Ostensibly, it was just another Tuesday evening in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. There were rolls and ham on the table. A couple of Slytherin first-years were trying to place bets with the older students on who would win the upcoming Quidditch match. The Hufflepuff table was buzzing about one of the Macmillan brothers landing himself in detention. But at the Gryffindor table, things were far from normal.

"Is this really happening?" Marlene asked, trying in vain to turn the massive grin spreading across her face into a casual smirk. She looked down at her food in an effort not to giggle with delight.

Sirius had mastered the art of concealing his emotions a long time ago, so his arrogant, nonchalant expression was much better than Marlene's. "I believe so, McKinnon," he replied, snatching up another roll.

"But why the catch? Why does it have to be a double-date? And why are you just asking me out now, after all this time?"

Sirius cocked his head to the side. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he said coyly. Marlene rolled her eyes, shook her head, stood up, and walked away with as much composure as she could muster. Once she had rounded the corner, however, she burst into a run up the staircase.

She just had to tell Lily.

"Lily Marie Evans, if you are not out of the shower in the next thirty seconds I am going to burst in there and tell you anyway!"

"Marlene, please, I'm conditioni-ahhhh!" the redhead shrieked as the shower curtain started to slide back. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she reassured the ever impatient blonde.

"You better be," Marlene yelled through the curtain, leaving it be. Lily quickly wrapped up her shower and covered herself in a towel. Marlene evidently had some incredibly important news to share.

"Y'know, Marlene, I really don't understand why you couldn't tell Mary or Dorcas or any of the other girls in Gryffindor," Lily huffed, annoyed, as she rummaged for clothes in her trunk.

"Because," Marlene said impatiently, "what if you didn't say yes?"

"Marlene, dear, what on earth are you talking about?"

The blonde took a deep breath in as a grin commanded control of her face. "Sirius asked me out!" The exclamation was more of a squeal than an actual sentence, but Lily understood the meaning nonetheless. Her jaw dropped to the floor in absolute shock.

Sure, Sirius and Marlene had been flirty for ages, but... Lily knew those two like the back of her hand, and an actual, honest-to-goodness date just wasn't their style. They were madly in love, of course, but they were both far too stubborn to admit it. Sirius preferred two-week, meaningless flings-at this point in their late sixth year, he had dated nearly every eligible girl at Hogwarts. Marlene had just broken off a serious relationship during the winter holidays, so she had sworn to be boyless for the remainder of her life. Remarkably, her heart was so broken that she had actually kept up with it-despite her normal amount of shameless flirting, Marlene hadn't actually dated anyone for the entire term.

But now…

Lily snapped out of her reverie to slap on a fake smile and congratulate her friend. "Marlene, that's... that's wonderful!"

Marlene beamed and fell back across the bed, the dreamy smile making her eyes gleam. Lily was happy to let her go into happy daydream land and give her some more time to process things, but Marlene shot up from the bed quickly, a serious expression on her face once more. "So you'll do it, then?" Marlene asked.

"I'm sorry, do... Do what?"

"Well, Sirius said that if we were to... go out, there's one condition."

"And what's that?" Lily asked warily.

"It's a double-date," Marlene replied with a perky smile.

"Ahhh. And I'm the victim of this double-date, aren't I?"

"Oh, c'mon, Lils, you aren't the victim of anything. It'll be fun."

Lily shrugged. "Who's the lucky bloke?" she teased. Marlene pinched her lips together, and Lily's concern grew into legitimate worry. "Marlene, who is it?" she chided.

A beat of silence, then another, and then…

"James Potter!"

"Padfoot, are you insane?"

"Prongs, you have been trying to go out with Lily Evans for years! I, the great and illustrious Sirius Black, have finally got you a date with her!"

James stopped stomping up the stairs to the Gryffindor sixth year boys' dorm and whirled around to face his occasionally idiotic best friend. "First of all," he began angrily, "she hasn't agreed yet to your stupid plan. Secondly, if she did, it would probably be only for Marlene's sake and she would be intent on having a miserable time. And third, I'm fairly certain you remember the conversation we had last week about me giving up. I'm done with Evans, Padfoot. I've tried and I've tried and I decided literally six days ago that it's just better to be her friend, okay? I'm through with being a creepy stalker! You were there, you know it, so why did you pull this stupid stunt?"

Sirius flipped his hair dramatically, pretending to be deeply affronted by James's insults of his brilliant plan. "I'll have you know, Prongs," he began, "that I have been formulating this plan for weeks. Personally, I think it's worthy of a documentary."

James rolled his eyes and escaped into the dorm, where he immediately lay on the bed facedown and mumbled something that sounded like "ihateyouandimneverleavingthisroomagain".

"Cheer up, Prongsie," Sirius insisted, having followed him in. "Do you still like Lily?" James sat up and glared. "Do you?" Sirius continued, finally convincing James to nod sullenly. "Then the best way to go about this is not to sulk. The best way is to woo her with your dashing good looks and boyish charm."

"Talking about me, are we?" Remus asked as he entered the room and flopped down on his four-poster.

"Prat," Sirius said. "I was actually talking about James trying to win over Evans."

"I thought he gave up," Remus said, confused.

"I did!" James piped up, but Sirius tsked-tsked and ignored him, leaning over into his trunk and pulling out the ugliest tie ever seen in Gryffindor tower.

"Prongs, you and I are going to have the double-date of the century."

A/N: Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! The second chapter will be posted Monday on my good friend Katherine A. Jones's page because we wrote this as a collab. Hop on over to her profile and give it a follow so you can be sure to get every chapter of the story!