Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters etc., it all belongs to JK Rowling. (All hail the queen!)

Well, this is officially the first thing I have ever posted. Hope everyone likes it! Drop a review if you can.

Chapter One:

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1976:

Hardly anyone expected a disaster that day.

In fact, Professor McGonagall was having an unusually peaceful afternoon before she heard the news. She usually ended up being the one who got roped into sorting out whatever mishaps were going on around the school. It definitely seemed like there was always some student doing something they weren't supposed to be doing or going somewhere they weren't supposed to be going. Gryffindor House definitely had its share of troublemakers prancing around the school, always up to something, so events such as these were mere custom.

Nine times out of ten, these gloriously troublesome incidents would involve the school's two most notorious troublemakers by the names of James Potter and Sirius Black, who to most people certainly needed no introducing. For the most part, just about everyone at Hogwarts either worshipped them or despised them. They always seemed to be planning some sort of prank or practical joke. That, or going on one of their hexing sprees again that just about everyone fell victim to sooner or later (especially if their name happened to be Severus Snape). But today, neither of them were anywhere to be seen at all after classes ended. In their absence, the school was blanketed by a sort of eerily quiet air.

At first, this 'eerily quiet air' did not bother Professor McGonagall in the least. Since she had no kind of schoolyard drama to sort out for once, she gladly took advantage of it by getting comfortably settled in her office and grading some student essays. A few uneventful hours were definitely long overdue.

But soon, fluffy gray clouds began to build up outside, and what first was the sound of a few quiet raindrops became the sounds of pouring rain, strong winds, and thunder resounding throughout the office. As the storm built up outside, so did Professor McGonagall's suspicion of the idea that she would go the entirety of the afternoon without the occurrence of a disaster. It was just far too quiet-something, somewhere just had to be wrong. For hours there had not been one prank, duel, or student breaking a limb and getting sent to the Hospital Wing. And by Hogwarts standards, this was not normal at all. An afternoon this quiet was simply too good to be true. She just couldn't properly relax when she was sure some kind of disaster was going to happen sooner or later...

So when Severus Snape came running exasperatedly into her office at eleven-thirty that night, she was not the least bit surprised. His robes were dripping wet (he had clearly been out in the rain) and he looked properly horrified.

"Professor, professor!" he shouted quickly. He stopped when he reached the desk, holding onto the back of a chair to catch his breath. "He-he's a-werewolf!"

"Calm yourself, Snape," McGonagall said, making a motion for him to sit down, which Snape ignored. "Who's a werewolf?"

"That-that Lupin boy!" he said, trying to slow his voice down. "I knew there was something off about him! All this time-!"

Before he could finish and before McGonagall could say a word, three other boys came darting hurriedly into the office, stopping upon reaching the doorway. They were equally drenched and had clearly come after Snape. Their robes were covered almost completely in mud and leaves; they had definitely been through some sort of adventure that night. The tallest of them wore small round glasses (of which one of the lenses was cracked) and was the dirtiest of all. His black hair was even untidier than it usually was, and he either didn't notice or didn't care that a small tree branch was sticking out from the hood of his robes. The second tallest was standing right beside him, as he so often did. He too had dark hair, but was about an inch shorter in height and more strongly built, and also didn't look nearly as disheveled. The shortest one, who was also the most plump of the lot, was trailing a little ways behind the other two. He had hay-colored blonde hair, and his eyes were a dull shade of brown. He looked a bit confused, and it was questionable whether he knew what what going on and why they were there. The second tallest stepped forwards from the other two and locked eyes with Snape. Both of them looked furious at the sight of each other. Clearly, this was five and a half years of rivalry at its finest:

"OH YEAH, RUN TO THE TEACHER!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, glaring at Snape with pure disgust. "RUN TO THE TEACHER AND SAY IT WAS ALL OUR FAULT AND WE SHOULD BE EXPELLED! WHEN YOU WALKED RIGHT INTO IT! WHEN YOU DESERVED EVERY PART OF IT! WHEN JAMES JUST SAVED YOUR SORRY—"

"That's enough, Black," McGonagall said firmly, still not seeming phased by his show of impulsive anger. This was simply Sirius Black being Sirius Black, a thing she'd had to put up with for five and a half years. Of course, if she had any idea what he was actually talking about, she probably would have been more worried.

Sirius defiantly drew his wand from the pocket of his robes and pointed it right at Snape. James said or did nothing in protest, but didn't meet his eyes, or laugh and go along with it like he usually would. Snape drew his own wand in response, but everyone knew that he was rarely any match for Sirius at dueling. The shorter boy, seeming surprised that they had the nerve to start a duel right in front of a professor-clearly he had been living under a rock for his first five years at Hogwarts-tried desperately to hold Sirius back.

"GET OFF ME!" Sirius snapped as he quickly broke free. He ran up to Snape and pointed his wand at his chest.

"TELL THE WHOLE SCHOOL WHAT REMUS IS, I DARE YOU!" he screamed.

"I swear, if you lay one hand on me, Black-" Snape began, his voice dripping with hatred. But McGonagall rushed over from her chair and quickly pulled them apart before he could finish.

"That's enough!" she said again as a crash of thunder came from outside. "I'll take no more of this! Sit down and tell me what's going on this instant!"

The blonde-haired boy quickly pulled up a chair and sat down as told. His eyes darted nervously around the room, as though expecting a time bomb to go off at any moment. James aggressively forced Sirius into one of the chairs.

"What do you think you're playing at?" James hissed into his ear before sitting down himself.

"I'd like to know the same for you!" Sirius hissed back.

"Now," McGonagall began, taking her own seat. She tried to remain calm and ignore the fact that this was definitely not your average mishap, and that to her annoyance it had to take place in the dead of night. "I want one of you-not all of you at once-one of you to explain the situation to me."

"Might I ask, Professor, if you are aware that one of your students is a werewolf?" Snape asked quickly.

"Yes, I am aware," McGonagall replied, giving him a stern look. "And I'll have you know that Professor Dumbledore and I were supposed to be the only ones who were so. What I would like to know is how the four of you came to find out!"

"Well we found out years ago!" James clarified in tones of impatience.

"And unlike some, we could care less what he-" Sirius started to say, but Snape cut him off.

"I wouldn't have found out if he hadn't told me to go down the passageway leading to the Shrieking Shack!" he explained, hardening his glare at Sirius.

"Which I wouldn't have done if you hadn't been so intent on finding out where he was going every month!" Sirius shot back. "How I see it, I was doing you a bit of a favor-"

"Silence!" Professor McGonagall demanded. She turned to Sirius. "Black, frankly I am astounded that you'd go pulling a stunt such extreme as-"

"Well, I'm not," Snape interrupted bluntly. "He's tormented me for years, and I think that alone should be enough to get him expelled from this school!"

"Oh, what is it with this obsession you have with getting us all expelled?" Sirius snapped.

"Nobody is getting expelled until I get a proper explanation of the situation!" snapped Professor McGonagall.

"I suppose you all thought it'd be real funny didn't you?" Snape shot back at Sirius, ignoring the Professor. "Me getting to the end of that passageway for the nasty shock of encountering a fully grown werewolf. In fact, I bet he was in on it, too-"

"YOU TAKE REMUS OUT OF THIS!" Sirius shouted, standing up from his chair.

"Stop with your yelling and tell me," McGonagall began in an even tone. "Did or did not Mr. Lupin have any knowledge of this?"

"He didn't!" Sirius and James quickly said in unison.

"And Mr. Snape, do you have any direct evidence whatsoever that he was involved?" McGonagall asked.

Snape, unable to provide anything, solemnly shook his head.

"See?" Sirius asked. "He's making things up! What did we tell-?

"SIRIUS, JUST LAY OFF FOR ONCE!" James interrupted, rather uncharacteristically. Then, his eyes wandered to the floor.

"Silence! Enough with the shouting!" insisted Professor McGonagall. "Potter, Pettigrew, I must ask of your involvement in the incident."

"I-I-didn't-passageway-willow-werewolf-what?" Peter stuttered hopelessly, sinking down further into his chair.

"He didn't know until after James went in," Sirius managed. "When it was already too late."

"Went in?" McGonagall repeated as another crash of thunder resounded from the window. "You're not telling me he-?"

"I did," James replied. "I didn't know what else to do. All I know is Snape wouldn't be sitting here if I hadn't-"

"Oh yeah, go and play the hero!" Snape spat. "You know you were saving your own skin as much as mine!"

"Just shut—!"

"Stop with the arguing!" McGonagall shouted severely. "This is extremely reckless behavior on all three of your parts. Black, I don't know what you were thinking, pulling a stunt like this. Snape, I thought you had more judgement than to walk blindly into a passageway you knew nothing about. Both of you will serve two months of detention. Potter, no matter how good your intentions were, I hope you know you both could've been killed."

"What? That's all you're giving-" Snape inquired, as he had clearly been hoping to get Sirius expelled. And much to his disappointment, James hadn't been punished at all.

"That is my final word," McGonagall said firmly.

Peter continued to nervously stare ahead, jumping whenever there was thunder or lightning. But still he looked slightly more relaxed than before, now that he knew he had managed to escape punishment.

"And Snape," McGonagall said after a moment. "You are sworn to secrecy about your knowledge of Lupin's condition. If you tell another soul, you will face serious consequences."

Snape grumpily nodded, now staring at the floor.

"Now, all of you please go up to your dormitories and stay there for the remainder of the night. I don't want any more trouble from any of you. Am I clear?"

The four boys all nodded, stood up, and walked quietly out of the office as more thunder rumbled from outside.

"You're-you're going to regret you ever did this," Snape stammered once they were outside the room. "I-I swear I'll get every one of you back."

He slowly stepped back from the three of them, looking frightened and not the least bit threatening, and hurriedly ran down the corridor in the direction leading towards Slytherin Tower.

Once Snape was out of sight, James turned towards Sirius, meeting his eyes for the first time that night. Now they almost seemed to be staring each other down, their emotions downright unreadable.

"Er-James, Sirius?" Peter asked meekly, breaking the silent intensity of the moment. "Is-is it okay if I head back to the dorms and-and just call it a night? It-it's been a really-"

"Yeah. Fine. Go," James said, waving his hand dismissively and sounding distracted. Peter immediately scurried off towards Gryffindor Tower. Now James and Sirius were alone in the corridor.

"James, I-" Sirius began.

"I just don't understand," James said quietly, now staring at the floor again. "Do you even think? Do you even think at all?"

"I didn't-"

"How do you think Remus would've felt if he woke up in the Hospital Wing tomorrow morning to find out he'd actually killed someone?" James asked, in almost a whisper. When Sirius simply stood there, he shook him by the shoulders and roared, "HOW DO YOU THINK HE WOULD HAVE TAKEN THAT?"

"I WAS TRYING TO SERVE SNAPE RIGHT, JAMES!" Sirius yelled in response. "I WAS TRYING TO SERVE HIM RIGHT FOR THINKING IT WAS HIS BUSINESS, FOR THINKING IT WAS UP TO HIM TO FIND OUT-"

"YOU KNOW REMUS BLAMES HIMSELF FOR EVERYTHING!" said James. "YOU KNOW HE THINKS HE'S SUCH A DANGER TO EVERYONE! THE REASON I RAN INTO THAT PASSAGEWAY WAS SO THAT HE WOULDN'T HAVE ANY REAL REASON TO BELIEVE HE WAS!"

Sirius simply stood there, mentally searching for something-anything-to say to that. The truth was he hadn't considered the consequences, he hadn't thought about the fact that things could've taken a very dark turn if there had been a thirty second difference in the events of that night. After a while James scoffed at his stubborn silence, letting go of his shoulders and whipping around to face the other direction. Then, he began to run down the corridor in the opposite direction of Gryffindor Tower.

"Where are you going?" Sirius asked, running after him.

"Where do you think?" James asked coldly, stopping just as they were about to turn a corner. "I'm doing what we've done on the night of every full moon for almost a year now! I'm going back down to the Shack and staying there for the night! Are you coming with me or not?"

Something about his tone implied that going down to the Shack as Animagi was simply a duty they both had to serve. The old thrill and rush of excitement it used to bring was now gone-blown away in the storm by the massive disaster that had taken place that night. They were doing it because they always had and for no reason other than that.

Nevertheless, Sirius ran after James without another word being exchanged between the two. They ran down the corridor, around a corner, down a staircase, past the Great Hall and out of the castle. They went out into the cold, dark night lit only by the full moon just as they had so many times before.

But the air of separation and coldness between the once inseparable pair made it clear that this time was like no other.