Disclaimer: I still don't own Remus… or anyone else for that matter!

Author note: Thank you to all my lovely reviewers! I really appreciate your words of encouragement. And who'd of thought? Sirius having a bad face day… well… half hour… Now on with the show!

A Cunning Plan

"Sirius, what are you doing?" Remus asked wearily, staring at his friend who was frantically pulling apart his trunk, flinging the contents around the room.

"I have a cunning plan," was his reply, as Remus ducked to narrowly miss an old Frisbee socking him in the head.

Remus sighed and sat on his bed. Sirius had been like this ever since he had come back to the tower from… the library. It wasn't Sirius' behavior, so much as where he had been that bothered Remus. He never, ever, ever went into the library if he could help it. He said all the books unnerved him. He ran around a lot, laughing like a madman, and well… being Sirius really, but never if he had just had the horrors of the library inflicted upon him.

"What are you doing now?" James and Peter were stood in the doorway looking at Sirius with bored expressions on their faces. They were more than used to this sort of behaviour.

"He has a 'cunning plan'." Remus rolled his eyes and lay down, staring at the canopy over his head. It was the full moon in less than a week, and he was dreading his transformation.

"What does this cunning plan involve?" James sounded curious, but kept his distance, still a little unnerved after their lunchtime discussion.

"Is he pranking Slytherins?" Peter asked, fairly unnerved by the distinct lack of practical jokes they had pulled (during the course of this story) so far.

"Don't know," Remus told him, pushing himself back into an upright position and looking at Sirius once more.

"A-ha!" Sirius crowed triumphantly. He held aloft an old, battered converse sneaker. It had a hole in the heel and the tongue was hanging off at a distinctly dodgy angle. The lace was knotted in several places to hold it together and it was only just possible to make out it was once red. It was now a suspicious brown colour.

"What the hell do you want that for?" James wrinkled his nose at the sneaker in disgust.

"It's for Dinkerella," Sirius told him proudly.

They blinked at him.

"What?" Sirius asked defensively.

"Nothing mate, nothing…" James sat down on his bed and raised his eyebrows further at Sirius.

"What? What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing." James started to read an old textbook that had ended up on his bed during Sirius' mad flailing of limbs.

Remus rolled his eyes and lay back down again. Peter giggled nervously.

"What? For the love of… tell me!"

"Um… Not that I know much about girls or anything but… do you really think she's going to be impressed if you give her an old shoe? I know you have a dog animagus, but Sirius…" Peter said, fed up of Sirius' incessant whining.

"Oooh." Sirius said grinning. "I'm not giving it to her like this!"

"Well that's slightly better… what are you going t do with it?"

"Well," Sirius leapt up from where he sat cross-legged on the floor and sat down next to James on his bed, clutching the sneaker. "When I was in the library-"

"You were in the library?" Peter looked across at his friend in amazement.

"Yes, I was. Anyway. I was doing research on de-uglifying myself when I came across this." Sirius reached down to the floor and picked up his bag, pulling out of it a large, leather-bound book with fancy gold lettering on the front.

"Cinderella?" James read off the front, glancing up at Remus who just shrugged.

"Yes." Sirius sat back proudly. "What do you think?"

"Um… I think I don't know what you're on about," James informed him.

Sirius rolled his eyes and looked at him scathingly.

"Tell him Moony."

"Um… I gotta agree Sirius, what are you on about?"

Sirius looked from one to the other in amazement, finally resting his gaze on Peter. "Peter?" he asked, obviously amazed no one had the foggiest what he was on about. Peter shrugged.

"Bloody hell." Sirius looked at them. "Well I'll have to teach you."

He held up the book. "Cind-er-ella," he annunciated clearly. They looked blank. "Dink-er ella."

"Oh," Peter said, "I get it. They sound similar."

"Yes!" Sirius said triumphantly, "And that's why I'm giving her the shoe."

"Okay, you've lost me again." Peter looked at Sirius worriedly.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Well, basically, Cinderella is this wonderful, intelligent, beautiful, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah girl, who has to live with her stepmother and two ugly stepsisters after her father dies. She has to clean for them and… yeah. Anyway, there's this ball thingy at the palace of the Prince guy and she isn't allowed to go, but when these three evil gits go, her fairy godmother turns up and gives her these glass shoes and-"

"Sirius is there a point to this?" Remus asked suspiciously.

"I'm getting to it! And she goes to the palace in a pumpkin coach and dances with the Prince and they fall in love and-"

"I'm gonna go get a drink," James started to get off the bed.

"No wait! I'm nearly done! She has to get home by midnight or the spell will end and she'll just be Cinderella again, so she hotfoots it out of there, leaving only her glass shoe. The Prince wants to find her, so he sends out a proclamation and all girls in the kingdom must try the shoe on. He'll marry the one it fits. So they get to Cinders house, she tries the shoe on and Boom! They get married." Sirius sat back and looked about himself, obviously feeling pleased he was such a genius.

"Where the hell did you find that in the library?" James sounded amazed.

"Muggle Studies section." Sirius said proudly, "It's a muggle story."

"They sure are weird." James said, rubbing his hair till it stood on end.

"Don't you get it?" asked Sirius desperately.

"Um… do you think that if you give Dinkerella that dirty old shoe she's going to fall madly in love with you?" Remus asked in amazement.

"Yup! You get it Moony! Well done!" Sirius looked damned pleased with himself.

"Okay then." Remus lay back on the bed.

"Yup." Peter stood up, "I think I'll get a drink too, James you still going."

"Yeah." James stood up and patted Sirius shoulder. They walked out of the room and shut the door behind them. Sirius lent back on the headboard, a little disappointed that no one had got more excited about his cunning plan.

"Padfoot?"

"Yup?" Sirius ears perked up.

"You're not giving her the shoe like that are you?"

"Why not?"

"It's a little bit… battered?"

"Yeah, well… I had thought of transfiguring it into something a bit nicer."

"Why don't you?"

"Um… not sure really."

Remus groaned and rolled over.

"Moony?"

"Padfoot."

"Do you remember how to transfigure stuff into glass?"

Remus lifted his head off the bed, "Why?"

"'Cos I don't…"

Remus sighed and sat up as Sirius continued.

"I think I might have been sending Samara Tompkins notes." Sirius said sheepishly.

Remus snorted, flopping back onto the bed.

"Please Moony? You did mess it up in the classroom…"

"I didn't! I thought we decided you were just ugly!"

"Well I'm not. Mimi told me so in the library."

"Mimi?"

"Hufflepuff, red hair, kinda cute… I could put in a word for you…"

"No, I'm good."

"Re-mus!" Sirius whined

"Fine! Give it here." Remus sighed wearily. Sirius leapt off the bed, and sat down cross-legged on Remus' bed, placing the old shoe on his chest. He looked at Remus with his big grey eyes and licked his lips. Remus opened one eye lazily. "What? Right now?"

Sirius nodded eagerly as Remus opened his other eye.

"Well get me my wand then."

Sirius leapt off the bed and started to rummage through Remus' bag, and Remus lethargically pushed himself into a sitting position, holding the shoe in his left hand.

"Found it yet?"

"Yup?" Sirius returned to the bed and watched as Remus placed the shoe on the spread and pointed his wand at it. There was a pause.

"Padfoot?"

"Yes Moony, old buddy, old pal?"

"Can you not stare quite so much? It's quite off putting."

"Oh. Ok." Sirius turned his back to Remus and stared at the wall directly in front of him. "Better?"

"Yes… And Sirius?"

"Yup?"

"Can you not listen quite so much?"

"Oh, ok…" Sirius began to hum quietly to himself, picking at his fingernails and making it quite clear to Remus how daft he was being. Honestly, they were best friends and he wouldn't even let him watch as he turned a manky old shoe into a dazzling, beautiful, spectacular-

"Finished."

Sirius was surprised by how quickly the spell had been done.

"Are you sure?"

"Just look at the Goddamn shoe Sirius."

Sirius turned around and was quite surprised by what he saw. A delicate glass shoe sat on the bed beside Remus, a sparkling crystal detail in the top of it.

"Is it okay? I tweaked the spell a little and-"

"Moony that is the classiest bit of footwear I've ever seen."

Remus blushed a little and lay back down on the bed. "Thank you."

Sirius nodded and picked up the sparkling shoe. He stared at it. Just as well he had been passing notes to Samara Tompkins.

The door swung open and Peter and James came back into the room. They looked at the shoe, then they looked at Sirius.

"Where the hell did that come from? James asked eloquently.

"It's the shoe I'm giving Dinkerella." Sirius replied. "You saw it earlier."

"What happened to that mangy old one?" Peter asked suspiciously.

Remus opened an eye.

"Last time I looked I was a wizard, not that I can speak for the rest of you."

"Oh." They looked sheepish.

"Prongs, old buddy, old pal…"

"What now?" James asked Sirius wearily.

"Can I borrow the cloak?"

"What for?"

"To go see Dink."

"Well yeah, but how are you going to get into the Ravenclaw common room." James looked bemused.

"I'm not." Sirius carefully stowed the shoe in his pocket, rummaging for the cloak in the trunk at the foot of James' bed. He pulled it out and grabbed his broom. "Thanks James."

"Where are you going with that?" Peter looked at Sirius in wonderment.

"Out the window. Duh." Sirius climbed up onto the sill and pushed the window open. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Remus said, rolling over and showing no interest whatsoever.

"Sirius this has to be your most harebrained plan to get a girl to date you ever." James told him.

"I know." Sirius smiled happily

"Good luck." Peter said.

"Cheers… leave the window open, but don't wait up!" Sirius launched himself into the night and disappeared.  

Author Note: So, how's old Padfoot going to do? Well, you'll just have to wait and see… I'll be updating soon!