Chapter Text
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling OR All The Young Dudes by MsKingBean89 (this story includes some of the events/original characters created for that story). Mostly canon compliant.
MATURE SUBJECT MATTER: Rated M
Chapter One: The Decision
September 1st, 1975
“Dumbledore must be losing it,” said Remus quietly, “why else would he make me a prefect?”
James was loading his trunk onto the racks above the seats. He had pulled out his robes to change along with his three best friends, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. It was there that the silver prefect pin had fallen out of Remus’ trunk as he’d removed his robes to change.
“What’s this?” Sirius had said snatching it up off the floor. “Moony? Seriously? A prefect?”
Remus had quickly snatched the pin back, but looking like it had burned him, tucked it quickly into his robes pocket and flexed his hand painfully.
“Wow! Congratulations Moony! That’s great!” James had said. He turned away from his friends for a moment as Remus voiced his concerns regarding Dumbledore’s decision to choose him. James couldn’t help but feel a slight momentary pang of disappointment that he wasn’t chosen as prefect. However, it wasn’t like he acted particularly responsible at school. He was top of his class in many things but being responsible was definitely not one of them. Besides, he didn’t really want to be a prefect anyways since it would surely interfere with his rule breaking. However momentarily jealous he had been though, he was very genuinely happy for Remus, he had rightfully deserved the honour.
Remus smiled, “It looks like congratulations are in order for you as well?”
“What?” James asked puzzled.
Remus pointed to the silver Quidditch captain pin on his robes.
“Oh yeah! Can’t wait to get started and get tryouts scheduled. We have a winning streak to maintain after all.” he said, puffing his chest out. He had momentarily forgotten about being made Quidditch captain. This was likely due to the fact that he had, more often than not, run the team unofficially for the past two years.
“Who else do you think was made prefect?” Peter asked, fastening the clasps of his robe.
Sirius snorted, “Evans of course. She’s easily the smartest witch in our year, not to mention she’s got a giant stick up her--”
“Hey!” James interjected, “Don’t talk about Evans like that.”
James could practically feel Sirius’ eyes rolling. James felt another slight itch of disappointment. If he had maybe been a bit more responsible the past few years he would’ve been named prefect and could’ve been partnered up with Lily. Of course she’d be chosen as the Gryffindor prefect. Why hadn’t he thought of any of this before? Maybe if she had been forced to work alongside him, he could have finally convinced her to give him a shot.
“Well, Lily and I get on pretty well,” Remus said conversationally, turning to pull his heavy sweater over his head, “It should be fairly easy to work together.”
James stopped dead in his tracks. Remus’ shirt had come off with his sweater and James could see that his entire back was covered in massive, foot long claw marks, the wounds barely scabbed over. There must have been dozens of angry gashes all over the pale skin.
It went very quiet in the compartment. James, Sirius and Peter all took in the sight of Remus’ scratch marks. Remus turned back to them and his smile immediately vanished from his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your back…” Sirius said quietly.
Remus immediately fumbled with his clothes, quickly pulling his collared shirt on, his face turning red.
“It’s nothing,” he said, shaking his head and looking at the floor.
“That’s not nothing Moony,” Sirius continued, “Are you…?”
“I SAID IT’S NOTHING!” Remus yelled angrily. James, Sirius and Peter stood frozen and silent looking at Remus.
“I’ve got to go,” Remus said impatiently, pulling his robes haphazardly over his misbuttoned shirt. “I’m already late for this stupid prefect meeting…”
He wrenched open the door of the compartment and stomped out, not looking back.
Sirius was the first to move. He walked over to the compartment door, gently shut it and then performed a silencing charm on the room.
“We’ve got to start this month,” Sirius said as he turned towards them. “I’ve never seen something like that inflicted on a human being before. It’s worse than I thought.”
James felt a particularly nauseating sensation in his stomach as Sirius sat down across from him on the seat by the window.
“He’s always so private when changing and getting into bed,” James said quietly, thinking back on if he had ever noticed such bad wounds on his friend before. “It’s never been this bad before, right? I mean he’s always had scars but...surely we would’ve noticed?”
“Even if we had,” started Peter, “You know what Moony’s like. He never wants to accept any help with anything. Stubborn idiot.”
Sirius had his hand on his chin, “No this is definitely worse than anything before I think,” he looked up at James and Peter. “Maybe as he’s gotten older, it’s gotten worse...more violent?”
The three boys sat quietly for a while. With all the research they had done on werewolves in order to better understand their friend or to potentially help him, they’d always been very annoyed at how little information actually existed on living with the condition of lycanthropy. The only useful bit of information they had found in their studies was that animals were not affected by werewolves and could actually help calm them, which had led to only one conclusion. A dangerous, difficult conclusion: Become animagi.
James let out a long breath, slapped his hands to his knees and pushed himself up to standing. “That settles it then,” he said as he started searching his book bag for his lunar calendar. “We’ll start on the next full moon.” He quickly scanned his calendar for the next date of the full moon, his finger running along the numbers. His glasses slipped down his nose a little and he unconsciously pushed them back up.
“September 20th is the next full moon. We already have some of the ingredients right?” James asked.
Sirius nodded, “I was able to get the death-head hawk moth chrysalis in Knockturn alley when I was forced into a shopping trip with dear old mum and dad this summer.”
“They didn’t suspect anything?” Peter asked nervously, “Wouldn’t they wonder why you wanted that particular ingredient? I’ve checked, they’re not a fairly common potion ingredient.”
Sirius shrugged, “They might but I highly doubt that anyone shopping in Knockturn alley is going to rat on anybody else...I mean they’re all up to dodgy stuff down there. I could just as easily tell the Ministry about all the dark stuff going on down there that I happened to see.”
James sat back down next to Sirius, “To be honest, most of the ingredients seem fairly easy to wrangle up. The hair, obviously easily accessible. You already have the moth chrysalis’...then the dew shouldn’t be too hard to manage on our own. It’s the mandrake leaf that I’m the most worried about.”
He looked up at his friends and they nodded, clearly they were worried about it too.
“I’ve been thinking about that actually,” Peter said inquisitively, “Why can’t we just use a sticking charm to keep it on the roof of our mouths? That way there’s no chance of it falling out for whatever reason.”
James thought for a moment but then quickly shook his head. “No...I don’t think we can use any short cuts with this. There’s a reason hardly anyone chooses to become an animagus and why it’s so highly registered with the Ministry. It’s supposed to be difficult to test you...I don’t think we should try to cheat by using spells that’ll make it easier.”
Sirius stood up and paced around the compartment, “I agree with James, a lot of what goes into this potion and this spell comes back to nature. I don’t think we should try to cut corners. We could potentially be tampering with the leaf if we cast anything else on it. We’ll just have to manage it on our own.”
James looked at two of his best friends, “For Moony?”
Peter and Sirius nodded and spoke in unison, “For Moony.”