"The bigger question is, what are you doing here, Snivellus?"

"Lily... why are you with... with Potter, and Black, and Lupin, and Pettigrew?"

"Severus, what are you doing here?" Lily asked. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Did I not ask you first?" Snape hissed, walking towards her. James drew his wand. "What, you're going to hex me, Potter?"

"What's your problem?" James asked. "Why are you so upset?"

"I'm not upset..." said Snape.

"Really, then why are your fists clenched and your voice all angry sounding?" asked Sirius.

Snape ignored him and turned to Lily again. "Why are you with them?"

"We... we're hiding," said Lily, "they're in my class, and I just went with them because they had to hide."

"You shouldn't be with them, Lily," said Snape.

"Does she need your approval?" James asked. "You're not her bloody father for god's sake!"

"Shut up, Potter!" Snape cried, drawing his own wand. "Expelliarmus! Wingardium Leviosa!"

After James's wand flew out of his hand, he rose into the air. Sirius, Peter, Lily, and I all drew our wands, but Snape somehow managed to disarm us all with James's wand while he was still levitating James with his own wand.

"What the hell, Severus, put him down!" Lily cried.

"Fine," said Snape, and then, with his wand, he threw James right into the barbed-wire fence.

"FUCK!" James screamed as he hit the sharp fence, and fought to get himself out of it, only to cause himself to get more tangled in it.

Sirius managed to wrestle Snape for all our wands and hexed him as Peter, Lily, and I struggled to help James get out of the fence.

"Piss off!" Sirius yelled at Snape, hexing him again and again. "Piss off, piss off, piss off!"

"Lily," Snape grunted, stumbling away from us. "Come on."

"Why the hell would I want to come with you now?" Lily cried. "Piss off, Severus."

Snape clenched his fists again, then turned around and left, then we all focused on James.

"Please, please help me," he begged, tears pouring down his face, "I'm not ready to die..."

"You've got to stay still," said Peter, tugging at his arms, but that just caused him to wail even louder. "Ugh, what spell could fix this!?"

"Move out of the way," said Lily, stepping back and pointing her wand at James. "I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt, Potter."

"OK..." James sobbed.

"Accio James Potter," said Lily. James came flying out of the fence and crashed into Lily, causing her to topple over.

"Holy shit, Evans!" said James, taking in deep breaths.

"You OK?" Sirius asked, kneeling beside James, whose shirt was torn, and, in some parts, covered in blood.

"Yeah... yeah... I'm OK," said James, groaning, "just hurts a bit..."

"We should take you to Madam Pomfrey," said Lily. "I can't believe he... I hate him!"

"What about Sirius's mother?" I asked.

"You two stay here," grunted James as he stood up, supported by Lily and Peter. "We'll come back once I'm not bleeding anymore, and we'll let you know if she's left."

Once we were alone, Sirius and I sat down next to each other (not leaning on the fence, obviously).

"So... so she... what did she say?" Sirius asked.

"She just said I'd brainwashed you into liking muggle-borns and becoming a queer," I said. Sirius rolled his eyes.

"And she hurt you," he said, taking my hand.

"It's fine, Sirius."

"It's not fine. She can't go around hurting other people," said Sirius. "I'm the disappointment, and that burden shouldn't be thrown on other people, especially not you."

"Sirius," I said, "if you think your family isn't going to hurt other people, then you're wrong. We're growing up in a bloody wizarding war for god's sake. Half of them are death eaters."

"I know," said Sirius. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"It is... if she hadn't been at Hogwarts because of me, she wouldn't have hurt you and we wouldn't have come here, and James wouldn't have been hurt..." he said.

"Well then, technically it's my fault," I said, "she was here to see me."

"It's not your fault," said Sirius.

"I know," I said, "it's her fault."

The truth was I did blame myself, of course. In my mind, every bad thing in the entire world was my fault. But I didn't want to draw the attention to myself, since it was Sirius's mother we were talking about.

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Anyway... what's something a little less tragic?"

"Your hair's sticking up," I said.

"What!?" Sirius cried, placing his hands on his hair. "Where!? Can you fix it!? I don't have a mirror! I said not something tragic!"

I burst out laughing. It wasn't even true, his hair looked flawless as usual, I'd just wanted to see his reaction. He was looking at me now, his eyes and mouth wide.

"Why are you laughing at me!?" he cried.

"God, Sirius, I was joking," I said, "your hair looks beautiful, like always."

"That's very sweet and not sweet at the same time," said Sirius, crossing his arms, then kissing my head.

Sirius and I ended up spending a full four hours out there, and with anyone else, I would've gotten bored.

But I was with Sirius.

We talked about everything and anything and snogged, and by the time Peter came to tell us we could come back to the school and that Madam Pomfrey had healed James well, I'd decided that I was in love with Sirius Black.

"No, you haven't. You have not. Sirius!"

"Happy birthday, Moony!"

The Great Hall wasn't the Great Hall anymore. The walls were scattered with pictures of my face, and my name was written everywhere.

"Holy shit Sirius, I hate you!" I cried.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

"I mean, it's cool, but it would have been better in our dormitory, not the Great Hall..." I said.

Sirius gasped. "You mean... not let the entire school know it's your birthday?"

"Oh my god..." I said, still in awe. "I'm fifteen, not seventeen!"

"Oh, you just wait for your seventeenth," Sirius grinned.

"I will get you back in November, I swear to god..." I said.

Throughout breakfast, I counted a hundred and seven people who approached me and said something along the lines of, "Happy birthday, mate, sick walls!", and every single time, I muttered, "just you wait" to Sirius.

When I wasn't in class, I spent my entire fifteen birthday taking the photos down and using cleaning spells to get my name off the walls, and my friends spent every single lesson annoying me about the fact that I was turning fifteen.

"Seventeen days, James," I muttered angrily to James during Divination, "then it's your turn."

"Oh, I'm just shaking in my boots, Remus," James laughed, and I rolled my eyes.

"I really do hate you. All of you."

"Aw, you love us," said Sirius. "Just you wait until the cake!"

"The cake?" I repeated.

"Chocolate cake," Peter added.

"Oh, if it's chocolate..." I started.

"Boys, if you're all talking so much, I assume you've all figured out what your crystal ball is saying and written it down?"

Professor Trelawney was striding towards us, hands on her hips.

"Er..." Peter started, but Trelawney interrupted him, jumping manically and pointing at James's crystal ball.

"Mr. Potter... do you see that!?" she cried.

"Er, the fog?" James asked.

"Mr. Potter, you are doomed!" she cried.

"Doomed?" James repeated.

"During your twenty-second lap around the sun... you are doomed! Doomed! Doomed!" she cried, waving her arms around like a lunatic.

"Alright then," James laughed, as Sybill called her mother over and Professor Trelawney walked towards her, still shouting, "Doomed! Doomed! Doomed!"

"Are you really doomed?" Peter asked nervously.

"No," James laughed. "She's lost the plot, honestly."

That night, Sirius, James, Peter, and I snuck through the passageway we'd found (and we kept the trapdoor unlocked permanently) to Hogsmeade and got butterbeers at the Hog's Head, telling the innkeeper it was my nineteenth birthday and we all lived in the village. It was obvious that she didn't believe us, but she let it slide anyway.

"A toast to our dear friend, Remus," said James once we were seated with our drinks.

"The birthday boy," Sirius added, and I rolled my eyes. They made their toast, and we all drank. It tasted a little different than usual. It still had the sweet taste, but there was definitely something off about it. Perhaps it was similar to how fizzy drinks got flat if they weren't drunk for a long period of time or shaken up by someone.

I exchanged a look with my friends, and they seemed to have noticed, as well. I took another sip. It still tasted good, just different. Odd.

We all shrugged and drank the rest of our drinks, then walked out of the Three Broomsticks and headed towards Zonko's, which, much to James's and Sirius's disgust, was closed.

"Closes at seven!?" James cried in disgust, reading the opening hours sign.

"Well, it's not a pub," I said. "I think seven's a fairly reasonable time."

"Ugh, let's try Honeydukes," said Sirius, then he paused. "Wait – what if Honeydukes is closed?"

"We don't get sweets," said Peter.

"No – that's our way out," said Sirius.

"Oh. Oh."

We were soon all sprinting to Honeydukes and let out long sounds of relief when we discovered it closed at ten every night.

Then I felt a pang in my stomach. Not just a small pang that would make me say a small, "ow", but a pang that felt like I was being stabbed and all my organs were being ripped out, and it caused me to let out a cry and fall to my knees.

"Moony!" Sirius cried. "Are... are you OK?"

"I... yeah," I said, standing up and clutching my stomach. My head was swimming. "Yeah, yeah, sorry."

We walked into Honeydukes and bought some sweets, and then Peter suddenly doubled over, clutching his stomach, and letting out a howl of pain.

"What the hell!?" James cried out. "Peter!?"

"My stomach..." Peter groaned.

James got it next after we walked out of Honeydukes, and he almost vomited from the pain, and when Sirius got it, he actually did throw up.

We were all on the floor soon, sweating and groaning.

"I knew that butterbeer tasted weird," said James.

"We should go back to the school," said Sirius. He was lying on the floor in his own sick.

"Yeah," I said, standing up. But then my vision was blackening, and I was stumbling, and I realised just as I was my head hit the floor that we'd all been drugged from the butterbeer.