The following morning, None of the three explorers dragged themselves out of bed until eleven o'clock. Sirius could barely keep his eyes open, and kept dozing off beside the fire in the common room. James prodded him at least a hundred times with his quill. 'Sirius!' He shouted in his friend's ear, 'we have a tonne of homework to do, and Remus isn't even here to help!'

Sirius sat up with difficulty, and rubbed his eyes vigorously. 'What's up, Sirius?' Peter asked quietly, 'you've been weird since that time last night, when you started talking to thin air.'

'None of your business, Peter', Sirius snapped, regretting it at once. 'Sorry', he mumbled his apology, 'I'm just really tired.'

In truth, Sirius was scared. He was hearing voices in his head! He was hearing somebody pleading with him, begging for help. And he wanted to help, but how could he, when he didn't know where this person was? Come to think of it, he didn't even know if it was a man or a woman!

He sighed, and, in order to distract himself from thinking, asked if anyone wanted to play wizard chess.

'Didn't you hear me?' James moaned, 'we have a MOUNTAIN of homework to do!'

'I'll do it later', Sirius replied dismissively, 'how about you, Peter?' Peter shook his head. 'I'm going to the library in a minute', he replied, 'look up that stuff on dark wizards for Grappenhall.'

'I'll play', Eva Cleansweep offered. She was sitting quite close by, talking to Lily Evans. She smiled at Sirius, and the two girls got up and came over.

'Move your feet off the chair, you lazy lump!' Lily said to James, laughing. James had partly slid out of his chair, so that just his feet remained in it, and was doing his homework on the floor. As soon as Lily spoke, he moved out of the way obligingly. Lily perched herself on the arm of the chair, and Eva sat down in it, while Sirius went over to a shelf, and pulled down his own set of wizard chess.

'Are you all right, Sirius?' Eva asked timidly, flicking one of her pawns forward.

'Huh?' Sirius said, staring intently at the chess board, forcing himself to choose a move, and not think about the voice.

Eva sighed, and folded her arms. 'It's hardly rocket science, Sirius', she remarked, 'you've only got a couple of options-it's your very first move, and you're taking ages!'

'Sorry', Sirius said, hurriedly urging his knight forwards. After a while, he settled into the game, and was impressed to see that Eva was every bit as good as he was. James abandoned his homework to give Sirius advice, while Lily whispered suggestions into Eva's ear.

'Check!' Sirius declared. Eva chewed her bottom lip, and pushed a few strands of dark hair behind her ear. Suddenly, her face brightened, and she made her move. Her queen attacked Sirius' knight viciously, and she grinned. 'Checkmate!' She cried, grinning, as Sirius' king plucked his crown from his head, and discarded it. James groaned. Lily clapped. Sirius smiled at Eva, who smiled back. Sirius found himself thinking about how pretty she was...

'Well done, Eva', he said sincerely, 'you're really good.'

Eva inclined her head graciously. 'Hard luck', she replied, giving Lily a hi-five.

James rolled his eyes. 'Sirius could beat you no problem, if he wasn't knackered.'

'No I couldn't', Sirius disagreed, 'Eva won fair and square.'

'Oh, whatever', James yawned widely, 'anyone want to get something to eat? I'm starving.'

The four first years strolled down to the Great Hall, and ate their lunch at leisure. Afterwards, James suggested that all the Gryffindor first years play a game of quidditch. Sirius, Peter, Jed, Tobias, Eva, Lily and two other girls whom Sirius did not yet know, agreed, and having collected their brooms from their dormitories, headed back down to the Entrance Hall.

'...I can fly upside down, you know', James was boasting to a bored looking Lily. Sirius laughed, and was about to start teasing his friend, when he spotted Remus Lupin through the open front door.

'Remus!' He yelled, speeding up, and jogging down the steps to greet him. He stopped, when he saw that Madam Pomfrey was standing next to Remus. The matron glanced from Sirius to Remus, then smiled at the latter, and hurried into the school.

Sirius stared at Remus. 'Where were you?' He demanded to know.

Remus was pale and ill-looking. Sirius noticed a long gash on his arm, and the shadow of a bruise on his cheek. Remus shrugged. 'I told you before. I was visiting my Mum.'

'Very short visit', James remarked, having caught Remus' reply.

'You all right?' Sirius asked. Remus was clearly lying-but why? What was he really doing?

'What were you and Madam Pomfrey talking about?' Peter inquired curiously.

'My Mum', Remus replied. Sirius could tell that he was just glad to have an excuse for being seen talking to Madam Pomfrey, 'Madam Pomfrey's interested in hearing Mum's symptoms.'

'Oh right', James replied, 'okay. You wanna play quidditch with us?'

Remus shook his head. 'I'm sort of tired. Didn't get much sleep last night.'

'Suit yourself!' James said cheerfully, 'come on, you lot! We want to get in a good match before tea!'

Sirius hung back with Remus. 'See you then', Remus said quietly, and made to go up the seps to the school. Sirius caught his arm, making Remus wince. 'Where'd you get that cut? And the bruise?' Sirius hissed, 'you can tell me, I won't let anyone else know!'

Remus shrugged again, as he did so often, when an awkward question was posed. 'I fell', he answered shortly, 'I'm gonna go to the common room. Have fun playing quidditch.' And before Sirius could stop him, he had turned on his heel and disappeared into the school.

Sirius stood at the bottom of the steps for several minutes, mulling things over in his head. At last, he sighed and made his way slowly down to the quidditch pitch. There were far too many mysteries going on for his liking.