Quidditch tryouts had come around again, meaning Wisteria was standing in the Quiddtich Pitch with Shannon, both of them shivering in the sudden cold air. The two girls look around at everyone else trying out and Wisteria’s resolve sinks.

    “I don’t stand a chance of making the team.”

    “Of course you do. Stop saying that.”

    “I’m just saying, it’s not likely that a mere third year like me will make the team, not with so many older students here. Older students who were born and raised riding broomsticks and watching this game being played. I don’t stand a chance!”

    “I made the team last year and I was younger then. Besides, now you get to try out for Keeper. Last year you were out of your comfort zone, you’ve got this!”

    Wisteria takes a deep breath. “You’re right. I got this.” She continues to repeat those three words to herself throughout the entire tryout time. In the end she didn’t make it, but the captain assured her that if she came back next year she stood a real chance at getting the Keeper position. Shannon got the seeker position and apologized all night to Wisteria for getting her hopes up for nothing.

    “It’s fine. If anything, your confidence boost probably allowed to do as good as I did. Plus, the captain did take notice, so that’s something right?”

    “Yeah I guess… I just feel bad.”

    “Well don’t. Come on, we’re supposed to meet up with the others.”

    A few days later, Fabian meets Wisteria at the front of the school so they can go on their date. The thought made him smile. A date. He is going on a date with Wisty. When she shows up she looks as pretty as usual. Her red hair is pulled up into a ponytail and she’s wearing a big shirt, leggings, and a leather jacket.

    Suddenly Fabian feels panicked. How is he supposed to act around her now? They’re dating right? Is he supposed to hold her hand? Is that too forward? What about kissing? He’s never kissed anyone before. Has she? Would she initiate a kiss, or should he? Would she reach out with her hand, or should she?

    Then she’s there, right in front of him and smiling. “Are you okay? You look a little freaked out.” She says.

    “I’m doing great now that you’re here.” He says and cringes at how cheesy it sounds.

    She giggles a little and that makes him feel much better. Maybe this date wont crash and burn. As soon as the thought crosses his head he starts panicking again. Should he hold her hand? When is an appropriate time to initiate hand holding? Do people do that on a first date?

    Wisteria gives him a weird look. “Are we gonna go?”

    “Oh! Yeah, right. Let’s go.” He says awkwardly and abruptly turns to walk way. You should have grabbed her hand. Just hold it, you idiot, that’s what couples do! He yells at himself, but by the time he works up the courage to look for her hand to hold, she had stuffed both of them in her jacket pockets.

    He silently curses himself for waiting too long and then realizes that they are walking in a rather awkward silence.

    “So, how have you been? I haven’t seen you in a few days.” He says.

    “Yeah, sorry. I’ve been kind of busy. This date is going to be a much needed break.”

    He glances at her as she talks and notices her light blush at the word “date”. So she feels kind of awkward too. That’s nice to know. “Is there anywhere in particular you wanna go?”

    “Well I’ve never been before, so I was hoping we could just explore. Maybe see a little bit of everything?”

    “That works for me.”

    They fall into another awkward silence and he wrecks his brain for something to talk about. “Tell me about life in the Muggle world.”

    She looks at him surprised. “Muggle world in general, or my life in it?” She asks.

    “I guess your life.”

    “Well, it wasn’t incredibly different from this, just pretend that magic doesn’t exist. We went to school and took classes, some people liked some of them, others didn’t like some of them. There was drama. People made friends and enemies and boyfriends.”

    “Did you have any friends, enemies, or… boyfriends?”

    “I had a couple of friends. Lizzy and Tori. That was it mainly. We were a trio of outcasts, with me at the helm. As for enemies, I suppose you could say that would have been half the school. I wasn’t a very popular person. And I actually did have a boyfriend. I think I’ve mentioned him before, but maybe you weren’t there for that. His name was John Taylor. I broke it off with him when I realized I would be going to Hogwarts.”

    “Oh… Do you miss it?”

    “I miss my friends, and I regret not properly ending things with John. I just sent him a letter, how shitty is that? But I enjoy my life here and my friends here.” She moves a little closer to him as they walk and he smiles.

    Throughout the rest of the day the two talked and joked and laughed like always. It wasn’t until they got back to the castle and he walked her to the Ravenclaw common room and she was about to leave that he finally worked up the courage to grab her hand. He grabs it as she is about to walk away and she freezes, looks at their hands, and then back up at him.

    “Goodnight, Wisty.” He says.

    It wasn’t until she said, “Goodnight Fabian.” And then looked back at their hands that he realized he was still holding her hand. He hastily let go and gave her an awkward nod before she entered the common room and he walked away, still cursing himself for being so awkward.

    Wisteria had to endure many questions about the date that night. Eventually she just ignored all of her friends and tried to fall asleep. Her brain was in overdrive though. Overall the date wasn’t bad, but it was kind of awkward from time to time, and it didn’t necessarily feel any different than when they would hang out before. Was it supposed to feel any different? Eventually she decided that she was overthinking things and just needed to clear her head. Wisteria waited until everyone in her room was asleep before getting out of bed and sneaking out to the Black Lake.

When she gets there she looks up at the sky. The sun has just set and the full moon is just becoming visible over the horizon. She uses her knowledge of astronomy to search the sky for any planets or constellations that might be visible. She finds Orion quickly and then her eyes flick over to Canis Major. After a few moments of this, she is finally getting tired when she hears a howl rip through the night. It makes all the hair stand up on her skin and a chill run down her spine. She sits up and looks around to find a massive figured coming her way.

She scrambles to stand up, as the figure looms closer, but soon realizes that it’s not some monster. It’s a person. Just a really really big person.

“What do yah think yer doing out at this hour of the night?” The figure asks. “There are rules fer a reason yah know.”

“I’m sorry sir.”

“Gah.” The giant man says, waving a dismissive hand. “Don’t call me sir.”

“Sorry… Please don’t tell me I’m in trouble, I just couldn’t sleep and wanted to see the sky and I never get in trouble! I’m sorry for being out this late.”

“Don’t worry, yer not in trouble. I’m not a teacher anyhow, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. Still though, yah hear that howl?”

Wisteria shivers just thinking about it. “Yes.”

“That’s a werewolf in these here woods, so yah be sure to get back inside the castle and safe to bed, yah hear?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Wisteria scrambles back up to the castle, but almost as soon as she enters she runs face first into something. The force of it knocks her back onto her butt and she looks up to see Sirius, also on his butt on the ground.

“Wisty? What is it with you and sneaking out?”

“I like being rebellious.” She says as she stands up. It’s then that she notices that James and Peter are with him. “Where’s Remus?”

Peter pales and James’ smile suddenly looks forced. “We couldn’t convince him to come with us this time.” Sirius says.

Wisteria narrows her eyes slightly at him. He’s lying, she can tell. Remus may be more of a rule follower than them, but he wouldn’t just ditch them like that. Unless he was sick again, but why would they lie about him being sick? And why do Peter and James look so panicked? “What are you guys up to anyway?” She asks.

“Well we could ask you the same question.” Sirius points out.

“I couldn’t sleep, wanted to see the sky. Are you guys going outside?”

“That was the plan.” James says.

“You shouldn’t. I just ran into some really big man out there and-“

“You ran into Hagrid?” Peter asks.

“I don’t know what his name is, but I suppose so. Anyway, he told me that there’s a werewolf in the forest right now!”

At these words all of the boys pale considerably. “Thanks for letting us know, but we actually are going to talk to Hagrid, so I’m sure we’ll be fine. It’ll only take a few minutes anyway.” Sirius tells her.

He’s lying again. What is with them tonight? Why would they need to lie like this? “Okay, well be careful. I don’t want any of my friends getting hurt become some monster is running around in the Forest.” The three of them flinch slightly at the word monster and a theory dawns on Wisteria. No… It can’t be… “What day is today?” Wisteria asks them.

They look taken aback. “The 10th.” James tells her.

“No, I meant, day of the week.”

“Saturday.” Peter says.

“Okay… good…”

“Why is that good?” Peter asks.

“It doesn’t matter to you three right now. Anyway, I’m gonna go sit up in the common room until morning, because there is no way I’m sleeping after the night I’ve had.”

“Okay. Have a nice night.” James says.

“Goodnight!” Wisteria says, and then runs off. When she gets to the Common Room she lays down on a couch, her mind racing. Remus gets “sick” a lot, in fact, just about once a month. Sometimes the other Marauders sneak out without Remus, or sometimes with a very sick Remus in tow. When have I seen that happen? When I sneak out to sit by the lake. What have each of those nights been like? Clear sky. Full moon. I heard a howl, Hagrid said there was a werewolf, and Remus wasn’t with the boys. I mentioned the werewolf, the Marauders panicked, I called it a monster, and they flinched. Sirius was lying about something. What did he lie about? Why Remus wasn’t with them, and what they were doing. But this is all just speculation. What if I’m wrong? I need to talk to someone. But who? The Marauders will deny everything, but if it is true then I can’t just tell anyone. Who do I tell? Lily. Lily knows them, she’s friends with Remus, she’s trustworthy. Right? Yes. I’ll ask her about it in the morning.

       The next day, Lily is on her way to the Great all for breakfast when Wisteria appears seemingly out of nowhere and roughly grabs her arm.

       "Hey!" Lily protests. "What are you doing?"

       "We need to talk. Now. It's urgent."

       Lily stops fighting her and allows her sister to lead her through the school to an empty classroom. Wisteria wouldn't have said it's urgent unless that was true. "What's going on?"

    Wisteria is shaking, there are dark circles under her eyes, her hair is a mess, and she’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday. “I don’t know what to do.” She says. “I feel crazy and I don’t want to be right, but what if I am? I can’t be sure unless I get another opinion, but I can just tell anyone because if it is true he probably doesn’t want anyone to know and I can’t talk to the boys because they would deny everything if I’m right and if I’m wrong then I’m crazy and so I came to you.”

    “Jesus Wisty, what’s going on? You look horrible. Did you sleep last night?”

    Wisteria shakes her head no. “I tried, but I couldn’t!”

    “Okay.” Lily says carefully, now really worried about her twin. “Sit down, lets talk.”

    Lily sit’s down, but Wisty remains standing, pacing around the room. “Lily do you know that-that spell to make a room soundproof? Or to protect against eavesdroppers or whatever.”

    “Yes?”

    “Can you… can you do that on this room. I don’t want anyone knowing what we’re talking about.”

    Lily obliges. “I’m assuming that means that I can’t tell anyone either right?”

    “No! No one can know…”

    “Wisty, you’re scaring me. Just tell me what it is that has you so freaked out.”

    Wisteria takes a deep breath and turns to face Lily. “This might sound crazy.”

    “You already sound crazy, just tell me already!”

    “I think Remus might be a werewolf.”

    There’s a pregnant moment of silence while Lily just stares at her sister. At first she’s trying to figure out if maybe this was just some stupid joke all along, but the look on her sister’s face and the way she’s been acting up until saying those words let’s Lily know that she is very serious indeed. Then she’s trying to find merit in what Wisteria said. Remus? A werewolf? She works her way through the arguments for and against the theory before asking Wisteria, “What is your reasoning for thinking that?”

    “Don’t freak out, but sometimes I sneak out at night and there have been a few occasions where I’ve run into the Marauders and Remus either wasn’t with them or was nearly unconscious and they were just dragging him along. Each time they looked freaked out that someone had seen them and told me some lie about what they were doing. Think about it! Remus gets sick nearly every month because of his ‘weak immune system’. No one has an immune system that weak! And when does he get sick? During the full moon. Every time. If you don’t believe me you can find a calendar of the moon cycles, but I’ve already done that and I swear I’m right. Last night I was by the lake, it was a full moon and I heard a werewolf. Hagrid told me so! Then I saw the boys sneaking out as well, but with no Remus. Am I crazy or is this actually a possibility?”

    Lily stares at her sister and her heart races. “You’re not crazy. It actually makes some sense, but…”

    “I don’t want it to be true. Is our friend a monster?”

    Lily nearly slaps her. “You’re joking right?”

    “What? It’s a legitimate question!”

    “If he is a werewolf that doesn’t automatically make him a monster, just like us being wizards didn’t make us monsters! We just… we know something new about him now. Maybe… assuming this is correct. He’s not a monster. He’s still Remus, otherwise he wouldn’t be a Marauder.”

    “You’re right. So what do we do? Do we confront them?”

    “We need a plan first. We should do some research and see if there is anyway that we can help them. We should read up on werewolves, double check everything first. Then we’ll… then we’ll figure out what to do.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

    Wisteria meets Lily in an empty classroom a week or so after break ends.

    “Okay, lets talk our way through this first, and then we’ll go to them.” Lily says. The sisters sit in the classroom for a little over an hour talking each other through the plan and making sure they have all their facts right. When they feel confident in the plan, they make their way to Gryffindor tower.

    Lily lets her sister in and together they climb the flight of stairs leading up to the boys rooms and search the dorms until they find the one with the Marauders names on it. The girls glance at each other and then Lily reaches up and knocks on the door. A few moments later the door opens to reveal James.

    His eyes widen and a small smile comes to his face as he looks at Lily. “What are you guys doing here?”

    “Is Remus here?” Lily asks, somewhat ignoring his question.

    James’ face falls a little before he answers. “No. Why?”

    “Perfect. Are the rest of you in there?”

    “Yes. What’s going on?”

    “Can we come in? We need to talk to you.”

    James gives them a weird look. “Yeah sure, just give me a minute.” He closes the door and it opens about a minute later as he lets them into the room. “So what is this about?”

    The girls take a deep breath. They had already decided who would say what, so they didn’t even need to look at each other before starting.

    “We have a question for you and we expect an honest answer. Keep in mind we are your friends and we would never do anything that would hurt you, that goes for Remus too. There is a reason we don’t want him here, but that’s because we have his well being in mind and that will come into play in a minute, but for now we just want a completely honest answer to our question.” Lily starts, staring right at James.

    “What is it?” He asks.

    Wisteria is the one to answer. “Is Remus a werewolf?”

    The silence after the question is asked is nearly painful, but the answer was evident on the boys faces. They all looked horrified and the girls knew they were right, but still waited for an answer. When no one offered one, the girls moved on anyway.

    “He’s our friend. We care about him and want to help.” Wisteria tells them.

    “Which is why, we’ve spent a while looking up every possible thing we could find about werewolves.” Lily says. “What we found is that there are many wizards who are researching a possible potion that could help, but so far on one has managed to get it right. Other than that there weren’t any mentions of anyway to help, but-“

    “Werewolves don’t go after animals.” Wisteria takes over. “So if someone is an animagus and just uses that form then all should be good. So if you become animagi, then you can stay with him all night and not be in nearly as much danger.”

    Then Lily continues, “The only problems are that Remus probably wouldn’t want you to do it, so we need to keep it from him, and you’re supposed to register as an animagus, but if you do that then you will be questioned on why you are doing it and that will bring up uncomfortable questions.”

    “So, the obvious thing to do would be to keep it secret. But the process is long and difficult so we need to know that you are in 100%.” Wisteria finishes that part of their little script. When none of them say anything still she makes eye contact with each of them in turn. “Could one of you please say something because you’re honestly freaking me out.”

    Sirius is the first one to speak. “You figured it out that last time we ran into after curfew didn’t you?”

    Wisteria gulped. “Yeah. You’re a pretty good liar Sirius, but so am I. I know the tricks. Plus you’re roommates aren’t the best liars. They were mostly the ones who gave it away.”

    Sirius chuckles a little and leans his head against a wall. “Alright. So you have this plan. We’re gonna become animagi, and we’re gonna help Remus. Can you tell us more?”

    “We want to know that you guys are up for it first.” Lily says.

    “I’m in. I’ll help him no matter what it takes.” Sirius says without a moment’s hesitation.

    “Me too.” James says a second after.

    Everyone in the room looks expectantly at Peter. “I want to, but… I-I don’t know if I can. That’s really advanced stuff and its supposed to be really hard. What happens if I mess up somewhere along the way?”

    “You won’t. I swear it.” Wisteria says, putting her hands on his shoulders. “We’ll all be right here with you the whole time. We’ll make sure that nothing goes wrong.”

    He still looks afraid, but he bites his lip, puts on a brave face, and nods. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Okay,” Wisteria smiles at him and steps back to move onto the next part of their plan and address all three of the boys. “There are three steps to becoming an animagus. Step one and two involve these.” She says as she hands them each a bag of leaves “These are Mandrake leaves. For one month you have to keep one of these in your mouth at all times.

“At the end of each day you need to take it out and follow this recipe,” She says as she gives them each a parchment and bag of ingredients, “And create the potion using the Mandrake leaf you had in your mouth all day. Now, hold out your hands.”  They do as they are told and one by one she places a temporary charm on their wrists so that they read ‘Amato Animo Animato Animagus’.

“After drinking the potion each day you need to say that incantation. You must perform every step perfectly or this could possibly end in disaster for any one of you. Lily and I will be there to help, but it’s still dangerous, especially since we don’t want Remus to know. Which brings me to another point. We don’t want you guys accidentally spitting up Mandrake leaves in the middle of a conversation, which would bring up many questions we don’t want to answer. Lily and I recommend telling Remus that you are all taking a vow of silence to protest something. If you guys have any questions, just ask Lily or I. Understand?”

The boys nod and James looks up from the bag in his hands. “Thank you. This means a lot.”

Lily smiles at him. “We just hope it works and does some good. You are smart boys despite what everyone thinks. I hope you can pull this off.”

“So do I.” Sirius says.

        On her way back to the common room, Wisteria turns down a hall to find Lucius and Narcissa talking with their backs to her and Regulus and Severus standing in front of them, now staring right at her. Wisteria’s breath catches in her throat and her mind struggles to figure out what to do. Before she can come up with something Regulus clenches his jaw and looks at the Slytherin’s in front of him.

       “Let’s go get some food. I’m starving.” He says to them.

       "Yeah, so am I." Severus agrees.

       “I thought you didn’t want to go to the Great Hall tonight?” The Slytherin girl says.

       “Well my hunger won out. I need food, so lets go.”

       Lucius shrugs. “Alright, whatever.”

       Regulus glances at Wisteria one more time before the three of them walk off down the hallway in the opposite direction. Wisteria’s heart beat returns to normal and she stands for a minute trying to figure out why he would have helped her. It makes sense for Severus to help, but Regulus? Before she can come to a conclusion, the Prewett twins find her.

       “Wisty?” Fabian asks. “What are you doing?”

       “Huh? Nothing. How are you guys doing?”

       “We’re alright. Just heading to lunch. Wanna join us?”

       “Sure. Let’s go.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

    Fabian was sitting in Charms in between his brother and James when he was invited to James’ birthday party. He accepted and then look up at Wisteria who was sitting on the other side of the room in between Jane and Penelope.

    Have you been invited to James’ birthday party yet? He jots down on the desk in front of him. They’ve put the charm on their desks in all the classes they have together now.

    Of course I have. She responds a few moments later. The Marauders asked Lily and I this morning. I think James figured she was less likely to say no if I was with her when he asked.

    Did she say no?

    Of course not. And even if she had, I would drag her along anyway. I did have to convince her out of inviting Severus though.

    She wanted to invite that snake?

    Wisteria looks up to give him a small glare from across the room. Keep in mind that ‘that snake’ is my friend too. And yes, she wanted to invite him. I know that it only would have ended in a fight, so I shut that idea down quick. The rest of the girls are coming though, Lily’s friends and mine.

Fabian takes a moment to lean over to James and whisper, “What are we gonna do at the party anyway?”

“I dunno, play Truth or Dare or Spin the Bottle or some other party game probably.”

Two nights later on the night of the party the lot of them were sitting in a circle in the Room of Requirements trying to figure out a game to play.

“We could play Spin the Bottle.” Sirius suggest.  

“Of course that’d be your request.” Penelope says rolling her eyes.

“What can I say.” Sirius says with an unashamed shrug accompanied by his signature smirk. “I’m always in the mood to kiss pretty girls and tonight they outnumber the guys enough to where I like my chances.”

Jane and Emmeline scrunch up their noses at that while Marlene glances at Sirius with renewed interest. “You mean that we wouldn’t play it where only guys could kiss girls and vice versa?” Jane asks.

“Why would we?” Sirius responds. “It’s no fun unless you run the risk of having to platonically kiss your best mate. Not that I wouldn’t mind kissing any of the Marauders.” He winks at each of them in turn. Emmeline, looking uncomfortable, suggests that they find something else to play instead.

“What about Never Have I Ever?” Marlene suggests.

“No offense Mar,” Lily says, “But I’m pretty sure that the only people in our group to have done anything remotely interesting enough to make that game fun are you and Sirius.”

Marlene shrugs. “I suppose that’s true.”

“Okay then, what else do we have?” Christine asks.

Fabian smirks “How about Truth or Dare?”

“Oh come on Fabs.” Alice says. “That game’s only fun when you’re drunk.”

“Actually I like the sound of playing that.” Remus says. “I’m sure we can keep it interesting while sober, seeing as we’re underage.”

A massive smile spreads across James’ face. “Alright then, lets play. I’ll start, it is my birthday after all. So, Sirius, Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.” Sirius responds, no hesitation.

“You said you wouldn’t mind kissing one of the Marauders, prove it. I dare you to kiss one of us.”

Sirius mentally weighs his options for a moment before scooting closer to Peter. “Alright then, come on Peter buddy, pucker up.”

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm as he squeals loudly, “WHAT!”

“You heard my dare, I’ve gotta kiss one of you! James has already sworn himself to Lily, so he’s off limits,” Lily scoffs at that. “And I’m already so attracted to Remus that I might actually get a boner if I kiss him.” All the girls but Marlene react to that with wide eyes and screeches of protest, but Sirius continues, undeterred. “So that leaves you. It’ll be over quick, I promise.”

Peter simply sits there shell shocked with his jaw hanging open, so Sirius rolls his eyes, reaches over, grabs his jaw to close his mouth and gives him a quick peck on the lips. This act leaves Peter sputtering and bright in the face, Sirius smirking, and everyone else either cracking up or looking uncomfortable.

Sirius, not so much as blushing, immediately moves on. “Gideon, truth or dare?”

Gideon thinks for a moment and then says wit a determined look in his eye, “Dare.”

“Alright, I dare you to…” He pauses, considering the endless options before finally deciding on one. “Dress up in drag for the rest of the game.”

Gideon narrows his eyes. “Where am I even going to find the stuff needed to dress in drag?”

“We’re in the Room of Requirement aren’t we? Just think about need a dress, heels, makeup, a wig, whatever. I’ll even be nice and say the girls can help you with your makeup.”

Gideon glares slightly and chews at his bottom lip before shrugging and accepting his fate. “Alright, fine. I’ll dress in drag, just know that my vengeance will be coming. Watch your back Black.”

Sirius smirks. “I look forward to it Prewett.”

Thirty minutes of random chatter and arguing over what dress, heels, and makeup to put Gideon in, he’s finally dressed in full drag and everyone sits back down in their original circle, chuckling over Gideon who makes quick work of moving on with the game.

“Wisty, truth or dare?” Wisteria pretends to think about it, but she learned her lesson a long time ago to never say dare in this game.

“Truth.” She says finally, ignoring the slight ping in her chest as Christine, Marlene, and Alice all roll their eyes with mumbles of ‘lame’ under their breath.

Gideon considers this for a moment and then smirks. “What was your first kiss like?”

“Oh come on Gideon. That’s so personal.” Lily complains

“Lily, it’s truth or dare. The truth’s are supposed to be personal. Besides, I don’t mind talking about it at all.” Wisteria says.

Lily’s eyes widen. “What? But you never even told me about your first kiss.”

“You never asked. Anyway, it wasn’t really anything special. I’m sure I’ve mentioned my ex before, right? John?” The others nod. “It was after school, we were at the arcade and he kissed me. Honestly the most noteworthy part of the whole experience was the fact that one of his fangirls saw it and the entire school was buzzing about it the next day. I got some pretty nasty looks until he kissed me again, this time in front of everyone, and told them all to shut up. Needless to say, they listened to him. It’d be like Sirius telling his fangirls to shut up about something, they’d do it.”

“There you go again, comparing me to your ex. Got a secret thing for me Wisty?” Sirius asks, winking.

“In case you haven’t heard, I’m dating Fabian.”

“I know, but he could always be a cover up.”

Out of the corner of her eye Wisty sees a look of self doubt and panic sweep over Fabian’s face and gets angry at Sirius for taking it too far. “Sorry to burst your egocentric bubble Sirius, but that’s not how I roll. I like Fabian, I’m dating Fabian, end of story.”

Sirius seems to get the message because he shoots Fabian and apologetic look and puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, sorry. I was just joking around.”

Satisfied with his apology, Wisteria continues with the game. “Sirius, truth or dare?”

“Oh come on!” He groans loudly. “How is that fair, why is everyone picking on me! That’s practically twice in a row for me! Choose someone else!”

“Nope, now answer the question Black, truth or dare?”

He pouts dramatically and mumbles “Dare.” Lily rolls her eyes, already knowing what her twin in planning, since she does this every time they play this game.

“I dare you to sneak into the kitchen and get me a pizza.” Wisteria says with a confident smile.

His eyes widen and he looks at her with some interest before chuckling. “I like the way you roll Wisty, nicely played.” And he stands up, leaving the room to carry out his dare. He returns a while later and places the pizza down next to Wisteria who smiles broadly and starts digging in.

Sirius plops himself back down and scan the group. “Before I continue, I’m gonna say it right here, right now, once someone has already been asked, you can’t ask them again until everyone has gotten their share.” They all nod in silent agreement and he continues. “Marlene, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to kiss Peter.”

Peter squeaks again, “No! I am not being kissed again!”

Sirius rolls his eyes, feigning annoyance. “Fine, I suppose I’ll have to take one for the team. Marlene, I dare you to kiss me.” She smirks and him and crawls across the group until she sits in front of him and wraps her arms around his neck as his come around her waist. They kiss for a few moments before she draws away and sits back down in her normal seat.

Penelope rolls her eyes at them and mumbles “Whores…” under her breath, earning a light smack from Wisteria.

“Emmy,” Marlene moves on, “Truth or dare?”

Emmeline swallows nervously, “Truth.”

“What is the most childish thing you still do?”

“Well… I still sleep with my baby blanket?”

Marlene laughs good naturedly. “Yeah, that’s pretty childish.”

Emmeline smiles and turns to Jane. “Jane, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Act like a dolphin until the next question is fulfilled, you can ask your question first though.”

Jane grins wolfishly and turns to Christine. “Christy, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to belly dance until the next question is fulfilled.” Jane tells her and then immediately flops onto the floor and starts making her high pitched attempt at dolphin noises.

Christy smiles a bit and begins tucking her shirt up into her bra. “Fabian, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to drop 2 ice cubes down your pants.” And with that Jane sits back up and Christine throws her arms up in the air and rolls her exposed belly as best as she can manage.

Fabian sighs and mumbles “I should’ve seen this coming.” While waiting for the room to supply him with the 2 ice cubes he now needs. “Penelope, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“If you had to date anyone in this room, who would it be?” With that, he dumps the ice cubes down his pants and squeezes his eyes shut as he fights to avoid screaming, and Christine untucks her shirt and sits back down.

Penelope rolls her eyes and takes a scan of the room. “I dunno. Either Remus or Wisteria I guess, but Wisteria’s got Fabina, so I guess Remus.”

Wisteria doesn’t miss the slight blush that comes to Penelope’s cheeks and makes a mental note to talk to her about it later.

“Mary,” Penelope continues. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“What are you most self-conscious about?”

Mary looks taken aback and sit in silence for a moment before saying, “Well, my voice is kinda annoying.”

“Everyone finds their own voice annoying Mary.” Lily assures her. “Besides, there are plenty of students and teachers here who have way more obnoxious voices than yours.”

Mary smiles at her. “Peter, truth or dare?”

“Truth.” “If you had to make out with someone in this room, who would it be?”

Peter turns as red as his house colors and buries his head in his arms. “Why is everything about kissing with you people?”

“Because we’re horny teenagers who never get any action.” Penelope says bluntly.

“Speak for yourself.” Marlene and Sirius reply at the same time and

Peter groans before mumbling something. “What was that old buddy old pal?” James asks. “Was that a name I heard? Could you repeat it a little louder for me?”

Without taking his head out of his arms Peter says, “Wisteria.”

The girl in question freezes and out of the corner of her eye she sees Fabian’s hand twitch possively toward her own sitting right next to it, but he doesn't grab it. Why doesn’t he grab my hand? Wisteria frowns slightly and Peter mumbles an apology to both her and Fabian before deflated asking

“Remus, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Take a shower with your clothes on, shoes and everything.” Remus looks annoyed, but without another word he gets up and waits for the room to supply him with a shower. When it does he hops in, turns the water on, waits until he is thoroughly soaked and then rejoins the group in all his soppy wetness.

“This good enough for you?” He asks as Peter chuckles and nods his head. “Alice, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“What’s your worst habit?”

“I bite my nails.”

“That it? Boring!” Marlene exclaims.

“Well what did you expect Mar? That I have some weird secret addiction to BDSM without you somehow finding out despite us sharing a room?”

“Point taken.”

Moving from looking at Marlene to look at Shay, Alice asks, “Shay, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“What is your biggest turn on.”

Shannon’s eyes grow wide and while she doesn’t blush, she does stutter for a minute before managing to ask, “What?”

“Your biggest turn on. You know, what really gets the girls excited?”

“Oh merlin, dont word it like that!”

Alice laughs. “Just answer the question already.”

“I don’t know!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll change the question a bit. What feature do you find the most attractive on guys?”

Shannon breaths a small “thank you” before answering. “Back muscles I guess.”

Penelope smirks and nudges her sides, “Now that you mention it, Will does have some really nice back muscles doesn't he?”

Now Shannon does blush and she hits Penelope’s arm. “Shut up!”

Penelope laughs, “I’m just saying girl. You guys better be a thing before the end of this year or you don’t stand a chance, seeing as he’s graduating and stuff.”

“I know…” Shannon mumbles.

“Okay, I’m tired, let's get on with this game already so that I can get my beauty sleep.” Marlene says.

“Oh, uh, right. Lily, truth or dare?” Shannon asks.

“Truth.”

“How many kids do you want someday, and what genders?”

A soft smile comes to Lily’s face. “Two.” She answers. “One of each gender.”

“Oh and our children will certain be wonderful, won't they Lils?” James says loudly, getting a deadly glare from Lily.

“Keep talking to me like that and you just might lose the ability to someday have kids of your own, got that Potter?”

James swallows nervously. “Got it.”

“James, truth or dare?” Lily continues as if she hadn’t just threatened to sterilize him.

“What do you think Lily-Pad? Dare.”

“I dare you to not talk for the rest of the night.”

“What? That’s not fair Lily-kins, it’s my birthday!”

“I am well aware of what day it is, my dare stands. Besides, it’s way past curfew, so you only have like half an hour until tomorrow. Now, if you all don’t mind, I’m gonna go ahead and cut this party short and go to bed. Good luck sneaking back everyone.” She leaves the room and is quickly followed out by everyone else (after they help Gideon get out his outfit and makeup), all of them sneaking off the their own dorms and praying they won't get caught.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Wisteria missed breakfast. Again. She’d been doing that a lot lately, staying up late, partly because of her homework and partly because of her insomnia. So she’s made a habit of stopping by the kitchen to grab food before running off to whichever class she has first, which today was Potions. She got down there, opened the door, and was halfway through telling Deedee what she wanted to eat when she noticed the other human in the room.

“Michael.” She whispers. She stare unabashed at him, taking in the sight of him after not seeing him for a little over a year. His hair was longer, the dark circles under his eyes more prominent, but his eyes were still that gorgeous, vibrant color they always were.

He stares at her for a panicked moment before offering a small smile and whispering back. “Hi.”

Wisteria wants nothing more than to jump for joy at him actually talking to her, but she knows that it might scare him off so instead she smiles at him. “It's been awhile. How are you?”

“Im fine. And you?”

“Wonderful.” I trust you’re eating well? Taking care of yourself and all?”

He smiles in a way that she could only describe as sad. “Yeah, Deedee makes sure to drop food off in my room if I lose track of time and forget to come down here.”

“Well I’m glad you remembered today.”

He looks conflicted for a moment before he nods and walks out without another word. Wisteria frowns and Deedee approaches her carefully.

“Wisty? Are you okay?”

This shakes Wisteria out of her thoughts and gets her smile. “Of course Deedee, I’m sorry. I’ll have what I normally get. And thank you, for looking after him.”

Deedee beams back up at her and nods vigorously.

A few hours later Wisteria is sitting in Defense Against the Dark Arts with Penelope, listening to Professor Renshaw’s lecture on Boggarts. Halfway through the class Penelope nudges her and they make eye contact. Penelope gives her a look wondering what’s wrong and Wisteria responds with a look Penelope has seen many times and understands as simply meaning ongoing friend drama reappearing.

“If you two could please stop making eyes at one another and pay attention in my class, that would be much appreciated.” Professor Renshaw’s voice suddenly snapped the two out of their silent conversation and had Wisteria blushing at being caught, but as always her idiotic friends were there to take the attention off of her.

“Oh we greatly apologize Windy,” Sirius speaks up loudly, “But you see, Remus and I have recently discovered out deep love for one another and cannot keep our eyes off of each other. I’m afraid that there’s nothing that can be done about the matter.” Remus rolls his eyes at the comment, but chuckles to himself, his amusement getting the better of him.

“I believe you are quite mistaken Siri,” This times it’s Gideon who speaks up, “You see, Windy was actually referring to Fabs and I, see we’ve discovered the secret to twin telepathy, but seeing as we haven’t gotten enough practice with it yet, we must maintain intense eye contact for it to work properly.”

“Well Mr. Black I am sure that you’re most recent romantic adventure is heartbroken at the news, and congratulations Prewetts at inventing twin telepathy, but unfortunately for you I do know something that can be done about both matters. It’s called detention, tonight directly after dinner.”

“Consider it a date.” Sirius responds with a cheeky wink.

At this Remus sighs, “Professor Renshaw I am terribly sorry to have to ask this of you, but do you think you could push their detentions back to tomorrow night? You see, Peter’s birthday is today and we were hoping to get together later to celebrate.”

Professor Renshaw narrows her eyes at the three guilty boys and then gives a slightly softer look to Remus and Peter before giving a small sigh. “Very well then. Tomorrow morning, I expect you three here before the sun rises. You can help me get ready for tomorrow’s lesson.”

“Professor, tomorrow is Saturday. We don’t have any lessons.” Jane points out.

“Well if my lesson had not been interrupted I may have gotten to that sooner. As you all know by now, this unit is on Boggarts. Well, an ex-boyfriend of mine happens to own a Boggart that he captured a while ago and he’s willing to lend it to me for educational purposes. The lesson is completely voluntary, but if you wish to try your luck against a Boggart, you are welcome to. That lesson will be tomorrow between lunch and dinner.”

By the end of the day the whole of third year was buzzing about the possibility of facing their worst fears. As usual, Wisteria was up in her room, working on homework and talking through the logistics of actually showing up tomorrow.

“There’s no way I’m going tomorrow.” Shannon declares. “I mean, I would literally be facing my worst fear… I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for that.”

“Well I’m going.” Penelope says with a nonchalant shrug. “It’ll be interesting. Besides, I would never hear the end of it from my aunt if I didn’t show.”

“I don’t think that I’ll go. I’m having a pretty good year and I don’t need impending knowledge of my worst fear messing that up for me.” Jane says.

“I’m still on the fence about it.” Christine tells them.

“Same. I’m just gonna decide tomorrow.” Wisteria decides.

“Are you going to Peter’s party later?” Shannon asks.

“No. I still have some homework I need to do.”

Penelope rolls her eyes. “Come on girl. We all know you’re up all night anyway. Just go to the party and stay up all night as usual, except doing homework instead of being restless in bed.”

Wisteria chews on her lip as she considers it for a moment. If I put this off I could be up for hours and lose my motivation to write these essay’s. I’m only halfway through potions and I still have Care of Magical Creatures left, but those subjects aren’t necessarily difficult, I already did the challenging homework. But I still need to read back over my Transfigurations essay.

“Well what about you guys?” She finally says, deciding to avoid giving a definite answer for as long as she can. “Are you all going?”

“We weren’t invited.” Jane says with a shrug. “You’re the one who’s friends with the Marauders, the rest of us are just friends by association.”

“I’m not that close to them.” Her friends give her identical looks to show that they don’t believe her. “Okay, so I study with them some, but that’s all. Besides, they all prefer Lily over me, just like most of the school.”

“Okay, nope.” Penelope says standing up. “I am not letting you wallow in a pool of self pity, stress, and insomnia all night. We are going to that party.”

“Pen! You weren’t even invited.”

“Then we’ll tell them I’m your date or something. Come on. Let’s go.” She stoops down and grabs Wisteria’s arms, pulling hard to get the red head to stand up.

“Fabian will be there remember? They’ll know it’s a load of bull.”

“Then we’ll figure out some other excuse on the way. Come on.”

Wisteria glances back at her pile of homework and then looks at Penelope apologetically before plopping back down on the floor. Penelope groans and reaches down to drag her up again, but Wisteria is staying put.

“Wist!” Penelope complains.

“I’m not like you Pen! I’m not naturally a genius, I need to work on these before I lose all ability to focus for the night.” Penelope gives her an uncaring stare for a moment before, once again, moving to attempt to lift Wisteria from the floor. “If I go to the lesson tomorrow can I stay here?”

Penelope glares at her for a moment before caving. “Fine.”

Wisteria throws her a victorious smile before clambering back onto her bed with her homework. “You know,” Penelope mumbles. “With how hard you fought to not go, I would almost think that you’re avoiding someone.”

“Well what about you? Little miss “I hate people” jumped at the opportunity to go to the party, it’s almost as if you’re hoping to see someone there.”

Penelope laughs humorlessly. “And who would that be?”

“Remus.”

Penelope stutters and the other girls stare wide eyed, jaws dropped.

“You’re telling us that Pen has a crush on Lupin?” Christy asked.

“That is so not true.” Penelope says, having recovered from the initial shock.

“Oh it so is.” Wisteria insists. “Dont think for a minute that I didn’t see you blushing at James’ party when you said you’d date him.”

Penelope glares at her, chewing the inside of her cheek for a moment before saying, “Well at least I haven’t been pining over the same guy for nearly 2 years without making a move on him.” She pointed looks at Shannon who puffs her chest, lifts her chin high and smiles victoriously.

“That, dear friend, is where you are dead wrong. Will asked me on a date to Hogsmeade next weekend.”

“What?” All of her friends yell in unison. “When did this happen? Why didn’t we hear about it sooner?”

Shannon laughs. “We were in the library working on our Muggle Studies homework together. It was just before dinner and I was planning on telling you guys once we got up here.”

“You’re actually going on a date with Will! That’s amazing!” Jane yells, throwing herself at Shannon and hugging her tight. The girls spend the rest of the night talking about her upcoming date.

Wisteria doesnt wake up until after lunch, and even then she really only wakes up because Penelope was there to shake her awake.

“Wist!” Penelope yells in her face. “You’ve gotta get up, the lesson is starting soon!”

Wisteria reluctantly opens her eyes and squints at Penelope. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Well no shit, you slept in way too long. What time did you fall asleep anyway?” She asks, throwing clothes at her.

Wisteria yawns and rubs the sleep out of her eyes as she thinks. “I dunno. The sky was turning kinda blue by the time I was tired enough to sleep so… Whatever time the sun rises?”

Penelope stops what she’s doing to stare at Wisteria. “You’re telling me that you stayed up until 6:30?”

Wisteria shrugs. “I guess.”

“Well it’s no wonder you look like shit then. Anyway, you’re getting no pity from me. Get your ass out of bed, into clothes, and to my aunts room!”

A few minutes later the two rush into the classroom, the last ones there, but still technically ontime. Christine was already there waiting on them.

“Where have you two been? I started to worry when I realized that I had gotten here before Pen.”

Penelope points an accusing finger at Wisteria. “Ask… her.” She says between catching her breath.

“Another late night?” Christine asks and gets a nod from Wisteria. “How late?”

“6:30”

Christine whistles. “Damn. Thats rough.”

“You’re telling me.”

Professor Renshaw walks into the room and everyone goes silent. “Alright, I need all of you to form a line, you’ll each face your boggart one at a time, otherwise he gets confused. Now chop chop, single file line, starting here.”

Wisteria feels her stomach drop at the idea of facing a boggart. What will my boggart be? Roaches? Geese? Killer fish? Does it have to be a specific animal or whatever or can it be a concept? What if my worst fear is failure? What does it do then?

Despite being halfway down the line, Wisteria finds herself moving forward at much too quick a pace for her liking. The goofy things that pop up after the spell has been cast help to unravel some of the fear in her stomach, but definitely not all of it. When it’s Penelope’s turn Wisteria has to turn away and close her eyes, she can’t bring herself to look at other peoples fears anymore, it just makes her more nervous at facing her own.

“You’ll be fine.” She hears Fabian’s voice say. She opens her eyes to find him standing there, in the line behind her.

“But what if I’m not?”

“Then Ms. Renshaw is right there, and I am right here.” He slightly raises his hand, as if he wants to touch her or hold her, but then he hesitates and puts it back down. While disappointed he didn’t give her a reassuring hug or shoulder squeeze or anything, Wisteria still smiles up at him, thankful for his presence.

    Then it’s Wisteria’s turn and she turns around reluctantly. The smile drops from her face immediately as the Boggart in front of her takes the form of Lily, a cold look in her green eyes and a sneer on her lips.

    “You really thought that you mattered?” Lily says shortly before shifting to become Penelope.

She laughs humorlessly, her face looking at Wisteria with contempt. “What gave you the impression that we actually cared about you?” Then she changes into Jane.

“Why would we want to be friends with you?” Jane bites and quickly becomes Shannon.

“You’re useless.” Shannon shifts into Christine.

“Replaceable.” Christine utters that one word with such malice that Wisteria can barely even see her become Fabian through her tears.

“I hate you.” That one, simple sentence breaks her.

Her bottom lip trembles as she raises her wand weakly and feebly mumbles, “R-ridikulus” It doesn’t work.

    “I only dated you as a joke.” Fabian says cruelly. “You don’t matter to me, you don’t matter to anyone. You’re nobody, barely even worth a second glance, you filthy mudblood.”

    Wisteria can barely even stand anymore she’s shaking so bad, but then there’s someone behind her, a warm hand on her shoulder, a nose pressed into her temple, hot breath on her ear, and Fabians voice again, this time much gentler and much closer.

“It’s not true Wist, not at all. You do matter, more than you could ever know. You matter to your family, to your friends… and you matter to me. You can do this, I believe in you, and if you can’t, then I’m right here to help. I promise.”

Wisteria shivers at his closeness, he’s barely touched her at all since they started dating and now he’s so close to her that she can feel the heat of his body.

    “Ridikulus.” She says with more confidence and suddenly the Fabian in front of her is okay and laughing his head off at something. She turns around and wraps the real Fabian in a tight hug.

“Thank you.” She whispers against his shoulder.

He chuckles and she lets go, beginning to walk away. “You think my laugh is funny?” He calls after her.

She turns and gives him a huge smile. “I think contagious is a better word.”

Chapter Thirty

“It was going perfectly fine until I told him I was happy to see him!” Wisteria rants as she pases the room. Penelope is sat on her bed, looking over her homework and nodding along.

“Are you sure you didn’t say anything that might have upset him?”

“Why would me saying that I was happy to see him have upset him! Isn’t it typically a good thing when someone wants to see you!”

“You know that it’s a special case with Michael.”

Wisteria runs her hands through her hair and tugs on the ends of it. “I wish I could just ask Will about him!”

“Why can’t you? And stop pulling on your hair like that or you’ll go bald.”

“I can’t because he doesn’t talk to Will either, so he probably won’t know much more than me, and even if he did, I can’t crash his and Shay’s date. I would never forgive myself.”

“Speaking of, why aren’t you out with Fabian right now?”

“We have plans for lunch at 1.

“Its 12:50 Wist.”

Wisteria’s eyes widen. “It is?” She scrambles to the bathroom to glance at herself in the mirror and then looks back at Penelope.

“Thanks Pen. And sorry for making you listen to me rant.”

Penelope shrugs. “It’s nothing at all for my best friend. Besides, it doesn’t get annoying until week 2 of the same rant.”

Wisteria smiles at her. “You should see if you can’t hang out with Remus today. Maybe even go on a date.” Penelope looks horrified at the idea and Wisteria laughs at her. “Lily and I are studying after Fabian and I get back, so I wont be back until late.”

“It’s not like you usually stay in bed anyway, or sleep at all for that matter. Now go, you don’t want to be late for your date, do you?”

Flashing Penelope one last grin, Wisteria rushes out of the room and down to the tree by the Black Lake that she and Fabian had agreed to meet at.

Fabian has been standing under the tree for a few minutes now waiting for Wisteria and the irrational part of his brain has started to take over. She’s lost interest and doesn’t want to be with you anymore. You were too forward last weekend. She didn’t like how close you got while she was facing that boggart.

“Hey, sorry I’m running a little late, I wanted to get out my frustrations by ranting to Pen before meeting up with you so I wasn’t as snarky.” Wisteria’s voice snaps him out of his thoughts and he smiles at her.

“It’s no problem at all. What was bothering you?”

She waves her hand dismissively. “I ran into Michael is all.”

Fabian frowns. “Oh.”

“Fabs, it’s fine, really. I just tried to talk to him and he froze up and left.”

“I know, I just… Nevermind.”

Wisteria looks at him concerned. “Fabs, if there’s something bothering you, we need to talk about it. Otherwise we’ll never get anywhere in life.”

Fabian smiles at her and hesitantly takes her han to begin leading hr into Hogsmeade, “Then it’s a good thing nothing is bothering me. Now come on, let’s just enjoy our date.”

She smiles softly at him and together they make their way to Hogsmeade hand in hand.

The date goes just as smoothly as all the others before it, but this time they were holding hands nearly the entire time and both of them seemed to be in a better mood because of it. When they are done they make their way back to the castle and to the Gryffindor common room so that Wisteria can meet up with Lily. Fabian lets her into the common room and kisses her cheek before heading up to his room and leaving Wisteria smiling dumbly in the Gryffindor common room.

After a few minutes of waiting, Wisteria finally sees Lily walking in through the Fat Lady.

“Wisty! Wonderful, you’re already here. Remus is helping a few first years in the Library right now, so we should have a while with the rest of the Marauders and once we’re done with them we can talk to Madame Pomfrey.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go.”

The twins make their way to the Marauders door and knock. The door opens rather quickly to reveal Peter. “Oh. Hello girls. Are you here to talk about the… Er... “

“Yeah. We’re here to talk about all of your…” Lily trails off and helpful voice from inside the room speaks up.

“I think we should call it our ‘furry little problem’!”

Wisteria rolls her eyes. “Wonderful James, that’s not at all conspicuous.”

“Well, it wont be if we all come up with a really good story behind it.”

“May we come in Peter?” Lily asks, ignoring James, as usual.

“Oh! Yeah, sorry.” The pudgy boy steps aside to let the girls into the room.

“So ladies, what can we do for you?” Sirius asks, lounging lazily on his bed.

“We just wanted to talk about the plan.” Wisteria says. “You guys have been just as talkative as usual so we assumed you haven’t done anything yet unless you were using sticking charms, but those can get tricky, so…”

“We had talked for a bit and decided we’d do it over the summer.” James says. “I live on a big enough property so that my parents will have no idea.”

“My parents are trusting me home alone all summer while they visit my aunt in America.” Peter says.

“And my parents leave me pretty much completely alone, so they should have no idea.” Sirius tells them.

The girls nod. “That’s what we figured, which brings us to our second topic of conversation.” Lily says. “Wisty and I know the most out of all five of us on how this works and we would feel much more comfortable if we were able to check in on the three of you periodically to help if necessary, so we need to figure out ways to do that over the summer.”

“You could use Floo Powder.” Peter suggests.

James beams at him. “Brilliant Pete! We’ll simply tell you where we live and you can just Floo there.”

The girls share a look. “We don’t have any Floo Powder…” Wisteria tells them.

James waves a dismissive hand. “No problem, you can steal some of mine until you get your own.” He reaches to the other side of his bed and grabs a piece of parchment. “Here, we’ll write our addresses on this parchment so that you guys have them for the summer.” He jots down his address and passes the parchment to Peter who does the same and passes it to Sirius who stares at the paper and hesitates.

“What’s the matter Siri?” James asks.

“I… er… My uh… My mom is a little stingy about… er… unwanted guests… She’s not the kindest person in the world to… well…”

“Muggleborns.” Wisteria finishes. He glances up at her, a pained look in his grey eyes.

“Yeah. But, there is a coffee shop that I love that’s run by a Squib nearby and it has a fireplace. I’ll write a letter to her and ask if we can use it. It shouldn’t be a problem so long as we don’t use up her Floo Powder, she and I are good friends.”

“Okay. Tells us when you get a reply and for now just write that address down on the parchment.” Lily tells him.

Sirius nods and writes the address down before handing it to the girls.

Suddenly the door opens behind them and the entire room turns to stare wide eyed at Remus who freezes at the number of eyes on him.

“Ummm… What’s going on?” He asks carefully.

Everyone in the room seems to freeze, not knowing what to say and looking panicked, but Sirius recovers quickly. “Hey Rem. The girls just came in to chat a bit. Actually they were just leaving I think, right girls?”

“Er… right…” Lily says nervously. “Yeah, we were just leaving… Come on Wisty…” She grabs her sister’s arm and begins to pull her out of the room, but Wisteria pulls her arm stubbornly out of Lily’s grip.

“No. He deserves to know, I see no reason why this should be kept secret from him.”

The entire room has now turned to stare at her, but she gives Sirius a pointed look before turning to face Remus directly.

“Wisty…” Sirius says in a deliberately warning tone of voice, playing along with Wisteria’s plan.

“Why shouldn’t he know? We’ve already established it changes nothing.”

“Wisty! You can’t just-”

“He should know!” Wisteria cuts off James. “He should know that we know.”

James and Lily finally catch onto her plan and give identical defeated sighs.

“Fine.” Lily says. “Then tell him.”

Wisteria faces Remus again, but before she can say anything he’s sunken down on his bed. “You figured it out.” He says in a small voice.

The twins sit on either side of him on his bed and wrap their arms around him. “Remus…” Wisteria says. “This doesn’t change anything. You are still you, and will always be you. It doesn’t matter that you have another side to you, everyone has other, ugly sides.”

“It doesn’t matter that you’re a werewolf Rem, because you will always be so much more than just a werewolf and anyone who cares about you will be able to see that. You are first and foremost our friend and that will never change.” Lily promises him.

Remus squeezes his eyes shut and bites down hard on his lip and Wisteria puts her hand gently on the side of his face, moving his head to face hers until their foreheads were resting up against one another and he was looking her in the eye. “You are Remus John Lupin, a Wizard, a student at the best Wizarding school in the world, a member of the brave house of Gryffindor, and most importantly a member of the Marauders. You are not a monster, and the term werewolf does not and never will define you. Everyone in this room love you Remus, and that will never change.” Wisteria sits up, away from Remus and stands.

Lily gives him one last squeeze and stands up as well. “In all seriousness though, we really do have to leave.”

“Thank you.” Remus whispers to them.

The girls smile at him and turn to leave only to have Sirius beat them to the door. “I’ll walk you girls out, I have a date tonight that I simply cannot miss.”

Remus gives him a skeptical look. “A date? This late at night?”

“Oh my dear Rem, I do indeed have a date. And she’s waiting for me in the Room of Requirements so that she can fulfill my requirements.” Sirius sends a wink to Remus and the whole room makes disgusted noises.

“None of us needed to know that Sirius!” Peter complained.

Sirius laughs. “Well then next time, don’t doubt me. Now then girls shall we be on our way?”

The three make their way out of the room and down to the Fat Lady, once they are all outside Gryffindor Tower, Sirius pulls them both into a hug. “Thank you girls, for everything you are doing for Remus. It means the world to all of us, especially him.”

The girls smile and hug him back. “It’s nothing really. Now go on to your date. And don’t forget to write that letter to the Squib lady!”

“Of course. See you girls later.”

After watching him saunter off down the hall the girls make go to the infirmary to talk to Madame Pomfrey. Upon entering, the healer gives the girls a strange look.

“Evans? Today isn’t one of our sessions, what is it?”

“We felt it was time to come clean about why we were asking for sessions to begin with.” Lily confesses.

“Oh really? And why is that?”

“Because we know that our friend Remus is a Werewolf and want to be able to help him when he gets injured during the full moons.” Wisteria says bluntly.

Madame Pomfrey sits in stunned silence for a moment, staring at the girls. Then finally she says, “I appreciate your concern for Mr. Lupin, but I assure you both that I can handle his injuries myself.”

“We know that you are a very capable woman Madame, but we feel that perhaps Remus would feel better about the situation if he could be surrounded by friends for as much of it as possible and since, of course, we can’t be with him while he’s transformed we thought the next best thing would be for us to be there helping him heal when he wakes up.” Lily explains.

Madame Pomfrey studies the girls for some time before saying, “I will need to up your lessons to three times a week, on top of regular volunteer hours helping me with any patients I may have at the time and I expect you both to read up on any materials I give you is that understood?”

“Yes Madame.” Both girls respond without hesitation.

“I also hope you understand that I will be with you the entire time, at no moment am I going to leave you alone with Mr. Lupin until I deem you both capable. It will be no easy task, you will both essentially be taking on an entire course.”

“We understand. Thank you.” The twins respond.

After another few seconds of silence Madame Pomfrey simply nods. “Very well then. Your lessons start tomorrow, they will be every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday at the normal times and if any of those dont work then we will work something out. I will tell you which books you are to read over summer holiday and I expect them all to be read by your return in September where we will resume your lessons based around whichever classes you are both taking next year. You may leave.”