A/N: Here is, regrettably, where the OC's start entering the story. Sorry—I dislike them as much as you, but if it weren't for them there would only be about five characters in this fic.
CHAPTER TWO:
Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter walked out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom in the middle of a group of chattering Gryffindor and Hufflepuff fifth-years.
"Ahh…I love this feeling. Last class of the day, and shepherd's pie for dinner," Remus remarked to his friends.
"Me too," James said, quickly rumpling his hair before faking a yawn and putting his arm around the nearest girl. Most unluckily, it turned out to be Lily Evans, who gave James a look of death and stalked off with her group of friends. James sighed, staring after her and shaking his head sadly; Sirius grinned slightly. Poor James—he could get any girl in the castle, except for the one he wanted.
"Hey, who's your detention with tonight, Si?" Peter asked excitedly.
"Filch," Sirius responded, making a face. "Caught me hexing Snivellus in the courtyard and said I was causing a disturbance or some dragonshit like that. Like there's anyone who would actually be disturbed by seeing that nasty git chucking up slugs." Peter laughed enthusiastically while Remus rolled his eyes.
"Except for Evans," James interjected, a rueful look on his face. "But all the same, it's lucky it was him that got you and not McGonagall or Hamilton or you'd be up shit creek. What are you doing, trophy room duty or something?"
Sirius nodded. "Yeah, if it had been Hamilton I'd be hanging from manacles in the dungeons." Professor Mortimer Hamilton was the Astronomy teacher—and the head of Slytherin House. He was the four Gryffindors' least favorite teacher, and the feeling was decidedly mutual. "What's yours?"
"Actually, I don't have one tonight. First time in the last two weeks, I think. So I figured I'd work some more on you-know-what—see if I can find the spells we need for my idea. I'll tell you if I get anything done."
"Sounds good. Mmm—I'm ready for some of that shepherd's pie Remus was talking about," Sirius said, smacking his lips.
"Where were you?" James asked impatiently from under his invisibility cloak.
"Got caught using magic on the corner case so Filch made me work for another two hours. Anyway, if you were so bloody eager to talk to me, why didn't you use the mirrors?" Sirius snapped, clearly in a bad mood. "Take that damn thing off, will you? I can't stand talking to someone who's invisible," he continued, staring around the common room.
The cloak was promptly whipped off, uncovering James and Peter. "Well, it would have been rather hard to use the mirrors, considering that you left yours in the middle of your trunk. I didn't really fancy having a conversation with your dirty socks," James said seriously.
"So what happened, anyway?" Sirius grumbled, not willing to admit James' point.
Peter, so excited that he couldn't keep still, finally burst out, "Wait'll you see, Si—it's terrific, he's done a brilliant job, it's bloody good, it's almost all done, he—"
"Stop babbling, you idiot. And don't call me Si—you know how much I hate that," Sirius responded haughtily. "You'd better just show me, James—if what you've figured out is even half as good as Peter thinks, I don't just want to hear about it."
"Oh, it's even better, I think…well, I'll explain it to you once we get there. We had to set up in that blocked corridor—Diggory would have squealed, and Crassus, Finnegan, and Podmore would have wanted in on it. The rest of those blokes—who knows," James said, shrugging. Sirius nodded. Tad Crassus, Liam Finnigan, and Augustus Podmore weren't too bad, but the rest of the Gryffindor fifth-year boys were either extremely annoying or extremely boring. "Anyway, Remus probably thinks that we wandered into the vanishing cabinet and is going apeshit. We'd better get going. Here, see if you can squish under the cloak. "
The clump of boys tumbled into the corridor through the opening behind the mirror, interrupting Remus in his pacing. "Where in Avalon were you? I thought Hamilton had got you and I was going to have to get back without the cloak!" Remus burst out.
"He nearly did," Sirius said, untangling himself from the Invisibility Cloak. "Missed us by a hair—he walked right in front of us right as we were coming out of the kitchens."
"I thinh huh smehhed da fooh," James said, talking through an enormous mouthful of chocolate cake. Swallowing, he continued: "He sniffed around like he always does—I swear, speaking of hairs, he has enough up his nose to line a cloak. You know, we really ought to do something about that. Find a way to tell when teachers are coming…."
"Yeah, well, that can wait. Will you show me what you've got done already?" Sirius said impatiently.
"All right, all right, hold your hippogriffs!" exclaimed Remus, apparently mollified by the hunk of cake James had handed to him. "Over there." He gestured with his free hand to a corner where a tottering pile of textbooks stood next to an equally high pile of parchment. "I think we've—well, that is to say, James—finally figured it out."
James cleared his throat importantly, making the other boys roll their eyes in unison. "So as we all know, we've had the protective wards figured out since the beginning of third year. We've had the actual spells for the transformation since Sirius and Remus found them last year in the Restricted Section, with the help of the trusty old cloak and some bloody good silencing spells. But somehow it hasn't been working…."
"Oh, really? Thanks for telling us, mate, or we might have never figured that out," Sirius said with feigned innocence. "You know, since we've only been trying to transform every full moon for a year and a half."
"Oh, bugger off," James said distractedly, running a hand through his hair, which was beginning to resemble a year-old bird's nest. "So as I was saying, a month ago I thought that maybe we needed some protective spells."
Peter looked hopelessly confused, so Sirius clarified. "You know, what he's been talking about for the last month?" Peter's expression didn't change. "What we need to do before we try to transform so we don't end up with animal heads and human arses like last time?" Sirius continued, smirking.
James winced at the memory. "Well, I finally found what we need—it's a potion. Fairly complex, so we'll need to nick some supplies from Murdock. But once we get the supplies, it should be easy—well, at least not as hard as some of the ones we've done…." James trailed off, remembering some of their efforts.
"Anyway, Peter made up a list of what we need, and I got everything I could from the student stores. We can get these 15 from Murdock's office," Remus said, holding up a scrap of parchment, "and then I think we'll probably have to buy the vampire fang, mink fur, and dehydrated rhododendron root. I doubt even she has them."
"All right—Remus, you and Peter go look through Murdock's stores, and James and I'll nick the other stuff from Hogsmeade. How does meeting back here in an hour and a half sound?" Sirius suggested.
"You're bonkers, Sirius! It's already three in the morning. In an hour and a half it'll be 4:30! And also, well…" Remus blushed, bit his lip, and glanced at James, who shrugged, then seemed to reconsider and nodded. Sirius raised an eyebrow disdainfully as he watched the exchange.
"Remus and I think we shouldn't nick stuff from Hogsmeade. Murdock's one thing—I mean, she's such an old bat she probably won't even notice it. But Hogsmeade—that's stealing. It's not just school rules—it's wrong."
"Oh, come on," Sirius said disgustedly. Remus had lately been moralizing like this and it was terribly annoying. It was odd that James was joining in, though—ethics were not generally his strong suit, to put it mildly. "It's not like it's such a big deal—we won't get caught or anything as long as we have the invisibility cloak."
"Well, it's not exactly the getting caught bit that bothers me," James said with a bit of an edge. "That's not really the point. The point is that selling stuff is how they make their living—although I suppose you wouldn't know anything about that," he finished heatedly.
"Oh, as if you're some sort of charity case. Give it a rest—we all know you're filthy rich too. Fine, if you and Remus are going to be such pansies, Peter and I'll go, won't we?" Sirius snapped, turning to glare at Peter, who had been following the argument with almost indecent eagerness but seemed appalled to be actually called on to take part. Remus, standing next to him, desperately looked anywhere but at Sirius. James looked extremely stubborn, standing with his legs apart, chin stuck out, and arms crossed. Sirius sensed that he was not about to win this argument. Pursing his lips, he shrugged. "It's your money," he said, turning away.
James uncrossed his arms and took a step towards Sirius, his brow creasing angrily. "Like that's a prob—" he began angrily, stopping abruptly when he saw Remus cringe.
There was an awkward silence, broken by Remus clearing his throat and saying with false cheer, "Well then! So shall we do it tomorrow night?" No one answered—Sirius was glaring at James, James was staring daggers back at him, and Peter was watching them hungrily. "I'll take that as a yes," he said dryly. Grabbing the invisibility cloak from the floor, Remus threw it over himself. Creeping under in a moment was Peter, followed by James and, after a moment, Sirius.
The quartet squished together under the cloak, which had become much to small for four teenage boys, no matter how skinny most of them were. 'Bloody hell, I hope the Animagus plan works,' Sirius thought fervently to himself as someone's elbow connected with his nose. The unwieldy clump of boys staggered through the halls, quiet except for an occasional stumble and then a curse as someone's foot was stepped on. Upon rounding a corner, though, the cluster ground to a halt when the Gryffindors spotted a seventh-year Slytherin prefect, Bradley Zenczak. Sirius could picture the grin stretching over James' face. Putting a finger to his lips, James tiptoed towards the wall, bringing Sirius, Remus, and Peter with him. Once he had maneuvered himself right beside a coat of armor, James waited for Zenczak to turn his back, then ducked out from under the cloak, gave the armor a heave in Zenczak's direction, and began to slip back under the cloak.
What James hadn't counted on, though, was the grinding noise the armor made as it was pushed. Whipping around at the sudden disturbance, Zenczak immobilized the falling coat of armor and grabbed James' leg just before it disappeared under the cloak. "Potter, you bastard, I know it's you," the prefect growled as he tugged at the leg.
Not stopping to think, Sirius whipped out his wand and aimed it at Zenczak's head. "Scourgify!" he whispered urgently. A second later, though, he wondered why he had bothered to whisper as the corridor was filled with the clanging of armor bouncing off of a stone wall, the thump of a body hitting the floor, the gagging of a soapy-mouthed prefect, and the pounding of eight feet fleeing the scene of the crime. As the boys rounded the corner, only Remus looked back at the soap-sud covered Slytherin vainly attempting to extricate himself from underneath the coat of armor.
Safely back in the common room, the four Gryffindors collapsed into armchairs. Once he had caught his breath, James glanced quizzically at Sirius, who shrugged. "Couldn't let that wanker get my best friend in trouble, could I?"
"Apology accepted," James said with a lopsided grin. "I owe you one too, though, mate. Sorry for getting you hacked off; it just…wasn't right."
"Whatever. I don't give a shit," Sirius said, rather more sharply than he'd meant to.
"Merlin, I thought it was Remus who got the arse-on before the full moon, not you!" James said, holding up his hands. "Anyway, though, nice spell! Where'd you pick that one up from?"
"'Smatter of fact, it's the one I tried to use in detention. Amazing what you can do with boring household spells if you're creative," Sirius said, grinning.
"Nice," James responded appraisingly.
Sirius nodded back with a slight smile, then gazed around the room. His eyes landed on Remus and Peter, who seemed to have fallen asleep in their armchairs. "I think they have the right idea. I'm heading up." Levitating Remus with his wand, Sirius turned towards the staircase.
Looking mildly surprised, James said, "You know, you could have just woken him up."
A faint tinge of pink showed up along Sirius' cheekbones. "Well, yes, but with the full moon and all…he's been through a lot."
James smiled. "Tired of playing the tough guy, Si?" he joked, briefly throwing his arm around Sirius' shoulders before raising Peter into the air and following his friend up the stairs to their dormitory.