AN: Hi guys! I realized that I haven't actually written an authors note at all for this yet, so I thought I would! I don't own Harry Potter, blah blah blah, all that stuff. Thanks for reading this story! And thanks those of you who reviewed! Sorry I didn't upload a chapter before now, but I have one up now! I'll try to get another one up Wednesday or Thursday, and I'll continue trying to get one up every other day or so. Thanks for reading! I hope you like it!
Chapter 3
In the early morning of September second, Sirius was already awake. He had never been one for sleeping in, and so by six he was already up, even if he had gone to sleep rather late. He may be tired later, but for now there wasn't much he could do about it. He was up, and that was that. Shortly after he had started digging through James' trunk for more dungbombs, a large owl shrieked through the window.
Sirius shrieked, and banged his head on the lid of the trunk, then cursed loudly. Remus jumped out of bed, eyes nervously darting everywhere, holding his wand in one hand looking for the source of the noise. James woke up lifting an eyebrow in confusion, behaving more calmly than everyone else, much like he was used to waking up to loud noises. Peter heard the noise, and promplty rolled out of bed, adding his own howls to the owl's when he hit the floor.
When Sirius had finished helping Peter off of the floor and reassuring Remus that they weren't being attacked, he turned around to see whose owl it was, and promptly swore again.
"Sirius!" Remus said, looking appalled that he would know such words and use them, which just caused James to burst out laughing. Peter looked a little shocked as well.
"Remus!" Sirius responded, in a tone of mock surprise. "Relax, it's acceptable right now. It's a letter! From my mum!"
"That's not a letter! That's a howler! Why would she send you a howler?" James asked curiously.
"A howler?" Peter contributed. "Open it quick then! Before it gets even worse!"
"Right! Right! I'm getting it!" Sirius yelled, leaping over a James' trunk and his bed to reach the owl. "I'm getting it!"
And with a large bang, the letter opened, revealing the shrieking voice of Walburga Black.
"SIRIUS BLACK! HOW DISGRACEFUL! YOUR WHOLE LIFE, JUST TRYING TO PUSH LIMITS. YOU NEVER COULD DO ANYTHING RGHT ANYWAYS. BUT NOW YOU CAN'T EVEN GET SORTED INTO SYTHERIN? HOW PATHETIC! YOU'RE A DISGRACE TO THE WHOLE FAMILY, AND THE LESTRANGES ARE CONSIDERING BACKING OUT ON BELLATRIX BECAUSE OF YOUR DISGRACE. YOU HAVE CAUSED AND CONTINUE TO CAUSE SHAME ON THE WHOLE FAMILY. DON'T EXPECT TO COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, AND I FORBID YOU FROM OWLING REGULUS. I WON'T HAVE YOU CORRUPTING HIM AS WELL. YOUR COUSINS WILL BE WATCHING TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU DON'T BECOME TOO FRIENDLY WITH ANY OF THE BLOOD TRAITORS, AND I FORBID YOU FROM TALKING TO ANY MUDBLOODS. IT'S EXPECTED THAT YOU WILL GO TO THE HEADMASTER TO TRY AND CORRECT THIS MISTAKE. YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN A HOUSE-ELF WITH THE THINGS YOU GET INTO. TRY NOT TO BE SUCH A DISGRACE!"
The letter then burst into spectacular flames, catching the the blanket on Sirius' bed on fire. Sirius lept about, shrieking unintelligibly, James laughing in a manner of mild amusement mingled with a look of disgust. Peter started yelling as well as the blanket continued to burn, and Remus was looking as though he was in great pain.
Sirius looked over at Remus and shouted "Do something about it!" Remus calmly nodded, and a great look of concentration appeared on his face. Suddenly, the flames were out.
"Why me?" Remus asked, after Peter had stopped yelling and Sirius had thrown the owl out of the window.
"You put the flames out, didn't you?" Sirius said, at the same time James asked "Was that wandless magic?"
"I suppose I did, and yes, it was. But why would you assume that I could put it out in the first place?" Remus replied, as he walked over to the clock to find the time.
"You just seem like that kind of person. You can control wandless magic?" Sirius replied.
"I'm not really supposed to do it...but I guess so. Why is your mum so upset about Gryffindor?" Remus said, clearly uncomfortable with this turn of topics, and trying to change the topic.
Sirius, however, was not willing to let the topic go. "Why aren't you supposed to?"
"Just let it go, Sirius." Remus replied.
"Why?"
"Why not?"
"Why shouldn't you?"
"Why don't you just let it go?"
"Make me!"
"What, are we three now?"
"I know you are, but what am I?"
"Just let it go Sirius! If Remus doesn't want to talk about it it's fine. I noticed you don't want to talk about your family, and he's not prying about that. So why not let it go?" James burst in, eager to end the argument.
"Thank you James. We'll need to be down to breakfast soon, so we should get dressed." Remus responded, turning to his trunk to pull out a robe.
James walked over to his trunk, then, noticing that it was already opened, frowned. "Hey, where are my dungbombs?"
Sirius smiled, but didn't say anything, instead just tucked them into his school bag to save for later.
~Cesser~
As the four Gryffindor boys walked down to eat, Peter noticed a few new things about his roommates. James and Sirius walked confidently, although they both looked as though they were looking out for someone. Remus walked with his shoulders hunched, arms crossed in front of himself protectively, a tentative stance to his walk. He also tended to fuss with his robe and the few tears in the sleeves. Peter supposed that they were second-hand and he was ashamed of it. Sirius also fussed with his robes, touching the Gryffindor crest every so often, his face lighting up with a ghost smile every time he did. James smiled at every person he saw, and talking animatedly to his friends. Sirius also talked quite happily, but a worried expression would pass over his face every so often. Remus constantly had the worried expression.
As they walked into the Great Hall, they were immediately assaulted by the scents of a wonderful breakfast. Peter happily filled his plate with everything in sight, Sirius and James did the same. But Remus, he noticed, only took a few slices of toast. But then Professor McGonagall came by with the schedules, and he took no more notice of the other's food.
"So we have charms first? That should be interesting." Remus said.
"Boooring!" James replied. "I want to go flying first!"
"Charms might be interesting. We could learn to charm the Slytherins hair red!" Sirius said, flashing Remus a smile at his disapproving look.
Remus just groaned and put his head down on the table, as Sirius grabbed Peter's schedule. After he grabbing at it for a few minutes he gave up, and just went back to eating.
Peter's mind wandered during the meal, and he didn't pay much attention to the conversation. He wondered what Sirius was planning to do with the dungbombs, but he supposed he wouldn't be let in on the plans since he wasn't supposed to know that Sirius had them. Maybe they would play a trick on one of the teachers again. That would be fun, Peter decided. For as long as Peter had known James, he had known James to be constantly playing pranks, and Sirius seemed to enjoy doing that as well. Being friends with them would obviously bring them plenty of mischief, and assumedly many detentions. But it was nice having friends. Peter hoped that it wasn't just an illusion that would disappear, he had long suspected that he would never have friends. Perhaps he was a bit paranoid...
"What else do we have today?" Peter asked during a lull in the conversation, finally having
"Transfiguration and potions. With the Slytherins! Remus, do you think that we could learn how to dye hair by potions?"
"No. At least, I severely hope not. I don't think that you have the attention span needed." Remus' tone was firm and absolute in his words.
"Let's prove him wrong!" James said, turning to Sirius, who grinned maniacally. But then Sirius caught sight of something and flinched, immediately ducking under the table. Peter looked around to see what it was, but the only thing he could see was two older girls making their way to the table. But upon further inspection, Peter realized that they were both from Slytherin, and bore a resemblance to Sirius. Did he have older sisters?
"Sirius." The blonde one said, fixing Sirius with a hard stare.
"Ah, Cissy! What a delight seeing you here! So glad we could run into each other!" Sirius replied, then immediately turned to the other girl saying, "Drommie! What an unexpected pleasure! So terribly sorry, but I must rush! Class to get to, people to see. You know the drill! So sorry, but bye!" On the last sentence Sirius stood up, and hastily grabbed James' and Peter's robes, giving Remus a frantic look that urged him to follow.
"Who were they?" Peter asked once they were in the hall.
"My cousins." Sirius replied, a scowl on his face. "Nasty girl, Cissy is. Andy is ok though, one of the only decent people in my family."
"Oh. Ok." Peter replied, deciding not to question Sirius any more, just in case his scowl became aimed at Peter. He did scowl very well.
Remus was looking at Sirius with a slight frown to his face, but appeared to have decided to let whatever it was go, and instead dug out his schedule.
"We have charms in... thirty minutes. So where do you suppose the room is?" Remus asked.
"We could try asking some older kids..." James said,
"But where would be the fun in that?" Sirius finished for him, echoing James' mischievous smile.
"Where would it be indeed?" Remus said, shaking his head in a defeated manner.
~Cese~
The four boys managed to find their way into the charms classroom, only ten minutes late. Remus gave a frown at being late already to the first class, and hoped that it wouldn't become a habit. James and Sirius seemed eager to make it one though...
"Oh! Hello boys!" A short adult called from the front of the room. Remus thought it would be most logical that he was the teacher, which would make him Professor Flitwick.
"Now, you would be our missing Gryffindor boys then, I suppose?" The professor continued. "Alright. Please take a desk. Now, I won't assign detention or take points from being late, but please do try not to make it a common occurrence. We won't be doing any magic today, we're just taking notes today. So there is no need for wands."
Remus took a desk next to Peter, at the back of the room, and diligently copied down notes for the rest of the lesson. James and Sirius whispered quietly to each other every so often, passing notes and often hitting other students with pieces of paper. But the minute any one would turn around to see who was doing it, the pair would write notes on the paper and look at the professor with an expression that almost fooled Remus, they looked so earnest in their studies. Remus suppressed a smile, but wondered idly if he should say something to them afterwards..
After the lesson, Remus tried to build up courage to yell at the pair for talking all during the lesson, but found that he couldn't bring himself to admonish anyone who would consider him a friend. So he walked in silence to Transfiguration, and wondered how he was a Gryffindor if he couldn't even yell at his friends.
They at least managed to get to Transfiguration on time, largely due to the fact that they followed the other first years there. They all sat in the back of the room, Remus taking the desk beside Peter again. Remus hoped that James and Sirius wouldn't talk during this lesson, Transfiguration would likely be a hard subject, and the professor didn't look like she would take kindly to their antics.
"Welcome class." Professor McGonagall started. "I am your Transfiguration teacher, as well as the head of Gryffindor house. Any problems or complaints you may have, you can see me about, and I will try to handle them." Here her eyes landed on Remus for a minute, but she continued her lecture. "You will all need to pay very close attention to succeed in this class. Transfiguration is a difficult subject, the most complex of all taught at Hogwarts. Only those who can work diligently will be able to transfigure objects correctly, and top marks will be awarded to those who will work hard at this subject. I do not appreciate any talking during class, and detentions will be handed out accordingly. For today's lesson we will be learning to transfigure matches into needles."
By the end of the lesson, Remus hated needles. And matches. He had managed to make progress on transfiguring it, but he was still very sick of seeing them and trying. James had managed to transfigure his quite easily, and Remus supposed that it was just something that James was naturally good at. Sirius had made about the same progress as Remus, and Remus thought that perhaps he would have made more progress had he not started poking the girl in front of him with James' needle. As it was, Sirius had gotten his first detention for annoying the girl, and when James protested that it was his needle and therefore should be punished also, he was given a detention with Sirius for Friday night. James and Sirius seemed quite proud of already getting one detention in the first day of classes, Remus was not as amused. Peter had had an awful time of transfiguring it, and still couldn't manage to understand even the basics of the lesson. Remus had promised to review it over with Peter later though, which the boy had positively beamed at hearing. He appeared to be as anxious to have friends as Remus was.
The boys had lunch after Transfiguration, and were pleasantly surprised to find that their lunch was every bit as grand as the feast the night before and breakfast that morning had been. Remus only took a bit of soup though, upset that his stomach was feeling queasy when such a nice meal was set out.
"Do you suppose that we'll get big meals like this every day?" Peter asked Remus.
"I suppose so. Hogwarts only has a few feasts each year though, last night was one of those feasts." Remus replied.
"Really? How do you know all of this stuff? You always have some interesting fact to go with the conversation."
"I read a lot, you pick up on a lot of stuff that way." Remus said, blushing a bit since he hadn't exactly wanted to reveal that reading was all he did at home. He'd rather that the other boys didn't think him some book-snob or something before they had even been at school for a week. But he was also a bit pleased that Peter had noticed a trait about him, he was glad that he hadn't completely faded into the wall as he was prone to doing.
"You have a tendency to notice stuff about people, don't you Peter?" Remus asked, remembering all of the obscure tidbits of information about those around them Peter had contributed to many discussions already.
Peter grinned, it was obvious that he was pleased with Remus noticing facts about him as well. "Yeah, I kind-of do. My mum always says it's good to notice the little details, that way I won't seem as dumb as she says I am."
"I don't think that you're very dumb, Peter. And being able to notice the little facts will help you more than seeing the big picture sometimes."
"Maybe." But it was clear that Peter wasn't convinced. But Remus didn't know what to say to convince him that the big picture wasn't always the main goal, so he just let it go, and instead checked the time, thinking about how needles looked just like the hands on his watch. Idly he wondered if he could transfigure the hands on his watch someday, but decided that trying to get his friends to potions on time may be a task that required more of his attention.
~Cesso~
Walking into the potions room for the first time was a shock for James. The teacher at the front of the room was a large man, cheerfully chatting to the pretty red-head, Evans. Giving Sirius a grin that suggested trouble, they sat in the back of the room. They had gotten away with talking during every other class during the day, and even though Sirius was from such a notoriously dark family, he didn't seem to act that way. He seemed to treat his family's traditions more like a laughing matter than anything else, and had confided into James that he had already kissed every girl in their first year Slytherin class, all before he was eight. James had laughed and teased him mercilessly about this, but secretly was a bit jealous. He had yet to kiss a girl, but he figured that since he had just barely turned into the double-digits he had some time to go.
"Hello class!" The professor greeted them. "I am Professor Slughorn, and I will be your potions teacher. Potions is a required subject until after your O.W.L.S., but if you don't do well enough on those, you won't be permitted to continue to your N.E.W.T.S. We will be brewing a potion today, so you can get out a cauldron and a few of these ingredients" a wave of his wand, and a list of ingredients appeared on the blackboard "from the storage cupboard while I call roll."
"Black" He started. "Sirius Black?"
"Here!" Sirius replied.
"Now, what are you doing in Gryffindor? I was sure that I would have been able to get you in my own house! You would be great in Slytherin I'm sure. Sad that the Gryffindors managed to snag you before I could...but you have a younger brother, yes?"
"Yeah. You'll probably get him."
"Good, good... Evans? Lily Evans?"
"Present, sir." Evans replied, and James found himself momentarily distracted as he watched her talk to the professor. When she talked, it wasn't just her lips moving. Her hands motioned, she moved from foot to foot. Watching her talk was almost like watching a person dance, he could have watched her talk forever and never heard a word. But girls...they were supposed to have cooties. Right?
"Potter? James Potter? Potter?" James winced as Sirius elbowed him, hard. Apparently his name had been being called for a while now.
"Right! Here!"
"Glad to hear that." Slughorn replied. "Your father is Charlus, correct?"
"Yes sir. You were his teacher too, right?"
"Yes I was! He never had a knack for potions though, but he has a job with the ministry now, correct?"
"Yes, he does."
"Good...good. I always thought that he would go far."
Slughorn continued to call roll, stopping every few names or so to comment on relatives of the family, or positions that the family held.
"I've heard that he collects students." James whispered to Sirius, bored with hearing about everyone's families.
"Collects them?" Sirius whispered back, ignoring Remus' disapproving look.
"Yeah. He goes about inviting the really talented or famous kids to parties, or to meet his friends and stuff like that I've heard. You know what I'm thinking?"
"It'd be brilliant to be collected by a professor? We could do no wrong in his eyes!"
"Let's work on it then. He already seems to like our families, so I think we're off to a good start. Think of all the rules we can break! You any good at potions?"
"I have a good memory, so I suppose so. You better be good if we'll be partners."
"Of course I am! What would make you think otherwise?"
"Shhh" a loud hiss came from James' right, and he stopped talking to discover what it was. It was Remus, hushing the pair now that Slughorn had evidently finished taking roll.
"Thanks" James mouthed back to Remus, who just rolled his eyes in response.
Brewing the potions was fairly easy for the rest of the day, and almost everyone was having success with it, until Sirius got bored. James was the first to notice, since they were partners, and he noticed as Sirius started fidgeting in his chair, playing with his quill, and cutting the ingredients into different shapes.
James nudged Sirius, trying to get him to pay attention to the potion again so that they could worm their way into being Sluggy's favorites, but he wasn't having much success. He started throwing ingredients at Sirius' head then, and he gave James a frown, apparently unhappy to have strange roots and other things in his hair.
"Come on Sirius, just pay attention for...twenty more minutes. Please?"
"I have a much better idea." Sirius said with a grin that would have worried anyone that wasn't James. It was a grin that clearly spelled misbehaving, a bit of danger, and plenty of excitement. James, obviously, was then interested in this plan.
"Oh? What is it?"
"Well...it involves your dungbombs, and the girls' cauldrons."
~Cessare~
By dinner of the first night, all of the boys were tired, but satisfied with how the first day had gone. Collectively, they so far had amassed 48 inches worth of charms essay to write, three matches still in need of being turned into needles, one needle, two detentions, and had used a dozen dungbombs. Three potions had been exploded, but miraculously, James and Sirius hadn't been caught. Remus advised them to switch away from dungbombs though, in case someone managed to remember that every time one exploded, they were in attendance. James had acknowledged the wisdom in this, Sirius had scoffed at that idea, and Peter had suggested that Remus would know some good spells for pranking. Remus turned bright red at this point, and refused to say any more on the matter. Sirius and James badgered him about it for the remainder of the night, until they all fell asleep. Sirius fell asleep with more ease than the night before, but Remus still stayed up for several hours, worrying about being discovered. But finally, all was quiet in the dorm, until the following morning. The morning, when a shriek, reminiscent of the shriek heard from the owl the day before, shattered the temporary peace in the dorm.