Chapter 112 Promise
Peter jumped nearly out of his skin when Sirius slammed the door open and ran through letting it slam behind him.
"Well, what did you find?" Sirius asked, breathless from running the whole way back.
"A problem," James answered, not at all startled by his best friend's dramatic entrance.
Peter and James sat in the beanbag chairs that littered the Room of Requirement, surrounded once again by books of all shapes, sizes, and usefulness. The only open book this time, however, was the book James had stolen from the restricted section. It was large and old, but the contents seemed complicated enough that they were probably right. Peter hadn't understood much of it, but James managed to give him a summary.
"Seriously? But we found the information. What else can go wrong?" Sirius dropped onto the floor beside James, not even aiming for a chair and pulling the book closer to him.
"The mandrake leaves go in our mouths." James gave the pile of leaves a dirty look, as though they had offended him in some way.
"That doesn't sound so bad, I mean they probably taste like troll sick, but it won't be the worst thing we've done." Sirius responded and Peter shuttered at the visual image.
"For a month."
Sirius just looked at James, Peter thought he looked like he was expecting James to claim it was a joke. James just shook his head at him.
"A month?" Sirius sounded horrified. "But, but I can smell it from here! How are we supposed to hide that from the Professors... and Merlin knows McGonagall will recognize it immediately!"
James looked down at the book, "I have no idea."
"Can't we just wait till summer?" Peter asked and James sighed.
"We can't, Peter. We've already delayed as long as we can. If we don't start right now it'll be too late you know that. We can't even wait until the month is over before continuing like we're supposed too. This book says the earliest we can continue is next week and even that is pushing it. You know those spells we put on ourselves over the holidays will wear off soon." James explained, he stood, pacing around the room. A pile of breath mints materialized next to the mandrake leaves and Sirius thought it was funny. Even Peter knew it would take more than breath mints to block out that smell.
"Maybe if we just don't talk..." Peter suggested but was quickly interrupted.
"For a month?!" Sirius asked his eyebrow raised.
"Maybe if we just don't talk much?" Peter tried again shrugging hopelessly.
"No matter what we do we'll have to avoid talking whenever possible. Moony'll smell it no matter what we do so we'll have to make up something to tell him, but Sirius is right, McGonagall will know exactly what we're doing the moment she smells it."
"We could tell Moony it's an experiment. He won't ask for much of explanation if he thinks it's against the law." Sirius suggested, "We tell him he doesn't want to know and he'll believe us."
"That's true." James agreed, "But he's already getting suspicious. I don't know what he suspects, but he knows something's going on behind his back."
"Well, we haven't been very subtle, have we?" Sirius asked, shrugging. "Even if he does somehow figure it out he won't tell on us, you know that. And really the chances of him figuring it out are low, he'd have to have researched the process beforehand."
"The only thing we can do is sit in the back and keep our mouths shut." James groaned, not at all enjoying the idea. They usually sat in the back, but someone was bound to notice they were being quieter than natural.
"We'll also have to avoid detention as much as possible," Peter added and they both turned to Sirius who looked offended.
"It's not my fault I've got detentions booked to sixth year." Sirius shrugged, turning slightly pink.
"Thankfully, not many of them are with McGonagall. I don't know what you're going to do for those." James chuckled shaking his head.
"Skip," Sirius said bluntly, stretching with a yawn.
James gave a laugh, before sighing. "Let's get this over with." Peter felt like that line had been used far too many times lately.
They each took a leaf and simultaneously placed it in their mouths.
And simultaneously gagged.
"You're right, Padfoot, it tastes like troll sick." James agreed, trying not to be sick himself.
"Yay," Sirius replied sarcastically between gags.
Peter thought it tasted more like that taste you get in your mouth when someone let off a dungbomb, but that wasn't all that comforting.
"Let's get back, we can make a trip to the kitchens and bring Moony some chocolate. That'll cheer him up."
Sirius and Peter both agreed already beginning to forget the taste of chocolate or anything decent whatsoever.
"Remus owes us big time for this," Sirius said his speech slightly slurred, standing and pulling the book closed and shrinking it into his pocket.
"If we manage this I'd prefer if Remus knew nothing about this." James turned back to look at Sirius and there was a silent agreement between the three of them.
Remus would never know what they had to do to become animagi. Even if he looked up he wouldn't know the whole of what they were doing for him.
A/N) Awww, they're such good friends!