Chapter 14
'Something about that girl is… familiar… She reminds me of someone… but whom?' This is what I was thinking as I watched Lily Evans walk back over to her friends. 'Who does she remind me of?' just as I thought this Becca started bouncing around like a psychotic cricket. 'There's something wrong with her. She has way too much energy.' I shook my head and looked up in time to see the retreating backs of the three laughing girls. Just before they turned the corner, Lily looked over her shoulder at me, confusion written on her face. She really was very wise for her age. Almost like… Dumbledore! That's who it is! She reminds me of Dumbledore, or at least, what I imagine he was like when he was younger, too smart for his own good. A lot like somebody else I know as well…
I turned and walked back down the corridor. The guys were waiting for me in our usual spot under the willow tree by the lake. I wonder if they think I should tell Rebby and Becca. I mean, Lily said they'd probably find out anyways if we kept hanging out with them all the time. The probability of this happening would be increased if we were to teach them how to become animagi. 'It's your choice, not theirs.' Her words rang in my head. She had a point, too.
When I first came to Hogwarts it was like going to a completely different world. Not because I hadn't been around magic; both my parents are pureblood, so I grew up around the magic, in the wizarding world. It was different because, for the first time, I had friends who I could lean on and depend on to help me. For the first time I had someone outside of my family I could trust. This trust was deepened when they learned my secret and became animagi just to try and help me. What was most important about their finding out was not that they tried to help, but that they treated me the same way they always had. They didn't try to pretend I wasn't a werewolf, and they didn't take pains to avoid the topic. They just treated it like any little quirk someone might have, like Peter's drooling in his sleep, or Sirius's strange bark-like laughter, or James's inability to make his hair lay flat and behave. I felt like one of the guys, I felt normal, and that was something I'd never felt before: normalcy.
I turned on last corner and popped out behind a tapestry next to the giant doors that lead outside. That's the great thing about exploring the castle after hours; you're forced to learn all of the sneaky little secret passages and doors in order to escape detection by the teachers and the prefects, so when you want to get somewhere normally it takes half the time. I headed directly for the tree, which was situated about five feet from the edge of the lake. Sirius was sitting on a low branch of the tree that hung out over the lake, resting his back against the tree trunk. James was sitting on the ground beneath the tree messing around with the snitch he had bought at Diagon Ally this summer. Peter was no where to be seen.
"Where's Peter gotten too?" I asked flopping down next to James at the base of the tree and lying back on the soft grass, my arms under my head.
"Dunno," said Sirius, scratching his stomach and yawning, "but he sure is missing out on some quality napping here. Its perfect weather out for it, not too hot, not too cold, nice and clear so the warmth from the sun can counter act the cool wind." Sirius yawned again, folding his hands together on his stomach and closing his eyes.
"I think he said something about homework." James said, grabbing the snitch out of the air and releasing it.
"Well that can't be right. He finished all of his homework with me last night." I was sitting up part of the way now, leaning my weight on my elbows. "He's been acting odd recently…"
"How's that?" James asked, catching the snitch and pausing to look at me with curiosity before releasing it again.
"I don't know. He's just never around anymore. Always off finishing homework he's already done or talking to someone about a project he doesn't have."
"Maybe Peter got himself a girlfriend and he doesn't want us to know about it." Sirius said. We all considered this for a moment. Then we all three burst into laughter.
"P-peter? With a s-secret g-girlfriend? Good one, Pad!" James managed to choke out between laughing and gasping for air.
"Even better, Peter with a secret LOVER." Sirius sat up and laughed harder, gripping his side.
"How do you come up with these things?" James asked, his laughter increasing.
"Oh you know, they just pop right into my head. POP!" Sirius made a strange hand motion to go with the word 'pop' and his bark like laughter increased, as did James's now silent laughter. I'm pretty sure James's laughter was silent because he couldn't breath. My first clue was the fact that his face was bright red. My laughter had increased as well; the image of Sirius going 'pop' and making that hand motion playing over and over in my head.
"Like 'POP', eh, Sirius?" I mimicked him.
"Hahahahaaaaaaaa!" Sirius's laughter turned into a scream as he fell from his tree branch and landed in the shallows of the lake.
When I finally managed to get control of myself I said "You know Sirius, I think you've been hanging out with Becca too much, you're picking up her character traits."
"Her character traits? Like what?" Sirius asked, flopping down on the ground and taking off his shirt. He proceeded to wring it out and hang it over the tree branch he had been sitting on earlier.
"Like her inability to last one conversation without saying something really… weird." I said.
"—and the way she talks with her hands." James added.
"—and her pension for falling off of things when she laughs."
"Okay, OKAY! I get the idea! Enough already! Yeesh…"
"Speaking of, what did Lily say?" James asked his eyes lighting up t the mere mention of her name. God, if he's not in love with her then he must be under a spell or something. Not altogether impossible considering where we go to school.
"She said she'd prefer that we tell Rebby and Becca."
"But can they keep it secret? How will they react? I mean, they're not exactly the responsible, reliable, secretive kind of girls are they? Heck, they run around the school talking at the top of their lungs half the time about personal stuff. I should know, I've seen Lily beat them over the head for it before." James said, looking thoughtful.
"True, but your Lily said they would keep it secret. Apparently when it counts they're trustworthy with a secret. That's her only issue with it really. She thinks they'll find out and she has no intention of putting her friendship on the line by keeping something like this from them."
"Well, I guess if she thinks it'll be alright…" James started.
"I don't like it." Sirius said "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love to tell them, it would make my life a lot easier, Becca's already pestering me ceaselessly about the nicknames and why we're always out really late at night, but I just don't know how they'll react. They might freak out and tell the whole school for all we know."
"They could…" I said, uncertain of what to do.
"Well, no matter what we think, this is your choice Remus, just make it a good one." James smiled encouragingly at me. 'That sounds really familiar…'
"Okay, well, if Lily thinks they can handle it, I think it will be okay to tell them. She might be biased as their friend, but her intuition is usually good on these kinds of things."
"How would you know this?" James asked, raising an eyebrow, a slightly jealous look on his face. He is way too easy to get riled up when it comes to Lily.
"I had her as a partner in potions all last year with Slughorn, remember? She would read the instructions and immediately know that they should be changed slightly this way or that to make the potion perfect; it was creepy sometimes… over heard a few of her conversations with Becca and Rebby that year too. Lily is apparently their in house clairvoyant."
"Clairvoyant?" Sirius asked.
"It means psychic, or mystic. Like a Seer, only her intuition is just really strong. That reminds me. James? Are you still having those weird dreams?"
"What dreams?"
"The reoccurring one's where you're drowning at the end."
"Oh, those dreams? Yeah, I still have them on occasion. They went away mostly this summer, but they came back again pretty strong when school started. They've been getting more and more frequent."
"Well, you might like to talk to Lily about them."
"Why is that?"
"Because she's getting them too, and I don't think it's a coincidence."
James's eyes widened in surprise while Sirius smirked at him and said "Nice Prongs, now you're invading her dreams too." Sirius began laughing while James glared at him and gave him a nice resounding smack on the back of the head.
"Not those dreams, stupid, the other ones."
"What other dreams?"
"The one's where I start out doing something normal like hanging out with you guys and end up in a strange room with a bunch of masked men before falling into a big lake or something and drowning."
"Oh… those recurring dreams…" Sirius adopted a thoughtful innocent look. "Wait, how are they both having the same dreams?"
"They aren't the same ones, they're different, but they follow much the same pattern. I get the feeling she was confiding in me, so you might want to ask her yourself what exactly happened. You know how touchy girls can get about this kind of thing." I said. Honestly, the number of times a girl has gotten mad at me because I told someone something they didn't make me swear a blood oath to keep secret… What? Stop giving me that look. I may be smart, but that doesn't mean girls make any more sense to me than they do to James and Sirius. Okay, well maybe more than them, but that's just because they're completely dense when it comes to a girls feelings.
James nodded his head at me solemnly. Those dreams freak him out as much as they do Lily, I've seen him experience them first hand; not fun. I have bad dreams too, but somehow, no matter how terrifying they are, I get the feeling that they're no where near as bad as the nightmares James and Lily are experiencing.
"What are you guys all serious about?"
"Huh? Someone say my name?" Sirius sat up and gave the four girls approaching us a questioning look.
"Not you, numbskull, the word 'serious' as in, not funny," Mikki rolled her eyes at Sirius, who had lain back on the soft grass again as soon as the words 'not you' had left her lips.
"We were just discussing dreams." I offered lightly, trying to lift the general mood. "What are you four up too?" I asked, walking up to Rach and giving her a peck on the cheek. Win and Reij made kiss-y faces behind my back, and I pretended to not notice.
"We're just out for a walk. We were looking for Lily, Becca and Rebby, but they're off somewhere getting into trouble no doubt." Rach rolled her eyes and walked over to the base of the tree with me and sat down.
"I saw them earlier; I think they were headed for the astronomy tower, something about a picnic and lots of sugar…" I shook my head.
"Sugar? Oh that's just what Becca needs, let me tell you. Rebby too, she needs all the sugar she can get." Win commented flopping down between myself and James.
"Glad to know your sarcasm is still in tact there Winny, I was starting to think maybe you'd forgotten how to be sarcastic." Mikki rolled her eyes and climbed into the tree where Sirius had been earlier.
"I'm going to laugh when you fall in." Reij took a seat somewhere in the middle, just out of the splash range of the lake.
"I won't fall in." Mikki said "Hey, I get a nice view of Sirius's abs up here." She said smiling down appreciatively at Sirius's still exposed torso.
"Really? Let me see." Win climbed up into the tree branch as well and looked down at Sirius. "Yup, a very good view indeed. Would this be considered betraying a friend?"
"No, no, Sirius is eye candy. Those abs belong to all the girls in the world." Mikki paused. "Well, at least looking at them belongs to all the girl, the actual touching of the abs is reserved for Sirius's girlfriend, which right now is Becca. Hence the wisdom of the phrase 'look but don't touch', especially when Becca is the one who'll slap you silly if you do touch."
"Ah, so true, so true." Win said leaning forward for a better look.
"Girls." I said, rolling my eyes.
"We resent that comment!"
"Whoa, where'd you come from?" Sirius asked as Rebby, Becca, and Lily appeared.
"Well, we were about to start our sugar filled picnic when we had a run in with a couple of your annoying slutty fan girls. They came up, glared at me, tried to stare me down, harassed me both mentally and physically and in the end got their butts handed to them on a silver platter." Becca said in a
"That last bit meaning…?" Sirius offered.
"That last bit meaning that a certain Amanda Dramin now has a broken nose and a black eye to go nicely with her chipped tooth."
"You did all that because she razzed you a bit?" I asked, becoming slightly afraid of her. What? She's scary and she has a horrible temper.
"No. I did all that because she slapped me when I called her a slut after she said a few unsavory things about me dating Sirius." Becca paused and looked thoughtful. "Actually, I only hit her twice, so I don't know how she chipped her tooth…"
"That's from last year when she insulted Marley after your genius boyfriend over there broke up with her." Rebby pointed out.
"Hey, not my fault, I just didn't like her that way anymore. Or at least I think that's what it was… maybe it was Marissa I just didn't like anymore…"
"Maybe it was both of them." James offered, rolling his eyes.
"Sirius, shut up before I hit you too." Becca said, glaring at him.
Sirius adopted a look of appropriate fear and said "Yes ma'am! In a bad mood today, honey?" Sirius sat up and reached for Becca's hand, dragging her down by his side.
"Don't call me honey, that's what my dad calls my mom… creepy…" Becca shivered.
"Alright, cupcake." Sirius smiled at her and squeezed her hand. That's odd, usually Sirius doesn't do the whole mushy nicknames and hand holding thing. Usually he snogs his girlfriends faces off until he tires of them or something and then he gets a new girlfriend to snog the face off of.
"Soooooo hoooootttttt…." Mikki said from the tree branch.
"Yessss… the hotness is overwhelming…" Win agreed "Now all we need is for those two to join him in shirtlessness."
"Hmmm… yes… and Rebby's new boyfriend as well. I hear Max is mighty fine when shirtless."
"Um, you two mind keeping the admiration to yourselves, we're having one of those rare mushy moments." Becca said rolling her eyes and smirking at the two girls sitting in the tree.
"Okay, but only if they take their shirts off, the beautifulness of the day shall not be complete unless they take their shirts off." Win attempted to compromise.
"Please, fulfill their wishes before someone gets hurt, and by someone I mean them at the hands of Becca. She's not exactly patient today." Lily flopped onto the ground next to Rach and myself and began fiddling with a few blades of grass. I looked over at James; he was practically twitching to say something, probably to Lily about her seeing him shirtless, but he restrained himself.
Mikki adopted a melodramatic pose "Please, kind sirs, remove your garments that we may live to see another day at the hands of one Anabell Elizabeth Rebecca Burns."
"Is that your full name?" Sirius asked.
"Yes." Becca looked extremely irked and began clenching her fists, her knuckles turning white. "I'd prefer it if you never repeated it again." She said through tightly gritted teeth.
"Oh dear! We've upset the great and powerful dragon known as Anabell Elizabeth Rebecca Burns! Save us kind and mighty knights!" Win joined in Mikki's princess in distress act.
"Um, when did Becca become a dragon?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in humor.
"Perhaps you should do as they say; I don't want anyone getting hurt now." Reij said innocently.
"Yes, and the three of them shirtless has nothing to do with it, I'm sure." Win said.
"Well, now that you mention it…" Reij shrugged her shoulders, a small devilish smile appearing on her face.
"I know! Let's all go swimming!" Rebby said "The Lake is still warm enough and it'll solve the whole shirtless guys thing as well."
"Hmm… not a bad idea." Sirius said. "It is a bit warm out here, and I am already wet." Sirius jumped up and climbed into the tree again. "'Scuse me ladies." He stepped around and over Win and Mikki, and then dove into the lake.
"Well, we might as well." James stripped off his shirt and took a running jump into the lake yelling 'cannon ball!' as he went. The ensuing splash was big enough to get the rest of us wet, so we all decided to join in. I peeled off my shirt and dove stepped into the water. I hadn't gotten four steps when Becca came running off the tree branch and flipped into the water in her blue tank top and jeans.
When she surfaced she stuck her tongue out at James and said "My splash was bigger than yours! Hah!"
"Hey Becca! Are you going to change into a bathing suit or what?" Lily yelled to Becca.
"Yeah, sure." She said climbing out of the lake.
"Hey Rebby! Change your clothes first." Lily said making Rebby stop mid way down the tree branch where she was also about to commence an aerial splashing assault.
"Oh, okay." She said jumping from the branch onto the ground and following Becca and Lily.
The girls disappeared behind some bushes for a short time and reappeared in bathing suits, then jumped into the water as well. We swam until it started getting dark then got out and dried off and headed to dinner.