Disclaimer: All familiar characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling.

In sixth year, James would get better at talking to Lily without aggravating her.

Remus would learn what was under Marlene's cool exterior.

Sirius would convince Adele to run away with him.

Peter would get tired of being the butt of everybody's jokes.

Lily would let go of Severus.

Marlene would feel caged.

Adele would shatter her sister.

And Severus would reach the point of no return.

Of course, none of these eight students had any possible way of knowing that sixth year would bring some of the best and worst moments of their lives. No, saying goodbye to their loved ones, the Hogwarts students had no idea what this year would have in store for them.

"You don't want to miss your train," Petunia Evans told her sister, glancing out of the driver's seat window at the train station across the road from the parked car.

"No, I don't," Lily Evans agreed, unbuckling her seatbelt before hesitating and looking over at Petunia. "I'm going to be gone basically all year. Is there anything you want to say to me, at all?"

"Don't be melodramatic," Petunia said, rolling her eyes. "You'll be back for Christmas and Easter, I'm not that lucky."

Giving a bitter nod, Lily got out of the car and opened the door to the back seat so that she could haul her trunk out of the car. Once the trunk was firmly on the ground beside Petunia's car, Lily made to close the door and disappear from her sister's life for the next few months, but reconsidered at the last moment.

"Have a nice year," Lily said, leaning into the car, "I love you."

Petunia did not respond and after a moment of waiting, Lily realised she wasn't going to get a reply at all. She closed the car door and Petunia pulled the car away from the curb and into the street.

Lily sighed, tired of trying to be nice to Petunia and getting nothing in return. She sighed again as she realised that she had to cross the street to get to the station, but had no way of carrying her trunk without magic, it was simply too heavy.

"Stay safe," Ilene Lupin told her eldest and only son, gripping his face in her hands. "Whatever Dumbledore says, you do, hear me?" Remus Lupin nodded as much as his mother's hands would permit him to. "Make sure you take your potions and do your homework and –"

"Ilene, I think he's got it," Nicholas Lupin told his wife, picking up one end of his son's trunk with one hand and tugging Remus' arm with his other.

"Okay, I just," Ilene hurried out, moving with Remus as he was tugged away. "I love you. Stay safe."

"I will, Mum," Remus said, giving her a grin and praising Merlin for the glorious feeling of having a face finally free of his mother's hands. "I love you too."

Grabbing the other end of his trunk with one hand and gripping his father's forearm with his other, Remus prepared himself for side-along apparition.

In just a short moment, Remus and Nicholas were standing in an alleyway about a street away from King's Cross Station. After placing a charm on Remus' heavy trunk to make it light enough to carry, Nicholas clapped his son on the shoulder and repeated his wife's words, "Stay safe," and then he was gone.

Remus made his way out of the alley and rounded the corner, heading in the direction of most motorists in this part of town. Not too far off he could see a tall figure with long dark red hair falling down her back, and when he was within earshot, he called out her name.

"How are you able to carry your trunk like that?" she demanded after turning to see Remus closing the distance between them.

"Magic," he explained with a grin before adding, "my Dad's, not mine."

"Good," Lily responded with a smile, "can't have an underage prefect using magic outside of Hogwarts."

"Not at all," Remus replied before suggesting that he leave his trunk with Lily, who would wait there for him to head into the station and return with a trolley for their trunks. Remarking that he was a life saver, Lily consented, and Remus was off.

Marlene McKinnon tried pulling away from her mother's embrace, but Elaine McKinnon was in no mood to negotiate the finale of her hug. After a few moments more, she reluctantly let her daughter go, giving Marlene an affectionate pat on the cheek.

"We love you," Elaine said, taking a step back and taking in her last vision of Marlene and her other child; thirteen year old Jonathon.

Marlene glanced at her father, who smiled and stood beside his wife, though not touching her.

"I gotta go, bye," Jonathon rushed out, grabbing his trolley and departing in the direction of a few of his fellow Ravenclaws.

Marlene watched her brother hurry away and rolled her eyes. Looking back to her parents, a picture of perfect happiness, she found herself in the middle of an intensely awkward silence.

"Well, bye," she said, giving a little wave to her parents and pushing her trolley away, too. She couldn't tell them she loved them, too. Love was a lie. They taught her that.

"Do try to get out of your comfort zone this year, Peter," Alison Pettigrew told her son, picking a piece of lint off his ordinary black robes. His Hogwarts robes were locked away in his trunk, he'd be wearing them soon enough. "And remember, one good deed a day," she beamed, smoothing down his hair. "Now run along, I love you."

"I love you, too," Peter quickly muttered, glancing about the platform for anybody within earshot, before turning and embarking his search for his friends.

"Where's your mum, Prongs?" Remus asked after finally finding James Potter and Sirius Black standing close to the first carriage of the Hogwarts Express.

"We slipped the leash this year," Sirius answered for James.

"How'd you manage that?" Peter Pettigrew asked, astonished.

Normally Mrs Potter would make such a devastating scene of saying goodbye to her son that she would not only embarrass James and his father, but everybody standing within earshot around them. Of course this was purely intentional on her part – a sort of pay back for all of the trauma James and his friends had inflicted on her over the summers.

"Told her we were almost of age, we should be able to manage a floo trip to the platform, Dad was on our side," James answered, wiping an imaginary bead of sweat from his brow. "She didn't give up the theatrics, though."

"James Potter, I don't want a single letter from Dumbledore or Minerva this year, no strife young man or I'll send a ruddy howler in the middle of the morning mail!" Sirius imitated Mrs Potter's speech perfectly. "Oh, and I love you Jamesy Poo."

"Sod off," James shoved Sirius good naturedly. "You got the speech this year, too."

"Yeah, the better part of the speech."

"Only because she's too blind to see how much of a git you are."

"She loves me."

"Whatever you say, Sirius Sweetcakes."

"I love you," Antonin Dolohov said quietly to the girl whose face he had cupped in his hands. The girl said it back and allowed one last kiss as her younger sister watched in disgust and mild curiosity.

"Did you really mean that?" Camille Montgomery asked her sister once they were away from Dolohov.

Adele Montgomery glanced back at her sister as she led the way onto the Hogwarts Express. She hesitated before saying, "Of course."

"You sure?" Camille asked sceptically.

Adele stopped short and looked her sister dead in the eye. "Don't start," she warned the fifteen year old girl.

Camille shrugged. "I'm just saying you don't fool me, Addy."

"You're not the one I'm concerned about," Adele muttered, continuing her brisk walk to board the train.

Finally, after an eventful morning of goodbyes and declarations of love, the Hogwarts Express began to move away from Platform 9 ¾. The train hurtled through the countryside towards its destination: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though it would not arrive for quite some time yet.

In the meantime, James Potter and Sirius Black plotted new pranks before the school year had even officially begun, whilst Remus Lupin read a book by the compartment window, interrupted every so often by Peter Pettigrew's questions on the Transfiguration homework he was hurriedly trying to finish.

Adele Montgomery explained to her best friends, Lily Evans and Marlene McKinnon, her horrible summer courtship by none other than Antonin Dolohov and the wedding her mother was planning as consequence. Lily assured Adele that she had plenty of time to figure a way out of it, whilst secretly thanking her lucky stars that she was not born into an old pure-blood family like Adele's. Marlene attempted to shed a humorous light on the whole situation, until she realised that nothing would pull Adele out of her miserable mood, and instead decided to turn the conversation onto her stupid little brother who had hit puberty over the summer and decided that everybody in his family was out to get him.

Severus Snape jotted a note down in the margin of his potions book whilst Oliver Avery and Lucas Mulciber argued over the best hexes to use in a duel. After a little while, Snape spoke up, adding to the debate a curse of his own creation that would inflict grievous bodily harm upon the witch or wizard it hits. Seemingly interested, Mulciber leaned closer to where Severus sat on the opposite side of the compartment.

"What is it, then?"

"Sectumsempra."

Having arrived on a Wednesday and thus in the middle of the first week of September, Dumbledore announced, amongst other things that evening at the Welcoming Feast, that classes would not commence until the following Monday, to which he received an appreciative woop from the majority of the students sitting in the Great Hall. Dinner was served soon after, and with a disappointed look on her face, Lily reached for the giant jug of pumpkin juice.

"You can't be serious," Marlene said to Lily as Lily poured some pumpkin juice into her own glass.

"What?" Lily asked, looking up in alarm. "I like pumpkin juice."

"No, I mean the sour look on your face. You're actually upset that classes won't start until next week, aren't you?" Marlene asked incredulously.

"Well I would like to have my mark back for the Transfiguration homework as soon as possible," Lily said disdainfully and Adele laughed.

"Lily, you finished that the day you got home from Hogwarts. You've managed to wait all summer, you can certainly wait a little while longer," Adele said, giving Marlene a knowing look. Neither were underachievers by no means, but Lily had always had the best grades in their whole year group, probably all of Hogwarts.

"I suppose I'll have to," Lily said, a little too grumpily for somebody disgruntled by receiving their homework mark later than expected.

"Is that all you're upset about?" Marlene asked, glancing over at the Slytherin table. Lily caught her friend's glance behind her and quickly shook her head.

"That's all," she said, though it was a complete and utter lie, one that Marlene and Adele were all too aware of.

They didn't push the matter, however, and for that Lily was grateful. She resisted the urge to look behind her as Marlene had. She knew she wouldn't be happy to see what she would see. Most likely, Severus would be eating with Avery and Mulciber, two Slytherin wizards that Lily greatly blamed for Severus' change of the past year or two.

Severus had, of course, been around to Lily's place to ask her forgiveness a number of times over the summer. After the first encounter of Severus on her doorstep, Lily had made the decision not to answer the front door at all over the summer, and every time her mother called up to her that Severus was here to see her, she told her mother to send him away. She ignored his letters and when she went for her afternoon walks, she made sure to go in the opposite direction to Spinner's End. She missed Severus and wanted to forgive him, but she wasn't ready. She didn't know if she ever would be.

Dinner continued quietly from then on for Lily and her two friends, much unlike the meals of the Marauders, who were laughing and shouting at one another and flicking peas at the people who sat closest to them at Gryffindor table. It seemed that Lily was the only one in the entire house who could really be angry with the Marauders, or more particularly, James, as everybody that copped a pea to the foreheadjust laughed them off. Maybe it was just too happy an occasion to be getting angry at something so harmless.

Eventually, though, the meal came to an end and before turning in for the night, Dumbledore asked the student body to join him in singing the Hogwarts school song. The dishes vanished from the tables and Dumbledore waved his wand as if conducting a choir. Most sang the song to the tune that Dumbledore himself was singing to, although some choice Slytherins replaced the lyrics with much cruder words, and some choice Gryffindors, such being the Marauders, sang a much slower rendition of the school song, ending about a minute after the rest of the school. Lily looked further down Gryffindor table to where James, Sirius, Remus and even little Peter Pettigrew, stood on the bench that the rest of Gryffindor house sat on, with their right hands over their hearts, singing to the tune of "God Save The Queen".

Lily hardly believed James Potter knew what "God Save The Queen" meant to muggles; much less that he actually knew the tune and words to the British national anthem. None the less, they finished their rendition much like every year, with an extremely long note and several bows. Sirius even chanced to blow a kiss to Professor Dumbledore, who gave them a standing ovation.

"He's a right git, but he's bloody brilliant," Adele said, eyeing Sirius as he sat back down next to James.

"Oh, please," Lily said. "He's almost as bad as James."

"There's nothing wrong with James except the fact that he wants to gain the affections of a silly witch too proud to admit she holds some sort of affection for him as well," Marlene said matter-of-factly, giving Lily a pointed look.

"Don't be absurd," Lily bit at Marlene as Dumbledore sent the student body off to their beds, asking prefects to lead the way as only they knew the passwords so far. "I'll see you later," Lily said, before straightening her prefect badge and hurrying over to where Remus was trying to order first years into what vaguely looked like a straight line.

"Hey, Evans," James called from where he sat at a table with Sirius and Peter. "How do you identify an animagi in their animal form?"

Lily, sitting in an armchair by the fireplace on the other side of the common room, continued to read her History of Magic book, choosing to ignore James' question. It was late and the common room was uncharacteristically empty. Many students had retired to bed early, exhausted from the long train ride. Even Marlene and Adele had gone up to bed after doing the rounds and asking about peoples' summers and relaying their own stories. The only ones left now were a few seventh years hoping to get a head start on the school year, James, Sirius, Peter, and Lily.

"Evans?" James called out. She re-read the same line. "Evans!" She re-read the same line again. "Oi, Lily!" Slamming her book, Lily got up, shot James a frustrated look, and stormed off for the girls' dormitory. James called after her one more time and as Lily reached the first landing of stairs, she heard one of the frustrated seventh year boys saying, "Oh for crying out loud, Potter, the answer you want…" She shook her head. Clearly James Potter was still the same prat at the end of the summer as he was at the beginning.

"I thought you said you weren't going to bother her anymore?" Peter inquired after the hasty seventh year had finished scribbling the answer down on James' parchment for him. He could have done that himself, he knew perfectly well what the correct answer was; he just had to make sure he was still on Lily's radar.

"Old habits die hard," he said with a grin and a shrug. Sirius rolled his eyes at Peter who suppressed a smile.

Instead of sitting around bored all morning, waiting for Lily to finish helping Marlene with the last of her Charms homework, Adele told them she'd meet them later, and disappeared outside to bathe in the warm rays of early autumn sunlight. It was still just as warm as summer was, though the stifling heat didn't threaten to choke Adele anymore as it did throughout her summer in the countryside with her family.

She made her way down to the sandy banks of the lake where she and her friends had spent the last few days of fifth year, shaking off the extreme stress the O.W.L. exams had put them under. She had gotten a couple of Os and the rest were Es, which Adele thought was pretty good, though her parents still believed she could have done better. They blamed the influence being in Gryffindor had over Adele. Slytherins were always much more ambitious than the other houses. Adele had managed to bite back an angry retort to that one. Slytherins usually only aspired to be Death Eaters, but her parents would have seen no insult in that…

"Hey," somebody said, sitting down beside her on the sandy bank.

"Hi," she said, glancing at Sirius, who clearly wanted something. He wouldn't have separated himself from his friends further across the grounds for no reason.

"We didn't get to talk much last night," he said, picking up a handful of sand. "How was your summer?"

"The usual," Adele shrugged, watching the sand poor out of Sirius' closed fist like sands through an hourglass.

"The boring country town, then?" he asked bitterly.

"It wasn't so bad," Adele shrugged again. "I stayed with Lily and went shopping with Marlene a few times."

"They let you stay with Lily?" Sirius asked sceptically, they being Adele's fanatically pureblood parents.

"Well I told them I was staying with Marlene, but yes."

"I'm surprised they even accepted Marlene."

"None of it matters anyway," Adele said, shrugging again. "After graduation, I won't be seeing anybody my husband doesn't approve of."

Sirius sighed. "They still trying to marry you off?"

"Not trying, they've secured a pretty great deal with Antonin Dolohov apparently. His blood is pure and there isn't a single fault in his family tree according to Dad."

"Dolohov?" Sirius, exclaimed, tossing his handful of sand at the ground. "No doubt he's a Death Eater!"

"I know," was all that Adele said, and Sirius stared at the Black Lake angrily, his hands fisted on his knees.

"You don't have to do it, y'know," Sirius said quietly after a few minutes.

"I'm not you, Sirius," Adele said. Deciding to go and wait for Marlene and Lily to finish up, she got to her feet and walked away.

Sirius made no attempt to follow her. He didn't go back to his mates for a bit. He just sat there, watching the Black Lake that was so famously named after Phineas Nigellus Black – back when Hogwarts was right, Sirius' mother always used to say.

Sirius thought of his own family, and of the night his brother had come home from a meeting with the Dark Lord himself. It was the wand that broke the hippogriff's back, Sirius supposed. He couldn't stand to be in that house, around those people, one second longer. He compared his old situation with the one that Adele was in now. What if Camille were to come home one night during the Christmas holidays with the dark mark on her arm? Would that be enough to make Adele see that she can't be around people like that?

No, because Adele would never give up on her sister, Sirius thought, not the way he gave up on Regulus. And now Adele was set to marry Dolohov. Before Sirius had run away, his mother had hoped that tying him with Adele Montgomery in holy matrimony would be enough to keep him in line. But he ran away, and now Adele was betrothed to some Death Eater git, and Sirius felt truly guilty. She was better than him, he'd known it since they were young, and she didn't deserve this.

The next few days passed with little event. The library was utilised by a number of students using the free week days to finish the homework that hadn't been touched all summer.

Lily hid in a corner of the common room reading as much of her textbooks as she persuaded Adele onto a broomstick so that she could practise for the Quidditch and Sirius charmed all of the suits of armours to jump out and attack any first year that came past trying to work their way around the castle. Peter beat every student in the common room who challenged him to a game of Gobstones, making a fair few galleons in the process. And Remus led tours around the castle for first years, which would more than often result in one of them bursting into tears because a suit of armour jumped out and smacked them on the head.

By Monday morning, everyone was more or less exhausted, and a double lesson of Potions first up was the last thing anybody wanted, except maybe Lily. Slughorn greeted his sixth year class with as much fervour as a child on Christmas morning, shaking hands and welcoming back select students he prided himself on teaching. Though before long it was clear that this year would not be an easy one, regardless of it being the gap year between O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. This Potions class was a N.E.W.T. one and the coursework would be as hard as the things the students would face in their exam.

Slughorn divided the class up into pairs for the preparation and brewing of the Black Flame Potion, and not to Lily's surprise but certainly to Lily's dread, Slughorn set Lily to work with Severus. Making a mental note to talk to Slughorn after class about hers and Severus's new situation, she collected her things and moved away from the pitying eyes of Marlene and Adele who had been paired with each other and not some snotty Slytherin, babbling Hufflepuff or know-it-all Ravenclaw.

Lily moved over to where Severus sat waiting in front of his cauldron, and grudgingly, she took the seat beside his. "Let's just get into it, shall we?" she said coldly, hoping that he would get the hint that she didn't want to speak with him at all, especially about anything unrelated to the Black Flame Potion they were supposed to brew.

However, it seemed that Severus had become dull at picking up hints, as after ten minutes or so, he spoke. "How was your summer?" he asked. He didn't know if he was truly expecting a response or not, but found himself disappointed nonetheless when she made no move to answer his question. He didn't try again after that, but by the end of the class Lily was positively bursting to say something, to throw something in his face.

"You don't get to ask about my summer," she said finally as the class packed up and Severus bottled their potion. "But if you must know, I spent it with friends." She got up and fell into step with Marlene and Adele as they left the class. Severus watched her leave, once again thinking to himself, I deserved that. Yes, Severus Snape had learnt all too well what it was to receive biting comments and know that it was entirely his fault.

A/N: Reviews make me feel amazing, so instead of just clicking the alert button, drop me a line and tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, constructive criticism... I'm open to anything and everything (: