As soon as James woke up Friday morning, and saw Lily sprawled out on the floor, his heart leapt to his throat and he ran over to shake her.
Lily made a sound that was something like "Mrrrr?" and James let out a low breath, calming himself.
"Why'dyouwakemeup," Lily asked from behind a yawn.
"I thought—never mind."
"Oh yeah, 'm alive. Feels nice," she said groggily, before picking up the book that had been lying open on her stomach before James knocked it to the floor. She groaned at the reading she still had left to do.
"Why does Professor Rabnott want us to write four bloody feet about werewolves? Is she insane?" Lily grumbled.
Early-morning Lily was something that James had not yet experienced, and he raised an eyebrow at the way she was flinging curses and insults.
"'How does one identify a werewolf,'" Lily said in a simpering, mocking voice. "Like we're going to need to know how to do that."
At that moment, James looked so painfully guilty that Lily stopped and stared. "What?" she demanded.
"Nothing."
"There's obviously something."
"Nothing."
"Did you get a bad mark on your last werewolf assignment…?" Lily probed. James almost laughed to think that Lily's immediate assumption of a worst-case scenario was a bad mark, but he kept his face serious.
"I got 'Acceptable,'" James said truthfully.
"Oh," Lily said gently. "I'm sorry."
"It's still a passing grade!" James said defensively.
"It's alright, I won't tell," Lily said as she gathered the other debris of her homework: parchment, ink, quills…
"You can tell everyone! Loads of people get 'Acceptable,' it's fine!" James shouted after Lily as she climbed the stairs to her dormitory.
It seemed no one had died that morning, but Lily and James seemed to be the only two who found this a relief.
"No one died!" James said at breakfast.
Sirius looked at him. "Great. Amazing," he said sarcastically.
"I'm lost," Remus said.
"I have to tell you something…" James said, remembering that he hadn't told any of the Marauders.
"Did you snog Lily in the locker rooms? Did you shag?" Sirius asked excitedly.
"No," James said, shooting a scathing look at his best mate. "It's about Operation Slimeball."
Meanwhile Lily's realization had no more of an effect on her end of the breakfast table. "Nobody died!"
"Great, Lily, just perfect—what a way to reassure me! Is—is this some sort of ploy?" Marlene asked almost tearfully. " 'Oh Marlene, don't whine because at least no one died, look on the bright side of things.' "
"No, that's not—" Lily said desperately.
"If I ever hope to get a job at the Ministry, I need to pass Muggle Studies, and this is my last year, you know, no second chances," Marlene said. "This is my entire life on the line!"
"Alright, let me take a look," Lily said, taking the parchment from Marlene. "Are these your notes?" she asked, an expression of confusion taking over her face.
"Yeah, what does it look like?" Marlene asked impatiently.
"This—this is a mess, how can you study from this?"
The parchment had illegible scribbles all over it, half of the things Marlene had written were scribbled out, and a web of arrows and circles linked the blocks of text to comments like "what?" and "do not understand."
"You need to rewrite this with… I dunno, bullet points or something."
"Can't I just cheat?"
Lily shot Marlene a Look.
"Right, right, Head Girl," Marlene muttered, looking thoroughly put out.
"Or you can just learn all of these things like a normal person."
"Lily, you know I'm not a normal person."
Lily sighed. "Only too well."
! #$%^&*
Marlene was still asking questions by the time they'd gotten to the Transfiguration classroom.
"Wait, wait," Marlene said, looking through her notes. "How do elections work?"
"Er," Lily said, thinking. "Well, they used to have you write on little papers who you wanted for, you know, a position or something, and they counted them up and picked a… a winner. But now it happens on machines, I suppose."
"Yes. And how do those work?"
"I dunno, I'm not an engineer, am I? It just sort of happens."
"I can't put on my exam that it 'just sort of happens.'"
"Marls, I'm sorry, but we really have to go to class now. I'm sure you'll be fine."
"Yeah," Marlene said sarcastically. "At least no one died."
Lily ignored her friend, knowing this was just another one of her moods brought on by stress, and stepped into the classroom, hoping this would be an easy class.
Professor McGonagall was, strangely, talking to James, and Lily looked curiously for a moment, but sat down, grateful that she would get away with being a little late.
When the professor had broken away with a little laugh (Lily was very surprised by that point), she cleared her throat and went to the front of the classroom.
"I understand everyone is very excited about the upcoming Quidditch match."
Dead silence greeted her, and a few people shifted uncomfortably.
"Aren't you rooting for your House?" she said sharply, and the class responded with a few "Yes ma'am"s.
James shot Lily a gloating smile which she chose to ignore. If he had been sitting near her, she would have commented on how unprofessional it was to take advantage of his position in the classroom, and how Professor McGonagall probably had other things on her mind.
But she had to be contented with a look, and sighed. Why did everyone care so much about Quidditch? It had always seemed to Lily a trivial thing to get worked up about the way the Gryffindors often did, and even more so now. Did no one remember Felicia Tipman, the dead girl?
Lily felt worry broil at the pit of her stomach as thoughts of the Slytherins' potion overtook her. She wondered if Felicia had felt something strange when she'd come into contact with it, and overlooked it, or whether she hadn't felt anything at all when she'd been poisoned, and had gone to sleep taking for granted that she would wake up the next morning.
At the end of class, Lily only had some half-hearted notes about Transfiguring into other people, the pros, cons, and comparisons to using a potion to take another's appearance. Lily vaguely understood that Polyjuice was more accurate and effective, but wore off, and remembered something about the difficulty of returning to your original state after Transfiguration, but she had to admit that she'd barely listened to anything the professor was saying.
On her way out, Lily bumped into Remus Lupin. She smiled at him; he'd been the kindest and most reasonable Marauder, and when they'd become prefects in fifth year, the inevitable friendship had struck up. Remus was quietly intelligent and very thoughtful, and shared Lily's perfectionism when it came to schoolwork. He'd also been honest and told her that James had jumped at the occasion when he'd learned they were studying together on Wednesdays, asking him to spy on Lily and find out as many things about her as possible.
In short, if someone had told Lily last summer that she would be sharing rounds and living quarters with a Marauder, Remus was the one she would have desperately wished for.
But now… Things had changed, somehow.
"Hi," she said with a small smile.
Remus nodded, a pained expression on his face, and Lily looked at him, her eyebrows twisted into concern. His ash-blond hair had gone from neat, if a little overgrown, to messy and sticking out every which way. Dark purple bags underlined his eyes, and his tie was badly knotted and all twisted.
"Are you all right? You look…" Lily trailed off, not sure how to finish that statement.
"I look like shit? Thanks, Lily," Remus said, a biting edge to his tone.
Lily felt like she'd been slapped, and maybe Remus noticed the shock she was displaying, because he quickly amended. "Sorry. I'm under a lot of stress, and I shouldn't have spoken to you that way. You of all people don't deserve that…"
"It's no problem, I've snapped at my fair share of people these last few weeks," Lily said truthfully, her mind drifting guiltily to James. "What's the stress about? Maybe I can help you study."
"Study? STUDY?" Remus shouted, before storming off. Lily stood rooted to the spot for a full minute, before James finally left the Transfiguration classroom. She dimly registered that he must have been talking about Quidditch this whole time.
"Everything alright?" he asked, an uneasy smile appearing on his face.
Lily nodded and snapped herself out of it. "Yes, I… Is Remus doing well?"
There was that guilty expression again. James' eyes dropped to the floor and his jaw clenched. "He's fine," he said tensely.
"No, he's not fine. He looks in terrible shape, and there's something you're not telling me. How are we supposed to be friends if you won't tell me anything?"
"Friends?" James asked, perking up suddenly.
"I mean coworkers. Co-Head Students," Lily amended quickly.
"No, you said 'friends,' " James said, a teasing smile appearing slowly but surely. He decided to push his luck a little. "I'm disappointed though, I thought you'd want to be a bit more than—"
"SHUT—UP!" Lily shouted, but it was a lot less convincing now that she'd turned bright red to match her hair, down to the tip of her ears.
She stomped off, making sure to be loud about it, while James laughingly called after her: "It was just a joke!"