A/N: I've skipped ahead to third year in this one, just because if I would have done one about their second year it would have been boring with no plot whatsoever. That's actually why this chapter took so long, I started out writing a chapter about second year and I was about ten pages into when I realized that it was about nothing, so I just threw it out and did this one instead! This story is starting out a little slower than I wanted it too, but it will get to more action stuff soon, I just need to lay the groundwork first.
Oh and thanks to all of those that have reviewed or added to your story alerts! Hope you enjoy this chapter!
"Oh, I can't believe you both have to leave me again so soon!" My mom exclaimed as she tried hard to hold back the tears that were accumulating in her eyes. Steam was pouring from the whistling train and the platform was nearly deserted, if she didn't let us go right now, we were going to be late.
"I know mom, I know. But if you could handle the last two years then I'm sure you can handle this one too." I said, looking anxiously over my shoulder at the train, "We'll be sure to write, everyday if you want!" She nodded her head quickly and enveloped me in a tight hug. Casimir had finally had enough; he pried me loose of her grip and pulled me along behind him as we boarded the train.
"See you in a couple of months mom!" He yelled over his shoulder just before pulling me through the door and slamming it shut.
"That was kind of rude." I said, but my tone held no conviction, I was as glad as him to have finally gotten away from her.
"Yeah, it kind of was," He said, already sounding guilty, "But if we would have waited any longer we would have missed the train!"
"I know." I said as I braced myself against the wall; the train had lurched forward.
"Well, I'm going to go find Derrick and the others," He said as he started down the aisle, dragging his trunk behind him. He turned his head to look over his shoulder at me and said, "See ya sis."
I smiled and waved before heading down the opposite aisle to search for James and the others. I was almost at the end of the train, thinking I had gone the wrong way and would have to go all the way back, when I finally found them. I sighed in relief and quickly slid the door open.
Peter jumped slightly at the sudden intrusion and then, "Lux, there you are!" Came the relieved voice of James.
"What took you so long?" That would be Remus, sounding anxious.
"Yeah, we thought you'd missed the train." And, last but not least, Sirius, relaxed as ever, his hands behind his head, feet resting on the seat in front of him.
"Glad to see you didn't worry yourself too much." I said, shooting him a playful glare.
He shrugged and stood up to pull my luggage through the door and place it on the rack. "Thanks." I said, taking the seat that his feet had previously occupied. He shrugged again and simply flopped back into his seat.
"So why were you so late?" Remus asked, staring interestedly at me, his hands folded over a book in his lap.
"Just my mom being all sentimental. She really didn't want to let us go."
"Yeah, my mom was the same way." Sirius said, making everyone laugh.
"So has anyone seen Lily?" I asked, thinking I'd go sit with her for a while later.
"Oh yeah, I saw her alright." James said, pulling a disgusted face as he sat back and crossed his arms.
"And?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She's sitting with Snivellus." He said, sneering the spiteful nickname.
"Oh Lily," I said, shaking my head and frowning, "I'll never understand why she likes spending time with him. He's dreadful! Not to mention what he said about her when he saw her on the train in first year." I said, a look of disdain taking over my face.
"I know," said Remus, "But he does seem to be a lot nicer to her now. Maybe he's changed?"
"Severus, change?" James said incredulously, "That's impossible."
Sirius, nodding his head, said, "I agree with Jamsie."
"Me too." I said, folding my arms across my chest in defiance, "A person as rotten as him doesn't deserve to be friends with Lily." James nodded vigorously in agreement. Remus just sighed and slowly picked up his book to begin reading again. I decided not to go visit Lily since I didn't want to upset her by getting in an argument with Snape, so I just sat and talked with my four best friends about how our third year in school would be. The sky slowly darkened and we all changed into our school robes right before we reached Hogsmead station. We walked off the train together and all piled into a horseless carriage. The ride to the castle was quiet except for James and Sirius's soft chatter, probably putting together a "welcome back" prank because I definitely heard the word "Slytherin" a couple of times.
Walking into the Great Hall was like a breathe of fresh air. I hadn't realized how much I'd really missed Hogwarts until I was back there. The enchanted ceiling, the floating candles and Dumbledore in his pointed wizard's hat all felt so comforting that I couldn't stop the huge grin that slipped onto my face.
James, Sirius, Remus, Peter and I all found a spot together at the Gryffindor table. We sat down to talk animatedly to our fellow classmates for a few minutes, while we waited for the first years to arrive from their travel across the lake. I was talking to Leanne Patil when I heard someone call my name from behind me and I turned around to see Lily walking towards me.
"Excuse me." I turned back and said to Leanne, who smiled and nodded, before I quickly stood up and met Lily half-way.
"Hi!" She said, pulling me into a hug. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to my spot, squishing her into the small space next to me.
"So how was your trip to France?" I asked her, resting my elbows on the table.
"Oh, it was so much fun!" She said, smiling happily, "But, you know, I'd love to go again and see the magical side. I bet it would be like an entirely different place."
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Well you definitely got tan!" I said, noticing how much darker her face was. It was hard to see anything else though, due to the long robes.
She nodded and, noticing Remus sitting next to her said, "Looks like you got some sun too, eh Remus?" turning to him and winking. He blushed slightly and nodded.
"I got tan too! I was out playing Quidditch every day this summer." James said proudly, mussing his hair and puffing out his chest. Lily just ignored him and turned back to me.
"So what'd you do this summer?" She asked, trying to hold the anger back at James's ineptitude.
"Uhh," I said, eyes darting between James and Lily, a small frown on my face, "Oh, nothing special." Lily opened her mouth to say something more but, before she could, the doors to the Great Hall swung open and Mrs. McGonagall strode in with a line of first years behind her.
"Ahh, fresh meat." James said, rubbing his hands together as they walked past, looking small and very afraid. I chuckled under my breath and Lily gave him an icy glare.
The sorting and feast went fairly quickly and before I knew it, it was time to head up to our dormitories. Nothing sounded more inviting than my comfortable four poster bed and I would have ran all the way up to Gryffindor tower if I wasn't exhausted and as stuffed as a turkey. When we finally made it up to our dorms, I fell onto my bed and went to sleep without even changing my clothes.
About two months into the school year Remus snuck into the girl's dorms, undoubtedly with some ingenious spell of his, and insisted that I came with him to the boy's dormitories.
"What's this all about Remus?" I asked through a loud yawn as he led me into the third year boy's dorms.
"Just come with me, I have something I want to tell you all." He said, sounding really anxious. I looked around the room to see James, Sirius and Peter all wide awake, sitting up in their beds.
"Geez, what time is it?" I asked.
"About three in the A.M., my dear cousin." James said in his usual cheerful manner.
"You guys should try sleeping sometime. You'd never believe how wonderful it is." I said as I lay down on Remus's unoccupied bed. "What's so important then, that I had to wake up at three in the morning to hear?"
"Well, we don't know," Sirius said, sitting cross legged on his bed and starring up at Remus, "This was all Remus's doing."
"Yeah…" Remus said, looking down at the floor and wringing his hands, "Well, it's like this… you see, I'm not... I'm different and… I didn't think… But now I do… and I wanted to… You know…"
"Oh for goodness sake Remus just spit it out!" I said, getting a little impatient. It was three in the morning.
"Uh, right." He said and took a great breath, "I'm a werewolf."
I sat up slowly, my eyebrows knitted together above my eyes. Remus seemed to be waiting to gage our reactions; he had completely stilled and his eyes were flickering between each of us in turn. I looked over at Sirius, whose bed was closest to Remus's, and found him looking just as relaxed as always. James, however, seemed to be doing the same as me, simply processing the information. Peter was looking at everyone else to see how he should be reacting.
"How long?" James asked, cocking his head to the side as he looked at Remus.
"At least as long as we've known him." Sirius said quietly.
"You knew?" I asked, sounding a little hurt, "Why would you tell him before us, Remus?" But when I looked up at Remus I saw that he seemed just as shocked that Sirius knew.
"How long have you known Sirius?" Remus asked, sounding confused.
"Oh, come on, I'm surprised none of you figured it out much sooner." He said, looking around at us, as if trying to encourage us, "No one noticed how he seemed to be gone for some lame excuse or the other once a month?"
I thought back and realized that it really should have been more obvious to me. I guess that one of your friends being a werewolf is just something that most people aren't suspecting.
"Okay, but why did you wait to long to tell us?" James asked, still looking thoughtful.
"Well…" he said, fidgeting with a loose thread on his sleeve, "I guess I was afraid that you guys wouldn't want to be friends with me anymore."
I immediately felt a sickening sensation overcome me. How could Remus ever feel that way? Especially with us! "But you must know we're better people than that!" I said, tears filling my eyes as I spoke, "That we wouldn't judge you that we'd still care for you no matter what!"
"Well, I…" he started, looking nervously around the room. "I've never really had any friends before you all." He finally said, looking down at his feet and blushing slightly, "I didn't have any idea what you guys would think, so I thought I would wait until I was comfortable with telling you." It was quiet for a moment and I slowly got off of the bed and walked to the center of the room where Remus was standing. He lifted his head, one eyebrow raised in confusion, until I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a hug. It took a few seconds, but he eventually hugged me back.
I'm just sorry you had to deal with this alone for so long. I thought and he suddenly froze.
"What did you just say?" He asked, stepping back a bit so he could look at me.
"Uh, nothing?" I said, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"No, you said something. Only it felt like it was in my head." He said slowly, looking bemused.
"Hey, that sounds like your telepathy thing Lux." James piped up from his spot on the bed. Everyone turned to look at James, bewilderment plainly on all their faces.
"Telepathy?" Sirius asked like he thought it was a prank of some sort, "since when had Lux been a telepath?'
"Well, for as long as I can remember really." I said, drawing the attention back on myself, "But usually I can only sense emotions. And that's only if one emotion is really running really high among a large group of people. Exam week is murder for me." I said, smirking. "The only person I can really read well is my mom. I can send her my emotions and read hers very easily. Sometimes I can even see flashes of images from her head, or send her images from my head. I'm getting better at doing it with Casimir too and I can sometimes get it with James if I really concentrate, but they're the only ones." The room was silent for a moment as Remus, Sirius and Peter digested this information.
"How come you've never told us this?" Sirius asked.
"Well, I guess I've never really seen a reason for it. I mean, I'm not even that good, it's more like a heightened sense of feeling than anything else." I said, shrugging.
"So what was me being able to hear you all about?" Remus asked.
"Well..." I said, tapping my finger on my chin as I thought, "Maybe it was because we were both so emotional, and the fact that we were touching?" I said, taking a wild, but probable, guess.
"Have you ever tried to do this with anyone other than family?" Remus asked, sounding interested.
"Well, no. Like I said my family is pretty much all that knows."
"You should start trying with us more often too." Remus said, "I bet you could get really good if you practiced with more people."
"Yeah, we all can help." Sirius said, smiling.
"Thanks guys, I'd never really given much thought to trying to improve it. You don't even have to do much, just sit there and tell me if you can sense or see anything." I said, feeling kind of excited at the prospect of trying it out. I didn't want to get myself too excited though, what I had might be as good as it would get.
After a few minutes I returned to sitting in Remus's bed, as did Remus after a little while, and we all sat around and talked for a couple of hours. We were lucky that it was early Saturday morning when Remus woke us up or we would have all been to tired to get to first period. But, seeing as it was the weekend, I didn't care how long I stayed up after I was up. I fell asleep around six in the morning, tucked under Remus's blankets while he stayed on top of them.
A few hours later, I slowly became aware of someone knocking insistently on the door. "Make it stop." I whined sleepily and dug my face into the pillow.
"Guys wake up!" The person knocking yelled, "I can't find Lux anywhere, come on!"
"Dang it Lily." I mumbled under my breath before untangling myself from the blankets and slipping out of Remus's bed, being careful not to wake him. I slowly shuffled to the door, flinching at every hard knock and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I swung the door open and glared at Lily, hand raised in mid- knock. "Do you mind?" I hissed irritably.
"Lux! Where have you been?" She cried, smiling and pulling me into a hug.
I glanced behind me to make sure everyone was still asleep and then stepped into the hall further and closed the door behind me. "I was in the boy's dorms, Remus came and got me from our dorm around three and I guess I fell asleep in there." I said, starting to make my way to the girls' dorms.
"What did Remus want you for?" She asked, sounding mildly irritated. She hated when people broke the school rules and a girl sleeping the boys' dorm was definitely against said rules.
"Some stupid prank." I said, shrugging and avoiding eye contact. She could always tell when I was lying if I looked her in the eyes.
"Well, you really shouldn't-" She started and I could sense a lecture so I quickly interrupted.
"It is too late to get breakfast? I'm starving!" I said as I pushed open the door to our room and started rifling through my trunk to find some clothes.
She sighed and said, deciding to abandon the lecture, "No, it's not too late if you hurry." I quickly changed into clean clothes and we walked out of the dorm together. As we passed the guys room I stopped outside the door and said, "Do you think we should wake them? You know how cranky they get when they don't have their breakfast."
Lily heaved and irritated sigh and crossed her arms before saying curtly, "Go ahead."
I quietly entered the room, Lily not far behind, and walked up to James's bed. She stood over him, arms still crossed and glaring at his face as I poked him in the back and quietly said his name. After a little while of that not working, I started to poke him harder and say his name louder. When that didn't work, I simply screamed his name right in his ear. He jerked a little and opened his eyes, coming face to face with Lily. He blinked a few times and then a wide smile began to spread across his face as he said, "I did make it to Heaven."
Lily scoffed and rolled her eyes and I gave a loud cough to announce my presence. James turned to look at me and said, confused, "Are you dead too?"
I held back a giggle and said, "No James, none of us are dead. But if you don't hurry up and get dressed you're going to miss breakfast."
James looked back to Lily, who was looking deliberately away from him and then back to me. "Okay." He said, sounding a little depressed.
"You'll wake the others?" I asked. He nodded and I said, "Okay, Lily and I will wait for you in the commons." I skipped happily out of the room, grabbing Lily on the way, and we sat together on the large couch in front of the fire to wait.
A few days later I was sitting in Transfigurations when a piece of folded parchment landed on top of my book. I looked around questioningly until I saw James, sitting in the back next to Peter, and mouthing 'open it.' I picked it up and quickly unfolded it to find James's messy scrawl written across the middle of the paper.
Meet in secret room after classes today.
I looked back at him confusedly but he just shook his head and looked down at his book. Then I looked to Peter, who simply shrugged, looking just as confused as I was.
A couple of hours later, when I was all finished with my classes for the day, I made my way up to the seventh floor. I starred at the blank stretch of wall for a moment, thinking of how I wanted to phrase my sentence. When I had it I started pacing in front of it and thought, 'I'm here for James's secret meeting.' Three times before I opened my eyes slowly, afraid I'd done it wrong because I still wasn't all that accustomed to using it. We had only found the room towards the end of last year, trying to find a place to hide from Filch after we set off dungbombs in his office.
I smiled proudly as I opened my eyes all the way and found that the door was there. I quickly entered the room to find James and Peter already there. The room was small, just big enough to fit five chairs, similar to those in Gryffindor tower, a large table in the middle of them, and a good sized bookcase in one corner.
"Okay, we're only waiting for Sirius now." James said, motioning that I should take a seat.
"Just Sirius? What about Remus?" I asked as I sat in the chair next to James.
"Oh no, Remus won't be coming," He said, looking at the clock on the wall impatiently, "But I'll explain that later. If Sirius ever gets here."
"Don't you all have your last class together?" I ask, wondering why Sirius wasn't with them in the first place.
"Yeah we do, but Sirius was being too careless and dropped the table he was levitating on top of Professor Flitwick." I smiled and shook my head, wishing I could have been there to see it.
After a few minutes I stood up and walked over to the bookcase to look at all the books stacked on it. I pulled one out at random and it read, The Basic Instructions on How to Become an Animagus. I starred down at the cover, one eyebrow raised, and looked slowly over my shoulder at James, who was tapping his foot impatiently and kept glancing at the clock every few seconds. I was about to say something when Sirius finally arrived. He slowly walked into the room, looking just as carefree as always.
"What took you so long?" James asked, sounding irritated.
"Sorry mate, you saw what happened." Sirius said, taking the seat next to mine.
I took my place again as I asked, "Detention?"
"As usual, love." He replied, stretching out and placing his hands behind his head.
"So what was it you wanted to talk about James?" Peter asked, sounding anxious.
"Oh, yeah," He said, coming back to his thoughts, "Well, as we all know now, Remus is a werewolf."
"Yes, I think we've established that." Sirius said, smirking slightly as he realized that he'd gotten to James.
"I know that." James said, sounding irritated, "Okay, let's try it this way," He said, more to himself then us, "If you were given the opportunity, would you want to help Remus with his condition, even in the slightest way?"
This got everyone's attention. We all nodded our heads as we starred intently at James.
"Alright then," He said, looking pleased with himself, "I have an idea that could make his transformations more bearable. I've been doing some research on werewolves in the library and I've found out that when a werewolf can be around others animals that are comfortable with it, then the werewolf is able to take its aggression out on an animal that can handle it instead of a person or itself."
We all continued to stare at James, mostly shocked that he'd been to the library and actually researched something. I wondered how he even knew how to go about researching a topic at the library, I guess I was always taking James's real intelligence for granted, but I was more interested in what he was getting at with all this.
"So?" Sirius prodded him forward, anxious to hear more.
"So, as I'm sure you're all aware, there is a type of transfiguration that transfigures humans into animals. It's highly advanced magic, but I think that over time we would easily master it. Then we could be there for Remus when he needs us the most."
I had figured that this is what he was leading up to, especially since I had seen the books, but I didn't think that James understood how difficult it would be. "James," I said, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder, "I don't think you realize how hard this would be. First of all it is really advanced magic, way beyond our years, and second we would have to register with the Ministry and they would never let a bunch of thirteen-year-olds become animagus's to run around with a werewolf once a month."
"Well, like I said before, I know it's going to be difficult but I also know it's not impossible. And as for the Ministry problem, I wouldn't worry about it. We don't have to register, as long as no one knows that we're animagus's it's not anything to worry about." He said, smiling broadly at us all.
I thought about it for only a moment before I decided to do it. It would be fun, despite the possible consequences, and I would do anything to help Remus's condition. Sirius agreed to do it also, no surprise there, he thrived on all things that broke rules, and Peter agreed too, though he was a little less enthusiastic about it.
"Alright!" James said, clapping his hands together enthusiastically, "Then it's settled. We'll try to meet here every night after classes, only we should say, I need to learn how to become an Animagus, instead of what we said tonight, this room is a little too small. Oh, and no telling Remus! I want it to be a surprise."