Chapter 3: Good

"So," asked Ellie as she began to unpack her luggage, "was working with James as bad as you expected it to be?" They were in Lily's private room, a privilege of being Head Girl. The only down side was that she had a common room connected with James' room.

Lily, who was unpacking, gave a small glare at her friend. "How do you know what I was expecting it to be?"

"Oh please," said Ellie, "I saw you're 'it's the end of the world' look when you found out he was Head Boy. You're a little obvious sometimes." She brushed back her chestnut colored hair with her hand and continued to force the wrinkles out of Lily's clothes.

"Am I really?" asked Lily, a little horrified at her behavior.

"Yes!" said Ellie, "You definitely have a different manner when dealing with James Potter. He's not that bad you know-"

"Just because you're friends with Remus does not mean you 'know' James Potter," Lily said with a haughty look on her face. Ellie had been study-buddies with Remus for the past two years, because she was good at Charms and he was good at Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Well I know James a lot better than you do, despite the amount of time you spend yelling at him!"

"Yeah, speaking of the nuisance, I have to patrol with James tonight, so I'll see you later," said Lily, disappointed at having to leave Ellie. They always caught up on all the drama the first night back.

"Don't enjoy yourselves too much," replied Ellie, giving a smirk so disgusting Lily threw a pillow at her.

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James was sitting in the Head common room, playing a game of wizard chess with Sirius.

"So Prongs, I haven't heard her yelling at you yet, that's a good sign, right?" asked Sirius after directing his knight to take out a particularly zealous pawn.

"I guess. But that's probably just because I haven't done anything particularly annoying yet. I will soon though, I'm sure."

"Oh, muffin," said Sirius in a sickeningly pouting voice. "You musn't lose hope, it's not like you. Although I approve of you not asking her out every second, that definitely did not work."

"Yeah, well I'm not really sure how I can redeem myself-"

"Ready to go on patrol, Potter?" asked Lily as she jogged down the stairs.

James stood up quickly, knocking over the chess board by accident, and ignoring Sirius' "Oy!"

"Yeah, do you have any idea where we'll start?"

Lily's hands fumbled with her watch. "Well, we have to patrol the entire castle tonight because we haven't assigned the prefects to do it yet. So I thought we'd go from the bottom up."

"Dungeons first, eh?" James hoped fervently that they would not run into any of his Slytherin "pals" so he wouldn't do something stupid.

"Yeah, think you can handle it, Potter?" said Lily with cock of her head, her eyes narrowed.

"Of course. I'm not Head Boy for nothing!" he laughed half-heartedly, for even he himself didn't know why he had been appointed Head Boy.

"Right, well, lets go," and Lily made her way through the portrait hole.

"Good luck, Prongs," said Sirius with a wink.

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Much to Lily's relief, they had not run into any Slytherins in the dungeon. For one thing, Lily didn't want to have to yell at James again, and for another she didn't want to deal with them.

They had made it to the third floor before James decided to start a conversation.

"So, Lily…do anything interesting this summer?"

"Not really. I mostly just put up with my sister. She hates me," Lily always felt awkward talking about Petunia, as if she should be ashamed of her sister as much as her sister was of her.

"Why?" asked James, who couldn't understand how Lily could be a bad sister.

Lily stopped, "Because I'm a witch."

"Oh," was all James could think of saying. "Er, your parents are muggles, right?" He already knew the answer, as he had hexed Snape more times than he could count for calling Lily a Mudblood.

"Yeah, so I guess my sister thinks I'm a freak or something. Anyways, I don't really want to talk about her, she's infuriating."

James couldn't stop himself from saying, "You brought her up." After he said it though, he mentally hit himself. She would surely blow up on him now.

But to his surprise Lily only laughed. "Yeah, I guess I did. Well, how about you? Anything interesting for you happen this summer?"

They continued walking. "Uh, nothing out of the ordinary. Sirius came to live with us-"

"I heard."

"Besides that it was pretty uneventful. No summer hookups or anything." Lily rolled her eyes, and James quickly added, "Not like that happens a lot or anything."

Lily laughed at him, obviously knowing he was lying. James wasn't proud of the summer after Fifth year, but Sirius was and so rumors had flown. A little disappointed at himself for bringing the subject up, he decided to torment Lily. "What about you, any summer loves?"

Lily knew he had more than just idle curiosity, and looked at him. "And if I did?"

James blinked surprisingly, "Uh, well…I'd congratulate you at finally breaking out of your Evans shell."

"Well, then no congratulations are in order then," said Lily a little sadly. "In fact, I spent most of my summer with my family."

"Good," said James without thinking. When Lily scowled at him, he added quickly, "I mean, I'm glad you didn't get your heart broken or anything. I know how much that hearts."

"And when has James Potter ever had his heart broken?" Lily said, teasingly.

James stopped walking and looked at her. "Do you really have to ask that question?"

Realizing what he meant, Lily stuttered, "O…Oh."

After a few moments of silence, they continued walking but didn't speak until they returned to their common room.

"G'night," James mumbled before heading to his room.

"Good Night," Lily replied shyly, and went into her own room, throwing herself on her bed.

She wondered for the first time if maybe James really did feel something real for her, and started to regret how mean she had been.