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Semele Perdita

Chapter 2: The Gathering of the Perfect Pricks

Author: LadyAkako

Rating: PG-13

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[ Lily]

“It might work better if you followed the instructions correctly,” an amused voice sounded behind me. I jumped in slight surprise at the noise and looked up hopelessly into my best friend's teasing eyes.

“You try doing it by yourself and tell me how you fare, then.” I glared at Meara with as much hatred I could possibly feel for the girl who had helped me get through the past five years alive. This meant, basically, that I wore an empty glare reminiscent of anger.

“I would, but I'm not the one with blue hair, Evans,” Meara responded sweetly, or at least her tone was sweet. She didn't bat an eyelash as I just attempted to glare harder at her; she allowed her usual grin to creep upon her features. It was so incredibly typical of her, always joking for her own benefit.

“I'm not laughing,” was the only thing I could think of as a retort. I really was horrible at making up comebacks.

Meara's eyebrow rose in question and I turned back to the mirror which was now “Tut, tut”ing in a sad way at my hair.

“You know this whole thing just screams, `Potter, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew!' I just can't prove it because no one saw them do it. This isn't fair, they get off Scot free and I get blue hair!” I fumed. “I will do anything to get back my regularly hideous red hair. Even if I have to march right up to that ignoramus Potter and ask him myself, I'm not going anywhere with blue hair.”

“Relax, your hair will be back to normal in exactly an hour and anyways, if you aren't going to go anywhere with the hair, how would you ask Potter?” Meara responded with a straight face.

Her comments caused me to sigh loudly, she was right, the only choir I had was a whole hour of being locked up in the dormitories. Putting aside the current circumstances, I turned to my friend with as much dignity as I could muster and nodded.

“So…” I started, but wasn't allowed to finish as Meara swept out of the washroom, dragging me along with her.

“Read and forget about your hair, it'll be fine,” she said as we reach our adjacent beds. Meara tugged a few books from her bags and shoved one into my hands. Some time passed before Meara spoke again and when she did she spoke in a very offhand voice. I didn't catch the first part of what she said, being absorbed in the book she had given me.

“…we wouldn't want anyone to have a heart attack or anything because of that hair,” she deadpanned as I stared at her in shock.

“What?” I asked confused, I had obviously missed something.

“Your hair, Lily, your hair, the blue is gone. It took less time than I thought and I was just saying I was glad because we wouldn't want to give anyone a heart attack,” Meara replied slowly, looking amused.

After a beat of silence, I pivoted around and across my bed, reaching for a pillow and hurled it into my friend's face without a second thought. I would not give someone a heart attack just because of blue hair; it wasn't that ugly.

Her musical laugh filled the empty room as she tried desperately to block the blow but was unsuccessful. She reached for her own pillow and dove at me with it.

“What do you two think your doing?” a disdainful voice shouted at us, causing us to freeze our positions of defense. I looked up quickly at the figure and relaxed slightly. Exchanging glances with Meara, I hid a smile. Bethany Dare was standing in our doorway, with her hands on her hips and lips pursed. Bethany had always been a prude; she was the butt of many jokes that her mind was much too aligned with proper thoughts to comprehend fully.

“Well…you see…umm…it's a long story really…” I managed to choke out before Meara took over.

“We were having a squabble over whose pillow had a prettier design upon it and we just got a bit…defensive,” she stated calmly. I shot her a quizzical, but thankful look. “Do you have a problem with that?” Meara added, almost as if it was an afterthought.

“No, I was just wondering what on earth had possessed you two. I honestly thought you two were above silly rows over such things as pillows. Honestly,” the 7^th year continued, “you two were always so much more tolerable than the other girls of your year.”

“Did you need something or are you just going to rant all day, Bethany?” I asked, finally growing tired of her speech. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at the curl of her lip and suddenly straightened posture.

“I wanted to inform you two, as I am rather fond of both of you, that I have been appointed as Head Girl this year and to inform Lily of a Prefect meeting this evening which will start in a quarter of an hour in the Charms classroom. Dumbledore will be there to brief your duties and set the year's patrolling schedules. Good night, Meara, and see you soon, Lily,” Bethany droned on self-importantly.

I nodded at the pompous seventeen-year-old girl and replied with, “I'll be along soon to the meeting then, Bethany. See you then.”

Meara smiled with forced sincerity and shut the door behind our new Head Girl. She leaned against the cherry wood door, throwing her head back and shaking in silent laughter. When her foggy eyes finally opened and shifted to mine, her laughter was still present but sufficiently masked.

“Well, what are you standing there for? Get ready for that bloody gathering of the perfect pricks so it will be over sooner,” Meara growled at me and shoved me toward my own trunk.

I really did roll my eyes this time. Gathering all my things, I allowed myself to be pushed out the door by my friend.

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Ten minutes later, I found myself seated in one of the numerous chairs in the Charms classroom. A quiet girl from Hufflepuff named Christina Wells was seated in the chair beside me. Not knowing her too well, I kept my mouth shut; Hufflepuffs were known to be vicious gossips, even if they were quiet. There was no reason to give them a reason to gossip about me.

Dumbledore walked in calmly, his blue eyes sweeping observantly over the small room full of Prefects. His sparkling orbs contacted mine briefly and I grew uncomfortable even if was for only a split second. His eyes disturbed me for some reason; it seemed that they could see through my soul. It didn't help that he always seemed to know what I was thinking, or what anyone was thinking, really.

“Welcome, welcome, Prefects, to your new year at Hogwarts. I would like to introduce all the incoming Prefects as well as this year's Head Boy and Head Girl. I'll begin by asking all our incoming Prefects to please stand,” Dumbledore began what was bound to be a very boring meeting. I fought the feeling that I needed to yawn…that would be very impolite. Someone wasn't bound to do it by the end of this meeting, but I certainly didn't want to be the one to do it first.

Looking around at the newcomers to the Prefect position, I felt my mouth twitch. I remembered shaking as I stood up last year to be introduced to everyone here. Now it was their turn. I hoped they were squirming on the inside too.

“Let us begin with the new Gryffindor Prefects…” Dumbledore's voice continued introducing people, but I wasn't in the mood to listen so I sat there pretending to look interested in what was being said. My eyes roamed listlessly around the room and I barely held back a shout of laughter at the sight of Remus Lupin already asleep. His head was cradled in his arms and it looked like he was drooling. I held a hand to my mouth to cover my smile at the image. It was quite funny to see someone you dislike in a potentially embarrassing position.

It wasn't really fair for me to dislike Lupin just because of who he consorted with, but sadly that was the basis of my reasoning. It was obviously that group of Gryffindor pranksters that he was in that had given me blue hair today and had done quite a few less-than-honorable stunts last year, as well.

The Headmaster's voice pierced through my thoughts upon this matter though as he spoke the words, “…and finally, this year's Head Boy, Frank Longbottom.” Polite applause scattered throughout the room for the seventh year Gryffindor. I wondered how he would fair with Bethany Dare as his partner in all the school event planning. This could be interesting.

After outlining the duties of Prefects and going over what was expected of us, we were released. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Lupin had not awoken yet. I contemplated going over to wake him up, but decided against it. He was the one who fell asleep there in the first place. I hope he slept there all night and woke up with a crick in his neck. I realized this was mean, but there was no doubt he had something to do with my blue hair and I wasn't about to let that incident go anytime soon.

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[ James ]

I didn't get Remus' idea for the spare cups before he had to leave for the stupid Prefect meeting, so I waited up until after the meeting was supposed to done. I watched carefully for Remus and his sandy blonde hair to waltz into the Commons, but he never showed. Grumbling, I headed up to the dormitories, figuring he had probably forgotten about his promise to tell me when he got back. Knowing him, he was probably caught up in a deeply intellectual conversation about the wonders of Ancient Runes with one of his fellow Prefects.

Man, I really wanted to know his idea too. He always comes up with fun pranks and since Sirius and Peter obviously weren't interested (as Peter was still missing and Sirius had suspiciously disappeared after meeting up with Helena Trapp. Trapp was a moderately pretty girl from our year, but she had a habit of batting her eyelashes rapidly that was really quite annoying.) We could have done it together, just the two of us. We rarely do just a pair of us on a prank, but when the opportunity presented itself, I was always up for a good joke.

Remus had begun to tell me what he wanted to do with the spare cups from our little prank of Evans and the Ravenclaw firsties when he was herded off to the yawn fest they liked to call the Prefect briefing.

As I reached the room I had shared with my mates since first year, I had to shake my head. I was probably going to be the only one in this room tonight. At least I didn't have to listen to Peter snoring like a freight train, though. That was always a plus side.

I flopped down on my bed and pulled out a book to pass some time, as it was much to early to curl up and fall to sleep just yet.

Within the hour, my eyelids grew heavy and I decided to call it a night. Instead of traveling across the room to turn off the lamps that were placed all over the room, I grabbed my wand from the nightstand.

“Nox,” I yawned and fell back onto my bed. I must have fallen asleep right as my head hit the pillow because in the morning when I woke up, I was still in my uniform, which was now incredibly wrinkled, and my wand was still loosely draped in my hand.

“Morning, Prongs,” a cheerful voice greeted my drowsy ears. “Have a nice sleep, then?” It was Sirius, I could tell by his tone of voice, even though I didn't bother looking for him. The curtains around my bed were partially closed, only allowing a small portion of light to stream through.

“Where is everyone?” I finally responded, rubbing my neck. Looking around, I only saw Sirius in the large room.

“Not sure where Moony is, but Wormtail is already down at breakfast. I saw him on the way up here,” Sirius reported, looping his tie around his neck carelessly.

I rolled out of bed and planted my feet onto the floor tiredly. I took a moment to orient myself with my surroundings, as a huge blood rush occurred as I performed the movement. Finally, standing I dug through my trunk for a clean uniform.

“I'll be out in a minute,” I mumbled to Sirius. Scratching my head, I slowly made my way to the washroom's door.

Quickly taking a shower and changing, I was finally ready. My hair was still damp as Sirius and I headed down from breakfast because I was much too lazy to be bothered with a drying spell. My tie wasn't tightened properly and hung loosely around my neck, and I had left my jumper somewhere back in the room.

My eyes immediately scanned the Great Hall for Evans as we entered. When I zeroed in on her form, I was immensely disappointed to see her usual flowing auburn head. Not that I didn't like her hair, it was rather pretty, but we had worked so hard to get it so it would be blue for at least a day or so.

As if she felt my gaze, she glanced up and locked my eyes with her own piercing green eyes. I held her gaze for as long I could, but was forced to look away as Sirius began to talk about his latest toy in the girls department, who happened to be heading our way right now. I sighed softly, this was going to be a long day, I could already tell.

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