"Where have you been?" Sirius hissed as James slipped out from beneath his invisibility cloak to join the Marauders in the seventh year dorm.

James shrugged. "Busy, sorry. I got here as soon as I could."

Sirius frowned. "Nice commitment, mate. Anyway, Moony left about an hour ago so we've got to hurry if we want to catch him."

The grounds were eerily quiet as the boys made their way across the grassy slopes toward the Whomping Willow. The lake glowed in the moonlight, still and silent and glassy. A breeze ruffled through the trees of the Forbidden Forest, and somewhere not too distant something moved about the undergrowth. When they arrived within 10 yards of the tree, which was contentedly still and silent, Peter transformed from beneath the cloak and dashed off to hit the tree root which would freeze the willow's wrath. That done, James and Sirius slipped out from beneath the cloak, which James folded and placed snugly hidden amongst the tree roots, before setting off down the tunnel.

"Hello," Remus greeted them shakily as they entered single file into the Shack, always cautious. Remus' skin was tinged a particularly greyish colour, and his skin was damp with sweat.

"I think you'd better trans- ERGGGHHHH!"

James flinched involuntarily at his friend's howl of pain. He looked away, unable to bear the sight of Remus' transformation, even though he'd seen it many times before. Remus' body would freeze, and then all at once his limbs would elongate, looking as though they threatened to tear his skin. His skin… grey increasingly greyer, and sprouted patchy grey tufts of hair. His skull would lengthen until it was all angles, very sharp, and resembled nothing of the kind, gentle boy James knew was trapped inside. And his eyes…. Remus' wonderfully soulful eyes transformed into hard golden stones with pinpricked pupils, glinting with malice.

With a thought, James too transformed. The stag within him panicked, as always, at the claustrophobic nature of the shack. James felt a paw on his shoulder, and turned to regard Sirius, a great, shaggy black dog with sparkling, deep black eyes, who was watching him solemnly.

There wasn't a lot of time for solemn understanding however… the werewolf was released. He sat, panting on the hearthrug, and staring at the dog, stag and rat in a rather confused fashion. It wasn't that he was interested in eating them. It was more a question of what they were doing there.

Seeing Remus like this inevitably caused the boys to experience a sharp pang of sadness. He obviously didn't recognise them. Nor would he recall their inevitable adventure the following morning. Remus received small consolation in the outrageous and oft-exaggerated tales of their escapades the following morning as he recovered.

Thankfully, there was one time that Remus would never remember. It was enough that he had to deal with the possibility that he would have harmed Snape.

The werewolf was still looking toward the stag, dog and rat questioningly. He lifted his nose in the air and sniffed. Clearly displeased by the stale, musty smell of the shack, he whined.

Sirius and James exchanged a nod and approached him. Remus panted, still unsure of what to make of them. He sniffed again, then grinned a wolfish grin, recognizing their smell. Remus stood up and wagged his tail, ready for another adventure. Sirius padded toward the door and stood on his hind legs, turning the handle with his paws…

Several gruelling hours later, as the door to the Shrieking Shack closed, Sirius, James and Peter transformed back into themselves. With their animagi forms disappeared the numerous cuts and bruises that had been carved across their bodies during the night. Weary, the three exchanged a look of exhaustion before retreating down the passageway.

James whispered his password to the Carved Witch, and promptly snuck back into the Head's Tower, fully expecting that Lily would be asleep. It was, after all, well into the early hours of the morning. However, fully contrary to James' expectations and much to his horror, Lily seemed to be standing in the middle of their common room. He rubbed his eyes, exhausted and hopeful that he was mistaken.

"Nice of you to come home," the Head Girl murmured dryly.

James gulped. He definitely was not mistaken. Lily had waited up for him; not only that, Lily was wearing a bathrobe that finished just above her knees. He closed his eyes, trying not to stare at her lovely slim legs.

"Why did you wait up?" he managed, looking extremely guilty.

Lily surveyed the boy standing before her. His shoulders dropped with exhaustion; his hair was sticking up at all ends, looking particularly messy. His handsome face was drawn, and there was a wary, fearful look in his eyes that she did not understand.

Although, really, Lily conceded, there was a lot she did not understand about Potter.

Like, for instance the fact that he was terribly modest about… well, everything, unless she was around. In fact, the confident and charming Head Boy tended to morph instantaneously into an arrogant bully any time she came within his vicinity. It was as if Lily hadn't been properly introduced to the real James Potter, as if she hadn't beenallowed to see the real him. And this puzzled Lily to no end, because she knew that he was by no means a horrible person. In fact, unbeknownst to James she had spied him outside the library one day in fourth year rescuing a Hufflepuff boy from several Slytherins, and Lily felt that was probably one of the bravest things she had seen anyone do, considering the Slytherins were sixth years. So, in actual fact, Lily was quite aware that 'Potter' wasn't as horrible and self-absorbed as he pretended to be – which made his moments of stupidity all the more disappointing.

"Li- Evans?" James asked. He was quite concerned, because she a) didn't seem to be talking to him and b) nor did she seem particularly angry. Rather, Lily Evans looked sad.

"I know that you and your friends go out every full moon, Potter," she told him. "I just would have thought that you and Remus and Black might have shown some responsibility for your actions by now. Do you have any idea how dangerous the forest is?" she asked him gently. She had purposely omitted Peter, whom she knew would simply follow his three friends anywhere.

James opened his mouth slowly, and stared. "That's… that's… that's NONE of your business, Evans," he finally managed to announce, his voice a few degrees below cold.

"I just think you might consider growing up and thinking about the consequences of your little escapades, Potter," Lily replied, not one to be easily rebuffed.

"It's none of your business," James repeated stonily. Lily opened her mouth once more to argue, and he cut her off swiftly.

"We're not as silly or immature as you might think, Evans, sitting in the Head's Tower feeling so superior to us mere mortals. Maybe you should grow up and stop looking down on us. Bloody hell! You can't loosen the reigns enough to consider that we know exactly what we're doing out there, you can't trust our instincts or us because you are always right. You couldn't even lower yourself enough to go on one stinking date with me, Lily. Am I so terrible? Maybe it's you who should grow up, Evans."

James turned away, rather aware that Lily's face was burning and her eyes were looking distinctly teary. That seemed to get the message across, he thought brutally as he climbed the stairs.

Lily remained in the middle of the common room, blinking furiously. Stupid, she chastised herself. I deserved that. He's right, I shouldn't have pried. And while the rational side of Lily was blaming herself for James' outburst, the irrational and highly emotional side was slowly disintegrating into a state of self-worthlessness and misery. Was she so callous that she had driven away someone who had reputedly cared about her so deeply? And Art, Lily supposed, would have had exactly the same reaction. Lily bit her lip to stop it wobbling. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Realizing she was standing barefoot in the middle of an empty common room at three in the morning, Lily slowly turned and made her way back up to her room, careful to be quiet.

James listened to Lily getting ready for bed. He sat cross-legged on his own, utterly disgusted with himself. He was always a bit tense after a full moon, something that he was sure was related to the highly-strung nature of his animagi. But to take this out on Lily, who only seemed genuinely concerned, if a little nosey… was completely unacceptable by James' own standards. It was the sort of behaviour, James concluded miserably, that he would expect from Scummy.

Not feeling at all tired, James waited until the sound stopped in Lily's room before quietly making his way back down stairs to sit in front of the fire. James didn't feel much like sleeping.