Sirius was chuckling as he entered the Gryffindor common room. He brushed his hair out of his eyes, and spotted James pouring over a piece of parchment, while Peter kept a look out for anyone who might sneak a peek. Sirius loped over to them.

'What's so funny?' James asked, looking up.

Sirius chuckled harder as he sat down next to James.

'What's so funny?' James asked again, his brow furrowing.

'Snivellus was sniffing round,' Sirius replied blithely, taking a cake out of pocket and stuffing half of it into his mouth.

'So,' James said blankly. 'What's new?'

'He's still trying to find out about Moony.'

'He'll never work it out,' James said dismissively as he lounged back and flashed a look over at Lily, who pointedly ignored him.

'Well...' Sirius said slowly, and James bolted into a sitting position.

'What do you mean?'

'I told Snivellus that if he really wanted to find out, all he had to do was to press the knot in the Whomping Willow, sneak into the tunnel and follow it to the end.'

'WHAT?' James roared, garnering the attention of the entire common room.

'It's just Snivellus...'

'Padfoot,' James hissed. 'You know what will happen if...'

'He'll never do it,' Sirius replied contemptuously.

'If he does...'

'He doesn't have the balls,' Sirius snorted derisively.

James stared at his best friend for a second, before racing up to their dormitory and diving into his trunk for the invisibility cloak. He pushed the slippery cloth into his pocket and bolted back down the stairs.

Sirius just stared at the streak that was James.

'What-' Sirius half-asked, but James had already dived between two third years entering the common room through the portrait hole.

James was two floors down, before he heard Flich's shuffled footsteps. He pulled the cloak out of his pocket and swung it over himself. He quietly, but as quickly as he could, raced down flights of stairs and through secret passageways, and into the Entrance Hall. He tapped the double doors with his wand, and they silently creeped open, just enough for him to slip through.

The grounds were quiet. Eerily so. The trees of the Forbidden Forest swayed slightly in a non-existent breeze. The Whomping Willow was deathly still. James approached it quickly and saw, in the pale moonlight, a twig laying in the glassy, dark grass. He pointed his wand at it, and it instantly hovered into the air. Pointing the tip of his wand at the knot, the twig shot at it. It pushed into the knot, and the tree shivered slightly, but remained still.

James struggled but he just about managed to slip through the hole in the roots and into the tunnel. He crawled as quickly as he could, the alight tip of his wand pointing through the cloak's folds. The tunnel seemed to go on longer than he was used to.

At last, the sight of Snape's back loomed into view.

'Psst,' James hissed, as he pulled off the cloak and stuffed it into his pocket. 'Psst.'

Snape turned around and his expression of determined curiosity turned to hatred like a light bulb blowing.

'Potter,' he hissed back. 'What do you want?'

'You have to come with me!' James stressed.

'Pfft,' Snape scoffed, and he continued on his journey.

'Snape!' James whispered loudly, but the other boy ignored him. They were close to the entrance of the Shrieking Shack now. James hurried after Snape.

As soon as Snape stepped out of the tunnel, James heard him yell in fright. He burst out of the end of the tunnel and a stab of fear nearly cleaved his heart in two.

Remus, in his werewolf form, towered over the two boys, his animalistic tendencies in full control of the powerful, lean and muscular frame. A complete killing machine. Snape was shaking in fear. He slowly raised his wand, but James reacted first.

'Impedimenta!' James roared, the tip of his wand pointing at the werewolf.

A bolt of energy raced into Remus' chest, but it had little effect. It merely caused him to turn his attention to James.

'Get into the tunnel!' James ordered. Snape merely looked at him. 'Now!'

Snape didn't move.

'Stupefy,' James yelled, his wand still pointing at his friend. A bolt of red light hit the werewolf and glanced off him.

Thinking quickly, James pointed his wand at a chair and directed towards Remus. The chair blasted against the wolf's head and shattered. It staggered the beast. James grabbed the front of Snape's robes and roughly pushed him into the hole. Snape glanced back at James, who had his wand pointed at him.

'Go, or I'll blast you up that tunnel!'

Snape's eyes widened in fear and he scrambled backwards. James turned around, but was blasted into the wall by Remus' powerful arms.

'Levicorpus!' James thought as he pointed his wand at Remus. The werewolf was hoisted into the air, and dangled by it's ankle, slowly spinning around, his jaws snapping angrily. He swiped the air, trying to get at James, who scrambled over to the tunnel.

As soon as he was through the hole, James sealed it magically, and scrambled down the tunnel as fast as he could. Snape was waiting for him just beyond the Willow's reaches.

'You can't tell anyone!' James wheezed, clutching a stitch in his side.

'Can't tell anyone?' Snape spluttered irately. 'He's a werewolf!'

'It's not his fault!' James spat back. 'He's..'

'You can't tell me he's harmless Potter! He almost killed us. Him and Black!'

'Good evening,' a soft, gentle voice sounded behind Snape. They both looked at the source.

It was Dumbledore.

'I believe that you witnessed a closely guarded secret tonight,' Dumbledore said calmly. Snape simply spluttered.

'He's a werewolf!' Snape hissed angrily, pointing at the concealed hole in the Willow's roots.

'Mister Snape please calm down,' Dumbledore said, his voice still calm. 'Mister Lupin has the right to an education, just the same as anyone else. To tell others of his condition would prevent an innocent young man from getting a deserved right. I must ask that you not tell anyone of what has happened tonight.'

He fixed Snape with a gaze, that made the young Slytherin nod his head in defeat. James was still massaging the stitch in his side.

'Your bed awaits, Mister Snape,' Dumbledore said, and Snape nodded and proceeded back into the castle.

After a few tense, and quiet, moments Dumbledore spoke again.

'You did a brave thing tonight,' he pointed out, to seemingly no-one in particular.

'Yeah,' James muttered, slightly abashed.

'It takes a lot of courage to save someone you dislike so much from certain death or contamination. What exactly happened?'

'I tried to stop Snape from entering the Shack,' James said, and Dumbledore didn't ask how James knew where the tunnel led. 'But, he didn't believe me. I followed him into the Shack and tried to stop Remus from attacking him. I tried a couple of jinxes but they just bounced off him. I managed to confuse him, and get Snape back into the tunnel. Remus went after me and knocked me to the floor. I managed to get away, and I sealed the tunnel exit after getting through it. I'm not sure whether he's still dangling by his ankle...'

'I must say, most of-age wizards would be unable to defend themselves against a werewolf, let alone an underage wizard,' Dumbledore mused to himself more than to James. He seemed to jump out of his reverie. 'You should be getting back to your common room, Mister Potter. Maybe to bed? You must be exhausted.'

James nodded and slowly made his way back into the castle and up to the Gryffindor common room. As soon as the portrait opened, he crawled through the portrait hole. Sirius was still in the common room, and he was entertaining a couple of fourth years with jokes. James walked straight up to him, and pulled him around.

'Why the hell did you do that?' James roared.

'What happened Prongs?' Sirius asked.

'Why?' James roared in Sirius' face, spit flying. The last couple of people left in the common road, stared at them both. Lily looked up from her notes to take in the scene.

'It was a joke,' Sirius chuckled. 'No harm...'

'No harm?' James bellowed at the top of his voice. 'He nearly died!'

Sirius went a little paler.

'Died?'

'If I hadn't've been there, he might have died. He got all the way through.'

'Prongs, you've got a bruise...' Sirius said feebly, motioning to James' throbbing cheek.

'I don't care!' James was incensed. 'I can't believe you did that!'

'What?' Sirius asked. 'Why are you so protective of Snivellus all of a sudden?'

Lily's eyes narrowed a little.

'I'm not! It wasn't funny Padfoot! It's funny when we play tricks on him, or jinx him. He could've died. He saw!'

Sirius went as white as chalk.

'He...'

'Yes! He saw! Luckily, he won't tell anyone. He was told not to by Dumbledore.'

Sirius shuffled like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

'I didn't think...'

'No you didn't,' James said coldly. 'Go to bed.'

Sirius didn't argue. He turned on his heel and shuffled up the stairs.

James crashed into the nearest chair by the fire, and stared into it's depths. Thoughts and worst-case scenarios flitted through his mind like starlings. Lily got up from her chair and slowly approached James. The tips of her fingers rested on the arm of the chair for a moment, but she turned away and left him to his thoughts.

The next few days were uncomfortable for the Marauders. True to his word, Snape didn't breathe a word of Remus' condition to anyone. After Remus returned to his human form, James and Sirius filled him in on that fateful night's events.

Remus was mortified. Sirius reassured him, again and again, that it wasn't his fault. Sirius accepted full blame for the incident. It went a long way to repairing James and Sirius' friendship. Sirius did seem genuinely shocked that he'd nearly exposed one of his best friend's secret.

'What exams do we have today?' Peter squeaked through a mouthful of sausage and bacon a few days later.

'Defence Against The Dark Arts theory,' Remus replied absently, as he thumbed through his notes.

'Another O if I may say so myself,' Sirius said casually, and James nodded, tucking into a large bowl of porridge.

'Quidditch tonight?' James asked Sirius, and he nodded.

'Yeah, I think Roberts has booked the pitch for tonight. I need to get back in the air. Been really bored lately.'

James looked up and saw Snape looking at him. He knew from the look that the boy was giving him, that nothing had changed really. Snape still hated him as much as he hated Sirius. He was okay with that. He may have saved his life, but he didn't want to be his friend.

An attack by a werewolf is something that he wouldn't even wish upon his enemy. Not even Snape.