"Moony," James approached Remus the next day with guilty looking Sirius and Peter. A tired-looking Remus turned around to face them and stopped on his way to the portrait hole in the common room. There was an intake of breath from all three as Remus revealed a large cut on his face, going from one side of his face to the other. It was accompanied by several smaller scrapes, and the three were sure that if Remus were to roll up his sleeves there would be several bite-marks.

"You wanted to say something?" he interrupted the shocked silence.

"Look, Remus, we're really so-" Sirius was interrupted as Remus put a hand up.

"No need," he said wearily. "I should have known better when I saw you two making a scene in front of Snape." With one last drained look, he turned back around, tediously carrying his books, and left the common room without his three friends.

"See what you did?" James glared at Sirius.

"Stop trying to make me feel guilty!" Sirius shouted. "Remus made sure that happened already!" Now Sirius took his turn in leaving the group behind, only instead of leaving quietly, he made certain to stalk off and slam the door shut behind him.

With a defeated sigh, James opened the door and followed Sirius, though never catching up until they reached their first class, with Peter following closely behind.

In Potions Remus said nothing to anyone, doing his best to ignore Snape's glaring. Sirius was grinding moonstone like there was no tomorrow, missing the bowl every other time. His teeth were gritted and he made certain not to look up even to listen to Professor Slughorn give instructions.

"Padfoot," James whispered, nudging Sirius, who simply flicked his head so that his long, shaggy hair fell over his eyes. "I was just going to ask whether or not you knew we had Quidditch practice Saturday," James frowned.

"Can't go," Sirius didn't look up; he seemed incredibly interested in adding drops of syrup of hellebore to his Draught of Peace. Unfortunately, he must have been less interested than he seemed, for he was soon pouring half of the bottle into his cauldron.

"Why not?" James demanded, abandoning his potion.

"Five minutes to go!" Slughorn announced. Sirius quickly began stirring it, first three times clockwise, the opposite of the directions.

"We've got detention, remember?" Sirius straightened up as Slughorn passed his table. "Thanks to me?"

"Now, now, Black," Slughorn tutted as he glanced at Sirius' potion, which, instead of being silver, as the directions stated, was an alarming blood-red. "You'll need to pay more attention to the lesson if you want to pass my class, you know." Sirius looked at Snape just in time to see the Slytherin sneer. Sirius glared back; if looks could kill, Snape would be dead.

"Fantastic!" James couldn't' help but raise his voice angrily. "How do expect us to win against Slytherin with a Seeker and Beater unprepared?"

"Do you expect I wanted to miss practice?" Sirius stood as the bell rang. Peter nervously stood and followed his friends out the door, staying close to Remus, who was still silent.

"I at least expected you knew that trying to get someone killed would land us in detention at the least!" James said, turning a few heads.

"It doesn't matter anyway," Remus spoke for the first time since morning. All three other boys' heads snapped around. "The game was cancelled."

"What?" Peter asked, looking stricken. "Why's that?"

Remus shrugged. "Slytherin's backed out for some reason." Sirius' usual grin returned.

"Well, that changes things," he said happily, looking at James.

"Doesn't mean the practice was cancelled," James huffed. "And we still have detentions for a week."

"Yeah, well, I'll bet we won't be locked in there too long," Sirius shrugged. "Flitwick'll give us a break."

"Easy for you to say," James groaned. "I've got mine with McGonagall. Sirius winced dramatically.

"Don't suppose you'd get away with the two-way-mirror?"

"Not a chance. McGonagall never takes her eyes off her victims."

"Think she'll keep you more than an hour?"

"Most likely."

Peter walked awkwardly beside Remus in silence, feeling left out.

"Mine's not until after you both have finished," he interrupted. James and Sirius jumped, obviously just remembering that they weren't the only ones in castle.

"McGonagall?" James asked him. Peter shook his head and said "Flitwick."

"It's just not fair!" James burst. "I go and save Snivellus' life, and I'm the one stuck with McGonagall!"

"Dumbledore doesn't look at it that way," Remus said suddenly. "He just sees whose available and dished the detentions out at random."

"You can speak!" Sirius cheered, clapping Remus on the back, whose lip twitched, but refused to smile.

As the four queued outside of Charms, a good handful of students shamelessly stared at Remus' marked face.

"Oi!" Sirius bellowed. "What're you starin' at!" The staring students immediately turned their gaze to the door.

"Shhh.," Remus muttered nervously. "You're only making it worse."

The doors then opened, and the students all looked down in front of them to see Professor Flitwick standing in the doorway. As Sirius passed him, the short little man smiled and said "I'll see you later today, Mr. Black."

At last I've come to a point where I don't really think I can continue without suggestions. Please, I'm on my knees, if you have ANY ideas please please please send them to me! I'll ♥ you forever and ever amen!