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Chapter Text

Sirius stood on the platform, feet firmly pressed to the ground. His mother hadn't come. Fine by Sirius, why would he want that excuse for a mother here to dampen his first impression on the others. To his right a crowd of Slytherin third years whispered, Sirius did his best to look uninterested but listened in keenly, hearing snippets of what they thought of his family. It was probably better that his mother hadn't come, she would have made sure that they spent the night in the hospital wing.

To his left, however, was a boy that Sirius lazily recognised as a member of the pureblood Potter family. Mother didn't like them either, she called them a waste of good blood. Sirius had met the heir of the Potter family once before, and hadn't enjoyed it. The boy had been bouncy and friendly and generally everything that mother despised, and only worsened her opinion on what she called 'Purebloods like him'. He remembered him because he was possibly the only person in his year of school that he had ever met. None of his relatives were close in age to him, and his family didn't see the point in socialising outside of the family and other deatheater families. His lucky brother had a few friends from that group, but Sirius had never much liked them.

Sirius was half aware that Kreacher had disapparated, probably sick of the crying parents already, Lord knows Sirius was. So for lack of options, Sirius made his way to the Potter, and held his pale hand out resolutely. "Sirius Black," Sirius was suddenly acutely insecure of the harsh, clipped tone of his voice when he said his name. He knew that the Potter boy would instantly know which family he belonged to, he probably wouldn't like him anymore because of it. The Blacks had a bad reputation, it was no secret that they abused the dark arts in casual ways. and that they weren't even ashamed of it, in fact they practically broadcasted it to anyone that couldn't get them arrested and was mortal enough to serve as a warning.

The Potter boy smiled a gappy, crooked smile. His teeth were a state, why would his parents not get them fixed? "I'm James, this is Peter," James gestured to the small, ratty boy behind him, who raised an awkward, fat hand in greeting. In an attempt to be playful, Sirius put on his best poor person (cockney) accent and bent down to speak to Peter, speaking loudly and with big mouth movements as if the boy were deaf. "Hows the weather down there?" Sirius gave his best excuse for a smile, and found his cheeks tight from lack of practise, he would have to try it again later in front of a mirror. He presumed Hogwarts would have mirrors, it was poor but not destitute.

James Potter frowned in a way that Sirius' old nurse had used to do, before she was fired for giving him and his stupid, waste of space little brother warm Horlicks before bed, since then they had looked after themselves. "Sirius that's not nice." Sirius, quite frankly, could give less of a shit. He rolled his eyes and walked off, sulking at being told off by someone he was so CLEARLY superior over. The train pulled in, Sirius thought that it would've been bigger, and the whole thing was rather disappointing and underwhelming for Sirius. One boy, however, stood in awe, totally alone and gripping a shabby suitcase. Sirius cocked his head, he didn't recognise this boy, but he looked familiar in a way he couldn't describe, his brain just went 'Oh it's him. He's here'. It wasn't familiarity, but the knowledge that one day he would look at those eyes and they would be familiar. At that moment Sirius knew that if he was girl he would have the biggest crush on him. He didn't know much about crushes or love, he had never really been interested in girls, but he hoped that he would one day find a girl exactly like this boy, and that he would get over the odd feeling in his stomach at the thought of dating a girl.

Aesthetically speaking, the boy wasn't especially exciting, brown hair, brown eyes, shabby clothes and shabbier belongings, Sirius half wondered whether he was wearing his best clothes. Although, the boy did have interesting scars all down his face, similar to those that Sirius had all over his back, maybe the two had one thing in common. After a short while of watching the boy watch the train, Sirius approached, determined to make a better first impression than he had with the other two boys.

"Hi? I'm Sirius Black. Who are you?" Sirius did his best, softest voice, smiling sweetly like he did for his much older cousins when they snuck him gifts at christmas.
The boy turned, chin up and eyes judgemental, scoping out whether or not Sirius seemed like a good idea to talk to. Thankfully, he seemed to not know about the Black family, or was tricked by Sirius' nice first impression, God as if Sirius didn't need anymore proof that he was a manipulative little bitch.

"Remus Lupin." The boy didn't stick out a hand to shake, and somehow that only sucked Sirius in further, "You don't know me."

"Well how do I not know you? You're not a... er..." Sirius glanced around and leaned in, as if he were saying a bad word, "You're not a muggle, are you?"
The boy shrugged with a casual demeanor that Sirius drank with his eyes obsessively, he had always wanted to be one of the common people, "Dunno."
Sirius didn't understand how you could not know if you were a muggle or not, but decided that if he pressed the idea that he would only be liable to go the next seven years of Hogwarts with no friends, and this boy seemed a good contender for the time being.

"Anyway, what house do you want to be in? I want to be in Slytherin. All my family has been in it for like forever, since Hogwarts was founded." Sirius hadn't spoken so much in years, he'd never really had any friends to talk to.

Remus Lupin didn't answer, maybe he just didn't really speak often, maybe he didn't like Sirius. Well if he didn't like Sirius then he could piss off then, Sirius didn't care. Not really.

"I don't know the houses."

What a strange answer. How can you go to Hogwarts and not know the houses. Sirius was pretty sure that his baby niece knew the houses of Hogwarts, "Really? You're having me on. Of course you know the houses of Hogwarts!"

Remus Lupin looked up and met Sirius' eyes for the first time. It felt like magic - better than magic - those big brown eyes that Sirius now found were more hazel with mixes of green locked on his own grey eyes, the eyes that belonged to the timid body felt strong and overpowered his own incessant gaze.

"I dunno," Sirius thought those words were far too weak to belong to the brain behind those captivating, saccharine eyes.

Sirius didn't have a response to that, and the train doors were opening. The seasoned 7th years stood exactly where they knew the doors would land, which left Sirius and his new friend Remus the last onto the train, and therefore without a seat that wasn't taken. Remus made his way down the train, Sirius following in his footsteps asking questions every few seconds that the taller boy ignored.

Remus came to a stop outside a compartment, and Sirius craned his neck over his shoulder to see who was in there, and when he saw who it was, he abruptly pulled back, causing Remus to look around at him and close the sliding door again. So the wooden plank did have an ounce of empathy then.

"What's up with you?" Remus stated bluntly, eyes looking him up and down, and Sirius felt oddly exposed by those interested hazel eyes.

"I insulted that guy," Sirius admitted sheepishly, Remus didn't look affected.

"Which one?"

"The small one," Sirius spoke in a hushed tone, even though he shouldn't have cared, his parents were

"So? Just go in and pretend nothing happened. If you feel that bad about it then apologise, I don't really give a shit."

Sirius flinched when Remus swore, that would've gotten him a slap for sure back home, he was only allowed to swear in his head. He considered it for a second, then sighed, " fine. For you."

Remus made a face that seemed disgusted at that, Sirius didn't think that Remus liked him very much. He also didn't think that the group he was going to sit with had any prospect whatsoever of being popular, whatever, Sirius could leave them at any time.

Chapter Text

Remus didn't particularly like Sirius Black, he decided. He didn't normally like attractive people, and Sirius Black was certainly that. Sirius had high cheekbones, sharp grey eyes and pale skin that spoke large measures about his social status, and the arrogance that oozed from his pores clung to Remus like a dark, horrible shroud. Despite this, Sirius showed surprising amounts of consciousness when he agreed to apologise, something that Remus wouldn't usually expect from a first class prick like the skinny boy in front of him.

As Remus waited for Sirius to enter the compartment, Sirius stared up at him with large grey eyes that Remus met with a steady, bored gaze. With an agitated sigh Remus entered the compartment first, leaning against the door frame and looking at the taller boy with glasses that seemed to be in charge, "can we sit in here?"

"If your friend apologises," the boy eyed Sirius behind Remus without a hint of anger. If someone had insulted his friend (not that he had any) then Remus wouldn't have been so accepting.

"He's going to," Remus nudged Sirius forwards.

Sirius' eyes blew wide, his pale cheeks flushed with unexpected embarrassment, "Er yes... right... er... Yes I'm sorry... er..."

The blonde boy muttered, "My name is Peter."

"Yes. Peter I am very sorry, I was only trying to make friends with you, I didn't mean to be..." Sirius searched for the right word for a long few moments, "condescending."

Peter nodded, accepting the apology, and Sirius and the other boy beamed identically. The boy with glasses held out a hand to shake Remus', "James Potter."

"Remus Lupin," Remus shook his hand, ignoring how Sirius glared at the pair's hands (Remus supposed he was just jealous because Remus hadn't shaken his hand), James seemed nice. His hair was in curls similar to Remus' own, only much darker. James had eyes that reminded Remus of the calf's eyes on his farm, big and brown and innocent. Remus instantaneously liked James, it was impossible not to when he was so smiley and kind.

Remus then shook Peter's hand, who seemed much more timid and fragile than James did, his hands were soft, as though he'd never done a days work in his life, and he still had baby fat that Remus had shifted years previously. Peter had bright blue eyes, but somehow managed to soften the piercing nature of them with his round face and freckles. He wasn't as pale as Sirius was, and was positively tanned, though that could've been the result of spending the summer abroad, rather than working as Remus got his tan, "Nice to meet you," Peter's voice was quiet and meek, which half intrigued Remus, half disgusted him.

Remus sat down opposite James, and Sirius plopped down awkwardly next to him, following him like a sheep. Sirius sat there with his legs pressed together, hands awkwardly fussing with his hair and pulling at the collar of his shirt as if it were choking him, "So. Where are you from? You don't sound English," James leaned forwards, speaking quickly.

"I'm Welsh," Remus said, "Where are you from?"

"Cornwall. Dad's from Pakistan though if you're wondering," James grinned, Remus wasn't wondering.

Then the compartment was silent, the train started, but nobody spoke or regarded it. Remus blamed Sirius for the awkwardness, though to be honest Remus could've blamed the second world war on Sirius Black at this point. Remus' mother had told him before he left that he should be careful who he speaks to first, because they will probably be his friends for the rest of his life, or at least the next seven years, and Remus didn't think the prospects of a peaceful school life and therefore life in general would be too great when friends with an egoist, a fat kid and a guy that smiled far too much for the first day of school.

***

After a very awkward and very long journey to the school, not much had been established for Remus, who spent most of it asleep to avoid conversation with James and Sirius. The two had quickly become a double act, chattering back and forth excitedly about the school and having a disagreement over which house they wanted to be in, James was adamant that Gryffindor was best, Sirius seemed swayed by this and went quiet for a long time, but picked up a very drawn out conversation about a game that they referred to on the whole as 'Quidditch', which only seemed needlessly violent and complicated to Remus.

Finally, however, they pulled into a station, it was dark out so Remus didn't have a chance to look around, and his sight was quickly blocked by herds of older kids walking in front of his window. Sirius and James had a hushed argument about who was going to wake him up, and before Sirius could put a hand on his shoulder to wake him up, Remus stood, pulled his shabby suitcase from the luggage hold, pulled down Peter's for him, then left. Remus attempted to push through the crowd, trying to get away from the group of boys, if they caught him now he would never escape their doomed friend group.

Unfortunately seconds later Sirius grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him around to face him, large toothy grin on his face, "where are you going mate?"

The word 'mate' was foreign in his mouth, he had clearly never said it before, so when he said it to Remus it sparked an irrational anger in him.

"Er... I need to piss," Remus stated, it was a lie, but someone like Sirius wouldn't know that.

"Oh alright then... mate."

"Yeah, so if you'd excuse me..." Remus pushed past Sirius to follow the other year sevens, happy that he was in the clear of the group. Remus decided that he would make friends based on who was in his classes, or who was in the house that people kept on bloody ramming information about down his throat.

Now feeling very irritated and on edge, Remus was NOT happy to hear that he would be rowing across a lake to get dinner. He was hungry and on thin ice with this whole school which was so far not his favourite place in the world.

Remus found his way to a rowing boat that was empty and seemed less likely to sink than the one next to it, which was rotted in several places. As he was the first there he was made to wait, and as the stupid other three were the last there he was made to let them into his boat and row them across the FUCKING LAKE. Needless to say, Remus was not happy.

"Woah, Remus are you sure you don't want any help?" James was being a busybody and attempting to be helpful, only making himself more of a nuisance.

"m'fine."

Remus rowed on his own, the other three facing him for whatever reason, and every time one of them spoke he made a particularly aggressive stroke with the oars. This turned out to be his downfall, as when Sirius asked YET AGAIN how much longer the trip was going to make, Remus put all his power into a stroke and sent the other three flying into him with the sudden movement, of course knocking them all into the water.

"FUCK," Remus swore and splashed about in the water in anger.

James, however, was instantly hanging off the side of the boat and tipping it up the right way, then pulled himself up and helped the other three back in without even a word of bragging. God Remus wished he was so calm in a crisis.

***

James took over rowing, leaving a sulky Remus to sit next to an equally sopping wet but not quite so quiet Sirius Black. They made it to the castle a little later than the others, and Remus was separated from the others as they were sorted into alphabetical order by a tall witch with black hair and a Scottish accent and a face made up of harsh lines.

The first years were led in their long, snaking line of people into a large hall filled with five tables, four facing vertically with dozens of people of varying ages all wearing either red, yellow, blue or green. The top table seemed to be all adults, teachers Remus presumed.

Names were read off (Abbots Cindy... Ball Arthur...) in alphabetical order, and each child went up to a stool at the front of the huge hall, where they sat for a few moments wearing a large, stupid looking hat which gave a cry of Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin. The kid then went to the table that cheered loudly for the verdict. All in all Remus was utterly lost. However, when Sirius went to sit on the stool, and the hat cried out Gryffindor someone gasped, people whispered, nobody cheered. As he made his way to the red table Sirius hung his head low, but Remus saw his grey complexion and eyes wide like a prey animal.

After a few moments another cheer came up, and then another, and then after a few more cheers it was Remus' turn. His heart hammered against his ribs, why was he so nervous? It was just a hat! He sat down, legs dangling, and the hat was dropped onto his head. His only thought was 'Please don't put me with Sirius Black'. Then the fucking hat spoke back.

"Certain dislike of Sirius Black? I think he's exactly what you need, Lupin. GRYFFINDOR."

FUCK.

Chapter Text

James thought that the entire day had gone excellently. Despite a rough start he had made friends other than Peter for the first time in his life, and he was happy. Being put in Griffindor with Pete was just the cherry on top. Not only that, but all his other friends were in the same house! Friends and his favourite Hogwarts house all in the same day? For James, this was Christmas. He had enjoyed talking with Sirius, and Remus seemed nice, if a little cold, which was nothing James couldn't handle, if anything he liked it,

The group made their way up to the dorm after one of the meals that his parents had been telling him about since he got his letter, James was excited to see who they were sharing with, he had forgotten to pay attention to the other six people that would be in his house, only listening for himself and the other three that he had already met. There were five people in each dorm, and so far he had met four of them, meaning there was one more boy for him to meet, James could only hope that he would be cool. James was in awe of everything he saw as the boys climbed the stairs, he followed closely behind Remus who effortlessly took the lead and followed a little behind the prefect, James numbly thought that despite Remus' aggressive attitude, he seemed to answer well to authority.

Sirius attempted to talk to Remus, but was ignored. Sirius seemed so eager to talk to Remus, and Remus seemed eager to not associate with any of the others. Whatever, James was about 99% sure that it was Sirius and only Sirius that drove Remus away from the group, and Sirius wasn't likely to stick around very long anyway.

"Remus what time are you going to bed?" No answer.

"I've never had a sleepover before," No answer.

"When are we having breakfast?" This seemed to be Remus' final straw, as he snapped.

"I don't know! Would it kill you to shut up?" Remus exploded. Sirius looked up at him in a way that would've made James apologise and hug him and answer his questions calmly, but Remus didn't glance twice at.

Sirius looked down, his long hair falling from behind his ears to cover his face, "sorry Remus."

Remus seemed to soften at that, and dropped the conversation, instead focusing his angry energy on burning a hole through the floor with his eyes.

James missed his family sorely, his mum and dad wouldn't be arguing like his friends were right now. James would probably be in his living room, the fire would be on because the cold weather was starting to creep into early September, his mum would be knitting, probably getting ready for Christmas and making the three their Christmas jumpers, his dad would be reading, or watching TV, or simply talking to James and his Mum. Fleamont and Euphemia Potter were James' favourite people in the world. He had never had siblings or friends (besides Peter, who lived next door and happened to be his age), and he worshipped his parents as much as they worshipped him. They had never had any other kids, and when James used to complain about not having siblings they would say that they never wanted any more kids because he was perfect for them, and filled their entire lives. James wondered now whether that just meant he was a nightmare to keep alive when he was younger.

The group made it to the portrait that James' mum had told him all about, it was bigger than James had expected. The painting consisted of a lady wearing a pink ballgown, hair done up on top of her head in a pile and her cheeks rosy.

"The Bee-Gees," the prefect said confidently, Remus made a face, lip curled and eyes narrowed.

The lady in the painting grinned widely, "password's changed Malcolm."

Malcolm, presumably the prefect, groaned and spoke quickly in a stern voice, "no it hasn't ma'am."

The lady nodded, "Mm Hmm, yes it has. You have to answer a riddle."

Malcolm groaned and kicked the wall in frustration, "no. Let us in."

"But my friend gets to do riddles!"

"Bring it up with Dumbledore," Malcolm rolled his eyes, now trying to pry the painting away from the wall in frustration.

"Don't insult me Malcolm! You know I'm not allowed in his office anymore! Fine! Go in," the painting swung forwards to reveal a short passage way, which led into a warmly lit room filled with worn old sofas and tables. It looked like his own living room, and James wondered if his mum had designed their living room based on her time in Griffindor. The group of first years made their way into the common room and stood in a large congregation awkwardly, waiting for instructions.

Malcolm stood on a chair and whistled for attention. Malcolm was tall, with brown hair that fell over his face in a fashionably messy style and glasses that he adjusted on his nose whilst speaking, he seemed to be in a perpetually irritated state, and not happy at all to be herding around first years.

"Boys, you will follow me, we are going to your dorms, you're right at the top of the tower, so I hope you don't mind heights. Girls, you'll be going with Charlotte..." Malcolm craned his head around, probably looking for Charlotte, "If she's here that is... CHARLOTTE?"

A girl looked up from a chair in the corner, she had perfect curls in her long brown hair, and big eyes that you just couldn't miss, so dark blue that you could think they were grey, but they weren't, and framed by a crown of long, dark eyelashes. She had upturned lips and an unimpressed resting face that made her look like a French aristocrat, "What do you want Malcolm?"

"Come and show the girls their dorm."

"Must I?" Charlotte groaned and sunk further into her seat.

"You must," Malcolm smirked at her, and James wondered if this was a kind of inside joke. Whatever it was, he didn't like it.

Charlotte smirked back and stood up, she was attractive James supposed, and Malcolm seemed to agree from the way his cheeks flushed when she smiled at him. Charlotte hopped up onto the table next to Malcolm and glanced over the crowd of ten first years, looking past the boys and smiling at the girls.

"How was everyone's first day girls?" Charlotte smiled at the first years, the girls among them gave a muffled 'good', "good? I'm glad. You've got a nice dorm this time, nice and far away from the boys dorm, mine's right next to theirs, we hear way more than we'd like to hear."

That made a few people blush, one of the girls behind James whispered to her friend that Charlotte and Malcolm had definitely had sex, James hoped they hadn't.

"Right, shut up Charlotte and go show them around. I'm stealing your notes from muggle studies," Malcolm got off the table and offered his hand to help Charlotte down.

Charlotte, however, jumped down on her own accord and walked off towards the stairs of the girls' dorm without looking at Malcolm, muttering "prick" as she waked off with the five girls in tow.

Malcolm sighed and watched her leave, before turning to the boys and clapping his hands, "right. Dorms."

Chapter Text

After Malcolm left, Sirius sat on his bed (he had bagsied the one next to the window) and unpacked his stuff from his large suitcase that was embellished with that awful family crest that was burned into his eyes for the rest of his life. He glanced over at Remus, who stubbornly ignored him, not looking up at him. It was just a small argument, why was Remus still angry at him and ignoring him. Sirius loathed it.

Sirius noticed that instead of looking at Sirius, Remus had chosen to look at Alfie, the fifth member of their dorm.

He didn't care, of course he didn't, Remus probably just was interested, yes obviously that was it. He hadn't met Alfie yet - none of them had - and Alfie wasn't exactly talkative. In fact, Alfie hadn't said a word the whole time, and was growing quite flushed from the concentration on him in the room. Finally, James cleared his throat, "So, Alfie, where are you from?"

The conversation was awkward, but not as awkward as the silence, "er... Kent."

"Kent? I heard it's posh there," James continued to be the only one making conversation with Alfie.

"Er yeah. We play Rugby and stuff," Alfie added unhelpfully.

"Oh yeah, I went there once, can't remember why, everyone spoke like they had money to spare," Sirius was almost shocked when Remus spoke up so boldly, he hadn't said a word to Sirius since he told him to shut up, and here he was having a personable conversation with this guy! He just met! A few hours after he met Sirius!

Okay maybe he was overreacting, but what did Alfie have that Sirius didn't? Sirius was probably richer. Sure Alfie had a posh accent, dimples and nice hair, but Sirius was better! He had all that (minus the dimples) and more! Sirius was also sure that Alfie was lying, at least in part, about something. Sirius didn't know what, but it was something and it annoyed him. A LOT. Alfie in himself was... attractive, Sirius thought, but Sirius was also pretty sure that he was too. Sirius would definitely get a girlfriend first.

"Hey Alfie!" Sirius said, he could hear the arrogance that his mother always picked him up on when he was at home.

Alfie looked over at him, head tilted in a way that Remus seemed transfixed by, and pissed off Sirius, "yeah?"

"I bet I get a girlfriend before you," Sirius was attempting to sound playful and friendly, but it wasn't working.

"Oh, er... yeah maybe," Sirius felt EXTREMELY judged, and he didn't like it, nor did he like Alfie.

"Right. It's a bet then!"

Alfie glanced sideways at Remus, and the two smiled at each other in a secretive way. Sirius wondered if maybe the Welsh could like other boys. Maybe just the English couldn't. When he was younger his mother had told him that two boys couldn't like each other, it was impossible, after Sirius had met one of his very brief friend's younger brother and thought he had a crush on him, but two boys couldn't like each other. He'd actually been pretty badly beaten for it.

Sirius then contented himself with glancing over at James and Peter, who were sat on James' bed and talking, James characteristically loudly and Peter usually hushed. Sirius wanted to be friends with the two of them, Remus could go fuck himself... same for his new bloody friend, so he went over and nervously stood next to the bed, "can I join?"

James grinned widely, "of course! We're friends now!"

Sirius matched James' grin and sat next to the sceptical looking Peter, who continued what he was saying in a slow way, clearly uncomfortable with Sirius' proximity, the little rat could put up with it!

"...So anyway, my mum was saying that over Christmas we should rent somewhere in Scotland again, and go to that loch again, she really loved it last time but she doesn't want to share with my dad since the divorce," Peter continued.

Sirius was eager to interject, and force himself into the friend group, "Can't do my house I'm afraid. No room," that was a lie, his house was massive, but his mother probably wouldn't appreciate a group of 11 year old boys sleeping in her house whilst she's trying to commit war crimes.

Peter glanced at him sideways, "What a shame."

James shouted over at Remus and Alfie, "you chaps okay to stay at mine over Christmas?"

Remus looked panicked for a split second before answering, "Er... sorry, I can't."

That was... weird, maybe he had an embarrassing secret, maybe he was hiding something? Sirius wanted to know, "I'll stay with you here!"

Remus looked at Sirius with newfound interest, eyes scanning his face for a hint of a lie, "really?"

"Yeah, of course, can't leave you here alone."

Stupid fucking Alfie spoke, "I'm free over the holiday, I could stay here with Remus."

Sirius bit the inside of his cheek, "that's okay, Remus and I can hang out here."

"If you're sure, I would like to see my family at Christmas I suppose," why did Alfie have to be so nice?

Sirius smiled at him in the fakest way he could muster, "of course."

Alfie had everything that Sirius desired, a family he wanted to be around, a face that smiled and drew people in and an instant bond with Remus Lupin, a summit that seemed too high for Sirius to climb.

Sirius couldn't even hate him, he was way too nice to hate, he could only be thankful that Remus' bed was on the opposite side of the room to Alfie's, so Remus would go to Sirius instead of Alfie if he needed something. Okay that was creepy, maybe not.

***

Later that night, everyone was in bed, and Sirius was up, still thinking about why boys cannot like boys... romantically, so he decided to ask James, who he imagined would be the most knowledgeable other than Remus, who would judge him.

Sirius made his way quietly over to James' bed, and spread the curtains, a sleepy James looked up at him from being hidden under the quilt, "Sirius?"

Sirius sat on the bed next to James and whispered, "James... can boys be in love with boys? Like have kids and get married? And stuff?"

James raised his eyebrows in surprise, "I mean... yes? Men can't get married but they can be in love, it's not legal to get married, but men can like... be in relationships and stuff."

In shock, Sirius raised his eyebrows and lay down, staring up at the canopy of James' bed, "really? Mum told me it was impossible."

"Your mum must be a homophobe mate, that's what they call people that hate gay people," James was so casual with him, and Sirius felt like he finally had a friend.

"Does gay mean two boys liking each other?" Sirius questioned.

"Yeah, I don't know much but I think it's the same for girls too."

Sirius was having a revelation, "Girls can like girls?"

"Yeah, of course they can mate. Your mum just didn't tell you anything?" James grinned sleepily at him.

"No... she really didn't," Sirius stared up at the canopy in deep concentration, "oh god, I had a crush on my friend's brother."

"Low blow mate, going after someone's brother," James started pushing Sirius, "now get out mate, I wanna sleep."

Sirius left and went back to his bed, much happier than he had been that morning.

Chapter Text

As Peter listened to Sirius and James whispering in the next bed over from him, he realised that if he wasn't careful then Sirius Black would take his one and only friend.

Peter had never been scared of James leaving him behind. They had grown up together, right next door, and there was nobody else. They spent birthdays and Christmas and every day in-between with the other. Now James seemed the exact same with Sirius, and the relationship that Peter had been cultivating for the last eleven years now was being cheaply replicated by a boy that had done it all in one day.

Therefore, Peter did not like Sirius Black.

He was too handsome, too loud, too stupidly perfect, and Peter hated it. How dare he be perfect? What was wrong with him? Nothing, that was the problem. Why couldn't something just be wrong with him? Maybe he was schizophrenic. Or gay. Peter could only hope.

The next few weeks went by slowly for Peter, who later would not remember a second of it. Remus Lupin, another boy in their dorm, had his birthday, but didn't tell anyone so Peter couldn't get him a gift in time.

Unlike his opinion on Sirius, Peter quite liked Remus, who seemed to equally dislike Sirius. Remus was kind enough to Peter, and spoke to him more than bloody James had in the last four weeks. Unusually, however, Remus spent an awful lot of time in the infirmary. Over two or three days Remus had been under the weather, and he came back with scratches raking up and down his arms (presumably under his shirt too, but he changed in the bathroom unlike the other boys). Peter hadn't a clue why he was so badly beaten up, he walked with a limp uncharacteristic of an 11 year old boy, and more like that of an old man. The fifth was particularly difficult for Remus, and he spent the whole day complaining of aches and went to the hospital wing in the evening, then came back the next day with scratches etched into his tanned skin, limping badly and painted with bruises. Peter didn't know what the seemingly kind lady in the hospital wing could've possibly been doing to poor Remus, but Peter would make sure never to go there himself.

After Remus recovered he was in a much better mood, maybe he had just been ill and that was why he had been snappy with everyone the first day. In the rare moments that Sirius and Remus interacted positively (most common when the ever disappearing Alfie had pissed off to go and hang out with a group of Ravenclaws that he spent increasing amounts of time with) everything felt right. Remus made jokes, Sirius laughed, James was content playing happy families, and Peter basked in the warmth that seemed to fly off the group in rays, imitating the familiar feeling of lying on his oak panelled living room floor, soaking in the patch of sun that shone through the window and moving to follow it as the day passed, so he could always remain in the sun.

But the sun went away at night. Remus and Sirius ignored each other, bickered (Sirius looking like a kicked puppy, Remus getting frustrated about Sirius acting victim) and generally showed a strong dislike outside those rare moments where they realised they got each other, and didn't fight like animals. Peter thought that if they got over themselves then they would be best friends.

The more Peter got to know Sirius, the less he hated him, he still disliked him for being perfect, but Peter began to see that Sirius was not perfect. This realisation hit Peter very hard when he came up from dinner early, whilst the others were still eating, and Sirius had gone to bed on the clearly fake grounds of 'not feeling very well'.

Peter entered the dorm and instantly picked up on a sniffling, the only person in the room was Sirius. It was no secret what the Blacks did to their kids. Walburga Black was infamous for abuse, many times Peter had heard his and James' mum discussing it, pondering why no one did anything and then never doing it themselves. From what Peter knew, Sirius had a little brother, Regulus Black, who was more liked by their parents.

So Peter wasn't surprised to see a bright red envelope sitting on the floor near Sirius' bed, and hear the sobbing being barely restricted when Peter approached, Sirius clearly didn't want anyone knowing that he was crying, "Sirius? Are you okay?"

Sirius responded tearfully from behind the curtains, clearly putting on a bright tone to trick Peter into thinking he hadn't been crying, "I'm fine."

"I know you're crying. It's okay to cry. I do it all the time," Peter encouraged, feeling deeply sorry for Sirius Black, and realising that his confidence was a front, unlike James'.

Sirius didn't respond for a few beats so Peter carried on, "is it about the howler?"

Sirius drew back the curtains and looked up at Peter with red, puffy eyes and his perfect hair all tossled, and nodded.

"Is it from your mum?"

"yeah," Sirius whispered.

Peter sat next to Sirius, "you don't have to talk about it, but you'll feel better if you do."

Sirius took a deep breath, "she found out that I'm in Gryffindor. Took her long enough. She's furious with me, says I'm a disappointment, she doesn't want me to come back home. She's going to send all my things to Hogwarts so I can just stay here."

"Oh Sirius... that's awful. She won't change her mind?" Peter sympathised.

Sirius shook his head, "no, she never does. No means no with her."

The two sat in silence until Sirius spoke again, "Oh Pete, what am I gonna do?"

Peter thought for a moment, "well... you can always come with me. Come and stay with me, during the holidays. Is your brother going to be okay alone?"

"I'm sure he will be. Perfect Regulus. Can't put a bloody foot out of line. Mother likes him."

That night, Peter went to bed with a much improved opinion of Sirius Black. Sirius wasn't an arrogant dickwad. He was a damaged and traumatised eleven year old. And Peter would make sure he was okay.

Chapter Text

Remus entered the Potions lab just before the other four. Alfie instantly forked off to his other friends. Remus missed him. He had thought that they would be good friends, that Alfie would save him from the other three they shared a dorm. But now Remus was certain that he would be stuck with them for the rest of his school life, and he was dreading it. Sirius Black, Remus didn't understand him. Sometimes Sirius was his favourite person to talk to, sometimes he made Remus want to put a gun in his mouth. It was a love-hate relationship.

The teacher that stood at the front of the room was a tall man with slightly greying curls and a dimpled smile. He seemed nice enough, but Remus thought Potions reminded him of science, a subject that he had hated in primary school, so he wasn't looking forward to the lesson. To top off all his anger, Alfie had left him to sit next to Sirius Black, who was rapidly growing in popularity, and had been the subject of many girls conversations that Remus overheard at meals and in lessons. Other than those times, Remus kept himself locked in his dorm, waiting for Alfie to return from his other friends. Remus distanced himself entirely from everyone else in a way that wasn't healthy, but he didn't care. He didn't want to be friends with the others anyway, so just completely ignored them.

Sirius still insisted that Remus and him sat together in every lesson, and at lunch, and their beds were next to each other, so Remus found that he was living in Sirius world. He hated it.

Remus rolled his eyes as Sirius sat next to him, "hey mate."

Again the word felt clanky and awkward and only half full, Sirius' whole demeanour felt like that actually. He was completely empty, only a face of a boy. He only showed one side of him. The side that he showed pissed Remus off though, so he supposed the other one would only be worse.

"Hi Sirius," Remus sighed begrudgingly, something about Sirius was making it increasingly difficult to ignore him.

Sirius grinned cheerfully when Remus responded, he didn't usually respond and Remus imagined it would make his whole day, "What do you think of Slughorn?"

"He hasn't even spoken yet, Sirius, be patient."

The class was making a racket, and Slughorn (despite standing at the front to wait for silence as all teachers seem to do) had to whistle loudly through his fingers to get the class' attention, when the class finally hushed, he smiled and clasped his hands together, his face was kind, "welcome class to Potions! For the muggles among you, I have been informed that it is similar to what the muggles call 'physics', but only makes a lot more sense and involves a lot more magic. For all others, I am sure you have heard of potions, whether or not your parents speak well of it or not is most likely down to me. I have been teaching here for the last twenty years, and don't plan to stop until at least 1998!"

If a little overbearing, Slughorn seemed a nice man, and Remus instantly liked him. It soon became apparent that not only Remus liked him, as a girl in the front row was putting her hand up every few minutes, and Remus recognised her as one of the Gryffindor girls, Lily Evans.

The class were given a task, to make some kind of potion that Remus lost the name of, one that would induce sleep, or at least was meant to. Remus and Sirius had not ended up with the desired pink potion, and had made something particularly electric blue. A greasy haired, snobby nosed little git turned round and gave an irritating smirk, "it's meant to be pink."

"Yeah we know. Turn around and focus on your own cauldron," Sirius replied, and went EXTREMELY far up in Remus' ranking of him.

"I'm only saying. You've done it wrong," the boy insisted.

"Oh piss off will you? If you're so good at potions make yourself some shampoo," Remus butted in, and took the spoon from Sirius gently, stirring the potion.

When the boy turned around, Sirius was still looking up at Remus in awe, "that was really cool of you, Remus."

"Thanks Sirius. Agree that we don't like him?"

"Definitely."

Somehow, Remus saw the side of Sirius that he really liked again. If Sirius was just like this more often, maybe they wouldn't argue so much.

After class, the ginger girl that was always answering questions approached Sirius and Remus, who were still laughing about the greasy one, "I'm sorry about him. He just doesn't know how to make friends."

"It's okay. It's his fault for being a dick," Sirius announced loudly.

Lily seemed uncomfortable with her friend being called a dick, but was whisked away by the elbow by the dick. So she couldn't really argue.

***

That night was the full moon of October, it was on the 4th, which meant that Remus not only had to go to school that day, but it was a MONDAY. Of all the days to transform into a fucking werewolf. Madame Pomfrey was kind though, she helped Remus and left him food for if - when - the wolf was hungry during the night. That night was one of the worst transformations that Remus had ever faced, he was chained to the wall so he wouldn't escape and eat someone, but had managed to dislocate both shoulders and escape. The wolf paced the inside of the shack, which was far enough away from the school that his friends would only hear a faint groaning noise, not the howls and shrieks of pain that he knew he made during the transformation.

At home, his mum had let him roam in the forest, eating the sheep on the farm, but after his attacks got serious and he bit a human, his mum had to make a change. He was locked in a room, cased in by the concrete and layers of earth around him, and flung himself at the walls until he broke his bones. It hurt his mum to put him through that, but Remus never wanted to hurt anybody.

Now the wolf was free and Remus remembered nothing, just knew that he woke up the next morning, shoulders dislocated, nose broken, covered in scratches and blood that he prayed was only his own.

Chapter Text

Lily had quickly fallen in with a boy she didn't know she wanted to be friends with. Severus was... unconventional. He was obnoxious and rude and in her most truthful moments Lily was disgusted by him. They were only friends because they lived around the same place, and by coincidence Severus had found out she had some kind of magic, and so began teaching her. Lily learned quickly after joining Hogwarts that this was illegal. Lily had hoped that maybe she would be saved by the two boys in her Potions that she quite liked, Remus and Sirius. They were also in her house. But Severus had whisked her away before she could get talking to them, and she was once again left with only Severus as her friend. With him standing behind her, Lily had no chance of being liked by anyone else, as Severus had quickly become highly disliked by many people.

Lily hadn't even liked him when they were kids. She put up with him because she was polite (and he was teaching her how to do things that seemed barely possible to Lily), and that putting up with him had turned into an inescapable situation where she was stuck being friends with him, and couldn't have any other friends. Lily wasn't happy.

In her dorm nobody spoke to her, and that night, after the failed last ditch effort to be friends with Remus and Sirius, she found herself sobbing on the closed toilet seat of the girls dorm, head in her hands, hair falling over her face. It wasn't pretty crying, she sobbed violently. Lily thought in that moment that there were two kinds of crying, wet crying when you sobbed and blubbered and hugged yourself until you fell asleep, and dry crying when you're angry and frustrated. Lily wasn't sure if her anger outweighed her sadness.

Lily heard the door of the dorm open and one set of footsteps that paused.

"Lily?" It was Marlene, one of her dormmates.

"Yeah?" Lily called from the bathroom, turning on the shower so Marlene wouldn't suspect anything.

"Are you okay? I saw the thing in Potions. Severus is a dick, if you don't mind me saying," Oh thank GOD. Someone who didn't rope her into one category with Severus. FINALLY.

"Thanks Marlene. I'm okay. Severus is just a... lot to deal with. He won't let me be friends with anyone else," Lily leaned her head against the door, speaking to Marlene.

"Well I'm here. I'll be friends with you. We can hang out, get you away from Severus. Get you some real socialisation!" When Marlene said this, Lily opened the door smiled at Marlene.

"Really? Oh my gosh Marlene I would LOVE that. Really?" Lily was grinning from ear to ear.

"Of course!"

The next few weeks were the best of Lily's life so far. She made friends, friends that liked her, for ONCE. She had been okay in primary school. It was a small school and one of those places where you HAD to be friends with everyone, because if you fell out then you had no friends, because there was only one friend group. Going to a school with forty people in her year, a large number compared to the sixteen in her primary (and only seven of which were girls), had been a struggle for Lily. She didn't know which group to join, and was spoilt for choice. She could stick with Sev (Pros: nobody would mess with her because Severus had already hexed several people, Cons: He was an annoying, slimy haired dick), she could join the other girls in her dorm (Pros: They made her happy, she really liked them, Cons: Sev would be upset) or she could join one of the many other rapidly forming factions as people scrambled to not be the social outcast in the year.

Marlene, Lily and Mary spent a lot of time together, so much in fact that Lily was exhausted by the first week of being friends with them. They studied together, sat together in lessons, ate together, went to the bathrooms in a big group anytime one of them had to go, even when they had no reason to be together they were together. Lily liked them very much, probably because they liked her, something Sev had never done before. After about a month, Mary would hang off of one of Lily's arms, whispering about people that walked past them and giggling at every funny thing Lily said. Lily had never thought she was funny before. Mary in particular was very physically affectionate, Marlene did not like the physical touch as much, and moved away politely when Mary hugged her or kissed her temple as she had a habit of doing.

Mary was a kind of person that Lily had never met before, she wore many rings and walked around singing and smiled broadly all the time and never seemed to be neutral on anything. Whilst other sat in boring lessons half asleep and eyes blinking tiredly, Mary chattered and bubbled and giggled quietly, which got her told off, but the teachers never disliked her. Nobody disliked her. How could someone hate someone so happy? Lily certainly couldn't.

Marlene, on the other hand, was rather self contained and thoughtful. She spent a lot of time listening to Mary, not adding to the conversation, just happy to take in what Mary said to her. Marlene was tall and skinny with extremely long blonde hair and big, bright blue eyes. She reminded Lily of the women she had seen when she went to The Netherlands one time over summer. For someone so pretty she was very self contained. She was still kind though.

Mary and Marlene were polar opposites, when Lily thought of Mary she thought of velvety purple and deep red, when she thought of Marlene she thought of a medical blue or green like nurses wear. It made sense that the two were best friends.

When Christmas came around, Lily had secured a stay with Mary, Marlene was coming too. She was excited. Lily would miss her family, but her sister was not a sore loss. Petunia Evans was horrible to Lily, and the entire reason that she had been pushed to be friends with others, such as Severus. Petunia was very tall and angular, one year older than Lily, but was mean and her words dripped with saline hatred for her sister, so ultimately Lily was glad to be avoiding her until the Easter.

The first term had been... rough. But for the first time in her eleven years of life Lily laughed constantly! Nothing was a competition for love and affection! Lily was happy, for the most part. And as she fell asleep against the window of the train on the way back to London for christmas, Lily couldn't help but smile contently. No Severus to bring the mood down. No Petunia to bully her. No popular girls to laugh down at her. Lily slept peacefully, Mary leaning against her side, Marlene watching the two - specifically Mary's sleeping face - with tired interest. The train was a rather late one, but Lily had grown used to the slow breathing of Mary as she slept in the dorm, the watchful eyes of Marlene who seemed to rarely sleep, and so felt completely at home with the other two girls, she only hoped nothing would change.

Chapter Text

Over Christmas, Pete spent a habitual amount of time at the Potter's.

Euphemia Potter was a short, rounder woman with short brown hair with matching brown skin and brown eyes. Peter reckoned that she must have been very pretty when she was younger, as her smile seemed natural and creased lines into her cheeks, which had matching dimples to her son. Rare pictures of a younger Euphemia were dotted around the house, her smile had never changed.

Fleamont was very similar in the sense that he had a happy face, his skin impacted from years of joy. He was not a particularly tall man, and his eleven year old son was nearly his height, however it was suffice to say that James was going to be far taller than his father in the future, Peter didn't know where he got his tall genes from. Fleamont had the same hair as James, both of whom didn't take as much care of their hair as the average person but managed to roll out of bed with perfect hair.

Peter had basically lived at the Potter's his entire childhood, every birthday, Christmas and every day in between had been spent with James. Neither of them had siblings, but they had never needed them because when you have a friend so close to you as the two boys were, who needs siblings?

Peter was around for a sleepover one night, the group were eating dinner as they did together most nights, Peter's father sat next to him and having a rather intense conversation with the two Potter's where they all seemed to be disagreeing on what a muggle bus was. Euphemia had read about a new mode of transport being made for wizards based on the muggle bus, which confused the wizarding world as no one quite knew how a muggle bus was supposed to collect all the muggles in England, as they had to adhere to limits of their speed. Some had been speculating that they may have more than one bus.

James and Peter soon grew bored of the conversation, and after a pudding of apple crumble and cream, rushed outside to play quidditch with James' new broom. James hoped to be accepted onto the quidditch team next year - as a first year on the team was unheard of - and so had made his parents buy him all new quidditch equipment, and the loving (and very well off) couple had agreed. James and Peter were definitely very lucky to be where they were from. The game consisted of the usual, James THRASHING Peter on his faster broom, but Peter didn't mind, it made James happy and Peter didn't much care for quidditch, though he was sure that James would drag him to all his practices and try-outs the second he could. The two went inside when it got fully dark, and Peter's dad went home when his mum got home from work, so Peter and James went up to bed.

James had a large bedroom, and one that Peter was well accustomed to, so they set up a blow up bed on the ground and settled in quickly. James had a TV on his room, so the two turned on a James Bond film but quickly were distracted by more pressing matters.

"Y'know what Sirius asked me the other day?" James started, which basically made any interest Peter had in James Bond fly out the window.

Peter looked around in surprise, "what?"

"He asked me if boys can like boys. He genuinely was told when he was younger that gay people don't exist."

"What? I mean, who doubts it? Y'know what his mum does to him? And his brother."

James nodded, "Yeah, I know. Kinda crazy to think about. He seems pretty normal, but have you seen all the scars down his back? Same as Remus'."

"Yeah what's wrong with Remus anyway? He's always limping. About every month he goes to the hospital wing."

James considered it for a moment, "maybe he's secretly a girl, or at least gets... y'know... monthlies. I dunno what happens to girls on their periods, but I've heard it's pretty bad, it wouldn't surprise me if they got cut up more easy."

Peter frowned, "no, he's definitely a boy, I walked in on him showering the other day."

"Whatever. Maybe he's diabetic?" Peter didn't even respond, just gave James a raised eyebrow, "okay maybe not."

The two watched the TV for a few more minutes, before circling back to the discussion about the Black family.

"I met Sirius' little brother before, they look identical. Though Reg is more... I dunno... proper? Something like that," James said thoughtfully.

"Reg? How close are you?"

James turned red, "I met him ONCE! Shut up Pete."

James shoved Peter playfully, who laughed.

"I heard that Sirius won't make it through Hogwarts in that family, he's close to being disowned I think. Then he won't get all that inheritance," Peter added.

"Yeah, imagine having that kind of money and then not getting it! That's gotta hurt somewhat."

The two laughed for a minute about that, joking about their new friend, but when Peter was lying on the blow up mattress, James snoring above him, Peter considered how Sirius and his brother must hate each other, how they must loath the other. Sirius must wish that he was the favourite child, and Regulus Black - who Peter had never had the pleasure of meeting, and now very much wanted to after seeing his impact on James - must wish for a way out of that family. Peter certainly would, if he was in their position that is. Peter had never been more grateful for his loving parents, no matter how much they annoyed him with their incessant letters constantly whilst he was trying to eat breakfast, at least they weren't Walburga and Orion Black, who were so pretentious they named their children after stars because that's what the expected - stars rather than children.

Peter wondered how Remus and Sirius were getting on all on their own together at Hogwarts, probably driving each other crazy at this point, even after only a few hours they would have been at each others throats. Peter would have to tell Remus to be nice to Sirius, he deserved a nice school life, even if he couldn't have a harmonious home life. He would send a letter to him in the morning, telling him to treat Sirius Black with more delicacy than you'd imagine.

But for now Peter could sleep, content in the knowledge that he could help his friends, as he had wanted to do the whole first term.

Chapter Text

As the train pulled out of the station, Sirius looked away from James' hand waving to them from out the window, and towards Remus, who seemed to have grown about two inches since the start of the year. Remus' hair was longer as well, it had been close to his head but was now grown out and he was in need of a hair cut. Sirius watched Remus, who seemed to feel the attention on the side of his face and stubbornly faced the other way, not acknowledging Sirius whatsoever.

Once the train had disappeared around the corner, Remus finally turned to look at Sirius, they were the only two left on the platform, Remus spoke quietly, almost reluctantly, "Right then..."

Sirius knew that the words were a signal to move, so the two made their way slowly up to the Gryffindor tower, ambling along the stone passage ways in near silence that was only interrupted by the quiet hush of Remus' sighs and Sirius' heavy boots when the rug beneath then turned to stone. The corridors were eerily quiet in fact, it seemed that no one wanted to be in Hogwarts for the holidays, though Sirius thought that it may have something to do with rising fears of the "death eaters" that were rumoured to have infiltrated Hogwarts. Sirius knew exactly who the fuss was about, as per usual it was him, although if you replace "malicious, evil, bloodsucking cult member" with "innocent eleven year old" and replace "broke in under the guise of being a new student whose ulterior motive was to ravage everything in his path" with "Sirius wanted to get out of the house and school seemed bearable" then the picture would be more accurate.

The dorm was empty, completely void of life and the usual echoes of laughter from bubbles of chatter that drifted through the room, contrasted now by the cold breeze that snuck in through a window that had been left ajar by someone before they left. Sirius thought briefly that whoever opened it wasn't particularly bright, if nobody had been there then it would have been left open for the next two weeks of school, and Sirius wasn't likely to close it anyway. Remus must have thought the same thing, because he sighed and jostled past Sirius to close the window.

Without the interruption of the wind to cover the awkward silence, Sirius and Remus stood in the hushed room, eyes avoiding each other's until the smoke would predicatbly clear and they were free to be friends again. Sirius wanted so badly to be friends with Remus Lupin, and when he was friends with him Sirius felt like the happiest guy alive. Remus was funny and playful and so very human and just everything that Sirius craved, everything that Sirius wished he could roll into a a cigarette and smoke just to feel the warmth that he felt when Remus Lupin was his...... friend.

With the dorm being strangely empty, Sirius was at a loose end. Remus had quickly settled in with a book that he was reading EXTREMELY slowly in a way that irritated Sirius, but Sirius didn't know what he wanted. He didn't want to do homework, or join Remus in reading, or do anything really, so he slumped down in an armchair with a bored huff and stared into the fire, sighing at increasing volumes at intervals to get the attention of his friend. After a while of this Remus gave him an annoyed look and rested the book in his lap, "what's up with you?"

"Bored," Sirius whined petulantly.

"Hm," Remus didn't seem impressed, and looked back down at his book, "well it's dinner in a minute, that'll keep you entertained."

Dinner did not keep Sirius entertained. The tables had all been combined into one, and the poor few whose parents didn't want them at home for Christmas were extremely boring and not people that Sirius was excited to spend Christmas with. Severus Snape was one of the unfortunate few, as well as a few older kids that Sirius didn't recognise but knew that they smelt of the drugs his older cousin Bella took and were red eyed every time he saw them. Speak of the devil, his cousins had also chosen to stay in Hogwarts for the winter, they were at the age that when they went home they would be sold off to some man.

The congregation was in silence, all but Dumbledore, the head teacher. Dumbledore was a nice man, and Sirius didn't like him. He was a joyous man with dimples and smile lines that he had evidently spent years etching into his skin. Sirius was put off by him for a reason he didn't understand, maybe he was too bubbly for a man of his age. A man of his age with his beard should be reciting prophecies and retiring, not skipping about corridors full of teenagers and claiming to love his job. So whilst Dumbledore spoke everybody dropped their heads to stare at their food and didn't make eye contact, like he were a predator that would snap them up if they looked up.

After an awkward dinner of chicken stew ("like my mother makes it" Dumbledore grinned at the group, seriously, how old was his mum?) and pudding of apple strudel, Sirius and Remus made their way back up the stairs, no longer in silence.

"Wow... Dumbledore's a talker, isn't he?" Remus breathed out once away from the others and totally alone climbing the stone steps that shifted, and stepping over the fake step that Sirius hadn't quite gotten used to and stumbled.

"Guess so. Bit of a strange guy. Seems nice enough though," Sirius added, shaking his leg free from the fake step that had engulfed his leg up to the ankle.

Remus looked sideways at Sirius, not in the usual judgemental way, but in a curious way, "does he not give you the willies?"

Sirius shrugged, and was about to add something else before remembering all the times Remus had ignored him and so withdrew and shut up, closing in on himself.

Remus looked around and probed gently for an answer, "you okay?"

Sirius nodded and smiled, knowing that it would stay with Remus, and maybe improve their relationship, "I'm okay."

Chapter Text

Remus was soon realising that he knew absolutely nothing about Sirius Black. The two were sat cross legged on Sirius' bed, eating their entire stash of chocolate and sweets from the year - their excuse being that it would go off otherwise. Sirius was blabbering about something or other and Remus was simply listening.

Before today, Remus had felt increasingly hard done by that Alfie was leaving him alone with the four that he had been so against ending up with at the beginning of the year, and felt left out. He wished that he had followed Alfie over to the group instead of hanging back and being late to that crucial, regrettable first class, where he ended up sat with the Sirius, James and Peter instead of Alfie and the Ravenclaws. If he had sat with them, then he would have fallen in with their group instead of the group he was in now, who seemed to spend most of their spare time being mean to people through what Sirius called "harmless pranks" and spent the rest of their time in detention for said pranks.

It started after Severus Snape (friends with the ginger girl called Lily) had been a dick in their first potions lessons, and Sirius insisted that he needed punishing, and Remus woke up to Lily in the common room crying because her friend was in the hospital wing for an allergic reaction to the jam on the Slytherin breakfast table, which funnily enough everyone else in Slytherin was suffering after eating the jam, and probably had nothing to do with the giggling of Sirius and James at 11pm at night as they left the common room with a handkerchief full of berries.

So now Remus spent time with them in detention, because they apparently had NO clue how to avoid trouble and be inconspicuous with their hate crimes. Sirius Black was a horrible little shit on occasion. Alfie had completely abandoned Remus, leaving him to mingle with the current very depths of the intricate, confusing social heirachy only formed by ants, year sevens and similar hive minds.

Anyway, Sirius was blabbering about a girl called Mary that he thought he possibly fancied, but didn't seem to actually know her, or have spoken to her before, or actually liked her very much, and decided pretty quickly (with himself, Remus wasn't responding so it was a very one sided conversation) that he didn't actually like her. The conversation switched very intentionally on Sirius' behalf to Alfie.

"Alfie's been actin' weird huh?" Sirius remarked in a very clearly not casual tone. Remus had noticed recently that Sirius had been copying his accent rather clunkily, and was very amused by it.

Remus shrugged, "guess so. He's just not really friends with us I reckon. Probably doesn't wanna get in trouble all the time."

Sirius thought about that for a moment, before once again probing Remus with another irritating question, "so is he your best friend?"

Remus bristled in annoyance, he really didn't want Sirius talking to him, "no."

"So who is?"

"Dunno."

Sirius shut up after that for about ten seconds.

"Wanna play cards?"

Remus sighed but obliged, and Sirius began dealing out cards. The way he dealt fascinated Remus, and once he was done the two had taken their cards and started placing in their bets of sweets and chocolate on who was going to win.

"Loser has to tell a secret and gets the title of Shithead until we next play," Sirius confirmed, and after quickly teaching Remus the rules, they started to play.

Remus swiftly lost, and was therefore left to tell a secret. He realised that he didn't have any that wouldn't get him in prison, so he just thought in silence.

Did it count as a secret that he was Welsh? He didn't hide it but Sirius might not have noticed. Maybe he could tell him a lie.

"I'm a werewolf."

"WHAT?!" Sirius screamed, covering his neck as if Remus was about to dive at him and attack.

Remus rolled his eyes, "chill out. I'm a werewolf not a vampire. now gonna bite ya'."

Sirius looked embarrassed and flushed, "I know! Dogs go for the neck."

Remus glared at Sirius in disdain, did he really just say that? Remus was no dog, he was a human! Only sometimes was he a vicious monster, but he'd never hurt anyone. Actually that was a lie. He quite fancied punching Sirius right about now.

"Sirius I'm a human. I'm not a dog. In what world would it be okay to call me a dog? I'm not gonna hurt you, Sirius. I'm not evil," Remus exclaimed angrily, throwing his cards.

Sirius calmly picked up Remus' card without looking at them, which would have usually been a nice, considerate thought of him if Remus wasn't mad, "Remus I know. I just haven't met a werewolf before. I'm sorry."

He was getting better at saying sorry. Remus didn't care, "whatever. I'm going to bed."

Sirius nodded, "okay Remus. I'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well."

Remus threw his cards again at Sirius and got out of bed, rolled his ankle as he walked but ignored it because he didn't want any sympathy, then got into bed and loudly drew the curtains of his bed so he didn't have to look at Sirius. He heard Sirius sigh and go to brush his teeth, but Remus had done that earlier so didn't bother.

Remus brooded in his canopy bed for a little while, listening as Sirius packed away the cards, chocolate and sweets and turned off all the lights, before mumbling a short "goodnight" to Remus.

"Night Sirius," Remus replied begrudgingly.

He could almost feel the power of Sirius' smile from across the room as he heard the slide of the curtains closing. Remus lay in bed and after a few minutes forgot what he was even angry about, and felt very sorry for shouting at Sirius and storming off in one of those teenage tantrums his mum had been warning him about, and would have to apologise in the morning. But for now he considered how lucky he was to have a friend that wouldn't get angry at him for being angry, and realised that he would rather be friends with Sirius - tantrums and all - than be friends with the entirely fake Alfie. Sirius Black was Remus' best friend.

Chapter Text

Over the breakfast table, the three girls were chatting when Mary dropped a question about boys.

"So. Anyone like a boy yet?" Mary grinned, excited to see who liked who. The other two hadn't seemed eager when she spoke about it last night and was rating all the different guys in Griffindor (honestly not a great selection, they were all short except the Welsh one, but he didn't seem interested when Mary had hung off his arm last week and he had shot her a look which made her wither away) and even now Marlene shot an anxious look to Mary's mum, who was ignoring the conversation clearly, but Marlene seemed still worried about talking about things like this in front of grown ups.

"No Mary," Lily sighed.

"Ah well, there's still plenty of time," Mary grinned at the two other girls, "and plenty of guys."

Marlene flushed pink, "Mary!"

"What about that Welsh lad? He's alright. I love his accent."

Lily too now blushed red, which showed up even more on her pale skin that was dotted in cute freckles, "Remus."

Lily DEFiNITELY liked Remus. Why else would she be blushing? Trust, Mary was SO good at knowing who liked who, "aww, sounds like someone likes him!"

This made Lily blush even more, Mary didn't like it that she liked the Welsh one, but if it made her happy then each to their own.

"No I don't Mary. I just know his name."

"Snivelus wouldn't approve, Lily," Mary had been quite proud of the new nickname she had made for the horrible Severus Snape.

Lily was now dangerously red, "Mary I don't like Remus and I've told you not to call Severus that! He's still my friend."

Mary raised her hands in defence and looked over to Marlene who had been all too interested in her toast during the last few moments, but it wasn't silent for long, Marlene sensed the awkward conversation and started to talk about the Quidditch tryouts next year, and how she was definitely going to try out. Mary wasn't the slightest bit interested in Quidditch, so got bored quickly.

Mary looked over at her parents. Mary's mum was a short woman, 5'2, though she told people she was 5'3. He mum was white, with glasses that hid her blue eyes, and blonde hair, and managed to have three kids with big brown eyes, brown skin and brown hair, quite the opposite of her to a dramatic extent. Her dad gave the kids those genes, all three had ended up looking identical to him, and Mary's mum often complained about carrying three kids for nine months at a time, then pushing them out, only for the little shits to look like their dad, she had at least hoped that maybe they would be her height, but no! All three were above average. Mary's older brother was 6'3 at 18, Mary herself was 5'6 at 11 (and still growing), and Mary's five year old brother was already nearly 4'3 already. Both her parents were muggles (as Marlene had called Lily and Mary for two whole weeks at the start of term), and her brothers went to normal schools and did normal lessons. Her whole family knew about her being a witch, and to be perfectly honest, Mary thought they might care more. Since Mary started Hogwarts, her parents had consistently written, even though they found the new form of owl post a difficult concept to wrap their heads around (as had Mary), but hardly flinched when Mary had received her letter. Sure they'd been surprised but shouldn't they be... impressed? Taken back? Shocked?

Whatever, she missed them all the same when she was at Hogwarts, she'd never been away from them for so long before, and her mum had been opposed to having her at boarding school, but Mary had insisted. She was eager to go to Hogwarts, I mean who wouldn't pick it over British secondary school?

An hour later the girls stood on the platform with Mary's parents, who waved teary goodbyes as the trio pushed through the crowd of older teenagers, eager to get on quicker than last time so they wouldn't be stuck sharing a compartment like they had on the way to Hogwarts in the first place - an awkward and embarrassing situation to be stuck in, where the three had sat in silence the entire time. As they were quick onto the train, the girls found a compartment quickly, and sat down and prayed that nobody would come in and share with them. When nobody did and the train began to move the trio seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief before continuing their usual conversation: the intricate social hierarchy that had begun to form within the year sevens in Hogwarts.

So far, the trio had worked out six clearly defined social groups: The Slytherins, who unlike other groups were a mix of both genders, something the girls wouldn't consider until the boys had at least learnt a shred of empathy; The Ravenclaw boys, with the addition of Archie, who had made a sudden unexpected move from the obnoxious group of Griffindor boys to the Ravenclaws, something that Remus Lupin seemed very put out by: Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff girls, who tended to hang out with each other on the basis that their common rooms were very close, and they often had complimentary personalities; Then there was the Hufflepuff boys that were generally sweet but not sweet enough apparently for the girls of their own house to hang out with, which the group questioned consistently and came to the conclusion that they were most likely dicks in surprise, and that the girls were simply the rats running from a sinking ship; The Griffindor boys hung out together (minus Archie), though nobody was completely sure why as they all seemed to have completely contradictory personalities, and tended to be not on speaking terms more often than they were, nobody thought they'd last very long after school anyway. Finally the Griffindor girls, present and perfect. The three got along perfectly, and there would be no need for any changes, and ESPECIALLY no need for any males to join. Over Mary's DEAD BODY would she let the Griffindor boys and their petty arguments into their perfect little group.

Chapter Text

Regulus knew that it was stupid to be waiting for Sirius. When given the option would Sirius really come back home rather than stay with all the great new friends that he probably had? Sirius was probably halfway to someone else's house right now, not even sparing a thought to Regulus. Regulus shouldn't be so surprised really, Sirius hadn't sent him a letter or even tried to communicate since he left for school. Even before then the two never got on. Regulus supposed that Sirius had cared for him in the most basic sense, so hadn't let their parents get to him as much as they got to Sirius, but beyond that the two existed on different sides of the universe, orbiting in circles that never crossed. So obviously Sirius wouldn't spend Christmas with them this year, and even if he wanted to his parents hadn't gone to pick up Sirius anyway, so he wouldn't be welcome regardless of whether he wanted to be.

So Regulus began to stand up, it had been a bad idea to wait for Sirius, and had only wasted time. He didn't really care, couldn't possibly, but it meant that Regulus wouldn't be at home for a little while longer.

As he stood from his sore position on the hard wooden floor that left splinters in his bare legs and cramps in his calves, Regulus cursed himself for even attempting to wait. The door swung open, was it Sirius? Sirius?!

No. Of course not. Just Orion, who hit Regulus in the side with his wet umbrella, "what are you doing in the way? People are walking through here boy, go away before I make you."

"Yes Sir," Regulus bowed his head and rushed up the stairs before he cried, being hit had hurt and he was sure it would leave a big angry bruise on his ribcage for Christmas day. Of course Sirius didn't come. Would Regulus come home if he was given the choice? He wouldn't, and Sirius had hated and had an even worse time in this house than Regulus had.

Walburga stopped Regulus halfway up to the top floor with a cold hand on his chest, "Don't run. You'll knock something over," Walburga gave a swift smack to the back of Regulus' head which he bowed quickly.

"Yes Ma'am. Sorry." Regulus conceded.

"Sorry what?"

"Sorry Mother."

Regulus continued at a slower (but still brisk as he was at the risk of sobbing, and that never boded well in this household) pace up the stairs until he was in Sirius' room, surrounded by posters of Quidditch players (a game that Regulus had never really appreciated, maybe he would send a letter to Sirius about it). Regulus sunk down to sit on Sirius' bed, it was cold, and clearly hadn't been slept in for a good while. Even before going away Sirius had rarely slept, and had a habit of pacing up and down all night long like a caged dog. Nobody knew but Regulus, if anyone had known that Sirius had been pacing them Regulus didn't think that he would have survived without severe punishment.

Regulus was trapped in Sirius' room, not by any physical boundaries but by a suffering guilt that he felt for even hoping that Sirius would come home. Next year when he went to Hogwarts he would stay with Sirius, maybe he too would be put in Griffindor - or Ravenclaw would be a good substitute - anything but Slytherin. Then he would stay with Sirius in the holidays, and never have to come back into these hallowed halls. But for now Regulus was 10, and sad, and missing his brother dearly, and with no escape, and the gnawing knowledge that he would be Slytherin, and he would follow in his parents footsteps and he would never truly be happy. This knowledge was engrained into every Black for the last hundreds of years, and something that Regulus could not hope to surpass.

Chapter Text

Sorry that I haven't been updating, I've been on a month long school trip (opposite of the writer's curse) and so have been too busy. I am on this trip until probably late at night on the 10/08/25, so updates on the 11th or maybe the 10th if you're lucky. This chapter will be turned into a real chapter afterwards, but just know that I will be on a break for a little while, but will have much more frequent updates afterwards because I will be on the summer holidays. Thanks for understanding lol I'll see you all soon!

Chapter Text

When Remus woke up on Christmas day, Sirius was already awake.

He knelt on the floor with his eyes closed, quietly whispering prayers, the lines that Remus caught hold of were of forgiveness and guilt, and suddenly Remus was glad that his mother had raised him protestant. Catholics faced so much guilt for their own existence. Remus got out of bed a few minutes after waking up, he would've dozed for longer usually on a holiday, but today was THE holiday, and he was genuinely excited, if a little nervous that Sirius would upstage his own presents with the ones that he would no doubt receive from his EXTREMELY well off family.

Remus shouldn't have worried about such a thing. When he got downstairs he was met with his own pile of presents from his family, and one from the school, whilst Sirius' only consisted of the one from the school that was only given as a kind of pity present for those that stayed in school for the holidays.

He made sure to slip one of his own into Sirius' pile.

When Sirius finally came downstairs, Remus was sat on the sofa waiting for him.

"Why are you not opening your presents yet?" Sirius questioned, clearly trying hard not to even look at his meagre pile so as to not seem weak.

"I was waiting for you." Suddenly it didn't seem like a nice thing to do anymore, it seemed boasting that he had purposefully waited to open his presents in front of Sirius.

At lunch that day Sirius was quiet, and so the whole of the Gryffindor table was plunged to match Sirius' sombre mood. Memories of the night before rushed back to Remus, and he realised that Sirius was probably still upset over the way he had reacted.

The lunch was great, and Remus was starving cause the full moon was due in less than a week. Probably he could just bring up a sob story about why he had been in a bad mood the night before, saying that it was that time of the month and it was just making him upset, which it could have been to be fair. Now that Sirius knew about his little problem it would be a lot easier to make up excuses as to why he was leaving, Remus supposed that maybe it was a good thing. However, Remus also knew that Sirius had the tendency to tell absolutely anything to absolutely anyone if it meant that he could possibly leech his way into the rapidly forming 'popular' group. Worst comes to worst Sirius outs Remus as a werewolf, Remus tells everyone that he's lying, and if Sirius has proof then Remus can just go into hiding for the rest of his life, preferably in Wales near his mum.

After a very quiet, awkward lunch the two went on a stroll around the grounds, just to chase off the impending boredom that chased Sirius whenever James wasn't around to keep him busy and intellectually stimulated. It had been snowing pretty heavily for the past week or so, so now the grounds were coated in a thick icing of snow that naturally drew the two boys to throw at each other, as teenage boys do with most things that are easy enough to throw. After a very long, very tiring snowball fight in which both probably got some variation of frostbite and argued more than they actually did any throwing of snowballs, the pair lay on the ground in silence, Sirius seemed to have perked up. Nonetheless, Remus felt the need to apologise for his attitude last night, "I'm sorry I was stroppy last night, Sirius. I was in a bad mood with the full moon coming up and I guess I miss my mum. Not that it's any excuse, cause it's not, but I'm just sorry that I'm taking it out on you. You don't deserve that." Sirius looked over with his big grey eyes that shone a little too brightly in the fresh morning snow, "It's okay. I just thought that you hated me. That's all that upset me." "Sure? You seemed pretty upset and no offence but I'm not the kinda guy people are lining up to be friends with," God that made Remus cringe, why was he saying things like this? Pathetic, truly. Sirius nodded, "Christmas is difficult for me. My family is very religious and well... I don't feel that same pull. I mean... I know he doesn't exist, but I can't stop living like he does, like he hates me personally. Maybe there is a God. Maybe he just hates me." Wow. That was a... heavy thing to be hearing from the usually bright and chirpy Sirius Black. Catholic guilt. Jesus fucking Christ that's miserable. "Well... I don't know. I don't think God hates you, but I don't really think God hates anyone, kinda defeats the point dunnit?" Sirius thought about that for a moment, but seemed comforted enough for Remus to give up, "I suppose so yeah. Love thy neighbour and all that shit. Thanks Remus." The following few days passed in an incomprehensible blur. Sirius perked up quickly after that, and seemed in at least slightly heightened spirits in honour of Christmas season. Remus had always found the days after Christmas to be boring and simply filler days so that Christmas and New Years were not next to each other, and these days were even worse. As six days became five which became four which was soon cut down to one, Remus stressed even more than usual about the upcoming full moon. Now Sirius knew, and Remus was not sure that Sirius would be sensible. It was like when a kid was tired and wanted to go to bed, but when they are told they suddenly have no wish whatsoever of going to bed. Remus did not trust that Sirius wouldn't try and do something reckless, as he tended to do. The last thing Remus needed was someone dead because Sirius wanted to play a prank and got them to go and find Remus in wolf form. Or worse, Sirius dead because he was a nosy little shit. The night of the full moon hit hard. The stresses and anxiety that Remus had been fending off heightened, and combined with the physical pain of the transformation Remus was sure that this would be the hardest yet. And he wasn't wrong, it seemed instantaneous that when the moon came up Remus began his grueling transformation, feeling his bones cracking and skin ripping to accommodate for his horrible, monstrous form. The next morning Remus woke up in the hospital wing, Sirius by his bedside. This was the positive of someone knowing, Remus supposed, it wasn't so lonely when you wake up. Madame Pomfrey was nice, there's no doubt to that, but Remus had frequently found himself wishing that there was family, friends, whatever, to wake up to. And Sirius Black - annoying as he is - was a good friend. "Morning wolfie." Sirius chirped cheerfully. Remus groaned. He had THOUGHT Sirius was nice to wake up to, that nickname made him reconsider, "Don't call me that ever again." "I'll find something you like to be called someday." unlikely. Remus didn't mind Sirius Black. He was a nice guy, just very much performative.

Chapter Text

The drive up from Cornwall to London had been... excruciating to say the least. Peter's mum had tried to make him take the train up to London, but two trains in one day might've killed him off, so James' mum offered to take him. So now the two were in the backseat of James' Volvo that was at least older than the two boys combined and smelt vaguely of the spaniel and fishing gear that often sat in the boot.

James was excited to go back to school, a sentiment that Peter did not share, and was very enthusiastic about voicing with every groan about school life.

"I don't get why you're so excited to go back to that awful place. We have to wake up at half seven! Earlier if you're actually serious about that whole Quidditch thing! Why would you want that?!" Peter exclaimed, just as irritated as he had been hours ago when they stopped at Cornwall services for breakfast due to the early rise in order to catch the train.

James honestly didn't mind the early mornings, they invigorated and left him more awake for the rest of the day, and after a certain amount of time being at home with only Peter got incredibly boring. Plus, he loved living with everyone else, being around people all the time was a literal dream come true, he always had someone to talk to. That was probably the only child in him coming out, but he didn't care, he just wanted his friends around him, was that such a bad thing?

By the time they got to Fleet services Peter was STILL whinging, and James couldn't even read because of his motion sickness. So rest assured by the time they reached the train station, James was more than happy to get out of that car, even if it meant leaving his mum behind and waving goodbye to her through the dirty window of the train. As the details of the train are mind numbingly boring, it's not an important part of the story.

When the train pulled into Hogsmeade station, James nearly let out a sigh of relief. Sirius and Remus hadn't bothered to go down to meet them as they got off, but Remus did give a glance up when they got home, and James' mum always said that the little wins are important. The reunion with Sirius was long awaited, he had missed him. Sirius was probably the first best friend that James had ever had, and he held overwhelming affection for Sirius. He would never tell Peter that though. Of course not.

Dinner that night was as good if not better than James could remember, God he had missed these evenings. Just the four of them, talking about their Christmases. Sirius seemed shifty, glancing continuously at Remus, who never returned the looks. Ah well, whatever it was James would know later, Sirius could never hide anything for long, especially if it was about someone else.

That night, just as expected, Sirius crawled into James' bed, "James there's something I need to tell you... something big."

"Yeah?" He'd probably just got himself a girlfriend, or a crush, or an enemy. Maybe he'd had a fight, or bought a dog.

"Remus is a werewolf," Sirius hissed in a hushed tone.

James was silent for a few beats, "He's a what."

Sirius didn't even repeat himself, just nodded silently, which was odd for Sirius, who normally never missed an opportunity to talk.

"Oh my God." Sirius winced at that exclamation from James, "What are we gonna do???"

"I think there's only one thing to do. We have to help him. Try and find a cure? Or something to help? I don't know. But we can help it."

That seemed a little optimistic on Sirius' behalf, but James guessed he was right in a way. They should help Remus, support him. That's what people like him wanted right? "Yeah. Let's go to the library tonight and check it out."

Of course they forgot to go to the library that night... and the next... and for in fact the next three weeks, and once they got around to it they grew heavily distracted, so were forced to gently probe for answers from their head of house, Professor McGonagall.

McGonagall was an all together terrifying women, tall and skinny with a stern face and a Scottish accent, and well known for disliking the ever in trouble Sirius Black and James Potter. Therefore, before the two had even entered the room and were hovering outside in the corridor, postponing having to talk to McGonagall, they were met with a sharp, "Potter? Black? What are you doing near my room so late. I can't imagine you want tutoring of any kind. Not that you don't need it."

She had been walking down the corridor to get to her room, of course. Now the two had to deal with this in the corridor, with the dragon-like woman towering over them.

"Professor. We just wanted to ask a few things." James said tentatively, staring down at his shoes.

"About?"

Sirius interrupted, "Werewolves. Why is there no cure? Can they be helped? Can you be made a werewolf if a werewolf bites you in human form?"

McGonagall sighed and opened her office door, "Come in boys. Don't talk about this so openly."

Fuckkkkk. McGonagall was gonna figure them out, she was gonna get Remus kicked out. What would he do? Surely he can't go back to that place he's from? Some vile place called PEMBROKESHIRE apparently, whatever that was it couldn't be good for him.

Oh god what had they done? FUCK. James had never felt more guilty in his life, not for anything. He would stand up for Remus on trial, pretend that he was the werewolf. Nothing could make him give up this guilt he was feeling for outing his friend. Surely they wouldn't kill an eleven year old. Oh God. Dear God.

Chapter Text

McGonagall sat the two down behind her desk and opened the tin of biscuits that the two had never been allowed on their multiple detentions here. James took one, Sirius didn't.

"So, boys. Tell me what you know." McGonagall said evenly. Sirius respected her completely, nobody had ever been so much of an adult. Even his parents had never been such a grown-up figure in his life, and it was amazing to him how much respect and good behaviour a woman could command. Sirius would have liked very much to have a mum like her.

James started immediately, he seemed to think that he would be hung drawn and quartered for information, which he might actually have been if it had been Filch asking the questions, "Remus told Sirius over Christmas, and Sirius told me when we came back. I'm sorry, I know I wasn't meant to know, don't do anything to Remus please, it's not his fault."

McGonagall raised an eyebrow, "You haven't told me what you actually know."

"Remus is a werewolf," Sirius said evenly.

James kicked him under the table and hit his arm, whispering sharply to him, "Oh my God Sirius, don't tell her, she might not know already, she could be working for the ministry, it's very illegal to be a you-know-what."

Sirius rolled his eyes as McGonagall began to speak again, "okay so you already know. The school knows, Dumbledore was informed when Remus was signed up. How did you find out?"

"Remus told me. I told James." James kicked Sirius again.

"Does Remus know that James knows?"

"No." Another kick.

McGonagall gave a disapproving glance to the boys, then targeted her sharp eagle eyes onto Sirius, "I trust you're not doing anything... silly?"

James shook his head sharply but McGonagall didn't even listen to his parade of apologies that followed, eyes trained on Sirius. She knew not to trust him, and that James wouldn't be so stupid as to get into trouble with a werewolf, but clearly didn't trust Sirius the same way.

"Boys... just be careful. Now, what did you want to ask? Ah yes, about cures. No, there is no known cure for lycanthropy, nor is there anything known to significantly ease the pain, and I don't suggest you try." McGonagall sighed.

Sirius practically jumped from his seat, "But Rem is in pain every month! We can't have that!"

He'd never used the nickname Rem in front of anyone before, only in his head, and it caused him to blush when James turned to look at him questioningly, he didn't need James getting any ideas that he was... y'know. He most clearly wasn't. Even if he was, he wouldn't go for Rem... us.

McGonagall also seemed to raise an eyebrow, but that was probably just Sirius being superstitious, "I'm afraid there is nothing you- nor I- nor Mr Lupin can do about that, Black. It's just something he will have to live with I'm afraid. You can help him by taking notes for the classes he misses, and helping him the morning after the full moon. Okay?"

God that was such a teachery thing to say "take extra notes!" as if that would help Rem(us) at all, but Sirius nodded regardless, already thinking of ways to help Remus.

That night marked a week before the full moon, meaning that Sirius had a new deadline for himself: in the next week he would do as much research as possible and make a shortlist of key information necessary to aid Lupin, within the next month he would find a way he could help Lupin, and then after that he would spend however long it took making Rem's life more bearable.

Sirius lay awake thinking about his deadline. It was an awful lot of work to do. Especially for next work. It would be Februrary half term next week, so he would have free time then... Was it worth it?

Sirius shook himself, of course it was worth it. For Remus. For his friend. Anything was worth it, whatever he had to do. He would do it.

As most things go, Sirius procrastinated for the first two days. On the third he had a wave of commitment to his cause and rushed James to the library very early in the morning, where they spent the rest of the day searching fruitlessly through books. It seemed that all books on magical creatures were on the harmless little things that sat in your palm placidly and were easy to control, not the ones that sat in the dorm whining about his time of the month and how sore he is.

On day two of research they found two books with mentions of werewolves and highlighted any mention religiously, copying notes and names of books and page titles.

Day three came back with nothing, but day four brought three more books with few mentions. On day five, finally, they found a book with not just a mention... but a whole chapter on werewolves. That night Sirius stayed up late reading the chapter obsessively... once... twice... as many times as his sleepy brain took to understand every sentence. At about two am, Remus was woken up by Sirius' shuffling about in bed and turning pages, he seemed to wake easier around the full moon, Sirius learnt that it was a common symptom for werewolves from the book.

"Sirius?" Remus whispered from the bed next door, he needn't have bothered whispering, the other two were impossible to wake... something about the Cornish air.

"Yeah?" Of course Sirius answered. Why wouldn't he?

Sirius heard Remus crawl out of bed and over into his, and he quickly slammed the book shut, "what'cha doing?"

"Not much. Homework." Sirius shrugged casually.

"About werewolves?" Remus raised an eyebrow, clearly suspicious.

"Yep." When he looked up at Remus he ignored how he felt the need to hug him, he looked so tough but he was just an eleven year old boy with SO many problems...

Remus just gave him a judgy look, then lay down and fell asleep. In Sirius' bed. Whatever.

Sirius fell asleep a few minutes later, the book tucked under the mattress, curled up as Remus sprawled out on the bed in his sleep, hair tied back, bed feeling so much warmer with someone else in it, his family had never let him crawl into their beds when it was cold or scary outside, Reggie had crawled into his bed, but he had never had anyone to be with when HE was young and scared. It was nice to be close to someone, his body heat seeping into the whole bed, his snoring soothing. It was nice.

Chapter Text

Peter hadn't expected for Remus to wake up in Sirius’ bed, but really what was out of the ordinary anymore? they were on the other side of the room, so Peter didn't really care, not as much as he should have done in retrospect.

As all three of them ( the others, Peter supposed) were still asleep, Peter left them to it and went down to breakfast on his own. It seemed to end up that way most days and nobody had noticed, not yet anyway.

They came down together 10 minutes later, Peter hadn't started eating yet, he didn't want to tell himself that he was waiting for the, but it seemed to be habitual instinct from the first term that told him he’d better wait for James. When the others finally made it over to the table Peter pretended not to look up, not that they'd notice anyway.

“Morning Pete,” that was James perky as usual on these early mornings that Peter despised with his whole being.

It came easily to James to greet everyone with a smile, and so Peter didn’t take it as too much of a surprise when James and Sirius went straight to whispering between the two of them. Peter looked over at Remus to see his reaction, but he didn’t seem to care. Probably because he got Sirius to himself all night… and for two weeks before that too. They were probably in one of those horrible relationships with two men that Peter’s mother and father spoke in hushed tones about when David Bowie was on the TV. Peter wouldn’t even care, at least maybe then Sirius would leave James alone and Peter would get his best fucking friend back.

Peter was left staring glumly into the pot of jam in front of him, which Remus snatched away from him like everything else in his stupid life. He had an overwhelming urge to hit Lupin, but was dissuaded by the scars and firm look on Remus’ face, so just poked his food around like a sulky child, at least no one could steal his food from him.

Throughout the day and much of the next Peter was in a rotten mood. Too glum to eat but too irritated to speak at meals, he felt sorely kicked to the curb by the whole group, and to add insult to injury the others didn’t even seem to care. At least he knew he wouldn’t be missed if he were to leave them.

And leave them he tried. But everytime he went up to another group and tried to laugh or join them he felt just as judged and neglected and forgotten as the original group had made him feel. It was funny, he hadn’t seemed to care that he had been left out (perhaps he just hadn’t noticed, as so often neglect goes) that his friends were awful before. Not till that morning where he realised, nobody would give a shit if he went and left. And they didn’t, but nobody else seemed to give a shit about him anyway.

Therefore Peter felt very left out, and very VERY angry at the world for as long as his fickle teenage emotions would allow. It was difficult, realising that his friends didn’t care, realising that his voice wasn’t heard above the torrent of constant emotional manipulation that Sirius Fucking Black unleashed on the friendgroup. Peter understood that Sirius hadn’t had a great life, that kind of abuse followed every Black child through the corridors of Hogwarts, and had done since the Pure and Noble House of Black had been in England. But that clipped pronunciation, that French accent (despite the family not having lived there for GENERATIONS!!!!), whenever he heard that grating, irritating, horrible voice that reeked of upperclass privilege that Peter’s family hadn’t felt… Peter wasn’t happy.

If an entitled, selfish little brat was going to rip away the very friendship that had grown on Peter like a disease then so be it. Let his perfectly straight white teeth be covered in blood from coughing up the blood that he believes is thicker than water. If he wants to believe it then so be it. The Most Ancient And Noble House Of Black was in his blood, much as the need to rid himself of rats like Sirius Black was in Peter’s.

Peter didn’t even want to get himself STARTED on Remus Lupin, but several times that day found himself there anyway. It seemed that everything he did James and Sirius idolised, the man was a walking God to the two deer that followed him blindly but flinched when he shouted. He shouted often, mostly at Sirius but sometimes at nothing in particular. He was easy to rile and hard to calm down, he would punch the wall and when it hurt his fist kick it with his steel toe caps, the fight of the punch always came first, then the logic of attacking in a way that wouldn’t hurt him second. It seemed that everyone looked up to him, thought he was all that with his tatty boots and the aggression that simmered beneath his skin at all times, but when he squared up to someone, shouting at them in that awful language that no one understood, nobody was laughing. How could the other boys want to be friends with someone so violent? So malicious? So wound up? Wound up like a caged animal that froths at the mouth and-

Peter’s thoughts were cut off by the first time someone had spoken to him in the last two days, the first proper thing he had been asked, and it came from Lily, the kind, if a little timid looking, redheaded girl that followed Snape around like a shadow. Peter was instantly drawn back to the Gryffindor common room, eyes landing on Lily.

“Hey Peter?” Lily asked softly from her seat in the armchair opposite the sofa that Peter sprawled across, having not quite filled out his limbs yet.

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay? I noticed you’re not with the boys, they’re out playing if you didn’t know where they were.” Peter didn’t hate Lily, maybe she was the one person he could handle right now.

Peter smiled genuinely at her, thinking to himself that the boys wouldn’t like to know that Lily had said they were ‘playing’. “Yeah Lils, I’m okay, just can’t really handle them right now, they’re a bit full on.”

Lily grinned back, setting down her book properly, “I get it, I’m avoiding the girls for the same reason, there’s always a boy or someone that’s annoyed them or something that needs doing- sorry you probably don’t wanna be hearing about my problems right now.”

“That’s okay, Better than listening to the boys and their shit.”

Lily flushed at the swearing, and Peter realised he had never heard her swear, “Well that’s okay then, it’s nicer to do homework sometimes, and that's saying something.”

Peter had found a friend. A genuine friend.

Chapter Text

Exams came quickly for the first years. As they were the youngest in the year they got theirs first. Personally, James wasn't all that worried. If he failed these years exams it didn't matter, it was "just for the teachers to know where the class needed extra help" as James' mum often said in letters she shot off at a rapid pace to her son who she was sure was failing and stressed about it. James was failing and absolutely fine about it.

On the other hand, Remus spent all his free time hunched over books, desperate for a passing grade, and cried a lot due to stress. James and Sirius were very worried for him, so often banned him from his books, which only led to a shouting match between immovable object Remus Lupin and unstoppable force Sirius Black. The two argued frequently, at the beginning of the year this had worried James, but he realised that this was just their way of communicating with one another. When Remus was successfully dragged away from his books he spent the whole time fretting about exams and whatnot, whilst James and Sirius messed about around him.

Sirius was not worried. James knew that he would pass everything with ease, he was a genius naturally, and so didn't feel the need to stress. The noble house of Black, for all it's flaws, came out with brilliant children, Sirius' older cousin, Andromeda (weird name, James thought), had just passed her O.W.Ls with flying colours, top in her year, and all the three other Black children (including Sirius) were set for the same path. So Sirius didn't revise, and rolled his eyes when Remus did any revision whatsoever.

However, James was marginally worried about one thing. Peter hadn't been hanging out with them for weeks. Instead, he woke up every morning and got ready as quickly as possible without a word to the others, and left just as soon to go and sit with the girls at breakfast. James didn't like it to say the least. This would be very bad for their reputation, a boy leaving his friend group to go and sit with the girls? He was either desperate or hated his normal friend group more than he valued his status. It was concerning behaviour.

But to be honest the group was nicer without him anyway, it was a painful thought, and one that James didn't like to dwell on. Peter had been his best friend for YEARS, since they could remember and before the two were attached at the hip, What would their mothers think? Peter's mum probably had heard about this already, and probably disliked James now. God that was years of friendship that Peter had gone and destroyed.

So yeah, maybe James was spiralling a little. He wouldn't admit it even to himself but he missed Pete, and he wasn't likely to get over it anytime soon. But suddenly he was too busy to think about Peter and how much he missed him, because he was thrown into the heat of exams and - having been too cocky to do so - was regretting severely his decision not to revise.

Exams week was a nightmare James hadn't anticipated, every subject had at least one exam, transfiguration
had THREE. THREE EXAMS? Fucking ridiculous. Sitting in that exams hall was driving him crazy, and it didn't make matters any better that he was sat next to Snivellus in EVERY. SINGLE. EXAM. The way the seating was ordered in the hall, James could hear Snivellus' pencil scratching across the page, and his stupid loud breaths through his stupid big mouth.

Predictably, James failed all of his exams. Well not exactly failed, he got some passes in muggle studies and defence against the dark arts. The pass in DADA came as a shock to everyone, including his professor, Professor Irwin. Professor Irwin was a lady of about her mid twenties, unusually young for a teacher at Hogwarts, and perhaps this was why James (like most other boys in the class) was passing. Being in a year group of forty people made crushes... complicated, lets say. After the first couple of months, most of the twenty girls either had crushes, boyfriends or were betrothed. James had placed a kind of "claim" on Lily Evans, he didn't really like her but it was probably an investment worth making, older him would appreciate it. Right?

Anyway, Professor Irwin was attractive, James supposed, and seemed a safe object of his desires, seeing as she was the only teacher below forty. James often thought something was wrong with him, he didn't really find people that attractive, when in comparison Sirius wouldn't shut up about his flavour of the week, everyone was a target, any girl of course, Sirius wasn't...

Whatever, James was growing increasingly bored and concerned that he didn't have a genuine crush, but he believed he hid it well, Sirius at least didn't know, and that was what was important, right? As long as Sirius didn't know that he wasn't exactly the same person as him, he would want to be his friend, because Sirius was very much like James, and Sirius liked himself, so Sirius liked James. It was simple really and something that James had considered frequently. If he was like Sirius, he couldn't be hated by anybody, because everybody liked Sirius. Why be yourself when everyone would rather you be Sirius Black? Everybody liked Sirius.

Well, except Remus. He was distant, moody and temperamental at the best of times. Whatever was wrong with him was getting in the way of the long summer the three boys had ahead of them, first years had their exams first, and so lessons meant absolutely nothing and by the end of the term, teachers had given up. Regardless of Remus' sour mood, the three boys did manage to partly function enough to have a good enough summer. By the time it was over, however, James did feel a strange sense of relief at the end of the year. He would miss his friends but it was hard work. He had lost his lifelong best friend, made two not so great ones, and felt absolutely disgusted with himself by the end of the year. But oh well. At least he was a year older.