The rest of the week passed relatively quickly. Sirius and James took to sitting in the common room at night, trying to figure out what they were going to do. They invited Peter and I into the discussion, but we both came to the conclusion that we'd rather be able to plead ignorance to whatever teacher caught us— I, at least, took it for granted that we were going to be caught.

In the evenings, we engaged in actually studying. I think Peter was overwhelmed by the magical world— while he was good enough at Herbology and History of Magic, Charms and Transfiguration appeared to confuse him. Neither of us ever wanted to discuss the amount of time I'd spent helping him with the essay on Expellaramus Farbauti has assigned. I told him time and again that he'd get used to using magic and it wouldn't be so difficult for him to get a spell to work. He complained that most of the other Muggle-borns were getting along just fine. "They," I reminded him, "don't have two friends who are determined to blow something up before next Thursday."

Peter couldn't deny that I wasn't right.

When Friday rolled around, we had Potions, double with the Slytherins, first thing in the morning. Sirius, who had a big family, most of whom were older than he was, was telling us about the only teacher he knew about besides Dumbledore. Apparently, while Potions was generally Slytherin House's subject, right now it was being taught by a former Gryffindor, much to the chagrin of Jack Farbauti, from what he'd heard only recently.

"Well, it's got to be better then another Farbauti," I pointed out as Sirius gave Peter's cauldron the boost it needed to get fully up onto the table.

"Binns is better than another Farbauti," James pointed out, fiddling with his glasses. "And, I mean, that Binns is better than something is saying a lot."

The bell came and went. "Not very punctual, is he?" James asked. He was still apparently smarting over the fact that Farbauti hadn't gotten into his classroom before the bell rang and still taken points off Gryffindor for our being late. He was also refusing to discuss Defense Against the Dark Arts, but we all suspected it was because he had no desire to discuss his fear of snakes.

About a minute after the bell, the Potions professor came hurrying into the dungeon, muttering to himself. With all the grace of Sirius at his worst— which he had proved this morning included somersaulting down the stairs completely by accident— he tripped over Athena's book bag and landed on the floor. His glasses came flying off. James leaned down and picked them up.

The professor, Horus Freyson, picked himself up off the ground slowly, grabbing his roll list as he did so. Pulling his wand out of a robe pocket, he muttered, "Flammas Torches" and the torches on the walls flared to an even brighter light. "That's probably better," he announced, stumbling around the room and nearly tripping over a blonde Slytherin girl Sirius had admitted with some chagrin was his cousin. He ran into the table we were at and James handed him his glasses back. "Thanks," Freyson muttered, repairing them with his wand— one of the lenses had cracked— and shoving them back up his long nose.

In addition to his long nose, Horus Freyson had somewhat shaggy black hair and stubble where he'd neglected to shave— and considering how absent-minded he seemed to be, it was probably because he forgot. His skin and the eyes behind his newly repaired glasses were both pretty dark, like an Arab's. He was about average in height, slim, and had the same Expression Mum did— meaning he had his head in the clouds.

He got to the front of the room without any more mishaps, and threw the roll carelessly onto an already cluttered desk. "I swear I ran down here," he announced dryly. "But because I was at the headmaster's office, getting a new roll after I lost the first one, I obviously didn't make it." He glowered at the torches. "There's also never enough light down here. While Professor Farbauti kindly reminded me the other day that I've been threatening for years and never actually done it, as that would involve getting my desk in a state to be moved, I feel it necessary to warn you I may have this classroom moved to an upper floor so my appalling vision can actually pick something out. Now, roll. . . ."

He got through roll alright, and an explanation of Potions that comforted Peter a great deal. "Oh, it's just chemistry."

Sirius and James both exchanged blank looks. "Erm, Pete. . . . What's chemistry?" Sirius asked him softly.

Peter and I exchanged looks and evil grins— since my dad was a Muggle I knew plenty about the Muggle world— and Peter replied, "Potions for Muggles."

Sirius gave him a long look, knowing full well that if he tried to chuck something at us he'd miss, and announced that he'd get a better explanation out of us later.

Professor Freyson set us to making a potion that would cure boils. James stopped muttering with Sirius again, glanced up at the board, and got to work. Sirius looked put out for a second or two but realized why. The potion was supposedly simple, but that was to someone experienced. To us, it was hard. Peter, actually, though, seemed to be doing pretty good, even getting confident enough to correct me, as I was not.

"No, Rem, it's eye of newt," he muttered, pulling my hand back from my cauldron.

"How did you suddenly turn into Eienstein?" I asked him softly, picking up the appropriate ingredient.

Pete shrugged. "I'm good at chemistry— most sciences, actually. I just don't really get magic. This really isn't magic."

I had to agree with him— having devoured every text book we'd gotten by now, I knew a lot about magic. I still had yet to fathom the deep mystery that is any form of chemistry. I doubted, as Peter pulled my arm away again and again, that I ever would.

Meanwhile, Professor Freyson had started to circle the room, offering suggestions and compliments as he wandered from cauldron to cauldron. He commended Peter's work, as it was already simmering the yellow color it was supposed to be, and told James to stop threatening Sirius with the caterpillar entrails and add them to his potion. I winced when he glanced at mine— it was more green than it was yellow, and obviously a little too far gone to fix. "Actually," he told me when I muttered that, "this might salvage it." He pulled a plant out of my Potions supplies.

"Thanks," I muttered.

"Oh, no problem. This is the first time, for Merlin's sake— some of you kids take this class a little too seriously. Besides, it's not the worst mess up I've ever seen. Maybe one day I'll tell you about it." He grinned. "I don't think anyone here is as nervous and accident-prone as that poor student, so we won't have a repeat."

"He's calling anyone accident-prone?" Sirius asked, as he nearly tripped over Athena's book bag again.

"You, Sirius, are accident-prone," I reminded him, adding the plant Freyson had given me to it a little bit at a time, until the color slowly started to change.

"Besides, he's got thick glasses," James defended him, giving Sirius a look. "I can barely see without mine, and that guy's're thicker than them." He lifted an eyebrow.

After seeing him after Sirius had outright accused him of being afraid of snakes, none of the other three of us ventured a comment about glasses that might offend him.

The one real surprise of the class was that Freyson stopped by Severus Snape's cauldron, cocked his head, and admitted, "Well, I'm impressed." The liquid simmering in it was the exact color, not even like Peter's that was almost but not quite perfect. Snape had done it like a professional. Needless to say, we were all impressed.

"I didn't know he could do anything but botch curses," James muttered. I pointed out that they had done nothing since the train ride but shoot each other scathing glances, and therefore of course he didn't. James ignored me.

After Potions, as we were heading upstairs for another Transfiguration class with McGonagall, Sirius and James unveiled their great idea for a prank— and that was that, with the help of Peeves, they were convinced that they could rig the bust of Uric the Oddball outside of Argus Filch's office to fall on his head as he headed out.

Everyone hated Filch— this was a given as he had a penchant for giving out detentions— and he had already succeeded in giving Sirius and James one as they came down the hall tossing a ball back and forth and Sirius, being Sirius, managed to hit that bust of Uric the Oddball, knocking it over had it not been for Filch, who saved the statue and yelled at both of them, threatening to have regular balls added to the list of things that they could not have in school.

While this would no means top the wet-start fireworks, it was certainly something. Against my better judgement, I agreed to not only let them do the damn thing, but to convince Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, to tell anyone passing as we tried to rig it that someone had exploded a load of dungbombs on the corridor.

It was then that I decided, given the circumstances, that I must be every bit as crazy as the two grinning maniacs I was walking to Transfiguration with.

Author's Note: Two and a half weeks! Killer writer's block, so sorry. . . . Anyways, Remus said himself in PoA that he was NOT good at Potions, and as it helps destroy the image of him as the Marauder's complete bookworm, I happily seized it. So, I still appreciate all reviews! Cheers! — Loki