Once inside the Leaky Cauldron, I half-consciously edged closer to Mum. I'd been there a couple of times before, but something about it made me a little nervous— dark interior, smoke from fires and pipes not necessarily burning tobacco, and not necessarily human "beings" hanging around probably all had something to do with it. She shook her head when I bumped into her arm and led me out back.

Muttering to herself, she started tapping the brick wall— since she had an abysmal memory for these things, it took her three tries to get it right. Once out of the Leaky Cauldron and into Diagon Alley, I was more comfortable. As crowded as the streets usually were, I didn't mind crowds so long as there was enough light, and the shops were far too interesting to really notice the noise. Because I hadn't been there nearly enough to not be fascinated, Mum had to pause several times to find me again.

"Honestly, Remus, at this pace it's going to be dark by the time we get to Gringotts. It's not like you've never seen this place before," she added wryly, following my gaze to the Magical Menagerie, where I was preoccupied staring down a group of rats who had decided to find me interesting.

"Um . . . Mum?" To say the least, I was not a fan of the Gringotts' carts.

She sighed. "If I saw someone I knew, I might give in, but there's no way I'm going to leave an eleven-year-old here on his own," she announced. I shrugged, well aware that I was going to make the errand miserable for the both of us, and she sighed irritably and glanced around. "Hold on a second— Frank! Frank Longbottom!"

A boy a couple of years older than I was turned to face us. "Hullo, Mrs. Lupin," he greeted Mum. "What's going on?"

"Knowing boys your age, you're headed directly for the Quidditch shop," she answered with a shrug. "I don't particularly want to make a trip to the bank worse than it has to be, so if you are would you mind keeping half an eye on Remus?"

I grumbled something about not needing a babysitter. Frank grinned and nodded. "I don't think that can be too much trouble," he answered.

As practically all I knew about Frank was that our mothers were friends— his being three or four years older than me we'd generally ignored each other— the walk to Quality Quidditch Supplies was rather uneventful. He seemed to find it amusing when I stopped to stare at a crazy old wizard chasing a multicolored lizard down the street, shouting a combination of profanities and threats if it didn't "get back over here this instant" at it. When I asked if the lizard was supposed to have been multicolored he just laughed and beckoned me on.

We split up inside, Frank headed towards the different brooms, muttering something about trying out for the Quidditch team this year. I made a beeline for the magazines and amused myself for a few moments just spinning it in circles at various speeds, until the clerk started to glare at me when I had it going so fast a few of them flew out. I cleaned up and flipped through them, trying to figure out if this month's issue of the Tornadoes fanzine was out yet.

"Whatcha looking for?"

I looked up, startled, to see a dark-haired boy about my age. He was half a foot taller than I was, black hair tousled and grey eyes friendly. "I assure you that since I've been in and out of this shop all day I'll know if they've got it."

"Um. . . ." I usually kept to myself, both at school and when Mum had run into wizarding friends with sons or daughters, meaning the few friends I had approached me first. I really had no idea how to talk to a stranger who's name I didn't have some clue what was.

"My name's Sirius Black," the boy continued, spinning the rack. The clerk immediately looked up with a glare of murder. Sirius grinned back at him. "That makes the second person today who's decided I'm mental— third if I count the look you're giving me," he announced.

I glanced around, wondering if one of his parents was going to show up in a moment, drag him back out, and demand to know what he was doing in Quidditch Supplies again. Sirius only grinned. "Oh, I ditched my mum after about three shops. She's probably looking for me mad as hell about now. I'm betting she's already looked here now; probably figured I wandered down Knockturn Alley to see what havoc I could wreak there. . . ."

I shuddered. I'd never been down Knockturn Alley, but I'd heard horror stories about it, some of which were probably invented by my mother to keep me out of there.

Sirius stopped the rack and started flipping through the magazines. "Read that . . . glanced at that . . . this month's issue of that hasn't come out yet . . . is there anything here I have not read three times already?"

"Laddie, I don't think there's anything on that rack you haven't read three times today," the clerk announced with a cockney accent.

Sirius grinned— now I was slightly worried about the boy's sanity. "If you say so. . . ."

He appeared to consider spinning the rack again, but caught the clerk's glare and apparently came to the conclusion he'd rather not be strangled. Instead, he turned to me. "Did I ever ask you your name? 'Cause if I did, I must've forgotten it. . . ."

"You didn't," I told him quietly, "it's Remus Lupin."

He nodded, running a finger down the stats of the Hungarian national team. This seemed to begin a conversation in his way of thinking, although he did most of the talking, partly due to the fact that I was just starting to get comfortable with him, partly because he talked so fast it was hard to get a word in edgewise. Sirius quickly proved that he had far too much energy to safely expend it in Quality Quidditch Supplies. He was everywhere at once, attempting to discuss the Scotland-France game with me at the same time. When he'd discovered I'd missed it, he started giving me a play-by-play, which isn't easy when you've got four balls, fourteen players, and apparently were half asleep by the radio. "And . . . er . . . how much of this did you actually understand?"

"Honestly? Not a whole heck of a lot," I admitted.

That's what I thought," Sirius admitted, glancing around the shop. "I know there's those little moving models around here somewhere."

Predictably, they were on a top shelf. Sirius was tall for our age, but he still wasn't tall enough to get to the top of a six-foot shelf. Eventually the clerk got out from behind the counter and got it down for him. "Don't want you sendin' things flyin' again or knockin' any shelves over," he grumbled.

I chuckled. Sirius demanded to know what was so funny. "Nothing, really. I can just see you knocking these shelves over."

"I think I'm going to bruise," Sirius agreed. "My cousin tells me that if I don't learn some semblance of grace I'm going to be stuck behind a desk all my life, for my own safety as much as the rest of the world's." He grinned, starting to move the players around. "Now where were we. . . ." He was off again, imitating the radio announcer in an almost uncanny impersonation as he moved them around.

With the rate at which Sirius could talk, particularly when he was excited, I was starting to realize, it only took about twenty minutes to completely exhaust the subject of the Quidditch game. Not that he didn't try to drag it out, asking me if I'd ever flown before.

"Once," I admitted under my breath. "I got fifteen feet off the ground and panicked."

"Better than me, then," Sirius answered cheerfully. "Walls still have that annoying habit of moving themselves to right in front of me."

I laughed at that. Sirius was obviously as ungainly as he was energetic, but he had a sense of humor about it. Living in a house that rescued more than a few close calls with Muggles every month and with parents that could still laugh about it, that was the only way I knew to get by.

Sirius left the model where it lay, not about to risk the clerks wrath yet again by putting it back up, and started wandering among the brooms. "You starting school?" he asked absently.

"Got the letter last week," I mumbled. "Shock of my life, really."

He looked up, surprise and friendly interest radiating from those grey eyes of his. "Why? You know enough about Quidditch I'm guessing you're not Muggle-born, and I wouldn't think—"

I shrugged and interrupted him. "I'm half and half."

"Oh, well, I guess that may make sense," Sirius answered. "I'm just starting, too." He smiled, some semblance a maniac about him. "Andromeda claims the school won't be left standing when I'm done and I can honestly claim it's an accident."

"I wouldn't doubt it," I mumbled as a rack of beaters clubs tumbled over when he bumped into it, at the cost of glares from several other patrons, including Frank.

I started to help him get the clubs back into some type of order, but to say the least my organization skills were not the best and Sirius only seemed to make things worse. Eventually Frank joined us to sort things out, and it took telling Sirius to stop trying to help to get them up. Frank was muttering something about menaces— Sirius seemed to find it amusing and I saw his point— when Mum showed up. She tapped Frank on the shoulder, thanked him for keeping an eye on me, and asked what had happened. Frank launched into a long, irritated explanation about how annoying the two of us were.

"Erm . . . Remus?" Sirius asked.

"What?"

"D'you mind if I hang around with you for a little while?" he asked. "I mean. . . ." He trailed off and shrugged, but I had some idea what he was trying to get at— he'd said he was only my age, and I didn't know anybody in that category who wanted to be in crowds alone.

Frankly, though, I was surprised that anyone would ask me that question. I was used to kids just looking at me and being able to see I was different, and it hadn't occurred to me then that in some ways, every kid in this Alley was "different" in one of the ways I was. "Um . . . sure. I mean, if you really want to."

Author's Note: Thank you to my six reviewers, for the criticism and encouragement. Centaur219, you're right— soccer's different in the UK. How stupid of me. If you want to comment on Sirius's character especially, I'd appreciate it! Cheers! — Loki