A/N: Sorry this took so long! Jet lag is a killer.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 5: Sabotage Part II

Before year six, I would honestly have jumped out of my seat at the word 'sabotage' but to be honest living a lie was way more complicated than I'd predicted it would be and I just don't think I can divide my energy in that many ways and still pass my NEWTs.

I'll have a hell of a time as it is.

"You honestly think that after everything we all went through last year we should really be meddling?" I said to Marlene, who still had a smug look across her horse-face.

Alright, fine, her 'elongated features'.

Marlene rolled her eyes. "Obviously I'm not suggesting we do whatever that was, I'm just saying if they aren't going to come to their senses themselves, we need to help them along."

Sirius stared at her dumbly. "Help them along? So they can kill each other after we've left? Besides, what do you care?"

"Honestly," Marlene huffed, "I didn't think you two would be this difficult. Let me finish explaining. James and Lily obviously need to sort some things out on their own but let's be honest here, Potter is not going to just wake up one morning and decide to be responsible and Lily is never going to see anything less than perfection as acceptable. And as for me, I'm rather tired of listening to the two of them."

"So you think we should do all the work for them?" I said carefully, not wanting to poke the bear, so to speak.

Marlene smiled tightly. "Good job, Elsa, you're finally getting it! Next time, raise your hand and I'll thrown in some house points!"

Sirius seemed to sense that I was about to knock the living daylights out of her and stood up between us. "I think we get it, we need to figure out just what the ruddy hell James is supposed to be doing and do that, all while telling Lily how far he's come as a person so she'll stop having such high expectations, all in the hopes that they'll get together or at the very least quit tearing the other's throat out for every single little thing."

I shrugged. "We can do that. Hell, Remus is already a prefect, I'm sure Head Boy duties aren't that different."

"See to it then," Marlene said, gathering her bag and heading for the stairs. "I'm off to bed."

I stuck my tongue out at Marlene as soon as she turned her back and flopped down onto the couch. "God, she's so bloody annoying," I said, "is it any wonder we've been fighting this long?"

Sirius laughed. "You can't honestly expect to have things smoothed over that quickly, can you? You and Marlene have been at it for years."

"Yeah well if she hadn't called me a fat cow in first year, none of this would have even happened," I said, frowning even deeper. "It doesn't help that she's right."

"Not about the fat cow thing," I quickly added, as Sirius opened his mouth. "About James and Lily."

Sirius gathered his things and started to leave. "So, I'll take James, you get Lily?"

I shrugged. "Fair enough."

Sirius left with a short "g'night" and I sunk into the couch, thinking of all the elaborate ways this could go horribly wrong.

"So let me make sure I understand. You, Elsa DeLestrade, a woman who has not so much as looked in the direction of the student handbook, want to... shadow me?"

I nodded enthusiastically at Lily, who seemed skeptical as we walked down to the common room.

I say walked, but it was so bloody early I think 'stumbled' might be more appropriate.

"I dunno," I said, "I just think I ought to start taking things more seriously before graduation, y'know?"

Lily narrowed her eyes. "You aren't up to anything?"

"No, of course not! Besides, I'll get to spend a lot more time with Remus if I'm hanging out with the prefects all the time."

Lily seemed to buy this explanation and relaxed her face, if only slightly. "Fine, but this better not be one of Potter's tricks."

"Lily, please. Since when have you known me to do James' bidding?"

Stupid, Elsa, just stupid.

Lily thankfully ignored the question. "Well, if you're going to follow me you should know that I get up every morning at five o'clock so I can be ready at six to check around the area for stray students out of bed. If literally anyone else had been selected as Head Boy, this is also where we would meet him," Lily gestured to the portrait hole, "however, since Potter refuses to do even the simplest of tasks, I'll just skip ahead and I suppose you can do his half of the work if you're really that keen."

I was beginning to regret my decision to be a better person.

I mean, six in the morning? No wonder James doesn't show up.

"And what is his half?" I asked.

Lily rolled her eyes like it was obvious. "He's supposed to check to boys' toilets for any illicit activity, you know, illegal potion brewing, inappropriate student contact, that sort of thing."

I nodded. "Right, so, since I'm not a boy shall I just follow you, then?"

"Don't be silly," Lily said, exiting the common room and nodding to the Fat Lady, who swung back drowsily. "You only have to pop your head in, it isn't difficult. I'll meet you back here in 15 minutes, and then we've got to meet with all the prefects and go over the week."

I watched as she trotted happily down the stairs to the fifth-floor girl's toilet and decided to get things over with, starting with the seventh floor.

That loo ended up being completely deserted, and so were the sixth, fifth, and fourth floors. I decided not to bother with any of the others since I doubted any reasonable mischief-makers would be up at this kind of ungodly hour and went back to wait for Lily by the Fat Lady, who'd resumed snoring rather loudly.

Lucky old hag.

When Lily finally did come trudging up the steps, she was soaking wet with what I could imagine was toilet water, judging by the look on her face.

"It's no wonder Myrtle didn't have any friends!" Lily yelled down the stairs to no one in particular. "I only asked her if she'd seen anything funny lately and she got upset because she's dead!"

I did my best to look sympathetic. "Do you really have to check in there?"

It was sort of known that you should avoid the first floor bathroom unless you wanted to listen the eternal lamentations of Moaning Myrtle or, like in Lily's case, be soaked in toilet water.

Lily huffed and tapped the Fat Lady's portrait. "Now we're going to have to push back the prefect's meeting ten minutes, just ridiculous!"

"Damn. And I was so looking forward to being on time," I said.

She glared and presented the password (lollipop), and I elected to wait by the stairs while she changed.

"What are you doing up this early?"

I looked up from the rather fascinating study of my cuticles to see James, barely awake, trudging down the boys' staircase.

"I could ask you the same thing," I said, "when's the last time you showed up for a Prefect's meeting?"

James looked startled. "Bloody hell, was that today? Evans is going to kill me."

I laughed as he ran back up the stairs, muttering something that sounded a lot like "shit" all the way.

Lily came back nearly on time and practically toppled me trying to drag me towards the portrait hole. "If we run, we can still make it! Has everyone left already? I know Remus is out today, you know he's been under the weather lately."

I tried not to snort at the innocent idea Lily must have had in her head about Remus' whereabouts.

"I saw Sam Lee and Ingrid, er, I dunno her last name, but they've left," I said, trying my best to keep up as we raced down the stairs.

Lily skidded to a stop in front of the Transfiguration classroom, where several prefects were already waiting.

I took a seat at the back of the room, in my usual desk I shared with Remus, and watched a few stragglers enter, including a wind-blown James Potter, who looked more disheveled than I'd ever seen him.

"Sorry I'm late, everybody!" He boomed, joining Lily at the front of the classroom.

She just stared and cleared her throat, clearly annoyed even though she'd only arrived moments earlier.

"Now, if everyone could pull out their class schedules, we can get started. Potter, the minutes please."

James looked sheepish. "The what?"

Clearly I've got my work cut out.

Since I'd spent the whole week following Lily around and gathering just what James was supposed to be doing (mostly through the thinly-veiled insults Lily provided), I was looking forward to doing absolutely nothing with my weekend.

Fate, or more specifically Professor Flitwick, had other plans, and I was to resume my detention from the previous week cleaning the Charm's classroom with Sirius, who complained about missing Quidditch practice so much he'd earned a double as well.

However, that meant cleaning went much faster, and even Flitwick couldn't argue the place was spotless after an hour, and we were free to go.

Sirius dashed off to catch the tail end of practice, I suspected only because he hated being yelled at by James when he was in Quidditch Captain mode, and I decided to make my way to the Hospital Wing to see if Remus was allowed to leave yet.

Pomfrey, the school nurse, had yet to allow Remus to even get out of bed, despite his insistence that, like the hundred other times he'd gone through this, he was completely fine after a few days. Usually myself or one of Remus' other friends annoyed her enough after one or two days to get her to give in, but we'd all been exceptionally busy, and it was going on a record five days we'd been unable to spring our friend from the clutches of bedrest and Pepper-up potions.

"So you've not been able to slither out yet?" I said, sitting next to the bed my boyfriend currently occupied and poking him awake.

Remus blinked several times. "Well since you've ruined my fake nap, no, I haven't. That woman's like a hawk. I keep hoping she'll walk away long enough for me to escape if I pretend to be sleeping, but nothing's worked yet."

I patted his arm. "Chin up, now that I've finished detention we've got the whole day to brainstorm. I'm thinking a diversion, how do you feel about dragons?"

Remus laughed. "Not wonderfully. And what was this one for, I thought you'd already done Flitwick's?"

I sighed, leaning back in the chair. "Apparently the talk Dumbledore had with Sirius and I didn't count. To be fair, the Charm's classroom was filthy, and only an idiot gets detention the first week."

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing," Remus said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, then quickly dodging my arm as it went in for a well-deserved smack. "I have heard you've been following Lily around though, what's that all about?"

I shrugged. "Nothing, really. Marlene thinks that if James does a better job with his Head Boy duties Lily will finally agree to go out with him and we won't have to listen to them fight anymore," I said. "So I have to figure out what he's supposed to do."

"I see," Remus said, clearly trying to hide his shock that'd I'd agreed to a plan that not only had me up at the crack of dawn each day, but had been suggested by none other than Marlene McKinnon. "How's that going?"

"Terribly," I said, putting my face in my hands. "Even if I do figure out every single little thing I doubt anyone would even be able to convince James to do it. Honestly, what was Dumbledore thinking?"

Remus sighed. "He must have some sort of reason. I mean, for all his behavior James is a good student."

"Yeah well, he's a shit prefect. You should hear Lily."

"I do. All the time. At every possible chance," Remus said, grimacing. "With how much she brings him up to the rest of us, you'd think she was obsessed. I swear she's started every morning with an anecdote about how much trouble James is."

I'd also found that to be true. Every time she gathered the other prefects together it always started with "since the Head Boy isn't here today" or "Potter was supposed to do this" and even a few "James Potter is an utter git"'s that sufficed as answers to any questions about extra duties Lily didn't want to give actual answers to.

"Well, unless you can figure out a way to get James to ditch Quidditch for a 'scheduling strategy meeting' I doubt anything is going to change," I said wistfully, suddenly remembering all the hours of sleep I could have gotten if it hadn't been for James stupidity. "Besides, it's not like it's going to make a bit of- what is going on out there?"

There was indeed a commotion and I poked my head out to get a better look at what was happening. Pomfrey was yelling at two Slytherins who'd just brought in their friend, maybe a first or second year, who was leaving a trail of vomited slugs in her wake as she was half dragged towards the hospital desk.

Remus peeked around me, then slid on his slippers. "I think I see my chance. Let's make a run for it, and watch the slugs!"

I giggled and grabbed his hand as we ran out of the Hospital Wing, Pomfrey's irate shouting following us all the way.

A/N: Thanks for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing, I'll see you all in a few days!

xx Val

toolazytologin: I totally remember you! lol it is terrible that the name got ruined isn't it? Now I wish I'd named her something different!