So I haven't done this in a while but I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters.
Straight to the point.
Lily and James make there way down the corridor in an awkward silence, neither knowing what to say. After a while James having had enough of the silence and deciding that small talk would just make it worse said, ''Lily, what was wrong earlier? You haven't ever forgotten any pranks we've done before.''
''Does it matter,'' she said in a more harsh tone than she had meant, ''I'm not annoyed with you any more.'' It wasn't that she was completely opposed to talking about Severus to people but she was completely opposed to talking about him with James. Not because she thought he wouldn't take it seriously, but because she didn't want to see the smug look that he had worn whenever she had criticised Severus before. She wanted to be his friend and she knew it wouldn't work if he did that, so she didn't want to risk it.
''You could have fooled me.'' James said in a questioning tone.
Lily closed her eyes for a moment, quickening her pace. The quicker these rounds were over the better. ''Nothing's wrong.'' She said not looking at him.
James had kept in pace with her the whole time, ''Look clearly something's wrong, and we've got the whole evening left so unless you want to spend it in silence why don't you just tell me.''
Lily scowled, boys, ''Silence is fine with me.'' She said coldly.
''Fine.''
They continued in an awkward silence for twenty minutes before James spoke. He was leaning on the wall outside professor McGonagall's office waiting for Lily to return from giving her the list of when people were patrolling. He could hear them talking, Lily's soft voice flowing out of the room. He sighed; he hadn't meant to fall out with her. It had just happened; the arguments came naturally to them.
Lily exited the office avoiding James gaze and turning to continue on the rounds. ''Lily, wait,'' James said catching Lily's arm. Lily flinched when he caught her, remembering Severus earlier but James's hand was gentle on her arm and he let go quickly when she flinched ''Sorry,'' he said quietly.
''Listen Lily, I really don't like silence, you don't have to talk about what isn't bothering you or what is, but lets talk at least, even if its about homework.''
Lily felt a smile tugging at the corners of her lips; she was really beginning to believe that he had changed for the better, though she still didn't feel ready to talk about Severus with him. ''So,'' she said beginning to smiling, ''have you done the transfiguration homework then?''
James sighed rolling his eyes, ''I didn't actually mean homework, and I've started it.'' He said evasively,
''Started it?''
''Yeah, I've written the title and I'll finish it later, possibly.''
Lily tried to look disapproving but smiled despite herself, ''you'll be in more trouble now if you don't do it,'' when James looked confused she expanded; ''your head boy and this is our seventh year, more responsibility.'' She concluded.
James sighed, ''I've worked out why Dumbledore made me head boy.'' he said turning to her,
''Why?'' Lily asked curiously
''He wanted to kill me, of boredom.''
Lily rolled her eyes, ''hard work never killed anyone.'' she said.
''no, but why take the chance.'' James grinned at lily's expression.
''You're impossible,'' she said smiling
They were back in the common room later that day finishing homework and messing around;
''Maybe we should put fireworks in the great hall.'' Sirius said, twirling his wand around in his fingers,
''We did that in second year. We need something new.'' James said chewing on the end on his quill, having given up on his homework after the first sentence. Deciding that he'd much rather talk about pranks with Sirius while the other two did their homework.
''We could do something to the slitherins,'' Sirius suggested,
James glanced over at where Lily was sitting, ''maybe we should lay off the slitherins, you know for a bit.'' Sirius raised his eyebrows, ''why?''
''I'm head boy.'' James said as if this should have been obvious,
''oh so it's got nothing to do with staying in Lily's good books then?'' Remus said looking up from his homework, an evil grin on his face,
''I thought we'd been through this,'' James said ''I just have to be more responsible now.''
''Fine,'' Sirius said ''you'll be needing this then.'' He threw the sheet of parchment James had been working on earlier to him, raising his eyebrows.
James looked at the parchment in his lap for a moment before picking it up and throwing it back on to the table. ''Just wait until they do something first, so that we've got an excuse.''
Sirius considered the suggestion for a moment, ''okay, but we still do other pranks in the mean time.''
''Deal,'' James said, ''so, what are these other pranks going to be?''
''Still working on that bit,'' Sirius said grinning and swinging his legs over the arm of the chair to make himself comfortable.
''Well we could do the fireworks thing then, just for something to do,'' James suggested,
''We have to do something big. It's the first one of the year.'' Sirius said.
''But we haven't got anything.'' James pointed out,
Sirius scowled, ''well say we did do the firework thing, we'd need to do it during breakfast or dinner because most people will be in the hall around that time. And we need to go to Zonko's to get some fire works, and we could get some dung bombs at the same time.''
James grinned, ''we could put the dung bombs in the fireworks, then it would be bigger.''
Sirius's face light up ''yeah and fireworks all over the hall, in the roof, on the floor, in the tables.''
They continued with their plans for the prank until Remus having finished his essay pointed out a problem, ''Lily isn't going to be impressed if it hurts anyone, in fact she wont be impressed with it at all.''
James considered this for a moment, ''it wont hurt anyone, we'll make sure of it and if we do it properly so it looks nice and everything it could be counted as a welcome back kind of thing,''
Remus raised his eyebrows sceptically, ''yeah, I'm sure Lily will see it that way.''
James sighed, he just couldn't win, ''oh well, its one prank, its not going to hurt any one, it's just a bit of fun.''
Sirius looked hesitant, ''if you don't want to we don't have to.''
James looked at him incredulously ''we're doing the prank, I'll talk to Lily after.''
''Okay then,'' Remus said smiling ''so, when are you two planning on doing this homework?''
Later on that evening James was lying in his room thinking about being responsible. He generally tried to ovoid this train of thought, because he never really liked the conclusion. He wasn't responsible and if he was honest he didn't want to be, but he did want to impress Lily, despite what he told the others. The problem was he didn't think he could do both. Normally if he didn't think he would be able to do something he would go and do it anyway but he didn't want to be responsible. He wanted to have fun and mess around with his friends. He didn't want to grow up.
He knew that he couldn't have what he wanted. He couldn't have both things. He couldn't be a Marauder and have Lily, it just wouldn't work. The Marauders played pranks and had fun and were generally irresponsible. Lily was caring, kind, responsible and beautiful and hard working and generally amazing. He kicked himself he could fantasise about Lily some other time, right now he had to work out how to be a Marauder and have Lily Evans. Because the thing about James Potter was that when he wanted something he would do all he could to have it and he didn't give up easily.
A/N
Greetings fellow earthlings :P (I just watched the film 'Paul' so I'm in alien mode).
Right so… this chapter was incredibly small, I think probably the smallest one :/ but its hard, I like writing them all happy and stuff but I thought that all the fights wouldn't just go away and that if Lily told James about the whole Snape thing so soon it would be unrealistic… not that magic is really realistic but… Anyway they will talk about Snape together but when there a bit closer.
So a MASIVE thank you to everyone who reviewed and added the story to alerts (: I love you all.
I was going to put this chapter up sooner but then I had science course work and people coming round and then I went shopping (which is just to important to miss) so I just ran out of time, and I still haven't finished my course work or started it really unless the title counts :/
Anyway I should really stop writing this and do some coursework, so yeah, I think I'm going to update about once a week on Sundays I think unless of course my science teacher decides to send me to an early grave with all the work and then you'll never get to read the end of the story ):
So politely asking for reviews doesn't tend to get me very many, so I'm going to try begging again (: PLEASEEE PLEASEE review look the buttons only down there , it would only take you two minutes. But don't think I don't appreciate the reviews that I'm getting, I love them they make my day (:
Okay ciao (I love that word)
:D
