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Hugs and Stuff

Katie

Edited 25/1/2009: Okay, so I managed to persuade my friend to finally spare the time to beta read this chapter so with any look, any of the grammer/spelling mistakes should be gone by now. If you spot anymore in here, let me know and I'll remove them a.s.a.p.

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to anything mentioned, described and included in any Harry Potter related book/movie or product. This is just my interpretation of how Lily and James got together. All rights reserved to J.K. Rowling.

Lily's P.O.V.

My head was starting to pound heavily by the end of the day and all I wanted to do was go back to my dormitory and sleep until it ached a little less but unfortunately for me I couldn't. I had to make a start on the homework that had been set for us and later on go on patrol with one of the sixth year Slytherin prefects because his partner had been hit by someone's potion when it exploded and was still in the hospital wing whilst Madame Pomfrey worked on removing the electric blue colour from her skin.

Today had been one of those long days where everything that could seem to wrong did. I don't know how many times I've tripped today. I never normally trip but today it seemed like I couldn't walk down a corridor without tripping. My shirt was covered in ink blots from where my bottles of ink kept smashing on the floor. I started off by just using a quick charm to remove the stains but by the end of the day, I was just so annoyed by it that I didn't bother because I had the gut feeling I'd just end up tripping again and spilling more ink.

That was only a minor irritation though compared to everything else that happened. In Potions class, McNair had thought it would be funny to hide one of the key ingredients to my potion just moments before I was meant to add it to my cauldron. Of course, I didn't find it until after my potion was ruined and I had to start all over again. In Charms, I had been partnered with Broadmoor, a boy from Hufflepuff who was appallingly bad at Charms but an amazingly talented beater, who managed to transfigure my hair into jet black Hippogriff feathers instead of charming it to change colours in a class demonstration. Naturally this would have to happen during the one of the few times people were actually paying attention to the lecture. It took three loud cannon blasts from Flitwick's wands to shut them all up as I silently turned my hair back to normal, my face glowing bright red in embarrassment.

And these were just things in class. Out in the corridors between lessons, when I was busy tripping, I was having to deal with everyone who decided that the rule about no magic being used in the corridors didn't apply to them. Today it seemed like that was nearly every person in the school although that might just be my perception of it being exaggerated because of my poor mood.

I reached the Fat Lady, praying that she hadn't decided to go and visit one of the other paintings right now. I really didn't want to sit around in the corridor while I waited for her to come back. With the way my luck has been going today, the floor would probably disappear from under me and I'd end up crashing to the floor below me and breaking every bone in my body or something. Thankfully she was still there and she quickly swung open after I gave her the password and I was able to head in and collapse in one of the chairs next to one of the windows in a dark corner.

We had about an hour and a half until it was time for dinner which would give me enough time to make a good start on the revision questions we had to do on Everlasting Elixirs. It was fairly basic stuff that we had learnt last year and I had been reading up about them last weekend so I was fairly confident that I could answer the questions quickly without too much thought which would help not make my headache any worse.

I turned my chair round so that it faced the window, the high back blocking the view of me from anyone who was looking towards it. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone right now. They would probably just want to tease me about my clumsiness today or the feathers incident and I just didn't want to deal with that. I just wanted to be left on my own for a while so I could do this work.

The common room quickly filled with other students as they came back from classes. Their voices buzzed loudly, filling the room with a jumble of sound. I wished there was some sort of volume button I could use to turn the volume down but unfortunately there wasn't much I could do about it. This was everyone's common room and I couldn't be selfish and demand that everyone be quiet just because I had a headache. That would just be highly unfair and I remembered how much it used to irritate me when some of prefects used to yell at us to be quiet when I was younger. Besides, it wasn't like the noise was distracting me or anything.

"Is everything okay, Lily?" I looked up into the twinkling brown eyes above me in shock as the soft, gentle voice broke into my concentration as I worked through my homework. "It sounds like you've had a rough day today,"

"It's not been one of my better days," I shrugged my shoulders wearily. Remus and I had become quite good friends over the past few years due to the amount of time we'd spent together on prefect patrols and being bored almost to death in the many pointless prefect meetings that past head boys and girls found necessary to arrange. I wouldn't say we were close friends or anything but we sometimes studied together or played chess when there was nothing else to do. He was extremely pale today and there were dark rings under his eyes as though he had been staying up late over the past week or so. I wanted to ask whether he was okay or not but I knew that he hated it when people fussed about him so I respected his right to privacy and left it well alone. "And it doesn't look like it's going to end any time soon," I joke as I wearily dragged my hand through my hair to pull it out of my eyes.

He sat down on the floor in front of me. "What's wrong?" He asked quietly, curiosity in his tone as well as genuine concern. Sometimes I think Remus sees himself as sort of like an older brother to me and that it's his job to keep an eye on me and make sure I'm okay.

"You mean you haven't already heard?" I quirked my eyebrows up sceptically. It is extremely hard to keep secrets in Hogwarts because there is nearly always someone around at all times, whether it's another person or one of the paintings spying on the students.

He chuckled. "You mean about the feathers and Potion incidents?" He chuckled mischievously. If it had been anyone else laughing about that then it would probably have triggered my temper and I would have ended up hexing them or something, but I knew that he wasn't laughing at me. I nodded as my face blushed bright red again. "I wasn't talking about that," He shrugged. "What I meant was why does this bad day of yours look like isn't going to end any time soon," He clarified.

"Just the usual," I sighed and stretched my arms up in the air, trying to ease out some of the stiffness that was threatening to form in my back and arms. "A mountain of homework, my head aching like hell and late night patrol duty tonight,"

"I thought you and James didn't have to patrol again until Thursday night," Remus frowned in confusion. I think Remus is the one that keeps track of things for James and Sirius so they always know when homework is due in, detentions, Quidditch practises and matches and patrol duties are for them because they can be hopelessly disorganised if you leave things like that to them. "Unless the patrol rota has changed and I haven't seen the new one," He frowned to himself.

"It's not with James, don't worry the rota hasn't changed," I reassured him with a grin. As James's best friend he would be one of the first to know if the rota changed because that was one of the things that James insisted on being allowed to draw up on his own. I had a sneaking suspicion that Sirius helped him with that job so that they could plan the best times to sneak out to pull their notorious pranks that were designed to cause maximum chaos the next day but I figured that at least he was making the effort to take on some of the responsibilities of the head boy and I was giving him the benefit of the doubt about this. "One of the Slytherin prefects is stuck in the hospital wing due to an accident in her potions classes and someone needs to take her place on patrols,"

Worry entered Remus's eyes at this. "Couldn't you have gotten someone else to do it instead of you?" He asked carefully.

"No one else wants to do any more patrols than they really have to," I sighed. "If I had bothered to ask any of them, they would have all said that they were too busy with homework or Quidditch practice or something like that. It's just easier to do the damn thing myself."

"I could do it for you," He offered quickly. "Or James would do it for you."

"Yeah, but it's Quidditch practice for the Gryffindor team tonight so James will be busy with that and I know you and Peter like to go and watch that," I shrugged. "Besides, I know James has grown up an awful lot over the past two years but he still loses his temper a lot if you provoke him so I don't think sending him out on patrol with Vaisey will be any good. I don't want Vaisey to end up in the Hospital Wing too just because he couldn't keep his mouth shut." I shrugged.

"And what about you ending up in the Hospital Wing because he's a Slytherin and extremely open and vocal about his opinion of Muggleborns," Remus pointed out to me with a glare. "Lily, you have to stop putting other people first all the time. You have to look after yourself and make sure you don't get hurt either,"

"Vaisey isn't dumb enough to do anything to the Head Girl while their on patrol," I scoffed although I confess that I'm more than a little bit nervous about going on patrol with him. It wouldn't be one of the best nights of my life, to say the least, but I was trying to be fair to him. He was chosen to be a prefect after all and there have never been any problems with him skiving of his duties or abusing his powers. Even before he was made a prefect he was never in any major trouble. "There's no need to worry about it. It will probably be one of the most boring patrols of my life, what with him not wanting to waste his breath talking to a mere Mudblood," I shrugged.

"Don't call yourself that!" Remus glared at me. "Don't you dare put yourself down like that! You have just as much right to be here as any of those pureblood snobs! You're better than every single one of them and you don't deserve to be called that!" He said hotly.

"It's just a word, Remus, it can't hurt me at all," I told him gently. I've never understood why all those purebloods and half bloods that don't have a problem with us Muggleborn witches and wizards get so upset by the name. They seem to get more upset about it than any Muggleborn I know. "I'm proud to be a Muggleborn and nothing anyone can say will ever stop that,"

"Yeah but you shouldn't use that word," He argued stubbornly. "That word shouldn't even exist. It wouldn't if we all lived in a world where things like that didn't make even the slightest bit of difference to anyone."

"But we don't live in an ideal world," I said firmly, sighing as I finished the answers to the second question and moved onto the next one. "How are things in your world?" I asked politely, indicating the last topic of conversation was closed. I wasn't about to argue over who would do the patrols.

"Things are going fine," He chuckled. "Although apparently hell froze over in Arithmancy and I totally missed it," He said teasingly. I frowned in confusion, not knowing what on earth he was talking about.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking up from my parchment. "Nothing out of the ordinary happened. It was just another boring lecture on Pythagorean Theory. Nothing really extraordinary about it," I told him, wondering what on earth he was on about.

"Apart from the fact that you agreed to go on a date with James," He grinned teasingly. "Legend has always had it that that would never happen until Hell froze over," He told mischievously.

"Now that sounds like something Sirius Black would say," I glared at him. He nodded, confirming my theory that that was the source of the so-called legend. "And besides, I haven't agreed to go out on a date with him," I said confusedly and defensively. Why was it that everyone seemed to think that James and I are meant to be together? He's a great guy but we just wouldn't work well as a couple. He's too free spirited and wild and I would just end up dragging him down with my more cautious nature.

"That's not what Sirius says," Remus said craftily, clearly trying to dig for more details. "He says you agreed to meet James at The Three Broomsticks during the next Hogsmeade trip. That sounds like a date to me and every other person in this school." He pointed out.

"And what did James say about this so called 'date'?" I asked curiously, not ready to point out just why exactly it wasn't a date until I'd heard what James had had to say. I don't want to hurt his feelings or let him down in anyway.

"Just that it was no big deal," Remus shrugged. "We figure that's just him trying to play down the importance of it though,"

That surprised me. I thought at least that he would have bragged about it to his own friends. They never seem to keep any secrets from each other. The level of trust that they have with each other is enviable. I wish I had someone like that who I could trust implicitly with absolutely anything but I find it difficult to make close friends with people and those that I used to be friends with have become more and more distant over the past few years as Voldemort has become more and more powerful. I don't blame them for it though, these days it's dangerous to be seen associating with Muggleborns and they have their families to think about. I'd probably do the same in their position to keep my parents and Petunia safe, even though I would hate myself for doing it.

"And do you know the details?" I asked calmly.

"Not really," He admitted sheepishly.

"Then how can you say for certain that it's a date?" I pointed out, raising my eyebrows.

"Because you've never willingly spent time with James at all," He grinned mischievously. "You always used to avoid him like the plague when possible,"

"Only because he used to embarrass me in front of the whole school by asking me out or hexing my best friend!" I defended myself, feeling a bit guilty that Remus had seen it as me deliberately avoiding James, even if that was the case. "And what about Head duties? I spend time with him for those." I pointed out smugly.

"And that's only because you have to," He pointed out infuriatingly. "You would have to spend time with any boy who was made head boy so that argument doesn't really work,"

I sighed. This is one of the problems with trying to argue or debate with Remus because he always seems to have some sort of response to anything and always has to have to last word. "That doesn't change anything! It's not a date!" I glared at him.

"How is it not a date?" He questioned calmly. He could see that I wasn't as calm as I liked to be. Remus, as well as all his other friends, is one of the few people that can get me riled up and irritated about things. He can help bring out the best in people and is very quiet and studious but I never underestimated him. He doesn't hang around with James and Sirius for nothing. He has a mischievous streak a mile wide and he loves causing trouble just as much as they do.

"Do you take Sirius, James and Peter with you on all of your dates?" I asked him carefully, sure he wouldn't be able to argue his way out of this one.

"No, they'd just embarrass the hell out of me if I did that," Remus said, a confused expression on his face. "Not that I've been out with many girls in my time," He pointed out. "But what does that have to do with it?"

"It has everything to do with it." I pointed out with a victorious grin. "I agreed to meet up with James and you, Sirius and Peter in The Three Broomsticks next Hogsmeade visit, not James on his own. For all you know I might have some deep feelings for you, Sirius or Peter," I pointed out cheekily.

He blushed at this. "Good point," He acknowledged with a nod of his head. "But it still means your willingly spending time with outside of lessons and head duties, which, would lead me to conclude that you are softening in your feelings towards my best friend and instead of hating him, maybe even starting to like him," Arguing with Remus is like playing chess, just when you think you've won the game, your opponent makes a move that you don't expect and you have to start rethinking all your plans and strategies.

"I never hated him!" Remus raised his eyebrows sceptically at this. "I never hated him! I don't hate anyone because in order to hate someone they have to be worth caring about in the first place and most of the people I don't like just aren't worth wasting the effort." I defended myself.

"Fine, let's just say you strongly disliked him then," Remus altered his phrasing. All this arguing wasn't helping my headache much and it was starting to pound more than normal. I thought about taking a trip to the hospital wing and asking Madame Pomfrey for one of her potions to help me out but then she would probably make me stay in the Hospital Wing all night and then I would miss dinner, miss the patrol and fall behind on my homework. I wish I'd remembered to bring some paracetomol with me when I was packing my trunk at the end of the summer holidays but it had completely slipped my mind.

"I didn't strongly dislike him," I sighed. "There is a lot of good in James that cannot be denied such as his obvious intelligence, his loyalty to his friends and how passionate and hardworking he is at the things that he likes." I confessed, not wanting to be seen as someone who hated or disliked someone so much that I couldn't acknowledge any of the good traits in their personality.

"And yet before this year, the most you ever spoke to him was to yell at him for how he acted to other people," Remus pointed out.

"That's because he was always so cruel whenever he was around me," I pointed out. "He was always hexing and bullying Sev who was my best friend! Are you going to condemn me for standing by my best friend and being loyal to him, no matter what house that friend was in because if you are then you're a bloody hypocrite! James was unjustifiably cruel and someone needed to stand up to him. Sure he could be nice to the people he liked but you can always tell what a man is really like by the way he treats those people he considers to be his inferiors. And quite frankly, the way he treated Severus was just as bad as any Slytherin," I defended myself vehemently.

One thing that used to annoy me in the past was people who used to come up to me in the corridors and tell me that just because James had a crush on me, that I should overlook the fact that he could be just as cruel as some Slytherins sometimes and go easy on him, just because he was James Potter. I just couldn't do that. Names meant nothing to me and if he was trying to bully my friend, I wasn't going to stand by and let him. If he hadn't of been a bully towards my best friend, if he had come up to me and spoken to me like a normal human being and not felt the need to show off I would have been friendlier with him. He just never did.

"I suppose so," Remus agreed with me although I didn't really believe him. Remus is extremely loyal to his friends and will cut them more than a little bit of slack if they step out of line, even if he knows what they're doing is wrong. "Is that why you're now being friendly for him, because he's stopped being a idiot around you?"

"Not just to me but to everyone around him as well," I nodded in agreement. "I've been waiting for years for him to grow up a little bit and leave some of the negative points of him behind in the past and now he has done I can talk to him as someone who deserves my respect," It was hard to explain to him.

"He'd never believe me if I told him all this," Remus chuckled to himself.

"He probably wouldn't," I agreed weakly as I placed my quill down on my parchment and screwed the lid back onto the lid of my ink. It was no use, my head was aching too much for me to be able to focus on my work.

"Who probably wouldn't what?" James said creeping up behind and making me jump. I let out a squeal in shock which quickly turned into a groan as the high pitched sound hurt my head. I flinched from the pain.

"Nothing," I groaned as I placed my head in my hands, covering my eyes, and leant back into my seat.

There was a pause where I guessed that James and Remus were doing that annoying male telepathic talking thing that I've seen them do before I could hear James's voice directly next to my ear. "Lily? Are you okay?" He asked softly, keeping his voice quiet as though not to trigger anymore pain behind my eyes.

"Not really," I muttered under my breath. "Just feel like someone has hit a stray bludger through the middle of my head," I moaned a little.

He put his arm around me and hugged me gently. I would have hugged him back but my hands were too busy holding onto my head because the pain was getting so bad it felt like my head might just crack into tiny pieces if I didn't. "Ouch, that sounds painful," He said softly, stroking my hair gently. I won't lie, it felt good to have him stroke my hair but I was in too much pain to fully appreciate it.

"Well duh," I muttered sarcastically but in a much gentler tone than I was used to giving James when I was being sarcastic to him.

"So why don't you go and see Poppy?" He asked gently. "She's bound to have a potion that will make the pain go away in a heartbeat or at least a Sleeping Draught so that you just sleep until the pain goes away,"

"I can't," I moaned. "I have to do patrols tonight," I whimpered softly.

"But we don't have patrols again until Thursday," James said confusedly. "You can't be on patrol because I wrote the patrol schedule out and I know that it's the Slytherin sixth years, Hufflepuff seventh years and Ravenclaw fifth years tonight,"

"One of the Slytherin prefects had an accident in Potions and someone needs to cover her shift," Remus explained calmly.

"So I'll cover it," James shrugged.

"You've got Quidditch practise tonight, James," I sighed.

"Not all night I don't," James shrugged. "Besides, as captain of the team I'll just make practise shorter tonight. It's no big deal,"

"You can't do that," I moaned.

"You're in no fit state to patrol tonight, Lily," He said firmly in a tone that meant he would stubbornly stand by this declaration no matter how much I tried to argue with it. "You work too hard as it is and if you don't slow down once in a while or you'll make yourself ill,"

"I'll be fine," I whispered unconvincingly. "It's only a headache, it will probably be gone by then. Besides, you'll be all tired and sweaty from Quidditch, you won't want to patrol like that," I pointed out.

"I don't mind," He said firmly. "It's only a Slytherin I'll be patrolling with. It's not like I want to impress them or anything. Just let us take you to the Hospital Wing, Lily," He pleaded with me.

"No James," I told him weakly, but just as firmly. "It's Vaisey and if I let you go on patrol with him, you know he'll end up in the Hospital Wing,"

"Better him in the Hospital Wing than you!" James snorted in annoyance. "Vaisey wouldn't dare try anything with me,"

"And he wouldn't try anything with Lily, either, James," Remus chose this moment to enter the conversation. I peeped around my hands and smiled gratefully at him, a little surprised that he hadn't sided with James on this one.

"But Lily is in no fit state to do this patrol!" James said irritably. I think he had counted on Remus siding with him or something. "So as Head Boy, I'll have to do it for her,"

"Not if I do the patrol, James," He volunteered. "It's too cold outside for me to want to watch you practise Quidditch for three hours tonight and you know you always let your practises overrun a little because you lose track of the time,"

"But Vaisey is a prejudiced git," James said hotly.

"So he might take offense that I'm a half blood," Remus shrugged. "It's no big deal. Come on; let's get Lily to the hospital wing. She's looking extremely pale," He said softly.

"You're right," James sighed, although he didn't sound happy about that. He looped his arm gently around my waist, ignoring my moans, and guided me to my feet. "The minute that headache of yours is gone, you'll be thanking us for making you go and see Pomfrey," He teased me gently as he pulled me towards the portrait hole. This was one of the things I'd only really noticed about James recently. He can be incredibly gentle. I don't know why that knowledge made me feel warm inside but it just did. It just felt right, unquestionably right. It was just one of those things that I could just accept as being right until something else happened to explain it all.

"But James, she'll keep me there all night," I told him quietly. "I'll fall behind with my homework if she does that,"

"Good," Remus appeared in front of us and swung the portrait open so that we could step out, James helping me all the way to make sure that I didn't trip. Normally I would have pushed him away at that point and done it myself because I don't need someone being there to make sure I don't fall, but after all the trips and stumbles today, it was probably best just to let him lead the way. Besides, by letting him lead the way, I could close my eyes to block out the light that was starting to pain them.

"That's not good," I groaned at Remus. "I can't afford to lose a night of school work, you know how heavy our work load is this year,"

"Yes you can," James joined in at this point. "You need to take a night off, once in a while and relax, Lily. And if need be, you can get all the information you need for any of the essays we've got from one of ours so long as you promise faithfully not to copy off one of ours," James joked gently with me.

"Says the boy who copied off most of my essays for the first four years," Remus grumbled under his breath.

"That is beside the point, Remus," James told him with a laugh. I like James's laugh. It's so open and natural that you know instantly that he isn't faking it. Over the past few years, I've noticed that a lot of people's laughs have become more forced and more brittle as though they are putting on an act of carrying on with everyday life, even as the War outside is going from bad to worse. Somehow, I think that James could find a silver lining in almost anything. People rely on his and Sirius's pranks at the moment to distract them from the darkness outside the Hogwart's walls, from the danger that all of us will face.

I am glad that James has grown up a lot and matured over the last few years, but like Emmeline, I'm also glad that he hasn't lost that boyish sense of humour that keeps people laughing, even at times like this. I would hate for him to lose that humour, that sense of innocence and the ability to trust the people he cares about unconditionally. We need people like that, desperately need them to keep us going.

I don't know what would happen if we didn't have people like that, people who believed that eventually good will prevail over evil.

Actually, that is a lie.

I do know what would happen if we didn't have people like James Potter.

We'd lose all hope and the will to keep on fighting.

We'd be sucked under by the iron grip of what we know is wrong.

We'd lose our humanity and become that which we hate.

We'd lose the war.