disclaimer-Harry Potter does not belong to me, duh! Do I sound like a billionaire?...or whatever it is J.K. is now...

Chapter Four

"It's a plan…a good plan…a great plan…," James muttered to himself as he paced back and forth in front of the portrait hole, which was the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room. He was trying to reassure himself that the plan Remus had helped him come up with was going to be successful. He was so immersed in this, however, that he didn't notice Lily come up behind him.

"What plan?" She asked.

James jumped at the sound of her voice, and turned around, a panicked expression upon his face.

"Lily!" He exclaimed, glancing around frantically, trying to come up with something to say. "What are you doing here?"

Lily just looked at him strangely. "We agreed to meet here to do our patrols," she said slowly. "Don't you remember?"

"Our patrols…," James repeated slowly. "Oh, yeah…now I remember. So," he continued swiftly, trying to draw the conversation away from what he'd been talking to himself about before Lily had shown up. "What are we supposed to be doing on these patrols?"

"Patrolling," Lily replied simply.

"Oh, yeah, I knew that," James said quickly. "Patrolling, of course. What else would we be doing on patrols?"

Lily could only nod, as her mind raced to figure out just why the Headmaster had appointed James Potter, of all people, to be the Head Boy.

"So," James continued speaking. "Are we allowed to talk while we're patrolling?"

"Er…sure…," Lily said slowly, trying to find a hidden meaning behind his words, but failing. "…was there something you wanted to talk about?"

"How was your summer?" James asked brightly.

Lily had no reply for that. Of all the things James could have asked her…of all the things she would have expected him to ask her…. He asked her how her summer was? Now Lily really was starting to wonder why James had been made the Head Boy; he obviously had some type of disorder that made him…say random things? No, maybe he was just a very random person? That would fit in with the side of his personality she'd seen for the past six years….

"Hello? Earth to Lily," James waved his hand in front of her face and she blinked, realizing that they had stopped walking, and were still in the Fat Lady's corridor, on top of that.

"Sorry," She said, a slight shake of her head. "You were saying?"

James frowned slightly. "Well, I asked you how your summer was and then you just sort of…stopped. Are you alright?"

"Oh, my summer was just great," Lily said with a sarcastic tone, ignoring James' second question and her reaction to his first. "Spending quality time with my sister is definitely one of my most favorite things to do," she continued, as the pair began walking again.

"Why do I have the feeling you're lying?" James asked, looking at Lily with the hint of a grin upon his face.

"Probably because I am," Lily replied, an answering grin stretching across her own face. But almost immediately it was gone. "My sister, Petunia, is jealous of me for being a witch. She's hates me for it; it's tearing my family apart. And it's all my fault," she added in a whisper.

"No it isn't," James said, trying to comfort the girl who now sounded as if she were close to tears. "You can't help what you are, and neither can your sister."

"She moved out so she wouldn't have to see me anymore," Lily said with a shake of her head. "When I went home for Christmas last year, she refused to come home that day, just because she didn't want to see me," she sighed. "Mum and dad tried to distract me from it, but I know that hurt them; it's still hurts them to see their only two children not get along."

James draped an arm comfortingly across Lily's shoulder. "It'll all turn out for the better in the end, just you wait and see."

A small smile graced Lily's lips at this, and a small laugh escaped her lips. With a sight shrug, she slipped out from under James' arm and took a few quick steps so that she was walking in front of him.

"You know," she began. "The summer really did do you some good; you're like a totally different person, now." And as her footsteps again increased in speed, James' slowed down. "I mean, we've been back at school for almost three days, and you have yet to prank or insult a single person. It must be some sort of record."

"I'm not a totally different person," James contradicted in a whisper so soft it was inaudible over his and Lily's combined footsteps. "I'm just being me…."

"Come on," Lily called from down the corridor, when she turned and saw that he wasn't directly behind her anymore. "Get a move on! We've got to get through this whole castle…"

"… and it was the strangest thing I've ever witnessed," Lily concluded as she conversed in a hushed tone with Remus over their schoolbooks in the library the following afternoon. "I've never seen James Potter show so much…compassion to someone else…to anyone else."

Remus just shrugged. "It's not a side of himself that he usually shows to anyone else," he said slowly. "But he's really trying to prove that he's worthy of the Head Boy badge. To tell you the truth, it was the biggest shock of his life when he received it, this past summer. To say that James wasn't expecting it would be the biggest understatement of the century."

Lily chuckled slightly before she spoke again. "But who is he trying to prove himself to?" she asked slowly, remembering Remus' earlier word choice. "All those years of pranking and disregarding the rules, why stop now? I'm not saying I approved of all that," She added swiftly, noticing the incredulous look Remus was giving her, "It's just a complete turn around for him to be so…law-abiding, now."

Again, Remus shrugged. "I haven't a clue who he's doing all of this for," He replied carefully. He smirked slightly. "I know it isn't Sirius; that's for sure. You should hear him moaning about how he has no one to prank people with now."

Now, Lily laughed. "Maybe he should take a few lessons from James; they would do him a whole world of good."

Remus just shook his head at this. "I'm not sure if anything can help Sirius this far in the game. He's completely obsessed with that whole business of setting an unbeatable record for the number of detentions one person can get in their entire Hogwarts career."

"Don't give up all hope just yet, Moony," A voice said from behind where Remus and Lily were sitting. Both jumped the tiniest of bits and turned around to see James standing there, a slightly bemused expression upon his face.

"How long have you been standing there?" Lily demanded, an undertone of suspicion in her voice.

"Long enough to hear you, Moony, my dear, misguided friend, pointing out all of poor Padfoot's faults," James replied easily. "Why? You haven't been talking about me, have you?"

"Not at all," Remus replied smoothly. "Although, now that you bring up the subject of you, what are you doing in the library, of all places? This is hardly your favorite hangout, is it?"

"I was looking for you, Lily," James replied, turning to his fellow head student. "I've just been speaking to Dumbledore about some of our Head duties."

Lily frowned slightly. "Forget to invite me to the meeting?" she suggested, a clearer hint of a glare present on her face, rather than the grin she had worn just minutes earlier.

"Oh, no," James said swiftly, his tone vehement. "The headmaster stopped me in the…er…corridor, I was just going down to the…er, lake. Anyway, he was telling me that we have to stop by his office sometime in the next couple of weeks to start talking about the Halloween banquet, permanent patrol schedules for the prefects, that kind of stuff…. He asked me to pass that along."

"Oh…," Lily said softly, a bit embarrassed for her blatant overreaction, and not knowing what else to say in response to the message he'd just delivered.

James nodded, a knowing smile creeping onto his face as he did so. "Jeez, Lil, for a second I thought you were going to rip my head off there," he paused, a thoughtful look upon his face now. "Although, you do hate me, so I suppose that's to be expected."

"You suppose correctly," Lily snapped, suddenly standing up and closing the book she had been holding shut. She stuffed that, her quill, parchment, and ink into her bag and stalked out of the library without a further word to either James or Remus.

James just smiled after her happily, and Remus looked at him as if he'd gone crazy.

"I thought the plan was to get on her good side," Remus reminded his friend. "You're supposed to show her the real James Potter; the one who's actually capable of being nice to people. That means being nice to Lily."

"I was being nice to Lily," James said with a wave of his hand. "I just had to make sure she still hates me, that's all. And she clearly does, so mission accomplished."

At this pronouncement Remus groaned. "You aren't still on about that whole thing about there being a difference between hatred and indifference, are you? I always knew there was a good reason I felt the urge to not talk to you when we met, back in first year. Why do you still insist upon making Lily hate you?"

"Because," James explained, as if it were quite obvious, "those who hate me are my friends, and those who love me are my enemies."

Remus looked at his friend incredulously. "Yeah? And how, exactly does that work out?"

"You see," James began, "it's quite simple really. Take you, for insistence. We're friends, aren't we? Well you're always saying how annoying I am and how much you hate me for it. And Sirius hates me because I won't prank people with him, anymore. And Peter…," James trailed off, a slight frown on his face. "Well, actually, Peter hero-worships me…," he shook his head slightly as if to clear it, and refocused on Remus. "The point is, you and Sirius both hate me, but we're still friends, aren't we?"

"What about all of the people who claim to love you?" Remus reminded his friend.

"Easy," James said simply. "I don't want a fan club—although I must admit it is quite nice—therefore, all of the girls in it who 'claim to love me' as you put it, are my enemies."

"What about your parents?" Remus pressed. "Haven't they ever told you that they loved you?"

"Yeah, along with telling me that I had to eat my vegetables or die of a vitamin insufficiency," James relied shrewdly. "How loving is that? They're my enemies, I tell you. Who really wants to eat vegetables?"

Remus merely rolled his eyes at this. "Not the point. The point, is that while you have made several successful attempts in making Lily actually like you as a real person, but you've completely cancelled all of that effort out by continuing to make sure she 'hates' you. That wasn't a part of the plan."

"No," James contradicted, a mysterious smile upon his face. "It wasn't a part of your plan. It has everything to do with my plan."

And without a further word, James exited the library, unknowingly tracing the exact path Lily had taken. Remus shook his head once more as he watched his friend go.

His intentions were good, really. All he had wanted to do was help make Lily, his friend, realize that she really was meant for James. And to do that, he had had to help James come up with a plan to get Lily to see the side of James he rarely showed to…well, anyone. And his plan had been good; James had even helped with it, no matter how planning-impaired he claimed to be. And James had made some serious progress with Lily the night before. Remus could only hope that it hadn't all been for naught.

a/n-i hope you all liked the chapter...er, not sure when I'm gonna update next. I've got other stories...well, one in particular that is feeling a tad neglected as of late, I should probably update that sometime in the coming weeks...Speaking of my other stories, if there's anyong reading this right now who has read my story The Parent Trap please go to my profile and vote on my poll! If you want further...information, i suppose you could say, go to Ch. 25 of The Parent Trap...Thanks again to my beta Rider Arya Svit-kona.