"James!" Lily called out. James turned, saw Lily hurrying towards him and waited for her. When she caught up, she had a worried frown on her face.
"What's wrong?" James asked quickly. Lily gestured for him to walk with her and they fell into step, James shortening his stride to match Lily's smaller one.
"We've been at school for a week," she growled. James was confused.
"I know that."
Lily groaned. "Yes, but James, we haven't organised the prefect's patrol timetable or a Hogsmeade weekend! What kind of Heads are we?" She rubbed her face with her hands out of stress.
James was at a loss of how to comfort her. Regardless, James was good at planning. It was an essential part of pranking, after all.
"Well, how about this: I'll do the prefect patrol timetable and give it to you in a couple of days to look over and perfect. You can choose the Hogsmeade weekend and check it with Dumbledore." James was nodding to himself. It was a good plan, with the added bonus of him taking initiative and taking the bigger task without sounding too cocky about it.
Lily looked doubtful. "You can do the timetable by yourself?"
James pretended to be offended. "Of course!"
"Well… alright. But you need to vary the patrol pairs because we want to promote inter-house unity. And factor in the fifth-year OWL study as well."
James took mental notes. "But OWLs don't start for like, eight months."
"Yes, so they'll start studying soon," Lily said firmly. James laughed.
"How about we do this month's timetable and just redo it each month?"
Lily thought over it. "That adds a bit of a workload… but we can handle it. It's a good compromise."
James observed Lily's face carefully. "Feel better?" he asked. Lily smiled and nodded. "Okay, well I'll get this done as soon as possible then."
He turned to walk away but Lily's hand on his arm made him pause. "James… thank you. You're not as bad at this as I thought you would be."
This made James frown. "You thought I would be bad at this?" he asked, a tad hurt.
"No! Well, maybe, but only because you have no experience doing this sort of thing and last year you were quite careless and I just didn't know what to expect from you and I'm just going to leave now before I make this situation worse than it already is okay? Okay, bye."
Blushing bright red, Lily scurried away from James, perhaps to organise the Hogsmeade weekend.
Lily's awkwardness made James smile. She was only being honest, and James didn't think that was anything to be embarrassed about. He appreciated honesty, which is why he always liked a bit of banter between them. Lily would always speak her mind and wouldn't hold back when arguing with James, which a lot of people did because they were intimidated or generally dishonest. Even a few people on the quidditch team dare not speak their thoughts in fear of getting kicked off the team.
James didn't think he was that bad.
Upon realising he was still in the same corridor as he was when walking with Lily, was now five minutes late for class and had Care of Magical Creatures out on the grounds, James sped off at lightning speed.
James, Sirius and Remus were sitting in the Room of Requirement. Peter was already behind in Transfiguration work and had to stay in class late just to catch up. James wasn't doing homework, but since Remus was, James decided to join him and Sirius tagged along.
He had just sorted out the first two weeks of patrol when Sirius was obviously bored.
"I have an idea."
"No. We're busy, Padfoot. This is important."
"It's about Lily, James! Hear me out." Sirius pleaded with puppy dog eyes that were unsuccessful.
"Yeah? Well so is this work. Let me finish first." James returned to the timetable.
"But I'm so bored!"
Remus sighed and put down his book. "Sirius, honestly. We're in the Room of Requirement. You ca literally do whatever you like."
"Away from us," James added. Sirius frowned but sulked into a corner, conjuring some brooms to float on.
James continued to tap his wand on the parchment. "Remus, would you mind patrolling with a Slytherin fifth year?" he asked desperately.
"Actually, yes. You're meant to keep age groups together, you idiot."
"But Lily said to promote inter-house unity!"
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yes, not inter-age unity, Prongs. You have got to listen more often."
"Whatever. You do it then. It's bloody difficult anyway!" James flung the timetable at Remus, who threw it back.
"No. You are doing this for Lily. Show her you can do something on your own for once." Remus gave James a stern look until James backed down.
"I have to restart the whole timetable now," he grumbled. "So if seventh years do the first shift on Monday, they can do the first shift on Friday as well… third shift Wednesday can go to sixth year Slytherins…
"Inter-house unity, James," Remus reminded him. James growled in frustration. This was never going to get done!
Eventually, Remus took pity on James. "Okay, fine. How about you make a list of each prefect. There are two fifth, sixth and seventh years from each house, so that makes twelve. Thirteen including you. So, randomly allocate three from each house throughout the week." Remus tapped his wand on the parchment and three Gryffindor prefects appeared on the table.
"I need to patrol with Lily," James said.
Remus looked suspicious. "That's not a school rule."
"Well, it'll make us look good."
With a sigh, Remus tapped his wand and the names James and Lily appeared in red (to represent Gryffindor, of course) every Thursday, second shift. Eventually, James caught on to what Remus was doing and took over, finally filling up the timetable appropriately. Each pair was made up of students from different houses, besides his patrols with Lily. Exhausted, he decided he'd had enough of work and called Sirius back.
"Finally!" Sirius shouted from the air. He was hanging upside down from an old broom. He dropped to the ground only to land on a soft mattress that was not there before. Sirius had really mastered the room.
"So, plans for Lily. Yes. I was thinking of a ball?"