Note: Here is chapter four. It would have been up sooner, but I had trouble

connecting to the site.

James and Peter had managed to clean much of the mess from the kitchen. Everyone

except for Remus and Lily sat at a dining roon table. A small lamp provided just enough

light to illuminate the table and themselves. Lily appeared from out of the shadows,

carrying a large glass dish.

"Help yourselves," she said, pulling a chair out to sit down. It made a loud scraping

noise.

Five spoons dipped into the dish at once and came out covered in bread crumbs,

ground meat, and dark green strings of something. They scooped it onto their plates.

"Looks like some sort of whale vomit," James whispered to Sirius. Everyone heard,

but pretended they hadn't. Sirius took a bite and whispered back,"What do you know? The

whale vomit's not half bad. I wonder what the green stuff is, though."

Lily leaned over and whispered,"It's spinach."

Nobody noticed the change in Petunia. She remained more somber than usual, and

looked pale. She was also the only one that didn't laugh at any jokes that were told.

Petunia excused herself before anyone else and disappeared upstairs, telling them

she was going to bed early.

The time was 8:43, and they could tell by listening that the rain had tapered off

to half its fury.

Lily cleared her throat and began to speak.

"Accomadations will go as follows: Peter, you and Sirius can share the guest

room. Remus has already fallen asleep in the master bedroom, so I think we should just

let him stay there for the night.James, you can stay in my room..."

James elbowed Sirius under the table and broke into a grin. It fell, however, when

Lily finished her sentence: "and I'll share a room with sister."

She continued,"If anybody wants to take a bath or shower, we have an upstairs and

a downstairs bathroom. Teh one upstairs also has a sauna built into the shower."

Sirius scraped his chair backwards. "Really?"

She nodded.

"Great," he said,"I get it first."

"I think I'll just go up to Lily's room," said James,"and try to find some nice

bedside reading material." He was grinning again for some reason and had already made

it upstairs when Lily thought of the journal on her nightstand.

"Excuse me,"she told Peter, running after James. Peter deserted the table and

headed towards the downstairs bathroom.

*********

Another hour and everybody was mostly settled. James had fallen asleep with his

head buried in Lily's pillow and was dreaming about the next year at Hogwarts. Lily

had set up a sleeping bag on the floor of Petunia's bedroom, noting that Petunia was

absent. Probably up in the attic again, Lily figured. She reached under the sleeping bag

and touched her private journal, which had been rescued just in time.

"Maybe I should come up with a secret code to write in," she thought, while

tapping Petunia's alarm clock with her wand. It set itself to go off at 8:00 a.m.

SOMEbody* had to get up and make breakfast.

Peter had already fallen asleep alone in the guest room. Sirius was still awake,

his fingers pruning up in the sauna. Thoughts of cooked internal organs briefly

crossed his mind, butwere forgotten just as quickly. He wasn't looking forward to

sharing a room with Peter Pettigrew, who had a bad snoring problem and smelled like

feet.

At the same time, Remus was sweating just as much at the mercy of a nightmare.

In it, he had killed a person as a werewolf and gone through a grueling trial. His sentence

was suffering the werewolf transformation once every day, and in solitary confinement.

"You may begin now," declared the minister of magic.

The courtroom and everyone in it began to disappear and were replaced by a

tiny room with white walls.

Remus felt the familiar hot prickling sensation. It always began this way,

before swelling to all-over agony, both internally and externally. The wolf writhed on

the floor, howling to the walls.

The image and pain faded, and Remus found himself tangled in the sheets of an

unfamiliar bed. He remained in the dark while trying to remember how he came to be there.

Then, it became clearer- this was Lily's house and the bedroom usually belonged to

her parents. Remus wiped sweat off his face as a dull pain reminded him of skipping

dinner earlier.

Nobody would mind if he went downstairs to get something to eat. The house was dark

and quiet except for the upstairs bathroom. A thin line of light could be seen from under

the door, and he could hear the hiss of steam coming from vents inside. He walked past without

even wondering about who was up this late, and found the stairs in the dark. They were

uncarpeted and felt cold on Remus' bare feet. He recalled a vague memory of stumbling

upstairs with Lily and Sirius...falling into a bed...someone removing his shoes.

He tiptoed into the kitchen and opened the refridgerator. it illuminated a

small portion of the room, which included black and white tiles along with navy blue

cabinets.

There was hardly any item of food that didn't require cooking in the refridgerator

or cabinets. Half a loaf of bread stood alone on a counter. Remus cut it into slices and

rummaged around for something to eat it with. His eyes fell on the stove, where

Sirius had left the container of mint-flavored frosting. Better than nothing. Remus

spread it on the bread like cake.

The meal followed with a large glass of water, and he went back upstairs, experiencing

a strange lightheadedness.

There was an odd flickering light around the hallway's corner, which stood out

from the pitch blackness of the corridor. Curious, and not tired enough to fall asleep,

he looked around the corner.

* I can't get the italics to work.