All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Second Year : Discoveries

Narcissa and Regulus may have promised not to report back to his parents, but Walpurga Black still had a source of information somewhere at Hogwarts. A few days after the Gryffindor vs. Slytherin game, Sirius received a howler at breakfast. He kept his composure as it screamed, grinning when James put his hands on his hips and imitated his mother’s severe expression. The boy opened and closed his mouth, comedically exaggerated, as if he were the one screaming. By the time the letter had ripped itself up, Sirius was laughing too hard to care about anything it had actually said.

With his hair restored and the knowledge that the worst his mother could do was send a howler, Sirius felt untouchable once more. He hadn’t forgotten the threat of Durmstrang, but while it had felt very real and very immediate when he was back home, that simply wasn’t the case at Hogwarts. Surrounded by friends, spending every night in the cosy Gryffindor common room, chatting with professors and laughing in the Great Hall—Sirius just couldn’t believe that his parents would actually ever send him away. Every Black had gone to Hogwarts, and he already knew how his family felt about breaking tradition.

So Sirius returned to mischief-making with a vengeance. He raided the kitchens, he left ink-spraying quills between the pages of library books, he scattered dung bombs frequently throughout the dungeons. He and James spent half their time together under the invisibility cloak, either pranking students or exploring the castle and adding to the Marauders’ Map. They snuck out to Honeyduke’s at least three times a week, eating so many sweets that Sirius started to get sick of chocolate frogs.

His mother continued to send howlers, but this only bolstered his confidence. Sirius became more and more convinced that Durmstrang was just an empty threat; after all, he’d stepped many toes out of line at this point, and he was still at Hogwarts. He began to wonder—if Durmstrang had been a fiction to keep him in line...perhaps the betrothal wasn’t quite so set as his family might have him believe? Surely, if his parents saw that nothing could rein him in—not even that awful Christmas break—then they would realize that he wasn’t fit at all to be married, and it was better to leave him out of family matters altogether?

Either way, James seemed delighted to have Sirius back to his old self. The two of them were thick as thieves; any time not devoted to mischief-making was devoted to mischief-scheming. Peter tried to involve himself wherever he could, of course, which Sirius still found a bit annoying. But even Pete was growing on him, especially after one night when the nervous boy managed to distract Filch by pretending that he had been locked in a closet by Peeves.

Remus, on the other hand, had returned to being a swot. He actually started spending time in the library, which had previously been the only spot in the castle that he avoided. It wasn’t the same as last year—he wasn’t using schoolwork as an excuse to ditch them, and would still join in every now and again on a prank. He just seemed to really care about his grades for some reason, and was too pig-headed to be peer-pressured into slacking off. And although Sirius would have liked to spend more time with his friend, it was quite nice to know that they could count on Remus to lend his notes or let the rest of them copy his homework if they’d been out late marauding.

Of course, Sirius couldn’t dedicate all of his time to mischief. There were still classes to attend, and assignments to complete (or copy); James had quidditch keeping him busy, and Peter had chess, and Remus had his academic pursuits. But that was alright, because after his success with the lions, Sirius was ready to move on to his next big project.

He’d been thinking about it since Christmas break, and had come to a decision: he was going to fix Remus. Or, well—not fix, exactly, but—help. He was going to find a way to stop Remus from hurting himself when he transformed.