The next morning, Remus awoke to the sound of someone pounding on a door and James's rather annoyed voice yelling.
"SIRIUS BLACK! GIVE ME BACK MY ROBES!!!"
Remus groaned as Sirius laughed from inside the bathroom and turned on the shower. "James, isn't it a little early to be yelling?" he asked in irritation as he rolled out of bed and looked around. The small boy, Peter, was fumbling with his curtains and Frank was still snoring. Remus couldn't believe anyone could sleep through James's yelling.
"Stupid git stole my robes and he's put an Imperturbable Charm on the door!" James fumed.
Remus rolled his eyes, but he decided that since he was up anyway, he might as well get dressed. He ran a hand through his honey-brown hair, causing it to fall into his eyes, and pulled his suitcase out from under his bed, rummaging around for his clothes and toothbrush. After waiting for about fifteen minutes for Sirius to finish, he finally went and rapped on the door. "You fall in or something? Other people need to use the bathroom, too."
"You prat, give me back my robes!" James called loudly.
The door opened and Sirius walked out wrapped in a towel, his hair wet, and grinning broadly. "Calm down, mate, I just improved them a little bit."
James ran into the bathroom and found his robes folded neatly on the counter. They were in perfect condition, except that they were now an obnoxious shade of pink.
"SIRIUS BLACK, I'M GONNA GET YOU!!!" James yelled as he spun around, but Sirius had already fled down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. Several students were already sitting in front of the fire, and they all looked shocked to see Sirius come running full-bore out of his dorm wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, laughing hysterically as James chased after him yelling things that made some of the younger girls gasp.
Remus chuckled as he watched them.
"Raving mad, the both of them." he muttered.
"They say the first sign of insanity is talking to yourself." an amused voice spoke behind him.
Remus turned around to find Peter Pettigrew grinning at him.
"I'm not nearly as crazy as they are." he laughed before taking advantage of James's distraction to claim the bathroom for himself.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
A half hour later, the three boys and Peter Pettigrew made their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast (Frank still hadn't woken up). Sirius and James were talking excitedly, trying to figure out what kind of trouble they could cause on their first day of school, the morning's prank already forgiven. James had even left his robes pink after Sirius had bet him 20 Sickles that he wouldn't have the guts to be wear them around school. Remus shook his head and decided they really were insane.
After getting lost a few times, they finally found the Great Hall (James swore it was in a different place than it had been the night before). All eyes turned to them as they walked in and the Hall broke into laughter at the sight of James's robes. James posed a little, thoroughly enjoying the attention as they made their way to the Gryffindor table. A few people commented that James definitely had the famous Gryffindor bravery. Krissy Miller was talking to a redheaded girl who Sirius believed was called Evans, and laughed when she say James, but Evans just rolled her eyes.
"So James, how long do you think it will take for us to get detention?" Sirius asked, his eyes glittering mischievously as he reached for a plate of pastries.
"Dunno, a few classes. Better question; what do you think they'll do about it?" James answered as he filled his plate as many sweet things as he could fit on it.
"Probably hang us upside down by our toenails over a pit of lava." Sirius grinned as he stuffed a chocolate covered pastry in his mouth.
"Nah, hog-tie us and throw us in a chamber full of venomous insects." James smiled brightly.
"You're both completely off your rockers." Remus informed them as he heaped his plate full of bacon, eggs, and toast. Peter looked back and forth between them with fear on his face, obviously thinking they were serious.
James and Sirius were still trying to figure out what kind of horrible punishments they were likely to get when all four boys finished their breakfasts and arrived at their first class.
The severe-looking witch who had run the Sorting the night before looked them over as they found their seats. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of James's pink robes, but she didn't comment on them. A couple of girls pointed and giggled, but they fell silent at a quick look from the professor. As the last few students sat down, she greeted them stiffly. "My name is Professor McGonagall. I am the Transfiguration teacher and the head of Gryffindor house. I think you will find that Transfiguration will be the most difficult class many of you will take during your time at Hogwarts. It will take diligent studying and a lot of practice if you want to master the ability, but once you do, I believe you will find it to be one of the most useful branches of magic for whatever career you choose to pursue." With that she gave a demonstration of turning her desk into a pig. "Quills out please, we will be attempting to turn matches into needles, but first you must take notes. Don't worry if you don't get it today, as I said before, Transfiguration is very difficult."
"She sounds like a lot of fun." Sirius whispered as they pulled their supplies out. The other boys sniggered and Professor McGonagall looked up annoyed.
"Mr. Black, if you know these concepts so well that you don't feel you need to pay attention, please demonstrate for the class." she said irritably.
Sirius looked slightly bored as he pointed his wand at the matchstick Professor McGonagall gave him and said lazily "transidium." To the shock of most of his classmates and the chagrin of Professor McGonagall, the match on his desk turned into a shiny silver needle.
"Thank you, Mr. Black." McGonagall said, even more stiffly than before.
"Yes, ma'am" Sirius answered politely, grinning his crooked grin.
The rest of the class muffled their laughter and tried to pay attention as Professor McGonagall instructed them to get out their quills to take notes before allowing them to attempt the spell. Both James and Remus were able to get theirs to transform by the end of class, but they were the only ones. The red-headed girl had caused hers to become pointed on one end, but everyone else's looked exactly the same as they had at the beginning of the class. Professor McGonagall was extremely impressed at having two students accomplish the spell on their first day and another come close, so she awarded Gryffindor 30 points, but didn't give any for Sirius. Sirius was normally good at charming adults to get out of trouble, but Professor McGonagall seemed immune to his winning smile and big blue eyes.
"I'm never going to get it." Peter murmured dejectedly as they headed towards their next class, Potions.
"Don't worry about it." Remus advised him. "We've all done this before, there's loads of people who come from Muggle families; you'll catch on soon enough. Besides, I bet you do better than me at Potions"
To Sirius's great irritation, they had with the Slytherins, and to make matters worse the Potions teacher, Professor Smeral, was the head of Slytherin house and always favored his own students. The four boys walked into the dungeon classroom to find Sirius's cousin Narcissa Black waiting for him. Next to her was a boy with long, greasy black hair and a very large nose.
"Sirius, what would your mother say if she saw the filth you're associating with." Narcissa sneered, looking disgustedly at James's pink robes.
James was about to say something to that, but Sirius was faster. "You're calling my friends filthy? Your mother would faint if she saw that slime ball's hair." he gestured toward the hook-nosed boy.
Narcissa's reply was cut off by the teacher who chose that moment to enter and told them to sit down.
The four boys chose seats in the back of the class and got their cauldrons and supplies out as the teacher, who introduced himself as Professor Smeral, head of Slytherin House, sneered about how most of them would probably fail his class. They were told to find a partner to work with as the directions for the potion appeared magically on the black board. It was a very difficult potion and the smallest mistake would leave it useless, but if it was done correctly it would cure most types of colds.
Professor Smeral walked around the classroom, looking at the potions and making snide comments to most of the Gryffindors' while complimenting the Slytherins'. "See how Mr. Snape's potion is turning a nice red color? Twenty points to Slytherin." Narcissa, who was partnered with Snape, the greasy-haired boy, turned around to smirk at Sirius.
"What do you think would happen if I added a little bit of salamander blood instead of essence of newt?" James whispered, his eyes gleaming impishly.
"It would cause a huge explosion, ruin your cauldron, waste our supplies, and land us in detention." Sirius answered gravely. "Let's do it."
Remus was too busy watching them and trying not to burst out laughing to pay attention to what he was doing, and he accidentally added twice the amount of toad hearts that the potion called for. Peter, who was sharing Remus's cauldron squeaked and his eyes went wide just as the Potions classroom was rocked by two simultaneous explosions.
"DETENTION! All four of you, tonight with Mr. Filch!" the professor screeched. "50 points from Gryffindor!" Narcissa and the greasy-haired boy, Snape, were grinning maliciously.
"But, Professor, we don't have 50 points." the redhead Gryffindor girl ventured nervously.
"Well then, I suppose I can take however many points you do have and make it a WEEK of detentions, and Ms. Evans can join them tonight for speaking without permission." Professor Smeral snarled.
At the end of class they were told to put a sample of their potion in a test tube to turn in. Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter all got zeros for not having anything to turn in, and even Evans got one for talking back to the Professor. As they left the class, she glared daggers at the four boys.
"What in Merlin's name is her problem, it's not like we told her to go and talk back to the teacher." Sirius fumed after Evans shoved angrily past him.
James laughed. "And why did you guys blow yours up?" he asked, turning to Remus and Peter, "Wanted to join us in detention?"
"As much as I wanted to spend my first night at school with Filch, no, I just got distracted. I'm horrible at potions." Remus answered.
"That much we can tell." Sirius laughed as he mussed Remus's light hair and the four headed off toward Gryffindor Tower for their break period. When they crawled through the round opening in the wall into Gryffindor common room, they saw Evans talking to Krissy about what had happened.
"Come on, Lily, you gotta admit the look on Smeral's face was pretty funny." Krissy was saying.
"They're a bunch of immature little children playing stupid pranks." Lily fumed.
"Aw, they're not that bad..." Krissy broke off as she suddenly noticed who had just entered the common room. Lily turned and her gaze darkened. "I hope you enjoyed your little prank." she spat before turning on her heel and running up the stairs to the girls' dormitories.
"Don't mind Lily, she's just upset about the detention." Krissy told them. "She's afraid of what her parents will think when they find out she got detention on her first day of school."
After two more classes, they all made their way to the Great Hall for lunch. They were filling their plates and talking about what classes they had left when a dark-haired girl who was obviously related to Sirius and Bellatrix walked over from the Ravenclaw table. She didn't have Bellatrix's cold beauty, but her dark eyes held a warmth that Bellatrix lacked and her smile lit up her face, making her pretty in a different way.
"Hey Sirius, how's your first day at Hogwarts going?" she asked.
"Already got detention." he answered brightly.
She laughed. "Oh, Sirius, what are we going to do with you? That must be a school record; detention after only four classes. Let me guess you got on Professor Smeral's bad side."
Sirius grinned at her. "It was only the second class of the day, but yeah, for some reason he got really pissed off when our cauldrons exploded." He said innocently.
The girl laughed again. "Don't worry about it. He was probably just looking for an excuse to give you a detention. Smeral's in Bella's pocket; she's his favorite student and I think he has a thing for her. It's not reciprocated, of course, as bad as she can be, Bella does have some morals."
"Nah, she doesn't have morals, she just wouldn't risk the family reputation and her own name to get better grades. She doesn't need them anyway." he responded darkly.
"Sirius" the girl said pleadingly. "I know you don't get along, but she's my sister. Can't you at least try to be civil?"
"No"
The girl looked like she was going to say something else, but she obviously didn't want to start an argument, so she turned to the other boys. "Hi, I'm Andromeda. I'm Sirius's cousin."
The boys introduced themselves and Andromeda asked how their classes were going.
"Well, we're all in detention with Sirius for the next week, but other than that it's been going good." James answered.
Andromeda laughed again. "So Sirius has finally found some friends who love getting into trouble as much as he does, huh? Well, I hope it's not too bad, Smeral can be a real ass sometimes. I'll see you guys around. Bye Sirius, and be careful, Bella's still livid about that little stunt you pulled on the train and you know how she can get."
"I'm not afraid of her, but thanks for the warning. See ya later Andromeda." Sirius called as she walked away.
"She's my favorite cousin." he told the others. "She's cool even though she sticks up for her sisters too much. I think she's kinda scared to really stand up to them. I can't blame her though, Bellatrix can be downright evil."
Peter hadn't been on the train with the other three and he didn't understand what was going on. "So what's so bad about your family?" he asked.
"The fact that they're a bunch of dark wizards who believe that the fact that their blood has been totally pure for centuries gives them the right to decide who should live and die." Sirius said derisively.
"What do you mean pure blood?"
"It means no one in their family has Muggle blood." James said, his lip curling slightly. "And that they believe they are better than everyone else and Muggle-borns should be killed to clean out the gene pool."
"Exactly." Sirius said. "Although most of them won't actually come out and say that. They just say that the gene pool "needs cleansing." Bellatrix is one of the few who admits that the only way to do that is to kill anyone who isn't pure blooded enough to fit their standards. They're all followers of Lord Voldemort. When they find out that I'm hanging out with you three instead of Lucius Malfloy and his gang, there'll be hell to pay." his eyes suddenly went wide. "I know what Bella's gonna do. She'll have my mum send a Howler." he paled slightly.
James and Remus looked at hum sympathetically and James suggested "Maybe you shouldn't come down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Stay in Gryffindor Tower, than at least the rest of the school won't hear."
"What's a Howler?" Peter asked
"No, if I do that, Bella will know she got to me. Better to just take it like a man. You guys don't have to come though, she'll say some nasty stuff about you three and I wont blame you if you don't wanna be there to hear it."
"Don't worry, mate, we'll be there for you." James assured him. Remus nodded his agreement.
"What's a Howler?" Peter repeated.
"It's a letter that screams at you." Remus explained.
"You'll see tomorrow morning." Sirius said heavily. "Well, we'd better get going, don't wanna be late for Charms."