Okay so this chapter is really long. Enjoy and REVIEW! Please.

CHAPTER 7: Letter

Lily stood waiting for the Head Boy to show up for their rounds. This was the third time she had to wait for him. So far he hadn't shown up, whoever he was. No one seemed to know who this year's Head Boy was.

Lily looked at her watch. He was already eight minutes late. Two more minutes and she was going on without him. She sighed looking around for any sign of the Head Boy. Nothing. Impatient she drummed her fingers on the railing. She was waiting at the bottom of the Grand Staircase.

She heard rushed footsteps coming down the stairs. She frowned turning to see someone running down.

But surly it couldn't have been.

There was no way.

He hadn't even been Prefect.

"Sorry I'm late." He said.

"Its past curfew what are you doing down here?" Lily asked.

"I'm here for our rounds." James answered showing her his badge.

"But you weren't even a prefect." Lily said.

"I know."

"Then how did you become Head Boy?"

"I don't know." James shrugged.

"This can't be happening." Lily said. "It just can't be." She pressed her fingers to her forehead. "You weren't even a prefect!" she screeched.

"I was quidditch captain. That does give you the same rights as Prefects." James reminded her. When she glared at him he put his hands up. "Just saying."

"But you live in detention. Why would Dumbledore pick you to be Head Boy?"

"I don't…"

"And why were you late?"

"I…"

"Why did you bother showing up at all?"

"Dum…"

"Why didn't you show up to the other rounds?" James was quiet. "Well?"

"Oh you're going to let me answer this time?" Lily gave him a look waiting for him to answer. "Okay. I was late because I fell asleep in the library. Moony just came to wake me up. And I had to come because Dumbledore told me I had to. I didn't show up to the other rounds because, well I didn't believe I was Head Boy."

"So you're really Head Boy?" Lily asked.

"Yes." He nodded.

"No joke?"

"No. If it were a joke there would be water balloons or a clown involved."

"James!" Lily said already loosing some of that anger. He smiled at her.

"I am honestly Head Boy."

"Okay. So we should get started."

"Okay." He let her lead the way around the castle. He was clearly not watching for people to be wondering the hall.

"Who's patrolling the seventh floor?" James asked.

"One of the teachers. Flitwick I think. Why?"

"Flitwick?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Uh, I think we should go up there."

"We can't. We have to patrol this section then we go to bed."

"Come on Evans. Don't you ever have a little bit of fun?"

"Yes, but breaking the rules just to wander a corridor is stupid."

"But see we would actually be stopping rules from breaking." He said. Lily raised her eyebrow.

"How so?"

"See, Padfoot lost a bet,"

"Oh another bet." Lily said laughing.

"Listen, and he's about to dung bomb Filch."

"But Filch is on the third floor."

"Yeah, so we got to stop him from hitting the wrong person." Lily shook her head. "Come on Evans. It will be fun. In a way."

"Fine." Lily agreed.

"Come on. There's this shortcut that he'll be using." James said. They went to a tapestry that led them to the seventh floor, then another one that cut straight through to the other side of the seventh floor.

"Where is he?" Lily asked.

"Maybe he's not here yet." James suggested.

"Are you sure he didn't find out which floor Filch is really on?"

"I'm pretty sure he didn't."

"But how can you know for sure?"

"This is true," James allowed. "But I'm pretty sure he'll be here."

"Prongsy!" Someone exclaimed from behind them causing them to jump.

"Jeez Padfoot!" James said. "What took you so long?"

"Wormy was about to back out." Sirius explained.

"So where is he?" James asked.

"Er," Sirius looked at Lily. He leaned forward to whisper something in James's ear.

"He's where?" James demanded.

"Well he didn't want to come and Moony's a prefect so he wouldn't."

"Well you need to go to the dorm. Filch isn't even on this floor."

"I know." Sirius replied.

"How?" Again before answering Sirius looked at Lily.

"The, er, Marauder's greatest accomplishment." He said as if it were code.

"But Filch got it."

"Well I got it back."

"So did you do it?"

"The bet?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, Padfoot the bet."

"No I saw you and Lily come up here. I figured you were looking for me so I came here first."

"Oh." James seemed torn between telling his friend to follow through or follow the rules and go to bed.

"You need to go back to the dormitory." Lily said.

"You didn't bring her here to rain on our game did you Prongs?" Sirius demanded.

"No. Of course I didn't. But I am patrolling tonight, so you should." James said much to Lily's surprise. Sirius seemed to consider this.

"Yeah, alright. See you in the morning Prongs." He finally said. He handed James a piece of parchment before walking back down the hall shaking his head and pushing his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

James muttered "Lumos" lighting the tip of his wand. He pointed it at the parchment before stuffing it in his pocket. Lily looked at her watch.

"We have forty five minutes left." She told him.

Two weeks after Lily and James's first patrolling together Lily received a letter from home. It was her mother who wrote to her. Lily took the note from the owl at breakfast then stuffed it in her bag. She was running late for class so promised herself she would look it at it later.

"Have you read the letter yet?" Ivy asked before she departed for her seat in Defense Against the Dark Arts, their first period of the day.

"I just got it at breakfast." Lily reminded her. "I'll write back tonight after diner."

"Are you going to tell her about James?"

"There's nothing to tell!"

"Uh-huh." Ivy agreed sarcastically. Lily couldn't fight her on it because James walked in. So Lily just took her seat.

"Morning class." Professor Dunken said greeting the class. "Now I realize that it is a Friday and that your week has undoubtedly been tough." There was shushed agreement amongst the class. "So I figured today I would make it easy. We're ahead of schedule so today I just want you to pair up with the person next to you and duel." The class got very excited and Dunken chuckled, "Yes, yes. Settle down there are some rules. First: no unforgivable curses. I should think this was obvious. But none the less, it is illegal so the use of one will cause you expulsion and some time in Azkaban." He paused.

"Also no curses that cause permanent damage. So let's not be beheading each other? And to add to this if you send your classmate to the hospital wing there will be consequences. So no bone removing." Dunken looked right at Lily with a smile. The class tittered. "And while I think it's great that you can conjure up a snake or flock of pigeons, don't. Only use jinxes that cause short term affects and wear off under five minutes. Now begin!" Dunken said.

"I'm not so sure about this one." James said.

"Not afraid are you Potter?" Lily teased grinning.

"Not a bit." He stood up pulling out his wand with a flourish. The walked up to each other bowing. Lily grinned once facing him.

"Tarantallegra!" she shouted. It hit him square in the chest causing him to dance uncontrollably. His legs were causing him to jerk everywhere.

"Very funny Evans!" James called to her over the shouts of jinxes. "Expelliarmus!" But it misses Lily completely causing Ivy, who had been standing near them, to loose her wand. Lily lifted the dancing charm and James hit her with a leg-locking curse. She reciprocated with the tickling charm, he could barely breath as he tried to give her jelly legs. It missed completely. It continued like that. By the time they were done most people in the class were out of breath with some sort of altered features. People had more hair than they originally did, one was bald and there were many new colors throughout the class.

After class Lily saw that Ivy's hair was standing straight up.

"You are so lucky." Ivy growled to Lily.

"Why? I'm working with Potter?"

"Yeah, but he likes you too much to do anything. I mean how many spells hit you? One?" Lily was about to argue, but then she realized that it really was the leg-locking curse that hit her. "So really it was just you getting target practice."

"That's not true!" Lily said.

"Deny it. Honestly deny it." Ivy shot back. "Mean while I get Jamie. She's evil. I mean first its chess, now this." She pointed at her hair.

"How did that happen anyway?"

"I don't know."

"That was fun." Jamie said catching up with them.

"Yeah. Loads of fun." Ivy snarled.

"I didn't mean to." Jamie apologized.

"You said the spell!" Ivy disagreed.

"Actually I was working on silent incantations." Jamie corrected.

"I don't think you're helping." Lily said.

"Wait," Jamie said. "Where's Mary?"

"What?" Ivy asked still pissed about her hair. They looked around. Lily spotted her talking to Sirius. Even from a distance she could tell there was serious flirting going on. They all seemed to notice this.

"Not another one." Ivy complained.

"Yeah, we already lost one to them."

"Who?" Lily asked.

"You." Jamie said.

"To who?"

"The Marauders." Ivy explained.

"You're slow." Jamie grumbled walking away with Ivy.

"What do you mean you've lost me to them though?" Lily demanded. They stopped to look at Lily.

"Are you serious?" Jamie asked.

"Honey, come on. Since the beginning of the year you've been falling hard for Potter."

"I have not!"

"Should I explain this to her?" Jamie asked.

"Looks like it."

"You." Jamie said pointing at Lily, "Like. Potter!" Lily frowned. "This is as blunt as I can get." Jamie said to Ivy. "Lily," she said softly. "You don't hate Potter. You likehim."

"I do not."

"I think I'm getting through." Jamie said confidently.

"Here let me." Ivy suggested. "Lil, you've been spending time with each other. And he's only been sent to the hospital wing once. You haven't been calling him Toerag or incompetent or,"

"Egotistic." Jamie added.

"Rubbish,"

"And you haven't insulted his hair once."

"Plus you've basically stopped calling him Potter."

"And you've been repeating his jokes." Jamie said.

"Have not!"

"Yes you have." Jamie said.

"And they're not that funny." Ivy said. Mary showed up then.

"You would not believe what Sirius said to me just now."

"Great. They're multiplying." Jamie grumbled.

"What?" Mary asked.

"Let it go Jamie. Let it go." Ivy said as Jamie opened her mouth.

This conversation continued through their free period and lunch. Thankfully Slughorn found Lily during lunch and invited her to his classroom to eat. Since Lily hadn't even started yet she agreed.

She got to his classroom where he had one of his old students come in. Delores Umbridge. She wore a lot of pink and had a sugary voice. They all drank tea and she talked about her job at the Ministry.

Lily wasn't really paying attention though. She was thinking about what her friends had been talking about. Did she really like James Potter? Sure she would think about him, but she tried not to. And it wasn't like she was intentionally going where she knew James was. Although Defense Against the Dark Arts was becoming her favorite class. But it had nothing to do with the fact that they worked together and talked to each other in that class. And she wasn't

Before Lily knew it Slughorn was telling everyone he'd see them in class and couldn't wait to see them at his next little get together.

"You were quiet today Miss Evans." Slughorn said. Lily had his class next so just stayed in the dungeon.

"Sorry Professor. Ms. Umbridge was very interesting though."

"She wasn't one of my favorites. But she is a very successful woman."

"Yeah." Lily didn't have to try to start up a conversation because people began arriving and Slughorn was already going on about former students that she should meet.

Mary, Ivy, and Jamie came into the classroom talking about Mary's 'problem' with Sirius. It made Lily happy that she wasn't the only one they nagged on. In class Slughorn had them practice making Felix Felicus.

Lily was sure hers wasn't perfect, but it was close. Or she hoped it was, she was continually getting distracted as James and the other Marauders were making strange noises at their table. Apparently Sirius had found some candy from the year before in his trunk and they were trying them. A few made them make strange animal noises while others were just Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Unfortunately for the boys however it seemed all the good ones were gone. So with bits of candy in their potions they turned in their flasks.

They left the class, went to Charms where they worked on the Protean Charm. It was NEWT level and took several tries before Lily got it. She was rewarded five house points. When she finished it James called her over.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"How did you get it to work? You've got to help us." He pleaded.

"It's easy. Look." She helped him through it. By the end he got the cup he copied to change colors by applying the spell on the original cup.

"Very good Mr. Potter!" Flitwick praised.

"Very good Miss Evans." James said.

"Thanks." Lily blushed.

After dinner Lily stood in the common room pulling out clean clothes and preparing to take a bath when she remembered the letter her mom had sent her. So she pulled it out of her bag.

She unrolled the parchment but after the first sentence she knew it was bad.

Lily,

Your father had a heart attack this morning.

Lily sat down on her bed before reading the rest.

The doctors don't think he'll even make it the night. I hope their wrong, but it's not looking so good. I wrote Dumbledore, so if you want to come home he'll arrange it.

~Mom

Lily stared at the letter for a long time before deciding to go take her bath. She didn't want her friends to come in while she was having a melt down because that would make the situation so much worse. So she grabbed her things running down to the Prefects Bathroom.