~Year One~

"They were the ringleaders of their little gang"

Chapter One: Of Trains and Pranks

James Potter hurried onto the train after quickly kissing his mother goodbye and giving his father a hurried hug. He pulled his heavy trunk behind him and hurried to find his friend, Sirius Black, who was supposed to be saving a train compartment all to themselves. The idea had seemed simple enough at the beginning, until James had talked with his older cousin, who had said that it was near impossible to get a car for yourself if you were only a first year student.

He sighed deeply when he first entered the train and quickly began walking its length, apologizing profusely to the other students that he interrupted on his trek through the train, in search for his best friend. When he finally spotted Sirius, in the last car, he was with the strange boy they had met in Zonko's when they had gotten their school items in Diagon Alley. James shifted a bit in the doorway as he looked at their acquaintance. He hadn’t seemed like a bad kid but the idea had been for Sirius and him to share a compartment with just themselves for company. With him sharing with them, he would most likely just get in the way. James sighed, as he looked the lonely boy over. He smiled slightly at him and then walked into the room.

When they had met this boy for the first time, had seemed very sick and unsure of himself. James glanced at the boy, once more in thought, he had short sandy colored hair and seemed to have gained some of the color back in his face that had been lacking the first time they had met him, and overall seemed more sure of his surroundings than he had in Zonko’s. As he slowly assessed him, unconsciously, he smiled and realized that the boy was most likely not going to be a threat to any of his or Sirius’ plans for the year. James relaxed slightly at the thought and finally cracked a sincere smile as he opted to give their fellow classmate a chance.

"Hello? It's Remus, right?" James asked as he put his trunk in the corner of the compartment. The boy in question just nodded his head in reply while James moved over towards them and sat down across from the two of them.

"Well, then I guess we should get started," Sirius announced, realizing that James had given his go ahead. He then, quickly pulled out a small black (magically altered) rucksack and opened it. He placed it carefully on the table before he slowly, but surely, began to pull out candy, parchment, and other "fun" things out of the bag. All of which would potentially, if used inappropriately, get him, and anyone involved with him, expelled from Hogwarts.

"We'll use the frog spawn in the prefect bathroom to get my cousin back-"

James, despite himself, rolled his eyes and cut Sirius off, "What did Narcissa do this time?"

Sirius groaned loudly, as if this disturbance in his explanation of prank supplies had ruined his whole point of going over them in the first place. But, Sirius kindly answered James' question anyway. "She poured a pitcher of really cold water on me when my mother told her to wake me up. I, apparently, didn't move as fast as she had wanted me to.” He sighed dramatically before he continued. “She needs to pay for the intrusion! I mean, my family is nice enough to let her stay in our house over the summer, so she should treat all of us with respect; not just my mother and father or my bloody little brother." He finished with a mixture of true hatred that was dripped tastefully with sarcasm. He stopped for a long moment in thought and then added, more to himself than anything else. "Plus, it was five 'o' clock in the morning."

James just shrugged his shoulders at his friend. There was no use trying to convince Sirius that his cousin, let alone any other member of his family were ‘good people.’ Everyone knew, except for the family themselves, that the Black's were a horrible and conceited breed of purebloods. And due to that fact, it was pure torture for Sirius to even acknowledge that he was even related to the lot of them. Starting with the simple fact that all of the Black's had been sorted into Slytherin. Sirius had taken it upon himself to pride himself, all through the summer, on the fact that he wanted to be the first and only member in his family to ever manage to get into Gryffindor. Sirius wanted this, more than anything, because he knew it would hurt his parents. That was the idea that thrilled him the most because he had no respect for either of his parents in the first place. And so, he had made his stay at number twelve Grimmauld place very miserable, after he'd received his letter of acceptance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with this newly fueled attitude.

James had seen, one time, during one of the rare instances when both of their families had met with each other to discuss, or rather yell, over the problems they had with one another. During this day, when they were seated in the dining room in complete silence, Sirius had openly stated that he would die if he wound up in Slytherin when his mother had gone into her typical speech about keeping pride in the family. Sirius had almost wound up beaten in front of everyone in the room, had his father not realized that the Potter's were still there to witness the occasion. So after that, James had no doubt in his mind, that Sirius would die if he was placed in Slytherin.

After a brief pause, as if he was still mulling over the morning's events, Sirius began to pull out the assorted prank supplies from his bag, that were intended to last the whole year. Sirius next, pulled out a quill and James' face broke into a large smile as his previous thoughts instantaneously vanished in the haze. "This will be good to use on the Slytherins."

Remus looked at each of them in with a confused expression plain on his face. "Why on earth would we use a quill on the Slytherins? Are we going to write them to death, or something?"

Sirius stared at Remus in utter shock. "You don't prank many people do you?" Sirius asked slightly annoyed. At the blank expression Remus' was giving them, he assumed not and went on to explain the item he was holding in his hand. "This, Remus, is not an ordinary quill. This quill happens to shoot ink out from the feather end and not out of the tip." He smiled widely with pride as he put it gently down on the table.

"But why would we want to prank them?" he asked innocently.

James sighed, this kid had seemed pretty cool in Zonko's but now he was just kind of, well, annoying. "Well, they're all horrible, aren't they? I mean you met his cousin," James said and pointed at Sirius. Remus nodded remembering the blond girl that had dragged Sirius away from him and James in the store, "and she flat out insulted you. She's a Slytherin. Then, also, when my cousin was in school a group of them turned his hair green and silver the day of the Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quidditch match, and he was the captain of the Gryffindor team!"

"Oh, okay," Remus said with a half smile, obviously he was imagining the sight of someone with hair of those particular colors, "continue."

Sirius did continue, without any interruptions, for the next five minutes or so. He gradually pulled out item after item of potential pranking objects. Each item slowly getting more and more dangerous as he added them to the table in front of them, which had begun to run out of space. After a while their compartment door opened and a small, chubby boy that looked slightly lost, appeared in the doorway, and glanced at the three of them with hopeful eyes. They watched him uncertainly as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other looking very unsure of his new surroundings.

"Hello?" Remus greeted cautiously.

The boy stared at Remus, Sirius, and then James as if they were going to attack him. His eyes then settled on the table in front of them with the mountain of Zonko's objects upon it. He then looked back up at the three boys and said softly, almost daringly, "Can I stay here? The others won't let me into any of their cars."

Remus smiled gently, cutting Sirius before he could speak, "What's your name?"

"Peter Pettigrew."

James smiled and stood up, quickly checking over the young boy. He then glanced down at Sirius who looked vaguely annoyed with the fellow first year. James just shrugged, and turned back to Peter. He smirked slightly as he took in the robes that were a little too big for the boy and the uncertain expression that was planted on his face. He opened his mouth to apologize and kindly turn him away but the words got stuck somewhere in his throat. He felt bad for the boy, not being able to find anyone nice enough to let him in. So the intended “nice to meet you, but sorry their isn’t enough room here” quickly changed to: "My name's James, and this is Sirius, and Remus." He felt his hand move to make a gesture to both Remus and Sirius as he stated their names. He noticed Sirius mouth drop slightly in shock but ignored it as he told Peter to sit next to him. The boy did as he was told and Sirius quickly went back to emptying his bag, as if nothing had interrupted him in the first place.

It was fun for James to watch Peter's face light up while Sirius took out the last few objects; toffees with assorted colored wrappers, there was something interesting about the excitement. There was a certain freshness that grew on James as Sirius had continued, which gave James the feeling that Peter might actually be fun to have around. When Sirius had finally finished he put his bag upside down and shook it slightly just to see if it really was empty. When nothing fell out he put the bag back down beside him. "Now, the most critical element for our plans this year- " He looked up at all of them before he rested gray eyes on James, "is your Invisibility cloak." At those words Peter and Remus started to talk quietly in awe, for they had been wondering to themselves how on earth they were going to accomplish all of these pranks without getting caught, if indeed the two boys were going to be nice enough to let them in on it.

Sirius smiled as if he was impressed with his own genius, and quickly began to put the prank supplies back into his bag. "So, what house do you all want to get into?" Sirius said simply. Changing the subject so naturally that no one seemed to notice.

"Gryffindor," James said. "You know that already, everyone in my family has been in Gryffindor. I don't want to be stuck anywhere else."

"Too true." Sirius agreed.

Peter, who had gone silent, spoke softly at first, still not entirely sure of these new people. "I hope I get into a house. My dad told me that if you don't fight a cave troll, then you’re sent home straight away." He then looked down at his chubby hands, that were placed on his lap, in disgrace, "But then he could have been joking, I'm not entirely sure." He looked up at the three boys. "My mum thought I wasn't even going to get a letter-" His voice trailed off with more shame.

"That's non-sense. Fighting a troll! We don't even know any spells yet, plus a grown man can barely take on a troll, how can we?" Peter looked up from his hands to Sirius without saying a word. "That's about as useful as fighting a tree." Sirius finished with a smirk.

"Not if the tree fights back." Remus chimed in bitterly.

"What?" James looked at Remus. Remus just shrugged his shoulders, obviously not wanting to talk about his two cents, so James went on. "We just have to put the Sorting Hat on our head, it then yells out what house we're going to be in. That's it; simple as that." He looked at the others. Peter's face appeared to be a little more relieved but James could tell what he was thinking. What if the hat didn't say anything at all?

"Don't worry Peter...we're all staying at Hogwarts."

They sat in silence, as if dwelling on these words. After a while Sirius grew distracted under the pressure of the silence and quickly opened up another discussion. The four then spent the remainder of the trip discussing different ways that they could prank people, and other simple questions about each others family and life. In the end they found that they all had plenty in common, and rather liked being with each other.

During the trip they only stopped talking once, and that was when the lady with the treat trolley came by. They quickly bought their snacks and once the lady had left, were left alone to further discuss whatever tickled their fancy until they reached Hogsmeade's station. The train stopped abruptly and they climbed out of their car only to be greeted by a shocking sight.

"Firs' years, th's way. Follo' me."

Sirius stared in awe of the huge man, who was no more than thirty years of age, though he was more than the size of an adult elephant. His hair was a tangled mess; his robes were dirty and old. Yet, through the tangled mess of hair and makeshift dirty robes, he could make out an indefinite smile and the man's two beetle black eyes all alight in joy, at the sight of the new students. "What's he?" he asked as he leaned into James, who merely shrugged his shoulders in response, not entirely knowing the answer to his best friend's question.

"His name is Hagrid. He's the ground's keeper here. He wouldn't hurt a fly, Sirius, don't worry." Remus stated from behind them attempting to answer Sirius question.

"Yeah, but what is h-" He was cut off by Hagrid yelling for the first years to keep up with his gigantic stride.

Hagrid led them to the lake on the grounds and all the first years climbed into the small boats that were waiting for them at the shore. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter got into one of the old boats, finding that they were more comfortable with their little group from the train compartment, than any of the other new faces that surrounded them.

Along the short trip across the lake, that seemed to last forever in the minds of each of the boys, one of the giant squids tentacles had come up and rapped on the side of their boat nearly scaring Peter to death. The three boys had a good hearty laugh at the incident, as Peter tried his best to regain his composure a mist his claims that it wasn't funny, while the others continued to poke fun at him. James had carefully placed his hand in the cold water, when Peter had calmed down, and splashed him once again causing another outburst of fear, and “that wasn’t funny” from their new friend, coupled with more laughter from the other three. This scene played a for a bit, until Hogwarts came into view and the four stopped their horsing around, as all sound got stuck in their throats and they stared open mouthed at the castle they would call home for the next few months.

Once they had made it to shore, they followed Hagrid out onto the grounds and up the castle’s steps into a very large foyer. The small group of first years stood gaping at the hall as they slowly began to draw their attention up to the top of the staircase. There they saw a woman in dark green robes. Her hair was tied back into a tight bun and her lips were pressed firmly together forming a small line. Once the chatter had settled down to a bare minimum she spoke loudly and firmly to the group of children. "I am Professor McGonagall. We are nearly ready for the ceremony to begin. Now, you all must wait here until I come back for you. Once the task is ready."

"Snape was at school with us."

Chapter Two: The Sorting

When Professor McGonagall left the foyer, leaving her new students behind to ponder her words, the first years instantly erupted into a fit of chatter. Each immediately talking about what the task could possibly be, worried about what their fate would be.

"Task?" Peter squeaked as he turned around to face James. His face was lit with nothing but blatant fear.

Despite himself James rolled his eyes at his new friend. "I told you not to worry, so don't. They are not going to try and kill us on our first day at Hogwarts. So just relax." James stated firmly to Peter slightly frustrated by the boy's overreaction. All the while, Sirius stood beside James and nodded his agreement at his friend's words.

Suddenly, the doors that lead to the great hall flew open once more, after what had seemed like an eternity of waiting for the worried first years, and McGonagall entered the foyer. She stood in the doorway for a few seconds, taking her time so she could have a good look at each child. When she felt she had a good assessment of the new class she smiled, ever so slightly, at the small crowd in front of her before she spoke. "We are ready for you now. Please, follow me."

She then whipped around on her toes and headed back into the great hall. The group of first years followed reluctantly behind her up the stairs and into the hall. As they entered the great hall all the older students attention was drawn to them. James felt his face flush slightly at the added pressure of the many eyes that were on them as they made their way past all of the other older students, who were already seated at their designated house tables. McGonagall lead them to the front of the room, where each of the students lined up before the teachers, who were each looking at them with smiling faces as the students eyes traveled past the loan chair that was sitting at the front of the room with a worn out, grubby looking hat sitting upon it.

"First years, the sorting is about to begin. When I call your name you will come forward and place the sorting hat on top of your head. Once it has decided which house you will be placed in, you will, then, join your fellow classmates at your table. Do you understand?" All of the students nodded a reply, not knowing whether or not the clearly strict woman had wanted a verbal answer. "Then let the sorting begin."

A moment later the hat began to sing about the founders of Hogwarts and why the hat itself had been created. Once the hat had completed its song the hall broke into a wild applause. While the first years just stood in front of the room, still slightly unnerved by the situation they had just been unwillingly placed in. Then Professor McGonagall came forward once more with a large scroll in her hands and quickly called off the first name, "Andrews, Caitlyn." The four boys watched as the small blond haired girl walked over to the stool and gently picked up the hat. She, then, sat down on the stool and placed the hat on top of her head, as instructed, and sat for a long while as she waited for something to happen. Eventually, the hat announced that she had been placed in Hufflepuff. Instantly, with an obvious sigh of relief combined with applause from the older Hufflepuffs, all of the first years were at ease.

They watched silently as McGonagall called off all of the "A's" which was followed with "Black, Sirius." Sirius let out deep sigh and looked over at James with a half smile. James just grinned back and offered him a thumb's up, before Sirius walked over to the stool and placed the hat on his own head. The hat had barely touched his ears before it yelled out "Gryffindor!" More applause followed the declaration.

And so the sorting commenced regularly for the remaining three until Remus' name was called and he was also sorted into Gryffindor. James watched him join Sirius with a wide smile that grazed wildly across his face as a group of red heads, who were all standing up at the Gryffindor's table, started giving him catcalls as he walked towards them. Remus just smiled even more widely than he had when his house had been called as he sat down beside Sirius and turned his attention back to the front of the room. James gave Remus a small wave before he too turned his attention back to a "Mogenson, Wesley," who had just been sorted into Ravenclaw.

James clapped for the boy, along with the other students, and continued to wait as patiently as he could for his own name to be called. The "P's" started to be declared and for the first time that entire night James felt his stomach start to do small back flips in anticipation of his own sorting. When Peter's name was called James noticed that he seemed to be visibly shaking in fear. Peter had to sit for a very long time before the hat eventually yelled out "Gryffindor." The Gryffindors began to clap the loudest they had up until that point as he made his way to the table, with a shocked expression on his face. James laughed at the small smile for the poor boy had nearly had a heart attack when the Gryffindor table erupted with clapping and more catcalls from the red heads. While all along Peter just smiled politely at them and sat down across from Remus.

"Potter, James."

James jumped slightly at the sudden shouting of his own name but quickly regained his composure and walked up to the old stool. He took a deep breath before he picked up the hat, sat down, and put it over his head. The hat had barely even hovered over his hair for a second, before it yelled out Gryffindor. He smiled triumphantly and then joined Remus, Peter and Sirius. "I'm glad it's over." He stated before he looked back up at the front of the room as the ceremony began to wind down. James' brain slowly began to drift away from the sorting and started to fill with thoughts about the upcoming feast that was merely minutes away.

McGonagall called out only a few more names before "Snape, Severus" echoed throughout the room. They watched as a small boy with greasy black hair and a smug smile on his pale face came forward out of the small line of remaining first years. Sirius grimaced at the boy and whispered "Slytherin" as the hat yelled out the same as it grazed the first couple of stray hairs on his oily head. Severus quickly put the hat back down on the stool and walked past the four boys as he made his way towards his own house table.

Peter watched him closely as he walked by. "He's kind of… creepy, don't you think?"

Sirius nodded, "He's a carbon copy of every member of my family, I bet you." James nodded. He was getting the same vibe from the boy as Peter. James watched the boy get acquainted with a few of his fellow house members before he turned his attention back to the ceremony once more. The last of the names was called out, Weasley, Christopher, who was also sorted into Gryffindor. The boy walked slowly to the back of the room at the end of the table and sat down by them. He only sat about a foot away from the four boys and had joined the group of red heads, who were most definitely his family members. They other red heads were still yelling and screaming as loudly as they possibly could in celebration for their younger brother's apparent victory even after he had been completely seated at the table with them.

As soon as the ceremony was over the students assembled, immediately began to talk loudly with their friends. The loud chatter about the upcoming year gradually increased with volume as they tried to hear themselves over the countless number of other students in the hall. James sat smiling with his friends as they went back to talking quietly over their own plans as they waited patiently for the food to be served, but, unfortunately, nothing came. James' stomach rumbled loudly and he looked up towards the staff table where an elderly man with a very long white hair and half moon eyeglasses rose from his seat, immediately the hall fell silent.

"I have only a few things to say, as most of you have noticed, I am the new Headmaster of this school. Most of you already know that I am Professor Dumbledore, and for those of you that don't, now you do. There are only a few minor changes for me to note. One, a new tree has been planted on the school grounds as a gift from the minister. Although, he seems to have an odd sense of humor because it happens to be a Whomping Willow, and therefore no student is to go near it unless they want to suffer tremendously." He looked the room over and James could have sworn that he had stopped to look at the four of them before he continued. "As always the forbidden forest is prohibited to all students, and on a final unpleasant note, dungbombs and frog spawn have been added to Mr. Filches' list of objects forbidden inside the castle. Now, let the feast begin."

In the next instant the gold plates and goblets in front of them were filled with mountains of delectable foods. Sirius and James began to dig into it without any signs of the manners that their parents had instilled in them from the time they had been born. They piled mountains of potatoes, chips and chicken onto their own plates while Remus looked at the food obviously deciding what he would like most, and Peter just began to munch on a chicken leg with an evident lack of being able to decide on what he wanted at all.

"What are we going to do about the dungbombs?" Sirius asked after swallowing a very large amount of mashed potatoes.

Remus shrugged his reply, honestly, not caring about any of their prank problems at that particular moment. Right now he was just glad he was at Hogwarts. He wouldn't want to be anywhere else and he didn't want to worry about anything else either. He looked over at James, who was smiling widely and now was busying himself by talking with Peter about making the Quidditch team. James looked down the table at all of the other Gryffindors before he turned his attention back to Peter and exclaimed that he was going to be the best Chaser Gryffindor team would ever see. Remus just chuckled when he heard the announcement before he received a glare from his three new friends.

James' smile faded only a few notches by Remus' outburst and continued slightly on in defense. "What? I am."

"Sure you are, James. I'll never doubt you again." Remus said with a calm tone before he looked up at the enchanted ceiling where a waning crescent moon stood predominately in the 'sky,' shining brightly.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" All four of the boys jumped at the sound of the unexpected female voice.

James, who had been looking intently at the grimacing face Remus had made at the enchanted moon, turned to look at the owner of the voice. She was a pretty red headed girl with bright green eyes and a smile to match. He smiled reluctantly back at her, still not very happy to be interrupted with his discussion in the first place.

"Are you done with the mashed potatoes? The boys at our end of the table ate them all."

"Yeah, sure, take 'em." Sirius said through a mouthful of chicken, forgetting his manners completely. She frowned at him and took the bowl away from Peter who had held it out to her patiently waiting for the weight to be lifted from his small arms. James watched her walk away, down a little ways from them to the very end of the table where the whole family of red heads were seated.

"You think they're related?"

Remus shook his head at the question, "I doubt it. She just said 'the boys' if they were related she would have probably addressed them like they were siblings or something." James nodded in agreement and went back to his food, finding that it was more important that anything else at that moment.

The rest of the feast was just quite typical of feasts. The chatter went on as the food slowly but surely began to disappear. Once the students were finished with their food they sat back in their seats talking with their friends entirely full and relaxed. Eventually, the headmaster gave his last little speech ("Classes start in the morning and now: bedtime.") and the students quickly shuffled out of the hall into the foyer where they met up with their house prefects who were to help them get to their common room.

"First years, this way." A prefect yelled, "Follow me."

Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter followed their Gryffindor prefects down the hallways and up the hundreds of staircases, or so it seemed to them for they were all quite tired by the time they reached this point, until they reached a painting of a fat lady in a pink dress. They stopped as the prefect began to try and get their attention. Once he was sure that he had most of the first years attention he began his speech.

"Now, listen carefully, I am only going to say the password once. This is the only way to get into our common room. You will never give this to anyone else, or else. Have you all got that?" Everyone nodded his or her heads, too tired to say their answer verbally. "Alright then." The prefect then turned to face the painting, which smiled at them as she greeted him and the herd of first years behind him who were waiting patiently until they were let into their common room. Then, she asked for the password. "Pear Drop." In an instant the painting flung open and the first years stepped inside. Most of which were too tired to be amazed by the scene that had just played out before them. While others, mostly Muggleborns, stood with their mouths open at the fat lady, and then continued to gape at the interior of the common room as the prefect told them whose dorms were up which staircase.

After the prefect was finished with his information, James and his small gang of friends climbed up the winding staircase up to the first years dorms and walked down to the end of the hall with droopy eyes. They entered the last room to the left and walked slowly over to their trunks that were already waiting for them. They opened their trunks, pulling out their belongings for the nights sleep. After putting their pajama's on, they fell asleep almost the instant their heads had hit the soft pillows.

"I don't think we've ever had such a pair of troublemakers"

Chapter Three: Dungbombs

James' eyes opened slowly, still heavy with sleep, to the sounds of shuffling papers, and the distinct sound of a quill scratching against parchment. He sat up in his bed and gradually leaned over to his bed stand and retrieved his glasses. He could hear Sirius snoring in the background as he placed the specs on his nose giving his eyes the chance to focus on the wooden table.

When he could clearly see the grain in the ancient table he turned his attention to the room he was in. For the first time, James took a real look at the circular dormitory. He smiled to himself as he began to unconsciously critique it. The room was spacious and easily fit the four boys and all of their belongings. It had a fair mess to it, as he looked at the clothes that they had scattered on the floor from the night before. He smiled at the homely look they had managed to give it in less than twelve hours. Then he turned his gaze to the window and the rising sun. It really was too early for him to be up, he thought mildly to himself before he stopped to look at Remus, who was up, and also apparently wide awake as he wrote something furiously down on a spare piece of parchment.

"What are you doing?" James whispered not wanting to wake the others. Remus jumped slightly, and glared at his paper where his quill had dripped black ink, untidily, on his newly written words, before he too the time to look up at James.

He shrugged his shoulders before he replied. "I'm writing a letter to my mum."

James' eyebrows furrowed. "Why? Do you miss them already?"

Remus nodded. "A little. I've never really been allowed to go anywhere because of her illness. She was ecstatic when I got my letter, so proud." He gazed at the confused look on James' face that seemed to say 'You're a pureblood why wouldn't you get a letter?' Remus sighed, knowing full that this would have come up eventually. "My mum’s a muggle. My dad’s the wizard, and besides that, everyone in my family gets sick... a lot. We thought the constant threat of illness would keep me away from here. But then Dumbledore was appointed headmaster and he said I could come to school." A smile slowly began to twitch at the corners of Remus' mouth. But it disappeared and he finished seriously, "I'm sorry, I woke you up." With that he returned to his letter.

James laid back down in his bed and stared up at the canopy above him, carefully listening to Sirius' snoring and Peter's soft echoing. No wonder Remus couldn't sleep. He felt sort of sorry for Remus. It must have been horrible to have such an illness in his family, but then again Remus had never said what the ailment was exactly. James sighed in thought, and quickly made a mental note to ask him about that later. Right now, he just wanted to go back to sleep, the only problem was that now he couldn't.

He laid there for a long while before he finally gave up and got out of his warm bed. He then put on his school robes and grabbed his book bag, "I'm going down to the common room." Remus groaned a reply as James walked out of their room and down the staircase to the common room. Once he entered the room he felt his own mouth drop slightly. It was huge. The fireplace had its fire blazing. Its warm glow filled the room’s berth and the warmth it gave was comforting. He smiled slightly as he noticed the red headed girl from last nights feast sitting in one of the large crimson couches. He sat down next to her, and no sooner began to zone out as he stared into the depths of the orange flames dancing wildly within the fireplace.

"You couldn't sleep either?" He jumped at the sound of the soft voice coming from beside him.

"No, one of my roommates woke me up, and I couldn't get back to sleep."

She nodded in understanding, which James found oddly comforting. "I just couldn't sleep." She stated as she pulled out a small muffin and placed it in her mouth. She chewed on it for a while and once the tiny morsel had disappeared. She then turned to James with another cake in her hand. "You want one? My mum made them for me for the train ride. I didn't eat them then because I was too worried about what it would be like here, but they're still good." James took the small cake from her with a small ‘thank- you’. She grinned at him. She has a pretty smile, he thought to himself. "By the way, my name's Lily Evans."

He quickly swallowed the cake she had offered him and replied, praying that he’d managed to get it all down properly, "James Potter." He retorted as he held out his hand.

She took it gratefully. "Nice to meet you James." They shook hands before breaking into a small fit of giggles.

"So you and that friend of yours- Sirius, right?" He nodded, not really caring if she was possibly going to talk badly about one of his other mates, "you were talking about Quidditch. Er- what exactly is that?"

James felt his mouth drop in utter shock. "You don't know what Quidditch is?" She shook her head. He just found himself blink blankly at her, not knowing what to do with such foreign words coming out of her mouth. Once he had finally found the words, he tried his best to explain the sport to her. "Well, then, it's a game that involves brooms. The object is basically to score a bunch of points using the chasers. Each position has a different ball to use. For instance, the Chasers use a Quaffle to score by throwing it through one of three hoops past the Keeper whose sole job is to prevent that exact thing form happening."

"So, he's like a goalie." James arched his eyebrows at her. What was she going on about?

"Sure... anyway, then there's the Beaters and they try to hit the Bludgers out of their team’s way in the other players direction, trying to knock them off of their brooms. Finally, there's the Seeker and their only job is to catch the Snitch- a very small gold ball that's terribly fast and hard to see. Once they accomplish that the games over and the team who caught it is awarded one hundred and fifty points. Most of the time, declaring that team the winner." He finished quickly and looked Lily in the eyes as she nodded her head trying to cover up the fact that her eyes told him she hadn't understood any of it. "It's really simple once you watch a few games."

"Yeah, erm- anyway, how long have you been friends with those three?" She stopped, not wanting to talk about this game anymore, and partially sorry that she had even asked about it in the first place. "Because you seem really close to them."

James sighed. "Sirius, well, we've been friends for as long as I can remember." He stopped to think. Sirius had been his friend forever. He couldn't think of a single memory without Sirius being involved in it someway or another. They were troublemakers together; one would never screw up without the other around for backup. As of late, though, Sirius and he had been reduced to having to sneak out of their houses late in the night so that they could see each other, because their parents had had a row with each other that involved the Black's beliefs about acceptable pureblood behavior. Mainly, how one shouldn't mingle with anyone who talks to muggles or muggleborns.

He looked back at Lily realizing he'd just spaced out again. "Remus we met about a month ago in Diagon Alley, and Peter we just met on the train. No one else would let him stay in their car so we let him stay with us. He seems alright and is pretty much up to all of our plans for this year." He grinned mischievously while his mind traveled back to some of their planned pranks. Peter was sort of on an audition to get into the inner circle in James' mind. Remus had been let in the minute he had ‘accidentally’ tried out one of the Zonko’s product testers on an unsuspecting stockboy. Right now, he just needed a little refining. All of which would come with time.

"What kind of plans?" Lily asked all too interested in what James was possibly up too.

He looked at her blankly, wanting to tell her, but knowing it was too risky in their line of business, "Top secret ones."

She frowned at him just before a sudden movement in the boys’ staircase caused them both to jump. James looked over in the vicinity of where the movement had occurred and his eyes fell upon Remus, who was just standing unsurely at the bottom of the stairs. James grinned at the boy and noticed that his letter was grasped firmly in his hands. "Finished?"

"Yeah, I don't know if it's any good, but it's done." He looked over at Lily. "Hi." He said and then turned back to James. "Er- would you go to the Owlery with me?" James nodded.

Lily smiled at him as he followed Remus out of the room. He gave her a quick wave goodbye before they exited through the portrait hole. Remus and James walked up the innumerable flights of stairs in silence. Just the sound of their footsteps on the stone floor filled the air, but it seemed to be enough for both of the boys as they made their way to their destination. They emerged in the Owlery and Remus went over and attached the letter to one of the school owl's legs before he let it go. He watched it in silence as it gradually disappeared from view. Once he could no longer see it soaring above the forbidden forest he turned back to James. "Who was that girl?"

"Her name is Lily Evans. I think she's muggleborn." He said bluntly without even thinking about how it would sound out in the open.

"Is that a bad thing or something?" Remus asked in a slightly aggravated tone. He hated it when people judged others by what they appeared to be and not by what they actually were. He’d dealt with that issue enough within his own short life.

"No, of course not! She just didn't know about Quidditch and she would know about it if she lived in the wizarding world like you or me. I just put two and two together. Nothing more." He looked at Remus with a quizzical look. "Honestly, it was just an observation."

Remus stared at him for a while with a straight face but then slowly but surely a smile began to tug at his mouth, "Okay, don't get all defensive, I was just razing you." James glared at him. "Anyway," Remus continued looking over James' shoulder before he looked back at him directly, "about that top secret stuff. When are we going to get started? Because it's only the first day and it's still a little early in the year to prank someone." He stopped. James was listening intently but the boy must have misunderstood his blank expression because he continued quickly. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid of pranking, I just...well...think we should start off with a good record before we do something to break the rules. That way we won't be blamed for what we do." He looked at James who had his arms crossed firmly against his chest. "First impressions are important, you know."

James chuckled, "I know that. Plus Sirius and I hadn't planed on anything until about the third week in the month."

Remus' eyes widened. "What!" he exclaimed. Once he realized what he had done his face started to turn a dark shade of crimson. "Erm- how about the last week. I'm -er- going to visit my cousin, she's- er- in hospital and Dumbledore said that was the only week I could escape from my lessons and go to visit her." He lied quickly, without an ounce of the guilt even tracing his face.

James looked at Remus, who wouldn't look him in the eyes. "That's awful." He said as his mind wandered back to what Remus had said earlier. "What's she sick with?"

"Er- the healers don't know and that's why I want to see her. We don't know what's wrong." Remus was amazed at how easy it was to lie to his new friend. But then again, if James or any of the others ever found out the truth about him, he'd have no one left and he’d be alone; again. He had already resolved that he wasn't going to screw this up. He finally had friends and nothing was going to screw that up.

James just stared at Remus in awe. That would be a horrible thing to have in your family, if even the best healers at St. Mungo's Hospital for magical maladies and injuries, didn't even know what was wrong. He was brought out of his trance when Remus told him they should go back to their dorm and collect their things for their first class. James agreed and they made their way back up to Gryffindor tower in as much silence as they had going to the Owlery. They entered their room and found Sirius wide-awake and frantically rummaging through his ‘bottomless’ bag looking for some book that he'd managed to misplace. Peter was in the corner by the window quietly keeping himself busy by looking through his Transfiguration book.

"Where were you?" Sirius said without looking up from his search of the abyss, known currently as: underneath his bed.

"We went to the Owlery to send a letter to my mum." Remus answered.

"Oh," Sirius said nonchalantly. "Have any of you seen my Potions book?"

James rolled his eyes, "I doubt if we have potions today."

"I know that! I would just like to know where it is." He said a little irritated and finally took the time to look up at them. Both Remus and James shrugged in response as Sirius threw his bag down on the floor and began to search through his trunk, which already appeared to have been gone through, at least once, in his hunt.

James just shrugged his shoulders at his friend and opened his own trunk. He took out a thick book (Beginning Transfiguration), a few quills, some ink and an extra sugar quill just incase he didn't feel like writing down any notes for the day; which would probably be the case. He then shoved the objects into his own bag. As soon as he had shut his book bag he shot up from his position on his bed as Sirius yelled out victoriously. Obviously, he had found his book.

"I'm ready," Sirius said suddenly, "anyone want to go down for breakfast?"

James once again found himself roll his eyes at his friend and followed Sirius out of the room with Remus and Peter closely behind him.

The four boys went down to breakfast talking fast to each other about what sort of a monster would be teaching their first class until they reached the Great Hall and took their seats at the Gryffindor table. James unconsciously looked down the table at Lily who was, once again, sitting with the red headed family. She noticed his glance and waved to him. He waved back and then returned to his friend's attention when the prefect handed him his schedule for the day.

"So Quidditch trials start next week. Any of you going to try out?" Sirius said happily. Just then a cruel venomous sounding laugh came from behind them. They all turned around to look at the short boy with greasy black hair that had been sorted into Slytherin during last night's ceremony.

"You're joking right! You don't honestly think you'll make the team." At their stiff expressions the boy assumed that they did. His lip curled into a cruel lopsided grin that showed his yellowish teeth, "That's pathetic. You'll be laughed off the field if you tried something like that. A first year hasn't made the team in nearly eighty years." He gave them one last smirk, "But I'd love to see you try, it’d make for a good laugh." And with that the boy strode off looking quite pleased with himself as he returned to his own table. The four boys made a quick note that he sat alone at the Slytherin table.

"Who the hell does he think he is? Strutting around like that! He hasn't even got any friends!" Sirius exclaimed as soon as the boy had taken his seat at his own table: far away from the four Gryffindors.

James nodded in agreement. "Well, I'm trying out. I don't care what he says."

Remus nearly choked on his pumpkin juice as he strangled out. "You're joking, right?" James gave him his infamous warning glare. "They will laugh you off the field. He may be a jerk, but he's right."

"I don't care." He stated defiantly. James then looked down at his watch hoping for a change of subject. He sighed at the time and then continued. "We should probably be going." He then quickly downed the rest of his food, picked up his bag and left, his friends following closely behind him.

They walked along the endless amounts of halls while Sirius went on about how horrible the greasy haired boy must have to be to have even the Slytherins dislike him. He only stopped when he felt the need to congratulate James on his decision to try out for the team despite what the ‘moron’ had said. Finally, after what had seemed like an eternity to James, they found the Transfiguration room and took up residence in the back of the classroom. The bell rang and Professor McGonagall stood up from her raised desk and waited in front of it until the class had settled down.

"Transfiguration is the ability to turn one object into another." She began firmly and evenly. She looked around at all of the students as she said these words. "Most of you already know this." She took one more sweep of the room with her level gaze. "Of course there are rules in this classroom. I do not except late work, tardiness is inexcusable and two will result in detention. There will be no horseplay in this room and talking when I am is prohibited." She looked firmly at two girls who were located in the front row who were openly gossiping to one another about something insignificant to Transfiguration, no doubt. They grew quiet iimmediately.

"Now, with that being said, I want you all to take a beetle from this box," She held a small wooden box up to the class, "we will be turning them into toothpicks." She handed the box to the two girls who gave the bugs dirty looks. "Now, pay attention, I am only going to do this once." She took out her own beetle from the box, took out her wand, and uttered "Denseligo" to it. Instantly, it turned into a toothpick. "Alright, you have the hour to get it down." She went back to her desk and sat down to take attendance. Occasionally, she would glance up at a certain student and then look back down at the roll.

Sirius leaned into James as he passed him the box of beetles and muttered. "This is going to be fun." He then placed the beetle on his desk.

James nodded. "She's not one you want to cross, is she?" Sirius just grunted as he placed his bug, belly up, on the desktop. James looked at McGonagall before he uttered the spell and looked down at his bug as it morphed into a toothpick. He smiled and turned it back. "That was easy enough." He said proudly.

Sirius groaned. He secretly hated the fact that James was naturally good at pretty much everything he did. He turned his attention back to his own bug and tried the same thing, but only managed to get a crooked toothpick with legs. He turned it back and tried again and. This time he successfully completed the transformation. He looked up from his toothpick-bug and smiled widely at James. Then he turned around. "Remus." He said as he faced the boy behind him. Remus looked up from his deformed beetle a bit provoked. "Have you got it yet?"

"No."

"Oh." Sirius looked over at James who had his book open and was now busy trying to change his ‘toothpick’ into assorted household objects. "Well, James has got it." He said borderline proud, yet there was a tint of bitterness in his young voice.

"I can see that. Now, can I get back to my bug?"

Sirius smirked. "Oh, I understand, you two need some quality time together." He chuckled to himself while Remus just glared at him.

"You think you're clever don't you?" Remus stated sarcastically.

"I am clev-" Just then a small explosion erupted from Sirius' bag as Peter uttered something, obviously, mispronounced in Latin. The chubby boy's eyes grew wide as Sirius' bag began to smoke a bit from its seams, letting off a putrid smell as it began to burn. Sirius looked at him with his eyes wide with anger and shock. "What did you do?" He mouthed as he tried to step on his bag to stop it from further catching on fire. Another dungbomb went off as James began to laugh uncontrollably. He watched while McGonagall stood up from her desk and swiftly made her way towards them, she stopped in front of them with her lips pressed tightly together forming a thin line.

By then the whole class was laughing as Sirius' bag erupted into flames. His stomping grew into a bit of a frantic jig as he tried to put out the growing flames. McGonagall took out her wand and uttered "Exstinguo" to it as water shot out of the tip of her wand and extinguished the fire at Sirius' feet. She rounded on the both of them. "Detention. Sixty points will be taken from Gryffindor." She looked at Sirius and then to James. "And I would like to see you both after class." She turned on her heels and walked back to the front of the room where she situated herself at her elevated desk. "Everyone back to work." She said seriously. Everyone did as they were told.

Sirius took his seat and looked at James. Simultaneously, they turned around to face Peter. "Thanks." They muttered miserably as a girl got up to open a window, in an attempt to get rid of the grotesque smell the Dungbombs had given off which was now lingering within the confines of the classroom.

Class went on for the remainder of the period without interruption until the bell rang, giving James and Sirius the signal to get up and walk the endless trek to the Professor's desk. The other students filed out of the room and once they had all left, James stood up and started to walk towards McGonagall with Sirius in tow. McGonagall looked up at them only when they had stopped directly in front of her, neither one of the boys could bring themselves to make eye contact with her.

"Mr. Black and Mr. Potter." She started as both of them mustered up the courage they needed to look their professor in the face. "I am sorry to say that I am shocked at both of your behavior's. Never before have I seen two Gryffindor's behave as you have today-"

"But it was an accident. Peter blew-" Sirius interrupted only to receive an authoritatively defiant stare from McGonagall.

"Mr. Black, your bag held objects forbidden inside of this school, and that, I am sure, was no accident. And Mr. Potter, " She turned her steady glaze to him, "you only encouraged such behavior, and therefore you are just as guilty as Mr. Black." She sighed slightly. "Your detentions will be served tonight. Mr. Black, you will arrive here with Mr. Potter at seven o' clock and Mr. Black, you will continue to arrive here at seven o’ clock for the next three nights afterwards. A letter will be sent home to both of your parents informing them of your behavior." She looked at both of them evenly. "Now off you go." With that she turned to the work that was sitting on top of her desk and the two boys were left to trudge out of the classroom.

They met Remus and Peter, who were waiting patiently outside of the room for the two to return, outside of the classroom. They stopped in front of the two boys and tried their best to smile at them. All attempts at this simple act failed miserably.

"How bad is the damage?" Remus asked looking very concerned.

"We both have detention." James replied miserably.

"Yeah, well, at least you only have to do it for tonight. I have the next three nights with detention!"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it." Peter whined pathetically, practically on the verge of tears.

James nodded, "I know." He said softly as Sirius just mumbled something unintelligible at the three of them and huffed off. James sighed, as he looked at Peter's red eyes that had begun to glaze over with the threat of tears as he watched Sirius trudge off without them. "It's okay, he'll get over it, in a few weeks."

"A few weeks." Peter moaned.

"Yeah, he tends to hold grudges but I'll talk to him." James looked at Peter once more. The boy kept staring at the place in the hall where Sirius had disappeared from view, completely miserable. "Trust me, it'll be okay."

Peter just nodded and they continued to walk up to Gryffindor tower. When they reached the portrait hole James uttered the password and they walked inside. Immediately, they were cornered by Christopher Weasley and his eldest brother, Arthur Weasley; head boy.

"Is it true what Chris says? Did you really let off a bag full of Dungbombs in Professor McGonagall's class?" The seventh year inquired.

"Yes." Peter stated miserably, unable to look up past the upper classman’s feet.

Chris smiled widely before stating an ever-so-proud "I told you so" to his older brother.

"Bloody brilliant! No one would ever cross McGonagall. She’s been here a few times for inspections and whatnot, and no one would cross her like you did!" He smiled widely at the boys. "Simply amazing."

"Brilliant?" Sirius' voice came from behind the two Weasley boys. They turned around to face him. "Peter blows up my bag and it's brilliant?"

The two nodded violently. "Of course, it takes guts to pull something like that...not to mention to even think about doing that in her class. McGonagall is quite a stickler, as you must have noticed. " The four nodded their own heads. "Well, no one would even think of something like that let alone do it! You guys are the prank masters!"

The four smiled widely as they exchanged quick glances. "We are, aren't we?" Sirius stated proudly before the two boys left, most likely to go spread the word around the school.

"That was definitely unexpected." Remus alleged. "You'd think we were heros or something, all because of a little accident."

Sirius just grinned thinking of the accident. The glimpse of a future for the four boys stirred in his brain as he walked over to the comfy chairs in front of the fireplace. The other three followed suit. They instantly began to talk about what had happened during their first lesson for the remainder of their free period. Eventually, Remus treated them all with his own little over dramatized reenactment of Sirius trying to extinguish his bag as the boys laughed loudly. Once he had finished Sirius looked over at Peter. "By the way, you owe me a new bag."

"Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was."

Chapter Four: The Aftermath

The four troublemakers went to the remainder of their classes for that day and every once in a while an occasional remark from a fellow student referring to the ‘accidental’ prank they had pulled would reach their ears. Every time they received a new congratulation for the event they found that all they could manage in reply was a small smile directed at the people who were “brave enough” to approach them and congratulate them. Yet, the real shock came when they entered the Great Hall for dinner and all the students, aside from the Slytherins, stood up and clapped for them. The first time that had ever have happened in the school, for certain.

James stared at all the students, who were busy clapping and smiling at them, with his mouth gaping open. When he had quickly recovered he leaned into his mates’ shoulder and muttered. "Word certainly travels fast around here, doesn't it?" Sirius just nodded in agreement, too shocked to even produce even a somewhat comprehensive sound within his throat.

Once they had found the feeling in their legs they gradually walked past their fellow students. All the while, they continued to clap and holler at them as they passed by. Occasionally, one of their fellow peers would muster up enough bravery so that they were able to pat them on the back as a way of telling them that they had done a job well done.

They took their seats with a last round of applause resounding through the hall and just stared at each other for a few seconds. While, the few people that were “lucky” enough to sit next to them began to ask them questions, all coming at them at the same time. And all of them seemed to be asking how the four had managed to come up with such a brilliant prank. And from there actually managed to muster up enough courage to go through with it.

As the questions came at them, James took the time to look around at the Gryffindor table, hardly believing all of the excitement they had caused. I could get used to this, he thought as he turned his attention back to his inner circle of friends. He noticed instantly that Sirius had, once again, found his voice and was now telling some girl that he had only stomped on his bag to make it look as if it had been an accident and that Peter had, in all actuality, purposely set his brand new bag on fire. James looked at Peter, who was swelling up with pride, and almost laughed out loud at the look of pure joy on the small boy’s face. James was almost positive that Peter had never been recognized in such away before, and that the event was more thrilling than any one would ever truly know.

James smiled dumbly to himself when he finally felt Remus tap him on his shoulder. He looked over at the sandy haired boy and then to where he was pointing. The Slytherin table was completely silent. Not one of them said a single word to each other and all of the occupants of the table seemed to be holding their shoulders high with sour faces planted firmly on top. However, the greasy haired boy held the worst glare of them all. As James watched he noted that the boy kept an unfaltering look of hatred on the four boys, while he poked at the food that was sitting out before him. James smiled awkwardly in Snape’s direction before he leaned over and tapped Sirius on the shoulder. Sirius was in the midst of telling the Weasley children, all ranging in age, an even more exotic tale than the one he had told the girl about what had happened within the stone walls of McGonagall's classroom.

"What?" Sirius asked, clearly annoyed that his friend had interrupted his daring tale. James, following Remus’ lead, said nothing and just pointed in the direction of the young Slytherin boy. Sirius' face contorted into a smirk. "Well, this certainly wiped the smile off of his greasy face. That is, if you can even call what he does a smile." Sirius chuckled at his own cleverness while James just rolled his eyes at his friend.

"You know, he might not be that bad." Remus said in an innocent sort of way. James and Sirius turned to him and just stared blankly.

”Not that bad?" Sirius muttered in disbelief. He didn’t want to find out if the boy “wasn’t that bad.” In fact he didn’t even need to find out. He knew the boy’s attitude and demeanor from a mile off. He was just like any other member of the Slytherin house that Sirius had ever met, so he didn’t need to find out that the boy “wasn’t that bad.” Despite, or possibly because of these firm beliefs, Sirius still felt obligated to justify his previous retort. "You saw what he did to James this morning," he finished lamely coupled with a mild gesture of his hand in the direction of the boy in question, who was still busying himself with throwing daggers at them with his dark, seemingly unfeeling, eyes.

"Yes, he stated the truth," Remus said calmly.

"In a very rude way," Peter chimed in.

Remus just shrugged his shoulders, this was a losing battle, the boy was indeed a jerk but maybe it was just a cover. Maybe he just had something to hide, an exterior to fend off any unwanted beast, like most animals had in the wild. He looked at his friends, completely lost in his own thoughts, and viewed them without really seeing them as they went back to their separate story telling. Meanwhile, a piece of meat came hurtling towards them from the Slytherin table. Remus looked up at the table, suddenly snapped out of his dreamlike state, after the meat had landed blatantly upon Sirius’ food. Sirius uttered a cuss word under his breath, and chucked the food back at the greasy haired boy. Just then they watched as the woman in charge of Slytherin’s house walked over to Snape and scolded him, no doubt, for throwing the food. Remus sighed deeply, as he watched Snape get disciplined, knowing and hating the fact that his friends were right about the boy: he was never going to be kind or even nice to them, let alone anyone else.

Dinner went on with more recaps of the prank until James and Sirius noticed that it was time for their detentions. They got up slowly and walked out of the Great Hall (where only the Gryffindor's remained) and made their way up to the Transfiguration classroom. It was another endlessly horrible moment for the duo as they thought silently about what their punishments might be. They walked together in an echoing silence through the many hallways, as time appeared to slow down greatly, as it often seems to do when someone is awaiting the worst.

When they reached Professor McGonagall's room they noticed that the head of Slytherin house was standing next to the greasy haired boy. They stopped and stood in the doorway, staring at the three people in the room, finding that they greatly disliked whatever this new development could possibly mean.

"What is he doing here?" Sirius questioned openly, as he glared at the boy’s back.

"Maybe he got detention for throwing his food at us," James stated before he entered the room. Sirius stood there for only a second longer before he followed suit.

McGonagall looked at them only when they had come up to her elevated desk. She gave them the same disappointed expression that they had been lucky enough to receive earlier that day. "You will be cleaning out the bathrooms-" James and Sirius smiled at each other. This was going to be a cinch. "The Muggle way." They felt their mouths drop in shock. The muggle way was not only useless but also time consuming, especially to anyone who was not used to it.

She looked at both of them evenly. "Mr. Snape will be joining one of you." Again James felt his mouth drop even further in utter disbelief. If having to clean the bathrooms the Muggle way was bad, this was like being sent to Azkaban without having done the crime. "Yes, Mr. Potter, one of you. I will be splitting you up. Mr. Black, you will go with Mr. Snape to the dungeons, and you Mr. Potter will come with me." With that the Professor stood up and walked swiftly out of the room with James in tow.

He only had enough time for one last apologetic look at Sirius before they headed down the hallway towards the boy's lavatory on the second floor. He reached the room hardly believing the utter bulk of it. This was going to take him all night. Professor McGonagall picked up a bucket of useless things, like buttons and cotton swabs, and transfigured them into common Muggle household objects. She handed them to him and made herself comfortable in a chair, she had transfigured from a pillow cushion, in the far left corner of the room. He knew, that from there, she would be able to watch his every move until he was done with his detention work.

James put the bucket, that wasn’t really a bucket but had indeed started out as an empty goblet until McGonagall had gotten a hold of it, down and looked at the countless bottles inside. What do they need all this stuff for? He asked himself as he put some of the yellow liquid; that smelt of pine trees, into the bucket. He read the back of the bottle as carefully as he could trying to make sense of the words that were all plainly in English, yet still appeared to be talking in another language. Eventually, he attempted to follow the instructions, as best as he could, to make the cleaning solution. Once he completed that, he began to clean the floor. Then he moved onto the sinks and toilets.

It wasn't as easy Muggles made it look. Not only that, but it was also painful. His shoulders began to ache as his previously unused muscles in his arms began to tense up in the act of scrubbing. They felt as if they were going to stay that way for at least a month. Upon that, McGonagall's watchful eyes combined with her need to critique his work, just made matters worse for him. In the end, she made him re-clean the sinks about five times, until they were completely spotless. The toilets, he had washed about twenty more times than the sinks until they were in the proper condition. After he had finished those unsightly jobs, she made him clean the cobwebs out of corners of the room. From there she noted that the windows also needed to be both dusted and rinsed down from top to bottom until she was completely satisfied with her method of torture for an eleven-year-old boy, before she finally declared him finished.

He rejoiced silently, much too tired, and therefore unable, to do the “happy dance” he wanted to do, as he walked back up to Gryffindor Tower. During the long trip up the moving staircases he felt that his arms were hanging heavily at his side while his shoulders throbbed rhythmically, sending pain through his entire body. He only hoped, as he reached the final staircase of utter pain, that Sirius had had an easier time with his detention than he had. When he had finally reached the portrait of the fat lady and uttered the password tiredly before it sprung open, with some final reassuring words for him that he did not entirely register, he merely climbed inside without a word. He started to walk towards the staircase with heavy eyes up to the boys’ dormitories, when he heard his name, just barely, from what seemed to be coming from the outer regions of his brain. He turned around to see Remus sitting contently on the couch with a book that had a foreign title to it. James guessed that it was Muggle.

"Is Sirius back yet?" James asked as he folded the corner of his page and shut the book.

"No, you're the first one to come in here in almost an hour."

James grimaced at those words. If Sirius wasn't back yet he was definitely having a worse time than he had had with McGonagall. He frowned at Remus. "What are you doing up, anyway?"

Remus shrugged, "Thought you and Sirius needed a welcoming committee?" He smiled weakly at James. James cocked his eyebrow up at the thin boy who simply sighed deeply and continued. "Truthfully, I felt bad that you got caught and so did Peter-" The sandy haired boy pointed to a lump beside him. James smiled to himself as he looked at Peter who was sleeping on the couch, with a crimson blanket wound tightly around his pudgy body. "He didn't make it." Remus added unnecessarily with a slight chuckle.

James shrugged his shoulders, not bothered by that fact, and took a seat next to the soundly sleeping Peter. The fire was flickering in the fireplace, slowly loosing its warmth as the flames died down into red ambers burning uselessly in the night. He turned his attention back to Remus, who was just staring out the window at the endlessly dark sky. A vast void in space that seemed to generate hope for most people who looked upon it but there was a difference in the look upon Remus’ face. He seemed to be mildly loathing the vast space, rather than basking in its unique glory. James thought this to be a bit strange but just chalked it up to being just another part of the mystery that was Remus J. Lupin.

Suddenly, the portrait hole opened and Sirius came in, in a huff. His face was red with fury and his fists were clenched in complete rage as he glared at anything that moved within the room. "I hate that kid!" He yelled as he looked at James, Remus, and Peter, who had jolted awake at the sudden roar of Sirius' voice.

"Hmm?" Remus asked finally looking away from the night sky that seemed to chill him so.

"That Severus Snape kid, I had to re-do the bloody sinks ten times because he kept putting this green junk from his potions kit in it. And that stupid Professor Lamia just watched him do it! He wasn't supposed to even have it with him. But he did, and he'd dump it on whatever I was cleaning so I’d have to do it over again." They looked at him, hardly believing the level of his voice combined with the facts about how horrible that kid really was. "I was so glad when he left. He's going to pay for that." He pointed down to his left hand. It was bandaged tightly and bits of burns shown slightly on his exposed fingers.

"What happened?" Peter asked tiredly, as he eyed the pillow next to him with desire.

"Apparently, the green junk dissolves your skin if you touch it, and well, I touched it. I had to go down to the infirmary and lie my way through it too. That Madame Pomfrey questions everything. Oh, I swear he will pay for this." Sirius looked at his friends as if he was daring them to say otherwise. All of them were silent as they gazed at Sirius impassively.

Remus took note of the sudden tension that was beginning to fill the room, and instantly began to think of a way to ebb it away. "Er- I think it's time for bed," he spoke softly into the silent void of the room.

Sirius stared at him for a bit and then nodded. He then, without a word, made his way to the staircase and walked up to their dormitories leaving the rest of the boys alone. After Sirius had disappeared from view, James turned back around to look at Remus and faked a small smile. Remus just nodded. He understood James’ lack of words and followed Sirius' lead up to the dormitories.

"What did I miss?" Peter asked. He was now completely awake, and also utterly confused by their current situation.

"Nothing," James retorted. He didn’t want to fill in the blanks that Peter had missed while he was in his subconscious state.

"Oh."

James managed a small smile for the boy before he too headed up to bed with Peter close behind him. The boy again began to apologize for all the suffering the two of them had to go through because of his mistake. James, not wanting to hear anymore of the boy's comments, just tuned him out. Yet, this move only made him more aware of the pain in his shoulders from all the scrubbing he had had to endure.

He found his bed and was relieved by the comfy-ness of it as it engulfed him the instant he had laid down. He stared up at the canopy above him, as he listened to Sirius’ rolling over on his sides, obviously, fighting with the bed. This was actually a normal occurrence for him, though, James had to admit to himself, that Sirius was most likely having extra problems tonight, do to his detention and his current attitude. James smiled to himself as Peter's snoring joined the chorus of soft noises of the night.

"Sirius?" James found himself whisper into the darkness.

"What?"

"Was it really that bad?"

"Worse."

James stared at the curtains that were closed around Sirius' bed. They opened up only to reveal Sirius’ head with a frown placed firmly on it. His hair was as messy as if it was in competition with James' own hair, and his arms appeared to be crossed over his chest. "The kid is rude. I know who our first real victim is going to be." James nodded knowing all too well, that Snape had it coming. "But I just don't know how. It's got to be good though." Sirius stopped to think and looked strictly at James before he closed the curtains around his bed once more. Obviously, not wanting to explain his prank-plan problems any further.

Despite the circumstances James chuckled to himself. He knew that Sirius was most likely going to stay up all night, racking his brain for the most evil, intricate prank he could possibly come up with. James though, stayed up, busying his brain as he stared at the red patterns printed on the canopy above him, because he was too tired to even think of sleep. He listened to Peter snoring softly from the corner and Sirius’ rustling in his bed for something out of James' bag. James sighed and finally shut his eyes as he tried his best to block out the many sounds of the night, and drift off into a silent slumber.

"He hated James the most."

Chapter Five: Snape vs. Potter

"I've got it!"

James shot up out of his bed at the sound of the sudden voice that echoed wildly through his blank dream world he had just been visiting. He looked around him as his mind tried to place his surroundings but he quickly found that nothing was very clear. He felt around his bed for his glasses that he had fallen asleep in, and must have lost somewhere within the night. He located them laying lopsidedly on his pillow and placed them firmly on his ears. Instantly, the world became clear once more.

"What have you got?" James heard Remus ask as the a rustling of curtains being opened filtered through the room from every corner after the sudden outburst.

"The perfect prank." James rolled his eyes and opened his own curtains. He looked around the room only to see a barely awake Remus and a very scared Peter. He then turned to Sirius for some kind of an explanation. What he saw was a very excited Sirius, who still had very messy hair that looked like he had run his hand through it all night.

"Did you even get to sleep?"

Sirius stopped to think before he replied, "No."

James sighed and got out of his bed. He unconsciously checked the clock (seven o’ clock), and grabbed his robes and began to put them on. He didn't even want to know what Sirius had managed to come up with. Meanwhile, Remus made himself busy by putting his own clothes on and then going on to gather up his Potions and Herbology books. All the while, Peter asked Sirius countless questions about the upcoming prank, which Sirius didn’t answer because he was too busy concentrating on finding his potions book for the second day in a row.

After a while of this ongoing scene, James decided to head down to breakfast alone, not entirely wanting to bother the others as they tried their best to wake up. When he reached the great hall, he took his seat next to the Weasley family and began to eat his breakfast in peace. This didn't last long, though, because his friends joined him approximately the same time the mail had arrived. James watched half-interestedly as the owls dropped their assorted packages to their owners. Then four parcels were dropped before each of them. Remus had received his return letter, which he wouldn't let any of the others read. Peter, a box full of sweets his mother had made for him. And as for Sirius and James they had both received identical red enveloped letters. Sirius stared at the object as if it might explode within his hands. James just glanced at his like a large stench had just entered his vicinity.

"Well," he started matter-of-factly, as Sirius looked up from the letter with worried eyes, "We should open them together so they drown each other out." Sirius nodded too afraid to speak -- his mother was not one to be messed with, and he often had the bad habit of getting on her bad side. "On three. One ... two ... three!"

The two ripped open the letters. In an instant the sound of two very angry women started screaming out their own individual versions of "I NEVER EXPECTED YOU WOULD DO SUCH A THING!" James's mother had the cleaner version. While Sirius’ mum’s version wound up being more of a “LEAVE IT TO YOU TO PULL SOMETHING LIKE THIS. YOU --“ then she filled in more inappropriate words to describe her son. James and Sirius looked at each other both horrified as all eyes in the Great Hall fell on them. The students who were within ten metersheld their hands firmly over their ears as a way to escape from the screaming mothers, while others simply murmured about what was happening to one another and laughed moderately amongst themselves about the Howlers.

Sirius stared at his, wide-eyed, as if it were going to bite him. While James was just openly shocked that his mother could even speak some of the words she had placed in the letter. For she had begun to swear with Sirius’s mum, something that rarely happened with her when it came to scolding. When the screaming had ceased the letters hastily blew up. James looked up from the pile of ashes that had fallen gently on top of his breakfast at the rest of his friends, all of which were pale with fright. "Well, that was pleasant," he stated in monotone as he poked at his food that was now completely uneatable.

"I never want to get one of those," Remus said as he pushed his own plate of food away from him, now that he had lost his hunger.

James shrugged his shoulders at Remus’s comment. This was not the first Howler he'd received in his ten short years of life, but this one was definitely the worst. Or, then again, maybe it wasn’t. It definitely did come close to the one his father had sent him when he was away with Sirius' family and the two had decided to blow up a potion Sirius's mum was brewing for Sirius’s little brother, Regulus, when he had a cold. Actually, the blowing up part had been an accident. They had really just wanted to make it so the side effects of the altered potion would prevent the boy from talking for the next month or two.

James sighed and looked down at his watch, once he had located the hands that actually told the time, rather than what the others dials pointed out to him. Then he glanced back up at his friends with an uninterested expression. "We should probably be getting off to class." The others nodded and collected their books before they left the Great Hall, following James’s lead. When they left all eyes within the hall followed them as the walked by.

The boys, then, made their way down to the dungeons where they were to attend their first lesson of the day; potions, with the Slytherins. James entered the classroom first. It was dark and cold, and there were only a few students, mostly from the Slytherin’s house, which were seated in the desks located on the left side of the classroom. James looked around at the bookshelves that lined the room, all of which, were full of assorted Potions books, or bottles filled with ingredients. He directed his friends to the back row of seats on the right side, farthest from the Slytherins, and sat down. The others followed suit but Sirius kept his eyes firmly on Snape, who had made himself comfortable next to yet another dark haired boy, but this one seemed to have heard of shampoo because his hair was not at all greasy. James listened to snippets of the conversation the two dark-haired boys were having. Snape seemed to be going on about how his mother always told him he that he was wonderful at potions. Sirius chuckled at James’s side; obviously he had heard Snape's comments as well. James then turned to his friend, who mouthed "Mama's boy." They both burst out into a small fit of giggles before they regained their composure once more.

They turned back to Remus and Peter and smiled wickedly, still half-listening to Snape’s discussion on Potions with his new “friend.” "Honestly, who cares how good he is in this class?" Sirius said bluntly as he moved his glance from Remus’s face and began to stare at the boy with mild interest. All the while, he calculated all the possible things the boy had coming to him now.

James nodded in agreement, knowing, all the thoughts that were running through his best friends head. A second later the Professor stormed into the room. She practically glided to the front of the classroom, for her robes barely moved and her head didn't bob as she made her way to her destination. She was quite young and had long flowing black hair but it was her eyes that made the class weary. They were icy blue and appeared to have no source of feeling to give one any sense of warmth or goodness as they looked upon them. They seemed to judge the person for what they showed on their outer layer of being, rather than taking the time to care to get to know them. James heard a chair creak as Peter leaned over his desk to say, "Talk about creepy." James just nodded, while the Professor made a sweep of the class with her cold blue eyes.

Sirius then kindly added his ten cents after she had finished gazing at him, "Yeah, try spending the night in a room with her guarding the only exit."

James heard Peter mumble, "I said I was sorry," as the boy leaned back into his chair.

Sirius quickly took some parchment out from James's bag, where he had put his own belongings for the time being, because his bag was currently in the garbage. He then listened as the teacher gave her short introduction to the class.

"Good morning class, my name is Professor Lamia-"

"Her first name is professor, never would have thought of it," Sirius stated as James chuckled to himself.

"And for further knowledge I am not a vampire, despite the current rumor circulating this school."

Remus leaned forward, "Now why would we ever think that?" He mumbled to the others, who laughed more openly at this new comment.

"Is something funny?" she asked, once she looked at the four boys, who all shook their heads in protest. "Good, because I would hate to have to separate all of you." She stated. Her cold voice was soaked with sarcasm so pure it made their blood run cold with every syllable.

James looked over at some of the Slytherins to the left of them who had begun to chuckle. He immediately saw Snape smirking from his seat, kindly displaying his despicable yellow teeth. James grimaced and mumbled something about Sirius's prank to himself as he looked back over at the professor, who was also smirking openly at the four boys.

Professor Lamia then went into her lesson, without any further delay, about what sort of ingredients go together and what ones never should be mixed. James was, once again, reminded of his one and only potions experience in Sirius’s dark kitchen. As she went on with her lecture she would periodically quiz the class, and for every single question she asked Snape would raise his had. Sirius took special note of this unnatural behavior for any student, for most simply tried to pretend they were a combination of being invisible, incredibly stupid, and or dead. He leaned into James, "What a geek." Was all he said before he went back to his notes, which were rather miniscule in the first place.

"That covers the basics. Please take out your potions book and turn to page ten. Collect the supplies you will need from the counter to my left, follow the instructions on the board," she then flicked her wand a bit and the instructions for the potion appeared on a blackboard to her left, "and for homework I want the assignment on page twelve; chapter one, section one, complete and ready by the beginning of your next class." She then turned away from her students and wandered into her office.

James sighed and began the day’s work by looking at the list of ingredients from the page given. He casually took out the things he began to add the first few ingredients to the potion while Sirius went up to the counter and collected the rest of the supplies they would need.

They went on with the class for a while, each of them carefully following what the chalkboard instructed them to do. Halfway through the period, Snape walked by their desk and tripped over Peter's bag and consequentially, almost knocked over the cauldron Remus and Peter were sharing forwards onto both James and Sirius, who were sitting directly in front of them. Luckily though, Remus caught the cauldron just in time. This, though, did not stop Sirius from uttering a few words that only his mother could have taught him. After he had finished with his outburst he went back to his work without another word being spoken.

Toward the end of the class, as James added the last ingredient (Boomslang), a large explosion resounded from behind them and echoed loudly throughout the dark classroom. The entirety of the class turned around to see Peter covered, from head to toe, with the potion that he and Remus had been making for the whole of the double period. Slowly at first and then gradually it picked up speed, the exposed parts of the two boy’s skin began to shrivel up.

Remus was too shocked to be angry, or even distressed about the situation. He just looked up from his friend as Professor Lamia came out of her office, having heard the explosion, with a look of murder placed firmly on her pale features. Meanwhile, Peter looked as if he was going to cry as the professor instructed Remus and Peter to go down to the infirmary, her face reddened with pure rage.

She muttered some terrible things about not being able to leave Gryffindors, let alone first years, alone in a classroom for any length of time, as she shooed the two out of the room. Once they had left, she announced that she would be taking twenty points, and undoubtedly should have taken more, from Gryffindor for their lack of being able to pay attention in class. James with his newly developed instinct, looked over at Snape only to find that he was sneering venomously at the remaining members of their four-boy cult.

The bell resounded throughout the school shortly after the potions class had finally begun to settle down from the commotion that had been caused by the explosion. Immediately, the students began to leave the room, all of which were still talking excitedly about what had just happened. James just glared at the laughing Slytherins as he put his and Sirius's things back into his bag. Once he was sure he had everything both he and Sirius joined the line of students that was filing out of the classroom. When the two had managed to exit the room they walked past the countless number of students that filled the dungeon hallway, practically wall to wall, until they heard an unwanted, familiar voice, call out from behind them. They turned around and faced Snape who had a small boy they had not yet seen with him. Apparently, by the similar smirks on both of the boys’ faces, Snape had managed to make a new friend. "Doesn't your friend know that you should never add Boomslag to Billywig stings?"

"And where would he get the Billywig stings? It wasn't even in the potion ingredients."

James felt his mouth drop at Snape's snide words. The pieces of the day’s events in potions began to fall into place. Snape had tripped over Peter's bag -- he must have placed it in there when he had pretended to try and prevent the cauldron from falling over. "You did it!" James growled out as he gaped openly at the pale boy’s cruelness.

"Very good,” Snape replied with complete sarcasm. “And you stupid gits didn't even realize I had done it until it was too late." He paused smiling wickedly at the both of them. "I mean the potion wasn't even the right col- "

In the next instant James had lunged himself at Snape. He wildly began to punch anything that he could get a hold of. As his fists connected with assorted limbs, Sirius tried his best to pry his friend off of the smaller boy, but James was stronger than him. Sirius looked around not entirely knowing what else to do. If Professor Lamia came out they'd all get another detention, which was also something, he knew, they did not want. Yet, at the same time, Snape did deserve every hit James gave him.

"James." There was no answer. So Sirius tried once more. "James, stop. Do you want another detention?" James's hand stopped in mid-blow, just leaving enough space in between the boy’s face and his hand so that Sirius could see Snape with one swollen eye and a very bloody, and possibly broken, nose. James looked at the boy as consciousness started to dawn on him. This was the first time he'd ever lost it like that.

He slowly picked himself up off the ground. He looked around at the small crowd of people, all were of different ages and houses that had joined to watch him pummel the boy, and noticed that his legs were completely numb. Then without a word to anyone, he walked off, out of the dungeons, leaving Sirius with nothing to do but follow him. They walked the full distance to Gryffindor tower in complete silence. They only began to talk to one another when they had settled down, within the confines of their common room, and had finally gotten a grip on their tempers. Once they had gained full composure, did they notice a bandaged Peter, who was sitting on the couch, crying, next to Remus, who also had a few bandages on his hands, as he tried his best to comfort their weeping friend.

James joined him, scolding himself silently for losing his cool around Snape while he looked caringly at Remus, who had an expression of pain on his pale face. He silently wondered if he too was getting sick, because the boys face had gone quite ashen since the day before. Somehow, James did not think that Remus’s appearance had anything to do with Peter’s crying or his own injuries.

Peter broke the habitual silence they had fallen into with what was on everyone's mind. "He put something in the potion."

"We know," Sirius answered, knowing exactly who "he" was.

James thought for a second and then smiled viciously, "Sirius, the prank."

"What prank?" Sirius and Remus asked in unison both with the same look of confusion placed openly on their faces.

James sighed. Honestly, sometimes Sirius was just daft. "The one you stayed up all night figuring out." Sirius's eyes lit with dawning comprehension.

"Oh yeah."

"Is it as good as you say it is?" James asked absolutely positive that it was. Sirius nodded. "Well, what is it?"

Sirius stared at them for a while before he began. He then took out a piece of parchment from James' bag. It had writing all over it, which even included some small diagrams that were drawn out in Sirius's unruly hand. He smiled at the boys as he began to explain each of the diagrams separately and how they correlated to the prank as a whole. "Well, the whole point is to make him cry in humiliation, right? This is going to be hard in itself, but I figured that we can do it, right?" They boys nodded in agreement. "OK, well, first we need to figure out the password to the Slytherin common room. Then we need to get a hold of what dorm is his-"

"Why do we need that?" Peter inquired.

"Because were going to watch his every move, until he does something stupid. Then we'll pounce, so to say." He smiled obviously proud of his wonderful work.

James frowned at his best friend. "Sirius, that is the worst thing I've ever heard. How is that even a prank?"

Sirius' grin faded at James’ mockery of his perfect plan. "That's what I thought too, but you know as well as I do; your best ideas are usually your first." Peter gave him a confused glance, and Sirius continued to clarify for the less experienced members of their group. "Okay let's put it this way. When you come up with a plan you play with it a bit until it is too complicated to even accomplish. So you put yourself right back where you started, and, most of the time, you find that the one idea you started with is the one that makes the most sense anyway, so you use it. Therefore, your original plans are generally your best."

Remus nodded slowly, what Sirius said made sense. "Yes, but I'm still with James, how is being a peeping Tom brilliant?"

Sirius could no longer hide his disappointment. These guys had no imagination whatsoever. "Okay, let me make this as simple as I can so you gits can understand. What do you do when you are all alone?" He looked at each of them evenly as each of them pondered his question. Once he could tell that they had latched onto at least one thing that they had done when they were alone, he continued. "And how many of you would want someone to see that?" He watched their faces as understanding began to be illustrated plainly on their faces showing their changing moods.

"Brilliant," James stated. "Absolutely, brilliant!"

"I know."

Remus and Peter sat in silence. Peter was in shock at Sirius’s brilliance and Remus was silent only because he was in deep thought. There was no doubt this was an excellent plan, but how could they show the whole school something like that. "I hate to burst your bubble, but how are we going to show anyone this?"

James looked at Remus. Why did he always put a damper on things? Why did he have to be the practical one? And still he found the words being formed on his own lips and questioned his best friend's brilliant plan. "Yeah, Sirius, how?"

"There's a simple version of a memory charm and it shows things like a Muggle tilephesion does.” Remus chuckled slightly at the mispronunciation of the word and received a glare from his friends, so he waved his hand in dismissal for his behavior. Sirius went on with his plan. “My Uncle Alphard told me about it, and I'm sure we could find it in the library somewhere." He paused. "I also figured we would cast the spell during dinner, on the enchanted ceiling so we can make sure that the whole school sees it. Or rather most of it, not everyone goes to dinner every night."

The four boys smiled at each other. "So when do we get started?" Remus asked.

"Immediately, I don't know how long it will take us to find the spell or the password but we have to do this. We can’t have that jerk picking on us all the time. We need to put him in his place."

They looked at each other, communicating with each other in silence. Once they knew their individual jobs, each of them got up and went to their separate posts to aid in getting the information they would need for this particular event: their first major prank.

"I made up all sorts of stories."

Chapter Six: The Strangeness of Lupin

James walked down the hall agitated. It wasn't the fact that the team had laughed at him that made him upset; he had expected that. It was what the captain had said to him when he was done trying out. The cool voice ran in his head as if someone had hexed his worst moment to repeat over and over again.

"Wow, you're really good, but we can't put you on the team. It would make us look bad. You understand, right?" James had just stared at the captain in utter astonishment. Why was he even bothering to tell this to him? It made no sense, he could have just said no. That would have sufficed. So, as the words had lingered in the air James just stared stupidly at the sixth year talking too him. When he found that the captain had nothing more to say, he turned away to leave the Quidditch pitch for the library. Then the captain called out to him once more. "Hey, James," James turned around, though, somewhat unwillingly. "Next year, if you try out you'll be guaranteed a spot."

James furrowed his brow as he tried desperately to stop thinking about what had just happened to his pride. It wasn't fair! He hated being eleven. He was too young to do everything everyone else got to do, but, at the same time, he was also too old to do the things he used to do when he was at home with Sirius. He sighed and looked down at his watch, a little after one. He had to get to the library for yet another one of the meetings they had planned to have, which he was already late for. They had been having these meetings for the last few weeks, trying to decipher how long it would take them to get the prank done and over with. And because of all their careful planning they were finding out rather quickly that if they kept up at the rate they were going now, the prank wouldn't even happen until late November, which was a very disturbing revelation for all four of the boys.

They had found the spell that they needed to use for the prank and it was simple enough, Peter was the only one who was having any problems with it. Another thing that they had expected would happen, anyway, because from what they had viewed in the first week; potions was the boys only specialty. Yet, aside from the spell every thing was in fair enough order, all they needed now was the password for the Slytherin common room. This had seemed like a simple enough thing to do, until the beginning of this week when Remus had begun to acquire chronic headaches, which, in affect, had caused him to sit out during their information treks. But the strangeness of Lupin became extremely apparent the day before, when, during History class, he had had a little seizure. This little incident had even gotten the attention of Professor Binn's, which in itself, was quite a feat, especially, when even the man’s death itself hadn't fazed him in the slightest.

When this incident had happened, James found that it was rather strange for him to see one of his best mates bodies tense up for a short period of time and then start to shake violently. However, the strangest part was when they went to help him and he told them to back away, claiming that he didn't want to hurt them. James remembered vividly that tears had rolled down Remus' face as he had uttered those words. When he looked up at his friends, with nothing short of fear showing plainly in his gray eyes, the three Gryffindors: his only friends, had done nothing but stare in shock and fear themselves. For the rest of the day James hated himself for not doing anything for his mate. What kind of friend wouldn’t at least offer some inkling of help? A very bad one, at least in James’ mind, and he had tried very hard to make it up to Remus since then. Though Remus didn’t seem to mind at all, he kept trying to avoid the subject, saying that it didn’t matter.

Yet, as the rest of the week had unfolded it became rather obvious, or at least that was what it seemed like to James, that he had been the only one concerned with Lupin’s condition. Because, even after the seizure had taken place both Sirius and Peter had just gone to the common room without even thinking twice about how Lupin had to spend the rest of the night in the hospital wing with only Madame Pomfrey for company. And even there it seemed that James was wrong once again, for when they were in their dorm, away from everyone and their comments and accusations about what had happed in the class, Sirius had mentioned something extremely interesting. When people have seizures they have no clue what is going on. Lupin had talked to them, right in the middle of his convulsion. Remus had known exactly what was happening to him.

James had had a sleepless night over that revelation and, as a result, had also had a very hard time in Potions class the following morning because of it. It didn't help matters at all that Professor Lamia was also in a very sour mood, for one reason or another, and was taking points off of both Houses left and right. She gave Sirius a detention that would be served later on that evening for talking back when she had taken ten points from Gryffindor when he had answered a question correctly, but hadn't worded it in the exact way their textbook had.

James looked up from his thoughts, amazed to find that he was already in the library with no clues as to how he had managed to get there so fast. He saw his friends sitting at the last table, well out of earshot of the other students. He then noticed the nosey librarian, Madam Pince, who had already yelled at the four many times previously for appearing to be “up to no good,” a phrase the four boys had since taken a rather large liking to.

"Nice of you to join us." Sirius said, without looking up from the book that contained the memory charm within it, but as the words rolled off his tongue he instantly regretted it. "How'd you do?" He asked to make up for his previously cold tone. When he finally looked up at James he hit himself mentally for letting the words leave his mouth at all.

"I didn't make the team, if that's what you mean." James looked at his friend, reading the disappointment Sirius felt towards him that was written clearly in his eyes. "It's okay." Sirius' eyebrow cocked upwards. "Honestly!" James took a good look at his two friends and realized something wasn’t right. "Where's Remus?"

"Lupey?" Sirius asked dumbly as James glared at him. It wasn't right to call Remus a name that all of them knew he hated just because he wasn't there. Sirius felt the glare and went on with his voice sounding more aggravated than it had to begin with. "Oh, he said something about having to visit his sick cousin or something."

James nodded and took a seat directly across from Sirius. They sat in silence for a while as Sirius reread the directions on how to do the charm aloud to Peter, which gave James time to slip into his own thoughts once again. Lupin had said something about having to visit his cousin earlier that week, but was it truly a good idea for Remus to be visiting a sick cousin when he himself was ill. After awhile James was brought out of his train of thought when Sirius stared at him for a bit and then waved his hand in front of his face to get his attention once more.

"Come back to earth, James."

James blinked and stared at Sirius as he slowly but surely managed to process his words. Once they had clicked fully in James’ mind he sighed. "So did we get any new information?"

Peter nodded enthusiastically, obviously very proud of some deed he and Sirius must have accomplished while James had been busy being humiliated by the Gryffindor Quidditch captain. "The common room. It's really far down in the dungeons-"

"It's located way under the school. We took your cloak so we could follow a Slytherin down there while you were busy trying out for the team." James nodded as Sirius had confirmed his beliefs.

"So you got the password?" James said finally feeling that his day was beginning to look up.

Peter and Sirius exchanged glances. "Well, no." They stated together.

James couldn't hide his disappointment. Sirius immediately saw this and took over the meeting once James’ face had fallen into a look of complete displeasure. "James, don't. We actually almost got in but we couldn't understand what that Douglas Spinat was saying. So Peter and I have been thinking an-"

"That could be dangerous."

"I don't appreciate your sarcasm." Sirius retorted critically. James just gave him a defiant stare willing himself not to come back with anything he might regret later on, which would almost certainly be the case if he did. "Anyway, as I was saying. Peter and I were thinking and have come up with two plans. One, we can go back down there and wait for them to actually say the password intelligibly-"

"Which will probably never happen." Peter chimed in.

"Or we could gang up on one of them and scare them into telling us the password. I'm quite partial to that idea." He said with a mild smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

"Fine, when Remus comes back we'll do it." James said earnestly, torn between the fact that Sirius was right about the password and just wanting the meeting to come to an end.

"Okay." Sirius replied disappointedly. Then he pulled out James' invisibility cloak from Peter's backpack and placed it on the table. "I have to go." Sirius continued with a sulking manner.

James watched him leave and turned to Peter who kindly pointed out the obvious. "He's mad at you."

"I know." James sighed. "He's been really touchy lately." James looked down at his cloak sitting openly on the table, and took it in his hands and turned to Peter. "You don't mind?" He asked.

Peter just looked at him. "Go."

James smiled at him, appreciating the fact that he didn’t care if he was left alone, and got up and walked down the hall. He threw his cloak around himself once he had reached an abandoned hallway just outside of the Defense Against the Dark Arts room. Then he continued to walk down to where Sirius was supposed to meet Professor Lamia; the dungeons. When he reached the classroom he lingered just outside of the room, waiting for the occupants to leave for the designated detention room for the night. Eventually, Sirius was lead out of the Potions classroom and down the hall, up the many stairs, and out of the school to a large hut just outside of the forbidden forest. He followed them as silently as he could. Once Professor Lamia knocked on the door the giant man they had seen during their first night at Hogwarts, opened the door and greeted them with a warm smile.

"This is Sirius Black, Hagrid. The student that will be helping you this afternoon."

"'ullo, Sirius." He greeted pleasantly.

Professor Lamia frowned at the giant, and spoke to him as coldly as she could. "Don't be friendly with him. He is in detention, remember."

"Righ'." Hagrid agreed and looked down at Sirius. "So yeh were talkin' back in class." Sirius nodded. "Well, you'll jus be helpin' me in me garden." Hagrid then led Sirius to the opposite side of his house where a large garden laid. James followed them shortly after he had gotten out of Professor Lamia's trek back up to the castle in her usual hurried yet, oddly enough, graceful huff.

James watched as Hagrid explained to Sirius exactly how he was to weed the garden, without magic, and how to use the bug killer. Which was to aid against having any unwanted pests that might eat away at his giant pumpkins that were just beginning to grow. When Hagrid was sure Sirius had understood and could do what he had just instructed, he left the garden patch and walked over towards the Quidditch field. James took this as his only chance to talk with his friend that evening, aside from after he got back from his detention. And who ever knew when that would be? He hopped over the large fence that surrounded the garden, stood behind Sirius and poked him in the back. Sirius jumped slightly at the unexpected event and turned around and stared right where James was standing.

"What do you want?" He asked with a tone of indignant hurt hanging clearly in his voice. James took off his cloak and sat on the fence, ultimately choosing to ignore Sirius' attitude.

"I wanted to ask you what's wrong. You've been kind of detached lately." Sirius made a mocking chuckling sound but said nothing. "Oh, come on Sirius, don't be like that." Sirius just pulled out a very large weed and tried as best as he could to ignore James.

James sighed after ten minutes of sitting, finally realizing that Sirius was not going to talk with him, and hopped back over the fence. He then began to walk back up the hill to the castle, completely defeated for the day. Sirius tried dreadfully to keep his mind on his detention work but ultimately he couldn't. He threw down the weed that was gripped firmly in his hand, stood up and turned towards James' retreating body heading off towards the castle.

"James wait!" James stopped in his place and turned towards Sirius as the setting sun glared in his eyes. "You want to know what's wrong?" James nodded. "You don't do anything with just me anymore. It's always let's wait for Peter to get it! Or let's wait until Remus has gotten better from his seizures or whatever else he comes down with! It's not fair! You're my best mate and I'm being pushed to the sidelines as you usher in new people to take my place!"

James felt his mouth drop. This was absurd. How could Sirius even feel that way? "Sirius, don't be daft! I'm not pushing you aside you're still my best mate!" Sirius rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine so now I can't have any other friends but you, fine! I'll just go up to the castle and tell Peter to shove off and find another mate."

Sirius stared at his friend blankly. He hated it when James did that. He always had a way of putting things that made him feel both daft and terrible all at the same time, and he often found that he hated that feeling too. He looked at James; too prideful to admit that he was wrong, and concentrated on the spot just over James' left shoulder. He starred there intently as two figures came over the ridge. He looked at them as they walked closer. "Remus?"

James rolled his eyes. "What about Remus?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, Remus." He pointed to the two bodies walking towards the both of them. James looked quickly behind him, threw his cloak back on and watched his sick friend walk past them with a older looking woman leading him across the grounds towards the Quidditch pitch. Sirius looked dumbfounded. "That was not Remus with his cousin." He said rather bluntly.

James nodded. "But why on earth would he be with Madame Pomfrey?"

"Maybe he got sick and had to change his plans."

"Maybe." James replied as he stared over at the position they had disappeared at. Both of them stood in silence, lost in their own thoughts. They didn't even notice the huge shadow that had loomed over them.

"Aren't yer s'posed tur be workin'?"

Sirius screamed and jumped a foot off the ground, before he turned around with his face painted a deep crimson color from his over reaction to the giant of a man’s voice. Once he did turn around, he was face to stomach with Hagrid. His head moved up the length of the gigantic man’s body and he just smiled weakly once his eyes landed on the kind face. "Sorry."

"Well, jus' get yer work done. The sooner yer get done the sooner yeh can get tur bed." Sirius nodded and went back to his weeding. James looked up at Hagrid, hidden underneath his cloak, as the giant started to work on the pumpkin patch, with Sirius, tackling the bigger weeds.

"I'll talk to you later." James whispered before he turned back towards the castle.

"Hey, I'm sorry I was a jerk." Sirius whispered back.

"No problem." James said as he started off towards the castle.

As he made his way back up the hill to the castle he found himself contemplating what exactly he and Sirius had just witnessed. He could hardly bring himself to believe that Remus would openly lie to them, but what he had told them certainly did not add up with what they had just seen. When he reached the fat lady and said the password in a hurry and stepped inside the whole which lead to their common room. Once he was inside he spotted Peter on the couch with a chessboard in front of him. James sat down opposite of Peter.

"I thought you might want to play." Peter said sheepishly.

James smiled at him and made the first move as a way of saying that he would definitely love to play with the small boy. They played two games in which James lost both of them because he was an absolutely horrid chess player. When Sirius came into the room he sat down across from Peter and looked directly at James.

"Something's up with Remus," Sirius said out of nowhere. "I don't know what, but there has to be."

James looked up from the chessboard at his friend with a lopsided smile. "I figured that."

Peter just sat between the two of them, glancing back at each of them, as they spoke while he tried his best to decipher the code in which they were speaking.

"Yeah, well, I asked Hagrid about what we saw and he said Remus had a detention."

James' brow furrowed in concentration. "But Remus never gets detention."

"No kidding." Sirius said rolling his eyes. They all knew that Remus tried his hardest not to cause problems and when it came to their pranks he was the one that made sure all evidence was dispensed of so that no one would get into any trouble. "Plus we would have been there had he have gotten one. I'm telling you, something is not right." Sirius leaned back in the comfy chair as he ran his fingers through his smooth black hair in frustration.

Peter continued to give the both of them strange looks, for a few seconds as they talked back and forth over what could possibly explain what they had seen. All the while, he tried to take in every word that they said only to find that he still could not understand any of it. Eventually, Peter gave up his futile attempts at trying to figure out what exactly they were going on about and swiftly told his Queen to take James' King and won the last match of the evening.

"For the first time ever I had friends, three great friends."

Chapter Seven: Passwords and Lies

Sirius watched as Slytherins walked past him completely oblivious to what the dark haired boy was contemplating. He looked at each one of them as they walked by, sizing them up until he found the perfect one. He was a small boy, compared to the others, and Sirius knew that he spent the majority of his time alone. Making it so no one would miss him if he disappeared temporarily for a quick questioning that was in store for him. Another perk to having this boy being their possible victim, was that the boy would most likely be too scared to snitch to the others about the interrogation. And yet, at the same time, he would also be scared enough to tell them exactly what they needed to know.

Sirius smiled wickedly to himself before he contently took to walking swiftly down the hallway to where his friends were to meet him, just outside of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He then made his way out of the dungeons, slowly calculating everything they would need to do as he walked to the meeting place. When he turned the corner on the first floor, he saw James first and immediately made a beeline toward him.

"Have you got one?" Peter asked eagerly when Sirius came into view. He silently gawked at Sirius' talent knowing that he could never pick out someone for this particular part of the plan.

"Yes." Sirius grinned at them like a madman.

"Well, who?" James insisted, knowing full well that if he didn't Sirius would keep playing his mind game with them.

"Travis Travers," Sirius said in a low whisper. After he had uttered the name his grin grew even larger, if that was indeed possible.

James's mouth contorted into a grin that matched Sirius's almost exactly, as he pictured the small boy in his head. "Perfect."

Sirius opened his mouth to retort with a smug reply but Peter interrupted him before he could say anything cocky. "We should get back to the common room. We look too suspicious gathered here. Plus all the teachers have you two pinned as troublemakers."

Sirius and James felt themselves roll their eyes at their younger friend but started to walk down the hall in the direction of their common room anyway. All the while, Peter struggled to keep up with their large strides. When they finally reached the fat lady’s portrait, Peter issued a breathless password. The portrait flung open, and the boys stepped inside the small hole. They dropped their belongings on top of one of the wooden table that sat just under the large window on the right wall adjacent to the fireplace. They sat down in the collection of chairs that were gathered there slightly distressed that the older students had taken the coveted spot in front of the fireplace.

Sirius took out a small checklist they had made when Remus was still with them and found that the only thing they needed was the password. Peter had finally gotten down the memory charm they needed during their free period the day before. And now all of them just wanted to get to work. Sirius found himself growing impatient as they waited for Remus's return from his extensive leave of absence.

It had been almost three whole days since that afternoon with Hagrid and there still was no word from Remus. There was no letter saying he was fine or that he had gone to see his cousin. Nothing. During these three days, both James and Sirius had convinced themselves that Hagrid had only received a bit of misinformation about their friend and that Madame Pomfrey had only escorted him to his parents, who were waiting for him in Hogsmeade. At least that was what they hoped was the case. They didn't really have anything else to go on. Do to this small fact the three remaining boys had silently agreed not to mention any of their suspicions when Remus did return, just incase they were wrong. And also the added fact that they didn’t have a clue as to how they would explain any of this if they were to confront him with it.

Blatantly, calling their friend a liar was not an option in any of their minds. This was the main thought on all the boys’ heads as they got comfortable at the table. Which ultimately, left them to sit there in silence, while they looked at each other contently before anyone dared to speak.

"When do you think Remus'll be back?" Peter asked, breaking the increasingly unwanted silence.

James and Sirius just shrugged their shoulders at the question for they were both thinking the exact same thing. James quickly busied himself by gathering his book bag and when he had he looked up at the others, "I'm going to put this stuff away." Hoping for a change of subject.

Apparently, it was successful because the others simply nodded their heads and followed him up to their dorm. Once James had entered the room with the others closely behind him, and had put his books away, he unconsciously looked over towards Remus' bed; a habit he had subconsciously held every since Remus had disappeared. The curtains were drawn to a close, which was odd considering they had been open for the past few days since, obviously, no one had been around to use them. James smiled to himself as Sirius moved from his spot on his own bed over to Remus' after noticing the same thing James had. They stood outside the warded bed, until Sirius, in one swift action, pulled the curtains back open letting sunlight shine onto a peacefully sleeping Remus.

James stared at him, somewhat shocked by the boy's appearance as the sunlight began to have an affect on Remus and he began to stir. When the boy had gathered his surroundings he sat up and looked around at each of them in turn with a slightly shocked look on his face. James had noticed straight away that Remus’ eyes were glazed and had dark circles under them. His face was also pale and had one small cut on the upper portion of his cheek that resembled a deep dog scratch that was still in the process of healing. His frame seemed weak and there were a few more scratches similar to the one on his face that ran down his arms. Remus, by instinct, grabbed a sweatshirt from off of the floor and quickly put it on, not wanting them to see his current state anymore than they already had.

"So how's your cousin?" Peter asked, utterly oblivious to Remus's condition.

"What?" Remus looked confused and then finally what Peter was referring to clicked in his head. His face began to turn a shade of red, "Oh, er, she's fine ... doing much better anyway. The doctors are saying she may be allowed to leave St. Mungo’s very soon."

Sirius gave him a quizzical look but when he failed to read Remus' embarrassed expression he turned to the one thing at hand. "Are you up to a bit of fun?"

James frowned at Sirius. This was not a good time for that, but to his surprise he saw Remus nod his head willingly.

"What kind of fun?"

Sirius smiled and looked up at James, who he knew was openly frowning upon this idea of his. "Well, we still have one more class to go through, if you feel up to attending it, and then afterwards we could get the last bit we need for our prank."

James smiled as he thought about their prank, but it faded slightly as he looked at Remus, who was evidently thinking through all of his options. No matter how much he wanted to do the prank he was more concerned with Remus’ health, and if he wasn’t up to it, he did not want Sirius to push the subject.

"I'll go. Erm, what class is it?" Remus asked stupidly. He didn't even remember what day it was, let alone how long he had been secluded in the infirmary with a very fussy Madame Pomfrey. So, he most assuredly wasn’t even able to guess what class they were supposed to be at.

James looked at Remus dumbfounded, but answered his question anyway. "Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins."

Remus grimaced but thought on the issue temporarily. "How about this, I'll meet you when class ends and then we can get the password."

James and Sirius nodded, not knowing what else to do with their friend. "Sounds good," Sirius and James said in unison.

When the group of boys fell into a deafening silence Sirius decided to pick up his book for Defense Against the Dark Arts and shoved it into Peter's bag, in an attempt to keep his mind busy during the silence that was unbearable: or at least it was for him. The other two followed Sirius' lead and picked up their own supplies for that particular class and then went down to lunch, waving a quick goodbye to Remus as they left to room. Ultimately, leaving him to rest in peace. They made their way down to the Great Hall in silence, because none of them had any clue as to what to say to each other, or even how to put the thoughts they did have into words. So they just took their usual seats at the very end of the Gryffindor table, well out of everyone's earshot and ate their food.

"Did you see that scratch on his face?" James asked as soon as his lunch had appeared before him. He couldn't take not talking about what they had just seen any longer.

Sirius looked at him. "Yeah, but I wasn't going to say anything." He took a large bite of his turkey sandwich. "I mean for all we know he might have a hyper dog that jumps on you the moment you enter your house. I mean you remember how my dog, Circinus, used to act each time we entered the house."

James nodded his head in agreement. That had indeed been one hyper dog. You never could escape the wrath of its claws, because it would jump up to lick you and if you had shorts on or even a short sleeved shirt you were bound to get ruffed up. But James also doubted that that was the case, somehow to him, Remus didn’t seem like a dog person. So "could be" was all James could manage to say in reply.

"But I thought he was visiting his cousin at the hospital, why would there be dogs there?" Peter asked sheepishly, not sure if he was just over thinking again.

Sirius looked at him. "Well, he probably went home sometime. Honestly, who on earth wants to spend all of their time in a hospital? There dreadful places, so depressing, plus the healers are creepy."

"That's your opinion. If my cousin were sick, like Remus's, I'd spend all my time by her side," James said, knowing full well Sirius had a major fear of both healers and blood, and that both could be found in a hospital.

Peter looked at them. "Well, Madame Pomfrey's a healer and she isn't creepy."

Sirius glared at the small boy. That wasn't his point. "I know that. I'm just saying sometimes you have to get away from those places even if someone you love is in pain because it'll only make you hurt too." Sirius' eyes grew dim with his last comment.

James had lost his grandmother to a terrible illness only a year ago and knew full well what Remus was going through. James thought back on the experience, for she had been as much Sirius's grandmother as his because Sirius was always over when James’s family visited, or even when he didn't. Sirius was pretty much like a second child to the Potters. And because of this it had hurt Sirius to see that woman slowly die, as much as it had for James, because Sirius had never even cared to know his own grandparents, for they had been terrible people, like the rest of the Black family, and saw Sirius as anything but a grandson. Sirius was dead and determined to detach himself as much as possible from his own family. But then again, it also seemed that it was during that period of time that Sirius had added the healers to his small list of fears.

James gave Sirius a weak smile in the midst of his thoughts and resigned the conversation with the only thing he could think of. "I guess you’re right."

Peter looked at the two of them as they gave each other that look that he had learned meant that they, once again, were sharing a moment that didn't involve him in any way shape or form. He sighed deeply feeling out of the loop and also completely useless. So he poked at his food resentfully until he found the ultimate subject changer. "So, did any of you understand the homework?"

James and Sirius looked at him amazed at how easily he could just change a subject of that particular caliber. "Yeah, why?"

"I didn't."

A girl, who was sitting down the table a little ways from them, stifled a laugh. They had been so busy talking amongst themselves they hadn't even noticed that she'd sat down next to them. Sirius turned and looked at her. "You think that's funny?" He stated edgily.

James looked at her and realized she was the muggleborn girl that always sat with the Weasley family, and was also the one he'd talked to about Quidditch on their first day at school. "Hello, Lily," he greeted. Sirius gave him a curious look as he handed Peter the assignment for the day so he could copy it, hopefully, not word for word.

"Hello," she said shyly, now not very sure of what she would say. "I was just listening to what you were saying. Who has a sick cousin?"

"None of your business," Sirius warned with growing irritation.

The red-headed girl's bright green eyes dulled a bit as she searched for something clever to say back to him. "James, did you try out for the Quidditch team?" she asked quickly once she realized that she had no comebacks to give him. So she just opted to ignore Sirius altogether instead.

"Yeah. I didn't make the team, though."

"That's too bad." She looked down at her empty plate searching for something else to say but ultimately couldn't think of anything. "Well, I had better go." And with that she got up and left the hall.

"A bit nosy, isn't she?" Sirius said eyeing James, who nodded absentmindedly to what Sirius had said, still not seeing the harm in her curiosity.

"She didn't mean anything by it." He looked down at his own watch. "You done Peter?" The boy nodded his head. "Then we best be getting off to class then."

They stood up once Peter had put both his and Sirius's assignments into his bag and wondered to the first floor. They went inside, avoiding all possible contact with any of the Slytherins, and sat at the back of the room. James just set his bag down and walked over to where Lily was sitting in the front row.

She was busy talking with another girl, most likely one of the other girls in her dormitory room. He watched her smile for a bit and then finally cleared his throat to get her attention. She just looked up and smiled at him as the girl she had been talking with giggled slightly at her side.

"Er, I just wanted to apologize for Sirius," he said after Lily’s friend had gained her composure. Unfortunately, she had settled into watching him closely as he talked to her friend.

"Oh, it's no problem. I really had no right butting in on you guys anyway," Lily stated sincerely as she continued to smile up at James.

He smiled back at her. "Yeah, well, I just thought I'd make sure it was OK because you left in a bit of a rush."

The girl just smiled at him. "Oh, really there's no problem."

Professor Malvitz walked into the room and directed everyone to sit in their seats. Lily looked up at James as he started to walk back to his seat. "Hey, it was nice talking with you again." And with that she turned back to the front of the room.

James smirked to himself as he went to sit next to Sirius who was giving him a quizzical look. He ignored Sirius' confused expression and took out his parchment and quill as Professor Malvitz went on about dark curses.

It was unbelievable listening to this man speak. He always made it sound as if there was a person out there, right now, lurking, just waiting to put the Imperious Curse on you. Even though it was terribly exciting listening to him talk about such curses, James found that he really wasn’t in the mood for note taking. So, instead of that, James just made himself busy by writing little notes back and forth with Sirius during the duration of the hour as Peter attentively took notes that the other two would copy down for their own use later on.

Class ended quickly enough, though not without a long essay due on the powers of dark wizards due at the beginning of class the following Monday. James exited the class carrying both his own books and Sirius’s. He had to remember to ask Peter if he was ever going to buy Sirius a new bag, because he knew Sirius would never write his parents and ask for a new one. They'd never send him one anyway. They'd only come back with an answer telling him that he was irresponsible and that it was his own fault that his bag had been reduced to ashes on the first day of school. Then they would probably add a side note telling him that he was a terrible excuse for a son. None of these things were something someone would want to hear on any occasion, so James understood why Sirius tried his best not to give them excuses to do so.

He sighed to himself as he spotted Remus, true to his word, standing across the hall waiting faithfully for them to join him. The boy looked worse in the lighting of the hall. The window he was standing under was shining on him so that it shaded the dark circles under his eyes, even more, giving him a very eerie stature. Despite that obvious frailty the boy was showing, he seemed fine. So, the three boys walked over to Remus, who simply gave them a weak smile as some sort of greeting.

"Hey, Remus," Sirius said. Then his face grew serious as he looked at each boy in turn finally stopping once more on Remus. "Now we're after Travis Travers, no one else." He then looked at them all once more stopping yet again on Remus. "You do know which one that is right?" Remus nodded. "Good, now let's just split up and wait for him okay." They all nodded and then broke into their separate corners. Somehow knowing precisely where to go without ever even uttering a single word to one another concerning such a thing.

They only had to wait a few seconds before Travis came out of the classroom. They had noticed, over the last few days, that he had the relatively annoying habit of staying after a class had finished so he could ask the teacher bothersome questions on the lesson to clarify the bits and pieces of the lectures that he, even after speaking with them, would never understand. When he had finally exited the room James signaled to Sirius, Remus, and Peter to start moving in on him. They then began to move slowly towards the boy.

Travis looked up at the two boys as they came towards him in fright. He didn't want to cause any trouble, especially with those two, whom everyone had learned early on that anything with them could lead to nothing less than trouble. Travis instinctively moved to the left as he tried his best to avoid any confrontations with them when Peter came in and blocked his way out. Sirius smiled wickedly as he and James crowded around the boy that was roughly the same height as Peter.

Sirius spoke briskly. "What's the password to your common room?" he asked calmly.

Travis's facial features changed from fear to fury. "I'm not telling you," he retorted once he had mustered up as much courage as he could.

James and Sirius looked at each other, exchanging quick glances they chuckled bleakly at him. "Really, and how are you going to stop us?" James inquired.

The boy said nothing. He just turned around, making one last attempt to get away from the three boys, only to find himself facing Remus, who had his head tilted in such a way that he was using his tired eyes to their full advantage. The young boy’s eyes grew incredibly wide as he looked at Remus’ face, which was turned down so that the light’s shadow loomed over his eyes making them dark and emotionless. Travis gave a small squeal as Remus edged towards him, keeping his head bent down menacingly. "What is the password?" Remus growled. Travis didn't say anything at first and then, as if he had suddenly realized that there was no way out of his situation he finally muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

"What was that?" Sirius asked.

The boy just looked up at the four of them with tears beginning to brim in his scared eyes. "Sacron," Travis said and then he turned his face to the ground as if his spirit had been crushed.

"Thank you very much," Peter said in an incredibly chipper voice under the circumstances.

"See it wasn't that hard," Sirius stated smugly.

The boy didn't even bother to look up at any of them when he left. He just moved as quickly as he could down the hall trying his best to go in the opposite direction from the four boys, attempting to get as far away from them as he could. James and Sirius watched intently as the boy began to back up, but once he had turned around and had taken one step in his intended direction, Remus grabbed the back of his robes and turned Travis around to face him. "If you say one word to the others," he warned, "I'll come after you." The boy’s eyes grew wide with added fear as he nodded violently in reply. Remus let him go and Travis immediately sprinted out of sight.

Once the boy had gone around the first corner James turned to Remus. "That was a bit harsh, wasn't it?"

Remus turned to them and shrugged, not entirely happy with what he’d done but also realizing the fact that he couldn’t take it back just offered: "Well, we don't want him telling, do we?" as a way to explain his behavior.

Sirius and James exchanged glances. No they didn't want him telling anyone about what had just happened, but they also hadn’t wanted to scare him that badly. James finally shrugged his shoulders, what was done, was done, there was no use dwelling on it. He then turned to Sirius. "Well, we've got the password. Are you happy now?" Sirius nodded. "So when are we going to go through with this?"

Sirius thought for a second. "Tomorrow night. I should really get started on my Potions homework."

James laughed. It just figured that Sirius would do something like that. He always managed to complain about something extensively and then when they finally could do whatever it was they had planed, or had wanted, he'd tell him to wait until later to actually use it. James looked at his friends and smiled at their accomplishment. This was the first thing they had ever done together and everything was going as perfectly as they could have possibly hoped for.

They then made their way back to their own common room, quietly talking in happy whispers amongst themselves about what they had just done. Once they had reached their common room Sirius had kindly pointed out the one perk about their whole plan coming to an end: The moment they had been waiting for, and how that, in approximately forty-eight hours, Snape would wish he had never even been born.

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

Chapter Eight: Prank to Define all other Pranks

James couldn't wait, as his heart pounded loudly in his chest, more from adrenaline than fear, as he and his friends made their way, as silently as they could, through the hallways. While, they slowly made their way down to the dungeons. They had already avoided a potentially nasty predicament with Peeves involving a slingshot and Filibuster’s Fireworks as he taunted one of the many ghosts residing at Hogwarts.

"That way," Sirius whispered with a quick gesture toward the right staircase at the end of the hall that would lead them into the deepest parts of the castle.

The four boys crouched under the invisibility cloak as they walked in unison towards the staircase, trying their best to keep quiet. This proved to be difficult because Peter kept tripping and stepping on the back of James's heals as they went along the dark hallway. Every so often James would wince in pain as the boy’s clumsy foot trampled on his own. All the while, he tried to keep his voice from expressing the pain this caused by lashing out at the small boy. They didn't need to blow the big prank because of a bit of accidental stepping on feet. They had waited too long for this moment to ruin it with such foolishness.

And indeed that day at school had proven to be very difficult for them to withstand. The clocks had been so slow that they seemed to be moving backwards rather than forward as they had waited for their final class to end. Which, it probably also didn't help that their last class was also their slowest class on any normal day, without adding a big thing like their prank to wait for on top of it. But somehow, they had lived through it. They had gone to dinner without acting too suspicious, at least, that is, no one outside of their little group would have thought them to be up to anything. But once they had left dinner and returned to their common room they had secluded themselves up in their room, where they went over every key detail that they would need in order to get this prank completed perfectly.

After that they had had to wait another extended period of time before they were sure every other person in their own common room was tucked away safely in their beds. When they were sure of that fact, they whipped out the invisibility cloak James had inherited from his father, who he had gotten from his father ... well you get the point. James honestly had no idea how old the cloak really was, just that it proved to be very useful during times like these.

"Here it is," Peter stated.

They stood there staring at a large stonewall. Peter muttered the password just loud enough so that the wall could hear and instantly a hidden door opened up to a large long room with a low ceiling, at least compared to the Gryffindor common rooms'. They walked in and stared open mouthed at the elaborate fireplace and the green antique furniture that surrounded it. James nudged Sirius and Remus in their sides and motioned to a staircase in which he saw a Slytherin boy walk up seconds before. Sirius was too busy to notice the tap on his side, as he was occupying himself by giving his cousin death glares even though he knew the girl couldn't see him. This fact, though, most likely made it all the more fun for him. Eventually, Sirius did move when James took the initiative and began to walk towards the stairwell.

Sure enough the staircase did lead to the Dormitories. They looked up at the carvings in the stone above them, looking for the first years level. They found it, making good time, and went to walk down the long stretch of stone hallway that held gothic style sanctuary doors that lead to the bedchambers themselves. None of these doors were open, but they had already expected that.

The Slytherins had a general personality that needed solitude. No doubt it was probably torture for them to even have to share a dorm with someone else, even if it was a fellow housemate. It was just how they were, as Sirius had explained earlier. Yet, even though the four had expected such findings, the Slytherins’ need to have the doors to their rooms to be closed did still pose as a bit of a problem.

"What do we do?" Remus whispered in James's ear.

Sirius answered his question by walking over to the nearest door (taking the other boys with him) and opened it. He looked in but when he only found a few unfamiliar faces he closed it once more. More than likely a very odd sight for anyone situated within the comforts of that particular room.

Following his lead they each walked together, under the cloak, and made their way down the hall opening every single door as they went. Each time they opened a new door they got a different reaction from the people inside. Some stared at their door just waiting for someone to come and jump out at them (Sirius assumed that they had taken Professor Malvitz's speeches to heart), others screamed obscenities at them only to find that, apparently, no one was there. And, the most interesting reaction was from little Travis Travers, who had chucked his shoe at them and yelled for whoever it was to go away in a very scared high-pitched voice. It appeared that their little interrogation had left the boy only a little paranoid.

They only had to go down merely two more doors before they found Snape's room. The room was empty except for the furniture and an essay, for Transfiguration that was sitting on a bed and had Snape's name on the top right hand corner. James, out of curiosity, picked it up and started to read it and silently chuckled to himself as he did. Snape was going to fail that essay. James only put the parchment down when Sirius poked him in the side with his index finger and pointed to a small stuffed bear, that looked like it needed to be retired it was so old. It was sitting on Snape's pillow. The four boys began to laugh out loud as they only began to imagine why on earth he had a teddy bear, but they quickly stopped when Secutus Avery came in and glared around the room for the source of the voices he had just heard. He walked around the room, carefully inspecting anything and everything that could possibly be out of place. During this inspection he came within an inch of them leaving them with no room to back up. When he, seemingly, found that no one was there he just left the room. Leaving the four boys alone once again.

"That was close," Peter said, as the boys let out a large sigh of relief, not even realizing that they had been holding their breaths in the first place. The others nodded at Peter's words, after they had been fully processed. Then they made themselves comfortable by leaning against the back wall of Snape's room.

They waited patiently for Snape to make his appearance. They didn't have to wait any extensive period of time before the greasy haired boy strode into his room. James felt his mouth drop at the site he saw, not entirely sure if anyone should see such a thing as this. Yet, at the same time all four boys could not pry themselves away from the site as they cast the spell that would be documenting this whole event until they decided it should stop. But with every move the boy made it was harder for them to refrain from going into hysterics. No wonder he didn't have any friends!

The show was cut short when a very angry Avery, who had stormed into the room, which made Snape go incredibly red in the face, yelled at Snape for being such an idiot. The four boys chose that time to quit the spell and quickly exit the room; without disturbing anyone by making the door open for no real reason at all.

They ran out of the Slytherins’ common room, not caring if anyone heard them or not, now that they had accomplished their ultimate goal. Once they were safely outside of the common room and away from the dungeons, they burst out laughing. They were practically on the floor in complete hysterics, with tears rolling down their faces they made their way back to their own common room.

~*~*~*~

In late October, the four had decided to finally use the incriminating evidence that proved the inevitable: Snape was indeed a loser. On the night of the Halloween feast the boys were positive that they had to show what they'd seen that fateful September night. That way they were guaranteed that everyone would be there to see "Snape's episode" as they had now begun to refer to it as.

They had horded the information they had gathered for far to long, telling themselves that it wasn't the "perfect time" to show it yet, or that they needed to lie low for a while because they had managed to receive another detention (James and Sirius now had a running count on who would have more by the time they graduated. Sirius was winning 25 to 10.) Remus had managed to get another bout of the flu and Sirius and James had had to take him down to the Infirmary after Defense Against the Dark Arts the week before. When they had taken him to Madame Pomfrey, though, she had said something along the lines of, "Remus should have come to me sooner" -- which both boys thought very strange, but basically shrugged off. It was probably just Madame Pomfrey's being fussy, as she typically was about things like that.

But now that everyone was in good health and they had spent many nights in their dorm room laughing at the scene they had seen a million times before (which they also all knew was the real reason they had kept the "episode" to themselves) they had decided to share the joy. They had sat down the night before and decided that at the feast, during dessert, they would share their little secret with the school. A little trick whilst they had their treats. Only they didn't want to be found out, so that made things a little more complicated. But that was no matter to the four boys, either way the prank was going to happen that night and it was going to be good! Snape was going to be so sorry he'd ever even tried to mess with any of them.

So on the night of October 31, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all went down to dinner and sat themselves down next to Lily Evans and the Weasleys, trying their hardest not to look like they were up to no good. Which, amazingly, had proven not to be difficult at all. By this time, all of the boys had grown quite good at acting normal in the midst of being little pranksters at work. A very good skill to have for someone in their “special” line of work.

They ate their dinners in the midst of jumbled conversations about the Chudley Cannons (Sirius' favorite team, which James despised with a passion) and how they had started yet another losing streak in this new season of National Quidditch. When James had voiced his already known opinion of the “great” Chudley Cannons, Sirius was only too pleased to start his infamous rant about how exactly they could make a winning team again. James was also kind enough to then point out that Sirius had never even seen them as a winning team because the last time they won a game was in 1892. When this was announced everyone seated around them, including Lily, laughed while Sirius just glared at his best mate and continued on with his rant.

It was only too soon before they had started on dessert, assorted Halloween candies from Honeydukes, as their fellow students began to dig in. All the while, they looked around at their public, seeing if they were completely ready for the scene. They smiled slightly at each other, finding that they were ready, and gave a few simple looks at each other. Severus Snape's fate was sealed.

Remus uttered the spell as quietly as he could without anyone noticing him do so and soon the enchanted ceiling changed from its deep navy blue color, with its dusting of sparkling stars that matched the real outdoor scene exactly, to the interior of Snape's room. It took the students a while before they even noticed the change but as soon as Snape came into the image: He had everyone's attention.

James looked over at the Weasleys, while Snape's image began to dance with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waste, his wet hair dripping down his back. All of the Weasleys seemed to be enjoying the seen, as Chris pointed openly at the sight and made his own comments to his brothers. It sounded as if he were making cementations to the scene that was unraveling before them. James chuckled to himself as they all laughed openly at Chris’s insults.

Sirius leaned into them and smiled smugly, "At least we know now that he does wash his hair."

The four boys snickered at the comment and Peter added, one of his few clever moments, taking a leaf out of James' book. "It may be only once a month, but at least he does wash it."

They laughed again as the image of Snape picked up a brown hairbrush and started to hum to himself as he brushed his hair and pulled it back into a slick ponytail at the nape of his neck. The students around them began to laugh and point plainly at the scene, as the boy’s humming slowly but surely turned into words.

Severus Snape was standing in front of everyone, be that not of his own free will, singing, "I feel pretty, yes, oh so pretty." As he danced around his room grabbing his pajamas from his bed stand and gracefully attempted to put them on, as his “original song” became a very deranged version of the Beatles song: "Help."

"Help, I need somebody,

Help, not just anybody,

Help, you know I need someone, help."

It was the funniest thing any of them had ever seen before. They had now officially showed the school the funniest part. For they had spent plenty of their own time up in their room reliving that moment in time. They had thought nothing could beat the real thing, but now that it was spanning the width of the enchanted ceiling the four boys couldn't help but laugh along with their fellow classmates. Then out of nowhere after humming the first verse (obviously he didn't know all of the words) he struck up the opening lyrics for the bridge in a high pitched, squawky voice.

"Help me if you can, I'm feeling down

And I do appreciate you being round.

Help me, get my feet back on the ground,

Won't you please, please help me."

Then Avery stormed into the room, just before Snape even got the chance to go into an even worse version of the chorus, yet again. Once Avery had processed what exactly he had just walked in on, he began to yell as many foul words as he could. Snape, the poor boy, whipped around so quickly that he didn't even have time to compose himself for the verbal whiplash he was about to receive and hence let his face turn the darkest shade of crimson anyone had every seen. All in all making for a very promising joke that the whole school was busying themselves with.

Remus leaned in, "Didn't know he could be any color aside from a pasty white."

Sirius chuckled, "Yeah." He then nodded toward the Slytherin table where Snape sat next to his only “friend,” Avery, and a few other Slytherin boys that he no doubt shared a room with. As he watched him intently, he found that Snape did not appear to be pleased with these new revelations. Actually, one could barely see the top of his forehead as it threatened to break the previous record it had made for blushing, as he sank into an even bigger slouch. Apparently, he was trying to hide underneath the table.

"Doesn't look so smug now, does he?" Sirius finished very proud of himself.

As the image faded back into the dark night sky, chatter broke out across the hall and Snape took this as his only chance to depart from the Great Hall. He left in such a rush that his dessert was left untouched. Everyone else, though, seemed to be both baffled and amused at the fact that anyone could have managed to pull off such a wicked trick. All the while, the four boys made a quick check of the head table to make sure that no one was looking at them as they began to swap high fives underneath the table.

Dumbledore quickly ordered the hall to remain quiet, after he consulted Professor McGonagall about something, more than likely it was about "Snape's episode." After he had exchanged these quick words, he stood up from his seat and congratulated the pranksters for their enthusiasm but encouraged "whoever it was," though the old man was looking directly at the four of them (all of which looked forward as if nothing had even happened), to come forward or use such enthusiasm in their studies. Then he winked at them. He then waited for a moment to see if anyone would turn themselves in. When no one did, he sighed outwardly and told the students, as a whole, that they should refrain from making such trouble and then he bid them all goodnight.

Peter was the only one who seemed remotely stressed by Dumbledore’s winking at them as they stood up from their seats to leave the Great Hall. "You think he knows?"

Remus nodded. "I think he knows everything that happens here."

Sirius sighed at his two friends. He honestly didn't care. He would probably be concerned if they had actually gotten caught but since they hadn't, he just wanted to drop the subject altogether. "He didn't stop us, did he?" No one answered. "There, we didn't get caught, that's all that counts."

James just shook his head and led the way to the common room, he offered the password, and went inside. The room was empty except for Lily Evans and a few Weasleys, who were sitting by the fireplace talking enthusiastically with each other. Sirius, Remus, and Peter all decided that they wanted to go to bed but James had suddenly found that he wasn't tired. So, as they filed up to their dorm, he unconsciously found himself looking over to where Lily was situated on the couch.

He enjoyed talking with her and found that over the last month if he could get alone with her or even just say "hello" to her, it would make his day. Despite Sirius’s need to make snide comments about the two of them "getting together," which was just “sick and wrong” as James had pointed out. He was just fine being friends with the young girl. The idea of going any further was just weird.

James sighed deeply and walked over to her. He then sat down next to her, as smile had planted itself firmly upon his face as he greeted her. "Hi."

"Hi," she retorted non-enthusiastically.

James’ smile faded slightly at her cold tone. He didn't entirely know what to make of this. "What's wrong?"

She looked at him with a glare that seemed to say, “you should know” and he suddenly understood. "It was you, wasn't it?" she said, sounding completely disappointed in him. It was odd for him to find that he felt like he had been beaten as she said this. He bent his head down under the weight of her words and nodded. "Why?"

Suddenly his feelings changed from hurt to anger. He didn't understand why she was so upset by this. It was only a bit of fun and games; no real harm had been done. "Snape is an insufferable prat," he said clearly by means of an explanation, hoping that that would be enough of an answer.

Lily nodded. "I can't say that I don't agree with that, but you still shouldn't have done it." Then a smile teased at the corners of her mouth completely defeating her plan of being “the sensible one.”

"It was funny, though."

James laughed at the sudden change in her mood, and he began to relax, yet again. "Yeah, it was, and if you're worried about another incident with Snape, we only finish what he starts. So if something happens that's like what happened tonight, just know that he deserved it." He looked into her eyes. "It's our form of justice."

She nodded torn between chuckling at the smirk on his face and still being mildly upset by his “form of justice” and simply looked down at the small watch that hung on her wrist. Obviously, it was wizard made do to all of the different knobs that were on the edge of the small circular face, and she let out a resounding sigh.

"I should probably be getting off to bed," she said softly, giving James one last small smile before she stood up from her position on the couch. He nodded and walked her to her staircase, without thinking twice about it, and then after she had disappeared from view he hurried up the staircase that lead to the boy’s dormitories.

He managed to get into his room without making too much noise. Once he was inside the safety of his room he found his three friends already tucked away in their beds. Remus was fast asleep, probably because he'd spent all of last week in the hospital with the flu. Peter was lying with his eyes shut, his breathing was soft, but since he wasn't snoring James knew he wasn't asleep yet, and Sirius was wrestling with his sheets trying desperately to get comfortable, as he had done for as long as James could remember.

It was just another typical night in the boy's dormitory; nothing special was going to happen tonight. They'd done their job and made the students laugh a bit in the process of the days event. That was all they could ask for (aside from getting through to Snape that they were in charge and he was indeed an insufferable git). James went to sleep with the pleasant newly made memories that were floating through his head of his first Halloween feast.

A/N: Okay, I have to thank my friend Kara Black for helping me with this bloody prank ... cuzz I over thought it when I was planning things and she helped me find my way back to ground one.

I'd also like to thank everyone who's reviewed thus far on my story ... I love you all for everything. More of this story is on its way. It’s not over yet. HA!

"He never lost an opportunity to curse James"

Chapter Nine: Unnecessary Obsessions

Sirius woke up groggily the following morning, after serving another long night in detention for, as McGonagall had called it: "his unnecessary obsession with revenge." Yet, instead of letting this bother him he simply noticed the perk; over the last few weeks their legend seemed to be growing as they continued to set up stupid pranks like putting frog spawn in the bathrooms after potions class, or setting off Fillibuster's Fabulous Waterproof No-Heat Fireworks after the dreadful Quidditch match that Gryffindor had been slaughtered in.

After that match Sirius had chosen to walk around the school claiming that it was their own fault they had lost the match because they hadn't put James on the team. He would laugh openly at the team, especially if any member of the team was within earshot, and eventually the captain lost his cool and once when Sirius was in mid-insult the boy had hexed him with a nasty boil charm. James and Remus had escorted Sirius to the infirmary with a chorus of nasty comments coming from their friend. When he returned later that night, with his right arm completely bandaged covering where the boils had been hexed onto him, without saying a word to each other, James, Remus, and Peter decided not too mention the incident again.

This, though, did not stop Sirius from getting his revenge. He, unfortunately for the captain, did not stop making snide comments about Gryffindor's team but instead made them more prominent by posting a flyer on every notice board in the school that the captain enjoyed wearing dresses and also took pleasure in playing with dolls and that was exactly why the team was a bunch of pansies that couldn't play. These flyers even came equipped with a picture of the Gryffindor team captain playing tea party with a little girl. No one, not even his friends, could figure out how Sirius had gotten a hold of the picture but it did provide something new to talk about for a few days. This flyer incident, of course, happened to be the reason for his night of torture.

Sirius sighed as he sat up in his four-poster and opened the curtains around it only to be blinded by what little light was filtering through the window next to his bed. He looked around the room and found James who had been unsuccessfully trying to move around the room as quietly as he could, picking up assorted books the other three boys had been using for their potions essay the night before.

"Morning." Sirius mumbled as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

James looked up and nodded towards him by way of recognizing that he had heard him and then went on picking up the last three books that remained on the floor and stored them safely in his bag. He then, after finishing his crack at cleaning, walked over to Sirius and sat down next to him. "So how was detention?"

"It was detention." He stated and after seeing James' eyebrow arch he went on. "It wasn't that bad... It could have been much worse in any case. McGonagall did her overseeing and I did my job cleaning out the trophy room, quite typical, nothing exciting."

James laughed, "Yeah, well, at least you weren't here."

"What do you mean?"

James did nothing but point over towards Remus' bed with a saddened expression on his face. He had thought that would be enough of an explanation but at the confused look planted firmly on Sirius' face he went on. "Remus, well, he was weird last night. He was really detached from both Peter and me, and when we confronted him about it he just shrugged it off saying he was fine. But you know what mate; he's not. I don't care how much he wants us to believe it, he's not."

Sirius laughed in spite of his better judgment but stopped abruptly after realizing the seriousness of the situation. "Sorry, but Remus is always sort of a loner, even when we're in the midst of something. I just think it's his personality."

"I don't think so. Sirius, he had another one of those seizure things last night when we got back into the room. But this time he wouldn't let us take him to the infirmary. He said we should just get used to them because he'll get into those fits every so often and there's nothing we can do about it."

Sirius chanced a glance over towards Remus' bed worried about what was happening to his friend. Then he turned to James knowing that this was where his friend would suggest something completely far fetched. "So what do you think is wrong with him?"

James sighed, he hadn't wanted Sirius to ask him that, because he was pretty sure what he was thinking Remus' problem was, was impossible but he'd still need time to look into the possibility of his idea being correct. "I don't know."

Sirius stared at his friend not believing him for a second but chose to ignore it. "Well, it's the weekend so maybe we can find something fun to do."

"Maybe." James replied his mind still on the previous subject.

Sirius sighed and got up from his bed, moving towards the door in deep thought. What was it with Lupin that made them worry so much about him? Peter had gotten Dragon Pox the week before and, sure, they did visit him when he was in the infirmary but they hadn't worried about him, really. Yet, every time Remus came down with a head cold they all seemed to freak out about it. It was quiet amazing for Sirius to think that there was someone else he cared for enough to waste time worrying over. He'd always thought that James was the only person he could ever care that much for, and now he had someone new to lose sleep over.

He smiled to himself, full of pride, as he walked past the empty Transfiguration classroom, when he realized just how un-Black-like that was. His family rarely worried or let alone cared about anyone other than themselves and he felt very proud to have grasped the fact that he was nothing like the lot of them, or so he hoped. Sirius continued to walk along the corridors with his half smirk firmly planted on his face as he continued to think over all of the differences between himself and his other family members before he finally heard the soft sound of footsteps following him somewhere from behind. He turned around cautiously, only half expecting to see one of his newly made enemies, primarily the captain of the Gryffindor team, with their wands raised ready to torture him. He let out a loud bark like laugh of relief as his dark eyes fell upon James.

"What were you thinking about?" James called from the few feet that they were apart.

Sirius' grin grew even wider as he stopped so that James could catch up with his large stride. "Who says I was thinking about anything at all, mate?"

James promptly put his arm around Sirius' shoulder and started to usher him through the halls as he talked. "I know you too well, and the only time it takes you that long to realize I was within ten feet of you, is when you are in an in depth thought process."

Sirius heaved a heavy sigh. "Well that, James, was only a little brash." He said as James punched him playfully on the shoulder, before he was able to continue. "Yeah, well, it's nothing." Sirius fell silent once more before he felt his face break into another small half smile. "I'm nothing like the rest of my family, am I?"

James chuckled a bit, more to himself than anything else. "No, you're not. You are exactly the opposite of all of them in every single way. And believe me, if you weren't, you wouldn't be my best mate."

Sirius laughed. "Well, I think that's comforting."

James said nothing in return and just kept walking in the direction of the Great Hall, in hopes of fitting in a late breakfast before they went on with their day. He expected nothing more than Sirius' silence as they entered the Great Hall, sat down, and started to eat, he was too used to Sirius' unresolved issues with his family to even let himself be troubled by it. He continued to sit in this silence as he stared absently at his food without a single thought running through his head.

He poked at his food idly, before he saw something out of the corner of his eye that caught his attention. He looked up and slowly and turned toward what he had seen. His hazel eyes rested on the Slytherin table and Snape sitting amongst his cronies, who were all looking towards James and Sirius, laughing, as if they had a hysterical inside joke among them. James glared towards Snape and then turned back to his meal with a sudden feeling of dread that continued to hand in the pit of his stomach.

When James had looked up from his untouched food, now not in the least bit hungry, he found that Sirius had already finished with his breakfast and was smiling like a mad murderer at James.

James felt his eyebrows furrow under Sirius' gaze. His mind was still uneasy with thoughts of what Snape could have been laughing at. His stomach was still doing hurried back flips the more he thought on it. "What?"

Sirius quickly looked up at the morning sky shown brightly on the enchanted ceiling and then turned to James, "I think I found something to do."

James' smile grew as his uneasy thoughts about Snape quickly faded into nothingness, "What do you mean?"

Sirius' menacing smile grew even wider. "You'll see."

Sirius stood up from his seat and started walking towards the doors. James sat and stared longingly at his untouched food for a while only slightly dreading Sirius' plans. James knew, strictly from experience, that when Sirius was secretive about anything they always wound up getting in loads of trouble because the sad truth was: for Sirius Black, fun could be anything from chess to attempted murder. Yet, at the same time James wanted nothing more than to find out exactly what Sirius had in mind and try to tackle it. It'd been too long since they'd done anything crazy (since they'd had to lay low for a while after their last prank, which was still the talk of the school after three weeks.) Sure, they had done other little things in between, but it was nothing that would put them in danger, and that sounded like a fairly good idea at the moment.

After much deliberation, though, James sighed, opting finally for fun no matter what the cost would be later. He took one bite of his breakfast, stood up and joined Sirius who was waiting patiently in the entrance hall. James walked directly up to Sirius, smiling, ready for anything the boy had come up with and hoping that Remus and Peter would be up for it too. "What are we doing?"

"Well, I figured we need some fun, right?" James nodded agreeing completely with the statement. "So what would you say to a bit of exploring?"

James smiled widely, but it faded slightly when his mind had fallen on the sudden realization that Sirius would be insane enough to go into the forbidden forest and try to see what it was hiding. James half liked that idea and half hated it. He didn't feel up to another Howler from his mother if they got caught going in or coming out of the forest. Yet, he mostly knew that that was exactly what he would enjoy doing the most. "What kind of exploring?" James asked finally.

Sirius cocked his eyebrow upward as if hurt by the slightly worried tone in his friends voice that only he could pick up. To any other person James would have sounded like he was commenting on the weather, but Sirius knew better. "Just around the school. What did you think I meant?" He retorted indignantly, knowing exactly what James had been thinking about and now thinking that it might be worth a shot.

"Nothing." James replied with a small smile. "Let's just go and get Remus and Peter and see what this castle is hiding."

"That's the spirit!" Sirius stated as he put his arm around James' shoulder and started to walk up the first flight of stairs before Sirius added as an afterthought. "I hope Peter doesn't freak out about this."

James just laughed, Peter definitely was afraid of everything, and they continued on their way. They stopped a few times along the way to harass certain portraits that managed to catch their eyes, and after taking a short detour they stopped once to investigate the armor on the second floor corridor just down a ways from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

James just looked at them with interest, this was the first time he'd ever really taken note of them and he noticed the detail put into the armor and the weapons that they were holding. Sirius, though, soon got bored with just looking at them and reached out and touched one of the suits of armor's swords. In a matter of seconds the armor came to life and quickly moved it's weapon and in one swift motion it hit Sirius directly in the chest with the butt of the weapon throwing the boy backwards. Sirius laid on the floor for a second in shock but then hastily got up before James had reached his side with the intention of helping him up. But he was simply too torn between uncontrollable laughter and the concern for his friends safety to get to it. Sirius just shot James a dirty look and gave the armor the finger as he walked as fast as he could away from that hallway.

"You know they should put a warning on those things." Sirius said as soon as James had caught up with him in a fit of laughter.

"Sorry, mate," James replied, while he tried to stop laughing, "but what do you think they're guarding?"

"I dunno, but I think I'll wait to find out some other day." Sirius winced in pain as he pressed down on the spot where the sword had hit him. "Wonder if Lupey would grade the bruises. Did you see the nasty ones he had last time he got back from “being sick?”"

James nodded solemnly; he hated talking about Remus behind his back. When Remus had fallen ill last month, before their big prank, and had come back with nothing but large bruises on his chest, that he couldn't just explain away. Of course Lupin didn't know they had seen them at all, so more secrecy fell between them. "Let's just go."

Sirius gave no protest and began to walk in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. They reached the last flight of stairs and then James noticed the sound of footsteps close behind them. Sirius stopped just behind James showing him that he had heard them too and they swiftly turned around to come face to face with Snape, Avery, and Knott with their wands raised. Before Sirius or James had a chance to grab for their own wands both of the boys had nailed them with a different hex.

The two of them fell to the floor, defenseless, for Snape had hit them with a stunning charm and as for the other two charms they had been hit with they had yet to find the outcome. James stared at the ceiling with growing frustration as the hex started to ware off a bit, while Snape hovered over him menacingly.

Snape smiled down on James and said another curse, James suddenly felt a sharp pain over his right eye and then felt warm blood trickling down the left side of his face. He could hear Sirius next to him cursing loudly at Knott and Avery as they, rather than using spells, simply used their brute force to torture Sirius. Snape bent down closer to James as he muttered different things all the while his wand emitted little sparks.

"What the?"

James heard the voice come from down the hall followed closely by hurried footsteps.

Snape quickly stood up and laughed. "You have a rescue squad, how sweet." He raised his wand in the air but before he had uttered a word it had flown out of his hand and finally fell back to the ground at the end of the hall. Snape looked in horror as he was hit suddenly with a nasty heat charm that set blisters all across his face. The boy recoiled in pain and Knott and Avery came forward with their wands raised ready for a fight but they quickly suffered the same fate as Snape. Then, out of nowhere, someone hit them with stunning spells and the three of them fell to the ground, limp and unable to move.

James sat up as the hex was lifted from both Sirius and himself with a quick counter jinx. James felt his face break into a smile as his eyes fell on his friend. "God, I'm glad you pay attention in Defense class Remus."

Remus laughed and held out both of his hands to the boys. They took them gratefully and he lifted them up off the ground. "Who stunned them?" James asked as he moved his hand up to the gash Snape had made on his forehead and wiped the blood away.

Peter smiled faintly as he came out from his hiding position that was Remus' shadow and he whispered unsurely. "I did."

James stared in skepticism as he looked at the three limp bodies that were his greatest enemies; Peter had done that. The boy that could barely do a simple heating spell had stunned three significantly bigger classmates. James smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder. "Good work." He said proudly as he wiped even more blood away from his face. Peter beamed up at him. James then turned to Sirius who was staring at James' condition in disbelief.

James burst out laughing at the sight of Sirius. His head had been turned into a Slytherin pride shrine. He had a green afro with silver highlights though he had managed to get a black eye instead of a steadily bleeding wound it was still a sight to behold.

"How can you be laughing?" Sirius asked in wonder as he touched his bruised eye and winced at the pain it brought.

"Your hair." James managed to say before he broke into another fit of laughter.

"What about my hair?" Sirius said as he reached his hand upward and touched his hair and with a look of horror felt it up. "Oh my," He turned to where Remus was busying himself with un-stunning Snape and his cronies and instructing them to go back to their dormitories or else they would have to suffer the wrath of all four of them. "You're dead!" Sirius yelled at Snape's retreating back. "You do not mess with me! You will be sorry!"

James just kept laughing. "Laugh it up." Remus said seriously, as he walked back over to them once he was sure Snape wasn't going to come back. He turned to Sirius and tried to get him to settle down but when he had decided his attempts were futile he turned back to James with a smile. "You look just as bad as Sirius."

James looked up at him and felt his own head but rather than getting upset by it he began to laugh again. He had never had nice hair like Sirius, so this wasn't a complete nightmare. Quite the contrary, he thought, it was a very clever trick. One he was going to make sure they used against Snape in every way.

He wasn't going to let it upset him because he knew fully that the thing that would upset Snape would be him not getting upset by his revenge tactics. Sirius turned to James' laughing state and as if somehow understanding James' insane laughter, Sirius had stopped yelling down the hallway at no one. He turned to look at James and smiled menacingly. Snape was going to hate dinner tonight.

"Why on Earth did Filch want a Kwikspell Course?"

Chapter Ten: Settling the Score

The four boys walked casually down the empty corridors as they made their way down to the Great Hall for dinner. They had missed the majority of their classes because they were too preoccupied with being cooped up in the hospital wing with only Madame Pomfrey to comfort them, which really wasn't much help. It seemed that every time she shoved a new potion down Sirius' and James' throats it tasted ten times worse than the last one she'd given them. It hadn't helped either that every time she re-entered the room she seemed to be there only to provide more bad news.

They, in addition to Madame Pomfrey's style of healing or maybe because of it, had discovered that Snape was very good at timing charms. He had placed a potent vomiting charm on James that hadn't begun to work until a half-hour after he had hexed him with it. This charm was moreover the very reason the four boys had raced from their dormitory in Gryffindor Tower down to the infirmary for some help.

While being stuck down there in the infirmary, they had found out that Snape had also cleverly placed a coughing charm on James that had started immediately after Madame Pomfrey had managed to bring an end to his vomiting. The coughing that the charm had instilled on him made his whole body ache terribly as he coughed continuously for an hour while Remus and Peter tried their best to comfort both of their friends whilst they endured whatever potion or bad news the medi-witch had to offer.

Sirius had only been landed with the coloring charm on his hair and to the boy's disappointment he had been informed that he would just have to wait until it faded back into his normal hair color and style. Which the same case also went for James' hair too, but that didn't make any of Sirius' other injuries any less painful. In fact James almost thought that Sirius had it worse, despite all the pain James had to endure as his coughing fits stopped only to be replaced with more vomiting, only to have the vomiting followed an hour later by an itchy rash that covered him from head to toe. The majority of Sirius' injuries, though, were a compilation of countless bruises that covered the majority of his body, a few broken ribs, and a broken arm that he had received from the mauling that Knott and Avery had given him.

Sirius had refused to go down to the infirmary before James had started to vomit mainly because he hated anything that even resembled a hospital. Yet, when James started to throw up and wouldn't stop, Remus, Peter and he had rushed him down there. The result of this action was that when Madam Pomfrey's eyes had fallen on Sirius' black eye, and obviously pained expression, she had gone straight to work trying to fix him up even with all of his protests to her doing so. The combination of his injuries and the potions seemed to cause Sirius pain every time he moved even slightly and that was what made James feel horrible.

The only thing that seemed to help the two boys over the six hours they were stuck in the infirmary was the company of Remus and Peter. They had stayed by their sides the whole time. James had noted amongst his changing ailments that Remus seemed to be fairly close to Madam Pomfrey. He talked more openly with her than he sometimes did when he was with them, almost as if he wasn't trying to hide anything from her, like he seemed to be doing with them: his friends. That, however, was probably only due to the fact that Remus was down in the infirmary so often. Despite these worries, though, James was glad he was there to unnecessarily explain over and over again that Madame Pomfrey was always fussy, and to occasionally crack some moderately lame jokes that they could all laugh at anyway.

They were all very glad when Madam Pomfrey had said they could leave as long as they went straight to Gryffindor Tower to get some rest. They smiled widely just before they got out of their beds, claimed that they would, and practically ran to the door, before they set out in the direction of the Great Hall with hopes of some dinner. They did have a score to settle, and rest was relatively overrated compared to that.

They arrived in the Great Hall minutes later. Remus opened the doors to the hall as James and Sirius stepped through asking silently for all eyes to fall on them. Once they knew they had everyone's attention, or at least everyone that was at dinner, they smiled widely and bowed dramatically in front of everyone as their fellow students laughed openly at their hair. Sirius and James lead the way to their usual seats at the Gryffindor table and as they passed by Snape they both smiled cruelly at him as he sneered just as viciously back at them. Sirius let out a low laugh as they sat down smiling wickedly to one another. All of them had seen Snape bragging undoubtedly about what he had done to them as they had walked in. Now he had to eat his words, because apparently they weren't suffering at all.



James smiled widely at the wet floor before him as his thoughts drifted through the week's events. McGonagall and Lamia had deducted, shortly after they had entered the great hall, that the boys had had a fight in the corridors and had in return given all of them detentions. Peter was shocked when she had told them that each and every one of them would get detention saying that no matter how noble they had thought they were being, fighting was still against the rules. Remus seemed to have expected as much and said nothing about the detention afterward. He did, however, received a howler the next day from his mother, though the tone in her voice seemed a little less edgy then James' own mother's had been. Sirius had received a letter from his father that said simply that they were disappointed in him (using very foul language to instate the issue) and then as a final note advised him not to come home for Christmas because he didn't know what he and his wife would do to their son if they saw him. Sirius just replied sounding slightly hurt in James' opinion, yet he would have sounded normal to anyone else, "I wasn't planning on going home anyway." It was the truth but no matter how much he hated his family, no one wants to be told they are not wanted back.

"James," he looked up from the floor once more with a confused expression on his face as he met Remus' eyes, "you're supposed to be washing the floor not watching it."

James smiled slightly and started to move the dirty rag that he had in his hand in a circular motion. "That better?"

"Much," Remus said as Filch shot the boy a dirty look from his station in the doorway. Remus quickly moved back over to where he had been cleaning so Filch wouldn't have the chance to scold him for talking to James.

James watched Remus go back to his work on the sinks, which looked to be done to everyone else. Yet, Filch kept pointing out invisible smudge lines all along its face informing the boy that it needed to be spotless before any of them left. James sighed to himself as his mind filtered back into its former thoughts. He soon found himself silently debating whether or not he should go home for Christmas. He shoved the dirty rag into the murky soapy water in disgust and continued to clean.

Through their bonding period with Filch, the boys had discovered a few things: one being that Filch hated them. He had made that very apparent when he occasionally sneered at the four boys as they worked in different corners of the room. He had a tendency to mumble things under his breath about "dungeons", "whips" and "the good old days."

They had found out the hard way that they were not to talk to one another while they worked when Sirius had tried to show Peter a more efficient way of cleaning the toilets. Filch had moved so fast over to the boy, with his eyes filled with pure hatred, as he grabbed Sirius by the collar of his robes and jerkily kicked over his bucket of dirty water. He then stood over Sirius making sure that he cleaned up the newly dirtied floor all over again. Any attempt made by the other three to help him with his new load of work was quickly thwarted by the old man as he went on to dirty whatever they were cleaning, which they soon established was his own special way to get them to understand he wasn't playing with them. Nevertheless, even with that incident and the ones that followed with the others it still hadn't kept them from "bumping" into one another so they could exchange words for three seconds before Filch spoke his mind and sent them to clean the toilets for the fiftieth time.

It was well after midnight before the old brute discovered dismally that making the boys clean invisible smudge lines was no longer pleasurable for him. When he finally growled at them and told them that they could leave with his face set in a look of despair, comparable only to the bleakness of a funeral, they had to, in return, try to resist the urge to sprint out of the room. So with their hands pruned and their bodies too far past begging for sleep left the room.

"You think he could look anymore pathetic?" Sirius asked with a slight chuckle in his voice when they were down the hall and well out of earshot of the caretaker.

James shrugged his shoulders. "No, but I know what would make him happy now."

"Yeah, giving us a good whipping." Peter interjected pitifully.

Sirius smiled at the boy. "No, that would only make him piss himself with excitement."

"That's disgusting." Remus said from behind them.

"But it's true. I think, if things were run his way, he'd use the Chinese water torture treatment on every student until he figured out who let the dungbombs off in the third floor corridor."

James laughed and then added. "And then when he found out who had done it he would whip us like Peter said." The small boy at his side shivered visually at the thought of being whipped.

"That's only his thoughts now. If he had it his way he'd do something very horrible, like put our arms in cuffs and hang them up from the ceiling so we can't put our arms down for hours on end."

James looked at Sirius wondering what book or more likely what family member he had gotten that torture device from and immediately thought of another method to reply with. "Or for the children that were bad but not too horrible-"

"Which ones would those be? To him we're all horrible wretched little buggers." Sirius said with a mischievous smile.

James just looked at him, nodded in agreement, and then continued. "He'd lock us down in the dungeons and make sure it was pitch black. Then he would leave us down their long enough so we forget if it's night or day."

Sirius nodded, "Not bad, but in truth I think we all know that he'd invest in the medieval muggle torture devise called the iron maiden because we all know that he wouldn't really want us around after we break a rule. He'd just want us gone in the most horrible way possible."

James had heard of these things one time from his father and went with what he had been told. "So he'd shove us in the coffin with his face set in a smirk and then take the doors lined with spikes and shut them on us slowly so we can feel them pierce our bodies as we pray for the final release."

"Aye, a very painful way to die," Sirius said, "or he might-"

"Then let's hope we never see a Headmaster Filch." Remus said finally getting sick of hearing about the many ways Filch could possibly get rid of the students. "Anyway, the man's just jealous."

James furrowed his brow and looked back at Remus who was rubbing his back with a pained expression on his face. "How so?"

Remus sighed, as bright as they often were they were never short on daft moments. "He's a squib."

Realization visually showed on the three boys faces. "You're joking, right?"

"No, Sirius I'm-" Remus took a deep intake of breath as he shut his eyes. He felt his body go rigid as every muscle in his body tightened and a headache at the nape of his neck began to set in. He soon heard worried voices from his friends join the chorus of his pain.

"Remus can you hear me?" James asked.

Remus opened his eyes and looked at all of them. His back still felt as if it was on fire but he insisted to try and convince himself that it was only because of all the work he'd just done in detention rather than anything else. He looked at the people around him all with looks of concern set firmly on their faces.

"Are you okay?" Sirius asked unsurely.

Remus nodded and by instinct looked out the window, after finding that he was unable to convince himself that the nasty truth about him wasn't beginning to show its colors, they had just passed and was greeted by an almost full moon. He looked away trying desperately to fight the urge to just break down and cry and tell them everything about him. He couldn't bring himself to look at their worried faces. They seemed to care enough for him. Yeah, but so did the others and how did they repay you when they found out the truth? He found himself thinking bitterly.

He finally returned his gaze back to James, Sirius, and Peter who were all waiting for some kind of excuse for his odd behavior. Remus smiled weakly, "Yeah, I'm fine, my back's just really sore from all the detention work. That's all."

Sirius smiled at him weakly. "Well, maybe we should go get something for it down in the infirmary."

"No," he said too quickly. "no, I'll be fine. I just need some sleep."

They stared back at him not believing his little lie completely but finally nodded as a way to let him know that it was his decision and they were fine with it. With one final look out the window at the orb that sealed his fate, he let them escorted him back up to Gryffindor Tower and went straight to bed without a word. He was ashamed of himself. Ashamed that he couldn't tell them the truth because he was afraid. Afraid of their reaction to it, but ultimately that he'd be alone, again. He silently cried himself to sleep that night. And while he wept over his worries, no one else got any sleep because they were all too worried for their friend. As they stared through the darkness at the drawn curtains around his four-poster, they silently crawled into their own beds and waited for the restless sleep to settle in.

"Bitten by a werewolf, poor chap. No cure at all."

Chapter Eleven: Lycanthropy

"Magical Maladies: and How to Identify Them" By: J.M. Isaacs.

James sighed deeply as he took the book off of the shelf and looked up Lycanthropy. It took him mere seconds to locate the section. He quickly skimmed the page only to find that it featured a few paragraphs that held little or no new information that the other twenty million books he'd been through before hadn't offered already. Even with the bits of useless information that it did offer it seemed to be, from his quick skimming of the contents, the only book, thus far, that he'd found that even treated the poor people with the disease like they were human beings. The other books had only offered the five different ways to identify them as werewolves and not wolves and then they would list graphically how to kill them.

James simply stared at the page for a while, debating whether or not he really wanted to read what the book had to say. His eyes were drawn to the picture to the right of the paragraphs on Lycanthropes. It featured a young man turning into a large fanged beast. The transformation seemed to bring the man nothing but pain. James hated to think about the thoughts that ran like mad through his head. How could he even think that one of his friends could possibly be a werewolf? Yet, at the same time, all of the signs seemed to be pointing to it. He groaned at his thoughts and swiftly dog-eared the page before he went to go sit down in a corner at the back of the library, well away from everyone else.

He reopened the book and stared at the page as if expecting the words to just read themselves. The picture to the right taunted him as it showed the man scream silently into the night as his body morphed into the beast inside him. James was partially glad that the picture didn't talk like the portraits did because he wouldn't have wanted to hear the man's screams. He could hardily imagine how anyone could live like that. It seemed a terrible fate for anyone, a fate that was almost worth just giving up for. His heart sunk as he finally began to read the paragraph that would hopefully reveal the truth of his friend.

A Lycanthrope, or more commonly known as a werewolf is a person who has been mauled by another werewolf and survived the initial attack. Now, I say mauled instead of bitten because it gives a more realistic view of the preliminary transmission of the disease. For a werewolf does not just bite a person and run off like many people have come to believe when they hear the term "bitten." The full intention of a werewolf is to kill their prey and that usually takes some effort, therefore, the infection itself is an accident. Of course a werewolf is only harmful to humans, and noticeably only humans can have Lycanthropy.

There are only two real ways to identify a Lycanthrope, when they are in human form. One, and most obvious, is to wait for the full moon to show the truth and see for yourself but of course this is a bit dangerous. The second is called a silver burn. This is a simple procedure, just apply a bit of pure silver to the person’s skin and almost instantly a welt will appear at the point where the skin and silver made contact.

Lycanthropy is a serious illness, but the people with it are only harmful once a month. Certain phases of the moon affect people with the disease differently. There is no cure for Lycanthropy and people with the disease generally do not live more than twenty-five years after the initial infection.

James stared at the last line for a long while before he felt as if he was going to throw up. His stomach seemed to have hardened and yet, at the same time, it felt full of slop that he was ready to release on the library floor. He looked up from the book at the line of bookshelves that were laid out before him. Twenty-five years? That was hardly long enough for anyone to live. That was barely living.

He tried to think of all the things one could possibly do before the age of twenty-five. He soon decided there wasn't much to offer because after school that would leave only eight years to do what you dreamed of doing. James looked down at the book once more and looked at the picture as he regretfully started to imagine Remus dying in his twenties. He felt numb at the thought of it and hoped that he was wrong about everything, for both Remus' and his own sake. Yet, he knew he wasn't wrong, he couldn't be wrong. He read through the last paragraph once more.

The phases of the moon affect them differently. That fit, Remus always got sick right around the Waxing Gibbous phase of the moon, right before the full moon. He let his thoughts run further away from him. I could put a Silver Sickle on Remus' skin but that seems too cruel. How would he explain his actions if he was wrong? Or, worse yet, what if he was right? He felt sick; there was no doubt about it. He was, slowly but surely, worrying himself to the point that he would eventually have to admit himself into the hospital ward.

"Werewolves, eh."

James jumped at the sound of the voice that had interrupted his thoughts. He looked up and his eyes fell on Chris Weasley. "Yeah, it's interesting." James said non-enthusiastically.

"Doesn't sound like you're very interested in it." Chris then he added with a half smile. "You do know that we don't start learning about dark creatures until third year."

James nodded, hoping the boy would just go away. He wasn't in the mood for talking with anyone at the moment. "I was just interested in it so I thought I'd look it up." James lied. "That's all." He added finally hoping that that would end their discussion.

Chris nodded in understanding. "Next time look up “Vampires.” They're more interesting and there's a lot more information on them."

He smiled falsely at his peer. "I'll keep that in mind." He then watched the red-headed boy leave and once he was sure the boy had gone he closed his book and walked up to Madam Pince.

She was just as charming as ever as she checked the book out for him. He left as she yelled out after him. "If I find a rip, folded corner, or notes written inside of that book you will be fined until next September."

James just waved at the old woman, happy that she had missed the dog-eared page making a mental note to himself to fix the dog-eared page before he returned the book as he left the library. He headed up to his dormitory and was relieved to find that no one was there. He knew that Remus had had yet another seizure after History of Magic class and had to endure Sirius teasing him for not getting sick before Binns' class. In return the boy had retreated to Madame Pomfrey's office to get checked out because they wouldn't let him do anything else until he did.

James, though, had made his venture to the library to find out once and for all the truth after Madame Pomfrey made them leave because she "needed to talk with Remus." He still disliked the results to his hour of searching but came to grips with them soon enough. He opted not to tell Sirius anything until it was absolutely necessary. He knew Sirius would overreact and he also knew that if he said anything it would finalize the truth. Then what would they do?

James quickly slipped the library book under his mattress knowing that that was most likely the only safe place for him to hide it. He grabbed his bag and picked up his Transfiguration essay and stuffed it inside next to Sirius'. He sighed heavily to himself. They still needed to get Sirius a new bag. He wondered momentarily where on earth Sirius and Peter had run off to but quickly decided not to care. Who knew what they could be doing without him there to keep Sirius in check? He laughed to himself and quickly put his Astronomy book back into his bag before he headed to his next class.

"Do sit down; the turkey's getting stone cold."

Chapter Twelve: Holiday Greetings

Christmas Holiday arrived soon enough with the last few gruesome weeks of tests and a bounty of homework. It seemed that all the teachers wanted to get the last bit of teaching in before the break so they would be able to start off fresh with the coming of the new term. All of which was a disappointment for the students. Their brains could do with little filling as thoughts of snow and family filtered in and out of their heads when they should have been paying attention to their lectures.

Ultimately, James had agreed to stay behind with Sirius to the dissatisfaction of his mother who had wanted to take a small trip over to Germany to visit her sister who had moved there about three years before and was now "dying to see how grown up James was now." Remus had opted to go home over the break to James' frustration once he had realized the full moon fell shortly after Christmas itself making it so he wouldn't have the chance to see if Remus made a miraculous disappearance for the fourth time in a row.

Remus had half-heartedly invited the two boys to stay with him and his family for the holidays due to Sirius complaining about his own family and their decision not to let him come home for Christmas. Yet, Sirius was quick to decline the offer. He, overall, seemed to like the idea of having the castle mostly to himself.

Peter was returning to Portsmouth to spend the holiday with all of his family. Sirius had thought it strange that a family would actually want to see every relative at one time but Peter had insisted that it was actually quite enjoyable. Sirius only laughed at him saying that if his family got together, like Peter's, everyone would be either dead or disowned by Christmas morning.

Their dorm seemed very empty that night when darkness had fallen on the castle because both Remus and Peter had said their farewells and Happy Christmases that morning when they had left for the train. James and Sirius had retreated to their dorms for lack of better things to do and just held a discussion on nothing which lasted late into the night with only a few breaks for food and wizards chess.

Sirius managed to talk himself to sleep that night which wasn't the first time he'd done that in James' presence and probably wouldn't be the last. James, on the other hand, didn't remember falling asleep at all; only that he had awoken to Sirius jumping on his bed with a loud: "Wake up! Happy Christmas!"

James sat up groggily, rubbed his eyes and put his glasses on his face, very annoyed with his wakeful friend. "Happy Christmas to you too." James said once he was sure he was fully awake or at least as awake as one could ask for at eight in the morning, "How long have you been up?"

"Since six," Sirius stated with a smile. James instinctively looked over at Sirius' pile of presents that were waiting to be opened. James' face screwed up in thought and Sirius answered his unasked question. "Family rule: can't open presents unless everyone is up."

James chuckled. "Doesn't sound like a Black family rule."

"That's because it's a Potter rule. Didn't I tell you? Your parents adopted me."

"Great, now I really am stuck with you forever," James said rolling his eyes as he crawled out of bed and picked up his presents and moved over to Sirius' bed.

"So are you saying you'd rather I do things the Black way and open up all my presents, then open up all of yours, sift through your best ones, re-wrap all your remaining shitty ones, and continue to pretend that I didn't touch them?"

"No, the Potter way is much better."

"That's what I thought," Sirius said as he followed James over to his bed. He sat down and quickly picked up the package from James and opened it. He smiled as a small knife fell out of the small box it had been put in.

"It's a penknife... it'll open any door and untie any knot."

"That'll be useful," Sirius stated as he put it safely on his bed-stand.

James then opened Sirius' gift to him and was happy to see a book on his favorite team, a shirt, and a signed picture. "I'm just glad it's not orange." James said with a laugh.

"Shut it, you. At least I thought of you when I went to that bloody game where Puddlemere creamed the Chudley Cannons to my utter disappointment.”

"Wish I'd been there," James muttered, surveying his gift.

Sirius sighed and looked at him with a face that said simply “no, you don't.”

They continued on like this, opening gifts back and forth, and showing off what everyone had given them. Sirius was delighted to see that James' mum had restocked his candy stash with homemade fudges and other candies along with some new Zonko's objects, courtesy of Mr. Potter. James smiled as he opened his own present from his parents a new/old chessboard, it had belonged to his grandfather and according to the note his father had left him it was time that it belonged to James. Peter had also gone out of his way to give Sirius a new backpack that had a small patch on the front of it featuring a small paw print on it in black that was sewn on very poorly by Peter himself. The backpack also had a note pinned to the front just below the patch that apologized for the “dungbomb incident” and listed all of the backpacks features, which ultimately lead to James having to hear about this backpack’s special abilities for the next hour.

Peter's gift to James was thoughtful but definitely made James feel guilty as he opened the packaging and a book flopped out of it onto his lap. He looked at it as he read “The Vampire Vault” by Gaston Macaulay. He opened the pages, as Sirius droned on about his new backpack, and found a note carefully written on the inside cover page.

James-

I heard you talking to Chris in the library about dark creatures and that you were interested in them. He had suggested Vampires and you looked interested in it so I thought you'd like this. I read through a couple of pages and it actually is quite good. I hope you enjoy it.

~Peter

Hey, maybe you can prove if Professor Lamia is a vampire or not.

James laughed at the last line as he continued to ignore Sirius by sifting through the pages. It had everything. Poems about vampires: muggle beliefs on the creatures followed up with the truth about them. Like the muggle belief that they can't go out in the sunlight when in all reality they can, although only for short periods of time, like a half hour or so, before it starts to hurt them. But as excellent as the book was, and it was, he couldn't help but feel guilty about it as the thought that Peter had been in the library that day fell into his mind followed by the dread about what his real reason had been for being in there. Sure, Peter didn't know that James thought they were living with a werewolf but the fact was that he did and it just made him feel horrible.

He looked down at his last remaining present and picked it up as Sirius continued to go on about his backpack. He opened it carefully still dreading his thoughts and smiled widely as a package fell out that said simply:

"Palani's PermaPaint-squirt it on your friends and watch their skin change colors! Takes up to a week to wash off!"

He smiled to himself as he thought of all the damage he could do to Snape with this thing. Payback for the afros and wonderful dye job. He'd have to thank Lupin when he came back from his holiday.

James looked up from his gift only to see that, Sirius had opened his own present from Lupin after he had discarded the one his parents had given him, ten galleons with a note that said “buy what you want,” and was happy to see a book entitled Jabberwocky Jinxes by John L. Feeblebunny. It was full of dangerous jinxes that he too could not wait to try on Snape.

They stayed in their rooms till well into the afternoon busying themselves with small things like chess, looking through Sirius' Jinx book and testing out James' PermaPaint kit. They both decided that Lupin had given the best presents that year, although, Sirius did have to admit that it was tied with Peter's gift in his opinion. But after four hours of this they began to get bored.

They quickly put their clothes on and decided to go exploring, maybe even use Sirius' penknife to see if there was anything clever hidden inside the castle walls. They headed out of the common room shortly after what would have been lunch had they taken the time to go down to the Great Hall and eat it. They soon found themselves walking down the hallways not bothering to really look where they were heading as they talked back and forth about whatever odd ideas decided to filter into their heads. James smiled as they passed a tapestry showing Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls to dance ballet. They made many twists and turns with no real destination in mind until they had wondered down the defense hallway where the suits of armor were and Sirius quickly steered clear of them apparently not wanting to get knocked on his arse again.

"Afraid of a pile of rusting metal?" James said in a voice one would use on a baby.

"Shut it," Sirius growled as he glared at the last suit of armor that had beat him up before and then, in turn, hit James upside the head as hard as he could.

James rubbed the spot on his head where Sirius had clubbed him, making his hair even messier than it typically was. Sirius laughed at the spot of hair that poked up at the back of James' head and unknowingly lead them down a corridor that they had never been down before. The corridor was lit with candles that lined the hall and Sirius was instantly taken by the odd pictures hanging on the walls most of which were of fruit. They walked along still joking about Sirius' “fear” of the suits of armor and James' hair issues, as his mother often called it, while Sirius took to absently poking the pictures of fruit as they went along. Then, suddenly, Sirius stopped and stared at one of the paintings in awe.

"What?" James asked as he stopped and retraced his footsteps back to where Sirius had stopped, "It's a painting."

"No, it laughed."

"Right," he turned to continue down the hallway leaving Sirius behind him.

"No, really it did," Sirius stared at the painting and poked it. Again, it let out a soft whining sound like someone who was trying not to laugh would do. "See!"

James turned back around and walked back over to Sirius and stared at the picture strangely and then smiled mischievously as he started to tickle the pear that Sirius had just poked. The fruit began to squirm and whine a bit before it finally let out a high pitched squeal-like laughter. In the next instant the green pear turned into a door handle, James grabbed it and opened it, only to find a large room, the same size and shape as the great hall.

The walls were covered in large brass pans and there was a fireplace at the other end. James smiled and climbed inside cautiously happy to see that they had indeed found something. Sirius followed shortly behind him. Instantly, they were greeted by what seemed to be a hundred house-elves all wanting to get them something. One grabbed James' hand after it introduced itself by bowing low as her pointed nose touched the ground. "I is Kiri, sirs."

"'Ello," Sirius greeted with a wide smile and followed the house-elf named Kiri to the fireplace as she practically pushed James into a chair. He sat down next to James and leaned into him and whispered. "I think I need to take one of these guys home and teach Kreacher a lesson in proper etiquette."

James laughed, as the small house-elf came back in with a friend who introduced himself as Askim. Sirius laughed when he heard the name. James chuckled too, happy to see that Dumbledore had a sense of humor. They soon asked for some butterbeers and Christmas cookies. Sirius quickly grew very fond of the house-elf entitled Askim because he was a funny little being. Apparently, Dumbledore came down to the kitchens in his spare time and told random jokes to the little elf as a way to get out the many jokes he had that McGonagall never wanted to hear. And in return it kept the elf's humor up to par.

The two boys smiled and joked with the elves, to their astonishment the elves actually laid back and joined them, and soon found themselves having Christmas dinner around the fire with a small party of house-elves that couldn't help with sending up the food for the party that was going on above them. The house-elves even supplied the party crackers that they had upstairs for the party they were supposed to be attending with the headmaster, teachers, and whatever students were still at school aside from them.

It was well past midnight before they finally willed themselves to leave the company of the house-elves. They bid the little creatures farewell and returned to their dorm. James smiled widely as they entered the common room with their arms full of party favors from the wonderful crackers. Sirius was in the midst of a fit of giggles as he threw himself on the couch.

"What's so funny?" James asked as he joined them.

"Askim," Sirius laughed. "I wanna take that house-elf home. Much better than Kreacher anyway."

James nodded in agreement. Kreacher was a really creepy house-elf in general. "I don't think he'd like that too much. He seems to like being here."

Sirius only half-smiled to himself in reply. "You know what I'm gonna do?" After what was a long bit of silence between the two of them.

"No, and do I honestly want to?"

"I'm going to write Lupin and tell him he missed a great Christmas and wish him the very best Christmas ever," Sirius continued, choosing to ignore James' comment.

James smiled and watched Sirius leave for the dorm. "Oy," Sirius stopped at the foot of the boy's staircase and turned around to face his friend, "tell him I loved the present and that I hope he has a great holiday too."

Sirius nodded and retreated back up to their dorm. James sat in silence and instinctively looked out the window at the moon. He sighed and thought of Remus spending time with his parents and smiled half-hoping he could see his mum and dad at that moment. He sighed and followed Sirius' wake up to his dorm where he found Sirius scrawling on a piece of parchment. James then casually put on his pajamas, crawled into his own bed, took off his glasses, drew the curtains to a close around him, and closed his eyes, where he willed the sleep to come over him.

"I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex."

Chapter Thirteen: The Beginning of Hatred

James and Sirius had sat in the common room waiting for Remus and Peter to come back. When the two boys finally did crawl through the portrait hole Sirius and James practically ran over to them and greeted them in their own special ways, Sirius giving Remus a great bear hug. Remus had arrived looking very pale and scratches were, once again, covering his arms. They all noticed and quickly asked upon his condition. He tried to explain them away by saying his dog had gotten him when they were rough-housing in his father's den. James tried his best to pretend that he believed him but found it quite hard to do.

Once they were situated in the comfy chairs by the fireplace they quickly began to share the many details of their holidays. Remus stayed very quiet the whole time as Peter, who was quite talkative, kept going on about all of the wonderful things he and his cousins did while Sirius tried to change the subject to the house-elves and all of the exploring James and he had managed to do while the other two had been gone. It would have been quite funny watching the two of them switching subjects back and forth if James hadn't been so worried about Remus. It turned out that Remus only talked of his own holiday when they questioned him and his answers always turned out to be very vague and he refused to look them in the eye as he spoke. Finally, after many failed attempts at a real conversation among the four of them they opted to turn in for the night.

The next morning greeted them warmly with another brisk January day. The boys were obligated to layer their robes in preparation for their lessons that day, which would be held in the Transfiguration room and then their schedule would send them down to Double Potions where it was bitterly cold. Sirius smiled proudly as he put his books in his own bag for the first time in several months. He also added a few extra "fun" things in the bag as James laughed silently to himself; this was going to be an interesting day.

Once they were sure they had all of their essays and books they headed down to the Great Hall where they had a fairly uneventful breakfast. Remus seemed to be a bit more talkative that day as he told them about his parents and how maybe they could visit him over the summer; his parents apparently really wanted to meet them. Sirius thought that was a great idea, but then anything that suggested a way for him to get away from his own parents during summer was always a good idea to Sirius. Peter continued to try and talk about his family like he had the night before and once again Sirius countered it with comment after comment on the kitchens and how they should all go down there one night and just hang out.

When they had finished with breakfast they wandered up to Transfiguration while Peter continued to ramble on about his family, which none of them paid much attention to him. They took their usual seats at the back of the room and waited for class to start by drawing back and forth on a scratch piece of parchment.

They had just finished a very funny cartoon drawing of Professor McGonagall and were adding speech bubbles to it. When the woman finally walked up to the front of the classroom, silently ordering all eyes to fall on her, she gave her usual short demonstration of the lesson and set the students to work.

James smiled to himself as he turned his toothpick into a needle easily on the second try. He heard Sirius groan beside him and mumbled something that sound a lot like "show off" before he finally got it down himself. They spent the rest of the hour in silence passing the drawing of McGonagall back and forth adding odd things that McGonagall would never say into the speech bubble. Class finally ended and the four boys made their way down to the dungeons.

"I can never get anything in that class." Peter whined from behind them. "I barely got the match to look shiny." The boy sighed deeply.

"Don't worry about it." Remus said softly, "You're really good in potions, and I'm terrible."

Peter blushed. "You're not terrible."

"I am."

James looked up from his conversation about the McGonagall drawing with Sirius and smiled weakly, "We're all good at something, can we just leave it at that?"

Remus nodded in agreement, probably only as a way to try and avoid an argument, and they slipped into the potions room where Severus Snape sat in his usual spot at the front of the room, just to the left of Professor Lamia's desk. They moved over to their own usual spots, once again, at the back of the room and took out their supplies for the class. Remus moaned slightly as he looked up at the board where the potion of the day was written. James instantly saw why. It wasn't going to be a fun class. The potion was extremely difficult, for a first year level, and the added threat of Professor Lamia didn't help any either.

She had a tendency of starting her classes with little pop quizzes on their knowledge of general potion making. She would then proceed to upgrade the questions to their knowledge of the potion they were going to make that day. Throw in her nasty sixth sense of always knowing exactly who knew the answers to her questions and who didn't, the fact that she knew exactly who didn't know the answer and her need to ask that one particular person to answer just so she could take points from their house, well, to put it bluntly, it didn't make the class fun. They had all decided after the first week of lessons that she delighted in embarrassing the students, especially Gryffindors.

They talked quietly back and forth and started a new cartoon of a very pretty vampire, which they cleverly labeled as the Potions Mistress herself. The bell finally rang and Sirius quickly stowed the drawing away in his backpack. Heaven forbid the professor caught them with it. They'd all have detention until they died. Every student in the room had shut up, and turned to face the front of the room the instant the bell rang for fear of what would happen to them if they didn't.

Professor Lamia came into the silent room a minute after the bell had rung with her robes barely moving behind her. Her dark hair swayed as she made her graceful trudge to the front of her room as her icy blue eyes darted around to see if anyone was doing something, that, in her eyes, was wrong. She smiled dryly at the class when she found nothing to call attention to, like she had done so many times before, as if she was disappointed.

"Can anyone tell me what the property of bezoar is?"

Instantly, Snape's hand shot up in the air. James heard Sirius snicker to his left as Lamia ignored his hand and continued to scan the room for the right student. Finally, her eyes rested on their corner.

"Mr. Lupin."

Remus' body went rigid at the sound of his name being called and he turned just slightly enough to look at both James and Sirius with a pleading look on his face. He didn't know the answer. He quickly looked back to the professor and with an apologetic voice, barely above a whisper; he said simply, "I don't know."

She made a clicking sound with her tongue that cut through the thick silence. "Well, then, Mr. Lupin, you should take the time to read your textbook more extensively. Maybe then you could actually pass my class." She stated with a curt smile. Remus was unable to look her in the eyes. James had never hated anyone more than at that very moment, "Ten points from Gryffindor for your incompetence." She scanned the room and finally called on Snape, who had been waiting patiently with his hand in the air.

"It will act as an antidote against most poisons."

"Very good. Twenty points to Slytherin."

So it went, back and forth, with more incorrect answers and then her giving the Slytherin's a chance to pick up the dropped ball. For the next fifteen minutes it went on until she was absolutely sure they all knew what they were doing. Then she let them get to work on the potion they had been quizzing on.

James collected the supplies they would need from Lamia's own potion supplies and went back to his and Sirius' table. He started adding the ingredients very carefully, double checking the instructions, making sure he didn't botch anything up and give her a chance to embarrass him too badly for the day.

"Why does she have to play favorites?" Remus asked sorely as he stared over at Snape, who was talking contently with the professor whilst he worked on his potion.

"I don't know." Sirius said dryly as he poured some crushed bezoar into his potion, "McGonagall never does."

"I wish she would." Peter chimed in as his potion gave off a white mist like it was supposed to after he added root of Asphodel, "Then we could earn back most of the points Lamia takes away."

James chuckled as he watched Remus nod enthusiastically at the comment and then moan in disgust as his potion let of a dark purple mist rather than a white one. His own was a slightly grayish white but he figured it was close enough. Professor Lamia busied herself by walking around the class criticizing the student's work. When she came to Remus she was so disgusted it seemed that she couldn't even find anything to say that would be potent enough to convey her true thoughts on his potions capabilities. Remus, though, was ecstatic by that fact and went on with his completely off potion without really bothering with the amount of ingredients too much. He figured that since he had already destroyed it, it was pointless to try and do a good job.

Soon James found his potion complete. He put it into a flask and carried it up to the desk followed by the others, all with potions varying in color. Sirius' potion was a night sky blue rather than James pale blue. Peter's was an even darker blue, which was the actual color it was supposed to be. Remus' wound up being a pale purple but he didn't even care. He didn't plan on taking potions after fifth year anyway.

"What is that?"

They all turned around and came face to face with Snape. His lips were curled up in that half smirk of his and he was looking contently at Remus' potion with a mix of contentment and amusement. "A potion." Remus said softly, now suddenly caring that he had blown off the period and hadn't tried.

"A potion," The greasy haired boy mocked, "that's terrible."

He looked over the others work and finally fell on Peter's, "Even the dunce can make a good potion you must really have no talent."

Peter's face went crimson and he quickly turned to look down at the floor in shame. Sure everyone knew Peter was terrible at every other subject but Potions was where his talent was. James glared at Snape as he walked back over to his cronies. Sirius was silent with fury. He hated it when anyone picked on one of his friends. They placed the potions on Professor Lamia's desk. Remus in particular was especially bent out of shape about his own failure now, but Lamia still could find nothing critical to say about his work.

They went back to their tables and sat quietly, not bothering to even try and talk to one another while Lamia was still in the room. Sirius, though, was clamoring around in his backpack for something and finally came out with a bottle from James' coloring kit. James smiled at Sirius as the boy pocketed it knowing exactly what his friend was going to do with it.

The bell rang and the students filed out of the room, most of which were scurrying away as fast as they could into the open hallway. But James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter just moved to the side of the door and waited for Snape to stop talking with Professor Lamia and leave the classroom. When he finally did, he didn't even notice them waiting for him. They, then, followed him down the corridor until they were far enough away from all teachers.

Sirius walked in front of them and slowly pulled the flask that held the color of his choice that he had picked out that morning. He smiled widely as his large stride quickly caught up with the boy. "Oy, Snape-y!"

Snape turned around quickly at the sound of his name being called and his face turned to inclusive anger when his eyes grazed upon Sirius. Snape, apparently, was unable to find something clever to say to him and merely turned around. He began to walk from the four of them in a fast stride. Sirius gave a slight chuckle and only sped up his own walking pace. Soon he was walking side by side with Snape, trying to gain his attention, the flask still in his hand.

Sirius kept smiling madly as he continued to try and get the boy even angrier with him. Every once and awhile he would look up to see what the others were doing. Then, finally, when Snape looked up at Sirius to say something particularly nasty, his greasy bangs falling into his eyes out from the ponytail they had been tied into, Sirius dumped the bottle of color on the boys' skin.

James watched in a mixture of amusement and terror at the thought of what Snape could possibly do to Sirius in return for this action. He soon found himself running towards Sirius as he watched, in what seemed like slow motion, as Snape pulled his wand out from one of the pockets in his robes. He ran in front of Sirius and looked at Snape with even more hatred than Snape had shown Sirius when his eyes had first fallen on him.

James soon felt his lips curl into a cruel and content smirk as he looked at the damage the little flask filled with color had done. Snape's skin was bright orange and it had spread from the point of application to cover every inch of it. His face would have been turning slightly red in rage had the orange not been there.

"I hate you! All of you!" Snape yelled as if he was trying not to cry. He turned to Peter and Remus then back to James and Sirius, "Move!" He yelled at James.

"No."

"You think your being noble here, protecting your brainless friend!" He yelled with every trace of hurt in him, which was now fully doused in hatred so one would never be able to tell that seconds before he sounded close to tears. James said nothing and just stood there staring at Snape, "Move before I make you!"

"Right; and how exactly are you going to do that?"

"IMPEDIMENTA!"

James stared in horror as the spell hit him directly in the chest knocking him backwards into Sirius where they both collided with the stone wall behind them. Sirius opened and closed his eyes as small dots of light flickered in front of them. He felt the back of his head where it had hit the wall and winced slightly in pain, as he felt something wet. He brought his hand forward and looked at his fingers; blood.

Remus came forward and held out his hand without saying a word. James took it and hoisted himself up off of Sirius who was trying to right his breathing. James turned around and held out his own hand to his friend. Sirius took it but said nothing, obviously, upset with himself that he had even let Snape get the spell in, in the first place, a spell that was most definitely far to advanced for an average first year. He looked down the hallway in the direction of the Slytherin common room and groaned, Snape was so far in the Dark Arts it was amazing he had time to bother with anything else.

"You're bleeding." Peter stated to Sirius, breaking the complete silence that had enveloped the group. Then he looked at James, "You are too."

James wiped his nose and sure enough it was bleeding quite nicely and there was a cut similar as Sirius, in the back of his head, where, he too, had hit the stone wall. Remus only stood there as if he were in deep thought, and then he walked away from them knowing they'd follow him. They did, knowing exactly where they were headed. They were in store for another heart felt afternoon with Madam Pomfrey; they were all getting to know that woman very well.

"He's a werewolf"

Chapter Fourteen: Cursing the Moon

"Are you listening, Mr. Black?"

James laughed openly as he looked at Sirius, as their teacher spoke to him. The boy, merely, nodded his head every once in a while until he was set loose on the castle. Sirius walked towards his friends away from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, which in turn only made his hair fall in his eyes. He shook his head slightly to make it go back in place.

"So what did he say?" James inquired.

Sirius let out a low bark-like sound and swiftly changed his voice to a low cheery sound with a slight edge. "This is an important subject and you need to learn how to pay attention. You will need to know how to protect yourself someday and what will you do then if you never paid any attention in class," Sirius enthusiastically cleared his voice and continued with his imitated rant. "Now, I'll let today's little incident slide with a simple detention but I expect you to act your age from now on!"

Sirius laughed and looked at each of his friends in turn before they started down the hallway in the direction of the Great Hall for lunch. "I'm only eleven! How else am I supposed to act? Honestly, you'd think a werewolf was lurking behind us every waking moment of the day."

Remus stopped walking for only a few seconds and looked intently at the back of Sirius' head for a moment. It was only a coincidence that he had chosen that as an example. Surely they couldn't know. They would have gotten rid of him, told him to shove off like other so-called friends had done long before them.

He sighed as he passed the window just down from the suits of armor, he stopped for a moment, just in front of it, and instantly regretted doing so. The moon was barely visible in the sunlight as it stood in its position above the forbidden forest. The affect it had on him was swift and efficient. Remus felt his entire body tense up and his stomach lurch as if wanting nothing more than to release its bodily fluids. He gripped the windowsill, putting his head down so it faced the floor, his face screwed up in pain as he waited for the pain to subside but knowing in his heart that it wouldn't. He quickly lifted his hand up from the windowsill and held it to his stomach tightly, praying for it to do what it wanted to in hopes that he might feel better if it did.

"Remus!" He looked up from the floor with his hand still clenching his stomach to see James running back over to him. James's face was set in worry as he looked down at his friend. "What's wrong?" he knew it was a stupid question as soon as it had left his mouth.

Remus just tried his best to stand upright, pushing the pain out of his mind, willing it with every ounce of his body to go away as he met James' eyes. He opened his mouth to give an explanation, a lie, but found that the words had a harder time coming out now then they had originally. He quickly removed his gaze from James and shifted to the barely visible moon hanging in the brightly lit sky. He cursed it silently and then he muttered, "My stomach just hurts."

He moved his gaze back from the window and looked just over James' shoulder to see Sirius and Peter coming up behind him before he looked directly at James and smiled weakly, "That's all, it’s just a stupid stomach ache. I'll go to the infirmary to get it checked out."

Remus turned away not even giving James the chance to take him to the infirmary, for the millionth time (or at least that was how it seemed) that year. He walked as fast as he could towards Madam Pomfrey's office. He entered the now familiar room, do to all of the times he'd have to been in there before with James and Sirius, not to mention his own illness.

He felt lost as he looked around the cold room and began to make his way into the back of the large room where Madam Pomfrey's office was located. He wiped a tear away from his grey eyes, as he entered her office, furious with himself for lying to his friends again, and afraid of what might actually happen to him if they did find out about his illness. He slid down the door, after he had shut it softly behind him, and sobbed heavily into his knees.

~*~*~*~

James sat staring out the window as he sat in one of the chairs set away from the fire in the mostly empty common room. The grounds were illuminated by the moon, which shone brightly over the snow-covered grounds. He sat there, heavy-hearted with an overdue library book on his lap, open to a page he'd been reading repeatedly every day for a month.

He sat in thought staring out the window, the moon stood menacingly in the sky mocking him with it's light. James shifted slightly in his seat and stared down at the picture in his book as the beast on the page showed off its sharp teeth. He frowned at the page and absent-mindedly ran his hand through his hair in aggravation making it even messier than it was to begin with.

"Werewolves?" James jumped at the sound of the voice and turned around in his seat to see Sirius hovering over his shoulder. "You thinking of sticking one on Snape or something?"

His face was contorted into a smirk that showed simply that he loved the idea. They still hadn't found anything clever to try and get the boy back for their last encounter, but it gave them enough satisfaction to see Snape squirm in what he thought was well-disguised fear, whenever they came within ten feet of him.

James said nothing, not knowing exactly what to say. He didn't feel like talking about Snape. Instead, he unconsciously turned his attention back towards the window and stared out at the moon once more. "I like it when it's full," Peter stated. James hadn't even realized he was there until just then when the boy had spoken.

James' brow furrowed in hurried thought as he looked without really seeing the moon, he began, "You guys, I have something to tell you."

Sirius's eyebrow cocked upward for a moment as his suspicions rose. Finally, after what seemed like forever to James, he took a seat across from him. Peter followed suit shortly afterwards.

"What is it, mate?"

"Remus."

Peter looked up. "He got sick again today," he said plainly as if he were commenting on nothing more than the weather.

"Yeah, so what's the problem?" Sirius asked simply with the same air only a little more concerned.

James stared at him in the face and then decided just to plunge into his suspicions that had been haunting him for what seemed like an eternity. "Sirius, I don't think he has the stomach flu like he said."

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked his voice going slightly on edge.

James sighed heavily and put the book he'd been reading on the table in front of them and pushed it towards Sirius. He stared at the book in wonder as the pieces, shown clearly by his face, started to fall into place and then his expression of comprehension was quickly replaced by a face that held no emotion at all, "What are you getting at?"

"You know what I'm getting at! Sirius, Remus is a werewolf!"

At those words Peter let out a whine as if he were an injured animal. The thought alone seemed to be enough to kill him. His fear was evident by the way the small boy had begun to shake slightly while James stared at Sirius waiting for a reply.

"You're mental. James you've finally lost it. He just gets sick som-"

"Every month Sirius!" Sirius let out a sound much like a grunt of disgust.

"He gets sick, so what."

James stared in disbelief. He knew Sirius could be pig-headed but this was too much.

"What's that?" James said finally, after holding Sirius' glare for far too long, he pointed out the window.

"A coincidence," Sirius retorted firmly through gritted teeth.

Peter sat looking from one of his friends to the other as if he were waiting for a nasty fight to break out in front of him. He was sitting in his seat in such a way that he was ready to go and hide under the table at any possible moment.

James couldn't believe either of them. Peter was afraid of every aspect of the situation and Sirius was denying any possibility of this being true when all of the signs were pointing directly to it. He then had an idea and turned away from Sirius, for only a second. He picked up his bag, pulled out a piece of parchment and wrote:

"January 27 -- Remus had stomach flu; full moon"

James looked up from his messy handwriting at both of the boys. "You don't believe me, fine, that's okay, but could you guys at least be open to the possibility that he could indeed," James leaned in closer to his friends and whispered, "be a werewolf."

Sirius looked away from James, as he said the last few words out loud, and looked out the window in the direction of the gleaming full moon outside. His eyes moved slowly towards the open book and he stared at the picture with utter disgust; a face James had only ever seen one person, Sirius' mother, make before. He would never dare tell Sirius that but his smug air at that particular moment was a very Black one.

Sirius finally looked up from the book and met James' eyes directly and sighed, obviously still thinking. "Then will you be open to the fact that you could be wrong?"

Sirius' face broke into a half-hearted smirk as he looked at his best friend. James only nodded at him hoping with all of his heart that he was indeed wrong but knowing and entirely hating the fact that he wasn't.

"You made us feel ashamed of ourselves."

Chapter Fifteen: Casting Stones at Driftwood

It took another week before Remus returned to classes. This time he bore no real wounds on his body. Though, he did hold himself like a tired old man and failed to complete his homework on his first two days back because he was simply too exhausted. Most of the teachers seemed to go easy on him like McGonagall, which surprised all of the others severely. Flitwick also had no problem with it saying simply that he understood. This made Sirius and Peter a bit more paranoid about the whole werewolf situation, which they were still not willing to believe. Overall Sirius and Peter tried their best to act normal around Remus, and for the most part they succeeded. James, though, made pretending nothing was wrong an art form, and he hated that fact more than the others would ever know.

He had watched Remus closely over the next few weeks and found nothing new. He was still just the same boy with the exact same problem that he had had from the beginning. The same disease that they had befriended him with from the beginning, only thing was that they hadn't known that Remus was indeed a dangerous beast come once a month when they had made friends with him. This ugly fact had, in turn, changed the way they looked at him, the way they acted around him; it made him different. This in turn secluded Remus even more than he already tended to isolate himself anyway. Yet, he was still their friend, first and foremost, and nothing should have the power to change that, no matter how devastating it was.

He glared at the flames in the mostly empty common room's fire, as he absently poked at a hole in the comfy couch's seam. He couldn't even blame Sirius and Peter for acting differently around Remus, for this was how the wizarding world conditioned people. People were supposed to hate anyone or anything that was even a little different than themselves. This was how children were raised in their world, to fear one another, to think they're somehow better than other people. Either way it was wrong in James' eyes. Then again, there was a similar hatred in the muggle world against wizarding folk. Racism had derived from that foolish muggle fear.

He slouched further into the couch, still absentmindedly pulling at the gradually growing hole in the couch, letting his mind wander, and trying to comprehend what it would be like to live in Remus' shoes. He kept running through different ways to live Remus' life and every time he tried a new way around the werewolf issue it tended to end the same way. The people he had learned to love would eventually find out the truth, like James had, and then they would either leave him or treat him like he was a smoking Howler waiting, unpromisingly, to be opened.

James sighed heavily to himself on the verge of either yelling out in frustration or crying out in despair. He didn't want things to end that way. He couldn't just let things fall apart. Remus was not going to get away that easily. James wasn't ready to let him just slip through the cracks, whether or not Sirius or Peter liked that idea. Yet, it wasn't really his resolution to make, ultimately, it would be Remus' decision to continue with their friendship or not.

He groaned loudly in frustration and put his feet up on the coffee table stretching his legs. He immediately noticed that Lily was standing over him looking intently at his face, which was screwed up in exasperation. He felt his mouth turn upward into a small but sincere smile as she climbed over his outstretched legs as she went to sit down next to him.

"So what's wrong, Mr. Potter?" she asked with a sly grin as soon as she had sat down.

He stared forward into the flames that were dancing to their own music in the fireplace. That seemed to be a very funny question to him at that moment. What was wrong? He knew exactly what the answer was to that question. A simple word could easily sum up the whole thing but as he thought further he found another word come to the surface of his thoughts and he knew immediately that it fit the situation quite nicely. "Friends."

"What? Did you and Sirius have a row? Because I think you two were quite the best of friends when you cleverly put those Filibuster Fireworks in Severus's Potion." Lily alleged with a frown. James knew she hated the way they treated him but he stood by his beliefs that dear old Snape deserved everything they did to him.

He laughed despite himself as he thought of the look on Snape's face when his perfect potion had exploded all over him but James quickly stopped when he saw Lily's face. He sat upright on the couch so he could look into her emerald eyes as he remembered he had to answer her question. "No, it's more of a problem with Remus," he answered truthfully without ever looking away from her eyes. He thought it was a little strange how well she could hold her face in a never changing unreadable expression, while her eyes did exactly the opposite as they radiated with her sudden comprehension.

"Oh," she frowned slightly. "I've noticed how he sort of drifts."

James nodded silently to himself. Drifts covered Remus's personality flawlessly.

"Yeah, he just separates himself sometimes, but now it's worse than ever before because--" he stopped not wanting to tell her Remus's secret. He thought for a while on his choice of words and quickly found a way to say what he wanted in a safer way, "because Sirius and Peter are treating him differently." She cocked her eyebrow upward but said nothing. James stared at her trying to read what she was thinking but when he couldn't, he continued: "Remus isn't daft. He notices it too, so I figure he feels a little unwanted and he keeps drifting further and further away from us." He furrowed his brow as exactly what was bothering him filtered into his head and before he could stop it he found it spewing out of his mouth; uncensored. "And I don't want to lose a friend over something that's... that's ..." he looked at her suddenly realizing what he was about to say and finished his statement, "like a scar."

She didn't say anything as she stared at him, trying to comprehend what exactly he was getting at. No matter how much he actually wanted her to understand he knew she never would. However, it was true. The problem with Remus was that his Lycanthropy was like a scar. A person couldn't see it unless they looked for it, yet it was always there. It was an eyesore and something that made a person somehow different from the other people they were around daily, though, unwillingly. He stared back at the flames ignoring Lily's silent thinking.

"I don't understand and I won't try to," she said suddenly cutting through the short silence they had fallen into. James turned back to her. "But I will say this. It sounds like Sirius and Peter are casting stones at Remus. I don't know if I'm right on this but give me a break, James, you're being quite cryptic. But if my thinking is correct the only thing I have to say is: don't let them do that. Because when people do cast stones they don't bother to look at the actual person, just the flaws on the surface." She smiled weakly at him and stood up to join Christopher Weasley and his sister in the corner of the room obviously done with the conversation.

James looked at her as she walked over to them with her eyes sparkling and wide smile. He thought of her words as he stared at the group of red heads in the corner without really seeing them and smiled. He somehow thought she might not have been talking just about Remus but tried to ignore the other possible person she had been alluding to in her simple message. He got up and walked upstairs to his dormitory where he knew Peter and Sirius were hiding.

The room was quiet as he entered. He quickly noticed Sirius and Peter sitting on the floor working on their homework and both of them looked slightly relieved when they saw that it was only James who had entered. James sighed deeply instantly irritated with both of their behavior and just went into what was on his mind not really caring how the other two reacted to it. "You guys have to try and treat Remus like he's normal."

Sirius looked up from his History book straight at James and held his gaze, never wavering, and spoke softly. "I know that, but he, according to what you said just a few weeks ago could very well be a bloody werewolf," he said this very calmly, which only raised James's frustration even more.

"So what? He's still our mate."

"We can't change it if he is a werewolf James! So what's the point of keeping up the friendship? We can't exactly help him."

"We can try!" James yelled.

"How?" Sirius retorted, matching James's volume. Peter stared in horror as the two yelled at each other. This was only the second real row Peter had ever witnessed between the two boys and he obviously wasn't enjoying a second of it.

"Just try to accept him. Act like nothings changed. Treat him like he's our friend," his voice slowly came down to an acceptable tone.

"He is our friend," Peter said in a slightly affronted tone from the sidelines.

Sirius' face changed as he suddenly realized someone else was in the room and he looked to the ground in thought then he turned upwards. "James, I'm trying."

James stared at him for a moment taking in the boys black hair hanging in his eyes, to his pleading expression. "I know, but please, don't seclude him. He doesn't need that. He does a fine enough job of that on his own."

They fell into a long silence as Sirius smirked slightly to himself but never said anything in return, before he went back to his work. James joined them on the floor and started to work on his own homework for the evening. They heard the door open from behind them and they all looked up as Remus came into the room with his backpack full of books from the library where he'd retreated to earlier that afternoon to go work on his History essay. He stared at all of them as they watched him enter and he chuckled uneasily to himself as he dropped his book bag on the floor by his neatly made bed. He walked over to the center of the room where the three boys had made themselves comfortable on the floor working on their own essays and smiled at them as he sat down next to James. "So, what have you guys been up to while I was gone?" he asked hesitantly.

"Nothing," the three boys answered in unison, beginning yet another night covered in sweetly poisoned lies.

"Lumos!"

Chapter Sixteen: The Lair

Over the next few weeks, James noticed an immediate change in Sirius's behavior toward Remus. In turn Remus had begun to warm back up to the whole group. He stopped wandering off to the library every afternoon, or, as he had admitted later to James, that he had gone down to visit with Madam Pomfrey in her office a few times. James, when Remus revealed this information, said simply that it had made sense for him to go down there considering how many times they had been to the infirmary in only the last few months. Then he smiled awkwardly at the boy after he had finished the statement. Remus said nothing more that evening to James or to any of the others and just went back to his work, which was steadily getting more difficult as the teachers kept loading the homework on them. They seemed to have more charts, graphs, and essays to do in the last week than they had had in the last month. Due to this recent development most of the students decided to fill the common room until well into the night. Therefore, the four boys had taken to hiding in their dormitory after the day's lessons had ended. They routinely started to make themselves comfortable on the floor in the middle of the room by grabbing all of their pillows and using them to sit or lie down on, as they worked on their homework.

James stared at Sirius, who was on the floor comfortably lying on top of his pillow. They had formed their typical circle, which was now referred to as "the homework ring of doom" and were currently swapping answers for Astronomy's latest chart. James laughed as Peter whined about how confusing the assignment was, and opened his mouth with what he thought was a clever reply but was cut off by Remus.

"It's not that difficult, it's just a matter of memorization. Plus, there are only nine phases of the moon anyway."

"That's too many to memorize," Peter whined back and then continued pitifully. "The only ones I know are the new moon, full moon, and first- and last-quarter moons."

"You have half of them down already," Remus said, slightly irritated and then at the frustrated look on Peter's face he retorted, "copy what I say down and don't lose the paper." Sirius and James laughed in unison, they all knew Peter wasn't very good at keeping things, but shut up when they saw the hurt look on Peter's face. Remus ignored them and continued once he was sure Peter was listening. "There's, if we start with the full moon, the full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, new Moon, waxing Crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, and then it goes to the full moon once again. It just repeats; it's not hard at all."

Sirius just stared in slight awe at Remus. He knew the phases but since Remus had missed that particular class because of yet another one of his infamous disappearances (which had caused yet another uproar between James and Sirius, and had started when James cleverly pointed out that Remus's getting sick fell on the full moon), he was doing quite well. Sirius turned to look at James who looked rather smug and glared down at his paper. That was yet another point to James in the ongoing werewolf debate. When he looked up he noticed that James was giving him his notorious 'don't' look that was only good for him and only he ever knew its true meaning.

"So whose notes did you copy?" Sirius asked off-handedly wanting to see if James' thoughts could be logically disproved.

James glared at Sirius not wanting to say anything in front of Remus that would make the situation get too uncomfortable, but finding, in his mind, what Sirius had just done a particularly rude thing to do. He watched Remus as the boys face turned a light shade of red and he replied simply, "My dad's an astronomer."

Sirius smiled smugly at James with a face that said simply see, James just sighed he was having a very hard time distinguishing between the lies coming from both sides of their friendship. Maybe Remus was telling the truth, but that didn't change what he was, in James's mind. Yet, Sirius still couldn't admit to the truth. He was just too stubborn for his own good sometimes. James stared down at his finished chart and then looked through his other papers only to find that he was completely done with the night's assignments. He grinned at his paper and then looked at Sirius, who also seemed to be done since he was occupying his time by doodling on a scrap piece of parchment. On the parchment Remus was helping him draw what appeared to be a cross between Filch and a half dead looking dragon. James laughed to himself and then thought of Filch's bad attitude which led him to thinking that it might be fun to get out and look at the castle. He got up from his position on his pillow and walked over to his trunk and pulled out his invisibility cloak. He smiled down at it forever thankful that his dad had given it too him to "start his schooling off correctly." He returned to the circle and dropped it in the middle of the ring. Slowly all eyes turned to him. He smiled mischievously.

"Want to do something fun?"

All the boys looked at each other in turn, their faces all mimicked James's expression, and in return they quickly slammed their books shut and stowed them in their own secret hiding places. James walked back over to the remains of their circle and picked up his cloak. He looked down at his watch, ten o' clock. That left plenty of time for them to go and explore the castle. Sirius's face was lit with nothing short of glee when he returned from his post by his bed back over to James' side with Remus in tow, who despite current absences, looked to be very up to the challenge of exploring. Peter joined up in the center of the room last; having had to finish the last few answers to his chart, and smiled unsurely at the other boys. He was up to investigating the castle, yet at the same time he didn't know exactly what to expect having only been on one other adventure of this kind with these boys. James noticed that those few fears were written plainly on the boy's face. James smiled at the boy, giving him what he hoped to be a confident smile.

"Don't worry we won't get caught. You already know this thing works well enough for pranking." James held up the invisibility cloak a bit higher off the ground and watched as his friends grinned madly at each other as they thought of Snape dancing in his dorm singing to the version of "Help" that had been playing in his head that fateful night. "So let's just go for a stroll. We'll still have to be careful do to Mrs. Norris lurking around, but other than that I think we'll be fine."

The four boys then walked out of the room down the boys staircase to the common room where only the Weasley family and Lily sat talking around the fireplace. They crawled out through the portrait hole and James noticed, just before the portrait shut, the look of disgust intermingled with awe on Lily's face that they would deliberately break yet another rule. James felt slightly bad as her face disappeared behind the Fat Lady's vicious glare but pushed the feeling aside not wanting to think about actually having the power to disappoint someone like that.

He turned to the group of boys and gave one more reassuring glance at each of them in turn. Then he proceeded to throw the cloak around Sirius's and his shoulders as the other two clamored underneath it. They heard the Fat Lady give them a quick but heated scolding as they left. None of them listened to the words the angry tones were making as they walked down the staircases away from Gryffindor Tower. They clamored down to the defense hallway whispering directions to each other every so often as they decided where they would run off to next or what they might have wanted to take a closer look at until they found themselves just outside of McGonagall's office. They stood there a while without saying anything at all and just looked around, each of them deep in their own thoughts.

"This is pointless," Peter whined through the silence. "We'll never find anything."

Sirius glared at Peter, not appreciating his pessimistic beliefs. James just sighed, not knowing what exactly to do next, and instead just pointed down in the direction of the Infirmary wing. They all walked together as one. Peter slowly but surely fell back into his habit of stepping on the back of James's heels making the dark haired boy realize just why he hadn't offered to do one of these ventures in such a long while. He fought the urge to scold the boy until he heard a voice from beside him.

"That painting always creeps me out a bit."

James turned to Remus and followed the boy's finger with his eyes to where he was pointing. He looked at it and smiled to himself. It was a picture of the founding fathers of Hogwarts all standing around the sorting hat, which was seated on the stool all four boys had had the privilege of sitting on while they had been sorted. Sure enough, the painting was a bit creepy due to the dark shades it was composed in. The paint was peeling off and the people depicted barely moved at all as they stared directly at the boys as if knowing they were there despite the invisibility cloak's properties.

James looked back over his shoulder at the others trying to read their expressions, all of which seemed to be a blank canvas of awe with the exception of Sirius who was busy giving Salazar Slytherin a dirty look of utter disgust. James, unknowingly, shrugged his shoulder at his best friend and went back to looking at the portrait. He looked at each of the founder's faces. Each of them was smiling at the boys in their own special ways. His eyes moved downward to the sorting hat, which wasn't tattered in the least but appeared to be new. In the background it appeared that they were in the great hall around where the head table should have been, due to the style of windows located behind them.

James stared at the detail in the painting, watching as the founders gave disgruntled looks at the boys, still barely moving out of their poses, which was, in James' opinion, the exact reason why this painting seemed to be so disturbing. It didn't move in the typical manner most wizarding paintings or pictures did. The occupants stood mostly in the same spot, only moving their eyes and on occasion they would stop to talk to one another but this seemed to be very rare.

James felt Sirius move at his side and turned to look at him. Sirius' face seemed to be set in wonder as he stared in one certain area of the painting. James followed the tall boys gaze to the bottom of the painting where, on the floor in the midst of the cracked paint was a small painting of the Slytherin coat of arms. James furrowed his brow; that certainly did not belong in that painting, let alone in that spot. He stepped back slightly and looked more intently at the picture as a hole and suddenly he saw it. All four coats of arms were hidden in the painting. He gawked at it for a moment and then reached out to the stained glass window located behind Godric Gryffindor, where, in the glamorously painted glass laid their own House's coat of arms. He softly touched the seal on its cracked paint.

Peter let out a low gasp of breath behind him as the painting slowly morphed into an old oak door that was elegantly decorated with the Hogwarts seal. James stared for a long while amongst the silence of his friends and then reached out to the gold door handle, turning it slowly, not knowing what to expect, and pushed it open. He stepped inside, Sirius, Remus, and Peter following closely behind him, and entered the pitch-black room, or corridor. James willed his eyes to adapt to the sudden darkness but found that it was impossible.

"Lumos," Sirius whispered by his side. Nothing happened. He tried once more, and still nothing came from it. "LUMOS!" he yelled into the abyss only to find complete silence as his only answer and still there was no light.

"What's wrong with that bloody thing?" James asked. Sirius just groaned in disgust and put his wand away finding that if it couldn't even perform a simple spell it was completely worthless.

"Well, we need light--" Peter started in his whiny voice of defeat and suddenly a fire erupted on the other side of the room and the candles around the room unexpectedly erupted with flames.

The four boys stood in shock as they stared at the room, open-mouthed, not daring to move for fear of what would happen if they did. James looked at the tapestries hanging on the walls all depicting the different House's coats of arms. Four separate portraits of the founding fathers also lined the walls. These moved more freely than the last painting and all held a certain sense of pride in the way they held themselves. He turned his attention from the walls' decorations to the fireplace that was elaborately carved out of marble with the Hogwarts coat of arms. Around it were a few chairs and a couch all in white fabric and along the walls were tables that were accompanied by wooden chairs that were also elaborately carved. James found himself smiling widely at their find and all of its beauty. They quickly broke off in there own direction to see what they could find that would fit to their liking.

James quickly noticed that there were bookshelves to his left underneath the portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw. He read some of the spines of the books and noticed that they ranged from anything from Quidditch to Advanced Charms books. James heard Sirius cry out triumphantly from behind him and knew instantly that he had found the book on the Chudley Cannons that was written a good one hundred years previously, when the team was still the best in the league. James chuckled slightly as Sirius took the book off the shelf and plopped down cross-legged on the floor instantly engulfed in the book. He turned away from his friend and swiftly made himself busy by pulling out his own wand and tried to cast assorted spells, none of which worked.

"That's pointless," James jumped when he heard the sound of Remus' voice.

"I noticed."

Remus smiled and walked over to the couch and sat down.

"This is, or rather, was the general common room. I always thought my grandmother made up those stories about it. Guess not," he said off -handedly more to himself than anything else. James just looked at the boy intently for a few seconds and then walked over and joined him on the couch. "It was shut down when my grandmother went to school here," he continued matter-of-factly, "due to fights breaking out among the houses, mainly between Slytherin and Gryffindor. After they closed it, no students were allowed back in afterwards."

"Then how'd we get in?" Sirius asked from behind them still on the floor looking through the book though he was listening to every word that was being said.

Remus smiled meekly to himself as he thought of all the stories his grandmother used to tell him about Hogwarts and soon found himself retelling them to his friends.

"Well, apparently they couldn't close off the ward because none of the staff at that time knew any spells tough enough to block Rowena's spells. So, according to what my grandmother said, they simply stationed the custodian at the entrance to the door. Soon people just stopped trying to get in and Apollyon Pringle quit guarding it day in and day out." He stopped briefly and stared at the flames in the fireplace before continuing. "I figure no one really went back to it after he left. They feared what might happen to them if they were caught doing so, and because of that, this room just died and became a myth like so many other things in this school."

James looked down in thought at his wand and noticed how useless it was at the moment.

"Yes, well, that still doesn't explain why our wands don't work."

He heard Remus laugh and then turned his head upward and looked at the boy only to find him staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace. He looked to the boys' right and found Peter sitting next to Remus listening intently, hanging on every word Remus uttered like a five-year-old would during story time. Sirius had moved from his spot on the floor and was now sitting on the wooden coffee table with the book still clenched in his left hand as his head lay on his right arm, which was perched on his knee.

"Well," Remus began to answer, "at one point of time you could do magic in here, when the founders were still here, but after Slytherin split; the fighting began. So duels and stuff would break out every so often between certain students and soon the remaining founders were forced to ban the use of magic in the general common room. They used very powerful spells to prevent the students from trying to hex each other too. When they did that everything was pretty much cleared up. Sure there was still fighting but you can't really stop that."

He sighed and turned away from the flames to look at the group.

"I don't know when things started to go bad again, but my grandmother said that it reached its peak when she was in school. Gryffindors and Slytherins had begun to fist fight in this room so the teachers eventually had to shut it down completely." He smiled weakly at the three boys, feeling slightly sorry that he couldn't explain the room to them in a way that seemed like it wasn't some story he'd heard somewhere.

James nodded to him somehow understanding what the boy was thinking and stood up, walked over to the bookshelves, and smiled. He stood thinking of all the things Remus had said and then about his mind turned over to the potential load of homework he would have the next day. He stared at the books and then a perfect idea fluttered into his head. Over all, this was exactly the kind of place that they needed to study in. The "homework ring of doom" was only as comfortable as they could make it with their pillows and poorly attempted cushioning charms. Yet, here they could be to themselves and have the luxury of having a common room. He felt his lips curl up into a mischievous grin and turned back to the whole group.

"Well, we're the only ones that know about this place now, why don't we use this to our advantage."

They all smiled back at each other. All of them first thinking of the homework get away they'd been silently hoping to miraculously receive for over a week, and then switching over to the other plotting they could do here. Oh, what they could do without the fear of being overheard or interrupted; for every mischief-maker needs his lair.

"...Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyeballs in the Dark Arts..."

Chapter Seventeen: The Liability of First Years

James could feel the fowl creature's dark eyes on the back of his head as they tried desperately to drill a hole into it. What did I do to deserve this? James thought absently as he stared ahead of him at Professor Malvitz, who was busy describing the group assignment they were going to start in just a few moments. James sighed to himself and turned back to look over towards Sirius, who was now sitting across the room next to Lily Evans. James then turned his attention back to the teacher and scolded the man with his eyes.

A seating chart had been installed, most likely because of James and Sirius' lack of attention during his lessons. Due to this wonderful turn of events he now had to sit next to Remus, which wasn't bad at all, but then again he also now had to sit directly in front of dear old Snape, who insisted upon glaring at him through the whole of the double period.

James felt Remus tap him gently on the shoulder, whilst he was in the middle of his brooding, trying to gain James' undivided attention. Once he had received it he quickly gestured towards the counter that held the small glass containers with the Doxies inside flailing about. James got up and walked over to the counter and picked up the domed jar with the small hairy four-armed, four-legged fairy-like creature. He felt himself frown at the little beast as it opened its little mouth tauntingly showing off its double rows of pointed teeth.

They were only to examine these "dark creatures" and take notes on their behavior, but what fun was that? Doxies didn't do anything unless they were let out to fly about and terrorize everyone within two feet of them. He sighed and put the Doxy jar on Remus' and his table and flopped down into his seat bitterly. Being a first year was probably the only reason they couldn't let the small beasts fly about, it was perhaps too much of a liability.

He looked over at Remus who had begun jotting things down wildly onto his paper almost immediately after James had set the fowl thing down on top of the desktop. The boy's hand was shaking slightly as he wrote little notes on his paper. Occasionally, he would take the time to actually look up at the small angry Doxy, who was now making itself busy banging itself against the glass, trying terribly to get out of its unbreakable cage. James frowned at the sight of his frail friend and moved slightly in his chair in discomfort. Only to find that it was slightly hard to move within his chair.

He shrugged his shoulders at the oddness of this and continued to look over at the calendar on the wall, which had small illuminated blue moons on the designated days of the phases, and sure enough, tonight would be the full moon. James glanced back over at Remus who was now looking at him with a face that said simply "do your work." James sighed and moved backwards in his chair in thought hardly noticing the resistance his clingy robes were giving him.

He continued to jot down small bits and pieces about the hostile Doxy but mainly his thoughts were on the boy next to him. Why did he always worry about him? It wasn’t like Remus begged for attention or asked for him to take any interest in him at all for that matter. Yet there he was, every month, worrying, and knowing the inevitable truth.

He heard Professor Malvitz inform the class to place the Doxies back on the counter and James slowly put his small paragraph of notes into his bag before finally getting up. The resistance he had been feeling for the whole of the hour came with him. He shouted something very fowl as he looked down at his chair to see what had been bothering him and felt his face go red in anger. He could hear the laughter around him and in it a very loud bark like laugh that could only belong to Sirius. He turned around only to be met by Snape's greasy half-smirk and he lunged at him. He could feel his hands connecting with anything they could get a hold of. He only stopped when the Professor himself dragged him off of the crying boy. James looked up in horror finally aware of what exactly he had done. Professor Malvitz's face was contorted into a fierce look of authority as he firmly grabbed James' arm and escorted him into the hallway without a word being spoken. No one was laughing when he left the room.

The echo of footsteps was loud and foreboding as they continued the short distance to McGonagall's room. James couldn't bring himself to look up any farther than his feet as Professor Malvitz turned him into the room full of sixth year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who were busy transforming noodles into poodles.

"Minerva."

James looked up just in time to see the woman glance up from her desk. One look at the two of them and she was out of her seat ready to ask questions. James quickly turned his head to the floor as she walked towards them. He was going to be expelled for sure.

"What is it?"

"This one," he shook James' arm making him fall off balance, "started a fight in my class."

James could feel McGonagall's eyes on him, carefully inspecting him, "I can take it from here."

James felt Professor Malvitz let go of his arm and knew instantly that there would be a mark left behind. He heard McGonagall turn to her class and appoint two students to look after it and lead him out of the room and into her office. Once inside James could feel her looking at him as he sat in the chair across from her desk as she had instructed.

"Explain."

It was the only thing she said. He sat there, unable to look at her, searching for words. He sighed and started with the one word that came to mind. "Droobles Best Blowing Gum," he said bitterly.

He looked up at McGonagall, who was busy giving him a look that asked him to continue with his explanation. He did, once again, talking to the floor in shame, "I was sitting in class listening to Malvitz, actually I was zoning, worrying about the test in Herbology," he hoped that a little lie wouldn't hurt his case, "and when it was time to collect our things for the assignment I got up and retrieved it. When I returned, Snape had put gum on my seat, and I sat in it. I didn't realize it until it was time to clean up and I stood up. The whole class was laughing and normally I can take it, you know, laugh right along with them but this time I couldn't, and I attacked him."

He chanced a glance at the teacher before him who was inspecting him thoroughly, "I don't know what got into me." He finished lamely, hoping that it would in some way help his case.

In the next instant, Sirius clamored into the office and, breathing heavily, looked from McGonagall's face to James'. James glanced back at his friend as he began spouting out words of desperation for the sake of the messy haired boy. "James has been in a fowl mood since this morning's Charms class."

James turned to McGonagall who seemed to be considering these words. "Who do you share the period with?"

"Slytherins," Sirius and James replied resentfully.

"Thank you, Mr. Black, you can go," she stated firmly. Sirius looked as though he'd been scolded and left the room like a dog with its tail between its legs. When Sirius had left McGonagall turned to James.

"Stand up."

James did as he was told, certain that they were now going to make a trip to Dumbledore's office so he could then await his sentencing. Instead, she pulled out her wand and tapped him on the head as she uttered a word he had yet to learn. He stared at her not sure as to what exactly she had done to him, for he felt no different. Yet, obviously she had found something to her liking for she gave him the slightest of smiles.

"Apparently, you've been under an anti-cheering charm of darker means," she started, and James could feel a warm feeling growing from within him. She believed him; he wasn't going to be expelled! "I will talk with Professor Lamia and arrange a punishment for Mr. Snape," she sighed and James suppressed his sudden urge to hug the woman as she spoke her final statement. "As for you, no more fighting. If I see you in here again, I will have to give you a detention." James nodded and she motioned that he could leave.

James opened the door and was greeted by the sight of Sirius and Peter standing by the window across the hall from McGonagall's office. Sirius looked at him with nothing short of worry as James strode over to them. "How long are you in for?"

James took Sirius's form in. The boy was hunched over, leaning against the wall as if he'd lost something very dear to him.

"None. I don't have detention or anything," at the confused, yet happy, expression on Sirius' face he continued to explain about the charm Snape had put on him most likely during Charms class.

"That prat is going to pay!" Sirius said after James was finished.

"Don't you think James beating him up was pay back enough?" Peter asked in his usual worried tones. Sirius just looked at the small chubby boy for a second and then shrugged as if he was not entirely sure if it was.

James though was busy looking at Peter and Sirius finally registering that they were missing a member. "Where's Remus?"

Sirius rolled his eyes at the question. "He left after you left Defense class. He looked like he was going to throw up. I assume he went down to the infirmary," James looked at Sirius as he briefly recapped what had happened and noticed that he was still too stubborn to admit what this ultimately meant.

They turned down the hallway that led to the infirmary and James quickly looked in the ward only to see that Remus wasn't in there. He scratched his head in thought, slightly confused by what that could mean as he continued to follow Sirius's silent lead to the portrait of the founding fathers. They, then, quietly went into the general common room where they would work on collecting and comparing their Doxy notes until it was time for dinner.

"Since there was no one else for me to attack, I bit and scratched myself...."

Chapter Eighteen: Under this Killing Moon

After the last incident with Snape the hatred between both James and the greasy-haired boy had grown immensely. Neither one could now look at the other without scowling in complete loathing. The weeks passed slowly with further attempts by both sides to try and hurt each other. Each new battle they encountered ended with minor cuts and bruises. That was, until Sirius had decided to make some use of the jinx book he had received from Remus over Christmas. This last battle had ended with the four boys leaving Snape in Filch's office, hog tied with a ten foot rope, laying on the old man's desk, shortly after they had caught Snape cornering Remus after their Potions class.

After this "accident," or so they had claimed, and all the detentions that resulted from it James decided to try and avoid Snape at all costs. Ultimately, this proved to be quite difficult because the slimy git seemed to go out of his way to try and harm them. Yet, with recent defenses they had acquired from Sirius the boy eventually seemed to get the point.

James sighed deeply as he stared at Professor Binns' floating form at the front of the classroom. James looked around at the class as it sat in its usual stupor and found that his mind had begun to wander away from the topic at hand, as usual. The ghost continued to drone on about yet another goblin rebellion led by Gorak the Ghastly and James found himself contemplating why on earth someone who led such an absolutely boring, uneventful life would be keen on not trotting off to the after life. He felt his forehead contort into frustration as Sirius poked him in the back and proceeded to point at Remus who was paler than usual. James sighed openly, it was the day of the full moon and, yet again, the boy was going to be sick; it was inevitable.

James turned back to Sirius who surprised him greatly by not conveying a look of utter disgust at the idea of Remus being a werewolf. Instead that form of detest had been replaced with nothing short of sympathy, a look not often seen displayed on that boy’s features. James smiled weakly at Sirius, not knowing what else to do, and turned back to the sleep inducing lecture.

The droning monotonic tones lasted right to the bell, which seemed to be the only thing that ever jolted any sense of shock into the ancient being at the front of the class. The four boys filed out of the room and once outside James heard Remus whine as if he were an injured animal as he passed the window. James shut his eyes in what almost could be categorized as remorse as he heard Remus mumbled behind him, ever so quietly, "I'm going to the hospital wing."

James just turned around and followed the boy to his destination with Sirius and Peter in tow. They entered the ward and sat with Remus on the white hospital beds in complete silence before Madam Pomfrey came out of her office. Upon the sight of Remus she simply turned to the other three boys and ushered them impatiently out of the room. James just walked in silence in the direction of the general common room, leaving Sirius and Peter with nothing to do but to follow him. Then he prodded their house seal and casually went inside heading straight for the comfy chairs by the fire.

None of them spoke one word, for silence was bliss and speaking meant either an argument or the welcoming of complete grief.

"Maybe there's still a chance you're wrong," Sirius said finally, breaking what had been a crude form of temporary comfort.

"I hope so," was all James could manage to will out of his mouth as he took out the small crumpled piece of paper from his rucksack and wrote down the day's date.

"April 21 - Remus Sick"

They all stared at the drying ink, each in silent meditation. When the thoughts were finally too much for them to handle they resorted to working on their Astronomy homework for later that evening. They did this in absolute silence and only left the general common room when it came time for that particular class.

The three boys, once situated in the Astronomy Tower, took down their charts and stared at the stars as the full moon glared at them in the distance for the duration of the double period. When the bell did finally ring they walked up to their own common room, fully intending to do nothing more than sleep. Yet, when they reached Gryffindor tower they saw something lurking in the shadows of the torchlight. James stopped and the rest of the remaining group followed suit and stayed entirely still.

A flash of red light erupted in the dark room, blinding them completely as their eyes tried desperately to adjust to the dim corridor, yet again. James felt his arm get ripped open as the light died away and a voice echoed through the room to fill the recent void the light had left. Upon hearing the voice crack through the darkness Peter made a quick grab for his wand in an attempt to protect himself, but he was disarmed as soon as it appeared in the sight of their attackers, leaving him defenseless.

Then James watched as the figures came out from their hiding places. Knowing who they were, not only by the leader's voice but also by the way they had attacked, James and Sirius both dove their own hands into their robe’s pockets, searching for their own wands. Once they were located, they withdrew them, and pointed them at their attackers. Snape quickly disarmed James and hit him with another hex. This one did not appear to do anything, but from James' previous experiences with Snape's dark spells he was certainly going to feel that later on in the night. To the side of him before either Knott or Avery could even think to attack Sirius the other boy had hit him with the first hex that had come into his mind. "Scourgify!"

Immediately soap bubbles began to pour out of both boys' mouths. Sirius smiled widely at his handy work, which had provided them with a slight decoy. Snape had begun to yell at his friends to fight back when James grabbed his wand off of the floor and hit him with a forceful stunning spell. He then ran towards the Fat Lady's portrait where he practically screamed the password, not caring if the three stooges heard it or not. The three boys clamored into the common room and made a beeline for the boys' staircase and went into their dormitory. Once inside Sirius proceeded to kick his trunk every time he uttered a new word. "Stupid, Ignorant, Prat!" he growled out in frustration.

James just stared at his injury, which had bled through his ripped Hogwarts robes. He didn't have anything to say to add to Sirius' sentiments as the burning from the cut flesh began to set in. He heard Peter cry in fear as the boy climbed into his bed and shut the curtains around him, closing himself off from the others. James looked over at where Peter had retreated to as he heard the soft cries filter through the crimson curtains.

He knew (along with Peter himself) that a lot of people did not believe that Peter belonged in their house because he wasn't nearly as talented or brave as the other students in Gryffindor. Yet, due to the fact that he could even attempt to stand up against those bullies, James was certain that Peter was, indeed, in the right house. He also knew that Peter never believed these words even if they were true. The boy was simply too hard on himself.

James took off his shirt and ripped the sleeve off knowing it was useless to him now that it was ripped across the shoulder and soaked with his own blood. He instructed Sirius to help him tie the cleanest bit of the ripped shirt around his wound to try to stop the bleeding. Sirius complained openly at this chore, plainly grimacing at the blood. Sirius sighed deeply as James explained that the reason he was making him do this was because he didn't want to see Madam Pomfrey again that evening.

When Sirius was done with his amateur job at bandaging, James crawled into his bed after changing into his pajamas. He laid there in his casual stupor, not quite tired, and yet, not exactly wide awake either, and waited for sleep to drift over him as he listened to the sweet humming noises of Peter, and the rustling of bed sheets as Sirius struggled to find a comfortable position to lie.

When James' eyes opened, at what appeared to be dawn, he felt the terrible pain in his left shoulder that was the cause of his awakening. He sat bolt upright as the pain fully sank in and searched at his side for his glasses that had fallen off his face sometime after he had fallen asleep. His arm was throbbing immensely as he grabbed for his wand on his nightstand, after he had stationed his glasses upon his nose, he felt tears well up in his eyes as the pain shot through every nerve in his body. "Lumos," he whispered, his voice raspy in the dark.

When the light emerged from the tip of his wand he glanced down at his arm and frowned at the blood soaked bandage now covered in puss. He noted that the cut itself was bruised a dark purple color and it smelled slightly. He looked up at his canopy and cursed loudly for lack of a better thing to do. Then he opened his curtains, got up out of his bed, walked over to Sirius' and did the same.

"Sirius," the lad he addressed grunted and opened his eyes. Upon spotting the light he buried his head under his pillow. "Sirius, please, I need to get to the infirmary."

"You know where it is," Sirius muttered from underneath his hiding place.

James groaned and pulled the pillow off of his friend's head and pointed at his injury, which was now oozing in the eerie light. "Tasty," was the only thing Sirius said as he hoisted himself up out of his bed.

James took out his invisibility cloak and draped it over Sirius' and his shoulders. They walked out of the room, leaving Peter to play in his dreamland. Once they had made their way down the many flights of stairs with one almost very bad situation with Peeves, they entered the empty room. Both boys stared at it for a moment, for it was a little unnerving to find it in this state considering they had left Remus in there only sixteen hours before.

He heard Sirius groan at his side as if he were just now waking up from his long sleep. James pointed to the cabinet on the opposite side of the room and then walked, with Sirius in tow, towards that cabinet. He opened the wooden case as quietly as possible and looked over all the assorted potions bottles, carefully reading each of the labels.

"Madam Massie's ever fixing healer... for all terrible infections." James took the bottle off of the shelf along with a bunch of new bandages that had an anti-soaking spell on it so the gauze would not get drenched with blood or puss. This would prevent him from changing his bandages every hour. He shoved the items into the pocket of his cloak and turned around, ready to leave, with Sirius still closely behind him grumbling about why he even had to go on this particular adventure.

James had nearly reached the double doors when he stopped abruptly causing Sirius to collide into his back. "What the--" James motioned for his friend to be quiet and moved against the wall just beside the two doors.

"Take him in here."

"Are you sure he'll be all right?" the whispers were hushed more than usual and no reply was provided for the latter.

James and Sirius exchanged quick glances of concern as they watched Madam Pomfrey enter the room with McGonagall close behind her helping the medi-witch carry the limp form of Remus Lupin. James felt Sirius move slightly backwards, closer to the wall, as if he were looking for something stable to hold onto as the two women placed their friend on the nearest hospital bed.

James' eyes slowly wandered from the scene at hand to the floor where a trail of blood glistened eerily in the early morning light as it lead his eyes back to the very thing he didn't want to see. Yet, that very thing that he wanted to avoid he couldn't bring himself to look away from. He glanced at Remus' frail form and quickly noted the boy's breath, shallow and uneven, as Madam Pomfrey poured a potion down his throat, massaging it as a way to let the fluid flow down his tattered throat.

He also noticed, as he let his eyes wander further, that the boy's muscles were hanging off of his arms, exposing bits of bone that were cracked sporadically underneath the rubble of meat. On Remus' legs, there were teeth marks where large chunks of meat had been ripped off of his body in assorted places. The boy's left arm was bent at a terrible angle, unnatural in any case.

James' eyes moved slowly back up to the battered boy's face only to see that it was scratched deeply and was still bleeding profusely. It was gashed in four different places and most likely these cuts went all the way through his cheek. This was where the claws, his claws, had made contact.

James fervently tried to hold back the aching sob in his heart as he watched Madam Pomfrey instruct McGonagall on how to issue him another potion. Then the woman went on to cast many spells to prevent the boy from bleeding any further. She healed his tattered muscles and issued, yet another, potion to aid in the healing of Remus.

James felt Sirius move beside him, still closer to the wall. He too was trying to pry his eyes away from the sight that, eventually, if he continued to look at, would make him throw up. James watched intently as the witch set Remus' left arm back into place. The witch continued to fix Remus, and James continued to ignored Sirius' obvious queasiness at the sight of the pool of blood on the floor that he stared at fixedly.

After a few more minutes Madam Pomfrey and McGonagall lifted Remus out of the bed and carried him to the wall across the room. There, McGonagall tapped five of the stones in a clockwise motion, exposing a small room on the other side. When they stepped through the small opening their professor had made, the wall immediately went back to its original state.

James stared at the wall for a long while not knowing what to do. Sure he had known this fate of Remus' all along but never had he expected anything like that. He finally willed himself to turn towards the bed. The white sheets were now tainted in blood so deeply red it was nearly black.

His arm no longer hurt as he turned from this remnant of the horrible reality they'd just witnessed over to Sirius, who was still stunned by how much blood one person could lose and still manage to survive. Both of the boys stood in silence, for they could find nothing to say. They stayed in the abandoned room for a long while, saying nothing, until James finally asked the question he thought Sirius would have asked ages ago. "What do we do now?"

Sirius just looked blankly at his best friend, stubborn tears in his eyes still unwilling to fall. "He's our friend," he stated simply.

And that was all that was needed.

"People used to play a game, trying to get near enough to the trunk."

Chapter Nineteen: Revealed by a Tree

James watched intently as Sirius ran as fast as he could towards the Whomping Willow. When Sirius had just entered the shade the tree provided the willow began to thrash violently. The messy haired boy looked away briefly, just before his daredevil of a friend dodged an on-coming branch, back over to his side where Peter was watching the current events through his hands. These hands were trembling terribly as the small boy peeked through his fingers, which were not suitably doing their appointed job; covering his eyes from Sirius' impending doom. James just shook his head before returning his own gaze back to Sirius' daring feat of deliberate rule braking.

Sirius' figure quickly made his way to the base of the tree, dodging the vicious moves of the willow as he went. He made it to the appointed destination, which had been made by the goal of the game he was participating in, and touched the angry tree's trunk as its branches flailed around him. Once he had done this, he turned around and ran, full force, back to his friends, once again, dodging the trees attempts to impale him upon one of it's powerful branches and, therefore, knock him out of the game permanently.

James smiled widely at Sirius when the boy started to slow his running pace down as he approached his friends. "Did you see that?" the boy offered as he tried to catch his breath.

"Couldn't miss it." James stated as he clapped Sirius on the back, "You're only the second one daft enough and talented enough to touch the tree's trunk."

Sirius smiled widely and bowed theatrically to James in thanking. James laughed at him and turned away, intending on making his way back up to the castle for some dinner.

Not before the boys had taken no more than three steps, they heard a scream echo through the grounds. The three boys turned back around to see Lily with her hands clasped over his mouth in a composition of shock and fear. He followed her stare to where she was gazing in horror and saw, in the distance, the form of Davey Gudgeon lying unconscious under the thrashing willow, which was bending backward in a final attempt to do the boy in.

Before James could even fully register what he was doing he found himself running towards the boy. He dodged the willows attempts to kill him and soon heard Sirius' footsteps behind him as the boy ran after him. It didn't take long for the two boys to reach the limp student. "Help me carry him!" James ordered once Sirius had reached his side.

Sirius nodded and grabbed one of the boy's shoulders and hoisted his arm around his own shoulder. James followed Sirius' lead and put Davey's free arm around his own shoulder and the two of them, together, carried the boy away from the willow. Once in the clear Peter ran towards them. "Is he okay?" he asked with concern.

"I don't know." James muttered honestly.

They walked up to the castle in silence. Once they had reached the third floor landing the weight of the second year had begun to take its toll on the two first years. They reached the infirmary in good time, all things considered, and entered the empty room. James and Sirius walked over to the nearest bed and laid the boy down gently on top of the white-sheets.

"Madam Pomfrey!" Sirius yelled out.

James jumped slightly by the sudden sound echoing through out the empty room. The woman in question, then shortly after, came bustling into the room. She looked at the three boys and her face turned slightly stern. "What have you done now?"

"Nothing." James said. Madam Pomfrey just stared at them suspiciously, "Honestly. It's just that-" he gestured over at Davey's limp form lying on the hospital bed. The older woman's eyes grew wide as she looked at the boy.

"What happened?" She asked as she moved swiftly over to the boy's side, and immediately began casting spells on him to see what exactly was wrong.

While she worked, the boys filled her in as to what had happened conveniently leaving out that Sirius had also been playing that little game too. Once they had finished their tale the older woman turned to them and smiled weakly and, just as swiftly, turned back to mending the boy.

She muttered as she worked, "I told Dumbledore that tree was too dangerous. Did he listen? Of course not, he seems to trust you children more than he should."

They stood by and watched as she went along with her work, and when she had appeared to be finished with her charms they all finally received the courage to ask her of the young lad's condition. "Is he alright?" Peter asked.

"Lucky for him, he'll live. He about lost his eye," she stated as she got up to get a potion for that particular injury, "but as for his limpness, he simply fainted."

She came back with the two potions and issued them to the boy, "Now, will you please leave, the boy has had enough to deal with for one day." with that she ushered them out of the hospital wing.

The four boys obeyed and slowly made their way back up to their common room to put their cloaks away before they went down to dinner. When they left the infirmary James noticed that Peter had looked back over his shoulder into the room they had just left with a furrow in his brow as if he were contemplating something. James simply sighed, trying to ignore this fact, and looked ahead, leading them away from the hospital wing.

~*~*~*~

At dinner the boys sat away from the rest of the Gryffindors as they ate. James and Sirius entertained themselves by discussing the possible ways the Chudley Cannons could yet again become a winning team. One of their favorite topics because it lead to one of James' other passions, bashing his mates favorite team. They laughed over their chicken dinner, trying to coax Peter into joining all along. The boy had been more reserved than usual ever since they had left the hospital wing, which worried James a bit.

James and Sirius had neglected to tell Peter of their discovery a month ago because they feared the boy would overreact like he had the first time James had suggested the idea of Remus being a lycanthrope. And as the boy picked at his food, James worried that he had managed to rub two and two together and had wound up with a small spark.

He sighed and looked over at the boy across from him as he pushed his peas around his bowl. Then he moved his gaze over at the empty seat next to Peter, that Remus usually filled. But due to the full moon being tonight, the boy had vanished after Transfiguration saying he had a migraine and that he couldn't concentrate no matter how hard he had tried. James and Sirius had merely pretended to buy the story for both Remus' and Peter's sake. Yet, now that they had been in the infirmary, and Peter had seen for himself that Remus was not in there, he would have certainly figured it out now, no matter how daft he could be at times.

James was bumped out of his thoughts by Sirius, who had jabbed him in the side with his elbow so that he could gain his attention and pointed to the front of the room. The whole school had its attention directed to the head table. Dumbledore had stood up to make one of his famous speeches, and James knew exactly what it was going to be about. He looked away for a split second up at the full moon on the enchanted ceiling. He sighed deeply as the old man spoke.

"It has come to my attention that some students have been breaking one of the rules set down for your safety during your first day here." his blue eyes surveyed all of the students and finally seemed to rest on Sirius, who, in return, looked down at the floor in shame.

"You may have heard that a student was injured this afternoon by the Whomping Willow." he sighed deeply, "This tree is not to be touched. If anyone goes near that tree he or she may suffer a terrible death, and therefore, you are forbidden to go near it. You have been warned. Tuck in."

The older man then sat back down on his seat. After he had settled the students began to recap the stories they had heard about the incident over their meals.

James, Sirius, and Peter, rather than staying any longer, stood up from the table and walked slowly down the corridors making their way up to their common room. Once inside James and Sirius sat down on the comfy chairs in front of the fire fully intending on enjoying it until someone from a higher year than them came in and kicked them out.

Peter had gone upstairs to collect a book or something, leaving the two of them to talk about what they were going to do with the Peter/Remus decision. They talked to one another in hushed voices until they heard someone coming down the boys' staircase. They instantly became quiet, worried that someone had heard what they were discussing. When they turned around to see who it was they found that it was only Peter.

"Hey, Pete." Sirius said with a worried smile, realizing he could have heard something.

Peter's face went cold. "Don't “Hey, Pete”, me. You two always do that. You're always talking about things in secret. Then when I or Remus-" he stopped at the name and became quiet suddenly before he muttered the rest of his comment as if he was scared, "come around you shut up."

He looked at the two of them and sighed deeply as his face became pale. "I know."

"Know what?" Sirius asked trying his best to play dumb. James simply jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow but Peter continued to explain his findings anyway.

"Remus is a werewolf. He has to be. I've noticed that he gets sick every month and I know when you two whisper you're talking about him. So does he." James looked at the boy somewhat alarmed, "We're not stupid. So, what do you guys want to do, because I know I don't want to stay around him."

"Honestly, Peter, how can you say that?"

"Sirius, you were just as concerned as I am now when James offered that idea the first time."

"I know that." Sirius stated lamely. Then he offered the only thing that ever made sense to him about the whole ordeal, "But he is our friend."

Peter looked from James to Sirius. Sure Remus was indeed their friend but if he was going to kill them one night because he forgot to get sick or something Peter wanted nothing to do with it. He would much rather keep his life than lose it. But then again, if he didn't go along with them surely Sirius and James would not want anything more to do with him.

Peter sighed deeply, as this second side to the argument in his head began to win out, little by little. He looked back at James and then returned his gaze to Sirius, letting his mind reel over each of the possible outcomes of considering keeping this “friendship” as Sirius had so kindly put it. Yet, as much as he wanted to run away from Remus, he couldn't. He couldn't lose James and Sirius, they were the only people who had ever bothered to spend the time and befriend him.

So, he'd let them think that they were right, as usual. They were the only people he had around for him, and nothing should change that. And there was always that small possibility that James and Sirius’ beliefs about Remus were true, and this Peter was willing to bank on because they so often tended to prove that they were smarter than him anyway.

So, as he looked back to James he caved in order to save himself from being alone, and the idea of being unprotected from things like Snape, and muttered softly, "You're right."

Then he sat down in between both of them on the couch, showing that he no longer wanted to talk of Remus. Accepting this, the other two boys, then, began to help him with his homework until Arthur Weasley, head boy, kicked them out of their seat so that he could play wizard's chess with his girlie mate.

"That was still really dangerous!"

Chapter Twenty: The Plan

James watched as McGonagall walked slowly up and down the isles checking on each of her students as they went about the day's work. She would stop every once and a while at a few of the students' desks to critique their work and then afterwards she would carry on to the next unfortunate student. Eventually, these actions would give her the chance to look at everyone's work. James smiled to himself when he overheard her tell Peter precisely how to pronounce the Latin within the spell they were to be practicing so he could attempt to do the assignment correctly for once. Once she had watched him practice his enunciations for a bit, she continued on again. As soon as she was out of hearing distance from Peter, James heard the boy utter a few words that were most certainly not meant for their teacher to hear.

She did a few more rounds around the classroom before she took the time to stop in front of both James and Sirius. James simply uttered the spell when she did stop and instantly his spoon turned into a fork without the slightest bit of trouble. Simple enough, but as proven often enough by his friends, it was more difficult for them than it was for him. McGonagall complemented James on his work and then turned her attention over to Sirius who said the spell and successfully created a spork. He groaned at his efforts and McGonagall started to instruct him on how to do it properly. James could tell that Sirius was only half-listening, giving her a nod every few sentences to make it look like he was listening. Then, once she had left Sirius immediately changed his spork back into a spoon and uttered the spell once more. This time he was successful in making his spoon a fork.

"Oh, now it works!" he stated bitterly at his work. He tried it once more just to check that he had it down, and as expected, it worked perfectly.

James smiled at his friend, trying to encourage him a bit. This was not the first time Sirius had been able to do something before their professor could critique it and then go on to fail the crucial attempt in front of her. Sirius simply gave James a small half-smile and then proceeded to poke Remus in the back with the tip of his wand. Remus tried to ignore Sirius' efforts to gain his attention, but the boy only continued to poke him in increasingly shorter intervals of time. Remus groaned and turned around slowly to face Sirius.

"What?"

"How come she didn't say anything to you?" Sirius asked slightly agitated that Remus' spork had received no ill-comment from their stringent teacher.

Remus furrowed his brow, "I don't know, maybe she just knows that I'm going to have a hard time with this. I mean, I have been out sick for the last week."

Sirius shrugged his shoulders at the boy's comment, knowing full well what that meant, and turned back to his own work shortly after Remus had gone back to his own.

James frowned slightly at Remus' reply. The images that had been scalded into his brain from two months ago filtered back into his head making him cringe slightly inside. He stared intently at the back of Remus' head as the boy worked on his spoon, each time he got increasingly closer to a fork. Slowly, James found that his attention was brought to the boy next to Remus. James stared at Peter. Peter seemed to be getting worse, rather than better, at their assignment.

James was definitely proud of Peter, because Peter had proven himself to be able to keep it together around Remus. He hadn't had any problems with Remus' condition, aside from a week ago when Remus had disappeared, as usual, during the day of the full moon. That was the only day Peter had shown any signs that he was having problems with any aspect of their situation with Lupin. Aside from that, everything appeared to be fine, all signs of that little panic had vanished with the haze and the small boy proved to be perfectly fine with his friendship with Remus.

James was snapped back to reality when Lily dropped his essay paper down in front of him rather loudly on top of his desk, as if she was trying to gain his attention after trying to do so for a very long time. James simply looked up at the red-head before him and smiled shyly at her, only to receive a small glare and a nod of her head towards the front of the classroom. James followed her head motion only to find McGonagall going over the last few details of their notes for the day. All of which, James did not need, but since he could still feel the young girl's piercing eyes on the back of his head, he copied them down anyway.

She had begun this annoying habit of playing mum over the last few weeks, shortly after James and Sirius had gotten even with Snape for another one of his little hexing fits he constantly seemed to go into every time he caught sight of the two boys in their pack. Unfortunately for them, Lily had caught them in their revenge, and ever since she had started to keep a very annoyingly close watch on all four of them. She always made sure that they were in line, and were not trying to break the rules. It was almost enough to make him wish that they hadn't turned Snape into a walking example of a pinhead. Almost.

James turned back to Lily, who was still busy handing out the classes’ assorted papers, and watched her walk up and down the isles. He sighed slightly at the sight. He missed talking with her. But then, it wasn't like they didn't talk because they did, sometimes. But everything they talked about was always directly to the point, and it always seemed to be about, either, how terrible the four boys were to Snape, or what exactly they had as an assignment for any given class. It was never just to talk about anything and everything like it had been during the first few months when they had actually been friendly to one another. And that was the thing that bugged James the most. She had started to treat him more as a troublemaker than a friend and he didn't want to lose her friendship. Yet, that was exactly what appeared, at least at the moment, to be the only option.

The bell rang and James jumped slightly at the sudden sound echoing throughout the room. He instantly looked around at his fellow students who were busy filing out of the classroom. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, ushering his previous thoughts out of his head and quickly grabbed his paper that was sitting in front of him, shoved it into his bag, and left the room to rejoin his friends who were standing by the window across the hall.

"So, could you guys help me?" Peter asked Sirius and Remus as James joined in completely clueless as to what the boy was going on about.

At the look on James' face Sirius simply smirked and replied, "He needs help in Transfiguration."

James nodded in acknowledgement, already knowing that Peter was lacking skills in that department. Peter merely looked at him with a pleading face.

"Yeah, we'll help you." James answered as they walked the familiar path to Defense Against the Dark Arts, the others filing in behind him, followed his lead.

Peter had begun to thank him repeatedly but James simply tuned the boy out not really wanting to hear it. He didn't even bother trying to stop Peter from talking because he knew that it was completely pointless because then it would lead to repeated "sorry's'' rather than "thank you's" until the boy either got tired of it or realized he was annoying them.

The four boys reached the classroom in good time and took their seats, James filing in next to Remus and Sirius and Peter retreating to the opposite sides of the room. James, once seated, began taking out his books and quill in preparation for the class. The bell rang again signifying the beginning of the class. Almost instantly James could feel Snape's cold eyes rest firmly on the back of his head, as they did in every period they had to endure together.

The students sat in silence for a long while waiting for their professor to show up. Then, the doors to the dark classroom flew open letting in the few beams of light that had filtered through the window opposite of the door, blinding the children that were curious enough to look at whoever had entered the classroom.

"Bright is the moon high in starlight. Chill is the air cold as steel tonight. We shift. Call of the wild. Fear in your eyes. It's later than you realized!" Professor Malvitz's voice sang through out the room as he made his way to the front of the class.

He took off his cloak and set it on the back of his chair and turned to his class. Some of the students issued slight giggles at their Professor's outburst, while others simply rolled their eyes at the unprofessional manner in which Malvitz tended to illustrate to them.

The man just smiled at the class, his face beet red from the cold outside. "A bit chilly outside." he announced unnecessarily.

It was common knowledge that Professor Malvitz began each day with a hardcore game of Quidditch, no matter what the weather happened to be like. So it was no surprise to the children that he had begun the day with a weather update.

"Well, I'm sorry I'm late this morning, lost track of the time but," he looked down at his watch to check what exactly the time was, "five minutes isn't so bad." he stated more to himself than to anyone else.

He, then, looked back up at the many bodies in the room and then clapped his hands together. The sudden sound made Remus jump slightly, which only made James chuckle a bit at his friend's sudden nervousness.

"Well, we were studying minor defense spells the last time we met, were we not?" A few of the students muttered unintelligible words and nodded their heads as a form of a reply, "Then that will be where we'll pick up. Just a little review of the spells we've learned and then onto the next few new spells I have in store for you." he paused and looked around making sure that they were all on the same page before he continued, "Get into pairs."

In the next instant all of the student's were up and out of their seats making themselves busy by moving desks out of the way, and getting with their friends so they could practice the spells. James saw Sirius making his way over towards Remus and himself when he heard Malvitz's voice yell over the noise of the desks being moved.

"Black, if you take one more step towards Potter you will have a detention."

Sirius groaned at the threat and looked back over at Peter, who was standing by himself at his desk, with a look of pain on his face. The last time they had been put together in group Peter had accidentally hexed him with a freezing charm that wound up leaving Sirius' entire left arm completely frost bitten. This, in turn, had left Sirius in Madam Pomfrey's care for the remainder of that day. Yet, even with this knowledge, Sirius still obeyed their professor and retreated back over towards Peter.

James and Sirius had been banned from contact with one another in this class ever since the "pinhead incident" had taken place. This was mainly because they had strategically planned to do the event right after Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Not such a smart business plan. James chuckled a bit to himself at the memory of Malvitz's red face, when he had caught them, or rather who Lily had snitched them to, as he set himself into a position to attack Remus with. Even though the consequences of what they had done were terrible, at least for them, the memories were still quite nice in James' head.

"Ready," Professor Malvitz said loudly cutting through James' thoughts. Some of the students nodded their heads in recognition of what the Professor had said, "Now!"

In the next instant a loud murmur of the spells they had his spell before his wand had flown out of his hand. He looked up at Remus, who just smiled smugly (well, smugly for Remus anyway, on an average person it was just a smirk) and James left for a second to go retrieve his wand. He picked it up off of the floor and walked back over to Remus and smiled. "One of these days, I am going to beat you at this." James retorted to the smirk on his friend's face.

"Only if I let you win." Remus replied just before he uttered a simple hex, which James easily blocked, "At least you're getting faster with the counter-jinxes!"

James only nodded a reply before he shot a spell back at Remus, who also blocked it with ease. This went on, back and forth, for a long while before Professor Malvitz told them to stop and sit down in their assigned seats so they could continue to take down some notes on the new spells they were going to learn over the course of the next few days. The students obeyed and resigned their previous activities and went to putting the desks back where they belonged. They sat down and soon fell into their typical stupor that usually followed the idea of studious note taking.

James just stared at his parchment and occasionally he would throw down a few of the important words that left their Professor's mouth. For example, the appropriate spells, their properties and their use, that was, until he get bored and started to fiddle with his quill. He absolutely hated notes. He would much rather be doing something that dealt with the dark arts than simply learning about the theory of it. If only the whole class period was as interesting as their mini duels that were held at the beginning of most of their Defense classes.

James began to wiggle his quill back and forth, gradually increasing the speed as his thoughts went deeper into all of the fun things they could possibly do in this class. Then, suddenly, before he could stop it, his quill flew out of his hand, over the head of the girl sitting in front of him and landed on the floor a few feet from her. James looked up at Malvitz and was relieved to find that he hadn't seen that happen. In fact, the only person that had noticed it happen was the girl in front of him, who was now trying hard not to giggle at his misfortune.

He sat there for a bit debating whether or not he should get up from his seat and retrieve his quill. This action would definitely bring attention to his not so smooth move, so instead he opted to look in his bag for another quill. Yet, when he looked inside another thing caught his eye. His essay was sitting slightly crushed at the bottom of his bag. He pulled it out and began to read bits and pieces of it. He went through the small comments McGonagall had put in the margin, written in emerald green ink.

He nodded a few times at the comments and then he stopped. He stared at the writing on the third foot of writing and then quickly read his own words repeatedly hardly believing that the answer to their problem had been there all along. But of course! Why hadn't he thought of that before?

They'd been searching for a way to help Remus with his Lycanthropy for ages and every time they came up with something remotely clever it was shot out of the water by a technical difficulty of some sort. But this; right here in his own handwriting, was a sure fired way to help their friend. It was foolproof... hopefully. James subconsciously looked up from his paper over to Remus who was busy scribbling down the notes he should have been taking too, and smiled to himself in a minorly victorious way.

The bell rang and James quickly got up and shoved his paper in his bag collected his quill and ran out of the room, not even hearing any part of the homework assignment Professor Malvitz had announced just as the students were leaving. James walked past his friends and without uttering a word he headed down the hall towards the library.

"Where are you going?" Sirius yelled down the hall after his friend.

James turned around to face the three boys, all of whom looked slightly confused, "The library. I have to look up something. I'll catch up with you guys later, okay?" he saw Sirius nod at him and then James took off as fast as he could to his destination.

When he finally reached the library, he made a beeline to the dark arts section and grabbed the book on Lycanthropes that he was so familiar with. He put it underneath his arm and moved over towards the Transfiguration section. He stared at the assorted books, looking over their spines for the familiar book that had helped him so much on his essay. Once he had located it he added it to the collection being held under his arm and walked over to an empty table at the end of the room. He put the books down on top of the table and then sat down.

He sat quietly sifting through the pages of both books. Occasionally, he would cross-reference each new fact he learned along the way and then once it checked out he'd write it down on a spare piece of parchment. He sat back in the wooden chair once he had collected all the necessary bits of information that he needed and he smiled widely in triumph when he sat the books back on their appointed shelves.

Then, James left the library with his mind buzzing with all of the new information he had managed to gather. He walked up the many flights of stairs up to Gryffindor Tower and greeted the Fat Lady when she came into view, this shocked the painting immensely. He said the password, and she swung open exposing the passage into the common room and he climbed inside.

As soon as he entered he heard Sirius bellow out from across the room, "So what's so important that you left us for an hour and a half?"

James just smiled at Sirius before he went to answer the question, "Where's Remus?" James asked as he walked over to them and sat down in one of the chairs around the round table.

Peter simply shrugged while Sirius opened his mouth to reply, "He went to go visit Madam Pomfrey."

"Good." Sirius arched his eyebrow at James' reaction to that statement.

"What do you mean go-"

James cut Peter off before the boy could even finish, "I couldn't tell you why I left if he was here," both of the boys instantly leaned forward over the table to hear whatever tale James had for them, "I've figured it out." James stated in glee as he stared at each boy levelly.

He continued before either boy had the chance to ask ”What?”

"How to help Remus with his Lycanthropy."

Sirius raised his eyebrow once more and James just went on, knowing that he had their undivided attention now.

"You know how it's been terribly difficult trying to get around the fact that he kills humans once a month," the two boys before him nodded in agreement, "well, what if there was a way around that?"

"But there isn't." Peter exclaimed. He had never really wanted to ever find a way to make Lupin's Lycanthropy easier.

"Oh, but there is. I did my transfiguration paper on it. All we have to do is become Animagi. That would make it so we could change into animals during the night of the full moon."

"Brilliant." Sirius shouted.

James just nodded and went on, "This would definitely work. Remus wouldn't kill us and it might just keep him from ripping himself to shreds come every full moon. And providing none of us turn into a cow, and he doesn't realize that we're really humans, then we won't get hurt either." James smiled in pride of his thorough research job only to be greeted with a very unpleased Peter.

"What's wrong?"

Peter just stared at him in shock. How could he not possibly know what was wrong?

"What if it doesn't work? We'll either get killed or be turned into Lycanthropes ourselves... which is definitely not something I want."

"But there's always the chance that it will work. We won't ever know if we don't try. Plus it'll be fun!" Sirius retorted happily, quite liking this possible new adventure.

"Yes, well, let's say it does work. How do we get into the tree?" Peter asked indignantly.

Sirius then turned his attention back to James hoping for an answer to this important question.

They had figured out a while back, while trying to figure out ways on how to help Remus, that the tree had been put there, not as a gift to the school, but as a way to protect the public from Remus. Therefore, once a month the boy was smuggled into the tree to stay for the remainder of the night. This action was what James and Sirius had seen the evening Sirius had detention with Hagrid. But, they had yet to figure out how to open the entrance to the Whomping Willow, and none of them were too keen to go and investigate it either.

James sighed and furrowed his brow in slight thought, "I don't know exactly. But I'm sure Remus does. And when we tell him that we know his secret, after we have this plan to help him with his issue, I think that he'll definitely tell us that little bit."

Sirius nodded accepting this as a valid plan, "Just fine details, Peter. Things to be sorted out as we go."

Peter stared in astonishment, he took his last piece of hope and throwing it out in the open. "But you need to do it through the Ministry! You need to be registered!"

"You can do it illegally. One of my great aunts or something did it illegally and never got caught." Sirius suggested knowing that it wasn't impossible, just more difficult to do it without help from the Ministry. Plus, the thought of doing something illegal was quite pleasing to the young boy.

Peter looked down at his feet, near tears, as this last shred of hope was shot out of the sky. He looked back up at them after a short while, not willing to cry, and managed a weak half-hearted smile for them, "But we could die trying this. It's dangerous."

James smiled faintly at the boy, "You'll have me to help you. You can't go wrong with that, can you?" Peter shook his head not knowing what else to do, "So what do you say?" James said as he looked at Sirius and then back over at Peter.

"I'll do it." Sirius stated immediately without any hint of a thought process.

James smiled at his best friend and then gave Peter a level stare. "I'll do it too." Peter muttered finally in defeat.

James resisted the urge to jump up and kiss the boy, or rather, jump up and hoot in joy, "You guys won't regret this."

And in the next instant James got up from his seat to put his bag away for the day. Now, all they needed to do was tell Remus that they knew his secret.

James smiled to himself, "That shouldn't be too hard." he said to himself, as he looked over at Remus' bed, still utterly proud of his complete cleverness.

~*~*~*~

A/N: again I hate these things they take away from the story but it's a must. I had a slightly hard time with this chapter too because I got halfway through it and realized it wouldn't work. But then I had a clever moment. I'll just let you try and pick out where exactly this thing kinda fell apart.

And this is the real reason I'm doing this thing. The song that Malvitz sings in "Of Wolf and Man." I do realize that this song was not put out until 1991, but it isn't my fault that the band didn't exist publicly until the '80's. The reason I used it is because the person I based the professor off of loves Metallica therefore I didn't feel like changing that bit, plus it fits the story. Oh and because of the date thing I think you people can pretend that it's a song by a wizarding band from the '70's. That's it for now, I think. And I'm sorry if I sound a bit rude but these are the dumb things that people point out and criticize in stories, so I have to point this out so I don't have to hear about it

"And they didn't desert me at all."

Chapter Twenty-One: Finding the Difference between Half-Truths and Lies

James put his trunk down with the others that a select few had chosen to leave by the exit of their common room to convenience them tomorrow. He knew that he had eaten too much at the end of term feast but he couldn't help it; the food was always too good to pass up. He smiled to himself as he thought of the fact that Gryffindor had dominated over the Quidditch Cup. Unfortunately, though, they had lost the inter-House competition to Slytherin. James had wanted to hex Snape so badly, when the headmaster had announced that, just to wipe the smug smile off of the greasy git's face. So, afterwards, Sirius did it for him, a simple hex that would ultimately leave Snape in the bathroom for a good hour or so. James chuckled to himself as he thought of his enemy's fate. With this satisfying feeling, he wandered up to his dormitory, fully intending to go to sleep.

James entered the room only to be greeted by the soft snoring of Peter, Sirius' tossing and turning as he looked for a comfortable position to sleep in, and Remus' replies to Peter's snoring. James frowned slightly at Remus' bed, still knowing that they hadn't done their job yet. He stared at the sleeping boy for a long while before resolving to tell Remus what they knew on the train tomorrow. That way none of them would have any way to get out of it. He smiled slightly at his small plan, seeing no possible flaws in it and quickly got into his pajamas and curled up in his bed. He laid there for a long while staring at the designs in his canopy, like he did almost every night, thinking of all the things he would say to Remus when they finally confronted him. Then without any warning to himself he drifted off to sleep.

~*~*~*~

"James, get up we have to go!" Sirius yelled at James' bed.

James jumped up and noticed that half of the world was out of focus and he couldn't place his surroundings. He quickly adjusted his glasses that he had fallen asleep in, and opened the curtains that surrounded his bed. Instantly, he was greeted with a plate full of food. He took it from Sirius' hands and set it aside so he could put on his clothes.

"Eat fast." Sirius stated impatiently.

James didn't even bother to ask why and simply did as he was told. Once he was finished he set the plate on his nightstand and found instantly that he was being ushered out of the room. "What's up?" James asked eagerly.

Sirius just looked down at his watch and groaned slightly obviously finding something that he didn't like, "We have ten minutes to get to the platform." He stated rather calmly considering the situation.

"WHAT!" James yelled and then lowered his voice quickly after realizing how loud it had gotten. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"We tried, but you wouldn't wake up," he stated seriously, "but then we thought that you looked just too peaceful to rouse, so we left you alone." he continued with a sarcastic wink, "Your bags have already been taken so you can put these in you're trunk when we get there." Sirius then shoved James' pajamas into his hands.

They then quickly left for Hogsmeade station and arrived in fair time. They boarded the train completely exhausted, since they had to run the entire path that lead from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade and then continue on this way to the station. Once on board they immediately began searching for the rest of their gang knowing that Remus and Peter had gone ahead intending on finding a compartment to save for strictly themselves.

They issued the typical “excuse me's,” and “pardon me's” to the people within the cars they had to pass through. Eventually they opened one of the doors that lead to the next car and looked inside only to be greeted by a snarling Snape. The two boys said nothing as they walked through Snape, Avery, and Knott's car, attempting to be civil to them, as they headed for the door leading to the next compartment. As they reached for the handle to slide the door open they heard someone mutter something just barely audible. James and Sirius quickly looked at each other, exchanging brief glances, and then they quickly ducked just in time before they were hit in the head with a potions book. Once the book had hit the floor the two left as quickly as their legs would allow them to. They ran through the compartments as explicit words were sent after them for their rude behavior. Every now and then they would hear something hit a wall, which both boys knew had been intended to hit them.

They finally reached the last car and were greeted by a very worried Remus and Peter, who had only seen Sirius and James' mad dash into the compartment and sensed that something must be wrong. Sirius and James smiled weakly at them and then turned around as fast as they could and slammed the door shut. Immediately, they heard a huge thumping sound up against the door just as they locked it with one of the many handy spells they had learned that year. James and Sirius turned back around to face their friends and snickered out loud no longer able to contain their laughter. James smiled at Remus' cocked eyebrow and simply said, "Snape."

Remus nodded to the statement as if everything he had been wondering now made sense, "That all?"

The two nodded at he question and took their seats across from each other filling in the empty spots beside Remus and Peter.

"Did we miss anything?"

"No, you caused it to get interesting." Remus retorted with a smirk.

"Well, I try my best." James laughed and shook his head at Sirius, knowing that if Sirius could he would bow as low as possible just to be a smartass.

The train left the station shortly afterwards and the four of them sat talking for a long while about anything and everything as they typically did when they were left alone for any period of time. Throughout the switching conversations they laughed over certain pranks they had successfully pulled off that year and contemplated ways they could do better next year.

Remus fell silent halfway through as Sirius and James started talking about the new Zonko's supplies they were going to get for next year's excitement. James watched intently as Remus grew quiet and he slowly calculated why Remus would be acting this way.

Suddenly Remus spoke up, "I'm hungry. I think I'm going to go and chase down the trolley lady."

He, then, quickly got up and unlocked the door and checked for any signs of Snape lingering outside. He didn't find Snape anywhere so he stepped outside their car and disappeared from the three remaining boys view.

"I think he's catching on that we know." Sirius stated rather bluntly.

James just gave him a strict look and retorted, "But then why is he acting so scared? Don't you think he'd be happy that we still want to be his friends?"

"Maybe he doesn't know that." Peter offered.

The room fell silent for a while as each boy slipped into their own thoughts and shortly after Remus walked back into the compartment with his arms full of assorted candies. He dropped all of it on top of the table, "I didn't get any Bertie Bott's because I have terrible luck with those things." He said smiling, either oblivious to the silence in the room or was just trying to ignore it. The latter seemed more likely.

He took his seat and looked at James and smiled as he opened one of the candy bars he had brought. James said nothing and simply watched him quietly, slowly calculating his next move as if this was an important chess match. Then he sighed deeply seeing no other move and stated, "We know."

He had said it as bluntly as he could. He didn't want to keep their secret anymore it needed to come out so he just let it. He noticed Sirius and Peter's jaws drop open in awe of his brashness and stared at Remus in expectation as the boy's face went ashen.

"Know what?" Remus asked quietly hoping that what they claimed they knew was actually something entirely different than what he thought it was, yet, at the same time, he knew that it wasn't.

"That you're a werewolf." James said levelly, looking Remus straight in the face.

He watched as Remus' eyes started to glaze over with tears. Remus turned towards the window bracing himself for the next event that typically followed this revelation. A few moments passed in complete silence as nothing happened, not one word was spoken, not one person moved. A tear escaped from Remus' eyes, for waiting for the verdict was much more painful than sentence, and then, not being able to take it anymore, he slowly got up from his seat crying silently to himself in shame of what he was and what it always did to him, "I'll just leave." he claimed in defeat.

He took one step towards the door but James held out his arm to stop him, "You're not going anywhere." James said looking Remus in the eyes, "Please, just sit down."

"We won't hurt you." Sirius offered not really knowing what else to say to the crying boy.

Remus watched all of them closely, trying to find any insincerity on their faces that would prove their words false, but after what seemed to be an eternity he found nothing that would prove a falsity in their words so he sat back down signing his fate with his "friends."

Sirius sighed slightly hurt by the boy's reaction and looked at Remus with a pained expression before he spoke, "Why don't you trust us now that you know we know?"

Remus held back his tears not really wanting to answer their questions. James watched his reaction and gave Sirius a stern look for his words and quickly thought things through in his mind. He smirked slightly and then looked back over at Remus.

"How about this... we explain what we know and how we figured it out. Then if you still don't trust us we'll just leave you alone but if you think it's okay then it's your turn to answer our questions. Does that sound a little more fair?" James said still unsure how this would go over.

Remus thought for a second on James’ words. It certainly couldn't hurt just to listen to them, so he nodded his head in reply not knowing what else to do. Immediately, his three friends dove into their story each cutting one another off to get what they wanted to say in. In the end it took the better part of forty-five minutes to get their story out, due mainly to all of the interruptions. They finally ended their tale with a detailed description of their full moon plan involving the Anamagi transformations.

"So what is it?"

Remus couldn't lie and say that he wasn't impressed with the thoroughness of their plans so he slowly but surely found himself shaking his head. Then he said, without full consciousness of saying it before it was out in the open, "What do you want to know?"

"Why didn't you trust us?" Sirius said still slightly hurt by Remus' previous reaction.

Remus just sighed knowing that Sirius wouldn't let this go until he answered it, yet, at the same time he still knew that he didn't fully trust them and didn't want to answer the question. He knew that they had high ambitions about the problem but they didn't understand it. It couldn't be fixed that easily otherwise surely someone would have caught onto it. But then it was nice to think that there was a chance he'd be okay once a month, and his friends would actually stick around.

So he clung onto that thought and began, "The last time my “friends” found out I was a Lycanthrope I was seven. They threw rocks at me and chased me away from them screaming “half-breed” so that the whole neighborhood knew what I was. The next day my parents and I were thrown out of the town."

The tears began to fall silently down his cheeks as the memories started to flow into his mind and before they even had the chance to ask another question he started to tell them everything he had held inside for as long as he could remember. All the secrets he had never told anyone ever before started to come out and he couldn't try to stop them even if he had wanted to.

"I was five when I was bitten... excuse mauled." he laughed bitterly to himself, as the image came to his mind and his own piercing scream from that cold night surfaced again from the blackened depths of his mind, "It was winter and cold, the coldest I can remember it ever being. It was snowing and I was inside all warm and cozy by the fireplace. My mum was in the kitchen baking cookies for both my cousin and me. My cousin was staying with us for the week because her parents were on vacation. She turned to me and realized that she had left her stuffed dog outside. She asked me to get it for her and at first I said '”no” but she kept asking. She said that he would freeze to death if I didn't go and rescue it. I agreed to get it just to get her to leave me alone.

"So I went outside without my coat on, or anything for warmth on for that matter, and walked outside over towards the edge of the woods where we had been playing earlier that day. I quickly found the toy, picked it up and turned back around to go inside. Before I really knew what had happened I was on the ground bleeding and screaming in fear as this massive beast stood on top of my back ripping bits of my flesh off of every bit of me it could get its mouth on. I could feel my ribs crack under the pressure of its weight just before I passed out from the pain."

The tears he had been trying so hard to keep silent began to flow freely as small sobs began to escape from his weak frame, "Just before I passed out I heard my mum scream my name and then a bright red light filled the area around me, then I passed out. Later, I found out that the red light was the spell my dad had used to fend the werewolf off." Remus whipped the tears from his eyes, ashamed of them, and stopped telling his story and concentrated for a while on trying to subdue his sobs.

"I was in hospital for a month." he started again once he was almost sure that he wouldn't break down again, "The medi-witches even told my parents that they should put me down and do me a favor. But they didn't. After that they had to, still have to, put me in the shed out back to keep other people safe during the full moons. At first I didn't really understand what was going on. But apparently, after a year of this new routine my parents say that they found me in my dad's den looking up werewolves, trying to find answers about my condition that they had tried to hide from me." Remus went quiet and stared out the window not sure what else to say. He'd never told anyone these things before and was now fully petrified of the possible reactions he could get from these disclosures.

James watched Remus grow slightly tenser as his story unfolded and then in the end the silence grew to consume all four of the boys in their own thoughts. James himself didn't really know what to say. He had never expected anything like that to just come out into the open and so he was at a complete loss as to what he could say to comfort his friend. And by the sound of the silence they had fallen into neither Sirius nor Peter knew what to say. After a long while Sirius finally broke the unbearable silence.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but how did you even get into school?"

Remus stared at Sirius hardly believing that he had asked that question but after staring at the boy he found nothing that indicated that he didn't want him there so he answered, "Dumbledore. If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have gotten into school. Headmaster Dippet certainly wouldn't have let me enroll. But Dumbledore thought that as long as we took the necessary precautions come once a month there shouldn't be any reason I shouldn't get an education. That's why the tree was planted this year. It blocks the tunnel leading to a newly built shack in Hogsmeade."

James smiled wickedly as his mind wandered back to their plan. Sirius noticed the smirk and began to smile to himself too while Peter just sat there confused by the sudden reaction of his two friends to these words.

"So how do you get into the tunnel?" James asked with a lopsided smile stating what was on both his and Sirius' minds.

Remus stared at him not sure whether he should answer that question or choose to ignore it. But after turning it over in his mind for a bit he finally decided that it would be okay to tell them, "There's a knot in the tree trunk... you push it in and it'll stop the tree from moving long enough for you to climb through the passage."

James exchanged glances with Sirius and took out a sheet of paper and started writing on it. Once he had gotten done he looked up at them and gave both Sirius and Peter a copy of the Anamagi book list he had just made. Then he started to talk about how they were going to do this and how it would open up a million new adventures for them. By the time the train had reached its destination the four boys had thought of every detail they could for their plans. Beginning with what kind of mad things they would be able to do when they eventually pulled off the transformations and what they would likely turn into, knowing that the animals they could change into were already preordained by their genetic make-up and personality rather than their own wishes.

When the train finally stopped they collected their things as the continued to talk among themselves about the possible ways they could get away with their plans. They slowly made their way off of the train as Sirius started telling mad tales that were hardly possible just to postpone meeting his parents. All of them knew that's why he was just talking about everything and anything and none of them minded in the least.

James felt fairly confident that Remus was okay with everything that they had planned as he watched his friend laugh at a fairly lame joke that was cracked by Sirius as they stepped onto platform nine and three quarters. James knew that even though Remus had helped make up the majority of the plans for their illegal activities he could still have some doubts about the friendship considering the things he had been through in the past. But now as he began to share one of his own jokes with Sirius he showed no such signs of doubt. This put James at ease.

James heard Sirius groan loudly as he looked up at the crowd after Remus had finished his joke, which had been surprisingly good, as Sirius' eyes fell upon what could only have been his family. James followed his gaze and sure enough Mr. and Mrs. Black stood towards the side by the exit, away from the rest of the families that were busy greeting their children. Sirius quickly grumbled some obscenities about his relatives and then told James and the rest of his friends a quick goodbye without moving his lips so his parents would have no reason to scold him. James replied in the same way not wanting to get the boy into any trouble and watched as Sirius went to join his parents. As soon as the boy had reached them James noticed that he was greeted with nothing but a glare as if he was filth and then Sirius also had to scurry out after them dragging his own trunk behind him.

James sighed at the despicable treatment of his friend knowing that he couldn't change it even if he wanted to. James then turned back towards Peter and bid him farewell also. Peter left quickly barely remembering to say “bye” himself and ran off to his parents' side leaving James alone with Remus.

James smiled at Remus and hugged him tightly before he said anything to him. He let go of his friend and smiled brightly at the boy who just looked at him slightly shocked by the gesture. James ignored the shocked expression, "I'll see you next year." James stated quickly as his mother called after him telling him to come over to them. James ignored her and continued on, "I'll write you, okay?" Remus just nodded and said goodbye not really knowing what else to say. He hadn't expected that.

James gave one last smile to the boy and then waved goodbye before he walked over to his own parents. He smiled at them and hugged his mum. His father grabbed his trunk and they slowly walked off of the platform into King's Cross Station towards the parking lot where a very expensive ministry car sat waiting for them. James climbed inside the vehicle and slowly they made their way downtown London in the direction of their house.

"So did you have an interesting year?" James' father inquired as he stared back at his son through the rear view mirror.

James laughed slightly to himself as he watched the people pass each other on the street. Thoughts of his year filtered into his head and he turned his attention back to his father who was waiting patiently for an answer. "You could say that." James stated with a smirk.

He knew in his heart of hearts that next year would bring new twists and turns in his life that would surely be more interesting than this year's events. And he knew that he was definitely ready for that.



~*~*~*~




A/N: That's it... until I get the new story up which shouldn't take to long. Oh and if you're worried that I'm wrong about the whole Anamagus transformation thing you can go to mugglenet and find the like and find out for yourself. It's actually really interesting... it's the chat transcription for JKR during the World Book Day chat. If you've read it already then you know what I'm talking about if you haven't I suggest you read it cuzz it's cool. What else... Ah yes... THANK YOU PEOPLES: Kara Black for being the coolest friend, Fiery Wordess you're just cool and my beta reader so I have probably the most thanks to you, er... (keep in mind this is in no particular order) Janie Felton, Azkaban13, lukyduky14, PadfootLvsOn, dave 049478, bertty, Binks, Rosanna_Tapioca, igotbannedfroma2k, and because I've reached laziness I'm not going to list anymore names. Anyone I didn't mention there is just as much thanks to you people cuzz without you I probably would have stopped writing this. This is honestly the first story I have ever finished because I knew that people liked it. So thanks a bundle and I hope you continue to read my fics. Thanks.