A/N: As always, thanks to last week's reviewers: Nathymoonybr (yeah, I used to be more regular with updates, but as of late, I've gotten off because of holidays and such), I'm A Cuckoo, Meeeee (don't die! I hope you're feeling better), jak23, junebugbug96, tardisinthesgc, harrypotter713 (I DO feel awesome, haha—thanks!), teenage-witch94, AliLuvsAlli-Sirius, Silver Scorpion, emcee31, Vanillaberries, hpfan (wow, that's pretty harsh! No, don't worry, I'm not planning on killing A.J. off), Cassie Weasley, Cledism is my religion, Jassy Smiley, hoperocks98, skazmi, movinggirl, WhereIsMyThumpThump, kikicakes, Evisawesome, Tabbycat270, marinewife08, maximum destined potter, emotionsonhold, Miss larien, ottoismydog, Molly Raesly (I love Gilmore Girls!), Elless, IIManzaII, WobblyJelly, BrokenFaerie16, ZoneSystems, EchoNightFall22, steel-trap, brittanyxedward, theycallherkaush, PoseidonsLittleGirl, Hope, and Nathymoony (you and that first reviewer have REALLY similar names! I thought it was the same person at first….haha).

Not too much to say this week, so enjoy the first chapter of seventh year!

Chapter 25: Surreal

I paused as I picked up the large stack of papers on my desk, debating whether to simply toss the letters or attempt to shove them into my overflowing trunk. Somehow, my things always seemed to expand over the summer holidays, and I could never pack them back in as neatly as before. I sat down on my bed and absently began to sort the mail, stopping to contemplate the result: one letter to Mary, two to A.J. and seven to James. That wasn't weird, right?

Sighing, I finally decided that as the letters represented a portion of the few bright spots of my summer, I folded them up and tucked them into a pocket of one of my spare sets of robes. Successfully closing my trunk, I swept my gaze once more around my small bedroom to ensure I wasn't forgetting anything.

"Lily, you better hurry!" Mum shouted from downstairs.

Glancing at my bedside clock, I smiled. It was only ten. Granted, this was when we normally departed for King's Cross—Mum hadn't quite grasped the fact that I could now arrive there instantly. And she'd always hated being late . . .

"Coming, Mum," I called back to satisfy her nerves. Might as well get there early—not like I've anything else to do.

OOOOOOOO

I appeared in the appointed Apparition point for of-age students travelling to platform nine and three-quarters. Smiling in satisfaction at a successful first official Apparition, I pushed my luggage into the station, buffeted slightly by the crowd as I made my way to the wall between platforms nine and ten. Strangely, I felt nervous as I strolled nonchalantly towards the magical barrier, and I knew it had nothing to do with doubt about getting through—I'd done it countless times, so that walking through an apparently solid wall was now essentially second nature. No, try as I might, I couldn't explain my fluttering stomach.

Trying to ignore it, I started for the scarlet train before me, stopping when I spotted the back of a familiar, messy-haired head off to my right. To my surprise, my stomach turned over at the sight. Wait, I'm nervous about seeing James? What is wrong with you, Lily? But before I could analyze this oddity further, Potter glanced over and, spotting me, called out, "Hey Evans!" He waved me over to where he, Sirius, and Peter were loitering near the train. I was momentarily relieved that Remus was not with them, before remembering that I didn't need to avoid him anymore. Weird, I thought, still stymied as to why he'd forgiven me.

As I neared the three Marauders, I abandoned my hold on my luggage cart, and, before I could think too much about it, gave James a quick hug. His eyebrows were raised slightly in surprise as I pulled back, but he didn't say anything. Now feeling a little awkward, I turned quickly to Sirius and Peter. "How were your summers?"

"Fine," Peter answered. "Too short, though."

I nodded, though I couldn't agree less. Noticing that Sirius was regarding me with an uncharacteristic coolness, I raised an eyebrow. "Still, shunning me, hmm?"

He continued to stare at me impassively for a moment, then grinned and grabbed me up in a hug. "Nah—I just never really got to do it in person, so . . ."

I rolled my eyes. "You're ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous things," I added, a thought suddenly occurring to me, "you all didn't happen to arrive by flying motorcycle, did you?"

Sirius sighed. "Alas, no, we didn't. Had to Apparate—I figured there really wouldn't be room for a motorcycle on the train, so I had to leave it at Prongs's."

"And hope that my Mum won't destroy it while we're gone," James put in with a smirk.

"Have you ridden on it yet?" I asked Peter, figuring I might get a more accurate picture of how 'safe' it apparently was from him.

The Marauder shook his head. "No, Padfoot hadn't finished with it when I was visiting," he replied, sounding disappointed.

Am I the only one who sees the potential disaster written all over this? Probably. Choosing to keep my comments to myself, because I knew they'd only lead to James teasing me, I asked him instead, "Didn't you say you had a story to tell me about said motorcycle?"

He frowned for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "Right. I think you'll want to sit down for this, maybe grab some popcorn . . ." And with that, he directed his wand at my luggage and began to levitate it towards the train.

Once the four of us were seated in an empty compartment—one of the perks of arriving so early was that it wasn't hard to find—James leaned forward on his knees and began, "It was a dark and stormy night . . ."

"No it wasn't," Peter and I said in unison.

"Well, all right—but it was dark. I mean, obviously, since it was night." He frowned. "In fact, I've never really thought about it before, but that phrase doesn't—"

"Okay, you're taking too long; I'm taking over," Sirius cut in. "So, we were bored one night, and decided to take my genius invention out for a spin. Everything was going swimmingly—I mean, we'd almost hit a bird by accident, and I think an old Muggle woman might have spotted us when we flew over her house, but all things considered . . ."

"Merlin, you two," I muttered.

"Anyway, just as we were thinking of heading back to my house," James said, reclaiming the story, "these three blokes on brooms appeared out of no where and tried to hex us out of the sky."

"What?" I said. I hadn't expected the story to take this sort of turn.

"Who were they?" Peter asked.

James and Sirius exchanged glances. "Probably just some stupid teenagers having a laugh," James said finally. When I opened my mouth to ask him who he really thought they were—as I was sure he was lying—he forestalled me by adding, "Yes, Evans, I know you think Padfoot and I can't make qualified judgments about who is or is not a stupid teenager—"

"I wasn't—" I started, but this time it was Sirius who overrode me.

"At any rate, they must not have had much practice pursuing a target, since we ditched them pretty easily. Even so, I figured we'd probably have an advantage travelling the normal way, you know, to throw them off, but nearly the minute we touched down, we had the Muggle police on our tail."

"Hang on, you're not making this up, are you?" I interrupted.

Sirius frowned at me. "Why would we do that?"

"We hardly need help building our already infamous reputations, Evans," James added.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, continue."

"Right. Well, of course we had to have a bit of fun with the blokes—"

"Of course," I muttered dryly.

"—so we took them on a high-speed chase for a while—"

"—but naturally they'd never be able to catch us, so just to let them feel useful, we turned down a dead end on purpose."

I almost had to laugh at how animatedly the two Marauders were relaying their adventure and the way they kept talking over each other. And even though I was still half-convinced they'd invented the entire thing, I was drawn in nonetheless.

"They were blathering on about how we'd been going too fast and should have had helmets on or some such rot," Sirius said. "And even though we wouldn't have paid attention anyway, we didn't really have a choice, because those idiots on broomsticks had somehow caught up with us again." He turned to James. "You want to finish up with the impressive ending, Prongs?" he offered with a wink.

"Nothing could please me more, Padfoot," James replied. "So, lucky we'd let those policemen chase us, actually, because we just levitated their car and our three pursuers smashed right into it! Then we hopped back on Sirius's bike and rode off into the sunset. Or we would have, if it had been a couple hours earlier. But you get the idea."

Silence reigned for a few moments, until I said, "So, overlooking the fact that you probably broke several laws—Muggle and wizarding, mind—I'm still confused about who those people on broomsticks were."

"Like I said, we never really got a good look at them," James answered. "They were wearing masks—"

"You mean like . . . Death Eaters?" Peter inquired, sounding a little fearful. I had to admit, the thought had crossed my mind as well.

But both James and Sirius scoffed at the idea. "Couldn't've been," Sirius said confidently. "I mean, they weren't exactly the brightest lot."

"Well, that doesn't really have anything to—I mean, they did try to knock you out of the air," I pointed out. "And the type of people who would do that 'just for a laugh' . . ."

But neither Sirius nor James had a chance to reply to that ominous pronouncement, because the compartment door banged open at that moment on an extremely irate Mary.

"Oh, so I've been replaced, I see," she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring around at the four of us.

James grinned at her. "'Course not, McDonald," he said, pulling me to my feet and pushing me toward my best friend. "Lily just got here early and was forced to slum it with us until—"

"Excuse me," Sirius said indignantly. "Slum it with you maybe, but—"

"Now, now, boys," I said with a wry smile, "you've already fought over a girl, and you remember how well that went."

James's jaw dropped as he pretended to look offended. "Just for that, I'm kicking you out," he said, and slid the compartment door shut once more.

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't help the smile that curved my lips as I turned to Mary. "You're not really mad, are you?"

She sighed dramatically. "I guess not. Anyway, I want to hear how the rest of the week with Clary was—so I suppose it wouldn't really work to stay mad."

"How selfless of you," I said dryly, but I linked my arm with hers nevertheless as we started down the corridor. "Well, unfortunately there's nothing exciting to report—Mum tweaked out a little when we got back so late after being out with you and Andrew, so we laid low for the remainder of her visit, just to play it safe."

"Fair enough. I'm just sorry I never met her before this summer."

"I know, she's great, isn't she? Sometimes I wish she went to Hogwarts. Though I suppose I'd get far less work done if she did."

Mary raised her eyebrows. "Which would be more effective therapy for you than anything I could ever think up."

I pulled my arm from hers to give her a retaliatory shove. "Ha, ha," I said sarcastically. "I thought you were always saying last year you were proud of how much I'd 'grown'?"

"You know, you're right. My apologies, dear," Mary replied with a sweet smile.

As we started walking again, I looked up to see Remus approaching us in the corridor. My stomach fluttered nervously; now that I actually saw him again, I was suddenly afraid that I might have just imagined his apology at the end of last year, unexpected as it had been. Not that it had been a direct apology, per say . . . but then again, he really had nothing to apologize for.

However, I needn't have worried, because he greeted both Mary and I, smiling at us as he passed.

Curiosity getting the better of me, I asked Mary, "Find us a compartment, will you? I'll be right there."

"Sure," she agreed.

"You're the best," I told her with a grin.

"I know," she said mildly, shrugging.

"Hey, Remus!" I called, hurrying after his retreating form.

He turned and looked at me questioningly.

"I, um, just wanted to—er, are we . . . okay, now?"

Remus grinned. "'Course—you didn't think I was that good an actor, did you?"

I wasn't quite sure how to answer that, so I just said jokingly, "So, what, you just got tired of hating me?"

"Actually, yes," he replied, to my surprise. "And I didn't hate you—"

I waved a dismissive hand. "Let's not bother with the details . . . But I really am sorry, you kn—" I started seriously.

"I know, Lily," Remus cut in, a little exasperatedly. "I meant what I said early on last year, that I'm glad we're friends," he added with a smile.

I smiled back.

"Oh, and congratulations on the Head Girl thing—Prongs told me," he explained, before I could ask.

"Right—I'm surprised you're not Head Boy; I thought for sure . . ."

Remus shrugged. "I don't mind. Besides," he continued, a mischievous grin lighting his features, "it's far more amusing that J—"

"Lily!"

I spun to find A.J. hurrying towards me. Realizing, I'd cut Remus off, I turned back again. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"No, it wasn't important," he said. "See you at the feast."

"Yeah, see you," I said a little distractedly, gasping in surprise as A.J. grabbed me up in a hug, spinning me around before setting me back on the ground and giving me a long kiss of greeting.

"Missed you," he said as we broke apart.

I raised my eyebrows. "I can see that," I said with a grin. "I missed you too," I added.

We ducked into an empty compartment just as the train lurched to life and started to pull slowly away from the platform. I glanced out the window at all the parents and younger siblings waving furiously as their loved ones slipped out of sight. To my surprise, I felt a little pang of sadness that my parents—for the first time—weren't among them.

"You all right, Lily?" A.J. asked.

I shook myself slightly and smiled at him. "Yeah—I think it's just starting to hit me that this is my last year at Hogwarts." As I said the words, a thrill of fear went through me; I'd never actually thought about my life after school. Well, don't panic now—you've got the entire year to figure it out, I assured myself.

"Suppose it's better than realizing it at the end of the year," A.J. pointed out, shrugging.

"True." I looked at him, and an unspoken question of what the end of this year would mean for us seemed to hang in the air. Or maybe I was just imagining things. Again, not exactly something to worry about on the first day back. I tried to think of a change of subject, but A.J. beat me to it.

"So, I need to get my broom fixed—my cousin ran it into a tree when he was flying it over the summer," he rolled his eyes, the expression on his face making it clear he regretted letting his cousin borrow the broom. "D'you think I'd have time to head into Hogsmeade quick when we arrive to drop it off at Bennigan's Broomsticks?"

"Doubt it," I said skeptically, while at the same time feeling a niggling in my brain at something he'd said. "Unless you want to walk up to the castle by yourself, and risk suffering McGonagall's wrath for being late to the feast."

A.J. sighed, leaning back against the train seat. "Well, I'm sure there won't be a Hogsmeade weekend until after Quidditch tryouts, so . . ." He sighed again. "If only McGonagall wasn't such a strict Head of House . . ."

There it was again. I frowned, feeling like I was forgetting something important . . . Suddenly I shot up from my seat, causing A.J. to raise his eyebrows in surprise. "I have to go!" I announced. "I forgot, I've got a Head meeting right now—"

"A Head—" A.J. started in confusion, but then his face lit with comprehension. "Oh, you're Head Girl? Why didn't you say so straight away?"

"I—well, I don't know," I said absentmindedly, pulling my badge out of my pocket to pin it to my shirt. "I guess I forgot you didn't know."

"Here," A.J. said as I continued to fumble with the badge. His hands replaced mine and he pushed the clasp shut with a small click.

"Thanks," I said.

A.J. regarded me seriously. "Well, guess I'll have to behave myself this year, won't I?"

I stared back at him just as solemnly. "I daresay you will."

"And what will you do if I don't?" he said quietly, slipping his arms around my waist.

Little shivers ran down my arms, but the fact that I was late for my first duties as Head Girl permitted me to push A.J. away gently. "Seriously, I have to go. But can you do me a favor?" I didn't wait for him to reply before continuing, "Find Mary and tell her I'm sorry for ditching her?"

A.J. sighed in disappointment. "Fine," he said resignedly.

I planted a quick kiss on his cheek. "Thank you. And I'll find you again as soon as I'm done, I promise!" I added as I slid out of the compartment door into the already crowded corridor.

Dodging a group of fourth year boys who were showing off with a load of Zonko's products and the pack of giggling girls who were watching them—I didn't have time to hand out any punishments just yet—I crossed into the front car of the Express. Hurrying up to the compartment across from the one where Remus and I had received our instructions as prefects last year, I opened it . . . and stopped immediately in the doorway in surprise. James was lounging in one of the empty seats, hands behind his head and legs propped on the opposite seat.

He grinned when he saw me, sitting up a little straighter and crossing his arms over his chest instead. "You're late, Evans—not a very auspicious start to your Headship."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Oh shut up—I'm still the first one here. And what are you doing here, anyway? Just couldn't stay away from me?" I teased, thinking as I said it how strange the words sounded coming out of my mouth. If it had been a year ago, I would have been complaining about that very thing.

"Ah, don't flatter yourself Evans; you know I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to."

I frowned. "What do y—" But I stopped abruptly as James shifted in his seat, and a ray of sunlight flashed off a gold badge on his chest. A badge with the letters 'HB' on it . . .

"No way," I said bluntly. James's grin morphed into a smirk, and a disbelieving smile spread across my face in return. "You're joking, right? I mean, this is some sort of—of prank you all thought up?"

"Hey, now," James said indignantly, "what is that supposed to mean?"

"That Dumbledore, as the most brilliant wizard to ever live, would never make you Head Boy."

Instead of looking more offended, Potter just wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, I know—that's what I thought at first, too. And then I thought that maybe Padfoot'd done it as a joke, but he looked so shocked when I told him I was forced to accept that it had actually happened. Even so, he's only just stopped laughing about it every time he sees me," James added in a resentful voice.

I finally recovered enough to sit down, taking the seat next to James's feet and copying his posture. "Well, if you really are telling the truth—and I suppose I don't have much choice but to accept that you are—all I've got to say is you're lucky we've made so much progress this past year, or I might have thrown you out the window already."

"Lucky, indeed," James said, raising his eyebrows. "So, where shall we start?"

"I don't know—I've never been Head Girl before," I said cheekily.

"Well, I think we should start with your tardiness," James said seriously. "I mean, we have to set a precedent now, or—"

I nudged him with my foot. "Stop it; I'm just waiting for you to mess up on an even grander scale."

"It's so nice to know I have your complete trust and confidence."

"No problem. Right, so I suppose we've got to work out prefect schedules eventually, but that could wait if need be. And—"

"Sorry, but could we just go over what exactly this position entails?" James interrupted.

I frowned at him. "Didn't you read the letter? It was all in there."

"Come on, Evans, remember who you're talking to. Besides, that thing was bloody long."

I sighed. "You do have to take this seriously, you know. I mean, I don't want to sound like a prude, and, despite what I said before, I do think you'll be good at this, but—"

James grinned. "There's the support I was looking for. And I'll do my best to deal with the responsibility bit—I'm not going to pretend it isn't going to take some getting used to, especially with Sirius taunting me about it every five seconds . . ."

"At least you'll have your own room."

James appeared not to hear me. "And I swear, if he doesn't—what?"

I smiled slightly. "You get your own room," I repeated slowly.

"Wait, what?"

Laughing now, I said, "That was one of the things in that 'bloody long' letter—Head Boy and Girl have single rooms."

James stared at me for a moment, then grinned mischievously. "Oh, I think I can find several uses for that."

"Please, spare me the details," I muttered. "Anyway, I think we could start talking about Hogsmeade dates, since—"

"So, you finally agreeing to go out with me, Evans?" James asked, smirking.

I glared at him. "No, I was actually talking about scheduling them, but . . . I can't believe you asked me out again!"

James laughed. "Come on, where's your sense of nostalgia?"

"Remember what you said about doing your best to—"

"Okay, okay, Hogsmeade visits."

"Well, A.J. wants one before Quidditch trials, because he needs to get his broom fixed."

"He doesn't need it."

"What?"

"I mean, obviously he'll need it eventually, if he doesn't want to use a school broom for our first match—which I would never allow, because I honestly think those brooms were made in the dark by a blind troll, the way they—"

"Potter, you're rambling," I interrupted.

"Right, sorry," he said with a quick grin. "Anyway, the point is I never try out old teammates again—takes too long. I just find people who fit with those I already have. Sure it pisses a lot of others off, but . . ." he shrugged.

"Since when have you cared about pissing people off?" I suggested.

"Exactly. All right, one bonus is that we can schedule Hogsmeade visits whenever we want—"

"Well, we have to run it by McGonagall first." I dropped my feet off the seat across from me and pushed myself up straight.

"Ah. So, basically, we have the illusion of power, but in reality we have no power at all."

"Unfortunately, that pretty much sums it up. And we have to do rounds every night."

"Every night?" James repeated in disbelief.

"Except Sunday," I said, nodding.

"How long?"

"Just two hours."

"Just—well, now I understand why you'd've thrown me out the window before, with the prospect of being forced to spend so much time in my company." He sighed. "Merlin, that's going to be boring. Although, I will have you to brighten it up, Flower." James added with a wink.

"Please tell me that's not my new nickname—I thought you gave up on finding one?"

"I don't know," he said, brows furrowed in consideration. "I think it rather suits you."

"I think it's rather unoriginal. Plus, it annoys me," I muttered.

James grinned. "Even better."

"You're regressing, Potter."

Ignoring this, James said, "So, what else?"

"What else what? Oh, you mean our other Head duties."

"No, no—that part's just depressing me. What're some of the other perks?"

I rolled my eyes, but complied with the request anyway. "Well, let's see . . . we can use the Prefect's bathroom, and I know that doesn't sound incredibly cool, but don't judge until you've seen it. Because it is pretty amazing."

"Maybe you could show it to me sometime, then," James said with a wicked grin.

"Would you stop it?" I demanded, leaning forward to punch him on the arm, even as I fought a smile. "Seriously, Potter, what happened to you not flirting with me and asking me out every five seconds?"

"All right, I'm sorry—I guess I figured we were good enough friends now that I could start it up again without fear of getting hexed into next week for my efforts. I promise I won't do it often. Or around A.J."

I just glared at him. "I don't see why you have to do it at all." I felt like we were entering strange and dangerous territory, and it frightened me a bit that I wasn't completely set on getting us out of it.

When Potter just smirked at me in reply, I decided to change the subject. "You lied to me, by the way."

He pretended to look shocked. "Never!"

"Yes, you did," I insisted. "I asked if you knew who the Head Boy was, and you said that you didn't."

"No, you're remembering it wrong," Potter countered. "I believe the exact quote was 'it's not Remus, if that's what you mean.' And you never questioned me further, so . . ." He flashed a triumphant smile in response to my deepening glare.

"You really are impossible, you know."

"That's why we're going to have such fun this year!"

"Merlin help me."

A/N: Bit of a shorty this week, sorry. And I can't even claim half the plot, since I stole James and Sirius's summer adventure from that prequel JKR released a few years ago…..oh well. Also, I'm a bit iffy about this chapter...not really sure why. I like the L/J bit at the end, but the rest is sort of...meh. Anyway, next chapter will include a Marauder prank (b/c it's been ages since they've pulled one, so it's about time!) and Lily and James's first patrol duties as Heads, which don't exactly go as expected…..at least, not as Lily expected ;)