The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

Wild Young Things

Wild Young Things

Next day, the fight was completely forgotten - which was good because they had much bigger things to worry about how, with Regulus's threat to tell Orion and Walburga about the letters hanging over their heads.

Besides that, too, it was the first full moon of term and Remus wasn't feeling well and would be leaving before breakfast to go out to the Shrieking Shack. He had dark circles under his eyes that worried Sirius and his skin was paler than usual. "It's just a bad one," he said with a shrug, trying to downplay how terrible he felt. "It happens now and then, the moon just affects me more than usual." Sirius helped him pack his things for the Shack, keeping a careful watch over him until it was time that he left the dormitories.

"I wish Operation Snuffles had worked out better than it did," Sirius lamented as he crunched his way through a stack of jam-covered toast, his mind still on Remus. "I hate that he's gotta go out there and be all alone through it."

James looked about, "Alright, I gotta tell you --" he leaned closer and whispered to Sirius and Peter everything that Professor McGonagall had said about being James's mentor in the Animagus process and the cryptic way she'd bade him goodbye. "Do you suppose she knows?"

Peter shivered, "It sounds like she at least suspects it."

"She didn't mention me and Peter at all?" Sirius hissed.

James shook his head, "Not a word."

"Maybe she only suspects you?" Peter suggested.

"Do you think we should take her help?" James whispered. "She might be able to explain where we went wrong."

"You don't want to get in trouble, though, by telling her!" Peter squeaked.

Sirius rubbed his chin, "What if you ask her to give you sort of an overview of the process? You know, like you're thinking about it, but you haven't decided yet, and you just want to know sort of what it takes. You know? Then maybe there'll be at least some idea of if we missed something... and she's none the wiser about it because as far as she knows you've just changed your mind about becoming an animagus at all."

"Brilliant!" James said, nodding, "You're a genius."

Sirius smirked, "No, I'm a ruddy idiot, remember?"

"You're the best ruddy idiot there is," James said, smirking back.

Peter still wasn't sure he understood exactly how it was that Sirius and James had made up from their row so fast - whatever Remus had said about it being a nature of their friendship. Peter felt as though his friendship with them was nothing like that at all, though he wished immensely that it was.

The boys finished their breakfast and headed off to their classes, followed by Lily Evans. They went first to the Charms corridor, where Flitwick had them bewitching books to fly about the room and then off to Transfiguration and McGonagall's latest assignment of transfiguring a pineapple into a quaffle. When the class was over, James gave Sirius and Peter a meaningful look and nodded for them to go on without him and he hung back until they'd left. Lily was talking to McGonagall at the front of the classroom about ways to get the quaffle to turn the reddish shade that it ought to be, instead of retaining the brown of the pineapple's skin.

When Evans had gotten the answer she needed, she collected her things. "Aren't you coming to lunch, Potter?"

"Why? Will you miss me, love?" he asked, grinning at her.