I have not miraculously gained ownership of Harry Potter between when I wrote Chapter I and now. Let's just assume that Chapter I's disclaimer applies to this entire story unless I state otherwise.

This chapter is in italics because, as I promised previously, this is a flashback chapter. Since I can't guarantee that each even chapter will always be a flashback, I'll add the italics for added clarification. Though I seriously hope you'll be able to tell the difference between them.

As usual when something is written almost all in italics, the things that would normally be in italics if the chapter wasn't in italics aren't in italics. I'm kind of wondering if that sentence made everything more confusing after I've read it aloud, but I'm leaving it in here. I'm sure you're all plenty clever enough to figure it out.

Chapter Two: Many and Many a Year Ago

"Which one?' Sirius asked, holding two of his leather jackets up beside each other.

"They're exactly the same, Padfoot." James said, rolling his eyes

"Moony?" Sirius turned to Remus, begging for a definitive opinion.

"The one on the left." Remus said.

"You didn't even look." Sirius whined.

Remus looked up and groaned in exasperation. "Prongs is right; those jackets are identical. And I was just about to get to the good part." He looked back down at his book.

"If you know when the good part is before it even happens, you've read that book enough times to stop and give a guy some assistance." pronouncing 'assistance' as if he were speaking French.

"It's l'aide." Remus corrected him. "and I would help you if there was a single difference between them. But there isn't. Look at the tag. A sickle says that you bought two of the same thing."

Sirius checked the tags. "Oh."

James started laughing hysterically. Remus chuckled, and Sirius turned bright red.

"Stop it." He said, knowing full well they wouldn't. He threw one of the jackets on the bed and put the other one on. After Sirius checked his hair in the mirror the three of them stampeded down the stairs and into the common room.

"She sent me to spy on you." A girl who Remus had seen around but never spoken to was leaning on the banister at the foot of the stairs to the boys dorm with her arms crossed in front of her.

"Bang up job your doing, announcing your presence and all." James said, laughing until Sirius elbowed him in the side.

"She did?" Sirius asked nervously.

"For a guy with a different girl on your arm every week, your panic for a first date is kind of hilarious." she said. Remus internally laughed. He liked this girl already.

"Poe, eh?" she asked, nodding at the black leather bound book Remus was still holding.

"Yes." He confirmed, though he could tell the girl didn't need him to tell her she was right.

"Cask of Amontillado is absolutely brilliant, don't you think."

"It's pretty good."

"I bet you even have it dogeared"

"Well, it's a good story." He said, starting to wiggle his toes inside his shoes (a way of hiding discomfort from a lie, he'd learned. Not that Cask of Amontillado wasn't good or anything. It was. But she knew that it was marked in the book and that freaked him out a little)

"Can I see?"

He hesitantly handed over the book, expecting her to flip directly to the page in the book that had been dogeared since he'd first seen it. Instead, she looked on the blank page between the interior title and the copyright information.

"Got a thing for neglected colors, Matilda?" She smirked as she turned the book around, displaying the name 'MATILDA NALADI MORGAN'written quite neatly in olive green crayon.

All three of the boys stood very still.

"I didn't steal it." Remus said, breaking the silence.

"I know." She said, letting up on the stern look that she'd been faking and grinning. "I left it in the great hall last night. I'm Tillie Morgan"

"Remus Lupin." He answered as he shook her outstretched hand.

"I'm James." James piped up.

"Oh, I know who you are." She said, using two fingers to pull her black hair out of her hazel eyes. "Might I suggest that you start talking to Lily like she's an actual person? The corny lines are making her sick."

Remus could practically see the smoke coming out of James's ears as he tried to process that one.

"And you." She said, turning to Sirius. "Quite the reputation you have for yourself, Sirius Black."

"A good one?" Sirius asked hopefully.

"No." Tillie said, being blunt, but not unkind. "Hence the 'for a guy with a different girl on your arm every week' et cetera et cetera."

"Well, maybe this time it will be different." He said quickly. Remus could tell he was doing his best to get Tillie's approval. He knew the influence a girl's friends had on her dating choices.

"Oh, she's counting on it not being. Felicity isn't really one for relationships either." She saw Sirius visibly relax before continuing. "But she's still my best friend, and if you hurt her I will personally come and chop your balls off with a rusty butter knife and leave you to bleed out on the floor. Got it?"

Sirius slowly nodded. The way Tillie had said those words (and the words themselves) honestly had him scared. Even Remus and James backed up a step as if the threat might be applicable to them from association.

Tillie smiled widely, revealing white teeth. "Good. See you around" She gave a jaunty wave, hugged her book to her chest, and skipped away.

Chapter Three Coming Soon