Rummaging through another box of his parents' things, Harry found the photograph. For a moment, he thought it was a Muggle picture – nothing appeared to be moving within the frame. After a moment, he realised that even so, it couldn't be a Muggle picture, not with colours that bright, not with that much sparkle, that much glitter...

...glitter?

With a start, he lifted the photograph to the light and saw the shimmering, sparkling colours come to life. The identity of the person in the centre of the frame came to light at the same time, and Harry nearly laughed out loud. He stared at it, spellbound, and although he knew it was impossible, he checked his fingers to see if any glitter had rubbed off and marked them in those bright, metallic colours. He was so lost in thought he flinched at the sound of a soft voice from behind him.

"Harry?"

Harry turned. Remus Lupin was standing in the doorway, watching him out of sleepy amber eyes. Harry didn't reply, silently holding out his find. Lupin took it hesitantly, but the moment he saw it, he smiled. "Ah," was all he said.


"Sirius! I'm going to kill you!"

Sirius leaned against the doorframe and laughed. "Ah, Moony, you wouldn't do that."

"Oh, yes, I would. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to burn you alive, tickle you to death, hang, draw, and quarter you, use all three Unforgivable curses on you, wait for the full moon, rip you to pieces and then kill you."

Sirius was spared coming up with a reply to this by another voice. "What's going on... oh."

Due to the strange preconceived notions of the Hogwarts founders, Lily had the right to come into the boys' dormitory, but they couldn't go into hers. Standing in the doorway, she had an expression on her face that suggested all her Christmases had come early. "Oh, Remus," she said softly, with both hands over her mouth. "What has he done to you this time?"

Remus glanced in the mirror again. "Had his wicked way with me again, as you can see," he said dryly.

"James!" Lily shouted down the stairs. "James, get up here, you have to see this!"

"Oh, no." Remus dropped the mirror without ceremony. "Prongs is not seeing this. No, no, no..."

As he spoke, he stood up, pushed Sirius out the way, slipped past Lily and a surprised-looking James Potter, and was even now running full-tilt down the long spiral staircase.

James was startled. "Was that... was he..."
"Yes," said the other two simultaneously.


Lupin handed the picture back to Harry, still smiling. Harry stared at him in frank incredulity. In response to the unspoken question, Lupin said, "Sirius was rather a teenage rebel when we were younger."

"No, really?" said Harry blandly, and Lupin smiled. "Yes, exactly. In an attempt to irritate his mother, he used to listen to Muggle music and wear Muggle clothes, and that was how he happened to have... anyway... one night, just after the full moon, I was exhausted and he found I'd fallen asleep in his bed. Being Sirius, he decided on a... unique form of revenge."


Down in the Gryffindor common room, the students were surprised to see Remus Lupin come flying out of the entrance to the staircase, apparently with a pack of people on his tail. "Someone grab him!" yelled Sirius Black. "He'll ruin it before I can get a picture!"

This remark, delivered at the top of his voice, had the effect of silencing everyone for a split-second, then provoking an uproar of noise as some people tried to grab the fleeing prefect, while other people simply tried to get a good look at him. Those who caught a glimpse blinked and laughed as they chased him. Remus's overlong hair was full of pink and gold glitter, and as well as that, Sirius had attacked his eyes with carefully smudged kohl and silvery-blue shimmer, making them stand out vividly against the white of his skin. Further touches of gold glitter used over his cheekbones and a spiked leather dog collar completed the effect.

"Moony!" Sirius shouted. Remus took no notice. He was laughing as he ran; he might no longer be making extravagant death threats, but he wasn't going to be caught that easily, showering glitter over himself and everyone else with every step he took, dodging, sidestepping, darting in and out, slipping through his pursuers' grasps like pink and gold quicksilver.

It couldn't last forever, of course; eventually, Sirius and James had him cornered against an armchair while the rest of Gryffindor Tower watched in breathless amazement. Remus took a step back, felt the chair behind him, and with a sudden burst of fluid grace, he whirled round and leapt first onto the chair...

"Wormtail!" Sirius yelled.

...and then off the back of it, soaring upwards...

Peter was ready. Smiling broadly, he held up the camera and clicked. Half a second later, he staggered backwards and sat down heavily on the floor as a glittery, laughing werewolf landed on top of him with a crunch.

Sirius reached in, stroked Moony's hair free of excess glitter, grabbed the camera, leaned casually against the doorframe and laughed himself to tears.


Harry suddenly noticed he could see his father and Sirius in the background of the picture, wearing identical expressions of shock at the fact their quarry had got away. He smiled at this, but he couldn't drag himself away from looking at the main focus of the picture – fifteen-year-old Remus Lupin, in mid-air, arms wrapped around his knees like a human cannonball, glitter literally showering off him, pure joy of existence writ large in his kohl-smudged eyes.

"Do you... do you want this?" Harry asked tentatively, holding out the picture again, but Lupin shook his head and laughed. "I've got my own copy somewhere. Sirius made as many copies as possible and stuck them everywhere. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was one still there on the Gryffindor common room notice board."

Harry was about to open his mouth and contest this, but a second's thought convinced him that this was, in fact, perfectly possible. Notices and bits of paper had a tendency to accumulate thickly on the board, and no-one ever seemed to take down the ones that were no longer needed.

He was going to say something to this effect, but when he looked up Lupin wasn't there. He was standing by the doorway again, on his way out. "Let me know if you discover anything else interesting," he said, amused, and then he was gone.

Harry nodded, and thought back to what he had just heard. He could see the scene so clearly in his head; his mischievous godfather, making the most of this golden opportunity, finding his sleeping friend and whipping out the glitter. So far, it sounded right, but something jarred. Something he was missing. What was it that didn't sound right?

"...anyway... one night, just after the full moon, I was exhausted and he found I'd fallen asleep in his bed. Being Sirius..."

No, hang on, he was getting warmer... it was something about that sentence.

Lupin had fallen asleep in Sirius' bed... why not his own, if they shared a dormitory? What possible reason could there be, except...?

Harry smiled. "Discover anything else interesting..." – well, he just might have done, but he had a feeling he'd be keeping it to himself for now.


"Mischief managed!" Sirius proclaimed, although the map was nowhere in sight. "It's all right, Moony, get up. You can take it off now, Peter got us a picture. Bless his rodent heart."

"Take it off?" Remus repeated, sitting up. "Who said anything about taking it off?"

Sirius stared at him.

"All I'm saying," Remus persisted, tugging at the dog collar, "is that you'll have to be very, very nice to me for a long time to make up for this."

Sirius grinned. "That shouldn't be difficult. Oh, and Remus..."

"Yes?"

"Leave the collar on."

fin