Hollers interrupted Sirius' musings: "Oi. You!". He sighed, knowing that this meant he wouldn't get to ponder the letter or its anonymous sender for a while, but started trudging to James anyway, who was staring at him expectantly.

"What's wrong with you mate? I had to call you five times before you heard me. You ok?"
"Sure Prongsie, don't you worry your little head about me," drawled Sirius resignedly.

Remus piped up, "Just because he was sitting around doing nothing and not hexing anyone doesn't mean he's ill James."

"Really Moony, because that sounds like the definition of Sirius being strange… alright stranger than usual."

Sirius shoved him for that, before replying snootily, "Tis not acceptable to desecrate the Noble House of Black with such insults." accentuating each of his words with a soft punch.

"Eh. Eh. I get it, stop pounding me! So, I'm guessing your mum wrote?"

"Yh." Sirius had had more than just his anonymous well-wisher on his mind. Yet again, his mother had asked him to 'try and recover what little decency you can by keeping us well informed on what you are doing in school'. Or, in other words: we still don't love you, but we want you to spy for us. That particular letter had been incinerated and it's ashes had been fed to the giant squid afterwards. The creative ways of destroying the letters were never-ending and to be perfectly honest, Sirius gained no small amount of vicious satisfaction from watching his mother's correspondence be utterly destroyed. No small amount indeed.

James leaned in closer and whispered conspiratorially, "You know what'll take your mind off it? Moony's little furry problem. I believe we have to deal with it tomorrow night or something."

"Well , that should be interesting. Where are we going this month?"

"Wasn't quite sure, Moony said something about not wanting to go too near Hogsmeade after the close call last time. I'm sure he wouldn't mind going there though. It would be fun!"

"Prongsie, that's no way to treat a fellow marauder – we listen to each other. We could always check out the Acromantula den in the forest anyway. I know Wormtail's been dying to go for weeks."

James nodded in approval, "Well that's a plan."

Sirius turned his thoughts to finding this person who knew about the scabs disfiguring his back. As far as he knew, only Madame Pomfrey knew anything about it, but then again, there was the mystery of how he had gotten to the infirmary in the first place. All in all, this situation was confusing and confounding and annoying. The only way to sort this out, Sirius decided, was to quiz the medi-witch in hopes of her spilling the beans on his saviour. Failing that, he could always talk to the portraits, but they were always so infuriatingly vague. Sirius rushed off to mine Madame Pomfrey for information, oblivious to the fact that she had already been sworn to silence.

Madame Pomfrey stared at him blankly, "I have not the slightest clue who brought you to me. You were just lying there in the corridor." She quickly changed the subject, "I do however, have a clue about treating injuries. How is your back healing?", upon further examination, she looked up in shock, "Why, your injuries are healing much better than I would have expected, have you been taking a potion of some sort?"

Sirius was loathe to admit that he had, in fact, been taking a salve, but was oblivious to what it was, who had given it to him, or what it did. Madame Pomfrey's glare gave him no choice in the matter, regrettably. After fussing over him a slight bit more, she asked to look at the salve, promised to help with his 'investigation' and let him leave with the stipulation that he keep taking said salve. She then shooed him out of the door, insisting she had things to be doing.

Having fruitlessly wasted his time - after all, it was Monday night and he had better things to be doing – he decided that interviewing the portraits could always wait for another day. The Gryffindor common room beckoned.

Holed up in the infirmary was not Remus' ideal way to spend his afternoon. In fact, it ranked about second to last in his Favourite Things To Do List. It was lonely and miserable, infuriating and boring. He was about two more muffled comments from the corner away from storming down to the Headmaster's office and demanding he be released to go to lesson NOW. Scrap that, he'd stay put and go mad – it wasn't as if he would ever have the courage to complain to the headmaster about his 'furry little problem' as James called it. The amount of inconvenience he was putting the school at already was enough. Let alone whinging that he wasn't being treated right. Besides, he felt like he was going to vomit and he wouldn't have been able to pay attention in class anyway. Two more days of this was all he had to survive. Only, (he checked his watch) five more hours until the marauders rescued him from this dank, dark pit and could go run with him through the forest. Only five more hours of listening to some inane first year giggling about a boy she fancied, three beds away. At least he still had a distraction, he hadn't finished all his schoolwork yet. Oh joy of joys.

With all his wishing to escape the confines of the infirmary, Remus had managed to distract himself from the rather soul-rending pain of the transformation. Something that was probably quite fortunate because every time was worse than he remembered; it was quite like having a cold in that respect. He was not looking forward to it. However, the silver lining to his dark cloud was pattering down the staircase, barking as it went and the other perks were close on its heels. Sirius – as Padfoot – burst into the room with a goofy grin on his face. Evidently Remus had not been the only one who was looking forward to this. James, as Prongs, was struggling to get his antlers through the doorway, weirdly, he almost looked a little…

"Sirius, Peter and James, did you seriously go and get drunk on the night of the full moon?"

James shook his head, which really didn't help the awkward position he'd managed to get his head into. Sirius and Peter were just looking sheepish (can a dog and a rat look sheepish?). Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn't like he had much time before he turned to argue with them anyway.

Agonising pain swept over him in a flurry, as his teeth elongated to form canine fangs, his body lengthened and dropped so that he was on all fours, and he sprouted hair all over his body. It was best not to look up straight away. He'd made that mistake the first time he'd turned with the Marauders and he'd seen the looks on their faces, part horror, part pity – it was a combination he had no desire to see again. A painful grunt came from the doorway where lo and behold, James was still awkwardly stuck. Remus just grinned and let his tongue loll out, served James right for getting drunk tonight. Another grunt came, this time from the top of the stairs. It appeared that James had managed to extricate himself after all. Quickly, he bounded up the stairs – they were going somewhere new tonight apparently. That was all Peter had accidentally let slip, it rather worried Remus, this big surprise, but it had to be better than anything else he would be doing tonight, so even visiting…

'an Acromantula den? You have got to be kidding me,' he thought to himself. There was nothing that would make him go in there – nothing. Except perhaps, the delicious smell of food – spider, he meant - wafting from the entrance, that and the fact that James and Peter were already inside. Sirius shook all over, barked and smiled – he looked absolutely adorable and impossible to resist when he grinned like that and he knew it. Remus sighed, he guessed that at the very least this would be interesting. Assuming they made it ten seconds in that hellhole without getting eaten of course.

Three hours later they were stumbling out of an acromantula den with goofy grins and some serious scratches; this was going to be a nightmare if they couldn't nick some healing potions. Remus didn't want to show anyone his particular healing potion because for one, it was expensive and he didn't trust the marauders with it and two, it might arouse suspicion from Sirius, it was quite a rare potion after all. They would find other ways to get better, even if it did include copious amounts of firewhiskey.