After a good few weeks of Alexandria Potter feeding and looking after him, Sirius was looking both much happier and much healthier. He and James had spent a good amount of their summer playing Quidditch in the garden and exploring the local area, and to the both of them it seemed like their friendship was now forever. The two boys had met up with Remus and Peter in Diagon Alley to get their school things, and whilst Remus still seemed a little odd and edgy around Sirius, the four seemed to get on better than ever.
Soon, though, it was time to board the Hogwarts Express for the second time. Sirius, of course, couldn't be happier for he now had another year away from his parents. He had momentarily forgotten that his younger brother Regulus would be starting Hogwarts this year.
"Crap..." he muttered, as the Potters and himself approached the barrier between platforms 9 and 10, having just noticed his family disappear to 9 ¾. He swallowed before he and James were ushered through by Alex and Charles. Luckily, on appearing the other side, the Black family were nowhere to be seen. The two boys loaded their trunks onto the train before returning to say goodbye to James' parents.
"Thanks, Mr Potter, Mrs Potter...it's been a good summer" Sirius nodded slightly, his anxiety present in the way he stood and spoke.
"It's been our pleasure, son" Charles replied, his wife's warm smile echoing his words. "Anytime."
Mrs Potter took one last chance to attempt the flattening of her Son's hair before-
"Sirius Orion Black!" A shrill voice made its way through the smoke now billowing from the train as it prepared for departure. Sirius paled and James shoved him forwards onto the train, hopping on after him. After finding Remus sat alone in a compartment and so joining him, James waved goodbye to his parents whilst the train left the platform. Walburga Black stood as a statue, glaring at the other dark-haired boy beside him.
"Good Summer?" James grinned at Remus as he sat back in his seat. "I did. It was amazing. I went to save Sirius from his awful tyrannical Mother, on my broom! Only I couldn't his house to begin with, so I thought i'd do a bit of swooping and looping to pass time, turns out I was right outside it the whole time! And then I snuck in, like a mouse, and...well, then his dad found me, but he's-"
"Great, James. My summer was great." Remus interrupted his friend's story. "Have either of you two seen Peter?"
"S-s-sorry, guys, I was late, and then I ended up all the way down the end of the platform and well, it was just a disaster, but what did I miss?" A rather flushed looking Peter Pettigrew made his entrance into the compartment, hurriedly making his excuses.
"Only James' glorious rendition of how he abducted me." Sirius said dryly¸ resuming his usual bored personality.
"What did you get up to this summer, Pete?" Remus asked.
"Oh, nothing really. Went on holiday to Cornwall. Pretty bleak." The boy shrugged, the words sounding abnormal to him as he attempted to imitate his friends' indifferent attitudes.
Sirius' clear disinterest in anything Peter had to say was obvious in how he almost cut Peter off when he jumped from his seat, pulling open the compartment door and yelling down the corridor "Oi, Snivellus! Come back here and clean up this greasy slime you're leaving behind!" Back in the corridor, James had started laughing before getting up to join his friend at the door. "Yeah, someone's going to get a serious injury from this...Oh!" James exclaimed in mock suprise as Severus made his way back towards the two boys. "I think..." he put a hand to his chin thoughtfully, looking at Sirius, who completed the sentence, "It's going to be you."
"Depulso!" They shouted together, pointing their wands at the boy's chest, sending him crashing into the wall at the other end of the carriage with a bang, followed by a rather sickening crack. Sirius and James quickly threw themselves back inside the compartment as one of the Ravenclaw Prefects headed down the corridor to sort out the commotion, the former starting a rather excellent impression of the look on 'Snivellus' face as he flew to the end of the train.
"Hurt Snivellus, check, detention...not yet, but for fun, check..." Remus said with half a smile on his face.
James snorted. "We know you'd join in, Lupin, if you didn't want to damage your chances of being prefect in a few years..."
The train soon pulled into Hogsmeade station, and the students headed towards where the carriages waited, aside from the first years, who travelled by boat.
"Mr Black and Mr Potter, if you could remain behind, please." A hand reached out to stop them joining Remus and Peter in a carriage. The boys looked up to find themselves face to face with their head of house, Minerva McGonagall. "Not off to a good start, are we?" She asked them.
"I thought so." Sirius said, with an air of pride in his voice. "Obviously, I was wrong" he rushed, seeing the look on McGonagall's face.
"Well boys, i'm not going to give you detention." She said, and Sirius and James exchanged looks of almost delight. "But you are going to help the house-elves take "I thought so." Sirius said, with an air of pride in his voice. "Obviously, I was wrong" he rushed, seeing the look on McGonagall's face.
"Well boys, i'm not going to give you detention." She said, and Sirius and James exchanged looks of almost delight. "But you are going to take your own trunks to your dormitories. And those of Mr Lupin and Mr Pettigrew. Without magic."
"Could've been worse." James muttered to Sirius as the two boys lugged the four trunks up several flights of moving stairs.
"She'll probably write to our parents though." Sirius said, looking rather glum.
"Well, i'll be alright. They've got a year to cry me a river and get over it." James said, making his friend grin, which slowly slid off his face as he thought of his own.
"Yeah well, my parents will probably use my blood to create a river, all down the stairs of Grimmauld Place. Flitterbloom." The portrait to Gryffindor Tower swung forward to let them in, and they continued on their way to the boy's dormitory.
"Did anything nice happen in the few weeks you spent with your family?" James said, trying to get his friend's mind off his possible consequences.
"Well, my cousin Dromeda is having a kid." Sirius shrugged.
"The one that married a muggle-born?"
"Yeah, that's her. Mum blasted her off our family tree. I guess creating a half-blood was the last straw for dear old Mrs Black." Sirius finished his sentence on a slightly bitter note, slamming Peter's trunk to the ground by the boy's bed, then kicking his own across the room to his bed.
"Dinner?"
"Dinner."