A/N: Okay, here's chapter one! And, just to let you know, I've decided to title all the chapters using Sister Hazel song titles. Because . . . well, no reason actually, I just have a lot of their songs, because they are awesome, and I always hate thinking up chapter names, so I thought it'd be fun to try and do it this way this time!

Chapter 1: Can't Believe

"Goodbye, dear, have a good term," Mum said, kissing my cheek.

"We'll see you at Christmas," my father added.

"Bye," I replied, smiling at my parents. My gaze flicked briefly towards my sister, sulking behind mum and dad, a sour expression on her face. "See you, Tuny," I added, my voice slightly chilly.

"See you," she muttered in return, her tone even colder than mine.

My parents glance between us anxiously, but before they could say anything, I turned abruptly and pushed my cart towards the solid barrier between platforms nine and ten.

Emerging on the other side, I let out a long sigh. My sister and I had never been particularly close as children—my odd "abilities" had frightened Petunia and acted as a barrier between us. When I'd discovered that what I could do was actually magic, that barrier had hardened into an unbreachable wall, solidified by Petunia's jealousy. That jealousy had eventually morphed into hatred, and now we barely tolerated each other's presence. Our frosty relationship pained our parents, who were forever forcing us to interact, trying to restore the friendly feelings we'd once had for each other. I knew they meant well, but their efforts became rather irritating after a while—they just couldn't accept the fact that it was a break that would never heal.

I boarded the Hogwarts Express and stowed my luggage. Since I'd be patrolling the corridors soon after we departed, I'd already changed into my school robes. Pinning my prefect's badge to my chest, I began searching the compartments for my best friend, Mary Macdonald.

We'd been friends since Madame Hooch had partnered us up for our first flying lesson on the second day of first year. Both of us were hopeless at flying, and had spent much of the lesson giggling at our disastrous attempts to mount our brooms. We'd also bonded over a shared disdain towards the two boys in our year who excelled at flying and who'd proceed to show off for the entire lesson. One of them was none other than James Potter himself, and the other was his best mate and partner in crime, Sirius Black.

Unfortunately, even Mary had fallen for the famous—or, in my opinion, infamous—Potter charm, pining after him for the better part of fourth year. We'd had a huge falling out that year, as it had been at this exact same time that Potter had decided, for reasons still unknown to me, that he wanted to date me. So began the relentless flirting and countless episodes of him asking me out. Mary had been jealous of me, even though I assured her I'd rather jump off a cliff than date James Potter. Luckily, she'd eventually realized the folly of her ways, and had been happily dating Andrew Mackey, a Ravenclaw in our year, since the beginning of last term.

Sadly, similar positive transformations couldn't be said of Potter. No matter how many times I turned him down, he always asked again. I mean, you almost had to give him credit for his persistence—almost. Maybe if he wasn't such a chauvinistic toerag.

And speak of the devil, I though resignedly as I entered a new car only to spot Potter walking towards me. I ground my teeth together, bracing myself for the fresh pick-up lines he'd no doubt developed over the summer, and . . . nothing. Not even his characteristic smirk, the one he seemed to save especially for me. In fact, he barely glanced at me as we passed in the corridor. My jaw actually dropped open in surprise, and I turned to stare at his retreating back, waiting for him to turn around. But he didn't. He merely pushed open the door I'd just come through and passed into the next train car.

What the hell? I thought in confusion. Since when does Potter give up an opportunity to flirt with me? Maybe he didn't see me? I snorted. Bloody unlikely. We'd been barely a foot from each other in the narrow corridor. Besides, Potter seemed to have some sort of radar for me—he could pick me out of a crowd in about two seconds flat. Of course, that may have had something to do with my flaming red hair, but still. The point was, our recent interaction—or rather, lack thereof—had been completely atypical. And for some reason, completely unsettling.

Still lost in my thoughts, I didn't see figure running towards me until we'd nearly collided.

"Lily!" Mary's voice squealed, her brown curls bouncing as she threw her arms around me.

I hugged her back, and announced as we separated, "Potter is ignoring me."

A small frown appeared between Mary's blue eyes. "Well, it's nice to see you too," she said, planting her hands on her hips.

I hitched a smile onto my face. "Sorry," I apologized. "It just distracted me, that's all." And I proceeded to tell her about Potter's and my recent exchange as Mary led me back to the compartment she'd saved for us.

Mary was still frowning by the time I finished. "Maybe I'm missing something, but you sound like this is a bad thing."

"What? No, of course it's not bad, but don't you think it's a little weird?"

Mary shrugged. "Maybe he really didn't see you, or was lost in thought or something."

I snorted. "Potter's thoughts are hardly deep enough for him to get lost in."

My friend sighed—she always treated my hatred of Potter with a resigned acceptance. "Well, then, I don't know, Lily," she said. "But you don't really think he's going to keep asking you out this year, do you?"

That was the last thing I'd expected her to say. James Potter stop asking me out? That would surely be a sign that the world was coming to an end. "What do you—" I started in confusion, but was interrupted when the compartment door slid open.

"Hey, Remus," Mary said brightly, smiling at the newcomer.

"Hi Mary, Lily," Remus Lupin replied.

I smiled at my fellow prefect in return—Remus was the only one of the Marauders I actually liked. In fact, I couldn't really see how a nice bloke like him had wound up friends with such tossers like Black and Potter.

"Ready?" Remus asked me.

For what? I wracked my brains, trying to figure out what he was talking about.

Some of my confusion must have shown on my face, because Remus clarified, "For the prefect's meeting."

"Oh, right. Yes, I'm coming," I said, jumping to my feet. Potter's strange behavior had driven my duties completely out of my mind. Bloody Potter, I thought irritably as I followed Remus from the compartment.

"So, did you have a good summer?" I asked him as we started towards the front of the train, hoping to distract myself from thoughts of Potter and his infuriating . . . persona.

"Yeah, it was all right," Remus said offhandedly. "You?"

Something in the way he said it made me think he was deliberately trying to turn the conversation away from himself, a habit I'd discovered he was expert at. In our entire time as prefects last year, I felt like I'd told him nearly everything about me during our countless rounds of the castle, yet he still felt somewhat like a stranger to me.

"Oh, it was fine," I said. "Three months in close quarters with my sister is never fun, but I survived," I said with a smile. "I'm probably one of the only people who actually look forward to coming back to school in the fall."

"No, I know what you mean," Remus replied. He smirked slightly at me. "And how is dear Petunia these days?"

There he goes again, putting the focus back on me. "Just as magic-hating and stubbornly Muggle as ever," I answered. My sister had been a frequent topic of conversation between us last year. Curious what it was like growing up a Muggle-born, Remus had asked me countless questions about my family. It had been nice to vent my feelings about Tuny to someone other than Mary, who'd heard it all too many times over the years.

"Actually, she has a boyfriend now," I continued, loathe as I was to remember this fact. "Vernon Dursley."

Remus raised an eyebrow, an amused smile on his lips. "Nice name," he commented.

"I know, horrible, isn't it? Anyway, of course she had to tell him about me, and he's almost worse than she is about it! So now I have to endure the two of them glaring at me like I'm some offending piece of scum on their shoe."

Remus winced in sympathy. "Well, I'm not surprised you're happy to get back to Hogwarts."

"Yeah, my life is pretty tragic," I said with mock sincerity.

Remus merely smiled in return.

We reached the prefects compartment, entered, and took two of the empty seats. The four prefects from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were already there. "Typical," I muttered to Remus. "The Slytherins are the last to arrive."

He nodded in agreement.

A few moments later, this year's Head Boy and Girl entered the compartment, followed closely by the Slytherin prefects. "Welcome back everyone," the Head Boy, Charlie Camden said, smiling around at us all. "Well, you all know the drill, so we're going to keep this short, especially since we've got the new prefects to instruct in a few minutes."

"If the eight of you would do patrols from now until lunchtime, we'll have the new prefects take the shift after lunch," Head Girl Kali Michaels continued. "We'll hand you the common room passwords on the way out, and the patrol and meeting schedules will be posted on the common room notice boards within the week." She turned to her fellow Head Boy. "I think that's it, right?"

"Yep," Charlie replied. "See you all at the feast."

We all rose and exited the compartment, stopping to take the slips of paper with our respective common room passwords from Kali as we went. "Well, that was hardly worth it," I commented to Remus as we struck off along the corridor.

"It's nice that we'll be done by lunch, though," he replied.

But I hardly noticed what he said, because I'd spotted Potter once again ahead of us. "Hey Moony, that was quick," he said as he neared us.
"Yeah, well, they figure we know what we're doing by now, I guess," Remus said with a grin.

Potter shook his head, sighing in mock resignation. "They never learn, do they?" By now he'd drawn even with us. "Evans," he added, almost as an afterthought, nodding at me as he passed us.

Before I could stop myself, I turned and called after him, "What, aren't you even going to try and ask me out?" In all honesty, I have no idea what made me say that. I suppose I was hoping it would provoke a normal response out of him, something to assuage my confusion.

But instead of what I'd expected him to say—something along the lines of, 'Why, do you want me to?'—he looked back and said with a frown, "Now, that would be rather counterproductive, don't you think, Evans?" And without waiting for a response, he turned and continued up the corridor.

Well, at least he's still acknowledging my existence, I thought. Wait, did he say it would be 'counterproductive'? What did that mean? I spun around to find Remus looking at me in amusement. "What?" I asked him, a little defensively.

He shrugged, starting forward once more. His lips were pressed together as though he was trying to hold in a laugh. Potter's comment combined with what Mary had said earlier and now Remus's reaction definitely made me feel like I was missing something.

A fairly large something, as I discovered near the end of our patrol. It had been rather boring—hardly anyone had been acting rowdy or trying to do magic. Not that I encouraged such behavior, of course (unlike some people I could name), but it did make patrols go by faster when there was actual rule breaking to punish.

"Well, time's almost up," Remus said, glancing at his watch.

"Thank Merlin," I said with a sigh of relief. "Not that I don't enjoy your company, of course, but I'm starving."

Remus smiled. "Understandable."

We entered a new car. I was absently glancing into compartments as we passed, and had to do a double-take when I passed the fifth one on the right. Inside, I recognized the unmistakably messy head of James Potter. His back was to me, though I didn't think he'd have noticed me even if he was facing the other way, as he was currently wrapped around some girl snogging her face off. Or so it looked to me. I almost threw up—seriously, who wants to see that? At least put the window blinds down. Too bad public displays of affection aren't punishable.

Well, that explains a lot, I thought as I hurried along the corridor. I'd only fallen about a pace behind Remus, and I was hoping he hadn't noticed what distracted me, but one look at his face shattered those hopes into tiny pieces. He was definitely battling against a grin now, and losing.

"I think I'm going to find Mary, if that's all right with you," I said, praying he'd just let it go.

"Fine," he said, his voice shaking slightly, as though with suppressed laughter.

I strode quickly into the next car and ducked into the compartment I'd left three hours ago. "Hey Mary," I said.

Mary glanced up. "Wow, that was quick."

"Not to me," I muttered. "Anyway, the lunch cart hasn't been by yet, has it?"

"No."

"Good, because I'm so hungry I could eat a hippogriff." Clearing my throat slightly, I added in what I hoped was a casual voice, "By the way, do you know if Potter's seeing anyone?"

Mary looked at me shrewdly, not fooled in the slightest. "What makes you say that?"

"Only I saw him practically administering the Dementor's Kiss to a girl back there," I explained, jerking my thumb at the car behind us. My eyes narrowed. "And don't act all innocent—you knew about this, didn't you?"

"Yes, but so did basically the entire school, Lily," she said, rolling her eyes. "And I thought that included you, which is why I was confused when you were wondering why James was ignoring you."

"Right, I figured. Wait, how does the whole school know? We're not even at Hogwarts yet!"

"They started seeing each other at the end of last year," Mary said, sounding as would-be casual as I had a moment earlier. And I knew why. The end of last year had not been a high point for me. In fact, I'd basically walked around in a haze for the last week of it, studiously avoiding Severus and Potter before exploding at both of them on the last day of term.

"Oh, right," I mumbled. "Well, who is she?"

"That fifth year, Chloe Sanders," Mary answered.

I frowned. "A fifth year? How does Potter even know her?"

"Oh come on, Lily—she's on the Quidditch team, remember?" she replied, now sounding slightly exasperated. In my defense, I'd never actually been to a Quidditch game—I thought the sport sounded rather boring, as a matter of fact. And although she'd started out as dismal a flyer as me, Mary had grown to love Quidditch, though I secretly suspected she only attended the games to check out the boys in their form-fitting uniforms. Case in point: Andrew played Keeper on the Ravenclaw team. Speaking of . . .

"Has Andrew come by yet?" I inquired.

"Nope," Mary answered, sounding unconcerned.

"Er, you are still seeing him, aren't you?" I asked tentatively. I mentally crossed my fingers, hoping I hadn't missed this vital development as well.

"Of course," Mary said with a little frown.

"Okay," I said defensively. After all, how should I know how these relationship things worked? Besides, last year Mary had jumped at every opportunity to see Andrew, but now, after they'd spent an entire summer apart, she was just calmly sitting here? Shaking my head, I decided to change the subject. "So, how was your summer? I just realized I haven't had a chance to ask you yet."

"It was great—my parents ended up taking the last two weeks off and we all went to Paris." Mary's parents both worked at the Ministry, her mother in the Department of Magical Transportation and her father in the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Come to think of it, maybe that's where she'd gotten her inexplicable love of Quidditch.

"That sounds fun," I said, a little jealous. I'd never traveled outside the country before.

"It was—but how was your summer?" I got the feeling some of my jealousy must have come out in my voice, and Mary was refraining from going into detail about her trip on my behalf. Sometimes her thoughtfulness caught me off guard. But I appreciated it anyway.

"Oh, you know, pretty standard," I replied. I told her what I'd related to Remus about Petunia and her new man.

Mary wrinkled her nose. "Urgh, he sounds awful," she said. "I can't understand how your parents could have produced such a horrible person like your sister and such an amazing one like you," she added, winking at me.

I grinned back at her. "I know, mystery of the century."

At this point, the food cart arrived, and I nearly bought the poor old witch pushing it out of her stock, hungry as I was. Just as I was polishing off my last cauldron cake, Andrew poked his head into our compartment. "Hey girls," he said brightly, smiling at each of us in turn. Glancing at me, he said, "Hope you don't mind, Lily, but I'm going to steal this one away for a while." He grabbed Mary's hand and pulled her to her feet.

"See you at the feast?" Mary asked, a slightly worried look in her eyes.

I nodded, smiling reassuringly at her, and she and Andrew left. Mary had always been anxious about spending time with Andrew at the expense of leaving me behind, but honestly, I didn't mind. I mean, I appreciated her concern, but daft as I was about relationships, even I understood that you deserved some time alone with each other.

I guess it was a little sad that I really didn't have any other friends besides Mary. Okay, so I used to have Severus's friendship—again, I had to give Mary credit for tolerating that relationship—but that was definitely out of the question now. Don't get me wrong, I got along fine with the two other sixth year Gryffindor girls—Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadows— but I'd never really felt like I fit in with them. I wasn't your typical boy-obsessed, makeup-wearing teenage girl. And while I was as much a sucker for gossip as the next person, the level to which the other girls in my dormitory discussed it frankly bored me after a while. That's why Mary and I had clicked so well—while she always knew almost everything about everyone, she didn't love discussing it endlessly either.

I passed the rest of the train ride watching the scenery slowly change from small country villages to the wilder northern forests that characterized the land around Hogwarts. About twenty minutes after the landscape had completely darkened, the train began to slow down, eventually pulling to a stop at Hogsmeade station.

Disembarking with the rest of the student body, I made my way towards the horseless carriages waiting to transport us up to the castle. As I reached the long line of black carriages, I spotted Mary and Andrew waving frantically (well, the 'frantic' bit was more in Mary's case than Andrew's) to me from inside one of them. Hurrying up to it, I popped inside, settling down across from the couple.

"How was the rest of your trip?" Mary asked, again with an anxious note in her voice.

"Thrilling, naturally," I answered flippantly, hoping my teasing tone would reassure my friend. "And yours?" I asked, glancing at both of them.

Andrew grinned slyly. "Pretty great, though I'm sure for very different reasons," he said with a wink, causing Mary to blush.

I laughed, and we passed the rest of the ride to the castle discussing what we thought our next Defense Against the Dark Arts professor would be like. We'd had a different one each of our five years at Hogwarts so far, and though we'd received no official word that Professor Henkel was leaving at the end of last year, there was no doubt in our minds that his seat at the teacher's table would be filled with a new person at the welcome feast this evening.

And indeed, upon entering the Great Hall, my eyes were immediately drawn to the one unfamiliar face at the front of the room. Our new professor was a small, cheery-looking woman with short blond hair framing her heart-shaped face and sparkling green eyes. Hmm, I thought, I wouldn't pick someone who looks like that to be teaching Defense. Looks like she wouldn't harm a fly. Then again, I suppose that would come as an advantage in duels.

Mary and Andrew parted ways with a swift kiss at the Ravenclaw table, and she and I sat down together in the middle of our own House table. Looking along it, my stomach clenched as it always did at the sight of Potter and Black, seated a few feet down from Mary and me. They were being their typical raucous and rambunctious selves, joking and laughing loudly. Remus was observing them with the half-amused, half-resigned smile he usually wore around his friends, and Peter Pettigrew, the fourth member of their little gang, was staring at Potter and Black as though they were gods—again, typical behavior from him. What was new was the recent addition to their group, Potter's girlfriend—my mind stumbled a little on the word—Chloe. Now that I was able to get a decent look at her without Potter's head, arms, and lips in the way, I did recognize her, though vaguely. She had a curtain of long, sleek blond hair, bright, innocent blue eyes, and, when she smiled, she revealed two rows of even, white teeth. Typical, I muttered to myself. Potter would find the most stereotypically perfect girl in the school to date.

As I watched, Chloe laughed loudly at something Potter had said, placing her hand on his arm as though she needed the support to keep from falling on the floor with mirth. I rolled my eyes. Obvious much? I thought derisively. Just then, Potter happened to glance in my direction, and our eyes met. A strange emotion I couldn't place flashed through his before he turned back to his entourage, and I quickly dropped my eyes to my plate, slightly embarrassed that he'd caught me staring at him. I knew I'd pay for it later—he'd no doubt drop in some comment about how he knew it was hard for me to keep my eyes off him, but I'd have to—wait, no he won't, I thought suddenly. With this new girlfriend of his, he won't be flirting with me or asking me out at all this year. Being that it was Potter, I couldn't completely discount the flirting bit, of course, but I abruptly felt far warmer towards Chloe than I had previously. This was already shaping up to be a much better year than last.

After overstuffing myself with delicious feast food, as I always did, and after Dumbledore's typical welcome speech, in which he warned us against entering the Forbidden Forest, delineated all the banned objects—Fanged Frisbees and the like—and introduced our new Defense teacher, Professor Galbraithe, we all left the Hall, longing for our warm beds and a good night's sleep.

Muttering a 'see you later' to Mary, I hurried to the front of the line of Gryffindors so I could lead the first years to our common room and let everyone know the password. Meeting up with Remus at the doors to the Entrance Hall, I said, "Ready to show the firsties where to—"

I stopped abruptly, my eyes lighting on a pair of people in the shadows of the marble staircase. Unbelievably, Potter and Chloe had their arms wrapped around each other once again, and were kissing as though the fate of the world depended on it. "Merlin, could they really not wait that long?" I muttered, mostly to myself, though I thought I heard Remus chuckle beside me. Unable to help myself, I called over to them, "Do you mind? Some of us would like to keep the food we just ate inside our stomachs!"

Remus was definitely laughing now, and, seemingly out of nowhere, Black appeared at my side. "Well, then you'd better hope they don't get too close a look at your face, Evans," he commented, grinning cruelly at me.

I merely rolled my eyes. Honestly, is that the most creative response he could come up with? He should know by now that insulting my looks doesn't bother me, especially when it comes from him. In fact, if he did find me attractive, I think I'd have to plunge my head into Moaning Myrtle's toilet in shame.

Before I could offer a biting reply, however, Potter surfaced with a disgusting squelching sound. "Hey, mate, I'd lay off if I were you. She could give you a detention, you know."

Sirius's grin widened. "Nah, she wouldn't dare, would you, Evans?" He punched me on the shoulder in a would-be-friendly-but-actually-kind-of-hurt way.

Just barely refraining from wincing—because I didn't want to give Black the satisfaction—I replied, "Potter's right—you better watch yourself, Black."

Sirius just laughed, and I strode away, disgusted with the lot of them. Wait, did the phrase 'Potter's right' just come out of my mouth? God, that's disturbing. More to the point, did he just defend me? I mean, as defenses go, it wasn't much to speak of, but coming from Potter, it was noteworthy. Usually he egged Sirius on when he insulted me, most likely adding one to the pile himself. And he wonders why I never agreed to go out with him? But this time he'd actually tried to get Black to stop, or at least that's how it had seemed to me. Had some strange sort of change come over him? I snorted, immediately dismissing the possibility. Pricks like Potter never changed.

A/N: So, thoughts? Hope you like it so far—I rather enjoyed writing Lily's thoughts, as I'm a big fan of sarcasm ;)