That night, the castle was quiet and the prefects' patrols had gone rather eventless. The other prefects all gathered in the second floor as planned, giving the reports of the first night to the new Head Boy and Girl.
But as they told Lily and James, apparently nothing was out of ordinary on that night and so the two thanked the prefects, asking them to return back to their common rooms.
"They weren't right, you know," James told Lily as the two of them strolled down the corridors and toward the Gryffindor common room alone.
"How come?" Lily asked.
"Because if you find that there's nothing wrong around the castle at night, then you haven't done your job right," said James with a grin. "There's always at least someone breaking the rules."
"Well, I did a pretty good job at my patrols tonight, and nothing was out of ordinary," she said confidently.
"Therefore you didn't do it right."
"Oh? And what did you find that was out of bounds, Mr. I-know-things-that-no-one-else-does?" she said cheekily.
"Peeves was running down the halls, cursing loudly with a stone stuck in his nostril," James said with a snigger. "He was disturbing the ghosts, so I had to stop him and to my greatest regret, I had to free him from the stone."
Lily chuckled, but then grinned knowingly. "Well, sorry to say this, but I'm a hundred percent sure nothing was wrong at the part of the castle which I had the duty of patrolling."
He smirked at her. "You wanna bet?"
Lily stopped, folding her arms and narrowing her eyes up at him suspiciously. "Alright... and what does the winner get?"
"Anything," he shrugged, his lips twitching up into a mischievous smile. "If we go to your section and nothing was wrong, I'll do anything you want."
"And if I was wrong and you were right... what would you get?"
His grin widened. "A date."
Lily gaped at him. A year and a half had passed since the last time James had asked her out. But as much as she didn't want to admit it out loud, her feelings had changed for him. He had changed himself. Things were way different back then.
So considering all the possibilities, Lily finally said, "Okay... deal."
James blinked at her a few times in disbelief. "Wh-what?"
"Don't make me change my mind, Potter," Lily said with a grin before walking on. "Well c'mon, then."
"Right." James cleared his throat, trying to regain himself. "But before we go, do you mind if used the loo?"
"Oh, okay... there's a bathroom nearby, I guess."
So with that, James apologized and left her side for a few minutes, getting into the bathroom and closing the door behind him.
With that, he quickly got the Marauders Map out of his robes and tapped his wand at it, muttering, "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good."
By that, the words started appearing on the blank parchments and soon, the dots with their names showed up as well.
James's grin widened as he looked all over at the corridor which Lily was supposed to be patrolling and saw that a boy and a girl were getting cosy in a broom closet behind a secret passageway.
So he put the Map back in his robe and left the bathroom. "Ready to go?" He asked her casually.
"Ready to win the bet, more like it," said Lily with a grin, walking on along with James.
After going around her corridor for minutes, she stopped with a triumphant smile playing in her lips.
"See? Like I said," she said, "nothing's wrong here."
"You sure 'bout that?" James said arrogantly.
But before Lily could open her mouth and reply, he walked toward a stoney wall and pulled down one specific porch. On cue, the wall started moving aside, revealing a secret passageway to Lily's horror.
James turned to face her with a smug face, gesturing her toward the corridor. "After you, Miss Evans."
"I — how did you — o-okay..." she said hesitantly, walking into the newly revealed thin corridor.
After a few steps, James stopped by a door and pulled it open, revealing a boy and a girl inside, snogging.
At their sight, the two sixth year students fell apart from one another with a gasp, their eyes widening.
"Having fun now, are we?" James gave them a knowing grin before pointing at his Head Boy's badge and saying, "that would be ten points from Ravenclaw. Now go to your common room and just hope that you don't run into Filch on your way; he might be a sweetie-pie, but he wouldn't pass on the opportunity of giving you detention."
With their eyes still widened in shock, they said nothing and ran out of the closet and quickly left the corridor without a word.
With a cheeky smile still dangling on his lips, James turned to face Lily, who looked too shocked to say anything.
"Now, about our deal, Miss Evans," said James with a grin, "will you give me the honor and go out with me?"