Authors Note: Thank you very much for the review crazylily. Much appreciated. Now, I have a few chapters in reserve, which is why I can post this so quickly, but, next time I will not post for two days or so, otherwise I'll run out of writing. I'm glad you like the fic. And, in this chapter, there is a weird perverted theme-y thing, so I'm sorry about that. And there is minor swearing in this chapter too. I don't particularly like this chapter, but I like the next few, so there's your reason to keep reading. Oh, and since you are my first (and only) reviewer, this chapter is dedicated to you.
Chapter two - A Perverted Plan
"So, are we ready?" Sirius turned to the others, "We don't have time to come back if we forget anything."
"We have the camera, the spell, and the brooms; I think we're set." James checked his watch as he said this. It was twenty to nine; they had to be back in twenty minutes.
"Where's Mooney?" Peter asked, seeing that Lupin was not there.
"Jesus Wormtail, we told you earlier; Mooney's not coming. He said that he thinks 'spying on the girls in the shower is wrong', to which I replied 'Mooney, you've got another thing coming if you plan to marry or even date'. He also thinks it's un-honourable as a prefect – glad I'm not one."
After he said that, James checked his watch again; fifteen minutes.
"Lets go," he said.
The three climbed out of the portrait hole and took the moving staircases down to the first floor. From there, they ran out of the hall, and into the night sky. Each one mounted their broom and shot skywards, Peter sliding clumsily off the end so that James had to hold him up while Peter re-positioned.
Up they flew, until they were level with the third window left of the boy's dormitory window; the window to the girls' bathroom in Griffindor tower. Sirius flew up ahead:
"Hey, Prongs, get a load of this; we came just a few minutes too late."
James left Peter to struggle with his own broomstick and stopped in mid air beside Sirius. Through the window, he saw Lily, fully dressed now, with a towel round her hair. Apparently she had just showered.
'Damn,' he thought, 'Damn, damn, damn!'
"Disappointed mate?" Sirius whispered, but he had no idea how disappointed his friend actually was. (A/N: See… Disturbing and perverted).
"What did I miss?" Peter asked loudly as he flew up to the others (still only half-on his broom) just as Lily turned around.
She shrieked (something about perverts and how long they had been there) when she saw them.
"What the hell is wrong with you, huh? You are friggin' jerks. Get away from that window now!" Lily pulled out her wand from her jeans pocket, and muttered a spell under her breath. The boys, who had been looking startled throughout the whole show, just watched her, amazed and shocked, as they were blasted downwards, towards the quidditch pitch.
They hit the pitch hard and rolled off their broomsticks. Sirius was laughing like a maniac, so Peter started laughing too. But James didn't find it at all funny.
"She hates us. She hates you mate. She saw and now she hates us. Not that she didn't before, but now she has a reason to." Sirius was almost crying with mirth.
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"So, they were watching you through the window! How long had they been there?"
Lily had stormed back into her dormitory and spilled the whole story to Lydia, Enid, and their other roomie, Christine Carpollo. Christine was the only other girl Lily knew who didn't swoon at James' or Sirius' feet, which was one of the reasons that Lily liked her so much.
"I don't know," she spat, "I think they got there after I'd finished my shower. I hope so."
"The solution to any question is to ask for an answer," Enid yanked out a pink piece of paper, scribbled something down, and tapped it with her wand. The paper folded itself into an airplane and zoomed out the door, towards the boys' staircase.
"What did you do?" Lily yelled at Enid, though she had a pretty good idea.
"God Lils, I just told the guys to tell us how long they were watching you."
Lily flung her pillow (she was sitting on her bed) at Enid's head, missed, and swore.
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"Ouch!" Peter said, rubbing his head from where the paper airplane had landed on it.
"Please inform us how much you saw of L. E. taking a shower. I would also like to add that you are perverted assholes for planning to watch in the first place. Signed – E.A." Sirius read the note aloud, still laughing hysterically.
Lupin, who had been listening to the whole story with a grimace, snatched the note and scratched down "They saw nothing.", and sent it back.
"Awww, Mooney. Why'd ya do that? We coulda had real fun with them not knowing." Sirius complained to Lupin.
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"See Lily," Enid said after unfolding and reading the message from the boys, "It's like I said before, they saw nothing."
"You didn't say that before."
"I did mentally."
"More like mental," Lily hissed in response, "Geez, who asked you to do that?"
Before Enid could respond, Christine suggested they go to bed and Lily replied, "Not before I get revenge."
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At eight o'clock in the morning (he had overslept), James woke up because his head was unbelievably itchy. He got up and went to the bathroom to see why.
Sirius joined him a minute later, followed by Peter, tripping clumsily over his own feet.
"What the bloody hell is going on!" Sirius roared as he looked in the mirror at their three identical donkey's heads.
"Evans!" James replied as though it was obvious, "Who else?"
"She's going to pay for this."
"Yeah," Peter agreed, "Through her teeth."
James already had his wand out, so he tried a couple spells on his furry ears. Nothing worked.
"It must be one of those spells that can only be removed by the performer," James concluded.
"We have to find her. She'll be at breakfast right now, but we can skip that, and then catch her when she comes back here to get her books for charms and potions. We can hold her in our room until she changes us back. Wait a flippin' sec, where's Mooney and why didn't he wake us up or get a donkey's head?" Sirius was steaming mad.
"They should be back any minute now; let's go and get dressed before Evans comes back."
The three boys rushed back to their room and hurried to put on their jeans and t-shirts. By the time they arrived in the common room, Lily was just leaving. She seemed to be giggling about something with Christine before she spotted them.
"Yeah. Ashton Lockhart really isn't that attractive unless you're Enid and have a weird thing for old, blond, smiley," Christine was saying until, "OH MY GOD, What happened to you three?"
Christine gaped at Peter, Sirius, and James. Lily snorted with laughter, and almost choked on her galleon-gum (glittery, gold bubble-gum from Honeydukes) at the sight of the three, donkey-headed boys.
"Ask Evans; she should know 'cause she did it, didn't you Evans?" Sirius glared at Lily and then flashed a smile at Christine, "Maybe you could ask your friend to remove her little spell…"
Even though she was blushing, Christine raised her eyebrows.
Sirius looked put out; she was the first girl, apart from Lily, not to melt under his gaze. He thought he was losing his touch when a group of sixth-years walked in, giggling as he looked their way; he was obviously not losing his touch.
James tried to recover Sirius' fumble: "Evans undo the spell."
Lily challenged him, "What if I don't? I think you guys should be taught a lesson, at least until midday."
"Evans!" James was obviously losing patience, and fast, so Peter decided to give it a try.
"Lily Evans… You're a prefect aren't you?"
"Yes. So?"
"Well," Peter answered, trying, and failing, to seem smooth, like James or Sirius, "Dumbledore won't be happy when he finds out that his prize student has been breaking rules, will he?"
"He's right, you know Lily. You will be in awful trouble if Dumbledore finds out. Maybe you should put them right…"
"They are put right, Christine; asses. But, if you insist…" She pulled out her wand, muttered 'rightus, rectum', and all three boys were normal again.
"Nice one Wormtail! You are so gonna' pay for this Evans." Sirius muttered threateningly at Lily as he strode past her, Wormtail following. She rolled her eyes and grinned at Christine, waiting for James to leave. He didn't, so Christine said suddenly, "Bye.", and left.
Lily turned as if to follow her, but James called her back.
"What Potter?" She was impatient and he was taking his time.
"I was wondering…" he started, but lost his nerve, "I just wanted to say nice shirt," Lily didn't need to look down at the conservative polo shirt that she was wearing; instead she raised her eyebrows – there had to be a stupid joke coming. "Take it off!"
Yep. She was right. "Grow up idiot!" Lily muttered as she swept through the portrait hole and down a staircase on her left.
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Silently James berated himself. He had meant to ask Lily out, but her frosty glare stopped him. What was his problem when it came to Lily? He had no problem asking out other girls. Seriously. But it might have something to do with the fact that he had never been turned down and he didn't want to start with Lily. He didn't even like half of the girls he dated; he just got bored a lot (plus it was obvious that most of them wanted, more than anything, to go out with Sirius or James).
The bell rang. Crap. James would be late for Charms. Professor Flitwick would probably give him a detention and he was not fond of the idea of spending his whole Saturday in detentions since he already had Dumbledore's.
Out the portrait hole he ran, then through his tapestry staircase and behind an ugly painting of an equally ugly person. He reached the Charms door and lingered outside it, checking his watch. He was ten minutes late for his first lesson of the year. Oops.
James prepared himself for a detention, and strolled bravely into the classroom. All except three of the students were separated into pairs. Everyones' eyes turned to the doorway as he entered, like he was on display. Professor Flitwick looked up from his list and peered over the top of his desk at James.
James caught sight of Sirius' grinning face as they all watched him saunter up to Flitwick's desk and lie, "Sorry I'm late sir, but I was in the library looking up some background information on the summoning charm. I was so enthralled that I forgot to eat breakfast." James grinned back at Sirius as he turned his head to 'cough'.
"Well Mr. Potter, glad as I am that you were late through your studies, this is not the best way to start off the year, is it?"
"No sir."
"And I trust that this will not happen again?" Flitwick asked hopefully.
"Yes sir." Flitwick didn't believe him, but, you can always hope.
"Fat chance of that!" Lily said under her breath so that only Lydia could hear her. Lydia kicked her. Hard.
"Sit down Mr. Potter. We were just pairing off for your next Charms assignment."
James, Lily, and two Hufflepuff girls (Alison and Dawna) were the only ones without partners.
Flitwick read off his attendance sheet and said, "Potter, James, you will partner Evans, Lily. Jameson, Alison, your partner will be Campbell, Dawna."
Lily groaned, while James and Peter high fived behind his back.
"Your assignment," Professor Flitwick carried on, "Is to choose a Charm between you, and write an essay, with a full demonstration, on the performance, uses, and history of the Charm. You may plan for the project with your partners now."
Lily turned around to face Lydia mouthing, 'kill me now'. Lydia started to mouth back, 'you lucky b…', when Lily was tapped on the shoulder. She hoped it would be Professor Flitwick, saying that he had made a mistake earlier, and that she was really supposed to partner Christine, but, it was James.
"Hey partner," he put his arm jokingly around her shoulders, "We should get started."
"Is it too late to ask for a new partner?" Lily complained, shrugging him off.
"Come on, if we're going to be working together for this project, we need to get along…"
"Or we can just hate each other and work from a distance," she suggested innocently.
"Just sit down Evans," James ordered, motioning to a free bench and desk. She did, and pulled out her spell books.
"Fine. Which spell should we do?" James tried to sit down close to Lily. She kicked his shin saying, "Space Potter."
"I've always liked the Summoning Charm personally, but you should pick the charm; you have so much of your own."
She didn't know why, but, after she rolled her eyes, Lily could feel her cheeks getting hot. She shook her head and said, "Fine, we'll do the Summoning Charm."
James wasn't listening; he had seen her blush, and was now fantasizing about her actually in the shower. (A/N: Again, sorry for the creepy, disturbing, perverted aspect of this chapter). Lily got the feeling that he wasn't paying attention to their project at all, so she kicked him again.
"God dammit Evans! Stop kicking me will you!" he moaned, massaging his leg.
"Pay attention then you jerk! I am not doing this project by myself."
"You're cute when you're pissed," James said devilishly.
"I am not Potter. Shut-up and work for a change."
"Suit yourself," he said, and opened his book.
About ten minutes later, as the bell rang, Professor Flitwick addressed his class, "See here, You may have until Wednesday to finish up your projects, and then you should be ready to present in Thursday afternoon's class. I expect you will need to get together to work on this outside of class, as you only have Wednesday's class to work on it. You may go."
As everyone gathered up their stuff and headed for the door, James said to Lily, "He's right; we'll need to work on it outside of class, so I suggest we do it today after classes."
"Why not tomorrow?" Lily asked, trying to give herself more time to figure out why James wasn't as annoying to her today as usual.
"I have quidditch tomorrow," James lied. He actually did have quidditch practice the next day, but he had seen that Lily was softening up to him, and he didn't want that to disappear – that was the main reason. "We can meet in the student work lounge after dinner." James knew that, after dinner, the student work room became the date room. The set up of desks and bookshelves made it the perfect place for making out (as you can imagine, James and Sirius used it a lot).
"Okay. See you there." Lily agreed, and then she rushed out of the classroom and down the stairs to Potions, in the dungeons, before James had even shouldered his bag. He had a sneaking suspicion that Lily couldn't trust herself in the same room as him alone. And he also guessed that she had no clue about the making out spot. Perfect.
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"Geez, what took you so long Lils?" Lily speeded in to the Potions classroom and took a seat next to Lydia, Enid, and Christine. Christine was reading 'A Poultice of Potions', and Lydia was turned around on their bench flirting with Sirius and Remus (Peter was there too, but he was preoccupied by some sort of accident with his crushed stinging nettles), so Lily replied to Enid, "Potter."
Sirius drew his attention away from Lydia to ask, "Ohhh… You've seen my buddy? Is he coming down, or did you turn him fully into a donkey?"
"Wish I'd thought of the donkey thing. How am I supposed to know what that git is doing. He might be making out in the stair well," she spat in response.
"Jealous!" Sirius coughed.
"Excuse me. I am not jealous! I couldn't care less if he was!" Lily had turned in her seat to face Sirius, blushing.
"Sure. You fancy him."
"I DO NOT FANCY JAMES POTTER!" Lily shouted, standing up.
"Sorry to hear that." James was standing in the doorway as she shouted. Lily turned, crimson-faced, and tried to figure out if he looked hurt by her outburst. Wait, why did she care? She thought he did, but didn't linger on that too long because Professor Snape (Severus' Uncle) was standing right behind James. Crap. Dammit.
"Well," Snape Sr. sneered (A/N: Tongue-twister, huh?), "Thank you, Miss Evans, Mr. Potter, for that heart-warming display of emotion, but I would ask you to keep it out of my classroom from now on. Five points each from Griffindor and take your seats."
Snape Jr. and a few other Slytherins (they shared Potions classes with the Slytherins) sniggered. The Marauders glared at them. Lily shakily took her seat and James walked over to his spot beside Sirius. He didn't even make a sleezy comment when he passed her. 'Maybe I did hurt him,' Lily thought again, but, really, why did she care? Usually, Lily would argue with James, yell at him, be mean to him, and he would argue, shout and be mean right back, then make some cheesy old comment to laugh it all off; why wasn't he?
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While they were supposed to be taking notes on 'the importance of chilling concoctions', James and Sirius were passing notes back and forth:
Man, u got iced. U don't care do u?
No way Padfoot, I'm fine. Who needs Evans; I'm considering going 4 Kate Orr (Ravenclaw chaser). U think I care about Evans!
Yah! But Kate Orr is hot Prongs; go 4 it.
I so don't care about Evans. I just like teasing her.
U just like teasing her.
Snapes' coming. On your right