Standing There By You

Ch. 7- Second Year (lame chap. title, i know, but i'm gonna start all the yrs. like this)

Disclaimer: Let it be known... I hearby declare that by legal binding matters, any recognizable material belongs to the infamous J.K.Rowling.

a.k.a- it's not mine.

**WOOO WOOOO WOOOO~ CONGRATULATIONS RAVENSIRIUSBLACK!! YOU ARE OFFICIALLY MY 50TH REVIEWER!!!!!!!!!!**

hehe, sorry, can you tell i'm excited? Anyways... Second Year is here! hoorah hoorah~ okies, enough of this, read the story!

Ding-dong

Sirius Black stood before a magnificent house in Godric's Hollow. The manor was huge, and seemed to be centuries old. After a few moments Sirius heard footsteps, and then the fumbling of locks from behind the great wooden door. The doorknob twisted and it was pulled open to reveal a widely grinning James Potter.

"Hello!" James greeted as he opened the door wider to welcome Sirius in.

"Hi," Sirius responded, looking around the house as he dragged his trunk into the hallway. Every inch was different from the Blacks'- not that he minded of course. Instead of the stiff chairs and dark rooms, there was inviting furniture and family pictures everywhere.

"Dad, mum, Sirius is here!" James yelled up a nearby staircase. "You can just leave that there," said James, gesturing to Sirius's trunk, "my dad will lighten it for you once he gets down here, then I'll show you where you'll stay."

"Okay," Sirius nodded.

"Hmm, I don't know where they are..." James said, peering into the next room. "Muuuum!" James yelled even louder. "Daaad?"

"Yes!?" Mr. Potter bellowed from behind James. Sirius laughed as James jumped, and turned around to face his mum and grinning father.

"Oh, hi. Mum, dad, this is Sirius Black."

"Hello, Sirius." Mrs. Potter greeted warmly.

Mr. Potter clapped Sirius on the back. "Hey there."

"Hello," Sirius responded, grinning.

Mr. Potter muttered a quick spell to lighten Sirius's trunk. "There you go," he said, handing it to Sirius. "Go ahead and show him around, James, dinner will be ready in about an hour."

James nodded and headed up the staircase, Sirius following closely behind. Walking down the hallway, James pointed out every room that they passed by.

"There's the bathroom," James nodded towards a door to the right, "and there's the study," he thrust his thumb to the left.

Sirius nodded, trying to take everything in as they sped down the hallway. James pointed out several more rooms until finally he came to an abrupt halt.

"This is my room," said James, pushing open a door. Peeking inside, Sirius saw a fairly large room with a king size bed, and quidditch posters everywhere. Socks and dirty robes were strewn all across the floor, and several games including gobstones and chess were piled sloppily on top of a dresser. Sirius noted with a smile that James's books remained untouched in the bottom of his trunk. "Yeah," James said, shrugging "My mum made me clean it up before you came." Before Sirius could comment on this, James was already out of the room, and across the hall. "This is the room you'll be staying in."

Sirius nodded his approval as he dropped his trunk and flopped onto the bed that was quite similar to James's. "Mmm.. nice." he said, leaning back against the pillows and crossing his legs comfortably.

"Come on," James prompted, heading out the door, "the best is yet to come."

Sirius reluctantly got up from the comfortable bed, and followed James once more.

"Okay, that's the living room," James said, not bothering to stop as they zoomed throughout the house, "that's the kitchen," Sirius gave a small wave to James's parents as they sped by. "And this," a smile grew wide across James's face as he pushed open the back door, "is our quidditch pitch."

Sirius's jaw dropped as he stared at James's backyard in awe. His own quidditch pitch. Sirius turned to James and looked at him disbelievingly. "No way!"

James nodded, "Yes way. Isn't it great?" He began to walk towards the pitch, "My dad used to play for the Wombats when he was younger, so he had this built so he could get as much practice as possible. He was an excellent seeker. We practice out here a lot.

"You've got quaffles, and a snitch, and-"

"Yup, we've got everything. I was hoping to become seeker for Gryffindor next year, but the position's already filled. Ah well, this is Hannan's last year anyway." James looked back as he heard his mother calling them in for dinner. "How about after dinner we set up a game?" James suggested, as they began to walk back inside. Sirius nodded eagerly, and finally tore his eyes away from the pitch as they turned and re-entered the big house.

And that's where they spent the rest of their vacation: the quidditch pitch. An occasional game of gobstones, or a visit to Diagon Alley would pop in here and there, but for the most part it revolved around that wonderful sport in the air. James's dad would show them some of his old techniques, and the two boys would practice for the rest of the day, until his dad came home from work and they'd have a mini-match. It was all-in-all a wonderful break, surely the best week Sirius ever had. The rest of the summer flew by, and before they knew it, the last day of freedom had arrived.

Mrs. Potter had gone off to a luncheon with several of her friends, so the boys were eating lunch with James's father. Just as they were about to head outside for more Quidditch, Mr. Potter stopped them.

"Wait," he said, "I want to show you two something." Mr. Potter finished off the last of his sandwich and made to go upstairs, beckoning for the boys to follow. James and Sirius looked at each other curiously, shrugged, and then quickly followed him up the stairs.

Mr. Potter led them through the hall, and then up another set of stairs that seemed to go up to an attic. "Where are you taking us, dad?" James questioned, as they reached the top of the staircase.

"You'll see, you'll see," he responded airily, as he began moving a rather large pile of boxes. "Now, where did it go," Mr. Potter muttered to himself.

He pushed back several empty crates that lay beneath the boxes, to reveal what appeared to be a loose tile. Picking it up, they saw it wasn't just a loose tile, but some sort of secret storage.

"Whoa.." James leaned over his dad's shoulder to try and have a peek at what lay inside. On the top was several plaques, and pictures of his dad as a kid. Mr. Potter moved these aside, and smiled at what was underneath.

"Ah.. here we go," he lifted a sparkling silver cloak out of the hole, and held it up for the boys to see.

"Is that an invisibility cloak?" James asked, awestruck. His father nodded and two wide grins slowly crept across James and Sirius's faces.

Mr. Potter lazily tossed into onto James, causing the young boy to disappear in an instant. "Awesome!" the two boys chorused, laughing like mad.

"Oh, what your mother would say if she knew I was giving this to you," Mr. Potter commented with a smile.

"You're giving this to me?" James asked incredulously, looking with awe at the glistening material in his hands.

"Yup," Mr. Potter smiled at the mischievous grin that had appeared on his son's face. "I don't have much use for it anymore, and I trust you'll find some."

"Oh what havoc we shall wreak," James proclaimed excitedly, his mind already filling with schemes and ideas.

"I have something for you, too." Mr. Potter said to Sirius, as he bent down to dig through the small storage place once more.

"Me?" Sirius asked wide eyed.

"Uh-huh. Well, for both of you," Mr. Potter said, brushing off two other objects. Handing one to each of the boys, they looked at the items curiously.

"Er- dad, what are we supposed to do with these?" James turned over the small mirror in this hands, trying to figure out what was so magical about it.

"Look into it," Mr. Potter instructed, "and speak Sirius's name clearly."

James did as he was told, and Sirius's surprised face told him something had happened. "What?" he asked.

"I can see you!" Sirius exclaimed, still looking into his mirror. James looked down at his own mirror, and instead of seeing his own reflection, saw Sirius laughing.

Mr. Potter chuckled softly, as he moved everything back to its original position. "These are great dad," said James, still staring into his mirror.

"Yeah, thanks Mr. Potter," said Sirius. "Did you use these when you were in school?"

"Sure did. I think we knew every inch of that place by the time we were through."

James looked up at his father fondly. "This is great. I can't wait to get started, I've already got loads of great ideas."

Mr. Potter laughed and rubbed the top of James's messy hair affectionately. "Just don't get in too much trouble, okay?"

James nodded as he and Sirius gathered up the stuff and made to go back down the stairs. "I can't wait to tell Remus and Peter about this." James commented to Sirius. Turning back to his dad, he asked, "You think they could come over for awhile?"

"I don't see why not," came Mr. Potter's response, and in a flash James and Sirius were down the stairs and in front of the fireplace.

James threw in a handful of floo powder, and yelled Lupin Manor clearly. He stuck his head in the flames, and Sirius waited while James had a conversation with Remus. A minute or so later James pulled his head back out, with a frown on his face. "He said his mum's sick."

"Again?"

"Yeah," James answered, "That's been happening a lot lately, hasn't it?"

Sirius nodded and they both looked at each other uncertainly. "Well, hope she's okay," Sirius said finally, "C'mon, let's floo Peter then."

Peter turned out to be at his aunt's house, so James and Sirius just came up with new ideas together. By the end of the night that had an extravagant amount of new pranks and places they wanted to discover, and couldn't wait to get back to Hogwarts to try them out.

A/N: Hola! Yeah, I'm not too fond of this chappie, but hey it had to be done. i really just wanted to show James's dad was really cool, and introduce the cloak and mirrors. Anyhoo, on with the usual comments...

Ah, my first flamer... Petersgurl16- Okay, if you have a problem with the way i 'portray' peter as such a bad person, that's fine, but you don't have to trash my story. People have different opinions, and I respect that, but you don't have to get all Slytherin on me. Constructive critism is great, but that's just it, constructive critism. I think Peter was a bad guy, maybe not at first, but definitely at the end. anyways, i was only commenting- that A/N wasn't an actual part of the story. So, if you don't think Peter didn't turn out to be a "fat, disgusting, evil, balding, back-stabbing, good for nothing," guy, how would you describe him?

BTW.... if my story is so bad then why did you bother reading all 6 chapters?

KK, sorry, had to get that out of my system... here's the thank you's!!

RavenSiriusBlack- heyhey, so yeah, you're my fiftieth reviewer (as if you couldn't tell), and i'm really glad it's you! You're so totally awesome, you make me feel super by being such a faithful reviewer, and you even put me in your journal ahh, thanks mucho! I checked it out.. I was gonna comment but it wouldn't let me. Anyhoo, thanks bunches : )

Dulcis Caelum- heyhey, thanks for the great review! Being, comma, happy, is, okay we all have our ailments! anyhoo, i'm really glad i'm gonna get to beta such an awesome story, (DUMBLEDORE'S DAUGHTER- CHECK IT OUT, PLEASE!) can't wait : )

Lanette- hey, i'm really glad you like it! i'll try to put more dialogue, the last two chaps were quite descriptive (esp. ch. 6) but i just wanted to get all that needed to be said- said. Anyhoo, thanks for reviewing! I love new reviewers (and old : ) ), please keep reviewing!

Diamond004- Wow, thanks for the awesome review! lol, i wasn't sure about the summary, glad you like it!

Marauder marion- Thanks mucho, you make me feel so great! oh yes, the Lily and James fued has only just begun... : ) thanks for the review!!

Suji- Yes, that chapter was very rushed, but i'm glad you're okay with it! Yup, all the good stuff happens when they're older, i can't wait~ oh yes, and i'm happy u like the prank, there'll be plenty more to come.... Thanks for the review! : )

*Johnny Depp rox!

Irishmaiden- Wow, three reviews, thanks! i'm glad you like, thanks mucho : )

Jessica- Yes, poor Sirius : ( but not to worry, James to the rescue! by the way, he's not really staying with James, just visiting for a couple of weeks. anyhoo, yup you'll see more about Remus soon, thanks for the review!!

Magical Muggle- Hey, thanks mucho for the review! lol, yes, lily does have some amusing study ethics. : )

Angie- lol, you're such a dork.

Aerandir- woo woo, two reviews! awesome, thanks mucho! hehe, i'm greatly anticipating seventh year, but i dunno, i kind of favor sixth.... anyhoo, thanks for the reviews!

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