Content Warning: Coarse language.

CHAPTER 4

One Fine Day

DAISY

The last Saturday of August promised to be an unbearably hot day with clear skies and no wind. So, of course, it only made sense to spend the day at the beach. There was a lake near the wizarding community that James lived in, but it was not exclusively frequented by witches and wizards, which was the way James liked it. Summer holiday was the perfect opportunity for anonymous hook-ups, as the girls there had no knowledge of James's reputation, therefore he could pretend to be anyone he wanted. He tended to be more successful outside of the Hogwarts community. By now he'd already burned bridges with at least half the girls in the school.

So, of course, I now had the privilege of sitting on a beach and watching him pay attention to literally every female in the area except for me. I might as well be a beached whale. And there I lay, stretched out on a beach blanket in the sun, alone but for my thoughts. The second we had got there, both James and Sirius had been gone in an instant, leaving me to watch over our stuff while they roamed, in and out of the water.

I preferred not to watch, and I lay on my back, eyes closed behind heart-shaped sunglasses. Remus sat beside me for a while, but he was eventually called away to splash in the shallows with James and Sirius, and I tried to drown out the sounds of flirtatious giggling from the girls all around. Every now and then, a bloke or two would walk over to the blanket where I was sprawled and try to make conversation, but they very quickly found me to be no fun, and would walk away.

"Hey sunshine," I heard one say now. It was the third one to try it and it was beginning to get annoying.

"No," I said, not even bothering to open my eyes or move my head.

"Pshh, bitch," he scoffed, but I could hear him walking away and that was all that mattered.

I continued to lie there, beginning to feel like I was roasting in an oven. I turned over to give my other side a chance to heat up. As I did so, I heard a wolf-whistle fired in my direction, but I ignored it. Soon I would go for a dip in the lake to cool down. But now the sounds of James's voice began to drift over to me. It sounded like he, Sirius, and Remus had found a group of girls and were engaging them in a water fight. I tried to focus on something else. I definitely didn't want to join them, I would only cramp their style. And I'm sure the girls wouldn't want me there either. Besides, they would probably be able to tell that I'd rather James was flirting with me than with them. Best to just stay here until I burn.

"Hey." Another male voice directed at me.

"Oh, sod off," I snapped. I opened my eyes and peered over to where the voice had come from. "Remus!" I said, sitting up quickly to face him. "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"You sound like you're having a blast," Remus said sarcastically.

"To the max," I replied.

"I came to get you, the water's great," he said, then he laughed. "Why does it feel so lame to say 'the water's great'?"

"You should say 'the water's outta sight'," I suggested, putting on a hippie voice.

"Groovy," Remus said. "Come on." He held a hand out to me. I looked over to the water where a group of three girls with fantastic bodies were running around, alternating between chasing James and Sirius, and being chased by them. James caught one around the waist and tackled her into the water where they both disappeared beneath the surface momentarily. The other two girls swam out into the deeper waters pursued by Sirius. "It's no fun without you," Remus said, his hand still held out to me.

"You're such a liar," I said, but I grinned and grabbed his hand, letting him pull me to my feet. It was surprisingly easy for him to hoist me upwards and I overcompensated my own trajectory and ended up launching myself into him, nearly knocking both of us over. He caught me though, and steadied both of us, and I was suddenly entirely too aware of the muscles in his arms and chest that I had never noticed before. We laughed, and I felt my face reddening, then I pulled away from him. I headed for the water; I needed to dunk my entire head into it immediately.

Remus was right though, the water was really nice. It had been a long, hot summer and the lake had had a lot of time to warm up. It was still cool and delightfully refreshing though. My fears about the girls turned out to be unfounded as they seemed happy to have me there. In fact, I was surprised by how easy I got on with them. I wasn't used to having girls for friends; the Marauders had been the only friends I'd had since I was eleven, and before that I had been a bit of a loner. I always found myself overanalysing and obsessing over social cues which would inevitably lead to me having nothing at all to say because my head was so full of useless nonsense. So I would just sit in nervous silence and everyone assumed I was timid and boring. And maybe I was, but I had never had that problem with the Marauders, probably because of the way we met. And, of course, their insistence on drawing me out of my shell and into their group. And they were so uncouth and talkative, it left no room for my brain to stress over decorum. I quickly found that I was grateful to them for it.

I wasn't sure what it was about these girls that made me comfortable, maybe it was that James, Sirius, and Remus had already warmed them up with their antics and with their playful advances, or maybe they saw me as an addition to their team, and added defence against handsy lads. Or maybe they were trying to feel out what kind of guys the Marauders were based on the female friend they were with. Or maybe they were just friendly girls.

In any other setting, I would be too intimidated by them to speak. They were all taller than me, and could easily have been models. Heather was deeply-tanned with an hourglass figure and a generous bosom. Nicola had very dark hair, radiant olive skin and a slender frame. Patty was the shortest, though still a good inch or two taller than me, with auburn hair and she filled out her bikini much better than I did. I felt entirely underdeveloped in comparison, and pale, like an unfortunate Victorian child who's been kept indoors to preserve her complexion. And maybe that was why they liked having me there; maybe it was the comparison with me by which they were made all the more magnificent.

That thought struck me near the end of the day, as the seven of us reclined on the diving dock that was moored a few metres out. Up until then, I had been having a great time. Then, suddenly, I felt uncomfortably aware of how good-looking everyone else was. Obviously, I had always found James attractive, I had been very aware of his good looks from the moment I met him, and that hadn't really left much room for anyone else. And of course it wasn't just Sirius's confidence that drew girls to him in droves, though that was a huge part of it. And Remus had always just been sweet and kind of nerdy to me, which made him easy to overlook.

But I sat there on the diving dock, suddenly feeling very isolated as I watched the girls stretch their legs out as they lounged, or pop their hips to accentuate their curves. I watched them flip their hair and let out flirtatious laughs at anything the boys said. They seemed to have total control over their bodies as though they were Barbie dolls being consciously posed by some external force. They had it down to an art, every glance and giggle carefully crafted to give off the impression of a performance so well-rehearsed that it was effortless. And it was very obviously directed at all three of the boys, not just James, not just Sirius, all of them.

I was the odd one out, I didn't belong to the sexy, eyelash-batting girls, nor was I a handsome, charming boy. I was a thing in-between, that had only just become aware of itself and wasn't sure what it was. I didn't think it was possible to be like those girls, but I knew I wanted to be. I wanted the cheeky jokes that James was making to be directed at me. I wanted to be the kind of girl that a boy couldn't help but graze his hand past innocently, or not so innocently, in Sirius's case. I wanted a shy smile directed at me, like Remus was displaying as Heather whispered something in his ear.

They all seemed so evenly-matched, and I just felt like an extra, a background player that nobody really noticed. I felt cold all over suddenly, even though a moment ago I had been sweating from the heat.

"Would you stop that?" Remus said, laughing and pushing Heather playfully away. He seemed to be flattered by the attention though. I wondered what she had been whispering to him. She was grinning coquettishly. "Let's go swimming. Hey, Daze, you wanna come with?" With him and Heather? Like some kind of third wheel? I looked to Heather, caught off guard.

"Come on," Heather said, grabbing me by the hands as she stood, and pulled me to my feet. I looked back at James who was lying on his side beside Nicola, his head propped up on his elbow. He was trailing a finger along the smooth skin of her hip and down her leg. Their faces were so close together. Then I was pulled into the cold water as Heather jumped into the lake, still holding my arm. I screamed in surprise, then I was under, and my mouth and nose filled with lake water.

When I surfaced, I coughed and spat out water, then pushed my tangled hair back and looked around. Remus and Heather were treading water and laughing together. Heather splashed him and he splashed her back, initiating a battle. I sighed and moved away from them to float on my back and look up at the sky. It was blissfully quiet with my ears under the water. It was relaxing to just lay on my back and breathe, but it made me feel alone again. All I could see was the cloudless blue expanse above me and all I could hear was the muffled echoes of the underwater world.

I tried not to think about what James was doing with Nicola, with her long, lean body, easy smile and thick, dark eyelashes. I knew I should be used to it by now. Even with his insistence that Lily was the love of his life, he had never been opposed to messing around with other girls.

"Practice, innit?" he would say whenever we brought up the apparent contradiction. "I don't want to be some inexperienced loser when I do finally land her, you know. And anyway, if she's my soul mate—and we all know she is—I might as well take advantage of my current freedom."

That kind of talk always terrified me. "Experience" had become a dirty word for me. Whenever I imagined a scenario where I had miraculously convinced James to fancy me, it inevitably led to his horrified discovery that I had no idea what I was doing. Or if I was even ready for it. But, unlike James, I hadn't felt the desire to "practice" and fool around with other guys. The thought of even engaging in flirtatious banter with someone else made me feel deeply uncomfortable.

And my mother always said boys only want one thing, and as soon as I gave it to them, I was nothing. It was like serving up all my self-worth on a platter for them to devour. But my parents had never made me feel like I had any worth anyway, so maybe that was all there was to me. If that was the only way to prove my worth, wasn't it a good thing? Wouldn't I then be proving to myself that I was worth something? All I knew was that it terrified me to think of giving myself to someone. And what scared me most of all was that no one else seemed to fear that. It made me feel silly and small, like I was a child pretending to be a woman, while all the other girls my age were actually becoming women.

Later that evening, I joined James, Sirius, and Remus in James's bedroom after showering. We were all feeling drained from being in the sun all day and we sprawled out on the bed or on the beanbag chairs. I had flopped facedown on the bed beside James, who lay on his back with his arms splayed out. They all seemed to be in such a good mood and I had to struggle not to betray the dip in my own mood.

"Such a shame we're leaving for Hogwarts tomorrow," Sirius was saying.

"What?" I said. It was the most ridiculous thing I had heard in a while.

"Yeah, Patty wanted to see me again," Sirius said. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "She was hot for me. Kept saying she 'wished we could be alone'."

"No way," I said as James and Remus "oooh"ed from different sides of the room so it sounded like I was surrounded by a ghostly choir.

"Yeah, she was beginning to get a bit pushy there near the end," he said. "Didn't believe me when I told her I was leaving for boarding school. Kept asking what it was called."

"And what did you tell her?" I asked.

"Told her she'd never heard of it," he answered. "Made something up. She got a bit sore after that."

"And what about you?" I said, turning to Remus. "What did Heather keep whispering to you?"

"Oh," he said with a laugh, and I swear he was blushing. "She thought we should give her friends some space with James and Sirius. Said we'd probably end up witnessing an orgy if we stuck around any longer."

"No!" I gasped. Remus shrugged.

"And she didn't want to join?" James said in an offended tone.

"No, of course not," Sirius said. "She wanted to keep Remus all to herself." Remus gave an exaggerated shrug and smug grin as though asking what else we would expect from such a sexy bloke as he.

"Oh, no one's going to ask about the stone fox I pulled today?" I said. They all looked at me.

"You, pull?" Sirius asked.

"Nice one," James said. They all laughed. I laughed along, hoping none of them noticed that I had made the joke in order to deflect attention away from how much of an outcast I had felt, and probably looked. I didn't want to imagine how awkward it would be if they knew I wasn't totally down with sitting on the side lines and watching them all get it on with other girls.

I didn't think it was a charade I could keep up for long though. I had to do something about it this year, I decided. The only way to stop bugging out about flirting with dudes was to get used to it. I had to try to talk to guys this school year. Or else I'd just end up looking like some boring prude while the rest of the Marauders moved on into the world of adults and left me behind.

I had been stoked to return to Hogwarts, but the thought of trying to become a sexy girl who guys wanted to snog made me stomach twist up into knots. But it didn't make me feel quite as queasy as the thought of nobody being interested in me ever. I was sure nobody had ever thought of me as anything more than cute, and right now cute didn't feel very appealing. Cute was what you thought of first and second year girls. By fifth year, nobody was interested in cute anymore. At least, that's what I thought. I really didn't know. I was out of my depth and fifth year hadn't even started yet. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to turn away those guys at the beach. Maybe they were right, maybe I was a bitch. A frigid bitch. I pushed my face into the bedspread and let out an involuntary groan.

"Oh, she's grumpy," James said, patting my head. I let out another groan, trying to lift my head but he kept his hand there. "Shh, shh. Baby's had a long day." I smacked his hand away and sat up. On the wireless, Nico was singing "the Fairest of the Seasons". We sat together in silence for the rest of the song. It was always hard to talk over Nico's soothing voice, and the violins in this song complemented it so well.

Then the song changed, and David Bowie got us grooving to "Fame". It had come out earlier that year on his album "Young Americans" and it was still going strong months later. The next few songs were upbeat and funky, and we soon found ourselves singing and dancing along, especially when "Ballroom Blitz" came on. By the time KC and the Sunshine Band started bidding us to get down tonight, I had completely forgotten about my worries. We were all on James's bed then, which had ample room for the four of us to jump around. Then Sirius had to do a very dramatic solo performance to "Rhinestone Cowboy" as the rest of us nearly died laughing.

It was getting late, and we were all tired. We had to finish packing our trunks up and get up early the next day to get to the train station to catch the Hogwarts Express. We ended the night with an exaggerated group singalong to "Love Will Keep Us Together" after which James had to turn off the radio to force us all to leave.

"Out, out," he said with a shooing motion. "How can I get any work done with you lot here?"

The next morning, James's parents took us to the train station in his father's ministry vehicle, which was a lot larger on the inside than on the outside and had no problem fitting our school trunks and ourselves in it. We all bid goodbye to his parents outside the station as it was near impossible to find a parking space at such a busy time. By now we were entirely capable of finding our way onto platform 9 ¾, invisible and inaccessible to the muggles who hurried this way and that, shooting curious glances at ourselves and our trunks and James's owl. We had loaded our trunks onto luggage trolleys and pushed our along the train station until we came to the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. It was just an unassuming stretch of red brick, but we all knew what lay beyond it, having passed through the supposedly solid wall several times already.

It still made me a little uncomfortable, so I ran at it with my eyes shut, trying to convince the logical part of my brain, the part that had very much been raised by muggles, that I would come to no harm. I felt a subtle change in the air around me, and opened my eyes, but I still managed to collide with something on the other side. I let out a gasp and began to apologize, before realizing who it was.

"What, are they letting muggles in? Oh, it's you, might as well be a muggle," said a boy with a haughty sneer on his face.

"Nice to see you too, Wilkes," I said, trying not to be shaken by the look of utter distaste he was directing at me. Norman Wilkes was a sixth year Slytherin, and most of the Slytherins, if not all of them, looked down on muggles and muggleborns like me. It had been abundantly clear from the first moment I'd stepped on the Hogwarts Express that I wouldn't be getting on with them.

"A shame the barrier lets your people through," said the pale-haired girl who was standing with Wilkes. With the pallor of her skin and the nearly silver shade of her hair, she looked like she could be a ghost, which was quite apt, as her name was Faye Deadman. She was another Slytherin in the same year as Wilkes.

"It let a hag like you through," Remus said from behind me, having come through the barrier just in time to hear her remark. "So, it clearly doesn't discriminate."

"Judging by Wilkes's face, here, it looks like it tried to keep him out, went solid until he ran into it enough times and it had to let him in," Sirius said, rolling his cart up beside me.

"Come along, Daisy," James said from my other side. "Let's get going, there must be some rubbish around here judging by the stench."

"Thanks," I said quietly as we headed in the other direction together.

"It's nothing," Remus said.

"Or, should we say, they're nothing," Sirius added.

We made our way along the platform, stopping here and there to exchange a brief greeting with fellow students. The train wouldn't be leaving for another fifteen minutes or so, and there were a lot of people crowding the platform, students saying goodbye to their families or excitedly meeting up with friends they hadn't seen since June. We ditched our trolleys and hoisted our trunks onto the train, stowing them in the overhead luggage racks once we'd found a suitable compartment. They were mostly empty still, so we had our pick of them, and grabbed one near the middle like always.

We had hardly sat down when we heard the clattering and puffing sounds of someone hurrying down the train corridor with a heavy trunk. It was accompanied by many an "oof" and "hmph" and "urgh". The four of us in the compartment turned our heads and listened curiously. Then we saw a trunk appear in the doorway of our compartment, and then the dishevelled form of Peter Pettigrew appeared behind it.

"There you are!" he said, huffing and puffing. He pushed the trunk into the compartment and James and Remus helped him to shove it into the luggage rack. Pete gave a huge sigh of relief when it was all done, and he flopped down onto the seat beside Sirius.

"Nice threads, Pete," Sirius said, pulling him into a quick hug.

"Oh," Pete said, tugging self-consciously at his flared brown cords and wide-collared blue paisley shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. "Yeah?" He grinned as soon as he had determined that it was a genuine compliment and not a sarcastic one.

"Very fab," I agreed, sitting beside Sirius. Pete glanced at me and blushed, but continued to smile.

"Have a good summer?" Pete asked the compartment at large, but his voice came out in a bit of a squeak this time.

"Not as good as if you'd been there," James said, sitting across from me.

"Yeah," Pete said sadly. "Mum and dad made me go with them to the south of France for a whole month."

"That sounds nice," I said. It did sound nice. I'd always wanted to visit the south of France, Marseille in particular. The Mediterranean sounded like it would be an amazing place to spend the summer.

"Everyone spoke French," Pete said, scowling.

"Yeah, I imagine they would," Remus said.

"Don't know why they wouldn't even let me stay with you for a couple days," Pete went on. "Must've thought I'd be an imposition."

"Well, they're right about that," James said cheekily. "Wouldn't have had enough sweets for everyone with you there." Pete's face fell at this and James rolled his eyes. "Don't flip your wig, we're jazzed to have you back with us. The Marauders, together again."

"You ready to become an—" Sirius started, but Remus kicked his leg from across the compartment. "I mean…to finish the…thing." Sirius said, rubbing his shin.

We could hear students making their way onto the train and the compartment door was still open. What we were about to do tonight, what we had been preparing for, was definitely not something to discuss in mixed company. To become Animagi without registering with the Ministry of Magic was very much illegal. But, given our age and the reasons for which we wanted to do it, none of us thought it would be permitted. But we weren't about to let that stop us. Remus had already had to endure almost 6 years of full moons alone, the painful transformations, the horribly lonely nights where the only thing to keep him occupied was to take out his frustrations on himself. We weren't about to let that go on any longer than it had to. And soon, very soon, we would be able to spend those nights with him. We would be able to distract him, maybe even have fun together.

"I can't believe it's tonight," Pete said, his eyes wide. "It feels like only yesterday we started."

We were all smiling, our eyes sparkling with excitement, but then I looked across the compartment to where Remus sat by the window. His face changed before my eyes, the smile slowly disappearing, his brow furrowing in concern as he looked out at the platform with the last waves of students leaving their families.

"Are you sure?" he asked, looking back at us. "It's…I mean, you could get into a lot of trouble. Are you sure it's worth it?"

"Worth it?" James scoffed. "You think we're just doing this for you, mate?"

"Yeah, don't give yourself so much credit," Sirius said, kicking Remus's shin as Remus had just done to him. "Chances are, we'd be doing this even if it weren't for your, uh, problem."

"I can't think of a funner extracurricular activity," Pete agreed.

"Of course you can't," Sirius said, nudging Pete. "I can." He winked. "But this is also cool."

"Imagine the possibilities," James said, just like he had said the other night. He was staring off into space dreamily, probably imagining himself as some type of flying creature again.

"I'm kind of nervous," I said. "What if we don't like…you know…" I was about to say, "our animal forms" but then figured I shouldn't say something so obvious. Then I tried to think of a stealthier way to say it, but couldn't come up with anything, so I just trailed off.

"Well, my dear," James said, leaning across the compartment to me and placing a hand on my knee, which I had to try very hard not to shudder at as my entire body filled with excitement at the touch. "That must mean you don't like yourself."

"Okay, that's comforting," I said, frowning. It was not comforting at all. Made me all the more certain that I wouldn't like my animal form.

"Oh, come on, Daze," Sirius said, leaning over and resting his head on my shoulder to gaze up at me. "Whatever you get, it'll be cute as a little button. You'll probably get the best one."

"Aw, so sweet. And entirely correct," I said. Sirius put an arm around my waist and hugged me, nestling his head into my chest. "Okay, very smooth. Get your face out of my boobs." I pushed him away. He leaned in the other direction then, squashing Pete against the window.

The train let out a long, shrill whistle and the last students on the platform scrambled to get on. In another moment, the train began to move, slowly pulling out of the station and then picking up speed. We watched through the window as the city turned into the rolling farmland of the countryside.

"Well, I'm off," Remus said, standing up. He opened his trunk to pull his robes out.

"What, what are you doing that for?" Sirius asked.

"Prefect duties," Remus replied. "Got to meet the other Prefects and Head Boys and Girls."

"Oh, of course," James said with a roll of his eyes. "Mustn't keep them waiting." He made a shooing motion with his hands. "You think all this power's going to go to his head?"

"I'm sure it will," Pete said. He extracted himself from the corner that Sirius had squished him into and sat beside James in the spot that Remus had just vacated. "But he'll always have a soft spot for us."

There was a stream of students passing back and forth through the corridors, occasionally popping their heads into our compartment for a quick word, as in the case of Bertha Jorkins and her group of giggling Hufflepuff girls, as well as a series of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw girls, with a few boys thrown in. James and Sirius lounged in their seats and accepted the visits as though they were kings holding court, while Pete and I engaged in polite conversation with everyone.

"Oh, look who it is!" James said as a dark figure passed out compartment. He went out and returned a moment later with his arm around Severus Snape, a skinny, black-haired Slytherin in our year. James had his arm around the smaller boy's shoulders in something that looked more like a chokehold than anything else. "Our good friend Snivellus!" James announced in a tone of genuine joy.

"Oi, I heard you got expelled for performing magic on muggle children," Sirius said. "Or was that just a lovely dream?"

"You would be dreaming about me," Snape said with a scowl.

"Because you probably cursed him," Pete said, eager to join in.

"Yeah, I'd love to have a summer free of you, and yet…" Sirius said with an exaggerated shrug.

"Not my fault you're obsessed with me," Snape said as he tried to wriggle out of James's grip.

"Hey, where are your little pals anyway?" James asked, looking back out into the corridor.

"Why do you care? Have you decided to stop hanging around mudbloods and bloodtraitors?" He shot a glare in my direction.

"Goodness," I said mockingly. "Keep talking like that and you might hurt my feelings."

"Like you people have feelings," Snape spat at me venomously.

"Okay, that's enough," Sirius said shortly. "Shouldn't you be sucking off Avery or something."

"What's going on here?" Lily Evans's stern voice cut through the air. "Everything okay, Severus?"

"It's fine," Severus said, freeing himself from James's slackening grip and shoving past Lily.

"Evans," James said smoothly, his hand automatically going to his hair. Lily folded her arms over her dark school robes where a new Prefect's badge was neatly pinned. "Prefect, huh? Have I ever told you how sexy I find authority?"

"I did always suspect you had a thing for Professor McGonagall," Lily said, raising an eyebrow sardonically.

"Oh, yeah," James said, leaning in the doorway of the compartment. "Love the tartan."

"Of course," Lily replied, but her tone remained flat and unfriendly, and she wasn't smiling. "I don't suppose you'll stop being such a bully if I ask you nicely?"

"Bully? Who's a bully? Me?" James asked, and he sounded genuinely offended now.

"What else would you call it?" she asked.

"Putting them in their place," James said, and his chest swelled a little. "Do you really think it's bullying if our only targets are bullies? You know what his type are like. The kinds of things they say about muggles and muggleborns. The shit they talk about doing to them? And with what's going on right now, Death Eaters, Voldemort. Bet there's not a single one of those Slytherin gits that isn't dreaming about becoming a Death Eater. Bet the lot of them see it as a family business. I mean, have you heard Regulus go on about it? Bet the Death Eaters are already offering internships."

"So, you think you're some kind of vigilante?"

"What can I say? I hate bigots. And murderers."

"Right," Lily said. "Well, I hate bullies. And it looks like bullying to me." She turned and walked away. James let out a sigh as he watched her go. He sat back down with a dreamy smile on his face.

"Prefect suits her," he said in a tone to match his expression.

"I feel like she was born a Prefect," I said. "It only took fifteen years for the badge to catch up with her. Bit sloppy that."

"Yeah, she's great," James said, clearly not listening.

"Unfortunate though," Sirius said. "No matter how lax Remus will be on us, I'm sure she'll pick up the slack. I really do think she's the one who's got a thing for McGonagall. Hey, Daze, she doesn't have a poster of her on her wall, does she? Or a framed photo at her bedside?"

"Not that I know of," I said. Despite the joking around, I could tell that the atmosphere of the compartment had shifted. James had been going off about Death Eaters and Lord Voldemort, but that had mainly been his spouting off to look good and justify his actions to Lily. He'd even brought Sirius's younger brother, Regulus into it. I could tell by Sirius's face and the strained tone in which he had attempted to steer conversation away from the topic, that his mood had dipped.

It was no secret that Sirius's family were heavily involved in the dark arts, and, though the identities of all of Voldemort's followers were not officially known, there were many prominent pureblood families that shared the ideals of the Death Eaters. James had been right, most of our Slytherin classmates were among these families, at least half of which I'd eat my cloak if they turned out not to be aligned with Voldemort. Lily Evans had something of a noble streak, and was a firm believer in giving the benefit of the doubt. She also had something of a weakness when it came to Severus Snape, though for what reason, I couldn't fathom. As long as I'd known the two of them, he had been unaccountably nasty to her, where she had only ever been kind to him. And yet, she continued to believe there was something good in him. It made me a little sad.

Lily was muggleborn, like me, and it always amazed me that she could remain so firmly unbiased after hearing half the things the Slytherins said to her and about her, and after being on the receiving end of the disgusted looks they shot in her direction. Within my first week of school, I had developed a powerful distaste for the Slytherins that had quickly deepened into loathing. And I couldn't deny the fear that managed to creep its way into my bones upon hearing the news of attacks on muggles and muggleborns, and even just the attitudes towards nonmagical people and those descended from nonmagical people.

Of course, being as young as we were, and still in school in the somewhat sheltered world of Hogwarts, we were by no means hearing about everything that was happening. We'd read about things in the Daily Prophet, but it was hard to tell what was being sensationalized and what was being suppressed and brushed under the rug. Then there were the rumours you'd hear from students, especially Slytherins who would claim to have inside information. But it was never certain what was fearmongering and what was real. It was best not to believe anything the Slytherins said anyway, as they were always trying to terrorize the other students. The best practice was to treat them as though they were what they were; children who, like the rest of us, didn't truly know anything, no matter how pompously they may assert that they did.

I considered asking Sirius about his family, about the first part of his summer holiday when he had supposedly returned home. James had been rather vague in his letter to me, stating only that Sirius "couldn't stand" to be at home any longer. But I figured it was a touchy subject. It was obvious it had been bad enough that he had had to take refuge at the Potters' for the majority of the summer. As far as I knew, Sirius refused to speak to, or even acknowledge his brother when they were at school. He didn't even show Regulus the same disdain for which he openly held for the other members of his family, cousins and aunts and uncles, and his parents. It must be a source of pain for him. They must have been close once.

Outside, the sun had vanished behind a thick mass of oncoming clouds, washing the landscape in a bleak grey light. There was silence in the compartment for several more minutes, and it was only the arrival of the snack trolley, laden as it was with its delightful sweets and treats in vividly colourful packaging, that broke the sudden monotonous tone of the journey.