Falling Leaves

Lupin could not believe his eyes. There were two eleven year-old boys in his train compartment. Being friendly. Chatting. And, most amazingly of all, doing both of those things with him. He glanced down just to make sure he recognized his thin hands and the already too-small robes he was wearing. Yes, he was still Remus Lupin, from the looks of it. He glanced up at the two dark-haired boys. Yes, they really were conversing with him. Through all of his years at primary school, he had never made a true friend, and the thought there were already two boys acting so—so friendly gave him a soaring feeling in his heart that perhaps he really could start anew.

"You're kind of shy, aren't you?" The boy with short black hair and glasses enthusiastically grinned at him. James Potter. That was how he had introduced himself.

"Ah, we'll get him talking in no time," the other dark-haired boy gave a nearly identical grin. Sirius Black. That was the other boy's name. "See, I'll start. What house do you want to be in, Remus?"

"Oh, um, I don't know," he noncommittally shrugged his shoulders.

"You should be in Gryffindor, with us then!" James blurt out, bouncing around with so much energy that he rather reminded Remus of a ping pong ball in an enclosed space.

"Yeah, we're both going to be in Gryffindor! The home of the brave!" Sirius gave an exaggerated pose rather like a soldier posing for a photo.

"Uh, I don't know how well I meet that requirement," Remus gave a nervous smile. "I was kind of known as the scaredy-cat at my primary school."

"Pssh, well, look at me. If you look at my past, I'd be headed straight to Slytherin; my whole family is filled with Slytherin pure-blood fanatics and, trust me, there's no way I'm going to be in Slytherin," Sirius confidently asserted. "Hogwarts is a new start; it doesn't matter what sort of background you're coming from."

Remus marveled at the boy's way of speaking. So confident, so self-assured. There was no doubt in his voice: he was right, and that was that.

"I still can't believe your whole family was in Slytherin. Yech!" James interrupted Remus's thoughts.

Sirius let out a bark of a laugh before wrapping his arm around James's shoulders in a brotherly way. "Trust me, I'm as far removed from my family as physically possible. See, if they're a tree, a huge, sky-scraper tall oak tree—which is about how tall our family tree is—then I'm the little leaf at the top that's tearing itself free from the tree's branches. And I'm going to flutter up and up, like a levitating charm has been cast on me, until I'm kilometers and kilometers away—until I'm so far away I can't even see the oak tree far beneath me."

James snorted out a single laugh. "I'm sorry, that's all poetic and all, but when I'm imagine you 'fluttering' this is what I see—" James did a ballerina-esque pirouette and made fluttering motions with his hands.

The other two boys exploded with laughter. "No, no, it's more like this," Sirius said, fat tears of laughter leaking out of his eyes as he mimicked James's fluttering motions.

The compartment shook with more laughter and Remus couldn't help but smile at the thought that he was going to have a completely fresh start—one with friends.

Remus wasn't quite sure where the year had gone; it felt as though he had just been on the Hogwarts Express, pulling into Hogwarts with a trunk full of unread books and two new friends. Now, he was disembarking from the Hogwarts Express again, only it was onto Platform 9 ¾ with a year's worth of knowledge crammed into his head and three good friends. Peter was a likeable enough fellow who had joined their trio of friends a few weeks into the school year; like Remus, he seemed unable to believe his good luck that he was somehow friends with people like James Potter and Sirius Black.

The four boys had barely finished heaving their trunks off of the bright red steam engine when their light chit-chat was broken by someone yelling "Sirius!" Almost as though all connected to the same piece of string, they simultaneously turned their head towards the cry, just in time to see a young boy racing towards Sirius.

"Hey, Reg!" Sirius greeted his younger brother, before extending a slightly more dignified greeting to the figures of his two parents, leisurely strolling behind their youngest son.

"Aren't you going to introduce us to your friends?" the Black patriarch formally suggested, only his eyes betraying some hint of warmth towards his eldest son.

"Father, Mother, these are my friends. This is James Potter," he hastily indicated the messy-haired boy.

"Ah, a Potter. Excellent to meet you," Mr. Black allowed a hint of a smile to trace his face as he shook the younger boy's hand.

"This is Remus Lupin."

Mr. Black shook his hand in turn before curiously cocking his head and saying, "Lupin? Is that a Muggle surname?"

"I'm a—a half-blood," Remus nervously stuttered, afraid that he might have somehow done something to offend Sirius's father.

Mr. Black didn't say or do anything else, though, instead only turning towards his oldest son expectantly, waiting for the last introduction.

"And this is Peter Pettigrew."

While shaking the last boy's hand, Mr. Black stated, "Ah, Pettigrew, another pureblood name."

"I thought you were a half-blood," Remus quickly whispered towards Peter.

"I am," he shot back in a hissed whisper. "But my Dad's a pure-blood, and there's no point in correcting him," he jerked his head towards Sirius's father.

"This summer's going to be so much fun!" Regulus blurt out after politely remaining silent for what must have been a whole three minutes. "It's been so quiet at home without you, Sirius. And Father says that we're going to get to go dragon hunting in July."

"Now, now, not so loud Regulus. It's of questionable legality," their father affectionately reprimanded the younger Black.

"How does one—how does one hunt dragons?" Peter squeaked, seemingly both awed and terrified by the idea of hunting such magnificent, dangerous beasts.

"They're horridly difficult to capture—or to kill. Generally once you get one in your sights you have to cut it down, piece by piece. Oftentimes literally," he chuckled. Peter looked positively queasy at the idea of literally cutting a dragon into pieces, and Remus himself felt his stomach doing unpleasant flips. "I do wish it was a bit more of a challenge, though," Mr. Black drawled, oblivious to the squeamish facial expressions of at least some of the boys in front of him. "I'm thinking that Werewolf hunting would be a bit more of a challenge, a change of pace if nothing else."

If Remus's stomach was doing unpleasant flips at the thought of dragon hunting, the thought of Werewolf hunting made his stomach shrivel up into an infinitesimally small, yet very compact, ball of nerves. "W-Werewolves? But—but they're people most of the time, they're harmless," the words stumbled out of his mouth, uncontrolled.

Mr. Black let out a jovial laugh. "It's not about whether they're harmful, it's about the thrill of the hunt! The challenge, the suspense, the ultimate victory when you see the creature's blood spilt on the ground," he enthusiastically articulated, his eyes gaining an almost ravenous look.

"Yes, exactly. I'm sure our boys would enjoy any sort of hunt," Mrs. Black's clipped voice cut through the noise of the train station as she spoke her first words of the conversation. "Are you ready to go yet, Sirius?"

"Almost, Mother. Just a minute," Sirius turned around, as if rearranging his trunk, and took the chance to surreptitiously whisper to James, "Told you I'm nothing like them. Asking about Remus's surname," he scoffed and shook his head.

"Going to flutter away?" James quietly snickered as he made fluttering motions with his hands.

After a shared stifled laugh, Sirius turned back to his family with a more serious demeanor. "I am ready to depart from the train station, Mother," he said with an exaggerated robotic, formal, tone, earning another snicker from James.

Remus glanced at the four Blacks as they left, Sirius's trunk enchanted to float behind them. Throughout the year, Sirius had consistently described his family as "pureblood fanatics," and that was it. That was simply it. They were pureblood fanatics, and nothing else.

They very well may have been pureblood fanatics, but from Remus's brief encounter he thought that that wasn't the first adjective to leap into his mind. No.

"Bloodthirsty" seemed to capture the Blacks much better.

Remus stared in near awe at seeing Sirius Black again. It had been more than a decade since he had seen his old friend—his old friend who everyone thought was a traitor. His old friend who everybody had dismissed by simply saying "Of course he's a servant of You-Know-Who. He's a Black. They're all pureblood fanatics, what did you expect?"

But, no, they had been wrong. Sirius was not like his family, he had been true to his friends, he had fluttered up and away from his family with those ridiculous pirouette motions James always did when the subject came up in conversation.

It was Peter who was the traitor. He was also in awe at seeing Peter again—the old friend he had thought dead—but somehow the fact that Sirius was innocent seemed so much more important. And everything was coming to a peak in the Shrieking Shack. They were going to take Peter back to Hogwarts. He was going to be sent to trial, and Sirius was going to be released, cleared of all charges by the Ministry. He could see it in his mind's eye; it was going to be clean and easy, everything wrapping up nicely, the innocent innocent and the guilty guilty, but still dealt with in just terms.

It was going to be near perfect, making up for the past ten years when he had been utterly friendless, because now Sirius was back and it was going to be just like old times because it had turned out that Sirius was nothing like his family.

Remus tried to ignore the tiny voice in the back of his head that pointed out how cruel Sirius was acting to their old friend, even if he was a traitor. Peter, on his knees, grasping on to Sirius's robes in a pray for mercy had been reprimanded with a swift kick.

And now his plans for a clean, orderly ending were going up in flames as Sirius said, a grin spreading across his face, a ravenous glint to his eyes, "Shall we kill him together?"

And Remus, who had never been strong enough to speak out against Sirius's plans, even in Hogwarts, could only offer the word "Yes," in response, followed by an "I think so," that he had intended to show his hesitation, his doubt, but which Sirius had taken as an enthusiastic agreement.

And everything seemed to be moving so fast—was he really to become a murderer? to spill Peter's blood?—when Harry finally yelled "NO!" and halted any plans to perform an impromptu execution on Peter.

Remus attempted to cover his relief from Sirius, Sirius who had a ravenous glint in his eyes as he regarded Peter, Sirius who seemed utterly disappointed at the idea of not being allowed to kill Peter.

But Sirius was relenting, giving into Harry's wishes—Harry who looked so much like James—and the whole situation seemed so oddly familiar; it struck him that at Hogwarts it was James who had always reeled in Sirius's more extreme, more deadly plans, including the time Sirius had almost sent Snape to his death.

And then it struck him that Sirius had been wrong that first day on the train because, clearly, it did matter where you came from, and the past could not be utterly disregarded. Sirius was just as bloodthirsty as all of the Blacks and, despite his attempts to be the leaf that fluttered up and away, he had plunged to the ground and returned to his roots just as soundly as any Black. It did not matter how tall the tree was, how strong the wind was, the falling leaves would always return to their roots.

…

A/N: This is a response to lilkyonkon's "Proverb Challenge" on HPFC. The one-shot had to use the Malay proverb, "Though a tree grows ever so high, the falling leaves return to the ground." Constructive criticism always appreciated!

Disclaimer: I don't own Lupin, Black, etc. The quotes "Shall we kill him together?" "Yes, I think so," and "NO!" are all directly from PoA.