As May dawned the days grew longer and brighter; a welcome change from the damp and depressing April. In many ways Lily was improving, although her school work suffered. Sometimes she missed lessons because she was sleeping, alerting everyone to the fact she still was not sleeping at night. Mostly, the staff were patient and helpful with her, Slughorn began to compliment her on every aspect of her work so as to raise her spirits, Flitwick hovered around her, asking questions about how she was feeling, how her studies were going, could he help at all. McGonagall on the other hand, showed her characteristic tough love.

"Evans, if you wish to continue at NEWT level, you must improve" she told her in the middle of class one Tuesday. They were studying facial transfiguration, and Lily looked exactly the same. She had managed to change the colour of her eyes to hazel and that was all. So used to everyone being kind and gentle with her, the sharp tones of the transfiguration professor roused her. She used to be so defiant, so brave, so courageous, now tears stung her eyes and she had to blink them back. James tensed beside her. Everyone had turned to stare at her.

She walked quietly to lunch. Before they reached the Great Hall, James stopped her.

"McGonagall was out of order, it was unfair of her to go after you like that."

"No, she was right, I was the worst in the class."

"You've missed four weeks of lessons."

Tears began to fall down Lily's face, she ducked out of the queue forming and into a classroom close to the entrance hall. By the time James reached her, silent sobs were shaking her body.

She cried for ten minutes more until she became calm. James at first gave her distance, unable to decide what to do, but after a while wiped the tears away with the sleeve of his robe, holding her face in his hand for a second longer than he should. Lily flicked her newly brown eyes to meet his, then kissed him. He kissed her back, alarmed, then drew away. He didn't want to be taking advantage of her.

A second passed; she looked hurt and bewildered, taking another moment to marshal her thoughts before articulating them.

"I'm sorry James. I just wanted to forget. That was stupid. Of course you don't want to..." she was unable to finish the question, he was kissing her now, reacting how he should have. If she wanted blissful oblivion, he would willingly provide it. They kissed for half an hour more, until the tears had dried from face and the redness around her eyes had receded.

Neither mentioned that lunchtime kiss to anyone else, and their absence from the Great Hall went unnoticed. Nor did anyone notice the frequent looks that passed between them during the afternoon's lessons. The 6th year Gryffindors passed the evening in their usual fashion, although Lily was not among them.

'We missed you in the common room last night', James said, catching up with her in the corridor on the way to breakfast, his shirt untucked and bag flung of his shoulder in his haste to speak to her.

'Library', she grimaced.

James dropped back a step, confused.

'I thought maybe we could talk about...well, what happened? I kept waiting for you to walk through that door.' He said.

'I'm still, er, working hard to catch up on the work I missed. I thought, after McGonagall...' she trailed off.

James frowned, he thought that he got the message, but he wasn't sure. Throwing caution to the wind, he decided to press her on it, knowing that he would later wish he hadn't.

'Good thinking, that means you can have tonight off though, surely? I thought we could maybe go for a walk or something, maybe talk about what happened?'

They had arrived at the great hall, Lily pulled him gently to one side by his robe sleeve, but kept him in public view. Now he definitely knew what was coming.

'I'm sorry James, I can't. I'm not in the right place at the minute to be thinking about anything serious, or anything at all. I turned to you for comfort yesterday, and I'm sorry if I led you on, but I can't give anything to you at the minute. I'm all burned out.'

'Oh, well, ok. I wasn't, you know, going to propose marriage or anything. Don't worry about it, I know you don't feel that way about me. But I'm happy to help if you ever need cheering up again in the future, I'm at your disposal.'

'Oh James, please don't say that', she said desperately, glancing around to make sure they went unobserved. 'I don't want to use you, or give you the wrong impression just because I'm vulnerable'.

'All I'm saying is, I'm happy to be used.'