Chapter 5
Sirius:
(a few days later)
Tonight was the night, Snivellus was going down. I have everything planned, I let him “overhear” a conversation I had with Pete. Now all that was left was for him to follow me to the whomping willow tonight.
“You ok Remus?” I snapped out of my thoughts. James, Remus, Peter, and I were all eating an early dinner in the great hall. There weren’t many other people here, most people were outside enjoying the sunshine or doing homework.
“Fine, James,” Remus said glancing up from his mostly full plate
“You’ve barely eaten. That’s not ‘fine’” James contradicted
“I have a bad feeling about tonight. Like something is going to happen. Stupid right?” He locked eyes with me and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
“You know we wouldn’t let anything happen to you right?” James whispered moving closer to Remus
“Yeah I know” he sighed “I’m just paranoid.” I started to feel a little guilty. I was about to break the promise that James had just made. What if Remus found out? I would lose our friendship and the idea of being more. I looked up at Remus and saw that Snape was behind him about to pour something into his drink
“Oi! What the hell do you think you're doing?” I yelled standing up. Remus and James whipped around and saw Snivellus holding a thin potionbottle that was tilted towards Remus’ goblet. James grabbed the bottle and looked in it.
“It’s Veretisurem! Why the fuck were you trying to drug Remus?”
“I had a question and I wanted to be awhere he was telling the truth.” He said with a sneer. Remus paled.
“Oh fuck off will you!” I shouted at him.
He walked away and any doubt I had about the plan disappeared. Snivellus was going down.
~A few hours later~
Remus had just gone into the hole in the whomping willow and James had yet to arrive. The full moon was hanging low in the sky and providing enough light for me to see just fine. I was about to transform into Padfoot when I heard the screams coming from the shrieking shack. I knew the transformation was excruciating for Remus, but hearing those screams made me want to run to him and hold him until the pain stopped. But I couldn’t risk him not feeling the same, or missing Snape. I transformed into Padfoot, my animagus the big black dog. I raced toward the castle feeling both excited and nervous to see how this panned out.
I neared the castle just as Snape stepped through the doors, a hood pulled over his face almost unrecognizable. However, his smell was as pungent as ever. After I had become an animagus I started noticing sents more, Remus smelled like chocolate and cigarettes, James smelled like aloe and bananas, Pete always smelled like cinnamon rolls, and Snape smelled like burnt toast and loneliness. Feelings could be smells too, something about the chemical reactions in the brain let off pheromones or something.
Snape’s hood fell and I could see his face in the moonlight. He had a horrible little sneer and his eyes had a glint in them. I bounded up to him tongue out and all. He jumped back
“Ugh!” he yelped in disgust. Guess he isn’t a dog person, I hated him even more. I grabbed the edge of his cloak and tugged it toward myself
“Shoo! I’m waiting for a guide to lead me to the werewolf, you’ll scare him away miserable mutt!” he whispered agatedly. I grabbed his cloak and tugged him forcefully.
“Stop!” he whispered again more forceful. I barked at him, went around him, and shoved
“What the fu- oh! You're the guide aren't you?” I sighed, wagged my tail, and tugged on his cloak again.
He pulled out his wand and motioned with his non-wand hand for me to lead the way. I ran down the hill from the castle toward the willow with Snape sprinting behind me. The willow was still in its floaty state which means Peter probably was in the shack with Moony. I ran up to the tree and sat by the hole at the base of the trunk.
“In there?” whispered Snape, with more than a little fear in his tone.
I nodded my head watching his reaction. He held up his wand and went in. Just then I saw James sprinting down the hill from the castle. He got to the tree, barely sparing me a glance before he bolted in after Severus. Almost as soon as he went in snape started screaming in pure, undiluted, terror. James came out a few seconds later with a struggling screaming Severus. That’s when I heard Moony charging through the passage from the shrieking shack to the whomping willow. His snout broke through the darkness of the passage trying to reach Snape. Before he could bite him I jumped up and blocked his snout. He must have recognized me because he let out a playful whine and retreated down the passage. I followed after him to spend the rest of the night playing under the full moon in the forbidden forest. Later on in the night Prongs joined us, but he seemed more reserved than usual. We found Wormtail hiding under a piece of rotting wood hanging out with some other rats. As sunrise got closer we started herding moony toward the shrieking shack. I can’t believe that I pulled it off without a hitch. I had just pulled the greatest prank in all of Hogwarts history, and no one would know but me.
Wormtail, Prongs, and I left the shack and started making our way back to the castle.
Once we got back to our room I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and hair and put on my pajamas. James was waiting for me on the bed when I walked in, with a serious look on his face,
“We need to talk”
“What about?”
“Do you really think that I would believe that Snape would just show up out of the blue, on a full moon, and go to the whomping willow, just for kicks?” He was staring at me, almost like if he looked at me hard enough the truth would be spelled out on my forehead.
“Are you accusing me of trying to show Snape the way to the willow?”
“I'm not accusing you, I'm just saying that it was weird,” he ran his hand over his face “especially after what happened in the great hall.” he paused and walked over to his bed “I’m going to sleep, we can go see moony in the morning”
“Yeah, in the morning”
I tugged the curtain closed around my bed and lay in the darkness. It had worked, it really worked. James was a little suspicious but it’s James, he wouldn't hold it against me. I felt a small grin spread across my face. Snape would never bother us again, and the best part? Moony would never know