Even in War

by

Norikio Na No Da

Disclaimer: I own nothing...except this nifty laptop!

Chapter One: The Calm Before The Storm

It was a calm, fair-weathered Sunday morning in autumn for the students of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The students, as they slowly but surely filtered into the Great Hall for breakfast, were perfectly unaware that three things were happening at that very moment—three things that would alter the course of every one of their lives.

Two new students were just stepping off the Hogwarts Express, luggage in hand, for their first day at school.

Sirius Black was having a relationship-ending fight with his girlfriend of two months, Alice Cowley.

And timid little Peter Pettigrew was just finishing his three-day-late Potions essay, to be turned in before noon for partial credit.

Three seemingly unrelated incidents, or at least unrelated for the time being, that would come to ignite the fuse that would set off a legendary clash of wills.

&&&

"I don't know about you, but I, for one, could not be happier to be back in the homeland."

So said one Dorcas Meadowes as she sunk into the old—and oddly squishy—sofa of the Gryffindor Common Room. Even at age fifteen, she was a striking young woman, blonde as the sun was white, with an aristocratic shape of face and calculating, pale blue eyes. These narrow eyes, almost fox-like in appearance, settled studiously on her only other companion in the almost-empty common room.

Remus Lupin stood by the window, his slight frame surrounded by an almost heavenly backlight that was really only the glare of the mid-morning sun shining into the common room. His pale brown hair gleamed gold in the sunlight, the layered strands falling with a sort of breathtaking simplicity across his thoughtful eyes. Large eyes. Fallow eyes. Eyes…that were obviously not paying any attention to her.

There were many things that Dorcas couldn't stand. One of which was cheesy backlit poses. And another was being ignored. So you couldn't really blame her for doing what she did next.

Rolling up onto her elbows and pushing herself to her feet in one fluid, silent motion, she allowed a cruel smirk to crawl across her lips. She swaggered over to her friend, who still hadn't acknowledged her, and stood behind him with her hands positioned so they were almost touching either side of his waist. The smirk became a full-blown grin as her hands rolled into fists with only index fingers extended.

And she jabbed them both into his sides.

Which, for those who have not experienced it like she dealt it, could be really… really…painful.

He let out a most unbecoming squeal.

"CASSIE!" he yelped, wrapping his arms around his waist as he whirled around to face her. His brown eyes were reproachful.

"Yes?"

"That hurt."

"Yes, well, not nearly as much as it hurt to be ignored by you, Mr. Lupin," she snuffled in response, dabbing at imaginary tears with an imaginary handkerchief. The two were the same height, but where her slim-but-strong form was still in the growing stage, her male companion's angular, almost frail frame did not promise for much development.

"You still shouldn't sneak up on one like that," he grumbled.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry." Dorcas simpered. "But what could possibly be occupying our Mr. Lupin's thoughts? It must be pretty important if it drowned me out." She put her hands to his head and rattled it back and forth briefly. "If only I could see inside that enigma of a mind."

Remus swatted her hands away and smiled wanly. "I was just wondering how we got into Gryffindor, of all of the houses."

"Fancy yourself a Ravenclaw, Lupin?" she asked. "Or maybe a Hufflepuff. You do squeal like one."

"That's profiling," snapped Remus, melancholy gone. He tried to hide a grin. "And stop calling me 'Lupin'. You've known me, what, three, four years? Shouldn't we be on a first-name basis by now?"

Dorcas let out an unladylike snort. "But 'Remus'…it's so…blah."

"And 'Dorcas' is…?" Remus asked, eyebrow quirked.

"Don't even get me started. Just call me Cassie, never speak my given name again, and maybe we can convince this school that my real name's Cassandra," the blond girl muttered bitterly. She was an artist at heart, and enemy to the bland and everything else she didn't think was stunning and new, so it only stood to reason that, after thirteen years of enduring the name "Dorcas", she wouldn't want a change. It was simply her nature, and Remus indulged it.

He chuckled and allowed his gaze to shift back to the grounds outside of the window. "But really," he said, "why Gryffindor? Why not Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff or…or Slytherin?"

Dorcas frowned. "Slytherin? You wanted to be a Slytherin?"

"Not wanted," Remus sighed. "But…half-expected. Considering…what I am."

The blond winced and cast a glance over each shoulder to make sure they were the only ones in the room. She lifted a hand and gripped his shoulder reassuringly. "I thought we'd been over this, Remus."

The lycanthrope blinked up at her, startled. She only used his given name when she was being very sincere…and that was a very rare thing indeed. "We have, we have," he said, smile returning hastily. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean…I meant that maybe the…the Sorting Hat—"

"Now you're accusing the hat of being biased?" Her voice was accusatory, teasing, intended to ease the tension.

Remus laughed, and shrugged his shoulder out from under her hand. "Of course not!"

"You'd better get your story straight, Lupin—" ah, the customary title had returned, and all was well, "—because right now you're looking pretty suspicious."

Remus laughed, harder this time, at the ridiculously leery expression on her face. Her eyes softened in relief and fondness as he bent double in his laughter, grateful that the mood had lightened. Dorcas did not enjoy solemn, sober moments.

But as the mood lightened, the sky outside became darker. Heavy gray clouds slid through the once-clear sky, dimming the sun's glare and promising rain. A collective groan went up among the Hogwarts students outside as they began their low-spirited retreat into the shelter of the castle.

"There goes the weather," observed Remus.

"It looks like we're going to meet our housemates sooner than we thought," agreed Dorcas, bobbing her head lazily.

"I hope we'll make friends."

"You kidding? A couple of hot-shots like us?" Dorcas said, giving her friend a playful shove. She looked out across the grounds, already being spattered by rain, and grinned determinedly.

"We'll be the greatest things that ever happened to this place, my friend. Just you wait and see."

&&&

"That…BITCH!"

"Evil bitch!"

"What a floozy!"

"Floozy as they come!"

"How dare she?"

"Scandalous!"

"She was NOTHING when she met me! NOTHING!"

"Ridiculous!"

"No one cheats on Sirius Black and then dumps him!"

"Except her!"

"Who does she think she is?!"

"I sure don't know!"

Sirius Black paused in his ranting long enough to slam him fist down heavily on the long Gryffindor table. The plates and silverware of everyone seated in a twenty foot radius jumped a little. Few dared glance over to see the fury that was Sirius, for fear of provoking him further.

"You know, Jim, you're really not helping," he seethed, fingers curling around his butter knife menacingly.

James Potter edged back slightly from the table and grinned sheepishly. "Just trying to give you the support you need, mate."

"You're not very good at it."

"Um…no one's perfect?"

Sirius groaned, crossing his arms on the table and letting his head flop down into them.

"If it's any consolation, mate…" James paused for a long moment, "…well, you've still got me!"

The handsome young boy groaned once more. "What good is that?"

"Hey! Many women would be thrilled to have me!"

"Here's a heads up, Jim," hissed Sirius, head emerging from his arms, wrathful gray eyes scowling at him. "I'm…not…a…woman!"

"Could've fooled me, the way you're taking this break up."

The eavesdropping girl at the table behind them burst out laughing. She was silenced by one irate glance in her direction, and immediately ran sobbing from the Great Hall. Her friend huffed irritably at Sirius and ran after her.

James watched them go in awe. "How a girl could give up a bloke like you is simply beyond me."

"Oh, shut up."

His bespectacled friend studied him from across the table. "It seems to me," he said at last, as though deep in thought, "that what you need, mate, is some revenge…Deviant style!"

Sirius brought his fist down on the table once more. "I thought I told you before to stop calling us that stupid name!" he growled.

"What? I thought you agreed that we needed a cool name for our dashing duo?"

"And 'Deviant' is not it!"

"Well, I thought it was cool…" sniffed James irritably, putting his head in his hands and pouting.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't be such a baby, Jim. Honestly, sometimes you're worse than Regulus."

"Don't compare me in anything with anyone, Sirius Black," James said, wagging his finger, in a mock-warning tone. "I am truly the king in everything I do."

A raised eyebrow in his direction. "Then why is it you've never had a girl, mate?"

"No one's quite caught my fancy as of yet. But just you wait."

"Don't bother," Sirius sighed. "Girls are nothing but trouble. Alice Cowley being a prime example."

"Which brings me right back around to my earlier point. Why not exact some revenge on the little tramp?"

"What do you have in mind?" asked Sirius, rather half-heartedly.

"Well," said James, leaning in conspiratorially, "I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend of a good mate of mine that Gryffindor's own Miss Beatrice Bleeker fancies you."

"So? About four-fifths of this school fancies me."

"Yes, but Beatrice is a good friend of Alice Cowley."

"…So?"

"I also heard from this friend of a friend of a friend of a good mate of mine that Alice is about as possessive and controlling of her friends as a certain someone else I know."

"…I'll ignore that obvious little dig at my expense, Jim," said Sirius, "because you just might be onto something."

"Aren't I, though?"

"But it's too simple. We'd need to elaborate it."

James leapt abruptly up from his seat, perching his hands on his hips in what he clearly thought was an impressive stance. People were beginning to stare.

"A good Deviant always thinks on his feet, Siri. I suggest you drop this Beatrice a little snogging invitation, and we'll figure out the rest along the way."

Sirius also clambered from his seat to clap his friend on the back. "It's times like these when I remember why I keep you around, Jim."

The bespectacled boy grinned, with more than a little ego. "I try."

&&&

For the first time since as far back as he could remember, little Peter Pettigrew was on a roll. When he sat down earlier that morning to buckle down and begin working on the dreaded potions essay—which, having been incapacitated with a unplaced illness for the past week that was widely suspected of being a curse placed by a certain bitter young Slytherin named Severus Snape, he had been incapable of writing before its due date—he had had no idea that the ideas would flow from the tip of the quill as fluidly and majestically as they had. But as soon as the quill had made contact with the off-white parchment, black ink was scrawling across the paper, weaving his thoughts like a spider weaves its web. Being sub-par at most everything he did, Peter was thrilled, and didn't even bother to look up when someone else entered the dormitory or tried to initiate conversation.

Not that many people wanted to talk to him. But that was neither here nor there.

At last, an hour after he had begun, he lifted the quill from the parchment and set it down on the bedspread next to the book he had been using as a surface to write his paper on. Then, he lifted the parchment, slowly, gently, lovingly, from where it rested, and held it high, as if presenting an offering to the gods. It was his brainchild. At the moment, it was his everything.

When Peter Pettigrew did something right, it was no small matter to him.

Eagerly he rolled the parchment up, and, clutching it happily in his fist, he leapt off of his bed, scrambled across the floor, out the door, and was on his way to the Potions classroom to present his beloved essay. Three days late, but he couldn't have been prouder with himself.

&&&

It hadn't taken long for James to locate the aforementioned Beatrice Bleeker, and subsequently describe for her the throbbing passion that her "beautifully forbidden swain from the shadows" was holding for her. And while he was delivering the message, Sirius was waiting patiently in the empty Potions classroom to meet her, taking care to summon a mirror and make himself as seductive and handsome as he possibly could (not that I need any help, he reminded himself smugly). Neither were aware that, at the same time, the pair of new students just arrived from their four-year-long stay in Paris, France, were cheerfully making their way down the hall towards the Potions classroom, intending to discuss their class schedules and requirements with the professor—who, incidentally, was not there. Nor did they know that Peter, parchment in hand, was running up the hall in the opposite direction, also intent on meeting the professor, to turn in his late work.

And so, as the bell tolled twelve o'clock, did the legend begin.

&&&

Seated on top of the teacher's desk in the empty classroom, with his legs crossed at the ankles and his hands propping him up from behind, Sirius Black looked drop-dead-sexy—and he knew it, too. He had taken great care in brushing back his long black mane till it shone, and letting it hang free from its usual binding over his shoulders, framing his face and generally enhancing his natural beauty. His Gryffindor robes were draped over the chair behind him—he'd decided "casual-chic" was the best look for him at the moment, and robes didn't really seem to fit into this category. He had also unbuttoned the first few buttons on his white collared shirt, just enough to reveal a teasing bit of pectorals and clavicle. For some reason, the girls really went for a bit of clavicle. His red-and-gold Gryffindor tie was loose around his neck, but his shirt was still tucked into his black trousers, to hint tastefully at the taut waist underneath.

He didn't usually put so much care into "prettying himself up" for a girl. He thought that was really their job, while his was to look their way and wink. It almost always worked.

But this wasn't under normal circumstances. This was his opportunity to get back at the girl who had humiliated him and stepped all over his pride, and he took it seriously.

So when he heard chattering voices and the sounds of students approaching, he slid off of the desk and tucked his thumbs into his pockets to wait, pasting a handsome smile on his finely-chiseled features.

But when she stepped into the classroom, the smile dropped right off his face.

He had not expected Beatrice Bleeker to be so gorgeous.

There was another girl behind her, a blonde who was also pretty, but Sirius had only eyes for Beatrice at the moment. She had fallen silent when she had entered the room to find Sirius there, her cheeks painted lovely pink. Her hair was golden-brown and, at the tilted angle she held her head, partially hid one eye from view. The eye still visible was a warm cinnamon color, and seemed to glow beneath her bangs. She was thin, a bit lanky, not well-endowed from what he could see (but her robes were baggy, so it wasn't certain), and perhaps half-a-foot shorter than himself. She looked bookish and timid. In short, she was nothing like the sorts of girls he was used to dating. But there was something so breathtaking about the innocence in that cinnamon eye that told Sirius that there may be other benefits to this little ruse than just revenge.

"Beatrice," he said, remembering himself in time to slap a charming grin back on his face. "So glad you decided to come, love."

As he crossed the room towards her, he noticed the bewildered glance that the blond threw at her, but he thought it was just the glance of an envious friend. He did not notice the flash of confusion in Beatrice's eye at his approach. So he did what came naturally to him at the sight of a beautiful woman.

He wrapped one arm around her waist, brought the other one up to the back of her head to caress her hair, and lifted her onto the balls of her feet to kiss her. She didn't respond, only stiffened in his arms, as his tongue slipped past her lips and rolled across her teeth and begged for entry—entry that he was certain would be granted.

But what he got instead was a punch right across the face, dealt by a closed fist.

Incidentally, no one saw the paunchy little boy clutching a parchment walk unwittingly into the room.

"What the BLOODY HELL is wrong with you?!"

Sirius staggered backward at the shocking force from the girl's assault. He clapped his hands to his jaw and stared at the fuming brunette in utter horror. At some point in the flash of pain and surprise, the bangs that had been oh-so-adorably hiding her left eye were flipped out of the way, and now both bright brown eyes were practically burning with rage.

The raven-haired boy, still clutching his aching jaw, gasped, "What's wrong with you? You just HIT me!"

"You just kissed me!"

"I thought you liked me!"

The girl shook herself in exasperation. "I don't even KNOW you!"

And Sirius's pride was broken for the second time that day.

"Aren't you…" he began weakly, hand outstretched as if to support himself on a pillar that wasn't there, "…Beatrice Bleeker?"

The outrage in not-Beatrice's eyes seemed to increase ten-fold.

She held up a finger.

"I'm."

She pointed it at him.

"A."

She pointed at herself.

"BOY."

Only then was Sirius conscious of the fact that the blond girl standing behind not-Beatrice was laughing hysterically, bent double, with actual tears of mirth leaking from her eyes. Because he had kissed a boy. Inexplicably, inexcusably, he had pulled the boy into his arms and snogged him.

Suddenly, the girl-who-was-actually-a-boy gasped and whirled on his heel, dashing from the room in a black fluttering of robes. His cackling friend watched him go, immediately silenced in her laughter, cast Sirius an abruptly angry glare, and dashed after the brunet. Leaving Sirius, and the yet-unnoticed Peter Pettigrew, alone and shocked in the now-quiet classroom.

Sirius ran to the door and skidded outside, watching the pair disappear down the hall.

No. He figured this was what a spiraling descent into madness felt like. No, that didn't really happen. She was too pretty to be a bloke. She was TOO PRETTY to be a BLOKE! Besides, he thought desperately, Sirius Black doesn't kiss boys. He just doesn't. I don't…I don't…!

He turned to Peter so quickly that the smaller boy let out a squeak of terror. The raven-haired Gryffindor grasped his upper arms and rattled him back and forth hysterically. "I don't!" he gasped. "I don't!"

"O-Okay!" stammered Peter, not understanding but obviously scared for his life.

"NO, IT'S NOT OKAY!"

As if to emphasize this point, he snatched the parchment out of the paunchy little fellow's hands and simply ripped it into as many pieces as possible, right in front of his watering eyes. Peter whimpered and sank to his knees, hands clutching his head as he watched the little shreds of his masterpiece float to the floor.

James, followed by the actual Beatrice Bleeker—who was, in fact, a rather short and bubbly-looking fourth year with bouncy brown curls—chose that moment to waltz into the room, grinning with triumph. He stopped abruptly in his tracks at the sight of Sirius, whose eyes were wide with horror and whose nose was trickling blood, and little Peter Pettigrew, who was on the verge of exploding in tears. Both boys looked as though their lives, their livelihoods, their belief systems, their very worlds, were crashing down around them.

"Oi," James said brightly, breaking the silence. "What happened here?"

TBC...

Hmm...there sure were a lot of spaces between the lines...XP And run-on sentences, now that I look back.

Hello, any readers that may be out there at this sinful hour of the morning--or whenever you might actually read this. If you actually read this. This is my second ever fanfic, so I hope you liked it, but if you detect any discrepancies or you have any thoughts or constructive criticism for it, please leave a review! Actually, I'd like you to leave a review anyways, because they make me feel good. :D No flames though, they hurt my soul.

Well, anyway, this was rather ambitious for me, taking on a romantic comedy aiming to involve the entire School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at some point or another. I'm actually kinda scared I can't do it...hahahaha. But I'll try if you people want me to! So please, feed my ego with your reviews!

Oh, and yes, if you happened to read my other fic, I managed to work in Dorcas again, didn't I? I hope she didn't sound like a Mary Sue--in any case, she's not after either of the protagonists' cute buns! And don't worry, Marlene's on her way! (Not that anyone cares, hehehe...)