Quidditch practice for the Gryffindors was quite the spectator attraction the first time the team came together after Harry Potter's fifty foot fall. Loads of students trekked down the path to the pitch to take to the stands to see if Gryffindor's star seeker would still be able to catch the snitch without his fancy broomstick. Most were turned away at the door by Lee Jordan, who announced loudly that only team supporters - namely, Gryffindor house students - were allowed inside.

Remus had a late start of getting down to the pitch, he'd meant to go down before the herds of students were going, so he wasn't wading amongst them all, but he slept in and even skipping breakfast in the Great Hall, his slow gait meant that students were flooding around him on the way along the path.

He'd been so tired because he had been up late yet again the night before with another long trek out to the Shack. This time, he'd brought a couple bars of chocolate and a package of crisps, along with some nuts and fruit that he'd knicked from some overzealous house elves who bragged that they were getting a lot of "kitchen door requests these days" when they handed out the sack of food. Remus figured that Sirius might like something to eat - he could only imagine that whatever was sustaining Sirius couldn't be very good (he pictured the grisley squirrels and rabbits that Sirius used to catch when they had a summer in the woods together). But when he got to the shack, it was to find that the blankets hadn't moved from where he'd left them in the living room, and the radio upstairs was still playing.

Remus had gone upstairs, looked into the room and found the missing shutter (which he repaired dutifully), and turned off the radio. There were smokey ashes in a bin lid on the floor and a bunch of torn up magazines and catalogs on the bed, but no other evidence of anyone having been there in some time. Back downstairs, he left the food in a pile near the trap door and had made his way back, worrying about where Sirius was if he wasn't staying in the Shrieking Shack anymore. It left an unsettled feeling in his stomach - after all, if Sirius wasn't in the Shack then he was probably not indoors at all, and it had been so bitterly cold that he couldn't imagine anything surviving out of doors very long. Plus, the dementors were obviously keen at sensing Sirius and they were sure to attack. Outside of the Shack, he was exposed that much more to the horrid things. The dementors were why he'd brought the chocolate in the first place - perhaps the chocolate would help, at least a little. It had been along, concerning walk and by the time he'd gotten back to his quarters, Remus had only had a couple hours to sleep before he'd intended to get up and ended up not moving a smidge until twenty minutes past, and therefore was now on his way to the pitch with a grumbling stomach.

There was a clump of bushes by the team locker rooms and Remus thought he saw a shaggy black tail tuck itself under the branches, but he shook his head and realized it was only Hermione Granger's ginger cat, which came out of the brush with his bottle brush tail raised. A trick of the shadows, Remus thought, bending to rub behind the cat's ears as it purred and rubbed itself against his legs, depositing orange hairs on his trousers. He liked the cat, it reminded him of James and Lily's cat, which had been an alright little creature - for a cat, that is.

"Professor Lupin!"

Remus looked up, spotting Harry coming down the path, flanked by Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. "Harry!" Remus said, smiling. Harry's enthusiastic tone made his heart leap with happiness. The boy was grinning as he ran ahead of his mates to join Remus on the path.

"Hullo!" Ron said, waving.

"Hi Professor," Hermione said. Then, seeing her cat, she make the pss pss pss sound and he ran to her and jumped into her arms as Ron stared on in disgust.

"Are you coming to the pitch to watch Harry practice?" Ron asked, excitedly, turning away from Hermione.

"Yes, I am," Remus answered. "I thought I'd keep an eye out for any stray dementors." He winked at Harry.

"Excellent!" Harry beamed, "See you!"

The three of them scurried on down the path, and Remus heard Hermione ask in a low voice, "Since when are you and Professor Lupin on such friendly terms?"

"Oh! I didn't tell --" Harry started, but Remus couldn't hear much longer as they had gone too far off and even his keen hearing couldn't pick up on the words he was speaking.

Remus felt rather good about the idea that others saw him and Harry as being 'on such friendly terms' - it made it sound like they were friends, even, he thought, standing a bit taller. He watched the trio until they'd reached the end of the path, Harry waving to his friends before ducking into the team locker room while the other two went on into the stands. Remus smiled and bent down to dust off the cat hairs from his ankles, and thought for sure he heard something rustle in the brush again, but didn't linger to investigate. Likely just a bowtruckle or something - and he headed off to the pitch with a renewed vigor.

Sirius didn't move until he was quite sure the last of the students had passed by the bushes - a pair of Ravenclaw girls complaining that they just wanted to see Harry Potter play had been vehemently kicked off by the boy at the gates to the stands, and they walked back up to the castle tittering with offense. Once their backs were well past and Sirius was certain they wouldn't turn 'round, he slunk along the edge of the building, keeping as low to the ground as he could while still moving, belly dragging in the snow, and slipped into the stands the same way Rodger Crookshanks had showed him the last time. He slipped into a low box that was actually where people taking a penalty sat during the games, and slide under the bleachers so he could peer through the slats of the seats to watch.

Harry looked disappointed with the selection of broomsticks being offered by the tallest boy among the lot - evidently the captain - and he took a moment getting off the ground as the broomstick stuttered and moved a bit jerkily into the air. It was clear, even to Sirius's eyes, that Harry's broom handling was greatly compromised by the lousy equipment. The broomstick shuddered any time Harry tried to bring it up to speed, and dipped at weird angles as he swept along. He missed several opportunities to capture the snitch, it slipping away and out of sight several times, producing Harry to curse and punch his knee in frustration, making the broom nearly spill him twice. The boy who was clearly the captain was shouting commands and Harry was shouting back complaints and the two Weasley boys that were clearly beaters - and so much like Gideon and Fabian that Sirius had done a double take when he first spotted them - were flying actual circles around Harry, calling out jeers that were clearly intended to cheer him up, but were actually making the lines of frustration that much deeper on his face.

Sirius felt bad for Harry. He remembered how terrible the school equipment had been even back in his own days at Hogwarts and if he wasn't mistaken that broom Harry was on may very well have been kicking around back then. Blimey, for all he knew that could be the exact broomstick that he, himself, had swan dived from in order to force Lily Evans to play back in his match-making days of trying to get those idiots together. He sort of wished it was, just for the nostalgia of it... But blimey, how frustrated would James have been if a broomstick was what hindered his play? Sirius was certain James would've pitched an absolute fit.

The students had finally all gone to bed. Crookshanks had carefully managed to hide out in the third year boys' dormitory until just before lights off, when Ron had found him in the bottom drawer of Dean Thomas's desk. He unceremoniously dumped the cat in the hall. "Out you go! Leave Scabbers alone!"

Crookshanks hissed and swatted but Ron slammed the door in his face and through it he could hear the boy complain, "That cat is a menace!"

Frustrated, bottle brush tail bristling, Rodger Crookshanks gathered himself up and snuck out of the common room, narrowly missing being caught up by Hermione as she was headed to bed, and snuck down the corridor to the Trophy Room passageway, where he picked his way along until he'd reached the alcove, where he was due to make a report to his cohort - Snuffles the Dog.

Snuffles, however, was Sirius.

Sirius Black sat on the floor in front of the couch in the alcove, looking disheveled and manic as he was wrapped up in a blanket, like a giant fabric blob, save for his arms, which stuck out at an odd angle, working a quill and ink pot, scrawling over a torn-out page of a magazine.

"There you are you lazy ball of hair!" he practically shouted, grinning merrily. He was humming a song as he finished dotting i's and crossing t's on the form.

Flicking his tail in annoyance at being called lazy - not to mention a ball of hair - Crookshanks jumped up behind Sirius onto the cushion of the couch and looked over Sirius's shoulder at the magazine he was defacing.

"Look at this here, Rodger, I have it all figured out and it's a ruddy brilliant plan! I have never in my entire life been more excited about mail order forms!!!"

With a flourish, Sirius waved the torn-out page in the cat's face. "You saw our Harry struggling on that pathetic old broomstick at practice today, yeah? Might as well have been riding a household mop at the rate he was going! It's not right - no godson of mine is going to be riding some battered twig! No sir! Well look at this."

The cat couldn't read.

Sirius laughed, realizing that. "Oh Crookshanks! Rodger Crookshanks! See here, it's an order form for a brand new broom from Quality Quidditch Supplies - and not just any new broom! No this is an order form for a top of the line, Declan Lynch top-speed, high-quality, smooth-handling deluxe FIREBOLT broomstick! The newest model of the finest line! Outstrips the Nimbus line and performs like never seen before! The official broomstick of the International Professional Quidditch League! And it's a bleedin' FORTUNE! But luckily with Mother and Regulus dead, I have one of those to use, and I've filled out this form in Harry's own name with the instructions to take the funds from the Black Family Vault!" He laughed manically. "How about THAT, Rodger Crookshanks! A broomstick - a broomstick for our Harry, delivered GIFT-WRAPPED AND ALL in time for Christmas!"

The cat purred loudly, and Sirius grinned at the form, rolling it up and using his wand to spellotape it. He turned 'round and looked at the cat.

"I'm very glad to hear you purring like that, my furry friend because there's a step to this plan I haven't told you yet that's vitally important, and it's the part YOU are going to play."