Rounds and Rows

The first week passed without any major disasters but ever since the sorting ceremony, after James and Lily were announced as the new head boy and girl, Lily had found him unbearable. Maybe it was the way he tried to take control, or tell her how to do her job, or maybe the way he kept ruffling his hair to make it look scruffier, or was it that cocky grin? 'Oh'. She knew exactly what it was. It was the fact that he was James Potter- the rule breaker, the trouble maker and the most arrogant boy alive.

The work load was building up and Lily was on top of it all generally but she was struggling with Transfiguration a little, her least favourite subject, but only because she didn't understand it straight away. Of course, it had to be James' best subject. A fact that he often reminded her of. But two could play at that game. Lily's favourite subject was Charms which he detested. Whenever he chose to play the 'I'm better then you at Transfiguration' card during an argument she would just throw the 'I'm better at Charms' card right back.

Remarkably, there hadn't been that many arguments between the two of late and Lily couldn't help but notice a change in James, but she didn't know exactly what the difference was. And as she kept on telling herself, she really didn't care.

Sitting in her dorm room she looked around and tried to feel better about the situation. I mean, she was one lucky girl. Just looking around at the room she had to herself- the grand, four-poster, double bed, the red and gold silks, the fine furniture and the beautiful view from the window overlooking the lake- she realised her providence. She wondered if James' room was similar but quickly thought about something else, realising that focusing her thoughts on what was James' room was not a good idea.

James sat in the small common room he shared with Lily which separated their private dorms and en suites. He'd arrived back from his final class of the day only to pull up a chair and start his duties as head boy. There was the first prefects meeting to organise and he wanted to get a head start on the arrangements to prove to Lily, and himself, that he was capable of succeeding as head boy.

Lily had had enough of sitting alone. Her homework complete, she headed downstairs to the room she relied on to keep her and James at arms length.

"Oh no," Lily grumbled as she saw a figure huddled over a piece of parchment. "What are you up to now?"

"What do you mean, 'what am I up to'? Do I always have to be to no good?" James was a little cagey.

"Always," Lily replied immediately.

"If you must know," now was the time to impress her, "I'm organising the first prefects meeting for next week."

Lily was surprised but couldn't let James see that she was, well....a little impressed. "Yeah, right."

"What? I am. Here. Take a look." James couldn't believe how stubborn she was sometimes. "If you don't believe me, take a look," he urged.

"Fine." She snatched it off him and looked for a moment. You've spelt this wrong," she pointed out the word in question, "it's an 'e', not an 'I'."

James was confused. Did it really matter that he'd spelt something wrong? That was irrelevant. "Ok," he continued, "but what do you think of the content?"

Lily didn't want to let him know that what he'd planned was good, no....it was excellent. But she couldn't let him know that she was impressed. Instead she settled for, "its ok, I guess. When you've finished I'll take a look at it again and make some improvements."

"You will, will you?" James demanded. He was getting annoyed at her bossiness and the way that she wanted to control everything. The girl was hard working which he supposed was a good thing but she had to learn to let other people help her with some of the work. There was a time to stop and relax and as far as James was concerned, Lily didn't know about it.

"I'm only trying to be helpful. Excuse me for wanting the job done properly," Lily bellowed back.

"And I'm not doing the job properly?" He'd lost control and he knew it. How did she do this to him?

"That remains to be seen." The statement was blunt but delivered calmly. James got up and handed the parchment to Lily. Without a word he turned and left their common room. All Lily heard was the portrait door slamming.

"Relax. Just breathe in and out, in and out. That's it, good." Sirius was currently attempting to calm James down after he suddenly burst into the Gryffindor common room and had given them a full account of his earlier encounter with the resident red-headed beauty- at about sixty miles per hour.

They were sat around a table in the far corner of the room on four large, red armchairs. Remus and Peter, James and Sirius' two other best friends, were there too. Remus Lupin was the most sensitive of the bunch, with light brown hair and pale blue eyes. A lot of girls followed him around just waiting for him to say 'hi' because to them he was just so cute. In fact, out of the group, he was commonly known as the 'cute' one. Sirius was three inches taller than Remus standing at about 6'1". He had dark hair falling to his shoulders and dark eyes. His fan base was the biggest out of all the members of the group. Sirius was known as the 'sexy' one. James was taller still at 6'2" and was probably most like Sirius in appearance. He had hazel eyes, a handsome, youthful face and the same dark coloured hair as Sirius; only his was shorter and tended to grow outwards instead of downwards. He also had a pretty good physique due to all the Quidditch training he did. James was known as the 'smart' one and had a fan club almost as big as Sirius'. That left Peter. Unfortunately, Peter wasn't blessed with good lucks, charm, intelligence or bravery, not like the other three. He was known as the 'anomaly' or the 'abnormal' one. It was a mystery to everyone how Peter had ever become blessed with friends like he had, or how he had been sorted onto Gryffindor house. The one thing that Peter clearly did have was luck. They were the most popular group in the school. They were the 'Marauders'.

"Better?" Remus inquired after James as his breathing became more regular.

"Yes. Thanks guys," James stated sincerely.

"That's ok. Just stay away from Lily for a few hours," Remus insisted.

'Oh no! I have rounds with her tonight,' James thought. He expressed his fears to the group.

"Don't think about that yet. Just stop thinking about Evans, full stop," Sirius directed.

But he had tried. For six whole years he had tried but it was impossible. He was holding onto something. Illusion or reality he was still holding onto it. Hope.

"I'm so bored. What shall we do?" Peter squeaked.

"Pete, could you at least try to be a little more sympathetic?" Remus commanded.

"Sorry"

"Hey," Sirius jumped in, "I've just had the greatest idea. I know what we can do to stop you being so bored mate. And it'll cheer James up as well. Let's play a little prank," he concluded, "James, you can choose the victim. Or victims."

"Great. Er...erm...aha! Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy," James decided.

A mixed reaction fell around the group. Sirius looked ecstatic about James' choices, Remus just rolled his eyes as though he was thinking 'not again' and Peter twitched nervously. Sirius was next to speck, "Great, let's go."

Snape and Malfoy were never hard to find. They were usually causing trouble, havoc or corrupting young girls somewhere. The Marauders found them in the castle grounds sending howlers to all of the Hufflepuffs which shouted things like 'I'm going to kill you', 'Watch out, you're next' and some just screamed down the recipient's ears.

"Now, now you two. That's no way to treat your fellow students, is it?" James inquired as they walked towards the two Slytherin boys.

"Potter," Malfoy sneered, "How nice of you to join us." Was that sarcasm James sensed? Most of Malfoy's comments were dripping with it. "Would you like one?" he asked with a hopeful look on his face.

James was here for a reason and the sooner they played the prank, the sooner he'd get away from his two worst enemies. "As if I'd ever take anything from you, Malfoy." There was no pleasantness in the way James said the name Malfoy.

"Ooooh," Malfoy taunted whilst Snape sniggered.

Sirius was getting tired of them already. "Hey Snivellus," he began addressing Snape, "have you changed your underpants yet? Because, you know, I hear you've got things nesting in there." The other boys cringed at the visual image created by Sirius' words.

Snape didn't stand for it. "Watch it Black. You know your mother thinks very highly of Lucius and I. Why, we're like the sons she never had."

"You....!"

James held Sirius back from pummelling his fists into Snape's sallow face. "Just wait for the right time," he whispered to Sirius.

"Oh, poor Black." Lucius joined Snape's teasing, "has she thrown you out of the house yet. You're a disgrace to you're family and a disgrace to the wizarding world. You may as well be a mud-blood. It would befit the filth that you are."

"Now!" James shouted at the top of his voice.

There were two blasts of blinding light, two piercing screams and it became clear that there were now two boys hanging in a tree by their underwear.

"You'll regret this Potter. Black," Lucius roared.

"You too Lupin, oh.....and Pettigrew," Snape yelled at the other two Marauders but with a certain lightness as Pettigrew's name rolled off his tongue.

"Threaten us again when your feet touch the ground. Up there you can't touch us," Sirius remarked. Oh revenge was always sweet, but this was something else. Something even better.

James smirked and said, "Incarcerous," with obvious respect for the spell, "it works every time."

Sirius mumbled," Oh how I hate Slytherins."

Peter overheard him and questioned, "But you come form a family of Slytherins, don't you?"

"Yeah, so? I hate my family."

The Marauders were now back in Gryffindor common room as the evening meal was over. James had relaxed a little. It was true that the prank had they'd pulled on Malfoy and Snape had lifted his spirits immensely but he still couldn't stop thinking about Lily.

Of course, they'd played much better pranks in their time at Hogwarts. One of the best had to be when they cast a spell on the house elves to make them take orders from them instead of Dumbledore, the schools head teacher. They really liked Dumbledore but the opportunity to have thousands of slaves for a short time was just too tempting. They arranged for the house elves to do a whole host of terrible things to the Slytherin common room and they made sure that school dinners consisted of only sweets, cake chocolate and fizzy drinks. Of course, Dumbledore soon put a stop to their prank by removing their hold over the house elves and preventing them form casting the spell again for the remainder of their time at Hogwarts.

Lily.

James wondered what she was doing now and tried to make out whether he was still angry at her. His feelings were so contrasting. Love and Hate. He decided that it was definitely possible to feel both at the same time and at this moment he did.

Sirius came down form the boys' dorm room with a pack of Exploding Snap. Remus and Peter were currently playing wizards' chess and half of Peter's pawns were being brutally attacked by Remus' knight.

"It's about time," James interrupted his own thoughts, "What took you so long?"

"I tripped over the pile of books I left on the floor," Sirius answered looking embarrassed.

James laughed, "I told you to pick them up."

"Ok, ok. Let's just play!"

It was barely two minutes before high pitched giggling could be heard at the entrance to the common room and then Rachel and Jess entered. Sirius immediately looked up and a grin broke out over his face. "And what are you two lovely ladies up to right now?"

"Nothing that concerns you, Black," Jess replied coolly.

"Aw, come on. Have a little fun with us," James said, "You don't want to turn into Lily do you?"

"Hey," Rachel said, "Stop insulting Lily. She does know how to have fun, you know. It's just that her fun usually involves doing quiet, relaxing things, not the usual chaotic things that you four are renowned for."

Sirius continued to address Jess, "Aw, are you too scared to take me on? I could beat you playing with just my King on the board."

A challenge was a challenge. Jess wasn't about to let it go. "Unlikely, very unlikely. Get ready to get your ass kicked," Jess threatened as she sat down, in the seat James had vacated, and rolled up her sleeves in preparation.

Rachel left Jess and Sirius. "Hi Remus, Peter, are you ok?"

"Uh huh," was Peter's brief reply.

"I'm good," Remus said, "How are you?"

"Great. Do you want a game afterward?" she asked him.

"Sure."

An hour passed and Sirius had won the first game but Jess beat him in the next three. Remus won the first two and Rachel won the last one.

Lily entered to find the four chess players packing away. Peter was staring around the room looking suitably bored and James had his head buried in a Quidditch tactics book.

'Eugh,' she thought, 'what does he see in that game? And what do Rach and Jess see in the Marauders? Hanging around with them is just asking for trouble.'

"Potter," she tried to get his attention but he didn't look up. Still nit decided whether he was going to stay angry with her he thought he'd ignore her to make her angry.

"James!" she shouted. "It's time to do rounds."

He slowly lifted his gaze to meet hers and saw her flustered cheeks. 'And yet she still looks beautiful'. The thought was in his head before he could stop it. He put the book down and simply replied, "Right." He then got up and walked towards the portrait door with Lily trailing behind.

If James didn't want to talk to her then that was fine. However, she needed to talk about the prefect meeting with him. Honestly. She never thought he'd care about anything that she had said. The only reason he liked her so much was because she was one of the few girls he couldn't have. At least that's what she told herself.

"The plan you made for the prefects meeting was good, by the way. I only had to make a few changes." Lily's attempt to get their working relationship back on track fell on deaf ears.

She tried again. "Do you want to take another look at it?"

James stopped walking. So Lily stopped to look at him. She looked up into his face. He was so tall. Under his intense gaze she started to feel uncomfortable so started shifting awkwardly. It was strange. He'd never had this affect on her before. Maybe the hurt that was evident in his eyes made her feel guilty.

"Just leave it Lily, ok? I don't need you to point out everything I do wrong. I've got my parents to do that."

"What? I wasn't trying to prove you wrong. I was just making sure everything was correct," she responded. Why did it affect her so much? She never really uses to care what James said to her, so why now?

"But you didn't have to," James explained, "We could have worked on it together. If you weren't so dismissive then this arrangement would work a lot better."

They'd made it to the entrance to the head's dorm and stood outside.

"I'm not dismissive," Lily denied. "You're so arrogant that you can't accept criticism."

"Oh, and you're perfect?"

"Of course not!" She couldn't believe he was being so ridiculous. Actually, she could believe it. Wasn't he always?

James couldn't believe he'd actually managed to offend her. So, he continued. "If you didn't isolate yourself form everyone all of the time you'd come to realise that there is a lot more to life that you've yet to experience. A lot of good stuff."

"Oh yeah," Lily asked in a mocking tone, "Like what?" Like she really cared.

"Like fun Lily. You know it does exist. How about friendship..."

"I have friends," Lily interrupted him.

"But you don't spend enough time with them to have proper friendships. Not like me ant the Marauders. Plus, there are only two people."

Lily remained silent and James took it as a invitation to continue. "You're missing out on leisure time, hobbies, games, laughter."

"Excuse me? I know how to laugh. Maybe you're just not funny enough to make me laugh," Lily was getting more and more frustrated with him. "Is there anything else that I'm missing out on, oh mighty one?" she mocked.

"Yes. One vital thing."

"And what's that?" Lily's voice betrayed her, revealing her hidden interest in what he had to say.

James paused, cautious of his movements. He stepped closer to her until his face was only five inches away form hers and he whispered, "Love."

Once the word escaped his lips, she recoiled like a snake. James turned, said the password 'feather quill' and entered the head dorms as the portrait of a rather busty woman swung open.

As the portrait door swung closed Lily screamed. "Argh." She hit the wall repeatedly, trying to relieve some of her frustration and tension.

"Don't take it out on me too young lady," the busty woman spoke. "I'm not sure the wall deserved that."

"I'm sorry," Lily whispered. But whether it was for hitting the wall, for shouting at James or because she was feeling sorry for herself, she didn't know. Maybe it was all three.

After a couple of minutes, checking the coast was clear of James, she headed up to bed. That was definitely enough rounds and rows for one day.