Chapter Twenty Six
Second Year Draws To A Close

That night Remus was going to keep watch for his friends when they had their first Animagus practise in months. James, Sirius and Peter were very out of practise so they were going to exceed their usual training time by an hour. Remus would, of course, be sitting on the steps and guarding the staircase to make sure they were not interrupted. So that night at midnight when the last Gryffindor had hurried to bed, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter got ready to practise.

Remus was feeling terribly tired, being that it was two full moons in a row. He really wanted to just curl up in his bed and fall asleep but he knew that was out of the question. After what happened last time he could not risk getting the three caught. He amused himself for a minute by thinking of James's horrified face, half stag half human, if Lily had caught them. He must have been smiling because Sirius said

"What are you so happy about?" Remus snapped out of his thoughts and shook his head.

"What? Oh... nothing," he muttered. Remus sat down on the steps and watched as his friends once again attempted to transform. They were doing quite well; even Peter managed to get a tail at least. James was able to acquire a mane and a long snout, while Sirius got all the facial features of a dog. James was looking at the book they took out of the library last year (James just told Madam Pince that they had forgotten to return it and if they could keep it). He was looking at all different ways to attempt Animagi.

"If this gets any more complicated we'll be in trouble," he said to Sirius and Peter.

"Hopefully it doesn't!" Sirius said optimistically. "Besides, we've got five more years here to perfect it, how many full moons does that make it Remus?"

"A lot," Remus muttered from behind his transfiguration book. His friends laughed and continued with their practise. Peter was starting to get frustrated and took his anger out on Sirius's shin by mistake. He had been trying to re-grow the rat-tail he had gotten but it kept growing, then shrinking, then growing, then shrinking again. He had gotten so mad he accidentally kicked Sirius in the shin and James had to put his hand over Sirius's mouth to stop him from yelling. Then both Remus and James had to hold Sirius back to stop him from kicking Peter. Then James was trying to grow hind legs but they came out on top of his head instead, causing his three friends to choke back their laughter.

Then Sirius was trying to grow his dog-ears, the only problem was that he had the dog-ears... but his human ones were still there! They had a lot of laughs that practise session. Sirius kept asking Remus how he could stand doing this every month. Remus just smiled and said, in a very proud voice, he did it with skill. They had inadvertently stayed practising until four in the morning and the next day at classes they had all fallen asleep during the Defense Against the Darks Arts test they had. Professor Greenleaf gave them all detention that night.

Their detention was first: taking the test and maybe they'd be able to stay awake. They then had to clean all the desktops in the Dark Arts classroom, then they had to alphabetize all the books in the entire room, then they had to take all the creatures Greenleaf used for his lessons and clean the cages. Last they had to either take the creatures out for a walk, feed them or clean them. James, Sirius and Remus dived for walking them or feeding them, to Peter's misfortune he had to clean them all. Greenleaf had them there until two in the morning and once again the Four Marauders were close to collapsing during class.

The day after their detention they were in the Great Hall having dinner. James was resting his head in his hand, fighting off sleep. Sirius had fallen asleep right in his Shepherd's Pie, Peter was eating his dinner without the slightest look of being tired and Remus had his arms folded on the table with his head resting on them.

"If my hand wasn't keeping my head up," James said, "it'd be in my dinner right now." James glanced over at Sirius, "I guess we should've told Padfoot that."

"You think you're tired," Remus said, chocking back a yawn. "I haven't had enough sleep in four days!"

"Well at least its Friday, we can sleep all day tomorrow!"

"Yeah I'd like that, if we didn't have Quidditch practise! Why do we still have to practise! We're not in the finals!" It just so happened that their captain, George Finnigan, was walking behind them and overheard Remus's remark. He bent down and put a hand on Remus's shoulder and preached

"Because if we want to win next year we're going to have to practise." George walked off to go sit with his seventh year friends. Shame that George did not remember this was his last chance to win because he was graduating this year. Remus put a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth and began to eat his dinner. Five minutes later a groan emitted from Sirius's mouth, he was finally awake. He sat up and stretched his arms out behind his head. He looked around and realised he was in the Great Hall.

"Hmm... could've sworn I was in the dormitory," he said stupidly. Remus and James snorted when they saw the whole side of their friend's face was covered in pie. Sirius looked at them puzzled. "What's so funny?" James pointed a finger at the side of Sirius's face. He gave him a suspicious look and put his hand up to his face. His calm face turned to revolted and he flung his hand (which happened to be covered in pie) out and all the crumbs flew into Peter's face. The whole end of the table burst out laughing. Professor McGonagall walked by to see what all the commotion was about and when she saw Peter she could hardly suppress a smile.

"Black, I think it may be wise for you not to fall asleep in your dinner," she said to Sirius, who was busy cleaning his hands and did not even look at her. Soon after the four left the Great Hall. They all walked tiredly up to their dormitory and fell face first on their beds and were out in seconds.

Hours later, possibly at midnight or so, Remus was awoken by a terrible smell. He opened his eyes and found the entire dormitory flooded with smoke. He could barely make his way through the thick smoke; he wanted to find his friends.

"James?" he said, chocking on the smoke. "Sirius? Peter?" He listened intently and heard nothing. Maybe they were in the common room, he thought as he walked unseeingly through the smoke and to the door. He ran down the spiral staircase into the common room where he found twice as much smoke. Hacking and coughing, Remus wondered what this was. Who was doing this? His eyes were stinging terribly, his nose was full of smoke and he could not even tell if someone was there.

"Hullo?" said another voice. Remus turned around in circles trying to find where it came from.

"Who's there?" Remus asked the bodiless voice.

"Its Alice!" the voice answered. Good, Remus thought, at least she knew something was wrong... all the other Gryffindors could sleep through anything. "Who's there?"

"Its Remus! What's going on?" Remus was still looking in all directions for Alice; he could not see anything in this mess! More importantly he wanted to know what this mess was and who made it.

"I don't know! I was sleeping and then I smelled smoke! I don't know where Lily or Frank or any of the other Gryffindors are! I think we should get someone!"

"We can't leave everyone else! There might be a fire in here! They won't get out!"

"Well we can't just stay in here! Ok... um... I'll get all the girls... you get the boys!" Remus nodded, even though she could not see him. He heard her footsteps disappear up the dormitory steps and he made his way back to them, knocking into the couch on the way. He ran up to the first year dormitory and screamed for them to get out. He stood there for a moment to make sure all of them woke up, then proceeded to his own dorm, then third years, fourth, fifth, sixth and finally seventh. All of them ran down to the common room and waited there.

Remus found Sirius, James and Peter and informed them that Lily and Alice had gone to get Professor McGonagall. Remus had forced Lily to go because James was crying that he could not let Lily get hurt. The four of them stood closest to where the portrait hole was, even though they were not exactly sure they were in the right place. There was panic throughout the whole common room. Some of the first years were screaming bloody murder, the seconds years Remus had assured that it was not a fire, the third years would not believe Remus and kept saying it was a fire and the tower was going to burn down. Meanwhile the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh years were all whispering swiftly to each other.

Fifteen minutes later silence fell when they heard the portrait swing open and Professor McGonagall's voice sound in the room.

"Everyone calm down!" she yelled. "We will sort this out right now! Scourgify!" There was a whistling sound and all the smoke swirled in the air and into the professor's wand. There was a deep sigh of relief from nearly every student in the house. Professor McGonagall deposited her wand in her robe pocket and walked to the centre of the room. "Does anyone... anyone... know what just happened here?" There was a long silence in which no one spoke. Then there was a low cackling sound coming from the steps to the dormitories. Everyone looked over and saw none other than Julius Mangorn laughing hysterically.

"I do."

The entire common room fell silent and all turned to stare at Julius. What was he playing at? He did this all? What kind of Gryffindor was he? Professor McGonagall stormed over, shoving a group of fourth years out of the way and glared down at Julius, with red fire gleaming in her eyes.

"Explain yourself Mr. Mangorn," she demanded. Julius said nothing, he just kept laughing as if the professor had not even spoken to him. "I said... EXPLAIN YOURSELF!"

"Why should I?" Julius finally said.

"Why should you? Because you could have killed every single member of your house! You're lucky Remus and Alice found out what was happening! Now if you don't explain right now we will get the Headmaster in here!"

"Its too late Minerva, I'm already here," said a voice from the common room entrance. Everyone turned to find that Professor Dumbledore was standing at the doorway, looking very calm indeed. Professor McGonagall raced over to him, this time knocking Remus, James, Sirius, Peter, Alice and Lily out of the way.

"Headmaster," the professor said, barely able to contain her rage at Julius. "T-t-this student! He filled the entire tower in smoke! Dragon smoke! You know that it becomes poisonous when too much is used! He was trying to gas his fellow Gryffindors!" Professor McGonagall raged on and on for a good five minutes, oblivious to the fact that the entire common room (except Julius) was staring at her in utter amazement. Professor Dumbledore nodded to everything his colleague had said and finally had time to speak for himself.

"I understand this Minerva," he said calmly. "I understand what dangers young Mr. Mangorn put his students in, but I am not sure they were done on his own account." This really annoyed Professor McGonagall.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NOT ON HIS OWN ACCOUNT?' HE JUST ADMITTED HE HAD DONE EVERY SINGLE PART OF THIS! HOW CAN YOU NOT BELIEVE HIM WHEN IT CAME FROM HIS OWN MOUTH! SURELY, ALBUS, YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO HIM!" Dumbledore smiled and said

"but I have heard him, and he will be punished... if my theory is incorrect."

"What theory could you possibly have about this? Albus, he deserves to be expelled after what he did!" There was a murmur of agreement from the students in the room. "We shall discuss this in your office Headmaster." Dumbledore nodded and turned to address the students.

"You will all return to your dormitory now!" Everyone turned to run up the steps, but Dumbledore walked past everyone to get to Julius. "You are coming with us." All the students glared at the first year as he walked out of the common room, still cackling to himself. Once all the second year boys were back in their dormitory, talk broke out. None of them could talk until they found out what was going to happen to that kid. James and Sirius were thinking of all the possibilities of Dumbledore's "theories." One of them was that maybe Mangorn was a dementor in disguise or something because every time he was around everyone felt miserable.

"I don't think so, Sirius," James said. Then there was the idea that he could have been under the Imperius Curse and someone was ordering him to do all of the things he'd done. Remus commended James on that, saying it was a possibility but he was not sure if it was because it could have only been a student who had done this and the only ones who know how are sixth and seventh years.

"I guess so," James said. "And I don't think they'd want to be expelled anyways." Frank Longbottom said he couldn't really care less what Dumbledore's explanation was, as long as it got Julius expelled and thrown out of the wizarding world. The boys eventually got back to sleep... but Remus was awakened again. This time by someone.

"Lupin wake up," the voice said. Remus kept his eyes shut and pretended he did not hear... he was too tired. The person shook him forcing him to wake up. It was Professor McGonagall, oh what did she want? "We have something to show you." What could they possibly want to show him at four in the morning? He got up, put his robe on over his pyjamas and followed to professor out of the room. She led him to a corridor where there was a large phoenix at the end. They stopped in front of the phoenix and Professor McGonagall said, "Fizzing Whizbee." Immediately the phoenix sprang open, causing Remus to jump back in surprise, then there appeared spiral staircase. Professor McGonagall told Remus to go up the stairs. Remus stepped on, with the professor behind him, and walked up.

Remus approached a tall oak door at the end of the staircase. Professor McGonagall opened it and they walked into a room. This room had several hundred books piled on shelves, portraits of all the former Headmasters at Hogwarts. Remus looked at the one of Headmaster Armando Dippet (the headmaster before Professor Dumbledore), he was snoozing in a chair and a feather was flying over his nose. There were tables with all sorts of wizard instruments.

"I have him Headmaster," Professor McGonagall said. That was when Remus noticed Professor Dumbledore sitting at a desk covered in books and silver instruments with... surprisingly... Bertha?

"Thank you Minerva," Professor Dumbledore said pleasantly, rising from his chair. "Remus... your cousin here would like to explain something to you."

"No I wouldn't," Bertha contradicted.

"Hold your tongue Miss Lupin!" Professor McGonagall snapped. "Honestly... what you did! You can be sure your parents will hear about this!" Remus was completely confused. Bertha did not do anything, for once, it was that Mangorn kid. But as Remus took a look around the room he realised that Julius was not there. What was going on?

"What'd she do?" Remus asked. Professor McGonagall smiled.

"Amazing how she never told anyone in her family about," Professor McGonagall snarled. "Remus, there is no Julius Mangorn... he never existed... would you like to know why?" No Julius Mangorn? Impossible! Remus had spoken to him countless times over the year! What was McGonagall playing at! What did Bertha not tell her family? And what the heck was she doing there anyway!

"Of course I'd like to know Professor." Professor Dumbledore waved his wand and a red armchair appeared out of a thick cloud of gray smoke. He nodded for Remus to take a seat. Remus sat down and eyed his cousin. What did she have to do with any of this? She could not have set the smoke off in Gryffindor tower. She did not even know what the password was! Also Remus really could not care less about this, he was too tired to think.

"Well, you see Remus, your cousin here has been keeping a secret from the entire family," Dumbledore began.

"Wonderful," Remus muttered unenthusiastically. What did he care if she had a secret? He had about ten more than she did.

"Yes it is in fact. You see your cousin here is a Metamorphagus..."

"I know what those are!" Remus cut in. "They can change their appearance at will, but I've never heard of any to make themselves look like a boy!" Dumbledore laughed heartily.

"Yes I suppose that is an extreme," Dumbledore chuckled. "But back to the point... since your cousin has this ability she was using it for wrong, rather than good. She has been posing as a mister Julius Mangorn for the entire year. Haven't you noticed that they were never together? On our records we have both of them marked absent for a lot of days. It was your cousin who has done all this."

Remus did not know why but enormous relief spread over him. He at least knew that 'Julius' was not a real person and did not tell his parents his secret. If he had... it would have been Remus's aunt and uncle he would have told! Remus only wondered what they were going to do to her... he knew it would not be good. Wicked!

"What's going to happen to her?" Remus asked in a mock concerned voice. He simply could not wait to hear the answer.

"She will be expelled," Dumbledore answered, without a trace of the faintest remorse on his face. Remus could have jumped out of his eat and whooped for joy, but restrained himself. Bertha's jaw dropped open and she began to plead for a second chance. But Professor McGonagall reminded her that she had been in a similar situation last year and she could not get out of it this time. Well, Remus thought, what a better reason to get out of bed... to see Bertha being expelled!

"The Minister will be coming in just a few moments to snap your wand," Professor Dumbledore continued. "And I'm sure she will not be pleased." Professor McGonagall asked Remus if he wanted to leave but Remus said he would rather stay and witness this. They waited only a few minutes before the door to the Headmaster's office burst open and a very disgruntled looking witch came raging in.

"Honestly!" she shrieked. "Having to wake up in the middle of the night to expel a good for nothing girl!" Remus could have burst out laughing, but he was a tiny bit afraid of the Minister, she might expel him too if she could. The Minister looked around at Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Remus and then Bertha. Her face turned red with fury.

"Her again!" she hollered, waking a few of the snoozing pictures in the office. "What's she done this time? Not trying to poison her cousin (Remus turned his face the other way) again?"

"More like all of Gryffindor Tower!" Professor McGonagall raged. Remus would not have been surprised if there were steam spurting from his transfiguration teacher's ears. He watched as the Minister questioned Professor Dumbledore about what Bertha had done again. He told her how she created a false appearance and posed as a boy named Julius Mangorn, how she was constantly causing Remus and his friends trouble, how she never showed up to class because she was either Julius or herself and finally how she filled the entire Gryffindor Tower with dragon smoke.

The Minister nodded and walked over to Bertha. Remus heard the Minister mutter under her breath, "let's get this over with." Bertha held out, with trembling hands, her wand. Her wand made of Unicorn Hair, Ash and was eight inches long; the Minister snatched it and held it between her hands. Bertha wanted to look away as her precious wand, her key to the wizarding world, was snapped in half. The Minister dropped the wand halves to the floor and splinters from the wood scattered all over.

"Is that all Headmaster?" The Minister asked turning to Dumbledore.

"Yes it is, thank you for coming on such short notice, we will take it from here." The Minister nodded and swept from the room in a flash. "Ms. Lupin," Dumbledore began turning to Bertha, who was on her knees and hastily picking up every piece of her wand, "we will be contacting your parents immediately and you will be sent home on the Hogwarts Express first thing tomorrow. You are expelled." Bertha burst into hysterical tears, claiming that her parents would never understand and that they would ground her for life if she was expelled from school.

"Yeah right," Remus muttered under his breath. They never grounded her for anything! Even when she broke Remus' leg by riding over it with her bike she was let off the hook!

"The both of you," Professor McGonagall said to Remus and Bertha, "may go back to bed. Bertha I expect you to be packed up and ready to go home by eight in the morning." Bertha nodded glumly and followed Remus out of the Headmaster's office.

The next day at breakfast Remus received something that all of the Hogwarts students always tried to avoid getting... a Howler. As Remus was eating his cereal at breakfast and telling Sirius, James and Peter what had happened the night before, his owl, Luther, dropped a scarlet envelope in his bowl. Remus's eyes went wide and he picked it up and held it far away from his face.

"Whoa!" James exclaimed. "You got a Howler? What'd you do?" Remus shook his head, what did he do? Then the letter burst open and out came his aunt's voice magnified one hundred times its normal volume (which was already loud enough).

"WHY DID YOU LET OUR DAUGHTER GET EXPELLED YOU FILTHY, ROTTEN, GOOD FOR NOTHING BOY! YOU SHOULD HAVE STOPPED THEM! YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD THEM SHE MEANT NO HARM! BUT NO! YOU HAD TO LET THEM EXPEL HER! YOU WILL NOT BE HEARING THE END OF THIS! YOU CAN BE SURE OF IT!"

The letter crumpled up into a paper ball and exploded in Remus's face, covering it with ash and soot. James, Sirius and Peter stared at their friend stunned.

"Well that was... interesting," James muttered.

Time again came for the end of the year tests. An eerie silence fell upon the castle as students were cramming information into their minds to prepare. There was the devastating Quidditch Final that was also weighing heavy on nearly all the students, except the Slytherins who had a triumphant victory over Hufflepuff. The score was beyond belief... 300-0. So that made it clear that the Slytherin's were going to win the House Cup this year, unless by some miraculous chance another house got tons of points or Slytherin lost all theirs.

But Professor McGonagall made an announcement that one hundred and fifty points would be deducted from Slytherin because of what Bertha had done. So that made Slytherin fall back just ahead of Ravenclaw. After the Quidditch Final, all the students were now spending all their free time in their house common rooms studying every single subject they could. The second years also had to choose two elective classes for next year.

"Well there's Ancient Runes," James said, reading of a list. "Muggle Studies, Artimancy, Divination, and Care of Magical Creatures. Which one do you guys think sounds remotely interesting?"

"Care of Magical Creatures, definitely!" Sirius exclaimed. "I hear you get to handle all these really dangerous creatures and stuff! Imagine getting a Blast Ended Skwert and setting it in the castle!"

"What's Divination like?" James asked, looking at the name of the class strangely.

"Its real stupid," Remus answered quickly.

"What is it?"

"You look at tea leaves, palmistry, crystal balls, and you have to pretend you see something. Personally, I wouldn't bother with a class where I'd want to bungee jump out of the North Tower more than stay in there." So, Remus ended up choosing Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies, Sirius chose Care of Magical Creatures and Divination (despite what Remus had said about it. According to him, a class that boring, what would you do in it anyway?). James chose the same subjects as Sirius and Peter chose Muggle Studies and Divination.

Time came at last for the End of the Year exams. The fifth years would be taking their O.W.Ls (Ordinary Wizard Level) and the seventh years would be taking their N.E.W.Ts (Nastily Exhausting Wizard Tests). The Four Marauders were going crazy with all the studying they had to do, especially James and Sirius. James swore that if he did not pull off a prank soon he would go positively mad! But luckily that did not happen because their last prank of the year was the Scribbling Quill.

Sirius and James bewitched one of Snape's quills to draw a mustache, big glasses and a beard on Snape's face. It was terribly funny, even though they got detention with Professor Flitwick for using their Charms uncaringly. But as their last prank of the year, it was a big hit! The exams were not as tough as they expected them to be. Sirius, James and Remus were all confident they had passed with top marks... even Peter was certain he had at least passed. Though his potions final might have been a failure. When he was concocting a Shrinking Solution it starting spurting smoke everywhere and blew up!

They then spent the rest of the class writing an essay instead of making a potion. Transfiguration went well, so did Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts and History of Magic.

Time again came for the end of the year feast. The House Cup was awarded and the points stood as thus. Hufflepuff was in fourth place with three hundred and sixty three points. Gryffindor was in third place with three hundred and ninety nine points. Slytherin was in second place with an even four hundred points and Ravenclaw took the cup, defeating Slytherin by just three points, making their score four hundred and three points.

It was the day everyone returned home and they all had just gotten off the train at Platform 9 ¾. Remus looked around for his aunt and uncle and sure enough they were standing right at the barrier. Remus saw they had his little cousin Anna with them, and, unfortunately, they had Bertha with them and she was looking as nasty as ever. Before Remus went over he said goodbye to his friends, James even offered that Remus could go to his house for the summer if he did not feel like spending it with his cousin. Remus said he would think about it.

He went over to his aunt and uncle and said a would be polite hullo. Bertha huffed and turned the other way with her arms folded. His aunt was still mad at him for getting Bertha "expelled" even though he did not. His uncle bent down and whispered to Remus

"Don't mind them." He straightened up and took Anna from Remus's aunt. "You know she said her first word already!"

"What was it?" Remus asked. He saw Bertha and his aunt exchange furious glances. However his uncle smiled and said, "Well... it was... Remus!" Remus smiled at the looks of disgust on his relatives (except for his uncle and Anna) faces and tried to hold back his laughter as they walked through the barrier and into the muggle world.