The Other Side: Thick and Thin (Book 1)

The morning post arrived with the usual chaos of flapping wings and spilt pumpkin juice, but the owls avoided Sirius's end of the Gryffindor table just like all of the students did. He looked down the table to watch James Potter open his large box. Sirius knew from experience that it was a care package full of all sorts of sweets and homemade baked goods. It was the third such delivery that James had received--one for each week they'd been at school--and everyone had expected that another would come this Monday, too.

Not that Sirius would be allowed to have any of the treats. James never offered him any, even though he often ate them in front of him and offered Remus and Peter some. Just like he wasn't sitting with James but Remus and Peter were sitting with the other boy, even though this left Sirius set slightly apart and alone at the end of the Gryffindor table. Not that Sirius could really blame them; if their situations had been reversed, he wasn't sure that he would have willingly become a social pariah just to be nice to someone that everyone else hated.

Even his own family hadn't written him at all in the weeks since school had begun. His cousins and Evan had been avoiding him. The first week of classes he had tried to sit with Evan in double Potions with the Slytherins, but Evan had avoided him and sat next to Will Avery instead. Sirius had ended up sitting alone, because there was an odd number of students in the class. Sirius sat alone in every class except Herbology, in fact, because there was an odd number of Gryffindor first years--the four boys in his dorm plus three girls--so he had to sit alone when they had classes alone. It was pure luck that they shared Herbology with the Ravenclaws, whose seven first years brought the class up to an even number, which meant that one unlucky person couldn't avoid sitting next to him.

After the mail had been delivered and various treats and bits of bacon had been retrieved, the owls all flew back out the way they had come. Sirius sighed and rose from the table. It was clear that another day had passed without any response from his family, and there was no reason to stick around the Great Hall watching everyone else talk to their friends. The only reason he even attended breakfast was in case he got mail.

Shouldering his bag, he trudged out through the entrance hall and the front doors to make his way around the castle to Herbology.

He had several minutes alone to work on his homework before class actually began. He silently thanked his father for presenting him with a book bag with an Undetectable Extension Charm and a Feather-Light Charm so he could carry all of his things around with him all the time. Since no one was really talking to him, he had nothing better to do than schoolwork and was pretty far ahead. By the time other students started trickling into the greenhouse, he had managed to finish the Charms essay they had been assigned in class the previous Thursday and was reading ahead in his Transfigurations textbook.

Class went as it had for the past two weeks. Sirius kept quiet and diligently took notes, and Janice Edgecomb sat close enough to him that when he turned to answer one of her whispered questions he got a face full of her curly hair.

Janice was one of the only people who wasn't avoiding him. If he'd had a mind to complain about it, the alternative of being completely alone had made him rethink that idea before he'd actually said anything unfortunate to her. He would rather have her over-the-top enthusiasm and lack of respect for personal space than no friends at all.

After class he walked slightly apart from his classmates as they all chattered together about things in which he had no part. He always headed straight to their next class and therefore spent the morning break in an empty classroom doing homework or reading ahead. During the lunch hour he would gather whatever food he could carry in his hands and immediately leave to go sit in the next empty classroom so he wouldn't have to watch everyone else carry on around him as if he wasn't there. He spent his remaining free hours in the library. He preferred the library to being ignored in the Gryffindor common room or, worse, antagonized by Potter.

That night he returned to the common room just as the clock signaled that it was time for the first years' curfew. He was met just inside the portrait by a sixth-year prefect who was apparently on her way out.

"Black!" she exclaimed, coming up short just before they collided. "You're cutting it really close tonight."

Sirius shrugged, and she pinned him with an annoyed look.

"Well," she said at last, "you had better be careful. I would hate to have to take points from my own house just because you think you have better things to do than spend your evenings in your own common room."

Sirius nodded and pushed past her. He set his sights on the stairs that led to the boys' dormitories, intent on going to his room so he could try to write another letter to his parents. A raised voice he could have recognized anywhere cut across the room.

"Black doesn't have anything better to do! He just thinks he's too good to spend time with the rest of us!"

The usual buzz of conversation suddenly became hushed as everyone heard Potter's words and turned to see what was happening. Sirius refused to stop. He held his head high and kept his gaze straight on the staircase as he continued his trek towards his room.

But Potter wasn't content to just let him go. "You see!" Sirius could hear him declare to the other Gryffindors. "He was bragging on the train about how rich his family is and everything, and we all know the Blacks are the worst sort!"

"It's true," chimed in a female voice. "Mrs. Black attacked my friend on the train, and Black carried on bullying him after we left the station."

The level of volume in the common room rose suddenly as people varyingly asked James and Lily for details, commented on Sirius, or returned to their previous conversations.

Sirius maintained his dignified gait up the stairs until he rounded the first corner and knew that he was well out of sight of the common room. Then he took off at a run the rest of the way, pausing his flight only long enough to make sure he didn't slam the bedroom door loud enough for anyone to hear it. He leaned back against the wood and closed his eyes. His heart seemed to be pounding hard enough that he could feel it throughout his entire body, and the thundering in his ears drowned out any lingering noise from the common room that he might have still been able to hear from all the way upstairs. He felt the sting of tears but refused to let James Potter make him cry.

Aquila cooed at him from across the room, and he looked up to see her staring at him from on top of one of his bedposts. He hoped her expression was concern and not something worse, like pity. Blacks don't need to be pitied, he thought.

"I can't believe him!" he yelled, causing the owl to hoot in surprise. "I never bragged about my family!"

Blacks don't need to brag, he remembered another of his lessons.

"And Evans!" He punched the bedpost in frustration, causing Aquila to ruffle her feathers in indignation as her perch shook. "That bint knows that I apologized and that Snivellus refused to accept it!"

Blacks don't need to apologize. The thought came to him automatically, another of the old lessons that he'd been taught by his parents and grandparents.

And suddenly Sirius was stopped in his tracks by the revelation.

He had been trying to fit in by playing by everyone else's rules. His mother had reminded him before she left him on the train that he shouldn't make friends with a boy with a Muggle father, but he had tried anyway. He had even apologized to Snape for his mother's reaction. He had tried to forge a friendship with Potter even after he knew about the other boy's disdain for Slytherin, and therefore for Sirius's entire family. It really came as no surprise that now James had shown his true colors. He had tried to fit in with all of the other Gryffindors but had been met with ridicule and distrust. It wasn't very surprising at all given that he wasn't really a Gryffindor. Oh, sure, the Sorting Hat had decided that his personality was more suited to Gryffindor than to Slytherin, but surely these things ran far deeper than what a hat could possibly know.

Sirius was a Black, first and foremost.

In a sudden flurry of movement, Sirius leapt across his bed and grabbed the quill that was resting on his nightstand. He had been composing another letter to his parents to apologize again for his unfortunate sorting and to beg them for forgiveness, but with his newfound clarity he knew that was the wrong thing to do. He tossed the crumpled parchment aside and started on a new piece.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of that week and the next proceeded much differently than the ones that had gone before. Sirius refused to be chased off by Potter and the rest of the Gryffindors. He confidently placed himself right in the middle of their lives. He sat in the middle of the Gryffindor table, which at first produced startled looks and stilted conversations from those around him, but he refused to back down and doggedly inserted himself into whatever they were talking about. He stayed with the rest of the students during breaks, and he brazenly sat right in the middle of the common room instead of hiding in the library. Although Potter and Evans never spoke to him except to insult him, and Lupin stopped trying to talk to him after the first time he was nastily set down by Potter for talking to "scum" like Sirius, Pettigrew and the other Gryffindor girls in his year warmed up to him much more quickly than Sirius had imagined.

By the end of their fourth week, Sirius felt like he actually had friends in his house.

Peter was a bit sycophantic for Sirius's tastes, but the advantages of befriending him far outweighed the disadvantages. First of all, it drove Potter absolutely up the wall that one of his friends had abandoned him in favor of Sirius. More importantly, he was pretty sure that Peter would do absolutely anything Sirius wanted him to, which made Sirius quite forgiving of the fact that the other boy only chose him over Potter because Sirius gave him more correct answers on their homework, had more spending money and nicer toys, and had mentioned that over Christmas break he would be attending the Quidditch League Final in his grandfather's private box. Puddlemere United were expected to make it to the league final, and Sirius knew that Peter hoped to be invited to attend the game since they were his favorite team.

Currently he was watching as Peter unsuccessfully tried to make a quill move across the space on the table that the blond had created by shoving his dishes out of the way.

"You're not doing the right wand movements," Sirius informed the other boy as he helped himself to another serving of sausage.

Peter tried again without success.

He let out a frustrated sigh. "Last night you told me the problem is I'm not saying it right! Now you're saying the problem is I'm not moving my wand right!"

"Yeah," Sirius replied, "that's because now you're trying so hard to say it correctly that you're not paying enough attention to your wand movements."

Peter's next attempt caused the quill to shake for a moment but was ultimately unsuccessful.

"If I can't do this today, Flitwick'll assign me another essay!" Peter cried, his frustration seeming to turn to panic as the food in the serving platters suddenly disappeared and all of the students began rising to walk to class.

Although Peter was quite good at Potions and Herbology, he was absolutely abysmal at Charms. Sirius had taken to helping him in Charms, and in return Peter would help him with Potions whenever Sirius was simply too bored with the subject to bother doing the readings for himself.

Sirius shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth and took an enormous swig of his pumpkin juice to wash it down.

"Watch," he said when he was finished, taking pity on his friend and pulling out his own wand. "It's easier if at first you match up the syllables with the wand movements."

He demonstrated once using a measured pace and slow wand movements, and Peter watched him avidly. Then he repeated the charm, this time at a normal pace, and directed the feather back in front of Peter.

"Pronunciation and wand movement are more important with charms than other things," Sirius reminded his friend. "'Remember Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself lying on the floor with a buffalo on his chest.'"

He tilted his head back to get the last bit of juice in his goblet, but he watched out of the corner of his eye as Peter tried a few more times. Finally his friend succeeded at performing the charm, and he let out a whoop of triumph as the quill crashed into Sirius's now-empty plate.

By then the Great Hall was almost entirely empty, and the two other Gryffindor girls in their year, Emmeline Vance and Mary MacDonald, were waving at them from the end of the table by the doors. Sirius and Peter hurriedly gathered their things and rushed up the table to meet the girls. The two had been very friendly with Sirius since he had lent them his booklist for a Transfiguration essay they'd had to write. It just included the titles and a short note about what was helpful in each book, but Emmeline had thanked him profusely and insisted that they never would have found the information in half of them without his help. (There was, Sirius had been surprised to learn, quite an absence of libraries in most peoples' homes, and therefore a lot of other students' essays weren't very well researched because they were still learning how Madam Pince's indexing system worked.)

Mary was the shyer of the two girls, but even she had been outspoken in her defense of Sirius when, two days later as they were comparing their finished essays, Potter had demanded to know why they were hanging around with a Dark wizard.

Mary held out a napkin to Peter as the two approached. "Here," she said, "I nabbed you some toast before the food disappeared. I saw that you didn't eat anything."

Peter took the small bundle from her. "Thanks! I would have been absolutely dying by lunchtime."

Sirius figured that it probably wouldn't be a very good idea to make a joke about Peter not looking like he'd suffer too much from missing a meal.

The four of them rushed through the castle towards the Charms classroom, their usual trudging pace sped up to nearly a run. They tumbled over the threshold just as the bell was chiming to announce the start of class, and Professor Flitwick looked up at them from his place perched precariously on a stack of books.

"Almost late!" he squeaked, though there was nothing chastising about either his tone or his expression. "Go on, take your seats! We've got a lot to go over today!"

"Sorry, Professor," said Peter as he slid into his seat next to Sirius. "Sirius was helping me with my Moving Charm."

Professor Flitwick nodded cheerily. "And did you finally accomplish it?"

Peter said that he had and demonstrated. His wand movements and incanting were still slow and methodical in the way that Sirius had demonstrated at the breakfast table a few minutes earlier. Though his style was far from elegant, he did manage to make his feather move across the desk.

"Excellent, Mr. Pettigrew!" cried Professor Flitwick, clapping his hands. "I see that Mr. Black has taught you to be more careful with your casting. You just want a bit more practice!" He turned his attention to Sirius. "Ten points to Gryffindor for helping a fellow student!"

Potter was glaring at Sirius from across the aisle, though Sirius couldn't have said whether the git was more upset that he was getting praise in general or that he was getting praise for helping Peter specifically. He grinned triumphantly and gave Potter a raised eyebrow, but his voice was everything humble when he spoke to their professor.

"Thank you, Professor, but it was nothing, really."

The rest of the day went by just as well. Sirius was awarded more points in Transfiguration for successfully transfiguring a beetle into a button on his first try, which caused both James and Evans to seethe even more than they already were. Furthermore, it seemed that Evans had taken his place as the house pariah. In classes Peter and Sirius were sitting together, Emmeline and Mary were sitting together, and Potter and Lupin were sitting together, which left Evans as the lone one out where Sirius had been in that position earlier. Despite their agreement over how horrible Sirius was, Evans seemed to hate Potter just as much as she hated Sirius, which meant that she couldn't sit with him and Lupin during meals or breaks. Emmeline and Mary had taken a decided dislike to the other girl both because she had badmouthed Sirius to them and because she had defended Snivellus after he'd insulted Mary's family.

It wasn't that Sirius disagreed about Mary being a Mudblood. He just wasn't stupid enough to say so out loud or to defend someone who had, not when he was just making headway in Gryffindor house. He supposed that Evans, being a Mudblood herself, didn't know how insulting it was to call someone that, or else she wouldn't have tried to defend her friend. For that matter, maybe she wouldn't even be friends with someone who would say it, if she knew what it meant.

Either way, Evans's behavior had given Sirius an opportunity to prove that he wasn't going to treat anyone horribly just because he was a Black and a pure-blood (and he wasn't about to admit that he privately thought they would have deserved to be treated horribly). That had sent Mary straight into Sirius's company. Peter, a Half-blood, had been almost as insulted as she had, so the incident had cemented his bond with Sirius even more. Even though Emmeline was a pure-blood, she was a Gryffindor through and through, and Sirius had managed to use the incident to win respect from her, too.

Yes, Sirius was exceedingly pleased with the results of his efforts.

The next morning at breakfast, an enormous eagle owl landed in front of Sirius, sending eggs flying off of his plate and all over the table.

Though he was too delighted to see the owl to be angry for real, Sirius exclaimed, "You did that on purpose so I would have to give you those!"

The owl answered his accusation with an affronted hoot and turned her head away as if she had too much dignity to even acknowledge his presence. He knew she was joking when she held out her foot for him to take the letter despite her still-turned face.

"Thank you, Lyra," Sirius said as he took the letter. "You can have whatever you want, you know."

He was so happy that he would have put in a special request down to the kitchens for her if she'd been able to ask him. At that, she quickly dropped any pretense of anger and turned around so she could start swooping her head down around and into his plate, eating her fill.

"Look, Black finally got an owl!" crowed Potter. "We thought your family was glad to be rid of you!"

A few of the other students laughed. Sirius was glad to see that most of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws didn't laugh. He was sure they all would have only a couple of weeks before. Lupin wasn't around to back up his friend (Apparently he had taken ill overnight.), but the few scattered laughs belonged to older students who were particularly friendly with Potter. Sirius ignored it both because he felt that he was too good to respond and because he was too excited to read his letter anyway.

Sirius,

You will have to forgive me for taking so long to write back. Your father and I are in Germany on business. Even superior owls like your Aquila and my Lyra will take a few days to make such a long trip.

I can't say that I was not disappointed to learn that you had been sorted anywhere except Slytherin, particularly into Gryffindor, but I suppose that in retrospect it isn't such a surprise. You have always had a different temperament from most of the family. I'm sure you recall that the two of us have had discussions about this before.

Indeed, Sirius did remember several such conversations. He remembered that most recently, just before he'd gone to Diagon Alley to purchase his school supplies, his grandfather had told him that he would probably need a different type of wand than his father's or grandfather's because of their different personalities.

You are entirely correct that being a Black transcends differences in personality, preferences, or house. Although let's do hope that you are just an anomaly and not the start of a trend. (Sometimes your brother seems like more of a Hufflepuff than anything. Don't tell him or your mother that I said that.)

Sirius laughed aloud, drawing a few curious glances from all around, but he was very careful not to let anyone on either side of him see the letter, particularly Peter. He had asked his grandfather some very sensitive questions and had glanced ahead far enough to see that he had been answered. It would not be good if anyone else read the rest of the letter.

Your plan to ingratiate yourself with the other Gryffindors is sound. It's true that most of them don't have the pure and noble blood that you do, and even those who are pure have mostly forgotten how to behave properly. (I would have very strong words with my cousin about her son's treatment of you, but I think my interference would make his treatment of you worse.)

Sirius was glad that his grandfather hadn't said anything to Dorea Potter, because James would have just used that to humiliate him. He hadn't told his grandfather about Potter so that the older man would fight his battles for him.

You are worth a hundred of each of those people. However, we must adapt to our environments. I certainly would not have gotten as far as I have in politics if I had been too open about my disgust for those of lesser blood. My excellent grandfather, Phineas Nigellus, would never have become the headmaster of Hogwarts had he been too open about his opinions, and he was born nearly a century ago. You see the difference in status that I have achieved compared to your Grandfather Pollux, who is so open about his opinions, and you have been taught the history of your family and surely remember the difference in status between Phineas Nigellus and his sister, my Great Aunt Elladora, who proposed to make Muggle-hunting legal.

Become friends with them because you must. You are in Gryffindor and must make the best of it, and it would simply not do for a Black to be unpopular or a source of ridicule. Perhaps, if you are lucky, you can even teach the Mudbloods how to behave in our world and correct some of the Half-bloods' bad habits. But hear me now: Never stoop to their level, Sirius. Always remember that you are better than them. You are pure. You are more magical, more powerful, and more worthy than any of them can comprehend.

I will be having words with my daughter-in-law about her treatment of you. I was appalled when you told me that in her husband's and my absence she has not been returning your letters. You can be sure that if your father was home she would not have been allowed to carry on this way. She clearly has more to learn about being a Black than you do at your young age. I blame her father.

Sirius thought that it was rather more like if Grandfather had been home he could have influenced his mother's behavior. Sirius's father most often got his way with his wife on such big issues by reminding her of what Arcturus's reaction would be. He wasn't sure that he would be able to forgive his mother for only writing to him because she had been forced to do it, though.

Speaking of him, I will also be having words with that fool Pollux about his grandchildren's behavior. You will let me know if they make amends to you for withdrawing their support since your sorting, and if they do not I will simply have to have a word with them myself over the holidays.

How are your studies going? Write back and tell me how you're getting on both with classes and with this little project we've discussed.

Toujours Pur,

Grandfather

Sirius folded his letter and put it inside his book bag to make sure that no one else could read it. He was glad that his grandfather agreed with his plan to make friends in his house, because he wasn't sure that he could have spent the next seven years as a social outcast. He could barely stand it for a couple of weeks!

He was also glad to think that maybe his cousins would be willing to talk with him after they got a good talking to about it. He might not be able to easily forgive and forget how they had ignored him, but they were family. Besides, he wouldn't turn down the opportunity to get to know the other Slytherins, and he particularly remembered that Bellatrix had told him to get to know Lucius Malfoy.

"Who was your letter from?" Mary's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and back into the present.

He looked up to see his friends watching him.

He replied, "My grandfather. He was--"

"Probably telling you how disappointed he is that you aren't a slimy snake!" cut in James Potter from his place a few seats away. "Hasn't your family disowned you yet?"

Before Sirius could reply, Mary scoffed, "Honestly, Potter, how stupid! Why would he have been laughing if his letter was anything bad?"

"He was just reminding me of some old family stories," Sirius said. "He had some things to say about your mother, Potter."

The way he said it had the intended implication, and Potter's face went bright red all the way to the tips of his ears. He sputtered in indignation, and Peter burst out laughing at Sirius's side.

A boy, whom Sirius recognized as the one Potter had sat beside during the opening feast, leaned around the others at the table to ask, "Why would your grandfather tell family stories about Mrs. Potter?"

"Don't you know?" Sirius asked, composing his face into a perfect mask of innocent surprise even as he was cheering inside at the perfect opportunity to discredit Potter's words about him in front of the entire house. "Mrs. Potter is a Black. She's my great aunt, actually, and Bellatrix, Andromeda, and Narcissa's, too. You know, my cousins from Slytherin?"

"That's right," piped up Emmeline, obviously having caught onto his game, "you're the first Black not to have been sorted into Slytherin. Wouldn't that mean..." She trailed off suggestively, and Sirius watched as James Potter's face achieved a rather impressive shade of purple.

Sirius nodded along. "That Dorea Potter was a Slytherin? Yes, it would." He had to fight to maintain his mask. "Say, Potter, since your mother was both a Black and a Slytherin, you must think she's at least twice as bad as me!"

The reaction at the table was mixed; Sirius's friends were laughing as if it was the most hilarious thing they had ever heard, but everyone else seemed torn between confusion and discomfort more than laughter. There were a few scattered chuckles, but they were the kind of reluctant chuckles that only come from people who know that it isn't entirely appropriate to find something funny.

Sirius stared across the table directly into the furious eyes of James Potter and felt no remorse. If it were the other way around, none of them would have had any problem laughing at me, he thought.

Potter got up and stormed out of the Great Hall alone, as his loyal sidekick wasn't around to support him today.

"Merlin!" Emmeline broke into his consciousness and he turned to look at her directly across the table from him. "I thought no one would ever put that tosser in his place!"

From beside him, Peter asked, "Did your grandpa really say anything about his mum?"

"Yeah." Sirius barked out a laugh. "I mean, he didn't really tell me any story about her, but I knew that would set Potter off."

Peter snorted in his laughter. Sirius found it distasteful, but he was determined not to let anything ruin his day since it was going so well for once.

Even double Potions with the Slytherins wasn't enough to dampen his good mood, though Potions was his least favorite class and he had to put up with being in the same room with two more people he'd rather not have anything to do with. Snivellus seemed to hate him more than ever, and Sirius supposed that the git must blame him for his little girlfriend's new position as a social outcast in Gryffindor. Not that Snape did much better in Slytherin, from what Sirius could tell.

Sirius stubbornly thought to himself that really everyone's suffering was Snivellus's fault. If Snivellus had just accepted his apology on the train, they would all be friends and no one would have had a hard time, not even Sirius after he'd been sorted into Gryffindor.

The other person he would rather not see was Evan. He had tried to think of the olive-skinned boy as Rosier instead of as Evan, but even in the privacy of his own mind he had to admit to himself that he missed his friend and couldn't think of him so unfamiliarly. But if Evan was determined to abandon him at the drop of a hat--Sirius chuckled to himself at the literalism of that saying in his case, drawing a curious look from Peter, who was sitting beside him--then he was determined not to have anything to do with his friend.... Former friend.

Lunch was immediately after Potions, and after three straight hours of class everyone was more than happy to exchange the dungeons for the Great Hall, even the Slytherins. Sirius noted with grim satisfaction that Potter hadn't shown up for lunch. He allowed himself to relax and let his guard down, and he was just in the middle of laughing with his friends at a silly story of Mary's when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

He turned in his seat, halfway expecting it to be Potter or Lupin, but stopped short at the grinning face only a few inches above his own.

"Er... Hello, Janice."

"Hi!" She beamed at him. "Did Slughorn assign you the essay on when potions are better than spells?"

Actually the assignment was two feet on the pros and cons of using both potions and spells, including examples of when potions would be better and when spells would be better. The girl was in Ravenclaw, so surely she knew that.

Sirius decided to answer with a simple, "Yes."

Her wild curls bounced around her head as she nodded enthusiastically. "Brilliant! Do you want to work on it together?"

Sirius wasn't really accustomed to working with anyone on his written assignments. After he had given that advice to Mary and Emmeline, they had talked once or twice about ideas they had for some of their homework, but they had never actually gone to the library or worked on the assignments together. But, he reflected, Janice had been nice to him since that first day at Hogwarts, and spending more time with her would be a good way to prove even more to everyone that he didn't think he was better than everyone other than the Slytherins. Plus she was a smart girl (at least from what he had seen in their one class together and what he assumed from her house), and they worked well together as partners in Herbology.

"Sure, I guess," he ended up saying. "We can each find the books we want to use over the weekend then meet up before dinner on Monday."

A look of disappointment passed over her face, marring her pleased expression for just a moment before she smiled at him again.

"Oh, okay, that sounds fine. We can meet outside the library right after class."

Sirius agreed and she turned to make the brief journey back up the Ravenclaw table to where a group of first and second-year girls sat giggling and apparently watching them. Sirius turned back to his own friends, and his slight confusion must have shown on his face, because Emmeline and Mary exchanged a look and promptly burst into their own fit of giggles.

Peter looked between them in just as much bafflement as Sirius. "What's funny?" he demanded.

But that just increased the girls' laughter even more.

Sirius was torn between being very angry that they were apparently laughing at him and just putting the entire thing out of his mind.

"Girls!" Peter said, his tone conveying just how barmy he thought they were. He turned towards Sirius and rolled his eyes, and Sirius decided that he concurred.

He turned to face Peter more fully, intent on ignoring the girls, and said, "Do you want to spend this afternoon down by the lake? I was hoping we could catch a glimpse of the Giant Squid before it gets too cold out."

His friend agreed enthusiastically with his plan. Sirius did his best to ignore the fact that he had expressed his agreement while his mouth was full of carrots.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following Monday in Herbology, Janice seemed even more excitable than usual. Sirius had considered changing their seating arrangements now that he and Peter were friends (The poor guy was still stuck sitting next to Evans.), but he hadn't wanted to offend Janice. If nothing else, she had been friendly with him all along, and she hadn't really done anything wrong.

When Sirius met her in front of the library later that afternoon, she grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the back corner of the cavernous room. It was the Muggle Studies section from what he could tell by the titles on the shelves, and he questioned aloud why they didn't just sit in the Potions section.

"Don't be silly," replied Janice. "No one ever comes back here."

Sirius supposed that being alone did have its merits. They could talk freely without disturbing anyone else in the library, and no one else would disturb them. Plus they seemed to be out of the hearing range of Madam Pince.

"All right. Well, did you find any good books?"

He moved to sit at the lone table between the stacks, tossing his book bag on top of it as he went. He missed the look of exasperation that crossed over the girl's face. By the time she joined him at the table, he had already pulled out all of the books he had found to help with their essays.

The rest of their afternoon in the library was uneventful. They made what Sirius considered an inadequate amount of headway on their essays. Janice seemed totally distracted and like she was doing her best to distract him in turn. Sirius had asked her several times if she was feeling okay or if she would rather work on their homework another time, but she had denied that anything was wrong and had refused to leave the library.

Sirius looked at the parchment of notes he had managed to make despite the unproductiveness of their study session. "We should probably try to find some books on healing," he thought aloud. "All of the other information we have is fine, but our essays would be stronger if we had specific examples of when healing potions work more effectively than healing spells that do the same thing."

Janice sighed, and Sirius turned towards her, his annoyance finally breaking through. Whatever he had been about to say was abruptly cut off when Andromeda strolled into the aisle containing their table.

"Sirius!" She looked just as surprised as he felt. "What are you doing here?"

Sirius thought it was pretty obvious. "We're working on an essay. What are you doing here?"

She didn't have a book bag or any papers with her, so he didn't think she could be working on homework like Janice and he were. She was silent for several long moments, staring between him and his companion with a skeptical look on her face. Finally, she offered him a forced smile.

"The same," she said. Sirius briefly thought of asking why she didn't have any of her materials with her if that was true, but before he could, she continued, "Bella sent me an owl yesterday. She said that your grandfather is very angry at all of us."

Sirius didn't know what to say. He didn't want to assume that she felt bad about the way she had avoided him, and anyway he wasn't sure that he wanted to forgive that easily even if she did. So he stayed silent and stared at her. He was aware of Janice looking apprehensively between the two of them.

"Look, Sirius, I'm really sorry about--"

"Andy!" She was cut off by a male voice, and soon enough Sirius could see the source coming around the corner of the stacks.

It was an older boy with sandy blond hair. Sirius could see that he was about the same height as Andromeda, when he stopped next to her. He had a broad smile on his face, though he seemed to Sirius to be a jovial type of person in general, one who probably wouldn't frown too often.

An expression that Sirius couldn't quite read flitted across his cousin's face. "We'd better find another table," she said to the boy. She turned back to Sirius and said, "I'll talk to you later, Siri."

The tone of her voice made the statement seem almost like a question. Sirius studied her face for a moment and took in the earnest expression. Finally, he gave a brief nod.

"You don't have to leave," he declared, actually quite relieved at the excuse she had unwittingly offered him. "We've done as much as we can for now anyway."

Janice looked like she might argue, but Sirius had already started packing his things back into his bag, so she didn't really have any choice except to follow his lead. Andromeda gave him a little smile as he passed by her on his way out of the stacks, and he returned it halfheartedly. He hadn't forgiven her yet just because she had been nice to him once, when she hadn't even sought him out on purpose.

Janice was uncharacteristically silent as they walked side by side out of the library, and when they reached the point where they had to separate, Sirius felt that he should say something.

"I'm sorry my cousin interrupted us," he said, though he wasn't really sorry at all, "but at least we made good progress." He didn't really believe they'd made as much progress together as he could have made alone, but he thought he would be nice to her.

"Yeah, I guess." She didn't seem like she really thought so at all, and Sirius was extremely confused. She had asked him to work on their essays together, but then she had been distracted the entire time and had hindered his progress. Now she was the one acting as if she was disappointed?

Girls, he thought to himself. They make no sense!

Maybe if he actually did talk to Andromeda again, he would ask her about it. Although he had never been particularly close to her, not as close as he had been to Bellatrix. Maybe if Andy was talking to him, then Bella wouldn't mind talking to him either, and he could ask her about it over the Christmas holiday.

Sirius decided not to spend too much time worrying about it for the moment. He silently took Janice's bag off his shoulder and extended his arm out for her to take it back. He must have done something right, because suddenly her wide grin was back.

"Thank you, Sirius," she said. Then she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, and before he could react she had disappeared through the door that he could only assume led in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower.

Girls! Sirius thought again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next few weeks passed by relatively peacefully. Of course Sirius had found that having friends meant that he had social obligations, and having social obligations meant that his life was a lot more hectic than it had been during his first few weeks of school. He was no longer far ahead in his schoolwork. There simply wasn't a lot of time to get things done when he was constantly playing wizard chess with Mary, listening to Quidditch games on the Wizarding Wireless Network with Peter and Emmeline, and studying with Janice. Well, if what he and Janice did could actually be called studying, which Sirius was quite sure it couldn't since they were never as productive as if he had been by himself.

Unfortunately, Potter, Evans, and Snivellus were still students at Hogwarts, and that meant Sirius's life was not entirely peaceful. Although Evans mostly avoided him and the worst he could expect from her was nasty looks, her little boyfriend had taken a liking to insulting Sirius whenever he could. Sirius was still not entirely used to being an object of scorn to anyone. His entire life he had been respected by nearly everyone he met, which he supposed had something to do with only willingly associating with other pure-bloods.

The altercations with Snivellus were particularly frustrating to him, because he couldn't say most of what he wanted to say in return. He couldn't exactly call the other boy out on his blood status or his obvious poverty, because statements like that would upset his new friends.

This whole making friends with the Gryffindors thing was harder than he'd thought it would be.

Potter, though, was on another level entirely. Ever since the humiliation over breakfast several weeks ago, he had been on the warpath. Sirius could admit, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that antagonizing Potter in front of the whole house had been a bit shortsighted on his part. He supposed this really made him a rash Gryffindor after all.

It had started a few days after the Breakfast Incident, as the girls had started calling it. Potter had hit him with a tripping jinx as they were all walking in the large crowd heading to the Gryffindor and Slytherin Quidditch match. He had fallen face-first into the slushy mixture of snow and mud that had been trampled by hundreds of feet, and nearly everyone around him had laughed. Sirius had retaliated by using the rest of his itching powder on every piece of fabric Potter owned. They had gone back and forth for weeks now. But the tipping point for Sirius didn't come until the beginning of November.

He had just spent another frustrating hour with Janice in the library, though perhaps a bit more productive than usual since she was actually having trouble in Transfigurations and sincerely wanted his help. Transfigurations was by far his best and favorite class. Still, when they had separated to go to their common rooms, she had seemed to be just as frustrated with him as she usually was, and he had yet to figure out the reason. He was still pondering what the problem might be as he gave the password to the Fat Lady, and he had decided that maybe he should ask Emmeline and Mary since they were girls.

He wasn't even thinking about Potter when he entered the common room, but when he walked by the area where Potter and his friends were sitting they all laughed loud enough to catch his attention.

"Black! Just who we've been waiting for!" Potter cried. He leapt from his seat and approached, and Sirius watched warily.

"Really?" he asked, allowing a tone of boredom to seep into voice.

Potter stopped a few feet from him, Lupin following behind him, and gave him a grin that set Sirius immediately on edge. "We were just admiring your jewelry," the other boy informed him.

Sirius was confused for moment and was sure that Potter was just trying to set him up for something stupid. He was determined not to fall for anything, so he was sure to keep the disinterested mask on his face. Then Potter held up his hand and Sirius saw what he was holding. Hot, blinding rage bubbled up inside of him, and he knew that it showed on his face because Lupin took a step back and shot a worried glance at his friend.

"Give it back," he growled.

Potter paused for a moment, perhaps because of the look on Sirius's face or the tone of his voice, but he quickly recovered. "I don't think so," he said. "No Gryffindor should have it anyway!"

"Give it back!" Sirius repeated, his voice rising this time.

They were drawing an audience now. People all over the common room were abandoning their own pursuits to see what was happening between the two first years, and Sirius's friends were moving across the room to join him.

"You put on a good show, but if you were a real Gryffindor you wouldn't want this," Potter insisted. "Prove that you aren't a Dark wizard! Throw this piece of trash into the fire!"

Sirius's fury bubbled over, and he couldn't contain it anymore. "IT DOESN'T PROVE ANYTHING!" he roared. "IT'S JUST A TIEPIN!"

"IT'S SLYTHERIN!" Potter yelled back. "IT'S PROBABLY GOT ALL KINDS OF CURSES ON IT!"

"IT WAS A GIFT FROM MY GRANDFATHER!"

Potter's face was red now, but Sirius knew that his own was probably stark white, drained of any color.

"James," came a voice from somewhere nearby, "just give it back!"

Potter gestured towards the fireplace, and Sirius leapt forward out of instinct to stop him from throwing the silver tiepin into the flames. His hand collided with Potter's arm, and Potter's other arm came up between them to shove him away. Sirius's fist had collided with the other boy's face before he even realized that he'd moved his other arm. They struggled for several more seconds until James landed a blow on Sirius's nose. He heard a crunching sound and felt hot blood spurt down his face, but he was too enraged to feel the pain.

He staggered back a step and whipped out his wand, the square handle feeling perfectly at home in his hand. The wood seemed to hum in anticipation for what Sirius would do to their enemy.

Potter thrust the tiepin towards Lupin so he could take out his own wand. Sirius watched almost as if he was outside of himself as Lupin let out a yelp and the silver serpent fell to the floor at his feet.

There was a horrible sound as it collided with the stone. It probably wasn't noticeable or significant to anyone else, but to Sirius the sound reverberated in his head as if someone was playing drums in his ears.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" he screamed.

Potter flew backwards into Lupin, and the two of them stumbled and fell. Sirius was too intent on his tiepin to either notice how powerful his spell had been or to pay attention to what happened afterwards. Potter's wand flew into the wall behind where Sirius had been standing and clattered to the ground, as Sirius was already moving forward even before the spell had fully left his mouth and hadn't even tried to catch it.

He knelt next to the small snake and felt relief course through his body as he scooped it into his hand. His fury at Potter's theft of the tiepin and his relief at having it back were not necessarily tied up in the trinket itself. It wasn't the most expensive thing he owned. Indeed, Sirius was sure that his family ring was worth many times more. The value to him was emotional; the tiepin was the last thing he'd received before his entire world had turned on its axis, and it was likely the very last thing he would ever receive that would make him feel like he was really the same as the long line of Blacks before him. He was too different now, and his perception of how his family was viewed and how his family viewed him was so altered that he would never feel entirely at peace with himself again, not like he had that morning before his sorting.

His relief was short-lived, for when he turned the serpent over in his hand he realized that it was no longer whole. The emerald eye was gone, no doubt knocked loose by its impact with the stone floor. Sirius stared in disbelief for several long seconds before he fully registered the empty space where the gem used to be. He looked around frantically for a moment, but of course he knew that the chances were almost zero of finding the small emerald among all the crevices of the stonework and the feet of the crowd.

Tears welled up behind his eyes, but Sirius immediately stamped down the urge to cry. There was still pandemonium all around him, and he barely had time to compose his expression before he felt hands on his arm pulling him back to his feet.

"Come on, Black," said the Head Boy. His voice was kind, and Sirius focused on that like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

They were led to the hospital wing, where Sirius was directed to a bed so Madam Pomfrey could heal his broken nose. His entire world had narrowed down to the kind boy, who was now sitting next to him on the bed, and the empty eye socket of his serpent, so he didn't hear what kind of damage he'd caused to Potter.

Soon enough, Professor McGonagall swept into the infirmary, her usually stern face set into even grimmer lines than ever, and Sirius couldn't stay in his own small world anymore.

"Never in my time here," she began, her nostrils flaring in anger, "have I ever witnessed anything as disgraceful as this! Two Gryffindors--two classmates!--dueling in the middle of our common room!"

Sirius had been in trouble with his parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles enough times in his life to know that anything he said now would just make things worse. It was best, in situations like this, to just let the professor rant herself out before he tried to speak up for himself or apologize.

Apparently Potter had never learned that lesson. He looked up at the professor with large, innocent eyes and began, "But Professor--"

"Mr. Potter!" Professor McGonagall spoke over him, just as Sirius had known she would. "Don't take that innocent tone with me! I expected better from you of all people!"

The way she emphasized her formerly good opinion of Potter grated on Sirius's already-frayed nerves in entirely the wrong way. He couldn't help himself. He sneered and asked, "Oh, so you didn't expect better of me, did you? Because I should have been in Slytherin or just because I'm a Black?"

He knew that he had made a mistake as soon as the words had left his mouth. If he hadn't already known it himself, the way that the Head Boy rose from the bed as if to put distance between himself and Sirius and the way that their professor was staring at him in open astonishment would have clued him in. But he refused to back down now, and whether it was more out of the vestiges of his anger or out of his ever-present pride, he maintained his angry sneer at the professor.

Her voice was carefully controlled when she spoke. "Mr. Black, you are adding disrespect to your already long list of crimes this evening. Instigating a duel--"

"Instigating?" Sirius interrupted incredulously. "I never would have looked at him twice if he hadn't started it!"

"I did not! He cursed me for no reason!" Potter cried.

Sirius turned on him, gray eyes flashing black. "I didn't curse you, you tosser! You're nothing more than a common thief and a liar!"

"QUIET!" yelled Professor McGonagall. The two boys glared menacingly at each other but remained silent. After a few heartbeats, the professor turned to the seventh-year and asked, "Can you shed some light on what happened, Shacklebolt? Apparently Mr. Abercrombie didn't give me the full story."

Shacklebolt shook his head. "I'm not surprised, Professor. He only came downstairs from the dorms in time to catch the end of it. I just thought I had better escort them to the hospital wing myself, and he was the only other prefect in the common room I could send to you." McGonagall nodded her understanding, and her senior-most prefect continued, "It's true that Black landed the first blow, but from what I heard, Potter had stolen something of his and was threatening to throw it into the fire."

Potter protested at that, and Professor McGonagall was forced to cut him off again. After several more starts and stops and after she had heard from Kingsley, Sirius, and Potter, everyone was more or less satisfied that McGonagall had his side of the story.

Her face was still set into a frown when she made her pronouncement. "Mr. Potter, taking another student's possessions without permission is never allowed. I don't care what you thought about it," she preempted him as she saw his mouth open to protest. "If you thought Mr. Black's tiepin was dangerous, you should have come to me immediately and not taken the situation upon yourself. You will have detention for the next two Tuesday nights, and perhaps I can come to understand why you think so poorly of your classmate."

Potter looked like he might argue again, but at a stern look from the professor, he let out a miserable, "Yes, Professor."

"Mr. Black, it is never acceptable to instigate physical blows with another student, either through fisticuffs or magic. It does not matter what he's done. Therefore, you will serve detention on the next three Thursday nights."

Sirius's mouth dropped open in pure shock at the unfairness of it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Potter grin triumphantly. No doubt he thought his own two detentions were well worth it in order to get Sirius in even more trouble than himself.

"Furthermore," continued Professor McGonagall, either not noticing or pretending not to notice their reactions, "I am appalled at the complete lack of respect with which you treated me earlier. You will serve a fourth Thursday night detention for that."

Again, he simply couldn't help himself. "I wonder if you would care a bit more if one of Potter's family heirlooms was completely ruined!" His voice cracked on the last word.

"MR. BLACK! You have earned yourself another detention!"

"I DON'T CARE!" Sirius yelled, all of the emotions pouring out of him now. "JUST GO AHEAD AND EXPEL ME! AT LEAST THEN NO ONE COULD ATTACK ME AND MY FAMILY AND GET AWAY WITH IT!"

Shacklebolt and Potter were watching the scene unfold with looks of wide-eyed disbelief. Professor McGonagall's lips were pursed into a thin, white line. There was absolute silence for several long moments.

Then Professor McGonagall spoke, her voice measured, "You will spend your Thursday nights with me for the rest of the year, Mr. Black. Now, all of you, go back to Gryffindor Tower immediately."

She spun on her heel and marched out of the infirmary, obviously leaving Kingsley to make sure that the two younger boys got back to their common room without killing each other.

The walk was accomplished without another word from any of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It seemed like everyone was still talking about the fight in the common room weeks later. The details had been embellished so many times through the retellings that most of the students who hadn't witnessed it for themselves, and even some who had, seemed to think that there had been a massive duel that had nearly destroyed the Gryffindor common room. Whether someone believed that Potter had soundly defeated Sirius and that Madam Pomfrey had to spend all night healing his face, or whether someone believed that Sirius had single-handedly blown both Potter and Lupin across the tower, depended entirely on whose side the person was on.

Sirius had still been debating whether or not he should tell his parents about the tiepin when the choice had been virtually removed from his hands by the arrival of his father's massive black owl.

What in Merlin's name are you doing at that school! the letter had begun, without any greeting. I came home from abroad only for your mother to present me with a letter from school informing us that you have detention until the end of the year for fighting and disrespectful behavior! You had better write back immediately and tell us exactly what happened. You're lucky your mother is too embarrassed to have sent you a Howler immediately. Love, Father.

Sirius had spent quite a long time wondering whether his father really still loved him or if he had just written that out of habit. His mother still hadn't written him directly.

He had taken the opportunity to write a long letter to his father outlining everything that happened that term, finally ending with the confrontation in the hospital wing. He had added a few lines asking his father to please have the tiepin repaired if he could and had put the snake into the envelope to send along with the letter. Aquilina had been given very specific instructions to wait to deliver the letter until his father was alone, just to make sure that his mother didn't throw it into the fire without reading it like she had done to Snape's mum's letters. Sirius wasn't entirely sure that she would do that with his letters, but he hadn't wanted to take the chance since she was so angry about the detentions on top of his sorting.

He had already served most of his detentions with McGonagall, and although at first he and the professor had been tiptoeing around each other both in class and in his detentions, now he didn't mind going so much. Well, except for the fact that Potter had long since finished his own detentions, and that still tore at Sirius so much that he could barely resist taking out his wand and cursing the other boy whenever he saw him. Other than that, he didn't mind the detentions so much anymore, because sometimes he got to perform Transfigurations tasks, and sometimes he got to watch Professor McGonagall do more advanced work.

Currently he was watching her untransfigure slippers back into rabbits.

"Professor," he ventured to ask, "is it easier to untransfigure something than to transfigure it?"

She looked over at him sternly for a moment, but then seemed to decide that there was no harm in discussing it with him instead of insisting that he continue writing his lines.

"It is easier for most people. It isn't as complex as transfiguring something in the first place, but it isn't nearly as easy as removing the effects of a charm or a jinx," she answered. "You are not transfiguring the object again so that it is in the same general form in which it started. Rather you are removing the effects of the transfiguration so that the object is exactly the same as it was when you began."

"So you don't want a rabbit transfigured into a slipper transfigured into another rabbit. You want the original rabbit back," Sirius confirmed.

"Yes, Mr. Black. Exactly."

Sirius eagerly leaned forward in his seat. "And some people have trouble imagining that they're undoing the transfiguration instead of accidentally imagining that they're just transfiguring it into another rabbit?"

A pleased looked crossed over the professor's face, and her voice was full of enthusiasm when she spoke next. "Were you taught to conceptualize the transfigurations?" Sirius's wariness must have shown on his face, because she made a dismissive gesture and said, "I am not asking to get you into trouble, Mr. Black. I know very well that many wizarding families begin teaching their children before they're old enough for Hogwarts. I just wonder if you chose those words by accident or if you are actually conceptualizing the process."

"I think about what would have to happen to the object for it to turn into what I want it to," replied Sirius, deciding to answer in such a way that he didn't actually admit that anyone had taught him to do that.

"That's very impressive in one so young," said Professor McGonagall. "Most wizards have trouble with Transfiguration because they are only willing the object to look like what they want it to, not thinking through the process the object would have to go through in order to change more fundamentally."

That made sense to Sirius on one level, but he remembered that the professor had told the class on the very first day that they had to think through the process. They would have to imagine that their matches were becoming thinner and pointier, and transforming from wood into metal, in order for their transfigurations from matches to needles to work. He reminded her of this, and then asked, "Since you told us we had to do that, shouldn't everyone know?"

"The problem, Mr. Black, is that they are just thinking about their matches changing from looking like wood to looking like metal," she answered. "They are not really thinking about the more fundamental process of changing the wood into metal."

She watched him process this information without saying another word, though she was staring at him as if she expected him to say something. Sirius recognized the look from his father and grandfather. Finally, after spending several seconds thinking through what she had said, he thought that he understood what she was trying to make him understand.

"If you only think about the things you can see and not the deeper things that you can't see, you'll only manage a--" he searched for a word for a moment "--a surface transformation, not a complete transformation."

Professor McGonagall offered him the first smile he had ever seen on her face. He wasn't sure whether or not it was an improvement over her usually pursed features.

"You can't teach people how to think about the underlying changes, no matter how many times you tell them they must. It is something one either grasps naturally or does not. Now why don't you come over here and see if you can untransfigure these. I see no reason for me to do it as long as I have a perfectly good student in detention."

It turned out that Sirius was pretty good at untransfiguring slippers back into rabbits, after he got the hang of it. He'd had a few unsuccessful attempts, but McGonagall had shown him the kind of patience that a teacher only shows to students she knows will completely get it. And get it sooner rather than later.

He was in a very good mood when he finally got back to the Gryffindor common room, and even Potter and Lupin's presence in their dormitory couldn't dampen his spirits. He ignored them completely and went to sit on the edge of his bed facing Peter, who was sitting in the middle of his. The other boy had one book propped open in his lap and another one closed on the bed beside him so that it could function as a makeshift writing desk. He had a streak of black ink up one side of his face and through his fair hair.

"Having some trouble?" Sirius inquired.

Peter glanced up in momentary surprise, obviously having been so caught up in his essay that he hadn't noticed his friend had returned until Sirius had spoken to him. Then he shrugged, tossed his quill to the side, and flopped down onto his back in the middle of the bed.

"Flitwick is killing me!" he spoke to his canopy. "I don't know why he thinks I'll get better at doing a charm if he makes me write a foot on it. I already know what it's supposed to do."

Sirius shrugged, though Peter couldn't see him. "He probably wants you to write about how it's supposed to work, not what it's supposed to do."

"What's the difference?" Peter cried to his canopy.

"Well, everyone knows that a Levitation Charm is supposed to make things levitate," Sirius said, thinking back to his conversation with Professor McGonagall and how it would apply to Charms, "but it's just as important to know how it makes things levitate."

Peter lifted himself onto his elbows and stared at Sirius in utter confusion.

"It works through magic, mate," he said as if he were explaining it to a Muggle.

Sirius laughed. He decided that trying to explain it to Peter using Charms, the other boy's absolute worst class, as an example was probably never going to work.

"Never mind," he told the blond. "I'm going to take a shower."

Sirius gathered his things and walked by James Potter without acknowledging him once.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note: The line about the buffalo comes from an excerpt of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 from Pottermore.