Floss used his wand to make his voice heard over the sound of the wind. He called out commands, tips and fierce barks, instructing his team as he flew between them all, studying their posture, eyeing the way they flew on their brooms and judging them all for their skills.

He hovered beside James for a while, as the other beater batted the big, heavy bludgers towards him. Floss was out of the line of fire, but had his gaze fixed on the youngest member of the team.

James ducked and dived, both hands gripped on the broom as he focused on dodging first one, then the other. The beater flew back and forth, going after each ball as it sailed off and sending it back towards James.

He rolled in the air, upside down for only a few seconds, before righting himself.

"Not too bad, Potter," Floss said. "No try it with your hands off the broom."

"What?" James shook his head. "I…you can't be serious."

"What do you do if you have the quaffle?" Floss cried back. "If you're flying, holding onto that ball, you won't be able to grip the broom. At least try dodging one handed."

The seeker was whizzing around, looking for the snitch that Floss had let out when they started practicing. He'd caught it a couple of times, let it go and kept his eyes shut for twenty seconds, giving the small, flying ball a chance to disappear completely before he went looking for it again.

The other chasers were practicing their passes, throwing the ball to each other, from various distances, every so often turning and aiming for one of the goals, where the keeper hovered, trying to stop any from getting through.

James took a deep breath, head snapping to the right to see the black ball whizzing towards him. He dipped his broom forward, removed one hand, and prepared for the next attack.

Floss was frowning, though James had learnt that this particular look wasn't one of anger or disproval. It was simply the way the captain looked while he was thinking.

The bludger came back towards him, and he swerved the broom, almost falling off without the extra hold his hand gave him. His balance was off, and he had to focus more on directing the broom.

The ball narrowly missed him.

"Okay, good. Stop." Gerard held a hand in the air, and the beater whacked the ball upwards, out of the way. "Potter, do a few laps around the pitch. One handed." James nodded and set off, as Floss commanded the next chaser to take his place, while the third chaser and the keeper were to practice the passes.

When the others did it, they made it look easy.

For some reason, James had been able to do it while holding the quaffle. Flying one handed hadn't seemed so hard then. But without anything to keep his other hand occupied, he found it kept trying to grasp the broom. And he just couldn't get the balance right. The things that came so easily to him when he wasn't thinking about it just seemed to elude him now.

He kept glancing at the others. Floss was flying around them, circling them, telling them what they needed to improve, commenting on their last match.

Their win, it seemed, didn't mean it was time to relax.

He stopped the broom, gripping it with both hands. Head bowed, he took deep breaths.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

Part of him was really hoping his animagus form would be a bird.

Why was he finding it so difficult? Up in the air, he always felt at home. Like it was where he belonged.

From everything he read, it seemed that the form taken, when becoming an animagus, was the form that would allow the witch or wizard to feel most free. It would be the animal that was most closely linked to the person's spirit.

If he was a bird, something like a hawk, he could fly without even needing a broom.

He could go anywhere.

James opened his eyes, took his hand off the broom, and curled his fingers into a fist.

You can do this, Potter.

He carried on with the lap. This time, instead of concentrating on keeping his hand off the broom, he focused on the sky ahead of him. He let energy flow through him, didn't panic when the broom shuddered and his body shook, when he thought he was going to lose his balance.

James turned the corner, clenching his fist tighter to stop the urge to grab the broom.

He let the broom fly, rather than trying too hard to control it. It was a decent broom, anyway, one that only needed a slight tug in one direction or the other to turn. He didn't need both hands on it, he didn't need to grip on so tightly.

He could fly one handed, he'd done it before, the only difficultly was in having to do it, rather than letting it come naturally.

Once he'd completed the lap, he grabbed the broom with both hands and flew towards Gerard. The captain glanced at him, before gesturing to the third chaser and the keeper. James joined them, the keeper flying back to the posts and trying to defend them from the other two.

Eventually, Gerard ordered them down. When they landed, they split up; the other two chasers, both girls, headed for their locker room, while the boys went for the others.

He could feel Gerard's eyes on him the whole way back.

James ducked in the shower, keen to avoid the captain, and let the hot water wash off the sweat and muck on him. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes and relishing the sharp sting as the water warmed him. He took his time; there was no reason to rush, and James was enjoying the solitude.

When he did finally emerge, he and Gerard were the only two left.

Gerard was sitting on one of the benches, now in his casual clothes, his eyes lingering on James. James smiled nervously.

"Not too shabby, Potter." Gerard stood, grabbing his broom from near his feet. "But there's still a lot to improve on. You need to get your fitness levels up, too." He was done. James stared at Gerard's retreating back as he left the locker room.

X X X

"Where's Sirius?"

Remus was curled up one of the armchairs, reading a book. Peter sat opposite him, working hard on homework. Only Sirius was missing.

James stood over Remus, running a hand through his still wet hair. Remus shrugged, barely even glancing up from his book.

"He went for a walk. Earlier."

James frowned. "A walk? Where to?"

Another shrug. "How should I know?"

"Didn't you ask him?"

Remus' head snapped up, and he fixed James with a surprisingly cold glare. "No. I didn't. I figured if he wanted us to know, he would have said."

"All right, all right." James held up his hands, glancing around the room. Most people there were busy; catching up on homework or engaged in various games. James lowered himself into a seat near the other two, leaning back with his hand cupping his chin. He frowned. "Did he seem okay to you?"

"Sure. Seemed fine."

"Remus…"

"I said he seemed fine." It was almost a growl, and James resisted the urge to flinch.

"Okay. What you reading?"

He held up the cover. One of the books he'd been given by Professor Harpo. James glanced away, staring at the entrance to the Common Room. "Been up too much?"

"We had an Exploding Snap tournament with Lily and Alice," Peter explained.

"Cool. Who won?"

"Lily."

He looked like he was going to say more, but glanced quickly at Remus, remained quiet and returned to his work.

James reached for the table, grabbed one of the books stacked there, and opened it to begin reading. Eventually, Sirius returned, and glanced once at the others with a shaky smile before heading straight for the dorm.

Remus and James got to their feet at the same time.

They cast each other equal glares, before Remus relented, rolled his eyes and fell back down in the chair. "Fine. You go."

James grinned, turned and darted up the dorms. As soon as he was out of sight, the smile faded. When he reached the bedroom, it was to see Sirius sat on the end of the bed, bending over to untie his trainers. He glanced up, then back down, and James approached slowly.

He waited, silent, as Sirius kicked off his shoes and looked up again.

"Are you okay?" he asked, sitting on the bed beside his friend.

"Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You've been crying."

Sirius looked away quickly, but it was too late. James had already seen the red, puffy eyes. "No, I haven't."

A hand fell on his shoulder, and James squeezed gently. "Sirius…"

"How are you okay?" he muttered, still looking away. "How are you not falling apart?"

"You really think I'm okay?" James lowered his voice. "Sirius, I'm just as scared as you are. I know what you're going through. Really. I've been putting silencing charms around my bed every night."

"Serious?"

"James." He jabbed a finger at his chest, before jabbing it at Sirius'. "Sirius. Can't you even get that right?"

He turned his head back to James, grinning now. The grin quickly faded. "What do we do?"

"What we always do. We pull a prank that will go down in the history of Hogwarts, and we cheer everyone up." He was getting a strong sense of déjà vu, but how was he going to make it all stick in Sirius' head? How could he make his best friend stop thinking about what they'd seen, when he relived it every night?

"Okay," Sirius muttered, nodding. "Okay. Let's do it. And we keep learning the spells, yeah?"

"Of course. Next time, we'll be ready."

X X X

Once more, Remus found himself in the library. But he wasn't studying, or focusing on homework. Instead, he was pouring over Charms and Transfiguration books, looking for some sort of spell – or mix of spells – that would suit James' and Sirius' needs, and that they would be able to perform.

He glanced around, keeping a wary eye out for the librarian, before folding over the corner of the page he was on. Remus flicked through the books, jotting down notes and page numbers, skipping back and forth and desperately wishing the answer would just jump out at him.

It should have been easier than homework, and more fun.

But for Remus, it really wasn't.

At least with homework, there was a constant direction. There was a clear aim. With this, all he had to go on was James' desire to pull a prank.

"Any luck?"

He spun around to see James and Sirius poking their heads around one of the shelves. Remus shook his head. Sirius still didn't seem right, not completely, but he did seem better. Maybe focusing on the task at hand was giving him something else to think about, rather than whatever it was that had been bothering him.

Both of them slid around and came to join Remus at the table, James pulling the parchment towards him and scanning it. Sirius picked up one of the books and began to flick through it, his eyes scanning the pages before turning to another.

"You know it's really hard when you have no idea what you want to do."

James shrugged. "We just need something…amazing." His eyes darted up, locking on Remus. "Everyone's been so tense lately. We want to cheer them up."

Remus leaned back, racking his brains. Something big, but something they could do. Nothing too complicated.

He reached forward, grabbing a potions book that he'd looked through earlier in the day. He flicked through it, until he found what he was looking for. "We'd need to get the ingredients," Remus muttered. "But we should have some of them already in our own potions supplies. The rest…" He shrugged. "We might have to raid Slughorn. And then you'd have to find a way to get into the kitchen to spike the drinks."

He pushed the book towards James, open on the page he had been looking at. James scanned over it, a smile breaking out on his face as he turned the book towards Sirius.

"Remus, this will be brilliant."

"If we can get it in all the drinks, including ours…" Remus shrugged. "Maybe they won't think it was us."

Sirius nodded, his grin matching James'. "And the effects only last a half hour," he said. "So it's not like we'll be like it for long. Yeah. This. We have to do this."