*****

"I'm telling you, they take him away and give him shocks to the brain," Sirius explained as if it were the most rational idea in the world. This was probably one of the best things about Sirius, James decided. Sirius seemed like the average run-of-the–mill first year at a casual glance, but every once in a while, the kid would do or say something that really drove home the fact that he wasn't average or really even all that normal.

"They're not shocking his brain, Black. That doesn't make any sense." James turned at the sound of Peter's voice, and saw that the smaller boy had been eavesdropping on their conversation and was now giving them both skeptical glances. James frowned back in response.

Peter wasn't exactly the kind of kid to butt his nose in where it wasn't wanted. In fact, Peter usually left them to their own devices and never really tried to offer anything to the conversation, even when he and Sirius had bothered to try and include him. If Lupin hadn't already been nominated as the resident weirdo, the prize definitely would have gone to Peter instead. Which was probably why the kid was sticking up for Lupin. The two of them probably had a lot in common.

"It makes perfect sense," Sirius returned defensively. Normally, James would have backed him, whether Sirius had been right or wrong. But agreeing with Sirius' odd idea right now wouldn't get them to the bottom of what was really going on with their nutty dormmate.

"Sirius," he tried to interrupt.

"No, really, it makes sense. Lupin's crazy so they have to take him away every once in a while and try to fix his head."

James tried not to let that explanation boggle his mind too much. "I really don't think-"

"He's not crazy," Peter piped in indignantly. "Sure, he's not like everyone else, but so what? That's not why he's absent so much. And anyway, who gets shocks to the brain for being crazy?"

"There's a whole ward for crazy people at St. Mungos," James decided to interject before Sirius could retort. Chances were Sirius' theory was colored by how things happened in the Muggle world. "Crazy people who can't be cured live there, and those who are only slightly crazy have to talk to counselors. At the most, they only cast calming charms, they don't do brain shocks or whatever." He didn't add how he knew that. He really didn't think that they needed to know anything about the month he'd spent at St. Mungos after his mother's death or the year that he'd spent talking to counselors after that.

"So where the hell does the little shrimp go all the time?" Sirius demanded, a bit put out, James assumed, at having his idea shot down. As it was, he was looking at James as if James should somehow have the answer to the problem.

Since he had no clue what was wrong with Lupin, he just shrugged his shoulders. To be honest, he really hadn't paid that much attention. Sure Lupin was absent here and there, but so were other kids. There was that one Ravenclaw who'd been out of classes for almost a whole month because he'd caught some sort of flu from one of the potions that they'd been working on. And there was almost always some kid or another up in the Infirmary for a day or two because of some prank gone awry or a Quidditch accident.

He really hadn't thought that Lupin's absences were all that noteworthy until after he'd walked in on Longbottom trying to pull the git out from under his own bed.

"He always tells me he's visiting his mum because she's sick," Peter offered tentatively. The three of them lapsed into silence, contemplating that bit of information.

Personally, James didn't see how Lupin's mother being sick got Lupin out of school and out of classes. Sure, the headmaster would send a kid home if a relative died or something, but James didn't think that the headmaster would send someone home just because their parent was sick. Maybe if it had only been for one visit, it might have been a different story, but Lupin was absent way too much for that explanation to make sense.

"He has to be lying then. The headmaster would never send him home so often because of something like that. And besides that, if his mum were sick, wouldn't he want to go home?" That seemed to stump Peter for a moment.

"So if he isn't seeing his sick mum," Sirius let the question go unasked.

"Maybe she is sick," Peter returned carefully, "but not in the way we think of her being sick."

"How else would she be sick then?" Sirius returned sarcastically.

"She could be vampire," Peter shot back in annoyance.

"A what?" James could hear the disbelief in his own voice. And he'd thought that Sirius' guess at what was wrong with Lupin was strange, he rolled his eyes. If left alone long enough, these two would have Lupin being held prisoner in a veela camp outside of Austria.

"No, it makes sense, James," Sirius bounced on the bed the two of them were sitting on excitedly. "Remember what Longbottom said last week when we went over that chapter on vampires? He said that they prefer the blood of relatives over anything else. He said something about it lasting longer," Sirius waved a hand impatiently as if waiting for James to see the logic.

James still thought that it was a bit of a stretch. "So you're saying that the headmaster makes Lupin go home all the time so his mother can suck his blood? I don't think so."

"But think about it," Peter jumped in, "he always seems so sluggish and depressed after he's been absent. And he has all those turtlenecks he wears all the time. It could be to cover the fang marks."

"And sometimes he's got scratches all over his face. If his mother's fingernails are anything like my mother's," Sirius trailed off, throwing a knowing glance in James' direction.

"Maybe," he admitted reluctantly. He couldn't really explain what was so wrong with their idea, but it just didn't seem right. "I still don't think the headmaster would make him go home to get his blood sucked." Sirius and Peter fell back into silence as they thought over that point.

"Maybe," Sirius started, "no, never mind, that doesn't work."

"I just don't think his mum's a vampire," James reiterated.

"Maybe the reason they make him go home is because it's the only way to keep her alive," Peter offered softly.

"But we just spent last week learning how to kill vampires. If she were a vampire, they wouldn't be trying to keep her alive," James argued back. "They'd want her to die-"

"But she's still his mum, James," Sirius interrupted. "Would you want someone to just kill your mum, or would you just let your mum die if you knew you could stop that from happening?"

The question hit him harder than he'd thought it should have. Would he do something like what they were suggesting Lupin did? Would he have done that for his mum? Would he have saved her, despite the fact that she'd have been a dark creature?

Could he have saved his mum?

"You really think his mum's a vampire?" He asked in a small voice.

"You have to admit, it does make sense," Peter answered as he climbed off his bed and walked over to James' bed. "I know I wouldn't be too thrilled about going home if I knew that my mum was going to be sucking my blood, but I would have ended up going anyway. And Professor Longbottom would know all the ways to kill a vampire. That might have been why Remus didn't want to go with him."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," Sirius nodded in agreement to Peter's words, "but it does make sense. I wouldn't want the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor hanging out around me if I thought he was going to kill my mum."

"Remus has been really mad at Professor Longbottom lately," Peter let the suggestion trail off.

"It works," Sirius agreed, "he's been hacked off at Longbottom since we started covering that chapter on vampires."

James frowned. He knew Lupin was angry at Longbottom. It didn't take a genius to see that since Remus had taken every opportunity lately to snip at the professor during class and make smart mouthed remarks. But it had been going on a lot longer than a week, to James way of thinking. Lupin had been acting that way almost since they'd started back to classes after break.

"There's only one way to know for sure," he announced, sizing up Peter as he did so. Sirius wouldn't be a problem. He knew he could count on his friend to agree to the idea. It was part of what made being around Sirius so fun. The kid was always up for a bit of mischief. "We'll have to get Lupin's school records."

"Good idea," Sirius acknowledged.

"What?" Peter yelped slightly, looking at the both of them as if they'd just lost their minds. "We can't do that. We'll get caught."

"What, are you scared or something?" Sirius taunted lightly.

"No," Peter retorted with a fierce frown. "I just don't feel like spending the rest of my life in detention."

"Don't worry, Peter, I'll make sure we won't get caught," James tried to reassure. From the look on Peter's face though, it was obvious that the other boy didn't entirely trust him or Sirius. "I promise, it'll be a quick. We'll just grab his file, take a small peak at it to see if it says anything about his mum, and then we'll leave," he added, trying to put on his most trustworthy face.

"I don't know-"

"Or you could just stay here," James offered casually, "and we'll go take a look at his file." That seemed to make up Peter's mind.

"I'm going. Knowing you two, you'd probably do something really mean. Like change his file so that he'll get in trouble." The look of distrust was still on the kid's features, but there was also a look of determination there too, and that was enough for James.

"We wouldn't do something like that to the nutter," Sirius muttered under his breath to James as they all scrambled to put their shoes on. "We may not like him, but we aren't mean."

Well, Sirius might not do something like that to Lupin, James acknowledged. But he wasn't too sure about himself. The little bastard irritated him beyond belief. And damned if he'd forgive the pipsqueak for the haircut or for the things he'd said during break. If anyone deserved to be taken down a peg or two, it was Lupin.

Although, to be truthful, James wasn't entirely sure of how he'd feel if Peter's theory turned out to be correct. Would it really change anything?

*****

"Oh, fuck!"

Generally, Sirius found it terribly amusing when people like Peter swore. Goody-goods who tripped over words like 'piss' or 'twat' just failed to sound convincing in any way, shape or form when they attempted to graduate to more tried and true swears. And usually Peter was no exception. His face would pucker and turn red when he attempted anything more salty than 'damn'.

Now, however, Sirius decided that Peter had just jumped a level in learning how to effectively swear. "Don't just stand there," he hissed more than a little desperately. "Help me."

"Okay, okay. All right, here grab my hand." Nervous babble aside, Sirius had never been more grateful that Peter had decided to come along on this little adventure. If he hadn't, then Sirius wouldn't have even caught this stupid railing when the stairwell they were standing on had swung away from the landing so abruptly. "Damn, you're heavy."

"You're not exactly a light weight yourself," Sirius retorted in between huffs of air as he scrambled back up onto the solid stone. He wasn't even going to turn around to look. He'd just escaped death, he was sure. The ground floor was only three stories down. "Where's James?"

"He stayed with the stairwell." Peter was looking just about as shaky as he felt, Sirius noted, grinning wryly.

"No sense of adventure, that one." He shrugged, dusting his pajamas off. This certainly was going to put a crimp in their plans. It would be ages before the stairwell swung back over this way, and knowing his luck, if they just sat and waited, they'd get caught. Or he'd get extremely bored, which was pretty much as bad as getting caught.

"Yeah, I know, daft bugger. Not attempting to leap five feet across thin air three stories up. Infinitely too cautious, that one." Peter rolled his eyes, and Sirius found himself biting back a laugh. Well, who knew? The nerd did have a sense of humor.

"I suppose. All right. I think we go this way," he announced as he climbed to his feet and pointed down yet another long, dark hallway. Peter shot him a pained glance, which in all honesty, he'd been expecting.

"Can we just sit for a minute? I think you scared about six years off my life."

"You sound like my mum." Sighing, he plopped back down. It probably couldn't hurt. Although, if he were going to be stuck out after hours in parts of the castle he'd never explored before, he'd rather have been with someone other than Peter.

"Shut up." As far as comebacks were concerned, Peter had some of the lamest. Twirling his wand idly between his fingers, he ignored the other boy and lay back on the stone floor, looking up at the murals painted on the rather gothic looking ceiling. The silence would have been deafening if Peter's heavy breathing weren't there as a distraction, he noted with a small frown. "Black?"

"Yellow?" The prat had just pulled him up from certain death, after all. It was silly really that he kept insisting on calling him Black.

"What?"

Sirius rolled his eyes and sat up. "Just call me Sirius."

"Oh." Peter seemed momentarily taken aback by that, but Sirius chalked it up to the idea that the prat wasn't used to having friends. The only person Peter deigned worthy of conversation was Lupin. "Um, Sirius, do you, that is, do you really hate Remus?"

Hate Lupin? "No, not really." He shrugged almost indifferently. "I don't really know him all that well. It's more that he just irritates me, sometimes."

"Oh."

"Look, it's not like I didn't try to be friends, okay?" he snapped defensively before sighing in frustration. "Besides that, he's so," Sirius broke off gesturing wildly. "He acts like the fucking world revolves around him. Which, it doesn't. So what if he has a bad day? Who cares? Everyone has bad days, and you don't see them streaking through the halls or casting curses and cutting people's hair."

"Or dumping messed up potions on their partner's heads," Peter interjected sardonically.

"Exactly!" Sirius huffed indignantly.

"Sure, everyone has bad days. Sometimes they decide to blow up every potion they make in class, despite their partner's attempts to stop them. Or they decide they need to flood the lav down in the dungeons and lose the house points. Or better yet, they decide that we should attempt to break into the Headmaster's office and steal files." Peter propped his chin on his hand lazily as he raised an eyebrow at Sirius.

"Screw you," Sirius snapped back irritably.

"Give him a break," Peter said softly. "If his mum is a vampire-"

"So what if she is? That's not an excuse. Mine acts like a bloody harpy on steroids, and you don't see me asking for special favors, do you?" Sirius scowled and Peter shifted uncomfortably.

"Sorry." As far as apologies went, it probably wasn't the most sincere one Sirius had ever heard, but he supposed he could let it slide. Peter did have a point. A very, very small one, he assured himself, but it was still a point.

"What's so great about Lupin, anyway?"

Peter seemed to contemplate the question for a moment before shrugging. "I dunno, he's just fun. And crazy. And completely unpredictable. And he doesn't think I'm a nerd." Peter shot a pointed look at Sirius.

"Yeah, well okay." He shrugged off the unspoken accusation uncomfortably. "You ready to get going now?"

"We're going back to the dorms, right?"

"What?" Sirius managed his best cheeky grin. "It's too early to go back to the dorms. Besides, we have to find James, don't we? Buck up. It won't be that bad."

"Sirius." It sounded like a cross between a plea and a whine, Sirius reflected with a laugh as he headed boldly down the dark hallway, letting Peter follow behind him.

*****