A/N: I went back and re-edited the first two chapters because, well, I'm anal like that. There aren't any hugely significant changes though. Just some minor things.

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

Chapter 6: Of Contracts and Compromises

James felt the sickly familiar sensation of rejection sink into the pit of his stomach. He had been expecting it, of course. It would be ridiculous to expect anything else from her, and he was certainly used to it. He had been expecting her to get angry and shout. And a part of him had wanted her to. He wanted to cause her some sort of pain after what she had done to him. He wanted her to feel the same horrible things that he had felt. He wanted to see her as angry as he was.

James' anger with Lily Evans had quickly subsided and morphed into anger at himself. He had been an idiot. A complete prat. He had seen the list that Evans had made and he let his anger get the better of him. And he had made everything worse. Evans had never looked at him with as much hatred and loathing before. James felt himself sink even lower.

This summer was not going well at all.

James let out a deep sigh and attempted to push the events of this morning out of his thoughts. No such luck.

He put the bucket he had grabbed from the hall closet under the sink faucet in the bathroom and began to fill it with cold water until it was full. He grabbed a towel from under the sink and carried it down the hallway, allowing water to spill out over the sides, and walked into his best friend's room.

He watched the sleeping figure of Sirius. No amount of poking, prodding, or shouting had ever managed to wake him up at Hogwarts. Drastic measures were usually necessary.

"Sorry about this, mate," he muttered as he removed Sirius' wand from his reach. He then proceeded to pour the bucket of water over his best friend's head. Sirius let out a yell; James quickly threw the towel at him as he sat on the desk in the corner of the room, Sirius' wand safely tucked inside his pocket.

"What the bloody hell was that for?" Sirius asked angrily as he wiped off his face with the towel.

In spite of everything that had happened this morning, James felt a smile creep across his face as he caught the ridiculous sight of his soaking wet best friend. Things were – even if only minimally so – improving.

"Morning, Padfoot. Glad to see you're awake. Fancy a chat?" James asked brightly, pretending to be oblivious to the harsh glare Sirius – who had just realized his wand was missing – was sending his way.

"You're mental. It's 8:30 in the morning. Now give me my wand so I can hex you," Sirius demanded. James merely smirked in response.

"Consider this revenge for last night," James replied with a slight grimace on his face. The stories shared around the dinner table last night seemed to be one of the highlights of his summer so far. Last night seemed so far away now with everything that had happened since then.

"The naked James story was worth it," Sirius said.

"Have I mentioned how disturbing it is that you seem to get some sort of bizarre pleasure from hearing stories about me being naked?" James muttered. He felt his foul mood returning.

"Bet you wouldn't mind if it was Evans who wanted to hear naked James stories. Do you mind if I share the story with her?" Sirius asked lightly.

"If you tell her, you are going to be waking up like this every day for the rest of the summer, rest of our time at Hogwarts, and when you're old and married with fourteen kids, I am still going to break into your house and wake up you, your wife, and your fourteen children up like this," James threatened.

"Relax, Prongs. I won't tell. I wonder if I can convince Devy to tell…" Sirius let the sentence trail off.

"Sirius! Things are bad enough between Evans and I as it is. I don't need you to make it worse!" James said angrily.

James had been trying to push the events of earlier away. But they came bubbling back up to the surface of his mind. He let out an audible groan. He couldn't imagine what Evans's reaction would be the next time he saw her. He probably wouldn't even see her for days. Weeks, maybe. She tended to do that after James behaved in an extremely moronic way. Such as this morning.

"Something happen between the two of you, mate?" Sirius asked.

James nodded miserably.

"You remember the list that I told you about last night? The one I saw in Evans' room?" James asked.

"You did something stupid," Sirius stated.

Normally, James would have been fully prepared to defend himself had Sirius been wrong. Unfortunately, in this case Sirius was right. James still wasn't sure what had come over him in the kitchen earlier that morning. The whole situation seemed surreal now. He could see the scene play over again in his mind. It felt like that was someone else this morning and he had just been watching the whole thing. Miserably, he began to recount the details of what had happened earlier today to his best friend.

"So, was that part of your plan to make Evans like you? Because I don't think it went over too well…"

James smiled weakly at his friend's poor attempt at humor.

"I don't know," James replied. "I think we have a pretty solid love-hate thing going on."

"Yeah, you love her and she hates you."

"More or less," he agreed vaguely.

He didn't actually want to think about how close to the mark Sirius was. Evans disliked him; he had always known that. But did that dislike actually carry into hatred and loathing? He had never thought that she really hated him. Well, if she hadn't hated him before then she probably did now after what he did. James hated himself for it, so why wouldn't she?

"I made a right mess of things between Evans and me, didn't I?"

"Not really, considering things weren't exactly, er, orderly between the two of you in first place," Sirius responded with a wide grin.

James quickly sent a glare in his direction and opened his mouth to say something snarky and sarcastic in return. However, there was a knock on the door. Sirius and James both silently stared at the door wondering who it could be. No one currently in the house would have any reason to knock on Sirius's door.

"Er, were you expecting someone?" James asked his friend who was looking just as confused as James was.

"No, but I am quite loveable. It's not surprising that someone would want to see me," Sirius replied arrogantly.

Whoever was outside the door knocked again.

"Oh, yes. I'm sure it's the Sirius Black Fan Club just dropping by for a visit," James said sarcastically as they both ignored the knock.

"You're just jealous because of the lack of a James Potter Fan Club."

James rolled his eyes. The person outside the door knocked once more.

"Black?" a frustrated voice called through the door.

James sent a perplexed look towards his friend, wondering what on earth his cousin was doing knocking on his best friend's bedroom door at 8:30 in the morning. Sirius looked equally confused. Audrey knocked on the door once more.

"Black? Are you there? Have you seen James?" Audrey asked through the door, sounding even more annoyed than she had before.

"Notice that the Sirius Black Fan Club refers to you by your last name and me by my first name," James commented with a cocky smile on his face.

"Notice that the Sirius Black Fan Club is not knocking on James Potter's door."

"Notice that the Sirius Black Fan Club is requesting James Potter and not Sirius Black," James said with a slight emphasis on the word "not."

Sirius seemed momentarily flustered, unable to come up with a response for James. James smirked haughtily.

"At least I'm not referring to myself in the third person," Sirius remarked airily as he quickly regained his composure, looking completely unfazed by anything his friend had just said.

"I'm not…"

James paused for a second before realizing that Sirius was right- he had been speaking in third person. His face seemed to echo the disconcerted look that had appeared on his best friend's face a few moments prior.

"Wait, you were referring to yourself in the third person too!" James pointed out.

"No, I was referring to an organization that happens to have my name in it. I couldn't go around calling the Sirius Black Fan Club the Me Fan Club, could I?" Sirius replied.

James opened his mouth for a second and then closed it. He pondered briefly what Sirius had said. Technically, what he had said was true, but still…

Audrey knocked on the door again.

"Fair point," James conceded, still ignoring his cousin.

"Are you going to let us in or not?" Audrey's irritated voice came from the other side of the door as she began to rattle the handle.

The words took James a few seconds to process. Something seemed to click in his brain. And a single word stood out. Us. Audrey wasn't alone. And while it was possible that Audrey had finally snapped and started referring to herself in the first person plural. Or that she was accompanied by Edie – unlikely since Audrey had an aversion to house elves since she had accidentally killed her own years ago. Or there was even a possibility that Audrey had met a Muggle boy in the nearby village that she wanted to introduce to everyone before running off with him to live a magic-free existence. There was a fourth possibility that seemed much more likely than any of the others. There was a very good chance that Audrey was standing on the other side of the door with Evans.

James barely heard Audrey's continued ranting as he sprinted to the door, unconscious of his hand messing up his hair even more. He took a deep breath without registering the laughter coming from behind him. The sound of his heart beating seemed to drown everything else out. If it was Evans at the door with Audrey – and not Edie or a Muggle strange or a certifiably insane Audrey – then that meant that Evans was willing to look at him after his horrible treatment of her. And if she was able to look at him, then there was hope.

"You just figure out that Evans is probably out there too?"

James ignored him and opened the door to see his cousin and Evans standing in front of him. He racked his brain for different ways to apologize. Nothing came to mind. He stood there, silent, grinning idiotically at her. She glared harshly in return. James opened his mouth to say something. Anything. The first thing that popped into his mind, however, before James could even say something Audrey shoved the long piece of parchment towards him. James began unrolling it; his eyes widened at its contents. Was Audrey completely crazy?

"In accordance with the Lufkin Act, James Edward Potter and Lily Catherine Evans are hereby entered into a Wizarding Contract. Audrey Lucille Devlin and Sirius Alphard Black serve as witnesses. Should either part break the agreed regulations (see below), the consequences will be in accordance with the standard procedure in these cases," James read aloud.

"A Wizarding Contract?" Sirius asked. "Is that really necessary?"

"Playing with your dad's law books again, Devy?" James asked with a smirk.

"I'm not six, James. I don't play. This is what I'm going to do when I get out of Hogwarts," she said proudly.

"You're not going to be a ballerina anymore?" James teased her.

"You can dance?" Sirius asked, looking slightly surprised.

"Not very well. She lacks coordination," James commented, grimacing. He remembered the several times Audrey had made him "practice" with her. He obtained more injuries from "practicing" with her than he ever had from any Quidditch match.

"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Audrey asked.

"Certainly," James replied briefly looking over the list.

The only formal looking part was the beginning which was written in Audrey's slow, careful handwriting. The rest was written in Evans' messy script. James could tell she had sped through it in order to finish it so quickly. It was another numbered list of things James would be prohibited from doing this summer if he agreed to this. He had barely gotten to number seven before he had already come to his decision.

"No," James said softly handing it over to Sirius to look at.

"But you haven't even finished looking at it. You can't make your decision yet!" Audrey protested.

Lily glared stonily at him.

"I already did," he remarked.

"Take another look. You have to agree to it. I'm not going to let you harass Lily all summer. And if this is the only way to keep you from doing something stupid, then this is what we're going to do!"

"I'm sorry for what happened this morning," James apologized looking directly at Evans. "But I'm not going to sign this. Not unless there's something in it for me too."

"Prongs, you can't seriously agree to that. That list! It's crazy! There's nothing that Evans or Devy could do that could cause you to agree to that list," Sirius commented as he handed it back to James.

Silently, James carefully flipped through the pages of the contract. Sirius was right. It was crazy. He racked his mind for something that would make it worth it. For something that would cause him to sign his name on that contract. There was nothing. To agree to these conditions would be… There was no way in hell he would ever do something like that. Not for all the galleons in the world. Not for all the money in Gringotts. Not for anything. There was nothing James could think of that would justify signing his life away for the summer.

"Well, James?" Audrey asked.

James was about to tell Audrey just where she could shove their stupid contract when a thought struck him. He grinned and moved over to his desk in the corner of the room. He quickly found a quill and began to add onto to the end of the contract.

"I'll agree to it," he said slowly as he carefully wrote out his one condition. "If Evans does this."

He handed the piece of parchment back to Audrey who looked over the new addendum. She smiled briefly in James' direction as if she was amused by his condition. But her face quickly regained its solemn composure. James sent a quick wink in her direction causing her to smile again. She childishly stuck her tongue out. But the lighthearted look remained on her face.

"That's all you want?" Evans asked, speaking for the first time. Her eyes glared suspiciously at him.

"Yes. Do we have an agreement?"

Lily mutely nodded her head.

James looked at her expectantly.

She let out a dramatic sigh, but James could have sworn that he saw a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"We have an agreement, James."

An awkward silence hung in the air as these words came out of her mouth. James could tell that this was a situation she never thought she'd be in. Granted, he'd never thought he'd be contractually obliged to behave civilly towards her – something he thought he did anyways. But he was handling his contractual obligations better than she seemed to be. She looked as though she had just uttered a horrible curse word. He continued to stare at her, relishing in the way the words made him feel. She looked back, awkwardly while Sirius and Audrey looked on.

Sirius was the one to break the silence.

"Evans, fancy hearing a story about James and a broomstick?"

A/N: So, this is mostly an apology because I seem to recall telling a few people that this chapter would be up quick-ish because it was already partially written. And well, yes, half of it was written when the last chapter came out, but the other half was extremely difficult for me to write. So, sorry about that. And thanks to my beta for proofreading and to all of my readers for reading.