Summary: Lily Evans is convinced that James Potter is bad down to the core. What happens when she realizes that this isn't true?
Disclaimer: I don't own any of J. K. Rowling's characters, locations, or other such ideas. Basically, I own Mandy, Amber, and other random characters in the story.
A/N: Hi everyone! School's almost here, and I updated, just like I promised!! Glad you all thought last chapter was funny. xD anyway, I'll talk later. For now... enjoy le chap!
Chapter Ten – Collective Detention
With Mandy at Quidditch practice and her other friends finished their lesser amounts of homework, Lily found herself at the library, hoping to finish off her Arithmancy paper. She saw Remus sitting at a nearby table and, hesitatingly, joined him.
"Hi," he said warmly, looking up from his work.
"Hello," Lily responded shyly.
"What are you working on?" she asked out of curiousity.
Remus tapped the parchment in front of him. "Binns' essay. You'd think with such a dull class he's leading that the material would be dull as well, but I find it rather interesting."
"Yes," Lily agreed, "in NEWT classes everything seems to get more interesting. I'm not taking History of Magic, though."
"I noticed," Remus grinned. "There are so little people taking his NEWT class that they just put all of the houses together, and even so there are only 12 sixth year students."
"That's still quite a lot – three students per house! But I suppose they're the ones who fancy dozing off in class."
Remus pouted, imitating Sirius rather well. "Hey – what about me?"
Laughing, Lily said, "Well, maybe you're the only one who actually goes for the academic value."
"And for the class discussions," Remus added jokingly.
Lily smiled. Remus was so... perfect. So nice, funny, serious; a thinker, yet friendly. She still didn't understand why he would possibly choose to be friends with Potter and Black.
"Remus, I –" she began, but found the words stuck in her throat.
"Yes, Lily?" he asked innocently.
What was she supposed to do? Confess her love for him...?
"I need some help with my Arithmancy," she covered sloppily. So what if she knew all of the answers already?
"Of course, why didn't you just say so?" Remus grinned. "But I would never have expected you to ask for help in Arithmancy. What is it you need help with?"
Lily frowned in thought. "Here, let me see –" She took out her paper and laid it on the table, ready to feign confusion.
"Since we have finished our reviewing of Animal Transfiguration, today I will begin to teach you about the challenging subject around which most of my NEWT class revolves – Human Transfiguration."
The classroom seemed to buzz with excitement at Professor McGonagall's announcement.
"But for the rest of the term, you will only be learning theory."
A collective groan was the response. Human Transfiguration would be the highlight of seven years' worth of toiling for McGonagall and now they had to wait out the term until they could begin in full. 'But what are three months to over five years?' Lily thought, 'At least we get to begin in January.'
Professor McGonagall began the lesson and Lily tried hard to look over Potter's head. He always sat in front of her during Transfiguration and, for once, had chosen to sit up straight in his chair. Naturally, this posed a problem for Lily, who, when standing, only reached about the bridge of James' nose. She'd noticed that it didn't give her much of an advantage when she was yelling at him.
She finally found that sitting with her legs folded underneath her gave her enough extra height to see just above that infuriating mop of messy black hair. Now she could see McGonagall and found herself concentrating much better on what the Professor was saying.
Her concentration didn't last for long, though, because James began turning around to grin at her. Lily responded with a glare each time, thinking, 'Transfiguration is the ONE class in which I really, desperately need to concentrate. Why can't he bother me during History of Magic instead?' She was glad she hadn't said that out loud, because, she realized, Potter would surely have decided to annoy her tenfold during that class. Then she remembered that she didn't take History of Magic anymore. This was what happened when James Potter began distracting her during a class in which he usually paid attention.
After turning to grin at her for possibly the tenth time in three minutes, Potter leant over his desk and began scribbling notes. 'Finally,' Lily thought, 'he remembered that he's at school.' She settled into concentration again, but was rudely interrupted when a square of scrap parchment appeared on her desk.
'Will you go out with me?' it read in James' neat writing.
Lily glared and reached for her quill. She scribbled the word 'NO' overtop of his written request, filling up the whole parchment with the two letters. Then she left the note on her desk, upside-down so that Potter could read it when he turned around.
Surely enough, he did so, but only grinned at her, took the parchment, and began to write on the other side so that Lily could see each letter clearly.
'You know you love me, Evans. Perhaps if-' At this point, Lily lunged over her desk to grab the parchment, pushing back her chair as she did so. She landed on her desk, flat on her stomach, but with the note clasped in her hand.
Oblivious to her classmates' stares, she sat back down, quickly smoothed out the parchment, and Vanished the ink on both sides. She looked up to find Professor McGonagall staring at her and her eyes widened in embarrassment.
"Is there something you would like to share with the class, Miss Evans?" Her gaze was stern and her lips were tight. It was a rare occasion for McGonagall to get mad at her best student – or rather, her best-behaving student.
Lily smiled sheepishly. "N-no, Professor. Nothing, sorry." She mentally smacked herself for losing her cool.
Potter's head was down and his shoulders were shaking; was he laughing at her? Lily would have glared if it weren't for McGonagall staring her down.
"What is that on your desk, then, Miss Evans?"
"Just a scrap of parchment," Lily covered. Technically, it wasn't a lie, because it was a scrap piece of parchment. She just didn't bother to explain that it had been written on and belonged to James Potter.
McGonagall nodded. "May I see it?" She held out a hand.
Lily was reminded of Potter and his obnoxious (though silent) laughter. "Of course, Professor. It was actually Po – er, James, here, who lent me it."
She gave McGonagall the parchment and watched as the latter muttered an incantation to make the ink reappear. Both Lily and James watched as the Professor read it carefully, on both sides, then looked up again.
"Miss Evans, Mr. Potter, may I see you at the end of class?"
They both nodded their heads slowly, knowing that no wasn't an option.
"And five points from Gryffindor for the disturbance," she added. "Now, Human Transfiguration..."
Lily cautiously approached Professor McGonagall's desk after the bell had rung. Potter took awhile longer to put his things back into his bag, but joined her once he'd finished.
"I would like to remind the both of you that note-passing during class is unacceptable," McGonagall said, looking up from a pile of essays she'd been marking, "as is disrupting the class in any way."
"Yes, Professor," Lily said quietly, though Potter just stood there, smirking.
McGonagall continued her short lecture. "The note in question was also very inappropriate, as I was teaching about Human Transfiguration, not giving dating lessons. I trust that the both of you are very aware of the 'no body contact' rule," she added, staring pointedly at James, "and that you heed it. You shall both be serving detentions tomorrow night. Separate detentions."
At this, James' face fell. Lily smirked; at least she wouldn't have to spend her first-ever detention with Potter.
"Meet me in my office after dinner tomorrow and I will assign you your punishments. You may leave."
Lily breathed a sigh of relief and left the classroom as fast as possible. She reached the Great Hall for dinner not long after and sat down between Mandy and Alice.
"Quite a show you put on, Lily," Mandy joked through a mouthful of steak.
"So?" Alice questioned. "What did McGonagall say?"
Lily shrugged. "Detention tomorrow night." She wondered to herself why she was so nonchalant about it as she started piling her plate with food. When she reached over for the pumpkin juice, she spotted Amber sitting several seats down, glaring at her mashed potatoes.
"Amber's still angry at Sirius?" she questioned disbelievingly.
Mandy nodded. "You'd think that she'd get over it after three weeks of pretending he doesn't exist."
"You'd think Black would have apologized," Lily scowled. "Maybe we'll have to take out our list from last year: Ways to Get Revenge on Sirius Black."
Alice frowned and said, "Are you really going to get 'revenge' on him? Some of the things on that list were rather gory, inappropriate, and more than enough to get us expelled."
"Like setting a Blast-Ended Skrewt on him?" Mandy grinned. "Alice, you know most of them are jokes."
"Yeah, I was just making sure."
"Oh, Lily," Mandy said, "Is your detention tomorrow night going to be with Potter?"
"No, no, we're serving separate detentions, thank goodness," Lily explained.
Back in her office and not feeling hungry for dinner, Minerva McGonagall considered the detentions she'd just given out to Evans and Potter. Separate detentions would most definitely get things done faster for each of them, no matter the task, but she couldn't help thinking. To Potter this was just another detention, and he was bound to get himself into another one by the end of the week.
But Lily Evans... Never before had she been given a detention, and the Professor thought it wise not to let her take detention too lightly. Otherwise, Evans could begin slacking off after realizing that her punishment would not be too dire. No, for both the teachers' and for Lily's sake, McGonagall had to ensure that Miss Evans would not enjoy her detention in the least. That left one option.
Lily Evans and James Potter would have to serve detention together.
Lily trudged to Professor McGonagall's office after dinner the next day. By now, the fact had hit her in full force – she had gotten a detention.
A detention, for goodness' sake! Not something that Lily Evans should have been receiving. But there she was, about to serve her first for being stupid enough to pay Potter any attention during Transfiguration.
She hoped it wouldn't be too labourious.
Reaching McGonagall's office, Lily knocked hesitantly on the door.
"Come in," she heard McGonagall call from inside.
She opened the door to see the Professor at her desk and Potter slouching in a chair facing it. Lily took a seat in the chair beside the boy and looked up at Professor McGonagall to await her punishment.
"There has been a slight... change of plans," McGonagall began, "So I am forced to assign you a collective detention."
"Pardon?" Lily said, not believing her ears.
"You will be serving detention together."
Potter looked as though Christmas had come early and Lily scowled angrily.
"Is there no way we can serve our detentions individually?" Lily asked.
"No, I'm afraid not," McGonagall said, appearing sympathetic.
James grinned. "So what will our detention be?"
"Ah, yes. Your punishment will be to polish the frames of the portraits all along the fifth-floor corridor without using any magic. You will find the correct materials waiting for you, as well as a stepladder to reach the tops of taller frames. You have from now until midnight to finish and may leave at your discretion. If our caretaker, Mr. Pringle, finds that the frames have not been cleaned sufficiently, you will serve another detention tomorrow night to finish the job, so I suggest that you get it done well tonight instead."
Lily nodded and stood up to leave, as did Potter.
"And Miss Evans?"
"Yes, Professor?" Lily said, turning back to face McGonagall.
"See to it that you don't get yourself in any other detentions any time soon."
"Of course, Professor."
The two reached the fifth-floor corridor in silence, aside from Potter's random attempts at asking Lily out, with the latter declining as curtly as possible.
It was right then, when they saw their materials, that they realized that there was a problem.
"There's only one stepladder," Lily said blankly.
"We'll have to share, I guess."
"Share? With you? No thank you. I take the stepladder."
"Why?" James protested.
"Because you're tall and I'm shorter than you." It made sense, after all.
"Or I can take the stepladder. That way I do the tops of the frames and you do the bottoms. Or the other way around, if you like. Either way, I've got a nice view."
Lily sputtered at his intended meaning. "What? You perverted little –" She decided not to finish her sentence and kicked the stepladder toward him.
"I do as much of the frame as I can reach, and once I move on to the next one, you polish off the top," she instructed and set out to do her work. "And don't mess it up," she added. His mistake could cause her another night of frame-polishing.
The portraits purposely ignored both Lily and James because they knew that the two students were serving detention. Thus, the hallway was silent as the teenagers polished away without a word.
Two hours later, they were nearly done one side of the hallway. If they kept it up, they would be finished before eleven. Lily sighed as she moved on to the last painting before they switched over to the other side.
"Took you long enough," James mumbled.
"What did you say, Potter?" Lily challenged, having heard what he'd said.
"Nothing."
"If I may inform you, Potter, I'm the one who's polishing more of the frames than you are. You just have to do the very top, and I'm doing all the rest!"
"Well, maybe if you only polished half, then I'd be doing my fair share of work without standing around, waiting for you to finish." He crossed his arms, still holding a polishing rag in one hand.
"Whatever," Lily mumbled and began her work on the last frame, this time only polishing it halfway up.
Half an hour and a few frames later, Lily was still toiling away on her knees. Suddenly she noticed the silence to her left. She turned her head to see why Potter had stopped working, only to see him standing on the stepladder, staring at her.
"What are you doing?" Lily asked in annoyance.
Potter stepped down to the ground, still staring at her. He seemed completely oblivious to her question as he asked dreamily, "Will you go out with me?"
Lily stared at him for a few moments, thinking he'd gone insane for real this time, and turned back to her work.
"Will you go out with me?" he repeated a few moments later, his voice returned to normal. It didn't sound egotistic, though, which was a nice change.
But Lily continued to ignore him as he repeated the question yet again.
"Is that a yes?" he asked when she wouldn't answer, sounding cocky all over again.
"It is a no," Lily said flatly without even looking up.
James persisted. "Why not?"
"Because I hate you and you're a bigheaded prat." Lily was too tired to be angry.
"Just go out with me, Evans!"
Okay, maybe she wasn't.
"NO, Potter, I won't!" she said, standing up.
"Well why not?"
"I already told you why not!"
"Why not?" he repeated.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Because."
"Because why?"
"Because I said so!" It was a very childish game to play, but Lily didn't find that she cared.
"THAT'S NOT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON!" Potter yelled. Lily jumped at the sudden rise in his volume.
If he could raise his voice, so could she. "FINE! MAYBE I FANCY SOMEONE ELSE THEN! IS THAT A GOOD ENOUGH REASON?"
"You fancy somebody else? LIKE WHO? That bloke who's better cooked than me?!"
Lily scoffed at his reference to their – disagreement – at the train station over a month ago.
"I don't want to talk about this. I shouldn't have mentioned it," she said coldly.
"Well I want to talk about it," James persisted.
Lily checked her watch. "It is nine-thirty. We have possibly an hour and a half's work left and I have homework to do, so will you please SHUT UP?"
"Who is it that you fancy?"
"Why would you like to know?"
Potter narrowed his eyes. "I'll hex him until he's so disfigured you won't even recognize who he is."
Lily started at the threat at Remus, but remembered that he was one of Potter's best friends. Even if he knew, he wouldn't hex him – would he?
"You won't be hexing him anytime soon, believe me," Lily fumed.
"Why no –" he began, but suddenly seemed to cool down. "You're right. I won't be."
With that, he turned around, climbed back up the stepladder, and continued to polish a golden frame.
Lily was feeling confused and riled-up enough to challenge him to get back down and continue the fight, but her senses caught up to her just before she did anything stupid.
She turned back to her own work and not another word was said that night between Lily Evans and James Potter.
"I have it," James announced the next day, coming into the Library where Remus was working with Peter.
Remus looked up from his work. "What do you have?"
"A plan," his friend said. He sounded serious; this surely wouldn't be a plan for a prank.
"Well sit down, then, and tell us your plan," Peter suggested.
Both James and Remus shook their heads.
"Padfoot isn't here," James said, voicing Remus' thought.
"To the dormitory then?" he asked.
James nodded and ten minutes later, the Marauders were seated on James' and Sirius' beds to discuss 'the plan'.
"You want me to WHAT?" Remus exclaimed in disbelief.
James fidgeted beside him. "It's simple, Moony. Lily fancies you –"
"- or so we think," Remus interjected.
"Moony, you know Lily likes you. Don't deny it," Sirius grinned from his bed.
"But still..."
"It's simple," James repeated, "All you've got to do is take some Polyjuice Potion and turn into me, talk to Lily for awhile, and voila! I've got my date."
"Prongs, it is NOT simple. Not only will the potion take a month to brew, it's very risky to take and has some serious side effects."
Peter nodded, James frowned, and Sirius seemed thoughtful. After all, the book containing the Polyjuice Potion's recipe was in the Restricted Section of the Library.
"Think about how Lily would feel," Remus continued, "if she found out that the person she said 'yes' to was not you, but one of your best friends? And that's only if this plan succeeds, which I'm hardly convinced it will."
"Yeah, mate," Sirius agreed, coming out of his daze, "Wouldn't you rather her fall in love with you and not Moony?"
"I don't care. Once I can convince her – or Moony can convince her – to go out with me, she'll see what a great bloke I am, and she'll fall for the real me instead."
This plan was sure to fail. Remus really didn't want to hurt Lily; she was a nice person and a friend. But he wanted to hurt James even less, so there was only one choice left.
"Alright, Prongs, I'll do it for you. But if Lily murders you in your sleep, you only have yourself to blame," Remus warned.
"I take all of the blame for any consequences if the plan fails," James grinned, "Which it won't."
'We'll see about that,' Remus thought wearily. He had a bad feeling about this.
"We have to make sure that you won't be convincing Lily to go out with Prongs on the night of the full moon, though," Peter said.
"Right you are, Wormtail," James agreed.
Remus considered. "The full moon is a couple of days before Halloween this month. By the time the first week of November comes around, I'll be feeling much better."
Suddenly, Remus thought of yet another reason why James' plan would be impossible. If Lily hated James, how was he supposed to make her fall for him while pretending to be the person she despised?
"Prongs," he began, "how do I convince Lily to go out with you if she doesn't exactly get along with you under normal circumstances?"
"Get her to fall for your charm!" Sirius supplied.
"I dunno if I can do that."
James smiled at his friend. "You've already done it once. Why else would I have asked you to do this for me?"
"Because you live to make my life miserable?" he joked.
"As long as your full moons aren't miserable," James smiled again.
And with that simple statement, Remus was completely won over. After what his friends did for him each month, how could he not help James in his one time of need?
He was going to break at least ten school rules and maybe break one girl's heart, but no matter what happened, nothing would stop him from helping out one of his best friends in the whole entire world.
A/N: Dun dun dun... will the plan work? Or will it get squashed to the ground? You'll have to wait and see... ;)
sorry sorry sorry about the annoying lines. wouldnt lemme use hyphons or dots or anything so i had to use those. :(
As it says on my profile, I'm currently in the process of editing my fic so that a lot of things make sense... read my profile for more details. :)
AND I now command you to go over to Itami Kitsune's account and read our AWESOME TOTALLY COOL Collaboration Parody of PoA: Unshaven and on the Loose. :P it's only got two chapters so far, and I'm –supposed- to be writing the third one... It's really funny and stoof... props to Itami for getting the idea! xD
ALSO read An Owl at the Window, by Ellaris. She's a friend of mine as well and just started out. She'd really appreciate it! :) Actually, my 'might-never-get-posted' LotR parody is dedicated to her! Heheh.
Sorry that I talk so much. I'm almost done, I promise, and THEN I'll thank my reviewers. :P I actually have two ideas for novels and might start an Artemis Fowl fic in addition to HEAY and the two aforementioned fics –points to previous paragraphs- and yes. E-mail me for more info if u want some? Lol although I wouldn't know why. xD I'd luff you for it anyway.
Review-thanking time!!
Itami Kitsune: Haha, skivvies. Gotta love 'em. oO; sry I haven't started chap 3 of UaotL yet. Heheh...
Tirtreaton: Glad you like it! :]
Starrydreams: AND NOW I UPDATED AGAIN! Guess what that means... xDDD
Writergirl709: Hope that was enough frum Remus for you. As you can see, he'll have a more important role in the nxt chapters but for this chap I had to focus on some Lily/James action. :P
ChrisPgirl: Yay, so glad u like it! Thanks for reviewing!
Captainjack: Know how I thought of it? I randomly made Remus say, 'fancy going around naked?' and then had to think of a prank for that. Haha, how random am I? Took me awhile to find 'skivvies' on a British slang site! Heheheh.
Animalluvr75: Glad you thought it was funny. I did too! :P And here's chap 10 for ya! :)
Eat paper: I know eh? Not a pretty thought. Least he had those 2 textbooks, huh? ;)
Limbo-gal: Here's some Lily/James action for you! Enough I hope! :P
Some12: Sorryyyyy, I tried to get it up on the 24th. But. It's three days late. Hope u don't mind!
The all mighty and powerfulM: Ehh... hope u lived thru all the torture. o.o; lol I'm so mean.
Pamoola: I know. It's supposed to say him; he's talking about her crazy brother, Luna Lovegood's dad! :D lol... why else would I make em complain about their homework? That part came straight from the heart. ;)
Prongs' Princess: Yup, this is it!! So glad u like it... hope I didn't make you scar ur sister for life! lol, j/k.
Ok I promised I was almost done but then I remembered...
100th reviewer gets a treat!! If u think ur the 100th reviewer, send me an email and tell me something u have in mind for the fic or I can put u in as a minor character or just dedicate the next chapter to you. Take ur pick!
Okay now I'm actually done. :P Don't forget to review!!
