Title: Reckless Abandonment
Author: Nesma
Disclaimer: Not my world.
A/N: Ah. There are parts of this chapter that I like and dislike. But I promised myself I would publish this story and finish it once and for all. Flaws and all. I do like it. And I think a lot of the interactions here are based on how I acted when I was seventeen. Childish, yes, but I guess that's what being seventeen is all about. I hope you enjoy it!
"You came!"
Lily quickly turned around in her arm chair, to see James grinning down on her, his arms resting at the head. Giving him her own smile, Lily replied, "Yeah. You were right. It was fun. Didn't realize you had such a fan club though…"
"If you were aware of their existence, would their presence have awoken some jealous, beast in you causing you to realize that you could only stand being my one constant girl?" James said, smiling as he plopped in the armchair next to Lily. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down and Lily could hardly stifle a laugh.
Lily just rolled her eyes, "Doubtful. But I can't believe what awful flyers they were, they really think that you would fall madly in love with them with their inability to fly?"
"They're hoping I would them private quidditich lessons. But if you think that tactic is bad, you should see how often they play the sexual innuendos of Quidditch, they keep on hinting for 'private' lessons…" James said, laughter escaping his lips as he threw his head back. Lily laughed along with James.
"That's just gross and… ugh." Lily said, doing a slight shimmer as the thought of sexual innuendos with Quidditch. There were too many corny candidates to count.
"You have to admit, the wizarding world makes it very easy to make up sexual innuendos with wands and broomsticks…" James said, echoing her thoughts.
"James!" Lily cried, playfully slapping James with the back of her hand as she blushed furiously.
"Hey-ow! You know, girls don't realize it but they really can physically hurt guys."
"What are you talking about?" Lily asked, laugh a bit at him as her eyebrows were crossed.
"Alright, well, those 'slaps' and 'punches' can be pretty hard. Like the backhand slap. Then, with the small hands and long nails, your pinching ability can be absolutely painful. It's awful." James said calmly, his head resting against the back of the armchair.
"That's just sad…" Lily stated, she picked up her quill and homework, quickly making certain notes.
"Lily." James said, in a very pained voice that made Lily look up in bewildered state of James' tired expression.
"What?"
"It's Saturday." He said in an exasperated tone, and Lily bit her lip as she tried to figure out what he was trying to hint at.
"So?" Lily, looked up from her work, James seemed to have a pained expression on his face. His eyes squinting and his forehead wrinkled, while his hands were pushing back his bangs.
"You're doing homework. On a Saturday. How do you not realize that it's wrong?" James asked, pushing himself up to an upright sitting position in the chair as Lily squirmed a bit in her own chair.
"Well, Emmeline is doing some reading, Alice is with Frank, Marlene is running along the lake and I had nothing better to do…"
"Nothing better to do? Merlin's beard…" James said, messing up his hair as he stared disbelievingly at Lily. After a few moments of silence, James bounced up from the couch, looking considerably happier.
"Right. We're going flying."
"You're going flying?"
"No, we're going flying." He said, beaming down at Lily.
"I don't have a broom" Lily said simply.
"Lily, I know you're a woman… Hey! I couldn't resist. My only one, I swear." James said quickly, as he jumped out of the way of Lily's hand, his own hands were thrown up in defense. "But it doesn't matter, we keep spare ones down in the changing rooms. Good ones. So please Lily, we're going to go flying, you'll feel better – then we'll have dinner, then rounds, then you can go to sleep peacefully."
Lily bit her lip as she stared down at her homework. It did feel wrong to be working on a Saturday… but she had a lot… but she hadn't been flying in a while.
"Lily, are you saying, that you would rather do homework then flying? If that's the case then I will deduct points from Gryffindor."
"Well. If you're going to deduct points…" Lily quickly stuffed her parchment and quills in her bag. James, beaming brightly, waited patiently until Lily was ready to go.
It was certainly an odd sight for those who were in the Gryffindor Common room in the late afternoon, to see the Head Boy and Girl making a mad dash for the portrait hole; as if they were friends or something more.
"James, maybe this isn't such a good idea…"
James let out an exasperated sigh. "Lily. We're already in the locker room, I've 'borrowed' Sirius' brromstick so that you can actually borrow mine-"
"What if I crash it?" Lily asked, horrible images of her spectacularly crashing into the stands filtering through her mind.
James snorted, "There is no way in hell that you're going to crash it. I'll save it if you fall off"
"What? You'd save a broomstick before you'd save a human being?" Lily shrieked incredulously, but calmed down when she found the smirk on James' face.
"Relax. Of course I'd save you… after the broom of course."
"Of course." Lily affirmed, as she slug the broomstick over her shoulder, following James out to the Quidditich field.
It was late afternoon, the sun was settling down and the clouds were twisting together for a darker color. Yet, the wind was only blowing slightly and the chill in the air was more refreshing then cold.
Mounting the broomstick, Lily pushed off the ground, feeling the wind rush past her as she leaned into the broom, gaining more and more speed. She looped around the field while James did more risky stunts, diving and swerving. Laughter and shrieks filled the air as they flew into the night, it was only when the stars came out that they decided to stop.
"I thought you were going to crack your head open!" Lily gushed, as she pushed back her tangled hair.
James just let out a laugh, his tie undone, his shirt hanging out of his pants while his robes were carelessly thrown on him. "Lily, I wasn't even close to crashing into the ground… but you almost crashed into the stands!"
"Did not!" Lily laughed, her cheeks were flushed and her hair looked like a bushy mess, and she was blistering hot, but she could not have been any more happier.
James just rolled his eyes, "Right, so that flying at super high speed towards the stands and only pulling away at the last second was… very lame trick?"
"Shut up." Lily said, grinning from ear to ear.
Though flying was not her expertise, she was good enough to enjoy it. She didn't yelp or scream or faint at the thought of flying, but it was refreshing and fun to do.
"But you flew well, other then the trick, you should get your own broom." James remarked calmly.
At once, Lily's smile turned into a frown, her eyes quickly looked down as she pushed back a piece of hair. She was going to miss flying, the magic and the joys. Perhaps she could purchase one without Steven… no, what a silly question. What a dumb idea.
"Can't. Besides, I only use brooms every once in a while. Wouldn't be worth the galleons." Lily stated quickly, the words tumbling out her mouth. Lily took a peek at James to find him staring at her quizzically.
"I guess… but you seemed to really enjoy it. It's a great way of exercise, and depending where you live next year – you can always find an empty field or two. But, whatever, not my business." James said, coming to a stop at the Head Common's Room portrait. He turned around to face Lily, a twinkle lingered in his eyes.
"Well, thank you, by the way, I really had fun tonight. Too bad we can't use the brooms to patrol the hall, huh?" Lily said quietly, her eyes looking down the hall they were in.
"I know, right? I tried asking McGonagall if we could use brooms, it would be faster than running after a trouble maker – but no, the batty old witch just offered me a ginger snap and told me to get back to homework." James said tiredly, as if he was dealing with a toddler instead of an adult.
Lily let out a laugh, being able to perfectly picture McGongall's face turn into a disbelieving mess, her lips a thin line as James prattled on about the efficiencies of using brooms in the halls.
James let out a sigh, "Well, I guess we might as well patrol. But, um, I should thank you for coming out today to the try outs and flying with me tonight. I had a great time, we should hang out more often." James said, ruffling his hair and looked at the ground. Lily, just stood there awkwardly with her hands twisted nervously behind her back.
Then, James let out a nervous laugh and made his way down the hall, taking the same route he always took on Saturday nights.
Lily just stared at him, and wondered if the flip flop of her stomach had to do with the adrenaline or something else. She stood there for a bit, for the line was at the end of her tongue.
"Can't hang out together like that. The boyfriend might be jealous."
Why didn't she have the courage to tell him that?
The patrol through the halls was a quiet one for Lily. Her thoughts were scrambled through her head as she thought of the day.
There was something about James. The carefree side he showed Lily was not the one she was used to, and it was disturbing her. She always wanted to be in control, well, as much control as she could afford. She knew how to deal with Steven and her parents, she knew exactly how to act in every single circumstance but with James, none of the rules applied.
While she spent nearly the entire patrol time thinking about James, it certainly wasn't an infatuation. She wasn't falling head over heels in love with his reckless ways, but she was starting to accept his quirks. She was curious about him, how did he come to be James? What are his parents like? How did his mind operate?
So when Lily finally entered the Heads room, the exchanged between the Head Boy and Girl was much more amicable, and they both parted with smiles on their faces.
The seventh years were starting to feel the pressure from the courses. With the passing of the first two weeks, it became clear that the seventh years should get adjusted to a mountain pile of homework from each course. Every Sunday night, the common rooms would be filled. The Great Hall had study groups and the Library was pure academic hell.
It was the Sunday night madness.
Lily, was no exception. A top student, no doubt, but she always had homework on Sunday night. She always saved the 'icky' subjects for last or the long, tedious ones. So every Sunday night, her and her friends would scramble around, helping one another with homework. Where they did it always change, tonight however, the girls were in the head's common room.
"Shit, did we have homework for Transfiguration." A desperate Marlene asked, as she lunged for her planner, scuttling through the pages with her quill clamped between her teeth.
"Yeah, book questions – page. 343, questions 1-12." Emmeline said in a nonchalant tone, her eyes focused on her Charm's essay.
There was rustling from Marlene, flicking through the pages until slowing down. Emmeline was kind enough to avoid mentioning how many pages it took to show questions one through twelve. "Fuck. Did these take long?" Emmeline asked.
"Took me a while." Lily replied, as she quickly wrote an outline out for her Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
"I'm going to bullshit, hopefully this assignment is only for completion and not graded." Marlene said, as she quickly took a blank piece of parchment and started to write.
While the girls had just started to get into the groove of their work, after a good fifteen minutes worth of whining and moaning about the work, they heard the portrait door open once more.
"I told you we should have started that potion homework on Thursday! We're terrible at potions Padfoot- " Remus said, jumping through the hole, his back to the common room as the other boys started to follow him.
"Moony, would you relax? You're not terrible…" Sirius said arrogantly, his eyes rolling as he pushed back some strands from his face.
"Padfoot! Are you forgetting that infamous time with the Felix potions?!" Remus asked, practically pleading with Sirius' memory.
A bark of laughter filled the room, the girls stopped mid writing exchanging confused looks with each other. They were crouched behind the sofas, unusual, but they found it much more difficult to write with a small coffee table and a sofa that didn't allow for a ton of movement. Instead, they do their homework on the floor, allowing for notes and books to be spread out in some semi circle shape.
"Wormtail, I doubt anyone would forget about that…" A few more laughter were exchanged before Lily found her voice.
"James?"
At once, the girls found themselves staring up at the four Marauders, each wearing a look of bemusement on their face.
"Head Girl doing her homework so late? I wouldn't have expected such an intolerable act from such a model student." Sirius said, earning him a dirty look from James.
"Whatever. I just need to get the homework done…" Lily muttered quietly.
"The common room was just a rowdy mess" Marlene piped up, "And the library was just a bunch of First and Second years gossiping" Alice added.
"Well, we wouldn't have known since someone got us banned on the first day back…" Remus said with a hint of a smile, giving Sirius an accusing look.
"I was doing my homework! Merlin's beard! I was told to practice summing charms and so I was seeing how well I could get a book from the bookshelf…"
"Yeah, except you brought down the entire bookshelf down, creating a domino effect. Now, our ban exceeds into our eighth life time." Peter said happily, as he dropped his books down next to Alice, and taking a seat.
"Wormtail!" Sirius cried out incredulously, "What? I need to get homework done!" Peter said defensively, and opened his Potion's text book and started doing the problems.
Remus just shrugged and took a place near Marlene, quickly catching up with the questions. While James took a spot near Lily, cracking open his own Defense Against the Dark Arts and quietly scribbled his notes. Sirius stood standing for a few seconds, before he succumbed and joined the homework group.
"Thank Merlin we don't have to do patrols tonight." Lily muttered breathlessly as she slammed her Defense Against the Dark Arts book shut.
"Who does?" Remus asked, scribbling away in the margins of his parchments.
"Slytherins" James retorted, furrowing his brow as he read over his own Charms' essay.
"Who got prefect from Slytherin this year?" Sirius asked.
"You know… I didn't really check out the names-" James said, his hand going to the back of his head as Lily knotted her eyebrows together.
"Sirius! Are you being sarcastic? It's your brother and that awful Lisa Stafford girl, but surely you knew that…" Lily shot out, looking at Sirius who wore a look of pure anger.
"Of course. Regulus is prefect, my parents are so proud of him…" His tone was biting and suddenly, a chill spawned out in the room. Lily looked awkwardly at her book, her fingers tracing the letters while the others were writing or coughing awkwardly.
"Well, I'm off to bed. I'm done with all of my homework." Remus said. "Padfoot, wanna come?"
"Sure. Why not?" He said, Peter automatically following suit.
"Well, we better head off then too…" Lily said, the other girls were pulling themselves off the floor and picking up their scattered notes.
"Wait, Lily, you mind reading over my charms essay? I swear I screwed up something in the essay but I can't find where it is…" James asked.
"Sure, why don't you guys go ahead? I'll meet you in the dorm." Lily said, as her friends walked out of the portrait holes with the Marauders.
Lily sprawled out on the floor, lying on her stomach and kicking her legs in the air. "Pass over the essay."
"Thank you…" James said graciously as he slid the essay over to her.
There was a moment of silence as Lily skimmed through the essay, everything seemed to be in order…
"You know that Sirius isn't living with his family anymore?" James said quietly.
Lily's head snapped up and looked at James quizzically. "What?"
"He… he sort of ran away or got kicked out last year. He's burnt from the Black Family tree. He actually lived with me for a while." James said, biting down on his lower lip as he ruffled his hair. A nervous tick that Lily was starting to recognize.
Lily's mouth fell open, a sudden rush of guilt crushed her chest. "Oh God, I mean, Merlin. And I acted like an idiot!" She cried, as she let her head and legs fall to the floor.
"An idiot? No, not a lot of people know about it so it's alright. He's just very touchy on the subject of his family. He hates the whole lot of them." James said, shrugging.
"But they're family." Lily said in a manner of a fact tone.
"So?" James retorted back.
"So, James, he should work it out with him, I mean, if you can't trust on your family who else can you?" Lily asked, lifting her head to look at James.
James let out a sigh, "You're right in one aspect. But, his family goes everything against his values. They think purity in blood is the most important while Sirius can't give a fuck whether you're a muggleborn or a descendant from Merlin. He doesn't believe in muggle hunting nor does he think that Voldemort is the greatest."
Lily nodded her head. "But… still, I can't ever imagine standing up to my parents like that, even if they disagree with what I believe." Lily said, feeling herself heat up.
"You're a lion, a Gryffindor, you're a brave soul and when the time comes, I'm sure you would if you were ever placed in that situation." James said confidently. He was so sure of his statement he didn't need to look over to Lily to see her reddening face.
Lily looked guiltily at the floor. "Their family, they are my Achilles' heel-"
"Achilles what?" James asked, turning to look at her.
"Achilles Heel, Greek mythology, pretty much my weak point." Lily muttered nonchalant.
"We all have those. I mean, if anything were to happen to my friends or parents I think I'd rather die then to live life without them. It's a melodramatic way of thinking but sometimes love does some crazy shit." James muttered, his glasses hanging off his nose as he leaned back on the back of the sofa.
"Tell me about it. I'm always worried that one day I'll open the Daily Prophet to see my house on the front page with the Death Mark over it…"
"I have the same fear." James blurted out, his eyes lowered onto the carpet as Lily looked at him curiously.
"But… you're a pureblood. Everyone knows that the Potters are as pure as the Blacks."
"It doesn't matter. The fact that my parents are aurors, and are willing to put their life on the line to save muggles, well, the pureblood community sees them as dirt. I'm as much as a target as you are." James muttered, lifting his heard and staring at the ceiling.
Lily bit her lower lip as she stared down on the charms essay, unsure if she should keep reading it or not.
"Are your parents active?" Lily asked, and James looked nervous for a second.
"What do you mean?" He asked, staring at the fire.
"I mean… are they on the front lines or behind a desk?" Lily asked, putting the essay to the side as she shifted into a sitting position. Her knees hugged close to her chest as she stared at James.
"Well. That's an interesting question." James said, staring at Lily. "My dad is currently in the hospital and my mum is missing from her mission." James said, staring at Lily's horror struck face before staring at the fire place.
"When did this happen?" Lily asked, tucking a strand behind her ear.
James heaved a sight. " They went on a mission in June. And I lived by myself from June to September. Which wasn't bad, we have a house elf who made sure I didn't eat too many sweets or blow up the house. I had no idea where my parents were except that they were, hopefully, alive somewhere. I mean, these kind of things happened all the time growing up and you have aurors for parents." James said, pushing some of his hair back as Lily averted her gaze. Unsure of what to make of parents who willingly put their life on the line over and over again.
"How did your parents become aurors?" Lily asked, trying to shift the conversation to something normal. Something that she could relate to.
A small smile came to James' lips. "My father went through the official auror training. He did everything by the rule, got the grades and completed the training. My mother, well, she's always marched to the beat of her own drums. She has a knack for languages. Really though, it's bloody crazy how many languages she can speak from Mermaid to Giant to Arabic to Chinese… anyways, she's always been used as a translator within the Ministry until they realized that they could use her as an under cover agent within the auror department. That's how my parents met."
Lily nodded, leaning back so that her hands were supporting her position. "That's really interesting. I think my parents met in school. Typical love story." Lily said, shrugging as James smiled at her.
Lily hesitated for a second before finding the courage to ask, "What-what happened with your parents? Why is your dad in the hospital? You don't have to answer if you don't want." Lily said quickly, scanning James' face to see if there were any sort of hesitations or fear.
James took a rattling breath, and Lily instinctively moved herself closer to him. She rested her hand on his arm.
"My parents were off in Lebanon trying to counter the Death Eaters. Voldemort has nearly conquered England, but he's hungry for more. The Middle East is easy to infiltrate because their as crazy with pureblood as the British. The violence that the muggles produce are as bad as the dark magic. Anyways, by the time school rolled around, I hadn't heard from them… hell, I don't, I don't even think they know that I'm Head Boy."
"Oh, James…"
"No, it's fine. I mean, its life. Anyway, on September 1st, just before I was going to go over to King's Cross, I received a patronus from a Ministry Official alerting me that one of my parents was badly injured – but that I had to get on the train to Hogwarts, everything will be explained there."
"I was so… angry. I can't even began to explain it. Thank Merlin Padfoot was with me for the last few weeks as he practically tackled and cursed me to Kings Cross. Plus, Remus met us half way, he was already coming by early to go over Prefect stuff with me, and I had no where to escape. But the entire train ride all I could feel was the blood thundering in my veins, and I was looking for any excuse to just… pounce or hex someone. I couldn't wait for the train to reach Hogwarts but at the same time I wanted it to continue running and running so that I could have some shred of hope that my parents or at least one of them was alive."
James was breathing heavily through his nose, and Lily turned her head away but let her hand intermingle with James'. She squeezed his arm lightly, moving her thumb in little circles.
"When we finally got to Hogwarts, we had to do the ceremony, dinner, then rounds and then after all of that – I finally learned what happened."
"My father got hit with a powerful Dark Magic, crippled him completely, caused massive internal bleeding. The Healers were unsure if he was going to make it. So for weeks, they kept working on him and he lived. He still has his brain in tact, but he can't walk. Completely paralyzed. He's in those, wheelchairs now."
"Were you able to talk to him?"
James clenched his jaw and shook his head. Lily bit her own lip down in anger.
"And… your mom?" Lily asked gingerly.
Silence. Complete and utter silence filled the room, as the fire was dead and James' breathing had even out. Lily squeezed his hand tightly, horrified.
"We don't know where she is. Any day now, she should be coming home. My dad lost her after the first few weeks, they spotted each other randomly afterwards, but after he got hit… well, the Ministry won't let him go back out."
"I… don't even know what to say. Saying I'm sorry just sounds, fake. Horribly and utterly fake." Lily muttered quickly under her voice.
"Believe me, it's enough that you're here." James said quietly, offering Lily a small smile as he adjusted his grip on her own hand.
A spark went off in Lily's stomach, as their fingers adjusted to each other. She felt comfortable, safe within these hands. She let her head fall on his own shoulder as he let his rest on the top of her.
Lily left a while later. James stayed behind to do homework.
It was becoming the new normal to have someone in your intimate family personally affected by the war outside of the walls.
"I don't want to do rounds tonight!" James bitterly complained as he stretched out on the couch in the Heads common room. It was a Monday night, so obviously it had been a horrible day.
"Neither do I" Lily said, yawning a bit as she snuggled up in one of the arm chairs. It had been a tiring day for both of them. It had been long and filled with meaningless notes, and it didn't help that the weather outside was turning into the pretty autumn colors.
"Then, let's not go." James said simply and Lily let out a loud sigh.
"James – we have to go. We're Head Boy and Girl, we'd be setting a bad example for the rest of the prefects."
"Lily, come on! We never find anything exciting anyways except for horny teenagers and McGonnagall is the professor on duty tonight... though, it would be brilliant to see her face when she catches a snogging couple." James said wistfully as Lily gave him a friendly push.
"Yach, James!" She said, sticking out her tongue as James laughed.
"No! Think about!" James said excitedly, as he swung himself over to a sitting position. "She'd be already livid that we didn't show up, and then she'll come across two kids sucking face… it would be nice to see her yell at someone else for a change." James mused, smiling widely.
"You know she'd track us down if we didn't show up though…" Lily said as she started to stand up to get ready.
"Ugh, you're right." James said sadly, as he started to pull on his robe and pin his badge.
While Lily was putting her own robes, she was suddenly confronted with the image of a blushing McGonagall yelling at frazzled teenagers. It was quite funny…
"Unless we tell McGonagall we've been noticing odd behaviour in some of the classrooms. We could say that we've heard the same noises and while we keep on using various charms, the problem is quite persistent." Lily said quickly, turning around to face a shocked James.
The crackling fire was all that could be heard and for a moment, Lily thought that James was just joking about McGonagall and that he had no interest what so ever on pulling his old pranks-
"Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!" James muttered happily, pulling his robe tighter around him. "There is no way she can say no to you either! If it was just me, she'd tell me to go tell them off, but you, you are so innocent that you can get away with asking her such a request!"
"But we'd probably be told to go away so she can deal with the issue by herself…" Lily started.
"That's not a problem. We can use my cloak!" James said energetically and Lily eyed his black cloak strewed across the floor. Wondering if he had actually lost his mind.
"Um, that's not the greatest hiding spot…" Lily said, as she eyed James from head to toe.
"No! My invisibility cloak – if there was ever a time to use it, it would be now! And, I brought it with me…" James said, as he patted his robes and grinned widely when he hit a certain spot.
"You… own an invisibility cloak?! No wonder you got away with so much!" Lily yelled out in annoyance. "Is that how you catch all the troublemakers? You use that?"
James let out a snort. "Lily. Please. This cloak is used for good and noble deeds, like jinxing the staircase at night to make that one step vanish-"
"That was YOU?! You have any idea how frustrating-"
"or sneaking down to the kitchens at night for some hot chocolate while I'm studying into the early morning-"
"And you never bring me any?" Lily asked, narrowing her eyes at James who gulped quickly.
"This cloak has helped me with every important mission in my life. Tonight, you will have the pleasure of taking part of the most important one of them all – embarrassing McGonagall."
Lily rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her stomach. "McGonagall has been a professor for so long, I'm sure she's dealt with this situation a hundred times and over-"
"But she must have an Archilless heel somewhere! What if we find out what it is Lily?! Do you have any idea what this would mean?!"
"First off, it's Achilles' heel not Archilless' heel. Second off, there is no point of doing this-"
"I'm terrible bored and will do a shoddy job of patrolling for the rest of the year unless you help me find out if snogging couples make McGonagall feel embarrassed." James said quickly, staring hard into Lily's eyes.
Lily let out a grin. "How badly of a job will you do?"
"A shitty, horrible, devastating job. It'll be so bad, that you'd wish Sirius was given Head Boy title." James said, grinning ear to ear.
"Well, in that case, it looks like I have no choice." Lily said, lightly, shrugging her shoulder while James had a huge grin on his face.
"Alright, come here… this will be our plan…" James said, ushering Lily close as he whispered their secret mission in her ear.
"There you two are, right on time. Impressive Mr. Potter" Professor McGonagall told the two as they approached her.
James and Lily walked towards McGonagall, each had composed their face to be calm and serious like.
McGonagall immediately started to walk at a fast pace, letting her back face James and Lily. "I'll be handling the floors below and you two shall be patrolling the floors above. Remember the codes if you are to encounter danger. Any questions?"
James nudged Lily and gave her a pointed look. "Um, Professor McGonagall? I have a request." Lily asked timidly while James gave her the thumbs up.
McGonagall came to a halt, and turned around to face the pair. "Oh? And what would that be Ms. Evans?"
"Well, lately, I've been experiencing problems on the third floor – you know, where all the charm classrooms are?"
At once, McGonagall's lips turned into a thin line and her eyebrows shot up. "What type of problems?"
"Well, every time I've come close to the classrooms there are always odd noises, I can't really explain them. But I've tried doing various of charms to see if I could reveal what's going on – but it doesn't seem to help. And I'm not sure if it's a silly prank or something much more serious. Do you mind checking it out?" Lily asked nervously.
McGonagall was giving Lily a very strange look. Lily wanted to turn her eyes down, look away but James had told her, no, instructed her to stare right back at McGonagall. Apparently McGonagall thought you were telling the truth when you looked straight into her eyes.
"Have you had Mr. Potter check out the area? He's quite well versed with 'silly' pranks." McGonagall spat out, shooting James a menacing look.
"You see, I sort of did already." James interfered.
"What do you mean, 'sort of?'" McGonagall said sharply.
"Well, after Lily first told me of this dilemma, I thought I'd inspect it. So, I went during the day and found nothing and then at night, I heard the same odd noises too. And, as you know, Lily is one of the best witches at Hogwarts and she's in Gryffindor. She's done a lot of stuff that demonstrate her courage, like telling Sirius he looks like prat when he swishes his hair around. Wow. Not even I have that type of bravery. So, that got me thinking – If Lily is scared of these loud, obnoxious noises – then so should I! And as a minor child, I feel like you should interfere as the brave adult to calm our fears." James said, while McGonagall was giving him the diritiest looks of all time.
"Please Professor McGonagall? It'd really make me feel better knowing it's not some little monster hiding behind the door… like a niffler or something." Lily said sweetly.
Professor McGonagall let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling in disbelief. "Fine. For tonight, I'll go examine the third floor classrooms. James, you go below and Lily, patrol the upper classrooms."
"Thank you!" Lily said in a relieved way, as she started making her way to the end of the corridor.
"We really appreciate it!" James said brightly, as he took off behind Lily.
They both made it around the corner and James quickly tugged out the invisibility cloak, he draped it around himself and Lily. Thankfully, they were able to fit underneath it side by side.
"Walk slowly and carefully." James whispered into Lily's ear. Lily nodded and matched his pace as they made their way towards the third floor classrooms.
It didn't take long for them to reach the floor. And to their delight, McGonagall was heading towards one of the 'noisy' classrooms and they were in perfect sight to see the entire action.
McGonagall was stopped outside of the classroom door and was giving it a very mean, hard glare. Her lips were just a line, and her wand was clutched tightly in her hand. She took a couple of deep breaths as if she was warming herself up, before she opened the door and a look of disgust quickly came on her face.
"Stafford! Anderson! Get OFF of each other!"
James and Lily quietly laughed as Lisa Stafford and Blake Anderson quickly threw themselves off of each other. While they were able to separate themselves fast enough, it my no means help their state.
Lisa had messy hair, her robe was thrown off and her skirt was quite high on her waist. Then, to make matters worse, her blouse was partially undone and there seemed to be nothing underneath. But Blake wasn't much better, his hair was worse then James', his shirt was completely open and his zipper was open. It was pretty much a worse case scenario.
McGonagall was livid. Her wand that was clutched in her hand started to emit sparks while Lisa and Blake scrambled to make themselves more presentable.
"What do you think you do are doing? Out of bed? Exhibiting inappropriate behaviour! For Merlin's sake, at least keep it in the dorm rooms!" McGonagall said coldly as the color from Lisa and Blake started to drain. McGonagall continued to lecture them, with a slight color on her cheeks.
Lily and James were silently laughing. Lily had to bury her face in James' robes to cover her mouth when McGonagall started to yell about.
"… Never would have thought a prefect would do such a thing. Fifty points EACH from Slytherin. And if I ever catch you out of beds again you will be sorry. I will also report this to Professor Slughorn and I would strongly advise you go to the Hospital Wing for some… tips from Poppy." McGonagall ended, shutting her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Just GO!" she shouted out and Lisa and Blake just ran out of the classroom.
Lily and James just stood as they ran, watching McGonagall look around the classroom with utter revulsion on her face. Her cheeks were fairly pink and she shook her head. "Thank goodness I don't teach in here." She muttered before turning around and patrolling the floor.
"We need to go, she might check up." James whispered horsely into Lily's ear. Lily took a quick intake of breath before nodding, and they shuffled quietly towards the corner. After they removed the clock, they each shared a smile.
Then, James leaned in close and whispered in Lily's ear. "We'll discuss this after in the Heads Common Room. I'll sneak back some butterbeers."
Lily just nodded, afraid that she'd let out a giggle if she opened her mouth. So, she quickly departed James with a huge smile on her face. Not realizing that she had a date with James afterwards.
After bumping into a rather frazzled McGonagall, Lily was reassured that the noises she heard from the classroom was nothing more then, 'Students demonstrating a lack of self control' and that she should not worry about them anymore. Lily nodded again and thanked McGonagall for dealing with the problem before promptly running towards the Heads Common room.
Once Lily stumbled into the portrait hole, she was greeted by a bear hug from James. He laughed joyfully as he swung her around, Lily laughing just as hard. James set Lily down and at once they started talking in snippets and gibbersish.
"Did you see her McGonagall's face?"
"What about Blake's and Lisa?"
"How about how fast they ran?"
"Their look on their face…"
They erupted in laughter again and James placed a hand on Lily's shoulder. "I have to hand it to you, I never thought you would be a prankster. Congratulations. How does it feel to be a trouble maker?"
Lily shot him a smile. "I had no choice. My fellow Head Boy would have done a 'shoddy' job of patrolling." She said, as she plopped onto the couch and grabbed a butter beer.
James just grinned at her, and mimicked her actions. "Do you want to know a little secret?" He asked, and before Lily could respond, he whispered into her ear, "I was never going to do a bad job of patrolling if you didn't humiliate McGonagall."
Lily let out an obvious, audible gasp of surprise. With one hand on her chest, Lily started to rant in a sarcastic tone, "I'm appalled. I thought for sure you'd do an awful job."
"I know. I'm a convincing liar, am I not?" James said, before taking a swing from his butterbeer.
"She's going to hate us, you know?" Lily said in a serious tone, before taking her first sip from her Butterbeer.
"It was worth it. Just the look on her face…"
"Too bad we didn't have a camera."
James laughed, "The image of McGonagall's face is one that I'll never forget. I don't need a camera to remind me of that."
"Oh, but her speech! I can't believe she sent them to the hospital wing!"
"Well, knowing contraceptive charms might be important for them… and if they're done improperly because of their, 'lack of self control'… "
Lily just snorted, her butterbeer spitting out and James just howled with laugher as Lily attempted to clean herself up.
"You can help…" Lily said as she set her butterbeer down.
"No, no, I think I'll watch you make a fool of yourself." James said smirking, while taking another sip out of his butterbeer.
Staring daggers at him, Lily messily wiped her robe sleeve over her mouth before splashing her butterbeer into James' face. James, surprised, threw some of his own butterbeer onto Lily.
"I wouldn't fight with me Lily, I've got skills that you've never seen before." James said arrogantly as he grabbed an extra bottle of butterbeer from the table.
"You're on!" Lily shouted, as she flourished her wand to cause both of James' bottles to explode.
At once, they started to have a duel with a bit of a butterbeer fight. At the end, they each called truce when Lily was sopping wet with butterbeer, giggling madly from a charm from James. While James was just as wet, and had a hard time standing on his feet.
"Finite" They both muttered and Lily quickly cast a cleaning charm on both of them. James heavily inspected his clothes afterwards.
"You're also so good at the charms, I don't think any house elf could do a better job…" James said, as he smoothed down his shirt.
"Thanks. I guess?" Lily said, as she moved closer to the portrait door, James fast at her heels.
"You realize that this is the first time we're actually walking back to the Gryffindor Common Rooms together?" James asked quickly as he tugged on the portrait's door.
Lily threw him a quizzical glance. "No, no, there had to be other times…."
"Nah, usually one of us stays behind to finish forms or homework. Or, we're so angry and mad at each other that we refuse to leave together…" James trailed off, walking backwards so he could face Lily.
"Huh. That's odd…" Lily said, looking at James as he swung his arms awkwardly while he walked backwards.
"But it is different. And exciting." James added joyfully.
Lily nodded along and continued the short walk with James up to the Gryffindor Common Room. Throughout the stroll they laughed, talked, and exchanged good nights as they each parted to their own dorm rooms.
A/N: Love it? Hate it? Review it!