"Well, I'm off." Lupin stood, stretching his arms to take up time.

For a second Lily wondered where Remus was going so late in the evening, but then she saw the sun setting through the Common Room window, the brilliant orb turning a bright shade of orange as it sank below the trees of the Forbidden Forrest. Suddenly wary, Lily felt her muscles tense; the reaction made her feel guilty for acting so differently around Remus since she found out about his secret—his "furry little problem", as James called it in public—just last week. Lily didn't think anything could surprise her after finding out her boyfriend's best friend was a werewolf.

"Alright. We'll meet up with you sometime around midnight, then."

Apparently she was wrong.

"WHAT!" Lily gasped, looking at James from her side of their shared armchair. "You're going to WHAT with WHO sometime around WHEN!"

Noticing the increasing number of people watching the beginning of another Potter-Evans Battle, James clamped a hand over Lily's mouth, only to let go with a gasp when the redhead bit him.

Lily stood to glower down at James. "What's going on?" she demanded.

Somehow noticing the position of the sun in all that chaos, Sirius got up from where he'd been lying on the plush red carpet and, brushing off his robes, said loudly, "Hey, Moony, weren't you saying earlier that your stomach was really bothering you?"

Catching on, Peter jumped up and added, "Yeah, we'd better take you to the hospital wing! It might be something serious!"

Wearing looks of exaggerated concern, the two boys went to help their "sick" friend get to the hospital wing… or wherever it was they took him during the full moon.

Lily still stood over James, waiting for him to explain. She knew that James wouldn't leave her in the dark for long; not with so many people staring at them right now. He would eventually have to cave in and tell her what he was talking about.

James tried hard to fight back against the fierce glare his girlfriend was giving him. Lily could tell he was on the verge of laughing at the fact that their relationship had not done anything to end their numerous arguments; they still argued over everything, only now they seemed to enjoy challenging each other to a verbal battle of wits.

Finally, James caved. He stood up from the armchair and, taking Lily's hand in his, guided her out of the Gryffindor Common Room and down the nearest flight of stairs, following many dark corridors until he seemed to be certain that no one could overhear them.

Why doesn't he just take me back to that Room of Requirement place? Lily wondered. She shrugged off the thought, thinking that James probably had his reasons for not taking her there. Besides: they weren't here to fight.

James faced Lily and took both of her hands in his. "I want you to know," he said, trying to keep a smile off of his face, "that what I am about to tell you is going to make you very mad at me. So before I tell you…"

Before Lily could stop him, James was kissing her. She would have pushed him away and demanded that he explain things to her properly, but Lily was still getting used to the fact that she was kissing James. The fact that she was kissing at all added to her encouraging reaction; before her relationship with James, she had never kissed or been kissed by anyone.

James pulled away only to hug Lily close to him, lowering his head so that it rested on her shoulder with his mouth by her ear. Lily tried not to laugh at his breath tickling her when James whispered apprehensively, "Moony isn't the only one who turns into an animal on the full moon."

And suddenly Lily was hugging a stag.

Lily gasped and pulled away, only to bang the back of her head against some sort of stick that pushed her right back into the creature—only now it was James that she was pushed into.

"Sorry," he apologized, "I forgot about the antlers. Are you okay?"

"Antlers?" Lily gasped as she pushed James away from her. "You think that's what's at the front of my mind right now? James, you're—!"

"Shh!"

"But you're—!"

"Lily!"

"Illegal!"

"I know!"

"How—?"

"Calm down."

"Why?"

"Lily, breathe!"

"But you're—!"

"LILY!"

۞۞۞

They'd done it! They'd won the Quidditch Cup! Lily couldn't believe it; she felt like she should still be back there in that stadium, but the feeling of extreme exhilaration, the feeling as if she had just chugged ten million gallons of Mountain Dew, told her she was wrong.

Lily handed the Cup back to whoever had passed it to her—it was being passed around the room so that everyone could share the victory—and jumped up and down. She needed to do something—anything! She needed to hug someone. Frantically, she grabbed Longbottom into a tight hug, and the two of them jumped up and down together.

But where was James? He should be here! He'd gotten another detention—which was why Lily had to fill in for him on the team—but that should have been finished an hour ago. Although maybe he was taking his time… Lily knew that James, like everyone else, never expected Gryffindor to win the Quidditch Cup with James stuck in detention, especially considering the new Keeper's doubtful skills. Could it be that James didn't want to come back to the Common Room, thinking that they had lost the game and the Cup to the Slytherins?

Just then, the portrait hole opened and James himself crawled through. Lily let go of Longbottom and ran to James, eager to be the one to tell him the good news. She opened her arms to hug him—there was too much energy to just run!—and was swept up in his embrace.

Lily was suddenly surprised by the feel of James's lips on hers. All of the energy she had had was immediately replaced by numb shock; the only thing she could feel was her mouth, which was being pressed by someone else's—James's!

James pulled away, looking surprised at his own behavior. Lily couldn't help but grin at him, feeling the energy rush back into her with the force of a tsunami. She couldn't believe James had done that in front of everyone! She couldn't believe he had done that at all, for that matter!

James looked up over Lily's head, looking for something. Lily turned to see what he was looking at: a red-headed boy holding a bottle of butterbeer in one hand and wearing an expression of confusion, as if he wasn't sure whether he should be angry, happy, surprised, or all three. The boy nodded at James, who grinned and nodded back. James took Lily's hand and guided her once again out of the Common Room, hopefully taking her somewhere where they could kiss in private.

۞۞۞

Lily kept her eyes closed, wishing that the dream would continue. She tried to make herself go back to sleep, but there was just too much energy inside of her, and that stupid grin wouldn't go away! Eventually she gave up trying to bring the dream back; it was never going to work until both sides of her body were the same temperature!

But when she opened her eyes, Lily discovered the reason why the right side of her body seemed to have acquired a higher temperature than the left: James was lying next to her, with his arm curled behind her head and around her neck so that his hand rested on her left shoulder. His other arm was brought around so that he seemed to be hugging her in his sleep.

Lily smiled at the grin James was wearing. What was he dreaming about? Probably flying on his broomstick, or pulling a prank, or some other silly thing like that.

Well, Lily's dream couldn't come back; why should James go on in such bliss?

Lily lifted her head and then quickly brought it down hard onto James's arm.

"Ow!"

"What were you dreaming about?"

James looked at Lily disbelievingly. "You woke me up for that?"

Lily gave James a stubborn face. "What were you dreaming about?" she repeated obstinately.

James grinned. "I dreamed I was talking to you about a Quidditch game."

"Oh, well then that's definitely a good dream for you; I'd never do that in real life."

"And occasionally we'd stop talking and start kissing."

"A wonderful dream for you, then."

James grinned, but then suddenly pulled his arm out from under Lily's head. He examined the back of his hand, running the fingers of his other hand over the smooth skin as if he expected something to be there.

"What's wrong?"

James looked back up at Lily and smiled. "Nothing; it's just that I also dreamed that, before we started snogging our way through the corridors of Hogwarts, I was in detention with this fat teacher who had me cut into my hand."

"Ow…"

"Yeah… she made me cut I will not tell lies into the back of my hand… only I wasn't doing it directly; I was writing the words with a quill, and the quill would write the words in my blood. As I was writing, the words would form on my hand." James sat up, rubbing his hand. "It felt so real…"

Lily leaned back, just now noticing that they were in the hospital wing. "What happened?" she asked.

James stopped rubbing his hand and looked at Lily, looking as if he was seriously considering whether or not to tell her the truth. Lily gave him a hard look to make up his mind for him; she would be able to tell a lie from him right away.

"I told you… rather, I showed you… another little secret that my friends and I have been keeping."

Lily looked at James, waiting for him to continue as he took in a deep breath.

"You started hyperventilating, and you passed out."

Suddenly, Lily remembered: James was an Animagus! He was an illegal Animagus! But then if James was an Animagus, then Sirius would be as well; those two never did anything on their own. And Peter would never be left out of anything if he had anything to say about it, so he had to be an Animagus as well! The whole lot of them was one big group of law-breakers!

And then Lily realized: James had been sleeping on the bed with Lily; he had spent the night with her, dreaming the same thing she had been dreaming. Not only did this mean that they had had another vision—they'd have to talk about that later—but it also meant that James hadn't gone anywhere at midnight.

Lily looked up at James. "James, you have to promise me that you won't go out with Remus again… at least, not during the full moon."

James stood up. "What? No! That's the whole reason we became… I have to, Lily!"

"Promise me!"

"Lily, I don't go around like that with Moony just because it's fun; I do it for Moony! You have no idea—before we all started going with him, it was so hard for him—it hurt him, Lily! He wouldn't just transform—he would become… he would actually be…" James tried to find the right words to use so that Lily would understand what he was saying, but Snape—lying a few beds down with what looked like a burn on his arm—wouldn't. "With us there, Moony would still have some control. We could go out—never in public! Only ever in the woods!—and have a good time, and laugh about it later."

Lily shook her head. "What if Remus gets away from you? What if he hurts you?"

James grinned, and Lily felt the urge to slap the cocky look right off of his face. "Only humans can be badly hurt."

Lily scoffed. "Only humans?"

"You know, you could…"

"Could what?"

"You know… come with us."

"But I'd have to—!"

"It's easy, once you know what to do."

"But it's—!"

"It's fun."

"Fun! It's not FUN, it's—!"

"How about I help you do it once, and then if you like it you can do it with the rest of us."

"James!"

"Lily!"

Lily scowled at the bad imitation of her voice. "That's not what I sound like!" she protested.

James ignored her change of subject. "Come on," he urged. "I know it would mean a lot to Moony…" He leaned down and kissed her softly. "And you know it would mean a lot to me…"

Lily weighed the options. If James could make her an Animagus, it would be wonderful to see what it would be like to become another creature. And he said they could go out alone the first time… if she didn't like it, or if she thought it was too dangerous to go gallivanting around with Remus on the full moon, she could just say no.

"Alright… one time."

A few beds away, Snape gagged and pulled his pillow up over his face to block out their voices.


Author's Note: OK, I know I haven't updated in... I honestly don't want to think about how long it's been since I last updated any of my fics!

I want you to know that I AM here! I AM writing; I actually have two more chapters written up for this fic, but this was the only one I had time to type up, since they're all hand-written on notebook paper (the way JK writes!). I'm not sure when I'll be able to update next, because the internet at my house was shut off (at least, that's what I'm telling you; to tell you the real story might lessen me in your eyes, and I really would like good reviews! Although please tell me if you think I've done anything wrong!) and I have to post during my limited free time at my summer job.

Please don't bite my head off for not posting! I really am scared to post this, because I know some of you are going to go all "Geez, finally! What took you so long?" on me... --hides!--

Not sure if you caught this, but I was trying to keep this chapter as light as I could while still appealing to those of you who are in love with romance. I know a lot of my friends who read this are probably going to doubt that I wrote this (I am NOT a romantic person by ANY stretch of ANYONE'S imagination!) but yes, I actually did sit down and write this up.

HP belongs to JK, as well as that excerpt from book 6 (I know it's out of sequence, but I'm not going in order anymore; it's too hard to do when I'm also trying to come up with new divination techniques for Lily and James to experiment with!).

Lily's personality is slightly borrowed from my friend Ashley, with a dash of Cynthia and a splash of Brinda, and maybe a couple of helpings of your's truly!

Amissa's personality is all Michael, random haiku and all. (Yes, I based a girl's personality off of a guy's personality!)

Winola's personality is slightly Brinda-ish... or maybe it's Katie-ish... I don't remember who I based Winola off of! No, wait! Yes I do! It's Katie! Katiekatiekatie!

Now, a lot of you are probably wondering WHY I am telling you this... I have no clue! Just REVIEW!

IMPERIO!

You... shall... review!

Ah! No! I swear, Minister, I didn't do it! It was all... Arthur! Yes, King Arthur put the Imperius Curse on my readers! WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME? NO, NOT AZKABAN!