Chapter 2: The End of the Beginning
Remus had a little trouble recognizing Sirius when his friend flagged him down on platform nine and three-quarters that September 1.
"Shiny," he said finally, looking at Sirius' head. "Did you do it yourself?"
Sirius nodded, grinning. "My mother threw a fit," he said in satisfaction as they boarded the train. "Screeching on about how if I didn't straighten up and start acting more like a Black she'd throw me out of the house. I told her I'd run away and save her the trouble."
"Where are you planning on going?"
"Prongs' place. You know his parents love me."
"The more fools, they," said Remus under his breath.
"So, how was your summer, Moony?" Sirius opened the door of an empty compartment. "Anything... going on?" His expression indicated the answer he expected.
Remus looked at him for one moment in confusion, then groaned as he recalled where Danger had obtained his address. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Padfoot. She came to say hello to me a couple of times. We talked."
"Is that what they're calling it these days? Talking?"
"My mother was there the whole time."
Sirius recoiled in mock horror. "You... in front of your mother? I always knew your family was tolerant, but this is a little more than I expected!"
Remus pulled his wand, threw two or three hexes that he didn't expect to land, then carefully sneaked in the one he did want to use, and smiled smugly as it took effect. "That did it," he said, blocking Sirius' last curse and putting his wand away again.
"Did what? What did you do to me? What did he do to me?" Sirius demanded of James, who had just arrived in their compartment. "Do I look different to you?"
"Well, the last time I saw you, you had hair."
"No, I did that myself. It's something else."
James studied Sirius' face, then snapped his fingers. "Got it. Unibrow."
"Uni-what?"
James walked over to Sirius, picked up his hand, and guided it to the place above his nose where his eyebrows now met in a thick, unbroken line of hair, which closely resembled a large caterpillar. "Unibrow."
"Oh." Using the glass in the window on the compartment door as a mirror, Sirius repaired the damage to his looks. "That was mean," he said reproachfully to the book behind which Remus was now ensconced. "I might not have noticed until we got to the castle. And then Freeman would have laughed at me."
"How would that be different from what she usually does?" inquired James.
"This time she'd have a reason."
Peter slid the compartment door open. Sirius looked up and stared. "He got you too!"
"Who got me? What's wrong?" Peter looked behind him fearfully.
"You didn't insult Remus or anything, did you, Wormtail?"
"Remus? I haven't even seen him yet – oh, hi, Moony. Did I insult you?"
"No, of course not," said Remus, lowering his book. "What's wrong, Sirius?"
"But – he's got one." Sirius sounded confused. "He's got one of those things. Right over his nose."
"One of what things?" Peter's hand flew to his face.
"It's all right, Wormtail," said James. "Padfoot, he's always had that. It's natural."
"It is?"
"Yes. It is. His eyebrows just grow that way."
"Oh." Sirius pondered this. "How was your summer, Wormtail?"
"Oh, it was great." Peter came in and sat down next to Remus. "I built three new models – a three-masted ship, a Muggle airplane, and an old-fashioned car."
"That's nice," said James in a bored tone of voice. "Moony, how about you?"
"He's got himself a girlfriend – finally," said Sirius before Remus could answer.
"Oh, the Granger girl?"
"That's the one. She was over at his house during the summer."
"How many times?"
"He says just once or twice."
"Would either of you mind if I told you about my summer?" asked Remus as politely as he could.
James and Sirius stopped, and their heads turned simultaneously to Remus, as if they hadn't realized he was there. "Er, go ahead," said James after a moment. "Sorry."
Remus carefully kept his amusement from showing on his face. "And if you don't listen to me from now on, I can give you detention for it."
"Detention?" Sirius frowned. "Moony, no way..."
Remus pulled his new prefect badge from his pocket.
"Better you than me," said James decisively. "Don't you have to be up front or something?"
"Not until we actually leave." Remus checked his watch. "Which is any minute now. I'll be back later."
The other boys waved as he left.
As Remus had suspected, James and Sirius paid about the same amount of attention to him as a prefect that they did to every other prefect in the school.
Which was none at all.
But that wasn't quite true, Remus realized as October turned to November. James was paying some attention. Just enough to be jealous. For the first time in his life, James Potter wanted a position of authority on something other than a Quidditch team.
The reason was simple. Lily Evans was the other Gryffindor prefect from their year.
"It is not bloody fair," whined James in the common room one night. He'd waited up for Remus to get back from a prefects' meeting – Sirius and Peter had already gone to bed. "You don't even like her, and you get to see her all the time. But me, she avoids like I've got Snivellus' looks and Peeves' personality. It's not fair."
Remus refrained from pointing out that James had, if not exactly Peeves' personality, something highly similar.
"And I keep running into the Granger girl," James continued with his litany of complaint. "And I don't even like her. Well, not like like her. She's nice enough, I suppose. If your tastes run that way."
"What way would that be?" Remus asked mildly.
"Well, for a bookish little snip of a thing with no real power behind her wandwork and as far as I can tell, hardly any guts at all – I mean, I have no idea what she's doing in Gryffindor, she seems more the Ravenclaw type to me..."
"I bow to your almighty wisdom, O Sorting Hat," retorted Remus sarcastically. "Shall I hang you on your hook in Dumbledore's office now?"
He fled up the stairs as James fired a Twitchy Ears Hex at him.
There was a full moon during Christmas holidays, and it was a bad one.
Well, not really bad, Remus acknowledged the next day, watching the usual sappy-sweet Christmas special to which the television was tuned with very little attention. About normal. But bad in comparison.
He'd started getting used to transformations with Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs present. His friends had shown up on his first full moon back at school, and to Remus' surprise and delight, he had some vague memories of the night. It seemed that the presence of the other animals not only calmed the wolf enough that it didn't attack itself, but also gave him a slightly more advanced mental capacity as the wolf. He was still thinking as a wolf, though, not as a human – that would be advanced magic indeed, to allow a werewolf to keep his or her human mind.
Remus' thoughts drifted into various ways that might happen – a spell, a potion – might the effects be salutary if a werewolf kept pets? But he couldn't seem to concentrate. He felt as if he was waiting for something. His eyes kept roaming from the screen, towards the door of the room, which led into the front hallway...
The doorbell rang. "I'll get it!" called his mother from the kitchen. Remus heard her footsteps, the sound of the door opening, and then –
"Why, hello, dear, how nice to see you!"
Remus sat up a little. Who is it, Mum? Come on, say a name...
"Happy Christmas, Mrs. Lupin," said a well-known voice. "Is Remus here?"
"Yes, of course – he's been a bit ill, but I'm sure he'll be delighted to see you. Come right in..."
Damn it, she's going to notice, she can't help but notice, I look like I got into a fight with an entire zoo – I've got scratches all down my face, bite marks on my arms – she's going to say something, she's going to want to know what happened, and I have no idea what to tell her...
"Happy Christmas, O high exalted prefect," said Danger's voice right beside him, startling him into a jump. "Knut for your thoughts."
Remus shook his head. "Not worth it."
"Oh, give it a try."
"All right." Remus accepted the small bronze coin. "I was just wondering what to say to you. I'm... not used to having girls over."
"That's why I'm here. To help you get used to it." Danger's tone lingered teasingly between joking and sincere. "And to help you get used to a few other things too. Like this. Happy Christmas." She laid a wrapped package in his lap.
"You shouldn't have," said Remus automatically.
You really shouldn't have.
I haven't got anything to give you.
"I know, but I wanted to. The look on your face when you open it will be worth every penny I spent." She grinned at him. "Go on, open it, you know you want to."
Remus hesitated one more moment, then returned her grin and tore into his gift.
He was sure, in some distant corner of his mind, that the look on his face was indeed priceless. But he didn't have time to waste on that now. Not with the treasure currently reposing in his hands.
"Hardcover," he breathed reverently. He opened it gently to the first page and was caught off guard by the little lettering in the top corner. No way.
"You do know this is a first edition?" he said incredulously.
Danger smiled indulgently. "First edition, first printing."
Remus stroked the spine, awestruck.
"Look inside the back cover," Danger prompted.
There's more?
"Not yet," he said aloud. "Not yet. Give me a minute."
What more could there be?
He found out. Pasted to the inside back cover of the book was a fold-out map of Middle Earth, in all its exquisite detail.
Remus tore his eyes away from it to look at Danger. "How did you know I wanted The Silmarillion?"
Danger was sitting on the floor, leaning one elbow on the couch next to Remus and propping her head on that hand. "Well, just because my friends despise your friends doesn't mean I do too. I'm actually on more or less good terms with James Potter and Sirius Black. And Peter has been coming to my study sessions lately. I'm thinking of seeing if I can make the sessions into an official club, by the way... but that's off topic. The three of them dropped enough hints that I was willing to get involved."
"Get involved?"
"It's a joint present. From the three of them and me. They were just going to go out and get you a plain old copy. Instead, I did the Muggle-world legwork to find this, and we split the cost four ways. They agreed, since I was the one who found it, not to mention the one closest to you, I should get to give it to you."
"Closest to me?"
"Geographically speaking," said Danger demurely.
But Remus wasn't sure that was what she'd meant. Or at least, not all of what she'd meant. Danger's words had a way of taking on double meanings without warning.
They spent the next half-hour talking about Tolkien, fantasy stories in general, and how funny it was that their lives seemed sometimes to have come from one of those novels. Danger got Remus to laugh by imitating the writer of a novel about them, if one had existed.
"A school? For witches and wizards? Oh, no, surely not! Witches and wizards learn their craft master to apprentice, in dark little rooms, or out on the moor by the light of the moon – not at a school, with classrooms and lessons and homework! And sports on broomsticks? Broomstick flying is for getting around, not for playing silly games!"
It was only after Danger had gone home that Remus recalled an oddity. Before she had come, he had felt as if he were waiting for something to happen. Now that she had come and gone, he no longer felt that way.
Was I... expecting her?
He shook his head. I can't have been. There's no way I could have known she'd turn up today.
But it was nice. He stroked the spine of The Silmarillion where it lay beside him. And not just for the gift. I enjoy her company. It's easy to talk to her.
Winter melted into spring, and in no time at all, it was March. Remus' 16th birthday fell on a Hogsmeade weekend; he and the other Marauders had plans all day in town, to the town's great detriment.
Halfway through the afternoon, Danger turned up at the Three Broomsticks, sitting down at their table as if she had a perfect right to be there. "Many happy returns," she said, saluting Remus with her bottle of butterbeer.
"Thank you."
Peter stood up. "I have to go, er, mail a letter to my mum," he announced. "I'll be back later."
"Yeah, and we were planning to go to Zonko's, weren't we, Sirius?" asked James, giving Sirius something Remus had no trouble interpreting as a significant look.
"Zonko's? Now? Ouch!" Sirius rubbed his shin. "Yeah. Sure. See you later, Remus."
And just like that, the other three Marauders were gone.
Danger watched them go. "Do you get the impression they're trying to set us up?" she asked.
"Oh, no, not at all. They've only been telling me for three years I should get a girlfriend."
Danger chuckled. "Shall we go for a walk together so that you can tell them self-congratulatory and completely fictitious tales of your romantic prowess, then?"
Remus lost his composure entirely, howling with laughter.
Danger looked at him oddly. "What?"
"You have no shame at all, do you?" he managed to say.
"No, I suppose not." Danger took a swig of her butterbeer.
When she had finished the bottle and Remus had gotten himself more or less under control, they left the pub together, chatting.
"So you're an only child, then," said Remus as they walked up the road.
"Yes. But my mother always says it's still not too late. I know she'd love to have another child, but she had some trouble with me, and I think it affected her badly."
"I understand."
"You're an only too, aren't you?"
"Yes. My parents might have had more children if I'd never–"
"Never what?"
"Never been born," Remus invented quickly. "Because I was such a handful as a boy that my mother said one was enough!"
Danger laughed, and the moment was past. Remus exhaled a silent sigh of relief.
Why do I keep doing this? It's like I forget she doesn't know, or like I feel I can trust her so much that I could tell her.
But no. It's not safe to tell anyone. I'm amazed it hasn't gotten out yet via Peter – I guess James' and Sirius' vows to kill him slowly and painfully if he told anyone sank in – I don't need another person who knows. I just don't.
"Now there's an interesting building," said Danger, breaking into Remus' reverie. He looked up.
They had come to the Shrieking Shack.
"More or less new, from what I hear," she continued, apparently not noticing his expression, "and already heavily haunted – though apparently the ghosts there only whoop it up on certain nights. Have you heard anything about it?"
"No," said Remus quickly. "Not much. Only what you have."
Get a hold of yourself, she's going to notice if you keep babbling this way, he told himself firmly.
But Danger only nodded, as if his answer had been what she was expecting, and leaned on the fence keeping people out of the grounds around the Shack, looking towards it.
She looks like she's waiting for something...
Kiss her, said a little voice in his head.
What?
Kiss her. She wants you to kiss her. You know, her lips, your lips, maybe a little tongue...
Remus shuddered.
All right, no tongue. But lips. Think about it. Wouldn't that be nice? Go on, I know you want to do it.
But – how do you know she wants it? he argued with the voice.
Look at the way she's standing. Close to you, but not too close, and she keeps looking at you... she wants you to kiss her. Trust me. I know. Go on, do it now. Call her name or something, she'll look at you, then you lean in and just do it.
Remus took a breath, then let it out again. It took him three tries before he managed to say, in something approaching a normal voice, "Danger?"
"Hmm?" She turned to face him.
Remus leaned in and just did it.
When he pulled back, the expression on Danger's face was part surprise and part something else Remus couldn't identify. He waited for her to say something.
"Do that again?"
He did, and this time he put his arms around her as well, and a moment later felt hers wrapping around him.
I am kissing a girl. And she is kissing me back. And showing evidence of liking it.
And now, belatedly, he recognized what he had seen in her face.
Pleasure. Enjoyment. She liked it when I kissed her. She's liking it when I kiss her now.
I wonder if she'd like it if I –
NO!
He pulled out of the clinch and turned away, breathing hard.
I can't do this. I can't let myself do this.
This is the first step on a road I can't take. Not now. Not ever.
"Did I do something wrong?"
Danger's voice called him back to the moment. She sounded, and looked as he turned back, startled, puzzled, and just a touch offended.
"No," said Remus, realizing as he spoke that she would never believe what he was going to say next. Even though it was the truth. "It's not you. It's me."
"You?" Brown brows lifted quizzically. "You didn't do anything I didn't want you to..." She frowned. "Are you gay?"
"G – no!" Of all the things she could have thought of to explain this, that was one Remus hadn't come up with himself. "No. I'm not. As far as I know. No."
"I didn't think so. Do you not like me, then?"
"No. I like you. But..."
"Not that way?"
Remus warred with himself, and finally sided with the lie as being easier on all parties concerned. "Yes. Not that way."
Danger nodded. "All right. Then we won't tell anyone about this, and we can both forget it ever happened."
"All right."
But it wasn't all right, and Remus knew it.
He had liked kissing Danger. He had liked it a lot. He wanted to do it again.
And he didn't dare to.
The last thing I need is her falling in love with me.
Or me falling in love with her.
And not even to himself could he admit that at least one of these occurrences had already taken place.
Remus closed his eyes for a moment, testing his memory of the passage he'd just read. He needed a good grade on his Transfiguration O.W.L., after all.
I need a good grade on all my O.W.L.s. Better yet, I need a miracle. What the hell is the chance of a werewolf actually becoming an Unspeakable?
But Professor McGonagall hadn't squashed his hopes in his career advice session – in fact, she had said that he might even have a slightly better chance than a normal human, since he could double as a subject for study along with doing the studying himself...
But I think she was probably joking.
"I'm bored," Sirius complained. "Wish it was full moon."
"You might," said Remus darkly. "We've still got Transfiguration, if you're bored you could test me... here." He extended the book to Sirius.
Sirius waved it off. "I don't need to look at that rubbish, I know it all."
"This'll liven you up, Padfoot," said James quietly. "Look who it is..."
Remus looked. Oh, no. Severus Snape was coming along the grass towards them.
I'd better not get involved. They won't listen anyway, and Snape really does deserve what he gets...
And so Remus buried himself in his book and pretended not to hear James and Sirius hexing Snape, pretended not to hear Lily defending Snape, pretended not to hear everything that went on.
But then something happened he couldn't ignore.
The book was yanked from his hands. He looked up just in time to see Aletha Freeman catch it, obviously having Summoned it. She was looking past him, at something behind him. He turned and gulped involuntarily.
Danger was standing behind him, wand out and an expression of fury on her face. The wand was pointing directly at James, who (Remus turned back around to see) was hopping up and down on one foot, face a mask of agony. Snape was slowly getting up, total humiliation and grim satisfaction warring for place on his face. Sirius and Peter were staring from Snape to James to Aletha to Danger, and Remus suddenly noticed that Aletha was also holding several wands – she must have disarmed the other Marauders before Danger cast her spell.
Danger put her wand away and glared down at Remus. "I thought you were better than them," she said harshly. "But you're not. You're worse."
She scrubbed her hand contemptuously across her lips before she turned and walked away.
(A/N: And I said this was going to be plotless... but I guess I'm addicted to plot...
Back on track, everyone! I don't think there should be any more big hold-ups for a while, but I'll try to let you know if there are... so how did you like the substitution of the "big event" for March of '75? And I disclaim the few lines of dialogue in the last section which are quotes from OotP.)