As if Lestrange's actions toward James in Defense Against the Dark Arts was a signal to the rest of the Slytherins, James became a target for the more malicious minded of them as the month progressed. The very next morning at breakfast, Rabastan again thumped him in the head with a book as he passed by the Gryffindor table, making it appear accidental to the teachers watching. Monday morning, a shove from behind sent James blundering to his knees, bruising knees and elbows on the stone floor of the corridor. When he collected his books and his wits, there was no sign that any of the students streaming around him had pushed him down except for a faint giggle. A couple of days later, as James was running outside to a flying lesson that he was very late for, an unseen assailant tripped him into the rose bushes. Emerging scratched and bloodied, James again hunted for his tormentors only to find that someone stole his Potions notes while he went looking. On Friday, Rabastan intentionally smacked James in the head with his book at breakfast while someone slipped a Dungbomb into James' pocket.

As the stench rapidly cleared the students out of the Great Hall, James was left alone with a furious Professor McGonagall who had already given him detention and docked ten points earlier in the week when Malfoy had reported him for goofing off in class. "That's another ten points, Potter." She snapped, holding a white handkerchief to her nose, eyes watering with the acrid stench. "And another detention."

"But, Professor, I didn't set off the Dungbomb and I have no idea where it came from! It just appeared in my pocket and then it went off!" James was beyond furious at this point, his eyes were watering with more than just the stench, and he was shaking with anger, "Please, Professor, you have to believe me. I mean, why would I set one off on myself? Why the hell would I do that?"

McGonagall's eyes flashed dangerously and James had the sinking sensation that he was in huge trouble now. Sure enough, McGonagall drew herself up to her full height and looked down her nose at him, "That's worth another ten points, Potter, and I will be owling your parents tonight about your disgraceful behavior and your poor language choice. Now, I strongly suggest that you go back to your dorm, take a shower, and change clothes. I will not excuse your absence to Professor Binns, you will have to make that up to him yourself." James knew that Binns would give him another detention and almost groaned in despair, at this rate his entire weekend would be shot, "I expect to see you in Transfiguration, clean and on time, do I make myself clear?"

James, not trusting himself to speak, jerked his head in an obvious nod. McGonagall glared at him for a moment longer before she swept from the room, leaving James alone in the deserted Great Hall. Gathering his books, he slammed them in his bag and stalked up the stairs to the Gryffindor dorms, cursing under his breath the entire way. Halfway up the stairs, he tripped over something and fell again, rolling down three steps to the landing. Bumped and bruised in spirit and body, James had to fight hard to keep the tears from spilling over as he picked himself gingerly off the stone and started up the stairs again. "Damn them," he muttered to himself, "Damn them all."

Once again clean and dressed, James headed down the stairs, on his way to Transfiguration. Running into Sirius and Remus outside the Transfiguration classroom, James was shocked to see that both of them were sporting blue hair with pink polka dots, "What the hell happened to you two?" He demanded, his own misfortune temporarily forgotten at the sight of his two best friends, both of whom were visibly seething.

"Deprived of your presence," Remus explained, doing his level best not to snarl the words as this was not James' fault and he had no desire to take out his anger on his friend, "the Slytherins have apparently decided that Sirius and I present a target as well. Some kind of guilt by association thing. They did this," he fingered a blue lock of hair with disgust, "just as we were walking into the classroom and Binns, that dotty old bat who doesn't have the decency to skiff off and die like a normal person, thought that we did it ourselves." James was slightly startled at the fury in Remus' tones; Remus wasn't the level headed one of the group for nothing, "So now we have detention tonight."

Sirius was staring at a group of Slytherins that were drawing closer to where they were standing, "We have to get them back." He muttered before the group was upon them. Silence reigned for a moment as James and Remus turned to stare at the Slytherins who stared back. One of the Slytherin girls giggled harshly, unable to contain her mirth, and that set off an explosion of laughter as the Slytherins pointed at the trio, shaking with hilarity.

James was seriously contemplating drawing his wand and hexing the lot of them, not that he could do more than shoot red sparks at them, when another voice cut over the sound, "That is quite sufficient. You, Slytherins, go to class now." As the Slytherins filed past, James, Remus and Sirius turned to look at the newcomer, Andromeda Black, who waited til the Slytherins were out of earshot before she spoke again, "You three had better listen to me and listen good. The Slytherins are out to get you, Potter, so, whatever you did to antagonize them, you had better make up for it as soon as possible."

As James opened his mouth to protest, he felt the glare of Andromeda's dark eyes on him and desisted quickly. She stared at him for a long moment before turning her attention to her cousin, "Sirius, look, I know it's hard but you have got to play the game, do you understand? Publicly, you have to stay away from Potter otherwise Narcissa and Bellatrix will be tattling to your mother and you will be getting more than Howlers in response. Your mother wasn't joking about pulling you from Hogwarts and snapping your wand." Andromeda glanced around quickly to make sure that no one was near enough to hear her and added, "The three of you need to stay out of trouble and away from the Slytherins."

"What, exactly, do you think we have been trying to do, Andromeda?" Sirius snapped back, tension evident on his boyish features, "Do you think I wanted Bellatrix and Narcissa to go blabbing to mother so she sends me a Howler at breakfast that not only insults my best friend and the entire Hufflepuff House but completely humiliates me as well? Do you think James gets off on being shoved into rose bushes or getting detention because some Slytherin scut planted a Dungbomb on him?"

Andromeda frowned, her black eyes snapping under the torchlight, "No, as a matter of fact, Sirius, I don't think that. But it doesn't matter what I think or say or do. I am just the only Slytherin not actively seeking a way to make your lives miserable and I think I deserve some credit for that instead of the bratty behavior you are currently giving me." Andromeda forced Sirius to meet her gaze and held it til he muttered a sullen apology, "I will work on the Slytherins some more. The three of you need to stay as close to Gryffindor as you can and give them no cause to hunt you down." As footsteps echoed on the stone floor, Andromeda looked at the three of them with something akin to fright in her eyes, "I have said too much, I have to go." and fled down the hall.

Watching her go, Remus sighed and said quietly, running a hand through his brilliantly blue locks, his eyes curiously slanted in the bad lighting of the hall, "She really shouldn't have told us that."

"Too damn right." Sirius said grimly only to be cut off by Remus snarling back at him in a quiet undertone, "She had put herself between her Housemates and her cousin and his friends. If the Slytherins found out that she tried to warn us, she would be in a much worse position than the three of us. The very least thing you can do, Sirius, is to take her warning seriously, even if you don't agree with her and you really should thank her for attempting to help us." With that, he turned and stiff marched into the Transfiguration classroom where Professor McGonagall was waiting for the bell to ring. James and Sirius stared at one another for a minute before following their friend in, not quite sure what had happened there.

After a day where Remus and Sirius were refusing to speak to one another and James refusing to act as a mediator, the three of them scarfed dinner quickly and went to Binns' classroom to report for their detention. Binns assigned them a foot long essay on why they shouldn't have done what they did to be turned in before they could leave and went into his office, leaving the door open so he could hear. Remus glared at the door for a long minute, thoughts tumbling around in his head so loud that James could practically hear them, before tossing his quill down with a sigh of disgust, "How am I supposed to write a foot on why I shouldn't hex my own hair blue when I didn't do it in the first place!"

Sirius looked up from his own parchment, his own blue locks tumbling around his face, "If you figure it out, tell me, would you?" Remus stiffened and ducked his own head back down to his desk, falling silent once more. Sirius met James' eyes and rolled his own, a smile dancing in his eyes that faded when James frowned at him. "Alright," he muttered to himself, "I get it." In a louder tone, he added, "Remus, James, listen, I am going to find my cousin and apologize to her tomorrow. Is that better?"

Once again tossing his quill down on the desk, Remus leaned back in his chair to take a long look at Sirius. Just when Sirius was starting to get irritated under that compelling gaze, Remus cracked a smile and said, "You know, Sirius, I think blue and pink polka dots are an improvement. You should keep your hair like that." Sirius looked as if he wanted to be angry but a bark of laughter escaped him, triggering a laugh from the other two. As Professor Binns glared at the three of them from the office, they quickly pulled faces of studious sobriety and went back to work, the breach mended.

The next morning, the three boys went down to breakfast before the other Gryffindors, and indeed most of the rest of the school, were awake. In the mostly empty Great Hall, the three of them felt free to talk away from prying eyes and ears. "It seems to me," James said as he heaped some scrambled eggs onto his plate, "that we can't take this lying down." Glancing meaningfully at Sirius' and Remus' hair, still sporting their new color change as the school nurse had refused to remove the hex on Binns' orders, James added some bacon to his plate before continuing, "I know what Andromeda said yesterday and I thought about it all night long but I just don't see an apology to Snape making the slightest bit of difference at this point."

Sirius leaned back on the bench, twirling his for around in his hand, "I think you might be right, mate." At Remus' sharp glance, he continued, a trifle defiantly, "I know my cousin is trying to help us but she is the only one against an entire House. How much good can she do realistically? Especially with my other two cousins doing their level best to disrupt it." He paused and scratched his chin thoughtfully, "No, the way I see it, the Slytherins crossed a really big line yesterday when they hexed Remus and me."

Sensing James gathering himself for a huge explosion, something that would start with 'Oh come off it, Sirius' and ending with something nasty, Remus cut in, "Look, James, neither Sirius nor myself think that what they have been doing to you is ok, or anything like that. But there wasn't really anything either of us could do about it, the Slytherins always went after you when you were either alone or when they could get to you without us seeing, like yesterday at breakfast. And using magic, especially outside of a classroom like they did yesterday, is a very dangerous move on their part as it puts them more out in the open."

"And not only did they go after us," Sirius added with a tiny grin, "but someone, apparently a Slytherin from the gossip I got, put the same hex on a couple of Hufflepuffs." Raking a hand through his hair, he added bitterly, "Of course, they weren't around that crazy old bat Binns and the school nurse removed the hex for them."

Remus snorted at Sirius' words, and, as his next words showed, the mention of Binns was all that it took to get him on the same track as Sirius, "You know," he said musingly, his eyes growing hard and wolf-like as he thought, "I think I have a couple of books on hexes back in the dorms. I don't know about you two but, if we are going to get them back for this," he raked a hand through his hair, "then we will need to know something to use against them."

A flutter of owl wings sounded and all three boys looked up, James and Sirius with resignation in their eyes, Remus with sympathy for his two friends. Thus Remus was surprised when the owl landed in front of him, bearing a letter. "Thank you." He said to the owl politely and opened his letter. What he read there caused his hands to shake a trifle but he sounded composed as he folded the letter back up, saying, "My mother is ill. She is asking for me and I have to leave Hogwarts today."

"Oh." James said, trying not to sound crestfallen, "Well, if you have to go, you have to go. I hope that your mother gets better soon."

Remus smiled a ghost of a smile that did not quite reach his eyes, "She has a terminal illness," he said with a quiet sigh, "and there is nothing the doctors can do for her other than..." his voice broke a bit, he cleared his throat, "other than make her comfortable. I will dig up the books before I leave, you two need to spend the weekend figuring out the hexes, and I will see you probably on Monday." With that, Remus rose and left the table, stalking out of the Hall.

The two stranded friends looked at each other for a minute before James broke the silence tentatively, "I really do hope his mum is alright." With a surge of guilt, James realized that he had not been to the Owlery in a couple of days being too wrapped up in his own misery to send a letter to his parents. "I should go write mum and dad a letter, I think. Let them know what is going on and, well, stuff like that. You know, so they aren't wondering if I've lost my mind completely since Professor McGonagall sent them an owl last night. "

Sirius stared at James, eyes strangely shadowed in the flickering light, and nodded slowly, "Alright." He said and stood from the table, "I need to see if I can find Andromeda anyways. I'll meet you in the common room, then." As Sirius padded to the door, James felt that he should go after his friend and apologize or something for having the kind of family that wasn't like Sirius' but shook that thought off as he rose to leave.

That night, after James' detention for McGonagall, the two boys were up reading the books that Remus loaned them well into the depths of the night, mastering the easy spells quickly and then progressing onto the harder ones. When they finally crawled into their respective beds, both boys were so tired they fell immediately into a dreamless sleep, never even hearing it when a gaunt and exhausted Remus crawled into his own bed around dawn.

That morning, no, James thought when he checked his watch, make that afternoon, when he woke, James was only somewhat surprised to see Remus there. Putting on his glasses, he looked at his friend carefully; Remus not only looked like he had been run through the mill but there were tear tracks on his cheeks. With a degree of sensitivity that belied his years, James shook Sirius awake and the two of them tiptoed around quietly as they got ready to leave. Just as they were about to leave for the last time, they heard Remus whimper something about his mum in his sleep and James almost ripped the door off it's hinges in his haste to escape the room.

Down in the deserted common room, Sirius flopped down on the couch with a sigh, "I wonder what new thing the Slytherins are planning for Monday morning." It was a valid thought, they shared the History of Magic with them, "I am seriously thinking about just skivving off class already. Binns has it in for us and that class is dead boring, anyway."

James was just sitting down, about to answer Sirius, when the portrait hole burst open and Lily Evans dashed into the common room, unmistakably upset about something. James knew this because Lily burst into tears the moment she gained what she thought was a deserted room. James and Sirius exchanged panicked glances as Lily sank down into the chair nearest the portrait hole, crying as if her heart would break. "What do we do now?" Sirius mouthed to James, trying to sink lower into the couch so that she wouldn't see him.

Hesitating for a long moment, James eventually waved at Sirius in an obvious 'stay here til the coast is clear and then clear off' gesture before rising and walking over to where Lily was. So lost in her own misery, Lily never looked up until after James had knelt down beside her and asked, in a surprisingly gentle voice, "Lily, why are you crying like that?" He almost rocked back in surprise as the girl flung herself about his neck but, overcoming his shock, put his arms about her awkwardly and rubbed her back, "Lily?"

Gathering herself back together took most of the energy Lily had left but she lifted a ink strained face to meet James' worried one, "The Sly...sssly..." She flushed a brilliant crimson, not able to get the word out past her stutter, and took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm herself, "I was walking in the hall, going to the library, and I ran into some older Slytherins," the tears started afresh and she stammered out the rest, "they called me a mudblood and then one of them pushed me down and poured ink on my face. They told me," her voice broke as she remembered, "that since I was fouling the school with my presence, I deserved to be dirty."

There was more to the story than that, James sensed as he pulled her in close, rubbing her back gently. Under the ink, one of Lily's eyes was starting to swell up like a grape and there were very fresh bruises on her arms. Still, he couldn't force her to tell him anything so all he could do was offer comfort. Sirius and a barely awake Remus came down the stairs then, before the moment could grow awkward between the two children, and Lily withdrew from his embrace. As she stood, having gathered herself together rather admirably, James thought, she whispered a quick, "Thanks." before excusing herself to go to the bathroom.

Grimly, James waited til she was out of earshot and filled in his two best friends in the school on what happened to her as well as what he deduced. This was it then, all three of them realized. The Slytherins were declaring war and the three of them would rather be damned than let them get away with it. With an increasing vigor, they retreated back up into their dorm room to practice hexes on each other until hunger drove them down to dinner later that night. Slytherin, you are my enemy, was James' last thought before he tumbled off to sleep, disturbed by dreams consisting mostly of flashes of green light and a snake hissing...

Author's response to the R&R from PammaPoo - Thanks for the R&R, I really do appreciate people letting me know they like what I am writing. As to your question about whether or not I'll kill Lily and James, I haven't decided where I am going to stop writing the fic yet. Since I am trying to write the tale within the Potterverse canon (even if some of it is just deductive work, for example, Bellatrix has to be the eldest cousin because she in on the left of the Black family tree in OotP), if I wrote the story all the way til the end, Lily and James would have to die to keep the tale within the canon. However, I probably won't go that far...and, just to let you know, I am about to start glossing over years because I don't want this to drag on for eternity til I reach their 5th, 6th, and 7th year, especially since I happen to have a really killer plotline for Sirius begging me to write it!