This is in response to the SevenOfQuills list fic challenge. It must contain the following elements.

"No magic!" Lily hissed. "Don’t even think about using magic. Remember we are pretending to be Muggles and the average Muggle doesn’t even have a clue that magic is real."

She had pulled Sirius and James off to the side and was still clutching their elbows. Now Sirius shook her off, unconcerned.

"Relax, Lily," he said. "Don’t you remember Muggle Studies class? Most Muggles, when confronted with magic, forget about it. They don’t even admit that it exists."

"No," Lily said in a tightly controlled voice, "I don’t remember that Muggle Studies class. Because I never took Muggle Studies. Because I’m Muggle born. And so, incidentally, is my sister. Who will freak out if she learns you or I did anything that would make her friends think that we, and by association she, were in any way different."

"Your sister is too hung up over being normal," Sirius muttered.

James gave him a warning look then stepped between him and Lily before Lily would be tempted – or more likely provoked – into hitting Sirius. Rubbing his girlfriend’s arms, he tried to mollify her by saying, "I’ll make sure Sirius doesn’t act up, Lily."

"Why does that not reassure me?" Lily despaired.

James kissed Lily, a kiss that would have lasted some time if Sirius, who hated not being in the middle of things even for a little while, hadn’t popped up between them.

"Hey, Lily, can I have a kiss too?" he asked.

Her eyes still closed, she said, "Sod off, Sirius."

"So can I take that as a maybe then?"

"Whatever you like, Sirius. Just don’t hold your breath about it. Or, on second thought, do. Maybe it’ll keep you out of trouble."

"I think you’re giving Sirius too much credit," James said. Neither Lily nor Sirius could tell if he was joking.

However, before Sirius could retaliate, the others came back and Lily, plastering a smile on her face, discreetly elbowed Sirius in the stomach to keep him quiet.

"I still can’t believe Petty never told us about her little sister," said the one with sandy blonde hair, who had introduced himself as either ‘Matt’ or ‘Mark’ earlier.

"She probably did, Mike," said Sue, the girl who had first recognized Lily as Petunia’s sister. "You probably just never listened."

"Probably, babe," Mike agreed, slinging his arm over Sue in an obnoxious manner. Sue shrugged it off again.

"I think Pet was just worried about the competition," one of the other boys who hadn’t been introduced leered.

James casually moved closer to Lily. He was subtle enough that none of the Muggles recognized what he was doing, but Lily and Sirius could clearly sense the territorially ‘back away’ vibes he was sending the other males.

Lily rolled her eyes heavenwards, imploring anyone who happened to be listening to grant her patience to get her through the day.

"So what’s so special about this house?" he asked, attempting to steer the conversation away from his girlfriend’s looks.

One of the boys, a shifty looking guy named Larry, stepped forward. His eyes looked like they were a half size too small for his face and they were much too close together. It would do a world of good for his looks if he kept from drawing so much attention to them. They kept on darting back and forth and it was impossible not to look at them.

After looking around conspiratorially (Lily was interested, and slightly disgusted, to note his eyes still darted around even after he had technically stopped looking around), he leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, "It’s haunted."

Sirius and James were concentrating on Larry (perhaps they, too, were enchanted by his eyes) and missed the suppressed snickers that the rest of the group had at this revelation. Lily, however, did not and she groaned inwardly when she figured out what was going on.

If they had been raised as Muggles, with their experience at pulling pranks there was no way James and Sirius would have fallen for it. But as it was, neither of them had ever known anything but a wizard’s life. Haunted houses were the norm for them.

"Really?" Sirius asked before Lily could put an end to the charade. "By whom?"

Larry looked at them blankly, then turned around to the others for prompting.

"Don’t be stupid," Mike answered, sneering. "By a ghost, of course."

"We assumed as much," James said coolly. "Whose ghost is it?"

The Muggles didn’t understand the question. "The house’s," Larry said.

"No." James was more patient than either Sirius or Lily would have been in that situation. Nearly a decade of living with Remus had rubbed off on him. "The ghost – it’s the ghost of whom? Who died?"

"I don’t know," Mike said angrily. "Who cares?"

Sue stepped forward and put a calming hand on Mike’s arm. She really was a pretty girl – at least she would be if she didn’t have on roughly the same amount of makeup as a circus clown did. It wasn’t put on artfully, either. The rouge practically smothered her cheeks and her eyes were two solid blocks of blue reaching to her eyebrows.

"It was the beginning of the century," she started her narrative with, "when Carson and Sara Dubois moved into this house. They had just been married and even though Mr. Dubois was probably thirty years older than his wife, they seemed to be very happy together.

"At least at first.

"It wasn’t two month after they moved in here when Mr. Dubois came home from work early one afternoon and found his wife in bed with another man.

"He flew into a jealous rage and shot the man then and there. He then locked his wife in the basement claiming that she was his and nobody but him could touch her. Unfortunately, some of the guy’s friends – you know, the guy, the guy she was sleeping with? Anyway, he was a very important business man – "

At this point one of her friends, Pam – with the unnaturally shade of bright red hair that had to have been dyed – interrupted. "I thought it was the mayor," she said.

"No, it was the milkman," Loretta said in a nasally voice.

"It doesn’t matter," Sue snapped. "The point is, this guy had a lot of friends and when they heard what Mr. Dubois did, they surrounded him and beat him to death."

"Isn’t that a bit harsh?" Sirius wondered. "They could have just arrested him."

"Yes, but only if you read him his rights first."

That inane piece of advice was given by one of the boys in the back. Someone standing beside him slugged the boy, and Sue glared at him for interrupting her story, but other than that, he was ignored.

"Anyway, the point is, they couldn’t find Sara Dubois and she starved to death."

"That doesn’t make sense," James said, frowning. "It takes a couple of weeks to starve to death, and wouldn’t someone have found her in that time?"

"The basement door was locked," Sue said, adopting the tone one took when explaining the same thing again to one stupider than you for about the hundredth time.

"Oh, I get that," James said. He didn’t seem at all perturbed that this Muggle seemed to think he was a moron. "What I want to know is why she didn’t scream. I would have."

"You did. Remember that time in seventh year when we got locked in that room?" Sirius asked.

James looked at his best friend. "I wasn’t the one who screamed, if you remember."

"Details," Sirius said airily, waving his hand negligently.

Obviously eager to get back to the topic at hand, Mike started speaking again. "So Sara Dubois died and now she’s a ghost. We want you two" he jabbed his finger at James and Sirius "to go in there. Tonight. Once it gets dark."

"Why wait?" Sirius asked. "We can go now."

"You can’t go now," Mike said, his face scrunched up in disgust.

"Why not?" James wanted to know.

"It’s still light out. Ghosts don’t come out during the day."

It might have been for the effect, another attempt to convince the boys they were on the level, but for the sincerity in his voice. After knowing him for less than an hour, Lily, James and Sirius could tell Mike believed what he said.

"What kind of ghost is Sara Dubois anyway?" James asked.

Sirius answered him. "A stupid one. She didn’t even think to catch the attention of the people searching for her, remember?"

Annoyed that the two wizards weren’t duly scared, or even impressed, Sue pursed her lips, which unfortunately only drew attention to the awful lipstick she was wearing. "I’d be careful if I were you. She doesn’t like to be made fun of. The reason this house is so run down is because she’s chased out the last dozen owners. No one lasts longer than six months. They’re always chased out by all her tricks."

"Are you sure she isn’t a poltergeist?" James asked. "Tricks and practical jokes are more their style."

"The things she does are a little more serious than ‘tricks and practical jokes,’" Sue said.

"Peeves sometimes went a little far, too," said James.

"Peeves? What are you talking about?" Mike demanded.

Up until that point, Lily had been quiet. She didn’t like how the conversation was going – Sirius and James could easily let something slip – but she hadn’t interrupted for fear that would make the Muggles more suspicious. Plus, there was always the chance that Sirius, seeing that Lily didn’t want him to talk about magic, would decide to make her life a living hell and deliberately talk about magic. He didn’t always know when to stop.

Since, however, they were inadvertently heading for dangerous waters, Lily had to step in and do some damage control.

"Peeves was our school’s poltergeist," Lily said. There was a way, she had long ago learned, to say the absolute truth, yet say it in such a way that anyone who heard you would think you were lying. "Practically everything that went wrong at the school was blamed on him."

"Hey," Sirius protested. "I’ll have you know I took credit for everything I did."

"Water balloons," James reminded him. "Second year."

Sirius conceded. "Okay, so I blamed that one on him."

"It doesn’t matter," Lily said firmly. "Anyway, we should get going. We have things to do."

She fooled no one this time. "Oh, come on, Lily. Don’t let these idiots chase you away," Sue said, surprisingly kindly. She conveniently had forgotten that she had been one of ‘those idiots’ just five minutes ago. "A girl we know is throwing a party. We’re all heading over there. You should come with us."

"I don’t know," Lily said, reluctant to seem unsociable. "We probably shouldn’t."

"Why not? I’m not doing anything tonight, and I know you and James don’t have plans." Turning to Sue, Sirius gave her one of his trademark smiles. "We’d love to go."

Lily groaned as she was dragged off towards a car. It was too late now to back out and she just hoped they weren’t heading for a disaster.

~*~

"Slow down, Lily," James said an hour later when his girlfriend reached for her fourth drink. "We still have a long night ahead of us and you’re not going to enjoy it much if you’re in the bathroom puking."

"I’m trying to get drunk as quickly as I can," Lily said bluntly. "That way, if either of you say or do anything magical, we can pass it off as being drunk."

"Sweetie, that won’t work if it’s Sirius or I who slip up."

Lily slumped her shoulders. "Damn. You’re right. I guess Petunia will just have to hate me for the rest of her life."

"Petunia’s not going to hate you for the rest of her life," James said reassuringly.

"Yes she is." Lily tried to put her drink down, but put it too far over the edge and it fell. Only James’ quick Quidditch reflexes allowed him to catch it in time. Ignoring that, Lily threw her arms around James’ neck and buried her head in his shoulder. Caught off balance, James was almost knocked over. "All of Pet’s friends are going to find out I’m a witch and Pet will never forgive me."

"Your sister cares too much about her own image," James said, echoing Sirius’ sentiment from earlier.

Lily pulled away from him. "She does not," she said, feeling the need to defend her sister. "It’s just her boyfriend. He’s the one who’s convinced her that witchcraft isn’t normal."

"That’s a change," James said, almost joking, but not quite. "I’ve heard it people being opposed to it because it was dangerous, immoral, or just plain evil, but never because it wasn’t normal."

"Vernon Dursley dances to his own tune. And he drags my sister along, stepping on her feet all the way," said Lily.

"Lily? Sweetheart? Look at me." James put a finger under her chin and tilted her head so she could see him. "I will not do or say anything tonight that will make anyone suspect that I’m not a Muggle and I promise to make sure Sirius won’t, either. But, if you keep drinking like that, you probably will."

"I’m not drunk, James," Lily moaned.

"Okay," said James quickly.

"I’m not!" Lily protested. "I’m perfectly sober. I’m nothing in compared – in comparison to them." She pointed at a group of people in the next room who were doing the hula in beat to a tambourine.

"I don’t think they’re drunk," James said.

Frowning, Lily said, "Of course they’re drunk. Why else – " She stopped when she caught on to what James was implying. Being less than sober, which were the words she would use to describe her current state, also meant she wasn’t as quick as she usually was. "Oh. And these are Pet’s friends?"

"Like your friends haven’t been in worse shape," James retorted. "Or you, for that matter."

"Hey, mister," Lily said, poking a finger at James’ chest. "Your friends are my friends. No, wait. My friends are your friends."

"It’s the same thing, Lil," James told her with a quirky smile.

"I know that," said Lily, annoyed. "As long as you or Sirius don’t act like that tonight, though, I’ll be happy."

"We won’t," James promised. As soon as he said this, however, his eyes widened. A second later he was composed again, but he hadn’t been fast enough to keep Lily from noticing.

"What?" she demanded, a growing sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach. "What happened?"

"Nothing," James was quick to assure her.

Even in her alcohol-induced haze, Lily could tell he was lying. She tried to twist around to see what Sirius had done this time, but James firmly held on to her shoulders so that she couldn’t. Through gritted teeth, she said, "Let me go. Let me go now. So I can go over to Sirius and kill him."

"Sirius?" James said, still holding on to the struggling Lily. "What makes you think Sirius is doing anything?"

"Sirius is always doing something. Now let me go!" Each word was a punctuated twist and at last Lily wrenched free. She turned around –

– and fell back into James’ arms when she saw a half-naked, painted blue Sirius trying to demonstrate a fertility dance to the hula dancers – with two very enthusiastic helpers. No matter what he said, the smoke wasn’t dancing in sync with the human dancers because of some mystical connections, and Lily doubted he had had the patience to cover himself – or let someone else cover him – in blue paint. Looking closer, she doubted the Muggle companies even made paint in that shade.

"Make him stop, James," Lily moaned. "Please make him stop."

"I will," James promised. "Er, in the mean time, why don’t you go get yourself another drink?"

That, Lily decided, sounded like an excellent idea.

~*~

One hour and five drinks later (only two of them had been Lily’s), James, Lily and Sirius were standing by themselves in a corner. Of course, in Sirius’ case, it was not by choice.

"I’m bored," Sirius whined for the umpteenth time. "Please can’t I go do something? Anything? We’re at a party. You can’t not socialize at a party."

"You can and you will," Lily said. Her voice had an amazing amount of steel in it considering she was well on her way to being smashed.

"Jaaames." Sirius dragged out his friend’s name. It was pathetic, really, to hear someone Sirius’ age whine like that. It was too bad Sirius didn’t agree. "Make her stop. I wanna go do something."

Fed up with him friend’s constant moaning, James finally intervened. "Oh, let him go do something, Lily. At this rate he’ll drive us insane by the end of the night."

"No. If he goes and he does something, he’s going to do something to expose us," said Lily.

"No I won’t," Sirius said. "I’ll be the perfect Muggle. If anyone asks anything about me, I’ll just make something up. And I won’t use magic. Trust me."

"Trust you? Trust you?" Lily’s voice was edging on hysteria. "The last time I trusted you, you ended up naked and covered in blue paint!"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Relax. I wasn’t all the way naked, and I’m not blue anymore, now, am I?"

"That’s even worse! What if someone starts to wonder how you removed the body paint so quickly? What are you going to say then?"

"The only people who saw me . . . well let’s just say they’re in no condition to accurately tell the colour of my skin."

"And that’s supposed to make me feel better?" Lily moaned.

"Hey," Sirius said, sounding indignant. If Lily and James didn’t know him better, they would say he was offended. "I never go back on my word."

"Except for those times that you do, eh, Padfoot?" James asked jokingly.

"Well, those don’t count. I never break a promise when I mean it," said Sirius, grinning.

"That’s my point. How can we tell if you’re serious or not?"

It was a true indication that Lily was drunk, despite still being able to act and speak as if she were sober – all of his friends had long, long ago learned never to say the word ‘serious’ in Sirius’ presence.

Luckily, as Sirius had had a couple drinks himself, James was able to speak quickly before his friend could reply in his usual, irritating manner. "What if he swears on the Black Shadow?"

Sirius’ mouth dropped open and his beer nearly slipped out from between his fingers. "What?" he gasped.

"You break your word tonight, and Lily gets possession of the Black Shadow for the rest of the year."

"I suppose that would do." Lily looked at Sirius speculatively. There was a chance he wouldn’t accept the terms, not with his precious motorbike on the line.

Suddenly completely sober, Sirius straightened his back and looked Lily square in the eye. Solemnly, he said, "I swear that if for any reason I perform any magic or reveal to any Muggle that I am a wizard before I leave this party tonight, you – " he gulped – "will receive possession of the Black Shadow for the rest of the year."

Lily held his gaze for another fifteen seconds before majestically decreeing, "Deal."

"Great." In no time, Sirius was off. Lily and James lost sight of him before a minute passed.

Of course, despite his intentions, good or otherwise, Sirius being Sirius, he couldn’t stay out of trouble for long. It was James who found him in the middle of a group of girls, spinning one outrageous tale after another, most of them untrue.

Unfortunately, Petunia happened to be one of the girls. James quickly hurried Sirius away and then went to tell Lily that her sister was there.

"What?" Lily screeched when James, in low undertones, explained the situation to her. "He did what?"

"He didn’t say anything too bad," James said, defending his friend. "And it’s not like he did it on purpose or anything. He didn’t know your sister was there. Oh, she’s looking for you by the way."

"Oh that’s just great," Lily muttered before pushing her way through the throngs of people to find her sister.

She passed one of the former hula-girls who had apparently been inspired by Sirius. Her hair was now a wash-out shade of blue. Lily didn’t want to know what she dyed it with – or what she would think in the morning.

On the other side, a haughty brunette was talking to her friend. She was wearing a long, black fur coat and what looked like a thousand pounds worth of jewellery. Unfortunately, expensive jewellery doesn’t always equal nice jewellery and most of the pieces she wore looked gaudy.

She was motioning to the back of her head where her hair was caught up in two delicate solid gold combs encrusted with red rubies. "It was an engagement present from Samuel. Aren’t they wonderful? They’re worth five hundred pounds each." She paused, then gave her friend a superior smirk. "What did Vernon give you, Petunia?"

Lily stopped. "Pet? Vernon proposed?"

Petunia turned around and her friend waltzed off. Her sister’s hair was blonde, one of the reasons Lily hadn’t recognized her more quickly. She stared hard at Lily, her hazel eyes flickering between anger and something else Lily couldn’t identify. "We are announcing it at dinner on Friday."

"Congratulations."

The two sisters stared at each other for a minute, not saying a word. Finally Lily asked, "What did you do to your hair?"

Petunia fingered her bleached locks. "I dyed it. What do you think I did?"

"Why did you dye it? It looked better before."

"Vernon likes me as a blonde better," Petunia said stiffly.

"Oh." Lily would have lapsed into silence again, but Petunia then demanded, "What are you doing here?"

"It wasn’t my idea. We ran into Sue and she invited us. Then Sirius let it out that we weren’t doing anything tonight and we couldn’t say no. Not without being rude," Lily said earnestly. She wanted to let Petunia know that she wasn’t trying to ruin her life.

Petunia’s eyes darkened and she pursed her lips. "Yes, I ran into Sirius."

Lily groaned. She had almost forgotten that. "He didn’t do anything that bad, did he? He promised!"

"He was making up all kinds of stories, about how he was an international spy, that he was the star of this up and coming film that’s coming to the cinemas next months, about how he had a book coming out –"

"Oh," Lily exclaimed, interrupting Petunia’s rant. "Thirteen Ways to Destroy Your Enemies and Amuse Your Friends? Yeah, actually that’s true. He wrote it under a nom de plume, of course, but he did write it and it’s coming out just before Christmas."

The knowledge didn’t impress Petunia. "I don’t care," she hissed. "What will people think, that I associate with people like that?"

"Firstly," Lily said, starting to lose patience, "he’s my friend, not yours. Secondly, everyone knows not to take Siriusly serious." Something seemed to be wrong with that and she frowned. Then she repeated herself, making sure she spoke slowly and deliberately. "No one takes Sirius – Sirius – everyone knows not to take what he says at face value. He doesn’t expect people to believe the stories he makes up. It’s all for fun."

Tipped off by her confusing speech, Petunia sniffed Lily’s breath, then wrinkled her face up in distaste. "You’ve been drinking!" she accused. "I’m going to tell Mum you’ve been drinking."

"Sod off, Pet. You tell Mum that, and I’ll tell her you’re sleeping with Vernon."

Petunia gasped and Lily knew her guess had been correct. "You wouldn’t."

"Try me."

Most people wouldn’t care if their adult children were drinking, or sleeping with their fiancés, but not Mrs. Evans. When they were younger, Petunia and Lily had had to endure frequent lectures on the evils of having sex before marriage. Of course, both sisters ignored her, but if she ever found out, there would be trouble. It wasn’t pleasant to be on the wrong side of Mrs. Evans, to say the least.

"Go away. I don’t want you here. You’re ruining my life," Petunia said bitterly.

"Well, I don’t want to be here either," Lily said, but even she had to admit it wasn’t a very good retort. She left.

It took half an hour of being unable to find Sirius and James before Lily began to worry. Asking around, no one could remember seeing either of them for some time. That in itself was a bad sign; Sirius attracted attention wherever he went. He couldn’t help it. It was a talent.

Finally, she saw Sue. "Hey, have you seen James or Sirius?" Lily asked.

Sue looked at her blankly. "Who?"

"You know, my boyfriend and my friend." Lily was more than a little impatient.

"Oh." She was distracted when a boy Lily didn’t recognize started to nibble on her neck and Lily had to clear her throat to catch Sue’s attention again. "They went off with Mike and some other guys."

"They did what?"

Sue didn’t recognize the dangerous note in Lily’s voice. "Yeah, Mike took them back to the old Dubois house. He’s gonna freak them out."

She might have said more, but Lily didn’t hear her. Pushing through the crowds, she quickly found Petunia.

"What are you still doing here?" Petunia demanded.

"I need a ride," Lily said desperately.

"So?"

"So I need you to drive me."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because your friends" Lily made the word drip in disgust "decided to frighten James and Sirius by taking them to a haunted house, of all places. And unless we get there fast, they’re going to slip up and all your friends will find out they’re wizards."

Petunia looked around, furiously, but no one close by looked like they had overheard. "Don’t say that word!"

"It’ll be a lot worse if we don’t get there soon," threatened Lily.

She still looked unhappy, but recognized the truth in Lily’s words. "Fine," Petunia said.

They grabbed their coats and on the way down to the car, after first making sure there was absolutely no one around, Petunia asked sourly, "Why didn’t you just hocus-pocus yourself there?"

"Because I’m drunk," Lily said frankly. "And you should never drink and Disapparate."

~*~

Sirius was bored. Muggles, he decided, didn’t throw very exciting parties. It probably stemmed from the fact that, when wizards got drunk, they tended to do stupid things. Sure, Muggles did the same, but it was easier to do something stupid with the help of a wand – or at least more amusing to those witnessing. But Muggles were severely limited in what they could do.

As soon as he left Lily and James, he made a resolve to make things more exciting. It wasn’t until after he had grabbed another beer that he realized that if used magic, Lily would take his motorbike.

"Oh well," he said out loud, his eyes shining. "I’ll just have to be more creative."

A passing girl shot him an odd look, but Sirius arrested her fears with a grin. He started to talk to her, and pretty soon a whole crowd had gathered around him.

It was widely acknowledged that Sirius was one of the better storytellers that Hogwarts had seen in a long time. The stories he told were so outrageous that he expected no one to believe them and, in fact, no one ever did, but he still always managed even the most skeptical wonder if what he was saying was really true.

He didn’t recognize Lily’s sister among the girls. In his defence, he had only seen Petunia a couple of times – the start of her school term was before the Hogwarts Express left. It wasn’t until James came over that he realized just how much trouble he was in.

"Petunia," James said in a strangled voice. "Nice to see you again."

The look on Petunia’s face made it obvious that she was just as excited to see James as he was to see her.

"Lil’s looking for you," James continued. Then he grabbed Sirius’ wrist and quickly pulled him away from the group.

Sirius wasn’t very resistant. "Lily’s going to kill me, isn’t she." It wasn’t for dramatics, nor was it to gain sympathy; it was a cold, hard statement of facts.

The look on James’ face didn’t do anything to reassure him. "She’ll come around," he said, but he didn’t sound to sure about himself. "It’s not like you did it on purpose." He stopped and gave Sirius a hard look. "You didn’t do it on purpose, did you?"

"No!" Sirius exclaimed. "I’m not suicidal."

"I’ll go talk to Lily. Just stay here and stay out of trouble. Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking for. Try to stay out of trouble for five minutes."

"C’mon, Prongs. Give me some credit here!" Sirius said.

The look on James’ face showed just how little credit he gave Sirius.

"You’re supposed to be my best friend here!"

"Yes," James said, "and as your best friend, I’ve seen you get into trouble in safer circumstances in a lot less time than I’m giving you now." Then he grinned, and Sirius knew he wasn’t really upset. "Don’t worry, Padfoot. She won’t do anything permanent."

"Oh, that really reassures me!" Sirius called out after James’ retreating back.

Still, James had given him some good advice and Sirius decided to stay put and out of trouble, maybe for the first time in his life. He stood still and waited for James to return.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t James who found him first. A greasy and very obviously drunk man stumbled up to him. "Hey, Tommy," he slurred.

It took Sirius a moment to realize he meant him. "My name’s not Tommy."

"Sure it is." The guy slung his arm around Sirius’ shoulder. "Hey," he said to a female passing by. "This here’s my friend Tommy. He’s a real joker. That he is." He nodded sagely and took another swig of his beer.

The girl wasn’t drunk enough to be impressed, so she hurried off after giving him a look of disgust.

The drunk wasn’t put out by the snub at all. "So Tommy," he said. "Have I told you about that blonde at work?"

"You might have," Sirius said. "I wouldn’t know. I’m not Tommy."

He ignored him. "I’ve just spent the last two nights milking the cow, if you know what I mean." He nudged Sirius with his elbow and winked repeatedly.

Sirius rolled his eyes, but decided there was nothing to do except play along. With a perfectly straight face, he said, "Well, I would have milked the cow, but I was too busy yodelling." He paused, then, his words smothered with innuendo in a perfect mockery of the other boy, added, "If you know what I mean."

The other boy couldn’t, mostly because Sirius didn’t mean anything by the comment, but in his drunken state found it hilarious nonetheless.

Luckily, Sirius didn’t have to put up with him any longer because someone came by and rescued him. Unluckily, that someone was Mike and a couple of his friends.

"Beat it," Mike said to the drunk. The latter wasn’t so drunk enough to mistake the threat of Mike’s fists, nor did he seem endowed with bravado, a gift alcohol gave to so many. He beat it.

"So, Cyrus, was it?" Mike asked.

How hard was it to remember a simple name? "Sirius, actually," he corrected.

"So are you coming with us to the Dubois house? Or aren’t you man enough for it?"

Sirius had heard far greater insults from more impressive men. He refused to get worked up over this one, especially considering he was already walking on eggshells around Lily. "Why, exactly, are we going to the Dubois house?" he asked.

"To see the ghost, of course."

"Oh. Of course," Sirius said.

"Five minutes." Sirius didn’t have to turn around to know James had come up behind him. "Five minutes. That’s all I asked for, Padfoot. Five measly minutes."

"Padfoot?" Mike asked, sounding confused. "I thought you said your name was Cyprus."

"Sirius," he said, through clenched teeth. "Mike here was just explaining to me why it’s so important that we go back to the Dubois house."

"We’re not going." James was using his prefect voice. He didn’t use it often, but when he did, there was usually no arguing with him.

"Why?" Mike taunted. "Are you chicken?"

James turned to regard him. No one had ever before accused James Potter of being afraid. Not James Potter, who had probably a thousand years worth of magical blood running through his veins. Not James Potter, who had ancestors hailing from illustrious families such as the Merrimans and Noces. Not James Potter, who, despite his track record, had been made a prefect at one of the most prestigious magic schools in Europe, and later the Head Boy.

He now turned to Mike and looked him straight in the eye. "I am not afraid, nor am I going to be convinced by your infantile attempts to bully us into doing your bidding."

Mike didn’t look like he had understood half of what James was saying, and neither had any of his entourage of friends. But then, considering not one of them had the initiative to say anything Mike had not scripted for them, that was hardly surprising. He did, however, understand the gist of what James said.

"Buc buc buc buc!" Mike flapped his arms in imitation of a chicken for a visual aid.

James was not impressed. "Oh yes," he said dryly, "because pretending to be a chicken will really convince us."

Unfortunately, Sirius was a bit more hotheaded. "We’ll go," he said.

"No," James disagreed, "we won’t."

Sirius was firm about his decision. "I’m going. You have two choices. Either you can stay here and explain to Lily, or you can come with me and maybe stop me from doing something foolish." For a brief second, his gaze flicked over to Mike and his cronies so James knew exactly what something ‘foolish’ might be.

Turning back to the other boys, James said, "Let’s go."

~*~

"Come again?" James asked skeptically.

"You deaf or something?" Mike asked. "I told you, we had some jokers a couple months ago who thought they could handle the ghost. Turns out they were a bunch of cowards. Anyway, they lost something in there, something of ours that you’re going to get back."

"What?" Sirius challenged. "Couldn’t you get it on your own?"

"This way you can prove yourselves to us," Mike said.

"You see, there’s a flaw in that reasoning. You’re assuming we actually give a damn what you think," said James.

Feeling strange that he had been cast in the role of the mediator for once, instead of James or Remus, Sirius broke in. "So what exactly are we looking for?"

"An Ancient Artifact of Great Import," Mike replied. The boys could hear the capitalization.

"What?" James snipped. "A light bulb?"

Sirius snickered, but no one else in the car found it funny.

"Don’t be stupid," Mike berated him. "Light bulbs weren’t even invented until not too long ago."

"Really? I never knew that," said James sarcastically.

Again marvelling at how he came to be the peacekeeper, Sirius asked, "So what is this important artifact?" He refused to capitalize it.

"You’ll see," Mike said, trying to sound mysterious. He failed miserably. "Good luck!" He closed the door and Sirius and James were left alone in the abandoned house.

"They need to get their story straight," James muttered.

Sirius gasped. "You mean they weren’t tell the truth?"

"I’m sorry, Padfoot, friend," James said. "You see, there are some people in the world who don’t always tell the truth?"

Sirius adopted the wide-eyed innocence of youth look. "There are?" he asked, his bottom lip trembling slightly. "But why? Why would people make things up?"

"I don’t know, Padfoot, I don’t know," James said mournfully, patting Sirius consolingly. He paused, then added, "Are we finished with that?"

"Sure. So you certainly lost your patience with Mike back in the car," Sirius said.

"Can you blame me, Cyprus?" James asked. "Something about him just rubs me the wrong way. Why did you insist on coming, anyway?"

"I have a plan."

Groaning, James said, "I think it’s safe to say Lily’s never going to trust either of us ever again."

"And that’s changed from before how?" Sirius asked.

James considered that for a moment. "Good point. What’s your plan?"

~*~

Sirius ran outside to where Mike and some of his friends were waiting and breathlessly panted, "We found it! But we need your help getting it out."

The others, a few of Mike’s friends conspicuously missing, were leaning on the fence, drinking and laughing. They seemed surprised, to say the least, when Sirius showed up with the news.

"What?" Mike demanded. "It’s easy to get! You shouldn’t need any help."

"What are you talking about?" Sirius asked, faking confusion. "The chalice is stuck behind some stones in the basement. We need help moving them. James is down there right now."

"Chalice?" Mike had a scheming look to him.

"Yeah, chalice." Sirius paused, then asked, "That was what we were looking for, wasn’t it?"

"Describe it to me," ordered Mike.

Sirius straightened out. Miraculously enough, he had completely recovered his breath already, but no one seemed to notice. His eyes shining in awe, he began: "It’s solid gold and about this big." Making a circle with his fingers, he demonstrated the size. "And it’s decorated with diamonds and emeralds."

"Yeah," Mike said, unmistakable greed in his voice. "Yeah, that’s the one."

"What are we waiting for then?" Sirius asked. Motioning them to follow, he started back for the house.

One the way down to the basement, Sirius overheard one of the boys asking Mike, "What’s this about a chalice? I thought we sent them on a wild goose chase?" He was shushed immediately.

Sirius allowed himself a small smile, but since he was in the lead, no one else knew that he had heard.

"Someone get the lights,’ Mike commanded. "It’s dark in here."

Sirius turned around and looked at him guilelessly. He was almost completely covered in shadows. "The house is abandoned, remember? There’s no electricity." Just because he had slept through most of his Muggle Studies classes didn’t mean that he hadn’t learned anything.

An uneasy silence fell on the boys, broken only when one of the boys pulled out a torch. "The battery should last a couple of hours," he explained.

"Hurry up," Sirius said, leading them down the basement stairs.

As soon as all of the boys had started down the steps, the door slammed shut on its own accord.

"Who did that?" Mike demanded, clearly shaken.

"No one was there, no one touched it," a white-faced boy replied.

With wide-eyed innocence, Sirius turned around and said, "It was probably the ghost. Don’t worry, the same thing happened with James and I came down."

The boy in the rear tried the doorknob. "It won’t open!" he exclaimed.

"We’ll get it later," Sirius said impatiently. "Hurry. Come on."

"Come on," Mike repeated, but he didn’t sound nearly as calm as Sirius did.

The strange sounds start when they reached the bottom of the stairs. At first, it was just creaking noises coming from parts of the basement where no one was walking, but shortly afterwards a slight moaning sound could be heard, gradually growing louder. Behind Sirius, the others were looking at each other nervously.

Then the light went out.

"Turn that back on!" Mike commanded urgently.

"I can’t!" the boy with the torch answered. Everyone could hear him desperately clicking the switch on and off with no effect. "It’s not working." There was still a little light coming from the basement windows, but it was only enough to let the boys walk without bumping into each other. Once their eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, they could see outlines, but little else.

"Let’s get out of here," someone voiced, Sirius couldn’t tell whom.

Mike vetoed the suggestion. "No," he said. "We’re going to get that chalice first."

"But the ghost – " someone cried.

"There is no ghost! Now stop acting like wusses and come on!"

"It’s just over here," Sirius said, keeping his voice low not out of fear, but to add to the spooky atmosphere of the basement.

That was James’ signal. From his hiding place, he pulled out his wand and made a ghost appear.

Actually, it wasn’t as much as a ghost as it was a shade. Creating the image of a real ghost required a great deal of talent and concentration and both James and Sirius had agreed it was too much effort to exert on Muggles like Mike and his friends. Instead James conjured up a shade that was vaguely human shape that started to float across the floor towards Sirius, Mike and the others.

However, it was more than enough to frighten the Muggles. Taking one look at James’ "ghost", they ran up the stairs and out of the house (the basement door had miraculously unstuck).

Funnily enough, Mike was in the lead.

"Lumos."

James crawled out of his hiding spot. "I’m disappointed."

Sirius looked at him funnily. "Why?" he asked.

"That wasn’t even a challenge," James complained. "I mean, I conjured up a shade, and they ran! We didn’t even get to the fun part."

"Well, Prongs," Sirius said, slinging his arm over James’ shoulder, "you win some and you lose some and since we won this one, quit your whining!"

"Aww, I guess you’re right," James admitted reluctantly.

"I’m always right," said Sirius.

"Don’t push your luck." Together they climbed the stairs, leaving the house at a much more leisurely pace than the Muggles.

They both wished they had run for it, however, when they went outside and found Lily waiting for them. As one, they took an involuntary step backwards.

"You promised," Lily said. "You promised."

"Now Lily," said Sirius, being the more suicidal of the two, "I didn’t exactly go back on my promise."

"And how can you say that? I just saw a bunch of Muggles high-tailing it out of here, going on about some ghost. Petunia abandoned me; she’s furious about what happened. How can you honestly say you didn’t break your promise?" asked Lily.

"Well, Lily," Sirius said, "if you recall, I promised I wouldn’t use any magic while at the party. I didn’t. Clearly we had left the party long before we used any magic."

"We?" Lily asked, deceptively sweetly, as she turned to James.

"Oh, it’s not like we did anything too bad. We didn’t even do anything permanent; certainly not anything they could trace back to us. There’s no way the Muggles could have known we did it," said James.

"Oh, and that makes it all better." A baby could have identified the sarcasm in Lily’s voice.

"So you see, Lily, there’s no reason for you to be mad at us," concluded Sirius.

"You broke your promise, Sirius."

"I thought we went through that," Sirius said. "I didn’t break my promise; I had already left the party."

"You did not. You left the house where the party was at, but you didn’t leave the party. You went with half a dozen Muggles, bringing the party with you. So technically you were still at the party when you used magic," Lily said.

Sirius was outraged. "You can’t change the rules this late in the game," he disputed. "You said no magic until I left the party. I left the party."

"No you didn’t," argued Lily. "You left with the party. The Black Shadow is mine."

"It is not," Sirius said, taking a step closer and looking her directly in the eyes.

"It is too." Accepting the challenge, Lily took another step towards him. She didn’t break the eye contact.

"Not." Sirius pronounced the word very carefully.

Lily glared at him for another minute before giving up and turning around. "You," she said, pointing a finger in James’ direction. "I’m not talking to you." She stalked off.

"We got off really easily," commented Sirius.

"If you say so," James said, watching Lily leave. "Just remember, you’re not the one going out with her." He frowned, then turned to face his friend. "Padfoot – where are your keys?"

"What keys?"

"To the Shadow."

"In my pocket," answered Sirius. He reached in – and found nothing. Desperately, he began to pat himself down, but his keys were missing. "She didn’t!"

"She did," confirmed James.

"LILY!"

Quite a ways ahead of them, Lily turned when she heard Sirius bellow her name and proudly displayed the keys to his motorbike. She waited until she knew Sirius had seen them and knew what she had done, then took off running.

Sirius went roaring after her.

The End
Saturday, September 29, 2001

Acknowledgments (or, Things I’ve Stolen and Need to Apologize For)

One – the characters of Lily and Petunia Evans, James Potter and Sirius Black (plus Remus Lupin and Vernon Dursley, but they were only mentioned) as well as the whole universe in which this story is set, do not, predictable enough, belong to me but rather to the one, the only, the marvelous J.K. Rowling.

Two – referring to Sirius’ bike as the Black Shadow did not come from my imagination. CLS was the first to come up with it to my knowledge in the story "Black Shadow". Seeing as I know diddly-squat about motorcyles (or motorbikes, whatever), I’m shamelessly stealing it.

Three – the image of Sirius painted blue came from V. Hayrabedian’s fic "Ignis". I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.

Four – thanks go to Liss who beta’d this for me. If it wasn’t for her, you’d be scratching your heads at some of the sentences, wondering if maybe I wasn’t drunk when writing this. For example, I originally wrote "you win some and you win some and since we won this won …" Umm, okay.

Five – sorry this took me so long to get out. I’m what, like the last person to send their challenge fic in? Well, in my defence, it was a little on the long side. (I know some of you write stories hundreds of thousands of words long; I don’t.)

Six – Be a friend! Review when you reach the end.  (trinityday@hotmail.com if you've forgotten)