"That was mean," said Remus, "we were just talking, she didn't do anything."
"You weren't there with us on the train," said Sirius, "she's a freak, she actually wanted to be in Slytherin, you don't want to go making friends with people like..."
But Sirius never got the chance to specify people like what, because in the next second a swarm of owls flooded into the Great Hall. One large eagle owl broke out of the rest of the flock and swooped down right in front of Sirius, landing elegantly on top of an empty toast rack. It folded it's wings and held it's leg out towards Sirius, tied to it was a letter, a letter in a small red envelope which was twitching as though it was physically itching to be opened.
"Bloody hell, you weren't kidding about your parents being livid if you didn't get into Slytherin," said James.
"Do you think I should open it or run for it?" asked Sirius, untying the letter.
"What is it?" asked Remus.
"It's a howler," answered Peter, looking terrified on Sirius's behalf, "if you're going to open it I'd do it quick," he added to Sirius, "it looks like it's going to start smoking soon."
"Yes... probably best... just get it over with..."
He slid one long pianist's finger under the flap and the letter jumped into the air, folding itself into a pair of lips which were twisted in rage.
"SIRIUS BLACK! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF THE SHAME YOU HAVE BROUGHT UPON YOURSELF?! YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A FOOLISH AND INSOLENT CHILD BUT THIS IS THE FINAL STRAW! YOU MAY HAVE ENDED UP IN GRYFFINDOR BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN FORGET YOUR SENSE OF WIZARDING PRIDE. IF I FIND YOU HAVE BEEN CONSORTING WITH ANY OF THAT MUDBLOOD FILTH THAT HOUSE WELCOMES SO INDISCRIMINATLY, AND BELIEVE ME I WILL HEAR OF IT, YOUR FATHER AND I WILL BE SENDING YOU TO DURMSTRANG! PERHAPS THERE YOU WILL LEARN SOME DIGNITY AND SOME RESPECT FOR YOUR FAMILY! IT IS ONLY OUT OF MERCY ON THE PART OF YORU FATHER THAN YOU ARE NOT BEING DISOWNED FOR THIS TREACHERY! I WILL NOT HAVE YOU BRING ANY MORE DISHONOUR ONTO OUR NOBLE HOUSEHOLD! REGULUS IS A THOUSAND TIMES THE SON YOU WILL EVER BE AND IF YOU DISGRACE YOURSELF ONE MORE TIME YOU WILL BE NO SON OF MINE AT ALL!"
And on that note the letter burst into flames, the ashes falling like snow into Sirius's pumpkin juice.
Sirius's face was pale, his expression stony and unreadable.
"Lovely woman my mother," he said in a falsely cheerful voice, smiling painfully around at James, Peter and Remus, "you should all come over for Christmas dinner, we can discuss how "pure" our blood is over Christmas pudding. If everyone really hits it off we could even slit a few throats to compare!"
Remus bit his lip, trying to think of something to say, Peter and James were equally lost for words.
"Well, we ought to get going really," said Sirius breezily, "want to leave plenty of time in case we get lost or something, it's massive this damn place isn't it? You'd think they'd give us a map or something at least."
He kept talking as he stood and picked up his bag and his timetable.
"Sirius, hold up," called James, getting clumsily to his feet and swinging his bag over his shoulder.
Peter and Remus were quick to follow suit. It was only as they were getting up that they noticed the three other owls that had joined the owl that had delivered the howler. Remus recognised his parents' owl and untied the letter from it's leg, giving it s quick scratch on the head before it flew off. He looked around and Peter was fumbling with a tight knot on the string that attached the letter to the leg of one of the other owls.
"My dad always... does this..." he muttered, "ties about a billion knots just for one... lousy... letter!" he finished triumphantly as he finally succeeded in freeing the envelope
"That one must be for James," said Remus, indicating the third owl, a big beautiful bar owl with very silky looking feathers "do you think we should get it for him?"
"Yeah, I suppose we better," said Peter, "here you do it, I've got no nails... I guess that's cause I bite them."
Remus untied James's letter and they both set off at a tentative jog to find Sirius and James. To their surprise they hadn't gone far, they were sheltering from the deluge of students headed off to their first lessons by a suit of armour. They had been talking, but stopped as Remus and Peter approached.
"Hey, sorry we had to stop for... something," said Remus, thinking it better not to flaunt the fact that they had all got loving letters from their doting parents when Sirius's mother had only written to yell at him.
"Are you alright Sirius?" asked Peter.
"Yes, fine," said Sirius, "come on, don't want to be late to Charms."
Sirius marched off ahead of all the others, and seizing the opportunity Remus cautiously placed a hand on James's arm.
"Here, a letter came for you," he said in a hushed voice that was easily drowned out by the noise of the crowd.
He slipped the letter into James's hand.
"Thanks," said James.
"No problem," said Remus, he wasn't going to say anything else, but before he knew it his mouth was open again, spewing out words without his bidding, "is Sirius okay?"
"He's fine, well, kind of upset I think but don't tell him I told you that, probably best to just let him laugh it off if that's what he wants to do. If he wants to talk about it he will. But from what I've heard about the Blacks he probably won't."
Remus and Peter both nodded, and the three of them set off to close the gap between themselves and Sirius, which was no mean feat for three first years on a crowded staircase.
Their lessons that day were fascinating. Charms was fun but harder than Remus had expected. Herbology, another practical lesson, was great too. In potions the teacher, a man called Professor Slughorn who James and Sirius immediately nicknamed "the Slug", explained that due to the amount of cauldron explosion in past years they were going to do a few lessons of theory before they attempted to brew they're first potion. The class was still fun though, Professor Slughorn had brought along several samples of potions and was awarding house points to anyone who knew their names and what they were used for. Severus Snape and Lily Evans recognised the most, and by half way through the lesson Professor Slughorn seemed to have chosen them as his favourites. Remus had looked through his textbook of course, but he still had trouble recognising any of the potions in the flesh. He did recognise one though, at first he didn't raise his hand, but when Slughorn said "come on, someone other than Miss Evans or Mr Snape" and everyone else was still looking at the potion blankly he decided someone ought to say the answer so that they could move on, and his dad had told him he had to do his to do his best to make a good impression with his teachers after all.
"Yes Mr..."
"Lupin, Sir," said Remus quietly.
"Sorry dear boy, didn't quite catch that," said Professor Slughorn jovially.
"Lupin," said Remus louder, "Remus Lupin, Sir. Um... that one's a kind of pain relief potion, for... you know... when someone's in... pain..."
Remus felt his face colour as he trailed off. His answer hadn't sounded quite as intelligent as he thought it would to say the least.
"Very good Mr Lupin," said Slughorn, "that's another point to Gryffindor, Slytherin are still in the lead I'm afraid though," he added, waving his wand at the blackboard and the chalk added another line to the tally chart of the number of points each House had earned, "Come on Gryffindors, still time to close the gap a bit..."
But no matter how interesting and fun the lessons were, the boys went through the day unable to shake the echo of Sirius's mother's howler. Sirius did not broach the subject with them, so the three other boys kept quiet about it, but all of them made sure to watch Sirius very carefully, in case he showed any signs of being upset by what his mother had said to him. Surprisingly, he didn't. Remus couldn't believe that he was completely unaffected by his mother's horrible words, he thought of his own mum and decided then that he was lucky, he had always been grateful to have loving parents who would look after him when he was ill and teach him when he couldn't go to school and play with him when he didn't have any friends to play with. He couldn't bear to imagine what life must be like for someone who's parents didn't love them, and he didn't believe for a minute that Sirius simply did not care. No, Sirius, it seemed, was a master of his features and by the end of the day Remus was watching him more in awe than in concern. Sirius clearly knew that people were watching him, so rather than trying to hide away from them he performed for them. He talked and he laughed and he smiled and he walked with long easy stride and proud chin, held just at the right height, so that whilst he was not looking down on anyone no one was going to damn well look down on him either.
Soon, Remus knew, he would have to learn to be like that. Twelve days. Twelve days and it would be his turn to put on a show. Remus hadn't done much acting before, at home he never had much of an audience. The only time he had to act in front of his parents was when he had to pretend he hadn't heard them arguing or crying or fretting about his health or how much longer the door to the basement would last before, despite his father's magical reinforcements, it gave way under the force of Remus's attempts to escape his monthly prison. But that was easy, that was just a matter of keeping quiet and out of the way. Now, as he watched Sirius, Remus realised that that alone would not fool any of these boys for very long. He would have to remind himself, when the time came, to make a conscious effort to act as if nothing was wrong. He stored that reminder away in his mind, and dwelt on the waxing of the moon no longer, for now he had to see if there was anything he could do to help Sirius.
"I am no son of hers," said Sirius unexpectedly after they had all finally retreated to the removed calm of their dormitory, "and I'm no son of my father's either. She can stuff her Wizarding pride where the sun don't shine as far as I'm, concerned. The one thing I'm proud of is not to be like them. I'm going to write to Andromeda, she'll have heard already of course, from the family. And they must have heard from Narcissa, knew she'd grass me up, bloody goody-two-shoes, she'd just like my brother."
"Andromeda's your cousin right?" asked James, "the one with the boyfriend who's got a whatsitbike?"
"Yeah," said Sirius, "Yes she'll be proud of me. She was the one who told me Slytherin wasn't all that. She should know, she was a Slytherin herself, but she's not like the others either. She told me not to say mud... the 'm' word. I didn't even know it was bad before she told me. All that howler proves is that I'm not like the rest of my family," he said, finally turning to face the rest of the boys, staring at them with wild eyes, "So I don't know if you guys are only hanging around with me because we're sharing a dorm, or because you don't know much about about my family or because you do know about my family and you're scared of what I'll do to you if you're not my friend. But you don't have to do any of that. I'm a Gryffindor, I'm not scared of being alone, I don't care what people say about me so long as they say it to my face so if you've got anything to say to me say it now."
He looked accusingly around at James, Remus and Peter.
"You're not alone mate," said James, "we don't care what your family's like, you're a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin, and that must mean you're alright."
Remus and Peter nodded in agreement.
"I'd be sad if you went to Durmstrang," said Peter timidly.
Sirius's face lit up briefly, before falling again, and then once more closing off into that stony mask. Only this time they had all seen him let it slip.
"It's not like they can make you go, right?" said James.
"They're my parents, they may not be able to choose my House for me but they can send me to whatever school they want."
"Durmstrang's meant to be horrible," said Peter.
Remus hadn't heard much at all about any of the other Wizarding schools, his parents had never even talked to him about Hogwarts really, until Professor Dumbledore came. Already he was starting to feel like his isolated childhood had set him far behind every else at Hogwarts, not just in knowledge of the Wizarding world but in understanding of other people. He wished he could think of something helpful to say to Sirius, but he could think of nothing.
"Sirius, you are not going to Durmstrang," said James firmly, "just refuse, they can't physically drag you half way across Europe. Just refuse to leave Hogwarts."
"Dumbledore might be able to help," said Remus, finally speaking, "if you parents do try and send you to Durmstrang he might be able to persuade them to let you stay here if you told him what was going on."
"What can Dumbledore do? He's just a teacher."
"Just a teacher?!" exclaimed James, "Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald! He's got an Order of Merlin, he's on the chocolate frog cards!" he finished, as if that was his crowning achievement.
"D'you want a chocolate frog?" asked Peter, "my mum sent me one this morning, but you can have it if you want."
"I can't take your present," said Sirius, almost angrily.
"You can if I give it to you as a present," said Peter, "in fact you have to, it's rude not to accept a present, that's what my mum and dad say."
"Well, if you insist," said Sirius, "but only if you have a bite first."
"Sure," said Peter, "we can all share if you want."
"What? One poxy chocolate frog?!" scoffed James, "are you mad, do you not remember the feast yesterday? We don't need to go around rationing out bits of amphibious chocolate. All we need to do is find the kitchens and we can have as much of those puddings as we want!"
"I don't think students are allowed in the kitchens," frowned Remus.
"So?"
"You're going to break in?!" said Remus, half in awe, half in alarm.
"And the sickle drops," said James, "come on, we've got exploring to do."