September 6th

My first week at Hogwarts was both amazing and confusing! I woke up on Tuesday and momentarily forgot where I was. When I pushed back the curtains that hung around my bed two faces turned to me. One of them was Peter and the other was a tall, scrawny boy with messy black hair, hazel eyes and glasses.

"Hi Peter." I said slowly, grinning as I remembered the events of last night. Peter grinned back and the other boy smiled and offered a hand,

"Hi, I'm James Potter – nice to meet you."

"Hi James. Sirius Black." We shook hands.

At breakfast we got our class schedules and I saw Lily with a group of Gryffindor girls. She waved to me and I smiled at her. The best part of the morning was when the hundreds of owls soared into the great hall and began dropping letters and delivering parcels. A barn owl landed in front of James and affectionately nipped him (I wish my parents had bought me an owl). The great thing about James was that he and I had the same sense of humor. Nervously I had muttered a comment about our potion's teacher's hair and James heard me. The two of us couldn't stop laughing until we were given detention – on the first day too!

But really it didn't matter. Detention went well, we spent the whole time passing notes and making paper airplanes when Professor Dunderhill wasn't looking. I guess we were fast friends, because we spent the rest of the week talking about our interests and complaining about classes. On Friday we were lost on our way to Astrology again when James turned to me and said,

"Sirius, I reckon we ought to get a map of this school. I mean we're going to be lost forever if we don't."

"I don't think they have a map." I replied trying to guess whether or not we'd already passed the picture of the sleeping boarhounds.

"Then we should make one!" James said with the snap of his fingers. He was grinning excitedly and there was a gleam in his eyes. "We could make a bunch and sell them to first years! We'd make loads of gold and it would be an adventure!"

"That would be awesome! We can spend the weekends mapping and exploring Hogwarts! – and then do the grounds too!"

This idea was so popular between us that we spent the whole class (when we got there) talking about it. We got an extra long detention for being late and then not paying attention. But it was all worth it – because today we're going to start exploring!

Ps. Peter has become much more talkative. He's a nice guy but seems a little shy around strangers. I'm glad James, Peter and I get to share a room.

September 7th

James and I figure we've got all our classes in order. We went around to them each and made sure to look for markers so that we wouldn't get too lost. It still seems like a really big castle – maybe we shouldn't try mapping until after we're more comfortable here. Oh and we found out where the entrance to the Prefect's bathroom is! (Near the statue of Boris the Bewildered).

"I wonder if we could get the password…" I whispered to James as we watched a Hufflepuff prefect disappear behind the door without even bothering to look around. We both agreed that it would be fun to try. However, we were just leaving our hiding place (and laughing about how thick that Hufflepuff prefect must have been to not see us) when we bumped into Lily. She didn't seem impressed with our rude opinions and she glared at James and gave me a sort of disappointed stare before storming off.

"Girls…" I said with a laugh and we both hurried back to the Gryffindor tower.

"Dragon Disco." James mumbled and the portrait to of the fat lady swung away.

"Sirius! James!" Peter leapt up from one of the chairs, evidently he'd been waiting for us. James and I wandered over to him, politely curious. "Guess what! Guess what!" he called excitedly.

"What?" I said with a hint of mockery. Peter missed that but James smirked and nodded to Peter.

"We have a new room mate! He came in after lunch and he's upstairs right now! He has light brown hair and he's skinny and kinda short and all pale. I think he must have been sick or something – maybe he's terminally ill!" Peter seemed so thrilled to be the one to tell us these things that I couldn't help but grin at him.

"Let's go have a look shall we?" I said to them and we all dashed up the stairs and into the tower.

Sure enough there was another boy. His clothes all looked second hand but very neat. His light brown hair brushed his shoulders with a slight curl and he had light grey-blue eyes. Peter had been right about the pale, sickly part though. His looked very tired and smiled at us shyly, two spots of colour standing out on that white skin. I realized we were all staring at him and leapt forward with a wolfish grin,

"Hullo! My name is Sirius Black!" I shook his hand exaggeratedly then let James and Peter introduce themselves. Our new roommate was Remus Lupin and he had still been on vacation during the first week of September.

We stayed up for a little while talking, just the four of us. James and I told Remus and Peter about our plan to make a map. We figured that way the four of us could be better friends – and we offered to show Remus around. And I remembered for the millionth time how happy I was to be at Hogwarts.