The next day Lily was paired with Peter in Potions and took the opportunity to try and sate her ruthless curiosity. Just before he moved his books and cauldron over to the seat next to Lily at the front of the class, Remus grabbed his arm.
"Be careful!" He hissed at Peter, "No one else can know."
With his eyes cast down and his things heavy in his hands Peter made his way slowly towards Lily.
"Good morning Peter, how are you feeling today?"
They both the knew that the question was loaded with more than polite interest. Lily leant over her cauldron to help Peter with his books which were about to fall from his grasp.
"Fine, thanks Lily," he mumbled setting down his cauldron and opening his potions book to the relevant page.
The rest of the lesson passed with Lily firing seemingly day-to-day questions at poor Peter whose work slipped to a lower standard than usual as he tried to evade Lily's curiosity.
"My Pettigrew, really?" Slughorn stood peering into Peter's cauldron with a distressed look distorting his features.
Peter merely shrugged whilst Lily watched quietly. Suddenly she felt very guilty for distracting Peter all lesson. As Slughorn walked away shaking his head Lily sidled closer to Peter.
"If you sit with me I can help you, if you like," she whispered, so the passing Slytherins wouldn't here, "I promise I won't harass you like today." she smiled sincerely at him.
After looking down at his failed potion Peter replied, "Okay, but you won't get anything out of me."
Lily nodded and then left the classroom. The rest of the Marauders converged on Peter; Remus asking questions about what Peter had said, James asking questions about what Lily has said and Sirius looking disbelievingly into Peter's cauldron.
"Mate, this is even worse than last week's sleeping potion!" Sirius spoke over his two friends.
"I know, but Lily has offered to help me." Peter looked both sad and hopeful at the same time causing his friends to break into laugher.
"Maybe she will help me too," James laughed, winking at Sirius.
For the next three weeks Lily didn't give up. She persisted to try and find the cause of Remus's mysterious illness and she persevered to try and help Peter with his potions. The first was proving much more difficult than the latter. It turned out that Peter wasn't a stupid as everyone thought, it just took him longer to understand things, once he did he was fine. Whilst helping Peter, Lily found out some things about a certain friend of his that she couldn't quite believe. It seemed from the vague snippets that Peter gave her that he was being tutored in other subjects as well, by none other than James Potter. Lily was amazed that James was being so kind as to spend so much time helping his friend. She was now beginning to see why Peter always spoke so highly of James Potter and she also saw the improvement in his other subjects as James tutored him. Lily's quick mind didn't miss the days when Peter had an unexplainable scratch or bruise or when he would spend the potions lesson shooting furtive looks at Remus who was looking paler by the day.
On this front Lily had had no luck. She knew that Remus had some kind of illness and that somehow the others were involved and sometimes getting hurt. Her most plausible explanation was some sort of muscle complaint that made him lash out, but it still didn't cover all of his symptoms. One night in the library whilst pouring over a strange book called The magical world of poisoning and infection Lily thought she had cracked it. The symptoms all fit, but when she looked at the cause: a werewolf bite. It angered her. Did these so called authors not think that these symptoms were serious? They made silly jokes out of poor Remus's condition.
However, three weeks later Lily's searching slowed after she received a letter from her parent's telling her that it was unlikely her grandmother would survive much longer than Christmas. Lily was astounded, Christmas was only four weeks away! She spent less hours in the library now, preferring to spend her evenings curled on the common room settee talking to Alice or keeping Fluff company. She couldn't help it; the cat had formed an attachment to her and if she was entirely honest with herself, she was quite fond of the cat also.
It was on a night like that when Lily had her first glimpse of the real James Potter for herself. She had come to realise that James was not as arrogant and selfish as she had once thought. He was helping Peter brilliantly and Fluff was the most spoilt cat in the world.
Lily must have fallen asleep in an armchair by the fire. Fluff was curled in her lap and the common room was empty, or so it was when she fell asleep. Lily was woken by heavy footfalls on the stairs and a strange sniffing sound. As she opened her eyes she saw James Potter bounding down the stairs. He didn't spare a glance towards the fire, just dashed to the table in the corner where the Marauders had been sat earlier and retrieved his forgotten Transfiguration book. She and James located the strange sniffing noise at the same time. As James turned to go back up to the dormitory he saw a first year girl hunched over a table in the corner with an old and battered copy of Hogwarts: A History. The girls shoulders shook and her sleeve flashed across her face to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
"Hey, what's wrong?" James asked quietly walking slowly over to the girl and crouching by her side.
"Nothing, I'm fine, honestly."
"Really? Because I don't class crying as fine."
He transfigured a piece of abandoned parchment into a handkerchief and gave it to the girl.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Lily watched from her secret vantage point as James' perfect face cracked into a sincere smile. She could imagine his beautiful eyes swimming with emotion as he looked at the girl.
"No problem, so what's wrong?"
"Some of the boys pick on me because my parents can't afford first hand clothes and books," she looked away and blew her nose on the hankie.
"Well that's just stupid! You're a really pretty girl and I'll bet your kind and clever too," he smiled again and transfigured another hankie for her as she laughed a throaty laugh.
"I don't think so, but thank you anyway."
"Bah, get away, they're just jealous because money can't buy them what you have." and with that he pulled the girl up and collected her books. "Now, go get your beauty sleep and if any of those boys say anything again come and tell me."
Lily marvelled at the smile he gave the girl as she walked away. Sincere and caring. Was she really seeing those things on James Potter's face? He stood for a minute watching the girl leave and allowing Lily a chance to ogle at him. His hair was messy, but not in the carefully orchestrated way it usually was and his feet were bare. He wore loose pyjama bottoms and it was only then that Lily realised his chest was also bare. How could she have missed this? She could see his muscles, toned, but not scarily so. His back was lightly tanned from the warm summer they had had this year. Before Lily could further asses his body he dashed back up the stairs, never once noticing her sat by the fire with his cat.
Lily didn't see anymore of James nice side and by the Christmas holidays she had almost convinced herself that she had imagined the scene in the common room. The first week of the holidays were keen to confirm this.
"Oi Evans!" The brassy voice travelled easily across the Great Hall as only a few students sat at the long tables.
The Christmas holidays had just begun and most students had returned to their families to spend the holiday with them. It was the first breakfast after the mass exodus of students and Lily had been dreading it since she learned who else was staying behind yesterday afternoon.
James voice boomed out again, "Evans!" He was sat with Remus and Sirius further down the Gryffindor table.
"James, if you wish to speak to me then move your arrogant arse and quit shouting across the room." She spoke quietly, but her words carried, as she knew they would, to the other end of the table.
James turned to wink at his friends who where snickering unashamedly. "Watch this," he whispered as he stood up from the bench and walked briskly towards where Lily sat continuing with her breakfast.
He sat down again on the bench so close to her that their thighs were touching. Lily looked up from her cereal bowl, frowned and slid down the bench slightly.
"What did you want?" Her voice was still quiet, but emanated a deep disgust as she glared at James.
James didn't pale under her withering stare, he was used to it after five years of her hate, but instead carried on as if she had welcomed him with a jovial statement. "I was just wondering," he said cheerfully, "why a beautiful and wonderfully enchanting girl, such as yourself, is quite evidently going to be spending Christmas alone?" As he spoke he had moved along the bench so he was again uncomfortably close to her.
"Even though it is none of your business," she hissed, standing quickly, "I am staying at Hogwarts for the first week of the Christmas holidays because my parents are visiting my ill grandmother in France." With one last piercing scowl she stormed from the room, her long, red hair swishing alluring as she turned.
James returned to his friends who were clutching their sides as they shook with unconcealed laughter.
"That went well," Sirius managed to gasp.
"At least she didn't hit me," James shrugged as he skewered a sausage on his fork.
"I thought she was going to for a moment," Remus said slowly as he tried to master his mirth.
"Now that would have been funny."
"Shut up Padfoot, I'm glad you two find my unrequited love amusing," James muttered darkly staring down at his food.
"Aww, come on mate, you know we don't mean it," Sirius responded, poking James with his fork.
" Why is she at school anyway?" Remus said trying to draw his best friend from his sudden depression.
It worked. James lifted his head and looked at his friends, "Her parents are visiting her sick grandma, I wonder if she'll need comforting." James's face had spread into a cocky smirk.
Sirius' laughter exploded in the almost silent hall and Remus smiled whilst shaking his head slowly.
As always thanks to:
LilyBellaAlways, marauderxforever, and GreyLadyRavenclaw for reviewing,
Mollyaltschwager, Bluvmomma, Bellaa92, marauderxforever and GreyLadyRavenclaw for adding my story to their story alert,
Mollyaltschwager, Xsodapopx7 and GreyLadyRavenclaw for adding my story to their favourites list.
Sarah: 'Bout time you reviewed! :P Thanks sweetie, glad you like it :D