Disclaimer: I would be able to afford a new Ipod if I was J.K. Rowling. Sigh...

A/N: First, I would love to give thanks to all of the wonderful people who reviewed! Lily Hermione Potter, Mouse and Stupid Productions, Isolde Eris, zhangie, piggy396, C.C., CaramelBoost, AnIrishLily, pigs can fly, Snaily, ThEiNsAnEoNe, James-Padfoot, Whitelight72, APWBDumbledore, Amber Tinted, and my-brutal-romance. I'm serious when I say that you are all amazing! Thank you so incredibly much.

So, I've had a pretty tough two weeks. Last weekend I got the flu; it wasn't very pleasant, to say the least. However, I got better just in time for the beginning of TRACK SEASON! Oh, yay, I love track. So, those two reasons combined is why a) I didn't have time to send out replies to reviews and b) this update is a week late. I'll try to get out replies to all of your reviews this time around.

I also dropped my Ipod in my toilet last weekend...Don't ask me how I managed that one, because I really have no idea. It all happened in such a devastating blur that I'm having trouble recalling why I even had my Ipod in the bathroom in the first place. Gosh, I'm smart. So, now I have no Ipod. You know, you really don't realize how much you depend on your electronics until you drop it in the toilet. Stuff like that tends to make you realize the important stuff in life. Haha, I'm totally kidding, but I do miss my Ipod.

Anyways, I'll stop my pointless ramblings (and if any of you are still reading this author's note, I'd be extremely surprised...) Oh well, so, on with the next chapter. Actually, before we dive into the adventure, I would like to clear up something.

Snaily: Oh, I thought this would come up. I think the debate between whether or not James Potter was a seeker or a chaser must be the most thought about question in the history of Harry Potter fanfiction. However, I'm pretty sure J.K. Rowling said in an interview that James Potter was actually a chaser. If I'm wrong, please correct me, because Harry Potter fans seem to be split down the middle with this particular question.

This chapter was hard to write. I re-worked it so many times. I hope I got it right in the end. Thanks for reading and please review:)

Chapter 4: Apologies from Satan

Tap, tap, tap…

Lily glanced to her left, easing up on her quill as she did so. Marlene was currently resting her elbow on her desk, her head held in her right hand as she tapped her quill against the side of her desk. It was as if Marlene thought that the distracting noise would keep her from falling asleep while smack dab under the nose of Professor McGonagall. Transfiguration had always been Marlene's least favorite subject.

"…though you've all hopefully mastered the spell by now, your N.E.W.T.s will most definitely—Miss McKinnon!"

Marlene's head snapped up and Lily could have sworn she heard something crack painfully. "Professor?" she asked, rubbing the back of her neck while she tried to focus her dazed eyes on the strict headmistress.

"As I'm sure that White Magic isn't looking for a new drum player, you can kindly stop banging your quill against your desk," McGonagall commented, peering down at Marlene with a stare that made many students want to disappear into the floor.

With one final look at Marlene, their professor turned her back to continue writing her notes on the board behind her. Almost instantly, Marlene resumed her position from earlier as Dorcas and Lily tried to contain their laughter.

Tap, tap, tap…

Lily shared an amused look with Dorcas and cracked a smile before she resumed her note-taking once again. Her head was bent low, her long, red hair sweeping across her face and over her shoulder. She brushed it away impatiently and dipped her quill tiredly into her pot of ink. Taking notes always was rather dull, but without notes any hopes of passing exams was ludicrous. Marlene continued to create music with her writing utensil as someone behind Lily could be heard crumpling a piece of parchment.

Tap, tear, tap, tear, tap…

Someone sneezed from the front of the room and Dorcas ruffled through the papers on her desk in hopes of finding a spare piece of parchment. "Here," Lily whispered out of the corner of her mouth, grabbing a piece out of her bag and handing it over to her blonde-haired friend.

Dorcas nodded gratefully. "Thanks."

While Professor McGonagall continued on about the importance of being able to transform vertebrates into small household appliances, Lily found that her quill was running dry on ink again. The scratching of her quill upon her paper ceased momentarily as she dipped her quill into the small pot full of black liquid beside her. Just as she went to begin scribbling notes down yet again something hit her sharply in the elbow. Her hand spazzed out and a long, black line smeared itself all over Lily's freshly written notes.

"What the…?" Lily mumbled to herself, casting a look around to try to find whatever had rudely ran into her arm.

Her emerald orbs finally landed on the unfortunate culprit; a balled up piece of paper. A note? Who'd sent her a note? She quickly glanced back up towards the front of the classroom where McGonagall still had her back to her class. Curious as to who had written to her, Lily bent down and grabbed the lump of parchment. Hoping that the noise of her restless classmates would drown out the noise of crinkling paper, Lily slowly unraveled the jumbled mess.

Evans,
Remus backed out for Thursday. Need a new replacement.
James

James? Potter? What the heck was he playing at? He was just trying to get her into a detention. That git. Glaring at the innocent note as if she could send a hate message to Potter through it, Lily shoved it to the edge of her desk and promptly ignored it. She knew agreeing to change the patrol duties for Thursday would just cause her more work. Potter had promised he'd gotten it all figured out! A feeling of idiocy swept through her; why had she trusted James Potter to work things out of all people?

Promising to herself that she'd deal with this later, Lily busied herself with listening to her teacher. She was just falling back into her stupor of listening to Marlene's dancing quill and the sharp voice of McGonagall before something struck her in the back of her head. A deep voice snickered from behind her.

Immature idiots. Lily scowled, her fists clenched, as she concentrated with all of her might on the notes being written up on the board. It was a difficult feat considering that every few minutes she felt something lodge itself into the back of her head. It wasn't until a particularly large piece of paper hit her in the back accompanied with an obnoxious "Pst!" that Lily lost it.

"What do you want?" she hissed, turning around in her seat sharply and allowing her eyes to fall upon the four Marauders.

James grinned, his hazel eyes brightening from behind his glasses. "The point of passing notes is for the receiver to return one back."

Sirius laughed quietly, his arms resting casually across his chest, his chair propped up on its two back legs only. Remus rolled his eyes as his quill continued to move across his paper. Peter's eyes were screwed up in a look of strong concentration, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he scribbled words across his own parchment.

"Is something wrong, Miss Evans?" McGonagall asked, approaching the redhead's desk as she looked from James to Lily.

"No, Professor, Lily here was just asking me for a spare bit of parchment," James answered, crossing his arms over his chest in a relaxed manner. For a split second, Lily could have sworn that their professor had glanced suspiciously at the pile of blank paper on the tip of Lily's desk. She attempted to pull a look of innocence onto her face. Either McGonagall actually believed James, or she just didn't want to deal with it, because without a word she turned on her heel and began her lecture again.

Groaning in an irritated fashion, Lily faced the front of the room with a dignified "humph". Dorcas and Marlene gave a questioning look which Lily waved off in such a way that promised her two friends that she would tell them later. She was determined to not give into Potter's demands. She'd already done that once and she wasn't—

Smack!

Another balled up piece of paper flew over her head and bounced off her desk and onto the floor. "That's it…" Lily said to herself. If it was a note he wanted, a note he would get. Grabbing one of the many forgotten notes scattered around her desk, Lily balled it up and chucked it as hard as she could behind her.

"Ow!"

Lily grinned victoriously and was prepared to spend the rest of the double period of Transfiguration in a semi-peaceful manner before—

"Miss Evans, Mister Potter, this is the second time you two had disrupted my class. What, may I ask, is going on?"

It was just now that Lily realized just how loudly James must have cried out his declaration of pain. The whole class seemed to have their eyes focused on the two head students; Marlene had even stopped her noisy quill. Her face began to heat up as Lily raised her head to meet her Professor's wrath.

"Uh…I was just—" McGonagall raised her thin eyebrows impatiently—"It's all his fault!" Lily exclaimed, the words tumbling out of her mouth incoherently. She wouldn't have said something so childish if she had had time to think of a good enough excuse.

James opened his mouth to protest almost immediately, brandishing his arms as if to emphasize his point. "You hit me in the eye!"

Lily whipped around in her seat, her long hair flailing out behind her. "Like it matters! You wear glasses!" The thought that the entire class, and even her professor, was watching Hogwarts' Head Boy and Girl bickering seemed to have slipped from both of their minds. Well, it had escaped from Lily's mind; James probably just liked the attention.

"It's the intention of the action that counts—"

"Enough!" McGonagall's eyes flashed dangerously, her lips parted slightly in a thin line which was never a good sign. Lily's blush deepened. "I would have thought the two head students would have set a better example. Detention—" Lily opened her mouth to protest—"for the both of you!"

Knowing it was useless to argue against the strict teacher and come out of it alive, Lily straightened her back against her seat with her head held high, determined to save some of her dignity. A couple of Hufflepuff students in the back row were sniggering; what Lily wouldn't give to tell them off. In fact, she had a lot on her mind that she wanted to share with one particular Marauder.

"Nice one, mate," she heard Sirius say as he congratulated James on, no doubt, living up to the Marauders' expectations of rule-breaking. What prats!

So, now, thanks to Potter and his moronic ways, she had a…detention? Head Girls weren't meant to get detentions! They were meant to be, well, spotless. She had never done anything wrong before—well, she had never been stupid enough to get caught, but still! Why did Potter always have to do this to her? She knew she shouldn't have gone along with James's idea of switching patrolling nights. Stupid Quidditch, stupid Potter, stupid notes…

Tap, tap, tap…

"Marlene! Quit it!"

OOO

Evil, eerie music—the kind in a movie that beats in the background when some victim goes to open a closet that they really shouldn't open—began playing in her head. She was headed to her doom, to her own personal hell. Spending two hours with James Potter grading third years' essays was hardly the night Lily had planned. All she had wanted was to catch up on some homework, perhaps play a game of chess with Dorcas; was that really too much to ask?

"Miss Evans, glad to see you're on time."

Lily entered into McGonagall's office, not the least bit surprised to find that Potter had yet to show up. "'Evening, Professor," Lily greeted politely despite the absolute dread that had been building ever since the end of Transfiguration class that day. She felt her anger increase tenfold at the thought of Potter.

"We'll just wait for Mister Potter to show up…"

It was quite awkward standing in her teacher's office while the tight-haired professor re-organized a stack of papers on her already overly-organized desk. The glasses that rested on the tip of her nose slid down a bit and McGonagall pushed them back up with her index finger. For some reason, Lily could feel a type of tension in the air that made her feel like she'd done something wrong. Well, technically, she had otherwise she wouldn't have been standing here, but the situation was awkward nonetheless. Perhaps it had something to do with the distancing aura that seemed to always encircle Lily's Transfiguration teacher.

"Where is that boy...?" Professor McGonagall muttered to herself, cutting the building tension with the blunt tone of her voice. Lily turned her head towards the office door, wondering the exact same thing.

"Biscuit, Miss Evans?"

Lily jumped, staring down at the small, porcelain jar of baked cookies that her Professor was attempting to hand to her. For some reason, cookies and McGonagall just didn't seem to mix. Her mind chuckled at the image of Minerva McGonagall in a house apron. "Uh, no thank you."

A few seconds passed as her head of house placed the jar back into its designated place. Lily could feel the awkward feeling returning, until the pattering of footsteps was heard approaching McGonagall's office. Then, muffled voices reached Lily's ears, and the door flew open, swinging wide on its hinges. James walked in and Lily's foot began tapping impatiently on a mind of its own.

"Aw, Mister Potter," McGonagall stated simply as if she were used to seeing him after school hours, "nice of you to show—Mister Black, I don't recall giving you a detention for this evening."

Lily had been so absorbed in trying to melt Potter's very existence with her intense glare that she hadn't noticed the young man that had pranced in behind James. Sirius smiled at McGonagall, his dark hair falling into his eyes. "It's always nice to see you, Professor. I just had to drop by," he said charmingly.

Lily rolled her eyes. "You are leaving, aren't you?" she asked, desperately hoping that he was. Being stuck with just Potter was bad enough—add Sirius Black into the equation and Lily might as well Avada Kedavra herself, because she probably wouldn't survive the night anyway. Actually, they were the ones that probably wouldn't live through the detention.

Thankfully, her professor seemed to have been thinking along the same lines. "Leaving Miss Evans with you and Mister Potter is more than a unfair punishment," McGonagall stated, "If you want detention this badly, I'm sure I can arrange something with Argus Filch."

Sirius made a dramatic show of thinking the offer over; Lily and McGonagall both placed their hands on their hips. "I can assure you that I can get Argus down here rather quickly if I must, Mister Black," McGonagall threatened rather calmly as she re-shuffled some papers.

"Now, would you really do that, Ma'am?" Sirius asked.

Judging by the look that Sirius was receiving, it was pretty obvious what the answer to the question was. "Padfoot, mate, I'm pretty sure she would," James muttered. It appeared that all he needed was his best friend's advice as Sirius patted his friend on the back.

"See ya later then, mate. Don't go too hard on them, Professor—"

"Mister Black…"

"Rightio. I'm leaving." With one final wink, Sirius finally took his leave.

James was grinning amusedly at Lily—which she didn't return—as Professor McGonagall began giving out their instructions. "Well, now that both of you are here we can begin. You two will be grading these—" she indicated the stack of papers that she'd been straightening earlier—"essays for my third year classes. Maybe it will teach you two to cooperate." She broke her tirade by staring between each of them. "I'll be back in two hours." The two teenagers watched with different feelings as McGonagall headed towards her office door. "Oh, and Mister Potter, make the grades fair."

"Wouldn't dream of doing anything otherwise," James replied.

With warning stare and a snap, the door closed, and Lily suddenly felt like someone had just closed the cell to her own jail and had thrown away the key. So, this is what being in prison felt like. She was stuck with a criminal in a small room, wrongly convicted of a crime that wasn't her fault. Without uttering a word, Lily pulled out the chair from behind the now vacant desk and sat down in it.

A cough interrupted the silence. "Where am I supposed to sit?"

"The floor," Lily suggested coldly, cutting the stack of essays into two equal piles, refusing to even look at James. "Here," she continued, and dropped his pile onto the floor, causing some of the papers to scatter. She had always been good at letting out her anger in subtle ways, most of the time anyways.

"Nice, Evans, real mature."

Apparently, taking deep, calming breaths wasn't enough to subdue Lily's anger. If it weren't for him and his precious broomstick practice she would not have been humiliated in front of the class! So much for subtle anger hints. "You—" she stuck her finger under his nose—"are not one to talk of being mature, king of the five year olds."

With a flick of his wand, James conjured a chair out of thin air. There was a few seconds of silence, but of course James just had to break it. "So," he began casually, disregarding her earlier comment, "did you get my note?"

Her rational level of tolerance exploded. "Oh. My. Holy. Merlin. What is wrong with you?" she stated, looking at James as if he was some three headed monster that had drool hanging from its fangs. He always knew just the wrong thing to say.

"You could have just replied to my note, you now," he said simply, his calmness with the situation completely causing her patience to pop.

"And where would that have landed me?" she replied sarcastically, flipping through the essays rather viciously.

She realized the irony in her question the same moment he had. "Uh…most likely here."

Not really having a smart-sounding comeback to that, Lily huffed impatiently. She glanced down at her wrist-watch; one hour and fifty-five minutes to go. The little minute hand on her clock face seemed to be going ten times slower than normal. What had she done in life to deserve this?

The two continued the silence as James crossed his arms and wordlessly Accio-ed his fair stack of papers off of the floor. That's when James apparently found it a good time to strike up a conversation again. He would just never learn. Trying to tame an enraged lioness was never a smart move. "Well, I guess we need to find another replacement for Thursday then."

Lily scribbled an 'E' on the top of Georgina Mill's paper before she slammed her quill down onto the surface in front of her. "We? There is no 'we' Potter. You got yourself into this. You were the one who needs your precious Quidditch time. You are going to find a replacement."

James shrugged tensely. "Fine." His eyes returned back down to the essay he'd been in the middle of reading before his hideous attempt to a civilized conversation. Minutes passed and then James began to hum rather tonelessly.

Slowly, Lily looked up at him, her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Will you stop!"

He looked up from his lap. "Stop what?" He began humming again.

"That!"

Her blood boiled as he grinned, ruffling up his hair in an old habitual manner. "Sorry, Evans."

His apology was hardly adequate, let alone genuine; annoying her was what he did best. It was his life goal. The only thing he would probably ever accomplish in life besides his winning record for most detentions by a Hogwarts student. Surprisingly, however, he did stop humming. He was trying to mock her with the silence, as if he were saying "Yeah, will if I'm not humming all you're going to hear is that annoying buzzing sound in your ears."

"Stop it!" Lily hissed again, throwing her quill down onto the table forcefully. Alright, so she'd let the silence get to her, but he didn't have to make the quietness so irriatating in the first place. Any other person would have thought Lily was going mental.

Apparently, James was the 'any other person'. An incredulous look spread across James's features, clearly signaling that Lily should be transported to St. Mungo's. "What? I'm not doing anything."

"Yes, you are."

"Fine, whatever."

Her hand was shaking out of rage and a large glob of dark ink slipped from the tip of Lily's quill and onto poor Andy Martin's homework. Growling, she whipped out her wand, waved it around the kid's essay, and the inky mess disappeared. No one talked. Actually, it would have been hard to tell if the two Head students were even breathing. They seemed to have locked themselves into an unspoken consent for a challenge to see who would crack first under the tense silence.

Tick, tick, tick…

Lily tried hard not to throw her watch up against the wall as she immersed herself into reading yet another essay where the writer clearly hadn't known what in the world he'd been talking about. She scribbled a loopy 'P' into the top, right hand corner of the paper before moving onto the next one. From a few feet away, Lily could see James out of the corner of her eyes. He flipped through his stack of parchment like he wasn't really reading a word.

It seemed like hours and hours had trudged by in silence. Lily had just finished grading the last student's paper when the door leading into the office opened. A flood of fresh air seemed to sweep into the room and Lily had to constrain herself from jumping up with glee.

"Alright, you two are excused. Please try to work together from now on. You were made Head students for a reason; don't give a reason for students to think otherwise."

Lily leaped out of her seat instantly. She straightened up her pile of graded essays and handed them to McGonagall. "'Night, Professor," she stated almost giddily. James stood behind her, his bag slung over his shoulder in a care free way. While she desperately wanted to skip away and leave, Lily knew that McGonagall would think of the action as rude. After all, the teacher had just given them a speech on working together—Lily didn't think that ditching her partner would be considered 'working together' in McGonagall's mind.

Finally, James had gathered all of his stuff and the two of them whisked off down the castle. Well, Lily whisked off; James tried to keep up with her brisk pace. Lily's heart clamped painfully as his voice rang out from behind her. "So, do you think Jake Collister would do it?"

Huh? Lily raked her brain for any hint of what Potter could possibly be talking about. Oh yeah, rescheduling patrol duty. The whole thing that had started this. "He was on duty tonight." She answered shortly without looking back at the messy haired boy.

"Right. Hm. What about that Marcia chick from Ravenclaw?"

"I dunno, Potter." Chick? Couldn't have the respect to call her by her full name?

"What about Sirius?"

Lily rolled her eyes, fed up with his incessant questions. "He wasn't, and isn't, a Prefect."

"Oh, sod it. He's responsible enough." Lily spun around and raised her eyebrows. "Er…ok, so, screw the Sirius idea."

The Portrait Hole leading into the Gryffindor Common Room was getting closer as they continued walking. It was beckoning out for Lily, calling to her, offering her a safe Potter free dormitory.

"What about—"

"—Potter! I. Don't. Know. Alright? I already told you that you're on your own!"

James frowned. "You know, you really shouldn't let a little thing like detention get you so twisted up."

She really should have just kept walking. But, that wasn't what fate had planned out for her that night it seemed. "No, no, no. Detention wasn't the thing that got me 'twisted up', Potter," she stated hilariously. "No, you got me twisted up! You always do that! You're insufferable!"

"Oy! I didn't do—"

Lily placed her hands on her hips in a mad fit of rage. "You always have to go out of your way to get me into to trouble—"

"Evans, I—"

"—You caused me to fall into that trick stair—"

"What? I did no such—"

"—You landed me in detention—"

"I didn't mean—"

"—You're ruining my reputation as Head Girl. I don't need that, Potter!"

A ringing silence rang throughout the deserted corridor. James appeared to be struck into silence as he simply stood and stared at the raging girl in front of him. He either was shocked at her outburst or hadn't understood a word she had said. With one final look of loathing, Lily spun on her heel and began to stalk away. It wasn't until she was a few feet away that Potter seemed to have regained his use of voice.

"Evans!"

Lily continued walking, well, more like marching, down the corridor. She had had enough of Potter. It was funny how the night before she actually had thoughts that he was turning into a good Head Boy. Ironically, the next day he had landed both of them in detention. He never did fail to amaze her.

"Look, Evans, I'm sorry!"

It felt like something had just smacked her upside the face. She halted quickly, tottering on the balls of her feet. Surprise at what she had just heard flooded through her, making her believe that she must be dreaming. There is no way that James Potter would apologize to her; it was an idea that Lily found absurd. She heard his feet approach her from behind and she quickly retained herself.

"Yeah, well," Lily fished through her mind to find something reasonable to say to that, "you should be." Perfect comeback. Short, sweet, and to the point. Alright, so it wasn't really 'sweet'. Merlin, why did her mouth always speak before she thought.

As she walked away she couldn't shake off the feeling of uneasiness. This type of character from James Potter was so out of the blue. It was almost as unrealistic as the thought that Petunia, her older sister, would one day realize that magic really did have its uses. Something was up. The Marauders were definitely playing at something and the ring leader was leading his pack.

Phew! (Wipes forehead) That was my longest chapter yet! Thanks for reading everyone!

Next chapter: A certain bet leads to a certain dare...

I'll try to get the next chapter up by next week. We'll see how that goes...

--HeyLookTheSnitch