Hi everyone! Well this is the next chapter, and I have to say that I had a
lot of trouble writing this chapter because I just couldn't get the
emotions right so it ended up that my sis helped me out a lot with it so
yeah, some of it is hers. Oh and I forgot to ask last chappie, does anyone
know how to use italics and bold on fanfiction? Cos it's really annoying
not knowing how! PLEASE review cos I have only got one for the last chapter
and it's holidays guys! I have more time to write! Thanx!
~*~Mystical Dreams
Chapter Eight: Confessions.
"That was close" James said as he lay on his bed, exhausted.
"Too close" Sirius added, looking up at the ceiling.
"Yeah I know, but on the bright side, it gives our hero skills practice!" Sirius said with a grin, sitting up and flexing his muscles, "Yep I still got the magic touch."
"At least you didn't nearly get eaten!"
"Oh come on Wormtail! Annie wouldn't have eaten you; it would have ruined her teeth! She has way better taste than that anyway. She would have gone for some sort of delicacy, although that does leave the question of what a delicacy is to an owl."
"SIRIUS BLACK YOU HAVE SOME DAMN DEEP EXPLAINING TO DO!"
Andromeda Black stormed into the boy's dormitory in a fuming rage.
Peter huddled himself up in a corner, trying desperately to hide from Andromeda as best he could.
"Annie! Are you alright?" He said with unconcealed concern in his voice.
"YES SIRIUS I'M FINE! I JUST NEARLY GOT BITTEN BY A WEREWOLF, NEVER BETTER!" She kept yelling at the top of her lungs.
"I WANT A FULL EXPLANATION OF WHAT JUST HAPPENED RIGHT NOW!"
Peter gave a loud squeal and backed away from her frightfully, covering his eyes with his hands.
She just looked over at him pathetically.
"Annie you're in shock, sit down and calm down"
Andromeda looked like she was going to spark flames from her eyes as they bored into her cousin.
"Well if you had of cared to tell me that you ran around with a werewolf then maybe I wouldn't be this angry!"
A very uncomfortable silence followed, giving Sirius enough time to try and think things over.
"Look" he said softly, "We'll all go to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey has probably by now taken Moony and when we get there and get checked up we will all explain to you what has happened"
Andromeda sat in thoughtful silence for a while before grunting out a rather forced "fine", trying to conceal her guilt as she caught sight of the wounds they both held.
"C'mon Prongs, we're going to have to try and think of an excuse to tell Madam Pomfrey as to how we got this way and before you even think about it Annie we can NOT tell her that we are all unregistered animagi."
James rose slowly from his bed with a short wince and went to help Sirius up.
They both walked out of the dormitory, with Andromeda at their heels and Peter following about ten metres behind, avoiding Andromeda's eye's as much he could.
It was now roughly about five thirty in the morning and they were all grateful to find that not many people were up yet.
"So have you got any ideas?" Sirius asked James.
"No not yet, well not any that she would believe anyways"
"Yes well, she has heard some queer stories from us over the years" Sirius said with a grin.
"You could tell her that you two were having a fight and accidentally fell over the hearth in the common room and then you were both firing curses at one another or something along those lines" Andromeda put in, in a much calmer voice than before.
"That might work! I mean we usually fight" James said brightly.
Andromeda looked at them incredulously.
"You two haven't turned the cold shoulder on each other since I've been here!"
"Oh we don't hold grudges Annie! We take it out physically, who wants to keep fighting if you can let it out by pain!"
Andromeda sighed and shook her head at them both, slightly disturbed by this statement.
They soon reached the hospital wing and James knocked quietly on the door.
Madam Pomfrey came bustling over to open it; she was already fully dressed and looked quite disturbed.
"What do you want boys?" she asked, annoyed, but then her eye caught onto Andromeda.
"Andromeda! Good god girl, what are you doing out of bed, and in your school robes at this time of the morning?! You're supposed to be resting in that bed over there!" She said worriedly, pointing a slim finger behind her.
"I um.I remembered that I had a Transfiguration test today and I forgot to study yesterday, I needed to get my books from my dorm and I bumped into these three"
Madam Pomfrey looked at Andromeda uncertainly and then gestured for them to come inside, muttering about teachers over-working students and not letting the sick some slack.
"Well what's wrong?" She asked, sighing as they took a seat on one of the beds.
Sirius pulled back his robes slightly to show her the deep gash on his arm and she looked slightly stunned. She then looked over at James whose robes were dabbed with blood as well.
"What in merlins beard have you two been doing?!"
"Well we kind of had a little fight and we both tripped over the hearth in the common room near the fireplace"
Madam Pomfrey didn't look convinced.
"And we were aiming some pretty heavy curses on one another" Sirius added with ease, obviously he had lied many times before.
At this she looked like she believed them a little more since they WERE both top students and would most likely know harmful curses enough, and they were boys, that pretty much said it all.
Andromeda looked around to see one other bed occupied, its curtains closed and a low moaning sound coming from it.
"Well Mr. Pettigrew, is their anything wrong with you?" she said as she finished dabbing a liquid onto the gashes and bandaging them up.
"No! I'm, I'm fine!" He said rather nervously, glancing at Andromeda who just glared back at him.
"Alright then, it'll take a while for them to heal boys, at least an hour anyway, and Andromeda dear, I would like to do a check up if you don't mind before you go to lessons, just to make sure you're alright"
Andromeda sat down on the bed as the boys got up.
"Err.Madam Pomfrey?" James asked hesitantly.
"Yes"
"Would we be able to see Remus be any chance? We heard that he had a bad fall last night, down the stairs and we'd like to see if he's alright"
Madam Pomfrey looked nervously at them both, she didn't know that they knew about Remus being a werewolf, they thought it safer to keep it to themselves.
Her features turned sympathetic and she managed to convince herself that it shouldn't be a problem, "Oh, alright boys, but he's in an awful state, maybe you can cheer him up a bit"
They smiled at her and retreated down the wing to where the curtains were closed around a bed.
Andromeda could hear them whispering frantically to him as she got checked up. When she was finished Madam Pomfrey went back into her office to leave them with their friend.
Annie walked up to the bed, her head reeling with thoughts and questions that had so far all been unanswered.
As she approached the whispering ceased immediately and she looked around the edge of the curtain to find Remus lying on his stomach with various deep gashes and scratches running down his back like claw marks. She winced at the sight, turning away, and then suddenly, as if everything had clicked she caught on.
"You're- you were the werewolf" She said looking at Remus with empathy.
His head was buried in the pillow and he nodded it slightly up and down as he turned to the side and sighed.
"Are you alright?" he asked her in a croaking voice.
"Y-yeah I'm fine, just a bit shocked"
Annie sat down in a seat next to James, her eye's wide open.
Remus felt like a icy cold liquid had been spread throughout his body, he didn't know what Andromeda was thinking, and he hoped with all his might that she wouldn't shun him because of what he was, he couldn't bare to loose a friend because of his curse. He didn't want his friends to tell her that he had been the werewolf, but he knew deep down that he owed it to her to tell her and that all fingers pointed to him; he knew she would find out anyway.
"S-so that's why you're animagi" She said looking at Sirius.
"Yes, and so are James and Peter"
She nodded slowly, and then added, hoping to lighten the mood, "I wasn't going to eat you Peter, I need to have some way to amuse myself!"
"I don't imagine he'd taste very nice anyway" Sirius put in.
Peter just squirmed in his seat with a small smile.
"I don't imagine I'd taste any good either" Andromeda said smiling at Remus.
There was a short creak at the door and they all turned but no body could be seen so they took it for the wind.
"Let me guess, James you were the stag." Annie said turning to the boy sitting on her right
"Of course! The most noble and proud!"
At this Annie let out a short laugh and the tension in the room eased.
"So, you don't mind that I'm a werewolf?" Remus asked her nervously.
"No! I mean you can't help it and you're only like it once a month, and even then you don't have any control over yourself"
"Thanks" he said smiling weekly.
"What I want to know is why you're animagi" James said looking at Andromeda with interest.
She frowned slightly then sighed and started, "Well"-
She was cut off by a loud clash coming from the other side of the door and then a series of curses and frantic whispering.
James got up from his chair and walked over to the door to open it. When he did he met eyes with a certain red haired Lily and a very embarrassed Miria lying in a tangle on the floor.
"heh, oops!" Miria said, her face going a bright shade of red.
James had an expression of amusement, disappointment and anger mixed into his usually proud and stubborn features. Lily didn't know what to make of his feelings at that moment.
She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out, however, her mouth remained open. James was dressed only in long pants; there was a patch on his right shoulder and small scratches covering his muscular chest then her eyes rested on a bandage wrapped right around his mid torso, its usually white colour was now blood red, evidently drenched in the blood that was escaping his body.
James cleared his throat, which made Lily's head snap up to meet his expressionless eyes. There seemed to be a blind pulled down so that no emotions could escape.
"What are you doing here?" He asked in a voice devoid of emotion. She had never heard James like this.
"I came to see Annie; we were bringing her school things down to her." Lily realised that her voice was shaking, and she challenged herself as to why.
James' expression softened and emotion returned to his face.
Lily sighed in relief; she'd rather see the teasing, immature James then that emotionless, quite scary expression.
"Well, well Evans, not saying much are we? Cat got your tongue?"
"Well no. It's just. Well I thought." Damn it, Lily thought, why can't I get a sentence out!
"You alright Evans?" James enquired offering her a hand to assist her off the floor. Lily took the help up.
"Yes. I mean of course. that is to say why wouldn't I be. but ." Lily mentally kicked herself for being unable to put a coherent sentence together. "You're bleeding." She finished lamely.
"How observant of you to notice" Sirius finished dryly as he too wandered out into the hall.
Sirius had a bandage around his left upper arm, though he had not been deprived of his shirt he had been stripped of his trousers and stood before them in only boxer shorts. The reason for this seemingly quite obvious for there was a bandage entwining his calf and knee on his right leg. His face was hard and his expression unmoving.
Miria winced from her place on the floor and James held out his hand to help her to her feet. She rose slowly rubbing her backside, where, evidently she had fallen. The four stood there for a good 2 minutes just staring, two of them in an expressionless way and the two girls in shame and embarrassment.
"Well then my little mice. you came to see Annie. no need to keep her waiting." Sirius said in an icy tone.
Lily and Miria trudged into the hospital wing as one would approach a guillotine.
"You know you really shouldn't try to over hear a conversation, you're really bad at it" Sirius observed pointedly.
At this minute the REAL Lily kicked in.
"Well YOU shouldn't be keeping SECRETS from ME, a PREFECT!"
"What on earth are you on about?!" Sirius questioned, but his voice held a notable tone of panic to it.
"We heard everything you said" Miria said quietly.
They all stared at her with their mouths open and as they approached Remus' bed all that could be seen of him was his gashed back as he had covered his head with his pillow.
He then spoke a hardly coherent sentence under the pillow.
"I'll wake up and it'll all be a nightmare" he said dully.
Both of the girls looked at him sympathetically but couldn't find words to describe what they wanted to say. Lily spotted James out of the corner of her eye and she thought she saw him looking at Remus in a way that can only be described as inexpressible sadness, but as soon as he noticed her eyes on him the blind was pulled back down and his features were no more readable to her than a French textbook
James sighed. "Well I guess you're going to tell Dumbledore that we're unregistered animagi, now are you?"
"No, I actually wanted to hear what Annie had to say and hear your full story so I don't get the wrong idea" Lily said calmly.
James and Sirius looked at her incredulously and even Remus took the pillow off of his head to look up at her, but Andromeda just smiled at her friends and mouthed a thanks.
"But don't think I'm doing this for you" Lily added, trying to come back to her usual self, "Annie's my friend and I don't want her to get into trouble"
"Fair enough" James said, "Sirius do you want to do the honours?"
"Right, well I might as well start when we actually became animagi"
Sirius told them all about their transformation and why they had done it (smartly leaving out the part where they had stolen a book from the restricted section and trying his best to leave the invisibility cloak and marauders map out) and the events of the current night. When he had finished they all sat in silence until Lily, being the very opinionated person that she was, decided to pipe up.
"I won't deny that it is very stupid and dangerous and I should tell Professor Dumbledore" she admitted, "But for now I really want to know why you're an animagi Annie"
Andromeda sighed for the fiftieth time that day and everyone (well Remus and James) became slightly more attentive.
"Annie you might as well tell them, they're gonna find out sooner or later" Sirius said, looking over at her.
"Alright, the reason I'm an animagi is because I'm part sear, I have visions in the form of nightmares and transforming into an owl helps to clear my head, well that and owls are nocturnal and it allows me to avoid sleeping when necessary"
They all looked at her silently as she fiddled with her fingers.
"But what's so bad about that?" Lily asked.
"Well, you see, being a sear isn't something that many wizards and witches are too keen on because most of them are frauds or just plain crazy" Sirius explained.
"In other words, they don't have a very good reputation, I mean, look at Trelawney, anyone would swear she was stark raving mad!" James put in.
"Did anyone already know about this?" Miria asked, looking at James suspiciously.
Sirius put up his hand.
"Well obviously, but James?"
"No! I didn't know about it!"
Lily was amazed as to how he could wipe all sense of emotion from his voice and features.
"No, James didn't know about it, he's just totally void of emotion, plus, you would have known if he did because I was the only one who knew she was sear and if I had of told him deliberately I wouldn't be looking as gorgeous as I do now"
Lily couldn't help but smile at her friend's brilliance.
But James' unemotional face was starting to nag at Remus and soon he realized why.
"You did know, didn't you James" he questioned.
James and Remus merely stared at each other for a while and then James sighed.
"Ok so I did know about it"
Andromeda stared at him with her mouth open and then looked over at Sirius in a fury until she realized that his face read the same amazement as hers.
"How, what?" he managed to splutter out.
"Well you see Padfoot, buddy, you have a certain weakness of talking in your sleep" he said with a cheeky grin and then continued in a very good imitation of Sirius.
"No Annie, don't have a nightmare tonight, the future's so boring and I'm too tired"
Sirius looked at him with a blank expression until he unwillingly turned around to see Andromeda's face.
She didn't look too impressed but didn't say a word.
"Or their was that time when you were talking about your date with that Anna chick in Ravenclaw," James said thoughtfully before lapsing into his Sirius voice "Oh Anna, you have such beautiful"-
Sirius clamped his hand over his friend's mouth and then whispered something in his ear that made James turn a pasty white and shut up.
"So didn't your family know about it?" Peter asked. Everyone jumped at this sudden question from him, the always quiet boy who had shown absolutely no sign of attentiveness.
"Well yes, they had to didn't they, I was born with it, but it's not like they cared anyway" She scathed bitterly.
Sirius decided to steer the conversation away from their family as it was usually a pretty touchy subject and onto something else.
"So Lily, now you know about Annie, you can tell me how I got up those stairs into the girls dormitories"
Lily looked at him blankly for a while and then snapped back to reality.
"Oh that! Have you ever read Hogwarts, a History?"
"No, I've never stepped foot in the Library before!"
Lily shook her head slightly.
"Well if you're wanting to know to see how you can get up there again don't even bother"
Sirius looked slightly disappointed but urged her to go on.
"The staircase has a sort of emotional reading charm on it, it can sense urgency in a persons emotions, so it can sense if you have good intentions or not" Lily said smartly.
Remus smiled, he could have told Sirius and James that three years ago but he found it highly amusing to watch them try and devise plans in their spare time as to how to get up there. His mood has risen dramatically as the subject had been taken off him and onto something else. He was starting to have more confidence in Lily and Miria as to them not telling the headmaster, after all, they were one of Andromeda's best friends, but he couldn't imagine the unforgettable guilt that kept on hanging around him about betraying Dumbledore's trust. Though his thoughts stopped there as the school nurse came bustling down the rows of beds towards his.
"Come on everyone, Mr. Lupin needs rest and you need to have breakfast yet before classes" she said and then shuffled down towards some of the other empty beds to collect glasses and potion cups.
Sirius and James both looked down at there bandaged arms and waists to find all of the blood completely gone and as they took them off, only small scars were where the deep wounds had been.
Remus looked at Miria, Lily and Andromeda with a sense of pleading in his eyes.
"You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"No. As long as you don't tell anyone about me" Andromeda said kindly.
He then looked towards the other two girls.
Lily sighed, "I won't tell about you being a werewolf, and even though I don't like the idea of unregistered animagi running around, I mean it is breaking the law, and if you got caught, who knows what would happen, I just can't believe".. She stopped as she saw Miria's stare boring into her. "I won't tell" She finished with.
James looked up at Lily and flashed her one of those smiles, the really grateful ones that make your insides do a summersault, one that says everything even though no noise is made.
"Umm. Evans" Lily snapped back to reality when she realised there was a hand waving up and down in front of her eyes. She jolted when she realised who it was, James was standing there looking distractedly past her.
"Potter I was simply thinking, which is more then I can say for what you do with your miniscule brain"
"Ahhhhhh. Yes, perhaps you are right Evans. But the point is that you admitted I have a brain" James stated, walking past her through the door pulling his shirt over his head as he went.
"You know Lily, you better be careful, the way you are drooling, anyone would think you fancied him," Annie stated.
Lily opened and closed her mouth a couple of times until she finally said something, "You KNOW I hate him Andromeda Black! I would rather date a banshee then go out with him!" And Lily also exited the hospital wing.
Remus and Annie looked at each other and smiled knowingly without saying anything.
~*~
Well everyone I hope you liked that chapter! You can probably pick out my sis' stuff cos she's been around longer then me and has a bigger vocab! I'm trying to type quietly at the moment (it's not working!) because it's 7:10 in the morning and all the rest of my family are still in bed, and I would be too (since I don't usually start walking around until ten) except I really needed to pee! (You really didn't need to know that but I thought I would put it in for your own humour) Well then, I shall go now and since I have nothing else to do (don't you love hols?!) I will start to type up the next chapter! Adios all!
~*~Mystical Dreams
~*~Mystical Dreams
Chapter Eight: Confessions.
"That was close" James said as he lay on his bed, exhausted.
"Too close" Sirius added, looking up at the ceiling.
"Yeah I know, but on the bright side, it gives our hero skills practice!" Sirius said with a grin, sitting up and flexing his muscles, "Yep I still got the magic touch."
"At least you didn't nearly get eaten!"
"Oh come on Wormtail! Annie wouldn't have eaten you; it would have ruined her teeth! She has way better taste than that anyway. She would have gone for some sort of delicacy, although that does leave the question of what a delicacy is to an owl."
"SIRIUS BLACK YOU HAVE SOME DAMN DEEP EXPLAINING TO DO!"
Andromeda Black stormed into the boy's dormitory in a fuming rage.
Peter huddled himself up in a corner, trying desperately to hide from Andromeda as best he could.
"Annie! Are you alright?" He said with unconcealed concern in his voice.
"YES SIRIUS I'M FINE! I JUST NEARLY GOT BITTEN BY A WEREWOLF, NEVER BETTER!" She kept yelling at the top of her lungs.
"I WANT A FULL EXPLANATION OF WHAT JUST HAPPENED RIGHT NOW!"
Peter gave a loud squeal and backed away from her frightfully, covering his eyes with his hands.
She just looked over at him pathetically.
"Annie you're in shock, sit down and calm down"
Andromeda looked like she was going to spark flames from her eyes as they bored into her cousin.
"Well if you had of cared to tell me that you ran around with a werewolf then maybe I wouldn't be this angry!"
A very uncomfortable silence followed, giving Sirius enough time to try and think things over.
"Look" he said softly, "We'll all go to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey has probably by now taken Moony and when we get there and get checked up we will all explain to you what has happened"
Andromeda sat in thoughtful silence for a while before grunting out a rather forced "fine", trying to conceal her guilt as she caught sight of the wounds they both held.
"C'mon Prongs, we're going to have to try and think of an excuse to tell Madam Pomfrey as to how we got this way and before you even think about it Annie we can NOT tell her that we are all unregistered animagi."
James rose slowly from his bed with a short wince and went to help Sirius up.
They both walked out of the dormitory, with Andromeda at their heels and Peter following about ten metres behind, avoiding Andromeda's eye's as much he could.
It was now roughly about five thirty in the morning and they were all grateful to find that not many people were up yet.
"So have you got any ideas?" Sirius asked James.
"No not yet, well not any that she would believe anyways"
"Yes well, she has heard some queer stories from us over the years" Sirius said with a grin.
"You could tell her that you two were having a fight and accidentally fell over the hearth in the common room and then you were both firing curses at one another or something along those lines" Andromeda put in, in a much calmer voice than before.
"That might work! I mean we usually fight" James said brightly.
Andromeda looked at them incredulously.
"You two haven't turned the cold shoulder on each other since I've been here!"
"Oh we don't hold grudges Annie! We take it out physically, who wants to keep fighting if you can let it out by pain!"
Andromeda sighed and shook her head at them both, slightly disturbed by this statement.
They soon reached the hospital wing and James knocked quietly on the door.
Madam Pomfrey came bustling over to open it; she was already fully dressed and looked quite disturbed.
"What do you want boys?" she asked, annoyed, but then her eye caught onto Andromeda.
"Andromeda! Good god girl, what are you doing out of bed, and in your school robes at this time of the morning?! You're supposed to be resting in that bed over there!" She said worriedly, pointing a slim finger behind her.
"I um.I remembered that I had a Transfiguration test today and I forgot to study yesterday, I needed to get my books from my dorm and I bumped into these three"
Madam Pomfrey looked at Andromeda uncertainly and then gestured for them to come inside, muttering about teachers over-working students and not letting the sick some slack.
"Well what's wrong?" She asked, sighing as they took a seat on one of the beds.
Sirius pulled back his robes slightly to show her the deep gash on his arm and she looked slightly stunned. She then looked over at James whose robes were dabbed with blood as well.
"What in merlins beard have you two been doing?!"
"Well we kind of had a little fight and we both tripped over the hearth in the common room near the fireplace"
Madam Pomfrey didn't look convinced.
"And we were aiming some pretty heavy curses on one another" Sirius added with ease, obviously he had lied many times before.
At this she looked like she believed them a little more since they WERE both top students and would most likely know harmful curses enough, and they were boys, that pretty much said it all.
Andromeda looked around to see one other bed occupied, its curtains closed and a low moaning sound coming from it.
"Well Mr. Pettigrew, is their anything wrong with you?" she said as she finished dabbing a liquid onto the gashes and bandaging them up.
"No! I'm, I'm fine!" He said rather nervously, glancing at Andromeda who just glared back at him.
"Alright then, it'll take a while for them to heal boys, at least an hour anyway, and Andromeda dear, I would like to do a check up if you don't mind before you go to lessons, just to make sure you're alright"
Andromeda sat down on the bed as the boys got up.
"Err.Madam Pomfrey?" James asked hesitantly.
"Yes"
"Would we be able to see Remus be any chance? We heard that he had a bad fall last night, down the stairs and we'd like to see if he's alright"
Madam Pomfrey looked nervously at them both, she didn't know that they knew about Remus being a werewolf, they thought it safer to keep it to themselves.
Her features turned sympathetic and she managed to convince herself that it shouldn't be a problem, "Oh, alright boys, but he's in an awful state, maybe you can cheer him up a bit"
They smiled at her and retreated down the wing to where the curtains were closed around a bed.
Andromeda could hear them whispering frantically to him as she got checked up. When she was finished Madam Pomfrey went back into her office to leave them with their friend.
Annie walked up to the bed, her head reeling with thoughts and questions that had so far all been unanswered.
As she approached the whispering ceased immediately and she looked around the edge of the curtain to find Remus lying on his stomach with various deep gashes and scratches running down his back like claw marks. She winced at the sight, turning away, and then suddenly, as if everything had clicked she caught on.
"You're- you were the werewolf" She said looking at Remus with empathy.
His head was buried in the pillow and he nodded it slightly up and down as he turned to the side and sighed.
"Are you alright?" he asked her in a croaking voice.
"Y-yeah I'm fine, just a bit shocked"
Annie sat down in a seat next to James, her eye's wide open.
Remus felt like a icy cold liquid had been spread throughout his body, he didn't know what Andromeda was thinking, and he hoped with all his might that she wouldn't shun him because of what he was, he couldn't bare to loose a friend because of his curse. He didn't want his friends to tell her that he had been the werewolf, but he knew deep down that he owed it to her to tell her and that all fingers pointed to him; he knew she would find out anyway.
"S-so that's why you're animagi" She said looking at Sirius.
"Yes, and so are James and Peter"
She nodded slowly, and then added, hoping to lighten the mood, "I wasn't going to eat you Peter, I need to have some way to amuse myself!"
"I don't imagine he'd taste very nice anyway" Sirius put in.
Peter just squirmed in his seat with a small smile.
"I don't imagine I'd taste any good either" Andromeda said smiling at Remus.
There was a short creak at the door and they all turned but no body could be seen so they took it for the wind.
"Let me guess, James you were the stag." Annie said turning to the boy sitting on her right
"Of course! The most noble and proud!"
At this Annie let out a short laugh and the tension in the room eased.
"So, you don't mind that I'm a werewolf?" Remus asked her nervously.
"No! I mean you can't help it and you're only like it once a month, and even then you don't have any control over yourself"
"Thanks" he said smiling weekly.
"What I want to know is why you're animagi" James said looking at Andromeda with interest.
She frowned slightly then sighed and started, "Well"-
She was cut off by a loud clash coming from the other side of the door and then a series of curses and frantic whispering.
James got up from his chair and walked over to the door to open it. When he did he met eyes with a certain red haired Lily and a very embarrassed Miria lying in a tangle on the floor.
"heh, oops!" Miria said, her face going a bright shade of red.
James had an expression of amusement, disappointment and anger mixed into his usually proud and stubborn features. Lily didn't know what to make of his feelings at that moment.
She opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out, however, her mouth remained open. James was dressed only in long pants; there was a patch on his right shoulder and small scratches covering his muscular chest then her eyes rested on a bandage wrapped right around his mid torso, its usually white colour was now blood red, evidently drenched in the blood that was escaping his body.
James cleared his throat, which made Lily's head snap up to meet his expressionless eyes. There seemed to be a blind pulled down so that no emotions could escape.
"What are you doing here?" He asked in a voice devoid of emotion. She had never heard James like this.
"I came to see Annie; we were bringing her school things down to her." Lily realised that her voice was shaking, and she challenged herself as to why.
James' expression softened and emotion returned to his face.
Lily sighed in relief; she'd rather see the teasing, immature James then that emotionless, quite scary expression.
"Well, well Evans, not saying much are we? Cat got your tongue?"
"Well no. It's just. Well I thought." Damn it, Lily thought, why can't I get a sentence out!
"You alright Evans?" James enquired offering her a hand to assist her off the floor. Lily took the help up.
"Yes. I mean of course. that is to say why wouldn't I be. but ." Lily mentally kicked herself for being unable to put a coherent sentence together. "You're bleeding." She finished lamely.
"How observant of you to notice" Sirius finished dryly as he too wandered out into the hall.
Sirius had a bandage around his left upper arm, though he had not been deprived of his shirt he had been stripped of his trousers and stood before them in only boxer shorts. The reason for this seemingly quite obvious for there was a bandage entwining his calf and knee on his right leg. His face was hard and his expression unmoving.
Miria winced from her place on the floor and James held out his hand to help her to her feet. She rose slowly rubbing her backside, where, evidently she had fallen. The four stood there for a good 2 minutes just staring, two of them in an expressionless way and the two girls in shame and embarrassment.
"Well then my little mice. you came to see Annie. no need to keep her waiting." Sirius said in an icy tone.
Lily and Miria trudged into the hospital wing as one would approach a guillotine.
"You know you really shouldn't try to over hear a conversation, you're really bad at it" Sirius observed pointedly.
At this minute the REAL Lily kicked in.
"Well YOU shouldn't be keeping SECRETS from ME, a PREFECT!"
"What on earth are you on about?!" Sirius questioned, but his voice held a notable tone of panic to it.
"We heard everything you said" Miria said quietly.
They all stared at her with their mouths open and as they approached Remus' bed all that could be seen of him was his gashed back as he had covered his head with his pillow.
He then spoke a hardly coherent sentence under the pillow.
"I'll wake up and it'll all be a nightmare" he said dully.
Both of the girls looked at him sympathetically but couldn't find words to describe what they wanted to say. Lily spotted James out of the corner of her eye and she thought she saw him looking at Remus in a way that can only be described as inexpressible sadness, but as soon as he noticed her eyes on him the blind was pulled back down and his features were no more readable to her than a French textbook
James sighed. "Well I guess you're going to tell Dumbledore that we're unregistered animagi, now are you?"
"No, I actually wanted to hear what Annie had to say and hear your full story so I don't get the wrong idea" Lily said calmly.
James and Sirius looked at her incredulously and even Remus took the pillow off of his head to look up at her, but Andromeda just smiled at her friends and mouthed a thanks.
"But don't think I'm doing this for you" Lily added, trying to come back to her usual self, "Annie's my friend and I don't want her to get into trouble"
"Fair enough" James said, "Sirius do you want to do the honours?"
"Right, well I might as well start when we actually became animagi"
Sirius told them all about their transformation and why they had done it (smartly leaving out the part where they had stolen a book from the restricted section and trying his best to leave the invisibility cloak and marauders map out) and the events of the current night. When he had finished they all sat in silence until Lily, being the very opinionated person that she was, decided to pipe up.
"I won't deny that it is very stupid and dangerous and I should tell Professor Dumbledore" she admitted, "But for now I really want to know why you're an animagi Annie"
Andromeda sighed for the fiftieth time that day and everyone (well Remus and James) became slightly more attentive.
"Annie you might as well tell them, they're gonna find out sooner or later" Sirius said, looking over at her.
"Alright, the reason I'm an animagi is because I'm part sear, I have visions in the form of nightmares and transforming into an owl helps to clear my head, well that and owls are nocturnal and it allows me to avoid sleeping when necessary"
They all looked at her silently as she fiddled with her fingers.
"But what's so bad about that?" Lily asked.
"Well, you see, being a sear isn't something that many wizards and witches are too keen on because most of them are frauds or just plain crazy" Sirius explained.
"In other words, they don't have a very good reputation, I mean, look at Trelawney, anyone would swear she was stark raving mad!" James put in.
"Did anyone already know about this?" Miria asked, looking at James suspiciously.
Sirius put up his hand.
"Well obviously, but James?"
"No! I didn't know about it!"
Lily was amazed as to how he could wipe all sense of emotion from his voice and features.
"No, James didn't know about it, he's just totally void of emotion, plus, you would have known if he did because I was the only one who knew she was sear and if I had of told him deliberately I wouldn't be looking as gorgeous as I do now"
Lily couldn't help but smile at her friend's brilliance.
But James' unemotional face was starting to nag at Remus and soon he realized why.
"You did know, didn't you James" he questioned.
James and Remus merely stared at each other for a while and then James sighed.
"Ok so I did know about it"
Andromeda stared at him with her mouth open and then looked over at Sirius in a fury until she realized that his face read the same amazement as hers.
"How, what?" he managed to splutter out.
"Well you see Padfoot, buddy, you have a certain weakness of talking in your sleep" he said with a cheeky grin and then continued in a very good imitation of Sirius.
"No Annie, don't have a nightmare tonight, the future's so boring and I'm too tired"
Sirius looked at him with a blank expression until he unwillingly turned around to see Andromeda's face.
She didn't look too impressed but didn't say a word.
"Or their was that time when you were talking about your date with that Anna chick in Ravenclaw," James said thoughtfully before lapsing into his Sirius voice "Oh Anna, you have such beautiful"-
Sirius clamped his hand over his friend's mouth and then whispered something in his ear that made James turn a pasty white and shut up.
"So didn't your family know about it?" Peter asked. Everyone jumped at this sudden question from him, the always quiet boy who had shown absolutely no sign of attentiveness.
"Well yes, they had to didn't they, I was born with it, but it's not like they cared anyway" She scathed bitterly.
Sirius decided to steer the conversation away from their family as it was usually a pretty touchy subject and onto something else.
"So Lily, now you know about Annie, you can tell me how I got up those stairs into the girls dormitories"
Lily looked at him blankly for a while and then snapped back to reality.
"Oh that! Have you ever read Hogwarts, a History?"
"No, I've never stepped foot in the Library before!"
Lily shook her head slightly.
"Well if you're wanting to know to see how you can get up there again don't even bother"
Sirius looked slightly disappointed but urged her to go on.
"The staircase has a sort of emotional reading charm on it, it can sense urgency in a persons emotions, so it can sense if you have good intentions or not" Lily said smartly.
Remus smiled, he could have told Sirius and James that three years ago but he found it highly amusing to watch them try and devise plans in their spare time as to how to get up there. His mood has risen dramatically as the subject had been taken off him and onto something else. He was starting to have more confidence in Lily and Miria as to them not telling the headmaster, after all, they were one of Andromeda's best friends, but he couldn't imagine the unforgettable guilt that kept on hanging around him about betraying Dumbledore's trust. Though his thoughts stopped there as the school nurse came bustling down the rows of beds towards his.
"Come on everyone, Mr. Lupin needs rest and you need to have breakfast yet before classes" she said and then shuffled down towards some of the other empty beds to collect glasses and potion cups.
Sirius and James both looked down at there bandaged arms and waists to find all of the blood completely gone and as they took them off, only small scars were where the deep wounds had been.
Remus looked at Miria, Lily and Andromeda with a sense of pleading in his eyes.
"You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"No. As long as you don't tell anyone about me" Andromeda said kindly.
He then looked towards the other two girls.
Lily sighed, "I won't tell about you being a werewolf, and even though I don't like the idea of unregistered animagi running around, I mean it is breaking the law, and if you got caught, who knows what would happen, I just can't believe".. She stopped as she saw Miria's stare boring into her. "I won't tell" She finished with.
James looked up at Lily and flashed her one of those smiles, the really grateful ones that make your insides do a summersault, one that says everything even though no noise is made.
"Umm. Evans" Lily snapped back to reality when she realised there was a hand waving up and down in front of her eyes. She jolted when she realised who it was, James was standing there looking distractedly past her.
"Potter I was simply thinking, which is more then I can say for what you do with your miniscule brain"
"Ahhhhhh. Yes, perhaps you are right Evans. But the point is that you admitted I have a brain" James stated, walking past her through the door pulling his shirt over his head as he went.
"You know Lily, you better be careful, the way you are drooling, anyone would think you fancied him," Annie stated.
Lily opened and closed her mouth a couple of times until she finally said something, "You KNOW I hate him Andromeda Black! I would rather date a banshee then go out with him!" And Lily also exited the hospital wing.
Remus and Annie looked at each other and smiled knowingly without saying anything.
~*~
Well everyone I hope you liked that chapter! You can probably pick out my sis' stuff cos she's been around longer then me and has a bigger vocab! I'm trying to type quietly at the moment (it's not working!) because it's 7:10 in the morning and all the rest of my family are still in bed, and I would be too (since I don't usually start walking around until ten) except I really needed to pee! (You really didn't need to know that but I thought I would put it in for your own humour) Well then, I shall go now and since I have nothing else to do (don't you love hols?!) I will start to type up the next chapter! Adios all!
~*~Mystical Dreams