Hair Tie – 26th September 1974
"Moony," Sirius said, standing at the foot of Remus' bed with his camera. "Let me – "
"No." Remus said, not looking up from his book. Sirius pouted.
"You don't even know what I'm going to ask!" He protested.
"It doesn't matter. The answer's still no."
"But I - "
"No."
"Will you - "
"No."
"Can I - "
"No."
"Let me finish!" Sirius cried, exasperated. Remus looked up and met his eyes calmly.
"Fine. But the answer will still be no."
"Let me take a picture of you with your hair down."
"Hell no."
"Oh Moony!" Sirius whined. "Please!"
"No."
"But your hair's so pretty!"
"And thus you give yourself the reason I don't want photographic evidence of it." Remus said shortly, going back to his book. "Push off."
In protest to this cruel treatment, Sirius refused to push off for another five minutes, when it finally became obvious that Remus was going to ignore him no matter what he did.
"What's up with you?" James demanded, when he came across Sirius sulking in the common room, clutching his camera.
"Moony won't let me take a picture of his hair." Sirius muttered sulkily.
"Why on earth would you want a picture of Moony's hair?" James asked, baffled.
"'S pretty." Sirius huffed. "'N I like pretty things."
James eyed him warily.
"You're not planning on scalping him, are you?"
"No!"
"Alright then." James sat down beside him. "Then we're going to have to be sneaky about it."
"About what?"
"Getting a picture of Moony's hair!" James smacked Sirius upside the head. "Merlin, wake up!"
"You're going to help?" Sirius asked, frowning slightly.
"Meh, I haven't got anything better to do." He grinned at his friend. "Besides, you'll probably need to use the cloak."
"I don't think this is going to work." Sirius said frankly, as he and James lay on their stomachs under James' bed, camera at the ready. "With this angle, he'll see the camera before I can take the picture."
"Assuming he spends most of his time looking at his feet." James muttered dryly. "Now shut up. He's coming."
Remus did not actually arrive for another ten minutes, and by the time he did appear, Sirius had a crick in his neck and James had a severe case of pins and needles in his left leg. The werewolf's entrance startled Sirius out of his occupation thumping James' afflicted leg and watching him wince, making both of them jump and knock their heads on the wooden underside of the bed.
It was through great force of will and James' hand over his mouth that Sirius managed not to swear and was able, once he had sufficiently recovered, to wriggle to the foot of the bed and poke the camera curiously out from under the sheets flopping over the end ((James never made his bed if he could help it. Sirius sometimes made it for him, but only when he was intending to commandeer it for some reason or other)). He peered out too and watched Remus bustle around the room, getting his stuff ready for a shower.
James peeked his head out as well and they watched ((in a very stealthy, spy-like way. Sirius briefly pondered a career as the next James Bond. Never let it be said that Sirius Black did not read)), waiting for the perfect moment to take the so-important picture.
Before they could, however, Remus began to walk towards the bed they were hiding under, presumably to toss onto it the tie he had borrowed off James that morning. They panicked and began to wriggle back under the bed as fast as they could, bashing heads, elbows and shoulders in the process.
Unfortunately they weren't quite fast enough, and there was a quiet ((and probably partially imagined for effect)) 'crunch' as Remus trod on James' fingers.
The bespectacled boy's eyes went wide and he grimaced expressively. Sirius slapped his hand over the other boy's mouth, muffling the tirade of swearwords that came. As soon as he was able, James snatched his hand back and clutched it to his chest, face bright red and nostrils flared, breathing heavily.
By the time he had recovered, Remus had gone. They wriggled out from under the bed, Sirius feeling a little defeated, James just feeling rather severe pain.
"Who knew that git was so heavy?" He moaned, hobbling over to Sirius' bed ((he still had pins and needles)) and perching on the edge of it, tentatively poking his injured fingers. "They're broken. I know it. We'll have to go see Madam Pomfrey."
"Oh don't be such a drama queen." Sirius scoffed, brushing off his robes. "They're not broken."
"Of course they are! You wouldn't know, it wasn't your hand he stood on!" James winced and shook the abused extremity. "Merlin on a stick, that hurt! His bones must be made of lead. That's the only way to explain how he can be so heavy and so skinny at the same time."
"Can we focus, please?" Sirius asked. "Obviously Moony is more adept at avoiding having his photo taken than we previously thought. We shall have to be even sneakier."
"Sneakier than Super Sneaky?" James asked doubtfully, around a mouthful of hand as he sucked on his injured fingers.
"Sneakier than Super Sneaky." Sirius confirmed. "Prongs, we shall have to be Super Super Sneaky."
"That's very sneaky."
"It is. It is indeed."
"Prongs," Sirius said, as he, Peter and James made their way down to the Whomping Willow. "I think I may have ethical problems with taking photographs of Moony after the full moon."
"You have ethics?" James asked, surprised. Sirius shot him a withering look. "Alright, alright. I'm not terribly fussed with the idea either, but you have to admit, it'll be the perfect time. He always takes his hair tie out before he transforms."
Sirius gave a noncommittal grunt, and they continued through to the Shrieking Shack, placing the bag with the blanket in ((underneath which was the camera)) on a high shelf out of harm's way and they transformed into the forms still so new to them to keep Remus company.
The transformation wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was still hard, and as James and Sirius draped the large blanket over Remus' pale, bruised and bleeding form, tucking it carefully around him, they found that they couldn't bring themselves to take any pictures. They merely left, silently, before Madam Pomfrey arrived to check on their friend.
Several more attempts were made, but they were rather half-hearted and not at all worth documenting ((Sirius is shamed to admit to attempting at least three of them, and James never quite worked out where they ever got the idea that three soft-boiled eggs, a paper napkin and twelve rainbow-coloured paperclips would help them in their mission)). All that needs to be known is that none of them were successful ((Although none of them were particularly as disastrous as the one that puzzled James for many years afterwards)), which is why Sirius and James were found in the common room discussing their plans.
"Right," Sirius said. "We've tried sneaky, and it obviously hasn't worked."
"Well," James said slowly, scratching his chin. "To be honest, we haven't really tried to be sneaky since we did the Super Super Sneaky plan."
"Did that one work?"
"No..."
"My point exactly." Sirius clapped his hands together in a businesslike fashion. "So, sneaky didn't work - "
"And direct didn't work. He said no when you asked him."
"Then clearly we need to combine the two."
"Snirect?" James suggested.
"Deaky." Sirius said. "We need to be Deaky."
"Alright then. Deaky it is."
So it was decided. The 'Deaky' pair planned their expedition as well as they could. James was in charge of the camera, Sirius was in charge of wrestling Remus' hair tie away from him.
They took James' invisibility cloak and followed Remus up to the Library where he began to do his homework and waited patiently ((Alright, not so patiently. Sirius took the time to have a nap and drooled all over James' shoulder.)) for the place to become empty enough for them to take the picture.
Finally, when all sane people had left the library thinking up excuses to explain why their homework wasn't complete, and all but a few candles had been extinguished, James and Sirius were able to put their plan into motion.
"Boo!" Sirius hissed in Remus' ear, as he slipped out from under the cloak and snuck up behind his friend, quickly disentangling the hair tie. Remus jumped.
"Wha – Ack! Sirius! Give that back!" He reached for the hair tie, starting to stand, but Sirius placed a hand firmly on the top of his head and pushed him back down into his seat.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Sirius said to the world in general. "I present Remus Lupin - with his hair down!"
"Sirius..." Remus growled warningly.
"Prongs is here to commemorate the occasion." Sirius said cheerfully, pointing to where James had shucked the cloak and was aiming the camera at them. "Smile for the camera, Moony!"
"I most certainly will not!" Remus said huffily, folding his arms and scowling.
"Fine," Sirius grinned. "Look smoulderingly sexy at the camera."
"Then will you give me my hair tie back?"
"Depends how much you smoulder."
"I hate you, Black." Remus growled.
"Say Cheese!" James called, waving a hand to get their attention.
"I hate you too, Potter." Remus said, making sure that James knew he wasn't getting out of aiding and abetting the lunatic that was currently pinning him to his seat without any punishment. James didn't answer, merely pressed the button and the photo took.
the picture can be found at: www . deviantart . com / deviation / 15858011 ((Just take the spaces out))
Props, also, to Lily Anne the Grey for noticing the slight error I made with regards to dates.
