I'm back! So, you know, nothing belongs to me but Joule! Feel free to shout, scream, comment, whisper, murmur, or blurt something awkward my way. Anything at all. The freedom of speech is highly enforced. Cheers!

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The next few days passed in a blur, most likely due to the constant, incessant fact that Sirius kept mentioning to everyone that I hit him with a Bludger to his face. This didn't earn me any brownie points for popularity, but eh, whatever. Despite the annoying joking, Sirius had forgiven me and forgotten all about the awkward conversation that had led up to it. Thank Merlin.

At least, I hope he did. He hadn't said anything to me about so far, so I think that I'm in the clear.

Unfortunately, however, it was now Friday, and I, Joule Quaid, still did not have a date.

Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

Nothing. No one in sight.

Therefore…

This called for desperate measures. And when I say desperate, I mean desperate. I needed to make this work, after all, I had to prove that I had a love life and, most importantly, I had to get Lily and James together.

I was the catalyst. This had to happen. The ball was in my court now, and I was so going to make it count.

Right? Right.

So…I was going to take Sirius's advice. Which hadn't actually been advice at the time, but a degrading comment about the floozies that hit on him. Which he had actually forgotten that he'd told me in the first place. Because I hit him with a Bludger. To his head. And made him fall out of the sky.

Oops. Mistakes happen.

That's why this morning before class, I'd taken extra steps to my imminent success. After considering Sirius's comment of 'unbuttoned blouses, short skirts, and ditzy attitudes,' I'd carefully made observations of the female gender for the past couple days, deciding to emulate them and become one of the adoring flock of flirty girls.

Baaa!

So I unbuttoned my three top buttons of my shirt with glee, rolled up my skirt with mirth, and applied a glorious hunk of shiny lip gloss to my parched, nude colored lips to attract the opposite sex to me like a herd of bewildered yet angsty wildebeest. I even curled my hair a bit, hoping to corral some more in with the extra effort.

Internally, though, I was dying. Screaming. Going insane on the inside, yelling at myself to stop doing such blasphemy.

I was so not a girly girl. Sirius, Lily, and the rest of the Marauders could attest to that; I'd perhaps worn a dress maybe a few times throughout my whole Hogwarts career. It just wasn't me.

Oh, well. This had to be done. Besides, I hadn't even gotten to the hard part yet.

So, after shooting a narcissistic glance at myself in the mirror, I sashayed down the dorm staircase, trying to pump myself up with the swing in my hips while refusing to associate myself to the motions of a rocking horse.

Swish, swish.

I was confident.

Swish, swish.

I was cool.

Swish, swish.

I was seductive.

Swish… I stopped on the last step, bursting into laughter. This internal mind rant had to stop, otherwise I'd lose it before I even got to breakfast. Everyone would see through me then.

"Okay." I whispered to myself, putting on my game face. "I got this. This can't be that hard."

Famous last words.

So, after a couple more pausings in the corridor, I finally entered the Great Hall to dine with my lovely friends, who, as great and fantastic and caringly sensitive as they were, would not mention my change in appearance the very slightly.

I strode in, storming the school, and swung my hips like no tomorrow. Okay, I wasn't that obtuse about it, but still…

"Bloody hell!" Sirius spit out his pumpkin juice onto Peter whose frightened expression didn't change at the sight of me. James and Remus had similar frozen expressions, and Lily merely tried to hide a grin at my get-up, knowing my intentions instantly. "What in Merlin's name are you doing?!"

Grimacing as I was forced to sit next to him and his interrogation, I decided to play dumb, seeing as I felt almost too embarrassed in the first place. "What are you talking about?"

Sirius's mouth gaped, making him like a big, fat fish. Yes, that's what he was. And I was a sleek, fast minnow, sliding through the waters of…Hogwarts. Okay, my internal pep-talks needed some work.

"What am I talking about?" He raised his voice incredulously, and then quieted suddenly, narrowing his sharp, gray eyes at me. He was observing me, analyzing me, his eyes darting all over me uncomfortably.

Shit, I shouldn't have played dumb. Now that he realized he was getting worked up, he'd stop and try to draw me out with sarcasm to find out my true intentions. Sirius didn't like to be emotionally out of control, and therefore used sarcasm with the force of blunt truth to hide with.

Shit, shit, shit!

"So…" He drawled, wiggling his eyebrows. "Who's the special bloke, Jou-jou? Who are you trying to draw into your beehive? You don't dress like this quite often for no reason, you know. Actually, I'm quite offended you didn't tell me; I thought we were best mates."

See? See? I knew him too well.

Thankfully, however, I knew how to combat this attack.

"My beehive?" I gave him a simpering smile. "I think your terms need some updating, Siri, I thought you were a pro at this lingo, especially after all the…companions you've had."

Oh, yes, my smile was very simpering.

He raised an eyebrow up at my parry; he knew what I was doing. "Dodging the question, love? Evasiveness doesn't suit you."

"Oh." I attempted to look my most mockingly confused. "Was there a competent question to be answered? I must have missed it. How odd."

Sirius's façade broke just a tad to reveal his…annoyance? "Who's the bloke?"

"And once again, I'm not hearing a competent question." I sighed, shaking my head. "I simply got up this morning in a good mood, decided to dress up a bit today, and here I am. I'm not seeing how our topics relate."

The other three Marauders snickered as they ate their breakfasts, tuning into our conversation only for amusement. Lily, as I could see, was now struggling with the issue of not laughing outright at my snarky comebacks. At least, I think she was. I knew for sure she was eating a waffle, though.

Yum. Waffles.

"You look whorish. Cut the crap." Sirius bluntly said, looking me in the eye as the mood of our banter rolled downhill into a sudden stop. "If I were you, I'd probably go change."

It was like a slap to the face. So unexpected, so unseen, that I merely stared at him, eyes wide. Our table went silent, or at least, our area did. Tension snapped in the air like a whip.

Now I was the gaping fish. Damn. No one wanted to be the gaping, fat fish.

"I-I don't care about your opinion, idiot." I closed my mouth to cease the gaping, thankful that I realized it soon enough. What right did he have to call me whorish?

"Really?" He looked innocently vicious now, a very difficult combination to pull off. "Because I don't quite believe your s-stutter."

He was on the defensive; I'd realized it by now. Somehow I'd offended him by not telling him the truth of my transformation, and he was on the backlash. This was even shittier. An angry Sirius was someone that you did NOT want on your bad side. Apparently this outfit was not winning me any fans today.

"Look," I tried to smooth things over, attempting a peace talk. "I just decided to dress this way just for kicks today. There's nothing more to it."

"And somehow I still don't believe you." He simpered, practically sniffed at me haughtily. "Looks like Jou-jou's hiding a secret lover."

"Okay, seriously?" I glared at him, ignoring the attention we were gaining at the Gryffindor table. "Of anyone at this table, am I really the most likely one to have a secret lover? Oh, wait, I think that'd actually be you, Siri. Can you even count the number of girlfriends you've had in the past year?"

"Jealousy doesn't suit you well either, love." He smirked cruelly; his famous condescending smirk he usually reserved for the bottom-of-the-barrel Slytherins was now directed at me. And it hurt. "If you have something to tell me, spit it out. I can't let these secret feelings of love you have for me go unspoken. Go on, I won't turn you down too hard."

It was in that moment that my temper flared, and I wanted to legitimately hurt Sirius. More than a slight, joking jab, more than the Bludger, more than anything before. I wanted him to feel pain.

Badly.

And I knew exactly how to hurt him.

I quickly schooled my face for my attack. I was ready.

"Funny." I dryly remarked. "That sounds like something your brother would say. And to think that I thought for a second you were anything different from them. How droll."

And with a glance at a stricken face, I walked away from the breakfast table, away from Lily's calls, and away from Sirius's blank, while at the same time, fearful face.

It was a low blow, and I knew it. Sirius's deepest, most dreaded fear was turning into one of his prejudiced, ruthless, elitist members of his family, and I'd used it against him. My stomach felt queasy at the thought, but my feet refused to stop moving.

Indeed, I was powerless to the whims of my feet. I walked straight away from my friends to where? Why, of course, the Ravenclaw table!

Confused? Don't be.

Okay, you can be, since I was confused at first too. But a second later, my brain figured out the rest.

I walked straight to the one empty seat besides Leo Carmichael, plopping myself awkwardly without any of the infamous hip-swaying next to his bemused face. Okay, it was more of a confused face, but I'm being optimistic.

"Hi." I said, trying to smile my hardest against the massive amount of guilt that was growing in my abdomen. "Sorry I was weird the other day in Potions with all that odd yelling and such, but I was hoping that we could get past that (Water off a duck's back, you know?) and maybe go to Hogsmeade together on Sunday? Promise I'm relatively sane."

It had all come spilling out like a waterfall, like waste material coming out of a sewer drain with no sign of stopping. Oh, Merlin, what did I just do?

I just asked Leo Carmichael out because I was so mad at Sirius. That's what I just did.

Shiiiiit.

Fester, fester, rot, rot… That's how I felt. And now all I could do was wait helplessly for Leo's response, hoping paradoxically that he would say yes and no while my stomach felt increasingly sicker.

This was not a good day. I'd hurt Sirius. Merlin, what was I thinking? How could I have let my temper get to me? How could I have insinuated that he was no better than Regulus?

I was such a moron. I couldn't even stay angry enough at him to justify myself. And now here I was, watching Leo's face for any sign of rejection or acceptance when all I wanted to do was go back and apologize to Sirius while telling him how stupid he was.

"Okay." Leo said, a smile forming on his adorable face. "I'll give you another chance. That sounds cool; it's a date."

It's a date.

Oh. My. Merlin.

I just got a date for Hogsmeade.

I just held up my end of the deal.

I had a love life.

Lily and James now had to speak to each other.

I did it.

And I felt sick to my stomach the whole time too. Super. I suppose that's karma for you. I can't win it all.

"Great." I was acutely aware that I was trying not to grimace. "I can't wait. Meet you at 10?"

"Deal." Leo's brown eyes sparkled back at me, causing me to question for some reason what I had just done. A strangle niggling feeling told me that I wished those eyes had been another color, but I wasn't quite sure which… "I'll see you then, Joule."

I gave a shaky smile, waved, and departed the table, heading back briefly to my rightful table. Sirius apparently had left, probably stormed off more likely, as had James to probably calm him down. I sat back down to face a worried-looking Lily.

"Are you okay?" She whispered to me so that Remus and Peter couldn't hear us.

"I did it." I murmured back, my mind still whirling from the past five minutes of action. "It's on, Lils. I got a date."

Her grass green eyes widened, and she cursed underneath her breath. "Damn you, Joule, and congrats. Now I have to go find Potter before it's too late, bloody hell."

Chuckling, I leaned over to put a pancake on my plate when my eye caught on an odd-looking stone bowl that housed the oatmeal. It reminded me of something… Something familiar…

Gray.

That's the color I wish his eyes would have been.