Second Year, Second Chances

Second Year, Second Chances

PROLOGUE : On Boredom and Hogwarts Express

Sirius Black stood around five feet away from the entrance to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, impatiently shifting his feet every few seconds. He brushed a stray clump of his hair out of his eyes – his mother had told him to get it cut before returning to Hogwarts, of course, but Sirius liked it long, and that was that – and continued to wait for one of his friends to show up. He was early, he knew, and Sirius didn’t fancy sitting on an empty train for an hour before anyone actually showed up. It wasn’t his fault that his father had to get to work early, after all.

Sirius sighed, slumping down onto a bench near the platform. It was nearly time for him to begin his second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – second year, his mother had said, second year already! My baby is growing up so fast! – and even though Sirius didn’t exactly agree with his mother’s teary-eyed sentiments (“baby”, indeed), he couldn’t deny that he was excited for it. His first year, of course, had been wonderfully fun, despite (or maybe because of) the inordinate amount of detentions that he had received. Actually, the detentions hadn’t been fun, per se, but Sirius couldn’t deny that the reasons he had gotten the detentions were humorous. Especially the time when he and James had charmed the entire Slytherin table to start floating the instant more than ten people sat down. Classic, that was.

Glancing up at the clock, momentarily breaking out of his reverie, Sirius sighed and slumped lower against the hard bench as his read the time: 9:38. A good half and hour until anyone really showed up, of course. Not that a few people hadn’t already came, but most of them were either eager first years (which Sirius really had no use for, except possibly as scapegoats later on in the year) or prissy Ravenclaws who always showed up early for everything anyway. That didn’t help Sirius (even though he had waved to one rather cheerful Ravenclaw in his year, a petite blonde named Alyssa), because all of his friends were, obviously, in his year and his house: second year Gryffindor. In fact, they all shared a room, too, which essentially meant that Sirius was sitting around waiting for three very specific boys.

James Potter, who was his long-time best friend ever since they could talk and was oftentimes the person right alongside him in his many devious pranks (and vise-versa, in fact, though Sirius personally thought that he had more successful pranks altogether – though who was counting anyway?) Problem was, James was also periodically late for nearly everything he did, and Sirius didn’t see why his best friend was going to change that for the start of school.

Then there was Peter Pettigrew, a smaller boy whom Sirius had met (via James) on the express last year, after a group of bigger boys had tried to bully their way into Peter’s money. James stood up for him, of course, with Sirius right by his side (as a friend should be, of course.) Peter was a friend ever since then, and the fact that he had very keen eyes made him a great lookout during many of the group’s... excursions. Unfortunately, Sirius doubted that Peter was going to show up early – his mother was a busy medi-witch, and his father ran an inn, so any chance of Peter getting here with a considerable amount of time was slim to none.

Finally, there was Remus Lupin, who was, Sirius had just noticed, approaching him at that very moment, his parents and trunk in tow.

“Remus!” Sirius said, jumping up instantly and grabbing onto his friend, a large smile creasing across his face. He had been beginning to get fidgety and wondering what the Muggle shops around him looked like, but thankfully the appearance of Remus had caused the thought to disappear from his mind.

“Sirius,” Remus responded with an equal smile but slightly less enthusiasm. Sirius was used to this, as he knew that he was rather hyperactive for his age, and Remus was (Sirius was convinced) Sirius’ exact opposite. To prove this, in fact, Remus looked calm and composed as Sirius clutched him around the shoulders, practically bouncing with excitement. Though, Sirius noticed belatedly, Remus looked awfully tired – he had dark bags under his eyes and his movements were listless. Oh, well – Sirius would just have to fix that.

Remus was yet another friend that Sirius had met in his first year at Hogwarts, and to be honest, he was also the strangest. Oftentimes, Remus was the one to plan the many pranks that the group pulled – usually after James or Sirius had come up with the initial idea – and was quite adamant about being involved with them as well. The thing with Remus was the fact that he always looked a bit ill, and a lot of times throughout the year he needed to go home and visit his sick mother – or so he said. Sirius had suspicions the Remus wasn’t exactly telling the truth (Sirius had met his mother, who didn’t seem to be ailing much at all), but how was one supposed to ask about something like that, anyway? Every time anyone had tried, Remus had merely stared at them evenly with those oddly golden eyes of his and repeated his excuse. So Sirius had given up on asking his friend about it, but it didn’t change the mysterious air that still surrounded his friend.

Which, Sirius reasoned as he hugged Remus happily, was totally cool anyway, so why bother to change it?

“How are you?” the said friend was asking now, placing his own hands on Sirius’ shoulders as a way to return the embrace.

“How am I? Bored out of my mind. My father dropped me off like, a half an hour ago, even though the train doesn’t leave until eleven anyway... Wait a second,” Sirius said the last bit with mock amazement, tilting his head slightly as he stepped back from his friend and locked him with a piercing gaze. “How are you? You look like hell.” Never let it be said that Sirius was subtle.

Remus blanched at that, looking a bit embarrassed as he murmured, “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Preparing for school and all. Eh, Mum?” Remus looked up at his mother, who had come up behind him (after taking his trunk and putting it on the train for him, Sirius noticed) and placed a thin hand on his shoulder.

“Remus, dear, your father and I will be off now,” explained Mrs. Lupin kindly, leaning forward and kissing her son’s forehead (much to Sirius’ amusement and Remus’ digress.) She looked over at Sirius and smiled, saying, “And Sirius, I better not get anymore owls about you pulling Remus into your little tricks.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Lupin, you won’t,” Sirius replied smoothly, attaining his best “I’m a perfect angel” face. “Most of those pranks are his idea, after all.”

“Are not,” Remus denied instantly, casting Sirius with a glare that had no bite. “Don’t believe him, Mum; he’s the instigator of it all–”

“Oh, please, that thing with the Tangolumos charm was all you–”

“Not true at all.”

“Right...”

Mrs. Lupin smiled and hugged her son one last time as Mr. Lupin showed up as well. As soon as Remus’ parents were finished saying their farewells and had effectively Apparated away, Sirius looked at Remus and smirked brilliantly, saying, “Admit it. You are the cause of most of our problems.”

“I stand by my word,” answered Remus sincerely, though Sirius could see the hint of a smile on the edge of his mouth, “that it is all your doing. And James. And Peter.”

“Personally, I’d want to take credit for it all,” Sirius expressed as he grabbed his trolley and moved it towards the entrance to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. More people had arrived by now, though James and Peter were still unfortunately absent. Sirius and Remus waved to another Gryffindor they knew, a red-haired girl named Lily, before passing through the entrance and proceeding to put Sirius’ trunk away.

“Well, that’s you,” Remus replied calmly as he helped Sirius put his trunk atop another one. The two of them finished their task quickly and went to find a compartment to sit in as Remus continued, “Myself, I like to stay free from accusations. My life is easier that way.”

“But it’s no fun to prank people if you don’t get credit for it,” Sirius
exclaimed, frowning at his tired-looking friend. “I mean, James and I already have a reputation for pranking, but you and Peter are as much a part of most of those as we are.”

Remus smiled. “What makes you think that I want a reputation for it? I like behind the scenes work, anyway.”

“...what?”

“It’s a Muggle saying. I’m not sure where it comes from, but it’s used to refer to some who works in the background, I think,” explained Remus. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter if I want credit for the pranks or not. After that incident with the spiders, Snape knows perfectly well that I’m involved.”

Sirius sighed happily, remembering the time Remus was talking about clearly. The expression on Snape’s face had been worth the week of detention both he and Remus has received. “Yeah, but,” Sirius started, pulling open the door to a nearby compartment, “it doesn’t matter what that git says anyway. Remember on Halloween when he was convinced that James and I had put something in his pumpkin juice? Pure paranoia.”

“...Sirius, you and James did put something in his pumpkin juice. His ears turned into carrots the next morning, remember?” Remus told him, giving Sirius a curious glance as he entered the compartment and sat down, exhausted.

“Ah, yes... made my week, that did,” replied Sirius, grinning wider. Then, his eyebrows narrowing, he asked his friend, “You okay, Remus?”

“I’m just tired, really.”

“Okay, you just look, y’know... dead.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” was Sirius’ reply as he sat down next to Remus and immediately pulled out a bar of chocolate, breaking off two pieces before shoving it unceremoniously back into his pocket. Handing a piece to Remus, Sirius said, “Besides, the fact that we did taint his juice doesn’t matter in this case. My point was, he had no proof of it and everyone thought he was crazy.”

Remus shrugged. “We still got detention for it, though.”

“Unjust detention, I say! I mean, really, they had no proof. None at all.”

“Yeah, well, that’s life,” murmured Remus sleepily. He had managed to huddle himself against the wall and his chair and was now looking quite comfortable and tired.

Sirius blinked up at him. “You’re going to sleep already?”

“Yeah,” came the response from his friend, whose eyelids were drooping threateningly.

“Do you have to?”

“Yeah,” answered Remus again, eyes closing.

Sirius waited for a few moments, looking pensively at his shaggy-haired friend, before saying, “Did you know that Professor Dumbledore is actually a woman?”

“Mmn...” was the reply.

“And that Potions is now the only class Hogwarts offers?”

“Mmn,”

“And that James and Peter are snogging outside our compartment right now?”

A small snore was the only answer Sirius received, and to that, the dark-haired boy rolled his eyes. He had initially met Remus on the train last year, and apparently Remus constantly stayed up all night before big events, because he had been dead exhausted then, too. At the exact moment that Sirius and James were standing up for Peter, Remus had come out of his compartment to see what all the noise was about, and Sirius had spotted the open compartment as a chance to get to sanctuary. All three boys had plowed into Remus’ solo compartment, completely surprising Remus himself, and luckily, the three bullies had grown tired of bugging the first years and didn’t follow them. There, introductions had been made, but Sirius remembered Remus merely murmuring his name softly and then quickly going back to sleep, which Sirius hadn’t given much thought to at the time. It was only a few weeks after the start of school that Remus had become part of their little prank-playing group (as the fourth and final member), when a prank had gone wrong and gotten Remus instead of its intended target (which was, of course, Snape, Sirius’ self-declared arch-nemesis.) Things had been testy afterwards, but James had sorted the situation out and Remus wound up joining them on their next prank.

And that was that, Sirius surmised, looking at Remus’ sleeping form. It was amazing that it had just been a year ago when he had no idea who this thin brown-haired boy was. Weird.

“Well,” Sirius muttered to himself, looking away from Remus and sitting back in his seat. “Hm. It seems I’m back to where I started from.” The blank wall of the compartment Sirius stared at instead made no response.

Sirius momentarily thought of poking Remus until the golden-eyed boy was forced to wake up and pay attention to him, but Remus wouldn’t like that and Sirius wasn’t a mean friend. Besides, he could just read or something, Sirius reasoned, knowing that he had a copy of The Beater’s Bible in his bag – Sirius was going to try out for the Gryffindor Quidditch team this year, even though it was rare that second years made it. But, Sirius figured, he was a good Beater, and there were two Beater positions and a Chaser position open this year. So maybe he stood a chance.

With that thought in mind, Sirius pulled out the thick book from his bag. With nothing but the soft sound of Remus’ snoring to accompany him, Sirius sat back and began to read, waiting for the rest of his friends to show up and officially begin their second year at Hogwarts.

* * * * *

“And so anyway, Reggy was running around everywhere, trying to find me a whole bunch of silver things, y’know? And house-elves, of course, they aren’t raised to question anything, so of course she didn’t know why I wanted all of our silver. So Reggy brought it all to me and I took the lot of it and tossed it in the garden shed out back. You should have seen her expression when I did it, too, it was priceless – I think she thought for sure that I was going to get her sacked.”

Sirius laughed appreciatively at the thought of James’ house-elf’s horrified expression (she was a young elf, so of course she would be worried about those things, and Sirius himself had a lot of fun teasing her sometimes.) James was sitting across from him and Remus (who was still asleep, as he had been when James and Peter had arrived four hours ago and the train had set off) and alongside of Peter, who was likewise listening avidly to James’ tale. James was discussing the incident animatedly, though with a quiet notch to his voice, due to Remus’ presence.

“So?” Peter asked, his blue eyes wide with interest in James’ tale.

“Well, of course, Reggy didn’t tell anyone – I ordered her not to, so my mum would just think that she had misplaced the silver for this big fancy dinner that night,” James continued, his smirk growing wider. “I mean, Mum insisted on having all these important executives over – I mean, Ministry of Magic people – so she was going all out with crystal and the like. But I bought her these fancy golden forks and knives and things, and I wanted to find an original way to present them to her. So I said I’d set the table, and I just put those out instead, and when Mum came in, I just said ‘Happy Birthday, Mum’ and left. It was classic, the expression on her face.”

James paused here to take a swig of pumpkin juice from the container, having bought it and a bunch of other treats from the witch who came by with such things. Sirius and Peter had bought stuff as well (a bunch of chocolate for Sirius; a load of Cauldron Cakes for Peter), and had been sufficiently full ever since then.

“Anyway, so that’s why Mum was so mad when you lot came over, because she wanted to have a nice dinner for the first night you guys came and I forgot to give her back the silver. It was horrible, because I forgot where I had even put it!” James laughed out loud as he said this, corresponding with Sirius’ and Peter’s own laughter. “So we just used the golden ones again, like you know, but the shiny gold had worn off really quickly – because they were cheap, you know – and Mum was positively infuriated with me for losing the good silverware. I just found it again before school started, because I remembered that Reggy would know where it was. I owe that house-elf, I really do.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, snatching a Chocolate Frog from the table and tearing the wrapping off of it. “Yeah, well, it didn’t matter, did it? You’re the only one here from a high class family, really, so it’s not like we cared much – my Mum’s Muggle-born and all that, and Peter, you’re parents are middle class, right?” Peter nodded his agreement as Sirius added, “And Remus lives way out in the country on that farm, right? I’ve never been to his house.”

Peter nodded and said, “Yeah, remember, he was telling us about how sometimes at night bats fly in his room, and there are spiders all over the attic.”

“I think he was making up all that stuff about the out-house, though,” James muttered, staring with amusement at Remus’ sleeping form.

“And about having to sleep with the cows,” Sirius agreed, remembering the way Remus had told them all of that with a perfectly straight expression on his face. It was only after Remus started talking about his mother being engaged to a Muggle farmer (something that Sirius knew had to be untrue, because Remus had already told them about his father, who most definitely still married to his mother) that the rest of them had caught on to the fact that Remus was joking. Sirius poked Remus irritably as he thought of that incident, though all Remus did was shift slightly and continue snoring.
“Anyway, did you hear about the new Defense Against Dark Arts teacher?” Peter was asking James as Sirius looked back up at them. “I heard that she was an ex-Auror. I bet she knows tons about You-Know-Who...”

James’ eyes lit up. “Do you think she’ll tell us anything?”

“‘Dunno. My Mum says that she shouldn’t,” answered Peter, who shrugged. “I hope she does, though, wouldn’t that be cool?”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Sirius added, “Maybe she’ll teach us how to dual and everything.”

James nodded in Sirius’ direction. “Professor Kelper was so boring, too; I hope she’s better.”

“Not exactly a challenge, is it?” Sirius asked, grinning at his long-time friend. Professor Kelper, their former Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, rivaled even Professor Binns on his ability to bore his classroom. Some students actively complained that this was stupid, because DADA was supposed to be interesting (James and Remus included), while the rest of them simply used the class period to sleep – which was Sirius’ course of action. Needless to say, Professor Kelper most likely wasn’t going to be missed much.

“Say, do you know–”

The compartment door slid open at that moment, cutting James off and revealing four people standing in the open space. Sirius scoffed softly as he realized that it was Snape and his annoying band of goonies (Avery, Took, and Jenkins.)

Snape raised an eyebrow at the four boys in the compartment and the mess on their table. Alongside him, Avery pushed forward and sneered at James and Peter, who rolled his eyes and sighed respectively.

“So how have you nitwits managed to waste your summer?” Avery asked snidely, directing his question specifically at James. Sirius tried not to smile at that, knowing that Avery was particularly aggravated with James after James had supposedly left dungbombs in his knapsack. Apparently Avery still didn’t know that it had been Sirius who had bought the bombs and Remus, not James, who had planted them, because the lanky boy didn’t even glance at Sirius’ side. Too bad, really.

James smiled at Avery, his kind expression belying his words as he responded, “Not much, really, as compared to all the little animals you’ve probably killed.”

“And eaten,” added Peter.

James nodded. “Yeah, and eaten. Have you resorted to cannibalism yet, Avery?”

Avery snarled, his fists clenching, and surely would have made a lame attempt at a very cutting remark had Snape not said, “What’s wrong with your little friend, anyway? Too much effort to scrounge up the money for books?” Upon saying this, Snape gestured towards Remus’ sleeping form, half-hidden behind Sirius.

“Shut up, Snape,” James snapped instantly, knowing that Remus was a little less well-off than the everyday wizard. “Why don’t you try to insult people who can actually respond to you?”

“I don’t know, James,” Sirius drawled, enjoying the flicker of anger he saw in Snape’s eyes, “he is rather pathetic. I mean, maybe insulting unresponsive people is the most he can do. I think the effort it would take to actually do a decent insult to someone who can hear him would, y’know, hurt him or something.”

“And what a shame that would be, surely,” Peter continued, a smile growing on his wide face as he also saw Snape getting annoyed. “To have poor Snape get hurt? Whoever would we insult for fun then?”

“Shut your fat mouth, Pettigrew,” Snape snarled, folding his arms across his chest. Behind him, Took and Jenkis glowered menacingly, and Peter sat back a bit, discreetly shielding himself behind James. “Besides, I don’t think my ability to exert effort is something you three need to concern yourself with, as Lupin looks like he’d probably die if he tried to walk. Oh, and that would be a real shame, wouldn’t it?” Snape murmured, sneering at Peter as he mocked him.

James rolled his eyes and slumped back against his seat. “All right, Snape, what do you want, anyway?”

“Yeah, can’t you resist the temptation to look at people better than you?” Sirius added.

“Better?” Snape repeating, scoffing, “Hardly. I just thought I’d come in and see how much of a mess you guys have made so far, which is–” Snape surveyed the table with a pointedly disgusted look, “–clearly quite a big one. Such slobs.”

“Stop insulting Took, Snape, he’s supposed to be your friend,” snapped Sirius as he stood up lazily, resting a hand on the back of his seat. “And it’s great that you’re concerned with our cleanliness, really. It’s almost sweet.”

“Too bad we can take care of it ourselves without Sir Snape putting his abnormally large nose into our business,” came a new voice quietly, surprising them all, and Sirius turned to see Remus awake and staring at the four intruders calmly. “By the way, is it true what they say? Has your mother really told you to get it shrunk?”

Snape clenched his fists and snarled at Remus as Sirius, James, and Peter burst into laughter. Remus, to his credit, didn’t laugh at all and simply shifted himself into a more comfortable position against the wall, watching the scene with half-open eyes. Clearly, waking up and seeing Snape had irritated him, because rarely did Remus join the others in openly insulting Snape – Remus tended to like the prank method, which Sirius couldn’t blame him for: he himself was rather fond of that method as well. Less chance for losing one’s head and getting into a fist fight.

A bell toned softly throughout the train, a way of informing the schoolchildren that they were nearing Hogwarts and that they should get their school robes on. Snape and his three accomplices, conveniently not in their school robes, simply gave the other boys one last snarl and glare and stomped out of the compartment. Sirius’ laughter died out a while afterwards and he turned to Remus, appreciative. “That was great, Remus. Way to render the slimy git speechless.”

Remus smiled halfheartedly, his golden eyes meeting Sirius’ own pale blue. “Well, his nose is really big, haven’t you noticed? It’s all you see half the time.”

More laughter sounded from Remus’ response, but James – who, Sirius noticed, was always the one to notice things like this – informed Sirius and Remus that they weren’t properly dressed just yet, so both of them took the rest of the time to get ready for the train to finally pull into Hogwarts.

Sirius smiled as the train slowly came to a halt and he looked around at his three friends; this year, he could tell, was already off to a good start, and it was only a matter of time before it would truly be underway.