Disclaimer - Usual.

Chapter 60

After breakfast, the guys walked back to the dorm, curious as to what became of Remus. They found him asleep in his bed and decided to allow him to stay there, undisturbed, not wanting to tempt fate and risk life and limb trying to wake a cranky werewolf.

They opted, instead, to go back to the Room of Requirement and continue working on becoming animagi. As they progressed through the spells, their confidence waned slightly regarding how well they were performing the necessary magic. It seemed the farther they progressed, the less they noticed any outward signs that anything had happened at all. But since they were all still experiencing the same things - even if that was nothing - they convinced themselves they were still on the right track. It was better than thinking all three of them were completely failing.

There was a spell to make sure the transformation was painless. There was one to make sure they kept enough of their minds so that they would be able to return to human form. There was even a spell to make sure their clothes and personal items transformed with them; that way, when they transformed back into human form, they would not be naked and wand-less.

By the time lunch rolled around, they were ready to perform the last spell. All three agreed, however, that they wanted Remus around for that, since he had the most practice with the counterspell, so they headed to lunch.

Since Remus did not show up for lunch, James grabbed a few sandwiches and carried them back to the common room for him.

"Who's going to go wake him up?" James asked, after they had settled into their usual seats.

"There's no way I'm going." Peter shook his head, his eyes widening at the prospect of angering Remus again.

"Coward," Sirius muttered. "I'll go." He hopped over the back of the couch and bound up the stairs. "Moony! Wake up," he called loudly.

Remus groaned in his sleep.

"Foood," Sirius said, trying to tempt his friend out of bed. Remus grunted, but sat up. "We'll be in the common room." Remus nodded, bleary-eyed, and headed for the bathroom.

Sirius bound back down the stairs and hopped back over the couch, landing in his previous seat. "He's on his way," he grinned.

Just then, Jules, the Gryffindor seeker, walked by with her friends, all of whom were coming back from lunch.

"Hey Jules," James called. "See if you can get the other girls from the team. Tell them to meet us outside in 30 minutes." Jules raised an eyebrow, but she nodded and went up to the dorms. "I need a way to be able to contact the whole team…" James thought aloud to himself.

Remus plopped groggily onto the couch next to Sirius and held his hand out for the promised food. James smirked and handed him the sandwiches.

"So…" Sirius grinned broadly. "Had a good time last night?"

Remus nodded, then abruptly stopped all movement, including chewing, as it dawned on him what happened the previous night.

"What?" James asked, exchanging a concerned glance with Sirius.

Remus looked around, as if he had only just seen them, then hurriedly finished chewing and swallowed. In a hushed voice he said, "I told her."

"Told her what?" James asked slowly, having some idea what was coming next.

"I told her about… you know… my furry problem." Remus seemed a little stunned by what he was saying.

"And?" Sirius asked, his full attention on his friend.

"She… was… surprised. But, okay with it, I guess. I mean, we're still dating, anyway." The more Remus talked, the more relaxed he became, remembering what had transpired.

The other Marauders let out a collective sigh.

"And she's not going to tell anyone," James stated, looking for confirmation.

Remus shook his head. "No. She's not going to say anything."

"Is that why you were out until five this morning?" Sirius asked, his grin back in place.

"It wasn't five," Remus argued.

"It was five. I know. I was awake."

"Huh." Remus took another bite of sandwich.

"Well? What happened?" James persisted, trying to get more details.

"The Room was great. We had dinner and there was a couch in front of a fireplace. We looked at family photos…" Remus paused here, lost in the memory.

Sirius whacked him on the arm. "And?!"

Jolted back to the present by the whack, Remus continued. "And… We went for a walk by the lake. I told her about… you know. Then we went back to the Room."

"And did what? Eh?" Sirius wiggled his eyebrows.

"Mmm… Not gonna tell you… On second thought, I don't want you besmudging fair lady's name. We… kissed… for a little and then fell asleep. That's it. And no! Before you ask - no details."

Sirius pouted. "You are no fun."

"Consider it payback for this morning. Speaking of… What did you all do this morning?"

James spoke up, "We're up to the last part."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Oh yeah? How did it go?"

James glanced at the others. "We're not sure, really. But we wanted you to be there for the last step."

Remus nodded. "Okay. When are you going to do that?"

"Why not now?" Peter asked.

"No," James answered. "I want to get together with the team. But you're all welcome. It's an informal practice and no brooms."

The guys grabbed a few items and James went to find the other team members, asking them to meet him outside. Surprisingly, they all complied.

Once the team was all gathered, James said, "Okay. I want to have an informal practice. Now, I can't mandate that any of you participate, but I strongly urge you to stick around. We're a fairly new team and we need all the chances we can get to learn about each other. Sirius, see if you can grab a few other students."

"How many?"

"Um… We need two teams of seven. There's seven of us on the team, and there's three of you…"

"I'll just watch," Peter piped up.

"Me too. I want to get some work done," Remus added.

James frowned, but continued, "So we need six more, then."

"And what, pray-tell, are we playing?"

"Ultimate Frisbee." Everyone stared at James blankly, having no idea what that was. "I spent part of my summer looking up sports I thought could help us as a team. I'll explain it when everyone's together." Sirius nodded and went off in search of six more people.

When Sirius rejoined the Quidditch team, he brought with him Addison, Lily, Gillette, Taylor and Smith – both guys from the Hufflepuff Quidditch team – and Wooster from Ravenclaw. James explained the rules of Ultimate Frisbee, and then spent a few minutes letting everyone get a turn at practicing how to throw the Frisbee.

Sirius, never having played the American muggle game, had no idea what to do at first. Fortunately for him, not only was he a quick learner, but both Evans and Gillette had played Frisbee and gave him a few tips on how to throw it properly. Evans wanted, badly, to see James lose at something, and so provided as much help as she could.

As much fun as they had, the game was also a disaster, and quickly degraded from an organized game of Ultimate Frisbee to tackle Keep-away – with a Frisbee. In fact, the only rule that had been maintained from the beginning was the "no magic rule," and James suspected even that had been subtly broken from time to time.

Between the lack of organization, and Aden joining him where he sat with Peter, Remus, who had initially been trying to keep score, gave up and gave in to distraction, which also resulted in him not getting any of his classwork done.

All in all though, James thought the afternoon was well spent; his team became more cohesive as camaraderie was built. He was also impressed with Lily. The same passion she put into fighting him tooth-and-nail, standing up for others, and organizing the DADA study group, she put into playing sports. And despite her prim and proper demeanor, she was not at all afraid to get dirty – or play dirty if the situation called for it.

Late in the afternoon, everyone headed back inside the castle and got cleaned up for supper. James was glad to see that a few of the Gryffindor teammates sat together.

After supper, the fifth-years met in one of the abandoned classrooms to work on the Defense Against the Dark Arts project. The deadline for the project was quickly approaching and it was nearly complete. They reviewed some of the latest spells that Remus had found, and how they would be incorporated into the overall protection of the cement egg. After that, everyone looked over the plans, trying to find weaknesses in its defenses. And then they spent the remainder of their time collaborating on their classwork, although Lily had to leave early since she was patrolling tonight.

"You know," Remus whispered to James, "I think this is the longest you two have gone without a fight." James smiled at the thought. Maybe there was hope for them yet.

Chapter 61

The day of the Halloween Feast arrived. It was this day that the DADA project had to be turned in, and Professor Whistler announced the next assignment. The students had to come up with a plan of attack for stealing the egg from a defended stronghold. The Professor gave each class a rundown of how the egg was defended. Over the course of the next several weeks, they were allowed to ask questions regarding the defenses and any new information would automatically update on every class' synopsis so all students had the same information to go on. This next assignment was due at the end of the fall term – the last class before the holidays.

The fifth-year Gryffindors continued to work together. Even with everyone chipping in on the assignments, the amount of work the students had left very little time for anything else. It seemed there was just enough time for Remus to perform his prefect duties and have Friday nights with Aden, and for James to hold Quidditch practice twice a week, and little else. But finally, the second week of November, the guys were able to pull together for an afternoon to work on the final spell for becoming animagi.

It was agreed that, to decrease the amount of pressure, Remus would accompany one person at a time into the Room of Requirement. If they hadn't accomplished the animagi form within 45 minutes, they would come out and the next person would try. That was the theory, anyway. However, Remus' usually calm and patient demeanor was lacking on this particular Saturday. So much so, that he was having a hard time sitting still.

James sat in the middle of the floor. The Room had provided a nice grassy area on which to sit, giving the feel of being outside, and yet enclosed and safe. He sat quietly for a few minutes trying to concentrate, but Remus kept intruding on his thoughts with suggestions for concentrating. "Remus!" he snapped. "You're not helping."

"Fine. You were the one who wanted me here, remember?" Remus huffed and sat down to work on classwork again. James eyed him curiously, but then went back to concentrating on the spell. It was no good, though. Remus' uncharacteristic behavior had sufficiently killed any chance James had of instilling inner calm.

"So, you want to talk?" James asked, sounding slightly more annoyed than he intended.

"No."

James shrugged. "Fine. I'll get Peter."

Peter had even less success than James and only managed to stay in the room with Remus for ten minutes before giving up. When Peter came out of the room, he looked at James. "What's up with him?"

"No, idea," James sighed.

"Guess it would be my turn, then," Sirius said.

"See if you can find out what's going on," James requested of him.

Sirius nodded and entered the room. He could feel the energy in the room as soon as he walked in. Remus was pacing. "Well, that's not something you see everyday," Sirius quipped. Remus stopped pacing, but cast a wary glance at Sirius. "Sit." Sirius commanded, pointing to the middle of the room.

Remus cocked his head to the side. "Aren't you the one who's supposed to be sitting there?"

Sirius sat down, but pointed again at the place in front of him, "Sit." Remus sat facing him. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. What? You all can have a bad day, but I can't?"

"Defensive much?" Sirius asked with a smirk. "Does it have to do with tonight?"

Remus' eyes focused inward for a few seconds. "It might," he said wearily.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?"

Remus paused before answering. "When I was young, I relied on my parents to know when I had to… go to the basement. As I got older, I was able to feel it coming minutes before it started. Just enough time to make it to the basement and get… situated. I don't know. It seems… It's like I can feel it coming all day now. Being around people agitates me. Being inside agitates me." Sirius nodded. "You know when you get a fever and your skin becomes really sensitive? Like, even the lightest fabric rubs you wrong, and you feel like you want to crawl out of your skin?" Sirius nodded again. "That's what being around people feels like lately – on the day of, anyway."

"How long has it been that bad? We noticed you had started getting irritable at the beginning of the year. Did this just start over the summer?"

"I'm not sure. Nobody was around over the summer, so it's kind of hard to tell."

"Mm. Does it scare you?"

Remus was surprised by the question, and how accurate Sirius was in his assessment. "A little."

"Good."

"Good?" Remus asked incredulously.

"Yeah. It means you're still fighting it. You're still human, and you're still our favorite little prefect." Sirius reached over and patted Remus on the head.

Remus swatted away his hand. "Thanks," he said sarcastically.

"You're welcome… now, go find something to do. I need to concentrate on becoming an animal or I'll risk becoming sensitive and girly."

Remus smirked and moved to a corner of the room. "You've got the hair already."

"Hey! Leave my hair out of this." Sirius had been letting his hair grow longer, probably in silent protest to his mother's desire to have respectable looking boys with short hair. "There's nothing wrong with my hair," he mumbled, making Remus snicker.

He watched Sirius sit very still, which was interesting in itself because Sirius rarely ever sat still. Remus, on the other hand, alternated between sitting and trying to do classwork, and pacing in his little corner while trying to make as little noise as possible.

The afternoon had been long and after twenty minutes or so, Remus leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. While he was sitting there, he felt a shift in the magic or energy of the room. He also noticed that his feelings of agitation decreased. Something had caused the wolf to calm down. Remus opened his eyes and let out a grunt of startlement. Standing before him was the biggest black dog he had ever seen. "Oh… my…" Remus reached out his hand, to touch the dog in front of him. "Sirius?"

The dog lifted its paw as if to "shake." Laughing, Remus took the paw and shook hands with the dog. "Excellent! I'm going to get the others." Remus got up and opened the door to the hall. It felt like a wind blew through the open door, bringing with it the weight of agitation he had only just been freed from. Pushing his feelings aside, Remus smiled at James and Peter. "You have got to see this!"

They jumped up from where they were sitting and entered the room. Peter let out a squeak of fear and took a step back. James stared in wide-eyed disbelief. There was a huge black dog with pale blue-grey eyes in front of them, and he was roughly the size of a small bear. He sat wagging his tail as if waiting for praise or a treat.

"Bloody brilliant," James whispered as he walked around Sirius, getting a good look at him. He smiled, approvingly. "Excellent!" He reached out and scratched Sirius behind the ears. It's a dog thing. It's hard to be in the presence of a dog and not pet it. Much to James' amusement, Sirius' head leaned into the scratching and his tongue lulled out of the side of his mouth. This made all the Marauders laugh. And even Peter approached and gave Sirius a quick pat on the head.

To the amusement of the others, Sirius strutted around the room with his head held high, like a proper show dog.

"He looks like a grim," Peter said nervously. He never was a big fan of dogs and, while logically he knew this was Sirius, the large dog in front of him was still rather intimidating.

"No. Not a grim," James said thoughtfully. He thought back to stories from his childhood about the large black dogs that guarded lonely travelers and graveyards, occasionally helping people on their journeys, both in this realm and on into the next one. He whispered, "A Padfoot."

Sirius, who was across the room, cocked his head to the side. He bounded up to James, stood on his hind legs, and gently put his front paws on James' shoulders, easily standing eye-to-eye with him, then he nodded.

"Padfoot," James declared, more loudly this time. "Okay, get off. You're heavy."

Remus smirked. "Very nice. Now change yourself back."

Sirius trotted to the middle of the room. He turned a circle before sitting down, making James snicker, then he sat there. The other Marauders watched him for a few minutes and nothing happened. Finally, he turned his head to Remus and let out a soft whine.

Remus laughed. "Stuck, eh? All right." He stepped forward, but James grabbed him by the arm.

"I don't know. I think I kind of like him like that." Sirius put his ears back and bared his teeth, which was a rather impressive sight. His shiny, white teeth stood out in stark contrast to his black fur. "Okay," James laughed, raising his hands in surrender. "Just kidding."

Remus pointed his wand at Sirius and immediately, the boy morphed back into his old self, grinning sheepishly.

"That was wicked," Sirius said excitedly.

"I want to try again," James said, partly out of excitement, and partly out of a desire to prove he could do it.

Remus and Sirius exchanged looks. "I think we should wait. It's getting late and Moony's got a fun night ahead."

"Oh? What are you doing?" Peter asked, his voice coming out slightly whiny, which immediately made him blush. The disbelieving look that James and Sirius cast him made him blush further still.

"Well, when's the next time we can try it?" James asked.

"I don't know. The season opener is next week, so it won't be then. Hogsmeade is the week after…" Remus ticked off the upcoming weekends on his fingers.

"I don't mind skipping Hogsmeade," James said hopefully.

"Yeah, well. You might not, but Aden wouldn't be too happy about it." James huffed, but didn't press it.

"Remus, why don't you teach me the reversal spell during the next Quidditch practice and then I can fill in for you with these two," Sirius suggested.

Remus struggled with the emotions this simple suggestion stirred up. He reminded himself that, on any normal day, the suggestion wouldn't have bothered him – it was just today because he was already agitated. So after calming himself down, he answered, "Yeah. Fine. Let's go. I'm hungry." He headed for the door without looking back.

James looked over at Sirius, who mouthed "later," and followed Remus out the door.

Sitting around the fireplace that night, James asked Sirius what was up. Sirius explained to him and Peter what Remus had told him about the transformations and being able to feel it before it starts and the wolf getting agitated in the presence of other people.

James looked concerned. "You think it will affect him even more as he gets older?"

"Who knows. Hopefully, he'll out-grow it."

- - - - -

A/N - Well, hope y'all enjoy the two chapters. They were both fairly short and followed with each other, so I posted both. Thanks again to all you who review. Frequency does not diminish gratitude, and I love hearing your reactions to what is going on. Thank you for all of your wonderful comments. And, once again, thank you to Mom, mei mei, and J.A.Carlton. Love.

Nonair - I'm glad to hear you liked the room and the natural progression of the conversation - that the reveal didn't seem forced or out of place. And I'm glad you thought Aden stayed in character with how she reacted, especially for a Ravenclaw. And I'm thrilled to hear I could make you laugh. Glad the boys are still boys and can laugh. Have a great holiday!