It was very sunny the day that Remus took the bite. Very sunny, and very noisy, and it all seemed surreal. They'd decided to go out to the woods that day, and all four of them together had taken the metro. Sirius had been all a flutter with ideas of the things they could try out in the solitude of the branches.

"Only a few hours on public transit, and we'll be set to go! Then we just hike a little ways away from civilization, and play around all we want!" he'd said. James had been on board with the idea. He wanted to try picking things up "with his mind". Which, of course, meant that protests from either Remus or Peter would have been useless.

The moon was full, and up by five o'clock, right along side the sun. No one had thought anything about it. Remus hadn't, that was for sure. Not until they'd gotten separated, and the noise had all died down.

Remus had looked around in terror for a while, because the sun was setting, and it was getting dark, and he thought for sure he'd be lost for days in the woods. When he'd heard footsteps it had been such a relief he'd run right for them.

The wolf itself hadn't seemed too weird other than the fact that Remus didn't realize there were wolves this close to people let alone all on their own. Then the thing had been charging him, teeth bared, mouth foaming up viciously, and all the air had gotten trapped in Remus' throat.

He didn't remember much after that. Pain mostly. He remembered pain, and then he remembered Sirius helping him up, with bloody hands, and worrying gestures. They were outside the forest.

"-looking all over for you," Sirius had mumbled hurriedly, before using his cell phone to call an ambulance.

For a while, Remus didn't understand who the ambulance was for. It had all seemed so strange, and then he realized that the blood on Sirius' hands was his. That was when he'd started laughing, looking down at Sirius' fingers pressed into the wound to hold all the red in.

Sirius had been chanting things over, and over that didn't really make any sense, asking questions that Remus couldn't answer. When the ambulance finally got there, Remus remembered Sirius telling them, "We'd just gone for a hike in the woods, and we got split up."

They'd classified it as an animal attack, but no one had really believed it was a wolf. Everyone had told him that was ridiculous. Wolves don't come that close to people these days. Wolves aren't stupid. They know better. And they wouldn't just bite a person willy nilly.

Remus only ever started worrying about the wolf being a bit odd when he started to vomit black viscous liquid. That's when he'd asked Sirius to take him home, and never ever tell anyone what had happened here.

Because Remus knew somewhere deep down in his gut that that hadn't been a wolf. They were all right. Every single one of them. It wasn't a wolf.

The next few days had been more than hard. They'd been hell. He told his mother he had the flu, and Sirius took care of him by getting him anything he needed, and disposing of the weird black liquid where no one would find it.

Sirius had known too. It wasn't too hard to hazard a guess when they did magic, and hexed people, and all that. There were a billion google searches done. They watched the entire first season of Teen Wolf to try and get a grip on the situation, but clearly that had been off by miles, and it had only made Remus feel worse because the characters all looked ugly as sin when they "wolfed out" as Sirius put it.

And then it had all kind of normalized. Three days later, it all seemed like a dream. Remus woke up, and rolled over on the bed, feeling the towel underneath him scratch his skin, but none of the pain from his side.

Sirius was sleeping heavily in the chair in the corner, head lolling one his shoulder. It was like nothing had ever happened. He touched the place where the bite ought to be, and it didn't hurt. He wasn't greeted with an open wound. Just a scar. A gnarled, angry scar, with puffy pink tissue that looked like it was at least three months old.

Remus reached down beneath himself, and tugged the bloodied towel off the bed.

"Sirius?"

Sirius made a noise, and scraped a hand over his face. "Yeah?"

"I think it's over."

Sirius' curious eyes peeked out at him from behind his shaggy hair. "You think?"

"Yeah."

He took a deep breath, and stretched. "So what kind of porn do you wanna watch, because I've got a memory stick fuckin' full of stuff I think you'd dig."

Remus took a moment to blink at the other boy. The absurdity of Sirius' thought process boggled his mind, and there was a moment of silence until the giggles hit, and wormed their way up out of his mouth.

Clearly, being a werewolf hadn't changed anything about the way Sirius saw him in the end.

Chapter one: The Bite

It was a normal high school really. Only it had Severus Snape in it, and that certainly wasn't normal. James Hated normal things. Which of course would have made Snape sound not half bad, except he was the was the wrong kind of not normal.

So Snape went in the same category as Mormont College: Absolutely Dreadful. He was there with a whole list of things that fell in the AD category like Sirius' foot oder, and Peters habit of leaving crumbs everywhere when he ate. Or the fact that Lilly Evans had still not agreed to go on a single date with James Potter. Or perhaps even how two of James' friends had been missing for the past two days, and no one could account for it past anything more than, "I heard Remus had a really bad cold."

And while most people would think "no news is good news," having no news about Sirius Black was like the sky just randomly deciding it would be white for a day. It was psychologically detrimental. Especially considering James lived with him.

So when James caught sight of Remus Lupin walking in to school with Sirius, and none other than the dreaded Severus Snape, who seemed to be having a casual verbal row with Sirius, he was more than a bit upset by the whole thing. They should have texted. They should have bloody well called, or perhaps notified him by formal email.

Regardless, James Potter was pissed, and when James Potter got pissed, he moved things with his mind. He moved things like chairs, or dishes, or the little doors on cabinetry. Or if he was in a particular mood, Severus Snape, who was suddenly knocked down by a gust of haphazard wind that seemed to have no effect on anyone else in his immediate vicinity.

Severus looked around wildly before catching sight of James stalking towards Sirius, and Remus in a rage, holding out his cellphone.

"Do you see this?"

"Um," Sirius began, and trailed away, not really sure of what he was supposed to be seeing on James' lock screen.

"Do you see this?" James asked again.

"Yes?" Sirius tried.

"No missed calls! No messages! Not-a-one! Where have the two of you been?"

"Remus got a cold."

"I did," Remus said, clearing his throat.

James cast him an incredulous look. "Are you two fucking pulling my leg, or something? Is there something going on that I don't know about? Did you turn gay for each other over the weekend and take Monday and Tuesday off in order to put your hands down each other's pants or something?"

Sirius' mouth pulled tight across his face, but he didn't say anything. Instead it was Remus who spoke up with a "We can talk about it later James. English starts in four minutes."

"No we can't. No we can't talk about this later."

In the background of James' consciousness, Snape had picked himself up, and was glaring suspiciously at the three of them.

"Remus, you never miss school."

"I'm fully aware of that, and now I have to settle with myself the necessity of my prolonged absence," Remus said, shifting his book bag on his shoulder, and trying to push past James. James tried to put his hand out to stop the other boy, but Sirius caught his wrist.

James stopped, and held his breath for a moment, because out of all of them, Sirius had always been the one most likely to actually, intentionally hurt a person. Remus' eyes bugged out of his head when he noticed the grip that Sirius suddenly had on the other boy, the look on his face.

"Now really isn't the time, mate," Sirius said. James nodded, and pulled his hand back. He was usually the one in control. He was usually the one who called the shots, and had the ideas, but when Sirius was done with something that was the end of it.

Snape laughed softly in the background as Sirius ushered Remus towards the school building, and caught himself pinned with a death glare. He would find himself in a shit storm by lunch, James promised no one in particular.

Sirius, and Remus maintained their odd aloofness all through their first couple of periods, refusing to respond to texts, or questions in the hallway, and Neither James or Peter seemed to be able to break through the silent veneer.

It was only when lunch rolled around, that Sirius showed up, and dragged them into a janitorial closet.

"So, I need to swear the two of you to secrecy right here, and now," he said, refusing to turn on the light.

"On the the Marauders' name, do I swear," they both chanted."

The light clicked on, and they all turned to see Remus standing behind Sirius.

"On Saturday, I got bitten by a wolf in the forest," Remus said.

"That's impossible!" Peter responded almost instantaneously. "Right, James?"

"Yeah, that's pretty unlikely, mate."

"The three of you do magic, can you hear me the fuck out?"

James, and Peter gave a collective sigh.

"Sirius found me, and called an ambulance, and I was checked into the ER at the closest hospital. Everyone told me my story was preposterous, and I knew they were right, but I also knew what had happened."

"That's when he started puking black stuff, and asked me to take him home," Sirius said. There was a dry cast to his words, and his face, and James suddenly knew that this wasn't a joke. He wanted it to be, but it wasn't. Sirius didn't joke around about these sorts of things. Not like this. And there wasn't even a reason for Remus to pull one over on them like this.

"Sirius stayed with me to keep my mum, and dad from noticing. I was sick for three days, and I bled the whole time. Then, this morning, I woke up feeling fine, and the bite was all scarred over."

"Let me see it," James said, pointing at Remus with his chin. Remus pulled his shirt up to show of the gnarled pink skin right above his hip. It looked like something had bit into him, and then shook it's head to try and tear the meat off his bones.

"I'm probably a werewolf," Remus said.

Peter was biting nervously at his nails.

"I mean we don't know anything for sure yet," Remus said, dropping the edge of his shirt back down over the scar. "It could have just been a wolf, you know? Or a big dog?"

Sirius looked grim again. Grim, and pale underneath the yellow light.

"So you're probably a vampire then," James said to Sirius, trying to be funny. Everyone gave him a long, silent stare.

"Nah. I think he'd be a werewolf too," Peter said after a moment.

The look Remus gave them probably could have killed a man.

"Sorry," Peter said to his feet.

"Look," Sirius said. "If he is a werewolf, we need to find a way to keep him isolated by the next full moon."

James had a feeling that that "if" wasn't an if at all.

"How about we buy a dog crate," Peter suggested lamely.

"I don't think that'll do anything, Pete," James said.

"If Remus really wants to get out of one of those, I'm sure he will. We need to find somewhere secluded, and lock him there so he can't get out."

"For now I figure my closet at home will do. I'll go in, and one of you will chain up the door, and put something heavy in front of it," Remus said.

There was a moment of silence at the thought of Remus being stuck alone in a closet all night.

"We'll think of something better, Rem," James assured him.

They found their way back to the cafeteria, and sat down solemnly with their lunches. James didn't even notice Snape, and Lilly talking in conspiratorial tones a few tables over.