The moon has been new for two days now. Three, if you put into perspective that it was now Monday. In seven hours, the magical chiming system in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry would sound, waking all within from their deep sleep for breakfast. The school would come alive with the sound of students moving, talking, laughing, going about their daily lives as they had for the past three months (or longer, depending on their year of entry). So far for Remus John Lupin, it was five years. Five long, glorious years. The best five years of his young life.
Most of the students had come from schools before Hogwarts. Or, in the case of the Purebloods, they came from strictly ran households, taught by personal instructors. In any case and no matter what bloodline a student came from, they most likely had interacted with other children their own age. Remus, however, had not had the privilege.
He'd been infected with Lycanthropy as a small child. Remus barely remembered the incident, though fragments of it often haunted his thoughts the closer it came to the full moon. He could remember the woods around his parents' house, dark and mysterious and no doubt full of adventure.. or so he had thought. After he'd been bitten, his parents kept tight watch on him. He'd been home taught his entire life, with no outside interaction other than a brief visit here-or-there to Diagon Alley.
When his Hogwarts letter had arrived, he'd been beyond thrilled. But where most students at Hogwarts had received letter by owl post, Remus had been different. His had been hand-delivered by none other than the Headmaster of Hogwarts himself, Albus Dumbledore. It was only with Headmaster Dumbledore's quiet persistence that his parents had agreed to it. Would he be safe? Most definitely. Was there a place he could go that would prevent him from harming another person? It had already been prepared and was readily accessible, but very secret. Would be be treated as if he was an ordinary student? Dumbledore had smiled and looked right at Remus when he'd answered; Remus was a very bright, very gifted young man, and far from ordinary. However, it wasn't his Lycanthropy that made him so special.
There were no words to describe Remus' pride at the Headmaster's words. They stayed with him even now, years later.
Sirius, James, and Peter had been an unexpected but very wonderful bonus to him attending Hogwarts. He still wondered to this day why any of them had even spoken to him that first day on the train. There was no doubt about it, however. Never in his life had Remus imagined that he would make such a great group of friends. Loyal, brave, wonderful friends, who stuck by him even after he had finally confessed his disease.
Peter had been openly startled by the revelation. Sirius and James were a little more subtle. In any case, all three boys had left him alone for a good five days afterward. Remus couldn't remember a time where he had felt so miserable, but luckily (or perhaps unluckily?) for him it had landed on a full moon week. Maybe that had been part of the reason why, Remus never bothered to ask. He'd gone to the Shrieking Shack - he'd heard two boys talking about it in Honeydukes and the name became so natural that it was almost used fondly - to transform, as he had for the past few years, and had given birth to two new scars across his right pectoral and another one down the inside of his left forearm. The lads had visited him in the infirmary while he recovered, with chocolate and grinning faces.
They hadn't hated him. They hadn't thought him a monster. In fact, Remus could still recall Sirius' exact words that day.
"Well, my family would hate it, so it's cool."
Cool. Remus had never once, in his memory, been called 'cool' by anyone. Then Sirius Black, the poster child for cool as far as Hogwarts was concerned, had called him cool. This was, of course, back when Remus still glorified James and Sirius in his mind. Not that he didn't still stand in awe of the both of them to this day, but since then Remus had learned of all the little quirks that made James and Sirius so unique. To Remus, both lads were very much normal teenage boys. But they were teenage boys who, after learning his most darkest secret, had stuck by him.
Remus rolled over in his bed, staring at the ceiling for a few moments before looking over at each of the other four beds in the dormitory.
Gideon, closest to the door, slept soundly and quietly. He usually woke up only once in the night, either for a piss or to get a glass of water. Sometimes both. Remus gave him credit for being able to sleep through the rest of the noise in their dormitory.
Peter rolled over in his sleep and muttered something in a foggy sleep-induced voice before returning to REM. There were times that Remus had startled awake because of Peter's nonsense babble in his sleep, though most of it was quite humourous if it could be made out.
James, whose bed was to the left of the first window, let out a heavy snore and buried his head farther into his pillow. He had a snore that could quite possibly wake the dead, even though he denied it quite vehemently in his waking hours. They'd all gotten quite used to it by now, however.
Then there was Sirius, whose bed was on the opposite side of the same window and was closest to his own. His curtains were half open, one foot hanging precariously over the bed. It twitched once, twice, thrice in his sleep. Even from his bed Remus could make out the doggy-sounds that Sirius made while sleeping. It made him smile. It was no wonder that Sirius Black's animagus was that of a large, shaggy black dog. Remus wondered if Sirius had been doing exactly what he was doing now when he was a small child. The idea made the wry smile on his face twist even more as he stared at his friend's foot a moment longer before rolling over on his back again and staring back up at the ceiling.
What were Remus' sleeping habits? That was hard to say, as he was never told if he had any or not. All he knew were his own accounts, and the only thing that riddled Remus' sleep were dreams. Remus dreamed in full color and stereo sound, and he could recall each dream with clarity even weeks after he'd dreamt them. Normally this wasn't a terrible thing. However, with the waxing moon came the feelings of dread. The heightened senses. Sensitivity to light and sound particularly. His skin grew almost as pale as the whites of his eyes. His desire to eat became less and less, as was his desire to sleep. Sleeping brought nightmares now. Nightmares of running and blood and screams and howls that came from so deep in him that he often woke with them on his lips. Remus often wondered if he howled in his sleep, but his parents had never told him about it if he did. When he came to Hogwarts, the first spell he mastered was the Silencing charm, and every night he made sure to cast it about his curtains.
Tonight, he'd woken from a particularly intense dream. Moony had been warring in his head as he slept, fighting for control over his subconscious. Remus had managed to keep him at bay, though with much struggle, and even then the Wolf had wriggled into the dream that was charted out for him that night. Remus had revisited the woods of his childhood that evening.
The sweet smell of rotting vegetation. It wasn't so terrible to Remus' nose. He much liked it, to be honest. It brought up a primeval sensation deep within him. A sense of awe and wonder. It was the reason he loved the woods so much, the smell. His parents warned him constantly to always stay within earshot. The woods were forbidden for play. Though what child listens to what their told, when it comes to the forbidden?
It was dark. Night had came early as the Equinox passed their calendar. It was just barely 5:30 and not yet supper when Remus had gone outside to pass the time. The woods were calling to him, bidding him join their depths and learn their mysterious adventures, and Remus could not ignore it. He was still within earshot, after all.
He'd just sat down on the forest floor when he'd heard it. Footsteps. A deep inhale, followed by a harsh exhale. And then the unmistakable sound of a growl. Remus had gone rigid with fear, paralyzed and unable to move. His eyes - dark and brown like the thick, weathering bark of the trees around him - fell on the glowing, golden eyes in the thicket. The growl grew louder. Remus forgot to breathe, but by then it hadn't mattered. The wolf had howled and charged at him, going straight for the throat.
Remus had woken, wild-eyed and sticky with night sweat. It had taken him a good twenty minutes to calm down his rapid-beating heart. He'd taken the time to stare at his sleeping dormmates to bring him back to Now. He was still Remus. He was still Human. The Wolf had not won this night.
But the days drew nearer. It was only time before Remus and Moony would battle again. A fight, Remus knew, he would always lose.
Brown eyes landed on the calendar on his wall. He stared for a long time at the enchanted miniature silver disc that flitted behind the enchanted miniature white cloud on the 26th of November. Remus sat up suddenly and moved to his trunk at the end of the bed. He opened it, searching.. tugging out a thread-bare shirt. He stood, his face stony as he covered the calendar with it.
He did not need to be reminded of what lie ahead of him. Satisfied, Remus returned to his bed. What had started out as only being seven hours until the chimes was now five. Remus took only a moment to survey his sleeping companions before shutting the curtains tight around him, returning to whatever dreams Morpheus had in store.