They met the prefects at the foot of the table, with Emmeline smirking up at Lily. Remus exchanged a glance with James and smiled. As expected, some of the prefects looked bored, some looked harassed, and a varied bunch of them seemed to perk up at seeing Lily and James, or possibly Lily or James, or maybe the both of them because they had been chosen to be partners. Lily scowled; she ignored this and gave them the usual drill that she had heard since fifth year. James mucked about, smiling genially and winking a lot from behind her. Lily suspected that he did this to make up for the seriousness of their time with Dumbledore. And because he was a fat git.

"And," she said, sending a disgusted look to James that made several prefects giggle while Remus grinned knowingly, "you can even divide up the schedules as you please. James and I will be checking to make sure you're all on your patrols, but you'll take the scheduling upon yourselves. We'll have a later patrol than you lot that we'll have to take togeth—James!" She ended the last word on a hiss. Lily was fairly certain that James had done some more winking and had made a suggestive face at her last comment.

"Could you possibly be a bigger nuisance?"

James grinned and—even in her uncoiling anger—Lily felt her muscles tense as some female prefects laughed, flirtatiously from her view. James slung an arm around her and began speaking in a very fake, very bossy sort of voice that reminded her of a lecturing professor.

"All right, this year we're going to have the er… best squad of rule enforcer thingummies there are. Or ever was. And if there is a problem with a teacher, you've got to blag your way out of it and not drag Lily and me into—" Lily slapped him and shoved him to the side. She would need to control future actions of violence against him, if at all possible

"Brilliant," she said acidly, annoyed to see some of the girls stifling silly noises. "I think that'll be it, and if anyone wants to assassinate the Head Boy, you've got my support."

"Lily," complained James, "I'll be a top-of-the-range Head Boy—it's Remus you've got to worry about—and don't you all listen to her, she's just in denial…"

"And," said Lily, raising her voice over James' speech, "one last thing."

Lily paused and knew there was ice creeping over her heart at what had to be said. She swallowed nervously, all humor and anger dissipated, and sent the Head Boy a pointed look. It seemed as if James caught her mood. Moods like this are very catachable nowadays. Lily began, licking her lips, "With…with, well, You-Know—"

"Voldemort," said James, face suddenly devoid of emotion, as if the Dark Lord had taken a rag and wiped his spirits away. A collective shudder ran through the prefects, but Lily saw Emmeline Vance, Remus Lupin, and precious few others straightening up.

"Yes, Voldemort," Lily reiterated firmly. "With him and his around, doing…doing terrible things, our duties as leaders will be more intense than the duties previous prefects have had. We've got to keep things going, no matter what." Her voice sounded as if she was half speaking to herself. "And if anyone spots anything even the least bit suspicious anywhere, go straight to a teacher. Head of a House if possible. If that's not an option, tell me or James. If there's no chance of that—"

"We'll go it alone," interrupted Emmeline in a stony tone. Lily indicated yes, wincing. A few heads muttered and nodded in assent. Prefect meetings should not need such seriousness. Some of them looked positively terrified. One Ravenclaw spoke up, raising his hand tentatively, as if not sure what to do. Lily opened her mouth when she heard James' voice issuing from beside her, sounding surprisingly steely.

"Yes, Worple?"

Worple cleared his throat.

"Are you saying that w-we may en-encounter Dark—"

"Yes."

"And we may h-have to—"

"Hopefully not," said James, appearing disgusted at the quaver he heard in the Ravenclaw's voice. "But if you do, you'd better do it with everything you've got."

"This is Hogwarts, Worple," interjected Lily, not wishing to frighten everyone. "People usually get hurt from the outside, not from the inside. The day that someone attacks Hogwarts from the inside is something even Dumbledore can't foresee. None of us thinks that particular attack will come during a Potions lesson or your Charms homework. None of us thinks it will happen at all. And certainly no one is saying you're on your own should you spot Dark Magic. This is just a warning because we're in tricky times, and not everyone's as trustworthy as they seem. If you've got suspicions, tell someone straight off."

"Is that a threat?" asked a Slytherin boy softly, one thick eyebrow raised. James made some kind of movement from beside her.

"It's a message from your Headmaster. If you choose to perceive it as a threat, then perhaps you'd best snap you snotty arse over to him to speak about it," clipped James coldly. The Slytherin looked as if he were about to open his mouth but then thought better of it. Emmeline nodded snappily.

"Very nice, Potter. Now, if this meeting is over—"

"It is," he said with a last look at the Slytherin.

"—then we're back to the dormitories?"

"Yes," said Lily firmly. "Goodnight everyone. Don't be worked up about this. Remember to trust your instincts and stay on guard. And for Merlin's sake, don't hex anything that jumps at you." Lily slanted a sideways look at James. A few prefects laughed gratefully at the joke while Remus snorted, catching James' eye. It was obvious that few people had yet discovered the extent of James' past hexes.

Lily managed a small smile and waved the others off. Lily and James lingered until the last of the prefects (Emmeline, sporting an aggravating grin for Lily) had exited the Great Hall.

Lily exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding in. She finally glanced over at James. He looked at her. There was a muscle twitching in his cheek and he didn't say anything.

James, of course, was conflicted. An inner battle raged between his simultaneous desires to have a serious conversation with, joke at, and kiss Lily. His normal state was a perpetual conflict between snogging Lily and doing other things (maybe not so much at mealtimes) but this talk of Voldemort had messed up his joking mood. He had been going for "cute" that entire evening, hoping to win some affection from his lovely Lily. James could not believe, however, that she would just mention the Dark Lord, like that, right out of the blue.

Those prefects were too feeble for his liking. James had been eying the entire bunch and he wouldn't have trusted more than three of them with Hogwarts duties, let alone his own life, and definitely not with Lily's life. He had noted that the blond Slytherin was one of the boys who had been hexing first years at dinner. The Marauders had a plan for them, that they did.

James sighed, finally looking down at Lily. She had fixed him with her very green expression, almost apprehensively, waiting for his next move. He smiled fondly all of a sudden; Lily could do that to him. James reached out and stroked her hair absently, thinking about how happy the Slytherin would be to wake up and find that all of his school robes were transfigured into wasps. With a chuckle, James set off for the common room, Lily hurrying behind him.

Thanks to donkeykong27 for reminding me about my mistake in this chapter.