As always, I own nothing but the OCs you see! This chapter takes place during 3rd year!

It was supposed to be an innocent prank, just something stupid they'd all get a kick out of and be done with it. In fact, Sirius thought with a vindictive grimace, it was Amery's idea to do it. Ruby blamed him, but she really should be turning those icy daggers she called eyes towards her idiot brother. It was his retaliation but Sirius just executed it. The previous morning, Roo had hit her brother with an oppungo jinx which had caused his cutlery to jump up and start beating him around the head, although she swore up and down on her broomstick that it was an accident. She said she had been aiming for the Slytherin table behind them, but they weren't completely convinced. Especially given the squeal of glee she let out as the spoons turned their attention to the other Gryffindor boys, particularly when a spoon jabbed Peter in the ear rather hard.

There hadn't been a lot of planning in their counter attack, just an offhand comment made by Amery in a fit of anger. Something about turning her head green, maybe into a pumpkin. Sirius' goal had been to do it sneakily, enlarge her head like they had done to Bertram that one time, and transfigure it orange. Sirius knew there was a pumpkin head jinx, but that wasn't quite as funny, he didn't think. Plus, it was such an easy fix. She could easily remove the pumpkin herself, he wanted something a touch more complicated.

James had advised him to do it during breakfast, right before they left for classes so Lily didn't have time to jump to her rescue before people saw. Lily was almost as good as him and James and they knew she would interfere like she always did, if she could. Sirius had his wand at the ready, whispering incantations under his breath in preparation and as ready to execute when Peter started yelling in his ear. Sirius wasn't sure what he was yelling, just that he could feel his friend's spit on his face and smell the sausages on his breath. It completely broke his concentration, and instead of Roo's head resembling a pumpkin like he had planned, her hair turned a shocking red, and her head started to inflate.

At least he had gotten the enlarged head bit right.

Lily screamed and turned her wand on her friend in an instant, trying to stop the engorgement. Except, no matter what Lily was shouting, no matter how many wrist flicks, it wouldn't stop growing. Sirius jumped up from the table, his intention to book it to class before anyone could turn this back on him. James and Amery followed in suit, both knowing what Sirius had planned to do. Before they could make a proper run for it though, Mary Macdonald had them pinned with a steely glare and a wand in their face.

"Move, and I'll turn your knees backward." She snapped, her eyes cutting into Sirius. As if he didn't feel guilty enough, jeeze. "Go over there and stop her head from getting any bigger Sirius Black!"

"Erm, well the problem with that Macdonald is that I'm not really sure why it won't stop?" He tried to use the most innocent sounding voice possible. "Besides, it's really Pete's fault. He messed me up!"

"I don't care who's fault it is!" Mary shrieked. At this point, several teachers had converged around Ruby, trying to calm the hysterical screaming of Lily and Roo's still growing head.

"Merlin, move aside! Move!" They heard McGonagall's voice cut through the panic. One nonverbal spell, and turn of the wand later, Ruby's head was normal sized although she still sported bright red hair. "Who is responsible for this?" Her voice was dangerously low, as if daring the trouble makers to even think about lying to her.

Sirius shot Mary a pleading look, puppy eyes in full affect to let them go. He'd apologize to Roo later, shower her in chocolate and even try to set her hair right if he could, if he could just avoid McGonagall. She had already put him, Peter and James into detentions for the week. He was gonna miss another Quidditch practice if she caught him, and then he'd have Radbourne to worry about.

For a second, it looked like Mary was going to consider letting them get past her but with a triumphant snort in their direction, she raised her hand in the air to get their professor's attention.

"Ma'am, I think it was Black who did it, but Potter and Zeller were definitely in on it." Once McGonagall made her way over to the guilty party, Mary shot them a harsh glare before turning her back on them and going over to hug Ruby tightly. Although she wasn't hysterical like Lily had been, Ruby Zeller had a murderous look on her very red face. She refused to make eye contact with any of the boys, especially Amery as her face slowly turned back to her normal shade. She shook off the teachers who offered to try to charm her hair back to its original color but Ruby waved them off.

"I just want to get to class, thank you." Sirius heard her mumble, before she grabbed her bag and stalked off, not before hitting Sirius pretty hard with the corner of it.

"You three, in my office, now."

It had been three days, and Ruby still refused to talk to James, Sirius or even Amery. It was unusual to see her not speak to Sirius and James, as she frequently said they were her best mates, but it was even stranger to see her not speak to Amery. In two years that they knew the Zeller twins, no one had ever known them to be angry with each other, let alone not speaking. They were nearly always together or passing notes to each other in class.

Amery had received a particularly awful howler the next morning, his mother screaming at him for attacking his little sister. Ruby stared at Amery with a self satisfied smirk, before turning back to Lily and talking animatedly about their lessons. If that wasn't bad enough, Jude who was now a seventh year had stalked over to the Gryffindor table to chew into Amery some more. Ruby looked even more pleased after that.

James and Sirius both tried to talk to her during Quidditch practice, but after too many attempts, Ruby took a hard swing at James' head that he just barely missed. Sirius was sure she was purposefully aiming bludgers at him too. It was only the three of them that Ruby was ignoring. She still spoke to Remus and Peter, most of the time pretending the other boys didn't even exist.

Her hair was still a fire engine red, which Sirius would never tell her in the mood she was in, fit her quite nicely. Probably why she declined everyone's offer to change it. Mary, who was quite good at hair charms, had toned it down a touch on McGonagall's orders but rebelliously added bits of golden yellow highlights. It was like Ruby Zeller was a walking, talking mascot for Gryffindor.

A few Slytherins had poked fun at her, but when she threatened to turn them all green and silver, they backed off pretty quickly. It helped that Lily fixed Severus with a dark glare and he started sulking, calling his nasty little friends off.

It wasn't until two days later that Ruby even talked to any of them. In a cool voice, she asked James to pass the potatoes at dinner. He was so excited about it that he nearly dropped them in her lap, but she didn't glare at him but smiled rather nicely at him. "Thanks."

Later that night in common room, Ruby could be seen huddled in the corner with Amery, a big smile lighting up her face. It was a happy sight to the boys who shared a room with Amery who had to endure the last several days of his whining. Sirius thought for sure at this rate, Roo would be talking to him in no time. However, three more days passed and all she did was barely acknowledge him with cool indifference. At first, Sirius made several attempts to talk to her. Tried appealing to her between classes and during meals. After a full day of trying to win her over, Sirius started to get angry. It was complete bollocks that she was still acting like he killed her cat or something.

And she did have a mangy calico cat he'd sure like to get rid of. Sirius was convinced the thing was part kneazle.

Ruby acted like she wasn't the one who jinxed them first, and then treated Amery and James normally after just a few days when they were in on it too! He refused to make anymore attempts to be nice, and started sneering back in her direction. If she wanted to act like an entitled brat, than he could act like an even bigger one.

There was a part of Ruby that felt bad for treating Sirius so badly, but there was an even bigger part of her who remembered what it was like to have your head engorged almost 3 times larger than normal size all while having people shrieking at her. She still felt the hot sting of embarrassment whenever she thought about that morning. Although Ruby did have to give Sirius credit for the new shade of hair she decided she loved, she was still angry at him for going after her in the first place.

It didn't matter how many times she said it, but Ruby really hadn't been aiming for her brother when she cast that oppungo spell. It was meant for the goblet in the Slytherin's captain's hand as he passed by. But of course when it came to the Marauders (she still couldn't believe James, Sirius, Remus and Pete were calling themselves that) and company, it was all about them all the time. Of course after the spoons and forks starting dancing on top of their heads, she had to laugh.

However, Ruby had not expected her head to be blown up like that.

Mary told her later that Sirius had said Peter had messed him up and he wasn't sure why the spell had gone haywire. It didn't matter though because she eventually bullied the story out of Peter anyways, that it had been their plan all along; they were just surprised when no one could get it to stop. The hair had been an unfortunate side affect, as Sirius' intentions had been to turn her face orange on top of it all.

The boys moped around for days, before Ruby took pity on James first. She figured he was the least guilty out of the bunch. After letting James off the hook, she couldn't cut Amery off any longer so he was the next to go. As much as Roo loved her friends, nothing could really compare to not talking to her twin for days. Since they were born, they were inseparable, as cliché and tired as it sounded.

Sirius however, she felt deserved a little more cold shoulder, considering he was the one who actually did the spell. Plus, she spent all this time acting mad, she didn't want to seem soft forgiving him so easily. It was hard to keep being mad when he made such an effort to be nice to her. Just as Ruby was about to cave though, it seemed like a switch flipped on in Sirius and he started glaring in her direction every time she was near.

Well, she couldn't very well go crawling back to him to forgive her when he was the one who acted like a revenge bent prat. After all, he was the one who traumatized her, not the other way around.

Tensions were running high in the common room whenever Ruby and Sirius were down there at the same time. He glared at her because he thought she was still mad, and she glared right back because she thought he was being a jerk right after hexing her.

It was nearly two weeks after the incident, and Ruby and Sirius were still glowering at each other when they got the chance. It moved on from intense glares to snippy retorts until one night, it was a full blow out and Ruby screamed until she was red in the face. After getting it out of her system, Ruby was willing to let it go until Sirius ended the fight with another snarky comment.

"Great, now your face matches your hair." He snapped before turning heel and stomping up to the boy's dorms.

Following him to the foot of the stairs, she screamed back at him, "Well remember it was YOUR fault my hair is even like this, you giant, bullying wanker!"

At this point everyone in the common room was watching her very intently until her head snapped back around and fixed them all with the meanest, nastiest glare she could manage. It did look quite odd on a person like Ruby, who was normally so happy. "What? Someone else have anything to say?" People turned away quickly, their nose back to their books, or staring very intently into the fire as if it were interesting.

Ruby sighed loudly, blowing her long bangs from her face before sulking across the room and grabbing Amery by the arm. "You're on my side now, and you aren't going to talk to him anymore! Not when he's being such a huge tit!"

"But Roo-"

"No Amery! I am your sister!"

"Look Roo, I know you were mad, but this has really gone on too long." Amery said with a sad shake of his head.

"It's his own fault Amery Felix Zeller, don't you dare blame me!" Ruby hissed at him, her eyes narrowing in his direction.

"Well, you haven't exactly been reasonable, and he was really sorry about it. He was trying to apologize but you just kept glaring at him. Kinda like you're doing now." No one said Amery got into Gryffindor for nothing, standing up to Ruby when she was like this, practically breathing fire at him, was nothing short of brave, or very stupid.

"I can't believe you're siding with him!" With one last huff, Ruby turned away from him and stomped the whole way up the stairs, making sure to slam the door loudly.

The next morning saw Sirius in a very surly mood and Ruby with red rimmed eyes. To everyone's surprise, Ruby sat herself down right next to Sirius. She glanced at him expecting him to turn her away but again everyone was surprised when he shook his head very slightly, a small smile working across his lips.

After a seconds pause, Ruby threw her arms around Sirius' neck and hugged him as tight as she could. He awkwardly patted her back, until she pulled away and he affectionately ruffled her hair. "You know, red just might be your color Roo."

An unreadable look passed across her face a moment before she burst out laughing. Ruby laughed so hard, tears started to build up in the corner of her eyes. After a minute, and several bewildered stares, she finally turned back to Sirius who only looked at her with amusement. "Yeah, you think so?" He nodded.

"Then let's just say this was a very elaborate scheme to get me to realize my true color then."

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