If I Can Just Get Through This Night...
Moonlight, my worst fear. How can one fear the serenity of the moon, you ask? It isn't hard to despise the lady Luna when your very blood courses in song to her each full moon, to be sated with violence. How can I not hate the sight of the silvery orb when for three nights I live my life as a monster? It's not hard when month after month you feel your body torn apart from within, to fear that any person you meet will be your next victim, and worse off, to know that ever since you left school and the friends you love behind, you spend these torturous nights... alone
Curling my fingers tightly, watching them flex and tense, anything to distract me from this change, I turned my head back out the tattered window of the shrieking shack and sighed softly. In all the confusion with Sirius' discovered innocence and eventual escape with the help of young Harry, I had not taken my potion for the second night in a row. Not that Snape would have helped me, anyways. My lips curled in disdain at that thought. He had been against me teaching at Hogwarts since day one. I'm actually suprised the potions he gave me didn't contain a bit of hemlock and wormwood for that matter. But for some reason, he had chosen not to. Perhaps the threat of Dumbledore breathing down his neck had put a bit of the fear of God into him. Speaking of the fear of God, my thoughts betrayed me once more. the Hell will come shortly, Remus, I reminded myself again, my mind working over time once more on this ritual of pain I experienced each month.
Gripping the window sill tightly, my knuckles turning white with tension, I hung my head with a shuddering sigh. I already missed the students at Hogwarts and it had only been a day since I had resigned. Brilliant Hermione whom had reallized what I had been from very early on, from my first change at the school and not hated me for it, resourceful Ron and his tenacity and loyalty and most of all Harry and his nack of getting out of trouble, and adventurous lion's heart. So much like his father. Oh James, you would be so proud of your son. I rubbed my eyes a bit pressing the tears away at that last thought.
My thoughts turned from the classes at Hogwarts to my long lost friend whom I had wrongfully judged as the killer of James and his wife Lily. Sirius. Sirius Black, quiet and wraithlike in quality, almost frightening in his very presence much like a vampire, had spent twelve years in the torturous prison of Azkaban. Innocent his entire stay there, unhappy to say the least that he had been placed their wrongfully. It had been this despairing thought and no other that had kept him free of the Dementors' insanity inducing drain on one's happiness. Dementors do not feed on despair, only joy.
We had been a bonded group, the four of us. Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs. Alas, Prongs, James Potter had been betrayed by one of our own. Peter Pettigrew, Wormtail. That thought blanched me for a moment. Doubling over for a moment, wrapping my arms around myself, I tried once more to dissuade the sickening feeling of being betrayed by him. Damnit, we had entrusted him with our lives as students in Hogwarts. He had been one of us, and he had given dear James and his wife, Lily over to Voldemort. Shuddering at that thought, I shook it off, running fingers through grey peppered long strands of matted brown and shifted my attention back to the moon. Damn you moon!
"All that is left is you and me, Moony, my friend." A soft voice spoke behind me. The voice suprised me nevertheless as I snapped my gaze back to the apparant apparition that had haunted my lonely thoughts. "Si..Sirius..? Wh.. what are you doing here? You are supposed to be in hiding! They'll catch you, if they find you here." The words tumbled out of my lips in suprise as I sprung to my feet and strode across the floor, embracing Sirius tightly.

"I know it, I know it, Remus, but I also know that you need me too." He smiled weakly, letting me out of the tight embrace. His eyes flicked to my hand with a silent knowing. Registering the signs of the eminent painful change and nodded silently in reply to it. Slipping weathered fingers through Sirius' still matted raven hair, I sighed quietly in the comfort that my friend was with me.
I let out a tiny whimper, grateful to have him there, my closest friend, bonded brother and deepest confidant... He had taken such a great risk in doing this. The best gesture of love any friend could ever offer, and all this, for me. I couldn't help but feel the lump in my throat rise at this.
Like old times, yes Sirius? I thought to myself, only to have that thought cut short.. My head swirled for a moment, and I felt the beginnings of the change take over. Wrenching pain shot through my body, dropping me to my knees, but all the while, Sirius knelt beside me, patiently waiting for the change to end.
Long fur stretched from every inch of flesh on my body, the cloths on my back stretched and tore to release the gigantic lupine within me. My fingers curled and lengthened to gnarled gleaming claws, and with a final painful howl, the change subsided. I turned yellow eyes filled with fury and violence to Sirius, to find him at my side, not in his human form, but his own Animagus form.
Trembling for the need to bite, to tear something apart, I darted my head around and moved to the wall, raking my claws along the paneling, sending curls of wood flying. Howling once more in rage and pain, the Shrieking Shack would once again register the sounds of terror and pain to the residents of Hogsmeade near by. It's "Ghosts" were once more awake.

In one mighty leap, the large shaggy bear of a dog sprung at me. A shadow in his movements and looks, the black dog siezed me by the throat, sinking long glimmering fangs into me. Heaving his massive body in a spiraling motion, his teeth buried deep into my fur and flesh, he dropped me to the ground in a rather lupine dominance drop. Standing over me, panting heavilly, his gigantic paws pressed hard on my chest, pinned me in place. The black dog gazed at me fixedly, waiting for my eyes to meet his. This had been the purpose of his animagus form, to help me get hold of myself, to keep me under control when I could no longer do so myself. He made a soft sound of comfort to me, a tiny woof and a whine combined as he held me there, waiting for my rage to subside.

Shifting my head, ears pinned back in submission, I looked up at my old friend in the form he had taken to help me through this, and gave a tiny lupine whine. If I could have cried in this form, I would have. I hated this, I truly did. I hated the venomous hatred and fear this form placed in others, and most of all, I hated the solitude that it had forced upon me. But he was here with me, to soothe away these fears, to ease my pains... to help me get through this night.

Sirius wuffled softly once again, seeing that some of the moon madness had subsided within me, then lowered himself to the ground beside me, curling up in a large lump of black shaggy fur. Nestling close to me, offering the comforts of an old loved one. He remained awake, through the night until I slept. A dark shadowed sentry watching over a frenzied wolf, out of respect, out of friendship, and out of love. A gift that I can never repay.

The next morning, he left on Buckbeak again, to where I have no notion. However, I still recieve Owls from him. No matter where I am, and in this gesture, I know that he remains safe, and that I am never alone in the darkest nights or the brightest moonlight.