James Potter had never been happier, and it wasn't as though he didn't have many great experiences to compare the last month to. So far, he and Sirius had spent five nights sneaking around the castle and they'd already found the entrance to the Slytherin common rooms and an old dungeon likely used for torture judging by the chains and screws. Not to mention, slipping into the restricted section and finding the most unusual books on how to do the crazy things that James had spent his childhood reading about in muggle children's books. They'd found books about curse fire that has a life of its own, they found books on wizards who could turn into animals, they found books on creating zombies. It would be dishonest for him to claim that he hadn't given himself nightmares, but it had added to the thrill.

After the first week, when the introduction segments of their classes came to an end and they started to perform what James considered 'real magic' he was considerably more excited. Defence had turned around from being about classifying spells to actually using them. Professor Fairley had brought in a jar of snails and allowed them to practice jinxes and counter jinxes on them. He and Sirius had been thrilled to find lists of simple spells with the same root were very easy once one was mastered and so they picked their favourites to use on unsuspecting spiders and Severus Snape.

James had never had a true rival before, but he had always quite liked the idea. Before Hogwarts, he had merely enlisted the help of friends or his parents to act as his mortal enemy so he could pretend to valiantly take them down in the name of bravery and chivalry. Usually the enemy was Salazar Slytherin himself, but he supposed he could settle for the greasy haired first year for the time being. Of course, he quite failed to register that Salazar and Gryffindor had once been great friends and this was where the tragedy lay, but short-sightedness could affect a person figuratively and literally.

Not many people were willing to jump in front of Snape and take a jinx for him, probably because he had gone straight to the library to learn a litany of awful hexes for retaliation after the first time James caught him off guard on the corridor. Apparently the humiliation of uncontrollable tap dancing had spurred him into a spree of extracurricular reading.

If he was honest with himself, he quite enjoyed the challenge Snape was putting up. There was nothing brave about picking out someone defenceless, but since the Slytherin insisted on coming back with ever more disgusting and unusual spells it gave him and Sirius a perfectly good excuse to pour over huge volumes in the library in the evening looking up the best way they could get the upper hand. Suffice to say, their Defence grades were excellent.

To make sure that the school didn't lull into boredom after the first month, the house Quidditch teams could be seen practicing in the early morning and late into the night for the first match in November. James had looked with unadulterated longing towards the try-outs for Gryffindor which took place in early October.

"I wish I could try out this year! If only I could try out they'd see how prodigal I am and take me anyway. It's an absolute sin that Dad wouldn't let me bring my broom. If I had it I could have done some flying outside the pitch and maybe caught the captain's eye – been talent spott-"

"Oh my goodness!"

Lily Evans, side-by-side with Severus Snape, passed James and Sirius in the grounds on Saturday afternoon as they watched the new Hufflepuff team practice.

"Potter, do you ever stop talking about yourself?" Said Snape derisively, rolling his eyes.

"Oh good afternoon Snively, Evans," said James, getting up from the ground and pulling himself up to his full, unimpressive height.

"I hope you're thinking of trying out, Snape. I can't think of anything that would help Gryffindor's chances more, to be honest." Sirius had stood to join James, dwarfing him by a few inches. As a pair, James thought, they looked much more impressive. Severus rolled his eyes and veered away from them, tugging on Lily's arm who was positively growling at the two boys.

"I'm sure she gets more riled up than him," Sirius commented. "How are they so close already? I thought she was a muggle-born? Isn't Snape's mother a Prince? That's a pureblood family."

"What are you two saying to rile up Severus and Lily today?"

Remus and Peter had appeared behind them, both wrapped in Gryffindor scarves. Peter's nose was bright red.

"Have you done the transfiguration homework?" Peter asked, sitting down and rummaging in his book bag. "I did the spell, but the theory… I don't see why some metals are more difficult to transfigure than others…"

"Yeah, we did it" said Sirius, looking up at Remus, "have you not yet? Usually you help each other out, right? It's due on the 3rd. I swear McGonagall can smell guilt on your parchment if you did it the night before."

"Well I haven't done it yet, so I told Peter to ask you two," Remus answered, looking at his hands. His bony fingers were worrying the material of his new scarf, widening the holes in the knitting.

"I would have thought you'd have been on top of it too, Remus," James said absentmindedly and he sifted through the papers in his bag, looking for the homework for Peter. Sirius frowned.

"Remus I saw you in the library just the other day doing your homework due this week. Why didn't you do it then?"

Remus scratched his neck and laughed good naturedly. "Well I needed a textbook that had been taken out so I just thought I'd save it for another day."

James emerged with a dog-eared slip of parchment. "Here you go Peter." He handed it over. "We spent a good while looking it up, but we found some alchemy textbooks that related the transfiguration. We just put that it depends on the density of a metal and that it can be referenced on the muggle Periodic Table, didn't we Sirius?"

"The book was called 'Theory for Elemental Transfiguration,' We left it in the library if you want to take it out, Peter. It wasn't so hard once we found the book."

"Thanks a lot guys." The small boy finished scanning James' essay and handed it back to him. "I'll go and take it out later. Remus do you want to do it with me?"

Remus glanced off towards the castle. "I can't tonight, sorry. I'm busy…" He flushed pink at his weak response.

"Busy with what?" Sirius asked. He picked up his bag and made to return up the grounds towards the castle, minding the early sunset streaking over the forest.

"Well… Well Professor Dumbledore is doing me a favour and wants to meet with me early."

James flashed Sirius a look of bemusement which was returned with raised eyebrows.

"Are you in trouble, Remus?" Asked Peter.

Remus didn't answer. He looked off thoughtfully and allowed them to reach the doors in awkward silence, at which point he stopped. "Look, I don't want to go into it. It's k-kind of personal…" He trailed off nervously, looking at the floor rather than at their faces.

Peter, ever out to please, beamed at Remus in an attempt at reassurance. "Remus, you can tell us anything! We're your friends, you know? Right?" He turned to James and Sirius. "We're all mates so you can tell-"

"Don't worry about it Remus, we all have things we'd rather not become common knowledge." Sirius interrupted Peter and sent him a hard glare. "Any respectful family can honour that, isn't that right James, Peter?"

Peter, changing his tact quickly, nodded in blind agreement, but James scoffed. "What's it got to do with family honour? If Remus needs a mate because something's up, then we're mates, Peter's right." James turned to Remus, looking up at the taller boy's awkward face. "But don't stress Remus. You don't have to tell us anything if you don't want to." He tugged on Remus' sleeve in an attempt to get him to look up and smiled at him.

"Look, it's dinner soon – don't look so glum. Why don't we snag some extra food and take it up to the dormitory and have a midnight feast tonight?"

Peter gave a little cheer which cause several passing Ravenclaws to peer at the group curiously and Remus gave a tentative smile behind his scarf.

Remus parted ways with Peter, James and Sirius after dinner, the latter with their deep robe pockets weighed down with various desserts they'd slipped from the dinner table and wrapped in napkins. The three remaining boys took to the Gryffindor boy's dormitory where they hid the snacks in James' bottom drawer of the bedside cabinet. Sirius then attempted to perform a tricky climate control charm on it to stop the cream from melting out of the cakes, but it proved too advanced for him and he merely succeeded in freezing a Battenberg into an icy brick.

James picked up the solid cake and examined it.

"Well I've no idea how to reverse the spell without just melting it with an 'incendio' but I suppose it could be a strong weapon to lob at the Slytherin seeker if they get too far ahead in the first match."

"I'm going to go and do McGonagall's homework, thanks James," said Peter, handing James back his essay. "Will I find that book in the muggle studies section or the alchemy section?"

James slotted his essay into his transfiguration textbook. "We found it under alchemy."

Peter beamed, hitching his bag up over his shoulder. "Thanks a million, James. I don't think I could have got away with another shoddy piece of homework from McGonagall."

James and Sirius heard a clatter a few moments later as Peter stumbled clumsily on the stairs and undoubtedly dropped his transfiguration textbook.

"I think he'd clumsier than me," said James, hauling himself up onto his four poster and inviting Sirius up next to him. "What do reckon that whole thing was about Remus? And what did you mean about family honour? The only time I ever heard 'family honour' was when my dad would go on about the Malfoys being all about 'upholding family honour.' But I don't think he ever said it in a nice way. Do you think Remus' family has a matter to discuss with Dumbledore about him not 'upholding family honour' at school?"

Sirius bit his lip in thought and hummed. "I doubt it. Remus' family would have no cause to want to make sure Remus upheld any honour among pure-blood society, because even though Remus has a pure-blood surname, his mother is a muggle. The name doesn't hold any worth within the sacred 28."

James scowled. "My dad doesn't agree with the sacred 28."

"Yeah, I can imagine, since he's not in it," said Sirius. "My mother always said that the only people who disagree with pureblood society are those who are out casted from it. She said it's all jealousy and low-class attitude."

James rolled his eyes. "Your mum sounds like a right laugh."

Sirius ignored him.

"So, if he doesn't have a discipline meeting with Dumbledore, what were you getting at?" James asked.

"I just meant," said Sirius, pulling the tie out of his hair, "that it's rude and unbecoming of Peter to pester Remus the way he did. If he has a secret, he should have a right to it. All families have secrets." Sirius finished with a pompous finality that made James cringe.

"It makes me gag when you say words like unbecoming." James said. "It makes you sound like the Minister's second deputy." When Sirius didn't fight back, he moved on. "Anyway, I disagree. I think Peter's right. "We're friends. We shouldn't have secrets."

"We're not really friends though, are we?" said Sirius. "I mean, we barely know Remus and Peter and you and I have only known each other a month or so. We don't have anything in common with them other than circumstances beyond our control."

James pulled a rather unattractive face. In his opinion, they were friends. Remus and Peter were as kind to them as Dorcas, Marline and Mary, often kept them company and stepped forward as a willing wizard chess or exploding snap partner. He though Sirius was being rather cold, but he supposed at least he was being honest. Perhaps Sirius had a higher standard of what made a friend. Perhaps that then meant that earning that friendship was a sweeter reward.

"Well even if we aren't friends, I want to know what's troubling Remus, if he'll tell us. For him to meet with Professor Dumbledore… that's something big. McGonagall usually handles anything within Gryffindor house. This must be a problem that affects the school at large."

The two sat in silence in the otherwise empty dormitory for another five minutes or so, listening to the occasional autumn leaf flit against the tower window in the wind, wondering. Eventually, Sirius shrugged off his cloak and rummaged in his trunk and pulled out his chess board and pieces and invited James to a game in the common room until Peter returned.

When Peter returned with his homework, they sat around the fire as the common room slowly emptied around them until their only company were a few sixth and seventh years in the far corner. The fire was low by eleven o'clock when the portrait hole swung open to reveal a tired looking Remus being dropped off by a tall, thin man with dark hair and a kindly face who waved him goodbye as the Fat Lady swung closed again.

"Remus!" Peter exclaimed, standing up immediately and dislodging their exploding snap tower and causing a substantial amount of singing to the hearth rug.

"Was that your dad?" asked James from his seat on the carpet. He was attempting, tentatively, to pick up the smoking cards from the fireplace. Remus picked his way across the common room.

"Yeah, he came to meet Dumbledore and then got him to agree to extending my curfew as long as he promised to walk me back to the tower to spend some time with me."

"That's pretty nice of him," James commented.

Remus smiled. "Yeah. He even said it was lonely at home in the evenings without me. My mum's been working late recently." He removed his cloak, draped it across a nearby chair and joined them in front of the fire.

"Say, Remus, what do your parents do?" Peter asked. "I don't think you've ever told me."

"Oh. My mother works at a local high school as an English teacher and my father works… for the Ministry."

"Really?" James exclaimed. "What department?"

Remus opened his mouth to answer, but to his surprise, Sirius did for him.

"He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Dangerous Creatures, doesn't he?"

Remus looked a little taken aback. "Yeah, he does. How do you know?"

"Well I knew I recognised your surname from the sorting, but I couldn't think where. I thought my mother must have mentioned your family to me at some point because she talks about other families a lot. But I recognise your father's face – wasn't he in the paper about five years ago? My mother kept the clipping. Something to do with the regulation of werewolves…? His name is Lyall Lupin."

Remus had gone quite white. "Y-yes, that's right. How did you remember something from so long ago?"

Sirius pulled a grim face. "My mother has a long memory for such events. And wishes for everyone else in the house to remember it as she does."

"Why was your mother so interested? What does she do?" Asked Peter. Sirius looked bitter.

"Oh she doesn't do anything. Her role is to mind other families' business and keep me and my brother in line."

"You didn't tell me you had a brother," James accused, a bit put out. "Is he coming to Hogwarts soon?"

Sirius nodded. "He'll be here next year."

"Oooh! Fantastic! What's he like? What's his name?" James asked eagerly.

"His name's Regulus. And he's fair, I suppose. We get along, but my parents get more joy out of him than they do out of me."

James grinned and punched Sirius lightly on the arm. "I knew you had a streak of rebellion in you."

Distantly, the clock tower could be heard to chime in midnight. James rubbed his hands together eagerly.

"It's midnight snack time!" He exclaimed, jumping up with a sudden burst of energy. Together the little group made their way up to the boys' dormitory, Peter rubbing his eyes but grinning contentedly despite his sleepiness, James falling up the stairs in his eagerness and Sirius poking light fun at his clumsiness. And at the back of the group, Remus followed, a small, comforted smile on his face, holding his Gryffindor scarf aggressively tightly in his hands.

It was Monday morning at breakfast and James was scanning the Gryffindor table as he slowly spooned an absurd amount of scrambled eggs into his mouth. He'd thought, when he, Sirius and Peter had left the dormitory, that Remus had merely woken earlier than them and set off alone. He couldn't see his familiar, sandy head anywhere along the table however. He turned to Sirius.

"Have you seen Remus this morning?" James asked.

"No," Said Sirius thoughtfully, also casting a glance along the table. "Maybe he went to the hospital wing. I thought he looked ill yesterday. He went to bed early, didn't he?"

"I suppose…" Said James. "We'll see if he turns up for potions."

Remus failed to show in Potions, then Transfiguration and by the time the Gryffindors were walking down to Herbology they were feeling distinctly concerned.

"Suppose he really is ill?" Peter wondered, looking towards the first floor as though he could see into the windows from their distance.

"Or perhaps his father came to see him again." Sirius suggested.

"Speaking of Remus' father," whispered James as they filed into the stuffy greenhouses under Professor Sprout's watchful eye. "What was that business you mentioned yesterday about him being in the papers?"

Sirius cast a sidelong glance to Edgar Bones, who seemed to be pairing up with Peter in Remus' absence. Once he'd determine that the Hufflepuff couldn't hear them over Sprout explaining how different growing conditions for knotgrass could affect its properties in potion making he leaned towards James conspiratorially.

"Well I haven't a particularly good memory of the details, but I do remember my mother lamenting his position being criticized in the paper because she thought he had the right idea about half-breeds."

James looked up at his friend quizzically. "What do you mean, like half-bloods?"

"No, it means creatures with human qualities, like centaurs and vampires and werewolves. He must have advocated for something against them, or my mother wouldn't have been interested. She hates the idea of magical blood being watered down. The idea of allowing part-humans to live like wizards is about as abhorrent to her as mud-bloods."

"Your mother sounds like a fine woman."

The boys' whipped their heads up so fast they appeared to have snapped their necks. Lily and Marline were on Sirius' right-hand-side and apparently Lily had heard their little whispered conversation though Marline looked none the wiser and was watching Professor Sprout intently.

"Butt out, Evans," muttered James. "We're trying to have a conversation here."

"You disgust me, Sirius Black." She hissed savagely. Sirius merely rolled his eyes.

"A person is not always the sum of their upbringing. Surely you must realise this; standing, as you are, in a wizarding school."

Lily narrowed her eyes at him before turning back to her notes – for once not bothering with a sharp retort. James raised his eyebrows behind her back.

"Wow, can you teach me how to do that?"

"I'm just starting to wish people wouldn't make wild guesses about my morals when I'm not even sure what they are yet," Sirius sighed. "Anyway, he'd been attacked or something as a result. I suppose it must have been from an advocating group – or a werewolf itself – but my mother was worried the Ministry was going to bend and fire him, but in the end they just rejected whatever he'd put forward."

"He was attacked by a werewolf?" James hissed, any interest he might've had in the lesson having disappeared quite abruptly.

"Oh I don't think he was bitten. I would have remembered that. And if he is a werewolf, would Dumbledore have allowed him to come to Hogwarts yesterday?"

"Werewolves aren't dangerous on days other than the full moon though, Sirius." Said James, frowning disapprovingly at his friend.

"No, of course not, but it's full moon tonight – and werewolves are recorded as being temperamental on the nights surrounding the true full moon."

"Oh Merlin, you've just reminded me that we've got astronomy homework for tomorrow."

"And now you have Herbology homework to complete for Thursday, Potter and Black, because judging by your empty parchment, you've failed to take in a single word I've said to you today."

Professor Sprout had appeared behind the pair. "Now I asked you to raise your sample of knot grass in the appropriate conditions to be used in Polyjuice Potion. If you had been paying attention you would have known this. I expect immaculate results and then perhaps I will not have to inform your Head of House of your inattentiveness."

"Yes, Professor," the pair conceded shamefacedly.

Remus continued to be absent, from lunch, their last two classes and then dinner. James and Peter sat in a corner of the common room looking out of one of the tower's windows into the early October night with Peter's telescope as they hurriedly filled out their star charts for tomorrow. Sirius lazed nearby flicking though a library copy of Advanced Potion Making in an attempt to find out more about the uses on knotgrass in Polyjuice Potion.

"I just don't understand why he didn't tell me if he had to go somewhere," muttered Peter out of nowhere. James looked up at him. The smaller boy was rubbing his nose and looking morosely at his star chart. "I mean, I thought we were friends."

"I wouldn't worry on it too much, Peter. I mean, you've only known each other for a month. Maybe it's a family emergency, or something private. Remus is a quiet guy."

Peter didn't answer. James had the distinct impression that he hadn't solved Peter's worries – but he had no other solution so he allowed the other boy to finish his star chart in silence. Just as he was putting the finishing touch to his own, Marline McKinnon appeared at their table.

"Hello?" James wondered if this would have anything to do with Sirius' spat with Lily in Herbology but apparently Remus' unexplained absence hadn't gone unnoticed with the other Gryffindor first-years either.

"Do you know anything about where Remus has gone?" she asked, nodding at Sirius, who had popped up from behind his potions book.

"We've no idea."

Marline sat on the arm of the squashy chair Sirius had commandeered. "Apparently he told Lily that his mother is ill and he had to go and visit her."

Peter raised his eyebrows in worry. "Really? Gosh, I wonder if that was what his dad wanted to talk to him about yesterday… But he seemed cheerful after…" He worried his lip with his top teeth, apparently thinking back to yesterday.

"I had just thought that you three would have known more about it, since you guys go everywhere together. Lily was really worried."

Sirius sat up proper in his chair and closed his book. "Well Peter sees him the most after Evans, I suppose, so if they don't know anything, we certainly don't. Whatever it is, it looked serious though – his father was here yesterday."

James thought back to yesterday, new information in mind. He hadn't thought that Remus had seemed upset yesterday, but perhaps he was glad to be visiting home? Remus, he thought, was a quiet person and James wouldn't put it past him to try to hide anything amiss about his family. He scanned the common room for Lily Evans and found her sitting with Dorcas and playing with the other girl's cat. Why was it that Remus had told Evans what was going on? James had seen the two together, certainly – they sat together in some lessons and Remus was neutral to the rivalry between Snape and himself and Sirius. Despite this, it still miffed him that he would confide in her over Peter, or him and Sirius.

"I hope she's alright, but if he didn't seem upset, I suppose everything must be fine…"

James helped himself to Peter's telescope and occupied himself with the sky outside, despite having finished his chart. He smirked as he spotted Canis Major and Orion off to the East.

"Look how cool the moon looks tonight," he commented, unknowingly interrupting Marline's babbling about not being about to find a passage which directly stated how to grow knotgrass for Polyjuice Potion in their Herbology or Potions textbooks.

James took the eyepiece away from his face and looked down onto the moonlit grounds. Reflections of the high windows dotted the otherwise blank expanse of grass. If he squinted into the black edges of the Forest, he could see the gamekeeper's hut and even the Whomping Willow, shifting as it was disturbed, down by the boathouse.

He didn't know if it was a trick of the flickering lights, but he also thought he saw a stocky figure open the great doors to the Entrance Hall and momentarily cast a strip of dim orange across the grounds.

It's been a while, huh? This chapter isn't beta read either – as chapter two hasn't been picked up yet. I did have to go back to change Sirius' first impression of Remus as I did have him state that he hadn't heard the name before. So if you noticed the discontinuity, don't worry, so did I.

The planning notes for this fic are starting to become ridiculously expansive.

I'm still running the Tumblr for this fic at marauders1971-1978 which has some much improved illustrations on it now, as I've got the hang of my digital drawing software.

I feel like not much happened here, but it was getting pretty long so you can look forward to meeting up with Remus again (and meeting Severus for the first time!) next chapter, which will be following Lily.

Thanks for reading and see you next chapter!

~BS