"Can I talk to you?"

Lily looked up, startled, to find James leaning in her doorway looking thoroughly confused and just a little angry.

Lily sat up, patting the bed beside her. "Of course you can. And while you're here, we can have a Head's Meeting too – Dumbledore owled me."

Making his way across the now familiar room, James gave Lily a quizzical look. "Head's Meeting?"

"Well, loads of students are staying here this holidays: their parents seem to think they'll be safer here. SoDumbledore said, you know, why don't we throw a ball? Get a little Christmas spirit going and, oh, perfect! Lily, you can organize it!"

"You're being sarcastic."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Naturally."

Lily watched James as he moved to recline across her bed. The tall, lanky, handsome as hell James Potter was sprawling himself across her bed. Lily bit her lip, secretly furious. Was he flaunting himself in front of her onpurpose?

"You do realize I'm not going to ask you to the ball, right?" James told her, a satisfied smile stretching across his lips.

Which seemed to confirm things, once and for all. James Potter was a tease.

"Not?" Lily repeated, stunned and just a little insulted.

It was all James could do not to laugh. Lily wants me to ask her! His heart sung.

James regained his composure and shook his head. "No, I'm not, Lily."

"What if I ask you?" Lily replied, rather (and overly) loftily.

James just grinned. "Then I'll say no."

James watched her reaction. To put it simply, the Head Girl looked stunned. She was sitting there, and her beautiful eyes were glittering murderously and her messy ponytail looked so… adorable, and there he was, lying across her bed, saying that he didn't want her.

James Potter was a liar.

Lily was considering whether she should hex him or throttle him. Both seemed to be outrageously appealing.

James sat up, and suddenly he shuffled closer. Lily's throat caught in her breath.

"But seriously, Lily, we have something a little more urgent to discuss," he told her, his voice low, and oddly grim. His breath tickled her ear.

Lily looked at him in surprise. "What's wrong?"

"Sirius kissed Emmeline."

Lily quirked an eyebrow. "And?"

"Sirius kissed Emmeline because Peter messed up and did something stupid and Sirius wanted to get him back so he kissed Emmeline and Emmeline doesn't know that Sirius kissed her because he was getting Peter back."

"Oh."

Lily watched James' hazel eyes, and bit her lip again. She liked the way his eyes flickered when she did this. For all that Lily could sense that ominous feeling of impending social disaster that seemed to have spread from James' words, her mind was blank to all but one thought:

Why won't James kiss me?

"You do realize that James is just being a gentleman again," Emmeline muttered disinterestedly, toying with her scrambled eggs the next morning, a dreamy look dancing across her face every time she glanced toward the Marauders.

Lily rolled her eyes and took a sip of pumpkin juice. "I'm sick of James being a gentleman, Em. I'm tired of waiting for him to make the first move. Maybe I'll just have to do something first?"

Emmeline shrugged. "Find a date for the ball, make him jealous. I don't care."

Lily gave her best friend a scathing look. "Oh don't be so cliché," she told her scornfully.

"Maybe you should kiss him?" Emmeline grinned. "Kisses are good. I'd go out with someone who kissed me."

Lily almost choked on her toast. "Emmeline Vance, if I'm not mistaken, you once told me that Sirius Black was your friend and your Quidditch Captain, and that you wouldn't ever think of him like that."

"But that," Emmeline told Lily, her tone practical," was before Sirius kissed me."

"I shouldn't have done it," Sirius moaned, head in his hands.

"Have some bacon," Remus murmured sympathetically, shooting a glance at James, who simply glowered at Sirius.

"You're right," the Head Boy told his best friend shortly. "You shouldn't have done it."

Sirius looked haunted. His eyes were blacker than usual, and the familiar sparkle of mischief was gone. Sirius was notorious for not thinking things through, but James was pretty sure that this one took the cake, figuratively.

"It's all my fault," Peter muttered, munching on a bagel. "If I hadn't made you angry, you wouldn't have wanted to get me back."

"Wormy, you idiot, don't make excuses for me," Sirius told him woefully.

Someone cleared their throat behind the boys, and James turned to find Lily standing there.

For the third time in probably twelve hours, Lily was biting her lip. James found it incredibly attractive, and forced back a smile, settling instead for a look of polite interest.

Lily leant forward to whisper in James' ear. "I think we might have a problem with Em."

James nodded slowly, and winked at the boys, who were watching him curiously. "That doesn't surprise me," he whispered back. "Can we distract her?"

Lily seemed to consider this, before smiling slightly. "Wecould... Benjy Fenwick. Get him to ask Em to the ball and she'll forget all about Sirius."

James nodded again, and smiled back. "Good. That's a plan. Was there anything else?"

Lily hesitated. "Emmeline says I should get another date to the ball," she told him, eyes dancing playfully. "But I think that I might go single. I haven't done anything by myself for a while, now."

James raised his eyebrows, but really he was bursting in pride. That was exactly what he wanted: for Lily to decide to do something for herself, not for any one else.

"Today, I have a challenge for you all," Slughorn announced jovially. "I know that this year, a lot of the more complex potions we've been using have very little relevance to the outside world. We have, essentially, been examining potions in order to admire their intricacies, and not for any practical purpose."

James and Sirius exchanged looks of utmost boredom. It was not unusual for Slughorn to rave about his love for potions, but some days he took it too far. Lily, sitting much closer to the front, looked fascinated nevertheless. Prodding Sirius and gesturing to Lily, the boys hid their smiles.

"So today, I want to provoke your young minds into thought, and thus I issue you with a challenge. I want you to take a potion, and I want you to reshape it for a new purpose."

Lily glanced at Emmeline. She looked, in Emmeline's opinion, disturbingly excited.

"Free range of the potions lab!" she muttered, low and fast. "Imagine what we can do!"

Emmeline simply rolled her eyes.

"I'm assigning you partners," Slughorn continued, oblivious to his class' obvious disinterest.

"Lupin, Bulstrode. Black, Vance. Evans-"

James' ears pricked up. Beside him, Sirius was looking positively sick.

"Oh, this is cruel," he muttered under his breath. "Cruel, cruel, cruel, cruel."

"-Snape. Potter, Fenwick. Goyle, Diggory."

"Hey Sirius. "

Sirius glanced up, fixing a false smile on his face. "Hey Em."

James surreptitiously packed up his things, but not before he heard Sirius begin awkwardly:

"Em, about the other night…"

Making his way across the room, James winced as he heard the distinctive sound of cauldron-to-skull contact.

Thump

Lily jumped as Severus Snape set his cauldron and textbook on her table.

"Lily."

All but ignoring the curt greeting, Lily refused to meet his eyes, instead focusing on her own textbook. Feeling it would be rude not to respond, she politely turned up the corners of her mouth in a semblance of a smile - one she knew he'd see right through, although she didn't particularly care.

"Sev."

Snape looked strangely relieved as he slipped into Emmeline's vacated seat.

"Listen, Lily, I understand if you don't want to-"

"What were you thinking of?" Lily interrupted conversationally. Snape looked baffled until she added," For the potion, I mean."

Snape raised his brows at her brisk rejection. He sighed, pushing his greasy hair back from his face.

"I was thinking of making the Monksblood potion," he suggested quietly.

Lily frowned, still flicking through her textbook, although she didn't even bother to scan the pages. Her voice was absent, careless, as she dared to question him. "Why on earth would you want to make that?"

Snape shrugged, flicking through his own book now, although he found the page he sought almost immediately. "I wasn't thinking of it from the monks angle, Lily. I was thinking of it more as wolfsbane."

Lily's head snapped up, her eyes meeting his for the first time in almost a year. They were searching, accusing, even angry.

"What for?"

Snape knew a challenge when he saw it. He stood, suddenly, drawing himself up to his full height. "For the sake of experimentation."

"Did you hear we're planning a ball?" James asked Benjy conversationally as they sat together, cutting up hyssop stalks, their silence companionable.

Benjy looked at him sidelong. "Really? For Christmas? Are you going to ask Lily?"

James was shocked by that knowing smile. He laughed. "Perhaps. How about you?"

Benjy shrugged, and glanced toward Sirius and Emmeline's table, where the pair were now arguing in harsh whispers over the rather large dent in Emmeline's cauldron.

"I don't know," he replied, eyes sweeping the room to land back on James. "There's not really anyone I could ask, you know?"

James frowned. "Weren't you and Marlene-?" he asked.

Benjy looked away again. "Nah, man. I asked her, but we just didn't seem to click, you know?"

James could have sworn Benjy had glanced at Emmeline again for the second time in as many minutes. As if to verify, Benjy sighed.

"Those two make an odd couple," he smiled reluctantly, nodding toward Sirius and Emmeline.

James scoffed. "They're not a couple. Sirius doesn't want a girlfriend, and Emmeline doesn't like him like that anyway."

Benjy looked doubtful. "What's this I hear about a kiss then?"

"Sirius was pranking Peter," James replied, semi-truthfully.

Benjy nodded again, cool as the cusps of the iced Mandrake malt he was now shredding.

"You should ask her, you know," James told him seriously. "What do you have to lose?"

"You dented my cauldron," Emmeline hissed, her face red with anger.

Sirius smirked. "It wouldn't have dented if someone hadn'tthrown it at me."

"You deserved it," Emmeline cried out, stung. "You used me!"

She looked away, in a futile attempt to hide the sudden emotion in her eyes.

Sirius placed a hand gently on hers, but she pulled away.

"Vance, will you look at me?"

He sounded so frustrated that Emmeline felt victorious.She had ruffled Sirius Black!

"Fine, I'll talk to the back of your head. I was angry with Peter, and we all know he likes you. So I kissed you, to get him back. And I didn't think. Despite what you may think about me, I am sorry. I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression, Em."

Emmeline sniffed. "You're a bastard, you know that?"

Sirius hung his head. "I am," he admitted, so softly that Emmeline nearly missed his words.

She turned to look at him incredulously. "And you're a manipulative, conniving idiot."

"Worse," he admitted. He looked up, and met her eyes. "Lets make no mistake, Vance. I know exactly what I am, and I've never pretended to be anything different. I'm dark and twisted and cynical."

Emmeline gave him a trace of a smile. "That you are."

Sirius nodded matter-of-factly. "I think it's genetic, personally," he confided, and her smile grew, just a millimetre. "So, can you forgive me?"

Although the smirk that had crept onto his face suggested differently, Emmeline read the sincerity in his eyes. "Just this once, Black. Don't you dare do it again, though, mind you."

"Being productive, I see," Slughorn interrupted, frowning.

"We were discussing which potion to make, sir," Emmeline told him, widening her blue eyes innocently.

Slughorn's mustache fluttered as he smiled. "And what have you decided on?" he asked.

Emmeline felt Sirius elbow her. "We were thinking-"

"Amortentia, sir. I never could master it," Sirius interrupted, giving Slughorn a dashing smile.

Slughorn inclined his head. "Very well, then, off you go."

"I can't believe you were flirting with Sluggy," Sirius muttered as they dug into the store cupboard. He shivered in disgust. "I thought that was beneath you, Emmeline."

Emmeline scoffed. "Don't go lecturing me on standards, Black, you filthy hypocrite."

"At your service," the boy returned cheerfully.