"not a thing in the world that we can't make it through together"

*

"Knight to... H3." James' knight obliged and slid forward on the chessboard. Remus kept his eyes on the pieces with no real interest. All day, he'd been stuck with a terrible headache and couldn't focus on anything. He knew the full moon was days away, which filled him with dread, even though he always appreciated his friends' support.

"Pawn to H2," Remus countered tiredly, not even realizing that he was putting it in harm's way. James considered pretending that he didn't see the kill move, but then Remus would call him out for taking it easy.

"Hey, how do you spell Acromantula?" Peter called from an armchair by the fire, his quill hovering over the parchment in hesitation. James shrugged, leaving Remus to spell it out.

The portrait hole opened and Sirius came swaggering in with a wild grin on his face. He shook the snow out of his hair and plopped down on the couch, scattering the chess pieces all over the floor.

"Oi!" James yelled indignantly, slapping him. "Watch where you're sitting, Black! I was about to beat Remus at chess for the first time in six years!"

"I wish I could say I'm sorry, but I'm not." He tossed his jacket on the floor near the fire and leaned back into the cushions, eyes closed, reliving the last few hours.

"You look like you had a good time," Remus commented.

"I did. It's too bad you had to spend the day with blokes like these two, Moony," Sirius joked. "Hey James, Rosmerta was looking for you, mate."

"Was she?" James' attention perked up, because while he liked Lily, there was no denying how attractive Madam Rosmerta was even though her age doubled theirs. The boys loved to flirt playfully with her to try and win free drinks. "What did you say?"

Sirius shrugged. "Said you didn't know how to have any fun and were spending an extremely boring day in the library."

James yelped, "Why would you do that?" but lowered his voice as soon as he saw Remus wince and rub his forehead. "All right, change the subject. Cut to the chase," James said, pushing his glasses up further on his nose. "How'd it go with Blondie today? Did she come to her senses and realize what an idiot you are?"

"Hilarious, but no. This idiot scored himself a date," Sirius said casually. The effect was immediate: James dropped the chessboard he had just retrieved, Peter let out an audible gasp, and Remus' lips turned upwards into a small smile.

James knelt on the floor in front of Sirius and began to bow down. "Teach me, Master! Show me your ways!"

"Respect me. You shall be my Padawan learner." He grinned, knowing how much of a mistake it probably was for Lily to take the gang to see Star Wars in the Muggle movie theaters. "Face it, James: you don't have my charm."

"I'm not kidding. What happened?"

Sirius grinned and rested his elbows on his knees. "We were in the Three Broomsticks and she asked me to Slughorn's Christmas party."

"You've been waiting for this for what, three years now?" Peter asked, seeming equally excited for his friend. "Nice one."

"Hold up," James said. "You're telling me that old Sluggy's having a Christmas party and Lily hasn't invited me yet?"

"Really observant, Prongs. Good on you." He patted his head condescendingly and kicked his long legs up on the coffee table. While he was trying to play it cool in front of his friends, he was over the moon, floating somewhere in the galaxy randomly. He'd finally gotten a date with the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts, the girl he'd been stuck on for four years. It was finally happening.

The fire flickered merrily in the stone fireplace. Stockings hung around the common room, handmade by the house elves who cleaned every night. A massive tree had been wedged into the corner and decorated a few days before.

"All right, losers minus Sirius," Remus said. He scooped up his books and yawned. "I'm off to bed. See you all in the AM."

The boys all said goodnight and started a game of Exploding Snap. They didn't blame Remus in the slightest for going to sleep early, and just played with three. The game lasted late into the night, and at around eleven, Marlene walked down from the girls' dormitory. She perched herself on the armrest of a snoozing Peter's chair and crossed her legs.

"I've heard someone's got a date to Slughorn's Christmas shindig."

"Who? Snivellus?" Sirius fake gasped. "Thanks for sharing."

Marlene laughed and shook her head. "Shut up."

"Jealous, Marls?" Sirius winked, knowing that she wouldn't take offense to his jokes even though they were exes. "Sad to see me in someone else's loving arms?"

"Not at all. She has to hang around you all night," she replied, a teasing edge to her voice. "I just thought I'd say it in front of witnesses: if you hurt her, you'd better start running."

"I l- I wouldn't hurt her," Sirius instantly said, backtracking his original sentence. "You know that."

Marlene nodded. "I know, but I'm her friend. Protective is what we do, and I'm clearly intimidating, so the duty befalls to me." Sirius gave a bark-like laugh. Marlene, at least the majority of the time, was about as intimidating as a pink teddy bear. Out of the girls, Lily really was the most dangerous to mess with even on a good day.

"You are scary," James retorted. "Blimey, do you remember when you caught him snogging that Hufflepuff back in our fourth year? Classic."

Sirius groaned and shoved him off of the couch. "We made it two years without that coming up!"

"It served you right. I don't regret it." A smile twitched on her lips as she remembered her spell that left Sirius bleach-blond for two weeks. He vowed to hex anyone who took pictures, so there was naturally an entire scrapbook hidden under Remus' bed. "Just don't be a jerk, okay? Don't mess it up."

"It'll be difficult, but I'll do my best." He said it like the words pained him and grasped her hand in a firm shake. "Off to bed with you, McKinnon."

Once Marlene had flicked him in the head and gone to bed, James turned to Sirius. "Must be nice to be on speaking terms with a girl you snogged in practically every broom closet in the school."

"Oh, shut up. I'm glad we still are friends. We used to have fun. Her father hated me. That made it even more exciting, to be honest."

"But that's not how you feel about Eva, is it?" His hazel eyes watched him carefully, so he saw when Sirius softened at her name.

"Eva's different," he said finally, pushing his hair out of his face. He hesitated, not sure if he actually wanted to go on. He had never been a fan of sharing his emotions, but he felt like he needed to tell someone, and he trusted James more than he'd ever trusted anyone. They were closer than brothers. "She knows me, really knows me. She doesn't hold my family against me even though she has every right to. And she doesn't care what others think. Like, she truly doesn't. She's a complete free spirit and doesn't let anyone break her. She's just-" He exhaled, a smile on his face, and covered his face with his hands as he laid back on the couch cushions. "She's unlike anyone I've ever met."

James cleaned off his glasses and grinned at the long-haired boy. He considered both Sirius and Eva to be his family. More than anyone else, he knew how much Sirius just wanted to be accepted and loved, even though he'd never admit to it.

"What if I blow it?"

"You won't," said James. "Just show up and crank up the charisma. Maybe get her under the mistletoe..."

"Don't get crazy."

"Oh, but you'd like to, wouldn't you?"

"Shut up."

*

Eva walked down a hallway, this quiet, winding corridor, unsure of where she was going.

"Weak," a dark voice whispered in her ear. "You couldn't even save the ones you love most."

She quickened her pace, trying to keep her breathing even.

"You chose the wrong side. Now the world will see you for what you are," the voice sneered. "A worthless, talentless Mudblood, unworthy of her friends."

She pushed open a door to find her mother dead on the hardwood floor. Her white-blonde hair fanned around her, blood trickling from her forehead down her cheek, lifeless blue eyes staring at the ceiling.

"No!" She screamed, throwing herself onto her mother's corpse. "No!"

"Are you okay?" A worried voice asked. "You were shaking in your sleep."

Eva felt a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her head from her hands, brushed a few flyaways out of her eyes. Just a dream. Just a nightmare. She nodded numbly and glanced up at the one who woke her.

The girl wore a prefect badge pinned to her oversized coffee-colored sweater. Her pin-straight brown hair hung down to her elbows, and her light blue eyes watched with curiosity.

"I'm okay, Kriss," Eva sighed. "Thank you, though."

Kriss smiled. "You're welcome. You must've had a nightmare or something."

"Yeah. I must be really tired to be falling asleep here. Merlin, I'm worse than Remus. He's been falling asleep everywhere these last few days." She sat up and closed her Potions textbook. "This might be a dumb question but what're you doing in the library?"

"I'm reading," Kriss answered, quirking her eyebrow. Her slim fingers trailed the edge of a book as her mind wandered, then flipped open to a marked page. "Look at these."

A photo of gray beasts with long necks and big blue eyes took up half of the page. Eva had to admit, they were cute. 

"What are those?"

"Mooncalves," Kriss answered, her eyes lighting up. "They only come out on the full moon, you know. That's tomorrow night. Hagrid thinks there is a handful of them in the forest, some of them are babies, and he told me I could come down to see them tomorrow night. They were out last month, but I missed them by a few minutes. I'm dying to see them."

Eva thought of what she knew of Kriss. She was regarded as one of the smartest witches in the school, but her quiet and gentle manner made her very approachable. Most of the students in her year had gone to her for help on an assignment at one point or another. Other than her brains, though, Eva realized that she didn't know the girl at all. Clearly, she had a passion for learning about magical creatures, though. She'd never seen Kriss Klarkson so animated before about anything. 

"I would ask to come with you and see them, but I'm going to the party tomorrow night. Slughorn's, I mean."

"Maybe you can come to see them after break, if you want to still. Are you going with anyone? To the party, I mean," Kriss asked curiously, wondering if her suspicions were true. She twisted a lock of hair and let it fall, straight as it was before. 

Eva nodded, her spirits lifting at the thought of spending the entire night with him. "Sirius."

"Black?" She questioned. Eva nodded, and she continued. "I thought you two were a couple already."

"What? No," Eva said, shaking her head quickly. "We're just friends."

Kriss bit her lip, embarrassed that she had assumed incorrectly. "I'm sorry, it's just that... don't you see the way he looks at you?"

"What?" 

The Ravenclaw girl pulled her arms inside the sleeves of her sweater, trying to overwhelm her shyness and anxiety. Being quiet gave her plenty of time to watch others, and she felt sure about what she saw in him. "He looks at you like you're a sunrise."