Chapter IV: Discovery

Our third year back-to-school trick was our most audacious ever, including the ones that came later. We all hid under James' invisibility cloak and followed a gang of Slytherins (including Snivelly) into the best corridor for echoes, then said weird things to scare them. We herded them into the seventh floor mirror room and locked them in for an hour or so, then let them out. They all ran to Filch, and we snickered as they described the cruel things the bunch of ghosts had said to them. Nobody ever knew it was us, and I'm surprised nobody guessed.

The full moon after that, I had "forgotten my assignment" again. When I woke up the next morning, James was glaring at me.

"What?" I yawned.

"Why have you been lying for the past three years?" he asked. Sirius and Peter were watching me, too.

"What?"

"We couldn't find you last night, so we looked on the map," Peter told me. He got the map out and opened it. "You were here." He pointed at the passageway under the willow tree. "What were you doing there?"

I hugged my knees. "Guys, I really don't think you want to hear this...."

"Yeah, well, we do."

"You won't like it...."

"So what?"

"But...."

"WHAT?"

"I'm a werewolf."

Silence.

"How could I be so stupid?" Sirius chided himself. We stared at him. "I've known you were only out on the full moon since first year. That was the one thing I didn't think of."

James turned back to me. He looked very sorry. "Remus, mate, why didn't you tell us?"

"I—I thought you'd hate me." I held back the tears that stung my eyes, but didn't have a lot of success.

"Remus, you're an idiot," Sirius said fondly.

I laughed weakly, but not at all happily. "You don't know what it's like! I always have to be counting down the days until I have to go and torture myself again, and I can't tell anybody because they'll be afraid, and—"

"Whoa, slow down. You told us. We're not afraid of you."

"We'll help you," James promised.

"Yeah, we will," agreed Peter.

And that was that. All things said, it really made me feel better.

A few days later, they were still stumped on what they could do to help me. But then Peter had another brainwave after Transfiguration.

"We know you've thought of something," Sirius said irritably. "Please tell us what it is."

"Well, Professor McGonagall just told us about Animagi..."

"So?" James said.

"And animals can't be werewolves...."

I saw where this was going. "No way, Peter. I'm not letting you do that. Sure, they can't be werewolves, but they can die, and I could kill them. I'm not going to let you."

Sirius looked thoughtful. "It does have its merits, Remus. If we're biggish animals, it'll be a little hard for you, right? And animals aren't completely defenseless."

"They'll have to be really big, Siri. A werewolf in wolf form is big."

"How big, approximately?"

"Oh, I dunno. Four feet tall?"

James whistled. "That's pretty big."

"A deer's about that big," Peter said. "Has antlers, too. Or a big dog, or a horse, or a bull, but people'd notice a bull running around Hogwarts."

"How long did it take you to think of those, Pete?" Sirius asked a bit derisively.

"A little while," Peter said, clearly unaware that Sirius was teasing him.

"Guys," I said, "I still don't plan on agreeing."

"C'mon, Remus," Sirius pleaded. "It'd be fun. We could go in the Forbidden Forest and stuff."

"And you wouldn't hurt yourself as much," James added.

I considered it. I grudgingly admitted to myself that it did kind of sound like fun. "All right. I'll think about it. No promises."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Good enough."

That night I lay awake very late, thinking about this mad idea Peter had. Sure, it sounded great, but the risks involved were larger than I felt right about letting them take. What if I killed one of them? Even if I just hurt one of them, it would be a bruise on my conscience. If I did hurt one of them, and we couldn't fix it, I'd have to explain what was going on, and I'd be cut off from people for the rest of my life. What if Animagi could be werewolves, even if they were bitten in animal form? I put all the what-ifs out of my mind and decided to concentrate on the good parts for a minute. It would be fun. That came first, of course. We'd be able to see lots of things that were going on in the forest, which would probably be very interesting. What else? I wasn't sure. I wanted to do it, since I was a Marauder, but I didn't want them to get hurt, that was the problem. But they apparently knew what was at stake. How, then, could I say that it was completely my fault? They knew what could happen, and would do everything to prevent it. Let them do it if they think they can. That decided, I fell asleep.

The next morning Sirius looked me in the eye. "So?" he said, raising one eyebrow. None of the rest of us could do that, and we'd all tried.

I sighed. "If you think you can do it without getting hurt, I won't stop you. But you do know the risks involved?"

James rolled his eyes. "You sound like a teacher. We know." He frowned suddenly. "Incidentally, Peter, do you know if an animagus can become a werewolf if he is bitten while he is an animal?"

Peter smiled knowingly. "Nope. Looked it up right after class."

"Well, that's settled then," Sirius said conversationally, as if he were talking about the weather instead of an extremely dangerous and illegal decision.

A/N: Thank you, reviewers. I really appreciate it. I need a little help with the next chapter. In the next chapter, Lupin meets his girlfriend, a slightly unusual Ravenclaw named Lia Hathaway. I have not fallen in love enough to be able to write about it from his point of view, so I need advice. GIVE ME BAD ADVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK: I will take everything seriously, and probably apply a lot of it.