Author's Notes: back to the present, or, er, Marauder era. On the animagus transformation: it's a combination of potions and spells. You need the spells to tell you the animal you need for the potion. (If you use any other animal the potion will go dreadfully wrong.) Okay, so...to the story.

Disclaimer: rub it in, why don't ya! Nothing is mine except the plot!

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Chapter 4: of potions and animagi

Remus groaned as he was shaken awake. "Five more minutes, Mum..." He was comfortable in his nice, warm bed. He hid his brown head under the pillow to escape the unforgiving light.

"Remus! Wake up already!" came the exasperated voice of James Potter.

"I say we dump cold water on him." said Sirius' voice to his left.

"Wha?" mumbled Remus, "I'm up, I'm up, what do you want?"

"You missed breakfast. So we thought we'd wake you up. You have 10 minutes to get ready before Potions."

Remus visibly froze under the covers. He slowly sat up in bed, and said coolly. "Ten minutes? That's it?" he dropped the calm exterior, his eyes burned in rage. "WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP SOONER? I'M GOING TO BE LATE FOR CLASS!" Remus jumped out of bed and frantically started getting ready. Sirius and James looked at each other and burst out laughing. Remus growled in annoyance.

Eight minutes later, they were running towards the dungeons, Remus muttering under his breath. It's their idea of fun to see if they could make me late for class. They skidded to a halt in front of the class room with 3 minutes to spare, they caught their breath, then calmly walked in.

"Cutting it a little close, aren't we boys?" asked Professor Temply, their teacher. She stood in front of the class, hair flying everywhere, as usual, hands on her hips. "I've told you before, I expect you to be 5 minutes early to my classroom so you can get ready to learn. Take your seats, please."

James, Sirius, and Remus sank down into their normal seats at the back of the room. Peter was already there as he had refused to wait for Remus.

Professor Temply wrote the ingredients to a potion on the board. "This is a medical potion," she explained, "And so after your finished today, I'm going to take them all up to Madame Pomphrey . Now, this potion is commonly called Pepper-Up, but it's formal name is Ennervatem. You have 30 minutes, and you may talk, but only if you talk quietly. Begin."

"So Remus," said Sirius, as he took out all the ingredients for the potion out of his bag, "What was so important in the dream that you skipped breakfast?" he winked, "Was she pretty? What did you do?"

Remus glared at him. "For your information, Sirius, I didn't dream about a girl. I dreamed that some Slytherin had pranked you into oblivion."

Sirius returned his glare. James mercifully intervened before he could make a comeback. "Chill out, Sirius, if he doesn't want to tell us, that's his problem."

Remus moodily chopped up the ingredients. Stupid, girl-obsessed Sirius. But what did I dream about? Was is all a dream? It was all so realistic. I never met Sirius before I came to Hogwarts, right? Remus shook his head in puzlement. I guess the only way for me to find out whether it's a dream or not would be to ask Mum and Dad. But I need to do that in person...I guess I'll have to wait until Christmas break...

They were nearing Halloween; it was only a week away, so Remus wouldn't be forced to wait too long.

He finished and bottled his potion. Remus brought it up to Temply's desk for inspection. She sniffed the bottle's contents, dripped a little out onto her hand and looked at it. She nodded. "Yes. Very good, Remus. Madame Pomphrey will be able to use this. You can do what you want for the rest of the class." Remus went back to his desk, still in a daze. What if the dream was real?

Sirius watched Remus sit down again. His friend seemed unusually spacey. "Rem?" he asked, "Are you okay?"

Remus snapped out of his daze. He blinked. "Oh, erm...I'm fine, Siri." Sirius raised his eyebrow, but said nothing.

After the class ended, the three friends plus one, headed to History of Magic (Remus was the only one that stayed awake), then to Care of Magical Creatures. By the time Remus was walking back into the castle, he felt weak with hunger.

"Ugh, I feel like I'm going to be sick" he moaned as they sat down it the Great Hall.

"Then don't eat," said Peter.

"Not sick like that, stupid," said Sirius. "He's sick 'cause he hasn't eaten anything all day."

Remus piled a lot of everything onto his plate.

"Better be careful, Remus, you'll turn into Sirius at this rate," teased James. Remus ignored him.

That evening, the Marauders went to the library (gasp). James and Sirius quietly slipped into the Restricted Section under the invisibility cloak while Remus and Peter kept watch.

"Okay, we're out!" whispered James. The four quickly left the library to find a deserted classroom.

James threw off the cloak and grinned. "May I present, the book that will enable us to become animagi!"

Sirius grinned. "We must all bow to it." He did so dramatically. Remus rolled his eyes as Peter followed his lead.

"I'm sorry, but I refuse to bow to a book."

Sirius shrugged. "Suit yourself,"

"Ugh," said James as he flipped through the pages. "I really didn't need to know exactly what that potion does to people,"moaned James,quickly flipping past a diagram where someone was being turned inside out. "Polyjuice...Ah, here we are. The Animagus Potion. What a dumb name."

"Let me see." Sirius pulled the book away from James and made a face. "How on Earth are we supposed to get all this stuff? Pickled dragon tongue? Acromantula web? A bit of the animal you're going to change into is the easiest by far."

"But we have to do it," said James. "All that work we did. Casting the spells so we could know our animal. It will all go to waste if we quit now. And what about Remus?"

"Okay, chill James. I wasn't even thinking about quitting. There's no challenge Sirius Black can't beat."

"I highly doubt that," said Remus. "It's late. We can't do anything today, even if it was easy."

Peter nodded. "Yeah. It's dinner time. I'm so hungry...let's go eat."

James glared at him. "You'd rather eat than start this potion? All you think about is your stomach. Fine, you go eat, and Sirius, Remus, and I will start the potion."

"Well, actually James..." began Sirius. "I'm a bit hungry myself."

James sighed and ran his hand through his hair making it even more messy than it was before. "You two are impossible. Remus, what do you say?"

Remus shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me,"

"Majority rules," cheered Sirius. "All right gang, let's go."