Lily Evans and the Marauder's Secrets

Changes

"So... how'd last night go?"

I look around the corridor; true to my word, I'm going to be one of the very first people to breakfast this morning. Well, Alice and I will be. And I am unbelievably excited about the prospect of eating as much eggs, bacon, and toast as I can handle.

I take my time answering. Despite her love of sleeping in, Alice offered to come down with me to my early breakfasting, and now I know why. Not that I'm surprised she wants an interrogation. If our positions had been flipped, I'd do the exact same thing.

Satisfied the corridor is clear of eavesdroppers, I respond.

"It went... good..." I say.

"Yeah?" Alice asks.

"Yeah," I answer, going for casual.

But it must not work, because Alice peeks at my face. "Lily! You are blushing!"

"Am not!" I protest, covering my cheeks with my hands. My hands feel alarmingly cool against my face.

"Spill," Alice demands.

"I didn't make you tell when you kissed Frank!"

This is the wrong thing to say.

"Lily! You kissed him? Again?"

"I didn't say that," I mumble, but it's too late. Alice is already making that high-pitched excited 'eep' noise that comes with lots of giddy hand-flapping and shining eyes.

"Tell. Me. Everything," she says.

"It was just one kiss, Alice," I say as we walk into the Great Hall. Or, like James pointed out, more than one. (Depends on how you count it. Alice doesn't need all the details). "We're not officially together or anything."

"Why not, though?" Alice says, sitting down midway up the Gryffindor table. I'm surprised to see Marlene already there across from her, sitting with Emmeline. Emmeline says something quickly to Marlene and darts away, but I don't care. I grab a blueberry muffin and stuff it in my mouth before I'm even all the way in my seat.

"This is so good," I moan around the crumbs.

"Lily, focus. Why. Not?" Alice asks, buttering a slice of toast from the stack in front of her.

"Why not what?" Marlene asks, looking interested.

I ignore her. "Because... I don't know. It's so not like that," I promise. "I mean, I'm not avoiding him anymore. But we're good. We're friends. It's all back to normal around here."

"Morning, Lily," James says, appearing from nowhere to plop down on the bench next to me and plant a kiss on my cheek.

Marlene shrieks. She has to cover her face with her hands to muffle the following hyena-like laughter.

"Yes, very normal," Alice says, completely straight-faced. She takes a bite of her eggs while Marlene positively howls into her sleeve.

"What do you think you are doing?" I say to James. "Did you not listen to anything I said last night?"

"Sure did," he says, grinning and leaning over me to help himself to the stack of toast in front of Alice. "It's a bright sunny winter morning, I like you, you like me... I see nothing wrong here."

"James," I start, but Sirius interrupts, looking grumpy as he slides in on the other side of James.

"Nothing wrong," he grumbles, "Except that I didn't get any sleep last night thanks to you."

"Why not?" Marlene asks, calming down enough to lean forward.

Peter and Remus sit down next to her, looking as equally rumpled as Sirius. "None of us did," Peter says. "No offense, Evans, but I never want to hear your name again."