Crazier Things

A/N: I don't own anything! Enjoy!

James was rounding a corner along an empty sixth floor corridor, popping the last bit of treacle tart between his lips (an addition to the dessert he had indulged in at dinner not twenty minutes ago), when suddenly, something tiny and fast and…red?…came speeding into him.

"Oomph." James instinctively grabbed the object that had slammed into his stomach and backed away, holding whatever it was at arm's length.

"Lily?" He cried, only to watch the girl cover his mouth with one of her hands and push against his chest with her other until he was spinning back around the corner and shoved into the wall. James grabbed her wrist and removed her fingers from his face, still keeping a firm grip on her and smiling. "Really, Evans, all you had to do was ask."

"Shut up, James," Lily said fiercely, ducking down to glance around the corner. "Shit, shit, shit."

James looked at her panicked expression—her gleaming green eyes, her rosy cheeks—and couldn't help grinning a bit in amusement. "What are you up to, Miss Evans?" Despite her obvious anxiety, he didn't bother to lower his volume.

Lily threw him a scathing look. "Seriously, Potter, shut up! Filch is positively going to murder me and—"

"I know you're round here somewhere!" Came a growling exclamation from around the corner and down the hallway. The caretaker was evidently getting closer, if his approaching footsteps were anything to judge by.

James looked down at Lily, his eyes widened in delight, just as she looked up at him frantically. "Pissing off Filch? Pissing off Filch, Miss Head Girl?"

"Either tell me you know a hiding spot somewhere along this dead end or let me go, James, because I really don't have time—"

James realised he was still clutching her shoulders and took one hand away to dip into his pocket searchingly. "Oh, hush, we'll be fine." His hand emerged holding a slip of silky material that—with a wave of his wand— enlarged into an oversized cloak that was simply beautiful.

Lily was looking at it in awe. "It's an invisibility cloak," James explained, dangling it between them. "And I swear I'll let you use it if you tell me just exactly what you did."

"James, we don't have time," Lily insisted, the caretaker's footsteps coming ever closer. She didn't even have time to consider the implications of James Potter in possession of what looked to be an authentic invisibility cloak. Because that would surely be catastrophic, wouldn't it?

"Okay, then," James said, shrugging and bunching the cloak back into a ball before making to wave his wand again.

"Fine!" Lily cried in a whisper as she grabbed his wand hand to thwart his efforts. Her words came in a rush. "Fine! Filch is looking for me because…because I filled the men's loo with stink bombs and locked the door. There was a bit of an… unexpectedly large explosion."

James looked down at her in surprise. Their bodies were almost touching now, as Lily had shuffled closer to him in her haste to explain.

"You blew up the men's loo? Why did you blow up a loo?" James asked.

"James," Lily responded, agitated. "You said you would help if I told you and I did tell you. Filch is going to catch me any moment now and if you'd rather leave me to a life in shackles then—"

"Well, as much as I appreciate the visual…" said James, wearing a smile while using one hand to expertly throw the cloak around them both. He circled his other arm around her waist and yanked her forward, drawing her flush against him and backing up into the wall. Her arms were caught between their chests and he leaned down to mumble something in her ear that sounded like a vague excuse over why he was holding her so close, but the Head Girl was hardly paying attention when his soft breath blew against her neck and she could feel his heart pounding against her ear.

Lily shook her head a little against his chest and he thought she was surely rolling her eyes at his whispered explanation. However, she didn't back away.

Less than a moment later, Filch turned the corner, a look of triumph painted on his face. This expression dropped quickly when he peered down the corridor and saw that no one was visibly present. James and Lily were standing not five feet from him.

"I know you're there somewhere!" Filch called. "Show yourself!"

Lily's body was vibrating softly against James's torso, and he knew that the redhead was stifling her giggles. He buried his nose in her hair to hide his own laughter, and realised that wasn't exactly the best idea as her intoxicating scent of vanilla and lavender overpowered his senses.

Here he was, his arms wrapped around her, smelling her hair and keeping her tucked against his chest. He pulled up for air and settled for resting his chin on the crown of her head, watching as Filch swung around and walked away, murmuring something about chains in the basement.

"I think he's gone," Lily whispered a moment later, her warm breath hitting his pulse point.

James shook his head. "Few more minutes," he responded, tightening his hold on her.

Lily let out a stream of soft laughter before (half-heartedly) trying to break free of his arms. "James," she whined pointedly, finally wriggling away from him. They were still under the confines of the cloak.

"Thanks for helping out," she said. "Even if you were a great prat about it."

James grinned down at her. "I think you owe me."

"Oh, is that so?" Lily inquired, raising her eyebrows in amusement.

"Absolutely," James responded matter-of-factly. "I think you are now required to tell me why exactly you decided to blow up the men's loo."

A blush immediately lit Lily's face. She bit her lip.

Merlin, was she trying to torture him?

"You know, I don't think I need to," she replied coyly.

James furrowed his eyebrows, stepping closer so their bodies were almost touching once again. He put his hands on her arms. "Lily…"

"Mmm?"

"Who was in the bathroom when you blew it up?"

Her green eyes flicked up to his hazel ones, and he recognised the guilt etched across her face. "It was…well…he really deserved it, you know, for the record. He really, really deserved it and…he…Jordan Kings. Jordan Kings was in the loo."

James was taken aback. "The…the bloke who went off on Sirius the other day for being a 'death eater'?"

Lily nodded silently, but the corner of her mouth twitched into a smile, as if she was secretly feeling proud of the work she had done.

"It's just…it was really awful of him to be saying things like that to Sirius, and I know you weren't going to do anything because you already went to McGonagall like a proper Head Boy and she gave Jordan a detention. But..." Lily looked up only to see James regarding her with the strangest expression, and she truly didn't want to try and decipher it so she just kept talking. "I certainly don't think that a single detention was enough for the remarks Kings made…I mean, Sirius of all people, a death eater? You'd have to be…"

"Crazy to think that," James finished for her. She nodded once again, almost sheepishly now because of her ramblings. "So you decided to blow up a loo with Jordan Kings locked inside…to defend Sirius Black, my best mate…and that wasn't crazy?"

"Maybe," Lily said, defiantly now. "But I still reckon he deserved it, no matter how loony it was." James pressed his lips together to keep from smiling as he nodded pensively.

Suddenly, Lily felt his arms slide around her waist and pull her torso towards his. "You know what I reckon, Evans?"

"What are you doing, Potter?" She answered solemnly and straight-faced, but her eyes betrayed her giddiness and apprehension. Once more, she found her hands—which, to her credit, were curled up into fists—resting against his chest.

What was she doing?

James ignored her. "I reckon that in order to break about a hundred school rules, risk two weeks of detention—at least—and wear a Head Girl badge on your chest the entire time, all to defend the honor of my best mate…well, I reckon that someone who does that would have to be doing it because she really cares about someone…"

"Oh, Merlin," Lily groaned. "You've figured me out. Promise you won't tell Sirius that I fancy him?"

"Now who's being the great prat?" James teased, and Lily found her palms flattening against his white shirt.

"Well, when it comes to that category, Potter, you'll always win," the redhead informed him, smirking a bit.

She was fully aware of his head starting to dip down—or was she leaning up to him? And what in the name of bloody Merlin did she think she was doing? She should be squirming away from his grip, and yet her feet remained firmly glued to where she stood, toe to toe with James's shoes. Her entire body felt as though it was electrified and alive, and her mind barely had time to process any of this before James lips arrived less than a millimeter from her own. Her eyes were flickering closed of their own accord, and she couldn't actually believe what she was doing, but the Head Girl's mind had gone completely blank. All she knew was that somewhere, in the deepest part of her, this is what she wanted. A pure and unadulterated desire.

When had that happened?

She waited for moment to feel his lips finally—finally—meet hers, but instead she felt him slip the invisibility cloak off the both of them. Cool air rushed towards her and his sweet breath hit her lips as James's voice traveled softly to her ears.

"Lily?" James asked quietly.

She kept her eyes closed. "James?"

"We need to go," he told her, and somehow, she knew he was smiling.

Her eyes snapped open, and sure enough, their faces were barely an inch apart. A sly, crooked grin was etched on his. The desperation to close the space between them was nearly killing her.

"What?" she demanded, almost pouting. "Why?"

"Because," the Head Boy explained calmly, "you put too much faith in the hopes that I'm a 'proper Head Boy.' In fact, I rigged Jordan Kings's inkwell to explode in his rucksack—I mean truly explode…as in, everywhere—and it's bound to detonate any moment. If there is one thing that Filch despises most, it's scrubbing ink off the stone."

"James Potter, you didn't." His smile only widened mischievously. "You're mad."

James shoved the invisibility cloak as far into his pocket as possible, the movement causing their bodies to brush against each other even more closely.

"You know what's mad? The Head Girl blowing up a loo," James responded with an added smirk.

Lily looked at him, the way his eyes sparkled playfully and maybe with slight amusement at the way he had led her on not a moment ago. If he thought that things were happening under his terms, however, he was wrong.

The Head Girl adopted an impish grin of her own, and saw the Quidditch Captain's eyes narrow in suspicion. Before either could say or do anything, though, she leaned forward quickly and pressed her lips to his in a kiss so fast he wouldn't have been certain it had happened were it not for the shock that shot down his spine at the contact of her mouth on his.

"I don't know," Lily considered as she pulled away with a positively wicked grin. James stared at her, dumbfounded. "I reckon crazier things have happened."

Just then, a small explosion sounded not too far off, followed by angry exclamations and a few surprised screams.

The Head Students' eyes widened. "Oh, shite," James said bluntly, as if he, in the midst of the kiss, had forgotten about his devilish plot.

Lily refrained from rolling her eyes at his tactlessness. "Filch'll have our heads," she responded.

"You know, Evans, we're quite the pair," James input, as if commenting on the weather. But he was considering the witch in front of him rather contemplatively.

"Yeah, maybe they'll consider that when assigning our cells in Azkaban," Lily responded dryly, before sliding her hand from his chest to his hand and tugging gently.

"You won't get away with this!" A call echoed through the corridors, none too far off from where the Head students stood.

Lily's emerald eyes widened with renewed alarm while James simply shook his head in mirth. Unlike him, though, the redhead was rather averse to the idea of standing stagnant until they got caught. So she turned and, her fingers slipping from their embrace with his, started sprinting away from the scene of the crime. And once again, James found himself chasing after her, a grin plastered on his face.

A/N: Kind of a weird note to end on, and I'm not sure if I like it. I toyed with those ending lines about 1,000 times. Regardless, thanks for reading! Please review to let me know what you thought! And a happy holidays to everyone.

-TLGN