Chapter 1: A Cry in the Night

"Ally! Ally! Get up!"

I groaned. Someone was calling my name, and whoever it was was going to have to suffer some serious consequences when I decided to get up. Which would not be now. I rolled over, trying to make them go away.

"Ally Godrey! Get up this second!"

"Lily?" I could recognize that bossy, in-charge tone anywhere; even ¾ asleep and much too tired for anyone's safety.

"Yes, Ally. Would you please get up now?"

"How about I don't and we see what happens?"

"Ally! I am Head Girl!"

I sighed. Lily Evans was indeed Head Girl. A 7th year saint, the teachers called her. The Head Boy was James Potter, the Quidditch captain. He and his three pals Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew made up the Marauders, the boys who had broken the unofficial world record for pulling pranks and getting into trouble. Not just broken it, but blasted it into smithereens.

Of course, I had to be the 6th year who got herself pulled into this mess. But being a year younger than Lily, James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus apparently made no difference when you were being forced out of bed at 2:00 AM. I was Lily's best friend; I was the one who went with her on her wild goose chases after the Marauders. We (or she, as I never really looked) had never actually caught them, but Lily was determined to catch James. It was almost an obsession to get him in trouble. Oh, she so liked him.

"Lily! I am a cranky girl who is being dragged out of bed at-" I checked the clock to see if I was accurate, "-2:45 AM to go do who-knows-what who-knows-where!"

"Come on, Ally. I heard Potter and the other idiots getting up and I know they're up to something or another!" Lily sounded angry, and I realized she was taking this whole Head Girl job way too seriously. But she was an incredible witch, and while I was too, I couldn't have taken Peter Pettigrew down in this state.

"Fine," I muttered. "I'm coming." I tried to slowly make my ay out of bed, but Lily obviously did not understand the necessity of moving slowly at 3:00 AM. I got dragged out of bed, and a result, hit my head on the floor. "Ow! Oi, Lily, stoppit!"

After throwing on a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved v-neck, and a hoodie, I half-sprinted behind Lily as she ran (at top speed, I might add) down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room.

"So Lily," I asked conversationally, "why exactly were you watching and waiting for James?"

Even in the dim light, I could've sworn Lily blushed. "I-I was doing my job as a prefect!" she snapped. "Now come on!"

We ran through the school, occasionally avoiding Peeves and the Bloody Baron. As soon as we were out on the grounds, I stopped to catch my breath and look around. "Lily, they obviously aren't here. Can we go back to bed now?"

Lily glared at me. "James has an invisibility cloak."

"Wonderful," I said sarcastically. "How are we supposed to find them if they're invisible?"

I don't think Lily had considered this fact, because a second later she said in a much more subdued tone, "We should check the grounds anyway. Come on, Ally."

And with that, she marched off. "Spectacular," I muttered after her. I wondered how likely Lily would be to kill me if I went back to the dormitory now. Because if I was to die, I'd rather do it well-rested than dead-tired. Ha! Dead-tired.

Oh no, I thought sorrowfully. By waking me up, Lily Evans has successfully reduced me to Sirius Black's level of jokes. That was horrible.

"Well, awake or groggy, she'll kill me," I finally sighed. "Damn."

I caught Lily half-way down the trail to the Forbidden Forest. "So…" I said.

"So?"

"It's a pretty night tonight. Not a cloud in the sky; perfect for the full moon," I tried for a conversation.

"I supp—" Lily tried to make some kind of response, but she was cut off by a howl that pierced through the night. It sounded broken. Not to mention terrifying.

It was followed by snarling of some kind. Could it be…?

"Is that a dog?" asked Lily, straining to hear.

"I think so," I responded. "But what's that howling? I've never heard anything like it."

Lily frowned. "It sounds like it's coming from the Whomping Willow. We should go make sure everything's alright."

I sighed in frustration. "Fine, Lily. But James isn't here, so don't expect him to save you like he did with Snape."

"I wish you wouldn't call Severus 'Snape,' Ally. It's degrading."

I stared at her, not believing she had just said that. "Oh, please! You call James 'Potter,' and you call Sirius 'Black!'"

"Yes, but that's-"

"Different?" I snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. "Why should I, or anyone else for that matter, show Snape respect? He called you a Mudblood, the ugly git! He hangs around with those imbeciles Avery and Muliciber!"

"I know, but still-"

"Still what?" I looked at Lily. "I will date Peter Pettigrew before I show Snape respect or call him 'Severus.' You should be glad I don't call him Snivellus, like everyone else."

Lily opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. "Sorry."

"It's fine," I said, grinning. "I over-reacted."

"No, you didn't. You told me what I should've realized already." Lily glanced around the darkened forest. "C'mon, we're almost there."

The howling became more pronounced the closer we got to the Whomping Willow. I shivered. "It's awfully-mournful, isn't it?"

Lily nodded.

"I wonder what it is. I hope James and the others are all right."

Lily didn't respond, and as I turned to look at her face, I saw the worry. She was definitely scared for James. Whether she was scared for herself, I didn't know.

I thought this whole argument between James and Lily was completely off. Those two would be the cutest couple if James would just get over his swelled head and Lily would be open-minded and give them a chance. I had been trying to get them together since 5th year, but they were (and still are) as stubborn as I am.

We reached the Whomping Willow a few minutes later. I was actually more tired than I was before—was that even possible? I yawned.

"Great!" Lily was saying. "How are we supposed to get past this tree?"

I sighed. "Stupefy!"

Immediately the tree became still. Lily shook her head. "Sorry. Being up this early affects my brain."

"Well then maybe you shouldn't be awake this early! And maybe you shouldn't wake others up as well!"

She started laughing; after a minute I joined in. "Nice one," grinned Lily.

"Thanks. I've been practicing." I paused. "Wait, are you talking about the joke or the spell?"

"Both."

"Really? I didn't think the joke was one of my best," I said.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Shut up and go, Ally."

"Fine," I said, sliding down a hole near the base of the tree trunk. Lily and I had found out about this hole when James had saved Snape back in our 5th year. Everyone thought the place was haunted, but we could clearly hear the howling and snarling coming from the hole. Everyone now called it The Haunted Hole. (Kind of like the Shrieking Shack except stupider.)

"Lumos." I lit my wand so I could see into the darkness, and I heard Lily do the same behind me. The howling was loud now, and I found myself shivering.

"Ally?" Lily reached forward and grabbed my hand. I was glad to know that I was not the only one who was terrified at the moment. "We're almost there. Come on."

We walked forward until we hit stairs. Stairs?

"Is this the…this can't be…the Shrieking Shack?" said Lily next to me. "How did we get here?"

"I don't know," I said. "I bet you anything James, Remus, Sirius, and Peter know about this place."

Lily's back straightened; she didn't look scared anymore. "If they do, and this is their idea of a practical joke…oh, they will be in for the beating of their lives."

I stared at her. "Remind me never to get on your bad side, okay?"

We walked carefully up the stairs, trying not to make any sound while trying to move as quickly as we could.

"It must be 4:00 AM by now," I said wistfully. "I could be sleeping so soundly. Without feeling like I'm about to be eaten."

"Why do you feel like you're about to be eaten?"

"I dunno. I just don't feel very safe. I mean, howling, secret passageways to Hogsmeade, snarling, being up at 4:00 AM alone without a teacher…"

"I think 'alone' means 'without a teacher,'" Lily laughed.

"Oh haha," I said irritably. "But just in case, I brought my Healer things."

"You thought we were going to get hurt?"

"No…but, well, I don't know, I mean, we're dealing with the Marauders here! Whatever they do, someone gets hurt! I didn't know whether it'd be us, or them, or…it's better to be safe than sorry, I guess."

Lily nodded. Without another word, we climbed up to the stairs to the door where the howling seemed to be coming from. "Alohomora!"

The door creaked open. And what I saw inside I wished I'd never seen.

It was a werewolf. And it was huge. Tan, muscular, furry: and no, the tan and muscular part wasn't hot. It didn't even look human. It was the single most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. That must've been the howling part. It seemed to be fighting off three other animals; a stag, a dog, and—was that a rat? The dog must've been the one snarling.

Next to me, I heard Lily scream.That was a bad move. The howling and snarling stopped at least, but the animals turned to look at us. This was really bad.

The stag cantered over towards us; somewhere in the middle of that, it turned into James and ran towards us at top speed.

No, wait. That wasn't right.

I should've fainted. I would've fainted. But Lily beat me to the whole fainting part, so I had to focus on catching her and keep her from falling over.

"What the hell?" That was all I managed to choke out. "James?"

"Ally? Crap! Lily!" He bent over and tried to wake her up. I pulled her away from him.

"What the hell is going on here?" I spit out.

James seemed to realize the current situation and opened his mouth in shock. "Damn," he swore. "Uh, well, you see—"
"See what?" I was near hysteria now. "Are you all unregistered Animagi?"

"Yeah?" James seemed surprised that I had guessed so accurately.

"Spot on, Ally," I looked to see Sirius walking towards us calmly. "I always told you she was the brightest—"

"Behind you!" I screamed. James and Sirius spun around to see the werewolf swiping at them. They both transformed back into their Animagus forms, (Sirius was the dog,) and tackled the werewolf.

"Hold him while I get them out of here!" I heard James yell. The dog nodded and swiped a claw at the werewolf.

The stag cantered back over and bowed his head. At first I wondered why James was showing us respect at a time like this, and then I realized he wanted us to climb on. I did my best with Lily; it was inhumanly hard to get an unconscious girl on the back of a deer (or stag, or whatever James wanted to call himself) but I did my best. I then swung myself on his back.

James broke into a run/canter and was heading down the stairs. His movements were steady and calm, so I didn't know if he was okay with this whole thing, but I was going into shock. The only reason I was still conscious was because Lily was still unconscious, and I was not letting him carry her (or me, for that matter) or touch her (not like that, pervert), or anything of the like. I wouldn't have let this happen with any boy, but I was especially careful with James, because I knew he fancied her. And as much as I wanted them together, I wasn't about to let Lily kill me because I'd let him carry her or whatever. She was so going to owe me in the morning.

"Uh, James? I think we're far enough away from the Shrieking Shack." It felt weird addressing the stag as a human, but I think he'd have been offended if I'd called him 'thing' or 'animal' or 'stag-boy'.

James morphed back into his human form and I fell onto the ground. "Ow! You think you could've waited until I'd gotten off?"

"Sorry," said James, scratching his head. "You seem to be taking this surprisingly well, considering."

"Considering what?" I checked Lily's pulse. "She's in shock," I said to James. "We need to get her somewhere where the werewolf won't find her." I paused and grimaced. "We're going to have to go into the Forbidden Forest."

"Wait," James said. "Why aren't we going back to Hogwarts?"

"Because you've gotten us lost," I snapped. "I don't know which way Hogwarts is. The Forbidden Forest is right up ahead."

"So we should follow the Forbidden Forest back to Hogwarts!"

I rubbed my temples. It was so much harder to argue with James when he was the one making sense. "I can't walk that far. I've already been up walking around for an hour. And remember, we've got to take Lily with us. Neither you nor I—even in your stag form—" I said as James began to open his mouth—"can carry her all the way back to Hogwarts. And if we walk much farther you're going to have to carry me too. No, our best bet is the Forbidden Forest."

James seemed to be trying to find an argument to counter what I'd said. But after a minute he looked defeated, so all he said was, "Who's carrying Lily?"

"You," I told him against my better judgment. "I can barely hold myself upright.
If Lily hadn't fainted first, I definitely would have."

Roaring with laughter, James picked Lily up and began to walk towards the Forbidden Forest. I glared after him, but quickly caught up anyhow.

"So, you're all Animagi? What's Peter? What's Remus?"

James quickly sobered. "Well, Peter is a rat…"

"And what's Remus?" I asked him. "And is this where you sneak off to every month? To fight off a werewolf? You should tell Professor Dumbledore, I'm sure he could kill it right away."

"No!" cried James. "We wouldn't kill him!"

"Why not? It's a werewolf. It could kill us all!"

"Yeah," said James. "It's also Remus."

I stopped walking and stared at him, waiting for him to start laughing and say 'Gotcha!' But he didn't. "He's what? Remus Lupin is a werewolf?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." I sighed. I should've expected it. But now that I really thought about it, it wasn't really all that bad, considering what I'd already learned. One more insane concept couldn't be too hard to handle, could it? "Okay. So, it's only once a month, right?"

Now it was James' turn to stop and stare at me. "Really? That's it? 'Oh. Okay?' You're okay with this?"

"Well, yeah, I suppose. I mean, it's not his fault and I've already decided to just be okay with this to keep myself from going too insane. Just don't expect the same reaction from Lily because she'll probably go nuts."

"Wow." James fell in step with me again as we entered the Forbidden Forest. "You're really cool, you know that, Ally?"

I grinned. "Yeah, I know. Why else do you think I'd get up at 3:00 AM to go searching for you with Lily?"

"Oh, yeah! Right." James looked worriedly down at Lily. "Do you think she's alright?"

"Yeah, she'll be fine. She just passed out because she saw you turn from an animal into a person," I said, thinking that it was pretty obvious.

"Oh. True."

I rolled my eyes. Boys could be so dense! I pulled out my wand, thinking that it was a bad idea to go into the Forbidden Forest unarmed. "So, when does Remus turn back into Remus?"

"Er, as soon as the sun rises."

"And do you think they'll be able to find us?"

"Who?"

Who? What kind of idiotic wizard asks that? "Who do you think, brain-boy? Sirius, Remus, and Peter!"

"Oh. Yeah, Sirius's dog sense of smell will be able to find us."

"Jeez, you say 'Oh.' a lot. Oh look! That should work!" I pointed to a clearing surrounded by trees in every direction. It would be a good defensive spot, not to mention it was large enough for all of us. Well, it was three for now, but soon it'd be six, and the clearing had to be large.

"All right, James," I said, standing in the clearing. "We have found our campsite for tonight."

"Camp-what?" asked James. I groaned. I'd forgotten James was a pure-blood. Being raised by a wizarding family had done nothing to help teach him basic Muggle terms. I was a pure-blood myself, but I'd been adopted be a Muggle family and had been raised as such. Luckily, my adopted parents loved me and hadn't begun calling me a freak when my Hogwarts letter came. On the contrary, they were very supportive.

"It's a Muggle term," I said distractedly as I waved my wand. I was making sleeping bags, a tent (with a cabinet, stove, and toilet inside), and casting protective charms all over the clearing. "It means—well, I'm not exactly sure how to explain it, but—"

"Ally, what are you doing?"

"Defensive spells. Makes it impossible to see, hear, or in some cases, feel the presences of us."

James stared at me with his mouth open. "Do you study all day? How do you know all this stuff?"

"It's called free time, James. Except I don't use it to pull pranks. I use it to prepare myself for this kind of stuff. Are you hurt at all?" I asked.

"No, but…Ally, this is insane."

"Learned it all from Lily," I told him. "She could do this too, but…she can't at the moment," I said, nodding my head at her in James' arms.

James' arms. Oh, I'm so dead in the morning. James will be bragging about holding her for a month. "James! Put Lily on one of the beds!"

"Huh? Oh, er…"

"Don't say sorry to me. Just put her on the bed!"

"Right." James put her carefully down on one of the sleeping bags, pulling the covers up around her.

I sighed in exasperation. "You so fancy her."

"Well, yes…" James stared at Lily. "But she hates me. I'm not sure why, though. Everyone else likes me alright."

"Maybe because everyone else likes you so much. You are a bit of an arrogant toe rag, as Lily calls you. It's hard to like you when you're so high and mighty all the time."

James looked at me. "Arrogant toe rag? Really?"

"Yeah. And she's right."

"You think I'm an arrogant toe rag too?"

"No," I laughed. "I mean she's right about you sometimes thinking too highly of yourself. You're sometimes rude, and a bit mean, and when Snape and her were friends you weren't very nice to him…not to say that I like Snape," I added quickly. "I just mean…well, I don't know exactly what I mean, but getting rid of your swelled head wouldn't hurt anyone."

"I have a swelled head? Oh no! Go get something to deflate it!" James joked. I dropped my head into my knees.

"You know, it might be 4:30 in the morning, but that doesn't mean you can reduce yourself to Sirius's level of jokes," I told him.

James laughed loudly. "I like you Ally."

"Unfortunately, I like you too," I said. James looked at bit offended at that, but I ignored him and looked at Lily. James looked at her too, worry creasing his forehead.

"She should be waking up right about now. It's been what—an hour?"

"I'm not sure."

"What? You're supposed to be the brainy one, remember?"

"Haha. I thought you were brain-boy."

"But are you sure Lily's okay?"

"She's fine James," I said, rolling my eyes. It was sweet how worried James was, but at the moment it was really annoying. "I'm going to bed."

"What? Why?"

"Because I don't stay up all night fighting my best friends. I would like to retain what few hours of sleep I've got left. Wake me up if Lily wakes up or Sirius, Remus, and Peter come."

"So I'm the watchdog?"

"Think of it like this—if you die or get injured you're doing it for Lily." I lay on a sleeping bag. "Pull out your wand, James!" I cried.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

If I wake up in the morning with all my limbs attached, it will be a miracle, I thought to myself, before I drifted off to a restless sleep.