Author's Notes: Hey! Had enough of this story yet? Sad to say, my computer won't be back up anytime soon so this maybe the last chapter I post in days . Anyway, if it makes you happy read some other fanfics or some of my other fanfics XD. I personally like this chapter, for once, so I hope you like it, too. The Mischief Makers do not belong to me!

Chapter Seventeen: Secrets Untold

Ever since James and Remus had their little chat up in the dorms, lil Remus kept an annoyingly close watch on his three friends. It was excruciatingly obvious to both James and Sirius that their little friend didn't want them poking their noses into places they weren't supposed to ("That's the kind of thing we should tell Snivellus," Sirius proposed.). Wherever they went their little bookworm resumed tagging closely behind them.

The boy was trying to act perfectly normal about it, too, but unfortunately for Remus, acting normal wasn't very easy. Even at night, he would shuffle around the room, pretending to be either reading or writing an essay until they had fallen asleep. James couldn't slip a single word about their conversation to Sirius for two weeks straight. James and Sirius found this very irritating, even more so than Snape's existence on this planet. Peter, being as clueless as always, resumed his days normally, completely oblivious of what was going on.

Since Remus was tailing them so much, James could no longer set up any more plans of mischief for the four of them. Whenever James even breathed out the word invisibility cloak, Remus would become awfully suspicious, eyeing the lot of them as if they were planning to destroy Hogwarts itself. Because of this, life continued as usual, like a normal, magical, plain old life without any adventure, excitement, or Quidditch. James' invisibility cloak was left in his bag full of dust and sadly unused. The only thing he looked forward to the next day was Transfiguration as well as several of the other classes, but they too began to grow on him.

Fortunately for the three, Remus' will to follow them and listen in on their secrets decreased, and they were awkwardly given, little by little, more freedom. Also, James and Sirius had stopped whispering between each other during classes in order to gain their old friend's trust again, and it worked. Because of their little scheme, Remus felt that he had no need to eavesdrop on them as much anymore; he returned to his usual readings and slept early. With this in mind, James could finally give Sirius some information on what had happened that day Aqualis flew into their room. The bird had left not long after it arrived, and it had departed without James' or anyone else noticing.

Even if they were free to share information, they didn't want to make it look too obvious because their friend might start keeping track of them again.

"Remus, did you finish your essay on the Astrological Constellations, yet?" Sirius asked one peculiar afternoon. He sat straight across from lil Remus, and he looked straight at him when he said this, his face up in an abnormally large grin. It was study hall period, and the four of them were sitting around one of the smaller square tables furthest away from everyone else.

Remus, who had been reading another large book, entitled: "Everything You Need to Know About the Ministry of Magic " by Morganna Elitta, looked up.

"Unfortunately, I haven't." he replied, his tired face up in a warm smile, "You can always ask James, he should—"

"Oy, Jamesie!" Sirius exclaimed in an annoyingly high-pitched voice, rudely cutting Remus off. He lightly nudged James in the arm and continued, "Have you finished your essay, yet? I reckon you have! So don't tell me you haven't cause I know you have."

James paid no attention; the messy-haired boy seemed much too absorbed in whatever he was writing to even look up or answer back. Sirius, furrowed his brow at the reaction he had gotten, and without thinking, he nudged James hard in the elbow, the same elbow that was attached to the hand, the same hand that held the quill, and the same quill that had been writing on the parchment. Both Peter and Remus gasped as the quill and its ink ran across the page, completely staining it with black. Half of the page James had been writing was now blotted out.

Sirius blinked; he was in complete disbelief, he had just ruined what James had been working so intently on. James stared down at the paper, his face in a blank stare as if he was lost in his train of thought.

"S-S-Sirius!" Peter murmured, his face staring at James wearily.

"Um… Don't worry about it James! I'll clean it up!" Sirius exclaimed, quickly nipping out his wand. "Evan—" James and Remus turned to Sirius quickly, trying their very best to stop him from completing the spell, their eyes bulging with horror, "—esco ink!"

The next thing they knew, the entire roll of parchment James had written was completely erased of ink, that included the ink writing James had done so hard to do. James stared horrified at the blank parchment, his mouth agape, and his eyes about to fall out of their sockets. Sirius mumbled to himself, his eyes wearily looking at James and darting to the exit.

"Sirius…" James murmured, his voice soft and slightly wavy. "Mate…?"

"W—What is it, James?" Sirius gulped, his mouth twitching, "B-bloody hell! I'm so sorry it was an accident! I didn't—!"

"Do you realize… it took me the entire week to write that?"

"N—No. I think you missed that part."

James slowly turned his head toward his good buddy, his entire face twitching. Remus and Peter had never seen James this angry before and they slowly backed away from the table. Sirius also began backing away from the table; occasionally looking back at the exit, ready to make a run for it. Everyone in the room felt very tense, they all felt the anger emitting from the poor boy that had just lost his essay.

"If you weren't my best friend…" James muttered under his breath, "I'd have yelled at you and most likely hexed you by now."

"Thank you?" implied Sirius, unable to find anything appropriate to say. "I'll make it up to you, mate. By Merlin's Beard, I promise!"

James sank back in his chair and laughed humorously. Everyone else stared at him in confusion, was he loosing it?

"Don't worry about it, Sirius." He laughed, taking the blank parchment and throwing it aside, "It wasn't anything important. Oh and you shouldn't make promises you can't keep, either."

Sirius' face seemed to relax a bit and he asked, "Ah—all right, mate. But are you sure?"

"Positive. Anyway, I'll get that essay for you; it's up in the tower, by the way. You mind accompanying me?"

When realizing that the battle zone was now at peace again, Peter was the first to scamper back to his seat and continue his work; his stubby-body made him hobble whenever he tried to walk. Remus sighed with relief, and sat back down next to Peter, continuing to read on a section headed "The Department of Magical Transportation."

"You shouldn't get us worried like that." He said, flipping to the next page, and brushing his light brown hair from his face, "I seriously though you were going to kill someone."

James laughed at the thought of it, "I'd kill myself first before I could even think of killing anyone! Anyways, lets get going Sirius."

James then put away his books within his small bag and led the way out of the hall and into the stone corridor. Sirius came out not long afterwards, also carrying his things; after coming into the hall he quietly shut the door behind him insuring that neither Peter nor Remus was following them.

James stretched his arms lazily toward the ceiling as he walked ahead. "It's not like you to ask someone else for their homework, Sirius. You're supposed to be good with Astrology; I mean Professor Sinistra says you're the best at the subject." He grumbled resting his hands behind his head.

"That's because Astrology is much too easy. It's much too time consuming anyhow. Plus I'm much to advanced to write something on such an easy subject." Sirius replied, a haughty grin spreading across his face. James couldn't help, but frown at the conceitedness of the comment. Sirius shrugged his shoulders and continued, "I don't understand why Peter keeps flunking! You just have to look at the night sky, identify the position of stars, and name the celestial beings!"

"Don't put the blame on Peter," James frowned looking back, "You're the one who didn't do your essay. Peter has it done already; he made me check it over. It was quite accurate, I might add."

"Tell me, what constellation did he put the most emphasis?" he asked James, pulling back his smooth dark hair with his hands, "If it's the constellation ' Volpecula' he got that from the lecture I gave him about two days ago."

James' face faulted and the comment and Sirius just laughed.

"I take that as a yes."

The two of them shrugged there shoulders as the reached the door of the fat lady who seemed to be snoozing. Sirius being as impatient as always, took no trouble in trying to make a joke out of waking her up.

"Oy! Wake-y, wake-y," Sirius teased to the snoozing Fat Lady, and James couldn't help but chuckle.

The Fat Lady didn't do a thing except stir slightly and shift her position; James began to wonder exactly why she was given the job if she was just going to sleep like this. Sirius seemed to have become quite annoyed by the fact that she didn't even pay any attention to them; to annoy Sirius Black would have been the last thing you'd even think of doing.

"I SAID WAKE UP!" he shouted fiercely, nearly giving the Fat Lady a heart attack, and without giving a second thought to her well being, he stated the password: "Crim Leon."

It took a minute for her to recover from the shock, and she just stared at the both of them, her face rather peeved looking. Sirius didn't seem to mind the cold stare she was giving them, but the look made James feel extremely queasy.

"Kids today! Absolutely no respect!" she exclaimed and the door swung open.

James frowned at the words; he didn't enjoy making other people feel bad at his expense. Even though Sirius was the one who did all the talking, the boy couldn't help but share part of the blame for not stopping him.

The two of them continued to walk through the empty common room and proceeded up the stairs of their tower. The place was unusually quiet because of the fact that most of the students were either studying outside or taking their classes.

Upon entering their dormitory James rushed over to his little corner and began rustling through a pile of papers that had been sitting on his desk. Sirius, on the other hand, didn't head over to his friend just yet; instead, he took the time to open the window first.

The layout of the room was simple, but it made the room feel stuffy at times giving Sirius a fairly understandable reason to open the window. The handsome chap's poster-bed was to the left of the window. On the right side of the window was Remus' poster. All of their posters were angled into a circle. Across from Sirius' poster was Peter's, and right next to his, which would be on the left, was James'. Among the four of them, James' area seemed to be the messiest of the room, and Remus' was obviously the cleanest.

"I found it!" James said happily, pulling out a fairly long roll of parchment.

Sirius looked away from the window and turned to James, "You know, it's beyond me how you can find anything in that mess. It looks like a jungle in there."

The messy-haired boy joined his handsome friend by the window and stared out for a moment before replying, "It's my habitat." He stated firmly, "I should know my own habitat, Sirius."

The both of them merely laughed at the comment.

Upon looking outside, the two of them didn't fail to notice that the view outside was absolutely breathe-taking. James had never actually taken time to glance out the window, so this was his first time getting a good 'ol view. The both of them stared down at the grounds below, and then traced their eyes to the oak tree they always hung around. Several of the students were walking around in groups talking amongst each other ('the latest gossip' was what Sirius called it).

From the view they had, they noted that the Forbidden Forest looked as if it would go on for miles, there also seemed to be some strangely eerie fog that rolled into the forest making it hard to see further away. James squinted his eyes slightly; was it just him or was he actually faintly seeing mountains and hills from behind the fog? Whatever was behind that fog seemed to call out to him, but before he could decipher what it was, he something else had caught his attention.

The lake glimmered in the hot sun attracting his attention toward it; James blinked. At the very center of the lake there seemed to be about seven or eight people poking their heads out from the surface of the water. The lot of them seemed to be having some sort of conversation between each other. They all appeared to be rather strongly built which gave James the impression that they were all men swimming in the lake. Their appearances were much different than those he had normally seen, but James couldn't exactly put his finger on what was different about them. Those don't look like any Hogwarts student, James thought absentmindedly.

Suddenly, one of the men spun around quickly as if frantically searching for someone. Oddly enough, the man's movement didn't even seem to splash the water at all, he was extremely graceful as he moved. Some how the man managed to lock eyes with James; he felt a shock throughout his body when they looked directly into each other eyes. He then muttered something toward his friends and upon hearing whatever he had to say, they wasted no time in diving in head first into the water. They're not human, he thought again, his eyes wide with shock, he knew this for certain because he swore he had a small glimpse of what appeared to be fins and gills.

"Sirius! Sirius! Did you just see that?!" James called out excitedly, "Those were merpeople! Did you see them? T'was incredible! Bloody brilliant, I should say! I saw about eight of them, they were in the middle of the lake, talking, and—and—!"

Sirius smacked James upside the head to calm him down, "Get a hold of yourself! You're saying you saw Merpeople in the lake?"

"What—?! You didn't see them?"

"Obviously not." he retorted, his voice seeming as though he wished he had seen them. "Anyway, like I was saying, you should tidy your things a bit."

"Even if I do, it'll just get messy again," replied James frowning. "I'm not consistent with those thing, mate. Don't use Remus as an example; he's super-wizard or something. I mean cleaning your things that much, it's not normal!"

Sirius walked over to Remus' poster and glanced around at cleanliness that was before him, it even looked like his bed sheets had been ironed! He walked around the place a bit, surveying everything carefully, then something caught his eye; it was a piece of paper laying carelessly on the floor.

"Has he lost his touch?" James wondered aloud as Sirius picked up the paper from the floor. "What is it anyway?"

Sirius scanned through it for a second then quickly shoved it onto the desk nearby, "It's a letter," he mumbled, "A personal letter from his mum and dad, I think. We shouldn't meddle with—"

James quickly snatched the letter from the desk without any question and looked at it; it really was a letter from his parents. Probably the same letter that Aqualis had sent to Remus.

"James!" Sirius stammered, sweat appearing to trickle down his face, "It's not our place to read something that personal! I may have a knack for cheating on homework assignments, but I know my limits, mate. Reading someone else's personal life is not a good thing unless they tell it to you freely. Just put it down before someone sees!"

James pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked up at Sirius, "I know my limits, but this is important! Sirius, do you want to know what I talked about with Remus, or not?"

His handsome friend stared at him for a moment; he seemed to be hesitating.

"A-All right. You win." He murmured. "But I'm only doing this so that you're not getting all the blame."

James just waved his hand then looked at the letter carefully. The handwriting was perfectly written, but it was really short and full of questions. Not only was it full of questions, but also some of the words looked like they had been drenched in some sort of liquid; tears. It was apparent to them that whoever wrote the letter was extremely emotional while doing it, either that or Remus had be bawling while reading the letter. James took a deep breath and began reading aloud:

Dear Remus dear,

How have you been lately? We haven't seen you in forever! How tall are you now? Was Christmas okay? Have you made any friends? Are you eating properly? Please tell me that the ministry has been watching over you because if they aren't I'll go talk to them this instant! Professor Dumbledore is such a kind man allowing you into Hogwarts, I was becomes quite worried that they wouldn't accept you. You're father has been doing fine so don't worry too much about him. You're coming home after Hogwarts, right? The ministry told us that you could! I just can't wait. I can't wait to see how much you've grown.

Love,
Mum

Sirius furrowed his brow, and took the letter from James' hands and read it over a few times. The chap had apparently forgotten what he had said about knowing his limits. James, on the other hand, didn't need to read it over again. Rather, he understood the entire letter the first time he read it. He was right; Remus really hadn't seen his parents in a long time, and that's why he was so excited to see his old owl.

"I don't get it." Sirius murmured reading it over for what appeared to be the seventh time, "This is a joke right? Why would the Ministry of Magic be watching over Remus?" he then turn to James, his face up in concern, "Please tell me, this wasn't what Remus and you discussed."

"Some of it." Said James, seriously, "He didn't tell me that the Ministry was watch him though, well I definitely wouldn't if I was him. I just know that he hasn't seen his parents in a long time, maybe a few years. I don't know for sure how long though."

There was a brief silence where the two of them began thinking.

"Now I understand why he doesn't get that much mail," said Sirius solemnly, "There was no one who could send him a letter. But what disturbs me is the fact that the Ministry is watching him. Usually when they watch someone it's for extreme reasons."

"Yeah it's questionable, this is probably what he was trying to tell me when he mentioned that we wouldn't want to be his friends if we knew the truth. We shouldn't mention this to Remus at all, he'd freak if we told him." James stated, pacing about.

Sirius wrinkled his forehead at the thought. Of course, they'd still be friends, that was unless he turned out to be a murderer or something… James shook the thought out of his brain; Remus couldn't possibly be a murderer nonetheless a mass muggle murderer. It was completely preposterous! That Voldemort character probably wasn't even attending school anymore!

He furrowed his brow and rubbed his head in aggravation. Then a question struck him; didn't Sirius tell Bellatrix that the Ministry of Magic was watching her too? He knew they would get off topic if he asked the question to Sirius, but at the moment, James really wanted to get away from anything that had to do with Voldemort so it was his only way out.

"Speaking of the Ministry, I've been wondering for a while now." he wondered aloud, as he placed the letter back on the desk, "Exactly why is Bellatrix under the watch as well? You mentioned it before… Did she do something wrong?"

Sirius looked innocently at James then began laughing, "I really don't think you want to know about that. A Black Family problem, yah know, very sensitive stuff."

James grinned broadly and brushed his dark cloak, which appeared to have somehow gotten dust upon it. He spoke in a teasing voice, "Sensitive, eh? We've got time; please do share with me. We may be able to use it to our advantage against that witch!"

Sirius laughed and sank down onto his bed; James sat on the floor looking at his friend like a five-year-old waiting for an old fairy tale story.

Sirius cocked an eyebrow upward as he looked at the messy-haired boy who somehow reminded him of an innocent animal. It was rather uncomfortable for him since storytelling wasn't the best thing in the world that he could do.

"All right then. Well you know my father—"

"'Ey aren't you going to begin with ' Once Upon a Time'?" James chuckled as he stretched his arms and legs. "Com'on, mate! You can do better than that!"

Sirius frowned and replied harshly, "What do you think I look like? Your nanny?"

James grinned widely from ear to ear and briskly said, "Actually, the resemblance between you and ol' Granny Potter, is uncanny!"

:: To Be Continued! ::

Next Chapter: Unwanted Gibbous

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