"Lily?"

"Hm?" She turned the page of the textbook she was studying from.

"Lily, I need to tell you something."

"Mm-hmm." She underlined a passage and checked a line against her notes. Her brow furrowed.

"Are you listening?" James had taken one of her hands in his and was playing with her fingers. He loved her hands. Long and graceful, he liked to trace them. He enjoyed the feel of her skin against his even in something as innocent as hand holding.

"Mh-hmm." She sipped from her mug of pumpkin juice.

"Lily. I'm in love with you." She choked. The mouth full of juice spewed over her books, and the little that had made it to her throat was burning as she alternately coughed and took deep breaths to dislodge it.

"What? What?" She was forcing deep breaths into her lungs. "Say what now, huh?" Her textbook was forgotten and she focused all of her attention on her boyfriend of one month. James said nothing. He continued to stare down at her hand, tracing his finger tips over the pads. The innocent movement sent chills up and down her spine. "James?" Maybe she had imagined it. When he said nothing more, choosing instead to pull his own text to him and begin studying Lily felt forced to do the same.

A simple drying spell had rid the book of the spit liquid, but Lily could no longer concentrate on her school work. He had said that he loved her. So simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world. She couldn't keep herself from staring at the side of his head. Willing him to say something else. She didn't love him, of course not. They had dated for a month and she had only admitted to herself that she did indeed not hate him over the past summer and had not owned up to liking him until the middle of their first date. She wasn't in love. Is that why he hadn't said anything? He was expecting her to say something back? Was she supposed to lie to him? She could love James Potter. She most probably would love James Potter. In fact, if she were to examine how she felt about him a bit closer she would see that she was in the early stages of love right at that moment. But how do you say that to your boyfriend of one month? 'I don't not love you, but umm. Ask me again in a month?' She felt hot and sweaty. For the first time since the first time James had asked if he could hold her hand and she said yes, she wanted to slip her hand away and wipe off excess moisture.

Suddenly, he turned and stared into her startled eyes. "I can't concentrate with you looking at me like that." He let go of her hand and put his hand on the small of her back. He lightly pushed her towards himself and kissed her before standing and gathering his things. "Love you!" He called behind him as he moved to leave the book stacks the two of them had been studying behind. Lily had sat there. Flushed, excited and looking forward to the day she could say those words, in all honesty, back to him.

Lily was bewildered. She had walked into the library to get some studying done for the Transfiguration portion of her N.E.W.T.s done when out of the corner of her eye she had heard her name. It had sounded like James, but ever since Herbology last week her one sided avoidance of him became mutual, so him calling her name was not something that she should be hearing. She headed towards the sound and stepped into a memory. She didn't know why but all day she had been seeing things. Not just anything, but things that looked….well, looked like the inside of her own head. Her memories of important moments that she had had with James were following her as if she had fallen into his penseive and he was forcing her to remember their good times. Or, since that was unlikely, she had her very own set of Lily and James look a likes who had taken it upon themselves to act out milestones in Lily and James relationship. Thus far that day she had witnessed herself agree to go on a date with James, and his reaction after she had left. After she had left he had danced. Full out in the middle of the great hall, arms were flailing, hips were thrusting and he was twirling. Professor McGonagal had spotted him, and when he told her the reason why he danced, she danced with him. James Potter and Professor Minerva McGonagal, Deputy Headmisstress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry waltzed in the middle of the great hall in the middle of the night. It was a sight. Lily had seen her first kiss with James, and felt the punch of it all over again. They had been outside. She had been so nervous that she couldn't stop batting her eyes. Her lashes were brushing against his cheeks and he had been laughing. He had laughed so hard that he had fallen against her and accidentally bit her nose. Lily had jerked away from him, smartly rapping the top of her head with the tip of his chin and James had fallen on his bum in front of her. Neither of them could hardly breathe for laughing but when she had leant down to help him up all laughter stopped. When she had bent over he had gripped his hands around her shirt collar and barely lifting himself up he had fixed his lips to hers.

She had seen herself get ready for their date just moments ago up in her dorm before she decided to leave. She had been so excited. And now this. Lily turned and walked away. She tried to remember all of the good times that she had had with her former boyfriend so that she wouldn't walk by where those good times had taken place. She really didn't need this. She didn't need to remember what a great boyfriend he had been when he had been her boyfriend. She was there. She knew. He was the one who had wanted to break up with her. Not the other way around. She just had the common sense to beat him to the punch. Having her heart broken by James Potter was unacceptable. She stopped as she saw herself enter a small area in front of a window that was covered by a large tapestry. James was nowhere in sight and Lily didn't remember this moment. Curiosity piqued she couldn't help but to follow herself in.

It was her, of course. She was pacing back and forth and muttering to herself.

"This is a bad idea Lily. Snap out of it. Just, just snap out of it. Ok. One. Two. Three, go!" She slammed her head into the wall. Then, with her head in her hands sunk to the ground.

"That. Did. Not. Work." She sighed. And just like that, Lily knew where that memory had come from. James and Sirius had been coming back from an impromptu trip to Hogsmeade. They had been laughing and Sirius had been teasing James over some woman who had apparently thrown herself at him. James hadn't been interested in the least. He hadn't mentioned Lily in some cheesy 'she's the girl for me' type speech to his best friend. Lily hadn't even been mentioned. It was at that moment exactly that Lily realized that she could tell James that she loved him and it wouldn't just be words. She wasn't jealous of the woman in Hogsmeade. She didn't want to go and give the woman a smack or two for attempting to lure James away. It wasn't that Lily was so confident of her relationship with James that she knew that they could survive anything that made Lily know that she was ready to tell him. The truth was she was terrified. She was terrified that the relationship wasn't going to work and that she was going to have her heart broken. That he was going to get up one day and look at her and ask himself why he had wasted years of his life waiting for her. And she was terrified that he wouldn't. That he was right. That they were perfect for each other. And she was terrified of too many things to put her finger on, things she didn't really understand. But, Lily had known in that moment that she would rather tell him than to not tell him. So, when he had come to find her hours later and she was in that same spot, sitting on the floor terrified of being in love with James Potter she gathered her Gryffindor courage around her and looked him straight in the chin and told him. After he came to her and kissed her breathless and whispered the words back to her she managed to tell him again. This time looking him in the eye.

Tears were in Lily's eyes as she left the embracing couple…apparition… memory….illusion behind her. "How could I have forgotten that?" No, she had not forgotten. She had blocked the memory out. She didn't know where to turn next. The school was haunting her. For once she wished that she had a marauders spirit so she could slip out of the castle for awhile. She needed peace that she just wouldn't find there. With her eyes closed, her fingers in her ears and tears running down her cheeks Lily turned and marched away from alcove. She had barely taken two steps when she bumped into someone.

James.

His eyes were blank when he looked down at her. Barely a flicker of emotion passed over his eyes as they traveled over her face. Without a word he handed her his handkerchief and made to move pass her.

Her hand snaked out and grabbed his sleeve. "Have you been seeing them too?" Her voice was hoarse and her eyes were red. James shook his arm free from her. "Seen what?"

"Nothing." If he had been seeing what she had been seeing he wouldn't be asking her what she had been seeing. She hurried away from him and right into another memory.

This one she was witnessing from above. It was the scene from the photograph that James had kept in his room. The snow was falling down and James and Lily and all of their friends had just burst outside to enjoy the first snow of the season.

"Snow ball fight. Snow ball fight. Snow ball fight!" Sirius and Peter were chanting and rhythmically stomping their feet.

"I'm not in the mood for fighting" Lily adjusted the huge hat on her head, trying to find a way to pull the excess fabric down over her freezing ears without ruining the shape of the hat. "Lets go sledding, that'll be fun."

"Yeah. Lets all sit on our butts in the snow and slide down more snow on a big icy hill. Fun." Sirius made a face and bent to begin his hoard of snowballs.

"Because throwing balls of snow is such a heat inducing activity that I need to take my cloak off when we play." Remus rolled his eyes. "James, why don't you decide?" The only time Remus liked the snow was when he was the wolf and had his fur to warm him.

"Boys, I think its going to be sledding today." Lily had whooped and thrown herself into his arms, his mouth was right there, so she kissed it. James had let out a whoop of his own and pulled her into a dance then and there. Lily saw that it was Alice who had had the camera and snapped the photograph. She had been too wrapped up in James at the time to notice. It was the first time that she had kissed him and not the other way around. It had been a good day. They had ultimately played a game of snowball tag on sleds. It was fun, plain and simple remember it for the rest of your life fun. Lily had never been so happy.

Lily turned and headed towards the entrance to the castle. She needed out. When she made it to the doors she was just in time to see herself coming up the staircase. Tears were in her eyes. She had just broken up with James. Resolutely, the real Lily kept going. She stopped when she saw two James Potters. One was from the night that they had broken up. He was….crying. Lily had known that he had been furious with her for dumping him. But she had assumed he was furious in the way people were furious for having their homework stolen or something. You worked hard at it, and someone stole the reward. The reward being Lily, or a good grade on an assignment. He was going to dump her. Why did it matter that she had done it first? Was he so upset that she had ruined his chance to publicly dump her in front of the school? The other James Potter, the real James Potter was standing, watching the spectacle as well. The illusion had curled himself in a ball and was….sobbing…was really the only word for it. Suddenly, he had stood and thrown something from him. James watched Lily as she turned to see what he had thrown. "It's a good thing I didn't give that to you after all." His voice was bitter. "You never loved me. I was a fool to think that you ever would." He turned to walk away from her before he suddenly, and violently, whipped back towards her. "Was it a game? Just answer me this. Was. It. A. Game?" His voice was hard with unleashed fury and tears.

"How could you ask me that?"

"How could you break my heart, Lily? I love you damn it!"

"And I don't love you?"

"Then why did you break up with me?"

"You were going to break up with me James, I couldn't handle that!"

"Does this look like I was about to break up with you?" He motioned to the scene still playing out behind him, but Lily's attention was focused on what was in his hand. A box.

"You were avoiding me. You acted like you didn't like being around me."

"I didn't like being around you! I needed to plan for the night that I was going to propose to you. I couldn't do that with you there." The word propose hang in the air between them. Lily mouthed the word silently to herself. "If I didn't see that then maybe we aren't ready for such a huge step."

"You don't think?" He rubbed his hands over suddenly tired eyes. "I figured that out for myself when I realized that you would rather throw me over than suffer a bit of a blow to your pride."

"I was right. It was a joke."

"I wasn't joking. You thought I was. I wasn't. The fact that you thought that I would play a joke like this on you shows that we're not ready."

"I…" She didn't know what to say. She loved him. She thought. But, if she really had, real love that could last the war and the world and not being in school anymore really love him then she wouldn't think those things about him. Those thoughts belonged to the young James Potter not the man that she could maybe see herself spending the rest of her life with. "I didn't want to get hurt. It was more than just I didn't want to be pranked."

"Well, we both got hurt, didn't we?"

"It wouldn't hurt so much if we didn't like each other so much, right?"

"I love you, Lily. Love. Not like." He rubbed his hands over his face again.

"Do you love me enough to give me another chance? A chance to catch up to you?" She stood there, the pride she hadn't been willing to risk on the floor next to the ring that the illusion James hadn't retrieved yet.

"Yeah. I do."

"Keep the ring, James. I'm going to be ready for it one day." That night James moved back into the Heads tower. He and Lily spent the night on the couch in their shared common room, talking and kissing. She was ready before the year had ended.

Meanwhile, in the 7th year boy's dorms….

Lily Evans was sitting on Peter Pettigrew's bed and Sirius Blacks bed. Professor McGonagal was sitting on Remus Lupin's bed.

"So," Professor McGonagal intoned looking around her at the two Lily Evans. "Do either of you have anything to say to for yourselves?"

The Lily on Peter's bed rose his hand timidly in the air, only to be shot down by a forcefully thrown pair of socks. "Two questions. First, how'd we pull this off with no James? And two, how'd you get to be Minnie?" Unfortunately, those two questions were not destined to be answered. Needless to say, the Marauders minus one did indeed come up with a plan to get their depressed friend back together with the love of his life and they more than likely helped but, as always, when concocting a mixture of Marauders and polyjuice potion in the time it takes said potion to brew some wires have to get crossed….

Brief Explination: Oh, I feel the need to explain because I dont think I did very well with the transition from last chapter to this...The Maruaders were trying to help James and they came up with the idea to re-enact fond memories of the couple. James knew what his friends were up to, so the James Potter that Lily was seeing up until the last memory was him, and the last memory the break up that they watch together...an image of himself that he created. I'm really not sure if it made the best of sense and it certainly didnt transition smoothly but the determined James of last chapter and the morose James of this one is the same James. Who knew he was such an actor?

Authors Note:so…friends. Long time no see. Oh, don't be mad or something at me. The only excuse I can offer you is this: moving is bad. And also, I don't particularly like this chapter. I mean I do but I don't. I hope y'all do anyhow. I tried to rewrite it but it just kept coming back to this. Oh, and I want you to know that this, all but the impromptu final paragraphs have been beta'd. whether or not this particular version is actually the version that made it to semi-crazy is a whole other something to be pondered at length later. But, a shout out to her is in order so, SEMI-CRAZY woot! That'll do.

Lata isa