Chapter 3

It was 9 p.m., and the Potters sat still at the dinner table, talking about the school, and what new adventures James had had since the holidays on Christmas, when suddenly someone knocked at the door.

"Who can it be at this time?" Mr. Potter wondered, but stood up to look. James ran excitedly to the door when he heard a soft voice, which he knew too well, talking.

"I'm sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I am a friend of James'..."

"Sirius! Dad, this is Sirius, you know him, I told you about him..."

Mr. Potter lifted an eyebrow... So this was the boy with whom his son played all his pranks. "Of course. Please come in." He went out of the door, so that Sirius could follow his invitation. He was a little surprised to see that the young man had quite a lot of baggage with him.

They went to the table, where his wife waited for them to return.

"Mum, this is Sirius!" James told his mother hastily, when he came in. Mrs. Potter watched the unknown boy that came in behind his son. He was tall, with black hair. And when he looked her in the eyes, she could see that he had blue ones that returned her inquiring gaze openly. She immediately liked the boy.

And of course she knew him. Not personally, but through the tales her son had told. James had often talked about him. They were best friends. But then her gaze fell on his suitcase, and she wondered why he had brought it, and why he came at 9 p.m., without saying something before...

"Good evening Mrs. Potter. I'm sorry for disturbing you, but I needed to get away from home, and I didn't know where to go..."

Now that he was at the Potter's he didn't know anymore if it was a good idea to come here.

"Please, sit down. Are you hungry?" Mrs. Potter asked caringly.

"Yes, thank you," Sirius answered, grateful. She gave him some bread, and put butter, jam and cake in front of him. He loaded a lot of it on the plate James had fetched for him in the kitchen.

"I went before dinner," he said as an excuse.

"It is okay, you need much to eat in your age. But tell us, what happened?"

"Yes, what happened this time, Padfoot?" James asked softly.

"Well, first I was late for dinner and then she said something about my choice of friends, and told me to not walk around with "mudbloods"." He sneered. "And then she insulted Dumbledore. That made me angry enough that I just walked away. Can you imagine she wanted me to be friends with Malfoy?! This stupid, slimy-" he remembered that James parents were in the room, and stopped. "Well, now I don't know where to go, and thought I could stay here till tomorrow..."

"You can stay here for longer, we have place enough." offered James.

"Yes, we would be happy to have guests" invited him Mrs. Potter. "But perhaps we should tell your parents where you are; and that you are safe..." she added as an afterthought.

"I don't think that's necessary, my parents are probably happy that they got rid of me." Sirius said bitterly.

Unfortunately, James' parents had heard enough about the Blacks to believe this possible. And although they usually didn't listen to gossip, they had never thought the friendship of their son with a son of this family a good sign, but had never said anything. But now that they had met Sirius, they were happy about this friendship. Obviously the son wasn't as bad as the rest of the family.

So they didn't say anything, but just let the boy finish dinner, and then sent both of them sleeping. And while the teenagers slept in James' room together, they planned on how they would convince Sirius to stay for longer.

The End

Okay, that was it! But if enough people like it, I'll perhaps write a sequel, so please, drop me a line and tell me what you think!