Disclaimer: I own nothing, J.K. Rowling owns all. Its not fair, but then nor is life. I don't earn any money from this, also not fair! Please review – it doesn't take long and it makes me so happy!
Chapter 2
A promising morning had turned into a glorious afternoon as crowds of people spilled out of Hogwarts Great Hall.
"Good speech James" shouted one of the Ravenclaw boys as the graduating class of Hogwarts filled out into the afternoon sun.
"I just don't believe we let a golden opportunity of humiliating Snape in front of the whole school escape. Our last chance James. But what with high and mighty of the left of me, " He gestured wildly towards Remus, "and model of responsibility to the left of me," Yet another grand gesture was thrown, this time in the direction of James, "it's a wonder I've had any fun at all these last seven years."
Remus grinned slightly. It was true, between him and James they had managed to curb Sirius' prankster spirit, at least for the afternoon. Though he reflected the price had been high. In the process of wrestling Sirius for his wand in order to prevent the inevitable stream of hexes and curses that were sure to fly in the general direction of the Slytherins, and the more particular direction of Severus Snape, there had been a few unfortunate accidents. Remus provided a distraction while James had made a flying tackle and pinned Sirius to the ground. Remus had grabbed Sirius arms and Peter had used this opportunity to whisk away said boy's wand. Sirius later declared that turning Remus' favourite collection of books into a small forest of toadstools, the transfiguration of James pile of Wonder witch magazines into advanced, and in Remus opinion very interesting, arithmancy journals, and the removal of all of Peter's hair, had been accidental. Remus however remembered Sirius in their classes on wandless magic; he had been one of the best in their class. Luckily, one quick trip to the infirmary had sorted Peter's hair though Sirius had begged him to keep it as it was.
Just then Sirius caught sight of a group of people dressed in formal black robes, trimmed in green and embroidered with silver snakes. His expression filled briefly with hope as he took a step towards them.
"Mother..." he started.
As quickly as it had arrived, the expression of hope vanished replaced by something that, just for a moment, was bitter and twisted. Not quite quickly enough to be obviously deliberate, the tall, regal woman turned away from her eldest son, and started gushing over her niece, who was also part of the graduating class.
"Narcissa!" He heard her exclaim "You look delightful, so mature, a fine daughter of Slytherin, you have done our family proud" Sentimentality oozed through Lady Black's acclamation of Narcissa's virtues, though each sentence had a bitter twist, as though she were making each one an insult just for Sirius.
James shot a concerned glace towards Sirius. He had been present when Sirius had received the Howler telling him of the disinheritance from the most Ancient and Noble house of Black. To the outside world, Sirius had seemed to take it well. However he had never been quite as lively and unfettered after that, and in one uncharacteristically emotional moment, aided by a fairly large amount of fire whiskey, he had demanded of James to know why they would do such a thing. The former Black heir went on to add that he didn't know how to get through life as an ordinary person, and finally, in a small quite voice asked that shouldn't blood mean more than that? Shouldn't family love you no matter what?
Sirius just looked at him and shrugged "Two can play at that game." He murmured softly.
Putting on a huge smile he suddenly moved towards, and then beyond, his parents, brother, aunt and uncle.
"Ma and Pa Potter, Mr and Mrs Pettigrew! I'm so glad you could make it!" Turning towards the Potters he added in a slightly too loud voice, "it means so much that you're here to support me. It's because of you that I can stand here proudly today."
The group standing nearby had not escaped the Potters' notice. Mrs Potter sighed.
"You know you're like a son to us Sirius."
Just then James and Peter ambled over. Both boys were instantly enveloped in crushing hugs.
"Mum…" Peter groaned. "Not in front of everyone."
"I'm just so proud of you Petey." She sobbed, "You know for ages we thought he might not be good enough to get to Hogwarts, then we thought he might not get any OWL's, but he just keeps on surprising us. I'm just so proud. You've done better than me or your father ever did. And I think that's due to your wonderful friends!"
At this point she broke away from Peter and started to move towards James and Sirius. The boys exchanged terrified glances and backed away slightly, concerned that they were to be the next victims of this sobbing hugging monster.
"Anyway," said James, trying to attract the attention away from Peter and his clearly embarrassing situation, "I was thinking we might have a post graduation party, we could have it at ours couldn't we?" he said directing his attention away from Mrs. Pettigrew and towards his own Mother and Father.
"Well…" started Mrs Potter.
"This would just be a small gathering wouldn't it James?" Mr Potter asked nervously.
"Umm.. Yes?" suggested James, looking pleadingly at his mother.
"Alright then." She finally agreed.
Peter, having finally managed to extract himself from the loving embrace of his mother, looked at James in amazement. Mr and Mrs Potter had just agreed to let them have a party, of unknown size, with no provisos, conditions, threats or warnings.
Mrs Pettigrew, by this point, had managed to regain her composure enough to start the inevitable quiz about each of the boys' plans for life beyond Hogwarts.
"Sirius – what are you planning to do now" she asked.
Sirius sighed, he had known it was coming, had been asked a hundred times by a variety of professors, relatives, and, in his opinion, a league of adoring fans. The most memorable occasion had been his career interview with professor McGonagall. Together they had moved from Sirius idea of 'something really exciting with explosions' towards a more specific and realistic plan.
"I've applied for the auror training program – I have interview and entrance tests in the next few weeks." He explained, as though reading from a script.
"Very impressive – we need more young men like you to protect the innocent and fight for the light," Mr Pettigrew added.
Sirius looked embarrassed mumbled something that could have been 'yeah well..' To his great relief the attention of both Pettigrews shifted onto James. James paled under the attention. Unlike Sirius, he did not have the scripted answer, and had to fumble around for something reasonably intelligent sounding to say.
"What about you James?" Mrs Pettigrew enquired kindly.
"Umm… uhhh… well… plans, I'm not really sure at the moment. I'm thinking about going into something to do with umm government." James stuttered.
Peter Sirius exchanged a glance, they had had similar conversations with James who steadfastly refused to chose a career. James had had a privileged upbringing and his parents refused him nothing. James had a nice fat bank account as well as the future prospect of the Potter fortune sitting in Gringotts and therefore didn't feel any pressing need to work to earn his living. His careers advice session with Professor McGonagall had been considerably less productive then Sirius'. It followed the lines of 'Mr. Potter, you must have some ambition in life?' with James' answer of 'I'd like Lily Evans to go out with me,' repeated in several guises. At this point the transfiguration professor had rolled her eyes, muttered something about 17 year old boys, and dismissed him.
Seeing James floundering Mrs Potter stepped in.
"So Peter what are your plans?" she asked.
"I've applied for an internship in the Department of the Disposal of Magical Creatures." He added nervously, thinking that even James had managed to make his non-plans sound far more exciting and worthwhile than his own entry-level job.
"I have to do some basic entrance tests, standard spells, basic potion making. James says he'll help me study. I'll have to start at the very bottom. I'll probably be making the tea for the next year, but at least I'm starting somewhere and I get paid."
Privately he thought that, though he was in theory fairing better than James was, in that he actually had a plan, in comparison to Sirius he seemed a bit of a failure. He comforted himself by thinking that at least Remus didn't seem to have a specific direction in mind either, though he did have the added complication of being a werewolf.
Finally, the conversation seemed to have been exhausted. Mr and Mrs Pettigrew dragged Peter off to meet up with some old friends and Mr and Mrs Potter became caught up in a serious looking conversation with Professor Dumbledore and another intense looking man. James briefly wondered what dark thoughts could be creating such gloomy expressions on the beautiful summer's day it had turned out to be, but then reflected that these were dark times, and, as much as they had tried to ignore them while in school, bad things were happening in the world. The so-called Dark Lord was becoming more and more powerful and innocent people were dying. Not a day went past when more news of horrific acts of the Dark Lord and his followers was uncovered. Turning his mind away from such dark thoughts James looked around for his friends. Spotting Sirius and Remus, he headed over towards their favourite tree next to the lake.
As he got closer, he could tell that Sirius was not happy. He was clearly tensed up and pacing around waving his arms at Remus. Moving closer still James began to be able to hear snatches of the conversation.
"…and then the slimy git goes over to my father and starts to – to – smooze. Regulus was practically licking the mud off his boots, the little suck up. Ooh Serverus," Sirius began, doing a high-pitched, whiny impression of his younger brother, "How nice it must be to be a fully qualified wizard, able to make all your own choices." He added a few Regulus-like hand flourishes, and then continued with his tirade. "And all the while the bastard is looking at me with this disgusting smug look on his face. I'm going to get him, and Regulus. You just wait and see."
Remus looked pained. He was half torn between sympathising with Sirius, who was after all one of his best friends, and poised ready to restrain said best friend, should he decide to exact revenge at that precise moment.
"Sirius, why don't you calm down? We'll go inside and get our trunks, we've got to clear our dormitories this afternoon. You said I could stay in the flat with you until I get myself sorted out. Is that still okay?" Remus asked hesitantly, desperate to distract his enraged friend.
"Yeah yeah, its fine." Sirius replied absent-mindedly, still preoccupied with shooting looks of pure hatred towards his brother and long term arch nemesis.
James joined them, and together the three boys headed across the grounds, and into the castle on their way towards Gryffindor Tower.
As they were heading down the second floor corridor, past the portrait of the lordly looking gentleman clutching a ridiculously fluffy cat, they heard a familiar set of voices. Remus groaned inwardly as he recognised Serverus Snape's sarcastic bite and Regulus's aristocratic drawl. Sirius often made fun of this drawl, without realising that he and his brother were virtually indistinguishable in the way they spoke. Sirius eyes took on a strange glow and he drew out his wand.
"Sirius please…" Remus begged pleadingly, already knowing it was probably hopeless.
Backing against a wall Sirius waited for the pair of Slytherins to round the corner.
"Serpensortia!" he shouted with gusto.
A large serpent began to snake its way around the corner, making terrible hissing noises. As it came into view of Regulus and Snape they pulled out their wands. Sirius, however, was quicker.
"Bondiporus! Levicorpus!"
The first curse caused Snape and Regulus to become inextricably stuck together, while the second, aimed mainly at Snape, caused him to flip over and become suspended in mid-air, upside down. Regulus, who was still stuck to Snape, was left dangling at a most uncomfortable angle with Snape's robes, which, due to his position, were no longer covering his undergarments, hanging over his face.
Suddenly the stunned silence was rent with laughter. James had been a few paces behind Remus and Sirius, and as he came round the corner and first saw the scene, he burst in to uncontrollable laughter. This set off Sirius, who found it necessary to grab onto Remus as he fought for breath. Remus himself was trying to contain his giggles. The pair of Slytherin boys did look quite comical dangling there – a tangle of robes and underwear.
"What was that first curse you use Sirius? I don't think I know it." Remus asked.
Sirius looked a little uncomfortable. "Oh just something I read in a book somewhere. Come on lets go and get our things. Someone will be along soon enough to let them down." He seemed keen to leave the subject of the mysterious curse behind.
Remus looked confused. He was certain he had never heard of that curse, and was equally certain that there were no books in the school library that Sirius had read and he had not. Maybe Sirius had meant the library in his family home. Remus was sure that there would be books in there that would not be found in the Hogwarts library, not even in the restricted section. Ah well, he thought, and set off after James and Sirius, who had already continued on their original journey to complete their packing ready to leave.
Authors note: I've got the first 13 chapters planned, so there is a storyline and I do know where I'm going.. Though I'm not convinced Sirius and the gang don't have their own ideas as well! Any ideas are welcome. Reviews increase the chance of regular updates.
Next chapter: The boys have interviews to attend and one of them gets made an interesting offer…