Fortunately, Madam Pomfrey was able to undo the hex with a few flicks of her wand. She still lectured all of them on misuse of dangerous magic.
"As if we all wanted to look like bigfoot!" James complained as they left the hospital wing, skin still tinging from the hair growth.
"It had to be Severus. He coated the sweets in one of his potions, I know it." Sirius seethed. "Yeah, we all know it, mate." James replied, "Don't worry, we'll get him back."
"I'm so sorry!" Peter wailed, for about the hundredth time. "I really thought they were from my mum!"
"It's fine, Peter," James patted his shoulder, "Just wish you'd given them to us first thing on a Monday – then we could have at least bunked off Transfiguration."
"I demand retribution!" Sirius shouted, raising his wand dramatically. Remus laughed, James did too,
"And you shall have it!" He replied, pushing his glasses back on his nose, "Patience is a virtue, Black. Vengeance like this takes time. Don't suppose you've got any other brilliant ideas, Remus?"
"Sorry," Remus shook his head. His heart was still pounding from the terror of it. If he had seen Snape at that moment he would have throttled him; never mind pranking him.
"I'll help you, James," Peter piped up, "I'll do anything, I won't be scared this time, I'll..." They were just turning the corner which led to Gryffindor tower when somebody behind them
called out,
"Sirius."
All four boys turned. Sirius made a small shocked noise. It was Bellatrix Black.
"Whaddyou want?" He asked, looking down and scuffing his shoes on the flagstone floor. It was the most un-Sirius posture imaginable, Remus thought. He also noticed that James stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with his friend.
"Come here and address me properly." The seventh-year witch snapped in response.
Sirius didn't move. Bellatrix withdrew her wand – Remus was shocked, and for the first time since he'd been at Hogwarts, he felt frightened.
"Come here," she said, in a low voice, "Or I'll make you. And it won't be a childish little hair growth charm, I promise."
Sirius walked forward, shaking his head at James, who tried to follow. They all watched the cousins speaking in quiet voices at the end of the hallway for long, uncomfortable minutes. Sirius barely looked up from the ground the whole time. Finally, she patted him on the head, then turned on her heel and left. They all exhaled, relieved. Sirius walked back to them shakily.
In silence they all entered the portrait hole and sat down at their usual sofa.
"Alright, Sirius?" James asked, first.
"Yeah." He nodded, looking paler than usual, "She um... she wanted to invite me for tea. On my birthday. I think my mother must have made her, probably held a family conference. Try to bring me back into the fold."
"Just because you're in a different house?"
"And the company I'm keeping," he smirked at them all.
"So when's your birthday?"
"Two weeks. The third. I have to go to this tea, though, Bella's not joking about knowing some really vile curses."
"We'll do something afterwards, then. Something good, yeah?"
Peter and Remus nodded enthusiastically, but in the back of Remus' mind he remembered that the third was the night of the full moon.
***
Sirius turned twelve and Remus wasn't there to celebrate it, though he didn't think anyone minded. James was Sirius' best friend, after all, and Peter still liked to think that James belonged to him a little bit, too. So Remus would have been the odd one out, even if he hadn't been locked away in a shack trying to tear himself apart. Madam Pompfrey tried him with a sleeping draught this time, before the moon rose, but it apparently had no effect. What was worse, he managed to give himself his biggest scar yet – right across his back.
Pomfrey made him stay in the hospital wing all day afterwards, which was actually fortuitous – it meant he could just tell his friends he'd been suddenly taken ill. They were still a bit confused as to why he hadn't told them anything about feeling sick beforehand, but went along with it. They probably already thought he was fairly odd, and by now accepted mostly anything he told them.
He wouldn't have enjoyed the birthday. James talked to Madam Hooch and arranged a lunch time flying session for the three of them. After dinner, before Sirius had to go and change for tea with his cousins, James and Peter led the Gryffindor table in a round of 'Happy Birthday', followed by 'For he's a jolly good fellow'. According to the students Remus heard from afterwards, they had sung 'and so say all of us!' over and over, getting louder each time until Professor McGonagall had to threaten them with detention if they didn't stop.
As November marched on, the days grew shorter and the castle darker. They spent less of their time outside, and more of it huddled by the fire in the common room, playing card games and plotting revenge against Snape. The first term was drawing to a close, and the teachers seemed to be piling on more homework than ever.
Whenever Sirius and Remus were away from Peter and James (usually when the other two were in the library), Sirius was reading to him. They finished A History of Magic in just under two weeks, and then alternated between A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration and Magical Drafts and Potions for the rest of the term. When the marauders worked on their homework as a group, he even took to reading aloud, as if to himself, claiming it helped him think. This was very much to James' annoyance, who preferred silence.
Though they couldn't possibly cover the entire syllabus in such a short time, to everyone's amazement (including his own) Remus' marks were improving at an astonishing rate. Sirius had
apparently had the right idea; Remus' ability to retain and recall information was remarkable, and he found himself raising his hand in lessons for the first time in his life.
Sirius' marks, on the other hand, began to fall. He spent so much time trying to secretly assist Remus, that he apparently no longer did any of the extra reading he'd prided himself in all year. As it was, his own homework became average, passable and fell behind James' for the first time. James was oblivious, of course, and merely assumed that he was actually improving.
"But you spend so much time in the library!" Remus whispered to him once, after Sirius had received an 'Acceptable' mark on his Charms essay. "I thought you were studying." Remus himself had still not worked up the courage to visit the library. The thought of all of those books horrified him.
"I am studying," Sirius replied, cheerily, "Just not this stuff," he folded the essay away, "I'm looking up cognitive interpretation spells – you know, so you can read by yourself. It's really tricky, OWL level, actually, but I think I've almost got it. Don't worry, Lupin, it's not as if I'm failing. This is much more interesting, anyway."
Remus felt horribly guilty, of course, as well as mildly ashamed that Sirius was devoting so much time to helping him. He honestly could not remember a time in his life that anyone had ever tried so hard on his behalf. It made him wish he could do something – anything in return. But, other than having a difficult family, Sirius Black seemed to want for nothing at all.
In fact, there was one thing Remus could give Sirius which even James could not – but it hardly felt worth mentioning. Something Sirius called 'muggle insight'. It began when Remus finally plucked up the courage to ask about Sirius' record collection. Sirius was only too happy to share; other than his racing broom, which was still at home, his albums were his dearest possessions.
Remus could easily see why – he had Introducing The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night and Help!, as well as Abbey Road; Beggars Banquet and Sticky Fingers ("Mick Jagger has to be the coolest muggle I've ever seen," Sirius gushed), two Led Zeppelin albums – Remus hadn't listened to them before, but the older boys at St. Edmund's were all obsessed – and a Simon and Garfunkle LP, hidden at the back.
Wizards, it turned out, did not generally think much of muggle music. All of Sirius' records had been gifted to him by his cousin, Andromeda, who was apparently the first 'black sheep' of the Black family, having left school a few years beforehand and married a muggle.
"I hardly ever see her," Sirius explained, "Not since the wedding, but she posts these to me every now and then. She sends them the muggle way, so mum doesn't find out – she doesn't understand how the post office works."
So although he had an impressive collection by any eleven year old's standards, Sirius' musical passions existed almost entirely in a vacuum. He wasn't aware of any other Beatles songs than the ones he already had, pressed into vinyl. He had never listened to the radio, or watched Top of the Pops, or even opened a copy of NME before. As such, he found Remus endlessly fascinating on the subject of music and muggle culture.
"You've actually seen them, though!" He said, awed, "You've seen them performing." "Not in real life, or anything," Remus replied, uncomfortably.
"No, I know, on the telephone," Sirius nodded sagely. Remus stifled laughter,
"On the television." He corrected, "It's more like those moving paintings you lot have. Only black and white. And only the Beatles – the Stones came on once and Matron made us turn it off, because of their hair."
"What about their hair?"
"Too long," Remus shrugged, "She said they looked dirty."
"My hair's much longer," Sirius said, frowning.
"Yeah, it is. But muggle boys don't have long hair, not normally."
"Don't tell him that!" Peter teased, "He'll shave his head." He threw a gob stone across the board on the floor – they'd been playing a lazy game off and on for the past few days, trying to teach Remus the rules. It rolled into one of Sirius' stones and knocked it out of the ring, immediately squirting out a disgusting smelling liquid, which Sirius barely dodged in time. Peter grinned, "Ha, take that, muggle lover!"
Sirius swore, loudly, and left to change his clothes.
