A/N: Special warning about this chapter: a lot of angst is ahead. BUT…it will be worth it when you get to the end. Promise ;)

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1st September 1977, 11.00am

The train lurched slightly, and James cursed as he stumbled a little in the corridor; his mind wasn't focused on where he was going, and if he wasn't careful he was probably going to fall through a window. That would just about fit the way his life was going at the moment.

He privately wished that the entire morning was over, and that he could curl up in a corner somewhere and pretend this wasn't happening to him. Maybe it was karma - or more likely, Dumbledore - teaching him a lesson in a roundabout way; he should have known that he couldn't just leave behind all the stupid, thoughtless things he'd done as a younger teenager, it should have been obvious that sooner or later he'd have to pay for them, and what better way to torture him than by giving him a position he would only fail in? He was going to screw this up, in front of absolutely everybody, and maybe, just maybe that was fair payment for the times he'd humiliated others without thought. He'd regretted his behaviour – well, most of it - but perhaps that wasn't enough penance.

The last week or so of summer had been horrific as far as he was concerned; ever since he got that bloody stupid letter everyone he knew had gone mental. Padfoot was planning even more dramatic pranks than usual, on the grounds that having a prefect and the Head Boy on his side made it much more likely that he could get away with them. Peter was going along with this enthusiastically; as always, he was up for anything dramatic and verging on the ridiculous. James had winced internally at the thought of McGonagall's face should she ever discover that her Gryffindor Head Boy had been abusing his position to allow his delinquent best mate to terrify first years. He'd have to veto as many of the more extreme ideas as possible and rely on Moony to back him up; he just wished he was a bit clearer on exactly where his friendship with Moony stood.

Remus had taken to giving him long, appraising looks when he thought James wasn't looking, something which disturbed him greatly; he couldn't shake the guilt settled low in his gut, the little voice in his head telling him that the badge should have been Remus', by all rights was Remus'. And he couldn't help but feel that when Remus looked at him, he was looking for whatever it was in James that he'd lost the badge to. Deep down he knew it wasn't true, knew Remus didn't begrudge him the position, but the simple fact was, he also knew he didn't deserve it, and that Moony did. If he was angry with him, James couldn't blame him.

His parents had, quite frankly, gone dotty. His mother had taken one look at the badge – which he'd tried to conceal from both his parents, but Sirius hadn't had any intention of letting him get away with that – and had burst into tears, before folding him into a bone-crushing hug that took him by surprise given her rather small frame, then disappearing to write to just about every relative they had. His father had laughed, rather loudly and for slightly too long, which James might have been offended by if he had been less mortified by the entire series of events anyway; he couldn't be annoyed about it, because his father was right to laugh. Everyone - besides Dumbledore apparently -knew that appointing James Potter as Head Boy was a recipe for disaster.

The only person who'd been unchanged in her behaviour towards him – admittedly via the medium of letters - had been Lily; and that was because he hadn't told her, something his conscience had chided him over day and night.

He didn't know what to say to her. She'd written to him and told him about her letter, and how surprised she was to have been chosen as Head Girl - even in his state of shock and horror he'd managed a snort about that; who else could it possibly have been? - and somehow he hadn't been able to find the words to tell her that he was her counterpart, not even when she'd written to him to tell him that she was afraid it might be Snape.

That was the biggest weight of guilt he'd been carrying; that he could have relieved her fears in a heartbeat with a few simple words, but hadn't. That might be unforgivable.

'Oi Potter! You haven't seen anyone wandering around with a Head Boy badge have you?'

He would have known that voice anywhere, and normally nothing would have made him happier than to hear her, but now all he could feel was borderline panic. He was suddenly absolutely certain that not writing to her and telling her was a huge mistake, one he couldn't take back. He drew in a deep breath, prayed randomly to any helpful deities that might have been listening, and turned to face her, thankful that the corridor was empty at least.

'Now Lily, don't…don't freak out or anything. I didn't know how to tell you.'

Her grin faded as her eyes lowered to his chest and picked out the badge sitting neatly on his outer robes. James knew he should say something, knew that he ought to try and explain himself, but it felt like his voice was lodged in his throat; he couldn't seem to say anything to her, he just stared at her, hoping that if nothing else she would see the sincerity in his eyes.

'I see.' Her reply was clipped and cold, and as his heart began to sink, the dam in his throat broke and words poured out.

'I was so shocked, so sure it was a mistake…but then it wasn't, and I couldn't…I couldn't think what to say…'

'And "hey Evans, I'm Head Boy!" never crossed your mind?' Her arms were wrapped around herself now, her jaw set and her eyes fixed on the wall behind him, and he didn't think she'd ever felt further out of his grasp; he wanted to touch her, but didn't think he could bear it if she turned away from him, as she surely would.

'You're mad at me.' They were the only words in his head that made coherent sense right then. 'I knew you'd be mad about it, so I waited to tell you in person…'

Lily held up a hand to stop him, and her eyes flicked to his face; for the first time in many months, they were unreadable to him.

'I'm not mad that you're Head Boy James, not at all. But you're right; I am mad at you.'

The words were again delivered in that cool, clipped tone, and she turned and walked away from him without a backward glance; he had no choice but to follow her, since they were going to the same prefect's meeting, but he wished he could go anywhere else, where he didn't have to suffer constant reminders that he'd just completely screwed up the best thing in his life.

Forty minutes later, James left the prefect compartment with Remus and headed along the corridor to the carriage where they knew they would find Sirius and Peter. Remus was silent beside him, and James found himself grateful that it was Moony who was with him right then, because he couldn't have dealt with Padfoot's questions or Wormtail's prattle, not after that little debacle. "Cold" didn't even begin to sum up Lily's attitude towards him; she hadn't looked at him once, had addressed him only indirectly, and had referred to him only as "the Head Boy". Not even "Potter". This was a screw-up to dwarf all other screw-ups apparently.

They arrived outside the compartment to see Lily and Marlene inside with Sirius and Peter, the four of them laughing. Remus slid the door open, and all four of them looked up as he and James stepped inside. Lily's smile slid right off her face and she immediately headed out of the door, muttering about sitting with Alice. Marlene gave James a look, which he'd class as being somewhere between "disapproving" and "I told you so", and slid off of Sirius' lap to go after her.

Once the door had shut behind her, Sirius' turned an enquiring gaze to James. 'Didn't go well then?'

James sighed; he desperately didn't want to talk about it, but he knew Padfoot well enough to know that he'd keep on at him, and it was probably better to say as little as possible now than be hounded about it all trip.

'She's mad at me, but not because I'm Head Boy, she's mad that I didn't tell her.' He tilted his head back so that it rested on the back of the bench seat and stared up at the ceiling, not really seeing anything anyway as his brain kindly chose that moment to replay the look in Lily's eyes as she'd noticed his badge; it was like every bit of warmth just drained out of them, and it was going to have a starring role in his nightmares from now on.

Sirius looked at Remus. 'He's properly thick isn't he? Fucked this one right up.'

Remus glanced sideways at James before answering. 'No point in being a dick to him now. He's learnt his lesson I should think.'

Peter snorted. 'Yeah, he's grasped that girls don't like being kept in the dark. Give him a prize!'

James' head rose up slowly, and he glowered around at his friends. 'Oh, you're all full of helpful advice now aren't you? Regular experts in the field of women.'

'If you recall, I told you to tell her straightaway.' Remus answered mildly. 'You've kept enough secrets from her, which she's going to be hacked off about when she eventually finds out, without adding to them.'

'Hey, no, no-one gets to use that argument here, because I'm not lying to Lily for my own benefit there am I?' James argued, his face beginning to flush. 'I'd love to tell her every damn thing!'

'Then why didn't you want to tell her about this?' Peter asked suddenly, his voice unusually sharp.

The other three all jumped a little at his tone; Peter was so quiet and unassuming most of the time that they often forgot this side of him existed, the sharper, more antagonistic side. It didn't often make an appearance, but it could be very effective when it did, all the more so for the unexpected nature of it.

James' head dropped back to its previous resting place and his eyes found the ceiling again. 'Because she deserves this, and I don't. And I didn't want her to think that being Head Girl was any less of an achievement because she got lumbered with some useless prick as Head Boy. And I thought I could…I don't know, soften the blow in person.'

Sirius blew out one long, irritated breath and was about to speak when Remus shook his head firmly, and Peter tutted as he stood up and reached into his trunk for some more sweets.

'Then you might try telling her that.' He advised as he opened a bag of fudge and sat down.

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6th September 1977, 8.20pm

'So exactly how long are you going to be mad at him Lily? The bloke's utterly miserable, you're not much better, and frankly I'm sick of watching the look of despair on his face whenever he looks at you. It's enough to make you vomit, and we have to see it at every mealtime.'

Marlene was lying on her front and hanging off the edge of her bed as she spoke, eyes idly scanning her magazine without much real interest; Lily was propped up on her pillows reading a battered paperback novel, and Emma and Alice were perched on Alice's bed, attempting to put streaks in each other's hair. All four of the girls looked up at the question, and three pairs of eyes focused on Lily, who sighed and dropped her book onto the bed.

'I don't know. It's not like I'm trying to be mad at him, I just am. I'm furious, and I refuse to pretend that I'm not.'

Marlene sighed and pushed herself into an upright position on the bed. 'Why are you so upset about this though? I mean, I knew about it as well, and you aren't angry at me for not telling you.'

'You were in an impossible situation.' Lily pointed out fairly. 'You knew because Sirius told you and swore you to secrecy; I wouldn't expect you to break promises. I'm not mad at Sirius or Remus or Pete either, because they were all just keeping a promise to a friend. This whole situation is James' fault for asking his friends to keep that secret in the first place.'

Emma dropped her wand onto the bedspread and sat cross legged as she looked at Lily. 'Don't you want to know why he didn't tell you though? I mean, aren't you at least curious enough about his reasons to let him explain?'

'No.' Lily answered firmly. 'I don't care about his reasons, I just care that he didn't tell me.'

'If you weren't Head Girl, would you still be angry?' Asked Marlene suddenly.

'What?' Lily's brow creased in confusion.

'Are you angry because he knew you were Head Girl, and didn't tell you he was Head Boy, or are you mad because James kept a secret from you?' She clarified.

'Both.' Lily answered firmly.

'I do understand Lily.' Emma said gently. 'You two are very close, and I can see why you'd be upset that he didn't tell you about something like this, but well…friends don't tell each other everything do they? I mean, you probably didn't tell him everything that happened to you this summer did you?'

She had though. That was the really sorry part about this whole affair wasn't it? For the first time since Sev, she'd confided every little thing in someone else, and once again it turned out that she'd been investing far more in the relationship than the other person. And to make matters even worse, she'd been seriously considering investing so much more, had been wanting to make herself even more vulnerable and lay herself totally open to him. How did she keep making such stupid errors in judgment?

The uncomfortable silence was broken by Alice. 'I don't think Lily wants to talk about it anymore.'

Lily glanced over at her gratefully, and Alice came and sat next to her, putting an arm around her and hugging her tight for a moment before she spoke quietly, her voice low enough to go unheard by the others.

'Lily, I want you to think about something okay? Don't just dismiss it.' Lily nodded, and Alice sighed before she continued.

'Maybe you should think about why it hurts so much that James kept a secret from you. That's why you're so angry; because you're hurt. And…maybe it's not for me to say, but you seem much more hurt that he kept a secret from you than "just a friend" ought to be.'

Lily didn't answer; she didn't have an answer to give. She was saved further interrogation by a gentle rap on the dormitory door. Marlene slid off the bed and answered it, swinging it open and allowing a girl from one of the younger years to enter.

'I was wondering if you'd seen the Head Boy anywhere?' She asked nervously, and Lily cursed inwardly that she couldn't seem to get a moment of peace from the subject of James Potter at the moment.

'No, I haven't. Is it something I can help with?' She moved to the edge of the bed, feet dangling over the side as she smiled encouragingly.

'Oh no.' The girl looked flustered. 'It's just… he was going to help me and some of my friends with Transfiguration, and he hasn't come.'

'James was going to tutor you?' Asked Marlene incredulously. 'Since when did James tutor?'

The girl twisted her hands together, looking for all the world as if she wished she hadn't come anywhere near this dorm. 'Well, we had detention the other day, and he was supervising and asked what we'd done. We said we just didn't understand the class so we were messing around, and he said that if we promised not to give Professor McGonagall any more trouble, he'd help us.'

None of the girls quite knew what to say to that, to the idea of James as both disciplinarian and teacher, but it was Lily who found her voice first. 'And he said he'd meet you and he hasn't come?'

She nodded quickly. 'He said he was supervising a detention down in the greenhouses at six, then he'd come back up and see us in the common room, but he hasn't come back.'

Lily glanced over at the other girls. 'That detention should have ended by seven. He should have been long back.'

She looked imploringly at Marlene, who shook her head. 'Nope. Sorry sweetie, but I think this one's all yours. It won't kill you to go up to his dorm and see if he's there. You don't even have to talk to him.'

Lily looked at Alice, then Emma, but both of them stared pointedly at the ceiling, refusing to make eye contact. Her eyes rested speculatively on the young girl standing nervously in front of her, but at the sound of Marlene clearing her throat behind her, she heaved a frustrated sigh and stamped towards the door, cursing her friends under her breath.

She crossed the common room and stomped up the boy's staircase, trying very hard to ignore the painful clenching of her heart at the thought of going into his room, until she arrived at the seventh year boys dorm, where she pounded on the door and waited.

'S'open!' Sirius' voice came from inside; Lily hesitated just one second before deciding that going in would be less mortifying than shouting through the door.

She pushed the door open and found Sirius and Peter alone. 'No James?' She asked, and Sirius shrugged and looked over at Peter, who gestured helplessly. 'Haven't seen him.'

Sirius looked back at Lily speculatively. He wasn't stupid, and he'd seen the toll the rift in their…relationship…had taken on both James and Lily. If Lily was looking for James, then it was just as well she find him really wasn't it? Merlin knew he was sick of the misery. And as for secrets…well, sometimes they were worth spilling to the right person.

'Come here, Lils, and I'll let you in on a little Marauder secret that will locate James for you.'

'Padfoot.' Peter's voice came warningly from the far side of the room.

'Oh, put a sock in it Pete. Frankly I'm surprised we have any bloody secrets from Lily. James is better at keeping his gob shut than I give him credit for. Come here Lily.'

He held out a hand to her, and she moved slowly towards his bed and took it; he yanked on their joined hands until she was sat next to him, then he lifted a folded piece of parchment from his bedside table.

'So you want to find James?' He grinned wickedly at her, and she folded her arms defensively.

'James hasn't turned up to tutor some younger students when he said he would, so they came to find me in case he was doing Head Boy stuff, which he isn't. They are looking for him; I couldn't care less.'

'Right.' Sirius drawled. 'I think the last week has made us all aware of how much you and James "don't care".'

He tapped his wand on the parchment and mumbled some words she didn't quite catch under his breath. She frowned at him, wondering what on Earth he was playing at when she spotted lines appearing all over the parchment; within moments it was a map of Hogwarts. A map, she noted as she leaned closer, that also showed the people inside the castle.

'Where the hell did you get this?' She breathed, and Sirius beamed at her, pride evident in his face.

'Made it.' He indicated the Marauders nicknames emblazoned in the centre of the map. 'Bloody tricky work too. Took forever. But if you want to know where James is, this is the quickest, easiest way.'

The two of them sat there, poring over the map for a few moments, until Sirius finally spotted James' dot out on the grounds, by the Owlery.

'What's he doing there?' Lily stared at the unmoving dot.

Sirius shrugged. 'Must have circled round by the Quidditch pitch on his way back from the greenhouses I guess. Odd he's not moving though.'

They looked at the map for another moment or two, then Sirius abruptly wiped it clean with a tap of his wand and stood up. 'I'm going to go check on him.'

'I'll come with you.' Lily slid off the bed and Sirius flashed her a grin over his shoulder as he pulled the invisibility cloak out from James' trunk.

'Thought you weren't bothered about James.'

'If you get caught wandering around at this time of night, you're in serious trouble. At least if I go with you it gives it a veneer of respectability and there's a slim possibility you might not get detention for the rest of your life.'

'Sweetheart.' Sirius tucked the cloak under one arm, picked up the map and winked at her. 'I don't get caught.'

It took them the best part of twenty minutes to navigate the corridors and get out onto the grounds - to be fair, a good five minutes had been wasted avoiding Filch, who was lurking by the main staircases – but they finally made it, and Sirius held the cloak over them both while Lily guided them towards James' dot on the map.

'There.' She whispered. 'According to your map, James should be right by those gooseberry bushes there.'

'Well, I can't bloody see him.'

'Well unless the map is wrong, he's there somewhere.' Lily hissed at him, and Sirius huffed as he peered around in the darkness.

'Oh, bollocks to this!' He threw the cloak off and began to move around more freely as he tried to spot James. 'Prongs!'

Lily glanced around worriedly, but then Sirius called her name and she turned on her heel to see him kneeling on the floor, manhandling a shape, and when she registered the outline of a person in his arms, her heart leapt into her throat. 'Oh God.'

She arrived at his side in time to see him lift an unconscious James' head up to examine it, revealing a large cut by his ear and ugly purple swelling around it. He had several other marks littering his face and arms, his wrist looked like it was bending the wrong way and his glasses were broken on the floor beside him.

'Hospital wing.' Said Lily firmly, unwilling to brook any disagreement; James' injuries were too severe to be fixed up by them in the dorm. She glanced up at Sirius' grim expression.

'For once, we may actually have been thinking the same thing.' He answered, pulling his wand out.

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7th September 1977, 5.15am

James' hand was cold.

She hated that. James' hands were never cold. They were warm, just like the rest of him.

She didn't really know what she was doing here, sat at his hospital bedside, holding his hand, hidden under the invisibility cloak that Sirius had thrown at her with a knowing wink hours before. He didn't know she was there. This wasn't in any way a decent method of atoning for the snit she'd been in with him for the last week.

She still felt justified in being angry with him about the whole thing; she still felt betrayed, she still felt hurt that he hadn't told her, but Alice, as usual, had been exactly right. She was more angry with him than she would have been with any other friend, because he'd shut her out, and being shut out by him was so much worse than being shut out by anyone else.

The lingering damage Snape had wrought on her state of mind had most definitely had its part in this; it had all felt a bit too familiar, becoming dependent on somebody, letting your guard down with them only to have them pull the rug out from under you when you no longer suited their purposes. That had been what really hurt; feeling that she wasn't important to him anymore, that he didn't care enough to tell her something that she at least considered important.

That anger, that despair, had festered for days, fuelling her resolve to not let him weaken her further; then she'd seen him lying on the ground last night, and she'd realised that the last words she'd said to him might have been angry ones, and really, what good did it do either one of them to be fighting like this? They were teenagers, stupid, irrational, know-it-all teenagers, and they should have been able to act like them, but they couldn't risk that, not anymore.

They should have thought that they had all the time in the world, they should have been convinced of their own invincibility like all normal teenagers, but they couldn't afford that, because for them, the clock was ticking and she knew that now in a way that she hadn't allowed herself to realise before.

Some of them wouldn't survive this war, and there was no point in pretending that everything was going to be okay; it wasn't. But she wasn't going to let James go another day thinking she didn't care about him, because it wasn't true, it was so far from true, and he deserved to know that. Anger wasn't a good reason to let something so good, something that was important to you, slip through your fingers. She'd never been able to make Sev realise that, never been able to make him see how toxic it was to carry that anger, let it stew and turn to hate, and then turn it back out on the world. She wouldn't do that, become that.

She lifted the cloak off her front half, leaving it carefully draped so it still covered her from behind; if anyone walked in, she would still be covered. She ran her fingers gently over the healing gash next to his ear, traced the outline of the bruising that was already fading from his face.

A nasty curse, Madame Pomfrey had said; she'd seemed somewhat shocked that a student would know it, but there was no other explanation unless you wanted to consider that a member of staff might have done it, and that was unthinkable. They'd have to wait for James to wake up for a proper explanation.

'So wake up.' Lily leaned forward and took in his peaceful features, though she much preferred looking at him when his eyes were open, so she could see the depths of the hazel and look for the green tints in them. She brushed her lips gently over his, smelling the underlying scent of James that was almost hidden under the medicinal smell of the hospital wing.

'Just wake up.' He head drooped lower and lower until it was resting on the mattress next to his shoulder, the cloak still spread across her back.

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15th September 1977, 8.20am

'Today's the day.' Sirius slid into a free seat at the Gryffindor table, whistling cheerily.

'The day for what?' Asked Peter absently, reading Quidditch Monthly whilst making himself a perfect bacon sandwich without so much as glancing down.

'Prongs is coming out today; Pomfrey said last night. She reckons he ought to stay in a little longer, but she's sick of his bad temper.'

'Prongs bad-tempered? After being cooped up in the hospital wing for a week? You astound me.' Remus said dryly as he topped up his juice before passing the jug to Lily.

'Yeah, well, she's given him a massive list of things he's not allowed to do, so I think she expects us to keep a leash on him.' Sirius laughed between mouthfuls. 'As if we could.'

'Give it to Lily.' Peter waved a hand vaguely. 'He's so grateful that she's speaking to him again that he'll probably tie himself down on the bed if she asked him to.'

'I would have done that anyway, anytime she wanted me to.' James' deep voice came from behind Lily and she twisted in her seat to be able to look up at him. 'Anytime.' He winked at her, and she blushed. She hated that he could make her blush.

She wasn't entirely sure how things stood between them. By tacit agreement, they'd simply wiped the last couple of weeks out and had gone back to their usual comfortable flirting, but she felt a distance between them, and it made her stomach ache. She still didn't understand why he hadn't told her about being Head Boy, still felt a sting of rejection whenever she thought about it, but she couldn't seem to make herself bring it up, because she wasn't sure she had it in her to go through a fight like that again. It seemed better all round to pretend it hadn't happened and settle back into their friendship.

She realised then that someone had directed a question at her, and she'd been too far off in her absent-minded musings to realise. 'Sorry, what was that?'

Sirius shook his head. 'Never mind.'

'We were appealing to you to be the voice of reason.' Said Remus. 'Would you please tell James that he needs to stick with Pomfrey's rules, at least for a few days, especially the one about no Quidditch practice?'

Lily turned in her seat. 'You are not thinking about practising? How thick is your head? You've been out of the hospital wing for about twenty minutes, are you that keen on going back there?'

'I don't want the team to suffer because their captain's not there.' James sulked. 'I've missed two practices already.'

'Then go and watch, and yell at them from the stands.' Lily answered firmly. 'But you so much as look at a broomstick and you will be back in the hospital wing because I will hex you there myself.'

'Okay Lily.' Peter raised his eyebrows in amusement. 'Something got your wand in a knot?'

'How about the fact that I've been saddled with Head duties all by myself for a week, and if moron here goes and ends up in the hospital wing again, I'll still be on my own with Head duties?'

'It's not like I can give you much help there anyway.' James muttered under his breath. 'I haven't got any idea what I'm doing.'

Lily had been absolutely baffled by this sudden lack of self-confidence James seemed to be suffering with; if you'd told her a year ago that James Potter would be insecure about his ability to accomplish something, she'd probably have fallen over laughing.

But he seemed sincerely concerned that he was out of his depth, something Lily knew not to be true. Organising the prefects, supervising detentions, handing out punishments and maintaining discipline; it wasn't that dissimilar from his duties as Quidditch captain, something which no-one could deny he was good at. And he already commanded a certain amount of respect and admiration from the younger years, not to mention his years of rule-breaking gave him a certain insight into the minds of trouble makers. Lily was absolutely positive that James was going to be better at this than she was, it was purely a matter of convincing him of that.

She tuned back into the boys' conversation just in time to hear James begin to lose his temper.

'I keep telling you, I don't know what happened, I can't remember anything! I was walking back from the greenhouses, I circled back through the Quidditch pitch so I could check on the lockers, and then as I was heading back in I felt something hit me. When I woke up, I was in the hospital wing. I didn't see anybody.'

'Doesn't mean we don't know who did it.' Said Sirius with a dark glare towards the Slytherin table. 'I'd say the suspect list is pretty short actually.'

'Doesn't matter if we think we know.' James responded firmly. 'We are not accusing anybody, and we are certainly not going to start randomly hexing people. It's over and done with.'

The other three Marauders were all watching James intently, and Lily kept her eyes down on her plate, feeling like an intruder in their boy's club. He leaned further in and spoke in a low voice.

'Look, if there's one thing I've learnt over the last few years, it's that you pick your battles. There's no point to this one. Save it for when it's important all right?'

His eyes darted to Lily for a moment, but she kept pretending she wasn't listening. He dropped his cutlery and sighed.

'I need to get my books for class. I came straight here from the hospital wing.'

She debated whether to go after him, but decided against. She didn't really know what was on his mind these days, so she wouldn't be any help anyway; she hated that, hated this reserve between them, when only weeks ago there'd been so much warmth and easy affection.

Something had broken between them, and she hated it.

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21st September 1977, 9.45pm

The castle was always draughty and cold at night. Lily had never understood how all four founders, impressive giants of magic that they had been, and a succession of Headmasters, many considered among the greatest witches and wizards of their age, had nonetheless been seemingly oblivious to the benefits of warming charms and properly sealed windows.

She said as much to James, who'd laughed and pointed out that intelligence and common sense rarely went hand in hand. They'd been patrolling for three-quarters of an hour now, and the conversation was flowing easily, much to Lily's relief. They'd slowly slipped back into their easy affection over the last few days, with a certain amount of effort from them both, and Lily found that she could no longer bear a grudge about his decision not to tell her he was Head Boy; when she weighed how angry she'd been with him about it against how terrified she'd been when she'd seen him lying on the ground, the scales had been very firmly tipped in one direction. Her resolve not to let the little things make her so angry that she allowed them to ruin something that was important to her was holding firm.

So they'd sat together at meals, and she'd gone to Quidditch practices with him to sit in the stands and keep him company while he shouted instructions, and his team pretended they couldn't hear him, to his utter disgust.

They'd sat in the stuffy Head's Offices, and she'd explained the points deductions, and the patrol rotas and the disciplinary journals they recorded detentions in, and he'd grasped it all immediately, as she'd always known he would, but for some reason he'd doubted.

They'd studied together in the library, and played stupid games with their friends in the common room and they'd walked round the grounds together, and everything was back to normal.

Except that it wasn't.

It wasn't, because there was an odd nervousness in the pit of her stomach that hadn't been there before, and there was a strange ache in her chest when she caught his eye and he smiled at her. And she couldn't pretend that she didn't know what it was, because she did and it was her own stupid fault, but her life was difficult enough lately without a horde of butterflies deciding to take up residence in her belly, fluttering about whenever he did something they decided they liked.

So things couldn't go back to how they were before all this insanity, because the dynamic between them had changed, and now she didn't know what he wanted, and for the first time since they'd begun whatever this was, with that kiss on New Year's Eve, she was sure of herself and unsure of him.

To say she didn't like it was an understatement.

If he'd changed his mind about her, somewhere between that last kiss on his bed, when she hadn't doubted for a second that he still wanted her, and now, after that enormous fight and whatever horrible thing had happened to him, she couldn't blame him. It hurt, like a blow to the stomach, but he was as free to change his mind about things as she was to change hers.

It would just be an incredibly unfair cosmic joke if he'd changed his mind and gone in one direction right as she made up her mind to go the other; perhaps they were destined to always be pulling in different directions.

When James cleared his throat, she looked up at him quickly and then suddenly realised that the staircase they'd been climbing had started moving without her noticing, and they were now in completely the wrong corridor for patrolling.

'Oh bugger it.' She cursed, and deciding that she was giving up on being responsible for the evening, she flounced across to the nearest window and flopped down on the stone windowsill. After the briefest of hesitations – which she only noticed because she'd been looking for it – James joined her and their knees brushed ever so slightly as he perched next to her.

They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, though it wasn't as comfortable for Lily to sit silently with him as it once had been; her nerves jangled too much, her ears heard buzzing noises when there weren't any and her mind refused to calm, no matter how many times she repeated Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration in her head.

James broke the silence.

'I can't believe I'm doing this, but for possibly the first time in my life, I'm going to take Pete's advice, though it's a little late for me to do it.'

He turned his body a little so he was angled more sharply towards her, and the brush of their knees became an insistent press.

'I should have told you I was Head Boy. Please don't think I didn't feel guilty every day that I didn't tell you, because I did. Especially when I knew you were nervous about who you might be working with; I can understand if you can't ever quite forgive me for the fact that I could've said something and didn't. But when I saw that badge…bloody hell, I was panicked. I didn't think I could do this - I still don't think I can do this - and I sort of wanted to pretend it wasn't real.'

He paused and looked up at her, and she nodded very slightly to let him know she was listening to him. 'And when you wrote to me to say you were Head Girl…well, all I could think was, of course you were. You're perfect for it. And how horrible for you to have your year as Head Girl ruined by being paired with me.'

'James…'

He held up a hand to forestall anything more from her, and she obediently closed her mouth to let him finish. 'So I didn't say anything. Because you absolutely deserved this, and I didn't. And I thought you might be upset that you got to be Head Girl after putting in years of hard work, and being a responsible prefect, and I got it after years of…what, exactly?'

'Being one of the top students in the year?' Lily couldn't really keep her mouth shut anymore. 'Of being on the Quidditch team, of captaining the Quidditch team? The Head Boy position is given to a leader of the students, someone who other people look up to, and that's you; that person doesn't have to have been a prefect, or been a perfect student. They just need to be a good person, a good example.'

James didn't answer, just sat with his elbows resting on his knees as he stared blankly at the wall ahead of him. Lily gave him a moment to absorb what she'd just said – and she'd meant every damn word of it too – then she nudged his elbow gently with hers.

'Besides, since he was making me Head Girl, Dumbledore must have been well aware that you couldn't get into too much trouble when you've got me around.'

He actually laughed then, and she felt that little jolt of attraction spark up her spine when his face creased up into a smile and those hazel eyes flicked to her face.

'I am sorry I didn't tell you. I was worried about how you'd react, and I didn't want you to be upset. And I thought maybe it would sound better in person. With hindsight, that might have been true if I'd actually come to see you and tell you in person before school started, instead of blindsiding you with it.'

'Maybe.' She agreed. 'I wasn't upset that you're Head Boy. You may not think you're up to the job, but I do. I just thought you were pushing me away; it was like you told everyone else but I wasn't worth the effort. I thought…I thought maybe you'd changed your mind.'

She trailed off, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment begin to creep up the back of her neck as she waited for a response. He stared at her blankly, and she sighed as she realised that he hadn't fully understood her. Cursing the blush, and forcing herself to look at him instead of letting her eyes glue themselves to the floor like they wanted to, she elaborated.

'I thought you'd changed your mind…you know, about me. About…liking me.'

She found she couldn't keep eye contact with him as she said the last few words, so she stared ahead instead, preparing her heart for the blow when he confirmed her suspicions that he had, after all, decided that she wasn't worth it.

What she got, was his hands on her face and his lips practically attacking hers.

The tips of his fingers twisted in her hair as the palms of his hands rested gently on her cheeks, cool and slightly rough against her heated skin, and his lips soothed hers even as his teeth nipped at them. She lifted her hands to grip his wrists and keep him there, keep his hands on her face, as he pressed her back against the cold glass of the window.

He demanded, and she gave, willing and pliant under his hands, because really, it had been much too long since they'd done this hadn't it? And she'd convinced herself that she wasn't ever going to have this again, so she was going to make the most of him while he was here.

The heat of his body pushed against her from the front, and the cool of the glass pane at her back sank into her skin until she was a confused mess of conflicting sensations, blind and thoughtless, drowning in the feel and the smell of James.

She made a whimpering sound when he broke away from her, and she refused to be embarrassed by it; there didn't seem to be much point in worrying about dignity, not when she'd just been so easily and thoroughly led into temptation by him in a window nook of the fifth floor corridor.

'When's the first Hogsmeade weekend?' James breathed the words into her skin as his mouth ghosted its way across her jawbone to find the patch of exposed skin below her ear, and when he felt her shiver, he bit down on the sensitive flesh.

She muttered something incoherent, and his mouth curved up against her skin. 'What was that again?'

'We haven't set a date for any of them yet.' Lily gasped out, hands sliding up under the hem of James' shirt so she could feel the warmth of his skin under her hands as he nibbled his way up and down her neck. 'We do that…me and you.'

'Well, that's great.' James muttered as he found his way to her collarbone, and then up the line of her throat. 'Makes things very easy. We'll set the date, and then…'

He lifted his face away from her skin and smiled at her as her ran the pad of his thumb along her kiss-swollen bottom lip. 'How about you go out with me Evans?'

(J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L) (J&L)

A/N: I know, I know, we're a little heavy on the angst this chapter, but whoever said Jily was all sunshine and roses? And the final(!) three chapters are more than likely going to be full of incredible, vomit-inducing fluff (with copious amounts of implied smuttiness too, most probably) so consider this balance.

As always, I love and appreciate your reviews.