Disclaimer: I own nothing that you recognize. I don't even really own Lily's friends, because all of them are based on character traits of people I know. Except for Henri, who I am very proud of.

Dedication: To Maris, my first friend in high school.

Of Prefects, Muggles, and Confessions

"Hello, I have called you here today to discuss a duty which Dumbledore has asked the seventh year prefects to perform this year," Lily paused, looking unsurely at James. The two teens were standing in front of the seventh year prefects in the meeting room that was usually used for prefect meetings. They had called the meeting to inform the Prefects of the their new duty.

It hadn't seemed so hard when they had talked about it though. But, standing here in front of the prefects, Lily was suddenly flustered. How did one explain that the headmaster of the best wizarding school, who also happened to be an extremely powerful wizard, thought that so many parents would die over the course of the next year that there needed to be a school policy in place as to how to comfort kids?

James looked at Lily, and seeing her hesitation spoke, although sounding slightly uncomfortable himself, "Well, you all know about V-Voldemort, right?" As he said the name he stuttered, for although he had taken the headmaster's words about using the names for things to heart, he was still getting used to doing so. After seeing nods of agreement from the others he continued, "Well, then you probably know that he's killed a lot of people. Including parents of students here at the school. This year, Dumbledore wants us to be the ones to tell the kids. He says that there're bound to be some deaths. Of parents, I mean." James swallowed uncomfortably. "He thinks that it'll be easier for the kids to find out from us, people they know as human beings, than to hear from teachers."

"The seventh year prefects will do it for kids from their own houses. The idea is that we know the kids."

A Hufflepuff prefect named Lucille was the first to break the silence following James's statement. "I think that's a very good idea. It's hard enough losing a parent, but even though the teachers are nice about it, it's hard. Last year, when my parents" here she paused and took a deep breath. Suddenly Lily remembered that Death Eaters had killed Lucille's parents the year before. Lucille started again, "After my mum and dad died Professor Sprout told me. She was very nice and all, but really uncomfortable, she was so sorry, but, I don't know, it just, I think it would have been better if it was another student. That's all."

Lily nodded. "That's right. So, we're going to be those students. Professor Dumbledore has already talked to our teachers so that if we have to we can leave classes. Are there any questions?" Lily was confident now. This was easy. She knew how to tell people what to do.

"I have a question," stated Charles Nott, of Slytherin.

"Yes?"

"Why do we care that the parents of mudbloods, sorry muggleborns, and half-bloods are dying? They weren't worth anything."

"Why do we care?" Exclaimed Lily, shocked, "It's the right thing to do. We have to. They haven't done anything wrong!"

"They aren't purebloods. They aren't nearly as good as we are. Oh, sorry, I am. You are also a mudblood, aren't you? And Head Girl, I truly am shocked by the Headmaster's choice. I ask again, can any of you give me a satisfactory answer as to why we care. I want an answer from someone who is actually a witch or wizard, and not muggle scum. Why do we care?"

The other prefects stared at him, shocked by his words.

"Because," began James, his voice suddenly as cold as ice, "they are human beings, as are their children, who have to deal with the loss. If you won't take it from Lily, even though she is more of a witch than you willever be a wizard, then take it from me. I am pureblooded, for all the good it's done me. Which isn't much, considering it puts me in the same category as you. These kids deserve this just as much as you would if you were in their place. More, really, because they are better people. Are there any other complaints? No? Excellent. Meeting adjourned."

James watched the prefects leave, noticing that Lily hadn't moved. After all the others were gone he said, "I'm sorry. I lost my temper. It's just that he probably isn't ever going to even have to do it. If anything it'll be him or his parents making it necessary. And he shouldn't call you that. Or any muggleborns really."

"I didn't complain, did I?" asked Lily her voice dry. "I'm so sick of the way that they act. It's stupid and bigoted, and it's the reason that we had to have this meeting at all. It's just that blowing up like that, even if it is satisfying, doesn't often change peoples mind. I learned that the hard way," she paused giving James a hard look.

He didn't catch it. "How?"

"From an idiot I know who just couldn't take 'no' for an answer. I must have yelled at him a thousand times, but he never seemed to get the message." She was glaring at him now.

"Oh. You mean me?" She nodded and he looked sheepishly at his feet. "I was a bit annoying, wasn't I?"

"A bit doesn't evenbegin to cover it!"

"I guess not. I really did mean what I said at the station though, for what it's worth. I'm sorry."

"Yes, I suppose that you are. At any rate, I don't mind you having blown up at him. Truth to tell, I was about to do the same if he kept up his 'purebloods are holy and awesome and anyone else can go rot' for much longer. He's such a git. I mean, honestly, what was Dumbledore thinking?"

James laughed, "Careful, you're starting to sound like him. Remember? That was what he was saying about you."

She rolled her eyes, "But I, unlike him, have a point."

James nodded, and Lily got the distinct sense that he was still slightly awed by the fact that he was being allowed to talk to Lily Evans. And without any injuries too! Then he seemed to gather his wits and said, "True, but who should it have been instead?"

Lily looked at him calculatingly, then replied, "Well, I know that you're going to disagree with me on principle, but I honestly think Severus would have been better." She held up a hand when he looked like he was about to interrupt. "No, hear me out. I know that you don't like him, but he gets better grades than Nott, although that isn't hard to do, really, and whatever my own personal feelings towards him are," here she paused, wondering, as she had often done since the fateful day at the end of fifth year, just what they were. It was so muddled, him being the one to tell her about magic and then calling her mudblood. She continued, "No matter what my feelings are, he would take the responsibility seriously."

James looked at her, calculatingly, and Lily wondered what he was thinking. After a few moments he spoke, saying, "I don't think that it would work, and I think that Dumbledore knew that. No, now it's your turn to hear me out, Lily. I'm not saying this because of my personal feelings. I do have an actual reason."

Lily's eyebrows shot up, but she remained silent.

"Much as it pains me to say this, for reasons that really are valid, based on his actions towards me and my friends, you're probably right about him being a better Prefect than Nott. But there's a sort of a ranking system in old pureblooded society, that certain families are better. Sort of like feudalism. I think that it's probably related to that, now that I think of it. Started around the same time or something. Part of that is that you shouldn't dilute your blood by marrying mugglesor lower-class wizards. And that those who are higher ranking should lead those who aren't."

"I don't agree with that, but many of the families in Slytherin do. Dumbledore knows that. And, well, you know that Snape's a half-blood. And the Princes aren't all that high up on the social scale. If Snape had been pure, then his grades might have been enough to make up for his family's standing, but even then I'm not sure. As it is, Dumbledore was protecting Snape by doing this."

Lily's eyebrows, which had been rising higher and higher as James spoke, had nearly disappeared into her hair. "Protecting him from what? I still can't believe that Dumbledore would be biased like that, even if pureblood families like Nott's and the Malfoys were."

"Protecting him from the other kids and their families. They'd probably attack Snape if Dumbledore put him in a position of authority, just to prove that they could. You have to understand that it's been tried before. In the other houses it's worked fine, as you can probably tell for yourself. But the kids who get into Slytherin are generally the ones who have an issue with it. Probably because those sort of people are really ambitious, and often sly."

"About thirty-five or forty years ago the Headmaster, Armando Dippet, tried putting a lower class kid in. The kid he put in was attacked and threatened. Finally he had to give the position to another kid. The next year he picked a boy, Tom Ridder, I think my dad said. Apparently he was supposed to be like a sort of a stepping-stone. He was popular, but had grown up in a muggle orphanage. When he got to school apparently he figured out that his mum was from some really old wizarding family. Dippet figured that people would see that the way that you were raised didn't matter. The plan didn't work very well though. Apparently Ridder was all for pureblood domination and encouraged it to the point where Dippet felt that it would practically be murder to put another low-ranking or halfblood kid in."

"Wow. I had no idea. I hate how there are people who actually believe that nonsense! I didn't even know about the rank part of that. You know," said Lily slowly, "it's times like this when I feel most awkward about being muggleborn. I suppose that most people would assume that it would be something like when a Slytherin is teasing me, but kids do that everywhere. If it isn't because of your family, then it's about reading too much or your looks or other nonsense. But when you talk about stuff like this I always wonder what other things I don't know. Things that every wizard five-year-old knows, but which I'll never learn in school. I guess that you'd feel the same in the muggle world, though, wouldn't you? But I suppose that you'll never live there. It's not like being a muggleborn; you fit into the world you were born. Although I suppose that squibs don't, do they?"

She paused and James looked at her feeling slightly bemused.

"Sorry. That was sort of babbling, wasn't it? It's just frustrating."

"Yeah. I can imagine. Sort of, I mean. It's never actually happened to me, so… But, I'm sorry about the way that wizards act. We always just assume that people know things. After all, we do. And I'm sorry about Nott. He's wrong."

"I know. It's okay. You don't have to apologize for them. I know that you don't think that. And you're actually generally better about explaining things than most purebloods. Laura is so awful. I think that part of it is that she's really proud of herself for knowing stuff that I don't, because in school at least I'm smarter."

"Oh. Yeah, I can understand that. Occasionally Peter knows something that the rest of us don't. He always gets really excited. It's sort of understandable though."

Suddenly she glanced at the watch her friends had gotten her for her seventeenth birthday. She realized, with a mounting sense of horror, that she had been talking to James for the past half hour. And not just talking. She had been pouring out her feelings to a boy she had sworn never to trust again. Not good. What on earth had she been thinking? Scratch that, why wasn't she thinking? She realized that James was staring at her and panicked.

"Um, um, I've got to go. Lots of things to do, you know. Meeting with Henri. Homework and all that. Toodles." Then she ran out.

James sat there, blinking, wondering exactly what had just happened.

Author's note: An update! Shocking, I know. I'm so sorry for not having updated in a month and a half. I have been spending all of my time doing schoolwork, and I kept thinking that I was about to have a chance to update- and then not getting it. I hope that you can find it in your kind hearts to forgive me. Once again, I am so, so sorry. On another note, I promise to respond to any reviews that I get, as long as they are signed or have an e-mail I can reply to.