Ten Galleons To McGonagall

The Question That Changes Everything

James and Remus were alone in the common room. It was Christmas break and most of the students had gone home for the holiday. Sirius and Peter were in the hospital wing recovering from an unfortunate mishap with one of their pranks. It had been awesome. Half of the Slytherins had sprouted horns. Unfortunately, so had Sirius and Peter.

Remus was sitting by the window working on his Charms essay. James was lying on the sofa, bewitching bits of parchment to fly around the room.

"Hey Remus," James asked suddenly, clearly bored with the flying parchment "Do you fancy anyone?" After all, Lily had finally started going out with him so it occurred to him that his other friends probably had feelings of their own.

"Mmhhh," Remus gave a noncommittal grunt from the corner, "Did you include the counter charm for hiccups in your Charms essay?"

"No," James said "Who is she?"

"No," Remus replied "Should we go check on Peter and Sirius? The horns might have shrunk by now."

"We'll go when you tell me who you fancy," James said.

"I'm not telling you," Remus said sharply. He was losing his patience.

"Why?" James begged "C'mon Moony, just tell me!"

"I'm not telling you James because you'd say something! And I know you say you wouldn't but you'd say something or you'd let something slip and I don't want him to know!"

There was a pause where nobody said anything. Then Remus realized what he said. He swore quietly and watched James out of the corner of his eye, deliberately not making eye contact. He seemed to be holding his breath waiting to see how James would respond.

Finally James turned and said softly, "Remus. It's okay. This doesn't change anything, we'll still do crazy things to the Slytherins and we'll all spend full moons with you. I honestly do not mind one bit that you're gay. It's fine. I'm already cool with you being a werewolf, so you don't need to worry about me kicking you out or anything."

Remus seemed to relax. James saw this and continued. "Were you ever going to tell anyone?" he asked. His tone conveyed that he was genuinely curious, asking only because he wanted to know.

"No," Remus said "Well, maybe my mum if she started pestering me about getting a girlfriend." he added.

It was silent for a moment, James thinking, Remus waiting. Then "You should tell Sirius. I promise it would be fine."

"No." Remus said firmly making it clear that James was not to press the issue "And you won't either. We're done talking about this. Let's see if Peter and Sirius have stopped looking like overgrown satyrs yet."

---

Sirius and Peter still had horns, although they had shrunk considerably since Remus and James had last seen them. This put them in a very good mood and the four Marauders sat and laughed for an hour before Peter fell asleep. According to Madam Pomfrey shrinking horns took a great deal of energy.

"Peter's asleep so you should get food, Remus" James said "You need fuel for tomorrow."

Remus couldn't argue with that as the full moon always drained him of energy. He left the hospital wing with James assuring his retreating figure that he would follow soon.

Now alone with Sirius, James got down to business.

"You really should tell Remus that you're gay." He said. "It'll be okay I promise."

"Keep your voice down!" Sirius said, glancing at the sleeping Peter and Madam Pomfrey's closed office door. "We've been over this. I will not say anything to him and neither will you."

James gave him a look but Sirius stared right back until James accepted defeat and went to eat dinner with Remus, his mind spinning.

Two of his friends were in love with each other but neither would admit it to the other. Okay, sure, Remus hadn't said he liked Sirius, but James saw the look on Remus's face when Sirius was kissing his new girlfriend. James was smart. He could read the signs. If you knew what to look for it was obvious. But it was pretty clear that they weren't going to tell each other. He needed to find a way for them to come out on their own. He wasn't skilled enough on things like this to be able to come up with a flawless plan by himself. He was going to need someone who was somewhat of an expert on these things. Fortunately he had just started dating one.