If just a rat was standing in front of me, I wouldn't have been surprised. I was standing in a cellar, after all. There were probably loads of rats down here.

But the rat was sitting on the head of a stag. Yes, a stag, with antlers and everything. How it even managed to get into the cellar, I had no idea.

Standing next to the stag was a very large dog, with shaggy black fur and a wide smile.

I must have been hallucinating because I didn't see how the stag or the dog would have gotten into Hogwarts or Hogsmeade at all, let alone get into the cellar of Honeydukes.

But then, the rat jumped off the stag's back and ran toward me. I stepped back from it, but then it transformed into a human.

It transformed into Peter.

"What the hell...?" I said, just as the stag transformed into James and the dog transformed into Sirius. I was confused for only a split second before it hit me. "You did it. You're Animagus."

"We did it, Moony!" Sirius cried, beaming ear to ear. James's and Peter's expressions matched his.

"Happy birthday," said James.

I couldn't believe it. After over three years of talking about it, and saying they were close, and me secretly having absolutely zero faith in them, the marauders had become Animagus.

"Wow... how did you do it?" I asked, still stunned. "How come you didn't tell me you were so close to being able to do it?"

"We were getting really close at the start of the new year, and we decided to make it our goal to be ready by your birthday," said Peter. "We finally transformed for the first time a week ago, and we were just waiting for your birthday to show you."

"And on the next full moon, we'll be with you," said James.

"Oh my god..." I said. I didn't know if I was ready to have them with me on a full moon, in potential danger. But if they were confident it would all be OK, I'd be willing to give it a shot, and I knew I could trust them to leave if they thought I was going to hurt them.


The rest of my birthday was spent the same way any birthday would be spent. The marauders were determined to let every single student and staff member know that it was my birthday, and force everyone to awkwardly sing me a happy birthday and the beginning of each lesson.

During the patrol that night, Lily and I shared a cake that she'd whipped up in the Potions room. It was awful, and we both agreed on that, but ate it anyway.

"How was the rest of your birthday?" Lily asked as we entered the dungeons.

"Yeah, good," I said, thinking about the stag, the black dog, and the rat. I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact that they'd actually managed to become Animagus.

Illegally, too. The marauders had risked getting expelled and possibly going to Azkaban and were going to risk their lives on the next full moon, all for me. If I ever needed reassurance that my friends accepted me, I'd be able to just think about that.

They really were the best friends anyone could ask for.


"I think we need codenames, too."

"What do you mean codenames?" I asked, taking a sip of butterbeer. The other marauders and I were at the Three Broomsticks that Saturday afternoon.

"Well, if you're Moony because you're a werewolf," James explained, in a low voice, "surely we should all have codenames to do with our animals? Like, I could be... um... Antlers and Sirius could be... Shaggy and Peter could be Squeaks. Or Whiskers."

"I'm not being called Whiskers," Peter said, rolling his eyes.

"Maybe Sirius shouldn't be Shaggy, people will think that he's the guy from Scooby Doo," I laughed.

"What's Scooby Doo?" Peter asked.

"Some muggle show," I said. "I saw it once when I was like, ten, because I literally never left the house, so Mum put on a bunch of muggle shows to keep me entertained..."

"Oh, OK..." said Sirius. "I could be... le chien noir."

"The shienne what?" said Peter, giving Sirius a quizzical look.

"Le chien noir," said Sirius. "It means the black dog in French."

"You speak French?" I blurted out, not sure if I was supposed to know that or not.

"Not fluently," said Sirius. "But like, yeah. Kind of."

"And you never told us!?" I cried.

"Well, I dunno, I didn't think it was that big of a deal..." Sirius mumbled, suddenly going pink.

"You know another language!" I said. "It's really cool. We want to know these sorts of things about you!"

"How long have you known it?" James asked.

"Uh, I dunno, my parents speak it fluently..." Sirius said, looking at his glass as he mentioned his parents. "Regulus does, too. We had to read translation books and take lessons from our mother when we were younger. He was a lot better at it than me. We're both supposed to know it fluently, but I'm not like... completely fluent..."

"Say something in French!" Peter cried.

"Um, OK," said Sirius. "Um... Je m'appelle Sirius Black. Je suis assis ici dans les trois balais avec mes amis..."

"Oh my god, what did you say!?" James asked, his jaw dropping.

"I just said that my name is Sirius Black and I'm sitting in the Three Broomsticks with my friends," said Sirius.

"You could easily just insult us, and we'd never know," said James.

"Yeah, I could," said Sirius, shrugging. "Anyway, we're getting off-topic. We need to think of animal names."

"Ugh, I dunno, I'm a bloody rodent," said Peter. The three of them had been shocked to find out that they didn't get to choose the animal they transformed into. They'd assumed from the start they'd get to choose.

The plan had always been for James and Sirius to be bigger animals and Peter to be a smaller animal, and they'd gotten that. But Peter hadn't wanted to be a rodent, and even if he wasn't making it completely obvious, I could tell he wasn't happy with being a rat.

Sirius was extremely happy with his black dog. He had told me previously that he wanted to be some sort of dog, since I was a sort of dog, and he'd gotten his wish.

James seemed happy with being a stag, as well. It matched his personality perfectly: confident, strong, and patient.

"God, you should totally be called Rudolph," I said to James.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because that's one of the Christmas reindeer," I said. "And you're a deer."

"Christmas reindeer?" said James, giving me a quizzical look.

"Oh, come on," I said. "Even my dad knows about that. Well, I suppose my mum probably told him about it... but like, Father Christmas has reindeer which like, pull his magical sleigh thing. I dunno, it's a thing for muggle kids."

"I thought muggles didn't believe in magic?" said Sirius.

"They don't, but muggle parents usually tell their kids that there's this magical guy who gives them presents on Christmas. He's probably a wizard," I said.

"What, so the muggle parents believe it as well? Why do they not believe in magic, then?" said Peter.

"Have you guys seriously never heard of Father Christmas? St Nicholas?" I said, but they all just looked at me with blank faces. "Oh, god... anyway, Rudolph supposedly has a red nose, and James, you don't have a red nose."

"I could be called Cheese..." said Peter, his tone dull.

"I could be called Mr. Woof!" said Sirius.

"I could be called Hooves," said James.

"God, I dunno," said Sirius. "There are so many choices."

"OK, how about for now you be Cheese, Mr. Woof, and Hooves, and we experiment with those names for a week and see how you like them?" I suggested.

"OK, but I'm not Mr. Woof, that was a joke," said Sirius. "I'll be Shaggy for a week."


The day of the full moon was a Tuesday, and my entire body was buzzing all day. I was feeling excited about spending the night with the marauders in their Animagus forms, but any excitement that I felt was quickly overcome by a wave of fear.

Even though they'd done a lot of research, and I'd done some research of my own to know that werewolves only attacked humans, and didn't often hurt animals, I still had a sick feeling that something awful was going to happen that night.

If I bit them, they wouldn't become a werewolf, but they would be injured and could die if the bite was bad enough.

I was also scared about actually transforming in front of them. Sirius had seen me transform once, and that was awful, but to now have all three of my best friends there as I screamed in agony and slowly transformed into a monster would be horrible. I didn't want them to think I was weak.

The closer the day came to an end, the more on edge I felt. We had an early dinner so we could get to the Shrieking Shack before the moon came out, and as we ate, Sirius seemed to notice how restless I was, because he asked if I was OK.

"Yeah, fine," I said. "Just my body preparing for the moon, I guess..."

After dinner, I went alone to see Madam Pomfrey, and the other three followed me under the invisibility cloak.

Once I was in the shack, and Madam Pomfrey had left, they took off the cloak and transformed into their animals straight away.

"Please leave if you don't feel safe," I said. "If for a second it seems like I'm going to hurt you, I need you to promise me you'll leave... please."

"Moony, we promise," said Sirius after transforming back into himself, looking me straight in the eyes.

I didn't have any more time to think about whether or not this was a good idea, because I was transforming before I knew it.

"Sirius... Sirius, be a dog again..." I said, feeling the familiar pain of transformation shoot through my body. He transformed into a dog, just as I fell to my knees from the pain. I felt tears threatening to come from my eyes, and I bit the inside of my cheek to try not to scream in front of them.

Before I knew it, I was a wolf. And there were three animals in front of me that were never normally there. I walked over to them slowly and sniffed them all. They had a nice smell. A smell I could trust. The smell of animals I knew was on my side.

Suddenly, I was wagging my tail and licking them all. The dog licked me back, the stag nuzzled its face against me, and the rat jumped from the head of the stag onto my back.

They were my friends. And all I wanted to do was run around with them in this little shack.


The process of transforming back into myself didn't hurt nearly as much as usual, because I didn't have a single injury on me. I was exhausted, but I was not nearly as awful as I normally would after a full moon.

My friends and I all turned away from each other to put our clothes back on, but once we were all fully dressed, we instinctively all came together in a group hug.

I couldn't believe it. None of us were hurt in the slightest. It had worked.

We didn't have long to celebrate though, because I heard Madam Pomfrey coming down the tunnel, and I quickly let the others know, so they slipped under the invisibility cloak.

They'd done it.