Chapter 26: Attempted Murder
Three days later, we met again at Kings Cross Station to get on the Hogwarts Express and head back to school. There we met Lily and Erin.
"Sirius Black!" Lily shouted when she saw his earring. "What did you do?" Sirius grinned.
"If you don't like that, wait until you see what else I did." He announced proudly, rolling up his sleeve and revealing his tattoo.
"Oh my god!" said Lily. "Sirius, you look like such a gangster!" She was laughing though. "No, it really fits your personality actually." She commented. Erin, who never got angry, just smiled and shook her head.
"It's Sirius' rebel look," said James, laughing. "He wants to look tough, but we all know he's soft as a pansy," he added in a high pitched girlie tone.
"Shut up," said Sirius, giving him a hard punch in the arm.
"I'm joking Padfoot," said James.
"I know," said Sirius plainly.
"I still can't believe you actually did it," I muttered. Sirius ignored me.
The first week we were back in school was full moon. I wasn't pleased about this, of course, because it meant that I'd miss some of my first classes. It was also for that reason that James, Peter and Sirius weren't joining me.
That evening at dinner, Sirius was particularly annoyed with Snape, who'd been taunting him, insulting him about 'causing his father's death' calling him a 'mudblood', and asking about where we always went and what we found so fascinating about the Whomping Willow.
"Damn greasy git needs to mind his own damn business," Sirius was muttering, giving Snape a look of great loathing.
"I'm not feeling so well," I announced loudly, as we sat at dinner. "I'm going to go to the infirmary." James and Peter nodded, smiling.
"Good luck Moony. We're with you in spirit," whispered James as I left. Sirius was still glaring at Snape and not paying attention.
I left, a bit later than usual, and headed for the tree. It was already getting dark when I entered the tunnel. Glancing at the sky, I knew I'd probably transform before I got to the Shrieking Shack. About halfway through the tunnel, I felt the transformation start.
As I was transforming, I smelled something peculiar, unfamiliar. The transforming wolf growled, and I willed it to stop. What was that smell? I struggled to keep my mind straight. Focus on the smell, I told myself. You've got to find out what it is. Something told me I should figure out what it was, but I was running out of time. In another minute, I'd be completely transformed. I glanced back down the tunnel, towards Hogwarts, and I could barely identify the outline of a person. The sickening realization hit me. That was the smell; human flesh! I panicked. It was too late to shout to whoever it was, but I attempted. The wolf only growled, and I could see the person continuing to approach me. It couldn't have been James, Sirius or Peter; they'd have known to transform by now, but who else could have it been? Whoever it was, they would die. I would be a murderer! Now there was no time left. The wolf had gained complete control, and after a second I wouldn't remember anything more. The wolf got to its feet and began bounding toward the person, and I saw the pale, terrified face of Severus Snape...
The next morning, I awoke, weak, tired, and extremely bitten and scratched, to find myself on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. I didn't even remember getting there. And then I remembered. I'd seen Snape the night before, in the tunnel. I thought, willing myself to remember what had happened, but I couldn't. And then, a horrible thought struck me. I hadn't killed him, had I? Feeling sick with fear, I forced myself to get up and go back to the tunnel. There were no signs of a struggle in the tunnel but I was still worried. I ran the whole way back to Hogwarts, ignoring my pain. Oh, please let him have lived, I thought desperately. Let him have escaped in time! When I got back on the grounds, I went straight to the door and bolted to the Gryffindor Common Room without even a thought of doing otherwise.
"Did you see Snape last night?" I asked breathlessly, as soon as I spotted Sirius, Peter and James. "He—he got in the tunnel, and he –he saw me as—as a werewolf!" I shouted between breaths. "I think, oh God, I think I might have killed Snape!"
"Unfortunately, you didn't," mumbled Sirius in a monotone voice. I glanced around, now noticing the atmosphere. James was sitting a few chairs away from Sirius, looking extremely angry. Sirius looked a little angry, and really disappointed, and Peter looked worried, like he didn't know what to do.
"What's going on?" I asked. James glared at Sirius, then looked at me.
"Our –er—friend here thought it would be quite humorous to tell Snape to go prod the knot on the Whomping Willow and see where you go." James glared at Sirius once again.
"YOU DID WHAT?" I exploded with anger. "How could you? Why did you tell him? Now he knows!" Sirius shrugged.
"Serves him right, the nosy git. I only wish you'd have finished him off."
"Sirius! You tried to make Remus murder him! Do you know what would have happened to us if it had worked? We'd be expelled, probably in Azkaban!" James shouted. Sirius said nothing to this.
"So, what happened? How do you know he's all right?" I demanded. I certainly didn't like Snape, but I had no intent to hurt or kill him.
"Well, when I found out about someone's big mouth, I went after Snape to stop him from following you," said James. "It was lucky I got there when I did, or someone would have made you a murderer!" Sirius muttered something that we couldn't hear. James suddenly looked at me again.
"Remus! Why aren't you in the hospital wing? You'd better go right now!" James sounded angry. I stared at him, frowning. "Get going! Go!" he shouted, pushing me towards the door. "I don't know what you think you're doing! You shouldn't even be out of bed!" I had never seen James that angry before. He could usually stay at least a reasonable calm. I turned and left, frowning.
I went to the hospital wing. I slept restlessly. I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. Sirius had tried to make me murder Snape. After I was able to get some rest and get my mind thinking clearly again, I realized that I was as angry with Sirius as James was, maybe even more.
I stayed in the hospital wing until that night, hardly able to rest. Then, I went straight back to the dorm room to find Sirius. He was sitting on his bed, looking angry still. James had apparently gone to sleep, at least the curtains around his bed were drawn shut, and Peter's the same. Sirius glanced up at me, then frowned.
"Sirius! What the hell were you thinking sending him out after me? I could have killed him!" I shouted.
"Well, that was the plan," said Sirius through gritted teeth. "Until our little hero over here had to go save him!"
"You would have rather seen Remus be a murderer than let Snape live! He would have been shipped off to Azkaban for sure! He's already got a bad reputation as a werewolf! Do you want it to appear that everyone's ridiculous stereotypes are true? Just so you could have what you wanted! What kind of a friend are you?" James was obviously not asleep.
"Well, I would have gotten what I wanted if you hadn't interfered! That damn git would be dead now!" Sirius shouted at James.
"Fine Sirius," said James calmly. "Fine. If you're that selfish that you can only think of yourself, then you don't deserve us as friends!"
"Fine then! Because I don't want you as friends!" shouted Sirius angrily.
"And that's not all!" I shouted. "Now Snape knows! He knows I'm a werewolf! He'll probably tell everyone! Sirius, you swore you'd never tell!"
"Yeah, you betrayed us," Peter spoke up bravely. "How could you?"
"Well, if he'd be dead right now like he's supposed to be, then he'd never be able to tell anyone anyway!" Sirius retorted.
"Don't worry, Remus," James told me. "Dumbledore made Snape swear that he'd never tell anyone. If he does, then he'll be expelled."
"Well, maybe someone else should be expelled right now!" I shouted. How could they let Sirius stay if he tried to murder someone and frame me?
"Look there's no way that git deserves to live! If you'd have heard half of the things he was saying to me, you'd have wanted him dead too!" Sirius shouted.
"I didn't know any of my best friends were murderers!" shouted James. "Of course, he's not my best friend anymore!"
"I'm going to bed," muttered Sirius. No one said another word.
The next morning, things got, if possible, worse. James and I weren't speaking to Sirius. Peter was speaking to everyone, saying he wasn't going to take sides. This made everyone angry with him, and soon we weren't talking to him either, and neither was Sirius. At breakfast, instead of taking our usual seats, we sat at opposite ends of the Gryffindor house table. Lily and Erin, who arrived after us, sat down with James and I at one end of the table.
"Where's Sirius?" asked Erin.
"Sirius? Who's Sirius? I don't know anyone named Sirius," said James.
"James! Honestly, what happened?" Lily asked. James shook his head.
"Last night, Sirius told Snape to follow me into the Whomping Willow. He was hoping I'd end up killing him. But James found out and came to get him out of there just in time," I explained. Lily and Erin's eyes widened.
"I can't believe Sirius would do that!" exclaimed Lily. Erin remained silent, looking pale and frightened, then ran from the table, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"He doesn't care about anyone but himself!" James said angrily as he watched her go.
"Don't you think you should at least talk to him?" asked Lily.
"We did talk to him!" I said. "He won't admit it was wrong! He thinks it was the right thing to do!"" James nodded. Lily stared helplessly at her boyfriend, at a loss for words. She placed her hand comfortingly on James' shoulder.
"Well, I'm going to go find Erin and talk to her," she said. With that, she left.
Erin wouldn't speak to Sirius either. Lily tried to, but Sirius wouldn't talk to her, just because she was James' girlfriend. The next two weeks were the worst we'd ever had. James and I managed to go without talking to Sirius or Peter. One day, James and Sirius came back from their first Quidditch practice bloody and beaten. It turned out that they had gotten in a fight that involved a few bludgers. In classes, instead of playing pranks on other people, we began to play pranks on each other. Sirius put dungbombs in our bags. We switched his candy for cockroach clusters. He wrote a letter to Lily, supposedly from James, saying that she was ugly and he didn't want to go out with her anymore. Lily got angry with James, and it took us two days to convince her that the letter was really from Sirius. In potions class, we poured our potion on Sirius and made his skin turn bright green. He bewitched James' voice to sound like a girl's, and we spent three hours in the library looking up the counter-curse. We cut all of Sirius's hair off in his sleep, but he re-grew it. Sirius transfigured our transfiguration books into toads and McGonagall blamed us. We slipped some extra ingredients into Sirius's potion and made it explode all over him. Things went on like that for a long time.
One day, we walked into Sirius in the hallway. He frowned and tried to go by, but James pulled out his wand on him. Sirius did the same.
"I swear I'll do it!" said James, holding his wand ready to curse Sirius. Sirius held his the same.
"Not if I do it first!" he shouted. I groaned. This was going too far. They were going to end up really hurting each other. I pulled my wand out.
"Expelliarmus!" They both stared at me as their wands shot from their hands and into mine.
"What did you do that for?" James demanded. I sighed.
"Because this is getting ridiculous. We can't go on forever being angry like this. I know what Sirius did was wrong, but pulling stupid pranks on each other isn't going to do anything more than eventually hurt someone. I think we all need to talk. Erin, Lily and Peter too." James nodded.
"You're right," he said reluctantly.
"So, three o clock today in our dorm room," I said. "Be there." James nodded. Sirius just stood there staring.
"Can we have our wands now?" he said, sounding a bit annoyed.
"Are you coming at three?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'll come. Now just give me my wand!" I tossed it back at him, and gave James his as well.
At two fifty five, I entered our dorm room to find it empty. Great, they weren't even going to show up! About two minutes later, James and Lily walked in and took a seat on the edge of James' bed. They were soon followed by Erin, who took a quick look around the room, and found a chair in the corner. Next came Peter, who sat down on his bed without even looking around. Last of all came Sirius, who walked in at 3:05, looking rather bored and a bit annoyed. He came in, careful not to look at anyone, sat down on his bed, and faced the window. Everyone entered in an uncomfortable silence. I finally broke it by beginning to speak.
"Okay, everyone," I began, standing to address them. "I know we've all been a part of a huge disagreement over the last two weeks. I know we're all mad, and I know what Sirius did was wrong—"
"Okay then, if this is about ganging up on me, I'll go," said Sirius coolly, ready to stand up.
"No, wait, just hear this out," I said. He reluctantly stayed. "Now, as I was saying, we know that what Sirius did was wrong. But, he's our friend and—"
"What do you mean, our friend?" demanded James. "After what he did to you?"
"If he says he's sorry, then I'll forgive him," I told James.
"Well, I'm not looking for anyone's forgiveness and I'm not apologizing because I'm not sorry!" shouted Sirius.
"Fine then, because I wouldn't forgive you anyway!" James shouted back.
"James!" Lily gave him a look.
"I'm not forgiving that traitor!" James shouted, pointing at Sirius.
"Honestly, James, this is getting ridiculous!" shouted Lily. "I can't put up with you this way!" With that, Lily got up and left. James took a deep breath, and stood up.
"You know what? All of you are crazy! Especially you Remus! He tried to make you a murderer! Lily's right, this is ridiculous! It's ridiculous that any of us ever wasted our time being friends with this slimy piece of filth!" James stormed off out of the dorm room. Peter looked around at those of us remaining, stood and left, silently. Erin looked at Sirius, her eyes ready to overflow with tears.
"Why can't you just say you're sorry? Why can't you ever admit you're wrong?" she cried at Sirius, before turning and walking out. For a moment, Sirius looked as though he'd just been stabbed through the heart, then his look of boredom and annoyance returned. He looked at me, shook his head in disgust, and he too left.
After that day, it looked hopeless that we'd ever be friends again. No one was willing to make an effort anymore. None of us were talking. James wouldn't even talk to Lily. After a while, we seemed to have forgotten even why we were angry with each other, we just knew we were. We'd lock each other out of the dormitory. One night, Sirius got there first and locked the door, so the rest of us had to sleep in the common room all night. We pulled still more pranks on each other in classes. Sirius broke James' nose once, by making his Potions book fly off of the desk and hit him in the face. James dyed Sirius's hair Slytherin colors. James stole Lily's cat and made her think it was dead. Lily made James' nose grow three feet long. I put all of Sirius, James and Peter's clothes in shrinking potion, so they had to wear the same one's for a week before they figured out how to change the other ones back. Sirius switched my ink with invisible ink, so after I did my homework, it all disappeared. It was war, worse than before. But the most violent attack happened at the quidditch match. It was Gryffindor vs. Ravenclaw.
Sirius was angry with James, so instead of playing, he spent the entire time launching bludgers at his head. James pulled out his wand and did a spell that made Sirius fall off of his broom. Sirius ended up with a broken leg, and after the match, he took James' broom and snapped it in half.
After an entire month of fighting, the next full moon came. I left that night and headed to the Shrieking Shack alone, feeling particularly depressed. James, Sirius, and Peter, of course, hadn't planned to come along. I got to the Shrieking Shack and began my usual transformation. By this time, when everything was calm I could remember most of what went on while I was a wolf. It wasn't long before the Prongs came in. I looked up, surprised. He just looked back at me, sat down, and looked as though he was waiting for something. About fifteen minutes later, Wormtail arrived, scampered across the floor, and sat down next to Prongs. I was surprised. I had no idea what they were doing there, or why they'd bothered to come. Several minutes later, Padfoot arrived too, barking and running around, he led us back to the Forbidden Forest back at Hogwarts. We ran around in the forest for a while without communicating at all. Finally, we went back to the Shrieking Shack and slept.
The next morning, I awoke first, to find the sunlight filtering through the boarded up windows, and my friends lying around me, still in animal form. I stretched and yawned. Prongs lifted his head and looked at me. A second later, James was there. Padfoot and Wormtail stirred. They glanced up and saw James and I, still not saying a word. A second later, they were Sirius and Peter. We all looked around at each other, silent. Finally, James came up with the best suggestion we'd had in a long time.
"Group hug!" We all threw our arms around each other.
"And you say I act like a pansy," Sirius muttered to James. Peter laughed hysterically, and before we knew it, we were talking and laughing just like old times.
"I'm sorry about Snape, Moony," said Sirius. "I really am. I didn't want to admit it, but I felt awful. And Prongs' shouting made me remember something I guess I had forgotten. Above all else, you've always got to be loyal to your friends." I nodded.
"It's all right."
"I'm—er – sorry about your leg, Padfoot," said James.
"Well, I'm sorry about your broom... and your nose," said Sirius.
"You know, looking back on the stuff we did to each other, it's kind of funny," Peter pointed out.
"Yeah, like when I made your Potions book hit you in the face!" said Sirius to James.
"Beaker thought I'd gone mad or something, hitting myself in the face with my book!"
"Oh, when Lily grew your nose three feet long!" I told James. "That was hilarious! You couldn't even hold your head up straight!"
"If only we'd put that much energy into torturing Snape instead of ourselves," sighed Sirius.
"Yeah, I think he was definitely surprised that we did pull any pranks on him for almost a month now," I said.
"Well, he's terrified of us now," said Sirius. "We—well I nearly got him killed."
"Yeah, if we had to pick a bright side to any of this, it'd have to be that Snape is afraid of us," said Peter. "He hasn't even teased me lately." We spent the rest of the morning laughing about the whole thing before we came back to school, just in time for lunch.
We took our usual seats at the end of the Gryffindor Table. Lily and Erin were there too. Apparently they were speaking to each other.
"Er—hi Lily," said James cautiously as he approached her.
"James! You're talking to me?" Lily exclaimed, grinning.
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" asked James. Lily threw her arms around him in a hug. Sirius apologized to Erin, and told her that he knew what he did was wrong, and she forgave him instantly. We were back to our normal selves again. I guess sometimes when you get in fights you get so angry and develop such a strong disliking for someone that after a while, you don't even remember how it started. I can't imagine what would have happened if we hadn't became friends again, though. Forgive and forget, I guess. But, then again, look at Sirius now. How do I forgive him for that? Should I forgive him for that? How could I ever find it in my heart after what he did? Would James forgive him? I'll never know, but I often wonder.