Chapter Eight

"Hey guys, I have to leave for patrols now," James said, standing up in front of the common room fire. "I'll see you later…tomorrow."

Remus just waved his hand impatiently from behind the book he was reading.

"Bye Jamsie-poo!" Sirius called after James, as he walked away, towards where Lily was waiting by the portrait hole for him.

Peter was asleep on top of his transfiguration homework and didn't say anything.

Once James had walked away, Remus looked up to make certain that James really had gone, before throwing his book carelessly to the side and turning to face Sirius with a quite serious expression on his face.

"What did you and Lily talk about this afternoon?" Remus asked without preamble.

When Sirius at first didn't reply, seemingly immersed in the task of levitating a feather to tickle the sleeping Peter's nose, Remus thought that Sirius simply hadn't heard him. But just as Remus opened his mouth to ask again, Sirius did respond.

"Nothing much," Sirius said with a shrug. "I just had to enlighten Lily to all of life's craziness and other such things. And to imagine, I once thought that Lily Evans knew everything."

"What are you talking about?" Remus was very confused.

Sirius lowered his wand, unfortunately un-amused; Peter was fast asleep and apparently immune to feathers. Instead, Sirius turned to look at Remus as he spoke.

"Lily didn't get what was up with Jamsie acting all…strange around her," Sirius said with another shrug. "You know how he's been going on about his plan for ultimate hatred…. Well, apparently, it's not only gotten Lily to hate him, but it's also gotten her quite confused about Jamsie's apparent mood change, or whatever you wanna call it."

"So you guys talked about Lily hating James?" Remus clarified. For all of his superior intellect, it was hard for anyone to follow everything Sirius said, and the way he said it.

Sirius nodded. "And then I told her about how James has that crazed plan to get Lily to hate him."

"What did Lily say when you told her that?" Remus asked slowly.

"That she doesn't hate him anymore," Sirius said with yet another shrug, disinterested.

"What?" Remus practically shouted. "Do you have any idea what this means?"

Sirius just looked at Remus as if he'd gone insane. "No…."

"It means our plan worked!" Remus said triumphantly, though at a slightly lower volume, having noticed the Gryffindors in the common room giving him strange looks as a result of his previous un-Remus-like outburst.

"Okay…," Sirius said slowly, as if he didn't understand what Remus was saying. Then, "What was our plan again?"

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but promptly shut it again. He was silent for a moment before speaking again.

"You know, I'm not really sure what our plan was. But whatever, it was, it worked!"

As Lily and James began their round of patrols for the night there was an awkward silence between the two of them. Lily was remembering the conversation she'd had with Sirius and everything that she had revealed to him. She was also hoping quite fiercely that he hadn't told his best friend (a.k.a.-the person walking right beside her) anything about the talk the two of them had had.

James, quite unsurprisingly, was thinking about Lily. More specifically that his whole plan for the past six years had been quite terrible. Namely because his whole plan had been to just wing it whenever he saw Lily which obviously hadn't worked out very well for him, hence the reason she was constantly getting so annoyed by him. Even for the past few months his 'Grand Master Plan In Which Lily Hates Me' hadn't really been going very according to plan. Well, it actually had gone the way he wanted, because it was very easy to see that Lily did hate James. However, now that he knew he was capable of actually provoking some type of emotion in Lily, James would much prefer a different type of emotion to be issued in his direction; an emotion he, himself, had tried for years to express to Lily. He had been quite unsuccessful in that, though.

Now everything was coming to a close, James could see that now. His encounter with Lily earlier in the afternoon had shown him just that.

Yes, he had achieved his ultimate goal of getting Lily to hate him, but there was no way of him knowing just how much of him Lily could endure before there was no turning back from hating him. Life was just cruel like that.

So now James had figured up a new line of approach, one that would hopefully be so different from all of his other, numerous tactics over the years, that it would finally show Lily the side of him that he so desperately wanted to show her. And, as he had been so enlightened this afternoon, James knew that now was the perfect time to show Lily exactly what he'd been trying to for years.

"So, Lily, I've been thinking," James began suddenly, glancing at her as they walked down the torch-lit corridor. "You know, we've known each other for six years now, but I can't say I know very much about you."

"Why would you want to know stuff about me?" Lily asked, not in the least bit defensive, just a bit perplexed. As James knew very well, this was a side of him she had never seen before. He was just so…civil, and rather friendly. It was actually quite a frightening change for Lily to be witness to.

James shrugged in response. "Just because. I mean, look at us: we're the head students. Together. Yeah, we're doing that whole 'being civil with each other' routine, but wouldn't you rather have someone who was more like a friend for you, rather than just someone who you basically spent six years arguing with?"

"Are you trying to tell me that you're going to go to Dumbledore and resign as Head Boy and then suggest that Remus takes your place?" Lily asked him suspiciously.

"Now this is the sort of thing I'm talking about!" James exclaimed. "How on earth can you and Remus be such good friends while Remus and I are such goods friends, and yet you totally hate me? It's just something I don't understand. And of course, it's something that's just not helping the two of us get past our issues and become friends. We need to be able to tell each other things, Lily, and this is an excellent place to start."

As James spoke, Lily just stopped walking and looked at him as if he'd gone crazy.

"Don't give me that look, Lily," James told her, turning back to face her, once he'd realized that she had stopped walking. "Just answer the question."

"Erm…alright, then," Lily said, sounding just a bit uncertain, and still wearing the same expression upon her face. "Let's see, Remus and I? We became friends…er…actually, I'm not sure why we became friends. I think it was on the train to Hogwarts before first year."

"Then?" James questioned with an uncomfortable grimace. "That train ride?"

"Yes," Lily replied, continuing to walk again, James keeping pace at her side. "That train ride. After Severus and I left the compartment you and Sirius were in, the only open compartment was the one Remus was in. He was quite happy to let us sit with him. Remus and Severus actually got along quite marvelously, until he became friends with you, that is."

James shrugged. "That actually does explain quite a bit. That's how Sirius and I met as well—on the train, I mean," He paused, as if unsure that he should continue. "And how did you and Sniv—Snape meet each other and become friends?"

Lily frowned, as if it were a subject she really didn't want to discuss. "Severus and I grew up very near to each, and we met when we were both nine years old. He was the first person to tell me that all of the strange stuff I could do was magic. We became close friends even though it really upset my sister."

"Speaking of Petunia," James began, when Lily finished, "How is she doing these days? Can she stand being in the same room as you yet?"

"No. I haven't even seen her in more than a year," Lily said slowly, then she gave James the smallest of grins possible. "I didn't think you'd remember her."

"How could I forget her?" He said with a dismissive shrug. "So, how are your parents doing?"

Lily and James spent the rest of their patrol talking with each other, James asking Lily questions about her childhood most of the time, but with Lily asking a few of her own questions as well. By the time they had finished their patrol and Lily was by herself in her dormitory hours later, she was finally starting to see that James really wasn't as annoying of a person as she had always made him out to be. In his own dormitory, James lay in his bed, arms folded behind his head, a happy smile upon his face.

Everything had gone according to plan tonight with Lily. And the best part of all of that had been his plan, and it had been the one he now realized he should have been going by all along: James had been himself with Lily.