"Lily, have you ever explored the school at night?" asked James, throwing down his quill and leaning back on two legs of his chair. The rest of their friends had probably hatched some devious scheme to leave them alone, for they were only two of the handful of people left in the Common Room that Sunday night.

"Why would I ever do that?"

"Because it's fun."

"Sorry, don't believe in that."

"Well that's too bad, because we're going right now," decided James, standing up and tugging on Lily's arm.

"James!" Lily pulled back her arm. "It's past midnight; we have a Potions essay due tomorrow. You must be crazy!"

"My essay won't get any better than it is now," protested James. "I don't work past midnight." He then added as an afterthought, "Yes, some do say I'm crazy."

"Pah, you don't work at all," quipped Lily.

"I resent that."

Lily glared at him with her hands on her hips. This was definitely the same evil stare that James had been getting for the last six years, but somehow it appeared softer now than it usually was.

"Please, I swear we won't get caught. You need to see the castle at night!"

"James Brinley Potter, if Filch discovers us and our prestige is compromised, your head will be chopped off and hung from the ceiling of the Great Hall."

"Which head?" James asked in a terrified voice.

"I'm not sure which is more valuable to you," retorted Lily. "And that's really sad."

"You could decide which you like better…"

"Maybe I shall…" said Lily slowly, scrutinizing James from head (the one on his neck) to toe as if he were a particularly interesting specimen. "Think fast!" she warned as she simultaneously lifted her knee to deliver a swift kick to his groin.

James keeled over, whimpering in pain, while Lily could only gasp for air through giggles.

"What the hell was that for?"

"Hmm…I think that one is a lot more fun than your other one," Lily sniggered.

Though it was possibly the most excruciating pain James had ever experienced, save the one time he had broken both legs crashing to the ground from his broom, he couldn't help but smile. Somehow, even if it was at his expense, Lily was laughing again, and he would have taken twenty punches in the vicinity if he would always be able to hear her.

"So, is it time to go exploring yet?" asked Lily happily.

"Can you…. Damn it, just hold on a second," panted James, still flailing on the ground.

Lily finished up the last sentence in her essay (Therefore, while the bezoar is a universal antidote to any poison, it is more effective to use potion antidotes brewed specifically for each type of poisoning.) as James slowly came back to his senses and stood up.

"Excellent, where are we headed?" inquired Lily.

"I'll overlook that pun," said James darkly. "We want to get to the seventh floor. Now go down."

"And I'll overlook that one," snapped Lily.

"Four floors down, then. There's one staircase that will take you there directly."

"Not so loud!" whispered Lily quite loudly herself. "And do we have to walk that far? I'm so sleepy."

"Do you think I'm a certified nutjob?" James asked. "We don't walk."

"Then what-"

Lily could not finish her question, for James had grabbed her around the waist and flung her over the banister with him.

"Potter!" shrieked Lily, pounding on his back with her fists. "What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

"Not so loud!" James mimicked Lily in an uncannily accurate impression.

"James, if you don't put me down this instant, honest to God, you will be sorry."

"Whoops, here we go!"

James let go and they began to accelerate down four stories. The air rushed past the two friends, and Lily's brilliant hair whipped into James' face. It smelled of summer and home and everything beautiful. As they reached a bend, Lily grasped her arms around his waist tightly and let out a little squeak, and James felt as if he'd left his stomach two floors above him.

As they slid off the banister just a few seconds later, Lily hurried to let go of James and readjust her robes.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked him curiously.

James had a hard time keeping his mouth closed, for she looked absolutely gorgeous in her disheveled state. He swore he could feel the spots where she had just been holding on to him tingling.

"It's nothing…" He quickly swallowed and looked away. "Did you enjoy that?"

Almost as much as I did?, he wanted to add.

Lily had no chance to answer, for a beam of lamplight appeared from around the corner and they heard Filch growl, "Who the hell is up this late wandering the corridors?"

Pulling their robes up over their heads so that Filch could not distinguish their identities from behind, the Head Boy and Girl burst into a sprint, dodging behind a rather large statue of Helga Hufflepuff.

"Come out wherever you are!" Filch sniffed around like a dog, casting a scraggly shadow in each direction he walked. "Aha!" he sounded victorious, and his footsteps were quickly approaching the statue.

"Here, get under this," whispered James urgently, pulling a gossamer, glimmering cloak from his robe pocket and throwing it over them.

Filch peered around the statue, stared straight at James and Lily, shrugged, and turned around to walk back down the hall.

"Mark my words…" he said to himself in quite the senile voice, his unfinished death threat echoing throughout the cold marble hallway.

"James, he didn't see us! What happened?" asked Lily frantically, letting go of the breath she had been holding.

"Invisibility Cloak," James muttered. "I love how that comes in handy."

"Merlin, this must have cost a fortune!" exclaimed Lily, sliding out from under to make sure she really wouldn't be able to see James. "Where on earth did you get this?"

"Dad gave it to me in the hopes that I would continue the line of mischief in our family," he grinned. "It was my grandfather's before that."

"I must admit, I'm impressed."

"Let's not get too carried away, now," said James, walking down the corridor and stopping by a tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy teaching trolls to dance the ballet. "There is a real reason why we're on the seventh floor."

"Are we there?" questioned Lily skeptically, glancing at the picture.

James did not answer but instead screwed up his face in concentration and walked back and forth past that specific spot of wall three times. Suddenly, a wrought iron gateway appeared in the middle of the wall across the tapestry.

"What the hell?" Lily asked, utterly confused. "What else do you know that I don't?"

"One more surprise is yet to come," said James casually. "Now step inside."

The room was large and circular, encased in black marble throughout. The ceiling, walls, and floor shimmered by James' wandlight. In the middle of the room, there was a full-length mirror with inscriptions in a foreign language around it.

"This is the Mirror of Erised," explained James. "They use it for many things, but they store it in here for easy access."

"Where are we, and what does that mirror do?"

"This is the Room of Requirement. It adapts to whatever kind of room you're looking for. If I wanted a huge restaurant, I would've asked for that. They keep this mirror here because you can't access it unless you know it exists and specifically wish for it to be here when you get in."

"How, in the name of Merlin's beard, did you discover this?"

"That's a story for another day, Lils."

"Isn't 'erised' just 'desire' backwards?"

"Wow, you're pretty bright," commented James, sounding a little more sarcastic than he had intended to.

"Oh, shut up," snapped Lily.

"No, no, honestly…" he said. "I never thought of that until weeks after discovering it."

"Would it show me what I desire if I stood in front of it?"

"You catch on quickly."

"You go first," offered Lily.

"Don't be ridiculous, I've already seen it a million times. You go ahead."

Truth be told, Lily was rather terrified. Even she did not know what she really wanted.

"Turn around," she told James. "Don't look."

Taking a deep breath and stepping in front of the mirror, she let out a scream and quickly jumped away from it again.

"What's wrong?"

"I…it's lying," she decided, her eyes flashing with fear. "That's not even true at all."

"What does it show?" asked James slyly, hoping with every cubic millimeter of his heart that it was what he thought it was.

"Well, part of it is true," Lily began, stepping in front of it again. "My parents are in there."

"Then what's wrong with it?"

"I can't tell you. Sorry. We ought to get back to our rooms."

"But-"

"No, James, I'm serious. Let's get to bed. We have class tomorrow morning."

Deciding not to push it, James shrugged and walked out of the Room of Requirement with Lily close behind him (not until after she had peered into the mirror one more time to make sure it wasn't just a hallucination).

They ambled in silence towards the Common Room. Ambled may be too inaccurate a word, though, for Lily stalked away rather quickly while James sauntered behind her.

"Lily!" he called out. "I have a question."

She turned around. "What is it now?"

Summoning every last bit of his courage, James asked, "Are you upset because you saw yourself with me?"

"Pshh…" Lily laughed. "Of course not."

She turned and kept walking. Suddenly, she stopped in mid-track, turned to James, and admitted, "Yes."

James jumped up in the air, whooped for joy, and then fell silent at Lily's face.

"Sorry, sorry."

"It's not true, okay?" she nearly yelled.

"The mirror doesn't lie," said James.

"Well maybe it's having a bad day," Lily claimed irrationally.

"Why are you so against it?"

Lily sighed. "I have a feeling this conversation is going to be a long one, and you aren't going to let me sleep until I have satisfied you with an answer."

"You are smart!" exclaimed James.

"Oh, honestly," scoffed Lily. "In that case, let's go sit down in the Common Room."

As soon as they had grabbed pillows from their rooms, thrown them on the ground by the fire they just ignited, and lied down in a line facing each other, James asked again, "Why are you against the idea of me?"

"It's all too much, really," began Lily. "I mean I hardly know you, for one. This really isn't time for a relationship, either. You do realize our N.E.W.T.s will be terribly difficult, and we need to spend as much time on schoolwork as possible. And when we go our separate ways in June, what would become of us?"

"Why would we have to go separate ways? Aren't we going to be training together and defeating Voldemort together?"

"That's an even better reason not to," claimed Lily. "We will have to put all of our effort into that."

"So you're telling me that you're never going to be in a relationship with anyone because you have too much stuff going on in your life?"

"More or less, yes."

"That's possibly one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of."

"Excuse me?"

"A beautiful girl like you can't go on without someone to support her. It won't work."

"I said I'm not interested right now, and that's final."

James pressed on. "And yet you saw me as one of your deepest desires?"

"Yeah, well, I don't know what that's all about," said Lily, flaring up again. "Just drop it."

James ran his hand through his hair in frustration. Lily had quite forgotten how attractive that was.

What? though Lily to herself. I never thought that was attractive.

"You know what," said Lily abruptly. "I'll think about it."

"You will?" asked James, sitting up, an excited glimmer entering his eyes.

"Yes, but don't you dare bug me about it. When I feel like it, I'll get back to you."

"Yes!" declared James triumphantly. He squeezed her in a tight hug, grabbed his pillow, and ran upstairs to his room.

Lily looked after him with a smile on her face. He really did try rather hard. It was almost cute.

-----

Yep it's all straightforward. Next chapter, we'll take a break from the gooey lovey dovey stuff and start talking to Dumbledore about Voldemort. Awesome. Please review…it makes me awfully sad when you don't!

-Marina