The moon is in his blood.
It waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows, but it is always there; always there, battling for his attention, vying for dominance with the plasma and the leukocytes and all the other bits that make his blood, blood. Remus can almost not remember what its absence feels like, but every night, every night leading up to the full moon, he tortures himself with the memory…
He had been a boy-–just a boy like any other at his young age. He'd been five and his greatest worries had included the devastating possibility that his parents would not take him along for sweets on the weekends. He'd scrape his knees on the sidewalk and call it a bad day, but his dad would wave his wand and his mum would kiss it better, 'just for luck', and everything would be made right.
He'd been so alive. So normal.
And then it happened, and his life became measured by the moon: its presence, its absence, and just how long into the gibbous he could push his luck and remain in polite society.
They'd moved more than they'd stayed put, and lied more than they'd spoken the truth, but somehow his parents had made it work for years, until he was sent to Hogwarts. And by then Remus had grown used to the lies, used to the feeble cover stories, to the constant remarks of, 'are you all right? not tired, are you? you look a bit peaky…', and most of all, used to the bone-crushing isolation of being bound to life by nothing but the moon, and all of the lies trapped in its orbit.
But the lies became too big for him, sucked him bodily into the never-ending spiral of deceit that, for too long, had been his reality. It had been easier, as a lad, because he'd never stayed in one place long enough to make friends.
At Hogwarts, he made friends.
And they were fantastic.
They were fantastic, brilliant, bright. They were perhaps too intelligent for their own good, and too arrogant besides; but they were brilliant, and they were his.
Best of all, they were his.
That was the problem, though; they cared about him. He'd never had peers before then that had treated him as though… as though his life had been framed by the sun, and the stars, and Quidditch and whatever else young boys used to tell the passing of time. They treated him as though he were normal, as though he were one ofthem, and even though he wasn't–-not really-–he allowed himself to pretend. He allowed himself to pretend, even when he could feel nothing but the moon in his blood, reminding him with each additional setting of the sun that the illusion could never last.
It lasted until their second year.
"Remus," James had said, "meet us by that portrait of the dancing hippogriffs on the sixth floor after dinner."
Remus had been wary. "What have you done this time?"
"We haven't done anything…yet," Sirius had chimed in, all too innocently.
And so, believing it to be the product of some prank, some new passageway they'd found, or some other such mischief (which Remus now believes had been their intention all along; to lull him into a sense of normalcy before going through with what they were actually about to do), Remus had done as asked and met them by the rather ridiculous painting on the sixth floor.
And then, they'd locked him in a classroom.
"What is this about? I–I have to visit my mother tonight–-"
"We know."
"Then… why are we just standing here?"
"No, Remus," Sirius had said, uncharacteristically quietly.
"We mean, we know," James had added.
And Remus had stared, and then it'd just clicked, and he'd thought, this is it–- the illusion ends here–-
But then the incredible happened–-so incredible, he'd not even dared dream of it, because how could this happen? How could it be real?
But it was. At least, it had been.
"Why didn't you just tell us?"
A pause, silence. Remus had been… he'd been…
Sometimes, when he needs to relay messages with the Order, and only a Patronus will do, this is the memory he uses. This is the one.
"We're your can get through this, together."
"But–but you can't–you're not–-"
"A werewolf?" Sirius' bark of laughter had rang in Remus' ears. "Who cares?"
And then they'd hugged him, and he'd cried–-Remus gets choked up just thinking about it–-cried into James and cried into Sirius, Peter patting his back all the while.
Somehow, it had made him feel less alone, even if he technically had been anything but. Somehow, it was enough.
But it hadn't been enough for his friends, not by a long-shot, because three years later they finally found a way that they could get through it with him-–together. As they had vowed to do.
And now… too many years, and too many memories later, now, all he can think is that he wishes to repay the favour. Whether he knows it or not, Harry is the closest thing he has to a son, the closest thing he has to a nephew, and he will not fail him.
Just like his father had never failed him.
"The trick, Harry, is to choose a happy memory–-a really powerful one…"