Chapter Six

Sirius found James and Peter in the Gryffindor common room. They still had another hour before their next class began so they were sitting near the fireplace playing a game of exploding snap. As Sirius approached, James looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Well? Did he agree to it?"

"Sort of… He agreed to join us here in the common room tonight," Sirius replied. "He refused to sneak out though."

James scratched his head a bit, messing up his already messy hair, and sighed. "That'll make things a bit more difficult," he said. "I mean; what if we get caught down here?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "We can cast a Silencing Charm or something on the doors of the dormitories so that we won't be heard you nit!"

"Right… well then, I guess the only thing left to do now is to get the potion from Lily," James said thoughtfully.

Peter looked at the two in slight confusion. "Have I missed something?"

"No," Sirius said, "We're talking about Remus… remember that plan we told you about?"

"The one where we send Remus to his other half?"

James and Sirius nodded. "I still don't get it," Peter said. "He looks whole to me."

"Peter, have you ever paid attention to Remus when he's talked about the eyes he's been dreaming about?" James asked.

"Was food around at the time?"

James and Sirius both laughed at their friend's question. "Probably," Sirius said.

"We're trying to make Remus realize that he deserves to be loved," James told Peter, "and the best way to do that is to help him find his soul mate."

"So tonight, we test the potion Lily made for us and then in a few days or so, we actually send him off to wherever this girl is," Sirius finished.

"How do we get him back?" Peter asked.

James looked at Sirius, who shrugged, and then scratched his head. "You know, we haven't thought of that part," he said. "Maybe we should go over the spell again before tonight?"

"Why not just ask Lily?" Sirius suggested. "I'm sure she's gone over every angle."

"Alright, I should probably go find her right now then," James said with a broad grin. "I'll see you guys later!"

As James climbed through the portrait hole, Peter looked at Sirius questioningly and asked, "Care to take me on in Exploding Snap?"

Sirius grinned and sat down, waiting for Peter to deal the cards.

"Evans!"

Lily turned sharply when James's whisper sounded near her ear. "Potter, you prat!" she whispered harshly. "Don't you know it's not polite to sneak up on someone like that?"

James grinned and then cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said. "Is the potion ready?"

"Yes, I just checked it this morning."

"Good, because we're going to test it tonight," James told her.

Lily raised her eyebrows as she whispered, "Tonight, really?"

"Yeah, Remus agreed to a little gathering with Sirius, Peter and I tonight in the common room."

"And he doesn't suspect anything?" Lily asked.

James shrugged. "Knowing him, he probably suspects something… he always does when it comes to Sirius and me."

"Yes, well I certainly can't say that I blame him with all the pranks you two have pulled over the years."

"I can't help it if Sirius and I like having a bit of fun from time to time."

Lily pulled her hair into a ponytail as she said, "James, everyone likes to have fun every now and again, but you sometimes push the limits."

James's face showed that he didn't understand what she meant as he said, "How is pulling pranks 'pushing the limits'?"

"Have you forgotten what you did to Severus last year?"

"I had nothing to do with that!" James argued. "That was Sirius… I kept Snivelus from getting hurt!"

"Yes, I'm aware of that but…"

James raised his eyebrow. "But 'what'?" he asked.

"It was dangerous all the same," Lily said quickly.

James sighed. "Can we just drop it? I'm tired of arguing with you all the time," he told her sincerely. "These past few weeks have been really nice."

Lily blushed slightly under James's intense stare and nodded in agreement. "They really have been," she said. "And to be honest, you're not as bad as I thought you were."

James smiled. "Will you allow me to escort you on the first weekend visit to Hogsmeade?"

"Um, well, alright."

"Meet me in twenty minutes to give me the potion!" James whispered swiftly. He then bolted out of the library to find Sirius.

When he finally found him, James jumped onto his back and whooped with joy. Sirius grabbed hold of one of James's arms and flung him around in an attempt to get him off his back and said, "Oi! What in God's name has gotten into you?"

James jumped down smiling broadly from ear to ear. "Lily's agreed to let me escort her to Hogsmeade on the first weekend!" he exclaimed.

Sirius's eyes widened as he said, "Hell has officially frozen over; Lily Evans and James Potter are going on a date?"

"I know, isn't it great?"

Sirius put his finger on his chin thoughtfully and asked, "Did you happen to ask her about the potion?"

"Oh, yeah; it's ready," James replied. "She's going to meet me in twenty minutes to give it to me."

Sirius burst out laughing as he slapped James on the back and said, "I'm not even going to comment on how wrong that just sounded."

James narrowed his eyes briefly and then burst into laughter as well. "You just did you ponce."

When he calmed down, Sirius cleared his throat before saying, "Well done, Prongs old boy… I knew you two would eventually end up together."

"Well, it's the first of hopefully many steps," James stated.

"I'm telling you, you two are going to get married and have lots of babies," Sirius said playfully.

James's eyes clouded slightly and his face went pale. "Sirius, we're only seventeen, mate."

Sirius let out a loud bark of laughter and threw his arm around James neck, pulling him into a headlock. "You should have seen your face, Prongs," he said. "You were so scared!"

James pushed at Sirius's arm and elbowed him in the side. "You would have looked exactly the same if you had been the one on the receiving end of that statement," he commented.

"Eh, you're probably right," Sirius agreed, composing himself. He then jumped behind James and peaked around him. "Uh-oh, I better get out of here."

James looked around and then saw the reason for Sirius's sudden disappearing act. Gertrude was headed in their direction. "I don't see why you won't just talk to her," James whispered loudly as Sirius ducked away.

Remus chewed on his lip as he listened intently to Professor McGonagall's lecture. He had missed several classes in the past couple of months due to the full moon so he had quite a bit of making up to do in order to keep his grade where Professor McGonagall expected it to be. She was one of the very few members of the Hogwarts staff that knew of Remus's lycanthropy and she had made it very clear to him in his first year that she would not accept any excuses for late, or non-existent, assignments.

Of course, being the type of student that he was, Remus was not about to allow himself to falter in his school work. It just wasn't a possibility for him. He assumed the Professor Dumbledore hadn't only appointed him as a Prefect just to maintain a bit of control over Sirius and James, but because of his intellect as well. At least, that's what he hoped was the case.

Finally, Professor McGonagall stopped speaking and allowed the class to break into partners so as to practice the spell they were just learning about. Remus turned and began to stand up so that he could partner with Lily, as was usually the case, but he was shocked to find James sitting next to her. Remus thought it was rather curious that they were partnering up but then again, he had noticed that Lily wasn't being quite as rejecting of James as she had been previous years.

Not thinking anything more of it, Remus walked between a few desks and sat next to Peter. Remus knew that Peter was struggling in all of his classes so he thought it was time to give him a bit of a boost. Besides, he thought, Sirius needs to get over avoiding Gertrude.

As if on cue, Gertrude sat herself down next to Sirius with a huge grin on her face. Sirius gave her a weak smile and then looked over at Remus sharply. Remus just smiled at him and then went about helping Peter to master changing his porcupine into a thimble and back.

About an hour later, Peter, James, Sirius, and Remus were walking out of their classroom; Peter was wearing a bright smile on his face because he had successfully completed the assignment. "I really don't understand why you couldn't have just sat with me, Remus," Sirius whispered so that only his friends could hear.

"I wasn't aware that you needed help with the assignment, Sirius," Remus replied.

"I didn't, but you could have at least sat with me or with Gertrude."

James threw his arm around Sirius's shoulders and laughed heartily. "Oh come now, Padfoot, did you really have that bad a time with old Gertrude?"

"Well, honestly… okay, honestly no, I didn't have a bad time," Sirius said, "she's really a lovely girl, but it's the principle of the matter, Prongs."

Remus gave Sirius a look that said 'I told you so' as he said, "It certainly took you long enough to figure that out."

"Yes, well, at least I've figured out that I'm deserving of love," Sirius hissed.

"Oi, let's not get into an argument just now, mates," James said, heading off of whatever Remus was about to say. "Come on, let's celebrate a bit; Peter did splendidly in Transfiguration today!"

Peter looked up at James with his watery eyes and smiled. It wasn't often that his three friends gave him such blunt words of praise so he ate it up whole heartedly as he said, "Well, I wouldn't have done so well if it hadn't been for Remus. He gave me some excellent pointers."

"Well, Remus is a brilliant and patient bloke," Sirius said, "when it comes to school anyway."

"I'm not going to stick around to listen to one of my best mates poke fun at me," Remus said, hitching his back up on his shoulder. "As a matter of fact, I'm going to go to the library to work on my Arithmancy essay."

As Remus stalked off, James popped Sirius on the back of his head with a book and said, "You ponce, he might not meet us in the common room tonight now!"

Sirius narrowed his eyes and watched as Remus walked out of sight around a corner. "Oh, he'll be there," he said.

"How can you be so sure?" Peter asked.

"Well, being as brilliant he is, I'm sure he's figured out that we're up to something," Sirius explained, "and if he knows that, then he'll want to know what it is."

"Good point, Padfoot," James stated. "Okay, so I've got the potion… now all we have to do it wait until tonight to test it."

Sirius nodded. "Right, now let's go over the plan."

Sirius, James, and Peter were already in the common room when Remus arrived there after completing rounds. James bounded off the couch and threw his arm around Remus's shoulders and motioned toward the 'little' picnic they had created. "You've been sneaking into the kitchens today, haven't you?" Remus asked as they sat down on the floor.

James chuckled. "Well, how else were we supposed to get food for our little slumber party?" he asked.

Remus gave him a lightly scolding look, picked up an apple and took a large bite from it. "I don't think a party without sleeping is considered a slumber party, James," he joked.

"I'm going to sleep," Peter said with his mouth full. "I'm knackered."

Sirius laughed and patted Peter on the back as he said, "You're always knackered, Wormtail."

Peter screwed up his face and gave a loud yawn. "It's all the bloody thinking we have to do," he said. "I don't know how I get through the day."

The four boys chuckled and continued eating and chatting for a while. An hour later, Peter was sound asleep near the fireplace while the other three remained wide awake. "So, tell us more about these dreams you've been having, Moony," Sirius said.

James nodded in agreement and leaned forward a bit. "Yeah, I want to see this picture you've drawn of this girl's eyes too!" he exclaimed.

Remus shot a harsh look at Sirius before digging in his pocket. When he withdrew his hand, his fingers were holding a folded piece of paper. He handed the paper to James, who unfolded it and whistled. "Wow, those are some gorgeous eyes," he said, handing the paper back to Remus. "Bet you'd give anything to meet the girl they belong to huh?"

Remus gave him a quizzical look. "Depends on what you mean by 'anything'," he replied. "I mean; sure, I'd love to meet her but a chance like that is one in God know how many."

Sirius slapped him on the back lightly as he said, "Oh come on now, you don't know that."

"Yes, Sirius, I do," Remus argued. "I've got no chance at ever finding this girl so I'll just have to settle for having her as the girl of my dreams."

Sirius and James looked at each other and nodded. They each reached into their pocket and pulled out a vial of pale green liquid. While Remus was busy staring at the picture he had drawn, Sirius and James chucked the vials at his feet and scooted back as quickly as they could when the glass broke.

"What the… James, Sirius what have you…?" Remus stammered as pink and blue smoke began swirling around him.

Uncertain of what was going to happen; James and Sirius dove behind the couch. They poked their head up over the back of the couch and watched as the two different colored smokes blended around Remus creating a purple color. Their eyes widened in amazement when suddenly, Remus disappeared.

Author's Note- Hey everyone! I'd like to thank everyone that's been reading Lycan Love! It means a lot that you've taken the time to do so. Thank you to everyone that's reviewed, as well. Your feedback and thoughts are very much appreciated and welcome! This will be the last chapter for a while... not forever... don't worry! I have plenty more to write on this. I'm just focusing on The Pureblood for the time being. I promise I will get back to Lycan Love, I'm just not sure how long it will take me. I ask that you please be patient with me as I want to do all of my stories well... Again, thank you so much for reading and reviewing! -PoohBear813