Disclaimer- It's not mine, never was.
A/N : Hey Everyone. Sorry about not updating sooner. Here's the next chappy just for you guys. Oh, and there is a major note coming up. I really need you guys to respond, so don't skip it.
Later.
Here are some thank you's that I've been neglecting lately:
Shina-Etsu- Thank you for the enthusiastic review, and I'm glad you like the story so much. As for moving the relationship up a few notches, I'm not too sure about it. This story has already been booted off of ff.net one time -still haven't been told why as of yet-, and I don't want it to happen again because of some risky passages. If anything else is said about their relationship, I will probably be vague, dropping hints, but that's about it. It'll be one of those 'behind closed doors' relationships. In other words, use your imagination to figure out what they due behind closed doors. ;) Anyhow, thanks again for the review, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.
Pallas- Thanks. I'm glad it is easy to read. Most of my stories wind up being really complex and intricate, so I'm glad you aren't having a problem understanding what's going on. (My writing can be impossibly confusing sometimes.) Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the next few chapters.
Peace Doesn't Last Long
The next week passed quickly for the entire school. The upcoming weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend. When Friday finally ended and the last class of the day dismissed, the students were happy to have a break. The little wizard town of Hogsmeade was only a short walk away from the castle, and the third years and up were allowed to visit it on certain weekends. All through the week, the girls had pointedly reminded their guys that they had to buy their costumes for the ball. Remus would grin every time one of the girls mentioned it. His costume had been designed by Bella and Amanda, and he wasn't complaining. It was easy enough to find what he needed and Sable already had hers, so they could spend more time together in town, instead of searching for something in the costume shop. Needless to say, he was welcoming the trip.
Saturday morning, every student in the third year and up were awake early. They ate breakfast in a hurry and began to walk down to the village. James, Sirius, and Peter were with Lily, Bella, and Amanda a few yards ahead of Remus and Sable. The girls must have been talking about the ball again, because Remus spotted the bored expressions on his friend's faces. He laughed and Sable looked over at him.
"Something the matter, Remus?" she asked.
"I think the others are getting another lecture about the ball." he said with a grin, pointing at the other Marauders. Sable grimaced and shook her head.
"Looks like those three are on their soap-box again." she grinned. "I'll be glad when this ball is over with. I can't get a decent conversation out of any of the girls. Even Lily is constantly talking about it. Gets annoying, really."
"I think the guys will be happy too." he answered. Sable smiled and nodded.
"So where we headed today, Remus?" she asked.
"Don't know." he answered. "You have any ideas?"
"I need to go by Honeyduke's." she said, eyeing him suspiciously. "It seems that my stash of chocolate has been completely diminished. I wonder how that could have happened? Hmmm?" Remus only shrugged and tried not to look too guilty. Sable nodded and continued on. "You know how I get without my chocolate, Remus."
"Yeah, it's not pretty." he said gravely.
"REMUS!" she admonished. "I'm not that bad, am I?'
"Nothing I can't handle."
"I'll remember that the next time I'm P.M.S.ing really bad. Let's see how you handle that one, shall we?" she said smugly.
"On second thought, I'll keep my mouth shut." Remus said quickly. He suddenly remembered that she usually got moody about the time the moon was full every month. So the poor girl actually got a double dose of trouble. She had to deal with the PMS mood swings as well as the changes due to the lunar changes. Talk about hormonal chaos!!! It wasn't a nice thing, and he knew it.
"Good." she answered smugly. They continued to make idle chit-chat until they got down to the village. The first place they went was the little costume shop right off of the main street. It only took about thirty minutes to find everything Remus needed, and they were out of there. When Sable and Remus looked back into the crowded room, they could spot Bella, Amanda, and Lily throwing things into the changing rooms where their dates were. Remus shook his head as Bella and Sirius started another argument again.
"You had better be glad that I'm not as bad as them." Sable said pointing at the other girls. Remus smiled and nodded.
"You have no clue how happy I am that you're not like them right now." he muttered. "Let's get out of here." They walked out of the store and headed straight for Honeyduke's.
The candy store was filled to the brim with students. Sable and Remus fought their way in and got the needed sugar supplies. It took a while, but when they exited the store, Remus was holding a large bag of the sweets and Sable was loaded down with about four or five different bags of goodies. Remus looked at her and gapped at the amount of sweets she had just bought.
"Not trying to buy them out, are you?" he smirked.
"Nope, just stocking up in case SOMEONE decides to raid my stash when they run out of their own goodies." she said with a grin. Remus smiled and looked away. He had been nosing around her lab one day and found her stash of chocolate. He had cleaned it out before she even knew what was going on. He was on a sugar high for hours after that, and Sable had threatened him with bodily harm if he ever ate that much again. They walked down the street and wound up in front of the Shrieking Shack before they actually realized where they were going. Sable glanced up at the dilapidated old shack and sighed.
"Do you think Snape's put two and two together yet to find out what's going on?" she asked quietly. Remus shook his head and frowned.
"I don't know yet." he said. "He's been quiet for the past few weeks. Other than that visit to you on the last full moon, I haven't heard anything out of him. Or Flint either, for that matter."
"They're up to something, Remus." she stated. "I just don't know what it is."
"Did you ever find out if he read your entire journal or not?" Remus asked.
"I don't think he got through about half of it." she said. "I put a Detection Spell on it a few days ago. It detected which pages he had touched. If the spell worked correctly, he knows about you, my parents, my lab, and the reason I'm doing my research, but he doesn't know about me being a ranula."
"Well, that's helpful, a little anyways." He answered, hugging the girl. He looked over at the shack and sighed. "Do you think we'll ever be accepted for what we are?"
"I don't know, Remus." she said sadly. "Werewolves like you and me are feared throughout the wizarding world. People think we're monsters. The only reason my parents have a job is because they worked for the Ministry before they were infected. Their boss was sympathetic and let them keep their positions since they had worked so hard for the Ministry."
"Too bad there aren't other people as accepting as them." Remus frowned.
"I know." she answered. "People fear what they don't understand. Anything that's not normal is looked upon as evil. I don't want people like you and me to be labeled evil because of something that we couldn't control when we were younger, or before we were ever born for that matter." Remus nodded and decided to change to a less depressing subject.
"I think we need to go see if the others are done yet." he said. "I don't think Sirius can hold out much longer in a costume shop." Sable laughed and nodded.
"And if I know Arabella, she's still got him in there trying on different clothes."
"My point exactly." Remus answered. "We better go." Sable nodded and they set off for the center of the town once again. As suspected, Bella had Sirius by the scruff of the neck by the time they arrived back at the costume shop.
"We're too late." Sable snickered. Remus and Sable watched as Bella let into Sirius about something, shaking her finger at him and causing some of the other people to turn and stare because of the shouts. Sirius just stood there, taking the berating with a grin. He finally had enough and grabbed Bella up in a kiss that left her speechless for a few minutes after he let her go. Remus grinned and shook his head, and Sable only laughed.
"That's one way to shut her up." she laughed. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's got the whole grab, kiss, and shut her up move perfected." Remus nodded and they walked over to the two teens. After enquiring to the where-abouts of the others, Sirius told them that they were all going to meet up to get something to drink from The Three Broomsticks. Sable nodded and smiled. She could use a bottle of butterbeer right now. Things had been hectic the past few days, and she needed to unwind.
"Let's get going people." Sirius said with a grin. "Don't want to keep the adoring public waiting." Bella was about to say something else to him when he put his arm around her waist and led her from the building. They had already paid for their stuff, but in there rush to leave, Bella had left them sitting on the floor at her feet. Sable watched them walk out the door, a grin on her face when she turned around and looked at Remus eyeing the bags on the floor.
"Do you think we should bring them, or let Pads and Bella come back and get them later?" he asked. Sable grinned and picked up two of the bags, leaving Remus to get the other one."
"Let's take them now." she said. "Padfoot's gotten into enough trouble today. When Bella finds out that they left the bags, she's going to let him have it again."
They smiled and made there way out of the store and towards the center of the small town.
The Three Broomsticks was a very popular place with the students of Hogwarts. As they entered into the establishment, Remus scanned the crowd of students for any sign of the rest of the Marauders. He quickly found them, tucked away in a corner in the back of the building. He and Sable maneuvered over to the table, only to find that Bella had in fact noticed that the bags were missing. She was berating Sirius again, but he just sat there and took it with a smile on his face. Sable brought the bags to the side of the table and shook her head.
"Leave him alone, Bella." she said with a grin. "Hasn't he been in enough trouble today?" Arabella turned around and frowned at the girl.
"He made me leave the bags back at the costume shop." she said hotly. "Now I have to go back and get them."
"We got'em, Bella." Remus said, pushing the bags over to her. "Don't hang him up from a tree yet." Sirius looked over to his friend and grinned.
"Oh, thank you Sable. You too, Remus." she said, pulling the bags up to her. "I didn't want to have to fight that crowd. It's horrid."
"Well, now that the crisis has been settled." Lily said, "what do you guys want to drink?"
"BUTTERBEERS!!!" they all yelled out instinctively. The redhead blanched and nodded.
"It was just a simple question." she said quietly. "No need to shout, geez." Sable looked over to the girl and smiled.
"Let's go get them before this bunch gets hostile." she said. Lily nodded and the two girl left, leaving the Marauders, Bella, and Amanda to chat.
As Sable and the other girl worked their way up to the bar, Sable let out a groan as her eyes settled on who was behind the counter. It was that guy Chris who had hit on her the last time when she was here with the boys and Lily.
"Oh, man." she said. "Not him."
"Something wrong, Sable?" Lily asked as they made their way up to the counter.
"That jerk is working today." she said, signaling towards the waiter.
"What's wrong with him?" Lily asked, glancing over to the boy. Her face suddenly contorted and she frowned.
"He was the one hitting on us the last time we were here." she said. "Don't you remember?"
"Does Remus know he's here?" the redhead asked timidly.
"I don't know." she muttered. Lily nodded and looked back across the see of students to where the Marauders were sitting.
"Why don't you go back, Sable." she said. "Send Peter or one of the others up here to help me. I don't think it would be prudent to get Remus angry at the moment." Sable shook her head and pushed past the last few people.
"Don't worry about it." she said. "Maybe he won't remember me." She and Lily waited for him to turn around to notice they were there. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on her side, because the pervert remembered her the minute he saw her.
"Hey! It's the leather ladies." he said with a cheeky grin, wiping his hands on a towel. "How you doing , sweetie? Decided to come visit me again, I see." Sable's temper flared, but she decided to try and not cause a scene in the middle of the restaurant. Lily watched as the other girl's temper began to flare up, but smiled when she put a fake smile on her face.
"Can we get two pitchers of butterbeer, please?" Sable asked, the fake smile still on her face, even though her hands were clenching underneath the counter. The boy only grinned and leaned down on the counter, coming closer to the girls.
"Who's your friend?" he asked, eyeing Lily appreciatively. Lily's temper began to flare up also. "Oh yeah, I remember, you're the other one that was here with her."
"She's a friend of mine from school." Sable said evenly, ignoring the boy's last comment. "Now, about those drinks…."
"Not a problem, sweetheart." he said with a wink. "Here you go, on the house for two such lovely ladies as yourself."
"That's sweet of you." Lily said, "But we insist on paying for them." She put a hand full of change on the counter and picked up a pitcher of the liquid. Sable followed suit and grabbed the other pitcher. Before either of them could turn around, they felt someone grab their wrists. Both of the girls looked up at the waiter and frowned.
"I said they were on the house." he said with a grin. He let Lily's hand go and picked the money up, depositing it in her hands. "Don't worry about it." He let his hand linger a little longer on Lily than necessary. "If you insist on paying, maybe we could work something out later." He gave Sable a wink and a cheesy smile. Before she could say anything in her or her friend's defense, she felt someone else sidle of by her. A low growl was heard, and she looked up to see a very mad Remus, and an even madder James Potter. The Head Boy put his arm around Lily and hugged her, a sickening sweet smile on his face when he looked down.
"Everything alright, Lils?" he asked. "We were wondering what was taking so long." He looked up at the bartender and frowned.
"You ladies weren't having any problems, were you?" Remus asked Sable, glaring at the boy behind the counter. Chris seemed to shrink back a couple of steps and gulped once. "Because we would have to fix anyone that's giving our girls problems." He put his arms around Sable from behind and pulled her to him. About that time, Sirius came up to them, a frown on his face.
"What's taking so bloody long?" he asked grumpily. "We're gonna thirst to death before you guys get back over here."
"I think the girls were having some problems getting the drinks." James said . "Am I right, girls?"
"Well…" Lily said quietly.
"You see, we were trying to tell him that…" Sable started.
"We're just a little backed up right now." the frightened bartender said quickly, eyeing the three boys warily. "There's no problem." He set another pitcher of butterbeer on the counter, and Sable picked it up.
"I didn't think there was." James said, glaring at the boy. "Just in case, from now on, we'll come get the drinks, girls." he said, looking down at Lily.
"Yes, we wouldn't want anything to happen to you guys while you were up here." Remus growled, staring directly at the now quivering boy behind the counter. "You know they have some perverts in this village, and since it's full of students, there's no telling who's out."
"Okay." Lily conceded.
"Sure thing, Remus." Sable said, pointedly looking at Chris. "Whatever you say, love." The girls turned around and began to walk away from the table, each one carrying a pitcher of the warm liquid. When they got out of hearing range, James, Sirius, and Remus turned back to the boy and glared.
"You mess with either of them again.." James said slowly.
"..And you die a very slow, and painful death." Remus growled, cracking his knuckles.
"Do we make ourselves clear?" Sirius asked pointedly. The boy only nodded, terrified of the three boys that now stood in front of him.
"Crystal." he muttered.
"Good." James said, turning around and walking back to the table. "I wouldn't want any misunderstandings." Sirius glared at the boy one last time before following his friend. Remus was the last to go. When they got back to the table, Lily were fuming. The boys sat down and the girl let them have it..
"What do you think you're doing?!" Lily asked her boyfriend.
"What?" James asked, confused with her mood swings. "What'd I do?"
"You didn't need to come barging up there." Lily said. "We could have handled that jerk!" She looked at Sable and nodded. "Couldn't we?" she asked pointedly. Sable, who it seemed Remus had cornered in the booth, only shrugged. She wasn't about to argue with Remus, especially since the fool moon was only a little over a week finished. He was thinking like an overprotective alpha-male, and she wasn't in the mood to argue with him. It wouldn't get anywhere, anyhow.
"Uhh, well Lily…" she said.
"Don't worry about it." Sirius said flippantly. "I've known that guy for a while. He needed to be shown up."
"What'd he do?" Bella asked. "You three got up and left in a hurry." Peter shook his head and tried to hide a smile.
"Chris was hitting on the female customers again." he said dismissively. "Only this time, he picked two girls who were taken."
"This is the second time he's done that." James fumed.
"Yeah, he done it when we were here a few weeks ago, too." Remus said. "You'd think he'd have learned during that last encounter." He put his arm around Sable and almost pulled her into his lap. He was angry, and she knew he was just trying to make sure she wasn't going to go anywhere, so she didn't say anything to him.
"Some people are slow learners." Amanda said with a grin.
"Well, no matter how slow he is," Sirius said with a smirk. "I think he got the point this time." Everyone smiled and started talking about different topics. Before long, the butterbeer had run out and the whole group was ready to go.
"Where are you guys going, now?" Peter asked.
"Quidditch store." James answered. Lily rolled her eyes and shook her head in annoyance.
"Got to go pick up some pranking supplies." Sirius said with a grin. Arabella smiled and nodded in agreement.
"Book store." Sable said. Remus only shrugged and nodded. "What about you Pete?"
"We're going to Honeyduke's." Amanda answered for him. "I've got to restock my supplies since SOMEONE decided to clean me out." She cast an annoyed look at Peter and shook her head. Peter had the decency to blush before the Hufflepuff pulled him out of the building. The other six followed, splitting up at the door to go there separate ways. They had all decided to meet back in the Common Room later on that evening. Until then, each pair was left to their own devices.
Remus and Sable had went to the bookstore to see if they could find anything to read. They had separated, Remus going to the Defense Against the Dark Arts section while Sable went to the Potions section. There was no one else in the section since it was set aside from the rest of the store. Sable was not paying much attention to her surroundings, so absorbed in the book as she walked down the aisles. She was suddenly jerked out of her daze when she came in contact with someone else. She dropped the book and started to apologize for being so clumsy when she noticed who it was.
Cody Flint and Severus Snape were standing in front of her with identical smirks on their faces. Sable's anger shot from nothing to full blown in about 1.2 seconds flat.
"Watch where you're going!" Flint barked.
"How about you quit standing in the middle of the aisle like the idiot you are." Sable shot back, picking up the book and trying to go around the two boys. They stood in her path and wouldn't let her pass.
"Where's your little wolf puppy?" Snape asked sarcastically, referring to Remus. "I thought you'd need to keep him on a leash while you were in public."
"Just like they need to keep you two snakes locked up in a box somewhere with no ventilation holes, right?" she asked dryly.
"Just answer the question, bitch!" Flint sneered. "Where's the freak?"
"Why, so you'll know if you have a head start if you try to pull something like you did on the Pitch last week?" she asked, growling under her breath. The boys smirked again, and Flint tried to grab her shoulders.
"Yes, well, that was an accident." he said. "A momentary slip of mine."
"More like a momentary slip of sanity." Sable ground out. "Did you actually think you'd get away with trying to kill me?"
"We weren't trying to kill you, Robbins." Snape said firmly.
"Really?" Sable asked in annoyance. "You sure could have fooled me."
"Yes, well, I find that's not very hard to do." Snape said. "I mean, look at the pathetic excuse of a human you stay around. Really, you should know better than to be anywhere near a beast like Lupin."
"I'll take my chances with him." she said heatedly. "He can't do anything worse than you two, so I'll be fine."
"You do realize that he's not always going to be there to protect you, don't you?" Flint asked.
"Well, I'm here right now." came an angry voice from behind the two Slytherins. "And I'd appreciate it if you two bloody prats would move and let me get to my girlfriend." Sable willed her heart to calm back down from its rapid beating. When she had seen that Snape and Flint had her cornered, she had gotten nervous. She did not know what they had planned on doing, but she had not liked it. Being in a confined space with those two was not healthy for anyone, especially if you were a Gryffindor named Sable Robbins.
"Oh, look what the cat dragged in." Flint sneered. "Shouldn't you be somewhere right now, Lupin? Like the Shrieking Shack perhaps?"
"Only if I can drag you in there with me so I can tear you apart myself." he growled. "I still owe your sorry ass for putting Sable in the hospital wing."
"You won't do anything in here." Snape said, gesturing to the entrance to the store. "We're in the middle of public, and you don't have the rest of the peanut gallery to back you up." He looked down at the boy and shook his head in disgust. "You're threats are empty and useless."
Remus' blood started boiling and he pushed Sable behind him, his rage beginning to take over his mind. Pictures of Sable lying in the hospital wing flashed through his mind in quick succession. He balled his fists up and tried to calm down.
"You're a dead snake." he said. Before Flint could dodge the attack, Remus had swung and connected with the Slytherin's face. It took about two seconds for the two boys to wind up on the ground, trying to beat the holy hell out of each other. Sable gasped when Flint's fist connected with her boyfriend's stomach. She suddenly wondered if she should jump in between the two of them. Her mind won out and she stayed put. Even with her lycanthropy, she would seriously be hurt if she tried to stop them, probably giving Remus another reason to go out for blood.
She saw Snape reach out and pull Remus off of the bloody and beaten form of Flint, a sick smile on his face, and his wand in his hand. 'They're going to double team him!' she thought frantically. 'The bastards will kill him!' She quickly grabbed her wand and threw curse after curse at the taller Slytherin, forcing him to let Remus go. Remus stumbled and looked behind him. Sable had fired so many curses and hexes at him, that the Slytherin potion master was indistinguishable, and frozen solid to the ground where he stood.
There were red boils on his face, along with bulging green, frog-like eyes, swollen purple lips, and a set of cat ears on the top of his head. Remus tried to calm his breathing back down to normal. He looked over at Sable and noticed the pensive look on her face. She looked close to tears, and still had her wand pointed at Snape. He took a shaky breath and stepped over the now unconscious form of Cody Flint that was lying in the floor. Even from this vantage point, Sable could tell that the Slytherin Quidditch Captain would be sporting a black eye, busted lip, bloody nose, and more than likely a sprained wrist when he woke up. Not to mention numerous other bruises and broken bones.
"Are you okay?" he asked quietly. Sable calmed down slightly and nodded to him.
"I'm fine." she said. "Just a little shook up. You okay?" Remus gave her a half grin.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding!" she said frantically noticing the blood on his face, and trying to wipe it away with her sleeve. "We need to get you back to the school!"
"Sable, I'm fine." he said patiently. Flint had gotten a good punch on his nose, and now he had a nosebleed, but other than that, he was fine. "It's just a nose bleed."
"I don't care." she said heatedly. "Pomfrey needs to look you over and make sure nothing is broken!" Remus smiled at the concern she was showing for his well being. He grabbed her wrists, forcing her to stop what she was doing and look at him.
"Sable, think." he said. "How am I going to explain to Pomfrey that I've got a bloody nose without telling her I was fighting with another student?" Sable let that sink into her head before she nodded.
"You're right." she said finally. "But we need to stop that bleeding. Hold on a second." She pulled her wand up again and muttered a small healing spell before smiling. "There. All better." she said with a grin. Remus smiled and pulled her away from the two immobile Slytherins.
"Let's go, Sable." he said, leading her towards the door. "Before anyone notices."
"What about…" she started to ask, looking back at the two Slytherins.
"Do you really want to help them after what they've done?" he asked, surprised that she would even consider it. Sable looked at him and then back to where the two boys were standing.
"Nah. Let'em stay there, for all I care." she said dismissively. "I was wondering what we're going to do if they tell Treble about what we done to them." Remus grinned and shook his head.
"They won't tell anyone. If everyone knew they had been beaten by two Gryffindors, their reputations would be ruined. They're not going to tell anybody." He smiled and hugged her again as they walked out the door, leaving the two Slytherins to be found by whomever happened to chance upon them.
Later on that evening, when the Marauders, and the girls were on their way back to the castle, Sable told them about what happened in the book store. Flint and Snape had been found by a few of their classmates about half an hour after they had left them there. Neither one of the boys said anything as they stomped up to the castle. James, Sirius, and Peter laughed until they were in tears when Sable told them. The girls only shook their heads in silent agreement, happy that someone had finally put the audacious pair of snakes in their rightful places.
That night, while everyone was asleep in the castle, those two boys were up , deciding that it was time to put their plan of destruction into play much sooner than they had expected to. And things were not about to be pretty….
A/N - Okay. How'd I do? Remember to leave me a review telling me what you guys think. Later.
A.A.
