So here they were. Once again. In their favourite haunt. Exactly where they were supposed to be, i.e.: not in a bush. This was a good thing. Sirius grinned and stretched back in his seat, draping his arms along the sides of the booth and sprawling his legs out; consequently taking up all the room under the table.

It was a mark of how nervous James was that he didn't kick him, or snap something along the lines of "get your legs off me you arse," which would have been a typical James response to any Sirius invasion of personal space. As it was, he didn't even appear to notice that Sirius was suddenly taking enormous liberties leg-space wise. His face was a sickly, sweaty pale – he studied the bottom of his shot glass with the sorrowful intensity of a man contemplating suicide. Deciding to test out this new, interestingly vacant mood of James, Sirius slung both of his feet onto his lap.

"Fuck off, you twat!"

It appeared that James wasn't that vacant. Sirius quirked a corner of his mouth. "What's the matter, Prongs? Don't you…" He widened his eyes appealingly. "…love me?"

"No." James knocked back the contents of his shot glass.

"He does really," Sirius confided in Peter.

"I don't," James said through gritted teeth.

"You do."

"I don't. I never have done. I never will. You're a bastard."

"What if I gave you more fire-whiskey?"

A pause. "Maybe."

Sirius grinned widely. "That's the truth of it!" he said encouragingly, pulling an unlabelled bottle out of his pocket and, after a long glance at the bar, topped up all three shot glasses on the table.

"I don't like fire-whiskey," mumbled Peter, who was also looking a bit green around the gills, although he sipped reluctantly at it after a look from Sirius. The contents of James' glass had already vanished – not to be outdone, Sirius immediately followed suit.

"Right," said Sirius, after the burning had cooled down to a fairly tolerable level in his throat. "Time for you to make yourself scarce, Prongsie."

James reacted as though he'd shoved a burning poker in his eye – he sat upright with all the ferocity of someone who had just been electrified. "Why?! Do you think she'll be coming in soon?"

"Well," Sirius checked his watch, "Yeah. Around now."

James closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, however, he looked quite his old self. "OK," he said evenly, "But I want the firewhiskey."

Sirius gave him a narrow look. "Prongs, if you mess this up because you're off your head - "

"Look, I can handle my drink as well as you can." James' smile was somewhat fixed. "Come on, I won't over do it. I just need a bit of Dutch courage, you know?"

Against his better judgement, Sirius handed the bottle over. James nodded his thanks – it seemed his tongue had stopped working – before tucking it under his robes and sweeping away from the table without a second word and only a slight stagger to his walk. Concern creased Sirius' brow momentarily, but he decided to shrug it off. He'd seen James drink more than that before a Quidditch match in the past and still manage to act sober.

Of course, he had flown into the goal post soon after taking off on that particular occasion. But Sirius didn't like to think about that.

Peter took another sip from his shot glass, his eyes wide and pensive. "This is going to work, isn't it?" he said tentatively. Quailing slightly as Sirius glared at him, he nonetheless pressed on. "It's just that James seems…"

"He's fine," interrupted Sirius, annoyed. "Just a bit nervous, is all."

Five minutes or so passed by as the two of them sat absorbed in their own thoughts. A crowd of Slytherins walked past the window behind them, the white-blond head of Lucius Malfoy standing out among them. But beside him was a shorter, dark haired boy, and Sirius recognised the proud, upright walk instantly. He frowned, and followed them with his eyes for a moment, then looked abruptly away.

"Sirius…"

Sirius grunted to show he was listening.

"You know when you said we had to – to 'come on to Lily'?"

"Yeah."

"Um…what…" Peter fiddled with his glass. "Ah, what, exactly, did you mean?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "You know. Flirt with her."

Peter squirmed. A deep blush was creeping up around his neck and warming his ears. "But – Merlin, Padfoot, you know I'm not good with – with – that type of thing."

"Look." Sirius turned himself around so that he was facing Peter directly. "All we need to do here is make her feel uncomfortable. We are not trying to make her swoon at our feet. In fact, we're aiming for the exact opposite. So when she is on the verge of hitting us, James can come over and warn us off, apologise to Lily for our behaviour, and thus make her fall madly in love with him." He paused thoughtfully. "Or just make her stop hating him, either way." He took in Peter's flustered features. "Just make an innuendo or something," he said lightly. "Alright?"

Peter's face was blank. "Innuendo?"

"Yeah…you know!" Sirius looked around for inspiration. "Say she's got a straw in her drink, for example. You could say, 'hey, Lily, you can suck on my straw any time!'"

Peter choked on his sip of whiskey. "What if she doesn't have a straw?"

"Well then, say she has a cherry on her glass. A simple 'hey, Lily, would you mind if I nibbled on your cherry?' would suffice."

Peter's face was glazed with a mixture of horror and fascination. "What if there isn't any cherry?"

"Then, for Merlin's sake, a simple 'kiss me, beautiful' will do it. Coming from you, it's enough to send any girl running."

Peter looked awed. "How do you come up with these lines?"

Sirius shrugged. "Oh you know. I'm just a genius."

Unexpectedly, Peter tossed back the rest of the whiskey from his almost-full glass. "Teach me," he croaked, after he'd recovered from a severe bout of coughing.

"Excuse me?"

"Teach me how you do it!" Peter flung his arm out in a rather over-dramatic gesture, and Sirius suddenly recalled with regret what a lightweight Peter was. "How you get all the girls, mate! Teach me!"

"Um," Sirius edged back slightly along the seat. "Another time, maybe."

Peter, however, was much more persistent when he was somewhat tipsy. "No!" he snapped, banging his shot glass on the table. "Teach me now!"

It was very much to Sirius' relief that the pub door slammed open at that moment, and Remus and Lily came striding in. His relief rapidly turned to surprise as he realised that both were laughing hysterically over something – Lily was actually holding onto Remus' arm for support – and Remus certainly wasn't doing anything to indicate he wanted her to let go.

"Looks like they're having a nice time," remarked Peter, a trifle too loudly for Sirius' comfort. Luckily, Lily did not hear, although Sirius knew instantly that Remus had. As though remembering himself, Sirius observed him straighten up slightly, and gently remove Lily's hand from his arm. She looked slightly put out by this gesture – a little too put-out. Sirius narrowed his eyes at the back of Remus' head.

"Come on, I'll buy you a drink," he just about heard Remus say, and the two of them made their way to the bar, he now carefully keeping his distance from Lily as though she had something catching.

"Soon, Pete," muttered Sirius out the corner of his mouth, watching as Remus left Lily sitting at a booth while he went to order their drinks. "You ready?"

"What?" said Peter, who hadn't been paying any attention and was now boggling at a group of girls with short skirts at the bar. "I can't hear you."

Sirius didn't bother responding – his eyes were fixed on Remus carefully carrying two Butterbeers back to their booth. Timing was everything. He waited until the drinks had been set down on the table and Remus had slid himself along the seat until he was within a respectable distance of Lily. Then he stood up.

"Let's go," he said briskly.

"Hey, ho," replied Peter absurdly, and giggled to himself. However, he heaved himself to his feet and looked ready to go, which was all he was worried about. Hoping that James was watching and adopting a slight sway to his walk that was not entirely acting, Sirius set off across the room.

He slid into the booth in one smooth, practised movement, taking care to bang his leg on the table on the way in order to make their drinks slop. "Alright, Moony?" he grinned, as Peter flung himself next to Remus. "'Allo, Lilykins," he added wolfishly, budging up so that their legs touched.

She (excellent) looked pissed, and pointedly shifted away from him – closer to Remus. "Hello, Black," she said coldly. "What do you want?"

"So many things, darling, so little time." He smirked at her, and let his eyes flicker almost imperceptibly to her chest. The effect was wasted, however, as she was refusing to look at him – her eyes were focused firmly on her drink; which, much to Sirius' amusement, contained both a straw and a cherry. Peter, he realised, had also noticed this. Smirking, Sirius settled back and prepared to enjoy the show.

Peter had a bead of sweat starting in his hairline; his lips mouthed wordlessly as, right on cue, Lily picked up her drink and pursed her lips about the straw. For a moment, it seemed that Peter would explode with the indecision of which line to say – but finally, he spoke.

"Hey, L-Lily," he stuttered, and Lily raised her eyebrows inquiringly at him. Peter couldn't bring himself to meet her eye. "Y-you can nibble on my cherry any time!"

It was a mark of how entirely drunk Peter was that he didn't realise what he had said straight away – on the contrary, he looked rather triumphant, as though he'd just delivered a world class speech. Lily froze in mid-swallow, and consequently, started choking.

"What did you just say to me?" she demanded fiercely, after Sirius had helpfully banged her on the back several times. "And you can stop rubbing my back now," she snarled at Sirius, who merely smiled back and trailed his hand off her skin. Visibly shuddering, Lily plonked her drink back on the table and glared at Peter, who looked as though he wanted to crawl under the table and die.

"Please don't try to be suggestive, Pettigrew," she said acidly. "It doesn't suit you at all."

"Ah now," slurred Sirius instantly, "Tha's not very nice. Peter finds you very 'tractive, don't you, Pete?"

Lily looked like she was on the verge of vomiting. Sirius used the opportunity to shift closer to her. She was now sandwiched between him and Remus, and the severe invasion of personal space was starting to get to her.

"Have you been drinking?" she snapped at Sirius, recoiling as he started to play with a strand of her hair. "I could have you thrown out for that, Black!" Her voice was mounting in pitch.

Sirius laughed in her face. She flinched in disgust as she no doubt smelt the whiskey on his breath. "We've been thrown out from here a hundred times before, Evans, it's no big deal."

"I meant from Hogwarts," she snarled. She was really riled now – Sirius knew that the only thing stopping her from getting up and walking away was the fact that she was surrounded on all sides – with no escape. Time to move in for the kill. Bracing himself for the inevitable slap around the face and trying to ignore the guilt in his stomach, Sirius moved closer – and slid his hand onto her thigh.

"You wouldn't do that t'me, would you?" he slurred meaningfully in her ear.

She breathed in sharply through her nose, and when she turned to him, her eyes were like two green chips of ice. "Get your hands OFF of me!"

"OY!" And smoothly, beautifully, perfectly right on cue James appeared in all his dazzling glory in front of their table. Sirius whipped his hand away from Lily's leg, observing with glee the look of intense relief on her face as she looked up to see her rescuer.

His heart plummeted to his toes. Because he knew from one glance that James was not slightly tipsy.

He was absolutely, completely, utterly legless.

James, Sirius prayed in his head. Don't say anything stupid – just stick to the plan, just tell me and Peter to get lost, tell us we've drunk too much, just like in rehearsals James – PLEASE don't say anything stupid –

"Evansh!" James slurred out, swaying where he stood, the unlabelled bottle painfully conspicuous under his robes. He beamed desperately at her. "I love you so much Evans, pleashe go out wi' me!"

just like that.

That, it appeared, was the last straw for Lily. She stood up so abruptly the table rocked violently and would have fallen over had Peter not grabbed it. Without any preamble, she hurled her drink straight into James' face.

"Does that answer your fucking question?" she half-screamed at him, causing a good half of the pub to turn around in interest. "Get out of my way!" she shouted at Sirius, who wasted no time in scrambling out of the booth to stand aside for her. Before she left, she picked up the cherry from the floor and threw it at Peter. "Nibble on it all you want," she snarled, before shoving past James on her way out the building.

The door banged closed. The silence that had fallen over the majority of the pub was deafening. All eyes were on them. And James stood there with such an expression of complete and total miserable shock on his face that Sirius suddenly felt real anger start to pound in his head. It wasn't so much that James had fucked up – it wasn't that his carefully laid plan had come to bits before his eyes – it was the fact that, after all that, James had the indecency to stand there and look genuinely surprised about the fact that Lily had thrown her drink in his face.

"You fucking moron," Sirius said simply, before turning around and walking off to the other end of the pub. He knew from experience that the landlord would throw them out in about thirty seconds and for once, he was in no mood to be thrown out with them. The night was still young and, frankly, Sirius had no intention of letting his stupid, stupid arse of a best friend ruin it for him.

0o0

Ah, what a surprise, Sirius' plan failed spectacuarly! I hope you all enjoyed reading, my lovely tiny collection of readers! I certainly loved writing it. Thanks so much to those of you who reviewed last time, you actually made my day!

Let me know what you think of this chapter, would you? -appealing eyes-

Love and peace xxx