A/N: So sorry it's late! Life eh! Without further ado - here is the next chapter!

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. – George Bernard Shaw

I moved back into the dorm as Dumbledore had asked, and it was still as chilly as the winter weeks that had come and gone. It turns out Lils was the one who reported me, to get me into trouble for sleeping in the boys dorm, no doubt, but the Headmaster was concerned about the rift growing between us Gryffindor girls.

We were meant to be Lions for Merlins' sake. Not these petty fighting girls. We definitely needed to grow up. I had moved in, yes, for Dumbledore's sake, but I had taken to hiding in Greenhouse five. Technically we weren't really meant to be in there. But Herbology was calming for me and I did enjoy pruning the plants, so Professor Sprout kindly allowed me – her favourite student - in, and by me, I mean James and myself. I had just repotted an Alihotsy sapling and was helping myself to some of the leaves, aware that the hysteria they could and would cause would be an amazing prank, when James pulled me down to sit by him.

The tall boy had struck out with Lils. Again. I sighed and leaned against him. "She doesn't deserve you, James." I breathed quietly. He nodded sadly as I reached over and grasped his hand firmly in mine. "Look, have you seen these?" I asked him suddenly, sitting up to show him the leaves I had collected.

He shook his messy hair from his hazel eyes and scrunched up his nose. "Didn't think so," I grinned, before settling comfortably to explain the Alihotsy plant and its properties. An afternoon wiled away and planning pranks (along with collecting the necessary cures – Treacle from the Glumbuble insect being the cure for the Alihotsy's hysteria inducing leaves), before we decided to go for dinner. Eating in the kitchen, James disappeared to fetch Remus and Peter, and returned with three companions instead of two. I huffed, annoyed when Sirius sat next to me. I placed my hands on the armrests, ready to get up and leave, when I locked eyes with James, whose serious expression stopped me in my tracks. He shook his head and called Remus and Peter with him to the Great Hall, leaving Sirius and I alone together.

"Listen, A.J. – Amelia, we need to talk." He said softly, taking one of my hands in his. He spent the following hour and a half apologising to me and swearing that he hadn't slept with Serena Mina, and that she had been complaining about her ex-boyfriend, Frank Longbottom, who had moved on and started dating someone else apparently.

That explains Alice's silence for the last week or so…

"I swear it, Amelia, I didn't. You told me to be discreet, and since this agreement between us began, I haven't even looked at anyone else!" he said solemnly. I looked at him – really looked at him, and noticed the bags beneath his eyes, the tangles in his usually pristine hair and the haunted look on his face. He gently placed a hand on each of my cheeks, making me look him in the eyes as he repeated his vow and I sighed.

"I don't know if I can do this anymore Sirius. I'm so tired of fighting." I sighed sadly. "There will always be some form of suspicion with you." He opened his mouth to retort but I shook my head. "I don't condemn you here, but I just miss being friends with you." I said honestly. He gave me a small smile. Nothing like what I have been gifted from him before, but it was a start.

"Can we mend our friendship then?" he asked me genuinely. I nodded once and gave him a smile, as we ate our dinner together and caught up on the antics of the other. I quickly brought him up to speed on the Alihotsy prank and he beamed.

There it is.

Oh Myrddin, I still love him.

The realisation hit me like the Hogwarts Express, but I had been correct, I couldn't do this again, so I buried my love under everything else. He then invited me to the Quidditch practices he and James would have coming up three times a week as the season started. He knew how much I missed playing, and I agreed. I needed something positive to focus on, and beating the other teams to a pulp was going to be a good distraction for me. I began doing my homework in the Quidditch stands, while critiquing James' moves, enjoying the banter and atmosphere one could only have at the pitch, and at the end of the session, James would allow me fifteen minutes on his Silver Arrow. The weightlessness of flying erased all worry from my mind and I just was. There was no better existence than flying, weightless, carefree. The enjoyment was limitless and the picturesque view of the castle at dusk was just mesmerising.

Alastair Wood was a new Keeper for the team and James was fierce in his rehearsing – a dedicated trait for a future Captain. He devoted his waking hours to work, Moony and Quidditch, barely sleeping and eating properly – which is where I came in. I started to take food down to the pitch for the team to make sure they ate properly, almost having to force-feed James every morsel. It was only after threatening to lock away his broom that he would eat anything – and normalcy was resumed.

The girls still begrudgingly accepted my presence, but I only used my dorm to sleep in as it was, so it was no skin off my nose if they wanted to be petty. As the Quidditch season started fully, the match of the season was fast approaching. Gryffindor practiced and practiced until their players were blue from the chill and purple from bruises. Lily found me curled up on my bed one afternoon, my quilt transfigured into a large wooden board, while my cauldron sat bubbling on top.

"What are you doing?" she enquired warily. I raised one of my perfectly plucked eyebrows, not even looking at her as I added the dittany and Murtlap tentacles to the cauldron. It bubbled before turning a stale-grey colour. I began stirring the mixture, keeping count of the stirs in both directions as I answered her.

"Healing potions. They're a bit more heavy duty than both essence of Murtlap and Dittany – which is why I have amalgamated the ingredients into something more potent, which I will be turning into paste once it is completed." I explained. Lily's eyebrows rose.

"But you aren't even reading a textbook for it!" she exclaimed. I grinned proudly.

"Snape is not the only one talented with a cauldron, Evans." I quipped. I could see she was eager to observe what I was doing so I sighed dramatically. "If you wave a white flag and call it quits, you can sit with me and I'll explain the theory behind this," I offered, hoping she would accept the olive branch. To my utmost surprise, she did.

We spent the afternoon tweaking my recipe for the next batch and we chatted and built bridges, as the muggles would say. Things were slowly returning to how they were and I was so pleased. I started to gain my weight back, and the lustre to my hair. I began to fix my magical core, which had taken an emotional battering, and I actually started enjoying my life again, unaware at how seriously my issues had affected my health and my magic.

The Quidditch season carried on, as fast-paced and violent as it always is, and the weather seemed to brighten from it. Moony was doing better on his little forays into the forest, and I began topping my lessons again. There were five of us who were the top in everything; Lils, James, Sirius, Remus and I dominated the collection of points for the House Cup, and the sour faces on Snape and Bellatrix's faces was almost enough to keep me happy.

But.

Nothing topped our Alihotsy prank.

I had stewed the leaves in pumpkin juice, releasing the properties of the leaves, before James sneaked into the kitchens one morning before breakfast and spiked the waiting jugs on the Slytherin table, before swiftly returning to sit beside Sirius and myself.

Glee. Euphoria. Hysteria. Name it whatever you want, but I rode a cloud all week that week. Bellatrix crying that the knots on the wood of the Slytherin table was the bane of her life and that she would kill them for marring the perfectness of their beloved Salazar's table for Two. Hours. Straight.

Sirius was crying with laughter beside me, as Severus started seeing phantom freaky things around him, but the absolute best was Rodolfus Lestrange who was convinced Professor McGonagall was a scorned lover, and started yelling like a banshee that she get the seven circles of hell away from him or he would curse her to Orion's belt, all to the stomping and goading of the other three tables.

Dumbledore stood sternly and silence followed. "This is indeed, a most grave prank. The perpetrator's will face suspension for this, when they are caught." He stated loudly, before ushering the hysterical Slytherins towards the Hospital Wing.

James, Sirius and I kept our façade as cool as possible and didn't react to Dumbledore's threat. All of the evidence had been disposed of, and nothing could tie us to it, as we hadn't used our wands. I even had an alibi sorted – when James and I left Greenhouse 5 that afternoon, I had conveniently forgotten to lock the Greenhouse, and had the bollocking to go with it. We had also had Sirius remove any memory of collecting the leaves and anything to do with the prank from our memories. However, it would be good to throw the staff off our scent.

"Gentlemen," I proposed quietly, drawing the attention of the four Marauders. "I have an idea. They will already think it is us, therefore I suggest another prank as soon as possible, but we must be caught. We've been suspicious enough and now we need them to think that whatever we are caught doing is the actual prank." I explained.

"You are amazing Vix!" James whisper-yelled and I smirked.

That afternoon, Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail, Moony and I were caught red-handed trying to break into the Slytherin dungeons, with undiluted Bubotuber pus. After McGonagall yelled at us for an hour, we were each given two weeks detention, but, thankfully, we had also seemed to shift the suspicion from us.

James and I were to oil the suits of armour on the top floor and work our way down to the third floor, and bugger-knew what the others were doing. We chattered amicably as we worked and began plotting more pranks and the like.

"You're seeming better in yourself, Vix," James spoke softly, the timbre of his voice soothing and mellow as though speaking to a spooked animal. I merely sighed softly in reply. Worry still ate at me, for what was beyond the comfort of the solid stone walls of Hogwarts, but for now, I wouldn't let it bother me too much. I would deal with what came as soon as it came.