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"Moony, I need to explain myself-"
"Sirius, don't," Remus sighed, without James to entertain him Sirius was nearly unbearable, and he seemed to be incapable of just dropping the whole Snape Attack thing, Remus would rather forget about it.
"Remus, it's not what you think I-"
"Pads, please just drop it, it's over now."
Sirius sighed, defeated, Remus threw himself a celebratory party in his head, which quickly diminished at the look on Sirius' face.
"Sirius-"
"No, you're right, I should just drop it, It was wrong of me to betray my friends, I'd rather die than betray my friends."
Remus wanted to point out it was too late, but didn't. He would give Sirius the benefit of the doubt, maybe this would make the animagus grow up.
Sirius sighed and pulled out his homework, shoulders slumped, diligently putting quill to parchment and wrote an essay. Remus himself was flicking through the transfiguration books like a madman looking for the human transfiguration section, he knew Sirius knew all about animagus transformation - he did it first and helped the others, Remus knew all about it too, mostly for damage control - but that information was not useful for this essay.
"Stop it!" Remus said as Sirius started on a third paragraph. He looked up.
"What?"
"You have to look up the information Sirius, you can't just write it down!"
Sirius smiled at him.
"Why not Moony?" The shaggy haired boy asked his irate friend.
"Because you have to do it properly, Sirius you can't just-"
"Human transfiguration is a complex and dangerous branch of magic, and while the danger of most spells preformed on a human are intentional such as curses or hexes, or accidental, as in charm and spell misfire, backfire and explosion, human transfiguration, like all transfiguration spells run the risk of getting stuck, losing the essence of, or vanishing completely.
Vanished objects cannot be recovered, just as vanished body parts or humans cannot be recovered and while the vanishing spell "Evansco" cannot be performed on a human being at all, the result of this spell has been known to occur accidentally, such as in 1547 and the case of Wilbert Dukeman. Who is Wilbert Dukeman, I hear you ask?
Exactly.
The next biggest risk is losing your mind, particularly in full transfigurations and transfigurations of the head, because these affect the brain, and instances have happened in the past where a witch or wizard not only transfigured their body, but also their mind into that of an animal, or instead of their body, they transfigured their minds.
The final risk is getting stuck, again this is particularly a problem in transfigurations of the head and neck, or internal organs, there have been many unfortunate circumstances where people wishing to breath underwater have performed unsuccessful partial transfigurations of the head, neck and respiratory system into that of an aquatic species and gotten stuck, similar to the case of Godric Gryffindor, who, it is rumored, is the Giant Squid in the black lake." Sirius finished reading his essay and sat it on the desk in front of him.
"But you didn't have any books?" Remus wondered, eyes wide at the quality of what was apparently not total bullshit like he first presumed, except the rubbish about Gryffindor and the bloke with the vanishing spell.
"I do read Remus, how did you think I was near top of the year?"
"Miracle," Remus replied bluntly, Sirius sighed, "I'll finish this tomorrow, I'm going back to the common room."
Remus grumbled and packed up his own things. Following the unusually quiet boy back to Gryffindor tower.
James was glaring at them when they arrived, more directed at Sirius.
"Cutting it close, aren't you Black?" He taunted, looking at the clock, which had just struck eight.
"Shut it, Potter," Was Sirius' dull reply, James sneered at him and turned back to Peter. Sirius looked at them for a moment before heading up to the dorms. Remus looked between the boys on the couch and the dorm steps, and having enough of Sirius' moodiness for today Remus pulled his books out at a table at the back of the room and set out to finish his own essay.
"Golpalott's Third Law, anyone?" Slughorn asked from the front of the classroom, Remus had heard of it, something to do with antidotes, but didn't understand it and so didn't raise his hand. Slughorn looked disappointed but didn't comment.
"Golpalott's law states that a blended poison cannot be cured by a blended antidote, that's to say a mix of poisons needs to have it's own, unique antidote brewed, you can't just mix the antidotes, so here are some poisons, come and pick three each, they're all different, whichever ones you like, they're all unmarked, don't drink them, please."
The class had eleven students in it, Remus, Sirius, James and Lily Evans and Alice Peverell were the only Gryffindors, Snape, Mulciber and Donna Easton were the Slytherins and Rose Perkins, Benji Fenwick and Gaspard Shingleton were the resident Ravenclaws, and the eleven students moved forwards to collect some vials.
"No pairs," Slughorn called out.
Remus made to grab three vials but Sirius stopped him.
"That one is silver based," He whispered quietly, grabbing three for himself. Remus looked at the flask and indeed it looked like molten silver. So he reached out and picked up a clear poison, a gluggly brown thing and a light blue one. Sirius had already combined his potions and was writing out a list of ingredients when Remus reached the table.
"You understand Golpalott's Third Law?" Remus asked incredulously. Sirius looked angry as he put his quill down and faced his friend.
"I'm not stupid," Sirius said heatedly, "Why do you think I'm stupid?"
Remus replied with a look, not really knowing what to say. Frustrated, Sirius turned back to his work.
"Will you help me, Sirius?" Remus asked him. Sirius sighed.
"Fine," He poured Remus' three poisons into the cauldron. "All it means is that once they're mixed, they're like a completely new poison, you need to make a completely new antidote. So see the color? That red is because Bloodroot is the main ingredient in this poison, so you'll need to use the Nightshade and Silverweed as a base ingredient. You keep counteracting the ingredients until you get water."
"Okay," Remus picked up some knotgrass and dipped it in the cauldron. It began smoking, so he hurriedly pulled the grass away.
"You have no idea what your doing, do you?" Sirius asked then, Remus shook his head. Sirius pulled Advanced Potion Making towards himself and opened it to a page listing ingredients and their effects.
"See the silver smoke?" He pointed to the effect in the table. "That could be Syrup of Helbore, liongrass or fluxweed, but fluxweed becomes volatile when mixed with bloodrood, and liongrass is a healing ingredient, so it will be the Syrup of Helbore-"
"Thanks Sirius," Remus said, "I understand now."
Sirius didn't reply, just turned back to his work.
"You've just never tried really hard, I never said you were stupid." Remus pushed, Sirius turned to face him again.
"I know, I just think people see me as the ditsy one. I don't like that."
Remus just nodded and the two boys went back to their potions. Sirius doing infinitely better than Remus himself and the majority of the class. But Sirius was not awarded points at all, and was leveled with a glare as Slughorn deemed his antidote 'Passable.' Snape turned around when he was awarded twenty points for his pawn potion to give Sirius a look, Sirius squeezed his eyes shut and with the will of a thousand men ignored the other teenager. Remus averted his eyes from Snape completely.
After that Sirius quickly packed up and left the room with a quiet wave to Remus.
"He's really sorry, James," Remus said to the messy haired boy on the way out of the class. "And he's not even complaining about the punishment. You can't stay mad forever."
"It's not just him, its you!" James cried as he turned around, arms flung up. Their entire potions class (as small as it was) stopped and gave him a funny look. "He betrayed all of us, Remus, we could have all been found out here, not just you, yes you have your furry little problem and may I remind you exactly what we did to help you with it? You treat it like it wasn't a life changing thing!"
Remus shook his head sadly, "I know that James, and I appreciate it but-"
"No buts," James screamed in his face. "I'm DONE, with him and you, you selfish PRICKS!"
Remus looked at the boy wide eyed, and hit him. Hard. In the face.
"REMUS!"
Remus turned at the sound of the high pitched voice.
"Lily I-"
"Evans, bugger off-"
Everyone stopped, like they were on pause. James never said 'bugger off' to Evans, never, ever, ever, never. Things like 'Your smile is like expelliarmus, simple but disarming'; 'my love for you burns like a dying phoenix'; 'you can have the portkey to my heart' and, Remus' personal favorite; 'Girls call me aguamenti, when they see me, they get wet'.
But 'Bugger off?'
It was like watching things in slow motion, Lily looked utterly shocked and James ignored her in favor of glaring death at Remus, who's hand hurt From punching James' thick head. Somewhere in the room, Remus was s distantly aware of Slughorn talking and who he assumed was Snape snickering under his breath.
James pulled his wand, Remus finally registered the danger and jumped back a step, still the stinging hex connected and Remus yelped - rather loudly, then Sirius thundered around the corner and shot a stupefy curse at James.
Lily blocked it, still James paid her no mind, instead he decided to yell at Sirius.
"You bloody MONGREL!" He screamed, Sirius growled and the two men met fist first. The loud crack of someone's jaw breaking knocked Lily into action, she sent at least fifty stinging hexes, one after the other at the fighting men until they broke apart.
Neither looked good when they faced her, Sirius was holding his jaw and James was sporting a bloody nose, Sirius right eye was rapidly blackening and if you looked close enough at the blood pouring out of James' nose you could see his lip was badly split.
After the stinging hexes came a second barrage of Epskiy healing spells and Lily stood before them with her hands on her hips.
"Get over it." she said sternly, "Obviously, you four have had some kind of utterly ridiculous lover's spat, and I know it was because Sirius did something very stupid and Remus sided with him and that pissed James off and Peter's just going with it, you're all stupid, get the hell over it and move the fuck on!"
Lily brandished her wand at them again, then turned and ordered everyone to class.
James stood first and offered his hand to Padfoot.
"She's right," He said, "You're stupid, Pads."
Sirius didn't look impressed but took his hand anyway and stood, helping Remus and the four boys walked to their next class in silence.
Slughorn and their potions class were left starring at the door they had left through, utterly shocked.
