Chapter 37 – Beginnings

Sirius and Remus had checked the map extensively as they walked to the prefects' bathroom. They were desperate for some alone time after James and Peter had been constantly walking into the dorm at inopportune moments – of course, still none the wiser about what they were actually walking in on. Remus had suggested that since the prefects' bathroom was actually rarely used, they could make sure they would be alone by monitoring the map. Sirius had readily agreed.

They slipped through the door easily enough, not encountering anyone on their way other than a handful of Ravenclaw girls who were too busy chatting amongst themselves to pay much attention to how close they were walking, or the fact that Sirius kept brushing his hand against Remus'.

Sirius had never been inside the prefects' bathroom before, and was suitably impressed by its size and fancy features. He put the map down beside a nearby sink and asked, "why do you need a bath so big? Do all the prefects have communal bathing sessions?"

"We're finally alone and you want to put images like that in my head?" Remus asked. He was stood closer than Sirius had noticed, so that when he turned, he found himself pushed against the sink, Remus' body pressed against his.

"Good point," he said breathlessly, and crashed their lips together.

Some time later, a significantly more disheveled looking Sirius stepped out of the prefects' bathroom, completely forgetting that there were in fact other people in the world.

Unfortunately for Sirius, one of the people who happened to be passing by at that exact moment was James.

"HELLO JAMES," he said loudly, making his friend jump. Perhaps he should have just retreated quietly to the bathroom where James wouldn't have noticed him, but he'd panicked, and subsequently drawn the attention of the majority of the corridor. "REMUS." Sirius continued, apparently unable to keep from shouting, "REMUS TOLD ME THE PASSWORD TO THE BATHROOM." He half closed the door behind him so that the actual Remus was shielded from sight.

"Err, okay." James said, "any particular reason you wanted to use the prefect's bathroom?"

"Yes."

James looked at him expectantly, and Sirius found himself stammering, "It, er, makes my hair more... luxurious. The showers in the dorms just aren't up to scratch."

"Okay," James said again. He was looking at Sirius curiously, possibly because his hair was in fact a complete mess from having Remus' hands tangled in it, and had clearly not just been washed. Realising this, Sirius immediately tried to flatten it and added, "oh, I wasn't washing it now. No, just - I thought I'd left one of my socks in here - apparently not." He laughed nervously.

Despite still looking at him as if he wasn't quite all there, James shrugged easily enough and said, "maybe the house elves lost it."

"Yeah, must have."

He was still only half way out of the door, but the sharp pain of Remus kicking the back of his leg urged him out fully, though he made sure to only open the door as far as necessary and shut it behind him. Then he threw an arm around James' shoulder.

"Anyway," he said, "heading down to dinner are you? I'll come with."

"Yep, I don't know where Remus or Pete have gotten to, the dorm's been empty all afternoon."

"Beats me," Sirius said, rather too quickly.

He turned around just in time to see Remus sneaking out of the bathroom and heading in the opposite direction. There were still other students around, some who were looking between the two of them with raised eyebrows and leaning close to their friends to talk in hushed voices.

Sirius felt a little worked up, but he tried to put it out of his mind as he and James made their way down to the great hall.

It had only been a week since the last Quidditch match, but beating Hufflepuff by a decent margin meant that they were back in the running for the Quidditch cup if they defeated Ravenclaw, so the team were still practicing three times a week despite their hectic schedules. Thankfully the weather was starting to improve as winter gave way to spring, so it had been a more enjoyable practice session than most of their recent ones.

James was tired but exhilarated as they returned to the ground and dismounted from their brooms.

"Well done, everyone," he called. "If we carry on like this then the match against Ravenclaw is in the bag."

There were cheers from Mary and two other teammates as they went ahead to the changing rooms.

"I'll stick everything back in the broom shed," Sirius offered, securely fastening the bludgers into their box and hoisting it under his arm. "See you back at the common room?"

"Yeah, cheers," James said.

Chloe and Benjy were lingering nearby and once Sirius was out of earshot, Chloe turned to James with a grin and said,"three galleons says he's meeting Remus in the broom shed for a snog."

James stopped walking abruptly. "What?" was all he could manage to say.

Chloe's grin faded and her eyes widened. "Oh," she said. "You didn't know? Shit. I thought everyone knew, loads of people have been talking about it - they've not exactly been subtle." James was still staring at her blankly so she hurriedly added, "Forget I said anything! That was totally just a joke, right Benjy?!"

Benjy nodded firmly, "Oh yeah, definitely, that was just a - an in joke from the Christmas holidays. Come on, Chloe, let's go."

With an apologetic smile, Chloe followed Benjy to the changing rooms, the two of them holding hands and whispering to each other. James stood alone on the pitch for a few minutes, trying to think through the static filling his brain. Sirius and Remus? Surely they couldn't be together - James would know. They would have told him - wouldn't they? Besides, they had both dated girls before, and Sirius had even slept with Mary, though a voice in James' head reminded him that Sirius had thought the sex was mediocre. But still... How could he not know something like that about his best friends?

By the time he went to get changed everyone else had already left, so he put his robes back on in silence. As he began to walk back to the castle, he went past the broom shed and considered checking inside it - but no, that was ridiculous. Instead, he went to the Gryffindor common room and sat down next to Lily, who was in the middle of her transfiguration homework.

"Hey," she said, "how was practice?"

"Fine." He meant to say more but the words wouldn't come.

"Is everything alright?" she asked, peering at him curiously.

"Yes. I think so. I don't know." He glanced around them; nobody was sitting too close and the common room was loud enough that he didn't think anyone would overhear them. "Have Remus and Sirius said anything to you about - about them - kissing?"

He spoke quickly enough that his words jumbled together and it took Lily a moment to reply. She looked almost annoyed, and for the briefest of moments he thought maybe she wouldn't be okay with Sirius and Remus being together.

"No, they haven't," she said, frowning and pushing away her homework. "It's been pretty obvious for a long time that they've liked each other" - this astounded James, who had noticed nothing of the sort - "and I've overheard people talking about seeing them together but they've not actually said anything to me and I'm not talking to them about it until they do."

"They've not spoken to me either," James said. "Are you sure this is really a thing? Chloe seemed certain but it's - how could I not know?"

Lily patted his hand sympathetically. "Boys are very unobservant," she said. "I think it's even taken Sirius and Remus a long time to realise there's something going on between them. I guess it's a hard thing to come to terms with."

"Yeah," James said. "It's so weird. I never would have guessed. It's like I don't even really know them."

"Yes you do," Lily said firmly. "It's Sirius and Remus, of course you know them."

James thought for a moment and then nodded, relief creeping into his expression. "You're right, of course you are. It's just that they've never hidden anything from me before - other than Remus' furry little problem, but even that we found out about years ago." He looked dismayed. "I don't like us having secrets. It feels like there's space between us that wasn't there before."

"I'm sure they're just worried about what people will think," Lily said reassuringly.

"But it's me. How can they believe I'd think anything bad about it?"

"I don't know. I do wish they'd stop faffing about and actually talk to us about it. I assume Peter doesn't know either."

"Probably not," James said as he considered it. "If they've told him and not me then I'll be offended."

Lily laughed. "I'm sure they'll tell us eventually. They just need time."

That evening marked the seventh year prefects' weekly tutoring session to help prepare the 5th years for their exams, and by the time James and Lily got there, Remus was already in another classroom, demonstrating spells needed for the Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL. Lily and James split the rest of the waiting 5th years between the remaining prefects, and once Lily had taken her group to another classroom, James could distinctly tell that Chloe was determinedly avoiding his gaze. Clearly she felt bad about earlier.

James didn't mind tutoring. He was good enough at spells and seemed to have a knack for explaining things in a way that the 5th years could understand. The hour went by quickly, and by the time they were all filtering back out of the classroom, he was feeling in a much better mood.

He waited for Lily outside her classroom, but when she emerged she shook her head at him and said, "I'm going to wait for Remus, why don't you go ahead?"

"What happened to not talking to them until they tell you?" James asked.

Lily smiled, "knowing them, that could take weeks. They should know we're okay with it."

James shrugged and left her to it. Maybe he'd try to talk to Sirius, but he wasn't entirely sure how to bring the subject up. He'd thought they'd known everything there was to know about each other, and finding out that that wasn't true was strange.

Remus was, as usual, the last to finish tutoring. He tended to get a little carried away, but the 5th years didn't seem to mind too much. Not for the first time, Lily thought that Remus would actually make a great teacher. It filled her with sadness that he probably wouldn't even be able to consider it.

He was smiling when he left the classroom, but looked surprised to find that she'd waited for him.

"I thought we could walk back together," she smiled, "and have a talk on the way."

"Okay," Remus said, looking slightly concerned. "A talk about what?"

"Well..." Lily said, fiddling with the straps of her bag as they began to walk. "Chloe may have mentioned something to James - about you and Sirius."

Remus' eyes widened but he tried to feign nonchalance. "Me and Sirius? What do you mean?"

"Remus," she sighed. "I love you, but you guys are pretty obvious. Apparently half of the school are talking about it."

"Oh." He didn't say anything for a long moment as they made their way along the corridor. "I didn't realise anyone knew. I thought we were doing a good job of hiding it." He smiled wryly. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"I don't mind!" She said hastily, "well, I do a little, but only because I want you to know that you can trust me. And tell me things, if you need to."

"Thanks," Remus said. "It wasn't that we don't trust you, just that we wanted to tell you, James and Peter at the same time so that you all heard it from us and, well, Sirius has been worried about telling James. So really it's his fault entirely and not mine," he added.

"Ah," Lily said, smiling. "Well, I can accept betrayal from Sirius more easily. It's not like I didn't see this coming a mile off - although when exactly did it happen? You need to tell me all the details!"

This seemed to alarm Remus more than anything. "Details? I have no idea what you're talking about, there's nothing to tell you, nothing whatsoever."

"Are you sure about that?" Lily said. "Because from what I hear..."

She trailed off. They'd turned a corner into an empty corridor, and on the wall near the arithmancy classroom was some graffiti that hadn't been there earlier that day. There was a dark skull with a snake slithering out of its mouth and beside it were the words "DOWN WITH MUDBLOOD SCUM".

They both stopped and stared at the wall. Neither of them had seen anything like this before. It wasn't exactly unusual to hear certain pureblood families say unpleasant things about muggleborns, but it was usually less prominent within Hogwarts. Lily thought back to a year ago, when it was Mary's blood that had adorned the walls of this very corridor thanks to a group of pureblood Slytherins. She shuddered as she thought about it.

She started to speak but the words seemed dry on her tongue. She found herself backing away as she read a couple of other equally derogative comments that decorated the wall.

Remus wasn't moving, just looking up at the graffiti in utter shock.

"I can't believe this," Lily said then. When she had found out she was a witch she had imagined a school filled with magic and wonder, and had never even considered that one day she would be walking along with her friend, chatting mindlessly about boys, when she would come across something like this – something that targeted her. The skull mark reminded her strongly of two things she'd read about in her history books - Grindlewald's mark that had been scrawled across Durmstrang and later elsewhere in his search for power, and swastikas, which even pureblood wizards could recognise from the not too distant past.

"Are you okay?" Remus asked, finally diverting his attention away from the wall.

"No," Lily replied, feeling her hands shake with rage. "No. I'm not okay at all."

Remus stepped forward and took her hand, steadying her slightly. "Come on," he said quietly, "we should go and tell someone."

The following day, James was on his way back from charms class, having been forced to stay behind by an exasperated Professor Flitwick because he'd forgotten about his homework. His mind was too full up with Quidditch practice, his new knowledge about Sirius and Remus and the pain on Lily's face when she'd told him about the graffiti.

He was just about to slip out of a secret passage that led onto the seventh floor when he heard part of the conversation of a small group of sixth years walking back from a divination lesson.

"-saw them coming out of the prefects' bathroom together. As in together."

"Woah, really? Do you think they were having sex?"

There was a chorus of disgusted noises and James' chest tightened.

"It's surprising," one of them, who James recognised as Runcorn, added, "since Black's family are such stubborn purebloods. Doubt they'd be pleased about the halfblood part or the queer part."

"Should be interesting when they find out," a boy James thought was named Shaw replied, laughing.

"You think that's funny?" James demanded. None of them had noticed him come out of the secret passageway and they all stopped abruptly when he spoke.

Shaw shrugged. "Come on, it was just a joke."

"You don't get to joke about people's families – or their relationships," James said. He felt his stomach turn to lead as he thought about what Sirius' parents would say to him if they had the chance. Sirius had been hurt far too much by them already.

"Would you call it a relationship?" Runcorn asked, smirking. "I don't really think it's fair to call it that. People like them can't have a real relationship."

James' emotions wouldn't translate into words; the fury that surged through him could only be expressed with actions. Without thinking about what he was doing, James threw all his weight behind a punch that caused a satisfying crack as it hit Runcorn's face, making him stagger backwards.

There was a surge of noise as Runcorn's friends started shouting, one of them grabbing Runcorn to stop him from falling and another shoving James hard in the chest.

"That's enough!" Professor McGonagall shouted. She has been walking beside Professor Kettleburn, but hurried down the corridor towards them and stepped in between the boys. "You two, take Mr. Runcorn to the hospital wing; I'll speak to him when he's been seen to. As for you, Mr. Potter, I expect better from the Head Boy."

James looked at his feet, but he was still too angry to apologise. "They were saying horrible things, Professor. Prejudiced things - about Remus and Sirius."

From the look of understanding on McGonagall's face, she knew exactly what he was talking about. "I see. Well, I assure you that such prejudices will not be tolerated and I understand that you're angry, but these things are not resolved with our fists. I'll see you in my office for detention tonight at 7pm."

James just nodded, and McGonagall spared a moment to squeeze his shoulder before striding down the corridor towards the hospital wing.

When James turned up at McGonagall's office, he was surprised to find Lily there. She was standing in front of McGonagall's desk with a sour expression on her face, and James caught the end of her sentence, "-don't see why I'm being punished when they were the ones talking shi-"

"Miss Evans!" Professor McGonagall interrupted. "I assure you that once Mr. Greymark has been de-transfigured I will issue suitable punishment for his comments."

"That's what Dumbledore said when Mary was attacked," Lily said angrily. "And look what happened with that graffiti last night. Intolerance can't just be persuaded out of people by a couple of detentions or a talking to, Professor."

James didn't think he'd ever heard Lily talk to a teacher in such a way before. He knew she was still extremely upset about the night before, but was surprised to hear it bubble out of her in front of Mcgonagall.

Before McGonagall could reply to Lily's outburst, James walked into the room, hoping to clear the air a little.

"Here I am," he said unnecessarily.

"Yes," McGonagall replied, "I can see that."

She turned back to Lily, but she'd turned silent and was looking uncomfortably at the portrait above McGonagall's desk.

"Right then, Miss Evans, Mr Potter," she sighed, "while I appreciate your dedication to your friends, you're head boy and girl, and I can't have you both walking around punching," she looked poignantly at James, "or hexing," she turned to Lily, "people."

James thought he might have caught a small smile on Lily's face when she heard about the punching.

"Potter," she continued, "you'll be down in the trophy room please. They haven't been dusted in quite some time. Evans, Hagrid needs some help in the forest - he'll be waiting for you at the main entrance."

"Fine," Lily said, while James nodded in agreement.

They left her office and smiled weakly at one another before heading in opposite directions.

James had been dusting trophies - most of which he'd noticed had been issued to people with complicated sounding names - for only a half hour when he heard the door creak open behind him.

He turned, puzzled, to find Sirius standing in the doorway.

"What're you doing here?"

"Thought I'd come and help you out."

He stepped into the room, but made no attempt to actually clean anything.

"No offense mate," James said, "but since when do you volunteer to do other people's detentions."

"I guess since you started getting them because of me," he said sheepishly. He wasn't looking James in the eye exactly, rather looking at him skittishly then glancing away again.

He hauled himself up onto the window ledge nearby, moving a few trophies to the side so that he could sit comfortably.

James put down the cloth he'd been cleaning with and leant against the wall beside him.

"Is it true?" James asked. "Are you are Moony going out?"

"Yeah," Sirius admitted, swinging his legs nervously. "It happened over Christmas."

"That's ages ago! And you decided to keep it a secret from me all this time?" James asked. After he'd gotten over the initial shock at the idea of Remus and Sirius being together, he'd realised that what he was really upset about was the fact that Sirius apparently didn't trust him enough to tell him about it. "I thought we told each other everything, Pads."

"We do," Sirius said quickly. He looked guilty, and James felt a twang of regret. He hadn't intended to make him feel bad, but he couldn't help being hurt. "I wanted to tell you," he said, "I really did. Remus suggested it loads, but I didn't know how you'd react, I mean, of course, you're James, I should have known you wouldn't react badly but I couldn't - "

He paused, looking down at the ground, and the silence between them became so great that eventually James asked, "couldn't what?"

"I couldn't lose you – you're my family."

James was taken aback for a minute.

"Sirius, get down from the window," he said seriously.

Sirius did as he was told, landing lightly next to James with an expression of mixed embarrassment and concern.

"You're an idiot," he said, and wrapped his arms around Sirius in a hug. "And you're my brother, no matter what."

He felt Sirius release a breath and relax as he returned the hug. "Thanks Prongs," he muttered. "Er, while we're having a moment and all, would now be a good time to tell you that me and Moony sort of left the map in the prefects bathroom the other day."

"You what?" James asked, letting go of him.

"Yeah, remember, you were outside the door and I was distracted with trying not to let you know that I'd been making out with Remus so we kind of forgot about it. And by the time we went back for it... well, it wasn't there."

"What?" James said again, glaring at his friend.

"Yeah so, I'll just let you get back to your detention then," Sirius said, backing away from him, "good talk though mate, you're the best."

He fled, leaving James stood in the middle of room, feeling like he'd just been hit over the head with something. They're worked on the map for so long, and just like that it was gone?

Part of him knew he should be angry, but in the end he just shrugged it off. He supposed they wouldn't need it for much longer anyway, since they would be leaving school soon. Maybe someone else would find it and put it to good use long after they left. He found himself smiling slightly at the idea, as he set about cleaning another trophy.