They were looking at the Shack when James spoke up suddenly. “What do you suppose haunts it?”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s really haunted,” Lily replied.
James glanced worriedly at her, but she didn’t notice. “Why not?” he asked.
Lily shrugged. “I’ve seen a bunch of animals hanging around it.”
“What does that mean?” James wondered.
“Well, one of them was a dog, and I figured, dogs hang around places where there are people, and people don’t hang around places that are haunted, do they?”
“No, I suppose not,” James stammered. “So, uh, when was this?”
“I’ve seen them a few times, actually. Mostly at night. A rather odd bunch, really. Who would have ever thought a dog, a stag, and a rat would all hang around the same place?”
“Night? Hang on, why were you up here at night? How did you get up here at night?” he asked.
Lily smiled secretively. “Marauderess’ honor. I cant tell.”
James snorted. “Some Head girl you are. Sneaking out of the castle at night.”
Lily shrugged. “It’s not really that serious. And as long as I don’t get caught, then I’m still a perfectly good role model.”
James shook his head. “It is serious, Lily. What if it really is haunted? You could get hurt.”
Lily looked into James’ concern-filled eyes, confused. “I never would have thought that you, of all people, would be afraid of this place.”
“Well, I am. And you should be too. Please, Lils. I don’t want to see you get hurt. Promise me you won’t come up here any more. Especially at night, when those animals are around.”
Lily slipped out from under James’ arm. “What do you know about all this that you’re not telling me?” she asked suspiciously.
“What? Nothing! What do you mean? I, I just don’t like the sound of it. It’s weird, those animals,” he tried to lie.
“James!” Lily yelled. “What are you hiding? Tell me the truth!”
“Lily, I can’t tell you! Please!” James begged.
“Fine. Fine! Don’t tell me,” Lily shouted as she stormed off back towards the castle. “But I’ll be up here every night until I figure out what you’re keeping from me!” she yelled over her shoulder at him.
James watched her helplessly, suddenly dreading the next full moon.
James nearly sprinted into the Great Hall, drawing everyone’s attention except Lily, who was busy ignoring him. He ran over to the other Marauders’ who had already made it back to the castle and were already eating. “Meeting. Dormitory. Now.” James gasped.
Sirius groaned. “C’mon mate. I’m half starved!”
“We’ll get something from kitchens later. We need to talk. Now!” James growled. He ran up to Gryffindor Tower with a grumbling Sirius and Remus and Peter hurrying to keep up.
Sirius, Remus, and Peter sat on their beds, watching James pace nervously about the room muttering to himself.
“What are they thinking? What is she thinking? They know better than to … well, no, I suppose they don’t. But even so! Wandering about at night, not even on the grounds … Could be hurt … dangerous … all my fault … not watching closely enough …”
“James, what’s going on?” Remus asked quietly. There was no indication that James even remembered he was there.
“Prongs! What the bloody hell did you make us come here for?” Sirius yelled.
James stopped pacing and looked at Sirius as if he had just hit him.
“Prongs, mate, What’s the matter?” Siruis asked, quieter this time.
“Have any of you seen them around?” James asked finally, running a hand through his hair.
“Seen who?” Remus asked.
“Around where?” Peter squeaked.
“Our women, mate! Our women!” James shouted at Remus. Remus blinked.
“Prongs, what are you talking about? We see them all the bloody time,” Sirius told James, the worry beginning to show in his voice.
James shook his head in frustration. “No! Around,” he glanced at Remus, “around the Shack.”
“What?!” Peter yelped.
“James, please tell me you’re imagining things,” Remus said softly, his face pale.
“So you haven’t seen them around the Shrieking Shack? Other than Hogsmeade weekends, of course,” James asked.
The others shook their heads no. James nodded weakly and sat down on his own bed, followed closely by three sets of eyes.
“You don’t feel at all compelled to tell us where all this is coming from?” Sirius said.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Well, go on then,” Peter urged.
James took a deep breath. “Well, in Hogsmeade, Lily and I walked up to the Shrieking Shack. And I asked her what she thought haunted it. You know, to get an outsider’s opinion. And, well, she said she didn’t think it was haunted. So, obviously, I asked her why. And she said,” he paused, “well, she said that she’d seen a stag, a dog, and a rat up there at night.”
Sirius whistled and Remus paled even further.
“That means she would’ve had to be there on the full moon, if she saw us all. And, when I asked her why she was up there, she said it was some ‘Marauderess’ secret.’ So I assume that the others were up there as well,” James thought out loud.
Remus and Sirius both swore violently.
“Well, did you tell her not to go up there anymore?” Sirius asked desperately.
“I tried, mate. Believe me. But she got angry at me. Seemed to think I was keeping something from her. Then she said she would be going up there every night until she figured out what I was hiding,” James said sadly.
“Prongs, you’ve got to tell her. It’s the only way. We can’t risk them being up there anymore,” Remus told him.
“But, she’ll tell the rest of them. I don’t care if she promises, you know she’ll tell them,” James said. “What about Kylie?”
Remus grimaced and took a deep breath. “She already knows.”
Sirius, James, and Peter looked at him. “Excuse me?” Sirius coughed.
Remus nodded. “I told her at the end of last semester,” he shrugged. “She needed to know before things went any further between us.”
“Bloody hell! What was she thinking? She knew all along and she let them go up there?” Sirius said angrily.
“You let them up there, Moony?” James asked in disbelief.
Remus shook his head. “If I knew, I never would have let them!”
Just then the door to their room creaked open and an icy voice came from the doorway.
“Like you could have stopped us!”
The four boys’ heads jerked up as they looked to the door and saw Lily, Jess, Kylie, and Emma all glaring at them. The girls walked right into the room and all climbed onto one bed.
“I just love group meetings, don’t you girls?” Kylie asked cheerily.
Emma giggled and nodded. “I do too. But, I have to say, you mates are terrible hosts. You didn’t even clean a bit!” she chastised the Marauders.
“So, what are they trying to stop us from doing?” Jess asked.
Lily shrugged. “Who knows. But they couldn’t stop us anyway, whatever it is.”
“So mates, fill us in. What don’t you want us doing?” Jess told them.
The four girls, sprawled across the bed in various positions grinned at the Marauders who had been speechless this entire time. Sirius opened and closed his mouth a few times furiously, as if he were about to say something, but couldn’t quite get it out. He looked quite like an angry goldfish.
“Alas! He speaks in tongue!” Jess exclaimed.
“Hark! He doth speak in a tone that of which canst be heard only by our canine companions!” Emma laughed.
The four girls giggled and the corner of James’ mouth twitched upwards.
“So, are you guys going to tell us what’s going on or what?” Jess said impatiently.
“Well, how much do you already know?” James asked.
“We have to tell them anyway, Prongs,” Remus sighed.
James grimaced. “Fine.”
“I knew it!” Lily shouted. “I knew you were keeping something from me!”
“Lily, please. Give us a minute to explain. He had to do it,” Remus said.
Lily glared at them in response.
“Why? Why, why, why? Why do we have to tell them anything?” Sirius spluttered.
“They need to know, Sirius. It’s more dangerous having them not know, than telling them,” Remus said. “And besides, we trust them, don’t we?”
The girls looked eagerly at each other.
James and Peter nodded their support of Remus.
Sirius sighed in resignation. “Fine.”
The Maruaderesses grinned at each other, anxious to know the great secret.
The Marauders all looked nervous, and James took a deep breath before beginning. “Well, Lily, you now how I asked you not to go near the Shrieking Shack?” Lily snorted, but James ignored her.
“Well, there was, is, a good reason for that.” He took another deep breath to steady himself. “What if I told you that one of us was a werewolf, and transformed in the Shack at every full moon?”
“We’d think you lot are a bunch of ruddy liars, that’s what,” Jess said,
Remus shook his head. “It’s the truth.”
Lily’s hand flew to cover her mouth and Jess gasped. Emma’s eyes grew wide, but Kylie fidgeted nervously and looked down.
“Who?” Emma asked quietly.
Sirius shook his head. “We’re not done yet. So, every month, one of us goes up to the Shack to transform. And, well, when the rest of us found out, we wanted to do something to help. So,” he left the sentence hanging, and Peter picked it up.
“We became Animagi. So we all go up to Hogsmeade on the full moon every month, and we go up to the Shack. We help keep the Wolf controlled, so he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“Or other people,” Remus added.
The girls looked at each other, astonishment showing in all their faces.
“Bloody hell,” Lily whispered.
“So, so who is it?” Emma asked.
James, Sirius, and Peter looked to Remus who suddenly became very interested in the floor.
“Ohmigod!” Emma cried, and threw her arms around Remus.
“Remus, I, well, you, I mean, I’m sorry,” Jess finished lamely, not knowing what to say to him.
Remus nodded. “It’s ok. Really. It happened when I was little, so I’m used to it by now, really.”
“So what Animagi did the rest of you become?” Kylie asked. The girls looked at her, wondering why she cared more about the others than her boyfriend. The Marauders, of course, didn’t notice a thing. They were used to Remus being a Werewolf, after all.
“A stag,” James said proudly.
“I’m a dog,” Sirius told them.
“A rat, but only because we needed something small to open the secret passageway we use to get us to the Shack,” Peter said quickly, blushing.
“Are you a big black dog, Sirius?” Jess asked, and Sirius nodded.
“Moony!” Lily whispered to herself.
Remus looked up. ‘What?”
“You’re nickname is Moony!” Lily said louder.
Remus smiled. “Yes. It seemed to fit rather well. And the others’ nicknames come from their other shapes too.”
“Prongs.”
“Padfoot.”
“Wormtail.”
“But, hold on a second. How did you guess that I am a black dog?” Sirius asked Jess.
Jess looked to Lily who shook her head, pleading with her eyes.
“Um, well, I’ve seen you around. And … you’re last name is Black?” Jess shrugged, tying to hid that fact the she was blushing horribly. She never was a good liar.
James, who had been watching Lily the whole time, jumped in. “Hey, come on! That’s not fair! We told you our secret, and you’re not going to tell us yours?”
Lily bit her lip. After a moment, her eyes widened and she whirled around to look at Kylie. “You haven’t said a word. What do you think about all this? You have to have something to say to Remus.”
Kylie shifted uncomfortably and mumbled something that no one could hear.
“You knew, didn’t you? You knew all along! And you let us go up there and put ourselves in danger! What were you thinking?” Lily yelled at her.
Kylie’s face grew red, and a tear fell down her cheek. “I’m sorry! But you all weren’t supposed to know! And, don’t you think it would have been suspicious if I didn’t want to,” Kylie almost slipped up, but she caught herself just in time, “didn’t want to go, on every full moon?”
“Yes, but we could have been hurt!” Lily exclaimed.
Kylie burst into tears. “I know! Don’t you think I thought of that? If we had been hurt, Remus never would have forgiven himself! Nor would any of the others. I love him! I would want him to have to live with that hanging over him for the rest of his life! But, I just couldn’t say anything, and you all are so insistent on going sometimes, and I,” she broke down completely and Remus came over and put his arm around her and she cried into his shoulder.
Lily’s hands were shaking. “Bloody hell. We must have been up there every full moon last year. We saw you guys all the time!” She paled as she realized what that meant. “Oh my God. We could have … He could have … You could have …”
James hugged her and kissed her forehead. But we’re all ok. And I, we,” he corrected himself, “will never let anything happen to you. Any of you.”
James held Lily for a few moments before asking again. “Now, I know how much you really want to tell us how and why you got up to the Shrieking Shack,” he said.
Lily winked at the girls. “Oh, we do. We want to tell you so badly,” she said sarcastically. “But, right now, I think we need a trip to the kitchens. I’m starving.”
So the eight friends made their way down through the empty castle hallways towards the Hogwarts’ kitchens. They made a lot of noise, for being out past curfew, but it is incredibly hard to get eight people in a group to be quiet.
James was in the middle of a rather difficult breakup with a suite of armor when the Headmaster bumped into them.
“Could I have a word with you, Mr. Potter? And you, Miss Evans?” he said with a light tone. “May I inquire as to your current out-of-bounds activities?”
“Ah, yes, well, we, er,” James coughed.
Lily jumped in before he said something to give them away. “We were patrolling, Sir, and we came across our fellow Gryffindors here, and, seeing as they were out-of-bounds,” she shrugged.
“We were just escorting these wild hooligans to our Head of house, Professor Dumbledore, Sir,” James added. Lily smacked her forehead. James wasn’t always the smoothest.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled and his mouth seemed to be twitching into a grin. “Well, I do suppose you had better get said ruffians to receive their penalties. As for me, I must resume my search “ I seem to have gotten lost,” he squinted down the corridor. “I need to find a lavatory,” and with that, their Professor wandered on, mumbling something about not saying no to a chamber pot even.
They made it down to the kitchens without further incident, and were on their way back to Gryffindor Tower with their arms full of pastries and treats and Butterbeer, when Lily stopped walking suddenly.
“Where are Sirius and Jess? Has anybody seen them in a while?” she asked.
James, Remus, and Peter sniggered.
“I’ve got threee guesses, and they’re all broom closets,” James said. “Five galleons says they won’t be back for an hour,” he bet the others.
“Make that three and I’m in. Hour and a half,” Remus said.
“Half an hour,” Peter bet.
“Half an hour? Pete, that’s mental,” James advised him.
Peter shrugged.
Lily, James, Kylie, Remus, Emma, and Peter were all sitting in the Common Room eating their dinner, although it was well past midnight. They hadn’t been back for ten minutes when Sirius stormed in through the portrait hole. Lily couldn’t help noticing his shirt collar was half up and half down, and his hair was quite ruffled.
“What the bloody hell were you all thinking?! Why the hell didn’t you ever say anything? You lot are mental! Why would you even try that?” Sirius shouted at the girls.
“Sh! Sirius, you’ll wake everyone up!” Lily told him.
“Dormitory! Now!” he roared.
Jess climbed through the portrait hole and ran over to them. She skidded to a halt in front of Sirius. “Please! I wasn’t supposed to tell, and you promised!”
“Dormitory!” he growled through clenched teeth.
They all scurried up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory and Sirius slammed the door behind them and quickly sound-proofed the room.
“Now, I would greatly appreciate it, if you would tell me,” Sirius began calmly, “WHAT IN SPOOM’S NAME WERE YOU BLOODY THINKING?!?!”
Kylie let out a little giggle. “Spoom? Who’s Spoom?””
Sirius waved a hand in the air. “It was written in one of my textbooks. It doesn’t matter!”
“Who did you get your book from?” Remus asked.
Sirius shrugged. “Blimey if I know. Something about trees. Wood, or Woody. Woods! That’s it.”
Lily pulled her wand out of her pocket. She scribbled in the air and glowing red word “WOODS” appeared in her neat script. She motioned briefly with her wand and the word flipped upside down, spelling “SPOOM.”
“Stupid git,” she muttered.
“That’s not the point!” Sirius shouted over everyone’s laughter.
Finally, everyone got a hold of themselves and Sirius continued. “Now, if you would please answer me. What in Spoom’s name were you thinking? You could have gotten hurt, or stuck! So much bloody stuff could have gone wrong! Why would you do that?!”
The girls giggled at “Spoom.”
Lily shrugged, and became very interested in her fingernails. “Well, you lot did it,” she mumbled quietly.
“So what?! You all never should have tried! I can’t believe you would even think about it! Why would you ever do that? At least we had a good reason!” Sirius raged.
“Well maybe we had a good reason too, Sirius,” Lily said stonily, before storming out of the room.
SIsiur stared after her in shock. “What? What did I say?” he stammered.
Jess rolled her eyes disgustedly. “You’re such a prat sometimes, Sirius,” she said, and left the room, followed closely by the other two Marauderesses.