Author's Notes: Thanks for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Four: Just A Kiss

Remus opened his heavy eyes and looked around. The first thing he saw was the ceiling- wait, three ceilings. Three very blurry ceilings. He tried to sit up but fell back down as he realized he had a throbbing headache. He also noticed something else: it was pitch black. Remus reached over to press the button on his watch that was supposed to make it light up: two A.M. Groaning, he'd tried sitting up again, and his head felt a little lighter. Rubbing his forehead with his fingers, he stood up. He felt around for his wand and ended up falling flat on the floor, and landed with a oomph and a wince. He rolled over and thanked the night that no one had woke up. Five minutes later, Remus felt the tip of a wand beside a night stand(accidentally throwing his fist into the wood in process), though he couldn't tell whose it was. He decided to rest a moment and leaned his head back against the cold wood. Peter's snores filled the air.

What had happened last night? As he tried to recall the events, all Remus could remember was that James had tried to get him to do something he thought was crazy, but had ended up talking it into him anyway. Recalling waking up fully closed in his school robes, he figured they had gone on another one of Sirius and James' adventures and hit his head on something. Sighing, he picked up the wand and tried to light it. It must've been his because it worked.

Remus shone the light around, and found all of the four other Gryffindors asleep.

Odd, he thought, there's nothing wrong with any of them.

Confused, Remus walked out of the dormitory. As he made his way down the steps he stumbled and fell against the railing, and once again, he thanked the night, but this time, it was for not falling through the railing. Remus' head spun as he stood up, and he began to find it very peculiar that none of the others seemed at all out of the ordinary, and he felt like- like-

I was drunk, Remus thought suddenly, they must've gotten me to drink something last night to get something out of me... Putting a hand up against the wall for balance, he realized what it was.. the animagus thing.. Oh God, what did I tell them? A familiar voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Remus, are you all right?" Aria asked slowly.

"Ye-yeah," Remus stuttered as he staggered down the last step and nearly fell into Aria's arms.

Her laugh made his head throb even more. Not wanting to look suspicious, Remus ignored it.

"What?" He groaned.

"What did you do, drink too much pumpkin juice?" She teased.

She led him over to a nearby chair and sat him down. He let out a sigh as he sank into the cushiony fabric, and she sat down next to him on the arm.

"Somethin' like thing, Remus muttered, running his head through his hair.

Aria looked at him, concerned.

"You sound like Sirius," she said.

"Been round 'em to much, I guess," he said, yawning.

Aria took another good look at him, studied his ruffled hair shadowed eyes, and pale skin, and taking in the unusual Sirius accent.

"Are you drunk?" She asked in disbelief, leaping off the arm of the chair.

"Maybe a little," Remus admitted.

Aria looked like a furious mother, and not to mention ready to hex him into oblivion. Instead, she held back her anger and smacked him on his head instead, sure that she would kill a few brain cells and give him a migraine.

"Hey!" He cried, grabbing his head.

You idiot! She exclaimed.

"It was only Fire whiskey," he mumbled.

She began to shake him hard.

"Hey!" Remus cried again.

"That's to assure me that you won't be such a git again!" Aria said. "How much of 'only Fire whiskey' did you drink, because I've seen people drink five bottles and not be affected this bad."

"Maybe Sirius and James were tryin' to curse me or somethin'," he said, rubbing his head.

"What?"

"They were tryin' to get somethin' outta me," Remus said, "but I don' remember what. He felt bad about lying, but he knew Aria would go crazy if she knew about the Animagus project."

"You're father?" Aria offered.

"s'pose so," Remus yawned.

There was another one of their famous awkward silences, and Remus made up his mind that he hated sitting here quiet in the dark. He leaned forward and kissed his girlfriend, who kissed back. Nice and sweet.

He grinned, and Aria smacked him on the back of the head.

"Ow!" Remus exclaimed, running his hand furiously through his hair. "What was that for?"

Aria jumped up, and turned to leave.

"That," she said, "was for kissing me while you were drunk."

Remus managed to stumble back up the stair and into the dormitory, and collapsed on the side of his bed, engulfed into darkness.

"You didn't curse that stuff did you?" A distant voice asked.

"No!" Another voice said a little closer.

Remus winced at the loud voices.

"As long as we didn't kill him-" said a trembling voice.

Remus groaned, cueing for the talking to seize. He felt like he was about to be sick. Remus lifted his heavy eyelids off of his eyes, taking at least five seconds, and opened them to find only two ceilings this time, but soon six people came to view.

"See Peter," Sirius said happily, "we didn't kill him!"

"Though he's been out cold all night," James' said, "how much did you give him?"

"Erm...three maybe? Still shouldn't have any side effects or anything."

"Maybe it's the-"

"Lycapathy?" Remus mumbled as he tried sitting up, but ended up falling back down just like the night before.

"Welcome to the world of hangovers, Remus," Sirius said cheerfully.

But Remus could barely understand the last comment.

"What ime is it?" Remus murmured.

"Eleven A.M. Saturday morning," James answered, "we woke up about eight and found you laying halfway off the bed with your hair flying everywhere."

Remus' eyes slowly moved around and small circles. His right arm was touching the floor, his face was pressed against the mattress and his legs were pushed into his pillows. It took James and Sirius both to lift him up and help him sit back against the bed post. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes, his vision wasn't any clearer, his head pounded, and he felt dizzy.

"Remus," James sang, "you okay in there?"

A hand waved in front of Remus' face, as if someone were trying to see if he was really awake. Annoyed, Remus reached out and grabbed it, not noticing how hard he had grabbed the hand. James cried out in pain, then shut it, obviously embarrassed. It appeared that Remus had an even tougher grip drunk.

Or whatever one would call it, Remus tried to think,but ended up with a worse headache, speaking that I'm the only one weak enough to end up this way.

"Drink this," Sirius said, conjuring up a mug.

He had to hold Remus' hand steady on the mug to keep him from dropping it. As the hot liquid hit his mouth, it burned his tongue, and Remus let go of the mug immediately, which was why it was lucky that Sirius' grip was on it too.

"Coffee?" Remus exclaimed, his voice cracking.

"Hear it's s'posed ta help," Sirius said, slurred, shrugging. He handed it back to Remus. "Drink it or we'll drag you down to Madame Pomfrey and tell her you snuck into Hogsmede and bought the whole of Hogshead itself."

Remus took the mug quickly, letting the fiery hot liquid run down his throat. As he took the last sip, he dropped the mug, which landed gracefully on the carpet. He looked back up to find his vision better, at least he wasn't seeing two and threes of everything, though Remus' head still throbbed. As he spoke, Remus was surprised to find that his normal voice was almost back.

"What did you want?" Remus asked somewhat slowly.

"To make sure we didn't kill you," James said, "but if you wanted us to turn back time, I'm sure we can-"

"No," Remus interrupted, more weakly this time, "last night. What'd you get me to do?"

James and Sirius, even Peter were smiling their mischivieous grins, and Sirius pulled a piece of parchment out of his robe pocket.

"Do wouldn't really be the word," Sirius said, handing Remus the parchment, "sign would be more like it."

"Sign?" Remus asked softly, more to himself. He read the parchment, and then looked up in disbelief at the other three. There's nothing on here but my name.

James took his wand out and swiped it across the page. More words appeared.

"What's this?" Remus asked. "Terms of agreement?"

"That's exactly what this is," James said, "I don't know if you remember or not, but we had a little chat last night. About power. Remember that?"

"You're not my father," Remus said dryly standing up and ignoring his spinning head, "so don't talk to me like you are."

James looked at him oddly.

"Wasn't planning on it," James said, "but we were talking about power, and the power of our...er..group here."

"What are you getting at?" Remus asked, confused.

James was talking like he was running a gang or cult.

"You see, we know about you being a werewolf and all," James said, "and we don't care. In fact, we even tried to help you, remember?" Remus didn't nod, he just continued to glaring. "And it worked, recall that? Yet the rules went against it' and you start changing your mind on everything. You can't do that, it's just not fair."

"And you would be saying-?"

"Loosen up a bit," Sirius cut in, "you said yourself you have no where to go after Hogwarts, so why worry about all of that?" He receive three glares. "Okay, bad wording. You just have to trust us with this, we know what we're doing. Just- go with it."

"You're not my uncle either," Remus said.

James shrugged.

"No, but I do have your word."

With that he handed Remus the parchment. Remus squinted as he read what appeared to be an outline of a plan- ideas, notes, plots, and all of their names were signed at the bottom. Including his.

"I have to say, you were very excited about the sneaking into the ice cream parlor at midnight idea," James said. Remus glared at him. "Come on Remus. We're capable of so much. We've got to put it to use. What do you say?"

Remus signed as he re-read the parchment. Looking at it with a clear head, the ideas didn't really seem all that bad.

"Fine. I'm going to eat breakfast."

"It'll be almost noon by now," Peter pointed out.

"Then I'm going back to sleep."