Disclaimer: I own nothing! That honour belongs to the brilliant J.K Rowling. Except the story, of course. I own the story. And four cats. And nearly 300 books. But no characters, places or the events in this fic.
The Marauders followed the underground path toward the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. The full moon would rise within an hour and they had to get Remus there before it. It was always a bit hard, getting him there, especially if they were late, like today. The closer to the full moon it was, the weaker Remus was. They nearly had to carry him there tonight. He was weaker than usual as he just had become well from the fever he had the last week. They were all worried about him and this full moon, but they knew that even if the transformation itself maybe would be hard on their friend the night would be easier than normal.
"Come on Moony." Sirius muttered as he stopped Remus from falling over. Moony was the nickname Sirius had come up with when they found out about his lycanthropy in second year. "Just fifty more meters, and then you can rest."
Remus nodded faintly. He felt terrible, but he knew he couldn't stop now. Not with the Moon so close to rising. Peter took Remus' other arm, the one Sirius didn't have a steady grip on, and placed it over his shoulders to help steadying the werewolf. Remus smiled gratefully when he placed a little weight on Peter instead of having to bear it by himself.
Finally they reached the Shack. They got Remus through the door in the floor and let him sink down to the floor. He sighed gratefully as he finally could sit down. He leaned toward the wall and smiled slightly when he looked at his friends' worried faces. He would never admit it for them, especially since he always behaved as he didn't like them being over-protective, but their worry was almost the best medicine against the pain of the coming and passing full moons. Knowing they cared for him meant more than they ever could understand, and no matter what he acted like, he always felt loved when they were concerned for his well-being.
They smiled back, still with the anxiousness very visible on their faces. It was true they never could understand exactly how much their love meant for Remus, but they thought they had a pretty good picture of it. James smiled. Remus believed they didn't knew that he actually liked their over-protectiveness, but it wasn't very hard to see how his eyes lightened up every time he got proof over how much they cared for him. But it didn't really matter in a way. They would've been just as protective even if he didn't like it.
"You should go." Remus said. "The Moon will rise soon."
Sirius shook his head.
"Not yet. We won't leave you until it's absolutely necessary again."
Remus felt worried, it was easy to forget the time with them, but also a bit relieved. The waiting was always the worst and it was always easier when they were here to make him laugh.
In third year they had been allowed by Madame Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall to take him to the Shrieking Shack before the full moons, and it actually had helped in a way. Remus was more often than not in pretty good mood when he transformed, which made the night easier to go through without too serious injuries. And in fourth year Madame Pomfrey had used a bit of her free time to teach the Marauders basic healing spells and such things, and after that they had been allowed to fetch Remus afterwards too, as long as they promised to always come directly to the Hospital wing and that, if Remus was very injured, someone of them got her to meet them on the way. And of course, that no one ever saw them, but both they and the professors knew that wasn't a problem. The teachers obviously didn't know about the Cloak, but the whole school knew that the Marauders knew more of the secret passageways than maybe even Professor Dumbledore (much to the chagrin of the staff and the Slytherins since it was quite hard to catch them in their mischief because of this).
They helped Remus to get his clothes of so he wouldn't destroy them when he transformed and wrapped him into a big blanket that always way lying in the un-breakable wardrobe in the Shack. The brown-haired boy smiled again, thankful over his friends' help. During this whole time they chatted and laughed and succeeded to keep most of his thoughts away from the coming moonrise.
"You need to go now." Remus pointed out forty minutes later, when it only was about ten minutes until the moonrise. His three friends looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Actually, Moons, we've planned on staying the whole night." Sirius grinned. Remus stared at him. Had they been crazy? He would kill them! Or bite them! He wasn't sure of which was worse.
"Of course you're going to leave!" he almost begged. "Or do you want your lives ended or destroyed, and me executed?"
The three boys looked grim at the reminder that werewolves who bit or killed someone got executed. Normal witches or wizards who killed got locked into Azkaban – werewolves got killed in return. Like they were less worth, which of course a lot of people thought.
They shook their heads to clear their thoughts.
"No, my dear Remus." James said happily. "We've found a way to help you."
Peter nodded.
"We have worked on it since second year and we found out, and the last full moon we finally did it! We waited until now to tell you since otherwise you wouldn't have let us help you here tonight."
Remus stared at them. He didn't like this at all.
"Help me? There's no way to help me! I will kill you!"
Sirius grinned and shook his head again.
The three of them took some steps closer to Remus.
"You won't. Werewolf-bites don't affect animals, so we're safe at that front." Now he was really confused. Animals? They hadn't… no, it was impossible. They were fifteen! "And kill… well, I think we can manage not to get killed. Now, my dear Moony, let us present…"
He swept out his arm toward Peter who smiled.
"Wormtail." Sirius said and suddenly Peter began to shrimp. After a moment he was no more, but instead a grey rat sat there on its back legs. Remus gasped. No. No, they couldn't have done this.
"Padfoot." James said while sweaping out his arm toward Sirius and in Sirius place a big, no, gigantic black dog (which looked a lot like the grim) suddenly stood and waved its tail happily.
"And Prongs." James finished and shifted into a great stag.
Remus gaped. They had become Animagi? For him? They had risked to kill themselves, or go to Azkaban, for him? There was only one thing to say.
"Have you been completely mad?" he yelled as high as he could – which wasn't very loud since he was so weak. "You've become Animagi? What's wrong with you? You could've died, or gone to Azkaban, and left me all on my own!"
They shifted back, looking triumphant and not at all like they cared the slightest about him yelling at them. Not that they ever did, except in a very few cases when they knew they had done wrong.
"Trust us, this is going to help you. We've done research." Sirius assured him. Remus opened his mouth to protest again but the moon rose and he suddenly felt an overwhelming pain. He fell on his back, screaming out loud and buckling his back.
His friends recoiled. They had (obviously) never seen or heard him transform before, and it was quite horrible.
James, Sirius and Peter hadn't had any idea exactly how horrible it was for their friend. They had seen him in the end of the transformation once last year, when they had been early, and that had been terrible, hearing the screams, but this was a thousand times worse.
Remus screamed again and his nails, which already was beginning to change into claws, scraped the floor.
"Change." James ordered his friends and they immediately changed into animal forms. It took everything they had to not run to Remus to help him, but they stopped themselves since they knew it was nothing they could do.
After what felt like an eternity but probably was around five or ten minutes Remus screamed one last time, but this time it wasn't a scream but a howl, before falling limp to the floor. Only that he wasn't Remus anymore. This, this was Moony. A gigantic, grey wolf, even bigger than Padfoot, with clear yellow eyes. After a moment it whimpered meanwhile it forced itself to stand on its feet. It whimpered for some more moments, gasping for air.
Sirius was just about to get closer to the Wolf when it suddenly froze. Moony lifted his head and gave away a long howl. A drawn out, blood-freezing and blood-thirsty howl. Then he fixed his eyes at the three Animagi. Moony looked confused, he had never had company before. But then he did what his instincts told him, and with a loud growl he attacked.
The Marauders jumped out of the way, and the Wolf crashed into the wall instead. He turned around with a growl. Wormtail hid underneath the wardrobe, it wasn't much he could do. Padfoot began to whimper and pressed himself flat on the floor with his tail between his legs. It was way against his proudness to do this, but the werewolf needed someone to dominate if the books spoke truth. It had been decided that this would be Padfoot, since a dog was much better fitted to this than a stag was. And a rat didn't really matter in the matter. It wasn't very hard either. Even if Sirius didn't like being dominated, Padfoot felt that the Wolf, the Wolf was an Alpha. He would've been an Alpha in a pack of dogs, without a doubt, but in comparison with a werewolf, he wasn't.
Moony blinked, looking surprised. He wasn't entirely sure what to do right now. Then he attacked again. He threw himself over the black dog.
But before he could reach the dog, he felt a pain in his side and flew to the side. Prongs had gored him. Moony whimpered and growled, getting on his feet again. But the stag didn't show any fear as he was supposed to do, but lowered his head again, threatening the werewolf with his horns. The Wolf attacked again, and once again he got gored. Prongs did his best not to hurt Moony, but most important was now that no one would get killed.
Moony tried to attack one more, but after hitting the wall again he whimpered and lowered his head, putting his tail between his legs in submission. He looked worried, Padfoot noticed.
Padfoot jumped onto his feet and both Wormtail and Prongs approached Moony. The Wolf backed a few steps, but he soon was close to the wall and couldn't come any longer. Prongs buffed on Moony's side with his muzzle. Wormtail did the same on Moony's foot since he didn't reach any higher. And Padfoot licked Moony behind the ears to show they were all friends here.
First Moony froze, but then he began to lick back on Padfoot. Suddenly he looked much friendlier. Padfoot waved his tail and jumped around happily and soon Moony was playfully hunting Padfoot and Prongs around the Shack. Wormtail had taken place onto Prongs' head, so he was also in the game.
The next morning Remus smiled when the haze in his head that always took place after the transformation disappeared. He remembered the night's events quite good – his memory after the nights as the Wolf got better and better when he got older – and he felt better than he ever had done after a full moon. He was sore after the transforming, and had a few cuts, but otherwise he didn't even have any injuries.
"Remus is awake!" he heard Peter tell the others and they immediately gathered around him. Remus smiled toward his friends who grinned widely.
"Tonight was brilliant!" Sirius exclaimed. "I can't remember the last time I had so much fun! Are you okay?"
Remus nodded. It was strange, he didn't even have headache.
"Better than I ever have been after a Moon." He assured them. "I still thinks you're absolutely mad who did all this, but… thank you." Their grins grew wider. "Thank you so much."
James helped him to sit up. He was tired, just as all of them, but he smiled brightly when he laid an arm over Remus' shoulders.
"Nothing to talk about, Moony, old friend. Nothing to talk about."
Review!
I've actually tried to write this for a while, but I had no idea how to write it good. Then, yesterday when I should go to sleep I got this idea in my head. So now I wrote it. I hopes you like it!
Also, now I've written practically every canon event I can remind me of, and a every own/fanon I can come up with. So my head is empty. The only thing I haven't written about is when Sirius sent Snape to Moony (why wasn't they with Moony? Why was Moony alone?), and I won't write about that. It's too sad, and I don't like too sad. Maybe I can write about when Remus forgives Sirius, but nothing else. So, I have no more ideas for now.
You are very welcome to give me tips, either it is canons I've forgotten about, or your own ideas you want written. I promises to give you cred. If you have any ideas you want me to write, review or send a PM (It also works with different POVs on stories I've already written).
Anyway, I will probably not post anything more before Christmas, so see this as a Christmas present.
Merry Christmas!
