Thursday, 2nd September 1971, 11:42 am

'Self-inflating, unpoppable, animal balloons,' James said, producing a fluorescent orange box from his trunk and waving it in the air like a Quidditch seeker who'd just caught the snitch. 'We're going to fill the Great Hall with them tonight!'

'The whole room?' Peter asked. 'We'll need a lot of balloons.'

'Not as many as you might think, my good man.' James slapped his hand down on Peter's shoulder, making him wince. 'These balloons blow up to ten times life-size and I have 5000. That should be plenty.'

Sirius rubbed the back of his neck. When he got up to mischief at home, he didn't plan it. His antics were spur-of-the-moment; potential consequences never entered his mind until after. But this was different. This allowed him the time to think, and he was thinking about what would happen if someone caught them.

It was making him a little nauseous.

His mother was a powerful witch, and her punishments could be brutal, but she may as well have been a first-year next to the teachers of Hogwarts. There was no telling what they might do. He knew they gave "detentions," but he didn't know what that would entail. James and Peter didn't seem concerned though, and he didn't want them to think him a coward.

'There'll be riots if people can't reach the food,' Sirius said.

That was good. It was neither for nor against the plan. Merely an observation. It could be taken either way.

'But if we do it tonight, we'll be knackered for Defence tomorrow.'

A reasonable objection, he thought.

'Excellent point,' James said, pointing at him. 'I'm looking forward to Defence, don't want to be too tired to enjoy it. Operation inflatable breakfast is hereby postponed until tomorrow night.' He jumped on the bed next to Sirius. 'But we should still do something now, too. Any ideas?'

Sirius' heart sank. There was no putting him off. He would have to go through with the mischief or risk losing his friendship. There was only one choice, really. The alternative was unthinkable. But, if they did something mild and got caught, at least he would have some idea of what to expect from the school punishments.

'What else do you have?' Sirius asked.

James leapt off the bed and dashed back over to his trunk.

'A few firecrackers, five dungbombs and some nose-biting teacups.'

James pulled each item out as he spoke, placing them on his bed, and Sirius ambled over to examine them.

'Not much to work with.'

Sirius poked at the dungbombs.

'Suppose we could set these off right outside the Slytherin common room.'

'Do you know where the entrance is?' Peter asked, joining the others in staring at the items laid out on James' bed.

'No, but we can find out if we follow some Slytherins.'

James started digging around in his trunk again.

'They'll see us and won't go in,' Sirius said.

'I have something that will help, but you need to swear to keep it secret first.'

James stared at them with an uncharacteristically serious expression on his face. He glanced back and forth between Peter and Sirius. They both promised, and James pulled out a cloak made from a fluid-like, silvery material.

'What is it?' Peter asked, stretching out a hand to touch the shimmering fabric.

'Watch,' James said.

He swung the cloak around his shoulders, and his body vanished, leaving his head floating around in mid-air, plastered with a ridiculous grin.

Sirius gasped, 'No way!' at the same time as he heard a squeak from Peter standing behind him.

James' grin widened, putting his face in grave danger of breaking in half.

'It's been in my family for generations. Dad gave it to me for my last birthday.'

'Sneaking around will be a breeze with that,' Sirius said in a tone laced with awe.

'I know! Pete, grab the dungbombs. We should all be able to fit under here. Bring the firecrackers too. We can use them to set off the dungbombs.'

The boys crowded together under the cloak to test it and found they could all fit if they crammed together, but the confines of the cloak made walking difficult. After ten minutes of practise, they found a workable rhythm, and they stuffed the cloak in James' bag before racing down to the dungeons.

They lurked in the dungeons under the cloak for forty-five minutes before seeing a group of giggling Slytherin girls heading away from the Great Hall. Sirius, being the tallest of the three, was in the middle, and he was getting rather sweaty from being surrounded by the body heat of his friends.

They followed the girls at a distance until they paused in front of a blank stretch of wall, before disappearing through it.

'That must be it,' James said, before throwing the cloak off and running over. 'Hand me a dung bomb and a firecracker, Pete.'

Sirius stuffed the invisibility cloak into his bag, and Peter handed both James and Sirius a dungbomb and a firecracker. James showed them how to combine the items and set the firecrackers for delayed detonation. They worked fast, setting up the five dungbombs in concealed locations around the entrance to explode ten minutes later. They planned to be well away by then.

Finished, they turned and broke into a run towards the Great Hall; they were almost there when they turned a corner and ran straight into Mr Filch, the school caretaker.

'Well, well, well. What do we have here?'

Sirius' stomach dropped into his shoes.

'Three trouble-makers up to mischief, no doubt. Running from the scene of the crime, are we?'

'No, sir. We're, um, we're just, um, going to lunch!' Peter stammered.

James was offering his most innocent expression, wide-eyed with a grin the size of a Quidditch pitch and nodding along with Peter's stilted explanation for their hurry.

'A likely story. You three will come with me. I'll have you strung up by your ankles. That'll teach you to muck up my school with your filth.'

The word "filth" sent chills through Sirius' body. His mother used the term so often in her rants that his mind associated it with pain and fear. He went into a panic. The room was spinning around him, his heart was pounding and he couldn't breathe.

'Sirius, are you okay?' James said, moving in front of him and grabbing his arms.

Sirius focused on his friend's face and tried to calm down. He stared into his eyes, deep pools of swirling brown with specks of green. As he watched, the colours solidified and came into focus. His breathing evened out, and he was able to speak.

'Yeah. I think so. But what's he going to do to us?' Sirius breathed.

James let go of his arms.

'Nothing. We'll get detention if he can prove we did something, but he's not allowed to hurt us.'

James studied him for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for something. Sirius wasn't sure what.

'We'll talk about this later, okay?'

Sirius nodded and the three boys followed Filch down the corridors to his office.

Inside the spacious room, there was a desk with four chairs lined up in front of it and one much larger and more comfortable chair behind it. Along the walls were filing cabinets, several rows of them, stacked up to the ceiling. Someone had labelled them all, though Sirius couldn't make out the words. The room was lit by a single oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, which cast eerie shadows in the corners. Sirius shivered. A deep sense of unease filled him when he spotted the chains and manacles hanging from the wall behind the desk. He rubbed his wrists, recalling the soreness such things caused after spending three days chained up in the dungeon at home.

Filch told them to sit down and moved behind the desk, pulling out parchment from the desk drawer before seating himself. He muttered under his breath as he filled out three forms, recording their crimes. He was just finishing up the third when the sound of a distant explosion, followed by screams, reached their ears. The boys all glanced at each other.

'What did you do?' Filch asked, sneering. 'Stay here until I get back.'

The moment the caretaker left the room, James was on his feet and scanning the filing cabinets.

'Quickly, men! We only have a few minutes. See what you can find,' he said.

Sirius leapt from his seat. This was more like it, the type of spur-of-the-moment mischief he was used to. He ran his hand over the fronts of the cabinets as he read the labels. Most were labelled with letters of the alphabet. Records organised by surname, Sirius assumed. One drawer was labelled "The Prewetts." Sirius pulled it open and found stacks of detention slips for the same two boys. They ranged from September 1965 to the most recent, which were dated that morning. Filch had apparently caught the two trouble-makers charming the suits of armour in the dungeons to attack Slytherins. Sirius grinned. They sounded like his kind of people.

'Guys! Over here. Look!' James said.

Sirius hurried over to where James was pointing at a filing cabinet on the back wall. Squinting at the label in the dismal light, he read "Confiscated and Highly Dangerous."

'Nice one. Let's grab something quick. He'll be back soon.' Sirius said.

Peter walked over to the door and cracked it open to peek out while James pulled the drawer open and rooted through it.

'He's coming!' Peter hissed, closing the door and rushing back to his seat.

James snatched something small from the drawer, shoved it in his pocket and grabbed Sirius' arm, dragging him back to his seat.

The boys sat down with seconds to spare. Filch stormed into the office looking murderous and slammed the door closed behind him.

'Dungbombs in the corridor, stinking up the entire castle. You'll pay for this. Yes, you will. You just wait until Professor McGonagall hears about it.'

He continued muttering as he filled out a second set of detention slips with their details and sent them on their way. Sirius still felt a fluttery feeling in his stomach when he thought about what the detentions might involve, despite James' reassurance that it wouldn't be painful. He pushed the worry to the back of his mind. He would face it when it happened.

Remus was sitting in the shade of an ancient oak tree, his back against the trunk and his knees bent. His Defence textbook rested on his thighs, creating a hard surface on which to write. In his hand, he held a quill, and an inkpot rested in a convenient recess in the ground beside him. He had been staring at the blank parchment for several minutes, trying to decide how much of his Hogwarts experience to include in the letter to his mum.

Coming to a decision, he dipped his quill in the ink and began his letter. He wrote steadily for a few minutes, then read it through, scratched out a sentence here and a word there, added another paragraph, then removed it again. When he was satisfied with his account of events, he pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and copied the revised letter out neatly.

Mum,

I'm having a wonderful time here at Hogwarts. It's everything I always imagined it would be. When we arrived, the first years were taken to the castle by boat across a giant lake. The castle looked so beautiful in the starlight. We were sorted into our houses by a talking hat. Seriously, I'm not kidding. The hat has the ability to see into, and speak into, the mind of the person wearing it. It knew my secret but promised not to tell, and it said I was brave. It placed me in Gryffindor house, which I told you would be the best house for me to be in, I don't know if you remember?

I'm in a dormitory with three other boys. It's a good-size room though, lots of space, so it's easy to avoid bumping into each other. The bathroom has four shower cubicles, so there's plenty of privacy. You know I was worried about people seeing my scars. I had a meeting with Professor Dumbledore this morning; he told me the arrangements for Sunday, and it all sounds very well thought out and safe. I'll tell you more after, though. Professor Dumbledore has also given me access to the kitchens, so I don't have to eat in the Great Hall. Wasn't that kind of him?

My first lesson this morning was Transfiguration. It was a basic theory lesson, and I didn't learn much that I didn't already know. But Professor McGonagall said something interesting when she was warning us of the dangers of attempting magic above our ability. She said that our magical cores act as an immune system, and they have to shut down once a month to cleanse themselves. Apparently, this happens during the full moon. I thought you might find that as interesting as I did.

I have had no other lessons yet, and I was surprised at first by how many free periods are scheduled into the timetable, but when I thought about it, I realised it was necessary. Six hours of continuous magic casting would be exhausting, I expect our timetables will be fuller in later years when we're stronger. I have double Potions this afternoon. I'm not really looking forward to Potions. I hope the ingredients don't smell too bad; you know how sensitive my nose is.

It's lunchtime now, so I'm off to visit the kitchen for some food. I'll write to you again soon.

Love you lots,

Remus

Remus read the letter through again and was satisfied that his meaning was clear enough for his mum to understand, while still being subtle enough that if anyone else read it, they wouldn't be able to guess he was a werewolf. There was also just enough negativity in the letter that it wouldn't seem like he was pretending to be happy. He rolled the parchment into a scroll and sealed it before putting his things away and climbing to his feet, tucking the letter into his pocket as he did.

As Remus climbed the stairs to the Owlery, he found himself wishing that he knew how to fly. He was fairly certain he'd climbed more stairs since arriving at Hogwarts the day before than he had in the entire rest of his life combined. When he reached the summit, he collapsed to the floor and stayed there for several minutes, reminding his lungs how to breathe.

Once the feeling had returned to his legs and he was no longer gasping, he entered the circular room and searched the rafters for Rieka. She spotted him first though, and flew down to land on his shoulder, nuzzling her head into the crook of his neck and greeting him with a low whistle.

'Hey, Rieka, how do you like the owlery?'

She hooted softly and nuzzled him again.

'Good, I'm glad you're happy here.' He pulled the letter from his pocket. 'I need you to take this to Mum, okay?'

Rieka hooted again and flew over to the perch in the centre of the room so Remus could tie the letter to her leg.

'Well, look at what we have here. A little baby Gryffindor. All alone,' a voice drawled from the entrance.

Remus whipped around. It was another first-year - greasy-hair, hooked nose - his name sounded like snake. What was it? Remus wracked his brains but couldn't remember.

'What do you want?' he asked.

The boy's tone had been aggressive, and it unnerved him. His heart raced in his chest, and his palms felt sweaty.

'Oh, nothing difficult, I assure you. I wouldn't want to tax your tiny Gryffindor mind. Just a little lesson in where you belong. Depulso!'

A blinding white light shot from the end of the boy's wand and hit Remus square in the chest, causing him to fly back into a heap of owl pellets, feathers and animal carcasses, piled up at the edge of the room.

'And don't you forget it.'

The boy turned, no doubt intending to sweep dramatically from the room in a flurry of robes, but Rieka had other ideas. She flew from the perch and out of a window, wheeled around and dived at the boy, claws outstretched to attack. He lifted his arms in defence of his face and stumbled back, away from the angry bird. Rieka's talons tore shreds in his arms, and the boy screamed in pain, stumbling further until he too landed in the pile of owl detritus.

'Get the hell away from me, you crazy bird!' the boy shouted, pulling himself to his feet and rushing out of the door.

Rieka hopped over to Remus and hooted.

'I'm okay. Thanks for sticking up for me, girl.'

Remus stroked her head before dragging himself to his feet and inspecting his robes. They were filthy, covered in feathers and slime from the rotting carcasses, Remus gagged at the stench.

'I better get cleaned up before potions.' He turned to Rieka. 'I'll see you when you get back.'

Rieka hooted again and flew out the door, and Remus followed.

'I think we should allow three hours to blow up the balloons. We probably won't need that long, but better to have too much time than not enough,' James said, pacing back and forth in front of Sirius' bed like an Auror captain planning a raid.

Sirius was sitting on the bed next to Peter, listening to James run through his plan for the following night's entertainment.

'So, leave the dorm around one in the morning then.' Sirius said. 'The prefects will be finished with their patrols by then, and we'll be back in the dorm well before any teachers should be getting up.'

'Yes. I'll set my alarm and wake you up.' James pointed at Sirius. 'You'll be with me. We'll open the balloons and let them loose in the hall. Pete will stay by the door under the cloak and keep a lookout.'

The door to the dorm opened, interrupting their planning session, and Remus walked in covered in feathers and something slimy that smelled like death. All three boys stared at him.

'What the hell happened to you?' Sirius asked.

Remus glanced at him.

'I don't want to talk about it,' he muttered before grabbing a clean set of robes from his trunk and hurrying into the bathroom.

Sirius stared at the closed door for a moment. Should he go talk to him or leave him alone? Remus had no positive feelings towards him and probably wouldn't want to open up to a person he disliked. But this might be the opportunity he was waiting for to show Remus he wasn't a complete asshole. Sirius was vaguely aware of James continuing his instructions for the joke but was too focused on Remus to listen. Why was he covered in feathers? Had he fallen over in the owlery or had someone attacked him? He was on the verge of getting up to try his luck when Remus exited the bathroom.

'Mate, tell us what happened?' Sirius said.

'I'm not your mate, Black. You made it clear what you thought of me yesterday by the lake.'

Remus stepped over to his trunk and retrieved his cauldron and potion's kit from inside.

'If you don't bother me, I won't bother you,' he said, his voice calm, before strolling out of the dorm and closing the door behind him. Not even bothering to slam it.

He wasn't angry, Remus just hated him. Fuck.

'Well, that went well,' James said.

Sirius threw his pillow at him, scoring a direct hit in the face.

'Shut up,' he said. 'How am I supposed to fix this when he won't even speak to me?'

'I don't understand why you're bothering at all, mate. He seems a bit stuck up to me.'

'The problem isn't that he's stuck up, it's that he thinks I'm stuck up.'

'So, show him you're not.'

Right, Sirius thought, but how?

After visiting the kitchens and grabbing a bite to eat, Remus had half an hour left of his lunch break and decided to spend it in the library, getting his Transfiguration homework done before the moon. It was due Monday morning, and he wouldn't be out of the hospital wing until lunchtime at the earliest, so he wanted to hand it in on Friday. Especially since it wouldn't take him long to complete.

His first sight of the library took his breath away. So many books; he was in heaven. The collection took up almost the entire fourth floor of the main building and was spread throughout one vast, irregularly shaped room with several smaller rooms leading off it. He wandered around for a few minutes, reading the signs above the shelves, before settling at a table with a red-headed Gryffindor and pulling out his homework.

'Oh, hi. I recognise you from class this morning. You're the one who knew all the answers.'

Remus' face warmed.

'You got one right too,' he said.

'Not as many as you though. I'm Lily. It's nice to meet you.'

Lily held out her hand for him to shake. Remus almost panicked, but he had prepared for that possibility.

'I'm Remus, but I have a phobia of touching people,' he said, nodding towards her outstretched hand. 'I'm sorry.'

Lily pulled her hand back.

'Oh, no. Don't apologise. You can't help what you're afraid of. I'm terrified of spiders, so I get it.'

'Thanks,' Remus said, giving her a smile before dipping his quill into his inkpot to begin the Transfiguration work.

They worked in companionable silence for fifteen minutes, and Remus was almost finished when he heard Lily greet someone.

'Oh. Hey, Sev.'

'Hello, Lily. I came to show you the way to Potions. I didn't want you to get lost.'

Remus looked up at the voice that had sneered at him so cruelly in the owlery and caught the eye of the greasy-haired boy - Snape. That was his name. He raised an eyebrow at Remus.

'Something I can do for you?'

'No.' He gathered up his things and turned to Lily. 'I'm finished here, I'll see you later.'

Remus hurried away from the table. He had been hoping that he and Lily could be friends, but she was already friends with the boy who had attacked him for no reason, so maybe she wasn't as nice as he thought.

Sirius, James and Peter were some of the first to arrive at the Potions classroom after lunch and were lucky enough to nab themselves seats at the back of the room. Sirius and James sat together, and Peter sat alone at the desk in front of them.

When the last few stragglers had slipped into their seats, the teacher stood up and waved his wand at the blackboard.

"The basics of potion-making" appeared on the board in excessively curly handwriting. Sirius groaned. Another tedious bloody lesson.

'Good afternoon, class. My name is Professor Slughorn. I hope you have all had yourselves a superb meal because this class will be fairly physical. Today, you'll be learning all the basics involved with potion-making. Who can tell me what those might be?'

Sirius took a peek at Remus on the other side of the room and was surprised to see he didn't have his hand in the air. Instead, he was holding his head in his hands with his elbows on the desk. He nudged James.

'Hey, what do you think is wrong with Remus? He looks ill.'

After glancing over, James shrugged.'Dunno, mate. Maybe he's sick.'

While they were talking, a Slytherin student had answered Slughorn's question - stirring, chopping and stuff, nothing important, - and earned herself five points. Remus was now taking notes while covering his nose with his sleeve. Sirius turned back to listen to the teacher.

'First, you'll be learning how to time the heating of your cauldrons, so please place your cauldrons on the fire pits in the centre of your desks and fetch some water to fill them.'

'You set the cauldrons up, mate. I'll go get the water,' Sirius said.

Sirius wandered over to the closest sink and joined the back of the short queue, finding himself behind Snape. He eyed the boy's greasy hair with distaste but kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to start anything in the classroom. That resolve changed, though, when Snape reached the front of the line and rolled his sleeves up to keep them dry while he filled a jug for his cauldron. His pale white arms were marred by long vivid-red scratches. The marks were unmistakable. His mother's bastard of a bird had attacked Sirius often enough for him to recognise owl talon marks when he saw them. The injuries were severe and Sirius could only think of one reason Snape wouldn't have gone to the hospital wing for treatment. Because he had been doing something wrong when it happened. Sirius had been accused of many things in his brief life, but being slow wasn't one of them. It took him but a moment to put together the gashes on Snape's arms with the memory of Remus arriving back at the dorm covered in feathers and realise the truth. Snape had attacked his Remus. And that was unacceptable.

He returned to his desk with a full jug of water, seething. After explaining to James and Peter what he had seen and deduced, they all agreed that Snape's behaviour could not go unpunished, bullying would not be tolerated. They finished setting up their cauldrons before concocting a plan.

When everyone was ready, Professor Slughorn started to speak again.

'Now, almost every potion recipe calls for at least one timed period of heating, and it's very important to time it to the second. Even a second or two out, either way, can ruin a potion. Your desks are fitted with a timing charm. If you look, you will see a circle carved into the bottom corners of each desk.'

Slughorn paused to allow everyone to locate their timer. Sirius looked down at his desk and found the circle, and he could see James doing the same on his side of the desk.

'If you tap the circle once with your wand, it will light up to show a clock face. Tap it again while saying the length of time you need to set it for and tap a third time to start the timer. Test it now. Please set your timers for five seconds.'

Sirius took out his wand and tapped the circle. It lit up with white light, showing a clock face with black numbers and three black hands. He tapped again and said, 'Five seconds.' The thinnest and longest of the three hands moved to the one. He tapped a third time, and the hand ticked back to the twelve, one increment at a time, before flashing randomly in a multitude of colours.

'As you can see, the alarm is silent to avoid disturbing other students, so you will need to watch your timer. It is advisable to set your timer in advance so you need only tap it once when you begin heating.'

Professor Slughorn moved to stand behind his demonstration area, which he had already set up with his own cauldron.

'Now onto the actual heating. The fire pits in your desks are fitted with heating and cooling charms because you won't learn the spells for fire until third-year. Once you have learned them, of course, I will expect you to use them in this class. If you look down at your desks again, you will see five symbols carved in front of the fire pit. The first is "extinguish." This, rather obviously, extinguishes any fire in the pit. The second symbol is "low heat."'

He tapped his wand on his own desk, and a small fire sprang up under his cauldron.

'The third is "medium heat."'

He tapped his wand again, and the fire got a little bigger.

'The fourth is "high heat."'

He tapped his wand a third time, and the fire roared higher, licking at the sides of the cauldron with long orange flames.

'And the fifth is "cold-fire."'

He tapped his wand one more time, and the fire shrank and turned ice blue.

'Simply tap your wands on the symbols to activate the fire and tap your wand on the extinguish symbol to put the fire out. Cold-fire should be used for a period of five to ten seconds after each and every time you heat your potion. This will rapidly cool the potion so it does not overheat.'

He tapped his wand on his desk again, and the fire beneath his cauldron went out.

'It is not necessary to be overly precise with the timing of cold-fire, although too long is far preferable to not long enough. Now, I would like you all to practise using the heating charms and timer together until you're confident that you can do it quickly without fumbling.'

Sirius had a lot of fun playing with the heating charms, repeatedly bringing his water to a boil before rapidly cooling it with cold-fire. He eventually decided to practice with the timer and got the hang of it easily, it was simply a matter of moving his wand smoothly between the timer and the fire symbol. He found it was easier if he positioned his wand above the timer and then found the correct fire symbol with his eyes before tapping. James and Peter both seemed to master the skill just as easily. After a few minutes, Peter turned around to talk to Sirius and James.

'These automatic heating charms are cool, right?' James asked. 'I wonder if we can figure out how they did it. We could use them to set off jokes. If we could link a charm to a symbol on the other side of the castle, then we could set it off when we're nowhere near it. No one would ever know it was us.'

'The symbols are runes, I think. But I don't know how you would link it up to a charm,' Sirius said.

Professor Slughorn coughed to get the class's attention.

'We'll be moving on to ingredient preparation next, but please leave your cauldrons where they are as we will be using them again later. Now, take out your potions kits and remove the jar labelled nettle roots.'

The next hour of class dragged as they learned how to correctly slice, chop, grind and shred ingredients. The time to take revenge on Snape arrived at last when Slughorn handed out vials of unfinished swelling solution and asked them to pour it into their cauldrons so they could practise the skill of infusing a potion with pure magic.

Sirius felt a nudge against his thigh under the table and reached his hand to grip the thick tube James was handing him. He grinned at his friend before preparing the firecracker - the last of their supply - and waiting for Slughorn to turn his back. As soon as he did, Sirius launched the explosive through the air, over the heads of other students, and it landed with a splash in Snape's cauldron. He stared at it for a moment, stunned, before it erupted in a series of pops and bangs, splattering the boy with potion. The places where the potion hit immediately swelled, distorting his face and body into grotesque shapes. The red-headed Gryffindor next to him screamed and started trying to wipe it off, which only spread the potion, causing more swelling. Sirius, James and Peter were bent over laughing, Sirius had tears in his eyes.

Snivellus deserved it for hurting his Remus. Maybe he'd think twice next time.