James snuck around the corner, making sure that there was no one there to catch him. Padfoot had snuck off earlier in the night, with the Marauder's map, leaving James with no way to find him or safely navigate the hallways after curfew.
He had very foolishly thought that being Head Boy would eliminate the need for sneaking around like this all the time.
To say the least, he was very wrong. Lily Evans, who stood beside him as Head Girl, had crushed that hope within seconds of learning that he was Head Boy. She no longer minded so much if he went out on his own, she'd learned years ago that her protests and punishments would do no good, but when it came to abusing authority, she had a zero-tolerance policy. He shuttered to think of the month of detentions she'd given to a fourth-year who used the fact that he was a prefect to get revenge on a classmate who had tortured him previously.
James, however, had no qualms about abusing authority. He'd been using Moony's authority ever since it had become significant enough to do real damage. Although, under Lily, as James suspected, though both Moony and Lily refused to say anything, Moony had recently started giving the marauders detentions as well, along with not letting James, Padfoot and Wormtail accompany him on his patrol nights. He now refused to say that they were with him, helping him, and not out sneaking around after midnight.
Damn her, Lily was ruining all his fun!
It wasn't that he didn't like her or anything, she made a great mate, but he wished that every now and then she could pull the stick out of her arse. It would make for lots of fun. You could always trust Lily to be there for you, she would always help you when you needed it. She would; however, still turn you in or give you detention if she felt you deserved it.
Padfoot firmly believed that her willingness to turn her friends in made her a horrible friend. He would frequently voice this opinion to the whole Great Hall during dinner whenever she and James had any kind of argument whatsoever.
James, although he knew it would never work, was trying to help her become a better person, the marauder's way, of course. No good person would turn their mates in for anything, according to him. They would always stand up, unless it meant getting their own arse in trouble, then they would back down. Very quickly. Even he didn't believe in taking the fall for a mate, and he and Padfoot were the best mates out there. They had even been living together since the summer, as all of Padfoot's family were a load of gits. James was almost as pureblood as wizards came today, but on his one journey to the House of Black had been scorned, even by the house-elf, for the fact that his family associated with all wizards, not just the purebloods.
After that fateful encounter, James had never again visited Padfoot, instead he had invited him to come and live with him. It made for a very amusing summer although he now knew more about Padfoot than he would have ever liked, mainly because they had no choice but to share a room.
Living in the same dorm at Hogwarts somehow had not prepared him for actually living with Padfoot. Thank the gods that there had been two beds, otherwise James was pretty sure that their relationship would be totally ruined. Most of this was due to the fact that Padfoot seemed to have some same sex preferences. Even though he was raised to be tolerant of everyone, sleeping in the same bed as a man who might make a move was where he had to draw the line.
James had to admit that this side of Padfoot took him totally by surprise.
Much like Lily's amazing transformation.
Fourth she was a quiet little book worm, no distinguishing physical qualities except that hair, then fifth years she became a slim beauty who still wouldn't give him the time of day. Even worse, Padfoot had noticed his noticing, and soon the whole school knew about James's knew fancy. Prats.
Now, Lily was the tyrant who incensed both his anger and his libido, neither of which he could do anything about. Still worse, she continued thought of herself as nothing more than a book worm, and believed that James could have no real interest in her, save to make fun of her, of course.
One day he was going to have to show her just what his interest in her really was, after which she would see that there were many other things he could do to her besides poking fun.
Lily walked down the hall. It was her night for patrol, it seemed like it always was. Her partner for tonight, who just happened to be James Potter, had failed to show up. Again. Last week a brand new prefect had come up to her in tears after James had 'forgotten' about his turn to patrol the halls at night. The poor girl had been hoping that he would try to seduce her during it, and had been crushed when he didn't show up.
Not that he would have, of course. Ever since the beginning of fifth year, he had turned all the efforts that he previously used for seducing the entire female race to making fun of her. Which was quite a lot of effort. As if it hadn't been enough before, now he wouldn't ever leave her alone. It made a girl quite angry.
It didn't help that he was so attractive, either. For the prefect, that is. With his messing black hair, those bright green eyes, and that quidditch player's body, it was impossible for a young girl like her not to get her hopes up after finding out that she was going to be alone with him. All night. If Lily didn't know better, she would have been tempted to get her hopes up as well. But knowing Potter for so long had eliminated all romantic notions that Lily would ever have about him.
It was true that when she first showed up to Hogwarts, almost six years ago, she couldn't keep her eyes off him. Neither could any of the other girls, though some preferred Sirius. Not that she could blame them, either. Sirius was definitely more gorgeous than James, but he was slimmer, less masculine than James. He also seemed to prefer Slytherin girls to Gryffindor girls. Probably because they were easier. Not that she was judging Sirius or any of the Slytherins, just that most were very easy for anyone from a family such as the Blacks.
That was the one thing that she had always liked about Sirius, he hated his family much or more than she did, which said quite a lot when one thought of it. His cousin, Bellatrix, had called Lily, and several others, a mudblood on the day of her arrival. Sirius had promptly cursed her. Not to avenge Lily or anyone else, just because he hated her, which was a good enough reason for Lily.
She couldn't tell anyone that she hated all Slytherins and condoned the cursing of them, she was Head Girl after all, but she did admit that several times she had allowed an offense against one of them pass, and no one knew about these besides several of the other girls in her year.
She was very close to a few of them: Alice and Tempest. There was another girl she was close to, a Slytherin, she was loathe to admit, named Charlie. That wasn't her real name, no pure blood family would name their child that, but she refused to tell anyone her real name. Sirius knew, their families moved in the same circles, but for once her was keeping his mouth shut.
And it was the one time she wished he would open it, too. Most of the time he couldn't keep anything to himself and let the whole bloody school in on some very private information. Once, towards the end of fifth year, James had kissed her. It was an end of the year prank, nothing more, but she had been so shocked that she hadn't done anything about it until he had already pulled away. Of course, he had gone and told Sirius that she had allowed him to kiss her. So naturally, within… five minutes…, everyone in the school who gave a damn knew about it.
No one, not even Alice, sweet, trusting, sympathetic Alice had believed Lily's explanation. Tempest had tried to high-five her, and Charlie had just smiled and said, "about time." Lily just wondered, "about time for what?" And no one answered, not that she even expected them to anymore. They had all gone off on their own ways when it came to her problems with James, ever since fifth year. Well, for all she cared they could go die.
Anyway, Alice was a medium-height, dirty blond, and fellow Gryffindor. About 5'5, if Lily had to guess. She had ice blue eyes that never failed to suck a guy in. But, being Alice, she didn't give a damn about any guy. It wasn't like she was always studying or a lesbian or anything, she was just never interested in guys as anything more than a friend. She was an average student who excelled greatly in herbology.
Lily firmly believed that Tempest needed a reality check. Her natural hair color was a mystery, recently it had been black. It reached to the small of her back, and was amazingly straight. It looked as if she did it every day, but she would just wake up and it was like that. Her eyes were a rather ordinary brown, but it was good that something about her was less than wonderful, as she had the kittenish face of a supermodel. She was tall, at about 5'10 (which she always let everyone know) and 120 pounds. This alone made you want to hate her, but it was impossible to hate someone who got such awful grades. It wasn't like she was stupid or something, she just never studied or did her homework. This usually annoyed the hell out of people, but imagine if she did get good grades. There would be no choice but to hate her.
Charlie could be described as nothing more than a piece of work. A Slytherin, for one, even though she hated the very Slytherin-ish views of her family. Once she had said that the only reason she was a Slytherin was because she enjoyed watching other people take the blame for her actions. Not because she was afraid of getting in trouble, she did too much of that to be afraid of it, but she just liked it when other people were punished for something that she did, which was, once again, quite often. She many very interesting things to say about Slytherins. She said that a majority of them were cowards, and would do almost anything to save their own skin. She always said that they were incredibly intelligent, as well. Charlie believed that Ravenclaws got all the praise unfairly, that just because they focused their intelligence on school work didn't mean that they had more of it.
She was gorgeous beyond belief. She had long, silvery blond hair, lime-green eyes, and legs that never ended. This had gotten Sirius's attention more than once, but Charlie was almost more arrogant than he was, so they didn't get along all that well.
And then there was Lily. Short, ordinary Lily. She swore that she hadn't grown at all since fourth year, but had thankfully lost a few pounds. She was 5'5, 100 pounds, and pretty if she put her mind to it, which she never had the time to do. She was always too busy studying, or some other boring thing, and just couldn't the time for cosmetics or to do her hair. As a result, she was always wearing it up, though it looked much better around her face.
It was her fondest wish that some day her hair would decide to be pretty on its own, not frizzy or puffy, which it always was without hours of work on her part. Her eyes were a pretty, clear blue. Not that special, but not many people had eyes that were just blue, no gray or green, like she did. James was always "complimenting" her eyes, saying that they were the prettiest he had ever seen, but he had also called her beautiful once, so Lily knew how off his judgment was.
She did have to admit it, his constant compliments made her feel better, even if she didn't believe them. It was just nice to be called pretty, sometimes, especially by one of the most attractive boys in school.
Lily smiled to herself and continued walking down the hall. He was very attractive, and the only person he ever seemed interested in was her, which was definitely a confidence boost. Not only, she thought as she turned the corner, was it a confidence boost, but it also made her feel very tingly-
"Potter!" she yelled, running into him.
"Evans!" He looked around, as if for an escape. "What are you doing here?"
"I should be asking you the same thing!" she exclaimed in a loud whisper. "You didn't show up for patrol! Again!"
"I had patrol tonight?" Then, "What do you think I'm doing? Quidditch ran late and by the time I got to the common room, you were already gone! I had no choice but to leave without you." James thought it was a pretty good excuse, considering he thought of it right on the spot, he'd had no prior time for preparation.
"Bullshit! Quidditch got out at seven. Remember, I asked you. Patrol didn't start until nine. Quidditch did NOT run two hours over!"
"Lily! You just cursed!" James smiled. "Perhaps I am having some sort of influence on you." He leaned towards closer and poked her belly. "Am I?"
Lily scowled at him and crossed her arms over her stomach. "No, I was simply very upset with you for missing your second patrol in a row. We've only had the two so far!"
"Maybe I didn't get to the common room as late as I had thought, and left without you."
"I was in there from 7:30 to 9:30! It would not have been so easy to miss me, besides," she muttered, "you're always finding me when I don't want to be found. If you can find me then, it should be easy for you to find me any other time."
James just smiled. "Perhaps I am too used to you hiding from me, and I no longer look for you out in the open. Perhaps I have become so accustomed to searching the shadows for you that that is the only place I really look for you. My subconscious has decided that you will never be easy to spot, therefore it decides that I'll only look where you will be concealed."
Lily frowned at him. "That's a load of bullocks, Potter."
He smiled even wider and started inching closer to her. "Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, the fact is, though, that I was looking for you."
"No you weren't." Lily stood her ground, even though he was barely a foot away from her now. "You were out looking for Sirius. I know he has detention tonight."
"Is that were he is?" James took another step forward. "I got my fill of him already. I'm in the mood for someone nicer, now, so I've been looking for you all night." He slipped an arm around he waist.
So much for standing your ground, Lily thought as she slipped away. "I'm sure there's nicer and more willing people out there, Potter."
"Of course there are," he stated loudly, obviously enjoying himself. "But I don't have plans with any of them."
"Patrol doesn't count as 'plans!'"
"But it is! We made a plan," he paused, his smiled getting even wider, "a date, if you will, to patrol these halls, together, Evans. That counts."
James' grin made Lily want to hit him. "We did not make then 'together!' I wrote my name down on a piece of paper and you happened to write yours next to it!"
"It was not by accident that I wrote my name next to yours."
"Then you're stalking me. That's not a very good way to get into someone's pants."
He laughed, throwing his head back. "You have such a high opinion of yourself, Evans, to think that I did all this to get into your pants."
Lily took a step forward this time. "What other reason would you have for getting patrol tonight?"
"Remember, I was supposed to do it with Remus, and you with Alice."
"Oh, so you were trying to get into Remus' pants, then." She paused, as if pondering something. "He asked Alice to Hogsmeade, once, so I don't think he would respond well."
"That was just a cover," James responded, "he truly has eyes for me alone."
"I'm sure he does, Potter."
"Of course he does!" James seemed to think for a second. "Well, he may have eyes for Sirius, too… And you went with him once."
"Yes, I did. He needed help with potions and we both wanted to get out of the castle. You; however, ruined our study session when you threw a blob of green jello at my head."
"I what?" He frowned. "I threw what at your head?"
"Jello. You threw jello at my head." Seeing that he was still confused, Lily realized that wizards didn't have brand-name gelatin. "Gelatin, Potter. It was green and you threw it at my head." As a muggle-born, she often found herself in situations were she had to explain how the microwave cooked food without magic, or something like that.
When Charlie had run away from home during the last summer break, she had gone to stay with Lily for a few weeks. Every few minutes she had wanted to know what the point of the telly was again.
"No I didn't," James said defensively. "Padfoot did. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Besides giving him the idea, of course, but in my plan we threw it at Snivellus, not you."
"Maybe you could have tried to stop Sirius. Did you think of that?"
"I couldn't ask him to stop after I'd come up with the idea and we went out and got all that gelatin. How would you feel if we let it go to waste, Evans? There are starving people and you want it to go to waste," he accused.
"Throwing it at my head is letting it go to waste."
"Perhaps we meant for you to eat it."
"I'm sure you did."
James suddenly went quiet and started looking around. "Do you hear something?" he asked.
"Do I detect a lover's quarrel?" Sirius exclaimed as he turned the corner.
"No, Padfoot," James answered, smiling now that he had his best friend with him. "You know that I only have those with you."
Lily glared at both of them. "I'm going to give you detention, Sirius Black."
He smiled at her. "My incredibly sexy Lily Evans, I just got out of detention. Go talk to McGonagle, she'll back me up."
"Do you really expect her to do that multiple times a day, Padfoot? She's not exactly twenty anymore." James winked.
"Of course she will, Prongs. If you were to get detention with her more often you would know that, but you prefer Slughorn. Don't you?" Sirius elbowed James suggestively.
"I do; however, now that I know what I know, I'm going to have to get in trouble with McGonagle more often."
"Stop it! Both of you!" Lily had reached the end of her line when they brought her favorite teacher into it. "Go to bed, Sirius, before I am able to give you detention."
"Do go on, Lily. You know how much I love forceful women." Sirius tried to gather Lily close to him.
"Go now!" she yelled, pushing him away.
Sirius smiled and turned away. "Good luck, James. I hope that your plan works out this time."
When he was gone, Lily turned back to James. "What plan?"
"There's no plan, now, Evans. You're going to be on toes all night after that and I need you unsuspecting."
"I'm always going to be on my toes around you, Potter."
After that they stopped talking. James had started brooding about something or other, and she was very busy wondering what sort of prank was going to be pulled on her this time. They were always very original and very humiliating, no bucket-of-water-over-the-door for them.
And Sirius wasn't going to be participating. That could be very good or very bad, Lily had no idea which way it would go without him. When you had all of the marauders coming at you, you knew what to expect. Since it was just James…
He was probably going to confess his never-dying love and try to seduce her. There hadn't been anything like that lately, so he was due. The first time he had gone a week without telling her that he loved her, he ended up covering the common room full of pictures of her. And when he went two weeks, he charmed her bed so that it moaned and said, "Oh, James," whenever she sat on it. Although it was a brilliant bit of magic, it had made it very hard to go to bed.
In reality, it would do her no good to stay on her toes, James would find a way to get her somehow, he always did. No matter what precautions she took, he would surprised and embarrass her.
People had even started betting on what he would do to her next. There was about fifty gallons on making it seem like she was pregnant.
Lily couldn't believe that they had nothing better to do. It was almost sad. And pregnant! Honestly! At least no one thought she would actually be pregnant, just that James would make it seem as if she was.
Everyone thought that she was a prude; though, and Sirius would go to great lengths to make this obvious. No one believed she would actually do anything with James. She spent all her time studying and had no life as far as guys go, besides James' undying affection for her. She just never seemed to find mutual-attraction with anyone, which was the reason she had no sex life. Whenever she would go on a date with someone who she was very attracted to, a week later they would consider her nothing more than a sister.
It never failed to happen.
She looked up at James. He wasn't paying any attention to her, clearly lost in his own thoughts. He always treated her the same, except for his transition from a tormentor to an admirer. All of his friends still treated her like they always did. Sirius would be the nicest person ever and then seem to hate her more than anything in the world. She could always tell what he would be like based on James' mood towards her, though. If he was unhappy, then so was Sirius. Remus and she had always been good friends. They were the ones who always did the homework and ran herd on James and Sirius. Peter just ignored her. Sure, he would say, "Hi," but that was the extent of their communication.
And pretty soon she wouldn't be seeing any of them anymore. In another eight months, they would be leaving Hogwarts and there would be no reason to see any of the 'marauders' again. It was actually sort of depressing. Although they annoyed her to no end, they did provide her with at least fifty percent of her entertainment. And Remus was her best study partner… She would still be able to see him, they wanted to go the same school to continue their studies, but he was having trouble getting in. Lily had no idea why, though. He got better marks than almost everyone else in their year.
She would never see James again. And she had no idea why that depressed her.
James couldn't believe that Sirius had brought up his plan in front of Lily! Now the girl wasn't going to let him anywhere near her for quite some time, which definitely canceled out his hopeful plans for Hogsmeade this weekend. Not that Lily would have agreed to it in the first place, but now there was no hope at all.
Not that was ever going to be hope when he was around. She had never encouraged him at all, but he couldn't help but pursue her. She was beautiful and smart and funny and he wanted her to be his.
He'd stopped screaming about his love for her during dinner, what more did she want? Whenever he asked any of her friends, he was shot down. He even had Sirius ask Charlie, but that had also been futile. Once upon a time, they had tried to help him, now it just 'wasn't meant to be.'
Bull shit.
James was going to get Lily, no matter how much she resisted.
