Lily and James walked up the High Street with smiles on their faces. Lily made sure to do as Delilah said and brush her hand casually against his a few times, and by the fourth time, he had grabbed her hand with his cheeks turning slightly pink.

"I can't believe I finally got you to go on a date with me," James said with a smile.

"Neither can I," Lily giggled. "If someone would have told me that I would be here two years ago, I probably would have hexed them seven ways from upside down."

"I will never get your mannerisms," James said after a moment of trying to decode her last statement.

"You don't have to," Lily laughed. "Almost no one does."

"Do you?"

"Actually, no."

"That's what I thought," James said, poking her in the side with his unoccupied hand. She squeaked at the ticklish spot and jumped slightly.

"I'm really, really, ticklish," she said by way of explanation.

"Hm, so...are you ticklish here?" James said poking her lower back. She squealed and moved away. "How about...here?" he poked her in the stomach, and she giggled. He continued this, each time resulting in giggling and squealing from Lily. By the time they got the Three Broomsticks, he had tickled her to a point where she had been laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.

They entered the little pub laughing happily and sat in a booth by the door. They could see Remus, Sirius, Delilah, and Loraina sitting in a far corner, but decided to keep their date to just the two of them for as long as they could, as they were going shopping with their friends for stuff to wear to the ball. James suddenly halted in the middle of a story he was telling Lily about Sirius, a plastic snake, and his great aunt, his teeth clenched angrily. Lily turned behind her to see what was going on and saw Orion Black walking in with a silky looking blonde man and Bellatrix Black, a fellow 7th year who Lily absolutely loathed.

"Mr. Potter, Miss Evans," Orion nodded mock politely. "This is my dear friend Lucius Malfoy. He graduated last year from Hogwarts. And this is Bellatrix, who I'm sure you know."

Bellatrix gave Lily a look of supreme hatred with her heavy-lidded eyes and continued walking, leading the way to a corner of the bar. James growled and Lily blinked in surprise.

"Do you know who that blonde man was? Lucius Malfoy?"

"Of course I do," James grunted. "He's been causing my father problems at the Ministry since the day he graduated."

"Oh," Lily said quietly, looking down at her butterbeer awkwardly. She suddenly felt as if this date was going to be a disaster.

"I'm sorry," James said, shaking himself and gently taking her hand across the table. "I'm letting them interrupt our date. Got any funny family stories?"

Lily smiled and launched into a story about Delilah visiting during the summer and turning her sister into a Capuchan monkey with a wand she stole from her gold digging mother.

Delilah and Loraina soon came a stole Lily, heading toward the dress shop. James stood up and gave Lily a chaste kiss on the cheek, saying his goodbyes before joining Remus and Sirius in the corner.

"How'd it go?" Sirius said eagerly, bouncing.

"It went great," James said with a relieved smile.

"I told you it would," Remus said easily, leaning back and smiling proudly. "I asked Loraina to the ball. And she said yes."

"WHEN?!" James and Sirius shouted with huge smiles on their faces.

"This morning. She somehow got separated from Delilah on her way here, and it was just the two of us, so I asked her."

"Good on you, Moony," Sirius said, clapping his werewolf friend on the back. "Me and Delilah are going together to keep up the whole fake dating thing."

"When are you gonna quit the bullshit act and just get together already?" James asked. "You're Sirius Black, player extraordinaire, and yet you're whipped by a girl who isn't even your girlfriend."

"Shut up," Sirius grumbled, his cheeks flushing.

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The girls were in the dress shop, hunting unsucessfully for the perfect dresses. The shop was color-coded, so the girls all gravitated toward their favorites. Surprisingly enough, Lily did not go to the green section, but went to the gold section, while Loraina went to the teals and blues and Delilah went to the reds.

An hour later, the girls had found the perfect dresses and masks, and they eagerly walked out with their purchases, discussing their hopes for the ball. They shrunk their bags and placed them in their pockets, giggling and whispering about what they had bought, wanting to surprise everyone and have nobody know who they were.

"I cannot believe you're going with Remus!" Lily shrieked, giggling and bouncing up and down.

"Calm down," Loraina laughed. "It's not that big of a deal..."

"You can happy dance now," Delilah said in a bored voice. Loraina started dancing and squealing with Lily while and amused Delilah looked on.

A loud boom disrupted the happy picture, and the girls all looked toward the sound. Zonko's Joke Shop was up in green flames, with a now-familiar dark mark above it. Loraina gasped, placing a shaking hand over her mouth in horror. A flood of dark-robed, masked people were swarming the High Street. Lily and her friends all drew their wands, ushering a group of third years back toward the castle.

"James, where are you?" Lily whispered to herself as she searched the crowds.

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The Marauders sprinted out of Honeyduke's, wands drawn as they fired curses into the army of Death Eaters. In seconds the three best friends were separated. It was the three of them a few select others battling almost thirty lethal Death Eaters; James had almost no doubt in his mind that he was going to die.

A flash of dark red caught his attention, and his heart stopped as he watched Lily take on three Death Eaters.

"LILY!" he shouted.

"A LITTLE BUSY, JAMES!" she shouted back as she ducked out of the way of a Killing Curse.

"WILL YOU BE MY GIRLFRIEND!?"

"NOW'S NOT REALLY THE BEST TIME!"

"THERE MIGHT NOT BE ANOTHER TIME!"

"YES!" Lily screamed back as she fired a brilliant curse at a massive robed man. James caught her by the waist, kissed her passionately but shortly, and then released her, jumping back into battle.

Lily fought with a new kind of fervor as she watched her friends when she could. Loraina was certainly holding her own, firing spell after spell, a fire to her that Lily had never seen before. Delilah, however, was not so lucky, and was resorting to the muggle way when her wand was knocked out of her hands.

Delilah was soon grabbed from behind and thrown over someone's shoulder. She kicked at him and attempted to bite him, which, when aimed at his shoulder, seemed to work briliantly, as he dropped her.

"You little bitch!"

She immediately recognized that silky voice. "Orion, you filthy bastard!"

A wand was pointed at her throat in a split second. She was up against a brick wall, and she could just see his steely eyes through his mask. Delilah's blue eyes met his with defiance.

"Face it Delilah," he gloated. "I've won. I've been winning all along. All those nights, for the past two years, I've won."

"No, you haven't," she said calmly. "You'll never win, Orion."

"Really, now?" he said, humoring her. "I'm about to kill you, Delilah. How does that feel?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely brilliant," Delilah mocked. "Knowing that I'm about to do this."

In one fluid movement, she used her forearm to knock the wand out of his hand, then grabbed it while it fell. She aimed it at him and shot a Body Bind Curse at him, grinning as he stood stock still.

"Who won now, jackass?" she gloating, kicking him in the shins and reveling in the sound his body made as it hit the street. She rushed back in to the fray, a worried Sirus dragging her into a corner alley.

"Are you all right? I saw Orion drag you off and I tried to get there," he rushed.

"I'm fine, Sirius. Let's get back out there," she panted, dragging him along with her as she fired stunners into the huge mass of black.

Her eyes widened as a flash of green hit the fifth year Hufflepuff who was fighting next to her. Sirius angrily shot a Body Bind at the Death Eater, a power in his eyes that Delilah had never seen before.

She saw James leap in front of Lily to deflect a Cruciactus that was coming right at her. She saw James hit the ground, screaming, and Lily fall to her knees beside him. She then saw a Death Eater advancing on her redhead best friend and sprinted, shoving duelers out of the way. Without thinking about the consequences, Delilah tackled the man to the ground.

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"Delilah! Delilah, wake up!" a voice was urging her. She slowly opened her eyes to see Sirius's gray ones staring at her in concern. She tried to croak out that she was okay, but couldn't speak.

"What happened?" she finally managed to say.

"You and James were both hit by Crucio," Sirius said, carefully helping her up off of the ground. "What were you thinking? Tackling that guy like that?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," she said, her voice hoarse.

"Throat hurt?" Sirius asked. She nodded, and he explained. "You were screaming for quite a while."

"Where's Lily? And James? And Loraina? And Remus?"

"Lily got James to the Hospital Wing immediately. You were under it for about two minutes, which is actually a pretty long time. James got it for about ten. Remus is part of the search and rescue group. Loraina helping put out some of the fires," Sirius said, stabilizing the slowly swaying girl. "And now we're getting you to the Hospital Wing."

"No, I want to help," Delilah said tiredly, leaning heavily against Sirius.

"I don't think so, Tiger," Sirius laughed. "We're getting you to the Wing immediately."

"But I'm fine," she protested.

"I don't care if you think you're fine," Sirius said firmly. "You need to get checked out. I do, too."

That was when Delilah took in the deep gash on his cheekbone, the tear in his black sweater which revealed a long cut, and the limp he was walking with. She gasped, looking him over.

"Are you okay? You look like hell!"

"I'm fine," Sirius assured. "I just need to get these cleaned up, and you need to rest. We'll both be good as new in a couple of days."

"Okay," Delilah resigned. "But we better not be held captive. This is my second time in there this year. I bloody hate it."

Sirius laughed, putting his arm around the girl gently. "Glad you're fine, Delilah."

"You, too, Sirius."

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Lily sat at James's bedside, holding his hand lightly while tears fell down her pale face. He looked so hopeless, lying there, and it broke her heart. She smiled slightly, thinking it was so James to ask her out in the middle of a battle. Kissing his knuckles, she sighed, putting her forehead on the mattress.

"Oh, I'm sorry," a kind voice said. "I just came to visit James. I'm his mother, Natalie Potter."

"Don't apologize," Lily said, blushing. She brushed the tears off of her cheeks and shook the woman's hand before wincing as she realized her hand was caked with blood. "I'm Lily Evans."

"The Lily Evans? The one that James would not stop ranting about?" Natalie asked with raised eyebrows. She had long red hair that was up in a ponytail, and she was wearing a business suit.

"I suppose so," Lily blushed. "I'm the only Lily Evans he knows, and he was a bit obsessed with me for a while there..."

"A bit? He was practically your stalker," Natalie said pleasantly as she stood beside her son. She sighed sadly, her happy demeanor gone. "He is so like his father."

"Really?" Lily asked quietly.

"His father is an Auror," Natalie nodded. "Always getting himself hurt. James is just like him. Spitting image of him, too. But he has my eyes."

Lily saw that James's hazel eyes had, indeed, been inherited from his mother, and she smiled slightly. "James does have a tendancy to do that."

"I hate to pry, but...are you his girlfriend?" Natalie asked softly, pushing her son's hair back.

"He asked me out in the middle of the battle," Lily said with a half-hysterical laugh, "and like the idiot that he is, he dove in front of that stupid curse for me!"

Natalie looked surprised for a moment. "There is one thing you've got to learn about Potter men; they are self-sacrificing to a fault. When they love someone, they'll dive in front of Unforgivable Curses for them."

"Yeah, I'm learning that the hard way," Lily sighed sadly.

Author's Note: This chapter kind of ran away with me. I'm not entirely positive how the battle came into play, or how I ended up getting Lily and James together like that, but whatever. It happened. And Remus and Loraina...I have quite the plan for them. Their relationship is not going to be as easy as it seems. I liked introducing James's mother, who is probably going to play an important role later on. I hope you enjoyed this. I enjoyed writing it