A/N: Ok, so it's been a LONG time, but I got a very unexpected review and had to revisit this story. I'd actually kind of forgotten how much I liked the direction I wanted to bring it, and ended up writing another chapter... It's finals time though, so very unlikely that there will be regular updates, I will try to keep it going this time! :)
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"Of course they would get into trouble before classes even start," Hermione sighed. Molly shook her head in exasperation, but there was a warm twinkle in her eye to see Remus so young and carefree.
"Brilliant!" Fred said, a huge grin on his face as the memory followed the three boys down the dormitory stairs.
"The kitchens are every kids' first adventure," George added knowingly.
Harry just squeezed Ginny's hand in happy anticipation.
"So, you're a Black?" James questioned, tilting his head towards Sirius as the three boys made their way out of the common room and into the dark, abandoned hallways of the rest of the school.
"What of it?" Sirius asked, eyes darkening as he shot a glare to James.
"Never heard of a Black in Gryffindor," James replied, a challenge in his voice.
"Never heard of a Potter who wasn't a weak minded pansy whore," Sirius retorted, a frown marring his young face, eyes flashing.
At this point, Remus tried to make himself as small as possible, he didn't even understand what they were arguing over. Were family names really so important? He glanced back at the portrait of the fat lady; he could easily make it back there and pretend this little excursion never happened.
"OI! You are -" James's angry retort was cut off roughly by an overly happy giggling from above them.
"Ickle Firsties, out of bed already! Filch will love his present!" Peeves started laughing manically as the color drained from all three boys faces. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED!"
"Shit!" Sirius muttered, quickly making a grab for Remus's arm as he batted at a nearby tapestry to find a secret passageway.
"Let me go!" Remus hissed, attempting to push Sirius's hand off of him, still glancing furtively at the fat lady.
"Shut up!" James grumbled back at the two of them, and taking a hold of Remus's other arm, he pulled the two to a wall just under the stairwell and banged on it with his fist.
"That's a wall, Potter," Sirius said, rolling his eyes as he tried to disentangle Remus's arm from James's hand.
"No it's not!" James argued, fervently kicking at the wall more viciously.
"Someone's coming," Remus said, going still as he heard footsteps moving quickly closer to where they stood clumped together.
"Stupid door," James muttered, more to himself than either of his companions.
"Stupid Potter," Sirius said back, though the snarkiness of the comment was somewhat lost with the growing quickly apparent in the boy's eyes.
"Stupid ide-" Remus started to add in his own thought but was cut off as the wall creaked inwards, just a large enough gap to fit an 11 year old boy through.
James grinned widely in satisfaction, running through the new doorway, pulling Remus with him, and Sirius who was still hanging on to Remus's arm.
As the wall slammed closed behind them, the passage was filled with darkness and Remus was briefly grateful that both James and Sirius still had a hold of his arms, he could have easily been lost in here. One of the boys started rustling around, then a quiet "lumos" was uttered, and a soft light revealed them to be in a dusty storage room, rickety desks, chairs, and chalkboards cluttered by the walls.
"How did you know this was here?" Sirius demanded turning his wand-light on James.
"You know spells already?" James was looking mesmerized by the light coming from Sirius's wand. "Whenever I try anything I just get sparks."
"I asked you first," Sirius responded indignantly.
"Fine, my sister told me. She said if I was going to get into trouble, I might as well know where some hiding places were," James said, shrugging.
"Sister?" Harry questioned, feeling faint. He looked towards Molly Weasley.
"I wish I could tell you something, dear, but I don't know," Molly replied softly.
"She's probably dead," Ron offered unhelpfully. Ginny and Hermione both smacked his arm.
"I'm sure we'll find out, Harry," Hermione said, still scowling at Ron.
"Now, magic?" James prompted Sirius eagerly.
"Right, give me your wand," Sirius said, finally letting go of Remus (who then rubbed at his arm, frowning, but equally intrigued by how Sirius was already so comfortable using magic). Sirius glanced over James's wand, then muttered something as he touched the tip of it with his own.
"What is it?" James asked both eager and anxious.
"Your parents put a cloak on it, so you can only do magic on Hogwarts grounds. Anything you try to do out of Hogwarts will only make sparks. It should work fine now," Sirius replied, handing the wand back to James.
"Lumos," James tried, holding his wand in front of him. A second soft wand light joined the first and James jumped in glee. "Excellent, mate! How'd you know that?"
"My cousin Bella tried cloaking my wand and I ended up almost burning my aunt Cassie's hair off. Father got angry, punished Bella, and took the cloaking off. Then he punished me for not standing up enough to make Bella know her place," Sirius responded matter-of-factly, rolling his eyes at the memory.
"Can you teach me?" Remus asked quietly, eyes wide as he looked at the two wand lights compared to his own dark wand.
"This spell is pretty elementary," Sirius said, expression softening as he looked over to Remus. "Just say lumos and focus on wanting light."
"Make sure you hold your wand tight," James supplied. "If not, then you won't have total control over what it does."
Remus squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus only on wanting to make light, he couldn't be falling behind every other student entering Hogwarts this early in the year. He felt the warmth from his wand grow and softly he whispered "lumos."
A third light joined the other two.
"Excellent!" James smacked him on the back.
"Well done, Remus," Sirius offered, smiling, though there was a far off look in his grey eyes.
"Who would've thought James and Sirius would make good teachers?" Molly sighed, shaking her head.
"Well, Remus was also smart too, without either of them," Hermione said, a little offended on Remus's behalf.
"I know that, dear, but the Sirius we knew…" Molly's voice trailed off as she looked a little ashamed of herself.
"The Sirius we knew had been in Azkaban for 12 years," Harry said gruffly, not taking his eyes off the three boys in the memory for a second.
"Even the Sirius in the memories seems older than his friends," Ginny observed, squinting closer at the grey eyed boy, who was now searching out the storage room for an exit door.
"Growing up in Grimmauld Place would do that to you," George said as he and Fred both shuddered with their own memories of the Black family home.
"Shut up! Remus found a new exit," Harry hissed at them.
"Ah Ha!" Remus grinned triumphantly at his find, a vent that opened up to reveal a crawl space.
"Aw, Mel said that one just leads back to the dorms," James sounded disappointed as he and Sirius scrambled over to see what Remus had found.
"Well, that sounds like an excellent idea to me," Remus responded, squeezing himself into the opening quickly before either of the other boys could grab his arms to manhandle him again.
"Don't be such a wimp, Remus," James said, crouching in to get a hold of Remus's ankles.
"Let me go! I'm not getting expelled on the very first night here!" Remus kicked his feet around so James's grip faltered.
"Come on! It'll be fun! And dessert!" James tried fishing around again, but Remus had scrambled too far into the tunnel.
"Oh leave him, Potter," Sirius rolled his eyes and grabbed James's shoulders to pull him away from the vent. "I'm going back to the dorms too. Beats being stuck here with you."
"And you were the one who called Potters pansies," James sneered as he stood up again.
"Well at least Blacks aren't complete idiots," Sirius said, taking the opportunity to slide himself into the tunnel behind Remus. "There's no way we can get out the same way we came in. We'll try again tomorrow with a better plan."
"Try again?" James responded thoughtfully.
"Well I'm certainly not giving up," Sirius said snootily before he started crawling. After a minute of following Remus, he felt James close behind him as well.
"We're going to need to a lookout for Peeves and Filch. We'll also need to do some serious scouting for passages between classes. And we have to work on hiding spells, like the disillusionment charm!..."
From the front of the line of boys, Remus could still hear James prattling on about his list of their necessities for sneaking around the castle at night. The young werewolf felt a smile pulling at his lips. This probably wasn't quite what his parents had in mind when they'd told him to make friends; but then, Remus was always a tad unconventional.