A few fun oneshots about our favorite werewolf… Some of them inspired by headcanons on PINTEREST…(just search Marauder's headcanons, they're all pretty awesome and great for inspiration)

33, After the Feast

Meeting with Minerva

Remus Lupin rapped on the door of Minerva McGonagall's office softly. While tentative about seeing her, he was also rather excited. They hadn't really met up with one another since the end of the First Wizarding War. He could only hope that she didn't see the new scars on his face and become emotional. McGonagall was not an emotional woman and whenever Remus saw her act as such he became heartbroken and uncomfortable. He'd seen her that way twice. At James and Lily's funeral and the first time she had stumbled across Remus in the Hospital Wing after a transformation.

"Come in," her wary voice called.

He strolled in cautiously and looked about her office. It was the same as when he was a child. Various photos hung on the walls and there was a shelf filled with books and various confiscated items that she couldn't bring herself to hand over to Filch. On her desk was a tin of biscuits, a lamp and many notebooks. She looked up from a piece of parchment she had been reading to see Remus approaching her desk. Her lips formed a tight smile as she stood from her desk.

"Remus Lupin," she said softly.

Her arms encircled around Remus, giving a brief but warm embrace. She then returned to her chair behind her desk and gestured for Remus to sit as well. He took a seat in the large, leather armchair and offered a hesitant smile. She had asked to see him. For what reason he was unsure. Part of him assumed it was just to say hello. Another part worried it was for a much more grave reason. To see if he could really control himself and adequately teach with his condition.

"Are you going to sit there and smile at me like a first year being sorted or are we going to converse?" McGonagall asked raising a brow. "And have a biscuit for Merlin's sake, you look peckish."

Remus nodded and removed a biscuit from the tin taking a bite.

"How have you been, Lupin?" asked McGonagall.

"Much better than I have been, thank you," he replied, taking a small bite.

The moon had only been two days ago and his stomach was having trouble holding much of anything down. He managed to swallow without gagging all the same.

"How have you been, Professor?"

"Minerva. It's Minerva now, Remus. You're a Professor now too. You don't go around calling Severus, Professor Snape."

"Well…"

"You haven't changed a bit have you?" smirked McGonagall.

Remus brushed some greying hair from his amber eyes and smiled caustically.

"I wouldn't say that."

The hint of a frown crept across McGonagall's lips as she thought back on the last decade where Remus had lost everything. His mother. James. Lily. Peter. Sirius. Dorcas. Employment. It hadn't seemed to have changed him too much though. Remus had been ready for pain his whole life. Still, something about him was missing.

An epiphany struck her. What was missing was the light in Remus' eyes at Hogwarts. In his school days, she'd rarely see him without a flicker of happiness in his gaze. Eager to learn and live amongst those who understood him and were for the most part like him.

"Did you enjoy the feast?"

"Well, aside from Severus glowering at me it was quite nice indeed."

'Couldn't really eat much though…what with my bowels just being transformed and all…' thought Remus.

"Oh, he'll move on in due time," McGonagall replied waving a hand dismissively.

There was a long pause in which Remus turned the biscuit around in his fingers and McGonagall stared at him with somber eyes. Though his face was lined with worry and quite possibly in a perpetual state of sadness, she still saw the hint of the young boy whose hand was never raised first though he always knew the answer. The boy who trudged across the castle after full moons trying his best to keep his marks up. The boy who was brave and kind and full of wisdom beyond his years.

"It's funny, Remus. I was just remembering the day when James replaced Lucius Malfoy's potions with Pumpkin Juice, Butterbeer and Skelegrow right before an exam," McGonagall remarked fondly.

Remus smiled lopsidedly, a brow quirking up.

"A fan of that one, were you? Shame on you for encouraging that rivalry between us and Lucius in our third year," Lupin replied with mock scolding.

McGonagall waved a hand dismissively.

"The boy was hopeless at Transfiguration and tried to bribe me into letting him pass. He needed a good dose of you boys to put him in his place. He failed that Potion's exam?"

"Just barely passed actually. He had to retake it later…when he couldn't cheat."

"He was going to cheat?"

Remus nodded, rolling his eyes.

"He'd been boasting in the Great Hall about how he'd discovered this spell for invisible ink he could put on his skin and that only he could see and how he could just read the instructions off his arm and no one would be the wiser. He proceeded to keep the spell a secret when begged by other students for it. I think he got what was coming to him, actually," mused Lupin. "The Pumpkin Juice and Butterbeer were amusing to replace but that invisible ink spell is negated by the properties found in the scent of Skelegrow. He opened the bottle with Skelegrow in it and the ink dissolved. He didn't have to time to repeat the incantation so he took the test again and failed."

McGonagall let out a short laugh and shook her head.

"I s'pose James would have preferred Lucius to fail, what with the way he had been treating Lily."

Remus chuckled to himself, nodding. A mischievous smile on his lips.

"Yes, he would have."

A glint of happiness glimmered in Remus' eyes, making McGonagall smile just slightly. Once again, she had found the remedy to a situation. A talent of hers. She just had to keep speaking of his past at Hogwarts. McGonagall didn't dare bring up Sirius though.

"I didn't find all of Mr. Potter's pranks amusing, but that one seemed rather clever."

"Were you entertained by any others?" inquired Remus.

Just this once, McGonagall decided to divulge her secret admiration of James' more crafty pranks.

"Well, Travis Parkinson, when he was sitting beneath the tree in the courtyard and reading that book he had taken from Emmaline? You recall that?"

Remus' smile broadened.

"I do."

"I must admit, I was most entertained when a branch from the tree lowered itself behind Mr. Parkinson, grabbed his underwear and yanked it upward."

Remus snorted back laughter, nodding.

"I s'pose that was quite brilliant of, James. After all, Parkinson had stolen Emmaline's books. Those are important."

McGonagall began to enjoy this reminiscing and continued to admit her guilty pleasures to Remus who became increasingly more pleased with each confession.

"Your favorite though. Let's hear it," Remus queried.

McGonagall steepled her fingers beneath her chin and looked to the ceiling, contemplating her favorites. She finally arrived at a conclusion.

"I'd have to say it was another one on Mr. Malfoy. It was for Dorcas Meadowes if I'm correct."

Remus smiled warmly at the thought of his once love. A small romance that had lasted from when he was sixteen to when she died at just twenty one years old. He had many fond memories with Dorcas and over the years he had not ceased to think about her. However, he never found himself mourning Dorcas, not as much as he had in the early days of her passing. He found himself smiling at her kindness. This prank that McGonagall was speaking of was the one that had launched her into Remus' arms.

"Oh, after he'd teased her about how she couldn't walk without tripping?" Remus resolved.

"Yes. Then he left my classroom with his legs wobbling like jelly. He kept falling down with every step and James said it-"

"It's like he's an infant," Remus replied, finishing James' quote.

McGongall pointed at him, her eyes crinkling slightly at the memory. She found herself laughing quietly at the very picture of the smug Lucius stumbling out of class. Slowly she leaned back in her chair, staring at Remus with warm eyes. He was still grinning at the recollections of his much happier days. The days where his biggest worry was the full moon and not jobs or finances or dark wizards. Just twelve days of the year that were painful and nothing more.

"James Potter was rather brilliant. His pranks were somewhat immature but I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate some of them. The ones that were a very…soft form of revenge. Ones that taught a lesson, rather than tormented someone. Not that I didn't have to fight off a laugh at most of them…" she said with a fond smile.

Remus straightened up slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting.

"So to summarize your favorite pranks of James' it was Lucius' Potions Set, Parkinson's Underpants, the one where a thousand pinks hearts fluttered from your desk on Valentine's day-"

"I'll never admit again that I liked that," she smirked.

Remus continued to count off the pranks she had listed.

"The one where the prefect's bathroom played nothing but swing music every time you turned on the faucet and then your favorite was Lucius' jelly-legs jinx?" Remus clarified.

McGonagall nodded.

"They were all clever and somewhat justified. They didn't do lasting harm either. Those pranks were rather civil…" McGonagall trailed off as she watched Remus cover his face with his hand.

Was he crying? He seemed to be struggling to maintain a straight face.

Then his shoulders heaved up and down and she heard the faint sound of laughter beginning to get louder and louder.

"I'm glad to see that your past here makes you smile…" she remarked kindly.

"It really does, Minerva…It really does," he snickered.

Minerva lifted a brow.

"What am I missing? I'm missing something. I hate that," she snapped.

Remus sighed, a smile coming upon his lifts.

"Minerva, all those pranks you listed?"

"Yes…" she prompted with trepidation.

He snorted again, lowering his hand from his face and propping his elbow on the arm of the chair. He gestured to himself limply, still chuckling.

"Actually, those were all me."

McGonagall's eyes widened. It all made sense. Clever pranks intended to teach lessons and not inflict harm. They were always far and few between. Of course they had been Remus.

A smile broke out on her face.

"You bastard," she smirked.

Remus nodded, laughing even louder.

"Get out of my office. Go to bed. Grow up a bit. You've got students to teach tomorrow," Minerva ordered, waving him off.

Remus pushed himself out of the chair and extended a hand to Minerva. She gave it a firm shake and watched as he strolled out of her office, still laughing to himself.

As soon as she heard the door to her classroom shut, Minerva herself burst into a fit of laughter that she hoped Remus couldn't hear.

What she didn't remember was that the moon was just two days ago, and Remus Lupin could hear almost everything thanks to the wolf within.

Inspired by a four line headcanon in which Minerva discovered Remus flooded the hall with bubble juice and not James.