A/n;  Important news! I, IceAmethyst, have sent a letter to Elijah Wood! No, I'm not stalking him…yet (bwahahahaha) but I did tell him I liked his movies a lot. And I left no phone number. DARN! But I hope I get the letter back soon so I can share with you guys what it said and can gloat! Teeheehee! No, I wouldn't do that.

Wish Emerald Eyes a happy one-year anniversary on September 16! That's right: for ONE ENTIRE YEAR I've been working on this project! Hoorah! * throws confetti around *

* high fives Beta Reader *

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"So are you serious? You're actually going to detention?" Misty asked for the third time.

"Yes! Why is that so hard to believe?" Lily cried in exasperation.

"Because you're Lily Evans and Lily Evans doesn't get detention!" Arabella said pointedly.

"Are you saying I'm a total goody-goody?" Lily asked in a shocked voice.

"Well, you do get top marks –" Sabrina began.

"And you do sign up for all the extracurricular activities! You were the one who suggested dueling last year!" Misty cut in.

Lily looked defenseless. "Well I – I –"

"Chill! It could be much, much worse," Arabella said calmly, taking a bite of her salad.

"How can it get any worse?" Lily asked in a panicky voice.

"You could be Severus Snape!" Sabrina said with a look of distaste on her face.

All four girls shuddered. Severus Snape was a sallow-faced 'little shit' (as James Potter labeled him) with a distaste for Gryffindors and Muggles.

"Yes, I suppose that poor creature has it worse than me," Lily said feeling slight sympathy for him, even though he hated her and the feeling was mutual.

"No… you live like a queen and he's the scum under your feet," Misty said.

"Fine, whatever! Just tell me how to survive detention tonight with Potter!" Lily said, dismissing the idea.

Sabrina, Misty and Arabella all shrugged and pretended to be very interested in their lunches.

"Truth to tell Lily, we've never actually been in detention!" Arabella said, wiping the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

"Well it isn't that hard to figure out, is it? I mean all you do is go there and clean things right?" Lily asked out of her own naivety.

"Actually I heard one time someone actually had to go into the Forbidden Forest!" Sabrina said with an air of casualty.

Lily gulped. "But they wouldn't doom me to that fate. . .would they?"

"I don't know… the guy they sent out there was a pretty good student," Arabella said. She looked particularly thoughtful, obviously racking her brains trying to think of the name.

"But that was pretty severe! They'd never do that unless it was serious," Misty said hastily, elbowing Arabella sharply in the ribs.

Arabella shot her a nasty glare.

"And at least you'll have some companionship!" Sabrina said brightly.

"What? James?" Lily asked acidly.

"Yeah! He counts, doesn't he?" Misty asked.

"Absolutely not!" Lily said loudly.

"Of course! We should've known this by now!" Arabella said sarcastically.

"Please forgive our ignorance, Lily," Sabrina said in the same tone of voice.

Lily snorted. She abruptly got up to fetch her books for the afternoon classes from her room.

"Where're you going?" Misty asked. "Did we upset you?"

Lily smiled wryly. "Nothing upsets me."

She pushed her chair in and hitched up her bag around her left shoulder. Despite the fact that she was going to serve detention that night with James, she was in surprisingly good spirits.

She turned the corner to go up the stairs when she heard three male voices whispering from behind a rather large statue.

Intrigued, a bad feeling plagued her, guessing who was behind there.

"But what if we get caught?" one voice whispered anxiously.

"We can't get caught, this plan is practically foolproof!" the other exclaimed confidently.

"That's what you said last time and we got detention for three days!"

"Well this is bound to work; the Slytherins will be sleeping!"

"What if some of them aren't sleeping, though?"

"Sirius, must you be the downer of the group?"

Lily had heard enough, once she'd heard the boy mention the name Sirius.

"Hey guys! What's up?" Lily called out in a happy voice.

Three heads peeked out and Lily's guess hit the nail on the head. It was James, Sirius and Remus, all looking quite guilty and quite startled.

"Hi Lily! We were just umm – talking!" Remus said quickly.

James scowled. "You always show up at the worst times, you know that?"

"You betcha," Lily said, winking. "What're you doing back there?"

"Inspecting the floors!" Sirius said automatically. Lily smirked at the lameness of his cover-up story.

"Floors, hmm?" she said sweetly.

"Yeah! They're really squeaky! Can't have squeaky floors, you know!" Sirius said in a happy voice.

James and Remus exchanged wry looks.

"What're you really doing back there? You know I don't buy those stories you feed me," Lily lectured, putting her hands on her hips.

"Nothing! Ever heard of minding your own business?" James said huffily.

"No! Gee, James, what does that mean?" Lily asked, pretending to be baffled by this concept.

"It means shove off and go concentrate on your own petty problems," James said gritting his teeth.

"He's got a point, Lily; why don't you go off somewhere else where you won't tarnish your perfect reputation?" Sirius said in a tone most unlike himself.

Lily was shocked at his response. His expression and his tone and her eyes filled up with tears. Sirius was never mean to her!

"All right… but I'll find out what you're doing sooner or later!" She threatened as she tried to blink away her tears without letting them fall. She turned on her heel, hearing them snicker behind her.

She approached the picture of the Fat Lady and found her to be sleeping.

"Who sleeps at a time like this?" Lily asked herself, wondering what she could do.

"Monkey tail?" She said the password tentatively.

No answer.

"MONKEY TAIL," She exclaimed a bit louder.

Still no response, save for the Fat Lady's loud snores.

"MONKEY FRICKING TAIL!" Lily hollered. The Fat Lady woke up with a start and looked at Lily rudely.

"No need for profanity, dear!" She squawked irritably as she swung open to let Lily in.

"Thank you very much," Lily said sarcastically and trudged up to her room. She dropped her books in a neat pile on the bed and went over to the mirror to check her reflection.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall," Lily intoned, smiling.

A perfectly chipper reflection of her stared back, her eyes a bit sleepy still but nonetheless happy. Satisfied, Lily got her Transfiguration and Potions books from her nightstand and went downstairs to the near empty Gryffindor Common Room.

There was a small, squat boy standing near the portrait, talking to some girl. The girl, Lily recognized as she approached, was Olive Hornsby and she was talking to Peter Pettigrew, the boy from her Potions class.

They seemed a bit frightened of Lily and stepped back a few steps.

"Hey guys!" Lily said happily as she walked past them.

Peter waved timidly. "Hi Lily."

Olive only squeaked and said a short 'hi', cowering behind her large stack of books in her arms.

She stepped outside of the portrait; Peter and Olive staring at her with adoring expressions on their faces, as though a famous star had just walked through the common room.

Walking briskly back to where she'd seen James, Sirius and Remus, she was determined to give a little Lily Evans brand of inspection. She dropped her books on the floor and went over to the statue. They weren't there but there was a scrap piece of parchment that certainly looked curious to Lily. She picked it up, reading what it said.

To her astonishment, it didn't have any words on it save the dots moving around on the parchment with labels on it. Those labels had names like Professor McGonagall who was walking around her Transfiguration classroom, Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy who were sitting in the Great Hall, obviously still enjoying whatever part of lunch was left.

"Whatever this is, Potter, you're in for it majorly!" Lily murmured to herself. If she guessed correctly, this little piece of parchment would land him in an eternity of detentions. She rolled it up and put it in the inside pocket of her robes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The day whizzed by and still the thought of that parchment plagued her mind. Though she thought about it consistently, James didn't seem to give it another thought - he was still his usual flirty, charming self.

Lily almost had the nerve to go up to him and ask him if he was missing anything important. You know, like a certain magical object that was obviously their doing.

"Lily? You ok? You seem kind of preoccupied," Misty asked as they walked back up to their dormitory.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine! You know, just thinking about – um – detention," Lily laughed.

"Don't worry about it, Lily; Professor Hughes likes you and James too much to do anything terrible!" Misty said, completely oblivious.

"Oh yes, Professor Hughes likes us so much that we got detention!" Lily said dryly.

Misty shrugged. "Maybe he's just going to assign you some tough assignment and let you off with a warning."

"I highly doubt that," Lily muttered as they walked up to the Fat Lady portrait and told her the password, climbing in through the entrance.

All of the students, relieved that classes were over for the day, were relaxing on couches and chairs in the Common Room, laughing and chatting.

"How much do I love weekends?" Misty said with a smile.

"Mm, yes, spending the weekend with James without any teacher supervision is always an exciting experience," Lily commented while walking up with Misty to the girl's dorm.

"Imagine that! Having detention on a Friday night," Misty said. "I feel really sorry for you."

"Empathy is a wasted emotion," Lily said, shrugging.

Misty dumped her pile of books on the ground, landing with a loud thud on the wooden floor.

"Ugh. I must smell awful after dealing with those stupid Mandrakes. Why in the world are we studying those things again?" Misty complained, taking off her robe so she was just wearing her school uniform.

"I know! Just because that daft girl from Slytherin fainted last year from touching one doesn't mean we have to repeat the whole lesson," Lily grumbled, hanging up her robes in the closet.

"I'm going to go take a shower and I'll meet you and Arabella and Sabrina downstairs for dinner, all right?" Misty said and grabbed her makeup bag from her trunk.

"Bye –" Lily said as Misty walked out of the dorm, shutting the door behind her. Lily flopped on her bed, alone at last. In a moment of temporary brain lapse, she forgot about the parchment. When she remembered and went to go retrieve it, though, it wasn't there! She frantically searched through all of her books, papers and her entire bag but it wasn't there. Somehow, it had disappeared.

"Darn it!" Lily said loudly. That was the closest she ever got to a swear. "I so desperately wanted to catch James for something!"

Lily figured instead that she'd just ask him about it at detention; this way he couldn't avoid the question because he had nowhere to go.

"Lily? Are you up here?" Arabella asked, coming back from Divination.

"Yeah I'm here," Lily called. She crossed her legs and sat down on the bed.

"Where'd Misty and Sabrina go?" Arabella asked, jumping on her own bed.

"Misty hit the showers; Mandrakes today," Lily said.

"Ooh… I took one right after lunch," Arabella said knowingly.

"Isn't Sabrina dating that Ravenclaw 5th year on the Quidditch team?" Lily asked.

"Yeah. He's a complete moron," Arabella laughed.

Lily smiled. "Then she's probably out at practice with him."

"Most definitely," Arabella nodded. She paused for a few moments, as though she were contemplating something.

"Lily?" Arabella asked.

"Yeah?" Lily replied.

"Do you think that Sabrina has – changed?" Arabella asked, delicately choosing her words.

Lily raised one eyebrow. "How so?"

Arabella looked at her bedspread and traced the outline of it with her finger. "Um… well…"

"Arabella," Lily said in a firm voice.

"She's kind of a – "

"A what, exactly?" Lily asked sharply.

"Flirt," Arabella said lamely, not saying the other word she was thinking of. Lily was still temperamental on the subject.

"Well of course she is!" Lily said rolling her eyes.

"Just making sure you knew," Arabella said hastily before Lily could cotton on.

"Oh," Lily said.

Silence.

"Let's go eat, I'm starved!" Arabella said, breaking the silence.

"Yes! Dinner. Dinner is a good suggestion," Lily answered quickly, glad the moment of awkwardness had passed.

They went downstairs just as James and Sirius were coming in from Quidditch practice. James's scarlet Quidditch robes were sticking to him from sweat and his face was flushed and sweaty but that didn't stop the girls from suddenly rushing to him like he was a magnet.

"Ugh. Don't you get tired of this?" James asked Sirius as several girls grinned and batted their eyelashes at him, trying to engage him in a conversation.

Sirius grinned wolfishly. "Nah."

James smiled back. "I didn't think so."

"Oh, look! There's your most favorite person in the whole world!" Sirius exclaimed happily, pointing to where Lily and Arabella were trying to make their way through the huddle of girls.

"Oh joy!" James said, rolling his eyes.

"Lily! Arabella! Over here!" Sirius said loudly while waving his hands around.

They looked at him like he was crazy. "Come on, Sirius, I wouldn't touch Potter with a ten foot pole!" Lily shouted with a laugh.

"The same goes for you, Evans!" James shot back. No matter how badly Quidditch practice went now that they were getting into cold November weather, he still got the biggest kick out of taunting Lily Evans.

"Come on James, lets just go!" Sirius said dragging him over to the portrait hole and out into the chilly corridor.

"That is so frustrating. I get so tired of girls swarming me," James said looking disgusted.

Sirius looked surprised and didn't bother hiding it. "Really? That's not what you usually say."

"Well I'm in a bad mood today," James said heavily.

"Are you letting detention get to you?" Sirius asked incredulously.

"No!" James said a bit too quickly for his liking.

Sirius smirked knowingly.

James looked at his friend smirk and suddenly he realized something. "Oh my God, Sirius. You think I like Lily Evans don't you?" 

Sirius pretended to be taken aback. "Why James! How absolutely blunt of you!"

"You think I like Evans, don't you?" James repeated ominously. His eyes narrowed to slits.

"Come on James, buddy, it's pretty obvious. The pranks, the insults, the – "

"New makeover I'm going to give your face if you even think of that again," James spat.

Sirius grinned nervously. "Well, it'll give you something to think about during detention."

"What's Potter going to think about?" Lily asked as she and Arabella followed them out of the portrait hole.

"Nothing!" James snapped.

"Yeah, I didn't think I heard right when I heard the words 'Potter' and 'think' in the same sentence," Lily smirked.

"You're so bloody cute," James said sarcastically.

"Must you guys do this every time we decide to hang out?" Arabella asked in a frustrated tone.

"Excuse me? We do not hang out, Bella," Lily said icily.

"Well, you're always at each other's throats whenever the rest of us want to hang out," Arabella said neutrally, rephrasing her previous sentence.

"What do you expect? They're Lily Evans and James Potter, greatest of enemies!" Sirius pronounced grandly.

"Do you even remember when they were friends?" Arabella asked Sirius.

Lily and James both had expressions of extreme mortification on their faces. "NO!"

Sirius grinned. "Oh, I remember those times… tragic really, you guys really could've been something…"

And laughing silently to themselves, Sirius and Arabella walked down to dinner with Lily and James standing in the middle of the corridor looking at the turned backs of their friends.

"I hate you. I hate you so much," Lily said tightly, shaking her head.

"You want to know what Sirius told me?" James asked, with the feeling mutual.

"Not really," Lily said.

"Well that's too bad because I'll tell you anyway."

"Shut up Potter! LAAAAAAAAAA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Lily yelled and ran down to dinner with her hands over her ears.

"I can't believe I am going to have to put up with her tonight," James muttered.

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Ok, next chapter is the detention sorry!!!