Chapter 46

Return of the Room of Requirement

Sirius was really wishing he had brought James' invisibility cloak.

He was sitting in a secret tunnel they had recently found, and was waiting for the DADA teacher to stop chatting with the Muggle Studies professor. They were both standing in his way and he wasn't sure if it was worth sitting here for an hour just to keep the shortcut a secret.

Sirius sighed with relief when they finally left and he was able to climb out of the hole. He headed stealthily towards Slughorn's office, it wasn't that he wasn't allowed to be here, he just didn't want any questions, and of course he just liked sneaking around.

When he got to the potions classroom he was annoyed to find that Slughorn was still in it. Along with a few Slytherin first years. Sirius didn't need to see his face to recognize Regulus was among them.

"You wanted to talk to us, Professor?" He heard one of them say.

"Ah yes, I noticed the talent each of you had in my class. Of course I wasn't surprised. I could tell each of you had talent from the moment I laid eyes on you." Sirius snorted. Ya, if talent meant they had connections then he was bang on. "I am having a little get together with the most talented students in he school. I would like to invite the three of you to come."

"Who all will be coming?" Regulus asked looking a him with suspicion in his eyes. Sirius wasn't surprised, Regulus was a Black, the Blacks were much more important then puny Slughorn. No mere teacher would use a Black as a pawn. Blacks were the Kings and Queens, not the pawns. At least they were in their own heads.

"Oh not many, there are a few second years, some second years and a sixth and seventh year. I assure you, you will have no problem fitting in, not with the talent you posses." He said hoping flattery would help, it didn't really. Regulus wasn't a teachers pet. Sirius found himself distracted by trying to figure out who the second years were.

"I'll go." One of them said it almost sounded like a question. He obviously didn't want to go alone.

"Me too." The other one said watching Regulus. It amused Sirius to realize that Regulus was the leader of their little group. Sirius had never even considered Regulus as a leader. When they were younger Reg just followed him everywhere. Now he was watching other people follow Reg around. It was different, he was growing up, unfortunately he was growing up to be exactly like his family.

"I'll think about it." Regulus said quickly before turning around and heading for the door. Sirius managed to get out of the way fast enough that he wasn't seen. When they left Slughorn, thankfully, went into his office.

"Finally." Sirius whispered as he quietly walked into the classroom. He quickly grabbed the ingredients from the storage cupboard and then left.

When he got back to the dorm the others were waiting rather impatiently for him.

"What took you so long?" James asked he was holding something invisible in his hands.

"You wouldn't believe how much adults talk. What's in the cloak?"

"Our cauldron and the stuff we need, Remus thought of a good place we can do it without being found." James answered opening it so Sirius could put the new ingredients in.

"Where are we going?"

"The Room of Requirement."

"Oh, I almost forgot about that room."

"It's a good thing Remus didn't." James said and walked out the door while the others followed.

They were almost to the door when an extremely annoying voice called out to them.

"What do you want, Evans?"

"What are you up to now, don't think I'm not on to you. I know your planning something." Sirius laughed.

"Evans, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we've been planning something from the day we met. If you're just now catching on then there's something wrong." He told her causing James to laugh.

"If you're planning something on Severus again I'm gonna..."

"You're gonna what?" James called her bluff.

"I haven't got that far yet, but it's gonna be really bad." She said after a moment of thought. James and Sirius just laughed and walked out of the common room.

"Urg that girl! She thinks she knows everything!" James ranted, his rant continued throughout the halls until they got to the large picture of dancing trolls.

Sirius paced in front of the bare wall feeling really stupid as he talked about them needing a safe place to brew their potion. At first he didn't think it was going to work until the third time he passed it and suddenly the wall turned into a door. They smiled at it.

"I really like this room." James said to Sirius as they walked in.

"Me too."

The Room of Requirement this time around was pretty much empty. It had bean bag chairs laid out in a circle. They already had everything they needed so all they asked for was a place to brew the potion where they couldn't be found, and it couldn't be found as it had to sit overnight.

They sat in the bean bag chairs, and James laid his cauldron in the center. James and Sirius mostly worked on the potion themselves, Remus was bad with potions so he volunteered to read them the instructions, and they were just plain afraid to let Peter help. This would be used on everyone in Hogwarts after all, they didn't want to kill everyone.

After they added the rat fir they had to wait for it to brew for half an hour, which caused a problem.

"Um guys, we have transfiguration in ten minuets." Remus said looking at his watch.

"What!" James and Sirius exclaimed at the same time.

"We can't wait an hour to put the next ingredient in, it'll become useless!" James said flopping on one of the bean bag chairs.

"One of us will have to skip class, if we want to get this done. We don't have enough ingredients to start over. " Sirius said staring at the contents of the cauldron

"It can't be me. McGonagall would double check to make sure I'm sick. She doesn't trust me enough." James replied looking at Sirius.

"I'll stay." Remus told them. "Sirius can't afford to miss a transfiguration class. I think I can do it."

"Are you sure, James can always go over the stuff we learned with me." Sirius said a little worried, not that Remus couldn't do it, but that Remus would start to worry too much and end up messing it up.

"Ya, there's a full moon tomorrow night, it will be really easy for her to believe I'm sick." Remus told them, rereading the potions book.

"Oh is it?" Sirius said masking his concern with curiosity. Remus just nodded. James sat up and he and Sirius began going over what Remus needed to do before leaving for class.

It took Remus a full five minutes to realize that he was skipping class for a prank. He moaned and flopped down on the bean bag chair. He was beginning to think that he was a completely different person than he was when he got on the train last year. He was skipping class for a prank and using his lycanthropy as an excuse.

His mum would faint if she found out.

There was no doubt now, not that there had been much before, that he was changing. Some changes he knew were for the better. He was becoming much more open, and not just with the Marauders. More than once he'd walked up to Frank Longbottem just to talk, he didn't even know Frank. Sirius and James had a few conversations with him so for some reason Remus instantly felt comfortable with him. He had even had a full blown conversation with Lilly Evans. James and Sirius wouldn't be caught dead having a conversation will Lilly, but Remus talked to her anyway. Though she started the conversation, unsurprisingly with a complaint against James and Sirius. They somehow ended up talking about D.A.D.A. Remus is pretty sure it is because that is the subject she was studying at the time, but isn't positive.

Some changes he wasn't so sure about, like the one he was enforcing right now. James and Sirius would have done it, and they weren't bad people, and like Sirius said, where's the fun in life if you can't break a few rules. This though, felt like it was worse than a few rules, it felt like he had just become one of the 'bad kids' his mum had warned him about when he was younger. Not that he'd ever really had a chance to meet one of the 'bad kids'. Since due to to his lycanthropy he couldn't go to muggle school. He would miss to much due to to his illness around the time of the full moon. The teachers would have started to ask questions if he missed at least two days every month.

Sometimes his mum would take him to the park and he would meet 'friends' there. He would see them for two hours then they would have to go home and he would never see them again. After a while some of them would make fun of him for various reasons, his paleness, the scars, his gray hairs, which thankfully Sirius hadn't noticed yet or he'd probably try some freaky spell to fix it and end up turning it purple or something. Those that didn't make fun of him wouldn't talk to him in fear that they would get made fun of too. By the time he was seven he was begging his mum to not make him go, and he never went again.

A loud ringing went off and interrupted his thoughts. Remus heaved a deep sigh.

"Please don't let me screw this up." He said to the air before starting on the potion.

He was worried when it turned out the color it was supposed to. At least if it turned out a completely different color he would know something was wrong with it, now he was just worrying. He reread the potion book three times and didn't find anything he missed or couldn't think of anything he didn't do right so he just stirred it like the book said. Hoping that James and Sirius would be able to figure out if he messed up. After stirring he sat and waited for them to come back.

It may have been because he was worrying but it seemed like it was taking them a lot longer than an hour to come back. It seemed to take forever for James and Sirius to rush though the door of the Room of Requirement.

"There you are!" Remus said standing up as they rushed over too him. "What took you so long?"

"We got out as soon as class was over, Moony. We even ran most of the way." James told him looking at his watch.

"Ah you were probably just really bored, so it seemed like it took longer." Sirius waved it off and rolled his eyes as Peter walked in looking as though he'd just run a marathon.

"Ya, probably." Remus hesitated "How bad did I screw it up?" He pointed to the cauldron and James sighed. He looked at it and read the potion book.

"It looks fine, Remus. It's the right color and everything."

"Are you sure?"

"Moony, why can't you just accept that you did everything right." Sirius teased throwing an arm around Remus' shoulder.

"Because chances are, I didn't."

"Well the chances are wrong this time. You did very well, Slugbreath would be proud." James winked at Remus.

"Very funny, James." Remus said sarcastically.

"Ok what do we do next?" Sirius asked James. He didn't feel like bending down to read the book that was on the floor.

"Nothing. We just wait for it to turn purple, which should be about six o'clock tomorrow."

"Please tell me that's six pm and not six am, tomorrow's Saturday. I don't want to get up at six on a Saturday."

"It's pm."

"Yes!" Sirius cheered.

"We should get back to the dorm, we need to grab our books for our next class." Remus said looking at his watch. James and Sirius nodded as they left the Room of Requirement. Sirius looked back at the potion before closing the door.

"This Halloween is going to be awesome."

A/N) Sorry for the long wait. This time I have a valid excuse though. I've been sick. The last thing I wanted to do while sick was type.

(BTW) Never get sick while on vacation, it really really reallllllly sucks.