2. The plan

Sirius wasn't a man of thought. He was a man of action. That was probably why he still didn't know how to make things work when the other two Marauders had returned with plenty of food; not when their lunch brake had come to an end and it was time for their afternoon classes either; or even as he went through Herbology and Charms. All he knew was that he would definitely not have an easy time solving things.

As he'd sat up in the dormitory with Remus after their little conversation, trouble had found him already then. Remus had eventually finished his work about the time James and Peter arrived, and he had gotten the idea that they "might as well tell Lily straight away, then". This, Sirius had of course had to avert.

"Bad idea; she's busy", he had said almost too quickly. "She's in the library."

Sirius – as any Black – was good at lying; he was normally very inventive and almost as good at getting out of trouble as he was causing it. He also had the poker face that would make Lucius Malfoy jealous, and could look someone straight in the eye without telling off a thing of what he was thinking or feeling. But this didn't mean he liked lying – on the contrary, he quite hated it; especially if it was Remus he was to lie to. But this wasn't necessarily a lie. Lily was bound to be busy with schoolwork – seldom was she not. And if this was the case, then it'd be fully plausible for her to be in the library at this very instant. It wasn't really a lie; more like a fair guess.

"She is?" Remus had questioned him, clearly confused as to how much Sirius seemed to know of the girl he got along best with. "And how would you know?"

"Because that's were I bumped into her, and she told me of this deal", Sirius had replied. It was in rare moments like these that he was actually a really quick thinker – and sometimes it turned out good while sometimes it did not. He usually managed to pull something through, though. Not many had the time, energy or will to question Sirius Black for long.

Remus, however, unfortunately happened to be a very logic, attentive and in addition to that a very patient person. Thus, he always picked up on things that didn't seem right, and unfortunately he often chose to point them out as well.

Right then he had raised an eyebrow at what Sirius had said. "You happened to randomly bump into her in the library?" he asked, surprised more than sceptical since he'd found that he had no reason not to trust Sirius because he couldn't see that Sirius had any reason to lie.

"Yeah, I went there because I thought you might be there", Sirius explained almost too casually. "It was right after our last morning class; we'd had different classes", he clarified calmly.

"And you went looking for me? Could've just used the map or waited around in the common room", Remus had thought, but this didn't seem to be something he questioned or minded at all, really.

"Well, obviously we were reunited again, my friend", Sirius had smiled, and then he had proceeded to swiftly trail away from the whole Evans-subject and have him temporarily forget about it.

That had merely been about half an hour after he'd gotten Remus to join him to Hogsmeade. Sirius didn't want to think about what mess he could, and probably would, find himself in at the end of the day – or, hell, in the weekend if not sooner – if he didn't take swift, preventive measures.

He sighed as he got into Potions class and professor Slughorn presented the – to him, already familiar – Polyjuice Potion along with the Felix Felicis. He could sure use some lucky potion right now, but at least this meant he wouldn't need to pay strict attention to class.

He knew he had to focus on presenting this deal to Lily first, and deal with James later. Surely, his old fellow Prongs wouldn't cause any problems, but convincing Evans to go along without her finding out about Sirius' true feelings and go blab about it to one momentarily misled Remus Lupin, would certainly be troublesome enough!

The black-haired wizard glanced at said misled werewolf, who was currently acting as great a potions partner as ever in brewing whatever potion they'd been assigned to do all by himself – even though he must think something was seriously off with him – har, har – as Sirius had acted like quite the git in not even opening his mouth to say anything to his friend. All he had done so far this afternoon – dealing with the great distraction that was proper thinking – was trying to avert Remus' attention from Lily… you know, just in case.

Yet the werewolf never said anything about him not at all participating in the brewing of the potion, and it was not like Sirius was worried about the result anyway; Remus may not be a natural in potions the way Evans seemed to be, but he could do just as good as Sirius could when following the right instructions.

What did worry the teenage animagus, however – aside from his newly gained, obvious problem – was the troubled look the lycanthrope's face, which Remus apparently thought no one even noticed. His face lit up and he smiled the tiniest of smiles when he realised he had managed the proper result with his – hrm, their – brew, and Sirius looked at it only to discover that the content of this cauldron seemed identical to the content of Slughorn's own. Polyjuice Potion, then. Good thing he at least figured that out, because it wasn't like he came any closer to a solution regarding his other… Wait a second…

For a brief moment, Sirius held his breath as he saw how this could work. He had formed innumerable good plans – real, brilliant Master Plans even; involving Snivellus, some of his own jinxes, the greatest of laughs though no punishment whatsoever – during his pranking days at Hogwarts, and he immediately recognised one – which meant that he was sad to say this wasn't a good plan of any sorts. But it was a plan nonetheless, and, for now, it was all he had to put his hopes to.

So as Remus poured a sample of their brew into a goblet he would hand in to the Potions Master, Sirius did exactly the same. Only, he had no intention of handing away his sample to anyone…

Sorry for having you guys wait so long for an update! And sorry for merely putting up such a short chapter! But at least I took the time to update (even if my folks are currently pissed at me for sitting in front of the computer instead of cleaning!) and that counts as something, right? Hopefully I'll get the time to publish another chapter soon!

So, anyone's got any ideas of what Sirius is up to? *suggestive wink*