Old Scars Future Hearts (JILY)

Chapter 11

James had never felt so many conflicting emotions. He could've quite happily stayed in that broom closet with Lily for hours, doing any number of sinful things. But his friends needed him and so he raced down to the Shrieking Shack. It was still early in terms of the full moon, but Remus was already in a bad way when James got there, curled up on the dusty sofa, rocking himself back and forth gently.

Peter was already in his rat form, scouting out the area and making sure the house was clear. Sirius sat next to Remus, trying to entice him to play a game of cards, he looked up when James entered the room.

"How'd it go with Evans?" He asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"She's slightly less mad at me."

"It's Evans, she's always mad."

"I don't like lying to her." Remus groaned and doubled over in pain. "But it's for her own safety."

"So are you two together, finally?"

"Together in the sense that we went on one date and had a handful of kisses and haven't really had a serious conversation about it since." He frustratedly ran a hand through his hair. "It's our last year here, I can't fuck it up this time."

"Prongs mate, the school year has barely started, you still have loads of time." He flicked a card at him. "You've already gotten much further than any other year. I bet kissing her after seven years of build up was fucking fantastic." James smirked at him.

"If I could attach myself to those sinful lips of hers for the rest of eternity I fucking would."

"I'm already nauseous, you're gonna make me vomit." Remus groaned.

Peter comes back, looking for nervous than usual."There's something going on in Hogsmede, lots of people about." Remus whined, pitifully.

"Mooney calm down." Sirius said, pulling Remus' hands away from his face. "Have we failed you yet?"

"No." He admitted, weakly.

"Do you trust us?" He gripped Remus' wrists hard, giving him a shake so he would look him in the eye.

"Of course."

"Then quit your moaning and play cards with me."

The last few hours ticked and just before the full moon reached it's highest point, Remus started to transform, sweating and convulsing and shrieking in pain. The other Marauders quickly shifted to their animagus forms.Usually, they stayed in the living room, in his stag form James was big enough to block and guard the only exit. Peter was small enough to keep the wolf distracted and Sirius kept Remus in check, using his best alpha-like growl. But tonight, for whatever reason, the inhabitants of Hogsmede were setting off fireworks and roars of laughter filter in from the distance. It aggravated the wolf, Peter wasn't enough to distract him as he barrelled from room to room, howling loudly.

James watched as Sirius' ears prick up and he looks up just as a shadow passed over the window, some idiot was right outside. He cursed, what the hell was going on tonight? Someone rattled the front door and Sirius went to scare them off, Peter enticing the wolf upstairs to distract him. James started to get antsy, while the stag was a damn fine creature, in a house it was ultimately impractical, besides being large obstacle. He heard a window break upstairs, and when he looked out the window his worst fear had been realised. Remus had burst out the upstairs window and was now running down the hill. Fuck. Sirius was still at the door, and Peter was upstairs. James made the loudest noise a stag could make, stamping his hooves on the wooden floorboards and then awkwardly manoeuvred his way to the front of the house. He soon found Sirius and they took of running, Peter was weaving in-between his hooves before long as they followed Remus' scent.

Fortunately, he hadn't gone into Hogsmede, instead opting for the forrest. But they soon lost his scent among all the other forrest creatures. Fuck. They'd lost him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. They were so screwed. James quickly rounded up Sirius and Peter. He looked down at the wolf-like dog and the rat scuttling around in the dirt. He did his best to gesture and articulate that they needed to split up and round him back up to the house before sunrise. Precious minutes wasted but Sirius and Peter finally understood the plan and they all took off.

James found the faintest whiff of his scent and followed it, slowing as it got stronger, finally coming to a clearing. Oh fuck. James paused. Between his jaw, Remus held a girl, who hung unnaturally limp. Blood dripped from the puncture wounds on her neck, a stark contrast on her pretty pink dress. He was momentarily frozen, not sure what to do having never seen a dead body before. But then the girl twitched and he felt like his entire body sagged in relief, immediately jumping into action, shifting back to his human form.

It was nearly sunrise and so the wolf was weaker. James punched it hard in the head, making is dizzy and off-balance and it automatically dropped the girl. He immediately scooped her up. She was just a child, probably barely old enough to attend Hogwarts. The wound wasn't deep, she just appeared to be in shock, or maybe she'd hit her head and it had rendered her unconscious.

Fuck, James didn't know what to do. Lily would. Fuck, did they need Lily right now. James ripped a strip off the bottom of his school shirt and patched her neck up as best he could. She started to wake up and thankfully Sirius was at his side, quickly oblviating her memory.

"I killed her. I killed her. I killed her." Remus muttered as they dragged him back towards the castle hours later.

"You didn't kill anyone Mooney. Prongs patched her up, I did the obliviate and Wormtail is escorting her home. Its fine." He emphasised.

"I've doomed her, for the rest of her life." Neither of them knew what to say to that. He had bitten her. She was a werewolf now too.

"I'm sure she has a supportive family who will help her." Was all James could think to say.

Victoria smirked as she watched the three boys trudge back up to the castle. It had been all too easy to lead the wolf away from the group and right into the pathway of that little girl. Ruining these peoples lives was almost too easy. She was going to have to up her game.