Chapter 2: Mission Pimp Phase Conspiracy
By: Amanda ~ The ROSE of RoseLibs
"Potter still relentlessly asking you out?" Brandy asked over breakfast.
"Yeah, he is," Lily answered. "I'll give it to him, he's persistent. I've been saying no for almost two years now."
"You do know you'll never win the bet if you keep refusing him, right?" J-Mo asked, eyebrows raised slightly.
"I've got him right where I want him," she told her.
Janet's brows lifted higher in skepticism. "Well, I do believe we will be 150 knuts richer at the end of the year, ladies," she said to the other girls. "How many sickles and galleons is that?"
"You just keep telling yourself that, buddy," Lily replied. She gave off the impression of confidence and control, but in reality she had really no idea how she was going to win the bet.
You shouldn't gamble with Fate.
She had little time to think on her predicament then; at that moment there was a loud commotion from outside the Great Hall.
"What the bloody hell was that?" asked J-Mo.
"Let's go check it out," said Meggie standing from the table and the other girls followed suit.
The Divines exited the Great Hall to find basically the entire student body grouped around their headmaster. Walking through the gaps in the crowd that appeared for them to the front, they saw the reason the professor was a spectacle.
"The Marauders," Meggie hissed, her eyes narrowing.
The mysterious group of prankers had somehow managed to charm Dumbledore's robes so the decorative moons and stars were circling around him.
"What's the scribble on the moons and stars?" asked J-mo, squinting her eyes in annoyance and to read the words on the orbs.
As they watched, a half moon strayed from its rotation and collided with the headmaster. The impact was not felt; or if it was, he did not let on. It appeared the designs were not intended to injure, just simply to aggravate or irritate.
Professor Dumbledore, however, appeared neither of those things. He continued through the Great Hall to the staff table as though nothing were amiss.
As he passed the Divines, the writing on each star and moon became legible and the girls gasped at the sight.
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>~:*.·º`·. the Dimwits .·´º·.*:~<
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"They're taunting us!" Brandy exclaimed in a whisper.
"How dare they!" Lily nearly roared, glaring after Dumbledore. "Those jokesters will pay dearly for this."
"Exactly what do you have in mind, Lils?" J-Mo questioned, a smile playing her mouth at the thought of a retaliation prank.
"I don't know," she answered after a moment, "yet. Come on, we're done with breakfast. We need to brainstorm our vengeance." With that, she turned and headed for their common room.
"Ah, my dear Lily," James began to announce his presence and walking up beside her. "How are you this lovely morning?" he asked in a charming manner.
"Sod off, Potter," she replied icily. "Now is not a good time. I'm liable to hex you as I refuse your date proposal." She pushed past him, her roommates following her.
You shouldn't gamble with Fate.
"What the ruddy hell is her problem?" he asked Sirius loudly as he walked up. "First she rejects me repeatedly, which no female has ever done, and now she's completely rude to me. What possessed you and Remus to choose her for my bet? The question on Lily's problem is rhetorical, Padfoot," he added, reading his best friend's mind.
"Oh, good," Sirius said looking relieved. "Anyway, earlier that day we made the bet, we heard her venting about us popular guys and calling you James `The Jerk' Potter. Figured it be a delightful challenge for you," he smirked.
"Thanks," James told him dryly. "At least you gave me till we graduate."
"That was a joke, really."
"Aye, but it's come in handy."
The two wandered into the Great Hall to meet up with Remus and Peter. They joined their friends, no one noticing they were just now arriving to breakfast (the majority of the student body still watching Dumbledore as he sat at the staff table, still being bombarded by his robe's decorations).
"Great prank, eh mates?" Remus said nodding toward their headmaster with a grin. "The Divines will never top this one!"
"I do believe we've won…for the time being," stated James.
"Meaning?"
"What I'm saying is, although it was a brilliant plan from Padfoot and we all executed it flawlessly, the Divines are of the female gender: naturally cunning and crafty. Give them time, they'll devise some prank to tromp ours."
The boys were grave for a moment, absorbing what James had said.
"Oh, come off it, Prongs," scoffed Sirius. "The Divines could never top this."
"Yeah," squeaked Peter. He had yet to complete puberty. "They're only girls."
"Don't be so damn cocky about this," James insisted with a deadly glare. "This is our bloody reputations we're talking about. Those blasted girls, whoever they are, have given us a run for our money the past two years and I won't be second best when it comes to pranking."
Sirius looked unconvinced. "Surely you don't believe that, Moony?"
Remus sat quiet a moment, pondering the conversation as a sensible person does. "It seems," he began slowly, "that James does indeed have a point. We shouldn't take these girls lightly," he continued before Sirius could interrupt. "The evidence of that is the past two years. Cranston in a bra, the Slytherin common room orange, there's no telling what those female minds can come up with."
Sirius gazed at Remus, contemplating what he had told them. Peter looked confused to high hell and settled for waiting until the other boys had decided what to do.
"What do you propose we do?" Sirius finally asked.
"I suggest," started James, "we merely not underestimate our competition and not act as if we have no threat of being downtrodden by a group of little girls."
"What I was thinking, as well," Remus concurred.
"So…" Peter said, needing clarification.
James rolled his eyes. Do we need to spell everything out for this boy? "So we all agree NOT to underestimate the Divines and act as if we have no threat of being beaten by them," he restated more simply.
"Oh, okay then!"
The rest of the Marauders shook their heads in exasperation and stood to head for class.
*~*~*
"Lily, would you care to share with the rest of us why we left in the middle of breakfast and came to the library of all places?" questioned J-Mo. "I get enough of this place for homework purposes; I don't need to be here for anything else."
"Oh, you're just upset because you didn't get to finish that second helping of hash browns," Meggie said.
"Hey, Hogwarts has the BEST hash browns in all of Britain and Scotland and Europe, alright," she responded, "so excuse me for wanting to savor the delicacy."
"So why are we here, Lils?" Brandy interjected before Meggie could retort.
Lily had been busying herself pulling various books off the shelves. She now set the arm load on the table, and, glancing at the other girls with an evil glint, answered in one word: "Revenge."
"Sweet," said Brandy and J-Mo in unison.
"I like the thought," said Meggie, a grin on her face to mirror Lily's eyes. "What are you thinking?"
"That," Lily told them, "would be the flaw in my plan. I can't think of anything BIG enough to outdo them and to mock them."
"Well, I don't think cursing them will do," J-Mo stated factually, "seeing as how we don't exactly know who they are."
"I may have an idea on how to mock them," Brandy said quietly, slyly. The three girls stared at her, waiting for her to continue. "Well, it's really more of taking their idea and molding it to fit us."
Intrigued, Lily told her, "Continue," as if she needed permission.
"You know that brand thing they leave on every prank? Which incidentally started after the Cranston prank, but that's not the point. Well, it's quite masculine looking, correct?" they nodded. "Be a shame if it were to appear in a very girly way, don't you think?" she finished with a slight smile.
The three other Divines exchanged devilish glances.
"That blasted `M' is in for a make over," grinned Lily.
"Okay, mocking down, prank to go," said Meggie. "So what'll it be? It has to be better than their one on Dumbledore. Which I must ask, how the bloody fuck did they manage to charm his sodding robes? They're in his frickin' quarters for Christ's sake!"
"We could expose who they are," Brandy mused, more to herself than anything. "The teachers would be sure to give them detention for all the pranks they've pulled. Exposing them would make them more of a legendary than they already are. Ugh, imagine what bints would swoon over them; it'd be worse than Potter, Black, and Lupin," she said, continuing her muttering with a slightly disgusted look. "Not that I'd mind swooning over Lupin," she added with a grin. "And there's always the risk of revealing our identities unintentionally while unmasking them," she resumed.
"Oi, Brandy!" J-Mo called. Brandy looked up expectantly. "Care to join us back in Hogwarts and brainstorm a prank?"
"What? Oh, right. So, yeah, I don't think exposing them will do."
"No, it wouldn't," agreed Meggie. "They'd be idolized even more. Sure, the thrill from secrecy is gone, but they would be damn near rock stars here."
"Oh, shite!" Lily exclaimed, glancing at her watch. "We've five minutes to make it across the castle to McGonagall's class. Just peachy."
A slow smile started on Janet's face. "We could prank McGonagall," she told them.
Her roommates looked at her, jaws dropped, thinking she had finally gone off her rocker.
"You can't prank McGonagall," Brandy told her. "Dumbledore's one thing because if you manage to pull one on him, he'll parade your hard work and brilliance, just like this morning. McGonagall, won't, so it would be completely pointless."
The smirk remained in place. "Unless we did it right."
"Right?" the three girls asked in unison. "And what, pray tell, is `right'?" questioned Meggie.
"Right in the way that we make her laugh, right in the way she appreciates our ingenuity, right in the way we don't piss her the fuck off."
Lily stared at her friend, pursing her lips slightly as she considered the idea. "Well, this will probably take research and quite a bit of thought, won't it?"
"Research on McGonagall?" reflected Brandy. "How bloody boring does that sound?"
"We can use class time for it," said Meggie.
"Which would mean, we'd actually have to be in class," Lily pointed out. "Crap, we have 3 minutes, we'd better run."
Through some miracle of magic and luck, the Divines made it to class in the nick of time. Transfigurations was an interesting class, but not Lily's favorite; she preferred Charms over all. The main thing that made Lily not enjoy this class half the time was the fact she had to share a table with none other than James Potter.
"Cutting it a bit close, aren't we, Lily?" he asked as she sat down panting. "Where was it you ran off to during breakfast? Quite the disappointment for me, I must say."
"Stuff it, Potter."
"Tsk, tsk, so rude. Is that anyway to treat your future boyfriend?"
Lily laughed quietly as McGonagall began lecturing. "You're so damn arrogant, Potter, really quite unbecoming if you ask me."
"But I didn't ask what you thought of me, Miss Lily," James whispered to her. "I asked if you would go out with me this weekend."
Lily turned to face him, a placid smile on her face. "You know my answer; it's been the same for the past two years."
"You can't deny I'm determined. Why wouldn't I want to go out with such a beautiful girl as you?" he asked her as he took out a piece of parchment for notes and then another.
"Simply because I'm not the type that will jump in the sack with you after dinner and moonlit stroll," she answered, copying what was on the board.
"So you're saying I have to try harder to get you in bed with me?" a joker's smile in place on his face as he asked.
Lily glared at him. "You spend way too much time thinking with the wrong head, Potter."
"I was only teasing, Evans, take a joke," he told her. "And if I'm thinking with the wrong head, it's only because you're so damn sexy."
She rolled her eyes to that. She knew the male gender…appreciated her body, something she used to her benefit when necessary. But hearing James Potter, man-whore second only to Sirius Black, say it, she felt trashy.
You do know you could play this to your advantage in winning that bet you have, a small voice told her.
Worry about that later; right now, Phase One of Mission Payback: McG research, she thought focusing her attention on her professor and not the messy-haired boy next to her writing notes.
By the end of the period, Lily still had nary an idea for Mission Payback. She did, however, have a thought for the bet she had dubbed Cupid's Arrow.
"Lily, go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend," James said as they packed up their books, parchments, and quills.
"You know my answer," she told him, smiling sweetly.
"That I do," he sighed, "that I do."
You shouldn't gamble with Fate.
Lily joined her friends outside the class and headed towards Arithmancy as James and his friends walked ahead of them towards Muggle Studies.
"Never going to win this bet, are you, Lil," J-Mo said.
Hearing her mate not phrase those words in a question stiffened her resolve. The two groups reached the end of the hall where the boys went right and the girls left. After a moment, she turned and called, "Oi, Potter, plan a date for us this weekend. And it bloody hell better not be to Hogsmeade or on a moonlit stroll." That said, she continued to class.
"Did you just-" started j-Mo.
"You asked out Potter!" said Meggie cutting her off.
"After you refused him not even five minutes ago!" finished Brandy.
"Part of my plan to win Cupid's Arrow," Lily explained simply.
"`Cupid's Arrow'?" asked J-Mo. "You really need to come up with better names for these things, hun."
"Shut up. Anyway, we're going to use Professor Vector for Phase One of Mission Payback."
"Oh, and what have you named Phase One?"
"McG Research."
"Oh bloody hell, girl. Make it cool, like Mission Pimp Phase Conspiracy."
"That has absolutely nothing to do with our objective," reasoned Brandy.
"And you point is what exactly? Why not have a little flava in the mix and be creative and unique and out of the ordinary? Conformity is such a bore."
"Oh come on," Lily said loudly, putting an end to the potential argument. "We have to inconspicuously grill Vector to give us the scoop on McGonagall."
-A/N: There's my chapter 2; Nati's up next. Please review, any and all questions and comments are welcomed and appreciated.
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