the marauders- an inseparable bond

[2] the transformation

Three years later

Remus Lupin was shaken awake in the middle of the night by one his best friends, James Potter. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Lupin sighed.

"Christ James, what the bloody hell is it?"

There was a manic glint in James' eyes.

"We've done it."

Lupin sat strait up in bed.

"You- you don't mean- "

"Oh yes, I do mean." Potter replied, grinning. Remus shrugged of his covers and looked around the dark dormitory, which was lit only by the feeble glow of a couple wands and the moonlight shining through the window. At the end of his bed, his other two best friends stood, beaming at him.

"You first, Wormtail." James ordered.

"What's that you called him?" asked Remus.

"Oh, we've got a name for each of us. Pete's Wormtail, Sirius is Padfoot, I'm Prongs and you're Moony." In his head, Lupin tried to figure out which animal each of his friends would be. Before he could make any guesses, however, Peter had disappeared and in his place sat chubby, brown rat. Remus clapped a hand over his mouth. Then, Sirius vanished, replaced by a large, black dog, wagging his tail affectionately. Finally, James smiled, before turning into a beautiful stag. In an instant, the three fifteen-year old boys had returned to their human form.

"Guys... I don't know what to say... thank you..." There were tears in Lupin's eyes.

"We're your best friends Remus, and we will always be." said Sirius "And best friends watch over each other." The other boys nodded in agreement.

"Besides, it's not like being an animagus isn't FREAKING AWESOME." said James. Everybody laughed. You could always trust him to lighten the mood. And so, the four friends became even tighter bound, but little did they know, the years to come would bring them even closer.

***

If the fifth-years at Hogwarts had thought that James Potter and his gang were cocky before, they were up for a real surprise. It was as if their confidence and swagger had grown overnight. Though nobody knew of their accomplishment, they were acting as though everybody did. Well, all of them except for Lupin, of course. He had stayed the exact same, and though he was forever grateful for what his friends had done, he was scared their overconfidence would not only make them look stupid (which it did), but cause someone to investigate, resulting in them learning his secret. And he was right- as Lupin often was.

Severus Snape, a boy who had hated James ever since they had met in the train on the first day of school, had noticed their increase in cockiness and knew that there must have been a reason. He tried to voice his suspicions to his gang of Slytherins, but though they disliked Gryffindors, they did not share the same hate for James like Severus did. So he went to his only other friend, who, incidentally, was a Gryffindor herself. Her name was Lily Evans. Lily and Severus had been friends before Hogwarts, if not, they might not have become friends at all. This was because Lily was of Muggle parentage, something the people Snape associated with thought to be of the highest shame.

"Potter and his gang are awfully full of it today, eh Lily?" he said, sitting down next to her in the library.

"Aren't they always?" she replied, turning the page of a large book.

"Yes, but today, there's something different. There must be a reason. They're up to something, I know it." Lily sighed.

"Sev, you always think they're up to something."

"Are you defending them?"

"How many times have we gone over this? Just because I don't always share your ideas that Potter and his friends are plotting evil, it doesn't mean that I like them."

"I'm sorry."

"That's okay." she said, turning her green eyes away from her book to smile at him, making his heart melt.

"But I'm going to keep a close eye on them from now on."