A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes...

Prologue

Sirius

It was a crisp autumn morning at Hogwarts boarding school. The weather was just beginning to get chilly and the trees that were littered upon the grounds and the surrounding forests had taken up varying, lovely hues of gold, red, and orange. The birds were just beginning to wake, and their sweet songs drifted through the air like chiming bells.

Sirius Black, however, could give a damn about the bloody birds. Sirius was many things. He was athletic, he was rebellious, he was loyal, he was brash, and he was brilliantly brave. One thing the seventh year was not, though, was a morning person. Especially now, when his best friend of many years was beating him over the head with a pillow.

"Come on, Padfoot! You're going to be late!" James exclaimed, once again bringing the feathered pillow down upon Sirius's face.

"Prongs, if you hit me with that damned pillow one more time, I will shove it up your arse," Sirius drawled in a deadpan voice.

"Good morning to you too, grumpy," James said. He sighed, tossing the pillow back onto his bed as Sirius sat up upon his own. He watched as Sirius wiped the sleep out of his eye, before grabbing his trainers off the floor, and hastily pulling them on.

He was just about finished with the left foot when Sirius spoke, albeit groggily.

"What time is it, anyway?" he asked, throwing his thick duvet off of himself as he made his way over to the wardrobe. Once there, he pulled the door open harshly, rummaging around in an attempt to find a clean uniform.

"It's 8:50, mate," James informed him. Sirius groaned. Class started at 9:00.

"Why didn't you or Peter wake me up?!" He snapped from the wardrobe, where he managed to find one of his uniforms. It seemed to be clean as far as he could tell, so he hastily began dressing, throwing his night clothes halfway across the dorm room.

"Padfoot, mate, you're the one who usually wakes me up, remember? And Peter had detention this morning for breaking a beaker in chemistry yesterday."

Well, that was true. Though Sirius didn't particularly enjoy the morning, he did have a habit of waking up early. Usually, the pain in his joints woke him up long before he would actually like to be, but that didn't seem to be a problem this morning. Maybe the medicine they had him on was starting to work. That would be a blessing.

Nevertheless, he didn't particularly enjoy being late. As much as he liked to tease Professor McGonagall, she could get quite cross with her students for tardiness, and on this particular morning he didn't quite feel like getting on her bad side.

"Sorry, mate. Didn't mean to oversleep," he said glancing at James. His messy haired friend just shrugged good naturedly.

"It's fine," James reassured, slipping his school bag over his shoulder. "Just hurry to English. I don't think our Minnie will be as forgiving as your wonderful, amazing, handsome, hilarious, awesome best mate is," James said with a laugh.

"Don't I know it, Prongs!" Sirius agreed as he hurriedly pulled his jumper on over his head. He was starting to fiddle with his tie as James made his way to the door.

"See you in a few," James said as he raced into the corridor. The door closed behind him with a click. Sirius was fully dressed a few moments after James's exit, and ran into their adjoining bathroom, brushing his hair, teeth, and putting on deodorant faster than he knew was possible. The shower looked tempting, but he really did not have the time for it.

Giving himself a once over in the mirror, he nodded. He ran back into his dorm room and searched around frantically for his own school bag. After a minute of hurried looking, he found it under a pile of James and Peter's dirty laundry. He hissed in distaste at the smell, but only for the briefest moment.

As he glanced at the clock, he saw that it was already 8:58. He had two minutes to get to a class that was halfway across the castle grounds. Without another thought, he sprang to action, racing out the door, jumping over various piles of stuff (alternatively his and James's things, but mostly James's. The boy was a pig when it came to their shared dorm, honestly.)

The black haired youth raced through the stone corridors, running at top speed. A few prefects hollered at him not to run in the halls as he passed, but he ignored them. The stone walls flashed by in his peripheral vision as he turned the corner of the next corridor. He continued to race to English, his body on autopilot as he was not quite awake yet.

His mind was completely elsewhere as he rounded the next corner. Needless to say, he was quite confused when his body made contact with something hard. Sirius tried to stop, but the momentum of his body continued his progression forward, taking him and whatever had blocked his path down to the hard floor.

He heard a groan beneath him a moment later, and glanced down to see a tawny haired boy trapped beneath him. His eyes studied the boy, taking in his beaten up attire and the scars that littered his hands. They looked like blotches from some kind of rash that never healed properly.

Sirius snapped back to himself a few seconds later as the smaller boy cleared his throat.

"You know, as lovely as it is down here, I think I'd like to get up now," the tawny haired boy drawled, his deep brown eyes flashing up at Sirius in amusement.

Sirius scrambled to get off of the other boy as quickly as he could after that, clearing his throat and offering a hand to him. The other boy accepted it, and Sirius propelled him up. He watched the other teenager dust himself off before he spoke.

"Sorry, mate. Didn't see you there." To be quite honest, Sirius hadn't seen him. No, he hadn't ever seen this boy before. Neither when he'd been running down the corridor or on any other occasion. It seemed weird, considering the other boy was wearing a Gryffindor tie. And he looked to be in their year. How strange.

"It's quite all right," the tawny haired boy said, looking up at Sirius with brown eyes that shone in the light so that they appeared to have a gold tint to them. It sent chills up Sirius's spine, the look of them.

"Are you okay?" the boy asked. Sirius snapped back to reality, having been lost in thought from analyzing the boy before him.

"Oh? Me? Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, just zoned out for a split second there," Sirius said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. An easy grin spread across his face as he let out a bark of laughter.

A smile spread across the other boy's face, and Sirius felt his breath catch in his throat. Something about that smile made him freeze.

Sirius was straight. That was as much of a fact to him as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. But still, he wasn't afraid to admit when someone was aesthetically pleasing.

The boy in front of him wasn't the conventional good looking bloke. Blotches of rugged scars covered a lot of his skin (at least what Sirius could see of it, where it wasn't covered up by his jumper) and he was rather lanky. There were silver streaks in his tawny hair, and his uniform looked to be second hand. Really, he had a rather bookish appearance. But, there was something about him, those eyes. That smile…

"It's totally fine, mate," the boy said easily. "Are you late for something?" he asked.

Sirius swore as he glanced down at his watch. 9:04. Shit, McGonagall was going to let him have it now. "I'm sorry..?"

"Remus," the other teen supplied.

Sirius smiled despite himself. "I'm sorry, Remus. But I seem to be running late for English. Dear old Minnie can be a bit of a dragon, you know?"

Remus smiled. "Then by all means, you should be on your way. And do try to avoid falling on random passersby, yeah?" Remus said teasingly. He gave a wolfish grin, and Sirius smiled back.

"But, of course." He gave Remus a wink and a bow before taking off in the direction of Professor McGonagall's classroom.

Sirius, by the grace of God, avoided reprimand that morning. McGonagall herself was late to class because she had to break up a fight in the corridor between a few third year Slytherins and Gryffindors. (He'd seen her breaking up the altercation on his frantic race to class.) He'd made it to the classroom minutes before she'd be back.

With a sigh of relief, he walked to the back of the classroom, where James sat with Lily and Peter. James and Peter were in a heated conversation about football (the world cup was coming up next summer), and Lily was talking over her desk to her friend, Alice.

An easy smile curled his lips at the sight of his friends as he went to take a seat near James.

"Good morning, Sirius," Lily said kindly as he sat down, pausing her conversation with Alice. Sirius bent over and pecked her on the cheek in a friendly gesture.

"And to you too, Lily."

"Oi, watch it. That's my girlfriend, you know?" James said, mock-threateningly as he broke away from his conversation with Peter. He gave Sirius a light punch on the shoulder and Sirius smirked.

Lily raised an eyebrow at the two of them. Had it been anyone but James that had punched Sirius, even in a joking manner, they'd be eating their teeth right about now. It made her smile how close the two of them were. Just like brothers. She gave them one last glance before going back to her conversation with Alice.

"What took you so long, anyway?" James asked as he leaned back in his chair lazily.

"Oh, you know Prongs, just hit a bit of turbulence in the hall," Sirius said easily, those gold eyes seared into his mind's eye. For some reason he couldn't place, he didn't feel that he should tell them about Remus. Sure, it hadn't been a huge encounter or anything, but it felt private to him. Maybe if he felt like it he'd tell James about it later…

"Like what?" asked Peter suddenly. Sirius glanced over at him.

He looked Sirius up and down with his watery blue eyes, a look of amazement on his face. It didn't take a lot to impress Peter when it came to James and Sirius. If one of them shit, it would be the most spectacular thing to Peter, especially if it were James.

"Oh, you know, just some third years fighting in the corridor."

"Whoa, that sounds really amazing!" Peter said in awe, excitement evident in his voice.

"Wow there, Wormtail, don't wet yourself," James laughed.

Peter was more subdued after that, and Sirius and James picked up on the conversation about football that Peter and James had been having before Sirius arrived. They were in a heated debate, but James cut off as he caught sight of a dark figure from the corner of his eye that came in through the door and slinked its way to the back of the classroom.

James's mouth curled in disgust. "Oi, Padfoot, look who it is," he said in distaste.

Sirius followed James's line of sight, and he too hissed in anger.

"Snivellus."

Ever since they'd started school at Hogwarts just about seven years ago, the three boys had never gotten on; mostly because, in Sirius's opinion, Snape was a greasy little git that needed to keep his overly large nose in his own business. But in the last few months, their childish feud (as Lily had often called it) had broken out into a full blown mutual hatred.

Originally, Lily had been very good friends with Snape. But, after an argument between James and Snape, where Lily had tried to intervene on Snape's behalf, he had snapped at her, calling her a slur of names that Sirius could not recount without having the distinct want to beat the ever-loving hell out of the Slytherin. After that, Lily kept her distance from the other boy, but it had been clear that she was hurt by the whole ordeal.

"I'll kick his arse," James hissed, anger flaring in his voice.

"I'm right there with you, Prongs," Sirius agreed.

James made to get up and began to make his way to Snape's desk, but was stopped by the entrance of Professor McGonagall.

"Sit down, Mr. Potter," she said as she entered the room, laying her bag on her desk.

James looked like he wanted to protest, but Lily pulled him down by the hand, and he complied, albeit unwillingly.

The class fell silent as Professor McGonagall stood before them.

"We will be continuing with our reading and analysis of Macbeth today, so turn into your literature books to page three-hundred-and-ninety-four. But, before we continue with class today, I have an announcement to make." McGonagall paused, her sharp, catlike eyes scanning the classroom.

"We have a new student among us today. If you'll all be so kind as to help me welcome Mr. Remus Lupin."

There was complete silence over the classroom as the tawny haired boy that Sirius had run into just twenty minutes before walked into the room. Hushed whispers began as Remus stood beside McGonagall, looking a lot smaller now under the scrutiny of the classroom than he had looked in the hallway.

"Look at it!"

"What's on his skin?!"

"Is he dying?"

Sirius felt his blood boil as the whispers continued. By the look of sad acceptance on Remus's face, it was obvious that the idiots in the class weren't being quite as quiet as they thought they were, nor was it the first time that the other teen had heard these things.

Sirius felt himself go cold at that thought. He knew how that felt.

The whispers crescendoed in volume, and McGonagall, not so subtly, cleared her throat. Immediately, the whispers ceased.

McGonagall put a gentle hand on Remus's shoulder in a motherly show of reassurance. Remus's face had gone blank, but Sirius felt that he could still see the hurt in those hauntingly golden eyes.

"As you know," McGonagall started again, sending a reprimanding glance at her class, "it can be hard starting a new school, especially one's last year of formal schooling. I want you all to make Mr. Lupin feel welcome, is that clear?"

"Yes, Professor McGonagall," the class said in sync. A lot of the students were still looking Remus up and down as if he were a science experiment, which made rage boil in Sirius's stomach.

"Very well," McGonagall said sternly. She looked at Remus, her features softening. "Mr. Lupin, if you would be so kind, please take a seat next to Mr. Snape. Severus, raise your hand."

Oh, Sirius really did not like this.

Snape raised his hand, and Remus made his way to the opposite end of the classroom, intent on not looking anywhere but the ground as strode over to the other boy.

When he reached the desk, he pulled out the chair and sat, leaning his school bag on one of the legs of the table. He looked over at Snape, who merely sneered and made to look in the other direction.

His expression remained very solemn for the rest of the period, and when the bell rang, signaling the end of class, Remus was the first one out the door.

Sirius felt as if he'd swallowed lead.

Thank you for reading! This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction, so I hope I've kept everyone as in-character as possible. Since this is a prologue, it's much shorter than the future chapters. Most are double or more this chapter.

I don't have a beta at the moment, so if you spot any errors, please feel free to point them out and I'll correct them accordingly.

Thanks again for reading, and please review!