"I can't take it anymore, Moony," Sirius said. He was sitting next to Remus in the common room while the latter studied his defense notes.

Remus sighed exasperatedly but didn't look up from his notes "You can leave at any time if you're bored."

"Oh I'm not talking about this," Sirius said, "I'm talking about James and Lily!" He spat out their names as if he was talking about Walburga Black and not two of his best friends.

"Oh?," Remus looked up from his notes, intrigued, "And what about them can you not take anymore?"

"It's all the…" Sirius waved his hand around, searching for the right word, "Pining. Those two are pining like a couple of pine trees and it's driving me barmy! It's always 'Oh Padfoot I'm in love with her but I don't want to ruin our friendship' or 'Oh Sirius why did I have to reject him back when he liked me. I missed my chance' blah blah blah. And no matter how many times I tell them that the other one loves them too, they don't believe me!'

Remus grinned, "I can see why that might be frustrating for you."

Sirius had a mischievous glint in his eye now, "But I have a solution"

"Oh sweet Merlin," Remus' grin had disappeared and he was pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a headache coming on, "I know better than to think I could possibly stop whatever scheme you've cooked up, but please, at least tell me that when it inevitably goes horribly wrong that I won't be implicated. I don't need Lily's wrath."

"Oh ye of little faith. Nothing will go wrong and those two will be snogging each other and thanking me in no time."

Remus looked unconvinced.

"Fine," Sirius said, "If it goes poorly, which it won't, I'll blame Peter instead of you. Happy?"

"I suppose," Remus decided it would be for the best to just forget about this entire exchange.

LJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJL

"What the hell, Potter!" Lily exclaimed angrily.

She had been on patrol with James and they'd heard a strange sound coming from one of the broom cupboards so they went to check it for students. But when they opened the door, it sucked them both in and locked itself.

"Lily, dearest," James lamented, "I thought we'd graduated past surnames."

"And I thought you'd graduated past doing stupid shit like locking me in a broom cupboard while we're supposed to be patrolling so clearly we're both disappointed."

"Excuse you," James said with an air of great affront, "I had nothing to do with this."

James took out his wand, a bit of an awkward motion with how cramped the closet was, and started casting unlocking charms on the door, but nothing worked. "Well, this is odd. I didn't think anyone at Hogwarts knew any locking charms that Sirius and I didn't…" he trailed off. "That bastard."

"What?" Lily looked more puzzled than angry now

"Sirius is the only person who could've done this."

The meager light getting in was enough for James to see Lily raise an eyebrow, "And why are you two so well versed in locking charms?"

"Ask me no questions and I shall tell you no lies, Evans," James said with a cheeky grin.

"Whatever, I don't care right now. What do we do?"

"Well," He began, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Lily asked incredulously.

"I don't know," James repeated, "Sirius' mind is a mystery, even to me. He could have set up some elaborate puzzle that we need to solve in order to get out, although he probably would've used a bigger cupboard if he did that. Or he might just want us to be stuck in here for some length of time as a punishment. He does that sometimes. Punishes people for things they don't even know they did."

"Wait a second, is that why my hair turned green during Transfiguration last week? I couldn't undo that for hours!"

James laughed, "I'd forgotten about that. Yeah, he was having a bad hair day and then you walked in and naturally looked fabulous and he took it as a personal insult."

"What a weirdo," Lily laughed along with him now, "But I guess he's our weirdo."

"Yeah"

They slipped into an uncomfortable silence which left Lily to contemplate every poor decision she had ever made that led her to this moment. She was stuck uncomfortably close to James, who she'd had a raging crush on for months now, and half of her wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and snog him senseless, the other, more powerful half wanted very much to get as far away as possible. But it was no good, no matter how far she pressed herself against the wall of the cupboard she could still feel the heat of his body and it was doing things to her.

Stupid Sirius, she thought, this was all his fault. And then it hit her. A few weeks earlier she had felt like she was bursting with her feelings for James and she broke down and told Sirius. He'd been delighted and told her that he was sure James felt the same way but Lily knew that couldn't be true. After all, for the last few months, James had said many times how glad he was to have Lily as a friend. How much more obvious can a friendzone be without outright saying 'Let's just be friends'?

But would Sirius have locked them in a cupboard together if he wasn't sure? He may have enjoyed having a laugh at other people's expense but he wasn't cruel, especially not to his friends. And who would know James' feelings better than Sirius? Those two were practically two halves of the same whole. So was it possible that maybe she hadn't missed her chance? Maybe her fantasies about having her wicked way with James in this very broom cupboard weren't entirely hopeless

"So this sucks," James said, "I've like, got all this energy but we can't move because it's so cramped."

I can think of a few ways to burn some energy, Lily thought. Instead of saying this, she responded with an affirmative hum.

"Like," James continued, "I have no idea what to do with my hands, they feel so awkward just hanging at my sides.

"I can think of a few things you could do with your hands", Shit did I say that out loud. Lily's face flushed the same color as her hair. James' eyes widened comically.

"I-Uh-I mean, like, you could run them through your hair. You like to do that."

"Oh, is that what you meant?" James was grinning maniacally now.

Lily just nodded jerkily. She was mortified.

"Lily," James said in a more serious tone.

"Yes, James?", Was it just her, or was he getting closer?

"I'd very much like to kiss you right now."

"Okay," was all she could manage. Her brain felt like it was short-circuiting.

"Does that mean I can?"

Yet again she couldn't find her voice so she just nodded again and James closed the distance between them and kissed her. It was everything Lily thought a kiss should be. Tender, but sensual and full of feeling. She felt like she could get lost in this forever.

After an unknown amount of time, Lily didn't much care how much, she murmured as James kissed her neck, "You know, I'm still definitely murdering Sirius for this when we get out."

James paused his ministrations to say, "Oh yes and I'll help. But if you can think about him right now then I'm clearly not doing this right"

They didn't do much talking about Sirius, or anything else, until they were released by a completely unsuspecting Peter. The poor boy had no idea what he was about to walk in on or the hexes he'd be hit with for interrupting.