Author's Note: For anyone wondering, my mum came home on Friday and she's been doing well; she's recovering slowly, but she is recovering!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The Marauders sat with Lily, Colgate, and Inkwood on Remus's first night back; mostly because Remus wanted to sit with Lily, and Sirius didn't seem to mind too much sitting very close to Inkwood. Remus and Lily chatted, Lily telling him about her holidays and saying how worried she had been especially since his mother had been ill too.

"Where's P-Professor Prewett?" Remus asked halfway through the meal, realizing his usual spot at the High Table was empty.

"Oh, he wasn't around last night or today," Colgate said.

Remus looked at the empty seat. "I—oh, I hope he's all r-right…"

"I'm sure if something happened Dumbledore would've said something," said James, and Remus figured he was right.

After they were done eating, all seven of them got up to head out of the Great Hall. The others were talking about playing a few rounds of Wild Adventures when Professor McGonagall appeared by their side.

"I didn't do it!" James protested immediately.

"Didn't do what, Mr. Potter?" McGonagall inquired, raising her eyebrows.

James squinted. "Whatever it is you're going to accuse us of doing."

"I wasn't going to accuse you of doing anything, though Merlin knows you probably have done something," McGonagall replied, looking down her nose at them. "No, I need to speak to Mr. Lupin for a moment. Privately."

Remus followed her into the room where they had the first years wait before the Sorting, wondering what he had done! Was it because he didn't come home on the train? Was McGonagall going to talk to him about that? Was he in trouble? Or was it the detention he had received for accidentally cheating?

As it turned out, it did have something to do with that.

"I wanted to speak to you about the incident regarding your Potions exam," McGonagall said, sitting down and patting the bench next to her. Remus obediently sat. "We still have not come to an agreement. I feel strongly that you should be allowed to use the spell, however Horace thinks the best course of action is to have you undergo a test."

"Another exam?"

McGonagall shook her head. "Not quite. We're going to have you make the same potion twice in a row. One where you cannot smell the ingredients, one where you can. If there is an obvious enough difference between the two we'll be speaking further about it."

"I see… um, th—thank you, Professor."

"Tomorrow night after supper?" she asked.

"Yes," he agreed, feeling a little sad he'd miss the first Study Group back. "That's fine, thank you."

"I also wanted to talk to you about what I mentioned before the holidays," she said quickly as he began to stand up. Slowly he sank back down. "Are you having trouble in any other class?"

"No, Professor," he replied honestly. "Honestly. I'm fine. I am. It's only Potions."

McGonagall gave him a long look. "If you need help with anything—"

"I'll c-come to you," he said, half lying. He didn't want to be a burden! "Thank you. Um, have—have a g-good evening."

Of course the others wanted to know what it had been about, and he didn't want to say in front of the girls; he simply said it was to do with his detention. They accepted this and went up to the common room where James got out his Wild Adventures so they could play; they ended up doing so until probably a lot later than they should have. None of them went to bed until well after eleven pm, and the Marauders stayed up a little bit after that to celebrate a belated 'Marauders Day', as James put it; the twenty-second of April having been the anniversary of when they became the Marauders.

"Hopefully next year it won't be during the Easter holidays," James said after they clinked cups full of butterbeer together. "To the Marauders!"

"To the Marauders," the others chanted, all of them swigging down the butterbeer and giggling for ages over their friendship until they finally dispersed at about one-thirty in the morning.

/\/\/\/\/\

On Monday morning Professor Prewett was at breakfast, which filled Remus with relief. But something was, again, different. It was like the opposite of what happened after the Christmas holidays: looking at Professor Prewett didn't do much to Remus anymore. Hardly any wobbly knees or uncomfortable warmth. There was still some, just not as much as usual. My wrong feelings are going away! he thought, very happily.

His good mood only grew when he got his pre-Easter holiday exam grade back in Potions: he passed. Barely. Very barely, only one number above a fail. But it was still a passing grade.

"Next year is going to suck with more classes and having to get up earlier," moaned Sirius as they left the Potions classroom. "Nine am classes are awful enough, why must we get up at eight?"

"Get up at seven," James reminded him. "Breakfast."

"Earlier," Remus pointed out. "We have to get ready."

"Aw, flobberworms!" growled Sirius, kicking at the floor.

"Yeah, with the amount of time you give to getting your hair ready, you probably need to get up at five in the morning," teased Peter who promptly yelped, making a run for it as Sirius chased him down the hall, threatening the more delicate parts of his body with nasty hexes. By the time James and Remus caught up with them, Peter was ripping flowers off his tongue with purple-spotted hands.

/\/\/\/\/\

Remus spent lunch with Aegis since they hadn't had much of an opportunity to spend time with each other yet. His holidays had gone very well, since the only second year Slytherin who stayed behind besides him was Snape.

"He spent most of his time sulking in the library so we hardly saw one another anyway," Aegis explained when Remus gagged over having to see Snape. "It was quite nice not having his scowling face lurking around."

They talked some more then Aegis said something about hardly believing April was over. That's when Remus realized it was the thirtieth of April… and Walpurgis Night. Were his friends still planning on checking out the room? He hoped not. He knew nothing would happen, but he didn't want to be dragged out of bed to go see an empty room for no reason. He thought about bringing it up with them, except if they weren't planning on it, him dredging it up would make them change their mind.

Ugh, it'd serve them right if something DID happen, he thought bitterly which immediately sparked an idea inside of him. Dare he? If they didn't go, then it would be for nothing but—

"Excuse me," he said, jumping up. "I—I need to do something—" Then another idea hit him. "Do—do you want to help me prank the other Marauders?" he blurted out.

Aegis looked shocked. "Prank…? Oh. Wow, um, n—no thank you. I appreciate it but I think I'd feel too guilty if I pranked them, as amusing as it would be. That is not really something I could do. Thank you, though."

Remus nodded. "It's all right, I just thought I'd offer. I need to go. I'll see you later!"

He took off running to the Gryffindor tower, falling multiple times. It was still lunchtime and they wouldn't have class again till two. Plenty of time to set something up.

What, though? he wondered as he scrambled up to his dorm. The first thing he did was steal a LiftAway from James's stash. Then he began going through his own things. He had a severe lack of pranking devices, as he couldn't afford them. He'd have to rely fully on spells.

But what? He sat on the edge of his bed, trying to picture the strange room in his head, trying to picture what might be good to get his friends. Something scary, obviously. He thought about Sir Nicholas scaring them on Halloween of their first year. It'd be terrific to do something like that, though obviously he couldn't ask since none of them wanted anyone to know they were in the Pits Passages.

Would Theodore help? he wondered, rubbing his chin. He doubted it, as it would mean making vocal sounds. While screaming was different than talking, he didn't want to bother Theodore with that, or make him feel like he had to. No, he'd need to do this all on his own.

Slowly an idea formed and he began gathering a few things he might need, then left the dorm to head to the Pits Passage. As he used the LiftAway to cross the holes in the ground, he wondered if the dragon painting would let them past again. It might be a one time thing…

Thankfully when he reached it, it opened up after a small threat, and Remus was able to go in to prepare.

/\/\/\/\/\

With all the work he put in, Remus didn't want to risk them not going. If it worked, it'd be hilarious, so between History and Transfiguration he cautiously brought it up. He tried his best to sound both innocent and annoyed as he said, "We don't have any big plans tonight, do we?"

"Plans?" Sirius asked. "Uh, no, why?"

"Oh, no reason," Remus said quickly, hoping his acting was convincing enough. "I, er, have to do some potions stuff in the evening."

James narrowed his eyes. "Is that it?"

Remus tried to look as falsely innocent as he could. "Yes."

"You're never around Monday evenings anyway," Peter pointed out.

"Yeah," James agreed, stopping in his tracks. "Why are you suddenly asking about tonight?"

"I—I'm not,' he protested, hugging his books to his chest. "I'm not. I only meant…"

"Only meant what?" Sirius asked when Remus fell silent.

"Nothing, forget it," he said, forcing a laugh. "We better get to class—"

James grabbed him, spinning him around. "What are you hiding?"

"Hiding? I'm not hiding anything," he said, hoping he sounded right. "I—I was—it was—" He glanced at the three of them and bit his bottom lip, shifting his weight. "It's nothing."

Sirius scoffed. "It's something."

Remus thought he had dragged it along well enough so he gave a sigh, pushing his hair back. "If I say what it is then you'll—you'll want to do it."

"Do what?" Peter asked.

"The room," Remus grumbled. "The Knights thing. It's—it's Walpurgis Night."

James's eyes slowly got wider. "Shit! You're right! I almost forgot—oh!" He began laughing, and smacked Remus's shoulder. "Thanks, Remy!"

"No! I wasn't—"

"We're definitely going," James continued, ignoring him.

Remus tried to look irritated now. "Nothing is going to happen—"

"Probably not," agreed Sirius. "But it'll still be fun."

James went forward, talking about how much he was looking forward to sneaking to the room to be there at midnight, and how could he forget about it? He yammered on and on while the others followed, Remus in the back hiding a smile.

/\/\/\/\/\

After supper Remus headed down to the Potions classroom to wait for Professors McGonagall and Slughorn. It didn't take them long to show up, Slughorn unlocking the door and leading them in.

"I trust Professor McGonagall has informed you what we're doing tonight?" he asked, looking down his nose at Remus.

"Yes, P-Professor," Remus replied.

"I trust you will make both potions to the best of your ability."

"Horace," McGonagall said in a vaguely scandalized tone. "I do not think Mr. Lupin will cheat."

"No, no," Slughorn said, nodding. "I only wanted to make it clear that he needs to do his best for both the potions. And before we begin I do have a question." He looked at Remus. "I am curious to know why Potions class affects you in such a way, while Herbology does not? I'd imagine the scents to be overwhelming in that class too?"

Remus shifted from foot to foot. "Um." He supposed just saying 'it's different' wasn't good enough; he needed to figure out a way to explain. "It— it c-can be, sir. It is, sometimes. The thing is, usually the—the scents don't… fluctuate so much. They stay re—relatively c-constant. I c-can get used to them after—after a f-few minutes. In Potions the—the smells are always b-being… changed, being—being used. I d-don't have time to g-get used to one smell when another h-happens. I have a sm-smelly pl-plant in front of me and j-just when I might start being okay w-with it I have t-to cut it open which makes—makes it worse. Then I add it—it in with another scent, mixing th-them together." He tugged at his sleeve, feeling awkward. "Be—besides, the—the earthy scents d-don't bother me so much. Natural sc-scents in their—how they're s-supposed to be. That… that doesn't seem to bother me v-very much. In Potions they… it's not as n-natural? Once—once the potion starts being made that—that makes it w-worse for me."

"And fertilizer?"

"It—it can be bad, yes," Remus agreed, hoping that would suffice. Hoping he wasn't going to be accused of making stuff up. But… plants in their natural state (and fertilizer) were not at all overwhelming for him.

Slughorn studied him for several seconds then nodded. "Thank you. Now." He opened up his potions book to a page, tapping at it. "This one. You'll make it first without your sense of smell and then again with."

Slughorn put the book on one of the desks and began putting ingredients out while McGonagall tapped Remus's nose, using the spell. This time it blocked all the scents which was very bizarre. Remus went over, reading the instructions carefully. The potion only took half an hour from start to finish.

Remus began working on the potion, prepping the ingredients and adding them in. He knew perfectly well he wasn't doing a terrific job—nowhere near as good as James or Peter—but it definitely wasn't as bad as his usual mess. McGonagall and Slughorn sat by his desk, watching him as he worked. Finally the timer went off, and the potion was done.

Slughorn set it aside and McGonagall gave Remus his sense of smell back. He began working on the potion again. The ingredients weren't the smelliest, but they weren't exactly pleasant. He found himself rushing through the prepping to get them out of his face, and not measuring quite as well. He tried to do his best, tried to make sure he was doing everything properly… but when the timer went off it was fairly obvious they weren't on the same level.

Slughorn poured a ladle of each potion out into a cup and began examining them. Remus said in his seat, wiping sweat from his forehead and wondering if he had subconsciously done worse when he could smell the ingredients. Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe he didn't deserve this.

"Hmm," Slughorn said, setting the cups down. "Both of these potions I would give a middling to high A. The one he made without being able to smell the ingredients is a little better. That being said, they're close enough, overall, to say that removing his sense of smell doesn't give him a huge advantage. Either way, he is rather poor at making potions. I would rather him be able to smell things, as some ingredients and potions you need to judge by scent."

Remus's heart sank. All this for nothing!

"You do not agree to him being allowed to use the spell?" McGonagall asked stiffly.

Slughorn shook his head. "I don't know. I know it isn't much of an advantage… Besides, smelling ingredients is a key component—it's akin to a chef without a sense of taste. Being able to smell ingredients is very important. Hmmm, let me think about it. Yes. Give me time to think about it, and in the meantime don't use the spell."

Remus grit his teeth. "Yes, sir," he said, since there was nothing else to say. "Thank you."

"We have to be fair to all the students," Slughorn said in a lecture-y sort of tone.

And refusing to let me be on a similar level as them is being fair? he thought bitterly. But all he said was again, "Yes, sir." A thought bubbled up in the back of his head, and he wondered if Slughorn would allow him to use the spell if he joined the Slug Club. The mere thought of that made him feel ill.

McGonagall walked Remus out of the classroom and down the hall, not saying anything until they reached the stairs. "I will speak to him again," she said suddenly. "I know you're not comfortable with the scents, and I don't think you should be made to deal with them."

"N—no it's f-fine, Professor," he said. "If he—I'll be fine, if he decides against it." McGonagall gave him a level look and he managed to smile. "Really, I'll be fine. I—I've dealt with it for over a year and half, I can—can deal with it for more."

"Hmm," was all McGonagall said in response to that. "Whether you can or not doesn't change the fact you shouldn't have to. Either way, I did want to discuss with you your detention." Oops. He ducked his head, feeling a bit of heat creeping into his cheeks. "I want to be sure you would be all right with serving it the fifth through the eleventh."

"Um, it—it's not my choice, is it?" he asked, perplexed by this.

McGonagall looked around then pulled Remus into a nook. "I know you'll be… indisposed the week after," she explained very softly. "I want to be sure you will be all right. From what I have seen you are all right the week before, more or less, however since it will be several nights in a row I was unsure…"

Remus was hardly able to believe what he was hearing, that McGonagall was asking him if he'd be able to deal with the detention because of the moon! It felt… rather nice. "Yes, I should be fine," he said, wanting to hug her.

McGonagall nodded. "Very well. Also, you have not handed in your choice of electives yet, and I need to remind you they are due relatively soon."

"Oh!" He smacked his forehead. "Yes, um—yes. I—they're in my dorm. I'll give them to you tomorrow. Um—um—the—uhhh—"

"Yes?"

Remus took in a deep breath. "I was—well, um…" Suddenly he lost the courage to say he wanted all of the electives. She'd find out the next day anyway. "I'll give them to you tomorrow."

"All right, then. Have a good evening, Mr. Lupin."

Remus thought of the prank awaiting his friends behind the dragon painting. "I'm sure I will," he promised, trying not to laugh.

/\/\/\/\/\

Remus was hardly able to sit still as the evening progressed. He and Lily played Scrabble for a while, which resulted in a rather loud argument over the word 'hawyr'. He pointed out she never once said Welsh couldn't be used, and Lily huffed saying it needed to be a word they both knew.

"Now you know it!" he complained. "It means sky!"

"English words!" she argued.

"Oh?" He pointed at the board. "Ergo is technically Latin, you know."

"OH!" She stomped her foot. "YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"

Their fighting got the attention of the other Marauders. James was definitely intrigued, hurrying over to see what happened.

"Right," Remus said, folding his arms. "If one does not state the rule is English—and apparently Latin—only—"

"IT'S USED IN ENGLISH!"

Remus ignored her and continued, "—isn't it perfectly all right to use another language?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," James said.

Sirius squinted at the board. "It's a game where you put words down?"

"Yes, you've never heard of Scrabble?" Lily asked.

"Nope," Sirius said with a shrug. "Looks incredibly nerdy to me."

"It can be fun," Peter said slowly, "as long as you're playing with nice people and not mean cousins who make fun of you not being able to spell things right."

"It can be fun, if people aren't trying to bend the rules," Lily sniffled.

Remus narrowed his eyes. "I am not bending the rules. Tell me where it says I have to use—"

"I think it would be a given—"

"Is it fair to use Welsh?" Remus cut her off, glaring at his other friends.

"Yes," Sirius said with a grin.

Lily scowled. "Not fair, of course he's going to agree with you! Black would probably jump off a cliff for you—"

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Sirius demanded, voice squeaking.

"Please, it's obvious the four of you would do anything for one another," Lily sighed, waving her hand.

"Right," Sirius muttered, raking his fingers through his hair awkwardly.

"Wait," James said. "Are you using magic words too? Like… would you allow Muggle? 'Cause, I mean, isn't that technically a different version of English and not in your Muggle language?"

"It is a magical variation of English, yes," Remus said, eyeing Lily who threw her hands in the air. "If we're allowing that then—"

"Please, this is ridiculous, that's completely different!" she complained.

Peter studied the Scrabble board. "I think it's okay to use a different language as long as he shows the word is an actual word."

Lily brightened at that. "All right, yes, if you can prove it's a word, I'll allow it."

"It's not like I'm carrying around a Welsh-to-English dictionary!" Remus growled. "Fine, I won't use Welsh but I am going to get a dictionary someday and then you'll be sorry! Thanks a lot, Peter."

Peter gave a 'what?' motion but he and the others sat down to watch Lily and Remus finish the game, Lily allowing 'hawyr' for the time being. They played another game, then played one with James and Sirius which was… interesting to say the least and ended in the two of them chucking Scrabble pieces at one another until Lily screamed at them to stop. Remus offered to drop out so Peter could play but Peter was content just watching.

"Spelling isn't exactly something I'm good at," Peter pointed out.

After a couple more rounds, Lily headed to her dorms while the Marauders stayed up a bit later, retreating to their dorm at around ten-thirty. They didn't stay there very long. At around eleven they all left under James's cloak, along with his broom which made it a little extra crowded. They shuffled along to the fourth floor where they clamored into the Pits Passage, James flying them across the pits one at a time. They didn't go behind the dragon painting right away; instead they ate snacks and played cards until around fifteen till midnight.

"Nothing's going to happen," Remus said when they went into the room. He was a little nervous as he lit the candles, eyes darting around to make sure everything looked the same as before. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, thank Merlin.

"Maybe they did the sacrificial magic to do something to the room," suggested James in an eerie voice, or trying to sound eerie; the squeaking made it sound funnier than anything else.

"Least we're not doing blood magic tonight," Peter said, looking at the palm of his hand. "Again," he added. James stuck his tongue out and Peter did the same.

Sirius stood in front of the blackboard, at Knights of Walpurgis. "How long d'you really think they've been gone? You said the most recent could have been the late thirties but—"

"But could have been as recent as last year," Remus finished for him. "I do not think it's as recent as that, due to the state of the room."

Sirius looked like he wanted to say something as he eyed the 'Walpurgis' part of the message on the board, but he kept his mouth shut.

"Have you looked it up?" James asked.

"What, the knights thing?" Remus asked back and James nodded. "No… er, I've been—been busy. Besides, I highly doubt it's anything beyond a group of students. If we leave something that says 'Marauders' written somewhere in the school, in twenty years if someone finds it and tries to look it up they won't find us—"

Sirius laughed at that. "Nah, we're all going to be in the history books!" He flung an arm around James and his other around Peter, yanking them close. "Everyone's gonna know who we are!"

"Only because you are going to do something so fantastically stupid and reckless you'll probably end up in Azkaban or something," Remus replied, and Sirius looked very flattered. "In any case, I highly doubt even if you do do something so noteworthy you end up in the history books that it will be connected with the name Marauders."

The other three discussed what they might do to become famous (Peter saying he'd never be famous for anything, James and Sirius insisting he would become a famous photographer) while Remus sat nervously, constantly glancing at James's watch until it finally grew very close to midnight. He was a little worried he had messed up the spell delay; he wouldn't know until midnight came whether the spells went off earlier in the night.

At one minute till midnight the others went quiet and sat down, eager to see what would happen, joking that of course nothing would. It was all just a bit of fun.

Remus bit his lip, trying not to smile, quietly praying everything would go right.

"Here we go," James said at ten seconds, and then counted down. Remus crossed his fingers under his robe and—

At exactly midnight all the candles went out, and Remus couldn't believe it worked. The others screamed which made him regret not bringing his earplugs, and he heard them shuffling around, going for their wands. Very quickly he shot a spell at above the blackboard, then another at the ceiling which tipped the bucket over. There were more screams as something warm and wet splashed down, and then more screams when James managed to get his wand lit and all three of them were covered in what appeared to be blood.

They were terrified, knocking into each other as they tried to… well, whatever they were trying to do Remus wasn't sure. They were panicking; Peter was screaming nonstop while James and Sirius were shrieking about needing to get out of there and repeated 'Merlins'. Remus lit his wand to guide him to the candles and began relighting them. Once the room started brightening, they saw the white sheet over the blackboard. In red was written,

ALL MUST DIE

Somehow they managed to scream even louder.

Remus pulled out James's camera he had nicked, and took a picture.

"REMUS!" James screamed. "NOW IS NOT THE TIME—WE HAVE TO GO—THIS ISN'T—WHAT THE HELL—WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT—"

Peter was still too busy freaking out to notice. "WE'RE GOING TO DIE WE'RE GOING TO DIE WE'RE GOING TO DIE!"

Sirius was the only one who quieted and was now staring at Remus. "You don't have blood on you," he said flatly.

"No," Remus agreed, lowering the camera.

James and Peter quieted as realization dawned on them, and then all three of them were yelling at Remus who ducked behind the table, laughing so hard it hurt. They began chasing him, slipping in the 'blood' and winding up on the floor.

"What is this?!" Sirius demanded, lobbing some of the gunk at Remus.

"Mud," he giggled. "I enchanted it to be red. It's very thin mud, kept warm with a spell to make it feel like blood—yaaah!" He dropped to the ground as Sirius threw more of it.

"You WANKER!" James shouted, while Remus began laughing again, rolling on the floor.

"How could you do that?!" Peter wailed, sitting upright. "I was so scared!"

"I'm sorry!" he snickered.

"No you're bloody well not!" James snapped.

Remus thought for a second then shook his head. "No, you're right, I'm not!" And he started laughing once more.

They began protesting, going for him again. Sirius grabbed hold of him to dump a large handful of mud down the back of his jumper. Remus managed to wriggle free before anything worse happened. Then James wanted to know how he set everything up, wanting to know if he had borrowed the broom.

"LiftAways," Remus said, wiping the tears from his face. "I inflated it just enough so it pulled slightly at me, and used it to jump across the pits."

"That's absolutely ingenious," James admitted, impressed. Remus gave a little bow. "How often have you come here?"

"Here, specifically? Only today to set this up," Remus said, trying now to get the glob of mud out from his clothes. "In the passage in general? A couple of times." He managed to get most of the mud out though knew he'd need a good shower. "I used it to explore the one tunnel again, where we found the book."

"By yourself?" Sirius frowned. "That's dangerous!"

Remus considered confessing to bringing Aegis with him, then changed his mind. "You two do dangerous things all the time," he pointed out. "Why is it suddenly bad when I do it?"

"'Cause you're supposed to be the smart one," said Peter. "Not the… prank-me-till-I-practically-have-a-heart-attack one."

Remus gave him a sheepish grin. "It wasn't that bad."

"It was terrifying!" Peter moaned. "You know I hate this place! It's creepy and there's something really wrong with it!"

"All right, I am sorry for pranking you," Remus gave in.

"Not us?" James asked huffily.

"Of course not," Remus answered as he helped Peter to his feet, trying to get some of the mud off of him. "Next time you can help me get them."

Peter sniffled. "All right. Um… you did do the candles too, right?"

Remus nodded. "Yes, that was me. I used the time delay spell. I'm a little surprised it worked so well. I wasn't sure. What?" he asked as the other two gave him looks again.

"Nothing," Sirius said. "I'm—well, it's a bit scary how well you can do such advanced magic sometimes. Good scary, I mean. It's very cool."

"Beyond cool," agreed James. "I'm glad you're usually on our side."

Remus grinned again. "Speaking of sides… and mud… we do need to get those Slytherins soon. I was going to mention it earlier today however I didn't want anything to ruin these plans!"

That brightened James and Sirius's moods for sure. "Hah!" James said, punching the air. "Yes! We absolutely need to get that done this week."

After they managed to get as much mud off of them as possible, Remus fetched the cleaning supplies he left hidden in order to clean the mud up. He took the sheet down, blew out all the candles, then followed his friends out, still giggling at how well the prank had gone.