A few days later, James was the first one to wake up in his dorm, and as he sat up, he remembered something. He threw a pillow at Sirius to wake him up.

"Wasthematter?" he asked groggily.

"It's your birthday!" Perking up slightly, he looked down to end of his bed where there was a pile of presents. James threw pillows at Remus and Peter to wake them up as well.

"Happy birthday." Remus said sleepily, seeing Sirius pulling the presents closer to him. Sirius grinned at him before grabbing one the packages and ripping it open. Peter just grunted from his bed.

"Thanks, mate!" Sirius said to James. He had gotten him a large box full of Sirius's favorite sweets. Chocolate Frogs, Acid Pops, Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, Cauldron Cakes, and other assorted candy.

"No problem." James grinned at Sirius as he popped a Fizzing Whizzbee and his mouth and he started to levitate a few inches off his bed. When he fell back down he continued tearing the wrapping paper off the rest of his presents. Remus had gotten him a book entitled Quidditch Through the Ages, and Peter had gotten him a pocket Sneakoscope. All three boys were watching Sirius as he opened his 4th present. Inside the badly wrapped package was knitted sweater in green and silver, and it had a large serpent on the front.

"Who gave that to you?" Peter asked.

"Is there a note?" asked Remus, although James was pretty sure that they both knew who is was from.

"No note. But I definitely know who its from." said Sirius angrily. His birthday cheeriness seemed to be gone. "My parents." James felt so bad for Sirius. He knew they were mad that he broke the family tradition and was Sorted into Gryffindor, but he thought it was really mean to send him that on his birthday.

"Lets just go down to breakfast. Come on." Remus said in a hesitant voice. James knew that he, like him, was trying to make Sirius forget about the sweater.

"No. There's something I want to do." Sirius said angrily. "I'll catch up with you in a minute." he added, seeing their worried faces. James, Remus, and Peter walked uneasily to the door and down to breakfast.

As they were sitting down at the table, Sirius comes running up to them. He had a smile on his face.

"What did you do?" asked Peter.

"Nothing." Sirius honestly. "I just charmed the sweater to flash red and gold and I added a lion that was eating the snake on the front. And then I sent it back to them." Sirius laughed.

"Aren't they going to be mad?" asked James. Sirius shrugged.

"Yeah, but who cares?"

Later that day, in Potions, while they were creating a Shrinking Potion, Snape walked by James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter's table.

"Hey, Snivilly. You seem a lot quieter lately. Are you feeling okay?" James laughed at the look of realization and horror on Snape's face. But, luckily for them, Professor Slughorn just walked up to their table and said,

"How's the potion-making coming, boys?" so Snape was forced to keep walking.

As soon as the bell rang, Snape jumped from his seat and walked out of the room. The four boys followed him.

"Hey, Snivily!" Sirius called. Snape jumped and drew out his wand as though he had been waiting for an attack. Sirius just laughed.

"You don't have the guts to take me on!"

"Oh yes I do!" growled Snape. "Tonight, wizards duel, in that hidden corridor on the 5 floor."

"Fine then. James is my second. Who's yours?" Snape hesitated, then said,

"Avery." Sirius laughed.

"Are you sure he even knows your name?"

"Yes! Or do you just want an excuse to get out of fighting me?"

"No way." Sirius walked away, taking care to knock into Snape's shoulder.

"Are you really going to do it?" asked Peter, evidently awestruck.

"Of course not. But I am going to get him in trouble. Come help me find Peeves." About ten minutes later, they finally found him throwing ink pellets at the wall.

"Why, it's wee little Black and all his friends." Peeves said, flipping upside down.

"Peeves, you like getting people in trouble, right?" Peeves flipped back upright and looked suspicious.

"There's going to be a kid in the hidden corridor on the 5th floor at midnight tonight. Can you go there and make as much noise as possible and attract Filch?" At first James thought Peeves would refuse, but unexpectedly he sprang into a salute and sped off through the wall.

"You excited for later? Or are you going to chicken out like the snake you are?"

"Not a chance. But I bet you're wishing I did call it off." James and Snape had met in the hallway as they were making their way to dinner. As they reached the Great Hall they both parted, unwilling to continue the fight while there were so many teachers present. James only had to look briefly over the Gryffindor table before he found his friends. Sirius and Peter seemed to be in deep discussion, and Remus, who was looking pale and sick again, was not touching his food. James went and sat down.

"...and I don't know if we should trust Peeves, maybe we should go straight to Filch." Peter was saying. James understood almost instantly that they were talking about getting Peeves to get Snape in trouble.

"But I think we can this time, because we're asking him to make trouble, and that's what he's best at. He loves when students get in trouble." Sirius was responding. James cut in to the conversation.

"I agree with Sirius." Both Peter and Sirius jumped because they hadn't realized that James had sat down. "It's not like we're asking him to keep watch for us while we sneak out at midnight. He likes trouble and mayhem." Peter frowned, apparently annoyed at being disagreed with, but let the matter go. James turned to Remus. "Remus, are you okay?"

"What? Yeah, I'm fine. Er, listen. I have to go." At the others questioning looks he added, "My mum is a little sick so Dumbledore arranged for me to Floo back home for the night. I'll be back tomorrow." He got up and quickly walked out of the entrance hall. James turned to the others.

"That's weird. He never said anything about his mum."

"Perhaps it just came up."

"I hope Mrs. Lupin is okay." Shrugging, James and the others turned back to their food.

When the boys got back to their common room, they started doing the homework they had gotten that day(or, in Peter's case, the homework that was due tomorrow) and they didn't go to bed until a quarter past eleven. While James was climbing into his bed, he wondered briefly if Snape was setting off to the hidden corridor, but a mere ten seconds after this thought had entered his mind, he fell right to sleep.

This chapter one of my longer ones, as well as the previous chapter, but I hope it's not too boring. Please review and tell me if there is anything that is wrong or if you have suggestion for something that you think should be changed.