Two and a half weeks to the end of term - it seems like a thousand years! Anyway, hope this chapter cheers you up as musch as it cheered me up. There's nothing like a party to bring in the Christmas spirit!

I love you

But you don't know it

I watch you
But you don't see it

I cry over you
But you don't hear it

I long for you
But you don't feel it. - Lauren

After Hogsmeade weekend, it was straight back to work, work, and more work. Mocks were taking place the next week, and the relaxed and calm atmosphere of the weekend morphed into stress and anxiety. What were brilliant, and I mean this is all seriousness, were the study periods.

Every evening, after lessons had finished, we all trooped back, in twos and threes to the Heads' Common Room. At around five, after a little bit of conversation and perhaps a game of exploding snap, we would all sit down round the two large tables, mixed boys and girls unequally, although Lily and James would sit together, and we would begin to study.

Rather than the oppressed silence of the Library, or the crowded noise of the Common Room, there was a comfortable, tranquil mood. People would work together on different assignments, for example, Lily and Remus would converse as they did their Advanced Potions essay, Megs and Frank would help each other with their DADA questions, or Katie and Alice would look up information about conversion spells for their Transfiguration notes. There was always someone to help you, or someone to be helped.

To my surprise, I found that Peter was excellent coach for Arithmancy, of which the finer points confused me, and I was more than ready to help him with his Charms. It had always been possible to judge how hard an exam was based on the amount of work that James and Sirius did.

For the first four years of schooling, they had done next to nothing for the exams and still received very high marks, though my consolation was that Lily beat them in everything, and I beat them in a few things, which showed that hard work really did pay off. For OWLS, they had actually set foot in the Library, much to the horror of Madame Pince, and although Sirius had been kicked out twice for inappropriate behaviour with a girl, they had done some studying. Now though, their noses were to the proverbial grindstone; the NEWTs mocks were very difficult indeed.

However, I was slightly distracted during this period by the sight of Lily and James studying together. More often than not, you would glance over to see them sitting side by side, smiling at each other, perhaps his hand curling in a lock of her hair, or her hand unconsciously twining round his little finger. When I met Katie's eye on the first night, I nodded my head in their direction, and she responded by raising her eyebrows.

The next night, we began to make faces at each other whenever the hand holding or the hair touching would happen. On the third night, as Sirius was dutifully helping me with my Advanced Potions, slight, but not unkind exasperation on his face, he caught the cheeky smile I was directing at Katie.

Worried that he that he thought that we were laughing at him, I nodded my head in the direction of James and Lily, the former of which was staring at the latter as she wrote her essay. Sirius nodded in understanding, and then opened his mouth slightly and stared at Lily with large cow eyes.

I whacked him none-too-gently on the shoulder.

"What?" he murmured in my ear.

"He does not look at her like that!" I hissed.

He gave me a look which said "Yeah right."

"Well – I think it's sweet." I whispered haughtily.

He raised one eyebrow, and then the other, and then a sly look came into his eye. He turned his body to face me and propping his cocked head on one hand, proceeded to unleash the full force of the cow-eyed stare on me.

I had to clamp my hands over my mouth to prevent a laugh, and even then only just prevented an outburst. I didn't want another coughing fit like the one I had had the previous Saturday.

"Okay – I get it. It's not sweet, it's very annoying, so you can stop it now." I whispered.

He said nothing, but continued his stare. I rolled my eyes and glared at him.

His cow-eyed gaze remained, even in the face of my normally most prolific glare. I leaned forward and banged my head on the desk (quite gently though, remembering the incident with Professor Caverleigh) and then decided to continue on with my work in a mature and adult fashion.

"So if I add doxy root to the potion, it with strengthen the effect but I need to stir it clockwise. Or anti-clockwise?"

He continued to stare at me. Deciding that the mature approach was not successful, I turned and asked him in a whisper:

"What is the price to pay to stop you staring at me in that ridiculous fashion?"

The cow-eyed gaze held, his mouth still agape, and then relaxed into a smirk.

"The realisation that it isn't sweet." He replied.

"But I admitted that in the first place!" I cried.

"Only to stop me doing it. Now you find it annoying, and ergo, not sweet anymore." He grinned.

"You're incorrigible." I told him primly, then turned my head to see the rest of our friends looking at us in askance. I blushed and looked down, deciding to concentrate on my homework, despite the unhelpfulness of the boy sitting next to me.

"You look pretty when you blush." He suddenly remarked, in a half-whisper that had Remus look over at us from the opposite side of the table. I blushed even further, but swallowed my embarrassment to turn to him and say:

"I suppose you want me to think that that was annoying as well, as you seem averse to any gesture which is supposed to be sweet."

"Oh no – I was being quite sincere. My name, after all, is Sirius."

My mouth twitched, but thankfully I refrained from smiling at his horrendous joke.

"And I'm a flower which aphids like to lay eggs on. Not everyone is described by their name."

"A Rose maybe be a flower, but it is also a colour. The very colour, in fact, to which your cheeks turn when you blush."

At this I blushed even more, but decided to wade my way forward. I wasn't going to give up.

"So you have a problem with James looking at Lily in what I called a "sweet way" and yet you do not have a problem with saying things which would be called "sweet" if they were in any way sincere."

"I merely have a problem with actions that make a person look ridiculous. Especially since said person is my best mate. You still have doubts about my sincerity?"

"Absolutely. I may not have gone out with half or even a quarter as many people as you, but I do pride myself on not being a complete idiot. That, Mr. Black, was what I call in my head "a line.""

He recoiled in mock horror. "Never!"

I chuckled.

"It may also interest you to note that I have no doubts as to James' sincerity." I added. "The very reason his... look... is so sweet is because he looks like an absolute idiot, and yet is so absorbed in watching Lily that he doesn't realise. Therefore, I can be sure than he is absolutely in earnest, whereas the suaveness and smoothness of your line encourages one to think that perhaps there is calculation behind it, and ergo, no sincerity."

"So if people make absolute cakes of themselves then they are sincere?"

"It means that they care more about... someone, whoever it may be, than they do about their pride. In James' case, I know that he values... being seen to be... to be in control? No – more to present a good appearance to the outside world, as most people, myself included do, and so to have forgotten that aim, or even to have put it aside, shows that he is more concerned about something else. I'm not saying that calculation equals insincerity, merely that in James' case I am assured of his earnestness, whereas in yours I am not. No offense meant, of course."

"None taken. So in what way could I phrase my sentiments in a way that you would believe them?"

"Um..."

"You see, your problem Rose, is that you don't like accepting compliments. Whenever someone, whether it is Lily, or me, or a teacher, you blush, or look away, or try to negate it, by saying that Katie chose your outfit, or that your hair is frizzy or something."

"Well... I just- I... I don't think that... I suppose I don't agree with them." I shrugged.

"You should. I can tell you in complete earnestness that you look pretty when you blush, but – what is more, " he added, holding up a hand to prevent me from interrupting, "you look beautiful when you smile. And now, you don't disagree, but say thank you."

I half-laughed. "Thank you."

He narrowed his eyes. "Now I think you're the one who's not being sincere. Ah well, we have plenty of time to work at that. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for this Potions homework. Shall we continue?"

Mocks' week was exhausting in every way, but all the Seventh Years struggled through and arrived with our brains at least partially intact. Now, it was the beginning of December and there were only two more weeks to the end of term. We were all counting down the days, but Lily in particular was counting down until her eighteenth birthday, the penultimate day of term.

Lying on my bed that Friday afternoon, I was contemplating what to get Lily for her eighteenth – I wanted it to be something special. My brain, as tired as it was, was not very forthcoming. My thoughts began to drift over to my own eighteenth birthday, at the beginning of the next time, and I felt a twinge of sadness.

I had always had a dream – a very silly, girly, soppy dream to be, as the song went a Dancing Queen. Just for one night, I wanted to shed my shyness and dance without caring what people thought of me. Unfortunately, as the song also went, the Dancing Queen was "only seventeen", and therefore my eighteenth birthday was too late. Not that there was an occasion in the near future when I would be at such a place – obviously a party, with people and music etc, before my eighteenth. That was what I wanted for my eighteenth birthday present - a party.

So why couldn't I give Lily a party, I mused. A really special party – for her as well as James, as a sort of "Happy Eighteenth and So Glad You Two Finally Got Together!" Party. Why not? Though it would be a lot of planning. And I wanted it to be a surprise – if we were always sneaking off to plan without Lily she would get suspicious.

No, I needed someone with whom Lily would not get suspicious if I left her company to spend time with. Someone like... I sprang up from my bed, and rushed out of the dormitory.

Lol EllieBaby xxx