"Are you going to tell us or not?" Sirius said, lounging in a chair in the Gryffindor common room. Remus looked very uncomfortable about it.

"I think you guys already know…." He finally said, looking pale.

"Yeah…. So? Do you think we think less of you for it? Come on, man, just admit it to us… and we'll figure something out. Are you, or are you not... a werewolf?" James said leaning forward in his seat on the couch anxiously.

Remus winced at the word. It was completely silent for a moment or two, then Remus slowly nodded, his eyes shut tight, embarrassed.

"Wow." Peter said, shrinking away from Remus a bit. Sirius leaned over and smacked him upside the head.

"Cool." Sirius said, not showing any real sign of taking about such a serious matter. You would have thought they were discussing their next History of Magic final.

"What do you mean 'cool.'?" Remus said loudly. "This isn't cool! I'm a danger to everyone here! I shouldn't even be here. I've put you guys in danger just by telling you!"

"Well, actually, we figured it out on our own…." James muttered, smirking.

"Yeah, it wasn't really hard, man…. Seriously, you need to think of a better excuse then, 'I get ill…once every month… on a full moon….' It's not like we're going to guess that you're a vampire or whatever." Sirius said making James laugh.

Remus did not laugh. "Sure… it's funny for you guys…. You don't have to live with this. You don't have to be a freak. You don't have to have to lie to everyone you know just so they won't recoil at the mere thought of being near you."

"Hey." James said, making Remus look up. "No… you're right. We don't, but that doesn't mean we're alright with you having to go through it alone. Maybe…. Maybe we could do something…."

"What do you mean?" Remus looking timid, but anxious to hear what they had to say.

"Maybe…" Sirius began, a smirk upon his lips, "We could join you…."

"NO! Absolutely not! I'm not going to bite-!" Remus stood, enraged.

"Calm down, Remus!" Sirius said, almost laughing at his anger. "We're not that stupid… that's not what I was saying. I've been thinking about it since James an dI had the hunch that you had a… what did you call it James?"

"Furry little problem."

"Yes, that. Well, ever since we had the idea… I was starting to think of what we could do to make it easier…." Sirius stood and walked in front of the fireplace now animated with his idea. He seemed to be more excited than necessary. He turned to face the three of them.

"Do you guys remember what we were talking about in History of Magic the other day?" he asked them and James laughed.

"Do you remember it?" he said disbelieving. "I swear I wasn't sure we'd be able to wake you up- you're face was practically glued to the desk!"

"Anyway…." Sirius said looking annoyed. "I did hear Binns talking about these wizards… he briefly mentioned that they could change into animals or something…. I forget what he called them…."

"Animagi." Remus said automatically.

"Thank you. Yes, them. Maybe we could figure out what they did… and we could… I don't know…. We could help you."

"YES!" James jumped up and stood by Sirius, both were now facing Remus. "We'll be protected that way! And we'll just keep you in line so you don't have to worry about hurting anyone! It's perfect! Sirius, I'm impressed!"

"Always the tone of surprise…." Sirius muttered, rolling his eyes.

Remus seemed to be considering it. It took a minute, but he slowly nodded and looked at the two boys standing before him, looking confident and excited.

"Alright… how do we do this?"

"You just leave that to us, Moony…."

"James, what about this one?" Lily said, snapping James out of his brief flashback. He didn't answer at first. He was mulling over the scene he'd just remembered. It was so vivid; he would have thought it happened just yesterday.

It had been a few weeks since James and Remus had told Sirius and Peter about their decision to discontinue the Marauders. Peter had been a bit sad about, but not terribly so. Sirius… well for lack of a better term, he'd been pissed. Neither Remus, nor James, had heard from him since he stormed off. True it was childish for Sirius to get so angry… but James understood. Now… it was just concern for where he was that bothered him and Remus.

Lily felt horribly for James feeling so down lately, but she had insisted that he come with her to go shopping. It was just for groceries and some new clothes for Harry; he'd been getting pretty big. Right now, she held up a blue stripped pair of footy pajamas.

James, who was holding Harry, propped the child up in his arms and looked over the outfit.

"I don't think it'll fit me…. But Harry might like it. What do you think buddy?" James smirked at his son.

Harry yawned and stretched, then put his tiny arms around his father's neck, sleepily.

Lily smiled and added the pajamas to the basket she was holding.

They paid for their items and left the store. It was warm outside as August started to take its toll and the sun beat down on the London streets. The small family of three continued walking through the crowd until Lily squealed and peered into a shop window.

"Oh lord…." James muttered to himself as he followed her to see what had caught her eye. It was a small little store crammed in between two larger buildings that looked like apartments. In the windows, just visible in small white crates were puppies. Without asking if James wanted to come in, Lily rushed inside.

"Oh James, I'm sorry, but they're just so cute!" Lily said as she scooped one up and cuddled it. James rolled his eyes, but he couldn't deny that she was adorable when she got this excited about something.

"Can we get one, honey? Please!" she said, making a pouty face.

"Yes, that's a brilliant idea…." He said sarcastically. "Lily, Sirius would murder me if we got a dog."

She nodded in agreement and replaced the whimpering puppy. She glanced over at the other crates in the shop, and saw kittens. Yet again, Lily squealed. She ran over and picked up a black one with yellow eyes.

"Seriously, Lils, do you honestly think that he'll be okay with a cat? He's a dog for lord's sake!"

"It's not his cat though…." Lily said, stroking it gently. James sighed, knowing there wasn't really a way out of this for him.

"Fine," he said, "but I get to pick it." He handed Harry to her after she put the kitten back down and he walked over to the crate to look at them. There were several that were just sleeping, cuddled next to each other to keep warm. Some were mewing and reaching up for someone to hold them. Then there were three that were wrestling with each other. One particular cat caught his attention.

It was orange and it had piercing green eyes. It looked just like Lily….

Then the cat started to chase its tail, as though it thought it was dog. James laughed out loud and scooped the cat into his arms, where it pawed at his face, making his glasses askew. Oh yes…. This cat would do just fine.

"James! Remus is at the door!" Lily called down the hall as she let Remus in. James walked into the entrance to meet Remus there. He was carrying the little orange cat, or at least it was crawling all over him. It simply couldn't sit still.

"Hey, Moony. Um… we got a cat" He said pointing to the fur ball now trying to settle itself on his head. However, Remus didn't look interested. In fact, he looked pale and scared.

"What's wrong?" James demanded.

"James…. It's…. It's Sirius. I found out where he is…."

"Well, where? Is he alright?"

Remus solemnly shook his head. "James he's at St. Mungo's…. It isn't looking good."

Fear hit James like a punch in his stomach. His throat burned like he'd just swallowed fire whiskey. He pulled the cat off and placed it on the floor where it dashed off to the living room.

"Lily!" James shouted.

"What? What's wrong?"

"We have to go to Mungo's. It's Sirius. Something's happened. I don't know when we'll be back. You can come up later, I don't care, but we're going now. Remus, do you have the car with you?"

"Yes."

"Good, we'll take that then." James said all of this very quickly and grabbed his wand from the table by the front door. Lily looked stricken, but simply nodded. He knew she was terrified too. She'd probably meet them there as quickly as she could.

Remus explained what happened on the drive there. It was an accident. Sirius had been driving the bike a bit too fast. They hadn't been able to question him as to what really happened; Sirius hadn't come around yet. It happened late the night before. The doctors weren't sure but they had suspicions that alcohol was involved… and James had no doubt that that was the case.

He was silent the entire ride, only nodding every now and then at what Remus said. When they arrived at the hidden entrance of St. Mungo's, Remus looked over at James.

"I'm warning you… it doesn't look pretty. He's in bad shape."

James just nodded and they both rushed inside.

Remus had been right. As they walked into the room they'd been directed to by a healer at the front desk, it was hard to tell if they were really in the right room. Sirius was almost unrecognizable. But James knew it was him. He took a deep breath as he and Remus took seats on either side of the bed. James still said nothing; he wouldn't look at Sirius or make eye contact with Remus.

They were there for about three hours before Lily showed up carrying Harry. Her face glazed with worried tears as she saw Sirius laying there.

"Why'd you bring him?" James asked, not sure he wanted his son to see this, though he knew the boy probably wouldn't register any of what he saw.

"I couldn't find someone to watch him, a-and I didn't want to wait any longer to come up." She bit her lip to prevent herself crying.

"Where's Peter?" She asked after a minute.

"He said he'd come as soon as he could… but he had something to take care of first." Remus muttered staring at his hands.

"What could be more important-?"

"I don't know. He wouldn't say. He just said that it was important and he'd be here soon." Remus sighed and looked out the window.

All three of them jumped as a low groan came from Sirius. He opened his eyes only slightly, wincing at the bright effect the pure white room had in the lamp light.

"Would you like me to murder you now, or in five seconds?" James said coldly; he was obviously angry. Sirius looked over at him, moving only his eyes.

"Now would be nice." He muttered, smirking slightly.

"What happened?" both of them asked at the same time.

"I was kind of hoping you would remember." James said rolling his eyes.

"Can the badgering wait a bit, Prongs?" Sirius winced, closing his eyes tightly. It was obvious as he gained more conscious awareness as to where he was, the pain really set in.

"Sure…." James said, feeling guilty already. But he couldn't hold what he had to say in, "Are you really more of an idiot than I thought? You never cease to amaze me…. What the hell did you even do? You crashed your bike, Sirius. Were you drinking? If you were, Oh I swear, you are so dead."

"Whoa... is the bike ok?" Sirius asked, finally looking concerned.

"What the hell does it matter if the bloody bike it alright?" James shouted.

"James- shut up." Remus said, seeing Sirius's painful expression.

"I'm sorry, I just want to know what happened…." James said sarcastically. He stood and left the room. Lily went after him and Sirius looked over at Remus.

"Why does he always assume it's my fault that crap like this happens?" he asked.

"Because it always is…." Remus smirked at him.