The Haunting of Peter Pettigrew

The Prisoner of Azkaban

"I've got it!" James suddenly spoke, slapping his hand to the table. "Our animagi!"

Lana instantly blushed. Ever since they'd become animagi the last year, she'd been hyper aware that both she and Sirius had turned out to be canines. While Sirius had been large and dark, she had been lithe and golden. Their complimentary forms had resulted in endless teasing by James who was egged on by Remus and Peter.

She was startled out of her embarrassment, however, by the continued ridiculousness of James's proclamations.

"We would simply turn into our animagi and that would likely make the Dementors leave us alone. Dad told me that they don't hurt animals usually so if we are animals we won't go crazy. Then with my antlers I could break through the chains and break us out. Our animals would have a better chance of swimming away than people. It is brilliant."

James Potter looked so proud of himself in that moment that Lana had a momentary fear that he'd get himself locked up just to see if he could escape. It was just the sort of stupid idea that only James Potter could get away with, and if James was there, you'd bet that Sirius Black would be right beside them.

"I don't know, Prongs," Sirius laughed warmly before shooting his dazzling smile onto Lana. They'd been together for awhile and still, it amazed her that this beautiful boy had chosen her. No one had ever chosen her before, but Sirius Black wasn't just anyone. He was someone that everyone wanted a piece of. But he was as much her person as she was his.

"I think I could charm the Dementors off with my devastatingly good looks," Sirius flipped his hair back, out of his eyes causing his girlfriend to stare at him a bit more intensely than usual. Something he didn't mind one bit if his devastating smile said anything. "Don't you think so Sunny?"

Lana hid the nervous swallow over the dry throat that threatened to inhibit her speech. She wished she could say that, unlike the rest of the female and a good portion of the male population, she was unaffected by the dazzling beauty that was Sirius Black, but that would have been a lie.

"I think," she said slowly, standing up from the lounge chair she'd been sprawled on to walk over and sit on Sirius's lap. " That if my boyfriend does something stupid enough to land himself in Azkaban, he'll find himself wishing that he'd stay there rather than risk my wrath. Besides, you have a better chance of escaping because you were so starved you slipped through the chains than you do of escaping them because Prongs over there manages to use his antlers for something more useful than hanging laundry."

This caused Sirius and Remus to fall into peaks of laughter while James tried to be offended despite his own small chuckles.

That memory of the four carefree teenagers, speaking in hypotheticals that they never in their wildest dreams imagined to be reality, was too much, really. Not even five years later, James and Lana would be dead, Remus would wander the world alone and tormented, and Sirius Black would in fact, land himself in Azkaban.

One thing Lana had been able to do this year, however, was recruit to her cause of terrorizing Peter. Crookshanks was a brilliant cat, and she understood much more than most. It only took a few conversations with Lana to convince the cat to help her hunt Peter.

With Harry and Ron starting their third year at Hogwarts while Sirius was on the hunt for Peter, the last person Lana ever expected to find again was Remus. It made Lana sad to know that she never sought the werewolf out, but as it was she'd spent her afterlife flashing between haunting Peter and trying to figure out how to comfort Sirius in Azkaban.

But there he was, Remus Lupin, and he was returning to Hogwarts as a professor. He was returning as the Marauders had always said he would. He was returning with the stupid suitcase they'd all bought him that read Professor R.J. Lupin on it.