"Are you sure that you're fine with me going out with them today?" I asked Marlene who was perching in the doorway, "I'm sure you can come if you want, if you're worried about you and Sirius..."

"I'm not." Marlene said distantly before her face broke into a smile, "Seriously, it's fine, I'm not mad that he didn't invite me, we're not joined at the hip. Just make sure he doesn't flirt with any barmaids for me, okay? "

"I'll keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't." I said with a small smile, "Have you spoken to him about it?"

"No, I haven't because he doesn't like talking and if he's going to be off with me, then I can be off with him. I'm fine, Lily."

"One more time and I'll believe you."

"I'm fine." Marlene said firmly, "Don't worry about me, Alice and Frank said they'd revise transfiguration for me and Dorcas and Mary said that we could go for Butterbeers later if I wanted to so I'm sorted. Now go and have some fun, go and see Peter get laid... well don't actually see it because that would be awkward for everyone but see the build up to it... you know what I mean."

"I got it," I said with a smile, "Love you, Marlene."

"I love you too, now get and meet those crazy boys downstairs. Someone needs to keep them in line." Marlene said, ushering me out the door. It did feel a little odd, I kept feeling like Marlene should be coming to but she didn't seem to want to and I wasn't going to force her to spend time with her increasingly distant boyfriend if she didn't want to.

I expected the four Marauders to be waiting downstairs, lounging by the fire like they were usually but instead they were nowhere to be soon. The common room was quite busy so I thought maybe they'd missed them but after scanning the room thoroughly, I realised they were nowhere to be soon.

"Hey Lily," I turned around to see Mark Bennett, one of the Gryffindor Beaters walking down the stairs behind me, "You're kind of blocking the stairs."

"Oh sorry," I shuffled to the side as Mark casually strolled past me, "... Oh wait, Mark, did you see James and the other three when you were in the Boys' dorm?"

"I did actually, they were doing Peter's hair."

"Can you go up for me and tell them to hurry up?"

"Go tell them yourself." He replied which made no sense. How was I meant to go into the Boy's dorm? Wouldn't the stairs become a slide like the Girls' dorm did?

"How will I get up there?" I asked and he gave me look as if I was a bit stupid.

"... The stairs. There's no enchantment on them because they trust girls more than boys, bloody unfair if you ask me. Girls can be just as pervy as boys if not more so, one time - "

"Okay, thanks Mark, got to go!" I said running up the stairs away from him, trying to avoid getting sucked into Mark's creepy story. I didn't like Mark Bennett, unlike Sirius who dated girls but was usually quite clear up front that he didn't want a relationship (A few of them didn't listen which led to Sirius's escape attempts), Mark was the kind of leading girls' on. He seemed to have very little respect for women and I wasn't going to waste too much time on him.

"Hey guys, are you ... what have you done to Peter?" I asked, stopping suddenly as I saw the three of them crowded around Peter in front of the mirror. At first glance, the boy's dorm was identical to the girl's dorm: it had the same six beds in a circle and the same red and gold covers. However, the longer I stood in there, the most I noticed the differences, there seemed to be a layer of dirty clothes on the floor, most of the beds were messy with the covers half falling off. I had never truly appreciated how tidy, the six of us kept our dorm until I had seen this.

"We're making him look cool, we're going for the punk look." Sirius explained, spiking Peter's hair up. Peter had been donned in a leather jacket and a sex pistol's shirt which was clearly Sirius's as it was a few sizes too big.

"He looks... interesting." I said with a slight smile, "This is going to help him get more girls?"

"It worked for me, no girl could ever turn me down." Sirius said with a familiar air of confidence. I wasn't sure if it was deliberate or not, but I did note the use of past tense when he spoke about the other girls which gave me some hope that him and Marlene could get past their issues and reconcile a bit.

"Well, it's a new look." I said, "It kind of suits you."

"Thanks." Peter said quietly, examining himself in the mirror.

"Hold on, we just need the finishing touch." Sirius dug around his draw and pulled out an eyeliner pencil, "Some subtle smoke eyeliner."

"Okay then..." Peter said looking a little unsure as Sirius delicately applied it. I leant over Peter's shoulder to admire Sirius's work.

"You've done it so much better than I could ever do." I admitted.

"I'm very practised at it, looking this good requires effort." Sirius said with a smirk. As the five of us left the dorm, I attempted to grasp how Sirius was feeling about the whole thing. He seemed happy but I knew that Sirius was an amazing actor and if he was upset, he'd still keep up this confident façade around most people. He was hard to read.

"Okay, so I have a plan here," Sirius said as we left the common room and walked down the corridor. Peter got a few looks but other than that people were completely accepting, they probably guessed it was a Marauder's scheme, "I'll coach Wormtail on what to say beforehand but I can't speak directly to the girls..."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because he's too attractive." James said with a smirk.

"Exactly Wormy has to stand out, so that's one of the reasons that I got James to invite you too. Girls will probably like him more if another girls talks him up." Sirius explained.

"And here I was thinking you invited me for the pleasure of my company." I gave James a wan smile which he imitated perfectly.

"Where are we going first?" Remus asked, "Three Broomsticks?"

"I thought that too at first," Sirius said before raising his hand dramatically, "But then I realised that would be full of the pretty, normal girls none of whom would ever go for Wormy - "

"Hey, I have feelings you know!" Peter said.

"I'm not saying no normal girl would ever go for him but I just think he'll have a better shot with the Hog's head weirdos." Sirius said casually, "Besides he's all punk rock now, he'll fit in better at the dark, dinghy Hog's Head."

Peter opened his mouth as if to protest but decided against it, maybe the thought of Sirius actually managing to get him a girlfriend was too much or maybe he just didn't have the guts. I did feel sorry for Peter, I sensed he was often used as a pawn or bait in the Marauder's scheme, few of which he actually got a say in. Still, he never complained so maybe he enjoyed it, it was hard to tell.

I'd never actually been in the Hog's Head although I'd heard tales from Dorcas about it when she'd gone on a blind date with a strange wizard. Apparentely she received a mysterious owl one day and had decided to respond which had led to a month long romance that had culminated in the mysterious man asking her to meet him at the Hog's Head for a date. She said she'd never do it now but she was younger and dumber so had gone through with it. Apparentely the ceilings were low and looked like they were about to fall apart, everything was coated in a thick layer of grease or grime and she'd seen a man with red eyes underneath his hood who stared at her from the moment she walked in to the moment she ran out the door. She left almost immediately, never even meeting the man she'd been talking to, if he invited her there he was clearly a massive creep.

Whilst I wasn't if the man with the red eyes was true, the people in the Hog's head definetly seemed to have a lot of strange people in, one of them looked a bit like the Witch from Snow White and it deeply unnerved me.

"Are you sure this is the right place to find Wormtail a date...?" Remus said, saying what we were all thinking. Sirius looked around and I could tell that even he wasn't convinced but it had been his idea and he wasn't going to back out now.

"Yeah... look there's a girl over there, I'm sure she'd be perfect for our Wormy." Sirius said gesturing over to a corner where the only other girl our age in the entire establishment was sitting.

"Her...?" Peter said sceptically, "The one with the deathly white face who seems to be talking to herself?"

"Lily's also deathly white and she isn't a weirdo, that's very judgemental of you!" Sirius lectured, "She could be the love of your life, you know."

"Fine." Peter said sighing as he looked over to the strange girl muttering odd incantations in the corner. She wasn't unattractive just a bit unnerving with long, matted black hair and deep red lips.

"Lily, you go with him." Sirius said gesturing me to go with him.

"Why... Oh, right I'm his wing woman." I looked between Peter and the odd girl trying to see if there was even a chance that this could go well, "Let's get this over with so we can go to the Three Broomsticks."

"What do I do?" Peter whispered to me as we awkwardly sidled over.

"I don't know, I've never needed to pick up guys before. This new to me too." I whispered.

"Should I just start off with a simple 'Hi, how are you?'." Peter asked nervously.

"Sure, why not." I said giving Peter a slight push towards the girl.

"Hi..." The girl stopped her muttering and opened her eyes slowly and turned to Peter, her eyes narrowing, "... I just wanted to ... um, say.... how are you?"

The girl stared at him with contempt, her dark eyes narrowing into small slits and her mouth curving down.

"I... don't know if you heard me... or if you speak English? Do you speak English...? I hope that's not rude I was just curious." Peter said, stammering slightly. The girl remained silently although you could tell from her face that she had clearly understood him and was not pleased.

"Leave me alone." She hissed.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that. What did you say?" Peter said, innocently leaning closer to hear what she'd said. Suddenly Peter leapt back, his face , "What the hell?"

"Peter, what's wrong?" I asked, quickly turning him around and pulling away from the girl.

"She cursed me! She must have down it without a wand because she muttered something and suddenly this happened..." Peter lifted his hands away from his face and I stared in horror at Peter's nose which seemed to have curved at the bridge. Blood was dripping from it like a fire hydrant and it was clear that it was quite badly broken.

"How did everything go, did you manage to... oh." Sirius's confident tone died as he saw Peter's nose, "She broke your nose?!"

"Yeah, she wasn't feeling very chatty." Peter said dryly.

"Blimey, that's a bit of an overreaction." James said looking on the verge of laughter but somehow managing to withhold it.

"Well, don't worry," Sirius said confidently, "Women love scars and broken noses and stuff, we can stop by the three broomsticks next and tell people you got it in an illegal duel by the Shrieking shack."

"Are you absolutely mad?" Peter said suddenly, "I am not going to the Three Broomsticks with a broken nose, I am going to Madame Pomfrey right now to get this fixed and you, Sirius Black, are going to take me and make sure I don't hurt myself anymore? This experience has scarred me and I may never be able to date again...sorry." Peter added quickly, his confidence fading quickly.

Sirius looked a little stunned, taken aback by Peter's sudden loudness before simply saying, "Okay... fine... no more dating for you. Let's get you to the hospital wing."

"Thank you." Peter said quietly and the two of them walked off ahead of us and out of the door, Peter still clutching his nose.

"Do you really think Peter will never date again after this?" I asked Remus and James as we strolled behind Sirius and Peter who were walking quite urgently down the street.

"Maybe..." James said, "But probably not. Sirius has a way of convincing people to do stuff, I reckon Peter will probably be back on the dating scene again the moment Sirius decides to convince him to. He has a way with things like that."