When Lily Evans finally agreed to go out with James Potter, everyone in the school was either completely surprised or not surprised at all, a difference in opinion that was based wholly in whether they had decided to stop paying attention years ago or had continued to suffer through the drama.

Those who had given up years ago on paying attention to the constant drama still believed that Lily hated James Potter and that James Potter was a child who had been told he couldn't have something and so wanted it; therefore, these people were rightly surprised when the two walked into the Great Hall one morning holding hands with the Marauders and Lily's friends trailing behind them before the two groups sat together for breakfast.

The other group—made up largely of their friends, some romantics, their teachers, and a few other emotionally intelligent and mature people—had watched them over the previous year, and had seen them take on challenges together and grow together and learn together and grieve together; essentially, the children they were two years ago had been shattered into a million tiny pieces and rebuilt in a way that made the two children who didn't fit into two adults who fit perfectly together, and no one who had been paying attention to them was at all surprised that they had formalized their connection.