Chapter Twenty-One

The words that were coming out of Mary's mouth felt surreal. The idea that her guess was accurate and that Remus actually was a werewolf, was absolutely terrifying and Mary was sincerely hoping that she got it completely wrong, but that hope flew right out of the window when she looked into Sirius's eyes.

Sirius hadn't even said anything, but he didn't need to: Mary already knew. She had been right… Remus was a werewolf. For years she'd been wondering and trying to figure what his big secret was but now that she had, she wasn't entirely sure if she was so happy about it. She desperately tried to get her head around the fact that Remus was a werewolf, but that was easier said than done. Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she said: "He is, isn't he? I can see it in your eyes, he's a werewolf."

Sirius stared at her for a moment. Then he closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes… Yes, he is."

Mary let go of his hands and stumbled backwards slowly until her left foot hit a wooden box of cleaning equipments. She flopped down on the edge of the box and stared at a tiny spider that was making a web between two brooms that had been put against the wall. Sirius, still standing near the back of the broom cupboard, said in an almost pleading voice: "You cannot tell anyone. It will ruin his life if you do."

He walked towards her and sat down on a bucket that was turned upside down, facing her. "Do you hear what I'm saying, Mary? It's crucial that you will keep this to yourself," he repeated in an urgent voice.

"I just… I cannot believe it. I don't understand why I didn't see it before, but now that I have… This is just awful."

Sirius's head jerked up in sudden anger. "That there is a werewolf inside the walls of Hogwarts?!" he snapped at her. "I know that many pure- and halfblood wizards are raised in a ridiculous fear of werewolves, but I honestly would have expected that a Muggle-born like yourself is less narrow minded!"

Mary looked at him in shock. "What?" she managed to splutter eventually. "No wait, you're getting this all wrong! What I meant is that I'm feeling sorry for Remus, that it's awful that such a sweet guy has to cope with this… this condition."

"Oh." Sirius rubbed his nose. "Sorry."

"That's ok."

He shook his head and smiled as he pulled a hand through his hair. "I - or we actually - sometimes just get very protective when it comes to Remus."

Mary smiled at him, pulled her legs up and rested her chin on her knees. "How long have you known?"

"Second year. When all the lies about visiting his sick parents, dog or grandmother couldn't deceive us any longer. One night James, Peter and I just confronted him with our suspicions – like you, we wondered what kind of disease only appears when it's full moon – and he confessed in the end."

"And you guys stuck by him?"

"Of course! Personally, I thought it was a coolest thing to have a werewolf as one of my closest friends. Hoped it might come in handy one day if Lucius or Bella were bugging me again."

Mary laughed. She remembered Sirius's encounters with his cousins in their first Hogwarts years all too well. They used to curse him whenever he passed them in the corridors.

"Of course, we wouldn't be us if we didn't try and do something about it."

Mary frowned. "Try to cure a werewolf? But that's not possible."

"No, but there are other ways to ah… ease Remus's transformations."

Mary looked puzzled. "But how-"

"Listen, since we are on the truth-path already, I'm going to tell you something but again, you have to keep it quiet or you'll risk me and the others getting expelled."

Mary looked at him for a moment, wondering if she would want to hear this, but her curiosity got the better of her in the end. "Alright," she nodded.

Sirius leaned in a little closer. "Werewolves are - of course - very dangerous to humans, but harmless to other animals."

Mary stared at him blankly. "So…?"

"So… James, Peter and I became Animagi."

Mary stared at Sirius with her mouth open, looking stunned. "You… did… what?"

"We learned how to transform into animals and have joined Remus in his hiding place ever since," Sirius clarified.

"That… That's..." she said, struggling for the right words.

"An amazing achievement?" Sirius said, smirking.

"I was going for illegal." When Mary saw the look of disappointment on his face she quickly added: "But amazing all the same. Becoming an Animagus… That's very advanced magic. When did you manage to transform?"

"Fifth year," Sirius said with a note of pride in his voice.

"Wow, that's incredible, but also bit hard to believe. I mean-" she spoke quickly when Sirius opened his mouth looking annoyed again "-Not you and James, but Peter isn't the most talented wizard. How did he pull it off?"

"With many hours of tutoring from me and James. But he did make it work in the end."

"That's fantastic. What kind of animal are you?'

"What do you think?" Sirius asked her teasingly.

Mary shot his body an examining look. "Well, you're strong and athletic, which should reflect on your Animagus form. You're also intelligent, so I'm thinking… A cheetah?"

Sirius laughed. "Close, but no. I'm a dog."

Mary burst out laughing as well and it was not an admiring one. "A dog?" she snorted.

Sirius narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm not a small dog like a teckel if that's what you think."

"Of course you're not," Mary grinned back. With an amused look on her face she said: "Show me."

"What, here?"

"Yes."

"I don't think so. We've been out here for a while and if someone opens that door and catches you with a large black scruffy dog, what are they going to think?"

Mary smiled. "I guess you're right. So you're a big black dog and Remus is a werewolf, or Moony as you guys call him." She suddenly gasped. "That's why you're Padfoot!"

Sirius smiled at her. "Clever girl. Care to guess what Prongs means?"

"Prongs… That's a stag! James is a stag? Wow, if only Lily knew…"

"Well, she can't. At least not until we're well out of Hogwarts or Remus decides to share his ah… furry little problem."

Mary giggled and Sirius chuckled before he asked her: "And what about Wormtail?"

"That would be some sort of rodent, right? Which suits him with his insatiable desire to eat. He likes cheese, too. Is he a mouse?"

"A rat to be more specific."

Mary started to laugh aloud. Sirius joined in sniggering until they heard the sudden sound of approaching footsteps and he clasped a hand over her mouth. Both of them looked at the door in shock before Sirius managed to pull Mary to the back of the cupboard where they hid against the wall behind a rack of pots and buckets. Mary dared to lean across Sirius and peek through the shelves and notced that their visitor wasn't a friendly one. It was Argus Filch and his "dear" Mrs. Norris, the cat all Hogwarts students loathed with a passion. Sirius pulled her back and blocked her against the wall pushing himself close to her body to make them as invisible as possible.

"Well well, I sense that there are some insolent students in here that cannot keep their filthy parties inside their Common Room. Well, they're in big trouble when I get my hands on them. Track them down, my sweets, and daddy will take care of the rest."

Mrs. Norris mewed loudly and was probably staring in the direction of Sirius and Mary with her eerie eyes. Filch was holding up his oil lamp and the light it produced put their corner in full view. Luckily Sirius and Mary were hidden behind the rack, so they remained out of view. For the moment, because all Filch needed to do was to poke his head around the rack and they would be busted.

Thankfully, so far neither Filch nor Mrs. Norris weren't doing that. As Filch moved his oil lamp in another direction and the light left their corner, Mary relaxed slightly. She felt Sirius's firm, yet soft body against hers and it made her legs a bit wobbly. Pretty inconvenient at the moment, because since his legs were intertwined with hers, he would definitely notice if her legs were trembling. She quickly decided that if he would tease her about it later she would say that her legs trembled so badly because of the fear of being discovered by Filch.

However, this thought did not reduce the wobbliness of her legs. On the contrary, it became worse when she caught the hint of a musky scent in Sirius's neck, which was right near her nose. She realized that she had smelled it weeks ago in Slughorn's dungeon when they were making the Amortentia. She had loved that smell… And now she knew it was because it belonged to Sirius.

To Mary, this discovery was kind of hysterical. That, and the fact that she was in a broom cupboard with a guy (which she resented on principle), that guy being Sirius Black (something she once swore would never happen) and that they were huddled in a close embrace, made her want to giggle madly.

When Mary heard that Filch was rummaging around in the other side of the cupboard, her mouth was crinkling into a smile and she desperately tried to keep herself from bursting out laughing. Now not only her legs were being wobbly, her shoulders were also shaking with silent laughter. Sirius - who was of course noticing this – looked positively alarmed for a moment before he clapped his hand over her mouth and tried to put an end to her surreptitious laughter.

Filch and Mrs. Norris finally decided that there was nothing to see and left the cupboard. For good measure, Sirius and Mary remained in their forced position for another minute in case the caretaker would come back. When he didn't return and they heard his footsteps dying away, Sirius finally let go of Mary who gave in at once and burst out laughing. Sirius watched Mary as she was bending over and wiped the tears that were streaming down her face away.

"Eh… What's so funny?"

"The… The ir-o-niiy of… it all," Mary managed to stammer in between her laughs.

"Was it… Was it something I did?"

"No," she said, calming down slightly and clamping her hands to her stomach. "Oooh, my belly muscles… Sorry, it's just… Never mind, you wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"I really rather not. Besides, in case Filch might have heard this and is now hurrying to his office to get one of his notorious torturing devices, we'd better head back."

Sirius - looking slightly disappointed - shrugged. "Fine. Just remember: not a word."

"My lips are sealed," Mary said, walking towards Sirius and, after she gave him a tiny kiss on his cheek and told him that she thought he was cute, she pulled him along by the hand to the Common Room. They had hardly crawled through the portrait hole when a flushed but happy Lily hurried over to them. "There you are! You've been gone for ages. Where have you been?"

"Eh," Mary said, glancing at Sirius. "We were ah… busy."

Lily, drawing the wrong conclusion, grinned. "That's great. Look Sirius, might if I borrow her for a sec?"

Sirius, who was just accioing three butterbeers with his wand, gave one of them to Lily and one to Mary, said: "No problem," and walked off to Peter, who – since the Bertie Botts Beans were all gone – was now feasting on the sugarquills.

Lily dragged Mary to a few empty seats near the fireplace, where Brice was hurled up on the couch, solving another one of her crossword puzzles. "What happened, Lil?" Mary asked, shooting her friend a curious look.

"I'm so happy and I still cannot believe it," Lily chattered at top speed. "I mean, it just happened in a normal way and I never considered that to be a possibility. It really caught me by surprise and of course I just had to-"

"-James asked her on a date to Hogsmeade and she said yes," Brice interrupted calmly, not even bothering to look up from her puzzle.

"Oh," Mary said, faking a surprised look. "That's wonderful, Lil. I'm happy for you."

Lily, who had calmed down a bit, smiled and sipped her butterbeer thoughtfully. "You wouldn't believe how mature James was about it. He just made some conversation with me at first and then asked me in a calm way. Of course, after I said I'd go with him, he couldn't resist jumping on top of the table and shouting 'I'm the king of the world!', whatever that means, but still… The way he handled it, you'd almost think someone talked to him. The whole thing had a female touch about it."

"Really?" Mary said nervously. "That's eh… hard to believe."

After Brice shot Mary a significant look, she said: "You were out with Sirius for quite some time. Did you have some fun in that broom cupboard?"

Mary remembered what she and Sirius had talked about. That Remus was a werewolf, and the others becoming animagi. She knew she couldn't mention any of this to her friends and what else did a boy and a girl do in a broom cupboard together? She realized how suspicious this all looked and started to blush. "We didn't make out, if that's what you mean."

Lily and Brice exchanged looks before they sniggered. "Suuuure," Lily said, crossing her arms. "What have you been doing then, sweeping the floor?"

Mary shook her head. "We just talked."

"Talked? About what?"

"Just stuff. About what we're going to do next Saturday," Mary added quickly when she saw the incredulous looks on her friends faces.

Brice shrugged. "Fine. If you don't want to tell us, then don't. But if you think that we're going to believe that Sirius at least didn't attempt to kiss you, you're mad."

"He didn't, although we did hug closely for about five minutes."

"How?" Lily and Brice said almost simultaneously.

Mary laughed and filled them in on the Filch debacle, although she left out the part of smelling the musky scent in Sirius's neck.

"You guys were so lucky," Lily said. "So you really didn't kiss?"

"No. Well, I gave him a kiss on the cheek before we came back, but that's it. Not that I was going to snog him tonight anyway, so…"

"Why not?"

Mary shrugged. "Because I can." She rolled her eyes at her friends confused faces. "Don't you see what I'm doing? Sirius is a womaniser. He likes to hunt. Who am I to take away that element so soon? So I won't be kissing him before Saturday, at any rate."

"And you're not afraid he's going to give up on you and move on with someone else?" Lily asked.

"No. Although I have to admit that with the way I feel about him now, I'm not sure how much longer I can it make it last," Mary grinned.

Brice laughed, crinkled her unfinished puzzle and cast it into the fire. She yawned. "I don't know about you girls, but I'm off to bed."

"Night," Mary and Lily said and when Brice stood up, Mary couldn't help but wonder what she would think about Remus's secret and asked: "Hey Brice, who are you going with next weekend?"

Brice shrugged. "I don't know about Remus. He either doesn't fancy me or is blind to every hint. I've been smiling and swaying my hips in front of him for about two weeks and still, nothing! I don't know what it is about that guy."

"I think he's just shy," Lily said soothingly.

"Or maybe he's just having a lot on his mind," Mary answered thoughtfully.

Brice lifted her eyebrows. "Such as?"

"Nothing," she replied quickly.

"Yes," Mary retorted as she also got up form her seat. "I know that it's time to say goodnight to the guys and then get our well-deserved beauty sleep."

Thankfully, Brice did not ask anymore questions, but Mary still thought this whole "don't tell anyone Remus is a werewolf"- secret could be a big problem. She was a complete disaster at hiding things from her friends and making up stories wasn't her biggest talent either.

But what Mary did know, was that none of the problems that she ever had to deal with compared to Remus's reality of being a werewolf. She realized that she was really admiring his strength and courage. She smiled as she made a mental note tell him that one day soon. But her smile quickly faded from her face when she realized that she could never tell him how she felt, because he didn't know she knew.

End of Update

A/N: Next up will be the date to the Hogsmeade… And we'll see what happens there. Ha, well I suppose you can guess what will happen. I Hope you liked this chapter. Next updates will be up here by Thursday night (GMT 1 time), so stay tuned! Mara