Do I really need to say this again? J K Rowling IS Harry Potter. If you recognise anything from any movie, TV show, book or whatever else, it's probably because it is from them. If you want my 'full' warning, you can check out either 'Dormant Power' or 'Beginning of the End'.

If you've read both those fics, then you know how my version of it ends…but how did it begin? Again, only some names are mine, everything else is not! I've based this from the Marauders perspective so…well you'll know the story when something happens to a certain someone, even though I don't write about it in this one! Also check out 'The Apprentice', it has some info you won't find in my other two stories (wink, wink!).

That little conversation becomes quite key in a couple chapters time (now there's a hint!). As for why they feel safe around Trent…he said it's because they know the difference between good and evil. If you've read Dormant, you'll know exactly what I meant.

Another warning; Remus undergoes his usual moonlight transformation. Things don't quite go according to plan though…'nuf said?

Oh, before I forget, I'm taking a break from posting for a bit (three weeks at the most) due to GoF being released in the movies. So, until then…

Chapter 18 – Comeuppance

Sirius spent most of the next day trying to answer James and Peter's questions about what he did during his patrol with Trent. He was stunned to see exactly how well the secrecy charm worked. Every time he tried telling them what really happened, all he could say was that they had discussed the options Aurors have once they begin their training, and how disappointed Trent was in him for overhearing his private conversation with Remus. When he was asked if they discussed how Trent knew the werewolves were there, Sirius shook his head saying that he forgot to ask.

It was also the day that Remus made his decision concerning Sirius and how best to approach him. He had asked Sirius if he would meet with him the next day in their dorms as he had something extremely urgent to talk with him about. Sirius screwed up all his courage to ask what it was about, but Remus stubbornly told him that he'd find out tomorrow.

It was therefore a rather cautious Sirius who made his way into the seventh year dorms where he spotted Remus pacing in front of his bed. He stopped when he saw Sirius, and the few other final years students quickly exited the dorm, clearly expecting fireworks from the two former best friends.

"Thank you, Sirius. Please, sit down" he said, gesturing for him to sit on his bed which Sirius duly did.

Remus also sat down and quickly put up some charms to allow them privacy before turning to his friend and sighing. "Padfoot. Look, you have to remember what happened in our fifth year."

Sirius nodded.

"Then you'll know how upset I was at you then."

Again, Sirius nodded.

"It took me quite a few months to forgive you for that and to start trusting you again. Now you've gone and done this…" Remus let his voice trail off.

"I'm sorry, Moony. I never should've followed you and Prongs. I didn't mean to overhear, it just…sort of…happened."

"I would've told the three of you what Trent said, but only when I was ready to," Remus then slammed his fist on his bedside table, "Damn it, Sirius, you could've just left and come back later!"

He then slouched back on his bed. "I…I still want to be friends, Sirius. I don't want the four of us to break apart because of this."

Sirius heaved an enormous sigh of relief. Remus didn't hate him after all.

"But, I don't know how long it will be before I trust you…like I did before."

Sirius nodded. He expected something like that. He then spoke, "does this mean that the prank is back on then?"

Remus looked highly confused, so Sirius explained. "We have to get my useless git of a brother back for this. You willing to help us?"

Remus just shook his head in amazement, "that is just so…you, Sirius! Always thinking about pranks. I don't think we should do that to Regulus..."

"But he's the reason it happened! Don't you…"

"Look, Sirius. I'm aware of his involvement, but I don't think hexing him into next week is the right way to go about it. Just…don't do anything to him, please? For the sake of our friendship."

Sirius sighed, "all right, Moony, you might be right. I can't promise I won't do it though. You should probably hope we don't see him for a while or you'll have to petrify me!"

Remus smiled weakly. "I suspect you'll have to do the same when I see Snape."

"You've got a deal, Moony!" he replied, smiling in return.

The two of them then stood up and left the room, with Sirius feeling much better knowing his friend didn't hate him, and he promised himself that it would be the last time he would ever betray Remus.

A couple of nights later, and Remus was again led to the Whomping Willow for his monthly transformation. While he and Sirius had made up, Remus couldn't help but feel hurt that his trust in Sirius had been misplaced yet again. At the time, he was glad to have broken his friends' arm, a feeling that had yet to subside. And that thought, wanting to cause Sirius pain, bugged Remus no end. Both James and Peter had tried to reason with him, and say that they would have done exactly the same thing in his position, and that Sirius had been lucky to only come away with a broken arm, a fact that even Sirius had agreed with.

While Remus was pacing around in his room in the Shrieking Shack, he was not fully aware of what effect these thoughts would have on his transformation tonight. Again, the pain originated around his bite mark, before spreading to every part of his body. A minute passed, with his friends waiting patiently outside, listening to his anguished cries. Ever since they had become animagi, and despite having seen Remus' bloodied and crumpled naked body lying on the floor at sunrise once, he still refused them from seeing him having to go through his gruesome change from human to wolf.

They waited for a while longer until they heard a howl from the other side of the door. Wormtail jumped from Prongs' head and landed on the doorknob. He then wrapped his tail around the handle and leapt off it, lowering the handle for Prongs to nudge open the door with his antlers. The little rat then dropped down and landed on the stag's head, looking at his wolfish friend in curiosity. He didn't know what it was, but he feared that something was amiss.

Moony looked up as the door opened, and the wolf's mind slowly relaxed as he recognised his 'pack'. As he followed the stag and rat outside, he froze with what greeted his sight; Padfoot. Remus felt the wolf build up even more within him, and felt horribly scared. He could do very little to control his actions, but his friends, mainly Prongs and Padfoot, could usually restrain him if the situation called for it. The only major exceptions had been when they first accompanied Remus, and after the Snape incident where Moony had managed to have quite a fierce battle with Padfoot, with both having several scars as reminders of that night.

It was that particular memory which frightened Remus the most. He knew the reason he had attacked Sirius then was because the wolf felt violated. So it was no surprise when he let out a soft growl and felt his hackles begin to rise when he saw the familiar canine. Prongs turned his head around and, if it were possible, glared at the wolf, effectively telling him that if he messed with one of them, then he messed with them all.

Remus felt Moony agree, but knew it would only be a matter of time before he attacked Padfoot again. Once they were out of the confines of the shack, not even Prongs' size would be able to stop that from happening. The three animagi, and even Remus himself, had a feeling that Moony might try to do this, but they weren't prepared for the moment to arrive basically straight away.

No sooner had they exited the tunnel, with Prongs making sure he was between Moony and Padfoot, the werewolf pounced. He leapt clean over the stag, and landed on the back of the unsuspecting dog. Normally considered a playful gesture by the wolf, but this time it was Moony, and not Remus, who was clearly in control.

The only indication that Padfoot had before he yelped, was another growl from his friend before the large weight landed on his back. Padfoot felt Moony sinking his claws and teeth into him. The dog whined, and tried to bite back, but Moony had him pinned this time. He kept hitting the top of the wolf's head with his paws, trying to get him to stop, but to no avail.

Prongs had seen more than enough and, after Wormtail had disembarked from his head, charged the two canines, ramming his antlers into Moony. This only caused both Padfoot and Moony to roll into the bushes, where the dog was finally able to wrestle the initiative away from the wolf. Prongs came quickly to his aid and was rewarded as Moony took a swipe at him with one of his paws. The message was loud and clear; stay out of it, this is between me and him.

The stag slowly backed away, mindful to keep a close watch on his two friends. Eventually, Remus was able to gain a semblance of control over Moony, and Padfoot slowly allowed him to sit up. The wolf cocked his head to the side, looking at Padfoot who was bleeding from his muzzle, chest and back, before closing his eyes in sorrow.

Moony then slinked away from his friends, tail tucked firmly between his legs, heading back towards the Whomping Willow. He didn't want to take any chances of having another fight with Padfoot. Prongs and Wormtail followed him, and shut the werewolf in his room before heading back outside to a waiting Sirius.

"Merlin, he got you good, didn't he!" James exclaimed as he transformed back.

"Ruddy hell, he hasn't been that bad before" Sirius replied before wincing as his adrenalin faded away, leaving only the fresh pain from his wounds.

"Are you all right to get back to the castle, or do you want to go to the hospital wing?"

"I'm not going there, Peter! Lily can fix me up, can't she?"

"I'm not sure, Padfoot. Some of those scratches look nasty" James answered.

"Hex him, Sirius" Peter suddenly said.

Both James and Sirius looked at him in confusion and Peter rolled his eyes. "If both of you go to the hospital wing, it would take any suspicions off of Remus. Hex Prongs so it looks believable."

"That's not a bad idea, Wormtail. Go on Sirius, do it" James replied, gritting his teeth for the expected onslaught.

"Are you sure, James? I mean, I don't want to hurt…"

"Madam Pomfrey can fix it all up, just do it! Peter can escort us both there, all right" he interrupted.

Sirius nodded before pointing his wand at his best friend.

When Remus woke up in the familiar surroundings of the hospital wing, he groaned as he remembered pieces of last night. He wasn't prepared for when a voice nearby spoke.

"Totally agree, Moony. But I understand why you did that to Padfoot, and it's alright, he deserved it."

"Hey, I didn't say that!"

"P…Prongs? Padfoot? What're you both doing here?"

"Diversion tactics courtesy of Peter" James replied.

Sirius continued after seeing Remus' baffled expression. "He figured that if I hex James, and we both get sent here, any suspicions that people may have on you would be ignored since we jinx each other all the time."

"Oh, good idea," his face then fell and he managed to croak out "how…how bad was I? Last night, I mean?"

"We'll tell you in my common room, Moony. Let's just say that you can be vicious when you want to be" James replied before both he and Sirius walked over to the door.

"Madam Pomfrey said that we're able to leave once we woke up, but we wanted to talk with you first" he added.

Remus nodded in reply and watched his two friends exit the hospital wing. He then heard Madam Pomfrey's footsteps, and quickly shut his eyes and did his best to pretend to be asleep.

After Remus had been released from Madam Pomfrey's care, he headed straight to the Head Students' dorm, eager to hear exactly what had happened last night. He knew it was bad from the pained looks his friends gave him when he asked, and had been stunned into silence for quite some time after they had finished telling him.

He was still in shock for most of the next day also, but as the four of them were heading towards the Great Hall for dinner, something jolted him back to reality.

Regulus Black was also making his way to dinner, and was soon spotted by Sirius, who quickly broke out of James' grasp and slammed his brother against the stone wall.

"You listen here you pathetic, cowardly excuse of a wizard" Sirius spat, revelling in the fear in Regulus' eyes. "I know what you did, and rest assured, I will make you pay for doing that to Remus' parents, you snivelling little…"

"Sirius, let him go."

"Sorry, James, but I'm quite busy right now" he snarled before turning his attention back to Regulus who was starting to quiver in fear with the dangerous gleam in his brothers' eye.

"Now where was I…ah yes, I remember now. If I ever catch wind of you doing something like that again to any of my friends, I'll do something a lot worse than what I'm about to do right now."

Sirius then pulled his right arm back and swung with all his might. A sickening crunch was heard as his fist connected with Regulus' jaw. Sirius then dropped him on the floor and proceeded to punch and kick him with everything he had. Trent and two other Aurors had seen this, and moved to help the younger Black, while James, Peter and Remus all tried to pull the now enraged Sirius off Regulus, who had curled up into a ball on the floor trying to absorb the blows as painlessly as possible.

In the end, one of the Aurors petrified Sirius who fell to the ground, stiff as a board. Trent then led the four Gryffindors into an empty classroom, while the other two attended to Regulus and helped him to the hospital wing.

"You should not have done that, Sirius" Trent calmly said as he removed the spell.

"It's not like he didn't deserve it" Sirius spat.

"You didn't do anything last week."

"I don't care! Remus' parents were killed because of him!"

"He's your brother…"

"NO! I left my family. This is my real family!" Sirius shouted as he gestured to his three friends.

"Sirius, listen…"

"No, you listen! I don't care what you have to say! You know he deserved it. And if you think otherwise, then you're the most pathetic excuse for an Auror I've ever met!"

With that, Sirius stormed out the door, slamming it behind him.

Trent just sighed before facing Peter, Remus and James, who each had shocked looks on their faces. "You lot might want to go after him. He certainly won't listen to me right now."

They nodded and quickly ran outside trying to catch Sirius up.