Chapter 12
Remus joined his friends in the Great Hall for breakfast a couple mornings later, the first time he had ever been able to eat with them the morning after the full moon. Madam Pomfrey was at a loss to understand why this was. As far as she knew, nothing had happened differently than before. But Remus and his friends knew the reason. Remus hadn't been alone this full moon. After it was late enough they knew everyone would be in bed, James, Sirius, and Peter put on James' invisibility cloak and snuck out to the Whomping Willow. They turned into their animals, and Peter, as a rat, pressed the knot that froze the tree. They didn't do much that night, just hung around in the Shrieking Shack, but it still made a difference. The morning after, there was no new damage in the Shrieking Shack.
"I'm exhausted," Sirius moaned, piling scrambled eggs onto his plate.
"You shouldn't have stayed out with me that late," Remus muttered, not eating, but sipping his goblet of pumpkin juice. Sirius ignored him.
"I'm used to being tired. The only bad thing about all this is we can't actually tell anybody." Sirius said.
"It's not fair. We accomplished something nobody else our age has, and we can't brag about it." James said, not bothering to keep his voice down.
"Well you could, but that would involve telling people about my condition and then the ministry would probably sue you for being unregistered, and that just wouldn't be good."
James and Sirius exchanged a look.
"Oh Moony…" James sighed.
"Moony?" Remus asked curiously.
"Oh, yeah. I was thinking about that last night. The wolf you doesn't look like you so I named the wolf you Moony."
"Well the stag you doesn't look like you James, so what shall we call you?" Remus asked him.
"Prongs."
"Well what about me?" Sirius asked.
"I didn't get that far. It took me long enough to think of Moony and Prongs."
The three of them sat in silence for a minute, thinking. Peter had fallen asleep on his plate.
"Padfoot." Remus finally said.
"I like it. It's very fitting," Sirius smiled.
"Fitting because dogs have pads on the bottom of their feet?"
"Well yeah. But don't you just think it suits me?"
"It really does." James said. "What about him?" He asked, nodding towards Peter.
They sat for a couple more minutes in silence, thinking hard.
"I have no idea what to call him," Remus said, breaking the silence. "But we should probably get to class. The bell is going to ring soon."
"We'll think about it in class." Sirius said, pulling his book bag over his shoulder. "Somebody wake Peter, I'm going to go see if I can walk Mary to class." He spotted Mary, with Lily, about to leave the Great Hall, and hurried to catch up.
"Mary," He said as he caught up to them.
"Hi Sirius," she smiled at him.
"I was wondering if I could walk you to class?"
"Yeah, of course," Mary smiled at him again, and then turned to give a very meaningful look at Lily.
"I'm going to go see Remus about our prefect shifts," said Lily, in a very unsubtle way.
She thought about just taking a different route to class, but in the end decided not to give up an opportunity to question Remus about his illness. She had taken over his prefect duties the night before because he had been ill. So she waited on the stairs.
"Evans! Hey!" James called as he approached with Remus and Peter. Lily ignored him.
"Remus, how are you feeling?" She asked, falling into step beside him.
"Much better, thanks. A little shaky, still, but I'd take that over how I was feeling last night any day." James laughed when he said this, but Remus shot him a dark look, and James silenced immediately.
"You're not looking so good yourself, Peter. Are you feeling alright?" Lily asked him. He was trudging along in silence, and hadn't said anything yet.
"I'm f-f-fine," Peter said, stifling a yawn.
"Well you look rather pale. Perhaps theres something going around." Lily said, although she knew it wasn't true. She had suspicions about why Remus was sick so often. Suspicions that Severus shared, although he didn't know they did. She spent so much time arguing the case against him because she knew confirmation of that information could be very bad in Severus' hands.
They arrived at the classroom then, and Lily was surprised to see Mary wasn't there yet, seeing as she had had such a head start. She understood though, when Mary walked in a minute after the bell, closely followed by Sirius, with her hair slightly mussed, her mascara a little smudged, and looking incredibly emabarassed.
She sat down, not making eye contact with Lily. However, Lily forced Mary to face her, and wiped the mascara out from under her eyes, and used her hand to smooth her hair.
"Thanks," Mary muttered.
"Anytime," Lily whispered back. "But when I say that, I don't mean I agree with this pre-school snogging thing."
"Lily!" Mary gasped. But Lily just smiled.
A week later, Mary came into class late again. But this time, instead of looking embarrassed, she looked rather pleased, and almost seemed to be glowing.
"He asked me to be his girlfriend," Mary whisper-shrieked as soon as she took her seat beside Lily. "Like officially!"
"I told you he would," said Lily, who had indeed been trying to convince Mary all week that Sirius wanted more than to just snog her.
"I think you should know," Mary said to Lily as they left class. "That Sirius still thinks I should try to convince you to give James a chance."
"No way in hell," said Lily. "You two seem to spend an awful lot of time talking about James and me."
"That's because you've rejected James more in the past weeks than in all of the time after Christmas last year." Which was true, because James had taken to asking Lily to go for walks, or study with him in the library, almost daily.
"Maybe he's only dating you because James wants me convinced to go out with him."
Mary stopped walking to glare at her friend. "Not funny Lily."
"Sorry, I guess that was a little unnecessary."
"Maybe you should just say yes to him." Said Mary, after a few minutes of walking in silence.
"You have got to be kidding me."
"We can double, next Hogsmeade weekend. You know he'll ask you. Maybe if you say yes once, he'll stop asking."
"No, I'll just be letting him think he has a chance, which he doesn't." Lily huffed, and sped up, Mary following close behind her.
James and Sirius waited until they were around the corner before pulling the invisibility cloak off.
"James," Sirius said, in a very serious tone. "I know your in love with her and everything, but this is the first and last time I stalk anyone around the school."
So I had intended for this chapter to be a little longer, but then the stalking idea just kind of opped into my head, and this seemed like a natural ending. By the way, sorry for the lateness on this chapter, I've had a bit of writes block yesterday. The only concrete ideas I have for this story won't take place until the end of their sixth year, so I might not be updating that often until I get there.
