A Marauder's Guide to Falling Together

Chapter Seven

Despite being somewhat unconvinced of the excuse that Lily and Marlene had fed Mary about Marlene witnessing a rather cruel prank that the boys had played on Snape, she had stopped pressing the subject once the reality of their intense course load had settled in. Eventually she had seemed to forget about it all together.

In the weeks to follow, Lily became so absorbed in her Head Girl duties that it hardly seemed plausible for her to have any spare time for homework, yet somehow she always seemed one step ahead of both her friends.

"I'm not quite sure how you are managing to get all of this done!" Mary exclaimed dejectedly one evening when Lily had joined them after her round of Head Girl duties.

Marlene was curled up in one of the squashy arm chairs near the fire place in the Gryffindor common room with her Standard book of spells open to the chapter on the Aguamenti charm. They had begun the year in Charms class by learning the practical aspect of the spell within the first few days but had been disdained to discover exactly how much research and written work would follow.

"As long as I know how to perform the spell, why must I spend hours upon hours researching its origin and possible side effects?" Mary continued with a sigh.

Lily had shot her an apathetic look but didn't bother answering her. Marlene was quite inclined to agree with Mary but she did not voice this out loud, instead she averted her eyes back to the line that she had been reading over and over for the past five minutes. Her concentration had started failing her as the entire week had been flown by in a blur of studious application and her brain was starting to hurt.

"If the entire year goes by like this I'm going to blink and it will be over," she sighed. She finally resorted to closing the text book after she had failed to grasp the concept of the entire previous paragraph she had just read. "I just can't concentrate on this any longer."

"Same here," Mary said in agreement as she too moved away from the book that had been the prime focus of their past hour.

"How's the Head Girl position going?" Marlene hadn't had much time to think about much else during the week and they hadn't spent much time discussing Lily's extracurricular activities. She welcomed the change in conversation readily as it meant her focus was less directed at school work like it had been for the majority of her first month back at school.

"It's going rather well, actually!" Lily said with a bit of surprise. It seemed apparent to Marlene that Lily's initial shock of James Potter's appointment to the Head Boy position had left her feeling like the entire year was going to be ruined. However, she seemed pleasantly stunned by the turn of events as James had been nothing but supportive in their collaborative efforts.

"It's odd really," she continued on after a moment of thought. "It's almost as if becoming Head Boy has knocked some form of sense into his brain. Not once has he had any involvement in childish nonsense. It's as if he is a completely different person."

"Maybe this is the real James Potter," Marlene offered helpfully. "Maybe everything else was always an act."

She couldn't help but compare the situation to that of Sirius. She wasn't quite sure if what she was saying could be applied to James as she recalled the information that Sirius had divulged to her last year about the eleven year old version of James in their first year at Hogwarts. It had seemed that James' nature had always been about mischief and she was doubtful that a shiny gold badge was going to change that. Still, the boy was clearly making an effort whether or not it had anything to do with Lily or not.

"Maybe," Lily also seemed skeptical. "I have a hard time believing that he's really matured that quickly."

But the truth of the matter was that James had been maturing for quite some time and even Marlene was able to finally recognize and appreciate that fact. She said nothing to Lily but was glad that the fact the two Gryffindor's were working alongside each other, hadn't deterred Lily from her good mood.