THREE
THIRD YEAR: PRANKS & HAIRCUTS

"she walks into the room like she owns everything in it
he's wondering if she knows that includes his heart."

Cameron was almost entirely sure that James Potter existed only to make her life miserable. He was absolutely insufferable, and he wouldn't just leave her alone. A day didn't go by where she didn't question Austin, Fred, and Tyler on how they could tolerate being friends with him. He had pulled many pranks on her over the years, almost all of them almost landing him in the infirmary once Cameron retaliated. She didn't know why he got so much pleasure out of torturing her, but she was definitely one of his more frequent targets. This time, though, she really did want him dead.

She marched into her dorm room, huffing and messing with her hair. Lana looked up from the essay she was working on, jaw dropping when she caught sight of her friend.

"Cam! Merlin's beard..." Cameron simply glared, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "How did - "

"Potter," she growled. Lana's eyes widened, as she watched her previously blonde friend start to pace. "One of these days, I'm actually going to murder that boy." Lana sighed, her eyes still trained on the mop of hair atop her friend's head.

"What're we talking about?" Liz asked, entering the room with Brenda trailing behind. They both stopped in their tracks when they saw Cameron. It was almost laughable: the angry expression on her face paired with her new hot pink hair. "So that's why James is laughing his arse off downstairs," Liz rolled her eyes.

"We were just discussing Cameron committing murder," Lana spoke up, giving Cameron a motherly look of exasperation and disappointment.

"Do you need me to hide a body?" Brenda questioned, speaking casually as if she wasn't discussing the death of another human being. "Because I can do that." They all exchanged wary glances but Brenda merely shrugged, dropping down onto her bed. Cameron was boiling with anger, ready to scream and rip her newly dyed hair out.

"Will you all shut up? My hair is pink, people! Pink!" The outburst caused a giggle to come from Liz, but she was quickly silenced when Cameron glared at her.

"C'mon Cam, we'll try washing it out. It can't be that bad." Cameron sighed as she followed Lana into the bathroom, Brenda and Liz trailing behind. They spent the rest of the day attempting to fix Cameron's hair.

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James Potter was absolutely giddy. He hadn't stopped laughing since the minute he'd seen the look on Cameron's face after her hair turned pink. His friends, though annoyed that he'd chosen Cameron as his victim yet again, were highly amused by the prank.

"I don't think you could've chosen a more neon shade of pink," Austin laughed, Fred and Tyler nodding in agreement. The four boys sat in their dormitory messing around, still on the topic of their friend's hair.

"You think she'll be able to get it out by tomorrow?" Tyler asked, a grin on his face.

"I hope not," James smirked. "I'd love to see her walk into the Great Hall with her hair still vibrantly pink. People would go wild!"

"Screw that, think about her walking into McGonagall's classroom like that," Austin spoke up again, chuckling.

"Well, it would certainly wake us up on a Monday morning," Fred mumbled. The boys all muttered an agreement as they continued to play their game of exploding snap. In the end, Tyler was victorious and the boys all went to bed, each of them eager to see Cameron the next morning.

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Lana had worked absolute wonders. Her, Liz, and Brenda has gotten most of the pink out of Cameron's hair. When they finally called it quits, the top of her head was back to normal blonde. And her hair remained that color until it reached a little past her shoulders. They all agreed that it would look fine if the blonde faded into the pink, but could not for the life of the, get it to do that successfully. Instead, Cameron had begun to smile wickedly while looking at her reflection. Her friends had questioned her, but she simply walked out of the bathroom.

When she returned, it was with a pair of scissors in hand. Lana audibly gasped as Cameron stood in front of the mirror and chopped off a piece of her hair where the blonde met the pink. She didn't stop there, continuing all the way around her head. Her friends offered some advice, but Cameron was in control of the scissors the entire time. When she'd finished she impulsively decided that it was too awkward of a length and it didn't look very nice, so she kept cutting. By the time she was done, her hair was just barely brushing her shoulders.

The response from her friends, who had eventually left to go back to the dorm, was immediate. When she walked in they all looked up and their jaws dropped. All three girls jumped up and ran to her, dishing out compliments and running their fingers through her hair. Cameron went to bed much happier than she'd been earlier in the day, and she woke with a smirk on her face. Her friends had already left, it seemed, which meant she was a bit late. She didn't mind at all - in fact, it would prove to have a much better effect when she walked into the Great Hall.

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When James heard a gasp and then a few whispers while eating, he automatically assumed that it was Cameron waltzing in with her pink hair. He looked up excitedly, only for his jaw to drop at what he saw. Cameron was, indeed, the reason for the whispering, but it was not because her hair was pink. No, it was because she had chopped all her hair off. His friends had similar responses, Fred actually choking on his drink and coughing it back up because of the shock.

Cameron had a smug smile on her face as she walked to sit with her friends. There was a wolf whistle from one of the tables and Cameron glared in the direction it came from, silencing the boy immediately. As she sat down he could vaguely hear Elizabeth saying something along the lines of "Cameron, god bless you never failing to remind me why I'm a huge lesbian."

His eyes stayed trained on her until Austin snapped in front of his face to get his attention. He turned back to his food, his thoughts still racing around in his head. How could his prank have backfired so badly? Her hair was no longer pink, and with her newly short hair she actually looked... He mentally groaned, thinking about how unfair it was that she'd not only ruined his prank, but she also looked amazing. Really amazing. Unbelievably amazing.

There were two things learned that day by two separate people. James learned that Cameron was a little too good at retaliating whenever he pranked her. Fred, who watched his cousin closely during that breakfast, learned that James Potter did not hate Cameron Kala in the slightest - not with the way he looked at her.

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A/N
definitely one of my favorite chapters before seventh year