Chapter 23: A Secret Pact is Made

The boys were acting strange. Lexie couldn't quite put her finger on what was going on, but something was definitely going on.

James and Sirius seemed to always have their heads together having whispered conversations that nobody else was privy too.

Remus was also acting super odd, if Lexie didn't know any better, she would say he was scared about something since he seemed to spend his evenings darting looks at James and Sirius and fidgeting in his chair.

Peter, who was normally easy going, seemed to also be uncertain about something since he seemed torn about whether if he should be with James and Sirius, or with Remus and she caught him on more than one occasion starting to walk towards James and Sirius before abruptly turning around to sit next to Remus.

If Lexie didn't know the boys as well as she did, she would have assumed either they were plotting a prank or there was some sort of fallout from a prank. Did they have some sort of fight?

Finally having enough, Lexie decided her best bet was to approach the normally levelheaded one in the group.

"Hey Remie, you get that Transfiguration essay done yet?" she said smiling as she took a seat next to him.

Remus startled a little as if he hadn't seen her coming, "Oh uh, yeah. Yeah I guess."

"You guess?" asked Lexie looking even more puzzled, "Since when you do you guess when it comes to homework assignments. Is everything okay Remus?"

"Yeah uh, fine. Just you know, not feeling well. I might head to bed early you know," he jumped up spilling his ink pot but didn't seem to notice as he quickly left. Lexie frowned, what in the hell was going on? She noticed he had also left his parchment behind and it was completely blank.

Lexie was about to ask Peter what that was about, when she noticed James and Sirius had also jumped up and quickly followed after Remus. She watched the two boys dart up the staircase and disappear from view.

"And then there were two," Lexie muttered turning to Peter intending on interrogating him. Only Peter wasn't there and he too was darting after Sirius and James.

"What the hell is going on around here?" Lexie asked herself.

Remus knew Lexie would eventually notice things were off and knew he had to get out of there before she also started putting the pieces together. He quickly made his way into the dormitory and closed his bed curtains around himself hoping Sirius, James, and Peter would assume he had gone to bed.

Except he should have known better, he could only avoid them for so long before they got tired of it. Remus heard three sets of feet pounding up the steps before the dormitory door opened and his bed curtains were flung open by James, "Not so fast Remus, Sirius and I decided that we are done waiting for you since clearly you aren't going to say anything."

Remus tried to act oblivious and brush them off, "I have no idea what you mean James. I'm tired and going to bed."

"No, no you aren't. We need to finish having the discussion we started last week."

"I don't know what discussion you mean," Remus said halfheartedly knowing he was officially trapped.

"Come on Remus, you realize we know you are smarter than this, don't act dumb," said Sirius, "Look we don't care okay? You think we wouldn't notice you are absent every single full moon? Come on mate, we share a dormitory with you."

Remus kept quiet and refused to make eye contact.

"Come on, can you please just talk to us. We are your best friends," urged James.

Remus sighed, "It's not that easy."

"Sure it is, you Remus Lupin suffer from a furry little problem and that doesn't change who you are. Despite the fact that you seem to think so," said James.

Remus snorted, "It's hardly little."

"Werewolf, schmerwolf, you realize we've suspected something for a few months now?"

"A few months!" exclaimed Remus, "And you decided last week right before the full moon was a good time to bring it up?"

"Well you obviously weren't going to! My point is we've known for months and have we treated you any differently?"

Before Remus could respond, James continued "No. But every time you left for the Hospital Wing and I asked you if everything was okay, you didn't say a word! We decided it was time for an intervention."

"I didn't want anyone to know okay?" Remus cried, "Werewolves are hated, how do I even know you won't go tell the whole school?"

"Come on mate, you know us better than that," said Sirius sitting on Remus' bed, "We won't tell a single soul we promise. We just wanted you to know that you don't have to hide this from us anymore."

"I'm serious, not even Lexie can know."

The three boys looked at each other before looking back at Remus.

"Are you really not going to tell Lex?" asked Sirius, "She's our best friend."

"You said you wouldn't tell a soul. I don't want her knowing. If she figures it out on her own, fine, I won't lie to her. But this cannot get out to the rest of the school and the fewer people that know the better."

"Lex wouldn't tell anyone," defended Sirius, "You can trust her."

"Except this is my life, so it's my decision. You don't get to make this choice for me. I trust Lexie, I do, but I also know she was raised as a muggle and I can't take the chance of her either being too afraid or not taking it seriously and accidentally telling someone else. Promise me."

Sirius sighed, "Fine. I don't agree with you, but I promise. I won't tell her. But you better accept the fallout when she does find out because she's going to hex us all into next week."

"Same goes for you James and Peter. Not a single word you hear me."

James reached his hand out palm down, "Let's make a pact then."

Sirius placed his hand on top of James and Peter followed with Remus putting his on last, "I solemnly swear that Remus' secret does not leave this room. I swear that we keep this secret amongst just us four and only us four and that not even Lexie is to know, and should she find out, Remus is to take full blame so he can be on the receiving end of her revenge which will likely involve some very painful hexes."

Remus rolled his eyes, "I swear," he said followed by Sirius and Peter.

After a minute, Peter piped up, "So what exactly do we tell her? You know she was already getting suspicious and could tell something was going on."

James looked thoughtful, "We tell her Remus has a furry little problem."

"What? James you just swore you wouldn't say anything!" yelled Remus.

James laughed, "No, not that kind of problem. We tell you her you recently received a horribly behaved rabbit and it was causing a rift in our friendship because it was so destructive. We tell her that we've come to a compromise and figured out how to take care of this problem and everything is okay now."

"That is hands down the stupidest excuse I've ever heard," said Sirius shaking his head.

"Yeah, I have to agree with Sirius on this one. That is ridiculous. How about we just tell her we had a misunderstanding about a prank and we've worked out our issues."

"Well I guess that would work too," muttered James.

The next morning at breakfast Lexie watched the four boys enter the Great Hall and everything appeared back to normal and they were as close as ever. When they sat down Lexie gave them all a scrutinizing look, "So you all want to tell me what the hell has been going on the last few days?"

Remus smiled, "Just a stupid misunderstanding regarding a prank that caused a small disagreement amongst us. We worked it out last night and are as good as gold now."

Lexie shook her head, "I knew it! You know next time you should just work it out right away instead of acting like a bunch of dramatic sissies for a week."

"Noted Lexie," said Remus, "How's your Transfiguration essay coming along?"

Lexie rolled her eyes, "If you weren't being such a ninny last night I would have told you. I'm only half way done."

"You want to meet in the library during our free period? I have some left to go too."

And just like that peace was restored. For now at least.