Two chapters, one day. Surprising. :3 Awesome. I don't own Harry Potter.

Chapter One: Year One, Mid-October. Responsibility.

In short time, the three of us had become best friends. Our routine consisted of attending classes, eating, and spenging time out by the lake-always together. We'd sit out at the lake for hours on end, and if it weren't for our classes taking up most of the time, we'd probably not have returned for days. Little to say, it was our absolutely favorite place to be.

On one particularly sunny afternoon, about halfway through October, we sat there working on a particularly long essay for Professor Slughorn. Our potions teacher wasn't usually so demanding, but this was fair punishment for a couple of potions gone wrong caused by a few argumentative Slytherins that decided to get on our bad side. For the sake of these Slytherins today, I will not name names. Basically, it was Snivelly against James, but I'm guessing you guys already knew that.

So we sat out there working on our essays, or rather, Remus was working on the essay, James was copying it, and I was wasting time throwing rocks into the lake.

"Sirius, you should really work on your essay.. or at least copy mine." Remus had piped up.

He looked at me with a slightly worried face. I knew that he was afraid of me failing, but I had my ways of avoiding that.

"Relax, Rem. I'll be fine." I told him, flinging another rock into the waters.

The shy boy sighed, returning back to his potions book. It was only seconds later when James intervened.

"Rem, what's this word here?" He asked, pointing at a word in Remus' essay.
"Amphibian."

"How do you-"

"A-M-P-H-I-B-I-A-N."

"Ooooohhh. What's it mean?"

"It's a living creature, a type of-"

"This is soooo boring."

James stood up abruptly, striding over to me in a few easy steps. A smile grew on his face, one that I later learned meant that he had an idea. Now, I was interested in what
James had to say.

"Sirius, how about you and I go do something worthwhile."

A smile appeared on my face as well, wondering what on Earth James' version of worthwhile would be. Later, I learned that it meant trouble- big trouble- and that we both were about to get in it.

"And what might that be?" I questioned him, adrenaline beginning to pump into my system.

"Well, I was thinking that it would have something to do with your Slytherin, er, acquaintances. Severus Snape in particular. Know him, right?"

"Right." I nodded.

"Well, how's about we... we..."

I frowned at this.

Way back when, James Potter wasn't the best at finishing his ideas. He knew the gist of what he wanted, and he knew who he wanted to do it to, but the thing was, he could never finish up to the 'how' part. That, my friends, is where our dear Remus Lupin would step in.

"You could always switch around ingrediants in his apothecary." He'd suggest. "Or better yet, slip him a love potion."

Those two words are the very words that began the hatred between James Potter and Severus Snape. James hated Snape with a passion, because he'd insist on end that he was doing everything possible to keep him away from the 'beautiful, magnificent, outstanding, etc.' Lily Evans. Snape didn't really have a clue who James was at the time, except for that he was someone who wouldn't leave him alone. I didn't really see the justice in why James hated him so much, other than he had extremely greasy hair and an extroardinarily big nose, but it was fun so I went along with it. And hey, James was my best friend. Why not?
Moving onward, those two words were the very words that started it all.

'Love. Potion.'

How much more menacing could you get?

So we slipped Snivelly a love potion, and for a week, he was madly in love with none other than Lucius Malfoy. It was a truly amazing sight, watching the pale, greasy boy chase after the blonde. Eventually, though, it had to wear off.

So we pulled more and more of these pranks, getting better and better as we went. We each had a specific role to these plans- Remus the brains, James the acter, and I the sneak. It was added to the routine, James would form half a place, Rem would finish it, I would prepare, James would act. For the longest time, though, nobody figured it was us. I guess that they thought James and I were to dense to pull them, or maybe that it was more likely that upperclassmen were the ones up to no good.

Until a certain Peeves the Poltergeist stepped in.

This time, we'd done it, one thing that no one had ever dared to do before. Something so outrageous, we'd probably get expelled.

We had kidnapped Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris.

We snuck her into the Gryffindor Common Room in the dead of night, hiding her in the boy's dormitory. It was all going so smoothly, until the three of us realized that we had absolutely no idea how to take care of a cat.

Remus was calmly pondering what we were supposed to do with the cat, whilst James and I began to freak out.

"Well, what do we feed it!" James cried, flipping back first onto his bed.

"I don't know! Don't YOU have a cat, or something?" I told him.

"Of course not! Our family has, like, a million owls. What about you?"

"Nope, mum's allergic."

"What about you Remus, got any cats back home?" James asked, turning to face the brunette.

"Bet that scar on your face is from a nasty cat. Oh. You ever notice that scar, Sirius?"

"No, not really." I answered.

I was lying. I noticed it every second I spent with him. I had come up with millions of theories as to where it had come from.

"Yeah, sure." Remus huffed. "And no, I don't have a cat."

It was then that a boy, Paisely or Parker or something like that, sat up in his bed rubbing his eyes.

"What're you three doing?" He demanded, groggily.

"Teaching chocolate frogs how to tap-dance, what about you, Pettigrew?" James remarked, rolling his eyes.

The kid, Paisely-or-Parker-or-something-like-that Pettigrew, laughed, now fully awake.

"Funny, James." He said. "But what are you three really up to? Pulling an infamous prank again?"

"Yeah, if that's what you want to call it." James supplied. "What do you care of it?"

"Well, I thought I heard something about cats..."

"Yeah, and?"

"..I- I have a cat at home. Don't like him much, but Fluffy Wuffy-kinz is a pretty good boy. Maybe I could..help? And we could.. I dunno... Be friends?"

At this point, I was already rolling my eyes. Paisely/Parker hadn't any friends. That's what this was all about.

"So, let me get this straight, you know how to take care of a cat?"

Paisely/Parker nodded enthusiastically.

"Well... Sirius here just got a new cat, early holiday present from his mum, and we aren't exactly sure how to care for it."

"I did? I did! Yes, just in this morning." I said, smiling in our mischief

"How would you like to take care of.. Mr. Babber's for the next few days, in exchange for.. hanging out with us?"

"That'd be great Mr. Potter- uh, uh- James! I'd love to!"

And so, we gave Mrs. Norris to the oblivious Paisely/Parker Pettigrew, whose name is actually Peter, and I'm still not too fond of the man after what he'd put me through- all those years in Azkaban. If we had least gotten away with this one thing, I might not have loathed him so much. Oh what am I kidding, I hate him more and more each day. He's the reason James and Lily are dead today, the reason that I spent 12 years in Wizard Jail, the reason why my poor God-son Harry can't move in with me. I'll get him back, one of these days.

So as you can guess, we didn't get away with it for long. Eventually, Filch caught on, and Peter, whose name for the life of me I could never remember during our first year, was sitting in Filch's office with a punishment still pending. It's kind of hard to sneak a cat out into the Courtyard whilst being followed by the most annoying ghost to walk-hover?- the face of the plane when he's singing "Petty~Petergrew~got~himself~a~pet~petty~pet~the~kitty~!" behind you.

But then, Remus did something unimaginable-

He turned himself in to save Peter.

I recall thinking that I'd never met, and probably never would meet, someone as caring or as responsible as Remus Lupin.

Remus Lupin, who had a scar I couldn't quite define yet. Remus Lupin, still a very shy person at this point. Remus Lupin, who I fell madly in love with, but hadn't noticed for so long.

But I noticed something, something that I didn't pay attention to, and let it get out of hand.