The next first week at Hogwarts seemed to fly by even faster than James Potter on the quidditch pitch. It was a mishmosh of getting resettled in the dormitories and new routines, people commenting on James and Lily's relationship (always with "I knew all along" or else "it's about ruddy time!"), and classes in hot, stuffy classrooms. McGonagall had to take away Sirius Black's wand in their first Transfiguration class when he'd been using it to sword fight with James.

"Well how come you're not confiscating his wand, too, Minnie?" Sirius had protested.

"Because, Mr. Black, Mr. Potter is trying to do his assignment, and you are twarting him," McGonagall replied.

"Well how am I supposed to do my assignment without my wand?"

McGonagall said, "Next time, think about that before you've interrupted another boy's concentration!" But she gave Sirius's wand back - having only ever intended to disarm him long enough to stop the two boys from poking each other without getting caught in the cross-fire herself. 

James was smirking through the entire thing, carefully keeping his head ducked down in his book, because it had actually been him who had started the entire thing to begin with.

In their second Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, Severus Snape got highest marks from Garm, who had set the class up out of doors on the grounds, exploding a shed that Hagrid kept old tools in. Each student took a go at it and the more completely obliterated the shed was, the higher the marks they go were. Garm repeatedly used the repairing spell to put the shed back together, and one-by-one they took gos at destroying it again. Most of the students used bombarda or bombarda maxima to knock the shed down, but Snape took another course.

"Deprimo!" Severus shouted when it was his turn, jabbing his wand forward with his forearm perfectly straight. There was a moment in which it seemed that nothing had happened and Sirius was about to make fun of Snape's lame attempt when the shed began to smoke from every crevice and to shake... Garm's face lit up with pleasure and amusement as he watched it... and then, with  bomb-like implosion, the shack exploded so completely that Garm actually struggled repairing it.

"Very good, Snape," Garm said - a rare moment of praise that even Frek looked shocked to hear, hovering a few steps behind Garm with wide eyes as Severus Snape smiled proud of himself. He tried to meet Lily's eyes, but she'd expected him to seek her reaction and she turned away.

It was very good magic, though, and even Sirius had to force himself not to be impressed, and he turned quickly to Remus to distract himself. Sirius whispered, so that only Remus could hear, "You can do better than that. Listen here, all you have to do is walk up and huff and puff and blow the shed down." He snickered.

James, who immediately followed Severus at the exploding of the shed, rolled up his sleeves with determination as he stepped up, Severus still basking in the praises of Garm, who hadn't expected such a thorough job of it from any of the students. James glanced at Lily, who stood off to the side, having used the bombarda during her turn up, and he scoured his memory for something that might work and he finally came up with - "Deletrus!" 

The entire shed seemed to shiver and then turned to ash so fine that it utterly and completely disappeared.

Garm blinked in surprise at the place where the shed used to be, and he walked over and kicked in the grass with the toe of his boot before looking up, his eyes meeting James's. "Impressive, Potter," he murmured, then waving a hand carelessly, he said, "The rest of you don't get to practice the spell, I guess, seeing as Potter's destroyed the thing beyond repairing... Good luck telling Hagrid what you've done to his tools, boy." And with that, Garm turned and started back up the grounds.

"Good one, James," Sirius said, grinning and leaping over to twack James up on the back.

James laughed and grinned as the class started talking excitedly to him, collecting about him to inquire where he'd learned the deletus from, scouring their textbooks for the source. It wasn't until later, during their code-word "rounds", that James confessed to Lily he'd been making rubbish up and just said the first thing that came to mind. "I got lucky," he admitted, flushing.

Lily laughed, "But you took the chance and that's brilliant, too." She reached up and tucked a bit of hair behind his ear and smiled at him, their knees touching as they sat on the stairs that led up to the astronomy tower.

"Yeah, I s'pose it is," James said, puffing up just a wee bit because Evans had called him brilliant. He would never get used to it, he didn't think. He smiled down at their laced fingers and her bare knee peeking out from her uniform skirt, touching his trousers knee and he wished his knee was bare, too, so he could feel her skin touch his. "You're more brilliant," he murmured.

"You are," she said back.

But James shook his head, "No way -- you."

"You," she giggled.

"Brightest witch of our age," James said with emphasis. He leaned forward so their foreheads touched, like he'd watched his mum and dad do all his life, and he smiled, feeling the closeness. When he opened his eyes, his perspective made it look as though Lily's two emerald eyes had merged into one and he smirked, "You look like a lovely cyclops when we're this close."

Lily laughed. "Are you assuming that cyclops aren't very good looking, usually?"

"They're related to trolls and giants aren't they?" James asked.

"Are they real?" Lily asked, the muggle-born in her showing. "Here I thought we were speaking of a theoretical being."

Next thing James knew, they were in the Library in the section on Cyclops, the lantern flickering from the desk beside them as they kissed - Lily's back pressed against the bookshelves as James held her hands and his mouth pressed into hers - a book open to  page showing a very pretty cyclops indeed.

It was Wednesday morning - one week into the term - during Double Potions - that Sirius Black suddenly dropped into the seat where Lily had been before going to ask Slughorn a question about one of the ingredients. James glanced over at Sirius, barely pausing in slicing up a tuber for the potion. "That's not your seat."

"Nope," Sirius picked up the silver knife Lily had been using and started peeling some of the nuts that Lily had left on her prep board when she'd gone to talk to Slughorn. "I've come over to have a word with you."

"Careful how you're handling those nuts," James said, seeing what Sirius was doing.

Sirius's grin spread across his mouth. "Are you really trying to tell a gay man how to handle nuts?"

James flushed, "I - it's just Lily's really particular and --"

"Lily?" Sirius dropped the little knife to the table and turned to James, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

"What?" James looked up.

"You called her Lily."

"Yeah, so?"

Sirius smirked, "Nothing. Just thought it was interesting."

"Why? It's her name, isn't it?"

"I prefer Lilith Jumpingjacks Evans - but it gets the point across."

"What do you want, Sirius?" James turned back to the tuber.

Sirius leaned on his elbow, keeping James's face in his sight. "I think you have a problem."

"A problem?" James muttered, trying to concentrate so he wouldn't cut his finger.

"Yes," Sirius said evenly, "You're snogging Evans too much and it's really eating into our Marauding time."

James finger slipped and he did, indeed, cut his finger - making him swear loudly and Marlene MacKinnon looked up from the table behind him, where she and Emmaline Vance were pouring over their book together. Marlene spotted the blood. "What'd you do, Potter?"

"Thought I'd add a bit of spice to the draught," James joked as Emmaline aimed her wand and cast a perfect healing spell on the skin, which stitched itself shut in a second. James grinned, "Wow, you're really good at that."

"She's just been accepted to St. Mungo's training program next fall," said Marlene proudly.

Emmaline blushed, "It's true, I have."

"Hey! Good on you!" James said, grinning. Then, "I didn't know the training programs were open for applications already."

Marlene replied, "Didn't McGonagall give you lot pamphlets on it? Flitwick gave us ours ages ago..."

"The ones from 5th Year?" James asked, studying the perfect skin on his finger that had only just been split moments before.

"Yeah," Emmaline nodded. "One of the panels in the pamphlet includes application dates for early acceptance."

"Only a bloody Ravenclaw would notice that..." muttered Sirius.

"Well, now you know," Marlene answered him. "You best be looking at it, soon the early enrollment will be over and you'll be against all the others that haven't read the pamphlets thoroughly." She looked pointedly at Sirius, "You're welcome."

Sirius grinned, "I didn't thank you."

"You will when you actually have a job in two years."

"I'm moving to Costa Rica to become an orange grove farmer in two years," Sirius answered.

"Sirius!" Remus called from the table where Sirius ought to have been. "Sirius, your part of the potion is going to hell in a handbasket, will you get back here please?"

 Sirius grinned, "Sorry, you lot, my man beckons." He looked at James, "We'll finish this conversation later."

"What conversation?" James asked, clueless and hopelessly distracted from Sirius's original purposes of coming over.

Sirius rolled his eyes, and, passing Lily as he got up to cross the aisle, he said, "Good luck with that one - he's dense as fog."

Lily watched Sirius go and sit next to Remus at their table, then sat down next to James, "What'd you do now?"

"Did you know we're supposed to be applying for training programs already?" James hissed, ignoring her question.

"Yes, of course we are," Lily said. "Didn't you read the pamphlet?" Then, "Bloody hell, what did that dog do to my nuts?"

"Said he knew how to handle them," James said.

"Idiot," Lily muttered.

"Me?" James looked hurt.

"No, him," she said nodding at Sirius. "Look at this, he's got them all chopped wrong..."

James went back to his original point. "Have you applied for anything, then?"

"Yes, of course I did. Over the summer. I applied for the teaching program, as well as the Care of Young Witches and Wizards program..." Lily said, trying to fix what Sirius had done to the nuts. "He's got all the skin stripped off, ugh. Now how am I supposed to measure how much I'm putting in on step seventeen?"

James felt sick. "I didn't know I was supposed to do it over the summer."

Lily looked up. "Well you'd better do it soon or you'll be --"

"--against the whole school, yeah. Marlene and Emmaline told me."

"I had no idea you didn't know or else I would've been nagging you all summer long," Lily said.

James answered, "Well Sirius and Peter surely didn't know anything more than I did. I wonder if Remus has put in...?"

"Yeah, we sent ours off at the same time," Lily answered.

James tossed his tuber slices into the pot. "Teaching, too?"

"Yes," Lily replied, "Upon Ned Veigler's recommendation, too. And with a reference letter from Newt Scamander. He had a very impressive application."

"Blimey," James said. "Well, I guess we know what he'll be doing next year, then."

"For sure," Lily answered. "No way will he not be accepted."

"I'm sure you will be, too," James said, smiling with the corner of his mouth.

Lily smiled, "Thanks for believing in me, but my application very very dull and ordinary compared to his."

"We've had this talk, Evans," James said, "You're extraordinary."

"Hush, Potter," she whispered, blushing, then, "That's what I wanted to talk to Professor Slughorn about actually."

"How extraordinary you are?" James asked, "We both know the old duffer agrees."

"No - James -" Lily pushed him playfully, then clarified, "He wrote me a letter of recommendation last year and I just wanted to thank him for it and let him know I hadn't heard back yet."

James blinked in surprise, "Slughorn wrote you the letter?"

"Yes," Lily said. She gave a fine chop on her nuts and threw them into the potion as James stirred. "Careful. Gentle with that spoon."

"Yeah, right," James nodded, "Spoon." Then, "You're like the only person who gets on with Slughorn, you know that?"

Lily shrugged, "He's just lonely."

James said, "Yeah... I s'pose."

Lily looked down at the desk. "I... told him you'd come to our tea to properly meet him."

James looked over at her. "You what? What tea?"

"Professor Slughorn and I -- we've - we've had a sort of... weekly tea... for a couple terms now." Lily was carefully slicing some leaves for the potion. "And he asked me just now about the other day in the Great Hall, if I was really seeing you, and I've said yes, and he's insisted you come to tea to properly meet."

"I've properly met him," James said, "Bloody been in his class for seven years haven't I? And stuck in Slug Club a couple times."

"Yes, well." Lily cleared he throat, "Never as my boyfriend."

James grinned, "As what now?"

"My boyfriend," Lily confirmed.

"Yes, never as that," James nodded. Then, "Say it one more time, I just love the way it sounds."

"Potter."

"Evans?"

"Shut up."

"Make me."

"Okay, I will... later, after you've met Professor Slughorn properly." She puckered her lips and blew him a kiss.

James nodded, paused, then pulled out his wand and waved it, making a teacup appear before each of them on the desk. "Let's begin then, shall we?" Lily laughed as there was a bit of confusion at the front of the room from Slughorn, before whom another of the blue china teacups had appeared.

From the back of the room, Severus Snape glowered, watching the way Lily's eyes sparkled as she laughed, and the way they carried admiration as she looked up at James Potter... and he was so angry that he squeezed a fig too hard and it burst, spraying it's goo into his potion prematurely, rendering it useless.