Some Nights

It was the first herbology class of the year, and Lily was determined to get on Professor Sprout's good side for her third year at Hogwarts. Last year, Lily and Amira were partners for their final project, and neither students knew that Amira was extremely allergic to leaping toadstools, and in their defense, up until that day Amira was unaware she was even allergic to anything. Both girls somehow ended up procrastinating, and the night before their presentation ended up writing up a hellish report that Lily reckoned made no sense, and Amira planning the presentation. The morning of, both girls were positively exhausted, and when it came for the girls to present their final on why leaping toadstools leap, Lily tossed Amira a bucket of leaping toadstools (which they may or may not have bribed a third year graduate from Sprout's class to give them), and which splattered and leaped all over Amira's hair and arms, and the poor girl was sent to the hospital wing covered with sores barely breathing. Professor Sprout blamed Lily for the lot of it, "carelessly" tossing the bucket of leaping toadstools to the unsuspecting student, and for failing to research the given topic. Lily simply believed Professor Sprout disliked her from the start, but of course everyone was entitled to their own opinion. From that moment on Lily and Amira were forbidden from partnering in that class again.

"Did you hear what Professor Sprout said?" Lily whispered to Sev, forgetting that the said professor was already giving a lecture of things they would learn in her class that year as third years. Gryffindors and Slytherins were forced to take herbology together that year, and Lily planned to use the opportunity to somewhat reconnect with her friend. She still fully believed that she and Sev were rather close, she just was worried they grew more detached over summer and even second year. He liked to spend more time with his friends in Slytherin, which Lily fully understood, as she did the same with her fellow Gryffindors. However she couldn't help but believe his new friends disliked her for whatever reason, but she brushed it off as paranoia. Her summer was spent writing Alice, Amira, Marlene, Kyra, Emmeline, and Dorcas, and sometimes she and Sev would go to the park, but it was a rare occasion.

"Nope, sorry Lils." Sev whispered back, not bothering to look up from his parchment. Lily peeked to see him scrawling down small notes and even doodling, but Lily saw his brief bullet points on Sprout's topic.

"You liar." She laughed and whisked the parchment out from under his hands and refused to let him see it until she was done copying down his notes.

Xx

Remus Lupin was still very much tired, and it was expected, as the marauders outdid themselves at the Welcoming Feast. It was Peter's idea to make it a yearly tradition, and the boys happily agreed. It was James that came up with the idea of the exact prank they were to achieve, and Remus himself that made sure it was actually possible and did all the research and acquired all the supplies, and it was Sirius who set up the entire thing. When the Marauders returned to the hall and unveiled themselves from James' cloak, they took their usual seat at the Gryffindor table. Within a few minutes, the Marauders swished their wands under the table and recited the correct incantation, and chaos once again ensued. Each of the Slytherins stood up on their table and sang a song of how the Marauders were supreme. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaws stood on their tables as well, dancing along to the Slytherins' song. It was rather hilarious, and even the ones who got pranked thought so as well, but they still had detention to serve every night for the first month.

"A detention well earned." Sirius beamed happily, high-fiving the boys.

But now they were stuck in class, deprived of sleep from their shared detention. It didn't help either knowing that his friends were committed to becoming animagi this year. Remus was forever grateful, but he always felt as a burden. He believed he didn't deserve such friendship; no monster like himself deserved a friendship as great as theirs. When he told James that summer, James gave him a rather hefty talk that none of them thought of Remus as a monster. He assured them that they were researching to become animagi on their own free will because they were friends and friends help each other.

When he looked at James now sitting next to him, he realized James actually wasn't as tired as the rest of the Marauders, which was rather surprising given the fact that he and Sirius stayed up all night researching animagi. But it wasn't Professor Sprout that he was paying attention to. James had a stray gaze. When Remus looked to where his friend was pointing his attention to, he almost couldn't believe his eyes.

James Potter was glancing at Lily Evans.

And it wasn't just the glance you would give someone passing by, Remus noticed that James looked to her seat every few minutes, as if he couldn't remember what she looked like before. Actually, if Remus truly thought about it, it wasn't too unbelievable that James took a liking to Lily Evans. From what he knew, Lily was humorous and well liked amongst the Gryffindor girls, and most of her baby fat disappeared over the summer as well, and she finally decided to grow out her dark red hair, now reaching past her shoulders. Although her skin was still slightly burnt form her summer activities, he could see that Lily was actually really pretty, and James was just realizing it.

When Remus told Sirius about his suspicions that James fancied Lily, Sirius laughed out loud and walked away still laughing. The next day when Remus mentioned it again, Sirius sputtered out his pumpkin juice.

"You're not joking?"

"No, I am serious."

"No… I am." Sirius smiled devilishly, and Remus almost wanted to pour whatever pumpkin juice was left in Sirius' cup over his hair. Sirius would always crack that joke whenever the boys would mention the word 'serious', and it was getting on his nerves. Sirius pouted when he realized his friend was not amused. "Okay, okay, sorry. But really, why would you think that?"

And so Remus told Sirius his revelation from herbology.

Sirius didn't believe Remus at first, so when James and Peter returned from the library with books for their animagi research in their hands and sat for dinner, Sirius studied James closely. James noticed and the two boys looked at each other oddly.

"What are you doing?" James asked, both boys refusing to blink first.

"What are you doing?" Sirius challenged.

"Eating my dinner."

"So am I."

"You look as if you're staring at a hippogriff." James rolled his eyes. At that moment, Lily walked into the dining hall with Kyra Bell and Marlene McKinnon. James turned to wave at the three girls, and the trio smiled friendlily in return, not thinking anything of it.

"I knew it." Sirius sighed and returned back to his food. He made an effort to make a show about it when he tossed Remus a galleon to the bunk underneath him. James thought better than to ask what it was about.

Xx

A week before winter holidays, Lily spent the day in the library with Sev. It was a rare occasion that they would hang out anymore, Lily was always busy with her Gryffindor friends, and when she wasn't she could never find Severus, who was either reading by the lake or in the Slytherin common room. It was a week since they last talked (outside of class), and so Lily filled him in on her current events. That particular day was the first time she spoke civilly with James, Remus, Peter, and Sirius (she still somewhat held a grudge with Sirius up to that day because of the prank he pulled on Kyra in their first year), and she discovered they were actually quite funny when they weren't too obnoxious. However she spoke with the Marauders as rarely as she spoke with Snape those days, and she barely knew them.

So Severus had to listen through Lily's entire speech of how she spent lunch with the Marauders, of how they made a joke of the portrait guarding the Gryffindor common room, of how James claimed Lily's hair looked like a telephone booth, and she snarkily replied that his looked like he just ventured through a hurricane. By the time they left the library, Severus was quite fed up with hearing about the "charming and funny" group of Marauders, and his temper was slowly breaking whenever he would see the boy that ran his hand through his hair because he thought it looked cool, and tossing around his snitch (wasn't he a chaser anyways,) and laughing with the rest of the troublemakers. So when Lily departed to go to Gryffindor tower, still giggling from something Sev said, and he turned on his way to the Slytherin common room, he so happened to run into the said group of boys he just spent an hour listening about.

"Potter," Sev muttered as he passed the group. James turned around, seeing that it was the boy who James never talked to, but already detested for a reason that might have something to do with Lily Evans.

"Snape," James replied, just as enthusiastically. The rest of the boys stopped to watch. When Sev glanced at James again, he noticed that sure enough, he was tossing his snitch in his right hand. Severus burst.

"You think you're so cool because you're a Quidditch player, just tossing around that stupid snitch of yours, you're not even a seeker!" Severus shouted. James never really was known for his slow temper. Or at least at that age, he wasn't.

Severus was quacking for the rest of the day, thanks to a hex sent by James (one he learned from Sirius, in fact).

That was the first time the two boys realized they detested each other, and the first day to many which they would spend hexing each other.

Xx

Lily Evans woke up on January 30th to the Quarrymen. Lily lifted her head from her pillow on the bottom bunk, only to be bombarded by red and gold confetti thrown in her face.

"Happy birthday!" The girls cheered as Marlene practically hoisted Lily up from her bunk into a bear hug. The Quarrymen's In Spite of All the Danger still played melodiously in the background on her own record player. When Marlene let her go, each of her dorm mates smiled cheekily. When she thought about it, they all looked very much different from the years before. Marlene's blonde hair grew to her shoulders, and she no longer had her wispy bangs, she simply pinned her thick hair out of her face with a hair barrette. Alice's brown hair grew out as well, but unlike Marlene, she decided to just get bangs which reached her eyebrows. Kyra didn't look all too different, she simply decided to stop wearing her hair in pig tails. Amira changed the least out of all the girls; she still had her long black hair, but she put on a bit of weight so she wasn't the lanky child anymore.

"Happy birthday, you idiot." Alice laughed and handed Lily her gift; a thin silver necklace with a lion pendant. Alice said proudly, "It's charmed so that it always smells like perfume."

Kyra was next, and handed Lily a large deluxe box of hot chocolate, and Marlene gifted her a large John Travolta poster, both of which she mentioned were her favorites at the Welcoming Sleepover first year. Lily laughed and the poster remained hung beside Lily and Amira's bunk for the rest of the year. Amira gave Lily her own Quarrymen record, which she remembered that Lily mentioned she liked better than the newest Beatle's record. After the girls danced to Maggie Mae, and teased Alice how she was the last twelve year-old in their dorm, they decided to go to the common room, where even more students congratulated Lily. Emmeline and Dorcas, now fourth years, gave Lily a shared gift; Lily's first bottle of mascara (which she neglected to wear until her fifth year). Even Kevin Bell (Kyra's older brother who was two years older than them- and coincidentally the current Quidditch captain after Owen Wood graduated) gave Lily a quick wink across the great hall while she stuffed a strip of bacon in her mouth. She would have thought it was her imagination if Kyra didn't gag next to her and practically shoo away her brother to the next table so she could sit closer to Lily.

Later that day after classes, Lily sat on a bench in the quad and placed her unfinished essay on the effects of weggenweld potions into her messenger bag and brushed her deep red hair behind her ear. Despite the early winter, there was still some sun peeking through the cotton like clouds that stretched across the blue sky above her. When she saw Snape approaching with his two friends from Slytherin known as Mulciber and Avery, she frowned while she watched Mulciber sneer about something Lily couldn't quite hear and Avery snickering at the supposed joke. When they got in front of Lily's bench, the trio instantly stopped laughing and the air around suddenly became frigid. Something made Lily want to cross her chest with her arms as if Mulciber and Avery were examining her in a way no girl would want to be looked at.

"See you later, Severus." Avery said.

"Meet us in the common room when you're done with the M.B." Mulciber patted Avery's arm and with that the two boys departed.

"M.B?" Lily raised an eyebrow as Sev sat beside her.

"Inside joke." Sev looked at his feet. Lily always knew he looks at his feet when he lies, but she didn't push him. The last time they formally talked was December. When Kyra told her the gossip of how the marauders hexed Sev. When Lily inquired about it to the said person, Severus got defensive and refused to talk about it.

"Here's your present anyways." Sev shrugged and extended his hand to reveal a small wrapped floppy box shaped gift she didn't notice he was holding. She smiled graciously and claimed he didn't have to get her anything, only to have him extend his hand further forcing her to take it. She unwrapped the gift to reveal a copy of Romeo and Juliet. Her sister used to own a copy, and Lily would always steal it away to read it and thought of it as a romantic tragedy of star-crossed lovers. It would have been a sentimental thought if she didn't recently decide she abhorred the tale. Romeo and Juliet were two young teenagers who thought they were in love, and could have ended up happily ever after if they made smarter decisions. Of course, she didn't share her thoughts with Severus' gift, and instead smiled and hugged him in thanks, which earned her a shy blush from Severus.

It wasn't long before Emmeline and Dorcas raced towards their bench in a disorderly manner. Practically every student in the quad was watching the pair. Emmeline was frantically waving her hands in front of Dorcas to try and obstruct her path while Dorcas tried to trip Emmeline while running. Emmeline almost tripped by the time Dorcas reached the bench, but Emmeline pulled Dorcas down to steady herself, and instead of falling, Dorcas quickly put a heavy hand on Severus' shoulder, the closest one on the bench. When she realized what she did, she quickly apologized and flung her hand out of the way as if she just touched a hot stove.

"Lily, come on you're going to be late." Emmeline implied not so subtly to the party/sleepover the Gryffindor girls were throwing in Lily's honor. Lily practically cursed herself. She completely forgot about her own birthday party. She was torn between wanting to refuse and stay to catch up with Severus, and leaving him once again, but Severus shook his head and said the Mulciber and Avery were waiting for him anyways. With a final hug, he departed on his own way while Emmeline and Dorcas dragged Lily the opposite.

"Why were you two racing anyways?" Lily asked, remembering the ordeal of their race.

"Oh, we couldn't find you, so we made a bet for who ever got to you first owes the other a galleon." Dorcas said smugly while holding out her hand, waiting for Emmeline to casually toss her a galleon. Grumbling, Emmeline dug into her bag and gave Dorcas her end of the bet. "Amira and Marlene are getting ready the dorms anyways. We couldn't find Alice either, but we decided to search for you first, being as you are the honored guest."

On the way to the common room Remus and James also were racing down the hallways so frantically that James accidentally knocked Lily's gift out of her hands. Dorcas bent to pick up Romeo and Juliet for her and scowled at the culprit, but he ran backwards with a guilty and apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Lily. We're in a rush."

"Happy birthday!" Remus clapped Lily on the back as he followed James. The two boys said nothing else as they disappeared into the entrance of the library.

"Don't tell me the Marauders actually study?" Emmeline sputtered, as she continued to walk to the Fat Lady. Dorcas laughed, but Lily didn't want to admit James and Sirius were actually the two smartest boys in her class. When they made it inside the common room, they found Sirius and Peter having somewhat of a heated discussion in the corner. From what Lily could hear at the distance, the boys were talking of some type of complicated potion. The only other two people in the room were Alice and Zach Ayers. The two weren't laughing, instead it was as if Zach was telling Alice some story and she was listening dutifully, ready to offer advice at any given moment. Lily could hear Dorcas and Emmeline grumble when they saw Alice with Zach, and Lily all but dragged the two girls up to their dorms to set up for the party.

Xx

Lily Evans awoke on February 3rd to the sound of a girl sniffling. When she opened her eyes and sat up on her top bunk, she realized it was the joined chorus of about every girl in her dorm softly crying. Kyra was stuffing a bucket of ice cream into her mouth (which wasn't far from the norm, but her puffy eyes sent Lily into suspicion), Amira was atop Marlene's bottom bunk, and the girls were sharing a tissue box, while Alice was still sleeping soundly under Lily's bunk.

"What happened?" Lily gasped, taking in the scene of the three crying girls.

"Z-Zach-Zachary-" Amira sniffed, but couldn't quite finish the sentence, so Kyra did for her.

"Zach Ayers asked Helen Haley to the first Hogsmeade trip!" Kyra blurted out bitterly with a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. Lily frowned, dumbfounded at the group of girls.

"Zach… Ayers?" Lily repeated. Zach was (according to the Annual Gryffindor Welcome Sleepover) currently the cutest fourth year Gryffindor, and the boy most every fifth to second year Gryffindors swooned over. Sure, Lily thought it was silly that her friends were crying over a guy most of them only talked sparingly to, but of course she never said that out loud. She supposed to her it was as if someone told her John Travolta just got married. Acting like the dependant friend she was, she climbed down from her bunk and comforted the girls; putting on the Quarrymen record she received for her birthday and conjuring colorful bubbles to float around the dorm.

To Lily's complete and utter surprise, when Kyra accompanied her to the Great Hall to bring breakfast up for the rest of the (still crying) girls, the vast majority of the Gryffindor ladies were puffy eyed and some even held a box of tissues. Friends were patting each others' backs and whispering words of encouragement to each other, it was a true sight to behold. Thinking that her friends might need some extra encouragement, Lily was bold enough to grab the entire platter of chocolate muffins to bring to her dorm mates and whistle as if she did this normally. When she glanced at Kyra, she saw that her friend didn't even want to wait to return to the dorms to eat with the rest of their dorm mates. Instead, Kyra was already generously piling strips of bacon and eggs onto her platter, so Lily sighed and sat next to Kyra to wait to return together.

"What kind of a name is Helen Haley anyways?" Lily whispered purely out of curiosity. Haley was an odd surname, and she would have hated to have it.

"Haley is her middle name, but everyone calls her Helen Haley. It sort of stuck." Kyra mumbled, always appearing to know everything about everyone. "Her full name is Helen Haley Makehay."

Lily's reply was interrupted when she looked up from Kyra to see two boys sit directly across from them. When she realized they were Sirius Black and James Potter, she was even more intrigued than when she discovered 80% of the Gryffindor table in tears.

"Aw, why'd she date him?" Sirius whined, surely talking about Helen Haley and Zach. Lily could only assume Sirius was one of the many boys who pined after Helen Haley, the youngest Slytherin seeker since decades. When he noticed he didn't even greet Lily and Kyra next to them, he briefly smiled as a greeting and continued on complaining. "She hated him."

"Nah, she didn't." James shrugged, unperturbed and seemingly oblivious to the reaction of the Gryffindor table to the news that his cousin was taking Helen Haley to the first Hogsmeade trip.

"Could have fooled me." Sirius grumbled while grabbing a biscuit next to Lily. "You said whenever he'd ask her out, she would always reject him ever since last year."

"Yes, but if you were listening, you'd hear that eventually she agreed." James explained to his friend.

"Why would she just all of a sudden agree?" Lily asked curiously. It all just seemed odd to her to just detest and reject someone and one day just agree. She knew it was something she'd never do.

James shrugged.

"I don't know what goes on in a girl's head, you tell me."

Xx

Lily only discovered that all her friends had dates to the Hogsmeade trip except for her and Marlene and Kyra the moment she stepped off the carriages and onto the slushy early February snow. All of her (traitorous) dorm mates promised they would all go together to the first trip, and Lily was the first one to be offered to betray the promise. She was with Dorcas a week before when Joe Chang walked up to her in the Gryffindor common room and shyly asked her out as quietly as he could. She barely knew him, they only talked once when they were paired together in an herbology presentation, and Lily kindly turned him down with the excuse that she already promised she'd go with her friends. Now, Lily huffed while each of her friends' dates walked them away to separate shops. Of course, she expected that Alice would be asked. She was, after all, who wouldn't want to ask her? Desmond Robins, the "Cutest Fifth Year Gryffindor" asked Dorcas, and when her friends sneered at her for being the first to betray them and agree, she gasped and claimed all of them would have done the same. Lionel Brown asked Emmeline, and of course she agreed (who wouldn't? That boy was adorable). However, Marlene and Alice kept their dates a secret until that moment when she realized that David Abberly asked Alice out, and Dirk Cresswell asked Amira.

"Let's get away from those traitors." Marlene grumbled, taking both Lily's and Kyra's arms and dragging them away from the rest of the carriage, much to the rest of their friends' protests. In all actuality, the first Hogsmeade weekend was actually quite entertaining. The trio took some time in Honeyduke's, where Kyra bought a bucket full of various candies, enough to last her until she graduates Hogwarts, and Marlene bought three sugar quills, one for each of the girls. However, by the time they went to The Three Broomsticks for butterbeer, Sirius Black and James Potter practically stole away any of the girls without dates, including Marlene and Kyra. Lily left still dazed and huffed all the way to Zonko's, where she found Peter and Remus playing with some sort of prank device. When they saw Lily enter the store, Peter quickly and none too subtly grabbed the object from Remus' hands and shoved it back into its rightful pile.

"Lily!" Remus and Peter both smiled, the two boys hurried to give her a quick hug. Ever since Remus' suspicions grew that James fancied a certain ginger, he spread the news to the rest of the Marauders (excluding James, of course). This was the first formal time they talked to her, and Peter seemed quite nervous to talk to the pretty redhead.

Lily barely knew Remus, let alone Peter, and was suspicious the moment they lay their arms around her shoulder.

"Why aren't you guys with Sirius and James?" Lily asked suddenly, and as soon as she said it, she realized it sounded far too rude. Remus and Peter didn't seem to mind.

"They thought it would be entertaining to flounce around with the vast population of the Gryffindor girls without dates." Peter admitted shyly, the tips of his ears starting to turn pink. "In fact, why aren't you with them? I would have thought that since James-"

Remus instantly screamed dramatically, and Lily and Peter both turned to him.

"My…" Remus panicked, trying to search for an excuse to shut up Peter from admitting their friend fancied Lily Evans. "my… my ankle!"

Lily seemed unimpressed. Peter simply didn't comprehend the interruption.

"Moonie, your ankle looks perfectly-"

Remus screamed again, extra louder for dramatics.

"Peter, come, you better heal it for me." Remus dragged Peter behind a pile of chocolate toads and after a few heated words and a stomp and a yelp from Peter (Lily can only guess what transpired), and after, the two boys returned to Lily, but Peter more limped than returned.

"Your ankle is all better?" Lily crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at the two odd boys. Remus only grinned cheekily and Peter frowned, ready to curse his friend. Both Remus and Peter then linked each arm around one of Lily's and practically dragged her out of the store.

"Come on, Lily. Let's take you on a proper trip around Hogsmeade."

Lily believed that was the day it all started, the happier tale of five friends, the tale that Lily wished she would one day be able to pass to her children.

Xx

Up next…

About Summer, fourth year, Lily's first time spending the night at the Annual Welcome Sleepover, and Tiberius McLaggen.