“So he just… blanked?” Sirius asked.

“I guess,” James said.

James had walked back to the castle, already feeling the looks of his schoolmates. Not his favorite type of look to receive. He preferred the awe when he scored in Quidditch or when they wondered how he was able to create an illusion of a dragon that breathed out roses on Valentines day. These were political intrigue looks… gross.

Thankfully those that knew him best were still in the Gryffindor tower and hadn’t seen the news yet.

He made a quick stop at the kitchens again and grabbed food for his two post-drunk friends. They were already awake and were slowly getting ready to head down where James came in and told them about his morning.

“Well… thats odd,” Sirius said, but waved it away. “Why didn’t you tell us about the potion though?”

“The train ride, not to mention all the stuff that happened at the carriages, was a lot. Also… I kinda wanted it to be a surprise. Thought he’d be jumping for joy and proclaim his undying love for me.”

Sirius shrugged.

“Yeah I would think the same thing. Mo- Remus has always hated it, especially when he would sometimes miss four days of classes.”

Mo? Did Sirius already make Remus’s Marauder name?

James also didn’t understand. He turned his gaze to Peter who was absently chewing on a piece of bacon with a contemplative look on his face.

“Peter?”

“Hm? Yes?” Peter said, jolting in surprise.

“What do you think?” James asked earnestly.

Peter shrugged.

“I wasn’t there so I can’t really say,” he said hesitantly.

“Give a theory then.”

Peter scooped up some of his eggs that were lathered in a gross amount of ketchup.

“He’s in shock, and probably mourning.”

“Mourning?” Sirius said, a disgusted expression on his face. “What could he possibly be mourning about?”

“Remus was around five years old when he was bit. His lycanthropy might be his first memory. Its been with him his entire life, an issue he expected to have to deal with forever. And he’s built his entire life around that. How many dates has he rejected because he doesn't want to get close to a girl? Our entire first-year he was meticulous in not being caught, and jumpy when we asked anything personal. Now suddenly James has fixed most of the issues he’s lived with. He gets no closure in James’s quick fix, and he might be mourning all the wasted effort and his lost childhood.”

They were quiet as Peter finished eating his plate.

James tried to understand what Peter was saying, but he couldn’t understand it like that. Over and over again Remus would lash out at any joke about his lycanthropy, only rarely indulging in them. He constantly feared being found out and constantly feared hurting people. Now he would never hurt anyone and would likely never be found out accidentally.

“Wait!” Sirius exclaimed. “Does this mean that we aren’t going to be aiming for Animagi anymore?”

“Of course we will. We’ve spent years researching it,” James said, rolling his eyes. “And Remus will still be alone on those nights, probably with some bad memories. We need to be there for him.”

“Good. Speaking of, both of you know your transformations?” Sirius asked.

“Yup,” James said.

“I… I think so,” Peter replied hesitantly.

One of the hardest parts about becoming an Animagus is knowing the transformation beforehand. Originally they thought they would get a vision of their animal once the ritual was complete, but after some subtle questions to Professor McGongagall they learned that they must already have a vision of their animal.

Which in itself required a smaller, but safe, ritual that could only be done during thunderstorms. Quite a few times over the years they would skip out on class when it started raining.

“Well only if you’re sure Peter. If you are then we can start on this month's Full Moon. But waiting another month or two isn’t an issue.”

James could see Sirius grow annoyed at the idea of waiting, but before he could say anything the door to the dorm opened.

Remus, eyes puffy and red stood in the doorway.

“Remus! The knock-”

Remus glared at Sirius, who raised his hands in surrender. But still Remus indulged Sirius and closed the door.

Knock KNOCK knock knock… KNOCK KNOCK… knock

“Uh, come in,” Sirius said awkwardly.

Remus opened the door again, walking to his corner of the room and placing the package of Wolfsbane Potion on it. Then he walked over to them, sat on the floor of the dorm room and thrust a letter at James.

“You forgot this… and you forgot to clean up the food.”

“Uh, sorry,” James said, taking the letter and placing it down next to him.

James and Remus stared at each other for several moments in a tense silence.

Then Remus threw himself at James, wrapping him in a tight hug.

“James Potter, you are a stupid git that never thinks before he does anything,” Remus said, rocking James back and forth like he was a toddler. “Thank you for being my friend.”

James wrapped his own arms around Remus.

“I’d prefer brother, but I’ll settle on a friend for the moment.”

“What’s the letter?” Sirius asked when they finally separated.

“From my dad I assume,” James said, taking it and opening it.

The Marauders held no secrets from one another. Well outside of not divulging their deeper fears and traumas. But for the first time James had the urge to hide his letter. Harry was now a family secret. Not that Fleamont Potter would ever actually tell James a family secret through the mail.

 

James

 

I talked to your friend's parents and was able to convince them to take the donation. You were right in that they were very much against charity, but it wasn’t too hard to change their minds. I hope this will help both your friend and his family.

Next I want to check to see if there are any negative effects from that last day. If not good, if so tell me unless it is serious then go to the Hospital Wing.

Lastly I want you to know that your mother cracked another ward on Harry’s trunk. This one had vials of memories with the note. “So you know it wasn’t all bad.” We can watch them on the first day of the Christmas break.

 

Write back soon, your mother is stress cooking again and the House-elves are livid.

With Love

-Your Dad

 

James scanned the words as quickly as possible as the other three crowded around to read. When he saw that there wasn’t anything to hide his shoulders sagged.

“What does he mean negative effects from that last day?” Remus asked.

“He’s talking about the day Harry died. There were some… issues. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

The Potter family ritual Harry used had ballooned out James’s magic to a rather insane degree.

From what James’s father had told him the best conversion rate was for identical twins, being 150% conversion. Next was parent to child and sibling to sibling being 100%, then grandparent to child and child to parent were both 50%. The ritual was not stackable of course. If Fleamont had used the ritual on James and then in the future James used it on Harry, Harry would only get a percentage of James’s original magical power and none of Fleamont’s.

The two weeks following the ritual James had spent most each day practicing spell power so as not to overcharge his spells.

“I see… well if you ever need to we’re here,” Remus said uncharacteristically. Normally Remus wouldn’t push something when told off.

-

The first class the following Monday was Potions. They had celebrated Peter’s birthday the day before. Not that it was his birthday, his birthday was August 31st, but since second-year they started to celebrate it the first Sunday back, as Friday and Saturday were usually House party days.

Remus got him a copy of his fathers OWL notes from when he went to Hogwarts. Sirius got him nudie mags and joke items from Zonkos, and James got him a quill that was enchanted to make his writing more legible. Peter really did have atrocious writing.

They spent the day like they did every Sunday, having an impromptu food fight in the kitchens. It was rather funny seeing half of the house-elves scurrying around, stopping flying pies from being smushed against a wall with their magic, to the other half being so happy to join in that they used their own magic to throw food. Not at the four of them of course, that went so against their trained minds that they just threw it at one another.

Then they opened the presents in front of the elves. Which after hearing Harry talk about Hermione made him feel bad, but the elves themselves were joyous at being included in such a way.

James hurriedly entered the Potions fifth-year classroom (once you got into fourth-year they began brewing potions that required multiple days of work.)

“Oh Lord Wolfsbane is here!” Sirius called from his seat near the back of the classroom.

“All bow to the Wolfsbane Lord,” Peter said loudly. “We bask in his presence!”

The three Marauders stood and bowed deeply, Sirius nearly toppling over. Jamesregally told them to rise, face imperious.

“It is my duty as a Lord to help those in need. For it must have been exhausting for them to deal with all that hair in the mornings.”

The three Marauders grinned, but James could see Remus had enough of the joke so James moved to his seat next to Sirius.

A few of the Gryffindors in the room snickered, and James quickly glanced at Lily who just had a singular raised eyebrow. Not the worst reaction he’s gotten.

Snape next to her sneered at him and he rolled his eyes. That was also not the worst reaction he’d gotten from the greasy haired git-

James sighed.

The other Slytherins either ignored him or sent him their own take on the Slyther Sneer.

“Why do you- sniff, smell like muffins?” Sirius asked.

“Well I was cooking muffins obviously,” James said setting down his bag and taking out four wrapped baked goods. “Oi Remmy, Pete!”

They both caught the thrown baked goods and looked at James with narrowed eyes.

“What? I didn’t put anything in them. Well outside of usual muffin ingredients.”

Sirius opened his own and looked at it like it was a difficult question on a test.

“When did you learn how to cook?” Sirius asked.

“Harry taught me,” James said, taking a bite. “Man was pants at potions but he could cook better than the house-elves.”

Remus took a few tentative sniffs of the muffin giving James one last look before taking a slow bite. His eyebrows raised in surprise and he started wolfing- heh- it down.

James turned back to Sirius, but saw that Lily was glancing in their direction, head tilted in a way to show she was trying to listen in.

So that was how he could get close to her! Talk about Harry more, she did seem quite interested in the old coot… who was her son… and dead… and would it really be right to use his dead son as leverage to get close to the girl he may or may not have had a crush on? Who was also his dead son's mother?

Fuck this was complicated.

“So what you’re saying,” Sirius said, taking a bite of his own now that he saw Remus didn’t smell anything off. “Is that you’d make an excellent house-wife?”

“Oh the best. Why? Thinking of stealing me away?”

“Hmm. You know what? Maybe- damn these are good. Do you only have four?”

“Gave the rest to the house-elves. Don’t know if they’ll eat it though. I think they wanted to put it on display as thanks.”

“How unfortunate, I would have loved to try one. Maybe you could bring some for my next Slug Club meeting?” A jolly voice said from behind them.

They both jumped. Damn that pot-bellied man could be sneaky at times.

“Professor! How are you? Hope last week wasn’t too crazy,” James said, hoping to push past the fact that they were eating in class. Then he registered the words the professor said.

“Slug Club? Wasn’t I banned?”

Unsurprisingly both James and Sirius had been invited then promptly banned from the Slug Club in their first year. Remus had also been invited, and after the first meeting where Professor Slughorn had “showed off” Remus to Newt Scamader had never appeared again.

Since then James hadn’t regretted not showing up to the pompous occasion, that was until Lily had begun to be invited.

“Ah old stories. I always regretted not giving you the benefit of the doubt. Might as well start off the new year strong am I right my boy?”

Yeah, start it off strong by bringing in the son of the creator of the Wolfsbane Potion.

Before if he had been asked back he would have declined, or possibly made an ice sculpture explode again. Now however… The Slug Club could be quite useful. Slughorn, for all they made fun of him, was extremely accomplished. Not just as a Potions Master. Other Heads of Houses got along with their students (mostly) and would sometimes exchange letters or give out advice to after graduating.

Slughorn though? He created real connections. If you stood out in any positive way at school, such as family history, blood status, personal connection, or raw skill like Evans and Riddle, he would invite you. He also invited his old students and acquaintances he had made through those students. Then he would try and match those he could.

He got some students apprenticeships for their Masters, he got some good positions in the Ministry. Quidditch, Magizoology, Curse-breaking, Alchemy, Ruin exploration, Auror training.

And what did he ask in return? A good word there, a set of tickets to a game here, and a few days out of the year to meet with others on his behalf. Then there was even a chance he could find you a protege for yourself one day.

Slughorn no doubt got more than that. Probably was rolling in cash from some of the little thank you gifts that had piled up over the years.

For the first time in his life… James respected Professor Slughorn. The man was a genius.

James didn’t have the subtle manipulatory skills of Dumbledore or Tom Riddle, but he was the Heir to a powerful and famous Light Faction house, and if he comported himself well enough he could even gain a little good will, even if it was only grains of sand worth.

Any amount helped against the likes of Voldemort.

“You know what Prof? I’ll be there.”

Slughorn's smile was wide with happiness.

“Great! I can’t wait to see you,” Slughorn said, before moving to the center of the classroom to begin the lesson, though not before leaving a note for Remus.

-

10 more Chapters up on my Pa treon

Pa tre on.c om/BronzeTurtle