James handed Lily the timetable the day after she requested it. He sat next to her at breakfast, and gave her the timetable with a smug smile. Upon close inspection, she pursed her lips and nodded.
"What, what's wrong with it?" James asked immediately. Lily shook her head.
"Nothing."
"Remus helped me with it," James elaborated. This made Lily laugh.
"Yes, I can tell. It's just… when I said promote inter-house unity, I meant promote and not force."
James was confused. "I don't understand," he admitted. Lily hesitated before showing him the parchment.

"Fifth years in particular will want the comfort of patrolling with their friends," Lily explained. She tapped her wand to rearrange the names. "Having them patrol in houses is fine for a few months. Sixth years, they need to be switched, but should also get the benefit of their friends. Same goes for seventh. So if we just tweak it a bit…" As she tapped her wand again, more names rearranged themselves. James could see house colours paired together. "And no one wants the same shifts each week, and you can't give the Slytherins all of the bad shifts!" But with a smile, she only changed one or two of them.

"You could have done this in minutes," James said grumpily as he helped himself to some breakfast. Lily bit her lip. "How long did it take for you?"
"I did an hour on my own, which got me to the second week. Then Remus stepped in and we changed the whole thing, which took another hour."
"This is what I meant when I said it was a lot of effort," she murmured and chewed some bacon. "Anyway, I checked with Dumbledore last night, and the Hogsmeade weekend will be the first weekend of October."
"Great. I'll get Peter to make up some posters," James said, but Lily disagreed.
"We're the Heads! We should do it! Or we could get a professor to do it?"
James grinned. "Nah, Peter loves arts and crafts."
"If you're sure…" Lily looked uncertain, so James grinned reassuringly at her. "Just don't make them too gaudy. Basic stuff, okay? They have to go in each common room."

"Everything will be fine," James said confidently. "Trust me."

Lily wasn't convinced she could, but James didn't have time to reassure her. He had to go to Transfiguration, and his mates were leaving without him! "I'll see you later," he said to Lily before running off after his mates. He reached Sirius' side and slowed to a walk.

"Do you remember the plan?" Sirius asked for the fourth time that morning. James nodded.

The pressure of Sirius' request meant that Transfiguration wasn't exactly a breeze for James that day. He had been coerced by Sirius to ask McGonagall a massive favour at the end of class – "Minnie likes you more than she likes me!" – and James couldn't concentrate properly. Sirius, of course, lazily flicked his wand. His desk turned into an armchair.

When Professor McGonagall noticed Sirius lounging in his chair making fun of James' failure, she came over. "Mister Black, what do you think you're doing?" she demanded. Sirius looked pleasantly up at her stern face.
"Minnie, you look wonderful today! Has anyone ever mentioned how young you look? There isn't a wrinkle on your face!"
Professor McGonagall frowned. "That does not answer my question at all. From this, I am going to infer that you are doing absolutely nothing but wasting time in my class."
Sirius shook his head. "No, ma'am." Wasting time in McGonagall's class resulted in detentions. "I was just about to add decoration to my armchair, a bit of charm work, you know?"

With a sound of contempt, McGonagall moved on. "Keep trying, Mister Potter," she said kindly.

When she was out of earshot, Sirius immediately began whinging. "See? She just bloody well adores you! What did I ever do to her anyway?"
James figured that was a rhetorical question and deemed it inappropriate to mention all of the pranks Sirius had played on her throughout the years – including dyeing her bun bright purple and bewitching her glasses to crawl off her nose each time she tried to wear them.

James eventually managed to transfigure his desk into an armchair that vaguely resembled the Gryffindor couches, he thought, a few minutes before class ended. Sirius was still reminding him of the finer details of what he called Operation Minnie.
"Don't forget to offer her a biscuit!" Sirius whisper-yelled as he walked out the door. James rolled his eyes and approached the professor.

"What can I do for you, Mister Potter?" she asked James as she packed up her teaching supplies. James grinned easily at her.
"Well, we've had this great idea, you see," James began, noticing her eyebrow twitch at his use of 'we'. "We were thinking of having a Christmas ball, maybe with a masquerade theme? Or a sixties theme? We haven't quite decided on that yet. But since it's our last year, I thought that having some fun before NEWTs began would be a nice idea…"

McGonagall was leaning on her desk in thought. "I suppose we haven't had a ball in such a long time," she muttered to herself. She still sounded unconvinced though.
"It's better than the Christmas prank Sirius had planned," James lied. Professor McGonagall frowned, but nodded.
"Well, if you and Miss Evans joined me –"
"Lily can't know," James said immediately. McGonagall was very curious.
"And why is that?"
James floundered for an excuse. "Because… um… well, it's a surprise you see."
"A surprise for Lily?"
"Actually, yes."
Professor McGonagall smirked. "What makes you think you can plan an entire ball without her help or without her knowing about it? You are the Heads of the school together, you know."
"I'm very much aware," James murmured, looking at his feet. Shyly, he admitted "I want to take Lily to the ball and I want it to be a surprise."
"You know how quickly news spreads around this school," Professor McGonagall pointed out. James nodded. "I think we could probably keep it a secret up until a week beforehand. That should be plenty of time for students to buy appropriate attire, don't you think?"

James grinned at her. "I certainly hope so, Professor!"