Chapter Three:

Discovery, Danger, And Disaster

My muggle alarm clock beeped once before I gutted out its batteries and grabbed my wand. Scanning the room, I made sure Lily, Alice, Mel, and Mary were sleeping before I crept downstairs to the common room. The fire burned dimly, only a couple embers glowing. But it was enough for me to sneak behind a couch, place a disillusion charm on myself, and wait.

After only hiding for about five minutes, I heard the shuffling of the Marauders coming down from the boy`s dorm. "Got the cloak, Prongsie?"

"Yeah. Let's wait until the common room for that, though."

The poorly lit figures of the four boys entered the room. Before I could attempt to identify who was who, three of them disappeared under what she knew was James` cloak of invisibility. Why was Remus not under the cloak, but instead walking ahead and lighting the way with his wand? He could light the way from under the cloak! All the same, this made it much easier to follow them through the portrait hole and down the changing stairs.

A corridor down from the Great Hall, Remus (and the others, invisibly) stopped in front of a large frieze. I recognized it immediately. It was a picture from a muggle fairy tale, one I had seen in a book Mel had to read once for Muggle Studies. The story was about a muggle girl who always wore a red cape-thing. The girl was bringing cookies or something to her grandmother and for some reason she travels through dark and scary woods. A wolf tries to eat her, her grandmother, and the cookies, but a lumberjack kills the wolf in the nick of time. Mel had said it was supposed to teach stranger danger, but to me the moral seemed to be, 'Don`t go into notoriously dangerous woods without protection.' I held my wand tighter.

Remus taped the figure of the wolf with his wand. A narrow portion of the old wall raised and the boys stepped through. I managed to scurry under just in time, making sure to keep a reasonable distance between myself and the Marauders, just in case they unexpectedly turned back and bumped into me or something. The passage came out to a hidden cave by the forbidden forest. Remus and the others, instead of turning into the forest as I suspected they would have, walked toward the Womping Willow.

Remus turned around. "Okay guys, the coast is clear. Wormy, can you use your special talents?"

I saw the shimmer of the invisibility cloak coming off, but seeing Sirius, James, and Pete, I stumbled back in amazement as I saw a stag, a giant black dog, and a rat. I remembered what Lily had said. The nicknames. Padfoot, Wormtail, Moony, and Prongs. A dog, a rat, a stag, and Remus. That was it! Pete, James, and Sirius were illegal amimungi. But what was Remus? Did Moony mean he was just crazy, or too spaced out to form an amimungi?

The rat (alas, Peter) ran under the wild branches of the Womping Willow. When it/he reached the trunk, he hit a knothole with his nose, and the tree froze. The Marauders then walked into a small hidden tunnel in the tree. I, of course, followed.

"It`s almost time." Remus groaned weekly. As we came to the end of the tunnel and into some house, I felt my disillusion charm wearing off. The windows of the house were boarded up from the inside, and scratch marks coated the walls. Peeking through the cracks in the boards covering the windows, I saw a darkened Hogsmeade below. This must be the shrieking shack.

Across the room, Remus shuddered. The great black dog and stag instantly came over to him, flanking either side. And then, Remus began to change.

He hunched over, glasses falling to the floor. I turned away as he let out an inhuman cry. The wails of agony continued for several minutes, and I could not bear to do anything but stand against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut tighter, and wondering if I should have just left this secret alone. When the howls finally ended, I managed to turn back, and knew instantly why he was Moony, and why they were here. Remus was a werewolf.

His teeth glittered menacingly, enhanced thusly thousand times from the gentile smile of my studious friend. Then, after taking a shuttering breath, the wolf who was no longer Remus` eyes focused right on me. The disillusion charm had broken, now that he had got my scent, no spell would really mask me now anyway. I could see his hunger, and he could see me. Remus would never hurt me, but this creature could eat me with no regret, until my friend was returned to his original form, and back to consciousness. So I did something I had never done before, unable to hold in the terror. I screamed bloody murder.

The animals that were Sirius, James, and Pete jumped; evidently, they were finally noticing me crouched against the back wall. Remus growled and leaped like a cat going in for the kill.

The great dog jumped in front of me without hesitation. The stag put its head down, its antlers were facing the werewolf like a shield, and even the rat was in a protective stance, ready to protect my stupid life with all its rodential might. I raised my wand, but had no intention of using it. Remus was still in there, and I didn`t want to hurt him, especially if he had to put up with wolfing out on a monthly basis.

Despite their efforts, the wolf was already one step ahead, having not been shocked by my scream. It grabbed my left arm in its giant maw, teeth clamping onto my sleeve, and dragged me away from the amimungi protectors. In that jolting motion, my wand was flung free from my hand, tumbling uselessly to the floor. The stag held off Remus until he let go of my arm, leaving it bloody and throbbing, but not devoured. My sleeve was somehow still whole, but blood was gushing through it, soaking my cloak.

Collapsing to the ground as my legs gave out, I fought to stay conscious, not going to be defeated by the sight of my own blood. Something yanked on the back of my cloak, and I was pulled backwards out of the Shrieking Shack.

I shakily took as we emerged out of the tunnel and into the night. The dog kept dragging me, down the hill and towards the school. By the time we got to the front gates, I was only just keeping my eyes open, and the black blobs in my vision merged with the night sky above. The only things assuring me I was still partially conscious were the tiny stars flickering in and out of sight. It was like I was trapped in the night within myself, hearing only the vague sounds of rustling gravel as my body was pulled onward, with the occasional flicker of moonlight Hogwarts. Sight came in minuscule flashes, but I was unable to move, as if my consciousness was trapped inside a useless corpse.

Through the void, I heard the voice of a once-again human Sirius.

"Mattie? Can you hear me? I'm sorry. Please don't tell."

I`m pretty sure I was hallucinating at that point from loss of blood, but I could have sworn Sirius knelt down and kissed me softly on the cheek before standing up, knocking loudly on the door, and running off in his amimungi form.

The last thing I saw before the darkness devoured me fully was Nearly-Headless Nick gliding through the door.