There are muffled sounds coming out of the broom closet. A boy moans, and James winces, seeing Lily do the same. They have a silent staring contest, and when Lily invariably wins, James mouths "your turn next time", clears his throat, and knocks on the door.
"Head Boy!" he says. "Open up!"
He hears a few thumps, some whispering, and a Lumos as he tries not to imagine what could be happening only a few feet away from him.
Just as he steels himself to use Alohomora, the door bangs open. in the doorway appear Sirius and Remus, both of whom are flushed and red-faced. Sirius's shirt is on backwards, James notices with a sort of horrified detachment, and he's wearing Remus's trousers.
James stumbles back, and Remus takes the opportunity to slip past him.
"I'll be in the library," Remus says. he looks as though he wants to add something, then blushes even redder and walks away quickly.
Sirius is still standing in the doorway, but he nods tersely and pushes past James on his way out. "I'll be not in the library."
James stands still for a moment, trying to process whatever the hell just happened. He hears a laugh behind him and whirls around, ready for another unpleasant surprise, but it's just Lily, about whom he had completely forgotten.
"You did know they were... together, right?" she asks.
James rolls his eyes, still a bit on edge. "Of course I know they're dating, I knew they were dating before they knew they were dating. That doesn't mean I want to imagine my two best mates shagging in a broom closet."
"No need to get defensive," Lily says. "I was just wondering, you do tend to be rather oblivious."
And James would have ignored that, but it's spoken with such bitterness that he raises his eyebrows instead.
"Something you want to tell me?" he asks, and Lily shakes her head quickly. He's not sure, but he thinks he can make out a blush in the near-darkness of the Hogwarts corridor. Before he can investigate, she starts walking again, and James has to hurry to catch up.
As they stroll through the halls, James wonders if it might be the tiniest bit depressing that the best part of his week is spending half the night awake, sending people in various states of undress to bed, and looking out for intruders. He decides that, since said time is spent with Lily Evans, there is much to be said for patrol duties.
They talk about nothing and everything; about Potions and Quidditch and what Marlene McKinnon did to that fifth year boy who tried to feel her up; about the war and the werewolf directory and how every day more Muggleborns leave Hogwarts to go who-knows-where. Occasionally James will notice when Lily opens her mouth to say something, then visibly changes her mind and makes a comment about the Ravenclaw Seeker instead.
James doesn't say anything because he's pretty sure that he knows what she wants to tell him anyway, and because if he's being honest he wants her to ask. He's never been asked out before, especially not by one of the prettiest girls in the school who he, incidentally, had the biggest crush on in fifth year.
"Are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend?" Lily asks on the tail end of a discussion about the idiocy of the Ministry specifying and regulating a standard cauldron thickness. They've arrived at the entrance to the Gryffindor common room, but neither of them wants to go in just yet.
James shrugs. "I think i'll go stag," he says, and then pauses to giggle to himself for a moment while Lily watches, confused.
"Right, well," she says after his laughter has died down. "I was... I was, um, wondering if..."
James decides that it's time to help this poor girl. "If you could hire my services as a prostitute? Yes, but it's ten Galleons an hour, extra if we go to Madam Puddifoot's."
It's clearly a joke (and a rather funny one at that, if James says so himself), but Lily's laugh sounds very forced indeed.
With a decisiveness that she's been lacking all night, Lily reaches for her purse, counts out twenty galleons, and hands them to a rather dumbstruck James.
"I'll give you the rest Saturday," she says. "Four hours and no Puddifoot's, meet me in the Great Hall at ten."
Then she ducks through the portrait hole and is gone, leaving James to wonder how many prostitutes, exactly, Lily has hired, but more importantly whether or not their date will actually involve his trousers on the floor.