Among the Stars

   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.”