I knew that what I was doing was by far one of the stupidest things I had ever done in my entire life, yet I found myself stalking away from Lily anyway. No one, not even her, could stop me from going out there.
I really had no clue why I was doing this. In fact, I had no plan, no idea of what I would do once I’d found them. The only thing in my mind was Sirius and I knew that I had to find him. However, the reasonable side that usually controls my actions was screaming at me to listen to Lily. After all, the Marauders have been doing this for years without any permanent damage. But my reckless side pushed reason into a corner and took over my mentality.
“Amelia, wait!” a voice from behind me shouted.
I turned, pausing slightly. It was Lily again. I ignored my friend and continued towards the large oak doors.
“Amelia, I’m coming with you!” Lily said seriously as she lifted the sweeping white skirts of her gown and sprinted towards me. How she did that without falling was beyond me.
“What?” I asked. “I thought you said it was too dangerous.”
My friend reached me and laid her hands on the large oak door, as if going to push it open. “Well, of course it’s dangerous, and frankly one of the stupidest ideas in the world, but if you’re going out there, there’s no way I’m going to let you do it alone.”
I couldn’t help, but smile at this. Even when fronted with the stupidest of ideas, she still managed to remain loyal. “Thanks, Lily,” I told her as she pushed the doors open and we stepped into the night.
The Hogwarts grounds were strangely silent as we tentatively made our way down the main path from the castle. It seemed as if everything was frozen in the silvery moonlight that illuminated the entire area. Even the Whomping Willow remained still. It was as if the world was taking a deep breath before something climactic occurred. I shivered slightly; we were still in our ball gowns, which weren’t the ideal clothing for this situation, but there was nothing we could do now.
“Something just doesn’t feel right,” Lily commented, narrowing her bright green eyes that reflected the moonlight.
I nodded. We had reached one of the beech trees that were sprinkled around the lake. “Maybe we should just stay under this tree until we catch sight of them,” I suggested as I pulled Lily into the shadow of the tree.
“All right, that sounds like a good plan,” Lily agreed, sounding relieved. “Staying here means we have a better chance of not getting ambushed by a werewolf.”
Minutes dragged on in silence. I don’t know how much time passed, but it seemed like an eternity. The only sounds were the ripples in the lake and our shaky breathing.
It was still deathly silent when I saw them. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me or not, but it looked like they were emerging from a hole near the Whomping Willow. First was a large, shaggy shape that I assumed to be Remus, but he wasn’t at all the Remus I knew. As he stepped into the moonlight, I was filled with horror on actually seeing the beast that I have been warned against my entire life. He looked shaggy and fierce, just like in the textbooks, but something about him made him appear tamer, if that was possible.
The other three that emerged after him were a mystery. First out was a stag, proud and mighty. I heard Lily gasp in awe at the sight of it as it lifted its magnificent head to regard the moon with grace. She seized my arm and clung tightly to it. Next was a small animal; actually, it was riding on the stag’s back. I didn’t pay it much attention because my attention was instantly focused completely on the last and final animal.
The last of the animals captured my attention completely, although I didn’t have the slightest idea why. It was a great black dog, large and powerfully built, whose ink coloured fur gleamed in the moonlight. He was the most handsome dog I had ever seen in my entire life, and something about its powerful stride seemed familiar.
We watched as the four ran across the opposite side of the lake in awe. Lily’s full attention was held by the stag and mine by the dog. We stared at them as they frolicked in the moonlight for quite some time.
One of the strangest things about these animals was that around them, Remus didn’t act like a werewolf at all. Yes, he did walk like a wolf and all, and we knew that if he noticed us, he would attack, but he seemed almost tame under his companions’ influence.
It was only after the four disappeared into the Forbidden Forest that we spoke again.
“Amelia, I think we should go back to the castle.” Lily’s voice had a strange edge to it that I had never heard before.
I silently agreed. Something about the situation was telling me the same thing. We needed to get out of here. “Let’s go.”
We turned and crept back though the moonlight to the castle. Once safely inside, we could hear the music from the ball, but it was no longer the inviting sound it had been earlier that evening. We said nothing as we trooped up the staircase and made our way to Gryffindor Tower. The only people in the common room were a few clumps of the younger students, all of whom we easily avoided. Instead of settling down at our usual homework and hangout table, Lily and I made our way to the warm aura emitted by the fireplace and plopped in the Marauder’s signature seats, our fluffy skirts pooling around us.
I closed my eyes, letting the warmth sink in. I hadn’t realized how cold the outside air was until now. My head was completely spinning with the night’s events, but I did my best to shove them all back and relax. Lily, however, had jumped back up to her feet and was pacing in front of the fire.
“Lily,” I moaned, “stop it. You’re making the fire not as warm!”
I don’t know if she was trying to taunt me or not, but Lily stopped directly in front of me so I was completely cut off from the fire. “Going out there was completely pointless, you know. We learned and accomplished nothing.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “Are you kidding, Lily? We learned loads! It’s obvious that we don’t know how the guys communicate with Remus, but what about those animals?”
“What about them?”
“Lily, those weren’t normal animals! They’ve got to mean something!” I protested as she sat down again. “Just look at the grouping: a stag, a dog, what we think is some sort of mouse or rat, and a werewolf. Doesn’t that seem odd?”
Lily considered this. “True, it’s strange, but you have nothing to support your theory. They are probably just some random animals who hang out with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Now you’re really starting to sound like Leah. Listen, I don’t know why, but I have this feeling that those animals and the Marauders are somehow linked!”
“How? How are they linked?” Lily demanded.
I opened my mouth to speak and then stopped myself. How could they be linked? I stopped and reviewed everything I knew about the four boys. It was then that the idea struck…
“Lily, what about their nicknames?” I asked.
She seemed to be taken aback by this seemingly random question. “What?”
“The Marauders all have those weird nicknames for each other. Nobody besides them knows what they mean. What are they again… Padfoot, Wormtail…”
“Prongs,” Lily added, “and Moony.”
“Yeah, those. Moony is Remus; could that be for the fact that he’s a… you know, and transforms on the full moon?”
Lily seemed intrigued by this, but she was doing her best not to show it. “Maybe…”
I ignored her and continued along with my train of thought. “Peter is… Peter is Wormtail; he could be the rodent… yes, or maybe a rat! Rats have tails that look like worms!”
“You know, Amelia, I think you might be on to something here,” Lily admitted. “Because James is Prongs, so he would be the stag because stags have prong like antlers.”
I nodded. “Yes, and Sirius is Padfoot the dog because dogs have pads on their feet! It all makes sense!”
There was a long pause. “I think we’ve figured it out, Amelia,” Lily said.
“They’re Animagi… didn’t you say that there was a time when they would practically live in the library?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s probably what they were doing! Figuring out how to transform themselves into animals so they would be able to accompany Remus on the full moon.”
We sat in silence. Both our minds were focused on our suspicions and discoveries. My mind kept replaying the moment when the four creatures passed by. How could they have kept such a secret for so long?
It wasn’t long before the clock struck midnight and the Gryffindors began flooding the common room. I spotted my brother with his large group of friends. Their faces were flushed and they laughed as if they were the only ones in the world. From the looks of it, the Ball-goers were planning on continuing the party in the common room.
When we spotted Micky, Haylie, and Leah, Lily and I decided that it was about time to head up to the dormitory. We didn’t talk at all as we changed out of our ball gowns and into pajamas. I settled down in my bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Like before, my brain kept replaying the four animals running. After a few hours of restless tossing and turning, I gave up on the idea of sleep.
I slipped on a pair of robes over my pajamas and quietly crept down to the common room. It was empty, but to my surprise, the fire still crackled merrily in the fireplace. I noticed a book lying open on our usual table. After picking it up, I realised that it was Mickey’s book of dresses that she had the night the Ball was announced. That was back when she was planning on creating her own dress, but I guess she gave up on that idea.
I carried the book over to a couch near the fireplace and sat down. I paged through the book, eventually stopping on a section about different types of sleeves. It wasn’t the most entertaining thing in the world, but the dress book was something to keep my mind occupied. It wasn’t long, though, until the words began to blur on the page and I finally dozed off.
For the first time in weeks, I dreamed of Beauxbatons. I was creeping down one of the palace’s many elegant hallways, trying to be as quiet as I could. When I glanced around, I could hear hushed voices from one of the classrooms. Silently, I tiptoed over to the source of the noise and peered in. It was the salle d'hôpital, or the hospital room.
My eyes widened to see Henry Jetter, a student in my year, in one of the beds. His eyes were wide as he gazed blankly at the ceiling. A bit of drool dripped from his open mouth and his skin looked chalk white; he looked as if he had seen death.
Madame Maxime and Lady Rousseau, one of the teachers, were bent over him, speaking in hushed and urgent French. I could only understand half of what they were saying, they spoke so fast and so quietly, but from what I took in, he had been found in that state in the library.
My blood ran cold at the sight of it all. He was the third person to fall ill this month. I turned from the room in horror and sped away. That was when I woke up.
When I opened my eyes, the common room was bright from the sunshine that streamed in through the windows. After blinking a few times, last night’s events washed over me: the Ball, the Marauders’ departure, and our discovery of the truth. After sitting there for a few moments, I jumped off the couch, leaving the dress book behind, and went up to the dormitory.
Micky and Haylie had crashed in their beds, not even bothering to take off their gowns, and looking completely ridiculous. Leah slept peacefully in her bed, the hangings still closed, but Lily was awake in her bed. I joined her on it and we sat in silence for a while.
“What do you think we should do now?” I asked quietly, not wanting to wake any of the other girls.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “They’re probably dead asleep up in their dormitory. I doubt they’ll be down until this afternoon.”
“Maybe we should go wake them up,” I suggested.
“No, that’d just give them another reason to be mad at us.”
“Another reason?”
“Well, think about it,” Lily said reasonably. “They’ve been guarding this secret for years in fear of being figured out and now we’ve gotten the entire thing. I think that, plus waking them up, would make them more than a little ornery.”
“Well then, what should we do about it?” I didn’t want Sirius to be mad at me.
“We should wait until they wake up and then act like nothing happened at first. We’ll give them some time to bring it up themselves, and if all else fails, then we tell them ourselves,” Lily explained.
That morning was a slow one to say the least. After awhile, we trudged down to breakfast only to find that the majority of the school was still asleep. The morning was spent working on the various assignments and papers given to us by the professors. Leah soon joined us and after a quick lunch, we returned to our boring work.
Finally, Remus staggered into the common room from the portrait hole. This surprised me; I had figured that he would be in their dormitory. After thinking about it for a minute, it made sense that he would have spent the morning after a transformation in the Hospital Wing.
At the sight of him, Leah left us and went to talk to him. They talked quietly for a few minutes together and Leah gently reached out and took Remus’s pale hand in her own. They approached our table and both of them sat down.
It was quiet for a few moments as Lily and I simply watched Remus. He looked horrible, his skin was paler than usual and he had dark circles under his eyes. There was a large scratch on his forearm and he appeared to be completely exhausted.
“Um… hi,” he said quietly, almost awkwardly.
“Hi, Remus,” we chorused back.
“James and Sirius told me about last night,” he whispered, head downcast as if in shame, “I think that we need to talk. We should probably go up to my dormitory so we’re not overheard.”
Lily blinked in alarm. “Is that… allowed?”
Remus nodded unenthusiastically. “Yes, don’t worry. Girls can come in our dorms, but we aren’t allowed in yours. School rule.” He offered us a weak smile as he got up.
We followed him across the common room and up to the boy’s dormitory. I hadn’t ever been up those stairs before, but it wasn’t much different than the girl’s ones. We walked all the way up to the seventh years’ room, which was exactly the same as ours in general. The only difference was that it was a complete and total mess. Clothing and books littered the floor, bed sheets peeked sloppily out of the closed curtains of the beds, and the air reeked of socks and cologne. Three of the four beds had their hangings pulled closed and I could hear snores coming from one of them. The other Marauders were obviously still asleep.
My thoughts turned to Sirius, which caused me to blush deeply. He was sleeping behind one of these beds, but which one? Would he wake up when he heard us talking? No, my brain told me, of course he wouldn’t. He had a long night, longer than probably any I have ever known, and of course he will sleep almost the entire day away. I realized then that I was being stupid and told myself to stop thinking about Sirius. After all, it would probably lead to only more confusion on my part.
Remus led us to the only tidy bed in the room and we sat down on it. He stood in front of us and began pacing back and forth. He paused, looking over me, then Lily, and finally Leah. His eyes seemed to linger on her longer than any of us. With a deep breath, he began. “I know that you three aren’t stupid. Sirius told me… earlier that you had already figured out. In case you don’t know,” he glanced at me, “I’m a werewolf. I’ve been like this since I was a child… I understand if any of you don’t really want to be friends with me anymore, I really don’t blame you. I just wanted to tell you in person.”
The three of us were silent. Then Leah got up and took Remus by the hand and sat him down on the bed next to us. She kept her hand firmly in his.
He smiled gratefully at her and continued. “Every full moon I touch a special knot beneath the Whomping Willow which causes it to freeze. I go through a secret tunnel that leads out of Hogwarts to the Shrieking Shack.”
Lily’s mouth fell open. “So that’s where all the stories of haunting come from!”
“Yes, that was all me,” Remus said.
“But where do Sirius, James, and Peter come in?” I asked.
Remus hesitated, as if unsure if he wanted to share the rest with us. “They keep track of the full moon for me and sometimes make sure I get to the Shrieking Shack safely.”
Something in the way he said it told me that something big was missing from his answer. “You’re lying,” I accused.
Lily nodded. “We… that is, Amelia and I, spied on you last night.” Remus turned a shade paler, if that was possible. “We saw you as a werewolf run into the forest, but that wasn’t the only thing we saw.”
Remus’s eyes darted from face to face. A wave of guilt washed over me at what we had done. Why had we followed them? Why had I convinced myself that Sirius was in danger? It was no business of ours what they did, no business at all!
“I’m really sorry, Remus!” I burst out, “We shouldn’t have followed you, I know. We had no right”“
Remus cut me off. “No, it’s all right, Amelia. My only worry about that is if there’s people out on the grounds with me running free… the thought of what I could do to them…”
“It’s okay, Remus, it’s okay. No one was hurt,” Leah said encouragingly.
“Anyway,” Lily continued in a softer voice, “you were with three other animals: a stag, a dog, and what looked like some sort of rodent.”
“We thought about it a bunch,” I proceeded, still feeling guilty about my thoughtless invasion of their privacy, “and we’ve developed a theory behind the nicknames Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.”
Remus closed his eyes in what seemed to be defeat. “I see that you figured out the whole truth then.”
Lily and I nodded, but Leah appeared to be slightly confused.
“Well, you obviously didn’t share your thoughts with Leah, so I guess I have to fill you in on the whole thing,” Remus continued, standing back up again and resuming his pacing. “James and Sirius noticed how I would leave once a month, just like almost everyone else in the school. Naturally, they put the pieces together almost immediately. They, along with Peter, who was especially concerned about how pale I always looked upon my return, spent the next few years figuring out how to become Animagi. It was in fifth year that they finally perfected it, and they have been coming with me on my monthly transformations ever since. At first we stayed in the Shrieking Shack, but under their influence I wasn’t as wild… I seemed tamer than normal werewolves. It wasn’t long before they convinced me to leave my hiding place and explore the grounds of Hogwarts. We would explore everywhere, areas by the lake, the path down to Hogsmeade, and the Forbidden Forest. Ever since then, I’ve worried about hurting someone, but under my friends’ influence, I’m a lot better. I don’t need to worry about harming students, even though I still sometimes do.”
“Wow,” Leah breathed, “they must really care for you.”
He searched her face with his eyes, as if looking for some sort of rejection or approval. “A guy couldn’t ask for truer friends.”
Unasked questions thickened the air between the two. Leah released a heavy sigh. “Remus, I still really like you, you know. In fact, I’ve known about your condition for months and my feelings haven’t changed a bit. I know that you probably feel guilty about asking me to the Ball and then having to back out, but it’s okay. I completely understand. I don’t care that you’re a werewolf, and it’s something we can work around. To me you are and will always be Remus Lupin, no matter what the full moon does to you.”
Remus couldn’t believe his ears and in a way, neither could Leah. Her face got really red, but she got to her feet and slipped her hands in his.
Lily and I exchanged a look that decided our presence was no longer needed. With one last glance towards the bed that I knew Sirius was in, I followed my red haired friend back to the common room, leaving Remus and Leah to sort through how they felt for each other in privacy. We settled back in with our homework, and it wasn’t long before Leah emerged from the stairs to the boy’s dormitory. She motioned for us to follow her, and follow we did.
Back up in the boy’s dormitory, the other Marauders were now awake. They sat, whispering to each other, on Remus’s bed. My heart did a flip-flop as I took in the sight of a freshly awoken Sirius Black. He wore a plain white t-shirt that showed off his strong chest and blue plaid pajama pants. His usually sleek black hair was all mussed up, looking kind of like how James’s usually did, and he was still squinting as if he had just opened his eyes a minute ago.
James was in nearly the same state and one glance at Lily told me that she had noticed all the things about him that I had seen in Sirius’s morning state. I smiled to myself, wondering who would make the first move in their case. They both liked each other immensely, but now that their opportunity of the Ball was gone, they would have to face each other without an excuse to get together.
Lily and I took seats on the bed next to Remus’s so we were facing the boys. I noticed that Peter was still practically asleep, but he was making an effort to wake up.
“Moony, what is this all about?” James asked, attempting to stifle a yawn.
Remus hesitated, but it was Lily who spoke up. “We know your secret.”
Sirius let his jaw drop slightly, but he made a recovery. “Well, we already knew that. You told us last night.”
I shook my head. “No, Sirius, we don’t know just Remus’s secret. We know your secret too.”
“What?” Peter asked, looking terrified.
“Our secret?” James echoed my words. “How… how much do you know?”
It was Remus who answered this time. “Everything. They know everything.”
“Everything as in…?” Sirius left his question open-ended, his grey eyes darting from Remus to Lily to me.
“As in that Remus is not only a werewolf, but that also the three of you are unregistered Animagi sort of everything.
“But how did you…” Peter trailed off.
“Leah and I have guessed about Remus for years,” Lily said patiently. “Sirius pretty much confirmed that to us last night. Then Amelia,” she shot a glance at me, and I blushed, once again feeling guilty for my stupid decision, “got all worried about you and decided to run onto the grounds. We didn’t know what you were at the time, but we saw your Animagus forms running into the forest. We then went back to the common room and pieced it all together, or rather, Amelia did.”
It was silent. We all simply stared at each other, Lily, Leah, and I on one side and the Marauders on the other. My eyes shifted from a nervous Peter to a slightly angry looking James and landed on Sirius, who was giving me a thoughtful look that made me feel as though he could see into my head. My heart twisted, once again feeling guilty for what I had done. I wanted so badly for him to reveal something in his expression, whether displeasure or happiness, I didn’t care, but he remained tantalizingly solemn.
Finally, James spoke. “You won’t tell anyone, will you?”
“I swear we won’t tell a soul,” Leah said seriously, causing Sirius to finally take his eyes away from my own.
“If you tell, we could get thrown out of school,” James said cautiously. He obviously didn’t trust Leah that much.
Lily shot him an annoyed look upon detecting the rudeness in his tone. “Do you think we would do that to you, James?”
He smiled grimly at her, running a hand through his already unruly hair. “You tell me, Lily.”
“Of course I wouldn’t. None of us would.” She smiled at him.
James grinned back at her. “Good.”
Suddenly, Peter piped in, “I’m kind of hungry, you guys. Could we go to the Great Hall and see if there’s anything to eat?”
We all laughed as Sirius clapped Peter on the back. “That’s a good idea, Wormtail, I’m pretty famished myself. Sadly, I don’t think that there’s anything in the Great Hall right now.”
“We could always go to the kitchens,” James suggested, “I’m sure the house elves would be able to fix us up something.”
I grinned. “I’m in.” I hadn’t been to see the Hogwarts kitchens yet.
Leah, however, rolled her eyes. “How typical. Everything is always about your stomachs…”
“Hey, we are growing boys,” Sirius protested with a wicked glint in his eye.
With James and Sirius in the lead, the seven of us flew down the stairs laughing. It was as if the world had gone wrong, but as always, had righted itself in the end. Leah, Lily, and I may have discovered the Marauders’ secret, but as the next week would show, it ended up bringing us closer.
A Girl Like You by Lady Alanna
Chapter Notes: Hey everyone! Sorry it's been awhile for updating, it was a long wait in the queue for chapter 13. :) Here's the chapter that wraps up everything and all, which ends the first major plot line of the story. Don't worry, it's far from being over though! Thanks so much to Kate for betaing, as usual, she does an amazing job.
Chapter Endnotes: Well, that wraps things up nicely. I've got a filler chapter coming up (don't worry, it's a FUN filler where exciting things happen!) and then the first Quidditch game, which was difficult but fun to write. Anywho, I hope you liked this chapter! Please drop by and leave a review sharing your thoughts, I love hearing them! :D