A/N

Hi!

First, a big thank you to everyone who left me birthday reviews, you really made my day :)

Second, sorry it's been two weeks, my beta has had a busy fortnight, but I do have nine more chapters written now :)

Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Saturday, 4th September 1971, 8:43 am

Remus was on his way down the Grand Staircase for breakfast when a giant blue squirrel startled him by dashing past him up the bannister. He spun around to watch its progress as it continued climbing. The strange creature didn't seem to have any fur, and its skin had an odd shine to it. If forced to guess, he would say it was made from rubber. Weird. But what else would you expect in a magic school?

As he continued to descend the stairs, the sound of yelling, laughter and running feet reached his ears. He was almost at the ground floor when three Gryffindor second-years darted around the corner and passed him to run up the stairs. They were howling with laughter, and moments later an enormous, orange leopard with pink spots rounded the corner and leapt after them. Remus wondered if the animals were connected to his dorm mates sneaking out of the room the night before. They had been giggling loud enough to wake him up when they returned two hours later.

He reached the entrance hall and flattened himself against the wall. It was chaos. At least a hundred students were crowded into the space. The entrance hall was vast, so this normally wouldn't be a problem, but there were also hundreds of the strange, technicolour rubber animals bursting out of the Great Hall. Animals that were naturally small were inflated to several times their usual size. While bigger animals, like the deep purple elephant that was forcing its way out through the doors, were normal-sized. There were rubber birds in the air, dive-bombing squealing students, and rubber primates swinging from the light fixtures to land on people's heads. No one seemed to be able to enter the hall to eat, though several students were still trying.

Remus spotted Professor McGonagall attempting to herd the students back to the staircase, and Professor Dumbledore was standing off to one side watching the chaos unfold with a twinkle in his eye. The sea of students parted, and the tip of a hat bobbed its way down the path heading towards the main doors. A giant rabbit floated ahead of it, trapped in a bubble of faint yellow light. When the rabbit reached the doors, they swung open, and the light bubble vanished. The rabbit bounded away towards the forbidden forest and the watching children cheered.

'Attention, students,' Professor McGonagall said, her voice magically amplified to be heard over the commotion. 'It will take some time to clear the Great Hall. Please return to your common rooms. Breakfast will be served to you there shortly.'

Remus stayed put while he waited for the entrance hall to clear of people. As the students left the area and made room, more animals spilled from the Great Hall. The entrance hall was almost empty of people when Remus heard a series of loud thuds and looked up in time to see the four house tables, led by the teachers' table, gallop out of the hall. They charged through the throng of balloon animals, knocking them out of the way, and out into the grounds, where they pranced around on the grass, seeming to enjoy the sunshine and freedom.

Remus chuckled and batted his way through the balloon animals towards the kitchens. The prank had been impressive for a bunch of first-years. The balloons were obviously store-bought, but he had no idea how they had animated them. He reckoned he could do better though. A good prankster needed one thing if they didn't want to be caught. Allies. And preventing your fellow students from eating was not the way to win them. Also, he would do it all with his own magic. He wouldn't cheat by using store-bought items.

Remus felt a thrill of excitement. After breakfast, he would hit the library. He was bound to find something useful.

Sirius, James and Peter crouched in the corner of the entrance hall under the invisibility cloak with their hands over their mouths, trying to contain their laughter as they watched the house tables stampeding out through the front doors.

'I forgot the tables would animate too. This is brilliant,' James whispered.

'I know,' Sirius whispered back. 'We should get back upstairs though. The teachers will be trying to find out who did it.'

They stood up and stepped away from the wall, but Sirius flung his arms out to stop them when he spotted someone else peeling themselves away from the wall.

'Wait. Is that Remus?' he said, pointing. 'Where's he going?'

They watched as Remus crossed the hall and headed down to the dungeons instead of up.

'I dunno, mate, but we can't follow him now. We need to go,' James said.

Sirius knew James was right, but he was intrigued and decided he would follow Remus another time. The boys made their way to an alcove where they could remove the cloak without being seen and raced back up to Gryffindor tower. Well, Sirius raced James. Peter sort of just huffed along behind, arriving at the common room a good ten minutes after Sirius and James and finding them already settled in a corner with plates of sausages, bacon and eggs and a bowl of cut fruit. James insisted on the fruit, saying it was, "important to keep one's body healthy."

'Do you two have to run everywhere?' Peter huffed, sitting down at the table with his friends.

'Yes. Yes, we do.' Sirius said, nodding.

'Don't complain, mate. If we hadn't, you wouldn't have any bacon. Look.' James pointed at the long table that had appeared in the middle of the common room, laden with food. 'They've already run out. But we got some for you because we're the best mates in the world.'

Peter picked up a rasher of bacon with his fingers. 'You're right. Thank you for running ahead so I could enjoy this delicious breakfast meat, oh wondrous friends of mine,' he said, before stuffing the entire rasher into his mouth and chewing with a blissful smile on his face.

James laughed and slapped Peter on the back, 'That's the spirit.'

The common room was crowded and noisy with the whole of Gryffindor house present and trying to eat. Someone had coaxed a balloon lion through the portrait hole, and the inflated big cat prowled the room, pouncing on anyone who wasn't paying attention and making them squeal with surprise. Sirius kept an eye out for Remus while he ate, but he never returned from wherever he had gone. He hadn't eaten for two days now, and Sirius wondered if he should tell an adult, although that went against everything he believed in.

A sudden silence descended on the room, and Sirius looked up from his plate to see Professor McGonagall standing in front of the entrance and every student in the room staring at her in shock. The inflated lion was creeping up behind her, and Sirius gulped. Before the lion could pounce though, Professor McGonagall seemed to sense the impending attack and spun around. With a swift flick of her wand, she cast a spell at the lion, encasing it in the same pale yellow bubble that Professor Flitwick had used on the bunny in the entrance hall.

Turning back around, she glared at the packed room. 'Misters Potter, Black and Pettigrew, you will come with me.'

The boys stared at each other.

'How does she know?' James whispered.

'No idea, mate,' Sirius said, standing up and eyeing the furious professor. 'We better go though. She looks mad.'

'Follow me,' McGonagall said when the boys reached her. She flicked her wand again, and the lion floated out of the portrait hole ahead of them. They followed her down several flights of stairs to the first floor, and when they reached McGonagall's office, she waved them inside before striding over to the window. She opened it, directed the lion through, floated it to the ground and released it to join the hundreds of other balloon animals bounding around the school grounds.

'Sit down, gentlemen,' she said, moving to stand behind her desk.

The boys took seats in front of the desk and looked up at her. She made eye contact with each of them in turn, making them squirm in their seats.

'I'm sure you're wondering how I know that the three of you were responsible for the chaos this morning?'

Peter nodded.

'Thank you for that confirmation, Mister Pettigrew.'

Sirius and James glared at him.

'The Fat Lady informed me that the three of you requested entry to the tower at a quarter to three this morning. Since nobody else was outside of their common rooms after curfew last night, it was a simple deduction. I am very disappointed in all of you. Why you thought disrupting breakfast in this manner was a good idea, I will never understand. It was not only disruptive to the student population on the first weekend of term, but also caused a lot of extra work for the house-elves. It was extremely rude and inconsiderate. Thirty house points will be taken from each of you, and you will each receive two detentions. One for the disruption you caused and one for being out after curfew, to be served with me.'

She turned to glare at Sirius.

'Mister Black, you have been at school for less than three days and have already earned yourself four detentions. I think that might even be a school record. I want you to attend a meeting with me tomorrow afternoon to discuss your behaviour. Be here at half past seven and do not be late.'

She turned back to the others.

'Do you have anything to say for yourselves?'

They all stared at their feet and shook their heads. Even James wasn't brave enough to talk back to McGonagall.

'Very well. You may go.'

After leaving the office, James grabbed Sirius and Peter by the arm and dragged them down the corridor and around a corner before stopping and bursting into laughter.

'Oh my Gods, did you see her face? I thought she was going to explode!' he got out in between snorts.

Sirius stared at him dumbfounded that he could find getting into so much trouble that funny, but the laughter was contagious, and he was soon overcome with his own uncontrollable giggles. The three of them staggered back to the common room, clinging to each other in an attempt to stay upright and trying to regain control. They were still breaking out into the occasional giggle when they climbed through the portrait hole.

The library was quiet and peaceful, and it smelled of dust and parchment and ink. Remus adored it. He took a deep breath through his nose as he entered the sanctuary and sighed with contentment. He felt so at home in this space. Finding a secluded table in the corner of the transfiguration section, he set himself up ready to take notes and wandered down the aisle to browse. He had some idea of what he wanted to do but needed to do some research to find out if it was possible.

As he scanned the book titles for something useful, he thought back over the events of the last few days. Specifically, his dorm mates. Despite the way Sirius had treated him on their first day, he liked the other boys. Their mischievousness matched his own, and none of them had been horrid to him since. There was also the mystery of the spontaneously appearing sandwich. Had one of his dorm mates left it there for him? And if they had, why? The most logical explanation was that they had noticed his absence from the Great Hall and wanted to make sure he got something to eat, and that was kind—thoughtful even—so maybe he should give them a chance.

Sirius had attacked Snape in Potions class, though. But after what Snape had done to him in the owlery, he couldn't find it in himself to care. He felt the heavy weight of shame at that thought. He really should care about the unprovoked attack on a student.

Should he extend the hand of friendship? Metaphorically of course, he couldn't actually touch them. Or was it too much of a risk? Sirius was observant, always watchful of his surroundings and the people near to him. He had the air of a hunted animal about him, and someone like that posed a grave danger to his secret, but was he more dangerous as a friend, or would that make him safer? A friend might be more likely to keep his secret if they discovered it, but they might also be more likely to discover it in the first place.

Huffing with annoyance at his own indecision, Remus scowled at the books on the shelf in front of him. A dark red volume caught his eye. The title of the book was etched in gold on the spine.

"Transfiguration en masse"

It sounded perfect. He pulled the book down and returned to his desk with it. Opening the book to the contents page, he ran his finger down the list.

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 - Theory

Chapter 3 - Focusing your mind

Chapter 4 - Channelling

He turned to chapter two and scanned until he found what he was looking for.

"Unlike instant transfiguration, which is dependent, to a certain extent, on the size of the caster's magical core, delayed transfiguration is only limited by the amount of time the caster is prepared to expend. By channelling one's magic into a container to be used later, a witch or wizard can increase their transfiguration ability infinitely and without risk."

This was exactly what Remus was looking for. He flipped to chapter three and read through the information carefully. It seemed his months of meditation were about to pay off in an unexpected way. The complicated technique necessary for the spell to work wouldn't be a problem for him, while it would take months of practice for someone who had never meditated.

He scanned through the information in chapter four, just to get an idea of what channelling his magic into a container would involve. To his relief, it didn't sound too hard. The technique was similar to channelling into a potion, but harder because of the need to keep focusing on your target and your intent at the same time. He felt confident that he could manage it though.

His plan was coming together, but it wouldn't be successful unless he could delay the transfiguration until a specified time, after the magic was transferred to an object placed in the container. He needed a timed activation charm and a way to combine it with the delayed transfiguration spell. With this in mind, he strolled over to the charms section of the library and didn't take long to locate a book called Timing Your Talents. A quick flick through the pages revealed the spell he needed, and it had a low difficulty rating so he should be able to cast it with a little practice.

Remus was pleased with the afternoon's work, but he still needed to combine the spells. He searched the library for another hour but found nothing useful until he reached the section on spell creation. Maybe he could devise his own method. He removed several books from the shelves and returned to his desk to study them.

Another hour later, Remus had three sheets of parchment filled with scrawled notes, equations and diagrams. And a functioning spell to combine the transfiguration with the charm, or so he hoped. Now he just needed somewhere to practise. He packed up his things and returned the books to their homes—he had no wish to annoy the librarian and get banned from the library—before grabbing his bag and leaving to search for a suitable location.

Remus climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, and it didn't take long to find an empty classroom. He decided to practise each element separately before attempting to combine them and began with the delayed transfiguration spell. Pulling out an empty potion bottle from his bag, he scanned the room for an object small enough to fit inside it. He couldn't see anything at first. The room contained nothing but dusty furniture. Some old desks, a few chairs, an empty bookcase and a blackboard hanging on the wall with rude words scrawled across its surface.

Eyeing the desks, an idea occurred to him. It was disgusting. Really gross, in fact. But needs must. He bent over and looked underneath the nearest desk. Yes. What else would you expect to find on the underside of school desks but used gum? That is so nasty, Remus thought, as he scraped off a wad, but it would be simple to transfigure, making it kind of ideal for the first attempt.

He placed the hardened wad of gum on the desk next to the potion bottle and pulled out his wand. Closing his eyes, he conjured up a mental image of the gum and, while holding that image in his mind, he pictured a second image, a perfect cube of gum, at the same time. Next, he pressed the tip of his wand against the potion bottle and tried to locate his magical core inside himself. In doing so, he lost focus on his mental images. Dammit. He opened his eyes and glared at the gum in annoyance.

Trying again, he located his magical core first and began the channelling process before conjuring up his mental images. He muttered the incantation under his breath and continued to channel for several seconds to be sure there would be enough magic stored to complete the transfiguration. It was a tiny object, and he was only altering one aspect of it, so it wouldn't take much. He would need to do some careful calculations before the actual event, though, to make sure it worked as planned.

Finished, he picked up the gum and dropped it into the opening at the top of the bottle. He was delighted when it instantly changed shape into a perfect cube. He tipped it out and scraped a second piece of gum from the underside of the desk and repeated the process. This time focusing on an image of a perfect sphere of gum and channelling magic for twice as long into the container. Remus dropped the first piece of gum in, and it changed into a perfect sphere. Now to test if the effect would work on a second item as intended, or whether the magic had all been used on the first item. He dropped the second piece of gum in and it changed just like it was supposed to. Remus was thrilled. He hadn't expected to have so much success so fast.

The coming moon was already affecting him; he could feel the pull of it, and his energy levels were dropping, but he wanted to finish the preliminary tests today so he could move on to practising on larger items after his transformation. If the combining incantation he had put together didn't work, then he would need to return to the research stage, and there was a high possibility of it not working.

Recalling the incantation for a simple gouging charm, he tried it out on the desktop first to make sure he could do it and then cast it with the timing charm, setting the activation for five seconds. He waited the five seconds, and a deep gouge appeared on the desk, right where he had cast it. With both elements of his spell working, he now needed to test them in combination.

He went through the process of channelling and conjured his mental images of the current gum spheres and the perfect cubes he wanted them to become. With all the elements in place he spoke the words of the timing charm followed by his combining incantation and finishing with the delayed transfiguration spell. He continued to channel enough magic for two transfigurations. With the spell complete he dropped the two pieces of gum into the bottle, nothing happened. Good. Remus tipped the bottle up to empty them back out onto the table. The timing spell was set for midday, so he sat down while he waited. He was exhausted.

At exactly midday, the two pieces of gum on the table transformed into perfect cubes, Remus smiled at the sight. Moments later his eyes drifted closed, and he fell asleep.

After their dressing down from McGonagall that morning, Sirius, James and Peter had returned to the common room. There had been some talk of getting homework done, but James had shot the idea down and suggested playing a few games of exploding snap instead. Sirius had never played before. His parents believed card games to be a waste of time, but he got the hang of it fast and was soon winning every game. While they were playing, Sirius noticed two red-headed boys watching them. They looked old enough to be seventh-years, and they were identical.

'Don't look around, but we're being watched. Two seventh-years. They keep staring at us and whispering.'

'The ginger twins?' James asked.

Sirius nodded.

'Yeah, I noticed them looking at us when McGonagall came to get us earlier. Maybe they're impressed.'

'Or they're planning something,' Peter said.

'Could be. We should watch our backs.' Sirius said.

After lunch, James suggested they explore the castle a bit. Sirius agreed because he hadn't seen Remus since that morning and it worried him. Wandering around the castle seemed like an excellent way to find him without it being obvious he was looking. Peter was as enthusiastic as he always was for anything James suggested. The boy had a serious case of hero worship.

The three boys set out wandering the corridors with no particular destination in mind, poking at oddly shaped bricks, pulling at light fixtures and speaking to portraits and statues. They were on the second floor when Peter found something, quite by accident. Meandering down a deserted stretch of corridor, Peter had caught his foot in the bottom edge of a tapestry that was a little too long for the wall it was hanging on. As he tripped, the tapestry was pulled back, revealing a hole in the wall behind it.

Peter went crashing to the floor at the same moment that James yelled, 'Hey, you found a secret passage, Pete!'

'Dunderful,' Peter said. 'I bit my dongue.'

'Shake it off, mate. You found the first secret passage. Let's see where it goes,' Sirius said.

The passage was dark and dusty, and smelled faintly of cabbages. The only light was filtered through minute gaps in the walls on either side. Sirius wrinkled his nose but led the way in. Peter took the rear, carefully pulling the tapestry back into place behind him. They followed the path around several twists and turns, and up a few flights of stairs, before reaching what appeared at first to be a dead end. The passage was blocked off by a smooth slab of wood; they pushed against it, but it wouldn't budge.

'Feel around, see if there's some kind of button or switch to open it,' James said.

They all fumbled around in the dim light for a few minutes when Sirius announced he had found something.

'I think it's a rune, like the ones on our desks in Potions.'

'Tap it with your wand then,' James said.

Sirius pulled out his wand and tapped it against the carved symbol in the top-left corner of the wooden barricade. The wood slid to one side and revealed an abandoned classroom, thick with dust. Sirius walked in first and jumped out of his skin when he spotted a slumped figure sitting in a chair.

'Remus!' he gasped, before hurrying over.

Was he sick? Hurt? He had to find out. In his haste to reach the boy, he knocked into a table. It was just his luck that it was the only table in the room that had anything on it. The glass potion bottle fell over when the desk was jostled, rolled and tumbled to the floor where it smashed with a loud crash. Sirius was just reaching out his hand when Remus leapt out of the chair.

'Don't touch me!' Remus screamed as he stumbled backwards, knocking over the chair he had been sleeping in seconds before.

Sirius, startled, jumped away. Remus stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, before grabbing his bag from the floor and running from the room, slamming the door closed behind him.

Sirius looked at James. 'What the fuck?'

James shrugged. 'I don't know, mate. That was weird.'

'What was he even doing in here?' Peter said. He studied the broken glass on the floor. 'Do you think he took something?'

'Maybe,' James said. 'I've heard about potions that make you feel good. When they wear off, they can make you angry and paranoid. Do you think he's an addict?'

Sirius frowned. 'Fuck. That's even worse than the last theory.'

'Do you think we should tell a teacher?' Peter asked.

'Not until we know something for sure. If we're wrong, he won't thank us for accusing him,' James said.

'That's true,' Peter agreed.

'Let's just keep an eye on him for now,' Sirius said.

Remus paced back and forth in the owlery where he had taken refuge after running from his dorm mates. Rieka was perched on his shoulder, nuzzling his cheek to offer comfort. He felt like an idiot for reacting so violently, but he had been terrified waking up to find Sirius bent over him. So close. His hand reaching out to touch him. Infecting the Black heir would have been the end of his school career, and he'd only been there three days. He ran his hand through his hair in frustration, trying to decide what to do. Judging by the darkness, it was approaching curfew, and he would need to return to his common room soon, but he really didn't want to face the others. His reaction had been extreme, and they were bound to tease him about it.

'What would you do, Rieka?'

The owl whistled softly.

'I know, I should go back to the common room.'

Rieka hooted in agreement.

'Okay, okay. I'll go. Hopefully, they'll have gone to bed or something,' he said, not really believing it.

On arriving at the Fat Lady, Remus took a deep breath before giving the password and climbing through. The common room was busy with students relaxing, and the noise was deafening to his sensitive ears. He scanned the room but didn't see his dorm mates anywhere. Despite wanting to put off the confrontation with them as long as possible, he knew he wouldn't be able to bear the noise of the common room this close to the full moon for long. Hunching his shoulders and drawing his arms around him, he hurried across the crowded room and up the stairs, taking care not to touch anyone along the way.

Remus pushed open the door to his dorm and stepped inside. The noise from the common room cut off the moment the door closed behind him. The dorms must be charmed to keep out external noise. Good to know, he thought. Sirius, James and Peter were sitting in a circle in the middle of the floor playing a card game that involved three decks of exploding snap cards, a generous bowl of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and an assortment of socks. Remus didn't want to know.

'Remus!' Sirius said, jumping to his feet. 'Mate, I am so sorry for scaring you earlier. When I saw you slumped in the chair, I panicked. I thought you were dead or something.'

Remus blinked. That was not what he had expected at all. But an opportunity should never go to waste, and he needed to make sure nothing like that happened again. What if he hadn't woken up in time?

'It's okay. It's just, I don't like to be touched. It's a phobia, you know? Like some people don't like spiders.'

Peter shuddered. 'I know exactly what you mean,' he said, glancing up at the top of the walls as if checking for potential eight-legged company.

'Oh Merlin, I feel even worse now. I really am sorry. I hope you can forgive me,' Sirius said. 'We noticed you weren't at dinner, so we bought some food back for you. A peace offering?'

Sirius produced a plate of cold meats and potatoes from the cupboard next to his bed and handed it to him. Remus had been too upset to go to the kitchens for dinner and he was starving. His stomach rumbled at the sight of the food. He took the plate and thanked Sirius before sitting on the end of his bed to eat.

'We brought dessert too,' Sirius said with a grin, pulling out a fat slice of triple-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and strawberries on the side.

Remus licked his lips. He could almost feel his face light up just from looking at the delectable plate of chocolaty deliciousness.

'Now that,' Remus said, reaching out for the dish, 'is an apology. Thank you. Thank you very much.'

'You're welcome. And your preferences have been duly noted,' Sirius said, handing it over with a wolfish grin.

'I added the strawberries,' James said, shrugging. 'Thought you should have something healthy too.'