Of Moony Nights and Starry Eyes

    Remus Lupin had never been so convinced the universe hated him as he was when he sat in the hospital room next to an injured Peter Pettigrew. It was rather unfortunate that the two boys had gotten roped into being friends with James and Sirius, but alas, it simply seemed to be their fate. 

Currently, he was sat in the chair beside Peter's bed, while peter slept with suction-like bruises all over his face. Madame Pomfrey, the rather attractive young healer in the school, had tried her very best to get the bruises off and had almost succeeded entirely. She regretfully told the boys there was only so much to be done.

Remus was currently not accompanied by his two other compatriots, because they were actively serving detention with the game maker. The only reason Peter and Remus were not sentenced the same was because Peter needed to be tended to, and the other boys had told Professor McGonagall how they had to coerce Remus into going along all together. This was not the full truth, but the Professor considered Remus to be much more reasonable than the two other boys, and found it believable. 

And so it was as he sat in silence, that he contemplated the day, and tried to figure out where in the world he went wrong. 

*******

His day started with his crazy roommate James practically pouncing onto his bed where he had been previously sleeping peacefully.

"Remus! ReMussss? Remmy?" He screeched into his ear. "Are you awake my darling?" 

One thing that made up the essence of James Potter was the absolute disgust of being asleep any longer than necessary. He slept the bare minimum his body needed to function, and couldn't understand why everyone else didn't just do the same. 

"I have the most interesting news to tell all of you." He said. 

Remus just let out a muffled "hrumph" and tried to simultaneously kick James off his bed and hide his face under his blanket at the same time. However seeing as he was still half asleep, it ended up looking like more of a fish out of water flopping around in search of it. 

"Sirius! Peter! Get over here! I need to tell all of you something." He loudly repeated, so as to make sure the other two boys heard him. He had, blessedly, made his way off of Remus' bed and was now stood in the center of the room, to make sure he had the best vantage point to make his announcement. 

"We," he said dramatically, "are going to catch a squid." 

*******

James had perhaps not chosen the best time to spring that idea upon the rest of the boys, as their immediate reaction was to shoot the ridiculous idea down swiftly. 

"Mate, I love you, but this just doesn't seem to be your best idea." Sirius said, which ought to have shown them that the idea was a rather bad one. 

Peter also voiced his agreement with Remus and Sirius, albeit rather timidly, for fear of James's disapproval. 

James wisely figured that it was best to let it rest for a while. 

He made it to breakfast. 

"Come onnn Sirius!" He pleaded. "You aren't the least bit curious about how accurate the rumors about the beast are?" He asked.

The idea had entered James head when he heard a few third years talking about how no one had really come in close contact with it. He had heard others telling their friends that the squid was trained to help students who had fallen into the lake. And one ridiculous individual, whom no one would believe, said it was there to protect the merpeople who dwelt at the bottom of the lake. 

James was determined to find out. And of course, he refused to go without his band of merry men. 

Remus knew Sirius was won over as soon as the girls came over and sat down near them. He couldn't help himself leaning over to Mary Macdonald and telling her about how they were gonna catch the Giant Squid. 

James recognized this fact, and set to trying to convince Remus and Peter. 

"Come on Pete, wouldn't you just love to go down in history as the man who caught the Giant Squid and lived to tell the tale?" He tried, with an air of storytelling in his manner. 

Remus neglected to mention the fact that that position was most likely taken by whoever deposited the squid there in the first place. 

Before long, Peter was caught up in James' tales of a boy who rode around on the Giant Squid and fought dark wizards with the help of his mighty beast. 

"Come on Remus," Peter tried, "How bad could it really be?" 

The answer was, of course, fairly bad. 

******* 

There were a few problems the boys ran across, the first of which being how to get onto the lake. After all, there weren't many boats readily available to first years. They tried everything, even going so far as to try and transfigure a large piece of wood into a boat. To Remus's credit they did end up with a boat, it just simply happened to be the perfect size to fit a mouse and no one else. 

"Well Remus ol chap," said Sirius, "Now you've done it. all you need to do now is shrink Peter to fit and you'll be golden." He said while grinning at him. 

In the end, they paid an older student to do it for them. Sirius was rather essential to the part, seeing as he was able to charm the 4th year into helping. Not to mention, he did give a sizeable chunk of his money that his parents gave him to convince her as well. 

All this to say, they were now solidly in the middle of the lake with no squid to be seen anywhere. 

The four boys had been on the lake for nearly an hour before an idea struck Sirius's mind. 

"Remus," He said, "Do you happen to have any of that chocolate you love to eat so much?" He asked slyly. 

Remus felt fear strike his heart strong and fast. 

"Why do you ask?" He said, thinking the best move was to play it cool. 

"Well," He started, "Me and my brother, Reggie, snuck out of the house once and wandered around muggle London. We came across this park, which had a pond. And while we were there we saw muggles holding strange little sticks with bits of food attached at the end. We thought they were all crazy at first, but then we saw one man pull his stick out of the water and who would've known it but there was a fish on the end of it!" he said. 

James seemed to be catching onto Sirius's thought and was thoroughly enthused. He had previously been sulking because of the lack of squid they were finding, but this new idea perked him right up. 

"You know Sirius," he said while slowly moving towards Remus, "A squid is practically the same as a fish. Do you reckon they like to eat food off of a stick too?" he asked. 

"I reckon they probably do. And it seems to me chocolate would be the thing squids like best, wouldn't you say Jamie?" He asked with a look of pure mischief on his face. 

"That sounds about right to me." He agreed. And they promptly tackled Remus. 

Remus, being a werewolf, could've easily pushed them all off, but he didn't want them to ask him about his strength, so he made the decision to give up his precious chocolate. 

Sirius grabbed his legs and sat straight on top of him, while James looked through his pockets to find the chocolate. Once he found it, he promptly handed it off to Peter. Remus started pushing and shoving to get the boys off of him, so naturally their attention was on him. However, their attention should've been on Peter. 

As peter held the chocolate, suddenly three large tentacles rose out of the water. One grabbed Peter around the middle, and lifted

him straight out of the boat. The other wrapped around the chocolate in his hand, and the last wrapped itself firmly around his face. Poor Peter was hanging up in the air positively shrieking bloody murder. 

For a moment, all the boys could do was stare. The beast made for a terrifying sight. although all the could see was the tentacles, the water around the boat was bubbling like mad. The tentacles all had rows and rows of suckers lined around, with leathery purple skin around the outside. 

"Pete!" James screamed. "Hold on Man! We'll get you down!" He yelled at him. 

It was unclear whether the message reached him, because he was still screaming like a mad man up in the air. 

Remus saw that neither James nor Sirius seemed to be able to stop their shock at the situation, so he took charge and grabbed at Peter's feet. 

"Stop standing there and help me get him down!" He yelled at the other boys. 

James and Sirius both grabbed onto Peters feet, and started pulling as well. They managed to get him a bit looser, but not enough to get him free. 

"Peter!" Sirius shouted at him, "Let go of the chocolate!" He said. 

And so Peter did. 

The moment Peter let go of the chocolate, the squid let go of Peter. 

Peter dropped ten feet into the water, and immediately started flailing about. This left Remus with no choice but to jump in to get him. 

Thankfully, the squid had already left, and so they were at no further risk of being eaten by a large Cephalopoda. 

James and Sirius both reached down their hands to help the other two boys out of the water. 

"Well," James said quite out of breath, "Now we know that squid really likes chocolate." 

And all four boys dissolved into laughter.