"Trust me: the Magpies have it in the bag again this season. I watched a friendly against the Harpies over the summer, and they just look so sleek and polished in comparison. It's gorgeous to watch," Cassie said with the weight of knowledge behind her. She stood near the refreshment table, a small crowd of Quidditch enthusiasts around her; Lydia Ross, her roommate, and her younger brother, David, both from the Gryffindor team, and Amos Diggory, the Hufflepuff Chaser were amongst them.

"They do look pretty good, but that new Seeker the Tornadoes are packing looks shit-hot. I reckon if he's good enough, he'll improve their chances no end," the tall, good looking Hufflepuff debated, a smile on his face. He wore black trousers and a navy dress shirt, which perfectly complemented his pale skin, bronze-coloured hair and warm, chocolate eyes.

"Who, Ecclestone?" Cassie scoffed, "Even I could outfly him!"

Diggory raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean, 'even you'? You're a pretty damn good Seeker yourself, Derehart. I imagine you'll be going pro next year."

"Oh, well," Cassie flushed, a bit flustered by the compliment, smoothing out the skirts of the dress her friends had managed to force her into, nervously, "It depends on the scouts, I guess, doesn't it."

"I'm sure they'll be all over you," he smiled.

"What about the World Cup? Who do you fancy for that?" she said, moving the topic away from herself. In her Quidditch robes she had no fear of talking about her Seeking skills, but in a royal blue lace dress that showed how slim her waist was, and her Quidditch-toned legs flattered by small heels, she felt utterly out of her depth.

During the resulting argument over the merits of the Irish versus the Brazilian teams, Cassie met Lily's eyes. Her pretty redheaded friend was standing with Mary and two Ravenclaws: Charlie Dearborn, and Jack Mason, from Cassie's Charms class. Lily looked quickly from Diggory to Cassie questioningly, and Cassie immediately thought of James' idiotic comment about Diggory that he'd made to annoy Sirius the other day. She coloured, and gave a small shake of her head, which prompted Lily to surreptitiously nod her head towards Jack. Cassie rolled her eyes at her friend, who smiled with amusement.

It was at that moment the Dearborn, a mousey-haired and friendly chap whom Cassie had no real knowledge of (he didn't play Quidditch, in her defense), raised a hand towards Lily, who took his with a soft smile. He led her out to the small dancefloor, beside which there was a string quartet charmed to play with no need for musicians. Dearborn flawlessly drew Lily into his arms, and led her into a dance.

"Derehart?" Cassie turned her attention back to the conversation, and noticed Diggory looking at her with an amused expression.

"You caught me," she said with a cheeky smile, "I wasn't listening at all. Would you mind saying that again?"

"I asked whether you were planning on going to the World Cup, and whether you had tickets or not. Only next summer, you know. But I think someone else had your attention?"

Cassie coloured. How did she not sound like she was creepily watching Lily dancing with Dearborn…

"I just noticed my friend Mary over there, with Jack Mason," she said, quickly, "He's in my Charms class. I didn't know they knew each other."

"Mason? The one in Ravenclaw?" asked Diggory, looking past her.

Cassie was wishing she had just left it, now.

"Yeah, the blonde guy?"

"Oh, he's alright," Diggory said with an approving nod, "You won't have to worry about her, anyway."

Cassie was bemused.

"What -"

At that moment, a wave of groans washed around the room, starting from the door where Slughorn was welcoming guests. Cassie looked up, and almost groaned herself.

There stood the Marauders. They had certainly dressed up: they all wore white dress shirts and trousers, and whilst Remus wore his with a brown tweed jacket and a red tie, Sirius and James both wore waistcoats (Sirius' a plum velvet with a matching velvet bow tie, and James' a green and blue tartan with his Head Boy badge on display, with a black skinny tie), and Peter had partnered his shirt only with an unfortunate canary yellow tie, patterned with red broomsticks. However, despite their smart clothes, Sirius looked like trouble - whilst he appeared to be smiling, and ready to charm, Cassie could see the tightness in his jaw and across his eyes that said he was in a typical Sirius bad mood. And, to make matters worse, James had that look on his face.

Something was going to explode.

"Why, I hadn't expected to see all of you here, gentlemen!" greeted a slightly flabbergasted Slughorn. The fact that Sirius and Peter hadn't been invited would, on a normal occasion, have meant that none of the Marauders (bar maybe Remus) would have attended. She saw Slughorn look around quickly, his gaze meeting hers, and a look of tightly controlled dread came into his usually merry eyes. Where all five Marauders went, especially when there was free mead, trouble would soon follow.

"I couldn't possibly have refused, Professor," James stepped in smoothly, smiling his most winning smile at the Potions master, "After all, surely as Head Boy, there are so many people I should meet…"

"Why, yes," Slughorn rallied, "In fact, if you'll come with me, I think you really have to meet…"

The professor drew James from the group, getting once more into his stride, casting only one solitary look of distrust back towards Sirius.

The remaining Marauders took James' sacrifice, and made good use of it. Sirius immediately found the largest group of girls present and turned on the charm, inciting some incredible eyelash fluttering. Peter tagged along behind him, the girls resolutely ignoring him, and Sirius deigning only to use him as an arm rest. Remus spotted Cassie, and gave her an apologetic wave, before making his way over to where Mary and Jack stood chatting.

"So, when do you think things will start exploding?" questioned Diggory. Cassie almost started - she'd entirely forgotten about him.

"Well," she said, recovering quickly, and shooting a faux innocent smile at him, "On my word as a Marauder, I don't know what you might be referring to…"

He laughed, and she noted the attractive way his warm brown eyes creased with mirth.

"You really are a character, huh, Derehart?"

"I am indeed," Cassie agreed with a smug little smile, "But you can call me 'Cassie'."

She saw Diggory's eyes lift to something behind her right shoulder seconds before a hand touched her there, gently.

"Sorry to interrupt," said a familiar warm voice, and Cassie turned to look into the blue eyes of Jack Mason, "But there's a rather excellent charmed quartet, and Cassie here is wearing heels. These two things need to be combined for immediate comedy value."

Cassie swatted him with her hand.

"I'll have you know I haven't tripped since I made it out of Lily's portrait hole, actually."

"Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that, eh? Sorry, Diggory, you can fight me for her later," Jack nodded to the other boy with a smile. Diggory let out an exaggerated sigh, but didn't seem too perturbed.

"Well," said Jack, as he took Cassie's right hand in his, and placed his left in the small of her back, "fancy meeting you here."

"Indeed," agreed Cassie, with a wry smile, "asking me, twice, if I was coming surely didn't give anything away."

"Well, you never know," Jack grinned, "So, what was Amos chatting to you about? Looked intriguing."

"Quidditch."

"Oh," he said in exaggerated realisation, "Of course. I should have known."

"Quidditch," Cassie said, slightly defensively, "happens to be not only an excellent sport, but an excellent topic of conversation. Unlike politics, or religion, it's never significantly offensive, and yet is far more interesting that the weather."

"Touche," admitted the blonde boy, with a laugh, "Although I'm sure the Gryffindor Seeker and a Hufflepuff Chaser could turn the otherwise innocuous topic into a full scale war if they so desired."

"Good thing we didn't desire too, then, I'd say."

"I'd say, indeed," the Ravenclaw said with an arched brow.

It was then that Cassie realised she was rather out of her depth. She'd feel more comfortable facing a rogue Bludger than she did at that moment, in a dress and heels, in the arms of a boy. Her witty banter was only going to protect her so far, she realised, before it could be interpreted as something more.

She found herself feeling a little uncomfortable; a little unsure; very aware of the location of his hands. The Jack that she felt easy and safe with had gone.

She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when the punch bowl exploded. Lydia Ross and her brother, amongst the other still chatting near the refreshments, were sprayed with punch, and a chorus of squeals and complaints broke out.

"Well, that was amateur," Cassie assessed, "They could have exploded the cake and made much more mess, plus been able to spike the punch with acne potion or something."

Suddenly, more screams began as various of Slughorn's guests began to break out in horrible green boils. Cassie raised an eyebrow, assessing the food and drink in the hands of each newly be-boiled victim.

"Ah, the treacle tart," she surmised, "Not bad, actually. Now, if only they've done something to the…"

Suddenly, the second violin began beating the nearest dancing couple around the head, making a horrible twanging noise as it did so. The cello dropped its bow, and hopped menacingly towards the dancefloor.

"String quartet?" asked Jack, his expression a mixture of disbelief and frank appraisal of his dance partner.

"I think now is my cue," said Cassie, who shot an apologetic expression to the Ravenclaw, before striding (as best possible in those blasted heels) towards Lily, who clung to her dance partner in confusion at the scene around her.

"Lily," she said, grabbing her friend's arm, "You need to move."

Lily looked blankly at her, before looking back to her partner's expression of fury.

"Like, now," Cassie pressed, looking up towards the chandelier.

At that moment, Cassie felt a hand on her upper arm. She was tugged, hard, away from Lily, just as she watched James pull her friend in the opposite direction. She looked up to see Sirius' face above her, his grey eyes intent on the chandelier.

"And, go," he whispered, and Cassie watched as a swarm of Doxies unveiled themselves, taking flight from the chandelier.

At that point, mayhem ensued. The Doxies were throwing food, tugging on ears, pulling up skirts and biting at ankles. Boil-covered guests were shrieking, and people were slipping on the spilled punch in their haste to escape the violent string quartet. Cassie couldn't hear over the panicked din, but she could certainly feel Sirius laughing next to her.

"Slughorn sure knows how to throw a party, eh?" she asked, defeatedly.

"With a little help," Sirius laughed.

Cassie sighed. She had so been looking forward to meeting the sports writer for the Prophet, too.

"Better make sure Lily isn't killing James right now," she said, pulling away from Sirius and heading towards her red-headed friend, who seemed to be giving James more of an earful than the Doxies could have.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed, "Make sure to get her out of here before the Doxies spot her hair, or she really will flip."

Cassie looked at the tall, dark-haired boy in his plum-coloured waistcoat, smiling contentedly in the midst of all the noise and chaos.

"Alright, Padfoot. Mischief managed."


Lily was in tears on her bed. She was in her pyjamas, fresh out of the shower (Lily, Mary and Cassie had all required showers after the excitement of Slughorn's party), and really rather upset.

"I can't believe he would do this! He's supposed to be Head Boy; he's supposed to be past this!" Lily cried. Smashing a fist angrily into her pillow.

Marlene and Mary exchanged nervous glances.

"You do realise it was Padfoot, right Lils? Prongs had nothing to do with it," Cassie pointed out as she towel-dried her mad curls.

"But he should have stopped him, or banned him from coming, or done something -"

"What on earth did you expect him to do? We all know that Padfoot is a moody force of nature - Prongs couldn't have stopped him causing mayhem. Moony couldn't stop them as a prefect - why do you think Prongs would have any more control over Padfoot as Head Boy?"

"He should have known better."

"Who, Padfoot?"

A memory of a moonlit night, and a dark haired, sallow-skinned boy entering a tunnel from which there was no escape flickered before Cassie's eyes. Of James pulling him from the tunnel, and going back to hold off a raging werewolf in his Animagus form whilst Cassie ran blindly through the corridors of Hogwarts seeking the Headmaster. She shuddered. Sirius had learned where the line was drawn, and he'd learned it the hard way. He'd not only had the wrath of Dumbledore, and all of the Marauders, but he'd been beyond angry with himself.

"No, James. He should have known -"

"Oh, give it a rest, Lily. I know you don't like him - the whole castle knows you don't like him! - but this wasn't Prongs' fault. You shouldn't have riled up Padfoot."

Lily looked outraged.

"I never -"

"I tell you what though," Marlene interrupted, with a bit of a regretful sigh, "it is bloody typical that the time I decide the Slug Club is too boring to bother attending, it ends up the most exciting Slug Club party in history."