A/N: I'M BACK! More of this note at the end of the chapter :)

When she first woke up, Lily's lips didn't feel any different. Neither did her cheeks, or arms, or hands, or thighs. She felt no change, and it was as if it never happened. She had always assumed that her first kiss would leave a mark she would feel forever. But it didn't.

Did it really happen? It must have happened. I couldn't have dreamed that.

She looked over at the lump she assumed to be Alice lying in an identical four poster bed, the curtains still open, untouched, before glancing around the rest of the room, drinking in the early morning image of her roommates snoring and drooling.

Immediately to her left was the bed of Hannah Wilcox. The only part of Hannah visible, though, was her long blonde hair, which was somehow covering her entire bed, while the rest of her was completely covered under her lucky fleece blanket.

The next bed along the cylindrical wall was Yvonne's. Yvonne slept almost exactly the opposite of how Hannah slept. She was on top of her covers, in very few clothes, spreadeagled for all the room to see.

Next to Yvonne's bed was Brooklyn's. In the short amount of time they had been at Hogwarts so far this year, Brooklyn had already managed to make a complete mess of her slice of the room, and she was nowhere to be seen, apparently still too mad at Hannah, who was now solely referred to by Brooklyn as "Tramp", to even consider sleeping in the same room. No doubt she was crashing with her little sister in the 4th year dorms until the drama subsided.

Continuing the clockwise gaze around the room, Lily's eyes fell on Alice's sleeping form. She was curled up, hugging her pillow to her chest, surrounded by memories pinned to every pinnable surface in her area. Magical moving pictures of Hogsmeade dates, family picnics, and her friends from the year above smiled down on her as she was dreaming.

How nice to have so many happy memories, Lily thought to herself, shaking herself out of her observational reverie.

She swung her legs over the side of her mattress and slid her feet into slippers.

You'd think a school full of wizards would have figured out how to heat concrete floors by now. It's fucking cold.

In the bathroom, Lily rubbed the sleep out of her eyes in order to get a good look at her reflection. "Alright, Lil, woman up. Time to face the day and get out of your head. Let's see what we're dealing with today."

Ten minutes later, after a hefty bout of muttered swear words, pleading with any and all gods, and a good amount of squeezing her chin, Lily gave up trying to get rid of the massive pimple that had appeared overnight.

"Of course."

It was hard to decide whether to avoid James Potter or seek him out. Lily wanted to do both simultaneously, so she ended up just hoping that the universe would give her a sign regarding how to approach the whole post-makeout situation when she first saw him at breakfast. No such luck.

Remus was the first to say anything. "Hey Head Girl! Ready for early morning Arithmancy?"

"Oh, for sure. Gotta love…. That," Lily stammered in response, too anxious about the James sitch to think of anything witty to say.

Remus laughed anyway. As did James, albeit a little awkwardly.

Lily decided to take fate into her own hands. "Um, J-James? Hi. Good morning, I mean."

"Hey, Lily. Um, good morning to you, too."

Remus looked at the pair curiously before sneaking away to sit with the other two Marauders, who had begun digging into a platter of assorted breakfast meats while watching the encounter out of the corners of their eyes.

"So…" James continued, suddenly feeling very lost without the nearby presence of his best friends, and suddenly feeling very nervous with the nearby presence of the girl he so admired.

"So, um, last night-" Lily's start into getting answers and explanations was cut short by none other than Alice Prewett as she plopped down across the table, talking loudly and to no one in particular about a particularly hellish morning involving a hair curling charm gone wrong, a quick visit to Madame Pomfrey, and another brief bout of pre-Hogsmeade drama. When she finally noticed the boy standing over Lily's shoulder, and Lily half turned toward him, she paused for a breath.

"Oh. Hey there, James. Did I, uh, interrupt, um, something?" The innuendo in her voice was enough to send Lily reeling. She didn't want to read more into this than needed to be read. Maybe not telling Alice all the details last night was a good thing, especially if she was going to make such a big deal out of this with no details at all.

"Nope, you're good. Just, erm, Head duty stuff. Boring shit," Lily quickly lied. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see James covering his clearly crestfallen expression with a smile before wishing Alice a good day and joining his friends.

What?

A/N: So I'm back after almost a year of no updates! School's been weird, getting older's been weird, etc. A lot in my life has changed which is awesome, and tonight I was sitting in bed and realized I wanted to write this story again, so I did! I hope you're still liking it. I'm probably gonna write some more tonight and try and update more often, because I love Jily and I like this story a lot. Let me know what you're thinking as I go on, too, because I'm definitely out of practice with writing fiction haha :)

Thanks for reading, my loves! See you in Chapter 13!

-Chloe