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Resolution

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Lily trudged down the dormitory stairs, straightening her robes as she went. She could see her friends sitting round the fire in the Common Room – this November, the winter had really closed in around Hogwarts, and fires were burning all around the school in an effort to keep students and teachers warm. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Remus, Peter and Sirius got up abruptly, and as she approached the others, Chrissy grabbed Jess and said, "Oh, Jess! Look at the – er – forest. It's really pretty!"

"What? Oh – er – right." She got up and she and Jess followed Christina hastily over to the window. Lily rolled her eyes and sat down on a sofa, not looking at James. However, she didn't have to, as he spoke first.

"Lily, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have –"

"It's not your fault. I overreacted."

"True, but I shouldn't have said it in the first place."

Lily boiled inwardly at the fact that he thought she overreacted, even though she knew she had. "Well no, you shouldn't, but if you meant it, I can't change that. It's better to know if you think I'm a slaggy bitch."

"I don't. I didn't mean it like that, it's just –"

"It doesn't matter. Let's just leave it. I'm mad at you, you're mad at me. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?"

"Don't be silly."

"I'm not. It's not like either of us can just take it all back though, is it? I can't change what happened with Sirius, and you can't change what you said. We've both just got to get over it."

"I suppose so."

"Right, that's settled then," Lily turned away and walked towards her friends, a falsely bright smile upon her face. Her eyes prickled for a moment, and she wondered why such a small conversation was able to cause so much anger and frustration. She supposed it was to do with all the things she always left unsaid with James.

"Lily!" Jess said brightly, completely failing to hide the fact that she, Carrie and Christina had been discussing only seconds ago what was going on between her and James.

"Hey Lil," Chris said, not bothering to pretend. In fact, she rolled her eyes behind Jess's back at her exceedingly bad acting.

"Hey guys," Lily replied, smiling a genuine smile. "Alright?"

"Yeah ta," Carrie grinned. "So, what did you say to him?"

"Oh, not much," Lily said lightly.

"You have got to be kidding," Chrissy scoffed. "We all know you're bloody fuming at him!"

"Maybe I was, but we're all good now."

"Oh come on, Lily," Carrie raised her eyebrows slightly, "I know it's difficult, but it'd probably help if we knew what was going on. So we could back you up, or you could talk about it and…stuff," she finished feebly.

"What she really means," Jess grinned, "is that we're all dying to know exactly called him and whether he was able to drop his famous pride and apologise."

"He didn't call me anything, and whether either of us apologised is irrelevant," Lily answered shortly. Carrie and Chris looked at each other, confused, and Jess frowned slightly. "Anyway," she continued, her voice unnaturally perky, "I'm really hungry. I think I'm going to go down to breakfast." Lily turned on her heel and exited through the Portrait Hole, not giving her friends, who had actually been waiting for her to come downstairs so they could all go to the Great Hall together, the chance to join her.

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Lily took a seat between Peter and Remus at the Gryffindor table, sighing deeply as she did so. Peter was chatting avidly with Sirius, who pointedly didn't even glance at her as she sat down. Remus, however, was thoroughly engrossed in his bacon.

"Remus?"

"Wha? – Oh, hey Lils," and he went back to his breakfast. Lily sighed again, but didn't try again to start a conversation. When Remus was in a mood, it was best just to leave him alone. She ate her way through half a slice of toast, nibbling unenthusiastically, and drank a couple of goblets of pumpkin juice. She carefully ignored Chrissy, Jess and Carrie when they came downstairs a few minutes after she did, and they knew better than to try to talk to her when she was avoiding them.

After she had eaten, Lily collected her bag and made her way to Transfiguration alone. As she walked slowly along the stone corridors, being jostled to and fro' by the crowds of students hurrying to their lessons, she caught sight of a familiar face.

"Lily, hi! Long time no see."

"Hey Matt," Lily smiled, a real one this time. "How goes it?"

"Pretty well, thanks. How're you doing? You don't look so great."

"I think I'll take that as a compliment that you're concerned," she smiled again. "I'm not bad, just kinda stressed out – there's a few people I'm not getting on with so well at the moment."

"Your ex again?" Matt asked, giving Lily a quizzical look. She had refrained from telling him Sirius's name, as she knew that he was well-known, and didn't want to cause trouble, either for Sirius or for herself.

Lily nodded. "I guess so. He's not really speaking to me still, so it's not as if I'm getting any grief from him any more."

"That's good. In that case there's gotta be something else, right?"

Lily shrugged. "Yeah, but I can't explain it now – it's a little too complicated."

"I understand," Matt said, and Lily couldn't stop herself from thinking, 'Mmm, sexy Matt…' "How about we take a walk later then? You obviously need to talk about it."

"Alright," Lily said gratefully. "I've got Defence Against the Dark Arts last, so –"

"I'll pick you up from there," he said with a grin. "I need to see Van Spyk myself, and I've got a free lesson then, so it won't be a problem."

"Thanks, Matt," Lily smiled, and hugged him hard. She felt him pull her into a bear hug, and snuggled into him. They broke apart fairly quickly, however, especially when Lily saw Sirius and James approaching over Matt's shoulder, both frowning.

"You look guilty," Matt said, raising a sexy eyebrow as Lily tried to look busy. He bent down and whispered in her ear, and she could feel his warm breath against her skin, making her shiver. "Is there something you're not telling me about those two?"

How Matt knew who she'd been looking at, Lily didn't know, but she whispered, "See you later," hoping he'd understand, and sped off to Transfiguration, not wanting to incur the wrath of Professor McGonagall as well as James and Sirius.

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"Lily, stay behind."

Christina and Jess shot Lily confused looks, but she said, "I'll catch you up in a bit," and turned to face Petra as her friends, the last out of the classroom, shut the door behind them. "What did you want, Professor?"

"I want to know what happened between you and James."

"Nothing happened."

"Don't even try it, Lily. You two didn't speak to each other all lesson, and I know how unusual that is."

"So?"

"Lily, what happened? Look, you're upset. I could see your eyes welling up."

"They were not welling up."

"Whatever you say, Lily."

"Look," Lily said sharply, and then corrected herself, "Professor, I really don't want to talk about it."

"Well I do."

"Professor, I –"

"Are you arguing with me, Lily?"

"No, Professor, but -"

"Well then, tell me what happened."

"I don't want to!"

"You're going to." Petra narrowed her eyes, and Lily grimaced.

"It's my business and no one else's."

"Do you want detention for a month?"

"No, but –"

"Then tell me what happened." Petra had a highly evil smirk on her face now.

"You can't do that!"

"Oh yes I can."

"Fine. Fine, you evil, conniving, manipulative cow. You take so much pleasure in everyone else's discomfort, don't you?" Lily was so angry that she didn't dare look at Petra for fear of wanting to hit her, hard, in the face. "Right, I'll tell you what happened. James called me a slaggy bitch, I cried, he apologised, I had a go at him, he had a go at me, we're not on great terms. And that hurts. It really fucking hurts, cos I care about him so much. His opinion is the only one that really matters to me, and when he calls me a bitch, I know it's true. And it's painful. I wouldn't expect you to understand, because I doubt you're even capable of felling pain. Happy now? Hm?"

Finally, Lily looked up at her Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor and was surprised to see that Petra was not angry, or pissed off, or downright murderous as Lily had expected. She was gazing over Lily's shoulder, an expression of puzzlement and contemplation on her face. For a moment, Lily thought she saw a tear in Petra's eye, but thought she must have been mistaken, as when Petra spoke, her voice was steady and firm.

"I bet you feel much better now, don't you?"

"What?" Lily couldn't understand what her Professor was talking about.

"I always find it helps to shout at someone. Failing that, taking it out violently usually works, but promoting that isn't really a good idea."

"You wanted me to shout at you?"

"I didn't say that." Petra's voice had hardened, and Lily could tell that shouting at her perhaps hadn't done her any favours. Just as Petra opened her mouth again, there was a knock on the door. She strode over to her desk, sat on it, and smiled at Lily, raising an eyebrow. For a moment, Lily couldn't understand Petra's sudden change of demeanour, but after a second she cottoned on, and plastered a smile upon her own face.

"Come in."

For some reason, Petra hadn't wanted to give the impression that either she or Lily was anything less than delighted by the conversation they had been having.

Matt poked his head around the door. "Hello, Professor." He noticed Lily, and grinned at her. "Hey, Lily."

"Hi Matt."

"Ah, Mr Kiedis," Petra smiled. Lily rolled her eyes. If she didn't know student-teacher relationships were banned, she would be sure that Petra would have tried it on with Matt.

"Professor, could I have a word? After you and Lily are done, that is."

"We were just finished," Lily said quickly, smiling at Matt, and Petra didn't contradict her. Lily exited the room, saying to Matt, "I'll wait outside, 'kay?" He nodded, and she pulled the door closed behind her.

When Lily got out into the corridor, she found Remus waiting for her. He said, "Hey Lils, how's it going? Thought I'd come and see how you are – didn't want to leave you alone with our serpent Professor in there." What he carefullydidn't say was who thought he should come to check on Lily; the fact that he had heard every word Lily had said inside the classroom; and that, until a few moments ago, he had been hidden underneath James Potter's invisibility cloak, watching Matthew Kiedis's reaction to everything he heard Lily say.

Well,I thought 100 reviews was a good time to update, so...I did! haha. Anyway, thank you all so much for reviewing, reading, and generally sticking with me. It's appreciated more than I can say. I would thank each of you individually, but thanks to new rules, I have to do that via their new messaging thingy, so...I will. I LOVE getting messages of any kind, so if anyone fancies sending me a message to test the system, that'd be fun times for all, I think.

This new thingy also means that I can't reply to you unless you're signed in. However, if you don't and you ask some important questions,I think I could get away with answering those, so no worries if you don't have an account.

Becca xxx (much love, liebe and amore)