Happy Halloween everyone! And to those who don't celebrate it, Happy Thursday instead! Heehee, I was going to wait until the weekend, but hey, considering this is a Marauder's era fic, I felt it a bit fitting to post today.

I am really sorry for taking so long to update, this chapter was a real hassle and I hit a couple of blocks.

Thank you all for reading and keeping up with the story. A really big thanks to all those who reviewed! You guys are amazing.

All my love to ArmyWife22079 for all the help with this chapter. I'd still be stuck if not for you!

Onwards, then! And as always, read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor claim to own, anything pertaining to Inuyasha or Harry Potter. Just the ideas that pop into my mind ;)

—Howling at the Moon—

In all honesty, it took them a moment to fully grasp not only the severity of the situation but the reality of it as well.

"Bloody hell," Sirius finally heaved out in a low breath, backing from the window where they were all gathered. As he moved, he stared up at the full moon that was shining down at them, almost mockingly, as if saying, "How in the world did you not notice it before, it was so~ obvious." He wasn't even fazed when his legs bumped into James' bed, falling back in a heap. "Bloody hell, how did we never see it before…?"

Kagome couldn't help herself from rolling her eyes. "Well," she muttered, "It's not exactly as if he walks around with 'werewolf' stamped across his forehead."

James suddenly let out a loud gasp. "That ruddy arse! " He whirled around to pin them with a wild, wide-eyed stare, his hazel eyes darkened with outraged disbelief. "I can't believe we actually fell for that excuse for his scars! I mean, really? A tangle with a rather hostile batch of devil's snare when he was a kid?"

Kagome snorted, biting her lip and trying not to laugh. She was riding on the relief that they were freaking less about the werewolf part and more on the extent of their apparent gullibility. "I thought it was a good one, to be honest."

If that's what they were focusing on, then maybe she was worrying about nothing.

James, however, stared at her with an affronted expression. "I would too, but that week we asked?" he interjected, throwing his arm out in a cutting motion, "We'd just learned about devil's snare! It was so obvious he picked up on the first thing to make an excuse!" A dismayed noise worked its way out of his throat as he dragged himself over to Sirius' bed and collapsed on it. "He played us like the gullible dunces we were!"

Kagome straightened. Then again, maybe she was right to be worried. The amusement melted off her face, a pensive frown taking its place as she regarded her brother.

Sirius kicked back on James' bed, almost pouting. "I'd be proud of him if it wasn't us that got played," he mumbled under his breath.

Rolling her eyes at the curly-haired boy, Kagome sat next to her brother and reached out to touch his arm. "James, please don't say you're angry because he kept this secret? I mean, out of all secrets, this is a pretty big one," she said, her tone gentle. "I can understand why he kept it from us."

But James just shook his head roughly, shifting away from her, though he didn't pull away. "Yeah, but we've been best friends for months, Kagome! He knows us by now! Surely he knows we wouldn't care!" And Merlin, the look he shot her was almost as hurt as he was upset, and wow, Kagome didn't realize until just now how wrapped around James' finger she was because all she wanted to do in that moment was give him a hug and make that particular expression go away.

Kagome settled with offering a sympathetic smile and a comforting squeeze, because there was control damage to do and a friendship to insure at the moment, and being the one with nearly twenty extra years of mental maturity in the room meant she was stuck being the rational one for—basically—forever.

"Does he? Maybe he doesn't want to risk our friendship?"

"Maybe he's just too scared," Peter pitched in, finally joining the conversation. He had taken a place at the end of James' bed, sitting with his legs crossed and his hands folded on his lap. "Werewolves…" he trailed off, hesitant and sad. "Well, they're either hated or looked down upon."

Sirius made a sound of disgust, his expression matching it one-hundred percent. "Some even see them as less than humans—as dangerous creatures, like the goblins… and diseased at that." He gave a sharp jerk of his head, a scowl marring his face. "The fact that he's even attending this school is a miracle. No way do the parents or even the school board know about his condition; they wouldn't let him within ten feet of the castle bounds if they did."

Peter tilted his head, wondering. "You think Dumbledore knows?"

Sirius nodded, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. "Has to. He must be the one keeping it a secret; it's the only reason why Remus would be able to leave the school grounds every month. Probably has somewhere safe set up for the change."

James made a frustrated sound. "I still don't…" he trailed off, and after a moment's pause, he went on in a smaller voice that made Kagome's heart hurt. "Couldn't he trust us?"

Their eyes went downcast, the question quelling the rest of them to silence.

Kagome shuffled closer to her brother, wrapping an arm around his skinny frame. "I don't think it's about trust, James," she told him honestly in a low voice. "Just imagine yourself in his shoes. He's probably scared—of what we might think of him, of how we'll react, if we'll treat him differently because of this." A small sigh passed through her lips. "This could get him kicked out of school."

James head shot up, eyes flashing. Red flushed his cheeks, puffed out in indignation. "We'd never betray him like that!"

"I know," she replied soothingly, "I know. But he probably was told by his parents and the headmaster not to tell anyone. And even if he did want to tell us, he probably wouldn't even know how."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, how do you tell someone a secret like that?" he asked, a cocked eyebrow in the Potters' direction. "'Hey, James, pass me that quill? By the way, I turn into a mindless monster every full moon that would just love to tear you into bits. Just thought you should know'?"

Kagome bit her lip, trying not to smile. Sirius snorted, his lips quirked in a wry smirk. Huffing, James gave both of them an unimpressed look, missing when Sirius gave Peter a double-thumbs-up. "Well, fine then," he heaved out in frustration, looking two seconds away from pouting. "But we can't just leave things as it is, with him lying to us and making excuses when we already know ."

At that, Kagome shifted, biting her lip. "Now, don't get me wrong but… shouldn't we wait until he tells us himself, when he's ready?" she asked, looking between the three.

James slated her with a dry stare, scoffing. "The way I see it, he wouldn't have any of us knowing if he could help it."

Peter grimaced. "Can't really blame him, can you? The usual reaction when you discover a werewolf is to run the other way." He scoffed softly, scowling. "That, or treat them like dirt."

James huffed. "We would never do that—we're his friends."

"Yeah, we are," Kagome agreed gently in a solemn, even tone. "And as his friends, we should wait until he's ready to tell us. He's afraid, James. Remus was shy before and knowing him, he doesn't want to chance losing us. So, for now, I think we should just keep it to ourselves and show that he can trust us to not only keep this secret and not be scared of him, but to also treat him no differently and accept this part of him. This is—this is really serious and we shouldn't just jump out and surprise him. Or pressure him into telling us." She shot both James and Sirius a pointed look.

James stared at her, as well as the others, and she fidgeted under their stares. "Merlin," he scoffed, sullen. "Sometimes I forget just how much of an adult you act like. It's weird."

Kagome looked away, giving an uncomfortable cough. "Right, well, it's late," she deflected.

As if on cue, Peter's mouth split in a wide yawn, giving them a rueful smile and shrugging when they looked at him.

"Okay." James blew out a deep breath. "Okay, we go on as usual. But—you've seen how he looks when the full moon comes around, Kagome. I didn't realize why before, but he gets stressed out, as if someone's gonna see what's wrong."

Sirius snorted. "With good reason, someone did. We've been acting suspicious for a while—it's been freaking him out."

Peter grimaced, eyes flickering guiltily when Kagome shot the two of them a pointed look, likely remembering the dressing down she gave them not too long ago for that very reason. "So then we act like nothing's wrong?" Peter proposed, rubbing sluggishly at his eyes. "Ask him if he's feeling better when he comes back, then just go back to normal?"

Kagome nodded. "And then we'll cover for him, if anyone else asks. Show him we have his back. Be his friend."

The boys nodded and with that agreed on, Kagome felt the need to stretch. So she did, and because it was pretty late, she said, "We can talk more about this later. Remus probably won't be back until a couple of days, anyway."

Her brother and Sirius naturally didn't look too pleased at the prospect of sleep just on principal, but Peter, bless him, looked absolutely relieved and wiped at that. Really, he looked like was struggling to even keep his eyes open, never mind to pay attention and participate in the discussion. He was tired and so was she and it were times like these that she hated being young because it was hard enough to even stay up to ten, never mind past midnight.

So, the pair reluctantly nodded and they all stood to go to their own beds for the night.

"You sleeping here?" James muttered, shucking back his duvet as they stood on opposite sides of his bed. Kagome glanced at the clock at the other end of the room, and only turned when she felt tugging fingers at the sleeves of her pajama shirt. "Just get in already," her brother muttered, rolling his eyes as he stretched out on one side of his bed, leaving plenty of space on the other.

Kagome blinked.

They haven't slept in the same bed since… well, there was that one week after their parents were released from the hospital in January and they got to spend the rest of the holidays back at home, but hey, that was an extreme circumstance, their parents were attacked and it was only a couple nights so Kagome figured James was still shook up about the whole ordeal and didn't think much of it.

But before then, it had been years. Since that time those dark wizards chased after them, actually.

James would sneak into her room to check up on her, to check if she was really there, because he used to have nightmares. Nightmares that usually went down the road of 'what if'—what if she didn't escape that dark wizard when he'd caught her; what if she was taken and he was left behind—and ended with him shaken, sweating, and tears in his eyes before he would get up and search out for her.

Nightmares that only abated when he was near her. Nightmares that persisted for months.

It had only taken Kagome a couple of nights to realize what was happening, when one time she woke up in the middle of the night to find him actually sleeping on her bedroom floor. She had put a stop to that quick enough—taking a stuffed animal and dropping it on his face, she had budged over when he sputtered awake and pulled over the covers. When he didn't move, she had sighed, face buried into her pillow, and grunted out, "It's cold, James, c'mon," no questions asked.

After that, James had climbed in, pulled over the duvet, and huddled close. Moments later, when she had almost drifted back to sleep, fingers had wrapped around her hand, twisting with her own, and James whispered, "Thanks, Mel," before she had completely succumbed to unconsciousness.

She was pretty sure he had thought she was already asleep, so she never said anything, just like she didn't say anything right then, just shrugged and toed off her slippers and ducked under the duvet to settle next to her twin.

Though, now that she thought about it, she wondered if James' wasn't dealing with the separation as well as she thought. Despite them being in the same House, they slept in opposite ends of the tower with a staircase preventing him from reaching her instead of a couple of doors and a small hall like at home. And maybe with the guys here…

In the bed next to them, Sirius cooed as Kagome went to lie down. "Awh, is this what you guys do when—"

Faster than anyone could blink, James pulled out a pillow and chucked it at Sirius. "Shut it, Black," he snapped, voice faintly uncomfortable, and Kagome winced as she her head dropped and slapped against the flat space of the mattress.

Yeah, he was probably too embarrassed to ask her to sneak over herself.

Turning, she glared at her brother who cringed. Chuckling nervously, he pulled tugged out his pillow and held it over. "Oops?"

Huffing, Kagome snatched it and turned her back on him, shoving the pillow under her head and bunkering down. When she heard Sirius' snickering, her lips twisted. "Keep laughing, Black. Just remember I wake up earlier than you do."

Sirius' snickers stopped short with a small, undignified 'eep!'. From across the room, they could hear Peter's muffled laughter.

Kagome grinned to herself and relaxed further into the bed, taking comfort in the warm, familiar presence of her twin next to her.

Yeah, maybe she wasn't dealing with the whole separation twin thing as well as she though either.

Though, seriously , she could have done without the snoring.

Remus came back from the hospital wing, pale, groggy, and a smidge shifty as usual. He stiffened when they asked how he was feeling at first, but relaxed when they left it at that. His face gave a mixed flicker of surprise and confusion though when James just barreled into what he missed that weekend.

All in all, Remus fell back into what was routine: classes, homework and studying with some sneaking around the castle and doing some of the occasional pranking thrown in the mix for good measure.

The month went by with nothing really out of the ordinary happening. They went back out to visit Hagrid a couple of times, bringing Kirara along where they—bar Kagome, since she already knew—discovered that the feline was a nekomata.

Hagrid was practically thrumming with glee when she transformed for him for the first time. That only lasted a moment though, before he turned to them, expression serious, and told them to keep Kirara's abilities to themselves for the feline was technically considered a dangerous, dark creature and could be either banned from returning or taken away

It didn't matter that she was tame and wouldn't harm a fly unless provoked. The fact that she could transform into a feline the size of a hippogriff and possessed sharp fangs capable of ripping students into tiny shreds put her in the dangerous categories.

That Kirara was not only non-native to Europe but rare helped that no-one suspected a thing as of yet.

When he said that, Kagome had only shrugged, as if unbothered. "I know Kirara. She's a sweetheart."

"Besides," James had added, scowling, "The Ministry's system for sorting creatures is full of it. Most of them wouldn't hurt a person in normal circumstances, and just because they're potentially dangerous doesn't make them dark or evil ."

"Mate, what about vampires though?" Sirius had chimed in with an exaggerated shiver, elbowing Remus lightly who was staring at them with wide eyes.

Peter then snorted. "They're creepy, not evil. Well," he had amended with a shrug. "Not all of them anyway, from what I hear."

Kagome had snickered before saying, "If they're going to list every dangerous non-human under the sun there is, they should add wizards while they're at it. It's just as easy for one of us to hurt someone. Probably more likely too."

It all had Hagrid beaming at them and his eyes had been suspiciously wet. "Just a bit of dust," he said hastily, before sobering and telling them, "Not a lot of people think that way." The grin was back by then. "But it makes me glad to see that you all do."

"You're still having trouble?"

Gaze flickering up from her teacup—which looked somewhat normal at first glance but at a closer perusal, was sporting claws at the bottom ring—Kagome pursed her lips at James' teasing grin. When she looked to check his progress, she rolled her eyes at him and his perfect freaking teacup.

"Not everyone can be a natural at transfiguration like you, dear brother of mine." Kagome tried not to smile at the proud grin that graced her twin's face, but it was a near thing. Instead, she waved her wand and muttered, changing her cup back to its original rodent form. It gave a wiggle, as if to shake off the residual of the spell's effects.

Idly swirling the tip of his wand along the inner lid of his teacup, James shook his head in amusement. Beside him, Remus was staring at the teacup in sympathy—transfigured into an inanimate object or not, it was still an unfortunate rat that had the poor, poor luck of being James' test subject.

"Well, dear sister of mine, me thinketh that you dost thinketh too much."

Kagome lowered her wand from where she prepared to try again and stared. Remus, unable to stand it anymore, deftly rescued James' teacup and pushed it gently to the front of James' desk-space. Never noticing, James' wand still twirled in the air.

"Speak English," Kagome said slowly, "Modern English, if you'd please," she added with a baleful look when he grinned.

James snickered and flipped his wand, tapping the tail end to his temple. "As your handsome, incredibly talented and intelligent—shut it Black, I heard that, you prat—twin, I know the way you think, and that's overthinking it."

When Kagome glanced over at Sirius, the boy was rolling his eyes, just a second from bursting out laughing. She knew exactly how he felt.

When Kagome kicked up an eyebrow at him, James just shrugged. "T'is true. You get this little wrinkle between your eyebrows." He reached over and before Kagome could protest, he flicked her on the spot were said wrinkle was. Her eyes crossed and James sniggered. "Just, imagine what you want and then cast the spell. Relax. Magical instinct takes care of the rest."

Rolling her eyes fondly, she turned back to her mouse which was now sniffing at her quill. Of course, when she did as he suggested, picturing the teacup she wanted clearly in her mind and then trying again, he was right.

Usually Kagome didn't have a problem with casting magic. She rocked at charms but transfiguration always gave her a bit of trouble—not to say she was terrible at it, just slower at producing results like James. Maybe it was because charms were pretty straightforward: say the incantation, wave the wand, and then something happens—feathers fly, parchment shrinks, etc. Simple cause and then effect.

Transfiguration, well, the concept of a living animal changing into a teacup was a little harder to completely grasp because in her past life, this sort of magic didn't exist—at least, not to her knowledge. Growing up with it, becoming familiar with it, likely helped, but she guessed her life from before kept a smidge of that doubt or disbelief alive, hindering the spell.

Or maybe it was because transfiguration was not her forte, not like with her brother who took to it like a fish to water.

Grinning proudly at his sister's completely transfigured teacup, James leaned back, turning in his seat and glancing about the room. His gaze landed on the row one above and across from their own and that grin turned into a smirk. "Hey Evans," he called out, twirling his wand between his fingers, "Need a couple of pointers? I'd be happy to come over and lend a hand."

Kagome palmed her face, shaking her head.

The redhead stiffened, her back going ramrod straight before she tossed a dirty glance over her shoulders. Her teacup was a garish grey and a little furry in a couple of places, though it had a very good form. She pursed her lips when her eyes landed on his teacup, but she shook her head. "I'm fine, thank you," she said with the utmost politeness.

If it was a little strained, though, no one commented.

In fact, James' smirk only widened. "You sure? I'm pretty good—I helped with Kagome's," he said, jamming a thumb at his sister's cup.

When Lily's gaze flitted towards Kagome, she shrugged, as if to say, "Well, it's true." James was doing a decent job of blatantly bragging about his talents on his own already, there was no need to help.

Lily sighed and rolled her eyes. "I don't need help, Potter, I can do this myself."

James blinked. "You sure?" he wheedled.

Immediately, she scowled at his insistence. "What, you don't think I can?"

James reared back in his seat and went stock-still. "O-of course not!" he stammered, shaking his head as his voice was enthused with as much sincere conviction as humanly possible. "You'll get this spell down in no time!"

Sirius stared at him in disbelief, almost embarrassed to be associated with him. Kagome let out a low breath of, "Oh, Merlin."

Lily's eye twitched, a sign of irritation, and she promptly turned her back on him instead of answering.

Despite that, James just let out a pleased, quiet hum. "I think she's warming up to me."

Remus palmed his face and Peter let out a hasty cough to cover up his laugh.

The next full moon came and went without much of a fuss.

Remus became more nervous each day during the week leading up to the next full moon. He steadily became more reserved and easily agitated and on the day of he told them that he wasn't feeling well.

They worried during that night, now that they knew what he was going through, but when Remus returned a couple days later all they did was give him the notes for the classes he missed, told him they were glad he was feeling better, and left it at that.

Though the look of grateful relief he gave them was tinged with guilt, it was still worth it.

The school year was almost out, just over a month left, and now they were busy with revisions for their end of the year exams.

This month's full moon came the second week of May. It fell on a Thursday so Remus spent a long weekend at home to 'visit his mother' who he said came down with something, missing the Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Slytherin, the last match either house would play for that year.

To distract themselves, the remaining Marauders lost themselves in the match, cheering for Hufflepuff and booing at Slytherin when they made a foul—ignoring, of course, any fouls the Hufflepuff team may or may not have made, or course.

Hufflepuff beat Slytherin—more like they killed them in the match, beating them 270—60. James and Sirius shouted themselves hoarse from cheering so much, they were that happy.

They tried not to think of Remus, that he had yet to spill the beans and showed little to no inclination in doing so, but that didn't really work. James and Sirius were admittedly becoming more frustrated among their worrying, but they kept it to themselves.

However, either Remus could pick up on the boys' frustration or the lying was really getting to him at that point because his face was the picture of guilt when he returned late Sunday night.

They didn't ask questions, save for the polite inquiry of his mother's health and their hope that she was feeling better—saying nothing would've just made him suspicious, and who knew, maybe his mother really was prone to sickness.

(They kind of doubted it, but still.)

Kagome gave Remus her notes for their classes and life went on.

The end of May brought the final Quidditch match of the school year, this time between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw.

Glad to be taking a break of revisions—Kagome especially, because if there was one thing James didn't like to do, it was study, and now she also had Sirius to worry about keeping on task—they put all thoughts of exams to the back of their minds.

James and Sirius were smart, don't get her wrong, but they tended to be lazy and she had to make sure they gave a decent look over their past assignments and notes at least once. Thank Merlin Remus and Peter were both rational enough to take their studies seriously.

Ravenclaw beat Gryffindor in their final game. The game went on for hours and they were tied to the very end until the teams' seekers finally spotted the snitch and gave chase. It was a close one, but the Gryffindor's seeker was just a few seconds too slow in catching the snitch. James pouted and bemoaned the loss for like a day, but even he had to admit it was a really good game.

"Did you know," Peter said one day on the first week of June, "That my Aunt is a werewolf?"

They were upstairs in the boys' dorm, having just gotten back from supper and resting on top of their respective beds before they headed to sleep.

Remus, nose deep in his book, went absolutely rigid. The others didn't even notice, though, because they did the same.

"I—no," Kagome said slowly, eyes wide and her hand falling away from where it was petting Kirara lounging in her lap as she sat up from her spot beside her brother to stare at Peter. Softer, she continued, shaking her head. "No, we I didn't. What, uh," she tried not to look at Remus, hoping the others were doing the same. "What brought this up?"

Peter, who was tracing the seam of his duvet, shrugged. "Nothing, really. Full moon's coming up, I guess. And I was just thinking, about what Hagrid was saying a couple months ago." The boy bit his lip. "She was bitten when I was younger, like six years ago… I haven't seen her since…"

Sirius frowned, sitting straighter, clutching the pillow he was hugging to his stomach just a little tighter. "That must suck," he murmured. "If it was my Uncle Alphard…" Sirius shook his head. "He's the only one in my family, aside from Regulus, that actually…" He trailed off, looking away. "That actually treats me like family."

Beside her, James was biting his lip, staring between Sirius and Peter with a saddened look on his face. His arm shifted from its place between them, his hand reaching out and finding hers, fingers curling around and clinging to it.

She could tell what he was thinking—imagining, actually. What their lives without their Mum and Dad, their grandparents.

What life would be like without each other.

Kagome shut her eyes at the conjured images—tightened her grip, squeezing James' hand. As if sensing her distress, Kirara shifted and butted her head against her stomach.

She didn't like the thought of it either.

"Yeah," Peter breathed out, frowning deeply. He heaved out a tired sigh and looked up at the ceiling. "I miss her. She was actually my favorite Aunt. My parents used to fight about it, when Dad was still here—Aunt Sarah was my Dad's sister, but Mum didn't want her near me. She doesn't even mention her anymore…" Peter let out a low laugh; it was stripped of all humor. "I, uh, I actually wrote her a couple weeks ago. She doesn't know." He plucked at a stray string, twisting it between his thumb and forefinger: an anxious gesture. "I haven't heard back from her yet."

"She'll write back."

Four heads turned at Remus' voice, but the boy wasn't looking at them. He was staring at his book, swiping a thumb across the top edge of the pages. Knowing they were looking, he shrugged. "She probably understands that it was your mother's decision not to allow contact with her, not you. She wouldn't hold it against you, and, well, if she does then she shouldn't."

James nodded his agreement. "You'll probably get a letter soon. Maybe in a couple of years, you can even see her soon. Maybe Third year—we'll be able to go to Hogsmeade then. You can set up a meeting. Or this summer, at Diagon Alley. We can help. When we all hang out this summer, we can hop over."

Kagome grinned. "Yeah, I bet Mum and Dad would help. They can take us for ice cream or to the joke shop." She shrugged, and looked at Sirius. "Or your Uncle. He seemed pretty cool."

Sirius' grin matched her own. "Oh, yeah, that's something Uncle would be happy to help us with."

Peter blinked at them widely, before his face broke out into a smile. When she looked out of the corner of her eye, Kagome spied a small smile playing on Remus' face as well.

Now, Kagome took studying seriously and all, but she wasn't that stressed about the exams. She knew the material, the grades she got on her previous assignments were near perfect, and she was comfortable with the amount of studying she had done.

It was only their first year after all, and though the material she learned at Hogwarts wasn't the same she learned her first time around when she was eleven, the workload wasn't exactly heavy. Maybe for an actual eleven year-old first year it would be more difficult, but that obviously wasn't the case for her.

So yeah, Kagome was pretty confident she would ace the exams, no need to lie about it.

As for the others, however…

Peter was mildly stressed about them, particularly about the Potions and Transfiguration exams, so Kagome was happy to help him with revisions. James and Sirius didn't really care per say. They certainly didn't look stressed about it, but she would bet that they would start cramming like all hell the day before exams started.

Remus, though.

Remus was a whole other case entirely.

Now, Remus was smart. If Kagome didn't have the advantage of being mentally older with experience in studying and faster mental-processing skills, there was no doubt in her mind that they wouldn't be as near equals in intelligence as they were now.

However, Remus… well, let's just say watching Remus study sometimes gave her flashbacks of one of Harry's friend—a girl named Hermione.

Suffice to say, it wasn't pretty.

Remus was crazy smart, but he also studied like crazy. Of them all, he was definitely the most stressed about the exams despite that he had nothing to worry about.

When Kagome tried to reassure him that there was no way he would get anything lower than an E on any of his exams and suggested that he maybe turn down the knob on the amount of studying he was doing and maybe take a break or like three and eat something, he turned a stare on her that made her freeze. If anything, the idea of not studying seemed to stress him out even more and for a split second, she could have sworn he was plotting numerous ways to make her pay for even suggesting it—murder looked as if it would be on the bottom of the list, and the most merciful at that.

Merlin and Morgana, he was scary.

And she was pretty sure she didn't imagine it either and that Sirius saw it too, because there was a gasp and a strangled, "Oh, shit," that sounded suspiciously like his voice.

And funnily after that, the boys didn't try bother him anymore.

Kagome wisely didn't try again after that, either. Instead, she just smuggled in some sandwiches from the kitchens and pushed food into Remus' hands every once in a while when he had slipped into one of his study comas, just so that he didn't pass out from hunger or something.

He always took the food without a word, automatically eating it without breaking a stride in his studies, so Kagome took it as a good sign: Remus would eat, he just wouldn't be bothered to actually get up to do so.

She was pretty sure that the upcoming full moon wasn't helping either—if anything, it just made him even more stressed.

It really was a bad stroke of luck that the exams fell a few days after the full moon.

Next time, though, she would be prepared. When she had a chance, she was so going to look up the recipe for something along the lines of sleeping draughts, like a sleep aid or something, just to help him along to every couple of nights so he could have some kind of rest.

Remus would probably kill her, but if he was this bad for just the first year exams, she did not want to think about what it would be like when O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S. came along.

And hey, maybe she could even mix it in with some chocolate. He wouldn't suspect at thing.

And that's all, folks. Hope you enjoyed it, and tell me what you thought! I'm finally speeding things up, as you can see, lol. Next chapter ought to start on summer.

Again, Happy Halloween! Hope all that celebrated had a safe one!

Another big thanks to ArmyWife22079 for the idea of Peter having a werewolf relative.

And seriously, you guys reviewed the shit out of the last chapter. I know I usually post a thank you list, but it's like over 70 names long and, like, wow really, thanks so, so much! Thank you for reviewing, for fav'ing and alerting, and just for sticking with this story if you're still reading this after a pretty long update-less gap. I truly appreciate it! You rock!

Oh, and remember, you can always check my tumblr for sneak peaks, extras, status updates, and other goodies. I have posted some things since the last time I updated, like a future scene, just so you know and if you're interested. Just go to my tag page and click on the story's tag for anything Domino Effect related. My ask box is always open.

Till next time!

RainLily^^