"Where's Remus?"
Hermione, who'd been sitting alone at a table in the Gryffindor common room, studying in quiet concentration, looked up from her notes at the sound of Sirius's voice.
"Did he go to the library?"
"No, he went up to your dormitory to get a book," she told him.
"Good." Sirius settled down in the seat next to her. "Sorry, Jean. I tried."
"Tried what?"
"To help you out with Remus."
"Help me what?" she asked, nonplussed.
"I tried to get something going between you two when we played that Muggle game, when I dared him to kiss you."
Hermione blushed at the memory.
"And what makes you think I wanted to 'get something going' with Remus?" she shot at him rather defensively.
Sirius gave her a look. "Come on, Jean. We've had this conversation."
"Yes," she said, remembering when he'd carried her to the Hospital Wing and insisted she was in love with her ex-professor. "And I don't understand why we're having it again."
"Because you lied to me before."
"What does it matter if I lied or not? Why do you care?"
"Remus is my friend, and I'm just trying to help you out. But things didn't work out quite the way I'd hoped that night. Only Remus would turn down a perfectly good opportunity to snog a girl." Sirius shook his head in disbelief. "I apologize on his behalf. He can be an idiot sometimes."
"He's not an idiot, and you don't need to apologize for him. I'm glad he didn't kiss me."
"Really? So that wasn't disappointment I saw on your face?"
"No, it wasn't."
"I'm not buying it."
"Well, I'm not trying to sell it," she said with finality. She then returned her attention to her Transfiguration notes.
After a short silence, Sirius told her, "You're nearly as bad as he is, you know."
Her attention snapped back to him. "What do you mean by that?"
He smiled. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
She narrowed her eyes at him, but Sirius looked past her.
"Hey, Remus," he greeted, and she turned to see her study partner walking towards them, a thick textbook in hand. "I was just having an interesting chat with Jean here."
"Yeah? What about?" Remus asked, taking a seat across from them.
"That Truth or Dare game we played a couple of weeks ago," Sirius said, a gleam in his eyes as he looked at Hermione, clearly enjoying her unease at where this conversation was heading. "We're having a bit of a disagreement on something."
"A disagreement on what?"
"On how Jean feels about—"
"Nothing!" Hermione cut across him. "There's no disagreement. Sirius is just teasing me, that's all."
"Why are you blushing, Jean?" Sirius asked.
"I'm not blushing," she said, though she knew she was.
He smirked. "The color in your cheeks says otherwise."
"I'm flushed because I'm annoyed with you!"
"If you're annoyed with me, then I must be right."
"Right about what?" Remus asked, looking between the pair of them.
"Oh, you know," Sirius started, and she gave him a pleading look. His dark eyes glittered with amusement. "About how Jean thinks I'm sexy and desperately wants to snog me."
Hermione gaped at him, and he laughed.
"I most definitely do not—" she began, but Sirius didn't let her finish.
"I'd better go before she hexes me again," he said, getting out of his seat. "See you later, Remus."
Sirius winked at her behind his friend's back before sauntering off, and Hermione stared after him in puzzlement and irritation. Why on earth did he say that? Her gaze shifted to Remus.
"I'm not blushing," she maintained, though her face felt warmer than ever.
"Of course not." Remus gave her a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You're flushed because you're annoyed."
"I am."
"Perfectly normal when you're around Sirius," he told her, flipping through the pages of the book he'd retrieved from his dormitory. "He seems to annoy a lot of girls."
"I bet he does," she muttered.
Remus looked up again, his eyes skimming hers. "Especially when they're interested in snogging him."
"I'm not interested in — goodness no! He was just teasing me because — because he —"
"Because he knows you find him attractive."
"I don't—" she started, but then she remembered she'd already admitted to it during the Truth or Dare game. "I mean, I suppose I do, but—"
"That's also perfectly normal. You're not the only girl at this school who fancies him."
Before she could deny this, Marcia and Kirsten came over to their table.
"Jean, you will not believe…" Kirsten began excitedly, and Hermione was reluctantly absorbed into conversation with the girls.
After a while, she was left alone with Remus once more, but the conversation they'd been engaged in before was not resumed. Although she wanted to tell him that she definitely did not fancy Sirius, she felt awkward bringing it up again and instead remained silent on the subject.
It wasn't until later that week that Hermione was alone with Sirius again. She didn't like to be. On the previous occasions, all he'd wanted to do was talk about her feelings for Remus. This time, however, he didn't delve into that topic, and he kept talk of his friend to a minimum.
"Remus won't be in classes tomorrow," Sirius informed her as they walked together down to the Great Hall for dinner.
"Is everything all right with him?" she asked, though she already knew that they weren't. Tomorrow night was the full moon.
"His father is very ill. He went home to see him."
Hermione accepted this explanation even though she knew it was actually Remus who was ill. She remembered how drawn and pale he'd looked earlier and hoped this month's transformation wouldn't be too bad for him.
But just like the last full moon, the next day without Remus went by more slowly for her. She missed his presence and so didn't share in the 'thank Merlin it's Friday' spirit of her classmates. After her last class was dismissed, she considered going to visit him in the Hospital Wing, where she assumed he was staying, but then she remembered she shouldn't know he was there. She should think he was at home with his father as Sirius had told her. So she spent the rest of the day hanging out with the girls.
Lily seemed distracted all evening, and when she and Hermione were alone in the Head Girl's dormitory later that night, the redhead was poring over what appeared to be a piece of parchment.
"Where did you get that?" Hermione asked upon realizing the parchment was the Marauder's Map.
"James. It fell out of his pocket earlier and I didn't get a chance to return it. It's map of Hogwarts. Do you see all these dots? They show where every person in the castle and grounds is located." After a short pause, Lily added, "James isn't in the castle."
"He isn't?"
"No. He, Sirius, and Peter left a little while ago. They went out onto the grounds, and then they disappeared somewhere untraceable on the map. Where could they have gone? And what are they doing?"
"Um…" Hermione knew they must be with Remus. The four Marauders must be roaming around somewhere, perhaps Hogsmeade, in their animal forms as Remus, in her time, had once confessed they did every full moon. "I don't know."
In a quiet voice, Lily asked, "Do you think James is seeing another girl?"
"What? No! What makes you say that?"
"Sev told me—"
"Snape?"
"Yes. He told me I shouldn't trust James. He said he's probably going around with other girls behind my back."
"Lily, you can't believe what Severus says. He's jealous—"
"But James lied to me, Jean. He told me we couldn't hang out today because he was behind on his homework because of Quidditch. He said he was going to catch up on his assignments tonight so that he could be free to spend the rest of the weekend with me. But he's not studying, he's… What if he's gone to meet up somewhere with another girl?"
"He hasn't. He wouldn't do that."
"How do you know?"
"Because he loves you. He's been after you for years."
"But why would he lie to me?" Lily glanced back at the map and her eyes went wide. "Look, there they are again! And Remus is with them now! Isn't he supposed to be away? They're not heading back to the castle. What are they doing?"
"They're just…" Hermione trailed off, unable to think of a plausible explanation to substitute the truth or alleviate her friend's worry.
Lily stood up. "I'm going to find out what they're up to."
Hermione stared at her in alarm as she grabbed her coat and pulled it on.
"You can't be thinking of going out there—"
"That's exactly what I'm going to do," Lily told her. "I need to know what James is doing."
"But — but you can't! It's past curfew. You could get into trouble."
"I don't care."
"Can't you wait until tomorrow to confront James?"
"So he can just lie to me again?"
Lily strode to the door and pulled it open.
"Please, Lily, don't—"
"I'm going."
Lily stormed out of the room, and a panicked Hermione hurried after her. She had to stop her from leaving the safety of the castle. She had to convince her to return to their dormitory, but she had never seen the Head Girl so determined. No matter what she said or did, or threatened to do, nothing could dissuade Lily from her mission to find James and figure out what he was up to.
For the first time in her years at Hogwarts, Hermione wished desperately to be caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris or any of the teachers, but Lily, with the help of the Marauder's Map, was able to navigate her way through the corridors without running into anybody else. When the two girls reached the entrance hall, Hermione begged her friend one last time not to leave the castle.
"Lily, please, we shouldn't—"
"Why are you trying so hard to stop me, Jean? Do you know something I don't?"
"No, I just—"
"Then let me go. I need to do this, alright? You don't have to come with me."
Hermione couldn't let Lily go out there alone — she didn't know there was a werewolf on the loose and she couldn't betray Remus by telling her. So she followed the Head Girl out of the castle and onto the school grounds, praying that Remus and the others were in Hogsmeade, too far away for there to be any encounter between them.
"They were headed in this direction last I saw them on the map," Lily said, and the two girls headed toward the Whomping Willow as well, their lit wands held out before them, Hermione on high alert, glancing around them warily.
They made it to the Whomping Willow but stopped well short of the tree whose branches thrashed about threateningly. Lily consulted the map again.
"I don't know where they've gone."
"Then we should go back to the castle," Hermione told her. "If they're not on the map, then they've left the school. There's no way we'd be able to find them, and there's no use waiting for them out here. They could take ages to show up."
Frowning, Lily took her time looking all around them, searching for any sign of James, and just when Hermione thought she was about to agree to return to the castle, the redhead glanced once more at the map.
"They're there!" Lily exclaimed. She looked up from the map and squinted past Hermione, who spun around and followed her gaze.
Oh no…
A small pack of animals had come into view, and by the light of the full moon, Hermione saw one of them stop in its tracks, stiffen, its snout raised in the air. Then its head slowly turned her direction — a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, November weather ran through her.
"Is that a — a werewolf?" Lily gasped.
Hermione did not respond. She stood there, frozen, staring at the creature she knew to be Remus in terrified awe. It started toward them.
"Oh god!" Lily cast a spell at the werewolf, but the werewolf was too far away and too quick for the spell to hit its mark. So she clutched Hermione's arm painfully tight instead and shrieked, "We've got to get to the castle! Let's go!"
Hermione snapped back to her senses. She and Lily broke into a run. They shot spells behind them as they made a desperate dash toward the castle, but the werewolf persisted, moving with incredible speed. Swiftly and cunningly, it chased after them, coming at them at an angle, then cutting off their path to safety. The girls stumbled as they changed direction. Lily fired yet another spell but missed the werewolf by a meter. It was too fast. It was right on their heels, lunging at them—
A large black dog seemed to come out of nowhere. It bounded past the screaming girls and collided with the werewolf in mid-air. Clawing and snapping their jaws, the two animals fought ferociously, the dog struggling to hold off the werewolf, the werewolf snarling, getting more and more agitated, more and more aggressive.
"Lily! Jean!" James shouted, suddenly appearing before the petrified girls who stood momentarily static, entranced by the sight of the two creatures battling. He seized their arms and dragged them away from the perilous scene. "Hurry!"
They sprinted toward the Whomping Willow, the sounds of the fight fading away with the distance. But just as they were reaching the tree, its branches immobilized now, a loud bark pierced the air. Hermione glanced back over her shoulder to see the werewolf had overpowered the dog and was pursuing them once again.
"Go! GO!" James shouted at the girls, pushing them toward the base of the trunk.
Lily disappeared first through the gap in the roots of the tree while Hermione turned to see the werewolf tearing straight towards her, closer and closer until it was so close she noticed nothing more but its eyes reflecting the moonlight and its own ravenous appetite—
Again, the black dog intervened, and James shoved Hermione into the opening at the base of the trunk. She slid down an earthy slope and landed with a crash into darkness. James joined her a moment later.
"W-where's Moony?"
"Peter!" Lily cried, startled by his sudden appearance.
"He's right outside," James answered his friend. "Sirius is taking care of him."
"You mean Sirius is still out there?" Lily asked, looking very pale and frightened. "And Remus? But — but there's a werewolf—"
"I know," James said. "That's why we need to get you two as far away from here as possible. Your scent is making him crazy…"
"But we're stuck. How are we supposed to get to the castle with the werewolf and that wild dog out there?" Lily asked.
"We can't. The only option we have right now is to follow this tunnel" —James pointed his lit wand down the path before them, "—and get you to the Shrieking Shack."
"The — the Shrieking Shack?" Lily whispered, looking more frightened than ever.
She jumped when a low, menacing growl rumbled above them. It was followed by a sharp yelp and worry crossed James's features.
"Sirius needs help. Peter, take Lily and Jean to the Shack. Get into the room upstairs and put up the protection spells. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"You're not coming with us?" Lily asked in alarm.
"I have to help Sirius first."
"You are not going back out there!"
"I have to, Lily. Sirius is in trouble."
"James—"
"You and Jean need to go. Your scent is putting us all in danger. Follow Peter. I'll join you later."
"But—"
"I'll explain later. Please, just go!"
Hermione and Lily heeded his words. They followed Peter along the lengthy tunnel, crawling through the tight space as quickly as they could until they finally reached another small opening. It led to a dark, dusty, and slightly claustrophobic room full of broken furniture.
"This way," Peter said. He led them to a hallway, up a flight of crumbling stairs, and into a disordered bedroom.
He shut the door behind them, and Lily asked him at once, "What is going on?"
"I-I'm not supposed to say."
"Explain now, Peter! James said we're all in danger!"
Peter wrung his hands nervously, but Hermione spoke before he could.
"James said he would explain. I think we should wait for him," she suggested. She knew James would do a much better job than Peter.
"I can't believe he went back out there with that werewolf," Lily said, looking terribly worried. "What if he gets hurt? What if—?"
"He'll be all right, Lily. He'll be fine."
"You don't know that, Jean! We should go back and help him!"
"The best thing we can do is stay here," Hermione told her, sounding much calmer than she felt. "We'd only be putting James in more danger if we go back because the werewolf is attracted to our scent. I think James knows what he's doing and we need to trust his judgment. We should stay put and wait for him here."
Lily reluctantly agreed, and she, Hermione, and Peter waited in the gloomy room in anxious silence for James to arrive. They paced around, all of them too worked up to sit or keep still. Hermione's gaze kept being drawn to the slashes in the curtains, the shredded pillows and bedsheets, the broken pieces of furniture — that was all Remus's doing. She had seen only a short while ago how extremely dangerous he was as a werewolf, how violent he could be. He had tried to attack her. He had come so close…
After what seemed like an eternity, there was a knock on the door and the three occupants of the room jumped.
"It's me," James called.
Lily yanked the door open and wrapped her arms around her boyfriend. In a shaky whisper, she said, "You're all right."
"So are you," he said, hugging her tightly.
"What about Remus and Sirius?" Hermione asked after the couple released each other. "How are they?"
"They're fine," James assured her. "Sirius is a little hurt, but he'll be okay."
"Where are they? Did they make it to the castle? What in Merlin's name were you all doing out there in the middle of the night anyway?" Lily fired at James.
"I could ask you the same thing," he retorted.
"I wanted to know what you were up to. I saw when you left the castle," she said, pulling out the Marauder's Map from her coat pocket. "You told me you were going to be studying late tonight, but you lied."
"I… I lied, yes," James admitted, glancing down at the map he and his friends had created.
"Were you meeting up with another girl? Were you sneaking out to—?"
"No, Merlin's beard no, Lily! I wouldn't do that! How could you think—?"
"What were you doing, then? And I want the truth, James!"
James exchanged an uneasy look with Peter, then turned back to the stern and expectant Lily. After a long hesitation, he said to her and Hermione, "I think you two should sit down."
The girls took a seat on the four-poster bed while James and Peter shared another look between them. Then, like the rest of them had done earlier, James began to pace around the room. The others watched: Peter staring at his friend with a strange mixture of apprehension and anticipation; Hermione wondering if he was truly about to reveal everything or was quickly concocting some cover up story instead; Lily frowning at him with impatience.
"Well, James?" the redhead prompted.
James quit pacing and faced the girls. He studied them in turn, looking each of them squarely in the eye.
"You both have to swear to me that you won't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you," he said. "Not even Marcia and Kirsten. Do you swear it?"
Hermione and Lily exchanged glances, then answered in unison, "Yes."
"Okay," James said, running a hand through his untidy hair. "I guess — I guess I should start by telling you that the big, black dog you saw earlier — that was Sirius."
Lily regarded her boyfriend skeptically. "Sirius is a dog?"
"He's an Animagus," James explained. "Peter and I are as well."
"Are you serious?" Lily asked, looking in astonishment between the two Marauders in the room.
James nodded. "We became Animagi in fifth year. I turn into a stag and Peter turns into a rat. But nobody knows about this. You see, we're unregistered—"
"That's illegal!" Lily said.
"I know, but we didn't think it necessary to register ourselves just yet."
"Of course not! Why register yourself when you could run around doing whatever you like without getting caught? Is that why you decided to become Animagi? Just so you can sneak around like you were doing tonight?"
"No, we — we did it for Remus."
"Is he an Animagus too?" Hermione asked, feigning ignorance.
"No. Remus is..." James hesitated, looking apprehensively between the two girls, but mostly at Hermione. "He's… well… he's a werewolf."
Lily gasped, her hand shooting to her mouth. Hermione did her best to appear shocked as well.
"He's the werewolf you saw tonight," James added.
"Merlin's beard," Lily whispered, looking faint. "Severus was right."
"Severus was forbidden to tell anyone about Remus," James said with a sudden edge in his voice. "Dumbledore made him swear to keep it secret."
"So — so Dumbledore knows?" Lily asked.
"Yes. He had the Whomping Willow planted at Hogwarts and this house here, the Shrieking Shack, built in Hogsmeade especially for Remus, in order to keep everyone safe while he attended school. Every month, on the evening of the full moon, Madam Pomfrey walks Remus to the Whomping Willow and sends him here to transform. He's locked in this house while he's a werewolf, safely out of the way of any humans. And without any humans around to attack, he gets restless and attacks himself."
"The haunting of the Shrieking Shack… the screams and howls… they're his?" Lily asked, her hand still covering her mouth. James nodded. "That — that's awful."
"That's what we thought," James told her. "It's awful for Remus to have to go through that, to suffer like that, all alone when it isn't even his fault he's a werewolf. So Sirius, Peter, and I decided to do something to help him with his transformations. We came up with the idea of becoming Animagi. That way we could accompany Remus on the night of the full moon without him being a danger to us. Werewolves are only a danger to humans. We're safe from being infected while we're in our animal forms."
"Wait a minute," Lily said, her brow furrowing. "If Remus is supposed to be locked up in the Shrieking Shack, why was he running free on the school grounds tonight?"
"We like to go out sometimes," James admitted guiltily. "We explore the Forbidden Forest or go to Hogsmeade—"
"But that's really dangerous," Hermione said, echoing her reaction to learning this in her third year. "What if Remus were to give you the slip and attack somebody?"
"Like he nearly attacked us tonight," Lily added.
"Well, usually no one else is out this time of night," James explained. "And when Remus is around us during the full moon, he's not as violent or aggressive. He seems to be able to keep his mind better when we're around rather than completely losing himself to the werewolf when he's alone. We didn't think anyone was in real danger whenever we left the Shrieking Shack with him. But I realize now that was completely reckless of us. When I saw him going after you… I've never been more afraid in my life."
"Where are Remus and Sirius now?" Hermione asked.
"Once we got Remus away from your scent, he calmed down a bit and we were able to get him to go into the Forbidden Forest. Sirius is going to try to keep him there for the rest of the night, but they'll have to come back here before dawn."
"So we can go back to the castle now?"
James shook his head. "I think it's safer if we stay here tonight. We'll wait until Remus transforms back to himself at dawn and then we can go. You two can sleep in here. Peter and I will be in the hallway, taking turns keeping watch. Just in case."
They said their goodnights and Peter and James left the room, shutting the door behind them. Lily looked at Hermione, her eyes still registering her astonishment over everything she'd learned tonight.
"I can't believe Remus… I mean, I've known him for years, and now I find out… Oh, I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight…"
Hermione didn't think she'd be able to either. She laid awake, thinking about Remus, for what felt like hours until she finally drifted off to a troubled sleep, her dreams haunted by bared fangs, hungry eyes, and terrible screams…
Hermione awoke with a start. Was that scream she'd just heard only a dream? Or had it been real? Where was Remus? Had he returned to the Shrieking Shack and transformed back to himself? Was it already dawn? It was difficult to tell in this place. The windows were all boarded up, keeping the light outside from penetrating the rooms. Hermione listened. A creak sounded from somewhere in the house below — there was movement downstairs.
Carefully, quietly, and with the light from her wand illuminating her way, Hermione tiptoed past the sleeping figures of Lily curled up in the bedroom, and James and Peter slumped over in the hallway, and made her way down to the main room of the house. She paused just upon entering it.
On the floor on the far side of the room, a patched blanket draped over the lower half of his body, Remus lay in his human form, his eyes closed in apparent sleep. Hermione examined his face and his bare chest. The deathly paleness of his complexion stood in stark contrast to the darkness of the blood covering his neck and shoulder. Along with those fresh injuries from his fight with Sirius earlier, she could see there were also older wounds marking him. These were cursed scars, she knew. They would never fade away…
The floorboards creaked beneath her feet as Hermione started towards him. Remus opened his eyes. For a moment they were tired and blank, but they quickly focused on her and went wide. He sat bolt upright and scrambled backward, away from her, clutching his blanket in place around his waist, staring at her in utter panic.
"Jean, what are you—? You need to go! You shouldn't be here—"
"It's all right, Remus. It's—"
"No, Jean, you don't understand — I'm dangerous! You need to leave! I'm a— I'm—"
"I know, Remus. But it's morning now. It's okay."
Her words did not soothe him. He stared at her in stricken silence, his wide eyes following her as she moved forward and knelt down before him.
"You're hurt," she said, glancing down at his shoulder. She reached out her hand, but he flinched away from her, shrinking back against the wall.
"Jean."
Hermione turned around. Sirius stood at the other end of the room, watching them with a sober expression.
"We need to go upstairs," he told her quietly. "Madam Pomfrey will be here any minute. She can't know we're here."
Hermione nodded and turned back to Remus. He avoided her eyes now, lowering his gaze to the floor where his clothes lay in a pile beside him. He reached for them, wincing slightly from the pain in his wounded arm, but she sensed he was suffering from more than just the physical distress he'd endured last night. She wanted to say something, anything to make him feel better, but nothing came to mind. Instead, she got to her feet and followed Sirius upstairs.