CHAPTER 1: Holidays

Sirius Black lay down on the floor of his bedroom absolutely exhausted. The sun had long since been enveloped into the darkness. He sighed. A whole day wasted. His mother had forced him to get rid of the Doxy infestation in the drawing room and warned him that to make sure he took it seriously and did it right, she would be hiding the antidote for their poisonous bites. For a while he considered letting one of them bite him just so that he could get away from this house, but realised that he couldn't cope with not seeing his friends again so sprayed the Doxycide in copious amounts at the curtains. He didn't see the point in bothering, since they always come back and the place would be infested again by the time he got back to Hogwarts, but decided to not mention this to his mother since such an action would involve speaking to her and that is something he makes sure he does as little of as possible.

Since getting back to Grimmauld Place after leaving Hogwarts Sirius has been punished abundantly for the many acts of misbehaviour that he has committed, many of which he is certain his mother simply made up just for the satisfaction of getting to punish him some more. Bellatrix, lovely Bellatrix, had written to his mother and informed her all about his close circle of friends and, as expected, the old hag was furious. She told his father and he bellowed so much that little flecks of dust occasionally fluttered to the ground after escaping from the walls. Apparently it was a disgrace to befriend such filth, such vermin. She had insulted each of the other three Marauders as much as she could and Sirius could do nothing but sit and take it. He knew that if he had defended them, or stood up for himself, there would be no hope of him being allowed to go to any of his friends houses over the summer.

'A Potter?! Blood traitor filth, fraternising with Muggles and Mudbloods and all kinds of scum! A family not worthy of the name 'pureblood'! And some Peter Pettigrew?! A pureblood, yes, but a Gryffindor all the same! Disgusting, chubby little waste of space from what I hear! And this other one, this Remus Lupin. HAVE YOU NO STANDARDS?! A half-blood?! That is almost worse than a Mudblood! What vermin his father must be, a once respectable wizard to mate with a Muggle and create their repulsive offspring! A Gryffindor, PAH! Little weakling of a boy, what use is he to anyone?! Rest assured none of them, particularly this Lupin, will ever set foot inside this house!'

Sirius had sat through the entire rant with his head down looking at the floor, talking to his friends in his head. He had gotten so close to them that he could imagine their responses to his conversations fairly accurately and could recall their voices with such precision that he could hear them in his head. Combining the two was easy and now he could have full conversations in his head with them. It had become his coping mechanism and so far he had needed to do a lot of coping. He hoped that his friends were having a better time than he was.

Remus Lupin and his uncle did not get on. He could not ever remember a time that they did. His parents still hadn't turned up to get him; apparently they had gone on holiday while he was at school and were not due back for another few days. They were long due a holiday, he supposed, and tried to suppress the anger he felt about them seemingly forgetting about his existence entirely. Despite his insistence that he was perfectly capable of staying home alone, he had been forced to stay at his uncle's house, an action which confused him greatly. His uncle despised him and made no secret of it and liked nothing more than reminding Remus just how much of an awful person he was. Perhaps that is why he has kept him close, to torment him. It makes sense; it is his uncle's favourite pastime.

Everything about his uncle's house was horrid. His aunt had left him years ago but usually his cousins stay with their father during the summer but they hadn't arrived yet so the house was empty and felt so abandoned. Despite the fact that they weren't there, Remus was still forbidden from sleeping in their rooms or even entering them under any circumstance and had been left to sleep in the attic like a hidden and forgotten about possession. The bare floorboards felt less than stable, and creaked eerily underneath him as he fought in vain to try and get comfortable on the old, useless air mattress that he had found and assembled himself. It was cold and dark all of the time, with only one tiny solitary window positioned perfectly so that Remus could watch the moons progression as it grew closer and closer to the dreaded time when it would be full. Until that time he would lie and watch it and the stars as they littered the black sheet of the cloudless sky forming constellations and casting a moonlit shadow around the room. Remus could see the constellation Sirius and smiled. He watched it every night that it was visible. It was a reminder of home and his friends for him. He missed them so much. Everything was so much better when he had them around.

James Potter was bored. His parents had planned a holiday to India since his father had got some rare time off, but had decided to not take James. It was going to be their 30th anniversary, they definitely deserved a holiday, and James didn't really fancy melting in the Asian sun anyway, but it still wasn't very pleasant to have to sit and listen about all of the fun they were going to have without him. He had been twelve for a few months now so, after a lot of persuasion, his parents had allowed him to stay home alone but under the condition that he wrote to them every day. James tried very hard to not immediately start planning various prohibited activities for when they left but couldn't help but count down the days until he had the house to himself. Until then, he was bored.

James planned to have Sirius, Remus and Peter around when his parents left. He could have them around when his parents were still there, it wasn't as if they didn't like his friends, he just thought that it would be more fun with just the four of them. Without his parents around it would feel more like Hogwarts, more like how it should be. The rooms that his friends had stayed in over the Christmas holidays had already been christened as such. He was currently walking past Sirius's room and heading towards Remus's to get access to the large library his parents had. On general principle, James avoided libraries at all cost but he had realised that they still hadn't got any substantial work done on trying to work out Remus's secret and he figured that, with Remus obviously excluded, he was probably the most likely to turn to books. Sirius had grandly announced that he was allergic to lots of books in the same room and he recoiled from libraries so dramatically that James wasn't entirely sure that he was joking. Pete, he supposed, would try his best but he would either be looking in the wrong place or have completely forgotten about it, bless him. It wasn't as if Peter was stupid, he wasn't, he just excelled in some things more than others, and research was not something he was ever good at. Sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a pile of books that he had thought might contain useful information, James pulled out the list that he made with Sirius and Peter.

Gone every month.

Always comes up with an excuse.

Always ill the day he leaves.

Looks terrible when he gets back.

Always covered in bandages.

Doesn't eat.

Always gone for a few days at a time.

'Blimey Remus,' James whispered to the empty room, 'What have you got yourself into?'

Peter had had the worst Christmas holidays. He believed that this was making up for it all. His mother was recovering well. The Healers hadn't expected her to be able to function properly on her own for a while, possibly forever, and she had picked him up from the station. He still couldn't quite believe it. A year ago he would have resented his mother for waking him up in the mornings, but now he couldn't think of a better way to begin his day. He wondered if he would be invited over to James's house these holidays. He missed out over Christmas when he had to look after his mother but she was miraculously well enough to look after herself now and he hoped that he could spend time with his friends. He had never seen James's house. Or any of his friends houses as a matter of fact. It made him feel strange to imagine them all having fun without him. He knew that they invited him at Christmas, and he knew why he couldn't go, but he still wished that he had. He had plenty of friends before he went to Hogwarts and he kept in touch with some of them but he still believed that James, Sirius and Remus were the best friends that he could ever meet and he wanted to be able to spend every day with them. Having said that, he was having a great time at home with just him and his mother. His cousins kept popping around to check up on them both and it was lovely to be seeing them again and even better to be able to say that his mum was alright and was doing really well. Occasionally, she was completely back to normal as if nothing had happened and he could pretend that his dad was just off to work again. But, of course, it wasn't normal. It never would be. In the short time that Peter had spent back from Hogwarts he had come to the realisation that he hates his father. He never bothered with him when he was still around and now that he's gone, he never replies to any of his sons letters, never tries to get in contact, never seems to have shown any sign of repentance for what he done to his wife. And Peter will never forgive him for that.

Aside from that realisation, Peter was having a great time at home. So much so, he almost didn't bother to wonder how his friends were doing. Sirius and Remus had looked upset to be leaving when they left King's Cross station and James had looked upset at the thought of leaving them. Peter was too excited about seeing his mother that he hadn't troubled himself in looking despondent about leaving his friends. He missed them, of course he did, but he was glad for the time that he got to spend alone with his family.