A/N: The title of this chapter is French, gorgeous, and can be literally translated as, "I would take down the moon". As an idiomatic expression, it means, "I would do the impossible (for you)", and is a lyric from Edith Piaf's song, "Hymne a L'Amour." Do yourself a favour and listen to the magic that is that song - Dumbledore would be proud.

Enjoy the chapter!

FOURTH YEAR

The crowd gasped as one.

The bludger had unexpectedly found purchase in Dumbledore's favourite hat, and Sirius Black looked abashed from his aerial position, bat swinging loosely from his hand. Professor McGonagall looked ready to cry – though whether from despair or laughter, nobody knew.

"New strategy?" Peter pondered from beside Remus on the stands. "You have to admit, it's a worthy attempt at distraction."

Indeed, Remus had to admit that Peter was right. Despite the unbelievable faux pas Sirius had just committed, it was entirely possible that a particular enthusiastic and diabolic duo on the Gryffindor quidditch team had planned this attack. Remus sincerely hoped that the odds, on this occasion, were wrong.

The two boys watched Dumbledore with identical expressions of morbid fascination as the headmaster climbed slowly to his feet. His expression was impossible to read as his long body unfolded itself at the front of the Gryffindor stand. Finally, incredibly, and to Professor McGonagall's assured rage, Dumbledore removed his pointed hat, used his fist to push the stiff material back into its original shape, placed it on his head, and cheerily waved the game on, sitting immediately back down in his seat.

Mouth hanging open in disbelief, Remus watched the auburn-haired wizard clap for a few moments. As Peter tugged impatiently on his sleeve, he glanced back at the quidditch pitch and gaped as the commentary finally caught up with him.

"-GOT IT! Another brilliant win by Gryffindor! What a strategic game! Looks like Potter and Black have once more pulled one out of their hat, so to speak. Just look at the expression on McGonagall's face – ouch, sorry Professor-"

Remus turned to Peter in confusion. "What happened? I was watching Dumbledore."

"So were the Ravenclaws," Peter grinned, "and while the team was distracted, Bailey caught the snitch!"

"I'm surprised James didn't take the opportunity to score a few goals," Remus muttered, though an incredulous smile had broken onto his face.

"That wouldn't have been good sportsmanship, Moony," James' most haughty and indignant voice interrupted, prompting the two boys in the stands to glance up in surprise. Remus rolled his eyes at the bespectacled figure, who was hovering a few feet away from the stand, holding his broomstick steady with an air of smug triumph.

"And what exactly does Dumbledore think of this?" Remus asked, lacing his tone with heavy reproach.

"Oh, keep your hat on," Sirius declared with a smirk, arriving smartly beside James, his quidditch robes slapping his friend in the face as he stopped. "Dumbledore's a true supporter, Moony."

Remus just shook his head, and abandoned his half-hearted attempt to inject morality into the conversation. He was, of course, as excited about the first Gryffindor win of the season as the small blond boy bouncing beside him, but unlike Peter, restricted himself to cheering inwardly. There was only so much praise that he could bear to give to his trouble-making, self-satisfied friends.

"You are trouble-making, self-satisfied friends," he muttered darkly, prompting a round of laughter from the two boys on broomsticks, and a sharp prodding from Peter.

"Oi, you're one of us, you know," Sirius cried, zooming forward into the stand and hopping off his broom indignantly. "There are four magical mischief makers in this school, and frankly, mate, you're the dodgiest of the lot."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Bollocks."

"That's not what Dumbledore said when I explained that the bludger assault was your idea," Sirius responded gleefully, slapping James a swift high-five. "He seemed quite impressed at your involvement in the school sport, really."

Remus gasped, spun, and stared down into the crowd to the front of the stand, where Dumbledore was now joined by an irate Professor McGonagall. His stomach dropped as the headmaster suddenly turned and met his eye, giving a broad wink and tipping his slightly dented hat.

"You. Did. Not," Remus hissed, turning bright red and reeling back to where the others lay about crying with laughter.

"Sorry Moony," James whispered weakly, looking near paralysed with mirth as he held his stomach with hands grasped to his broomstick handle, lying upside down in the air. "We just thought it would cap off the victory."

"I mean, our pranks, they're old hat to the professors," Sirius uttered between gasps of laughter. "We wanted to bowl them over with a top act!"

"Do not pun with me, friends," Remus growled, grabbing Sirius' broomstick from its abandoned position on the floor and waving it threateningly in the faces of his three companions. "Someone is going to die for this."

"Let me put on my thinking cap," Peter added suddenly, unnecessarily, and gazed about for a minute as each of his three friends, Remus included, immediately collapsed in response to this statement.

"I think you needed to do that a while ago, Pete," Sirius managed finally, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Be nice," James said, frowning good-humouredly at Sirius, finally slipping off his broomstick and joining the others on the stand. "I believe that a party is waiting for the stars of the moment in the Gryffindor Tower."

"They're waiting for Dumbledore's hat and the bludger?" Remus asked wryly, ducking a swipe from Sirius, and jabbing his friend in response with the broomstick he still held firmly in his hand.

"Let not disgruntled sarcasm disrupt the joyous nature of this moment," Sirius declared pompously, ripping the broomstick from Remus' hand and tapping it on the shoulders of each of his friends. "I hereby knight us all as Hogwart's most esteemed and venerable Magical Mischief-Makers, the marauding four, the mythical and mystical lion-hearts, and seriously awesome quidditch players."

"The Marauders!" James cheered, raising his broomstick in the fashion of a champagne glass during a toast, and narrowly missing Professor McGonagall's face as she came to a stop behind the four boys. "Whoops, sorry, Professor."

McGonagall's lips tightened visibly as she glared at Sirius and James in turn, obviously thinking of the bludger incident. However, in the wake of a Gryffindor victory, it appeared that she had become strangely lenient, sentencing the two boys to only three hours of detention with Filch rather than the normal five, and instructing them all to return promptly to the tower for the celebrations.

Five full moons had illuminated the night sky since Remus had returned to school from the dull glimmer of the lakeside and entered his fourth year. He had had little expectation that this year would turn out to be much different from the last three. Granted, his three best friends were now aware of his "furry little problem", by which it was now regularly referred (to Remus' extreme discomfort). Granted, fewer pebbles had been kicked into the lake over summer as more letters had flown in by owl post than ever before.

Admittedly, there were significant details that had been altered in the last year, and the summer break had seemed to allow Remus' friends to properly come to terms with his secret. Tellingly, Peter no longer avoided Remus on the mornings of a full moon. The usual smiles, the usual humour, the teasing, the random acts of violence, the distinct lack of awkwardness between the four boys had reappeared in the Fourth Year dormitory in Gryffindor Tower.

Fourth Year had a conspicuously sunny edge that the three previous years had lacked, and it seemed to Remus like some of the cold pallor of the moon faded in response.

Certainly, Remus' lycanthropy was pulled into conversation regularly between the four boys. James and Sirius in particular had demanded minute details about the transformation process. More than one Hogsmeade trip had involved an uncomfortable visit to the Shrieking Shack, where three boys would stare avidly between the battered hut and their friend's deliberately averted gaze.

One piece of information that Remus almost regretted sharing with his friends was the location of the entrance to the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack. He knew, of course, that his friends possessed enough intelligence never to venture into the tunnel themselves, but it still bothered him that they had shown interest in such specifics.

Although the truth about the Whomping Willow's purpose had been revealed, Remus took comfort in knowing that even if his friends did lose their minds and attempt to enter the tunnel, they would be soundly impeded by the tree's battering branches. Nobody had asked how this little difficulty was overcome, and so Remus didn't even have to lie (badly) to cover his motives. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he told the others about the knot in the trunk of the tree, several broomsticks would be broken purely out of curiosity, and Remus did not want to face an irate Professor McGonagall demanding to know what had happened to school equipment.

As it so happened, the quidditch match which had taken place five months into the school year – that very afternoon – was engraved into James' calendar beside a significant date. Aside from the subtle marks indicating the night of the full moon each month, and the flashing ink circles surrounding the dates of quidditch matches, this calendar (the only one in the Fourth Year boys' dormitory) contained only six other dates: Christmas, Easter, and each of the boys' birthdays.

Tomorrow would be Remus' fourteenth birthday – the 9th of March. Although Remus himself did not hold any great stock by this celebration, appreciating the presents but not the attention, it was a well-known fact amongst the Gryffindors that violent festivities tended to occur on this occasion.

Each year, Remus made a futile attempt to terminate his friends' plans before they could come into fruition. Each year, he failed miserably. Although he groaned without fail at the balloons, the fireworks, the regular explosions of colour and food, and the often dangerous presents presented to him, Remus secretly appreciated his friends' efforts. Unfortunately, he could tell that the other three boys were well aware of this particular secret.

It had become an annual mission for Sirius, James, and Peter to turn Remus' face a deeper shade of red than ever before – and to this end they worked unfailingly. Hence, during the two weeks prior to his birthday, for the first time in a whole year, Remus found himself vaguely excited, rather than downcast, every time his friends went off on their own without him.

The next morning, as the sun peered over the edge of the horizon and tinged the dark sky with an orange glow, Remus was awakened (as was custom) by three bouncing boys ripping open the curtains on his four-poster bed.

"What?" he muttered sleepily into his pillow, too close to unconsciousness for the cause of this commotion to register.

"On the count of three," he heard someone whisper rather ominously from the end of his bed. Remus whimpered quietly, pulling his heavy blankets up around his ears, but it was too late.

"Surprise!" three voices yelled at the huddled form. Remus snatched at thin air as his covers flew away, protesting loudly as he was dragged from his bed and over to James'. He hugged his arms to his body as he was seated on the end of the cold bed, and glared balefully at his beaming friends.

"Hey, wake up," James urged, "we've got an enormous present for the birthday boy, and we've got to present it before class."

Remus rubbed at his eyes blearily and reluctantly abandoned all hopes of returning to bed. "I hate Mondays," he muttered. He barely noticed that his friends were perhaps a little quieter today than they normally were on his birthday. It was rather easy to ignore Sirius' nervous foot-tapping habit at seven o'clock in the morning.

"It's got something to do with your furry-" Peter began, but was promptly shushed by James.

"This must be handled delicately," James announced, waving his hands condescendingly at his short friend, but Remus caught him giving Peter a wink.

"What have you done?" Remus asked loudly, suddenly filled with dread. "If this is another prank in my honour, and all the teachers have dog tails…"

"Excellent idea, Moony," Sirius said, looking surprised and slightly gleeful at the thought, "but unfortunately, your present this year only involved the four of us."

As Remus wracked his brains for the logical answer to all these mystifying hints, he watched Sirius and James exchange a meaningful gaze.

"Tell him already," Sirius muttered impatiently. James nodded in surrender, and turned back to Remus, whose dread had become more akin to morbid curiosity.

"You remember that class we had in Transfiguration we had last year?" James asked, prompting a vague look on Remus' face, which perhaps informed the bespectacled boy that further clarification was required. "You know, the one on Animagi." He continued speaking without waiting for Remus' reaction. "Just suppose that the three of us have become sincerely interested with the process that McGonagall is currently undertaking…"

"No," Remus whispered, refusing to allow this proposition to register in his mind. Think uncrazy thoughts, think uncrazy thoughts…

"Well, yeah," Sirius intervened, throwing an uneasy glance towards James. "I mean, don't be daft, we haven't completely worked it out yet, but we've come quite a way – even Peter!"

Peter nodded emphatically. "I think I shrunk three feet last Wednesday, Moony, can you imagine that? Three whole feet!"

Remus, whose brain had suddenly been thrown into a whirring vortex of utter disbelief, dimly wondered why the shrinkage of a short boy would be met with such celebration. He looked wildly from an earnest Peter to a worried James to a gesticulating Sirius, who seemed to be saying something about how they had been extremely careful, and how they had decided that it was necessary to tell Remus – but only after some kind of result had been achieved.

"I mean, mate, we didn't want to raise some kind of unrealistic expectation," Sirius explained nervously. "But you know what it'll mean when the three of us are able to transform into animals at will? We'll be able to help you out during full moons."

As Remus choked slightly, James interrupted. "We've been doing research, Moony, extremely dedicated, in-depth research of which McGonagall would be proud, and several books have suggested that werewolves can experience less pain during transformations if distracted by other animals."

"And werewolves are only dangerous to humans, you know!" Sirius added with an air of desperation.

"But," Remus stuttered, "but Peter- Peter shrunk three feet…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," James said breezily, waving his hand dismissively in a completely unsettling manner, "Sirius and I seem to grow, if anything. I'm sure that our eventual animagi will be able to handle a werewolf."

Remus was extremely glad that he had been seated on the end of a bed. The idea of any of his friends being able to handle a werewolf was vaguely laughable. He couldn't even manage to turn his mind to the immense difficulty and danger inherent in the process of becoming animagi, or the illegality of his friends' attempt, or what Dumbledore would say if he had any idea of what was being planned…

"Well," he whispered dazedly, the world blurring slightly at the edges in a wild melange of shock and happiness, "I believe you've outdone yourselves this year."

James, Peter, and Sirius exchanged thrilled glances. Remus didn't even pause in his own shock to notice that the distinct air of apprehension that had been generated by his friends had now dissipated into relief.

"You know we'd do anything to help you, Moony," Sirius said earnestly, stepping closer to where Remus sat perched on the end of James' bed. "If we could blow up the moon with a handy set of Dr Filibuster's Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks, believe me, it would be gone."

Remus glanced away from Sirius' dark, impassioned gaze as his eyes brimmed with sudden tears at this rather ridiculous but incredibly heartfelt statement. He could sense the others shifting awkwardly at this display of emotion, and fought hard to control himself.

"Happy birthday, mate," James said finally, gesturing grandly towards Sirius, who pulled (with a characteristic flourish) a large pink cake from behind his back, flinching only slightly as Peter waved his wand to light the candles.

"Pink?" Remus asked distractedly.

"Yeah, those house-elves are in love with me, you know," Sirius sighed, raising his eyebrows irreverently as he roused the others into chorus.

"Happy birthday to you,

Snape's in need of shampoo;

We'll prank him tomorrow

As a present for you!"

Remus had to laugh at this latest attempt at poetry. He wiped at his eyes inconspicuously, overwhelmed, but trying to hide his emotion.

"Nice rhyme-scene," he remarked, shaking his head in mock admiration, "though I notice that you seem to have rhymed 'you' with 'you'."

James pretended to take great offence at this while Peter stared into the air, apparently reciting the lyrics of the song in his head in order to verify Remus' assertion. Sirius, however, shrugged and walked over to his rather blotchy friend, slinging an arm over his lean shoulders.

"You are of course the most important element in that song, Moony," he said lightly, "and besides, we couldn't think of anything that rhymed with 'Moony'. Except, of course, 'loony', and 'puny', and we didn't think that you'd appreciate those."

Remus chuckled quietly, still taken aback by the magnitude of what his friends had been doing behind his back for this past long year. He had been so wrong, this entire time. How could he have accused such loyal, wonderful, caring friends of needing werewolf-free time? Shame rose in his throat, choking him slightly, but it was a great happiness that settled across his chest, relaxing his muscles, bringing a slight, incredulous smile to his face, even as a few small tears trickled from his eyes.

He leaned his head against Sirius' shoulder and grinned weakly as James continued ranting about lyricism and tonal devices. This was, indeed, the best birthday ever.

A/N: You gotta love quidditch. I absolutely loved writing a broomstick scene, to tell you the truth.

Hope the time gap between chapters didn't put you off, but as I do not plan to write inch-by-inch details of the Marauders' Hogwarts years, I have planned my story with the hope of capturing particular crucial moments that affect the four boys. Frankly, I think the story will remain more interesting this way. Hope you agree!

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. Write down as many hat puns as you can think of. The author would be much amused to see if her weak efforts can be upstaged (God forbid I ever feel inclined to write a Sorting Hat song!)

2. What would your animagus be and why?

Thanks for reading, guys, now hit that review button and drop me some love!! Or merely constructive criticism. Just go for it. :)

xx Froody