PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT THE AUTHOR OF THIS FANFIC. ALL RIGHTS GO TO mental OF HARRYPOTTERFANFICTION. This story was removed from hpff, so I reposted here so that fans could have access to it. I am not mental. From this point on, all content belongs solely to mental.

Chapter 38: I Knew a Woman, Lovely In Her Bones: Part II

Everyone looked up as the sixth year dormitory door slammed loudly for the second time that night. A faintly puzzled James rolled a gobstone and said, 'Didn't you just make an Exit?'

Sirius collapsed against the door, panting shallowly. 'This,' he groaned, 'is going to be so much harder than I thought.'

*.*.*

When Ze's jellylegs dragged their mistress into her dormitory, Lily was sat on Dorcas's bed, perusing the photos and chatting quietly. '...definitely sneaky - oh, Ze, have you -' and then Lily got a good look at Ze and broke off with a, 'Jesus! What happened?'

'Sirius,' Ze groaned as she collapsed in a heap on her bed, doing her best to think calm and meditative things.

'He hexed you?' Dorcas gasped.

Ze managed to shake her head in negative reply. 'Refused to kiss me,' she explained, and opened her eyes to find Lily and Dorcas staring down from on high. 'Creepy,' she mumbled, and shut her eyes again.

'What do you mean, he refused to kiss you,' Lily demanded, in such close imitation of what Ze herself had said earlier that she couldn't stop a grimace.

'The bet,' she explained ruefully. 'He says he's winning it. Something about honour.'

There as a synchronised snort of derision, followed by, 'Boys.'

'So what,' Lily asked, 'he can't touch you?'

'And I can't touch him,' Ze sighed. 'Criminally unfair.'

'None of which explains why you've taken to your bed in a faint,' Lily prodded.

Ze cracked one eye open. 'Sirius is very good at not touching.'

'Oh,' Dorcas said, and after a moment: 'Wow.'

Lily's brows were drifting slowly up her forehead. 'Impressive,' she agreed. 'How's he look?'

'Dunno,' Ze replied, closing her eye. 'He ran off.'

'So when're you getting your revenge?' Dorcas asked sensibly, and this had both of Ze's eyes cracking open.

'Revenge?'

'He's turned you into a pudding,' Lily said baldly. 'You're just going to let that go?'

'Pudding is nice?' Ze said hopefully.

Lily snorted. 'That's the hormones talking - you'll be singing a different tune once you've firmed up a bit. Just remember that he's the one who's made the rules - doesn't mean you have to make it easy for him to follow them.'

Ze had a sneaking suspicion that this was Very Good Advice.

Dorcas, who felt that Plotting was an antidote to all maladies, brandished the photos. 'Lily says it's Morweena Munford with Grace.'

'It's definitely her,' Lily confirmed, going with the subject change in spite of the fact Ze seemed to be trying to enter a meditative trance. 'Sixth year, bit of an outcast, but she's definitely clever enough to brew a truth serum.'

'So you think that's what it is?' Ze asked between deep, calming breaths.

Lily glanced at Dorcas. 'I can see why you would think that's what it is,' she admitted. 'And it would certainly loosen up anyone who wasn't used to spilling all their secrets to her.'

'Speaking of which,' Ze murmured, glancing towards Serena's bed. 'I was going to wait until Serena was back as well, but it doesn't look like that's happening any time soon -'

'Where is she, anyway?' Lily asked.

'Oh, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise,' Ze said with a dazed chuckle. 'Anyway, I've got good news. Well, not good news precisely,' she admitted, 'it's really actually horrible news, but for us - '

'What did he do to her,' Dorcas muttered to Lily.

'If we're lucky, someday we might find out,' Lily replied bemusedly, looking down at Ze, who was still babbling about news.

' - what I'm saying is, in spite of the fact that he's completely betrayed his friends, at least we know who's been telling - '

'She isn't making any sense at all,' Dorcas sighed.

'Think if we cooled her down she'd feel better?' Lily asked.

Dorcas adjusted her glasses contemplatively. 'The notion of the cold bath doesn't seem to be an old wives' tale - not that I've done any research into the matter, of course -'

'It'll have to do,' Lily sighed, and grabbed Ze under her arms to hoist her up.

'Oi - I'm trying to tell you something important!' Ze said indignantly.

'Yes yes,' Lily soothed. 'Cold shower first, tales of dastardly betrayal later.'

*.*.*

Serena didn't come back to the dormitory that night. She missed a great deal - most notably Ze explaining all about Peter and his role as the source of Grace's information. While everyone agreed that he had been horribly duplicitous, they also agreed that the opportunities for misinformation were brilliant, and there was much rejoicing. Ze refused to explain Serena's absence, and when Grace arrived just before midnight they were left with nothing to talk about and decided to go to bed since they had nothing better to do. Ze slept very peacefully, right up until she started dreaming.

When she woke the next morning the sheets and duvet were in a tangle at the bottom of the bed, her hair felt electrified and she was cuddling her pillow in a suspiciously familiar manner. 'Sirius, you bastard,' she muttered.

She threw open her bed curtains to stumble to the bathroom and was confronted with Serena, humming dreamily as she stared into her wardrobe. Ze tilted her head and took in the tangled hair, the rumpled clothes and the fact that Serena seemed to have only one shoe. 'At least somebody had a good time,' she mumbled.

'You have no idea,' Serena replied languorously as she reached for her hairbrush. 'No idea...'

Noticing that Lily and Dorcas seemed to be stirring, Ze replied with a noncommittal grunt and launched herself toward the toilet, towel in hand. Not that she wasn't happy for Serena - if anyone deserved a nice night and Remus Lupin, it was Serena - she just wasn't in any condition to hear the dirty details. It really wasn't fair - Remus was supposed to be the fine, upstanding gentleman of the Marauders: why couldn't he be the one to defeat Rob with his virtuous perseverance and rigid self-control? Why had Sirius been the one stuck with being all noble and self-sacrificing? Oh, wait, that was because Sirius had volunteered for it, the twat. And then he went making promises about how great it would be once all this was over. Well, that wasn't soon enough for Ze - not nearly soon enough. And if Sirius thought she was just going to sit around and wait, he could think again...

This little rant got her through the shower and the scouring of her teeth. By the time she re-emerged into the dormitory (just in time to hear Lily say how long?!) she had worked herself completely into a strop. So when she threw open her wardrobe and started snatching furiously at the various parts of her school uniform, she very nearly missed the significance of the moment when she knocked her shoes against the black Circe's bag that was stuffed in the back corner. She had turned all the way back to her bed before she remembered the enormous pile of tarty underpants wrapped up inside. Once she had remembered them though, all she could think of was red lace and black silk and the fact that Sirius seemed to lick his lips every time he so much as thought about them...And then she remembered Lily saying there's no reason you have to make it easy for him.

'Serena,' she heard herself say, 'could I borrow that camera?'

*.*.*

Sirius was late. Peter and James were late as well, because they'd all been waiting together for Remus to emerge from his bed, but that wasn't much comfort when you were competing for the last slice of toast on the breakfast table. Sirius was in the lead as they burst through the doors of the Hall, but he knew he'd lost it the minute Ze stood from the Gryffindor table directly in front of him. James and Pete blew by behind him, snatching at the remaining scrap of bread like the mangiest sort of pigeons, and Sirius realised he didn't even care.

He'd nearly mown her down, sliding to a stop barely a breath away, and expected either a laugh or an exasperated comment about boys and food in response. Instead, she just peeked around his shoulder and said, 'What, no Remus?'

Completely thrown, all Sirius could manage was, 'He never got out of bed.'

'Mmm,' was the cool response. 'At least Serena got him into it.' Sirius gaped. Before he could reply though, Ze had reached out and straightened the fold of his robes, saying, 'Enjoy your breakfast,' as she sauntered past towards the doors.

All he could do was stare after her, thinking about how she'd looked the night before when he'd run away from her - and deciding he'd liked that look much, much better. He was just wondering what he'd done wrong - he knew this feeling, this was girl playing boy - when James clapped him on the shoulder, a small smear of butter marring his poorly-shaven chin. 'No time to eat,' he said as he chewed. 'We're about to be late for McGonagall.'

Resigning himself to confusion and hunger pains, Sirius followed James out of the Hall and up the stairs, Peter trailing dejectedly in the rear, nursing a recently-bitten thumb. As they turned into the transfiguration corridor Sirius heaved a sigh and thrust his hands into the pockets of his robes, only to find something crinkling against his fingers in the left. Wondering if he was finally about to find his missing charms essay, he pulled the scrap of paper out and nearly had a heart attack.

This wasn't charms homework - charms (at least, the kind they taught at school) had never looked this good. Rather than an essay, he found himself holding a photograph, the picture centred in a rectangle of white trim, the corner of which was signed with the words just something for you to think about XX in a cheeky scrawl. The picture above the words was actually rather simple, just a familiar red duvet - the same duvet on every bed in Gryffindor tower - with a girl's school uniform laid out across it. All the pieces were there: white shirt, scarlet and gold tie, black skirt, grey jumper, all neatly laid out and obviously ready to be put on for the day. You could just imagine the sensible shoes resting on the floor at the foot of the bed. And there, resting right on top of the skirt, bright and sharp and deliberately alluring, were a pair of sheer red lace knickers. Sirius could have sworn he heard them laughing at him - because he recognised those knickers, knew precisely where they had come from, remembered buying them. As he watched, hands reached into the picture and removed the pants. A moment passed - just long enough, say, for someone to put her underwear on - and then the hands were back, reaching for the shirt, the skirt, the tie, the jumper. Sirius knew those hands, long-fingered and short-nailed, had watched them take notes in class and wrap around a quaffle - and, just minutes before, they'd straightened his robes. And now he was watching them touch Ze's clothes, imagining them putting on the bright red knickers he knew she was wearing under her skirt, imagining...

'Evil, evil girl.' With a tortured groan, Sirius stepped forward to sweat his way through the day.

*.*.*

Remus Lupin was consumed with guilt. The moment he had awoken to find Serena gone he had felt like a complete bastard, and thanks to steady and unswerving effort, he'd been feeling worse ever since. He had moped his way through dawn, woe-is-me'd past his friends' attempts to rouse him, berated himself into the shower and now, long after morning lessons had finished, was self-flagellating his way to lunch. It was no more than he deserved. He was, after all, a user: a manipulator of female affections, a cold and cruel spoiler of innocence, a –

'Oi, this is the Ravenclaw table.'

'Oh - so sorry - must have - sorry -' mumbling stock apologies, Remus stumbled his way in the opposite direction, eventually colliding with the Gryffindor table and collapsing onto the bench. Vile, vile seducer... No sooner had he thought the words than he looked up to see Serena seated across the table and a few seats down. She was reading a book and smiling happily and generally doing a brilliant job of hiding how horribly she'd been treated, and suddenly Remus knew that he couldn't sit across from her and pretend that nothing had happened. Ignoring his roaring stomach, he grabbed his bag back up and leapt out of his seat, ducking his head as he did his best to scuttle down the aisle past her.

He had gotten roughly five steps when her voice stopped him. 'Oh hey Remus,' she said, and he froze with his back still to her, knowing that if he turned he would find her smiling that cheerful, pretty smile like nothing was wrong at all.

'Ah, hi Serena,' he said stiffly, turning his head to see her - exactly as he had expected - smiling pleasantly up at him over her book. Once she'd made eye contact her gaze dropped back down to the page in front of her and Remus's eyes snapped closed in relief. He was just turning back to scuttle once more for the door when he heard a tiny gurgle of malicious laughter. His eyes popped open again in time to see a third year glance at Serena, snigger evilly, and then whisper something to the girl beside her behind the cover of her hand.

It didn't take much imagination to think of what was being said; the entire common room had watched him follow Serena up the stairs last night, and Remus would be surprised if there was anyone at Hogwarts - well, except maybe Hagrid - who didn't know about it yet. Just one more black mark against his soul, one more way in which he had besmirched her honour... Of course, there was a way to save the situation - and the damsel in distress. Steeling himself, knowing he was about to do the second stupidest thing he'd ever done, Remus turned back to Serena and cleared his throat. 'Er, Serena?' he said delicately, when she still hadn't looked up ten seconds later.

'Mm? Oh - sorry,' she said, lowering her novel (was that a man or a woman with the long billowing hair and bulging...things on its chest?) to grimace apologetically at Remus. 'I tend to get caught up. How's it going?' she added, so casually Remus began to wonder why she hadn't quit school for a stage career.

'Oh,' he said, striving to match her tone, 'yeah, fine, fine - you?'

Was that amusement dancing a polka in her eyes? 'Fine,' she said politely.

'Right, well, um, I was thinking,' Remus stumbled out, very aware that the gossipy third year and her friend were watching avidly. 'I do that - thinking I mean - and, um, we play Ravenclaw tomorrow. At quidditch,' he clarified, just in case she was deaf, dumb and blind when it came to house rivalry.

'Yeah, big match,' Serena nodded, the laughter in her gaze now swinging its partner round and round.

'Very big match,' Remus agreed, despite the fact that the Ravenclaw players were sometimes so disinterested in the game that they brought reading material along for those boring moments between the other team's successful scoring of goals. 'So...if you were planning to go...wouldyouliketogowithme?'

'Er, bless you?' Serena guessed, not sure if this was an offer for a date or communication of a head cold.

'I mean, only if you planning to go already,' Remus gabbled. 'And if you are, we could just sit together - or if you want we can walk down together or - ' he was blessedly silenced by the tolling of the bell and Serena's graceful (and far more experienced) overtaking of the situation.

'Why don't we discuss it on the way to Runes?' she suggested as she stood from the table, neatly patting her lips with her napkin and flashing him an entirely guileless smile.

And that was how Remus Lupin found himself carrying a girl's books, wondering just when he'd had the time to so cleverly engineer the destruction of his sanity.

*.*.*

Ze and Lily spent an equally productive, if far less romantic, lunch hour. Stopping by the kitchens first for sustenance and essential house elf gossip, they had then proceeded to the library with a very definite mission in mind. But when they'd finally located Morweena Munford behind a heap of dusty potions manuals, they hadn't quite found the answers they were hoping for.

In response to Lily's perfectly prefectly business slow today, Morweena? the surly Slytherin hadn't even bothered to glance over the top of Distilling Delusions: the Art of Cosmetic Poitionry, as she said, 'I'm sorry, do I know you?'

Not the best way to start a discussion with the head girl.

'Allow me to introduce myself,' Lily had said silkily as she braced her hands against the table and tilted forward until Morweena had no choice but to lower her book or be charged with Grievous Assault by Papercut. 'I'm the person who knows you're selling unregulated and possibly illegal potions to your fellow students,' the redhead continued in that dangerously pleasant voice. 'I'm also the person who can see that you spend the rest of school dissecting toads and scrubbing bedpans for it. But you can call me Lily if that's a bit of a mouthful.'

Morweena had taken it well; her eyes had only darted to the door once, and there was no pleading. She'd simply closed the book in front of her, propped her elbows on the table, and said, 'Okay, what do you want?'

'We want to know what this is,' Ze had replied, dropping the photograph of Morweena and Grace onto the table and tapping the winking blue gleam just visible between their hands in the picture. 'And how often you sell it to Grace Harper.'

'Grace Harper,' Morweena had sneered, looking away and shaking her head bitterly. 'Gryffindor bitch - should have known I couldn't trust her.'

'Grace didn't tell us - she has no idea we've found out,' Lily said calmly. 'And we're not going to tell her, or anyone else about this conversation... if you help us. We just want to know what kind of truth serum she's buying.'

And that was when things got interesting. 'Truth serum,' Morweena gaped, head whipping back around in genuine shock. 'What the - do you think I want to be expelled? I'm not selling truth serum to anyone, much less Grace Harper!'

'Well then what's she buying?' Ze snapped, unsettled because she had the feeling Morweena wasn't faking her surprise.

'Hair potion,' was the immediate - vociferous - reply.

'Hair potion?' Lily repeated, suddenly sounding much less sure of herself. 'You sell Grace Harper hair potion?'

'Of course,' Morweena retorted, the nervousness in her tone just saving it from being completely rude. 'I'm not completely stupid - what did you think I was doing, brewing up Veritaserum and Polyjuice in an abandoned toilet and selling it to first years?'

Ze shook her head in confusion, looking back down at the photo. 'But - but why would anyone sneak off into a back corner of the library to buy hair potion in secret? It's just...hair potion,' she said, completely unable to understand how something so innocuous in reality could look so suspicious on film. And thinking that maybe they had just become incredibly paranoid where Grace was concerned.

'Well she doesn't want anyone to know she's buying it, does she?' Morweena said with a roll of her eyes. 'She's one of those girls who has to look perfect all the time, but wants every one to think that's just naturally how she is. No one looks perfect naturally - Grace Harper's hair is about as straight and smooth as mine is,' she added, pointing to her own mass of riotous curls.

Lily's brow furrowed as the redhead tried to remember a time when Grace's hair hadn't been perfectly straight and silky smooth. 'How long have you been selling it to her?'

'Three years,' Morweena admitted, folding her arms sulkily. 'It's the same stuff you can get from a salon, only I charge five sickles for it instead of fifteen. She buys it every month. She's not the only one either - there are ten or so girls who get it from me.'

'And it's just hair stuff,' Ze reiterated one last time.

'Yes!' Morweena snapped. 'I do spot cream and skin tonics as well, but all Grace ever buys is the hair product. Here,' she sighed when Lily and Ze exchanged a look, 'if you don't believe me, have some.' Rummaging in the large leather satchel by her chair, she came up with a small bottle of blue liquid. 'Go on, take it,' she urged when neither of them moved. 'It's not poison, and it won't make your hair fall out. It's just a basic appearance altering compound, you rinse with it once a month and it changes how your hair looks and feels.'

With a resigned grimace for Lily, Ze accepted the bottle and gave Morweena an apologetic shrug. 'Thanks for the help - sorry if we startled you.'

Morweena looked ready to say something rude, but glanced at Lily and shrugged in turn. 'No worries. Now if you don't mind, some of us have got work to do.'

Lily and Ze left her poring over yet another book, heading for the doors of the library as Ze tucked the dose of hair potion into her bag. 'I thought for sure it was going to be truth serum,' she muttered. 'Instead we stumble into the Little Shop of Beauty Horrors.'

'I'm not sure whether I'm glad Grace doesn't have any truth drugs at her disposal, or disappointed that she can get so much information out of people on her own,' Lily mused.

'Well her preferred form of persuasion isn't precisely ethical,' Ze pointed out. 'Look at what she did to Pete.'

'Speaking of sex,' Lily rejoined, 'what've you done to Sirius - he looks ready to explode.'

'Oh, I just gave him something to think about,' Ze said with a smug smile. 'But, ah, speaking of Sirius,' she continued a moment later as they turned out of the library, 'I was wondering if there would be a way to, you know, speed up the process of him winning the bet.'

'You're going to let him?' Lily asked incredulously. 'Win, I mean?'

'Well, yeah,' Ze said, as if this should be obvious. 'It means a lot to him.'

'And being properly snogged doesn't mean a lot you?' Lily shot back.

Ze sighed. 'I see your point, and it does - but in a way, knowing that he wants to snog me means more than whether he's actually done it or not.'

Lily opened her mouth to argue, and then shut it again. 'Well, we'll see how long it keeps you warm at night. But if you're happy,' she shrugged slightly, 'it's your business.'

'Yes, it is,' Ze agreed.

'So about Sirius winning this bet?' Lily prompted a moment later.

'Well,' Ze said slowly, 'Sirius seems pretty sure that James isn't going to last much longer, and the person he really wants to defeat is Rob...and the person closest to defeating Rob is...'

'Dorcas,' Lily finished, slowing her steps as she turned an appraising eye on Ze. 'Sneaky,' she nodded, 'but I'm not following. You can't expect Dorcas to seduce Rob.'

'Well not seduce, precisely...' Ze hedged.

Lily stopped them both by putting a hand out and saying, 'Ze, you do remember that Dorcas wanted to slowly poison Rob, don't you?'

'Yes, but thankfully Serena reads romance,' was the reply, issued with a wave of a hand. 'Look, Dorcas told me she used to fancy Rob. I'm not saying she's madly in love with him now, but there's got to be something there. I mean, if you really hate someone, you don't get revenge by teaching him a lesson that will make him a better person, do you?

Lily began walking again, steps slow as she frowned thoughtfully. 'Now that,' the redhead said, 'is something to think about.'

*.*.*

It was nine o'clock, and all was well disastrous. The girls' seventh was a hive of activity: Grace had been spotted leaving her band of frenemies and was heading towards Gryffindor tower. Lily, who had sprinted through every prefect shortcut and hidden staircase to arrive ahead of her, was gulping water and attempting to get her breath back. Ze was having minor heart palpitations, and attempting to distract herself with the fact that she hadn't talked to Sirius since that morning. She knew she was seriously nervous when she couldn't even summon up any an appropriate level of sorrow. Not that she had any reason to be nervous - no, not at all. It's not like she was about to become an official criminal...

'I had them do hot chocolate,' Serena was saying as she thwacked a spoon against the sides of a silver teapot in a motion another person might have called . The house elves had just delivered it, along with a lovely selection of cups and tasty biscuits. 'We'll just tell her we've put brandy in it - she'll drink it if everyone else does.'

'Okay,' Ze nodded, her stomach tightening into a miniscule knot. They were, after all, about to drug a fellow student and callously go through her private possessions.

'You sure you want to do this?' Lily asked between pants, having noticed the faintly off-colour cast of Ze's face.

'Yeah,' Ze nodded, swallowed. 'Yeah - you?'

Lily took another large mouthful of water and nodded - but she didn't meet Ze's eyes. Please don't let us get caught, Ze thought in the direction of any benevolent powers that might be in the area. Please?

Serena distracted her by asking, 'Have you got the potion?' in an over-dramatic whisper.

Wiping sweaty palms on her jeans, Ze nodded. 'Yeah - hang on.'

The door cracked open and Dorcas's head appeared. 'Still no sign of her in the common room,' she reported. 'But Delilah Murdoch and Septimus Throckmorton are having a really nasty fight...'

'Ooooh...' Lily and Serena trotted to the door to peer over Dorcas's shoulder as Ze shook her head: now was not the time to be worried about petty romantic quarrels. Digging in her pocket for the sleeping potion, she examined the china selection and decided to go for the sickly looking blue with the pattern of snowdrops. She added four drops, and then, deciding that five would be best, dribbled a bit more into the cup, stirring to blend the hot chocolate with the potion as she went.

'Ze, you've got to see this - she has him in a headlock!' Serena called from the door

With a sigh, Ze re-stoppered the potion and shoved it back into her pocket, making for the door in time to hear Lily say, 'I'd better go tell them to take it somewhere private,' in a put-out voice.

Lily was already heading down the stairs as Ze reached the landing and leaned out of the small gothic window between Dorcas and Serena. Serena pulled back to make room, and Ze got a nice view of Delilah soundly trouncing Septimus with what appeared to be nothing more than a handbag and ingenuity. She was only distracted from the fray by a tap on the shoulder, and turned to see Serena. 'Which cup?' the brunette asked.

'Oh - uh - the blue with snowdrops,' Ze replied sotto voce before turning back to watch as Lily pulled the contestants apart by main force.

Serena hurried back into the dormitory and gave the chocolate another stir as she searched the table for the potion. When she couldn't find it there, her eyes immediately began a search of the room - Ze had said she'd get it out - ah, there it was - Darting over to Ze's nightstand, Serena grabbed up the tiny bottle of pale blue liquid and hurried back to the tray balanced on her four poster. With a flick of her thumb she removed the seal and, stirring as she poured, emptied the entire container into the blue cup with the snowdrop pattern. Tapping the spoon against the side of the cup, she disposed of the bottle in her pocket and made sure the other cups were full.

She looked up to see Dorcas and Ze stepping back into the room, Dorcas saying, 'yeah, but he really deserved it...'

'We ready?' Ze asked Serena, nodding to the tray.

'All set,' Serena confirmed. 'Save the blue cup for Grace, should knock her right out.'

'Brilliant,' Dorcas beamed.

Ze ordered herself not to vomit.

'In position, in position!' Lily hissed, bursting through the doors. 'She's just come in!'

There was a mad dash as everyone grabbed up a mug and threw themselves at their beds, doing their best to appear as though they were just casually chatting. 'So, did anyone read about that...er... new cauldron regulation they passed?' Dorcas said lamely into the silence a few moments later.

Serena rolled her eyes and settled herself back like a professional. 'Oooh,' she said loudly, 'so you want to know how it happened? Well, I was at lunch, reading, and Remus just walked up and asked me to the quidditch match tomorrow - '

A loud piercing shriek sounded from the common room below. Lily rolled her eyes and growled in annoyance. 'You would think they know detention with Filch! means no.' Raising her cooling mug of hot chocolate, she sculled her drink and settled the empty mug on the tray as she went past on her way to the door. 'I'll be right back up - get her started if you can,' she said, and slipped out the door.

'I still can't believe you and Remus,' Dorcas was saying to Serena. 'I mean, I can, but -'

A second shout, this one much less theatrical than the first, echoed up to interrupt her. Everyone froze. 'That didn't sound like Delilah,' Serena said breathlessly.

Ze's eyes flew to the tray. Wait - hadn't the blue cup been to the left of the teapot... Had Lily been in the room when Serena warned everyone not to drink out of it? 'Oh shit,' she breathed, just as Serena's tremulous voice said, 'Did anyone see which cup Lily had?'

Ze was already on her feet and across the room to peer into the cup beside Serena. The blue one was entirely empty. 'Oh fuck,' they said together.

'You mean -' Dorcas began.

'Downstairs - now -' But Ze didn't need to tell them - all three girls were already sprinting for the common room, colliding as they attempted to get through the door in a wall of bodies.

They descending the stairs at a dead run, and as they neared the bottom they heard a masculine grunt of pain and a voice say, 'Lily - look out!' followed by a large crash.

When they rounded the bottom of the stairs it was to see a tumbling pile of limbs come to a stop at their feet, a spill of red hair tangling with a horribly messy mop of black; a pair of glasses lay abandoned a little ways away. Within seconds there was movement, and a voice was saying 'Lily - Lily are you okay?

Only it was a little disconcerting, because it was Lily's voice that was saying it. And then the two figures were pushing apart and staring at one anther and looking very confused.

'James bloody Potter!' James bloody Potter's body suddenly roared, 'I am going to kill you!'

A/N:

oh, you knew this story couldn't end without someone switching bodies! the question is, who wants to see James Potter naked? (i'll give you a hint: it isn't Lily Evans... or is it?) and now that things are beginning with James and Lily, will they ever be resolved (or, more accurately, ever begin!) for Sirius and Ze?

next time on Match.: how will things fare on the Remena/Seremus First Date? and whatever shall become of Peter's torrid affair with Grace? there's a cauldron full of trouble brewing between Dorcas and Rob, but will it boil over, or just simmer away...?

...and now that i've summarised the worst telenovella in the history of the world, i'll just say that - for once! - i've kept my word: Part II within hours of Part I :) more dialogue than a BBC drama and at least as much useless farce as your average day of life. points to all who recognise the chapter title, and to those who correctly guess the basis of Remus's crush on Serena (just for you, E!). hopefully this will serve as a massive fix for all those who have been clamouring for an update (although i doubt it will satisfy all who have been demanding some Zirius action - all i can say is that our lovers are like unluckily polarised magnets...but have no fear, the end is near!)

thanks so much to all who read and those who review - as always, please let me know what you think!