Hello, lovely readers! This is Part Two of the Seven Weeks, Seven Kisses series. It can be read alone, but will make more sense and be more enjoyable if you check out Part One, Kiss Me Quick - it's only short, you know you want to ;)

The series is Jily but this particular story focuses a lot on Lily and Sev's relationship, and the end of an unhealthy friendship. I'm writing a lot from first-hand experience there, so hopefully it comes across as realistic. There's plenty of James too, but this is very much just a step in their relationship and this one definitely isn't Jily fluff.

The story is completely written and uploaded so I'll be posting a chapter a day for the next week, so that the story progresses in time with the plot, if that makes sense.

As I'm sure you guessed I sadly don't own Lily, Sev, any of the Marauders or anyone else appearing in this fic, apart from Jackie who basically just exists because there was an empty bed in the girls' dorm and I always imagined Emmeline and Dorcas as being older than Lily et al.

Rating is for mild language.

Hope you enjoy!

"Evans! Evans, will you wake up, for Merlin's sake?"

"Wassup?" Lily Evans lifted her head off her hands and found herself staring into the face of one James Potter. Potter, never her favourite sight, never less welcome than when she had just woken up.

"What is it, Potter?" she growled, blinking down at the scattering of notes that had taken the place of a pillow.

"I don't know anything, Evans," he whined pathetically. "And the exam's tomorrow…"

"So what do you want me to do about it?" Lily felt that she had a right to be grumpy. She had barely slept during the previous week of OWLs, and the weekend had passed in a haze of scrawled notes, heavy books and coffee stains. Uncomfortable as the table in the Gryffindor common room was, she had been enjoying her nap, and of all the people who could have woken her up, it had to be the Great Annoyance himself. Looking at him now, she realised with some surprise that there was genuine panic in his eyes.

"You're brilliant at Potions, Evans," he wheedled. "Always have been. And at everything else, of course, but Potions especially."

"And you're perfectly competent," Lily huffed in reply. Frankly she thought he had some nerve. He and the Idiot Black had spent the last five years blowing up cauldrons for laughs, and now that he had realised he needed to actually know something he was expecting her to bail him out, was he?

Lily stood up abruptly, gathering her things. Potter blinked at her, taken aback. "Where are you going?"

"Library," she snapped, asking herself as she did so why she was humouring him enough to answer him. She noticed that a few sheets of paper, criss-crossed with her own handwriting, were trapped under his elbow, and debated whether to ask for them back. One look at his baleful eyes brought bile to her throat, so she abandoned the notes to their unhappy fate and left the common room, Potter's gaze tailing her as she went.

She took a deep breath as the Fat Lady's portrait swung shut behind her. "Exams getting you down, dearie?" enquired the painting.

"Ha!" Lily was faintly aware that her laugh sounded slightly manic. "Ha," she repeated, not bothering to explain herself, and marched away, as the Fat Lady made concerned clucking noises after her retreating back. "You'd feel much better for a good night's sleep, dear."

Some hope, thought Lily, rounding a corner.

Potter had been insufferable ever since she had made the ill-fated decision to kiss him in the Owlery halfway through the previous term. "Decision" probably wasn't the right word – it had been a spur of the moment thing. She wasn't sure, looking back, what she'd been thinking.

Not only had she kissed him, but she had also failed, when given the opportunity, to tell Potter to back off once and for all. He had promised that if she told him to, there, then, he would leave her alone for good.

And what had she done? Bloody kissed him, that's what. Which seemed to have given the deluded fool the ridiculous impression that she liked him. In fairness she could see that her behaviour had been a little misleading, but that didn't make his renewed persistence any less irritating. Or misplaced.

She found Remus sitting in the corner of the library, hunched over his own books. Remus didn't have Lily's natural prowess at Potions. He looked thoroughly miserable and rather ill. Not for the first time, Lily's stomach knotted itself into a tight ball of concern as she looked at her friend. "You okay, Remus?"

He looked up with a tired smile. "You look like I feel."

"Then I bloody well hope you don't feel as bad as you look," she countered, sinking into a chair beside him.

He chuckled weakly. "It's close."

"Wonderful." She pulled out a quill.

"Who drove you out of the common room?" As if he didn't know.

"That dumb mutt of yours. Potter."

"Oh, come on, Lily. Sirius is the only mutt around here." Remus' lips were twitching, as if he had just said something incredibly funny, but if he had, it was lost on Lily.

"Whatever. Just because he's panicking about Potions…"

"Don't be ridiculous. James doesn't panic about exams."

"He does to me. Every night last week, Help me Evans, Oh please Evans…"

"And it didn't occur to you that he might be pretending, just to have an excuse to talk to you?"

Lily made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat. That possibility hadn't occurred to her, no, but now that Remus mentioned it, that was exactly the kind of lowdown trick Potter would resort to.

"What did I ever do to deserve this?" she wondered aloud, and Remus gave a snigger. "Oh, I don't know… Kiss him, maybe?"

Lily took one look at Remus' smug face, and decided that, on reflection, she couldn't face another minute in the company of any Marauder, not even her personal favourite. She shoved her quill back in her bag.

Remus was still grinning. If he had one fault, it lay in his inexplicable belief that she would give up and go for James eventually. Lily's every attempt to assure him of the contrary seemed to fall into his one huge blind spot. "I'm going to bed," she announced. If she was lucky, pest control would have cleared Potter out of the common room by now.

Remus nodded once, before a hacking cough rose up as if from nowhere and he bent double over the desk. Lily's expression softened as he forced himself upright, making himself smile up at her. "Sleep well."

"You should probably do the same," she said pointedly, but he just shrugged. "In a bit. I keep hoping if I give it ten more minutes, I'll have a breakthrough and the art of brewing will just… Fall into place."

His smile somehow managed to be both humorous and despairing at the same time. Lily was about to say something further, when a magnificent, rumbling snore interrupted her train of thought. "What in Merlin's name was that?"

Remus gestured meaningfully under his desk. Lily ducked to take a peek, and was greeted with the sight of Peter Pettigrew, sprawled on his back under the table, mouth wide open, sound asleep.

Remus gave a soft chuckle. "He's been so fidgety since the exams started… I didn't want to disturb the peace."

Lily threw her fellow Prefect an exasperated look before turning to leave. She supposed she couldn't blame him. In fact, as she crossed the Entrance Hall, she found herself musing on the best way to slip Potter a sedative. Purely hypothetically, obviously.

She was so lost in the rather pleasing daydream that she almost didn't notice Sev approaching her. "Lily?"

She stirred herself out of her reverie and smiled. "Hi, Sev."

"Are you all right?" Dear Merlin, did she look that bad? He was staring at her as though expecting her to pass out before his eyes.

"Fine, fine," she said, with false cheeriness. "Just off to bed."

He gave a wry smile. "Still, your best subject tomorrow, eh?"

She didn't bother pointing out that sitting next to him had played a big part in her Potions prowess. He'd flatly deny it, even though it was true.

"Yep," she said instead, suddenly overwhelmed by the need to get back to her bed. "We'll be fine."

"Of course we will." As he passed her he gave her elbow a comforting squeeze. A complicated mess of emotions threatened to flood Lily's brain, but she pushed them back exhaustedly. Dealing with Sev was just one challenge too much for that evening.

Only a few minutes later, she was staggering into her dormitory. Jackie and Alice were already asleep, Jackie snoring loudly. Marlene's bed was empty – Lily didn't like to wonder where she might be – and Mary was sitting up in bed, surrounded by reams of paper. She looked up as Lily entered, wide-eyed.

"Lily!" she wailed miserably. "I don't know anything!"

Lily suffered an uncomfortable throw-back to the conversation less than an hour previously, when Potter had uttered the exact same words. "Sure you do," she replied, and stumbled into the bathroom before Mary had a chance to question her further.

By the time Lily emerged, Mary was slumped over her open textbook, sheets of paper fluttering to the floor around her. Lily gently prised the book out of Mary's hands, and pushed her back against the pillow where she could sleep more comfortably. Mary gave a little whimper as she fell back, and Lily sighed. The sooner this week – the last of their OWLs – was over, the better.