One weekend in the common room, Remus was playing a light-hearted tune on the piano and the other four were all goofing off and enjoying having no work to do.

Sirius had grabbed Lily and was pulling her around by the waist in a clumsy imitation of a tango. Everyone laughed uncontrollably as he spun Lily around and then dipped her far back so that her hair almost touched the carpet. Sirius looked just as pretty as her, so when they danced around in such an unmasculine display the result was quite comical.

The only one who wasn't laughing, but simply forming a small smile while keeping his face pointed downward, was Remus. A full moon was approaching once again. Sirius always seemed almost excited when this observation was lingering unspokenly between the four of them. But for Remus it meant something completely different than it did for the others, and he always somewhat spaced himself apart from them at these times, as if he was feeling especially left out.

When Sirius finally settled down, Lily gave some final laughs as she brushed her now messy and unparted hair out of her face, but didn't give much care to fixing it again. She sank tiredly into a deep and large red chair that was beside the sofa as Sirius sat down with James. Remus's music became calmer and slower. Peter, who looked the most tired out of everyone there, said a short goodnight to everyone and made his way up the stairs to the dormitories.

Sirius nudged James's arm. "So I heard Professor Constantine busted you, eh?"

"Yeah," James sighed. "I was reading your notes in class."

"Sorry about that," Sirius said sincerely. "What's the deal? We're supposed to get in trouble together, you know."

James smiled. "Yeah, like the good old days," he said fondly. "Well, it wasn't the first time it's happened, so I have an hour detention."

Sirius winced. "My sympathies, Prongs."

James looked at him, waiting for him to realize his point. "I have to serve it on Monday."

"But you have Quidditch practice, don't you?"

"Yes. So I have to go and do it later at night." He stressed the last part of his speech in case Sirius was having trouble seeing his meaning.

But Sirius already understood. "Oh. That's rotten luck. You told Remus?"

James shook his head.

"Hm. It'll be no fun without you."

He expected just as much from Sirius, for him to treat it so lightly. He always acted like it was about having fun when they roamed the grounds as animals with Remus. And it was, but it was also all they could do to keep their friend from going insane in his other form. Even though the others would be there on Monday night, James felt like he should have been more careful about leaving his schedule open.

Remus started playing the piano part to a sad love song which Lily knew the words to. As if with no premeditation, she started to softly sing along to it while curled up in a relaxed position in the chair. Suddenly it was like she was singing the room to sleep; as soon as she accompanied the song everyone became silent. During a pause in the vocal part Lily stood up to go sit next to Remus on the bench. James had never heard her sing before. Her voice didn't carry very far but it was pretty and comforting, like the sound of running water. When the song was finishing, Sirius nodded at James in subtle communication of a "goodnight" and then stood up to go up to bed.

Remus stopped playing and Lily lifted a hand to the keys and played some randomly as she talked. "You have to have everything, don't you, Remus?" she asked him kindly, but not seriously. "A shack all to yourself, a Whomping Willow tree to guard your secret passageway, and a grand piano in the common room. You know this is probably the only thing that's ever been Apparated here since the school first opened? "

He smiled. "Dumbledore has been very kind to me." There was no trace of realization in his voice and it was clear that he already understood this very much.

Lily stood up and said goodnight to both of them before leaving. Then James went over to stand by the piano and explained to Remus that he wouldn't be able to go down with him and the others to the shack the night after the next.

"Oh," Remus said simply when James was done telling him. "Well, that's all right. Pretty bad for you, though. You have to go to detention and then be alone around here the rest of the night. Well, I guess if you'rereal cleveryou might be able to find us, if you want to risk sneaking down the tree without the cloak. But in hopes that we're a little better at hiding than that, I kind of hope you won't."

James laughed. "I will be able to go the next day before you change back, though. We'll leave right after school, cause I don't think any of us have anything to do."

Remus nodded. Then, with a quick afterthought, he added, "Oh, Lily will be here. So you won't be completely by yourself."

"Yeah," James agreed, but he didn't really acknowledge the idea. It was typical of Remus to turn the concern to someone else, but he wasn't exactly worrying about what he would be doing that night.

The next day was Sunday. The boys and Lily finished their homework early in the day and had the rest of it off to be outside. They found themselves at the side of the lake in front of the greenhouse wall, once again accompanied there by numerous other groups of students and Snape's Slytherins. It was a particularly large group of Slytherins, and today Bellatrix and Narcissa Black were there.

For the first twenty minutes or so Snape and his friends managed to ignore them. Sirius entertained himself by climbing up a tree to retrieve a scarf that was stuck in the branches. On the way up his right shoe fell off and landed in between two braches to get stuck just like the scarf. Sirius swore and tried to climb down to get it back, but only fell out of the tree in the process.

He hit the ground and groaned and the others laughed as he got back up on his feet. He stared up at his shoe that was in the tree just high enough so that he wouldn't be able to reach it. "Well, now what?"

"If you give somebody a boost up...," James offered.

"Yeah," Sirius said, grinning, and signaled to Lily to come over to him. "Lily, you're light. Get over here."

Rolling her eyes, Lily walked over and was picked up by the waist by Sirius and lifted high up toward the tree branches. She stretched her hand up and knocked the shoe from the branches so that it landed with a defeated thump on the ground below.

"Yay!" Sirius said in a fake, high-pitched voice as he retrieved his shoe and started to put it back on his foot.

Several students had been watching in mild amusement, and now Bellatrix crossed her arms smugly and called to her cousin, "I'd wash that shoe now if I were you."

Not everyone got the point of her comment, but Sirius understood her meaning right away, and it immediately put him in a not-so-cheery attitude. "Oh, shut up, Bella," he shot back, spitting out her name in pure disgust.

Bellatrix laughed. "You really are pitiful. What an embarrassment to the family. You already amount to nothing as it is, and now you're hanging around with people like her."

"Oh, just say it," Snape chimed in suddenly. "They know Evans is a dirty Mudblood-"

"You watch your mouth!" Sirius snapped as a lot of people gasped, his temper now fueled to a much more dangerous level. Lily was silent, looking like she very much wanted to sneak away. Remus was attempting to calm everyone down.

"Now, both of you-" he started.

"And what are you going to do to me if I do say that again?" Snape asked of Sirius challengingly. "Wave your dirty shoe in my face that that Mudblood touched? What about you, Potter?" He turned to James defiantly, whose eyebrows were narrowed in an expression of loathing. "You going to let me talk about her like that? If I knew I could get you this mad just by saying that I'd have done it a long time ago."

"Shut. Up." Sirius said it slowly through gritted teeth, practically vibrating with contained rage.

"Guys," Lily sighed in exasperation. "Please. Just ignore him. I don't want to cause any-"

But Snape pounced on her before she could finish, interrupting with, "You can shut up and stay out of it, you filthy-"

Then he used a word that merited some kind of reaction from everyone who was watching. James made a move as if it go after Snape, though he had done it unconsciously, and he never got the chance to do whatever he was about to do to him because Remus got between them and Snape first. Sirius had lunged forward more than James had and probably would have hurt Snape, but Remus was now holding him back and having to use all his strength to do so.

"Now, stop this! Ugh!" Remus groaned, looking about to buckle from the force with which Sirius was pushing against him. "Settle down, all of you!"

Meanwhile Lily was shouting at Sirius for him to stop but was ignored.

"Don't be such a girl, Remus!" Sirius shouted at him angrily. "What about you? You're a prefect! Do something about him!"

"If you don't cut it out now I'll give all of you detentions. Now give it up."

Sirius backed off and the Slytherins distanced themselves from the others to be the way they had been before. The five walked back to the castle to get away from them, and on the way Remus had to put a hand on James's shoulder and tell him to calm down. He hadn't even realized that his shoulders were stiffened and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. He relaxed and looked over at Sirius, who appeared to be fully recovered from the incident but was obviously hiding any emotion he was feeling, which he was always good at.

It was Sirius's hatred for Snape that had made him react to it the way he did; the fact that he was attacking Lily had just given him a reason to get mad at him. His cousin being there hadn't helped calm his temper, either. It hadn't really been out of the ordinary for him, but James couldn't remember ever being so mad at Snape in his life. He had been too angry to even say anything back to him, and now that made him feel even more angry.

When Lily finally talked to them again it was to say she would see them at dinner before going up to the dormitories, and her tone of voice was blank. But the way she didn't say anything scolding to Sirius or the rest of them showed that she was thankful.