The next day, platforms nine and ten at King's Cross station were full of unusual scenes. Owls hooted, toads jumped, cats ran. Petunia had taken Lily to the station, gloating that she had already gotten her driver's license, and was impatient to lecture Lily in what it concerned boys and their behavior. After an hour on nonstop advice on what to do in a hundred different situations concerning James, parties, beer, and a bunch of other stuff Lily really didn't care about or didn't want to know about, they finally got to the station. Petunia found a trolley while Lily unloaded her trunk from her parents' Morris Mini. They walked into the station, it was only quarter past ten but it was obvious that Hogwarts School was returning to classes.

"Coming home for Christmas, Lily?"

"I don't know, really."

"I know you won't. Cheers! Have a good term, sis. Remember what I told you." With that, she hugged Lily and walked away. The clock now read half past ten. Lily turned and sped towards the wall; after the awkward but familiar blur of the magical barrier, she raised her head and started looking for her friends that should have been there by now. Instead, she was greeted by Sirius Black.

"Hey, Evans."

"Hello Black. What do you need?" She wasn't meaning to be hostile, but by this stage, she knew Sirius would only speak to her if he (or James) needed or wanted something.

"Uh, nothing. Just saying hello."

"Really."

"Okay then. You know yesterday? When you were out with my best friend like all morning? What the hell happened? He wasn't sharing a lot, you know."

"What do you mean? Sirius Black doesn't know all the gossip around? Good Lord, the world's about to end."

"Very witty Evans. But I need to know what you answered. I really do. This is no joke, I swear."

"If I were you, I would have already realized that where I am wrong is just my perspective. Open your eyes, to observe. See you later, then."

"Dammit, Evans. It's not so hard. But know what? I'll find out myself." With that last statement, he turned and headed towards the train. It was now quarter to eleven. She also headed towards it, dragging her trunk to an empty compartment. Not two minutes later, however, Sophie and Laura had already appeared, and shoveled their trunks inside.

"Well! How is the lovebird coping today, may I ask?" Sophie asked with a sneer.

"Shut up." Short cold answer.

"Is she right at least?" Laura said.

"I don't know what you are talking about. Honest." Lily was very busy adjusting her trunk inside the compartment. However, her friends would not be so easily satisfied.

"James didn't tell his friends about it. I don't know his reasons, but they must be good for keeping it away from Black."

"Come on Lily. We will find out everything." Said Sophie

"Good luck with that. See you later; I must be off to the prefect's carriage." She got out of the compartment and headed to the front of the train. Not a second later Mary Macdonald and Tiffany Alexander came in with all and trunks.

"Mind if we join you?" Asked Mary.

"As if we had a choice." Answered Sophie with a smile. They both entered the compartment and shut the glass door behind them.

"What's up with Lily? And what's up with Potter, while we're at it?" Tiffany asked, quite puzzled.

"That, my dear Tiffany, is the question. We don't know." Said Laura, looking at the window; the train had started to move.

"I think is time for us to corner Black." Sophie rubbed her hands together, "If she won't tell us, we will force out the situation, either they want it or not." She stood up and turned, her long curly blonde hair swishing behind her. As she was leaving the compartment, she said,

"Just give me five minutes, I'll be back."

With all the other girls looking absolutely puzzled, she left. Not having even closed the compartment door behind her, when she heard,

"In what mood do we find Moody today?"

"Just in time, Black." She took out her wand "Stupefy! Incarcerous!" Sirius fainted and was covered up with ropes in no time. Sophie levitated him out of the corridor into the girl's compartment, shut the door and muttered "Muffliato". Nobody could hear them now.

"Finite." Said Tiffany, pointing her wand at Sirius. The ropes disappeared.

"Ennervate" said Laura. He sat up completely stunned.

"What the hell was that Moody? I swear, I was not going to ask you out again!" he sounded kind of overpowered.

"Shame Blacky, I was going to say yes. But we've got other matters to discuss at the moment. Dear me, what were you doing on this part of the train?"

"Just fooling around, mind you. I'm Sirius, I mean serious."

"The thing is, master of puns, we want to know something." Said Laura raising her eyebrows, giving Sirius a quizzical look.

"Ohhh" he smiled wickedly, "About the thing you want to know, that you are not really supposed to know about, I know nothing, except who is it about and who else knows about it."

"Fine, you moron. Just carry on with your fabulous riddles." Snapped Mary.

"No! What I mean is, that I know nothing." He stood up. "So, sweethearts, next time, you could simply ask me instead of doing the whole kidnap set-up." He made to the door. But before he could take another step, he felt the pierce of a wand in his back.

"Okay. I didn't know you loved me so much. I can surely stay a little longer." He sat down. "You are talking about James and Lily. But he didn't tell me anything! I swear. I asked Evans as well, but she didn't tell me either. We are all even. I mean, if James didn't tell me, who else he would tell?" he sounded very annoyed with that.

"Details Black, details are important." Laura was now muttering, as in that uncomfortable moment, James chose to pass in front of their compartment door. He stopped in front of them and raised an eyebrow. Then he noticed Sirius and narrowed his eyes. Sirius waved at him with a grin on his face and motioned him to keep moving, which he did slowly, as if taking the whole scene.

"See? We are moving on dangerous waters." At the stern look on all the girls' faces he proceeded. "Fine. Yesterday, James made us stay put on my house for six hours, saying that he had to go and have lunch with his parents. But lunch isn't set at eight o'clock in the morning and on a Sunday. Then, I sent him an owl. He came back and had this glassy look on his eyes and was all dreamy. So I asked him if he had gone to Lily's. He told me that he hadn't, that he had been all day with his parents, whom were complaining to him that he didn't spend enough time with his family. By the way, did you know th-"

"To the point, you nosy git"

"Whatever. I had given him her address before in the summer, and he had told me, mark my words, that this would be the last summer he stayed single. That's about it, really."

"Oh, that was useful. Thank you, Black, you can now leave." Tiffany said, smiling at him.

"I don't think I will, dove, I still need something. My part of the bargain. Now, what do you lot know?"

"That's classified, Black."

"What I told you was as well."

"That bit I could have deduced with my own wits. What we know is much deeper."

Sirius narrowed his eyes, then smiled, very handsomely, and waved his long curly hair.

"Oh, if that's the case, sorry for asking. My bad, we were getting along so well!"

"Not working."

"Come on! It's my best mate we are talking about! And yours! We should be on the same team!"

"You are not ready to receive that information yet. But we will tell you. I assure you we will."

Sirius, admitting defeat, walked out of the compartment towards his own. But before closing the door, he stuck his head inside.

"We will ground them. We are so going to ground them, ladies. You and me. We will." He vanished from the view of the girls.

"I guess we have an ally" said Tiffany.

"I think we have. But these are dangerous waters, after all…" Sophie muttered with a final tone.

Half an hour later, Lily came into the compartment. She looked exhausted.

"Pass me a Cauldron Cake Fanny, I'm starving." She took a huge bite out of one. "Damn those Slytherins! There is this charm they're all using now, I haven't figured out yet how they do it, but they keep pasting people's tongues to their palates, and they are just laughing their ugly asses out over it. It was only until James jinxed Yaxley that they kind of understood and the-"

"Oh, so it is James now, isn't it?" Mary asked.

With an unpleasant lurch into the past, in which she remembered that awful argument with Snape, she managed to keep her face straight and answer, as she had done before,

"What d'you mean?"

"Yeah, when did he stop being Potter?" Laura told her.

"His name hasn't changed, as long as I'm aware." Lily answered coldly.

"Shut it Lily. Speak up now, tell us!" Tiffany said.

"We know fairly a lot about him." Sophie added.

"There is nothing to tell. I need to think. We can talk about something else, or I swear I'll jinx you lot."
"Relax! Just kidding. Gods! Somebody's got a period."

"Bloody hell, shut up."

"Fine then. Did you get to see the Quidditch World Cup?"

"I lost half my money betting on Spain."

"Yeah, that was kind of embarrassing, wasn't it?" The friendly chatter turned away from that dangerous topic. Lily breathed. She now understood why James was so keen on keeping it secret. While they were at the prefect's carriage, receiving their instructions from the Head Boy and Girl (Marcus Finnigan, from Ravenclaw, and Melissa Nott, from Slytherin), James kept glancing at her, winking, smiling shrewdly. It took all her self-control to keep a straight face, and to make it look as if meant nothing to her, people should think she hated James, and all his little gang of boys. People stared at her; Melissa had asked her a question.

"Sorry, what did you tell me? I didn't hear." A few people laughed, Snape, however, looked at James, who was looking very red, staring at his shoelaces.

"I asked, Lily, if you could tell us when the first patrol session was due."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Umm, tomorrow, isn't it? Tomorrow after dinner, to make sure everybody found their way to their common rooms."

"Yes, now, everybody off. You must be patrolling the corridors from time to time, making sure everyone behaves but without abusing of the power. Remember, it's a great responsibility." Said Marcus. Everybody stood up and scattered, Snape, attempting to reach Lily before she entered her compartment, found his way blocked by James' strong arm. Snape caught his breath, Lily stopped right in front of him, swinging her hair in that awesome manner of hers.

"I'll catch on Evans, don't wait for me." Said James. Wink. Lily understood the 'Evans'. She saw Snape's face.

"Yeah, see you later, then." She headed off towards her compartment. Then, James turned and grabbed Snape's collar.

"I'm warning you, Snivelly, you touch, or even talk to Lily Evans and you are as good as dead."

"You don't scare me Potter. I do whatever the fuck I want." Snape sniggered. "Besides, she'll rather have me than you."

"Surely, slimeball. But for the record, she hates you."

"No, she doesn't."

"Yes she does. Never in my life would I even dream of calling her a You-know-what, even less getting an ugly tattoo in my wrist. Oh, surprised I know about that? We know shit. Loads and loads of it. So, wrapping this up, you dare approach my girl and you'll be so sorry you were even born."

"Lily is no object for you to be the owner of."

"No, she isn't. I know, and you don't care about that. But her safety is. And every dickhead that tries to get to her is also my concern. Especially if that specific dickhead is a Death Eater."

"Leave me alone."

"I won't." James let go of his collar. "Have a good day." He walked away.

Severus rubbed his neck, it had hurt quite badly, but obviously he wasn't going to tell that to Potter. This had gotten personal. If anyone was messing with Lily, it was personal. Lily deserved more than Potter. But, was he more than Potter?

Lily sighed. She had watched the whole scene from a nearby empty compartment, and was surprised. Both boys were going psychotic. All her fault. Her friends were still in their meaningless chatter. She swallowed a pastry after another, until somebody tapped the crystal door.

"Hey Evans, patrol time!"

"Shut it Potter, I'm coming." She couldn't help grinning. She stood up and got out of her compartment. Glances were exchanged.

"Do you mind if I accompanied you?" asked Sophie innocently. The awkwardness in James' and Lily's faces was not missed.

"Okay. I get it." Sophie grinned.

"No! No, sure, you can come. Right Lily?" said James.

"What? Oh, yeah, right. Sure! Come on!" Sophie's poker face was evident.

"Neh, just kidding. I'm too lazy to go. Have fun. Could you tell Black I'm looking for him? How nice. Off you go!" They left.

"Holy shit, those two are hard, aren't they?" Sophie said as she closed the door.

The voyage continued. Other topics emerged, almost completely avoiding the, now they called it, Jily issues. Sooner than they would have liked, the train hit the Hogsmeade station, and they had to catch the horseless carriages that would take them to the castle. Something they didn't quite expect was waiting for them inside the first carriage.