You belong with me - Chap. 2

     A boy with black messy hair read a page of his complicated book again and again, frustrated. He took off his square glasses and rubbed his eyes, lying back on the chair. Being thirteen years old, he had a thin but muscular body, a result of the long Quidditch training hours. He was a very good-looking boy, though a little bit arrogant and spoilt, but a really good person, and really loyal to his friends. When he finally removed his hands from his face, a couple of deep but not too dark rings became visible under his eyes. He put his glasses back on, snapped the book shut and threw it to the bed. He messed up his hair with his hand and sighed again, gazing absent-mindedly outside at the garden which could be seen through the open window. He was really worried about Remus. Full moon was close again and knew that his friend was suffering a lot. Besides, they weren't making any progress. He was starting to believe they wouldn't make it, but immediately put that idea away. They were the Marauders, of course they were gonna make it. That thought made him smile, remembering the first day of school, when they had met for the first time: since then, they were inseparable.

*flashback*

      Once the girl had slammed the door closed, James and Sirius looked at each other and smirked. Sirius had entered the compartment right after him, and he immediately realized they were going to get along. He didn't have to make any effort to ignore the bitter green-eyed redhead to embark in a lively conversation with the boy. It turned out that they both loved Quidditch and admired the same players, and they both seemed to find it extremely entertaining to play pranks on other people. Exactly when he was telling him one of his most famous pranks, which had won him a several-week punishment, the unsociable kid who was chatting with the redhead had mentioned that he wanted to be in Slytherin, and they had figured out a way of making them leave the compartment.

"Is it true that your whole family has been in Slytherin?" James asked, torn between curiosity and suspicion.

"Yes," answered Sirius, and his countenance darkened for a second. "But I've already told you I'm going to break the tradition. Maybe they'll disown me and everything."

He laughed, and they kept talking about funnier topics.

     At that moment, an extremely tall, straight-haired girl entered and asked for permission to stay in there. They nodded, shrugging their shoulders, and kept chatting. The girl glared at them, a little bit upset, with her eyebrows raised, and pursed her lips when she realized they were neither going to say hello nor introduce themselves, and that apparently they were going to ignore her, but she sat anyway. After a few minutes Sirius and James started to get bored, and they begun making even more racket. They went out to the corridor for a while, but came back making pitchy and squeaky noises come out of their wands, competing, apparently, seeing  who could make the more annoying noise. The girl sighed, irritated, and shifted in her seat, still looking through the window. The two troublemakers looked at each other and smiled, turning up the sounds' volume, grinning at the girl with fake innocence. She, even more furious, stood up and walked away slamming the door shut; she had been snorting in a really annoying way since they had started playing pranks to the students in the corridors, thank God she had left.

      When they finally arrived at the castle, they easily found an empty boat. A blond smiling kid and a pale boy, with honey-coloured  eyes and a sad look in them sat next to them. They didn't speak at all in the way through the lake: they were too excited to get distracted. Once they were inside, James and Sirius couldn't help playing a couple of small innocent pranks to some of their classmates, getting some deserved shouts from the severe woman who led them to the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall.

      Once the sorting ceremony had started, the anxious murmurs ended. James smiled broadly when he saw his friend walk triumphant towards the Gryffindor table. The boy with the rings under his eyes from the boat ended up there too. When it was his turn, the confident black-haired boy moved forward among the crowd and put on the hat with self-assurance. A smirk from ear to ear crossed his face when the hat announced him as a new member of the braves' house. Already at the table, he sat next to Sirius and the little green-eyed redhead from the train. He couldn't help bothering her a little before keep on chatting with his friend, who patted him on the back and introduced him to Remus Lupin, the guy from the boat. The boy smiled shyly, slightly fearful, but every doubt disappeared when James smiled him nicely and vigorously shook his hand. The kid seemed happier than ever, as if he couldn't believe he was making friends. Then, James shook Peter's (the small chubby boy) hand too, who greeted him back so enthusiastically that he looked as if he was going to pee in his pants.

      The four boys kept talking all the way to the Common Room, wondering about the classes, the teachers, the rooms. When they arrived at a portrait of a very fat woman in a silky pink dress, a gangling Prefect announced the password, Felix Felicis, to reveal through the round whole behind the painting a cozy round room with a chimney, in front of which there was a table surrounded by a group of squashy armchairs. The whole place was decorated in Gryffindor's colours, red and gold, and at the sides, two spiral staircases went up opening off the room.

"Boys," announced the Prefect pointing at one of the staircases. "And girls. First years sleep on the firsts rooms. Now, go to bed, tomorrow is going to be a long day.

    The four friends went up the stairs and settled down in the first room, which had four beds with deep-red velvet curtains. Sirius threw his robes next to his trunk and lay down into the bed, with his arms in the back of his head.

"Ahhh, this is the life," he sighed. He still had a smirk planted on his face; enjoying the memory of his cousin's Narcissa (that blonde girl with ice blue eyes who stared at him from the snake's table) surprised and outraged face. He could already imagine the Howler his mother would send him tomorrow during the breakfast.

     James looked at him and laughed, flinging himself into the bed, leaving the robes at the foot of it, all crumpled. Remus, otherwise, perfectly folded everything before sitting, while Peter tripped with his own feet.

"I can't wait until tomorrow. I want to start exploring the castle right now, my dad told me a lot of things about it; there are secret passages everywhere!" James said excitedly. Remus looked at him worried but interested.

"I've heard about the passages too… it would be great to know them all, but I had understood that we couldn't prowl around the castle, and less at night. And we would have to do it at night; during the day we won't have much time." The boy replied. He surprised himself when he realized  he had used the plural. He smiled unconsciously: he had the feeling he had just met the best friends of his entire life.

"Oh, come on," Sirius said, playing down its importance with a gesture of his hand. "Who says we have to follow the rules? It will be way much fun breaking them."

"Done, then. That's what we're gonna do." James added, slightly sleepy, "We will be the Marauders of Hogwarts!"

The other boys smiled at the witticism, and went to bed smiling, happy of having met each other.

*End of Flashback*

     James laughed out loud. That first year had been amazing: they had broken practically every possible rule, they had played countless pranks on the Slytherins, they had found a lot of short cuts and secrets around the castle (including one that led to the village, Hogsmeade), and they also had to pay several punishments. Besides, they had all visited James during the summer, and had had loads of fun at Godric's Hollow. Second year had been even better, because he had got the chaser's spot in the Gryffindor team, and Sirius had got permission from Professor McGonagall to officiate as commentator. Sirius and he seemed to be the best at everything and the rest of the students seemed to worship them. Remus was also an excellent student, but he had a really low profile. Actually, Peter seemed to be the only one who didn't stand out in anything (though Sirius stated that he would be the one to found the James and Sirius fan club, or even better, the Marauders fan club).

      But there was something that had worried them during their whole first year: once a month, Remus disappeared from school to come back a week later with rings under his eyes, pale, and tired. His friends interrogated him, worried, but he assured them he was perfectly fine and that he had gone to take care of his sick mother, but when the boys wanted to go into greater detail, Remus avoided the subject. At the beginning of the second year, during Remus's first disappearance, Sirius and James decided to intervene. Peter, who didn't understand anything, fervently nodded when the boys asked if he would join them. Actually, the boys didn't think Remus was doing anything bad, but they were more worried every time: they knew he was hiding something, and they saw him suffer  a lot, to later go away without prior warning..

*flashback*