After finally kissing Lily for the first time, James seemed to have lost his power for speech. He just sat there for a moment, looking at her with a goofy grin on his face. Lily's cheeks were burning red, and she stared at her hands for a moment, unable to restrain the smile on her face. But when a minute passed and James still hadn't said anything, she looked up, uncertainty in her eyes.

James was staring back at her, a look of pure bliss on his face. "I just can't believe you haven't punched me on the nose yet, Lil," he said in response to her questioning gaze. Lily laughed, revelling in the way James' lips formed the word "Lil", which he had begun calling her in their many (183, to be exact) letters over the summer. James continued, "So, er, do you think you might, you know, want to –"

"Be your girlfriend?" Lily interrupted. "Yeah, James, I – I do."

James' eyes widened. "Well, great! That's excellent, then. I mean, I was going to start small there, and just ask you to Hogsmeade or something, but yeah, girlfriend is absolutely perfect!" He felt a wave of bubbly warmth wash over him; finally, after all these year, Lily Evans was his girlfriend.

Not long afterwards, the pair bid each other goodnight, and each headed to their own dormitory. Lily managed to contain herself until she got the door shut behind her. Then she let her giddiness take over. She loudly roused the sleeping girls, proclaiming, "I have something huge to tell you!"

James, on the other hand, didn't quite make it to his dormitory before he let out a whoop of excitement. He took a running leap and landed clumsily on Sirius' bed, speaking incoherently. Sirius let out a groggy yell that woke Remus and Peter. Remus had to tell James to slow down a number of times before he got the full story out, at the end of which the boys clapped him on the back, and Sirius wondered aloud just where Lily had lost her mind.

…

Unsurprisingly, word that James Potter had finally won the affections of Lily Evans spread through the school unbelievably fast. By dinner on the second day of term, even the new first-years were gossiping about it and yearning to catch glimpses of the couple as they ate at the Gryffindor table. The sixth and seventh year boys from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff had been congratulating James all day long, most expressing their surprise that Lily had finally come around. The girls, on the other hand, squealed when they saw Lily and cooed about what a cute couple she and James made. Even Professor McGonagall, after telling off Charlie Breverton for interrupting her class with his plans to throw a celebratory party, gave James a quick wink before continuing with the lesson.

Alternately, the Slytherins did their best to show that they didn't care about this new development. Severus Snape, however, was one who was having difficulty containing his emotions.

Although Lily didn't really talk about Snape, Ophelia knew their backstory well enough, having been told by a seething James. They knew each other before Hogwarts and had remained friends until fifth year, when Snape did the unforgivable and called Lily a mudblood. As far as anyone knew, that had been that, and the two hadn't been on friendly terms since.

By the time the seventh-years had Potions on Thursday afternoon, Lily and James' new relationship was old news; Hogwarts students chewed up and spit out gossip faster than a tabloid magazine. Remus, Ophelia, Lily, James, and Sirius filed into the dungeon after the rest of the class and took seats near the back of the room.

"Good afternoon, all!" called Slughorn as the students bustled about, finding seats, unpacking ingredients, and setting up their cauldrons. "It's great to see everyone back this year!" He looked mainly at Lily as he said this, and Sirius rolled his eyes; everyone knew Lily was Slughorn's absolute favourite student. "Now, I thought an excellent way to start off the term would be to give you all a little project. Over the next several weeks, you'll work in pairs on developing and then brewing your very own potion recipe! The pair with the most creative and effective potion will win a hundred house points."

The class paired off and started brainstorming different potion ideas (some of which were very concerning to Ophelia, particularly the ones coming from James and Sirius). Some of the students even light the fires under their cauldrons and started testing out different ingredient combinations. Determined to show off his potion-making prowess, Severus Snape was the first student to do this; in fact, as soon as Slughorn had finished talking, he had pulled out a sheaf of parchment already full of his scribbly handwriting and began carefully measuring out ingredients. Michael Woods, a fairly shy Hufflepuff who had somehow ended up partnered with Snape, sat as far from his partner as he could while still being at the same table, asking quiet questions and shooting quick glances at the parchment Snape was reading. Soon, Snape's cauldron was bubbling with turquoise liquid.

James and Sirius were predictably unproductive. Halfway through the class, the most they had done was to write their names, the date, and a title ("Potion Recipe") on a piece of crumpled parchment from the bottom of one of their school bags. They had given up on potion ideas after only fifteen minutes and were now loudly exchanging ideas on how to procure illegal fireworks from abroad. When Sirius shared one of his more narcissistic ideas ("If anyone tries to stop us, I'll turn the old Padfoot charm on, because who can resist this gorgeous smile of mine?"), Snape let out a loud snort from his seat a few tables away.

Sirius laughed. "You can't say much, can you Snivelly? Not as if you could charm anyone with that greasy hair of yours."

"And that beak you've got definitely does more harm than good, I'm afraid," James added, smirking. Ophelia had heard the boys make these kinds of comments about Snape before, but there had never been any serious confrontation. This time, however, Snape looked livid. And when a short trill of laughter escaped Lily before she could stop it, Snape's face turned bright red.

"You've got no reason to laugh, you mudblood," Snape breathed.

James stood furiously, his hand shooting into his robes to grab his wand. Some of the other students were looking around to see what the commotion was.

"If – you – ever – call – her –that –again – " James began through clenched teeth. Before he could finish his threat, Slughorn had meandered over.

"Now, now, Potter, you've hardly got any work done! Come on, there's a good lad, let's get some ideas brewing! I know you and Mr. Black are up to the task, I'm quite looking forward to what you come up with!"

James sat back down slowly, still glaring at Snape. Eventually he turned his attention back to his potion recipe. He and Sirius started putting some ingredients together in their cauldron, but as soon as Slughorn had his back turned, James stealthily pointed his wand at the parchment Snape was laboriously copying his observations on and it promptly burst into flames.

James immediately pretended to be concentrating hard on sifting out powdered crocodile tongue. Snape cried out in a panic and furiously searched for his wand before yelling, "Aguamenti!" and splashing water all over his table. He picked up what was left of his charred parchment, which crumbled in his fingers. He turned to look at James, steaming.

"You – you – you –" Snape seemed incapable of speech, such was his fury. He was shaking. "I've spent MONTHS on that!" His wand was emitting a shower of red sparks.

James was doing his best to feign ignorance, but Sirius was trembling with laughter next to him, and a grin was fighting its way across his face.

"Maybe if you weren't such a scummy git, Snivellus. That way you'd have better karma, you see," James said wisely.

Snape shouted, "SECTUM-"

But Slughorn had seen something was going on, and he quickly said, "Protego!" before Snape could finish his curse.

"Now, Mr. Snape!" Slughorn exclaimed, incredulous. "Detention! And twenty points from Slytherin! You very well know you can't curse other students!"

Snape's mouth opened, then closed. His fists clenched and he sat down, throwing a venomous look at James. Seeing that his work there was done, Slughorn nodded once and wandered off to take peer at the greyish potion of a pair of Hufflepuffs.

The bell rang, signaling the end of the class. Snape packed up his things haphazardly. As he strode out of the room, he paused long enough to say, "You think you're so clever, Potter, but just you wait – blood traitors and mudblood whores will be the first to go once the Dark Lord takes over." Then he disappeared out the door, James shouting insults after him.

Ophelia frowned. Of course, she had known that generally the Slytherin's supported pureblood supremacy and looked down on those of Muggle descent. She had no idea, however, that some of them were already so wrapped up in it that they were supporting Voldemort and his ideals. She had no idea that she had classes with people who might one day be working for (or could already be working for) the man who wanted to take her and use her as a weapon against her own ethics.