The Great Escape

(One-Shot)

Disclaimers: I don't own anything apart from some DVD's/books for this series.

AN: This is a short standard prompt for "The Houses Competition" set in 'Marauders' Era' time. As I am old (ish), my views of them may vary from the young ones, including the fact that I am TeamCharlus/Dorea, have Sirius/James as distant relations through Black blood, as well as TeamTrans (as an ally). I do not accept any new stuff by Rowling.

House: Gryffindor

Class: Ancient Runes (stand in for Mega/Megaflash)

Category: Standard

Prompt(s): [Emotion] Fear / [Word] Indecisive / [Spell] Stupefy

Word count: 1,414 according to AO3 (3 pages)

Summary: In which Remus encounters some skittish creatures.

"Whatever you do," Professor McGonagall said as she looked over her class. After a short pause, she continued, "You do not leave these creatures alone outside of their cages! Nifflers can cause a lot of damage in a very short time. They are only here for you all to practice your transfiguration spells. They will be gone once this term is over."

At that rather solemn declaration, the class was dismissed. The students filed out rather quietly.

"I wonder what nifflers do?" James asked.

"Steal anything of value," Remus answered. James stared at him. "Don't you EVER pay attention to anything? We learned about them in Care Of Magical Creatures just a few days ago, Jim!" Remus grumbled, rolling his eyes in exasperation.

"He pays attention to Miss Evans," Sirius pointed out, enjoying the dreamy look that swept over James's face all of a sudden.

"Yes but she doesn't like it," Remus reminded them.

"Why would I need to pay attention in classes?" James asked with a smirk as he emphasized the word 'classes'. "You or Sirius always end up telling me everything, anyway."

"Thank you for telling me that," Remus said. "I'll be more careful from now on. As Prefect, I need to ensure that you learn your lessons properly." He grinned as he walked away while James glared at him. He hoped that would be the end of it but sadly, that was not to be.

Before the day was over, Remus was sent back to the Transfiguration Classroom to help with a situation. Somebody (Remus had a pretty good idea of who did it which also gave him another pretty good idea as to why he was called to help since he was friends with certain idiots that would remain nameless) had indeed let the nifflers out as a prank. By the time Remus had arrived, the nifflers had already wreaked havoc on the whole room.

Remus stood in the center walkway between rows of desks as he watched the things scamper about, pulling at drawers to look for anything of value, chewing on the brass bottoms of the candle sticks or just over all being complete menaces as they revelled in their great escape. He put his hands on his hips as he watched them, indecisive of what to do with them.

There were twenty-four of them altogether but so far, only four of them had been caught. The others had managed to evade capture as they quickly hid whenever spells were shot at them.

The summoning spell only worked if the beasts were clear of obstacles to grab on. Remus thought it over as he watched McGonagall snatch up another one. While she dropped it into its cage, Remus moved in closer.

Suddenly, the remaining nifflers all stopped what they were doing to look at Remus. They even stopped squeaking at each other as they gathered together in a group. Every last one of the nifflers kept their eyes on Remus, backing away as he stepped forward.

"Good heavens!" McGonagall exclaimed. "You've got them in a group. However did you manage it?"

Another moment of indecision went by as Remus wondered how to answer. He knew exactly what was going on. Once free of their cages, the nifflers could band together. Being prey animals, it was in their nature to form groups so that they could defend each other better. The nifflers would be afraid of predators.

While Remus himself had no intentions of eating nifflers, he wondered if his Moony alter-ego might try it on the night of the full moon. Wolves were hunters. It was only natural that nifflers would be afraid of him.

"It's because of me," Remus murmured after a moment. McGonagall knew that he was a werewolf puppy. All the Professors had to know so that they could cover for him when he missed classes. But it was still hard to talk about.

"You think they don't like your wolf?" McGonagall asked.

"Not at all," Remus said. "Watch." He gracefully leapt up onto a desktop, causing all the nifflers to shuffle sideways away from him. Remus hopped onto the next desk, pushing the nifflers back into a corner using their fear of him alone to manoeuvre them. He glanced at McGonagall for a moment before jumping down in front of the group of nifflers.

McGonagall's brow shot up into her bangs when Remus suddenly barked. The nifflers squeaked as they pressed closer together, letting the larger ones take the front to face Remus.

"See?" Remus said as the nifflers continually tried to keep away from him.

"Goodness, Mr. Lupin!" McGonagall gasped. "Did you really just bark at them?"

Remus looked at her, expecting a glare but she looked about ready to burst out laughing. "Sure, why not? It's fun to bark." At that, he barked three more times at the nifflers, causing them to tumble over each other in a desperate bid to get away from him, but they were stuck in the corner still, unable to go anywhere.

"Well, don't scare the poor things to death," McGonagall tried to scold but she still seemed to be indecisive on whether or not to laugh.

Remus rubbed the back of his neck with one hand before asking, "What do you reckon we should do with them now that we have them trapped?"

"Well, there's only one way to do this," McGonagall came to stand beside him.

Both raised their wands. "Stupify!"

This was repeated a few times until all remaining nifflers had been knocked out. The entire group slowly stopped squirming as each one fell asleep when the next Stupify spell came to strike another niffler. Finally, the mass of animals lay still on the floor. All that was left to do was gather them up to put them back into the cages.

As McGonagall picked up the last niffler to place it back into its cage, Remus turned to leave. Hearing a loud scream made him whirl back to see what was the matter.

"Where did that disgusting creature come from?" McGonagall demanded as she glared into the cage.

It was all Remus could do to hold in a laugh. The 'disgusting' creature was Wormtail, asleep in one of the cages. So that's who let the bloody nifflers out. Peter had probably made a bet or two with the other two morons Remus had for pack mates. Why did they always act like this? Right before their finals for the OWLs coming up in a month but still acting like first years. So immature! No wonder Lily didn't like his three friends. She got along with Remus just fine, but not the others.

"I'll get it."

"I could just kill it," McGonagall said, in the process of raising her wand.

Remus appreciated her feline instinct to kill rats but she couldn't possibly know that she was about to strike down a student. He jumped forward, clearing a larger area than a human could. He landed in front of the cage. "Don't be so hasty, please," he began. "Rats have their place. Outside. Somewhere. Maybe we can have a lesson on rats in the Care Of Magical Creatures class someday?"

"Well," McGonagall fussed with her glasses for a moment. "Very well, then. Remove that thing at once."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Remus quickly snatched Wormtail before dashing away into the hall in fear of Wormtail switching back to Peter in front of McGonagall before realizing where he was. Unlike McGonagall, Peter was not only not registered but also very inexperienced as he had just recently accomplished his rat form, the last of the three to do so.

Remus went behind a gargoyle statue, feeling Wormtail squirm in his hand. As predicted, Wormtail woke up with a start, switching out to Peter a moment later.

"Where are we?"

"I'm going to kill you," Remus answered instead before asking incredulously, "You fell asleep in one of the cages? McGonagall almost killed you. Literally. She was raising her wand to pronounce the death curse on you! What is wrong with you? I was quite scared I wouldn't get to that cage in time."

"Sorry!" Peter blinked. "Prongs made me do it. Let out the nifflers, I mean. I was already tired. I didn't plan to fall asleep there. I was just—"

"Wormtail?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's go to the dorms."

"Sure thing, Moony."

As they headed up the moving stairwells, Remus said, "Ten points from Gryffindor, for nearly getting yourself killed."