Author's Note: I re-vamped the chapter structure on July 15, 2020, to go from 11 enormous chapters to 25 reasonably sized ones. I didn't change or add anything, except fixing some typos or grammatical things, so there is no need to re-read.

Apologies if you got a message and though there was an update to the sequel. There will be one in the next day or two!

Weeks passed without anything more exciting happening than Quidditch practice and his continued meetings with Janice in the library. She had apparently thoroughly enjoyed his gift—in fact, she wore her new hair combs nearly every day, and she had informed him that she was only halfway through the guidebook of possible hairstyles that had come with it—and Sirius had thoroughly enjoyed her thanks. He thought that they must both be getting better at kissing, because it became more pleasant every time they did it.

He was also quite sure that Janice had been sharing the details of their encounters with her friends, because all of them were acting even sillier around him than usual. He had been tempted, therefore, to share the details with his own friends or with the various other first-, second-, and third-year boys who had asked him how far they'd gone, but he had discovered quite by accident that leaving a shroud of mystery over it only made him all the more popular. Apparently other boys were quite happy to assume the worst—or was that the best?—if left to fill in the details for themselves.

As for Quidditch, Thomas was pressing them harder than ever in light of their earlier loss against Slytherin. Given that their next match wasn't until the second week in March, Sirius found the intense practice schedule to be a bit ridiculous. He had even implemented Muggle techniques!

"When I was home over the holidays," Thomas had informed them at their first team meeting of the term, "I talked with my brother about how practices are handled for his football team."

There had followed a long explanation of exactly what Muggle football was, but to Sirius it had sounded deadly dull—not even any flying, or balls that could kill you!—and the only thing he had really gleaned from the whole affair was that they were now expected to run about and do various Muggle exercises at the start of every practice.

He thought about quitting the team, but he figured that might be a bit suspicious to everyone. Plus Potter would probably murder him in his sleep.

At the end of February, they all trudged down to the pitch with the rest of the student body to watch the Ravenclaw versus Slytherin match. The only notable exception was Remus, who had apparently taken ill again the night before. Sirius had noticed that he looked a bit peaky the day before, but he hadn't thought the other boy had needed the hospital wing. James had announced that he was carrying Lupin to the infirmary and that they didn't need anyone else to go with them, and off they had gone by themselves. It had all been suspicious, of course, but Sirius hadn't been able to quickly think of a way to follow them without being detected.

Maybe I should ask Rabastan how he's been avoiding me, he thought to himself, not a little bitterly.

Still, he found himself secretly cheering for Slytherin—secretly because his friends and fellow Gryffindors had looked absolutely horrified when he had tried to do it openly—and for Lestrange in particular. Every time the commentator announced "LESTRANGE SCORES!" he felt his heart clench a little bit and remembered that night last winter when he had overheard Rabastan and Malfoy talking about him.

Slytherin annihilated Ravenclaw three hundred and seventy to sixty, so the commentator said Lestrange's name quite a lot.

After the game, James and Thomas had gone off to sulk and plot out any conceivable way that Gryffindor might still win the Quidditch Cup given Slytherin's now enormous lead in points, and Remus still hadn't returned, so Sirius and Peter took the opportunity to sneak down to their room in the dungeons.

"My grandfather wrote to me about your father's potions books," he told his friend. "Here, listen to this: 'In my limited potions experience, the annotations seem quite spot on and the new recipes promising. Your father agrees. I will have him brew one of the more useful potions and test the results, and if all goes as planned perhaps your friend would like to discuss having a potions master look the books over.' That sounds promising. Maybe you can sell some of your father's inventions and make a few Galleons."

Peter seemed quite excited by the news from Arcturus, but he was obviously conflicted about Sirius's idea. He shook his head. "I'm not sure I want to sell them. They're all I have left of my father, you know? It would be like selling his body to be harvested for ingredients. I'll have to think about it."

Sirius didn't comprehend it at all, actually, but then again he figured that he really ought not to try to understand what it would be like to lose a parent when he still had almost his entire family, except for his paternal grandmother.

They studied in silence for a while longer, Peter doing his Astronomy homework and Sirius reading out of a new Dark Arts book he'd bought over Christmas and occasionally trying out a spell.

Then Peter broke in with, "Sirius, can I borrow your moon chart? I left mine in the dorm."

"Oh, yeah, hold on."

Since Sirius's book bag came equipped with an Undetectable Extension Charm and a Featherlight Charm, he always carried all of his books with him at all times just for convenience. He had already handed the moon chart over to Peter and settled back onto his table when the thought hit him like a ton of bricks. He leapt back down from the table and was already halfway across the room before Peter could react.

"Let me see that!" He snatched the chart out of Peter's grasp without waiting for a reaction, and a few moments later he was staggering backwards as if he'd been hit in the stomach with a Bludger.

Peter grabbed onto his forearm as if he was afraid that Sirius might fall over.

"What's wrong?" he asked in alarm.

Sirius laid the chart onto the desk and pointed at two of the dates. "There was a full moon last night and on the night before my birthday!" His friend still looked alarmed and more than a little confused, and Sirius flung his hands in the air in agitation. "Lupin! He's been ill on the nights of the full moon!"

"Wha—what?" stuttered Peter, turning to consult the moon chart as if he might find that Sirius had been mistaken.

"It all makes sense…." Sirius was pacing back and forth between the desk and the door of the small room, muttering more to himself than to his friend. "Except it doesn't make sense at all!"

Certainly lycanthropy made sense of a lot of Lupin's symptoms, now that Sirius had a theory and the benefit of hindsight. He was always ill about once a month, then tired for several days, then perfectly fine for about three weeks until he suddenly became tired and quite irritable, then he had to spend another night in the hospital wing. (Only Sirius really doubted that a werewolf was actually spending time in the infirmary during full moons, which meant that the professors, or at least the school nurse, had to be in on it!)

Except Sirius had been taught his entire life that werewolves were little better than dangerous, mindless beasts even when the moon wasn't full. He remembered that his grandfather had once come home quite agitated because there had been a case about a werewolf who ate human flesh and infected others even without a full moon. But he'd been sharing a dorm with Remus for over a year and half, and the other boy had never been violent or appeared dangerous that he could remember.

It made so much sense, and yet it shouldn't make sense.

"What do we do?" Peter asked him, his eyes wide.

Sirius shook his head in disbelief. "Maybe two dates is just a coincidence? We don't remember the exact dates of the other times he was sick, so I think we should wait and see if he's sick again on the next full moon before we do anything."

However, he really didn't think that he was going to be able to act completely normal around the other boy while they waited.

That agreed, Sirius and Peter found that they were both too distracted to be productive, so they began to make their way back towards the common room. It turned out that Sirius was correct about not being able to act completely normal around Remus, but they both tried valiantly. He seemed as mild tempered as ever, and he even asked them about the Quidditch match he'd missed and asked Peter if he wanted to work on their Charms essays together.

Over the next days and weeks, Sirius convinced himself quite thoroughly that he had been wrong. There was absolutely no way a boy like Remus Lupin could be a werewolf, and he was certain that when the next full moon came he and Peter would laugh at themselves for their suspicions. Therefore, he soundly put it out of his mind as much as possible.

He found that pouring his energy into his animosity towards Snape and his anger at Rabastan worked quite well as distractions. James's hatred for Snape had apparently been firmly cemented after the incident in the entrance hall, as he was sure that the Slytherin had hit him with some sort of Dark curse and he still hated anything to do with the Dark Arts. Although his friend's attitude towards the Arts was quite troubling, Sirius was glad for his willingness to target Snape.

They had begun a quest to hex or jinx the other boy as much as possible, everything from turning his robes different colors to more serious attacks whenever they caught him alone in the corridors. Snape had given almost as good as he got, of course, and they had earned themselves a month's worth of detentions within a couple of weeks, but Sirius thought it was a small price to pay.

Not to mention that it actually seem to raise their social status among the younger students, who apparently saw them as some sort of fearless heroes for getting so many detentions.

Rabastan was another kind of problem entirely, one that Sirius found that he couldn't ask for any help with. Certainly his Gryffindor friends were not going to help, and none of the Slytherins were in a position to offer aid either. After mulling it over and getting increasingly angry and frustrated the longer he went, Sirius came to a decision and made his way to the Slytherin common room. He didn't know the password, but it was nothing to strong arm a passing first year into giving it to him.

Everyone did a double take when he stomped purposefully across the dimly lit dungeon and straight towards his intended target. Rabastan was sitting at a table with Malfoy and a few older boys Sirius didn't know, and he looked horrified at the Gryffindor's approach.

"You!" Sirius declared, leaving no room for questions. Where he had only pointed in Rodolphus's direction over Christmas, he actually poked Rabastan hard in the chest.

Lestrange spluttered. "You—you poked me!"

Sirius ignored his indignation. "You will come with me right this instant or we will do this right here in front of everybody!"

Rabastan looked vaguely ill, but nonetheless he hauled himself up from his seat and, with the air of someone in a much more dignified position than he currently was, started off towards the stairs. Sirius allowed his icy glare to sweep across the room, particularly focusing on Lucilla Lestrange and Narcissa. Lucius's eyes gave away that he was impressed and a bit amused by the whole affair, but he only smiled blandly when Sirius looked in his direction. Then he spun on his heel and followed his target down to the sixth-year boys' dormitory.

Rabastan turned on him as soon as the heavy ebony door slammed shut behind them. "How dare you speak to me that way in front of the entire house!"

"How dare I?" cried Sirius, running a frustrated hand through his long hair. "You're lucky I decided to talk to you at all, but maybe I'll changed my mind if you're going to act like this!"

"You undermined my authority in front of everyone!"

Sirius had taken a step forward and shoved the larger boy as hard as he could before he'd even realized he'd done it. "You should have thought about that before you IGNORED ME LIKE AN ENORMOUS GIT!"

Taken by complete surprise, Rabastan stumbled backwards over a trunk and tumbled to the floor. Sirius panted from anger and exertion, and Rabastan stared up at him in shock and not a little anger. Sirius expected him to get back up and shove him back or hit him or at least pull his wand and hex him on the spot. But as the seconds ticked by, the anger drained from Rabastan's sapphire blue eyes until he was looking at Sirius with affection and contrition.

"I'm sorry for ignoring you."

Sirius was surprised enough at that response that it took him a few moments to respond.

"You had better be." He sniffed in disdain, then allowed a smile to crack his face. "I'm sorry I pushed you."

Rabastan held out his hand, and Sirius reached out to help him up only to find himself unceremoniously dragged down with him. "Oi!" he cried in protest, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been, given that he landed directly on top of his friend instead of on the stone. If Rabastan hadn't hastily shoved him off onto the floor, the situation probably would have been quite comfortable.

Lestrange looked embarrassed and uncomfortable, and Sirius figured that they needed to completely clear the air.

He reached out to poke the older boy in the ribs. "I don't care what your sister or my cousin said; if you ever act like such a Hufflepuff again, I'll turn you into a Puffskein and keep you as a pet—No! I'll give you to Bellatrix as a pet!"

"Merlin forbid!" Rabastan laughed. "You might as well just cast the Killing Curse on me if you're going to sentence me to a horrific death like that."

Sirius shrugged, and their shoulders rubbed together. "Then you wouldn't have time to accept your completely justified fate as a helpless Puffskein."

Rabastan laughed again. "All right, all right! You've made your point. I'm sorry I was such a coward about it, I really am…. It wasn't so much what they said as the idea that you might reject me, but I should have known you're too loyal to do that."

Sirius couldn't imagine any world in which he'd reject the friendship of someone like Rabastan. But, funnily enough given what he'd just yelled at his friend, he found that he was too cowardly to ask… or to ask about what he'd overheard in the changing rooms last November.

He figured that there was nothing else to say on the subject, so in a bid to say something—anything—he blurted out, "Nice game against Ravenclaw, by the way."

"Thanks," replied Rabastan. As he propped himself up onto his elbows, his shirtsleeves, which had already been rolled up out of the way of his hands, rode even further up his arms.

"You'll have to teach me that maneuver you pulled against Quirk," Sirius told him, rising up to mirror the other boy's position.

Rabastan snorted. "Not on your life, turn cloak."

Sirius barked out a single laugh and leaned over to nudge the Slytherin's shoulder with his own. Then he noticed the black ink peeking out from the edge of his friend's sleeve.

"When did you get a tattoo, Rab?"

He shot up away from Sirius suddenly, tugging down his sleeve as he went. "'Rab' now, is it?"

But Sirius didn't get to call him out on the weak attempt at changing the subject, because Malfoy shoved the door open and stopped short in the doorway, raising a pale eyebrow at their position sprawled across the floor. "There's an owl trying to get in for Black. Do bring him upstairs before it kills itself against the windows."

After that there was very little choice except to leave the Slytherin dungeons for the nearest window so that the owl could deliver its letter. He was annoyed to find that it was only a letter from his parents expressing their disappointment about his most recent detentions. He was doubly annoyed that his conversation with Rabastan had been interrupted just for that.

He was still scowling when he found his friends lounging in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room. Peter and Remus had moved together two of the armchairs and were playing on a chessboard they had levitated between themselves. James was sprawled on his back across the sofa, one of his legs propped up on the back and the other hanging over the side. Sirius shoved his legs out of the way and sat on the sofa.

"Oi!" James protested, dropping the book he'd been reading and giving Sirius a kick.

Sirius shoved him in return. After several seconds of struggling they ended up more or less comfortably sharing the narrow space, James's legs both thrown over the back of the couch and Sirius sprawled across the rest of it.

"Where've you been?" asked James.

Sirius shrugged and extended his wand to magically stoke the fire. "With Janice. What're you reading?"

James mirrored his shrug. "Strategies for the Successful Chaser by Joscelind Wadcock. I'm going to draw up some new plays to show Thomas. Hopefully we can start practicing them tomorrow."

"Well, Hufflepuff aren't very good, are they?" Sirius asked. He pushed James's leg further up the back of the couch and away from himself. "If you add even more to Thomas's already insane practice schedule, I swear I'll quit."

"It doesn't matter how good they are! If we underestimate our opponents—if we become complacent—that's when we'll lose!"

Sirius groaned and let his head fall back against the arm of the couch. "James, mate, we already practice more than enough. The only way we could possibly be more prepared is if we got our hands on Hufflepuff's playbook."

The other boy shot up from his relaxed position. Sirius gave a shout when his friend's legs connected with his head, but James was already speaking.

"Hufflepuff are practicing right now!" He sprung up from the sofa and stood over it looking down at Sirius. "Well, come on then!"

Sirius squinted up at him through the lamplight. "Come on what?"

But James grabbed his arm and hauled him up from the couch without answering. Sirius had half a mind to resist, but he was honestly curious what Potter was up to. He found himself dragged up the stairs and to their dormitory, where James, after looking around to make sure no one was in the vicinity, stepped inside and shut the door firmly behind them.

He moved to his trunk and started rifling through it, but soon enough he stopped and looked over his shoulder at Sirius. "You can't tell anyone else about this."

"All right," replied Sirius. What else could he say?

James stood, and with him came a mass of shimmering silver fabric. As Sirius looked on, he shook it out to reveal that it was a cloak.

"An Invisibility Cloak!" Sirius recognized it immediately. A few seconds later he cottoned on to James's plan. "You want to spy on the Hufflepuffs."

"Yes."

"It'd be cheating."

"Nah, bewitching the balls would be cheating. Spying is a time-honored tradition."

"Good point."

James grinned at him. "Agreed, Black?"

Sirius smirked back. "Agreed, Potter."

They realized as they were heading down the narrow tower stairs that perhaps they should have practiced. Sirius was tall for his age and James was an average almost-thirteen-year-old boy, and they didn't fit particularly well under the cloak together. There was plenty of room if they worked together, but one wrong move from one of them could have the other's feet showing.

By the time they'd reached the common room they had a system worked out reasonably well. At least Remus and Peter, who were still playing chess in the common room, didn't notice when James and Sirius passed by a few feet away from them on their way to the portrait hole. Neither did anyone else as they took the most direct route from the tower out to the pitch and climbed up into the stands.

"This is fantastic," Sirius told James. He fingered the silky fabric of the cloak as they watched the Hufflepuffs run through plays. "My grandfather told me that he once saved up his allowance for months to buy an Invisibility Cloak, but hisgrandfather confiscated it before he could get it to Hogwarts."

James laughed. "You Blacks are such sticklers for the rules. My mum would go bonkers if she knew Dad had let me bring this to school, so he told me that if she finds then out I'm on my own and better not rat him out if I know what's good for me."

Sirius doubted that James would have the same opinion if he knew how many laws his family members broke on a daily basis, even his Grandfather Arcturus from his position on the Wizengamot, but he was so pleased that James had acknowledged his mother as a Black that he wouldn't have dared say anything to ruin it.

He wondered suddenly if James would be friends with a werewolf, given his intense hatred for anything to do with the Dark Arts. Werewolves were Dark creatures, after all. The thought distracted him sufficiently to make him miss whatever play the Hufflepuffs had just run through, so he was at a loss when James exclaimed, "Did you see that? It's a good thing we're here to see it so we can prepare!"

"Potter… James…" he said, though he was still warring with himself over whether he should ask.

James shifted under the cloak to face him, not that there was enough room for much of that. "What is it?"

Sirius found himself blurting out, "Is Remus a werewolf?"

He could feel Potter go stiff next to him. Then, after several tense seconds, he asked, "When did you figure it out?"

Sirius almost fell off the bench.

It isn't that he hadn't expected it; he might have halfway convinced himself that he had to be wrong, but honestly he'd known in the back of his mind that there wasn't any better explanation. But he was still shocked. He couldn't reconcile the nice boy he'd lived with for nearly two years with all he'd ever heard about werewolves.

"I hadn't, for sure," he managed to say, though his voice cracked. "Until just now."

"I've known since the first term we were here. I suspect you would have as well, if you'd have spent time with him." o—o

"And you don't have a—a problem with it?"

James sighed. "Maybe I did at first, but I mean… it's Remus. He'd never hurt anybody if he could help it, and he can't help it that once a month he has a—a furry little problem."

Against all odds, Sirius laughed. "A 'furry little problem'?"

"Well I've got to call it something nonthreatening!" Potter defended. "Look, you aren't going to kick up a fuss, are you? He isn't dangerous or anything; on the full moons Madam Pomfrey takes him to an old house in Hogsmeade that Dumbledore himself prepared."

So the professors were in on it! Of course, now that it was confirmed that he was a werewolf, Sirius knew that the professors had to be in on it. Lupin couldn't possibly manage otherwise.

They watched the Hufflepuffs in silence for a few minutes longer while Sirius thought about everything he had learned, and the past two years sharing a dorm with Remus Lupin. Finally, he came to a conclusion.

"I won't kick up a fuss."

James bumped their shoulders together. "You're all right, Black."

The Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match was the second week in March. By then the Gryffindor team was as prepared as they could be. Thomas never asked where James and Sirius's information came from, but he certainly took advantage of several of their spying sessions under the Invisibility Cloak.

The game was in full swing when Sirius recognized the formation he'd been watching the Hufflepuff Chasers practice. They flew together towards the Gryffindor goal posts, and under normal circumstances the Gryffindor Chasers would have attacked from either side to try to steal back the Quaffle. However, James and Sirius had found out that the Hufflepuffs were waiting for just such a maneuver so that their Seeker could fly into the path of one of the Gryffindors and their Beaters could gang up on a second.

Elizabeth Frobisher, the sixth-year Chaser, played bait for the Hufflepuff Seeker. When the boy flew into her path, instead of swerving to try to avoid him, as expected, she put her head down and flew directly into him. The Hufflepuffs in the stands immediately began screaming for a foul, but as the Seeker had intentionally flown into the path of the oncoming Catcher, Frobisher was not at fault.

Instead of doing what was expected and attacking from the side, James dive bombed right into the middle of the Hufflepuff's formation from above. In the ensuing chaos, he came away with the Quaffle, which he directly passed to Sirius.

Sirius took off at an alarming pace, streaking across the pitch with a full measure of speed from his Nimbus 1001.

Unfortunately the Hufflepuff Beaters hadn't been as slow on the uptake as they'd hoped. Sirius saw the first Bludger coming out of the corner of his eye and dove just in time for it to whiz by over his head. By the time he saw the second, he had no time to do anything except flip over upside down on his broomstick. He avoided the Bludger, but by the time he was right side up he'd lost a lot of speed.

He didn't look behind to see how close the other players had gotten by now. Instead he pressed himself flat to the handle of the broomstick and coaxed every bit of speed he could out of it.

The Gryffindors all roared when he passed the Quaffle through the center ring, barely out of reach of the Keeper's outstretched fingertips.

But it was the cheers from the Slytherin stands that made Sirius feel like soaring. There were only two, and Sirius supposed that his own cousin really didn't count, but Rabastan was waving a small Gryffindor flag and cheering along with her, and that made Sirius grin. Malfoy was standing stiffly between them, looking dour.

A few days after the match, which Gryffindor won two hundred and forty to eighty, Rabastan was sure to inform him that he'd only been cheering because he knew that there was no chance of Gryffindor catching Slytherin in points.

"Not that this excuses it," drawled Malfoy as he straightened his green and gold scarf. "A Lestrange cheering for Gryffindor, imagine. It's a disgrace."

Rabastan laughed and slung an arm around Sirius's shoulders. "About as disgraceful as a Black sorted into Gryffindor, I reckon. Cissy, can't you do anything with him?"

Lucius turned to look down at his girlfriend with a raised brow, as if daring her to say that she could control him.

She giggled and playfully pecked a kiss on his arm, then rested her cheek against his bicep as she looked up at him. "I might be able to persuade him to be nice."

Lucius looked a bit pink around the edges, but his expression was as stony as ever. Except his eyes, which were glittering.

"Come, Narcissa," he said coolly. She laughed again and allowed him to lead her off, giving a little wave over her shoulder as she went.

Rabastan winked at Sirius and released him, then sauntered off towards Hogsmeade after his friends.

It was getting more difficult to explain his friendship with the Slytherins to James. He understood that Sirius didn't want to abandon his cousin, Slytherin or not, but he absolutely could not fathom why Sirius would willingly want a relationship with Rabastan or Lucius, or with Avery and Mulciber.

"They're not right, mate," he'd warned Sirius. "Dad says that their fathers are undoubtedly Death Eaters, and Abraxas Malfoy is so far up the Ministry's ass that the Minister sneezes when he does."

So Sirius had to resort to sneaking off to see them whenever he could, such as sneaking out of his bed early on a Saturday to speak to them before their trip down to the village. He wasn't sure which he preferred: the simple life he'd had when no one had wanted anything to do with him, or the double life he was leading now between his Gryffindor and Slytherin friends.

The next full moon was on March nineteenth, and Sirius marked its coming with a heavy heart. He'd known it was true, but it hadn't quite been real to him until he'd watched Remus fake an illness and make his way to the hospital wing.

They hadn't mentioned to Lupin that he and Peter knew. Potter had thought it would be best to give it a few full moons and then drop it into casual conversation that they'd known all along, as if it weren't a big deal at all, so Remus wouldn't be afraid that they would change their minds suddenly about being all right with it. He had apparently been an absolute ball of anxiety for the first few months after he'd found out that James knew his secret.

That night Sirius borrowed James's Invisibility Cloak, although James had been quite reluctant to allow him to have it just so he could reveal its existence to his girlfriend and snog her afterhours in private. He met her at their usual time, an hour before curfew on Mondays, except he met her outside the library doors instead of at their table in the Muggle Studies section.

"Will you come somewhere else with me tonight?"

Janice looked surprised. "You mean stay out after curfew?"

"If you want to," he replied and took her hand. "We won't get caught, I promise. Do you trust me?"

She didn't answer verbally, but she wrapped her fingers around his. They set off together down the corridor at a leisurely pace, stopping every once in a while to kiss in the occasional alcove, until he'd led her up the steps of the clock tower. There they settled underneath the clock mechanism, where they could look out over the front of the castle and the Great Lake.

Sirius sat with his back against the cold stones and his arm around Janice, who was resting against his side. He tilted his head down to kiss her, but after a minute or two she pulled back.

"What's wrong, Sirius?"

There was no use denying it, so he sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "Have you ever found out that something you've been taught all your life is wrong?"

Janice wrapped her arm around his middle. "No, I haven't…. I'm sorry."

He knew that he couldn't explain to her about Lupin, but he was happy just to be held.