Ten Galleons To McGonagall

The Full Moon

Peter and Sirius's horns had completely disappeared by lunchtime the next day. They joined James and Remus in the great hall at the Gryffindor table. James turned to Sirius.

"Hey man, you missed the coolest thing while you were off shrinking your fabulous horns! Wait until you hear about it!" James then launched into an excited explanation of something involving a stolen Quaffle, Joseph Tyler, and a lot of people in the History Of Magic classroom after hours. Sirius listened intently, occasionally interjecting with a "Cool!" or "Awesome!"

Meanwhile, Peter turned to Remus. "Is that true?" he asked "Because that seems like a story James made up. There's no way that could have happened."

"Yeah. Tyler did steal a Quaffel and let it fly around the halls for a bit. But the rest is James exaggerating things as usual."

Peter laughed and returned to his food. Remus continued devouring everything in sight.

Peter liked James's exaggerated stories. He had the power to get people to listen and almost believe his tall tales. Peter was drawn to power. He liked that his friends were able to do outlandish things that influenced the whole school. Sure there were other influential students at Hogwarts, but Peter liked that the Marauders did illegal things like going out after curfew and becoming unregistered anamagi. They accepted and trusted him and Peter liked that. He was drawn to their bravery. He had never been brave like them on his own, but he drew from the courage of the group. Without them, he was weak and cowardly, but with them he could be better.

When lunch finished, the four Marauders headed off to Transfiguration. The class was spent reviewing seven years worth of Transfiguration skills to prepare for N.E.W.Ts at the end of the year.

After successfully Transfiguring several small mammals, the four Marauders set off to the Gryffindor common room. They met in a secluded corner to discuss their plans for that night. Since they had a big excursion the previous month, they decided to take it easy this time, only exploring a trail outside of Hogsmeade leading into the mountains.

Remus left the there others and went to join Madam Pomfrey who would sneak him into the passage under the Whomping Willow and secure him in the Shrieking Shack. James, Sirius, and Peter would sneak out under the invisibility cloak and wait for Madam Pomfrey to reemerge from the tree. Then they would sneak into the passage and join their friend for his transformation.

The Marauders had been doing this part of the operation for three years, it was a well oiled machine. This time was no different and a dog, rat, and stag were soon under the tree and heading to the Shrieking Shack.

They found Remus just as he was beginning to transform. Although he was quickly slipping into the werewolf body, he smiled when he saw his friends join him.

And then Remus was gone and a snarling werewolf faced the others. He howled, the signature sound that gave the Shrieking Shack its name.

Sirius bounded forward and calmed the werewolf down enough for the others to join them. James and Sirius flanked Remus, stag on the left, dog on the right and they herded him out of the Shrieking Shack and into the night.

They wove through the streets of the village, avoiding the light from the late night pubs until they were out of the village and on the trail up the mountain. The stag-werewolf-dog group followed the rat who was leaping from rock to rock. Eventually though, the trail became too rocky and steep for such a small animal to easily traverse and so the threesome stopped to let Wormtail climb on top of Prongs.

The four continued as a group until they found a cave hidden by rocks. Through the a series of grunts and squeaks, they decided to go inside. Peter, the smallest went in first. Then came a complicated part. The entrance to the cave was in direct moonlight so without the help of the dog and stag, the werewolf would be more dangerous and less contained. James decided that the best way to go about getting all of them into the cave would be to push Remus in first. Using the simple code they had worked out to communicate while anamagi, he got Sirius to help him push Remus into the cave. Soon all four of them were inside.

The cave was spacious. It seemed to be large enough that the four could stretch out and relax with room to spare. Unfortunately, they couldn't test this theory because Remus was howling and moaning and scratching and biting his left shoulder. Sirius bounded over to look.

There was a deep scratch on his shoulder, running down almost to the end of his rib cage. It was clearly painful and bothering him. James looked at the entrance of the cave. There was a sharp rock sticking out covered in blood. Remus must have hit it when they pushed him in.

They had to get him back to the Shrieking Shack quickly. The four left the cave and took up their positions. They worked their way down the hill as fast as they could, but Remus's injury was slowing them down. They arrived back in Hogsmeade with the sky beginning to lighten slightly in the east. They worked their way back through the alleys until the Shrieking Shack was in view. A few blocks in front of them a shop keeper came out into the alley to sweep out the dirt before his shop opened. Remus whined and tried to pull away from the others to go after him but the dog at stag worked together to pull him back. As soon as the shopkeeper went back inside they tried to sprint back to the shack. Remus seemed to sense their urgency and moved quickly with them.

Once safely back inside, they let Remus curl up and lay down. He was exhausted. Between the transformation, the mountain hike, and his injury he was completely drained.

As the sun began to rise, Remus began to change back into his human form. The other three Marauders transformed as well. Peter went to retrieve Remus's clothes. When they transformed into anamagi, their clothes became a part of them, but when werewolves transformed their clothes stayed on them so if Remus didn't remove them before his transformation he would tear them to shreds.

James lifted the barely conscious Remus and Sirius slipped his cloak on. Then they slipped back under the invisibility cloak and headed back up to the castle. Madam Pomfrey would come get Remus, bring him to the hospital wing and tend to his wounds. For now the other three marauders would wait in the common room and try to get a few hours of sleep before going to their first class.

//Author's Note- Hi guys! Hope you are liking this so far. Sorry if you don't like Peter, but the change from innocent Marauder to traitor and death eater is very interesting to me so I tried to explore that here. Let me know if you think I messed up something key with his personality. Also there is very little Wolfstar in this chapter because people are more than their sexuality and I wanted to show them as mischievous teenagers, not just gay guys secretly crushing on each other. Anyway, that's all for now. I like the next chapter so hopefully I'll update soon!