Hi Gang here is the next installment…I hope you like it….and remember all things affiliated with Harry Potter are not mine.
"James…" Sirius said as James lay on the flat of his back staring up at the ceiling. James said nothing for some reason staring at the new leak and watching the water drop slowly seemed like the highlight of the day.
"James, it will be all right. You know Dumbledore will take care of this thing with Remus."
James said nothing as he reached out his hand to catch a drop of water. Sirius pointed his wand at the leak and immediately mended the object of James's distraction.
James slowly rolled his head and looked disgruntled at Sirius.
Sirius grinned slightly then said, "Now are you going to listen to me?"
"Sure…" James said in a hopeless sort of voice.
Sirius leaned over the edge of his bed to look James in the face. "You know mate, not everything in life is certain. We aren't promised anything but living and dying. Your life is about getting what you want but doing with what you have."
James stared back up at the ceiling. "That's supposed to comfort me, Sirius?"
Sirius sighed deeply in frustration. He stopped to rethink what he was saying. Then busted out, "OK, Jamie…yes Lily is smart and beautiful, and clever, and talented, and fun. But there are also many other women who are just as beautiful, just as talented, and just as clever….."
"But they are not Lily!" James said rolling over and glaring at Sirius.
"James! What? What is it? I know you're broken hearted and I know it's going to take some time…but what is it about Lily that makes her so special? She keeps antagonizing you, she keeps splitting you, she keeps hurting you, and she brings you down emotionally…now she's done this after knowing how you feel about her. James, that's not something you mess around with. She hurt you deliberately."
"Come off it Sirius! I'm not hurt. I'm just disappointed."
"Really?" Sirius asked rising an eyebrow, "Because I have seen you make a Pratt of yourself since the first year trying to win Lily over. I hate to tell you this James but I have seen you disappointed. This you are doing right now is not disappointment, what you are, mate, is depressed."
"Get off it Sirius! What do you know about depression?"
"HELLO! JAMES? You are talking to the blood traitor of the Black family. Believe it or not mate I know what it's like to feel depressed."
James turned his attention back to the ceiling, as a loud clap of thunder shook the panes of glass. There was a long silence in which James thought about what was said. Then James voiced another bothering thought.
"What are we going to do with Remus?"
"I don't know."
"You know this is a problem, right Sirius?"
"Yes and no. Dumbledore will make sure the detention is served another night, but on the same token, If he finds out we're anmagi then we are in big trouble."
"What? No, that's not what I'm talking about, Sirius; I mean Remus's well being. I'm sure Dumbledore already knows we're anmagi. This has never happened before has it? I mean how many times does this happen."
Sirius didn't say a word and James knew why. There was no answer. This was the first time in James's knowledge of any sort of events in which a werewolf was having animal tendencies without the aid of the full moon.
"Where is Peter?" Sirius asked.
"I don't know."
"James, you have to believe me now when I say he's up to something."
James sat up his curiosity had indeed been perked. "Why?"
Sirius shrugged. "James…you heard that crap Fistic was telling us, about Adrenaline attracts the werewolf, keeps them curious about prey…then when it's time to attack they know the scent of the blood… remember?"
James nodded, "Yeah…so?"
Sirius looked unbelieving at James, "…James, Peter is not athletic, he is not adventurous, and he migrates to power. What would cause Peter to have high amounts of Adrenaline in his blood? He didn't know that Remus had marked him as prey…why would Peter be freaking out? Why would his heart rate be up? What did he fear at the moment?"
James felt his face light up with understanding. He reached over to his trunk and pulled out his Map.
"What are you doing?" Sirius asked.
"We are going to get to the bottom of all of this."
"We are?"
James nodded.
Sirius shrugged and threw his copy of Real Wizard's Magazine in the floor. "Cool. It's about time we were doing something fun."
James and Sirius moved stealthily around the castle. James was wrapped snug in his Grandfather's old invisibility cloak, Sirius dawned his dog appearance. James took the lead reading the map and following the dot that said Peter Pettigrew. The operation was going seemingly smooth until, a loud clunk of metal hitting the floor made James jump behind a statue, and made Sirius lay down, as if he were a stray that just happen to wonder into the castle. They waited with baited breath. But when the creature that was casting shadows on the floor came around the corner into sight, James sighed with relief. It was a cat. James assumed that he must have belonged to a Ravenclaw seeing as how they were so close to their common room.
"It's only a cat." James whispered to Sirius. They watched the cat move down the hall. She was fancy and well taken care of. Her big green eyes seem to have their own light about them
Sirius stood up on all fours. He cocked his head to the side looking up at James as if asking him a question.
"No Sirius."
The dog's tale started to wag.
"Sirius I'm warning you. You'll wake up the whole Castle."
James heard Sirius start with a low growl. The cat stopped and looked directly at Sirius. Her ears lay back and she gave a low warning.
Sirius took off not listening to a word James had to say. Off went the dog fiercely barking at the cat. James ruffled his hair cursing Sirius and followed quickly. The cat stood glaring as the dog came nearer. Then she did something James would have never thought a cat smart enough to do. She rolled over and lay down on her back. Just as Sirius came upon her she stuck all four of her paws in the air brandishing her claws. Sirius yelped, as the feline's claws dug into his flesh. He quickly tried to get away from the cat. His paws however didn't want to help. He lost his traction on the freshly polished floor and went sliding into a suit of armor. James crouched low behind the statue, praying that someone would see the situation as a dog and a cat. Not a cat and a stupid wizard.
Sure enough the door of a near by classroom, swung open and out of it came Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, and….Peter? James felt his jaw drop. Sirius growled low at the three of them.
"Damned animals." Spat Snape. "They will have wakened the whole castle."
"Let's not worry about it now…we have to get back to Slytherin tower." Said Malfoy. Narsicia will need to know about this." He said glaring at the cat. The cat growled in response.
The sound of more footsteps came to their ears.
"Quickly, Sverus! Remember Pettigrew, you will be well rewarded if you bring it to us." Then with that the two Slytherins and Peter went their separate ways.
Sirius regrouped and hid with James behind the statue. Flitch came to investigate the situation with Mrs. Norris.
"Well, my Sweet Peeves has really done it this time? The Headmaster MUST kick him out now…look at this nearly woke the whole castle and…" he stopped short when he saw the cat.
"Hello, it's you again is it?" he asked reaching down and stroking the cat's head. "Did you cause all of this? For such a pretty kitty, you do cause a lot of trouble for me. I need to find your owner and hang him by his nostrils." The cat meowed sweetly.
"But of course I don't blame you." Filch said cleaning up the armor. "You were probably spooked by Peeves. Well don't worry, Mrs. Norris and I will make sure he will leave you alone." But it seemed to James that Mrs. Norris would do nothing of the sort. James had a feeling that she wanted nothing to do with the primped and polish Persian, and it was also clear that she may have been jealous that Flitch was giving a strange cat so much attention already.
Finally, Flitch rubbed her ears one last time then left with Mrs. Norris at his heels. It was not until the footsteps died away that the cat moved from her spot. When the coast was clear and James was just about to make way back to the tower, something happened. The cat began to morph and change…then standing in front of them glaring down the corridor, stood Lily.
She strolled over to the statue. "Sirius, I should skin you!" she hissed into the darkness.
Sirius changed to his human form.
"I'm sorry Lily. I had no idea that it was you. I didn't even no you are an anamagi."
Lily flashed a grin. Then remembering that she was lecturing said, "But you should have known better than to harass a cat in the middle of the night…I'm surprised the whole castle didn't wake up."
"But they didn't" Sirius said triumphantly.
"But they could have." Lily retorted.
James pulled off his invisibility cloak. Lily jumped at the sudden sight of him. "Knock it off Lily, you knew it was him…he didn't know it was you. YOU shouldn't have scratched him."
James and Lily glared at each other.
"SO, Lil," Sirius interjected, "What's the deal with the snakes and the traitor?"
"I don't know, I heard little more than you did."
"Well then let's get back to the common room to figure this out." James said.
The Dawn was breaking on a Beautiful Friday morning, Lily, James, and Sirius were puffy eyed, hoarse, and exhausted. Strewn across the table were bottles of butter beer James had snuck them from the kitchens. It was not until footsteps from the dormitories above made them realize they had talked until the dawn. But, with all of the fuss about the variety of information Peter could leak and the fact that Lily was an anamagi nothing more seemed to be discussed. They had no more clues after the conference than before.
They went upstairs to get ready for the day. Remus was coming out of the dormitory in a bathrobe as James and Sirius were going in.
"Well Good morning." Remus said looking a little perplexed. "Where have you two been?"
Sirius forced a smile. "Hunting."
Remus returned the smile. Then he glanced at James. "You know I haven't seen you since Wednesday. Where have you been?"
James shrugged. "I have had a very bad go the past two days. And, last night I had a little bad luck with a cat, a dog, and a rat."
Remus looked up at James. "Like real animals then?"
James shook his head.
"Who is the cat?" Remus asked.
James smiled smugly. Remus, however thought is was very funny and started to laugh.
"Wait…it CAN'T be Lily."
James just continued to smile as Remus's laughter increased with the obvious answer.
James finally spoke. "Apparently Lily was in the second floor corridor and before Sirius realized she was animagi started to chase her thinking he'd just have some fun….but Lily out smarted him and caused a suit of armor to fall to the ground…it was quite a night."
"Yes," Sirius said as Remus continued to chuckle. "Blame everything on the dog and the cat, or, dear Jamie, have you forgotten about the rat."
"Peter was involved with this?" Remus asked his laughter now dying away.
James nodded.
"What happened?" Remus asked now reading the severity of the situation on James's face.
James ruffled his hair, then pulled his hand back looking at it disgusted. "Tell you what." He said "It's not safe to talk about it here. Let me grab my stuff and we'll got to the showers together and I'll tell you about it there."
"Wait, Jamie you don't think you need some sleep? You've been up for a solid 24 hours and we have to…." Sirius threw a look at Remus.
James shook his head. "No, I'm too charged right now. It's a half day today so I'll sleep after Magical Law until dinner."
"James," Remus said with a warning. "You know how I've been recently. I can explain to Professor Fistic and Professor Binns why you aren't there. You'll need your wits tonight."
"Don't worry," James said, "I'll be fine."
However, James was not fine that day. After showering he almost fell asleep in his oatmeal, and had the worst time trying to stay awake in History of Magic. This was not too bad…people often fell asleep in Professor Binns classes. Besides that, Sirius was a historical genius, so if he needed, "help", he knew he could get it. Yet, after History of Magic he had Potions this is where it was tricky.
Lily was in class, but she seemed to have just as much of a problem staying awake as James did, he wondered how it would look if both the Head Boy and Head Girl fell asleep in Potions.
"All right class," Professor Fistic said as she passed out diagrams of blood cells with three other unmarked diagrams. "Now, who can tell me which three potions interact with human DNA?"
"Polyjuice Potion." Said a Ravenclaw boy in the back.
"Correct Mr. Stolks. Five points. Now I need another…yes Miss Evans."
"Blood Keeper's potion."
"Yes, now five to Gryffindor. Who wants to take the last question? Mr. Snape?"
"Wolf Bane Potion." Snape said quietly.
"Very good. Ten points for that one, because Wolf Bane is a fairly new potion." Now lets discuss this concept of DNA in potion and how it reacts not only to the substances in the Potion, but also, how the altered DNA reacts to the hormones in the body. Something had clicked in James's head. He wasn't sure but he had a feeling that Professor Fistic could give an answer
At the end of class, James beckoned Remus to go ahead and waited till the classroom was empty before he approached her desk.
She looked up and smiled briskly. "Well, Mr. Potter to what do I owe this visit?"
"I have a question Professor." James said.
"Oh?" She looked perplexed. "Well what is it about?"
"The lecture today."
She looked puzzled but kind. "Ok. What is your question?"
He swallowed hard. "What would happen if one of the potions were to react with say…werewolf DNA as opposed to human DNA?"
She slowly took off her reading glasses then said, "Well it depends on the potion. Wolf Bane potion is designed to separate most the wolf genes from the human genes. Because Polyjuice Potion only alter physical genes like height, hair color, eye color etc. it doesn't really posse as a problem unless he or she drinks it on a full moon, in which case the wolf will dominate just like it does in the drinker's regular state."
James was silent, for some reason he had a strange sense of foreboding about the Blood Keeper's potion.
Professor fistic became quiet. James's mind was reeling as he felt her watching him.
"Is something wrong Mr. Potter?"
"No." James lied.
"There isn't anything you may want to share with me?"
James shook his head. "No" He had lied again. Then he asked. "Professor, What about the Blood Keeper's Potion?"
"Well James. There is no research on this remember that all of this is just my hypothesis."
"But…"
"But the theory is that because the potion is DNA based not DNA activated. Blood Keeper's Potion locks up certain Amino Acids and proteins. And if the wolf DNA is particularly dominant then it is possible that it could lock the DNA and even more possible for the person to turn into a wolf without the full moon."
"What about the other drinkers?"
"I don't know Potter. I assume that it would lock their DNA as well in which case I would further assume the other drinkers will be ok."
James felt sick. "All right, thank you Professor." James left the room wondering who he was going to tell this to. Remus would be the one to fix this but he would be bitterly depressed and may not be able to think of a way out of this one.
"James?" Professor Fistic called.
James turned to look at her.
"If you have any other questions about this, Miss Evans is more than apt to help you research this. I'd give you extra credit for your efforts."
James smiled and left. But he some how thought that extra credit wasn't going to help this at all.