"How should we wake her?" Hermione heard a voice say.
"Water" a second voice whispered.
"Aguamenti!" Hermione jumped up spluttering, and glared at a giggling Lily and Ginny.
"What was that for!" she screeched.
"You wouldn't wake up." Lily said simply. Hermione growled and tackled Lily to the floor, before pummelling her with pillows.
The boys woke up to sounds of screeching and laughing. Suddenly there was a huge yell, and all five boys jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs, their wands drawn. When they reached the Common Room, their mouths dropped open.
Ginny, Hermione and Lily were drenched, and beating each other with pillows.
James came to his senses and quickly blocked off the stairs, preventing the rest of Gryffindor from coming down.
"What are you doing!" he yelled. The girls stopped their fight and looked up guiltily. "You're Head Girl! You should be setting a good example." he said in a strangled tone. "Oh my God! I've become mature! Save me!"
Sirius sighed and shot a jet of water at him.
"Thanks, I needed that."
Lily, Hermione and Ginny crept upstairs while the boys were distracted, and got ready for Hogsmeade. "Hurry up and get changed! It's Hogsmeade time!"
"HOGSMEADE!" Sirius bellowed, bolting up the stairs. Remus looked at the two new boys slyly.
"I guess I should explain Hogsmeade to you."
"We'll meet you at the Three Broomsticks at one o'clock!" Lily yelled the retreating back of her boyfriend.
"Come on," Lily dragged her two friends out of Hogwarts. "We'll go to Gladrags first. Best place for dresses."
Ginny and Hermione exchanged grins as the entered a dimly lit shop.
"Welcome to Gladrags" a female voice said from behind them. The room was suddenly flooded with lights and the girls gasped as they saw the numerous amount of dresses. "Go crazy"
The girls quickly rushed to the racks nearest to them. Lily immediately found two dresses and ran into the changing rooms. Ginny followed soon after, clutching a dress tightly. Hermione sighed and began to browse slowly. Lily came out wearing a floor length black dress, backless, with silver rhinestones dotted all over. "What do you think Mi?"
Hermione turned around and gasped. "You look amazing!"
"Really? Hang on, let me try on the other one." Lily retreated into her cubicle as Ginny emerged hiding her dress.
"Hey Gin, what does yours look like?"
"Not saying, I want it to be a surprise." she muttered. Hermione shrugged and waited impatiently for Lily to emerge.
Lily finally came out, this time wearing a floor length emerald dress, which hugged all of her curves and showed a little cleavage. Both Ginny and Hermione squealed loudly. "That's the one! You HAVE to buy it!"
Lily smiled and quickly got changed. "What about you Mione?"
Hermione paused. "I...I can't find one." she whispered. The two girl gasped and proceeded to choose lots of dresses for Hermione to try on, none of which were the one. Then, after giving up all hope of ever finding her dress, Hermione spied one lying all alone on the back shelf. Picking it up, she smiled. She quickly changed into it and gasped. The material seemed to shimmer and turn from a pearly sheen to pale blue. The dress was floor length, showed some cleavage, but was still demure.
Lily and Ginny's faces lit up. "That's perfect!" they cried in unison. The three made their way to the counter and paid the owner.
"Wait!" The owner cried as they made their way to the door. The three friends paused and looked at each other. The owner came out from behind the counter clutching three boxes. "These are for you. These shoes were made specifically for those dresses!" The girls accepted their shoes and walked out beaming.
"So this is the Shrieking Shack." Remus announced with a flourish. "Some say that it's haunted by ghosts" he said, watching the boys' expressions.
Ron snorted, while Harry kept his expression neutral.
James looked at Ron in confusion. "Why did you snort? It's an insanely scary place!"
Harry grinned. "Ron just finds it funny that you're scared of ghosts when you live in a castle full of ghosts." James paused.
"Fair point." He looked at Remus and nodded. "Let's go to the Three Broomsticks. Lily will kill us if we're late."
Harry and Ron started to head off down the hill, leaving the marauders behind. Remus looked at his two best friends in confusion. "I swear we didn't show them where the Three Broomsticks was."
Sirius opened his mouth when James cut him off. "Yeah, I think I pointed it out on the way up here." Remus frowned and followed the two boys down the hill.
James let out his breath. "That was close" he whispered to Sirius. "We need to make sure that they don't slip up. And that YOU don't slip up."
Sirius opened his mouth in protest, before shrugging and agreeing. "Let's go, or Lily will make it so that Harry can never be born."
James winced at the thought.
"Hey guys, over here!" Hermione cried as the boys entered the pub. They made their way around the throng of people and sat down.
"How did the shopping go? Got your dresses?" Sirius asked, trying to peek into Lily's shopping bag.
"Yes." Lily said, whacking Sirius over the head with her hand. "But no peeking Black."
Sirius looked up to see Harry and Ginny engaged in a passionate session of lip locking, Lily snuggling up to James, Remus and Hermione having a discussion about some textbook or another, and Ron walking over to Erica Boston at the bar. He sighed. It seemed that he, Hogwarts' most infamous womaniser, had no girl hanging off his arm, and no date to the ball. "This sucks." he announced loudly.
Everyone looked up from their activity to stare at him. "What's wrong Sirius?" Harry asked tiredly.
"This!" he replied, waving his arm about. "You all have a girl! It's not fair. What happened to all of this?" he asked, gesturing towards his 'fabulous' body. "What went wrong!"
Remus raised an eyebrow. "First of all. Me and Hermione are just friends. Secondly, I suppose it has nothing to do with the fact that you've probably been with every single girl bar the Slytherins?"
Sirius ignored Remus. "Yeah yeah yeah. You and Hermione are blatantly gonna get together." he said, absentmindedly sipping his butterbeer, completely oblivious to the bright red that both Remus and Hermione had turned.
Harry, Ron and Ginny burst into laughter at the sight of Hermione and their future professor. "Shut up." Hermione hissed, thoroughly embarassed. "I don't know what you're talking about Sirius. Me and Remus are just good friends."
Remus nodded somewhat too enthusiastically. Sirius turned to face them, a small smirk on his face. "In that case, you won't mind being my date to the ball?"
Hermione stuttered. "What?" everyone yelled.
"Well if you're just good friends, you wouldn't mind accompanying me." he wiggled his eyebrows.
Hermione looked around as though asking permission. Seeing that she wasn't going to get any help from her friends, and that Remus was avoiding her gaze, she replied, "I would love to."