A/N: Okay, so I lied. This is my fave chappie. I luved writing it, and it seemed to write itself during the best bit. This was meant to go were 'Werewolf Research' is now, but I thought I needed another chap. in between. There might be a few things wrong about the Shrieking Shack stuff cuz i'm 3000 miles away from my HP3 book at the moment. Sry. Continuing not to own HP and the marauders, much to my displesure.

Professor Roberts launched into a discussion of her favorite Quiddich team, the Holyhead Harpies; I pulled out my list, and turned to the marked page on werewolves in my book. Remus was sitting up at the front with Peter and Sirus, as we came late and that was the only other free table in the room. "James," I whispered, poking him in the ribs. He had fallen asleep, even though he loved Quiddich. "Look at this." James woke suddenly and took the parchment.

"Remus? A werewolf?"

"Yeah. Look. He was gone on the nights of the full moon, and here... "Werewolves often have eyes that differ from normal human colors" ... Remus's eyes are amber... sort of yellow. And here..." I opened Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. "Read this..." While James read it, his eyes widened

"He... why would he hide this from us? We're his friends!"

I shrugged, but I knew the answer already. "He'd be afraid that we'd desert him. He's probably had to deal with that before."

"When's the next full moon?" he asked, still sounding skeptical.

I felt a little confused about why he was asking but I said, "November 26," anyway.

"We're going after him. For proof."

I gasped silently as Professor Roberts ended with a short anecdote about a friend's hippogriff. James gathered his books, and walked out the door, as Sirius, Remus, and Peter woke up and followed us. "James, no!" I said, as I followed him, "That's too dangerous!"

We broke off quickly as Remus caught up.

James and I explained to Sirius later. I was a bit concerned about clueing in Peter, but we did anyway. For the next few nights, I was explaining what I had found in the library. James, Sirius, and Peter then started a three day research cycle, reading books on everything from werewolf codes, to how silver was formed in nature. Anything and everything about werewolves would be common knowlege to the Marauders.

At last, the full moon came. I tried, along with Peter, to convince him that it wasn't such a good idea to sneak up on Remus while he was transformed. James wanted to, though, and Sirius seemed more angry at Remus than scared, so on went the plan. Remus left the common room at the usual time, and soon after, cloak on, we followed him.

It seemed to be hours tiptoeing under the cloak until wer got outside. We paused just far enough from the Whomping Willow. "How do we get by it?" asked James.

"Leave it to me," I whispered, and darted out from under the cloak.

Okay, so I'd like to say I was all heroic, got a stick, touched the knot, and we all went under the tree, but that wasn't the case. It seemed a lot harder in real life to freeze the tree than it did in the books. By the time I got it frozen, I had lost one lens in my glasses, torn my robes, and had a new, deep cut on my arm. "Ta-da," I said sarcasticly, as I popped the lens back into the frame. We then started towards the frozen tree.

Soon, we were all standing in the passageway underneath the tree. Once again, I felt like I had taken a trip inside my own imagination. At the end of the passage we stepped into the Shrieking Shack. We obivously had made some noise, because Remus came walking down the stairs, cluching his stomach, saying, "Professor McGonagall? You shouldn't be here now!"

"Remus, it's us," said James.

Remus stopped dead. "W-w-what are you doing here?"

"We're here to get some answers!" said Sirius sharply.

"Not now! Please, go! If you're here, you must know why I am too! Please, I don't want to-" But Remus didn't finnish his sentence. His limbs became rigded, he began to shake.

"Remus?" squeaked Peter, who was now cowering behind James.

"Remus, we're your friends, we know you won't hurt us!" said James brightly, but I could here a quiver in his voice. Remus had started to change. He ran up the stairs, and we could see fur growing on his arms. There was a muffled scream, a rip, a crunch, a howl, and then... silence.

And the fully grown werewolf was seen at the top of the stairs. He stood for a second, illuminated by the moonlight comming in through a window upstairs. I think, that just for a minute period of time, my heart acually stopped beating.

And then it started thundering. Remus/werewolf saw us, and I knew Remus wasn't there anymore. Its eyes were no longer a freindly amber, but an odd sort of orange, almost red, that caught the light in an odd sort of way. He began to growl, and walk down the stairs, stalking its favorite and long-denied prey: human. As if I had been watching a video that had been in slow motion, set now at full speed, the creature began to run, bound, leap down the stairs, and advance on us. And for a second I got a good view of him. His fur was mostly brown, with grey and black streaks. An open mouth revealed inch long incredibly sharp canine teeth, and its paws, ending in black thick claws were huge.

Peter was openly sobbing now, bawling like a baby. The werewolf seemed to like the fact that it was causing fear. I think he liked the smell. I swallowed and whispered to James, who was standing next to me, "Run, now."

As if somone suddenly pressed the play button, we all ran out into the passageway. we could hear the thundering gait of the huge wolf-creature behind us, hear its growing breath advancing-

It pounced.

It grabbed Peter's robes, and I thought he had bitten him, but he didn't. Peter began to wail harder, as the werewolf pulled him into the passageway. Sirius, James, and I grabbed Peter and pulled. We scrambed out of the passage. The tree snapped back into action, sealing the thing that controlled Remus into the passage.

I woke up the next moring, confused about the ripped robes on my trunk, and why the glasses (still on my face) were scratched. Then it all came back: the willow, the shack, and, of course, the werewolf. I looked at my watch, got out of bed and dressed into un-ripped robes. I met Peter, James, and Sirius in the common room. They were all pale-faced, especialy Peter. They greeted me solmnly, and we proceded down to the great hall.

It was an unusually nice day that afternoon, so we ate lunch quickly and ran outside, were most people were anyway. We saw Remus, eating a sandwitch under our favorite tree, and went towards him. Remus turned completely white, and ran back into the castle, running straight through a group of giggling second year Ravenclaw girls.

Remus was absent throughout the rest of the day, and at dinner, he sat at the opposite end of the table from us. I decided to try and take action. "Remus," I said, walking up to him, "you can't avoid us forever. We're your friends. We won't desert you, we'll help you... we'll... oh!" he had grabbed my arm, and was dragging me out of the Great Hall. I could feel every pair of eyes on us; everyone knew we were two of the Marauders. Remus walked faster, he was very strong. Must be the werewolf thing, I thought, as we walked through the door, well, he walked, I stumbled over my own feet.

"You have no clue what it's like for me," said Remus. "I've lost friends because I let it slip what I am. And to have you do that to me... Did you want me to live with the shame of killing my best friends and having no controll over it?"

"I'm sorry about that! I told James it wasn't such a good idea. He seemed to think it wasn't possible... He had to see you... you know. Sirius seemed angry, like he didn't beleive it either. I'm really sorry... I should have told you I found out, not them. Maybe, then, I could have helped you... and you could have told them when you were ready to."

Remus finaly smiled. "Thanks."

James, Sirius, and Peter finaly caught up with us.

"So we're cool?" I asked him.

"Yeah, we're cool..."