Disclaimer: Okay, okay. This is the 5th chapter of this fan fiction. I think you guys know the drill by now, but I'll write it just for the heck of it…I don't own anything except for the plot of this fan fiction, and any new characters I might create.

Affection or Adventure?

Chapter 5: Jokes and Tears

By the time Lily sat down in the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall was already handing out schedules. She was close to Lily and her friends when the Marauders entered and sat across from them. When the girls got their schedules, they gasped.

"Oh my goodness!" Penny exclaimed.

"Will you just look at today?" Natalie said.

"It's impossible…" Lily whispered.

"Lily, it says here that we have Double Potions with the Slytherins, Double Defense Against The Dark Arts with the Ravenclaws, Lunch, and then Double History of Magic again with the Slytherins, and Double Transfiguration again with the Ravenclaws. It's crazy!" Chloe said.

"It's impossible…" Lily whispered again. "There can't be four double classes in a day, only two! I'm going to talk to McGonagall…it has to be some kind of mistake."

Lily got up and marched up to the staff table. "Professor McGonagall, something's wrong with our schedules. It's practically impossible to have four double classes in a day!"

"I am quite aware of that, Miss Evans."

"Look, Professor!" Lily revealed her schedule.

Professor McGonagall gave her an odd look and said, "It looks fine to me, Miss Evans." The Professor handed Lily back her schedule and she glared at it. It now said that she had Double Potions with the Slytherins, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Lunch, History of Magic, and Double Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws.

"Potter…" Lily breathed.

"What was that, Miss Evans?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Nothing, Professor. Sorry to bother you." Lily whipped around and walked back to her table. Sure enough, the Marauders were erupting with laughter.

"You really need to grow up!" She shouted at them.

"Yeah, and we really need to get to class, Lily!" Chloe said, and dragged her out of the Great Hall before she could say anything else.

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Meanwhile, at the Gryffindor table…

"Oh man, that was great!" Said Sirius.

"Did you see her face, Prongs?" Remus asked.

"Yeah…she looks pretty when she's angry, huh?" James asked, staring at the space where Lily had just been.

"Prongs, snap out of it!" Sirius yelled at him, but when James turned to face him, he was staring at the spot where Chloe was sitting a moment before.

"Padfoot, you're doing the same thing!"

"Yeah…well…it was good of Williams to get Evans out of here before she could give us detentions."

"Right, Sirius…" James looked to his right and saw Remus sneaking glances at Penny Payge, and Peter doing the same to Natalie Brown. Whoa…James thought. This is too weird…

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Lily and Chloe grabbed their books in the common room and hurried toward the dungeons, meeting the rest of their crew on the way.

"What if that was what they were planning to do last night?" Natalie asked.

"It can't be…that was harmless." Penny replied, and Lily scowled at her. "I mean…that was just something Potter probably thought of off of the top of his head."

"Right…so when do you think they'll do whatever they planned to do?" Chloe asked.

"I don't know…but I hope it's not too soon…every time I start trying to practice crying, I end up practicing laughing instead." Penny said.

They reached the dungeons and the Slytherins were already there.

"Oh look, it's two purebloods and their Mudblood slaves!" Severus Snape said, and his fellow Slytherins laughed. 'Mudblood' was a horrible term for Muggle-born witches and wizards, which Lily and Chloe both were. Snape was in the same year as Lily, and had a hooked nose, disgustingly greasy hair, and was up to his eyeballs in dark arts.

"Detention, Snivellus." Said Lily.

Snape moved towards her, so his face was barely inches away from hers. "Detention is worth witnessing every second of your embarrassment, Mudblood. How could Dumbledore make something so filthy Head Girl?"

Lily felt her face go red.

"The only filthy thing here is you." Chloe said to Snape.

"Oh really?" Snape said. He pulled out his wand.

"Leave them alone!" Said a voice from behind Lily.

She recognized it at once. Without even turning around, she said, "Potter, we don't need the help of you and your friends."

"I just thought I'd offer, Evans. It's our job to pick on you, not his." James came and stood beside her.

"That's reassuring." Said Chloe.

"It should be, Williams." Said Sirius, who had come to stand next to her. The boys were just taking out their wands and pointing them at Snape when the classroom door opened.

"What's going on out here?" Asked their Potions master, Professor Perdente. He was balding in his early thirties, too Italian for their liking, and he always thought he was right. He never gave them anything above an 'Acceptable' for a grade when they knew they deserved better, and no matter how he tried, his jokes were not humorous at all. James never found out why they actually learned a lot in his class, though. He, Sirius, and Snape hastily removed their wands from his sight.

"Nothing, Professor." Said Lily with a kind smile.

"Well then, do come in, we are ten minutes into the class period already."

"Ahh, Potions." Lily heard James talking to Sirius behind her as they entered the room. "At least we can spill something on Snivellus and make it look like an accident."

The next few days came and went with no sign of more pranks from the Marauders.

"Do you think they gave up?" Natalie asked Lily about a week later.

"You're kidding, right?" She replied.

The next day, the girls awoke somewhat early.

"Do you reckon we should practice?" Penny asked the rest.

"Nah…I think we've got the crying thing down by now." Chloe replied.

Lily shrugged and changed into her school robes. They all walked down the spiral staircase, and at the end of it, they got a big surprise.

"Good morning!" Sirius brightly yelled.

"Wow, you girls still look dead tired." Remus said.

"Yeah, I think we'll wake you up a bit!" Shouted James.

Lily heard four swishes of wands and before she could even look up, she was drenched in ice-cold water. She looked around at her friends, and the same had happened to them. Oh no! Water! How on earth will they know that we're crying? She frantically wiped her face with her hands. The others did the same, but it didn't help much. She looked over at the Marauders, who were roaring with laughter, along with just about everyone else in the common room. Well…She thought. We have to try. She gave a thumbs up sign to her friends behind her back, and immediately tried thinking of something incredibly sad. Mum and Dad are dead…you'll never see them again…She thought to herself.

But then another thought crept into her mind.

James is dead…you'll never see him again…

Lily burst into tears. A short while later, her friends did the same.

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James felt his jaw drop. Oh no…this is bad…He thought. He looked around at his friends, and they were gaping at the crying girls, also.

"Er…guys? I think we went a little too far this time…" Peter whispered.

"Yeah…maybe your right, Wormtail…" James whispered back. The other two Marauders nodded, but didn't say a thing. Their mouths were still open in shock.

"You…you…you…" Lily was saying in between sobs. It seemed as though her words were directed towards James. She was crying, really crying. Chloe and Penny were to the left of her, tears streaming down their cheeks, sobs escaping them once in a while. Natalie was to the right of Lily, crying the least of them all, with mascara running down her face.

"My make-up…" She whispered, and ran back up the spiral staircase.

Penny opened up her mouth as though she was going to speak, but she closed it quickly and followed Natalie.

A few moments passed, and Chloe looked down at her robes. "How could you?" She said very softly, and walked away in silence.

Lily stopped sobbing a few seconds later. She stared hard at James, and gave him a look of utter confusion. "James…" She muttered, and went back to her dormitory.

The boys still stared at the space where the girls had just been. Everybody else in the common room had started talking merrily amongst themselves, unaware of how much damage had actually been caused.

A/N: 'Perdente' means 'Loser' in Italian, and Professor Perdente is described to be exactly like my horrible 9th grade World History I Honors teacher (lol Caty!). Oh, and I do not have anything against Italians, even though my story says that the Professor was 'too Italian for their liking.' I'm not mean! I'm part Italian! Lol.