"Oi, Prongs." Sirius leaned on the other boy's table, casting a shadow over the books there so that James looked up from his studying, and jerked his head toward a figure across the room. "Who's that? Didn't think we had a redhead among us."

The other young man gave a little 'tch' of disapproval. "You really ought to read your letters on the holidays, Sirius," he chided his friend. "There's two new students starting for this year. They're transferring from someplace on the Continent. I expect that'll be the new lad -- Kingsley, I think it was."

The redhead turned at the sound of his name. "Jacob Kingsley, yeah," he said with a smile. "Sorry, I don't mean to be eavesdropping. Mind if I sit with you?" Without waiting for an answer, he dropped into a chair and sprawled his legs out under the table. He was slightly sunburnt and, although not altogether unattractive, certainly nothing to draw the sorts of stares Sirius was attracting from third- and fourth-year girls all over the common room. "Yeah, Mum and Dad just moved us from Spain. We'd been going to Beauxbatons, but they decided that as long as we're back in England we might as well go to school here." With a broad grin, he added, "They don't really know much about the various schools and houses and such -- you know, Muggles. They try, though. They did a really good job seeming proud when my sister and I wrote them we both got Gryffindor."

"James, Sirius," a new voice greeted them. "Oh, and Kingsley, I suppose? Pleasure to meet you and welcome to Gryffindor and all that, I'm Remus Lupin." He shook the redhead's hand, then glared at his friends. "You two ought to be studying for History of Magic," he admonished them. "We're all absolutely doomed. There's an O.W.L. to be taken at the end of next term, you know."

"Moony," James groaned, burying his face in his hands in mock despair. "It's still September. The O.W.L.s aren't for practically nine months yet. And I hardly think History of Magic is the one to worry about, not when we've got Transfiguration as well."

Kingsley yawned and stood up. "I expect I'll see you lot in class tomorrow," he said, smiling genially down at the other boys. "Listen, I'd really appreciate it if someone could show me around. D'you suppose I could tag along with the three of you while I'm getting settled in?"

"The four of us, actually," Sirius said briskly, his attention already elsewhere. "You'll run into Pettigrew in the dormitory, I expect. So, Moony, I take it you know something we don't about what's happening tomorrow in History of Magic? Quiz, is it?" Lupin nodded, and the other boys let out heartfelt groans and dragged their books back into the centre of the table.

By early the next afternoon, boredom with anecdotes of Spain had set in, and Sirius and James had managed to duck away from the other three boys in a crowded corridor. They were on their way to Transfiguration when James stopped in his tracks. "Pad," he whispered as subtly as he could manage. "You're generally well-informed about the girls around school. Who's that pretty thing over there, the one walking with Johannsen?"

Sirius glanced over at the girl. Her dark hair was feathered into the same shaggy style as most of the other girls were wearing, and she had blue eyes that shone when she smiled, as she was doing now. The sort of girl who could be called vivacious, if he had a mind to sound thirty years out of date. Unfamiliar, though. "Not a clue, mate," he admitted.

James blinked in surprise. "You're kidding. You mean to say there's a girl in this school who hasn't given you her name and Floo-network address, two dozen perfumed love notes, and a map of a secret passage that leads to her bed?" Sirius shot him a glare, and James nearly collapsed with laughter. "And you're annoyed about it!" he crowed. "You know, Pad, just to vex you, I'm going to go and ask that morsel to accompany me into Hogsmeade next month. I expect she'll say yes, don't you? I probably won't even have to finish the sentence."

"You go on, then," Sirius said amiably, and he leaned back against the wall with something of a smirk playing about his lips as James, still laughing, set off toward the girl. He watched his friend deftly contrive to bump into her, apologise with a very believable blush, and, as he levitated the last of her spilled belongings back into her arms, smile and introduce himself. The girl gave a wary smile of her own and shook his hand, and Sirius glanced away, idly noting a pattern of tiles he hadn't spotted before. When he looked back after a moment, it was to be startled by the appearance of his friend already beside him, standing stiffly and with visible displeasure. "Did she let you finish the sentence, then?" Sirius said, all innocence, his body vibrating with suppressed laughter.

"No," James snapped. "And her name's Moira. She's Kingsley's little sister, fourth year. And she said she'd already got an escort for Hogsmeade, thanks all the same, but she'd put me on the waiting list just in case. The waiting list! Who does she think she is, anyway?"

Sirius tried to restrain his grin, but it burst free anyway. "Well, judging by the available evidence, I'd have to say that she thinks she's a rather pretty girl who can do better than a fifth-year who musses his own hair because he thinks it looks cool."

"Right, you'll pay for that one," James said, but he seemed less infuriated already as he glanced around at the rapidly emptying corridor. "Bloody hell, are we going to be late to Transfiguration already? We'd better run, Pad, I really can't afford to get so much detention this year. I keep missing my own Quidditch practices, and then Johannsen shouts at me, and then…" He trailed off, though, as the speed of the boys' progress toward class began to require all available breath.

As they slowed to a dignified stroll just outside the Transfiguration classroom, Sirius grinned. "What place d'you suppose you are on the waiting list?" he wondered aloud, halfway through the door.

A flurry of blows, laughter, and two nights' detention followed. The two of them forgot all about Moira, Hogsmeade, and the mystery of who was escorting her until Jacob brought it up in the common room that night.

"My sister told me she's got a date already," he complained. "It's her first day of classes and some boy is taking her to Hogsmeade and probably plying her with butterbeer and chocolates."

Sirius grinned, careful to avoid James' eyes. "Well, she's a pretty girl," he pointed out. "Potter and I met her in the corridor this afternoon. Look, if it makes you feel any better, it's probably some poor terrified fourteen-year-old from one of her classes. Probably a Hufflepuff, all the girls seem to pick them for first dates."

"I doubt it." Kingsley was slouched in his chair, his arms folded across his chest, looking gloomy. Across the room, Lupin and Peter were deeply involved in a game of Muggle-style chess that looked as though it might come to blows at any moment, now that the players, both having been cheating throughout the game, were vociferously accusing one another of having cheated, and James had sauntered over to watch at the first mention of Moira. He turned back, though, when Jacob continued, "He's a fifth-year, she said. And he's in Slytherin."

"A Slytherin fifth-year?" James was back in his chair beside Sirius in an instant, and the others looked up from their chess game. "Oh, there's bad news for you. I don't suppose she mentioned his name? Because, you know, if she did we could probably produce a full report on him. Academic record, family, behaviour…"

"How often he brushes his teeth, how much time he spends in the lavatory, that sort of thing," Lupin put in, wholly ignoring the chessboard just long enough for Peter to cheerfully exchange one of his bishops with a pawn. "For some reason our James is oddly fond of skulking around staring at the Slytherin boys."

There was a brief outburst of violence, eventually quelled by the laughter of the spectators, before James and Lupin settled into their chairs again. "Did she mention a name, though?" James repeated. "I'd be interested to know who managed it. She didn't strike me as the easily-winnable type, exactly."

"I would have sworn I had a bishop left," Lupin muttered. "Too late to salvage the game, I expect. Gossip, then -- who was it?"

"I've no idea. She wouldn't tell me." Jacob seemed gloomier than ever at that thought, and the others crowded around him in clamorous attempts to cheer him up. Eventually they managed to coax him into a wizards'-chess tournament, and it was late beyond all reason when the five of them finally proceeded, still laughing, upstairs to their beds.