Chapter 27

Jealousy

Slughorn didn't dare ask them about his parties again. James and Sirius noticed a huge decline in the amount of favoritism he showed them. Thankfully they didn't need it, they were already some of the best in their class. The only Gryffindor in the class that was better then them was Lilly Evans, which to no one's surprise drove Sirius crazy.

He was trying to stop feeling that way, because he knew the only reason he felt that way was because she was a muggleborn. He kept telling himself that she was just as good as him, but it wasn't helping. Sirius was surprised when James was so understanding. James would never think of a muggleborn as below him. The prat may act like he was better than everyone else, but he didn't actually believe it. The problem was that for some reason no one, including himself, could understand he refused to let James help him. He was even refusing help with Transfig, which James had been giving him help with all year, causing his grade to drop. He was determined to do it himself.

"Sirius, you're doing it wrong." James commented reading over Sirius' shoulder. James' determination to help his friend was not helping keep the dorm room peaceful.

"Leave me alone James." Sirius said without looking up, but he did cross out his answer and start over again.

"You're supposed to subtract the weight of the rat by the weight of what you're turning it into." James told him when he started doing wrong again. Sirius stared a his paper for a moment then slammed his head on the table. He had been doing it wrong for an entire hour. He just wasted all that time, and that wasn't even the worst part. He had to have James tell him that he was doing is wrong. He couldn't even figure it out by himself.

Sirius sat up quickly. He knew exactly what was wrong with him. He was jealous of James. He moaned, why shouldn't he be. James was perfect, he was good at everything. Even outside of school he never got really angry, he never judged anyone, he was even starting to get just as good as Sirius in pulling pranks on people, and Sirius had been doing that his whole life. Sirius sighed and stood up, James gave him an odd look as he walked out of the room.

He sat down in a large chair by the fireplace in the common room. He tried to restart his homework, but couldn't concentrate so he grabbed the homework he screwed up on and threw it into the fire and sat there and watched it burn.

"Somebody looks like they fell off the happy tree." He heard a girl's voice behind him. He turned to look at the person that spoke and to his surprise he found Lilly Evans leaning on the back of his chair.

"What does that mean?" He asked after a few moments of trying to figure out what a happy train was.

"Just forget it." She moved over to the couch and lounged on it. She looked like she had just gotten out of bed; she had on a baggy pair of pants and a shirt that was at least two sizes too big for her. That surprised him.

"I swiped it from my dad a long time ago." She said noticing his curious look. Have you ever worn a shirt too big for you; it's really comfortable."

"No, I can't say I have." He answered wondering why anyone would wear clothes that didn't fit them.

"You should try it." She gave a short smile then went back to looking annoyed .

"What is wrong with you?" He asked though he didn't really care.

"I could ask you the same question."

"But I asked first." He knew he wouldn't answer her when she asked so it wasn't really polite to ask her, but he didn't really care about being polite right now. He wasn't really even really sure why he was even talking to her, but it did feel kind of good to talk to someone outside of the Marauders for once.

"The girls in my dorm are too loud and I couldn't sleep;I was hoping to get some sleep down here."

"Don't let me stop you." he told her and turned back to the fireplace. There was an awkward silence for a short time and it drove her crazy.

"Why are you down here?" She asked hoping to break it.

He didn't answer at all. She had been expecting a 'none of your business' ore something but not to be completely ignored. Unfortunately for Sirius that was a pet peeve of hers. It made her become determined to make him answer her.

"Did someone make you mad?" She asked but he still didn't answer. "Or did you make someone else mad?"

He sighed, he was sure she wasn't going to leave him alone. She noticed his transfig book on the floor beside him.

"Are you mad because Remus won't let you copy his homework?"

"Remus never lets me copy his homework." He said thankful for a change of subject. "And how come you call Remus by his first name but the rest of us by our last?"

"Because Remus is more mature than the rest of you idiots."

"Are you kidding! Remmy is about as mature as a week old puppy."

"That's a nice thing to say about your friend, and I don't believe that for a second." She rolled her eyes at him. "Remus isn't stupid enough to put purple dye in the prefects bathroom like you losers did."

"That was Remus' idea! And how did you know it was us?"

"You really expect me to believe that? And you losers are the only ones who would actually be stupid enough to think of is and brave enough to actually do it."

"You can believe what ever you want, Evans." He told her choosing to ignore the rest of her sentence.

"You still didn't answer my question."

"What question is that?"

"Do you have short term memory loss or something?"

"No just a very short attention span. You're lucky I've managed to keep from getting distracted this long." He smirked at his own joke.

"What are you doing down here?"

"James was making me mad." He told her without thinking.

"What did the prat do this time?" She was surprised when he didn't defend James from her insult. Sirius sighed realizing that he had said too much.

"It isn't really him I'm mad at I guess."

"Then who are you mad at?" Sirius thought for a moment wondering if he should tell her what was going on. Maybe she could help.

"I think I'm mad at myself, but I'm not sure." He said quietly. "I think I'm jealous of him."

"Jealous? Why?"

"He's so good at everything. No matter how hard I try I can't find anything he isn't instantly good at." To his surprise he actually did feel better, apparently talking about it did help.

She thought about this for a minute, it did make sense, from what she had noticed everything always seemed to just come naturally to the boy.

"I don't know why, but it sorta just happened, I didn't really even realize it before." He continued.

"I know one thing he isn't good at." Sirius looked up at her. "Being humble." She smiled at him but he just looked back at the floor.

"Actually he's good at that too. He just doesn't apply it to everyone."

"I'm not sure I believe that either." He didn't respond. "I think you should tell him about this, or maybe you should try and concentrate on the things you're good at too, because to the rest of us normal people, you're amazingly good at everything too." Sirius watched her for a moment.

"Are you kidding? I can't even transfigure a pin cushion."

"Everyone has flaws, Black."

"James doesn't"

"Yes he does, you just haven't found it yet. Be glad that you only have one major flaw instead of like fifty, like Pettigrew does."

"Peter isn't that bad. He just has a little brain problem, as in his brain is too little."

"You are mean, Black." She said though she couldn't help but laugh. "First Remus is a puppy now Pettigrew's brain is too small; some friend you are." Sirius just smiled and picked up his transfig book. He figured it wouldn't hurt to try again.

"Need some help? I'm not as good as James, but I'm still better than you are." She said smirking.

"In that case you're perfect." he moved over to the couch beside her and they worked on the homework. When they were done with Transfig he returned the favor and helped her with astronomy. By the time they were done with that it was a good thing it was Friday.

"Thanks a lot, I don't know why but talking to you helped a lot." He said before standing.

"Why do you hate Severus so much? You seem like you could be really good friends." He looked at her in surprise. He had forgotten that she was friends with Snape.

"He started it, he made that dumb joke just before the sorting about me being in Slytherin."

"But didn't you want to be in Slytherin?"

"No."

"Oh, I just figured that with your family..."

"Just because their jerks doesn't mean that I have to be one too." He told her harshly. She looked up at him in surprise.

"Not all Slytherins are bad you know. Serv introduced me to some of them and they were kind of nice."

"If they were nice to you then they didn't know you were a muggleborn. I'll bet he lied to them. None of them are nice, especially to you."

"You're wrong!"

"I live with them!" He yelled accidentally letting his anger get out of control.

"I don't believe you."

"Believe what you want, but when one of them starts attacking you don't come crying to me."

"I wouldn't have anyway!" She stomped up the stairs to the girls dorm and Sirius rolled his eyes. She would have to figure it out the hard way; just like he did. He sighed and looked out the window, noticing the nearly-full moon. Remus would be leaving soon, he wasn't sure why but Remus always left on a full moon. Maybe his mom's illness had something to do with the phases of the moon. He didn't really feel like worrying about it now though. Sirius climbed up the stairs to the dorm and wasn't surprised when Remus poked his head out of the curtains around his bed.

"Sirius what were you doing down there? You know it's almost three in the morning right?"

"Sorry, I wasn't watching the time. I managed to get my homework done though."

"That's good." Sirius nodded and climbed into bed.

"Good night Remus."

"Night."

A/N) Hi!!!!! Sorry about the Sirius emo chapter, but I really wanted him to be jealous. So I did. I promise I won't have another emo chapter for a while.

I've had a lot of time to write lately so I have the next chapter done to, but you have to wait for it. Man I'm evil.

The Sophomores at my school are taking a graduation test, I passed all mine but since I can't drive _ I still have to ride the bus. So I had a whole two hours in the morning to sit in the cafeteria and do nothing. You guys benefit from my pain, be greatfull.