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Hem Hem This, Hem Hem That

Chapter Three ll All Outta Love

Last week, on HHTHHT...

"Hey, honestly, how old are you two? How about we do something else that's not the chicken dance?"

"But the chicken dance is awesome!" Em pouted.

"I know, I know!" Sirius exclaimed, waving his arms everywhere to get everyone's attention and narrowly missing Peter's face. "Let's play..."

"What?"

"...SARDINES!"

They all groaned.

"Actually, that's a brilliant idea and time would pass quicker than if we sat around here all day," James said happily. "Let's play!"

"Great!" Sirius said enthusiastically. "Can I just ask something, though?"

"What?" Penny said irritably.

"How do you play?"

Penny and Emily immediately fell into identical sighs; Meddy found it necessary to give a sort of terrified gasp as she slumped down on her seat and covered her face with a magazine, and Lily rolled her eyes and murmured, "Typical..."

Sirius' eyes almost bulged out as he stared at the twins. "Wow!" he cried dramatically. "You two can do stuff at the same time without even knowing it. Talk about intuition. And Bananas in Pyjamas replicants!"

"Bananas in what?" spluttered Remus.

"They're - they're cartoon characters used to entertain Muggle children and Sirius, how on earth do you know so much about this?" Lily asked in amazement.

Sirius shrugged carelessly, "I had a Muggle neighbour and we used to watch it all the time. Happiest hours of my life."

Remus shook his head and said, "Right. So are we playing or not?"

"Definitely," Meddy said in a relieved tone, sitting up. "If it means we can stop talking about Muggle children's television programmes."

"But how do we play?"

"Well, do you know how to play Hide and Seek?" Meddy asked Sirius in a maddeningly patient way.

"Yeah, of course!"

"It's the opposite," chimed in Emily. "In Hide and Seek, everyone hides except for one person who has to find them. Then when they find them, the person who was found has to join the seeker in finding the others."

"But in Sardines," Penny continued explaining, "One person hides and everyone else has to try and find them."

"And when someone finds the person who is hiding - let's just call them Peeves for now - they have to join them in hiding in the same spot," Meddy said.

"But how can ten people hide in the one spot?" Sirius wanted to know.

"That's the whole point; soon there'll be too many people cramped in the hiding spot, so it'll be obvious where - where Peeves is hiding," Lily finished off.

"Oh, I knew that!" Sirius said matter-of-factly. "Okay, let's play!"

"Who's going to be Peeves?" Remus asked.

Everyone paused then turned to look at Lily, who blinked and was rather taken-aback. "Me?"

"Yes, Head Girl," Sirius said placidly. "We'll count to one hundred. You can hide anywhere on the train. Now go!"

"Oh, but - I - what - oh, fine," Lily yielded to the inevitable and quickly exited the compartment as everyone shut their eyes and began to count to a hundred in unison. Once she was outside, she hurried down past compartments, keeping a sharp eye out for a possible hiding spot on the Hogwarts Express. Her eyes spied on the large food trolleys, lined up neatly on the side and draped over with white cloths.

Perfect.

Twisting herself like a pretzel, Lily crammed herself into one of the trolleys with difficulty and adjusted the cloth so that she was completely obscured from vision. There, she thought with some relief. Now she just had to wait, the worst part of all. Hugging her knees to her chest, the redhead shut her eyes with anticipation.

I can't believe I'm doing this. How do I get pulled into Sirius' games?

A couple of minutes later, she heard Sirius' and Penny's voices as they walked past.

"I bet you can't say this properly," Sirius was saying boastfully. "Betty Botter had some butter. 'But,' she said, 'this butter's bitter. If I bake this bitter butter, it would make my batter bitter. But a bit of better butter - that would make my batter better.' " He smiled smugly at her.

"You're right, I can't say that," Penny replied. She gave him a quizzical look. "Is this what you do in your spare time?"

Lily sucked in her breath and watched their shadows through the cloth, but neither of them thought to look in the trolley. She let out her breath and braced herself as, a moment later, she heard Emily humming to herself cheerily. A second later, the cloth was lifted up and Em's face stared into Lily's.

"I found you!" the brunette exclaimed jubilantly.

"Fantastic Em, now please get in here before the others see!"

"Good gracious, Lil, how did you fit in here?" Emily groaned, trying to seat herself beside the redhead with much difficulty. True to the sometimes tedious nature of the game Sardines, the two girls were alone for the next few minutes.

"Lil?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you think I should do after Hogwarts?"

Lily was surprised at Emily's solemn tone, something which didn't happen often.

"I'm not sure, Em... how about studying to become a Healer? You love helping people out. Or if that's too much studying for you to handle, you can become a nurse at St. Mungo's."

Emily looked thoughtful for a moment, then grinned and said, "Okay! I'm doing that."

Lily stared at her; it was just like Em to make snap-decisions and act on impulse, but this was her future they were talking about. Then again, the chance of her actually sticking to being a nurse at St. Mungo's was slim to none. Em would probably come up with a new dream job by the next day and Lily was about to chide her about it when the cloth was lifted up a second time. Penny and Meddy were bending down, looking at them.

"Aha! Found you!"

"Wow, this is a great hiding spot," Penny said, looking around. "Er. How are we meant to fit?"

"And me," came a voice behind them. Remus had caught up with them.

"You three go and fill the other trolleys," Lily said, pointing. "Be quick!"

By some miracle, and with much grumbling and wincing, the three were soon sitting tightly in the trolleys, taking care to keep their limbs as close to their bodies as possible so that they wouldn't protrude out of the cloth and give their position away. They all sat in silence for the next few minutes. The most frustrating thing was that they heard Sirius, James and Peter all individually pass them at least five times and yet none of them bothered to check the trolleys.

"Why are they being so thick?" groaned Remus after ten minutes. His muscles were aching.

"Yeah, if they don't come soon I'm gonna - " started Penny ominously, but then shrieked and instinctively grabbed onto the trolley as the train braked suddenly and gave a great lurch. Several muffled shrieks and yelps came from startled students in their compartments, but none were louder than that of the girls' and Remus as they were thrown forwards out of their hiding spots and landed right in front of the surprised Sirius and James. The heavy trolleys, teetering dangerously, would have followed too, but were fortunately stopped by the two standing boys who grabbed them and pushed them back up.

Sirius grinned, "Look at that, Prongsie. They just fell right at our feet."

James also grinned, surveying the fallen figures groaning and moaning and struggling to sit up. "I guess that means we win."

"Yes, yes, you win," Meddy groaned, the first one to get to her feet. She looked down to her right at the half-bent over Remus and grabbed onto his arm to pull him upright. "Let's never play again."

"Why did the train stop?" Emily asked curiously as they all got up, one by one, and massaged their ribs.

"Didn't you hear the announcement? There was a bird on the tracks."

"Honestly? That's so... such a Dumbledore-like thing to do."

"What, stop the train from running a bird over? Don't tell me you wouldn't do that."

"Hey pumpkin," James said suddenly, seeing an opportunity to spend some more time alone with Lily. "We're Heads, right? We better make sure all the other students haven't been traumatised by this experience."

"Wh - what?" asked Lily wearily. "That's silly, Potter, and I'm tired..."

"Tut, tut, tut, others first, remember?"

Lily glared at him for a moment, then gave up and exclaimed, "Okay, fine, fine! I'm going, you manipulative..." She slapped him, not too hard, on the shoulder as she went past and he laughed at her.

"Ahh, it's all outta love," Sirius commented with a smile as they listened to them bicker and disappear down the corridor.

"Of course it is," Penny agreed.

"And one day, they will be in love."

"One day? I think they love each other already."

They were fortunate Lily wasn't around to hear that particular remark, no matter how much truth or untruth it might contain.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! 'Twas lovely to see them. Yes indeed! Hope you enjoyed that chappie. :) - msq.