CHAPTER 3

Remus, Sirius and James arrived for their first lesson of Defence Against the Dark Arts before anyone else. In any normal lesson, Sirius would complain about Remus trying to convert him into a 'nerd side-kick'; but Sirius was more eager to perform in Dark Arts than Remus was.

As the corridor outside the Dark Arts room slowly filled with students, a man opened the door for them to enter. James and Sirius sat at the front at a table with Remus on the one next to them. Lily entered the room and took the usual spare seat next to Remus. Scattered around the room was an average amount of students as Dark Arts was a popular yet demanding subject, which evened out the numbers. There were a group of Slytherins that sat a few seats behind the rest of the class including Severus Snape who, noticeably, sat on the opposite side of the room to Lily. Along with Severus, the Slytherins consisted of Mulciber, Avery and a few faces that weren't important enough to be a re-occurring name to the Marauders. Two Ravenclaw girls sat in the centre of the class too.

'Hello NEWT students' the Professor spoke suddenly, making half of the class jump three feet into the air. 'I am Professor Spike.' His voice was steady and almost haunting; sending a sense of tension around the room. He was a tall, dark haired man with pale skin. He was taller than your average wizard, which seemed to add even more fright into his already eerie appearance.

'As you may know, your last teacher retired early last year after being traumatised by certain students.' Professor Spike glared around the room. Out of the corner of Remus' eye, he saw Sirius smirking. He had driven their last professor, Hawkins, mad by producing hexes that he had never seen before. His 'early retirement' was all of Sirius' doing with some small help from James and Remus.

Professor Spike continued his introduction. 'I can promise you I will not have a problem with willing Dark Arts students. If you want to learn something, I will teach you. There will be no need of textbooks this year. Everything you will need to know for your exams will be learnt through practical lessons.'

Remus turned to Lily. 'You staying here or do you want to swap with Sirius?' He said, almost revealing a light humour in his voice.

Lily raised her eyebrows, un-amused. 'Remus Lupin, you are my best friend. Just because James and I-'

'Want to get it on.' Remus cut in, smirking. Lily jabbed him with her elbow.

'Just because James and I are becoming more than friends' Lily said, putting emphasis on her re-wording of the sentence 'doesn't mean I don't want to continue lessons beating him by going with you.'

'If you want to prove to James you can kick his ass at Dark Arts, go with Sirius. He's top of the class.' Remus smiled at the amusing thought of Sirius being top at something for once.

'He's also an incompetent asshole who wouldn't work as well with me as you do. Besides, you're just as good as he is!' Lily protested.

Remus shook his head. 'I'm not; we all know who could really kick all our butts at Dark Arts in here.' He looked away from Lily and let his eyes land upon Sirius. 'Credit where credit is due' He whispered. It was as if he didn't want Sirius to hear; not only because it would make his head bigger, however. There was something else. Remus wasn't sure whether it was the fact Sirius had beaten or whether it was that he envied the ease in which Sirius performed Dark Arts as opposed to his own amount of practice and studying; either way there was something else.

As Professor Spike began to give instructions to the class, Remus let any previous thoughts slip from his mind. The class would be studying Unforgivable Curses. James and Sirius shared a look before turning to share it further with Remus. The three of them knew all about Unforgivable Curses. Sirius' family used them all the time, so he had shared with James, Remus and their ex-friend Peter his knowledge. The curses could torture, control and kill a person. It was this knowledge that caused Peter to be expelled after he attempted to torture Sirius.

To start with, the class would try the Imperius Curse; used to control a person.

'The idea' Spike told the class 'is to get the person to do what you want. Like so…'

Spike put a spider onto the desk. He lifted his wand.

'Imperio' his voice was calm yet powerful. The spider instantly obeyed and fell limp. Spike spun him around the room, making him do neat tricks whilst his students watched in awe, for most of the lesson. At the end of the hour and a half, Spike set homework to read the first chapter of 'Dark Arts for NEWT students' about Unforgivable Curses. Remus had already heard this as Sirius had read it aloud to James and he on their first night back in their dorm. That left the three of them with less homework than expected.

'An hour and a half of Astronomy now' Lily smiled at James who winked at her, grabbed her hand and made for the Astronomy tower.

'See you later guys.' James called over his shoulder.

Sirius shook his head at his friend's new relationship finally planning itself out in front of their eyes.

'What have you got now then, Moons?' Sirius asked, expecting to have to go off alone whilst Remus went to his next lesson.

'Free period' Remus said, causing Sirius to smile. 'We have three together each week if I am correct. Then you have three with just us and James and then three with James and Lily; good luck with that one.' Remus knew exactly how little fun it would be for Sirius watching Lily and James flirt and make-out whilst he sat on his own.

Sirius sighed. 'I swear I'll go around terrorising Slytherin first years if they ditch me for some 'alone time'.' He muttered. Remus patted his back sympathetically. He didn't even bother to protest Sirius' choice; even though it was his job as a prefect. He too would be tempted.

'You have any homework?' Sirius asked.

Remus shook his head. 'Already read the chapter, remember? And I finished Arithmancy last night.'

'Same here about that chapter. It's not like it didn't tell me what I know already, however.' Sirius made no attempt to hide his smug smile which caused Remus to throw him an envious look which translated as 'stop being a twat'. Sirius understood and his smile grew as he placed an arm round his friend's back to steer him down the corridor.

'So are we up for preparing the shack tonight?' Remus asked. 'It might be best to do it now whilst our homework amount is limited.

'Whilst your homework amount is limited, you mean.' Sirius corrected. You know damn well that I only do homework when I have to; and most the time you let me copy anyway.

Remus sighed; it was true. To keep James and Sirius' detentions to a minimum, he removed the point of there being an absence of their homework and let both of them copy his own. This wasn't to say that they didn't get in a lot of trouble for other things however.

'But yes; anything for my nerdy, little werewolf' Sirius mocked, squishing Remus' cheeks with his fingers like a mother would do to a child.

'I'll take that as a compliment.' Remus muttered, but he didn't shrug Sirius off. He only dwelled in his friend's joke. 'Now, can I convince you to come with me to the study hall or am I going alone?'

Sirius snorted. 'So you can read whilst I'm bored mindless? No thanks. Also, you are not ditching me. Come along, Moony, I am going to thrash your buttocks at wizard chess.'

'In your dreams, Padfoot' Remus grinned at Sirius who mirrored his expression perfectly; each of them overjoyed at the other calling them by the nicknames they used so often. In fact, whilst talking to each other they only ever used nicknames.

'We'll see' Remus said, still grinning.

With that, they headed off to the Gryffindor common room.

'How was Astronomy?' Remus asked James and Lily as they sat down next to each other at the Gryffindor table for lunch. He and Sirius were sitting the opposite side after arriving a few minutes previous from the common room, where they'd spent the whole of their free period playing wizard chess.

'Dull' James said automatically. 'We did textbook work for the entire lesson.'

'No romantic stargazing then?' Sirius batted his eyelashes at James who gave him a dark look in return which told him to drop it. Lily, however, giggled and helped herself to some food.

'Anyway, Prongs, you're busy tonight.' Sirius said in a casually tone, lowering his voice so only James and Remus could hear. 'We-' He gestured to the three of them, '-are off to prepare the shack for Moony's monthly date.' Sirius clapped Remus on the back.

'Oh shit' James looked uneasy.

'What?' Remus and Sirius said in unison.

James ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. 'I was going to take Lily down to the lake using the cloak.' James looked to Lily who was absent mindedly nibbling on her food.

Remus looked disappointed. The three of them spent one of the day's in the week previous to his transformation setting up the shack and had done since the beginning. It wasn't something James would forget; but Remus decided not to mention this as he didn't want to cause a problem out of something he could have easily been left alone to do from the beginning. James had a right to not have to do it. Remus shouldn't get in the way of that.

Sirius, however, was pissed. 'Are you joking? Just tell her you have to cancel because you forgot something important!' he hissed the last few words causing James to shift uneasily.

'I'm sorry; I'll tell her.'

'No' Remus said.

Sirius and James' heads turned to him. 'No?' they both said.

'Don't cancel with Lily.' Remus shrugged.

'Why not?' James said. 'I can't blow you guys out.'

'Gay' Sirius muttered before he could stop himself causing a small smile to appear on his friends faces. He had a tendency to speak before he thought through what he was going to say.

'Well, if you don't tell her why she'll think you're not interested in her anymore; which is bullshit.' Remus caused James to smile. 'Also, if you did tell her why she'd want to come along and it's too dangerous for a non-animagi.'

'Ah yes, I forget how much you protested when James and I used to follow you down to the shack previous to our 'animagi experience.'

'Permanent animagi experience' Remus reminded him.

Sirius shrugged. 'I don't mind.'

'So James, you'll go on your date with Lily with the cloak. Sirius and I will still prepare the Shrieking Shack for my transformation which is in a few days. We won't have the cloak but if we take the map then we should know if anyone can see us anyway.' Remus finished looking between his two friends who were grinning you know.

'I knew there was a reason why you're the smart one.' Sirius ruffled Remus' hair and gave him a quick, one-armed hug. 'So what time are you going later?' He said, turning to James.

'8pm' James confirmed.

'Good, we'll leave just after.' Remus confirmed.

'Ooh, I'll be in the common room waiting for our date.' Sirius joked, winking at Remus.

'See you there, dear.' Remus joked back.

'Ugh, promise me that if I ever end up anything like that, you'll knock the shit out of me.' James grimaced.

'Done deal' Sirius said through an evil smile.

'You shouldn't have done that.' Remus said in a sing-song voice. 'You'll regret it.'

'Probably, we've got to give the doggy a satisfying bone every now and again though, haven't we?' James laughed, ducking as Sirius flicked food from his fork at his head.