Sirius had been lying on his back, staring up at the canopy of his bed for the past three hours. He'd tried tossing and turning. Glasses of water. Planning pranks. Tweaking the Marauder's Map. Nothing helped. He couldn't sleep. He was one step away from brewing himself a sleep potion, but he had a feeling that even that wouldn't help.

He sighed, finally getting up and walking over to James' bed. "Hey, Prongs," Sirius whispered.

No response.

He stuck his head in the draperies. James was out like a light. "Prongs," he hissed again.

Nothing.

Sirius shook his head, and walked back to his bedstand. He scooped his wand up and after walking back to James' bed, poked the wand in, muttering quietly, "Enervate."

"WHA--!" James practically fell out of his bed and the consciousness-inducing spell worked its magic. He snapped the draperies back and shot a deadly glare at his best friend. "What the bloody hell was that about, Padfoot? Were you trying to kill me?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "No. That would have been Avada Kedavra. I know my spells. We need to talk."

James rubbed some of the remaining sleep from his eyes. "Talk?" He looked like he still wanted to be angry, but it was so rare for Sirius to want to talk, especially with such a dark expression on his face, that concern won out over vengeance.

Sirius nodded. "Yeah... talk. I'm gonna get Wormtail. Major issues. Meet you in the common room."

James noted just how serious his friend appeared, and he nodded, standing up. "Alright. I'll get Moony."

"No."

He stared at Sirius. "What?"

Sirius looked uncomfortable. "This is about Remus," he said softly. "He won't like what I want to discuss. I'd rather not tell him if possible."

"Graduation."

One solemn nod. "I'll get Wormtail, James. Meet us in the common room."

There was no argument this time.

Five minutes and one more enervate spell later, the three boys were seated in front of a comfortable fire in the Gryffindor common room. This wasn't the first time they'd snuck around when they were supposed to be in bed. And this certainly wasn't the first time they had hidden something from someone, but there was something disconcerting about hiding anything from Moony. They all could feel the empty space where their friend should have been, and it discomforted them.

"Now," James started, breaking the silence. "What's all this about, Sirius?"

Peter yawned. Even with the enervate spell, he was only barely conscious.

"We need to do something about graduation."

That woke Peter up. "What?" he asked, blinking his eyes open. "Padfoot, did I just hear you right? Did you just say we need to 'do something' about graduation?"

James shook his head. "That's ridiculous. What could we do? Even Dumbledore couldn't change anything for Moony. How are three students supposed to fix things?"

Sirius glared at them. "If I knew that, I wouldn't have bothered waking you up, would I have?" He shifted his moody glare to the fire. "But we have to do something. This is Moony we're talking about. He'd do anything for any one of us. If we don't even try to fix this for him, what kind of friends are we?" He fell silent for a moment, just staring at the crackling fire before adding softly. "And if I don't try something, what kind of person am I?"

James sighed in frustration. "Sirius, for the thousandth time, it isn't your fault. Stop trying to take the rap for everything your family does. They aren't your responsibility."

"I know that, but..." He sighed. "But there has to be something that I can do."

Peter had been quietly watching the exchange, but now he timidly spoke up. "Sirius, did you think of just talking to your dad? I mean, so they don't like you much..."

"They hate him."

"I got burned off the family tree. Andromeda told me."

James raised his eyebrows. "Impressive. I guess you were the black mark on the family," he quipped.

Sirius managed a weak smile. "Yeah... the black sheep... or would I be the white sheep in the flock?"

James grinned. "I'd say you're more the only sheep in a pack of wolves."

Peter joined in again, "And speaking of wolves... back to the main point..."

Sirius' expression darkened again. "Right... Moony."

Peter shifted in his seat uncomfortably. This sort of planning really wasn't his thing. In fact, they often left a lot of the planning to Moony. He took a deep breath. "I was just thinking that maybe if you asked them. You know... nicely or something. Gave them a good argument. Explained the situation... Maybe your dad would let Dumbledore move graduation forward a bit..."

His suggestion was greeted with silent stares from the other two boys.

"What?" he asked softly, sinking a bit into his chair. He hated when they stared at him like that. Like he'd said something spectacularly stupid.

Sirius sighed. "Wormtail, have I ever told you about my dear Uncle Pollux Black?" he asked, adding by way of explanation, "That would by my dad's brother."

The heavy blonde boy shook his had warily. "Er—no... I don't think so..."

Sirius nodded. "Well, Uncle Pollux was my dad's favorite brother. He was really influential just about everywhere. The Ministry. The Council. Everywhere. He helped to get a lot of laws passed through the Ministry."

Peter shook his head. "I don't understand. What does that have to do with—?"

"Uncle Pollux's most famous law that he, thank God, didn't manage to slide through was the one where he tried to legalize hunting werewolves for sport." Sirius' expression was pained. "Not just that, he thought at very least, if hunting wasn't allowed, that they should be rounded up and sold as pets. Uncle Pollux figured they could double as unpaid servants when they were human. I believe his exact words were, 'It isn't like the brutes are good for anything else. They're like the little bastard children of indecent people and animals.'" The expression on Sirius' face was like one who had just swallowed something really foul. His eyes were so angry, they nearly burned.

Peter's eyes were so wide, they looked like they were going to fall out of his head. "Someone actually said that?"

Even James' jaw had dropped at that last statement. "That's... that's... that's sick! It's... it's just..." He kept sputtering, unable to come up with words that were appropriately harsh enough to denounce the man.

"Disgusting," Sirius finished for him. "I recall getting into an argument about it with him. Called him some colorful phrases myself, and implied that werewolves were at least more human than he was." Sirius managed a small, dark smile. "He disinherited me. Like I'd want anything from him." He shook his head. "No, Wormtail... Explaining the situation to my family will pretty much guarantee nothing but possibly getting Moony kicked out of school. Not an option."

James was fiddling with his wand. "Well, then what can we do? All we're really good for are pranks. And it isn't like we can prank them into submission."

At his words, Sirius' eyes lit up. "That's it! We'll prank them into submission!"

James and Peter exchanged worried looks, convinced that Sirius had finally lost his mind. "Er—Sirius... and how exactly do you expect us to do that? Set up stink potions in the Council chamber before a meeting?"

Sirius laughed and stood up, beginning to pace as he always did when he was excited about something. "Of course not. We'd never even make it to the Council Chamber."

James sighed. "Well, at least you're being a little bit rational, Padfoot."

Sirius was grinning. "We'll do all the pranks right here. Who needs to mess with the Council. We just need to affect their decision. The whole reason the Council doesn't want to change the date is because of tradition, right? They're really big on tradition." He rounded on them suddenly, startling both boys. "So we mess things up. Everything has to work a certain way. Special robes. Special food. And banners and music. If anything isn't right, they're going to fuss until it is, because otherwise it'll mess up the tradition..."

Peter was still looking a little scared of the slightly wild-eyed Gryffindor pacing in front of them, but James was starting to catch on to Sirius' plan. "Oh," he said, grinning mischievously. "So we mess things up as badly as possible. They'll be so busy running around trying to fix everything that they won't be able to start on time and have everything right."

Sirius nodded. "Exactly. And which is worse... Just pushing off Graduation for a day or so, or having everything else screwed up?"

"It has to work."

"But we can't let Moony know," Sirius said.

James laughed. "Of course we can't. Moony'd kill us if he knew we were going to tamper with anything this major, even for him."

Sirius nodded. "Especially for him."

Peter yawned again. "Okay... so, it sounds like we've got a plan," he said a little sleepily. "Do you think we could work out the details tomorrow at breakfast? Because if we stay up and talk about this much longer, I'm going to be useless..."

"You're always useless, Wormtail," James kidded.

Peter shot a glare at him. "Whatever," he muttered. "I'm going to bed, guys. If you're going to stay up and plan, just let me know what's going on in the morning. I'm in, whatever it is."

Sirius just nodded. "Okay. See you at the breakfast."

As the two boys finished their planning, Peter made his way up to the bedroom.

Remus lay in bed, listening to Peter make his way into bed. James and Sirius were still downstairs doing something. When he'd noticed them missing, he'd slipped out of bed and had made his way to the stairs, expecting that they'd tried to wake him up, but he'd been dead to the world. It wouldn't have been the first time his lycanthropy wore him out like that just before a change.

But when he'd made it to the top of the stairs, he'd heard Sirius talking, and had been unable to join them. He'd just turned around and gone back to bed.

Bastard children of indecent people and animals? Remus buried his head under his pillow. Could Sirius really have said that? Was there any possible way that he'd misheard? He took a deep, painful breath. No. That was exactly what he'd said. And if James was still down there...

He winced. "What did I do? I must have done something to upset them... but what?" He could feel tears coming to his eyes, but he tried to hold them back. "What would make him say that?"

Remus was still awake hours later when James and Sirius finally made their way back to their beds.

He didn't say a word, letting them think he was still asleep.

What was there to say?

Author's Note: To honor book 6 finally coming out, I've decided to update ALL of my Harry Potter fics. So, here is this story's update. I still haven't had a chance to read book 6 yet, but I'm planning on starting it tonight! (Very excited about that). ALL of my fics are post Goblet of Fire and Pre-Half-Blood Prince. Most acknowledge elements of Order of the Phoenix without following the story, because all but this one were started before book 5 came out. Yes, I'm that pathetic that I've been working on these stories for that long... (sighs) Anyway, thanks for reading. Please review!