It was the beginning of 7th year, Lily was Head Girl and she was running very, very late.

Approximately two minutes earlier she and her friends had been sitting in a compartment catching up with the news from the holidays. Not much of it had been particularly good, since Voldemort (or You-Know-Who, as some had started to call him) had been even more bold than usual and many students hadn't made it back to Hogwarts.

Lily was in the middle of recounting the funny tale of how Petunia had reacted when the school owl had arrived when Alice gasped rather dramatically and pointed at Lily.

"You're supposed to be in the Prefects compartment!"

Lily stared at Alice (who was making shooing gestures) blankly before registering what she had said and horror dawned.

Prefect's compartment. The Prefect's meeting. That required the Head Girl. She was Head Girl. She was in the wrong compartment!

Lily leapt to her feet and dashed out of the compartment shouting a hasty "see you lot later" as she disappeared into the corridor.

Alice sighed and shook her head. "I'm concerned about the welfare of the school this year."

"Maybe the Head Boy will balance out Lily's craziness." Mary started searching through her bag for her copy of Witch Weekly.

Alice sniggered and shook her head again. She knew who the Head Boy was. "I doubt it."

Meanwhile Lily had skidded to a halt in front of the Prefects compartment (known also as the Heads compartment, Swot Central and Detention Bringers of Doom Headquarters) in record time. She was frantically trying to slow her breathing to a normal rate, fix up her hair and straighten her skirt.

She had made herself presentable and was about to slide open the compartment door when she paused.

Was that...someone else hurtling down the corridor swearing? Lily squinted, noting that it was a lanky, darkhaired boy. She quickly rearranged her face into a frown and folded her arms. An excuse, Lily thought triumphantly.

"There you are," she admonished the rapidly approaching figure, "I've been waiting for you to arrive before – POTTER?"

It was indeed James Potter and like Lily had done moments before he skidded to a halt and started patting down his hair.

"Oh hey Lily," he panted, struggling with his robes, "late too then?"

Lily blinked and shook her head. Nope, James was still there, acting as if it was perfectly normal for him to be standing outside the Prefects compartment.

"You're not a Prefect." Lily announced, eyebrows furrowed.

"Correct!" James agreed cheerfully, trying to untangle his robes from his legs.

"So...why are you here? You know Remus can't talk to you until after the meeting."

James paused and gave Lily a strange look. He had started rummaging through his pockets. "Didn't you read your letter?"

Lily blushed a little and shrugged. "Not past the part that said "Congratulations of making Head Girl..."

She trailed off as James shouted "Gotcha!"He held up something victoriously.

The something was oddly small and badge shaped and looked remarkably like Lily's Head Girl badge, only it said Head Boy.

As James beamed at her, face red from running and uniform a mess Lily was hit by a rather unpleasant realisation.

She fancied James sodding Potter.

James noticed Lily's expression of horrified shock and scowled. "There's no need to look at me like that."

"But..." Lily stammered.

"No, Dumbledore hasn't gone off his rocker, no, I don't know why he made me Head Boy, no, my Father didn't bribe or otherwise threaten Dumbledore into giving me this position and a little bit of support from the Head Girl would have been really great." James snapped. He sighed and shoved his badge back in his pocket. "I'm going in. Feel free to join me when you can contain your disgust."With one last glare James straightened his shoulders and strode into the Prefect's compartment. Faint cheers and a "Has Dumbledore gone off his rocker then?" floated out through the semi open door.

"Wha...?" Lily stammered, blinking. What just happened?

...

"Ok, so James Potter is Head Boy." Alice ripped open Lily's bed curtains and scowled. "That's no reason to run away and sulk in your bed all night."

Lily, who was indeed sulking in her bed, made a muffled sound of protest. It was muffled because her face was currently smooshed in her pillow.

"What was that?" Alice cocked her head to one side as if she was listening to something far away. "You're sorry for being so mean to James today and for avoiding him after dinner and for running away and hiding in your bedroom before he could come into the Common Room?"

Lily turned so her mouth was no longer full of feathery softness and whined, "But Alice you don't understand!"

"Merlin Lily, the poor bloke is Head Boy. It's not like he's been appointed your personal bodyguard and has to follow you around everywhere. I really don't understand why you're so worked up, you've never had a problem with him before." She paused. "Well, except for when he asks you out, but he hasn't done that in ages..."

Lily muttered something under her breath and Alice's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Lily Marie Evans!" The look of pure glee on her face made Lily feel very nervous. "Did you just say 'that's the problem'?"

"No." Lily denied instantly, willing her rather magnificent blush to fade away. It didn't.

"You did!" Alice started jumping up and down and clapping her hands. "You fancy James Potter!"

"Do not!" Lily snapped, kicking out feebly at the now dancing Alice.

"You do! Oh, this is brilliant! James has been after you for so long. I bet he faints when you tell him!"

"He's not going to know!" Lily exclaimed sharply, giving Alice a warning glare.

Alice pretended she didn't hear her friend. "I knew it! I always knew you'd fall for James, it's fated in the stars and all that rot. Now I really don't understand why you're upset he's Head Boy. Think of all the snogging opportunities you'll have; patrolling, Heads meetings, clearing out the Astronomy Tower, helping with the decorations at Christmas, oooh the Heads Bathroom!"

With that last squeal Lily pulled her bed curtains closed with a sharp tug and left the cackling Alice on the other side.

"Sod off you evil woman!" Lily shouted and smooshed her face back into her pillow.

...

"Lily, this is an intervention."

Lily looked up from her Charms homework to find herself flanked by Alice and Sirius Black? She narrowed her eyes and ignored Sirius' jaunty wave in favour of scowling at Alice.

"An intervention for what?" Her eyes flickered from Alice, who was grinning eagerly, to Sirius who was still waving at her and looked far too amused for her liking.

"Now now Lily dear, don't play dumb." Sirius winked at her. "I think you know why we're here."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I think I don't."

"I think you do."

"I know I don't Sirius."

"Did you want me to spell it out for you then?"

"Please." Sarcasm was lost on Sirius as he almost always chose to take whatever was said at face value. This was very frustrating because Sirius was one of the most sarcastic people in the grade.

"Starts with 'J', ends with 'ames Potter' and begins with 'you fancy'."

Lily blinked before rounding on Alice. "You told him?" she hissed, betrayed.

"Of course not!" Alice whispered. "He came up to me last week and told me knew about your feelings for James and suggested we do something about it. He must have guessed."

"And you confirmed his guess by agreeing to this farce." Lily whispered back, still furious.

"I'm sorry Lily, but he's right you know. Dancing around your feelings for James has got to stop. You're denying yourself true love and happiness!"

"This is ridiculous!" Lily cried, slightly nauseated by Alice's declaration. Her friend was normally much more level headed and down to earth. "He's probably already told James and had a good laugh at my expense."

"I haven't."

"Pardon?" Lily snapped, glaring at Sirius.

Sirius inspected his nails and grinned. "I haven't told James about you having the hots for him."

Lily stared at him, completely baffled. "But...why?"

Sirius sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "Because he'd probably faint and he's too much trouble trying to revive him."

Alice started sniggered and Lily knew she was gloating because she'd made the same prediction as James' best friend. She kicked her in the shin.

"He doesn't fancy me anymore." Lily looked down at her hands, glum.

"He does." Sirius contradicted.

"How do you know?"

"The same way I knew you fancied James Lily." Alice explained, very smug.

"James told you?"

"No." Both Alice and Sirius scoffed.

"It's the best friend connection." Sirius revealed solemnly.

Lily looked at Sirius and Alice and then closed her Charms book with a snap. "The pair of you are absolutely mad and I don't have time for this. I have too much work to get done."

She made to shove her parchment and other equipment back into her book bag but Sirius waved his wand and it all slid across the table towards him.

"Hey!" Lily snapped, scrabbling to get her stuff back.

"Calm down Lily, this intervention will only take a few seconds once you start cooperating."

"I don't need an intervention!" Lily was starting to get desperate. "I fancy the boy. I'll get over it a few weeks and everything will be fine."

"You can't get over true love!" Alice declared, nodding her head in what she obviously considered a wise manner.

Lily groaned and buried her head in her hands. What had she done to deserve this madness?

She could hear Alice and Sirius conferring in low voices and things being shuffled on the table but she hoped that if she thought about it hard enough they would disappear and leave her in peace.

"Come on Lil." Sirius cajoled, patting her on the shoulder.

No such luck then.

"All you need to do is write 'I, Lily Marie Evans, fancy James Edward Potter and I'm not ashamed of it"

Lily peered at the pair of loons from between her fingers. "Really?" She was deeply suspicious that it was that easy.

"Once you admit your feelings for James and get over being embarrassed by them, you'll be much more confident about taking initiative with him."

"Right, sounds great." Lily muttered, sitting up straight and snatching the parchment and quill from Sirius. "Write it here?" she demanded. They nodded and Lily scribbled the sentence out, dotting the end with a flourish.

She gazed at the words and smiled. "You know, I do feel a little better about everything now. It's hard to believe you were actually right about something Sirius."

Sirius shrugged, acting modest and Lily smiled as she slipped the parchment into her Charms book. If she hadn't been so eager to leave she would have noticed the predatory way Sirius and Alice watched her put away the parchment.

"Well thanks for the intervention guys, it was great." Lily cheerfully packed away the rest of her work. "I think I'll finish this in the dorms though."

"Bye Lily!" Sirius and Alice chorused and waved at her until her small form disappeared up the stairs. They shared a triumphant smile.

...

"Bugger, bugger, bugger!"

Lily tipped her book bag onto the floor and started shaking every book in there by the spine. Pieces of parchment flew out every which way and Lily dived on them all, scanning them. Her expression grew more and more desperate as the pile of discarded parchment grew larger.

"Alice!"

"Lily!"

Alice was on the other side of the Common Room, playing Exploding Snap with Sirius. Ever since their joint effort at forcing Lily to "admit her feelings" they had been spending much more time together. If Lily didn't know that Alice had eyes only for Frank Longbottom she would be very concerned about Alice's love life.

"I've lost something!"

"What is it?"

Alice hadn't even looked away from the game yet! This was an emergency and she thought Exploding Snap was more important? "It's the...you know...the parchment! That you and Sirius forced me into writing!"

"Oh, you mean the declaration of love for –"

"ALICE!" Lily shrieked as the entire Common Room looked up with interest. "Can you just come over here and help me look for it?"

"I'm sure you'll find it." Alice waved her hand airily in Lily's general direction.

"Can you stop screaming across the room?" An irritated 4th year was glaring at Lily from the fireplace. "Some of us are trying to do their homework."

"It's a perk of being Head Girl Gary McGreevy," Lily said sweetly. "I can yell at whoever I want, whenever I want and if you don't like it you can go somewhere else."

Lily continued her frantic search for the incriminating parchment but now it was accompanied by grumbles about upstart underclassmen who don't know how to keep their mouths shut and respect their elders.

"Looking for something? I can help; it's one of my little known skills. I'm an expert finder."

Lily froze. No. No, this was just unfair. She heard giggling and saw Alice taking far too much enjoyment from Lily's predicament and vowed to take revenge later. It would have to be after she dealt with the fact that James Potter was asking to help her find a parchment which she was trying to hide from him though.

"No, no, thank you James but that won't be necessary, I'm just going to continue the search upstairs and see if I have any more luck up there." As Lily said all this she was shoving everything back into her bag as quickly as possible. She leapt to her feet and hurried towards the dormitory stairs. "Good night James, I'll see you tomorrow at the meeting." And then she was gone.

James stared at the spot where Lily had been kneeling only half a minute before. Lily seemed to be running away from him a lot lately.

"Oh look!" Alice stood up and made her way over to James holding something in her hands. "James, I found the parchment Lily was looking for, maybe you can give it to her tomorrow?" She was smiling up at him sweetly.

"Why don't you give it to her now?" James asked, running his hand through his hair nervously. Her smile was starting to scare him.

"I think she'd rather you give it to her." Alice's smile widened and she looked positively evil. "If you read it you'll understand." She shoved the paper into his hands and went back to Sirius, who was laughing.

James frowned and unfolded the parchment slowly. When he saw what it said he scrunched it up and looked at Alice and Sirius. They weren't even pretending to not be watching him and when they saw him look their way they grinned and gave him the thumbs up.

...

His smell was distracting her.

"And then we told McGonagall to shove it up her arse."

"That's great."

And the warmth from his body so close to hers. Distracting.

"And she said, 'Go right ahead, I've been dreaming about it all afternoon.'"

"Really?"

And the fact that every now and then his hand brushed against hers. Incredibly distracting.

"And then Sirius pushed her against the wall and snogged her passionately while we all watched."

"Sounds fascinating."

And his voice was distracting her. It was so warm, soothing and manly. She could listen to him talk all day about anything and not get tired of it.

"Wait, what?"

James was smirking at her. "I didn't think you were listening to me."

Lily blinked, slowly coming back down to earth. She'd been in a James Daze for most of their patrol together, listening to him ramble about nothing, imagining that when his hand brushed hers he was doing it intentionally. "What?"

James laughed "Lily, are you all right? You've been distracted all night."

"Oh...oh no, I'm fine. Just thinking about a few things." She looked at his hands and blushed slightly.

James cocked his head to one side, looking thoughtful. "Maybe you should head back to the Common Room. I can finish the patrol on my own."

"No!" Lily exclaimed, then more calmly. "No. Let's just keep on walking."

James smirked again and shrugged. "Sure."

They set off, Lily trying to keep a distance between the two of them without making it obvious she was doing so. Maybe if she walked a few paces behind. Oh. Oh no, that was a bad idea, now she had a great view of his backside. Lily hurried back to his side, blushing. Their hands brushed again and Lily jerked her arm back, scowling at it. James shot her a strange look and Lily forced a smile and shrugged. Not for the first time Lily checked her watch surreptitiously and almost groaned when she saw they still had an hour to go. Maybe she should take James back up on his offer and head back. At least that way she could day dream about him in privacy. She snuck a glance at his profile and sighed. James' caught her looking (she supposed it was the wistful sigh that tipped him off) and smiled. She smiled back and their hands brushed.

James muttered something under his breath and before Lily had a chance to give him an enquiring glance she found herself pushed up against a wall and being snogged rather thoroughly.

When James finally pulled away they were both panting. Lily took one look at him and burst into laughter.

"What?"

"Your glasses are steamy. I didn't think that really happened."

...

"Lily?"

"Yes Alice?"

"I guess the intervention worked then."

Lily chucked a pillow at Alice. "Shut up."

They were both grinning.

A/N: argh! This story is driving me nuts! I dreamt the first two scenes last night and wrote them while on the train to the city and am happy with them, but the last three..eeehhhh. No matter how many times I fiddle around with them, I just can't get it right. There's about 4 alternate endings to this and the one I used was the only one that seemed to fit, but I don't know. R&R as always and I hope you guys like it more than I do