Disclaimer: None of the characters (except for in later chapters) in this fanficition belong to moi. They all belong to the wonderful J. K. Rowling. So please don't sue me. Oh yes, but several characters coming up in future chapters are mine... I'll let you know, though! Thank you for your time and patience. And now on to the story! *Giggles insanely*

Chapter Three: A Midnight Stroll

"Touchy touchy," James muttered to himself as he climbed down the giant oak tree, "Muggles are too defensive..." He jumped the last five feet to the ground and landed with a dull thud. Maybe, he thought to himself, I should invite Sirius over to meet her.

He chuckled to himself. Now that would be funny. He could just imagine Lily's hair (bright lime-green) and Sirius laughing his ass off.

"Ah, the good life," he chortled to himself, "but back to business."

James hoisted himself over the brick wall and fell into his yard. In all truthfulness, he really was thinking up in the tree— thinking of his next prank. He had just about worked out all of the kinks when he heard a loud crash somewhere behind him. After almost falling out of the tree, he turned to peer into the window of a nearby house (a house which had been empty for the last seven years) and saw the young girl sprawled out on her back. She happened to be very red in the face and was yelling something downstairs.

However, James didn't know how a girl that small could make a crash that big. Yet, feeling a bit sorry for her, he had made it a point to take off his invisibility cloak to introduce himself; it was the least he could do since the girl almost tore a hole through the floor... James had counted on startling her, but he hadn't counted on being snapped at, argued with, or having windows slammed in his face. Most people he knew enjoyed his antics...

But some Muggles can be so rude, they wouldn't know common courtesy even if it bit them, he thought, but bother that... He had better things to do other than wallow in self-pity about how some Muggle girl didn't think he was the least bit funny. Right now, he had to gather the equipment for his next practical joke.

Old Mr. Hilliard, who ran the local candy store, needed some lightening up...

¤~*~¤~*~¤~*~¤

Lily scowled at the figure that was James as he scrambled over the wall. Grumbling, she closed the tiny crack she had made in the shades. With a kid like that, you had to be extremely careful about what you did...

"I wonder what his parents do all day, to let him run around like that?" she asked herself.

Yes, many times before she had gotten into several close scrapes. Luckily, she grew out of it. Childish behavior and little jokes were just too—well— childish. However, the thrill of adventure and the hilariousness of watching people writhe as their egos deflated were very enticing.

A slow, lazy smile crept along her face as she thought of past exploits with Alison.

One time, they had crept out of their homes in the dead of night, and slinked to the house of two brothers that annoyed them. Silently, they found Russell and Ben's room and through the lit window, they snapped pictures of the boys in their pajamas (little teddy bears and winged pigs). On their first day back to school, they passed around the prints and laughed the two boys out of class!

Of course Lily cringed when she first saw the boys in their jim-jams, but that was totally expected. Still, the embarrassment she and Ali caused them was worth the pain.

Suddenly, Lily frowned. Thinking of her friends made the tears come to her eyes once again. Try not to cry, she told herself. She took the back of her hand and ran it across her eyes again and again, trying, maybe, to rub the tears out. Sighing for the ump-teenth time that day, she collapsed onto her bed and began to sob, thinking about all the good times she had left far, far behind...

¤~*~¤~*~¤~*~¤

James paced around his bedroom. He had managed to gather everything he needed. Now he just needed to sit down and wait.

Quietly, he clicked off his light and glanced at his clock. The luminous red numbers flashed back at him: 10:15 P.M.

Just a few more hours, and his parents would be sound asleep... He just had to wait.

Wait just a few hours...

Just a few hours...

Few hours...

HOURS...

Unfortunately, patience was not one of his greater virtues...

Grunting impatiently, he fell heavily onto his bed. Yup... He often had to wait to set up his pranks... but still, watching the little lights flash on his clock was enough to drive him nutters.

Looking down at his bed, he amused himself with a little down feather from his pillow. It waved at him, back and forth... back and forth, with each breath he drew and exhaled.

10:19 P.M.

Slowly, he picked the feather from his pillow, and up he threw it. The feather floated down in an agonizingly slow pace before he let a little puff of breath carry it back up. James had an idea...

Dropping to his hands and knees, he got underneath the feather and blew it back up. This time it flew over his head before trying to alight once again. Bending backward, James propelled it back up again. This was actually amusing...

The poor little feather was now doing curly-Q's in mid-air as James made it soar again.

Now he had figured out his game. He had to get the feather into a little cup on his dresser, which was across the room, but it could not touch the floor or any other piece of furniture, AND he could only get it in with his breath. If it went over his head, he had to let it fall. From that point, he had to back up two feet and start again

Pure brilliance.

Again he looked at the clock: 10:23 P.M.

I've got to stop doing that, he thought to himself as he threw up the small feather. It hovered for a second before deciding to move forward three feet. He pushed out another breath and it traveled again for another four feet.

James crawled on all fours quickly before it landed. The currents he created pushed the feather to his left. He snaked his way to it, and it soared again—over his head.

"Gaaah!" he mumbled softly.

Letting it land, he picked it up and carried it two feet backward.

Soon James was engrossed in yet another game.

This went on for a good thirty minutes, during which James got quite sweaty. Over time, he shed his pajama bottoms and shirt.

Now James cut a comical figure, crawling around on his bedroom floor in nothing but his boxers and undershirt, chasing after some goose down. In fact, he was so engrossed in his game that he forgot his window was wide open...

10:57 P.M.

"C'mon!" James hissed, "Go in!"

The down feather was teetering right on the edge of the cup.

10:58 P.M.

James watched in horror as the feather fell off the rim, preparing to float downward.

"Noooo!" James wailed, making a mad dash to his dresser on his hands and knees. In his rush, his foot caught around the leg of a chair, and he fell with a heavy thud. Making quite a scraping and clawing on the floor, he tried to drag himself up, but to no prevail. The feather fell down...

In one last resort, James gave one, last, almighty huff...

"James! What on earth are you doing?"

James squinted in the thin strip of bright light from the opened door. "Mum?"

Janine Potter stared down at her son, who was currently sprawled across the floor in his underwear.

"I er, was just... I tripped..."

Janine looked at her son skeptically, "Oh?"

"I was going to get some water,"

"I see... well... I never knew that my son liked to wander at all hours of the night in his undergarments..." Janine said.

James smiled, "There's a first time for everything."

Janine sighed, "James you know I've been very busy the last couple of weeks... I don't have the energy to come running up here at night... I just don't."

"I know, mum, I know. Mrs. Hopkirk can't get her own bum to the toilet, and you've been assigned to aid her around the house. I've heard this a million times before!"

"I'm glad that you know James, now please, just settle down? I'm going to bed... I was just checking on you. It sounded as if you were getting attacked by a hippogriff..."

"Okay mum. G'night,"

"Kids these days," Janine mumbled as he shut the door.

11:00 P.M.

James finally breathed a sigh of relief. That was close... too close. His mother might have suspected something...

The feather landed lazily in front of James's nose. He stared at it solemnly for a long time, eventually going cross-eyed. "Damnit," he whispered.

He drew himself back up to his feet and crawled back into bed. "Oh no, the pajamas," he wailed softly. He went back to where he put them(on his desk chair), and without much tidiness, he balled them up and stuffed them under the covers. They made a fine makeshift James. with much stealth, he snuck back to his chest of drawers and rummaged around for a pair of clean jeans. Having just about everything he needed, he sat back down on his bed and sighed. The minutes slowly crept by.

11:04

11:05

11:06

James turned away in disgust. He still had another hour's wait, just to be safe. with nothing better to do, he began to go over his inventory of mischief-making aids.

Slowly he picked up a bag of Filibuster Fireworks(red and gold), a lighter(he couldn't use a wand since he was under aged), a sac of Marcus Saftler's Makeshift Dung(looks, feels, and SMELLS like real cow manure), and one final, most-important thing. Smiling broadly, he let the moonlight reflect off of his Invisibility Cloak. This beautiful piece of woven magic was a gift to him from his grandfather before he died.

James's grandfather was a lively old man, though quite knobbly, who loved to terrify little Muggle children. So, obviously, he was James's idol. Unlike other children his age who ran away screaming as their grandparents began their "When-I-Was-Your-Age" stories, James sat and listened, totally enthralled. His grandfather's capers were often hilarious. In fact, it was his grandfather (along with some encouragement from Sirius) who had gotten him interested in anything and everything prankish.

11:45

Contrary to popular belief, James had once been a good-mannered boy.

Once....

But, after so many afternoons with his granddad, warping his mind... he began to slip. And besides, James had often thought while he was being lectured, It's not like I go looking for trouble... It's just that it's SO easy to find...

12:00

Snickering softly, James gathered his belongings and began to slip out the window.

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Lily yawned and stretched luxuriously as she woke. Good morning sunshine, she thought to herself. Yawning again, she went over to the window to open the shades. Instead of finding a colorful world of sunshine and cheer, she found darkness. "What?" she gasped. She turned to look at her clock. It was a little bit past midnight. "Wonderful," Lily grumbled, "I was barely asleep for an hou—" she stopped. Something outside had caught her attention.

She watched intently as James crawled out of his window and fell, without much grace, into a clump of miniature spruce trees, and danced around trying to dislodge the needles from his bum. What is he doing, wandering around at this time of night? "Morning," she corrected herself outloud, "Besides, he's probably just getting himself into trouble." But, try as she might, her curiosity got the better of her. Putting on some pants and a sweatshirt, she crawled out the window and into the cool night air.

¤~*~¤~*~¤~*~¤

James glanced around carefully. He couldn't risk the chance of getting caught. Making sure no one was around, he slipped on his invisibility cloak and vanished.

¤~*~¤~*~¤~*~¤

Lily slinked through the shadows to the wall. Carefully, she stepped around the edge of it and jumped.

She had expected to catch James by surprise, but instead she found nothing. "Where'd he go? He couldn't just vanish..."

¤~*~¤~*~¤~*~¤

James kept perfectly still. Lily, or what ever her name was, was inching closer with each passing second. Surely, if he did not move, they would collide. But, he could not move. He was too stiff with fright. If she heard him—if she caught him— it would be all over. He could just feel his chance of getting into Hogwarts slipping through his fingers, and that thought sent shivers down his spine. Oh no, oh no, oh no...

She was just about to graze his elbow now.

Oh no, oh no, oh no...

James braced himself for the touch, the horrible scream, his parents waking up, THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD WAKING UP....

But it never came.

"Strange individual," Lily muttered aloud, and did an about-face.

James gave a sigh of relief. He only noticed a couple of seconds too late that doing THAT was a big mistake.

"James?" Lily whispered in alarm, "Show yourself! I know you're here!"

Thinking quickly, James side-stepped around to Lily's back and clamped a hand firmly over her mouth. She tried to scream—to let everybody know that she was in trouble, that she needed HELP, that a maniac 11 year-old was probably trying to kill her— but to no avail. She finally settled for kicking behind her, where her toes came in contact hard with somebody's ankle.

"Ouch! You idiot! Are you trying to get us BOTH caught?" he hissed. Using his free hand, he whipped off the Invisibility cloak and stuffed it in a pocket. Lily said something,but it was muffled by his hand. "Sorry, say that again?" James asked. In response, Lily bit his palm.

Wincing in pain, James pulled his hand off of Lily's mouth and examined it in the moonlight. Deep red indentations were gouged into his flesh, and little flecks of blood seeped up from where her braces had cut him. He glared up at her through his dark fringe.

"So sorry," Lily smirked, "I guess you've learned now to always take your hand off of some one's mouth when they wish to speak, correct?"

James muttered something under his breath and cursed.

"Listen James," Lily said impatiently, "I know you're up to something...!"

"I am not up to something," James sniffed indignantly as he gingerly poked at the scratches in his palm... Boy could she bite hard... "I was just—"

But Lily cut him off. "If you weren't up to something, why did you use the term caught?" she turned around and smiled smugly at him.

"Oh shut up, and go back to your house,"James snapped. He didn't like to be mocked by anybody... Especially a girl... "I didn't ask for you to come out here... In fact, why are you out here?"

"Why are you out here?" Lily countered.

"None of your damn business,"

Lily scowled at him. "Listen, I know that male hormones cause them to be a bit more... aggressive... but don't you think you could at least use some better language?"

"No,"

Lily sighed. There was absolutely no way of getting any answers out of him... "Look, James. Do whatever you have to do. Just leave me out of it."

"Leave you out of it?" James asked incredulously, "I never asked you to be in it!"

But Lily had already turned around and had started to walk back to her house. "Fine," James snarled after her, "Go ahead, and be a smelly prat! Just don't dare bother me anymore!"

"Fine," Lily returned curtly, without looking back, "I won't!"

"Fine!" James turned around and stalked around his house. He heard Lily opening her window with a slam that was loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood, but he didn't care. He wouldn't get caught. He was never caught before, so why should he get caught now? He slipped on his Invisibility Cloak and disappeared into the night.

¤~*~¤~*~¤~*~¤

Lily crawled back through her window and fell uncerimoniously on her head. She was still too angry about Potter's attitude toward her to care. How DARE he act that way to her! After all, Lily had reasoned later, I'm the one who had to move away from the rest of my life. The least he could do was show a little bit of kindness. But try as she might, she couldn't stay mad at him forever. She was the one who was being beastly to him, when he had tried to say "hello." And she shouldn't have been nosing around in his business... Maybe she should try to make amends, somehow.

She remembered the first time she ever met her best friend, Alison. Well, they weren't the best of friends back then. On the first day of first grade, Lily had spilled her grape juice all over Alison's neat, white turtleneck. She got yelled at from the six year-old after that, so Lily did the only thing she could think of doing... She spilled the remaining contents of her cup over her head and started laughing. Ali put her arm over Lily's shoulders and started giggling also, and for the rest of the day, they both ran around pretending to be the Grape Juice Twins.

Maybe Lily needed to do something like that. If she made an idiot out of herself for James's sake, maybe he would accept her, and maybe they would be friends... Or then again, maybe not. He could just label her a freak, and spend the rest of his life laughing at her for making a fool of herself. Yes, Lily thought to herself, He'd probably do something like that. Maybe the best thing to do is to talk to him, like they were both mature adults. But so far, talking to James like a mature adult seemed like a task as difficult and as dangerous as climbing Mt. Everest.

Lily crawled into bed and turned on her side. Maybe the best thing to do was just to think about it right now. She slowly closed her eyes, and drifted off into a restless sleep, trying to think of what to do about James.