Before she knew it, Lily was back at her house with Sirius. She motioned for him to come along as she crept back into her bedroom. Relieved to see that no one had noticed that she had gone, she smoothly got into her bed, being careful that no floorboards creaked. Sirius had come in and was just standing there, amazed; clearly the ceiling fan had caught his eye.

"What does it do?" He whispered in awe, his eyes shiny and wide.

"It keeps you cool. I suppose we don't usually have a use for them at Hogwarts, but I doubt that there'd be any there, even if it ever got hot inside that place." She answered, being extra careful to keep her voice down low.

"Yeah," Sirius replied. "And this," he pointed to the record player. "What does it do?"

"Music." Lily replied with a wave of the hand.

"Whoa," he laughed, pointing at the poster of a kitten on her wall. "Muggles actually like this sort of thing?"

Lily reddened, though no one could see it in the dark as she walked over to stand by him. "Most of them do, mine's just there because it would look very suspicious if a muggle were to come into my room and find a poster of the Hippogriffs' new hit single. I have to keep some cover,"

Not bad, Evans, not bad at all… She didn't pride herself in lying skills, but she could do it pretty well, however, not to Sirius.

"Ah," Sirius replied. But they both knew that that wasn't the truth. "Since when do you lie to me?"

Lily bent her head down so she wouldn't meet the eyes that matched the disappointed voice. "Since I hated you…all of you!"

Now that was an oxymoron of a lie. Well, alright, it was halfway true, because until riding on the back of a broomstick with the guy, well, they hadn't exactly been best friends. Okay, Lily, you can stop with the fibbing now…

At that remark, Sirius turned around.

"I'm sorry," he said abruptly.

A silence followed. Hurt, and shame from both Sirius and Lily followed. This is a good thing, because without this silence, she would not have heard footsteps coming down the hall.

She motioned shyly for Sirius to follow her.

Lily's mother came in at that point, a horrified look soon caressing her face.

"Oh, no, mum, it's not what you think!" Lily was quick to jump into action.

"Then what is it?" Her mother was growing angry. Crud. Lily thought grudgingly.

Lily took a deep breath. She couldn't hold it off. "Mum, at about 3:00 this morning, Sirius was outside at the balcony on a broomstick, asking me to help him go save James. We found him in a tree,"

Her mother looked skeptical. "And you brought Sirius home with you?"

"Because he wouldn't have time to go home, and he'd miss the one-way train to Hogwarts, mummy! I was doing what was best," she pleaded.

"Why didn't you tell me though? I could've helped," her mom tried to find a way through the story, outrageous; Lily began to realize, as it sounded.

Through the argument, Sirius stayed silent, but now he spoke up. "Because I told her not to. I didn't want her to disturb her parents, and I needed Lily to help me find James and help him and if you didn't let her go, I didn't know what I'd do!" Sirius was sticking up for her. Lily found gratitude like never before enter her body.

Her mom seemed to truly see Sirius for the first time. "Ah," She was looking him over. He had on robes like most wizards wore, just plain, well, Black. His hair was long and shaggy, sticking up in all directions and the broom ride hadn't helped at all. The boyish glint in his eye made someone who saw him automatically want to smile and shake his (or her) head. Her mother gave a sharp nod of approval. "You better get ready," she said icily and automatically left the room.

Lily felt bad that her parents didn't understand the magical world. It took them a lot of convincing to believe it and let her go to Hogwarts. Now she felt that this would just confuse her mother more. She was forlorn that her parents couldn't understand as they couldn't learn, but she tried her best to help them when she could. She wished with all her heart at that moment that her mom would understand it, so she wouldn't be so confused.

Lily didn't look at Sirius for a minute. "Yeah, we'd better get ready," he finally said awkwardly, and asked where the toilet was. She pointed to the door across the hall and went to pick out something to wear. Not that that was hard. All she had to do was put on jeans and a t-shirt and she was ready. She had taken a shower the night before, and blow-dried her gentle curls as not to end up late the next day. Lily realized for the first time that she had gone the whole way and back in her pajamas and felt a hot blush growing on her cheeks. Uuugh…she thought, embarrassed.

She looked at her reflection in a mirror on the wall, and understood part of the reason why her mother was so startled. Her hair was stringy and unkempt-looking, and she had smudges of dirt on her face. She looked like she'd been in a wrestling match. She smiled knowingly; at least now she had an answer.

"Good day, Lily?" Sirius had strolled in, seeing her smiling at herself. Lily turned sharply and scowled.

Sirius looked bored. "Like I haven't seen that one before," his boyish features plainly proclaimed.

Instead of having a go at him or rolling her eyes like he wanted her to, she marched off to the bathroom to brush the tangles out of her hair and wash her face. She was about to brush her teeth with her spare toothbrush, when she saw a bit of still-wet toothpaste on it.

"SIRIUS BLACK!" Lily roared, aggravated. Oh, this crush was so over: so much for one on him.

It disgusted her that she'd liked him for a minute. Partly because, well, he was Sirius, and partly because she'd made a promise to her mother to give James a chance, not Sirius. She was also disgusted at how quickly she moved through guys.

Truthfully, she'd never really liked anyone before this. But she was glad it was over. Look what it made her do! It was the equivalent of being Imperious-ed in her opinion.

But she had a mysterious feeling that all it would take was for him to treat her for a ride on the broom with him and she'd like him all over again.

"LILY, OPEN THE DOOR!!" Apparently Petunia had woken up. She was banging- KONK, KONK, KONK, -on the door.

"Petty…"she whined, opening the door, only to be pushed back in, hard.

Petunia's bony face and short bob greeted her, locking the door behind her.

"Who's the boy?" she squealed.

"A friend. Sort of. Um. From school." Lily stuttered.

"Someone that hot goes to your school?" Petunia shrilled incredulously.

"Sure, yeah…"

Petunia became disinterested immediately. "You can have him. Anyone who goes to that freak school of yours can't possibly fulfill my-" she put huge emphasis on 'my' "needs,"

Lily nodded. She wanted to be angry, but for some reason, she couldn't seem to find any anger to be. She just felt quite depressed. She'd never been mean to Petunia, but Petunia found it necessary to be mean to her, because she got to go to a nice boarding school far away and Pet had to stay and go to Public school there.

"Out, I need the bathroom," She pointed to the door. For once, Lily obeyed.