A/N: Hi! This is my contribution to "Jily October" which consists of making something in honor of our favorite couple. I spent the last five days deciding whether to publish this in parts or as a gigantic one-shot. I decided in parts felt better and less overwhelming. Basically, each chapter will be a different Halloween for Lily and James. I know some of you probably already know where I'm going with this. I already know where I'm going with this and I dread it.

Rated M for later chapters.

Disclaimer: All of this is Jo's.

October 31st, 1975.

It was the scratching of that bloody quill that irked him the most— not the fact that he was stuck in detention while his mates enjoyed a delicious Halloween feast. He could even tolerate that he was stuck there with the most maddening person he could think of. But it was the incessant scraping of her quill against the parchment, loud as nails on a chalkboard and moving at such a furious pace that he could see the muscles of her arm jolting against her pale skin, that really drove him mad.

James shut his eyes tight, willing himself to concentrate on his lines. But as he stared at the pitiful progress he had made in the last thirty minutes, all he could think of was the irritating noise she was making in the otherwise silent classroom.

"Evans," he finally said through gritted teeth. "Do you mind?"

It was as if she hadn't heard him at all for she continued to scribble her lines, eyes fixed stubbornly on her parchment. From where he was sitting, he could see her jaw working, fingers grasping her quill so tightly that they glowed a ghostly white in the dim lighting of the room.

"Hang on," he demanded, unable to contain himself. He could have gruffly ignored her and continued to sit angrily in silence, but there was something about her that he did not quite understand. "You're not angry at me, are you?"

Lily stopped scribbling all together, lifting her head from her parchment but still not looking at him.

"Why?" he all but yelped. "It's not as if it's my fault we're stuck in here!"

Now she really did look at him and he wasn't wrong when he guessed she was livid, her lips white as she glared daggers at him. What he did not expect was the sudden jolt in his stomach as her glare met his eyes. It stunned him so much that it momentarily dismissed all anger from his mind.

"You're joking, right?" she asked tartly. "Who was the one who thought it'd be hilarious to bewitch the Charms corridor upside down?"

James only stared at her, obsessed with figuring out what it was that made her look so... different. Luckily, she was too angry to notice, so he recovered and said, "It would have been if you had let me gone through with it."

In fact, she was too angry to even listen to him. "And," she went on, "Who was the idiot who gave McGonagall cheek when she caught us?"

It was her eyes. In her anger, her eyes looked brighter, green with tiny flecks of gold, like those mornings in the forbidden forest he liked so much when he would look up and through the canopy of trees he would see the golden rays of sun peeking through. Her face was bright, too, rosy all the way down to her neck and collarbones. His eyes continued downward until they rested on the bit of her breasts that her unbuttoned blouse allowed him to see… He tore his eyes away, feeling the heat creep up his own neck. "Right, so it's all my fault?" he said when he realized he had been quiet for too long. "You didn't have to sneak out to follow me."

The redhead, however, was too busy stuffing her things into her bag. She was muttering unintelligibly and James only caught a few bits. "If you had only kept your mouth shut…"

His stomach was in knots, but despite that, he felt annoyance flare up again. She could send him from one emotional extreme to the other, he was beginning to realize, and it made him uneasy. "If you had kept your mouth shut in the corridor, we wouldn't have gotten caught!"

Her head snapped back up to glower at him. "I was trying to stop you from losing us even more points after that stupid little stunt you and Black pulled the last Quidditch match against Slytherin!"

"We were provoked! You didn't hear what those wankers said!"

"It doesn't matter what they said! You don't stoop to their level and just punch them in the face, Potter!"

She was right but he wasn't about to tell her that. "You know what doesn't matter? Your precious little House points. Nobody but the first years care about the sodding House cup."

"They matter to me!" she shot back indignantly. "We all work so hard to earn them and it's not fair for you and your mates to blow them on stupid, childish pranks that got old ages ago!"

"You need to stop being such a killyjoy and loosen up, Evans."

"You need to stop being a selfish prick all the time!"

She flung her book bag over her shoulder with such force that it slipped off continuously. Lily grew angrier each time she slid it back into place and the sight made his anger fade away, slowly replaced with amusement. "Where are you going?"

"I'm done with my lines," she replied stiffly, struggling with the strap of her bag which was now tangled in her hair. He felt the urge in his stomach to help her untangle it, perhaps even let his fingers linger in her hair...

Webbing his fingers behind his head instead, he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the table, hoping he managed to look nonchalant. "McGonagall said to stay here until she came to fetch us," he informed her in his best impersonation of her voice.

"I don't care," she snapped. "She knows where to find me if she wants to yell." Having sorted her bag out, she turned on her heel, her long red hair dancing in waves as she did so, tantalizing him for the briefest of seconds.

James sat up as she reached the door. "Evans, wait," he called.

Lily paused and turned to look at him, irritated. "What?"

James didn't reply.

She raised her eyebrows impatiently. "Potter, what?"

"Nothing," he told her at last for even he wasn't sure why he stopped her in the first place.

She huffed, face darkening with color again. "You're such an idiot." And with that, she slammed the door behind her.

A/N: Thank you for making it this far. See you in a few days with 1976.