"A research paper, you say?" questioned Professor McGonagall, looking over her spectacles at the two students standing before her.

"Oh yes, Professor. It's my extra credit assignment for Charms, and I thought I could work with James, so that he could look at it from a Transfiguration perspective - it's Theory of Magic, you see," explained Lily, laying a sheaf of parchment down on the desk.

" - and we were wondering if you would be ever so kind as to give us extra credit in Transfiguration too." finished James, running his hand through his hair and flashing the Professor a roguish grin.

"Well," she said, looking through Lily's detailed notes, "I'm intrigued. But, I have to say - I know that you two seem to be cooperating with each other quite well as Head students despite your… contentious history, but can you assure me that working so closely together would not put a strain on your professional relationship? I do not want a repeat of your spectacular yelling matches of years past."

Lily had been growing progressively redder and James' eyebrows had been rising progressively higher on his forehead as she spoke. Sputtering, Lily exclaimed, "I mean - we can definitely work together now - yelling matches - hardly - I mean - "

"What Lily means to say is yes, we can work together, and no, there will be no fights." chuckled James.

"Well, yes." finished Lily, rather lamely.

"Do you two need any extra material? Resources? I can schedule a Hogsmeade trip for just the two of you this Saturday."

"That would be lovely, Professor, thank you," said James, gathering their material.

They walked out of the classroom, taking great care not to brush shoulders or hands with each other. Lily never much liked physical contact with people outside her family - unlike many of her friends, she wasn't comfortable with having anyone's arm casually slung around her shoulders, or hugs from behind, irrespective of gender. Her aversion to engaging in physical contact meant that when she did do so, it meant something. When Marlene pounced on her in celebration after their OWL results arrived, it meant something. When Mary was broken up over Frank choosing Alice over her and she lay down in Lily's lap, crying quietly, it meant something. And so when Lily suddenly rounded on James outside the classroom, grabbed his hands, and started jumping up and down, it meant a great deal. James, however, awkwardly stepped out of the embrace.

"We'll meet in the entrance hall at 8:00 on Saturday morning?" he asked, once she had stopped jumping up and down, her face a brilliant shade of red.

"Yeah, yeah - I mean - see you!" and, with a small wave, she headed down the corridor.

'What was up with that?' muttered Lily, running her hand through her hair. Frowning, she shook her hand as if to undo the previous gesture. "When did I pick up that habit?"

"Marlene! Practice on Sunday, not Saturday morning!" yelled James as he walked through the common room, ducking the consequential pillow thrown at his head. "Throw this well when you play and we won't have to have practice this often!"

"Oh, you're just a bitch, aren't you?" she called after him as he settled into an armchair by the fire by Sirius and Peter.

"What's up with the change, Prongs?" asked Sirius.

"I have an extra credit project with Lily."

"Oh, what about?" piped up Remus, looking up from his Gobstones game with Peter.

"Theory of Magic - we're combing Charms and Transfiguration. Here, look at the brief," he said, handing him the sheaf of parchment from his bag.

"This is absolutely brilliant," muttered Remus, skimming through it.

"It is, but it's going to mean working together a lot - can you and Lily handle that?" asked Sirius, taking the papers.

"Yeah, I mean, I know we've had our fair share of fights, but we've been a lot calmer this year, you know?"

"Calmer doesn't mean you've sorted out your differences. You were in a bad mood all week last year when she got herself onto the brewing committee, remember? You guys never sorted it out - you've never really sorted any of your fights. You just… ignored them, Swept them under the rug. And sooner or later all this unresolved shit is going to blow up in your faces." insisted Remus.

It was true. James still felt a stab of annoyance even as he thought of the brewing committee incident of last year. When he'd heard internship on the brewing committee during a Slug Club meeting, he'd asked her, in one of their rare moments of peace, if she planned on applying.

"No, I don't think so," she'd said, "I don't think it would do anything for me. What about you?" He'd told her that he was applying and that it would be an amazing addition to his Auror application - and besides, his parents - Potions legends that they were - would appreciate his taking more initiative in the subject. The next thing he knew, a week later, Lily had sweet-talked Slughorn into getting the only available position. The resulting fallout had been epic - barbed insults and hexes alike been hurled in each other's direction for the better part of a month.

"I mean… we've managed so far this year. I don't see why it should be any different now." James half-heartedly reasoned, what he had gotten himself into slowly sinking in. Because it was true that they were insanely competitive and prone to fights, it was true that them working in close confines could bring out the worst in each other, but the worst part of it all was that James needed this rivalry between them. The peace of their seventh year was starting to get to him - his relationship with Lily was explosive, electric - it wasn't polite exchanges and cordial replies. It was rare that their fights were as serious as the Brewing Committee Debacle - as he had taken to calling it in his head - and until that setback, their rivalry, though fierce, was fair, respectful and, dare he say, almost friendly. But then she had gone and proven she respected him so much less than he respected her, and everything that could have happened, all the words left unsaid, were thrown out of the window, and all that was left of their relationship was the burned, ruined bits at the bottom of the tin.

"And the beauty of this is, we'll have to spend a lot of time together - and true, we have had our fair share of fights in the past, but this year, things seem to be different, you know? We're a lot more civilised, we haven't blown up at each other yet… he's gotten hotter!"

"Merlin, who are you and what have you done with Lily Evans?" snorted Marlene, stretched out on her four-poster, absently flipping through her potions textbook. Their dorm was mercifully empty save for the two of them, and Lily was kneeling at her trunk, searching through her clothes.

"I mean, sure - things between us were… shit, for the longest time, especially for a while back last year, but now… we're almost friends, and we work well together, you know?"

"Yeah, but be careful - you don't know if he's on the same page. He asked you out way back in the fifth!"

"So? It's not like either of us are dating anyone right now. Let's… let me just see what happens."

"If you say so, best of luck, then? If you put him in a bad mood and ruin practice I will stab you. Repeatedly."

Lily threw her skirt at Marlene's head.

"Please come prepared for a test next week on the three potions we covered, and don't forget your essays are due Monday," called Professor Slughorn as his NEWT class filed out.

James manoeuvred around desks towards the redhead, tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

"Here's a list of books and papers we can check out tomorrow," he said, handing her a roll of parchment.

"Oh, great, I have a list too, let me just find it in my bag - here, come outside, it's too crowded in here." she gestured to the students hanging back in the classroom.

As she rooted through her overstuffed bag for the scroll, a worn paperback fell to the floor. "Could you pick that up, please?" she said distractedly, "ah, here it is - you want to switch? James?"

He fell silent, turning the paperback over in his hands, and with a sinking feeling, she realised which book it was.

"Where did you get my copy of Rebecca?" he asked her curiously.

"Oh. Oh!" she exclaimed, trying to sound nonchalant. "I saw it in the common room the other day, and I wanted to read it - I haven't read it - I was going to give it back tomorrow, I was nearly done, sorry!"

"It's no big deal, I was just wondering where it had disappeared. Keep it as long as you need," he said.

"Thanks, I'll get it back tomorrow! Here's the scroll…" with a wave of her wand, she had combined and duplicated their two lists. "See you!"

"See you," he said and walked away with a small wave.

Sighing, she shoved the book back into her bag and went towards the great hall. Truth be told, she had seen the book and opened it to see whose it was. The name on the inside made her smile - Rebecca was one of her favourite books, and she loved that James had read it too. And then she'd flipped the page and seen the markings. Scribbled notes in margins, circles around words, sentences underlined - he probably knew the book better than she did. Changing weather patterns - pathetic fallacy, depicts changing moods, read one note. Foreshadowing throughout - combined with an unreliable narrator, read another. She was enthralled, to say the least, and wanted nothing more than to analyse each and every word and note jotted down in flowing black ink. She felt guilty about lying, for sure, but she didn't regret what she did - reading the book through his eyes had allowed her to understand him in a way she never expected to, but it still felt… underhanded. Sneaky.

Hoping that something good would come out of the next day, she walked towards the Gryffindor Tower to get her books for the next class.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap!" muttered James as he sprinted through corridors and down staircases. He'd overslept, and was a few minutes late to meet Lily in the Entrance Hall. He burst through the door, throwing it open dramatically and kneeled, panting.

"Hey, hey - calm down! Why are you so out of breath?"

"Didn't - pant - want to - pant - get late!"

"Relax, the carriage just got here. Here, have some water," she said, offering him a bottle.

"Thank you, let's get going," he said, taking a swig of water.

They headed to Hogsmeade in silence, her watching the landscape go by and enjoying the carriage ride. The cold had set in, and the snow had made the English countryside a winter wonderland. Lily turned away from the window and chanced a look at James. He had on a woolly purple scarf and a heavy black cloak; and his hair was wild and untamed, his cheeks flushed, and his glasses slightly misted. He leaned back in his seat, his eyes were closed, and his hands folded on his lap. He sat up abruptly as the carriage jerked to a halt, and she quickly looked away, pretending to gather her things.

"Let's start at the bookshop?" she asked, and he nodded in agreement, hoisting his bag over his shoulder. They had two shops they needed to visit, and the bookshop was the logical first choice, as it was on their end of the road. They roamed the shelves, picking up and glancing through scrolls, comparing them to ones they had on their list. The Hogwarts library, though extensive, did not have copies of newer magical research, unlike the store they were at.

The owner was a sweet, talkative old woman, who followed the two through the shop, talking incessantly about her recent trip to Romania, sniffling and coughing throughout.

Thirty minutes later, after they found what they were looking for, they paid and left the shop, and walked up the road to the other one. Here, they bought a stone capable of analysing the type and strength of any spell cast at it and headed out in less than five minutes.

They were on their way back to the carriage, already in deep discussion about some of their new reading material, when they walked by the first shop again. Only, this time, it was swarming with half a dozen Mediwizards wearing bubble-head charms, who looked to be from St Mungos. "What's going on here? What's happened?" asked James, approaching the nearest one.

"The owner's gone and gotten himself infected with a rare strain of dragon pox," she said. "It's highly infectious, so we're looking for anyone who might have been in contact with her."

"I'm sorry, I have to be in quarantine for HOW MANY WEEKS?"

"Please don't shout, Mister Potter. I can hear you just fine," said Professor McGonagall, as she surveyed the two students sitting on the infirmary bed, sporting a bubble-head charm of her own. "It's highly infectious - we need to keep you two in isolation for three weeks, in case you caught the disease."

"But, I'm sorry Professor, but if we had it, shouldn't we be, you know, vomiting blood or dragon mucus or something by now?" asked a highly distressed Lily.

"Unfortunately, Miss Evans, you might not display symptoms for up to 17 days from the day of infection, and there's no spell or charm we can perform to know for sure, this strain of the 'pox is so rare," said Madam Pomfrey, coming out of her office.

James sighed and flopped backwards onto the bed, massaging his temples with his hands. "So where will I be staying? I can't be in my dormitory, or attend classes, can I?"

"There's an empty classroom that we'll be converting into a bedroom for you on the fifth floor, and Miss Evans, there's another in the basement that you will be using. I cannot stress on you enough the importance of not coming in contact with any of your peers - we do not want a schoolwide epidemic. Are we clear? Potter?"

"So I essentially have to be alone with my thoughts for three whole weeks? How am I supposed to function? Will I have classwork to do? And our paper will get put on hold!" Lily grumbled.

"Quidditch! How is my team supposed to function without me? They need my leadership! What if -"

"I'm sure Marlene McKinnon is more than capable of handling the team until then, there's no need to worry. In any case, your first match of the season is against Ravenclaw, and, given their attack formation, even with a weaker substitute chaser the team could reverse tactics and -" seeming to realise the digression, she paused and looked at the raised eyebrows of everyone else. "Of course, as a Professor, I remain impartial where House competitions are concerned. Now, your rooms will be ready in under an hour."

"Wait, Professor, if I may - there's a few rooms in the East Wing that nobody uses - could James and I be quarantined there together? We'll still be isolated, but at least we'll have each other to talk to. And we'd be able to work on the paper, too."

"If Mister Potter is fine with this, I don't see any issues. James?"

James looked stunned, and Lily could just see the cogs in his brain turning overtime as he analysed the expectant faces in front of him. He opened his mouth and closed it immediately, biting his lip. Finally, he acquiesced, "Yes, okay, that sounds good. I know which rooms you're talking about."

Minerva nodded, her lips twitching into a left the hospital wing with a swish of her cloak, closely followed by Madam Pomfrey. Lily noted James' rather thunderous expression with some bafflement. This was going to be an eventful three weeks, she realised.

In a little over an hour, everything they had come in contact with was sanitised, the rooms in the East Wing were made habitable, their trunks were summoned, and they themselves were transported efficiently to their rooms. James' expression was no less severe than it was before; and he took in their shared living space with a set jaw. It wasn't much - two rooms, each with a narrow corridor to a shared office, which had a large desk, an armchair, a window seat, and some shelves. Despite the fact that they were in a suite, each bedroom was remarkably private, with a small bathroom attached to each. James lifted his trunk and walked down the corridor to one of the rooms, shutting its door with more force than was necessary. Even more bewildered than earlier, Lily levitated her own trunk to her room.

She was pleasantly surprised to see its furnishings. With a four-poster bed similar to the one in her common room, a dresser, a closet, and a gorgeous view from the window, she could easily spend three weeks here. As she unpacked her things, she noticed with a start that there was no desk - she would have to use the one in the shared office space, and that so would James, if his room was similar to hers. Spending so much time together would do wonders for their relationship if he ever got around to tell her what was bothering him.

Ignoring the slight pang of bitterness that was picking at her, Lily picked up her stack of books and headed to the office to keep them on the shelves. When she got there, she saw James arranging the scrolls they had bought together and some other books on the topmost shelf, standing on his toes to reach. Lily, a good foot shorter than him, grimaced.

"Maybe shift those down to a lower shelf?" she said, setting her books down with a thud. "I don't want to have to do acrobatics each time I want a reference."

"Whatever you want," he muttered as he pulled the scrolls down and threw them onto a lower shelf haphazardly.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" Lily exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. "Why are you acting like this?"

James rolled his eyes with a huff and put on a high-pitched, whiny voice. "Maybe we could be quarantined together, Professor! We would have each other to talk to!"

"So that's it? That's the big issue? You didn't want to be quarantined with me? Then why didn't you say so? Professor asked you explicitly if you were okay with it!" Lily's voice got louder with each word, and by the end of it her face was flushed and her hands were clenched into fists.

"It's not like I could just be out with it!" James had abandoned his fake voice now, and his brown eyes glinting. "I couldn't very well say no, could I?"

"You have no problem speaking your mind when it comes to a hundred other things! I distinctly recall a Potions class last year when you told the entire room that you found my essay drab and unimaginative, and that you said it had technical accuracy of a second year!"

"Well, that was only because you insisted on calling my wand movements sloppy and imprecise in front of Flitwick!"

"Well, that's because - no, that's not the point! The point here is that if you had a problem, you should have spoken up. That was not my responsibility."

James scoffed and turned away, absent-mindedly rearranging the scrolls.

"Why didn't you speak up then?" asked Lily again, her voice a smidgen calmer, laced with curiosity. James continued to ignore her, so she sighed and said, "Look, regardless, there's nothing we can do about it now. You'll just have to deal."

"Fine by me, I've managed to be civil so far this year."

Lily blinked once, twice. "Fine, then. Good."

"And I'll need to use this office, there's no desk in my room." he insisted.

"There's no desk in my room either, we'll have to share," she said, moving around the desk to the shelf and arranging her books next to his.

That night in her room, as she nibbled on a slice of shepherd's pie, Lily couldn't shake off the premonition that this was not even close to the last disagreement they would have, and neither could she shake one of the things he had said. 'I've managed to be civil so far this year'. Was she so wrong in her reading of the situation? Was their relationship not as healed as she thought it to be? It was true, none of their fights from the past were 'sorted out', but she'd managed to block them from her mind early on in the year, in light of the new - and very attractive - more mature version of James she had come to know.

James set his plate of pie on the shared desk in the office and sank into his chair, resting his elbows on the desk and cradling his head in his arms. He didn't know what possessed him when he agreed to be in quarantine with Lily - it was a veritable recipe for disaster, for Merlin's sake! But all those old feelings had come rushing back to the surface, for even though their relationship was tenuous and confusing, his attraction was very much alive and kicking, and the opportunity to spend three weeks alone with the subject of his feelings was too much to pass up. But any moment he tried to imagine them together, memories of what she had done flooded his mind, and he was left just feeling despondent. Yes, he had worked extremely hard on being civil with her this year, but there were times, moments, when that civility was not forced: when that civility was light, and friendly, and right, and then he would allow himself to hope, and then all his unresolved anger would hit him like a ton of bricks and the whole emotional cycle would start again.

"This is bollocks." he declared to the room at large. Nothing responded. "I'm going mad already," he sighed.

But still, he reasoned. Three weeks was a long time, and Lily was right. They needed to be able to coexist without resorting to curses, and the extra time on their hands would allow them to finish their paper a month ahead of schedule. So the next morning, when Lily plodded out of her room, a cup of tea in one hand, and a textbook in the other, he was there to greet her with a tentative smile and a scroll of background reading for their paper. She took the scroll with a reciprocated grin, handed him the textbook, and they got to work.

The next few days they did little else but work on their paper, working mostly in silence, save for conversations about their research. Neither of them seemed willing to even broach the subject of what they had fought over that first night, as doing so would open a can of worms that neither of them had the energy to deal with. So instead researched, and threw themselves into their project with a fervour not unlike the fervour with which Lily revised the morning of an exam, or with which James poured over Quidditch strategies. But still, the topic plagued Lily's mind even as she discussed wand movements with the bespeckled black haired youth before her, and, one day, she decided to take the plunge.

They had worked on their paper for the whole day, stopping for lunch, but not anything else. At around six in the evening, when the shadows across the floor began to lengthen, they finally put their quills down.

"Wow, we've been at this for ages!" said Lily, yawning and stretching out on her chair.

"I think we've made solid progress for one day! This is great work!" said James, closing a book and looking through their parchment. "Imagine if I didn't have Sirius distracting me every time I tried to do my work - I'd be top of the class and have time to spare!"

Lily scoffed and rolled her eyes at his arrogance, but a small smile played at her lips. "Dinner's here," she indicated to the tray of food that had appeared on the desk.

"Perfect timing!" James plated a portion of chicken onto a plate and handed it to Lily before taking some for himself.

"Thanks," she said hesitantly, fidgeting with her fork. "Listen, I wanted to ask - why is it that you didn't want to be in quarantine with me? I mean, we can work well together, what's wrong?"

"Look, let's just not get into this, we have such a good groove with our paper, and we have to stay with each other for - it's not going to end well, you know that."

"No, I don't! I don't know why you're reacting so strongly to all this, what have I done to you?"

"What have - I - what have you? How could you even - ?" James flapped his arms wildly. "You know what you did," he spat after a few more seconds of wild gesticulating.

"I really don't, so if you could just tell me, instead of being so sodding cryptic!"

"Huh, that's rich. Lily Evans doesn't know something! Inform the authorities, they might give you a seat of honour!" he proclaimed, adding on under his breath, "even if I wanted that seat in the first place."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, I didn't say anything!" James said, before turning around and going to his room.

"Fine, then!" Yelled Lily at his retreating back. "I'm sorry I asked!"

Lily, too, stomped back to her room, slamming the door.

The next few days passed by in a haze, with Lily barely seeing James for more than a few minutes a day. She had taken to completing her work sitting cross-legged on her bed (she accumulated a fair amount of ink stains on her pillows as a unfortunate consequence of this), and it seemed like James had begun to do the same. She focused mainly on her schoolwork: without James' input, there was very little she could do for the paper save for a little background reading. When she did run into James in the office, they simply glared at each other, and she got what she came for, and returned to her rooms. Most importantly, she thought long and hard about their argument and James' words. While their rivalry was always fierce, at some point in their sixth year, it had also turned bitter, and she had no idea why. James, it seemed, knew, but she couldn't go and ask him again, could she? She racked her brains and combed through her memories of that year. Save for Marlene and Remus, she and James didn't have common friends or similar circles, so it had nothing to do with any of them. She didn't concern herself with Quidditch, and she had been punishing James and his friends for their pranks ever since she was made a Prefect in their 5th year, so it had nothing to do with those areas of his interests. It came down to academics - as so many of the issues in their relationship did - so she agonised over every test and assignment they competed over to find the incident that had sent the dominoes falling.

It was late one night on the eighth day of quarantine, as Lily lay in bed thinking, that the answer came to her. She sat up with a start and flung her blanket away, and ran from her room through the office to pound on James' door.

"James! James! I got it! James!"

"What the hell are you doing?" he croaked, as he opened his door and looked at her through bleary eyes.

"The summer internship, for the Brewing Committee! You wanted it, but I took the spot! That's why you've been so mad at me!"

James was wide awake now. "Well, congratulations. You remembered what you did. I can't believe you took it so callously that it doesn't even register for you."

"James, I didn't do anything wrong. I just remembered that you started this whole nonsense the day the decision letters came from the Committee. It's not my fault you can't take a rejection."

"You knew how much I wanted that internship, and then you went and took it from me after I told you about it. I saw you sucking up to the hiring wizard at that Slug Club party." he said, pointing his finger at her.

"Don't you point your finger at me! And, more importantly, my acceptance had nothing to do with your rejection! It's not my fault your application wasn't strong enough!"

"Oh rubbish! You and I both know that there was only one spot - you weaseled your way into it at that party just to further our rivalry, knowing how much it meant to me!"

"Look, I got it fair and square. And how much it meant to you? It was one internship! You had three more lined up for that summer alone!"

"Like hell you won it fair and square! Fraternising with the people who make the decisions is not even allowed! And besides, I told you all about why I wanted that internship that night, and you went and threw that straight out of the window."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I can't believe this. How could you be so cold-hearted?"

"How could you be so - eurgh!"

"Did you just stamp your foot? James asked incredulously, ruffling his hair.

"Look, if you're going to be so close minded and touchy about this then there's nothing I can do. Goodnight." With that, Lily flounced back to her bedroom.

Despite how hard she tried to, however, she couldn't sleep all night. She tossed and turned, riled up from the fight, but mostly kept up by guilt as she recalled James' words from before. 'And besides, I told you all about why I wanted that internship that night.'

"Ooh, yes, the Brewing Committee, this internship looks fabulous." said Lily, leaning over her desk in the library to his, and picking up a pamphlet.

"Yeah, I've never done anything related to Potions before, but considering how much my parents are involved in it, I feel like this is something I need to do. Given, you know, my parent's business, I think they would need reassurance that I'm not going to turn out to be a prodigal son." he laughed at this, and she laughed too.

Giving up any attempt at sleep, Lily sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. This was going to be a long night.

The next morning, James sat at the window seat of the office, fighting heavy eyelids with a steaming mug of coffee. His mind was reeling with what had happened the previous night, and yet he didn't want to think about it, about her. He wasn't given much time alone with his thoughts, however, as the door opened and Lily came and stood in front of him.

"I think we need to talk."

"Like every time we attempted doing that earlier went oh so well," said James as he swung his legs off the window seat, got up, and brushed past her.

"I didn't think. I was thoughtless and insensitive, and I hadn't listened to you when you explained why you wanted the internship. I wouldn't have applied if I hadn't heard about it from you, but when I did, I just thought that it would be a great opportunity, and then at the Slug Club party when I realised that a member of the hiring committee was there, I - that was underhanded, and quite Slytherin. So…"

James didn't say anything for a moment, instead, he started, and thought. "Thank you, it was good to hear that, and I appreciate it," he said quietly. "So now maybe we can - "

Lily cut him off. "That's it? Yeah, what I did was sneaky, sure, but when I realised what I'd done I made up for it! When you had a problem last year you should have just come to me, there was no need to act like such a complete arsehole to me for so long!"

James pursed his lips. "Talk to you? Like that could have gone well."

"That's hardly an excuse," she whispered, the fight in her gone as quickly as it had come.

He took a deep breath. "Fine, you're right. I could have handled it a lot better, and I shouldn't have said a lot of things I said to you then. I'm sorry too."

"That's okay. To be honest, I just want to put all this behind us. We both said some things we didn't mean last year, but before…"

"Before, there was nothing wrong. Sure, we were never close friends, but my day wasn't complete without talking to you somehow."

"I'm sick of not getting along with you anymore."

"I feel the same way. It's exhausting, especially considering… never mind."

"I liked how we were at the beginning of the year, before this quarantine. We could be friends now, if we tried."

"I know we can, and I'd like to try."

Lily smiled, and James did too, if a bit hesitantly. "You want to continue the paper?" he asked.

And then they threw themselves into work for the paper again, but now it was different. Where earlier the conversation was sparse and stiff, only to exchange remarks on the subject matter, now it flowed more easily. Within a few days, they progressed to discussing non-academic and non-Quidditch aspects of their lives. Over eggs, James, blushing to the roots of his hair, told Lily about the epic disaster that was his first 'relationship' back in second year. Lily, in the middle of the night as they sat with cups of green tea with scrolls strewn everywhere, laughing hysterically as she told him how she and Marlene became friends. (Who wouldn't laugh, though, when the story involved three lemon tarts, a stray Quaffle, and detention?)

They continued in this fashion until they finished the first draft of their paper with a week to go, and now, with only schoolwork to devote their time to, they had little to do in their isolation. Lily, ever the early bird, would be done with her work before noon. James, the night owl of the duo, would burn the midnight oil and then sleep in, and the time in between that they had previously set aside for their paper had now blown wide open. The first time they realised this, they looked at each other blankly for a couple of minutes.

"Well, we're done. What the hell do we occupy our time with now?" asked James, glancing at their paper and then at Lily.

"No clue. Got any classwork to finish?"

"Finished mine last night. You?"

"Finished this morning."

James jumped on top of the armchair and perched himself on the backrest, his bare feet on the seat cushion. "I don't have any games - rather stupid of me, in hindsight. Got anything interesting to read?"

"Yeah, I left my Gobstones set back in my dorm. I don't know, I might have something interesting to read, I got most of my books here…" she went to the bookshelf and ran her fingers over the spines of the books put up there. "Textbooks, textbooks, textbooks… 1984?"

"No, it's 1977," James said puzzledly.

"Huh? Oh, no, it's this book by a muggle author, it was written in 1948 about a frightening future world, it's interesting, the kinds of issues muggles have to deal with. A few concealing spells and a wizard would be fine."

James got off the chair and reached towards the book she was holding in her hands, but he stopped short when he caught sight of another book on the shelf. "Is that my copy of Rebecca?" he pulled the book off the shelf before Lily could answer. "This isn't my handwriting, how did - Lily, you said you hadn't read it!" James gasped dramatically. The book was indeed Lily's, and was rather old - it had a dark green hard cover, and the title and spine appeared to be inlaid with gold leaf.

Lily bit her lip. "Fine, I've read it many times. But I saw that you had a copy too, and I was going to just give it back, but then…"

"Then?" James asked, faking anger, but his grin said that he knew why Lily wanted his copy.

Lily caught on. "You and I both know that I wanted to read your notes."

"And? What did you think?"

"The book is a classic, there's a reason I've read it so many times."

"No, my notes. What did you think of the notes? You obviously went through so much to read them."

Lily lightly swatted his arm with the copy of 1984 in her hands, smirking when James yelped in surprise. "Come on," he said. "I want to discuss the book with you."

"I really liked your impression of it. The pathetic fallacy with the weather is something most people pick up on, but your analysis of the dog and your speculation of the reason behind the anonymity of the narrator was a very fresh perspective that lent a new layer to the book."

James beamed. "And your thoughts on the use of colour?"

"Colour sets the tone throughout the book," she stated. "Especially in the prologue and the last lines, but also through the writer's description of the flowers."

James grinned, "'I've never thought of it like that before, you know?"

And just like that, they now had something to do. They discussed Rebecca, and then 1984, and then other books they had read, and then before they knew it, they had just talked the entire day, about the most niche things that they wouldn't even consider discussing with their respective friends. By the time either of them realised the time, it was midnight.

"Wow, it's late!" remarked Lily. "I doubt even Remus would spend this long discussing the ethics of journalism with me, though."

"Ah, I miss Remus. I miss everyone, really."

"Lord, me too. I missed Wilson's birthday!"

"You're one to talk. I missed Remus's -" James stopped short. "Remus's… Potions' presentation."

"Full moon?"

James shot up with a start. "What does the phase of the moon have to do with his Potions presentation?"

"Well, nothing. But it has a lot to do with his Lycanthropy," Lily said frankly.

James floundered like a fish out of water, "What - how - how did you know?"

"He told me. Last year. He also told me about how much you help him through it. It's marvellous, the bond the four of you share."

"How… I help him through it?"

"Yeah, he said you guys always take care of him around the full moon, helping with classes, sitting with him in the infirmary. Why, do you do anything else?"

"No, no, that's it. Honestly, there's nothing to it, anyone would -"

"No, not anyone, and it's really… it's truly something, how you guys stand by him. Very few wizards would."

"You know, Remus must really trust you if he's even told you about it. He doesn't tell anyone."

"I know, and I wouldn't break his trust, ever."

The rest of their last week passed by similarly. They understood each other in a way very few other people did, and Lily told him about her sister, and James told her about his fears for his parents, and they grimly contemplated the upcoming war. Before they knew it, their three weeks of quarantine were up, and Madam Pomfrey was standing at their door with a smile. Within twenty minutes of their 'release' they handed the draft of their paper to a pleasantly surprised Professor McGonagall, and ran back to Gryffindor tower to a warm welcome back. But as James energetically joined in with exaggerated dramatics to the theatrics of Sirius, and as Lily gave Marlene a tight hug at the other end of the common room, each of them wondered the same about their newfound friendship: what would happen now?

The next few days passed in a blur for the two of them, each of them wrapped up in catching up on what they missed. Lily spent time with each Professor, reviewing the practical aspects of what they missed in class. James harassed poor Marlene to death, trying to figure out what he missed at Quidditch. Each of them spent time with their friends, too - Remus was looking a little worse than usual after the full moon, and Emmeline had apparently received distressing news from home. As a consequence of this, neither of them saw much of the other. By the weekend, when the time came for the two of them to work together on Head duties, Lily was fairly excited to see James, as she had gotten rather used to him over their three weeks in quarantine, and missed their talks, missed him. James, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. They had barely spoken since their quarantine ended, and this worried him. Was their friendship only a function of convenience? Now that they weren't cooped up together, would they lose all the progress they made? Moreover, he once again had begun to entertain fantasies about the two of them in a… less than platonic relationship. Was that on the table at all? Sure, they had gotten to know each other extremely well, but he still had no idea how she felt about that aspect of their relationship. He doubted she even remembered the time he had asked her out, in front of half the school. (Although, to be honest, he would be extremely glad if she forgot that memory in its entirety.)

"Hi, I've missed you, it's been way too long! How have you been adjusting to, well, other people?" asked Lily as she swept into the Head's room with the schedules.

James laughed weakly. "It's definitely been a lot to take in at once. How have you been?"

"Oh, same, honestly. I've had so much work to do," she complained as she took a seat opposite him. "Not to mention Robert went on this hopeless spiel and asked me out in front of everyone."

"He did what? Did you say yes?" James sat up in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. Lily took note of his alarmed expression and smirked.

"No, I let him down gently, don't worry. I'm still unattached… for now."

"Worry? Why would I worry?" A small smile was growing on James' face.

"Oh, I don't know. You tell me?"

"I would worry," he said, leaning over the desk, "because I have something to ask you too." Lily was leaning in too, now.

The kiss wasn't fireworks and explosions, but it was electric. It buzzed through their veins, through their skin, as both of them half clambered onto the table to close the distance between them. They stopped only to draw their breath, leaning their foreheads together.

"There was no Robert, was there?"

"Never, you just needed a push."

The next morning as a glowing Lily and James regaled their tale to their friends at the breakfast table, Minerva McGonagall watched them with a smile on her face. She didn't draw her eyes away from the lovesick couple until Madam Pomfrey tapped her shoulder.

"I take it you haven't told them that they needn't have been in isolation for longer than a week?"

"My plan worked, didn't it?"

"I have to admit, I didn't think it would. But, it was Lily who suggested being quarantined together in the first place - unless - no! You know them way too well, Minerva."

Professor McGonogall tucked the scroll that was their research paper into her robes, and stood up from the staff table. "Bothof them just needed a good shove towards each other."