The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 61 - The Plane

"Someone saw you," Peter blurted out.

"What?" Sirius asked, surprised. This was news to him.

"Two people actually," Peter continued.

Grace's eyebrows furrowed. "Who?"

"Sam and Abbey," James explained, emotionless. "They saw us running from the Astronomy Tower and came down to help. They saw all three of you, and then no doubt us as well once we shifted and joined you."

"And do they... oh gosh," Remus began, stumbling backwards to lean against the wall behind him. He looked as if he was about to throw up. "They know, don't they. There's no way they couldn't have figured it out by now, if they hadn't already." He slowly slid his back down the wall until he was crumpled on the floor.

Grace immediately got up and knelt in front of him, placing a hand on each of his shoulders. "Hey, hey, calm down, it's-"

"Calm down? Really?" Remus snapped, before hearing himself. "I'm sorry, I just... you guys should probably go. If you're lucky, maybe they'll leave out the animagi part when they tell the whole school and you can all just pretend you had no idea and that you want nothing to do with me anymore."

James, Sirius and Peter all glanced at one another. They hated when he got like this.

"Do you seriously think that lowly of your friends? They won't tell the whole school, they won't tell anyone – except for maybe Ely – but still, they're not going to expose you. I'm sure of it," Grace told him, trying to sound as confident as she could. The truth was, she wasn't sure how they were going to react at all, especially Sam, who had grown up surrounded by people who wanted nothing more than to eliminate all werewolves from society. She just hoped that she was right, that despite how they might feel about werewolves, they wouldn't take it out on Remus.

"How can you be sure!? You have no idea what they're thinking right now!"

"Because regardless of what they used to think about werewolves," James added. "They've just found out that one of the kindest and hard-working people they know is a werewolf. There's no way that they can go on believing that you're all maniacs like Greyback. The proof is right in front of them."

The other three nodded. It was obvious that he was speaking from experience.

Remus was silent, still staring down at his hands and refusing to look up at Grace in front of him. James was right, there was no denying it, and he felt awful for assuming that two of his friends would abandon him like that.

"I also promised them last night that we'd explain everything to them," James spoke up. "I think it's better if they understand fully what's going on."

"But what if..." Remus began, trailing off once more. Endless scenarios were running through his head, endless ways that they could expose him, that his friends could abandon him, that he'd be expelled from Hogwarts, that his life could be ruined, but he kept reminding himself of all the Marauders had done for him. They had broken the law and become animagi just so that he would be a little less injured each full moon; there was no way that they would up and leave him now.

As for Abbey and Sam, he just had to trust them. Trust their common sense, their judgement, their loyalty.

"Okay," Remus said simply, taking in a deep breath. He wiped away a few small tears that had escaped from his eyes with the sleeve of his knitted jumper.

"Yeah?" Grace asked, smiling slightly as she stood up and held out a hand to help Remus up as well.

"Yeah."

Once Remus was standing, Grace engulfed him in a hug, pressing her face into the base of his neck.

"Group hug!" James yelled, springing out of the armchair he had been sitting in and flinging his arms around the pair. Sirius and Peter soon joined in.

"We should probably get going," Grace announced, her voice muffled under the layer of bodies.

"Oh yeah, Poppy will he here any minute," Sirius agreed, detangling himself from the hug.

The four said their goodbyes, huddled under the invisibility cloak and returned to the castle.

---

Something collided with the back of Sam's head whilst he was eating breakfast that morning.

"What the-!?"

He turned around to see a piece of parchment, folded in the shape of a plane, lying on the floor of the Great Hall. His eyes scanned the hall for the culprit, only to be met with a smug looking Sirius Black, who made a face at him. To an outside observer, it would seem as if Sirius was making fun of him, however, Sam knew better than that.

Going along with it, Sam rolled his eyes, bending down to pick the paper plane and unfolding it.

The four of you, seventh floor, left corridor, 5 o'clock.

Once he had read the message scrawled across the parchment, Sam screwed it up and shoved it in his pocket. It didn't take a genius to figure out who 'the four of you' were: Abbey, Ely, Lily and himself. He also understood that under no circumstances was Snape to be aware of their meeting.

"What was that?" asked Otto Kraemer, a Hufflepuff fifth year with curly near-white hair who was sat beside him.

"Just Sirius being a pain."

"When isn't he?" Snape sneered from his spot next to Lily. "The egotistical twat."

"Hey! We've talked about this, Sev," Lily chided.

"I think that's a new one," Sam commented. "Definitely more creative than the usual 'pompous jerk'."

Abbey laughed. "Don't encourage him."

---

I am so so so so sorry this has taken so long yet again.

Things just kept on happening, I lost motivation for a bit and then VCE means mountains of homework :)

I feel like I'm dragging this whole lil part of the plot out too much but I've been planning this for ages and there's a lot more to it then I first realised. Maybe only two more chapters about it tho

I also currently have over 500 wp notifications that I haven't checked and I keep putting it off oh well I'll get around to it eventually

Thanks for sticking around

- Grace