A/N: Everything you recognize here is owned by JK Rowling and not me.

Chapter 39 - 4.5 or "The Priority List"

Nine days after Sirius transformed for the first time, James followed.

It was the evening of a full moon and, thus, Remus wasn't there to witness the feat. James had met Peter and Sirius in the passageway after a late but exhilarating Quidditch practice during which Raeanne Muller had integrated seamlessly into a number of the schemes he had devised. The boys had only been practicing the Form spells for ten minutes or so when he had morphed, with no warning or foresight, into a stag.

As with Sirius's transformations, James's lasted only a handful of seconds before he too was thrust abruptly back into his human form without a lick of clothes on.

They had returned to the dormitory not long after, and though James and Sirius were practically vibrating with jubilance, Peter's demeanor remained subdued.

"Oi, Peter, no sense turning in yet! We've got to celebrate!" said Sirius as Peter began shuffling through his trunk for his night clothes. "It's not every night your mate finds out he's a ruddy deer."

"Stag!" corrected James, pausing in shaking out his Invisibility Cloak to gesture at the empty space above his head. "You saw the antlers yourself. Majestic, one might say they were…"

"Sure, okay," laughed Sirius, only somewhat appeasingly. "You nearly impaled me with one of those majestic prongs of yours…"

Peter had made his way toward the door of the lavatory, and while he had a smile on his round face when he turned to talk to them, it was strained. "I'm knackered. Just going to have a quick wash and then bed, I reckon."

In the end, James and Sirius did not try too hard to convince him otherwise, so it was only the two of them that found themselves in the kitchens a bit later eating more than their fair share of sticky toffee pudding in celebration of James's accomplishment.

"…and Muller's really taken to it, she's got a nice spin on her shot that'll keep opposing Keepers guessing." James paused in his retelling of the Quidditch practice only to take a swig from his bottle of butterbeer. His eyes followed a group of house elves that shuffled behind Sirius, levitating what looked like an enormous bag of rice. "Plus, did I mention O'Shea got herself a new broom over the summer?"

"Twice," Sirius reminded him. "A Comet 110?"

"It's a quality broom," James continued, as if he hadn't said the same thing when he first saw the Seeker in question on her new broomstick. "She'll be faster than Lestrange in a dash race, it'll only be the question of whether she's in the right position to see the Snitch…"

"I'm sure O'Shea'd be happy to have some private training with you before the Slytherin match, if you've got positioning tips for her," Sirius pointed out with a smirk.

James did not immediately pick up on the connotation. "I can help her with pitch rotations, to be sure, but—" At his obliviousness, Sirius started laughing. "…What?"

Between chortles, Sirius scraped what remained of the pudding from his bowl and licked it from his spoon. "She's a good-looking witch. And she's been making moon-eyes at you for ages, mate."

The tips of James's ears went very red very fast. "Oh." He paused. "Really? Well that's not—I mean, I'm not… What about—"

"Evans is still with Adamsly, yeah?" James felt no need to dignify the injustice of it all with a verbal response, so he gave a terse nod instead. "Anyhow, there's no law that says you can't be keen on two girls at the same time is there?"

"I'm not keen on O'Shea, though," James pointed out.

"All right," replied Sirius easily. He pushed his now-empty bowl away and a house elf appeared to take the sullied dish before he had even removed his hand from it. "And there's no law either against snogging a girl you don't fancy."

"I suppose," muttered James, but without much conviction. "But I think I'll just… I mean, Evans is bound to ditch Adamsly before long, right?" Sirius gave a somewhat disinterested shrug.

James did not wish to dwell much on Lily Evans these days. He had not spoken to her—really spoken to her—since their run-in in the Owlery toward the end of the previous term, and this fact nettled him for a number of reasons, the most pressing being that he had no real idea what to do about it. His desire to be close to the girl, to make her laugh, to observe her from a nearer distance than the rows of a classroom, battled very specifically with his need for the preservation of his own dignity.

Plus, James had plenty of other things to occupy his mind.

After a moment of companionable silence, he said with a casual change of subject, "Speaking of races, I reckon a stag could beat a dog in a footrace any day."

"You're mental," retorted Sirius. "Dog racing is literally a thing. No one's out betting their good Galleons on deer."

"That's only because dogs are trainable, not because they're fast. Dogs'll do whatever humans want. Submissive, one might say…"

"You do realize dogs help people hunt deer—"

"Stag." James, too, pushed his empty bowl away. "And as soon as we can hold our Forms we'll put it to a wager, eh?"

"Speaking of, Remus and I looked through the Aesalon book a few nights ago," Sirius told him, and as James raised his eyebrows in surprise, Sirius gave him a sheepish shrug. "He thought it'd be best not to pressure you," he explained, waving it aside. "Anyway, we can start the mandrake cycle on the new moon, which is in two weeks…"

James gave him a look. "Except…"

"Peter," Sirius finished with a resigned nod. "How close is he, do you reckon?"

"Hard to tell. Every time I've watched him at it he's doing that flourish-y thing with his wand—"

"Merlin, he's such a girl."

"—but he's got the incantation right finally, at least."

There was a heavy pause during which both boys were thinking the same thing, and what was more, each knew the other was thinking it.

Sirius broke the silence. "He's got two weeks."

"No."

"And then we move into the mandrake phase without him."

"Mate, no."

"It's not as if we ever said we'd all do it step-by-step together."

"He'd lose his shit, Sirius, we can't."

"So?"

"Sirius…"

"We're so bloody close, James—we can taste it—and now we've got to pull up on the broom to wait for Peter? What if it takes him another year? We just sit here spinning our wands, hoping he can manage it?"

James ran a restless hand through his hair and leveled Sirius with a curious stare. "Would you have waited for me?"

"What?"

"If I hadn't transformed tonight, or in the next two weeks, would you have waited until I did before you moved on with the mandrake?"

"Of course," Sirius said, as if this were the most obvious thing ever. At the pointed expression on James's face, he waved a hand. "It's not the same thing."

"It is."

"It's not. You were quite obviously going to transform soon. At most it would've been another month. It's hard to tell if Peter is even close…"

"We'll help him. I'll help him, if you won't." When Sirius only lowered his brow in frustration, James continued in a more pacifying tone. "He waited for us, remember? When he connected first?"

Sirius snorted, but some of the fight seemed to trickle out of him. "He had to. He couldn't have started the spells without us, you know he couldn't have."

"He waited for us," James repeated firmly. "And we'll wait for him." He stood up from the table and stretched. "Are you ready to go back up, then?"

There was nothing of it. When James made such easy declarations, there would be no talking him out of anything he had set his mind on, and Sirius never seemed to find it in him to argue with James, really. So with a shrug, he downed the last swig of his butterbeer, left the empty bottle on the wooden table for the elves, and took his place at James's side.

There was something lovely about creeping through the castle at night, James thought as he and Sirius navigated the moonlit corridors beneath the Invisibility Cloak. The air moved differently than it did during daylight, when the halls were filled with the clamor of pupils and chirping portraits; beyond curfew, the portraits snored sporadically in their frames and the old stone walls seemed to breathe more slowly, as if slumbering themselves. But it wasn't just the peacefulness of the castle at night that James found lovely, it was the inherent thrill in breaking the rules, of being so brazenly out of bed when the rest of their classmates were holed up in their dormitories.

And that night was particularly lovely. Or perhaps James was just in a particularly good mood on account of his transforming into a stag several hours prior.

"What do you reckon?" he whispered to Sirius as they slipped silently onto the second floor landing. "Moving staircase or the passage behind the portrait of those blonde sirens on the rock?"

"Moving staircase," Sirius answered at once, his voice low. "That passage is too tight to manage under the cloak. And it's one of Filch's favorites."

"The passage is his favorite or the portrait? Because any fellow'd be mad not to like looking at those sirens."

"The passage," clarified Sirius. "I nearly ran into him in it last week. But that portrait's enough to make a wizard want to leave land and become a sailor."

James smirked but did not disagree. "We're more likely to run across some patrolling prefects on the staircase," he mused, but he heeded Sirius's advice and the pair started toward the indicated route.

Fortunately, the boys came across neither prefects nor Filch as they made their way stealthily back to the seventh floor. They had only just turned down the shadowy corridor toward the portrait hole when they passed a grand, arched window, displaying a westerly-facing view of the Forbidden Forest and flanked on either side by two foreboding suits of armor. James slowed to a stop, his gaze suddenly drawn through the glass to the darkened grounds. Having been given no forewarning of his friend's intended pause, Sirius continued walking and the Invisibility Cloak pulled nearly entirely off of James's figure before Sirius said "Oi!" and doubled back.

"What are you doing?" he asked, twitching the silvery fabric back into place over them both.

"Nothing," said James truthfully, as he wasn't certain what had made him stop to observe the castle grounds. The tops of the forest's trees were bathed in quiet, silver blades of moonlight. A lazy curl of smoke drifted from the chimney of Hagrid's hut. The ferocious limbs of the Whomping Willow swayed, tantalizingly peaceful in the breeze. "It's only…"

He could not explain it, the sudden cramping sadness that had spiked within him at the sight of the moon-soaked Willow. It was as if he had forgotten for some time what, exactly, their aim had been when they had endeavored—nearly two years prior—on the path to becoming Animagi. But James recalled, with that sort of sudden brutality of an unbidden memory resurfacing, the sounds of Remus's howls that night they had been trapped in the Shack with him, the sharp cracks of his breaking bones, the ravaged nubs of his fingers the following morning.

"Er…you all right?" asked Sirius, following his line of sight toward the Willow.

"I'll help Peter get the Form spells down," James whispered, the non sequitur more to himself than to the friend standing next to him. Then, more firmly, "He might not be able to transform before the new moon in two weeks, but if he can't do it before next month's…" He paused, swallowed, considered the decision, before finishing, "…then we'll move into the mandrake phase without him."

Sirius observed James for a moment. "Better you than me," he said at length. "But it sounds like a fair—"

He cut off abruptly, and James realized why a second later, as the unmistakable plod of soft footsteps approached from behind them. As one, the two boys pulled themselves flush against the stone wall and out of the path of the approaching interlopers. A moment later, the owners of the anonymous footsteps came into view, and with them, a girl's quiet, teasing voice.

"…didn't have to walk me back, you know. I actually do know how to find the Gryffindor common room on my own."

"It's hours past curfew," responded her male counterpart. "What would you say if someone caught you?"

"You mean you wouldn't want me to tell Filch that I've been off doing unspeakable things in the Arithmancy classroom with the Head Boy?"

Something about this bold statement caused the wizard in question to stop his progress up the corridor and hastily pull the girl aside. Most unfortunately, the pair now stood mere steps from where James and Sirius were huddled frozen beneath the cloak. The proximity, though troubling, at least allowed the boys the chance to determine who exactly had unknowingly stumbled upon them: Hufflepuff Head Boy Fitzhenry Fortescue and Gryffindor sixth-year Didina Murphy.

"I don't want you to tell anybody that," said Fortescue, and he scratched at the back of his neck in a guilty sort of way. "But Filch wouldn't question me if I told him I'd been giving you private lessons like we said…"

"Hm, yes, I learned a lot in our lesson." Didina smiled at him. "You're a very good teacher."

"Don't joke. No one can know—"

"I know, Fitz," said Didina, but her playful tone had turned frustrated. "But you've been saying you're going to break up with Cecilia for weeks now, and this is all starting to feel a bit…sordid."

"I will," returned Fortescue lowly. "I-I'm just trying to find the right time. Cecilia's delicate, you know that, and I've got a reputation to uphold, after all, and if word got around that I…that I've been…"

"Shagging me since term started?"

"R-right. I mean, you won't tell right? You're still okay with this?"

Didina sighed and then kissed the boy before patting his cheek and turning to continue her progress toward the portrait hole. "You're cute, Fitz," she said. "But I won't tell. Cecilia's my friend, isn't she? I don't want her to find out any more than you do."

Sirius and James stayed silent and stationary underneath the cloak until the Fat Lady had swung shut behind Didina and the Head Boy had disappeared around a far corner. Once they were certain they were again alone in the corridor, James let out a breath of a laugh.

"So, Murphy's shagging the Head Boy, eh?"

"Lucky Head Boy," murmured Sirius, as the two resumed their approach of the portrait hole.

"What are the two of you doing out so late?" asked the Fat Lady when they pulled the cloak off themselves a moment later and smiled up at her. "You're going to lose Gryffindor points you know!"

"So you've said before, Winnie," replied Sirius charmingly. "And as I've told you every time, we only lose points if we get caught, and we only get caught if you don't let us in."

"Password's Murtlap, by the way," added James, winking at her, and with a good-humored sigh, the Fat Lady allowed them entrance.

Didina Murphy had apparently gone to her dormitory and the common room was completely empty as the boys took their customary seats by the dwindling fire. Sirius was looking a bit dazed and James had to fight back a laugh.

"All right, stop imagining what it's like to shag Murphy and let's suss out a way to use this information to our advantage."

Sirius looked up at him. "What are you on about? What do we care who the Head Boy's shagging?"

"We don't," said James. "But the fact that Fortescue's running round behind his girlfriend's back is valuable information. And we can always use valuable information."

"Er, how exactly?"

"Well I haven't worked that bit out yet," admitted James with a wave of his hand.

"So now we're adding 'blackmailing the Head Boy' to our list, right beneath 'teaching Peter how to turn into a raccoon' and 'devising some sort of system to track all the secret passages in this place?'" Sirius asked with a skeptical arch of an eyebrow.

James gave an encouraging clap to Sirius's shoulder. "Child's play, mate."

"A deer?" Remus's voice echoed around the cavernous hospital wing and even despite its otherwise emptiness, he cringed and lowered his voice before repeating in a heavy whisper, "You're a deer?"

"Cute little fluffy tail and all," quipped Sirius at the same time James said, "A stag. Can we get this right? Not deer. Stag."

"What's the difference?" asked Peter, who had perched on the bed next to Remus's feet.

James humphed. "A stag is much more manly. With antlers. You didn't tell him about my antlers."

"Oh yeah," added Sirius. "He's got antlers, Moony."

"A huge rack of them," Peter said. "Nearly got Sirius's eye out with one."

Remus, it seemed, couldn't help himself, and even in his exhausted, battered state, he uttered a very solemn, "Oh dear."

There was a beat during which the other three boys looked at him before they fell into simultaneous laughter.

"Wait, wait, wait," said Sirius once they had all settled down enough to resume conversation. He tilted his chair onto its back two legs, delighted. "Can we take a moment to revisit Peter commenting on James's huge rack?"

And that was all it took for the four to dissolve into a fit of laughter once more.

October trundled on, and James's elation at his new ability to transform into a stag—even if for only a few seconds at a time—carried him through the frenetic pace of the following weeks. True to his word, he began spending even more of his time in the fourth-floor passageway, attempting to guide Peter through the spells that would finally allow him to discover his Animagus Form. Peter, for his part, was a willing pupil, though as the October new moon came and went, James began to feel the pressure of the promise he had made to Sirius. He had only one month left in which to teach Peter, and any progress they seemed to make was incremental at best.

Despite his earlier protestations, Sirius would often join in James's tutelage, commenting here and there on the intonement of Peter's incantations or the fluidity of his arm movements, but any confidence Peter possessed seemed to dissipate under Sirius's impatient asides. And as November crept ever closer, James, too, began to lose patience.

"You're too rigid," James told Peter one rainy Thursday as the pair made their way from the fourth floor toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. They had spent their afternoon break practicing in the passageway to no avail, and James had to work hard to repress any bite from his tone. "You've got to relax."

"That's easy for you to say," mumbled Peter. "It's easier to relax when you know you can do it."

"Look," James sighed, pulling Peter toward the side of the corridor and stopping to frown at him. "Think of how good you felt when you connected for the first time. Think of how relaxed you had to be. It's the same thing, Pete. You've got to be able to do that while casting the spells."

"Yeah, all right." Peter nodded but did not meet James's eye. "So you've said."

James's intended response, however, was disrupted by a chipper voice from behind him. "Hi, James!"

He turned to find Susanna O'Shea smiling at him, a few of her fifth-year friends lurking in the periphery.

"Oh," he said, caught somewhat off-guard. "All right, O'Shea?"

"I was wondering if Walker's mentioned to you if training's cancelled for tonight?" she asked.

Susanna O'Shea was undeniably pretty, and James had noticed this more frequently since Sirius had raised the topic in the kitchens several weeks prior. James thought he preferred her in her Quidditch robes with her hair tied back, though, to the version that was blinking at him now, with her hair all done-up and some sort of pink shiny stuff on her lips.

"Cancelled?" he echoed.

She tilted her head toward a nearby window made nearly opaque by merciless sheets of rain. "Because of the rain."

"If a match wouldn't be cancelled because of the rain, training shouldn't be," James said.

She raised her eyebrows and smiled widely. "I agree. There's no better feeling than catching the Snitch in a downpour. But Walker listens to you more than he listens to me, so make sure you tell him that, all right?"

"Oh." James had not expected this response. "All right then, I will."

"Cheers. Knew I could count on you." She turned to start walking in the opposite direction, but not before looking back over her shoulder with another bright smile and a quick wave. "Bye James. Bye Peter."

"Sh-she knows my name," whispered Peter as the two continued their trek toward their Defense lesson.

"'Course she does. You're a Gryffindor aren't you?"

Peter flushed and had to bounce out of the way as a group of older Hufflepuffs hurried in the opposite direction. Once he had caught back up to James, he said in a funny voice, "There are plenty of Gryffindors who don't know my name."

"Rubbish. Everyone knows us."

A strange expression crossed Peter's face but no more was said on the subject as James pulled open the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Despite the inauspicious start to the term, Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons had been less excruciating than James had originally suspected. Indeed, Professor Idurus seemed a decent-enough sort of wizard, and if it weren't for the wan, pained expression that overcame Remus's face every time Idurus began his lectures, James would have even found himself enjoying the lessons from time to time. The professor seemed fair yet thorough, and perhaps a bit out of his depth when it came to dark creatures, but he was always willing to engage a dialogue or help the students locate answers to questions he didn't personally know. James and Sirius had spent a good deal of time theorizing on ways to inconspicuously prevent the professor from teaching his planned lessons on werewolves, but no grand idea had yet come to them. Luckily, the werewolf curriculum would not be taught until June, and James reckoned they'd have plenty of time to concoct a scheme by then.

The first thing James noticed when they entered the room was the large, glass tank that had taken up residence at the front of the classroom. He peered at it curiously, wondering what specimen Idurus had brought to show them today, but was unable to locate anything in the tank other than some short, stocky reeds and a fair bit of swirling fog. Otherwise, the tank appeared empty.

"What've we got today?" James asked Remus as he passed the desk he shared with Peter. Remus was, after all, the only one of them that ever paid any attention to Professor Idurus' overly detailed syllabus.

"Hinkypunks," Remus slid his bag over to make room for Peter's arrival while James took his usual seat next to Sirius.

"Fascinating, that," muttered Sirius without even looking up from the parchment he was hunched over.

James dropped himself into his chair before leaning closer to get a view of the parchment. It was covered in a grid of intersecting, nonsensical lines. "Writing a code now?" he posed, frowning down at the parchment.

At this, Sirius glanced up at him and then said lowly, "It's the ground floor. Look…" He used the tip of his quill to indicate an uneven rectangle. "The Great Hall. The entrance hall. And this line's the corridor that leads off to Filch's office."

"Merlin," said James, leaning back in his chair now. "If you're serious about this map business, at least let someone else draw it so it doesn't look like a drunken four-year-old got into his mum's ink pot."

"Piss off," Sirius said, though the laughter in his tone belied the harshness of the words, to James's relief. Sirius's capricious moods since the start of term could be hard to navigate, even for James. "Not all of us spends every lesson doodling in his textbook."

"How can someone who's got the ponce-iest handwriting I've ever seen be unable to draw a straight line?"

"My dear mother didn't exactly sign me up for art lessons as a child." With a quick look toward where Peter and Remus sat, oblivious, he lowered his voice and asked, "How'd it go, then?"

"About the same," murmured James.

"Not surprising. I thought McGonagall was going to tear him apart yesterday when he couldn't finish transfiguring his iguana. He's bloody hopeless."

Frowning, James gave another cursory check that Peter could not hear what they were saying. "Ever the bloody pessimist, mate."

"Realist, more like."

"He's not hopeless," James whispered as Idurus entered the room and the rest of the classroom chattering ceased. "We'll get him there. He just—" He paused, thinking about Peter's reaction in the corridor, the thought forming as he voiced it. "—well, he just needs some confidence, I reckon."

Sirius gave him a disbelieving look as he slid the sheet of parchment into his bag and then leaned back in his chair, but he said nothing more on the subject as Idurus began his lesson.

The lecture was fairly standard and certainly not interesting enough to hold James's attention. He listened well-enough as Idurus described the features of the hinkypunk and the way in which it created the illusion of a lantern to lure travelers into misty bogs, but as soon as the professor began in on the creature's diet and growth patterns, James's mind—and gaze—began to wander. Lily Evans was sitting near the opposite corner of the room and James had a rather nice view of her profile as she tickled the side of her jaw with a small blue quill, every so often jotting down a note when Idurus said something worthwhile. He was only pulled out of his reverie when, in the front row, Lionel Marigold shot his hand into the air.

"If their bodies are incorporeal, Professor, and they're only formed by wisps of smoke, I was only wondering how they mate?"

Giggles flittered across the classroom, multiplying into all-out laughter when Sirius said loudly, "Looking for a date, Marigold?"

Idurus held up a hand to curb the noise and looked at Marigold as if pondering the query. "It's a fair question, I only wish I knew the answer for you, Mr. Marigold. I shall be happy to research it and provide a more satisfactory answer during our next lesson, if you'll abide me."

"Certainly, sir," said Marigold. "And also, I was wondering, have you ever come across a hinkypunk in your work as an Auror?"

"Actually, I have." Seemingly surprised by his own practical experience in the matter, Professor Idurus leaned against the front of his desk and crossed his ankles as if preparing to settle in for an extended time. "And it's a fairly intriguing story, let me tell you."

It was not, in James's mind, remotely intriguing. The professor spent the next ten minutes recounting the details of a hunt through Snowdonia in pursuit of suspected dark activity which ended in his having to ask the local Muggles for directions around the bog, as the native hinkypunks succeeded on multiple occasions in steering him adrift. When the story ended without any mention of actual dark activity or anything else remotely dangerous, James tried to catch Sirius's eye to commiserate over the dullness of the tale. Sirius, though, was watching the professor with uncharacteristic focus, the creases of his mouth twitched down ever so slightly.

When the peal of the bell reverberated across the classroom, Idurus straightened and glanced at his pocket watch, looking thoroughly discomposed.

"I apologize," he told the students, who were already scrambling to get their bags together. "My ramblings went on for so long that we didn't have a chance to observe the specimen I had brought in for today's lesson. We shall continue the discussion in the next lesson, and I will ensure I have more answers for you than what I prepared today."

"Weird old chap, isn't he?" James posed to his friends as they exited the classroom and began walking toward the Great Hall. "Never had a professor who knows so little about his own subject."

"I expect he knows quite a lot about Defense, just less about, you know…" Remus fidgeted, swallowed hard, gazed down at his own shoes. "…dark creatures." A moment's pause, and then he added in a more normal tone, "I like that he doesn't pretend to know more than he does, at least."

Sirius, James noticed, still had that funny look on his face. James nudged him with an elbow as they pushed through some Ravenclaws who had stopped to chat in the middle of the corridor. Sirius looked over at him, surprised.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What are you thinking?"

But Sirius, who James had expected to begin expounding upon a great scheme he had concocted, simply shook his head with a casual shrug. "Nothing worth mentioning." And it was only when Remus and Peter—who had diverted around the Ravenclaws in a much more polite and inefficient fashion—caught up to them that Sirius gave James a significant raise of the eyebrows and added in an undertone, "Yet."

James didn't have the opportunity to question Sirius any further before Quidditch practice that evening, and when he climbed back through the portrait hole afterward—with fingers numbed from the autumn air and robes damp from the spitting rain, but energized in the way that only Quidditch could offer—his best friend was nowhere to be seen.

Peter and Remus were both hunched over a study table in the corner, surrounded by teetering stacks of homework, and though desperate for a hot shower to thaw his frozen limbs, James made toward them. Glancing around, he noticed Gin Leigh curled in an armchair reading what appeared to be a tattered novel, which at least ruled out one explanation as to Sirius's absence.

"—least he could do is allow us to try some Wit-Sharpening Potion, eh?" Peter said, frowning down at the scribbled homework paper that had been returned to him in Potions that morning. James noticed it had rather a lot of red ink on it, courtesy of Professor Slughorn. "Surely I'd have been able to describe the effects better if I'd, you know, ever tried it."

"Practical Potions," intoned James as he plopped down with a muddy squelch in one of the empty chairs next to them. He absently flicked a bit of muck off the handle of his Cleansweep. "Just think, to be permitted to brew, you'd first have to try every potion you make. Would be a mite hard to brew a Forgetfulness Potion after taking a swig, eh?"

"Or a Confusing Concoction," added Remus, barely even looking up from the star chart he was dutifully analyzing.

"Just make sure to keep the Shrinking Solution away from your bollocks," James said, overly serious. As Peter tittered and Remus snorted, James asked, "Where's Sirius?"

Any amusement melted from his friends' faces at once. They exchanged a troubling look before Peter reached across the table for a copy of the Evening Prophet that had been hiding under a half-written Transfiguration essay, and Remus told him, "He's upstairs."

"He saw this," said Peter, passing the folded paper to James, who frowned down at it in confusion. "He had grabbed a copy to do the crossword and, well…look at the Society section."

The Evening Prophet was not as robust as its morning counterpart, so it only took James a few seconds to flip to the specified page, which boasted a black and white photo of two familiar people under the bold headline, "Bellatrix Black To Wed Rodolphus Lestrange in August Ceremony." The couple blinked up at him, glamorously straight-backed and stony-faced. A torrent of memories from meeting this very couple after the World Cup descended on James, causing a rather disquieting rock to settle somewhere in his gut. He sighed and dropped the paper back on the table.

"How bad is he?" he asked them.

Remus met his eye in solidarity. "He called her a load of names, you know how he is." He paused as if weighing his own daring, and then added with a bit of wryness, "But he didn't punch anything, at least."

"Right," said James. While Sirius had seemingly shed the vestiges of his rotten end-of-summer mood since the beginning of term, every so often his prickly temperament would arise, and it almost always coincided with some mention of his family. So it was with mild trepidation that James entered the boys' dormitory a few minutes later, slightly concerned as to which version of his best friend he might find.

A brief glimpse around the untidy room showed no sign of Sirius. The fluttering of parchment on his nightstand drew James's eye, and he realized with only a touch of disgruntlement where he would find his friend. Though wanting desperately to defrost his chilled limbs in a warm shower, James stowed his broomstick in his trunk, steeled himself, and climbed through the open dormitory window and back out into the rain.

Even with the foul weather, it was unsurprising to find Sirius sitting on the ledge above the dormitory window, back against the castle wall, half-smoked cigarette between his fingers. An oversized black umbrella hovered above his head, bobbing in the wind. What was surprising, however, was that with his other hand, Sirius was using the glow of his lit wand to illuminate an open book in his lap and upon closer inspection James realized it was not just any book, but their Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook.

"Merlin," said James as he pulled himself onto the ledge. Sirius visibly jumped at the sudden visitor. "Here's me thinking I might have time to get warm and dry before an evening smoke."

"I'm not stopping you," replied Sirius idly, but he shifted over to allow James room to sit under the umbrella alongside him.

James took a moment to cast a Warming Charm upon himself, which at least helped to thaw his fingers somewhat. After wiping the flecks of rainwater from his glasses with his sleeve, he looked up at the umbrella above his head, frowning in concentration. "Is that the umbrella we nicked from Filch last year?"

Sirius snorted in dry amusement. "One and the same."

Basking in the glow of the fine recollection, James settled in comfortably. "Old sod didn't know what had hit him. Got stuck out near the gates in a downpour, moaning about his missing bumbershoot."

This brought a flicker of a grin to Sirius's face. "Damn Dumbledore for putting an end to the war on Filch."

"Injustice, thy home is Hogwarts," quoted James as he patted his robe pockets. "You got a fag?"

Sirius extracted a packet from the depths of his robes and passed it over. The two boys had been pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to don the Invisibility Cloak and steal cigarettes from the paper shop in Hogsmeade, though the selection of Muggle cigarettes was limited to Silk Cuts and neither of them had any interest in the rubbishy magical versions the shop offered.

It wasn't until James had taken his first refreshing drag that he acknowledged the very strange behavior in which his best friend had been caught partaking. He gestured toward the textbook. "You turning swot on me, mate?"

Sirius looked up at him and gave a faint shrug. "I do read from time to time you know."

"Sure, but your textbooks? Alone? In the rain? About—" James squinted at the page that was open on Sirius's lap. "—hinkypunk sleep cycles?"

Snapping the book shut, Sirius dropped his glowing wand between them, leaned his head back against the castle wall, and fastened his gaze on the clouded night sky. "It was that idiot Marigold that gave me the idea."

"What, an idea about how hinkypunks shag?"

"An idea for how to keep Idurus from teaching the entire class how to identify a werewolf."

"All right," said James, trying and failing to determine where his friend was going with this. "I'm listening."

Sirius took one last puff of his cigarette before throwing the butt over the side of the ledge and shifting to dig again into his pocket, from which he extracted a very crumpled piece of parchment. He gave a half-hearted attempt at flattening it against his knee before passing it to James, who recognized the syllabus that Professor Idurus had distributed at the very beginning of the school year.

"Werewolves are the last topic he's planning to teach before exams," Sirius told him, pointing to the line at the very bottom of the parchment. 4-11 June: Werewolves. "So it's simple. All we've got to do is slow him down enough so that his schedule shifts by a few days. If he runs out of time to teach about werewolves, there's not much he can do."

James handed the parchment back. "And how are we supposed to slow him down? You heard Remus…he'd go mental if we started disrupting lessons again."

"Disrupting, sure. But even Remus couldn't get cross with us for taking a sudden interest in Defense lessons. Asking enough questions to drag the lectures out? Getting Idurus to lose himself in tangents like he did today?"

James considered this. "Remus'll get suspicious. Merlin, everyone will get suspicious if we start participating that much in lessons."

"So? It's all above board. They can't fault us for wanting to, I don't know—" He gave a flippant flick of his wrist. "—learn more, or something."

"Extremely detailed Defense Against the Dark Arts," mused James. "And I thought Practical Potions seemed like a bad idea." Then he grimaced. "It'll take a lot of preparation, sorting ahead of time which questions might stump him."

Sirius indicated the textbook he had been caught reading. "Hence, the swottiness."

"You think it'll work?"

"I think it can't hurt. Well, it could hurt our reputations, I reckon, but—"

"It's worth the risk if it helps Remus," finished James, nodding. "Think we should let Peter in on it?"

Sirius let out a huff that James knew to mean he was impatient with the question. "Shouldn't we keep him focused on transfiguring himself into a chipmunk or what-have-you?"

"Suppose so," said James without much conviction. He chewed on the problem for a moment, his thoughts turning back to the way Peter had reacted in the corridor that morning. The lack of progress he had made in his tutelage of Peter was starting to itch, most likely because he was acutely aware that he had little control over when the other boy might actually succeed in his transformation. But James felt as if there was something he was missing. Something more he could be doing.

"When you transformed the first time," he started after a moment's silent contemplation, trying to recall how he had been feeling just before his initial foray into his Form, "what were you thinking?"

Sirius frowned at him, clearly pondering the question. "I wasn't thinking much at all. Isn't that the point? Turn off your brain and make your connection while doing the spells?"

"Right, but I mean, beforehand. Was anything different that day? How were you feeling?"

"Nothing was different, I don't think," Sirius said at length. "I mean, I had met up with Gin beforehand. We had, you know, fooled around so I suppose I was…I don't know…in a good mood?" He shifted his gaze back to the night sky. "What about yours?"

James had noticed how much more reticence Sirius seemed to have this term around discussing his encounters with Gin; unlike the previous year, he never told the others any details about what the two of them were getting up to and tended to agilely change the topic whenever Peter peppered him with questions. James, sensing the change in his friend, never pressed the issue.

"I dunno," he said, returning his thoughts to the evening several weeks prior when he had first transformed. "Nothing out of the ordinary for me, either. Had just come in from a good training session, I think."

"So you were—cheerful—too, undoubtedly," said Sirius with a ruminative sigh. Then, with a bite of sarcasm, "Well that's it sorted, then. Just need to get Peter in a great bloody mood and he'll manage it, no sweat."

"Like I said earlier, a bit of confidence, perhaps," James said. Then he added somewhat dejectedly, "Seems easier said than done."

Sirius gave a humorless chuckle, but said nothing. They fell into silence, neither seeming to have the energy to continue that particular conversation, and James waffled on if he should broach the topic of Bellatrix's engagement. Sirius was acting uncommonly pensive and James wasn't sure what to make of it. He could handle his friend's temper, but this sullenness was trickier to traverse.

He decided to dive right in. "I saw about Bellatrix and Lestrange."

"Yeah." His voice was hard, determined gaze fixed on the clouds. "What do I care?"

"Well I was going to ask the same thing," said James lightly. "What do you care?"

"I don't." As if looking for something to occupy his hands, Sirius fished around in the packet for another cigarette and lit it before adding, "I'm only surprised it took them this long, though I reckon she was waiting to see if she could ditch Lestrange for Voldemort himself."

James laughed. He'd noticed since the start of term that his classmates had started referring to Voldemort as "You-Know-Who." Even the Prophet had stopped putting his name in print. James thought all this fearful skirting around a fellow's name was a heap of rubbish. Sirius, of course, felt similarly and the pair of them got a good laugh every once in a while by trying to say it as much as possible, just to see people's reactions.

"Imagine that ceremony," he posed innocently.

"I'd prefer not to imagine either of the ceremonies," Sirius said before falling silent. James finished his cigarette and tossed the remaining sprig over the precipice, thinking that this was all that would be said on the topic. But then Sirius surprised him again. "Bellatrix and Rodolphus were matched at fifteen, you know."

"Matched?"

"That's right."

"What, like how they used to arrange marriages back in the day?"

"Back in the day, right." Sirius let out another humorless huff of a laugh and pulled his knees up toward his chest to rest his elbows against. "I keep forgetting your family's moved on from the 18th century, but not mine. Not the Blacks, and not any of the other fucking lunatics in the so-called 'high circles.'"

"I don't understand."

"It used to be, when a witch or wizard turned seventeen, it was permitted for their parents to officially start their match—you know, find some rich, pureblood sod to marry them when they finish school. Someone to breed their perfectly pureblooded offspring with." Sirius's lip curled. "Unofficially, though, the matching starts at fifteen. That's when the mothers start corresponding to find a match, to inquire into dowries, to plan the rest of their kid's bleeding life for them."

James stared, disturbed. "This still goes on?"

"Sure." His tone was bitter, his eyes fiercely on the horizon. "And knowing my mother, as soon as I turn fifteen I'm open game. I may be the shame of her flesh, an insubordinate ingrate, a filthy, muck-dwelling blood traitor, but if she can match me before seventeen, she can get a decent dowry added to her vault instead of mine and…"

He trailed off scornfully and James continued to gape at him, finally starting to comprehend his friend's strange mood. "And you turn fifteen—"

Sirius took a long drag. "Week after next."

For a moment, he was unable to find an appropriate response. Then, without thinking, entirely unable to buffer or filter the reaction, James burst into laughter.

Sirius seemed stunned into silence for a brief moment, then he scowled and punched James hard in the knee. "Fuck off. It's not funny."

"Sorry, mate." James rubbed a hand over his face to try to regain his composure, but it only did so much. "But that's the most absurd load of hippogriff dung I've ever heard. You think your mum can control who you marry? She can try to sell you off to the sodding Queen of England and it doesn't much matter. Once you turn seventeen you haven't got to do a thing she says."

"Believe me, I'm counting the days," muttered Sirius. He seemed on the precipice of something, and James stopped the remnants of his chuckles to allow him to finish. "But she'll do everything in her power over the next two years to find a way to match me with some high-circle hag. And I'm not much looking forward to it."

The dread lacing his friend's tone sobered James thoroughly. "Fair enough."

"Spiteful cow," Sirius muttered. Then, with more gusto, "I'm not going to make it easy on her though. If she thinks she can sell me off to the highest pureblood bidder, she's got another thing coming."

The darkness in his friend's tone, if not the words themselves, startled James for a moment, but he pushed aside his disquiet and nudged Sirius's shoulder with his own. "Should we add 'mucking up your mother's plans' to the priority list, then?"

"That's been my priority since day one, mate," Sirius said, voice laced with something James couldn't quite place. A moment later, he once again flicked open the textbook that still lay on his lap. "I reckon now we've also got to add 'Operation: Delay Idurus,' too."

"Doesn't exactly roll of the tongue."

"You know, I'm not sure I like how far getting up the girls' staircase has fallen on our list. I'm starting to feel like we've forsaken our sworn mission."

"All in good time," James said, laughing lightly and reaching for another cigarette. But before he could pluck up the packet from where it was sitting between the two of them, a miraculous idea struck him and he froze, his arm hovering awkwardly mid-motion.

"All right?" Sirius asked, eyeing his friend's strange behavior with something like suspicion.

"'Course," said James, trying to cover his odd moment by ruffling his hair in what he hoped was a casual gesture. Because if his miraculous idea was really as miraculous as he hoped, he supposed it would be as good of a birthday present for Sirius as he could ever ask for. So for now, he had to keep it to himself. "I, er, I'm going to head in, I think. Try to thaw my fingers, you know."

"Yeah, all right." Sirius shrugged off the peculiarity of James's actions and resettled his wand light over the textbook in his lap. Then, with a wryness that made James grin, he said, "It's time for me to become a bloody expert on the fascinating subject of hinkypunk sleep cycles, after all."

Over the next few days, James found himself adding yet another task to his ever-growing list, though this time, he was acting alone. Because if he could discover the secret to getting up the girls' staircase, he could make his best friend's dreaded fifteenth birthday significantly brighter. And if anyone in the school knew the answer to this particular Hogwarts riddle, he supposed it would be the Head Boy and Girl. And James had some information about the Head Boy that he knew Fitzhenry Fortescue would be keen on keeping quiet.

And so he took to keeping an eye on the Head Boy.

Fitzhenry Fortescue was not a particularly interesting specimen to observe. And that was unfortunate, because that weekend, James paid more attention to the Head Boy than he had ever deemed necessary before, and he noticed a good many things about Fitzhenry Fortescue. For one, he seemed a cheerful sort and could often be seen laughing with his friends in that quiet, unobtrusive manner that was so common among Hufflepuffs. A less common trait among his housemates, he spent an inordinate amount of time studying in the library. Well, James supposed, it took a fair bit of bookishness to make Head Boy after all.

But Fitzhenry Fortescue, for all his studiousness and joviality, certainly could not have expected on a Monday during morning break, while he was striding absentmindedly along a third-floor corridor, that an arm might snake out from the previously closed doorway of an unused classroom and pull him bodily inside.

"What the…" Fortescue regained his bearings enough to gape down at his assailant. "Potter?"

"Hello, Head Boy," James greeted, snapping the door shut once again and leaning against it.

"What's this all about? Why did you pull me in here? We don't even—oh Merlin, I'm going to be the target of some great prank or something, is that it?" Fortescue jerked his head toward the corners of the classroom at this thought, as if a vat of some foul liquid were about to descend upon him.

"Not at all," said James. "Only I needed a word. A private one."

"A word?" He looked around again, frowning and clearly suspicious as to why said word needed to occur in such a covert manner. Then he shrugged and said, "Okay, what can I do for you?"

"I'm glad you asked," replied James. In truth, he wasn't entirely confident in this plan, but all the watching and waiting had made him impatient and, at the very least, it was worth a shot. "I need you to tell me how a wizard might get into the girls' dormitories."

Fortescue stared. "I can't do that."

"Sure you can. You're Head Boy.

"Let me rephrase. Even if I could do that, why would I do that?"

James straightened and crossed his arms in what he hoped was an intimidating fashion. "Because, Head Boy, you're still going out with Cecilia Axelgrove, are you not?"

This seemed to truly flummox Fortescue. "Yeah. What's Cecilia got to do with anything?"

"It's just I'd imagine you aren't keen on Cecilia finding out that you've been shagging Didina Murphy behind her back."

The older boy froze, his eyes widening almost comically. "You—how—who told you that?"

"That doesn't matter," James told him. "What matters is what information I'll be giving Cecilia, unless I get the information I so desperately want from you."

Now, James had supposed he had a fairly firm handle on Fitzhenry Fortescue's character after three days of careful observing of the Hufflepuff. He was not the sort James expected to immediately draw his wand when threatened, or to mull over assorted logical solutions to the conundrum he now found himself in. He was exactly the sort James expected to bite his lip, fidget uncomfortably, and then quickly give into James's demand so as to save face for himself.

James, however, had been wrong. Very wrong. So terrifyingly wrong that it crossed his mind that perhaps this blackmailing business wasn't exactly his forte. Because Fortescue's reaction was not something James had imagined, much less expected.

The Head Boy scrunched up his face and burst into tears.

"I'm…I'm…I'm a ter-terrible person!" sobbed Fortescue, backing away to collapse onto a chair in the front row.

"Oh," muttered James, gawping at the other boy. "I…er…well, shit."

Fortescue did not seem to hear him, but buried his face in his hands and continued wailing. "How could I do this? What is wrong with me? Merlin, I'm just awful…so bloody awful…"

James very clearly had no idea what to do. After a painful few moments of listening to the bawling, he stepped tentatively forward as if approaching an injured animal.

"I deserve whatever you do to me," said Fortescue, looking up now at James and wiping his nose on the back of his hand. "Tell whomever you like. I deserve it. I deserve to be thrown to the dementors, locked up, castrated…"

"Well I think that's exaggerating a bit," offered James, now patting Fortescue awkwardly on the shoulder.

"It's not." He swiped again at the wetness on his face and looked at James with distraught, red-rimmed eyes. "Cecilia's brilliant. And I did something like this—with one of her friends, no less. How could I do that to someone I care about?"

"Er…" James had hoped it was a rhetorical question, but apparently not, as Fortescue continued looking at him as though awaiting an answer. "Well, I mean…the cheating thing is, well, rather deplorable to be honest, sure, but I'd reckon any warm-blooded wizard'd be down for shagging Didina Murphy, mate."

Fortescue, though, shook his head. "But it wasn't just that," he said, almost pleadingly. "I mean, yeah, sure, she's Didina Murphy and suddenly she was interested in me, but more than that, suddenly I'm Head Boy and I've got all this pressure and meetings with Dumbledore and my parents were so bloody proud when I got my letter this summer, they even forgot to argue with one another for an hour or so, and then they send me an owl a week into term saying my dad's moved out and…"

And so, James found a seat in the chair next to him and listened to Head Boy Fitzhenry Fortescue recount every stressful turn his life had taken over the past six months that had led him to making the very dubious decision to run round behind his girlfriend's back.

By the time he finished talking, the wetness on his face had thankfully dried and James was very, very late to his next lesson.

"Look," Fortescue said, sniffling dramatically. "I can't help you. They don't give that information to the Heads—how to get into the girls' dormitories, I mean. It's the same in Hufflepuff. I've never been able to get down the girls' corridor either."

James deflated a bit, now quite certain that not only was Fortescue telling the truth, but this entire ordeal had a been a monumental and supremely awkward waste of time. "Oh. Well…never mind then. And I won't tell anyone about Murphy, mate, Gryffindor's honor."

But Fortescue started shaking his head in a distraught sort of way. "You can tell whomever you want," he repeated, and James was at least relieved to see he hadn't started crying again. "I deserve it. But, well, Cecilia doesn't deserve it. I'll end it with her, you're right. I'll end it with her tonight. With both of them."

James found his feet and started edging toward the door. "Er…okay, well I best get to class, then…"

"Wait! Potter, you've been—well thanks for listening to me, anyhow. I wish I could help you, but I just don't know it myself." Something like an idea seemed to strike him, and at once, his face brightened. "I can tell you how the heads of houses keep tabs on what's going on in the common rooms…"

So when James slid into his chair in Muggle Studies five minutes later, dutifully accepting the detention Lumpkin assigned for his tardiness, he at least had something to offer Sirius.

"Where've you been?" whispered Sirius, once Lumpkin's back was turned.

"Trying to get some information from our esteemed Head Boy. And I failed rather miserably," James responded lowly. He supposed he'd be buying Sirius a more standard birthday gift, after all, but at least the entire unpleasant experience hadn't been a complete waste. "But I did get enough intel to ensure our next Quidditch victory party is one for the bloody ages…"