Chapter 36
"There has got to be some way for us to help him," muttered James as he and Sirius sat in the library skimming through books on werewolves. Remus was in the dormitory taking a nap, as his exhaustion was overwhelming.
Sirius raised his head from where it was lying on his arms. "I think you're smoking something mate, considering we've been sitting here for an hour and haven't done anything except look in a book for something that doesn't exist."
James rolled his eyes and snapped the book he was flipping through shut. Glaring at Sirius, he answered, "We have to at least try! You see how he bad he looks the day after the full moon. There might be some way we can help him."
Sirius groaned in frustration, pulling on his hair to emphasize that frustration. "You read the books. Werewolves are really dangerous to humans during a…transform-hey wait!"
Sirius grabbed one of the books off of the table and began to flip through it frantically. James raised his eyebrows and watched his friend in mild amusement. One moment he was telling him that there was no hope and then the next he was going crazy over…well, something or other. "Um…Siri, what are you looking for? Maybe I could help?"
He glanced up and smiled slightly before flipping a few more pages. "I found it!" he exclaimed triumphantly, pointing at the page with his index finger.
James leaned over and looked at the book, confusion forming on his face. It was opened to a page about animagi. "What does that have to do with anything?"
Sirius rolled his eyes in exasperation. James could be so slow sometimes it amazed him. "If werewolves can only harm humans, that means he can't harm animals. Which means, if we were animals, then we wouldn't have to worry about getting bitten and dying."
Understanding shone on James's face and then doubt. "We're only second years. How in the world will we be able to pull that off?"
"We happen to be the top of our class and we are bloody brilliant, if I do say so myself, so there's really no reason why we shouldn't be able to excel in this," answered Sirius, starting to read over the directions. He grimaced every once in a while at some part that sounded extremely confusing.
James, meanwhile, was muttering to himself about the impossibility of it all. "You do realize that we've got to register if we're animagi," he said, trying to talk his friend out of his newfound brilliant idea. It wasn't that he didn't want to help Remus during his werewolf nights, but he didn't want to do something so drastic and illegal. Not to mention hopeless.
Sirius, however, just shrugged. "Since when have we ever cared about little trivial things like that?"
That left James perplexed. Now that he thought about it, he'd always regarded the law as something that was just placed on him to interfere with his many awesome, yet destructive ideas. "Well, Remus is never going to approve," he countered.
Sirius smiled, rereading the text. "Since when have we ever cared about little trivial things like that?"
That left James frustrated. Now that he thought about it, the last time that they had really taken Remus's advice had been when he was trying to teach them how to do some transfiguring charm. They usually just ignored him and went on with their pranks. "Well, it will take a lot of rule breaking and secrecy." He was now pleading for some reason to strike his best friend.
"Since when have we ever cared about little trivial things like that?"
That left James exasperated. "Will you stop saying that? We've never cared about any of the above, but I think it's time that we did. We could get expelled, and that would be bad."
Sirius looked up and laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. "James, you are an idiot. Yes, getting expelled would be bad, but we're not going to get expelled."
"If we got caught we would," mumbled James, glancing down at his hands.
"That's why," Sirius said, "we won't get caught. Goodness, someone's into worrying today. Honestly, what the teachers don't know won't hurt them. And we've always been able to convince Remus of a plan when it was actually good."
"But this is not so good. A lot of things can go wrong. We could die!"
Sirius burst into hysterical laughter, causing the librarian to glare at them and put a finger to her lips to signify silence. He tried to stifle it but failed. Instead, he got up and took packed his things, still laughing. James watched him and followed as he left.
"How in the world could we possibly die?" laughed Sirius, trying to regain his breath from laughing so hard.
"Something could go wrong with the procedure and we could be struck by lightening, and we could be eaten by something, and we could eat something poisoned."
Sirius raised his eyebrows at his list of reasons. "Whatever floats your boat mate," he muttered and chuckled slightly again, when WHAM!
Someone ran into Sirius, causing them to both fall to the floor, knocking the wind out of Sirius. James watched in amusement as Sirius tried to disentangle himself from the person on top of him. It took a few minutes, but the two boys finally got to their feet, bringing James face to face with Snape.
"Watch we're you're going, mudblood lover," he snarled, picking up his fallen books.
"What? Is it my fault that you can't see through your greasy hair?" retorted Sirius, brushing invisible dirt off of himself. James watched, wondering if he'd have to get involved.
Snape's eyes blazed in pure fury. "At least I haven't been disowned by my family for being a mute fuck! Not to mention that I don't have to live with people who really would rather not have me around. Face it, Black, you're unwanted and unloved. Why are you still here?" With that said, Snape pushed in between James and Sirius to head to the library. Sirius stared after him, hurt shining through his eyes. He quickly shook it off and smiled and James.
James looked at him in concern. By then he was able to tell when his friend was putting on a show, a masquerade. Behind the smile and happy blue eyes lay a tormented soul that just wanted to be loved. There was only one thing that James could do though, and that was act like everything was normal. So James forced a smile as well and they continued their walk to the Gryffindor common room. Someday he would be able to talk to Sirius about what he was hiding behind the mask, but for now, he was just going to live life as if nothing was wrong. He was going to live life as if his best friend wasn't being torn apart. He was going to live life as it came.
A.N. I'm going to stop right here and start on a sequel. So, yeah. It's going to be life from the third year to the fourth year. I think. Something like that. Anyways, please review and look out for a sequel. Thank you guys!