"Oh come off it, Padfoot," James guffawed, pushing his friend away. "Lily's just in a bad mood. She doesn't really hate me."

Remus chuckled under his breath as he pushed his glasses up his nose. "James, she doesn't hate you, she just really doesn't like you."

James grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest as his three best friends began to laugh at him. The boys were walking along the path that led from the castle to Hagrid's Hut, having gone over to Hagrid's for "a quick cup of tea," or as Sirius liked to call it, "nicking their supplies back from underneath the hut." They enjoyed the groundskeeper, of course, but their weekly visits had more to do with their stash hidden near his pumpkin patch than anything else.

As they neared the castle, pushing each other playfully and cackling like teenage boys will do, the door on the side of the large building flew open and a handful of students in silver and green ties poured out. At the head of the pack stood a boy not unlike one of their ones, albeit slightly shorter with shorter hair and thinner features. As the four boys saw this occurrence, the shortest among them, Peter, drew in a sharp breath and tugged on Sirius's sleeve until all of them had successfully slipped behind a large rock to hide.

"Peter, that's my brother, we can take him," Sirius whined.

Remus scoffed and hit Sirius over the head. "You blasted idiot, Snape's with him and James is Head Boy. Not to mention he's so whipped he's not even allowed to look in Snivelly's direction!"

At that James frowned but didn't contradict him. Instead, he peeked around the corner of the large rock and sighed. "They're just loitering about. Come on, let's go up the side."

The four boys slipped out from behind the rock carefully, running to the other side of the castle and not stopping until they were out of the Slytherins' sight. Peter was panting heavily while Remus was limping, an after-effect of the previous week's transformation, but the other two were fit as fiddles having already done this sort of activity in James's practices. James glared at Remus as the former stood up and made to hit him before Sirius blocked him.

"I am not whipped," the Head Boy growled as Sirius stood in between the two friends.

"Bloody hell, Prongs," Sirius rolled his eyes, "Remus was just joking." He turned to their other friend and raised an eyebrow to prompt a response.

It was Remus's turn to roll his eyes as he too crossed his arms and said, "James, you're mental. Lily's basically falling all over you."

At that James smiled and relaxed, the tension in the air falling to pieces as the four friends, perhaps more brothers than that, continued to amble along. As they continued on their way, they soon rounded a corner and saw a hay bale, not five metres away, that was pointed to look like a bull's eye.

"I didn't know we had hay at Hogwarts," Peter said, stepping closer to the target carefully. "Do we even have horses here?"

Remus shook his head. "No. Closest thing are thestrals."

At his friends' apprehension, Sirius rolled his eyes and walked over to the hay bale. It's just a bleeding target–"

TWACK! Peter and James shrieked as an arrow whizzed past Sirius's face, mere inches from his eyes. The boy jumped back in alarm as a girl's exasperated yells suddenly became clear.

"You come to a bleeding target in the middle of a sodding empty field and you toe-rags don't have the good sense to at least check if someone might be aiming at the ruddy thing?" A petite girl with raggedy blonde hair and enormous blue eyes stormed towards them, her white blouse slightly see-through due to her sweat, Sirius was delighted to see. She threw her bow over her head and a shoulder, placing the string across her chest as she continued on her war path. "You're bloody lucky I saw you absolute wanker at the last bloody second or I could've taken out your sodding eye!"

"Arty!" Sirius said jovially, throwing up his arms as if waiting for her to embrace him. He knew fully well that if he held his breath while waiting he would pass out and his friends would probably leave him right there. "It's been too long."

The girl took one look at him and sneered. "It's McClellan to you, Black." Then, turning to Remus, "Remus, your friend is trying to talk to me again."

Remus smiled and clapped Sirius on the back. "Yeah, he does that sometimes. I'll buy him a muzzle next Christmas, yeah? How are you Artemis?"

"Well I was doing fine until you wankers showed up and I nearly killed the playboy over here." She gestured at Sirius while never taking her eyes of her friend. "Remus, perhaps you should add a leash to that muzzle."

Peter began to crack up at that one, as did James, but Remus only grinned. "Shall do. I see you still keep up with your shooting."

"Archery, Remus. I'm an archer."

"Have you ever shot anything with that?" Peter asked curiously, leaning out as if to try and get a better view of the bow. "I mean, have you ever killed anything with it?"

Artemis finally smiled as one of the boys inquired as to her craft. "Yeah, actually. Bunnies, squirrels, deer sometimes. I don't hunt for sport though. You kill what you need, nothing more. That's what my dad always taught me."

"Don't you find it ironic," James piped up, his face somewhat pale, "that your name is Artemis and you're an archer?"

Artemis's easy smile fell as she gave the Head Boy a quick once over with her eyes. "Nice talking to you, Remus. Can't say the same for your entourage."

"What can I say," Remus shrugged, "I like bad boys."

The girl began to retreat, walking backwards as she surveyed the four Gryffindor boys. "That you do, Remus. That you do."

With that she turned and ran off, her quiver bouncing on her back, the bow anchoring it down somewhat. As the boys watched her run a small distance and turn around again, she took the bow off, grabbed an arrow, and nocked it on the string. Her arm pulled back and suddenly the arrow was whistling through the air, flitting between the boys until it sunk deeply into the hay bale.

"I guess that's our cue to leave."

"You can't ask her out. She hunts deer, Padfoot. She kills my brethren!" James whined, holding the seventh year Gryffindor boys' dormitory door closed. "What happens if you take her to the forest or something and she sees me and kills me?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms at his best mate's antics. "James, like she said, she doesn't hunt for sport. Anyways, it won't last long, guaranteed."

"You know," Remus piped up from behind his issue of Quidditch Weekly, "she's my friend, so I'm morally obligated to tell her that."

"Well you're my friend too," Sirius quipped, "so if I ask you not to, you're morally obligated to do what I say."

Remus put down his magazine and stared at Sirius from his position on his bed. "You have no idea what morals are, do you?"

"Nope!" Sirius grinned toothily. "But that's why you love me."

Remus went back to his magazine as James decided that holding the door closed wasn't enough and so latched onto Sirius himself, his arms around his neck and his legs around his torso. "Come on," he whined, "go charm Mary or something. That Ravenclaw girl isn't worth your time."

Sirius frowned at his newfound koala bear and attempted to untangle himself from James to no avail. "Come off it, Prongs," he grunted, "who I do and what I do with my life is not up to you."

"Whom," Remus interrupted, not bothering to lower his magazine this time. "Whom you do, not who."

"Exactly!" Sirius cried as he finally disengaged himself from James. "Whom I do with my life is none of your concern."

Suddenly the door flung open and a winded Peter stood before the three boys. "She's in the library."

"Perfect," Sirius grinned. "Now I have to go James. I'm late for a very important date."

"It's not even a date yet!"

Artemis frowned as a shadow passed over her table in the library. She had chosen this spot specifically because it was in a secluded corner that seldom few came near. She didn't bother lifting her head, hoping that whomever was there would get the hint and leave her alone, but a minute passed and then another. Finally she broke and looked up to see none other than Sirius Black looming over her with an easy smirk.

"Arty, how are you?" he grinned.

"It's McClellan to you, Black. What do you want?" She flipped a page in her book nonchalantly as she looked away from the nuisance of a boy.

Sirius perked up as she continued to show disinterest – the chase had always been somewhat of a thrill to him. "Easy there, Arty. I'm here to grant you the honour of a date with yours truly."

At that Artemis's head snapped up, but as she spoke it wasn't her voice. Instead it was high and nasally, although her usual sarcasm couldn't be missed. "Oh dear heavens, I must've died. The great Sirius Black wants to accompany on a date? Where would we go? Perhaps to the Quidditch Pitch where I can watch him in all his glory, or even The Three Broomsticks where we can drink Butterbeer and talk all about how awesome he is!" She looked Sirius up and down and sneered in her regular voice, "I'll pass, thank you very much."

"Oh come on, Arty," Sirius badgered, "you haven't even really thought about it. If you go out with me, even just once, people will finally start talking about you. Maybe you could even make a friend."

"I'm not here for a teenage romance wherein the egotistical arsehole wins the good girl's heart," she hissed. "This is school, not Pride and Prejudice. And for your information, I like seclusion," Artemis spat out, a sharp bite to her voice as her blue eyes blazed cerulean fire. "And again, it's McClellan to you."

With that she slammed her book shut and stormed away, leaving Sirius at a table in the back of a library wondering how on earth a girl could ever have rejected him. When others would ask what had happened in the library that day Artemis McClellan had been driven off in a sullen pout as Sirius Black followed closely behind looking bashful as always, he would just hang his head and chuckle quietly as he always did when asked those sorts of questions, and she would not answer, because who would ask anything of the sort to the girl known to shoot arrows with deadly accuracy with a hot head and a hotter temper?

A.N.: Written for SlytherinChica08, bittersweetflames and Draculoramalfoy's Greek Myth Challenge (one more chapter to come). Also, I do not own Pride and Prejudice, that is entirely Jane Austen's! So, what did you think? Questions, comments, thoughts, concerns?