Disclaimer :: Nope, still don't own Harry Potter. Too bad.
Reviewers::
BURN THE R.U.M – My ever faithful reviewer! Thank you soooooo much for reviewing me again!
Ryan Barton – Thanks for reading and reviewing! Here's your update.
~*~rOk_stA~*~ - Hey, thanks! Gotta love Sirius's songs. I thought they were just so perfect!
ChicaNoche401 – Wow, sure you can borrow the song! Thanks for reviewing, and here's the new chapter!
PeRkieGuRL – Glad you liked the chapter! I'm soooo glad you'll keep reviewing!
aSullenRiot – Sorry to hear about your computer, but glad to have another review from you! I'm a fluff lover too! Yes!
fyresdestiny – Love ya for reviewing! I'm glad you think the fic is realistic, and here's the next chapter.
SavetheSqUiRrEls – The basket part was my favorite part of the last chapter! My friends actually did that to me one Halloween so I decided I had to put it in. And hey, to answer your question about James being a prefect, I've decided to "bend" the rules. I did read OoTP, over the summer. When Sirius says that Lupin was a good boy so he got the badge, he implies that there was only one guy prefect in Gryffindor for their year. However, there's no written rule that there can only be two prefects per house per year (at least I don't think so). *grins evilly* Soooooo, I decided to make both Remus and James prefects.
And with that, here's Chapter 6!!!!!
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James Potter and Lily Evans were fast becoming the celebrities of the school. They were being regarded as some of the best Heads Hogwarts had seen in quite a while. After the Halloween party, the students had been hyper for weeks, on what seemed an endless supply of candy. The prefects were having the time of their lives, patrolling the halls under almost no supervision. At first, it seemed quite uncharacteristic of Lily, who was a very disciplined person, to let the prefects have free reign. However, James had taken on the responsibility of assigning hall duty, leaving Lily to take over the rest of the Head's duties. James figured that this way, she wouldn't notice if he was corrupting the prefects. The plan had worked, and everyone seemed to be getting along quite well as a result.
But as much as James and Lily were liked, they still had some faithful opposition. The Slytherins were not happy with all the hero worship the two were getting. After two weeks straight of waking up with the words "Gryffidors suck" written in green ink on the curtains of her bed (which was obviously, and sadly, as creative as the Slytherins got), Lily got fed up. She put beetles into their oatmeal at breakfast. Ellie and Rae watched her do it with extreme surprise; Lily Evans never broke school rules. The Slytherins, especially the girls, were obviously surprised that they had moving insects in their breakfast, but Lily still woke up the next morning to "Gryffindors suck."
November came and went quickly, ushering in a very cold December. Hogwarts was getting drafty and cold. Fires were constantly being maintained in every room, and people were doing their best to avoid being in the frigid hallways for too long. Everyone was wearing at least three layers of clothing, and the coming winter was expected to be one of the coldest in years. Despite the obvious signs of winter, however, it had yet to snow. No one was happy about this, especially the Marauders, who had been itching to start a snowball war ever since it had got cold enough to snow. As it was, everyone was stuck in their common rooms, and you could only play so many games of Exploding Snap before it got old. To make things even worse, the Slytherins had not yet let up their attacks on Lily and James.
"Ugh, it'll never come off!" Lily complained to Ellie as they sat in the Gryffindor common room. Lily was trying her best to get black ink spots out of her robes. A group of Slytherins had used a shattering charm to break her ink bottle, and the ink had ended up all over her. She scrubbed and scrubbed but she wasn't making much progress. She scowled at the blotches on her robes.
"Did they get you, too?"
Lily looked up and saw James walk in the portrait hole. He sat down on the couch next to her.
"A few of them 'accidentally' spilled their pickled slugs on my homework in Potions," he said.
"Gross," said Lily as she continued to scrub at her robes. She didn't quit scrubbing for another two hours. Ellie helped her for a while, but lost motivation quickly and went off to do her homework and go to bed. Eventually, everyone else decided to do the same.
"Finally some peace and quiet," Lily muttered as she looked down at the homework she had only just started. She tapped her quill on the table, trying to think what else to write about the various uses of Flobberworm Slime for her Care of Magical Creatures class. She could not fathom why anyone would choose to make people write about such a horribly boring subject. At that moment, she heard someone stand up. When she looked, she saw that it was James. She hadn't even realized he was still there.
"Bored?" he asked, as if reading her mind.
"Yes."
"Still mad at the Slytherins?"
"Yes."
"Tired of just sitting there?"
"Yes."
James smiled slightly. Lily did not take this as a good sign.
"If you answered 'yes' to all three questions, we recommend Potter's Cure. Comes complete with invisibility cloak." James pulled his invisibility cloak off the couch and held it up.
"What do you want, Potter?" Lily asked suspiciously.
"Well, I was just thinking that we could play a few harmless tricks on the Slytherins. As payback, you know," he said innocently. Lily rolled her eyes and looked back down at her essay.
"Oh, come on Evans. What are you scared of?"
Silence.
"All right, you don't have to come, but now I guess I'll just have to tell McGonagall that you put beetles in the Slytherins' oatmeal…"
Lily's head shot up.
"How did you know about that?" She paused, and then continued. "Wait, I don't care how you know. Fine, I'll come with you."
"Good," said James. " Now, here's the plan."
* * *
"Are you sure we won't get caught?" Lily asked James apprehensively as they made their way down the halls.
"You can never be sure of anything," James answered mysteriously. Lily rolled her eyes.
"Well, there's a real confidence booster," she said. James laughed quietly.
"Here we are," he said. "Serpentia." Suddenly, the bare brick wall before them revealed a door. James opened it quietly.
"How'd you know their password?" Lily whispered.
"Followed one of them here the other day. He didn't know I was there, of course," he answered as they climbed into the Slytherin common room. They looked around at the room for a minute. The walls were stone, and so was the floor. There were some assorted green carpets here and there, and a few big black leather sofas. A dark hallway went off each side of the room. Lily and James figured these must lead to the dormitories, since the left one was marked with a black serpent and the right with a silver serpent.
"Lets go to the boys first, since I may not be able to get into the girls dorms," said James. Lily nodded. They decided black must be for the boys and silver for the girls, and set off down the left hallway. When they reached the doors at the end of the hall, James pulled them open a crack and peeked in.
"All right, we're clear," he said. He and Lily tiptoed into the dorms and dropped the invisibility cloak on the floor. Then they went to work. Lily laughed as she saw the results of their "experiment" as they had decided to call it. She was surprised that she could have so much fun breaking the rules. She was still laughing when she and James tiptoed back out of the dorms.
"Ok, it'll probably be better for you to finish off the girls dorms by yourself. Who knows what kind of alarm they might have in there…" James said. Lily smiled and nodded in agreement.
Barely ten minutes later, she reappeared in the common room, laughing again. James grinned and draped the invisibility cloak over them again. They exited the Slytherin common room and made their way up the stairs to the main floors of Hogwarts. When they reached the top however, James took a left turn where he should have taken a right.
"Uh, James? Aren't we going the wrong way?" Lily asked. James looked back at her and grinned.
"Did you just call me James?" he asked as he kept walking.
"Well, that's your name isn't it? Ohhhhh, I know where we are now!" She said as they reached the familiar painting of the bowl of fruit. "But why are we here?" she asked as James tickled the pear.
"Pranking makes me hungry, and besides, it's much too early to go to sleep anyway."
"Well, some of us would like to be able to stay awake tomorrow," Lily retorted.
"Oh, come on Lil, tomorrow's Friday. You only have to survive through the day and then you can sleep till noon if you want to."
"Since when are you calling me Lil?"
"Since you called me James," he said and pulled her into the kitchens. Nattie and a few other house elves appeared almost immediately before them.
"How may Nattie help Mr. Potter tonight?" asked the little house elf.
"I'll have a hot chocolate and some chocolate chip cookies." James looked at Lily.
"I suppose I'll have a hot chocolate too please," she said and the house elves disappeared. It wasn't long before they came back, handing both Lily and James their hot chocolate, and James the cookies. James thanked them and led the way over to the big window at the back of the room. Lily sat down on the wide window seat, with her back against the wall. James climbed up next to her. They sat there for a moment, not saying anything. Lily looked out the window.
"Look, it's finally snowing," she said quietly and looked at James. As soon as she turned his way, he caught her chin with his hand, and tilted her face towards his. Lily knew exactly what was coming, but she didn't make any effort to shake him off. James kissed her softly, one hand still on her chin. She wouldn't have been able to pull away if she had tried. Her head was spinning, and the room, which had been cold a moment before, now felt warm and comforting. It was a few moments before gravity brought her back down to earth, and she pulled away slowly. The warm feeling lingered in her fingertips. She grinned and said,
"I hope you don't think this means I'm your girlfriend now."
James grinned back.
"I didn't say you had to be."
"For once!" Lily laughed. James rolled his eyes at her as he stood up.
"Come on," he said and pulled her off the window seat and under the invisibility cloak. She followed him out of the kitchens and down the corridor. As they passed the entrance to the corridor housing the Slytherin common room, James laughed softly.
"Can't wait to see Snivelley's face tomorrow! He'll never live this one down!"
Lily just shook her head and smiled.
They arrived at a very sleepy looking Fat Lady, gave the password, and climbed in the portrait hole. James claimed the invisibility cloak, and Lily gathered up her books.
"See you at breakfast?" James asked.
"Definitely," Lily replied and set off up the stairs to her dormitory.
* * *
"Lily! Lily wake up, you're going to be late!" Ellie said loudly as she shook Lily awake. Lily opened her eyes and saw the sun streaming in the dormitory window.
"Oh!" she exclaimed and leapt out of bed. She grabbed some robes from her trunk and practically sprinted to the showers.
"Lily! You're not that late!" Ellie shouted after her. Lily's head appeared around the door to the showers.
"No time to talk! Gotta get to breakfast on time!" she said quickly and disappeared again. Ellie shook her head and smiled.
Twenty minutes later, Lily came rushing into the Great Hall. She was wearing her Hogwarts robes but she hadn't had time to pin her Head Girl badge on or close the clasps on her shoes. Apparently she hadn't had time to fix her hair either. Usually, she would either pull it up into some elegant style, or French braid it, but today she had just dried it and let it hang to her mid back. With her emerald eyes flashing with excitement and her hair flying all around her, she looked very pretty. Lily sat down on the seat next to Ellie. Ellie could tell by the way Lily was smiling that she knew something Ellie didn't.
"What are you—" Ellie began, but broke off at what she saw walking into the Great Hall. A small group of five or so people came in. They were huddled together, obviously hoping not to be noticed. As they came closer, everyone saw, and heard, why. Each was dressed in footie pajamas with patterns of little elves on them. They each had a slightly overlarge badge, on which was written, "I'm a Slytherin." On their heads, they wore Santa Claus hats with little bells on the ends. What the hats were doing, however, was the best part. The hats were singing. At the moment, they had a good chorus of "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" going. The whole great hall burst out laughing. The Slytherins looked to be trying to make themselves smaller and less noticeable, but the more they tried, the louder the song played. The group hurried to their table, the sounds of "O Christmas Tree" now emitting from them.
Two more batches of Slytherins entered the hall before they all seemed to be accounted for. The second batch entered to a serenade of "Holly Jolly Christmas" and the third to "We Three Kings Of Orient Are." By this time, people were trying to figure out who had done this. The first guess of everyone was the Marauders, but Sirius, Remus, and Peter denied having anything to do with it. Sirius was especially perplexed by it. He kept saying,
"Why didn't I think of that?"
The rest of the table continued to look for potential suspects. They knew James must have something to do with it, since he didn't deny it. But when someone asked, James said he didn't act alone. Ellie looked around at Rae, who looked as puzzled as Sirius, and at Lily, who was smiling. Widely. A bit too widely.
"Lily?" she asked.
"Yes?"
"Did you do this?"
"What's it to you if I did?"
Ellie laughed aloud. Lily had broken the school rules. Again! Only this time, she had played a fully planned prank, with the help of... James? By then, the surrounding group had put two and two together and identified Lily as the other culprit.
"How'd you get them to wear those pajamas all day?" asked Sirius eagerly.
"We turned their clothes invisible and hid them. We put a charm on all the extra Slytherin robes too so that they would get way too small for anyone to wear them," Lily said importantly.
"How long are they going to have to wear the pajamas if they can't find their clothes?" Ellie asked.
"The invisibility spell will wear off after today, and the singing charm for the hats will only last a few hours, so we'll have to enjoy it while it lasts," said James. "Good thing is though, that when the invisibility spell ends, their clothes will start appearing in weird places."
"Well, under the Slytherin bathroom sinks is really that weird, but they won't remember putting them there," Lily added.
"Under the sinks isn't the only place they'll turn up," James said evilly. At this, Lily gave James a questioning look.
"Where else will they turn up, James?" she asked.
"Er, nowhere?
"Really."
"Well, I like to count the roof as nowhere," James said guiltily. Lily's eyes widened. James took this as a cue to get up. Lily got up too and chased him out of the hall. She yelled as she went, but not about that fact that James could have been expelled for going to the roof. Instead, she screamed something very unexpected.
"Potter! You went up to the roof WITHOUT ME?"
Everyone else followed them, laughing. No one concentrated much in class that day. Not only did they have the incident at breakfast on their minds, they had also noticed that it had not stopped snowing all day. Sirius was practically jumping up and down with joy. Once classes were over, everyone spent most of the evening in the Great Hall, watching the snow fall from the enchanted ceiling. When they finally went to bed, they were tired, but excited that there was now only one week left until the Christmas Holidays.
* * *
Lily awoke late the next day. She sat up and immediately almost froze. She looked around and noticed that the rest of the girls in her dormitory had already left. She forced herself to get up and rush to the warm showers. She hurried in and out, and dressed in a light blue sweater and jeans. She began to brush her hair back and looked out the window as she did. The snow had stopped, and the sun now sparked on over three feet of fresh snow. Lily let out a small gasp, quickly used a drying charm on her hair and pulled it back. Then, she grabbed her cloak, gloves, hat, and boots, and ran down the dormitory steps. As she entered the common room, another figure ran in front of her, and she almost fell over. She slowed to a stop and saw that the figure was James.
"Snow! Three feet! Come on!" James practically yelled, grabbed her arm and pulled out the portrait hole. When they reached the entrance hall, they met Sirius, Remus, Rae, and Ellie. No one knew where Peter was that morning, and to tell the truth, no one cared. They all headed out into the deep snow. After a few minutes, they realized that it was easier to crawl on the snow than try to walk through it. This would require some serious waterproof charms on their clothes. When they realized no one could perform a waterproof charm that would last long enough, they decided to use a packing charm on the snow instead. When this was done, Sirius began to dig a snow tunnel. No one could tell why, just that he was quite good at it.
When he had dug one deep enough, he began to pack snow into a snowball, and threw it at James. James turned and threw another back at him. It missed, because Sirius had retreated into his tunnel. A few seconds later, another snowball came flying, but this time towards Remus. Remus pitched one down the tunnel at Sirius. Sirius responded with two snowballs, one for Remus and one for James. By this time, Lily, Ellie, and Rae had made snowballs, and threw them at the boys. This caused Sirius to declare war. Of course, Remus and James sided with Sirius when they heard this. They all climbed down into the tunnel and began to work on making some extra ammunition. The girls had no place to hide and no time to dig a tunnel, so they used a blasting charm to make themselves a kind of bunker. They had devised some tactics as to make it hard for the boys to see them and hit them. Soon this began to irritate the boys, and James got out his wand. He aimed at Lily and shot a stream of blue water out the end of it. It was apparent that he had hit his mark when Lily sat up in the bunker, shrieking. The water had frozen into tiny ice crystals as soon as it had hit her head, and she now had a nice splash of blue ice on her head, clashing with her red hair. James laughed when he saw her. Lily grabbed her wand and jumped up. James was quicker. He ran forward out of the tunnel and aimed a melting spell at the girl's bunker.
"ARRRRRGGGGHHHH! POTTER!" Lily yelled and began to run after him, shooting sparks out the end of her wand as she went. Some fourth years who had begun to build a snow fort near the war zone were now doing their best to protect it. James shot another melting spell at the bunker. This time it missed, accidentally melting part of the fourth year's snow fort. Lily shook her head and yelled,
"Some Head Boy you are!"
James looked back at her and laughed again. He ran a convoluted path around the war zone and all around the grounds. Lily tried to shoot more sparks at him, but he doubled back. As she tried to pivot and follow him, her foot caught on his and she toppled over backwards right into a snow bank, bringing James with her. They landed in the snow, James almost fully on top of Lily. They could still here the sounds of the snowball fight going on behind them. Lily spoke first, in a choked voice.
"Potter, you're squishing me."
James rolled to one side of her and propped himself up on his elbow. He grinned at her and asked,
"Why are you calling me Potter again?"
"I decided I liked it better." She smiled as she looked up at him. She was going to say something more, but then James kissed her for the second time in twelve hours.
"Well, I'm still calling you Lil whether you like it or not," he said when he had pulled away. Lily rolled her eyes and said,
"Fine."
"Hey, Lil, bet you your team has lost the snowball war by now," said James teasingly, putting extra emphasis on the word Lil.
"Bet not, Potter," Lily replied.
"Care to go and see?" he asked, taking her hand and pulling her up. "Oh, and by the way, blue is a good color for you," he added, referring to her hair.
"AAAARRRRRRGGGHH!" Lily shrieked and the chase began once again.
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Whew! Chapter over! I know I got them together quite quickly, but I got tired of writing about them fighting.
Next chapter will be Christmas holidays!!!!! Yay!!!!!