The Marauders Fanfiction

The date was September 1st, the time 10:59am, and Platform 9¾ was filled to maximum capacity with hundreds of students, new and returning, all anxiously waiting to board the Hogwarts Express.

A few feet away from the daunting train stood an older couple and their eleven year old son. Both father and son had a head shock full of untidy black hair that seemed to stick up in all directions as if everyone in the whole Wizarding World was using an accio charm on each individual strand and wide glasses. The mother had dark blond hair pulled into a loose ponytail and seemed to be anxious about something, which quite contrasted the laid back attitudes of her husband and son.

"You sure you've packed everything, James?" She asked.

He nodded, biting his lower lip in excitement. "Absolutely everything. Fizzing Whisbees, Dungbombs, a huge stash of Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans, Sugar Quills, Dungbombs, Nose-biting Teacups, and-" James stopped abruptly upon seeing his mother's raised eyebrow and his father's knowing grin, cleared his throat, and continued in a mockingly-pompous voice. "And textbooks and quills and robes and other scholary… stuff." He flashed them a huge grin.

Dorea Potter laughed and ruffled her son's hair, making it (as impossible as this might seem) even more untidy. "Try not to give your teachers too many headaches, alright?"

Fleamont Potter nodded, then, with a wink at James, added, "you've got seven whole years to drive them insane. No need to rush into it on your first day."

"Or even your first year."

"Just remember to ace your classes first-"

"And come home for Christmas-"

"And have a great time-"

"And make friends-"

"Although you seriously won't need any help with that-"

"Change your underwear-"

"And I seriously hope you won't need help at all with that-"

James laughed. "Guys, I'll be fine. Trust me." He pushed his glasses further up his longish nose and clapped his hands together in a 'got this' fashion. "I am your son after all."

But before that meaningful statement even had a few seconds to sink in, the train blew a warning whistle and James grabbed his trunk out of the cart, waved hastily to his parents and rushed to jump on board.

Tiny silver droplets had begun to form in Dorea Potter's eyes, and the second Fleamont saw them he chuckled and hugged her. "He'll be fine. He'll rock this, and you know it."

She nodded. "It's just…" A sob tried to fight its way out of her throat. "It's just that he's my baby, and they'll be noone to spoil him over there and-"

Fleamont kept one arm around his wife and with his spare one, waved to the Hogwarts Express, saying goodbye to his son until Christmas. "To be honest, I'm a bit worried too." Dorea sent her husband a disbelieving look as she too waved to that kid with ridiculously messy black hair. "Not that James isn't ready for Hogwarts of course, I'm more worried that Hogwarts isn't ready for James."

A few feet away from the Potter family, and having their 'pep-talk' (if one could even call it that) at the same time, was another family (if one could even call them that). The woman was tall, and stern, with midnight black hair tightly pulled back into a bun and intolerant grey eyes. The man was reading an article of the Daily Prophet, flipping through the pages with scoffs of disdain. He had an unyieldingly terse look to him, and the same black hair and grey eyes as his wife. The couple had two sons, the older with overgrown, unruly black hair, sparkling silver eyes and a haughty handsomeness to him, and the younger with perfectly cropped black hair, wide grey eyes and a studious, cold and distant look to his face.

"Sirius, are you listening to anything I'm saying to you?" Walburga (the mother) shrieked.

"Yes, gosh!" The older boy, Sirius, exclaimed with a very 'teenagery' tone. Of course, he wasn't really paying any attention to what on earth his mother was rambling about this time, instead, young Sirius was wistfully staring at the train, millions of prank plots already beginning to flood through his bright mind.

"Good, now to re-insinuate what I've been trying to get through your thick skull for the past half an hour. The top three rules: One, get sorted into Slytherin or you will be disowned. Two, do not embarrass this family or you will be disowned. Three-"

"Mommy, you can't disown Siri, he's too good of a brother." Regulus, the younger, pointed out, with a pout and a singsong voice.

"What are you, four?" Sirius demanded, and then, to his parents. "Anyway, I'll be fine, thanks for asking. Yes, I remembered to pack all the necessary stuff, and yes, I sincerely do appreciate everything you've done to make me feel like a loved and accepted son these past eleven years." He said in a lofty, mimicking tone, putting buckets of sarcasm into each and every syllable in that sentence, then, he threw his head back and laughed devilishly. "See you all in June!" Sirius shouted before running off the catch the train.

"Sirius! Sirius Orion Black, get back here!" Walburga shrieked, but the grey eyed boy had already disappeared into the crowd, shooting his parents one final 'Good luck surviving without me, jerks' grin and hopping excitedly on the train.

Walburga shook her head and looked to her husband expectedly. "What are we going to do about him?" She demanded. "I have had it up to here with his rebellion." She exclaimed, using her long black wand to draw a line about as tall as a full grown mountain troll.

Regulus nodded in half-hearted agreement. "I've had it up to here with his meanness." He agreed in his best 'I'm-the-victim' voice, leaping up as far as he could reach and striking his hand in the air, drawing another imaginary line.

Orion sighed and folded up the newspaper he had been attempting to read instead of undergoing the pain of dealing with his son. "I've had it up to here with his existence." He pointed out, taking out his wand and shooting a line of dark green that stretched up to the heavens.

Remus Lupin stared at the Hogwarts Express with wide light eyes and a combination of terror and excitement that overall left him feeling like he was on the verge of regurgitating his entire nervous system. He turned to his parents anxiously. Lyall Lupin held his trunk and was re-reading a letter Dumbledore had given him, checking it over, and over, and over again, making sure that he hadn't missed a single detail. Hope Lupin had her hand on her son's shoulder and was looking around the platform, completely bewildered by the incredible goings of witchcraft and wizardry. "Are you sure Professor Dumbledore's okay with this?" Remus asked, eyeing his parents nervously, half-expecting them to say 'no' and take him to another small town out in the middle of nowhere to prevent him from being exposed.

Lyall put down the letter and opened his mouth to speak but Hope beat him to it. "Absolutely. For the millionth time, love," she knelt down next to him and tousled his hair, "lycanthropy or no lycanthropy, you are going to Hogwarts."

Lyall nodded in agreement. "Now are you sure you've packed everything?"

Remus bobbed his head up and down with nervous excitement. "Yeah."

"And remember, whenever it's time, your mother is ill, and you need to go see her." Lyall pointed out, looking at his son seriously. "Understand?"

Remus nodded and swallowed deeply. "Yep,"

"Alright, and concerning medication and treatment, we've talked to the nurse, but if you feel anything coming up or if you feel icky after… you know…"

Remus sighed, and repeated the phrase he had utterly memorized from months upon months of hearing his parents tell it to him. "I'll go straight to Madam Pomfrey and tell her I'm having complications, she'll take care of me and call you if it's anything serious. If I'm in a class and start to feel ill, I'll quietly go up and, without letting in the class eavesdrop or be suspicious, tell the teacher, because they've all been told in advance, and then I'll get a pass to go to Madam Pomfrey. I need to be absolutely sure to check the calendar every day and get where I need to go in advance, etc, etc." He recited, looking and sounding as though he was reading a script forever engraved the back of his mind. "I- I'll be okay."

"You will," Mr. and Mrs. Lupin exclaimed in unison.

Lyall clapped his son on the back and handed him his trunk. "Now, go study hard, make friends, and make us proud." He looked to his wife expectantly.

Hope (who was a muggle and quite frankly had some issues understanding how all this 'magic' stuff worked and how on earth her son managed to become a werewolf in the first place, let alone how her husband was a major wizard in the ministry of magic) grinned at her son and tousled his hair one more time. "Abracadabra these people and… be good at magic."

Lyall and Remus exchanged a nervous grin, which Hope caught immediately. "Shut up both of you. I tried. Now go rock their socks off, Remus."

With that the parents kissed Remus on the forehead, each gave him one final hug, and sent him off on the train to Hogwarts.

Once Remus was safely onboard, Lyall raised an eyebrow at his wife. " 'Abracadabra these people and be good at magic'?" He asked, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice.

She swatted at her husband playfully and stared at the train, a look of anxiety starting to cross over her face. "I just hope nothing goes wrong."

"You're positive you have everything?" Mrs. Pettigrew demanded, ruffling her son's hair nervously.

"Yeah Mom, I'm sure," Peter insisted, bouncing with nervous excitement to get on the train and head off to Hogwarts.

She sighed and turned his chin gently to make sure he was listening to her. "Make good friends, do well in school, and promise me you won't get into too much trouble, okay?" Peter nodded. "I love you."

James sped through the crowded train, staring through the fogged glass at full compartment after full compartment. He rolled his eyes after squinting into yet another compartment, this one full of scary-looking seventh-year Slytherins. He had almost passed on to the next one when a huge boom that nearly rocked the whole train echoed from that compartment, like someone had just set off a dungbomb. The four Slytherins, two boys and two girls, all over the age of fifteen raced out of there, gagging and spluttering.

"Sirius Orion Black!" One of them, a girl with painfully curly long black hair and dark green robes, shouted, whipping out her wand.

James let out a snort of disbelieving laughter as he caught a whiff of what had exploded in that compartment. "It was a dungbomb." He thought approvingly.

The girl with the tangled black hair seemed to catch sight of who she was looking for, and started to race towards her terrified eleven year old cousin. When she tried to run past James however, he pulled out his wand and quietly muttered 'Engorgio.' Bellatrix shrieked as her robes became three sizes too her and she tripped on them and toppled to the floor. She whipped around viciously, and pointed her wand at James, prepared to hex him. James' heart was beating a million times per second, but he stood his ground and wracked his brain to remember every single fraction of magic his father had taught him. Of course, it really wasn't a fair match, a fifth year against a first year, but it would take a serious amount of logic to convince James the determined of that.

Bellatrix was just about to splurt out a huge strain of hexes at the boy when a rogue hand grabbed onto James's wrist and pulled him into the nearest compartment, which (miraculously) was almost empty except for a small girl with long red hair sniffling in the corner, glaring out the window angrily.

The two of them slammed the compartment door shut, causing Bellatrix to run straight into it and hit her head in the process, looking like one of those incredibly stupid flies that thought that if they flew into the window over and over, eventually they would manage to get to the other side.

James turned around, heart racing, to see a tall boy with shaggy black hair, handsome grey eyes, and a wide grin. Without saying a word to each other, they reached out and high-fived.

"That was… wow," James exclaimed, lounging carefreely on the seat. "I think I can pretty safely say that you just saved my life."

Sirius grinned and sat down next to him, leaning back and putting his shoeless feet on top of his new friend's lap. "Nah, she was after me in the first place, that spell you did back there that made her trip gave me enough time to find this thing and get out of her way."

James pushed Sirius's feet off of him, causing the unsuspecting, taller boy to yelp with surprise and fall off the seat. "Wait, you were the one who put the dungbomb in there?"

"Absolutely." Sirius shot James a giant grin as he crawled back up on the seat and put his feet back on James. "So," He started, leaning back in laziness like a panther on a hot day. "What's your name?"

"James Potter." James answered, kicking Sirius's feet off of him for the second time. This time when Sirius fell off he landed on his face, and when he sat back up again he didn't dare try to put his feet on James. "You?" The hazel-eyed boy asked, laughter tingling in his tone.

"I'm Sirius."

James raised an eyebrow. "Serious about what?"

"No, like, that's my name."

"You're serious about your name?"

"Yes. But- no. Wait, what?" Sirius stuttered, causing both boys to explode with laughter. "Let's start over," he cleared his throat and started again in an overly pompous voice and exaggeratively fancy gestures, like he used when he was mocking his parents. "My name, is The Gloriously Brilliant Sirius Orion Black."

James laughed disbelievingly. "Wait, your name is Serious?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yes but not like the- you know…"

James stared at him for a long time. "What kind of name is 'Sirius'?"

"Well what kind of name is 'James'?" Sirius shot back defensively.

James shook his head, impressed. "That sounds like a constellation."

Sirius grinned. "Why thank you, young Mr. Potter. My brother tells me I'm a constipation, but I think I like your compliment slightly better."

They both laughed. At this point, James was fairly certain that he liked this 'Gloriously Brilliant Sirius Orion Black', and Sirius felt the same way towards James Potter.

"So where are you from then?" James asked, lazily using his wand to throw his trunk into the overhead compartment.

Sirius grimaced and manually moved his, jealous of the fact that this kid had clearly learned useful (because as powerful as the dark magic his parents insisted on teaching him was, it couldn't actually do anything for him unless he got into a duel with a seventh-year or something) magic beforehand. "London. Islington, London, in a really crappy and overly protected house called Number 12 Grimmauld Place." He explained.

James nodded before changing the subject. "Those Slytherins that we hexed by the way, you don't think that'll come back to bite us in the butt later on, right?" He asked, although it was evident by his apathetic tone that the boy really wasn't worried.

"Nah, mate, we can take 'em." Sirius pointed out. He crawled up the seat and checked his trunk. Then, with a groan, he tsked. "Shame though, used my last dungbomb on those idiots. My parents' dumb house elf must've gone through my bag beforehand and taken all them out except the one I had in my pocket." He shook his head in disappointment.

James laughed, reached up into his trunk and pulled out a spare. "I've got loads of them." He said, tossing one particularly nasty looking dungbomb to Sirius. "Plus, we can always go to Zonkos if we need to restock, right?"

Sirius raised an eyebrow as he caught the dungbomb and started fiddling with it, making James nervous that it would accidentally activate at any second. "I heard you have to wait until you're a third-year and have the permission sheet and stuff."

James sent him a look of complete and utter horror. "WHAT?" He shouted, causing the girl crouched up against the window to roll her eyes at him. "Are you serious?!"

Sirius grinned. "Of course. And you're James. Haven't we been through this?"

James playfully threw a nose-biting teacup at Sirius, which he easily deflected with a swish of his wand. "What's in yours, by the way?" James asked, curiously leaning closer to Sirius and holding out his wand in comparison, which (he was proud to notice) was a few inches longer.

Sirius shrugged and waved his around absentmindedly, accidentally a small flame to erupt from it. "Dragon-string or something. I dunno. And it's dark, and stick-like."

James raised an 'I-am-not-impressed' eyebrow at the dark haired boy. "Beautifully detailed description, Mr. Black." He said sarcastically, putting on a thick elegant accent that rivaled even Sirius's.

Sirius gave a mock bow. "And yours, Mr. Potter?"

"Why eleven inches and mahogany, of course. Pheonix feather. Pliant. Excellent for Transfiguration. According to Ollivander at least."

Sirius gave a slow clap. "You memorize that all on your own, did you?"

James nodded and messed up his hair, making it even more untidy. "I'm so looking forward to Transfiguration this year."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's gonna be sweet. Hopefully we'll learn how to turn people into cockroaches or something."

James laughed. "Yeah, I can just imagine that crazy Slytherin who nearly tried to kill you a few minutes ago as like a moth or, y'know."

"A moth?"

"Yeah, you know, one of those really big ones that swoop in and freak you out when you're sleeping or something."

The door to the compartment swished open and a boy with greasy hair and an anxious look on his face stepped in. James and Sirius were too busy discussing weird Transfiguration spells, pranks, and other Hogwarts stuff to notice.

"Hope none of our teachers are too strict." James mused, fiddling with a sugar quill he had taken out of his trunk.

Sirius groaned. "I have cousins who're seventh years and stuff and they say Transfiguration's really tough, Charms' easy enough if you actually know what you're doing and pronounce stuff right, Herbology's a blow-off, Potions' annoying, DADA's really boring in the first year but gets continually better and stuff, and History of Magic is the most boring class ever. I've already picked out the ones I'm gonna make an effort to 'lose control of the staircases' before."

James cracked a grin. "Now, about that plan with the giant squid-" But before he could continue, the greasy haired boy said something that strongly caught his attention.

"You'd better be in Slytherin." Severus encouraged, and James sent him a look of complete disbelief and horror.

"Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" He asked Sirius, who had taken to his previous position of lounging against the window with his feet on James (which, after James stabbed them with the sugar quill he had been holding, immediately fell back to the floor).

Sirius shook his head with a grimace. "My whole family have been in Slytherin." He said, looking down bitterly.

"Blimey, I thought you seemed all right!" James exclaimed.

Sirius grinned. "Maybe I'll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

James lifted an invisible sword. "Gryffindor, where dwell the brave at heart!" He exclaimed, and, upon Sirius's chuckle, knocked him upside the head with the invisible sword, causing Sirius to pretend to fall over in pain. The boys were about to continue with their invisible swordfight, when Severus made a small, disparaging noise and James turned to him with a raised, dangerous eyebrow.

"Got a problem with that?"

"No," said the boy, although his slight sneer said otherwise. "I mean, if you'd rather be brawny than brainy-"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" Interjected Sirius with a taunting smirk on his face.

James roared with laughter, and the girl who had been sitting in the corner, not paying that much attention to either boy until this point stood up, looked from James to Sirius and back to James in complete disdain.

"Come on, Severus, let's find another compartment." She said, walking out of their compartment with a roll of her eyes.

"Oooo… 'Come on Severus, let's find another compartment,'" James and Sirius imitated in a high, overly proper and girly voice. James tried to trip Severus as he passed and shouted after him as the greasy haired boy slammed the door. "See ya, Snivellus!"

Sirius laughed and leaped from beside James to across from him, where he could sprawl across the whole seat and put his feet up in peace. James hardly seemed to notice, he was too busy staring out the compartment wistfully after the red-haired girl who had left them.

He blinked a few times as if getting out of a trance, and then, turning to Sirius, said with complete determination. "I will marry that girl by the time we graduate."

Sirius snorted. "That is so not gonna happen."

"I'll bet you it will," James shot back defensively.

"I'll bet you it will not," Sirius argued.

"Will too!"

"Will not!"

This continued on for a while until both boys completely forgot what they were arguing about, and changed the subject entirely.

The two discussed magic and pranks and Hogwarts excitement as the train moved farther away from King's Cross and close to Hogwarts, when the compartment door slid open again and two boys stumbled in. One was taller, thin, and pale, with scars lining his face, tousled sandy blond hair and light green eyes. The other was short and stout, with mousy brown hair and wide, watery blue eyes. Both had already changed into their school robes, something that neither James nor Sirius had been bothered to do yet.

"Sorry," the taller one exclaimed, looking around the compartment anxiously. "I- everyone else is full, do you mind?"

Sirius and James exchanged raised eyebrows and looks that clearly read 'why not?'

"Sure."

A look of relief spread over both boys' faces as Remus slid his trunk into the overhead and carefully did the same with Peter's.

James gestured openly to the seats beside him, and Sirius nodded in welcome, but seemed to have no intention of moving his butt off out of its perfectly comfortable position. Remus sat down on the side closest to the compartment door and Peter wedged himself in between the two of him. James, who was beginning to feel very cramped, shouted over to his new friend Sirius to move his fat butt over and let someone sit with him.

"Make me." Sirius complained, not bothering to open his eyes.

James took out his wand and proclaimed a useful, easy spell his father had taught him, which caused everything metal in everyone's trunks to zoom towards Sirius's face, almost as if James had turned him into a human magnet. At first, a spoon from Peter's trunk stuck to Sirius's nose, and he pretended not to notice. Then, several magical metal instruments from Remus' attached themselves to each and every one of his fingers, and Sirius tried to shake them off stubbornly. Finally, Sirius screamed bloody murder when a huge dragon of galleons, sickles, and knuts came soaring straight towards his face from James's trunk. Sirius sat bolt upright in attempt to avoid the dragon of coins, which opened up a space beside him that James leaped towards and took before Sirius could lie down again. With a flick of his wand, he stopped the spell, and every single metal object that had attached itself to Sirius fell to the floor. "Ha!" He exclaimed, giving the very disgruntled Sirius a thumbs up.

Sirius mumbled something about "not fair- freaking- leg room- you-" but seemed to be too busy stammering with frustration to get more than a few words out.

James scooped up his coins and tossed the others their possessions, staring at Remus' oddly shaped instruments in curiosity. Once everything was safely back in his trunk, Remus calmly pressed his back to the compartment door and cracked open a book (his third one today).

"You have a lot of money." Peter stammered, staring at James like he was some kind of God. "And that spell was so cool!"

James gave an arrogant grin, while Sirius huffed and put his feet back on James' lap, causing the wizard to push him off again, adjusting his glasses like nothing had happened. "Oh don't be such a sore loser!" He admonished.

"Shut up. If we're carrying out that squid thing, I'm going to try and get some shut eye before tonight." Sirius muttered, closing his eyes and leaning back (but this time being careful not to let his feet go anywhere near James). After a few seconds of James explaining to Peter what exactly 'that squid thing' was (a prank that the two of them had developed before Peter and Remus came in), Remus being deeply engrossed in his book, and Sirius attempting to relax, he opened his eyes painfully.

Something in this room was giving him an awful headache. It felt like that one time Bellatrix had hexed him to be constantly thinking about Calculus and he needed to be transported to the hospital for 'scholarly overload' (something that Sirius believed to be a very real thing.) He looked around the room in confusion, until his eyes finally settled on Remus, who was calmly flipping through 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them'.

Sirius let out a mortified gasp and slapped the book out of Remus's hands. "Are you reading?!" He asked in complete bewilderment and pain.

Remus looked at the shaggy-haired boy like he was an Azkaban escapee. "Yes…" He trailed off cautiously, reaching for his book. "Is that a problem?"

Sirius let out an Earthshattering sneeze that caused Peter to fall out of his seat with terror and James's glasses to crack. He wiped his nose. "I'm allergic to reading." He explained.

James laughed uncontrollably and tossed a rather stunned Remus his book back, or, started to at least, before Sirius reached out and snatched the book out of the air, flipping through it and coughing uncontrollably.

"You might want to get that medically looked at, Sirius." James pointed out, flicking his wand and saying 'Reparo' to instantly fix his glasses.

Sirius shrugged and closed Remus' copy. "I just find it better to burn all the books as opposed to stupid allergy medicine."

Remus glared at him horrified. "How could you?!" He demanded.

Sirius and James laughed maniacally. "Don't worry, mate." James whispered to Remus, "you and I'll hide them somewhere unsuspecting, like under his pillow."

Sirius let out another (this time, forced) mega loud sneeze, this time causing Peter, who had previously worked so hard to get back in his seat, to fall off again. James cracked up with laughter, and even Remus cracked a small, nervous smile.

"You're… joking, right?"

"Yeah. 'Course." Sirius said, although he handed Remus his book back like it was a used tissue and plopped it on his lap with disgust. "I'm Sirius, though, by the way."

"You're serious… and you're joking?" Remus asked with a confused, raised eyebrow.

Sirius grinned, and James rolled his eyes. "You know, if you didn't say it in times where people are bound to be confused, you probably wouldn't have to explain this whole 'Sirius' business to everyone."

Sirius laughed. "Oh yes James, this is very serious business."

Remus and Peter exchanged very confused looks. Sirius shook his head. "My name is Sirius, like, with an 'I'." He paused for a second, as though thinking stuff over. "But you guys should Siriusly start getting used to the puns because I have a feeling we're going to have a Sirius good time using these all seven years."

"Please stop talking." James said, throwing his head back with laughter. "I'm seriously done with these puns."

Sirius raised an eyebrow and sent his friend a devious grin. "You're Siriusly done with these puns?" James and Sirius then proceeded to have a three hour argument, with Peter cheering them on and a record breaking total of 257 Sirius-puns.

By this point, it was growing dark and Remus had reached the point where he couldn't possibly strain his eyes to read another page of the book, so he put it down and sighed tiredly.

"I don't think we've ever actually introduced ourselves." James said, cutting off Sirius mid-pun, and turned to Remus and Peter with a wide grin. "I'm James Potter."

"Remus Lupin."

"Peter Pettigrew."

"And I'm Sirius. Not kidding around here, I am very Sirius."

James, who had quite frankly had enough of this kid for one day, took off his shoe held it up threateningly. "I meant that's my name!" He shouted, leaning as far away from James and his shoe as possible. James laughed and threw it anyway.

Peter clapped in delight, and Remus cracked a smile.

"So are you guys ready for this?" James asked.

Sirius made a 'pssh'. "Absolutely. Ready to prank the school 'till it simply can't take anymore. Ready to show up my Slytherin family. Ready to learn enough magic to get back at this… thing." He gestured absentmindedly to a severely offended James Potter. "I am ready to rule to world!" Sirius shouted, extremely excited. And with that, he snatched the book out of Remus' hands and proceeded to run around the compartment using it as a drum.

"Are you serious right now?" Remus asked without thinking, snatching his book right back and realizing, with utter horror, that in all the chaos he had lost his spot.

"I'm always Sirius."

"That's it!" James shouted, and then proceeded to tackle his new friend to the ground, shortly followed by a series of overdramatic screams from Sirius.

The compartment door opened and a plump lady stood at the side with a trolley of sweets. "Anything off the trolley dear- DEAR GOD WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!" She shrieked upon seeing James and Sirius rolling playfully across the floor, screaming and clawing at each other.

James looked up in surprise, allowing Sirius to seize the opportunity to bite the hazel-eyed boy on his left wrist (which made Remus cringe and Peter's eyes widen like he had never seen anything so exciting).

James however, whose short attention span had just been drawn away to something else, tore Sirius's mouth away from his arm and stood up, hair more untidy than ever, glasses completely lopsided, and grinning like an idiot. "50 chocolate frogs, please." He said sweetly, grabbing several galleons from his pile and laying them on the cart. The trolley cart lady looked surprised but held out the frogs all the same, which James gladly took in his arms like they were his children, thanked her, and closed the compartment door.

"Fifty choco- what the bloody hell did you go and buy fifty chocolate frogs for?!" Sirius demanded sitting up with disbelief.

"Wha?" James defensively asked, his mouth already half full of frog as he looked up from the card he'd been holding in his hand. "I'm a collector. I don't eat all the frogs, so feel free to dig in, but I have 507 cards thus far, and I will not give up until I have them all." He said with a strong tone of determination.

Peter reached out and grabbed about half the stack. Sirius rolled his eyes and selected a few, and even Remus tediously reached over and grabbed one.

James snorted in disgust as he read the card. "Got seventeen of this guy, he keeps showing up!" He tossed the card absent mindedly in the air, where Peter grabbed it and licked all the remaining chocolate off before setting it aside. Remus examined the card and recognized the kind, old face and twinkling blue eyes from the most surprising day of his life.

"Hang on, this is Albus Dumbledore." He exclaimed, picking up the card and looking at it with fascination.

"Pe'er lick'd 'at." Sirius pointed out, his mouth full of chocolate, but Remus either didn't understand him or didn't care.

"He's the headmaster at Hogwarts, isn't he?" He asked, looking from James to Sirius to Peter expectantly.

"Yeah, but like I said, I have seventeen."

"I accidentally set all my cards on fire after a prank attempt on my brother totally backfired."

"There's no more chocolate on him."

Remus looked at his friends in bewilderment, trying to piece together what they were telling him. "You can have it!" James exclaimed, tearing open another card.

"Peter did lick it though." Sirius pointed out, scraping the final few crumbs of chocolate from his fingers before passing another card to James.

Remus stared at those twinkling blue eyes, still astonished that Dumbledore let someone like him, someone like Remus John Lupin, the werewolf, the monster, into a school as incredible as Hogwarts. He pocketed the card, a silent smile spreading across his face.

The rest of the train ride flew by. James and Sirius developed several pretty strong prank ideas, Peter had managed to eat the rest of the chocolate frogs, and Remus, while occasionally being dragged into conversations with the other three, mostly sat staring at them, lost deep in thought. He contemplated whether or not this would be successful; his worst fear was that it wouldn't be. What if his friends found out? What if someone told their parents and their parents complained to a Ministry official? Would he be kicked out of school? Or worse, what if he bit someone? What if he doomed another student to live with the same curse he had been forced to live with since age five? The mere thought of it made Remus sick as he stared blankly off into space as Sirius and James roughhoused and Peter cheered them on excitedly.

About five minutes before the train pulled into Hogsmeade station, Sirius and James realized that they still hadn't changed into their school robes and anxiously rushed to get them on, changing at record speed in the compartment, and both were just finishing trying to figure out how ties worked (with excessive help from Remus) when the whistle blew and all four boys scrambled out of their compartment, superbly excited to begin their new life at Hogwarts.