All his life he was used to going through this insufferable pain all by himself, he got used to that, it was the normal, it was his destiny, he was resigned to that and he knew he couldn't change it.
But then for one glorious year he didn't have to do that anymore, he had his three truly best friends with him during that dreadful time. They stood by him and helped him stay sane and under control, hell, they even made it almost.. fun to transform, as unlikely as that might sound, but they really did, and he no longer dreaded the full moon so much, he actually looked forward to it, if he was being honest with himself. For one glorious year, Remus Lupin did not have to suffer as much as he usually did during the full moon.
As good things go, however, that didn't last for long; soon, the year came to an end and the four of them had to part, and Remus now only had the gloomy prospect of a lonely full moon to look forward to.
Two weeks had passed in the summer vacation and the full moon was two days away and Remus had never felt more miserable before "That Time Of The Month" ; he really didn't want to even think about having to go back to facing the full moon on his own but now with just two days away he could see no way around it…
It was mid-day and Remus was sitting in his second-storey bedroom in his bed with a book open in his lap, but he wasn't reading, he was lost in thought, despairing over the inevitable when, suddenly, he heard a loud bang in the back yard of his house, the sound of someone cursing, and the voices of several people conversing noisily, but he couldn't make out any separate words.
For one tiny moment, he thought they might be some muggle robbers, but the thought was dismissed immediately; if they were robbers they wouldn't come in the middle of the day and they most certainly wouldn't make so much noise as whoever it was in the yard was making. He also knew that they could not be muggles, if they were, would one of them yell at another because he stepped on his "wand"?
As he reached the back door, he was almost sure he knew who it was in the back yard, but he couldn't believe it. He didn't know how they could've gotten there or why they did.
He opened the back door and stepped into the yard, and sure enough there they were, James, Sirius and Peter right in the middle of the yard, and between them stood Sirius's precious motorcycle.
The sight of them was comical; Peter was on his hands and knees searching avidly for something, James had one leg on the ground and the other flung over the side of the bike ,apparently stuck, and Sirius was trying to steady his bike against all the pushing and pulling and keep it from falling sideways. They all stopped dead as they heard the door crack open, but they all relaxed almost immediately as soon as they saw it was Remus.
"Hey, Moony. What up mate?' Sirius greeted him casually as though it were normal for all three of them to have flown there on Sirius's bike; as though that happened every day and was old news.
"What are you guys doing here?" Remus demanded, astounded but ecstatic all the same. He hadn't realized he was smiling broadly until Sirius grinned back, looked at James and said "see? Told you he'd be pleased to see us". He then turned back to Remus and, still grinning, said, "Well, Moony, I've become aware of the fact that the full moon is just two days away and so I turned to Mr. Prongs with whom I live these days, and I said to him: 'Mr. Prongs, the full moon is around the corner and it would be quite callous to let our dear Mr. Moony go through it all alone'. And of course Mr. Prongs agreed with me and said 'right you are Mr. Padfoot, as you always are obviously'", James smacked him lightly on the head after he succeeded in disentangling himself from the motorbike. "And so," Sirius went on, ignoring the interruption, "We went and collected Mr. Wormtail and..voila, here we are".
"You didn't have to do this you guys, not that I'm complaining, but you didn't have to go through all this trouble just for me."
"Just for you?!" James demanded, incredulous, "Moony are you out of your mind? What are friends for if not accompanying their werewolf best friend when he transform and has no control over himself and is most likely to bite his friends' heads off?!"
"You insult us, Moony!" Sirius said in a theatrically hurt tone, "how many times do we have to tell you this so you understand? We're like the Three Musketeers from that Muggle movie we once saw. We're just the younger, cooler, more handsome, more awesome wizard version, and we're four, and we're called the Marauders. But still, the same concept applies; one for all and all for one.." He trailed of and grinned broadly once more.
"We're brothers in arms, mate," James said in agreement, and Sirius stepped away from the bike, after making sure it wouldn't fall, walked towards Remus and hugged him tightly before the other two Marauders joined into the group hug..
"Okay, okay, enough hugging now." James said sarcastically as he pulled Sirius and Remus away from each other, "Or I will be scarred forever by the not-so-welcome thoughts the pair of you are working so hard to plant in my head!"
All four of them burst into a booming fit of laughter, and it was a few minutes before Remus was able to pull himself together and invite his friends inside.
"You know mate, you shouldn't be so fast to invite people into your house like this," Sirius started, his voice grave. "Yes, what if we were all bitten by vampires and had come here to get you to join our ranks as monsters of the night," James continued, his voice just as grave.
"Well, in case you've forgotten, I'm already a monster of the night, as I'm pretty sure 'werewolf' is included in that category," Remus replied. For a moment, James and Sirius looked at each other, afraid that they'd said the wrong thing; but to their relief, Remus smiled and went on, "and plus, I thought you might be smart enough to notice that the sun is shining bright and clear outside, apparently you are dimmer than I thought!"
The four friends started laughing again, and it was easy for all of them to fall back into a pattern of action they were all so used to; having fun and doing stupid things with their friends and not having a care in the world..
The two days leading up to the full moon were two of the happiest in Remus's life, excluding all their time at Hogwarts which would forever be incomparable. They did all sorts of crazy things, wreaked havoc in Remus's muggle neighborhood and left the Muggles in shock; more than once they almost broke the decree for underage magic. They drove his parents out of their minds with their crazy endeavors, and they(Remus's parents) had to get used to almost having the house blown up several times a day..
And then it finally came, the evening of the full moon.
"I cannot believe that I'm about to say this," Sirius said dramatically, "but I wish we were at Hogwarts right now."
"You got that right, Padfoot," James agreed "The Willow and The Shack make the whole thing a lot more fun."
"And you two wouldn't have had to Confundus my parents to get them out of the house," Remus said, glaring at the both of them, his tone full of accusation.
"Well, we weren't about to tell them that the three of us are animagi, obviously" Sirius tried to reason with him. "And we're not supposed to know about.. Your furry little problem," James added helpfully, "so it really helps when they believe that the full moon is two weeks away".
"You could've at least given me a heads-up before doing it." Remus said defiantly, for he could see their logic.
"I think confunding your parents was a great idea," Peter said, staring at James and Sirius in awe.
"Would you have let us?" Sirius asked him, ignoring Peter, and giving Remus a skeptical look.
"No" Remus grumbled obstinately..
"Great," Sirius said cheerfully, "So we all agree that what Prongs and I did was the best solution"
"You broke the law" Remus burst in exasperation, "You could get expelled for this!"
"Like the Ministry will ever know!" James scoffed, "That's why we used you parents' wands to confundus them. See? That right there is our loophole; they can never prove it was us who performed the spells."
"Dumbledore could" Remus mumbled.
"Well, old Dumbledore isn't here now, is he?" Sirius demanded, sounding a bit impatient.
"No, he's not" James said loudly in an overly cheerful voice, "Now, can we please go over the plan again and make sure we've missed nothing?" he gave Peter a pointed look at which he piped loudly 'When the moon approaches its apex, we'll all go to the basement, we'll reinforce the muffling charms that Moony's parents have already cast down there, and then the three of us will change right before he starts to transform. But before that we're going to lock the basement's door and then after we've changed you and Padfoot will test it to make sure it won't give in if Moony attempts to escape.' he recited quickly, and then stopped to catch his breath.
'Right, but you forgot the most important part of the plan.' James told him, sounding a bit regretful. 'What's that?' Remus demanded, 'I thought he got everything.' He sounded very confused.
'Oh, come on guys' Sirius said 'have you met me and Prongs, like ever? Obviously the most important part is having FUN!' 'Thank you Padfoot,' James sounded relieved, 'At least there's still one sane person in here, besides me of course. How many times will we have to tell the pair of you that the primary goal of this whole thing is having the most fun possible, given the circumstances.'
'You mean, given that I'm about to turn into a murderous beast that could easily bite any of your heads of?' Remus demanded sarcastically.
'See?' James asked Peter 'now, that's the spirit, Wormtail.'
'Hey, hey, why am I always the one in the wrong?' Peter asked, sounding hurt.
''Because you're always the one who's wrong,' Sirius replied uninterestedly, 'we've got to get going guys,' he said, looking out of the window, 'it's almost time'.
'Yeah, let's go,' James looked at Remus who was growing paler and paler with every passing minute.
They reached the basement with only a few moments to spare before the moon was full. They performed all the required spells, and then James and Sirius changed and started attacking the door with as much force as they could muster. When a few more moments passed and the door didn't break, they turned around just in time to see Remus start to transform.
For a fleeting moment before he changed, Remus couldn't help but think just how lucky he was to have such amazing friends, and he knew deep in his heart that no matter how out of control he gets when he transforms, never, not even in his darkest times, would he be able to bring any harm to the three people standing before him.
His last thought before the wolf took over was of his friends..