Chapter 9: Summer at Sirius's
Soon after summer vacation began, it was full moon. I wasn't thrilled to be back in the shed in the woods, of course, but it wasn't that bad. The day I was feeling better, I received a letter from Sirius.
Remus,
Hey! How's your summer going? Guess what? My dad said that you, James and Peter can visit this summer! Can you come in two days? Let me know ASAP. I hope you can. See you soon.
Sirius
I showed the letter to my parents. My mum was doubtful, but my dad easily convinced her that I needed to get out and have some fun. I couldn't wait. I hurriedly wrote a letter back to Sirius.
Sirius,
I can come! I can't wait to visit you and meet your family. Your sister sounds cool. See you soon.
Remus
I gave the letter to Sirius's owl, Ernie, and let him fly out of my window to deliver it. Two days later, my dad drove me to Sirius's house. His house was a typical muggle cottage. It built of brick with a few windows framed by white shutters, and a blue door. It had a high pitched roof with windows two windows poking out, facing the front that suggested there might be a second floor, or an attic. As we pulled up into the driveway, Peter and a woman I assumed was his mother were standing by the door, ringing the doorbell.
"Bye, Dad," I said, getting out of the car, bringing my bag. My dad got out with me, insisting that he wanted to meet Sirius's dad.
"Hey, Peter, Hey Sirius," I said when I got to the door, although neither of the two responded. Peter had an annoyed expression on his face, and Sirius was hysterically laughing.
"What?" I asked, confused.
"Peter—has--happy—sheep—pa—pajamas!" Sirius gasped between fits of hysterical laughter.
"Happy sheep pajamas?" I laughed. My dad gave us odd looks, and greate Peter's mum, who looked at us all as though we were insane, before saying goodbye to Peter, with a kiss on the cheek, and leaving. Just then, James and his dad, who was of course, the Minister of Magic, arrived.
"Ah, Minister, good to see you again," My father greeted James' dad with a handshake.
"Mr. Lupin, it's been quite a while," said Mr. Potter. "I'm glad to see that our sons have made acquaintances." Dad nodded.
"Hey, what's going on?" James asked me, pointing to Sirius and Peter.
"Happy sheep pajamas!" I laughed. He looked confused.
Sirius was finally recovering from the hysterical laughter and let us through the door. A man that I assumed was Sirius's father entered the room.
"So this is the famous James, Remus and Peter?" he asked. We nodded, grinning. "So, did you three get as many owls home this summer as Sirius did?" We nodded.
"Possibly more," said James. Mr. Potter, Mr. Black and my dad headed off to the kitchen to talk. Sirius began a new fit of hysterical laughter about the sheep pajamas, and Peter sulked. James, who'd finally caught on, began to laugh as well. I laughed too, at first. Just then, my attention was captured by the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She came walking down the tiny spiral staircase that led to the second floor of the cottage. She had light red hair that came to her mid back, her pale green eyes glowed, and when she smiled, she seemed to light up the whole room with her beauty.
"Hi Sirius," she said. "So these are your friends?" She smiled.
"Yeah," Sirius answered. He turned to us. "Mates, this is my sister, Addi."
"She's your sister?" asked Peter. "You don't look a thing alike." I'd been thinking the same thing.
"I know," Sirius explained. "She looks like dad and I look like mum. So anyway, Addi, this is James, this is Remus and this is Peter."
"Hi," she said to us.
"Hi," I replied.
"Hullo," said Peter.
"Do you know your brother is insane?" said James. We all laughed.
"You're telling me?" asked Addi. "Sirius is always doing dumb things. Just last week he tricked me into eating one of those horrible candies that burn a hole right through your tongue!"
"You shouldn't be talking, James," said Sirius.
"Well, you came up with all of those crazy prank ideas," argued James.
"Yeah, and you never helped at all," said Sirius sarcastically, preparing to chase James. "You were too busy staring at Lily!"
"I don't like Lily!" said James, beginning to run. Addi continued to laugh.
"I can't believe I've got to spend the next two weeks with a bunch of boys! I hope you're not all as bad as Sirius," said Addi.
"Don't worry," I said. "The rest of us aren't that bad." She smiled. I found myself staring at her, then realized and stopped. I hoped that Peter, James and Sirius hadn't noticed, or they'd definitely make fun of me.
"Where's dad?" asked Addi.
"In the kitchen," replied Sirius, as he threw a pillow from the sofa in James' direction. "With James' and Remus' dads. They're most likely talking about us. We'd better go listen." He ran for the kitchen and the rest of us followed.
"I have no idea how those kids could have gotten into so much trouble," my dad was saying. "Remus has always been such a well behaved child."
"Well, I'll bet meeting my Sirius is what changed that," said Mr. Black. I took a closer look at Sirius' father, and noticed that Addi resembled him much more than she resembled Sirius.
"And James is always getting himself into trouble. Quite the prankster; he likes to make people laugh," said Mr. Potter. We walked into the kitchen and our fathers were suddenly silent.
"Dad, we heard you talking about us," said Sirius.
"Eavesdroppers, eh?" asked Mr. Black, laughing.
"Well, I really should be going. Ministry business to attend to, you know how it is," said Mr. Potter. "You have a good time, James. And behave yourself." James grinned and nodded, using his innocent look, which apparently didn't work for his father because he just shook his head and rolled his eyes, then left the room.
"I should go now, too," said my dad. "You have a good time Remus. And don't get into any trouble."
"Bye dad, and don't worry, I won't," I said. My dad left.
"It was nice meeting you kids, and this is going to go against my better judgement," began Mr. Black. "But unfortunately I've just had a house call from Mrs. Smith down the street. She thinks she's broken her leg. So the five of you will be alone for the afternoon. I don't want to hear about anything going wrong, is that understood?" He made a stern glance toward Sirius, who nodded. His expression softened as he turned to Addi. "You keep these four out of trouble, all right?" She laughed and nodded. "What would I do without a child who actually knows right from wrong?" he asked, laughing.
"Hey!" Sirius said, sounding offended. "I know right from wrong, I just choose to ignore it." Mr. Black sighed and shook his head with a slight smile.
"I certainly wish you'd reconsider your choice," he laughed. "But I'm leaving now, and I don't want to hear anything about explosions, or chasing Addi with objects, or flying, or anything of the sort. Bye."
"Bye!" we chorused back. He hurried out through the back door carrying his doctor's bag for house calls, and leaving us to ourselves.
"I'm hungry," said Peter. "Got any food?"
"Yeah," said Sirius. "Should we cook?" he grinned at us.
"Uh-oh," said Addi, who had obviously seen Sirius cook before. "I'm out of here. I'll be in our room with the fire department on hold for an explosion in the kitchen." She laughed.
"Shut up," mumbled Sirius.
"And don't you dare bring any icky boys on my side of the room, Siri," threatened Addi, before leaving the room.
"Don't worry, I won't," Sirius called after her, using his most innocent sounding voice and most charming smile.
"Let's see," Sirius looked in the refrigerator. "We could make a meat pie. He pulled out some pieces of beef. I had never seen food cooked without magic before. Neither had James and Peter. We glanced at each other doubtfully.
"Uh, I'm not really that hungry," said Peter. "We could wait until later."
"Why?" said Sirius. "Do you think I can't cook."
"Honestly," said James. "Yes."
"Oh, shut up," said Sirius. "Now let's get started…" In the next two hours, the four of us managed to wreck the kitchen, blow up the oven, cause a fire, and end up with nothing edible.
"Well, that was fun," said Sirius as he stared at the destruction around us that had once been a perfectly normal kitchen.
"There's nothing to eat," wined Peter, poking at the charred remains of what might have slightly resembled a pie at one point. "You burnt all of it."
"So, at least it was fun," Sirius shrugged. James sighed and waved his wand around to start cleaning.
"Hey, where'd you learn to do that?" asked Sirius, amazed at how the kitchen seemed to be cleaning itself.
"Well, you can't live in a wizard house and not learn anything useful," said James, continuing to wave his wand. Suddenly, a hurricane of pots and pans began to fly around the room crashing into cupboards and falling to the ground. "Of course, I haven't perfected it yet." We moaned at the mess but couldn't help laughing.
"Might as well start cleaning up now," I said, grabbing some of the pots that were now lying on the floor. Just as soon as we finished cleaning up (muggle style), Mr. Black arrived home. He glanced at us, frowning, when he saw how normal everything looked.
"So, nothing went wrong while I was wrong?" he asked.
"No, nothing at all," said Sirius. "Everything is fine here." Mr. Black looked at him suspiciously.
"Then why does it smell like something burnt in here?" he asked. We glanced at each other.
"I don't know, dad," said Sirius.
"The truth, Sirius," said Mr. Black.
"We –er- tried to cook," said Sirius.
"And you blew something up, right?" said Mr. Black.
"Uh, the oven," said Sirius. Mr. Black shook his head.
"What am I going to do with you kids?" he smiled a little. "Now get out of the kitchen and I'll try to make you something to eat. Although I can't promise you I'm much better than Sirius."
"Don't worry, Mr. Black," said Peter. "My dad can't cook either. But we're so hungry we'll eat anything now." Sirius' dad laughed. We headed upstairs to Sirius and Addi's room.
The next few days were fun. We came up with all kinds of pranks to scare Sirius's muggle neighbors. We went for walks to the muggle candy store that was nearby, which was very different from wizard stores. We always asked Addi to come with us, but she refused, saying she had better things to do with her time than spend it with her brother and his annoying friends.
One day, Sirius was trying to teach us how to ride a bike (a muggle form of transportation that requires balancing on two wheels and pedaling to move. I'll never understand the purpose of such ridiculous things, but that's beside the point.) Sirius was just trying to explain how to stay balanced, when I fell down. And somehow, I managed to get stuck under the bike. The guys were just helping me up, when one of Sirius's old friends came out of his house and over to talk to us.
"Hi Sirius," he said.
"Hi Tommy," said Sirius. I noticed Tommy looking at each of us as though we were inferior to him. His glance took in James's messy hair and broken glasses, Sirius's shaggy looking black hair that hadn't been cut for a few months, my tired expression still showing from full moon, and Peter's plumpness.
"These are my friends," said Sirius. "This is James, Remus and Peter."
"Oh, hi," said Tommy.
"Hi," I smiled. Peter waved, and James mumbled hi after Sirius hit him in the arm.
"You're Sirius's friends?" asked Tommy. "Sirius doesn't make friends easily." I didn't like this Tommy kid. He reminded me a lot of a Severus Snape type.
"Yeah, we're his friends," James was defensive. "And what do you mean Sirius doesn't make friends easily? He's the most popular kid in our year at school. The king of pranks."
"Right," said Tommy. "Sirius is nothing more than a weirdo who gets in trouble a lot." He sneered. James, Peter and I had to laugh at that one. Sirius, unpopular? There was no way we could be talking about the same person.
"I've changed, Tommy," said Sirius bitterly.
"So you've never told me where you go to school, Sirius" said Tommy suddenly.
"We go to Hog-" I put my hand over Peter's mouth before he could finish. I didn't think it was a good idea to let Tommy hear where we went to school.
"You never told me where you go to school either," said Sirius.
"Smeltings," said Tommy. "You know, my dad's old school." They continued talking and somehow got on the topic of a teacher that Sirius had put a full body bind on in grammar school.
"That teacher you cursed?" asked Peter, remembering when Sirius had told us about it.
"Yeah," said Sirius. "Cursed him with a full body bind. I can't believe they blamed me. It wasn't my fault."
"Cursed? Full body bind?" asked Tommy. "What are you talking about?" I couldn't help offering up one of my intelligent sounding definitions.
"A full body bind is an elementary spell that will leave the victim helpless and unable to move for a certain amount of time," I explained.
"It's summer, Remus," moaned James.
"What do you mean, spell?" asked Tommy. "None of that stuff's real. You don't think you're witches or something, do you?"
"No, we're wizards," James blurted out.
"A bit old to be playing make believe, aren't you?" asked Tommy. I didn't like him at all. I could tell James had the same reaction. I felt in my pocket for my wand.
"Sirius is such an idiot. There's no way he could ever be a wizard." That was too much. I couldn't take it anymore. James looked ready to strangle Tommy with his bare hands. Peter, sensing a fight, had backed away. I pulled out my wand.
"Aww, look. He even has a little wand," Tommy taunted. How could I curse him? I tried to think of the worst thing I could do. "What are you going to do? Cast a spell on me?"
"Don't tempt me!" I said angrily. I wasn't going to take this kid making fun of my friends like that.
"Sirius, your little friends really need to grow up," said Tommy. That was too much. I pointed my wand at him. Sirius grabbed my arm instantly.
"No Remus!" he said. "Remember the underage wizard law? You'll get in trouble. Knock it off."
"All right," I muttered, reluctantly putting down my wand. Normally, I wouldn't be a person to fight, but Tommy had made me really angry. Angrier than I could remember being in a long time. I would have really enjoyed casting a spell on him.
"Tommy, my friends are telling the truth," Sirius said slowly. He glanced at us. He had to tell the truth. James nodded. "We go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. James, Remus, Peter and I are all wizards. Broomsticks, spells, wands, dragons, it's all real."
"No, it can't be," said Tommy. "You're joking. You're crazy."
"No I'm not," said Sirius indignantly. "Remember when I was little and all that weird stuff kept on happening to me? I didn't know then, but it was magic. My mum was a witch." The look on Tommy's face was somewhere between shock and terror.
"Well, then your mum should have died," he said. "We don't need freaks like that in the world." Sirius's face fell, and for the first time I saw sadness in his eyes, though his expression still showed anger.
"Go!" James spat. "Get out of here! And if you ever come back, you'll be very sorry!" Tommy slowly backed away. The expression he wore on his face was all too familiar to me. It was the expression my friends had on their faces when they found out that I was a werewolf. It was the expression you saw and you knew you'd lost a friend. We turned to go inside. Sirius looked terribly upset, though he didn't cry. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say. James was first to speak.
"Are you all right, Sirius?" he asked. Sirius nodded.
"I know how you feel," I tried to offer some words of comfort.
"No," Sirius sounded like he was holding back tears. "What he said about my mum."
"I'm sorry, Sirius," I said.
"You should talk about it," said Peter.
"Yeah," agreed James. "You need to talk about this. Now talk."
"I can't," Sirius said.
"Well, how did she die?" James began. Sirius took a deep breath.
"A dark wizard." I stared, my eyes wide with shock. A dark wizard had killed my best friend's mum. But that wasn't all.
"She was protecting me," Sirius continued. "I was just a baby and the wizard wanted me dead. She was in the way."
"Why would someone want to kill you when you were just a baby?" I asked, surprised.
"I don't know," said Sirius. "Neither does dad."
"Who was it?" asked Peter.
"A guy called Lord Voldemort," replied Sirius. Voldemort. We hadn't heard of him then, but now that name sounds all too familiar. How many innocent lives had he taken? How much pain and suffering had he caused us? Ironic how Sirius joined the man who'd killed his own mother. I guess I never really did know the real Sirius Black. He was very good at disguising himself, though.
"I'm sorry about it," I said.
"What could have you done about it?" Sirius snapped. I looked at him and saw the pain in his eyes. "Sorry," he apologized.
"Don't worry about it," I patted him on the back.
"No," Sirius shook his head. "I shouldn't have acted that way. I shouldn't have let it get to me. You were trying to help."
"It's all right," I said. "Sometimes you need to let it all out."
"Are you okay now?" James asked him. Sirius nodded.
"Then shall we get back to doing damage?" A mischievous smile spread across James's face. Sirius forced a grin. I smiled and shook my head. If anything would cheer Sirius up, that would be it.
We decided to go to the candy store, and to our surprise it wasn't the typical muggle candy store we'd thought it was. Sirius told us that the owner was really a wizard. He let us into the back room where we got all kinds of great wizard candy. We were just on our way out when we saw Tommy entering. He took one look at us and ran away, terrified. We had to laugh. Even Sirius.
The rest of the time at Sirius' house passed by quickly. The five of us sharing Sirius and Addi's tiny attic bedroom was quite a tight fit. Addi had drawn a line across the center of the room dividing her side from ours. To our disadvantage, the stairs were on her side. Every time we wanted to go down, we had to make a run for it, and hope she wouldn't catch us. Unfortunately for Peter, Addi was faster than he was. She caught him three times in one day.
Once we even offered to help her dress him up as a girl and give him a makeover, to Addi's delight, and Peter's disgust. James had even brought a camera along with him, so we took plenty of pictures of Peter clambering throughout the house dressed in a pale pink dress and bright red heels, makeup covering his face, and his short mousy brown hair transfigured into long blonde curls. It was quite the sight to see. Even Mr. Black thought it funny, until he finally sympathized with Peter's whining and forced us to change him back.
Then, common agreement suggested that the same should be done to Sirius, who ran throughout the house, chased by James, Peter, me, and even Addi. Finally, we were triumphant, and succeeded in making Sirius' black hair longer, applying makeup to his face, dressing him in a long green dress, and of course, high heels. Despite the situation, he paraded throughout the house, fulfilling the role quite well, bragging to Peter that at least he could walk in heels.
After this, Addi officially accepted James, Peter and I as friends, proclaiming us no longer to be 'icky'. Finally, after a lot of convincing, she agreed to allow us to be friends with Sirius too.
The five of us together as friends, no longer causing mischief to one another, was a hazard for the tiny village where Sirius and Addi lived. Addi happened to be just as crafty at ideas as Sirius was, and it wasn't long before every cat on the street was an unnatural color, every little kid had been scared away from ice cream after they suddenly found that it chased them, and every adult feared that their house, yard, or trees would end up a different color than it had been the last time they checked. This was mostly due to James' fascination with changing things to a different color. It's a very basic spell; he claimed to have learned it by the age of four after experimenting with his father's wand, and to him it never got old.
It wasn't long before our two weeks at Sirius' was over and our parents arrived to take us home. We were disappointed to leave, but we would see each other again in Diagon Alley before school started. Even Addi was going to be coming along with Sirius. She'd also asked me to write to her over the summer and during school. My mum had sent a letter to me with Jeremy and she thought owl post was much more exciting than muggle post and wanted to be able to use it.
A few days after I returned home, I wrote a letter to Addi, and sent it off with Jeremy. Two days after that, I received a letter back.
Remus,
Hi. I hope you are having a good summer. Mine's all right. My brother is crazy, as usual. I honestly don't see how you can stand him. The other day, he sent a plate flying after me at dinner. It was actually very funny though because it ended up chasing him and then shattered over his head. I told him he needs to get back to school and get more practice. Dad got angry with him and told him that if he uses any more magic over the summer he'll be grounded. I know he hasn't written to you guys at all since you left. I keep on telling him to, but he's just too lazy. So, anyway, he says hi and he'll see you at Hogwarts. You know, I almost wish I went to school with you guys. You're probably more crazy there than you were here. Notice I said almost. Hehe. Well, I've got to go. I'm going to my friend Marianna's house for a while. I'll talk to you later. Please write back.
Addi
I couldn't help grinning from ear to ear when I saw that she'd written to me. I might as well face it. I liked her, even then. Not nearly as much as James liked Lily, but more of a friendship kind of like. I must have started a thousand letters to her before I actually wrote one that was good enough to send. She wrote once again later that summer.
The five of us met in Diagon Alley that year before school started. Addi just came along because she enjoyed looking at all the magic things. Our parents, obviously not thinking clearly, let the five us on our own. We didn't do anything that bad though. James bewitched some little kids' ice cream to fall out of the cone. Sirius set off a dungbomb and we had to leave the area because it smelled so bad. Luckily, no one realized that he was the one who set it off. Other than that, we basically spent the day buying our books and supplies, and chasing each other down the crowded street. Then, James and Sirius noticed Lily and Erin walking down the street together and stopped to talk to them. We introduced them to Addi and we all walked around together for a while. Finally, all of us had to be leaving. We said goodbye and left. We'd see each other again in three days on the Hogwarts Express.