Prongs, Wormtail & Moony

AlwaysPadfoot

James Potter

Right from the beginning I knew James Potter was different. Mum had gotten me there early, God forbid she was ever late for anything, so I found a compartment easily and watched as the platform burst to life outside.

Occasionally I'd spot kids that I'd seen at parties that I'd been dragged to by my parents; the ones I wasn't allowed to talk to and the ones I was forced to talk to. In the end, I remember just sitting with Andromeda, who got equally as bored as I did. She only really talked to a girl named Connie, who seemed nice enough when she was around.

I leant on the thin edge where the window met the side of the carriage, staring across the heads of the people outside. I only realised that time had passed when someone banged on the open compartment door and my elbow slipped off the ledge.

The boy in the doorway half-smiled, his hand in his hair. "You're Sirius Black right?"

I recognised him as one of those kids I wasn't allowed to talk to and immediately I stiffened.

"Yeah, and you're..." I stopped; I didn't remember his name.

"James," he said. "James Potter. I could go sit somewhere else if you want...?"

My eyes widened. "What? You actually want to sit with me?"

I knew I wasn't going to be like my parents, but I didn't think anyone who my family disapproved of would like me.

"Umm. I don't really make friends based on last names, besides you're sat on your own," James said. "I saw that you had a Magpies sticker on your trunk and wondered when you were going to start supporting a real team?"

For a moment I thought that he was being serious, but then I saw the smirk on his face and grinned back.

"Well at first I just wanted to support a different team than my parents, but then I realised that they were awesome," I replied.

James just shrugged. "Can I sit with you and explain why Puddlemere are clearly the better team?"

I gestured to the opposite chair. "You can try."

And so began my first - and one of many - heated discussions about Quidditch with James. That argument set the precedence for our friendship. If James could walk in, meet me for the first time, disregard my last name and just argue about Quidditch then he was worth keeping around.

Peter Pettigrew

With Peter, he always keen to try get involved and prove himself. I wasn't sure at the time why he was so desperate to be friends with just about anybody. The day I knew Peter was one of my best friends came late in September when we were on our way to the Common Room. Slughorn had finished class early because Remus and James had blown up a potion and he was now shouting at them.

"Check it," I said, nudging Peter as we climbed back up the stairs to the entrance hall.

I dug my hand deep down in my robes and pull out three green dungbombs that I'd been keeping for the exact right time to use. I'd sneakily brought them in Diagon Alley and made sure they were hidden in my bag. Retrospectively, what happened next was one of the poorest thought-out pranks we'd ever tried to pull off, but if you took into account that Peter and I were both eleven then that should balance out our stupidity.

Peter's eyes widened and he quickly looked across his shoulder to check there were no professors around.

"What," he stammered. "Where did you get those?"

"I got them in Diagon Alley in the summer," I answered.

Peter took one in his hand and inspected it in the light. "Cool."

"Alright," I said, taking it back. "Classes are about finish for lunch in like, two minutes. Hundreds of students are about to head here, so we should set these off and watch everyone go mad."

"As long as we don't get caught," Peter began.

I rolled my eyes skyward. "No one is going to catch us, Peter. We're going to be completely fine."

I set to telling him my plan with the dungbombs so we could set them off at the exact right time that people would be in the entrance hall. To say that it was elaborate plan would be a lie, but when we were running away from the scene of the crime it certainly felt elaborate. Until, of course, we both came to an abrupt halt in front of Professor McGonagall.

"Where do you two think you're going?" she asked.

"Um, nowhere, Professor," I muttered in response.

All of a sudden a commotion broke out somewhere behind us and McGonagall's lips narrowed. She glared down at us. "Stay here; do not move until I return."

Peter and I moved until our backs hit the stone wall of the first floor corridor. We watched as she swept away, her green robes billowing behind her. She rounded the corner and I snuck a look at Peter, who was staring at his shoes. We both jumped at McGonagall's voice shouting in the distance.

"I'm sorry, Peter," I said. "I'll tell McGonagall it was me or something. Or we could deny it completely..."

I just kind of came up with a thousand ideas and blabbed them all out whilst trying to figure out how easily we could get out of this.

When McGonagall returned, her eyes furiously landed on us as soon as she rounded the corner. She knew it was us and my eyes fell to my feet. That look could make any student want to shrivel up and let the ground swallow them whole. She'd definitely reduced us all to that many times since that first encounter.

"I want to know who is responsible for the mess in the entrance hall," she demanded.

I opened my mouth to say one of the crazy things in my head when instead someone else spoke.

"I am, Professor," Peter piped up.

I was stunned into silence. McGonagall took Peter to her office to shout at and left me standing alone. When I asked him later why he'd done it, he told me that I was his friend and then joked that I owed him. He saved me from two weeks detention and a letter home. Peter Pettigrew gave up two weeks of evenings so I didn't get into trouble, that made him someone that any guy would want as a best friend.

Remus Lupin

The difference between Remus, and James and Peter, was that Remus was scared to make friends because of his furry little problem. For almost a month he came and went and minded his own business, until we bribed him in with chocolate frogs. Even so, Remus and I didn't really become friends until after Halloween.

James had landed himself and Peter in detention so Remus and I holed up in the dormitories to complete some homework. After about half an hour, I realised that Remus was struggling with his potions questions and hadn't said a thing. I was already finished with mine and was onto Astronomy, but something in my mind was awkwardly debating how to ask if he needed any help.

"Remus, are you okay?" I asked.

He looked up tiredly. "What? Yeah, oh yeah, I'm fine."

I contemplated not pushing it further, but them quickly followed up. "Do you need any help?"

"Uh," he said.

"That's a yes," I replied. "What question is it?"

Remus looked as though he didn't know what to say before pushing the textbook towards me. "Question six."

"Alright, we did this today -" I began.

"I know, I kind of had a headache," he admitted.

"You should have gone the hospital wing," I told him. "Alright, question six, potential volatility whilst brewing a Herbicide potion."

"I looked in the book for ages, but couldn't find anything."

I took my time to explain the four most important points so that he could get them all down and answer the question to the standard Slughorn would want it. Once he'd answered it, he sat back and re-read his work.

"Thank you, Sirius," Remus said.

"No problem," I responded. "You know you can ask me - or like any of us - for help if you need it."

Remus looked really shocked. "I wouldn't want to -"

I pulled a face and then shrugged. "What's asking for a little help between friends?"

"I thought we were just in the same house?"

There was a long stretch of silence where neither of us spoke. Did Remus not think we were friends? Had I been rude or unfriendly at some point and no one had mentioned it? There was a moment in the first few weeks where I though Remus was wary about me being a Black, but I figured that would fade into the background once he got to know me.

"No Remus, we're friends," I declared.

That was that. Remus seemed abashed at the time, but I learnt that he was thankful for what I said that night in the dormitories. Later the next year he told us all that he had been scared that any friends he had would find out out his problem and ditch him, that he was petrified of making any at all.

Remus was the first of my friends who felt more like a dweeby little brother than a best friend, but that's another story. Although, I thought of my friends all equally, I think Remus being scared to make friends because of his Lycanthropy made me remember how worried I was no one would like me because I was a Black. He may have been the last to reach the imaginary title of best friend in my head, but something about that particular memory resonated with me far more than the others.