Disclaimer: Professor Dumbledore and his students are the property of J. K. Rowling. 

Choosing the Head Boy Chapter Six—January

"Good morning," James said with a smile as he joined Lily on a sofa in the sparsely populated Gryffindor common room.  Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and he rather liked the way the few loose tendrils glowed red against the pale skin of her neck.  He cuddled up closer and wondered if the very proper Head Girl would mind if he started kissing her neck in the middle of the common room.

            "Good afternoon, you mean," she replied with the same slightly frosty tone she had used the last time he had inadvertently angered her.

            "What'd I do?  I just woke up.  I haven't had time to do anything yet."

            "No, not this morning," she said as she snapped her book shut and went up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. 

James knew better than to follow.  Sirius and he had learned that lesson their first term at Hogwarts.  They had carefully collected spiders to put in the girls' beds, only to discover the stairs wouldn't let them go up.  The spiders ended up in the girls' bookbags instead.  It had been almost as good.

            "Women," he muttered as she disappeared from sight.  He looked around the room but saw only much younger students.  Peter hadn't been upstairs, and James didn't know where to begin looking for him.  "Probably down at lunch, but he might already be done."  His stomach was achingly hungry, but he didn't relish the idea of eating lunch alone.  "Time to wake up, Sirius," he thought as he bound up the stairs two at a time.  He had been careful not to wake his sleeping friend earlier, but that was less his concern with how tired Sirius might be after being up all night during the full moon than it was his desire not to have him tagging along while he was with Lily.  "But if she's not talking to me, you're keeping me company, Padfoot."

            Sirius had dropped his muddy robe beside his bed and then collapsed into it still wearing the shirt and jeans he had been wearing beneath it for extra warmth.  More mud was in his hair and on his pillow.  "Stupid dogs," James thought and smiled.  Remus had been just as muddy, but they had taken the precaution of cleaning him up before leaving him in the Shack to be found by Madam Pomfrey.

            "Wake up!" he said loudly as he shoved Sirius's leg out of the way and sat on the end of the bed.  "I want to go eat, and you're coming with me."

            "Five more minutes," Sirius mumbled into the pillow. 

            "If I give you five more minutes, you'll ask for five more, and then you'll need five to go wash the mud out of your hair, and then we'll have missed lunch, and I'll die of hunger."

            "Go eat with Red."  Sirius still hadn't opened his eyes.

            "She isn't speaking to me."

            Sirius opened his eyes at that and turned his head to regard James carefully.  "What did you do?"

 James shrugged. 

Sirius sighed and then sat up. "Women.  Can't live with 'em, can't kill 'em without getting sent to Azkaban."  He reached up to run his fingers through his hair, but got stopped by the dried clods of mud.  "Five minutes to wash my hair." 

As James waited for Sirius to return from the bathroom, he found himself wishing he still had the snitch he had briefly possessed fifth year.  He had made the mistake of playing with it near the Forbidden Forest during twilight one evening, and it had disappeared into the gloom.  Occasionally, when he was in or near the forest, he caught a glimpse of something gold out of the corner of his eye, but it would always vanish before he could get a good look.  He had just finished rolling socks into three balls so he could practice juggling when Sirius returned.

"After we eat, do you think it'll be too early to stop by the hospital wing?" Sirius asked as he toweled his hair dry.

"We just woke up, so Remus is probably still out of it.  But I doubt Pomfrey will mind if we hang around and wait for him to wake up.  Just bring a book or something quiet to do."

Sirius quickly dressed in some of the Muggle clothing he had happily purchased soon after moving in with the Potters.  He had owned a few such items when living with his parents but had needed to keep them hidden when he was at home.  Now that he was free to dress as he pleased, he was reveling in it.  He wore his school robes during the week, but Muggle clothes every weekend.

"Any idea where Peter is?" James asked as they headed downstairs.

"He had a study-date with Anna," Sirius replied.  "Which means that she lets him copy her homework, and then they snog for awhile in the back of the library."

"Did you ever imagine that Peter would have the most successful love life of the four of us?"

Sirius chuckled.  "Don't go into a martyr act, Prongsy.  Lily's just having a little flare of red-headed temper; you'll be snogging in the prefects' office by nightfall."

"I hope so.  Her hair was in a ponytail this morning, and her neck was just begging to be kissed."

"Oh man, you are so whipped."

After lunch, James went with Sirius to the hospital wing, but Madam Pomfrey said that Remus had already awoken, eaten a small lunch, was now sleeping again, and was not to be disturbed.  Sirius settled into a chair beside Remus's bed with a copy of Who's There, Really?  A Guide to Magical Disguises.  James opted to head back to the Gryffindor Common Room, convince Lily to tell him what idiotic thing he had done, and then beg her forgiveness.  "Whipped is better than lonely any day."

In the time it had taken James to travel from the hospital wing back to Gryffindor Tower, a winter storm had rolled in and snow was now falling past the windows.  He wasn't surprised to see it; he had sensed the approaching storm last night.  In fact, he had hoped it would arrive sooner.  His canine friends became especially carefree and puppyish when playing in falling or new-fallen snow.  Wormtail, on the other hand, didn't fare as well in cold weather.  With his small body mass and sleek coat, he had difficulty staying warm, so no one had minded that he had spent much of the night curled up in a small ball down in the relatively warm tunnel under the Whomping Willow.  He had been there when they needed him to still the tree, and he would spend the entire night with them when the weather warmed again.

James seemed to have some luck on his side.  Lily had come back downstairs to the common room and was now sitting on a window ledge looking out.   The edges of her hair seemed especially red silhouetted against the whiteness.  James perched on the ledge beside her feet.

"I'll be glad to apologize for whatever I did, but first you'll have to tell me what it is."

"Interesting.  Rather than apologize for what you know that you've done, you wait for me to tell what you need to apologize for.  Don't want to run the risk of apologizing for something I might not know about?"

"No, I really have no idea what I've done, or what you think I've done.  And if I wanted cryptic, I'd go speak with a centaur."  He started to leave.

"Where were you last night?" Lily said sharply.

That stopped him in his tracks.  He was tempted to try to bluff by asking, "What do you mean?" but he noticed that two of Lily's friends were within eavesdropping distance.  This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have here.

"Will you go for a walk with me so we can talk privately?" he asked.

Lily hesitated only for a moment before swinging her legs down and heading for the portrait hole.  As he followed, James thought quickly.  Which excuse would work depended upon several factors.  Did she know that he had been out all night, or did she just think he was out late?  Did she know that his friends had been out too?  What excuse had Remus given for his absence?  That one he could answer—none.  With the full moon falling on a Saturday night, Remus had hoped that no one would notice his absence last night and today.

"'Don't give me hall duty on the seventeenth,' you said.  'I'm not trying to get out of duty on the weekends, Lily.  I'll do any other Saturday, just not that one.'  Whatever it was you did last night, you had it planned way in advance, didn't you?  And here I was stupid enough to think that you'd put the rule breaking behind you, James.  Did New Year's Eve rekindle your interest in troublemaking?"

            James couldn't honestly say that he hadn't been breaking any rules.  Being an unregistered animagus and setting a transformed werewolf free from confinement certainly qualified as rule breaking, law breaking in fact.

            "I've stopped breaking most rules," James said.  "And I have no regrets about the ones I broke last night.  I was helping a friend."

            "Oh, I have no doubt about that," Lily said acidly.  "Let me guess.  You and Remus and Peter were all helping Sirius with whatever his latest scheme was. 

"After Remus didn't show up for dinner, and rest of you disappeared just after, I got curious.  I remember that you had asked for the seventeenth off, so when you all disappeared, I knew something was up.  I waited in the common room until two, but you never came back.  And don't even try to say that you were in your dormitory, because I checked.  Were you even in the castle?  Or did you sneak off to some pub to get completely pissed?

"I thought you had matured, James, but you're letting Sirius pull you back—"

Now she'd gone too far.  Sirius had enough to deal with without shouldering the blame when James got into trouble. 

"First of all," James interrupted her, "the friend I was helping last night was Remus, not Sirius.  Sirius, Peter, and I were helping Remus.  And we weren't helping him sneak off to get drunk or whatever other fantasies you spun last night."

"No?" she asked in a disbelieving tone.

"No.  We did pull that one for Remus's seventeenth birthday last year, but we got caught and served our detentions, so you can spare yourself the necessity of righteous indignation."  Lily opened her mouth to speak, but James raised his voice and continued. 

"SECOND of all, don't even think of telling me that Sirius is a bad friend for me.  I'll be the first to agree that he can be impulsive and rash, and I know he's got a fierce temper, but I also know that he's got the biggest and most generous heart of anyone I know.  He'd walk through hell and back if he thought it would help one of his friends. 

"He and I may have inspired each other into some notorious trouble making, but the absolute best thing we've ever done in our lives was his idea too." And it was.  After learning that Remus was a werewolf, all three of his friends had wanted to find some way to help him, but it was Sirius, dwelling on it obsessively, who had had the brainstorm when animagi were briefly mentioned during Transfiguration one day.

"And what was this selfless act which proves that notorious sinner Sirius is really a closet saint?"

"I can't tell you," James admitted.

Lily crossed her arms with an angry huff and walked in silence for a few moments.  "So what was this rule breaking favor for Remus that you don't regret?"

"I can't tell you that either."  Even before he spoke, he knew that those words would mean the end of their budding romance, but there was nothing else he could say.  He found that he couldn't lie to Lily, nor could he betray Remus by telling the truth.

"Fine," she bit out angrily.  "When you're ready to stop keeping secrets, let me know."  She turned on her heel and headed back the way they had come.

Feeling effectively banished from his own common room, James headed instead for the hospital wing.  As he drew near his friends, he saw that they had only slightly changed position since he had left them.  Sirius now had his shoes off and his feet propped up on Remus's bed, and Remus, turned toward Sirius, had one arm slung across Sirius's ankles just as a child might loosely hold a stuffed animal while asleep.  Remus's eyes were still closed, and if Sirius weren't reading aloud, James would have believed that Remus was still asleep.

"A common mistake when using Polyjuice Potion is a failure to anticipate that one will gain all the physical characteristics of the subject one is impersonating.  For example, if the subject—"  When James sprawled in a neighboring chair with a sigh, Sirius closed the book but kept his finger inside to keep his place.  Remus opened his eyes.  "Did Red tell you what you did?" Sirius asked.  James nodded.  "So, what did you do?"

"Don't ask," James grumbled.  He'd tell Sirius later, but he'd prefer that Remus didn't know.  Although none of it was his fault, Remus would undoubtedly feel responsible.

Sirius reopened the book.  "For example, if the subject requires prescription lenses to see correctly, the impersonator will require them as well."

"Girls are so self-righteous!" James burst out.  "Maybe life would be easier if I were gay."

Remus began to laugh and then cough.  "Easier?  Please don't make me laugh," he begged.  "My ribs hurt too much."

After Peter stopped by to check on Remus, the three friends decided to leave together and allow Remus to rest.  They found the Gryffindor common room mercifully free of seventh-year girls, but did not linger.  The afternoon was spent in their dormitory helping Peter with his homework, studying Advanced Defense, and falling asleep on their books.  Sirius didn't question James any further about his fight with Lily; he was probably waiting for an opportunity when the two were alone.

Remus rejoined them at dinnertime.  He entered the Great Hall, not from the main doors, but from the small sitting room in which James and Lily had stored the banners for the New Year's party.  Pomfrey had undoubtedly allowed chosen to spare him the long walk and allowed him to floo from the infirmary to the fireplace nearest the Great Hall.  Enough students were still arriving and milling about the room that Remus's unusual point of entry seemed to go unnoticed by all but his friends.  As Remus sat down beside Peter, James glanced down the long table to Lily and the other seventh-year girls.  They were speaking quietly among themselves and occasionally throwing a dirty look in his direction.

"Feeling better?" Peter asked Remus.

"Yeah, thanks.  But I won't be feeling better for long if I don't figure out my Potions homework.  I still can't determine which catalyst is best with which primary ingredients.  Do you have some time to help me, Sirius?"

Sirius was in the midst of putting the two rarest slices of roast beef on Remus's plate before serving himself.  He nearly knocked over the gravy with his elbow as he looked up at Remus in surprise. 

"Sure," Sirius said.  "I'm all yours."

James smiled to himself as he listened.  To the casual observer, a request for homework help might not seem like much.  However, this was the first time all year that Remus had asked for Sirius's help.  Last year, after, he hadn't been willing to accept Sirius' help at all, and this year, he had begun to accept it, but he hadn't been willing to ask.

James found himself looking down the table again.  Lily looked away just as he looked at her.  She said something to the other girls, and Maisie stood up and headed toward James and his friends.

"May I have the pitcher of milk?" she asked, and Peter handed it to her.  "By the way, Remus, you look like shit.  Rough night?" 

As she strode away, Remus closed his eyes and looked like he wanted to sink into the floor.  His already pale complexion had paled further to an almost ghostly white.

"Bitch," Sirius muttered angrily.

"I should have stayed in the hospital wing for dinner and then gone straight to our room," Remus murmured in the direction of his lap.

            "Don't worry about it, Moony," James assured him.  "They probably just think you have a hangover."

* * * * *

            Three days passed without McGonagall or Dumbledore summoning James, Sirius, and Peter to their offices to answer for their all-night absence on Saturday.  Lily had obviously decided that breaking up with James was sufficient punishment and had not told. 

            Remus had recovered from the moon.  His colour was back to normal, he was able to get out of bed without wincing with almost-hidden pain, and he had caught up on all the homework he should have done on the weekend.  He was even able to face porridge for breakfast again.

They were just finishing breakfast when James saw an unusual sight.  Sirius' brother, Regulus, was approaching the Gryffindor table. 

"Padfoot."  James nodded in Regulus's direction, and Sirius turned to look.  Regulus headed directly for them.  His pale eyes flickered over each of his older brother's friends before resting on Sirius. 

"Alphard died.  I thought you might want to know," Regulus said bluntly.

Sirius inhaled sharply.  "How?  What happened?"

Regulus shrugged.  "Mother's letter just said that he was dead."  James realized that Regulus was still holding the letter.  Sirius looked at the letter in his brother's hand as well.

"May I read it?" Sirius asked.

Regulus glanced down at the parchment, considering.  "Alright."  He handed the letter to Sirius and began to walk away.

"Thank you," Sirius called after him.

Students were now beginning to leave in a steady stream.  Sirius stared at the folded parchment and did not move. 
            "Padfoot?  Are you alright?" Remus asked as he put a hand on Sirius's arm.  Sirius suddenly seemed to return from wherever his thoughts had taken him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be O.K.  I—um—I'd like to read this alone.  Why don't you go to class?  I'll be along in a minute."

"You're sure?" James asked.  Sirius nodded.

As they walked down the hall, Peter asked, "Who's Alphard?"

"His uncle," James said.

"Then why is he so upset?  I thought he hated his family."

"Not Alphard.  He called him, 'The white sheep of the Black family.'  They wrote to each other all summer.  Sirius and I even learned how to use the Muggle post to do it.  Alphard lives—lived—in Hong Kong, and that's a bit far for my owl.  After Sirius left home, Alphard invited Sirius to come live with him, but he was already living with my family and he wanted to stay in England."

As the seventh-year Advanced Transfiguration students readied their materials to take notes, McGonagall looked impatiently at the watch pinned above her heart. 

"Potter, does Black intend to join us today, or has he opted to sleep in?"

"He learned of a death in his family this morning.  He said that he'd be along, but I'm not sure."

"Oh, I didn't know," McGonagall sounded momentarily flustered.  "I'm usually notified when—May I ask who it was?"

"His uncle, Alphard Black."

A look of sadness momentarily softened the professor's stern expression.  She looked over toward the desks where the Slytherin members of the class clustered. 

"My condolences, Miss Black," she said to Bellatrix.

Bellatrix stared back disdainfully.  "Not necessary, Professor.  He stopped being a part of our family years ago."

Only Peter was free the next period, but all three headed back to Gryffindor Tower to find Sirius.  They found him in the dormitory, gazing out of the window between his own bed and Remus's.  The letter lay on his bed.  As James and Peter sat on the beds nearest Sirius, Remus joined him at the window and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.  Sirius reached up with his own hand and placed it over Remus's before turning to sit beside James.  They sat in silence for a moment, James and Remus each with an arm around their mourning friend.  It was Peter who spoke first.

"I'm really sorry, Sirius." 

Sirius nodded.  "Thanks, Peter."

"What did the letter say?" James asked.

"Nothing.  The letter is over a foot long and she didn't even mention Alphard's death until the second to last paragraph.  And that's it, just a mention.  'Your father received word from Hong Kong that Alphard's dead.  He had some sort of accident.'  At least it doesn't sound like my parents had anything to do with his death.  That's why I wanted to read it.  I wanted to know if they killed him."

Peter seemed shocked.  "They wouldn't do that.  I know you don't like your family, but—"

Sirius laughed mirthlessly.  "You don't think so?  Alphard's opinion of our family wasn't as high as yours.  They banished him from the family when he married a Muggle, Tess.  I used to sneak over to their house when I couldn't stand my own any more.  Tess taught me how to ride a bicycle.  Did any of you ever ride a bicycle?"  They all shook their heads.

"When she became pregnant, they kept it a secret from our family as long as possible.  It wasn't that difficult.  They didn't exactly move in the same social circles.  I remember when they found out.  My mother and my Aunt Io told my father and his brother that it would be 'a disgrace' to allow a half-blood child to bear the Black family name.  I remember, 'If you two aren't men enough to do something, we will.'  Tess died less than a week later.  That's when Alphard moved to Hong Kong.  He never married again."

Author's Note: Curious about what happened when Remus's friends decided to get him drunk for his birthday?  Let's just say that they learned a valuable lesson about mixing werewolves and alcohol.  Read my story "Painting the Town Red" for more details.