I don't own JK Rowling's Harry Potter, but I own this fanfiction. ;-)


Chapter 2: Chess at Dawn

Remus was seeing the enormous orb of light that he usually haunted his deepest dreams. It wasn't very exciting, but the dream still wouldn't go away. The full moon hung in the dark clouds and Remus could only hear the wind whistle as the clouds moved to cover and uncover the moon. The light of the moon touched the trees below it. It was eerie, yet it was peaceful. Remus figured that this dream was just one of the many results of becoming a werewolf, where instead of having dreams of being Quidditch stars or of girls, he'd just stare at the moon all night. It seemed like he was waiting for something to happen or for some sort of answer.

Lost in his subconscious, Remus felt something whack across his face. Could the moon be this violent? And again, something smashed on his face. Then his stomach, then his chest.

"Arghh!" Remus yelled, trying to shove Sirius and his enormous Pillow-of-Death away from his face. "What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" Rubbing his nose, which was throbbing painfully, he sat up and glared menacingly at Sirius.

Sirius just smiled devilishly and said, "Wakey, wakey!"

Remus decided to simply ignore his friend, no matter how dogged and relentless Sirius was. He rolled over and lay back down on his bed, murmuring, "Go to bed. Leave me alone. It's still dark outside."

Sirius replied, "It's 5 am Moony. It's the morning. Come on, now, get up!"

Remus closed his eyes and pretended to snore. He heard Sirius sigh, and say, "Well, I'm off then."

Remus grunted. A few minutes passed by and he suddenly felt weightless. He turned around, expecting to see his bed curtain pulled back in place by Sirius – but instead, he saw the door to his dormitory right next to his face! Remus' heart skipped a beat as he realized that he was floating four feet in the air!

Still clutching his pillow, Remus called out, "Padfoot! What the – "

From the foot of the stairs in the Common Room, Sirius said brightly, "Well, you didn't seem to want to get up and walk down with me, did you? So, I decided to help you down to the Common Room myself."

"So you decided to Wingardium Leviosa me down!"

Sirius nodded cheerily. He slowly let Remus down with his wand. When Remus was back on his feet, Sirius told him proudly, "It's a very complex spell, the floating charm, when using it on humans." Remus gave Sirius a deathly glare. Ignoring this, Sirius added happily, "Fancy a game of chess?"

"It's Five. In. The. Morning."

"Mmmhmm." Sirius said annoyingly, sounding like Remus's own mother when she tried to comfort him.

"Is this game of chess very important? Extremely important? So important that I have to sacrifice my sleep for it?"

Sirius nodded gravely. "Yes, Moony. I really think it is." Remus looked at him incredulously. "I actually wanted to speak to you about Prongs."

Remus said, "Well, wake him up if you're so concerned about him!"

Sirius ignored him as he set up a chessboard on a small table near the fireplace arranged two chairs for them to sit on. He gestured for Remus to seat himself. Grudgingly, Remus did so, and Sirius sat down across form him. "You first," he told Moony.

Moony, finally accepting that she wasn't going to get anymore sleep this morning, stared contemplatively at the chess board. He made his first move. "So what's wrong with Prongs?"

Sirius sighed. "Evans."

"Her name is Lily. L-I-L-Y."

Impatiently, Sirius said, "All right. It's about Lily. The thing is, I think our dear Prongs really likes her."

"You think?" Remus asked, sarcastically.

Sirius glowered, and said, "You seem to be in a rather bad mood, Moony, old pal." He grinned menacingly and whispered, "Is it that time of the month?"

Remus glared at Sirius, blushing slightly. The implications of that question were far more than he could stand, but he decided to make the best use of it. He grimaced and trying to look very upset about it, he answered, "Yeah…actually it is."

Sirius felt his stomach drop. He knew this was a very hard time for Remus, both emotionally and physically. Guiltily he said, "Sorry, made. That was below the belt…"

Remus smiled. "Nah, it's not. It gives a nice decoy. Between James' use of the phrase 'Furry Little Problem' and your use of vocabulary, people can only think two things are strange about me: One, that I have a deranged pet rabbit. Or two, that I'm a cross dresser who still has the..er...physique of a woman. I should actually thank you two."

Sirius laughed. "Ok, back to Ev- I mean, Lily. She just won't go out with him. She blatantly refuses."

"Well, look at James. He's my best friend, yes. But he does seem to go about winning her affections in the wrong way."

"..And I, for one, think that it's time for us to take action."

Remus stopped, his pawn in midair. "What?"

"I'm serious!" (Remus simply snorted at that comment.) Sirius went on, "I've decided that it's up to me and you to get Lily to go out with James. I'm tired of James sulking when she refuses to go out with him, and then pretending not to sulk, and then -"

"- snapping at us if we ask him why he's sulking, which he supposedly never does," Remus finished.

"Exactly!"

Remus waited for a moment and then said, "Sirius. Let them be."

"No way! We need to help Prongs!"

"No," Remus said firmly. "We need to leave them alone. If they're willing, they'll work it out."

As Sirius's knight smothered Remus' pawn into dust, Sirius whined, "No we won't just stand there and let them work out their own problems!"

"I'm not interfering!"

"But I've already made plans and everything!"

"Padfoot, I can't emphasize how important it is to just leave them alone." Remus stopped at look at his friend in awe, realizing what he had just said. "You've already made plans?"

Sirius shrugged. "Well, yeah. Of course! I just wanted to see if you wanted to help. I was going to wake up Wormtail, too, but seeing as both James and Peter can sleep through just about anything, I figured that it wasn't worth it to try and wake Peter up. I was just wondering how you'd like to help. I want your input, you know."

"My input is to stay out. Lily has always been nice to me, and I don't want to do anything to get on her bad side. We're both Gryffindor Prefects and I spend a lot of time with her." (Sirius yelled "Perfect!" but Remus ignored him.) "She seems to severely dislike Prongs so far. I don't want her to also dislike me just because I tried to get her and James together. If he likes her badly enough, he'll make it so she can't refuse him."

Sirius smiled. "I don't think she hates him. I still think we need to help them along, though. What do you think I'm going to do? Prank Lily so much that she'll be sure to hate James forever."

Remus smiled, in spite of himself. "No. I'm afraid that whatever you do, no matter how good your intentions are, it will backfire."

Sirius sniffed. "You underestimate me."

"Me? Underestimate the great Sirius Black? No, I think not. I think I know exactly what you are capable of and what your intentions are. But, in this case, I think the situation will be better without anyone trying to interfere."

Sirius snorted. "Not very likely. I mean, look at him. He's my best mate, there's no denying that. He's a great guy and everything, but the bloke makes a fool of himself every time Lily Evans is in a 1 mile radius."

Remus chuckled. "Checkmate." Sirius cursed. "I'd let him make of fool of himself, Sirius."

"But –" Sirius couldn't even finish his sentence. Remus had already gotten up and walked out of the portrait hole. Sirius figured that he was going to the Prefect Bathroom to take a shower. Sirius checked his watch. It was 6:15 AM. The first rays of the sun were streaming through the window in the Common Room.

Feeling a bit put-out by his friend's refusal to help him. He decided to ignore Moony's good advice, as he himself stomped up to the Gryffindor bathroom to shower. Moony be damned, he thought, I'll just do this on my own.