Disclaimer: I owe all of my characters and overall themes and locations to Miss J.K. Rowling, though I created Hayden Prewett based on Rowling's characters and families!

Also, I'm new to this fan fiction writing business, so I'd love any and all reviews and comments and critiques you want to give!

"Awooooo," Hayden called as she walked into the Head's Dormitory. Ever since second year, that had been her favorite greeting to her best friend, Head Girl, Lily Evans. It's true that Lily hadn't quite figured out how to be herself again, but Hayden decided at the beginning of the school year that the best thing she could do was be normal for her friend. Although, Hayden's version of "normal" really didn't match with most people.

Lily was trying, and she was definitely doing better than she had been. Regrouping after the loss of your parents couldn't be easy. Hayden couldn't even imagine losing one of her parents, let alone both at the same time. Death Eaters. The people that were more monster than human. They broke her friend. That's why Hayden was going to be an Auror like her cousins. Death Eaters couldn't be allowed to walk free. They all deserved to be thrown in Azkaban with the dementors. When they were left free, people died. People who didn't deserve it, like Lily's parents.

That August, after their perfect summer, Lily's parents were coming to visit Hayden and Lily at Hayden's home for the first time when the Death Eaters had struck. Their train was overtaken by death eaters, all the Muggles aboard found dead other than Lily's parents. Hayden's father, Ignatius, was a member of the exclusive Order of the Phoenix, and was one of the first on the scene when the Dark Mark had been sighted.

When he made it back home, Lily and Hayden were crying, waiting to hear of their deaths. The girls were more like sisters than friends since their first year. They spent every holiday together, which meant that the Prewetts and the Evans basically shared their daughters. The Prewetts had custody over the girls for the holidays, and the Evans got them for the first two and a half months of every summer. Hayden was forced home without Lily for the last two weeks of August, but they still met in Diagon Alley to buy school supplies during that time. This year was different.

This year, the girls spent the summer with the Prewetts, and the Evans were supposed to get them for the holidays. The girls talked the previous June, and decided that their last summer home from Hogwarts should be simply magical. Plus, as Hayden's family were Pureblooded, it would mean a lot more visits with classmates. They ran into the infamous Marauders more than once, which Lily tolerated only by talking with Lupin.

The best part was when they went to visit the Weasleys. Molly was Hayden's cousin, and had married her husband during Hayden's first year at Hogwarts. Every time they visited the couple, the highlight of the visit was playing with their little boys. Bill was seven, Charlie was five, and little Percy was almost two. They already knew he was going to be annoying; he could barely talk but was fascinated with the oddest and most boring of things. He was simply too good at following the rules. All the boys were little handfuls of sunshine though.

But, all good things must come to an end. The last two weeks of August were upon the girls, but they decided to make it as magical as possible. So, the Evans were supposed to come and stay for the next two weeks before they all went to King's Cross Station together to send them back to Hogwarts for the last time.

"Girls, they weren't there," Ignatius said huskily. The two redheads looked at each other with smiles, relieved. They didn't even notice the tears in his eyes. "No, girls, I doubt it means they're alright."

"What? But if they weren't there…" Lily responded immediately. Surely if they weren't there it could only mean they had missed their train.

"They must have missed their train, right?" Hayden finished for her friend. It was incredible how in sync these girls were. If it hadn't been for the fact he'd been there for the birth of his daughter, Ignatius could have sworn they were twins.

"I'm afraid we found their things, but not them. If they weren't there, it means the Death Eaters have them," he informed his daughters, trying not to let the tears fall. The girls needed him to be strong for them. Now, more than ever, since they suddenly had only one set of parents to rely on. Poor Lily; now she really was like his daughter, with no parents to call her own.

Their reaction was exactly what he'd been expecting, and fearing. Lily broke down into sobs while Hayden put her arms around her sister-in-spirit, letting tears stream down her face silently. Ignatius fought back his tears once more and cleared his throat.

"I'm going to be gone a lot until we find them. The Order, we're looking. If we find them soon enough, they could still be fine," he said brusquely as Hayden nodded and Lily continued shaking and sobbing in her friend's arms.

For almost a week, members of the Order searched. Lucretia, Hayden's mother, had taken the girls to Diagon Alley alone for the first time. She owled Sirius, Hayden's favorite cousin, to join them. He helped cheer Hayden up a little, but Lily still only tolerated the Marauder.

In all honesty, Sirius Black had no idea how to help. He was the charming one, or so everyone said. Everyone other than Lily Evans, that is. He wasn't the sensitive one. He felt sure he should have brought James and Remus, his two best friends, along to cheer the girls up. The only problem with that was Lily still seemed to hate James. Then again, she hardly liked him any better. The only reason she even pretended to like him was because of Hayden.

Ever since they were little, Sirius and Hayden had been close. They both hated all of the Black family get-togethers, but were forced to sit through them anyway. As such, they learned to play pranks to entertain themselves, yet somehow, he always ended up in trouble for them. How could he, of all people, help when both girls were in so much pain though? He figured his best chance was to make stupid little jokes with Hayden, and hope he could get a chuckle out of her.

So that's what he did the entire time in Diagon Alley. Even Lily giggled a few times, which is how he earned his invitation to accompany them back to the Prewett Manor. When they arrived, he knew he shouldn't still be there. Ignatius was meeting with Dumbledore. As Sirius turned to leave, Hayden grabbed his hand. They'd always been good at silent communication, so as he looked into her rich, brown eyes, he understood what he had to do. He gave her a hug, and walked to the fireplace, which he used to floo himself home to the Potter Mansion, where he lived with James' family.

Lily never even noticed. When her bright, green eyes were met by Dumbledore's piercing, blue ones, she clamped down on Hayden's hand and froze. She knew in that instant that her worrying was over. However, so was her family.

Lily felt empty. Hollow. She didn't even hear Dumbledore's explanation of how they found her parents, how they were tortured several times, or how they had finally, mercifully, been killed with the Killing Curse. All she heard was a mumbling buzz that matched the tone of his voice.

Hayden, unfortunately, heard it all. Tears once again rolled down her cheeks as she stood silently, waiting for the explanation to be over. When he was done speaking, Dumbledore and her father went into another room to make funeral preparations. When she realized she had lost feeling in the hand that Lily was holding several minutes ago, Hayden turned to her sister, wanting to find a way to help. She tried to free it so she could hug the girl, who didn't have a single tear in her eyes.

If James Potter and Sirius Black hadn't arrived by floo at that moment, she never would have gotten free. Instead, the boys helped pry her hand free. Unfortunately, losing her grip on Hayden also seemed to make Lily lose her ability to stand. Lily collapsed forward onto the young man standing there. James caught her in awe; the girl he'd loved for years having just fallen onto him. As he held her, James saw her eyes. They were empty. Those brilliant, green eyes he loved always were full of fire or joy, but now, there was nothing.

After she was freed, Hayden turned to her beloved cousin and just stared at him with tears still running down her face. He met her eyes with his swirling gray ones, nodded, and embraced her. She'd never known Sirius to be so serious before, but there never was a very good reason for him to be. Thankfully, now that she needed it, he could actually be a very good shoulder to cry on.

Two days later, Dumbledore presided over the funeral for the Evans parents. Hayden let tears fall one last time. The Marauders came and stood in the back. Lily stood shell-shocked once again. Petunia, Lily's older sister, stood next to Lily only out of necessity. The blonde leaned into a whale of a man standing next to her. Finally, around three-quarters through the ceremony, Lily started to cry. She managed to stay silent until it was over. As soon as it was, she looked to her big sister and started to speak, but she was cut off before she even began.

"Freak! Stay away from me. You caused this. ALL of it. I never want to see you again. You killed our parents. I won't let you kill me too!" Petunia screeched, before walking away with her human walrus. After those harsh words, Lily began to sob. Always one for the dramatic saves, James was suddenly in front of her. Hayden was pretty sure Lily wasn't aware that it was him, but was still pleased when her sister started crying into his shoulder as he held her. Hayden even began to grin for the first time since Diagon Alley.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Hayden," said a male quietly from behind her. It was a warm voice, although a little rough, as though it was used to scream often. Hayden knew and loved that voice. She turned to meet Remus Lupin's green eyes, searching for the golden flecks in them that she loved so much.

"You know my parents are still fine, right?" she grinned with a watery chuckle. He gave her a look that was usually reserved for Sirius.

"Yes, I do, but I also know how much you loved Lily's parents. And, I don't think she'd hear me at the moment anyway," he replied, with a glance at the other redhead, who was still sobbing into James' shoulder. Although, he'd now sat down and pulled her onto his lap.

"You're probably right," Hayden smirked, looking at her friend sitting on her supposed arch-nemesis' lap. She shook her head to clear it of images of a healed Lily, screaming at Hayden for letting her sit in James Potter's lap, and looked back into Remus' eyes. For some reason, they always reminded her of September. When the leaves were still green, but just a few started turning gold and red. As they stared into each other's eyes for just a few moments, Hayden got butterflies in her stomach. He started leaning toward her and they all took off, flying in circles around her gut. The moment she'd been waiting two years for was finally about to happen…and he hugged her tightly. Disappointed, she hugged him back, taking in his rich scent of parchment and chocolate.

The rest of August, Hayden was quiet and reserved, trying to be there for Lily. After Lily finished her time fulfilling her Head Girl duties with the prefects, she stormed into their usual compartment, where Hayden had filled Marlene McKinnon and Alice Prewett (yes, ANOTHER cousin) in on their August. Marlene just froze, unsure what was happening. Alice tried to pretend she didn't notice anything. But Hayden had never been good at hiding her emotions and she was shocked to see so much fire in Lily's eyes! They weren't as passionate as she was used to seeing them, but there was so much more there than she'd seen in the past two weeks that she was sure she was imagining it.

"WHAT was he THINKING?!" Lily yelled. The other three girls all shared a look, two pairs of blue eyes meeting Hayden's brown ones. Hayden gave them a small shrug and looked back at Lily. "James Potter is the Head Boy. He knows NOTHING about being a Prefect, let alone a Head Boy! He's going to be useless. It's all going to be up to me," continued Lily, no longer yelling, passion in her voice fading.

That was the moment that Hayden decided Lily needed everyone to be normal around her, to help coax her back into her own state of normalcy. James Potter was being himself, she was sure, and infuriated Lily, as usual. It worked. Silently reminding herself to thank James later, Hayden grinned at her blue-eyed friends, who were clueless of the epiphany she'd just had and were actually becoming quite worried about Lily's growing lifelessness.

The rest of September, Lily was the same. Mostly hollow, mostly vacant eyes, only responding after hearing her name repeatedly. However, occasionally, Hayden or Sirius would make her giggle or James would make her yell. Hayden begged Sirius to make all the Marauders hang out with the girls more often in the second week of lessons to see if it would help. He just smirked at her and said something about her trying to get closer to Moony, which she ignored tactfully. Okay, she'd punched him in the arm and told him to shut up already, but the point was, her plan was working.

Having Lily's best friends and worst nightmares combined and surrounding her all the time was fixing her. It was the first weekend of October, and Hayden no longer felt like she was talking to Lily the Inferi. Now, while it still wasn't Lily, she could at least see Lily starting to peek through.

The best part wasn't even Hayden's doing. James and Lily were sharing a dormitory. Lily was stuck at all times with the person she found more annoying than any other. Of course, Hayden, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Marlene were around most of the time, often accompanied by Alice, but there were still times when it was just James and Lily. Hayden was hoping that Lily was starting to realize that James wasn't so bad, because if not, Hayden wouldn't be able to spend as much time with the Marauders. Hayden did her best to ignore that possibility as she climbed the stairs to Lily's room.

"Awoooooo," she said again, before opening Lily's bedroom door. Lily looked at her with a very small grin.

"This month is Halloween," Lily stated simply, before asking a question that was so Lily Evans it made Hayden's heart leap for the return of her friend, and gave her eyes a certain mischievous twinkle that Lily had come to fear.

"They're planning something, aren't they?"