Title: A Pretty Penny

Characters: James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew.

Prompts: Write about a group of students simply hanging out as friends.

AN: Written for the Jurassic Fever [Challenge] held by whitetiger91 at The Golden Snitch Forum.

This contains a character called Penny mentioned in my multi-chapter fic called Old Scars and Future Hearts. She has only been mentioned once but she'll appear more frequently in the future. Penny, there are moments I have imagined that I cannot get into OSAFH so I decided to add some here; I hope you like this!

Word Count: 698

Sirius leaned his head onto his arms as they rested against the table in front of him. The thirteen-year-olds dark hair fell gracefully on his shoulders and he stifled a yawn by putting his hand in front of his mouth. James and Remus spoke loudly on the other side of the table while Peter sat next to him; every now and again he would throw a grape into his mouth.

The tension in his muscles had slowly decreased during the way to school; and now it was completely gone and replaced with a sense of content. Content and exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that came from being repeatedly told in sneering, venomous voices how worthless he was and what a shame he was for The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. A laugh escaped his parted lips and Sirius couldn't help but smile to himself. When he was surrounded by his friends it became easier to let himself be amused by their fanatic ideas and their idiotic pride.

"This is boring."

James rolled his eyes. "Here we go again…"

"You said the same thing last year." Remus commented with a hint of amusement in his voice. "And the year before that, and the year before that… Merlin Sirius, it's like you never learn. It doesn't matter if you think it's boring we'll go through the same thing every year."

Sirius winked at him. "You say that as if that means that I can't complain about it Moony."

Remus rolled his eyes but before he managed to voice the, probably, sarcastic comment in his head James raised both hands and efficiently managed to get their attention. "Why don't you try and look at the sorting this year mate. Who knows maybe something interesting will happen?"

"Maybe something interesting will happen." Sirius said in a teasing voice as rolled his eyes. "Yeah right something interesting is going to happen. You know Prongs, sometimes I wonder about you and the…"

"Hello, I'm Penny." A bell-like voice interrupted him mid-sentence and caused Sirius to look to the side. What he saw was a girl looking like she was in their age with black hair that flowed past her shoulders, her eyes glimmered in a way that made it hard for him to look away and then there was the genuinely happy smile.

"Sirius Black." The young boy vaguely gestured his friends. "This is James Potter, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew."

"Hello." Penny spoke and waved. Sirius saw out of the corner of his eye how James saluted her with two fingers.

One moment of silence. Sirius didn't speak as he watched Penny with a distant smile on his face. He was vaguely aware of the fact that James was covering his mouth with his hand in a bad attempt to hide the fact that he was laughing. Two moments of silence.

"So, I haven't seen you around here before." Remus commented.

Penny's smile wavered but it was barely noticeable. "I'm new. I'm very new. I went to a private school until very recently but I wasn't able to continue so my teacher wrote a letter to Dumbledore about me going here instead."

"And you were sorted in Gryffindor?" Penny shrugged and for some reason Sirius couldn't help but smile. "Based on how you just started talking to us I'm going to say that the hat made the right call."

Penny's smile grew once more. "Well, since it worked out so well with you guys I'm going to try and make some more friends. But maybe I'll talk to you later?"

"Sure." Sirius said nodding. "I'll save you a seat."

"Sounds good." Penny responded with a shy smile before walking a few meters down the hallway and sitting down next to Emmeline Vance and Marlene McKinnon; both reacted positively to her sitting down from what Sirius could tell.

James laughed. "What was that?"

"That was a Penny." Remus said and nudged James shoulder.

A sigh escaped Sirius parted lips. "That was not just a penny. That was pretty Penny."

James snorted. "A pretty Penny?"

"Yeah well," Sirius smirked. "If you can have your Lily flower then I can have my pretty Penny."

The end