Balanced

James was woken up at around six in the morning by Michael Lestrange, who was awake and alive for no good reason. He must need around an hour to figure out how to get dressed, guessed James and realised, to his annoyance that he would be spending the next seven years being woken up by this idiot. Apparently, Michael had not woken any of the others because all else was quiet.

He abandoned all pretence of still sleeping and crawled out of his bed, scowling at everything that looked at him, these scowls, of course, were seen only by Michael, who seemed unfazed.

James pulled on yesterdays robes, which lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. After carefully searching through his trunk he found the pair of socks he was looking for: one was green and one was silver.

Michael was now lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling for no obvious reasons and James pulled a very Slytherin-ish sneer as he passed the boy. He would have made his parents proud, he was sure, he was even sneering like a Slytherin now.

The common room was almost completely empty, as no one in his or her right mind would be up at such an hour (James was pretty certain that Michael wasn't in his right mind). He wondered if he would be able to find his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, or if breakfast had even been served yet.

Slowly heading out of the common room and into the many corridors of Hogwarts, James wondered if this was the smartest thing he'd ever done. It seemed to him that heading off while having no idea of where to go was a very stupid Gryffindor-ish idea. He had the vague idea that he was heading in completely the wrong direction, but that didn't actually stop him. The corridors were still dark, even during the day, and he headed forward, getting more and more lost with each step. Maybe they would find his poor, starved body in the middle of a corridor one day after he had been walking around for weeks and found no traces of anything.

When he saw a staircase heading downwards, even further away from the Great Hall he decided he would make a note of where it was, and turn around and start again. He span around and found himself directly in front of an ugly, haggard looking man, with an evil glare, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

'What are you doing down here?' snarled the man, his face showing both dislike and distrust. James wondered if this was the time for using the commanding air of a spoiled Slytherin, or going for the innocent-baby-angel look.

'I saw you yesterday at the sorting ceremony,' snapped the man, in the same voice, 'you're a troublemaker if I ever saw one. And you'd better be careful when I'm around.'

'Good morning.' said James, brightly, deciding to throw the man completely off track, 'And who do I have the pleasure of addressing.' The man regarded him contemptuously for a moment before replying.

'I am Mr Filch, the school caretaker. Boys like you need to watch out, or I'll having you hanging from the dungeon ceiling by your toes.' James gulped slightly, before composing himself again quickly.

'I apologize if I was trespassing around here, but I was trying to find the Great Hall and I got lost.'

'You wandered awfully far,' replied Filch, 'Go back to your common room and wait for your little friends.' Filch went around him and headed down the staircase which James had come to.

James pulled a face at his retreating back and went in the other direction. Once he had found the entrance to the common room he continued past it and, after heading down a few confusing passages, managed to find a staircase going upwards. He found his way up three further floors before he found himself in the easily recognisable Entrance Hall, with its great, marble stairs. He slipped through the door to the Great Hall and headed to the Slytherin table.

There were quite a few students already in the hall, some were eating, others chatting with friends. A quick look around told James that neither Sirius, Remus, nor Peter were there; however, Severus Snape was sitting at the Slytherin table and James went to join him.

'Mornin' Sev,' he said brightly, 'did you sleep well?' Severus gave him a look obviously designed to scare him, it was pretty good actually, but James had had worse.

'Did you see what that idiot Michael Lestrange was doing?'

'When I left he was lying on the floor' said James, 'An interesting pastime, though not one of my favourites.'

'Where did you go then?'

'Well, I had a murder to commit, then I had to hide the body; and clean the corridor, which smelled of blood.' Severus gave him another look and grabbed a sheet of paper.

'Here's a timetable for you. Transfiguration first thing, we have to do it with all the houses.'

'Great!' said James, smiling slightly, 'I haven't spoken to Sirius, Remus and Peter yet, silly boys getting sorted into silly houses.' Severus sighed exasperatedly at the complete idiocy of the statement.

'Do you think they're still going to be friends with you after this?' he asked, 'No one but Slytherins like Slytherin, and I'm sure your little friends will be no exception.' James made a non-committed grunt at this and helped himself to some toast. 'You heard what your friend was like on the train, what's-his-name, the one with the black hair, because my family are Slytherins he told me to get lost. He'll do the same for you.'

'Sirius can't help it,' said James, but he had the sinking feeling that Severus may be right. He should have told the hat to put him in Gryffindor.

'Can't help what, being an idiot?'

'Oh, and I suppose you thought calling him a '"future Gryffindor" was a terrible insult?' Severus scowled and fell silent.

Julian Matarch soon arrived, closely followed by Michael Lestrange, who was ignoring the funny looks he got from both Severus and James.

'How was your night then?' asked Julian, 'Isn't the common room amazing?' James wondered if he should answer or not. He couldn't really be bothered.

'What were you expecting from the Slytherin common room?' Severus offered and James noticed a bit of a pink tinge in Julian's cheeks.

'Well I didn't know,' he said defensively, 'my mother was a Hufflepuff and my dad was a Gryffindor.' Severus gave him a look showing both contempt and amazement.

'Hufflepuff and Gryffindor?'

'Well, yeah, they thought I would be either one of them, they never imagined me being in Slytherin. I don't know what they'll think. I'm the first Slytherin in my family, though we are pure-blood,' his last remark was slightly defensive, as though he thought Severus would tell him to go to Hufflepuff. Severus nodded at the last statement, as though satisfied.

'Does it really matter?' asked James, hoping to start an argument and he received strange looks from the other three. He decided this was good progress.

'Of course it matters,' said Severus, as though talking to a three year old, 'have you no Slytherin pride?' James laughed.

'Why does it matter?'

'Because they're corrupting our blood, wizards should keep themselves secret from Muggles and all these Mudbloods mean more Muggles are finding out about us.'

'So?' said James, 'they can't help being magical, they need to be taught.' Severus shared a knowing glance with the others, as though James would come around eventually.

*

On finishing breakfast, James headed to the Transfiguration classroom as quickly as possible, he wanted to get there before th other Slytherins so he could talk to Sirius and the others. All three of them had arrived at breakfast at the same time, laughing at something and none of them had glanced at James. He couldn't help feeling left out, especially when he noticed that they waited for each other to finish, but not him.

Outside of the classroom, all three were talking quietly to each other, they were very early but they didn't seem to care. James headed over to them.

'Hi, you lot.' Sirius regarded him suspiciously, although nothing stopped him from being stupid.

'Welcome, Oh Slytherin,' he spoke in a serious, wise voice. 'What brings you into our midst? Are we not too unworthy to be your company?' It took James a few seconds to figure out what his friend was trying to say.

'Um, no,' Sirius gave a slow nod and moved aside slightly, making room for James. 'Er, Sirius, are you going to be talking like that a lot?' he asked.

'No, Oh Slytherin,' said Sirius, in the same voice. 'Now, tell me, what does the place of gathering for Slytherins look like?'

'He means your common room,' Peter informed James, 'he asked us exactly the same thing this morning.'

'Tell you what, Oh Gryffindor,' said James, 'I'll show you sometime, as long as you show me yours.'

'Please no, James,' begged Remus, 'don't copy him.'

'The great Slytherin does not copy the Gryffindor, Oh Ravenclaw.' Severus, Julian and Michael arrived shortly before Professor McGonagall. She ushered them inside the classroom. James, Sirius, Remus and Peter headed straight to the back of the classroom and sat together. Snape shot a disgusted look at James who smiled and waved in return. He was pleased that his friends had accepted him so quickly, he didn't know why he had worried: he'd known them for years; they wouldn't have just ignored him.

'Welcome to Transfiguration, before we start, I have a few things to get straight, there will be no messing around in a class like this...' James looked at her, in pretence attentiveness, while his mind slipped elsewhere. He glanced around the room, moving his head only slightly. The majority of the students were taking notes, although Sirius, sitting next to him, wasn't even pretending to listen.

'Mr Black, what was that I just said?' Sirius snapped out of his daydream

'You said we will be starting today with a match, trying to turn it into a needle, but we must remember to be careful when transfiguring a wood into a metal, which is not easy for a first lesson, and, even if we do not get it completely transfigured, which we can't expect, we should get shiny silvery wood.' James grinned at his friend; Sirius could easily rattle off what had just been said to him, even without listening, although ask him half an hour later and he would remember none of it.

'Very good, now, I suggest you copy this down,'

An hour later, McGonagall finally handed out matchsticks. She walked up and down the classroom, helping students who had trouble. James noticed most of them were looking over their notes again.

'Why do you need to re-read it?' he asked Remus, who was one of them, 'You only just wrote it, surely you can remember it.' Remus gave him a look that suggested that he had no idea about anything. James decided he had to get used to that sort of thing.

Sirius lit his match first with a wave of his wand, and stared at the fire calmly, until McGonagall turned around to face them. He then hastily blew it out and quickly transfigured it into a needle.

'I got it!' he yelled, for the whole class to hear, 'Look, I got a matchstick!' Of course, the attention of the whole room didn't stop him from jabbing everyone near him with his needle.

'Ow! Sirius! Stop it!' yelled Peter, who was on the other side of Sirius.

'You wimp,' muttered Sirius, but his eyes were on McGonagall who was approaching their table.

'Commendable as your Transfiguration is, Mr Black, for that unnecessary display of violence I shall take two points from Gryffindor.' She headed back the front of the classroom, to help a Hufflepuff who had somehow managed to knock their friend out with a strange cloud of smoke.

'Two points,' James muttered to Sirius, 'two measly points! That's pathetic, anyone could do better than that.'

'I wasn't trying. And I bet you can't do better, they're always nicer on the first day.' James grinned at his friend, a grin which was easily recognisable to those who knew him, and which often made them back away.

He transfigured his matchstick into a needle with a wave of his wand - easy really. Then he slipped a Dungbomb out of his pocket and showed it to Sirius.

'So simple,' said James, 'but it works every times,' Sirius nodded, agreeing with his friend. 'Now we select a target.'

'Severus Snape,' said Sirius, straight away, and James glanced at Severus, who was sitting three rows in front, concentrating on his matchstick, which wasn't even remotely shiny. McGonagall had, very unwisely, turned her back to them as she was now terrorizing a Ravenclaw.

James carefully aimed the Dungbomb at the back of his head - and threw. It flew on course and hit the target perfectly. A foul stench, with a bit if green fog for effect, exploded over the area and quickly spread throughout the room. Severus looked around with a yell, but James' arm was already down and all he saw was a row of four innocent faces. McGonagall also whipped around, but like Severus, she saw nothing.

With a wave of her wand she cleared the smell and headed up to the four of them, looking at each of their faces, trying to find the guilty one.

'Who's responsible for this?' she snapped.

''Twas the needle, oh Professor!' cried James in an overly dramatic voice.

'Five points from Slytherin,' said Professor McGonagall giving him the worst glare yet.

'In your face Gryffindor!' muttered James, triumphantly when McGonagall turned away. Sirius sniggered.

'Nope, it was worth it for that,' said Sirius grinning.

'Your reputation is scarred forever,' Remus told them quietly, 'You'll be blamed every single time something like this happens from now on.'

'Yeah,' said Peter, 'But we won't be,' he glanced at Remus, giving his own evil grin.

James avoided Severus after the lesson had finished. The four boys bolted out of the classroom the minute McGonagall said they could go. He had Potions then, with the Gryffindors; Peter had Defence Against the Dark Arts and Remus had History of Magic.

'See you later,' he called down the corridor, sprinting away from Severus who had just emerged from the Transfiguration classroom. Sirius followed him and the two jumped down several flights of steps before finding their way to the Potions Dungeon.

Professor Brauhum was short, fat and very jolly looking. He was humming softly at the front of the classroom, stirring a smoking cauldron, occasionally dropping other ingredients into it.

'He's the Head of Slytherin?' muttered Sirius incredulously, as the two boys plonked their stuff on a desk at the back. James had to agree, Brauhum looked very out of place in the dark, dank dungeon, with many suspicious-looking objects lining the walls in jars. He smiled vaguely at the boys and continued stirring. The rest of the class soon appeared through the door, Severus looked disdainfully at the friendly-looking head of Slytherin and he sat at the back, opposite James and Sirius, probably so he could keep an eye on them.

'Welcome to your first Potions lesson,' said Brauhum, surveying the class. 'Potions is one of the core areas of the Hogwarts curriculum so you'll be spending a lot of time down here with me.'

'Oh brother,' muttered Severus and James had to agree: Brauhum seemed very likeable, but just not a Slytherin.

'I'd trade him for McGonagall any day,' murmured Sirius.

'Then come to Slytherin,' offered James. 'You'll love it.'

'Quiet boys,' said Brauhum, and James and Sirius fell silent. 'It's nice to see that you're enthusiastic about this class, but save your talking until afterwards, OK?'

'Yes Professor, sorry Professor,' said Sirius, giving him his innocent face. James had the feeling that this didn't fool Brauhum.

'You will, of course, have read at least a bit of the books set for you, am I right in assuming this?' heads nodded around the classroom. 'Good, good, today we are just doing some simple exercises to make sure you all have a good technique.'

Brauhum then handed out some instruction sheets.

'Normally I won't give you a set of instructions, but these are for you to show me your cutting skills, and your eye for Potions making.'

'We're supposed to have an extra eye?' whispered Sirius.

'Not exactly Mr er...?' said Brauhum, hearing him.

'Black,' supplied Sirius. 'Sirius Black.'

'Mr Black, you just need to be able to tell certain things by looking, like whether it's at the right sort of temperature. Some people find this comes easily.'

Half an hour later, sitting in front of a cauldron containing boiling water and soggy, green, shredded roots, trying to decide if they had been cooked enough yet, James decided he obviously didn't have that extra eye when it came to Potions, or if he did, it needed glasses as badly as his other two did. Apparently Severus did: he'd finished ten minutes ago and Brauhum had proclaimed his to be 'perfect', he was now sitting back and making unhelpful remarks towards James.

Sirius was having even more trouble though; he was even worse as a cook than James was. It had taken him twenty minutes to get one single root cut up evenly, and he'd still had three more left to do. He'd given up then, and had practically torn up the remaining three and thrown them into his cauldron.

'Take that off the fire.' Brauhum told James, and James hurriedly pulled his cauldron off the fire, nearly spilling the contents: it was far heavier than it looked. Severus sniggered slightly and James just smiled at him good-naturedly: he didn't want to end up in a fight with Severus on only the first day.

At the end of the lesson, Brauhum surveyed the completed Potions. He awarded Severus two house points for his being perfect. One of the Gryffindors received the same for a good attempt.

Sirius was immensely proud of his. It was a brilliant purple when all the others in the room were green. Brauhum was not so pleased.

'Oh dear, I think you may have not cut carefully enough and I don't believe it was heated for long enough. And I think you may have put the woodlice in too soon. I suggest you try a bit harder in future.' Sirius nodded, trying the innocent face again. However, he slipped some of his potion into a small bottle, capped it carefully, a slipped it into his pocket.

'My best inventions come from screwing up Potions and Charms,' he told James, 'the purple smoke bomb I told you about was done my messing up a cough medicine my mum was teaching me to brew.

Brauhum dismissed them and they headed to the Great Hall for lunch.

'How come you're no good at Potions if you can make all this stuff?'

'What do you mean I'm no good at Potions?' demanded Sirius, 'I just don't have a third eye, that's all. Stupid Snape, with three eyes.' Sirius' face suddenly lit up and James could tell that he'd had an idea.

'What?'

'I'll tell you later,' he said, as they entered the Great Hall and he headed over to the Gryffindor table. James grinned slightly, waved at Remus, who was already there and went to sit with the Slytherins.

Severus Snape was not pleased.

'Have you got no sense of Slytherin pride? Throwing Dungbombs at classmates and losing points like that?' James just smiled sweetly.

'Of course I have Slytherin pride, I'm wearing green and silver socks.' The look he got off everyone who heard that remark was totally worth the complete stupidity of it all.

'You really are daft James,' said Julian, 'You think Muggle-borns are ok and you want to lose points for Slytherin.' Marian Wilkes came over.

'You certainly know how to cause a scene don't you James?'

'And why not? I can't let Sirius, the evil Gryffindor lose more points than me, can I?'

'Yes!' said everyone listening, at exactly the same time.

*

James was pleased to find that he had most of his lessons with one of his friends, he did Charms with the Hufflepuffs and Herbology with the Ravenclaws; he was only ever with just the Slytherins for History of Magic and Defence Against the Dark Arts.

He had History of Magic on Tuesday mornings and after one lesson he was bored out of his mind, the other Slytherins felt the same and they continued their debate on Slytherin pride and Muggle-borns. Professor Binns, the only ghost on the staff, didn't even notice.

Their first flying lesson was on Tuesday afternoon, the whole year was doing it. He and Remus headed to the area of grounds in which their lesson was held. The Gryffindors and the Hufflepuffs were already there.

''Tis a find day, Oh Slytherin,' said Sirius, by way of greeting.

'A fine day indeed,' confirmed James, peering down at the brooms set out for them. Shooting Stars were the cheapest brooms to date, and the school had decided these were the brooms on which to teach their first years. They were all old, a few of them were vibrating already and one jumped every time someone came within five feet of it. James eyed the one he was standing by with the proper Slytherin disdain, true, it was perfectly still, unlike Remus', but its twigs were sticking out at odd angles and it didn't look at all comfortable.

'Quiet!' snapped Madam Hooch, their teacher, who had suddenly appeared. She looked rather crazy, with orange hair that was going silver and penetrating yellow eyes. 'Stand by your brooms and hold your right hand over them.' James stuck his right hand out and peered down at the broom, it had jumped about a foot in the air. He kicked it. It fell to the ground.

'Stop mistreating your broom!' snapped Madam Hooch, 'These brooms are delicate and sensitive pieces of equipment.' James could have sworn that if his broom had had a face, it would have looked smug. He scowled at it.

'Second sign of madness Jamesy: pulling faces at a broomstick,' muttered Sirius.

'Don't call Jamesy!'

'I said quiet!' snapped Madam Hooch, before Sirius could reply, 'Everyone call "up" and your broom should fly upwards to your hand.'

'UP!' called James, and the thing leapt into his hand - easy really. Sirius' broom slowly floated upwards, and Sirius scowled at the speed. However, Remus' went up to enthusiastically and nearly took his hand off. He glanced around at the others, Peter, Marian and a Ravenclaw he didn't know were the only others to have found it as easy as he did. Most of them were still on the ground, but a few, like Sirius' had floated slowly upwards.

'Stupid, good-for-nothing broomstick,' said Sirius, darkly, a furious look on his face.

James had fun that lesson, Sirius' broom didn't seem to care that Madam Hooch had said no loops, and Remus' didn't seem to have a speed limit. He and Peter did OK though, as well as a few others. Sirius, despite having trouble himself, still managed to annoy Severus as much as he could, by diving at him, but, by the end of the lesson, he was looking very sick.

'Good, good,' said Madam Hooch, 'we have some good potential here, possibly some team members.' Her gaze flicked over to James, then Peter, then Marian and a couple of others as she said this.

'I'll try not to call you Jamesy again then, Jamesy,' said Sirius, deciding to finish the argument.

'Shut it you, or I'll have you brutally skewered and fed to the Hufflepuffs for breakfast tomorrow.'

'Hey!' protested Peter, 'Why us?'

'Why not?'

~*~

A/N:

Customary thanks to everyone and everything that helped create this fic.

Yes, I know James and Sirius seem to be Transfiguration prodigies, but they can't help it. And Sirius isn't that bad at Potions, he just likes to be. And James never wears socks the same colour if he can help it (more random information).

I also know that the classes aren't supposed to be together for all the subjects, but it's my fic so :P um... anyway.

And it's really not that difficult to click on the link saying "review", I'm sure even James could do it: despite being a Pure-blood living in a time with no computers.