"Where do I begin…?" I murmured.

I allowed my fingers to drop from the glass and they subconsciously found their way to the pocket of my pajama pants, where my wand had been shoved carelessly. I found comfort with my fingertips against the softness of the wand wood, and the brief moment of courage allowed me to embark on the tale.

"I don't really have a family…," I began. It wasn't far from the truth, especially since in this time period my father was only an infant. If he exists at all, I added to myself. "The accident wiped a lot of those memories away; I get bits and pieces sometimes… but…" I sighed. "I'm pretty sure my dad is a Muggle. That is, I never remember him speaking to me about any kind of magic abilities, but I guess we never really needed them."

I closed my eyes and a vision of my father's home bubbled up to the surface of my memories, and suddenly I was in his garden again. My senses were overwhelmed with the taste of fresh strawberries and the smell of the small herb plants which barely reached the sunniest part of the garden. It was the day after a small storm, and my trainers sank slightly into the wet dirt as I walked among the plants. The bells of a distant clock tower were chiming away the time; I didn't count them, but with the last chime I faded back into the present.

My eyes opened to the same cold glass of the common room window. The snow had stopped.

"I remember a little house in the outskirts of a city – and my dad and my brothers. My dad owned a bookstore – we lived above it." Even as I spoke it, the memories flitted in and out of view. It was all the truth, but the months I had spent here (I realized) had chipped away at the images in my mind. I had spent so much time in the garden it was no surprise that it was the first image to come to mind. The smell of books was next, then the roughness of old paper. But the faces and the voices were just out of reach – even my father's laugh was fleeting.

"It wasn't a bad life. We had food on the table and classes to keep up with. I remember working in the bookstore with my dad, helping him make enough to get by. My eldest brother was a soldier, called off to the Muggle wars in the East. My other two brothers were both younger than me. I remember this stupid little cloth rabbit that one of them had – he carried it around everywhere." This image brought a small smile to my face, but it didn't last very long.

"And your mother?" Sirius murmured quietly from behind me. I had almost forgotten he was there. The smile dropped from my face.

"I don't know. I don't have any memories of her." That was the truth. I had never had a mother in my life. My eldest brother remembered her, but neither him nor my father ever talked about her. The two younger boys were technically my half-brothers, products of some woman my father had taken to for a couple years before she got sick of being a housewife and moved on. He was never bitter – he said that the four of us were the best things that ever happened to him. But every now and then he'd pull this picture frame out of his wardrobe and cry for a few moments before replacing it, locking the wardrobe, and returning to whatever project he had abandoned.

"I suppose I don't have any right to understand what you're going through," I finally said, looking back at Sirius with a sad smile. "I'm pretty sure my family would have done anything for me… Anything to make me happy." I moved to sit down with him; this time it was my turn to stare into the fire. I could see why Sirius found it easier to talk while doing so – the light of the dancing flames were comforting against the storm of emotions that was suddenly raging within me.

"But you can't go back to them," he whispered.

"They may not even exist," I replied. "I honestly don't know how I got here, or what happened to them after I disappeared. It's horrible not knowing… not knowing anything. It tormented me for ages before I realized I couldn't do anything about it."

"So the holidays…"

"I spent them here alone."

The room was silent again. The fire even seemed to diminish in the open space – the room felt impossibly big and impossibly small at the same time. I felt oddly comfortable in the suffocation.

"Geez…" Sirius finally whispered, reaching a hand up to ruffle his hair. "We're a pair aren't we? Me with the miserable family I want to get rid of and you with the perfect family you can't have." At this point I looked up to meet his wry grin; we both began chuckling with half-nervous half-relieved laughter. He was right – and he was the perfect person to have opened up to. He made no comment about my memories, and didn't inquire any further into my story. If he was more curious he didn't show it – a gesture that I appreciated. I was so happy to have finally told someone, and I'm really glad that someone was Sirius.

"Well now I can't help but be friends with you," he finally said, grinning. "You know too much." His face took on a light that I hadn't seen in him since he had returned from break.

"Same goes for you too, mate." I said, lightly punching him in the arm.

We talked for little while longer, until the clock chimed one. At that point I gathered my Astronomy stuff and Sirius grabbed his mother's letter. He proceeded to crumple it up and chuck it in the fire. We walked to the back of the room where the dormitory stairs diverged. At that point he gave me a one armed hug.

"Thanks for listening," he said when he let me go. "I don't know where things are gonna go from here…" The reference to James was painfully obvious. "… but you should know that the rest of us consider you a friend. Thanks Brendi."

I smiled and nodded, knowing that this moment probably would never again come to pass. Sirius' loyalty to James was too deep to be close friends with me in public. Hopefully this silent friendship would last.

And so it continued for the next few weeks. While no one was looking we would exchange reassuring smiles and occasionally when one of us got in a mood, the other would silently pass a note with words of encouragement. No one noticed except for the all-seeing Remus, who I accidentally hit with one such note. He simply gave me a knowing look and passed it on (which both Sirius and I appreciated).

James had not made any steps to heal his relationship with the girls and me. Essentially we both refused to acknowledge the other's existence. The only thing that was keeping Lily from ripping James apart is that he had stopped objecting (at least in public) to Remus and Peter socializing with us; Sirius, of course, was his closest friend and couldn't wave in the hallway without earning a glare. Although I had gotten caught up with the first term's work by Christmas, I was still in need of a little help in charms and potions – Lily was the only one of the girls who could handle tutoring me in the two of them, and was adamant that I not return to the boys for help, but Remus pointed out that he had already tutored me in both. She reluctantly agreed that she would concede the charms tutoring, as long as there was no James-like brainwashing involved.

"You're tapping. It's more of a poke," Remus said calmly. We had been working in an empty classroom for an hour, trying to charm a flower bud to open and close on its own. At this point the flower was smoldering a little bit and performing a feeble little jig on the top of the desk. I groaned and collapsed into the closest desk chair.

"Why is this so hard, Remus?" I whined. He just laughed, putting the tip of the wand to the flower and immobilizing it in the middle of the jig. It fell gently on its side and Remus picked it up and placed it in his pocket.

"Maybe if we take a break?" He suggested, pulling another desk up to mine and taking a seat.

"Please." I crossed my arms on the desk and rested my forehead on top of them, my wand slid up one of my sleeves. "I don't know why it's so difficult…"

Remus simply chuckled and leaned his chair back on two legs, eyes closed. We sat like that for a few moments before suddenly the door exploded open and James burst into the room, screaming the end of some unintelligible rant. Remus' chair slid out from under him but he wasn't focused on that –James' glasses were askew and his hair was sticking up on end – it seemed to be… yep, smoking. There was small piece of fabric hanging off the end of his robes that was still on fire. He took a split second to glare at me before dropping his eyes to the floor.

"We need you…. Both of you." That was all he said. He brought his gaze up and met my eyes with rage before he bolted back through the door. I pushed the chair back, pulled out my wand and ran out the door after him without a backward glance. I only knew Remus had followed me because the classroom door had slammed and there was a patter of running feet behind me. I chased James up a flight of stairs, and as I stepped onto the terrace of the fifth floor there was a loud bang and a yelp that echoed from the corridor, followed by a jeering laugh.

I stepped around a statue of a lost looking wizard with his gloves on the wrong hands and just barely ducked in time for a yellow spell to fly over my head and crash into the wall behind me. I threw myself back behind the statue as Remus approached and did the same. James had already dodged his way back into the corridor to support Sirius and Gwen, who were both standing in the middle of the corridor about thirty feet away. Their wands were out and pointed at a very violent looking group of Slytherins at the far end of the hallway. Sirius' face and robes were stained from blood from a cut he had sustained over his right eye. Gwen's skin was covered in blotchy boils and one of her eyes was swollen shut. They both were still standing though, which was more than could be said for Peter and Ronnie – Peter was on his back behind Sirius and Gwen, apparently unconscious, while Ronnie was on the ground behind another statue with her knees up to her chest, obviously crying. She was bleeding too – I could see a red stain soaking into her leggings on her left leg.

The group of Slytherins were simply laughing – they all looked to be third years or above and none of them had sustained any injuries besides a smoking hole in the bottom of one of their black and green robes.

"Oh, look, more little lions have come to play!" the brown-haired one sneered. "Wanna have a go, little firsties?"

I heard Remus behind me suck in his breath. I knew he didn't want to be here – he was definitely the "read about spells" instead of the "use them on other people" type. I glanced back at him and gave him a nod of my head before I ducked back around the statue to kneel beside Peter. James had positioned himself next to Sirius with his wand out as well. Sirius glanced back to and nodded toward me as well.

"Get him out of here," he said softly, still staring down the group of Slytherins. They had started to laugh to one another again, before suddenly another spell came flying our way, aimed between Sirius and Gwen – at me. Sirius yelled Protego! but his shield wasn't strong enough – the spell technically performed it's task of protecting but it did blast Sirius off of his feet and into the wall behind us.

Ronnie squeaked from a few feet to my right, and my mind kicked back into action. I swung Peter's arm over my shoulder and (as quickly as I could manage), dragged him back to the statue where Remus was still hiding.

At seeing Sirius get hurt again, James went berserk and started throwing all kinds of spells at the Slytherin group. Unfortunately his talent didn't matter – he simply could not compare to several years of experience. All he got for his trouble was a Furnuculus curse to the face – he immediately began breaking out into boils identical to Gwen's. It would have been hilarious had the situation been less serious…

Sirius.

I glanced back at the dark haired boy, only a few feet away from me now. He was coming to, and his hand was going up to his head to check the cut. Fortunately, at that very moment a loud boom sounded from down the hall and I looked back in time to see two of the Slytherins lifted off their feet and thrown backward. A shield had been thrown up between Gwen and the Slytherins – one that had caused the last Slytherin spell to rebound onto the attackers. I looked around for the source to find Professor McGonagall swooping down on the remaining Slytherins with unmatched fury. Lily came darting around the corner behind her, obviously out of breath.

"Attacking first years!" McGonagall screeched, replacing her wand in her robes and glaring at the snakes who were still standing. "I thought you would have learned your lesson mister Wilkes! And mister Rosier!" The two boys who had been dealing out the most spells refused to meet her eye. "Headmaster's office. NOW!"

With the immediate threat removed, I rushed over to Sirius, who was still dazed. He had a large lump on the back of his head and was still bleeding from the cut over his eye. It was only Remus, Lily and I who remained unscathed, and it was the three of us who helped the rest of them to the Hospital Wing. Peter, the most obviously injured, was immediately laid on a bed for Madam Pomfrey to attend to. James and Gwen collapsed onto beds as well, while Ronnie and Sirius simply sat on the ends of theirs.

For the first time in quite a while, Lily wasn't nagging the boys over anything. She had calmly taken a potion from Madam Pomfrey and was applying it over Peter's chest, where he seemed to have been burned through his robes. The nurse had busied herself with relieving the boils on Gwen and James, while Remus was applying a different potion to Ronnie's cut. That left me to tend to Sirius, who was still sitting up on his bed. Not knowing the proper incantation, I collected a rag and a bowl of water from Madam Pomfrey's supplies and proceeded to begin cleaning the blood off of Sirius' face. His cut wasn't deep, but it was fairly large and in the excitement of the duel had elicited quite a lot of blood. He cringed a couple times as the rag neared the injury, but by time his face was clean it had stopped bleeding and he was gaining color back in his cheeks. Noting that Madam Pomfrey had her priorities set on the people with more dire injuries, I decided it was time to question Sirius.

When I finally broke the silence with my questions, Sirius simply smiled, albeit painfully. It took him a while before he answered.

"Slytherin's are evil little pricks," he said with a snort. "We didn't do anything to provoke it, or at least anything that a normal person would respond to with this." He gestured about the room.

"We had just come in from sitting out at the lake. We were going up to the Common Room when we ran into the girls. They were ignoring us, so we decided to follow them around and bother them until they acknowledged us, but Peter accidentally tripped over his own feet and bumped against one of the Slytherins. Rosier, I think. There was no harm in it, but they thought that we needed to learn a lesson in respecting our betters." He said the last bit with a sneer.

"So they shot something at Peter before we could react. I hadn't even had a chance to pull out my wand before James was cursing them back." He went silent for a moment. Then, "All of a sudden there were spells everywhere. Peter was down for the count and Lily ran off immediately to find a teacher. When I got cut and Ronnie went down, James ducked out to find you two in case we were done for. You know the rest."

I stood in shock for a moment. "James?" I whispered. "He stood up for Peter?"

"Merlin, Brendi," Sirius spat at me, his mood changing in a second. "You can't believe that he would stand up for one of his friends?"

"That's not what I mea-"

"Sure it is! You can't believe that he would do anything unless it was for himself, but I'll have you know that was angrier than I've ever seen him."

"Sirius." I said, looking him straight in the eye. I kept my tone low enough that the sound wouldn't carry across the room to where James was lying. "The only thing I know is that every time I've seen Peter get hurt before now, it's because James let him take the fall for something that you two pulled. I'm not saying he's a bad person, I'm saying that I'm simply surprised he cares about Peter as more than just a scapegoat! And don't even get me started on how he treats all of us!"

Sirius glared down at the ground before allowing his face to soften.

"I know it's been rough, and I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean to attack you, it's just… He's my best friend, and you're a… friend. And it really sucks not being able to talk to both of you without making the other one mad. I know he can be cruel, but he's trying. Honestly I'm surprised he stood up for Peter too." His face hardened again. "But more than that I'm pissed off that those Slytherin pricks think it's alright for them to just walk up and hex one of us because it's fun. They will pay for what they did."

At that moment, Madam Pomfrey bustled me out of the way so she could tend to Sirius' injuries. I spent the rest of the afternoon switching between Peter and Gwen's bedsides, waiting for them to be well enough to leave. Sirius and James left by mid-afternoon, and I saw a glint in their eye that I knew would soon become familiar – the Slytherins would rue the day they offended James Potter and Sirius Black.