A shorter chapter to set the mood of the students after the news of the previous chapter

The new year came, and the few students who had gone home for Christmas that year returned a few days into January and were bombarded with questions. Mary Macdonald was completely fine with talking to anyone and everyone and loving the attention.

"I don't know much, since my parents are muggles," she said during dinner after they all got back. "But there's been a lot of attacks on houses, I heard, loads of people have been killed, and the Dark Lord himself was spotted."

"Did you hear names?" I asked, desperately. "Of who's died?"

"No," Mary responded, shaking her head. She opened her mouth to continue speaking, but Regulus Black had approached us.

"Why weren't you at home over Christmas?" he asked Sirius.

"Didn't want to," Sirius said, his voice and face deadpan.

"You're supposed to be starting your training. You're fourteen years old now, that means there are only two years until—"

"I'm not training and I'm not doing what they say," Sirius said. "Piss off, Regulus."

"Fine," Regulus said. He was incredibly hard to read, he never showed any emotion on his face, which you wouldn't expect from a twelve-year-old. "Happy dying."

He spun away and returned to the Slytherin table.

"What was that about, Sirius?" Mary asked. "What are you training for? Are you training to become famous?"

James put his hand on Sirius's shoulder, who had gone silent, and I could see there was something he knew that the rest of us didn't.

"They want you to become a Death Eater?" Peter repeated later that evening in the dormitory.

"When I'm sixteen," Sirius confirmed. "They… they think I should be training for it now, during the holidays."

"But why do they want you to be a Death Eater?" I asked. "Surely there's enough."

"I'm the heir to the Black family throne!" Sirius cried. "The eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son and so on! And it's expected of me to be a high-ranking Death Eater! But I… I could never kill someone. That would be the worst thing anyone could do."

I felt a pang in my stomach but didn't say anything.

"I don't care about them anymore," Sirius continued. "If they hate me, they can hate me, I couldn't care less!"

James and I exchanged looks, but we both said nothing. Peter just looked confused. Sirius sent a silent message to James, who then said:

"How about we do something to get our minds off things. We could… plan Lily and my wedding?"

"Oh my god, James," Sirius laughed. "Maybe you should actually become her boyfriend before you start planning a wedding."

"Snivellus will ruin it again," James said angrily.

"Have you guys even seen Snape recently?" Peter asked. "He's still really embarrassed about the video…"

"He was at dinner tonight," I said.

"The fact that Evans is still standing up for him, though…" Sirius shook his head in disapproval. "Lost the plot, she has."

"She's just too nice," said James, looking out the window.

"Too nice for her own good," Sirius said. "One day someone's going to use that against her, and it'll probably be Snape."

"If our original plan didn't work, we need a better one to get him away from her," James said. He looked at us all dramatically, then just shrugged. "Anyway… I'm going to sleep now, we have classes tomorrow, and I need to look my best for Evans!"

The next day we had Herbology with Hufflepuff, and rumours were still flying around about what was happening to the adult wizards, and Amy Stebbins was in tears over the stress of it, causing Professor Sprout to stress and grab her some 'stress-less plants'.

Amy wasn't the only one feeling stress. James, Peter, and I were all having a go at each other whenever we could. We were all sleep-deprived (which was normal for me, but I was just more sleep-deprived than usual) and angry, and even Sirius was getting pissed off at us.

My wolf side seemed to be feeling the worry as well, as on the morning after the full moon, the injuries were somehow even worse than before. I could barely walk, yet Madam Pomfrey still didn't want to help me walk up the hill and into the castle, as she feared being contaminated by my 'beastliness'. It took a good hour to get to the Hospital Wing, and by the time I arrived, Sirius, James, and Peter were already there.

"Remus…" Sirius's eyes were wide as he stared at me, and I pulled the hood of my robes over my head self-consciously, praying to any gods that existed that one day I would be normal.

We had a Hogsmeade trip the weekend after the full moon, and I was aching all over as we walked into the snowy village. Once we got there, we just sat on some rocks silently. No one was acting themselves. James just moved the snow around with the scuffs of his shoes, Peter played with his glove. I just leaned my face into my hands and closed my eyes, feeling desperately tired.

We sat in silence for about twenty minutes, until we decided we shouldn't waste our Hogsmeade visit and went into Honeydukes to stock up on sweets.

After Honeydukes, we got butterbeers from the Three Broomsticks, and I saw a group of teachers enter. I glanced over to see it was Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, and Slughorn. I took a sip of my butterbeer, listening to their hushed whispers, which I could only hear thanks to my great hearing.

"I think the pureblood families considered 'blood traitors'like the Potters and the Weasleys are OK," said Professor McGonagall darkly. "Mainly muggle-borns were targeted, or people in wizard-muggle relationships."

"And the death toll?" asked Slughorn. He was a sickly shade of green, downing his drink.

"We don't know an exact number," Dumbledore said darkly. "But it is above two hundred."

The other teachers went silent, and I just sipped my butterbeer. My parents were a wizard-muggle relationship, and if the teachers were talking about what had happened to all the parents of the students, then I didn't even know if I could believe that they were OK. And why were all the adults refusing to tell us what was going on? Didn't we have the right to know?

I hated when adults wouldn't tell young people the truth, or they'd just vaguely tell us with a smile, or say we wouldn't understand until we were older.

McGonagall was looking at me, then she seemed to realise something because she and the other teachers all got up and left. I quickly told my friends about what I'd heard, and James just angrily ordered another butterbeer, and Peter and Sirius remained silent.

As January continued, people turned to trying as hard as possible to get their minds off their troubles. Some of the students had taken to sneaking out and hanging around the whomping willow, and they'd invented a game where if you could get close enough to the tree to touch it, you got to choose one of the other students playing to give you ten sickles.

My friends and I didn't take place in this game, but I heard about it from Hestia and Mary, who were both making a small fortune out of it. Everyone thought they were doing well because they were muggle-born and had had practice on the muggle thing, 'skipping ropes'.

"The whomping willow is so cool, don't you think?" Mary said excitedly. It was a Friday night, and we were in the Great Hall, exhausted from a long week.

"What's the point of it, though?" Hestia said, "was it put there just for our game?"

"Not sure," I said, putting on a smile. "I'm going to the common room, so, g'night."