A/N: Hey! Well, I'm deeply sorry for the delay in this chapter. I'll upload 2 just for good measure. My interent broke, and my loving friend has said I can use her interent so I can upload for you lot.

I'd like to thank y'all for the reviews, please review more; chapters shall be uploaded quicker! ;D
Merci. (Idk why I went Frech there, I'm English. ehhehhehehehe. Bye.)

Chapter 8
Or,
Of Avoiding, Blame and Admitting Heartbreak.

James and Sirius were the only ones still awake. Alice had passed out when Frank had dared her to be a true Gryffindor and down a pint of tequila, and once Alice had gone, Frank so no real point in staying up considering they were spending the night together , and Isabelle had went up to bed after getting bored with James and Sirius' 'boy talk'.

"Lily has been away for way too long." James told Sirius- who was paying no real attention to James' worry, and instead, was staring at the staircase which led to the girls' dormitory.

"I wonder why Isabelle left." He said sadly.

"Padfoot, snap out of it. She was bored because Evans has been in the bloody kitchens for about an hour! I knew I shouldn't have let her go by herself."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Prongs, for the sake of Godric's sword will you give it a rest about Evans? If you care so much, go check the friggin map!"

James immediately summoned the Marauder's Map from the boy's dormitory and whispered. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The map opened and revealed the whereabouts of everybody in the castle. Tiny black footsteps showed that the caretaker, Argus Filch, was prowling the 3rd floor and Hagrid was wandering around the 6th floor, they were both on the lookout for students out of bed after hours.

And Lily Evans was in an empty charms classroom on the 4th floor. What was she doing there? James thought.

"She's on the fourth floor." James told Sirius.

Sirius who was already half asleep summoned all the energy he could to reply. "Mmmmmh, that's nice."

James smacked Sirius in the face with a pillow- in response, Sirius yelled several incoherent swear words at him, and then he went trudging over to the other side of the common room so he could rest in peace, and left James to stew over Lily.

James spent several minutes simply staring at the Marauders Map to see if the dot labeled 'Lily Evans' planned on moving anytime soon, and when James came to the conclusion that it wasn't, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He went to find out what was wrong with Lily himself.

Before he left however, he ran up to the dormitory so he could get his invisibility cloak, considering it was after 2am and there was two teachers wandering the corridors tonight, he didn't think it was worth the risk in getting caught out of bed and he was sure that Lily would lose prefects status if she was caught. He covered himself in the cloak and with his wand along with the map in his hand; he set off to the fourth floor to see why Lily was sitting in a charms classroom.

Once the coast was clear, he revealed himself before entering the classroom, although he was tempted to see the look on Lily's face when the door randomly opened and then he randomly materialised. But now was not the time for jokes.

"Oi, Evans, what you doing with our bloody cake?" He asked, while walking into the room. Lily was sat on the teacher's desk with her back to him, her body was shaking and James presumed it was because of the cold. Until he heard her sobbing, that is.

"S-Sorry, I had to hide from Slughorn, he was stalking around here." She replied hoarsely.

"Slughorn isn't on duty, Evans. It's Hagrid and Filch." James said as he carefully approached the teacher's desk in which she sat on. Another heart shattering sob filled the room, and James winced. He couldn't stand seeing her like this, especially when he didn't know why. Well, he actually had a pretty good idea, but he still felt the need to ask- even if he had a feeling she'd hex him. "What's wrong, Lily?"

Lily turned to face him, it was because of her first name being used by him and the voice he used; it was his usual sarcastic, cheeky voice that grated on Lily so much, it was a considerate voice- he sounded as if he really cared. She was chewing her lip nervously, but most of all to stop anymore tears from flowing- not like it was helping much. Her face was drained of colour, and her eyes were red and puffy as if she'd been crying for the entire hour that she'd been away.

James pressed on; he needed to know what was hurting her so much. "Lily, come on, tell me. What is wrong, why are you crying like this?"

She took a deep breath before replying and James knew she was trying to compose her voice, but it was still a barely audible whisper. "It's Josh, he cheated on me."

James stood awkwardly. "You don't know that, Evans. Maybe it's just crossed wires or something." Internally, James was praying that this was the case, and that Lily wasn't being cheated on by Josh.

"I do know. I saw him in a cupboard with his tongue down Grace Fitzpatrick's throat, standing in nothing but his boxers."

James sat down next to Lily on the desk, and rambled on. He just didn't want it to be true. He knew it was, though. He knew long before Lily even did that he was cheating on her, but he couldn't tell her. He just hated seeing Lily so fragile, so upset and hurt. "I wouldn't worry, surely there is some mistake or something-"

"Potter, seriously, stop rambling!" Lily yelled and James immediately fell silent. Lily felt a bit guilty. He was only trying to help, and maybe make her feel better, she shouldn't be taking her anger and upset out on him; he was being nice.

There was an awkward silence for what seemed like a lifetime, and Lily had to break it. There was nothing more she hated than awkward silences, well maybe she hated Josh a lot more, but that was beside the point.

"James?" She asked shyly. He turned to face her and gave her a questioning look, for one; she was using his first name and that was something Lily never did. "I'm sorry for shouting, but do you think you could maybe give me a hug? I know we're not exactly friends or anything but-"

Lily was cut off by James giving her a bone crushing hug. "Yeah, I'd quite like a sufficient supply of oxygen, if that's okay." She told him, trying to laugh but it just came out as a weak sob. The tears started pouring down her face and no matter what she tried, she couldn't stop them. James rubbed her back soothingly, not saying anything at all but the occasional 'Sssh' and 'you'll be fine.'

Lily couldn't keep quiet for much longer, maybe it was because she had so many feelings building up inside of her, and James was the only person here and to be honest, he was proving pretty nice so far. "He said he loved me, James. This morning, he told me he loved me and then he went to shack up with Grace fucking Fitzpatrick! Why James, why did he do it? Why did he say it?"

James couldn't bring himself to give reason as to why Josh had said I love you, but he knew deep down that Lily did know why Josh said it. So he said to her: "You know why he said it, Lily."

"Because he didn't want me to find out about Grace, and I wouldn't have either! If I hadn't gone for that cake, I wouldn't have known, because when he said I love you, all suspicions I had were gone." Lily pulled back to look at James for confirmation of what she just said, but she didn't pull out of the hug completely.

"You're right, Lily, he knew you were smart and he knew you were smart enough to figure it out, so he thought he'd throw you off course by saying those three words." When Lily started to cry again, James pulled her back into the hug.

"I punched him, you know." Lily told him once the fourth wave of sobs had disappeared.

James laughed. "Is that why your hand is bleeding? I'll buy you some boxing gloves for Christmas."

"Oh fuck off."

"Ah, there is the Lily Evans I know."

And for the first time since she left the Common room that night, she smiled.

Lily Evans had smiled at the hands of James Potter.

It was a miracle.

Lily and James didn't go back to the common room until about 6am, and that was only to get freshened up, and James had insisted that Lily should tell her friends. James was planning on sneaking into bed so the guys wouldn't ask questions immediately, but unfortunately, Sirius was already awake.

"It's six am Padfoot, what the hell are you doing awake?" James asked, he also noted that Remus and Peter were awake too. Jesus, why is everybody awake so early? Did I misread my watch?

"Never mind me, where have you been?" Sirius replied grouchily- it was clear that Sirius hadn't planned on being awake at this time in the morning, he wasn't exactly the type of person who enjoyed being woken up.

"I was with Lily."

"So you eventually spent the night with Lily, hmm?" Remus asked, cocking his head to the right.

"Yeah, but-"

"No, no, no, no buts! You spent the night with Lily Evans?" Sirius shouted.

When James nodded, Remus chucked a pillow at him to get his attention, and then shouted at him too. "Prongs, she has a boyfriend!"

"Not anymore!" James replied-and then he realised what he'd just said, and how bad it sounded- and before anybody else could interfere. "Not in any fault of mine, well maybe it is but I'll get to that in a minute. Josh has been cheating on Lily." He told them.

"Yeah, we know, you told us." Sirius said.

"I'll rephrase that: Josh has been caught cheating on Lily."

"We know Prongs, you caught him." Sirius frowned at James, this wasn't knew information.

"I'll rephrase that again: Josh was been caught cheating on Lily, by Lily!"

"Oh. Ouch."

"Exactly, and I helped her. Well, comfort her. She asked me for a hug." James told them, relaxing onto his bed for the hour he had left in getting any sleep at all. "Now shut up, I'm tired. I'll tell you more in the morning."

"It is the morning, you twat."

"Padfoot, shut up!"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

After tip-toeing around the dormitory, Lily finally looked as presentable as she as going to get. She tied her hair up into a quick plait and put on a tiny bit foundation to cover up the fact she'd been crying all night, and then she decided to wake her friend's up- well, she was going to wake Alice.

"No, I'm not getting up, I'm dying, leave me be and stop tapping my shoulder or I'll hex you." Alice told Lily when Lily tapped on her arm several times to wake her.

"Alice, you're up now, just at least turn over so I can talk to you. It's important."

"Lily, please, my head is banging."

"I'll give you a hangover potion, just please get up." Lily begged.

"Oh, fine." Alice rolled over.

Alice sat up and pulled a face at Lily, while the latter went over to her drawer and pulled out a tiny bottle of deep purple liquid- after the incident at the start of term, Lily had secretly brewed some phials of a hangover cure because she had a feeling that they'd be getting drunk on a regular basis- and she handed it to Alice, who downed it and instantly felt better.

"What's the emergency then?" She asked.

Lily swallowed. "Josh has been cheating on me."

"What? No way! The dickhead, who with? Tell me. Tell me now."

"Yeah, I found him and Grace Fitzpatrick in a cupboard in the kitchens yesterday when I went for cake." Lily sighed shakily and Alice hugged her. Isabelle- who had woken up and been listening in to their conversation- jumped out of bed and ran over to Lily and Alice and joined in the hug.

"Don't worry Lily, you can do better. What did you say to him, then?" Isabelle asked.

"I didn't say anything. I punched them." Lily replied.

"You go girl!" Isabelle said- it was a weak attempt at a joke, but it did make lily feel a bit better. "Anyways, like I was saying, he's a complete prick…"

And then the bitching started. The 3 girls were actually late for first lesson; they spent an entire hour bitching against Josh and Grace, and then they started to praise James for being so nice. Isabelle said that they should be friends, and Lily said she'd think about it- which was true. Lily was actually considering becoming his friend. She was starting to realise she was mistaken about James, and she realised he wasn't as nasty and as selfish as she had made out all these years.

But Lily got tired of talking about Josh, so she tactically changed topic onto Isabelle and Sirius while they were walking down to Potions. It turns out they were 25 minutes late, but because Slughorn loved Lily so much, they got off easy- with only 5 points being removed from Gryffindor.

And much to James' surprise, Lily sat next to him.

In fact, Lily sat with him and the Marauders for the rest of the day.