Arguing for Dummies

They all paused for a moment, right where they were, then James stood, rubbing his hands together.
"Well," he said. "Let's go get breakfast."
When they got down to the Great Hall, James and Remus sat with Sirius, but Bekki refused to, so Lily and Melanie sat with her at the opposite end of the table.
Lily chose this moment to ask Bekki about the fully clothed thing that Sirius had talked about.
"Oh!" said Bekki, setting down her fork on her plate with a clatter. She started digging in her robes for something, then said, "Aha," and pulled it out, placing it on the table in front of Lily and Melanie.

It was a book called Arguing For Dummies.
Melanie snorted. "What in God's holy name is that?"
"This," Bekki said, taking up her fork again. "Is practically my whole family's Bible!"
Lily grabbed the rather thick book and began leafing through it. "Who could write a whole book this thick on arguing?" she asked, flipping the pages.
"I think it's brilliant!" Bekki said. "It's all the rules on arguing and the advantages and disadvantages you might have."
Melanie rolled her eyes. "Lot of good that'll do you," she said sarcastically.
"It does!" Bekki protested. "You just don't appreciate it."
"Well, it certainly sounds interesting," Lily mused. "Where'd you get it?"
"My aunt who lives in America sent it to my mom one year, and we had her get us all copies," Bekki said.
"Only an American could think up a title like that," Melanie said, shaking her head.
Bekki laughed.

The day drifted on and Lily, James, Bekki, Melanie, and Remus all went to ask Headmaster Dumbledore for permission to use the Great Hall sometime. He told them that they were free to use it tomorrow night, since that was the soonest opening he could get them. They accepted and began planning the ball.
Lily was in charge of making fliers and posting them around the school, Bekki and Melanie would go to Hogsmead to get decorations, James and Remus would go to the kitchens and make preparations with the house elves to provide food for the ball, and the rest would be dealt with by all of them equally.

As Lily sat in the Gryffindor common room creating and discarding rough drafts of the fliers, she noticed Sirius sitting in a corner pretending to read, but watching her with a sour expression. When she looked up, however, he went back to his book, but Lily could feel his eyes on her when she looked away. Eventually, he stood up and walked out through the portrait hole with a rather menacing twist to his step.
When Lily was satisfied with her rough draft, she went and found James and Remus, who both liked it and told her to make copies. After finishing up the rest of the fliers with a simple copying charm, she asked Melanie and Bekki for advice on where to put them. The decorations they had picked out so far were fabulous, but Lily thought she saw Sirius peering around a corner in Hogsmead.
Lily hung the fliers around the school in places where they wouldn't be missed, and as soon as the last one was in place, she headed to the common room, finding Sirius lounging in an armchair by the fire. As she walked past him she fought down a smile at the bored expression on his face. Bekki was right, the argument most certainly wasn't over. Sirius had to hold himself back from helping them yet.

Lying in bed that night, Lily smiled to herself as she thought.
Throughout the day, she had recognized that Sirius had always been nearby to someone who was helping with the ball, whether he was just around the next corner or in the next room or in the opposite corner of the room. It amused her to no end that he was always trying to pretend like he was doing something besides spying on them. Once, she even witnessed him trying to play wizards' chess against himself, which was absurd. She had heard him mutter to himself, "I can't even win one game against myself, of all people!" He had even sounded serious! It was another one of those half empty or half full things. It all depended on the way you looked at it.
Tomorrow, after supper, she would help Melanie, Bekki, James, and Remus set the Great Hall up. She was a little worried about how much time she would have to get ready, even though she already knew what she was wearing.
She drifted off into contented sleep, thinking of how wonderful the ball would be.

The next day drifted on in a slow manner, one that made Lily a little impatient. Finally, though, the dinner plates in the Great Hall had been cleared and Lily, James, Bekki, Melanie, and Remus were all toting the decorations and what not to the emptying Hall. Lily noticed Sirius sitting at one end of the vacant Gryffindor table, head bent over a book, but still finding time to glance over occasionally at them grudgingly. She had to fight an amused smile as James and Remus set up a ladder against a wall. Melanie climbed up on it and chewed on her lower lip for a second in thought, then pointed to the blue streamers in the pile of eccentric decorations on the floor. Remus grabbed an armful of them and handed them to Melanie, who ruffled his hair before taking them from him and draping them over the top rung of her ladder. She picked up one of them and spello taped one of the ends to the wall, then twisted it strategically and taped the other end to the wall, farther down. Lily grinned. Melanie was one of those people who was really good at designing things and doing arts and crafts.

The minutes wore on and soon, the Great Hall was swathed in ornate streamers, garland, confetti, and other accessories. Sirius had disappeared by the time it was all finished, and Lily decided that it was time to get dressed. James and Remus went to the kitchens to bring up the food, while Lily and her friends went to get into their dress robes.
When they got to their dorm, they found the rest of the Gryffindor 7th year girls all getting ready as well.
Lily grabbed her dress robes and slipped into a bathroom, then came out again and sat on her bed, looking in her hand mirror wondering what to do with her hair.
Bekki came out of her bathroom and walked over to Lily, finishing up sweeping her hair into an elegant bun in the back of her head as she walked.
"What's up?" she asked, finishing her hair and plopping herself down on the bed next to Lily.
"I don't know what to do with-" she cut off as Bekki took Lily's brush from her hand and began working on Lily's hair. Bekki occasionally asked for a hair tie or a bobby pin or something of the sort, but in what felt like no time at all, Bekki was sitting back and setting down the brush with a satisfied look on her face.
"Go look in the mirror," Bekki said.

Lily started to reach for her hand mirror, but Bekki stopped her.
"You need to see your whole head for the effect to be right," Bekki said. "Go look in the bathroom."
Lily stood up and walked into an empty bathroom to peer at herself in the mirror above the sink. She saw her hair and grinned in surprise at her reflection.
Five small, intricately worked braids ran along the top and sides of Lily's head to the back, where they melded into some more of Lily's hair which had been pulled into a half pony tail which had been put under a spell so that it looked like a hollow spiral shape.
Bekki's beaming image appeared beside Lily in the mirror and Lily turned to look her friend in the eye and give her a smile filled with gratitude.
"It wasn't too hard," Bekki said, shrugging. "It didn't even take that long."
"Thanks, Bekki," Lily said, grinning.
"No problem," Bekki replied as they walked into the main part of there dorm to find Melanie sitting on her bed, fingering some of her long hair and chewing her lip thoughtfully. Bekki and Lily went over to her and worked together to figure out what would be the best style for Mel, ending with Melanie's head a halo of wavy locks.
Melanie examined herself in the mirror, thanked Bekki, then smiled as though she had just had a brilliant idea.
"Say, Bekki," Melanie said, taking her over to a bed. "Since you did my hair, don't you think it's only fair that I do yours?"
This left Bekki at the mercy of Melanie's creative hand, which, in this case, wasn't a bad thing at all.

Once Bekki's hair, now in a precise cap of large, perfect curls, was finished, Lily, Bekki, and Melanie walked back to the Great Hall together, conversing pleasantly along the way.
"So, Bekki," Melanie said as they reached the bottom of a staircase and began to walk down a corridor lined by lazy-looking portraits. "When are you and Sirius planning on getting back together? Soon, I hope."
Bekki smiled. It wasn't a very open smile, aimed more inward than outward, but at least it was a smile, however mysterious it seemed. "Well," she said, reaching up to finger one of her bold, sausage-sized curls. "It's totally up to him."
Lily rolled her eyes. "Is this another one of those Arguing for Dummies things?"
"Yes, somewhat," Bekki said. "Arguing for Dummies says that whoever starts the fight, is required to end it in whatever way suits them, whether it's surrendering, winning or losing. It's because Sirius is so stubborn that we're in this fight, so that means he was the one who started it. Which means he has to finish it.
"I say that if Sirius wants to be stubborn, then I can be stubborn too. Therefore, I refuse to end this, no matter how much I would like to."
Lily nodded in approval, but Melanie shook her head. "I don't even understand the reason you're in this fight," she said. "I mean, he didn't want to help us, and it was clear he wasn't going to change his mind, so why can't you respect his decision? And, aside from that, if you're not going to end this, then maybe he won't either, so you'll just stay mad at each other for the rest of your lives. All because of a stupid ball."
Bekki just shrugged. She knew she could never explain it to Melanie. Mel just didn't see things like that.
They rounded the last corner in stepped into the Great Hall.