Chapter 9

"How could he do that? He just betrayed us! He was sitting with that…that…. argh, that scum! How could he do that!" exclaimed James as he paced around in the Gryffindor common room.

"I've no idea," Remus replied absently. He was sitting at a table and was trying to finish his homework. James had been ranting ever since Charms. Instead of getting angry, though, Remus had learned to tune out James's mad ranting.

"Not only does he ignore us the rest of the day, but he hangs out with him. My mortal enemy!" James continued, ignoring Remus.

"Fancy that," he responded without looking up from his textbook.

"After all we've ever done for him too. I mean, we were the ones who got him and Susan together. We were the ones who first befriended him. We were the ones who-"

"Got him is first detention. Yes James, I know, but it doesn't matter!" Remus snapped, finally looking up and shutting his book with a snap. "If Peter wants to befriend Sirius, then that's a good thing."

James stopped pacing and turned to look at Remus as if he had sprouted another head. "A good thing? Tell me how it's a good thing."

"Well," Remus began, thinking through his words before continuing his argument. "At least he's starting to think for himself. Before he'd just follow you around like a mindless zombie. Now he's starting to branch out and make new friends."

"What was wrong with just us?" asked James, refusing to back down. Along with being incredibly intelligent, James was unbelievably stubborn.

Remus simply rolled his eyes before gathering his things up and walked up the stairs to their dormitory. "Hey!" called James. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to bed! I can't take any more of your rambling complaining! When you come to realize the world doesn't revolve around you, I'll start listening to you again. Maybe!"

Moments later, a door slammed, signifying the end of the conversation and any upcoming conversations. James stared after his friend before nodding and sitting down. A good opportunity to catch up on my homework.

Meanwhile, Remus was fuming in their dormitory. The entire day had been nothing but James complaining. First it was the injustice of Sirius's time with Lily, then it had been Peter hanging out with Sirius all day, and then it had been Sirius's apparent aptitude in all of their classes. James was finally finding competition, and it was completely annoying the hell out of him.

A sudden hacking cough alerted Remus to the very person who had just been proclaimed James's "mortal" enemy. He spun around to see Sirius on his bed with his textbook open in front of him. He had his hand covering his mouth has he coughed. Remus went to sit on his bed and waited for him to stop coughing.

When he stopped, Remus asked him, worriedly, "Are you alright? That cough didn't sound too good."

Sirius shrugged and forced a smile. His eyes were bright from the force of the cough. "I'm fine. I just have a bit of a cold. I've been sneezing and coughing and sniffling all day. It's positively miserable. But no more so than this homework that Professor McGonagall decided she wanted us to do. It's absolute busy-work if you ask me. Then again, I can completely see the point of it. I know that some students take only a little bit of time to understand the material while others could study for months and still not get it. Unfortunately I am in the first category. Honestly, I would like the just be in the happy medium category. That way I wouldn't have to study something completely confusing that I couldn't comprehend for months, but also the work wouldn't be considered busy-work. Do you get it?"

Remus stared at the dark-haired boy with wide eyes. After two days of saying almost nothing at all, he wouldn't shut up. "Yeah…I get it," he muttered after a few minutes.

Silence fell between the two of them. "So…who did you see die?" Remus asked, finally gathering up the courage to ask the question that had been bothering him since Sirius had mentioned the winged dragon things.

Sirius looked up, shocked and confused. "How did you know-?"

"You mentioned the winged dragon things last night. They're called threstrals and only people who have witnessed death can see them," he explained in a passive voice.

Sirius stared at him for a moment before softly answering, "I don't know. I mean, I know who I saw die, I just don't know his name or personality or life or…anything. It was murder. I was waiting in a store in Nocturne Alley. My father had been doing some business with the owner of the store and I was wandering around the store, examining all the creepy things. As I neared the window, I saw these cloaked and hooded figures come out from the shadows, pushing some man. They had their wands pointed at him. He was totally defenseless, cowering on the ground. He never had a chance. They muttered some curse I guess and the next thing I knew he was dead." Sirius laughed bitterly all of a sudden. "The sad thing is, my father came up from behind me and watched the entire thing without saying or doing anything. After the man was dead, he said to me, 'That man was weak. We are powerful. It is our job to get rid of people like that'."

Remus listened to Sirius wordlessly. That must have been a horrible thing to witness. "I'm sorry," he said softly, looking at the teenager compassionately, hoping that he wouldn't mistranslate it for pity.

Sirius smiled grimly. "Why? You weren't the one who taunted the man before killing him with his own wand."

"How do you know they did it with the man's wand?" asked Remus, now completely confused. If Sirius had no idea who the man even was, then how would he know little petty details of his murder?

Sirius turned a slight shade of red and turned away from Remus, as if suddenly embarrassed. Remus raised his eyebrows. There was more to the story than Sirius had obviously told. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, the door burst open and James stalked in angrily. "Who does she think she is? Giving me a lecture about "kindness and respect". I'll show her kindness and respect!"

Remus rolled his eyes and lay back on his bed, exasperated. Sirius looked relieved as he turned back to his homework. James shot Sirius a glare and then went over to his own bed. The door opened again and Peter trudged in, looking sheepish and slightly afraid.

"Hey guys," he said, walking over to his bed and sitting down as James had just done. "How you all doing?"

James's anger at Peter rose up again and he stood up in frustration. "How do you think we're all doing? I mean, not only do you completely abandon us, but you spend the entire day with the scum of Gryffindor!"

Sirius, who was now focusing on his homework, stiffened, but didn't otherwise respond to James's harsh words. Remus looked at him reproachfully but knew that any reprimanding words would be a pointless waste of breath. Peter looked momentarily angry but quickly took on a defeated expression.

"Well, you guys were being really mean to him and I thought it might be fun to be nice to him and get to know him and I wasn't really thinking much about how you might feel towards all this but Susan said it would be a good idea and he's not that bad and is actually really funny and he's incredibly smart and nice and…you can't possibly blame me for wanting to make friends and considering I know what it's like to be an outcast I thought that I would remedy that and…" he trailed off, gasping for breath as he did so.

Remus and James looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Wow," muttered Remus, shaking his head in wonderment. "How the heck did you get all of those words in one sentence and still manage to make it grammatically correct?"

"I've got a better question." James countered. "How did you say it all without passing out?"

The three of them laughed at that comment and immediately the tensions between them were healed. Sirius, however, had frozen, a slightly confused look on his face. That was quickly replaced by anger as his eyes narrowed and a low growl emitted from his throat.

"So that's how it went, aye?" he asked in a dangerously low voice. For the first time since he had met Sirius, Remus could see how Sirius could be a potentially dangerous enemy should something terrible happen between them. "I was treated badly so you decided to treat me with pity? Is that how it goes? You don't really want me to be your friend? I just make you look good. That must be it, right? Obviously I'm not worth befriending without some ulterior motive." Sirius stood up angrily. He was trembling in his fury. "Well, I'll tell you what. Save your pity for someone who needs it! For that matter, save your "friendship" for someone who doesn't mind being used!"

With those words said, he stormed out of the dormitory, slamming the door as he went.

A.N. Crappy ending. I'm confused. Peter was gonna be a bigger character but then I remembered that he drives me crazy. So…he's gonna be mildly big. I think. I don't know. I understood the story a lot better before I wrote this chapter. Anyways, please review. Thanks for reading. Laterz!