How It All Happened

"I can not believe he never told us!" Sirius with shock written all over his face.

 

"I know... but I mean would you tell if you were a werewolf?" James was quickly recovering from the shock he himself was experiencing.

 

"I can't believe we didn't notice earlier! I mean all the pieces fit..." James continued, he was really annoyed with himself. And he fancied himself smart, yeah right.

 

"Come on... lets go back to the common room..." Sirius said and tucked at James' sleeve.

 

"Yea, you have to apologize to Peter, you scared him a lot... I think..." James said seriously.

 

"Awww, do I have to apologize? I mean he deserved it!" Sirius muttered.

 

"He made a mistake! I want you to apologize! End of story!" James said, putting his foot down. Sirius needed to be a little less violent. And it wouldn't just happen. He needed to help Sirius notice that he was... well violent.

 

"awww James your no fun..." Sirius said playfully. And Sirius had another problem. When it could be very amusing at some times, Sirius's lack of seriousness could get difficult to deal with.

 

They had reached the hall where the had heard Filch talking to Mrs. Norris.

 

"Wait! Sirius... lets check this secret passage way out!" James said stopping dead in front of the banner Filch had emerged out of earlier.

 

"OK!" Sirius jumping at the chance to avoid apologizing to Peter.

 

They walked for a while in silence through the dark tunnel that seemed to stretch on and on and on forever, or maybe their legs were just short, they honestly had no idea how long they walked because it was to dark for them to check their wrist watches.

 

"Wait, can you see?" Sirius said.

 

"No, I can't see a thing!" James replied with a slightly annoyed tone in his voice.

 

"I think there's light up ahead" Sirius said. And sure enough when they came around the corner the passageway seemed to split up in three directions. And there were torches in the one that went from right to left. But the one on the right was very short, only a few steps or so.

 

"I wonder where all these lead..." James said.

 

"Lets just remember that banner and come back later with Peter and Remus... then we can check more of them out!" Sirius said and yawned.

 

"That's a pretty good idea" James said and grinned.

 

"Lets take the passageway on the left, I think it leads back to the Entrance Hall..." James added. Then it would be less work when they came here again.

 

"OK!" Sirius said and pulled them both into the lit up tunnel.

 

"Sirius! Look at the wall!" James said after gasping.

 

"The wall! Where did it come from?" Sirius said and stared at the place the had just emerged from.

 

"It must be like the wall at Kings Cross!" James said then he continued and said: "You know, you see it but it isn't really there..."

 

"Yea I know! I'm not stupid like Peter!" Sirius seemed annoyed.

 

"Sorry..." James said, holding his hands up and grinning insanely. "But, we didn't see the wall on the other side did we? I mean it can't be exactly like the wall at Kings Cross, can it?" He pondered out loud. Sirius looked as if he were considering this, but then he just shrugged and they kept going.

 

When they finally got back to the Griffindor common room, it was the middle of the night and everyone had gone to sleep.

 

"I guess we'll ask Remus about you know what tomorrow..." James said and yawned.

 

"um hmmm" Sirius said as they made there way up to the first year boy's dormitory.

 

 

"Good morning sleepy head!"

 

"Ger'off Sirius!" James said and tried in vain to get Sirius off of his chest

 

"Come on! We have a big day ahead of us!" Sirius said while he grinned like a mad man.

 

"What time is it?" James said while he rubbed the sand out of his eyes.

 

"It's six o'clock!" Sirius sang cheerfully

 

"SIRIUS!!!" James bellowed angrily "It's Saturday!" James then whimpered.

 

"I know! We have a lot on the docket so I thought we'd get up nice and early! Plus I couldn't sleep and I didn't think it was fair that I had to not sleep alone." Sirius said with what could maybe have passed as a guilty expression on his face... But for people who didn't know him he would just look insane, but he always looked insane so maybe that doesn't count.

 

"Why didn't wake Remus or Peter up?" James said turning away from Sirius closing his eyes, only to be shaken roughly up again.

 

"well Remus still isn't back... and Peter is impossible to wake up... and well I think Peter's sort of angry at me at the moment." Sirius said.

 

"That's nice..." James said sleepily.

 

"Oh come on! We only have two weeks until exams and I want to use them to wreck havoc and make mischief and explore and..." Sirius said counting of his fingers.

 

"All right, all right, but we're waking Peter up as well." James said getting out of his four poster.

 

"OK!" Sirius said happily and bounced up on Peters bed.

 

James could hear the struggle in the background as he got dressed. He looked at what Sirius and Peter were up to and almost laughed.

 

Sirius was shaking Peter again, and he was sleeping soundly murmuring something about cannon balls.

 

James made his way up to Peters four poster.

 

"Stop shaking him Sirius, it wont work" James said, walked over to his night stand, took his wand and walked back over to Sirius.

 

Then he pointed his wand at Peter and said: "Wingardium Leviosa" Peter started floating up, and James moved him over the side of the bed and said: "Finite Incantatem" And Peter fell to the floor.

 

"OWWW!" Peter said and surveyed them sourly.

 

"What'd you do that for?" Peter said with a bit of a frown.

 

"Awww come on Pete!!! We were just trying to wake you up..." Sirius said grinning. Then he offered Peter a hand, Peter took it and Sirius helped him to his feet.

 

"So d-did you find out... you know about Remus" Peter said nervously.

 

"Yea, he's a werewolf... but that doesn't matter, wait 'till we tell you about this cool tunnel we found!" Sirius said happily. Whoa, he thought, Sirius really needs to sort out his priorities...

 

"What sort of tunnel?" Peter asked curiously.

 

"You'll see, we're going back tonight" James yawned and made an attempt to grin, but it came out as a sort of a grimace.

 

The door opened and they all turned to see a very tired looking Remus standing in the doorway.

 

"Hi guys" Remus said quietly, but they didn't fail to notice the note of panic in his voice.

 

"Remus! We were just waiting for you! You'll never guess what we found last night!" Sirius said excitedly.

 

"Yea, come join us in the planning!" James said.

 

"Y-your a w-werewolf" Peter said looking scared. That simple statement earned him four very evil eyes from Sirius and James.

 

All the color drained from Remus' face and he looked like he was about to cry. James and Sirius rushed to his side and helped their exhausted looking friend on to his four poster.

 

"It's OK, Remus we honestly don't care!" James said while Sirius was busily glaring daggers at Peter. James worried he might start shaking Peter again so he shot Sirius a warning glance.

 

Remus started to whimper, "Y-your g-gonna l-leave m-me... I won't h-have any f-friends any m-more!"

 

"That's nonsense! We'd never ever leave you!" James said and hugged Remus.

 

"Yea! You're our friend! Friends don't leave or betray each other!" Sirius was busily glaring at Peter. Who seemed to be trying to find the solution to a particularly difficult Transfiguration problem. Then Peter (thank goodness) finally understood that Remus wasn't going to kill him and came over mumbling, "Yea, you're just a normal person when it's not the full moon..."

 

Both Sirius (who was glad he didn't have to glare anymore, it was hard to have such an emotional scene where he had to glare a lot) and James grinned at Peter and James waved him to come closer.

 

"Thanks, you guys... I don't deserve f-friends like you" Remus was still talking in a whimper-y sort of way, James was reminded of puppies.

 

"Sure you do! You deserve only the best! Which we are by the way" Srius grinned.

 

Remus gave a weak smile, "I'm really sorry I didn't tell you sooner... I just thought you'd abandon me" he said and sniffed.

 

"That's OK... but you look really tired, you'd better get some sleep... after all you have to be rested for our exploring tonight" James said grinning.

 

"we'll just go to breakfast... I'm starved!" Sirius said, directing his words towards Remus.

 

The others murmured yeah... and the three of them that weren't sleeping walked out of the dormitory and started making their way to the Great Hall.

 

*

 

"Are you sure it was here?" Remus asked James.

"Positive" James answered back.

 

"I don't see anything... maybe you should have written it down..." Remus thought out loud.

 

"You guys! Over here!" Sirius whispered loudly and waved them over to a banner.

 

They waited for Peter and then they hurried into the long tunnel, It seemed a lot shorter now that they had more company and the torch light was shining in their faces before they knew it.

 

"OK, we know where the left tunnel leads... to the Entrance Hall, and I think the right one leads to the Ravenclaw common room... I've seen Rita Skeeter go here loads of times but I don't have a clue about where the tunnel in the middle leads..." Sirius said thoughtfully.

 

"OK, so we go straight forward!" James decided, he felt a little hurt that the information about that Sceeter hadn't reached him before now. Sirius had probably just forgotten...

 

They walked for a while but then the came to a dead end.

 

"Awww man!" Sirius said and slammed a fist into the wall.

Then he turned to Peter. "This is all your fault!" Sirius said and pointed an accusing finger.

 

Scared of Sirius shaking him again, Peter backed up against the wall, but Sirius still came up to him and started shaking him, causing Peters head to slam (didn't seem to hurt that much, and Sirius would never seriously injure any of his friends) into the dirty wall. After the fifth slam, all the dirt had fallen off the wall and they could see letters there. Sirius stopped shaking Peter and they all (except Peter who was rubbing his head) stared at the letters. They said:

 

One two three up.

Two a cross.

Seven and one to the top

coin toss.

 

"I don't get it." Sirius said.

 

James was looking thoughtful. Remus looked blankly at the wall and Peter was wondering why everyone had gone quiet.

 

"It's a clue" James stated. For some reason Sirius started giggling uncontrollably, James thought he heard Sirius say something about Scooby Doo, but that couldn't be. So he just started to read the words over and over again. Then he looked at the dead end wall, made of large gray stones. Then he took out his wand. "I wonder if this wall is real... maybe it's like the brick wall in Diagon Ally..." He said and started tapping on the stones with his wand. "One two three up" He said as he tapped. Beginning with a stone that had a funny looking shape, it looked like a coin. Then two to the right... "Seven up... and one. Alahomora" James said tapping his wand on the last one.

 

A large hole emerged in the wall, and James grinned at his friends.

 

They stepped into the hidden room, and gasped. It wasn't big but it was full of books... restricted section books to be exact. Peter squealed and hid behind Remus. Sirius sneezed.

 

"I'm allergic to dust..." He said and sneezed again.

 

James waved his wand and muttered something.

 

"I've seen my mum do it, It's a dust removing charm. Very easy to perform..." James said and walked towards one of the book shelves.

 

"Whoa! This shelve is devoted to dark creatures!" James said... "Remus... do you mind if I read about werewolves? There might even be a cure in these old books..." James said with a gleam in his eyes.

 

"I don't mind... as long as you're still my friends..." Remus said and smiled. James hadn't really noticed how much their friendship meant to his friend. He thought, 'Ireally haven't realized how much this friendship means to me!'

 

James pulled a very thick book off the shelve and opened it. Then he started turning the pages and stopped when he found the chapter about werewolves. Then he read out loud:

 

"Werewolves, are believed to be one of the most dangerous creatures in the magical world. Unlike most dark creatures the werewolf is only dangerous at the time of a full moon.

 

When the werewolf is indeed in his wolf state the human part is powerless and the wolf is completely in control.

 

One can only become a werewolf if another werewolf bites or scratches that individual. All though resent researches show that werewolves are only a harm to humans but not animals. Which is why Arnold the Animagus did not turn into a werewolf after receiving a bite from a werewolf in his animal form"

 

James finished reading and closed the book. Peter raised his hand into the air causing Sirius to go into a fit of hysteric laughter. Peter blushed deeply.

 

"What is it Peter?" James said and smiled.

 

"Um what is that Animalgus... was it?" Peter asked still red in the face.

 

Remus who had been quiet for a while answered before James could open his mouth.

 

"An Animagus is a wizard who can turn into one animal at will." Remus said and went back to quietly listening and watching.

 

"But how do you become one?" Sirius asked curiously.

 

"It's supposed to be real difficult... really advanced transfiguration..." James said slowly as if he were trying to remember a word he hadn't used in many years.

 

"Maybe there are some books here about it!" Peter squealed.

 

"Let's check it out!" Sirius said and walked towards the nearest bookshelf. After about five minutes James found a book that looked useful.

 

"A history of Animagi and how to become one" James read.

 

"Remus... I always meant to ask you... where do you go

during your transformation?" James asked Remus.

 

"Madam Pomfray takes me to the Womping Willow, we freeze it and I go into the tunnel that leads to the Shrieking Shack. I always stay in that house during my werewolf time..."

 

"Doesn't it hurt to transform?" Sirius asked.

 

"You won't believe hoe painful" Remus said and winced at the memory.

 

"Oh okay then..." Sirius said and they were quiet for a while. "It's late we'd better get back to our dorm..." Sirius said and made his way to the stone wall.

 

"Yea, we should go" James said catching on.

 

"Why it's only one o'clock!" Peter said looking puzzled. James gave him a meaningful look.

 

"Oooh right!" Peter said and followed Sirius through the hole. Remus followed and James went last making sure to close the wall after they left.

 

The four boys didn't return to the secret room that term, they were to busy studying for the exams.

 

 

When the exams were over and the day of the end of year feast was there James, Sirius and Peter had a little meeting in the dormitory.

 

"I know how we can help Remus" Sirius said and looked at his two friends.

 

"How" Peter asked.

 

"We'll become animagi" Both Sirius and James whispered at the same time.