A week later James, Peter, Sirius, and Lily were at the Gryffindor table eating breakfast. The morning had been quite calm and undisturbing so far, but the air around the four of them became a little quiet and tense when Remus didn't appear for a while.

Lily leaned over to James and whispered, "He got back all right, didn't he?"

"Of course," he said. "He went up to his bed right away and was kind of resting on and off the rest of the night...before the rest of us went to sleep, anyway. He's probably just still tired."

There had been a full moon the night before last, and Remus had changed back from a werewolf the evening before.

"Madelin, you know...She was asking questions," Lily explained. "She and Remus haven't been friends for more than a month, but she has enough classes with him to have noticed him being gone a lot before..."

James nodded, understanding. "Nice to see she's concerned about him, at least."

Lily nodded. It was immediately after that that Remus approached the table at a tired pace and said quietly, "Hello."

James picked up some of his books from the spot next to him so that Remus could sit down.

"Morning, Moony," Peter said cheerfully.

"Alright?" James asked him.

Remus nodded, his eyelids looking so heavy they seemed to shield his entire eyes so that it seemed a wonder that he could see.

It wasn't a very long time at all before Madelin came up to their table and said, "Remus, you're back."

"Hey, Madelin," he said as she sat down sideways on the seat next to him so that she was facing him. When he smiled at her, she didn't smile back.

"Remus, you look terrible," she said with worry.

"I'm fine," he promised. "I'm just a little tired."

"No, are you sure you aren't still sick?" she asked, turning his face toward her and putting her hand to his forehead. "I don't think you should go back to classes today, I think you should go see Madam Trice."

"She already gave me potion to make me better," he told her. "And I am, I just don't look it. This happens a lot."

"It's true," James backed him up, talking with a light tone. "For some reason Remus always looks like he's just been beat up. Getting over being sick just isn't helping, I guess."

"I don't think it's funny," she said seriously.

Everyone went silent for a moment, not knowing what to say.

"Madelin," Lily said kindly, "I don't think Remus looks any different. Maybe you're just being more concerned and observant with him than usual because he's been sick."

Sirius had been digging around in his bag for a few seconds and he took out a book to quickly hide his face behind, obviously a little less than enthusiastic about listening to this.

Peter looked to the side at him and asked, "What's that?" possibly just as a way to change the subject. Remus made a mental note to thank him later.

"It's a book," Sirius answered obviously without looking up. "Well...a play, actually."

The others turned their attention to it now. The cover read the title, The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail.

"Since when do you read?" Peter asked. After thinking about it for a second and receiving an insulted look from Sirius, he corrected, "Well, since when do you read at breakfast? I've never actually seen you with a book. You always read and study in private; that's why no one understands how it is you earn perfect grades."

"It's Sophie's," Sirius explained. "She's educating me about transcendentalism."

James laughed automatically. "Geez, Padfoot, did you intend to go straight for the exact opposite of the kind of girl you're usually attracted to?"

"Oh, it's that Slytherin girl you like now?" Lily asked Sirius, catching what they were talking about. James had only briefly explained to her the important points of Sirius's new dating mission. "What's her name again?"

"Sophia," he answered. "Sophia Stabbard."

"Oh..." Lily's eyebrows drew together curiously and she looked down at the table, some kind of change seeming to happen in her after she heard the name. "I know who she is."

"Really?" James asked. "How?"

"Oh, you know...I've just see her around."

There was something very hiding and awkward about her voice as she said it, which only James seemed to notice. As Remus started to ask Sirius what Sophia looked like, he turned to her and asked, "What is it?"

"Huh?" she said, caught off guard. "Oh, nothing. Nothing."

Sirius ended up telling everyone his entire story from the beginning of how he had met Sophia, and the way he told it more than the story itself had everyone laughing, including Madelin. She seemed to have given up on mothering Remus and accepted that he was well enough to be back in school, and after a while they were talking to eachother easily and laughing, occasionally forking food from their plates into each other's mouths in the very casual and innocent way they always displayed affection that made it completely bearable for other people to have to watch them with eachother.

Except for Sirius, apparently, who would glance at them every once in a while and look like he wished he still had his book out to use as an excuse not to look at them.

While everyone else was still in the middle of eating, Sirius stood up and said, "I'll see the lot of you later. I've got other business to attend to."

"Huh?" asked Peter.

"That means he just saw Sophia walk in," James translated.

"Ah," he said, and then they all laughed.

Sirius and Sophia met at the doors to the library after dinner as they had for the past three days. They had both had enough of Hogsmeade shopping and dining to satisfy them for the rest of the month, so today they spent on the grounds seeing if they could make a snowman as tall as Hagrid the gamekeeper and inside at various locations of the castle just talking. Even though Sirius was an easily bored person, he found everything about what they did together tremendously entertaining, even if they were simply sitting on stairs talking about how neither of them had ever been able to get into sports enough to try out for the Quidditch teams (though one of the only times players like Avery had ever wanted to talk to Sophia, she told him, was when he and the rest of the team were begging her to play after seeing her chuck a book at a student who was making her mad while twenty feet above him on her broomstick, actually causing him to be rushed to Madam Trice for medical attention).

Before they had even thought about getting to bed, it was already 9:50. They walked down a hall toward the stairs going down to the dungeons that none of the students used very much because the Slytherin dormitories were on the opposite end of the castle right next to a different set of stairs.

"Come on, just sneak me down with you," Sirius was trying to convince her. "I will be the only Gryffindor student who's ever seen the Slytherin common room - do you know how intriguing that is? Everyone thinks you guys have got torturing devices down there or something."

She laughed. They were hardly moving at all, not thinking seriously enough about going to bed to be getting there very fast. "You would get caught right away. Do you think there's any kids from my house who don't know who you are? You'd get beat up by at least ten guys at the same time before you'd seen anything long enough to remember it."

They had reached the top of the stairs now and stopped walking.

"It's settled, then," he said jokingly. "If I can't come with you, I just won't let you leave."

She laughed again and then started for the stairs, waving and saying, "I'll see you tomorrow."

But he grabbed her by the arm with a humorous grin. "I'm serious, you're not going anywhere."

"Yeah, I know you're Sirius," she said, failing to keep from giggling as she said it.

"Oh God, that gets so old after having to live with my name for seventeen years," he sighed heavily. "Now I'm definitely not going to be sympathetic; I cannot let you go, that's it."

"Sirius!" she said, trying to pull away and laughing at the same time. "We have to be in bed in less than ten minutes."

"As if they actually check every night."

"Constantine does!"

"Well, he and McGonnagal need to have a meeting about the ways to exercise Head of House authority without succumbing to dullmonotony."

She looked at him determinedly and said, "You're going to let go of me."

He only brought her closer and held his hands tightly together behind her waist. She said, "Sirius!" and pushed on his shoulders, but he kept holding her around the waist so that she was stuck with him.

"I'll make you let go," she said with a devious smile.

"Is that so?" he said.

She kept trying to push herself away, but as she did he just kept pulling her closer to him so that their eyes were looking closer and closer into each other's challengingly. Then after a few seconds of this she looked up at him with that smile again, leaned forward quickly and kissed him.

He had not expected this. But it was only a second before he fell into it, his entire body relaxing and his hands moving up her back. He had hardly recovered from the surprise and started to slip into the moment when she broke away and moved her face to whisper in his ear. "You let go of me."

Before he could realize what that meant, she whirled around and darted away from him, slipping right out of his relaxed arms.

"Hey!" he called as she skipped down the stairs. "That's not fair!"

She just waved back at him right before descending out of his sight, and he could hear her laughing echoing down the cold dungeon halls.