For Libbylou1201. I hope you like it!


Looking at Sirius now, James knew that there were only a few people that remembered the timid (and well-behaved, if you could imagine that!) boy that had first joined Gryffindor house, who had flinched at the sight of the Black family owl every morning.

(Sirius now laughed it off, his laughter sometimes even louder than the howler of the day. The rest of the Gryffindors helped, of course.)

James could still remember the terror in his grey eyes after the Sorting hat had been removed from his head, and despite the visible grace as he made his way towards the Gryffindor table, the stiffness and shock (and the subtle glances at the silent Slytherin table) were still visible to anyone who knew what to look for.

(There were still hints of that stiffness whenever Sirius caught sight of his brother's disapproving gaze.)

And James sometimes wondered, not that he would ever ask Sirius, if he ever regretted being Sorted into Gryffindor. Sirius's relationship with his family hadn't been this bad, even during first year, but as Sirius had gotten more open and expressive and free, his parents had begun expressing their disappointment at every chance they got.

(Sirius would argue that it had always been like that, but James knew better — Sirius was bitter towards his parents, and the fact that he wasn't indifferent spoke volumes.)

James knew that holding that much bitterness wasn't good for his best friend, but Sirius was one of the most stubborn people he knew. If Sirius didn't want to do something, or thought that doing something was stupid, he wouldn't do it. At all. Godric only knew how many of their pranks had nearly gone wrong because of Sirius's stubbornness.

(Remus would never admit it, but both he and Peter both rolled their eyes at Sirius's stubbornness sometimes… a lot of the time.)

"Potter, would you control Black before I send him to the Infirmary?" Lily snapped in annoyance, looking up from her textbooks.

Sirius laughed. "Don't make James jealous! He'd love to be sent to the Infirmary by you!" Sirius shouted back, winking at Lily.

"Sirius, shut up!" James hissed as Lily's eyes narrowed. Alice whispered something to her and Lily's face relaxed and she smiled in a way that made James tense.

There were only so many times he wanted to be on the other end of Lily's wand, especially since they couldn't blame the girls either — not without ousting themselves as the Marauders.

(The Marauder's Map could save them from ambushes, but not from timed charms — something that Lily was conveniently very good at. With Marlene being good at Runes, and Alice being brilliant with Arithmancy, the three of them were terrors when they wanted to be.)

"Now you've done it. I don't know why I'm still friends with you lot after the amount of trouble you get me in," Remus groaned. His eyes closed in reluctant acceptance.

"They're going to kill us this time," Peter whispered fearfully, remembering the one time they had all the cats in Hogwarts chase them upon sight. They hadn't known of Peter's animagus, of course, but Peter still feared that they would repeat the prank.