a/n-i'm insanely sorry for the long wait for this chapter. as you may have guessed i'm not very into updating recently. on another note, you should go read the story i'm co-authoring with An-Jelly-Ca, there's a link in my profile. enjoy the chapter!

Chapter Seven

Time. It was something that Lily quite obviously did not have. She was at the top of her class, and expected to stay there; she was taking all of the classes necessary for her to become a healer once she graduated; her Head Girl Duties always demanded her full attention; and she had recently unconsciously decided to fall in love with James Potter. Yes, it was very apparent, to Lily at least, that she had too much on her plate, and not enough time for all of it. But would she want to give any of it up? Not a chance.

When Lily and Sirius parted ways shortly following Sirius's pronouncement of James' true reasoning, Sirius went back to his friends and his lunch in the Great Hall. Lily went in the opposite direction, towards the Gryffindor Common Room. If she wanted to be able to do her patrol with James tonight, and get at least a few hours of sleep, it would be a good idea to attempt a start at her homework now.

As she made her way back towards the Common Room, Lily felt strangely lopsided, as if something were missing. Already, even after only a few weeks back at school, she was used to the heavy presence of her packed school bag, and not used to not carrying it with her everywhere. As soon as she realized that she didn't have her bag full of homework, Lily turned around immediately, and started making her way back to the Entrance Hall, where she figured she must have left it while she was talking to Sirius.

Just as Lily was walking down the marble staircase, James was exiting the Great Hall by himself, having finished his lunch early and now determined to find Lily, coincidentally, having failed to get any information out of Sirius. At first, Lily didn't even notice him; her eyes were fixed on a corner of the Hall, where her school bag was currently residing.

"Lily!" James called out suddenly, when he spotted Lily at the bottom of the staircase.

Lily's head swiveled around quickly in surprise, not having realized that there was someone else in the Entrance Hall with her, and she was that focused on finding her homework.

"Oh, hello, James." She said softly, her pulse slowing down considerably after the moment of minor shock.

She continued towards the corner where her school bag was and James jogged over to catch up with her. He got to the corner just a second before her, and snatched up her school bag before she could even blink. James slung it over his shoulder, ignoring its blatant heaviness that would later cause his shoulder immense pain.

"Where're you headed?" He asked Lily.

"Er…the Common Room." Lily replied, taken aback by his chivalry. "You don't have to carry my bag; I can manage."

James merely shrugged. "It's alright. I'm used to carrying Sirius around everywhere, and he's much heavier."

Lily just looked at him strangely.

"It was just a joke, Lily." James said slowly.

"Oh…" Lily turned and began making her way back to the Common Room, once again.

Again, James caught up with her and slowed down to a walk beside her. Out of the corner of his eye, James noticed for the first time how very tired and worn out Lily looked. He knew she took her schoolwork and her Head Girl duties very seriously, but he hadn't known how much of a toll it was taking on her.

"Lots of homework?" James asked conversationally.

"Just that essay for Slughorn." Lily replied.

"You'll get an O on that one, no problem." James told her. "Ol' Sluggy loves you; it would be a sign of the apocalypse for him to give you anything less than that."

Lily narrowed her eyes at James. "Just because Slughorn over-exalts my moderate potions work in class, doesn't mean I should slack off just because I know he'll still give me a good grade. I actually want to succeed in life, you know."

"Er…yeah." James tried to agree, but was unsure if he was just making things worse. The whole outlook for his day had already gone done. It would appear that Lily was having one of those days when it was a terrible time to be named James Potter. And things had been looking quite good at lunch…what had she and Sirius talked about?

The rest of the walk back to the common room was a silent one. James decided it would be best not to try to further engage Lily in conversation. After six years he had learned that life was always better when Lily wasn't mad at you…although he had already determined that her hatred of him was a good thing. So James said nothing more and Lily didn't speak either.

"Oh, aren't the two of you just adorable?" The fat lady asked the pair when they arrived at the portrait hole. "I've been waiting for years for the two of you to get together."

Lily and James just looked at her, both of their mouths slightly agape.

"We're not…together." Lily finally managed to get out through her shock.

"Well why on earth not?" The fat lady practically demanded. "The two of you would make the loveliest couple." She turned her attention to James. "And you, young man, don't tell me you've given up on this one?" She nodded in Lily's direction. "Oh the arguments that the two of you have had! They've given me the worst headaches!"

"I—" James began but immediately stopped, not knowing what to say to that pronouncement.

"Godric!" Lily suddenly said.

Presented with the password, the Fat Lady had no choice but to swing herself forward and admit the two Head students into the Gryffindor common room. Lily and James were both quick to climb through the portrait hole, the sooner they escaped the Fat Lady, the better. Once they were both inside, Lily turned to face James.

"Can I have my books back?" She asked.

Wordlessly, James slipped the heavy bag off of his shoulder and handed it over to the girl before him. He opened his mouth to say something as Lily swung it onto her shoulder, totally oblivious to the heavy weight, but she cut him off.

"I'll see you later for patrols, then." She said shortly, and without another word, she turned and made her way up to the girl's dormitory, where James could not follow her.

With a defeated sigh, James collapsed into the nearest armchair. So, that conversation hadn't gone entirely as planned…in fact, it had turned out the very opposite of what James had hoped for.

All he had wanted to do was ask her what she had talked to Sirius about. And it was quite obvious that their talk had had something to do with him. When Sirius had come back into the Great Hall in order to fully satiate his hunger he had determinedly not made eye contact with James for some unknown reason. And when James had attempted to ask Sirius what he and Lily had talked about, Sirius had just brushed the questions off by saying something about homework.

That was when James had figured out that something was definitely up. It was very rare that Lily didn't know something about their homework assignment, and there was definitely no way on earth that the person she'd ask about homework was Sirius. Lily, as she had pointed out to him just a few minutes before, was one of those people whose goal it was to succeed in life when it came to academics.

James just didn't know what was going on anymore. In the beginning, so long ago now, it had been simple enough. His goal in life had been to get Lily to hate him. Even now, he knew that was definitely better for him than Lily simply not caring a bit about him. But that was where his problems seemed to arise.

Lily definitely hated him that much was clear. But now that James was actually spending time thinking about his plan he came to a sudden realization: he had never had a plan. And that was a problem. Because somewhere along the way his one-track goal of getting Lily to hate him had gotten way out of control.

Judging from the way his most recent interaction with Lily had just gone, James would be quite lucky to ever get Lily to change her mind about hating him, which was his ultimate goal. Yes, Lily hating him was definitely good. But a Lily who loved him would be so much better.

James' face lit up as sudden realization dawned.

And tonight during patrols would be the perfect opportunity to make the transition