Miss Moony would like to dedicate this chapter to paige-rossi-black for being the 300th reviewer.

Miss Moony would also like to thank misstress of the flames, female half – breed, Poketheveil, Idril831, wolverine-89, shazia Born confused, Adm. Bones, maliaphire, plutobaby494, RhiaEVILmonkey, The Female Nerd, SakuraKino, moonypadfoot, pandas rule the world, Kara Adar, shadows of the dark, Sivaroobini Lupin-Black, Hermione527, Smittened By Marauders, Serindipity9, starlover88, Luminous Star, Fk306 animelover, goddessa39, luthien-yavetil, tomisha and Lady Lily3 for reviewing.

To Poketheveil: Hermione's reaction… umm… I'm not really sure about that yet (maybe I'll put it in a flashback. Or she might just demand to know why the Marauders are so suspicious of them all of a sudden). And, sorry, but no Harry-and-Sirius pranking (at least, not yet).

To wolverine-89: You mean update, right? Not review.

To shazia Born confused: Nuh-uh. The duelling club is for the people who stayed behind for the holidays.

To tomisha: Er… (is weirded out) what makes you think I put myself in it?

To The Female Nerd: Er… several things are going on. Christmas holidays, and all the Marauders have gone home except Sirius. No pranking, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Ginny and Neville have decided to start a festive duelling club.

To goddessa39: Huh? Back? What makes you think that?

To pandas rule the world: Sorry, but no.

To Hermione527: You're going to draw one? Cool! And I can't remember what Luna's comment was, but, yeah, James is a bit of a prat. But he will get better, I promise! Also, I'll endeavour to put more of Lily in, even though the story is mainly supposed to centre around Sirius and Harry. Glad you liked it!

------- I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good -------

Chapter 16

The doors banged open, and the first person to enter was Professor Cox, dressed unfashionably in neon pink, yellow and orange. The colours clashed horribly, and didn't suit her one bit. Sirius took a moment to ponder that, had she not been One Of The Potential Enemy, the courage she displayed in wearing such ridiculous clothing would be worthy of a Marauder. He also pinned her out as someone who was unlikely to give detentions when she was pranked. This was a good thing.

Following her were Professors Ginny and Ron, the latter one hopping while he tugged on a scuffed trainer, with a buttered roll clamped between his teeth. And after the two siblings came Professor Grant and Professor James, with Harry Patterson bringing up the rear.

'Welcome,' Grant said when she reached the platform, flashing her straight, even teeth at the students. 'I'm glad to see so many of you here today.

'Over the next few weeks, we'll be learning how to duel, and how to survive in worst-case scenarios: when you're duelling V-Voldemort, for instance, your best chance would be to only fight for long enough to find a time to run for your life.'

Cutting in, Patterson continued with, 'At the end of the holidays, we'll have a mini tournament, and afterwards you'll get to see me and the rest of these five in our own contest. The best three will receive gold, silver and bronze certificates, and Honeydukes gift vouchers: fifteen galleons for first place, ten for second, and five for third.

'We'll start with a demonstration, I think. Black? Stone? Would you care to demonstrate the disarming hex?'

His heart thumping, and exhilaration running through his veins, Sirius came forward, his eyes fixed on the sixth year Ravenclaw, Hilary Stone as she did the same. He barely noticed the hushed mutterings that erupted around him of "teachers pet" and "Patterson's favourite" and "not fair, why is it always him". Professor Patterson always chose Sirius. Sirius was the only one who didn't notice.

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On Christmas morning, Luna was the first of the group to wake. As she always did, she came downstairs in a mustard yellow dressing gown, with odd slippers – one fluffy blue, and the other brown and fleece-lined.

The fire was already roaring in the hearth, and it was with great relief that she sat herself down right in front of it, the heat stretching the skin of her neck.

The only presents piled on the floor were from each other, as was expected: they knew no one else in this strange new time period, where people actually believed her to be slightly sane, despite her beliefs.

Everything was perfectly, painstakingly normal.

She didn't have long to wait before Hermione toppled down the staircase, followed by Neville. Exchanging looks, Neville promptly disappeared again to get Ginny out of bed, while Hermione did the same for Ron and Harry. And soon enough, all six of them were congregated in front of the fireplace, having dismissed the overstuffed armchairs as being too far away from the only source of heat in the room, and too much effort to bother to move.

As they opened their presents and ooh-ed and ah-ed over them, they knew that they were happy.

Elsewhere, unbeknownst to them, disaster struck.