• ‘He called you Mr Meridian,’ James chuckled gleefully as they exited the Potions room a half hour later. ‘Can you believe it?’

    ‘Seeing as it just happened in front of twenty-odd witnesses, I suppose I’ll have to,’ Ze replied, her tone positively acidic.

    ‘Oh don’t take it so hard Zazzer,’ Clive said jovially. ‘You’re hair’s just a bit flat this morning, and he can’t see you’re wearing a skirt under the desk – I’m surprised he even knew your name. Normally he’s clueless.’

    ‘I’ve been in his class for six years,’ Ze snapped, then softened when Clive looked concerned. ‘Sorry – I’m just in a bit of a mood I guess.’

    ‘Well don’t be! It’s only three days till Hogsmeade!’ Sirius grinned, linking his elbow with hers. ‘Just think – Zonko’s… butterbeer…Honeydukes… it’ll be glorious.’

    ‘Yeah,’ Ze agreed, perking up a bit. ‘I’ve got to pop in to the quidditch shop – I need a new wrist guard, my old one’s cracked.’

    ‘You didn’t take a Bludger and not tell me, did you?’ James asked, immediately sobering into quidditch business mode.

    ‘No, course not – Dorcas stepped on my bag last night and crunched it,’ Ze sneered. ‘Stupid cow.’

    ‘She still on you for smelling bad?’ Clive asked. All the boys turned to look at her curiously: the idea of objecting to a dorm mate simply because he (or in this case, she) smelled a bit was clearly foreign.

    ‘Er, not as such,’ Ze admitted, deciding she’d rather not tell them that Dorcas was now following her around the dormitory with a can of Fibbsters Aromatic Spray (Guaranteed to Drive Odors Out!), and squirting it liberally on everything Ze touched.

    ‘Good, otherwise I’d have had to charm all her socks mismatched or summat,’ Clive said cheerfully.

    ‘Whose socks are we charming?’ Rob asked, joining them as they merged into the corridor leading to the Great Hall and lunch.

    ‘Dorcas’s,’ the rest of them chorused.

    Rob grinned gleefully. ‘Well, whatever we’re doing to her, count me in – she deserves it.’

    ‘We’re not doing anything. Yet,’ Ze amended when the others looked crestfallen. ‘But if and when, we’re not mismatching her socks – I’d have to suffer through her having a nervous breakdown in the dormitory, and I’m just not up to it this early in the year.’

    But Rob wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘This could be our chance,’ he breathed, eyes alight. ‘We could get the bow.’

    Those words sent a lance of dismay boring straight into Ze's chest. Dorcas, bless her, was infamous for three things: she was an obsessive, compulsive, and paranoid follower of all rules; she was organised to the point of being certifiably mad; and every day, without fail, she wore an enormous lavender bow atop her stringy hair. On occasion she could be bamboozled into not reporting a violation of the rules. Once in a blue moon she could even be persuaded that all of her paper clips did not have to be aligned the same way in their little box. But never, ever, not once in her six years and some odd days at Hogwarts, had she gone without that bow. It resisted all elements – including fire and strong winds – and no attempt at harming, stealing or even altering its placement atop her head had ever succeeded. Most people regarded it as a supernatural phenomenon on a par with alien sightings and Professor McGonagall’s lethal glare. Rob regarded it as a personal affront, and was therefore determined to do something to it.

    ‘Give it up already, would you?’ Zeke groaned, having joined them in time to hear Rob’s last comment. He didn’t have to be told whom they were discussing – if a hair bow and Rob were involved, it had to be Dorcas. ‘You’ve been after that bloody hair bow since the day I met you, and you haven’t done nothing to it.’

    ‘She’s got a point,’ James sighed. ‘It’s invincible – it even resists Filibuster’s Wet Starts.’

    ‘And nothing - not even prank–proofed toilets - resist those,’ Sirius said with the air of one who has proven this theory time and again.

    ‘Has it ever occurred to you that Dorcas, being relatively clever, might have realised what you’re about and taken steps to protect herself?’ Remus asked dryly. ‘She might be a bit daft, but she’s not completely stupid – and you lot aren’t exactly inconspicuous about it, forever aiming fireworks and transfiguration spells at her head.’

    Rob just tutted. ‘Nonsense – she has no idea what we’re up to.’

    Ze and Remus exchanged a look that said “yeah, right” and shook their heads. ‘So,’ Sirius began, obviously relishing what was to come, ‘what should we try this time – I’ve got these extra-concentrated dung bombs…’

    Ze rolled her eyes and turned to Clive, saying, ‘please tell me you can talk them out of –‘ But what she wanted him to talk them out of went completely out of her head. Because Clive wasn’t beside her. He had been just a moment before, she was sure, but he had completely disappeared sometime in the last twenty seconds. Unfortunately they were in the thick of the crowd pushing into the Great Hall for lunch, and no matter which way she turned, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of her friend.

    ‘Who’re you looking for?’ James asked, noticing her craning her head to look over the crowd.

    ‘Clive,’ she replied, trying not to run into anyone and still search for him. ‘He was here just a moment ago-‘ James and Remus joined her in peering round, but it wasn’t until they arrived at the Gryffindor table and the crowd thinned out that they spotted him.

    ‘Oh, there he is…’ James said at last, pointing towards the Ravenclaw table, where Clive stood talking to a very pretty girl. James squinted, adjusting his glasses. 'Who's that he's talking with?'

    Ze had followed James' gaze and grinned. ‘Ah – that’s Claudia Howard,’ she said knowingly. ‘He swears he doesn’t fancy her, but you should see the look he gets on his face whenever her name comes up.’

    ‘Claudia Howard?’ Remus asked, arching his brows a bit. 'Doesn't she date that Jared Fiore bloke - enormous prat?'

    Ze shrugged. ‘Seems they broke up - something about the fact that he'd finished school and didn't fancy having a girlfriend who was still at Hogwarts.'

    'He always was a right wanker,' James sneered, eyes narrowed.

    'You don't like him because he's the only person who's ever shown you up on the quidditch pitch,' Ze chuckled. 'Anyway - he hasn't got anything to do with it. The point is Clive fancies Claudia. She’s always seemed perfectly nice – he could definitely do worse, mind you. Remember Betsy Burrows?’ James and Remus winced, recalling the shrill, red–faced Hufflepuff Clive had somehow saddled himself with on a Hogsmeade weekend the year before.

    ‘And that wasn’t even his idea,’ James muttered. ‘Poor b*****d.’

    ‘Exactly,’ Ze sniggered. ‘Not that it wasn’t funny. But at least Claudia’s clever – and she doesn’t yell in your ear, either. No, he could definitely do worse.’ Satisfied that her friend hadn’t been abducted by a contingent of evil gnomes or something equally dangerous, Ze settled herself on the bench, heaped some pudding onto her plate, and rejoined the plot against Dorcas.

    ‘ – if we hit it with an Incendiary Hex and a firework at the same time,’ Rob was saying.

    Sirius shook his head, gnawing on a chicken leg and discarding the bone. ‘Doesn’t work – we tried it in third year. I think our best bet is to steal it while she’s sleeping – she’s bound to take it off –‘

    ‘No luck,’ Ze interrupted. ‘The only time she takes it off is when she’s having a shower.’ She shot them all a significant look. ‘And even then it sits right outside with her towel. So you lot had better draw straws to see which of you gets to follow her in there…’

    ‘Yech,’ Rob managed, looking a bit green around the gills.

    ‘Did you have to?’ Sirius moaned. ‘I’m eating.’

    ‘Just thought you might want to know…’ Ze grinned.

    ‘I’m telling you,’ Zeke said, his deep voice rumbling with amusement, ‘that bow is not meant to be harmed – there’s some power guarding it.’

    ‘Like what, the Bow God?’ Rob sneered, but he didn’t seem quite convinced in his own sarcasm. Privately, Ze thought the idea of the Bow God might not be so very far off the mark.

    ‘We’re not going to harm it precisely,’ Sirius said, to which everyone snorted disbelievingly. ‘We’re just going to…borrow it for a bit. And maybe attach it to Snape’s head…’

    James’ eyes positively lit at this idea, and he abandoned his roll to lean forward. ‘That’s brilliant – maybe if we’re not trying to hurt it, it’ll just, I dunno, fall into our hands.’

    Zeke, Remus, and Ze all turned sceptical (and frankly derisive) stares on him. ‘James,’ Remus began in a very slow, clear voice, ‘you’ve been after that thing for six years – you must’ve tried for it a thousand times. What makes you think that it’s suddenly going to – to volunteer to be taken hostage?’

    James looked vaguely hurt. ‘Well…it could happen.’

    ‘And McGonagall could take up belly dancing, but I’m betting – no hoping - she won’t,’ Ze shot back. ‘Anyway, short of dosing Dorcas with a sleeping draught and figuring out the securing spell she uses to keep it on, there’s no possible way you’re getting it off her.’

    Sirius, Rob, and James exchanged gleeful grins. 'That's brilliant!'

    ‘Did you have to give them that idea?’ Remus groaned.

    ‘Oh relax - they'll never carry it off,’ Ze chuckled. ‘Dorcas is so paranoid she tests all of her food and drinks for tampering before she ingests them – has done ever since you two –‘ she shot James and Sirius an amused glance, ‘- tried to give her that Delirium Draught back in fourth year.’

    ‘Wish it had worked,’ Sirius sighed. ‘I’ve always wanted to see her completely out of control and talking to the walls.’

    ‘No you haven’t,’ Ze, who spent a great deal more time with Dorcas than they did, snorted. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’

    ‘I still don’t see how she figured it was in there,’ James mused, affronted even after all that time.

    ‘It’s Dorcas,’ Ze shrugged. ‘She has powers we know not.’

    ‘The Bow God,’ Zeke agreed with a sage nod. Ze toasted this with her juice before drinking.