"Hail! To the James Potter, James Potter, James Potter, Hail! To the James Potter, James Potter…MAN!"

James finished up the end of his song with a pirouette, landing on one knee and spreading his arms out to Peter, who threw him a very startled look and carefully started inching away. Hardly noticing this he sprang back to his feet, black hair ruffled to new extremes, and eyes sparkling wickedly behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Remus and Sirius exchanged bemused looks.

"All hail!" barked James, straightening his back and holding himself in an imaginary army-officer pose. "All hail to the mighty Sir James Potter, Lord of Seduction!"

There was a beat of silence. Sirius's eyebrows were raised so high his face looked distorted. James gazed round expectantly at them all.

"Well? Aren't you going to ask what?" he demanded, beginning to jig from one foot to the other, a huge demented grin on his face.

"You never asked us to ask what," observed Remus quietly, inwardly smiling as the look on James's face turned to pure frustration. Peter, always one to please, obediently said, "What is it, James?"

The grin was back. After laughing and mussing up his hair with one hand, James finally said, in a decidedly feminine way: "Guess!"

They all stared at him.

"Ok. First you get grouchy 'cause we don't ask why you're doing an impression of an ape with fleas - " James stopped his jigging. " – and then you want us to guess?"

"Well…yeah," grinned James, causing Sirius to sigh dramatically and fall backwards onto his bed, rolling over and burying his face in the pillows. "Everyone hide," came his distinctly muffled voice, "James has officially lost it."

"Ha –dee – ha ha," said James sarcastically, though his face lost none of its happiness, "Come on, seriously guys, listen! This is brilliant!"

"Just tell us already!" said Peter, becoming impatient, "I don't want to guess!"

For a moment James looked as though he was holding his breath, taking them all in with animated eyes. He looked as though he was going to burst.

"Gentlemen, you are looking at the one and only boyfriend of Vicki Sumner!"

For a moment all was silent. Then -

"You're WHAT?" yelped Sirius, ripping his head out from under the pillow so fast it flew across the room and hit Remus in the face. He barely noticed. All of them were staring at James, whose hyper smile had become distinctly self satisfied.

"You heard," he said smugly, casually strolling over to his chest of drawers and idly playing with a comb on top of it. Sirius gaped at him.

"Did you honestly just say you're going out with Vicki Sumner?"

"What? Oh, that." James lay back on his bed, folding his hands behind his head and gazing up at the bed canopy, "Yeah, we're going out." Then, unable to resist himself, he added, "She was practically tripping over herself when I mentioned a stroll around the lake, y'know. Nothing serious." He snuck a look at Sirius to see how this was going down. Remus glanced round at him too, then bit back a laugh. Sirius's jaw was hitting the floor. For a second he seemed lost for words.

"You – You…You're going out with Sumner?"

"Uh huh," replied James, now inspecting his fingernails.

"You asked her out?"

"Yep."

"She's your girlfriend?"

"That's right."

"I don't believe it!" Sirius was staring at James. "You old bastard! What the hell does she see in you?"

"Oh, let me see, my rugged good looks, my dazzling intellect…" James trailed off, then bit his lip. "To be honest, no idea. She just came over and started talking to me, and at first I was kind of 'Whoa! Why are you talking to me?' and then I just kind of thought…"

James broke off as though he suddenly realised what he was saying. Remus saw him cast an uncomfortable look at him and Peter, then sit up suddenly. "But whatever. I'm meeting up with her by the lake in…" he glanced at his watch, "Ten minutes time."

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "So why are you still here?"

James frowned. "Huh? I still have ten minutes."

"Yeah, you still have ten minutes. If you intend to get to the lake by flinging yourself out the window, that is. Get a brain, James."

For a moment, James simply stared at him. Then, with a panicked: "Shit!" he pushed himself up out of bed, stumbled over his school bag, dragged the comb through his hair (it made no difference) and legged it as fast as he could, slamming the door behind him.

As the bang of the dormitory door was still resonating around them, Remus and Sirius glanced at each other, then both looked at Peter's wide eyes.

"Wow! Vicki Sumner!" Peter wrung his hands in a mix of awe and disbelief, "Isn't she that really pretty one from Ravenclaw? Why is she going out with James?"

Remus shrugged, though he wasn't really certain of who Vicki Sumner actually was. He'd heard her name a few times, at least, enough times to give him the impression that she was extremely popular, but he couldn't put a face to her name. Sirius, on the other hand, judging from the way he was staring at James's bed with a very disgruntled look on his face, certainly could.

"How did he do it?" he burst out at last, still not taking his eyes off James's pillow, "How did he manage to pull the fittest bird in our year? He hasn't even gone out with anyone before!"

"I mean," he continued, getting up and starting to pace, "Not that I care particularly. But, I mean, no offence to James, but no girl's ever looked twice at him before! Why would Vicki Sumner of all people be interested in him?"

"Why not?" asked Remus. He frowned, studying Sirius's expression intently. Why was he acting like James was the ugliest man in the world, all of a sudden?

"Why not? What d'you mean, 'why not'?"

"Well," said Remus, watching as Sirius turned to the mirror and started running his hands through his hair, "Why wouldn't Sumner go out with James? It's just a date. If that. I mean, all they're doing is strolling round the lake."

Sirius held up a chunk of his hair, before letting it drop. "Yeah. Right. D'you think my hair's too long?"

"What?"

"I said, d'you reckon my hair's getting too long? It is, isn't it? I might have a haircut."

Remus stared at Sirius, trying to imagine him with short hair. "Um…"

Sirius swept back his dark mop of hair, frowning at the mirror. Then he spun round and without another word strode out the door, banging it behind him.

Remus and Peter looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Er...?" mumbled Peter, looking completely baffled.

"Exactly," agreed Remus, wondering just how much more confusion he could take.

0o0o0

It was only when she was half – way back to the Gryffindor common room when Lily realised her necklace was missing from round her neck.

"Bugger!" she swore loudly, fingers feeling round the bare skin of her neck, "Oh, bugger, bugger!" Whirling round, she scanned the floor, but no glinting silver chain came into her vision. It was gone.

She clenched her hair in panic, heart pounding. There was no way she could lose that necklace. Absolutely no way.

"What's the matter?" her friend, Hannah, seemed to have only just noticed she had stopped, and was now standing there, gazing at her stricken face, twirling a lock of hair idly around her finger.

"I've lost my necklace!"

"Oh…" Hannah's eyes darted to Lily's bare neck, then glanced at the floor behind her. "Well, it's gone now."

"Hannah, I have to find it! My Dad gave me that!"

Hannah shrugged, widening her eyes. "So ask him to buy you a new one."

Glaring at her, Lily replied in a voice of stone, "My Dad's dead." Putting up a hand, she shook her head and walked away from Hannah's shocked face in disgust, sweeping her eyes along the floor, along the sides of the walls, though she was shaking in anger. How could anyone be so stupid, she snarled to herself, leaning back against the wall the minute she was out of sight, while her head swam and clouded with rage, how could she be so tactless. Why on earth were she friends with people like that?

Swallowing the urge to hit the wall behind her, Lily glanced at her watch. Six o'clock. That meant curfew would end in an hour, and she had to find it before then.

Sighing deeply at the enormity of the task ahead of her, Lily carried on with her slow walking, eyes trained on the floor.

And walked straight into someone.

"Ow!" two voices yelped simultaneously, and Lily hastily took a step backwards, clutching her chest in shock.

"Watch where you're going!" she started to say, but the other voice cut over her before she could get the words out.

"Well, well, well, Evans, isn't it?"

She looked up at that, and the messy haired outline of James Potter looked back at her. "Potter," she acknowledged coldly, and made to side-step him, but he put an arm out to stop her.

"Not so fast, little Evans. What are you doing out at this time?"

"I might ask you the same question," Lily shot back through gritted teeth, before reaching out and attempting to push the arm away from in front of her face. When it didn't move, she dug her nails in.

"Aragh!" Potter jumped back like he had been stung, cradling his arm against his chest. "What was that for?"

"You was in my way," Lily retorted over her shoulder, for she had continued on walking now her path was clear, eyes back to the floor. Much to her displeasure, however, she could hear Potter's footsteps again, and they most certainly weren't getting fainter.

"What do you want!" she burst out as Potter fell into step beside her, "Don't you have something better to do?"

The question seemed to stop him in his tracks. "Why yes, now you mention it." He grinned smugly and ruffled up his hair. Lily eyed him in distaste.

"Well, quit bothering me and go do it then!"

He looked at her in silence for a moment, eyes dark behind his wire-rimmed glasses. For just a second his eyes flickered hesitantly up the corridor ahead of them, then he grinned. "I have to walk this way."

Lily stared at him in disbelief. "You do not! You were going the opposite way a second ago!"

"Oh," Potter looked at the ceiling, "Was I?"

"Yes."

Staring at him incredulously, Lily wondered how anyone could possibly be so annoying and stupid and yet walk and talk at the same time. It occurred to her that she was wasting time standing here having a pointless conversation when she needed to be looking for her necklace, and turned and walked away without bothering to say another word.

"Bye, then!" Potter called after her, his voice heavy with sarcasm. Lily snorted to herself.

"Bye," she drawled back, glancing over her shoulder at his retreating figure. She waited until he was gone from sight, then continued to look along the floor as she walked, musing over the conversation she had just had.

James half ran, half walked, concentrating on not tripping over his feet, still not quite able to believe what he had done. He had a date with Vicki Sumner, which he was already late for, and he had stopped to chat with that Evans girl of all people! What had he been thinking?

He ran faster, his heart speeding up at the thought of Sumner – no, Vicki. Vicki. His girlfriend, Vicki Sumner.

Wow, that sounded good to hear. Or good to think. Whatever.

James jogged on, happily day dreaming, and as he ran there was a sudden crunch underfoot, and something shot across the floor. Surprised, he skidded to a halt and looked back.

Something green lay in two halves on the floor – some kind of stone, he realised, when he looked closer. Intrigued, he knelt on the floor and picked it up, and a long, fine silver chain came with it. He ran it through his fingers for a moment, then shrugged and tucked it into his pocket.

He had more important things to think about, after all.

0o0

Remus stared incredulously at Peter, who was getting steadily pinker by the second.

"Are you seriously saying," he began, watching as Peter started chewing on some Ice Mice, "That you don't know the three times tables?"

Peter frowned for a moment, carefully unwrapping his chocolate frog. "Well, I was never really sure what they were, exactly," he said, a little indistinctly through all his crunching, "I mean, my Dad tried to teach me, but - " he gave an enormous swallow, "He gave up in the end."

"Uh – huh," mumbled Remus, craning his neck to see what card Peter had with his Frog, "Why was that?"

Peter blushed as he gnawed on the Frog's foot. "I kept thinking it was something to do with the dining table."

It was amazing, Remus thought as he chose to not reply to that comment and bent his head over his papers, that something as relatively simple like offering to help Peter with his Divination homework could turn out to be so hard. Especially when the person you were helping could only add and subtract using his fingers.

"Anyway," added Peter, tossing the Frog wrapper into the fire, "What has three tables got to do with my Divination homework?"

"Because," Remus sighed, "If you had two dreams every night for three days…" he broke off at the look of complete incomprehension on Peter's face.

"Nothing, Peter," he said eventually, "It has nothing to do with it at all."

"Oh, good," Peter sighed and stretched out, wiggling his toes in the warmth of the fire. "I was sort of worried for a moment."

"Don't be," murmured Remus, doodling on his parchment, "Life's too short…"

He blinked in surprise. Where had that come from?

But then, he supposed it was sort of true. It was a good kind of motto to live by.

As he sat there musing over that thought, he became aware of someone standing behind him, and casually he glanced round, screwing up his eyes in the light of the roaring fire.

A dark, spiky haired boy stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down at him, and as Remus continued to squint at him he gave a slight grin.

"Hey," said Sirius, dropping bodily into an armchair, "Whatcha doing?"

Peter looked up at that, and gave a faint squeak of surprise, mouth falling open.

"What have you done to your hair!" he yelped, shielding his eyes as though the sight was dazzling him, and clutching his quill protectively close. Sirius raised an eyebrow, self consciously putting up a hand to ruffle his barely two inch long hair (and looking remarkably like James as he did it)

"What's wrong with it?" he asked defensively, keeping the hand carefully on top of his head, "I thought it looked alright!"

"It's…It…" Remus wasn't sure if it was shock, disbelief or admiration on Peter's face as he continued to gawp at Sirius's newly cropped hair, "It's…ah…"

"Remus!" cried Sirius in desperation, swivelling his body round and looking at him with his hand playing nervously at the back of his neck, "You're the wordy one here! What d'you reckon?"

Considering the question, Remus looked it over. The change to Sirius's face was shocking, without his usual black curtain of hair about his neck, but… not really in a bad way, once you got over the surprise of seeing Sirius without long hair.

"It's…short," he finished up finally, then immediately felt stupid as Sirius threw his hands to the heavens in exasperation.

"Well, Peter could have told me that! Merlin, guys, not feeling too clever this evening are we?" Sirius's face had darkened, his eyes, now so clearly free of hair, looked thunderous. "I'm going to kill those house-elves if they didn't do a good job…"

"House elves?" yelped Remus, amazed, "Since when did they double as a hair and beauty salon?"

Sirius shrugged bad temperedly, "They're house elves. It's in their blood to do stuff like that…a lot of them are trained to cut hair along with doing the laundry and stuff. My house elf used to cut my brother's hair for him, ages ago…but forget that. It looks crap doesn't it?" He spread his arms wide and tried to fix a joking grin on his face. "Give it to me straight, Remus. Am I going to be a laughing stock from now on?"

For the second time, Remus roved his eyes over Sirius's face, quite unable to get over how different he looked. "It looks…good." He leaned back, trying to imagine he was seeing his friend for the first time. "Definitely good," he concluded decisively.

Sirius studied him for a moment, and then nodded, tentatively taking his hand away from his head.

"You look so different though, Sirius!" Peter burst out, causing the hand to shoot back to his hair, "I didn't even recognize you at first!"

"But in a good way, right?" Sirius asked anxiously, . Peter nodded furiously.

"Well, yeah, obviously in a good way. I mean, your hair's always looked good, no matter what length it is!"

It sounded kind of crawly to Remus, but it appeared to be the right thing to say. Face clearing, Sirius leant back in his armchair and grinned broadly. "So where's Jamesie-poo then?"

"Still out." Remus muttered, looking back down at his homework, "I don't know when he'll be back."

"Yeah. Right." Sirius stood up and stretched. "Think I'll go to bed. Night, all."

"Night," replied Peter and Remus simultaneously, and Sirius walked away up the boys stairs, looking strangely unlike himself from the back. Peter looked at Remus, and for the second time that day shared a 'look'.

"There's a lot of stuff happening today, isn't there?" Peter sighed, staring blankly over at the portrait hole.

"Telling me," muttered Remus, reaching out to re-load his quill with ink.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Ok, you can all let out your gasps of horror now. YES! I cut Sirius's hair! It is now officially short! He didn't always have long hair, anyway. There's a part in the 5th book where Moody says 'and there's Sirius, back when he had short hair.' So there.

Right, so…that;s four hugs collected so far! Come on people, you expect Remus to get happier on THAT? (Glares at the people, who all run away)

I'm going to have to go now, as my brother is lying in his bed whining for me to get off the computer. So…see ya!

Peace and blessings

Mooncheese xx