James POV:

If he had enjoyed anything from the night earlier, it would have been realizing how easy it was to simply just talk to Lily… Yet when he had told Sirius this, he simply said 'Reason why you love Lily, number three hundred and eighty two.'

He was incredibly happy when he had successfully shown Evans the real James Potter, without trying to put the moves on her even once. He could remember the goodnight incredibly vividly…

'It's getting a bit late, I s'pose, James.' Lily told him.

'Did you just say what I think you did?' James began in a teasing voice, 'Did you actually just call me James?'

'I guess I did, but if you prefer Potter, its fine by me,' she laughed, 'Goodnight James.'

She was halfway up the girls staircase when James called to her, 'If you need someone to talk to at all, I suppose I could be of assistance.' He told her with a smile. Lily nodded, so he decided to add, 'If you want to hang out with anyone as well, me and Pads should be able to suffice.'

Nothing surprised him more than when she ran down the staircase and hugged him, murmuring 'Thanks, Potter.'

'So, how'd it go with Evans?' James wasn't surprised at all to see that Sirius had been waiting for him to go up to his dorm, 'She finally say yes?'

'We just talked, Padfoot, that's all,' James assured him, yet when seeing his repetitive eyebrow raises, he elaborated, 'she was pretty upset, and I went to find Alice and Marlene for her, but Alice told me to stay with her instead… I didn't even ask her out once.'

'Wow Prongsie, finally manning up now are we?' Sirius teased, 'Finally over Evans?'

'If anything I probably like her more now, I didn't even know it was possible for me to have an actual conversation with her without getting hexed. And could you just be serious, for once in your life?'

'Now now, Jamesie, I'm Sirius all the time,' yet stopped joking after receiving James' glare, 'So you actually do like her then? She's not just a conquest? Damn, I s'pose I owe Moony five galleons…'

Lily POV:

She found herself waking up to a bunch of girls around her bed, whispering. Marlene realized her eyes were opening and hugged her.

'You okay?' she asked.

'Not really, but thanks.' Lily tried to smile but found it difficult. There was a silence between them, although it was not necessarily awkward.

'On a slightly happier note,' piped up Alice, 'where'd you go with James last night?'

The girls around them gasped, it seemed like everyone thought Lily a hero now.

'Mind out of the gutter, Alice,' she laughed, 'Nothing happened, we just talked.'

'…About?' Marlene stretched out the word in a teasing way, 'Tell us, tell us, tell us!'

'Well everything I guess, James was a good shoulder to cry on,' She had automatically realized her mistake when Marlene and Alice gasped.

'So it's James now, eh? Given up on called him Potter?' Alice said in an accusing voice, as if she knew something Lily didn't.

Lily had no response to the question, and when she looked over at her clock, it was already 8:30; lessons would start in half an hour. Lily swore under her breath and ran into the shower.

Ten minutes later, Lily re-entered her dorm to find that all the other girls had gone down to breakfast, but she didn't mind, there was only another fifteen minutes left to eat anyway.

She quickly let her wavy hair down after drying it with a flick of her wand, and almost sprinted to breakfast. Although she found her path blocked by someone at the portrait hole.

'Take your time, Evans,' he smirked.

'Oh, hey Potter, have you been to breakfast yet?'

'No, being the amazing guy I am, I decided to wait for you.'

Lily was tempted to use one of her usual insults, but for some reason she found she just couldn't. She smiled at James and began to walk to breakfast, although when she found that he wasn't following her walked back and dragged him by the hand.

Wait a minute, she thought to herself yet again, what am I even doing? Oh who cares…

But it's James Potter, Lily. This isn't normal.

Ugh! But-

You're the one having an argument with yourself, just do what you want.

When they reached the Great Hall however, Lily found herself in trouble, she had no idea where to sit anymore. She stopped dead in her path, when James began to drag her instead.

He took her over to where Sirius, Remus and Peter were sitting, with smug expressions on their faces; Lily thought she heard Sirius mutter 'About time…' when they came over.

After sitting down next to Potter, Lily realized the amount of girls gawping and scowling at her. James seemed to have noticed this as well and whispered, 'Don't worry about them, we'll protect you.'

'What's on the agenda today, Pads?' James inquired from Sirius.

'Ah, knew there was something I had to tell you, here's your timetable, Minnie gave them out before. And being the gentleman I am, I got Evans hers as well.' He replied, handing them the parchment.

'Wait a minute… Minnie?' Lily asked, confused.

'McGonagall,' Sirius answered, 'She acts like she hates us, but deep down, we know she loves us.'

Lily laughed and looked at her timetable. She had two free hours of study during her day, that wasn't too bad. She had potions first lesson, her favorite subject, at least she had something to look forward to.

With five minutes left of breakfast, Lily headed down to potions with James and Sirius.

'I take it since you hate potions, you want to be Aurors?' Lily asked them.

'Right you are, Evans,' James told her quietly as they entered the dungeon.

'Potter, Evans, Black, you're late,' Slughorn said, yet still smiling.

'Sorry professor!' called out Lily with a smile.

'Alright, take a seat then you three. Now as I was saying, class, this year, you'll have an assigned pairing of which I have chosen for you. I do this in hope that you will both learn from each other. Now the pairings are as follows; Marlene and Sirius, Alice and Peter, James and Lily, Severus and Arela…' he continued talking, yet people began to zone out once their names had been called.

James POV:

He couldn't believe his luck, what were the odds that he'd be partnered with Lily? He was extremely happy, not only because she was a great potions student, but he was also helplessly in love with her.

Lily seemed to have sensed his gaze on her, the skinny red head smiled at him and turned back to face Slughorn.

'Now that we're all in out pairs, we can start working on today's lesson. You'll be observing the effects of Amortentia, now, usually we don't do this until you're sixth years, but this group seems rather promising.' Slughorn boomed out with a look around the classroom.

Once there was a small cauldron on every table, they were told to analyze its look and smells.

'But it smells like vanilla and flowers? What kind of potion is this?' James asked Lily, although he was surprised to see her blush.

'It smells different to every person, depending on what attracts them.' Lily stifled a laugh.

'Ah, my mistake, then what does Lils here smell?' he asked her teasingly.

'Lils?'

'Mmhm.'

'I suppose that name isn't too bad.' Lily laughed.

'Now, now Lils, wouldn't be avoiding the question, would we?'

'Not at all, for the record I smell grass, broom polish and cologne, problem?' Lily asked him.

James realized that it was him, even if Lily didn't, so he just smirked and said, 'Not at all.'

Lily POV:

Lily had spent the remainder of the lesson writing down the affects and appearance of Amortentia, yet she took regular stops to ponder who she had smelt in the Amortentia.

The rest of the week went by relatively quickly for her, and she found out that she had the same classes as James and Sirius of which made her schoolwork more enjoyable.

By the end of the week, Lily had a whole new opinion of the marauders, she even began to respect them due to the amount of intelligence of which went into their pranks.

Although Lily found that she was closer to James than to anyone else at Hogwarts, not only did she find this extremely unpredictable, but she also found it slightly nice and… comforting.

As the year went on, Lily found herself growing close and closer to the marauders, and also began to be suspicious of their plans once a month… Severus had told her once… but it couldn't possibly be true…

During the last week of their fifth year, Lily noticed that the four boys she had grown so close to were nowhere to be found… and it was also a full moon.

Even if Remus was a werewolf, surely James, Sirius and Peter wouldn't go running around with him…

Unless…

No, it couldn't possibly be… That was illegal…

But their nicknames…

Moony of course made sense, Wormtail was the first of the other three for Lily to see the connection…

Padfoot and Prongs?...

Lily looked out of the common room window and saw a stag and big black dog running around and chasing each other.

She had definitely underestimated their intelligence. Lily decided to wait in her dorm for the boys to come back, and to tell them she knew. Surely she would hear the portrait hole open.

Around five in the morning, the moon had vanished and Lily quietly made her way down the stairs to find Remus lying on the couch, looking broken.

'Hi, Lily,' he said to her as she came in, 'I'm just not feeling too great at the moment, bit of a cold…' he trailed off.

Lily sat beside him and whispered, 'Remus… I know.'

'I figured you'd work it out soon enough…'

'And the other three… are they really animagi?'

Remus nodded, 'Just promise not to tell… I don't care if you never want to talk to me again; I'm a terrible excuse for a person.'

'Remus!' Lily shrieked, 'You're one of the nicest people I know! You really think that I'd hate you for this? And I'd never tell anyone!'

'Thanks Lily,' he smiled, 'it means a lot.'

They sat there for a little while, as Lily tried to heal some of Remus' injuries, when something in her mind clicked.

'That's why the whomping willows there, isn't it?'

Remus nodded and said 'You're cleverer than I thought, Lily.'

'Hopefully clever enough to have passed my O.…'

We smiled at each other and Lily stayed sitting with him until he had fallen asleep. As she went to leave however, and hand grabbed hers.

'Black?'

'Evans... thanks.' He smiled at her.

'What do you mean?'

'You know what I mean, Lily.'

She hugged him briefly and left.

So there you go, chapter 2. I have quite a bit of the story left to upload that's I've already written, I'll try to post a chapter every day. Don't forget to review!