Chapter II: Friends

Sirius knows the name Potter, but he doesn't know James.

September, 1971.

The boy's a ball of fire, as frenzied as his birds-nest hair.

It's a quiet appraisal as Sirius watches him jump between the train carriages and he wishes he could wear such a wide smile and be quite that carefree. But that is not becoming for heirs to pureblood fortunes- especially not ones as dull as the Blacks.

Sirius looks over him. He's wearing easy brown cord trousers and a crumpled shirt. His shoes are dirty white with three black stripes across the edges and words printed on the tongue and the laces are hanging out. He's going to trip up on them if he's not careful, but Sirius doesn't tell him 'tie your shoelaces!' because that's something his Mother would say. They're trainers- he tries to read the name on the tongue to know what make, because he saw a catalogue once filled with them- and they're muggle.

His hair is midnight black and it's tousled like he's just fallen out of a Quidditch match, and he's wearing round glasses, like orbs, made of wiry thin metal and he looks like he's got a stick insect hanging from his ears, but Sirius doesn't tell him that, either. In a couple of years James will arrive on the Hogwarts Express with great, thick black, square glasses that his Uncle Marius has acquired from somewhere because he thought they'd suit James and they'd make him look like Buddy Holly, but back at Hogwarts no one has any idea what that means. Eventually though, they'll become his trademark. When a first year arrives sporting a pair in the same style he won't be told he looks like Buddy Holly, he'll be told he looks like James Potter. They'll be synonymous with James and everyone will think that he wears them on purpose- to make himself look cool- and perhaps that is true to an extent, although given the choice James would certainly prefer good eyesight over any glasses. But James will always be as blind as a bat, and he can't see a bloody thing without his glasses, which is why he is wearing the silly, wire-framed glasses now. Soon the wire frames will become a nuisance because they're bendy and they snap, and Remus will spend so much of his time fixing them- because James can't see what to do and Sirius can't stop laughing- that he'll manage to perfect the charm so that he can perform it wordlessly.

But fixing his glasses is the least they can do because as Sirius will come to discover, James will do anything for anybody else. Nothing is too much trouble for James- he'd build time, catch smoke, breathe fire, if you asked him to- and he gives more than anybody expects. He's eager to please and he's filled with confidence- although it tiptoes on the edge of arrogance sometimes. He can talk for England, about anything and to anybody and he'll strike up conversation with someone like he's known them all his life.

That's what Sirius is drawn to on the train. James knows nothing about Sirius- he does not know his family, he does not know his background- but Sirius feels like James is his best friend.

# # #

It does not surprise him that James is a Potter- they're an old pureblood family like Sirius's but they don't have that mania like the Blacks. The picture James paints that evening when the boys are in their dormitory is perfect and Sirius is more than a little envious. The doting mother and father, the escape from grimy London, the idyllic home in Godric's Hollow with the church and the garden.

But it isn't just his home life that is a contrast to Sirius. James has been surrounded by Aurors and Ministry workers and good guys whilst Sirius has grown up with those that stretch the rules of the law and who hand over ill-gotten Galleon bribes. James has a contagious enthusiasm whereas Sirius has languid disinterest. He likes the early mornings whilst Sirius prefers the night full of stars. He's quick to make friends but Sirius is often sullen. And James is far too trusting- it's Sirius who is cautious of everyone.

As he falls asleep that evening, Sirius makes himself a resolution that he'll spend seven years failing to achieve; he is going to be more like James Potter.

# # #

His new resolution to himself does not get off to a good start.

"Sirius," someone is shaking him. "Sirius, get up!"

Sirius turns in the bed, blinks hazily, and looks around into the face of his new friend. He sits up suddenly in bed, his foggy grey eyes wide and panicked. "Am I late?" he asks blearily, looking across the room at Peter's vacant and neatly made bed.

"You will be if you don't get up soon." Replies James.

There's a bed to the side of him which is James's and it's still unmade but at least James is out of it. Peter is a self-starter, it seems, because James explains that he saw Peter getting ready this morning just as he was waking up, and Sirius has to stop himself from smiling at Peter's eagerness.

Kicking the bedcovers away, Sirius leaps from his bed and grabs all his school clothes in one bunch. They're hanging from the end of his bed where something- or someone, he rather suspects- has removed them from the trunk, hung them up, and attached his house crest to them overnight. He throws them back onto the unmade sheets and flips through them, searching for the right garment, throwing his bed clothes across the room as he messily changes. He ties his school tie in one swift movement that results in a rather haphazard knot that his father would be appalled by, but Sirius doesn't care. He stuffs his feet into the same slick shoes he wore yesterday whilst he slides into his school blazer and pulls his robes on- robes in the deepest, richest black- and he hardly registers the lion emblazoning his chest.

Sirius is ready in minutes and James is gawping at him- he is still in his white school shirt and socked feet, with his shirt sloppily bunched around the waistband of his trousers.

"How'd you do that?" James asks.

Sirius shrugs. "What, get changed so fast?"

"No, tie your tie."

Sirius sees that James's tie is hanging around his neck and he is surprised that James has never had to wear a tie before- Sirius practically grew up in ties and ascots, wearing them to the countless stuffy parties his parents would throw. Sirius doesn't laugh at James, instead he pulls his own tie out from beneath his jumper and undoes it.

"Pull the right end down," He instructs. "No, the other right."

James does as instructed and holds the wide end of the tie in his hand. Sirius demonstrates carefully so that James can copy, passing one end over the other, then looping it over and back and under and over again, until he passes the end underneath the loop and pulls it tight. It looks much neater now, and Sirius is quietly thankful. He appraises himself in the mirror, thinking of how furious his mother would be to see him in red and gold, when he catches a glimpse behind him. He looks over his shoulder and wonders if they should wake the boy, although it seems an awfully personal thing to do- but if he doesn't wake soon, he'll be late. Sirius nods at the boy on the bed. "Think we should wake-"

"Remus?" James fills in.

James pads across to Remus and pats him on the arm to wake him, slightly gentler than when he had woken Sirius. "Erm, Remus?" He pats him again. "Remus, get up."

Remus shakes James's hand off and turns over in the bed, pulling his duvet closer around him.

Sirius hadn't expected to have to wake Remus up- he'd seemed so quiet and boring yesterday that Sirius had got the idea that he'd just fade into the background and they'd forget he was there. "Come on, Remus, time to go." He yells, and drags the covers away. Sirius is the only one who's had to do this before- he's the only one who has a brother. Remus sits up suddenly, wiping sleep from his eyes. Sirius takes the clothes down from the hanger and tosses Remus's robes over his shoulder- he tries not notice how the faded grey stands out even more against his own black treacle robes- and bunches the trousers and the shirt, throwing them at Remus.

He extracts Remus's red and gold tie and threads it around his own neck, tying it loosely in one careful yet complicated movement, and pulls it off over his head, chucking it at James, who's yanking Remus off the bed whilst Remus tries to button his shirt with one hand and pull his trousers on with the other. James turns up Remus's collar and slides the tie over, tightening it and straightening it. Sirius hopes they don't notice that he's done Remus's tie slightly differently- its smarter, the knot is different, it threads over itself in three places- but it makes Remus look smart where his fraying trousers do not. Remus, still half-asleep, struggles into his jumper and shrugs on his school blazer whilst James straightens the shoulders for him.

"Have you got house-elves at home who usually do this, Remus?" Sirius teases as he stands behind him and passes his school robes over his arms, pulling it across his back. He pats him on the shoulder. "Now go and brush your hair," he points the boy in the direction of the bathroom and as Remus shuts the door behind him, Sirius turns to James, looking unbelievably put together- which is surprising considering he was still in bed less than fifteen minutes ago.

"Tidy boy like that, you'd think he'd have an alarm clock." Sirius muses, but he wonders if he really thinks that- because he gets the feeling that Remus is not what they think.

# # #

They find Peter in the Great Hall, having headed down to breakfast with some of the first year girls. Later, he'll sit with the boys from the other houses during the lessons, and he'll spend the evening talking with some second years in the common room. Peter seems happy enough to flit between groups, and Sirius supposes it's nice that Peter is so willing to be friends with everyone, even if Sirius doesn't fancy it himself.

Peter laughs a lot, and most of the time for poor Peter, it is at himself. He shoulders the role of fool with good grace and he makes James and Sirius laugh and he likes to make them laugh, because it makes him feel cool- so he sticks by them and marvels when people say hello to him in the corridor, and he likes when James or Sirius push him forward when someone's feeling down, because 'Peter always cheers us up'. Sometime in their sixth year, someone will laugh with him and he'll marvel at how much nicer it is to be the comedian rather than the clown- and it will make him realise that James and Sirius have been laughing at him the whole time.

But for now he's happy to be the punchline of the jokes because it's the first time he's ever got any sort of attention. At home he never makes anyone else laugh; his mother is mad, his father is absent and his sister is a squib so there really isn't a lot to laugh about but at Hogwarts he's the joker, and it feels nice to have a place, because here he's Peter- the funny one.

# # #

James and Sirius stick together on their first day. The two boys sit happily beside each other in class and snicker together in the corridors, and they drag Remus around by his elbow whether he wants to follow them or not.

If Remus hadn't overslept, they get the idea that he would have been more than happy to go off alone, to have breakfast alone, and to sit in class alone. He doesn't seem lonely, but rather, he seems quite happy to be by himself. Sirius tells James this, and James replies that he doesn't think he'd be able to cope if he were left to his own devices. Sirius agrees- in fact, it's the first thing he thinks they've got in common.

So it's good, really, that Remus overslept, they decide. Because they've realised he's brilliant- and he needs friends.

They soon learn that he is not plain at all. The mouse-brown hair, on closer inspection, is flecked through with rich russet and gold, and when it grows it's uneven and shaggy, and his fringe does nothing except fall into his eyes- the flat, mud brown eyes that are not flat, they're the colour of chestnuts and they swirl like molten chocolate, and they're wide, so wide he looks permanently startled. There's a depth behind them that no one will ever reach the bottom of, and they're expressive; Remus Lupin can display a multitude of emotions with his eyes alone.

He can be blunt at times but there's a tongue as sharp as knives in his mouth and Remus will be the only person who will ever win the last word against Sirius Black. His humour is quick as a flash, like lightning, and it cracks but it isn't as sarcastic or cutting as Sirius's can be, it's smarter, keener.

His time-keeping, they will discover, is atrocious, and not just when it comes to mornings. They will have to tell Remus that lunch ends at 12:45 when really it ends at 1 so that he has a chance to get to his afternoon class on time, they will tell him that his detentions begin fifteen minutes before they do, and anytime they arrange anything they will have to tell Remus a time earlier that it really is.

"He'll be late to his own funeral," Sirius will lament, as they wait for him outside the castle gates one afternoon in their fifth year when they're supposed to be going into Hogsmeade. In some, it could be an irritating trait but somehow in Remus it's endearing.

He's a paradox, he's organised in a disorganised way; he keeps his belongings stored away in his trunk but when he opens the lid, it's a mess of bundled clothes, sheaves of paper, open books and broken quills. His homework is always finished on time but no one else will have seen the frenzied rush as he sits on his bed in the dormitory and scribbles away late into the night.

There's something cool about Remus and it doesn't come from careless rebellion like Sirius, ineffable enthusiasm like James, or even an obliging nature like Peter. It seems to collect around his shoulders and Remus carries it with him with quiet oblivion. That's Remus Lupin; from the outside, he's collected and composed, but beneath it all he's erratic and chaotic and that's exactly why they like him.

They'll call him an enigma, but it could apply to any of them. They're the four Gryffindor boys and they'll take over the school one day, but it won't be for their loud and boisterous nature and their magnetism to mischief; it's because each one of them is a riddle that no one will ever solve.