The Marauders all slept in late the next morning. It was the first time Remus had seen Sirius sleep past nine am, but they were all so tired. It had been two and a half months since term started and this was the first time they'd all slept in their own beds. Peter had last night, but even he slept late. It was a Hogsmeade day, and all they really wanted was to go get butterbeers at the three broomsticks, buy more than they could afford in Honeydukes, and sneak into the shrieking shack and celebrate their achievements but none of them could force themselves out of their nice warm, comfy beds to start the day.

James, of all people, was the first to bully his body out of bed. And after that, Remus found it easier to force himself to do the same. Judging by the fact that the other two got up not much later they probably had felt the same.

It was cold, very very cold. His muscles already ached from the coming full moon and he was already wearing a heavy sweater and sitting in front of the furnace in the center of the room before they even went out into the snow-covered grounds.

"It's pretty windy outside." Sirius was looking out the window, no doubt noticing snow blowing in the air rather than student's wind-blown scarves, due to the lateness of the morning. "You might want to come with me, Moony. It's bloody freezing in that tunnel but at least you don't have to battle wind and snow."

"I like that plan… I like that plan a lot." Remus said through shivers. The others didn't seem quite so cold, not fair.

"I'll go with Wormtail then" James agreed puting on his trainers. His hair was dripping from where he'd showered, even though he'd only just done so last night. Remus didn't blame him, he'd feel dirty too if he'd been covered in plant poo.

"Convenient that we managed to do this on a Hogsmeade weekend." Sirius turned away from the window and shut the blinds summoning his own trainers from across the room.

"Need a spell to stop it from being so cold," Remus muttered also summoning his trainers, though less from laziness than his unwillingness to leave the heater.

"I'll look it up some time," Sirius promised, learning new charms was one of the few educational activities Sirius enjoyed, especially if said spell could be used to help one of his friends.

"Need it now."

"We could always catch you on fire, that'd warm you right up." James teased, and Remus just glared at him causing him to laugh.

"Let's get this over with," Remus said standing up and putting on his coat. He followed Sirius to the passage to Honeydukes' cellar. James and Peter would go straight to the three broomsticks and get the butterbeers. Sirius grabbed a small magical space heater on his way out, shrinking it into his pocket. Between that and the butterbeers, hopefully, the shrieking shack wouldn't be too cold.

Sirius was right, the tunnel was freezing, but there was no wind, and he didn't have to trek through piles of snow, so it was better overall. His muscles ached so much by the time he got there regardless, though. It was very cold.

Honeydukes, however, was nice and warm, toasty even, and he never wanted to leave. Sirius had to drag him out after they finally bought all their candy. They ran straight into McGonagall as they trudged their way to the shrieking shack, dropping bags of sugary sweets.

For reasons Remus could only vaguely guess she looked slightly terrified at the mountain of sugary sweets, they were lugging around.

"Black, what are you…" She tried but Sirius picked up the bag real fast and dashed off.

"Sorry, Professor, can't talk now. I've places to go people to see, you understand." He called back.

"You come back here, Black!" She called but they lost themselves in the crowd so she couldn't send Sirius back to the castle. Remus sometimes forgot that he didn't actually have permission to go to Hogsmeade.

James and Peter got to the Shrieking Shack first, no doubt because of the ridiculous line in Honeydukes.

"Sorry," Sirius huffed as he shook snow out of his hair. "Ran into McGonagall on the way."

"Yeah, we saw her too, she heard us order eight butterbeers." James laughed.

"That explains the look on her face, she must have realized we're celebrating." Remus pulled the heater out of Sirius' pocket, enlarged it, and set it up.

"Mhm, the Marauders celebrating is always something to fear." Sirius agreed plopping himself down in front of the heater.

"Well, this time we did break the law, pretty hugely too." Peter agreed, pulling the butterbeers out of the bag and handing them out, Remus happily accepted his own.

They spent the first few minutes warming themselves up, Remus added a few floating fires surrounding them helping out the heater a bit. Chatting about nothing in particular, just enjoying the heat and each other's company.

That's when James stood up, clearly planning on making some kind of stupid speech.

"A toast," he announced, "to Moony!"

Remus felt his cheeks heat up as they raised their bottles. "That wasn't necessary." He whispered.

"We are gathered here together to…" James ignored him and tried to start his monolog.

"Shut up, you're embarrassing the werewolf!" Sirius refused him, throwing candy at the stag, James complied more interested in the candy now.

"Thanks." Remus laughed at them.

"I got your back, Moony." Sirius nudged him with a wink.

They dived into the candy now, Remus hoarding quite a bit of the chocolate, though not the frogs. He was so sick of chocolate frogs it was crazy.

Sirius bragged about how he was the first to accomplish the transformation, leading James into throwing some candy back at him. The pup managed to catch one in his mouth and laughed at him. This resulted in James throwing more candy with the express intention of getting Sirius to catch it. He did pretty well, only missing a few.

That stopped when one of them managed to hit him in the eye. Though both James and Remus laughed at him for it.

They started to plan for the full moon next Remus wanted to know exactly what was going down even though he had no control over whether it was executed successfully or not. Perhaps more so because he had no control.

"It would be nice if we didn't have to wait for Pomfrey to escort you," James said.

"I'll try to convince her to let me go on my own but she's pretty stubborn so it's not likely."

"Tell me about it." Sirius huffed.

"We'll probably hang out at the entrance to the forest in the invisibility cloak until she's gone."

"The passageway is pretty narrow James, you won't be able to transform in it."

"I'll just have to distract you so he can have a chance to change. Probably good for you to see another canine first anyway. Less of a shock or something. Helps that I'll be smaller than you too, James won't be."

"Barely, I've never seen a bigger dog in my life."

"I still think he's the grim," Peter added.

"I wouldn't mind," Sirius said with a cocky grin.

"The grim isn't real, Peter, it's just an excuse people used when they don't understand what killed a person before modern medicine."

"You don't know that," James argued.

"I really do."

"You're a werewolf, you're not exactly one to talk about imaginary creatures, Moony."

"Werewolves are real, people have seen them, there is proof they exist, obviously. Death omens, on the other hand, are not. There's no proof, anyone who's seen them is supposedly dead, and they apparently leave no trace of their presence behind. They're not real."

"So cynical." Sirius pouted. "There's no proof Wormtail has a brain, and we've never seen it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

"Hey!"

"Ha, ha." Remus rolled his eyes. "You're hilarious."

"I know, right?"

"Hand me another butterbeer, Wormtail," James demanded and they returned to chatting about any inconsequential thing they could think of, relieved that the most dangerous thing they had to worry about the next morning was Remus potions homework.

He really was abysmal at the subject.