Author's Note: This is a sequel to my other fic "The Monster Day of Monsters" but you don't necessarily have to read it first in order to understand this.

Well, who would have thought ... I surprised myself when I suddenly started writing this. It probably had something to do with the Halloween decoration and candies in the supermarket but also with the fact that "The Monster Day of Monsters" is the only story of mine that doesn't make me cringe at least at one point when rereading it. The beginning is a bit repetitive of the prequel but the rest will be different. All forms of feedback are very welcome.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and don't intend to make money with writing this.

The Second Monster Day

Part I

"I've been wondering how to disguise myself for this year's Monster Day," James said out of the blue one evening when the Marauders were working hard on a potion that would guarantee them at least one morning free of lessons.

"Hm?" Remus mumbled while dreamily watching the cockroach powder that he was pouring steadily and very slowly into the steaming potion.

"Monster Day, the Halloween party where all the monsters go," James clarified. "I can't go there with the same disguise I had last year. They think I'm dead, so I need a disguise that really disguises me."

Remus accidentally added almost a whole fistful of the powder into the potion at once.

"Careful!" Peter grabbed his wrist and pulled him away from the cauldron. "You don't want to spoil the potion …"

Sirius bent over it to sniff the potion and was immediately rewarded with a bubble exploding and shooting grimy liquid straight into his face.

"Ouch," he said, sounding rather surprised than actually injured. James conjured up a towel and handed it over to Sirius. While Peter was busy with trying to save the potion, Sirius was busy with cleaning himself up and James was busy with laughing at Sirius – Remus was still trying to absorb what James had mentioned before. Surely he hadn't meant … He couldn't possibly … He certainly wouldn't …

"James, about what you said earlier," Remus finally ventured but he was interrupted by Sirius's cursing because he did not succeed in removing the muddy brown mass from his face.

"I think I need to take a shower," Sirius announced.

"You can use my anti-jinx shampoo," offered James, who had bought it when he had come up with the idea that his hair was jinxed and that was the reason why it never stayed the way he wanted it to be. So far, it had not helped much.

"Listen, James," Remus tried again once Sirius had left the room and James was not distracted by the funny sight anymore. "I don't really know what to make of what you said just before …"

James threw him a half-amused, half-annoyed look. "Come on, you're certainly not trying to talk us out of it again?"

"You're certainly not trying to talk me into going there again?" Remus countered. "No," he said firmly when James kept grinning at him. "Not after last year's disaster."

"But it was fun," James brought up his standard argument.

"No, it wasn't."

"Why not?"

"Because he had to kiss Sirius," Peter chimed in.

"Fair point," James agreed. "But you don't have to do that again this year."

Oh, if he had a guarantee that that would happen again, Remus would willingly agree to go to the monster party. Maybe.

"That was not the problem," he said. "The problem was that we were almost attacked by dozens of angry werewolves and vampires."

"Yeah, angry because you kissed each other."

James was simplifying things. It had been quite different. Remus would never have kissed Sirius, least of all at such a bizarre party. But one thing had led to another and so it had happened. They really had not had another chance.

"Maybe they're still angry at us. And as you said, you don't have a disguise. You're supposed to be dead. So you can't go there. And Wormtail doesn't have a disguise anymore either."

"We'll just have to get new disguises."

"You could use Polyjuice Potion," Peter suggested. "Then no one will recognise you."

"Wormtail!" Remus exclaimed in indignation. "You do not want to go there, do you?!"

"Um." Peter thought about it and then reached the conclusion: "No."

"I could transform myself into Snivellus and they'd let me in right away," said James.

"But you'd have to drink the potion with Snivellus's hair in it," said Peter.

"Ugh!" James mimicked vomiting into the cauldron.

"Careful, or you'll have the stuff in your face, too," Remus reminded him.

"That's the idea!" James said enthusiastically. "It would make my face unrecognisable."

"You'd better wait and see what happens to Sirius," Peter warned him. "You never know what that potion does to your face."

"Okay," James agreed grudgingly and moved back so that there was a safe distance between him and the cauldron.

"Er."

They all turned around to see Sirius standing in the door rather helplessly. His hair was still wet and his face was -- Remus flinched. It was not a pleasant sight. The skin was full of huge blisters that kept swelling and deflating. New bubbles seemed to pop up non-stop.

"It doesn't go away," Sirius explained, which was kind of unnecessary as the distorted face was impossible to ignore.

"Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey," Remus said and tried not to gape too openly at a gigantic bump that was growing out of Sirius's forehead.

"And tell her that we're brewing illegal potions in our dorm? I don't think so."

Of course they did not go to Madam Pomfrey. Fortunately, Sirius's deformed face turned back to normal within three days. James thought that three days with bubbling blisters all over your face were worth the 'fantastic' disguise and decided to take the modified potion on Halloween.

Remus had casually asked Sirius if he would dress up as a vampire again and had reminded him to buy enough fake blood capsules. Just in case.

Two days before Halloween, Sirius addressed him on their way back from Muggle Studies, which only the two of them took. Sirius took it because he wanted to annoy his parents. Remus took it because his parents had 'advised' him to learn more on Muggles after he had given out Fizzing Whizbees to his younger cousins at his grandparents' golden wedding. He had only meant well … The other Marauders thought it was brilliant that he had caused such chaos at a perfectly boring golden wedding by making unsuspecting little Muggle children levitate but the screaming children and their equally screaming parents had thought otherwise.

"Don't you think it's a bit stupid that werewolves and vampires hate each other so much?" said Sirius as if he had just thought of it.

"Yes, it is stupid. It's just one of those things," Remus replied vaguely.

"A bit silly, isn't it, that they celebrate that monster party together but still make a point of hating each other."

"They always have."

"Yes, but it doesn't make sense, does it?"

"No, not much," said Remus, wondering when Sirius would get to the point. "You'd have to ask one of them in order to understand."

"You don't hate vampires on principle, do you?"

"No, of course not."

"Listen, I've been thinking."

Ah, here we go, thought Remus and slowed down his steps to match Sirius's.

"If we go to the party again, you know, together, I mean, the two of us …"

"We don't have to do that," Remus saved Sirius from having to say awkward things. "We could just say that we've split up during the last year."

"Yeah, but that would prove their point. That werewolves and vampires hate each other."

"True."

"We could set an example."

Remus forced himself to look at the hour glasses instead of throwing a sidelong glance at Sirius to gauge his opinion on the matter.

"You're right, that would be good, a good example. I'm fine with it. Damn, Ravenclaw already leads with ninety house points."

"Good. I mean, of course it's not good that Ravenclaw has so many points but, well." Remus finally risked a glance at Sirius to see him smiling slightly. Remus stored it away with the other memories of Sirius smiling at him in that way, that way that said 'we have a secret' although they actually did not have any secret at all. Nothing had changed after the odd kiss last year. Unless you counted the fact that Sirius seemed to smile at him more often than before but maybe that was just because Remus was looking at him more often than before. And there had been that one day when, in a rare moment of daring, Remus had let his lips touch Sirius's cheek briefly when they said goodbye for the summer holidays. Sirius had flushed somewhat and instead of hugging him goodbye had just shaken Remus's hand and clasped it a bit too tightly, had mumbled something like 'enjoy your holidays' and 'see you' and had hurried away. It was reassuring to know that not even such moments could affect the times they spent together during full moons, their planning and executing pranks, and everything in-between.

"I've been thinking," Sirius said and confused Remus, who thought that he was living through a feeling of déjà-vu. "If we found out the reason behind all that hate, it would maybe solve a lot of things. And if they don't have a reason, it's all the better because then we can prove to them how useless that animosity is."

Once Remus had caught up with Sirius's strain of thoughts, he was not too enthusiastic. "I don't think you stand a chance against such old animosity."

"But if they keep fighting each other, they'll never stand a chance to get the same rights like wizards. What they need is a strong basis, they need to be united and thus they can prove to the Ministry that they deserve equal rights."

"Sirius, you won't be able to revolutionise the wizarding world."

"But someone has to try and make them see sense, right? We are in the perfect position to do that."

"Oh. I see." From that point of view, it made perfect sense. "Right, if you insist, we'll try to speak to some of them."

"I already have a plan. I made it when I had the blisters. Couldn't really sleep. It felt like my face was trying to crawl away."

oOo

Remus and Peter were lucky. They could just be themselves and did not have to wear silly costumes or sticky make-up. The best thing was that they did not have ugly swellings in their face. James had developed the unnerving habit of abruptly stopping dead or twisting his head suddenly because he feared that Lily Evans might see him like this. The three of them were waiting for Sirius, who was busy with last minute preparations for his great plan to make the world a better place.

There were movements around the corner and James jumped behind a suit of armour once more but reappeared from behind there when he realised that it was just Sirius.

"Padfoot?"

"Yes?" Sirius said distractedly while handing each of them quills and pieces of parchments.

"Didn't you want to dress up as a vampire?" James said exasperatedly.

"Everything ready." Sirius opened his mouth to show his vampire fangs. They did not go very well with his bright yellow t-shirt with a dog on it and his striped flared trousers.

"Let's go," Sirius said brightly and set the way. Exchanging dubious looks, the others followed.

"Vampires aren't supposed to look like that, are they?" James said under his breath so that Sirius did not hear him.

"No, but he wants to make a point," Remus whispered back. It was for the same reason that Remus could wear clean clothes this year and did not have to pretend to be an uncivilised werewolf.

On their way to the Hog's Head, Sirius kept telling them what they had to do. Again. Finally, it was Peter who interrupted him by saying quite clearly, "We know."

A walking mummy was standing at the entrance to the Hog's Head and ticked off the guests' names from a list. It lifted the bandage that covered its blackened mouth and said in a raspy voice, "Welcome to the Monster Day of Monsters. Who are you?"

"I'm Mr. Padfoot, vampire," Sirius said and smiled pleasantly at the mummy.

"Remus Lupin, werewolf," said Remus.

"You don't look like one," the mummy commented.

"But I am." Remus showed it his werewolf identification card, and, convinced, the mummy ticked his name off.

"I am Mr. Glumbumble," James introduced himself.

"Type of monster?"

"There was this tragic potion accident that left me forever deformed, robbed of my former handsome looks, my fiancé left me, my parents disowned me, and lonely and outcast --"

"Yes, yes, this is all very sad," the mummy said impatiently and twirled one loose bandage around its finger, "but you don't qualify as a monster."

"He sure looks like one," said Remus.

"And your invitation clearly states that 'everything else which could be classified as a monster' is invited, too," Sirius added.

"Alright," the mummy said grumpily. "What about you?"

"I'm Mr. Wormtail and I was a wererat once."

"Wererat, wererat … ah, here it is. You've been here last year, too, haven't you?" The mummy paused for a moment. "You said you were a wererat once. What do you mean by that?"

Peter took a deep breath. "I was a rat once but then was bitten by a werewolf. So then I was human but turned into a rat during full moons. But then I was bitten by a werecat and thus accidentally discovered the cure for rattumthropy. So I'm not really a monster anymore. It's just that I still feel like a monster. I didn't integrate into wizarding society, I much prefer flobberworm salad to their civilised food. Please, can't I take part just today? This party gives me the feeling that I still belong somewhere."

Remus was impressed with Peter's acting skills. They had much improved since last year. His pleading glance was heart-rending. But the hearts of mummies were probably removed when they were created so that they did not rot inside of the mummy.

"I'm sorry but only monsters are allowed. I can't make an exception."

"It's just his appearance that seems human," Sirius said. "I assure you, inside he still feels very much like a monster. It's that what really counts: your mental monster state. Not just the appearance."

"He is a perfectly normal human being," the mummy insisted, "and those are not allowed here."

"No, he's not," James interfered. "Didn't you listen to his story? Originally,he was a rat who became a human through two bites: first a werewolf, then a werecat. So he's still not really cured. From the rat's point of view, he's still a monster."

"I admit that it does make sense in a certain way but he is still a normal human being. Well. You could file an application for an exemption clause because of a special case of hardship." The mummy handed him five parchments. "Then your case will be discussed at the next meeting of the Monster League and maybe you can come to the party next year."

"What about this year?" James asked.

Annoyed, the mummy grunted. "I have to talk to my boss first." It disappeared and arrived a few moments later with a brute-looking man. Remus recognised him as the werewolf who had welcomed them last year.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he addressed them. "So, Mr. Wormtail, what is the problem?"

"The problem is that he is less rat than ever!" James exclaimed. "He looks like a human but in reality he's just a completely modified rat."

"How fascinating. You have to tell me more about it, Mr. Wormtail. But why don't you come in, it's cold outside." The werewolf took Peter's arm and led him inside. The others followed. "Mr. Lupin, here again, too, eh? And even more civilised." He threw Remus a disapproving glance.

Remus rolled his eyes when the werewolf turned back and chatted with Peter. "We have warm puffskein giblets, you have to try them. And the spider leg risotto, de-li-ci-ous. Unfortunately, the Headless Hunt couldn't come this year but we have booked a werewolf a cappella quartet instead …"

Author's Note: Expect the second (and last) chapter on Halloween!