Mischief Managed

Chapter Seven: U-R-A-Q-T

"Oh for the love of Merlin!" exclaimed a disgruntled Sirius Black over breakfast; small pieces of zealously buttered toast flying from his mouth, making Peter Pettigrew, a short, plump boy with light brown hair sitting opposite him, squeak in protest. "Padfoot, that's disgusting!"

"Sorry, Wormy, but have you seen today's classes? Is McGonagall having a joke?! Double transfiguration on a Friday afternoon? What does she think she's playing at? Friday afternoons are for preparation for the weekend not changing desks into pigs and back." Disgusted, he started ripping up his toast, sullenly, into little pieces.

"Sirius, changing desks into pigs was something on our O.W.L; I think we're a bit passed that." Remus cut in. "Besides, at least you get Tuesday and Thursday afternoons off, and none of us have a class at 3:30 on Wednesday."

As they were discussing their new timetable fervently, James joined them and sat down next to Peter and reached for some toast for himself. "Are these our new timetables, then?" He asked as he took one from Remus and examined it. "A full Friday afternoon? What a-"

"-complete-"

"-an utter-"

"-joke." Sirius finished off. "I know, mate. Look on the bright side though, Evans'll be there. What else would you rather do that gawk at Evans on a fine Friday afternoon for two hours?" Sirius joked and James, despite himself, laughed.

"It's a bit more risky than that these day, Pads. If she catches me, she can torture me all night and no-one would hear me scream." He said, as they all laughed. "Or maybe she'd just tie me up in our common room and you'd never ever see me again."

"We'd just come in a rescue you, obviously, Prongs. It would require us knowing your password though." Sirius quipped, logically.

James had noticed that ever since he'd gone to the Gryffindor and told his fellow Marauders that he'd be staying in the private living space for the head students, Sirius had tried to coax the password out of him. He had firmly decided, however, not to let his friends – at least not for the time being – into the head common room, in an attempt to keep his promise to himself that he made in the summer and be sensible and hard working – in front of Lily, at least.

He still had mixed feelings about in private living space with Lily for the year. He was, on the one hand, very happy to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Lily, especially in a place where they could talk freely. On the other hand, he was nervous about what would happen after Christmas, the time he was planning to ask her out for the final time; it would become an incredibly awkward time. Most of all, however, he knew he would miss his friends. Being an only child, he thoroughly cherish the evenings he used to spend with Remus, Peter and Sirius in their dormitory together, planning their pranks, teasing each other and laughing as much as they could.

Breaking out of his reverie, James answered "How would Lily react if you knew the password to our common room?"

"She'd probably send him to the hospital wing in an ice-cream cone." Piped up Peter, as the four of them, having finished their breakfasts, began to make their way back up to the Gryffindor common room.

"Exactly, Padfoot, I hope you listened to Peter's Divination skills. Besides, I'm fairly sure she doesn't like the fact she has to share the Head's common room with the Head Boy, if I'm honest."

"-as I'm sure you all remember from O.W.L. If this indeed the case, and we must assume it is, then all vanished objects behave thus. You would be mistaken as to think it is, therefore, just as simple to vanish living objects as non-living ones but this is a mistake. One must consider what truly is the difference between a living and a non-living object before one attempts to -"

"-Hey Prongs, stop gawking at Evans." Whispered Sirius, from James' right.

"I'm not, Sirius." Retorted James, "I'm concentrating on McGonagall and taking notes."

"I didn't realise embossing 'L.E' on the top of your page constituted 'taking notes'," Smirked Sirius, playfully. "While gazing at the back of L.E's head at the same time."

"It's not my fault she sat in front of me, is it?"

"It's your fault for sitting directly behind her!"

"He's right." Said Wormtail, as he leant across Remus and Sirius to address James "You did wait for Evans to sit down before choosing the seat behind her."

"Oh alright!" Huffed James, breathlessly "I get your point, but I was actually concentrating of McGonagall." He said, as he was met with sniggers of disbelief from Sirius. James turned to face the front of the class as McGonagall went on explaining the advance theory on vanishing living objects, but he could not concentrate for long. Now he was staring at Lily in front of him, admiring her beautiful red hair and thinking of highly implausible scenarios in which Lily would let him stroke it…

James was still daydreaming as he saw people getting packing away their things around him and leaving for the end of the lesson. As he was leaving the class with Sirius, Remus and Peter, somebody grabbed on to his arm.

"James, can I talk to you?" Asked Lily, as she let go of James' arm. James nodded silently, as he motioned for the others to continue without him, and Lily continued. "I would like it if we can go through our plans for the meeting tomorrow."

"The meeting…" James said, confused, as he tried to focus on Lily rather than what he was daydreaming about.

"…with the prefects?" Lily said in a tone of incredulity. "Come on, James! You can't have forgotten already! That big head of yours should surely be able to at least hold one or two thoughts."

"Prefect meeting. About Hogsmeade. Of course. I remember." James said, struggling to remain coherent. "Do you want to sort it out now then?" He asked.

"Well, most of it's sorted. This is more of a 'this is what we're going to tell the prefects' talk than a 'let's discuss what we will tell the prefects' talk." Lily said as she motioned for them to walk up to their common room and James fell into step beside her. "Anyway, we sorted Hogsmeade on the train so we just to devise patrol rotas for the all the prefects, including ourselves –"

"-well I can help you with that if you –"

"-and fortunately, I've already devised the timetable." She continued, as they began climbing to the fourth floor of Gryffindor tower, passing a group of second year Gryffindors as they did so. "So I really just need to you to check and make sure you're free on the patrol nights and then just remember to turn up at the meeting, Charms classroom 1pm, and I can do all the talking and everything will go swimmingly. How does that sound?" She asked, in a subtly patronising voice.

"And what happens when you forget something again, like last time? " James asked, cockily. "Bowtruckle." He said to the Hogwarts crest on the door to their common room. "See, I can keep a thought in my 'big head'." He said, pointedly.

"I won't forget anything." Lily replied, ignoring his jibe. "Wait here." She said as she disappeared into her room and returned with sheet of parchment and handed it to James and he examined his patrolling timetable. James looked confused.

"I thought you wouldn't want us patrolling together. In fact, I'd have thought you'd put me as far from you in every shift as possible." Lily collapsed into the sofa in front of the fire. Suddenly, she looked very tired.

"I was up last all night doing those and I realised that it wouldn't look good if the Heads were never seen together and it's probably best if we do these things together. And besides, I said that I wanted us to at least be civil towards each other, so I guess we should at least try to be friends and I thought that would be the easiest way to start, right?"

"Yeah sure…it's just pretty hard being you're friend if you keep snapping at me though." James said, cautiously. He didn't want to set Lily off against him again.

"I know, I'm sorry. I guess I just have to get used trying to be civil to you; old habits die hard." She smiled. "In any case, it's also hard to be friends if you keep asking me out all the time."

"Hey! I haven't –"

"Yeah, I know, James. I just meant…you know…before." James squirmed uncomfortably. He'd hoped Lily wouldn't bring up the previous years of him acting stupidly and rashly towards her.

"Look, Lily, I know I was being an 'arrogant toe-rag' before but I won't do anything like that again; I promise! I'm sorry for badgering you before but I won't do it again. I do want us to be friends." He smiled at her nervously.

"No more unbelievably terrible chat-up lines like that alphabet one?" Lily asked, more playfully. As she said it, James remembered the incident: "How many letters are there in the alphabet, Evans?" "26, Potter." "I thought it was 21." "No, it's 26, you airhead." "Oh yeah, I forgot, U, R, A, Q, T!".

"Yeah, that was pretty horrific." He grimaced "I won't attempt that again, don't worry." Lily laughed, a sweet, almost musical laugh that James thought he could never get enough of.

"Good. I hope you don't. Now we've sorted everything for tomorrow, I need to go catch up with Alice to do our Potions essay Slughorn set us this morning, and I need to go fast because if I spend to long allegedly alone with you, Alice will think we've been up to something disgusting. I'll talk to you later, James." She smiled, amiably as she went to leave the common room.

"We could always try those things Alice says we're doing one day, you know." James called after her, cheekily.

"Don't push your luck, Potter!" She called back.

Author's Note: Hello everybody that decides to read this! Yeah, it's been a while but I will finish this story! *much whooping*

I do appreciate your views and especially appreciate you reviews (and favourites and what-not); it's always nice to know that somebody wants to make an effort to brighten your day with a lovely review (because they do brighten my gloomy, revision filled days).

I do hope you enjoy the magical, quite literally, story that I am writing! Don't expect quick updates in the near future, as I have exams next week (and a lab report in for 11 hours that I haven't finished. lolyay). It would be awesome to chat to you guys if you wanna PM or Twitter (at:Matthew_ _ _Lee, without the spaces inbetween the underscores...). Until next time!