Chapter four

Standing in front of Lily and James were an about a dozen…. WEREWOLVES!

They stood transfixed, just staring at the werewolves, the werewolves staring right back at them. There was totally no way of escape, the werewolves were surrounding them, all licking their lips. In the front of the pack, their leader was a comparatively light colored, blue eyed wolf. James knew immediately who it was.

"Remus," he whispered. The wolf growled in return. Lily whimpered by James side, he gave her a reassuring hug, but inside he knew he would have to act fast if wanted to save her life.

He turned to the frightened Lily "You stay here and do not move, just stay in the shadows; I'll come for you later."

"Where are you going?" asked Lily in a frightened voice. But James did not answer. He closed his eyes and started transforming. Lily shrieked and backed away into the cave, where there once was James, now stood a large stag. He turned to her, gave her a wink and then charged towards the werewolves.

Two of them charged towards him and started fighting him. They kicked him, bit him, and tried everything they could, but could not overpower him. He fought like never before and threw the werewolves to the ground. But that wasn't all; he had to fight about seven more werewolves, one of them being his best friend Remus.

Around three more werewolves pounced on him but he smashed them to the ground. They got up again but were overpowered by James. The werewolves, circling James now growled viciously, pawing the ground with their feet. James realized he would have to something, because there was no way he could single handedly managed so many animals, already tired as he was. He looked around him, a glint in his eye, as if thinking of a plan. Then suddenly, without warning, he charged strait out of the circle, between two surprised werewolves. He ran at breakneck speed, the werewolves trailing him.

Inside the cave, Lily yelled in fright, and got out of the shadows into the grassy patch outside. She could make out the last werewolf descending the hill, trying to catch up with James. Lily, not knowing what else to do, decided to follow them.

She ran as hard as she could, for how long, even she didn't know. James was taking the wolves through another route, a route which Lily didn't know, but got the feeling it was a secret route james and the marauders had discovered. She also got the horrible feeling that this route somehow connected to Hogwarts, and taking a bunch of werewolves in the vicinity of young, innocent, tasty, children wasn't a very good idea at all. Yet, she knew James wouldn't think of harming anybody, not even Slytherins, he must have a plan in mind, and Lily could only pray it would work.

Soon the company, which included the hungry werewolves, the panting Lily, and the stag cum human James, reached a sort of clearing, and in the distance Lily thought she saw a big giant flailing his arms around. She squinted her eyes to see properly, and realized it wasn't a giant, in fact it wasn't any creature at all, it was…

The whomping willow.

And James was going to crash into it if he wasn't stopped.

Lily didn't quite know what to do. The building was too far, if she got a teacher, and that's assuming someone even listened to her, they would be too late. But then what was she supposed to do? James had apparently gone crazy, running headlong into the whomping willow was a suicidal mission. Lily just stood there and waited, there was nothing she could do, her brain had stopped working, he feet weren't functioning, her voice was stuck in her throat, all she could do was stand there a pray, pray that miraculously the tree would vanish, or turn into candy floss or something like that.

James was only a few meters away from the thrashing tree, the werewolves in a line behind him, chasing him as if their lives depended on it. Lily wanted him to stop but James kept on moving towards the tree, Lily braced herself, any moment now…

CRUNCH!

Lily heard the tree scoop up James and thrash him around. She didn't want to look but her eyes forced her to. She looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. The stag James had swiftly turned and avoided making contact with the whomping willow just a few centimetres away from it. But the werewolves had fallen for James' clever trick and crashed headlong into the humungous tree. And now it was taking care of them, freeing them from James' hands. Lily felt her body ease up and she ran towards the golden stag. But before she could reach him, James growled and with his eyes communicated to her to stay where she was. Lily was confused but her confusion was cleared in second. There was a werewolf who'd gotten free of the whomping willow and was now attacking James. He jumped on James and both the stag and the wolf started rolling on the ground.

Lily studied the wolf, his light blond hair, his startlingly blue eyes, seemed so…..Familiar. Her memory stirred uneasily but she couldn't quite place who he was.

Down on the ground James was struggling unsuccessfully with the werewolf. He was too big and strong for James. Lily watched the battle from the sidelines, thinking rapidly about what to do. She vaguely remembered learning how to deal with werewolves in Defence Against the Dark Arts. She racked her brains, and then it hit her. Page number 129. If aimed correctly, the spell could stupefy a werewolf for a little while.

She whipped out her wand, and whispered.

"stupefaciunt mentem"

A red light burts forth from her wand, and hit the wherewolf on its forehead, narrowly avoiding James. The wherewolf, stunned, fell slack and dropped on the ground. James struggled free and transformed back into his human form.

"James!"

He turned towards Lily and took her in his arms. "It'll be alright, Lils, it'll all be alright."

"How did you do that? And who are these werewolves, and-"

"Easy there, pumpkin. Relax a little now, after all, you saved my life. Come on, let's take Remus to the shrieking shack."

"Remus? Shrieking shack?" Lily was visible confused.

James used magic to lift Remus up into the air, and keep him floating. "I think I have a lot of explaining to do. Come on now, we'll talk on the way."

And with that, Lily, James and a floating Remus made their way towards the shrieking shack, Lily leaning on James' arm. Despite everything that had happened, she felt content. She really felt content.

The End