Sirius's hospital room may as well have been a party, with how packed it was. There was Charlus and Dora Potter, James and Lily, Peter Pettigrew, Dorcas Meadows, Gideon Prewitt (who'd come from the ministry to get an official report), Frank Longbottom (who'd come with him - having just begun the auror training program that very morning), Ali Prewett (who heard from Frank what had happened), Dumbledore, Remus, and, of course, Sirius himself.

"That's it, that's it! This patient needs rest," the mediwitch announced, clapping her hands, "Three person limit, enforced the rest of the evening!

There was a great jostling of visitors as the spare bid Sirius a quick healing and left to file their reports and to see other patients, Dumbledore resigned himself to completing the reviewing of the various CVs on his desk ("alas, the classes wont' be teaching themselves this term," he said), and Dora Potter realized that it was late in the afternoon and she hadn't even started preparing a meal for Mrs. Evans yet... until all that was left in the room was Lily, Peter, Remus, James and Sirius.

"C'mon Pete, pull up a chair here," James said, waving for Peter to come over and join him and Lily on Sirius's right side, while Remus sat on his left, holding his hand tightly.

Peter hovered in the doorway, looking very nervous indeed, "I - I'm alright here," he said shakily, keeping his eyes averted downward.

"What'sa matter, Wormy?" Sirius asked, "Squeamish of the skooze?" He looked at James, "Get it? Skin ooze? Skooze?"

"Brilliant," James nodded, grinning.

"I - yes," Peter stammered, nodding, "Yes, that's it. I'm sorry. Makes me rather ill to watch it bubble."

"Didn't bother you earlier," Sirius remarked, "I do believe the term you used was cool?"

Peter shrugged, "Bothers me now." He added, "Plus the mediwitch said three person limit and technically I'm a fourth and she looked like she meant it."

"Well fuck the mediwitch!" Sirius said snuffily. "I want you here, too!"

Peter shuffled the tiniest bit closer, careful to stay to the left, but not coming as close as the others, still sort of hovering about a meter back.

Remus broke a chocolate bar that he had gotten from the gift shop and handed about the pieces, leaning back to give Peter his.

James leaned forward against his knees, "So who do we reckon this funny man that Remus met in the woods is?" he asked - for Remus had just finished whispering his tale to the four of them.

"A werewolf, obviously," Sirius said, nodding with certainty as Remus stuck a piece of chocolate into his mouth, "Donnt trusshim uddall!"

"But why would a werewolf be collecting other werewolves's teeth for?" Lily asked, "He sounds like some sort of hunter or something to me. The teeth would be like his trophies." She made a disgusted face.

James chewed quietly on his chocolate, then said, "Well what if he's a bit of both?"

"A hunter and a wolf?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah."

"Well that seems counter productive, he'd be hunting himself then, wouldn't he?" Sirius pointed out.

Remus was taking his third bite of the chocolate already.

"Perhaps they're alpha teeth," Peter suggested.

They all looked at him.

"You know, alphas that run a pack? Maybe he keeps the teeth of the alphas whose packs he adds to his own," Peter shivered at the thought of it.

James looked at Remus and Sirius, "That could be."

"Reckon it could," Sirius said.

"Well that's fine and well, but why was he looking at my teeth?" Remus questioned, "When you're alpha?"

"Well I wasn't there, was I?"

"Yeah." Remus thought about it a moment, "I don't know though. He didn't smell like a werewolf."

"What did he smell like?" Lily asked.

Remus shrugged, "Didn't smell like much of anything, honestly."

James sighed, "Wonder if he's newly turned or something."

"Dumbledore might be thinking that, too," Remus said, "After you lot disapparated, he asked me a bit more detailed about what happened. I mean, I didn't know everything, of course, I don't have much memory for it, but I told him it was another pack of werewolves that attacked us and he mentioned that he used to live there at the house and that he'd never once heard of werewolves in that forest."

James nodded, "Godric's Hollow isn't exactly a hotbed for lupine transformations."

"I know one Lupin who transforms there," Sirius grinned at Remus.

Remus rolled his eyes, "Yes, yes, I know it's literally in my name and --"

"Bloody hell," Sirius's eyes widened, "Bloody hell wait a minute. Rey. Your last name is literally Wolf."

Remus sighed and looked down at his lap.

"YOU ARE REMUS MCWOLFY-WOLF!" Sirius said, smirking wildly. His eyes twinkled, "Oh I feel so much better now, that was the medicine which I needed to recover - or else to die happily. That information has given me life."

"Are you finished?"

"I'm sorry, what Mr. Wolf?"

Remus looked at James.

James grinned, "Sorry, Rey. You're probably never living that one down." As Remus sighed, James reached over and patted his back... and when he did, the wrist of his jumper rode up ever such a little bit, and the Mickey Mouse watch showed, glinting under the lights of the room.

Peter's eyes went right to it and he froze in the middle of laughing at Mr. Wolf, his stomach flipping over. Instinctively, his hand clapped to his wrist, where the red marks of the unbreakable curse were burning hot under his jumper. He could feel the skin searing and he grit his teeth to keep from yelping out in pain.

"Peter?" Lily saw the expression on his face, and her own laughter died away and she looked at him with concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm - I'm spiffing," Peter gasped. He backed away from the bed, away from the watch on James's wrist. Every single instinct in his body, every nerve, was screaming at him to leap forward and grab that watch and rip it off James's body. Just gnaw the hand right off if he had to! Whatever it would take to get it away and into his possession... It took all of Peter's strength not to act on it, and he hurried to turn away, "I've just - I've got to go, I'm sorry - feel better!" and he threw himself into the hall.

James glanced at Lily, Remus, and Sirius in turn, confused. "I - what just happened?" he asked.

"Peter went bonkers," Sirius answered, twisting his finger about his ear to indicate madness.

James stood up, "I'm going to go see if he's alright."

"Of course he's alright, we both know Wormy does mental things sometimes," Sirius answered.

James shrugged, "Just in case." He went out into the hall, and after Peter.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Well," he said. He looked at Lily. "Alright Evans. Details."

Lily flushed, "What?"

"You bloody know exactly what," Sirius replied. "Details - all of them!" 

James caught up to Peter in the stairwell. "Hey, Pete." Peter resolutely kept walking, perhaps even faster, going down the stairs, clutching the banister for dear life. "Peter!" James jumped two stairs at a time, finally not only catching up but cutting Peter off from going further. He stared up at Peter from the steps ahead of him, his eyes wide with concern. "Hey, are you alright?"

"Yes, I told you I'm alright," Peter said. He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall as though to get away from James. He was biting his lower lip, his hand balled into fist in his pocket. "I just need to go, alright? Please?"

James backed up so Peter could continue on down the steps. Peter scrambled. But James kept up with him. "You know, Pete, if something was the matter, you could talk to me, don't you?" he asked, jogging down the steps along side Peter's quick scurrying.

"Yeah," Peter said hurriedly, "If there was something the matter I'd talk to you, alright?"

"Promise?" James asked, "I just don't want you to be suffering all by yourself or anything."

"I'm not," Peter squeezed the words from his very depths. He couldn't very well tell James what was happening. Even if he wanted to, he'd found out that he couldn't. He'd tried to tell Sirius and the words had locked up on his tongue. Apparently a part of the vow had been to keep whatever duty the Dark Lord requested of him a secret as well as to actually perform it, and the result of trying to speak on it was a terrible wrenching feeling of his tongue and a flare of pain in the skin on his wrist. "I - I'm fine," Peter insisted, "I just have to get back home. My family's... expecting me. I've got to figure out how to get home and --"

James sighed, "How about the Knight bus?"

Peter shook his head. "I haven't got the fare."

James reached into his pocket and took out a galleon and held it out. With the wrist on which the watch was clasped.

Peter stared at the coins on James's outstretched palm. "I... thanks," he said, taking the coin.

"Keep the change and use it to come by my place for your birthday, alright? Well, the Lupin's house anyway, where my family's staying. We'll have a great birthday party, alright?" James looked hopeful, "My mum makes a bloody brilliant butterbeer cake."

Peter kept his eyes from meeting James's, "I, um, I can't. I have.. plans. We're... going away on holiday," he fabricated.

James looked let down, "Really? Somewhere cool at least, I hope?"

"Yeah, hopefully," Peter stammered.

"Don't you know where you're going?" James asked, confused.

"Oh. Yeah of course I do, it's just that I've never been and -- yeah," he shrugged. 

"So? Where is it?" James pressed, raising his eyebrows.

"I -- um -- er, New York," Peter said quickly, saying the first place that popped into his head.

"Oh brilliant!" James said, and he smiled brightly, "You'll have to take pictures. Pete, on our way home from Costa Rica, Sirius and I drove the motor bike and we passed through and -- we didn't get a chance to go to see it, but we heard that there's a building there that's sooo bloody tall, you can see the Entire State from it." James waved his arm with the watch to illustrate the horizon and all that you could see from that building.

Peter feigned interest, "Oh cool. Very cool."

"Yeah, what a view that must be, eh?" James grinned. Then, "Hey and I didn't get to tell you what happened with me and Evans!" He put his hand on Peter's shoulder and Pete stared at the watch band out of the corner of his eyes, his focus reeling from the watch to James's face.

"James?" Peter asked, interrupting James's theatrical description of the scene before Godric Gryffindor's fountain. "James!"

"Yeah?"

"I really do have to go," Peter said.

James looked upset. "Oh...right.. yeah. I'll tell you about um... about Evans and I next time we talk, I guess." He paused. "Have fun in New York! Reckon the next time we see each other will be at disapparation lessons!" 

"Yeah -- yeah, uh, those. I'll -- see you. Thanks," Pete said and he hurried on down the stairs.

James sighed and turned back upstairs to Sirius's bedroom.