"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"Me? Nervous for my first Head Boy patrol? Why would you think that? It'll be a piece of cake." James said as he ruffled his hands though his dark, messy hair.

"You're messing up your hair and you always do it when you're nervous." I said with a slight grin. James quickly moved his hand out of his hair leaving his hair in a strange half tousled state. Without thinking, I reached up and finished messing his hair up for him.

"What are you doing?" He grinned.

"You're hair wasn't properly messed up, I was correcting it." I said which was partly true. Truthfully, I'd sort of wanted to do it since first year, it did look so satisfying and my hair was quiet straight with light volume so when I tried to mess mine up it just fell back into place or looked like I'd just got out of bed. Neither of those were particularly desirable looks for me.

"Lily..." James said after a few moments of silence.

"Yes?"

"I might be a little nervous. I'm worried I'll somehow find a way to mess up." He admitted.

"You won't, it will be fine." I said, "It's just like prefect patrol really except we can give or take away points now. I've done it before, it's fine."

"You said that you and Remus used to get scared of the first years though." James pointed out.

"Not scared... just sort of nervous and guilty." I said, "They had such cute little faces, I always worry that they're going to cry. One time one of them actually did cry so we let them go."

James let out a slight laugh, "You really fell for that?"

"What do you mean fell for it? The first year was crying, they were sad!" I said.

"That's the oldest trick in the troublemaker's book!" James said, "I'm surprised Remus didn't see through it, he probably saw me and Sirius do it a dozen times. You have to get a bit more sneaky as you get older but when you're a first year, you're sweet and innocent looking. People don't suspect you in the first place so it's automatically easier and if you get caught you can pretend you're lost or start crying. It worked almost every time except with McGonagall. You had to be sneakier with her so over the years we've developed several tactics to avoid her."

I was intrigued now and I was also fully starting to see why James had been made Head Boy. He was the troublemaker who had matured past it (mostly), he knew what the troublemakers where thinking and he wouldn't fall into the same traps that me and Remus did such as the crying first year which was apparently the 'oldest trick in the book'.

"What tactics did you develop?"

"Several tactics... ours are quite advanced, we've gone above and beyond to ensure that we never, ever get caught. If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone, especially not Sniv - Snape." James said.

"Why would I tell Severus?" I asked.

"No reason, it's just he seems to enjoy snooping around after us and I want to avoid another Whomping Willow incident." James said, clearly choosing his words carefully. I still remembered hearing about that and feeling strangely annoyed that Severus hadn't seemed at all grateful for James saving his life.

"I promise I won't tell Snape." I said.

"Okay, so you know about two of them - "

"The invisibility cloak and the fact you're animagi?" I guessed and James looked impressed even though they were really the only two obvious choices.

"Yep, you've got it." James said, "Maybe there's a Marauder hiding in you somewhere."

"It wasn't very hard to guess, what else would you use an invisibility cloak for, other than troublemaking, sneaking away for stargazing or lake kissing?"

"It does come in handy if you want to eavesdrop too." James said, "Anyway, the third one was one of the best ones, we had this map, called the Marauder's map. It showed the exact location of everyone in the school on it, the map never lied."

"I don't believe you." I said with a laugh which quickly died when I saw that James's face was deadly serious, "How did you do it?"

"It wasn't easy, we first came up with at the middle of fourth year but we only finished it in fifth year. We'd managed to earn ourselves a week's detention for some prank, I can't even remember what now, but it meant that I had to miss training for one of the matches which we lost and I decided I'd had enough. Me and Sirius were unwilling to give up a life of trouble, it's too much fun so Remus suggested we find a way to avoid the teachers. We used to all be able to fit under the invisibility cloak but Remus had a growth spurt that year so we needed another way anyway. It took us ages to figure out, it was mostly me, Remus and Sirius, Peter brought us cookies and encouraged us. We used a Homonculous charm on it to track everyone and Peter used to sneak around the school as a rat to map the corridors for us, it was amazing."

"Can I see it?"

"Sadly no," James said gravely, "It got confiscated by Filch at the end of Sixth year, I think he must have had a anonymous tip off as he was very prepared for us. We weren't even doing anything wrong, we were just restless and went for a walk that night without the cloak. We got distracted by something for just a second and when we turned the corner, there he was, like he knew we were coming. We tried to steal it back a few times but he clearly knew it was important and he's prepared now."

"You'll never be able to steal it back now." I said.

"What makes you say that?" James asked, sounding slightly offended.

"I didn't mean it badly, you definitely have the capability to do it but YOU won't be able to steal it back. He's expecting you now, he's probably got spells that detect your presence the moment you come anywhere near his office. He knows that you'll try and come for it and he knows a lot of your weaknesses and strengths so all the protective enchantments will be tailored to your weaknesses."

"That's true." James said a little sadly, "I guess we'll have to accept that it's really gone. We have tried everything now."

"Not everything..." I said, my eyes gleaming mischievously, "You haven't tried me yet."

"You?..." James said, looking at me slowly, a grin forming on my face as he realised what was happening, "But you hate troublemaking, you were always telling me to stop hexing people..."

"I didn't like the bullying part of, it was mean and unnecessary. This, however, has a purpose. I want to find the map, it's not rebellion without a cause. I'm in."

"Yes, Lily!" James yelled loudly. He looked more excited than I'd ever seen him before and to be honest, I was just as excited.

"Filch can't possibly predict this now, you're a good girl, you always have been but now you're on our team which means you can help us get into his head."

"What?" I said laughing, "Are you saying I'm like Filch?"

"No, No!" James said quickly, "I mean you've always been on the side of good before, you've been on the side that tried to stop the troublemaking, you've been a prefect for a year. You know what lengths teachers will go to stop troublemakers. That whole thing about enchantments being specific to us, how Filch knowing our strategies, I hadn't considered it before. I never even considered bringing in another person who was unpredictable to him."

"That's true, I'm the last person he'd expect to help you. Filch is quite behind on school gossip so with any luck, he might even think I hate you." I said, the excitement building in my voice as I realised the possibilities of this new crime partnership, "James we could do anything, we could literally be the power couple of the school!"

"The troublemaker and the goody two shoes coming together as one united force! We can get into the head of the teachers with your inside knowledge and escape with my amazing skills, we are literally unstoppable."

"We are going to get this map back." I said firmly.

"Why stop at the map?" James said, clenching his fists in excitement, "We could take over Hogwarts, we could steal everything from Filch's office, think of all the amazing things that have been confiscated over the years! We could be like the Bonny and Clyde of Hogwarts."

"Maybe not THAT extreme." I laughed, "They did kill people."

"We'll do what we have to..."

"James! I am not killing people to get this map back!" I said.

"Okay, that's fair enough, I don't think I'd want to do it either to be honest." James admitted, "But think of the possibilities, we haven't even started considering what we could do with the rest of the Marauder's too. Sirius's charm can get us out of any situation, Remus and you could plan the most elaborate schemes, Peter can become a rat and scope the surroundings for us."

The two of us sunk back against the corridor wall, both of us in awe of the potential of this crime partnership.

"We could take over Hogwarts, we'd be an unstoppable force. We could be the new Dumbledore - " James began.

"Whilst I have no doubt that you'd do a good job, I fear that you may have a bit of trouble growing a beard like mine, this has taken me a long time to perfect." A calm voice said from the other end of the corridor.

Both of us instantly stood up and turned around to see Professor Dumbledore standing there. He was very hard to read and I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or amused with us. We had been neglecting our duties but he didn't seem like he was going to tell us off.

"I'm glad to see you two of you are working well together, I thought that the pair of you would make quite an unstoppable force." Dumbledore said.

"... Yeah." I said weakly before whispering at James, "Do you think he's messing with us and he heard everything?"

"I don't know, I can't tell... didn't I just say that we'd be an unstoppable force though or am I going mad?" James whispered back.

"I can't remember, I'm doubting myself now..." I whispered before realising that Dumbledore was watching us, patiently waiting for us to finish our conversation, "Sorry, Professor."

"No need to apologise, Miss Evans, I was simply stopping by to tell you that as I was walking through the corridors, I believe I saw a first year out of bed and thought I should mention it to you." Dumbledore said, gently reminding us that we were meant to be in patrol.

"Thank you, Professor, we'll go and sort it." I said grabbing James's hand and walking away from Dumbledore, my cheeks flushing.

"Oh and Mr Potter" Dumbledore called after, "If you and Miss Evans attempted to take over Hogwarts, I have every faith that you would not only succeed but also be able to run Hogwarts better than I probably could."

"Damn it, he heard." I whispered, absolutely mortified that Dumbledore had heard James planning to steal his job. I expected James to be just as embarrassed but instead he had a proud smile on his face.

"You really think so, Professor?" He said.

"I'm sure we could never do it better than you though, we're only 17, we're too young to run Hogwarts really. You have so much more experience than us, we're too young to do it properly." I said sheepishly.

"Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth." Dumbledore said with a small smile. I knew that I'd be trying to figure out the deeper meaning to that quote for ages and maybe that's what he wanted, "I'll leave you to carry on with your patrol."

I turned away for a second and when I looked back, Dumbledore had vanished as if he'd never been there at all.

"Do you think he's still here somewhere, listening to us?" I whispered after a few seconds, just in case.

"Maybe but either way, he basically gave us his approval to take over Hogwarts." James said grinning from ear to ear.

"Do you think he came just to check up on us?"

"He was probably just checking we hadn't found our way to the Prefect's bathroom." James said with a mischievous grin, "It's not too far from here..."

"I would but we need to patrol first though..." I said, "Dumbledore saw a first year somewhere..."

"There are other prefects, I'm sure our absence won't be that bad..." James said seductively although I wasn't too hard to convince.

"Fine but we can't be gone too long, we are head boy and head girl..." I giggled as we dashed down the corridor, "Damn, you really have made me a troublemaker."

"I think there was always a bit of a troublemaker inside you, I just helped you unlock it."