The Marauders and the Year it All Began

Chapter Three: Marauders

Relationships at Hogwarts were always changing and evolving. Being away from your parents and near so many children your own age brought about tons of drama and also tons of fun. It wasn't particularly hard to make friends at Hogwarts and the children who were dorm mates would always become as close as the proximity they lived in. Despite losing a group of children and gaining a new one every year, the people at Hogwarts were fairly constant. The seven years you would be spending time with the kids in your grade meant that everyone found friend groups fast.

James and Sirius had become as close as brothers in the mere two months that school had been in session, and ever since the howler incident, they seemed to have a newfound bond. To this date, no one other than the two boys really knew what happened, however, Remus and Sirius did have quite a long talk that night.

The staff at the school had an interesting relationship with the four fairly recently sorted boys, they knew that they were a force to be reckoned with and for the most part, the crazy pranks were dealt with in a series of detentions. Considering who the friend group was made up of—James and Sirius as a conniving duo and Remus with his extreme intelligence— they couldn't be stopped, and although Peter was more of a tag-a-long, he proved quite useful when their schemes unfolded.

Outside of their small group Sirius had become good friends with Marlene, although that was to be expected from day one, and Remus spoke commonly to Lily Evans, with both of them being at the head of their classes they could occasionally be found studying together in the library.

Whilst on the topic, Lily Evans was without a doubt the smartest Gryffindor first year (only placed above Remus for his serious lack of judgment when it came to the four boys' pranks). Despite being a muggle-born, most of her time was spent with Severus Snape, who had been sorted into Slytherin just as he'd hoped on the initial train ride to Hogwarts.

Severus, often the focus of many of the Marauders' jokes, hung out with an interesting crowd of elitist Slytherins, the oldest of which would have to be Lucius Malfoy, who was currently in a relationship with Narcissa, Sirius' cousin. Ever since the day Narcissa brought Lucius home to meet her family, all of the Blacks took a liking to him. Except for Sirius who shared very little values with his family. Needless to say, Christmas was to be interesting in the Black household.

It was the first Wednesday in November and the Gryffindor students were at flying lessons. Their weekly lessons became a fast favourite for the boys, especially James and Sirius who were still quite set on obtaining their desired Quidditch positions.

Each of the houses' first years had one class a week, for the Gryffindors, that day was Wednesday. All of the students had slowly gotten better at controlling their brooms and were able to go higher and farther each week. Some of the students had their own brooms, but others were allowed to borrow brooms from the school. There was a shed for those who brought brooms for the school year and among those students were James and Sirius. The two boys headed over to one of the broom sheds.

As Sirius swung open the door to the shed he gasped. Peering over his shoulder, James shared his shocked expression. Their gaze was set on Sirius' broom which was snapped in half and had been quite dismantled. Sirius crouched down and noticed a note next to the broom.

"Blood Traitor"

Sirius crumpled the paper and sighed. He stood up and turned to James, his expression said it all, he had no clue what to do.

"You alright? 'M sorry mate" he ran his fingers through his hair causing it to look even messier than it was already. "You can borrow my broom, for now, maybe we can get you another one?"

"Don't worry about it James, it'll be alright. I can borrow a broom from school. Don't do anything you'll regret, okay? I don't really care all that much, wasn't even a good broom" Sirius was lying. Of course, he cared, Quidditch was super important to him and he had saved for months to get that broom, but he knew James. He was fiercely protective of his friends and would make it a big deal, and that is not at all what Sirius wanted. He turned walking out of the shed towards the rest of the class, James was quick to follow suit after grabbing his broom.