Tomorrow night. Time was cruel in how it relished in reeling in those moments of great fear and growing dread, pulling them ever closer towards the victim, far quicker than the rules of normal time should allow. There had been a month that had separated tomorrow night from the prior full moon, and yet to Remus it had felt like a heartbeat's worth. A whole month, barely a second of freedom in his mind. The days before the transformation were always the worst: the nerves began to build from then, clawing within Remus as though the monster was already awakening and ripping through, biding its time until the full moon shone and it could taste the outer world for those brief hours. It was cruel how time worked; how – despite the month having flown impossibly by – those couple of hours stretched to years of unfathomable pain and confusion. It was cruel how these days leading up to it dragged out every attack of anxiety, every flinch of nerves and every bout of utter dread bubbling up inside him. Remus hated everything about his condition of lycanthropy, but he hated this the most. How his senses (already rather powerful) were heightened to the point where it became painful; how his head would ache as though he'd severely knocked his skull; how the sight of food made him feel queasy and lightheaded, and how every minute that swung by was another stab of worry. It was tomorrow night. The sentence drilled through his thoughts, boding ill for the staggering migraine. Tomorrow night.
Remus watched himself push the steaming boiled potatoes around his plate with his fork, and grimaced. The intensity of gold burned at his eyes, and the scent stormed irritably through his nostrils; Remus turned away, eyes watering. He looked across to the rest of Gryffindor table, squinting at the sheer brightness of everything, and wincing at the sounds. The scraping of cutlery against plates, the chinking of goblets; the all-round cacophony of voices bombarding Remus' mind with their laughter and their cheery conversations. Remus' hands shook with jealousy – how he wished he too could be like them, without any trepidation towards the following night. His teeth gritted in discomfort at the painstaking volume to which the room was relentlessly peaking towards; the blood drained from his face as a wave of dizziness overcame him.
Tomorrow night. Remus returned his dazed focus to his fork. The knuckles of his hands were white, the edges of the silver cutlery digging into his fingers. Remus dropped his fork and regretted it immediately; it clattered sharply against his plate, the sound resonating like the drone of a gong through his head.
Sirius looked across to Remus again, this time in surprise. He'd been sending subtle glances over at Remus to check how his friend was coping. Tomorrow night was the full moon. He and the other Marauders had researched the cycles of the moon incredibly carefully, and it was on nights such as this that they took special care in watching over their furry friend. It was heart-breaking to witness; they tried their best to cheer Remus up with elaborate plans as to what they would do on the night, but, perhaps unknowingly, Remus would become more closed up and separate on the days before the full moon, with the symptoms always standing pretty clear. Remus had just dropped his fork to his plate, after having spent the time thus far swirling the plate's contents around and grimacing every so often, his complexion paling and beads of sweat forming at the brow. He would wince at every particularly grating noise, and Sirius desperately wanted to help, but had no idea as to what to do. At seeing the dropping of the fork, however, Sirius put down his own cutlery beside his half-eaten meal, and ducked under the table. He crawled his way over to the opposite bench, got to his feet and tugged gently at Remus' hand. Remus, on his part, practically obliged; his movements were sluggish and clunky, in that it gave the impression that Remus was half asleep. Sirius knew it to be from the plaguing of overbearing, undesired thoughts whirling around under that head of sandy hair.
James and Peter stood up too, immediately understanding Sirius' actions – for they too had been keeping a close eye on Remus. Together the four of them walked out of the Great Hall, Sirius keeping an arm protectively around Remus' shoulders, fearing that Remus may collapse at any moment, going by his pallid, drawn face.
Remus didn't remember getting up. He didn't remember strolling out of the Great Hall and stumbling up to Gryffindor Tower, and didn't remember being led to his bed and gently sat down. His mind was otherwise occupied. Tomorrow night.
"Remus."
He glanced up, mild surprise temporarily scooting through the clouded misery dampening his mind. He registered the presence of the other three Marauders with a sudden guilt. They should be downstairs eating. Enjoying themselves. Laughing, talking, joking, and planning for future pranks. They shouldn't be here, warily sat around him in silence.
He wanted to tell them; that they shouldn't have to spend their days being so worried about him (much as he appreciated it), that they can return to the Great Hall and that he would be fine to sit up here in their dormitory to cool off for a moment. He opened his mouth to do so – he took a deep breath to steady his thoughts, looked up to the others… and closed his mouth again. He could tell instantly that any excuses he made would be brushed away, simply by their determination to help him out.
Remus was shaking. His hands jittered where they lay, his fingers clenching tightly at his knees and turning white. His limbs were uncontrollable, and he kept blinking and wetting his lips, which were cracked and dry from him biting at them profusely the past couple of days in his pending anxiety. His heart was running too fast for him to comprehend, as though ready to burst out of his chest.
James tilted his head anxiously over at Remus. He glanced towards Peter and Sirius, who were both pale with worry. James got to his feet and strode over towards Remus.
"Hey, Moony," he whispered, patting Remus' hand assuredly. Remus didn't react. James swallowed, frowning at what to do. He pulled out his wand nimbly from where it jutted out of his pocket, and conjured up a stream of bluebell flames, letting them bob harmlessly through the air. Remus glanced up and stared up at the beads of fiery light, but still sat restlessly in a bundle of nerves, shaking like a leaf. Peter lifted his wand up, and directed a colour changing charm to the flames; a calming enveloping of various colours lit up the room, the flames curling mid-air and lapping up the multiple colours at every lazy spiral.
Remus' gaze trailed back to his feet, his form still shaking in a nervous wreck. The bobbing flames diminished at the flick of James' wand, and he looked across to the others helplessly.
Sirius stood up; James and Peter watched him as he made his way over. James shifted back over to sit at the edge of his own bed, whilst Sirius took his place beside Remus.
Sirius slowly wrapped his arms around Remus' shoulders. Remus froze, his whole body suddenly rigid, and yet his expression was still taut with worry and dread. At that, the Marauders gave one another troubled glances. What could they do, if not even Sirius could calm him down?
Sirius, having withdrawn his arms away, suddenly straightened, his face lit up in hope. He got up from Remus' bed – Remus winced at the creak and sudden shift in weight across the mattress – and stood in the middle of the room. For a moment, James watched in curiosity and bewilderment, Peter too. In an eye blink, a shaggy black dog stood where Sirius had previously been; James couldn't help a flicker of a grin surpass his expression. Sirius padded over towards Remus, climbed with a surprising elegance up onto the bed, and lay across Remus' lap. Remus instinctively froze again, staring down in shock; but then his tensed shoulders sank. His expression melted completely, and he buried his face into Padfoot's fur.
James relaxed, glad for Sirius' ingenuity; fingers tapped at his shoulder and James looked up to see Peter stood by him, gesturing for the two to leave the dormitory for a while. James too soon recognised the private moment between two of his best friends, and so quietly left the room alongside Peter.
Remus felt his building dread and worry relieve his shoulders the more he nuzzled his face into the sleek fur. It was so calming to hug the furry form of his friend, to ease away the tension by immersing himself in a coat of luxurious black. Remus wasn't sure whether he had the strength in him to let go of Padfoot, and simply stayed as he was, sighing into the steady rise and fall of Padfoot's form as Remus' heart slowed to a more regular pace, and the surrounding volume dropped soothingly by several notches.
James eased the door open to their dormitory sometime later, allowing himself and Peter to step inside. His gaze immediately swung over to Remus' bed, praying that Remus was feeling more himself and that Sirius had managed to calm him down as effectively as he had appeared to. To his surprise, Remus and Sirius were both still at Remus' bed. James edged closer, and grinned. Remus was lying fast asleep and intertwined with Padfoot, still in dog form. Remus' face deemed an expression of ultimate peace and calm that rarely shone through upon his features, as he lay there, entangled with the great black dog. James would have laughed, had he have stumbled across this on any other occasion, for the sight of the pale, skinny boy next to such a large, black beast of a dog would be hilarious. Instead, here, now, James' heart melted, and he smiled at how right this looked; for the pair to be lying together in such a peaceful, calming atmosphere.
From then on, the only way Remus was able to get to sleep before a full moon was if he was lying with Padfoot beside him. And every time, he would fall asleep with his fingers threaded through Padfoot's fur.