Remus spent a quiet summer with his father, tending to his mother's gardens and helping Lyall around the cottage. It was a nice change of pace from the frenzy of Hogwarts and the Marauders' schemes, but by August Remus found he was itching to go back.

A couple weeks before the fall term was set to begin, Lyall called Remus down into the kitchen. "You've got a letter from Hogwarts," he said. "Came by owl this morning—it's got an official seal and everything."

Remus's stomach turned with apprehension: why would Hogwarts be writing to him now? He grabbed the letter from his father and tore it open; a piece of metal slipped out and fell with a clang to the floor.

"What—?" Remus picked it up and turned it over, his breath catching in his throat: it was a shield-shaped badge emblazoned with a roaring lion and a golden letter P. A prefect's badge.

"Is that what I think it is?" Lyall jumped up from his seat to examine the badge over Remus's shoulder. Instantly he broke out into a massive grin. "Oh, Remus, a prefect. Your mum would be so proud."

His cheeks burning, Remus unfolded the letter that came with the badge and began to read:

Mr Remus Lupin,

On behalf of Professor Dumbledore and myself, I congratulate you on your achievements at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry thus far. It is my great honor to present to you the title of Prefect for Gryffindor House, should you choose to accept it. This title will confer upon you both privileges and additional responsibilities, all of which we are confident you will be able to handle over the coming years. We await your response to this offer, which we expect no later than the first day of term.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Lyall immediately left to fetch a quill and parchment, holding them out to Remus. "You have to accept, son," he said. "Prefect's a wonderful honor."

Remus bit his lip. He had a nagging suspicion he'd only been offered the title because Dumbledore and McGonagall were hoping he could rein in his friends, who'd become quite a nuisance for the Hogwarts staff and students over the past few years. News of James and Sirius's attack on the Slytherin Quidditch team had spread like wildfire through the school, and even though they'd never been proven culpable, Remus knew the Hogwarts professors all suspected they were behind it. Who could say what kinds of things the Marauders would be getting into next year, now that they had even more magic and years behind them? Remus certainly wasn't going to be able to stop them from doing anything.

But he wanted to be a prefect—he'd worked incredibly hard over the past four years at Hogwarts, much harder than Sirius and James, and he felt a thrill of pleasure at being recognized for it. Mentoring the younger students, showing them the ways and secrets of Hogwarts…the thought of it all filled him with excitement. Plus, he'd heard that the prefects' bathroom was extremely nice; James and Sirius had broken in once to get revenge on Gideon Prewett by filling the bathtub with piranhas, and they hadn't shut up about it for an entire week after. So Remus took the quill and parchment from his father and jotted down his response: I would love to be a prefect, Professor. I promise I will do my best to not let you down.

He could already tell that last part would be a lie. But his father was proud and he was thrilled at being honored by the school, so he tried his best to push his doubts and guilt aside.

A few days later, Lupin's father dropped him off in Diagon Alley with a handful of Galleons to buy his supplies for the upcoming year. Lupin had been looking forward to the trip for weeks—he was set to meet Sirius here. James and Peter were both off visiting relatives, but Sirius had remained in London all summer long, and he'd thought he'd be able to slip away from his parents long enough to meet Remus and catch up a bit. Remus waited for him outside Flourish and Blotts as they'd planned, leaning back against the windows and idly humming a Celestina Warbeck tune.

He heard the growl of an engine approaching—a distinctly Muggle sound—and turned to find a young wizard on a sleek black motorbike headed straight for him. It took him a surprisingly long time to recognize the wizard as Sirius.

"Hey, Re." Sirius skidded to a stop outside the bookshop, his bike's engine quieting down to a purr. Remus had only seen him a couple short months before, but Sirius looked incredibly different: his long hair was tied back in a ponytail, exposing a long fang earring curling down from one of his ears, and he wore a tight black T-shirt that showed off the muscles of his arms. Sirius had always been handsome—the number of girls Remus had caught staring after him longingly over the years was testament to that—but this was the first time Remus had really noticed him like that, like he suddenly could understand what all the girls were interested in him for.

"Remus?" Sirius raised his eyebrows, his familiar wicked grin lifting his lips. "Are you all right, mate?"

Remus blinked and forced himself to turn away. Why was his heart pounding all of a sudden? "I'm fine. I just…I haven't seen you in a while. Since when did you own a motorbike?"

"Since about a month ago." Sirius skimmed his fingers briskly over its handles. "I bought it from a real Muggle shop and everything. Cost me a few hundred pounds, which I hope was a good deal." He kicked at its front wheel. "I'm planning on enchanting it to fly."

"Why not just use a broomstick?"

Sirius glanced between Remus and his bike as if the answer were obvious. "This thing is so much cooler than a broomstick, Re. And much less Black-family-approved."

Ah. Now Remus understood—Sirius held a certain strange reverence for things from the Muggle world, always belting out Queen and Led Zeppelin songs in the Gryffindor common room and asking Remus for pictures of Muggle girls. It had nothing to do with Muggles themselves, and everything to do with defying his Muggle-hating parents. He supposed he should be glad Sirius hadn't tried to buy a car instead.

Sirius leaned back against his bike and began twirling his wand idly around his fingers. "You want to stop to Florian Fortescue's first? I hear he's got a new butterbeer flavor in."

Remus wasn't sure what he thought of the idea of butterbeer ice cream, but he nodded anyway, glad for an excuse to sit down and talk with Sirius before they got to work scouring Diagon Alley for supplies. He had something he needed to bring up with him.

Sirius swung a leg back over his bike and patted its seat, tilting his head at Remus. "Well, hop on, then."

"I thought we'd be walking." Remus had never ridden a motorbike before. "It's—it's not far."

"Are you telling me you're scared to ride this thing with me?" Sirius said with mock outrage. "Come on—I'm a great driver, I promise."

Remus knew better than to argue; with a resigned sigh, he climbed up onto the back of the bike and wrapped his arms tightly around Sirius's chest. He felt the hard ripple of muscles underneath his shirt and sensed something throbbing within his chest—whether it was jealousy over his friend's perfect, sculpted body, something Remus could never achieve thanks to the frequent bouts of illness that consumed him, or something harder to pin down, he wasn't sure.

"Ready?" Remus nodded against Sirius's neck, smelling the tang of earth and sweat and gasoline against his skin. Sirius gripped the clutch and kicked the bike free, and they tore off across the cobblestones with a great roar from the engine. The wind lashed against Remus's skin and flung Sirius's ponytail into his face; he spit out a mouthful of hair, gagging. Startled witches and wizards dove out of their way as they zoomed by, giving the bike quizzical looks from behind.

They came to a stop in front of Florian Fortescue's parlor and each ordered an ice cream, Sirius going for the new butterbeer flavor while Remus played it safe with mint chocolate chip. They sat together at one of the parlor's little wooden tables with their cones and a pitcher of water and attempted to finish their ice cream before it could melt in the summer sun. Normally they could cast a Freezing Charm to keep it cold for them, but they weren't at Hogwarts now and even Sirius wasn't bold enough to risk using magic in such a public space.

"I have something to show you," Remus said once they'd finished. "And you aren't allowed to tease me about it."

Sirius shrugged. "You know I can't make any promises, mate."

"Fine. I guess you'd figure it out sooner or later anyway." Remus reached into his back pocket and pulled out his new prefect badge, holding it out to Sirius.

Sirius gaped at it in disbelief. "Bloody hell, Re. They've made you a prefect. The natural enemy of the Marauders."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Well, they had to pick one of the boys in our year. Who did you think it would be?"

"I dunno," he admitted. "I sort of thought they'd skip our year all together." His lip quirked up. "Bet Lily's the prefect for the girls."

"She is," Remus confirmed. "I've already written to her."

"You wrote to her about this, but not me?"

"I wanted to tell you in person," he said simply. "I knew I'd be meeting you today."

Sirius shook his head, twining his ponytail around his fingers. He really did have nice hair, Remus thought. "Oh, Remus. Dumbledore and Minnie have no idea what they just did. Their new prefect, a secret werewolf Marauder and accomplice to three unregistered Animagi."

"You're not Animagi yet." Remus stuffed his badge back into his pocket. Now's as good a time as any. "And Sirius…I'm still not sure you should go through with it. The Animagus stuff. I've been reading some things this summer—"

"Dear God, Remus—"

"—and there are all these horrible stories about Animagi transformations going wrong, wizards being stuck permanently in mutant animal forms…it's terrible, Sirius, and—"

"—you don't think we can pull it off, Re? James and I are the best students in our year, and we've done everything we can to help Peter, made sure he's prepared—"

"Sirius, it's not worth the risk!" Remus met his gaze, willing him to listen to him for once. "I'm not worth the risk. You have to understand—"

Sirius reached suddenly forward and grabbed Remus's gesticulating hand, fast as a snake lunging for prey. He held Remus's eyes with his, their gold-flecked gray filled with fire. "No, you have to understand," he said. "We've been working on this for three years—three years, Re—because you are bloody worth it. You're the only Marauder who isn't a total arsehole, even though you've got every right to be—hell, you've even gotten James and me to care about you, and we don't care about much of anything except making Snivelly's life miserable. We care about you a whole bloody lot, actually. So we're going to drink the potions, and we're going to become Animagi, and there's not a single thing you can do to stop us. So don't bother trying, you git."

Remus was frozen still as stone by the emotion in his voice, so entirely out of the ordinary for Sirius. Sirius seemed to realize he was behaving oddly, too; he cleared his throat and glanced away, the fire in his eyes petering out. "And, you know, becoming Animagi will help us out in other ways," he added hastily. "To get around the grounds more easily, and, I mean, who knows? The Death Eaters are getting more and more powerful—maybe we'll need to fight them off one day, and me turning into a giant dog would be a huge help."

"I suppose it would," Remus murmured. He was still a bit taken aback by Sirius's outburst. He felt strangely warm and tingly all over his body, especially where Sirius had his hand pressed to his own. Somehow, he could feel that more than anything else, more than the hot summer air or the chair beneath him or the cool taste of mint lingering in the back of his throat. Sirius and his touch were more real than all of it.

"Come on." Sirius released his hand at last and pushed himself up from the table. It took Remus a moment before he managed to pull himself to his feet beside him. "Let's get moving and buy our books—if I don't make it home before dark, my mum is probably going to make me vomit up slugs again."