Using the long branch he had found on the ground beside the tree, Severus Snape pressed the knot that Black had told him about, most of him still expecting this to all be part of some trap, for his actions to only make the tree more violent or, if the boy was telling the truth, for an ambush to lay before him. But still, there was a chance that this information was genuine and he would take that chance, he had to get to the bottom of this. He had first noticed Lupin regularly missing classes during Arithmancy last year, when the Professor had insisted on implementing a new seating plan part way through the year and he had been forced to stare past the back of Lupin's head each lesson to see the board at the front of the classroom. At first, he didn't think anything of it, almost everyone had missed some classes by that point. But by the end of the year, after only a few months, he knew that something was going on. He had to know just what it was.
The branches stilled and Severus could now see an opening big enough for him to climb down into, so he did. He muttered a quiet "Lumos", not wanting to alert anyone of his presence just yet if this was a set-up, but seeing no other choice, or anything else for that matter. He needed to know what he was dealing with here. Moving the lit wand around as he walked along, he could see that the tree concealed a tunnel which seemingly led away from Hogwarts towards Hogsmeade. That must be it, he thought, Lupin's going to Hogsmeade at night. Probably getting completely drunk with the others and missing classes the next day because he's still hungover. Idiot. Everyone knows you could just drink a Hangover Potion, not that difficult to brew. Well, officially it was a NEWT level potion, but Severus felt confident that he would be able to do it himself. The hardest part would be obtaining the ingredients as they weren't in the standard set of fourth year Potions ingredients. After that, it was simply a matter of...
A noise from up ahead distracted him from his thoughts. He couldn't quite identify it, it was too far away and sounded quite muffled so he continued walking down the tunnel towards it to investigate, thinking that it was only an animal that had got in the other end of the tunnel that Lupin and anyone of the others that had gone had carelessly left open. Thinking this quickly led to more hateful thoughts of the four boys who had delighted in making the last four years of his life as miserable as possible. As Severus was thinking about that, he realised that although Lupin often missed classes, on the days when he had, all the others were in class. This was somewhat surprising as Potter and Black seemed to stop at nothing in order to get out of doing work. How had Lupin managed to skip classes without them? Why had they put up with it? For as far as Severus could tell, when Lupin was missing, the others didn't appear at all envious or discontent to be attending classes without him. In fact they all seemed slightly worried. Odd.
The noise he had heard before was louder now, closer. He could now be sure that it was some kind of animal but couldn't tell any more than that. Straining his ears, Severus could also hear a faint noise from behind him in the tunnel. Up ahead now, he could see that he was almost at the end of the tunnel. After about a minute more of walking, during which the noise from behind him grew closer and sounded suspiciously like footsteps, he had reached the end. What a waste of time, he thought as he looked around before noticing a partially concealed trapdoor above his head.
Moving his lit wand to his left hand, Severus reached up to the trapdoor with his right. Feeling it lift slightly in response to his touch, he pushed harder and it opened all the way. Looking up, he could only see what his wand illuminated as there didn't appear to be any light sources inside whatever this was. The noise from earlier must have been coming from in here, Severus thought. As he was thinking this, it was confirmed. He heard a low growling coming from only a few meters away. It sounded predatory, hungry. Severus caught a glimpse of movement as it edged closer to him, but couldn't tell what it was. He was getting nervous now, he knew what kinds of creatures resided in the Forbidden Forest and defensive charms were not his strong point. Still, he doubted that it could fit through the quite narrow opening above him and he wanted to know what was going on here.
He could tell that someone was in the tunnel behind him and that they had almost caught up with him. Severus turned around, holding his wand out in front of him, trying to see who was there. Sensing his distraction, the creature above him lunged at him. Severus instinctively fell to the ground upon hearing this, narrowly missing the jaws of the beast as it became stuck in the trapdoor, snarling as it attempted to attack its prey.
Amidst his sheer terror, Severus was now able to identify the creature as he inched back away from it, it was a wolf. But wait, the shape of the snout... it must be a werewolf! But who could it be? Of course, Lupin, thought Severus, it all made sense, thinking back he remembered that Lupin missed classes about once a month, he was sure that if he looked up the dates they would all be shortly after the full moon.
How could none of the staff have noticed? Severus thought, The Headmaster would never have admitted a werewolf into Hogwarts. Perhaps he was as blind as he was biased towards Gryffindors. Severus could vaguely hear a voice from behind him shouting his name as a jet of red light shot past him and the beast stilled. He turned around, it was Potter, he looked angry but worried at the same time and Severus soon found himself lifted to his feet and pulled towards the exit of the tunnel under the Whomping Willow as Potter blathered on about them having to see the Headmaster straight away. But Severus wasn't listening, he knew that there was no way Lupin could stay at Hogwarts now, once the professors knew they would surely kick him out, and with Lupin gone, the others would lose their nerve – if he could get one of their friends expelled, they wouldn't dare to do anything.
His thoughts of finally besting the Marauders must have shown on his face because out of the corner of his eye, he could see Potter pale next to him, looking incredibly anxious as they approached the end of the tunnel.
Headmaster Albus Dumbledore paced in his office. Sirius Black had just come into his office and told him about what he had done. Apparently, after Sirius had realised just what he had done, he had told his friends and James Potter had gone after Severus Snape in an attempt to stop him finding out, but if this was unavoidable they would both come up to the office so that he could convince the Slytherin not to tell anyone else what he had just found out. Sirius now sat in front of the Headmaster's desk, not daring to look up at him to see the disappointment and retribution in his eyes. Dumbledore knew that Sirius now recognised how severe the consequences of his actions could be and was truly sorry for them. But that might not be enough. All he could do now was hope that James could get there quickly enough, it was too late to go down there himself, he'd never get there in time. The tension grew as the two waited in silence for any news. This was unbearable, being able to do nothing when his students' lives were in danger, helplessly waiting for someone else to remedy the situation while he had absolutely no control of the outcome. Of course, he could deal with the consequences of the events but only after the fact.
The two occupants of the office looked over to one of the portraits on the wall which had recently reappeared in its frame and informed them that the two boys were waiting outside his office, having been unable to guess the password correctly. The Headmaster thanked the portrait, feeling incredibly relieved to hear that they were both unharmed, but if they were both here it must mean that Severus now knew about Remus' condition. Glancing over towards his desk, he could tell that Sirius was thinking along the same lines. A strange mixture of relief and anxiety was clearly evident on his face as he looked over at the portrait that had just spoken as if willing it to tell him that everything was going to be alright, that he hadn't just ruined his friendship with the other three Marauders, his only true friends, that Remus wouldn't hate him when he found out about this but most of all Sirius longed to be told that none of this had happened, that this was all just some strange dream and he would wake up soon.
Dumbledore knew of the desperation that Sirius must now be feeling, but nothing could be done now to change things. He would try to minimise the effects of this night on all of them, especially Remus who would have to most to lose if this became public knowledge, but that was all he could do, that and try and prevent it from happening again. He walked across his office, walking down the stairs to let the two boys up to his office where they would have to talk. They made their way up in silence, although he could tell that they both had a lot that they wanted to say to him and to Sirius. Emotions were running high.
James sat down on one of the comfortable armchairs that the Headmaster had just conjured, choosing to sit in the one that was furthest away from Sirius. Now that things had calmed down somewhat, his incredibly angry feelings from earlier came back to him. How dare Sirius do that to Remus? Did he have no idea of what could happen? Or what the Ministry would have done if it had? Obviously not. James noticed that the Headmaster also seemed rather angry at Sirius, angry and disappointed. He paid little attention to Snape as he sat down on the other chair, except to notice that he was obviously itching to tell the Headmaster about Remus. How anyone could think that Dumbledore wouldn't know about something that important in his won school, James didn't know, but he hoped that the Headmaster could sort the situation out. If Snape told anyone...
After the Headmaster sat down behind his desk, he appeared to notice Snape's expression and spoke:
"I'm sure that you wish to inform me of what you have found out tonight, Mr Snape, but before you do, I must tell you that I already know about-"
"What? You know? But why would you allow it?" Snape interrupted, spluttering slightly in indignation. Despite himself, James couldn't help but to be slightly amused by this reaction, the Marauder instincts were too deeply ingrained in him now for it to be ignored, even in a situation such as this.
"I assure you that all necessary precautions have been taken to ensure the safety of the students and Mr Lupin is as entitled as you are to an education here, no matter what the general public may think." He now turned to look at Sirius and James could see how much Sirius now regretted his actions. Well, that wasn't good enough, he should have thought about that before he so recklessly endangered several lives.
"I know that you realise what your actions almost led to. Events could have unfolded much worse. You could have caused the death of another student tonight, the suitable action here would be expulsion," Sirius looked up in alarm at this, "but that would raise too many questions, attract attention where it is not wanted." Dumbledore paused to think for a moment. "No, you'll have to stay at Hogwarts but that means that all of your privileges will be revoked for at least one year."
James could see Snape looking at the Headmaster will narrowed eyes, no doubt thinking about how Dumbledore always favoured Gryffindors and let them get away with anything. In this case, with attempted murder, and as much as James hated to agree with anything that Snape thought, in this case, he did. If this ever went to trial, Sirius would be facing several years' imprisonment. Although James knew just how important it was to keep this secret, he still felt that Sirius was getting off lightly. Maybe that had to do with how betrayed he felt right now.
Dumbledore continued explaining Sirius' punishment to them, "That means no Quidditch or Hogsmeade visits until further notice. You will not be attending the Halloween feast next week either. Is that understood?"
Sirius nodded glumly, accepting this without question. James could see Snape brighten slightly at the mention of Quidditch. With Sirius off the team, it was true that Slytherin would stand a better chance at the Cup this year, but it was still quite early in the year, if they acted quickly, they should be able to train someone in time for the second game in the year.
The Headmaster accepted this reaction and turned back to Snape, "You must tell no one about what happened tonight. I will know if you do and if that happens I will have no choice but to expel you immediately."
"What? You can't do that, people have to know about this!" Snape exclaimed, seemingly forgetting who he was speaking to in his anger.
"No one will find out about this from you, Mr Snape, I will know if they do and believe me, the consequences will be severe. Do you understand?" The Headmaster repeated, his tone making it obvious why he was considered by many to be the most powerful wizard alive.
Snape only nodded at this, but it was clear that he wasn't happy about it. James now saw his opportunity to find out what would happen to Remus now that this had happened. He had told them in their second year that he didn't remember what happened on the night of the full moon, so he wouldn't know about this when he woke up in the morning, who would tell him?
"Sir," James enquired after a moment of silence, "what about Remus?"
Poppy Pomfrey surveyed the infirmary as she exited her office the next morning. She was pleased to see that she had only two patients in her care today. Kathy Anderson, a second year Hufflepuff, had come to see her the day before with the flu, but she only needed to stay the night and would leave before Poppy needed to talk to Remus.
Late last night, Albus had come by and had told her what had happened, warning her that Remus may be hurt worse than usual due to the human presence the wolf would have sensed. He had also told her that she would have to tell Remus about it when he woke. Albus told her that she must do this as he would be gone on Ministry business in the morning and of the rest of the staff, Remus knew and trusted her the most.
Poppy woke Kathy and sent her on her way back to her dormitory before turning back around to face Remus. When she had first brought him back to the infirmary that morning she had noticed that the Headmaster was correct, his injuries were much worse than usual. She had done all she could right away but there was more she needed to do now.
When she had finished, she cast a charm that would let her know when Remus woke up and went back into her office to finish making a list of which potions she would need restocked soon.
An alarm sounding alerted her and she walked back over to Remus' bedside, mentally preparing herself for the task ahead. She could see that Remus was watching her, he could probably sense that something had happened and wanted to know just what it was.
And as she told him, watching the disbelief and betrayal show in his eyes, she felt her heart break.
