James retired to his common room after the game tired but satisfied. He collapsed into chair by the fire, stretched his limbs out and allowed the warmth to soothe them. Sirius, Peter and Remus surrounded him as always. Peter was currently engaged in a battle of wills with Sirius, or, as it was more commonly known, a game of Gobstones. A game that Peter was easily winning, he was quite the tactician. The rest of the common room was bustling with post match vigour. There were several excited verbal replays going on in various corners in the room and many others were trying to re-enact their favourite moments.
James watched carefully as a girl on the other side of the room looked rather annoyed at all the furore. She was curled in a chair by the window with what looked like the Standard Book of Spells: Grade 3 open in her lap. She scowled as one of her friends; a rather pretty, curly haired girl demonstrated one of the more spectacular dives of the game.
“Honestly, Gemma, how many times are you going to do that?” she snapped.
“As many times as it takes for me to grow tired of it!” Gemma offered as she once again launched herself into the bed of cushions she had arranged on the floor.
James allowed himself to smile. He wasn’t sure what it was that he was smiling at exactly. His mind told him that he should be flattered that Gemma was so enthralled by his skill that she was annoying her friend to death with its re-enactment, but something nagged at his subconcious and it said that it wasn’t Gemma’s excitement that he was smiling at.
“What’s that dopey smile for?” Sirius said glancing away from the marble that was rolling about in front of him in a rather threatening manner. He was already covered in the gunk that its companions had spat over him. Taking attention from it quickly proved to be a very bad idea as it projected its contents right into his distracted eyes. “In the name of MERLIN!” he cried as he stomped his feet in agony and hastily tried to wipe the stuff from his stinging eyes.
“That’ll teach you,” Peter grinned gloriously. He never had been a very gracious winner; it wasn’t in his nature as a Gryffindor.
“Honestly, Peter, do you have to be so rough with him. Why can’t you take it easy on him just this once?” Remus muttered quietly as Sirius jumped out of his chair and ran in the direction of the dormitory bathroom to wash his eyes out.
“There’s no point in playing if you don’t play to win. Isn’t that right, James?” Peter argued indignantly.
“He’s got a point, Remmy,” James nodded in agreement.
“Playing Quidditch as a competitive sport and playing a round of Gobstones with one of your friends are two entirely different things,” Remus asserted with an altogether superior tone.
“He’s right, Peter,” James said after a moment of contemplation.
The noise of the common room masked the sound of the portrait hole squeaking open, but it didn’t take long for silence to sweep through the room’s occupants. Those whose backs were to the entrance, turned in their seats, determined to scold whoever was dampening their mood. They barely halted themselves in time when they found that it was Professor McGonagall, their head of house, who had joined them.
“Please don’t stop on my account,” she said with a rather dry smile. As people once again began to talk the stern woman briskly marched towards the fire. “Mr. Lupin, it is time for you to visit your Aunt. Have you prepared your things?”
“Yes, Professor,” Remus responded emptily.
“Please go and collect them from your dormitory,” McGonagall instructed. She waited, rather impatiently at that, while Remus sprinted towards the stairs to his dormitory, vanished, and re-appeared a moment or two later with a duffle bag slung across his shoulders. Professor McGonagall nodded sharply at him, spun on her heel and led him from the tower. His two friends waved lightly at his as he was herded out the portrait
Moments after they had exited, Sirius re-emerged from the bathrooms with his hair and the front of his robes sopping wet. He returned to his seat and sat staring at his two companions for a moment with a puzzled look on his face. James rolled his eyes and pointed to the spot that Remus had previously occupied. “Where’d he go?”
“McGonagall took him away to visit his aunt again,” James replied. He was still watching the girls by the window carefully.
“You know, somebody said something weird to me about that a few weeks ago,” Peter mumbled so quietly the other two almost didn’t hear him.
“Something weird?” Sirius enquired as he put a protective had over a Gobstone that looked about ready to explode.
“Yeah, Marlene McKinnon, was coming back from a Quidditch practice last month when she saw Madam Pomfrey and Remus heading towards the Whomping Willow. Which is strange…” he trailed off.
“Why is that strange?” James asked.
“Because the Willow is nowhere near the front gates, James, keep up!” Sirius rolled his eyes. “You’ve fallen off your broom too many times and forgotten the geography of this place.”
“Maybe they were meeting someone under the tree so that Remus could get a Portkey straight to St. Mungo’s,” James shrugged, completely ignoring Sirius’ comment about falling from his broom. It wasn’t something he did often, but when he did he usually did it from great heights and ended up in the Hospital Wing for days.
“If you were catching a Portkey would you honestly stand under the Whomping Willow?” Sirius asked incredulously, his dark eyebrows had disappeared into his damp hair.
“Only if I had a death wish,” Peter offered.
“I vote we go after them and see where they go,” Sirius jumped from his chair with a fire alight in his eyes. Adventure was afoot and he wasn’t about to miss out on it.
“And how do you propose to get us through the castle unnoticed at this hour?” James asked him with a grin playing at the corners of his mouth.
“You know what he’s suggesting,” Peter added in an excited whisper. “Cloak,” he mouthed silently.
“Definitely. Bed time for us I reckon, boys,” James said loudly while stretching his arms high about his head and faking a yawn.
“Yeah,” Sirius nodded. “I’m absolutely cream crackered, mate.”
“Me too,” Peter stifled a yawn with his hand, and the three of them drifted towards their dormitory. Once there they hurried under the Invisibiliy Cloak that James’ father had handed down to him and set off back down the stairs.
“We’ll need to be careful to not knock anyone,” James whispered as he assessed the minefield that was the common room.
People were strewn everywhere and it was going to be difficult to get the three of them past without anyone getting nudged. With much manoeuvring and a great deal of tip-toeing over limbs, they managed to make it to the portrait hole. They didn’t have to wait long for the Fat Lady’s picture to swing forward, curfew was fast approaching and any wandering lions were forced to return to the comfort and warmth of their tower. They swished past the incoming Gryffindors silently and proceeded down the several staircases that lay between them and the Entrance Hall. They were dismayed to find that the doors of the castle were closed.
“What should we do?” Sirius whispered as quietly as possible.
“There’s hardly anybody about, if we’re quiet we could get away with it,” Peter replied.
With a quick glance over his shoulder James nodded in agreement and Sirius slipped a hand between the folds of the cloak to gently push the door open. A thunderous creak reverberated off the stone walls followed by silence. The boys let out a breath that they hadn’t realised they were holding in and started to squeeze through the opening they had now made. Peter was just sucking in his slight paunch when Flich appeared from a corridor that lead to the dungeons. His horrid cat Mrs. Norris was winding her way through his legs as he took each step.
“Who’s there?” he called with a scowl. His paced quickened, he almost skipped, towards the open door. Peter barely managed to slip through the gap before Flich’s distorted face appeared in it calling out in to the night again. “I’ll get you, you know!” he hollered.
The boys quickly tapped their way down the front steps of the castle and scoured the night for signs of their friend and Professor McGonagall. They could barely make out two outlines standing on the slight hill that provided a base for the Whomping Willow. They set off across the grass with surprising speed, occasionally slowing a little to stop the cloak from billowing too much and revealing them. They paused at the bottom of the hill to carefully observe their friend and teacher.
McGonagall was in the middle of levitating a stick towards the Willow. She carefully directed the stick towards a knot that was protruding from one of the exposed roots. The tree immediately stopped thrashing around and froze in mid swing. As soon as it had stopped moving Remus moved in closer to the tree and knelt down to a sizeable gap underneath it.
“I shall return to collect you at dawn on Sunday. Will you be all right?” McGonagall asked with uncharacteristic concern written in her normally stern features.
“I’ll be fine, Professor, thank you,” Remus muttered as he threw his duffle bag down the hole and slithered in after it.
“Very well, be careful.” McGonagall watched carefully as Remus’ dark blonde head disappeared from view. As soon as he was out of sight McGonagall watched the tree spring back to life before she headed back towards the castle with her cloak whipping in the breeze. Once they were sure that she was safely back within the building and not able to see them, the boys moved forward and began to mimic her actions. With the Tree once again still they removed the cloak and quickly jumped through the gap one by one.
Under the tree they found themselves in a dank, dark tunnel. They squinted to try and see through the pitch black, but could barely see a foot or two ahead of them. It was Sirius who managed to light his wand first; he held it high above his head allowing them to see that they were in a very long tunnel that appeared to rise towards the end. With a single hesitant glance shared between them the pressed forward in single file with Sirius and his lighted wand leading them. They felt like they’d been walking forever before they finally felt the ground rising beneath them and their route coming to a dead end. A fleeting look upwards revealed wooden planks running across the roof of the tunnel. James reached up and felt around until he was able to find a section that moved, he gave it a solid shove and a whole panel moved. He peeked into the space revealed and saw an empty corridor. He signalled Peter to give him a heave up, he pulled himself up into the hallway and reached back to pull Sirius and Peter up after him. They snaked their way down this new passage as quietly as possible, although it was difficult with some of the floorboards squeaking under their weight.
At the end of the corridor there was a doorway, and beyond it a very dusty room. The windows had been boarded up, allowing only small shards of light to filter through the musky air. There were pieces of furniture scattered all over the place, well, what looked like pieces of furniture, their ruined state made it difficult to tell what they had once been. In the centre of the room, there was a large, rather murky looking blanket, next to which Remus’ bag and been abandoned. The boy himself was propping up the remains of a chair in one corner.
“So your Aunt’s getting taken care of in here, is she?” James asked loudly. Remus nearly fell out of the chair he was barely sitting in.
“What are you doing here? How did you get in?” he asked in panic as he picked himself up off the floor.
“That’s a really nice way to greet your friends,” Sirius commented as his eyes drifted across the dismal surroundings.
“I think the better question is what are you doing here?” Peter gave Remus a rather scolding look.
“I’m here because I need to be. You lot don’t. Get out of here and go back to the castle NOW!” Remus roared.
“Don’t talk to us like that, Remus,” James shouted back.
“You don’t understand. You need to leave….” Remus began trying to spin Peter around and send him back down the corridor.
“What don’t we understand? Why won’t you tell us? Why’ve you been lying?” Sirius demanded.
“You’ve got no idea, you need to go, it’s not safe…” Remus gave up on Peter and started trying to shuffle James out.
“Why isn’t it safe?” James asked.
“Look, there isn’t time to talk about it. Would you hurry up and go!” Remus was starting to look flushed and didn’t dare hold their gaze.
“What’s the rush?” Sirius asked.
“There isn’t much time left!” Remus cried in frustration.
“Remus, what’s the matter? Why don’t you just tell us? We’ll understand, we’re your friends,” Peter asserted in a much softer voice that Sirius or James had tried.
“Because you wouldn’t understand!” Was the harsh reply.
“Why don’t you try us, eh? Give us the benefit of the doubt.” Sirius quickly adopted Peter’s more encouraging tone.
“You’ll…you’ll…look at me differently.” The tall, fair haired boy mumbled quietly. James snorted rather loudly at this statement.
“We’re your best friends, I honestly don’t think that’s likely,’ he added hurriedly.
“He’s right, come one, Remus, tell us what’s wrong,” Peter urged in an almost motherly voice. Remus looked up at his three friends standing side by side defiantly; it was becoming uncomfortably clear that he wasn’t going to get out of this. Six eyes rested on him expectantly, they prodded at him, begged him to share his dark secret.
“I’m….” Remus began, but his voice faltered. The boys leaned forward in anticipation. “I’m…” he began again, “A werewolf” he mumbled inaudibly.
“Come again, mate.” Sirius tilted his head to the left in an attempt to bring his ear closer to the sound of his friend’s voice.
“I’m a werewolf,” Remus repeated ever so slightly louder. The three jaws in front of him dropped simultaneously. James’ mouth flapped soundlessly for several minutes before he took a large gulp. The awkward silence filtered through the air, it swelled with every passing second until it became an unbearable, invisible object that was pressing in on them from all sides.
No one has the opportunity to say anything before Remus started to moan and shake. Before their astonished eyes James, Sirius, and Peter saw something violent take hold of their long time friend. The stood by helplessly as Remus’ moans soon became howls of agony, and he began to gruesomely transform. His limbs stretched awkwardly and hair forced its way trough his skin. In a matter of seconds, it was no longer their friend standing before them but a snarling wolf. With a frightened look shared between them the three boys bolted back through the door and along the corridor, before leaping back into the tunnel that brought them from the grounds above. They managed to slam the trapdoor shut an instant before the wolf that their friend had become, tried to ravage the wooden guard.
They returned to the castle in deathly silence, all of them too shocked to speak, and unable to put their thoughts into words. They retired to bed at a time that was considered horrendously early by their peers and all of them jumped when they heard a high-pitched howl penetrate the air of the school grounds.
Meus Solitarius Cor Curens by mrsgeorgeweasley
Chapter Notes: Terribly sorry about the delay on this folkes. It took me forever to get past the first sentence. I hope that you enjoy it though!