A/N: Oh lord. Just found a bunch of Jily stuff. CRY CRY CRY CRY CRY. My poor feels. I want to apologize for the delay on this chapter. It's somewhat of a filler chapter (my sincerest apologies), and it seemed like, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't find the words to get it to flow! But here it is...finally. Anywho, I've come up with a lot of ideas for this story over the past day or so. Super excited! I hope you love this plot line as much as I do. Also: I've decided to base a few scenes in the story off of some fan art. Kudos to you if you catch them! I may or may not upload them to my page, but if I do, I promise I'll post the link. Big thanks to all the reviews!

Disclaimer: James and Lily aren't mine (*sigh*). If they were, I'd be much richer, and have a much cooler name.

Chapter 4

(Lily)

"Can I help you, Black?" Lily asked.

The dark-haired boy nodded to her hand, still on the door.

"It's locked, you know," he said.

"Gee, really? I hadn't noticed," she retorted before turning back to the door and jiggling the handle again. "Remus! Sorry I'm late, but will you please open this damn door?"

He smirked at her.

"Nice try, Evans," he told her. "But don't bother. There's some sort of silencing charm on the door. Believe me, we stopped trying to interrupt prefect meetings years ago."

"Brilliant," she muttered.

Two of the three boys laughed; the other stayed silent, nervously running a hand through his hair and staring at the wall beside her. It was then that Lily realized he hadn't met her eyes since she had reached the prefects' compartment.

"You lot should probably get back to your compartment," she said, sighing. "I suppose I'll wait here until the next break."

They nodded, and the boys turned to leave. Lily quickly caught James' arm. He looked at her in surprise before glancing back at his friends. Sirius raised his eyebrows and gave him a knowing look, then turned and departed.

"Listen," she began. "I didn't get a chance to thank you for helping with my trunk earlier. So—er—thanks."

James shrugged.

"Anytime," he said, before turning to leave again.

"Potter, wait," Lily blurted out. He faced her, looking at her expectantly. She tried to form the words to apologize, but no words seemed to come to mind. "I just wanted to say—"

Lily was cut off by the sound of the door of the compartment next her. It slid to a stop, and Remus poked his head out.

"Prongs," he nodded in a greeting to James. He took in the sight of the redhead. "Am I interrupting something?"

She sighed.

"No, Remus, it's all right," she said, not looking away from James. "Well, I'll see you at the feast?"

Potter nodded, and left the same way as his friends before him.

Lily now looked at Remus.

"Sorry I was late. I started talking with Mary, and I guess I just lost track of time," she explained.

He smiled.

"It's alright. You didn't miss much, the Heads were orienting the fifth years. We're dismissed early, though, so you can head back to your compartment."

"Oh," she said, disappointed. "I'll just head back to Mary, I suppose."

She turned to leave, before Remus called out to her again.

"Lily."

Once again, she faced him, waiting for him to continue.

"He's still really hurt," he said with a frown on his face. "He doesn't blame you, though. He reckons he deserves it. Don't worry. He'll come around."

Lily gave him a disheartened smile and walked back to her cabin.

"What was that about, mate?" Sirius asked as James entered the compartment.

"Dunno. Remus showed up before she could finish."

Sirius shrugged.

"Guess we'll never know, eh?" he said with a laugh.

James nodded curtly and took a seat. The two other Marauders took notice of his silence.

"Oh, come on, Prongs," Sirius groaned. "Don't tell me you're still hung up on that stupid argument."

James' reply was cut off by the sound of the compartment door opening.

"Oi, Moony! Next time, have better timing, yeah?" James said.

"Sorry, mate," he said. "She's in her compartment now if you want to go talk to her."

Sirius snorted.

"What's he going to do?" he asked. "Barge in and say, 'Oi, Evans. Tell me what you were going to say?' Yeah, because that would go over so well."

James sighed and looked out the window. What was she going to tell me? he asked. Was it really that important just say thank you? Did it have to do with the corridor incident? He stopped himself. Of course not. She has nothing to apologize for. He reached for a deck of cards in his bag.

"Any of you gits up to Exploding Snap?"

A murmur of consent passed around the cabin.

James managed to assume his usual carefree appearance throughout the game, but on the inside, he was filled with thoughts of a redhead girl who could never seem to say what she needed to say.

(Lily)

"LILY!"

Lily's head snapped up at the sound of her name being screamed for the second time that day.

"Marlene!"

The sight of a familiar brunette quickly erased all thoughts of a messy-haired boy. Marlene Emrich was a seventh year at Hogwarts, and she currently held the position of Head Girl. She was the kind of girl that everyone liked; she was pretty, with long dark hair and warm brown eyes, she was one of the most intelligent people Lily had ever met, and she never had a bad thing to say about anyone. Lily had become friends with her in first year, after an unfortunate incident involving a trick step on the stairwells.

"I've missed you so much!" Marlene said, squeezing her in a tight embrace.

"I missed you, too!" Lily gripped Marlene's arm and pulled her into her compartment a short distance away. Mary (who was reading Hogwarts, A History in the corner) started at the girls' sudden arrivals.

"So tell me about this new guy," Lily drilled her. "What happened? How did he ask you? When did you start seeing each other?"

Marlene's face brightened immediately.

"Well, you know how my family and I always go up to Poole to see the coast on holidays?" Lily nodded. "Well, there's a little wizarding ice cream shop, and I decided to head into town to get some. What do you know? Jack lives in Poole and works in there! I told him he looked familiar, and he said we'd had classes together for the past six years. And to think I've never noticed him before! He had a break a few minutes later, and we went for a walk on the beach. We ended up having so much in common, and spent the rest of the holiday together. He asked me to he his girlfriend a few weeks later in July. We had just finished having dinner, and he asked me if I wanted to take a walk on the beach like we did the day that we met. So we walked for a while, chatting about this and that, and suddenly he just asks me, right out of the blue! Oh, Lily, you'll just love him. He's so sweet, and he'd do anything to make me happy."

Lily couldn't help but beam at her friend.

"I'm so happy for you, Marly!"

The girls spent the next few hours recounting their summers apart. At around 5:30, Mary suggested they change into their school robes. They did so quickly, and arrived at Hogwarts shortly afterwards.

Lily quickly grabbed her belongings, checking to make sure all of them had been collected from the cabin. She glanced though the corridors, looking to see if all the first years had gotten off alright. She then exited the train, setting foot onto the platform of the Hogsmeade station.

She closed her eyes and took in the scent of her surroundings. Lily had always loved the smell of Hogwarts. The light scent of the grass of grounds, combined with the fresh smell of the lake. She especially loved it when it was about to rain. You could practically smell the trees and animals preparing for the storm.

Lily set off to find the carriage that held Mary and Marlene, glad to be back to the place she loved most in the world.

"Firs' years, this way!" the familiar voice of the groundskeeper, Hagrid, called out.

Lily smiled.

At last, she was home.

A/N: So there it is! Finally finished. *Sigh* So, this week should be pretty busy, but I'm going to do my best to get the next chapter posted ASAP. Huge thank you to everyone who reviewed, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review for this one as well! I'd love to get your thoughts on the story! I am willing to take suggestions!