A/N: Thanks to Guinness for the lovely review. It really made my day. I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. This is where the boys' friendship starts to develop . Enjoy (and if you feel like leaving a tiny comment behind...you know how to. Love you for it)!


Chapter 6 - Hating Green

Remus still felt very tired when he followed James and Peter down to breakfast the next morning. He was so tired that he almost forgot to feel excited and nervous about his first day of school. He yearned for a nice cup of hot chocolate. The Great Hall was already packed with students when they entered and they found it hard to get good seats at the Gryffindor table. James struggled to get a place next to his friend Quigley and Peter and Remus struggled to keep up with him.

Professor McGonagall had started handing out time-tables to her students when suddenly a piercing shriek from above made Remus jump. He looked up in alarm to see a flock of owls swoop down from the enchanted ceiling – which showed a brilliant blue sky blotched with soft cumulus clouds. One of them, a large eagle-owl, landed on James's shoulder and dropped a large box with an attached letter on his lap. He stroked its head with his index-finger and let it nibble the end of his sausage before it took off again. Another owl delivered a book to Peter that looked very much like their Charms-schoolbook and judging by Peter's guilty expression he'd obviously forgotten to pack it.

Remus made a mental note to send his mother a letter after lessons, telling her all about his first day when he spotted a beautiful brown-feathered owl which circled above the Gryffindor table, emitting softly cries of distress. It was obviously looking for the recipient of its delivery – a silvery envelope, clutched tightly in its left claw. It noticed Remus staring at it and suddenly swooped down on him, dropping its letter on his toast and soaring off again as fast as its wings could carry it.

Remus picked up the letter and stared at it in bewilderment. It was addressed to Sirius Black. That was when he noticed that Sirius wasn't there. "Hey, have any of you seen Sirius today?" he asked James and Peter, the latter shaking his head vigorously.

"Nope. His bed was already empty when I got up and I didn't see him in the common room either. I thought he'd already gone for breakfast" James said, taking the time-table Professor McGonagall thrust at him.

"Well, I forgot my bag in the dormitory anyway. I'll see if I can find him" Remus said, who hadn't forgotten his bag at all.

He finished his breakfast and got up when suddenly someone bumped into him from behind and almost knocked him, face forward, into Peter's bowl of cereals.

"Oops, sorry! This time it was my fault" an embarrassed Lily Evans squealed, reaching out her hand to help him up.


Remus found Sirius on the floor of the empty common room ten minutes later. Apart from his pyjama shorts and his socks he was practically naked. He had his wand clutched in his right hand and waved it feverishly at something black in his left, muttering under his breath. Remus approached him hesitantly but he didn't even look up.

"Sirius, our first lesson is about to start. Maybe you should get dressed" he said cautiously and precisely at that moment the school bells rang.

"I'm sick today" Sirius said with a chocked voice and Remus realised with a sudden shock that he must be crying.

He got down on his knees and moved a little closer to see what Sirius was doing.

"I hate her!" he suddenly screamed, startling Remus badly. "Look at this!"

He thrust his dark school uniform at Remus, the green sleeves catching the bright light that streamed in from the window next to them. "I have nothing to wear!"

"Oh" Remus said, guessing what the furious wand-waving must have meant. "So you've tried to change your robes to black?"

"Not black, you idiot! I've tried to change them from Slytherin to Gryffindor!"

Remus just stared, not understanding what he meant. Sirius rolled his eyes and pointed at Remus's chest. "Look" he grumbled.

And that was the first time Remus realised that his boring plain first-year robes had changed completely. The sleeves and lining were no longer black but scarlet and even the coat of arms on his left side had changed from a capital H to a golden G which was embraced by a prancing golden lion.

"Oh" he said again. "When did that happen?"

"Right after sorting. Didn't you notice?"

"No, I haven't. But haven't yours changed then?"

"Obviously not, since I already had my damn Slytherin-robes. The coloured one's you get to buy are actually only for older students who've outgrown their clothes. It wouldn't make sense to put the enchantment on them, would it?"

"Didn't you know that? I almost wanted to buy one of the coloured robes myself because the black ones looked dead boring. But since it said plain black robes on the list people wouldn't let me."

"Lucky you!" Sirius scoffed. "My mother ordered our house-elf to get exactly those robes for me. I wasn't even asked. I have been expected to get sorted into Slytherin anyway, so why bother." His voice was very bitter and angry tears were visible in the corner of his eyes. He turned his head to hide them from view.

Remus felt a wave of pity and he thought hard what he could do to make Sirius feel better as suddenly little Anu turned up from behind an armchair, trotted over to where Sirius's school-robes lay strewn on the floor, lifted her leg and peed on them. After she had finished, she sat down, looked at her master – tongue lolling out – and wagged her tail.

Sirius just stared at her for a moment, then said with a crooked smile "That's the spirit, Anu."

"I thought you said Anu was a girl?" Remus said confusedly.

"So I did."

"But she just lifted her leg! Female dogs aren't supposed to do that. I know that because-"

"-you've read a lot of books about dogs" Sirius said automatically. "Yeah, I know. But Anu is a little different, as we've already ascertained last night."

The Fat Lady swung open at that moment and James came wriggling through the portrait hole. He strode over to where Sirius and Remus were sitting on the floor and dropped a heavy book, bound in pink, glittering leather, onto Sirius's lap. Sirius looked at it as though it was something slimy and foul smelling and cocked an eyebrow. Remus caught a glimpse of the title which read Every Girl Loves Fashion – A Beginner's Guide by Jacqueline du Poulin

"Do you have something to tell us, mate? Have they placed you in the wrong dormitory?" Sirius asked James concernedly, his head cocked to one side, eyebrow still raised.

James gave him a smack on the head. "Actually, I got that for you" he said in a dignified voice.

"In case you didn't notice, I'm a guy!" Sirius said indignantly, pointing at his naked chest.

"James, why are you not in class?" Remus disrupted the pointless half-argument.

"Can't see you there either, Remus m' boy" James said cheerfully, clapping him on the back. "If you must know, on my way to Transfiguration I happened to walk past the library and that book over there" he pointed at the glittering pink volume Sirius was just opening gingerly, "practically sprang at me. I thought he might like it" he pointed at Sirius himself.

"You happened to walk past the library on your way to Transfiguration?" Remus repeated in disbelief. "But the library is nowhere near the Transfiguration classroom, as far as I know. Did you get lost?"

"And what made you think I'd like a book about little skirts and make-up?"

"There is a large chapter about colour charms in it, page 569" James sighed in exasperation. "Unless of course you like displaying your bare chest like an overgrown monkey".

"And why not? Is there something wrong with my bare chest? Do I make you uncomfortable, Potter?" Sirius said innocently, fluttering his eyelashes at James.

"Git."

"You know, you could have said something. You could have borrowed one of my robes until you got the chance to buy the right ones" Remus said in a low voice, trying hard to block out the image of Professor McGonagall skinning them alive for ditching her class.

Sirius cocked the other eyebrow and pointedly looked at Remus who was almost a head shorter and distinctly leaner than him. Remus, who noticed, blushed slightly and mumbled "Well, I mean…"

The Fat Lady swung open again and in came Peter Pettigrew, panting heavily. Anu yelped and ran over to him, tail wagging madly. She got up on her hind legs and tried to get to a large package Peter was carrying in his arms, which smelled strongly of fried breakfast bacon and sausages.

"Anyone hungry?" he asked guiltily, stroking Anu's head.


Fixing Sirius's robes took them the whole morning, especially since they had to clean them first because of Anu's display of solidarity with her master. The bells rang, announcing the lunch break, when they were finally satisfied. Only by taking a very close look one could see that the Gryffindor-lion had its tongue poking out, just like the Slytherin-snake before it.

Sirius whistled happily, leading the way down to the Great Hall when suddenly a blond girl – a white-blond boy in tow – caught up with him from behind and blocked his path. Remus recognised the boy as the one who'd knocked him over in Diagon Alley.

"Can you explain to me what happened last night?" the girl asked Sirius icily, without an introduction.

"Oh, hello Narcissa" Sirius said in a strained voice, shrinking against the wall and hating himself for it.

"Well, I just thought I let you know that I wrote a letter to your parents first thing after the feast last night, explaining your situation-"

"You did what?!" Sirius yelled in disbelief.

"Mind that tone of yours, Black" the white-blond boy snapped, stepping in front of Narcissa.

"Mind your own business, Malfoy" Sirius said, his voice far braver than he actually felt. He knew Lucius Malfoy ever since he'd been a very small child and he still gave him the creeps.

"'s there a problem?" James Potter said casually, peeking out from behind Sirius's back. A quick glance behind him told Sirius that Remus and Peter too had taken up position right by his side. He felt his courage rise and his temper along with it.

"Get the hell out of my way, Malfoy, or I'll make you" he said, eyes glittering dangerously.

"Never mind, Lucius" Narcissa said, grabbing Malfoy by the arm and dragging him off. Looking back over her shoulder she said "Watch out for owls, cousin. Your parent's reply should be on its way as we speak."

Sirius scowled after them until they rounded a corner and vanished from sight.

"So good to have a large family" James commented dryly.

"Err, Sirius? I totally forgot to tell you but…well, an owl dropped that on my breakfast this morning and I really meant to give it to you…" Remus said guiltily, pulling a silvery envelope from his pocket and handing it to him.

"Damn, they're fast" Sirius said grumpily, taking the letter and ripping it open. He scanned it briefly, his face unreadable, then crumpled it up and tossed it back at Remus. "Go ahead, read it. Or use it as toilet paper, I don't care." He crammed his fists into his pockets and marched off, resuming his whistling – very off key.

Remus just stood there, uncertain what to do with the crumpled letter, when James snatched it out of his hand, smoothed it out and read in a low voice:

Son,

Your cousin Narcissa just informed us about what happened at the Sorting Ceremony. Don't worry, I have already made arrangements to speak to the headmaster about the matter. There has clearly been a severe misunderstanding. You won't have to stay with mudbloods and blood traitors for much longer. Turn to Narcissa when you need help.

Father

PS: Your mother wants me to tell you not to touch anything in the dormitory or common room in the meantime. One never knows and clearly you don't want to risk an infection.

"Charming" James remarked. "Why don't we put that where it belongs" and he threw the letter into a dust bin which stood at the wall.

They followed Sirius around the corner and promptly ran into Professor McGonagall who already had Sirius by the ear, her face resembling that of a blood-hungry manticore.


James happily pointed out, for about the hundredth time – that they must have set a new school record for having landed themselves in detention before the school year had even properly started. Unfortunately that did little to improve his fellow convicts' spirits.

Sirius was still extremely bad tempered because of the fight he'd had with his father yesterday. Mr Black had actually kept his promise to speak to the headmaster about re-sorting his son into Slytherin-house but Sirius had managed to head him off before he got the chance. The argument that had broken out after Sirius had tried to explain to his father, that he was exactly where he wanted to be, was so loud and ferocious that a large crowd of people had assembled around them to watch. The Howler his mother had sent him that night didn't help the matter even though Sirius made an almost convincing show of being chuffed about it, waving the shrieking red envelope in his hand as though it was a lottery-ticket that had just won him the pot.

Peter on the other hand was extremely annoyed with Remus because he'd somehow miraculously managed to avoid having detention with them. He'd told them a likely story about having forgotten his scales and therefore needing to get home to look for them before their first Potions lesson the day after tomorrow. Peter was still fuming that Professor McGonagall had obviously bought that story and only made Remus write lines instead of cleaning out the cages in the Transfiguration classroom with James, Sirius and himself.

James couldn't bring himself to moping with the other two boys. He didn't even mind having to clean the dirty cages because of all the fascinating creatures that were living inside. There were, for example, a squirrel that had its tail transformed into a beautiful Asian fan, a monkey that had its body changed into a guitar, playing itself out of boredom, and a snake that switched into a long, rather knobbly walking stick and back with every heartbeat, making James, who was watching it with round eyes, feel slightly dizzy.

He had to admit that he was rather sorry to leave the classroom that night after they had been cleaning for about four hours. Peter shot him a malevolent look when he told him that he wouldn't mind detention if it was always that enjoyable.

They found Remus curled up in one of the huge red armchairs by the fire in the Gryffindor common room. James bounced over to him, meaning to tell him all about the incredible creatures he'd seen that day, but stopped dead when his gaze fell on Remus's face.

"Merlin, what happened to you" Sirius said in a shocked voice.

There was a long, blood-red gash across Remus's nose, he had a glorious black eye and his right hand was in thick bandages. He was even paler than usual and the dark circles under his eyes made him look like something out of a horror film.

Remus looked at them, smiling weakly. "I found my scales. Mum had them with her kitchenware" he informed them, his voice sounding incredibly hoarse and brittle.

"Did you have to fight her for them" Peter said in disbelief.

Remus's weak smile split into a wide grin for a moment, but it obviously caused him pain because he flinched and rearranged his face into a more relaxed expression.