"That was still really dangerous!"
Chapter Twenty: The Plan
James watched as McGonagall walked slowly up and down the isles checking on each of her students as they went about the day's work. She would stop every once and a while at a few of the students' desks to critique their work and then afterwards she would carry on to the next unfortunate student. Eventually, these actions would give her the chance to look at everyone's work. James smiled to himself when he overheard her tell Peter precisely how to pronounce the Latin within the spell they were to be practicing so he could attempt to do the assignment correctly for once. Once she had watched him practice his enunciations for a bit, she continued on again. As soon as she was out of hearing distance from Peter, James heard the boy utter a few words that were most certainly not meant for their teacher to hear.
She did a few more rounds around the classroom before she took the time to stop in front of both James and Sirius. James simply uttered the spell when she did stop and instantly his spoon turned into a fork without the slightest bit of trouble. Simple enough, but as proven often enough by his friends, it was more difficult for them than it was for him. McGonagall complemented James on his work and then turned her attention over to Sirius who said the spell and successfully created a spork. He groaned at his efforts and McGonagall started to instruct him on how to do it properly. James could tell that Sirius was only half-listening, giving her a nod every few sentences to make it look like he was listening. Then, once she had left Sirius immediately changed his spork back into a spoon and uttered the spell once more. This time he was successful in making his spoon a fork.
"Oh, now it works!" he stated bitterly at his work. He tried it once more just to check that he had it down, and as expected, it worked perfectly.
James smiled at his friend, trying to encourage him a bit. This was not the first time Sirius had been able to do something before their professor could critique it and then go on to fail the crucial attempt in front of her. Sirius simply gave James a small half-smile and then proceeded to poke Remus in the back with the tip of his wand. Remus tried to ignore Sirius' efforts to gain his attention, but the boy only continued to poke him in increasingly shorter intervals of time. Remus groaned and turned around slowly to face Sirius.
"What?"
"How come she didn't say anything to you?" Sirius asked slightly agitated that Remus' spork had received no ill-comment from their stringent teacher.
Remus furrowed his brow, "I don't know, maybe she just knows that I'm going to have a hard time with this. I mean, I have been out sick for the last week."
Sirius shrugged his shoulders at the boy's comment, knowing full well what that meant, and turned back to his own work shortly after Remus had gone back to his own.
James frowned slightly at Remus' reply. The images that had been scalded into his brain from two months ago filtered back into his head making him cringe slightly inside. He stared intently at the back of Remus' head as the boy worked on his spoon, each time he got increasingly closer to a fork. Slowly, James found that his attention was brought to the boy next to Remus. James stared at Peter. Peter seemed to be getting worse, rather than better, at their assignment.
James was definitely proud of Peter, because Peter had proven himself to be able to keep it together around Remus. He hadn't had any problems with Remus' condition, aside from a week ago when Remus had disappeared, as usual, during the day of the full moon. That was the only day Peter had shown any signs that he was having problems with any aspect of their situation with Lupin. Aside from that, everything appeared to be fine, all signs of that little panic had vanished with the haze and the small boy proved to be perfectly fine with his friendship with Remus.
James was snapped back to reality when Lily dropped his essay paper down in front of him rather loudly on top of his desk, as if she was trying to gain his attention after trying to do so for a very long time. James simply looked up at the red-head before him and smiled shyly at her, only to receive a small glare and a nod of her head towards the front of the classroom. James followed her head motion only to find McGonagall going over the last few details of their notes for the day. All of which, James did not need, but since he could still feel the young girl's piercing eyes on the back of his head, he copied them down anyway.
She had begun this annoying habit of playing mum over the last few weeks, shortly after James and Sirius had gotten even with Snape for another one of his little hexing fits he constantly seemed to go into every time he caught sight of the two boys in their pack. Unfortunately for them, Lily had caught them in their revenge, and ever since she had started to keep a very annoyingly close watch on all four of them. She always made sure that they were in line, and were not trying to break the rules. It was almost enough to make him wish that they hadn't turned Snape into a walking example of a pinhead. Almost.
James turned back to Lily, who was still busy handing out the classes’ assorted papers, and watched her walk up and down the isles. He sighed slightly at the sight. He missed talking with her. But then, it wasn't like they didn't talk because they did, sometimes. But everything they talked about was always directly to the point, and it always seemed to be about, either, how terrible the four boys were to Snape, or what exactly they had as an assignment for any given class. It was never just to talk about anything and everything like it had been during the first few months when they had actually been friendly to one another. And that was the thing that bugged James the most. She had started to treat him more as a troublemaker than a friend and he didn't want to lose her friendship. Yet, that was exactly what appeared, at least at the moment, to be the only option.
The bell rang and James jumped slightly at the sudden sound echoing throughout the room. He instantly looked around at his fellow students who were busy filing out of the classroom. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, ushering his previous thoughts out of his head and quickly grabbed his paper that was sitting in front of him, shoved it into his bag, and left the room to rejoin his friends who were standing by the window across the hall.
"So, could you guys help me?" Peter asked Sirius and Remus as James joined in completely clueless as to what the boy was going on about.
At the look on James' face Sirius simply smirked and replied, "He needs help in Transfiguration."
James nodded in acknowledgement, already knowing that Peter was lacking skills in that department. Peter merely looked at him with a pleading face.
"Yeah, we'll help you." James answered as they walked the familiar path to Defense Against the Dark Arts, the others filing in behind him, followed his lead.
Peter had begun to thank him repeatedly but James simply tuned the boy out not really wanting to hear it. He didn't even bother trying to stop Peter from talking because he knew that it was completely pointless because then it would lead to repeated "sorry's'' rather than "thank you's" until the boy either got tired of it or realized he was annoying them.
The four boys reached the classroom in good time and took their seats, James filing in next to Remus and Sirius and Peter retreating to the opposite sides of the room. James, once seated, began taking out his books and quill in preparation for the class. The bell rang again signifying the beginning of the class. Almost instantly James could feel Snape's cold eyes rest firmly on the back of his head, as they did in every period they had to endure together.
The students sat in silence for a long while waiting for their professor to show up. Then, the doors to the dark classroom flew open letting in the few beams of light that had filtered through the window opposite of the door, blinding the children that were curious enough to look at whoever had entered the classroom.
"Bright is the moon high in starlight. Chill is the air cold as steel tonight. We shift. Call of the wild. Fear in your eyes. It's later than you realized!" Professor Malvitz's voice sang through out the room as he made his way to the front of the class.
He took off his cloak and set it on the back of his chair and turned to his class. Some of the students issued slight giggles at their Professor's outburst, while others simply rolled their eyes at the unprofessional manner in which Malvitz tended to illustrate to them.
The man just smiled at the class, his face beet red from the cold outside. "A bit chilly outside." he announced unnecessarily.
It was common knowledge that Professor Malvitz began each day with a hardcore game of Quidditch, no matter what the weather happened to be like. So it was no surprise to the children that he had begun the day with a weather update.
"Well, I'm sorry I'm late this morning, lost track of the time but," he looked down at his watch to check what exactly the time was, "five minutes isn't so bad." he stated more to himself than to anyone else.
He, then, looked back up at the many bodies in the room and then clapped his hands together. The sudden sound made Remus jump slightly, which only made James chuckle a bit at his friend's sudden nervousness.
"Well, we were studying minor defense spells the last time we met, were we not?" A few of the students muttered unintelligible words and nodded their heads as a form of a reply, "Then that will be where we'll pick up. Just a little review of the spells we've learned and then onto the next few new spells I have in store for you." he paused and looked around making sure that they were all on the same page before he continued, "Get into pairs."
In the next instant all of the student's were up and out of their seats making themselves busy by moving desks out of the way, and getting with their friends so they could practice the spells. James saw Sirius making his way over towards Remus and himself when he heard Malvitz's voice yell over the noise of the desks being moved.
"Black, if you take one more step towards Potter you will have a detention."
Sirius groaned at the threat and looked back over at Peter, who was standing by himself at his desk, with a look of pain on his face. The last time they had been put together in group Peter had accidentally hexed him with a freezing charm that wound up leaving Sirius' entire left arm completely frost bitten. This, in turn, had left Sirius in Madam Pomfrey's care for the remainder of that day. Yet, even with this knowledge, Sirius still obeyed their professor and retreated back over towards Peter.
James and Sirius had been banned from contact with one another in this class ever since the "pinhead incident" had taken place. This was mainly because they had strategically planned to do the event right after Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Not such a smart business plan. James chuckled a bit to himself at the memory of Malvitz's red face, when he had caught them, or rather who Lily had snitched them to, as he set himself into a position to attack Remus with. Even though the consequences of what they had done were terrible, at least for them, the memories were still quite nice in James' head.
"Ready," Professor Malvitz said loudly cutting through James' thoughts. Some of the students nodded their heads in recognition of what the Professor had said, "Now!"
In the next instant a loud murmur of the spells they had his spell before his wand had flown out of his hand. He looked up at Remus, who just smiled smugly (well, smugly for Remus anyway, on an average person it was just a smirk) and James left for a second to go retrieve his wand. He picked it up off of the floor and walked back over to Remus and smiled. "One of these days, I am going to beat you at this." James retorted to the smirk on his friend's face.
"Only if I let you win." Remus replied just before he uttered a simple hex, which James easily blocked, "At least you're getting faster with the counter-jinxes!"
James only nodded a reply before he shot a spell back at Remus, who also blocked it with ease. This went on, back and forth, for a long while before Professor Malvitz told them to stop and sit down in their assigned seats so they could continue to take down some notes on the new spells they were going to learn over the course of the next few days. The students obeyed and resigned their previous activities and went to putting the desks back where they belonged. They sat down and soon fell into their typical stupor that usually followed the idea of studious note taking.
James just stared at his parchment and occasionally he would throw down a few of the important words that left their Professor's mouth. For example, the appropriate spells, their properties and their use, that was, until he get bored and started to fiddle with his quill. He absolutely hated notes. He would much rather be doing something that dealt with the dark arts than simply learning about the theory of it. If only the whole class period was as interesting as their mini duels that were held at the beginning of most of their Defense classes.
James began to wiggle his quill back and forth, gradually increasing the speed as his thoughts went deeper into all of the fun things they could possibly do in this class. Then, suddenly, before he could stop it, his quill flew out of his hand, over the head of the girl sitting in front of him and landed on the floor a few feet from her. James looked up at Malvitz and was relieved to find that he hadn't seen that happen. In fact, the only person that had noticed it happen was the girl in front of him, who was now trying hard not to giggle at his misfortune.
He sat there for a bit debating whether or not he should get up from his seat and retrieve his quill. This action would definitely bring attention to his not so smooth move, so instead he opted to look in his bag for another quill. Yet, when he looked inside another thing caught his eye. His essay was sitting slightly crushed at the bottom of his bag. He pulled it out and began to read bits and pieces of it. He went through the small comments McGonagall had put in the margin, written in emerald green ink.
He nodded a few times at the comments and then he stopped. He stared at the writing on the third foot of writing and then quickly read his own words repeatedly hardly believing that the answer to their problem had been there all along. But of course! Why hadn't he thought of that before?
They'd been searching for a way to help Remus with his Lycanthropy for ages and every time they came up with something remotely clever it was shot out of the water by a technical difficulty of some sort. But this; right here in his own handwriting, was a sure fired way to help their friend. It was foolproof... hopefully. James subconsciously looked up from his paper over to Remus who was busy scribbling down the notes he should have been taking too, and smiled to himself in a minorly victorious way.
The bell rang and James quickly got up and shoved his paper in his bag collected his quill and ran out of the room, not even hearing any part of the homework assignment Professor Malvitz had announced just as the students were leaving. James walked past his friends and without uttering a word he headed down the hall towards the library.
"Where are you going?" Sirius yelled down the hall after his friend.
James turned around to face the three boys, all of whom looked slightly confused, "The library. I have to look up something. I'll catch up with you guys later, okay?" he saw Sirius nod at him and then James took off as fast as he could to his destination.
When he finally reached the library, he made a beeline to the dark arts section and grabbed the book on Lycanthropes that he was so familiar with. He put it underneath his arm and moved over towards the Transfiguration section. He stared at the assorted books, looking over their spines for the familiar book that had helped him so much on his essay. Once he had located it he added it to the collection being held under his arm and walked over to an empty table at the end of the room. He put the books down on top of the table and then sat down.
He sat quietly sifting through the pages of both books. Occasionally, he would cross-reference each new fact he learned along the way and then once it checked out he'd write it down on a spare piece of parchment. He sat back in the wooden chair once he had collected all the necessary bits of information that he needed and he smiled widely in triumph when he sat the books back on their appointed shelves.
Then, James left the library with his mind buzzing with all of the new information he had managed to gather. He walked up the many flights of stairs up to Gryffindor Tower and greeted the Fat Lady when she came into view, this shocked the painting immensely. He said the password, and she swung open exposing the passage into the common room and he climbed inside.
As soon as he entered he heard Sirius bellow out from across the room, "So what's so important that you left us for an hour and a half?"
James just smiled at Sirius before he went to answer the question, "Where's Remus?" James asked as he walked over to them and sat down in one of the chairs around the round table.
Peter simply shrugged while Sirius opened his mouth to reply, "He went to go visit Madam Pomfrey."
"Good." Sirius arched his eyebrow at James' reaction to that statement.
"What do you mean go-"
James cut Peter off before the boy could even finish, "I couldn't tell you why I left if he was here," both of the boys instantly leaned forward over the table to hear whatever tale James had for them, "I've figured it out." James stated in glee as he stared at each boy levelly.
He continued before either boy had the chance to ask ”What?”
"How to help Remus with his Lycanthropy."
Sirius raised his eyebrow once more and James just went on, knowing that he had their undivided attention now.
"You know how it's been terribly difficult trying to get around the fact that he kills humans once a month," the two boys before him nodded in agreement, "well, what if there was a way around that?"
"But there isn't." Peter exclaimed. He had never really wanted to ever find a way to make Lupin's Lycanthropy easier.
"Oh, but there is. I did my transfiguration paper on it. All we have to do is become Animagi. That would make it so we could change into animals during the night of the full moon."
"Brilliant." Sirius shouted.
James just nodded and went on, "This would definitely work. Remus wouldn't kill us and it might just keep him from ripping himself to shreds come every full moon. And providing none of us turn into a cow, and he doesn't realize that we're really humans, then we won't get hurt either." James smiled in pride of his thorough research job only to be greeted with a very unpleased Peter.
"What's wrong?"
Peter just stared at him in shock. How could he not possibly know what was wrong?
"What if it doesn't work? We'll either get killed or be turned into Lycanthropes ourselves... which is definitely not something I want."
"But there's always the chance that it will work. We won't ever know if we don't try. Plus it'll be fun!" Sirius retorted happily, quite liking this possible new adventure.
"Yes, well, let's say it does work. How do we get into the tree?" Peter asked indignantly.
Sirius then turned his attention back to James hoping for an answer to this important question.
They had figured out a while back, while trying to figure out ways on how to help Remus, that the tree had been put there, not as a gift to the school, but as a way to protect the public from Remus. Therefore, once a month the boy was smuggled into the tree to stay for the remainder of the night. This action was what James and Sirius had seen the evening Sirius had detention with Hagrid. But, they had yet to figure out how to open the entrance to the Whomping Willow, and none of them were too keen to go and investigate it either.
James sighed and furrowed his brow in slight thought, "I don't know exactly. But I'm sure Remus does. And when we tell him that we know his secret, after we have this plan to help him with his issue, I think that he'll definitely tell us that little bit."
Sirius nodded accepting this as a valid plan, "Just fine details, Peter. Things to be sorted out as we go."
Peter stared in astonishment, he took his last piece of hope and throwing it out in the open. "But you need to do it through the Ministry! You need to be registered!"
"You can do it illegally. One of my great aunts or something did it illegally and never got caught." Sirius suggested knowing that it wasn't impossible, just more difficult to do it without help from the Ministry. Plus, the thought of doing something illegal was quite pleasing to the young boy.
Peter looked down at his feet, near tears, as this last shred of hope was shot out of the sky. He looked back up at them after a short while, not willing to cry, and managed a weak half-hearted smile for them, "But we could die trying this. It's dangerous."
James smiled faintly at the boy, "You'll have me to help you. You can't go wrong with that, can you?" Peter shook his head not knowing what else to do, "So what do you say?" James said as he looked at Sirius and then back over at Peter.
"I'll do it." Sirius stated immediately without any hint of a thought process.
James smiled at his best friend and then gave Peter a level stare. "I'll do it too." Peter muttered finally in defeat.
James resisted the urge to jump up and kiss the boy, or rather, jump up and hoot in joy, "You guys won't regret this."
And in the next instant James got up from his seat to put his bag away for the day. Now, all they needed to do was tell Remus that they knew his secret.
James smiled to himself, "That shouldn't be too hard." he said to himself, as he looked over at Remus' bed, still utterly proud of his complete cleverness.
~*~*~*~
A/N: again I hate these things they take away from the story but it's a must. I had a slightly hard time with this chapter too because I got halfway through it and realized it wouldn't work. But then I had a clever moment. I'll just let you try and pick out where exactly this thing kinda fell apart.
And this is the real reason I'm doing this thing. The song that Malvitz sings in "Of Wolf and Man." I do realize that this song was not put out until 1991, but it isn't my fault that the band didn't exist publicly until the '80's. The reason I used it is because the person I based the professor off of loves Metallica therefore I didn't feel like changing that bit, plus it fits the story. Oh and because of the date thing I think you people can pretend that it's a song by a wizarding band from the '70's. That's it for now, I think. And I'm sorry if I sound a bit rude but these are the dumb things that people point out and criticize in stories, so I have to point this out so I don't have to hear about it