Chapter Text
I: November
The room felt cold. James knew it couldn’t really be cold because of the warming spells, but it felt cold. He kept staring out the window at the grey morning sky. Behind him he could almost feel Peter trying not to talk, not to ask questions.
Then he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. They paused outside the door. James turned around and tried to look casual.
The door opened. Sirius came in, head hanging, and went straight to his bed. He got in and pulled the curtains shut.
Peter looked at James. James sighed. “Padfoot?”
No answer.
“Padfoot? Are you all right?”
Pause. “Yes.” Sirius’s voice sounded clogged. As if he’d been crying, James realized with a shock. He’d never known Sirius to cry, not even when he had showed up on James’s doorstep, dragging his trunk and asking if he could stay for a while.
“Padfoot—” James went over to Sirius’s bed, but didn’t dare open the curtains.
“I’m fine!” His tone was a warning. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
“Don’t you want to come to breakfast?” Peter ventured.
“No.” Sirius’s voice was still thick.
James shrugged and said, “All right, then. We’ll bring back something for you.”
Silence. James left the room, Peter trailing after him.
“What do you think happened?” Peter asked as they walked down the stairs.
“I don’t know. I suppose Dumbledore talked to him.” They went through the empty common room. It was still early in the morning. There wouldn’t be many people at breakfast, especially since it was Saturday, when most people had a lie-in. James yawned.
“Yeah,” said Peter. “I wonder how many points he lost.”
James groaned. “All of them, probably. This was the worst yet.” And could have been so much worse.... The possibilities raced through James’s head, as they had last night when Peter burst into the room, panting and red-faced and excited, and said, “Guess what Sirius just did!”
“You coming?” Peter was standing outside the portrait hole.
James snapped back to the present. “Yeah.” He climbed through, banging his knee as he did so. He must have grown again. It was weird to have your arms and legs be different from one week to the next.
“What do you think Moony’ll say?” Peter trotted down the stairs.
“I don’t know,” James said yet again as he followed. Peter had been asking the same questions, or variations of them, almost all night long. It was driving him mad. That, and thinking about what he’d seen last night, that one terrifying glimpse when he realized that he was prey for the first time— “You go on,” he said abruptly. “I’m not hungry after all.” And he wasn’t. “I think I’ll fly for a while.” He could get a school broom from the shed.
“Oh!” Peter halted. “I’ll come out and watch you after I eat, then.”
If James never had to land, that might be all right. “Don’t forget to take something to Padfoot first.”
“Oh,” Peter said again. “Right. See you in a bit,” he called and headed into the Great Hall as James walked briskly away.
It was a terrible morning for flying, cold, wet, and windy. He hadn’t brought any gear with him and his bare hands were blue with the chill within minutes. But he swooped around the pitch, soaring and diving and soaring again, until his robe was soaked and his face was numb and all he felt was the driving rain against his face and the roaring of the wind in his ears. Not the horrible howling, not Snape’s shaking hands, not his own heart beating so hard he thought it would burst out of his chest as he ran away.... He plummeted toward the ground and pulled out of the dive at the last minute, skimming so close to the ground that his feet brushed the grass, sending up a fine spray. Then he climbed again in an ever-increasing spiral, higher and higher and wider and wider until he was circling the entire pitch.
Eventually he had to land. He came to a halt in front of Peter, who was wrapped up in his cloak so tightly that only his eyes showed.
“I took Padfoot some food,” Peter reported. “He told me just to leave it on the bedside table. He wouldn’t come out.”
James sighed. “Is Moony back yet?” His lips were stiff with cold. He started walking back to the broom shed.
“No, he’s still in the infirmary.” Peter scurried a little to catch up. “Are you going to go and see him?”
James shook his head. “Dumbledore said not to, until he’s had a chance to talk to him.”
“Oh.” Peter was silent for a minute. “Wonder what he’ll say.”
James kept walking. “Maybe Moony’ll tell us.” Or maybe not. Remus was close-mouthed about some things. Most things. James reached the shed and put the borrowed broom away while Peter waited. Then they trudged back up to the castle.
In the entrance hall he cast a glance at the giant hourglasses. As he’d expected, Gryffindor’s was empty—no, it wasn’t. Someone must have been busy this morning, earning points, he thought. Then he remembered Dumbledore giving him points for ‘courage’. Courage, when he’d felt very far from courageous, running down the tunnel thinking get away, get away, get away....
“Do you think people will know it was—” Peter broke off.
“That it was us?” James finished for him, although he was fairly sure Peter had been going to say ‘Padfoot’. “Probably.” They’d lost Gryffindor enough points over the last five and a half years that everyone automatically looked to them when points—especially in significant numbers—went missing. James let himself worry about this as they made their way to the common room. It made the rest of it seem almost manageable, as if it were just another prank that had gone wrong. And maybe that was what it was, James thought hopefully.
He was greeted by a familiar yell as he entered the common room. “Potter!” Lily often shouted his name like that, threat and reproach mixed together. She jumped up from her armchair and approached him. “What on earth have you and that—that—that Black done this time?” She said Sirius’s name as if it were the worst insult she could think of. Well, to her it probably was.
“Oh,” James said. “You’ve seen.”
“Seen? Of course I’ve seen! The entire school’s seen! The Slytherins are laughing their heads off at us! Even the Hufflepuffs have got in a crack or two!” She was furious; her cheeks were blazing. “How could you!”
“Well, I—we—” He looked to Peter for help, but the other boy had already fled.
“You’ve lost us the House Cup!” Lily said.
“I—”
The door to the common room opened, and Remus came in. He was very pale and moved slowly and stiffly. His eyes flicked over to James, then away.
“Sorry, Lily,” James said quickly. “I’ve got to go now.”
He left her looking after him with a little frown on her face, and caught up with Remus at the foot of the stairs. “Moony?”
“What?” Remus winced a little as he started up the stairs. He must have hurt his leg, James thought with a guilty pang.
“Are you—” He wanted to ask if Remus was all right, but the words stuck in his throat. “Do you—”
“I know what happened,” Remus said so quietly James almost missed it. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, I—” I’m worried about you, he thought. Another thing he couldn’t manage to say. And then they were at the door to their room. He could almost sense Remus bracing himself before he opened the door and went in.
The curtains to Sirius’s bed were open, and he was eating. Peter was looking for something in his trunk. Their heads jerked up as Remus came in, James close behind him. Sirius looked awful, James thought, almost as bad as Remus.
“Moony—” Sirius’s voice still sounded thick. He cleared his throat. “I—”
Remus interrupted him. “I’m going to take a shower.” He collected his things and left the room before Sirius could say anything.
James sighed. He’d been looking forward to a hot shower himself, but it seemed Remus was using their bathroom, not the Prefects’ Bathroom. James remembered that Remus used to do that fifth year, before the rest of them had perfected their transformations, so as not to reveal his fresh wounds to the other prefects. James stripped off his wet clothes, toweled off, and dressed again. Then he went over to scavenge what was left of Sirius’s food.
“Did he say anything to you?” Sirius asked him quickly.
“Just that he knows what happened,” James said, finding a piece of toast and cramming it in his mouth.
“Oh.” Sirius was sitting up, knees drawn to his chest, hunched over.
James sat on the edge of Sirius’s bed. He cast about for something else to say. “I ran into Evans in the common room.” He’d called her Lily, he realized, instead of using her surname as he always did. No wonder she’d seemed confused.
“Oh yeah?”
“She’s really angry with you, Padfoot,” Peter said. He’d found what he was looking for in his trunk, a squashed-looking box of Chocolate Frogs, and ate one. He set a couple of the frogs on Remus’s bed and spelled them not to jump away. “What?” he said, when he saw James staring at him. “He likes chocolate.”
“No, it’s—” That was a really nice thing to do, James wanted to say. Instead, he said, “I think Evans is angry with me, too.”
Remus came back into the room. He’d dressed in the bathroom, something he hadn’t done for a couple of years. He picked up his Transfigurations text from where it sat on top of his trunk and turned to leave again.
“Moony, wait!” Sirius sounded almost desperate.
Remus turned back. His face was a complete blank. James had often envied his ability to wipe his expression clean. Now, for the first time, he thought about why Remus had learned to do that. “What is it, Sirius?” he asked after a second.
“You—” Sirius was clearly searching for something to say. “You forgot your badge,” he said at last.
Remus’s lips tightened. “I’m not a prefect any longer.” He started to leave again.
Sirius jumped off his bed, knocking James aside. “What? Why? Because of—that’s not fair! I’ll go to Dumbledore—I’ll—” He made for the door.
“No.” Remus drew in a deep breath. “It’s not a punishment. I told him I didn’t wa—that I shouldn’t be one.”
“But why?” James couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Remus had been so proud and happy that day the previous year when they’d all met on the platform. And Mr and Mrs Lupin had been practically beaming with delight. “Why?” he asked again.
“Yeah, why?” Sirius echoed.
“Why?” Remus repeated. “Why? Because I didn’t do my job!” He was even paler now, James saw, and his hands were shaking a little.
“What do you mean?” Sirius said. “You do a great job. You—”
“Oh yeah,” Remus broke in. “A great job. I really kept you from going after Snape, didn’t I? Face it. You—” His angry glance took in James as well. “You thought my being a prefect was all a big joke, didn’t you? A way for you to get away with more stuff. Well, you did. You teased Snape, and you played tricks on him, and I didn’t do anything.” His voice dropped. “And you just kept going, and going, and going. And now—”
“He did things to us!” Sirius yelled. “Have you forgotten how he poisoned our dinner last week? What about—”
“That’s not the point!” And that was the second time Remus had raised his voice in anger. “I let you get away with it, and I shouldn’t have. But I thought we were friends.” He said the last word with immense scorn.
“We are friends, Moony.” Sirius made as if to reach out to Remus.
Remus knocked his hand away. “No, we’re not.”
That was an awful expression on Sirius’s face, stunned and hurt. “Moony!”
“I let you get away with it,” Remus said once more. “I let you go on and on at him. So last night was easy for you, wasn’t it? Just another way to get at Snape. That’s all I was.”
“No, I—” Sirius swallowed. “That’s not what it was like. I’m sorry! All right? I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry. I’ve heard that before. Too many times.” Remus stared at them. He was holding his book so tightly his knuckles were white. “Play your tricks. But don’t make me part of them any more.” He turned and left the room before any of them could say anything to him.
“It wasn’t like that,” Sirius repeated. He was still looking at the closed door.
Peter was standing by the window, hands twisting together. He didn’t say anything.
“It wasn’t!” Sirius turned and looked at James. “You know it wasn’t.”
“No, of course it wasn’t,” James said automatically. But they had teased Remus about being a prefect, and they had gone after Snape every chance they had.
"That's right," Sirius said. He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. "I'd never do anything to hurt Moony. Never."
“Of course not.” The conversation was going in circles.
“What about Snape?” Peter said suddenly.
“What about him?” Sirius sat down on his bed again.
“How are you going to keep him from telling?” This had been one of Peter’s questions in the middle of the night, too.
Sirius looked at his hands. “Dumbledore took care of that.”
James knew enough not to pry when Sirius used that tone. He shook his head a little at Peter when the other boy would have followed up.
“Where is he now?” Sirius asked.
James pulled out the map. “Slytherin common room,” he reported.
“What? Let me see that.” Sirius yanked the map out of his hands. “Oh. Not Snivellus, you idiot. Moony.” He frowned. “He’s not on here.”
“What do you mean, he’s not on the map?” James took it back. “Everyone’s on the map. That’s the point.” He searched it, but couldn’t find the little dot representing Remus. “Well, he—could he have left?”
“Left Hogwarts?” Sirius sounded shocked. “Do you really think—”
“He was pretty upset,” said Peter.
“Oh, God.” Sirius slumped back against his pillows. “This is one of the worst days of my entire life.” He looked as if he meant it.
“Hang on,” said James, striving for calm. “He took one of his books with him. He wouldn’t do that if he was—if he was going to leave.” He looked at the map again. “So he must be here somewhere. Right?”
“How can he be here if he’s not on the map?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know, Wormtail!” Sirius snapped.
Peter flinched. “Sorry.”
“Maybe he’s hiding,” James said, trying to break the tension. “I mean, magically. After all, he knows how the map works. Maybe he worked out a way around it.”
“Well, find him,” Sirius ordered.
It was one thing when Sirius took charge on the Quidditch pitch; it was another thing when he thought he was the commander of their little group. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” James stood up. “He doesn’t want to be found, Padfoot. Leave him alone.” He dropped the map on Sirius’s knees. “I’m going to sleep.” He’d been up all night and it was catching up with him.
“What about the Charms essay?” Peter asked.
“Do it yourself for a change, why don’t you?” James got into his bed and pulled the curtains. It took him a while to fall asleep, and when he did, he dreamed that he was running, trying to run, dragging his heavy legs through what felt like treacle. He wanted to yell a warning to Snape, but when he opened his mouth only a breathy whisper came out. He had to get out, had to move, but his body wouldn’t obey him despite his panic and desperation. When he woke, it took him a second to place where he was.
Sirius was leaning over him. “Wake up, wake up. Prongs, wake up. Wake up!”
“’M awake,” James mumbled. He put his glasses on. “What is it?”
“Moony’s on the map again.”
James yawned. “So?”
“So, you’ve got to go and talk to him.” Sirius shook his shoulder. “Come on, get up.”
He stumbled to his feet. “Why me?”
“Because you’ve got a chance of making him listen to you!” Sirius was pushing him towards the door now.
“Wait, let me wash up.” James ducked into the bathroom and brushed his teeth. He rumpled his hair and came back into the room feeling more like himself. “Where is he?” Peter wasn’t in the room either, he noticed. “And where’s Wormtail?”
Sirius ignored his last question. “Moony’s in the library. He just showed up while I was looking at the map.” Sirius bit his lip. “Come on, Prongs. Please.” And that was a very unexpected word, coming from Sirius.
James sighed. “What am I supposed to say to him?”
“Just—just tell him I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t. Tell him I’m sorry.” The map was shaking in Sirius’s hands.
“You already told him that. How’s it going to be any different coming from me?” He resisted Sirius’s attempts to herd him towards the door again.
“Just fucking do it, Prongs!” Sirius yelled. “God, you can be such a prat sometimes.”
“I can—oh, you are in for it when I get back.” He yanked the map out of Sirius’s hand, shoved it in his pocket, and marched out the door. Halfway down the stairs, his feet slowed. He had no idea what to say to Remus after apologizing for Sirius. He didn’t even know if Remus would let him get that far. He’d never seen Remus like that before, still and cold with anger.
The common room was full of people who looked at him angrily as he walked past. It never took long for people to decide that he and his friends were at fault for massive losses of House points. Lily wasn’t there, so he kept walking. Out the portrait, down the stairs, along the corridors to the library. He checked the map once in a while to make sure Remus hadn’t moved, but he was still in the library, sitting at his favorite table, by the looks of it. They often teased him about the Remus J. Lupin Memorial Table.
The library was almost empty. James made his way to Remus’s table. He realized why Remus hadn’t budged when he saw him. He was asleep, cheek resting on his open book. Instead of shaking his shoulder to wake him as he normally would have, James studied him for a minute. His face was drawn, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He sighed a little in his sleep. Then his eyes opened; James could see his shoulders tensing under his robe. He sat up.
“What is it?” There was a red blotch on his cheek where it had pressed against the page.
“I wanted to talk to you.” James sat down on the other side of the table in his usual seat.
Remus stared at him.
This was even more awful than it had been in the dorm, now that Remus was concentrating all his attention on James, not Sirius. “I don’t know what Padfoot was thinking,” he blurted out, and then winced. That sounded like he was blaming Sirius. “I mean, I wasn’t—I can’t explain it to you. But he’s sorry.” Should he mention that he thought Sirius had been crying? No, Sirius would never forgive him. “He’s sorrier than I’ve ever seen him. He says to tell you he didn’t mean it.”
Remus’s hand clenched on the edge of the table. “He didn’t mean what? To tell Snape the one thing I asked—begged—the three of you never to tell anyone? To have me kill someone?”
For a second James was back in the dark, dirty passageway, running as fast as he could, heart pounding, because he didn’t want to die and he didn’t want even Snape, being dragged along behind him, to die, and he could hear the wolf howling—he shivered and looked at Remus. His quiet, restrained, well-behaved friend. Who would have killed Snape, and who would have killed him too.
“Yes,” said Remus, still looking at him. “That’s what would have happened.”
“God,” James whispered. How had he been able to think earlier, even for a second, that this was just another prank? “I’m—I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it as he never had before. “I really am.”
“Yes, well.” Remus finally glanced away. He seemed unsure of himself all of a sudden. “I need to catch up on this reading,” he said at last.
Part of James was relieved to have an out. He didn’t know if he could deal with any more of this conversation. But— “Are you—what about Padfoot? He feels really bad.”
Remus sighed. He was still staring over James’s shoulder. “I don’t know.” His eyes fell on James’s face again. “But you know, James, I keep wondering one thing. Would Sirius have done that to Snape if you were the one who was the werewolf?”
James froze. He couldn’t say yes, but he couldn’t say no either. Poised there, he didn’t even know which answer was correct. Or, he forced himself to admit, he didn’t want to know.
But Remus must have read something in his face, because he sighed once more. “So you see,” he said quietly, “I don’t really feel like dealing with Sirius and his apologies right now.”
Or with you, went unsaid.
“All right,” James managed to say. His mouth had gone dry. “I’ll just—I’ll—” He stood up.
Remus was looking at his book, although James didn’t think he was reading it. “I’ll see you at dinner,” he said to the page.
“All right,” James said again. He walked out of the library without a clear idea of where he was going. Not back to Gryffindor Tower; he couldn’t face Sirius again. Not like this. Not feeling as if everything he’d been sure of had fallen apart around him, and it was his own fault. He wandered around, letting the staircases take him where they wanted, half-wishing he had his Invisibility Cloak when a few people tried to start conversations with him. After a while he realized he was near the Astronomy Tower. That would be good. He wouldn’t be able to make it into the observatory, but he could go to the classroom.
As he’d hoped, the classroom was empty. He sat at a desk near the front of the room and stared at the model of the solar system without really seeing it. Remus’s question had shaken him, and not just because it made the hierarchies of their group explicit. Now James kept imagining himself as a werewolf, imagining what Remus’s life must be like. When they’d discovered his secret their second year James had been too young—too selfish, he thought suddenly—to worry much about anything other than helping the other boy cope with the physical pain of transformation. Then when they’d decided to become Animagi all his attention had focused on that process, and on the idea of being able to run with a werewolf under the full moon. Since that time he had never bothered to think about what it meant to be a werewolf. It amazed him now that Remus was able to joke about it, to smile when Sirius or James said they were looking forward to the full moon—
“Potter!”
He jumped up. Lily stood at the door to the classroom. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I think I left my astrolabe here,” she said, surprisingly calmly. “What are you doing here?”
“Helping you look for your astrolabe, now,” he said, trying to grin at her.
“Hm.” She stared at him thoughtfully. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” God, they were having an actual conversation and he wasn’t even excited about it.
Lily stepped into the classroom and shut the door behind her. He didn’t think he’d ever been alone with her before. “You’re here, just sitting, all by yourself. No one’s seen Black since after breakfast, when he came through the common room looking like his best friend had just died. And Lupin’s been in the library for hours. Usually by now one of you would have dragged him out of there.” She stopped.
“So?” he said weakly.
“Then there are all those house points. And McGonagall says we’re going to have a new prefect. At first I thought it was something you and Black did, but maybe it was Black and Lupin.” She perched on the edge of one of the desks.
“Remus had nothing to do with it,” James said, and then bit his tongue.
Lily went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “But none of you is acting like you usually do after one of your stupid pranks. You’re not strutting around, all puffed up and congratulating each other. Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Or something went wrong.”
He looked away. “Maybe a house-elf picked up your astrolabe. Have you tried asking?”
She swung her leg a few times; her robe fluttered around her calf. “I’m going to find out, you know.”
Something registered in the corner of his eye. He went over to one of the other desks, knelt down, and picked up the astrolabe that fallen under the desk. The initials ‘L.E.’ were etched on the back. “Hey, Evans. Think fast.” He tossed it to her.
Her hand shot out and she caught it.
“Good reflexes,” he said automatically.
“Thanks,” she said, with a hint of malice in her smile. “Maybe I’ll try out for Seeker next year.”
James relaxed a little, feeling the conversation shift onto more familiar ground. “Good idea. You know what they say, after all. The couple that plays together—plays together.” He winked.
“Oh, that’s disgusting.” Lily hopped off the desk and headed to the door.
“I’ll see you at dinner!” he yelled after her as she left. “Save me a seat!”
“You’ll need two seats!” she shouted back. “One for you and one for that ego!” And then she was gone.
James waited a few minutes and then left the room as well. He kept replaying their conversation in his head. She’d talked to him. She’d barely shouted. Maybe she’d even seemed concerned. And he’d found her astrolabe for her, and he had a kind of excuse to sit next to her at dinner.
He was halfway back to Gryffindor Tower when he saw Snape. The other boy stopped in his tracks and went for his wand; James had his out just as Snape drew. They stood there, staring at each other.
“What are you doing here?” Snape’s face had flushed, and the wand in his hand shook a little. “Are you trying to get me killed again?”
“Shut up!” James said instantly. He took a step closer. “If you ever tell anyone about Remus, I’ll—”
“What? Kill me?” Snape’s eyes narrowed. “Expelli—”
“Petrificus Totalus!” James jumped forward and caught Snape’s arm before he could fall into the wall. Holding him up, he said as fiercely as he could, “I’ll always be faster than you. Don’t forget it. And don’t you ever dare talk about Remus. Ever!” Then he did let him drop. He bent over Snape’s prone body and yanked his wand away. He went on to the next staircase before turning around and saying, “Finite Incantatem.”
“You—you— you bastard. You know why I can’t tell. You can’t help rubbing it in, can you? Well, you’ll get yours. You and that blood traitor Black and that monster.” Snape said a curse James didn’t recognize. It sounded nasty, from what he could tell, something about your bones shriveling within your body. Of course without his wand, Snape couldn’t actually cast it.
“Same to you, Snivellus.” James dropped Snape’s wand over the banister. With any luck Filch would pick it up.
“Go to hell!” Snape ran past James and down the stairs in pursuit of his wand. “You’ll get yours!” He yelled. “You wait!”
“Yeah, well, I won’t hold my breath!” James shouted back. He went back to Gryffindor Tower, the pleasure of his conversation with Lily gone now. Sirius was coming through the common room as James entered it. The glares and muttering from the other Gryffindors were even worse now, but Sirius ignored them. He grabbed James’s arm and dragged him to a corner of the room. “Did you talk to him? What did he say?”
“Well—” James hedged.
“Talk fast,” Sirius ordered. “If I’m late for detention Filch will make me clean out Mrs Norris’s cat box.”
“Detention?”
“Yeah.” Sirius’s shoulders slumped. “Every weekend and every Monday and Thursday night until the Christmas holidays. No more Hogsmeade weekends for the rest of the year, either. And I’m off the Quidditch team.”
“You’re joking.” Sirius loved Quidditch almost as much as he did. “Permanently?”
“Yeah,” Sirius said again. “So hurry up and tell me. What did he say? Did you tell him I’m sorry?” He was still holding James’s upper arm.
James kept his voice low. “Yes. He’s—um, he’s thinking about it.” That should be safe.
The hand on his arm tightened, then relaxed. “Thinking about it.”
James nodded.
“Well. Right.” Sirius dropped his hand, as if he’d just realized that he was still holding James. “I’ve got to go. See you at dinner.”
James spent the rest of the afternoon with Peter, working on the neglected Charms essay. Neither Sirius nor Remus returned to the room before dinner. When he and Peter got to the Great Hall, Remus was already there, eating steadily. James hesitated for a second, then sat across from him, as he always did. Peter sat next to him.
“We did the Charms essay,” James said. “Have you got Transfigurations?”
Remus nodded. “We can swap, if you want to.”
“Yes, that’d be good.” Out of the corner of his eye James saw Lily coming in to the Hall with a couple of her friends. He waved at her and pointed at the seat next to him. She laughed and sat with her friends at the other end of the table. “Damn,” he muttered.
A faint smile touched Remus’s lips.
“Hi, Sirius,” Peter said suddenly, drawing James’s attention back.
Sirius looked disheveled, which didn’t bode well for his detention. He paused for a second and then sat in his usual spot, beside Remus. Remus managed to look as if he were edging away without actually moving. The twitch at the corner of Sirius’s jaw meant that he’d noticed.
James wished intensely then that Remus would just settle the whole thing with a fistfight, the way he and Sirius would have.
“How’d your detention go?” Peter asked.
Sirius helped himself to potatoes. “Oh, well.” He shrugged. “The usual.” It was clear that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Remus pushed his plate away and got up.
“Where are you going?” Sirius asked, still staring at his potatoes.
“I’ve got to finish that potion for Monday.”
“Do you want some help?” Now Sirius did look up. He looked, James thought, both hopeful and hopeless at the same time.
“No,” said Remus. He didn’t add anything to soften his refusal, but turned and walked away.
There was an awkward silence, which Peter broke. “I heard that the new prefect is going to be Bell.”
“Barmy Barney?” Sirius said incredulously. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“He hasn’t actually forgotten to wear shoes in a couple of years,” James pointed out. They all looked down the table to where Bell was eating. His friends seemed to be entertaining themselves by distracting him with conversation while piling increasingly strange combinations of food on his plate. Tripe with mustard and strawberry ice cream; Irish stew with apple crumble; liver and onions with chocolate pudding. Bell ate it all without complaint and, apparently, without noticing what he was putting in his mouth.
“I don’t think we’ll need to worry about him disciplining us,” Peter said. Even he looked a little green around the gills after watching Bell consume a helping of Stilton, jam, and haddock.
In silent accord, they pushed their plates away and got up. James slowed down as he walked by Lily. “You still owe me, Evans,” he said.
“What for?” She twisted around to look at him.
“Finding your astrolabe, of course.” He grinned. “You could pay me back by going to Hogsmeade with me next weekend.”
She paused for a moment, as if she were considering his offer; his heart started thumping. He could see Sirius and Peter waiting for him at the door to the Hall; Sirius had crossed his arms over his chest and was leaning against the wall with studied nonchalance.
“Well, Evans? What do you say?” James lifted one eyebrow. He’d spent half the summer holidays teaching himself to do that.
Lily tapped her fingers against her lips. “Let’s see. I could spend an entire day in the company of the most arrogant boy at Hogwarts—”
“It’s not arrogance if it’s true,” he interrupted.
“And his idiot friends,” she went on as if he hadn’t said anything. “Or I could spend a day doing something I’d actually enjoy. Of course you don’t know what I’d really like to do, because you’ve never bothered to find out the whole time that you’ve been asking me out. I think it’s three years now, isn’t it?”
Her friends were all giggling now. James hated them. “Oh well,” he said as coolly as he could, “another time, then.” He blew her a kiss as he walked away.
“Well done,” Sirius said in mock admiration. “I’d say another ten, maybe fifteen years, and she might let you talk to her for longer than twenty seconds before she shoots you down.”
“Sod off,” James said bitterly as he stomped back to the tower. Sirius and Peter followed, and managed to jolly him into playing Exploding Snap. James was in a slightly better mood by the time they went up to bed.
Sirius lit the lamp on his bedside table and sprawled over his bed with an issue of Quidditch Monthly James knew he’d already read six times. “I’m not sleepy,” he said when James looked at him.
James let it slide, but he thought Sirius’s wakefulness might have something to do with the fact that Remus hadn’t come back to the room yet. “All right. Try not to set the magazine on fire again.” He started undressing.
“I only did that once!” Sirius protested.
“Once was enough.” He finished changing into his pajamas and climbed into bed, pulling the curtains closed. He was tired, but he found he couldn’t sleep. The events of the past twenty-four hours kept running through his head. Oddly it wasn’t just the frantic rush to the Willow, or the equally frenzied run back through the low passage, clutching Snape’s sleeve, that preoccupied him. It was Remus, asking him what would have happened if James had been in Remus’s position. It was Lily, telling him she knew something was wrong. It was even Snape, asking if they were going to try to kill him again.
They’d almost let Remus do what he most feared. Small wonder he felt betrayed. He had trusted them and they had betrayed him, James thought. He rolled to his side and looked at the little gap in the curtains where the light from Sirius’s lamp gleamed through.
He heard slow footsteps and realized that Remus had come in at last.
“Moony?” Sirius whispered.
There was a pause. “Go to sleep, Sirius,” Remus said finally. He sounded exhausted.
“I want to talk,” Sirius said.
Another pause, and some rustling noises that were probably Remus undressing. “Later,” he murmured so quietly James almost didn’t hear.
“Promise?” Sirius sounded hopeful.
“Yes.” Some more rustling noises; that must be Remus getting into bed. “Nox,” he added, and Sirius’s lamp went out.
James rolled to his back again and closed his eyes. In the dark, enclosing silence, he fell asleep.
Things were a little better in the morning, a little less tense. The other Gryffindors were still angry at them, but they seemed appeased by the fact that no one was boasting about the prank. It was pretty obvious that something was wrong, James thought, looking at the way Remus was walking, a little apart from Sirius and Peter and him. But at least he was with them.
That was the pattern for the rest of the week: James and Sirius, with Peter trailing after, and Remus there but distant. With Sirius trying not to look at him, and almost succeeding. If James didn’t know Sirius so well, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.
Every night Remus came to bed late. Every night Sirius waited up for him, and while James listened and hated himself for eavesdropping, asked Remus to talk to him. Every night Remus said, “Later,” and went to sleep without another word.
Every night until a week had passed. That night Remus came up to the common room with them after dinner and read there while James and Sirius played chess and Peter watched.
“Checkmate,” James said finally as his queen eviscerated Sirius’s king. “That’s three out of four to me. Want to play again?”
Sirius shook his head. “Maybe tomorrow night. I’m for bed.” He got up, glancing so quickly at Remus that James would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking at Sirius’s face anyway.
Remus turned the page of his book without saying anything.
“Yeah, me too,” James agreed. He put away the chess set and stood up. “Wormtail?”
Peter scrambled to his feet with an enormous yawn. He’d been nodding off a little by the fire. “Oh, yeah.” He yawned again and stumbled up the stairs after James and Sirius.
James was in bed, curtains almost completely shut, listening to Peter’s sleep-heavy breathing, by the time Remus’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. He put his eye to the crack in his bedcurtains and saw Sirius sitting on the edge of his bed. He heard the door open, and Remus came in. He walked into James’s field of vision, hesitated, and then went to sit on the window seat, folding his legs up onto the seat.
“Moony?” Sirius whispered.
There was a pause. “Yes,” Remus said at last.
Sirius went over and stood in front of him; James could see Sirius’s tense back and, around him, half of Remus’s face and his shoulder and arm, resting on his bent knee. “Moony, I am so sorry.”
Remus was silent. James tried to match his breathing to Peter’s.
“Come on, Moony. I said I was sorry.” Sirius’s voice had that hint of anger and frustration it got when things weren’t going quite his way.
“James said you told him to tell me that, too,” Remus said.
“Because it’s true!” Sirius exploded. Peter snorted in his sleep, and Sirius dropped his voice. “It’s true. Why are you being so—so stubborn? You didn’t have to stop being a prefect, you know. Can’t we just be like we were?”
Remus shifted, looking out the window; James couldn’t see his face now. “No, Sirius. We can’t. It’s all—it went wrong.”
James remembered that when they’d first proposed becoming Animagi, Remus had asked, “What if something goes wrong?” Nothing would go wrong, they’d laughed. How could it?
“Well, can we—” Sirius was uncharacteristically hesitant. Almost subdued. “I’m just tired of this. Of you being—of us not being friends.”
“You should have thought of that before you told Snape how to find me.” Remus’s even voice was more disturbing than if he’d been shouting in anger, James thought.
“That’s not how it was!” Sirius said in a fierce whisper.
“How was it, then?” Remus’s head jerked back around. His eyes glittered in the low lamplight. “Go ahead. Tell me. Explain it to me.”
“It was—” Sirius drew in a deep breath. “He was there, and he was with those other Slytherins—you know, his little gang—and they were all taunting us. Wormtail and me. And saying things about my family. How I couldn’t ever live up to them, and how it was no wonder I’d been thrown out and cut off. And Snape said—he said—” Sirius stuttered, and then went on in a rush. “He said something about how we each had our little secret, and he knew mine, and he was going to find out yours, too. And Wormtail was there, just waiting for me to do something, watching, you know how he does—”
In the privacy of his bed, James nodded. He knew that too.
“And I started yelling at Snape, and then Filch came and the others all ran off, and Filch went after them. And then Snape s-said that about our secrets again, and how he was going to find out where you went every month and why we all covered it up for you. So I said he should go to the Whomping Willow if he really wanted to know.” His voice cracked. “Why did he go? Why did he listen to me? God, Moony, you have to believe me. I never thought he’d go! When has he ever believed anything I said? I thought he’d stay away. I thought he’d think it was a trick to get him down there, and he’d never go near the damn thing! Why did he go?”
In the quiet room Sirius’s shuddering breaths seemed very loud. James was glued in place; his fingers clenched on the quilt, and he barely blinked as he stared through the tiny gap in his curtains.
Finally Remus said, “You really thought that would make Snape would stay away?”
“Yes!” Sirius forgot to keep his voice down, and Peter mumbled something and turned over. “Yes,” he said more quietly. “I’d never—I never would have—I’ve been over it and over it and I—oh God. I am sorry.” James tried to remember if he’d ever heard Sirius like that before, all desperate, pleading fervor.
Remus sighed. “I understand,” he said so softly James almost didn’t hear him.
Sirius’s shoulders relaxed.
Remus went on. “I understand, but that—it doesn’t make things right.”
“Moony...” Sirius whispered. “What can I do? I—I just want things to be the way they were.”
Remus’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “They’re never going to be like that again, Sirius.” He was looking up at Sirius now, the low light casting long shadows on his face. “I can’t just forget that this happened.”
No, James thought, he couldn’t. Another thing they often teased Remus about was the way he mulled things over, analyzing them and thinking about them. He or Sirius could have forgotten, but not Remus.
“No,” Sirius said, echoing James’s thoughts. “I know. I just—I can’t help wanting. Please.” That unaccustomed word again, said in a choked voice, as if it were dragged out of him. “Please. I’ll be a better friend. I’ll be the kind of friend you deserve. I promise.”
James wished now that he wasn’t hearing this, that he’d gone to sleep when Peter had. This, more than the story of what Sirius had said to Snape and why, seemed far too personal. Too private. He closed his eyes, but couldn’t help hearing.
“Oh, Sirius.” Remus sounded very tired. “It’s—just give it some time. All right?”
“All right,” Sirius said in that same raw voice.
There were some rustling noises. “I’m going to bed now,” Remus said.
“All right,” Sirius repeated. More rustling; James opened his eyes and saw that the other two had got into their beds. The lights went out.
In the dark James kept thinking about Sirius’s promise to be a better friend. He’d always thought, when he’d thought about it at all, that Sirius was the perfect friend, even when Sirius was annoying the piss out of him. He thought now about that, about his definition of friendship. Sirius was always there, always ready to propose an adventure or back up James. He never tried to put the brakes on, never skived off mischief or dares. They’d treated the Animagus transformations as a dare, in a way; the ultimate prank, one that would allow them to embark on even more adventures. Remus must have seen that. No wonder he’d always held back a little.
But could he and Sirius have the kind of conversation he’d just overheard? Could Sirius have confided in him as he had in Remus? Even when Sirius had come to his house the previous summer, he hadn’t said much to James about it. Just that he’d left home, that his parents were horrible, and that his brother was a spoiled brat. And then he’d asked if they could go out and fly in the back garden. James hadn’t pressed, hadn’t known how to. Hadn’t, he had to admit now, wanted to.
James turned his pillow over and thumped it, then put his head back down. Maybe he should try to be a better friend, too. Maybe he should listen to Sirius, even make him talk. Maybe he should pay attention when Remus expressed doubt or hesitation about some proposed course of action. Maybe he should be more patient with Peter....
Sleep overtook him as he was pondering these things.
He had Quidditch practice the next afternoon. The team was still trying to adjust to Sirius’s replacement. James was tired, not just from flying but from the mental effort of remembering that he couldn’t expect Sirius to be there, to read his mind, to match his flying. He spent a while in the shower, letting the hot water pound down on his neck and back. He was one of the last to leave, and when he walked out to go back to the castle, Sirius was there.
“Thought you were trying to drown yourself in there, Prongs,” he said cheerfully. But there were little lines of strain around his eyes. “A little depressed? Did Evans shoot you down again?”
“Ha ha,” said James. “Just for that, you can carry my broom.” He tossed it to Sirius, who caught it easily.
They walked for a few minutes. James thought maybe he should put into practice some of his newfound resolutions from the previous night. “Um—”
“So—” Sirius had started speaking at the same minute.
“Go ahead,” James said gratefully.
Now Sirius hesitated. “Er... last night. Were you listening?”
He might have denied it, except for the tell-tale flush that spread over his face. He could lie to anyone but his friends. “Um. Yeah. Sorry.”
“No, it’s all right.” Sirius managed a grin. “I would have listened. And we weren’t that quiet, I suppose. It’s a good thing Wormtail sleeps like a dead man.”
“Yeah,” James said, relieved. But he’d been thinking about something he’d heard the night before off and on all day. “Can I ask you a question?”
Sirius looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “I suppose.”
James glanced around; they were alone on the path up to the castle. “When you were—uh. You said Snape said he knew your secret. What was he talking about? Does he know you’re an Animagus?”
“Well, no. That’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you about.” Sirius sounded nervous, and a light flush had touched his cheeks. “Uh.... Well actually, first of all, I’m getting my own place this summer. I’ll come into that money my uncle left me when I turn seventeen.”
“Are you?” James stopped walking. “Why? I mean—I just thought we’d be spending the summer together again.” Having Sirius stay with him had been riotous fun. But maybe Sirius hadn’t had such a good time. “Not that I’ll miss your smelly feet,” he added quickly.
Sirius answered the question James hadn’t asked. “I had a great time last summer. And it was really nice of your parents to let me stay. But I can’t keep sponging off your family. And ... you might not want me there after I tell you this next bit.”
James couldn’t imagine now what Sirius was going to confess to. “Well, what is it?”
“Listen. You can’t tell anyone this. No one,” Sirius warned. “Not even Moony and Wormtail.”
James raised his eyebrows. He’d thought there were no secrets left among the four of them, not since they’d found out the biggest secret of all in their second year. And for Sirius to trust him and not the other two—but he said, “All right. I won’t tell.” At Sirius’s continued silence, he added, “I promise.”
“Right.” Sirius bit his lip. “Um .... Do you remember last year when that girl kept following me around?”
James laughed. “How could I forget? Every time you turned around, there she was. Smiling at you like she’d been hit with a Cheering Charm.” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Did you—you know, with her? Is that the secret? Padfoot, you—you dog!” He punched Sirius on the shoulder. But he wondered why Sirius hadn’t told him at the time. After all, he’d told Sirius—told them all—about Augusta Whitcomb. Well, he’d dropped a few hints, and Sirius had picked up on them. But he’d told them. And pulling a girl didn’t seem like much of a secret anyway.
“No!” Sirius yelped. “No no no no!” He was really red now.
“Oh.” But James was relieved to find that Sirius hadn’t been keeping the news from him. “So what about her?”
“Well, remember how you couldn’t understand why I kept avoiding her?”
“Yes.” It still puzzled him. The girl had been pretty enough, and would probably have done anything Sirius wanted. James couldn’t imagine passing that up. He’d said as much at the time.
“Right, well...” The words came out in a rush. “I didn’t want to shag her because I don’t like girls.”
James stared at him. He tried to make sense out of what Sirius had just said. “We’re not twelve any longer, Padfoot. Of course you like girls.”
“No, I don’t,” Sirius said firmly. “I mean, some of them are all right, but I don’t want to—I don’t like them.”
James felt as if his brain had ground to a halt. “You don’t like girls,” he repeated. “So you—you like boys. You’re a poof?”
Sirius nodded. He looked tense, almost wary.
Sirius was bent, and he’d been sleeping in the same room as him for almost six years. They’d even slept in the same bed a couple of times! Oh God, the showers after Quidditch! James’s eyes widened. “You’re a poof,” he said again.
“Yes,” Sirius said.
James started walking again. That way he didn’t have to face Sirius. “So that’s your secret. And Snape knows?”
“Yes.” Sirius’s voice was bitter. “Regulus told him.”
“How does Regulus know?” Maybe if he focused on these details he wouldn’t have to think about—about the other thing.
“I don’t know,” Sirius said, but James could tell he was lying by the way he looked away.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do!” James made to shove Sirius’s shoulder; these exchanges usually ended with one of them tackling the other and wrestling him to the ground. Just before he made contact he yanked his hand back. “Yes, you do,” he said again to try to cover up the awkward moment.
“You have to promise not to tell anyone. Or I’ll—I’ll hex your broomstick,” Sirius threatened.
“I promise. Wizard’s honor.”
They were almost to the castle now, and Sirius paused in the shelter of a group of pines. “He broke into my room over the summer and looked at something I had.”
“What thing?” James couldn’t really imagine—didn’t want to imagine—what kinds of queer things Sirius had.
“A magazine,” Sirius mumbled, staring down at his feet. “A Muggle one. About—you know.”
“Oh,” James said, rather shocked. He shouldn’t have been; after all, Peter had brought those porno magazines to school in September, pulling them out of his bag with a triumphant flourish the moment they were in their compartment on the train. This was probably the same thing, except with—James shied away from the thought.
“That’s one of the reasons I left home,” Sirius said abruptly.
“What, because Regulus found out you’re—because he found out?” A horrible thought struck James. “Did he tell your parents?”
“No, and no. He only told Snape.” Sirius smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “I hexed him when I found out. He won’t be telling anyone else.”
Sometimes James forgot about all the things Sirius had learned from his mother, in spite of the fact that, as he often said, he hated her. “What about Snape? Did he tell anyone?” He felt oddly protective of Sirius now.
Sirius frowned a little. “No. Well, I told him if he told anyone I’d have nothing left to lose, and that I’d cut off his balls and send them to Malfoy. And ... I think he was saving it up, you know? Holding onto it. Waiting to use it. And now he can’t, because it’s part of the—part of what Dumbledore did. You know, so he couldn’t tell anyone about Moony.”
James had been curious about this for the past week. “What did Dumbledore do?”
Sirius stepped back into the cover of the pines, and whispered, “He laid a geas on Snivellus.”
“Wow, really?” James felt his eyes widen. The geas was one of his father’s research specialties, but he’d never known anyone who could actually cast one. “What did he promise Snape? Do you know?” The obligations of a geas usually went both ways.
“He just said that some day Snivellus would need something from him, and he would give it to him.”
“Wow,” James said again, awed. He realized he was getting cold, and rubbed his hands together to warm them. Something Sirius had said came back to him. “So what did you mean that you said you’d left home because of—you know?”
“Oh, that.” Sirius rolled his eyes. “My parents were going to arrange my betrothal. They wanted to announce it on my seventeenth birthday.”
James’s jaw dropped. He began to wonder how many more surprises he could take. “Damn. I knew they were old-fashioned, but an arranged marriage?”
“Got to keep those bloodlines going,” Sirius said casually. “It’s a good thing they’ve got Regulus. The spare.”
“What?”
“The spare,” Sirius repeated. “I heard my mother talking to one of her friends one day, and she said that once she’d had ‘the heir and a spare’, she didn’t have to have any more children. That’s me and Regulus.”
It explained a lot about Sirius. And about Regulus, too, James realized. He kept silent. Sirius was being amazingly revealing, as if once he’d started confiding things he didn’t want to stop. Maybe he’d been waiting for a while for James to start listening to him.
“So, um.... What do you think?” Sirius had his head up high and was looking at him defiantly, the way he did when he was nervous about something. He’d had that same look when they’d told Remus they knew he was a werewolf.
“I think you’re much better off without them,” James said fervently.
Sirius stared at him for a second. “No, I mean about the other thing.”
Oh. The queer thing. James started walking again.
“Prongs?”
“I don’t know,” he said, not looking at Sirius. “It’s—it’s weird. I mean, how long have you known?” Why didn’t you tell me before, he wanted to ask.
“Well, it’s not like I got an owl one day telling me,” Sirius said a little sharply. “I just—oh, Wormtail. Hello.”
“I finished the History of Magic reading!” Peter panted. Apparently he’d run from the library to tell them this. Well, it was pretty noteworthy.
“Did you write the essay?” James asked. They usually took turns writing the essays for Binns; with a few changes in the first paragraph, they could all turn in essentially the same work.
Peter’s face fell. “Not yet.”
“Well, we’ll do it after dinner, then.” James’s stomach growled loudly just as Lily and a couple of her friends walked by; they must have been in the greenhouses. They laughed. “I’m an animal for you, Evans!” he shouted.
“Just as I always suspected,” Lily shot back. “Your brains are in your stomach. No higher mental functions at all!” She disappeared inside.
Sirius snickered. “Yeah, Prongs, she just can’t resist that animal charm of yours, can she?”
“Some day,” James said. “Some day. You’ll see.” He went inside, Sirius and Peter following him.
He didn’t have another minute alone with Sirius for almost two days. In part it was because Peter followed him around, as usual; but it was also because he didn’t bother evading Peter as he sometimes did. He saw Sirius watching him sometimes, and knew that Sirius knew what he was doing. He was watching Sirius too, trying to see any sign of what Sirius had told him. But Sirius seemed just the same as always. James thought about this at night, when everyone else was in bed. He seemed to be doing a lot more thinking than he ever had. Or, at least, he was thinking about things he’d never had to—never wanted to—take into account before.
Finally, after dinner one night James found himself alone with Sirius in their tower room. Remus had gone to the library, and Peter was playing Exploding Snap in the common room with some fifth years.
Sirius was lying on his bed reading and eating chocolates; James sat on the floor with his broom and his repair kit. “I wish you were still on the team,” he said, breaking the silence.
Sirius lifted his head. “Yeah.”
“Give me one of those, will you?” He indicated the chocolates. Sirius tossed a couple at him; he caught them and popped one in his mouth. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Sirius scribbled something in his book.
“Padfoot?”
“Mm?”
“That thing we were talking about the other day.” James paused.
Sirius lifted his head again. He had that same nervously defiant look on his face as before. “What about it?”
“Can I ask you something about it?”
Sirius put the book aside and sat up. “All right.”
James looked down at his broom. “Have you ever—you know. With a boy?”
Sirius flushed. “Well ... no. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?” How could you not exactly have sex? “What’s that supposed to mean?”
James hadn’t thought it possible, but Sirius flushed even more. He couldn’t look James in the eye. “Well, I did some stuff. But not ... you know.”
Not ... oh. James blushed too. “With who?”
Sirius was still looking away. “Someone I met over the summer. Before I came to your house. I met him a couple of times. In a park. It wasn’t—it was just—I never even learnt his surname.”
“Oh.” That didn’t seem very appealing to James. Sirius didn’t sound happy about it either. “So why—”
Sirius cut him off. “I was curious, all right? And I wanted to—well, I didn’t think—it’s not something I could try on with someone here.” He added hastily, “Not that I’m saying that there’s anyone here I want to do it with.”
James untangled that. Sirius wasn’t saying there wasn’t anyone he didn’t want, either. “Is there someone here you ... you fancy?”
Sirius started picking at the bedcovers, finding a loose thread in the bedspread and pulling it. “Um...”
James waited. Maybe the confiding mood Sirius had been in the other day would carry over.
Eventually Sirius made up his mind. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” James promised. He seemed to be keeping a lot of Sirius’s secrets these days.
“I mean it. Not anyone,” Sirius emphasized.
James held up his hand. “I swear on my broomstick.”
“Right.” Sirius looked at his hands. “Well. Yeah. There is someone.”
James let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Who is it?”
“Oh, no. That, I’m not telling you. No,” Sirius said decisively when James opened his mouth. “I mean it.”
“Oh, come on, Padfoot,” he wheedled.
“No. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He’d never be interested.” Sirius lay down again and picked up his book.
“How do you know?” Sirius had implied he hadn’t approached the person, after all.
“I just do, all right? Now shut up about it, or I’ll tell Evans that you still sleep with your teddy bear.”
“I do not!” Somehow, James noticed, they’d slipped into their usual banter. He felt reassured by this, even by Sirius’s teasing.
Sirius grinned. “Doesn’t matter if you do or not. All that matters is that she believes it.”
“All right, all right. I give in.” Daringly, James added, “As long as you’re not pining after me.”
Sirius laughed out loud. “God, no,” he said when he’d caught his breath.
“Well, good,” James said. And it was good to hear Sirius laugh. He hadn’t laughed like that in weeks.
Sirius rolled to his side and looked at him. “Prongs?”
“Yeah?” He stuck down a twig that had popped out of place.
There was a long pause. Finally Sirius said, “Nothing. Just, um, thanks.”
James looked up at Sirius, who seemed occupied by his book once more. His friend Sirius, who had accompanied him on a hundred different adventures, who teased him mercilessly, who’d stayed up all night with him when they’d discovered their Animagus forms. He cleared his throat. “Oh, well. No problem.” That didn’t seem adequate. “So, this business with you getting your own place. You can’t do that until February, right? When you turn seventeen?”
“Yes, that’s the plan,” said Sirius, looking a little perplexed by the change of subject.
“You’ll come to my place for Christmas, then.” Because really, he and Sirius could have a great time going around the village and charming the Christmas decorations, something James had always wanted to do. Old Mrs Threapleton would be quite surprised to find her Christmas wreath singing naughty limericks.
Sirius studied his face for a moment. “I was planning to stay here.”
“No, don’t,” James said quickly. It seemed important that Sirius agree now. “You’ll be bored here, all alone. And I need you to help me fend off the neighbor’s daughter.”
“Not the lovely Sandra!” Sirius cried. “Prongs, you cad.”
The only personality trait Sandra had ever exhibited was a dogged determination to follow James wherever he went. It had been annoying when they were seven; now it was vaguely creepy. “So you’ll come?”
Sirius gave a theatrical sigh. “The sacrifices I make for you.” But he was smiling.
“Brilliant!” said James. He felt pleased with himself, as if convincing Sirius to come to his house for Christmas had been a test of some kind. A test of his loyalty, perhaps. A test of his decision to be the kind of friend—the kind of person—he’d heard Sirius talking about. He got out the polish and rubbed down the handle of his broom. In fact, he thought, maybe he should try listening to people other than Sirius, too. Maybe Lily had a point when she’d said he never bothered to understand what she wanted. He’d just assumed that if he kept appearing in front of her, impressing her, one day she would have to be impressed. “Hasn’t worked so far,” he muttered.
“Hm?” Sirius said absently, eating another chocolate.
“Nothing,” James said. “Just thinking.”
“That’s a first,” Sirius said. He looked up as the door opened and said, in a voice that tried and failed to be casual, “Wouldn’t you agree, Moony?”
“Agree with what?” asked Remus, coming in and dropping his books at the foot of his bed with a sigh.
“That Prongs thinking is a first.” Still in the not-casual voice.
“As opposed to just acting on rudimentary animal instinct?” Remus adopted a thoughtful pose. “Well... On the whole, Padfoot, I’d have to agree with you.”
James saw Sirius relax a little. “We’ll have to write it down on the calendar, then.”
“Or at least tell Evans. I’m sure she’ll want to be notified of the momentous occasion.”
“Oh, ha ha,” James said weakly. But if it had been good to joke with Sirius, it was even better to have him and Remus gang up on him and tease him together. And it was best of all to see Sirius laughing like that, relaxed and happy and grinning cockily at him. James hid his smile and let his friends carry on teasing him.