Minerva McGonagall was sitting on the porch of her little house in Hogsmeade Village, listening to the sound of Elphinstone Urquart just inside, singing as he did whatever it was he was working on in there... Elphinstone was at Minnie's every opportunity he got, usually under the guise of doing some home improvement project, but she knew better.

Elphinstone always mysteriously made the job he was doing last just long enough that she was often compelled to invite him to dinner (that was the proper thing to do after all), and he would eagerly sit across from her at the dinner table after helping her cook, and they would talk until the hours got small and he would kiss her goodnight, though she felt quite improper about it whenever he did. The secret Minnie kept was that as red as her cheeks burned with Elphinstone's kisses, she loved them and thought about each one for every moment between them.

She received an owl, then, whom she tipped with a knut from her pocket before he flew away, and she opened it to find the parchment was from James Potter. Her heart tightened for she missed James a very good deal already, though it had been only a little under a month since they'd seen each other last.

Dearest Minnie,

the letter read,

I am writing to give you a change of plans on a prior invitation that you might have received from one, Sirius Black. While Remus Lupin continues to suffer Sirius's - shall we call them "bridal whims" - there has been a change of plans with which we wished to include you...

McGonagall continued on reading the letter, smiling at the plans that James had written out for her, and she shook her head, sweeping the trace of a tear from the very corner of her eye.

"What is it, Minerva, dear?" Elphinstone asked, coming onto the porch, wand in hand, a bit sweaty about the forehead. He sat in the chair beside hers.

"Just a letter from James Potter," she replied, folding it and holding it out to Elphinstone. "Only the Marauders."

Elphinstone read the letter over, a smile growing on his face. "Well," he said, handing the letter back when he'd finished, "I daresay from what I know of him - Sirius Black will be quite pleased."

Minerva nodded, "Indeed."

Peter Pettigrew woke, curled up in his rat form inside his own ruck sack, which he had stuffed beneath a bench in St. James park. It took him a moment to recall all of this, as he blinked his eyes and peered about, his nose twitching. He moved, nibbled a bit on the food he had packed, and then curled deeper into the clothes in his sack, hugging his own long, wormy tail...

The night before - the night of the full moon - he had eagerly packed his bag. He had sat in the Pettigrew's living room, facing the window, staring out, waiting; he had been certain that one of them (probably James) would come and get him. But as the afternoon turned into early evening, he started to realize that no one was coming.

"What are you doing?" his father snapped, coming into the room as outside was beginning to turn golden dusk. "What's that bag for? Have you finally decided to move out?" The tone was rough.

Peter turned 'round to find his father glaring at him. His parents had been rowing like mad in the kitchen just moments before and his father's face was still red with frustration. They'd been rowing over how long Peter would be allowed to stay on with them, how long they would let him live at home before kicking him out.

"I'm waiting for my mates... We were going to go camping."

"Camping!" Mr. Pettigrew sat down, rolling his eyes, as though the idea of Peter camping was one of the most ridiculous he'd ever heard.

Honey Pettigrew had come in the room then, saw her husband in the chair, watching telly, and she hesitated, then looker at Peter and hurried out of the room.

I'll beg the lads to let me stay with them, Peter thought. Anything to get out of this house.

Luckily, he would be going to uni when summer was over and there were dormitories there that he would sleep in and he wouldn't need to come home ever again.

But golden dusk turned to lavender dusk and he knew there were no Marauders coming to fetch him. They couldn't this close to Remus's transformation. Peter, then, had a choice - he could go upstairs and unpack and listen to the jeering of his father, or else, he could just pretend they'd arrived and leave.

But where would he go?

He left, of course, and he ran down the street so that his parents wouldn't see him standing lamely by the road. But he really didn't know where to go. So he'd disapparated to London. He knew the lads flat was in London, just not where, and it was as though he'd hopes for neon signs that would point him to their place, but he hadn't the faintest idea where to look. He'd wandered laps around Piccadilly and the surrounding streets. He walked and walked and walked and found himself walking down The Mall toward Buckingham, and the lights of the palace were warm and he wished as he stood outside the gates that he was back at another castle with warm lights, back at Hogwarts.

It started to rain, then, and seeking cover he ran for the trees in St. James park, rushing under the cover of some branches and brush. It was then he spotted a bench near to a boarded up kiosk that served tea and sold maps during the day but was closed now. He rushed over, shoved his bag into the relatively dry area beneath the bench, and looked about. No one was around and so POP! He had transformed and buried himself into the bag, squeaky and trembling as the rain turned to a thunderstorm, and the bag seemed ever so thin and he felt so alone and exposed.

Now, he lay there just hugging his tail, listening as people passed by, their shoes echoing on the pavement as they walker along, and he tried desperately to convince himself to go on breathing.

James loved forraging around in the forest as a deer. He wandered along the edge of the trees, overlooking the valley below. He chortled to himself as he remembered once when he'd been in deer form how a hunter had tried to shoot at him and he'd run up the side of the hill in a blind panic, making a loud, terrible bleating-screaming sound that Sirius, to this day, made fun of. But there were no hunters out there today, he could see clearly over the valley, the air was crisp for a summer morning, and there was no haziness hanging over the grass at all. He picked a strip of delicious bark from a tree and stood, gnawing on it as he looked around.

He'd left Remus and Sirius back at the camp, Sirius still in his shaggy black dog form and Remus having turned back into himself after a long night of werewolfing about the forest. They'd struggled a bit at keeping him contained, having to shepherd him about with James's antlers and Sirius's snaps and growls, but they'd done it. There had been a bit of a close call when they'd gone a bit further west than they'd intended and it had been possible to see a home through the trees a ways. Remus had struggled with his instincts as a woman came through the back door carrying the trash - and he'd nearly broken away from Sirius so that James had run 'round the front of him and bucked his antlers at the wolf. The woman had seen and dropped her rubbish so that the bag spilled open and the contents had rolled out onto the ground as she ran back inside and slammed the door behind her.

James remembered suddenly that there had been a very sweet, delicious smell that had come from her rubbish and he started through the trees towards the house now, eager to investigate.

Sure enough, the rubbish was still there, and he nosed his way forward until he found what he was looking for. A watermelon rind. It sat glistening in the early morning sun, most of the melon gone, having been cut out with a baller, but the sweet green rind itself was left. James took the watermelon rind in his mouth and started chewing merrily on it, the sweet taste filling his mouth and he flicked his white tail happily. It was funny, he thought, as a human he would never dream of eating a watermelon rind, but as a stag - it was one of the most delicious things he had ever tasted, whether it had come from somebody's rubbish or not.

There was a creak and he looked up, watermelon still in his mouth and he saw in a flash the old woman standing by her porch door, a look of wide-eyed awe as she stared at him, clasping her hands together. In his surprise, he clenched his jaw and the watermelon rind flipped up, the curve of it going right over his nose and bonking himself in the eyes. The hit surprised him and he stepped back, tripping over his own gawky legs, and landed on his rump in the grass. The watermelon rind rolled away as he let out an indignant honk.

The woman laughed. "Oggie, come look'it this funny deer," she called over her shoulder into the house. "He's eatin' your watermelon!"

James honked again and shook himself off as he got up, walking awkwardly over to where the rind had landed, snatching it up quickly just as an old man came waddling out to the porch, looking irritated, "There ain't no deer in the back yard," he was grmping as he pushed out the screen door. He spotted the stag in the yard and let out a yelp of surprise, "Bloody hell!" he hissed, and he grabbed his wife's elbow, tugging her backward, "Watch'it you d'nae if he's vicious!"

"Vicious!" the woman laughed, "He's just tripped an' fallen on his arse try'na eat a watermelon, Oggie, I doubt he's got nary a vicious bone in his body."

James rather liked the attention he was getting as the old couple whispered about how impressive his rack was and whether deer ought to eat watermelon rinds. But he also didn't want to stay, worried Oggie might decide his rack was impressive enough to try and keep them as wall decor - with or without his head. He made to turn to go, but there was a mud puddle there in the yard and when he twisted his body weight, he slipped, again biting down on the rind so it flipped up and hit him in the face, and landed spread on the ground in the mud with a terrific thump and splash of dirty water.

Both Oggie and his wife laughed uproariously.

James would have flushed if he could've done so, but luckily deer are incapable of blushing. He struggled to his feet, nearly slipping AGAIN in the mud, but finally managed to get all four hooves beneath him. And so, finally standing firmly and carrying his rind, he walked with as much dignity as he could on his wobbly long legs. When he reached the tree line, he flicked his tail in the air and pranced off the property and into the woods, quickening into a few bounding leaps through the brush before he got far enough away he could no longer hear the couple's laughter.