Having been friends with Sirius since secondary school, I thought nothing he could do would ever shock me yet somehow he always found a way to outdo himself. I thought that imitating his twin brother was bad yet replacing me with a Remus in a wig was ridiculous.

"How is Remus in a wig the solution?!" I exclaimed, almost rendered speechless by the complete stupidity of the plan.

"Be creative, Dorcas, she won't see his face just him from behind."

"Okay, okay... still not seeing how this is the solution."

"This happens to have a name and it's Remus, don't be so rude." Sirius lectured which was absolutely infuriating, "Also you have to admit the wig is amazing."

"It took him so long to find it." James added unhelpfully.

"He doesn't look anything like me though... even if the hair is scarily accurate! He's about a foot taller than me, we have different figures and he has stubble! I don't have facial hair!"

"He can shave." Sirius suggested.

"Do I have to? This took me all holiday." Remus remarked a little sadly, brushing his chin with his hand.

"Okay, don't shave then, simple." Sirius said with a shrug.

"Wouldn't this cause even more problems though?" I asked the three of them. They all thought about it for way too long when the obvious answer was yes, "Stop considering it, the answer was clearly yes! What would Marlene think if she's expecting me and instead she gets Remus in a wig?!"

"She wouldn't see his face, just the back of his head. Remus has long legs so he can run away fast if she catches on." Sirius explained as if it somehow solved everything.

"But I don't have long legs!" I yelled. How did they even think Remus could pass for me?!

"No, Dorcas," James said a little patronisingly, "Remus has the long legs - "

"I know that!" I yelled back, "But he's pretending to be me and he can't be me if we have different legs - "

"Don't listen to her, Remus, you have amazing legs." Sirius said, completely missing the point.

"I didn't say he didn't, I just said that they were completely different to mine!"

"Not everything's about you, Dorcas." Sirius smirked, knowing full well that this would irritate the hell out of me.

"It is if you're trying to impersonate me!" I shouted, "Remus, please tell me that you're not on board with this?!"

"Well..." Remus began, trying to conceal the small smile that was forming on his lips, "It does sound fun..."

"You literally got scammed by him, how can you take part in this?!"

"But it all worked out okay in the end." Sirius said in annoyingly sappy voice, leaning down to give Remus a kiss.

"Aww, look at that. Doesn't it just warm your heart?" James cooed, placing his hand on his heart.

"Not really no!" I said, pouting and crossing my arms, "He doesn't look like me, this is doomed to fail."

"Remus is willing to try..." Sirius said giving me puppy dog eyes which usually worked but not today.

"I don't care. You're all bad all three of you," I jabbed my finger at them, "Bad... bad... bad. All of you."

"You're the only one who's not on board though." James pointed out, "Come on it will be a laugh!"

"No, it won't, you're all crazy." An idea occurred to me, "You know what, if you won't listen to me, I know someone who will.... I'm inviting Lily and I'm SURE she'll agree with me."

Lily arrived surprisingly fast, after our morning training session, she'd gone home and slept apparently.

"Hey Dorcas," She said, giving me a quick hug as she walked through the door, "What's so urgent - OH MY GOD!"

"Lily, the boys have..." I began but it was clear from how hard Lily was laughing that it would be about ten minutes before I could get a word out of her. There was a slight awkward silence as we waited for her to stop crying with laughter, all of us eager to see which side she'd take. Finally, she managed to regain her composure, tucking a few strands of her red hair behind her ear before talking.

"Whatever the hell this is... I'm so down for it."

"NO, LILY!" I cut in abruptly, "You don't even know what it the plan is yet, they're going to pretend that Remus is me to trick Marlene - "

Lily cut in with a snort, "Sorry but that sounds hilarious. You guys know that Marlene is never going to fool for that though but anything with Remus in drag is incredible."

"No, no, no!" I protested.

"Come on, Dorcas, even Lily is - "

"I don't care!" I was genuinely annoyed now, nobody had even asked if I wanted Sirius to meddle and considering it was my love life, I at least wanted some control, "Sirius, I don't want this, you shouldn't be meddling in my love life and Marlene would never fall for that anyway! Besides, she only sees me as a friend, nothing more and frankly, if she wants to just be friends, I'm going to let her even if I do really like her and I suppose that if I never went for it, I'd probably reget it - damn it!"

"Does that mean you're in?" Sirius's eyes were gleaming mischievously.

"No...yes... I don't know! I'll hear your plan but I'm not going to promise anything yet..." I said finally. I didn't want to get roped into another scam like last time. Sirius may have been happy with that reputation but I was not so eager to be known as a trickster.

"Come on Dorcas, just say yes..." James said but I held my finger up to silence.

"What did I just say, James?" I turned back round to face Sirius who looked eager to tell me his plan.

"This one's not as well thought out as the last one but it's amusing..." Remus warned.

"Okay, so I figured out that maybe the reason Marlene doesn't think of you romantically attracted to you - " Sirius began.

"Wait, how did you know she didn't see me this way if I only told you just now?"

"Dorcas, honey - "

"Don't say that." I snapped, "You've been in a relationship for a month now, it's at least five months more before you can use that patronising tone with me."

"Fine, Dorcas, I just knew." I opened my mouth to retaliate but he suddenly held his finger to my lips, "Shh, Dorcas, ask questions after."

Although his patronising manner was getting on my nerves, he was clearly eager to talk so I slumped back into my chair, biding my time until I could bombard him with questions about all the failings of his plan (I hadn't even heard it yet but I knew there would be a million ways it could go wrong).

"Okay, so I figured it's a sort of out of sight, out of mind thing. You're so damn awkward, Dorcas, and you never take risks. You never text her, you hardly see her. She probably enjoys hanging out with you but she doesn't see you enough to think of you that way. Right now you're making a friend effort so she's dismissed you as one."

"Oh, that actually makes sense." I said, slowly rising from my chair as for the first time he actually was giving decent advice, "You're saying I should be even more there for her and be on her radar, you're a genius, Sirius!"

"Dorcas, I wasn't done." My heart instantly sunk - whatever was about to follow was not going to be good. In fact, it might be so bad that it would counteract the vaguely okay advice he'd just given, "So I realised that you needed to get more on her radar and not just texts. She has to see you everywhere, slowly be entranced by you. This led me to phase one: the omnipresent Dorcas - "

"Nice name, Padfoot!" James and Sirius exchanged a look as if it was the best name in history when really it didn't even make the top ten of code names.

"Did you come up with it, James?" Lily asked, raising an eyebrow at him. Watching James squirm awkwardly was amusing and I bit my lip to stop a laugh escaping.

"...No, why would I compliment a name that I made up..." Lily simply shook her head at him although there was a smile on her lips.

"Anyway, I figured that Dorcas has other things to do and I knew you wouldn't be up for being super involved in such a risky scam. So I thought, who could pass for Dorcas? Who would be willing to do this for me? Who has no life because I AM his life? - "

"None of those are true, he picked me because I was the only other person here and James banned him or Lily from doing it." Remus admitted.

"The reasons don't matter, the point is Remus agreed. Anyway, Remus has kindly agreed to randomly appear from place to place so she slowly begins to think it's you."

"You know Marlene won't fall for that though? She'll either not notice or see that it's Remus." Lily said with a laugh.

"The hair is quite similar though and even if she doesn't consciously remember, the subconscious is a beautiful thing. If we place 'Dorcas' near places she likes too then she'll soon begin to subconsciously associate her with things she likes." Sirius looked very proud although it was probably because he managed to use the word 'subconscious' in a sentence.

"Padfoot, you brilliant bastard." James clapped for him and Sirius gave a mini bow. I was less sceptical and I was pretty sure Sirius was just putting the fancy psychological explanation as he knew that it would be harder to question.

"This is doomed to fail." I said, stating the obvious. Sirius considered this before giving me a faint smile.

"You said that last time and it worked amazingly."

"That's... actually a good point. Fine, I'm in but first tell me what phase two is." I asked.

"I can't say yet... but all in due course, my dear Dorcas, all in due course."