Chapter 10
At precisely 1:45 am I climbed silently out of my bed, slipped on my robe and ballet flats and snuck out of the room. I looked down at the common rooms from the rail at the top of the stairs. It was empty; the only noise was the crackling of the fireplace. I crept down the stairs and made my way towards to entrance hole and was just three steps from it when a voice called out to me from behind making me jump and turn around in surprise.
"Lily."
"Who's there?" I asked.
"Just me." James Potter leaned his head out from behind a winged arm chair and smiled at me. "Where are you headed in the middle of the night?"
"The Astronomy Tower."
"Lily Evans? Out of bounds? In the middle of the night? And in her pajamas no less. Why I'll be damned."
"Very funny Potter. I assume you knew about this 'meeting' I have with Remus tonight?"
"Yup, and I'm your escort. Now if you'll be kind enough to step underneath this cloak, we'll be on our way." James stood up and held out a silky silver piece of fabric that seemed to shimmer in the light.
"An invisibility cloak! Where did you get one of these? These are very rare!" I rushed forward and grasped the silky material, turning it this way and that in my eagerness to examine it.
"I'll tell you later. We're going to be late if you don't hurry up and get under it. I promise you can play with the new toy later." He rolled his eyes at me. Well, he had shifted underneath the cloak, so I didn't see him roll his eyes; I could just feel it in his voice though. He verbally rolled his eyes. Is that even possible? Who knows?
I lifted the cloak over my head and scooted over next to James. We walked out of the common room and headed in the direction of the Astronomy Tower.
"So, come here often?" James said trying to make conversation.
"Where did you get this cloak?" I asked.
"My father gave it to me just before he…"
"Just before he what?"
"Just before he died. He was murdered actually, Voldemort and his lot." James grew silent.
"Oh… I'm sorry, I didn't know."
"It's okay. My mother works for the Daily Prophet. She had enough sway there at the time to keep it out of the papers. Few people really know about it, just friends and family really."
"When did he…?"
"This past summer, at the end of June, just after I got home for the summer holiday. I was at Remus's house for, you know, the change, and mum was working late digging up a story. It was bound to happen sometime, da's always been good at making enemies."
"He was an Auror, right?"
"Yeah. He was bloody good at his job too. Probably it was that that got him killed. Probably he was too good at his job and Voldemort didn't like that."
"I'm so sorry…"
"Don't be. My father always said we shouldn't feel sorry for the dead or the ones they leave behind, we should feel sorry for the dumb bastard that kills them. When my grandfather died a few years ago, da told me that death is just another part of life. He said that you should live your life to it's fullest, take chances, and that way, when you die, you know you've lived your life well and you know that your loved ones know that as well, so you have no regrets."
"That was very wise of him."
"He had his moments. After the funeral, at the wake, Dumbledore asked to talk to me in private. He told me "To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." Then he told me that my father was, if nothing else a very organized and courageous man."
"He's a very interesting man, Dumbledore. Wise, intelligent, eccentric, and, above all else, he is kind."
"Yes, yes he is." James nodded "Here we are." We turned a corner and I realized we were already at the door at foot of the stairs that lead to the top of the Astronomy Tower. James knocked three times on the door and I heard a lock click just before the door opened and Sirius stepped through.
"Hello, mate, Lily." Sirius nodded to each of us in turn. "Lily, Remus is up top." James pulled the invisibility cloak off of us and stuffed it into his pocket.
"Where's Peter?"
"He's up there with Remus."
"Go on up Lily, Moony told us to stay down here and wait until he called us up."
"Okay." I nodded to Sirius and James, then turned and walked up the stairs, passing Peter halfway up on his way down. When I reached the top I took a deep breath and opened the door leading outside to the roof.
I opened the door and stepped into the mild night air. "Remus?" I asked the dark space in front of me.
"Over here." Remus said from my right near the edge of the wall.
I walked to the sound of his voice. "It's awfully dark out here tonight." I said, leaning against the parapet.
"It gets that way at night when it's over caste."
"Or when there's no moon." I could see Remus's head bow and his shoulders slump in the dark. "You want to tell me what this meeting is about before I start jumping to conclusions?"
Remus sighed and scratched the back of his head. "I suppose I should explain myself." He stood up from the parapet and looked around. "Um, let's sit over here; there are a couple of chairs I think in this corner." We walked over to the corner of the tower he had gestured to finding two lawn chairs and sitting in them. Remus scooted his chair around so he was facing me and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "First off, as you have probably guessed, I'm a werewolf."
"Yeah, it kind of clicked on the train." I said quietly looking down at my hands.
"Well, it happened when I was a little kid, about 7 years old. I was out camping with my uncle and cousins. It was the middle of the night and I walked out into the woods a bit to go to the restroom. While I was gone, Fenrir Greyback came upon the camp. Do you know who that is?"
"He's that, um, werewolf that's working with Voldemort, right?"
"Yeah, and he's giving werewolves a bad name, has been since the day he was bitten I presume. He's blood thirsty and vengeful and he actually enjoys the pain and suffering he causes." Remus had worked himself into an angry tone. He paused a moment, calming himself down, then continued. "Well, Greyback came upon our camp and killed my Uncle and two cousins while I was in the woods. I didn't even know anything was happening until I heard the screams. My older cousin was killed first, while he was sleeping Fenrir ripped his throat out. My younger cousin had been sharing a tent with me and I guess she heard her brother's tent rustling and went to see what was going on. Her scream was what warned me of the attack. As soon as I heard her I ran towards our campsite. I got there just in time to see my uncle get tackled by the beast, his wand in his hand. I was so scared I couldn't even scream properly, I just let out strangled little squeak, but he heard me. He came for me then; I fell over backwards and crawled back until my back was up against a tree trunk. He was just about to tear into to me as well when I heard voices yelling in the distance. They weren't the voices of the two men he had with him, they were going through the tents taking any valuables I guess. Greyback looked up and listened, then growled and turned back to me, he seemed to almost leer at me in pleasure, then he bit me. He bit me right here, on the shoulder." Remus sat up for the first time and slid the shoulder of his pajamas down his arm exposing a thin, jagged curve of flesh lighter than the rest. It was a gruesome scar, made worse by the knowledge of the events leading up to it. "It was bigger once, it's healed a lot since I started school here."
I looked at Remus, tears coming to my eyes. I wanted to tell him it would be all right, that everything would be fine. I wanted to hold him in my arms like you would a frightened little boy. The look on his face while he had described the attack on his family and himself had been that of a scared little boy. Rightfully so considering what he had been through. "Remus, I…" I choked back a sob and could think of nothing else to do but what I did then. I stood up and engulfed Remus in a huge hug. He seemed overly surprised by this reaction.
"Um… Lily?" Remus said nervously.
I sat back down in my chair. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's just so sad… and when you were telling me you just looked so, so… vulnerable and frightened… you just looked like you could use a hug…" I tapered off.
"Well, the men I had heard were Aurors. They came through the clearing and carried me off to the hospital. I don't remember much after that until I went home. Since then until I came to school here I spent every full moon locked in a steel lined shed about a hundred yards from my house. I met James and Sirius at a dinner party a year before I came here and we became fast friends. We met Peter a little later. At the time I didn't think there was much hope of a werewolf getting into Hogwarts, so the three of them were going to be my, well, my life line to Hogwarts. They were going to learn all they could and then come back and teach it to me on the holidays and such.
"Then I met Dumbledore. A Great man, Dumbledore. He came to the house one day and asked to speak with me. He asked me if I really wanted to go to Hogwarts. And I told him I wanted it more than anything in the world. He got up and left then, handing my parents two envelopes on his way out. One was my acceptance letter, the other contained a list of instructions and precautions we would be taking while I was at school." Remus smiled slightly "I was so excited I grabbed the letter and ran straight to the fireplace and flooed to James's house to tell him. Anyways, that's how it happened and how I ended up here."
"It explains you nickname as well, though the other's nick names don't make much sense."
"They should in a moment. I need you to promise me Lily, swear to me that you won't tell anyone what I am? Not even your friends, our friends?"
"Remus, I'm sure they would understand, honestly…"
"Lily, right now Fenrir Greyback is working with this Voldemort character and helping him attack people, muggles and wizards alike. Right now, werewolves are among the most feared and distrusted creatures on the planet."
"Okay, fine, I swear I won't tell them, but" I looked Remus straight in the eyes "If they figure it out on their own, if they figure out that something is going on and that I know what it is, I'm coming straight to you. Then you will be the one to tell them why I've been lying to them, okay?"
"Fair enough." Remus and I shook hands, and then he stood up and walked to the door to the stairs and called down to the guys to come up.
I stood up as well and crossed my arms over my chest. James, Sirius and Peter walked through the door and stood next to Remus. "Did you tell her?" James asked cautiously.
"She already knew what I was, figured it out on the train. That's what I get, I suppose, for making friends with the smartest girl in our class."
"Well, I don't know about smartest in our class…" I said blushing. I hoped no one could see the brilliant shade of pink my cheeks had surely turned. Maybe I was lucky and the darkness was hiding it.
"So, did you tell her about, well, the other thing?" Sirius asked Remus.
"No, but I think we should tell her. It's only fair that she know, now that she knows about me. Otherwise she might pull the same stunt you idiots did in first year."
"What? We didn't know any better. We just wanted to know why our best mate kept wandering off into the woods with the nurse once a month."
"Wait, you guys found out by following him?"
"Yeah, not one of our brightest moments…" James said embarrassed.
"So what's the other big secret you all are keeping? Remus said it has something to do with your nick names…"
"Perhaps it's best if we show you." Remus acquired a completely different attitude, that of a ring leader introducing the main act. "Lily Evans, may I present to you, Padfoot," one minute Sirius was a man, then he was a big black shaggy dog "Wormtail," Peter shrank into a little brown rat "And Prongs." James grew into a big beautiful black stag.
I just stood there, staring at them, each in turn, first Peter on the end as a rat, then Sirius in the middle as a big fluffy dog. Finally James at the other end in the form of a giant deer with big pointy antlers. My eyes grew to the size of tea saucers and my jaw dropped. "You're animagi!" I exclaimed.
Dog Sirius, or Padfoot, barked happily and pounced on me, forcing me to fall to the ground, and then proceeded to lick my face, getting slobber all over me. Prongs came over and pushed Padfoot off of me with his antlers, then gave me an elegant bow, before standing back up. They all transformed back into people and smiled at me.
"You're not going to tell anyone, right?" Remus asked.
"I gave you my word. I don't break my promises, but you better uphold your end of the deal, Remus. Becca and Rebby may be a little weird sometimes, and they may act dumb, but they're pretty fast to catch on to things like this. Mikki you don't have to worry about as much, she might not notice if you hide it well enough. And I don't know very much about Rachel, but if you're going to date her, I suggest you tell her at some point. I'm not going to take the fall with my friends if you dolts can't keep a secret properly."
"Yes, mother, I think we'll be just fine. We have been keeping this secret from you for the last five years, now haven't we?" Sirius said.
"You know what, I'm just trying to help, okay? So shove off and get out of my face."
"Oh, tough girl."
"And now you're going to mock me? That's very mature."
"Okay guys, break it up. I never thought I'd say this, but stop arguing, that's my job." James intervened.
"Fine." I huffed crossing my arms and pursing my lips.
"Whatever." Sirius glared at me.
"I talked to the girls. First meeting is tomorrow. Meet us in the commons at 5 o'clock." I pushed past Sirius, all attitude, and turned back as I opened the door. "And you may want to bring that cloak of yours James, as well as the map, it could be handy." I turned my back to them and walked back to the commons. Who needs an escort to get back undetected? Not me. No sir-e… which, of course, is why I almost ended up with a detention when I bumped into a seventh year Ravenclaw prefect. Good news is I got out of it because I knew the girl pretty well and said I had gone to see Madame Pomfry for a head ache and forgotten to get a note.
When I finally made it back to my dorm, I stumbled in half asleep and flopped on my bed, my brain barely registering the fact that my alarm clock said it was 5:37 am, and that in another four hours, I had to wake up and take my friends to their surprise.
Oops.
When I woke up the next morning it was to the sound of Becca asking rather loudly "Wait, what happened to Windara and Reija?" I sat up and looked at the two beds empty beds in our dorm room. That was odd.
"Where are they? Did anyone see them on the train?" I asked. Windara and Reija are the other two girls in our dorm. We have a large group for some reason, seven girls instead of the usual four or five. I hadn't seen either of them on the train or at the feast, but I hadn't even noticed, most likely because our group was so big to begin with. I could excuse myself for not noticing that Reija wasn't here, she was friends with Rachel more than us, but Windara is one of my best friends. How could I have forgotten? Apparently no one else had noticed either. "Okay, this can't be good. Let's split up, Rachel and Mikki, you check the other dorms, just in case our dear friends went to the wrong ones." I rolled my eyes, this was something they would definitely do. "Then go check the great hall. Rebby, Becca, lets go see if we can't find Professor Dumbledore or McGonagall. Maybe they know where the two of them are." We all finished getting dressed then split up to search for the two girls.
"Okay, from now on they are code named the 'little lost lambs'. Got it?" Becca said as we walked towards McGonagall's office.
"Why not the 'little lost puppies'? Or the 'little lost llamas'?" Rebby asked.
"The 'little lost llamas'? What the heck?" I asked giving Rebby my 'your talking crazy' look.
"What? I like llamas…"
I rolled my eyes at her. "Here's McGonagall's office." We stopped in front of the door to her office and I knocked loudly on the door, knowing her office to be rather large.
"Come in." we heard a voice from inside call.
We opened the door and walked up to Professor McGonagall's desk, where the nice, but strict, teacher was shuffling through some papers. Upon closer inspection the papers turned out to be class schedules.
"May I help you ladies?"
"Yes, we were wandering if you knew where Windara Windstorm and Reija Filatov? We didn't see them last night and they weren't in their beds when we woke up."
"They weren't? Have you checked the other dorms? Perhaps they got confused?"
"We're having out other friend check them Professor, as well as the Great Hall, but we were wondering if you could take us to see Professor Dumbledore, he always seems to know the answer to questions like this."
"Well, yes I suppose I should take you to see Albus, he needs to be informed if some of his students are missing."
"Thank you Professor." We followed Professor McGonagall out of her office and towards Dumbledore's office. Eventually we reached a statue of a stone gargoyle which jumped aside when McGonagall gave it the password 'snicker doodle'. We all hopped onto the spiral staircase, except Professor McGonagall whose hop was more of a big graceful step. When the stairs reached the top, McGonagall reached out to knock on Dumbledore's office door, but was beaten to the punch by Dumbledore's voice calling from inside "Come in Minerva."
"I hate when he does that." I heard McGonagall mutter under her breath.
We walked into the office and Dumbledore gestured for us to sit down. "Now surely these fine young ladies haven't already broken the rules Minerva." Dumbledore smiled at us, a twinkle in his eye.
"No, Albus, they came to me about their friends, Miss Windstorm and Miss Filatov, the two apparently have not yet arrived."
"Well, now, that is a problem, but one for which I have the answer. Your friends will be arriving any minute now. They were delayed by unforeseeable circumstances which I believe they would rather explain to you themselves. Now, why don't you three go down to the Great Hall and have yourselves some breakfast? I think I shall accompany you. Minerva? Are you going to join us as well?"
"Yes, Albus, I think I shall, the class schedules can wait an hour to e sorted."
We all headed down to the Great Hall for some breakfast. People kept stopping and staring at us like we were gods or something because we were walking around with the Headmaster and the Deputy Headmistress. When we reached the Great Hall we were greeted by two people tackling the three of us, Rebby, Becca and I, not the Professors, to the ground.
"BECCA! REBBY! LILY!" the two girls yelled. I still have no clue why tackling people became our usual greeting. To this day I do not know how it came about.
"Win! Reij! There you two are! We thought you'd gotten kidnapped or something. We even went and talked to Dumbledore, er, sorry sir, Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall about where you were." Becca said.
"Yeah, we'll explain that later. Right now let's get some food, I'm starving!" Win exclaimed, walking over to the Gryffindor table where they had been getting ready to sit with Mikki, Rachel and the Marauders. "By the way, since when do we sit with these blokes? I thought we hated them because they were egotistical morons who treated girls like objects and dirt?"
"Well, yes, but that was before Lily made Becca and I trip down the stairs and land on top of them at Diagon Alley, then some how managed to save James's life by giving him CPR. Then we all got drunk and James and Lily played a joke on the rest of us, including Rachel, who we ran into in Diagon Alley and is now dating Remus, and Mikki, who turned up just after the CPR bit. Then Sirius got taken down by Becca, which somehow led to the two of them making out and ending up dating. Then we all came here, which involved all of us piling into one carriage, why I don't know, and, well, here we are." Rebby said all in one breathe. We stared at her. "What?"
"So, where were you two?" I asked.
"Um, later, okay? Not a conversation for the middle of the Great Hall during breakfast." Win said out of the corner of her mouth to me.
"First meeting is tonight, you can tell us then." I whispered back.
"Okay."
We finished breakfast and went down to sit by the lake for a while. Our group's numbers had increased from nine to twelve to include Win, Rei, and William, Win's twin brother and the fifth boy in the Marauder's dorm.