They were running late, again. Lily was pretty sure, after spending a summer with her, that Marlene was late no matter where they went – and that at Hogwarts the only thing that kept her on time was Mary. Without Mary here, there was nothing to stop Marlene's rampaging lateness, apparently.
"I thought you packed last night, Marlene," Marlene's mum said from the door. They weren't catastrophically late yet, Marlene's parents were taking them to the platform by side-along apparation, but still – it was ten minutes until the Hogwarts Express left.
"I did!" Marlene hollered back. Mrs McKinnon – who insisted Lily call her Sally, although Lily had never gotten the hang of it, exchanged an exasperated look with Lily.
"Every year," she sighed, quietly enough so only Lily could hear. "Every year, Lily, this is my life. Every year we are almost late. You'd think she'd learn, but here we are, seven years later."
Marlene came barreling down the stairs, then. "I have everything," she said, giving her mum a bright smile. Lily had to stifle a laugh behind her hand.
Mrs McKinnon rolled her eyes good-naturedly. For a moment Lily felt a sick twist of longing for her own mum. She pushed it down, did her best to smile at Marlene instead while Mrs McKinnon waved her wand to shrink down their trunks and luggage.
"Right girls," she said, after tucking everything into the pockets of her robes. "Each of you grab an arm." The girls did as they were told. As soon as Lily had latched on tightly, Marlene's mum turned and they were absorbed in the frightening, choking sensation of apparation.
Lily gasped for breath as they landed on the platform, her ears barely picking out Marlene's words of, "Only a little more practice and we'll be able to do a jump that long on our own!"
Lily privately thought she would rather do almost anything else than apparate. As soon as she graduated Hogwarts, she'd get a car instead.
They each took their luggage hurriedly from Marlene's mum with fleeting goodbye hugs and dashed to the train as it whistled to signal two minutes until departure. Marlene was giggling as they walked down the corridor of the train, looking for Mary and Alice.
"That was close," Lily said wryly as the train began to move.
"Well it's no fun if we're on time," Marlene responded, swishing her blonde hair out of her face. Lily had cut her hair short again, it was back to just grazing the bottoms of her ears, but Marlene had let hers grow over the summer and it looked magnificent.
Finally, they found Alice and Mary in a compartment halfway down the train. Lily said a quick hello, handing her trunk to Marlene who enlarged it for her and put it on the luggage rack.
"I have to go," Lily said apologetically. "Prefect meeting." She made a face at her friends to show how thrilled she was at the concept. It was true, she was mostly worried – now that she was head girl she had to run the meetings, and with James Potter to boot. Not that he was horrid, not anymore, but he had never been a prefect before, and Lily felt sure that she would end up taking on the brunt of the work.
She ran into Emmeline Vance on the way to the Prefect's compartment – the other girl was in the other seventh year Gryffindor girls dormitory and was the other seventh year girls prefect, aside from Lily.
"Congrats on Head Girl," she said warmly, noting the badge on Lily's chest.
"Thanks," Lily said back with a smile. She didn't spend much time with Emmeline in general, most of the girls suck to their own dormitories – it was just how the friend groups had happened, really, but she generally liked Emmeline. They had become closer when they were both made prefects, often patrolling together.
When they entered the prefects compartment together – it was a double-sized compartment to house everyone it needed to during meetings – she was surprised to see James already there, talking with Remus.
Severus was there too, in the corner looking sullen. Lily tried to avoid the way her gaze was drawn to him. It had been two years since they had been anything close to resembling friends, but it was hard, still, to see him and not want to talk to sit with him or talk to him the way they did when they were younger. Instead of dwelling on it, she made her way over to James and Remus.
Both boys smiled at her as she approached. Their heads had been bent over a parchment – it looked like a list of names.
"What are you two doing?" she asked, sliding into a seat next to James.
"Train patrol list," James said, giving her a guarded look. "I drafted it last night, Moony was just helping me make sure it actually…works, since it's not as though I've done this before."
Lily tried to hide the shock on her face, but from Remus' brief smile, she suspected she failed at least a little bit. "Thanks," she decided to say instead. "That will make this meeting go much smoother."
James smiled and ran a hand through his hair. She knew now, of course, that it was a nervous habit – tried to ignore the flutter she felt in her stomach when she realized he was nervous because he was trying to impress her.
"We should set a date for a meeting before term starts, so we can set regular patrols then instead of now," she said. "Lots of heads set the schedule on the train, but everyone has to switch their days around anyway once they get their club and quidditch schedules. I was thinking we set a temporary one for the first couple of weeks and then revisit it once extracurriculars really start up." Lily paused for a breath. She had said quite a mouthful, wasn't sure if James had kept up, if he even knew what she was talking about.
"Sounds good," was all he said in response. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"I prepared him well," Remus put in. James looked down, Lily suspected he was heating with a blush.
"Classes start tomorrow," James said, "but then it's the weekend. You and I can take tonight's patrol, and tomorrow's. We can have everyone meet Saturday afternoon."
"Good idea," she said. She was definitely impressed with him – even though it felt sort of rude for her to be. But this was James Potter, who never followed the rules, taking initiative to set up a patrol schedule a prefect's meetings. What was the world coming to, she thought, when James Potter of all people was the responsible one of the two of them.
The last of the prefects were trickling in – James had gone back to talking to Remus about some prank they had pulled on the Potters during the holidays and Lily did her best to tune them out, instead taking in the faces of the new fifth year prefects. The new Slytherins had immediately sat down with the rest of the Slytherin group, including Severus. Typically, tight-knit prefect groups were good, but she wasn't sure how she felt about the Slytherin's being so close, especially given what she knew about Sev.
The Hufflepuff fifth years had come in with one of the Gryffindors – a girl who's name Lily was fairly certain was Darcy Evander – and a fifth year Ravenclaw boy. The other Gryffindor and Ravenclaw fifth years trailed in directly behind them, although they kept themselves a little bit apart from the group. This was good, Lily thought – the more prefects were friendly with each other the easier swapping patrols was, as well as the way the group meshed generally during meetings.
"Alright," Lily said, loudly, when the last prefect finally trickled in – she stood up as everyone turned to look at her. "As most of you know already, I'm Lily Evans, and I'll be your Head Girl for the year. I thought we could do some quick introductions, we'll give you the patrol schedule, and set a meeting time this weekend to go over patrols for the first couple of weeks as well as rules."
"What's he doing here?" a seventh year Ravenclaw named Jones interrupted, jutting his head at James. Lily looked over, a little helplessly, but James had already given him a charming smile. He stood beside Lily.
"I'll start with introductions, then," he said cheerfully, though Lily could tell his voice was strained. "I'm James Potter. I'm sure most of you know me." He smirkled a little when a couple of the fifth year girls tittered. Lily elbowed him hard in the side, but he ignored her.
"I know I wasn't a prefect before, but the Headmaster felt I was a good fit for Head Boy this year." Jones scoffed, loudly. "Believe me, I'm just as shocked as you are, but as long as no one causes any issues," he glanced over at the Slytherins, "we should all get along just fine."
Despite herself, Lily let her gaze follow his to the Slytheirns in the corner of the room. They were sat huddled together, eyeing James with clear animosity. This year was going to be such fun.
"I want to see you listening to him," Lily followed up. "Or I'll go right to gettting the Headmaster involved." She eyed Jones especially, who was still huffing loudly. "We don't need anyone causing problems and ruining prefect duties for anyone else. It's a privilege for you all to be here – and I've seen the Headmaster take that privilege away before."
Her claim wasn't true, strictly speaking – she hadn't seen it, only heard of it – but it did its job. Jones shut his mouth, and the Slytherins, the fifth years, at least, quieted down some, too. The rest of the meeting went mostly without hitch – they assigned patrols, partnering fifth years with sixth and seventh years from their houses in order to learn the ropes, and scheudled a meeting for Saturday. The whole meeting couldn't have taken longer than a quarter of an hour, although there wasn't a clock in the compartment to check.
When they dismissed the prefects, the Slytherins were the first out the door, of course. James gave her a look as they left, that seemed to say Can you believe them? She rolled her eyes in response.
It took what felt like ages for the room to clear out, until only one Hufflepuff sixth year remained, clearly intent on talking to them. James waved Remus ahead and he gave Lily a small squeeze on the shoulder as he went by. She made a note to catch up with him properly, sooner rather than later. Perhaps she'd schedule them a patrol together.
"I don't mean to be a bother," the Hufflepuff, Lisa, said as soon as Remus had left. "It's just that I was wondering if I could maybe swith patrol partners for today?"
"What's wrong with…" Lily scanned the list quickly, seeing Lisa was paired with a fifth year Hufflpuff boy, "What's wrong with Mark?" she asked.
"Well," the girl mumbled something that Lily didn't catch. James, however, narrowed his eyes.
"What was that?" Lily followed up gently. "I couldn't hear you."
James gave her a funny glacne – it looked almost worried – as he ran his hand through his hair.
"I said," Lisa said, more loudly this time, "That I don't want to be paired with him because he's a muggleborn, and I shouldn't be seen with him. It's not right."
Lily couldn't help it – she gaped. Of all the possible explanations, this was furthest than what she had thought likely. It was true that there was plenty of anti-muggle and muggleborn sentiment in the wizarding world right now – she had seen it firsthand in Diagon Alley, although she did her best to remain above it all – but experiencing at Hogwarts was different. She had known it was coming, known it existed, but even then, had never had anyone other than some of the more horrible Slytherins say anything like that to her.
"Okay," James said, clearly seeing that she was uanble to speak. "That's not an option." His tone was strange, almost friendly, and definitely forced, but she could tell his gaze on the girl was harsh. "First of all, I'd be careful who you say things like that to. For example, your Head Girl is muggleborn, and she's probably the brightest witch of our age."
Lily tried not to blush and was sure she failed, despite the circumstance. She did take pleasure in noting that Lisa had blushed, too, and looked almost uncomfortable. She was avoiding Lily's gaze – not that Lily was looking at her, focussed as she was on James.
"Second of all, we will not be assigning patrol partners by blood status, and if you have issue with that I'm happy to take your resignation right now." The girl shook her head vehemently at James, who nodded curtly at her in response. "Then I'll expect to see you patrolling with your partner when the time comes. Understood?"
"Yes!" she squeaked, before dashing out the door.
"Some people," James muttered. He turend to Lily, who realized a second too late that she was still gaping at him. She closed her mouth.
"That was," she said instead, "not what I was expecting."
James gave her an unreadable look. "Me, or her?" He ran a hand through his hair.
"Both, I suppose," she responded honestly. "I hope she won't be a problem again." She reached for the door to the compartment, stepping out ahead of James. They fell into step in the corridor.
"If she is I'll go to Dumbledore," he said resolutely.
"I never thought it would be a Hufflepuff who was the first to protest," she said, finally. It seemed strange to her, really that it wasn't-
"Slytherin doesn't own the rights to prejudice, you know," James said, reading her thoughts. He gave her a wry smile. "Still, you're right. I'm sure we'll hear it from everywhere, though. Gryffindor included."
"Your family is pure-blood," Lily said suddenly. She stopped in her tracks for a moment. James ended up a couple paces in front of her, looking back with a raised eyebrow.
"Astute observation, Evans," he rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Would you like an award for that bit of knowledge?"
Lily sighed. She couldn't help but feel he was being a bit prickly about what she said. And perhaps he was – she hadn't been trying to accuse him of also thinking blood status was important. It was more that she was curious about why he didn't seem to think that at all. He started walking again, and she had to jog to catch up.
"I just meant – I mean, you and Black aren't…horrible. About blood status, that is. But you just as easily could be," she stuttered.
James slowed his stride slightly, giving her a small smile when she caught up. "We could be," he said finally, "but over the years the Potters have perfected the art of being a pain in the ass to pure-blooded society as a whole, as my Dad would say. Sirius managed to learn how to do that in eleven years, though."
She snorted, rather inelegantly. "Black's always been an arse, I'm not surprised he started young."
He barked a quick laugh – as if she had startled it from him. Lily was proud of herself for a moment.
"I'm going to tell Sirius you called him an arse," James said, then. She didn't miss the teasing note in his voice, or the way he ran his hand through his hair.
"You should," she said. "Knock his ego down a notch. It'll be good for him."
They paused as they arrived at the girls' compartment. Lily suddenly felt uncomfortable, and James was looking everywhere except at her.
"I was thinking," he said suddenly. She looked up in surprise. "I was thinking, maybe Operation Daily Prophet could meet before the prefect meeting on Saturday?"
Something in Lily's chest deflated, although she couldn't tell what. "Sure," she said, with a smile she hoped wasn't strained. "I'll let the girls know."
With that, she pulled open the door to the compartment, stepping in before he could say anything else. She was met with the sigh of Alice and Mary chatting – too excitedly – and Marlene reading a book upside down.
"Alright, how much of that did you lot hear?" she asked with a sigh.
Marlene raised her eyes to look at Lily above the book. "Whatever could you be talking about?" she asked, batting her eyelashes at Lily. "I've just been reading, and Alice and Mary have been chattering on since you left."
Lily sat down beside Marlene, reached out, and batted her book to the ground while Alice and Mary collapsed into giggles on the other bench. "You were reading it upside down, you numbskull," she said, rolling her eyes fondly at Marlene. "I suppose I don't need to tell you that we're meeting on Saturday, then."
"Nope," Mary said between giggles. "We heard that loud and clear."
"Honestly Lils, if you don't want to be heard you shouldn't talk so loudly," Alice added. She had composed herself, but was still grinning widely. Lily felt her face heat.
"We weren't talking loudly," she said mulishly.
"I can't believe he didn't kiss you," Marlene said with her own giggle. "You nearly ran away from him though, maybe that was why."
Lily sunk low into her seat. "I didn't run away," she said, giving Marlene her best angry pout. "And he doesn't want to kiss me."
"Oh, he does," Alice said, waggling her eyebrows up and down. "He just doesn't have the guts. Honestly, Lils, you'll just have to kiss him first."
"I have kissed him!" she exclaimed, unable to help herself. "Twice."
"Oh, poor Lily," Marlene said. "Stop making fun of her." She rubbed Lily's head – quite condesendingly, if anyone were to ask Lily. No one did, of course. "She can't help that James has been pining for her since he asked her out in third year. He doesn't know what to do with himself now."
"Merlin, Marlene," Lily groused, "He's not pining for me just because he asked me out once, when we were twelve, for our first Hogsmeade weekend. That doesn't even count."
Mary began laughing uproarously. "I remember that weekend, Marls went on a date with Black."
Lily found herself able to laugh this time, at her friend's expense. It was Marlene's turn to look mutinous.
"We were twelve," Marlene groaned, then slapped a hand over her mouth when she realized what she said.
"Ha!" excaimed Lily. "See? It doesn't mean anythign when you're twelve. Plus, he's dated people since."
The wicked gleam in Marlene's eye was back. "That was just practice," she said, grinning woflishly at Lily. Instead of responding, Lily slapped her friend's arm – none too lightly, either.
"I have something to tell you lot, but I shan't if you're going to be nosy about me and James."
"You and James, now, is it?" Marlene said. She shrieked when Lily began swatting at her repeatedly with both hands. It's not as though it hurt Marlene – she had been a beater on the house quidditch team for years. If anything, it hurt Lily's hands, but it made her feel better nonetheless.
"Seriously, Marls," she said when she was done. "This is important."
"Fine, fine," Marlene grumbled back. She settled herself back into her seat but slung her legs up and onto Lily's lap, taking up most of the bench. Lily cast Alice and Mary a look as if to say, Can you believe her? Alice just shrugged and Mary gave her a wicked grin. Honesly, those two were useless sometimes.
Once everyone was settled, she recounted the story of the Hufflepuff, Lisa, and how James had reacted. The story was met with stunned silence for a moment. Both Marlene and Mary looked sufficiently shocked, but Alice – Alice just looked outraged.
"That bitch," Alice said finally. Lily raised her eybrows back, and Alice flushed. She never swore, really (with the exception of swearing at James and Black when they deserved it, of course).onesadf
"I can't belive it."
"Can't you?" Marlene said after a beat of silence. "Because I can. This whole world is a disaster."
Lily closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She agreed, if she were being honest. Perhaps it had been naïve of her to think Hogwarts would be okay, that the prejudice wouldn't make its way here. Naïve, even, to think that her only trouble would come from the Slytherins this year. Of course James had been right – Slytherin didn't own prejudice.
"Lils?" she heard Mary ask. She opened her eyes to see her friends concerned face staring back at her across the compartment. "Alright?"
"Alright," Lily said, doing her best to hide her sigh. "Just thinking, is all."
"Thinking about a certain boy, I'm sure," Marlene said with a cackle. She nudged Lily's side with her toe, and Lily pretended to slap her, but couldn't help giggling a little herself.
They passed the rest of the train ride, and the sorting, and the feast, in giggles and excitement. Lily tried not to let the train ride dampen her spirits for the start of her last year at Hogwarts affect her spirits, but it did anyways.
By the time the feast was done, she just wanted to curl up in her bed in her dormitory, maybe with a good book, until she was ready to fall asleep. Life, of course, had other plans.
Lily entered the Common Room arm-in-arm with Alice, who was giggling about Frank as usual. The first through fourth years were already past their curfew and were nowhere in sight – but other than that, the common room was full. There was loud music playing from the wireless – Lily couldn't help but laugh when she realized it was Queen – and almost every other fifth through seventh year was present, most with butterbeers in hand. Her eyes narrowed, looking for the culprits – until she spotted one near to the portrait hole.
"Black," she said, rasing her voice to get his attention. He was standing with Emmeline, looking positively too happy.
"Aw, Evans," he excused himself from Emmeline, who cast a worried look in Lily's direction. "Butterbeer?" He held out a cup of the drink as he approached. Lily raised her eyebrows at him, doing her best to hide her amusement. She should not be amused about a party on the first night back. Still, she took the offered butterbeer.
"What is going on?" she asked after taking a sip. Black grinned at her.
"It's Pete's birthday party, of course. Figured we should have a big one, last year and all." He slung an arm around her shoulder, dramatically as usual, and guided her towards the couch by the fire, where Remus and Peter were already sitting. Sirius dropped himself on the couch, pulling her with him and tactfully igoring her when she shrieked in shock.
She fell across Remus, who was looking down at her bemusedly. She noticed his wince, of course – the full moon had happened right at the end of the summer and Lily wasn't surprised he was still sore. "Sorry, Rem," she said, careful to avoid leaning on him as she sat up.
"'s alright, Lils," he smiled back at her. Sirius grabbed her elbow and helped her the rest of the way up.
"Happy birthday, Peter," Lily said once she had righted herself. She leaned over Remus to ruffle Peter's hair. He grinned good-naturedly at her.
"Thanks, Lils," he said. "It probably didn't need to be so…" he looked around the room. "Large," he finally settled on.
"Dramatic," she added, nudging Black playfully.
"Yeah, that," Peter responded with a laugh. "But these three wouldn't let me get away with anything smaller."
"That, Pete, is because you're the best," said Remus, smiling at his friend. Lily smiled, too, and leaned back against Black. Sometimes it still astounded her how comfortable she had become around the Marauders in the past year.
"Speaking of Potter," she began, but was interrupted by Sirius.
"You don't want to know, Evans," he said from behind her. Remus looked like he was stifling a giggle. Peter wasn't paying attention – Mary had just walked up and had perched herself on the arm of the couch beside him. She gave Lily a smile when she caught her eye.
Lily craned her neck around to look at Black. "It's his first day as Head Boy," she groaned. "You can't seriously tell me he's breaking rules already."
"Better you don't know, then," Remus said with a laugh. She could feel Black snickering behind her, too, although she couldn't hear it over the music.
As if they had summoned him by talking about him, James walked in through the portrait hole. Lily watched him look around for his friends, hands full of bags that looked suspiciously like Honeydukes bags.
Lily took a moment to watch him – even though she could feel Black watching her watch him which was hardly fair at all. He had big bags in each hand, and a half, almost subconscious crooked smile off his face. Lily tried to ignore the way it made her heart beat a little harder to see him so at ease and happy.
James paused in the entryway to the common room, clearly looking for his friends – or for Lily? No – probably his friends. It was Peter's birthday, after all. He was halfway through the motion of ruffling his hand through his hair when he caught sight of them, or Sirius, really, and then he was smiling properly and well, was it really her fault if it took her breath away just a little?
Her eyes tracked him across the room until he dropped onto the couch, half on top of Sirius and half on top of Lily. Her heart was racing faster now, but she did her best to raise her eybrow cooly at him as Sirius shuffled over to make room.
"Do I want to know where you got that?" she asked, by way of greeting.
"Honeydukes?" he said, with a charming James Potter grin. Sirius was watching them carefully, as if unsure whether they were about to fight or not.
"Do I even need to tell you how wrong it is that you snuck out on your first night as Head Boy?" she felt Remus laughing beside her, and it took all her self control to not turn aroudn to give him a piece of her mind, too.
He looked at her, not even conealing his mischevious grin. "We could skip the lecture, maybe," he said.
Lily glanced over at Remus, who was laughing hard on her other side. She nudged him with her elbow. "Don't encourage him, you're horrible." He just laughed harder.
Sighing, she turned to James. "I'm tempted to forgive it," she said, "but only if you have a bar of Honeyduke's finest in there."
Before she could even blink, there was a bar in her hand. Sirius grinned at her from James' other side. "Knew I liked you for a reason, Evans," he said cheekily.
Lily chose to ingore him, insead settling herself comfortably between Remus and James, her butterbeer in one hand and chocolate in the other. Maybe, every once in a while, a little bit of rulebreaking was alright.
