Hello! Hello! You should be very proud of me. Two chapters so close together. I am pleased. This one would have been up sooner, but I went to visit my sister at College before I could upload it.

I have tomorrow off school, though, so there should be another chapter up soon!

Disclaimer: It’s Jo’s…

Where was she? James was sitting in the Head Lounge, which was quite nice, actually. It was decorated in Gryffindor colors, which he assumed was because both Head Boy and Girl were from that house. There was a cupboard full of Butterbeer and Cauldron Cakes, which, though he had just eaten a great deal, James helped himself to happily.

Sitting on a plush couch of red and gold, sipping a Butterbeer, he wondered fretfully if she would even show up. James wasn’t one of Lily’s favorite people.

But he needed to talk to her. He wanted to tell her about what he had heard Dumbledore and McGonagall talking about last night…Ask her if she knew anything about it. Maybe she knew more about why Voldemort attacked her than she let on. The thought still bewildered him. Why had Voldemort made such a big deal over killing one muggle-born girl? And what had Dumbledore been talking about: “It has only been one, yet.” He just didn’t understand…

“Um…”

Roused from his thoughts, he jumped. Looking up, he saw Lily Evans looking amply uncomfortable.

“Um,” she muttered again, “hello, er, Potter.”

“Evans,” he nodded, allowing a rather faltering smile to emerge.

She gave him a pointed look and said rather coolly, “How come you’re calling me ‘Evans’ again?”

James pretended he didn’t hear the question. He wasn’t really sure why he was calling her Evans again, except that he just wanted things to go back to normal. He didn’t want things to be different between the two of them because of what had happened. “I thought for a moment you weren’t going to show up,” he said, veering away from her question.

His evasion didn’t go unnoticed by Lily, but she just raised her eyebrows and asked, “Am I that late?”

James shook his head, “Not really. I was just worried, I guess.”

“Oh. Well, I had a little trouble getting away from Marlene…”

James couldn’t help but laugh. “Does she always act like that?”

“Like what?” Lily asked, her tone irritated.

“Like your mother,” said James simply, but he instantly regretted it, realizing what he had just said.

The slightest ripple of ache passed over her face, but it was gone in a nanosecond. “She’s just being a good friend,” Lily insisted defensively, “She’s just…worried about me. After …you know. That’s just Marlene.”

“Right,” said James, sloshing his Butterbeer. “Want one?” he offered, “There’s a whole cupboard over there.”

“No thank you,” her voice was rather frigid. “I don’t intend to be here very long. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Oh, r-right,” James stuttered. Now that she was here, standing right in front of him, he didn’t really want to bring it back up…“I …uh…just wanted to, er, make sure you were okay.”

Lily raised her eyebrows. “You asked me to come down here so you could make sure I was ‘okay?’ And you couldn’t ask me that in front of Marlene because…?”

“Er,” replied James lamely.

Unfortunately, Lily wasn’t daft, nor was she going to accept ‘er’ as an answer. “Right. What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

“I, uh,”

“James. I’m tired. If you’re not going to tell me what was so important that you made me come all the way up here, then I am going to leave.” She started towards the door, changed her mind half-way, stormed passed him, grabbed a Butterbeer, and left.

It was only after the door had slammed that he realized something: She had called him ‘James.’

As Lily made her way back up to the Gryffindor common room, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of remorse for blowing up at James like that. But really! What was the point of making her trudge down two flights of stairs, not to mention making Marlene furious? She knew that he hadn’t really wanted to just ‘make sure she was okay,’ and she was certain that if she had stayed a little longer, she would’ve found out what it really was.

Her temper had been tipping over the edge all day, with no one to take it out on: She couldn’t possibly yell at Madam Pomfrey, and she was trying very, very hard not to explode at Marlene, so when James had ticked her off, he was just the scapegoat she needed. Yelling at ‘Potter’ was familiar territory, and it had been a nice way to release her angry emotions, but she now felt very guilty. Taking a moment to curse her oversensitive conscience, she decided she would just apologize to him next time she saw him.

Climbing through the portrait hole, Lily trudged up the stairs to the girls’ dormitories, looking forward to going to bed.

“So?” Marlene asked instantly as Lily walked through the door. “What did he want?”

“Hullo, Marlene,” she said dryly. Marlene put her hands on her hips. “He just -- he…wanted to make sure I was okay.”

“I knew it!” trilled Marlene, shaking her head and turning back to her trunk. She continued to unpack various items, such as a crystal ball (she had gone on for ages when she had gotten it for her birthday last year), a purple hair brush that she had bewitched to brush on it’s own, and gigantic blue poster of the Appleby Arrows (“The keeper is so cute!”)

“Sorry, knew what?” Lily asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Well I was right, wasn’t I? All he wanted was to make-out,” she said matter-of-factly.

“How do you get that out of wanting to make sure I was okay?”

“Gosh, Lily, ‘making sure you’re okay’ is guy-talk for ‘let’s snog!’”

Lily thought this was quite ridiculous, “I thought it was sweet,” she said, guiltily thinking of how she had exploded at James.

Marlene sighed, “Well, you would, wouldn’t you?” She shrugged, and proceeded in hanging up her poster.

“And what does that mean?” asked Lily irritably.

“Nothing -- it’s just that you’re, well, you’re a little naïve when it comes to guys.”

“And you’re more knowledgeable than me?” Honestly, Lily loved Marlene, but she could be a right pain sometimes.

“Well haven’t I got a twin brother? Plus, I’ve been out with quite a few jerks.”

“Whatever,” said Lily. She wasn’t in the mood to fight with Marlene right now. “So, how was China?”

“It was fabulous! I wish you could have seen it!” Marlene then jumped into a long explanation on Chinese zodiac and all the amazing things she learned about divination there. Lily tried to pay attention for the first bit, but soon found her attention fading.

Something was different between she and Marlene this year. Someone had changed. Lily had few doubts that it was her, but that still wasn’t much comfort. She examined her friend, under the pretense of listening.

Marlene and Lily were complete opposites. Marlene was loud and rambunctious, and she, Lily, was, well, not. Even their appearances were completely different. Lily didn’t pay much attention to her look, except to try and appear decently groomed. Marlene loved clothing; the louder, the better. In contrast to Lily’s long, auburn hair, Marlene had short, light brown hair that flipped out at the bottom. She had very large ears, which, despite how much she complained about them, Lily knew that she was secretly very proud of. Lily, who was quite short and infuriated by it, often referred to her friend jokingly as “freakishly tall,” aided by the fact that Marlene always wore high-heels. She also wore blue oval glasses, but ever since Lily had tried them on in third year and realized that her vision had not changed at all, she had been quite sure they were just for effect.

To put it simply, Marlene reveled in being different.

“Lily?” Lily jumped back to attention and saw Marlene looking at her peculiarly.

“Wha-?”

“Oh, never mind,” muttered Marlene, rolling her eyes.

Taking a large swallow of Butterbeer, Lily made her way over to her bed, ready to go to sleep.

And then it occurred to her: Her stuff. Opening her bed curtains, she discovered a letter.

Marlene, seeing that Lily had the letter in her hand, said, “So, are we going to get your stuff tomorrow, then?” Lily didn’t even question that Marlene had already read the note.

Lily just shrugged, and said, “I guess so.” Really, the prospect of going back to her home didn’t please her in the slightest. Going back would open wounds that she had carefully kept closed. Every sight from the staircase to her burnt Beatles poster would remind her of that night…

“Lily?” she looked up to see Marlene looking at her with a peculiar expression on her face. “Are you okay?”

Lily sat down on her bed, putting her head in her hands. “No,” she said softly, squeezing her eyes shut, “No, I’m not.”