Dumbledore's first class with the 7th years could have gone any number of ways, but the final tally at the end of their hour together was as follows:

Number of times Dumbledore forgot where he placed his wand:

12

Total number of minutes spent looking for the wand:

18

Number of times Sirius had been the one to move the wand (via magic):

7

Total minutes spent talking about Dumbledore's summer trip to Aruba:

Far too many

Number of sighs coming out of one Lily Evans:

See answer above

Doodles on Lily's parchment:

49

Words written absentmindedly then scribbled out presentmindedly immediately after:

3

Minutes wasted:

52

Lily Evans exited the room slowly, disappointed in the past hour for all the obvious reasons that everyone was upset, plus a few less obvious ones that no one would ever have had predicted coming from her.

A name she hadn't scribbled since the January of her first year had been scribbled (and crossed out, mind you) 3 times on her paper by her own treacherous hand when her head wasn't paying attention. How dare it? She was just contemplating cutting it off, and pondering the practical applications of a tourniquet in her amputation, when she saw two big feet in black shoes visible beneath a far-too-short robe appear before her own shiny toes. If she hadn't been staring forlornly at the ground, she likely would have noticed the object of her frustrations walking towards her, and would also likely not have been as frightened by his sudden appearance. She may even have avoided him entirely. But she didn't.

"J- James. Potter. I mean, um, hey. Hi."

Way to fucking go, Lily, fucking-

"Hi," James let out weakly, his voice crackling a little. If she had been thinking straight, she probably would have realized that he was as flustered by her awkwardness as she was by his in their shared office the night before. But she wasn't.

The sound of his voice shut her inner tirade right up.

James' face let show a lot of different emotions all at once, then one at a time, and then he seemed to change his mind about something, and turned to walk away.

One step away. Two steps away.

And then he was facing her again.

One step towards. Two step towards.

"Can we talk later? In our office maybe? Around 8, like last night? I want to make sure things are really okay between us. I can't take any more fighting and I want to make sure you know how sorry I am and how desperate I am to make things totally right. I'll do anything."

Lily closed her eyes quickly and willed herself to nod, but when she opened her eyes, he was already gone.

Dinner for Lily was a mess of nerves, excitement, confusion, anger, and eating her many, many feelings. By the fourth helping of cherry pie, she felt sick to her stomach. Alice had ended up sitting next to her again, but had been so distracted by her many friends in all directions of where they were sitting that she had hardly noticed Lily's strange meal. But as Lily reached for a fifth slice, Alice grabbed her arm.

"Yeah, no. You need to stop. I know I'm not the most attentive person, but if I only caught half of what you've been eating, and half of your facial expressions, then I'm worried for you. What the hell is going on with you?" Alice had a very concerned look on her face as she said all this, and Lily realized that while she didn't feel comfortable explaining all of the details, a few couldn't hurt.

She looked both ways to determine the position of the Marauders, and discovered that there were at least 8 people between herself and the closest Marauder, Remus, who was down the table to the left. The others were there with him.

She sighed, and looked at Alice, and began in a hushed voice. "Okay, where the fuck do I begin?"

She didn't use James' name at all in the story, but after telling the part about the whole 'Head Boy' thing, Alice kind of figured it out. For a smart girl, this whole situation was making Lily act stupid.

Alice was clearly confused as to the problem. "Okay, so what's the big deal? He apologized. You're friends now? That's it?"

Lily shook her head. "Well, but, I don't know. He told me last night that all those years while he was asking me out he genuinely had a huge crush on me. I didn't know that. He also wants to meet again tonight, in…" Lily paused to look at her watch and her heart doubled its pace. "43 minutes."

Alice was staring dumbfounded. "How the hell did you not know he liked you? The entire school knew. I mean, 6 years is a long time."

Lily shook her head and muttered under breath, "I thought he was making fun of me."

"Well, he wasn't. And it kinda seems like you had repressed feelings for him this whole damn time. So come on, Miss Cherry Pie, I've finished my dinner, and we need to get you an outfit for your secret rendezvous." Alice joked as she wiped her mouth with her napkin and got up from the table.

Lily followed suit, and before long, they were in their room, on their beds, and Lily was hyperventilating.

"I've only got 29 minutes. I don't have a crush on him. I don't. STOP LAUGHING. I don't have a crush on him, I just don't know how to act. I feel like maybe I'm being too mean when I don't mean to be, but I don't want to be too nice. Do I? He was awful to me for-"

"6 years. Yeah I get it," Alice interrupted. "But he wants to make amends now. This seems like an awful lot of panicking for a boy you have no attachment whatsoever to."

"Shut up, Alice." Lily snapped.

Alice was surprised by the venom. She stared at Lily for a moment before standing up and leaving the room, calling back over her shoulder. "I want to be your friend, Lily. And I want to help you. But you have GOT to figure your fucking shit out, dude."

And with that, she was gone.

Lily looked at her watch.

26 minutes. Fuck.

After quite a while of distracting herself from her Head Girl meeting (that's what she was calling this now, it helped her not freak out) via Herbology, Lily looked at her watch again. It was 7:58, and she was still in her robes. She began to freak out again.

What if James isn't in his robes anymore? What if he changed? Should I change then? BUT what if I change and he's still in his robes? Then I'll look obvious, like I'm trying way too hard. Okay. I'll just spruce my face up just a little bit.

She walked over to the mirror, applied a touch of mascara, and squeezed her cheeks to redden them. This whole thing was making her pale.

Then, with a large intake of breath, she turned and bolted from the room before she could change her mind.

A/N: So I kind of feel like I'm speeding up their development a lot right now, and that might change in the next few chapters. This is more than I've written outside of essays for my professors in a long time, and I'm really enjoying it, so I'll definitely be writing more. I'm loving it!

Please follow/favorite/review!

-Chloe