Author's Note: Sorry guys, I think I got a bit dramatic in this chapter also! If you think it's too much, let me know and I'll see if I can't think of some way to tone it down. Also, if you think it's just right (or even not enough) I'd be happy to hear that as well. I get the feeling I don't have a very good dramatic moment gauge built in so I can certainly use all the feedback I can get. :)

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"So what should we do now?" James asked, leaning back from the table-completely stuffed.

"We could…go out onto the grounds," Peter said, looking nervously up at James.

"Yeah, yeah we could do that," James said, looking down the table to where Sirius and Remus were laughing and talking together. They could've been down there too if he'd just apologized to Peter for splattering him with porridge. What was so hard about saying you were sorry anyhow? "Let's go," he added as he caught Remus looking up the table at them.

They headed out to the grounds and James spotted a nice big tree by the side of the Black Lake. "Let's head over there," he said, pointing to it.

They were halfway across the meadow when James heard a voice call his name. Turning around, he was surprised to see a gaggle of students, mostly sixth years, with Sirius' cousins among them.

"Oh this boy?" Bellatrix asked, giggling. "He's a friend of my cousin," she added, a hand reaching for her wand.

"No, Bella. Let me deal with them," a tall boy with white-blonde hair and a shiny green Prefect's Badge plastered on the front of his robes said, drawing his own wand. "I hear from a member of my house that you have been less than respectful toward him."

"Your house?" James asked, his hazel eyes narrowing. "Funny-I don't think it has your name on it."

"Why you cheeky little-"

"Leave them alone!" James turned around and caught sight of Emmeline Vance and Edgar Bones running across the field over to them, wands out.

"Malfoy, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing? You're a prefect for Pete sakes!" Edgar shouted red in the face as he dodged a spell from a member of Malfoy's gang.

"Get behind me," he said sternly, stepping in front of Peter and James as Emmeline, a step behind him, put a protective barrier between them and the Slytherins.

"Edgar, get in here!" she shouted, her voice muffled by the shield charm.

"I think, Bones, that I am exercising a little discipline on a couple of our young colleagues," he said, a nasty smile drifting over his face as he looked behind him, his grey eyes meeting James'.

"Leave them alone," Edgar repeated, blocking the two younger boys from view even as Emmeline mirrored the action behind him, wand drawn in case the shield failed.

"This isn't your fight, Bones. This is between Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"Damned if it isn't!" he said hotly and Emmeline covered her mouth, she'd never heard Edgar use such language before. "You or your gang pick on anyone in this school, Malfoy, and it's my fight," he said, tapping the Head Boy badge on his chest and aiming his wand at the sixth year.

He had had enough of him and his gang, he'd heard rumors from members of his own house as to what they'd been getting up to last year and none of it was good; hexing students out of their way in the halls, handing out detentions if someone so much as looked at them wrong. Why Dumbledore had given the job of Prefect to scum like Malfoy was beyond him. But Slytherin had to have some prefects, he supposed, no matter how much they abused their powers.

"Well Bones, are you going to fight me, or not?" Malfoy taunted, inclining his head toward him in a small bow, inviting him to a duel.

"Just you or is your gang involved?"

"My…gang did you call them?" he asked, a half-smile sliding on to his face. "Will keep their wands down; this one is just you and me, Bones. I hope you're ready for it."

"Oh too ready," Edgar said, bowing, straightening quickly as he felt a spell shoot over his back to smack into the shield behind him. He flashed a very worried looking Emmeline a small smile before turning back into the fight a hungry look coming into his usually warm brown eyes. Malfoy was going to pay, once and for all.

But when Edgar was blasted off his feet moments later, Emmeline turned to James and said, "Get McGonagall, this is going too far."

James grit his teeth, his hand tightening over his wand as Malfoy began a sort of tap dance and toppled to the ground, his legs still kicking madly.

"James!"

"No, I want to watch!" he said fiercely and Emmeline turned to Peter in desperation and the small boy ran off, heading back to the castle as fast as his small legs could carry him.

"Come on, Bones, surely that's not the best you can do?" Malfoy hissed, ending the jinx on his legs, and swung his wand down in a quick slashing motion.

Edgar clapped a hand across his wand arm where blood was beginning to flow freely and aimed a stinging hex at Malfoy and as disfiguring and undoubtedly painful boils spread over his face, the rest of his gang leapt to action as Edgar fired a well aimed Bat-bogey hex at them. But he didn't come away empty handed for his cheek as Narcissa shrieked and hit Edgar with a jelly-legs jinx and he sank slowly to the ground, looking rather surprised.

"That's quite enough of that!" a stern voice called and Malfoy looked toward the new voice, wand raised as he covered his face with a hand.

"I'll be taking that from you, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said and caught Malfoy's wand as it flew out of his hand.

"Edgar!" Emmeline called, rushing to his side as the shield she'd cast crumbled around them.

"See, Emm, I knew you cared," he said, smiling weakly, as she hauled him to his feet, shocked to see the blood dripping from his robes.

"Professor!" she called worriedly as she rolled back the sleeve to see the deep gash on his forearm.

McGonagall took one look and said, "Hospital wing, Bones. See he gets there, Ms. Vance?"

Emmeline nodded and draped his uninjured arm about her shoulder and they departed for the castle, moving across the lawn as fast as Emmeline could manage with the weight. Boys! she thought angrily, shaking her head.

"Now then, Mr. Potter, Mr. Pettigrew, I would be most interested in hearing your part in this," she said, rounding on them.

"Well we were just out here on the grounds," James began.

"-minding our own business."

"Yes, minding our own business when Malfoy and his gang show up and start talking about somebody or other that we apparently offended. Honestly I have no idea who he's talking about," James added.

McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "I doubt you do," she said shortly. "Did they-?" she looked from the second wand in her hand to them and James shook his head.

"Oh no, not even. They'd just begun to get nasty when Emm and Ed showed up. She put up this protective barrier thing and Ed basically told them to lay off or else when they attacked him."

"Right," Professor McGonagall said, turning back to the Slytherins. "I am absolutely appalled by your behavior!" she said, anger coloring her voice as they stared back at her haughtily. "You are, several of you, among the brightest students in your year. Make no mistake, I will be notifying your head of house and you all can have detention with me on Monday, which stands no matter what Professor Slughorn decides to do with you."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes menacingly. "My father-"

"Your father would be interested in knowing the grade you received on your last essay, Mr. Malfoy," she said, returning him his wand, satisfied that something she had said had finally punctured his cool exterior.

"Now then, back to the castle with you two," she said, motioning for Peter and James to walk in front of her as she cast an angry glance back toward the Slytherins who were now talking quietly amongst themselves, shooting hate-filled glances at James and Peter's backs. "I'm late to my own class," she muttered, and hurried past them.

Remus and Sirius who had played a few games of Wizard's Chess in the Great Hall against Mary and Caradoc, looked up at the collective scraping of chairs, surprised to see a rather large group of Slytherins leaving their table and heading out onto the grounds with Snape at their head.

"That looks like trouble," Sirius said airily and the two Hufflepuffs turned to see the Slytherins slinking out of the door.

"Got that right," mate, Caradoc said as he pushed one of his pawns onto the last square on the far side of the board. "King me!" he said, grinning.

"That's checkers, dear," a feminine voice said and Sirius was surprised to see Alice slide onto the bench next to him. "Lily decided to get started on that essay for Binns," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Sounds like Evans," Sirius muttered, flipping the pawn over onto its' flat head where it protested rather loudly.

"This is not my idea of being queened!" It called out in a deep male voice which sent the first years into giggles. "What is so funny?" It demanded, glaring at them all upside-down.

"It's just…I've never met a queen with such a deep voice before," Caradoc said between laughs.

"Well I've never seen such a terrible chess player!" the little man said, shaking his fist in what should have been a menacing gesture…but really only turned out to add to the hilarity as he smacked his hand onto the board and uttered a stream of rather choice curses.

"Oh dear," Mary said, blushing even as the bell rang, drowning out the foul words of the chess pawn.

"That's enough out of you," Sirius said, picking up the little man and chucking him into the velvet bag in which he carried his chess set. "Don't know where he learned words like that, cheeky little fellow."

"I couldn't imagine where," Remus said loftily, grinning at Sirius as the five of them headed back to the grand staircase to go to Transfiguration.

Frank joined them just outside the Great Hall and Sirius looked at him in surprise. His face was flushed and he looked sweaty as if he'd just run a lap around the grounds. "James and Peter…have you heard?"

At their blank stares, Frank thought not, but then again how could they when it had just happened. "They were attacked!" he said, catching his breath. "Oh no," he added at the stricken looks on Mary and Alice's faces. "Nothing like that, they're alright. It's just that that Snape kid, you know the one you made fun of this morning? Well he sent a bunch of Slytherins on James when he was out in that meadow just by the lake. They said some nasty things but the head boy and girl stepped in just in the nick of time."

"Oh Edgar? He's alright, isn't he," Mary asked, concerned.

"And what about Emmeline? She alright too, isn't she?"

Frank nodded. "As good a shape as you can be after a duel with Slytherins."

Mary gasped. "Oh no. Edgar!"

"As far as I could tell, he had them all get behind him and fought them all off while Emmeline held up some sort of invisible wall between the three of them. She sent Peter off to get McGonagall after they knocked Ed down the first time," he added.

Mary looked like she was near tears and Sirius draped an arm about her shoulders while Caradoc whispered in her ear.

"I know," she said worriedly, almost tripping at the top of the flight of stairs they'd just climbed. "It's just that this is our first real day here and the Slytherins are already being awful."

"Yeah well, that's what they do," Sirius said, a bit of the morning's temper bleeding into his voice as they turned down the Transfiguration Corridor. His hand tightened on her shoulder as he thought about whether his cousins had been involved, knowing instinctively that they had been.

"Uh Sirius?" Mary said softly and he turned to look at her, his hand falling away from her quickly and disappearing into one of the pockets of his robes as they entered the classroom.

"Right, sorry Mary," he said as he held the door open for his little group to enter, he himself following as a sort of rear, casting a suspicious glance about the corridor before entering.

Remus chuckled. "Think Slytherins are hiding behind every corner, now, do you?"

Sirius shook his head, not taking the joke. "I don't trust my cousins, is more like it."

Remus nodded understandingly and went to sit at a table near the front.

"Remus?" a soft voice called and he turned to see Mary waving at him from her table.

"Isn't it full?" he asked, softly, not looking at the chairs but at Lily, Alice, Caradoc, and Mary who were already seated.

"Nah, this fellow holds six," Caradoc said, running a hand across the cherry wood finish of the table with a pleased smile on his face.

"Oh. Alright then," Remus said and seated himself across from Mary who was seated beside Lily.

His blue eyes caught the face she made as the two boys sat down and was confused for a moment until Alice whispered, "He was perfectly nice on the way up here, Lily. Just because he said something mean about Severus' hair this morning doesn't make him a bad person. And besides, your darling Slytherin set his mates on his friends, this afternoon."

Lily's eyes widened in disbelief. "Sev wouldn't do something like that," she said, beginning to protest as the door to the Transfiguration Room was flung open and a rather flustered looking Professor McGonagall entered, followed by Peter and James.

"Sorry about my lateness, class. I had a small matter of discipline to take care of. Now then," she added, scooping up a piece of chalk from her desk and turning to an old-fashioned chalkboard easel and began to write on it, glad of something to do with her hands.

Transfiguration the board now read.

"Transfiguration is the art of changing something into something else. Like a piece of chalk into a pen," she said and, with a slight jab of her wand-the piece of chalk became a pen which she tossed onto the desk. "Or," she added, putting her wand down onto the table. "A human into an animal." And, almost as quickly as the words were out of her mouth, a tabby cat walked out from underneath the desk; familiar spectacle markings around it's' eyes.

As she resumed her human form, she smiled slightly amidst the impressed applause from her class. "That," she added, picking up a fresh piece of chalk. "Is called Animagi Transformation," she said, underlining the words before continuing. "It is a very difficult branch of magic that I will not even begin to discuss with you until your fifth year when you enter your NEWT level courses, provided your marks are high enough then to continue on with Transfiguration."

"Today," she said, walking over to a cabinet and pulling out what looked like a shoebox, the contents of which rattled as she brandished it at a nearby student, bidding him to pass out whatever was inside to his classmates. "You will have but two hours to practice turning these matches," she held up one for them to see. "Into needles."

Not bothering to write with the chalk this time, she merely pointed her wand at the blackboard which now read:

Transfiguration

Animagi Transformation

Today's Lesson: Matches into Needles

"If you'll turn to your books, Mr. Switch has an adequate entry on how to go about doing this. I, however, will be available to answer any questions you might have."

James silently wished that he never had to ask Professor McGonagall a question as long as he lived. Peter apparently thought the same thing because he was flicking through his book so quickly that he actually ripped out a page.

"Here, Peter," James said kindly, reaching for the book.

"Reparo," Remus muttered, pointing his wand at the book.

James started as the page resealed itself in his hand and muttered his thanks as he caught Remus turning back around in his seat.

"Here ya go, Pete," he said, frowning slightly as he handed the book back.

"So how d'you reckon we do this?" Caradoc asked, staring at the match in front of him.

"Just jab the wand at it, I suppose," Sirius said, disinterestedly jabbing his wand at the thing and thinking about how lovely it would be to stab Bellatrix with something as sharp and dangerous as a needle. He laughed, continuing to prod the match with his wand as he imagined chasing her throughout Hogwarts, the object glinting silver in his hand.

"Oi, Sirius, I think you've done it, mate!" Remus said, impressed.

Lily frowned. "Give me that!" she snapped, seizing the shiny object from under Sirius' nose. "Ow!" she muttered, jamming her pricked finger in her mouth and offering the needle back to Sirius.

"Sorry about that, Evans," he muttered sheepishly. "Vindictive little bugger," he added, looking down at the needle which abruptly slid across his hand and lanced one of his own fingers. "Yowch, that hurt!" he cried, pulling the needle out and shutting it in his book. Sucking his wounded finger, he looked over at Lily and grinned, his mouth widening around the finger in his mouth.

Lily couldn't help herself. Black looked like such a goofy idiot grinning like that that she burst into a fit of giggles herself, looking thoroughly mortified when Professor McGonagall bore down on their table, lips pursed.

"Where is your match, Mr. Black? And why are we sucking our fingers, Ms. Evans? I was under the impression I was teaching eleven year olds, not infants."

"Well," Lily quickly pulled her finger out of her mouth and wrapped it in the hem of her robe. "Sirius seems to have conjured a particularly vicious needle. It, well, bit me…for lack of a better word, Professor."

"You successfully transfigured your match into a needle, Black?" Professor McGonagall said, raising her eyebrows in surprise. That had to be a new record for a beginning student.

Sirius nodded. "I sort of jabbed it with my wand and kept thinking of needles until Remus over here interrupted me and…there was the needle," he added pointing to his empty workspace.

"May I see this needle, Mr. Black?"

Sirius blushed, reaching for his book, Transfiguration for Beginners, and began to flick through the pages until he uncovered the shiny needle lying deceptively calm in the middle of the page. But as she reached for it, he slammed the book shut. "I won't do that Professor," he said in response to her angered look.

"Mr. Black, I cannot properly assess the completeness of your transfigured needle unless I handle it myself!" she said, seizing the book from him and flicking through the pages until she saw the shining needle lying on the page. It looked like it was asking to be picked up and she obliged, turning it over in her hands, a frown crossing her face as it slipped and sliced a narrow gash across her palm, much like a paper cut. Sirius winced when he saw that and the others began to busy themselves with their own matches. "Just exactly what about needles were you thinking, Mr. Black?" she asked evenly, sealing the cut with her wand.

"I-I was thinking about my cousins. I heard about that incident with Edgar and I was…angry I suppose."

McGonagall nodded as if that had been the answer she'd been hoping for. "Very well," she said, sighing. "News does travel fast around here, doesn't it?"

The rest of Transfiguration went off without a hitch, though many people received homework from McGonagall for failing to transfigure their matches in the two hours.

"Don't worry, Mary. I'm sure that you'll get loads of help from your House this weekend," Remus said, attempting to console her as they headed down to dinner. "Or I suppose you could meet us in the library tomorrow," he added looking over at Sirius who started.

"Why the library?" he asked, confused.

"We do have two essays due on Monday. And I'm sure Peter could use the time to practice transfiguration as well," he said patiently as they entered the Great Hall.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Maybe!" she said, smiling. "Have a good dinner!"

"You too," Lily said, also waving at the departing Hufflepuff pair. "You know," she said sitting beside Remus (mostly because it was far away from James Potter). "If you boys are busy with Peter, I'm sure that Alice and I wouldn't mind tutoring Mary, would we Alice?" she asked, consulting her friend who had just taken a large helping of mashed potatoes.

"What? Oh no, no of course not. Besides, I didn't get it quite right either. Apparently my needle 'lacked appropriate luster' or some such nonsense. Either way, if I can't scrape a proper needle together by Monday, I'll probably be hearing from Mum about how Gid always did brilliantly in Transfiguration…and then she'll probably write him and I'll get this dull letter about the fact that he's off doing something important and doesn't have time to write out a Transfiguration Lesson and the letter is much longer that way, I think, than if he'd just wrote out the advice like Mum asked him to in the first place! She does that a lot," she said in response to Sirius' wide-eyed stare.

"Oh look, Emm's back!" Remus said, waving to her. "Wonder if she's heard anything about Edgar yet?" he added, but his speculations were quickly drowned out by a cheer from the Hufflepuff table as their Head Boy limped into the Great Hall making a late entrance.

Among the well wishers and supporters, Remus was slightly surprised to see, was Sirius who gave a rather loud whoop upon seeing the lanky seventh year returning.

"Anyone who my cousins don't like is a friend to me," he said simply, busying himself with his pudding.

Remus sighed and looked over at Edgar for a moment, he was smiling, despite the massive bandage over his arm and then he turned his gaze back to Sirius who looked moody and cold as he stabbed at a piece of squash with his fork several times before he managed to spear it. It was strange, but there was so much about him that Remus felt he was missing out on, so much that he wasn't sure he'd ever understand…that was one thing that his day with Sirius Black had taught him. Another thing was that he realized that for once in his life, he wanted to be there for someone as much as other people had been there for him. Perhaps a loose cannon like Sirius would turn out to be good for him in the long run.

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End Note: I'm not sure I'll be able to get any writing time in tomorrow as I have a funeral to go to out of town, so there may not be an update tomorrow, depending. But once again, and I hope I'm not annoying you all by saying this so many times, but I really do appreciate everyone for reading this and I really honestly do hope that you all are having a good time. And also, if there's a character you'd like to see or just see more of, feel free to let me know (I know I've kind of been neglecting Snape...just not in my nature to include him. But he has been in just about every chapter I think...even if he is doing sneaky, unpleasant things.)