A/N: This was a hard chapter to write. My original draft had a completely different plot but I scrapped it because it wasn't going anywhere. More to the point, it gave too much away, and we've got all the way round to July to wait for the big finale of this fic! I hope you like. :) Review!

November

It's lunchtime. Nom. Actually, I can't be bothered to eat. I'm filled up with happiness. I don't think anyone's ever cared for me as much as James has. How can that be?

'Hey, Laoise!' Lily says, a mischievous smirk on her face. Did I mention that this girl annoys the hell out of me? 'Do you do Divination?'

'No,' I reply shortly. 'Go away.' I glare at her pointedly, and her smirk grows.

'What did you dream last night?'

'Who wants to know?'

'You shouldn't answer a question with a question, Leesh. Do you mind if I call you that. Leesh. Leesh,' she tastes the word out on her tongue. My scowl deepens.

'Yes, I do, actually. Now leave me alone.'

'Well, Leesh, I need my homework doing. And I can't remember any of my most recent dreams, so I can't analyse them. What did you last dream about?'

It all becomes clear. Lily wants to know how far I've gone with her brother.

'Here, Hugo, Leesh is helping us with Divination,' she calls to her cousin, who's sitting with some other Fourth Years across the common room. He saunters over.

'Does she have any dreams to share with us?'

I scowl at Hugo, too. 'No, I don't. Why don't you make them up, like everyone else?'

'Well, they might be unrealistic,' Lily says sweetly. 'I mean, who really dreams that they flew right into the Eiffel Tower?'

Hugo snorts. 'It was better than your idea.' He puts on a false girly voice. 'Oh, Professor Trelawney, I dreamt that I swam around the world in a great big loop. It was wonderful!'

'You both should've taken Arithmancy. It's far more interesting,' I announce.

'Oh, come on, Laoise, please just tell us,' Hugo begs.

'Last night I dreamt of Manderley again,' I tell them, rolling my eyes. They look at me like I've grown a second head.

'Who's Manderley?'

'It's a building – the fictional estate from Rebecca.' This apparently resolves nothing.

'Is that a textbook?'

'No, it's not,' I say, my temper growing. Do they know nothing? 'And for your information, Lily, it is none of your business whether I'm sleeping with James or not. That's between me and him.'

'So you are!' Lily says triumphantly. I'm not, but like I said, it's none of her business. Lily's smirk returns and she flounces off to meet a group of giggly Fourth Year girls who clearly want to know what I just told her. I can hear her exaggerating everything now.

I sigh wearily, and lose myself in the memory of Hogsmeade. James had enthusiastically shown me Honeydukes, The Three Broomsticks, the post office and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, which his Uncle Ron part owned. I'd stocked up on various pranks, not to mention Skiving Snackboxes so that I didn't have to ever sit another Herbology lesson again.

We'd then trekked up to the Shrieking Shack, and James, in a very un-James manner, gave me the history lesson about it. Apparently, his cousin Victoire's fiancé Teddy Lupin's dad was a werewolf who worked for the Order of the Phoenix. When he was at Hogwarts the Wolfsbane Potion hadn't been invented so he used to come to the Shack to transform. There was a long, complicated story about how James's grandfather James and his friends had become animagi and then how Peter Pettigrew had betrayed Harry Potter's parents to Voldemort and faked his own death by transforming into a rat. It went on that Mr Potter's godfather Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban that way and then died (or something), which cleared his name and revealed that Voldemort actually was back and that Mr Potter wasn't a cracked up liar. I didn't understand it, either.

Nonetheless, it'd been the best day of my life. The only problem is, I'm falling for James. That isn't part of the plan. He can't get hurt, and if… Well, no one can know about my feelings. I'm not meant to have feelings. I've got a job to do and no one can get in my way, especially not the Potter children. Not Lily so much, because if it weren't for House loyalty I'd have hexed her already, but Albus and James needn't get involved.

I spend the rest of lunch contemplating this, and by the time the bell rang I've resolved myself. It's the only way to protect James, because to see him get hurt will only worsen the situation. I can't let that happen. Why is life so complicated?