Author's Note: I added another section onto Chapter 1 where it seemed to fit better so be sure to go back and read it if you haven't already.

Chapter 2

The trip to Diagon Alley was uneventful, to say the least. James did his best to surreptitiously keep an eye open for Lily (he had even snuck his Head Boy badge into his pocket in case he met her and needed to prove it. Sirius pretended not to notice.) But his efforts were in vain. "She must have gotten her books weeks ago," he told Sirius as they searched through the stacks of books at Flourish and Blotts.

"Hmmm," Sirius answered distractedly as he browsed through the piles of books.

"I mean, WEEKS ago. She's diligent like that. Maybe Moony ran into her. I should have asked him." Remus and Peter had stayed back to pick up the rest of Peter's potion supplies. It had taken longer than they'd expected at the alchemist's and Sirius and quickly grown impatient. After all, it was clear that the real reason they were there was for the motorcycle books, not school supplies. He and James had quickly decided to split up and head over to the bookstore in search of useful motorcycle information. So far, Sirius was doing all the searching while James flipped idly through books and continued to agonize.

"Of course, if I think about it, the number of days since we got our letters versus the number of days any of us have spent in Diagon Alley makes the odds of any of us running into her very slim—"

Sirius looked up at him irritably. "Prongs, are you going to help me look for books on motorcycles or what?"

"I'm helping."

"No you're not. You're daydreaming."

"How long have we been looking in here? We haven't found a single book. Don't you already have a paragraph on motorcycles written for your essay, anyway?"

"Forget the essay. I finished it weeks ago and, you may not have noticed, but this section of muggle transportation is huge. We've hardly looked through half of it."

"Maybe we could summon some books." James pulled out his wand.

"What? If you summon a book in here, it'll be your death."

"Padfoot, really. Have some faith. I'm not going to just summon any old book. I am going to summon books on motorcycles. That should eliminate the majority of them. Acc—"

"No luck?" Remus appeared around the banister with Peter and his supplies in tow.

"No," Sirius said irritably, "and Prongs here isn't being much help. All he's come up with is one hair-brained idea after another."

"Well, if you're having that much trouble, why don't you just summon the books you're looking for?" Remus suggested, eliciting a smirk from James.

"Yeah, why don't you just summon them?" With a mistrusting look, Sirius pulled out his own wand. "Accio motorcycle books!" They glanced eagerly around at the books to see if any had moved. None had. They waited a while longer.

"Maybe they're in a different part of the store?" Peter suggested.

"No, this is the section on muggle transportation," Sirius said slowly and carefully, lest someone else question his judgment. "This is where they should be." He jabbed his wand at Peter and suddenly, a book jumped out of a shelf and landed on the floor by his feet. Startled, he jumped out of the way, making a perfect opening for James to pick it up for him.

" 'Muggle Transportation: From the Wheel to the Automobile: A Lesson in Absurdism,'" he read aloud before tossing it over to Sirius. "It looks like this one's the only one, mate."

Sirius took it. "One is better than none but even so, we better look else where." Swiping his hair out of his face, he leaped over the banister and left the rest of them to follow.

By the time they caught up with him, he was already well on his way out the door clutching his newly paper-wrapped book. Peter ran heavily up to his side. "Where elsewhere?"

Sirius stopped, causing Peter to pass him. "Why, a muggle bookstore, of course."

Remus couldn't remember a single time in his life when he had been in a muggle bookstore. All the muggle books he needed he could get from his father and, besides, a bookstore was a bookstore, wasn't it? Piles of books everywhere, dust choking up the air, shelves rising up to the ceiling stacked with volumes large and small, old and new. So when they walked into Waterstone's and a wave of cold, dustless air hit them causing Peter to reel backwards into him, it was all Remus could do to stop himself from falling back in surprise. Carefully, he pushed Peter ahead again. "It smells in here," Peter explained. Remus sniffed the air carefully.

"It certainly smells different."

"What you smell," James explained in his most professional accent, "is the complete lack of dust in the air."

"No dust?"

"No dust. These muggles have developed some sort of way to filter out dust from the air. It's amazing what you learn in muggle studies." Remus sighed. Not this again. They always enjoyed teasing him on his lack of muggle knowledge, despite the fact he was the only one of them with any meaningful muggle ancestry.

"We should really give them more credit," Sirius agreed. "Now, if you would mind moving, Peter, you're blocking the entrance."

"Oh," Peter quickly jumped out of the way, letting Remus through as well as a few irritated muggle women who appeared to have been cursed with the evil eye.

Not only was the air clean, but so was the building. Shiny floors, carpeted off to the sides, tall shelves with well-organized books lined up on them—no piles sitting around anywhere. Well-dressed people were standing on ladders putting books on the shelves while a few were behind tables. All throughout the store, muggles were roaming around looking at books. A few were riding stairs to the upper levels.

The four of them stood there, off to the side, trying to figure out exactly where they should start looking. "I don't suppose it's organized the same way as Flourish and Blotts," Remus wondered out loud.

"I don't know," Sirius replied, "But the odds of there being a section labeled 'muggle transportation' seem slim. I see 'fiction', 'non-fiction'—"

"May I help you, Gentlemen?" A young woman with a beehive hairdo was standing behind them, eyeing their clothes critically. Sirius whirled around and smiled at her broadly. "You work at this establishment?" He asked smoothly and when she nodded he continued, "Excellent. Would you please show us where the books on motorcycles and motorcycle repair are?" That was Sirius—never ill at ease in any situation for long.

The young woman sighed. "More of you? Yes, go look on the second floor in the automotive section." She turned to go but James stopped her.

"The second floor?" She gave him and the hand he placed on her arm an irritated look. He quickly removed it.

"Yes," she snapped. "Take the escalator up to the second floor and then go over to the automotive section."

"Motorcycles are in with the cars?" Sirius asked in disbelief. The young woman started to address him, then shook her head and walked away, muttering something about impolite young men and philosophy majors.

"Good job, Sirius," James said. "Now whom are we supposed to talk to if we can't find them?"

"But she said they were in with the cars! Doesn't she realize how different motorcycles are from cars? I spent a significant portion on my essay addressing that very topic."

"It's just an organizational scheme," Remus explained, "I'm fairly certain they weren't trying to slight motorcycles in any way. Shall we go upstairs and look?" He gestured towards the moving stairs.

Instead of immediately going up them, they stood there and stared at them for a moment. The concept of moving stairs was not new to any of them. They had all paid a visit to Dumbledore's office at one time or another. These however—

"Do you think it will pull us under?" Peter asked timidly.

"Perhaps. I'm sure it's happened before," came Sirius' conspiratorial whisper.

"Thanks, Padfoot. You're a reassurance to us all," James said, "Now, who wants to go first?"

"Who votes that they Head Boy go first?" Sirius asked, raising his hand. Peter joined him. Remus merely smiled. James scowled. "Fine. I'll go first." He moved to step onto the escalator while muttering for all to hear, "And I thought we were all Gryffindors here." He stepped onto the escalator—they waited for a second until James began to rise up and he turned around and looked at them expectantly. A little sheepishly, the rest of them piled on.

"I must say, Prongs, that I'm glad to see you're brave enough to bear the burden of Head Boy. I wasn't sure," Sirius said loudly.

"Indeed."

The escalator rounded the first floor and they carefully disembarked, stumbling around on the platform and then got back on the second flight of escalators. The second floor slowly appeared in their sight and from what they could see, it was devoid of all human life. A few signs hung over neatly staked bookshelves announcing things like, "home improvement," "aviation," and then finally "automotive." Books with pictures of cars ruled this domain and Remus was pleased to find that things seemed more purposely organized in this part of the muggle bookstore than in its magical counterpart.

"There," Sirius pointed. "That's where she said they'd be."

Remus' love of the muggle organizational system was short lived when he discovered that better segmentation didn't actually make books on motorcycles any easier to find. They had split up, divided the section into fourths but so far, he had found nothing. He idly wandered down the isle, skimming through titles and taking out any he thought might have something. A glance through the index would invariable tell him otherwise and he'd put it back and head to the next. He was beginning to wonder if looking through meaningless books was some sort of punishment for arriving so late when he reached the end of the aisle and stopped dead in his tracks. He had found it, the exact book that Sirius had been looking for. Smiling, he took one copy from the display and headed over to where Sirius was.

Sirius was flipping through a book on motor engines and set it in a pile next to him when Remus approached him. Eyeing the large pile of books on the floor, Remus said dryly, "I see you've had some luck."

"Some," Sirius answered, continuing to scan through the books. "To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely sure which will be useful and which won't. I'll just take whatever sounds relevant."

"In that case, I think I've found something that fits in nicely." He held out the book he had found and Sirius took it curiously.

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Repair," he read out loud. "What's Zen?"

Remus shrugged. "A motorcycle repair method, perhaps?"

"Here are some more, Sirius." Remus looked over Sirius shoulder and saw Peter approaching with a large stack of books in his arms.

"Good, good, just put them on the floor. I'll look through them in a minute." Peter nodded and headed back to his section.

"You aren't really going to buy all of these books, are you?"

It was Sirius' turn to shrug. "Why not? As long as they're relevant."

"How are you going to fit them all into your trunk?"

"Same as always: I'll just expand it some more. A spell here, a spell there. I just hop I've exchanged enough gold to play for them all." He flipped through the book to the front page and read for a second. "A motorcycle trip, eh? That could be useful, should I ever plan on going anywhere." He threw it down into the pile by his feet and looked at the large number of books in it. "Say, you want to look through these and separate the relevant from the irrelevant? Wormtail's been bringing me all these books and it's a little tiresome to constantly stop, go through them all and then send him away again.

Remus thought about going back to scan through the rest of the shelves and answered, "No problem."

A few minutes later, James came around the shelves holding two books and stopped when he saw the pile of books in front of Remus. "Well, he began, "I don't think I've found as many books as Moony but I did find a couple I think will be useful."

"These aren't mine," Remus told him quickly. "Peter brought them. I'm just sorting them."

"Oh," he shook his head. "Anyway, here's one called Motorcycle Engines A to Z, and A Collector's Guide to the Matchless Silver Arrow. You do have a Matchless Silver Arrow, don't you?"

"Yes, that's exactly it!" Sirius said excitedly and took the books. He gave a low whistle. "So that's what she's supposed to look like? Even more beautiful than I thought." He turned the book over so that Remus could see the black and white picture of a clean, well cared for motorcycle that resembled Sirius' only in the way house-elves resemble trolls. "Are you sure it's a silver arrow?" He asked carefully.

"It must clean up well," James suggested.

"It must," Sirius agreed. "Anyway, these should do the trick along with a few owners manuals," he kicked a couple of books out of the pile, "So after we get this mess picked up we should be free to go."

Meanwhile, Peter reappeared in the aisle. "I wasn't sure, Sirius, if these were what you wanted so I brought them, too…"

Remus sighed. Perhaps they should have kept him there, sorting through the pile instead of hauling even more books into it.