"James, we need to talk."

The Lily-infested part of his brain, having suddenly detected an alarming amount of Lily-voice and Lily-smell and Lily-body-heat, jumped a figurative three feet into the air and kicked into overdrive at the sensory overload, promptly instructing his motor skills to cease activity and the speech part of his brain to shut down. It was exasperating, because the conscious part of his mind could only watch with figurative head in figurative hands as his inkwell went flying and he began to fall out of his chair, clinging to the desk to save himself at the last minute and clutching the part of his chest that shielded his palpitating heart.

Her reaction decidedly lacked the same enthusiasm, which only wounded his ego further. She raised an eyebrow.

"Fuck Lily, kill me why don't you," James gasped, rubbing his chest.

Her brows dipped downward. "We need to talk."

The universe was turning against him. He knew it. James rubbed the end of his nose.

"Okay," he agreed.

Lily grabbed his wrist without preamble and dragged him across the common room, weaving her way through hordes of students and expertly avoiding errant projectiles hovering in the air. James considered protesting at being manhandled but relented when he realized that being manhandled by his girlfriend wasn't all that bad a prospect.

It was quite some time before he realized where he was being lead, and he felt a sinking feeling when he recognized the empty classroom. Lily shut the door loudly behind them and turned around to face James.

"Erm," James cleared his throat, looking slowly around him, "Can I convince you to pick a different room? The last conversation I had in here was rather overwhelming."

Lily crossed her arms and looked carefully at James. "We need to talk."

"So you said," James muttered. He continued looking around and ended up staring at the ceiling in awe. "Lord, I think those are Peter's Winnie the Pooh socks from fifth year that he used to use to wank with . . . how the hell . . . ?"

"James," Lily said impatiently. "Sirius told me what's wrong."

That caught James's attention. "What?"

"Sirius told me what's wrong," Lily repeated, "And I'm going to help him."

"Sirius told you?" James demanded, "It took me two weeks and an intervention where I risked my life to figure it out and he told you?"

The entire situation reeked with unfairness. Sirius and Lily, everybody knew, tolerated each other for James's sake, and his sake alone. (Which was rather flattering, if he said so himself. James could practically see Remus's disapproving look at that thought, disturbingly potent as Remus's moral compass was.) It had taken multiple rounds of negotiations, with James sitting silently feeling like a child of divorce and Remus mediating the entire affair, to get Sirius and Lily to a compromise on how much of James's time and attention each was entitled to. Sirius got him for most of his summers, with four weekends promised to Lily, and Lily got him for Christmas and Easter. when each could have James.

James had often found it was exasperating, wishing that the two people he loved most could sit across from each other for five minutes without hexing the other. But their relationship had clearly progressed in a positive direction if Sirius was confiding in Lily now, and James found himself in entirely the opposite state of mind, annoyed that they'd waded into deeper platonic waters and left him stranded on the shores. Was it too much to ask for a semblance of normalcy? There was only so much change James could shoulder at once.

Would it really be so bad if everything remains just as it is? Is familiarity so undesirable?

Poor Sirius.

Lily scowled, "Well he didn't so much as tell me as I . . . found out."

James's eyebrows shot up at the blush that was creeping across Lily's face.

"That's not the point," she scowled again, "The point is, I want to help Sirius."

James's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. Lily wanted to help Sirius Black. Lily Evans. Wanted to help. Merlin . . .

Lily squirmed under James's blank stare and she looked miserably down at her feet. "It's awful, isn't it? I don't know what's wrong with me."

James adjusted his glasses. He really needed to stop all his fidgeting and start using his vocal cords to communicate.

"It's just," Lily began morosely with a sigh, "It's just, he looks so sad. So . . . forlorn. And the way he looks at Remus is utterly heartbreaking. He follows him everywhere, and listens to everything he says, and puts his books away for him when he falls asleep while reading, and picks leaves out of his hair when we're outside walking, and just today morning, Remus dropped his fork at breakfast and Sirius fetched it from under the table for him and when their fingers connected over it and their eyes met it was like the table would explode and have you seen the way Sirius checks out Remus's arse? Or how he covers his lap with a pillow when Remus sits too close? Oh, it was so sweet and disturbing that I realized I must do something about it, you know?"

James realized he was slowly turning green as images accompanying Lily's narration began flashing like scenes of a movie behind his eyelids. He really did not need that. He shook his head and thought over what she said, skipping the physical responses Sirius displayed around Remus's proximity, and acknowledged reluctantly the truth behind her words.

He also noted, slightly indignant and resentful, that if he'd known of Lily's extremely specific preferences in romantic gestures, he would've gladly fetched Lily's fork from under the table if not for the threat of being impaled on it.

Lily groaned and buried her head in her hands. "It's ghastly, but . . . I just . . ."

"What is it, love?" James asked kindly, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"I do care for him!" Lily suddenly burst into a loud wail. "I care for Sirius. It's so humiliating, and I didn't want you to find out, but I had to tell somebody besides Remus, and he was really nice about it, mind you, he swore he wouldn't tell anybody."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" James croaked, trying to process this new development. He wrapped a sniffling Lily into a hug, mostly to comfort himself.

"I'm afraid I'm getting soft," Lily admitted in a tiny voice, "And I thought maybe it would make you like me less."

James suddenly felt like he was back on familiar turf. He prided himself on his ability to express his undying love for Lily Evans, a talent he had honed and perfected over several long years of trial and error. He grabbed Lily's face and kissed her enthusiastically.

"I love you all the same, Lily-flower," James told his girlfriend cheerfully, his ego purring, "Nothing you do can deter me. At all. Ever."

Lily gave him a small smile. "You're a darling, James."

"Anything for you," James told her, and he meant it to. Anything at all.

"Anything?" Lily's eyes were bright from the initial sparks of the cogwheels turning in her mind.

Sirens were suddenly blaring in James's head. He eyed his girlfriend warily.

"Lily, if this is about the matter between Sirius and Remus, I don't think that's any of our business—"

"I know," Lily cut him off, breathy with excitement, "I know it's not my business James, but I know I can help. I have an idea."

Ideas were bad. Ideas involved schemes and meddling. And Lily scheming was not a good thing. It was an alarming, frightening, altogether dangerous thing, a thing James had vowed to deter at all costs. This was none of their business, as Lily had astutely pointed out, and Sirius ought to be afforded privacy. James would not allow it.

"Lily, love," James started, but Lily clutched at the lapels of his shirt, placed her chin on his chest, and simpered, and James lost all train of thought, stuttering to a half mid-sentence and gulping.

"Please?" Lily purred, batting her eyelashes. James recognized she was barely hiding her ulterior motives, and yet he could not find an ounce of resolve within him to resist her.

James just let out a pathetic noise that sounded like a cross between a whimper and a honk as his last steadfast pillar of resoluteness crumbled.

"Wonderful," Lily said cheerfully, all traces of woe and uncertainty gone. "I love you James, you're such a sweetheart. Well, it's stuffy here, I feel like I could do with shedding a few layers. Let's take this to my room, shall we?"

James opened his mouth to protest. Lily stood eagerly in front of him, smiling at him prettily and looking altogether very inviting, and he weighed this against his moral duty to his best mate and the voice of his conscience telling him to do the right thing.

"Sod it," He said, grabbing Lily and marching resolutely out of the room for a late-afternoon snog.