Exam results finally came out, and Remus did exactly as he'd expected.

He was perfectly average in some classes (Transfiguration, Astronomy, Herbology), and a smidge better than average in some classes (Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, Arithmancy). In two classes (Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts), he ended up doing very, very well, but he wasn't top of the class in either.

He thought about what Professor McGonagall had said. No, he wasn't top of the class overall like he had been in first year. He hadn't even done as well as he had in second year. He was on a steady decline, academically. Was he disappointed about that? Yeah, a little.

But he felt much more balanced this year, and that was a very good thing indeed. He'd had more fun, he'd learned more things about himself and others, and he hadn't failed any of his exams. He hadn't done brilliantly, no, but he felt brilliant.

Dilley held one more meeting of Drew's Crew, but it wasn't a meeting so much as it was a party. They ate cake, they played games (none of which were cursed, Remus didn't think), and Dilley talked about his plans to break the curse upon the Defense Against the Dark Arts position.

"It's all about willpower," he was saying. "I'm going to be very careful this summer, and I will come back, no matter what!"

Everyone cheered and continued eating their cake. Remus wasn't sure if Dilley would come back—after all, it seemed perfectly plausible that there was indeed a curse on the position that could not be broken. But they would take it as it came, of course, and they'd figure it out along the way.

Remus found Basil, who was talking excitedly to Valencia. "How are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm great!" said Basil. "Hard to believe I'm going to be leaving Hogwarts forever soon, hm?"

"Yeah," said Remus. "Any plans for afterwards?"

"I'm going to study plants and write books. Val's going to be a Healer." Basil winked and then said in a loud whisper, "We're dating."

Remus grinned. "That's excellent! Congrats!"

"Yeah, it is. She's looking for a way to cure that disease I have. She's already discovered that citrus helps. How about you? Any plans for the rest of Hogwarts or after?"

Remus looked at his friends, who were already beckoning him back so that Remus could watch them throwing cake at Snape. "Not yet," he said. "I'm just taking it as it comes, you know?"

Valencia smiled warmly at Remus. "Always a good idea," she said. "Tell Potter that he was fantastic as Beater yesterday."

"Of course I will," said Remus, and then he went to try to subtly distract his friends into doing something besides throwing cake at Snape.

"Two days left of Hogwarts," Sirius said later that day. "I'm going home with Prongs this summer again, so we'll see each other plenty."

Remus snorted. "When was the last time you actually went home, Padfoot?"

"Er… no clue. But the longer I stay away, the better! Mum's ignoring me right now—she usually does—so that makes it easy."

"Anything else you want to do before term ends?" James asked, staring out the window.

Remus smiled. "I've got an idea," he said, and fifteen minutes later, the Marauders were in the painted land of portrait-Hogwarts, talking to the Founders.

"We'll come visit you over the summer," Remus promised. "But for right now… do you want to celebrate the end of Hogwarts with us with a game of Quidditch?"

"Absolutely!" said Godric, and he ran off to grab broomsticks, followed closely by the other Marauders.

Remus stayed behind with Rowena. "I don't really feel up to Quidditch right now," she told Remus. "Why don't we sit under that tree and watch? I have some books I don't think you've read yet."

"You read my mind," responded Remus.

They sat under the painted tree, flipping through books and chatting while Remus' friends, Helga, and Godric raced around on broomsticks. "It's nice having someone quiet to talk to," said Remus. "I just found out something really big, and I'd like to talk."

"I love to talk," said Rowena with a smile.

"So… you remember me telling you about Professor Questus, right?"

"Of course."

"It turns out that he was a werewolf. He moved next to my house after being cursed, but the curse was lycanthropy the whole time. He never told me."

"Oh, dear," said Rowena, eyebrows crinkled. "You'd better tell me the whole story."

So Remus did. He told her about A.N.N.O.Y.E.D. He told her about Simmons. He told her everything that Dumbledore had told him, and then he described his feelings about the whole thing—feeling selfish, feeling self-absorbed, and feeling awful that he couldn't just talk to Questus and hear the story from his own mouth, in his own words.

"Every time I think I'm over his death, something big happens like this, and then I don't know what to feel," he said. "I miss him."

"Oh, Remus," said Rowena. "That sounds hard."

"It is. And it's not helping the fact that I was just poisoned again. Again! And apparently my heart stopped for about ten seconds before Madam Pomfrey put it right again."

"That's scary. You still don't know who did it?"

"No. Madam Pomfrey thinks that my friends might be under an Imperius Curse. That's an Unforgivable! Who would cast an Unforgivable on my friends? To kill me? It really is scary, and it's not helping that Voldemort's gaining more and more power every day… attacks are on an uptick… the world is so scary in general, Rowena, and I'm terrified."

"Hm," said Rowena. "I can't fix the problem with Voldemort, I'm afraid… but I might be able to find out who poisoned you, or at least prevent it from happening again."

"How?"

"There's a spell that you can cast on whatever you eat or drink. If the substance is likely to poison you, then it'll glow. Do you want to learn?"

"I'd love that!"

Rowena held out her hand, and Remus handed her his wand. "Just demonstrate it once, and then I think I'll get it."

Rowena stood up.

"Wait, where are you going? Getting some food from the Kitchens to test it on?"

Suddenly, Remus noticed that the rest of the Founders had landed, and they were now standing next to Rowena, watching Remus. Remus' friends landed, too, confused looks on their faces.

"I think I'll take my wand back now, Rowena," said Remus slowly.

There was no response. Rowena raised Remus' wand and pointed it at Remus. "I'm sorry," she said.

The world seemed to stop spinning, and the only thing that Remus heard was the beating of his own heart. "It was you," he whispered.

"It was me."

"You poisoned me?"

"Yes. Four times. I'm amazed you're still alive."

Remus remembered the cups of paint-tea he'd shared with Rowena, alone in the library. He remembered brewing the potion with Rowena to get rid of the Mandrake leaves, and he remembered Rowena explaining that even potions made with magical paint retained their effects.

"That's why the Healers told me that the potion wasn't made by a wizard," he said. "It wasn't made by a Muggle, either. It was made by a painting."

"Yes, exactly."

"And that extra ingredient that they couldn't identify… it must have been magical paint. And that's why all the ingredients were a little bit off."

"Correct. Magical paint doesn't register as regular magic. It cancels itself out in modern tests—magic within magic, a double negative. St. Mungo's must not have known what they were looking at."

Tears sprang to Remus' eyes. He couldn't believe this had happened again… someone he'd trusted had betrayed him, and Remus hadn't noticed. He hadn't figured it out. He'd been stupidly oblivious, and someone had taken advantage of that stupidity to trick him. "Why?" he asked.

"There isn't much to it," said Rowena. "This painting was created with the intent of protecting and helping Hogwarts once the Founders were gone. We were programmed to do certain things, and one of those things was to protect the school at all costs. Remus, I don't believe you're evil. But I am a portrait, and I am not capable of growing and changing my mindset. No portraits are. And I was created to do things—put under spells—magically programmed—and I cannot help but do what I was created to do. I was created to protect Hogwarts, and anything Dark threatens Hogwarts by its very definition. If there's a Dark creature invading Hogwarts… we must stop it. I really am sorry."

"You tried to kill me with that dragon months ago," Remus said, looking at Godric.

Godric shrugged. "Guilty as charged, though it wouldn't have killed you regardless. I was only testing to see if it could touch you."

"And you asked for my wand every so often," Remus told Rowena.

"I did. You never gave it to me before now."

"And you put poison in my tea," he said to Helga.

"Rowena and I did, yes."

"You've been trying to kill me all year!"

"Yes, we have," said Rowena. "I admit it was difficult to do. We were painted without wands—a massive oversight on the artist's part, I'm afraid. We couldn't physically harm you, because we're only paint. The only way we could hurt you was through the potions, but they wouldn't have worked if you'd died inside the portrait. People can't die inside portraits. You'd have appeared right back outside of it, and then you'd never come back here. You'd tell Dumbledore, and he'd destroy us. No, we had to make sure that you would die outside of the portrait, and that was difficult with the resources we had on hand… after all, one can only find so many plants in the old Hogwarts supply."

"Salazar has been watching you carefully," said Helga. "He observes you while you're in the library, talking to Rowena, and he has a portrait in Dumbledore's office. He's been trying to figure out exactly when the poison is most likely to kill you, and then we tailor it to take effect exactly then."

"You kept noticing, though," said Rowena. "We changed the effects as often as we could. We even put it on the books once so that you'd absorb it through your skin, hoping that would have a better effect. But nothing worked—you always went to the Hogwarts matron to be healed just in time."

"Salazar was getting frustrated. He wanted to kill you himself, but we told him it was imperative you didn't see him. That way, he could keep spying on you, and you wouldn't be able to recognize him. He's in plenty of portraits in the school."

"But I know what he looks like! He let me into the secret passageway at the beginning of the summer… he's in the books… he's everywhere!"

"We wanted to make sure that you saw him as just another portrait and not a friend. He was our outside source."

"I can't believe it," said Remus. "I thought… this whole time…!"

"We know what you thought," said Rowena. "You told me everything."

"I can't believe I did!"

"I truly am sorry. I liked you, but I have to do this. It is imperative."

Remus looked at his friends, whose mouths were hanging open. "They have our wands, too," said Sirius. "We put them down to play Quidditch."

Remus looked at the door to the castle, and there was a man striding towards them whom Remus immediately recognized as Salazar Slytherin. He had a long, white beard, narrowed eyes, and a pointed nose. His robes were green, and his skin was wrinkled. He grabbed Peter's wand from Godric, and then every single Founder was armed… and every single Marauder wasn't.

It was four against four, and it most certainly was not a fair fight.

"Please don't hurt my friends," said Remus.

"We're not going to hurt your friends," said Salazar. "Our job is to protect the school, which is why we have to get rid of the Dark creature dwelling inside of it. But your friends will be safe, we promise."

"We'll have to Obliviate them," said Rowena. "They'll misinterpret. We can't risk them going off and telling an adult what a danger this portrait is."

"They'll be safe, though," said Helga.

"But you can't kill Remus with those wands," said James. "He can't die inside the portrait, remember? No matter what you do to him, he'll be safe."

"Which is why we don't kill him," said Rowena, her voice lined with the same patience that Remus often heard when she was explaining difficult things to Remus. "We're going to Vanish him. He'll be gone forever—into Nonbeing—but he won't be dead, so the magic protecting him won't work. We couldn't do that with a potion, but we can do it with wands."

"You can't Vanish human beings," said James immediately. "It's too hard. Trust me, I'm an expert with Transfiguration. You can Conjure things that act and appear alive, but aren't—those are the animals that students practice Vanishing on in class. But the bigger and more advanced the object, the more difficult it will be to Vanish or Conjure. Humans are incredibly complex. You can't Vanish a human, and any attempts at Conjuring human lookalikes have gone disastrously wrong."

Remus didn't even have the heart to make the correction that he wasn't technically human. James still had a point, and it wouldn't even matter when Remus was Vanished into nothingness.

"For you," said Rowena with a smile. "It is impossible for you, and probably every single one of your teachers—with the possible exception of Professor Dumbledore, about whom I hear great things. But you forget how talented the four of us are. I guarantee that we will not have any trouble Vanishing your friend. It won't even hurt."

For half an instant, Remus was almost happy.

Being Vanished would be so easy. No more werewolf transformations, no more fear, no more pain… he wouldn't even have to worry about what the afterlife entailed, because as far as Remus knew, Vanished people wouldn't go to whatever afterlife existed (if one existed at all). He'd simply cease to exist. Disappear. No one would know where he went.

Remus had always known that he would die before his friends, before his family, and probably even before Bufo, who was currently safe in Remus' dormitory. This was a little bit earlier than Remus had expected, sure, but it was probably for the best. It would happen relatively soon, anyway. And besides, he wasn't even really dying. He'd just be gone. Forever. It was that easy.

But then Remus' senses returned, and he swallowed harshly. No. He couldn't let this happen. He was not going to let all of Dumbledore's work to keep him in school go to waste. He was not going to do this to his parents. He was not going to do this to his friends. He had dealt all year with the death of someone he'd only known for two years, and he knew firsthand how painful and terrible it was. Why would he force his friends to go through that? They had such bright futures, and they deserved to be as happy as possible. Remus wasn't going to give up without a fight.

After all, Remus was one of the best duellists Flitwick had ever seen. He'd been trained by Professor John Questus himself. He'd deserved to make A.N.N.O.Y.E.D., even though it hadn't quite worked out. And so Remus was going to summon everything he had and get out of this portrait alive, and he didn't care what it took.

He turned to his friends. "This is excellent practice for when we go off to defeat Voldemort after school," he said.

To his pleasure, they all smiled—except for Peter, who looked terrified yet resolved—and then Rowena cast a spell, and Remus dodged just in time.

"You can't keep doing that forever," said Rowena. "You'll get tired."

Questus had written a chapter about this in his duelling notebook. If you're ever Disarmed, he'd written, your main goal is to get your wand back. There are infinite possibilities, so losing a duel after being Disarmed is never impossible. The first step is to check your surroundings for anything that could be potentially dangerous to your opponent. If there's nothing, then the next step is to get away to a place that DOES have something dangerous to your opponent. If you don't have the upper hand magically, you must gain it environmentally.

Remus looked around, but he was too late—James had already found the perfect item.

With the dexterity of a Seeker, James grabbed the two nearest brooms. "Me with Remus," he shouted. "Sirius with Peter." He threw a broomstick to Sirius, who caught it, and then Remus was up in the air with James.

"I'm a teensy bit afraid of flying," Remus said as the wind whipped at his face and his stomach swooped.

"Are you less afraid of dying?"

"Technically, yes. But overall, I'd much rather be up here with you."

"All right," said James. "We're going to do a dive, okay? I'm going to grab the remaining brooms off the ground so that the Founders can't get to them. They're already walking over to them, so we have to be quick. I'm not even going to count to three. I'm just gonna go."

Without further warning, the bottom of Remus' stomach dropped harshly as they hurtled toward the ground. Remus clutched James with his arms and the broomstick with his legs, but he still felt as if he was going to fall off… or perhaps he was already falling off; he couldn't tell. Suddenly, they were inches away from the ground, and Remus was going to die, and then…

They were in the air again, and James was clutching three broomsticks. "We did it!" he crowed. "Look, there are Sirius and Peter. MARAUDERS!" Remus clapped his hands over his ears as James shouted. "GET AS HIGH AS YOU CAN! THE HIGHER YOU ARE, THE MORE TIME YOU HAVE TO DODGE THEIR SPELLS!"

If you can't get ahold of a wand, then your next best bet is a moving vehicle that will take you to a safe location, Questus had written in his notebook. A Portkey is the best option. Running away is often seen as cowardly, but sometimes going to get a wand and backup is the best way to win a duel without a wand.

But there was no Portkey here, and they couldn't fly around and dodge spells forever.

Unless…

"Prongs," said Remus breathlessly.

"If you're going to be sick, then do it away from me," James said. "Also, stop holding me so tightly. I'm gonna get bruises."

"No, I'm not going to be sick. Prongs… I think I know how we can get out of here."

"Yeah, we keep dodging until they get tired, and then we swoop in and grab their wands," said James.

"No… remember what they said before? If we die here, then we'll show up again outside of it. So if we can just get inside the castle and find the poison, then we can probably make it quick-acting with a few more ingredients, and then…"

"Woah," said James, frowning. "I don't like that plan."

"But…"

"Nope. Don't like it. We don't know the long-term effects of doing something like that. We aren't going to kill ourselves to get out of here. Kinda defeats the purpose, don't you think?"

"But Rowena said…"

James shook his head. "I know it's very unlikely that she was lying about that," he said, "but it's still possible. If it were me, I'd definitely hint that the only way you could get out was offing yourself. It would make things a lot easier, wouldn't it?"

"No, what would be easy is if she'd just killed me immediately with the potion instead of making it take effect when I was back at Hogwarts. But she didn't, and this is the only feasible reason."

"You can't honestly be trying to tell me that you still trust her. It's the principle of the thing, Moony. We're going to get out by getting our wands back, all right? If we tap on a hard surface seven times, we'll be back in your house, right? Isn't that how it works?"

"How on earth are we going to get our wands back?"

James flew over to Sirius and Peter so quickly that Remus felt wind stinging his eyes. "Here's the plan," James said. "I'm going to put Moony with you and Wormtail, Pads—"

Suddenly, Sirius cried, "Watch out!" as another spell zoomed towards them—they scattered, but James kept shouting.

"I'm going to go down there and get a wand! Then I'll come back here and give it to Moony, who's the only one of us who has a chance at Disarming the others! And keep dodging, Padfoot!"

James picked up Remus, which was sort of astounding for such a scrawny boy, and placed him on Sirius' broom. "You're ridiculously thin," said James with a frown. "All right. Bye!"

And then James was zooming toward the Founders, dodging their spells like he dodged Bludgers on the field. "I expected them to be better at magic," said Sirius, watching James expertly dodge every single spell. "Aren't they some of the most powerful wizards in the world? How are we still alive?"

"They're only portraits," said Remus. "They don't have the full magical prowess of their creators, and it's safe to assume that they've never picked up wands in their lives. I think we definitely have a chance of getting out. Look how clumsy they are."

Indeed, their aims weren't perfect. James swooped at them, dodging every single spell, and then he started zooming back toward the Marauders. "I got one!" he said, tossing a wand at Remus. "Godric's unarmed now."

Remus caught the wand, thankfully. "Did you tackle him?"

"Just plucked it out of his hands. Those portraits have no strength. They're just made of flimsy paint."

"Hm." Vaguely, Remus wondered if they were even capable of Vanishing him in these watered-down paint forms. No matter. He didn't want to test that.

"I'll work on getting another one," said James. "Careful not to hit me with any spells."

"I'm going to put you down, too," said Sirius. "Three people on a broom is a little much, and we keep sinking. Besides, you'll have better chances of hitting them if you're on the ground." He flew to the paint-grass below and gave Remus a small salute. "Godspeed," he said. "I'm dropping Wormtail with you, too. I'll help James distract them."

And so, for the second time that month, Remus stood in front of wizards much more skilled and accomplished than he, preparing for the duel of a lifetime. Spells whizzed toward him, and he lifted the wand (which wasn't his. It was James').

Nothing happened.

"It's too hard using this wand!" he shouted. "It's not the same as mine!"

"Well, do your best!" James shouted back, and Peter whimpered. "We'll get your wand from Rowena as soon as we can!"

Remus tried again… and again. What had Professor Questus said about this?

If you find yourself unable to cast magic for whatever reason—perhaps you're stupid, perhaps you were Obliviated, or perhaps you're too nervous to do it properly—don't panic. Who knows? You get your sister killed by a plant. The best thing to do in this scenario is to attempt longer-lasting magic to protect rather than to attack. Build a wall. Turn yourself invisible. When you're focusing on protecting rather than attacking, the magic comes more easily. Do something you're comfortable with—that is essential. One working spell can bring your confidence levels up enough to cast higher-level spells.

Remus pointed the wand at himself and whispered the incantation for the Disillusionment Charm. He performed that one often—when the Marauders were sneaking around after dark, before he walked to the Whomping Willow with Madam Pomfrey. He could do that, at least.

And it worked. Remus watched as the Founders slowed down their casting.

"I think we hit him," said Helga.

Remus stayed as still as possible, knowing full well that Disillusionment Charms worked better when one wasn't moving.

And that small victory—that brief moment of confusion—was enough for James to snatch Sirius' wand from Helga's hands, and Sirius grabbed Remus' from Rowena's. Now every Marauder had a wand but Peter. Sirius and James zoomed over to Remus' side, and the three of them switched wands as quickly as possible. Remus' Disillusionment Charm had faded, but it didn't matter nearly as much anymore.

"It's only Salazar left," said James. "Padfoot and me will attack from the air. You attack from here. Wormtail, get on Padfoot's broomstick."

Remus shot three Body-Bind Spells in quick succession, successfully paralyzing Rowena, Helga, and Godric. Salazar was putting up quite the fight, but he was no match for three Marauders, all with their own wands, shooting spells like their lives depended on it (and, in the case of Remus, they did). Salazar's duelling wasn't particularly impressive, but it was effective. He seemed to block everything that Remus did; he bypassed every trick, and he didn't even get tired and sluggish. After all, he wasn't alive.

When it's multiple Aurors against one talented opponent, coordinate an attack. The opponent won't be able to set up a powerful enough shield, and even if he does, then doing so will take time and energy. If possible, communicate with your teammates nonverbally or secretly so that your opponent won't see it coming.

"Padfoot!" shouted Remus. "On three! We cast that really famous spell that starts with… er. This." And with that, Remus hummed an E as loudly as he could.

"Got it!" shouted Sirius with a laugh. He flew over to James and whispered something, and then he shouted, "One, two… three!"

"Expelliarmus!" the three of them shouted, and then Salazar's wand (actually Peter's) was up in the air, and James caught it.

"We did it!" cheered Sirius. "See, I knew teaching you how to play the piano would help something! And you do sing!"

"Shut it," grumbled Remus, but he was smiling widely. "We've just defeated some of the most powerful wizards in existence!"

"Not quite," said a voice behind Remus, and Remus felt a perfectly room-temperature hand gripping his wrist.

Oh no.

"Rowena," stammered Remus. "How did you… I Petrified you!"

"You lost focus. It wasn't a very strong charm to begin with."

"I…"

Rowena snatched the wand from Remus' hand before he could react, and she pointed it directly at Remus' chest and waved it—Remus tried to move aside, but Rowena was still gripping his wrist with surprising strength—but it wasn't a Vanishing Spell. It was a Disarming Spell, and it hit James, who knocked into Sirius, who dropped both his wand and Peter's. Rowena summoned them and held them tightly in her left hand, still pointing Remus' wand at him.

"That was fun," she said with a smile that was still disturbingly kind and gentle. "Most fun I've had in thousands of years. But this is the end of the line… I must say, I'm sorry to see you go, because you really are good conversation. But it's my job."

She brought the wand up, preparing to wave it.

Suddenly, Remus smelled dog.

There was a flash across the painted Hogwarts grounds, and then Rowena was crying out in pain, and a four-legged creature was standing there with Remus' wand securely in his mouth….

"Max?!" cried Remus.