Chapter 49

Scary Potions and Rainbow Roses

"Sirius! Sirius wake up!"

Sirius jumped at the sound of James yelling from across the lunch table.

"I wasn't asleep." He said looking around to try and remember where he was.

"That's it, as soon as lunch is over you're taking a nap." James told him, going into big brother mode.

"I'm not tired."

"Please." Remus joined in quietly. He knew Sirius had been up all night because of him. He'd known Sirius would since Sirius hugged him last night. He also knew that if he acted all sad and stuff, that Sirius would in fact take a nap. Sirius was only hiding how tired he was because he knew Remus would think it was his fault. Really though, Remus couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. He felt guilty that he was pleased Sirius had been worrying so much about him, but other than that, he was really happy. He would be willing to bet that no other werewolf in the world had someone that would stay up all night worrying about them, ever, let alone on a full moon.

He didn't feel sad about it. He felt lucky, very very lucky.

"Fine, but I'm really not that tired." Sirius said pushing his plate away in case he dropped again. He was lucky his face missed his lunch the first time. He really was exhausted, he'd stayed up all night before, but only one other time had he done it while bawling his eyes out, and that was his first day 'home' from Hogwarts last summer, the day Regulus had abandoned him. He let himself sleep till noon the next day though. Crying tired him out, he figured that was because he didn't do it very often.

Sirius hadn't told them about meeting McGonagall last night. He couldn't imagine ever telling them that. They probably wouldn't even believe him, he was only half sure it had happened himself. The only proof he could think of was how tired he was. If it hadn't happened then that meant he'd fallen asleep and dreamed it, because he remembered it vividly. If he'd fallen asleep he wouldn't be this tired. That and she kept looking at him oddly, as though she was checking to make sure he was alright.

It also didn't hurt that Remus was absolutely sure that he'd seen Sirius when McGonagall magicked him back to Hogwarts. He saw her, but he remembers seeing Sirius first.

"Sure, Si. You just keep telling yourself that. We need you alert for the Halloween feast, you'll kill me tomorrow if we let you fall asleep in the middle of it." James told him.

Sirius chuckled tiredly. "Very true." He had to keep from closing his eyes or he'd fall asleep again. He felt James smack him upside the head, causing him to jump again. "I wasn't asleep yet." He complained, James was just using it as an excuse to hit him now.

"Oh sorry." He said smirking. Remus laughed turning away to try and hide it. Sirius gave him a knowing look.

"That's it, I'm going to bed, I'm not going to sit here and get smacked every time I close my eyes."

"I'll wake you up when the fun starts." James called out to him as Sirius walked away. Sirius responded with a thumbs up.

"He can't be doing this every month." Remus said looking at James.

"I don't understand, we've stayed up all night plenty of times. Why is this time so bad?"

"We stay up all night doing fun stuff. He was up all night worrying. It's always different. I didn't tell him this, but the first thing I noticed when I woke up in the hospital wing is that he'd been crying. He probably spent the entire night crying by the window or something. That takes a lot more energy then going to the Slytherin common room and making the chairs eat them." Remus said wisely.

"Okay, but that brings up even more questions. Like why he was crying then, when every time we see you in the hospital wing he's fine. Seeing someone in pain is always a lot worse then knowing they're going to be in pain."

"I don't know James. I really don't." Remus said picking at his food.

"Maybe it's different for Sirius." Peter suggested. James and Remus looked at him, telling him to continue. "Every time one of us had been in trouble he's been there." Peter looked at them as though he was surprised they hadn't thought of this themselves. "This is the first time he can't do anything to help."

James looked down at his plate. "He can't stand feeling helpless." It had never occurred to him before, but it fit perfectly. Sirius won't sit by and watch something happen. He has to be in on it, even when it's something that doesn't concern him at all, he's always looking for something to do, whether it's breaking up a fight, or cheering one of them on. It's why it's hurting him to watch Regulus grow up the way he was, because there is absolutely nothing he can do. He has to sit there and watch Regulus turn into a Black. It makes him feel helpless.

"It does fit doesn't it." Remus said, clearly thinking the same thing James was. "You're probably right, Peter."

"I can't believe I didn't see it. Look at the way he is with Regulus. Man it's like it's smacking me in the face. I should have figured it out." James complained. He didn't have anything against Peter, but he was Sirius' best friend. He should have figured it out on his own, not Peter. Sirius didn't even like Peter all that much.

"We should go, I think lunch is over." Remus said as the lunch room began to clear.

"Alright." James said and the three of them left. "What do you want to do until we need to wake Sirius up?"

"We have Potions homework to finish." Remus reminded him."Actually, Sirius still needs to work on that, it's due tomorrow."

"Eh, I'll let him copy mine, he needs to sleep." James waved it off as they entered the library. Remus sighed but didn't argue, James was right after all. Sirius really needed to sleep. Unsurprisingly the first one they saw there was Lilly Evans. She saw them too, and, also unsurprisingly, the first thing she did was run off to make sure Snape was alright. He followed her, looking rather confused, back to her table under the pretense that she needed his help.

James laughed when he realized she just wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure they weren't going to hex him or anything.

"Hey Snivellus! Don't you know most gentlemen protect girls, not the other way around!" He called. Snape looked up his face instantly turning to hatred.

"Will you stop it?" Remus asked, though too quietly for James to hear, before pulling James back behind a bookshelf in different sitting area.

James was still snickering when Remus pulled out his potion book and three pieces of parchment.

After they did their potions essay James decided it was time to wake Sirius up, though he made sure to stop everything he was doing to make fun of Snape again on the way out. James enjoyed the look of hatred that plastered on Snivellus' face every time he looked at James, and naturally he bragged about his recent Snape-bashing to Sirius as they walked to the Room of Requirement.

"Man I wish you could have seen his face, Si. It was priceless! You know the phrase 'a picture's worth a thousand words'. If I'd gotten a picture of it it'd be worth ten million words and at least a million galleons." James continued.

"James, no one would pay a million galleons to look at his ugly mug. No matter what facial expression he was wearing..." Sirius paused for a moment before continuing. "Actually you'd probably have to pay them a million galleons just to look at the picture." James couldn't respond to this, he was too busy laughing.

"Guys, you're about to walk right past it." Remus told them refusing to comment on their conversation.

"Oh, whoops." Sirius said as Remus opened the door. Their perfectly made potion was waiting for them. Remus and James poured it from the cauldron into a glass bottle, one that could hold any amount of liquid, that James had brilliantly thought to convince his parents that he needed. They then stuck that into James' bag so he could carry it without people seeing.

To no one's surprise, except maybe Peter who thought Sirius wasn't afraid of anything, Sirius refused to help them with this task. Though he made up for it by running up to the dorm to retrieve James' invisibility cloak that they had forgotten to grab when they were up there.

James went into the kitchen under the cloak to add the potion to the pumpkin juice.

"We still haven't decided who is going to talk to Dumbledore this time." Remus said offhandedly while they waited for James.

"I figured you were going to do it again." Sirius shrugged. "I did it all last year, not that I'm complaining."

"I thought James would want a turn." Remus said.

"Eh, he can do it next year. I like the way you do it, and you can't get away with only doing it once." Sirius teased.

"What's Remus trying to get away with?" James said pulling out from under the cloak.

"Oh I didn't see you come out. Remus is trying to get out of talking to Dumbledore."

"No I'm not, I just figured it would be best if all of us got a turn."

"You don't want to do it?"

"Sure I want to... Oh forget it." Remus began to defend himself, but realized they were just teasing him so he didn't bother.

"Good idea, Moony." James said smiling.

"We still have an hour till the feast, what are we going to do till then?" Sirius asked changing the subject.

"You still need to do your potions essay, the rest of us can study for our transfiguration test till you're done." Remus reminded. Sirius moaned.

"I don't think I can do it in one hour." Sirius complained as they headed back up to the common room.

"You can copy mine." James said ignoring the look on Remus' face. "It's not your fault you didn't have time to do it after lunch."

"Thanks, James!"

"What are you boys doing down here?" They turned around to see McGonagall watching them. They hadn't even gotten out of the dungeons yet.

"Um..." James tried to think of an excuse.

"We were going to sneak into the Slytherin common room, but we couldn't think of anything to do to them that we haven't already done." Sirius lied looking depressed, Remus had to force himself not to look at Sirius in shock. He came up with that lie in less then ten seconds.

"We're worried it's going to cause Sirius to fall into depression." James added, he was learning never to be shocked at anything Sirius does.

"Please don't tell me you expect me to sympathize." She told them. "Shoo, you have no business being down here, it's Sunday go do something productive with your lives and leave the Slytherins alone. Go outside, it's nice outside. Play around like kids your age are supposed to." She complained and walked away rubbing the bridge of her nose.

The Marauders stood there watching her walk away, with extremely confused looks on their faces.

"She seems rather agitated. I wonder what's wrong." Remus voiced everyone's thoughts.

"She looked stressed to me. She's working to hard." James said with a smile. "We should try to convince her to take a day off."

"Are you kidding? She wouldn't take the day off if she was sent to St. Mungo's." Remus told him.

"Let's go, we should probably be getting out of here anyway." Sirius told them and they resumed their walk to Gryffindor tower.

When they got there Sirius headed straight for the dorm.

"Sirius, where are you going?"

"Can I borrow your owl, Remus?" Sirius asked ignoring the question.

"As long as you don't take long, and bring a potions and transfig book, on your way back down." Remus answered, deciding not to ask questions.

Sirius didn't take long, he was down and back a lot quicker then they expected.

"What'd you do?" James asked.

"I needed to get a thank you gift for someone." He said, not giving them enough information to make sense. James looked at Remus and Remus shrugged before opening the transfig book and ignoring James as he gave Sirius his homework.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

McGonagall sighed as she headed back up to her office. As she had hoped a small snack in the kitchens had really helped her calm down. She only had twenty minuets till the feast started, but she needed to get her office cleaned up some. She had no less then ten animagi books scattered everywhere. She absolutely would not let some student walk in and see her office in such a mess.

When she walked into her office, though, the mess was the last thing she was thinking about. On her desk was a beautiful vase with a full bloomed rose sticking out of it. The rose itself is what amazed her the most. It was rainbow, it had clearly been enchanted to look that way. She had never seen anything like it.

She read the note tied to the string around the vase.

Thank you for your help last night. You have no idea how much it meant to me.

Sirius Orion Black

McGonagall smiled. Trust a Black to do something overly extravagant for a thank you gift. If any of them could be bothered to say thank you for anything, that is. It probably cost a fortune, money didn't mean anything to them. Knowing Sirius he probably stole the money from them and they didn't even notice.

She put the rose in the center of the desk, making a mental note to check to make sure a non-wilting charm had been placed on it when she had more time, before proceeding to clean her office. Every few minuets she would look at the rose and smile again to herself.

There was no doubt about it now, this young boy was warming his way into her heart as no other student had before.

And to tell you the truth, she wasn't really sure she minded.

Though if you told anyone else that she would cheerfully transfigure you into a toad.

So don't tell.

A/N) Sirius mail ordered the rose. It was a store in Hogsmeade, that's why she managed to get it in less than 40 minuets.

I don't know if this is believable or not. It was a spur of the moment thing to have him thank McGonagall like that. I hope it wasn't too annoying of a chapter. It was another one without much point I think.

I need to clarify something, the only major pairing in this is James and Lilly, I may add some mentioning of the Lilly/Snape love triangle, and I may give Sirius and/or Remus an unimportant girlfriend when they get older, but it won't last and I'm not even sure if I'm going to do it at all.

There is absolutely no Sirius/Remus, Sirius/James, James/Remus, etc stuff going on.

I had someone mention that I was putting some Sirius/Remus hints in there and I want to make sure everyone knows it was purely unintentional and they're just best friends.

Ok I got that out of the way. Thanks to all of my reviewers! I have 100 of them now. It rox! I feel so loved you guys. Thanks sooooooooooooooo much.