Chapter 1 – Pink disaster

It was a typical morning in the Gryffindor common room. The curtains were drawn, and the sky outside was a pleasant baby blue. I had woken up when our dormitary wake up spell (performed by Rose when we were late for class once after sleeping in) opened the curtains and yanked off the cosy covers, exposing us all to the cool air. I had just walked bleary eyed into the bathroom and shut the door in order to get ready, when I caught a glimpse of my reflection.

"Oh. My. Merlin." I whispered unable to believe it. "No. He wouldn't. He wouldn't dare." But he had. I was covered head to toe in massive, luminous, pink (Merlin how I hate that colour) spots.

"JAMES SIRIUS POTTER I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!"

How could he have done this to me? How? And pink! On a Monday!

There was a timid knock on the door. "Umm, Sapphie? What's he done now?" It was Penelope Wood, a girl in my dorm.

"He's gone and bloody well covered me in luminous pink spots, that's what he's done!" I growled. There was a squeal of laughter from the other side of the door, accompanied by several muffled giggles.

"Shut it, Cassie!"

Cassiopeia Malfoy (I know, quite a mouthful isn't it? That's why we shortened it to Cassie) was my best friend at Hogwarts. We'd met on the train when James had decided to test out a new product that he'd bought from Weasley's Wizard Wheazes on all of the girls on the train. The result was a stampede of girls – all covered in multicoloured feathers, I might add – screaming bloody murder and squawking after the culpit who had turned us all into horse sized parrots. It just so happened that me and another girl (Cassie, though I didn't know her name then) managed to corner him while the older girls promptly gave him a taste of his own medicine – by which I mean feed him a spoonful of parrot pumpkin juice, and watch him slowly transform into a large green parrot, which dented his ego massively. He has been mortaly afraid of birds eversince. Anyway...

I was in the worst situation I had ever been in in my entire life. Okay, maybe that was exagerating a little bit, but still... I had classes today! I couldn't turn up covered in pink spots! He was soooo gonna pay for this...

I hurredly had a shower, changed, and started attacking my long, wavy black hair (which right now ressembled a dragons' nest) with my hairbrush, wishing for once that I had short hair. Once I was satistfied that it was tamed, I quickly pulled it back into a ponytail and stormed into the dormitary, where I was greeted by another, louder, scream of mirth and more giggles.

"Shut up and help!" I snapped, glaring daggers around the room. They immediately sobered up, with the exeption of Cassie, still struggling to muffle her snorts of laughter.

"Please? I can't go to classes like this!" I begged, gesturing at my pink spots.

"Why not?" said Cassie, silver eyes sparkling. "Everyone would find you sooo adorable!"

"Cassie, one more unhelpful word from you and I won't hesitate to force-feed you a permanent canary cream. They're part of Uncle George's new range of-"

"Alright alright! Keep your hair on!" She said, beginning to look a bit alarmed. "We'll find a way to fix you!" She turned to Rose, who had opened her Weasleys Wizard wheezes most recent catalog, which she kept handy for times such as this. I tapped my foot impatiently as she flicked through, searching for the cause of my pink spottiness.

"Ahah!" she exclaimed after what felt like years of looking, when in truth it can only have been two minutes at the most.

"What is it?" I asked eagerly. "Have you found it?"

She didn't answer right away, and when a slight frown started to appear on her face, I started to get worried.

"Rose?"

"It says here that spots can be applied by giving the pink disaster potion to the person that you want to be covered in pink spots to drink, either in water or pumpkin juice – any other drink will cause the potion to be permanent."

"Did James give you anything to drink last night, Sapphie?" Cassie asked me.

"Errrr..."I said, trying to think back. "Yes. I was just about to go up to bed, when James offered me a glass of pumpkin juice. I took it and drank it just before bed. I should have known! I thought that he was being strangely nice..."

"Thank Merlin it was pumpkin juice!"exclaimed Cassie.

"Is it removable?" Penelope asked.

"Errrr...yes?" said Rose after breifly scanning the product description again.

Why did that sound like more of a question than an answer?

"Well, at least it says it is. The thing is, you remove it by drinking another potion that comes with the pink disaster package, and I'm having a wild guess in saying that James is keeping that very safe, and won't give it up willingly."

"Aww, man!" I groaned.

"Don't worry, Saph! We'll find some way of getting it off of him before lessons... even if that means we have to torture him for it!" Cassie said, looking quite exited at the prospect.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." said Penelope (or Penny, as we call her), who had a bit of a thing for James. He deosn't seem to have noticed though.

I waited impatiently while the others quickly got ready along with a shy, quiet girl called Milly who I didn't know very well.

Once Cassie was ready, we ran down to the common room with Rose and Penelope trailing behind, followed by Milly who only had one sock on.

"Do you think he's already at breakfast?" I asked Cassie, nervously making sure that all of the spots that could be covered were covered. I must have looked like a right idiot, with random patches of luminous pink all over me.

"Of course not!" She snorted, "You know what he's like – he thinks getting up at lunchtime is early! I'll bet you he's still in bed! Relax. We'll get it sorted before class, don't worry."

"You'll be fine, Sapphie!" comforted Rose.

I took in her words and a deep breath, and tried to calm down. We WILL get it sorted! Even if we have to torture him be the antidote, we will get it! And then a horrible thought occurred to me.

"You do think he's still got the antidote, don't you?" I saw a flicker of panic in Cassie's eyes before she covered it up and said:

"Of course he will! I mean, he wouldn't just throw it away!"

"He isn't that bad!" said Rose, "He can actually be quite nice sometimes, you know."

I seriously doubted that.

A/N - please review! Do you like the characters? Is it an okay first chapter? Improvements? Constructive criticism? Thank you!