and I promise I will try harder to write more! I won't bother with excuses I've already given...

I'm sorry this chapter is so rushed. I think it goes through four weeks... And most of it is about Lily and James rather than Harry, so I'm sorry about that too.

For those of you who are upset because Lily and James get together in this chapter, DO NOT BITE MY HEAD OFF! I have a plan so that it all works out with the books, and I figured it out especially for those of you anal enough to want this to fit in perfectly with the books despite this being a FANFICTION.

I'm running out of ideas! I'm trying to mix up which types of Divination Lily and James use each time, but it's very difficult to do. I had to think about what I was going to do for this chapter, and now I'm all out. So if you could please review and let me know: A) what you think about this chapter and the fic in general, and B) any types of Divination that I have missed. This is what I have written about so far:

Tea leaves, palm reading, crystal balls, and dream diaries (this chapter). I'm going to try to fit the whole "murcury is in the house of saturn" stuff in eventually, but I don't know what that's called and I don't know anything about that so I don't know how I will do it. But please let me know what I am missing, or if you practice Wicca you can tell me about stuff Harry Potter doesn't cover and I might incorporate that (I am Christian, so I don't know any of that stuff (writing that, I feel so ignorant...))

Anywho, please review and enjoy! I personally like the dream that Lily and James have together because it will lead to some conflict in the future, but you go ahead and read and tell me what you think.


Gryffindor lost the first Quidditch game of the season because the team's star Chaser would pause to glare either at the announcer's booth where Lilt sat, or—more often—into the Gryffindor stands where Sirius was seated. When Lily had asked Remus to talk to Sirius for her, she had not thought of the possibility of a fight between the two best friends. Now the Marauders were divided: Sirius and Lupin, who were supportive of the new relationship between Sirius and Lily; James, who refused to talk to Sirius, yet acted insanely happy whenever Lily was anywhere nearby; and Peter, who was trying to remain neutral in the argument.

James didn't even sit with Sirius at lunch anymore. Now he gathered Frank Longbottom and the rest of the Quidditch team around him, always as far away from Sirius as he could get. There was even a rumor that James wouldn't even sleep in the boys' dormitories with Sirius in the same room, since none of the other boys had seen James actually sleep in the dormitory since Sirius and Lily had started dating.

The experience of dating Sirius was as unpleasant to Lily as the knowledge of it was to James. Not that Sirius was a bad boyfriend, Lily told herself constantly. He was actually a very good boyfriend. He'd seemed to understand that Lily wanted a slow relationship, and he respected that. So far they had done nothing more than hold hands, and this was the end of the third week of their relationship.

Any yet every week, James greeted Lily in Divination with the same, insanely happy smile. That smile drove Lily crazy, because she knew that James was just plastering it on his face to cover up his real feelings.

"How are you today, Evans?" James greeted her one day, the smile fixed firmly on his face. Sirius rolled his eyes before taking his place with Peter, leaving Lily alone with James.

"I'm fine," replied Lily, not looking at James while she sat and balanced her bag against a leg of her chair. "You?"

"I could be better."

Still avoiding looking at James, Lily looked down at the table to see what they were doing today: two big journals labeled "DREAM DIARY" lay on the table between them.

Professor Ramla announced that she had a migraine, so she would just let the groups talk about the dreams they'd had last night. "Interpret the dreams' contents with the chart on page 27. I'll be over here attempting to stew a proper migraine potion."

For the first time that day, Lily looked up at James. He was still wearing that smile! Why was he angry with her? It's not like they had been dating or anything!

"OK," began Lily, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had started to grow between them. "Well, last night I had a dream about a family of dolls. They were going to have a baby, so I needed to find this thing that would allow me to decorate the nursery. When I found it, it turned out to be a playground. I shot an arrow at the playground out of my foot, and the mommy doll was happy. Then I woke up. Do you think there's any symbolism for my life or Harry's in that ?"

When Lily mentioned Harry's name, James's eyes flickered and his smile faltered. He turned in his chair to glare at Sirius, who was telling Peter about his recurring dream: dementors chasing him, pulling down their hoods to kiss him until finally a silver stag appeared to save him. When Sirius started talking about the stag, he turned to look at James. The tension in the room suddenly multiplied.

Lily bent over her book, commenting in a nervous voice, "Well, the book says that dolls symbolize untruth, and anything relating to children symbolizes innocence. Any sort of weapon obviously shows violence or aggression. But from what we've seen so far, I don't think Harry is going to have violent tendencies against innocence, and I'm not entirely sure he'll make a good liar based on all the trouble he gets himself into…"

James wasn't paying attention. He and Sirius were still glaring at each other, despite Peter's attempts to break them apart with a description of his own dream: Sirius was trying to kill him after he had kidnapped a boy.

Those boys have some morbid dreams, Lily thought to herself. Dementors, friends turning traitor and trying to kill you, and kidnapping. Sounds like some lovely dreams to me…

Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Professor Ramla suddenly sprout bunny ears. The professor cursed loudly and told the class to behave while she went to the hospital wing to reverse the potion's effect, and to get a proper migraine cure from someone competent in potion-making.

As soon as Professor Ramla's head disappeared down the ladder, James jumped from his seat and snarled, "Traitor!"

Sirius looked surprised. He responded coolly, "Yeah, that's exactly what my family is calling me too: a blood traitor."

"Shut up, Black!"

Sirius rose from his chair, his expression now angry. "So it's 'Black' now, is it?"

"What else would I call the man who dated the girl I've liked for years?"

"Maybe you haven't noticed, James, but Lily hasn't liked you!"

Lily felt her face redden. This whole thing was her fault! She had broken apart one of the truest friendships in Hogwarts just so she could keep the secret of her crush.

"It doesn't matter whether Lily likes me now or not!" James bellowed, stunning Lily with the use of her first name. "I told you about the visions we've have; you know we are going to end up together, but you still dated her!"

"Because she liked me, James! I wouldn't have dated her otherwise!"

Lily was horribly aware that everyone in the Divination class was listening avidly to the argument, taking it all in and probably wondering what was going on. It wasn't exactly old news that Lily Evans was dating James Potter's best friend, even though James had had a crush on Lily since anyone knew James; then again, it wasn't the hottest gossip either. Most people had only been interested to see whether the friendship between James Potter and Sirius Black was going to survive an argument over a girl.

"Every girl in the school likes you, Black," James yelled, "but you don't go out with all of them!"

"BECAUSE I WAS DOING THIS FOR YOU!" Sirius shocked James into silence with his words. He shocked Lily pretty badly, as well. "I figured that if she dated me, I could talk her around into dating you. But you know what I discovered? She never even liked me! She never wanted to date me!"

All of the color that had previously flooded Lily's face now drained out of it, leaving her dace a pale mask. Sirius knew! But how could he know? They had barely spoken to each other at all! But more importantly, was Sirius about to blow her big secret?

There was no way Lily was going to allow that. So she did the only thing she could think of: she pretended to faint. She knew it was girly, but it caused Sirius and James to immediately jump to her side, and the rest of the class to murmur excitedly about what was going on between these three people.

As soon as Sirius and James bent down to help her, Lily whispered softly enough so that only they could hear her: "I need to talk to the both you now!"

James and Sirius helped Lily to her feet, debating in a code only they seemed to understand.

"Horace?" Sirius asked, leading James and Lily towards the ladder.

James shook his head. "Sealed. Kitchens?"

"Too many house-elves."

"R of R?"

"Seems like it's the only place."

With a nod, James and Sirius took off away from North Tower, gesturing for Lily to follow.

How do I get myself into these situations? Lily thought as she chased after James and Sirius, who led her down the ladder and through many different corridors.

When Lily finally caught up with the two boys, they were pacing through the corridor with thoughtful expressions on both of their faces.

"What are you doing?" Lily gasped, tired from having run down three flights of stairs. She bent to lean her weight on her knees, trying to catch her breath. "Where are we? There are no classrooms down this corridor!"

Lily saw Sirius and James exchange mischievous grins, as if their argument had never taken place. Then James turns and opened a door that Lily could have sworn was not there when she had last looked. So where had it come from?

"This isn't a classroom," Lily observed when she walked into the room, seeing nothing but three very comfortable-looking chairs in the center of the room.

"No," verified Sirius. "This is the Room of Requirement. And after the show you put on in Divination, we figured this would be the best place for us to talk. As you noticed, no one can get in here unless they know how to."

"Not many teachers even know this room exists," James continued. He gestured for Lily to take a seat. "But I'm guessing that's not what you wanted to talk about."

Lily sank into the chair James offered, thinking her heart had actually stopped beating.

Why should it, though? Why was Lily even so nervous about this? It wasn't like James didn't like her. Lily doubted he would shoot her down when she finally told him she liked him. And she knew that they were eventually going to get married, and even have a son together. So what was it that was causing her breath to catch?

Lily waited for James and Sirius to sit down, and then she looked at Sirius. For a while, she didn't say anything. To say something would mean to give up, after everything she had done to keep her secret.

But then Lily looked over to James, and their eyes met. Once again she got that whooshing feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one that made her happy just to be here in his presence. She hadn't looked into his eyes at all in the past three weeks, and now that she was doing so again she knew that she would be able to do this.

She hoped.

Turning back to Sirius, Lily cleared her throat. And then cleared it again. One more time and she was ready: "You were right," she admitted to Sirius. "I never actually liked you."

Sirius nodded knowingly, confirming Lily's guess that he knew the rest of the truth. Probably for James's benefit, he asked, "So then why did you go out with me if you never liked me?"

This was it. Lily was going to tell James Potter that she liked him. IF she could actually get the words past the huge block that seemed to have formed in the back of her throat. Lily cleared her throat yet again, but it still didn't keep her voice from going hoarse when she face James and said nervously, "Because I wanted to get closer to you; because I liked you."

James just sort of stared at Lily, not saying anything. His face was totally blank, for which Lily was thankful; it was infinitely preferable to that stupid smile he'd been wearing for the past three weeks. When James finally spoke, it was in a firm tone: "No you don't."

Lily felt her eyebrows rise, all the way until she thought they had disappeared into her red hair. "I think I would know if I liked someone."

James shook his head. "You can't like me! I've been trying to get you to like me for years and you haven't liked me!"

Lily licked her lips nervously. This is not how she had imagined this conversation. For one thing: Sirius was still here, an amused look on his face as he turned his head to keep up with the exchanges between Lily and James. Secondly: James had always swept Lily into a kiss whenever she had imagined this conversation in her mind or in her dreams, but now he was flat out denying that Lily had any feelings for him. This wasn't supposed to be how relationships started! They were supposed to be romantic and exciting and fun! This was just weird and awkward and confusing.

"Well, actually," Lily corrected James, "I have liked you for a while, since you actually started to mature and stopped picking on Severus."

James still shook his head emphatically, insisting, "But you can't have! You're Lily Evans! I love you, but you hate me! This isn't supposed to be how this works out!"

Lily was stunned to hear her thoughts come out of James's mouth. "What do you mean?"

James actually blushed. What was he blushing for? Lily was the one who had gone out on a limb and was now scrabbling for a new hold after the branch had broken beneath her squirrelly feet!

"I mean," James began, looking away, "that whenever I dreamed about this sort of conversation, it wasn't happening like this. It was more like, I-ask-you-out-you-accept-we-go-to-Madame-Puddifoots-and-have-a-romantic-kiss sort of thing."

"Whoa, hold it!" Sirius interrupted. "You imagined your first date with Lily Evans at Madame Puddifoot's?" When James nodded, Sirius asked incredulously, "Have you ever seen that place, mate?"

Lily felt a small smile show on her face. At least someone is having fun here… Then, rolling her eyes, she turned back to James and took his hand. "We can still do that, if you want," she offered. Then, thinking back, added, "Well, maybe except for the Madame Puddifoot's part; I've actually seen that place, and it doesn't look like the sort of place either of us would ever hang out in."

James laughed and squeezed her hand. "Okay, then. Lily Evans, will you go out with me?"

"Oh, come on!" Sirius exclaimed. "You're not proposing marriage or anything!" Sirius shut up when he saw the angry glares on Lily's and James's faces.

Lily looked back at James, into his eyes. The two of them smiled, each of them knowing what the other was feeling. Lily took her free hand and placed it on James's shoulder, trying to come up with something inspirational or wise to say. In the end, the only thing she could come up with was, "Yes."

And then Lily and James shared the romantic kiss that had been the last part of James's description of how the conversation should have taken place. Well, it was as romantic as it could be with Sirius clucking away in the background and saying reproachfully, "I'm sorry, Lily dear, but if you're going to go snogging other guys right in front of me then I'm going to have to dump you."

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Another week went by, in which the Divination class tried desperately to fill their Dream Diaries with meaningful, prophetic dreams. Professor Ramla extended the time they were going to study prophetic dreams, exclaiming that she had never had such a stupid class.

"You're all idiots!" she shouted one day. "How hard is it to make up a story with some symbolism worked in? I have a friend who can find symbolism in mittens, and you guys can't even find something to symbolize purity? You're all pathetic losers who will never amount to anything in life! Except as useful citizens who don't know any Divination, but you were bound to become so anyway!"

Even Lily and James weren't having any dreams about their future or Harry's, and they had excelled in the class so far. But all of their dreams so far had just turned out to be the usual random crap that comes out of everyone's heads.

"Well," James told Lily one Divination class, "last night I had some pretty bad dreams. I kept waking up after each one, too."

"What were the dreams about?" Lily asked, expecting a joke of some sort.

But James looked thoughtful. "Well, there was this one where I slept in on the morning of a Quidditch match, and the team captain woke me up and yelled at me that I'd missed the match and they'd had to get Longbottom to play for me. But I don't think that's very prophetic, because Longbottom is already our Seeker and he's an amazing player. And then there was this other one when I showed up to a match and all of the Slytherins were riding dragons instead of broomsticks, and one of them made their dragon catch the end of my broom's tail on fire."

"Well, I hope that's not a prophetic dream!" Lily exclaimed.

James looked extremely uncomfortable about something, which caused Lily to get worried. This relationship with James was definitely moving faster than her relationship with Sirius; were they going too fast? If James wanted to go any farther than kissing, Lily would have to end the relationship here and now, since there was no way she would ever do that until after she was married.

James finally found his voice. "I think I know why we're not dreaming anything about Harry," he said, leaning his elbows on the table and bunching his hands into fists. Lily took his hands in an effort to calm him down. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

"Tell me anyway."

James met her eyes, and the two of them smiled before looking back down at their hands. For a moment they just sat there, their fingers entwined. Then, James suggested slowly, "I think the reason we're not having any dreams about Harry is because we're not… dreaming together."

Lily tilted her head to the side, confused. "Dreaming together? What do you mean?"

James bit his lip, and Lily squeezed his hand to urge him to continue. "I think that for this to work, we need to be… together… when we dream."

"No." Their eyes met, and both of them knew on some level that neither of them would ever want to do anything beyond what they were doing already until after they were married. Not even a grade was worth that.

James shook his head, a smile beginning. "I wasn't thinking of that! I was thinking more just sleeping in the same location."

Lily furrowed her eyebrows, thinking. "How would location affect the probability of having visions?" she asked.

James was ready with an answer. Apparently he'd been thinking about this all week. "Well, our other visions only occur when we're having them together. What makes dreams so different?"

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An older version of Sirius Black—a corpse-like one with filthy, matted hair that hung limply down to his elbows and waxy skin stretched tightly over the bones of his skull, yellow teeth bared in a grin—was pointing a wand at Harry, Hermione, and Ron. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, causing wands to float out of the hands of Harry and Hermione; Sirius must have been using Ron's wand.

Sirius took a step closer to Harry, his eyes fixed on the boy. "I thought you'd come and help your friend," he croaked. His voice sounded as though he had long since lost the habit of using it. "Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful… it will make everything much easier…"

The taunt about James seemed to enrage Harry, causing the thirteen-year-old to start forward. Ron and Hermione caught him before he could get very far, Ron vowing that Sirius would have to kill all of them if he wanted to kill Harry.

Something flickered in Sirius's eyes, and he told the redhead to sit down before he damaged his broken leg even more. "There'll be only one murder here tonight," Sirius said when Ron insisted that he would have to kill all three teenagers. His yellow grin widened.

"Why's that?" Harry spat, trying to wrench himself free of Ron and Hermione. "Didn't care last time, did you? Didn't mind slaughtering all those Muggles to get at Pettigrew…. What's the matter, gone soft in Azkaban?" Hermione pleaded with Harry to stop, but Harry continued, bellowing, "HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!" With that, Harry broke free of the hold his friends had on him and attacked Sirius, forcing raised wand tips away from him by fastening his hand over Sirius's emaciated wrist. The two of them fell back and to the floor when Harry started striking Sirius, punching every bit of him that he could reach. Sparks from the wands barely missed Harry's face, but Harry didn't seem to care.

Sirius's free hand found Harry's throat, and squeezed tightly.

"No," he hissed, "I've waited too long—!"

Hermione and Ron threw themselves at Sirius, freeing Harry to chase after one of the wands that had dropped to the floor when Ron had dropped his weak body on top of Sirius's. Before he could reach his wand, a cat with an oddly squished face sank both sets of front claws deep into Harry's arm, and then chased after the wand when Harry threw it off.

"NO YOU DON'T!" Harry roared at the cat, aiming a kick at it that caused it to leap out of the way, hissing madly. Grabbing his wand, Harry yelled for Ron and Hermione to get out of the way. Ron and Hermione immediately complied, Hermione running to gather her and Ron's wands while Ron crawled over to the four-poster bed in the corner and rubbed his injured leg.

Meanwhile, Harry stepped closer to Sirius, his wand pointed directly at the adult's heart.

"Going to kill me, Harry?" Sirius whispered despite a bloody nose.

Even though his wand was held steady, Harry's voice trembled. "You killed my parents."

Sirius stared up at Harry and said quietly, "I don't deny it. But if you knew the whole story."

"The whole store?" Harry repeated angrily. "You sold them to Voldemort. That's all I need to know."

"You've got to listen to me," Sirius said, a note of urgency in his voice. "You'll regret it if you don't…. You don't understand…."

"I understand a lot better than you think," insisted Harry, his voice shaking more than ever. "You never heard her, did you? My mum… trying to stop Voldemort killing me… and you did that… you did it…."

The cat leaped and settled itself over Sirius's heart, as if it had formed an emotional attachment to the man. Sirius tried to shove the cat out of the way, but the cat refused to move, sinking its claws into Sirius's robes.

In the next few minutes, nothing happened. Harry kept his wand pointed at Sirius's heart, at the cat, as if he were frozen. Eventually, muffled footsteps could be heard echoing up the floor, as if someone was moving around downstairs. Hermione called for the person—whoever they were—to come help them.

The door burst open in a shower of red sparks, and Remus came hurtling into the room, his face bloodless, wand raised and ready. Taking in the scene before him, Remus disarmed the three teenagers, catching them in his hand as they flew towards him as a result of the Expelliarmus charm. Turning to Sirius, he asked tensely, "Where is he, Sirius?"

For a few seconds, Sirius didn't move. He sat there with a blank face, staring at Remus as if he had never seen him before. He slowly raised his hand and pointed at Ron, who looked bewildered.

"But then…," Lupin muttered, staring at Sirius so intently that it seemed he was trying to read his mind, "…why hasn't he shown himself before now? Unless"—Remus's eyes widened, as if he was seeing something more to Sirius that none of the teenagers could see, "—unless he was the one… unless you switched… without telling me?"

Sirius nodded, his eyes never leaving Remus's face.

Harry asked Remus what was happening, addressing the man as Professor. His question seemed to die in his throat when he saw Remus lower his wand and go to help Sirius up, embracing him as if they were long lost brothers.

While Harry stared incredulously, Hermione screamed, "I DON'T BELIEVE IT!"

Remus let go of Sirius and turned to Hermione, who was pointing at him. "You—you—!"

"Hermione—."

"—you and him!"

"Hermione, calm down—."

"I didn't tell anyone!" Hermione shrieked. "I've been covering up for you—!"

"Hermione, listen to me, please!" Remus shouted. "I can explain—."

"I trusted you!" This time it was Harry who spoke, his voice wavering as he shouted angrily at Remus, "and all the time you've been his friend!"

"You're wrong," said Remus. "I haven't been Sirius's friend, but I am now—Let me explain…."

"NO!" Hermione screamed. "Harry, don't trust him, he's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too—he's a werewolf!"

James shot up, panting. His sudden movement dropped Lily from where she had been sleeping next to him on the couch in the Gryffindor Common Room, and she landed on the floor with a squeak. James helped her up, but at the same time his mind was fully and completely on the dream he was sure they had just shared. He knew they had shared it when James's eyes met Lily's, and he saw that she knew about Remus's furry little problem.

That wasn't what was concerning James, though. He could always explain that to her later, since Lily was not the type of person to discriminate someone because a monster had bitten them as a child. No, what was bothering him was the knowledge the dream had just provided: that Sirius was going to kill him and Lily, and Remus was going to help him kill Harry.