Cub Scout

Cub Scout 2: It Gives One Paws

Sirius shifted in his chair, waiting impatiently for James to finish his essay.  He’d been done with everything for an hour.  In the beginning they had raced to see who could do homework the fastest, the way they competed at everything: but their styles were too different for this to last long, and now, in the beginning of their second year, they had given up.  James actually cared about things like spelling and penmanship, while Sirius was content as long as he had the right answer.  He was also impatient, restless, his mind leaping from topic to topic with unpredictable suddenness.

"You know," he said in a low voice, and not just because they were in the library, "when I first saw him on the train, I thought he might be a ghost."

James smiled, beginning his closing paragraph.  "Yes, he does kind of have that air," he admitted.  "But he’s quite solid," he added hastily, too polite to speculate about his friends.

Sirius would not be deterred.  "Maybe a vampire," he suggested.

James sighed.  "Sirius, I believe Remus enjoys the sunshine as much as you and I."

Sirius had to admit this was true; but the thought of the sun quickly led his train of thought towards other celestial bodies.  "OK, I’ve got it," he said, laughing.  "A werewolf!  He disappears at night, right?  He’s always looking at the moon, right?"

This time James had had enough.  He lay down his quill and looked sternly at his friend.  "Sirius, be serious.  He’s a homesick boy whose mum is dying.  Doesn’t that mean anything to you?"

"Sure it does."  Sirius looked contrite, for all of ten seconds.  "…But why is she always dying at the full moon?"
 

It was meant to be a joke, but once he got the idea in his head, Sirius couldn’t get rid of it.  After all, simple experiments told him that Remus wasn’t a ghost or a vampire… the one simple experiment that would tell him he wasn’t a werewolf—seeing him at the full moon—never seemed to happen.  He didn’t tell James about his growing preoccupation, but he did a few small things that neither James nor Remus himself could fail to notice.

First he took to glancing at the enchanted ceiling every time Remus did, commenting on the phase of the moon, and calling his friend "Moony."  Remus retaliated by becoming quite an astronomer, so when Sirius caught him staring at the sky, he’d say something like, "Orion lies right along the celestial equator, see?  You can tell your latitude from its position."  Soon all three of them had stopped wearing watches, priding themselves at being able to tell time and season from a quick look at the sky.  Remus deliberately ignored the nickname, only once muttering something about it being "worse than Dog Boy."

Then there was the Transparency Potion.  James wanted to catalog all of the ingredients Professor Zabini kept in the locked dungeon behind the Potions classroom.  He’d been wracking his brain for the best way to do this: should he get Sirius to distract him, and run in? (not enough time); or sneak in at night? (the doors were rumored to be jinxed in unknown ways); or play around with X-ray vision? (too dangerous).  Finally he decided to splash the wall with a concoction that would make it transparent for at least ten minutes, long enough for him to know what forbidden ingredients he could obtain when necessary.

He and Sirius let Remus into the plan.  Then Sirius had an idea.

"Hey," he said casually, "we don’t have to steal the mugwort, we can pick it by the lake.  Do you mind doing that, Remus?"

As he had hoped, Remus hadn’t read the instructions.  "No, not at all," he replied.

"OK," said Sirius with professional calm.  "It has to be harvested at the full moon—but that’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it?"

Remus showed no emotion.  "Is it?  All right."

"I’ll come with you, if you’d like."

"No, that’s OK.  I can manage."

And he did it.  Sometime that night he came in, prodded the sleeping Sirius, and said, "I’ve got it.  I’ll put it under my bed, it’s in a bucket."

"Mmmm…" Sirius groaned sleepily.  "You were gone a long time.  What time is it?"

"About midnight," Remus replied.  "Say, I’m going off to visit Pomfrey, I think I caught some poison ivy."

He was out sick the rest of the day, but the fact was that he had brought the mugwort.  Sirius wasn’t sure what to think.  He should have followed him.  He should have checked the time when he was shaken awake—it could have been past dawn.  It wasn’t conclusive.

Then James, quite accidentally, found out that Remus hadn’t picked the mugwort himself.  He’d gotten that fat little Peter Pettigrew to do it, the one who was always trailing after the Slytherins like a baby duck and then running to Remus after they turned him green.

Peter slapped his hand over his mouth.  "Oh!  I wasn’t supposed to tell!"

"What?" Sirius asked, quickly.

"Well, I mean… Remus was trying to play a joke on you guys, right?  That’s why he needed mugwort…"  He looked confused when they looked confused.  "That’s what he told me," Peter protested. "I don’t know what kind of joke.  He just told me to leave the mugwort in a bucket by the base of the Whomping Willow."
 

"All right, Sirius," said James soberly.  They had picked a very quiet area of the grounds so as to be able to spot potential eavesdroppers from a mile off.  "Your suspicions may not be completely crazy."

"I told you, I told you," Sirius cried.  "He was always so strange.  The way he eats:  ten pounds of meat a day, but only for one week a month.  And that time in Herbology--"

"—when we studied wolfsbane, he stopped outside the door and then ran off claiming to have forgotten something," James agreed quietly.  "Yes, I remember."

"I almost took a sprig of it to try later, but I was thinking about that business with the unicorn and I forgot.  And he’s so touchy!  The nicest boy on earth when the moon is new—but then today, when I asked him something, he growled at me."

"But still, I can’t believe that one of my friends…" James didn’t finish the thought.  "Or that Dumbledore…" He didn’t finish that one either.  "When’s the next full moon?"

"Tomorrow." Sirius widened his eyes, expecting a plan.

James refused to take the bait.  "Well, don’t do anything stupid."
 

Sirius did something stupid.

"Hey, Remus," he whispered at the end of Potions the next day, as they emerged from the dungeons into the first-floor corridor.  "I have something to show you."

With a very practiced gesture that was almost imperceptible, Remus looked out the window.  The late-autumn sun hung pale and shrouded in the western sky.  "Yes, yes…" he murmured.  "I’m not feeling so well.  Some other time…"

"Five minutes," Sirius vowed.  He looked outside himself, though less surreptitiously.  "It won’t be dark for twenty-seven minutes."

"But…" Remus stopped himself.

"Come on," Sirius led the way up one of the many set of stairs to the third floor.  "Let’s go."  He strode along at a manic rate until finally coming to a halt outside an empty classroom, where there was a statue of a one-eyed humpbacked witch.  "Look!  It’s a secret passageway."  Saying "Dissendium," he tapped the statue and an opening appeared.

Remus took a few steps backward.  The sun wouldn’t set for twenty-five minutes, but the moon would rise thirteen minutes before that.  He should’ve skipped Potions… and risked failing for sure.

He leapt two feet in the air when Sirius grabbed him.

"Come look!" Sirius implored.  "Two minutes—I promise."

Remus followed.  There was so little of the human left in his mind that it could barely register a hint of shame at the beast’s gloating: you’re going to be alone!  With a person!  At moonrise!

I shouldn’t go with him, he tried to think.

Idiot! said the monster, though not in words but in barks and growls.  Your first prey.  Six years and you’ve never bitten anyone.  Failure!

Remus backed up against the wall, staying as far from his friend as possible.

Sirius regarded him with interest.  "The moon will be full tonight," he commented.

"I know," Remus admitted brazenly, with a small hope that his tone would frighten Sirius away.

"So… so I thought we could go into Hogsmeade and hear the ghost.  You know the Shrieking Shack only shrieks when the moon is full.  This tunnel leads straight into the cellar of Honeydukes!"

Remus stared at him with undisguised horror.  He doesn’t know! the monster rejoiced.  You’ve got him!

"You know," Sirius remarked casually, as if just noticing, "you never seem to be around when there’s a full moon.  It’s a little funny.  And getting Peter to pick your mugwort…"

"If you suspect—what I think you suspect--"

"Then this is a superlatively stupid thing to do," Sirius laughed.  "Come on, let’s go."

Remus stayed pressed against the wall, trying something he never had: through the growls and hisses and yelps that were filling his brain, he searched for the tiny human voice.  This is Sirius Black, your friend, he told himself.

The beast backed off, just a little.  It was skeptical of a human friend, but pack animals understood the concept.

Remus took a deep breath.  Maybe it would be easier than he had thought.  What he was trying to do certainly wasn’t in the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2, but his months of concentrating on needles and shrivelfigs had given him a new self-discipline.  Sirius is your friend, he repeated silently.  If you don’t do something, he will die.

"Sirius," he managed in a strangled voice, "run."

Sirius had been heading down the corridor, but now he turned around, eyebrows raised in surprise.  He clearly hadn’t expected his suspicions to be anything but his own overactive imagination—but still he didn’t run.  He watched his friend intently, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

Remus reached for his wand.  It wasn’t there.

Sirius saw the gesture and held it up, laughing.  He was the fastest duelist around, and yet somehow enjoyed filching things like a common muggle pickpocket.

The fool! the monster gloated.  Conspiring in his own death!

"Sirius, I…"  It’ll tear me to shreds, Remus thought.  Then he smiled a bit: it couldn’t kill him.  That would only be killing itself, too.  There wasn’t anything it could do, at least not for the next ten minutes.  "Do you know how to conjure a box, or a cage, a wall—something--?"

Sirius looked at his wand.  "Well, I think maybe--"

"GIVE ME MY WAND NOW," Remus commanded, feeling his control slip with every passing moment.

Sirius reluctantly handed it back.  "Don’t go away, all right?  I mean, if I was right, and all… I really want to see."

Remus wasn’t listening.  He wasn’t so sure how to do this spell himself—though he had practiced it a couple of times.  He held his wand in front of him, said "Arca"— and was suddenly sitting inside a translucent box about twice his size.  He went and sat in one corner, feeling like an animal in the zoo as Sirius followed, gaping.

It helped a lot not to be able to see him clearly, or to smell him.  "The cage will only stay strong as long as I… want it to," he said.  "Then it will start to weaken."

"I have to know," Sirius babbled.  If he was afraid, he had a very strange way of showing it.  "I have to see.  I’m sorry, but I can’t believe it and the curiosity is killing me.  I mean, honestly, if I’d asked, you would have lied, right?  And I have to know…"

It wouldn’t be long now.  "If I catch you…" Remus began, and gulped.  "Try to tie my jaws closed.  Once they’re closed I won’t be able to open them again."

Sirius grinned.  Ropes and cords were one of the first spells he’d learned.  He wasn’t even scared.  "We never learn things like that in Defense Against the Dark Arts," he exclaimed.

Remus told himself he wouldn’t scream in front of his friend, but it was a physical impossibility.  It wasn’t just the pain that made him scream, but the way his lungs and vocal cords were changing and stretching, and the fury of the monster that had been betrayed when it had scented prey at last… The whole process took somewhere between one and five minutes, he couldn’t pin it down more accurately than that.  Then the werewolf leapt for the walls of the cage, crashing against them in his fury and too impatient to wait for them to dissolve on their own.

Sirius ran.
 
 

The werewolf figured out very quickly that he was much too large to fit through the witch statue.  He gave up on Sirius and went tearing along the earthen floor and then up the stairs to the entrance to Honeydukes.  After only a couple of tries, he managed to sit up on his hind legs and shove the trapdoor open with his face.  He sat back down for a second, panting with the effort—and then lunged for the opening, his head and forepaws in the cellar.  It wasn’t a very comfortable position, and it was a very tight fit.  Could he make it?  He sat back down again, considering the situation.  Then, with a tremendous leap, he got his head into the trapdoor and all four feet braced against the sides.  Snapping and growling, he tried to squeeze his enormous shoulders through the small hole—but his claws slipped on the wood and he fell.

He rolled down twenty-five or fifty of the hundreds of stairs (he wasn’t very good at counting), then got up for another try.  One of his back paws hurt and he licked at it, furious at being delayed.
This time, when he was halfway through the trapdoor, a light appeared somewhere above the cellar, and he heard voices.

"What is that unearthly yowling, Hecate?"

"Ghosts, I imagine.  We really must speak to the headmaster of the school; he seems to know something about the spirits that have moved into town lately."

The werewolf grew quiet, licking his lips.  He waited, as silently as he could, only his muzzle protruding into the cellar.

"It was fine when they stuck to the shack, but I don’t want them driving away customers.  I’m going downstairs; I’m not afraid of any ghosts."

"No, Orpheus, don’t--" the woman’s voice stopped him.

Down in the cellar, Remus’ back legs were growing very tired.  He nearly howled in disappointment—like a very small child, the werewolf had a short attention span, and each minute felt like an hour.  The only thing that kept him in that miserable cramped position, balancing on the top step and clinging to the entrance with his claws, was the sound and smell of unsuspecting victims.

"Why not?" the man wondered.  "What can a disembodied spirit do to me?"

"You don’t even have your wand."  She sounded relieved.  "Come on, let’s go to bed and I’ll speak with Albus Dumbledore in the morning."

As they turned to leave Remus did howl, the loudest, most anguished howl of his life.  He heard them leave; he heard their voices, quavering with fear as they speculated about the noise.  Most of all, he smelled them, and knew they were leaving and weren’t coming back.  He howled again and chewed at the trapdoor in a fury until he was too tired to do anything but drop back down onto the stairs.

Twice there had been people within his reach tonight, and twice he had failed.  Someone was going to pay for this.
 
 

I’m thirsty, was the first thought he had when he was human again.  He sat up slowly—he was at the base of a long staircase, and his left ankle was sprained, or maybe broken, he couldn’t tell.  And his robes were covered with blood; he felt a stab of fear that maybe it was not all his own.  Usually he could remember, at least about things like that, but he was in pretty bad shape at the moment.  He bit his lip as he tried to stand, then gave up—definitely broken.

I can crawl back to the castle on all fours, he thought with some irony.  He turned over onto his hands and knees to try, but he was so tired and so thirsty he thought he just might rest a bit instead.  He put his head down on his arms and slept, dreaming of cascading falls, tall glasses of pumpkin juice, and one of his very earliest memories: his mother magically squeezing lemons into a pitcher, the seeds skittering away into the garbage, the sugar and ice cubes measuring themselves at just the right amounts…
 

"Where did you say you saw him last?"

"At the other end, by the castle.  Oh Lord, I hope he didn’t get out."

"If this is a joke, Sirius--"

"I wouldn't do that--well anyway, not this time  …Hey, is that him?"

"Where?"

"By the stairs."

"We must have missed him last time.  He looks asleep.  No, don’t move him, you might hurt him."

"What are you going to—oh, that’s cool.  I’ve never conjured a stretcher before.  Can you get him on it?"

"I think so… Wait…"

"Don’t drop him, James!  I’m going to wake him up."

Remus heard the voices but didn’t open his eyes until Sirius tapped him on the shoulder.  "Hey, old buddy—are you all right?"

He was so ashamed he was ready to get up and run, forgetting he was hurt.  "Yes, of course," he said weakly.  "Are you?"

"Don’t worry about me.  I’m an inconsiderate jerk—right, James?  Can you stand up to get on the stretcher, we’ll pull you back to the castle, I don’t trust James to levitate you--"

In his haste to have this over with so he’d never see these people again, Remus stood directly onto his broken ankle and yelped.

"What happened?" Sirius demanded, with a guilty look at James who, no doubt, had told him so.

"Fell downstairs, I think.  It’s nothing."  Realizing he’d never make it to the castle on his own, Remus collapsed on the stretcher and let his two former friends pull it all the way down the passageway and out through the statue of the humpbacked witch.

Madam Pomfrey was practically in hysterics.  Sitting with her, looking only slightly less concerned, was Headmaster Dumbledore.

"My fault," Sirius said, before anyone could say anything.  "Will he be OK?"

She pounced on the stretcher, then on Sirius, then James, checking them all for imagined horrors.

"We’re fine," James insisted.  "But Remus… we’ve been looking for him since dawn.  We found him passed out and… and all covered with blood and everything."

Madam Pomfrey went to scold Remus, but Sirius stopped her.  "It’s all my fault.  I did it, blame me.  Just make him better, OK?"  He turned to look at Dumbledore.

"I think you two had better come with me," said the headmaster.
 
 

Even in the privacy of the headmaster’s office, Sirius felt as if he had to whisper.  "I’ve suspected for… I don’t know, a long time.  I mean, I thought it was just one of my silly ideas, I never actually believed it.  So I thought I’d play a prank on him, and…"  Looking at the old portraits, who fortunately kept dozing and didn’t look back, he told the entire story.

Dumbledore listened, and seemed quietly resigned rather than surprised.  "How many others have you told about this?" he asked, finally.

"I didn’t tell anyone!" Sirius exclaimed.  "Well, besides James, I mean.  But James…"

"…is just an extension of your overheated brain," James finished dryly.

"Did you know what he was planning last night?" Dumbledore inquired.

"No!" cried Sirius.  "It’s all my fault!  As I said, I didn’t believe it.  I thought we’d just end up running around the castle together."  Even caught and in trouble, he didn’t want to say exactly where they’d been and spoil the secret.  "I didn’t mean any harm," he added, quietly, like a little boy who’s killed a bird with his slingshot.

The headmaster frowned slightly.  "He agreed to go with you?" he wondered in a mild tone, betraying nothing.

"I practically dragged him!" Sirius exclaimed.  Finally, for the first time, a hint of fear appeared on his face as he realized what Dumbledore was suggesting.  "But… but he kept trying to protect me," he stammered.  "He told me how to defend myself.  And…"

It wasn’t clear to the two students if Dumbledore was surprised or relieved, but he was certainly pleased.  "Mr. Lupin has the potential to be a great wizard one of these days," he commented.

"Of course he does," Sirius exclaimed in honest surprise.

"What do you…" Dumbledore paused, then looked at each of them in turn.  "What do you boys think about him continuing to be a student here?"

"What?" cried James.

"You’re thinking of expelling Remus?" howled Sirius.  "But I keep saying, it’s MY FAULT.  I even took his wand.  You couldn’t, you wouldn’t--"

"If parents complain, if students leave the school, or if, God forbid, he hurts someone—I shall have no choice."

Sirius looked subdued.  "I don’t understand.  I didn’t believe it, that’s why I had to see.  They taught us in Defense Against the Dark Arts that they’re always bloodthirsty monsters…"  His voice trailed off as he remembered how Remus had been especially cynical and sarcastic after that lesson.  He’d called Sirius and James "fools who believe the lies they’re fed"-- and that was one of his milder statements.

"And there are laws," James added.  Again, they had learned all this from Remus: cloaked in a sea of other information, sometimes disguised as a metaphor—but still, why hadn’t they seen it?  "They’re not allowed to work for the Ministry.  Or be buried in graveyards.  Or even get married," he remembered as if that scarcely mattered, since no one in their right mind would ever want to do that.  James still hated girls—not least because they had started following him around.

"I am one of the few opposed to such laws," the headmaster told them.  "And it is ones like Remus who will lead to them being changed."

Sirius knew Dumbledore meant well, but he still couldn’t help wincing at the fact that he said "ones" and not "people."  No wonder Remus was touchy!  I will treat him normally or I will slime myself, Sirius promised silently.  "And people like me, too," he said, "and James.  I want to work for the Ministry when I'm out of school…"

"Remus is a great person and a fine wizard," James added seriously.  "I thought… I mean, I had him in mind when I started `no prejudice in Gryffindor.’  I knew he was different, in some way, but I wasn’t sure how.  Is he the very first one…?"

"At Hogwarts? yes."

"Well," laughed Sirius, always disturbed by too much solemnity, "if you admit any more, you’ll have to start keeping flocks of sheep on the grounds! So, uh… we agree it’s my fault, right?  What’s my punishment?"

Dumbledore regarded him carefully; Sirius tried not to look too anxious.  "Why don’t you go see if your friend will accept an apology," said the headmaster.  "I feel certain that he will."

"But--"  Sirius hesitated as Dumbledore turned his attention away from them and towards a piece of parchment on his desk.  When James prodded him in the back and got up to leave, Sirius finally followed, looking very confused.
 

No amount of wheedling would convince Madam Pomfrey to let them wake Remus up, so they had to wait until after classes the next day.  They brought a pile of sweets and all his homework, innocently proclaiming that they were only concerned with his grades.

He was asleep but they shouted in his ear.  "Hey, are you all right?" Sirius wanted to know.  "When do you get to leave?"

Remus flinched a bit at the sight of his friends, and gave Sirius a very odd look.  "When my mum comes to get me, I suppose," he murmured, staring at the pillow and not facing them.

Sirius was so surprised he almost couldn’t speak.  "Bonehead!" he yelled finally.  "I meant leave the infirmary!  You’re not leaving Hogwarts.  There is no way."

"I doubt that I have much choice," said Remus in a very small voice.  "I almost killed you, Sirius."

"I almost killed you!"  Sirius bellowed, leaping up.  "Won’t anyone believe it’s my fault… or even give me detention…"

"That could be arranged," Madam Pomfrey menaced, "if you don’t lower your voice in this hospital."

Sirius sat back down, trying to calm himself.

"You didn’t do anything wrong," Remus told him.  "This is not your fault.  It happens every month."  And if it was especially bad this time, he thought grimly, it’s because I was furious at myself for letting you escape.

"I didn’t know--" Sirius stammered, looking at James for help.  "I didn’t think--"

"Obviously not," James muttered.

Sirius glared at him, then patted Remus gingerly on the shoulder, not wanting to hurt him.  "Moony, old pal, you’ve got to stay.  Who else around here dares to call James an idiot?"

"James isn’t an idiot," Remus replied, tired and sad.  "I’m just jealous because—because I’m not even human."

"Hey," James scolded.  "You know I don’t listen to that sort of nonsense from anyone, and you’re no exception."  He was trying hard, but there was a slight false note to his voice that Remus couldn’t fail to miss.

"All right, he’s an idiot."  Remus sighed.  "But so am I."

"You’re not making sense," James declared after a moment’s thought.  "You’ve been telling us all year that it’s the people who hate and fear you who are the monsters, the true evil.  Now you’re trying to say that no, you’re evil.  Which is it?"

Remus was much too tired for philosophical arguments.  "Both," he said simply.

"That’s a load of fewmets," snapped James.  "You refuse to believe that anyone is on your side.  Well, we are on your side—and you’re not leaving."

"If you leave," Sirius threatened, "I’ll tell."

"Sirius!" James whirled on him.

"Well!"  Sirius tried to defend himself.  "If he leaves, there’s no point in keeping it secret, right--"

"But you can’t threaten people.  It’s wrong."

They all grew quiet.  This little argument had made Remus realize something.  "But you mean…" he whispered.  "You mean not everyone knows?" he asked quickly, scarcely daring to hope.  "I would have thought, the noise… the howls…"

James shrugged.  "I didn’t hear too much.  I thought there might be a ghost loose, maybe the ghost from the Shr--"  He stopped, suddenly, and exchanged a look with Sirius.  It had just hit them both that the ghost from the Shrieking Shack might be no ghost at all.  "Anyhow," he added quickly, "no one knows but us.  And on our way out of there, I erased the paw prints."

"And wiped up the blood and slobber," Sirius added with glee, as if the thought that his little friend could produce that much drool amused him.

"We can keep a secret better than anyone else in the universe," James declared, and he and Sirius chuckled at some private joke.  "You’re better off that we do know—we can make up all sorts of stories."

"`Oh yeah, Remus and I ran around Hogsmeade last night, looking for the ghost,’" Sirius mocked himself.  "`We had a great time.’"

Remus was still staring at his pillow.  "I will not ask you to lie for me," he snapped.

"It’s not as though it’s any effort," James laughed.  "Sirius hasn’t told the truth since--"

"—May 4th, 1966.  Ah, I remember it well.  Here."  He tossed a stack of books and parchment onto the bed.  "Shut up and do your homework.  We did Cheering Charms today; should I practice on you?"

"I lost points for my charm being too strong," James grumbled, "but it was just because I did it on him."

"Sirius could smile in Azkaban," Remus grumbled without humor.  He opened a book and began his homework, still not looking at his friends.
 
 

Sirius and James were at a loss for what to do for the next couple of weeks.  Remus no longer talked about leaving Hogwarts, but he avoided his friends with a melancholy and self-conscious air—he even failed to intercept a stink curse that Severus hurled at Peter, and Peter had to run off to Madam Pomfrey smelling like something the cat dragged in.

One night, when the moon was new, James finished his homework and got out the Invisibility Cloak.  "Let’s do something tonight, guys.  It’s so dark out.  We should at least visit Hagrid and see what happened with the unicorn."

"Maybe he’ll take us into the Three Broomsticks again," Sirius suggested excitedly.  "It was so cool the way the bartender didn’t even blink at serving ale to someone invisible."

"Someone who then puked invisible puke and couldn’t fly home," James reminded him.  "Remus, are you coming along to keep him out of trouble?"

"No, thank you," Remus replied courteously, his nose in a book.  He was always too polite, even slightly formal—someone who read more than he spoke.  "I have work to do."

"You’re already ahead of James and me in Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts," Sirius grumbled.  "Quit studying, for a change."

"Yes, but if I make one more stupid mistake in Potions, I’m doomed."  He tried to be lighthearted.  "Viper’s fangs, urchin spines—who can tell the difference in the dark with gloves on?"

He wouldn’t be convinced, so James and Sirius took the cloak and left the boys' dormitory.

"Do you think he’s mad at me?" Sirius wondered in a whisper as soon as they were out the portrait hole.

"No…" James replied thoughtfully.  "I think he’s just embarrassed.  He’ll get over it."

"But how come?  It was my fault.  Why won’t anyone believe it was my fault?"  Sirius suddenly lowered his voice even more, so that James could barely make out the words.  "Unless… that thing Dumbledore said… do you think he wanted to bite me?"

James sighed.  "I don’t know, Sirius; why don’t you ask him?"

"No way, he’d kill me for sure.  Hey, do you suppose that those books he reads would tell us something?  Maybe he’s teaching himself spells!  Why do you suppose he's years ahead of everyone in Defense Against the Dark Arts!"

Without needing to discuss it further, the two ducked inside the Cloak and headed for the library.

They had just entered the Restricted Section and were scanning the titles eagerly when they heard footsteps.

"Shh!"

"Where’s the Cloak, James?"

"Over here…"

They stood in tense silence, crouched under the silky cloth, until a face poked around the nearest shelf and looked right at them.

It was Remus.  "All right," he said.  "Sirius, James, or both?"

"Shhhh…" said two voices.  Their heads appeared, floating in midair.

"You could have told me you were coming here," he said with a wry smile.  "I almost got nabbed by Filch."  He went to a shelf that he obviously knew well, and pulled down a very large and ancient book.

"Well, what are you doing here?"  James wanted to know.  "Is this where you always come when I lend you the Cloak?"

Remus shrugged.  "Not always.  A lot of the time."  He flipped the book open and began examining a page with interest.  Noticing that the others had stopped browsing, he regarded them a bit coldly.  "Don’t let me interrupt your research," he said.

James tried to shush him, but Sirius would not be deterred.  "We’re interested in you," he admitted eagerly.

"Sirius--" James warned.

But Remus didn’t seem bothered; he just said "Hmm."  Then, after a second, still examining his book, "And you don’t trust me to tell the truth, I suppose?"

"We just didn’t want to pester you," James assured hastily.

"Better that than to act—to act like my mum," said Remus in a very small voice.  He replaced his book on the shelf and selected another.

Sirius came up from behind and peered over his shoulder.  "So what are you reading about?  Eew—what is that thing?"  He extended his hand towards an image of a figure in a black cloak, then jumped as the picture moved, showing a long, scabbed, clawlike hand.  Sirius put his hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t cry out.  "Yuck," he whispered.

"It’s a dementor," Remus told him cruelly.  "A guard of the fortress of Azkaban.  They suck every happy memory out of your mind.  They leave you with only the horror and the despair and the sadness."

"It makes me feel cold all over, just seeing the picture."

James couldn’t avoid hearing this conversation, but he wouldn’t look at the dementor.  "And the cure for exposure to one is chocolate," he said, as if bored.  "Why don’t you take what you want and we’ll go raid the kitchen?"

"You shouldn’t eat while you look at these books," Remus scolded.  "They’re very rare and fragile.  I suppose it was you who got pumpkin on page 103 of Transfiguration Tragedies?"

"Oops," Sirius admitted.  "I meant to wipe it off.  Listen to you, you sound like a teacher--" he imitated an innocent first-year voice—"`Professor Lupin lets us read anything, as long as we don’t get stains on it.’"

James gestured for the others to join him under the Cloak.  Remus carried the dementor book very carefully, the way one would a baby.  "Come on, I bet there’s cake from dinner, just watch out for Filch.  You’d be a very good professor," he commented suddenly as they left the library.  "I can just imagine it."

"That can never be," said Remus in a gloomy voice.  "I’m sure I won’t live another ten years.  Probably none of us will."

"What?" cried Sirius.  Even for Remus this was a bit much.

"Do you think I study these things to get better grades?" Remus wondered bitterly.  He seemed oblivious to the fact that they were in the hallway at night, and that if he was overheard they would all get into trouble.  "You know as well as I that there is a Dark Lord in the wizard world.  We will fight him because not to to do so is to join him; but we can expect to lose."

"We're only 12 years old," Sirius objected in a whisper.  "And Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard in the world."

"We won't be 12 forever.  The bravest of us will die, and if the cowards live it will be as traitors... Idealists like you are so easily betrayed.  Would you really trust James with your life, Sirius?  Would you trust me?"  He laughed evilly.

"Shut up, Remus," James hissed.

No one said anything more until they were in the kitchen.  James lit some lamps with his wand, then turned towards the stone cupboards that held the food.  In the summer everything was kept cold with Chilling Charms, but at this time of year it was only necessary for the ice cream.  "Not one more word out of you--" he warned Remus, then disappeared for a second and emerged holding an enormous chocolate cake.  "—Until you’ve had a very large piece of this.  That dementor got to you."  He shuddered.

"It didn’t get to me," Sirius bragged.  He reached for a piece of cake with one hand, and for the dementor book with the other.  "Oooh…" he breathed, looking at the figure again, and prodding it to make its hand move.  He slammed it shut.

Remus sighed, took out his wand, and removed the chocolate frosting from the edges of the pages.

James wiped his brow with relief.  "I thought you’d gone mad out there.  It’s just a miracle that Filch didn’t hear you.  Or his nasty little dog."

Remus gave him an odd smile, eating his cake dutifully.  "Chewy is whimpering under a bed somewhere.  He won’t come out for hours—he’s terrified of me."

Sirius looked up from the book, which he had opened once again--this time to a map of Azkaban.  He grinned hugely with fascination.  "Really?  Are all dogs afraid of you?"

"I don’t know about all."  Remus sighed, trying to be patient.  The cake wasn't helping his depression, which he was sure was unrelated to a silly picture of a dementor.  "The ones I’ve met, I guess.  I tend to avoid them."

"Is that why you wouldn’t come to my house last summer?" Sirius persisted.  "You should have said something.  Next time I can just send the Cerberus to stay with my grandma.  Do animals always know?"  He reached for more cake, his eyes on his friend and eagerness spilling out of his voice.

"Yes, I think so—Sirius, I told you it was OK to ask questions and I guess I meant it, but, come on—stop acting like you think it’s cool."

"But it is kinda cool," Sirius burst out.  "I wish I could transform."

"Not the way I do it," Remus told him shortly.

"Well, no," he admitted, "but I’ve always wanted to be an Animagus.  My mum is like your mum, it scared her and she wouldn’t let me talk about it.  I heard over and over about my cousin Perseus who tried it and was stuck a toad."

"You can be stuck worse things than a toad," Remus told him grimly—but then he smiled.  "I suppose you know that, it’s on page 103.  A toad with a man’s leg; what good is that?"

"It’s easy enough to become an animal, so I’ve heard," James added.  "The hard part is going back."

"And you don’t get to choose what animal you become," Remus continued.  "It’s part personality, part preoccupation, and a whole bunch of unknown factors."

"If you’re very good, you can at least get the general size and shape," Sirius argued.  "And I don’t suppose it matters too much, anyway, right?  Moony, if I wanted to transform when you did—would it be dangerous if I were a rabbit or a yippy little dog like Chewy?  Would you have me for hors d’oeuvres?"

"Of course not," Remus told him with a hint of pride.  "I can control myself better than that."  He realized the implications and was solemn.  "But you’re not going to try something like that.  It’s illegal, and unlike many other things, for good reason."

"If I got stuck you could keep me as a pet," Sirius suggested.

"Professor McGonagall was just registered as the seventh Animagus of the century," James said suddenly, interrupting before Sirius could describe what a great pet toad he’d make.

"Yes, I know--" Remus began, then stopped, embarrassed.  But there was no way the others were going to let him hide information.  "OK," he sighed, as Sirius and James gazed at him eagerly, "I asked her about it once, when I had detention.  She loves to talk about it, and well—you know, I didn’t want to ask in class."  He rolled his eyes.  "She didn’t say how she did it, though.  I just wanted to know how her mind worked when she was a cat, did it sometimes take over…?"

"…Did she chase mice?" Sirius continued.  "So—does she?"

"Sometimes," Remus admitted, and they all laughed.  He was going to try to change the subject, because he really didn't like its direction, but Sirius was too quick for him.

"And how about you?" he demanded.  He appeared to be memorizing the map of the fortress of Azkaban; maybe he'd taken Remus' warnings to heart.

Remus blinked slowly a couple of times, looking at the table.

"Don't answer that if you don't want to," James put in kindly.  "I swear, he must've learned his manners from cousin Perseus."

"It's OK," Remus said slowly.  "McGonagall asked, too.  I'm always part animal," he admitted, in an odd voice as if not sure of his answer.  "I'm sure you've noticed.  Less tonight than at any other time... It will get stronger over the next two weeks, until..."

"It's not like that's necessarily bad," Sirius assured.  "Animals are better than people in some ways."

Remus glanced at him and then back at the table.  "Real animals, yes, but what I am... There are parts of it I like," he admitted finally, with another look at his friends too see if this would scare them.  Of course it didn't.  "I'll be braver and more fun next week than I am now, and more--adventurous, I guess.  But I don't like the... the violent thoughts."

Now it was Sirius' turn to be slightly hesitant.  "So down there in the corridor, when you told me to run--"

"--It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life."  Remus seemed relieved but at the same time resigned, like someone confessing to a murder he'd committed twenty years before.  He wouldn't look anywhere in the others' direction.

"Well."  Sirius covered his confusion by flipping through the scary book.  "I couldn't tell that then.  I mean, you did a good job."

"And it'll only get easier, right?" James wanted to know.  "That's why you're a wizard.  It was hard to turn a matchstick into a needle the first time, and now you can turn a raven into a writing-desk."

Remus shrugged, looking somewhat astounded that the other two had not run screaming.  "I don't know much more than you do.  Believe me, there aren't any books on the subject."  He tried to laugh.  "That's the thing that would scare me the most about the Animagus transformation: you could lose your mind entirely, forget what you'd been or how to come back, and--and I think if that happens, there's nothing anyone can do to rescue you."

Sirius was silent for a moment.  "It gives one pause," he said--then burst out laughing.  "Sorry.  But really!  If I were a toad, I'd rather be a happy mindless toad than always regret being stuck!"

"Not me."  Remus shuddered.  "Sirius, if you want to do it right, then maybe, when you’re McGonagall’s age--"

Sirius snorted derisively.  "When I’m her age I’ll do nothing but sit by the fire and purr."

"Or the toad equivalent," James reminded him.

For the first time since they found out his secret, Remus gave them both an honest, open smile.  "I appreciate the thought, guys," he said, hiding his sincerety under a slightly sarcastic tone.  He picked up his horrible dementor book as James started to clear the table and put out the candles, and they all got under the Cloak for the return trip to Gryffindor tower.  "But I couldn't live with your eternal toad-hood on my conscience."
 
 

James threw down the tenth book in his stack with a thump.  He was starting to get a headache.  "They don't tell you anything!" he grumbled.

"Yeah..."  Sirius was deeply absorbed in the first book he'd picked up, Transfiguration Tragedies.  "Eeew, look at this one..."

"Fine, but they don't tell you how to prevent it!  It's just a bunch of gnarly pictures."

Sirius didn't see anything wrong with that.  "Oooh, and this one!  Yuck," he said approvingly.

James plopped his feet onto the desk of the empty classroom and put his hands behind his head, thinking.  "What we want isn't in the Hogwarts library," he decided.  "We're going to have to go all over Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley to find any information, and we'll probably have to take a qualified wizard along, since they won't sell that kind of thing to us.  And what if getting stuck runs in families?"

"He was just my cousin."  He flipped a page.  "I'm not scared; are you?"

The door burst open before James could respond, and Remus dashed into the room, panting.  "I've been running all over the castle looking for you guys!  Finally I heard thumping..."  He put his hands on his hips and glared at them.  "Don't think you can hide what you're doing from me.  The entire third shelf of the Restricted Section is empty.  I'm just glad I found you, and not a pair of slugs."  He looked at James, who was still deep in thought.  "You aren't really--"

James turned and looked at his friend, tiny pale Remus who was trying so hard to look indignant, but whose eyes sparkled with mischief and even joy.  "We are taking this very seriously."  He was interrupted by a guffaw as Sirius discovered he could get the picture of the headless crow to walk.  "Well, I am, at least.  Remus, er... if you asked your mum to buy some books for us, do you think she'd do it?"

"Yes, of course she would, I can't see why not..."  He tried to be stern again.  "Well, if I can't change your minds, I can at least try to make sure you do it right!  There are ways to reverse a lot of those tragedies you're looking at, Sirius--if you get them in time, if you're prepared."
 
"Well, then."  James took his feet of the desk and stood up, taking authority.  "Remus, why don't you be in charge of that part?  Sirius and I will figure out how to do it; you work on how to save us if something goes wrong.  We won't practice without you."

Remus stood in the middle of the room, trying to be solemn and not to smile.  He admired and respected both of his friends for their intelligence, courage, and ambition--and of course he would be Undead before he'd tell them so.  "Pinheads," he said, and it was so far from the truth that it wasn't even an insult.  "Just don't try to take any shortcuts, OK?  And are you sure... I mean, really, you're not doing this for me or anything, right?"

"Oh, of course not," Sirius replied casually.  "It's something I've always wanted.  Ouch, look at that."

"It's an intellectual challenge," added James.

Remus was finally starting to let himself believe it.  "McGonagall has some stuff on her shelf I could try to steal, to begin with," he said thoughtfully.

"Good!"  James laughed.  "You can ask her all sorts of questions, too.  Just don't mention us."

"See, Moony," Sirius looked up from the freaky pictures at last.  "Your voice of reason more than makes up for the 3.45% of the time that you're dangerous.  See what you're saving me from!"  He held up a picture of a squiggly rat's tail, squirming on its own.

Remus didn't have to calculate to know that 3.45% was 1 in 29.  "Stop looking at that," he advised dryly.  "If I were you I'd get a nice big book on Golden Retrievers or something, and start concentrating.  I'll still be your friend if you're a Pekingnese--but I won't play Frisbee with you."

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