Disclaimer: I don't own them.

"Hey, guys. Isn't 'un' a great word?"

"Prefix."

"What you say, Moony?"

"Prefix. 'Un-' is a prefix, not a word." Duh.

"What's that?"

"Hey, don't look at me, Wormtail. I'm not the fount of all knolage, you know."

Peter looked at Sirius as if he very much dissagreed. "Well someone just tell me, all right?"

"Yeah, stop teasing, Moony. We aknolage your vastly superior wisdom."

Sigh. "A prefix is something you stick at the beggining of a word to change its meaning." I repeat: duh.

"Oh, like people put 'scientific' at the beggining of a sentence to make it mean 'hard?'"

"Shut up, Wormtail." It was taking all Peter's self-controll not to salute and yell 'siryessir' but he managed it. Barely.

"So, you were saying. 'Un-' is a wonderfull prefix because . . ?"

"Well, just think of all the amazing words you can make with it!"

"What, like 'uncooked?'"

"Well obvously not that, but there are loads of others . . ."

"I can think of a few," said Peter thoughtfully, "but mostly they're bad ones. Like 'unnemployed.'"

"Or 'unwanted.'"

"Or 'undead.'"

"What's so bad about being undead?" demanded Sirius.

"Well," said James slowly, "it's not so much being undead. It's more having to destroy them, if you know what I mean."

Sirius was not going to be defeated that easily. "Yeah, okay guys, but there are other words. Good words."

"Such as?"

"Well . . . 'unscathed' is OK. And 'uncontaminated' is a good one. It's always reasuring to know that you're uncontaminated."

"Yeah, I guess. But 'unnacceptable -'"

"And 'untrustworthy!'"

"Yeah, 'untrustworthy' too - they're bad 'un-' words."

"I suppose you're right," said Sirius miserably. "'Uncle.' Can't stand those words."

"'Uncle' isn't an 'un-' word, 'coz without the 'un' it's just 'cle.' See?"

"How about 'unit?' That's spelt 'un.'"

"Yeah, but without the 'un' it's just 'it.'"

"'It' is a word!" exclaimed Peter.

"Okay, but 'it' and 'unit' mean nothing like each other. They're not aven the same kind of . . . type of word."

"Part of speach." Hello, yes, walking dictionary, that's me. Jeez.

"Yeah, part of speach, that's what I said."

"You know, maybe 'un' isn't such a great word after all."

"Prefix! It's a bloody prefix, not a word! Jeez! That's language abuse, that is! People like you have no right to speak our tounge!"

"Okay, okay, calm down! I didn't know you were allergic to bad grammar."