The Next Great Adventure (A Marauders Fan Fic)

Chapter Forty One

“I’m sure he does but it might not be his secret to tell. It could be something to do with James for all you know; maybe he’s got dragonpox and they want to have adventures before he dies,” Lily said, trying to sound lighthearted. From under the covers she heard a weak chuckle.

“Thanks Lily. You’re great you know? I’ll see you later.”

She sighed and turned to leave, knowing that Cassie needed to hide away by herself and recover. As she headed back to the common room she felt her stomach twist painfully and, wrapped up in worry and guilt, she started when she saw James sitting where she had been moments ago beside her work, which was now piled neatly on the table. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Oh? Yes I’m fine I suppose, just… well Cassie’s upset - she just ran up into our dorm…” Lily looked distracted and James could tell that her thoughts were scattered; he pulled her down onto the sofa next to him and said, “What’s she upset about?”

“I don’t know, something to do with Sirius keeping secrets - she thinks he doesn’t trust her,” Lily mumbled.

“Oh… she’s angry about last night,” he breathed.

“Last night?” she repeated.

“Yeah Cassie was working down here and we came back… Well she wanted to know where we’d been… I didn’t hear much, just the first couple of things that she yelled at him. Sirius is pretty upset too though I think; he doesn’t really know what to do because what she’s asked him isn’t his secret to tell.” As he spoke he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring into the fire, watching the embers glow as the sparks jumped around them.

“It’s…” Lily stopped, gathering her courage and swallowing, clearing her throat with a cough as she tried to get rid of the imagined blockage which was stopping her words from coming out. “It’s about Remus isn’t it?”

James’ head snapped backwards to face Lily and he stared at her in confusion. Too surprised to respond with anything other than the truth he asked, “How did you know?”

“I’m not stupid James,” she replied. He cracked a tiny smile at that and nodded as she continued. “I just… Well it’s not exactly hard to see when you live with someone if you’re observant. I mean some of your excuses were atrocious and… well I won’t lie, it was Snape who put me onto it because he was always going on about how he thought you lot were up to something; course he could never be bothered just to pay attention to the lunar cycle so when I worked it out I fielded his questions. He kept repeating his suspicions so I kept shooting them down because if there’s anyone here who shouldn’t be judged because of this it’s Remus.”

“Does he know?”

“That I know? Yes… sort of. I’ve never told him outright or confronted him about it or anything but way back in fifth year, when we started doing Prefects’ Duties together, we became close and I kind of… suggested that I knew what was wrong. Then, when he saw that I wasn’t going to act any differently because of it, he became a bit less reserved…  We never spoke about it but it was never an issue, I don’t think. I don’t know, am I making sense?” she asked.

“Yeah I think so,” James said, “you know I can’t believe that you’ve known for years. I can’t believe you’ve never told anyone about it.”

Lily smiled and raised her shoulders in a half hearted kind of shrug. “Yeah well it’s not really important, is it? And it’s not like it’s my secret to tell.”

“You hated us though; if you’d told anyone you could have gotten us out of your life.”

“I would have gotten Remus out of the school,” she corrected, “and I didn’t want him out of my life. I didn’t hate you anyway, I just didn’t approve of what you did. It’s not like telling everyone would have helped anyway, he would’ve just been kicked out of the school and Dumbledore would’ve been contacted by hundreds of angry parents. It wasn’t in anyone’s interest for me to tell… and like I said, it’s not that important. It was never my place or my secret to share. I know what it’s like to have people decide what they think of you before they meet you; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else. Besides, as long as everyone’s safe and you three idiots are safe when you chase after him… I mean, if you weren’t then I would probably react the way that Cassie will. Are you going to tell her?”

“I don’t know. I think Remus will though, he’s not the kind of person to let one of his friends suffer even if it puts him at risk,” James sighed.

“No… Well that’s good, I suppose. At least then there won’t be any more secrets between us; I felt so awful when I couldn’t tell her what it was just now.”

“About that…” he began as Lily frowned at him, her mood changing instantaneously like a sky which suddenly clouds over.

“What is it?” she asked coldly.

“I think you should probably know why we’re safe when we’re with Remus at the full moon,” he said. She didn’t respond so James took his cue from her stony silence and continued. “Well do you remember at the end of third year when they taught us that werewolves are only a danger to humans in their wolf form?” Lily still said nothing. “Okay so they taught us that,” he repeated, his confidence failing under her motionless scrutiny, “and we thought ‘Well, if Moony is only a danger to humans then surely he’s fine around animals?’ Anyway we were stumped until McGonagall showed us that she was an Animagus - that was Sirius’ idea. So after that we did a whole load of research, a lot of practice and a lot of sneaking round we managed it… Course I’m making it sound much easier than it actually was because it took bloody ages, even for us and I mean I’m talking years; we only perfected it in fifth year and we’d been trying to do it since third year.”

“Are you serious?” Lily croaked.

“No, I’m James.” His laughter dried up in his throat as she rolled her eyes at him. “Yeah I am.”

“You three are Animagi?”

“Yep.”

“Are you registered?”

“You’re really asking me that?” he exclaimed. “No, we’re not registered. Well it’s not like we can register really. You have to register before you even try and there’s no way the Ministry ever would have let us attempt it and then Remus would have been all alone every month. Besides what would we say? ‘Oh yeah we want to keep our werewolf friend company when he transforms!’?”

“You mean you’re telling me that you, Sirius and Peter are all illegal Animagi?” she repeated.

James nodded.

“And you’ve been illegal Animagi since fifth year?”

He nodded again as Lily paled in shock and shook her head. “So Snape was right? You were up to something.”

“Well I wouldn’t really put it that way…” he protested, “and it’s not like he wasn’t up to things too, inventing curses and using the Dark Arts against younger years. Really I think what we were doing barely compares.”

“I never said anything of the sort James… I can’t believe you three.” She shook her head in disbelief again. As her astonishment faded it was replaced with curiosity and, after some minutes of silence where she processed the new information, she chuckled. “Of course it’s you three who became Animagi!” she exclaimed. “Only the bloody Marauders would manage to unknowingly befriend a werewolf and then actually succeed in becoming Animagi to keep him company!”

“Does that mean you’re not angry?”

“Of course I’m not angry James!” she replied. “I’m still in shock I guess but… well I’ll be honest, it’s really cool! Sort of sweet too I guess. I just can’t believe that you three managed it! What do you become when you transform?”

“Well Sirius becomes a dog - fitting, I know,” he snickered as Lily giggled too and Pete becomes a rat. It doesn’t sound very appealing but we needed something small to press the knot at the base of the Whomping Willow… Also one of the books we read suggested that the transformation is easier if you choose a smaller animal and… well Pete’s great but he’s not exactly a genius. It took him the longest to do it and that was even with us all helping him.”

“What about you?” she asked eagerly.

“I become a stag,” James revealed with a grin.

“Really? Can I see?”

“Not right now,” he laughed, “or some people might be quite surprised when they come back and see a stag standing in the common room!”

She laughed too and said, “Fair point. But you’ll have to show me at some point, okay?”

“Don’t worry Lily, I wouldn’t dream of keeping it from you.”