A couple of nights later, Remus visited Rowena and asked for her help. She didn't say much about spell creation besides what Dumbledore had already told Remus, but Remus enjoyed the company while he came up with incantations and tried the Simuligo spell again and again.

"I've created a couple of spells," said Rowena while Remus was taking a quick break. "It's very difficult, isn't it?"

"Horribly," said Remus. He raked his hands through his hair, mentally exhausted. "I've been focusing for so long that I think my brain is broken. And I've tried everything. Parmotus has been my favorite so far—easy to say, comes from Latin parvus and motus, nice and concise—but I can't get it to work!"

"Keep experimenting," suggested Rowena. "You'll get it. This isn't something that you can do in a single day."

"It's not really day," said Remus. "It's night. Pretty late, actually. I should be getting home. Thanks for the company, though—I only just started walking without help an hour ago, and I've been starved for a bit of company."

"Haven't your friends written to you?"

Remus paused before responding, because he didn't want to sound bitter. "Not much. They're… they're, you know, at Hogwarts. I'm sure they're having fun. And they're probably trying to figure out how to get more Mandrake leaves."

"Do they know it was you who destroyed their last ones?"

"I seriously doubt it. From the few things they have said, I can tell that they definitely don't suspect me."

"And do you think they'll try again?"

Remus laughed darkly. "Of course they'll try again. They're the Marauders. I just have to wear them out, because they'll never listen to anything I say. Do you have any other ideas before I go to bed?"

"Hm." Rowena frowned and tapped her finger on her chin. "You could always try releasing a few Kilkennies."

"A few… what?"

"Kilkennies. They're vicious cats, and Mandrakes happen to be their favorite food. They'll also eat any animal with a tail, but they're famous for leaving behind the tail itself. They like Mandrakes because the squirming roots remind them of tails. Unfortunately, they won't eat the leaves—they'll only eat a live Mandrake. You're going to have to get rid of the school's supply, and then the Kilkenny will destroy the live ones."

"If they're vicious, then won't they hurt one of us?"

"Not unless you have a tail."

"But loads of students on Hogwarts grounds have cats or owls."

"Yes, that is a problem. You'll have to find a way to keep the Kilkenny away from them."

"I think it would be easier to just… I dunno. Steal the leaves and drop them in the Black Lake."

"You can do that, too, but a Kilkenny will be more likely to scare your friends off and discourage them from trying again."

"Hm," said Remus thoughtfully. "I'll have to think on it. Where can I get one?"

"You can usually find one or two in the Forbidden Forest."

"I see." Remus sighed and picked up his wand. He didn't think he was going to do that. It was far too complicated. "I'd better get going, Rowena. Thanks so much for the help. And the company. I appreciate it loads."

"I appreciate the company as well," she said. "Good night, Remus."

It was Monday, February eleventh, and supper had just concluded. "All right," said James, who was lying on the floor on his back, trying to ignore the frustration rising up inside his chest, "today is the day, Marauders."

"The day for what?" groaned Peter. "I'm absolutely knackered."

The three present Marauders were indeed exhausted. They'd stayed up practically all night planning and building a complex booby trap on their dormitory. There was no way that Snape would be able to break in again… and there was also no way that James had passed his Divination test (he hadn't revised a lick—hadn't even done the reading or listened in his tutoring sessions), but he didn't care much about that.

"Today is the day we steal more Mandrake leaves from the greenhouse. We can't put them in our mouths until next full moon, but we can at least have them at the ready."

"When are we sneaking out?" asked Peter. "I have homework to do."

Sirius groaned. "Don't be such a joy-sucker, you absolute Dementor of a Marauder. Homework is a swear word in the Marauder dormitory."

"Remus often needs to wash his mouth out with soap," agreed James. "Now, I think that we should—"

"What's this about soap?" came a mild and all-too-familiar voice from behind the booby-trapped door.

"Remus!" cried Peter.

"Moony!" cried Sirius.

"WAIT MOONY DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!" cried James.

It was too late. Remus had opened the door, and now he was standing inside the common room. He looked just as he always did—pale skin, shabby robes, black gloves, and Bufo the toad sitting calmly on his shoulder—and now he was wearing a very confused look that was also not entirely uncommon for Remus Lupin. "Why?" he asked. "Was one of you starkers or something?"

"No, but… aw. The booby trap didn't work."

"What booby trap?" Remus was looking more and more confused by the second. "You booby-trapped the dormitory? Why?"

"Well, see, it's a long story, but Snivellus Snape snuck in a while ago and messed around with our stuff. We decided we'd put up a booby trap to keep him out."

Remus frowned, and it highlighted the dark circles under his eyes even more severely. James idly wondered if he should be back at school at all. He didn't look well. "I do hope this thing you have with Snape will blow over," he said. "It gives me a bad feeling."

"I'll say you have a bad feeling, Moony," said Sirius. "You look like death warmed over. I'd be surprised if you didn't feel badly."

"That's what Dumbledore said to me nearly a week ago," sighed Remus. "I know I look awful; it was a rough full moon… but I'm fine, I really am."

"Not talking about the full moon." Sirius flicked some hair out of his eyes and grinned. "You just look bad in general, mate. You're a right ugly bloke."

Remus' mouth fell open, but he was smiling. "You take that back!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"Never."

"Wait," interjected James. "Sorry to interrupt, but let's go back to the part where our booby trap didn't work. Where did we go wrong?"

"I might be able to help," said Remus. "Mind if I check it out?"

"Knock yourself out," said James dully. "We worked so hard on that, and then Moony just waltzes in like nothing happened at all."

Remus was inspecting the wood on the side of the doorframe. "Ah," he said sagely. "I think I know what the problem is."

"What is it?"

"Well, it appears as if a certain werewolf saw the bucket of water hovering on the ceiling and calmly removed it with a Levitating Charm before entering." He looked at James and smiled. "Sorry, Prongs, but it was terribly obvious. You might have at least Disillusioned it."

"Oh," said James. "Yeah. Yeah, we probably should have. Next time. But what about the hexes we placed on the dormitory door? They should have gotten you!"

"Well, our mysterious werewolf culprit must have figured that, if there was one booby trap, then there were bound to be more. So he must have used Finite Incantatum on the door before entering." Remus shrugged. "Pesky werewolves. They'll ruin all your plans."

James groaned. "Was it really that obvious?"

"Yes," said Remus. He closed the door behind him, gingerly placed Bufo to the side, and then collapsed onto his bed. "Heavens, I'm glad to be back," he said fervently. "I was so worried about you lot. It was okay, right? Everything was fine?"

"Yeah, we were sleeping in the dormitory when they caught Festus Gavin. Didn't even know anything had happened," said Sirius.

James frowned. "What happened with you, though?" he said. "Bad moon, you said?"

Remus smiled, but it was a little half-smile that meant he was most certainly not okay. "I'm okay," he said. "I tore up my hands a bit, though. Dumbledore helped fix them, but they still hurt to bend a little. And my leg's all wonky. But other than that, I'm absolutely fine. I just came back from the Hospital Wing, and Madam Pomfrey said I was fine, too." He yawned. "Really, I'm just bored. Sort of tired, too."

"What did you do the whole time?" asked Peter.

"Well, I slept a lot. And I went to the Werewolf Registry. And Mr. Ragfarn from the Werewolf Registry stopped by my house to question me, and that wasn't fun. I also worked on my Arithmancy project for a while—"

"You're so boring," said Sirius.

"And proud of it. What did you lot do?"

There was a brief silence as James searched for a good response. "Revenge on Snape," he finally said. "Worked on that potion we're making for you. Went to school. Did homework. All that."

"Huh," said Remus. "Why did you want revenge on Snape?"

"Just Snape-y things," said James. "By the way, d'you want to go with us to steal some Mandrakes tonight? We've lost our last ones, and we need them for your potion. Your heightened senses might help us out."

Remus hesitated. It was very clear that he didn't want to help.

"Also, we missed you," said James. He knew that would seal the deal. "It'll be nice to do something together."

After what seemed like minutes, Remus finally nodded. "Yeah, sure. We're going after dark?"

"Yep."

"Great. Until then, do you want to catch me up on what I missed in Ancient Runes? Professor Dumbledore told me what I missed in Arithmancy already, but I'm sort of worried about Runes."

"Sure," said James. He pulled out the notes he'd taken for Remus and started going over them—because, after what he'd let Snape do to their Mandrake supply, it was really the least he could do.

"You sure you're feeling well enough to sneak out?" James asked Remus. He knew that Remus would probably resent being pitied, but James couldn't help it—Remus was looking quite a bit ill, and James was worried.

"I'm feeling fine, James," Remus snapped.

"Yeah… okay, okay. Don't bite my head off. I'm just saying." James handed Remus the Invisibility Cloak. "Not all of us fit under this, so I'm thinking we should leave Wormtail back here."

Remus paused, and James nearly rolled his eyes. He was being ridiculous. Peter was the least useful out of all of them and they all knew it. "But we need him," said Remus.

"No, we don't. He'll get us caught. He doesn't fit under the Cloak."

"I can use a Disillusionment Charm. I'm getting quite good at them. Madam Pomfrey lets me do it before we go out to the Willow every month… I mean, if my hands aren't shaking too badly to cast it, which is admittedly rather often."

"Invisibility Cloak is better," said James dismissively. "You don't mind staying here, do you, Wormtail?"

Peter shook his head, even though James knew for a fact that he felt left-out. "Nope."

"Good. Let's go, Moony."

And so Remus, hesitantly, let James cover the three Marauders (excluding Peter) with the Cloak. Together, they snuck out into the darkness.

James didn't miss Remus' limp, but he didn't mention it.

Ever since Professor Questus had told Remus the story of his sister, Remus had been apprehensive about letting his friends sneak into the greenhouse after dark. He almost wanted to tell them about Clementine Questus, who had been strangled by a crop of Devil's Snare at age twelve, but he felt that it would be a breach of privacy. Even though Questus had told Remus that he didn't mind people knowing, he had still said it in confidence and Remus wanted to respect that.

"He's dead. He literally doesn't care," said a voice in Remus' head that sounded almost like Professor Questus, and now Remus was sort of caught in the middle. On one hand, he wanted to make sure that his friends stayed safe. On the other, he wanted them to know his apprehensions. Remus was being pulled in two different directions, and he didn't like it one bit. "Sneaking into a greenhouse after dark is very dangerous," whispered Remus in compromise. "What if we enter the wrong one and get strangled by Devil's Snare or something?"

James snorted. "The chances of an obscure event like that are practically zero. Not gonna happen. We know what we're doing."

Remus sighed. So much for compromise.

"All right, so here's what we're going to do," said James. "We're going to grab a few leaves from the greenhouse and keep them well hidden in our dormitory. In fact, we're going to protect them with a password. Any ideas for this password?"

Remus almost grinned. They were coming up with a password, and Remus was included? This was too perfect. "Something really long," Sirius suggested. "Even if someone overheard it, they'd only be able to catch bits and pieces."

"Perfect!" said James. "Yes, and the three of us have great memories, so it wouldn't be hard to remember at all."

"But what about Peter?" said Remus.

James went quiet. "Well, Wormtail doesn't really help much with the potion. We're doing most of the heavy lifting. Don't tell him I said that. He just… sort of latches onto us and does what we do, and he doesn't offer any sort of insight or correction."

"He still deserves to know the password if he's involved," said Remus. He shouldn't have cared whether Peter was let in on this extremely dangerous plan or not (honestly, he should have been happy that Peter wasn't), but Remus knew all too well what it was like to feel left-out and he was feeling quite sympathetic to Peter's plight.

Indeed, the pain of missing out was a powerful thing. Remus felt it every single full moon. He'd felt it when he'd had to go home. He'd felt it every time his friends had worked on the project together without him. He'd even felt it when his friends talked about Divination, because they all took the class and Remus didn't. And he most certainly felt it when they ran around with strong legs and good lungs, unbothered by various wounds and unconcerned about "overexerting themselves".

Out of the four Marauders, Remus was the only werewolf—the only one who wasn't human—the only one who wasn't healthy—the only one who had to worry about money (though he didn't have to as much now that Professor Questus had left his family some extra), and the only one who experienced so much prejudice. He was alone in a sea of "onlies", and he felt very left-out on occasion. He didn't want Peter to feel the same way—not for any reason.

But… oh, he was overthinking it. He wasn't going to let any of his friends become Animagi, not even Peter.

"All right, fine, we'll tell Wormtail," said Sirius with a massive eyeroll. "Didn't know it was so important to you. Anyway. What should the password be? Something long."

"An alphabetical list of all the Quidditch teams in the area," James suggested.

"You're obsessed, mate."

"At least I came up with an idea. Haven't heard anything from you two yet."

"The first line of Pride and Prejudice," said Remus. "I always thought that was long."

"What's the first line of Pride and Prejudice? Come to think of it… what even is Pride and Prejudice?"

"A Muggle book by Jane Austen. I hate Jane Austin. And I don't actually know the first line, so I suppose we can't use it."

"You think?" said Sirius sarcastically. "What about… 'I solemnly swear that I am not Snivellus Snape in any way, shape, or form—also, Snivellus is a greasy git with a nose the size of Prongs' ego'."

"Oi!" said James. "Fix it!"

"Fine. 'I solemnly swear that I am not Snivellus Snape in any way, shape, or form—also, Snivellus is a greasy git with a nose the size of Moony's teeth on the full moon'."

Remus grimaced. "No, thank you."

"You're both very picky, you know. How about 'I solemnly swear that I am not Snivellus Snape in any way, shape, or form—also, Snivellus is a greasy git with a nose the size of the Transfiguration textbook, which has far too many pages for my liking'?"

"Okay, that's perfect," declared James. "We're using that. Anyone nearby, Moony?"

Remus closed his eyes and inhaled. "None that I can tell. I don't know where Filch is, but he's not here."

"Good. Exiting the castle now. Watch your step."

The cold night air hit Remus with the force of a thousand knives as he stepped onto the squishy ground. "Did it rain here yesterday?" he mumbled.

"I think it did," said James, "but me and Sirius and Peter were inside all day, trying to fix the damage Snivellus did."

"What did Snape even do to you that makes you so angry?"

"He snuck into our dormitory and moved some stuff around!"

"So? You snuck into his dormitory and put a Dungbomb under his bed in first year."

Sirius laughed. "Hark who's talking! You were there, too, Moony!"

"Yes, but I'm not complaining about the tables turning, am I?"

"Listen, Moony," said James. He was using his normal speaking voice now that they were out of the castle, and he was so close to Remus' ear that it sort of hurt. James' normal speaking voice was abnormally loud. "We've only ever done stuff to Snape in revenge, so he has nothing to get us back for."

"What do you mean? No, you haven't! You started hexing him for no reason!"

"It was revenge," repeated James loudly, "for being completely and utterly ugly."

Sirius laughed and high-fived James, and Remus sighed. "Let's focus on getting those leaves," he said.

Twenty minutes later, the Marauders were back in the dormitory, stuffing about twenty Mandrake leaves into a small box. James had wanted to steal the whole supply, but Remus had convinced him not to. After all, Mandrakes took a long time to raise, and they were very useful Potions ingredients. The school was sure to need some at some point.

James knew a spell for setting a password on a container, and he performed it expertly on the very first try. "Snivellus won't be getting in now!" he crowed, and he and Sirius danced around the common room and sang some wizarding song that Remus didn't recognize. Peter joined in after a while, and Remus ended up nicking Sirius' camera and taking photographs to blackmail them with later. Blackmail wasn't really an option with his friends, though—they weren't embarrassed easily by things like that.

It wasn't long before Puttle, the Gryffindor Prefect, came up to their dormitory and snapped at them to quiet down. Sirius and James stopped singing, but they didn't stop dancing—fortunately, after another hour or so, they fell onto their respective beds, energy spent.

Remus waited another twenty minutes—he wanted to be absolutely sure that they were asleep. Then he quietly crept out of bed (he had to be very quiet, since James Potter was probably the lightest sleeper in existence), and…

"Oi, Remus," said James. "Where are you going?"

Remus paused. He'd only gotten about a foot away from his bed. "Loo," he decided.

"Oh. Okay. G'night."

"Night," said Remus, and then he went to sleep.

The next day—when Sirius was at Assistant Headmaster duties, James was at Quidditch practice, and Peter was watching James play Quidditch—Remus found the box, pointed his wand at it, and whispered, ''I solemnly swear that I am not Snivellus Snape in any way, shape, or form—also, Snivellus is a greasy git with a nose the size of the Transfiguration textbook, which has far too many pages for my liking."

The box opened, and then Remus quietly removed the Mandrake leaves and Vanished them. With his mission accomplished, he closed the container and set to practicing the Simuligo charm. The Mandrake leaves were gone, and the weight on Remus' chest had lessened as well.

The only thing he had to do was outlast his friends. If he just kept this up for a little longer, he'd save them from dying in the midst of an immensely dangerous ritual. He'd save their lives, full stop, and he wouldn't even have to confront them. Was Remus choosing the most efficient method of ending their efforts? Maybe, but probably not. The point was, Remus hated confrontation, and he hating going against his friends like that. If he could only pull some strings behind the scenes, he could end things peacefully—and Remus, contrary to the rest of his kind, enjoyed peace very much.

He'd experienced enough excitement for a lifetime, and excitement, in his opinion, was overrated.