Lily looked over the Hogwarts grounds from the entrance hall. A few trees from the Forbidden Forest had already shed a few leaves, which blew on the soft wind that lightly raked the grounds. The sky was blue and studded with loads of crisp clouds that effectively blocked the bright sun. The air was cooling already and autumn was upon them. Lily pulled her cloak closer around her.

"Ready?" Lily whipped around. James stood there, looking unbearably handsome to her now that he and Lily were on good terms once more. Sirius lounged lazily against the wall, impatiently flicking his hair out of his eyes. Remus offered her a tight grin; he still seemed nervous about something while Peter was licking his fingers from breakfast.

"Are those barmy girls going to be ready any time soon—"

"Shut up, Black." Emmeline and Caradoc, followed by a beaming Dorcas and Marlene, arrived. Dorcas positively glowed with excitement. Her eyes shown and she had paid extra attention to herself today, as Lily noticed.

"So the plan's that we all walk down together then split?" said James. Caradoc nodded.

"Me and these Gryffindors here…" Emmeline knocked his arm.

"I said Benjy could come." Caradoc snorted.

"Benjy's not awake at this time; he sleeps in on Hogsmeade days. Come to think of it, I usually do too—"

"Then you're welcome to leave," announced Emmeline, even though she made no move to push him away when he put his arm around her.

"Let's be off, said James abruptly. Lily noticed that he was carrying a pack over his shoulder but she didn't ask anything as they marched to Filch to get inspected before leaving.

"Isn't this just stupid?" asked Sirius loudly as Filch scanned his boots with a sensor.

"Seeing as you sneaking brats are liable to do anything, no. I don't think it is, Black." Filch jabbed his one final time and Sirius rolled his eyes, rubbing the sore spot on his arm.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had a great league of spies and supporters, and he spreads trouble wherever he can," sniped Filch pointedly, as if suggesting that the students—James and Sirius in particular—were trying to hide Voldemort under their cloaks. Sirius snorted disdainfully.

"You've got the wrong brother there. Regulus should be coming along in a moment though, maybe carrying a few shrunken heads—"

"Off with you, Black!" roared Filch. Sirius and James blinked at each other and smiled easily, leading the way down to Hogsmeade.

"That's one way to get out of there quickly," commented Remus with a laugh.

"I hardly remember you had a brother in Slytherin, Sirius," said Dorcas.

"It'd be better if you forgot about him, I try to everyday…" James laughed.

"Regulus isn't too fond of you either, mate. Remember when he tried to get us to hex those Muggles?"

"That's because the twonk couldn't do it himself," grunted Sirius testily. Lily got the idea that James was one of the few, or maybe the only, person that could safely bring up the subject of Sirius' family.

"I caught him trying out a spell or two on the first years before I stuffed him into a closet," said Caradoc easily. "He's been picking up tricks from Travers and Wilkes, his new best mates…" Sirius didn't seem particularly angry at this bit of news, which Emmeline looked surprised at.

"Wilkes wouldn't know a good curse if it hit his gran in the face," said James impatiently while Sirius and Remus sniggered. "He'll be killed someday, trying to set up the Dark Mark with a twirling baton. He can't tell his wand from his—"

"James, that's very nice but let's not talk about it," said Lily loudly as Emmeline and Caradoc burst into appreciative laughter. Peter was withdrawn; the only one not laughing aside from the starry-eyed, dreamy Dorcas, whom Lily did not suspect was listening at all. James shrugged with a smile.

"I just hope whoever does it gets Rosier and Snape too, make it a triple funeral…" They, luckily, arrived at Hogsmeade at this point, entering the outskirts of the village. Dorcas looked around animatedly like a kid at Christmas, her sharp eyes moving so fast that Lily wondered that she didn't get a strain.

"I guess we're about to split," remarked Sirius easily. "Me and Moony and Wormtail and Marlene can had over to—"

"Fabian!" cried Dorcas, finally spotting a tall man waiting by the Three Broomsticks. He turned at the sound of her voice and his face broke into a smile. Fabian Prewett had light, reddish brown hair, a strong jaw, and twinkling eyes; he laughed as Dorcas launched herself at him and he caught her in his arms.

"Excited are we?" Dorcas just kissed him lightly before he set her back on the ground. He nodded hello Lily and the rest. James and Sirius seemed to know him a little; they held out their hands and the three shook.

"Nice to see you, James. Sirius. Get any better at flying than you were this summer, Potter?" James laughed.

"I didn't fall off my broom this summer like some people, Prewett." Fabian shrugged good-naturedly.

"It wasn't a fall. Your friend here rammed me into the house." Sirius grinned rather wickedly and shrugged back at him. James raised his eyebrows.

"Lucky my house held when your brother hit into him." This time Fabian laughed too.

"Tell you mum and dad that my sister and the rest of us say hello. Molly still wants to figure out how she made that chicken thing."

"You two know each other?" asked Dorcas brightly, still holding on to Fabian's arm. It was Sirius who answered.

"I met him at Prongs' over the summer. I never knew what the nice pureblood families did when they got together. At our house it was always pouring the biting tea kettle for Mother's muggle-hating friends."

"The Prewetts are related to us a bit," explained James to Lily. "I went to Molly and Arthur's wedding when I was about eight."

"You took the last ganache," interjected Fabian. "Gideon was furious, remember how he threatened you with the Bat Bogey hex?"

"Remember? How could I forget? It took Dad weeks to get me to eat another ganache for fear of flying bogeys…" Everyone had a good laugh, even Peter, who did not often join in at laughing at James. James grinned ruefully. Fabian shook his head.

"I don't know about you, Potter. If you and Black don't cheat like last time, maybe I'll let you play Quidditch with me again. They haven't made you captain, have they? Merlin, they have, Gryffindor is in trouble this year—" Fabian broke up chuckling as James scowled and tossed a pinecone at his head. He moved easily and it bounced off the doorjamb.

"On that note, let's go Dorcas. We've got some catching up to do, and James needs to convince his friends that he still has some dignity…"

"You do that, Prewett," sneered James. He added a serious "Take care." Fabian nodded and he and Dorcas entered the Three Broomsticks. James turned back to the group and there was a moment of quiet until Emmeline said,

"Dorcas was right. He is rather good-looking." Caradoc looked dubiously at her and snorted. Emmeline gave him a slow smile.

"Emmy, you're a trip. Do you rest mind if we go now? I can't believe you really want to go to Madam Puddifoot's—"

"Goodbye Lily, goodbye Marlene," interrupted Emmeline, dragging Caradoc away towards the chintzy tea shop. Sirius laughed.

"Remus, you and Peter and I will now squire Miss McKinnon to Zonko's, a reputable establishment for the enjoyment of students everywhe—"

"Pick me up some more of those new fireworks, Padfoot," said James, taking Lily by the hand. "Let's go Lily; it'd be better if you didn't witness the sight of Sirius in a joke shop. It's just disgraceful…" Sirius smirked and Lily and Marlene exchanged secret, nervous looks. Remus looked uneasy as well, though Lily couldn't imagine why. Peter waved them off.

"Bye James!" James smiled kindly and led Lily down the main street away from Hogwarts.

"James, where are we going?"

"It's a surprise." He looked over mischievously at her and winked. Lily was excited to experience the familiar ripple of warmth in her stomach. She blushed and looked away. Lily really wanted this date to go well and she knew that as passing Hogwarts students whispered and pointed, there could be no doubt that they were now together. A girl named Florence whom Lily knew a little from Herbology was watching so closely that she tripped up over her friend's shoe.

"Mighty interested, aren't they?" commented James easily. "I'm glad they're finally staring at me because I've got you. It's a nice change from the usual shouting and carrying on that you do when you're mad at me." Lily opened her mouth to laugh but clamped it shut. Best not remind James of those times, she thought.

"Scared you'll lose my affections, Evans?" asked James sneakily. She rolled her eyes at him. James just leant in close to her ear and whispered,

"Don't be. The only way this date won't go well is if I find out in an hour that you're actually Bertram Aubrey drinking Polyjuice Potion. That'd be a disaster." Lily laughed out loud and popped a sherbet lemon into her mouth. If nothing else, James could defuse tension very well. They reached the very end of the main road, at a stile, which was at the foot of the mountains.

"Come on. We're going up."

James stared climbing a narrow path. The walk seemed to go on for about a half hour and Lily felt a little hot. The clouds and the breeze dispelled the worst of the discomfort as Lily followed James along a steep, winding road. The pair got on as well as always and Lily only threatened to throw James off of the mountain twice for insinuating things about Slytherins and first years.

Lily sucked furiously on her third sherbet lemon (I really ought to write to mum for more…) when James finally stopped. He climbed through a slim opening in the solid rock and Lily squeezed in after him. She stood up properly and looked around.

They were in a small, cool cave. There was poor lighting, but James quickly remedied this with his wand, setting up dancing little flames overhead. Lily was interestedly examining the cave, marveling over its neatness, when James tapped her on the shoulder. He gestured towards the ground, over which had been laid a thick blanket and a small basket. Lily shot him a questioning sideways look; he was chuckling and sat cross-legged against the wall, on the blanket himself. Lily lowered herself down suspiciously.

"It's not as comfortable as I would have liked, but it's as good a place as any to begin."

"Begin what, James?" He laughed and pulled her snugly against him. Lily settled down pleasantly, wishing her face wasn't so hot from the climb.

"For getting to know you of course. You said it yourself that before this year, we've hardly had two words together. That is, besides those choice words you often reserved for me."

"James, are you serious about this?"

"Extremely." Lily laughed graciously.

"Then you've certainly planned this all out, Mister Potter, and I will allow you to try and impress me. My only question would be why we're doing this in a cave." James smirked down at her.

"To prove that not only am I fantastically interesting, but also incredibly spontaneous and thoughtful."

"Thoughtful, are you?" asked Lily playfully. "I fail to see how."

"I didn't think you'd want to go around together yet," explained James. "If I know my Lily Evans—and I do—all of those looks and 'I-told-you-so's might have gotten to you."

"No one would say 'I told you so,'" said Lily, pointedly not mentioning anything else James had said. Inwardly, she was touched that James would have gone to lengths to think this date out; she had been expecting an uncomfortable meeting in Madam Puddifoot's that would soon be eclipsed by nightly patrols. That head of his hadn't deflated too much over the summer though. To what she had said, James merely laughed knowingly.

"I'm sure. Besides, even if no one else says it, I told you so—" Lily elbowed him.

"Let's not talk about that."

"No. Let's talk about other things, and then eat lunch, and then snog. Or we could snog before we eat—"

"James." Lily interrupted him, quite red in the face at the idea. "You brought lunch?" she asked quickly. James was still raising his eyebrows suggestively and the question caught him off guard.

"Oh, yeah, in that sack over there," he gestured.

"This blanket and lunch for the both of us fit into that one bag?"

"I may not be as good as you, Lily, but I can at least manage a Shrinking Solution and then an Engorgement Charm." Lily blushed. James was pleased with himself and continued loosely,

"And so there's food in there, and drinks, and we're not getting at either of them until we get to know each other."

"You can't do anything without a big flash and a bang, can you James?" laughed Lily. James smiled and answered truthfully,

"No, I can't. And if I was going to be immature, Evans, I really could take that in two ways, which I'm sure you didn't mean—"

"I mean you couldn't have even brought a hamper, could you? Like a normal person would."

"Are you mental? I would have had to carry to damned thing all the way here…" Lily rolled her eyes and settled further down.

"Let's get this business over, James. I want lunch." James raised his eyebrows.

"You just had breakfast."

"But I'm curious, and that makes me hungry."

"I'll say you're curious—" Lily hit him lightly with the heel of her palm. James laughingly raised his hands as if to ward her off. When he did so, the sleeves of his robes slipped back. Lily gasped, for there was an evil-looking black slash that began at the back of his left wrist and traveled far up his forearm. She grabbed his arm.

"Lily, what are you—"

"How did you get this?" she hissed, horrified. She bent over his arm and pushed back the black sleeve, following the slim slice all the way up to his elbow. There were several secondary scratches along the same line as well, as if he had brushed up against sharp thorns unevenly. Or had been clawed by something…

Lily picked up her head and looked at him with wide eyes, sitting up ramrod straight.

"James! This looks really painful! Why didn't you go to the Hospital Wing?"

"I…er…got it recently," he said lamely. The reason, of course, that the Marauders didn't go to the Hospital Wing after every full moon was because it would bode ill for Remus if Madam Pomfrey realized that his best friends were covered in scratches and bruises after each of his transformations. James and Sirius had been making a kind of poultice for everything—it kept slipping their minds to learn healing spells and it was more adventurous to wear scars of battle anyway (James knew it wasn't the best reason yet he and especially Sirius were vain about some things)—but they had been preoccupied on this moon. Peter couldn't manage to make it on his own and Sirius was not the best instructor; that role usually fell to James, who was the more patient of the two. Wormtail also did not get hurt as often as James or Sirius did since it was not up to him to control a full-grown werewolf. But here, in the Marauder's cave with Lily (for naturally James had found it while exploring with his friends), all of these excuses seemed feeble. She was staring up at him with those intense eyes and she looked angry.

"Recently? On one of your midnight adventures? Is that what you all do? Get hurt and slashed at by…by whatever did this? A monster?" James' breath caught in his throat. Everything about this was wrong. Lily had no idea what she was saying, she couldn't have, it had just taken them a little while to get Remus under control last time, just a little longer than usual. That was it. James knew more and more that what they were doing was very dangerous—he had been thinking about it since a few incidences last year—but the way Lily glared at him, like she was full of fire and he, James, was an offending log that she was about to fry, was too much.

"Lily, it was an accident. And no, it wasn't a…a monster. Just me being clumsy, that's all. It was me." Lily regarded him shrewdly for a few more minutes, eyes like lasers. She leaned back once more, still looking wary.

"I hope so. You should really get that looked at though. I don't want people thinking I did it." Lily had absolutely no idea what she was doing. She was privately trying to figure out why she had been so furious that James had let himself get hurt like that. It shouldn't bother her; people got scraped up all the time. Making a joke would help, would cover up for her fit of protectiveness…and James seemed keen to get past it as well.

"I'll just tell people that it was you, in one of your fits of red-headed temper."

"I appreciate that," replied Lily drolly. "So what do you want to know about me?"

"Whatever you want to say," said James promptly. Lily chuckled.

"I was born on July 6th in London," she began jokingly, but one look at James' face told her that he was actually listening. "You really want to hear all this?" Lily asked, amazed. James shrugged.

"Sure. Get to understand you more and all that."

"Well, er, okay." No date had ever asked her about her life story before. James got Lily to tell him that she had one older sister named Petunia, that she never really liked summer and wasn't too happy to be born then, the names of her parents and several other tidbits about her family life before Lily demanded some information out of him. He laughed and complied easily; Lily was fascinated by the idea of growing up with magic all around. The shadows from the cave's slim opening changed as Lily and James discovered similarities and differences (mostly differences) from their childhood. James was highly amused by the Muggle custom of dressing up for Halloween, and thrilled when Lily told him grudgingly that she had dressed up like a witch on her first Halloween.

They broke out the sandwiches at about twelve-thirty by James' watch.

"Stoat sandwiches!" cried James proudly while runting around the bag.

"Really?" asked Lily anxiously. One look at James' face told her he was lying as he emerged with two mince pies. He laughed and gave one over when she smacked him in the arm. James also pulled out two butterbeers. After lunch, Lily was surprised to find that James had brought various games with him and they played two games of wizard's chess (one went to Lily and one went to James, even though it was James' set) before James checked his watch one more time.

"Damn. We'd better be off." James stood up and began rolling up the blanket

"What time is it?" asked Lily, getting to her feet as well. She was a little sad that this day had to end.

"If we don't hurry we'll miss dinner."

"What?" Lily began stuffing things into the pack. James raised his eyebrows and chuckled, but wisely said nothing. They clambered out of the cave a little later, Lily squinting at the setting sun.

"Stupid light, I can't see a—"

"We're Apparating down. To the stile," pointed James.

"Wha—"

"You can Apparate, right Evans?" James smirked.

"Why you—"

Crack.

"Git."

Crack.

"Bloody hell!" Lily had landed exactly on top of James.

"Hah hah! she cried triumphantly before James got up with a great heave.

"Oomph." James helped her up in what would have been in a very polite way if not for the unconcealed grin on his face.

"Why didn't we just Apparate up?" she asked crossly, dusting off her robes.

"Because you didn't know where it was," James answered swiftly. "And last one to the castle is a rotten turnip."

"You—"

Crack.

Crack.

There was a minor confrontation and a pause

"Again, woman!" cried James from underneath Lily's smug form. She got to her feet delicately and helped him up with a snicker of her own.

"I suppose we just think alike, Potter," Lily said loftily. James assumed an odd expression.

"Yeah. Really alike…" He was pondering just how Lily had managed to appear precisely on top of him when he was jabbed by a Secrecy Sensor.

"For the love of—"

"Nearly tardy, Potter," sneered Filch menacingly, the odious Mrs. Norris twining around his heels. James rolled his eyes. Several minutes later, both Lily and James were hurrying into the Entrance Hall.

"I guess this date is over," muttered James as he rubbed his neck.

"Not quite," said Lily with a twinkle. "We never got to the snog bit." James' eyes widened.

"Wh—" Lily turned around, grabbed him by the ears, and kissed him. This was how a sniggering Sirius, a highly amused Remus, and a gleeful Peter found them about two minutes later.

"Nice one Prongs." They broke apart and James adjusted his glasses disorientedly.

"Wha? Who?" Sirius laughed.

"Dinner's on, you idiots. And the girls have been wondering about you."

"About me?" asked James confusedly. Lily elbowed him in the gut before marching past the Marauders into the Great Hall, head held high and a pleased smile on her face.

Okay, yes this is the cave that Sirius hid in during GoF. It's not made up. Dumbledore will find out about it later and then suggest it to Sirius as a hiding place, just in case anyone wanted to call me on this one. Hah ;) And I hope no one's mad at me for this one, it was a weird chapter, more about it in later chapters

(donkeykong27)

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS AND REVIEWED