Chapter Twenty-Seven: Horror in the Moonlight

The next Saturday, something almost miraculous happened. Austin had asked Lily for help on a big assignment in Herbology and she had agreed to spend the whole day working on it with him. While this was too bad for Austin, it gave the Marauders the chance they had been looking for to get out of their normal group study sessions without attracting attention.

"What should we do with our freedom?" James asked, stretching out on his bed that morning.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sirius responded, throwing a pillow at James. "We look for secret passages."

"Oh, yeah," Remus said, nodding slowly. "I had almost forgotten about that."

"Great idea, Sirius," James eagerly replied. He looked around, then spoke to Remus, "Isn't tonight the full moon?"

Remus nodded. "But we should be back in plenty of time, it's not even noon yet."

"Alright." James nodded authoritatively. He gathered up a roll of parchment and a quill so that he could make notes, then they headed out of their tower.

"Where should we start?" Peter asked.

"I say we start at the bottom of the school and search until we get to the top," Sirius proposed.

This was agreed to by all as the best plan, so they cautiously made their way to the dungeons below the school, not being anxious to run into the caretaker, Pringle. It took them a bit longer, but they made it without being detected. With the help of their handy Hollowus Locatum spell, they searched every inch of wall and floor space there was. After a half-hour of this searching, they found a hollow spot behind a particularly dirty section of wall.

"But how do we open it?" Remus wondered, his brow furrowed in thought. The boys pushed on every section of rock in the wall and nothing happened.

James pointed his wand at the wall. "Alohamora!" Nothing happened. James shrugged. "It was worth a try."

Peter nervously took out his wand and said, "Erschließen Sie!" To everyone's surprise, especially Peter's, the stones moved aside, showing the entranceway to a secret passage.

"Where'd that one come from, Peter?" Remus asked, astonished.

"I learned some German from my great-grandma," Peter said shyly. "I just said 'open up' in German."

James slapped Peter on the back and pushed him into the passageway. "You're a genius, my friend."

The Marauders stepped into the dark passage, all at once whispering, "Lumos!" The light from their four wands led their way.

They walked for a few minutes, Remus' heart was pounding with excitement, and a bit of anxiety. After much winding and climbing, the boys found another wall, which opened with Peter's spell. The stones rearranged to form a doorway that led into the hall just behind the entrance to Dumbledore's office.

"Are we where I think we are?" Peter asked in awe.

James whistled in amazement. "Inside the secret entrance to Dumbledore's office." He grinned. "We sure hit the jackpot!"

A noise from further down the hall forced them back into the passageway, the stones reforming a wall in front of them. Everyone tried to talk at once, quietly, but excitedly.

"Why on earth is this here?" Sirius blurted out. "Anyone can have access to the headmaster's office."

"Or, the headmaster can have quick access to the dungeons," Remus reasoned aloud. "I mean, you can't disapparate on school grounds, so you have to have some way to get around quickly."

"Good thinking, Remus." James nodded. "It makes sense."

Soon they were back in the dungeons, continuing their search after making note of the first passage on their parchment.

"I've found another one!" Remus exclaimed excitedly, not long after.

The other three boys rushed over to the nondescript section of wall that Remus stood near. "What should we try to open this one?" James wondered aloud.

Alohomora and Erschließen Sie were quickly tried, but in vain. The Marauders wracked their brains, trying every spell they could think of. Heaving a huge sigh of frustration, Sirius banged his fist on the wall. To their wonder, Sirius' hand continued to move through the air as the wall swung inward, like a door.

"Where did you touch it, Sirius?" James immediately called out.

Sirius pointed, still a bit shaken. "Right there."

James made a note of that on his parchment and the boys headed down the dark passageway. Remus was just as excited to find where this led as he was to see where the first one went, but when they had been walking for twenty minutes, his excitement cooled to a mild interest. After half an hour, the boys began to eye one another uneasily, but no one spoke, being sure the end was just ahead. What seemed like hours later, Peter's stomach gave a particularly large growl.

"Sorry," he quietly apologized.

"What time is it getting to be?" Remus asked.

"Time for dinner," Sirius glumly replied, after checking his watch.

No one wanted to be the one to suggest they turn back. 'Besides,' Remus thought, 'We might as well go to the end, since we've come this far.' The Marauders trudged on.

And on.

And on.

Remus spoke up. "Uh, guys?"

"What is it Remus?" Peter asked.

"The moon is going to be coming up soon, and it's full tonight." Remus paused to let the statement sink in.

James was the first to respond. "Ok, so we either get us out of here or you out of here, right?"

Remus nodded.

"And we know that back to the castle is a long way," he continued, thinking aloud.

Everyone nodded.

"So I say me, Sirius and Peter keep going and get as far as we can in the opposite direction, hopefully finding the exit, while Remus heads back towards Hogwarts, but doesn't go in if he gets there. That way we are at least as far apart from each other as we can get," James concluded.

"But what if we aren't far enough?" Remus had to have every possibility accounted for.

"We have three wands," James reasoned. "We should be able to stupefy you without any trouble."

'You're not stupefying me, you're stupefying the werewolf,' Remus thought, but he knew there wasn't time for that.

"Alright, but remember what Professor Carter said about stupefying spells not lasting long on werewolves," Remus replied.

"We will." James smiled reassuringly. "We'd better get going. We'll come and find you when the moon's gone down."

James, Peter and Sirius turned and walked towards the unknown that lay ahead, while Remus turned back and waited for the horror he knew to befall him. He only hoped it wouldn't involve his friends.

-----

About ten minutes later, James, Sirius and Peter reached a dead end. Dirt surrounded them on all sides, except behind. Sirius looked at James, shrugged and began banging on the walls with his fist. Nothing happened.

"Are you guys feeling a bit cold?" Peter asked, rubbing his arms.

James looked around, his eyes searching the walls. "Yeah, Peter, I feel the wind. I think it's coming from the ceiling."

He prodded the dirt above them with his finger and said excitedly, "I think it's just a trapdoor in the ceiling. Help me lift it!"

Peter and Sirius helped James push on the ceiling and sure enough, it lifted up to allow them out of the passageway.

They stood in the middle of a pasture, near some farmland. They gratefully breathed in the fresh country air as the moon began to creep up the sky. Sirius surveyed the landscape, looking in vain for the Hogwarts castle. All that was visible for miles around were fields and the occasional farmhouse.

"All we have to do now is wait," James muttered through a yawn. "Let's sit behind those bushes where we won't feel the wind."

----

Meanwhile, Remus was hurrying back towards the Hogwarts end of the tunnel when the painful change began to happen. He sprouted rough, brown fur all over his body. His fingers and toes lengthened and grew terrible claws. 'Oh no,' he thought as his nose morphed into a snout and the wolf's mind took control.

----

Back by the farm, the boys were beginning to nod off when they heard howling from under the trapdoor. It still sounded a way down the tunnel, but it caught their attention. Unbeknownst to them, it also brought a Muggle farmer out of his house to investigate. He was carrying a large shotgun as he walked cautiously out towards the noise in his field.

"Wands ready," James reminded his friends as the howling grew closer.

As they watched the patch of grass where the trap door was closely, it began to shake a bit. Without realizing it, the three boys all raised their wands a bit higher. As they continued to watch, a furry hand lifted the door and a full sized werewolf emerged onto the field.

"Stupefy!" three voices yelled at once. The werewolf stopped dead in its tracks and boys kept their eyes and wands on it, waiting for signs of movement to start. They did not notice the movement behind them until they heard strange clicking noises.

An obviously Muggle farmer was pointing a long, metal thing at the werewolf. The three wizard-raised boys stared, not knowing what to make of it.

"Diie, yuh monstah," the Muggle muttered, shaking from anger and fright.

The boys understood this sentiment, and as Peter's brain absorbed it, two very different voices told him what to do. A lion roared, "Go!" and a calm, cool, cunning voice agreed, "Yes, boy, go." In that split second, Peter acted.

"No!" he yelled, jumping from the bushes and pushing Remus out of harm's way as the gunshot rang out. He and the stupefied werewolf crashed to the ground with a tremendous thud.