I am not JK Rowling and do not own these characters, etc.
It was a beautiful day for the third Quidditch match of the season. Late November had brought long days of cold, dreary rain—snow would not be long to follow—but this particular morning had broken so clear and bright even the characteristic mist of the Forbidden Forest seemed subdued. Although in the high latitudes of Scotland the bright foliage of high autumn had long passed and the trees were bare and grey, the sun in a cloudless sky gave the day an unseasonable warmth. It was a comfortable walk out to the pitch and Remus loosened his scarf and let his cloak open to the breeze and he hadn't been able to since mid-October. Climbing up and settling into his tight seat between Sirius and Peter in the highest point in the Gryffindor stands, all the better for James to spot them from out on the pitch, their scarves and hair blew wildly in the late autumn wind that blew briskly from off of the lake despite the sun. The stands were alive with chatter and high spirits for this perfect day for the most anticipated match of the season.
Or what would be a perfect day, if it weren't for the full moon.
The Quidditch schedule for his third year had been decided early in September, and Remus's heart had fallen as soon as he realized one of the dates conflicted with his own most important schedule, the nights he would spend in the Shrieking Shack. At first he was certain he was doomed to miss it entirely, but James, Sirius, and Peter had all assured him that there was no use missing a match in early afternoon for the sake of something at moonrise. As she did every month, Madam Pomfrey consulted several astronomy charts to determine sunset and moonrise and thus the earliest possible time he might transform. Accounting for the time it would take to change and make their way safely to the Shrieking Shack, Remus was due to meet her in the hospital wing at 3:00. He might have to leave early, but not if it was a quick match. The unseasonably pleasant weather made him optimistic luck would be on his side.
And the match was not one to miss. Not only was it the Gryffindor-Slytherin rivalry match, but it was Slytherin's first match of the season and the debut of their new Seeker. Regulus Black had been selected for the Slytherin team at their fall term tryouts, his very first opportunity to audition- which had apparently been quite the shock for Sirius, who was not accustomed to thinking of him as especially good at anything besides sucking up to their parents. Having been present for breakfast in the Great Hall when Regulus received the newest model of Cleansweep sent by their parents in congratulations had not improved matters.
"Oh Merlin, he looks ridiculous," Sirius snorted as Regulus flew out onto he pitch with his team.
Remus didn't see how he looked any more or less ridiculous than any other young player who had yet to grow into his uniform, especially since Seekers in general tended to look a little undersized for their gear, being so small and lightweight. So he just teased: "Oh come now, aren't you proud of your brother in his first match?"
"I hope he gets knocked in the face by a Bludger and breaks his nose," Sirius sniffed. "That'd fix that stupid sneer on his face." He tossed his hair a little, ironically making his own sneer that given their genetics was identical to Regulus's. Although Sirius's looks were unthreatened by Regulus's, his younger brother's apparent athletic talent clearly made him a little insecure.
Unfortunately, the Gryffindor team also had a young new Seeker, their former Seeker and team captain having graduated the year before. Although she was adroit enough on her broom, she was still untested, and in Gryffindor's only match so far this year the Snitch had gone to Ravenclaw. As the Gryffindor team entered, she sized up Regulus carefully but didn't seem too intimidated. Nonetheless James swooped by to give her a reassuring brotherly pat on the back.
Remus jittered his right leg impatiently as he waited for Madam Hooch to give the starting signal; the longer it took to start, the more likely he was to miss some of it. But the rest of the pitch was no less impatient and neither was Madam Hooch, so thankfully the match began without delay—and with quite a dramatic start. Through all of fall term James had spoken ad nauseum on the training of the Chaser team that year, the drills and formations they had practiced and the strategic combinations they had memorized. Remus's head had spun trying to keep up with his discussion of theory, but it was clear from what he saw on the pitch that their work had paid off. The three of them moved in unison like an airplane formation or tiny flock of geese, the Quaffle flowing from one pair of hands to another, always just in time before an incoming Bludger or block maneuver from one of the Slytherin Chasers. Gryffindor offense was running circles around the rest.
The Slytherins simply could not keep up. The aggressive pursuit of personal glory made each individual member of the Slytherin team a formidable force in his craft, but the team fell apart so far as collaboration was involved. The Beaters did not coordinate with the Keeper in defending the Slytherin goal posts, and the Chasers were too hell-bent on making their own goals that they did not pass when it would have been beneficial and were continuously intercepted, failing to make even a single goal.
After his fifth personal goal, James sailed over the Gryffindor stand, running his fingers through his hair and blowing a kiss to a row of ladies. A few of them sighed and giggled, but Remus heard one very distinctive groan he immediately traced to Lily Evans.
Remus smiled at the current lopsided score of 120 to 0. "At this rate, it won't be long before they call the game for Gryffindor due to an impenetrable lead," he mused, glad that he could leave for the Shack in time knowing that Gryffindor had won. The sun was already noticeably lower than it had been; the days passed quickly given their altitude and the approach of the solstice.
"They won't though, mate," Sirius furrowed his eyebrows as if to question Remus's legitimacy as a Quidditch fan. Truly, Remus hadn't watched much Quidditch before coming to Hogwarts; his mother was the sports fan in the family and she preferred Cardiff football. "It's not over until the Snitch is caught. Gryffindor could be a thousand points ahead and they won't call it until someone has the Snitch in hand."
Remus frowned; why couldn't wizards play something with a proper time limit? Surely both Seekers were hunting their hardest at this stage in the game, but as both were untried second years barely three months into their first season, it was anyone's guess when they would succeed.
Then, as if to make things worse on purpose, Slytherin scored their first goal. Sirius and Peter groaned. Remus, however, squinted nervously at the horizon behind the Forbidden Forest. "Err, that's not the moon rising over there already, is it?"
"Is it?" Sirius crinkled his nose and squinted for a moment. "Nah, mate, that's just a reflection on the lake or something."
The match continued; with the first goal won, Slytherin gained confidence and began fighting harder at their defense. They were getting the hang of the Gryffindor Chasers' preferred tactics. The next three Gryffindor goal attempts were all blocked by their Keeper and in one case averted by a Bludger- and Slytherin scored another goal.
Remus started jittering his leg again. Although the match had sped on at record pace in the beginning, Slytherin's fight back made him aware of the time again. How many minutes had passed already? 15? 20? 25? How much longer did he have until 3:00?
Gryffindor finally made another goal, breaking the brief Slytherin spell. Still, there was no guarantee of a quick end to the match; it could volley on back and forth all night, set to the dulcet tones of Remus's howls far off in the distance—assuming he made it there. Remus watched nervously for the Gryffindor Seeker; she would be the quickest, most merciful end to the match. However, she was hovering high above the action on the pitch, searching but clearly not seeing anything. Remus didn't have the intimate Quidditch knowledge to back it up, but he found himself internally scolding her for some imagined theory that the Snitch would hover closer to the action.
However, she was apparently more attentive than Regulus, who as Gryffindor scored yet another goal was too busy watching in outrage to attend to a Bludger whizzing his way. He heard the tell-tale whistle just a moment before it was too late, panicking and plunging several meters downward and zig-zagging unsteadily before coming to a stop. Sirius let out a merciless "HA!" so loud that Remus wondered if he intended his brother to hear all the way out on the pitch. He probably did.
However, the Bludger may or may not have been purposely directed by one of his teammates, as became apparent when one of the Slytherin Beaters flew close past Regulus, shaking her club at him. Although in the Gryffindor stands they could not make out what she was shouting, it was obvious the Slytherins were putting the pressure on Regulus to save the match. Their failure to boost their own score meant it was all up to him.
"Not very team-like of them," Remus mused.
"You can see their entire strategy fall apart once they start losing," Sirius grinned. "The sorest losers that ever there were. I couldn't enjoy watching it more."
Just then, one of the Gryffindor Chasers scored again, bringing the score to 160-20.
"Just one more goal and even the Snitch won't save Slytherin," Remus whispered giddily, shifting his weight from foot to foot in preparation for his quick exit once this transpired.
"But it's not over until the Snitch is caught," Sirius repeated, vigorously shaking Remus's wrist, too caught up in the excitement of the match for Remus's predicament to weigh much on his mind. That responsibility was Remus's. He looked to the descending sun, trying to work out whether the light was already becoming dusky or if it was just the panic in his mind.
Gryffindor scored twice more in succession. After scoring the second goal, James made a show of a hands-free victory dance on his broomstick, earning a friendly shout of "Don't get too cocky, Potter!" from Lily in the stands. James exaggerated his dance a little more. Remus wished he were in the mood for dancing; instead, the only moving part of him was his rapidly-beating heart and an odd trembling sensation in his stomach. If he had to question it, he was certain he must be running late by now—if he hadn't missed the 3:00 deadline entirely. If he had, would Madam Pomfrey come get him? Would she owl one of the professors attending the match? Or perhaps him personally; an emergency Howler at the Quidditch pitch?
The Slytherin Beaters were now out in full force, knowing their team's best option was aggressive defense until Regulus could end the match. Given their impeccable aim with the clubs, if Slytherins weren't by definition from pureblood wizard families and thus categorically opposed to Muggle sport, Remus might have wondered if they had trained as cricket or baseball players.
What happened next was the first maneuver to properly distract him since the start of the match. With the Beaters smacking Bludgers after them the Gryffindor Chasers were forced to pass again and again so as not to get knocked from their broom and possession of the Quaffle. James, who was still closest to the hoops after his latest goal, seized the Quaffle from a pass just as his teammate was knocked about 10 meters downward to evade a Bludger. But there was no relief as the eyes of the Slytherin Beater nearest him narrowed as she whaled her club into the same Bludger, sending it sailing with a crack as loud as a cricket bat.
The Bludger hurtled towards James, whose eyes widened as he realized he couldn't fend off with his hands, but he had no teammate readily available to accept a pass. Instead, he squeezed his broomstick tightly between his legs and let himself fall to the side, dropping beneath his broom and missing the Bludger by inches—they could practically hear the whistle roaring in his ears as it sailed past- then, upside-down and without a moment to waste, sent the Quaffle sailing through the middle hoop. Sirius screamed like a girl and practically jumped into Remus's arms, nearly knocking Remus over as all the muscles in his body had gone slack in shock. Peter looked on the verge of weeping at this heroism. It was the most miraculous evasion + score combo any of them had ever seen on the Hogwarts pitch, and it was all James.
However, it was the Slytherin stands that let out the loudest cheer, and everyone turned their heads to see why: at the other end of the pitch Regulus had flung his fist high into the air, the tell-tale glint of gold visible between his fingers. Slytherin had caught the Snitch!
There was mass chaos for a moment as no one knew whether James had made the goal in time. However, Madam Hooch flew up through the chaos, blasting her whistle, and gestured to the red and gold.
"POINT TO POTTER!" Remus, Sirius, and Peter cheered in union, throwing their arms up in the air and waving vigorously. James spotted them and did another barrel-roll just for their benefit as they laughed and whistled.
It would be a post-game like no other, the closest match any of them had ever seen with Slytherin bitterly defeated and James the hero of the day—but Remus had to go. He ducked around the members of the now swarming box and whirled down the narrow spiral stairs- which he hoped was the reason for the rising sick in his stomach, and not anything more sinister.
He'd never walked between the castle and the Quidditch pitch under any circumstances other than beside his friends leisurely making their way to and from the castle for matches, so he never realized what a task it was to run the entire way. The November afternoon was cooling rapidly and the frigid air wove crackling webs of saliva across the inside of the throat, and his nose began to run and he had nothing to wipe it with except his own sleeve. After sprinting halfway he nearly collapsed and was forced to take the rest at a brisk sort of limp. By the time he reached the castle his legs were like jelly, and he still had a few staircases to climb.
Praying that the itching on his arms, legs, and back was sweat and not the beginning of the lupine hair that sprouted all over his body during transformation, Remus burst into the hospital wing. There were only a couple of unfortunate students missing the game to convalesce in the recovery room. Madam Pomfrey, standing at the window with an eye on the clock, whirled around at the sound of his feet on the stone floor. "Where were you?" she hissed, clearly angry but beholden to her duty to his protect his secret. She kept her voice low. "I was just about to send an emergency owl to McGonagall at the Quidditch match. What kept you?"
"Sorry . . . sorry . . . I was at the match . . . lost track of time," Remus panted.
"I should say so! You were meant to be in the Shack nearly an hour ago! Now quick—out of those clothes!"
She whisked him behind the curtain of one of the back examining rooms along with the change of old clothes he kept in hospital wing. As a wolf he shed his clothes, but he needed something in which to walk to the Shack and back, something that didn't matter if it was shredded overnight. He pulled off his jumper, shirt, and vest in one piece and hurriedly threw on the pajama-sized shirt and trousers his parents had sent from a secondhand shop for the purpose.
As Madam Pomfrey reached back for the threadworn cloak he had kept in her closet since first year, Remus thought he had to sneeze- until the sneeze turned into a long, grisly wheeze that hunched him over into an all-too-familiar position, like a cat about to vomit: the position he was forced into in the moments just before his jaw lengthened and hair began to sprout. His human consciousness still intact enough to be horrified, he curled over in preparation for transformation, as if the fetal position would protect others from him. However, as the moonlight in the hospital wing was virtually nonexistent, nothing happened. Feeling all the blood rush back out of his head again and leave him feeling dizzy, he sighed and stood upright.
When he looked up, Madam Pomfrey had put a distance of about a meter between them and her wand was out. Remus's fear turned to nausea at the sight of the terror in her eyes. She recovered her composure after a half second and came forward calmly again with the cloak, but Remus could not ignore that her first instinct had been terror.
"Let's not waste any more time," she said, endeavoring to remain calm but unable to mask her fear. Remus nodded, unable to push words past the lump in his throat. She pushed him ahead of her as they briskly made their way through the hospital emergency passages of the castle and down on the grounds towards the Whomping Willow. On the other side of the campus Remus could see vague movement in the dusky distance, a flow of students still straggling back to the castle after the match, but it was solidly twilight by now and they had no time to worry about being seen. By the time they reached the tree, Remus's legs were numb and felt as if they had turned to mush from all of the near-running. But they made it in time.
Once the passage was safely sealed behind him, Remus's breathing and heart rate relaxed. Now there was nothing but the dim quiet of the Shack and the long night ahead. It was almost disappointing, to have been in such a rush only to sit and wait. Not that he was in a hurry, of course.
With a dramatic sigh—there was no one around to hear him, after all—he fell backwards onto the bed. The frame creaked and the springs bowed beneath his weight, no spring left in them at all. The mattress smelled musty and was fitted only with a bottom sheet displaying several now-brown vestiges of difficult full moons past. It was hardly the thing to put him in a relaxed state of mind, but Remus wasn't about to complain, as it was generous for him to have been allowed a bed at all. Remus had trained himself to nap as soon as he was horizontal on this mattress since he would get precious little sleep the rest of the night, so he closed his eyes in anticipation for the short but sweet descent into dreams.
However, just as his consciousness was beginning to slip away, his stomach seized up and he sat bolt upright. He hunched over again, clutching his stomach which had begun to quiver with the burgeoning transformation. His skin began to crawl as thick, bestial hair sprouted from his pores. His vision blurred and briefly blacked out entirely as his face changed from human to a lengthy jaw of sharp teeth. The unbearable pain made him vomit once and then begin to scream, anguished screams that echoed in his own ears they became howls as his vocal cords warped and his mouth turned canine.
During the waning moments of human lucidity as he transformed, he observed that the light through the slats had barely changed since he had arrived. It couldn't have been more than a half-hour since he'd been back in the hospital wing, mere minutes since he had been in the company of Madam Pomfrey and within bolting distance of the parade of students leaving the Quidditch pitch.