Title: Artistic Licence

Rating: K+

Summary: Katie has a run in with multi-coloured hair.

A/N: The title is also the name of a song by The Starting Line. I don't own the characters or anything you might recognise from the book, but I do own the idea.

I'd hidden from Lee the whole day. Anyway and anywhere, I'd done it- in broom closets, knights' armour and even, once, in the Black Lake. (Not that I would recommend hiding in a frozen lake during the middle of winter: Children, please do not try this at home.)

Fred and George weren't helping, either. Every time they happened to be with him and saw me, they'd shout, "Hello, Katie Bell! What are you doing under the teacher's desk?"

Needless to say, I couldn't really come up with an answer for that one.

It had all started that morning, which seemed to me like two weeks before, instead of approximately eight hours. I'd arisen late as usual, thanks to my (supposed) best friends who didn't seem to think the fact that we had a careers speech which could determine our life long careers was an adequate reason to wake me.

I'd run down the stairs, bed hair and pyjamas still on, whilst pulling a pair of reasonably clean robes on top. (Luckily for me, 'pyjamas' in my case just consisted of an outdated band shirt and a pair of holey tracksuit pants.) Everyone had already signed up for the speeches that they wanted to go to, and were all leaving the common room just as I jumped off the last step.

"Fine, don't wait for me," I'd said huffily.

"We won't," Alicia had called back breezily over her shoulder as the portrait shut behind her.

I cursed and picked up a self-inking quill, which rather inconveniently decided to spill ink all over the pair of robes that were now not even reasonably clean. "Let's see… dragon handling, dragon minding, dragon keeping, dragon… fondling?" George and Fred had evidently made a few adjustments to the list. I signed up for a few random classes by shutting my eyes and jabbing my finger at one, then sighed and got ready to leave. The others would have all been assembled in the halls by then.

"Wait!" Somebody had cried as they bounded down the stairs, adding a few choice swear words and they tripped over the last one with which Fred and George had tampered with by putting several nails in carefully calculated positions.

It was Lee, and he was just as disarrayed as I was, if not more. After all, his normally meticulously styled dreadlocks were frizzy and sticking up as if he'd been electrocuted with a hundred volt wire. (I'd done Muggle Studies for the last few years.)

"Wait," he'd repeated, breathlessly. If Oliver had been there he would have been shocked that someone of Gryffindor could be so unfit and demand that he train with the team as a result. If there was one thing Oliver hated more than lateness, it was when a person who was unfit.

"Hurry up," I'd groaned at the fact that I would have to burst in dramatically at the start of one of the seminars, causing everyone to look at me and wonder, "What's she been taking?"

"Fred… and George… didn't wake… me up," Lee said, pausing to gulp some air as he turned blue in the face.

"Because they had better things to do," I said, raising an eyebrow as I surveyed his appearance.

"Yeah… like what?"

"Like turn you into a multi-coloured peacock," I told him, as he turned around and I saw that the Weasley twins had dyed Lee's hair colours I hadn't even known existed. Not to mention all the classics such as hot pink, mouldy yellow and Slytherin green.

Lee had almost fainted on the spot. "What?"

"Yeah," I'd said, nodding as I circled him, "They did a pretty good job."

"Well?" Lee demanded, turning around as fast as he could so to catch a glimpse of them, "Are you going to help me get them out or what?"

"What?" I blinked innocently.

"God," Lee moaned, "You're so not funny."

"Fine, fine." I thought about how much I would regret not going to the mummy wrapping course, which a Professor from Egypt was coming to just to explain how they painstakingly removed people's brains via their nostrils in the olden says of Merlin. Fascinating. "Let's get you upstairs."

We'd ended up in the fifth year boy's bathroom, which smelled quite unpleasant and was verging on the inhabitable. "Gross," I exclaimed upon closely examining what turned out to be a furry green orange, "There is such thing as a bin, you know."

"Yeah," Lee answered, still trying to see the back of his head by virtually pulling a dreadlock as far as he could withstand the pain and swivelling his head to a abnormal degree, "But who wants to touch that?"

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "That's why you pick it up before alien specimens invade it," I said. "Duh."

"Whatever," he dismissed. "How are we going to do this?"

"Well." I looked over the bathroom critically. "If we employ a complicated manoeuvre to get you into the bath- fully dressed, though, don't take off your robes, I don't want to see- then I think I might be able to reach your head. Might."

Lee thought about this for a moment. "Okay," he agreed. "Just don't use cold water."

I merely raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, not too cold," he amended. "Then I won't be able to commentate Quidditch if I'm in the Hospital Wing suffering from an excruciatingly painful case of the flu."

"Yeah, yeah," I replied. He got into the bath and I could see from my slight vantage point that the damage was even worse than first thought. Not only were his dreadlocks multi-coloured, but it looked like the twins had also tried to give him a haircut (although not succeeding nearly as much as they might have liked).

"Er," I began hesitantly, wondering if, and just how, I should break the news to Lee. After all, he'd been growing them since third year. Eww. Which meant he also hadn't had a hair cut in two or three years, and there I was about to touch it.

"Okay," I said, holding out my weapons of mass destruction (which included a pair of blunt children's scissors- Alicia's parents were very protective- and a large bottle of shampoo). "I think we might need to alter your hairstyle."

"What? Why?" Lee said, panicked.

"Well," I said slowly, smirking slightly at the fact that he was so possessive of his hair, "Gred and Feorge might have accidentally slipped with the scissors when they happened to be near your head."

"What?"

"A bit louder? I'm not sure Russia heard that," I complained. "And you're lucky they didn't poke out an eye or something. Besides," I add more cheerfully, "you're long due for a haircut. They were just enforcing the new personal hygiene laws."

"What personal hygiene laws?"

"The ones I made up just then," I answered, not missing a beat. Then I brought out a hose (which for some reason was actually in the bathroom in the first place) and squirted Lee with it, just for kicks. The best thing was that I didn't realise it was on high pressure, but I don't think it did any permanent damage.

After a while, it became clear to me that squirting Lee with the hose was not going to work. I'd have to dye his hair.

"I'm going to dye your hair," I explained to him calmly and slowly. "I'll be right back." I ran up to our bathroom and stole some of Alicia's dye, which she uses monthly and made me swear not to tell anyone. Ha. As if she's a natural brunette.

"Now," I said, "this will not cause you any side effects and if it does, Alicia is the owner and therefore the person that has the rights to this bottle of peroxide and so she must be the one sued. Anything you say or do may be used against you in the court of law." No one can say I don't watch my crime shows.

So I put the dye in his hair, only it didn't turn out the way it said it would on the label. It said that on black hair, it would have 'a subtle effect, with soft highlights'. On Lee's hair it made it turn orangish-pink, not unlike vomit.

Then I realised that Lee's hair wasn't black right then. It was multi-coloured. I had to devise a plan to keep Lee away from mirrors at all times until I could find time to ask Alicia what to do. But I admit it. I panicked and gave the game away too soon.

"Ooh! It looks perfect on you! Absolutely ravishing!"

"Let me see it." Lee said bluntly.

"No."

"Yes."

"How about… no?"

"How about yes?"

Slowly I backed out of the bathroom, wincing as a crunch sounded from under my foot, and I realised that the furry green thing that used to be an orange was no more. "Um… bye!"

And so since then I'd been running from him. I admit, it was hard. Especially when he spotted me at one of the lectures and we literally tore around the room, bringing down the curtain which Professor Somebody-or-other was using to explain how they tagged kelpies in the lakes of Scotland.

I was just entering the Gryffindor common room after the last lecture, carefully looking around to see if Lee was behind me.

"Hello, Katie," someone said calmly as I entered the room. There was no one else in the room, and the voice was coming from a large red armchair that was facing the crackling fire. They let out a low laugh. I have to say, it would have been amusing if it wasn't so terrifying.

"What do you want?" My voice had turned high-pitched.

"Why," Lee said, attempting a low gravelly voice like the evil people and swivelling around to face me, "Only to exact the revenge that I have so dearly wanted to since this morning!" With that he let out an evil cackle.

"No!" I cried, dropping onto my knees and begging. "Please no!"

Lee regarded me solemnly. "What colour would you like, Miss Bell?"

I thought about this. "Blue." After all, my mother would have a fit if I came home for the Christmas holidays with blue hair, and the best part is that I can blame someone else entirely. It'd be even better if the whole group came over like they usually do and seeing Mum's face when I tell her Lee did it.

Lee nodded. "I see." Then he turned to the stairs and called, "Minions! Come and give the lady what she wishes!"

Fred and George appeared, smirking identical evil smiles. "As you wish," one said, bowing low to Lee whilst the other came over to me.

Half an hour later I was looking in the mirror of the girl's bathroom at my seaweed green hair and screaming, "Lee Jordan!"

Lee appeared, salmon coloured hair and all, and grinned at me apologetically. "Sorry," he said insincerely. "I didn't read the part on the bottle where it said 'not for blonde hair'."