Chapter 8: The Marauder's Secret

It had only been several weeks since Lily started at Hogwarts and it was more amazing that she had ever dreamt. The castle was ancient, over a thousand years old, and filled with so much going on that it was impossible to keep track of everything. Walking suits of armor and talking portraits littered the hallways, while ghosts would glide along solemnly—observing all the students and were even helpful enough to give them directions to class should they get lost.

Which happened quite often, and it was all that Lily could do to keep herself remembering just how to get down to breakfast every morning. And even when she was lucky enough to find the classes, the classes themselves were hard. They studied the skies with telescopes every night and learned the stars and how to navigate them as well as studying out in the bright sunlight with all the kinds of plants while trying to avoid getting eaten by the bloodthirsty ones. After that they were to sit and study in a history class—which Lily suspected she was the only one who was able to stay awake and listen through the entire boring lecture.

But among her favorite classes there was Charms, where they would learn how to make things fly and enchant them to do all kinds of things while in Transfiguration they were learning how to transform something into something else while Professor McGonagall would glare at them all in class and watched as they tried to transform a match into a needle. Lily got it after a few tries and she felt her face break into a proud smile every time she got magic right.

But there was something that bothered her greatly however. She rarely ever saw the four Marauders other than in class. Now she knew that she had been doing her best to try and ignore them, but their lack of presence around the school worried her. Make no mistake, they spent every bit of free time getting into all kinds of trouble.

But the boys weren't helping, they would spend their days pulling pranks on the rest of the student body, be punished, before running off and disappearing for hours on end.

Just yesterday they pulled a prank in the Great Hall, causing the entire floor to turn to rubber and laughed as the students fell and rolled across the floor. Ok, she had to admit that it was funny… but after the four of them were dragged off to the Headmaster's office, she hadn't seen them since. But she had a very good idea as to where they went… the forest.

She had also done her best to try and forget that day, but she remembered the overwhelming feeling of freedom falling on her when she went out and ran wild. It was so… liberating to forget all about rules and be free. She tried to beat those feelings down, to forget about them. But every time she crossed the grounds or looked through a window she could see the trees swaying in the distance, she had to fight the longing to go out there and do so all over again.

Lily wasn't sure how long she could resist the call… like how a siren would call to sailors to their doom. That was how it felt to her. She knew that she shouldn't go, but she just couldn't seem to bring herself to stop thinking about it. She focused on her schoolwork and homework, as well as her new friends and most of the time she was able to put it all out of her mind.

Time seemed to pass by swiftly though and soon the slightly chilly September weather grew a little colder and the trees changed into warm browns and gold as October came around. Halloween was just around the corner, and she had heard that it was supposed to be a really important holiday for young witches and wizards. She couldn't wait to see Hogwarts's version of this holiday as she thought back to those years when her parents would take her and Petunia trick-or-treating.

She wondered how they were doing right now? Did they miss her? Or where they glad that she was finally gone so that they could have the perfect family?

Lily wished she knew. But she was able to forget those guilty feelings as she would look forward to the party. There was supposed to be some kind of dance or party being held in the Great Hall for them on Halloween night, and she just couldn't wait to go. Yet, if only she had been a little quicker in coming down the stairs to breakfast that morning, she would've never have heard it.

She had been admiring more of the orange and black decorations as she went running down the stairs and spotted James there with Remus, who was looking very sickly today. Though he always looked like he was supposed to be in bed with the flu, today he looked worse than ever before as James clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"You sure?" James asked him worriedly.

"I'm fine," Remus insisted. "You can't stay with me tomorrow night anyway. Look, you go to the party and tell me all about it, ok? Put in enough details and I'll feel like I was really there."

"It won't be near as much fun without you," James said, shaking his head, not looking happy about it. "And our plan to help you isn't going so good right now."

Lily stopped to listen, unable to bring herself to keep walking as Remus said, unusually cross, "And as much as I appreciate the idea, you need to stop this. I don't want you to put yourselves in danger because of me."

Danger? Danger of what? Lily watched them right below her, as they moved closer to the shadows of the staircase, neither one having noticed her standing there just yet and were clearly not paying any attention to who might've heard.

"Remmy, we've been over this," James scolded and Lily couldn't remember ever hearing him sound so stern with his friend. "This is our choice. You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"You're doing it because of me," Remus retorted, "And you just said that it wasn't going very well. What if it goes wrong? You know as well as I do how easily that can happen. I'll never be able to forgive myself if something like that happened to you."

"Would you relax?" James said, "We've got plenty of time and we're in no rush. We'll figure something out so quit worrying. You just focus on living through tomorrow night. You'll be in the usual spot won't you?"

"Where else?" Remus asked, looking nervously over his shoulder. "You know what would happen if I wasn't."

Lily couldn't make heads or tails of what they were talking about. If she didn't know better she would've just assumed that they were talking about some huge prank that they had waiting for them all tomorrow night. Now, she knew wondered if they were going to do something there; but the way that they looked… this had to be something more than just some stupid trick, right?

She wasn't sure and watched as the two seemed to realize that this place wasn't exactly private and they both walked away, heading to breakfast. Lily had lost her appetite a little as she soon followed, making her way to her usual seat at the table and spotted the four boys at the opposite end, all of them laughing as Sirius and James played with their food.

She watched them for a moment before she went back to her toast as her friends talked excitedly about the party and what they were each going to wear. Lily put in her opinion once in a while so that they knew that she was at least trying to pay attention, but her thoughts kept drifting over to what the boys said before. The usual spot? She could only mean the shack right? But why would Remus be going there tomorrow night? And by himself at that?

There was something about all of this that didn't make sense to her. She was growing more and more concerned that they were really starting to put themselves in danger by going out to that house. But still, she promised that she wouldn't do anything unless she had some real hard prove that what they were doing was dangerous. And they were all clearly still alive and annoying…

But she didn't like this, not one bit.

But still, the only thing on her mind that night was that it was going to be her first Halloween here. She couldn't sleep at all that night as she waited impatiently for morning to come so that she could see just how different it was going to be here. That whole day there was candy and caramel apples for them, as well as several strange candies that she had never seen before. Including some that let you breathe fire, or create bubbles that refuse to pop for days on end. There were even some blood-flavored lollipops that she didn't dare touch as she stared up at the dancing skeletons and dark lights that would explode over the tables for their entertainment. And if this was during lunch, she honestly couldn't wait until the party later on.

Time had passed slowly that entire day, she was almost bouncing out of her seat for evening to come. She was glad to see that she wasn't the only one, for the rest of the first years seemed just as keen as she was to see this party and by the time that evening had come, they had almost ran down the stairs and into the great hall.

It was better than she had expected. The entire room was covered with silk hangings of black and orange as live bats fluttered around the room, making shapes with their wings in midair, there was a group of dancing skeletons that each played an instrument, the tables had been lined up against the wall where they could get food, while most of the floor was cleared where some of the older kids were already starting to dance. Floating pumpkins joined the floating candles while spider webs and orange and black decorations littered the hallways. Lily just couldn't take her eyes off them, especially the pumpkins that they put in the Great Hall as jack-o-lanterns. They were so big that it looked like you could fit several people inside them.

She let out a cry of excitement as she went running onto the dance floor, with her friend Mary and soon the next soon had started up. She couldn't remember having so much fun in one night as she danced and enjoyed the towering sweets on the table as she chatted with all the girls. The hours went by as the bash went on and grew more exciting and the music just seemed to grow louder and louder with each second until Lily had to duck outside with some of her friends to escape the noise. As well as to escape McGonagall from yelling at James and Sirius for enchanting the living skeleton's instruments so that their sounds would amplify.

Lily laughed along her girlfriends as they sat down on the steps to rest their legs and took a break from all the dancing as they took in all that fresh, crisp air. They knew that it was only going to become colder from this moment onwards for the rest of the year, and so they enjoyed themselves as the music behind them was steadily starting to die down. Lily was having so much fun that she didn't notice that there was someone sprinting across the grounds until her friend Mary pointed him out to them.

Lily barely glanced up, but from what she could see in the approaching darkness was that the figure was in worn and patched robes. She blinked in surprise to see who it was… Remus?

What was he doing? Why was he leaving the party…? That was when she remembered that talk from yesterday with him and James and she began to wonder why he was spending the night in a creepy old shack when he could be here enjoying himself here? She knew that he wasn't the most sociable of the four boys, but why would he be going there all alone?

"What's he doing?" Mary asked as they watched them disappearing off into the darkness. "It looks like he's heading towards the forest?"

"The forest?" Marlene asked, her face red from dancing so much. The smile faded from her face. "What's he thinking? He's going to get into so much trouble!"

Lily frowned a little before she got up. "I'll go after him," she said seriously. "No, it'll be fine. You go back and enjoy the party. I'll drag him back here before he gets into the trees."

The other girls didn't look happy about it, but Lily sounded so sure of herself that they decided to let her handle it.

"Alright," Dorcas said, "But hurry up and come back! I've heard that the finale that they perform blows everything else away!"

With her promises that she'll be back as soon as she could, she went running after Remus, getting ready to ask him what was going on with him right now. As she had thought, he had already slipped through the roots of the Whomping Willow and was out of her sights by the time that she got near enough to freeze the tree and follow.

"Remus?!" she called out when she slid down the slide, and hitting the bottom. But apparently that guy can move a lot faster than she thought for he was out of her sight. Frowning a little at being made to chase after him, she pulled out her wand and lit up the tip, once again amazed by what magic could do. She started running straight down the long passageway, wondering for what felt like the millionth time why he was here. It didn't take her nearly as long as the last time to get to the ladder and climbed up into the house. But when she did poke her head through the trapdoor, it was worse than the last time because night had fully fallen during her time in the tunnel.

"Remus?" she called out, climbing out and dusting off her robes. "Remus? It's me! Where are you?!"

She then heard a loud crash and a gasp of pain as the door to the hallway was flung open and Remus was standing there, dripping in sweat, and his eyes wide.

"Lily!" he cried out. "What are you doing here?!"

"I came to…" she began as she walked forward but he backed away from her as if she was carrying a terrible disease.

"N-NO! STAY AWAY FROM ME!" he screamed, hitting the opposite wall and collapsing to the floor.

Lily was taken aback by how he was freaking out and only came closer, trying to ask what the problem was. She reached out to touch him, but he almost threw her away from as he screamed, "YOU NEED TO GET OUT! NOW! BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"

"Remus! What is wrong with you?!" she yelled, as he slapped at her hand, trying to push her back to the trapdoor. But as he did, through the window, a fain light poked through, creeping across the ground like some kind of shadow and that was when Remus stopped. His body hunched over and began to shake.

"Remus?!" she cried, thinking that she had to get him back to the Hospital Wing up at the castle, at least before he lunged at her. She screamed, scrambling around as he hit the ground and thrashed there wildly. Lily spotted a broken lantern lying on the dusty floor in front her and grabbed hold of it as Remus went at her, as if trying to rip her throat out. Lily slammed the nearby lantern down on his head as she backed away as Remus's mouth elongated, fur sprouting over his skin, his knuckles turning into paws and then to claws.

"L-L-Lily!" Remus groaned out as his body arched back in agony, "R-RUN!"

Lily didn't need telling twice as she backed away as his eyes turned a deep golden color, filled with a madness as his teeth grew into fangs.

"LILY!" cried a voice and she looked to the doorway to see that James held it open, waving his hand at her and she bolted straight for him. They slammed the door shut behind them as they heard a horrible cry that was like a mix between a howl and a scream.

She spun around.

"What are you doing here?!" she demanded James loudly as he slammed his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

"Not now," he hissed. "We gotta get outta here before Moony's finished changing."

"Moony?" she tried to repeat though her voice was muffled with his hand there and she pushed him off. "How'd you know that I was here?"

"Some of your girlfriends told me that you went after Remus to drag him back here," he hissed, his face unusually pale. "I knew that there was bound to be trouble. By the time I got here, I heard the screaming."

"What is he?!" she demanded, her heart beating almost out of her chest.

"He's got… problems," James said as the sounds from inside the room sounded as if the furniture is being torn apart. "But that's not important. We gotta get out here before…?"

There was a crashing and they looked up in horror as the sounds of the beast crashed against the door, almost knocking it down. "Ok… ok, ok, ok…" James said, looking like he was trying hard not to panic. "Ok… I'll… I'll try to keep him busy, you figure out a way to get out of here because… we kinda locked him in the room with the doorway back to the tunnel."

"Are you nuts?" she demanded. "You're gonna get torn apart!"

"I can take care of it," he retorted. "You head upstairs and just call me when you get things ready and then we'll get the hell out of here."

"But what about…?" Lily began, but there was another crash and she could see the teeth in the wood and she knew that now wasn't the best time to be arguing with him. "Alright!" she called as she ran for the stairs. "But don't you get yourself eaten here!"

"What? And leave the fair maiden to battle with the beast on her own?" he asked, messing up his hair and she rolled her eyes. She went looking through each of the rooms upstairs, trying to find a way out of here, her mind racing, but that was when she remembered the zip line. She remembered how she had slipped off and ended up falling right through those trees to the ground. Yes, that was their best way out of here.

She heard the growling of the wolf running up the stairs and she dove for the room, slamming it shut behind her and locking the door. Lily was trying hard not to freak out as the wolf howled and scratched at the door as she pulled out her wand and moved the heavy bed to stand in front of it. But that wasn't going to stop that thing for long. She had to do something, and fast. She stared wildly around the room and tried to think of an escape plan… that was when she spotted the locked door and the zip line. Panting hard, she ran towards it and quickly unlocked it as she heard the door cracking behind her. She had only minutes left at most.

Luckily the boys thought to leave the hooks lying there and grabbed one as she hooked it up onto the wire. A large chunk of the door was suddenly ripped clean out and she looked back in time to see the snout sticking through, smelling the air greedily and she knew that it was looking for her.

"JAMES?!" she screamed in terror, wondering what happened to him. He may be a toerag, but she couldn't imagine what she would do if he got killed because of her.

There was suddenly a loud cracking noise and a whimper of pain as James's hand suddenly appeared in the hole and reached in to unlock the door. She was ready to jump out at first moment as he pushed the door open wide enough to squeeze through and escaped the sound of the snapping jaws.

"What are you waiting for?!" he yelled as he ran towards her. "Let's get going!"

There wasn't time for him to grab a spare hook for the wolf went crashing through what was left of the door and scrambled over the bed to get at them. Instead, he jumped up, grabbing hold of the hook with one hand, and had to grab hold of Lily's waist to make sure that neither of them would be forced to let go. Together they kicked off from the windowsill as the jaws barely missed their feet and they were in the air once again, zooming along at high speed.

Lily tried hard not to yell with fear as her head twisted around to get a look at the wolf that let out a loud howl against the silver light of the moon. And to her horror, she saw him leap out of the wind and crashed the ground before he started to give chase. Of course they were moving so fast that there was no way that thing could hope to catch them, but he still had four legs to their two and they were going to have to stop sooner or later.

She doubled her grip on the hook, already feeling it slow down thanks to the combined weight of the two of them hanging on for dear life.

"What is that thing?!" Lily screamed at him.

"Kinda a long story!" he shouted back. "But we've got bigger problems to worry about don't you think?!"

He looked down before he yelled, "We gotta let go!"

"What?!" she yelled, "Are you nuts?!"

"Just trust me!" he cried back. "If we don't let go now, then Moony's gonna catch up!"

Lily had no idea what he was talking about as James let go of the hook and her fingers ended up slipping. She screamed as they tumbled down through the branches, all of them whipping her face and tearing at her hair as they fell through and they crashed to the muddy ground. Her lungs couldn't operate properly and instinct told her to hold her breath, keep the air that she had or she would suffocate.

She lay there on top of James as she continued to try and breathe, tears of pain in her eyes as she tried not to cry out in pain from the crash. James, however, had no problem and let out a moan of agony as she slowly crushed him.

"You know, we really have got to stop meeting up like this," he groaned as she rolled off, feeling a cut on her forehead staring to bleed as she looked back to James, who was sitting up.

"What was that?!" she cried out, her eyes wide as she heard the distant howling in the distance.

"That… would be Remus's furry little problem," James winced as he rubbed his backside. "Oww… that's gonna leave a mark."

"What is he?" Lily gasped, shaking from both fear and anger.

"Remus?" James asked in confusion.

"No, I mean the giant squid," Lily snapped. "Of course I mean Remus! What in the world is he?"

James looked up at the sky and Lily followed his gaze to see what he was looking at. When she spotted it, it all suddenly made sense… a bright full moon poking its head passed the clouds and she looked down at James.

"He's a werewolf?" she asked through numb lips. She had read about them during one of the many hours she spent in Flourish and Blotts, but she couldn't believe that she actually knew one as well.

"Yep," James said, making a popping sound with his lips. "He's been cursed for a long time now. He does a pretty good job of hiding it… in fact, if he wasn't such a bad liar when we're around him then we would still be guessing where he went once a month."

"You all knew?" Lily asked, not sure what to think.

"Of course we did," James answered as he pushed himself up to his feet before he held out a hand for her to take. She gave him a dark look as she stood up on her own, but continued to look him full in the face, as she silently demanded answers.

"Look," he said worriedly, "I'll tell you everything but we gotta get going. He's now loose out here and it's not safe for either of us and…?"

They heard a loud howl in the distance and knew that their 'friend' wasn't far off. With their eyes wide they bolted for the nearest tree and pulled themselves up and off the ground. It really was all that they could do now as they heard the sounds of heavy paws running over the dead leaves and maybe even the heavy panting of some beast. Lily climbed up as high as she could so that she was a good twenty feet off the ground and silently hoped that this would be enough.

James seemed content to sitting on a branch directly below her as she hung on to the trunk. "What is going on?" she demanded as he kept a look out for Remus.

"That would be Moony," he said, squinting at the dark trees. "Don't worry, he can't climb trees when he's like this."

"That's not what I'm asking," she retorted coldly and he leaned his back up against the trunk.

"I know what you mean," he said comfortably. "But this is just something that you gotta deal with when you're a friend with a werewolf."

"Why would Dumbledore let him come here if he's so dangerous?" Lily asked.

"He's only dangerous twelve nights of the year," James answered. "You know him. He wouldn't be like this if he was given the choice."

Lily thought that over for a moment, thinking of the sweet and polite boy from before. Personally she couldn't believe that those two were one and the same.

"Dumbledore and the teachers all know in case you're wondering," he added and she glanced down at him. "They knew before he came here and they set this whole thing up so that he can come to school. See, Remus really is allowed to come to this house… that secret passageway was built for him to use to come here during the full moon so that he can change without worrying that he might hurt anyone."

"So… so he's the reason why it's dangerous to come here?" Lily asked with wide eyes.

"Well, he's one of them," James admitted, "Because he's not supposed to be outside the house. But this place is so big that I doubt that he'll make it onto the grounds."

"And what about us?" she hissed back.

"We can either make a run for it," he said lightly, "Or, we can sit up here and wait until morning and not risk getting ourselves eaten."

"You're pretty calm about this," she retorted angrily.

"Well, I don't know what else to tell you," James answered actually laying his legs out in front of him along the branch and folded on leg over as he looked up at her. "But what were you thinking coming here on your own like this?"

Lily looked away and mumbled about wanting to bring him back so that he could enjoy himself like the rest of them and he laughed at that.

"I always knew that you had a trouble-making side to you!" he smirked.

She blushed as she told him how they spotted Remus go into the forest and were planning on following afterwards and she also confessed as to how she overheard them talking earlier.

"You saw us talking?" James asked in surprise before he thought it over, "I see. Guess we should've known better."

"So when you were talking about his 'furry little problem'…?" she began as it all came together.

"Yeah, we figured it out," James shrugged as a loud hoot from an owl almost called her to fall out of the tree. "It didn't take a genius to figure out that Remus would disappear once a month. And well, we kinda forced the truth outta him. It was funny how he kept saying that he didn't have any idea what we were talking about."

"And you've been going with him into that house every day?" Lily asked, her beating hard slowing down.

"Not every day," he answered, glancing up at her. "We come to keep him company until we have to go. Helped to make him feel that going to that house isn't a bad thing. And we always made sure to leave before the sun went down during a full moon."

Lily thought that over, remembering that day that she followed James through the secret passageway and how they said that Remus was going to stay behind to lock everything up. She remembered that it was cloudy that night… but she could clearly remember seeing that full moon poking its head behind the clouds. She stared down at him and James looked back up at her, as if they were both thinking the same thing.

"We weren't sure if you could keep something like that secret," he confessed. "We didn't want to tell you in case you got scared and blabbed about it."

Lily gave him a hard look. "I would've kept it a secret," she told him. "But I get why you didn't tell me."

"So you won't tell anyone?" he asked, looking up quickly.

"I want to talk to you and friends about this," she answered as she looked nervously at the ground and added, "Assuming that we can make it out of this place alive that is."

(Sorry, sorry… I know that it's been an annoying long wait here, but I've had so many things going on that it's been difficult getting chapters out lately. However, I do hope that you enjoy this chapter and will look forward to the next one.)