"Yes!" Skye shrieked from the compartment on the Hogwarts Express. She had just now opened her letter from Hogwarts, even though she was on her way there.
"We can go to Hogsmeade this year! This'll be great! I've never been there, but I've heard that it's really-" She was interrupted by the Marauders entering into their compartment to annoy them some more.
Sirius looked at Skye in a very mocking and condescending way, "What? You've never been to Hogsmeade? What kind of person are you?"
James laughed and said, "Obviously the kind that follows the wittle wules!" All of the boys laughed and headed back to their compartment.
Lily was fuming, "Oh, those boys! I can't STAND them. I wish they could just leave us alone!"
Lily didn't speak for the rest of the ride up there. Ariel chuckled, and Emily sat quietly, reading a magazine. Skye looked a little hurt, but wasn't going to cave in from her reputation of being the strong girl. She held her head up high, and went back to opening her mail.
It finally came time for the first Hogsmeade trip of the year. The girls were incredibly excited, and decided that this time, they would go together, no dates. They walked down to the courtyard to wait for the carriages to take them there. They heard a voice as they reached the Entrance hall.
"Going somewhere, mudblood?" Severus Snape, a third year Slytherin, said, provoking Lily. The Divines, froze, scared. No one but Skye spoke.
"Shove off, Snape. We don't want any trouble," she said, putting her arms around Lily's shoulders.
"Aw, wittle mudbwood need her fwend to save her?" Snape said, provoking even more. Just then, hexes and screams were heard from across the room. There, James and Sirius were sprinting towards Snape, wands at the ready.
"Tarantellegra! IMPEDIMENTA! STUPIFY!" Snape suddenly was thrown against the wall, and was unable to move by the three jinks thrown at him. Lily could not stand feeling like the damsel in distress, and ran up to Potter and Black, slapping them in the face, each.
"JAMES POTTER! SIRIUS BLACK!" Lily Evans had finally cracked. "Leave him alone! He didn't do anything to you!"
"He called you a mudblood! AND he's a death eater!" James said.
"Yeah, not to mention he's just a worthless piece of sh-" Sirius started as Lily interrupted him.
"He's 13 years old! He's not a death eater! And even if he hexed me a million times, leave him alone! Better yet, leave me alone and stay away from me!" She quickly muttered the counter curses for Snape.
"The Dark Lord will take your life, Potter. And I don't need your help mudblood! Stay away from me!"
Snape glided off to the dungeon, sending Lily to Hogsmeade in a teary fury.
When they arrived, they first headed over the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer to wake them up. They chatted peacefully and laughed at each other's stories until they heard voices coming from the table behind them.
"Well, lets just go get it now, that way we won't have to come back here next week. Save us a trip, doesn't it, being in third year?"
Skye shot around to the table to see the Marauders. She walked up them and reminded them, "There's no Hogsmeade trip next week. Or are you really that daft to not be able to comprehend that?"
Sirius looked at her, "I'll take daft for 200 galleons, Sam!" The guys all laughed, and then Sirius continued, "You see my lady, there are other ways of getting what you want other than taking it only when you have the chance. Go out with me, and you'll learn that as well."
Skye rolled her eyes, "Great line. And I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last guy at Hogwarts! yelling You're sick, Sirius, all you do is date girls for two weeks-" but Sirius cut her off.
"Yeah, because I get sick of them! You girls are so emotional sometimes, sheesh-"
Skye was now screaming back at him, "IT'S CALLED PMS! AND IT'S NOT ALL THAT GREAT, WHY DON'T YOU TRY IT SOMETIME!" She and the other Divines stormed off, leaving the Marauders laughing.
"URG! That dope, I wish he could just see what he looks like," Skye vented.
"They're all the same," Lily pointed out.
"Yeah," Emily started, "All they want is to date you for two weeks, enough time to get you knocked up, and then dump you!"
Ariel had yet to say anything. She looked down while she walked, "Well, I suppose. But, I mean, Remus isn't like that. At least one of them-"
Lily, Skye, and Emily looked at their friend, grinning from ear to ear. Ariel ran off with them chasing her and laughing at her crush.
"You know, Remus, I've been thinking. How on earth did you figure out that statue's password, you know, werewolf?" Peter asked, looking at Remus while they all walked down the road of Hogsmeade.
Suddenly, Remus exploded, "WHAT did you call me? I don't know what you're talking about, how did you know? I didn't give any hints except that I was gone one night a month? I thought you were too stupid to figure it out! Go ahead, ditch me as a friend, I hoped you would understand, but I guess you don't-"
Remus vented on and on for at least a minute before James could get a word in. "Hold, hold, hold, hold, HOLD IT!" James bellowed, "WHAT are you talking about, Remus? We were just wondering how you knew about the password? What is this about hints and how we knew? And you being gone once a mo-"
James stopped walking. His friends turned around and stared at him, with his mouth agape. Remus shuffled his feet, looking down at the ground.
"Woah. Remus, mate, I'm so sorry, I had no idea, how long?"
"How long what? Will someone please tell-" Sirius started, but Remus interrupted.
"Since I was 8. I was camping with my parents and I went outside to get some fresh air, away from the tent."
"Wait, what's going on?" Peter and Sirius exchanged really confused looks.
"Look, I'm going to go take a walk, I'll catch up with you guys later," Remus said sadly. James, Sirius, and Peter watched him shuffle his way over to what looked like the shrieking shack. They followed far behind him, talking about Remus.
"So what exactly is up with Remus?" Sirius finally asked again. "Why does he go away once per month-" Sirius, like James before, stopped with the same reaction.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! THAT's why…"
Peter still looked completely out of the loop. He looked up at his friends,
"PLEASE! I know I'm not that bright, but PLEASE TELL ME what's going on!"
Sirius and James caught up with Peter, and told him about Remus being a werewolf.
"But what can we do to help? There's got to be some way that we can keep him company once a month without becoming werewolves too," James thought.
Suddenly, Sirius jumped at an idea. "Well, think about it! Werewolves will hurt humans, but not animals! What if we became other animals!"
Peter looked at him with disbelief, "Yeah? And how are we supposed to do that?"
James got on to Sirius, unlike Peter, and said, "Yeah, Sirius! We could become…whispering animagi."
Peter squealed, "Oh! That's supposed to be really wicked! But what animals could we be?"
"Let's all be different," James suggested. "I'm going to be a stag, like my Patronus is," he mentioned.
"Yeah, mate, that's a good idea. I'll be a black dog then."
Peter thought for a minute. "I don't want to take my form of a patronus," he said, "Otters aren't very fun. I think I'll take something a little smaller, so that he won't see me and attack me if he gets really vicious towards us. How about…"
Sirius cut in. "How about a rat, Pete?" Peter thought over the idea for about one millisecond before he exclaimed, "Yes! Yes, that's it! A rat, thanks mate. Let's go tell Remus!"
"Hey-hey, wait! I have an idea! Let's spring it on him as a surprise! We should all have nicknames to remember this by! We can put these nicknames on the map too!"
"Yeah!" Sirius agreed, "Let's see. I'm a dog. I'll be…PADFOOT!" They all laughed.
James said, "I guess I'll be PRONGS!"
"My name is not going to be 'rat,'" said Peter. "How about…uh…I don't know!"
James laughed and said, "Well, you could be Wormtail. That's what a rat's tail looks like anyway,"
Peter laughed agreed, "Let's go tell him!" They all ran off to the shrieking shack to find Remus huddled in a corner.
So, Padfoot, what do you think of our friend, Remus, here? You know the whole, big, bad, wolf thing?" James said with a grin.
"I don't know, Prongs, what do you think Wormtail? Sirius said, concealing a laugh. Peter grinned and looked at his friends.
"I think that if we want to have a wolf for a friend, we better stay pretty damn well protected. I surely don't want to be bitten!"
Remus looked up at his friends, really confused. "What the bloody hell are you all talking about? What is Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail?"
"Those are our nicknames," James said simply.
"FROM WHAT?" Remus bellowed. He was really upset because he felt they were making fun of him and his condition.
"Oh, you know, just our animigus forms," Sirius said with a smile.
Remus looked at him, "You all are animigus? Since when? And you know that's illegal-"
"Well actually, we're not yet. We will be. We decided that if we want to hang around you, Moony, then we needed to be safe. So we're going to become animigus so that you don't have to spend one night per month all by yourself in this little peephole!" James said with a smile.
Remus looked up from his corner at his three best friends. He got up, and gave them the biggest hug he ever had. "You really mean it?" He asked, hopefully.
"Yep, we wouldn't want you to be all alone!" Peter told him.
"You three are the best," Remus said with a smile. "So Moony, huh?" He said with another smile.
They all laughed and stayed in the shrieking shack for the rest of the afternoon, laughing and talking about all of the things they could do when they became animals.