A/N: Gah! Life has been hectic since chapter three was posted and all hell has broken loose. So I thought I'd post up chapter 4 for you all as a way to say thank you for your reviews.

Dedication: Major thanks to LeilaTheRainbowNinja, A Wanderer in the Snow and Absentis Es Dies for reviewing the last chapter! You have inspired me to continue

Disclaimer: I don't own the Potterverse and you all know who it truly belongs to, so bow down to her.

Chapter Four

You were shaded with patience

'All We Are', OneRepublic

The nine Gryffindors walked down to the dungeons together, Ylana laughing with Sirius about some prank that he had pulled over the holidays on James, Dorcas and Marlene avidly discussing some article in Witch Weekly and Remus and Lily chatting animatedly about what Potions they were supposed to be brewing this year.

James, Alice and Peter trudged down the hallway behind their friends. James was Remus and Lily talking with shrewd eyes; Alice eyed a tall Gryffindor with mousy brown hair whose name was Frank Longbottom while Peter was trailing off Sirius' and Ylana's every word about the prank.

"...And then, would you believe it, he jumped up, absolutely covered in feathers and glue, and says to me, he says 'Sirius Orion Black, how dare you pour this over me, I look like an overgrown cockerel'. So I turn around and say-" Sirius was explaining to Ylana, waving his arms around wildly.

"'Cockerels are extremely smart creatures: even though they can't fly, they act like alarm clocks.'" She interrupted, grinning madly. She knew her cousin far too well.

"Exactly!" Sirius exclaimed, arms in the air, grey eyes glittering like a disco ball. Peter squealed, jumping up and down with his excitement. Sirius and Ylana turned to him simultaneously.

"Don't wet yourself," they said together. Marlene looked up from her discussion with Dorcas and smiled at Ylana and Sirius, rolling her eyes.

"Honestly, you two gossip like old ladies." She remarked, only half joking. James snorted, interrupted from his suspicious glaring, a smile making its way onto his face.

"We already knew that, Mar. They always have been like that." He replied; Remus laughed shortly and nodded at his friend's words.

"You can tell that they're related, can't you?" he added, looking over his only friends with obvious pride.

There was a peal of laughter at his comment, coming mostly from Ylana and Sirius themselves. Lily, having been forced out of her conversation when Remus had decided to speak to the rest of the group, joined in half-heartedly; she was trying to avoid talking to Potter if she could help it. She was well practiced in that field, seeing as the Marauders and her group of friends had been mixed together ever since Lily had become friends with Ylana and Marlene. Seeing as Ylana and Marlene hung out with the Marauders all the time, Lily, Dorcas and Alice had ended up around them aswell. This had gotten remarkably awkward when James had started asking Lily out, so she spent most of her time ignoring him.

After a few more comments on Ylana and Sirius' likenesses, the black-haired girl hung back and walked next to Lily for the last stretch of corridor down to the dungeons.

"Looking forward to Potions this year, Lily?" Ylana asked, still smiling. She hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder as they rounded the last corner and joined the line of Gryffindors that were already at the dungeon doors.

"Of course," Lily replied to her best friend, emerald eyes twinkling at the prospect of getting back into her best and favourite lesson. "I bought an extra Potions book over the summer and it was really interesting."

"I bought five," Ylana admitted with a grin. "I wrote to Remus asking if he wanted me to get any of his stuff while I was in Diagon Alley (you know, the day after the full moon), but he said no so I used the extra money to buy more books. I just really want to get into the Auror Department or the Department for the Teaching of Defensive Magic after school, and I need perfect 'Outstanding's in at least five subjects including Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Transfiguration and Potions. I've really been working on Transfig, I'm mediocre at Charms; Potions and Defence sort of come naturally to me." She told Lily earnestly, pasionately. "So improving my Potions can't really hurt, can it?"

Lily shook her head at both the question and at Ylana's attitude. "I just can't believe that you already know what you want to do when you leave school, 'lana. I have vague ideas about getting into Healing, but that's about it. You're so focused."

Ylana shrugged. "I get it from my cousin."

Lily was still laughing at that one when the dungeon door opened and Professor Slughorn's booming voice greeted them to class.

"Oho! Miss Evans and Miss Thomson are back!" he boomed joyfully, rocking on his heels, his large belly protruding through his too-tight waistcoat, as Lily and Ylana walked through the door. "And Mr Snape too!" he added as his eyes landed on the greasy-haired Slytherin who must have walked in beind them. "My three Potions prodigies! We're being partnered up this term, no, not with your friends," he added as James made moves to sit down next to Sirius. "I have a seating plan for the rest of the year!"

The class, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike, groaned in total harmony at this statement; it was a sentence that all students feared their teachers to say.

"Miss Thomson next to Mr Pettigrew here; Mr Black next to Miss Brown," Sirius made a face as Vixie Brown, a dark-skinned Slytherin known as 'The Ice Queen' sauntered over to him, smirking, "Miss McKinnon with Mr Snape," Marlene raised an eyebrow in distaste. "Mr Lupin with Miss Cotton, Miss Meadowes by Mr Mulciber and Miss Evans with Mr Potter. That will do for now, I think." The Professor concluded while Lily and Dorcas looked at eachother in horror. Dorcas, who was to be sitting by Mulciber, scrunched her face up as she sat down at a desk next to where James was standing; in both of their opinions, Remus and Alice had it easiest, being partnered together. Relucantly, Lily took a seat at a desk to her right, Ylana and Peter on the desk opposite her, and watched James sit down beside her with pained eyes. After he had put his bag underneath his chair, he turned to face the front of the classroom. Looking over slightly, Lily saw Sirius and Vixie glaring at eachother. Immediately, she felt a lot luckier to be sitting next to Potter – she could ended up with one of the Slytherins, and that wouldn't have been good at all.

After everyone had settled down, Professor Slughorn strolled to the front of the room, hands clasped behind his back, and then came to a stop, turning to face them all.

"Now everyone! This lesson, we will be making a Potion just to recap ourselves, and this time you will be working with your partners! So pick any Potion from Advanced Potion Making and off we go! Best pair at the end of the lesson will recieve a small prize!" he announced to the stunned class of seventh-years. There was a moment of silence, and then everybody started moving at once, scraping their chairs back and rushing to the store cupboard for ingredients. Lily sat there and pulled out her old copy of Advanced Potion Making and began flipping through it absent-mindedly.

"So, Potter, what Potion do you want to make?" she asked, turning reluctantly to her partner. James shrugged and took the offered book from Lily and began turning the moist pages, studying titles. He paused on a passed around halfway through the book and looked up.

"How about Sleeping Potion?" he asked. Lily frowned at his choice.

"It's a bit simple though, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but... Okay, don't tell anyone this Evans, but I'm really rather bad at Potions, and the last time I made this... Well... I blew up my cauldron." he admitted, lowering his voice dramatically, looking around them in a paranoid fashion, looking for any eavesdroppers.

Despite his words, Lily started to laugh. "That was you? Well, if you really want to make it, I suppose... I have a few tips for making that Potion that will probably improve our mark."

James' face brightened at her words on his decision. "Really?"

"Sure. Now, come on, let's go and get these ingredients." she told him, fully aware that this was the possibly the first conversation they had had without arguing half way through.

Five minutes later, Lily had set James to work cutting up roots and animal intestines while Lily set the fire at the underbelly of her cauldron. So far, they were working well as a team.

(It won't break anything that you are)

However, across the other side of the dungeon, the same could not be said about another pair. Sirius Black was sat grudgingly next to Vixie Brown, a Slytherin. She was dark-skinned with black hair that, the previous year, had been long and lustrous, but was now cut into a short a-symmetrical style, a long dark fringe falling over the side of her face. Her sharp sky-blue, almost grey, eyes glittered maliciously as she watched Sirius roughly cut up Flobberworms for their Plant Growing Solution with a distinct air of anger and outrage about him. Vixie was shooting evil-looking smiles over at Mulciber every ten minutes, flipping through the instructions book in front of her.

"So, Black," Vixie said suddenly, a sneer evident in her cool voice. "How's mum and dad?"

He paused in his cutting only long enough to send a death glare in her direction. "You'd know, Brown. You hang out with my parents and their little Death Eater friends a lot more than I do."

Vixie let out a short, cold laugh that was more like a cackle than anything else. "Oh, that's right isn't it, Black? You ran away from your parents like a coward!"

He slammed the knife down on the table loudly, a muscle quivering in his neck. "I didn't run away. And it's really got nothing to do with you."

"Oh, you didn't run away then Black? What do they call 'running away' nowadays then, eh?" she asked, leaning her face into her hand, looking positively gleeful. It was a sickening sight.

All of a sudden, Sirius was standing up pointing the wickedly sharp Potions knife at Vixie, chair and wand lying forgotten on the floor. There was a glimmering fire in his grey eyes that made him look more dangerous than ever. His face was twisted with rage and he looked like he wanted the stab the seventh-year Slytherin more than anything in the world.

"Don't you dare," he warned her in a low voice.

On the other side of the room, three people stood up simultaneously and approached Sirius carefully. The first to reach him, however, was not the students, but Slughorn.

"Mr Black!" he gasped, aghast. "What in the name of Merlin are you doing?"

"Please, Professor, we'll sort him out," came the quiet, yet commanding voice of Ylana Thomson from behind Sirius. Slughorn turned around and stared at one of his most prized students. After a moment of obvious consideration (in which Sirius swore he saw cogs whirring in his Professor's head) and then nodded.

"That... May be best, Miss Thomson. If you and Mr Lupin take him to your Common Room... Calm him down... I might have to speak to your Head of House... Dreadful behaviour, you know..." he muttered, stepping out of their way. Ylana rushed up to her cousin, as did Remus and James.

"C'mon, Padfoot, let's get out of here." Remus muttered.

"Yeah, come on Sirius. Before we all do something stupid." This time it was Ylana who spoke. They stood there for a while, looking worried, saying nothing. In the end, Sirius lowered the knife from a rather wan Vixie, who had shrunken in on herself in fright, and turned to his friends looking like he could breathe fire. He snatched up his wand from the floor and stormed out of the room. After glancing at eachother briefly, Remus hurried after him while Ylana grabbed his bag and put the chair straight and followed them. James, who had been trying to hold Sirius back, turned back towards the rest of the class and walked slowly back to his seat next to Lily.

"Is he going to be alright?" she surprised him by asking in a quiet voice once the class had resumed its usual volume.

He turned to her in shock, absent-mindedly pouring Salamander Blood into the bubbling cauldron. Lily grabbed his hand and put the bottle down, instead replacing it with a carefully measured vial of Ashwinder Ash mixed with Hexium, a highly flammable liquid that had been discovered by Wizards.

"He should be once he's calmed down a bit," James replied, watching Lily stir the Potion with her wand. "Ylana and Remus should be able to do that pretty well. Most likely taken him down to the kitchens, you know how he loves that place – you've caught him sneaking in there more times than I can remember."

Lily nodded and they finished making their Potion in silence. At the end of the hour, Slughorn finally addressed the rest of the class.

"When your Potion is finished, pour some into a vial and write your names and the names of the Potion on the label and then deliver it to my desk. I shall judge them and give the winnders their prize next lesson. After that, you can all pack away and get to dinner." His voice seemed more subdued than usual after the Sirius episode, and he wakled without his usual exhuberance behind his desk collapsed into his large, overstuffed chair. James scooped up some of the Sleeping Potion into a small glass vial and wrote their names on and then delivered it to Slughorn's desk while Lily packed away their things. Five minutes later, they were walking out of the dungeons with Marlene, Peter, Dorcas and Alice. The six friends were quiet on their way up to the Great Hall for dinner, speaking only when necessary, all of them worried about Sirius. When they finally arrived at the Gryffindor table and saw Sirius, Ylana and Remus sitting together talking quietly, it seemed as it the six of them let out a simultaneous relieved breath. They joined their friends on the benches and started to eat, chatting here and there, all just happy to be in eachother's company once again.

A/N: Wow, I loved writing this chapter. So much drama... It makes ATTR so rewarding to write. As usual, I apologise for any typos as I have checked through, but am only human and may have missed some. Also, please leave a review. If you can't think of anything to say, leave a song for me to listen to because I love music.

-Lauren