2rd September 1971

It was the first day of term, and Sirius had yet to make any friends in her dormitory. The weepy redhead from the train, Lily Evans, had taken a rather self-righteous dislike to her ever since that scene on the train, with her two-faced little friend Snape. And what was that creep playing at, hanging around with prats like Avery and Mulciber then returning to his best friend Lily the muggleborn?

The girl's contempt didn't matter too much to Sirius, however, as though Lily was hardly disliked in the dorm, she seemed to spend most of her time hanging around with Snape, and therefore was in a rather similar situation to Sirius herself.

There were four other girls who shared the dorm with them. Olivia Tudor was perhaps Sirius' favourite of all of them - the girl was funny, confident and brash - but though they got on well, they were not close friends. Olivia's closest friend was Roxanne Moore, a fairly quiet girl who had shown signs of having a wicked sense of humour.

The other two girls - Lucy Adlington and Sue Harris - had paired off too; both of them seemed rather scared of Sirius, which she found amusing and irritating in equal parts during the first week. She found out later that Lucy's sister had been in the same year as Bellatrix, which explained quite a lot. Sue hadn't known Sirius' family's reputation, being muggleborn, but had been scared of her before finding out let alone after.

But Sirius didn't mind not being close to any of the other Gryffindor girls. She had James, that was enough.

That morning, she half-feared that James had ditched her when he came downstairs to the common room talking animatedly to a tall, thin boy with light brown hair, who Sirius remembered from the feast the night before. He hadn't said much, she recalled, and gave off an air of being rather surprised to be there.

"Sirius!" James eagerly called her over when he saw her. "This is Remus. His bed's next to mine in the boys' dorm,"

"Hi," She said rather half-heartedly.

"Hi," Remus replied, looking slightly uneasy.

She turned to James with a grin.

"Fancy breakfast, then? I'm starving,"

"You read my mind,"

It didn't take too long for them to reach the great hall. Remus was useful for something, it seemed, and that was remembering the way back down from Gryffindor Tower. They were some of the first ones down for breakfast. Sirius had left the girls back in her dorm either fussing over their hair and robes, or asleep. She herself had never bothered with anything beyond having a shower and quickly brushing her hair, and wasn't going to start now.

Their first lesson was Charms, and the teacher, Professor Flitwick, had put them in a seating plan. To her disappointment, James had been placed next to a small, mousey-looking Gryffindor boy, whose name she had forgotten, whilst she herself was sat next to Remus.

Remus took copious amounts of notes throughout the tiny professor's explanation at the start of the lesson, whilst Sirius lounged back in her chair, rather bored. She saw James whispering to the mousey boy several seats in front, who listened in avid attention. Then finally Flitwick told them to get their wands out, but that was only to practice the necessary wand movement for the levitation charm.

"Wingardium Leviosa," The whole class intoned, sounding like a bunch of mindless inferi.

Finally, after the lecture, demonstrations and acting it out, they were allowed to practice some actual magic.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Sirius flicked her wand at the feather, which, to her great annoyance, remained motionless on the desk. She glanced around quickly, seeing that no one else's feather had moved either. She was annoyed nonetheless. "Wingardium Leviosa," Still nothing. She glared at it.

On the third try, the feather twitched half-heartedly, then did nothing.

Beside her, a look of focused concentration on his face, Remus was levitating his feather half an inch off the table, on his third try. He was the only one in the class to succeed that far, yes, but it still rankled. The boy's eyes darted sideways, seeing her looking, and he lost concentration and the feather fell back to the table.

"Try toning down the flick a bit," He suggested. "Yours is too... dramatic,"

Sirius raised an eyebrow - who was he to give her advice? - pointedly ignoring his suggestion and continuing to try on her own. The boy shrugged, turning back to his own feather, which still wasn't going further than one inch off the tabletop. Hers was barely twitching.

After a minute or so more of frustration, she eyed Remus out of the corner of her eye. He wasn't looking at her. So, reluctantly, she tried his advice. To her satisfaction - and mild irritation that he was right - the feather drifted up off the table, and didn't stop at one inch. She glanced back at the boy next to her, who smiled, faintly amused.

"You got the flick right," She said in return, tossing her hair. "But you're doing the swish wrong. It's not wide enough, that's why yours is barely moving off the table,"

"Alright," Remus said slowly, trying it again but following her advice, and his feather slowly floated up next to Sirius'.

She saw James in front of them; his feather was moving, yes, but more like it had been blown up by a sudden gust of wind and was drifting down again, clearly uncontrolled. She scanned the room for Professor Flitwick, but he was on the other side of the room, helping a Ravenclaw student. Sirius grinned, nudging Remus beside her; his eyes widened in surprise.

"What?"

"How far do you think we could get these to go?" She nodded to James, and the other boy's eyes lit up.

"I think we could manage two seats away, myself," He considered. "Careful not to hit anyone, though," He wore a realistic expression of concern, but the look in his eyes said otherwise.

Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

James gave a high-pitched yelp as two feathers brushed against each of his ears, making the mousey-haired boy jump out of his skin. He turned back furiously, to see Sirius laughing, Remus smiling beside her. He stuck his middle finger up at them both, only for Flitwick to turn around in time to see it.

"Mr Potter," He exclaimed sternly. "I won't have that kind of gesture in my classroom. Two points from Gryffindor,"

"Sorry, sir," James nodded, but shot a grin back at the two of them.

After the lesson finished, he joined them with the mousey boy he sat with in tow.

"I knew you'd get along!" He grinned. "Remus has never really had any friends either,"

"Thanks," The boy mumbled, not seeming too upset.

"Is that your strategy for making friends at Hogwarts, then?" Sirius raised an eyebrow at James. "Find a collection of friendless strays,"

"Seems to be working," He clapped the as-of-yet silent mousey boy on the shoulder. "This is Peter,"

"H-hi," The boy stammered. "I'm - I'm in Gryffindor too,"

She narrowed her eyes, already disliking him.

"Really? I thought red robes were for Slytherins,"

Her decidedly unsubtle sarcasm went right over Peter's head, of course.

"I thought Slytherin was green - "

"Merlin, she's joking," James laughed, but the boy didn't seem to care that he was being laughed at. In fact, Peter just seemed to be hanging on eagerly to every word that James said.

Sirius didn't say anything about it, though she was sure her dislike for the boy showed clearly enough. James liked him, she wouldn't be deliberately difficult about things. Besides, Remus had turned out alright, perhaps this little stray would too.

I have a theory that Sirius, Remus and Peter were much better friends with James than they were with each other; obviously still very good friends with each other but James seemed to be the one tying them together, or bringing them together in the first place. Those three seem to have an air of lost strays about them and seem the type to struggle making friends, whilst James had a healthy, happy childhood where he was loved by his parents.

Anyway thanks for reading, please let me know what you think or what you'd like to see in the future.