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!

Things began to go downhill almost as soon as he'd returned to school. Sirius was not one to pay attention to the news. Certainly he'd never hidden himself behind theDaily Prophet while breakfasting, like his grandfather and father. He didn't even really make use of his own subscription during the school year, usually passing his copy onto some of the older Gryffindors. If he had, he might have realized how bad things had gotten before the entire Great Hall erupted in shock and sadness and anger.

He and Remus had their heads together discussing their Arithmancy homework, which was rather more complicated than Sirius had originally thought when he'd first signed up for the class, when it began. Sirius was dimly aware of the rush of owl wings and the happy chatter of students receiving mail. Then the deathly quiet caught his attention, and in those few fleeting seconds between registering that something was wrong and looking up from his textbook, the first gasp sounded out as if across a silent tomb.

James's face had gone gray as he look slack-jawed at his copy of the newspaper, which was only half unrolled. Sirius understood why when he saw the headline: "VILLAGE LEVELED BY DEATH EATERS!"

"Open it!" he insisted lowly, although he ought not have bothered to keep his voice low since by then the Great Hall was filled with horrified cries and nervous chatter.

"'Death Eaters, the followers of the Dark wizard known only as Lord Voldemort, have killed most of the magical residents of Appleby and burned the village to the ground. The attack began shortly after midnight and reportedly lasted for about an hour; Aurors were only alerted after the attack had ended and arrived to find the village ablaze and the Dark Mark hovering in the air,'" Sirius read silently to himself. He looked up to see Professors McGonagall and Sprout leading a shell-shocked boy in Hufflepuff robes out of the Great Hall. Sure enough, a bit further down the article it said, "'The bodies of the victims have not been identified as of the time of publication, but notable residents include Donald and Frances Bones, whose home was among those destroyed."

James was slumped low beside him. "Poor Jeffrey. My dad works—worked—with Mr. Bones…. I've been over to their house for dinner…."

But Sirius barely heard him, so caught up was he in a bit of information in the Prophet that had caught his attention. "'The Dark Mark, as we have reported before, is in the likeness of a skull with a serpent emerging from its mouth. In recent months it has been left at over a dozen crime scenes believed to have been the work of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters.'"

He reread the first sentence several more times to make sure that he'd seen it correctly, then he lifted his eyes slowly towards the Slytherin table. The Slytherin table as a whole seemed much less affected by the news than the rest of the Great Hall, although the younger years seemed just as surprised as anyone else. Sirius could see that Regulus and Barty were looking around with wide eyes. The older Slytherins, however, and particularly the seventh years sitting at the very end of the table, looked completely stoic at best and amused at worst.

"I bet they're all Death Eaters," put in James from beside him, barely bothering to keep his voice low. "Or at least their parents are, and they will be too as soon as they leave Hogwarts. There's never been a Dark wizard who wasn't in Slytherin."

Normally Sirius would have taken exception to that little speech, but as it was he found that his head was spinning too much to really take in what he was hearing.

He would find over the next days and weeks that almost the whole school felt the same about the Slytherins, who didn't at all help the situation with their aloof behavior. James Potter in particular hated anything to do with Dark magic, and his hatred only rose to new heights as he obsessively pored over every report of an attack or disappearance. He had thus far avoided mentioning anything too specific about Sirius's family or his Slytherin friends, but Sirius suspected that was mostly because Sirius was giving every appearance of distancing himself from them. He had written to James over the summer about his disagreement with his grandfather, which had seemed to put the idea into James's head that he was no longer getting along with his family in general, and now he was taking care to avoid approaching the Slytherins anytime James might see him.

It wasn't that he honestly wanted to avoid them, of course; it was just that he found himself unwilling to go back to the accusations and ostracization he'd faced before. He had likewise decided not to even try getting away to continue his Dark Arts practice until the whole thing had time to blow over. He'd been left with sending longing, apologetic looks to the Slytherins behind James's back and exchanging surreptitious letters with them whenever he could.

Still, at least he and James were getting closer than ever. As they spent more time together, and as the Gryffindor boys became the only friends Sirius spent any time with, Sirius's feelings for James were steadily changing from necessary toleration to real friendship. That was probably the reason he didn't hex Potter's nose off when he was woken up by a harsh poke in the chest in the wee hours of the morning.

"What the—" he began, but James clapped a hand over his mouth before he could finish.

"Shhh!" insisted James, bringing his other hand up to his face and pressing a finger against his lips. Then he motioned for Sirius to come with him, and Sirius, though he glared at the other boy over the top of the hand still over his mouth, motioned that he would come. The stone floors of Gryffindor Tower were freezing against his bare feet as they crept down the stairs and across the common room, and Sirius made a mental note to have his mother send him slippers as he dug his toes into the threadbare rug in the furthest corner of the room where James had led them.

"Why couldn't we sit by the fire?" he whined as he aimed a Hot-Air Charm at his feet to warm them.

"Shhh!" James was looking around the common room suspiciously, but he finally turned back and whispered, "We don't want anyone to hear this, okay? It's about Remus."

All Sirius could do was blink at him in irritated, still-sleepy confusion. "Okay…"

His friend leaned forward earnestly. "You know how horrible those nights are for him…" began James, and thus began a complicated, winding explanation. Sirius could only goggle at him until the other boy finally concluded, "And so I think you'll have to take point on this one, seeing as you're the most talented in Transfiguration."

He half expected that James would reveal that it had all been a joke, but when several seconds passed with nothing more than the other boy's earnest look of expectation, Sirius could only say, "You want us to become Animagi."

"Yes," agreed James.

"You want us to become unregistered Animagi," Sirius felt the need to clarify.

"Yes."

"You want us to become unregistered Animagi while we're still students."

"Yes."

Sirius sat back in his chair, abandoning his Hot-Air Charm and hardly even noticing the immediate rush of frigid air meeting his bare feet. "Are you mad?"

"Come on, Sirius!" wheedled James. "You're probably one of the best Transfiguration students in the entire school, in any year! And I'm not half bad. I know we could figure it out between us, and just think how much it would help Remus."

Although he would not like to admit, even to himself, James's flattery had probably gone a lot further towards convincing Sirius to give it a try than the idea of helping out their werewolf friend had. Sirius still had trouble reconciling the quiet, intelligent boy he knew as Remus Lupin with everything he knew about werewolves, but even all of their recent time spent together since returning for their third year hadn't completely rid him of the wariness and prejudice he felt. He reluctantly agreed to at least gather what information he could from the library and, if necessary, from his library at home, but he rather thought that he'd only discover that it would be impossible for them to do and James would drop the matter.

It turned out that he was correct about it being almost impossibly difficult, but he was wrong about James dropping the subject. Soon enough their twice-weekly late-night meetings in the common room to read about the Animagus transformation turned into an annual event, and that in addition to the almost daily Quidditch practices and their heavier course loads caused the weeks to blur into months until it was time for their first ever Hogsmeade weekend.

"I can't, Potter," Sirius hissed under his breath, reverting back to using his friend's last name, as he often did when he was annoyed with the other boy.

"I can't slip away from Remus and Peter like you can," insisted James in a whisper.

They both raised their eyes to look at their two friends, who were walking several feet in front of them, Peter glancing back every so often with a look of supreme consternation at being left out of whatever plotting Sirius was getting up to with James.

Sirius rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I can only 'slip away' from them because I'm going to be with Janice! I think she'll notice if I take her to an apothecary and start asking for obscure ingredients I have no good reason to need, when we're supposed to be on a date!"

James looked as if he had an argument ready on the tip of his tongue, but at that moment the girl in question materialized at Sirius's side and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. With an indulgent smile, he obliged by leaning down just enough so that her lips could make contact, then took her gloved hand in his own. It was the most affection either of them was willing to show under the watchful eyes of Professors Slughorn and McGonagall.

"Look, Potter," he said lowly as Janice began leading him away, "try to manage without me. If you can't then we'll figure something else out."

He and Janice trekked down the snow-dusted road leading from the castle into the village in companionable silence, until Hogsmeade came into view and Janice let out a little gasp that immediately reminded Sirius of the sound she made whenever he bit at her lip. It was a picturesque little village with cozy-looking cottages and storefronts lit up with twinkling displays, but the sight only made Sirius anxious. As he'd never been to Hogsmeade before, he really had no idea what he and Janice were going to do on this date. He thought that he was probably being silly, since Janice had also never been before and they'd been on plenty of dates and spent a lot of time together, but for some reason he couldn't identify, he couldn't help but be a bit nervous.

"Oh, it's so cute!" she exclaimed with a little bounce that Sirius couldn't help but notice made her breasts bounce, too. He'd returned to school to find that they seemed to be even more ample than they'd been when he'd seen her over the summer, and he could not but appreciate it.

He tore his eyes away with great effort.

"I thought we'd get lunch in the village," he ventured uncertainly, "but what do you think we should do before then?"

Janice leaned into him, her head resting against his arm, and he could feel one of the hair combs he'd given her last Christmas pressing against him through his thick cloak and winter robes. "Well, I want to have a look at Honeydukes and Zonko's, of course," she answered dreamily, "but I thought you could help me pick out some new robes at Gladrags."

Sirius pursed his lips together in displeasure. "Oh. Okay."

She burst into giggles a second later and brought one of her hands up to swat at his chest. "I was just joking, silly! Honestly, I know you wouldn't enjoy that."

He was obviously relieved, but then his mind raced to all sorts of possibilities. What if she were only testing him to see if he would do it? His mother did that sort of thing all the time to his father! With only a small grimace that he knew she couldn't see, he said, "But if you really want to, we can go."

"You're sweet, Siri, but I really was only joking." By this time they had entered the village and had just begun the walk up High Street, where all of the main shops were located. "How about we just window shop a bit, and we can go in if either of us sees anything interesting?"

That seemed like a good idea to him, and he quickly agreed to the plan. They passed by the Three Broomsticks first, but it already seemed to be too crowded to be comfortable even this early in the day and they weren't thirsty anyway, so they decided to pass it by and see about visiting on their way back. On the other side of the street from the pub, just visible in the distance, was a house that Janice pointed out to him.

"It was only built a few years ago," she informed him with a little shiver, "but my sister said that all of the villagers are afraid to go up there. They say the most awful noises come from it. It's called the Shrieking Shack." Sirius realized with a jolt that it must be the house he'd been told Dumbledore had commissioned for Remus's transformations. The shrieks they heard could only come from his friend, and that sent a shiver down his own spine. His thoughts were confirmed when his companion added, "My sister Pam said that her boyfriend during her seventh year was dared to go inside once, but he claimed that none of the doors or windows would open."

A bit further up the street they found Honeydukes, and both of them were eager to fight the crowd in order to check out the sweets shop they'd heard so much about from their various older family members. The shop was so packed full of students that they could barely move at all, but after nearly an hour of browsing they'd managed to look at nearly every shelf in the place. Sirius was glad that Janice had brought her purse along, because he'd had to cast an Expansion Charm on its interior in order to hold all of their spoils until they could get up to the cash register. He'd shoved handfuls of treacle fudge, pumpkin pasties, cauldron cakes, licorice wands, sugar quills, bars of Honeydukes Best Chocolate, and all sorts of other interesting-sounding treats inside. And, when Janice had turned away for a moment, he'd nabbed a few packages of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, which the label claimed would allow the chewer to blow bubbles that wouldn't pop for days. He thought that he and James could come up with some use or another for such a thing.

As for Janice, she had been a lot more conservative in her selections, except for the dozen or so packages of sugared butterfly wings she'd enthusiastically snatched off the shelves. "They're so good!" she'd explained when she caught sight of his humored expression. "My sisters used to get some for me whenever they visited Hogsmeade. They're dark chocolate and coconut!"

Sirius rather suspected that she'd have liked them no matter what they were made of, just because they were shaped like butterflies, but he didn't say so aloud.

Next they perused the Tomes and Scrolls bookshop (where Sirius and Janice both purchased several books), Spintwitches Sporting Needs (where Sirius painstakingly examined the various types of broomstick polish on offer while Janice watched indulgently), Zonko's (where Janice pretended not to notice when Sirius gleefully selected several Galleons' worth of promising pranking supplies), and Dervish and Banges (where they were both delighted by the various magical instruments but neither one found anything they thought they ought to buy).

It was far past their usual lunchtime when Sirius finally led Janice into the unfortunately still-crowded Three Broomsticks, but fortunately Madam Rosmerta seemed to take an instant liking to Sirius and shooed a group of older Hufflepuffs away from their booth so that he and Janice could sit.

"They finished their drinks nearly half an hour ago, dears," she explained as she leaned over the table to clear away their empty mugs. Janice did not look at all impressed by the way the barmaid's plentiful curves were displayed so close to Sirius's eyes, and Sirius thought it best not to stare too obviously, even if he found that he suddenly quite fancied Rosmerta. "Space is at a premium when you students come down from Hogsmeade, so I can't have loiterers. Now then, what'll it be?"

"I'll have the '34 Blishen's Firewhisky. Bring the bottle, if you please," said Sirius, grinning up impishly at Rosmerta's pretty face.

She laughed. "Oh, this one's trouble, my dear," she told Janice as she waved her finger at Sirius. "You had better keep a close eye on him. That'll be two Butterbeers, then?"

"Actually," Janice replied, her voice tight, "I'd like a soda with cherry syrup."

As soon as Rosmerta had moved away from their booth, Sirius turned to his girlfriend with raised eyebrows. "I thought you wanted something to eat, too?"

"Well, I'm not sure I want to stay here if you're just going to flirt with the barmaid and… and… stare at her… assets!"

His eyebrows rose further up his forehead in consternation. Before he thought better of it, he blurted, "It isn't as if I can help it. I've been staring at your assets all day."

The next few moments played out as one of those bizarre situations where Sirius thought for sure that he would be groveling for her to forgive him because he had said something very stupid, but it turned out that he found himself attached to her lips because he'd apparently said something right without realizing it. It only took him a handful of seconds before he recovered himself sufficiently to kiss her back, and they were still enthusiastically snogging a couple of minutes later when Rosmerta loudly placed their mugs on the wooden table.

"Too much more of that and I'll have to send you on to Madam Puddifoot's!" she exclaimed with false severity.

Janice pulled back with a blush, and Sirius found himself suddenly disliking the pretty barmaid a lot more than he had previously.

"Did you really mean it?" asked Janice as soon as Rosmerta was out of earshot again. "I mean, about my… assets. Do you really think they're… you know, nice?"

"Yeah, they're very"—Large. Soft. Bouncy.—"nice."

In the end, they ended up ordering a selection of pub foods and several more Butterbeers and sodas, and although Madam Rosmerta encouraged various other loitering students to leave and make room for newcomers, she didn't disturb Sirius and Janice until it was time for all of the students to head back up to the castle.

The term continued on with more reports of Death Eaters, very little progress in their Animagus research, and their first Quidditch game (Slytherin three hundred and thirty to Gryffindor three hundred and ten) interspersed between their full course loads and detentions for their ever more elaborate pranks.

Sirius and James were walking back from the trophy room, where they'd had to polish every award by hand after being caught filling the Gryffindor common room with unpoppable Drooble's Best bubbles, when James first said something that made Sirius question his sanity.

"Evans was beautiful when she was angry though, wasn't she?" he asked, and after several seconds of oppressive silence he turned to see that Sirius was looking at him as if he were considering dragging him to the hospital wing for an examination posthaste. He rushed on. "You know, the way her eyes flashed and her little face turned all pink when that gum got stuck in her hair…. You didn't think that was cute?"

Sirius blinked at him. "James, mate, I think that you need to find a girlfriend if you're wasting your time thinking about Evans."

"Well, maybe I want her to be my girlfriend," he responded indignantly.

"Right," came Sirius's droll reply. "What with the way she thinks of you after everything you've done to her and Snivellus, I'd say that you have a better shot at convincing Snivellus himself to snog you than convincing Evans to do it."

James didn't speak to him for the rest of the walk back to Gryffindor Tower, but that night when he met Sirius at the appointed time for their meeting down in the common room he seemed to have put the conversation behind him. Although they had only been in the common room for a few minutes before they devolved into another argument.

"We've got to at least try, or else we'll never get any further with this," James argued.

Sirius disagreed. "Look, I can probably get to Diagon Alley on my own over Christmas break, or I can ask my cousin to get the ingredients for us. I'd really rather not risk being expelled for sneaking off school grounds to visit Hogsmeade."

"We can't buy all of the ingredients at once; they're on a list and the apothecary is supposed to record the names of everybody who buys them together since they can only be used in that combination for the Animagus potion," James explained, although Sirius already knew all of that. "It'll take us until this time next year if we try to divide the list up and spread it out so that we don't raise any suspicions."

They were all valid points, but to Sirius the argument really came down to one thing. "If we get caught, we're dead."

"When have you ever been afraid of the trouble you'd get in for breaking the rules, anyway?"

And Sirius really had no good answer to that, so by the time they crawled back into their beds a couple of hours before sunrise he had committed himself to Potter's harebrained scheme to sneak out of the castle in the dead of night and break into the apothecary in Hogsmeade. However, he had managed to get the other boy to concede that they ought to each try to get their hands on the more innocuous items over the holiday break so that their list would be significantly shorter and they could spend the least time possible in the shop in Hogsmeade, thus lessening their chances of being caught. The plan was scheduled to take place after the first Hogsmeade visit of the next term, as they both hoped that the professors and the denizens of Hogsmeade would be more exhausted than usual after dealing with the students' visit.

His own foray into the world of hard crime turned Sirius's thoughts to something he purposefully hadn't thought too hard about all term: At least one of his Slytherin friends was undoubtedly a Death Eater. After his mind was turned to the subject, nothing he did could distract him from it, and he determined that he really needed to talk to Rabastan as soon as possible and couldn't wait until Christmas.

Finally, a couple of weeks after he first thought of it, Sirius found a few hours to himself when James and Thomas, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, holed themselves up in an unused classroom to discuss Quidditch tactics after they'd seen Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff in action for the first time in their match against each other. Aquila was more than happy to deliver a note to Rabastan, but she was definitely less pleased to have to come back with it undelivered. She fussed and fretted until Sirius managed to sooth her with a dozen owl treats and the promise of a nice, long letter for her to deliver to his mother the next day. The failed delivery was the best news for Sirius, though, since it meant that Rabastan was probably in the Slytherin common room.

He managed to sneak out of Gryffindor Tower while Remus and Peter were engrossed in a game of chess. Sneaking downstairs without being seen was the most difficult part, as he didn't want to risk using James's Invisibility Cloak without permission. Once in the dungeons, it was the work of a moment to snag a first year by the shoulder and demand that he pass the note to Rabastan.

Meet me in the practice room ASAP, it said. He trusted that Rabastan would know what he meant, as he'd ended up telling him all about his extracurricular Dark Arts studies over their time together in the summer. Sure enough, he'd only been waiting for a few minutes before Rabastan showed up, an unreadably surly look on his face.

"So, difficult situation, yeah?" the Slytherin asked without preamble. "I haven't talked to you face-to-face since the train."

Sirius shook his head, not in denial of that fact so much as in despair.

"I just don't want to go back to what it was like for me first year," he said softly. "You and Cissy and Malfoy'll be gone after this year, but I have to be in Gryffindor and in a dorm room with James Potter for four years after that."

Rabastan leaned against the wall, letting his head fall back against it so he could glare up at the stone ceiling instead of at Sirius. "I understand. Hopefully you'll still make time for me, though."

In the intervening silence, Sirius's mind returned to the actual reason he'd wanted to meet with Rabastan alone, besides just that they hadn't spoken to each other in months. He turned the issue over in his mind a few times, all of his previous plans seeming inappropriate now. When he couldn't put it off any longer, he braced himself and just spit it out.

"I don't think the threat of indignant Gryffindors will put me off spending time with you when I can, if finding out that you're a Death Eater hasn't done it."

Rabastan immediately tensed. He snapped his eyes to Sirius's and, in a voice too nonchalant to be genuine, asked, "What makes you think that?"

Sirius barked out a laugh. "Well, besides the fact that you haven't denied it, that Dark Mark on your arm sort of gave it away."

"I should never have let you see that," the Slytherin responded ruefully.

Sirius shrugged. "I'm sure allowances can be made when one has a big bloody gash on one's ribcage."

"I'm sure the Dark Lord would disagree."

"Well, I'll be sure to remember not to mention it to him if you don't." Then, his curiosity winning over, he blurted, "When?"

His friend eyed him seriously for several seconds of indecision, then, after letting out a defeated exhalation, answered, "Last New Year. You remember the business that kept Dolohov from coming for your lessons, which you whinged about incessantly?" Here Sirius let out a sound of protest, but he knew that he really couldn't deny it. "That was the business. The attack that night was something of an initiation for us."

Sirius wondered what it said about him that he wasn't very bothered by the fact that one of his closest friends and his dueling instructor were Death Eaters who tortured and murdered people. He supposed that Rabastan hadn't been joking when he'd said over the summer that there wasn't much left of the wizard who had slashed his side. In fact, the more seconds ticked by the more pieces of a puzzle he hadn't known existed until that moment seemed to fall into place in his mind: his parents' references to the Lestranges' "political allies," his grandfather's annoyingly close scrutiny of Dolohov's lessons, the Christmas dinner several years prior when Bellatrix had cut Rodolphus off when he'd mentioned some common acquaintance of Mr. Lestrange and Mr. Malfoy, Rodolphus's abnormally large supply of dittany….

"So your brother too, then?"

"Yeah, but he joined ages ago," replied Rabastan. "Your nutter cousin as well. I told you they were perfect for each other."

Sirius wasn't very surprised. Even though it did take him aback for about half a second to consider his dear Cousin Belley actually committing the atrocities he'd read about in the newspaper, he quickly realized that the image wasn't at all out of character.

"And Malfoy?"

Rabastan cocked his head to the side at that one, considering Sirius for a moment before replying. "Yes. But not Narcissa."

That drew a sharp laugh from Sirius. "I never considered Narcissa. Can you imagine her traipsing about in the wee hours of the morning, dragging Mudblood children out of their beds?"

"I think that you don't give her enough credit. She's right terrifying, just as terrifying as her sister when she puts her mind to it."

"Don't be silly," admonished Sirius. "Cissy's amoral and vindictive and attracted to Malfoy as much for his sociopathic tendencies as for his hair, but she wouldn't drown a bag of kittens by hand." At that, Rabastan released a startled laugh from high in his throat. Sirius grinned in return and added, "Besides, that ugly brand on her arm would interfere with her wardrobe selections between approximately April and September."

"Oh dear," Rabastan said between chuckles, "do you suppose she's considered what she's getting into with Malfoy? She won't be able to dress him as she pleases either."

They walked back towards the fork that would lead Rabastan to his common room and Sirius out of the dungeons with Rabastan's arm around his shoulders, both peppering in comments between their continued laughter. "That thing she does when—" Rabastan was saying as they came around the last corner, but he stopped abruptly when they almost ran right into someone who was coming down the narrow corridor from the entrance hall.

Both Sirius and Rosier reared back in surprise at the sudden sight of one another, until Sirius composed his face into his usual mask. Rosier didn't appear able to get his own expression back under control nearly as easily, and his stare traveled from Sirius's face to the arm around his shoulders several times without bothering to hide his surprise and jealousy. He'd just opened his mouth, probably to speak, when Rabastan broke in harshly.

"What are you looking at? Move along, Rosier!"

With a last, all-too-readable glance, Rosier lowered his head so that his long, chestnut hair fell into his eyes and turned back towards the Slytherin common room without uttering a word. Sirius watched him go, only to discover when he looked back to his friend that Rabastan was watching him with a peculiar expression on his face.

"You know, Black, I've been thinking." He ignored Sirius's snide remark about the dangers of that. "It occurs to me that it might be time to put this squabble with Rosier behind you. After all, you'll need a good friend in Slytherin after we leave."

"You want me to be friends with Rosier," Sirius stated flatly, not bothering in the least to hide what he thought about that.

"Well, you did used to be best friends, didn't you? It couldn't be that difficult to make nice again."

"He completely abandoned me!" Sirius immediately objected.

"Yes, but aren't you going through the same situation now? Admittedly I'm glad that you're only hiding your relationship with us evil Death Eater Slytherins and not completely abandoning us like Rosier did to you, but surely you can understand his position a bit better now?" By that time Sirius had gone completely stiff under his arm, and Rabastan tightened his hold around the smaller boy's shoulders. After a long second or two had gone by without Sirius making a sound, he added, "Look, Siri, I'm just trying to look out for you. Rosier's been moping around for two years on the fringes of Slytherin because everybody took your side, and I think it'd be easy for you to turn him into a nice, evil Slytherin influence for yourself for when I'm no longer available to corrupt your Gryffindorish little heart."

"Oh, hell…" whined Sirius, his petulant tone doing nothing to mask the newfound guilt he felt. "You are a bad influence. Bloody Death Eater."