Up to No Good

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Up to No Good



Ever since Remus's Bad Moon, Sirius had been determined to figure out the animagus thing, whether James and Peter helped or not. He was reluctant to mention it after the row he'd had with James about it and so he often got back up after the others had gone to bed and snuck to the common room to sit in the chair by the fire and read Releasing the Animagus Within into the small hours of the night. He made notes in the margins of the books, underlining bits of information with his quill, and trying to figure out exactly what it was that he'd been missing, imagining that when he found it everything would simply click into place.

It was the approaching threat of the next full moon only being a few days away that made him finally tell James and Peter what he'd been doing. "I think I'm ready to try changing into Snuffles again," he explained, as they ran up to their dorms to get their books, leaving Remus in the courtyard in his wheelchair for them to return to head to their next class, "But just in case I want you both there when I do it so that you can change me back if you need to."

Peter looked shocked that Sirius still thought it a good idea and he asked, "Didn't you see the damage Remus did to himself? What makes you think he wouldn't do that to you as a dog!"

"Well," Sirius said, "I reckon a werewolf with a broken leg could be as fast as he normally would. This would be a good month to see what good I can do as a dog."

James looked at Peter nervously, for the first time Peter's worrying didn't seem undue. "I dunno if this is a good idea, Sirius. Obviously Rey can do some serious damage when he turns moony."

"Turns moony?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It's how Evans refers to his Furry Little Problem," James explained.

Sirius laughed, "Moony, I like that."

"Yeah, I thought it good," James nodded.

"You think everything Evans says is good," Peter pointed out.

James flushed.

That night, when Remus was asleep, the three of them snuck from their beds, down to the common room, out the portrait hole, and down to the seventh floor corridor where Barnabus the Barmy hung up on the wall. A few turns before the wall there and they found themselves in yet another version of the Secret Room, this one seemed to be a sort of training room. "I swear, this room is the strangest place," James murmured, "It's as though it knows exactly what we need." He held up a small box of dog biscuits. "Look at this."

"Those will look rather good in just a few minutes," Sirius grinned.

James laughed.

"Basically," Sirius said, pulling Releasing the Animagus Within from his pocket, "If this works, the thing is that we don't know how to call the part of us that is our animagus to the forefront. For example, I've been thinking on it, and sometimes when it's quiet and I'm laying in bed and I close my eyes, I can sort of feel the spirit of Snuffles inside me. I don't know how to explain it, it's like this part of me is Snuffles, and when I say the spell to transform, I have to say it with that part. That's why it's a silent spell because that part isn't your voice, it's deeper than that."

"That doesn't make any sense," Peter said, "How do you say something with a part of you that can't talk?"

"The same way you say things in your head to yourself," James said.

"I don't say things in my head to myself!" Peter said, "That's for crazy people!"

"What do you think thinking is?" James snapped.

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