Chapter 10:
With the lessons starting up again the teachers seemed to think that they had to remind them of that fact with additional projects and homework. Both Sirius and Marianne were very busy all January and only found room to breathe with the beginning of February.
With that month her friendship with Sirius took another turn, he had somehow convinced her to visit the Gryffindor common room at least once a week.
The first time had been really awkward, she had been introduced to Peter Pettigrew and Sirius' other year mates. Marianne hadn't quite known how to react and so had remained quiet for the first 20 minutes until Sirius, James and Remus started to involve her in their conversations.
Peter had remained silent the whole time and had been watching her distrustfully, his eyes on Sirius arms that seemed to always gravitate to her body and touch her.
The female Gryffindors weren't sure what to make out of the little Hufflepuff that Sirius had brought with him. He didn't treat her like one of his conquests that he had brought to the common room before and she wasn't his normal type. Even stranger was the fact that he defended her against James when he teased her a bit about her shyness. They finally made their minds up when which Sirius had put his arms around her and hugged her from behind, she had squeaked in surprise and the noise had been audible in the whole common room. The poor girl had turned beet red under the amused gazes of the Gryffindors, and that had it been for the older and more maternal Gryffindor females, they started to coo over the cute shy blonde girl, in their eyes she was utterly adorable and was worth protecting from a fiend like Sirius Black.
They tried to lure her away from Sirius and into one of the female dorm rooms but this just earned them death glares from said boy who had pulled the smaller girl even closer and told them in a definite voice "Mine!".
This led to Marianne be on the receiving ends of several death glares from Sirius' ex-conquests and some of the hopefuls. In the next weeks they learned that pretty quickly to be nice to the younger Hufflepuff if they wanted to have even a fleeting chance with the playboy.
The people who didn't learn that were instantly on Sirius shit list and were pranked mercilessly in revenge by the Marauders. Marianne wasn't sure how, but the Marauders had been able to keep the information of Marianne from spreading to the other houses, which she was quite thankful for.
Since creating Sirius' Christmas present with her brother's help, the idea of a magical ipod hadn't left her mind, always swirling around in the back of her head until she finally gave in and asked her runes teacher for help.
Gilfried Gamp was an older wizard and pretty close to retirement but he still sharp as a tack, he was pretty well liked by the student body because he was always encouraging them to work harder and create something new.
When Marianne finally approached him on a Thursday after class he listened patiently to the young girl about her idea.
He hadn't been convinced that her idea would work but instead of shooting her down he had helped her with the creation of a basic rune sequence to play and record a song and recommended different books for her project.
He told Marianne that if she made it work and suitably impressed him, that he would talk to the faculty to recognize it as her OWL project that she would have to do the following year.
His rejection of the idea didn't bother Marianne; she knew that it would sell should she ever be able to make it functional and so worked with renewed vigor on her idea.
During March, Marianne finally approached Remus about his werewolf condition. She asked him to take a walk with her after they had finished homework in the library.
After casting some privacy charms around them when they reached the clock tower Marianne looked Remus straight into the eyes while she stated "I know of your secret Remus. You're a werewolf."
Remus tensed and stared stunned at her, completely pale he opened his mouth and then closed it again and looked close to a heart attack, uh oh, maybe she shouldn't have been so blunt!
Hurriedly she tried to assure him "Hey, it's okay, calm down Remus! I just wanted you to know that I found out."
"I,… how?" he croaked while he looked at the small hand that had laid itself on his upper arm, why was she touching him when she knew?
The tiny Hufflepuff just looked concerned and said "Do you want to sit down? Yes we are sitting down!" and dragged him down to the wood beam which stood out beside them. "I spend a lot of time with you and I noticed how your illness comes in cycles and always is the worst around the full moon, and than your nickname, Moony,…"
Technically true, she had kept a close eye on the gentle werewolf and always had chocolate or another treat around full moon with her.
"The nickname was Sirius idea wasn't it?"
Remus just rolled his eyes exasperated while he nodded at that.
"So,… you are not afraid of me?" the Gryffindor asked carefully, Marianne meant a lot to Sirius and he himself had started to see her as pack member.
"No,… well technically no, if I ever meet you during full moon I will probably be terrified and run as fast as I can."
She joked while she smiled up at him sweetly. No Marianne hadn't lied during their whole conversation; he would have smelled a lie, especially that close to the full moon. Moony inside him howled triumphal at being accepted by another pack mate.
Remus couldn't help but feel relieved and freed from a burden, Marianne had become an important part of his live in those last six months and he would have never really gotten over the fact if she had rejected him because of his condition.
The two made their way back to the Gryffindor common room, sharing some Honeyduke chocolate, that Marianne had taken with her to alleviate his fears.
The Marauders, with the exception of Peter, were elated that she had taken the news so calmly and was now in the know.
Pettigrew had always been mistrustful and jealous of anybody who became close to the Marauders but most of the time those drifted away after they became 'too boring to hang out with' as James called it.
But this damnable Hufflepuff had been hanging on for more than two months and now she also knew about one of their best guarded secrets! There had to be a way to get rid of her!
Peter had never had the courage to say or do something before but maybe this time he had to do something before she replaced him completely.
Two months later Marianne was infinitely glad about the fact that she had informed Remus about her knowledge. So she hadn't had to explain herself when she came running on one Tuesday before the full moon and dragged James, Remus and Sirius out of the common room.
Peter wasn't there he had detention with McGonagall for repeatedly forgetting his homework. Marianne hastily explained what she had overheard in the library only minutes before between Snape and Lily.
"… and I'm telling you there is something wrong with Lupin! I don't buy his excuses; he is always absent every other month with one ridiculous excuse after the other. I WILL find out what is truly going on, mark my words!"
"Severus please, I think this is Remus business. I know it is strange but he is my friend and if he doesn't want me to know I won't press him further,…"
"Still,…"
Remus had gone ghostly white after he heard the news.
Sirius on the other side had this twinkling in his eyes that told everybody that he had something nasty in mind.
"Well, well, well, if Snivellus wants to find out we can arrange that,…"
He couldn't complete the sentence before three resolute NO's shut him up. Marianne frowned while she lectured the oldest Black son.
"Don't be ridiculous Sirius, should Snape find out about Remus it would cause more harm to Remus then Snape, so don't even think about it!"
James beside Marianne nodded "She is right, we can't do that, we have to somehow prevent Snape from finding out,…".
All four of them mulled this over before Marianne just turned to Remus and said "Professor Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey are in the know aren't they? Well go tell those two, maybe they know what to do."
Remus looked relieved and James and Sirius just nodded before the three boys said goodbye and went straight down to Madame Pomfrey.
Later she was informed that Dumbledore would take care of the problem.
In the end they had never learned what Dumbledore said to Snape, but from then on he kept his mouth shut concerning Remus monthly illness.