I won't tell if you won't

James rolled his eyes. "What would you prefer me to say, that I flogged it off some first year?" James grinned after speaking. That did make him sound completely bad-ass. He couldn't pull it off though. Not yet anyway.

"I never said I wasn't enjoying myself so you'd be the one to leave, not me. Besides, who gives two Knuts if you got here first. I fail to see your name written here." James waved his arm over the area as if to prove the point.

Alli laughed. "Do you really think that anyone would believe that?" she asked. "You might as well just tell them the truth... Actually, don't."

She realized as she was speaking that it would mean that he would have to tell people that she gave it to him, and she didn't want to gain a reputation of being generous. "So you're enjoying yourself then?" she asked with a snide smile. "Interesting."

She rolled her eyes at his comment, but just to make a point, she took out her fire-maker again and flicked it open before burning her name into the grass on the hill, just because she could. She looked up at him and smirked. "Care to rethink your statement?"

James felt like rolling his eyes again. He had a feeling he'd be doing that a lot around Alli; that and shrugging.

"I'll have you know, that I am a very believable person," James stated, puffing out his chest dramatically. "I can almost always get away with everything. Why, in Diagon Alley, I took 60 Galleons out of my folks Gringotts account and I haven't received a Howler about it..." he smiled sheepishly. "Yet."

James nodded, actually surprised that he was, in fact, enjoying himself. "Yeah. I guess I am."

James jumped back from a fright and swore. "What's wrong with you?! Are you a Pyro or something?!"

Alli raised an eyebrow at him. Sixty galleons was chump change. She couldn't believe that it was something that his parents would notice. And to think that the previous year she had "borrowed" one of her mother's necklaces and nearly lost it, a necklace that was worth far more than 60 galleons.

She smirked at him again. "Scared of a little fire?" she asked teasingly. "It's not going to hurt you, it's all gone now anyway," she looked at her name scorched into the grass on the hill. "And now your previous statement is invalid."

"Still... Normal people don't burn their names into the ground," James shook his head. "What would have been smarter would have been to write someone else's name, such as Sami, into the grass and then the Profs would think she was having a little too much fun with the fire."

James tilted his head and inspected the signature. "I must say, I'm rather impressed with how legible it came out though."

Alli nodded in satisfaction. "I never said that I was normal," she pointed out. She considered what he'd said. It was a good enough idea, except that this area was hardly ever traveled. "They'd never see it, so what's the point?"

She also tilted her head to the side to look at it. "My penmanship is impeccable. Or should I say flamemanship?" She wasn't sure if it counted as penmanship if it was written with fire.

James did not debate that. He tried his hardest not laugh. She definitely wasn't normal.

He looked around at where they were sitting. She had a point there. This area was pretty secluded and not at all well traveled. He still would have had a chuckle at seeing Sami get into trouble for damaging school grounds when she didn't do anything. James really didn't know why the Ravenclaw got on his nerves so easily. Andy said that for the most part, the Ravens were an alright bunch. James wondered if he had actually met Sami. He'd have to ask him about it one day.

James laughed. "Flamemanship? You're making up words now?"

Alli watched James out of the corner of her eye. "I make words up all the time. Some of them even become real words," she said proudly. She'd come up with several terms that had crept their way into student vernacular, though they were far too crude for her to repeat to him in such a close proximity. Words like that were best used when shouted in insult across a corridor at a group of Hufflepuffs. "Are you telling me that you've never made up a word before?" she rolled her eyes, since she doubted that he had never done it.

James had to think about it. He really couldn't recall a situation when he had actually made up a word before.

"I really don't think I have. Sorry to disappoint." By the look of her eye-roll, she had probably expected that answer anyway. James had to smile though. Between him and Alli their eyes should have been permanently stuck to the top of their eyelids they were rolling them so much.

"Have you were said a sincere sentence in your life?" he asked. He was getting the feeling that Alli used sarcasm as a defense mechanism.

"Of course I have, don't be ridiculous," Alli replied. There had to be at least one time that she'd been completely sincere. Maybe when she was younger. There just had to be. Right? "Once I said..." she thought of nothing, so she tried again. "And then another time, I..." she still came up with nothing. "I'll think of something, just give me a minute..."

No matter how hard she thought about it, no matter how many conversations she sifted through in her mind, she couldn't think of anything. "No, not once. Ever. Except maybe now."

James was rather taken aback. He hadn't expected that response, but expected, instead, another snide remark. He looked at her seriously.

"First time for everything, I suppose," James said, smiling at her. "How does it feel?" James was rather pleased that she had her first sincere moment with him for some reason. He wasn't a master communicator, that's for sure, but he felt as though he was having a breakthrough with the girl; not that he'd ever tell her that.

Alli could have smacked herself for answering him seriously. She should have just kept to how she had already been treating him and answering his questions. "It feels..." she paused for a moment like she was thinking about it, going to give him a real, heartfelt answer. "Boring," she said finally, flicking the fire maker open once more.

James laughed at her answer. He knew he shouldn't have expected something profound from the girl, but he just had to laugh.

"Boring?" he reiterated, still shaking his head with laughter. "Sheesh, have you ever thought that you may just be a pathological liar? Do you even think before you lie or does it just happen without any thought at all?"

"Second nature, baby," Alli said proudly. Her ability to lie had gotten her out of a lot of sticky situations, so she was glad that she was able to do it so well.

She lay back on the hill and tossed the fire maker up in the air and caught it, an action which she repeated several times just to amuse herself, though there was no guarantee that it wouldn't burst into flames at any second.

"What about you Mr. Holier-than-thou? Do you ever do anything fun?" she asked, pulling her hair to the side so that it wouldn't be crushed between her and the grass.

James had a strong urge to roll his eyes again. James knew from experience that lying was fun and exciting at the time, but seemed to cause more trouble in the long run. James expected Alli's life to be one lie after another. She probably couldn't keep track of what was real and what was fiction.

James watched as Alli played catch with the fire-maker and half expected the Muggle contraption to catch on fire any moment. James took out his own fire-maker and turned it over in his hand.

"Course I have fun. You and I may differ in our definition of 'fun' but nevertheless, I can still and still do have fun. Why, have you ever played Armour Tag? That's tons of fun." James grinned at the memory of playing that game with Andy, Hester and Natalie.

Alli looked over at James and glared. She didn't know what impression he was getting of her, but she was sure that it was far closer to the negative side then it really was. She wasn't all bad. She didn't spend all of her time stealing things and lying to people. That was just something she did to amuse herself on occasion.

"Armor Tag? What the hell is that?" she asked. It sounded completely and utterly ridiculous, like they tagged each other with pieces of armor or while wearing armor or something. Either way, she couldn't think of anything more childish.

James saw her glare and wondered what that was about. He wasn't about to waste anytime thinking about it though. James knew enough about girls to know that they got pissed at you for no reason, and it was wise to just let it go.

James had a feeling Alli wouldn't know what Armour Tag was. Natalie, after all, had essentially made it up on the spot. "Armour Tag is when you wear a piece of armour from a suit of armour and tag people." James realised that the game sounded awfully childish when he tried to explain it, but when playing, it was actually rather fun.

"Professor Hamilton didn't seem to think it was fun, but he wouldn't know fun if it got stuck to his arse and started to cultivate it's own fun spores."

Alli looked at James in silent amusement for a second then burst into full on laughter. She didn't know what had possessed him to say that, but it made her laugh. The Slytherins rarely ever made jokes like that and especially not at the expense of Professor Hamilton. Most of them admired him, including Alli. She liked that he didn't take crap from some of the idiots in their class.

"Well maybe I'll try it sometime," she conceded. She wasn't opposed to having fun, although she doubted it was something she would enjoy. Something about it just sounded horribly sweaty.

James found Alli's laughter contagious, and found himself laughing alongside her. He really didn't think that she would find that funny, seeing as it was directed at Professor Hamilton, but he was glad to see her laughing.

"You should definitely try it. I suggest we play it outside Hamilton's office again just to annoy him."

Alli sobered instantly as he suggested that they play it outside of Hamilton's office. "I would rather shave my head bald and declare my undying love to Sami Criss than do that," she said seriously. The last thing she ever wanted to do was annoy Professor Hamilton, except perhaps annoy Campbell. One of them was liable to snap one day and be responsible for some sort of gruesome "accident" involving students, and Alli sure as hell wasn't going to let herself be one of those students.

"I can still hardly believe what she shouted at me after detention. I mean, 'Coward, Slytherin dung, really?" Alli snickered again. She'd had a nice chuckle about it afterward, but time had just made it funnier. "YOU WON'T HEAR THE LAST OF ME!" she shouted in her best Sami impression. "Honestly, you'd think she thought she was intimidating or something."

James shuddered. "Please don't do that. I wouldn't be able to talk to you with a straight face if you were bald. I'd try my best, but end up in fits of laughter behind your back."

James laughed at Alli's imitation. She really got the accent and everything perfect, which just made it funnier.

"Merlin, I know. She's so... I don't even know how to describe her. She's definitely not intimidating." James laughed. "God.. What Ravenclaw is, seriously?" James thought about his question. "Ohh.. I wouldn't want to get on Professor Cooper's bad side, but that's different, I suppose. She's a Prof. I really can't think of any Ravenclaws that are intimidating. Not even Andy."

"I wouldn't actually do it!" Alli said, horrified. She loved her hair far too much to actually get rid of it. That would probably be worse for her than telling Sami Criss that she loved her.

She nodded in agreement with James. "None of them are anywhere near intimidating," she said. "I don't think anyone could be considered intimidating if all it takes to break them would be tearing a page out of a book," she spoke from experience. She'd actually made one girl almost cry by tearing a page out of her own book. It would only be worse if it was their book, or (Wizard God forbid) a library book.

James smirked. "Hell, I would light the Library on fire just to see their reaction. Priceless."

James turned to Alli. "Did you get an owl from Professor Celare about what happened at detention? One came for me at breakfast this morning and I had to go and chat with Professor Sparrow. I could have gone over to the Ravenclaw table and throttled her so bad."

James thought about how stupid Sami is to send his Head of House a letter, for Wizard God's sake. She couldn't just suck it up and handle it herself, she had to be a tattle tail and run to the Profs. Lame.

Alli shook her head at him; she hadn't heard anything from Celare yet, but then, that wasn't surprising. She hadn't seen the woman around the castle in what felt like forever. For all Alli knew, she could have died. "Nope, but I did get a note from the Baby Machine telling me that I have another detention on Saturday, and I have to bring an apology note to give to Sami," she said with disgust. "Can I just AK myself instead? Because honestly, I'd rather do that."

James looked at her. "Urgh. I got the same thing. I can't even bring myself to actually write an apology note to her. For Merlin's sake, it's so ridiculous! Do you reckon I could get away with saying something like, "Dear Sami. I sincerely apologize for throwing dragon dung at you, but you deserved it?"

He took the fire maker out of his pocket and turned to look at her again. "So, what's this rumour that you and Thomas Celare are a couple?" James had been walking to potions when he overheard a bunch of students, first year by the looks, gossiping about Alli and Thomas kissing in the Slytherin commonroom. He had found it fascinating, albeit he did feel a tinge of what he could only place as jealousy at hearing that.