Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter or Harry Potter related copyrights.

Remus quickly walked through the halls of Hogwarts. It was obvious that he was very anxious about something, and indeed he was. He had taken a nap after classes that day because he was feeling lousy due to the approaching full moon. However, without the help from his friends, he hadn't woken up at the right time. He was supposed to be in the Shrieking Shack a full hour before the moon rose for safety purposes. As Remus glanced at his watch, he realized with horror that he only had ten minutes to get to the Shack before his transformation was due to begin.

Now Remus was running. Even with several shortcuts, he knew that he was about five minutes from reaching the entrance hall, and he only had eight to make it to the Whomping Willow. He started to pray to every single superior being he had ever heard of that he would make it outside alright. After that he began cursing himself for not just going to the Hospital Wing as usual.

As he was running, Remus knocked into someone. He and the other person fell, but in no time at all, Remus was back on his feet and running again. His brain didn't even register the frenzied shouts behind him.

Finally, Remus burst through the front doors of the school. He had made it past the first danger. He didn't even want to think about what would have happened if he had transformed in one of the hallways. Still, he knew he wasn't out of hot water yet. His pace didn't decrease in the slightest as he ran across the grounds to the Whomping Willow and safety.

He was nearly there, only a matter of a few meters away, when he fell to the ground as a familiar sensation overcame him. With one last look through human eyes, Remus saw the full moon rising.

-----

"Hey you guys," said Peter as he looked at the Marauders' Map while lounging with the other guys. They had just returned from a pranking expedition and Peter was set to watch the map to see when their targets were getting close to their "doom." "Remus is out by the Whomping Willow."

"It's a full moon tonight," James remarked dryly.

"But he should be in the Shack by now," said Sirius from his seat near the window. "The sun set a long time ago and the moon is already starting to rise."

"That's not good," said James as he stopped doing his homework and went over to where Peter was eating chocolate frogs on his bed.

"It gets worse," said James gravely as he took a look at where Peter was pointing. "Lily's out there with him."

"What?!" Sirius bellowed as he bounded over to the map.

For Sirius' benefit, Peter pointed with a shaky finger to the little dot that was labeled 'Lily Evans'. It was currently moving very fast, away from the castle and away from a dot labeled 'Remus Lupin.'

"This is not good," Peter commented.

"Wormtail! Go get Dumbledore or the first teacher you find! Tell them what's happening! Come on Padfoot, we have to go try and save Lily!" shouted James.

"Right behind you mate!" said Sirius as he and James leapt from the room. Peter left the dormitory seconds later.

-----

Lily stood halfway between the Whomping Willow and the doors of Hogwarts, transfixed. Right before her very eyes, a suspicion that she had harbored for years was confirmed; Remus Lupin was turning into a werewolf. The entire process took a few minutes, and seemed very painful because Remus cried out many times, his voice becoming less human with each yell, but Lily couldn't make her feet move. She was struck with both curiosity and horror at the same time, a deadly combination.

Finally, the howl of the werewolf shook her out of her stationary status. Unfortunately for her, that howl meant two things, the first was symbolizing how the wolf had completely taken over Remus' body and mind and the second, was that, for the first time, the wolf had found some human prey.

Lily knew that running only caused dogs to run after you, thinking it was a game, but she also knew that Moony was no ordinary dog. He would kill her or bite her if she stayed around. Her best chance was to try to outrun him, so she turned around and started to run towards the school. All she could do was hope that she would make it in enough time to stop Moony from following her.

Luckily for her, Lily had run everyday during the summer and had continued her training through the school year, so she was no stranger to sprinting. However, she could never compete with a werewolf for speed, a fact which she found out as she glanced behind her and realized that while she was only a few meters away from the doors to the school, Moony was only a few meters behind her. There was no way that she could get inside and close the doors before he got in there, even with magic, unless she could stun him.

Lily whipped out her wand and sent a stunning spell at Moony. It only stopped him for a fraction of a second. She tried a more powerful spell, but that too had little effect. Now she was within spitting distance of the entrance hall; she could see the suits of armor in the hallway. It was in that moment that she realized there was a good possibility of her not surviving the night. She shook that idea from her head and the next spell she cast was to close and lock the front doors of Hogwarts. All she could hope for now was a miracle.

-----

Luckily for Lily help was on the way. Unfortunately, it was not fast enough; by the time James and Sirius skidded to a stop in the Entrance Hall, the doors were fastened shut. They tried shoving them open but that didn't work. Wordlessly, they pulled out their wands and began testing out all of the unlocking charms they knew.

"Why isn't this working?!" shouted James in frustration.

"Of all the times for the doors to be locked," Sirius moaned.

"We've tried everything!"

"Everything except 'Alohomora'," Sirius pointed out.

James quickly stood up from the spot on the floor where he had sunk in defeat and said, "That's it! Alohomora!"

As soon as the boys heard the click of the lock springing open, they pushed open the doors and lost no time in taking in their surroundings. They were both horrified to see Moony quickly gaining on Lily.

Then, unlike in the movies, nothing moved in slow motion. Moony lunged and landed just short of Lily's back, scratching the backs of her legs, but the force was enough to trip her and she fell to the ground.

Both boys were momentarily frozen in shock as they watched Lily roll over onto her back and sit up. And then she was patting the grass around her quickly. What was she doing? Then James realized what was going on; Lily was trying to find her wand without breaking eye contact with Moony. The plan was all working well until Lily wrapped her fingers around her wand and started to back up slowly. The werewolf wasn't about to let its prey get away that easily.

Moony leapt again, and this time he didn't miss. As Moony sailed through the air, James jumped into action. He put his wand into his pocket and transformed into his animagus form, a brilliant, proud stag. He bounded across the grounds in huge arcs and was soon upon the scene.

It was even worse than anything his mind had allowed him to imagine. Lily's left arm was stuck at an odd angle underneath one of Moony' heavy claws and her right was still grasping her wand firmly, but was useless because she couldn't maneuver it around the werewolf that was on her torso. And then there were the gashes on Lily's legs that ran parallel to her bones, the big bruise on her face from when she had fallen face first onto the ground, that was already turning purple, and the large lacerations that were numerous on her arms and neck where the wolf's claws were digging into her muscles.

Just as Prongs pushed Moony off of Lily with his powerful antlers, Moony got one last swipe at Lily's side, which immediately began to bleed profusely. And then James was torn. Should he abandon Lily to fend for herself and chase Moony away? Or should he just focus on keeping Moony away from Lily and stay by her side?

Luckily James was saved from making such a difficult decision by the arrival of his good friend Padfoot, who had been only a few seconds behind the stag. Sirius, the large black, lovable dog with the same fierce side that Sirius possessed, indicated with one motion of his head that James should go to Lily and that he would take care of Moony, who was already getting back to his feet after being thrown to the ground.

James was about to do just what Sirius had suggested when Moony jumped him. Moony raked his long claws along Prongs' right flank. Padfoot quickly distracted Moony by biting his left hind leg. Moony howled out in pain as Padfoot's sharp canines pierced his flesh. Then Moony turned from James to Sirius, the new threat, just as Sirius had hoped.

The race was on; Sirius ran as fast as his four legs could carry him towards the Whomping Willow. Moony followed right on his tail, literally, trying to bite him along the way. Finally the Whomping Willow loomed ominously into view. Sirius ran right at it and the werewolf followed. In an instant, branches began striking the ground with loud thuds all around the two animals. Then suddenly, one branch swept over the ground with a force of a stampeding hippogriff, sending both canines flying.

Then, while they were down, the tree took advantage of the situation and sent several of its branches whipping down upon them. The limbs of the tree lashed out at every part of their bodies. Sirius was seeing stars from being hit with so much power, but finally he was able to roll to the side and get back up onto his feet.

The werewolf was released from the shower of painful branches when the dog began to move. The tree targeted on the moving animal and let up on the stationary one. So Moony was also to get back on his feet and resume the chase.

Then, all of a sudden, the branches became still, as did the dog. Moony scampered quickly to where the dog was and tried to tackle him. But, what happened next was certainly not what it had anticipated. Moony had thought that he would have pinned the dog up against the trunk of the tree, but what really occurred was that Moony fell into the hole that Padfoot had been concealing with his body. At the very last second Sirius had moved slightly and now Moony was in the hole below, howling in confusion. Padfoot pressed the knot at the base of the tree closing the hole and ran away from the tree as fast as he could with two broken ribs.

As soon as he was out of the reach of the flailing branches of the Whomping Willow, Padfoot returned to his human form and promptly collapsed.

Meters away his best mate, now in human form again, lay on the grass wincing as he tried to put pressure on his gaping wound to stop the bleeding. James and Sirius had both been scratched up by Moony before, but those scratches were nothing compared to the gaping wounds that were in James' side now. Soon, the pain and loss of blood overwhelmed him; James fell into the dark abyss that had been clouding the edge of his mind.

Less than three meters from where James was struck down by Moony, lay Lily, who was keeping her head in the situation, or at least trying to. Quickly Lily tried to get her bearings; from the shock of pain that ran up her left arm as she tried to move it, she concluded that it was broken, possibly in multiple places. She also lightly skimmed her fingers over the wounds in her side and across her upper body. Things were not looking good for her she decided; that was the last conscious thought that Lily had before she too succumbed to the darkness.

And that was where Dumbledore found them. Peter had run as fast as he could, but he got lost twice on the way to Dumbledore's office, had to spend six minutes guessing the password, and then when he finally got to see Dumbledore, it took him five minutes to tell the Headmaster the story in an understandable fashion.

Professor Dumbledore looked over the scene with a tear in his eye. The Head Boy and Girl were lying on the cold ground, their blood flowing freely out of their fresh cuts, mixing together and pooling around them in dark puddles on the grass. A third student was lying in an awkward heap near the two. And a fourth one of his pupils was probably increasing his own injuries at that very moment and going to suffer from severe guilt in the morning.

Albus Dumbledore quickly summoned up three floating stretchers. He carefully levitated each of the young people onto one of the stretchers and directed them towards the Hospital Wing. Then he made sure that the front doors were closed but not locked so that Remus would be able to reenter the castle in the morning. At sunrise Dumbledore would send Hagrid out to find Remus to back sure that he hadn't wandered out into the forest, but just in case Remus found his own way back, the doors would be unlocked for him.