Sixth year was awful, Lily Evans had decided.
Only three weeks into the new term and she already had one hundred inches worth of essays due in the next week, and to top it off, Professor McGonagall had decided to set a practice theory exam on their summer reading and the coursework they had covered since the beginning of term.
And this was why Lily Evans was wandering the halls muttering to herself, intermittently flipping over a piece of parchment in her hands only to swear every time she did so.
She sighed, looking up from the parchment, rubbing her brow and frowning, wondering where she was.
Torches were bracketed on the stone walls which cast a golden glow over the flagstone floor. Had she gone past the corridor for the Great Hall?
"Bugger," she swore under her breath even though no one was around. What she wouldn't give to have Remus as her patrol partner tonight, he and the rest of his friends knew the castle like the back of their hands.
Unfortunately, Lily's patrolling partner for the night in question was a fellow sixth-year Ravenclaw who had announced that he was sick at the last minute. Yeah right, Lily had thought, conveniently ill the day before a first-thing-in-the-morning Transfiguration exam. She then cursed herself for not being smart enough to have at least swapped with someone else. Instead of being snuggled up in her four-poster bed fast asleep in Gryffindor Tower, she was lost with nothing but a piece of parchment with practice questions on Human Transfiguration.
C'mon Lily, you can figure this out, she told herself. It's warm, the paintings are cheery and food related, and you've gone past the Great Hall…
"I must be near the Hufflepuff Common Room!" she said aloud, doing a little twirl.
A deep chuckle came from behind her, "Well done, Evans" said James Potter smirking.
'Wh-where did you come from?" Lily stammered, eyes wide and clutching at her chest.
"Well wouldn't you like to know," James replied, his eyes twinkling, taking a bite out of a piece of treacle tart he held in his hand.
Lily's eyes narrowed, "Well yes, seeing as it's past curfew and you have no possible business here. I am a prefect you know."
"Au contraire, Evans. Everyone has business here, it's just that everyone doesn't know where here is exactly."
"Potter, stop being mysterious, and tell me why on earth you are – hang on," she stopped mid-sentence taking a deep inhale, "-is that freshly-baked treacle tart?"
"Nose like a bloodhound you have. Yes, it is indeed. Want a bite, I know it's your favourite?" he asked offering it to her.
"Well..." Lily started thinking of that sweet, melt-in-your-mouth taste of treacle before she snapped back into herself, "Hang on, you still haven't answered me, why on earth are you here?"
"For this of course," he replied motioning to the treacle tart.
"But how?" Lily asked, "Surely you just nicked that from dinner and cast a reheating spell on it!"
"Evans, Evans, Evans, going on six years in this castle and you don't know where its heart is?" James said, tutting before taking a bite out of the treacle tart, he chewed and swallowed it before adding, "Besides, you can't recreate that freshly-baked smell."
Lily frowned thinking about what he had said, "You mean the kitchens are around here?"
"Noo ood et it ientually," he chuckled with his mouth full, crumbs spilling out onto his robes.
"I see you didn't learn not to talk with your mouth full over the summer," Lily chided, moving forward to brush the crumbs off.
"Sorry," James blushed, "guess I should be getting back to the tower then, huh?" He turned on his foot and was about to walk away before being pulled back by Lily.
"Not before you tell me how to get into the kitchen, you're not!" Lily said, her small ivory hand squeezing his forearm.
"Oh Evans, I'm afraid I have to withhold that information from you. You understand, don't you?"
Lily pouted looking at him with her doe eyes, "Please James, pretty pretty please? You can tell little old me."
"Wrong again Evans," he said pulling away and starting to walk down the corridor, and without even turning around he added, "this way you'll have to keep talking to me this year."