I have so many ideas for this story I just wasn't sure where to start, which is why it has taken me such a bloody long time to get this chapter together, but it is coming along finally (much to the detriment of the literature review that is due in a few days, but we wont dwell on that now will we).

Obvs don't own this fabulous world.

Sixth Year

Chapter Two

Surprises

Lily woke early on the second-last day of her sixth year at Hogwarts. Her exams were over and she had spent the last three days lounging down by the lake with her friends. Despite this seemingly idyllic existence, Lily Evans was not happy. In fact, with every passing day the feeling of leaden dread within her seemed to be intensifying. She knew why of course, it was the end of the school year. If she had it her way, Lily would have gladly stayed at Hogwarts all year round. It was not that Lily hated her parents or anything like that, no they were lovely and kind and caring and anything you would want. Not it wasn't her parents, it was everything else that went with being home for the summer that she hated. It was the constant fighting with Petunia, having to stay in the house for fear of running into Severus and his friends out on the streets and most of all she hated being cut off from the magical world. Normally it wouldn't be too bad though, she could spend time with her friends, visit Diagon Alley with them and go to their houses. But this summer they were going overseas. Olivia was to be travelling around Spain with her family, and Marlene was visiting her brother in Germany, where he was stationed with the Department of International Magical Co-operation. Lily had other friends too, but none she was as close to.

There was of course, one other reason that Lily was especially dreading her summer at home this year, but she was trying desperately hard not to think about it. Whenever she did, she was overcome with a horrible, sickening feeling of utter powerlessness. Four days ago, on the Friday morning of her final exam, she had received a letter at breakfast. It had been from her parents, well, sort of. They had written to her on behalf of Petunia, who refused (of course) to use owl post. Her parents had sent Lily a crisp, white, normal invitation to the wedding of Petunia Evans and Vernon Dursley. Lily would have bet money on her father having forced the invite out of Petunia

Besides the obvious, being that Vernon Dursley was a total pig of a man, Lily felt sick because she thought that this might be it. This might actually be the death blow to any chance she had of ever getting along with Petunia ever again. Her reasoning was simple; Vernon hated her, he hated anything abnormal, anything that challenged his view of the world in any way, and he didn't even know she was a witch yet. Lily doubted very much that Petunia would ever tell him, but she also knew that their wedding would quash any hope of ever fixing things between them. She had been hoping that once she'd finished school, she might be able to patch things up, but it looked like that was shot now.

Petunia was going to be staying at home all summer planning the wedding. The wedding was going to be held in the Christmas break. Wonderful way to ruin two perfectly good holidays.

She sighed internally as she unfurled the morning's Prophet 'MAGICAL PEOPLES PROTECTION ACT: VOTE DIVIDED' and decided to tackle the paper after she had some food in her.

The thing was, she could almost tolerate the escalating deaths and disappearances more easily this rubbish. Every other week it seemed like there was a vote on some cleverly named piece of pseudo-death eater elitist legislation, but lately she had begun to notice the margins narrowing. The more cleverly worded the bill, the slicker it's advocates, the closer the votes became. This latest one was no different – registering muggle-borns for their own protection, honestly.

In her earlier years at Hogwarts, when Voldemort was a name known only to a few, and even when he started making his true colours known, it had seemed to Lily that it was death eaters versus the ministry, good versus evil. It was only in the last few years that she had seen how deeply ingrained some pureblood sympathies lay, how murky the lines really were.

Seeing murders in the headlines made her want to fight for those people and their families, seeing things like this even being dignified with a vote just made her feel powerless.

With all this in mind, and nobody awake yet to vent at, Lily decided that she should probably go for a walk, get her last Hogwarts fix before she was forced to leave. However it seemed like her relaxing farewell tour was not to be, because when she opened the door to leave the dormitory, she found herself standing face to face with Potter.

They both stood in silence for a second. Then after a beat, he said, 'Evans. Dumbledore wants to see us,'

Lily was still gathering her wits, which were never really at their best this early in the morning.

'Sorry, what?'

'I said,' he began again, as though talking to a particularly dim-witted child, 'Dumbledore wants to see us.'

'Right thanks Potter, like I believe that for a second,' because seriously, what could he possibly want with the two of them together.

'I know,' said James with a sigh, 'but look,' he handed her a piece of parchment.

It was covered in the narrow, slanting script of Albus Dumbledore, and it explained, in no uncertain terms, that they were both required in his office at their earliest convenience. Together.

'Fine,' Lily replied shortly, feeling instantly grumpier. Now she got to spend the morning trying not to argue with bloody Potter, which she knew to be an exhausting, and usually futile endeavour.

Potter, as a general rule, was one of her least favourite people. Oh sure everyone loved the bloody marauders, and sure, they could be funny when they wanted to be. She didn't have anything much against Peter or Remus, but the other two, well, that was a different story.

Closing the door softly so as not to wake the other girls, Lily left her dormitory, following James as he made his way out of the common room.

They walked in a kind of belligerent silence through the still deserted corridors towards Dumbledore's office.

Lily, of course had disliked him since their encounter on the train, but she thought the first time she had truly despised him was the day of their Defence OWL, down by the lake. The worst day of Lily's life so far.

The one thing that could be said about that day, was, that at least it was the very last time he had asked her to go out with him. Since then they had co-existed in a kind of uneasy mutual-ignoring of one another. It was better than nothing. Well no, nothing might actually be preferable, but it was certainly better than being constantly harassed by him. Lately, apart from being a casualty in the odd Marauder prank, Lily had very little to do with him at all.

Which was why it was particularly strange that they were currently making their way to Dumbledore's office, together. In days of old, at the height of their animosity, they were frequently in trouble at the same time, usually for something they had done, or just for constantly bickering in class. Once, Lily had given him horrible boils all over his face in a fit of rage during a particularly heated discussion over breakfast. It had taken Madame Pomfrey a week to get rid of them. He had retaliated by spiking her evening pumpkin juice with a potion that had forced her to speak in Latin for three days straight.

But they barely interacted anymore, so what could Dumbledore possibly have to say that required the two of them to be in the same room?

Lily shook her head in irritation, as if to physically clear her head of thoughts.

They had reached Dumbledore's office. Each looked expectantly at the other, and then groaned, as the realised simultaneously that neither of them new the password.

'I have a theory,' said Lily reluctantly, 'Dumbledore's passwords are always different kinds of sweets aren't they? So theoretically we could just guess it.'

James nodded, and then looked at her over the tops of his square glasses, 'I bet I get it before you do,'

'It's not fair though, you know more types of magical sweets than I do,' her mouth spoke almost of its own accord. She wanted nothing to do with Potter really, but the hint of competition…

'All right, we'll make it fairer. If I win, then I just win. But, if you win, I'll…' he petered off, unable to think of a suitable incentive.

'You'll take Moaning Myrtle on a date!' Lily interjected, in a fit of cruel inspiration.

James made a face, but agreed. 'Okay one guess at a time then.'

'Sugar Quills,' he began with, but the gargoyle guarding the door was unmoved.

'Cockroach Cluster,' tried Lily, but still nothing happened.

'Fudge Flies.'

'Ice Mice.'

'Liquorice Wand.'

'Acid Pop.'

'Jelly Slug.'

'Mint Humbug,' Lily had to resort to muggle sweets now, as she had run out of magical ideas.

'Fizzing Whizzbee,' said James, throwing her an odd look.

'Flying Saucer.'

Much to Lily's surprise, the gargoyle gave a little smile, and then moved aside, revealing a spiral staircase.

'What the hell is a flying saucer?' said James indignantly.

'Muggle sweet,' she replied with an evil smile, 'enjoy your date Potter.'

James turned angrily and stomped up the steps. Lily followed, feeling better than she had all morning. She was going to buy a great big bag of flying saucers as soon as she got home.

When they reached to door to the office, they stopped. Lily was unsure of what to do, not wanting to intrude, but James knocked determinedly. As he did so, the door swung open, and the obviously empty office came into view. Not to be out-braved by Potter, Lily strode inside and sat down on the chair facing the desk, leaving him to stand awkwardly to the side. She felt another delightful surge of success; for some reason beating Potter at things just made her feel good.

He didn't comment on the chair, instead he just conjured himself a luxurious looking chintz armchair and sat down as well. Lily huffed loudly.

After about five minutes, Dumbledore swept into the office. He raised an eyebrow curiously at the sight of James' overstuffed chair, but did not comment, and too his own seat opposite the two of them.

'Well then I suppose you are wondering why I called you both here,' this was more of a statement than a question, and Lily did not feel obliged to state the obvious answer. Plus she had noticed that Dumbledore had that gleeful little twinkle in his eye that he tended to get when he was about to do something that only he seemed to think was a good idea.

Lily had the strangest feeling of impending doom as Dumbledore opened his mouth to continue.

'I have decided to tell you both this now, because although it is customary to receive notification along with your booklists, we have some pressing issues to attend to, and I would like you both to be informed sooner rather than later. Also, judging by past experience,' he paused and his mouth twitched as though he was trying not to smile, 'you may both need a little time to assimilate. Though the positions of Head Boy and Girl have always been ones of leadership and responsibility, they have never been more import-'

He was cut off at this point as the two shocked students shouted, at the same time, 'WHAT?'

'What are you making him Head Boy for?'

'Why me?'

They glared at each other for a second, and then turned back to Dumbledore, daring him to explain.

'Allow me to elaborate; to me you are both the best and most obvious choices for the role. Lily you are intelligent, quick and brave, as are you James. It is not as odd as you may believe to select Heads not from the pool of current prefects, so long as you believe, as I do, that they will be the best for the job. Of all those in your class, I believe you to be the most capable and suited to this task.'

Lily was still reeling. She looked over at Potter again, and noted that he looked sort of dazed. She wanted to argue with Dumbledore, but such praise from him meant a lot, and she was reticent to make a spectacle of herself right after he had just pronounced his firm belief in her seemed so childish. Seriously though, Potter? Really? It was too much to take in, and despite her growing dread at the though of a year spent working with Potter, she could feel a warm sense of pride building in her. Head Girl. She couldn't wait to tell her parents. Oh Merlin, wait until Liv and Lena hear about this!

'Now, as to the reason I have broken this news early. I would like you to begin your duties slightly earlier than is customary.' He fished a piece of parchment from the pile on his desk, and passed it over to them, it was a list of names and addresses.

'The names you see on that list are the students who will be beginning their first years at Hogwarts this coming September, and the ones I have marked, are muggle-born. I am giving you this list, because as I am sure you know, muggle-borns are in particular danger now, and though the children themselves will be safe at Hogwarts, I believe it is not long until their parents become a target for Voldemort's so-called Death Eaters. What I would like you to do is visit their homes over the course of the summer, and cast protective wards. I would normally have the teachers perform such a task, but they are stretched thin on ah- other duties, and some are a tad too sympathetic to the notion of pure-blood supremacy to take the task seriously enough. I think you both more than capable of the strong magic required to make such spells effective, and possessed of the determination to do the job properly. What I do ask is that you make every effort to remain unseen, and to be as careful as you can.'

There was a moment of silence as they took in what Dumbledore had just asked them to do. For one thing, he had basically said he thought they were as capable as the teachers, and more importantly, did this honestly mean she had to spend her summer going up and down the country with Potter in the dead of night? She had no idea where to even begin.

She her mind drifted a bit as Dumbledore began outlining specifics for them, what spells to use, where to start.

Before long, they were making their way down his spiral staircase, and back to the common room. They walked in silence, neither of them really knowing what to say.

Potter gave the Fat Lady the password (Hinkypunk), and Lily hurried inside and flopped down on one of the comfortable chairs by the fire. She felt somehow exhausted, even though it was still almost first-thing in the morning. Honestly she didn't even have the energy to be properly annoyed yet about the whole Potter-Head-Boy thing. Yet.

'When did you want to start then?' he asked her, speculatively though, as if he were unsure whether she might hex him.

To be fair, it's not like that hadn't happened before.

'No idea,' she sighed, 'look I can't really think about anything right now, for some reason my brain has decided to check out, can we just sort this out later please.' With that, she got up, and went up to the dorm to get Liv and Lena for breakfast.

James was left standing in the common room alone, thinking maybe he hadn't actually woken up yet, and all this madness was actually just a terrible terrible dream. With a sigh, he went back up to his bed, and fell asleep again.

He was woken only a moment later though, when Sirius decided it was a good idea to let off some fireworks. Apparently he hadn't run out of post-exam cheer just yet. James groaned, and then groaned again when he remembered everything that had already happened this morning.

What, in the name of Merlin's fucking pants was Dumbledore thinking. He was absolutely the last person who should be Head Boy. He knew this, because whilst ideally he would stop the pranks and the cutting class and the generally just breaking rules, he knew for a fact that he wouldn't. And of course there was Lily. Lily who had barely spoken two words to him in all of a year. Well, she would just have to deal with it. The stick up her arse was definitely not his problem.

What he was really, truly dreading though, was telling the others.

'So, I have news,' said Lily at breakfast. She was feeling a bit better now that she had both food and her friends with her.

'Oh yes?' said Lena quizzically, and Olivia just looked up from her bacon.

'I saw Dumbledore this morning, with Potter of all people,' now they both just looked confused, she had better just spit it out. 'He's made us Head Boy and Girl.'

There was another moment of stunned silence, and then the two of them just burst out laughing. Olivia actually spilled her pumpkin juice all over the table and Lena was clearly having trouble breathing. Knowing she would never be able to talk to them like this Lily waited it out, picking at her own breakfast absentmindedly.

'So I guess you just told them the dreadful news?' came the voice of Sirius Black from right behind her, 'that was pretty much out reaction too, wait until they realise you're being serious.'

'W-what,' Liv managed, getting herself together, 'you can't honestly tell me that anyone in their right mind would put those two together, AND give them a massive amount of responsibility!'

'I know,' Sirius lamented, 'we'll be taking them home in pieces by the end of the first week,'

'Well I think they'll do fine,' Lena piped in.

'This from the girl who went non-verbal with laughter when she found out?' I asked her. Honestly some friends these two were.

'Has she told you the best bit? He's got them working together over the holiday's too,' Sirius looked positively gleeful at this, and it was too much.

'I wasn't asking for your input, Black,' She knew how much he hated the name, 'In fact, I don't recall ever asking for your input,' and Lily stalked off. Time for that walk in the grounds. It was delicious and sunny and she was going to make the most of it.

'My money's on two days before she hexes him,' Sirius said cheekily to the two girls, who had started laughing again as soon as Lily had left.

'I think he'll be lucky to make it back to London at this rate, I don't think it's really sunk in for her yet. But when it does…' said Liv with a sigh.

'5 galleons and you're on,' he smiled at her.

It was mid-afternoon when it actually hit her. She was Head Girl. That implied so much, well, responsibility. And a whole bunch of other things to that everyone always seemed to associate with her without a second thought. Didn't Dumbledore realise it was all bullshit? Lily was no more together than the next person, in fact she was probably less so.

Also, how bad had the war gotten that they were sending a pair of unqualified, untested students to protect people? Was there nobody better? But she thought back to the constant Prophet ads for Auror careers and magical law enforcement. They were dropping like flies, but the Ministry was persisting with its appeasement strategy. There were a number of people trying to push through bills that favoured purebloods, yet more lobbying for the abolition of the Muggle Protection Act, and two weeks ago the head of the Wizengamot had ostensibly 'resigned,' but rumour abounded that he had a few too many muggle-born sympathies.

A few years ago, Lily had actually thought she would like to be an Auror, make a difference, fight the good fight and all that. She had soon realised however, that the Auror office these days was crippled and ineffective. The Ministry was trying too hard to tip-toe around Voldemort for them to be much other than a target for Death Eaters looking for a challenge.

There were rumours though, about another group. One that was out there helping, standing up to Voldemort directly and totally outside of Ministry control. Lily hoped that were true, but even if it were, it seemed unlikely to be anything she would be involved in. You needed to know people to get places in the magical world, and she only had her classmates and teachers.

She was going to go mad trying to keep all her worries and thoughts in order.

Lily was still looking moodily out over the lake when she walked straight into something solid. With an 'ooof' she stumbled back a bit.

'Sorry,' she said reflexively.

'Ah it's okay,'

She looked up to see a tall-ish Ravenclaw boy sprawled on the ground in front of her, looking surprised, but also happy. He had dirty blond hair and marvellous bright blue eyes. Lily wasn't normally a blue eyes sort of girl, but she thought she might be able to make an exception just this once. She offered him a hand up and he took it.

'You're Lily, right?' he asked, brushing the dirt off his jeans.

'Yeah,' she thought for a moment, trying to work out who he was. She wanted to say Garry….

'Gordon Russell,' he said mercifully, holding out his hand. She took it, and they shook.

'Well it's lovely to meet you. Aren't you on the Quidditch team? Sorry again for knocking you over'

'Keeper, and don't worry it's fine really, I was brooding, it's probably a good thing you snapped me out of it.'

'Brooding about what exactly?' he looked so light and happy that Lily couldn't imagine him having anything to worry over.

He paused for a second, as if tossing up how exactly to answer she, and she realised that she might be being a bit nosy given she'd only just met him.

'Well, this is going to sound weird, but I'm not exactly looking forward to the holidays.'

Lily heaved a sigh, and then replied 'no, trust me, that doesn't sound weird at all. What is it you are dreading exactly?' for some reason her mouth just kept spouting personal questions, she seemed to have very little control over it at the moment.

He paused for another moment, 'My dad died a few weeks ago, and it's the first time I've been home since. My mum didn't want me to miss the exams. Wow sorry to dump all this on you.'

Though a little taken aback, Lily felt bad for him 'No it's fine really, this really puts my problems into perspective. I expect you want to be alone then, sorry for intruding.' She was about to leave when he said hurriedly,

'No, stay, if you want to that is, it's nice to talk about it, and surprisingly easy given that I've only just met you.' He gave a wry smile, which she returned. 'So now you know all about me, why is that you are dreading home this year?'

At this, Lily launched into a detailed explanation of Petunia, which she wasn't sure he fully appreciated, having no siblings himself, but he listened well, and it was really nice to get it off her chest to someone who didn't know anything about her. She didn't mention the war though. Somehow Lily just felt that it didn't have a place in this conversation.

He told her about his dad, and how lonely his mum was now. About how he felt selfish but he didn't want to be in the house with her because it was so empty and depressing.

'If it's not too personal a question,' She prompted, 'how did he die?'

'No it's okay, he was killed by Death Eaters. He was really pro-muggle, he spent a lot of his time at the Ministry lobbying against those registration bills and such. Just shows you what you get. As far as I'm concerned, you just have to keep your head down.'

Lily had no reply to that. Sure if you kept a low profile you wouldn't draw dangerous attention, but still… some things were worth the risk. However, given that his father had just been killed, it was understandable he wouldn't see it that way right now.

'It's getting dark,' she commented.

'Yeah, we'd better get back up to the castle,' he stood awkwardly and she followed suit. It felt like something heavy was hanging in the air between them.

'It's been really nice talking to you,' Lily said, trying to ease the tension.

'Yeah, thanks for listening too me.' He looked down at his feet, 'Look I know this is kind of presumptuous, but did you want to maybe catch up over the summer,' this last bit came out so fast it took her a moment to decipher it.

'Um,' why was she hesitating? 'Yeah sure, that would be really nice Gordon,'

He broke into a wide grin again, 'I'll owl you then,' and he started to walk away, stopped mid stride and came back to kiss her on the cheek.

She flushed bright red, but managed a 'goodbye.'

'But Prongs,' Sirius whined, 'It's the last night of the year, if we don't get a little drunk people will think we've lost our edge.'

James shot him a disparaging look. Honestly he was pretty tempted, but all things considered, he thought it might not be the best idea to have a raucous party the same day he was told he was head boy. Somehow he didn't think Dumbledore would be very impressed.

He was also sure that Lily was going to nail him to a post if he so much as blinked now. The weird thing was, she had been so apathetic about it all, and he was definitely expecting her to flip out. In fact he had been counting on it. He heaved a sigh, maybe he was finally bored of constantly goading her, it had stayed habitual, even after the whole post-OWL debacle. He had stopped asking her out though; he had Moved On.

Come to think of it he hadn't seen her all day, he had been ready for a stern talking to about responsibility. Huh.

Right at that moment, the portrait hole swung open, admitting a very flustered, but happy-looking Lily.

She made eye contact with him, and stopped mid-stride. Her smile faltered a little, but she walked over to where he was standing.

'Hey Potter,' she was a little out of breath, 'I was just thinking we should sort out about the summer.'

He was a little taken aback by her suddenly easy manner with him, but he took it in his stride. 'Yeah me too, only I'm not sure I'm really up to it right now, how about we meet up on the train?'

Lily was buoyantly happy as she wandered up from the grounds. She had no idea really what all that with Gordon meant, but it gave her a floaty feeling that she quite liked, it had just been nice to talk to someone. She reached the Fat Lady, and climbed into the common room, excited to tell Liv and Lena about her afternoon by the lake.

She looked around the room for her friends, and made eye contact with Potter instead. She felt the lightness drain out of her as it all flooded back.

Head Girl. Head Boy. Muggle-borns and Death Eaters. A whole summer at home with nobody but Potter and Petunia for company. Tomorrow.

She realised though, that half a day ago this would have bothered her far more than it currently seemed to. Maybe she was losing her marbles, maybe she was just over-tired, but at that moment she felt less stressed out about all these things than she had done in a long while.

She easily agreed to meet Potter on the train for a planning session, and went to sit with Liv, Lena, Peter and Remus in the comfortable chairs by the fire.

'So how was the first day as Head Girl?' Peter asked, grinning over his hand of cards.

'It was a breeze,' she said as she flopped down on the spare chair, 'though that may just be because the Alice is still here doing all the work.'

They laughed appreciatively at that, and although the prospect of what lay ahead was beyond daunting, she put it to the back of her mind, and set about trying to build a castle using the exploding snap cards with Marlene.

The day had taken some very odd turns, but she found that right then and there, she didn't particularly mind.

So there it is, I feel very strange about this chapter for some reason. I know I'm spending a bit of time setting up the story, but I really want it to feel real. Thankyou so much to those who reviewed my little prologue, I would respond more specifically but it's very late and I just want to get this posted. Also I'm thinking this story needs more from other people's POVs, let me know?

Reading reviews is like Lily and James not (quite) detesting each other xxx