Author's Note:

Hey everyone! Here is chapter 8, I know it is rather short but I didn't really want to cram it full of angst or try to attatch it along with the next chapter so the result is this. Hopefully it satisfies everybody for a day or so. Thanks to everyone who reviewed! I really appreciate it :) I love hearing what you guys have to say and I honestly welcome any and all comments you might have on how this story is going. So pretty please Review!

Well here goes...

Chapter 8

Distance and a Drunken Cove

Two days later James was more frustrated than he had ever been. Lily wasn't showing up to classes until the second before they started and she was the first one to leave when the lesson was through. He hadn't been able to catch her in the common room or at mealtimes as she always seemed to be somewhere else or just leaving. He tried talking to her friends but they just insisted that he needed to give her a little time. He knew they were probably right but giving Lily space was extremely difficult considering he hadn't even been able to tell her his side of the story. And to make matters worse he had Snape giving him irritatingly satisfied smirks at every turn due to his pleasure over James and Lily's apparent rift.

"How the bloody hell am I supposed to get her to understand anything if I can't get her to talk to me?" James moaned to Remus as they worked together in Potions.

"She's obviously not ready to talk James, but Lily is sensible she'll see reason soon and you'll be able to tell her everything and get it all sorted."

James sighed and looked over to where Snape sat staring at Lily as he stirred his potion.

"I really want to beat the shit out of him all over again when he looks at her like that," he growled thickly.

"You mean when he looks at her sort of like you do?" Remus chuckled.

"Not helping Moony."

"Sorry but you know it's true. He looks at her like he's in love with her. Though I don't know if he has as good of a handle on his emotions as you do. He's rather conflicted I think and unfortunately for him I think he lost his chance, if he really ever had one, with Lily after last year."

James nodded and decided to ignore the Slytherin boy and pay attention to his work. He supposed if Lily needed time he was going to have to give it to her and just settle in to wait, though not without venting to his friends at every opportunity.

After watching James mope about for two days Sirius decided it would be a good idea to get his mind off things so he developed a plan that involved reminiscing about their past exploits and a lot of Odgens Old Firewhiskey, as well as all too conveniently happening upon a certain redhead and her friends in the common room. Now he just had to hope was that Alice, Dorcas and Marlene stuck to their part of the plan.

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Lily sighed in frustration as she tried to get through her Transfiguration essay. It was becoming overly difficult for her to concentrate on anything as, ever since the whole incident before Potions, she hadn't felt right. Her friends had tried to talk some sense into her about the whole thing.

"All I'm saying is maybe what you saw, or what we saw, isn't really what we all saw, maybe what we saw was something else you know?" Alice supplied the night after the incident as they all sat in the sixth year girls dormitory after class.

"What?" Lily frowned as she hung her head upside down off the edge of her bed.

"I think what Alice is trying to say is that there might have been more going on than we originally thought. I'll be the first to admit it looked just like old times with James amidst a bunch of tortured unsuspecting Slytherins but maybe something happened that we don't know about." Marlene put in from Alice's bed next Lily's.

Lily sighed in frustration. "It's just that it was so familiar you know? It just brought back all those times that he was mean and horrible just because he could be."

"And that scared you." Alice stated as she elbowed Marlene's foot out of the way of her head.

Lily nodded at her. "Yeah, how'd you know?"

"It's an understandable reaction. I mean it's only been what five months or so since the start of term and the official presentation of a brand new James? I can understand why seeing what you did might make you feel somewhat unsure of him now."

"That's exactly what it did." Lily replied rolling over so that Alice and Marlene came into view right side up. "I mean up until now I've sort of been rebuilding my whole idea of just who James Potter really is and after what happened I can't help but wonder if I was just completely fooling myself or something."

"I don't think you were." Dorcas supplied from where she sat against Lily's headboard. "I mean James is a complicated mix of a lot of things but he's never really been a bad guy. Yeah he did a lot of immature and stupid stuff, that sometimes embarrassed or hurt others, but he was young and crazy and in love with a girl and he felt he would do whatever it took to get her to notice him even if that attention was the opposite kind from what he truly wanted. And it didn't help that he had Black egging him on throughout the whole process."

"I just wish I could sort out how I feel you know? Everything was going so great up until this. Now I don't know what to think about anything." Lily sighed flopping onto her back once more.

"Maybe that's your problem. You're over-thinking it." Marlene nodded. "Maybe if you just take a day or two and try not to dwell on it, it will all eventually work itself out properly."

So that's what Lily had done. She had spent the past two days doing her best not to think about James while at the same time avoiding him at every turn. Yet, somehow it wasn't helping at all. She really needed to talk to him at some point or she was never going to get her feelings untangled.

"Why are we studying in the common room this late at night again?" Lily questioned as she yawned tiredly.

Alice stared wide eyed at Dorcas who looked at Marlene who sighed and said hurriedly,

"Because we haven't got any proper studying in for quite some time and we all need to get our act together because before we know it we will be taking our NEWTs and if we don't start developing good study habits now we'll never do as well as we'd like."

Lily looked at her friend tiredly and then at Alice and Dorcas who were nodding along in enthusiastic agreement and she sighed, "Alright if you say so."

"Quite right I do." Marlene muttered and then turned her face back to the book she had been pretending to read for the past hour.

She, Alice and Dorcas had done what Sirius asked and had gotten Lily to agree to come down and study in the darkest most deserted corner of the common room and now they were waiting on Sirius to put his part of the plan into motion. Marlene looked at her watch and sighed it was nearing midnight and for all intents and purposes they were supposed to be in bed. If Sirius didn't get a move on they wouldn't be able to keep Lily in place for much longer.

Ten minutes later she let out a quiet sigh of relief as the portrait hole swung open and four figures stumbled in loudly.

Lily sat up to see who was causing all the ruckus and her eyes widened in astonishment. Sirius and Remus were supporting an obviously drunk James who was laughing madly at something one of them had said.

"You know…thass why I like you Moony...yer sooo funneeeeee," he slurred slightly.

"I like you too James." Remus replied with a smile as he and Sirius guided James down onto the nearest sofa.

"You guys are the best," James went on. "I mean without you lot I would probably still be in Hogsmeade tellin' Rosmerta all about how I fucked up royally with Lily again."

"Prongs mate you didn't screw up that bad. She's gonna forgive you, just give her some time." Sirius comforted.

Marlene noted that to his credit he didn't look their way even once as he spoke to his friend. He masterfully pretended that he had absolutely no clue he and his friends weren't alone in the common room.

James had sat up at Sirius' words and looked at his best friend as if he had horns growing out of his head.

"No she isn't..hiccup…She saw me in the hall with a bunch of stupid slytherrrinnns and she thought I'd done what I used to do. She is never…like never gonna forgive me for that cause that's exactly what I told her I wasn't going to do anymore."

Sirius smirked slightly at the somewhat poor condition his friend was in but pressed on just the same.

"Maybe you should tell her what happened mate."

Remus nodded along smiling as well. "Ya Prongs. Just tell her what happened."

James groaned.

"Don't you think I would if.. hic ..I could. She is avoiding me. She doesn't want to see me."

"But what happened again anyway?" Remus prompted. "I mean I know you told Sirius the whole thing but Pete and I didn't get the whole story."

James sighed and flopped back into the cushions dramatically.

"I was goin' to…hic… Potions. Member I told you I had to ask old Sluggy about…hic… that essay we were supposed to write. Well before I got there I heard Snivellus…" here James paused thoughtfully, "I mean Snape, talking with his friends outside the classroom. They were taking about Lily. My Lily you know, not that fourth year from Hufflepuff, the one with the freckles and the bushy blonde hair... But that asshole Mulciber was asking Snape about whether or not he'd ever made it with her. He was saying that Snape couldn't expect them to believe that he had been all buddy…hic…buddy with Lily for so long without him having gotten something out of it. They thought he slept with her you know?"

Here James sighed in frustration grabbing his hair and making it stick up even more.

"Then what?" Remus pressed as Sirius looked at him encouragingly.

"Well then they went on about it. Mulciber wanted Snape to give them details about..hic.. what Lily's body was like. I mean what a fucking prick you know. The way they were talking about her…like she wasn't a person or …I don't know. It was just completely …hic…unacceptable. Cause then and this is probably the worst part of it, Avery…hic…asked how she was in bed and that coward Snape said something about how he didn't know why Avery was asking because Avery was supposedly so against mixing with tainted blood. He called her blood tainted and he…he was supposed to be her friend. He was supposed to be her..hiccup…friend and he let those bastards talk about her like she was trash or something. My Lily. The most amazing girl I've ever laid eyes on in my entire life and they were talking about her as if she were just some common slag or Knockturn Alley whore. I just lost it you know. I saw red and couldn't do a fucking thing but what I did."

Sirius sighed for effect here and put his hand on James' shoulder.

"Mate I'm sure once she hears all this she'll understand a little better." He said with finality, winking discreetly at Remus and Peter for a job well done.

James was quiet for a minute before he went on in a gravelly voice putting his palms to his eye sockets and resting his elbows on his knees.

"You want to know what kills me about it?"

Sirius looked slightly alarmed that James was continuing to talk and said in honest curiosity.

"What?"

"They said things about how if she would sleep with me she would sleep with anyone. They think she's been sleeping with me just like half the other idiots in this place."

James and Remus looked at each at a lost for words not understanding what James was on about. It was Peter who cut in helpfully.

"Is that such a bad thing? I mean it's not like you are sleeping with her, you aren't sleeping with anyone… err, right now… so what does it matter?"

James looked up from his hands sadly, starting to become more alert as they talked.

"It matters because what if…what if the reason they are saying those things about her and being such fucking dicks is because of me? What if because they think she's sleeping with me they think they can punish me or get at me through her? Or even worse…what if they think that because I'm a pureblood and she's not that I won't stay with her, hypothetically hic speaking, and then from there they assume they can step in." James paused and went on sounding tired. "Merlin I hate that she's muggleborn sometimes. Not because I care what any of those idiots say about her… but because I'm fucking terrified they'll try and hurt her because of it. I'm so scared that with the way things are going these days, with Voldemort gathering followers, that she'll be targeted. That they'll try and make good on all their awful threats. Afterall I hear enough about the attacks from my dad. They could easily pick her."

Sirius frowned in sympathy.

"Prongs mate, you know we'd never let that happen. Even if you don't get to work things out with her, you would never let them hurt her like that."

James looked over at his friend his eyes bloodshot and worried.

"What if I never get a chance to love her?" He asked so quietly Lily almost didn't catch it.

Sirius looked at Remus and then at Peter signaling to them that it was time to take their friend upstairs before he said more things he wouldn't want Lily to hear.

As they lifted him up off the couch, Remus and himself both taking an arm again, Sirius replied loudly enough for Lily to hear.

"I promise James one of these days she's going to realize that you can give her everything she ever wanted. She'll let you love her and she'll love you back."

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