Peter gaped. "S-Sirius, you’re…"

"…an idiot," James finished flatly.

Peter squeaked. "N-no! I didn’t mean…" he trailed off and muttered inarticulately, but Sirius wasn’t listening anyway.

"I am not an idiot! Just look at the evidence! The bag of stuff, his gaggle of girl friends, and have you looked at his face? He’s too damn pretty to be a guy!" Sirius protested.

"A girl, a girl, a girl in the dorm," Jayson chanted happily as he bounced up and down, clearly not paying any attention to the ongoing argument.

"That’s not solid evidence! Just because Remus is prettier than you are, it does not mean that he’s a girl!" James hissed.

Sirius rubbed his temples as Jayson’s singing got louder. "I know he’s a girl, James. I know girls. If anyone’s able to tell a guy from a girl, it’s me!"

"A girl, a girl, a girl, a girl, a girl…"

"Jay! Would you just shut up for one minute?" Sirius snapped, swiping at the blonde.

Jayson danced out of reach easily. "A girl, a girl, a girl in the dorm!"

"What’s in the dorm, Jay?" Remus was standing in the doorway looking slightly puzzled. A lock of hair fell across his eyes and he brushed it aside with a small impatient movement.

Sirius gaped, his mouth opening and closing noiselessly. Peter jumped and looked at Remus askance, while James studied Remus intently. Jayson had frozen in the middle of his dance, one leg up as if he were running a marathon and his arms thrown in the air.

Remus glanced at each of them nervously. "What? What’s wrong? Did I miss something?" His eyebrows drew together, creating a striking effect on his thin face.

Sirius seemed to snap out of his stunned state. "No-nothing, Remus. It’s nothing," he stuttered, pushing the other three out the dorm door past Remus and stumbling down the stairs.

Once in the common room, Sirius opened the Fat Lady’s portrait and started walking backwards to face his friends. "Did you see that? How could you not think that Remus’s a girl after seeing that?" Sirius sputtered.

"For the last time, being pretty does not make Remus a girl," James said tiredly, repeating his previous statement, but looking distinctly less confident.

"Remus is so cute!" Jayson burbled happily. "We get to live with a cute girl!"

"You’re not starting to believe the lunatic, are you?" James asked, exasperated.

"Jay believes that Remus is a girl and so does Peter! Don’t you, Peter?" Sirius looked at the short boy expectantly.

"Er, Sirius…" Peter stammered.

"Sirius! Turn around! You’re going to run into—"

Unfortunately, it was too late. Sirius stumbled backwards as he tripped on someone’s foot, but a hand grabbed his elbow, supporting Sirius before he fell. "I’m sorry," Sirius muttered, regaining his balance quickly.

"Just try to be a little more aware next time," a light male voice chided gently as Sirius turned to face the person he had tripped on.

Sirius found himself rendered speechless for the second time that day. A boy that looked only a couple years older stood smiling at Sirius quietly. His fine, waist-length hair spilled in a loose ponytail over one shoulder, and he had dark, lambent eyes. But it wasn’t only the dark gold of his hair that made him unique, the fact that he seemed to exude innocence and purity made him feel completely ethereal and exotic.

"My name’s Jensen…" The boy offered.

Sirius continued to gawk, and James kicked him lightly before answering, "His name is Sirius."

Sirius flushed and coughed as James introduced himself and the other two. Trying to find something else to focus his attention on, his eyes came to rest on a girl enveloped in a deep red cloak. Half of her face was covered so that only an amused smile could be seen beneath the cloak’s hood and her shoulders shook from suppressed laughter.

Seeing the direction of Sirius’ gaze, Jensen cleared his throat with a deceptively serene smile on his face. "This is Araqael; you could almost call her my sister. Don’t be impolite, Araqael. Take down the hood of your cloak."

Sirius, who was done being shocked for the day, quickly looked away, anywhere but at the girl who had just pulled down her hood. Jayson and James hissed through their teeth and Peter whimpered. Because if Jensen had presence because of the rarity of his person, Araqael was distinct because of her startling beauty and the defiant strength etched in every line of her face and body. Her thick, dark hair curled in gentle waves around her face, and her eyes were a vivid blue.

Araqael’s full lips curved into a smile and she stepped up to touch Jensen’s arm briefly. "We should get going. We’ll miss him if we don’t." She nodded courteously at the small group of boys and walked through the still open portrait hole with Jensen following close behind.

Jayson looked around, blue eyes wide. "What… What was that?"

---

Jensen shook his head. "So they think he’s a girl, do they?" he mused.

"I can see why they think so," Araqael said agreeably.

"Should we say anything?"

"I see no reason to. They’ll figure it out on their own eventually," a slow smile spread across her face.

---

Remus shrugged off the odd reactions of his friends. He had time to talk to them later, but now he had to finish a few things before he left to go home for the next few days. It was a bit of a hassle to travel all the way home every month, but so far it was the safest place for Remus to weather out his lupine change. Of course, staying on Hogwarts grounds was out of the question. It was too much of a liability to have a wild werewolf running around school campus and endangering the entire student population.

After a few moments of attending his trunk and making sure it was locked and spelled properly (Jayson could get into nearly anything if he focused long enough), Remus started out the door. Before he even crossed over the threshold he was stopped by the two temporarily apprenticed under Madame Pomfrey. Remus had only met Jensen and Araqael a handful of times, and each time they were polite and cordial, but they had never sought him out before.

"You won’t be needing anything except for your cloak," Jensen said as he handed the younger boy the things Sirius had brought down to the common room for Remus earlier. "We’ve found a place you can stay."

"And a way to get you there," Araqael added.

After Remus locked away his belongings, the three walked out onto the Hogwarts grounds and towards a large tree with a tangle of menacing branches. As they drew closer, the tree began to thrash out at them violently. Jensen and Araqael stopped just short of the trees reach and turned to Remus.

"This is a Whomping Willow," Araqael explained. "It’s guarding a passageway that runs from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade. The passage leads to a decrepit, boarded up house where you will be staying for the next few days. It’s a well known haunted house so the townspeople give it a wide berth. Dumbledore’s persuaded the residential ghost to move out for us.  You’ll have the whole place to yourself.  The conditions aren’t ideal, but it’s safe, and it’s close to Hogwarts."

"How do you get pass the flailing branches?" Remus asked dubiously. He was not looking forward to being impaled by tree branches.

"See that knot over there?" Jensen pointed. "All you have to do is press it and the tree will freeze. Take out your wand and see if you can get it."

Remus pulled out his wand and sent a spray of sparks flying at the knot. The first attempt ended in failure when the tree batted at the sparks waspishly, causing them to dissipate. The second try was successful and the tree froze.

Jensen smiled. "That’s all you have to do. Now, before you leave, do you have anything you need to ask us? Are you settling in alright with your friends?"

Remus shifted from one foot to another, looking uncomfortable. "They do think that I’m weird for leaving every month, but I don’t think they suspect anything" He looked thoughtful for a moment. "They have been acting a little weird today though, now that I think about it."

Araqael hid a grin as Jensen prompted, "So you’re doing fine then?"

"Well, there is another thing." Remus looked slightly embarrassed. "There’s no one I can talk to. I have this huge secret that I can’t even tell my roommates, and I feel… I feel as if I might explode if I can’t talk to someone who knows about it more often…" Remus blushed. "Does that sound weird? I’m sorry, I’m just being silly."

"I’d say that you could talk to us whenever you like…" Jensen began.

"But we’re never around," Araqael finished. "There is… there is Myrtle, or Moaning Myrtle, as some of the school likes to call her. The Ministry of Magic just got her to come back to Hogwarts, and she’s been sulking ever since. She says there’s no one for her to talk to. Now, if I ask her to keep your secret she will, so that’s always an option. It’s not a great one, but it’s an option nonetheless."

"Where would I find her if I wanted to talk to her?" Remus asked, curious despite his misgivings.

"The girl’s bathroom on the first floor," Araqael said as Jensen turned a startled laugh into a cough.

"What do you mean?"

"Moaning Myrtle’s a ghost."

---

Remus walked into the Great Hall a couple days afterwards, feeling wane and exhausted. Spotting his friends sitting in their usual spot at the Gryffindor table, he made his way towards them. Sirius was whispering heatedly to James, Jayson, and Peter and making animated gestures, but as Remus came within earshot of them, they grew quiet instantly and stared at him.

"Er, hello…" Remus finally greeted them after an awkward silence.

Sirius regained his composure and asked, "So how’s your mother, Remus?"

Remus looked away and coughed. "She’s doing… better. Thanks for asking."

There was another period of uncomfortable silence.

"Oh, Remus! You won’t believe the pair we met right before you left!" Jayson burst out suddenly, apparently unable to stand the absence of noise and chatter.

"T-that’s right. They were…" Peter trailed off, at a loss for words.

"Stunning," James supplied.

"Are you talking about Araqael and Jensen?" Remus asked, startled. When he saw the looks on his friends’ faces he kicked himself mentally.

Sirius looked at Remus suspiciously. "How do you know them?"

"I… I…" Remus stammered, thinking fast. Luckily, Jayson unconsciously came to Remus’ rescue with his usual flow of chatter.

"Now we know lots of pretty girls! We know my grandma, we know Araqael, and we know Re—"

At that moment, three things happened simultaneously. Sirius, who was sitting in front of Jayson, stuffed a large piece of toast into Jayson’s mouth. James pulled out his wand, pointed it at Jay, yelling, "Stupefy!" and managed to stun Peter instead since Sirius unwittingly pushed Jayson out of the harm’s way when he shoved the toast in the blonde’s mouth. This, however, caused the spell to hit the unfortunate Peter, who was sitting on Jayson’s other side.

Jayson hacked and coughed. "What are you trying to do, Sirius?!"

"You’re too thin, you need to eat more."

"You almost made me choke to death!"

"That was the idea," Sirius muttered darkly, but Jayson had already turned his attention to James.

"And you, James! What are you trying to stun me for?"

"There was a bug," James answered lamely, trying to revive the stunned Peter.

Jayson frowned. "That’s not… Ah!" Jayson jumped up onto his chair, pointing an accusatory finger. "I know what it is! It was a sneak attack! An ambush! That’s a new low, especially for you James!"

James held out his hands in an attempt to help Jayson get off his chair. "Jay, now calm down. No one’s trying to ambush you," he soothed. “Breakfast is almost over.  Why don’t we just forget the whole thing and just finish eating,� he continued placatingly. It didn’t seem that Jayson needed more convincing though, because he only had to look at James thoughtfully for a moment before he decided to sit back down in his chair and continue eating as if nothing happened.

"You’re forgiven," Jayson said cheerfully through mouthfuls of food.

"What was all that about?" Remus demanded as James checked to see if any of the teachers had noticed the disruption.

James shrugged. "It would’ve been bad for Jay to get mad in the Great Hall. I still remember the last time he got angry. He called down a huge thunderbolt that near brought down the roof. Everyone thought it was just some kind of freak storm, but it’s probably better if it doesn’t happen again."

"Not that. You know what I mean. What was with the stunning and the toast?"

James mumbled something and before Remus could press him further, the bell rang.

"Well then!" James said, clapping his hands together. "It’s time for class now! No time to talk, Remus, we don’t want to be late for Potions." He placed his hands firmly on Remus’ shoulders and steered the smaller boy out of the Great Hall, Peter, Sirius, and Jayson trailing after them.  Sirius and James chattered loudly over Remus’ head, ignoring his questions.

"I’ve got to go to the bathroom," Remus declared suddenly, looking slightly harassed.

James raised an eyebrow, but let Remus go, nodding. "Alright, we’ll see you in Potions then."

It wasn’t until Remus was out of sight that Sirius exclaimed, "Wait a minute! That’s not the way to the guy’s bathroom! That’s the corridor for the girl’s bathroom!" They all looked at each other briefly before dashing after Remus.

They skidded to a halt as they neared the girl’s bathroom and watched, hiding behind a pillar, as Remus looked around carefully before opening the door.

"Ah HA!" Sirius yelled triumphantly.

Jayson looked like he was highly enjoying himself. "Dumdumdum, the plot thickens!"

"But nobody uses that bathroom," Peter protested. "Not even the girls do if they can help it."

"Exactly," James murmured, "because no one uses it... It’s perfect."

"So, question is, what do we do with this information now that we’ve practically proved it?" Sirius asked, rubbing his hands together.

---

Remus stalked off. It was bad enough when his friends had all stopped talking as he got to the table, but then there was the whole toast and stunning incident. Was it possible that his friends had finally found out? What if they didn’t want to be friends anymore? But whatever the case, the events of the morning had convinced Remus that he needed to talk to someone, anyone really, even if that person happened to be a socially disordered, whiny ghost.

Once he got to the right bathroom, he scanned the area quickly — he wouldn’t hear the end of it if he was caught going into the girl’s bathroom. He slipped in once he was sure that no one was around to witness him entering and walked towards the stalls. "Myrtle?" he called out tentatively.

"Who’s there?" a distraught voice wailed.

"I’m Remus. Araqael said I could talk to you?"

"Oh! So you’re Remus!" the voice sounded considerably happier and a female ghost slid through the closed stall door. She moved closer to him, pushing up the rim of her glasses. "We get to talk then, don’t we?" she squealed delightedly.

"Yes. Well, this is what’s going on..."

---

Remus felt better than he had in months. Despite the fact that Myrtle was a ghost, she was a pretty good listener if he could keep her off her own woes. He finally had someone he was able to talk to, and he went to talk to Myrtle at least three times a week, finding that the ghost was good company and often knew about certain affairs inside of Hogwarts that other people did not, such as hidden passages and so forth.

As Remus reached Myrtle’s bathroom, he glanced around quickly and slid through the door. "Myrtle, you’ll never guess what Sirius and James are trying to pull off this time!"

"What?" Myrtle’s favorite stories were the ones about Sirius and James’ antics.

"Swear not to tell!"

"I know, I know. We go through this every time. I won’t tell anyone."

"They’ve decided to work on an Animagus potion, but only enough for them and me."

"But you don’t need that potion. It might not even work too, since you’re a werewolf. And what about Peter and Jayson?"

"I know I don’t need the potion, but I didn’t have the heart to let them down, and it’d be weird if I just told them I couldn’t be an Animagi. As for Jayson and Peter, they figure Jayson’s got enough abilities as it is, and they don’t trust that Peter won’t tell a professor. So I was thinking that I could let them down gently by cushioning their disappointment with something else."

"Like what?"

"I’ll need your help, but I think I can get it to work," Remus said, grinning broadly. "I need you to find me all the passageways in the palace. Every single one made and especially the ones leading to Hogsmeade."

"Alright, I can try. But what are you intending to do? Make a map?" Myrtle asked curiously.

"Exactly. Or rather, more precisely, something that I’m going to call the Marauder’s Map."

---

"Have you noticed that Remus has been sneaking off a lot lately?" Sirius asked during a rare moment of studious silence.

"Yeah, I wonder what he...er...she’s...up to," James replied, not looking up from his Transfiguration book.

"Oh, I know! I know!" Jayson raised his hand enthusiastically as if he were in class.

"What, Jay?" Sirius rubbed his face tiredly, this potion was going to take a little longer to figure out than he had expected.

"Well, Sirius was acting like this a month or two ago, remember? He was all secretive and sneaky and stuff."

James looked up, "Oh yeah. What was that about? I almost forgot about it with the whole Remus mystery going on."

"Yeah! That was when he was going out with Lily E—"

Sirius got up suddenly, elbowing Jayson hard in the process. "That’s it! That’s what’s been going on!"

James’ eyes narrowed. "Lily...who, Sirius?"

Sirius shook his head adamantly, "That’s not important now! I think Jay’s actually on to something! Remus’ got a boyfriend!"