Time moves on, of course, it always does, and soon it was nearing Lily's birthday and the close of January. James, for one, would be quite pleased to see the heinous month gone, and, hopefully, with it the stares he was getting all around Hogwarts. It seemed, now that students were back and crowding the halls, James was the focal point of the entire student body - but in quite a different way than he was used to. Sure, as Gryffindor Quidditch Captain and an overall popular bloke he got a good deal of attention rather regularly, but these days it was a different sort of attention.

For one, he wasn't expected to do any homework - a fact that was rather good as he had become quite a professional at shirking it off. "It isn't fair," Sirius muttered from behind his textbook, staring at James napping by the fireplace late at night while the other three Marauders (plus Lily) struggled to stay awake and write their meters of parchment for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

"Would you rather have been the one tortured and nearly killed, then?" Lily snapped, though only half-heartedly, as she was fighting nodding off herself.

Sirius scowled, but turned back to his scroll.

Homework was not the only thing James Potter was mysteriously exempt from these days. More than once, the Marauders were caught out of bed after dark in the castle and even old Filch didn't hold it against Potter - telling him in a forced voice to get going before he decided on lumping him in for the punishments. "Okay that's really not fair," Sirius argued, but Remus simply shook his head to quiet him.

James, honestly, felt quite bad about it, and he would spend a lot of his free time during the Marauders' detentions laying about the dorm, not doing the homework he wasn't required, staring up at the ceiling and trying to distract himself from gnat-like thoughts that persistently buzzed about his mind. A good deal of the times, he would get so bloody bored and lonely that he would dig through his trunk and pull out the mirror to talk to Sirius. "How are you enjoying the detention, mate?" James would joke as Sirius groaned in his desk in McGonagall's room, the muffliato keeping prying ears away. "Sorry I couldn't join you."

"Like hell you are," Sirius replied.

"Sure I am; what else better have I got to do than accompany you to detention?"

"Literally anything," Sirius replied dryly.

"That's right - literally anything," James answered with a hitched grin. His eyes twinkled, "Anything I want to do at all!"

Sirius put the mirror down, quite annoyed.

Whatever he told Sirius, though, James didn't want to do much, and he would have been quite merry to be seated alongside his mate in detention. After all, the detention might be able to distract him from the terribly morose thoughts in his head. He would never admit this to any of them, of course - although he had the distinct feeling that Remus already knew. More than anything, he wanted things to go back to normal.

Worst of all, at least in James's mind, was the change in Lily Evans. She seemed almost shy around him, like she was always questioning whether he wanted her there or something. He did - he definitely did - but could never quite conjure the words to tell her so, and therefore she just always kept on wondering and acting funnily. He hated it. He missed their banter and their friendship nearly as much as he missed playing quidditch, which he hadn't quite been able to bring himself to play...

Frank Longbottom had very nearly choked on his bangs and mash one morning when James Potter had walked up to him in the Great Hall and held out the shiny brass Captain's badge to him. "Here you are, Longbottom," James had said simply. "I reckon you'll want to hold try outs before the Hufflepuff match to line up another Chaser."

"What are you going on about, Potter?" Frank demanded.

"I've resigned," James replied simply.

They all watched in awe as James walked back out of the Great Hall as simply as he'd walked in. Frank looked to Sirius, Remus, Peter and Lily, but the four of them glanced amongst themselves just as confused as all the other onlookers had been. "Bloody hell, he's gone bonkers," whimpered Peter, "Hasn't he? Positively bang-on mad."

Sirius looked at Remus. "This a part of your blast Shiva bullshit, Moony?"

Remus shrugged.

Sirius went to get up but Lily shook her head, "Finish your breakfast, Black. I'll go." And they watched as she hurried out after James's retreating back.

Sirius sighed, "Maybe getting a bit of a banging will knock his sense back into himself."

"SIRIUS!" Remus said, glaring at his mate.

Peter turned 'round, "What? What'd he say?"

Sirius smirked and Remus just shook his head.

Lily ran up the stairs behind James but couldn't catch up, even though she was running. He must have used one of the passageways, she realized, and she hurried back to the Trophy Room and after a brief hello to the portrait, she ducked through the darkness until she found James Potter about half the way through, his wandtip lit and glowing against the rough hewn walls. "Evans?" he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose as she fell into step beside him. "What are you doing?"

"Potter," she started, "Do you know what tomorrow is?" Lily smirked to herself at the memory of when James had once done this to her, and she'd pretended not to know, simply to drive him mad.

James shrugged. "Sunday."

Lily sang, "Well that, too, I suppose."

James continued climbing, silent, not looking her way.

Lily cleared her throat, "I'll give you a bit of a clue, how's that?"

James nodded.

"Somebody comes of age."

James stopped in his tracks and looked at her. "Bloody hell. Is it your birthday already, Evans?"

Lily nodded.

James stared at her, at the way her hair glowed in the darkness, the way the wandlight made it turn to liquid molten gold. Her eyes glittered, too, and he couldn't help but think how very pretty she was and how much he — but he couldn't think of any positive thing without it feeling a bit like a splash of ice cold water being poured down his spine. Voldemort had, after all, promised to destroy anything which brought him pleasure or joy. Now, James Potter feared caring for things too much. Lily Evans most of all. He turned his eyes away.

"Well, have a happy one, then," he murmured and he started to climb the stairs again.

Lily hesitated a moment, then turned and followed him along. "I think you ought to rethink giving up being Captain, Potter," she said sternly.

"Do you?" he asked.

"Yes, of course I do."

"What bloody difference does it make to you, s'not as though you play on the team any longer," he pointed out.

"Yeah, but I still gotta bloody sit in the stands and watch the blasted rubbish and if you resign — well the games will have a good many less goals being made!"

"Sorry to make quidditch boring for you," he said.

Lily said, "Only because you're so good, Potter."

James sighed, "It's just for the best is all. I don't want to play anymore."

"Why?" Lily asked, "You've always wanted to play. And this is an important year! You can't be drafted to the league if you don't play and bloody hell knows you're good enough to —"

"I don't want to be drafted to league," James said.

"Since when?" Lily chided. "What happened to being the Greatest Quidditch Player in the United Kingdom and Maybe the World like you've always said?"

"I've grown up, Evans. There's more to life than Quidditch."

Lily feigned at holding her heart. "James Potter? Clearly you're not him. Must be Severus Snape again, saying a thing like that."

James glowered.

"Okay, not funny. I apologize. It's just that I doubt anyone ever would believe those words came out of you."

They'd reached the Trophy Room and as the portrait swung shut he bid them good evening. They paused at the display case showing the shields for the Tournament they'd played in second year, when a younger version of James had played Seeker quite eagerly. If only everything in life was as easy as I believed it was then - well, before Derek Bell was killed and everything went to absolute shit, that is. He could draw a line in his life, he realized, right about the day when he saw the glint of brass in the Bell tower, that divided his life between his childish belief that nothing was more important than quidditch, and his adult realization that the world was very much against him.

Lily looked at him, half expecting to find him tearing up and ready to confess to her all the things he was holding back, but instead she found he had set his jaw and hurried out of the room. She bolted after him. "James," she pressed, "Come on. You can't let what happen change who you are, you —"

He stopped dead in his tracks and she very nearly slammed into him as he turned about to face her. "What is it you want from me then, Evans?" he demanded. "Isn't it you who always told me to be growing up and acting mature and that sort of thing? Here I am, Evans! You never liked that old version of me though, did you? So it doesn't really matter to you anyway if I change. Ought to make you right peachy, yeah?"

What he wanted of her was to repeat the things she'd said on the dock that night, to kiss him and tell him she'd meant all those words. He had held onto them as his talisman all that time in that mucky old prison. Until Voldemort had seen that flicker in his mind, that is.

"You liked the words she spoke, did you my boy? Words of... love?" And the word love had come out as though it were dirty or physically painful for the Dark Lord to speak. He had raised his wand and stared James directly in the eyes. "Incredible, isn't it, what an imperius curse can make a woman say?"

"No!" James had cried, "She meant it, I know she did, she meant it."

"Why now? After all these years?" Voldemort had hissed. "Of course she didn't mean it. She won't ever mean it, Potter."

"She did mean it," James choked.

"Well. You'll never know." And the torture spell thats struck him hurt far less than the fear that Voldemort may truly have imperiused Lily...

It made sense, after all, to have Lily Evans lure James to the docks where Snape had been waiting.

He stared into her eyes, willing her to prove Voldemort a liar, to love him like she'd said sh did.

But her mouth only gaped like a fish at him and as each second drew the pause on longer, James felt his stomach dropping and Voldemort's lie becoming a truth.

Finally he shrugged. "Well if it's one thing for certain, I sure as hell am done changing who I am to fit other people's expectations of me." And Lily watched, rather speechless, as James stormed on.

News got 'round the castle quickly that James Potter had resigned on his post of Quidditch team captain. In the Great Hall at dinner that night, the other house captains were leaning over the table and talking in low voiced to one another, glancing back at Gryffindor with wide, nervous eyes. They didn't know if they were worried or excited for the change, if they were allowed to be excited that Gryffindor would be thrown off in a major way by the loss of their star chaser.

"Oh really!" Lily was flustered and annoyed when the Ravenclaw captain approached her to ask if James had lost his nut, quitting like he'd done. "Maybe he just wants a rest from gits like you prying about in his personal business!"

But her reply seemed only to solidify the rumor and James found himself getting even further stares and whispers following him in the hall than he'd already been attracting. Hogwarts, after all, was a hotbed for gossip.

James went right to class and right to the dormitory, sometimes even asking Peter to do him a good one and bring dinner back from the Great Hall for him. So it was after dinner one night, when James had stayed in the dormitory, that Sirius Black flung his arms about Remus and Peter's shoulders and, eyes on a tall vaulted window high above them in the stairwell. "Tomorrow is the full moon, mates," he said, "And I think its a bloody good thing it is, don't the lot of you?"

Remus's mouth curved into a smile, "You know, for once I think I do."