Written for the Round 5 of the Quidditch Leagues Fanfiction Competition

Prompts used: (word) detention, (creature) boggart, (dialogue) "I don't do well with snakes."

Many thanks to my fabulous beta queen-sheep!

A.N: Just to point out, I've altered the canon timeline a little to make Narcissa be in the same year group as the Marauder's. That would mean that her sisters are also still at Hogwarts here (their timelines have been altered a little too, just so that it will fit).

As Remus stood outside the caretaker's office, he sighed. James and Sirius should have been here by now, but it seemed like they were skipping out on him once again. Honestly; he didn't know how they managed to get away with ducking Filch's detentions like they did.

Remus loved his friends - of course he did, but he couldn't help but feel a little irritated that they weren't even turning up to the detention that they had both landed him in. It had nothing to do with him, anyway.

oOo

It had been yesterday, at about nine o' clock. Remus was used to James and Sirius not returning to the Gryffindor common room straight away, but this was really taking the biscuit. He hadn't seen them since the morning of that same day. So, after sharing a few words of encouragement with Peter, the two of them decided to sneak out and look for their friends.

It wasn't something that Remus ever really participated in; breaking the rules. He often got caught up with James and Sirius's escapades, but the teachers usually overlooked him when they were dishing out punishments to the twosome, even though Remus usually held his ground and stayed with his friends. Peter, on the other hand, was much too slippery to even be associated with them when trouble was afoot, and tended to scurry out of the way whenever a teacher appeared on their radar.

When peals of laughter emerged from an empty classroom on the third floor, Remus knew they had found their target. Sure enough, when he and Peter advanced on the classroom and peered through the door, they saw their two reckless friends, doubled over in a fit of laughter.

Stood a few feet in front of the howling Sirius was a tall, slender woman, dressed impeccably in black. Remus couldn't see her face, just the back of her curly dark head. When Sirius caught Remus's eye as he moved closer into the classroom to get a better look, his laughter died down. The woman spun around on her heel to face Remus, and he soon realised why James and Sirius had been laughing so much.

Remus recognised the woman immediately from various photographs as Sirius's mother, Walburga. She looked her usual haughty self, with heavy set eyes and long, pointed nails, perched on her narrow waist. The only difference was, that instead of her usual, thin-lipped sneer, Walburga had a huge, snow-white beard.

It was eerily reminiscent of the one that Dumbledore kept so well groomed. Ridiculously long, dangling between her breasts and a few strands even boasted decorative beads. Somehow, Walburga still looked hilarious, even while she was trying to appear so angry.

Just as Remus felt his face split into a grin and began to offer his friends a snigger, Walburga advanced on him. Within minutes, she shrivelled.

It was strange to watch. Her body grew smaller and smaller, but the beard remained the same, until finally her face and physique were no longer visible, just the long tendrils of the white beard. Then, the beard began to curl around itself, forming a hanging, eerie white orb. The moon.

Remus felt his laughter draining from his throat like vomit, and he backed up quickly. Even though he knew that the woman hadn't really been Walburga, he still hadn't expected it to be a - what had they called it, just last week in Defense Against the Dark Arts?

"Remus, watch out - it's a Boggart!" James shouted. Remus narrowed his eyes at the moon in front of him, and reached into his pocket quickly, fishing around for his wand.

"Peter, give him a hand - oh typical, he's run off already!" Sirius snarled. Remus glanced behind, noticing that Peter had indeed vanished.

Before he could aim it at the Boggart, however, a voice sounded from behind him. "Ridikkulus!" Suddenly, the Boggart let out a loud, piercing shrieking noise, and began to spin around rapidly, like an empty balloon. A trunk from the other side of the classroom blew open, and the Boggart was sent soaring into it's depths.

"Would you like to explain why three third years are out of the Gryffindor common room after hours?" Remus turned around to face the lined old face of Professor McGonagall, and knew that this time, he wasn't going to avoid detention.

oOo

Filch stepped out of the office after about ten minutes. By this time, a pretty blonde Slytherin girl had appeared, but there was no sight of his friends. With a slight roll of his eyes, he followed Filch with the girl, making a mental note to question their motives when he was released from detention.

Filch led them up to the Trophy Room, sectioned them to opposite sides of the room, and insisted that they polish every single trophy - without magic - before they were allowed to leave. The pair of them set to work quietly once Filch left the room, the only noise was their rags rubbing on the metal sculptures.

After a while, Remus started to become paranoid that the Slytherin girl was looking at him. Eventually, he pocketed his rag to have a quick break, and turned around to face her, leaning against one of the glass cabinets.

"You shouldn't lean on that," she muttered, without actually turning around to look at him. She was polishing a rather large, bronze cup with the Hufflepuff insignia on the base. He stood up straight immediately, feeling his ears tinge red.

"What did you get detention for?" he asked. What else was there to talk to during detention?

She turned around and gave him a haughty look. At that moment, Remus appreciated how pretty she really was. She had narrow, bright blue eyes, a full pink mouth, and a creamy, heart-shaped face. Her hair hung in a silky blonde waterfall down around her shoulders and back, fastened off her face with a small clip. She looked familiar, but Remus couldn't place her.

"My older sister punched a Hufflepuff boy in the face," she told him. "Only, she's on her last warning before she gets expelled. So she told Professor Slughorn it was me."

Remus raised an eyebrow. "And you just let her blame you?"

"You don't argue with Bellatrix," the girl concluded stiffly.

Suddenly, Remus realised where he knew her from. Bellatrix Black was notorious around Hogwarts. She was in her seventh year, and could pretty much manage to get away with murder if it so pleased her; easily winding most of the teachers around her little finger. She had a huge gang of Slytherin bullies for friends, and made it her mission to inflict as much cruelty on other students that she didn't like - namely, anyone in houses other than Slytherin, but even some of the other Slytherins fell under her wrath. Luckily, Remus hadn't been on the wrong end of her wrath as of yet, but he was quite well aware of who she was.

Andromeda, Bellatrix's sister, was in her fifth year. She was far quieter than Bellatrix, choosing instead to focus on her studies instead of causing trouble at school. The only reason she became known at Hogwarts was because of her uncanny resemblance to Bellatrix - they both had dark, hooded eyes and thick, curly hair. The only difference was that Andromeda's was a little lighter.

There had been a lot of talk about the youngest Black sister, Narcissa, but Remus hadn't taken much notice. When he didn't recognise anyone who looked anything like Bellatrix and Andromeda, he didn't think anything else of it. But here she was, standing right in front of him. "You're Narcissa?"

She nodded. "I take it you know my sisters?"

"Everyone knows your sisters. At least, everyone knows Bellatrix, anyway," Remus noticed that his voice had become a little colder. Frankly, it didn't matter that Narcissa looked nothing like her evil older sister. It was still possible that they had something in common, and Bellatrix seemed to have no good traits about her.

Narcissa seemed to notice Remus's change in tone, and her pale eyes widened considerably, one neat blonde eyebrow raising sharply. "You think I'm like my sister?" she asked.

Remus softened slightly, and shrugged. "I don't know you," he replied. It was true, the Black family were known for their adversity to anyone who wasn't Pureblood. But Remus's best friend was Sirius, and he was a Black. Who was he to judge that Narcissa was exactly like her sister?

For the next thirty minutes, the pair of them chatted quietly in the Trophy Room. It took a while for Narcissa to warm up to Remus, but after a while, she began to talk a little more fluidly to him - though, she averted eye contact most of the time.

Remus discovered that he had quite a lot in common with Narcissa - they were both somewhat quiet, tried to keep their heads down in school, and both of them seemed to be hiding something. He got the impression that Narcissa perhaps felt a little overshadowed by her sister, and he could appreciate that. Though he loved his friends dearly, he couldn't help but feel like he was often walking in the shadows of James and Sirius.

Eventually, after Remus had described what his reason for getting into detention was, he asked her what her Boggart would be.

She blushed when he asked this. "It's embarrassing," she told him.

"It can't be worse than mine," he promised.

"Snakes," she confessed finally, after a little more persuasion. Remus raised both of his eyebrows this time, his eyes shooting pointedly to the Slytherin crest on her robes.

"How can you be afraid of snakes? You're in Slytherin!"

"Believe it or not, I don't do well with snakes," Narcissa finished. "When I was little, Bellatrix accidentally turned my skipping rope into a boa constrictor. I was mortified."

Remus continued to stare at her for a little while, but eventually broke into a burst of laughter. Narcissa looked annoyed for a moment, but soon followed suit.

"What the hell is going on in here?" shouted a rough, gravelly voice from the doorway. Filch was standing there, his scabby old cat purring around his ankles, shooting a knowing yellow glare in their direction. "Get back to work!"

Narcissa and Remus hurried back to their respective sides of the room, making haste to begin rubbing away at random trophies, whilst Filch took a seat in the corner of the room, grumbling as he did so.

Even though they weren't allowed to talk to one another now, Remus glanced over his shoulder at Narcissa and gave her an apologetic smile. She was staring at him icily with her piercing blue eyes, and Remus had a vague idea what she was thinking.

Even though they had chatted tonight, there was no way that anyone else could know they had interacted.

For the rest of the evening, Remus continued to smile. Even though he was being punished for something not entirely his fault, it didn't matter. He'd made a new friend today.