Author's Note: Shoutout to Elensule, SasuNaru4evar, neonorne, IloveRemusnSirius, lily-rhiannon, ChimericalParoxysm, and Rue-the-Marauder for the reviews! I appreciate your waiting for me as I worked on this chapter.

I know some of you are probably still confused about how the family is put together, so for the sake of clearing things up:

Narcissa and Lily are married; James and Regulus are married; Sirius and Severus are married.

Draco's parents are Narcissa and James. Harry's parents are Lily and James.

Draco and Harry call Narcissa "Mother" and Lily "Mum."

And although this hasn't come up yet, some of you may be wondering, so I'll tell you that all of the above go by the last name of Black except for Severus, who kept Snape in an effort to preserve some dignity - it comes in short supply when one is married to Sirius. ^^


Chapter 1: The Quidditch Injury

"Hey, that's not true!" Sirius interrupted.

"What do you mean? Of course it's true, I remember it, great bloody thing," said James, with a glare at his friend. "Half your face was black and blue!"

"I wasn't talking about the bruise. That's not when it started. Sev didn't give me that bruise."

"What?"

"I told you I got it when a moving staircase slammed into my face," said Sirius. "I wasn't lying."

James, with a startled expression, turned his gaze to Severus, while Harry and his friends tried to look appropriately horrified at Sirius's past injury.

"I tried never to bruise him where it would show," Severus drawled. "I was certainly tempted more than once to punch him in the face, but I think I would remember if I'd actually done so."

"Well, it's still the start of things, as I'm telling the story right now," said James firmly. "As I was saying…"


It was the morning of the season's first Quidditch match – Gryffindor versus Slytherin – and James Potter was up bright and early, as he usually was for Quidditch. Some players spent the whole morning before a game battling their nerves, but James wasn't one of them, being self-confident almost to a fault.

On the other side of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, Sirius Black collapsed onto the bench and reached for a piece of toast. "Mornin'," he mumbled.

James looked up at his best friend and grinned at the bleary expression on his face. "Late night?"

"Bit." Sirius raised his head to scan the table for the butter, revealing a large, colorful bruise that spread across his jaw and the side of his face.

James gaped. "Merlin, Sirius, what happened to your face?"

Sirius touched his jaw gingerly. "Moving staircase. Smacked me in the face. Pass the butter?"

"Sure." James slid the butter over to Sirius, but he was frowning. How could a moving staircase smack a person in the face? "What were you doing last night?" he asked.

"Studying."

Now James was sure Sirius was lying. His friend never studied, and certainly not late at night. Sirius's exhaustion was probably connected with the bruise, as well, since the moving staircase scenario was pretty much out. "You're lying."

"No'm not." Sirius scowled at him.

James narrowed his eyes. "You were fighting someone."

"No," Sirius protested, but his eyes widened in alarm, and James knew he'd caught on to something.

"Yes, you were. I bet that's where you got that bruise."

"I told you, it was a staircase! I wasn't paying attention," said Sirius. "It was dark when I was heading back last night…" He trailed off.

"From fighting," James supplied, and Sirius looked away quickly. "What for? Wait a minute… don't tell me you went to finish that duel with Snape." Sirius had been involved in an altercation with the greasy Slytherin yesterday afternoon. The duel ended in a draw because McGonagall found them and put an end to it.

"That's none of your business."

"It is if you come to breakfast with a great bloody bruise on your face," James pointed out. "You should see Madam Pomfrey."

"Not until after the match," said Sirius. He grinned faintly. "I want to see you slaughter my brother's team."

James grinned back. "Point taken. But you'll go after we're through?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll go – OI! Snivellus! Give me back my Charms notes, you wanker!" Sirius jumped up, glaring in the direction of the entrance. The angry reddening of his face made a bizarre contrast with the bruise. James twisted in his seat to see what Sirius was looking at, and was not surprised to see Snape stop in his tracks and sneer at them.

"I don't have your bloody Charms notes, Black."

"You liar. I saw you stealing them from my bag," Sirius growled.

Snape's sneer grew more pronounced. "You must have seen wrong then, because I haven't been anywhere near your bag." He paused. "I like what you've done to your face, by the way. It's very… unique." The delicate emphasis he put on the word strongly implied a negative connotation.

Sirius's face reddened even more, and he stalked over to where Snape was standing. He stopped in front of the Slytherin and hissed something in his ear that James couldn't quite catch. Snape met Sirius's eyes, smirked, and swept away towards the Slytherin table, leaving Sirius to clench and unclench his fists. When Sirius finally turned back to the Gryffindor table, James saw the murderous look in his friend's eyes and hurriedly stood up.

"I'd better get going," he excused himself as Sirius sat back down to breakfast. "You know, I have to get changed, and there's the usual pep talk…" He didn't bother to elaborate further before escaping through the doors and out onto the grounds.

This rivalry with Snape was definitely different from the years before. It used to be that James was the one who exchanged curses with the nasty Slytherin, while Sirius preferred to watch and jeer. He'd confided to James once that he was afraid to get too caught up in a duel and use something Dark by accident, thanks to his upbringing. Now, though… yesterday's duel had not been the first this year. James could only assume that something had happened between Sirius and Snape, something Sirius didn't want to admit to. He wouldn't pry, though. Anything to do with Snape was bound to be disturbing.

As he reached the Quidditch locker rooms, James set aside his thoughts about Sirius for the moment, instead turning his mind to plans for his beloved game. It wasn't long before the rest of the team arrived, and then – after a quick pep talk – they were ready to enter the field.

James sought out the form of Sirius's fourth-year brother, Regulus, as the Slytherin and Gryffindor captains shook hands. Regulus was Slytherin's Seeker, and was – unfortunately for Gryffindor – pretty damn good. James exchanged a glance with the other Chasers on his own team, tilting his head towards Regulus, and they nodded back at him. Their job in this game was to make as many goals as possible, so that even if Regulus caught the Snitch – which was likely – Gryffindor would win.

The whistle blew, and they were off. Gryffindor had a bit of an advantage in this game because they had no new players, so they were all accustomed to working together. In contrast, the Slytherins had acquired one new Chaser and two new Beaters. As he flew, James kept a mental tally of his own goals so he could relive the game later with his friends, and he also made sure to send a smirk in Regulus's direction every time the sullen snake flew past him.

It was all going perfectly, up until one of Slytherin's Beaters got off a lucky shot and smacked a Bludger into James's foot. He cried out and spun out of control, dropping the Quaffle. As he steadied himself on his broom, he caught sight of Regulus's taunting sneer. James scowled and took off again, ignoring the pain in his foot in favor of winning the game.

He wasn't playing at his best now, though, and a short while later, Regulus caught the Snitch, winning the game for Slytherin at two hundred to one hundred forty. James headed for the ground and managed to land heavily on his injured foot as he swung off the broom, having momentarily forgotten about the hit. Sirius, who had run out to meet him, caught him before he could fall to the ground.

"Guess I'm not the only one headed to the hospital wing, mate," said Sirius wryly. "Come on, let's get inside before we get overtaken by snakes."

James limped towards the castle, supporting himself on Sirius's shoulder, and the other two Marauders, their friends Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, fell into step with them as they went. Peter was blathering on about how well the game had been going and how Slytherin must have cheated to get James out of play. James didn't try to stop his chatter, being rather grateful for the distraction.

"Sirius!"

It took James a moment to place the voice that sounded as the Marauders approached the door to the castle. When he did work out who it was, he rather wished he hadn't.

"What do you want, Regulus?" said Sirius, spinning around so fast that James nearly crashed to the ground. Remus took over the role of shoulder support so that Sirius could have an arm free if he needed to hit his brother.

Regulus glowered at the four of them. "Severus wanted me to give this to you," he said to Sirius, tapping the sheaf of parchment he held. "But if you're going to be rude about it I won't bother."

Scowling, Sirius snatched the parchment out of Regulus's hands. James looked over his friend's shoulder and saw the word "Charms" scratched out across the top in Sirius's handwriting.

Sirius emitted a low growl. "He said he didn't have these!"

Regulus shrugged. "That's not my problem, brother. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a celebration to get back to." He smirked at them and turned around to head back to the locker rooms, where James would have been headed if his foot didn't feel like it was going to fall off.

As he watched Regulus go, the only thing James could think, oddly enough, was, Nice arse.


Harry and Draco were both doubled over laughing at James's choice of words and the startled look on Regulus's face. Dora was also laughing, but the boys' friends didn't seem to know what to think.

"Is this normal for your family?" Hermione asked Harry.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Harry shook his head. "Not exactly. Usually Sirius is the one who says things like that."

"Did you hear that, James?" Sirius called out. "I'm rubbing off on you!"

"You're also shedding," said Severus. "Get off my lap."

Instead of obeying, Sirius rearranged himself so that he was sitting upright with his arms wrapped around Severus's neck. From the look on Severus's face, his grip was rather tight. "I. Do. Not. Shed," Sirius growled.

Severus was unimpressed. "Off."

"Fine." Sirius slid to the floor and rested his head against Severus's legs, either ignoring or not seeing the way Severus rolled his eyes.

"What happened next?" asked Pansy.

"Oh, we went to the hospital wing and got fussed over by Pomfrey for the rest of the day," said James. "She let Sirius go for dinner, but I had to stay the night because half the bones in my foot had been crushed." He made a face.

"Were you really fighting with Uncle Severus the night before?" Draco asked Sirius.

Sirius grinned. "Yes, although that wasn't the first time. It was just when James noticed." He craned his neck back to look at Severus. "When did we start that, do you remember?"

"September," said Severus. "You'd just finished that bloody Map of yours and you decided to sneak up on me, alone, in the middle of the night. Luckily no one was in the library at the time or we'd have gotten detention."

"What was this fight about, though?" Draco persisted. "And what did the Charms notes have to do with anything?"

Severus gave a sly smile. "Ah. That would be giving away the story."

"I think that's my cue to start," said Sirius dryly, observing the eager expressions of the children. "Well, it was kind of a stupid fight. We were just continuing with the duel we'd had earlier…"