"Hey there, Red." Sirius Black jumps out of nowhere and greets me.

"What do you want Black?" I respond.

"Stand down, Evans. I come in peace." He says defensively. "Tournament in the common room after curfew tonight?"

"Sure." I reply. He returns to is friends and I to mine.

Sirius and I often have game tournaments in the common room after curfew. We switch between wizarding games and muggle ones that I bring from home. I may not like him much, but he plays a mean game of Uno. See, it all began when Sirius began asking me all sorts of questions about the muggle world. I told him to meet me in the common room at night a few days after he started this annoying practice, hoping to get him to shut up. It worked. To this day I have no idea where this curiosity came from, but who am I to judge?

"Did I just see you, Lily Evans, talking to Sirius Black without cursing him out of challenging him to a duel?" Marlene inquires sarcastically. Sirius and I have dueled a good number of times, most of them I've won. Shows him, cocky bastard.

"Yes, you did." I reply.

"I do not believe my ears. Lily's gone bonkers!" Marlene exclaims.

I roll my eyes and head to Transfiguration.

***********************************************************
"I've got a question professor! A very important question!" James yells.

"Mr. Potter, I sincerely hope it involves turning a water into glass." McGonagall states.

"What rhymes with Lily?" He asks, very seriously.

"Silly, nilly, hi-What does that have to do with transfiguration?" She catches herself before giving him too many answers.

"Nothing. I already did the assignment, see?" He holds up a cup filled with shards of glass instead of water.

McGonagall rolls her eyes. "Don't ask such silly questions, Mr. Potter."

************************************************************
At 12:00 in the morning I sneak down the stairs from the girls dormitories with a huge bag of board games and a thermos of coffee. I changed out if my regular pajamas into the ones I wear during summer, because both Sirius and I learned the hard way that sitting right next to the fireplace in fuzzy pajamas for too long can get extremely uncomfortable.

"Your move, Black." I try to hurry him along.

"I know, I'm thinking." He replies.

"It's just Monopoly! It shouldn't require this much thought, just roll." I say, frustrated.

We continue playing until someone comes down from boys dormitory.

"Sirius, is that you?"

It's just James. Merlin's beard, I thought it was someone who would turn us in to Filch.

"Go back up upstairs, Prongs." Sirius commands.

James, sleepy eyed, nods and goes back to bed.

"Why are you so interested in muggle things?" I inquire.

"Well, my family is made up of blood status snobs. They think muggles and muggleborns are filth. I think they couldn't be more wrong, so I do muggle things to annoy them." He explains. We're silent for a moment. "I think I'm glad, though. I don't want to turn out like that."

I nod and we return to Monopoly. After a few minutes James wanders back downstairs.

"Why are you down here?" He says drowsily.

"None of you bloody business." I retort.

"Lily?" James inquires.

"No, it's Peter, of course it's Lily!" Sirius exclaims, exasperated. "Sit down and wait your turn, that is if you want to play."

"What are you two doing?" James asks.

"Playing a muggle board game. We're about to start a new game, if you'd like to play." I offer. "Here, have some of my coffee. It seems like you really need it."

James obediently takes the thermos and gulps down most of the remaining coffee. He watches us play, perplexed by this strange new game. I wonder what would happen if I showed him a pen. Maybe I'll bring some next school year.

"Ha! Bested yet again, Black. I am the Monopoly queen!" I gloat in a whisper.

"Oi James, lets take her on!" Sirius exclaims.

James sits next to me and listens to the rules, which we have slightly modified for our use. After about half an hour we finish, with Sirius as the victor.

"WHO IS THE QUEEN NOW, HONEY?" Sirius yells.

I roll my eyes and pack away the game. "I'll beat you next time around, Black. And don't call me honey."

"What next? Scrabble? Clue?" Sirius asks, eager for the next game.

"What are those?" James inquires. He sounds like a child, not knowing things like that.

"More muggle board games. You seem to have woken up." I answer.

I grab Clue and we play an avid game. Many odd things are shouted, such as:

"Secret passageways, this is just like Hogwarts but smaller!"

"This little bitch Scarlet seems guilty as hell."

"Mrs. Peacock,  you disgust me!"

"Colonel Mustard does not seem like the type of guy who would be in the army."

"Sirius you can't interact with the characters! I don't care if you think Scarlet seems hot, you can't snog characters in a board game!"

"That crowbar looks like it's hiding something. Tell me your secrets."

"I WIN, ARSEHOLES!"

It turns that the culprit was Mrs. Peacock in the kitchen with the crowbar. James, to his utter delight, won his first muggle board game.

"I TOLD YOU THE CROWBAR WAS GUILTY !" James declares, taking in his admittedly well deserved victory.

"We should probably get some sleep." I reason.

"Why? There's no classes tomorrow. Hell, I think we could easily stay here until breakfast." Sirius counters.

I shrug and reset the game board so we can play another round. "Actually, you do the shuffling and all that, I'm getting more coffee."

I dash away with my thermos to my room, where I grab my battery powered electric kettle, which I've brought to Hogwarts for years to keep me sane. Behind it is a humongous pile of batteries. I quietly sprint back to the common room and prepare another batch of coffee. I feel so comfortable with these two people that I've thought lowly of for years. Of all the unexpected things that have happened within the last couple days, this is by far the best.