A/N: This chapter originally had some strange paragraph glitches toward the end, so I'm reposting.
Chapter 15 - 2.5 or "If It's the Last Thing We Do"
It was not uncommon, in the fitful, painful sleep that followed a full moon, for Remus to have strange, vivid dreams. Usually they were nonsensical, lurid flashes borne of an exhausted mind and body. But this one had been so real and so very, very wonderful. Remus lay in the bed in the hospital wing, refusing to open his eyes and face the reality of his situation. Waking up was his cue that it was time to face his friends. Rousing from such an indescribably wonderful dream was the alarm bell that preceded his own demise. And so he allowed himself an extra minute to revel in the dream's waning comfort before he cracked open his eyes.
He blinked up at a red canopy. Red, not white. He was not in the hospital wing. He was in his own bed in Gryffindor Tower. Which meant…
"Morning, Sunshine."
Remus turned over and found that one side of his red curtains had been drawn back to show Sirius lounging on the bed next to him, a bright grin on his face. It took a few moments and a few rubs of his eyes for Remus to collect his thoughts. He was in his dormitory, not the hospital wing. His muscles were still sore, though he was not in nearly as much pain as he was the day after the full moon. So the only explanation that fit, then, was that the wonderful, exhilarating, detailed dream he had had about his friends discovering his secret was actually…not a dream at all.
"How do you feel?" Sirius asked, swinging his legs over the side of his bed to face Remus straight on.
Remus pulled himself up to sit against his headboard, still blinking rapidly at the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows and at his own realization regarding his situation. How did he feel? He felt unbelievable, resplendent, grateful beyond measure, bloody brilliant…
"Good," he said, squinting at Sirius through the sunlight. "What are you doing here? Where's everyone else? Did I oversleep? I've got to get to class –"
"No you don't," said Sirius easily. "It's Sunday, remember? And James and Peter should be back any minute…"
Remus pulled back the rest of his curtains to get a better view of the window. The fact that the sun was high in the sky and Sirius was fully dressed did not bode well.
"What time is it? I've missed breakfast, haven't I? Bother, why didn't you wake me?"
"Well," said Sirius, swinging his hanging legs back and forth, "we were going to, but then you looked so peaceful and cute all cuddled up as you were…" Remus snorted and Sirius's grin only broadened. "…so we decided to let you sleep. But then we got back from breakfast and you were still sleeping, so James checked right quick to make sure you weren't, you know, dead or something, and then we had a rollicking game of Gobstones over on Peter's bed, but then James ducked when his stone squirted, and the gunk ended up on Peter's pillow…and you know that stuff stains, so Peter wasn't thrilled. I imagine the house elves won't be thrilled either, but they don't have to sleep with their nose pressed into that foul-smelling mess, do they? So anyway, Peter put an end to the Gobstones match, and you still weren't awake yet, so –"
"Sirius," Remus cut in, and the boy in question stopped talking at once. "What time is it?"
Sirius craned his neck to get a view of the clock on the opposite side of the room. "About half-ten."
Remus sighed as his stomach gave an almighty rumble. "So I've missed breakfast."
"Perhaps," said Sirius. He tilted his head a few degrees, as though listening intently for something. There were voices on the staircase outside the dormitory, and Sirius's face brightened before he continued. "But that's the beauty of being on a first-name basis with a handful of the kitchen's finest house elves, isn't it?"
At this, the door to the dormitory opened and Peter and James strolled in, both laden with lumpy bags.
"You're awake!" said James, hurrying over and hopping onto the end of Remus's bed, where he began unpacking what appeared to be their own personal feast from his bag. "You slept so long, we thought you might have died."
"I was just…more tired than usual," Remus replied, eyeing the food with wonder. Peter, too, began unwrapping bacon and sausages and scones and waffles from bundles of napkins that he pulled out of his bag. "Did you…er, did you leave anything left in the kitchens?"
"We didn't know what you'd be hungry for," said James, swiping a piece of bacon from Peter's pile and popping it into his mouth. "So we brought some of everything."
"I think that house elf Queenie's taken a liking to us," said Peter, now setting a flagon of orange juice on Remus's bedside table. "She gave us extra sausages."
"And some melon, just for you Sirius," James said, throwing a slice of melon at Sirius, who dodged it and pulled a face.
"Y-you didn't have to do this," Remus said in amazement, but he could not suppress the smile that pulled at his lips.
"Rubbish," said James. "What else have we got to do on a Sunday morning?"
"Budge over, will you?" said Sirius, who had hopped off of his own bed and was now climbing up to sit against the headboard next to Remus. The bed was rather crowded now, as Peter too had pulled himself onto it, and with four boys and the large assortment of food, there was a real danger that something would be spilled, or else one of them might fall off. Remus, though, couldn't seem to bring himself to care.
"Anyway," James said, his mouth full of some sort of pastry, "the Puddlemere and Tornados match from last night is replaying at eleven, so we can listen in here."
He nodded toward a wireless set that now sat on his bedside table. Remus was fairly certain that it had not been there the night before.
"Where'd you get that?"
"Borrowed it from Jeremiah Peakes," James shrugged.
"Nicked it, more like," said Sirius. "Oi, Peter, throw me a waffle."
"Borrowed it," repeated James. "I'm going to return it after the match, aren't I?"
"Is it considered borrowing if you use the Invisibility Cloak to sneak into someone's dormitory and take something without their knowledge?"
"Just for a few hours! He won't even know it's gone."
"You're a right thief, you are. We're all going to have to start locking up our valuables."
"Your valuables, right. And what might those be? Your Dungbomb stash? The book on Muggle cars I gave you for Christmas?"
"Dear to my heart, that book is," said Sirius. "It taught me all about how e-gines work."
"E-gines?" Remus repeated, perplexed.
"Yes, e-gines. Those mad contraption things under the bonnet that run the car!"
Remus laughed. "You mean the engine?"
Sirius waved a dismissive hand. "You know what I meant."
"Yes, that book seems to have taught you so much," deadpanned James.
Sirius aimed a kick at him, but due to the crowdedness of the bed, he could not get much force behind it. The pair continued to poke fun at each other until eleven o'clock rolled around, at which point James flicked on the wireless to listen to the replay of the Quidditch match from the night before. Not overly interested in listening to a match that they already knew the outcome of, Sirius challenged Remus to a game of wizard's chess, and Peter alternated between cheering them on and reading his latest issue of The Adventures of Dino Danger. All in all, it was a rather quiet morning by the Marauders' standards, but Remus thought it very well may have been the best morning of his life.
"You will spend the evening alphabetizing the magical creatures section of the library. I will be back to check on your progress in two hours. If you have not sufficiently completed your task, you will both return here tomorrow evening until your work is complete. Now off you go."
Madam Pince gave Sirius and Gin one last scowl before shooing them away. As it was eight o'clock on a Friday night – and, more particularly, a Friday night before an inter-house Quidditch match – the library was entirely deserted. Not even the most diligent of O.W.L. or N.E.W.T. students would think to spend a mid-November evening such as this holed up in the school library. The two second years, being forced to do just that, made their way through the labyrinth of stacks toward a far corner section devoted to magical creatures, where towering shelves housed thousands of dusty books.
"She must be joking," muttered Sirius, craning his neck to take in the vast amount of tomes. "There's no way we can… I hate the ruddy library."
Gin approached the nearest shelf and examined the titles that sat at eye-level. "None of these are even remotely in order. This quite possibly might take…" She, too, craned her neck upward. "…er, forever?"
"I heard Filch and Pince talking earlier today. Apparently Peeves gets his jollies by sneaking in here and mixing all the titles up."
Sighing, Gin sat down on the floor and started pulling out all the books that she could reach.
Sirius's mind, though, was already three steps in front of her when he smirked casually and asked, "What are you doing?"
"We might as well get started. I know that you spend all your free time in detention, but I don't much fancy having to come back again tomorrow night."
He shook his head and strode forward to swipe the book she had been dislodging out of her hand. "Amateur."
"What are you doing?"
Tossing the book carelessly on the floor, he stuck his head around the nearest corner to ensure that Madam Pince had indeed disappeared. "I'll be right back," he whispered, slinking off and out of sight.
Gin ignored him and continued her task of emptying the lowest shelf. She might not have known what he was up to, but she wasn't going to sit around and wait for Sirius to get her into more trouble.
Sirius returned five minutes later, after Gin had cleared three shelves, clutching a book called Achievements in Charming.
"More books for us to sort?" Gin asked, eyeing it with suspicion.
"Oh, Gin, you don't give me much credit. As you so correctly stated, I spend quite a lot of time in detention, so I've learned many loopholes. Pince, bless her, is an idiot. Not only did she leave us alone without supervision, but she never once said anything about not using magic."
He waved the book at her, the usual innocent expression on his face.
"You're full of it," Gin said, shaking her head. "No way there's a spell in there that –"
"Alphabetizes things?" Sirius opened the book to the page his finger had been marking and pointed to an alphabetizing charm. "You have so little faith in me."
Gin crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "All right, if you're so brilliant, let's see you learn it and be able to perform it in the next two hours."
In the end, it only took about twenty minutes for Sirius to make the entire section come alive, all of the books floating out of their slots on the shelves and rearranging themselves in the proper order.
"So," he said, rocking back on his heels, "have I convinced you of my brilliance yet?"
Gin seemed to be fighting a smile as she watched the books perform the work that they were supposed to be doing. "No, but you've convinced me of your arrogance."
"Hey, even you have to admit that this beats doing it ourselves."
"True," she acknowledged. "But what are we going to do for the next hour and a half?"
Sirius shrugged and wandered toward the end of the row, glancing at the books that had already been sorted into their proper places. He was just about to turn back when a particularly old book caught his eye. Curious, he grabbed it off the shelf and looked down at the worn title: Deconstructing the Curse of the Werewolf. He glanced over to where Gin sat, but she wasn't paying him any attention, so he flipped to the middle of the book and began to read:
"The legend of the werewolves' powers extends as far back as the records show. For decades, researchers in the Department of Mysteries have been trying to uncover the magic that transfers this horrific curse from beast to human. Humans are, of course, the natural enemy of a fully transformed werewolf. The power to turn one species to another simply through a bite is unique to the relationship between a werewolf and a human. No other known species has this power and, likewise, werewolves are a danger to no species other than humans."
Sirius closed the book and returned it to the shelf, frowning. He didn't want Gin to get curious about why he was looking into werewolves, so he wandered away from that section, scanning the titles on the shelves but not really seeing them at all. After the dramatic discovery of Remus's secret, he, James, and Peter had discussed many times how to help their friend, but to no avail. There really was no cure for a werewolf, but the uselessness that he felt was uncomfortable for Sirius. He didn't like just sitting around and doing nothing while his friend suffered.
After a while, he went and sat down against the wall next to Gin, who was reading a beat-up old copy of something and didn't acknowledge him. A part of him wished that James were sitting next to him instead of Gin – he and James would certainly spend the time devising new ways to wreak havoc upon the school – but then he looked over at her and noticed the way she was mindlessly spinning her wand in one hand and the way one of her curls had come loose from where she had tied her hair back. He decided he was quite glad to be sitting there with her after all.
Unfortunately, she did not seem to share the sentiment. In fact, she was so completely absorbed in her book that he thought she might not have even been aware of his presence.
"What are you reading?" he asked, though he realized the stupidity of his question as soon as it passed his lips. The cover of the book, after all, was pointed directly at him. In response, she lifted it a bit to give him a better view, and then lowered it back to her knees to continue her reading. "Peter and Wendy? Sounds dead boring."
"It's not," she said without taking her eyes from the pages below her. "It's one of my favorites."
"You've read it before, then?" She nodded, and Sirius again looked at the cover of the book. "Wait a tick – that's not a library book." Again, only a nod in response. "You brought a book with you to your detention?" Again, only a nod. "You brought a book with you to your detention in the library?" he pressed, amusedly appalled.
"It was in my bag," she said, indicating the bag that sat on the other side of her. "I bring a book with me everywhere."
"Why?"
"In case I feel like reading it."
And then she went back to reading it. A minute or two passed, and Sirius's leg began bouncing up and down in boredom.
"We should play a game," he said.
She looked up at him. "A game?"
"To pass the time."
"What kind of game?"
This, he had not considered. He quickly scanned his options. "Hide and seek?" She snorted, and he could not blame her. "No, you're right. How about…how about we each get five minutes to search for the book with the dirtiest word we can find in it. Whoever finds the better word gets a point and then we go again." She only looked at him for a beat before returning to her book. Sirius sighed. "No game, then."
The minutes ticked by in silence. Again, he wished for James.
"Will you stop that?" she said suddenly, just as Sirius was about to get up to go wander out of sheer boredom.
"Stop what?"
"That leg bouncing thing you're doing."
"Oh. Why?"
"It's distracting me."
He grinned at her. "Good. You're boring when you're reading."
Sighing, she closed her book and set it on the ground next to her, clearly resigned to the fate of being distracted for the next hour. No sooner had she done this, though, that the thought occurred to Sirius that he really did not know what to say to her.
"Are you going to the Quidditch match tomorrow?" he asked.
"Yes, I suppose so, if the weather's nice. Who are we playing, do you know?"
"Ravenclaw," Sirius said, leaning his head against the wall and observing the motion of the floating books in front of him with pride. "James won't stop prattling on about it."
"Is he on the team, then?" she asked.
"Yes, he made Chaser. Didn't you know?"
Gin shrugged. "I don't pay it much attention, I guess."
They fell into silence and she again reached for her book, but Sirius leaned over and grabbed it up before she could get her hand on it.
"What's it about, anyway, if it's not dead boring?" he asked, flipping idly through the pages.
"A boy."
"A boy?"
"Mhmm."
"Let me guess, his name is Peter?"
"Mhmm."
"And there's a girl named Wendy?"
"Mhmm."
"Fascinating, that."
She smiled at his sarcasm. "Peter lives in a place called Neverland, where he doesn't ever have to grow up. And he has lots of adventures with his friends…and he can fly…"
"He's got a broom?"
"No, he can fly without a broom. And he's got a fairy friend called Tinkerbell and when she sprinkles her dust on people then they can fly without a broom, too."
"Well that's just ridiculous," Sirius scoffed, but he didn't put up a fight when she reached across him to grab her book back. It looked like she was about to become absorbed in it once again, so he changed the subject. "Have you finished that essay for McGonagall?"
He winced. Homework. He was talking to her about homework.
"Hm?" she said distractedly, and then with a patient expression she set the book down again. "No, I haven't even started it yet. I reckon I'll have to do it this weekend."
"Yeah, me too."
There was a pause before she said, "I don't much like Transfiguration."
"Really?"
"No, I'm not very good at it."
"I'm great at it."
"Well bully for you."
"What do you like, then, if not Transfiguration?"
"I like Defense Against the Dark Arts." She hesitated. "Well, I did last year at least. I don't like it the way Philpott teaches."
Sirius snorted. "No one likes it the way that git teaches it."
"Adin's convinced that he was the fat kid growing up, and that's why he hates everyone the way he does."
"Yeah, I can see that. I bet he got beat up loads in school. He was hexed every day, at least."
"Well even if that's true, it doesn't excuse the way he acts."
"We can't figure out what Dumbledore was thinking when he hired him," Sirius said. "I guess Dumbledore's always been a bit off his rocker though."
Gin shifted against the wall to get more comfortable, pulling her feet up to sit cross-legged, and her knee brushed lightly against his. He wondered if she even noticed the contact, but suddenly his knee felt very tingly.
"I heard the Defense job is cursed," she said. "No one has lasted for more than a year in forever."
"Well I hope that's true. That'd mean we only have to suffer through Philpott until June."
"It's an important subject, though, Defense Against the Dark Arts," Gin said quietly. "Particularly now, with all these weird things happening."
"What weird things? Besides those nutters killing Muggles, I mean."
Gin looked at him as if trying to determine if he was joking or not.
"There's been other things than the Muggle killings. Weird things mentioned in…do you ever read the Prophet?"
"No, I don't have a subscription. Why?"
"I don't either, but I'll look at the copy in the common room in the evenings and…there's just been all sorts of strange things recently. Disappearances, unexplained deaths. That sort of thing."
"Really?"
Gin nodded, her brow furrowed. "My mum's been worried about it, when I've asked her. Because she's a Muggle-born, I guess. She'd be cross if she found out I jinxed a Slytherin."
"She likes the Slytherins?" asked Sirius, confused.
"No, but she keeps telling me to keep my head down, to not draw attention to myself. She won't really explain why, though, or what it has to do with what's in the Prophet."
She was gazing down at her fingers and Sirius used the moment to steal a long glance at her. They were sitting very close together, their shoulders almost touching and their backs against the wall. As usual, her expression was unreadable. Sirius couldn't decide if he liked this about her or not.
"What Wilkes did to Mary was sick," he said. "There's nothing wrong with defending your friend."
"Says the guy who jinxes Slytherins every chance he gets."
"Well someone's got to."
"Yes, and you and James seem to have it covered without my help."
She was really very pretty, he thought. He had known this before, of course, but he had never been quite so close to her as he was now. She turned and looked at him. He had never noticed how blue her eyes were.
"What?" she asked, noticing his strange expression.
Without pausing to think, Sirius leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. He had a quick glimpse of the shock on her face before he realized he was supposed to close his eyes. After a second, Gin pulled away from him, her eyes round and her cheeks pink.
He didn't know what had made him do it. If he had stopped to think, he certainly wouldn't have had the nerve. Now though, he was feeling quite warm all over, as a mixture of embarrassment and excitement overtook him. He had never kissed a girl before.
"Sorry," he said quickly, though he wasn't actually sorry. He looked away from her, noticing for the first time that the books had finished sorting themselves.
"Why did you do that?"
He glanced back at her. She didn't look angry, only slightly confused. He shrugged. "I don't know. Just felt like it."
"Oh." She paused awkwardly. "Well that was nice of you."
His heart was beating rather quickly now and his fingers felt funny – tingly and fatter than usual. "Can I do it again?"
She glanced around at the bookshelves nervously. Her cheeks were still pink. Finally, after what felt like an eternity but in reality was only a second, she looked at him and shrugged. "Okay."
Heart beating so loudly he was surprised she couldn't hear it, he leaned in again. He tried to be a bit gentler this time. Her lips were very soft and she smelled quite nice. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with his hands, so he just left them in his lap.
After a few moments, he pulled back and grinned at her. She laughed.
"What's so funny?"
"Is this what you do in all your detentions?"
"Well I sit most of my detentions with James."
"So…yes, then?"
"Ha ha," he said, frowning. "No, I've never kissed anyone before."
He hadn't meant to say it...the words had slipped out before he thought them through. She stopped laughing and looked at him, her expression as inscrutable as ever. He wished she would quit looking at him like that.
"Me either," she said.
He smiled at her, trying not to show the relief he felt at her words.
"What's gotten into you?"
Sirius, James, Peter, and Remus were sitting alone at the end of the Gryffindor table early the next morning. The first Quidditch match of the season – and of James's career – would be taking place later that morning, and James had woken them all up very early in his excitement.
"What do you mean?" Sirius asked quickly.
Remus stared at him. "I mean you keep looking over at the door every five seconds."
"Oh," Sirius said, busying himself with the eggs on his plate. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Something in Sirius's voice tugged James out of his daydream (in which he had scored 19 goals and was asked to play Chaser for England). Sirius was wearing the same innocent expression he usually pulled to try and get them out of detention. James exchanged a look with Remus and Peter.
"Well?" he said.
Sirius looked up at him, surprised. "Well what?"
"Why are you acting so weird?"
"I'm not acting weird."
"Oh don't give me that look, I'm not McGonagall. Do I need to offer you some fruit again to make sure your body hasn't been invaded during the night?"
"No, that's not –"
"Wait… no, he was acting weird last night, too," cut in Peter, frowning a bit in concentration.
"Oh yeah! That's right…he got back from detention and didn't even want to challenge those firsties to Exploding Snap…"
"I was tired!"
"Tired! Ha!"
"You're right, Peter, he said he was tired and then he went straight to bed…"
"On a Friday night, no less…"
All three of James, Remus, and Peter looked expectantly at Sirius, who grimaced, clearly undergoing some sort of emotional battle before sighing, resigned. He swiveled his head to check that no one was near, before leaning in over the table, closer to the others, who followed suit.
"You can't tell anyone, all right?"
"Of course."
"No, I'm being serious. You can't tell."
"We won't tell!"
"We promise!"
"What is it?"
Sirius glanced around again, but there was no one within earshot of them. "Gin Leigh and I had detention with Pince last night."
"Yeah, we know. Apparently it was knackering. So what?"
"Did you dare Gin to steal Pince's knickers or something?"
"I kissed her!"
Peter choked on a kipper. "You kissed Pince?"
"No, you idiot, I kissed Gin!"
"Why would you do that?"
Sirius leaned back and shrugged, but looked rather pleased with himself. "Why not?"
James stared at his best friend, amazed. Sirius had kissed a girl? He had never thought of Gin like that before…he supposed she was quite good looking…
"So what was it like?"
Sirius considered this for a moment and then grinned. "I dunno…it was good."
Remus lowered his eyebrows in confusion. "So is she your girlfriend now?"
"What?" Sirius yelped.
"Well you kissed her, so does that mean she's your girlfriend?"
Sirius looked positively alarmed. "No! I don't want any girlfriend. I just did it because, I don't know, I felt like it…and she was sitting right there…"
Remus snorted and turned back to his porridge. "Charming."
James started laughing, which earned him a glare from his best friend. "What's so funny?"
"I can't wait to take the mickey out of her!" James said, looking around hopefully to see if Gin had come down to breakfast yet.
"Don't you dare," said Sirius, as Peter and Remus joined in on James's laughter. "You promised! You all promised you wouldn't say anything!"
James sobered when he caught sight of Sirius's pleading expression. "Oh, okay, fine. We won't say anything. I never knew you to be so sensitive, Lover Lips."
Remus and Peter continued laughing as Sirius gave an almighty shove to James's shoulder and sent him sprawling to the ground. James shot them all an unappreciative hand gesture from his position on the cold, hard stone, which only solicited a smirk from Sirius and more laughter from the others.
"Stop trying to injure my Chaser before the match even begins, Black!" said a voice from behind them. James grinned up at Fiona Beal, his Quidditch Captain, and the rest of the Gryffindor team who had apparently all come down to breakfast together. He sprung up off the floor and took his seat next to them.
"Will do, Beal, if you tell him to stop being such a smarmy git," said Sirius, munching happily on some bacon.
"How are you feeling, Potter?" asked Jeremiah Peakes, a fifth-year Beater, as he began piling eggs onto his plate.
"Great!" said James. "I can't wait! We're going to trounce Ravenclaw!"
"That's the spirit," said Fiona.
"He certainly doesn't have a problem with his confidence, does he?" laughed Susanna O'Shea.
"Why should I?" James asked. "We're a great team! There's a better chance that the Cannons win the league this year than there is of us losing today."
The rest of the team shook their heads with different levels of amusement at James's excitement; indeed, a few of the younger players looked rather too ill to find anything amusing at that moment. As the Great Hall filled up and more and more Gryffindors stopped by to wish the team good luck, James began feeling the first stirs of nervousness in his stomach. Almost as though from a different life, he remembered the hours of practicing in the back garden with his dad, the pick-up matches he had got in on with the Bones brothers and their assorted friends, the dreams of professional Quidditch that had been fostered at the Wimbourne Wasps matches his grandfather used to take him to. His very first Quidditch match…he had been waiting for this moment for years.
"Psst," whispered Peter, snapping James out of his reverie for the second time that morning. "Look, there's Gin."
All four boys turned and looked to the opposite end of the Gryffindor table, where Gin was sitting down to breakfast next to Lily and Mary.
"Well she doesn't look any different," James noted.
"What, did you expect her to have a great blinking sign on her forehead or something?" snapped Sirius.
"So you're not going to go talk to her, Sirius?" Remus asked.
"No," said Sirius lightly. "I don't have anything to say to her."
Remus looked like he was going to comment on this, but at that moment Fiona rose from the table. "Team, to the locker room now, if you will."
James could feel the eyes of hundreds of students on him as he stood up with the other members of the team. He suddenly wished he had not eaten so much breakfast – it was wriggling around uncomfortably in his stomach.
"Good luck, James!" Peter said.
"Good luck," echoed Remus.
"You'll be brilliant," said Sirius, clapping James on the shoulder.
Grinning through his nerves, James walked with his team through the Great Hall. As he passed the end of the Gryffindor table, Lily, Gin, and Mary all smiled at him and wished him luck. He made his way in to the entrance hall with an extra spring in his step.
James had never given much thought to girls before. Most of his free time and energy had gone toward planning new adventures and plotting new schemes with his friends. Although he would never admit it to anyone, the idea of Sirius going around kissing girls was slightly unsettling to him. He felt ruffled in much the same way he had felt the previous year, when he had witnessed Stuart Bones kissing Bayle Kamana in an abandoned classroom. It was a foreign concept to him, but also exciting. He tried to think of a girl at Hogwarts who he would want to kiss, but by the time the team had made it to the changing rooms, he still hadn't settled on any girl in particular. And then he mentally scolded himself – why was he thinking about girls at a time like this? He need to focus all of his attention on the upcoming Quidditch match.
The roar of the crowd as Gryffindor stepped onto the pitch was deafening. James couldn't remember his heart ever beating so fast. The thrill of an impending prank had nothing on this. He watched as Fiona shook hands with the Ravenclaw Captain and through the tumultuous shouts and applause of the crowd, he vaguely heard Madam Hooch's voice.
"Mount your brooms…on my whistle…three…two…one…"
James soared into the air, the wind whistling in his ears, and swooped in to grab the Quaffle right out from between two Ravenclaw Chasers.
"And Gryffindor takes first possession," said the magically magnified voice of Davey Gudgeon, who was commentator for the match. "Potter streaks toward the hoops – look at the speed on this kid – lobs the Quaffle to Beal, who drops down to avoid the Ravenclaw defensive line."
James's concentration was focused solely on the play they were running, and he knew Garrison Walker would be crossing his path at any moment…
"…Walker short-screens Potter, and Ravenclaw Chaser Brown falls for the fake, chases after Walker…oof, not too bright for a Ravenclaw, is he?"
A chorus of boos from the blue-clad section followed this comment, but it was soon drowned out by Davey's excited shouts.
"Beal passes to the suddenly wide-open Potter…Potter shoots…POTTER SCORES! Gryffindor leads ten to zero! Nifty little shot there by the second-year Chaser…"
James's heart seemed to swell in euphoria as he raced back down the pitch, the screams of the Gryffindor supporters ringing in his ears. He had scored a goal! He chanced a glance at the stands, where he could see Sirius, Remus, and Peter cheering for him. This was better than anything he could have imagined…better than sneaking out to Hogsmeade or pranking the Slytherins…
Fiona had somehow taken back possession of the Quaffle, so James sped to meet her halfway down the pitch, swooping above her just in time to catch the arcing ball. A whistling in his ears signaled a Bludger hot on his trail, so he cut toward Jeremiah Peakes, who was waiting with his Beater's club cocked and ready. Garrison Walker crossed in front of James once more, but this time James tossed the Quaffle at him, and Garrison shot it easily through the left-most goal. James whooped…nothing could stop them now…
Twenty minutes later, Gryffindor was leading seventy points to ten, James having scored three of the seven goals. He had just dived in on a dropped Quaffle when there was a loud roar from the crowd that could only mean one thing…
"Go, Susanna, go!" murmured James, as the two Seekers streaked across the pitch, racing after the tiny glint of gold that circled the far goal post…
"AND SUSANNA O'SHEA CATCHES THE SNITCH!" yelled Gudgeon over the screaming of the crowd. "GRYFFINDOR WINS!"
And as the Gryffindor team came together in a hugging, sweating, celebratory mass, the peculiar thought crossed James's mind that, at that exact moment, if forced to kiss any girl in the entire school, he very well would have chosen Susanna O'Shea.
Several weeks later, James's elation at at the outcome of his first Quidditch match had barely started to abate. Gryffindors of all ages continued to stop him in the common room or the corridors to congratulate him on such a stellar performance during his first outing. Only one thing was finally able to break through his cloud of euphoria – the full moon.
Up in their dormitory, James waited with Sirius, Peter, and Remus, anticipating the moment when Remus would have to leave their peaceful sanctuary to brave his transformation. James paced. Sirius tapped his wand against his knee impatiently. Peter fumbled with his own fingers. Remus sat stoic and still, the only one of them who was used to the torment of awaiting the inevitable. Nevertheless, he looked disturbingly pale and weary.
"How much longer is it?" Sirius asked, breaking several minutes of restless silence.
Remus glanced at the clock that stood by the door. "I need to leave to meet Madam Pomfrey in about ten minutes."
They lapsed into silence once more. James's stomach churned. He had never felt so helpless in his life.
"And there's nothing anyone can do? Maybe Dumbledore…" he started, but Remus shook his head.
"Dumbledore can't help me. There's no cure, I promise." His shoulders sagged and he wrung his hands together nervously, the first movement he had made in a quarter of an hour. "Look, can we talk about something else? Sitting here like this is driving me mad."
James, realizing that perhaps his pacing around the dormitory wasn't particularly calming for his friend, sat down next to Sirius and wracked his brain for something else to talk about.
"So have you ever talked to Gin, Sirius?" Peter asked.
Sirius blinked at him. "What do you mean?"
"I mean have you talked to her? After, you know…" Peter started making kissing faces. James laughed and even Remus chuckled a little.
"Of course I've talked to her. She's still my Potions partner, isn't she?" Sirius said, rolling his eyes.
"Yeah, but outside of Potions, you both act like the other one doesn't even exist!" James said.
"Well what am I supposed to say to her, exactly?"
"Hey Gin, let's head to the library for another snog?" James sniggered.
Sirius whacked him in the face with a pillow as Peter and Remus laughed. "Very helpful. Thanks a lot."
"Anytime," James said, straightening his glasses.
"She's been ignoring me just as much, I might add," Sirius said. "Why should I be the one to talk to her?"
"Do you like her?" asked James.
"Like her?" Sirius repeated blankly.
"You know…do you like her like her?"
"Oh. Well…I don't know really."
"So you kissed her but you don't fancy her?" asked Remus.
Sirius looked uncomfortable. "Well, I mean…she's pretty I guess…"
"There are lots of pretty girls, though," said Peter. "Are you going to go round kissing all of them?"
Sirius grinned. "Maybe."
They all laughed, though James couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
"I should probably be leaving," Remus said softly, after the laughter had died down.
"We can walk with you," offered Sirius.
"No, you shouldn't. I always go down on my own. It'd look suspicious if you all came with me this time."
James nodded. "Isn't there anything we can do for you?"
"No," Remus said, pulling himself to his feet. "But thank you – all of you – for being here and waiting with me. It's made it so much easier. Knowing that you know…that I don't have to lie to you anymore…it's already been the best full moon I've ever had."
On shaking legs, Remus crossed to the door. James had a sudden, desperate urge to try and stop him, to keep him from walking through that door, as if that would keep the transformation at bay, as if their presence could somehow overpower the terrible curse he carried. But, in the end, he knew there was nothing that could stop the moon from rising, and there was nothing he could do to ease his friend's torture. Remus paused in the doorway and looked around at all of them again, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"See you all tomorrow night, then."
Once he was gone, James turned to Peter and Sirius, both who looked just as miserable as he felt.
"We have to do something," Sirius said.
"You heard Remus," said Peter. "There's nothing we can do to help."
But this, James realized suddenly, was not strictly true. "We can go with him!" The words were out of his mouth before the thought had even fully formed in his mind.
"What?"
James had already jumped up and started digging through his trunk for his Invisibility Cloak.
"He just said…just now…that it helped him to have us sitting with him beforehand. We can't help him during the actual transformation, but we can go with him under the Willow and keep him company until it happens, at least!"
"Brilliant!" said Sirius, springing up as James's fingers finally closed around the recognizable, slippery cloth of the cloak.
"You want us to follow a werewolf to his transformation?" squeaked Peter, his round eyes on the cloak, which James was now shaking out.
"We'll get out of there before he transforms," said James, waving an unconcerned hand as if he did this sort of thing every day. "It's no big deal."
Sirius was waiting impatiently by the door. "We've got to get a shift on. We don't know how to get under the Willow. We'll have to follow Remus and Pomfrey."
James bounded over to join him, shoving the cloak in his pocket for the time being. They would be able to cover themselves once they were in the corridor. He turned back to Peter, who was still sitting on his bed, twisting his hands nervously.
"Come on, Peter!"
"I dunno…I mean, it sounds awfully dangerous…"
"Fine," Sirius snapped. "You stay here. We're going to help Remus."
He and James were halfway out the door when Peter hurried over to join them. "Okay, okay, I'll come with you!"
"Excellent," said James. "Let's go."
The three boys, now concealed by the Invisibility Cloak, caught up to Remus just as he was making his way into the hospital wing. They waited silently for him to reemerge with Madam Pomfrey at his side. James didn't think he had ever been as quiet as he was while they walked across the grounds toward the Whomping Willow. He glanced up at the sky. There was no sign of the moon yet, though the twilight was approaching with every minute.
They watched as Madam Pomfrey picked up a long stick from the grass and used it to poke at the base of the tree. At once, the thrashing branches became still.
"How'd she do that?" Sirius whispered.
"She just…poked it," muttered James. Remus and Pomfrey had both slipped under a gap at the roots of the tree and had disappeared from view. "Come on, before the tree starts moving again."
As one, the boys clambered to the tree and into a hole that was camouflaged in its roots. It was not easy to do while trying to stay hidden under the cloak, and they landed ungracefully in a heap in what appeared to be a dark, earthen tunnel. James staggered to his feet, offering Peter a hand and shifting the cloak back around them all. In the distance, he could see the light from Pomfrey's wand as she guided Remus through the tunnel.
"Come on," he said, motioning them to start walking.
They walked for what felt like an unreasonably long time. The tunnel was low and cramped. Worrying that Pomfrey might come back their way at any moment and run into them, James picked up the pace. They had to make it there for Remus. It was the only way he knew how to help.
After what felt like an eternity, the tunnel started to rise and a grey patch of light came into view. Making sure that all of their limbs were sufficiently covered by the cloak, the boys crawled through a small opening and into a decrepit house. Muffled voices could be heard from somewhere on the floor above them.
"Let's stay here until Pomfrey leaves," whispered Sirius. "We might give ourselves away if we go upstairs."
They only had to wait a few minutes until Madam Pomfrey came down the stairs. She glanced around the seemingly empty room with a heavy sigh before ducking and disappearing through the tunnel. After waiting an additional minute to ensure that she was really gone, James pulled the cloak from their heads.
"Let's go upstairs," he said, unsure of why he was still whispering.
They climbed the staircase silently and pushed open the first door that they came to in the corridor. Remus, who had been sitting on the edge of a large bed with his head in his hands, jumped violently when they entered the room.
"What are you doing here?" he asked, eyes wide.
"We came to be with you!" James said, smiling at the brilliance of his plan. "So that you don't have to be alone before the transformation!"
"No no no no," Remus said, visibly shaking. "You can't be here! I only have a few minutes left. You have to leave!"
"We'll leave when you transform." Sirius crossed the room to sit on the bed next to Remus, who jumped up at once, as if the other boy's presence had scalded him somehow. Peter went and sat down in his place.
"You don't understand! You have to leave! It can make it start sooner…if I get too worked up…it can happen any minute!" Remus looked terrified, beside himself.
"Remus," James said, startled by his friend's reaction, "calm down, mate."
But Remus did not calm down. He grabbed the doorpost to steady himself. "No. Please. Please leave."
James glanced at Sirius, who was staring at Remus with a frown of concern. Peter sat next to him, still twisting his hands together nervously.
"Okay," conceded James, swallowing hard. "Okay, well we'll go then, if it's upsetting you so much."
Remus looked like he barely had the strength to stay on his feet. He was holding onto the doorpost as if it were his lifeline.
"Go," he whispered, his voice cracking.
Then, with a terrible moaning noise, Remus collapsed in the doorway, shaking uncontrollably. James sprang forward to grab him, but by the time he had reached him, Remus was beyond help. His eyes had rolled back in his head and a frothy white foam started pouring from his mouth. James watched, horrified, as coarse brown fur began sprouting all over his friend's body. A terrible noise was coming from Remus's chest – a mix between a scream and a growl – and was mingling with the gruesome sound of hundreds of snapping bones.
James again reached for Remus, not even realizing what he was doing, when he felt hands on his chest, pulling him backwards. He fell over on top of Sirius, who scrambled up immediately and slammed the door of the bedroom, sliding an iron deadbolt into place and blocking out the terrible sight of the wolf in the hallway but unable to block out the sounds coming from him.
"No," croaked James, getting to his feet and trying to get back to the door, but Sirius pushed him away. "No, it's Remus – we have to help Remus!"
"James," said Sirius, who was very white, "we can't go out there. He'll…he's not Remus anymore. He'll kill you."
James reached up and gripped his hair in frustration, staring horrified at the door that blocked the wolf from them. The sounds coming from the hallway were horrible…he had never heard any creature moan in agony like that. He felt like he was going to be sick. Remus…poor Remus…
And then the moaning stopped. There was silence on the other side of the door. Sirius was staring at it, breathing heavily, his wand pointed steadily in front of him. Peter was standing in the far corner of the room, tears streaming down his face.
"What are we going to do?" Peter whispered, his voice much higher than usual. "What are we going to do? He'll kill us! He'll kill us! How are we going to get out?"
"Shut up!" hissed Sirius, his eyes still glued on the door. He seemed to be thinking very quickly. "What was…something like…like Col…collatorpus…" He scrunched his eyes closed tightly in frustration and then opened them at once, his face triumphant as he remembered the spell. "Colloportus!"
There was a soft squelching noise as the door sealed shut, but Sirius did not lower his wand, evidently not entirely confident that the spell would hold against a werewolf.
"What did you –"
"Shh! Listen!'
New noises could now be heard from the hallway…scuffling noises, as if something heavy were getting to its feet. James thought he could discern the sound of sharp claws clattering against the wooden floors. He glanced at Sirius and then he, too, took out his wand as quietly as possible, hardly daring to breathe.
There was a beat of silence, a growl, and then BANG…a sickening thud against the door. Peter squeaked and slid to the floor in terror. BANG. The werewolf once again threw himself bodily into the other side of the door, trying to get to the three boys holed up in the bedroom. BANG.
"He can smell us," whispered Sirius, his voice shaking.
And then a piercing, bone-rattling howl tore through the air, and both James and Sirius scampered across the room to the far wall, all three of the boys pressing their backs against the wood paneling as if hoping it would swallow them up, as if putting the large bed between the wolf and themselves would make any difference whatsoever. The howl came to a chilling end, though the sound of it vibrated in James's ears even as another BANG echoed through the room.
The snarling and growling coming from the hallway now was terrible. The wolf continued to hurl his body into the door, but either due to Sirius's spell or others that had been put on it previously, the door wasn't giving way. It seemed to go on for hours. Once the initial shockwaves of fear had marginally diminished, all James could think about was what Remus was going through, continuously throwing his body at the wooden door, again and again. After a while, when they realized the wolf wouldn't be able to break through to get to them, Sirius, too, slid down to sit on the floor, looking very sick. None of them spoke. None of them even looked at each other. All of their thoughts were on Remus, out in the hallway, hurting himself again and again.
It was the longest night of James's life.
The noises became less frightening at some point through the night – the growling and snarling and digging had turned into pitiful whimpering – though they did not become less terrible. James could feel the guilt rising up in him like bile. It was his fault that they were there, all his fault that the wolf could smell the humans and was torturing himself to get to them. He had been trying to help his friend, but he had only made it so much worse. What could he ever do to make it up to him, to make it right?
There was a small, high window on the wall above them, and through it, he noticed the black sky become an inky purple, then a deep lilac. He listened hard, but the hallway was now silent. James glanced at Sirius, who was huddled up against the wall with his head buried in his arms, and at Peter, who looked dazed, his eyes swollen and red. He was about to speak when he heard something in the hallway…it was a shuffling noise, and then more snapping sounds. Horrified, James realized that Remus's bones were breaking again. He was transforming back. Sirius and Peter both looked up.
"Should we go out there?" Peter whispered.
"Give it a minute," James said. His voice cracked from lack of use. "We have to make sure he's completely back to being Remus."
They all stood up and huddled around the door, straining their ears for any sign that the wolf was completely gone. The hallway was once again silent. With a shaking hand, Sirius pointed his wand at the door handle and muttered, "Alohomora." When he slid the iron lock aside, the clang of the metal echoed throughout the silent house like a blast of cannon fire. Sirius paused for a moment, listening hard once more, before opening the door a crack. A second later, he gasped and threw the door wide open.
The sight that met his eyes made James clutch at the wall for support. Remus was curled up at the top of the staircase, unconscious. There was blood – a lot of it – though James couldn't tell from where it was stemming. One of his arms was bent at an odd angle, clearly broken. His face was bruised and so swollen it looked barely recognizable. Bits of shredded black fabric littered the hallway and James stared at them until his mind sluggishly realized that they were what was left of his friend's school robes.
"Remus," he whispered, as he, Sirius, and Peter hurried over to their friend. "Remus, can you hear me?"
Sirius leaned down close to Remus's bruised face. "He's breathing."
Relief unlike anything James had ever felt flooded through him at this declaration. He stared down at his battered friend and inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to tame the prickling behind his glasses. Remus looked frighteningly pale, and the pool of blood that was blooming across the floorboards dwarfed his bare body.
"What should we do?" asked Peter. "Should we go get someone?"
"His fingernails are gone," said James without thought.
"What?"
"His fingernails." James pointed at the tips of his friend's fingers, at the torn, ravished, bloody nubs. He swayed slightly and wiped the wetness from his cheeks. "He dug so much at the floor trying to get to us that he tore his fingernails off." He vaguely recognized the weight of a hand gripping his shoulder, but whether it belonged to Sirius or Peter, James did not know. It was as though he was looking through a long tunnel, with only the sight of Remus's gruesome body in the halo of light at the end. "Do you think he's cold? Should we cover him?"
"There's blankets in the bedroom," Peter said in a small voice.
"No, shh, listen," said Sirius, standing up straight. The weight from James's shoulder lifted, and he could hear soft noises coming from the floor below. Someone was coming, but still James did not move. "Quick!" Sirius whispered, pulling at James's elbow with almost painful force. "The cloak! Get the cloak on!"
Without conscious thought, without even realizing that he had moved, James found himself huddled in the opposite end of the corridor. Sirius threw the cloak over their heads only a few moments before Madam Pomfrey appeared at the top of the stairs.
She stopped as she caught sight of Remus's body, sighed and made her way over to him, covering him in a spare cloak and pulling out her wand. Her reaction suggested that Remus's condition was not too much worse than how she usually found him. James didn't know whether this was a good or bad thing, though he relaxed a bit as he watched the matron begin to murmur healing spells. They were unusual spells – certainly not ones James had ever heard his mother use – and she whispered them with a fierce confidence and distilled patience. After nearly a quarter of an hour, she levitated Remus's still unconscious body down the stairs and into the tunnel.
James had no recollection of leaving the house, sneaking through the tunnel, or making his way back up to Gryffindor Tower. His thoughts were too focused on what he had witnessed, on the things he had seen and had heard. The common room was empty. They had over an hour before students would start emerging, bright-eyed and hungry for breakfast. He looked at Sirius and Peter.
"We've got to find a way to help him."
He didn't know how or where the strength in his voice was coming from. He had never been as sure of anything in his life as he was about helping Remus.
"How?" said Peter, and for once he didn't look scared, but frightfully sad. His eyes were bloodshot and his round face ashen. "How are we going to help him when there's no cure?"
Sirius looked just as resolute as James felt. He had a steely glint in his eye that James had never seen before. "We'll find a way. We'll find a way to make it easier for him, even if we can't cure him. This is Remus we're talking about. We'll find a way to help him, if it's the last thing we do."