Balanced

Everything seemed silent.

The students and teachers talked in near-whispers to one another. Everyone was afraid to do anything. Hogwarts was safe, but Hogsmeade was not. Everyone was careful when they spoke to friends of those dead, of which there were far too many. It had been the first big fight and it had terrified everyone. The "true" story was published in the Daily Prophet the next day and all it did was give statistics. Twelve Hogwarts students were dead. Others were injured, some badly. The Hospital Wing was completely full. No one was left unaffected.

No one seemed at all confident that Hogwarts was safe. After all, Dumbledore must have thought Hogsmeade was too.

The Hospital Wing began to empty slowly, though Peter and Sirius remained as they had been affected worse than many. James and Remus spent every spare minute in there, chatting about lessons, and homework, and pretending all was normal. Peter was quieter than usual, but Sirius acted no different. He was all smiles, and avoided the topic of the attack altogether.

*

'Mum! Get off!' yelled Sirius. James and Remus had come to visit to find Mrs Black and Mrs Pettigrew there too. Peter's mum was quietly talking to her son, rather than attempting to smother him, as Mrs Black was doing.

'Hello, James,' said Mrs Black, 'it's nice to see you again.' She then turned back to Sirius. 'If you ever go near any Death Eaters again then I will kill you! Do you understand? Hexing a Death Eater? What sort of ridiculous-?'

'If I ever go near any Death Eaters again you probably won't need to,' said Sirius grumpily; he was obviously in a bad mood, which might have been due to his mother's arrival, but more likely to being stuck in the Hospital Wing for so long. Peter leant across and whacked his friend.

'Shut up, Sirius!' he snapped. 'You might not care, but nobody else in here wants to hear that sort of crap.' Peter's mother didn't look too pleased at his language. Sirius just scowled and glared at Peter.

Madam Pomfrey came in to check on the boys and she didn't look very happy at all the visitors. Peter's arm was completely healed, apart from a reddish area of skin. Madam Pomfrey told him he could leave when he'd got changed back into his robes. Sirius demanded to be allowed to leave too.

'I've never seen you so eager to get back to school,' she remarked. 'You can stay for another day.'

'But I don't want to!' moaned Sirius. James wondered how on earth Sirius could call him a spoiled brat.

'You be quiet,' his mother told him. 'You're staying whether you like it or not.' Sirius scowled and pulled the covers over his head.

'Go away!' he whined. 'I'm ill and I need my sleep.'

*

Sirius returned the next day, towards the end of Potions.

'There's no time to start your own potion, Mr Black,' said Brauhum. 'You may sit with a friend and help them.' Sirius nodded and dropped his things on James' table.

'Don't touch my potion,' James warned. 'I'm mean it: this one has worked well.'

'Why didn't you tell me?' James looked at his friend, confused.

'Tell you what?'

'The attack...'

'You were there, not me; you saw it happen.' Not to mention the fact that any attempt by James to talk about what happened to Sirius had been met with an obvious change of subject.

'Not that. I didn't realize how many people were killed. One of the boys in my dorm, Bradley, he got killed. I didn't know.' James turned to Sirius who seemed genuinely upset.

'It was the worst attack yet,' he said, quietly. 'Dumbledore said. He also told the school Voldemort's name.'

'Don't you care?' Sirius muttered. 'They're dead! Loads of people! Loads more got cursed.'

'Of course I care,' James hissed, 'but I don't want to think about it! OK? It's bad enough that the whole school's in tears, I want to forget about it all.' Sirius glared at him.

'Bradley might not have been my best friend, but he's still dead, and he's not coming back. I don't want to forget this, the people who were killed deserve to be remembered.' James got back to his potion, leaving Sirius to his memories. It wasn't that he didn't want to remember anything about his life, but he just didn't want to mope over deaths. He'd spent many weeks grieving over his parents, until he'd finally given up: it had been a waste.

He did miss his parents, even then, but they were dead, they weren't coming back. All the same, something about Sirius' distress made him feel a bit guilty. He was upset over what happened, though, he had no idea how he would have coped had Sirius or Peter been killed. The fact that they'd been alive had relieved him so much he hadn't been so upset about those who had died. It sounded horrible, but he couldn't help it. And he didn't want to be guilt tripped into getting all depressed.

*

'Do you spend your entire life in the Gryffindor common room?' asked James, irritably. He had finally tracked down Amy Nichols. 'All I wanted to do was to say thanks for distracting McGonagall, did you get in trouble?'

'No, don't worry, why would she suspect me? All I did was ask her what was going on, it was a reasonable question because I didn't go to Hogsmeade.'

'What did she say?'

'Oh, she made up some rubbish, didn't actually answer the question and told me everything would be fine. Do you know much? Nobody will tell me what happened.'

'I didn't go, detention, but basically what they put in the Prophet was right. Nobody you knew was er... killed, were they?' She shook her head.

'My brother's friend was injured, but he's all right, fortunately. I didn't know him that well, though. You wouldn't happen to know anything about Swelling Solutions would you?'

'Er... they make things get bigger.'

'Ah, I can see you're quite the expert then: nothing else at all? Do you remember anything you did in your second year?'

'Dungbombed various people,' said James, pleasantly. Amy rolled her eyes, exasperatedly.

*

Their exams would be taking place after Easter so the teachers were cramming revision down their throats. In a way, James didn't mind. The work provided a distraction for him, and everyone else. Gradually, the school was settling down again into the regular pattern he was used to. People were still worried: some parents insisted their children spend Easter at home, so Hogwarts was emptier than usual. James didn't understand their logic, as Hogwarts was probably the safest place in the country.

For James' birthday, the other three put a charm on the Slytherin banner in the Great Hall so it read "Happy Birthday James Potter" in huge writing and the song "Happy Birthday" played continuously. James was not impressed, and neither were the rest of the Slytherins.

'Can't you do something about them?' asked Severus, annoyed.

'What am I? Their owner? They do what they want and I can't stop it.'

'I'll curse them,' he threatened.

'Juvenile, Sev, you do that, they'd only tell.' Severus scowled and turned away; it was all right for him, he didn't have friends who tried to embarrass him as much as possible.

After breakfast James headed up to the library to get a book on different animals; he still had no idea what his Animagus form would be. The other three came up eventually; Sirius and Remus arrived first, arguing over an issue of Martin Miggs the Mad Muggle, and were soon followed by Peter, with his Transfiguration revision.

'You know,' said James, looking up at the other three and glaring, 'I've just about had it with you lot. You never grow up. All you do is mess around. You seem to enjoy just acting like idiots. Is this friendship really going anywhere?' The other three gave James very confused looks. 'There are plenty of people in my house who I could be friends with who wouldn't be such idiots.' They were looked suitably worried now.

'James, what the hell are you talking about?' asked Sirius.

'You heard me,' he replied. 'You don't even remember when my birthday is, you idiots.'

'What?' said Remus, incredulously. 'Your birthday is today... isn't it?'

'Yes, of course it is. Today is also April Fools day, you fools.' The other three exchanged glances and all three whacked James on the head, one after the other. 'Hey! Get off!' he yelled and the librarian called for them to shut up from across the library.

'James, I will kill you someday, did you know that?' said Sirius, although he was grinning slightly. 'Anyway, what do you think of the new Martin Miggs?'

'I haven't read it,' said James. Living with Muggles humour, although Sirius and Remus understood Muggle things and they still enjoyed it. 'Not my thing, waste of time, really. I have to do some very important revision involving whatever we did in Potions this year.' Sirius snorted: James was actually reading a picture book with loads of different animals in it; he'd found it in the small section of the library dedicated to Muggle things.

'That frog looks like you,' Sirius commented and James glanced at it thoughtfully.

'No, I don't think it's really me,' he replied. 'I'm thinking something slightly bigger.'

'Hmm... I suppose when you put it that way: the frog isn't ugly enough to be you, is it?' James hit him.

After the Easter holidays James had not only class work, homework and revision, but more Quidditch practice as well. In his opinion it simply wasn't fair for one individual to have so little free time. So he sacrificed revision. It didn't matter that much, he was going to pass anyway.

The Divination exam was probably the easiest James had ever sat; as Trelawney marked it, he simply predicted that the whole school would explode suddenly and everyone would die painfully, and then the entire population of Britain would die of a mysterious disease, and then the whole world would explode. He wondered if he'd gone too far, but Trelawney appeared to think this proved even more of his amazing skill as a Seer, predicting a good result for him. It was all James could do not to laugh aloud at the idiocy.

Remus came down from his exam fretting.

'I made it all up, she'll know I'm a fake,' he said and James suppressed a smile.

'Did you say you were going to die?' he asked. Remus nodded.

'It was the best I could think of,' he said, worriedly. 'I'm going to fail.'

'If you predicted your own death you won't get less than about ninety percent.'

'And you can see so far into the future as to find my test score can you?' he asked sarcastically.

'Well, according to my exam, everything will be gone by next week, so don't worry.' Remus muttered something under his breath. 'What was that?'

'Mum'll kill me if I fail Divination, it was one of her favourite subjects.'

'Well,' said James, slowly. 'Surely she should have killed you at birth after having foreseen that you would fail your Divination exam in third year?' Remus glared and hit James. 'You take Div was too seriously, Remus, the class was invented to give lazy arses like me an easy pass for a couple of years. It's not supposed to be accurate or anything. I've got Quidditch practice now anyway, I'd better go.'

'In exam week?' asked Remus, incredulously. James nodded, it didn't bother him much: beating Hufflepuff was far more important than his History of Magic and Charms exams. It was also a welcome break from work. Well, intending to think about considering work, anyway.

Callaway was obsessive: after losing to Ravenclaw he was working them as hard as he could. He called James a 'cocky bastard' more times than James cared to count and yelled at them if they were over twenty seconds late to practice. The team had learned to just accept it, although Quidditch practice during exam week had sparked fresh protests from most.

After the exams had finished they no longer had much work, so Callaway doubled the number of practices. James loved playing Quidditch, despite Callaway's yelling. It forced everything thought or concern right out of his mind.

On the day before the Quidditch game, Sirius did not turn up to Potions.

'Where's Sirius?' he hissed at the closest Gryffindor; a girl he had never spoken to before. She looked at him, annoyed; not only was she busy but she probably didn't trust James. It was an unfortunate affliction that came with being in Slytherin.

'He's in his dormitory, he had bad news from home,' she said, stiffly, and turned back to her work. James froze: it could be anything, right? It didn't have to be a murder. It couldn't be a murder. Were his parents all right?

'Mr Potter,' came Brauhum's voice. 'Could you get on with your work please?'

'Er... Professor,' he began, carefully. 'May I please be excused?' Brauhum looked at him suspiciously, but James kept his face innocent.

'Very well, Mr Potter, but hurry up.' James walked out of the room calmly, then sprinted up the corridor. He ran to the Gryffindor common room as fast as he could, hoping the password would be easy to guess. It took him ten minutes to get in. He wasn't completely sure where Sirius' dormitory was, but fortunately, it didn't take him long to find.

The hangings on Sirius' bed were drawn. James closed his eyes, thinking 'here goes nothing', and spoke to his friend.

'Sirius...?' he said, very uncertainly. The room was silent for a few seconds, then-

'Fuck off, James.' Sirius hadn't yelled, but he'd made it clear that was the end of the discussion.

'No,' said James, simply, walked over to his friend's bed, and drew back the hangings. Sirius was lying on his bed, holding a crumpled piece of parchment. 'What's up?' Sirius scowled.

'Get lost.' James ignored him and sat down on the bed. 'Can't you take a hint? Go away!'

'I am not skiving off Potions to be yelled at by you, now what the hell's the problem?' said James, angrily. 'You're my best friend and I hope I'm yours, but I'd hope you trust me enough to talk.' He said that more quietly, and rested a hand on his friend's arm. OK, so it was emotional blackmail, but it was true as well.

'My Aunt, Uncle and Cousin,' replied Sirius, not moving. 'They're dead. I don't believe it, James, dead.' James was quiet; he supposed it could have been worse, it could have been Sirius' parents; but he wasn't about to tell his friend that. They sat there, in silence, for a long time, neither of them moving; there was nothing more to be said. "Are you all right?" or "It'll be fine" were typical things to say in this sort of situation, but they were also pointless and pathetic when the answer was obvious.

The Head Boy (James had never bother to find out his name) entered so suddenly that both boys jumped. He looked at them both with distaste.

'What the hell are you two doing here? McGonagall wants to see you now, in her office, come with me.' James considered refusing, but decided not to test McGonagall's patience any further and got to his feet. Sirius refused to move, and James grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him up. 'Come on then, hurry up, I've got other things to do, you know.' The two followed him as slowly as possible, in James' case it was just to annoy him, but he suspected Sirius wasn't in the mood for walking fast.

McGonagall was sitting at her desk, looking murderous.

'You two missed your Potions lesson this morning. I have been informed that you' (she pointed to Sirius) 'didn't turn up and you left half way through and never returned. What have you got to say for yourself?'

'My Cousin, Aunt and Uncle have been fucking killed! That's what I've got to say for myself!' snapped Sirius and James instantly put a hand on his shoulder to warn him against doing anything else he would regret. McGonagall wasn't the sympathetic sort, especially in this mood.

McGonagall looked taken aback, she obviously hadn't been informed of this.

'Will you be leaving school to attend the funeral?' she asked in a softer tone than before. Sirius nodded. Well, there was a first for everything, she actually sounded nice.

'Tomorrow,' he said shortly.

'Very well, Mr Black, will you be returning to your classes today? Or do you wish to go back to your dormitory? You could, if you wanted, ask Madam Pomfrey for a bed in the Hospital Wing.' Sirius looked disbelieving.

'I dunno,' he said, quietly. 'I... I...' he broke off, unsure of what to say, or how far to push his luck. 'I'll go to the dormitory,' he said finally.

'If you're sure,' said McGonagall. 'You can go now.' Sirius glanced at James, knowing that James would probably not be allowed to return, and he disappeared out of her office.

'And your excuse, Mr Potter...?'

'I was with Sirius,' said James, politely, deciding she wouldn't be so lenient if he were to start swearing. 'I couldn't just leave him alone, Professor.'

'I know, but you can't expect me to leave this unpunished.'

'Professor,' ventured James, 'didn't you know this had happened? You usually do, don't you?' McGonagall glanced at him suspiciously. James didn't bother trying to look innocent, as she would never trust him if he did.

'Professor Dumbledore is usually informed and asked to break the news to the unfortunate relative, and he tells us. Mr and Mrs Black chose to tell their son directly, rather than owling us.' James could tell McGonagall viewed that as being irresponsible. 'Now, Potter, I suggest you return to your lessons. Fifty points will be taken from Slytherin for this, don't let it happen again unless you have permission.'

'Yes, Professor, of course, Professor,' said James, politely and quickly went back to Potions. He didn't risk leaving his lessons for the rest of the day: fifty points was enough; and although James had had worse, his housemates were disgusted with this, it was just for a Gryffindor, after all.

He, Remus and Peter snuck up to the Gryffindor common room after lessons had finished. Their visit didn't go entirely unnoticed, but they weren't told to leave. Sirius had spent the whole day lying on his bed, doing nothing; although he was still upset, he'd calmed down considerably and was perfectly happy to hear what he'd missed. James guessed he wanted something to take his mind off what had happened. He sat in silence while Remus and Peter chattered about what they'd done. James was quiet too, he couldn't think of anything to say that sounded right.

He completely forgot about Quidditch practice, the last one before the match, and was a few minutes late; he only remembered thanks to Peter, who had commented how odd it was that James didn't have practice.

Callaway spent the next five minutes yelling at him.

'I thought I warned you against that sort of attitude, Potter!' he said, angrily. 'If you can't take this seriously then you're off the team.' Callaway didn't ask for excuses and James didn't bother giving any, it would still be unacceptable. The rest of the team, however, were grateful, as it meant Callaway would find less reasons to yell at them and more to yell at James.

James found practice difficult that day, he kept thinking of Sirius, which caused him to get in even more trouble with Callaway.

'You're supposed to catch the Quaffle, Potter, not watch it fly by! Wake up!' James made an effort, but it was hard to keep his mind from slipping into thought. It had never really directly affected any of his close friends before: a couple of students in his year had died and Julian had lost a father, but he, Sirius, Remus and Peter had all been fine. He'd never met Sirius' relatives, apart from his parents, but he still felt close to the family, Mrs Black had usually been perfectly happy to let him escape the Muggles by staying with them, something he was grateful for,

It was harder to concentrate during the game the next day, knowing that Sirius was at the funeral, but James forced his mind away from things like that; the pressure of playing helped. He very successfully fouled to stop the Hufflepuff Seeker catching the Snitch; something Peter would kill him for later.

'Well done, Potter! Now get back to scoring!' yelled Callaway, from across the pitch. Lander was obviously annoyed.

'And Slytherin Chaser James Potter nearly kills the Hufflepuff Seeker; apparently Slytherin are incapable of playing by the rules,' he said, slightly sarcastically. Had he not been playing Quidditch he would have commented on how amazing it was that a Hufflepuff could be sarcastic. He had come nowhere near to killing the Seeker, anyway, who was twice his size and had nearly killed him.

The Hufflepuffs booed loudly, as did the Ravenclaws and Gryffindors; but the Slytherins cheered.

James grabbed the Quaffle and flew to the goal posts, before smashing it through the hoop, increasing the boos from the other houses.

The game sped up and both teams got more brutal, although the Hufflepuffs didn't foul quite as much.

'Penalty to Slytherin,' said Lander, unenthusiastically. 'And it will be taken by...' Callaway tossed to Quaffle to James, 'Potter, the team's newest Chaser.'

'Don't mess this up, Potter.' James grinned confidently, before accelerating towards the goal posts where the Hufflepuff Keeper was waiting. This would be easy, he'd scored several times already that game. He threw the Quaffle as hard as he could at one of the hoops, the Keeper dived and... and... smashed the Quaffle out of the way.

James cursed.

'Well done, Potter,' yelled Callaway, sarcastically. His face turning red, James flew away and the game continued.

Soon Lander shouted: 'And the two Seekers dive for the Snitch!' Callaway threw a well-timed Quaffle in front of the Hufflepuff Seeker, who swerved to avoid being hit. This gave Judas Wilkes the time he needed to fly ahead and catch the Snitch.

'Yes!' yelled Callaway and flew to congratulate Wilkes.

'And Slytherin win,' said Lander, sounding quite bored. 'Two hundred and fifty to forty.' James was impressed, that was a good win, now they had to wait until Gryffindor played Ravenclaw to determine the overall winners.

James found Remus and Peter at the edge of the pitch and he floated over to them.

'Nice foul,' said Peter, sarcastically.

'Oh come on, Peter, we had to win, didn't we?'

'Even nicer penalty,' remarked Remus and James poked his tongue out, embarrassed.

'How long was that game?' asked James, suddenly realizing how tired he was.

'About three hours,' replied Peter.

'I'm going off to get changed and everything. Where shall I meet you?'

'By the lake,' said Remus. 'Unless, of course, the weather is so bad that we're forced inside, then probably either in the library or roaming the corridors, pretending to be Prefects and yelling at Firsties who're doing nothing wrong.' James nodded and flew all the way to the Slytherin common room where their victory was being celebrated. Nobody really noticed him, despite the fact that he had scored most of the goals, as they were all intent on acquiring as much drink as possible; someone had obviously smuggled some in.

He met with Remus and Peter by the lake and they spent some time annoying the Giant Squid. Sirius, when he returned, was very quiet, although he did throw the occasional stone into the water. There had been an article in the Daily Prophet that morning, although James hadn't noticed because of the match. Neither Sirius nor his parents were mentioned and the family killed had a different surname. The couple were young, and Sirius' uncle looked scarily similar to how Sirius himself would probably look in a few years time. Sirius' aunt was holding up the three-year-old girl, who was smiling and waving at the camera.

Their lessons were a lot easier since the exams had passed and only Verdied kept them working. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were waiting in anticipation for the Quidditch final. James didn't know why some of the Gryffindors were still so certain of there being a chance for them to win as they needed to score at least three-hundred-and-thirty points to beat Slytherin.

On the day of the match, James chose to support Gryffindor because, in the words of Peter (who had chosen to support Ravenclaw) 'they hadn't a hope in hell of beating Ravenclaw and even less chance of beating Slytherin in the cup', which was something James liked in a team.

He smuggled four Butterbeers in to the stands (Sirius had some sweets) just in case it was a long match and they got thirsty or hungry. He was, once again, sitting with the Gryffindors, an experience he was sure would scar him for life.

The match started and James sat back, criticizing every Chaser with the air of an expert (which, of course, he was). Sirius was mostly ignoring him and paying attention to the game. James often found watching a team like the Gryffindors play Quidditch was rather like watching red-coloured flies; they had the most ridiculous flying styles James had seen in a long time, and they didn't seem to get anywhere. The temptation to try and charm up a rather large silver fly swat was almost too much for him but Ravenclaw scoring their fifth goal distracted him.

'Well done to Ravenclaw!' yelled Lander, clearly happy about something. The Gryffindor Chaser dived, with pointless effort and grabbed the Quaffle, before flying down to the goal posts. He was tackled by the Ravenclaw Keeper who, seeing no Chasers about, threw the Quaffle to the nearest Beater. The Beater hit the Quaffle with his bat towards a Chaser, a move that surprised everyone. The Chaser grabbed the Quaffle and zoomed to the opposite end of the pitch, quickly scoring another goal.

Play continued for five further minutes before the Ravenclaw Seeker flew to the other side of the pitch and grabbed the Snitch. James booed loudly, doing some calculations in his head.

Shit! He couldn't believe it! It was impossible!

But apparently not: Ravenclaw had won the cup.

Professor Dumbledore, who was watching, presented it to the Ravenclaw Captain.

James could have hit himself, and did, mentally: they had lost by ten points. If only he'd got the bloody penalty then it would have been a draw. Remus wasn't particularly ecstatic about the win: he wasn't on the team and he didn't really care about Quidditch. There was also still the chance that they would lose the House Cup (however unlikely).

They received their exam results the next week. Remus got eighty-seven percent for his Divination exam ('Ha! I didn't get more than ninety' he triumphantly told James) and James got ninety-two. According to Trelawney, he lost marks on the 'slight inaccuracy' of his prediction; James guessed it was the fact that the world hadn't ended the week after the exams. The four of them had all passed everything, although Remus had only just passed Potions.

At the leaving feast, Dumbledore gave them the usual speech, and warned them to be careful over the holidays. Ravenclaw did, indeed, win the House Cup, annoying most of Slytherin immensely. James didn't care that much, actually, there was always next year, and it wasn't the most important thing in his life.

On the train the next day, they got back to discussing their Animagus forms.

'We'll have to keep looking in books and stuff,' said Sirius, determinedly. 'Does anyone have any idea what they're going to be?' James shook his head. 'Peter?'

'I think...' he said slowly. 'I think I know, but I'm not sure, and I'm not telling you until I am.' No matter how much the other three begged him, he wouldn't reveal it, or anything about it.

'This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,' said James, reflectively.

'You don't have to-' put in Remus, before the other three silenced him with looks. True, they hadn't even found out what they were going to be yet, but they already felt as though they'd gone too far to simply back out. They were going to help Remus, no matter what he said; it was a matter of pride.

'I wish I knew something more about my Uncle,' said James. 'I don't know if he's alive or anything; he might be able to help, if he were. He probably wouldn't care about the whole illegal thing. If he did he'd be a major hypocrite.'

'Surely he's not alive though?' said Remus. 'Wouldn't you be staying with him if he was?' James grinned slightly.

'I have quite a large family on my mother's side, who are, as far as I know, still alive. None of them are very close relatives though, some have disappeared and those who are around are unsuitable to look after me. My parents were very specific on who was suitable, you see. My mum practically disowned her family, although she never said why, so I haven't met any of them. I think the Ministry wanted me to live with Muggles anyway.' The others looked slightly confused, but no one questioned further: Sirius got out a pack of Exploding Snap.

As they neared the end of the journey they tried to sort out plans for the summer, who was to stay with whom? In the end, Sirius just told them all to come over to his as he had far more room. He promised to owl them about it.

James met with Aunt Susan in the Muggle part of the station. He felt oddly relieved to be spending some time in the Muggle world. He felt protected; even thought there were murders, the Muggles didn't know it and it wasn't splashed all over their newspapers. He also felt a bit worried, however, as the only way he could contact his friends was by owl, and although Harry was quick, he wasn't instant.

'James!' yelled Peter, from a table at a small café (his parents were having a drink). 'Come here! Quickly!'

'Watch my trunk, for a sec,' he said to Aunt Susan and dashed off.

'Here,' said Peter, shoving a bit of paper into James' hand. 'I don't know why I didn't think of this before: it's my telephone nmber. I expect you know how to use one. Call me when you get back and tell me your number.'

'Thanks, Peter,' said James, grinning. 'I've got to go, see you soon!'