Disclaimer: It's not mine…it's all your brilliant creation, J.K. Rowling

A/N: Sorry once again it took so long to update. I was busy with finals and then it took a while to get back in the swing of things, such as where I left off with the story and where I want to go with the story. I had about another 6 pages written that I was going to include in this chapter, but I couldn't get it to sound right and I didn't want to post it until I was happy with it and who knows how long that's going to takes (since my readers have waited long enough) so I just cut it off a little shorter. ENJOY!

Peter Pettigrew struggled to keep up with the pace of his friends. He couldn't understand why James and Sirius were so anxious to get to Potions class. Last year they never seemed to put any importance in punctuality. Today was their first day of Potions because Potions had been completely cancelled for the entire week.

Peter sat down at a desk and Sirius slipped into the seat in front of him. When James sat in the seat next to Sirius, he felt a stab of jealousy. Peter supposed he should be happy Sirius and James were buddies again. He didn't like the tension in their dorm, but yesterday the two could barely stand being in the same room together and suddenly James picked Sirius over sitting with him.

Peter knew when it came to friendship with James he couldn't compete over Sirius. There was no point in trying. Sirius was cooler, more talented and more adventurous than Peter.

The upside to the situation was that Peter couldn't complain about the extra attention he was receiving. Several people throughout the day had approached him about what was going on between Sirius and James. Apparently many of them were too afraid to confront his two friends.

Just then the new teacher entered. He was a short man with a rather large belly. He had thick straw colored hair and a gingery-blond mustache.

"Welcome second years! Welcome to Potions! My name is Professor Horace Slughorn and I am the new Head of Slytherin House. I have taught at Hogwarts before, I just took a two year break, but I'm back for good now."

Professor Slughorn waddled over to his desk and picked up a sheet of paper, "Well enough about me, since we are already behind, I will begin roll call and we can go straight into the first potion you will be studying."

He started roll call at the bottom of the alphabet. Every few students he would comment about knowing their mother, father, uncle, aunt, grandparent or other relative. He passed over Peter's name without mentioning anything, which did not surprise him. No one in his family was important or famous or really had amounted to much of anything. Peter supposed their Sweet shop was the biggest Pettigrew accomplishment.

Slughorn spent a few minutes on James's famous Auror grandparents and mentioned that he hoped to get an invitation to some upcoming ball James's parents would be throwing.

He then got to Lupin.

"Remus Lupin?"

There was a moment of silence and Peter almost had the courage to speak up when James beat him to it.

"Sir, Remus isn't here. I think he's in the hospital wing."

"Ah…yes well…they explained to me about…well never mind. Thank you, Mr. Potter."

When he at last got to Sirius's name, the Professor paused a few moments. The pause was long enough to bring the attention of all the students onto Sirius Black.

Peter would be lying if he wasn't a bit happy to see Sirius so uncomfortable. Served him right for all the chaos he had brought onto Gryffindor with his out of place sorting.

For the first time that day Professor Slughorn's jolly voice sounded a bit forced, "Well I know your family quite well."

James looked quite concerned as he watched Sirius's darkening features.

"I've had my share of business deals with them – the Blacks seem to be everywhere…"

Slughorn studied Sirius and a confused expression grew on his face, "You're not in Slytherin, Mr. Black?"

The tension in the room could be cut with a knife and though Sirius looked unhappy he made so move to speak.

Once again James was the only one brave enough to speak up on Sirius's behalf. Peter envied James's ability to say what he felt especially in front of a teacher who none of them knew. James had no way of knowing if Professor Slughorn would put him in detention for speaking out of turn as some of their stricter teachers.

"Professor Slughorn, Sirius Black has been in Gryffindor since first year."

"Is that so? Ah, well there you go. Mr. Black, please see me after class now. Let's get on with the lesson, shall we? We'll begin with a simple potion that is very similar to one you covered in first year. Ms. Evans, will you please help me set up the needed ingredients that the class does not have. Please begin!"

As everyone began to assemble their cauldrons and light the fires underneath them, Peter carefully tried to overhear the conversation between Sirius and James; the conversation that they obviously weren't bothering to include him in.

"Are you alright?" James muttered.

"I'm fine!" Sirius said curtly, "Should have known though, eh? He is Head of Slytherin. Can't trust the lot of them."

"What do you think he wants?"

Peter never heard Sirius's response because Andrianna was standing besides his desk looking put out.

"Didn't you hear me calling your name?" she slapped the stack of papers in her hand onto his desk and went back to her seat.

"Sorry," Peter called after her, his face burning red. As he passed the stack of papers to Sirius, who did not even say thank you, he noticed the Slytherins glaring in their direction. There was another disadvantage of Sirius joining up with them again. Peter was already a very popular target for the Slytherins. Then add being tagged as Sirius's buddy and he was doomed for the rest of his Hogwarts career to look over his shoulder when in the corridor alone.

Peter groaned as he realized he had messed up his potions. The color should have been orange instead of the moldy green he was staring at.

When Slughorn passed by his cauldron, his words surprised Peter. "Good try, Mr. Pettigrew. Just remember to cut up those roots finer."

Last year he had never heard an encouraging word. Mrs. York would usually just sigh when she looked into his cauldron and give him the lowest passing mark.

Slughorn moved on to James and Sirius.

"Not bad, boys. Mr. Potter that color should be a bit lighter and Mr. Black yours should be a bit thicker in consistency."

Finally after getting praise from the teacher, Sirius and James turned to give him some attention. If Peter had been braver he might have called James out on completely ignoring him. But Peter who hated confrontation just smiled and laughed with them as if nothing was wrong.

The truth was Peter was very frightened about being alone and having no friends. So he would accept whatever position he was given in their circle of friends.

Sirius watched all the other students leave the room and as each student left, the room shrunk.

Had he made an enemy of the new teacher because of his House placement?

Then again Slughorn didn't have all the usual characteristics Sirius associated with Slytherins. First of all he was a lot jollier and Sirius hadn't noticed him treating the Slytherins any better than the Gryffindors. He had even announced at the end of class that Evans had brewed a perfect potion and she was a muggleborn.

Before he could think anymore about it, Sirius was standing in front of Professor Slughorn bracing for the worst. Waiting to hear how much of a disappointment he was.

"Ah here it is," Slughorn said his voice completely absent of any menace. On the paper he had passed to Sirius to look at was a roster of the second year Slytherins and his name was on it!

"Professor – where did you get this?"

"Now you can understand my confusion. This roster was mailed to me about a month ago by the School Governors and I had remembered seeing your name on it. I didn't want you thinking I was crazy."

"Its no secret that my family would prefer I was in Slytherin, sir. One of my Uncles is on the board; he must have added my name by mistake."

"A mistake indeed! Well no harm done. You do you have a younger brother, yes?"

"He'll be starting Hogwarts next fall."

"Slytherin?"

"Most likely, sir."

"I'm not going to lie to you that it would have been nice to have you both in my House. The Black brothers…" he paused dramatically, "But what can we do?"

Upon seeing Sirius's face, he laughed causing his belly to bounce, "Don't worry, my boy, I'm not going to hold it against you."

Sirius was then dismissed and he quickly walked out of the room. Well the conversation went better than he expected, but it had been strange.

Outside the classroom another surprise awaited for him. Both James and Peter were waiting for him. He felt a smile involuntarily form realizing that everything with James was indeed ok. It was a great feeling knowing you had friends who cared enough to wait for you.

"So what did Slughorn want?" James asked standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"Nothing…" Sirius said evasively noticing James give him a look that he didn't believe it. Friends or not, Sirius was not ready to discuss with anyone anything that dealt with his family.

"Let's go see if Remus is in the Hospital Wing," Sirius suggested and he effectively changed to topic of conversation.

Visiting Remus turned out to be much more difficult than any one of them would have guessed. When the nurse saw that none of them were injured she ignored them for 15 minutes while she helped a group of Hufflepuff fourth years that had bumps all over their faces from a Herbology accident. Finally when each Hufflepuff had a white paste all over their faces, she gave them her attention.

"Ok boys. May I help you?"

"Yes," James said, "We wanted to visit Remus Lupin. Is he here?'

The nurse considered James's question with more thought than Sirius thought was necessary. It was as if though she thought this was some big joke and they were all going to yell April fools or maybe September fools.

"Mr. Lupin is here, but I'm afraid no visitors are allowed."

"Is he alright?" Sirius asked in alarm. Lupin was very sickly very often.

"A good bit of rest is all he needs. I will be sure to tell him you came by when he awakes."

Sirius persisted, "Can we come by later when Lupin is awake?"

"I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear. Mr. Lupin is not allowed any visitors until he is out of the Hospital Wing."

"That's not fair!" Potter yelled causing all the Hufflepuffs to peer at the rowdy second year Gryffindor in alarm, "Why can't we see him! We're his friends!"

"I'm not budging from my decision. If you do not leave immediately I am afraid I will have to alert Professor McGonagall."

As much as they all wanted to argue more on behalf of their friendship with Lupin, none of them were eager to get in trouble with McGonagall for something like this so they left.

As the three of them heading to the dining hall for lunch, James insisted they go on ahead while he fetched some forgotten mysterious item in their room. Potter's absence left Sirius and Peter alone together. And if Sirius didn't want the deafening silence to continue, he would have to make conversation with Peter. It wasn't easy, since Sirius had been getting the feeling that Peter didn't really like him.

"I never asked you about your summer, Peter. How was it?"

Peter dripped his fork in surprise. "It was ok. Nothing interesting happened."

"I wish my summer had been uninteresting," Sirius remarked sarcastically.

"I'm sorry," Peter nervously mumbled.

"It's not your fault."

"Well, my mum's pregnant," Peter blurted. He looked surprised by his boldness.

"Lucky you, you get to be a big brother." His voice was loaded with sarcasm.

"It could be fun. You had some fun with your brother, right?" Peter asked desperately.

"Yea, until he learned to talk…"

"Oh no! Its going to be a nightmare. But my mum's so happy and so is my father."

Peter looked so crushed and worried about the prospect, that Sirius actually felt sorry for him.

"Well some people get along with their siblings…"

Finally returning from his trip to Gryffindor tower, James offhandedly begins, "I think it's about time for us to enact revenge on certain individuals …"

"Revenge?" Peter piped before Sirius could get a word out. James had mentioned revenge as if casually mentioning they should go play a game of chess.

Without really explaining his intention James continued as if they had all been inside his head all day. "Frederick needs to be dealt with first and whoever else we deem necessary."

"And who else do we deem necessary?" Sirius questioned realizing all of a sudden the reason why James would want to pull a prank on his cousin.

"Slytherins? They could always use a good prank, right?" James looked at Sirius quickly, "Only if it's ok with you though."

Sirius rolled his eyes, "Why wouldn't it be ok? When do we start?"

"Tonight we'll discuss. There are too many ears right now."

Sirius turned his eyes on his food for a second and when he looked up an 11 year old girl was beside James looking at him in a very adoring manner.

"James! Oh there you are! I've been looking for you for the past few days! Have you been avoiding me?" The girl sat down vigorously beside him. Two girls who entered with her nervously sat down a few seats from her.

Sirius watched James grimace and he realized this new girl could be very interesting.

"Are you going to introduce me to your friends?" she asked batting her eyelashes. The still unnamed girl looked completely ridiculous and Sirius noticed students were starting to stare in their direction now.

"Sit with your own friends!" James hissed.

"I'm Victoria Dekker. Who are you?" she asked Peter who gave her a surprised look.

"Uh- Peter Pettigrew."

"Sirius Black," Sirius introduced himself flashing a smile and pushing his plate away from him.

"Oh! Everyone's been talking about you!"

Sirius scowled, "What have they been saying?"

"It wasn't all bad. And whatever was, I don't believe it. If James likes you, I like you."

"Victoria lave him alone," James said, "Go sit with your own friends."

Sirius grinned finding the bouncing girl rather amusing. Or it could have been the fact that she was annoying James.

"Some of my friends actually think you're really cute," she whispered to Sirius.

Sirius laughed, "And you don't?"

Victoria seemed to consider him, "You are rather handsome, but my heart belongs to- "

"Ok – WE need to go! Bye, Victoria." Sirius had never seen James get up so quickly from lunch.

"I'm still eating," Peter protested.

James, his face now completely red, would hear none of it. He dragged Peter off the bench as Peter attempted to grab the last piece of food still on his plate. Sirius shrugged at Victoria and followed his friends out.

"Uh! She's such a nightmare," James groaned leaning against the wall.

Sirius leaned against the wall beside him. "I think she's cute" and he added slyly, "I wonder who her heart belongs to?"

"If you breathe a word to anyone about that!"

"About what?" Peter wondered anxiously.

"You're lucky not everyone is as sharp as me," Sirius said softly, "Don't worry about it Pete."

"Don't call me Pete," Peter protested.

"So what do you want to do before class since the love-of-your-life interrupted our feeding?"

"Watch it Black."

"Who likes James?" Peter asked bewildered.

Sirius ignored his question and they headed outside for a bit.

That night after sneaking into the kitchen to grab snacks, the three boys all sat down on Peter's bed to discuss their prank plans.

"Well," James began chewing loudly on the cookie in his mouth, "Since we just want it to affect Frederick we have to think of something brilliantly simple."

"And what is brilliantly simple? Throwing some dungbombs at him?"

"Come on, that's a first year trick. We are mature second years now! I know he likes his fellow prefect in his year. If we can embarrass him in front of her, it will be even better.

"It would be even better if we do it in front of her and whole of Gryffindor. We're having a House meeting in three days, it would be a perfect opportunity if we can get it done on time," Sirius added.

"Professor McGonagall will be there though," Peters said, which sounded like something Remus would say.

"All that means is that we have to be a little more careful. It has to be flawless."

"So when are we going to hear this flawlessly brilliantly simple scheme?"

"Well I haven't thought of anything yet…" James admitted.

"So since we want to embarrass him, what embarrasses Frederick the most?"

"He cares a lot about his appearance, his hair, the shininess of his Prefect badge, stuff like that…"

"We could turn his hair a crazy color or shape?" Peter suggested.

"Peter, remember it has to be brilliant too, that's just simple."

"Don't listen to him, Peters. It's a fine idea, but he's right." James had a tendency to defend Peter when he was being dense.

"I think I've got it," Sirius said, "We have to thank Lupin later; I got this idea for him."

Remus Lupin awoke from what appeared to be a week long dream. He was momentarily alarmed about where he was until he recognized the ragged curtains that belonged to the Shrieking Shack. He moved about feeling all his muscles, many he didn't know existed till this night, tensing and crying out in protest.

He reached for the pot that he had to tap three times with his wand, which he carefully hid before each of his transformation to alert Madam Pomfrey that he was awake and that at her soonest convenience to fetch him.

Fully dressed and having drunk a full goblet of Pepper-me-up potion, Remus walked up to Gryffindor Tower mentally preparing himself for the barrage of questions that were sure to follow about his absence.

As he opened the door to the second year dorm, he stopped mid-stride in surprise.

James was sitting at his desk flipping through a book, while Sirius paced in front of him muttering things. Even though they were in such close proximity to each other, they were not yelling, arguing nor fighting.

"Remus!" Peter yelled as he walked out of the bathroom alerting his other two roommates of his presence.

"Lupin! Welcome to the land of the living!" James greeted with a wide grin. Sirius had stopped pacing and said hello as well.

Remus sat down on his bed, "So are you really going to make me ask? Or are you just going to tell me?"

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked his look of innocence was unnervingly convincing.

"Last time I check you were mortal enemies with Potter…"

"Oh? That," Sirius scoffed.

"Yes. That."

"Well you see Lupin, it really was a misunderstanding. There was no reason for us to be mad at each other," James explained.

"I know that. Sirius already told me. The question is why did you suddenly believe him?"

"I found evidence that the letter was forged…" James began.

"Where were you?" Sirius interrupted suddenly turning the tables. Instead of Remus in control of the conversation by asking Sirius and James questions, they would now be asking him questions.

"Yea, we went to visit you," Peter added helpfully.

"You did?"

Remus hoped he didn't look too worried about that idea. It would be suspicious for him to not want his friends to visit him when he was ill.

James watching his reaction carefully "The nurse wouldn't let us see you. She threatened to call McGonagall on us if we didn't leave."

"Well I had something really contagious…I'm sure she didn't want you to catch it."

"Cory was at the Hospital Wing last night. He said he was the only one there, all the other beds were empty," Sirius objected.

"Well—I--- I was in the second room…"

"There's no second room," Sirius argued.

"You just haven't seen it because it's only used in special occasions. It has only four beds and the walls are painted purple."

"What did you have?"

Remus sighed, "I don't know…it was some long name…"

"What were your symptoms?"

"That's really none of your business," Remus said shortly. He'd answered enough questions and sooner or later they would catch him in a lie.

Sirius stared at him long and hard and then motioned for James to follow him out of the dorm.

As James was about to leave he turned apologetically, "Sorry, Remus. We were just worried about you…"

Remus sighed heavily and flopped on his bed.

"They do that a lot," Peter whispered.

"What?"

"James and Sirius have been going off on their own a lot."

"Oh. Well, they still have a lot to work out and its not going to happen with us there."

Peter shrugged and then looking downcast left leaving Remus alone with his thoughts. Remus knew that he would have to come up with a better excuse this year than 'visiting his sick mother' or 'being sick himself' or he wouldn't have any friends left.

A/N: Please let me know what you think and review! All those reviewers that did not sign their review, your response to what you wrote is in my profile. Also to let everyone know I usually put in my profile what's going on with the pending chapter so if its been awhile since I've updated and you're worried I'm going to discontinue with the story (which I have no intention of doing), feel free to check there!