30 October 1973

"We've come up with a nickname for you."

Remus looked up from his library table, raising his eyebrows. James and Sirius had just dropped into the two empty chairs opposite him, grinning identically.

"Nickname?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yep," James declared, his grin broadening. "Moony."

Remus stared at James. "Moony?"

"Yeah," James said excitedly. "You know, because of your—" he leaned across the library table and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, eyes twinkling, "—furry little problem."

"Ah. Subtle," Remus snorted, pulling forward his Arithmancy spellbook and picking up his quill. "It's never going to catch on, James."

"'Course it is," Sirius said indignantly. "It's brilliant. We're going to come up with nicknames for ourselves and Peter, too—we're just waiting until we've got Animagus forms."

Remus stiffened, tightening his grip on his quill slightly and avoiding his friends' eyes as he copied down a few sentences from his spellbook.

"Where is Peter, anyway?" he asked finally, trying to change the subject.

"He's gone upstairs to get the Invisibility Cloak from my trunk," James explained in a wicked tone. "We're waiting for Hagrid to come up to the castle for dinner so we can sneak into his pumpkin patch."

Remus looked up, expression wary. "And why are we sneaking into his pumpkin patch?"

Sirius smirked. "We're using Permanent Sticking Charms to stick all the pumpkins to the ground. I've had loads of practice—it's how I hung up all of my Gryffindor banners at home."

Remus frowned at his friends. "You know, Hagrid works really hard on the school pumpkins all year."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "It's just a Halloween joke—we've done one every year."

"I don't like it," Remus shook his head.

"Well, unless you can come up with something better in the next two hours, it's the only idea we've got," Sirius retorted.

Remus opened his mouth to argue, but James quickly intervened, shooting Sirius a quelling look. "Speaking of coming up with things," James said casually, leaning forward, "have you had any luck with translating the manuscript yet?"

At once, Sirius sat bolt upright and stared at Remus, his posture tense.

Remus's stomach twisted into a knot.

Over the nine weeks that had elapsed since Remus's friends had first confided in him their positively ludicrous plan to become Animagi, James and Sirius had spent nearly every single night pilfering the Transfiguration shelves of the library's restricted section under James's Invisibility Cloak. For eight weeks, they had been unsuccessful. The closest they had come to an Animagus instruction manual had been a personal essay written by a nineteenth century Animagus by the name of Adrian Tutley, describing his own experiences with the transformation process—but the essay had turned out to be vague, lacking in explicit information, and overall useless.

Then, last week, James and Sirius had tumbled into the dormitory late one night with two broad grins and a stack of withering, old papers—a seemingly ancient manuscript that described the Animagus transformation procedure in thorough detail—step by step—complete with illuminating diagrams. The only problem with it was that it was written in runes.

Remus was now seriously regretting his decision to take Ancient Runes.

The task of translating the manuscript had fallen immediately on his shoulders, as he was the only one among his friends enrolled in the elective subject. All of a sudden, Remus could no longer turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to his friends' absurd plans. He had to make a decision—either he could be an active participant, pretending to approve of the whole preposterous idea—or he could refuse to play a role in it altogether.

Clearing his throat, Remus averted his gaze from his friends' again and leaned over his Arithmancy spellbook in an attempt to hide his face. "Manuscript?" he asked, deciding to feign confusion.

"Don't play stupid," Sirius snapped. "It's been a week since we found it. Have you even looked at it?"

"Of course I've looked at it," Remus said defensively, without looking up.

"Well, then, what does it say?" James pressed.

"I…I haven't had time to look at it closely," Remus protested. "Professor Abscissa's been giving us loads of Arithmancy homework this month—and I had a Gobstones meeting yesterday—"

"We've got homework, too," Sirius interjected.

"Yeah, and Moran's been waking me up at six for Quidditch practice twice a week," James added indignantly. "But I still made time to find the manuscript."

At last, Remus looked up and met James's gaze, his face slightly hard. "I've just been busy," he said stiffly. "I haven't had a chance to translate it yet, all right?"

James stared back at him for a long moment, his expression inscrutable.

Then, finally— "You're still not on board with this, are you?" James asked in a low voice.

Remus didn't answer, instead turning away and pretending to examine his spellbook again. There was another tense pause.

"Mate," James said quietly, "we've told you a million times—you're putting your life in danger—"

"No, I'm not," Remus interrupted in a fierce whisper, glancing up. "All these statistics about—about mortality rates and such…they're outdated. They're centuries old—"

"Do you really want to take that risk?" Sirius demanded.

"I'd rather risk my life than all of yours," Remus said hotly. "I don't think any of you understand how difficult this transformation is—"

"It's no harder than having to sit back and let you hurt yourself once a month," James retorted, glaring across the library table at Remus. "Maybe you don't realize how awful you look every month after your furry little problem, but—"

"Furry little problem? Is that what you kids are calling your pets these days?"

Remus jumped in his chair, looking around. The Hogwarts Head Boy—Gryffindor seventh year Frank Longbottom—was grinning over at their table from a nearby bookshelf.

"We're not kids," James informed Frank in a scandalized tone. "We're thirteen."

"And I'll be fourteen in four days," Sirius added haughtily.

Frank snorted, crossing his broad arms over his chest and strolling over to their library table to tower over James and Sirius. "As far as I'm concerned, you're all annoying titchy midgets," he said airily. "Well, except for Lupin," Frank added, winking at Remus. "He's all right, as midgets go."

Remus gave Frank a bashful smile, which Frank returned with a reassuring grin.

"You let me know if you have any more furry little problems, mate," Frank told him, smiling. "Alice is really good with animals."

"Ooh, Alice," James drawled, smirking up at Frank. "How's your girlfriend? Are you taking her out on a date soon?"

Remus couldn't decide whether he ought to be feeling aghast or impressed that James was attempting to take the mickey out of the Head Boy—who, apart from being older and far more influential than James, was also easily a foot taller and a foot wider. But Frank, for his part, didn't seem to be even the least bit fazed by James's tone—rather, he smiled.

"As a matter of fact, I'm taking her to her favorite teashop in Hogsmeade this weekend," Frank said lightly. "How about you, Potter? Any girls you've got your eye on?"

James's expression melted into one of disgust. "Eurgh," he said in a revolted tone, shaking his head fervently. "No, thank you." But then, suddenly, his face brightened. "Hey—we've got our first Hogsmeade trip this weekend! I forgot!"

"It's on my birthday," Sirius crowed triumphantly. "I can't wait to finally see what Honeydukes is like."

"Haven't you been there before?" Frank asked, raising his eyebrows. "You're pure-blood, aren't you?"

"My parents don't like going out to mingle unless they've got to," Sirius said contemptuously. "They never let me and my brother go to Hogsmeade when we were little."

"They're nutters," James added helpfully—and both Sirius and Frank snorted with laughter. Remus grinned, shaking his head.

"Well, Honeydukes is a great place to start," Frank said, smiling at Sirius. "And I bet you'll enjoy Zonko's, too. Just make sure you stay away from the Shrieking Shack," he added mysteriously.

"The Shrieking Shack?" James asked curiously. "What's that?"

"It's an abandoned house on the far end of the High Street," Frank explained. "According to the villagers, it's the most haunted building in all of Britain—but no one's ever dared to go inside and see for themselves. Well, not that they'd be able to. It hasn't got any doors."

Remus's heart was pounding against his ribcage. Abandoned house…haunted…no doors…no, surely not…

"Why do the villagers say it's haunted?" Sirius wanted to know.

"They say they hear screams coming from it sometimes, late at night," Frank said, frowning. "Personally, I think it's all just a load of rubbish, but Alice is pretty convinced. She heard a rumor from one of her friends that Dumbledore actually bought the house a few years ago to house some violent spirits from Hogwarts—though I have no idea what kinds of spirits would be making the kinds of noises the villagers describe." Frank shook his head. "Madam Rosmerta—the barmaid at the Three Broomsticks—told us that it sounds like someone being tortured for hours on end."

Both James and Sirius had stopped looking curious. Sirius turned and shot Remus a furtive, searching glance—but Remus stared straight down at the table, his skin prickling.

"Well, I've got to get back to my Transfiguration essay," Frank sighed, yawning and stretching his arms. "I'll talk to you lot later. Keep that furry little problem under control, Lupin," Frank added, grinning. Then, with a wave, he turned and vanished down a nearby aisle of the library.

Remus turned around to watch him walk away, just so that he wouldn't have to face his friends right away. Frank's words were still ringing painfully in his ears: "…it sounds like someone being tortured for hours on end." Finally, after several excruciatingly long minutes, Remus swallowed, looking up at James and Sirius. They were both considering him closely.

There was a lingering pause.

Then— "Give me an hour," Remus whispered hoarsely.

James blinked. Sirius frowned.

"What—?" James began uncertainly.

"Give me an hour," Remus cut him off. "I'll have the first step of the transformation translated in an hour."

Both James's and Sirius's jaws dropped.

"Really?" James gasped, his eyes lighting up like lamps.

"Against my better judgment, yes," Remus sighed, rubbing his eyes.

James and Sirius cried out in delight, slapping each other a loud high-five. Remus shushed them fiercely.

"Do you want Pince to come after us?" he hissed. "Keep it down." Shaking his head, Remus put down his quill and leaned backwards in his chair, crossing his arms. "I've got one condition for helping though."

James's expression became wary. "What is it?"

Remus smirked. "You leave Hagrid's pumpkins alone."

Sirius groaned.


Remus arrived at the Great Hall for dinner that evening with a final translation of the first page of the manuscript. It had taken him the better part of the hour. Some of the runes had been completely unfamiliar to him—and he hadn't been able to find them in Spellman's Syllabary either. A combination of intuition and sheer luck had gotten him to the point of feeling confident enough in his translation to hand it over to his friends.

Despite his initial reluctance to assist his friends with their scheme, Remus had ultimately taken his role as runes translator very seriously. It hadn't taken him long to recognize that his friends' safety now rested in his hands—all it would take was one mistranslation, and the entire transformation process would be skewed. And since his friends couldn't seem to be convinced not to go through with it, Remus decided that he might as well help them to the best of his abilities.

Swinging himself into the empty seat next to Peter on the bench, Remus leaned across the Gryffindor table and set the translation down in front of James and Sirius. With a small gasp, Sirius immediately reached out and snatched it up—and for several moments, there was silence among the group of four, as both Sirius's and James's eyes moved rapidly across the parchment.

Finally, Sirius glanced up from the parchment. "Mandrake leaves?" he asked incredulously.

"That's what it says," Remus nodded.

"We have to keep one in our mouths for a whole month?" James gaped down at the translation over Sirius's shoulder.

"Seems like it," Remus shrugged, rather enjoying himself.

"But what if we swallow it?" Peter asked anxiously. "Or what if it starts to rot?"

"Peter, you don't have to go through with this if you don't want to," Remus told him gently.

"Nice try, Remus," James interjected vehemently. "So, we have to keep a leaf in our mouth for a month. That's nothing!"

"Yeah," Sirius chimed in enthusiastically. "I'll even teach you both how to use a Sticking Charm to hold it in place!"

Peter looked somewhat reassured.

"Yes, well, that's the least of our problems," Remus said in a low voice, shaking his head. "We haven't got any Mandrake leaves, have we? Professor Sprout's Mandrakes are still seedlings."

James groaned and Sirius's face fell, but Peter piped up, "What about Professor Slughorn? D'you think he might have any in his supply closet?"

"Don't they have to be fresh leaves?" Sirius asked Remus doubtfully.

Remus shrugged. "It doesn't specify."

"Isn't there any way we can find out for sure?" James asked.

"Not unless you want people to figure out what you're doing," Remus said darkly. "You were lucky to find this manuscript in the library at all—Professor Dumbledore probably doesn't know it exists."

James sighed, taking the translation from Sirius and staring at it. "Well, I suppose there's no harm in checking Slughorn's stores. I mean, worst case, we'll have to forget about the Mandrake leaves for now—but we might find something even cooler in there!"

Remus snorted.

After dinner, Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter slunk down to the dungeons and assembled outside the Potions classroom. All four boys could no longer completely fit under James's Invisibility Cloak at the same time, and although Remus had been perfectly content with the idea of waiting upstairs in the common room while the other three raided the Potions stores, James and Sirius had insisted that he accompany them as a lookout—which ended up being a very good thing. Because the first thing Remus saw when his friends—hidden under the Cloak—pushed open the door to the classroom was Professor Slughorn himself, munching on a plate of steak and kidney pie at his desk while grading papers.

Without conscious thought, Remus stepped into the room after his invisible friends, thinking fast.

"Hello, Professor," Remus greeted him politely, striding up to Professor Slughorn's desk. "I'm very sorry to intrude, sir, but I was wondering whether you might have had a chance to look over our most recent papers." Out of the corner of his eye, Remus saw the door of the Potions supply closet open and close silently.

"Ah, yes—I finished grading them just an hour ago, Mr. Lupin," Professor Slughorn said, letting out a slightly uneasy chuckle and twisting his enormous, walrus-like mustache around his finger. "In fact, I was planning on handing them back after class tomorrow."

Although Professor Slughorn had never treated Remus with anything other than the utmost respect and understanding, it had always been clear to Remus that of all of the heads of house, the Potions master was the most uncomfortable with his lycanthropy. His tone always became slightly jittery and his smile rather forced whenever Remus approached him. Remus tried not to take it too personally.

"I was hoping that I might be able to know my score earlier, Professor," Remus said, in the most earnest tone he could muster. "I really want to do well on our test tomorrow, sir, and hearing your comments on my essay would be very helpful."

"I—ah—well…I don't see why not," Professor Slughorn said nervously, shuffling through a stack of papers on his desk. "Let me see…Mulciber…Moon…Macdonald—ah, Lupin."

Remus spent the next several minutes half-listening to Professor Slughorn explain the weaker points of his thesis while surreptitiously shooting apprehensive glances in the direction of the Potions storeroom. At last, when Remus caught sight of the closet door opening and closing, he released a silent breath of relief.

"Thank you so much for your help, Professor," Remus said firmly, cutting Professor Slughorn off mid-sentence in his assessment of Remus's concluding paragraph. "This was really helpful. I feel much more prepared now."

"Yes—yes, very good," Professor Slughorn said, and the relief in his expression was palpable. Remus felt a small twinge of hurt, but he quickly pushed it away. "Good luck, Mr. Lupin. Take care, now."

Remus gave Professor Slughorn a friendly wave before turning and heading for the door. Once he was safely back in the dungeon corridor, he swiveled around with his arms crossed. "You owe me one," he grouched, to the stretch of air in front of him. "I just spent ten minutes listening to Slughorn pick my essay to pieces for your sakes."

With a soft swish, James swept the Invisibility Cloak off, revealing all three boys. "He didn't pick your essay to pieces," James said reasonably, folding the Invisibility Cloak up and tucking it into the inner pocket of his regular cloak. "In fact, he sounded like he liked it. You'll probably get a good mark, as usual."

Remus shook his head, turning to face Peter. The short, round-faced boy was clutching a small wooden jar. The words 'MANDRAKE LEAVES' were emblazoned across the lid in large, fading black text.

"You stole the whole jar?" Remus demanded in a fierce whisper, horrified.

"Relax," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "He's got three more of these in his supplies—this one's just the oldest. I doubt he'll even notice it's gone."

Suddenly, the jar shook violently in Peter's hands and he let out a squeak of alarm, recoiling.

"What was that?" James asked, staring, wide-eyed, at the jar.

"I don't know," Peter whispered fearfully, shoving the jar into James's arms and taking a sizable step backwards. Just then, the jar trembled again, making all four boys jump.

There was a frightened pause.

Then— "Let's open it," Sirius declared, standing up straighter and appraising the jar through slightly narrowed eyes.

"Sirius, no," Peter gasped, shaking his head furiously. "What if it attacks us?"

"Don't be stupid," James said impatiently, drawing his wand. "It's probably just an insect or something. Here—" he pushed the jar back into Peter's hands, raising his wand, "—Alohomora."

With a swish and a flick of James's wrist, the lid of the jar creaked and popped off. Then, suddenly, something large, gray, and slimy—with hairy brown legs—squeezed itself out of the little wooden jar and fell onto the flagstone floor of the dungeon corridor with a loud plop, where it lay unmoving.

"Eurgh," James exclaimed, staring down at the slimy object in disgust. "That's revolting."

"What is it?" Sirius asked, wrinkling his nose and bending over the object.

"I can't tell if it's a slug with a tarantula's legs, or a tarantula with a slug's body," James observed in a repulsed tone. "It looks like it couldn't decide."

Something snapped into place in Remus's mind.

"Peter, do the Mandrake leaves in the jar look all right?" Remus asked suddenly; the shortest boy was still holding the wooden jar. "They aren't—slimy—or anything, are they?"

Peter peered into the jar. "No, they look completely fine," he said, sounding bewildered.

Remus grinned, taking a step closer to the shapeless glob on the floor, whose hairy brown legs were twitching pathetically. "This is a Boggart."

"No, it's not," Sirius said at once, raising his eyebrows at Remus. "We just covered Boggarts in Defense Against the Dark Arts last month. It's supposed to try and scare us."

"It is trying," Remus laughed. "It's just confused—it's trying to scare James and Peter at the same time."

"Well, it needs to try a little harder," James declared, nudging the Boggart with his foot.

"Don't kick it," Remus protested.

"What should we do with it, then?" Sirius asked.

The corners of Remus's lips lifted in a smirk. "I've got an idea for a new Halloween prank."


31 October 1973

The next evening, an hour before the Halloween feast was due to begin, Remus, James, Sirius, and Peter were squashed uncomfortably together in a shadowy corner of the dungeons, tucked—mostly—out of sight under James's Cloak.

They were all staring at an ornate jewelry box—Sirius had nicked it from his cousin Narcissa over the summer—that was sitting innocently in the middle of the corridor. It had the Black family crest embedded into it with rows of alternating emeralds and diamonds.

"Are you sure this is where the Slytherin common room is?" James asked quietly, frowning at the stone wall on the opposite side of the corridor.

"This is where Regulus always disappears after dinner," Sirius whispered back. "And how many times have we seen Snivellus go down these stairs?"

"But it's been almost fifteen minutes," James muttered. "D'you think it's too obvious that it's a trap?"

"No," Sirius murmured back, smirking. "All snakes love glittery green things."

James began shaking with laughter, and Remus elbowed him in the ribs.

"Quiet," he hissed. "I hear something."

James fell silent and all four boys perked up slightly as the unmistakable sound of distant footsteps began echoing down the staircase. Then, all of a sudden, the tall, thin form of Achilles Wilkes—a fellow third year—appeared at the foot of the stairs.

"Ha!" James whispered triumphantly, and Remus elbowed him in the ribs again, though he too was grinning.

Remus watched with bated breath as Wilkes slowly approached the jewelry box, his expression wary. Very carefully, he bent down and picked it up, staring at it. Then, he held it up to his ear and shook it experimentally—and at that very moment, it trembled vigorously, causing Wilkes to yelp and drop it.

As the emerald-studded jewelry box hit the ground, its lid flew off with a loud snap—and then, with a sudden whoosh, a pigeon shot out of the box and began flapping around Wilkes's head, squawking loudly.

Wilkes shrieked in terror, swatting his hands around his head—to no avail. Then, still screaming, the skinny Slytherin turned and sprinted back up the stone staircase. The Boggart followed in hot pursuit, continuing to squawk noisily.

Sirius and James collapsed onto each other, howling with laughter. The Invisibility Cloak slipped off of them and fell to the ground, and Remus stooped to pick it up, chuckling.

"I think he broke your box, Sirius," observed Peter—who was pink-faced from laughing, too—as he retrieved the broken pieces of the Black family jewelry box.

"Who cares?" Sirius wheezed, clutching James's shoulder for support as he attempted to stagger to his feet. "Achilles Wilkes is scared of pigeons!"

"Happy Halloween," Remus said, smirking, and James and Sirius broke into fresh laughter.


Author's Note:

A nice long chapter for you all today! Sorry, I know I promised I'd post on Tuesday, but between final exams and an INTENSE work schedule, time has been a precious commodity these past couple days. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this! It was fun to write :D

Also, I really hope I didn't scare anyone with this chapter title! Don't worry, we've still got quite some ways to go until *that* Halloween...

Ari