Author's Note: I'm writing this mostly because it's what I want to read. It might not be evident from the first chapter, but I'm trying to buck as many stereotypes as I can, other than the Head's Dorms, because really, I just happen to like that idea. It's going to be fluffy at times, but overall, it's going to be pretty heavy. No character is really going to emerge unscathed, because I'm a sadist at heart. I'll try to update once a week, with lengthy-ish chapters, but I'm still at school (and term is starting soon) so I'm not promising anything that'll get in the way of my marks. Thanks for stopping by!

Disclaimer: I am a minor and I technically own basically nothing, much less anything Harry Potter related. All characters that you recognize are property of whichever author I've taken them from, and any characters that you don't, well, you're just unfamiliar with whichever author I've burgled, then.

Furthermore: Chapter titles are, if you couldn't tell, Beatles songs. Either the name of the song'll have something to do with the title, or it'll be something of the soundtrack to the chapter, or something vaguely song ficcy like that.

Reviews are deciding to just stay under your covers for an extra half hour!

Good Day Sunshine

Lily Evans was, by no stretch of the imagination, what you could describe as a "morning person." She was infamous in her dormitory for being impossible to deal with until after she'd digested her breakfast, and had made more than one person cry for the sole offense of trying to take her too early from her sleep. Today, however, found her up and about, pacing the floor of her bedroom at 6:00 AM, an hour that she usually bemoaned as "too early for any decent human being to be conscious." The reason for her unusual lucidity was simple; today marked the date of her final return to Hogwarts.

She was all at once excited for and dreading her seventh year; excited to see her friends, excited that she was Head Girl, and dreading the idea of job applications, dreading the fact that this was her last year at the castle that she'd called home for the last six years. She sighed and pushed the worry to the back of her mind though: this was her last year at Hogwarts. She was going to make it count.

The thought of the Head Girl badge that lay in a small leather bag in her purse made her smile. It hadn't taken her by surprise per se, but still, it was an incredible honor, and the thought that Dumbledore had recognized her effort and her spotless record filled her with a sense of accomplishment. She wondered who the Head Boy would be; she vaguely suspected Remus Lupin. After all, as much as she hated to admit the influence that they had, the Marauders weren't likely to take orders or discipline from anyone but one of their own, and the idea of any of the others being called to take on the role of Head Boy made her simultaneously laugh and cringe. True, Remus hadn't been incredibly good at keeping them in line as prefect, but he had been prefect, and that was more than many of the other boys in her year could say.

She rather hoped that it would be Remus as Head Boy. He was, after all, her best male friend, despite being one of the Marauders. They'd bonded over a mutual despair over the other boys' antics, as well as a mutual inability to stop them from doing much about them. He was as different from the group's ringleaders as could be, where they were impulsive, arrogant, dark-haired troublemakers who consistently failed to turn in their assignments and could be found more often in detention than in class, he was thoughtful, self-effacing, sandy blonde, and a model student. If she didn't know better, she would have suspected that the only way the other Marauders achieved the marks they did was by copying off of their more studious friend's work, but the fact was that anyone with eyes had to, however grudgingly, admit that James Potter and Sirius Black were by far the most talented wizards at Hogwarts, barring perhaps Dumbledore and McGonagall.

Ugh. Potter. It wasn't so much that she detested him, per se, but more that the entire student body seemed to be split between expecting her to loathe his presence and being surprised that she didn't take him up on one of his many offers to "go out to Hogsmeade some time." If she was going to be honest, her main tactic with the boy was to ignore him when possible, and not let him get away with anything when she couldn't resort to her first plan. The entire school essentially revolved around the boy, his ego, and his pack of childish friends, but Lily really just didn't care. Apathetic, she decided, was the best word for it. "At least" she thought to herself "he's stopped asking me out twice a week."

It was true. Potter had spent most of their first five years at Hogwarts trying, with no increase in success, to convince Lily to be his girlfriend, to admit that she loved him, to accompany him to Hogsmeade. Never mind the fact that he was constantly surrounded by a gaggle of silly girls who seemed to be enamored with his arrogance – he had decided, apparently, that he would much rather spend his time tormenting Lily. She'd received more than one casual death threat from one of Potter's admirers, but she couldn't bring herself to take them, or Potter, seriously. After all, he was (as much as she hated to admit it) a reasonably intelligent person; he should be fully capable of realizing that making a hobby of hexing her friends and classmates wasn't really the best way of winning her affection. Thus, the only reasonable conclusion was that he was just being a prat, and the best way to deal with that, was her first tactic: ignore him.

She sighed and checked her alarm clock for what must have been the sixteenth time that morning. 6:08. Ugh.

It was six long hours later that Lily finally found herself on Platform 9 ¾, hugging her parents good-bye for the last time. Petunia hadn't come out to wish her good luck. Lily wasn't surprised, after all, her sister hadn't joined her on the station once, but it still hurt to know that she had grown so far from the girl that she'd grown up laughing and playing with.

"Bye mum. Bye daddy." She gave her parents a smile, trying to reassure them that yes, their baby was going to be okay, that yes, she would be safe.

Still, leave it to parents to worry.

"Be safe, darling" choked out Elizabeth Evans. She was tearing up, finally letting the tears that had been threatening to fall for the last twenty minutes slip down her cheeks. "Write us as often as you can."

David Evans was more composed. He pulled his daughter in closer for a final hug, whispering his only advice into her ear. "Just remember that boys have cooties." He pulled away from her with a laugh, fending off the indignant swat that Lily aimed in his direction. "Only kidding dear. Just... Be careful." His eyes were twinkling by now. "I know how teenage boys can be around pretty girls."

Blushing furiously, Lily turned to stomp off into the waiting train. She made it in safely, dropping off her trunk and turning to head into the carriage, only to-

Oof.

She had turned straight into the chest of Remus Lupin. She brightened. "Remus!"

"Lily" he returned, with a smile. "How's my favorite redhead?"

She looked around. "I dunno... Didn't Molly Prewett graduate a few years ago?"

She laughed, dodging the kick he aimed at her shins. "I'm excellent, Remus." She grinned. She'd kept her badge a secret during the summer; she'd wanted to tell him in person. She rummaged around in her purse, before pulling it out triumphantly. "Look! I made Head Girl!"

Remus didn't even register shock or surprise – after all, who was more deserving than Lily? His eyes began to twinkle. "I thought you might have gotten that, Lily."

Her smile widened. "So? Let's see yours then. This'll be brill, Remus."

His eyes just shone brighter in response, and his grin was, by now, threatening to overtake his entire face. "Oh, no, it's not me" Remus said with a chuckle.

Her hand flew to her mouth; had she offended? "Really? But I thought- I didn't mean-"

He cut her off with a grin. "Don't worry about it. Really. I'm not upset about it at all. It just looks like Dumbledore has a sense of humor."

Lily was about to open her mouth to protest, to ask what he meant, to ask who the Head Boy was, when her answer came in the form of a tall, laughing, black-haired boy who bounded into the hall.

"Evans! Fancy meeting you here."

Potter. She sighed, and turned to face him, doing her best to put a polite smile. "Hello, James" she said, tersely.

The boy grinned in response, his face becoming childlike with happiness. "Oh, is that any way to talk to the Head Boy?"

"Oh very funny" Lily deadpanned in response. "I assume you overheard Remus and I?"

James didn't say a word, he simply reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a shiny badge in scarlet and gold with the letters HB embossed on it.

Lily's jaw dropped. Emotions flitted through her mind until she settled on betrayal. Yes, she decided. Betrayal sounded about right. She felt betrayed, like the position that she'd worked for had become cheapened by her partner, that the fact that Potter, of all people, could be Head Boy diminished her own accomplishments. "Y- you-"

He grinned. "Yeah, Remus had a point. Dumbledore does have a sense of humor." He glanced at his watch. "We should probably get going, we have a meeting with the prefects in about... two minutes." He smirked at her. "Wouldn't want to be late, now would we?"

Lily's sense of betrayal turned into a quiet anger as the pair made their way to the front carriage. Potter talked the whole way there, not shutting up about his vacation, about the things he'd done over the summer with Sirius, and yet, she just couldn't bring herself to care. "Still," she reasoned, "he had gotten better towards the end of the year. Anyway, either Dumbledore's finally lost it, or he knows something I don't." That final thought sobered her and drained away the worst of her anger – the Headmaster had some awfully strange ideas at times, but she'd never known him to be wrong.

And with that thought in her brain, she pushed open the doors to the prefect's carriage and stepped in.

The meeting went well, overall. The prefects had seemed more or less competent, and besides seeing Mulciber and Bellatrix Black there (it had somehow slipped her mind that Slytherins would have prefects too), scowling at her, there had been no real surprises. Potter had, for once, remained quiet, seemingly content to scowl back at the Slytherins and let Lily run the meeting. She'd given each house's prefects their passwords, assigned a rotation for castle patrol, and bade them all find their friends. The meeting had been pleasant enough that she found herself smiling as she watched the last of the prefects say goodbye and leave, even as she realized that she was now alone in a Hogwarts Express carriage with James Potter.

"I think that went well" the boy volunteered as the door clicked shut.

"'Course you do" she laughed. "You didn't do anything."

He grinned at her. "Sure I did. Kept Mulciber in line, didn't I? The great prat."

She frowned. The two Slytherin prefects were notoriously blood-obsessed, she'd had altercations with both of them in the past over her own Muggle heritage. The idea of working with them, the idea that they had power unnerved her.

Either James was more perceptive than he seemed or she was less subtle than she thought she was, because he quickly put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry about it. They won't try anything stupid just because they're prefects. If anything, it's easier now for us to keep an eye on them."

Really, on any other day, she would have jerked her body away from his hand, pulled her shoulder out of his grasp, but for some reason, today she really didn't mind. It was comforting, and besides, this was the longest they'd spent in each other's presence without a fight or a proposal, really. It was almost nice – this was a side of Potter that she hadn't seen before, one that almost seemed to be a person instead of a hormonal troublemaker.

Of course, he just had to go and ruin it though.

"That is, if I can keep my eyes off of you" he smirked, raking his eyes over her body, deliberately lingering on her breasts.

She rolled her eyes. "Potter, if we're going to be working with each other, you're really going to have to grow up" she snapped, storming out of the carriage too irritated to apologize when she bumped into Peter Pettigrew and the rest of the Marauders.

The trio of boys looked at each other with a similar expression – Sirius was, perhaps, the best at hiding it, but to any casual passerby, it would be eminently clear that the three were exasperated. It was Remus who finally pushed the door to the Head's carriage open, poking his head inside. "Really, Prongs? You're in her company for a whole thirty six minutes, and you've got to ruin it by making her storm off?"

Sirius pushed the blonde boy inside before stepping in himself and closing the door behind Peter. "You've gotta admit though, Moony, that it's a definite improvement over last year."

Peter couldn't help but smirk. "Yeah, what was the longest he'd gone until now? Fifteen?"

Sirius laughed at the sour expression on his best-friend's face; James looked about ready to hex a puppy. "Seconds or minutes, mate?"

James looked positively murderous. He opened his mouth to return with a caustic remark about Sirius' sexual stamina, when he was interrupted by a hand on his chest. "Calm it, Prongs" said Remus, frowning at the Head Boy. "Wasn't that the whole plan? To calm down and show her that you could be a mature, responsible person after all?"

"Well, yes" groused James. "It's not my fault that she looks so damn alluringin her Muggle clothes, is it?"

Sirius actually seemed to be agreeing with James, if the shrug and vague nodding were any indication. Remus sighed. "What happened, mate?"

James looked sheepish, a fact that nearly sent the rest of the Marauders off into hysterics. "I, um. I may have insinuated that being around her would be too distracting for me to perform my Head duties" he admitted.

Sirius and Peter lost it. Remus valiantly fought the impulse to join them long enough to manage to say "James, mate. You realise that the Heads have their own dormitories, right?"

James looked horrorstruck. "She's going to bloody kill me by the end of this term, isn't she?"

And with that went the last of Remus' self control, and he joined his friends, doubled over on the ground, laughing at James' predicament.

Meanwhile, Lily had sought solace in her friends' compartment. She had thrown the carriage door open violently enough that she'd woken Alice and thoroughly startled Mary. Julia had turned happily, not at all surprised by Lily's sudden entrance but then, not much really surprised Julia.

Alice Prewett removed her head from Mary's lap with a start, the latter wincing at the sudden return of blood flow to her limb. "Wha' happened?" she asked blearily. "Someone fall off the train?"

Mary MacDonald narrowed her eyes at her friend. "In all of history, have you ever heard of someone falling off the Hogwarts Express, Al?"

Alice shrugged, her grey eyes crinkling as she did. "Dunno. First time for everything, I suppose."

Mary sighed. "Go back to sleep, Al. You make more sense when you're sleep-talking."

Alice seemed to take this at face value, returning her head to its position in Mary's lap. "'f you say so. Night everyone. Night Lily."

Lily rolled her eyes and took the seat opposite the pair. Mary began running her fingers carefully through her best friend's short brown hair before narrowing her eyes at the redhead. "So, Lils. What's got you in such a snit?"

She sighed. Really, it sounded much sillier when she tried to explain exactly what had gotten her so worked up. It wasn't really anything she hadn't heard before, especially not from James. "It... It's the Head Boy" she ventured. "He's not quite what I expected."

Julia, a rather tall Asian girl with a face set in a permanent goofy smile piped up. "Oh, you found out it was James, then?"

Lily stopped short, turning to look at the girl sitting next to her. "You knew? How did you know? Why didn't you tell me it was him, instead of letting him spring it on me like that?"

Julia's smile faltered at her friend's irritation. "My daddy is friends with Mr. Potter" she responded. "He and his wife came over for dinner last night, so I only learned yesterday."

Oh. Well, that made sense. She sighed. "I'm sorry for getting angry, Julia. He's just still a prat is all. Nothing new, it's just going to be irritating having to work with him." A sudden realization dawned on her – in her disgust with the selection of the Head Boy, she'd forgotten entirely that the two of them would be co-habitating. "And... And having to live with him. Oh Merlin, he's going to be unberable."

Mary looked at her steadily for a few seconds, before asking "Not to... change the subject or anything, but don't the Heads usually patrol the train? I just remember last year, having that slimy git Macnair leering his way up and down the corridor."

The world was out to get her or something. Lily stood up, and distractedly scratched at the nape of her neck. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I'll go find Potter and tell him to quit slacking off and we'll start patrols, I guess."

Once the door had clicked shut behind the vanishing Head Girl, Mary turned to the girl across from her. "You didn't hear about that last night. You owled me about it a week ago, and told me not to tell Lils about it. What was that about? I thought you made it a point to never lie."

Julia smiled happily. "Oh, but this is for a good cause, and you know how I feel about those."

"Explain?" Mary asked, confusion coloring her face.

"James being head boy isn't all I learned at dinner that night."

Mary perked up, leaning forward as much as she could without disturbing the girl fast asleep in her lap. "Oh?"

Potter was going to give her whiplash at this point, he really was. She'd run into him about twenty seconds after leaving her carriage to find him already patrolling the train. He hadn't even made a sarcastic remark about her having apparently forgotten all about that portion of her duties and had just taken her appearance in stride, shifting about a foot to the left so that there was room for them to walk two abreast.

As if seeing him being responsible and taking his duties seriously wasn't enough shock for her poor heart to handle, he'd apologized to her for his comment earlier. He'd apologized. James Potter. Had apologized.

Of course, her first instinct had been suspicion. She'd tried asking him what he was up to, what prank he was pulling, even if it was Remus using Polyjuice Potion in an attempt to win some sort of affection for James from her, but he'd just laughed it all off, and continued to patrol with an earnestness that surprised even her.

He was seriously confusing her – it was hard to match up any mental images of the immature prankster that she'd dealt with the six years previous with the boy next to her telling off a couple of third years for playing Exploding Snap in an enclosed space.

In the end, she decided to just take it day by day. After all, she wasn't going to look a gift hippogriff in the mouth and start to question why it was that he was suddenly acting like somebody she could potentially work with without hexing into the Hospital Wing, but neither was she just going to accept that he'd suddenly had what seemed to be a total personality transplant. That was just setting herself up for disappointment, really, because this was James Potter, and he lived for his stupid pranks and games. Still, if he was going to act like an adult, she wouldn't dissuade him, in fact, she'd rather encourage it.

The pair continued their patrols with no incidents other than a pair of fourth years who had tried to smuggle a pair of doxies in an owl cage into the school, and a nasty pang in Lily's chest when she saw Severus sitting with Avery and Mulciber, heads bent over, clearly discussing something nasty. Still, as Potter reminded her, "Talking isn't really against the rules, Evans."

It was a rather pleasant couple of hours later that the train screeched to a halt. Already changed into their robes, the two Heads directed the first years to Hagrid, and the rest of the students to the carriages that would take them to the castle. Lily hastened to join her friends, hopping in and plopping herself down next to Julia.

Mary smirked at the new arrival. "So? How were your rounds, Ms. Head?"

Lily responded with a noncommital "Eh. Nothing crazy. Potter seems to have mellowed, or else he's trying something. Either way, it's a nice change of pace, but I'm not going to look into it too much. Still, if he's going to make an effort to get along, I can too."

"Lily, as much as we all love you, nobody believes that you're capable of getting along with Potter" Mary noted drily.

Lily responded by sticking out her tongue, and the topic of the Head Boy was dropped. Alice quickly filled the silence with enough conversation for all four of them, talking happily about her summer trip to Venice and all the dashing Italian boys she'd met.

"Alice," Mary complained as they left the carriage, heading through the great double doors of the Entrance Hall. "Don't you ever get tired of talking? You're either talking or asleep. It's a wonder you're able to get any boys interested in you at all."

Alice grinned cheekily at her best friend. "You're just jealous, Mare-Bear. Don't worry, one day you'll find a guy who's interested in the silent, surly type, and you'll go off and have cranky, mute little children together." She laughed, linked a scowling Mary's arm in hers, and marched into the Great Hall with a smiling Lily and Julia close behind.

Surprisingly, the Marauders didn't try anything too outrageous during the Welcome Feast that year. While years previous had been marked by sudden hailstorms, floods of expanding gravy, and the release of a pack of nifflers, to name a few of the more memorable events, this year was unsettlingly calm. Lily found herself on edge throughout the meal, whipping her head around at any sudden noise, and jumping when the food in front of her disappeared and turned into dessert. She looked around at her classmates and found that she wasn't the only one perturbed by the uncharacteristic calm of the meal. Edgar Bones, a fifth year Hufflepuff, looked like he'd been thoroughly doused in EverItching Solution, and most of Slytherin House looked about ready to be sick with anticipation of something horrid.

Still, the meal ended and nothing had exploded, expanded, disappeared, or mysteriously gained sentience, so Lily decided that her first meal as Head Girl was a rather unprecedented success. She made sure that each house's prefects had each of their first-years accounted for, and was about to head to the Gryffindor Tower when she remembered that not only was she not staying with her house-mates that year, but she also didn't really know exactly where it was that she was staying.

"Bugger" she swore.

Alice frowned at her. "Lily! There are children around."

Lily looked around distractedly – the first years had left, but the second and third years were awfully small. She sighed. "Sorry, I just... It just sort of sunk in that I'm not living in the dorm with you guys anymore."

Mary snorted. "You don't see us complaining... Now James is the one who has to deal with waking you up. We should send him flowers."

Lily just glared at the blonde before sticking her tongue out and marching off in search of James.

The three seventh year Gryffindor girls looked at the Head Girl's receding figure. "How long d'you give them?" asked Mary.

Julia frowned. "What am I giving them?"

Mary rolled her eyes. "I mean, how long do you think it'll take for our plan to work?"

"Oh!" Julia brightened. "Um. Three months? I bet we're going to be really good at it."

Alice frowned and looked between her two friends. "I'm missing something, right?"

Mary just grinned, rubbing her hand affectionately over the shorter girl's head. "Don't worry about it Alice. Just something we discussed while you were asleep."

Alice pouted.

Lily found the Head Boy with the rest of his Marauders, lagging behind the crowd heading to the dormitories. She marched over, calling out "Potter!" as she did.

For some reason, at the mention of one of their names, the entire group felt the need to turn around. Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Hey Prongs! Looks like it worked, she's got the hots for you already!"

She blushed at the statement and stepped forward, ready to lambast the boy for his words, but Remus beat her to it, swatting Sirius in the back of the head. "Stuff it, you prat."

Was it her imagination, or did James shoot a nasty look at Sirius, before turning to her? Whatever. "What's up, Evans?" he asked.

She frowned, not quite sure how to word her question in the presence of his friends. "I just- Ugh. D'you know where our dorm is?"

He pulled a slip of parchment out of the inside pocket of his robes. "Yeah, I asked Dumbledore right after the Feast ended." He unfolded the note and showed it to her. "Says it's on the floor above the library, behind a statue of Grendel the Really Old."

Peter scratched his head. "We know where that is, don't we? We hid in a broom closet near there from Filch that one time in third year?"

Sirius grinned. "Right, mate, we'd... What was it... Charmed the dungeons pink, was it?"

Peter cut in. "Nah, that was the Halloween prank. We were hiding from Filch because we transfigured Mrs. Norris into a doormat, and he didn't realize until he'd rubbed his boots on her twice, remember?"

Lily rolled her eyes. Typical. You could count on the Marauders to know where pretty much anything or anyone in the castle was, but they had the most childish reasons for knowing what they did. "So, James. You remember where this too?"

James looked uncomfortable. "Um. Well. Yes. Yes I do."

She snorted. "Of course. Well?"

He balked. "Well what?"

"Are you going to show me where it is or not?"

James glared at his "friends". Were they really laughing at this? "Yeah, absolutely Evans. Just head up the north staircase, and I'll catch up in a mo'?"

Lily frowned at the still laughing Marauders before accepting James's offer and turning on her heel. The four boys watched her go, until James angrily snapped "Really? It's hard enough trying to act responsible around her without all of you lot going and reminding her that we're really not."

Sirius snickered. "We? Prongsy, we're paragons of maturity."

Peter smirked. "Yeah. Moony already acts like an old man."

"It's just so difficult to misbehave around him that we might as well give up."

"He's such a killjoy."

"We might as well start calling him Professor Lupin at this point, insufferable do-gooder that he is."

Judging by the look on his face, Remus was anything but amused. "James" he said drily. "Seeing as how I am regrettably not a Professor yet, would you be so kind as to give these two detention for general idiocy?"

"Aah, Prongsy would never do that to his best mates" vowed Sirius. "We mean far too much to him to waste away in detention."

James' expression was even less agreeable than Remus'. "Boys" he managed, forcing the words out around a clenched jaw. "This is my last year here. I have one more year to get Evans. Don't fuck this up for me. Okay?" He shot his friends a filthy look, turned, and stamped off, jogging to catch up with the Head Girl.

Sirius turned to Peter and raised an eyebrow. "If he's like this now, how whipped will he be, d'you reckon, if she actually decides to give him a chance?"

Peter gazed at James' back with a mournful expression. "It'd be worse than that time Filch caught us spiking the faculty lounge's pumpkin juice."

Sirius winced. "Mate, I think I still have scars from that. Remind me why we got caught for that one?"

Peter snorted. "Prongs saw a note that Evans had written McGonagall about our Halloween prank that year, and was convinced that the fact that she'd used his name meant that she was secretly in love with him. He had to stay to read the whole thing, didn't he?"

"... Prongs is a right git, isn't he?"

"Yeah, but imagine how bad he'll be if they don't end up together."

"Point taken, Wormy, point taken."

Remus just sighed and shook his head. "You two are impossible. Remind me why we're friends again?"

Sirius grinned. "You're secretly madly in love with us?"

Remus flushed and swatted the back of his dark-haired friend's head. "Oh you wish. Grow up, you stupid tosser." He too turned and stalked off, muttering darkly as he made his way towards Gryffindor tower.

Peter and Sirius watched as he stormed off. "We're really getting good at this whole "drive people off" business, aren't we, Padfoot?"

"It's good practice, Wormy" said Sirius sagely. "With as many admirers as I've got, it takes real finesse to keep them at arms length, sometimes."

Peter looked at the other boy for a second, before thougtfully admitting, "You know, maybe they've got a point. You really don't take anything seriously at all, do you?"

Sirius made a noise that, coming from anyone else, would be called a giggle. This was Sirius Black though, and he was far too manly for anything less than a chuckle though, so Sirius chuckled. "It's all part of my charm, Wormy. All part of the charm."

"Evans! Hey! Evans!" She'd moved quickly, or James had been talking longer than he'd expected to. Either way, she'd made it a lot further than he'd anticipated, and he'd had to run to catch up to her. "I- Look, I'm sorry that my friends are a bunch of gits, okay? And I'm sorry again for the train, yeah?"

She turned to him and shrugged. "Eh. I overreacted, I guess. I'm sorry as well. I guess I should be used to it by now."

He looked warily at the girl in front of him. "You're... You're sorry? Geez, Evans, I was expecting a lot more than that."

Another shrug. "I mean, you apologized first. And I saw you making an effort to be less of a git just then, so its only fair that I do the same, right? I mean, we're living together. We're gonna have to learn to get along somehow."

He must be dreaming or something, because really, this was not Lily Evans in front of him. "I... Don't get me wrong, Evans, that sounds great and all, but this is pretty sudden. Where's this coming from?"

She grinned. "I noticed that the Marauders didn't try to pull something big tonight. At first I thought maybe the lack of a prank was the prank, you know, make us all wary over nothing, but then I figured that that was too clever for you."

By the way he was looking at her, a casual passerby might have expected Lily to have sprouted a third arm, or perhaps grown purple tentacles in place of hair. She swiped nervously at her cheek, uncomfortable under his eyes. "Do I have something on my face? What's wrong? Is it my hair?"

James just shook his head. "I just... Wow. You've hated me for so long, it's just such a quick turn-about. I'm a little spell-shocked."

Lily laughed derisively. "Hated you? You give yourself far too much credit, Potter. If anything, you just irritated me. Hating you would have taken up too much of my spare time." She grinned cheekily at him. "You weren't worth it."

Honestly, if it wasn't for that grin she'd flashed him (the first smile of hers that she'd directed towards him in the six years that he'd known her, and yes, he was keeping track) he probably would have been heartbroken right there. "Well, give it time. I'll have you hating me soon enough."

She laughed, although this time it was more with him than at him. "Somehow, I don't doubt that. From what I've seen, it wouldn't take too much work at all, Potter."

"Y'know, I bet you could hate me a lot quicker if you started calling me James. Familiarize yourself with the enemy and all, yeah?"

Lily actually laughed at that. "That really was a pathetic attempt, Potter."

He just shrugged. "Well, you're putting up with me, so that's enough progress for one day, I guess. I'll get you to call me James tomorrow."

She rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Good luck with that."

"Luck is for the weak" James scoffed. "Marauders make their own."

"Oh really? I didn't think you lot paid attention in Potions nearly enough for that."

The banter continued as the pair made their way to their new lodgings. Once the initial shock of a Lily Evans reception to conversation had worn off, James found that she was surprisingly easy to talk to, even if her sense of humor was, perhaps, a little drier and more subtle than that of his fellow Marauders.

There was a moment of discomfort when the pair reached a statue of an ancient, wizened wizard and realized that neither of them knew the password. The two looked briefly at each other, about to ask if the other new the password, when the statue spoke. "The Head Boy and Girl, I presume?" he rasped, in a feeble voice. "Well then. Select a password, and I'll show you in."

Lily looked at James. "Any suggestions, then?"

"Felix Felicis?" He shrugged. "You're right, all I know is the name."

She almost laughed. "This is what you call making your own luck? Pathetic, Potter." She turned, and addressed the statue. "Felix Felicis."

The statue bowed slightly, wincing at the gesture and stepped aside, the wall behind it melting into a door. "Your rooms."

"After you then, Lily" James offered gallantly.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Be still, my heart" she laughed, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

"Mare? Julia?" Alice asked as the three girls settled into their beds for the night. "What was all that in the Great Hall earlier on?"

Mary glanced at the third girl in the room. "Julia? It's your story."

Julia grinned happily. Letting Alice in on their plans would make it so much more entertaining. "Okay!" She paused, chewing on her lower lip as she tried to figure out where to begin. "Well," she started, "My daddy moved back to Wizard London after momma left, and he met Mr. Potter at work. And they both liked their chips with mayonaisse, so they became friends, and now Mr. Potter comes over for dinner once a month, and sometimes he brings Mrs. Potter, but never James for some reason, and we never go over there, and I think it's because Daddy doesn't like that they have so many house elves." Julia paused to take a breath. "And so he was over last week, and we were eating chicken, and then Mrs. Potter asked if I knew who Head Girl was, and so I said yes! It's my friend Lily! So she asked if that was Lily Evans, and I asked how she knew Lily, and she said that she didn't, and that confused me, because how did she know Lily's last name, so I asked her that. And she said that James talked about Lily all the time at home, and didn't know why Lily didn't like him back, and that he wrote her poetry but didn't send it, which I think is silly, because if you write somebody poetry, you obviously want them to know how you feel, so he should have sent it, but I didn't say that."

Mary laughed. "Tell her the best part, Jules."

Julia's smile widened. "Well, after we ate blueberry pie and Mr. Potter cleaned off the stain where he dropped pie on the tablecloth, they got up to leave, and as they were leaving, Mrs. Potter asked me if I could please point Lily in the right direction so that she could have a non-mopey son back, and Mr. Potter agreed, but said that it might be harder to keep James from messing things up than it would be to get Lily on the right track. And I didn't really know what they meant, so I asked Mrs. Potter why I couldn't just buy Lily a map or a compass, because that would be easier, and she looked confused, but my daddy just laughed and told me that he'd explain later." Julia smiled happily, having completed her explanation of that night's events.

Alice looked confused, a rather common state for anyone who spoke to Julia for too long. Mary, however, was well-versed in Julia-logic, and was able to interpret. "Basically, the Potters want us to play match-maker for Lily and James."

Alice's squealed in surprise, and her eyes crinkled with glee. She bounded over to Mary's bed, throwing the girl into a tight embrace. "This is going to be the best year ever!" she shrieked. Mary grinned contentedly. "Yeah, Al, yeah it is."

In the Head's Dorm, things were surprisingly comfortable. Lily and James had arrived to find a set of rooms not that unlike those found in the Gryffindor common room. Their (admittedly smaller) common room was furnished with squashy armchairs, and had a small fireplace set against the left wall. The back wall had two doors which lead to the two bedrooms, each of which had another door which opened into the joint bathroom. Lily despaired at the single shower while James turned pink when he realized that they were sharing the facilities.

However, once the intial shock of their shared living space wore off, the two decided that all things considered, their situations could be worse. The dorm was spacious enough that they could ignore the other when necessary, but small enough that it felt rather homey. Both were, by nature, relatively neat and tidy, and as James pointed out, neither of them were Slytherins.

They reached several ground rules rather quickly (Lily insisting that the Marauders could not use the dorm as a party-house, and James asking that Lily in turn inform him in advance if she was going to have friends over.) There was all the awkwardness that would be expected of two teenagers forced to live with a member of the opposite sex for the first time, but it wasn't insurmountable. Their interactions were pleasant enough that Head Boy and Head Girl bade each other good night feeling as excited about the coming school year as they had been upon waking.

Lily lay awake in bed for a period thinking of her responsiblities as Head Girl, her classes, her friends, and the looming threat of N.E.W.T.s and of career placement.

James lay awake even longer thinking of Lily.

Every teenager goes through a period of intense self-centrism, in which they think that their problems are unique, that they are inherently special for doing what they've done, and that their actions would shape the world for generations to come. Sadly, most teenagers are deluded in thinking so. Their problems are, for the most part, banal and unoriginal, they are no more special than the next child (which, depending on your point of view, is either incredibly special or not at all), and their actions have little to no bearing on the world at large.

Lily Evans was not one of those teenagers. She was possessed of a rare maturity that let her take her life day by day, worrying about the people around her more than herself. She questioned whether her actions had any significance on the world, and made no claims, internal or external, to greatness or speciality.

However, whether she recognized it or not (and indeed, she did not) Lily Evans was special, special in that she affected the lives of everyone around her. Think of the wizarding world as a sea, stormy and grey, teeming with waves and winds. This rock represents your typical, everyday wizard – watch as it's thrown into the water. The ripples are lost almost instantaneously in the froth and foam of the ocean, and the pebble sinks to the bottom, lost to history, and unremarkable. Lily Evans was no pebble, no rock. Lily Evans was the Titanic, proud and celebrated and taken before her time, only to be remembered forever, as her ripples spread across the sea.

This story isn't a love story, not exactly. This story is about heartbreak, and lost friends, and how cruel children can be, intentionally or not, to those that they hate and to those that they love. This story is about friends and enemies, and about choices between right and wrong. This story is about two promises that Lily Evans made to herself as a teenager, neither of which she kept.

This story will not have a happy ending.

Author's Note: I'm really enjoying writing the tiny part that is Peter Pettigrew, for whatever reason. Reviews are warm bread with herbed olive oil.

Ta,

ConJar