The Songbird and the Serpent

Part I: Hogwart's

Lupin's first year at Hogwart's...

Chapter 2

He was woken by a slap to the face.

"Hey! Remus? You all right?" Said James, and when Remus' head cleared he sat up.

"What?" He asked, baffled as to why he'd been slapped. James had a look of relief on his face and took a step back.

"You were thrashing about like mad and making a bit of a racket...I thought I should wake you...what was that all about, anyway?" He asked, raising a brow, and Remus absently scratched his head. He was pretty sure he knew what he'd been dreaming about, but thought it best to lie.

"Er...can't remember. Sorry if I woke you..." he said with a yawn, and James shook his head.

"Nah...I was awake already. It's almost time to get up anyway--" he said, stopping abruptly when a shoe hit the wall very hard right by Remus' head. They both turned to look at Sirius, who was angrily shoving his head under his pillow. James rolled his eyes.

"Oi! You could've hurt someone with that!" Said James, shouting so loudly that Remus noticed Peter wake up with a start. Sirius removed his head from under his pillow.

"Sort of the point, mate...shut up, or I'll thump you both." He hissed, and promptly shoved the pillow back over his head. James just stared at him in disbelief for a few moments.

"You've got to get up in five minutes anyway, Sirius...calm down, will you?" He said, turning to Remus to give him an apologetic grin. "Sorry about him...it's like I said...he's a moody git. I swear he's lovely once you get to know him." He continued, with a short laugh, and Remus looked from James to the pile of blankets and pillows that was Sirius.

"Er...sure..."


During breakfast in the Great Hall, McGonagall, who Remus discovered was head of Gryffindor house, handed out their timetables. Remus noticed that they began the day with Defence Against the Dark Arts, which they shared with Slytherin house.

"Oh, not with Slytherin..." James whined, and Remus looked at him curiously.

"Is that bad?" He asked, and James gave him a look as if to convey that what he was about to say was very important.

"Everyone knows that Slytherin's where just about every dark wizard there ever was came out of...they're a nasty lot, them." He said seriously, and Remus shrugged.

"I'm sure they're not all bad..." he said, and James just scoffed at him and returned to looking over his timetable.

"Great...we're with them all morning...The potions teacher's head of Slytherin house, too. Oh, what marvellous things Monday mornings are..." said James with more than a hint of sarcasm. Remus shook his head and turned back to his breakfast. Peter was reading over his timetable, looking quite worried, and Sirius had fallen asleep in his cornflakes. The wild-eyed girl, whom Remus had learned was named Vivienne, and the tall black girl named Mau were both giggling at Sirius from behind their timetables. Lily, the pretty redhead, was talking quietly with the shy girl named Zoƫ, who smiled at Remus when she noticed him watching them. He looked away quickly and felt himself turning rather red.

After breakfast they all headed to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, where a slightly hunchbacked old man with dark grey hair and a long plaited beard was waiting for them. Remus took a seat towards the back with Peter, and Sirius and James took seats right in front of them. Remus noticed an arrogant-looking boy with a dark tan taking a seat at the table beside Peter and himself, where a tall and greasy boy with a nose that could politely be described as 'aristocratic' was already seated.

"Come on now, take your seats! Settle down, settle down. I'm Professor Muldrake, and this is Defence Against the Dark Arts. I will be teaching you how to defend yourselves against dark magic, among other things, so please do pay attention because what you learn in this class could save your life one day." Said Professor Muldrake, and he took a seat at his desk. "Now...to start, let's turn to the first chapter in your books and talk about some simple blocking and disarming techniques..."

Remus found the subject very easy to absorb, and by the end of the lesson he was helping Peter master a blocking spell he was having trouble with. James and Sirius were having a marvellous time throwing various hexes and jinxes at each other, having mastered the day's material with even more ease than Remus. They were trying to catch each other off-guard, and after Sirius managed to hit James with a particularly nasty hex, covering him in boils and sending them both into fits of laughter, Muldrake felt obliged to dock five points from Gryffindor and send James to the hospital wing to get healed up.

Sirius continued to snigger to himself all the way up until they arrived at the potions classroom in the dungeons, where James was waiting for them, boil-free. James cuffed Sirius about the head in a gesture of mock anger, trying very hard to stop laughing, and they took a seat at the back of the cold, dimly lit potions classroom. Remus and Peter took the table next to them, Peter watching the two of them with interest as they talked amongst themselves. The greasy boy with the unfortunate nose and the boy with the dark tan soon occupied the last table in the back row.

After a few minutes, the potions professor finally wandered into the room, and Remus couldn't help but notice how exceptionally graceful the man's movement was; he seemed almost to glide along the floor. He stopped at the front of the room and turned around, and the class fell silent. He was very tall and thin, wearing robes of a deep red colour. His dark brown hair was long and wavy, and his face almost completely expressionless. Only his eyes, which were a piercing golden colour that even Remus could see clearly from the back of the room, gave away any sign that he wasn't merely a statue. After a few moments of heavy silence he spoke, and Remus noticed a thick Eastern European accent.

"Welcome to your first Potions lesson. I am Professor Tsepesh, and I will let you know from the start that I will not put up with any, er, 'mucking about' in this class. Potion making is a very exact art, and one that many find difficult, but if you just do exactly as I tell you and follow the directions given to you, then you should do just fine. Now, without further ado, let's start with a simple potion to cure boils, just to see what level you are at..." said Professor Tsepesh, and Remus heard James whisper to Sirius--

"Guess I shouldn't have bothered to go up to the hospital wing, eh?"

"Maybe I should just hex you again, so we can all test our potions later..." Sirius replied, and they both fell into stifled bouts of laughter. Professor Tsepesh shot them a warning glance, and they fell silent as he absently waved his wand towards the blackboard and the directions for making the potion appeared.

"You may begin...ingredients can be found in that cupboard..." he said, pointing to a door on the right, which flew open. Tsepesh then sat down at his desk and began to concentrate on writing something. Remus turned to Peter.

"Well...er...shall I go get the ingredients, then?" He asked, and Peter nodded.

"Yeah...I'll get the cauldron set up..." he replied, and Remus joined the small crowd that had formed around the ingredients cupboard. Once he got everything they needed, he returned to his seat and they began to prepare the potion.

Before long, he was very aware that the potion that he and Peter had created was far from what it should be. It had turned a nasty acid yellow and started to put out large amounts of sticky steam, at which point Remus and Peter both agreed it would be best to remove it from the fire and stay away from it for a while. Sirius and James had already managed to lose a few more points for Gryffindor by throwing horned slugs at each other, but Remus had to admit that their potion at least looked all right, if a bit lumpy.

On his other side, the greasy Slytherin and his tanned companion had created the potion to perfection, and were now sitting back and enjoying their spare time by reading the textbook. Remus was sure that he and Peter had made the biggest blunder of the potion in the class, and Tsepesh confirmed this feeling as he wound his way around the class, keeping an eye on everyone's progress.

"What on earth is this?" Asked Tsepesh, and Remus glanced at Peter, who was staring at his feet. He turned back to look into the Professor's fierce golden eyes and tried to think of a good answer.

"I...I don't know. It went wrong somewhere..." said Remus, and Tsepesh donned a mocking grin.

"Yes...I'd say so. Too much crushed snake fang, I'll wager." He said absently, and sighed. "Well, I'm afraid you two are going to need to work a bit harder in this class...and I really don't think you ought to be working together...you may just blow us all up." He continued, and Remus felt his face grow red. Professor Tsepesh turned to the table next to them where the Slytherin boys were still reading their textbooks.

"Snape, you will help Mr. Lupin here...Pettigrew, go sit with Avery. That should sort you two out." He said, and Peter glanced fearfully at the tan boy named Avery, who was staring venomously back at him, then collected his things and moved to the table to join him. The greasy-haired boy, who Remus now knew was named Snape, grudgingly came over to join Remus, never once looking at him. Professor Tsepesh glided back to his desk and sat down. "Right...this seating arrangement should prove far more beneficial to the...er...lesser-abled students in the class. But for now, the lesson is drawing to a close, so bring a sample of your potion up to me to be evaluated, and then you can clear up and leave."

Remus hurried with the sample and left the room as quickly as possible, joining Sirius, James and Peter in the hallway outside. Snape grimaced at him as he swept past and up the stairs, and Remus felt his heart sink. He was already dreading his next potions lesson, which luckily wasn't until Thursday afternoon. The four of them made their way to the Great Hall for lunch.

As they sat through lunch Remus kept getting the feeling that James was looking over at Peter and himself, suppressing laughter. Finally he decided to say something about it, as it was getting rather annoying.

"What is it, James? What's so funny?" He said, rather more harshly than he meant to, and James composed himself with some difficulty.

"I'm sorry...it's just...how unlucky can you get! I guess Potions just isn't your class..." said James, seeming to lose the battle with his laughter-suppression. Remus frowned and turned back to his lunch, in no mood to argue with anyone. Besides, he was right, they weren't doing so well in that class so far. Their first potion was a disaster, and now they had to work with two surly Slytherins to boot. Peter seemed to be thinking the same thing, looking alarmingly dejected as he picked at a cheese and cucumber sandwich. James stopped laughing when he saw that he'd upset them rather more than he meant to, and turned instead to his own lunch. Sirius however seemed to revel in their misery, grinning like a maniac as he watched them.


After lunch they had a double charms lesson with Hufflepuff, taught by a remarkably short and very pleasant little wizard named Professor Flitwick. Remus was cheered slightly by the fact that he showed a lot of promise in the class, and only James managed to levitate his feather before him. He left the class feeling a lot better about himself, although poor Peter was still feeling a bit dejected, having managed to set his feather on fire somehow. James and Sirius were pleased with themselves for finally managing to get through a class without losing any house points.

Remus's good feelings were soon dashed when he sat down to dinner. A haughty older Slytherin with long silver-blonde hair and cold grey eyes noticed Remus and whispered something to his companions as they passed. One of these companions--a pretty blonde girl whose expression suggested that there was a nasty smell under her nose--laughed rather cruelly.

"I see what you mean, Lucius...honestly, Dumbledore's letting any old rubbish in. Look at those robes!" She said, laughing again. It was true that Remus' robes were rather tattered, being second-hand, but he'd never really minded until now. The girl then noticed Sirius, who was grinning in a completely unfriendly manner at her, and she frowned. "...And I see my dear cousin has taken to fraternising with the rubbish...honestly, Sirius...you really are an utter disgrace..." she continued, and threw her head back as she continued on her way to the Slytherin table. Sirius shot the Slytherins a very venomous look and turned momentarily to Remus as if he might apologise for his cousin's words, but apparently he decided against it and instead grimaced into his steak and kidney pie. James, however, turned to Remus.

"Just ignore them...I told you those Slytherins were all scum...think they're all so great. I'd like to know why they feel the need to take the piss out of an eleven-year-old if they're so ruddy great..." he ranted, and Remus forced a smile as if to say it didn't bother him, but in truth the girl's words cut him rather more deeply than he ever wanted to admit.

After dinner Remus sent a letter home to his parents telling them all about his first day, although he managed to leave out the part about botching his first potion, and also didn't include the taunting he'd received during dinner. He was careful, however, to inquire as to whether or not it would be possible for him to have some new robes. He then made his way to the Gryffindor common room, where James and Sirius were sitting in a couple of armchairs, James holding an animated conversation with a strapping sixth year boy, and Sirius staring moodily into the fire. Peter was also sitting by the fire, looking rather awkward and continually glancing at Sirius as if he wanted to speak to him. Remus' first thought was to get his homework done, but then he realised that they hadn't been assigned any yet.

He took a seat by the fire and smiled at Peter, who politely returned the gesture before resuming his persistent glancing at Sirius. The boy that James was talking to took his leave and wandered over to a crowd of fellow sixth years.

"Frank Longbottom...our parents are friends. That's how I met Sirius here, too...my parents know his from way back...although they don't really get on too well anymore..." explained James, glancing cautiously at Sirius, and Remus nodded. His parents didn't really know many people, and he certainly hadn't been allowed to mix with anyone much in the last seven years.

"So, you two have know each other for a while, then?" He asked, and James nodded.

"Yeah...most of our lives, right Sirius?" Said James, but Sirius made no sign that he'd heard anything. James shrugged, and looked longingly over at the broomstick Frank Longbottom was holding. "I wish first years were allowed their own brooms...I'd love to try out for Quidditch, but I don't want to have to use the old school brooms. I'll probably just wait until next year. You a Quidditch fan?" He asked, and Remus nodded.

"Well...I like to watch it. Never played...never even been on a broom before. I was never allowed, since I'm always...er...ill." He explained, and James raised his eyebrows.

"Ill? What's wrong with you?" He asked, with what sounded like genuine concern in his voice. Remus couldn't help but feel his spirits rise at the thought that James might actually care about him, like a real friend.

"Er...well, I guess I just catch things easily..." he said, unable to come up with a better lie. James seemed to fall for it though, and an awkward silence fell, during which Remus thought that perhaps he shouldn't have mentioned his 'illness,' as it obviously managed to kill the conversation. Finally, he broke the silence, glancing at Sirius.

"Is he all right?" He asked James, who shrugged.

"Not sure, really...he gets like this sometimes...guess he has a lot to think about." Answered James.

"I don't think he likes me much, you know..." whispered Remus, and James gave a half-hearted smile.

"I'm not so sure about that...but it's hard to tell. Honestly, I think the bloke's a bit mad, actually." He said with a shrug, and Sirius turned to look at them.

"I'm stark-raving sane, thank you very much..." he muttered, and James laughed.

"Who do you think you are, the Prince of Denmark?" He said, and Remus, Sirius, and Peter all eyed him quizzically.

"What?" the three asked in unison, and James frowned.

"I don't know, actually...never mind." He said, and Sirius shrugged and turned back to the fire. Remus blinked; still a little confused, and then decided it might be best to just leave.

"Well...I'm off to bed I think. I'm a bit knackered. I'll see you later..." he said, and stood to go. James said goodnight, and so did Peter, but Sirius just continued to stare into the fire.