In which Lily and James decide Sirius is in need of a little pranking, and Lily is blissfully oblivious (for a time) to the fact that, in matters of a joking sort, 'friend' sometimes comes before the 'girl'. Marauder's Era, Lily/James with some mischievous!JamesSirius.

Disclaimer: As always, don't own 'em, but do love 'em. Now, onward!

Dear My Much Neglected Journal-

You have probably been wondering what has become of me, and I am sorry that I have not made an account of myself earlier. Allow me to explain.

Two weeks.

It has taken two weeks of time when I could have been using for discovering the cure for Wizard's Pox, or organizing an event for Future Aurors of the World (they are always low on clean fun) or even studying…studiously.

But of course Potter—my brilliant, unflappable, miscreant of a boyfriend—just has to get Sirius back for the stint a full month ago where he erased our lips because he thought we were snogging too much. Even though Sirius of all people should know there is no such thing as too much snogging, the hypocritical cretan. James and I caught him in four different cupboards and empty classrooms with five different girls last week, which lends itself to all sorts of questions…

Anyway.

Two weeks of valuable time were taken to planning one prank, the 'Merlin of all wrong-doing, rule bending, and undeniable fun' as James had put it, and we have yet to wreak havoc on the whole of Hogwarts. Though there is something…exhilarating about working with James on one of his many half-arsed ideas. For one, at least this plan has a viable sense of closure (thanks entirely to my foresight, because James had been baffled when I asked how we were going to not get caught. "Get expelled, you mean?" Sigh.) and furthermore, there is no better balm to eliminate the rashness of James than breaks in between planning where pumpkin juice and crumpets are conspicuously absent.

So, though I will deny it if a certain green eyed, overly affectionate boy ever enquires, these two weeks have been some of my most exciting at Hogwarts. I have almost become addicted to this villainy, this rule breaking.

For instance, yesterday, I actually stepped into the Forbidden Forest. That's right. Completely out-of-bounds. I stepped right in and picked up what I thought was a ring, but was actually just a piece off of someone's jumper, and stood there, in all of my rebellious glory. I just stood, practically asking for a professor to walk by and yell at me to suspend my misplaced bravado and get out of immediate danger and imminent death. Not that I was far in, mind you, only one or two steps, but it was still reckless and incredibly stupid. I mean, I have seen wolves and cloaked figures on the forest edge. I could have been mauled. Or cursed. (These are dark times, but I will not divulge my fears in this, because I don't want to be reminded of my looming worries while talking about something so trite). I didn't tell James, for obvious reasons. Mostly because he would make fun of me for being daft about that being at all what could be considered rule breaking, but it is hardly fair being a novice in a professional's world. I can learn though, and quick. I can be clever, and he forgets that.

But again, I digress.

That all being said, I still am not entirely sure what our plan is. A great amount of the whole process went on in James' incredibly sporadic mind in a language that is entirely beyond the capacities of translation for a normal human thought. I do not know how he puts up with himself, really. He tried to explain his chicken scratch, inane drawings that were, he claimed, to be the outline of his brilliance. There were a lot of moving stick figures. I assumed that the one with a childish cape was my boyfriend, and the one that was knackered on the floor with large Xs through the eyes was Sirius. In any case, there is some involvement with my skill at charms (I am supposed to distract him by charming paper into folding itself into origami. I guess to every man, his fetish). I am hoping he will explain all before the time comes to execute his little 'joke' or I have a feeling that this whole experience is going to turn out very, very badly.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

I must be a prophet.

If one was to rate this whole idea on scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the epitome of stupid, also known as James without me in on a prank, and 10 being Dumbledore without the crazy, I'd have to rate it as a negative 11. In other words, the entire event was a disaster.

And now, I have an octopus tentacle finding refuge in my hair. And detention.

Detention. Lily. Me, Lily. Me, Lily, who has donated free time to tutoring people sent to detention.

I think I am now single, too, because that is the only way I can see to keep me sane enough from not simply committing homicide.

Forget fall from grace. Try plummet. Into a black hole of shame.

I am never going to forgive James Potter. Or Sirius, but he was always on my list of 'Those To Burn Eternally In a Pit of Horribility'.

Now that I reflect, thinking that it could be as simple as pulling a prank on Sirius was a bit naïve on my part. I mean this is James I am talking about. 'Simplicity' to him sounds like a muggle store that sells princess stamps and puppy thank-you cards. Even mention it to him and he starts muttering darkly about unicorns and rainbows. So of course he would double cross me, his girlfriend, his professed love, and take up arms with Sirius. Of course.

It had all started the way it was planned, or at least the way he had told me the plan was supposed to go.

"Ok, Evans, your job is simple, but extremely important," he had said with authority in the common room on The Day, our heads close together so that Sara and Tara, James' highly uncouth, blonde, fourth year stalkers who were eyeing us, creepily, from the tables across the room, couldn't use a recording spell on our voices. "All you have to do is stand under the second gargoyle to the right of the third pillar to the left of the statue of Wimble the Warty near the courtyard."

"Huh?"

He had sighed dramatically at my inability to understand him, though I pointed out that no one understood him. He huffed a bit at that.

"You are my girlfriend, Lily. And you are just Lily Evans. You're supposed to know everything, magical and muggle."

I can't say I wasn't flattered at that comment, though he managed to annoy me with a look that implied my stupidity for not already knowing such a crucial fact.

"You aren't either, so it seems you are still a mystery to me." He had leaned in with an adorable grin on his face, with an air of mischievousness that is so my James and gave me quite a wonderful snogging…but never mind that. Back to the story of James being an insufferable prick.

So, after he had properly explained where he wanted me to be positioned, I was quickly shooed away, under the pretence that he had to 'set the stage' for Sirius, who was going to be headed my way within the next half hour.

Completely, utterly, and stupidly trusting, I flounced away in all of my naïve goodness, halo still about my head even though I was about to humiliate, with undoubtedly disastrous consequences, Sirius Black who could not take a joke as well as he could give them. The most notorious hypocrite at Hogwarts.

Now I should have realized when I was still standing under the most hideous, disfigured gargoyle that Hogwarts had to offer (I didn't think that its tail really needed to be protruding from its stomach in such a manner) at quarter past, that something was suspiciously wrong. James is never late. Well, unless it involves class. Then either he is on time, or is so late he misses the entirety of the lesson. Though I am not sure that counts.

As it were, I was still standing in the springy grass, rocking back and forth on my heels like some sodding, obedient puppy, my face fighting back a grin, my stomach knotted with giddiness, and my wand surreptitiously positioned out of sight on the side of my skirt, prepared to do the Singing Charm that would have Sirius singing show tune solos to every girl who passed him by. Then Sirius, according to James, would be known to all the girls as a different sort of player.

Needless to say, I was getting frustrated. I was just about to walk away and do some very angry studying when the creepy gargoyle above my head began to spew glitter.

Glitter.

A few first years, who had been in my peripheral for a few minutes (two with a mirror and one using both mirrors to apply her lipstick) squealed at the sudden glitter storm that had taken to building a fine layer of rainbow on my person. It was apparent by the "Merlin! I love glitter!" squeals by the first years and their frolicking to where I was standing, that these girls enjoyed the glitter in a way that I had not yet come to appreciate.

I hadn't quite figured out exactly what to do, torn between my loyalty to James to stay put, and my confusion as to exactly why I was being trampled on by dancing glitter fiends, when almighty shrieks of horror erupted from all around and something extremely heavy was weighing down my hair.

I didn't take long for a pink, slimy tentacle to land in front of my eyes and some sucky-squirming-slithering on my head for me to join in the terrified shrieks as I realized that the glitter was being used not to adorn us girls in shimmering accoutrements, but as a medium for transfiguration.

A transfiguration trick that I knew could only be pulled off by one idiotic, insufferable prick at the bloody school.

"JAMES POTTER!"

My bellow of rage mixed with the terrified, and sobbing, cries of the first years seemed to open the floodgates to all of the classrooms in the near vicinity.

"Lily Evans, what is going on here?" I had groaned and closed my eyes, now facing a danger much worse than an octopus that was happily burying itself in my red hair as if it was some kind of algae. McGonagall. McGonagall with a quivering second year Hufflepuff boy by the ear, storming down the hallway.

"I was just…"

"I had expected something like this from Potter or Black, but I had not believed it when I was told that you would be instigating a prank with the likes of Potter." She indicated the second year boy who was clutching something that looked suspiciously like a money purse.

I had been slack jawed at that point, still not quite registering that I had been completely set up. That was, until, I heard the snickering right above my head. That's when I knew that James was never ever going to ride his broom comfortably again.

"But I didn't! Why would I put an octopus in my own hair?"

This gave McGonagall a momentary pause, though I could tell she was still suspicious. "I cannot answer that other than I will believe anything now, Miss Evans, after hearing the present gossip that you are dating Mr. Potter."

My cheeks flushed as the Slytherins arrived and started howling with laughter. I even think one of them threw an octopus at me. That wasn't a wet pillow that hit my back, of that I'm sure.

I had, at that point, decided that I would just take the humiliation and just say it was me, if only to give some attention to the large sea creature still atop my head, but a satisfying crack and a resounding thud in the grass behind me made me pause.

"Bugger!"

"Black, language!" McGonagall barked.

I spun around and glared furiously, the pair of them in a heap, Sirius rubbing at his knee furiously and James groping around for his glasses.

"Damn it, James, I told you we'd get caught!"

"Is that an admission of guilt, Mr. Black?"

Sirius had the grace to plunge his face into the soft grass in frustration.

"Fine, this wasn't our best plan ever…" James said grudgingly, his glasses found. I had felt only a pang of the love instinct to rush over and make sure the bruise on his temple wasn't serious. And I resisted. Yes, be proud.

"James Potter, I am going to kill you!" I had hissed behind gritted teeth, tugging at the octopus, which was unwilling to leave its nest.

"Miss Evans, that is entirely inappropriate!" McGonagall shrieked, her lips pressed into a thin line. "I've had enough of this. All three of you, detention!"

"That's not fair, I didn't even do anything!" I had shrieked, rather impetuously.

But with the McGonagall Glare fastened on me, I knew that it was too late to try and retain my dignity.

And so here I am. Sitting in the back of the potions classroom (because Slughorn had, thankfully, agreed to host my detention and did not make me do anything unduly horrible) with a blemish on my record for a prank I didn't even get to pull.

And with half an octopus tentacle still flopping in my hair because McGonagall couldn't quite manage to coax it out.

But there is something that is still bothering me. Beyond the tentacle.

I am trying to make light of this, but the truth is I really can't. I feel more than a little betrayed. And abashed that I feel that way about a ridiculous and immature prank. But I have to wonder what else he does behind my back. What other kind of pacts and laughs he is having at my expense. Because if I can't trust him to involve me in something that is so fundamentally him, I wonder what I can trust him about.

This is ridiculous. I just read over my last lines and can't help but to be a little ashamed of how transparent I am. My mum always said I could analyze the 'green' out of green tea.

I have to go now. James has just poked his head in the door, and is trying to spring me out of detention. I have decided to momentarily forgive James his indiscretions, as he is looking entirely too enticing and apologetic and is charming me with his presence, a blanket, and some stolen pumpkin juice. And the promise of tentacle-free hair.

But I hope he doesn't think he's going to get off that easily.

Until Another Unfortunate Occurrence That Will Undoubtedly Involve the All-Too-Charming James Potter,

Lily Evans

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