Under strange circumstances

Chapter 14

Remus

The first week passes surprisingly fast (for me, anyway). The four of us do a lot in that time. We go on walks in the surrounding fields, we watch muggle movies, we play board games, we even go on a little drive around the surrounding country (in a car which we borrow from a muggle). The sexual tension between James and Lily is ridiculous to watch; there are a few times where I want to just shove their heads together and get rid of this agonisingly painful tension that surrounds all of us. However, I never do this, nor does Sirius, and we're left watching the cycle of James and Lily play out.

'Check!' Sirius draws me out of my thoughts with a triumphant grin on his face. 'You're stuck this time, Moony! Face it; Sirius will always be the king of wizard chess!' I roll my eyes at him. 'Sorry, Pads, but Checkmate.' He frowns as my bishop stabs his king, and then glares at me menacingly. 'You will regret that, Moony.' I sigh again as he comes over to me. 'I think you need to be punished for that.'

'And how do you plan to punish me, pray tell?' Sirius reaches out quickly and tries to tickle my sides, but I'm too fast for him. I raise an eyebrow at him as he struggles in my arms; 'Having trouble there, Sirius?' He scowls at me for a second before an idea comes to his mind. He grins menacingly, then quickly changes into Padfoot. This takes me by surprise, so my grip loosens on him for a second. He uses that second to push me onto the floor and starts to lick my face sloppily. 'Sirius- stop that!' I push him off of me and wipe my face with my jumper. 'That's so gross! You know that the smell takes ages to wash out!' Padfoot whines and I roll my eyes. 'Oh, come on then.' He comes over to me excitedly, tail wagging rapidly, and sits in my lap.

Lily

I don't know what I expected to see when I walk into the games room after I hear a few crashes, but it certainly wasn't the scene that is laid out in front of me. Remus, his hair in a complete mess, is sitting on the floor with chess pieces strewn around him; in his lap sits the biggest and blackest dog I have ever seen. Remus doesn't notice me come into the room, too infatuated is he with the soft stroking of the dogs fur. The dog, however, notices me, and quickly jumps off Remus' lap and runs out of the room, then out the front door. For a few moments Remus and I stare at each other without saying anything, before Sirius enters the room, looking quite disheveled. 'H-hey, did you guys see that massive black dog? How weird is that? I wonder how it got in the house.' He smiles nervously at me and then goes over to sit with Remus; 'Don't you think it's weird, Moony?' Remus only sighs and puts his face in his hands. 'You're a terrible actor, Sirius. Did you know that?'

Sirius

'Moony, what are you talking about-'

'Lily isn't stupid, Sirius.' Remus looks up at Lily, who is still standing in the doorway with a cup of tea in her hand, her expression that of shock. James appears behind her; 'What's going on in here- Lily are you okay?' Lily turns to James and looks accusingly between him, Remus and I. 'I think I deserve an explanation. You guys have kept this whole "Moony Padfoot Wormtail and Prongs" thing from me for a long time.' James looks at her with shock and then, with an annoyed expression, turns to me. 'Why do you always assume it's my fault?!' James and Remus both raise an eyebrow at me.

'Am I wrong in assuming it's your fault, Sirius?' I scowl and turn away from James.

James

I turn to Lily and sigh. 'Come on then, go and sit down on the couch and we'll explain.' She looks at me weirdly, but after a second goes and sits down. Remus, Sirius and I sit on the floor in front of her and look at each other expectantly. Finally, Remus sighs and turns to Lily. 'Well, first off, we would have told you earlier-' Lily cuts him off; 'Just tell me if I'm right. Remus, you're a werewolf. And you two? Before today I honestly had no idea, but now that I've seen Sirius as a dog I'm going to assume you're either animagi, which I'd be very impressed at, or metamorphmagus'... I mean, the nicknames have to come from somewhere.' Sirius looks at Lily with confusion. 'What's a metamorphmagus?' She laughs, 'So you're animagi then, Padfoot.' I roll my eyes and Remus buries his face in his hands. 'If you'd listened in class, Sirius, you would know that metamorphmagus' are people who can change their appearance at will.' Sirius pokes his tongue out at me and turns to Remus, who has his face between his knees and is rocking himself gently. 'Moony, are you oka-'

'Just fuck off, Sirius.' Lily, Sirius and I stare at Remus with shock as he stands up and wipes angry tears from his eyes. 'Why is it that you are the one to leak the fact that I'm a fucking werewolf to people? First fucking Snape, and now Lily?! It's not that I don't want her to know, it's just I wanted it to tell her myself. Is that too much to ask? But now you've gone and let it slip because you're acting carelessly. Do you even care about the fact that this is a secret at all?!' He storms out of the room, and we hear him slam the front door loudly. Sirius stares at me with wide eyes and stands, running to the front door. We hear him rattle the doorknob frantically, and a few seconds later he reappears in the room. 'He locked the front door with some sort of spell-' Lily stands up and rolls her eyes at him, but she still looks worried. 'Did you try alohomora?'

'Oh shit, I forgot about that.'

'How did you forget? That's literally such a simple spell-'

'Yeah okay, shut up Tulip.'

The three of us rush to the door, and after a quick alohomora we're outside in the cold air. We frantically look around, but whatever footsteps Remus has left have been lost in the snow. 'Fucking christmas holidays. Fucking snow.' Sirius plonks himself down on the cold ground and covers his face with his hands.