"SIRIUS! C'mon, mate, wake up!" James Potter tugged on the blankets covering his new best friend, Sirius Black. It was their first morning at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and James was ready for the day to start. He had been up since 5am, prancing around his dorm and waiting for the others to wake up so they could go down to breakfast. Now, it was 7:30, and they really did need to get going. Frank had abandoned them half an hour ago, preferring to, as he phrased it, "get a bite instead of sitting around waiting for some Death Eater spawn to wake up." Frank's family, the Longbottoms, did not get along well with Sirius's, the Blacks. Neither did James', for that matter. But James didn't care. He didn't care about much, really, but when he did care, he cared with everything he had. And James cared about Sirius. He saw the insecurity underneath Sirius' cocky act, and knew that he needed a friend. James was determined to be that friend, whether or not Sirius, his family, James' family, or the world approved.
"He's not going to get up," Remus Lupin, another of the boys who shared James' dorm, said. "Why don't we just go down to breakfast without him?"
"No! I'm not abandoning him here!" James could be very stubborn when he wanted to be, and this was one of those times.
Remus sighed. "Then I guess I'll have to help you." He pulled out his wand and pointed it at Sirius. Sparks flew out of it and hit Sirius on the nose.
"WHA-" he yelped, jumping out of bed. James, Remus, and the last boy in the dorm, Peter Pettigrew, dissolved in laughter. Rubbing his nose, Sirius sat back down on the bed. "What'd you do that for?" he demanded.
"You wouldn't get up," Remus explained. "We've got to go down to breakfast soon, so we needed to wake you up."
"I know, I heard, but why'd you have to do it like that?" Sirius demanded. The other boys stared at him.
"You heard?" James said.
"Yeah, I-" Sirius stopped abruptly as he realized what he had let slip. "Whoops."
"Whoops is right," James said, outraged. "I've spent an hour, a whole HOUR, trying to get you up, and you've been awake the whole time?"
"I'm sorry," Sirius said in a very small voice. He had shrunk back into his bed, fear clear in his eyes.
Instantly, James backed down. "What's up?" he asked. "Do you not want to be here, or something?"
"That's the problem," Sirius said softly. "I want to be here. Right here. In Gryffindor."
James' eyes widened in understanding. "Does this have something to do with what you said yesterday about your whole family being in Slytherin?"
Sirius nodded. "My older cousins, they're here. They'll have written to my mum. I think she might pull me out of Hogwarts."
"She wouldn't do that, would she?" James asked, shocked. "I mean, so you're in Gryffindor. What does it matter?"
"It matters," Sirius said. "They'll think I'm a blood traitor. I am a blood traitor. I think Bellatrix's going to kill me."
"Bellatrix?" James asked.
"My oldest cousin. She's a 7th year."
"A Slytherin?"
"Of course. She's the worst one of them all. She knew more curses in her third year than most 7th years do. She's going to become one of them, you know." This last was said in a hushed, almost reverent whisper.
"One of who?" James whispered back.
"One of them. One of his followers."
James gasped. "You mean, a Death Eater?"
Sirius nodded. "I think she's mad. Barking mad. The way she talks about You-Know-Who…it's like she's in love with him, or something."
"Alright." James sat down on the edge of Sirius' bed and said, "So that's one person to look out for. What's she look like?"
"Thick black hair that's really long, dark, heavy-lidded eyes…if you see a muggle-born being tortured, look for her. She's probably the one doing it."
James jumped up, enraged. "And Dumbledore just lets her?"
Sirius shook his head. "You don't understand, mate. From what I've heard, Dumbledore and the rest of the teachers do what they can, but Bella and her group are careful. Mad, but careful. They make sure that no teacher's around when they do their thing, and none of the witnesses would ever report them."
"Why not?" James couldn't imagine just standing there, watching as someone was being tortured – tortured, for crying out loud! – and not doing anything about it.
Sirius gave a humorless bark of a laugh. "Cause whoever did would be their next target. Believe me, I know how their minds work. They're vicious, all of them."
Still shaking his head over the cowardice of the student body, and wondering what horrors Sirius had endured at his cousin's hands, James sat back down and said, "Alright, that's one of your cousins. Any others?"
Sirius nodded. "Narcissa. She's a third year, not as evil as Bella, but still bad. She was nice to me, before. We're the youngest, so we hung out a bit. But don't be fooled. She's cold blooded. It's kind of creepy, how little she cares about things. When she was eleven Mum told her to start looking at all the 'suitable' guys to find someone 'worthy of joining the family'-"
"Waitwaitwait," James said, very fast. "Are you saying that she was looking for a husband at our age?" It was clear he found the idea repulsive.
Sirius gave him a strange look. "I thought you'd know," he said, sounding perplexed. "Your family's pureblood, too."
"What does that have to do with anything?" James wanted to know.
"Nothing, I just thought…well, I thought all pureblood families worked this way. All the ones I've ever seen do."
"You mean, are mental?"
Sirius laughed, then grew solemn again. "I guess…but I meant more like…have arranged marriages. Hate Muggleborns and muggles. Have people like Bella who take the family ideas to another level and get praised for it. Live in dreary houses where Christmas consists of all the family getting together and going on a muggle-torturing rampage."
"Are mental, you mean." Then the laughter left James' face and he leaned forward intently. "Listen to me, Sirius. Life doesn't have to be like that. There's sunshine and flowers and my mum's cooking and happiness. You don't have to be part of that family, if you don't want to."
"But then where would I go?" Sirius wanted to know. "Who would I be? I'm just an eleven-year-old kid! I can't live by myself. I have to stay. There's no other choice."
"If you ever need someplace to go, come to my house. My mum and dad won't care. Hey," James said as he started bouncing up and down with excitement. "Maybe, one day, my mum and dad will kill half your family, and the rest will die from shock, and then my mum and dad can adopt you and we can be brothers!"
Sirius grinned, a real grin, one that he didn't have to coach onto his face, one that just came. "You know what?" he said. "I think I'd like that."