A/N I FINISHED A QUIZ WITH FORTY MINUTES TIL MY NEXT CLASS! EPIC WIN! So yeah. Now I'm just using that time wisely: FAAANFIC TIIIIME! Also, listening to my sad playlist… and as soon as I typed that I switched it to my happy playlist. Ok, well on with the fic! Enjoy!

Train Rides

It was, indeed, a difficult summer. Sirius was working fulltime in Flourish and Blotts. Remus eventually decided to get a part-time job there as well, it seeming perfect since he loved books, but soon found that working with Sirius was not easy.

The first reason for this was that Sirius was prone to being very distracting, either on purpose, needing constant attention, or accidentally, merely being too beautiful for his own good. They seemed to find themselves making out constantly when their boss wasn't around. This was not the best way to get a promotion, but they mostly made up for it by staying a bit late and cramming in a bit of extra work when the other wasn't around.

The other reason was that, once the excitement of working together wore off, things became, essentially, like a normal job. Without the distraction of each other being exciting, Sirius started to reveal his moodiness. At first, Remus was okay with this. The man was just disowned from his family. He's aloud to be a bit unhappy, even if said family was a group of rich, proud, homophobic criminals.

As a group, the marauders had always had their individual issues, but none of them had ever had financial trouble that was really bad enough to worry them. Sirius, in this category, had, in fact, always been the privileged one. He had never rubbed it in their faces, though. That was an unspoken agreement. James, for instance, never rubbed it in Sirius' face that his family was pretty much perfect. Peter didn't really have anything to gloat about except chess skills, so they let him do that out of kindness. That was their way of not gloating about having things to gloat about. Point is, the marauders were all very accepting about what troubles their friends had, and always tried to help.

Sirius didn't want their help. Pride was one of the few traits he had inherited from his family.

Towards the end of the summer, Remus had become less tolerant of Sirius' moodiness. It was going too far. They started to fight. They weren't bad fights, it was just that they were happening at all that bothered the couple. They had bickered before, but were never really mad. It had always been about distractions when Remus was studying or something or another like that.

"Hey, Moony, open the window, would you?" asked Sirius as the train started to move.

"It's warm in here."

"It's freezing!"

"If you're so cold, open it yourself," muttered Remus, his face buried in a book. Peter and James exchanged glances. The last time they had seen the two, they had been buying their books, and, in comparison to the visits earlier in the summer, they had sensed a lot of tension. Now they were sure it was there. Usually one of them would have just agreed with the other. The conversation should have gone as follows:

"Hey, Moony, would you please open the window?"

"Oh, of coarse!" and Remus would open the window.

Or:

"Hey, can you open the window, love?"

"I'm actually a bit chilly, if you don't mind us keeping it closed."

"Okay, I'll just roll up my sleves." And then Remus would admire the quidditch muscles on Sirius' arms, and Peter or James would poke fun at him.

Either scenario would have been preferable.

"Hey, Pete," said Sirius, grinning. Peter looked up. "What say you we go find Snivellus?" Peter mimicked his grin and stood.

"We'll be back soon," he said, and the two exited.

James looked out the window, into the hall, watching his friend leave, and then turned back to Remus. Remus was still immersed in his book.

"What's up?"

"Reading…"

"Again, what's up?"

. . .

"Sirius and you have been fighting?"

"when did you become insightful?" muttered Remus grumpily, shutting the book and looking at James.

"Well, you really should give me more credit. I noticed you and Sirius liked each other before you two even told each other."

"Oh yeah," said Remus, seemingly uninterested.

"Come on. I'm a marauder. I can read your mind," said James, moving over to Remus' side of the compartment.

"It was just… a tough summer…"

"Summer. Ah," said James skeptically.

"what?"

"People have been talking about how hard the summer was or would be lately. Is it really gonna change in the year? Sirius has some issues right now, and, I know, I'm pointing out the obvious there, but really I don't want to see things end badly between you two, not just because you're both my friends, but because Sirius really needs you right now. If you two are having trouble, I think you should address that now, before it's too late."

"James, thanks, but we're not in trouble. We've been fighting a bit, but who hasn't? It'll go away," Remus said, rejecting the topic completely, hinting that a change might be nice.

"Okay, whatever you say. But Moony, if you need to talk to me, you can. But I really suggest you talk to Sirius, first." Remus nodded.

"Thanks."

"No prob! That's what friends are for, and all that."

"HAHAHAHAHAH!" came the sound of Sirius and Peter's laughter as they threw open the door. Sirius and Peter collapsed on the opposite side of the compartment. James noticed that Sirius didn't even seem to register the fact that James had stolen his place beside his boyfriend, something he usually wouldn't stand for. Remus noticed too.

"That was great!"

"Brilliant!"

"What?"

"We charmed his underwear to the outside of his pants as he was walking back from the bathroom! He didn't even notice till he was back and sitting with all his friends and they were laughing at him!"

"Brilliant!"

"Nice."

"Immature…" (A/N ALARM CLOCKS KILL DREAMS!)

"You're no fun," said Peter, glaring at Remus.

"it's not that. I just could've thought of something better," said Remus nonchalantly, looking at his book as if considering weather or not to keep reading it.

"Oh really?" asked Sirius, skeptically.

"Sirius," said James warningly. "Do NOT take this challenge. It WILL be the end of you!"

"You're on," said Sirius, ignoring James. "Jamie's on my team!"

"There are teams?" asked James, right as Peter spoke up as well.

"What!? We were in this together!"

"Come on, Pete, I thought you liked to be on the winning team," said Remus, smirking.

Peter shrugged. This was true and he couldn't argue with it.

"Alright, Remus and me versus you and Jamie," he said to Sirius.

"If people are gonna keep throwing around that name like they don't know I hate it, I don't know if I want to be on anyone's team!" said James in a whiny voice.

"Truce!" announced Sirius. "You join my team and I won't call you J-A-M-I-E for. . . a week." … "A month."

"Let's get started!"

The four started planning this game. Remus, people were often surprised to hear, was just as mischievous as his friends, just far more discrete, preferring to be the mastermind behind a plot rather than the one actually pulling the prank. Less trouble.

In the end they decided that it would be the "Snivellus-tormenting tournament." The had from today, until the end of the first week, to pull brilliant pranks on Severus Snape. These were just the sort of game Marauders played. It was a little absurd.

"Ok," said James, looking at his watch. They liked to use as much time as possible to prank, so they would start at exactly 6 'o clock. They would end in exactly 168 hours. "go!"

The four of them ran in different directions with their team mate, and Severus Snape would remember this as the worst week of his school career.

Remus Lupin would remember it as the week leading up to the dumbest fight in history. The week leading up his first break-up.

A/N ok… these last two have been short. I added the whole snape thing to the end because I realized how short it was and it's STILL short! :'( Yeah. Also, Sirius and Remus were going to break up in the next chapter, but this is just how things turn out. Yeah. PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAASE REVIEEEEEEW!!!!!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo