James Potter lay flat on his back on his bed reading a brightly colored magazine. He was tall and thin with messy black hair and round glasses. The only light came from a lamp on his bedside table. The light crept up the walls and shone on dozens of Quidditch posters that covered the wall so much that it looked like it was the wallpaper. The people in the pictures flew on their broomsticks doing amazing moves and pausing every once in a while to do a heroic pose. On the floor lay most of James' wardrobe and one or two cloaks hung on the back of his desk chair. A broomstick lay next to the door and had a few twigs protruding here and there. A few figurines were on the windowsill, the desk, and under the bed with their arms strewn elsewhere. Magazines littered the floor, all titled Quidditch Quests.
James turned the page of the one edition he was holding. He stared in awe at the newest and fastest brooms plus the newest Quidditch gear. As he turned the page to look at the most recent top ten teams, a woman's voice called up from below.
"James! Come down here! Dinner's ready!"
"Just a moment, mum!" he called back, still entranced by the pictures of the best teams in the world.
"James! You better not be reading that magazine again!" the voice yelled after a few minutes.
"I'm not!" James responded staring at examples of the newest moves.
"James Potter! If you don't come down for dinner right now, I'm canceling that magazine subscription for a year!"
"All right! All right! I'm coming!" throwing his magazine on the bed, leaving it open on the page that had which was a free tear-out poster of a team that was in an identical format to most of the ones on the walls.
James sprinted down the stairs and past his mom, Heather, at the bottom. She had extremely dark brown, straight hair.
"You were cutting it fine this time, boy," she told him sternly.
"I know," he said, smiling. "That's my specialty."
They both entered the kitchen together. There was a beautiful light brown wooden floor, granite counter tops, white drawers and cabinets, and a silver sink, stove, and oven which were all matching. Heather already had a huge platter of chicken in the center of the table. James sat in front of one of the white plates, grabbed a drumstick from the center, and began to eat, ignoring the metal fork and knife beside his plate. His mother sat next to him politely taking a piece of the meat and rolled her eyes.
"Don't bother to wait for me, do you?"
James' father Harold entered the room. He gave his wife a kiss, ruffled his son's hair that looked just like his own, and sat at the table. Imitating his James' actions, he grabbed the other drumstick and chomped down on it. James' grinned wide with his mouth full of chicken while his mom shook her head and muttered, "The male mind is a strange thing."
Harold and James laughed and kept eating. After a while, Heather brought out some mashed potatoes and gravy. Her husband and son soon began creating "Potato Place" and built little house, buildings, cars, people, and a gravy lake.
After dinner, they had a small wizard's chess tournament between them- Heather beat them both badly.
A few hours later, James hiked up to his awaiting bed, contemplating the great night. He went to sleep contently.
Sirius Black sat at his desk in his room, leaning back in his chair and throwing and catching a small, black ball. His long, black hair hung below him. Sirius' room was dark, with navy blue curtains, black blankets on his bed, grey walls, and a dark purple rug. The room was spotless and perfectly clean- and he hated it. All of his clothes that his mother, Walburga, insisted that he wear were all folded neatly away in his black dresser. She always said that the Blacks would never have clothes on their back that didn't look proper.
The door to his bedroom opened and he looked to see who it was. Kreacher, the family's house elf, had entered.
"What?" Sirius barked at him.
"Kreacher just wanted to tell Young Master that my Mistress would like Young Master to go downstairs for dinner," the dirty elf said with a low bow.
"Great," Sirius muttered sarcastically as Kreacher left. He threw the ball onto his bed and headed downstairs.
He walked into the hallway, passing the heads of house elves and the door to the kitchen and went straight through a pair of double doors into the dining room.
The dining room was lit by a magnificent crystal chandelier and the floor had an elegant maroon rug. One window was all that was in there and had dark blue curtains. A grass green was on the walls and surrounded the center mahogany table which had a laced white tablecloth. The place setting consisted of an expensive crystal plate and solid silver goblets and silverware that all had a Black family crest. He saw that his younger brother, Regulus, was already seated in fancy, or what his called 'proper', attire and was talking to his father, Orion, who was also dressed nicely, there black hair matching their clothes perfectly. His mother was in a neat black dress and turned around when she heard someone enter.
"Why are you dressed in those disgusting clothes!" she exclaimed looking with distaste at his long pants and shirt. Her long black hair swung around in a threatening manner. "Those are like muggle clothes! I will not accept that attire at the table. Now go upstairs and change into something decent!"
When Sirius came back into the dining room, everyone was already eating. An elegant assortment of food was placed in the middle- Sirius never knew what half of it was. He sat down at one of the chairs and began to eat hurriedly.
"Use your manner's, boy!" his father scolded.
Sirius scowled and ate a bit more politely and decided to stay quiet throughout all of the courses like he usually did because they were talking about his least favorite subject: 'mudbloods and half-breeds' as they so put it.
"He said that this man, he didn't know his name, but he wanted all of those filthy mudbloods gone and to put us purebloods with the power," his father told them, brushing off Kreacher's muttered apologies as he collected the serving plates and started to bring out more food. "Whoever that man is, I would like to see him gain more power- that is definitely the kind of ruler we need. We should get rid of all of this mudblood filth!"
Mrs. Black nodded in agreement and Regulus added, "Once he gets more power, I'll be proud to join him!"
"Now, that's right boy, you're a good son!" his father cheered. Then all heads went towards Sirius. "What about you, boy?"
Sirius, who wanted to be well away from this conversation, froze. If he said what he really wanted to say, he would be thrown out of the house. But if he answered with what they wanted to hear, he would be living a lie for the rest of his life. Desperate for escape, or at least some time, he began shoving food in his mouth and stalled by chewing slowly. When he finally swallowed his food which was chewed so much it was like puree, he was stressing badly. When he felt like he was going to faint under the pressure, there was a loud scream.
"GAAAAAH! KREACHER!"
For the house elf had just spilt a large bowl of soup on his Mistress' lap. Kreacher tried to use his clothes (an old tablecloth) to wipe some of it off, but she just screamed louder.
"UGH! GET THAT FILTHY RAG OFF OF ME YOU…THING!"
Regulus ran out and came back in with a clean towel while his father just gaped at the three of them with his mouth hanging open, clearly not wanting to get into his wife's drama. Sirius made eye contact with his father who nodded towards him.
"Excuse us," Sirius muttered hurriedly before he and his dad exited the room as quickly as they could.
"Now, I would advise that you go to your room before she comes out and starts yelling at you and I'll get out some clean clothes for her," Sirius' father told him once they left the room.
Sirius nodded his head and began to walk up the steps. He knew his father was just trying to get rid of him because he thought that his son liked muggles and mudbloods when he didn't reply to the question directed to him at dinner and didn't want to believe it was true.
He went into his room and closed the door behind him. Sirius fell face forward onto his bed and tilted his head to see himself in the mirror. He looked at the nice clothes he had to wear and thought about how everyone in the Black family had to be proper, had to dress nicely, had to hate muggles and mudbloods, had to do all of these things that he hated to death.
Sirius sighed heavily and fell asleep.
Remus Lupin sat on his unmade bed in his tiny room reading a huge book. The light from his one window showed the mess of clothes on the floor, most of them tattered, a heap of papers, and many other things topped of with quills, leaves, twigs, and empty ink bottles. The only thing that remained neatly placed was a large shelf of books, cleanly dusted and in alphabetical order. Remus shifted his position and in the process kicked a pebble off of his bed. He had scratches and bruises everywhere and looked tired. His brown hair surprisingly had light specks when he was only eleven.
Remus heard an owl hoot and looked out the window. It had already gotten dark and the moon, which was thankfully waning, had already risen. His skin prickled at the sight of the moon. It's not a full moon tonight, he told himself reassuringly. The full moon ended two nights ago.
He stuck a marker in the book, The History of a Werewolf, laid it on his pillow to continue later, jumped off his bed, and waded his way through the mess to the door to get downstairs.
When he got downstairs, he saw he mother, Teresa, making dinner in the kitchen. The kitchen, in Remus' opinion, was one of the cleanest rooms in the house. The counters and the sink were scrubbed until they sparkled, the dark wooden floor was swept every morning, and everything all the way up to the chairs was right where they're supposed to be. Any where his mother was always clean as long as she had her wand at hand. Even the stove, which was cooking up noodles at the time, was free of grime. The pot boiled while she laid a large, white bowl on the table.
"Oh good, Remus. You're here!" she said, attending to the stove while brushing back he long, brown hair. "Can you set the table, please?" She picked up her wand from the side of the sink and waved it to a drawer that sprung open.
Remus walked over to it and grabbed up three plain white plates, forks, and napkins, then went to the table to lay them down.
"Where's dad?" he asked his mom when he was done.
"He's still at work," she replied, levitating the boiling pot off the stove to where she now stood by the sink. "And get a spoon for the sauce and something for the noodles."
Remus obeyed her orders. His dad, George, worked in the Magical Creatures department at the Ministry and he usually stayed there until late. Remus sighed and retrieved a big wooden spoon for the spaghetti sauce and a large metal fork for the noodles. Ever since he was bitten by a werewolf five years ago, his family had undergone so many changes. They gave up a lot of money for Remus right after he was attacked, his mom had to quit her job at her plant store to watch her son, and his dad started to work overtime to earn more money. Plus, they were always worried during the full moon when Remus transformed.
By the time they had sat down for dinner, George came through the door and greetings were exchanged between them.
"So," he started once he was seated, moving his short brown hair from his eyes at the same time. "How are you feeling today, Remus?"
His dad always asked him how he felt for the few days after a full moon.
"Fine," he replied.
"That's good," his dad said. Then he went into a long story about this new worker in his department who got bitten by a strange animal he was expecting.
"And natural, he wasn't wearing his gloves because the fool thought he wouldn't need them," George rambled. "Then it started turning purple so he had to go to St. Mungo's. He was fine, but it really slowed down our department."
Remus had finished his dinner around when his parents started discussing their opinions on the new Minister.
"Can I be excuse?" he asked politely during their conversation.
"And John walked in on him on day to drop off some papers and he was playing an air guitar! We really can't have a Minister that…Oh what, Remus? Oh, sure, sure…."
Remus left the kitchen and carried himself up the stairs to his room where he flopped down on his bed. His parents were both good company, but he wished he had real friends his age. All of his parent's friends left once they found out what Remus was and he never saw them or their children again. He was sent to a muggle school his entire life where his friends there lived too far away. So really, all he was left with was his mom and dad, but they usually talked in an adult fashion and couldn't communicate in a kid way. Remus sighed and fell asleep without another thought.
Peter Pettigrew looked up from his writing. His shaggy straw- colored hair fell over his eyes. As he swept it away he leaned back in his desk chair, sighing. He had just finished writing about how he loathed those other children at the park that always teased him. It wasn't his fault that he was slightly chubby, always nervous, and showed no signs of magic to date. That's just who he was. One day, he would get a lot of power and no one would dare to threaten him then. His room started to get dark so he reached towards his lamp and turned it on. Everything in his room was placed away neatly in their correct positions, just how he like it. Peter stood up to rub a mark off of the blue wall. He tucked the corner of a shirt that was sticking out nicely inside of his light brown dresser. He fidgeted with the flipped corner of his green rug and sat down on his white bed, admiring his room. Peter didn't understand why some kids despised clean rooms.
He looked at the clock on his nightstand. It said 6:20. He was going to be late for dinner (6:30)! Peter stood up and quickly smoothed out the area that he had just sat at then hurried to the kitchen.
He entered the kitchen early. There were white cabinets and walls with light brown wooden counters and table. Peter's mother, Polly, was in the process of removing a steaming casserole from the oven when she saw her son.
"Oh Peter! Glad you're here!" she greeted him, pushing her blond, curly hair behind her ear. "I was wondering if you could please set-oh. Thank you, dear."
For Peter had begun to walk across the tile flooring towards the utensil drawer and opened it as soon as he went into the room. He placed the silverware neatly in their appropriate places and retrieved three plates and napkins then set them down nicely. By the time Polly had placed the food in the middle of the table, Peter's dad, Paul, entered with his light brown hair neatly combed back.
"Well I'm not late then?" he stated. "That's good."
They all sat down together and then began to eat.
Throughout dinner, they only complemented each other and talked of nothing else. When they had all finished, Paul cleaned the table while Peter and Polly washed dishes together. When they had all finished, Peter went up to his room while his parents spent some time alone. Once he got to his room, he lay down carefully on his bed. He knew that some people thought that this routine for that they had used everyday was boring, but it worked out all right.
Peter closed his eyes peacefully as his clock chimed 7:30.