Friday night was spent in the hospital wing. When Remus showed up and explained to Pomfrey that it would help disguise the truth if he disappeared on nights other than the full moon she agreed, so he spent the night in the little room he stayed in during the days of the moon. He missed going to Study Group but that was okay. He spent plenty of time on his own studying and reading, and the next morning when he showed up for lunch he said his mother was doing loads better already. James, Sirius, Peter, and Lily were all quite pleased by the news. Remus was pleased with his trick, planning to do it again at some point. See? Nothing connected to the full moon, nope, not at all!

James was absent for most of Saturday. Gryffindor had a big practice that he went to watch, and in the evening he had detention. Sirius, Peter, and Remus decided to practice hexes. They ended up having a three way battle in their dorm, dodging, diving, and running from each other's spells. It was rather thrilling, especially since Remus won. Peter definitely lost first, winding up rolling around on the ground with the jelly-arm curse, the leg-locker curse, and the rose-petal-sneezing one all togther. It was a close call between Sirius and Remus but Remus fought through the jelly-arm curse as well as a spell that was supposed to make him cough but all it really did was tickle his throat, and finished Sirius off with the full body bind. It was the first time he tried it, and it succeeded.

"YES!" Remus pumped one wavy, noodle-y arm in the air before tripping over Peter. "I did it!" He grinned at Sirius's frozen body then slowly his grin faded as he smelled Sirius panicking pretty bad. "Finite incantatum!" He was worried it wouldn't work, but Sirius's limbs unlocked and he sat up, rubbing his head.

"Good job!" he said, doing decently at sounding approving but the smells coming off of him were telling another story. It had really triggered a terrified response... Remus wanted to apologize, but he couldn't say he smelled the fear on him.

Remus plastered a fake grin on his face. "Thanks!" He wanted to tell him how sorry he was, to promise he'd never do it again. Sirius still smelled pretty panicky, but he was getting up and striding over to Peter, removing some of the spells off him. "You did a pretty good job too, Pete," Remus said.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Not good enough... couldn't even make you cough..."

Sirius punched Peter's arm. "Still you fought well. Let's sneak down to the kitchens and get a victory meal!"

()

James, apparently, had spent the entire afternoon sorting through dead spiders. "Some sixth year knocked jars over and they all broke so all the spiders got mixed up," he groaned during dinner. "So Sluggy had me an' Snivellus sort through them. I swear some of them were still alive." He glared across the hall at Snape. "It's all his fault anyway. S'not fair I'm being punished for trying to help him."

He complained all evening in the dorm after curfew. Remus went to bed early with his pillow over his ears to shut him out. The next day James had detention with Slughorn again and Remus expected more Snape-related complaints however when he finished detention James ran to the dorm, eyes sparkling. He ran in so fast he crashed into Peter's bed when he failed to stop himself.

"GUESS WHAT!" He bounded to Sirius's bed and pounced on his friend. "Oh-lads-this is perfect-this is perfect!" Then he began laughing, legs kicking.

Remus, Peter, and Sirius all just stared at their friend. "Um, maybe he got into amphyr petals?" Peter suggested.

James just kept laughing so much that Remus thought perhaps Peter might be right. But finally James sat upright, panting. "Okay so Saturday-Saturday-there's gonna be some stupid thing-and we can-we have to!"

"Jimmy, mate, you're not making any sense," said Sirius, enjoying watching his friend acting like this.

James took in a deep breath. "Dinner! Saturday! Have to! Sabotage!"

"Oookay, sabotage dinner on Saturday?" Sirius asked and James nodded. "Why? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but I just wanna know what makes Saturday so special?"

"Not our dinner," James said, clutching his sides. "After our supper there's gonna be a special romantic Valentine's thing. Sluggy was talking about it. I think it's more like a dessert thing, but we can-we can..."

"Sabotage," Sirius said, grinning from ear to ear. He and James shared a high five. "Okay, what do we do?"

"Something in the dessert?" James suggested. "Or the drinks? Something we can make in a week..."

The two of them pulled out their Potions books, flipping through. Peter crawled onto Sirius's bed to join them and after a few more minutes Remus gave up on the book he had been trying to read, moving over onto the bed with them as they debated which would be the best choice to make. James kept flipping through to more advanced potions... one they wouldn't be learning until their older years.

Finally they settled on the Hair-Raising potion which they weren't supposed to learn till next year, but James thought it looked decently easy enough with a hilarious result.

"No offense, Remy, but..." James snapped the book shut, raising his eyebrows at him.

"I know, I'd just mess it up," replied Remus, not at all offended.

That night at supper Dumbledore made the announcement about the special event. Couples (third years and older) were invited to a special dessert treat on Saturday evening at six-thirty pm. There would be a variety of treats, and decorations thanks to the Head Boy and Girl, and the prefects. At study group, Buckling said it was because two of the Ravenclaw prefects were 'head over heels' and had arranged the whole thing. She made a face while saying this, finally admitting her sister was one of the lovey prefects.

"I think it's sweet! Pierce said. "Hopefully they do this again in one of our other years!"

"I think it's gross," Bones put in and Pierce glared at him.

Overall the table seemed to be boys versus girls, the girls thinking it's romantic, the boys thinking it's pointless. The only girl who thought it was dumb was Buckling, and Silverlocke admitted he could see the romantic side. When Remus agreed on the silliness of the whole thing, Lily seemed a bit betrayed which made Remus feel a little bad but not too much. Really, it just all seemed pointless.

()

On Tuesday Remus went to Occlumency with a plan, assuming Fawley was there which she was. She was standing near the window, listening to the rain outside, and turned when Remus came in.

"I wasn't sure if you'd b-be here," he said.

"I must admit the same." She went to the couch, cane sweeping to make sure no obstacles had appeared. "I was worried you wouldn't ever come back," she said quite bluntly.

"I-I n-need these lessons," he pointed out and she nodded. "I'm ready when you are."

Fawley reached out and into his mind. She had intended to just skim however Remus determinedly focused on specific memories. Him aged eight, curled up on the couch at home, his head in his mother's lap, her stroking his hair, Lyall reading a book out loud to them. Him, nine, just after the full moon, his father gently carrying him to the bathroom. Him, eleven, being taken into Ollivander's shop, his father watching with a smile as Remus received his wand...

She let go, breaking the Legilimency. She had a frown on her face. "Remus," she said.

"Yes?" he asked innocently.

"I know what you're doing." He remained silent, pulling his feet up onto the couch, fingers twisting into the sleeves of his robes. "I'm sorry to have upset you. I am.

"Dad loves me," he said fiercely.

Fawley furrowed her brow, the frown getting deeper. "If you have no intention of practicing Occlumency tonight, I shan't waste my time here."

He cringed back at that, a flush of guilt sweeping through him. "I-I do. I just-it's just-please don't-do anything. You-don't understand. He began wringing at the hem of his sweater.

"I'm not going to go to anyone else, if that's what you're worried about. I've spoken with Albus and he says that right now we can't do anything, as going to the Ministry is out of the question."

"There's n-nothing to do though anyway even if you could go, because, well, there's-there's nothing," he replied. She gave a little shake of her head, whether because she disagreed or just found him stupid in that moment he wasn't sure. Possibly both. "Dad loves me."

"Very well," she replied sharply.

He glared at her a little bit then she put her hand against the side of his head again. She was skimming recent memories now, and wound up breaking contact when she saw what happened with the sticking solution.

"It isn't that funny!" he complained as she bent forward, laughing even harder.

"Oh, Remus!" she cried out. "I'm sorry, dear! But it is!"

He scowled, then began snickering a bit too as yeah it had been funny, and he had been right and his friends had been wrong. "They should have listened to me."

"Yes, they should have." Fawley grinned at him. "There is a spell for making rope appear, by the way, in case you need to smuggle anything out your window again."

"Did you get into a lot of trouble in school?" he blurted out.

"Certainly," she said in an amused tone. "I was in detention quite a bit. Not as often as Potter and Black seem to be gearing up for, however enough times that the Head of Hufflepuff during my time at school was quite disappointed. Now then. Shall we try again? Come on, I'm sure if you focus hard enough you can resist a little like you did before..."

Remus started feeling a little more relaxed again, hoping the whole her-thinking-his-dad-was-bad thing was over now.

()

It seemed as Valentine's day grew closer, the older students started acting weird. There was loads of flirting, and guys asking girls to go into Hogsmeade with them as well as to the special dessert thing. Sirius decided he wanted to try to go. He went and asked a third year girl if she'd take him. She just laughed at him and he returned to his seat, not looking at all ashamed.

"You never know," he said, nose in the air while his friends also laughed at him.

"You really wanna go to something like that?" James asked, a bit of a sneer in his voice. Sirius shrugged. "Well, anyway, we need to start making the potion probably tomorrow in case we get it wrong, that way we'll have time to redo it if we need to."

Remus was glad James got the subject changed away from boring romantic crap. "There is one problem with the potion," he said and they all looked at him. He glanced around then bent in, lowering his voice. "Coda flower. We don't have much in our potion kits, and we'll probably need them for something later this year."

"There's usually enough extra," Peter pointed out.

Remus shook his head. "I've read through the book completely. There's hardly any extra. I don't think we should risk it. If any of us are down the flowers when we need them, Slughorn will probably be able to guess."

"So what, we don't make the potion?" James grumbled, leaning back, hand smacking against the table. "Is that what you've been wanting? You need to loosen up."

Remus rolled his eyes, tamping down the flare of hurt James hopefully didn't mean. He wanted to ask why they thought he was such a stick in the mud, when he had proved himself as a troublemaker! "Actually, I w-was suggesting t-t-taking some from Slughorn's cupboard." He hoped no one else noticed his stutter returning, from being upset with James.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa, you mean... you're suggesting we break in and steal?" Sirius asked, lips quirking at the corner.

"Yes."

"Okay, I take back my loosen up comment," James said cheerfully. "That's pretty loose."

Now Remus smiled. "He's got loads of extra stuff, and we only need a few. He might not even notice them missing but even if he does, he's no evidence it was us. Unless we get caught taking the potion into the kitchens."

"Will the house-elves tattle?" Peter asked.

"Probably," Sirius said.

"I don't think they would," Remus argued and Sirius's eyes narrowed. "We just need to be really careful-"

"If we go in when they're all busy and pretend we're there to get like, a snack or whatever, and one of us slipped the potion into the batter or something...?" James shrugged. "It's a risk we've gotta take. Urgh, I wish I had that cloak already."

"What cloak?" Remus inquired, curious. How could a cloak help us?

James's eyes glittered but he just shook his head. "Not important right now." Sirius was grinning, obviously knowing what James meant, but at least Peter looked as bewildered as Remus felt, so he wasn't completely out of the loop.

"Let's make the potion, then figure out the, uh, getting it into the kitchens," Peter suggested, and everyone agreed to that.

"We have Potions tomorrow so maybe we can slip the coda flower then?" Sirius asked.

"It should just be in the main cupboard in the classroom, so we'd be seen," said Remus, rubbing his chin in thought. "However there's bound to be some security spells on it if we break into it outside class. Perhaps the best course would be to get into the storeroom itself during class tomorrow..."

"Let's try getting into the cupboard tonight," James said. "If that doesn't work, we'll do the storeroom tomorrow."

So that evening while most the castle was at supper, the four of them were down in the dungeons. The classroom itself wasn't locked up very well and a simple Alohomora from James got the door open. James, Sirius, and Remus went in while Peter kept a wary lookout. Remus had wanted to be lookout, however James and Sirius pointed out they A, might need help with the cupboard, and B, had no clue what a coda flower looked like and didn't want to rummage through everything taking up precious time.

As soon as they were in the classroom they rushed over to the giant cupboard. Remus pulled his sweater up over his nose, trying to block out some of the lingering scents; whatever Slughorn's last class had been, it was stinky!

"Alohomora," James said, tapping the cupboard.

At first nothing happened. Then smoke started pouring out of the keyhole. Then something liquidy shot out, spraying all three of them. James jerked back, crashing into Sirius and the two of them went down. Meanwhile Remus was diving to the ground, coughing hard because whatever was on him smelled strong and some of it was glopped on his face, just below his nose. He began gagging, rolling back and forth, swiping at his lower face.

"RUN!" James shrieked as a loud whistling sound began piercing the air.

They scrambled to their feet, running as fast as they could out the door, knocking into Peter. Sirius just seized hold of the back of Peter's robes and the four of them ran down the corridor.

Remus skid to a halt as he heard noises up ahead, and the three of them banged into him. "Other way, other way!" He spun around, shoving at his friends. The whistling sound was getting louder, and he could hear Filch laughing maniacally as he hurried to catch the culprit. They scrambled and ran and then dove into a secret passage that James and Sirius had discovered just recently; it was a narrow, cramped, drippy, cold passage but they pushed their way through single file. The passage wove its way underneath the Great Hall, then there was very long flight of stairs that normally Remus wouldn't trust at all, until finally they tumbled out on the first floor.

"We need to get to the tower five seconds ago," hissed Sirius. "Without anyone seeing us."

That's when Remus finally noticed James and Sirius were both dyed green. He looked at his hands and saw he was green too. There was a green hand print on Pete's robes where Sirius had touched.

"There's another secret passage nearby, come on," said James and he led the way. Remus kept his ears out and before they could get to the passage, he whispered that someone was coming. They ducked down a side corridor, bunching up in a nook.

"Pete!" Sirius suddenly began yanking Peter's robes off of him. "Go to the Great Hall. Anyone asks, we're up in the dorm."

"But-"

"Go! We need an alibi!"

Peter stumbled out and went as fast as he could back downstairs.

"Think it'll work?" James asked as they began creeping again.

"Probably not," sighed Sirius. "But it's the best we can do."

"No it's not," Remus said, a hopefully good idea popping into his head. "Second floor, let's go."

They made their way to the second floor where Remus went straight to the girls' bathroom, ignoring the Out of Order sign. "Myrtle!" he called as soon as the door swung shut behind James. There was sobs from the stall where she had died. "Myrtle?" He went over, knocking at the stall door.

"What do you want?!" Myrtle appeared, looking rather annoyed. "I was having a good-oh!" She stared at James and Sirius. "Hullo. More boys." She peered at them closely. "Why are you all green?"

"Hey, erm, Myrtle, would you be able to do me a huge favor?" Remus asked. "Could we use you as an alibi?"

Myrtle swung her head around. "An alibi? What for?"

Remus toed the ground, ignoring James and Sirius now glaring at him. "To keep us out of trouble."

Myrtle studied him closely, drifting close to him. "Oooh, what did you do?"

"Broke into the Potions' cupboard," Remus said even though James was shaking his head and Sirius was making cutting motions across his throat to indicate DON'T! They both threw their hands in the air in annoyance when he confessed.

Myrtle just giggled and came even closer, her shoulder brushing against his, sending cold chills throughout his body. "You naughty boy, what were you doing?"

"Nothing bad," he promised. "I just wanted to make a potion to get back at some guys that have been bullying us."

Myrtle perked up at the magic word he'd knew would work. "What were you going to do? Something painful?"

"Yes," Remus lied and she began cackling excitedly. "Would you help us? Please?"

"Of course!" Then she looked at James and Sirius again, particularly Sirius. "I'll just say I was in a bathroom somewhere and you three were in there... one of you was throwing up pretty nastily..." She looked Sirius up and down then floated to him. Sirius rubbed the back of his head, looking a bit awkward. She floated in a circle around him, then stayed behind him which made him more uncomfortable. "If you promise to bring them back again, when you're not all green." She bent on over Sirius's shoulder. "Especially you."

Sirius stared wide-eyed in horror at Remus, mouthing the word 'no!'.

"Okay," Remus said, ignoring the fact Sirius was now glowering. "Thanks Myrtle. You're the best."

"I know."

They hurried the rest of the way up to the Gryffindor tower (mostly through secret ways that James and Sirius knew about), and then took quick showers trying to get the dye off of them. It took a lot of scrubbing but finally they were all clean, and wearing clean uniforms. They hurried back down to the Great Hall and almost as soon as they went in, they were apprehended by McGonagall who wanted to know where they had been the past hour. They told their lie, acting as innocent as possible. She told them someone had tried breaking into Slughorn's cupboard just after supper started, and since they were all missing at that time she suspected them. They stated they hadn't, she made it clear she didn't believe them. Then James startled her by saying they had proof that at the same time someone was doing that, he was throwing up. "There was a ghost in the bathroom."

"Which ghost?" McGonagall demanded.

"We don't know her name," Remus put in quickly. "She looked maybe a little older than us? Glasses? Real glum except she seemed to enjoy seeing James vomit." He knew that'd be a spot on description of Myrtle from someone who didn't know her.

McGonagall pressed her lips into a thin line then told them to come with her. She marched them up to the second floor girls' bathroom where she called for Myrtle, who told McGonagall that just after five pm she was floating around in one of the bathrooms on the sixth floor when those three burst in and one of them started throwing up.

"It sounded dreadful," Myrtle said, clearly pleased at the idea. "I thought he was going to die."

"I see. Thank you, Myrtle. Come along, boys." She took them out of the bathroom, frowning. "I apologize for accusing you. Normally when someone causes trouble it's you two behind it..." She eyed James and Sirius.

"Well, this time we're innocent!" James said brightly, one of his beautiful smiles on his face.

"So it seems." McGonagall gave them a look like she didn't believe them for one second, but all three had innocent expressions. "You're feeling better, Mr. Potter? Do you need to go to the hospital wing? No? Well, all right then. Carry on..." She gave them another suspicious scowl then swept off to the stairs.

All three of them breathed a sigh of relief, and then went back to the Great Hall for the very tail end of supper, and to let Pete know what happened.