The all settled around one of the tables, huddled close together. James wasn't entirely sure how soundproof the room was, and he did not want to take any risks with catching the attention of a teacher or, even worse, Filch and his infernal cat. He motioned to the others the need to be careful before pulling two slips of parchment from his robes and displayed them for the others to see.
Sirius glanced at the first one, which was actually quite long. "What is this?" The writing was miniscule, and all of it seemed to consist of rules and regulations. "What —?"
"We'll look at all of that later. For now, though, I'm more interested in the chart in the middle." Sirius hoisted the parchment up so the three of them could look at it. James leaned in and tilted his head to see it better as Peter wriggled closer. "This is a list of all the people who have become Animagi, at least, legally. And this," James held up the second sheet of parchment, "Is a signed note for the Restricted Section of the library."
"The Restricted Sections?" asked Sirius sharply as Peter's watery eyes widened. "But which —"
"I don't know yet. That's why the 'title' portion has been left blank," James replied, thinking Lily privately. "It is also the reason I got a copy of this list."
"You mean…" pondered Peter slowly.
"Well, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of books of books in the Restricted Section. We don't have any idea about what even one of them contains, and there's bound to be at least one that would be useful. And obviously it couldn't be part of the regular library, because then the school would be a zoo. Or, at least, more of a zoo than it already is," James added hastily, grinning. "So…these people had to have some way of learning to become Animagi, and since I'm pretty sure that there's not really a class that teaches witches and wizard to turn into animals, it might be helpful to see what they did do, and what process they went through."
Peter interrupted. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
James and Sirius stared back, James hazel eyes and Sirius' gray ones boring into Peter's like drills.
"Why?" snarled Sirius. "Or maybe a better question would be, why not?"
"Well," Peter replied reasonably, "we'd be breaking a lot of rules…unless we're doing it legally?"
James snorted. "Since when have we cared about rules? And of course we're doing it illegally, do you really think Dumbledore, or the Ministry of Magic, would allow for three teenage Animagi to run around Hogwarts? It's going to be an adventure. Plus, won't it be worth it to surprised Remus when we figure it all out?"
A grin lit up Peter's face, and he nodded, enraptured by a fantasy that he was no doubt turning over in his mind.
"Right. So, what do we need to do?" Sirius brought them back to Earth.
"I was thinking we could write to each of these people, asking them for advice, just to see what they did. It'll be anonymous, of course, but perhaps we can make up different names, for people that don't really exist."
"There are only seven people."
"Actually, there are only five. We can't right to Professor McGonagall, for obvious reasons, and this bloke just snuffed it a couple of months ago – he was the one from South America, who could transform into an iguana."
Peter sniggered unceremoniously. "So all we have to do is write to these people and make them tell us how it's done?"
"Well, that's the plan at this point. That is —"´he broke off, looking angrily into his companions' eyes, "— if you are both up to it?"
Sirius beamed. "Brilliant, mate."
Peter merely nodded, looking slightly concerned about the prospect of the challenge ahead of him, but his eyes were bright.
"Excellent. I brought a bunch of parchment…"
The five letters were sent the next morning before breakfast, but the three of them didn't expect replies for quite awhile. That didn't stop them from gazing hopefully at the ceiling of the Great Hall as the owls swooped down over all the tables every morning, though.
"Nope," said Sirius quietly after a week of waiting, watching the last bird flapping to the Slytherin table.
"Waiting for something?" Remus smiled wryly as he spread marmalade on a piece of toast.
"Yeah, my mum is supposed to send me some new parchment soon, no doubt accompanied by a Howler. 'Why didn't you buy some before term started, we were just in Diagon Alley! I'm sick of making unnecessary trips for you, your brother never pesters me with money-spending schemes,'" he imitated with a grimace. "As if we're poor and parchment value has just increased tenfold." Remus laughed as Sirius glowered at his family. "What? It's not my fault at Martha Briggerton accidentally hexed all my parchment to shreds in Charms last week." Which was true.
Nonetheless, James, Sirius, and Peter eagerly waited for the responses, though they were careful not to give Remus any reason to think they were up to something. James and Sirius spent time in the library, to Lily's immense shock, pretending to look up information for Potions essays or taking notes for Transfiguration, but really researching all they could on Animagi. It was not at all like them to actually do research before jumping into something new, since ethey were usually quite reckless with their behaviour, but Professor McGonagall had impressed upon them the dangers of self-Transfiguration when done incorrectly when she had made a slideshow of gruesome pictures for the class. After that rather nasty experience, they decided that it was better to do it the proper way – which would surely make Professor McGonagall pleased on one point, if she knew what they were doing.
It had been almost ten days since they had sent the letters to their recipients. Already being quite late, Remus and Peter had gone to bed and James and Sirius were left in the best seats near the flickering fire of the common room. It was empty except for a few fifth years in the corner, whose quills were scratching frantically over the parchment where they were undoubtedly scrambling to finish an essay. James and Sirius, however, were in the midst of preparing a horde of Dungbombs and Filibuster Fireworks they were planning to lob at Peeves as revenge after he had wrecked one of their plans to wreak havoc. They didn't think he'd meant to, because he'd never missed the opportunity to be the cause of chaos, but his lack of subtlety had caused their plot to be unraveled before they could carry it out, and he had landed the both of them in detention.
"Oi!" yelled Sirius, looking up from his bundle of fireworks, to which he had been attaching Dungbombs to the ends. A ruffled-looking snowy owl was perched outside the window, shifting from side to side uneasily in the howling wind. Hames opened the window and allowed the owl to clamber onto his unprotected arm, wincing as the talons stuck in his skin. As soon as he had closed the window, the bird fluttered off his wrist and dropped three letters onto the table before settling itself on the top of a scarlet armchair to groom its feather fervently. Sirius picked up the first of the three letters as James strode back across the room quickly, eagerly ripping open the second one.
"Well," said Sirius slowly, "this one is an explanation of the process this wizard went through, which is helpful but it doesn't give much detail and he didn't include a book. Handy outline that we could use, though."
James looked disappointed. "This witch wrote us a lecture about the dangers of transformation, the illegality of it all, and on top of that she was angry that we'd bothered to contact her at all. 'How do I know you're not a Death Eater, using these methods to kill even more people? I don't trust the fact that I would be giving out information that could lead to more destruction, at least not in these troubled times; I'm not a fool, you know.'" James looked aghast. "If I was a Death Eater, I think I'd be infuriated by her response and then I'd want to kill even more people. If she's not a fool, she might want to learn that nothing good can come out an argument with a Death Eater." He threw the letter into the fire.
The third one was a bit more helpful. It gave them a list of books, an outline of the process much like the first one, and a couple suggestions that, the wizard assured them, might make the entire ordeal easier or more successful.
James and Sirius set aside the Dungbombs and Filibuster Fireworks for another night, setting their minds to the task they had set for themselves. Carefully, the handwrote copies of the two letters, word for word, then marked them only with the initials of the original writers. They scrutinized the real copies for anything that might have been written in invisible ink or was hidden before throwing those into the fire to join the other. In the case that the letters were found, they did not want those who had so kindly given them help to be punished for their generosity in, as the second letter had stated, "these troubled times."
A fourth letter arrived two days Later during the morning breakfast, which Sirius hastily shoved in his robes with an exclamation of "Parchment!", but he needn't have because Remus was distracted by Peter, who had accidentally set a plate full of toast on fire. He tried in vain to put it out, but the flames hopelessly grew higher and higher until Remus snatched a pitcher of pumpkin juice and poured its contents over the now-blackened toast. That night Sirius carefully copied the new addition while Remus was in the library with James, looking for an ever-elusive answer for their potions homework. With so many students in the common room, he could not simply throw the letter into the fire, where others would still be able to read it until it was burned to ash. Instead, this one met a fate of being ripped to shreds by Sirius' wand, inspired by Martha Briggerton in Charms.
Peter, Sirius, and James had nearly given up on the fifth letter. Of course, Peter had been filled in on the first four – three, really, since one had been useless – and they spent time trying to track down the books that had been suggested to them. Sirius had obtained a catalogue from his younger brother, Regulus, who had been handed the free booklet when Sirius had gone to buy his books from Flourish and Blotts. They located two books already, and James bought them from the bookstore by mail-order. One book was in the library, but they decided not to check it out until they needed it. The last book – they were sure of it – was in the Restricted Section.
It was the last week before they would be let out for the Christmas holidays, and the morning had dawned cold and grey, the ceiling of the Great Hall displaying swollen clouds fit to burst, no doubt with the first heavy snow of the season. Remus, Sirius, and Peter were seated at the Gryffindor table while James was taking his own sweet time in the dormitories above them after waking half an hour late (despite Peter frequent prods). Lily Evans was halfway down the table, talking animatedly with one of her friends, her cascading dark red hair swishing as she laughed. She was not paying heed to the whistling noises Sirius was producing a few seats away, trying to catch her attention for his own amusement.
"Hey, Evans!" he finally hollered. "What about that Charms homework?"
She still didn't turn around. He whistled loudly.
"What do you want, Black?"
"How about the Charms homework?"
"It's not for you to copy, if that's what you're asking." She whirled back around and continued her conversation.
"What if I didn't – what?" he snarled at a tap on his shoulder.
"Snape," said Lupin quietly.
"What do I care about Snivellus?" Sirius moodily stabbed at his scrambled egg.
"Look at him."
Snape was glaring daggers at Sirius, his cold black eyes full of hatred and fury.
"Not my fault that he's sitting with that scum and I'm over here with people that don't have dung for brains," Sirius mumbled, though he glowered back defiantly.
James finally emerged from the crowd of students exiting the Great Hall before the start of class. As he reached the table, he suddenly leapt forward; Sirius, Peter, and Remus had been so intent on the staring war with Snape that they had not noticed a small owl perched on the table, hooting angrily. It bore a package wrapped in brown paper and what seemed to be a thick envelope. James removed the burden from the tiny owl and offered it some of Sirius' pumpkin juice.
"Nice of you to pay attention," James hissed in Peter's ear as retribution for his and Sirius' lack of attention. "Who died, anyway?"
"Snivellus," Peter squeaked, still gaping at Snape.
"That's excellent! I don't know why you three look so angry, shall we start planning a party for tonight?" He slipped the package and letter into his robes nonchalantly.
"Look at this, this is absolutely stunning." They were back in their workroom again, examining the contents of the package.
"Are we going to have to copy all of this?" Peter's eyes were wide.
"No. It doesn't matter whose handwriting this is, if it's found we're all in trouble."
The envelope, like the letter they had previously discarded, gave them a warning. However, once the warning had passed, the rest of the package and envelope were brimming with the details the others had lacked. Books, suggested tips, ideas, and exact instructions were only a few of the things this Animagus had sent.
"Blimey," breathed James, "no wonder it took them so much longer than the others. They actually put effort into this. I wasn't expecting to receive a novel in return."
"Nevermind that, think she would help with our Transfiguration homework if we asked?" Sirius inquired, not looking up from a piece of parchment explaining the first attempt at transformation.
"Only if you wanted to turn it in a month late," James retorted as Peter chuckled.
The three of them split up some of the work for the holidays since the rest of their classes had given them a break. None of them were staying at Hogwarts for break this year, even though Sirius enjoyed protesting loudly against returning to his mother's house. The three of them departed after the Hogwarts Express arrived at Platform 9 and ¾ at King's Cross Station, each bearing the promise that they would continue their work even during their holidays.
Author's Note: I'm sure you all are wondering why I restarted this one…I hadn't written for it in a long time, and suddenly these past two weeks I wanted to do nothing but write. And if you remember correctly, I started this story about two and a half years ago. Since then, my writing – hopefully – has gotten better. I was really pleased with this chapter that I'd finished, but when I looked back at the previous four I was desperately horrified because of the lack of research I had done and the plot schemes. Well, now I've combined the previous first four chapters into just two chapters because they were originally so short, and I've cut out parts and fixed or changed them. I didn't want to completely rewrite them, but hopefully they're a little bit better. I'm sorry for any confusion, but I think it will be better this way.