"What the Hell happened?" James asked Remus later that day as he came out of the kitchen with an icepack in his hand.

"Yea, Remmy," Sirius added. "You got a bruise that's almost as big as your face."

"And almost as big as your head," Melissa shot right back.

But instead of getting angry, Sirius smirked, though none too kindly. "Only for you love."

Melissa glared and opened her mouth to answer, but Remus groaned and sat up from his seat on the couch. "Will you two just shut up? I've already got a headache and you're not helping."

"Sorry," Melissa said, and Sirius grunted.

"So..." James said, passing over the icepack. He sat on the coffee table, not noting the disapproving glare Melissa sent him. "Are you going to tell us what happened?"

Remus groaned again, though this time it wasn't from pain. "God, it was horrible."

"I should think so," Sirius said before anyone could stop him. "Otherwise you wouldn't have a black eye." Melissa punched him in the arm. "Bitch. That hurt."

"Shut up," she hissed back. "You want me to give you a matching black eye?"

Sirius scoffed. "Like you'd be able to. You're what, a hundred and-"

James rolled his eyes at his "boyfriend's" sad attempt to keep his ego up. "Sirius, Melissa's right. Shut up. And yes, she can kick your ass. I could kick you ass. Remus could kick your ass, and he's laying on his own right now. So lets find out how this happened so Lily doesn't freak out when she gets home."

"Whatever."

"Right, whatever. Now just sit down like the pretty little boy we all know and love and shut your pie hole." This earned him a look from Melissa, but before James could decipher it, she turned towards Remus. James shook his head at his roommate's antics, then asked Remus again, "What the Hell happened?"

Remus had the icepack over his eye so they couldn't read his expression. He took a deep breath. "Well, I was at the library, carrying around some cookies for Austynne and-"

"Oh boy."

"Shut up Sirius," James growled. Sometimes he could just be such an ass. "Go on Rems."

"Like I was saying. I was bringing over some cookies for Austynne today at the library. I was planning on asking her out."

He paused, and into the silence James said, "But I thought she had a boyfriend. Reeve or whatever."

Wearily, he answered. "I'm getting to that. Well, her and me were just sitting there, talking and eating when all of a sudden this huge guy walks up and just punches me in the face."

"The boyfriend," Melissa said wisely.

"Yea, the boyfriend. Well, I got knocked unconscious 'cause he hit me and my head hit the table, and then they called the cops and you came and got me, and now we're here."

"That's the shortened version, isn't it?"

Remus shrugged, an odd motion since he was lying on his back. "Well, yea. And I don't know what happened to Austynne. When I woke up she was gone."

"I see," James answered finally. "Well, maybe her boyfriend told her to leave or something. I dunno." He sighed. "But I do know that Lily's going to freak. What're we gonna tell her?"

"Uh.... I ran into a door?"

James shook his head. "I don't think that's going to work. Lily's smarter than that. She'd probably figure out that we're lying. Uh.... how about--"

"What if we just don't tell her anything?"

James' head turned towards who had just said that. "Melissa, are you kidding me? You're Lily's best friend. You know better than I that Lily'd want to know and not be lied to."

Melissa rolled her eyes at him. "I know that. But I also know that Lily can't really handle stuff like this. She's sweet and sensitive, yea. But she's also terribly naive."

"And that means she wouldn't want to know... how?"

Before Melissa could answer, a voice called from behind the closed door, "Guys, could you open the door for me? My hands are full of groceries."

Melissa stared at James as she yelled back, "Yeah Lils. I'll be there in a minute." She got up out of her seat and started walking towards the door. When she passed James, she leaned down and said so there was no discussion, "We do not tell her."

James grunted and watched her open up the door for Lily. And even as he went to go tell Lily a made-up lie about Remus' bruise, he couldn't help thinking that this was going to come back and bite him in the ass.

"Hey baby," a brunette said from over the bar top. "Wanna get me a drink from over on your end?"

James turned to her and motioned behind him. "What do you want? We have all kinds."

The brunette laughed as if this was very funny -Probably making up dirty innuendos inside her head, James thought- and leaned across the bar. "Whatever kind you think is best," she said with a wink.

James moved away from her and started towards the liquor. "Rum and coke it is."

She laughed again and when he was finished making it, James practically poured the drink on her to get her away. But she didn't go, and after about a half an hour, James had learned that her name was Mindy, she was twenty-six years old, and she had just recently broken up with her boyfriend. No wonder she was flirting with him as if her life depended on it.

It seemed as if Jack had noticed this as well, because he kept shooting him funny looks over Mindy's head that plainly said, "better get used to it, Pansy-Boy" whenever he walked past. But if truth be told, he really didn't want to get used to it, however weird that sounded. And this opinion was most definitely not going to be rectified by Mindy drabbling on and on about how her good for nothing slob of an ex-boyfriend and how he would probably be much better.

It was a real relief to see Lily, Sirius and Melissa walk in.

The three of them looked over the bar carefully, and then, after they spotted James behind the counter, they hurried over to it.

"Hey mate!" Sirius yelled, both to be heard over the loud music and to just to be annoying.

"Hey," James answered with a nod of his head. "Didn't know you guy's would be here."

This time, Lily answered. "Of course we would come. It's your first day working. Thought we'd help you make some money."

"And check out some hot guys and get some alcohol."

James smirked. "And here I was, thinking you had come for me. How silly of me."

"Yea well--"

It was at this point that Mindy decided to make herself known. "Oh James, you are so dirty. 'Thinking you had come for me.' I didn't know you could be so risqué."

All four of them looked over at Mindy, who was now smiling brightly. "Hello all! I'm Mindy."

Melissa blinked. "I'm Janice, she's Francis and he's Sam. Nice to meet you."

Mindy's smile brightened, and she probably would have gotten out of the stool had she not been too shit-faced to stand. "Oooooh. Are you all friends of James? He's such a doll!"

"Yea..." Melissa answered. "We're his roommates and Sam's his boyfriend."

All of the color drained out of Mindy's face. "boy...friend? Surely you must be kidding me."

Lily shook her head. "Nope. Mel- er, Janice is right. They've been dating for quite a while now."

Mindy got out of her seat, grabbed her purse, and promptly wobbled out of the bar.

They all looked after her. "Well, that was rude," Melissa said once she had gone. "She didn't even say goodbye."

Lily and Sirius chortled, while James stared on. "Now how in the Hell did you guys do that? I've been trying to get rid of her all night."

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. We're girls. We know how to get rid of someone very easily."

"Like a stalker or weird men or--"

"Good business."

All of them turned around to see Jack looking at James.

"You need to learn, Pansy-Boy, that some girls are going to come onto you. And so what if you have some boyfriend or whatever? Make sure you get the money."

"But Jack--"

"No buts man. You gotta make a profit. I'm not paying you three hundie a night just a throw away a good customer."

James, realizing that there was no way to make Jack understand, shook his head. "OK. I got cha."

Jack smiled. "Good, no if you'll excuse me, I'd rather like to..." His words trailed off as he saw Lily. "Introduce myself to this lovely lady. Hello."

"Oh.. Hello," Lily answered.

"My name's Jack, what's yours?"

"Lily. I'm James's roommate."

"I'm James's boss. Want me to show you around the place?"

Lily shrugged. "Alright. See you in a few guys," she said to her friends, but she was already being dragged away by Jack.

The three of them blinked after them. "Damn," Sirius said admiringly after a moment. "That guy is one smooth operator."

"Tell me about it," Melissa answered, just as a blonde haired woman stepped up to the bar. "She never goes away with guys that quick."

"Maybe she's turning over a new leaf."

Melissa cocked her head. "I hope not. I hate guys like him; they're a bunch of pricks."

Sirius nodded his head. "I completely understand." He smiled. "I am one of those guys."

Behind the bar, James rolled his eyes. "Yes you are Sirius." Then he looked at the woman sitting in the stool Mindy just left open. "What can I get you?"

She blinked. "Uh.... a beer, I guess."

James nodded and went to work. He set out the drink in front of her. "Here ya go."

She smiled and paid for her drink. "Thanks. The name's Sarah, by the way." And then she left to go out to the dance floor.

James shook his head, thinking that that was both random and slightly amusing. Could his first night get any weirder?

It did.

Lily gave Jack her phone number.

"He's really funny!" She kept saying over and over again.

"Right," Melissa said after the millionth time. "And it doesn't hurt that he's also drop-dead gorgeous."

Lily grinned. "No, that doesn't hurt at all."

They all ignored her and her rambling for the rest of the night.

All besides James, who couldn't help thinking that this was going to complicate things a little bit.

Disclaimer: Do I honestly still have to do this?

Author's Notes: Er... Hello! ::ducks tomatoes:: Ok, yes, I KNOW! I KNOW I haven't updated in, well, quite a while. But I'm SORRY. I've been really busy lately with uh.. school and the musical and.. uh.. ::thinks:: OK, you're not falling for my excuses. Hopefully.. uh.. you can forgive me. :) Please?

::sigh:: Right.. well.. I know this chapter sucked really bad. It was all conversation and it only moved the plot-line around a little bit. But, well, it was all I could really come up with. My muse just hasn't been working lately, except for NEW ideas, that I know I'll never finish. So yea.

But.. at least there were some funny parts in there right? Right? RIGHT? ::sighs again:: OK, yea, I know. That was futile. LEAVE ME ALONE.

I dunno when my next chapter will be, sorry. :

I DIDN'T SEND THIS TO MY BETA! Any grammatical errors can be blamed on me and my computer's crappy SpellCheck. The reason I didn't send this to Aus was because I wrote her a fic for her birthday but... the person I asked to beta never did.. so...SORRY!

And the in there was because that was one of my lines in the play. Tee Hee.

And..uh.. the indentations were in there 'cause it means it's later on in the fic. There's a new formatting and it kind of sucks. :(

REVIEW REPLIES!:

Vamperfly: I WILL WRITE ON! lol I shoud use that phrase from now on. :)

Nike25: Did ya miss it even more? Or.. did you stop reading?

The all mighty and powerfulM: Well, THAT'S what happened to Remus and sorry I didn't write ASAP. :

Leximus2000: I hope you still love me story! :)

Aus: SORRY SORRY SORRY! I am REALLY hoping that she'll send that back to me. But.. I don't have much faith in Kerry. But..uh.. HOPE YA LIKED THIS CRAPPY CHAPTER!

FadingShadow: Well, actually, technically, now I'm thirteen. My b-day was in January. And I know Remus was OOC. It kinda needed to happen though for the fic to work. AND THANXZ!

PeRkieGuRL: DON'T KICK MY BUTT! IT HAS TO HAPPEN!! GAAAAAAAH! Duuuude... I just realized that I was eleven when I first started writing fanfics.. and you were my biggest fan. o.0 Whoa... sorry... weird moment.

Musicizdbest: What did you think?

dolphingurl1: I POSTED MORE! Although it took me a while...

wuzup13579: I write cliffies 'cause it helps me get a good start on the next chapter. I didn't make one for this chapter though. Crap...

Unicorn13: I like being original. :P God, I'm such a dork. And it's OK. Not everyone knows what AU means. I just recently found out what OOC meant. LOL

onoM: I can't tell you how happy I was when I got your review(s) It made a struggling tweleve-year-old fanfic writer actually feel special for a moment. :) And I normally don't swear in my stories but.. well, it's kind of in my characters'...well.. character, I suppose. Sorry if it bothers you. And actually, I have no outline for any of my fics, whatsoever. But.. uh.. thanks. And I actually think that James is horribly OOC but, eh, whatever. I'll try to update every day, just like you asked. :dies just imagining it: Summer's here. d3su? What? AND THANKS!

Smiley Mary: Thanks! I'll try to update sooner.

Dee: I honestly don't think I'm all that talented (low self-esteem'll do that to people) but thanks! I'll try to share my "talent" more often! :)

potts: Thank you!

wizardduel2: -- THAT WASN'T FUNNY! I ACTUALLY BELIEVED YOU!!!!! But you're in the fic, so boo-ya, go you. Sorry if you hated your cameo but.. well, I was getting tired/lazy. :)

DayDreamer743: You can't really see where the plot is going yet but.. uh.. hopefully it'll come. :)

chris-black: I did, WHEEEEEEEEE!

miss-mags-ak: Thanks!

Leader of the Dorks: You really are a dork. ::shakes head sadly::

softballgrl89: WHEE!! GO SOFTBALL! I play softball! It's my first year though... BUT I PITCHED! YAY! God, I'm a loser. THANKS, and I DID!

Sherri: Whee, another of Austynne's friends. At least this time I wasn't made a fool out of. ::shakes fist at Sarah:: And.. uh.. sometimes I try to be funny. Although it doesn't always work. :) HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS CRAPPY CHAPTER!

SpAzZiE: This was actually a much shorter chapter than my last ones.. ooops. :

Azera: Heh. I amuse myself sometimes with how odd my plots are. :) THANKS FOR REVIEWING!

Mountain's Dew: BUMP!!!! Do you perhaps flitter around harrypotter.com? I used to always say "bumperdoodles" in a rainbow. ::sigh:: those were the good old days when SWATW was still cool. THANKS!

fallen816angel: Hopefully you didn't loose it again! YOU ROCK FOR REVIEWING! WHOOPS TO YOU!

onoM (again): I updated today.. whee? Thanks again!

Artemis 00: Yay, thanks. I do try (except for this chapter, blah) Thanzx!

AND THANKS TO ALL WHO REVIEWED CHAPTER FOUR! SORRY I DIDN'T GET TO DO RESPONSES FOR YOU!

And remember kiddies, review. 'Cause I'll respond and make my chapters seems longer than they actually are. :)

Melissa