Jily Oneshots (pt2)

All of Our Vices

She saved telling James until last. She'd hoped to avoid it, but after she'd told all the prefects in the Hall, including the Slytherins, James was one of the last still sat at the table.

Slowly she walked over, trying to calm her pounding heart.

"Is there some big prefect secret you're not telling me?" James asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lily found herself staring at his smirking lips. Mentally kicking herself, she looked at Remus instead. He looked at her knowingly. Lily nearly burst into tears right there. James had obviously told Remus, and from the looks on Sirius and Peter's faces as she looked at them, he'd told them all.

"There's a meeting tonight," she said, proud of how steady she sounded.

"Bit short notice," noted Sirius. "Almost like the Head Girl is avoiding something – or someone."

Lily glared at Sirius, and noticed James doing the same. "Sirius," he warned.

Holding his hands up in mock innocence, Sirius stifled a laugh.

For the first time that day, James looked Lily in the eye, and she looked back at him. "Sorry, I had to," he apologised.

As much as she didn't like it, Lily understood. She would've told her friends too if it was the other way round; if she wasn't the one cheating. Collapsing on the bench next to Remus, Lily put her head on the table. "Don't tell anyone," she pleaded.

Despite her voice being muffled by the table, Peter replied. "We won't."

Remus agreed. Lily lifted her head to look at Sirius across from her. "What about you?"

Glancing at James, Sirius seemed to ponder the question seriously. "Fine," he conceded. "Just sort it out."

Lily pushed herself up from the table. Satisfied, she began to walk away. As she passed James, she turned to him. He looked in her direction, but didn't meet her eyes. Lily had thought he wasn't affected, but she was starting to think he was more hurt by the situation than she'd thought.

"I'll tell him," she promised before speeding to her first lesson.

Despite her promise, Lily didn't tell Tom anything, even though he was in most of her lessons. In Potions, it would've been easy for Lily to sneak over to Tom's desk, cast the 'Muffilato' charm and tell him about James. While she was at it, she could've ended their relationship too, then gone and found James…

But something stopped her. She didn't want to hurt Tom, or throw their relationship away, over one moment of madness with James Potter. So, Lily carried on as if everything was normal, and only Marlene took her aside to ask if she was okay, to which Lily responded she was just tired.

And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?

Ten minutes before the prefects meeting was due to start, Lily was sat in the Charms classroom they used to hold the meetings. Although, usually, she was more prepared. Once the prefects began to trickle in, Lily resigned herself to looking like an idiot. There were more prefects than she'd expected. Having told most of them the meeting wasn't important, she thought only a few would show up, but all of the fifth years and a few of the sixth years were present.

"Right, then, let's start without James," said Lily after a few minutes of the door remaining shut. "As you all know, a huge part of being a prefect is setting a good –"

The door swung open, cutting Lily off in the middle of regurgitating the speech McGonagall gave the first year she became a prefect – Lily was hoping her speech changed every year. James strode into the room, and stood next to Lily at the front, whilst Remus slipped into a desk near the back of the room.