There were only four of them in their dormitory, and Peter Pettigrew was the fourth. From their first encounter (during which Peter fell down a flight of stairs and ended up with his nose caught in a suit of armour) Remus felt immensely bad for the boy. Their experiences with him were, for the most part, terrible. Peter was small, round, and weak. His voice was an octave above silence and his beady eyes were constantly jumping from one thing to the next, like a magpie seeking something shiny to steal. Being with Peter was no different to being without him.
Because there were only four of them there was no one else for Peter to attach himself to. And that, Remus supposed, was how Peter joined their group.
It was unfortunate, however, that Peter talked in his sleep, because Sirius desperately wanted to dip his hand in a glass of water.
"I heard it makes you wet yourself," he whispered to Remus from his bed. It was dark, but Sirius's face was still visible. It was a pale, shimmering blur in the dark, one that was stretched in a grin. Remus had quickly learned that Sirius was always grinning.
"Don't," Remus said, not unkindly. He felt the need to defend the sleeping boy because, loathe as he was to admit it, Peter was the least of them. He was the shortest, the quietest, and possibly the youngest. Remus pitied him.
From the bed on Remus's right Peter whimpered something, and Sirius snickered.
"I take back what I said," James grumbled from Sirius's other side, his voice rusty with sleep. "The Hat was mistaken, and you were meant for Slytherin. You're an evil git."
Sirius laughed, and his laughter sounded canine, almost. Like a rough bark. Remus found some kind of poetry in it – Sirius, the dog star. Sirius, with the barking laugh. There was something about it that made Remus smile.
"It's not evil," Sirius said defensively, throwing something at James, "it's just a bit of fun."
"When the dormitory reeks of urine you won't think it's so fun," James replied, and Sirius made a thoughtful sound.
"True," he said eventually in a much quieter voice.
Peter grumbled sleepily, "No... not that one... the other one... yes..."
Sirius was silent. Remus wondered if he'd not heard Peter's mumbling.
"This is taking a lot of self-restraint, I hope you know," Sirius whispered after a moment, and Remus pressed his smile into his pillow.
Remus had no memory of his first transformation. He'd been bitten when he was just a child, younger than young, four years old, or so his mother said. It seemed to him that his entire life had been spent as a werewolf, that there had never been a time when he slept soundly through the full moon.
His first full moon at Hogwarts crept up on him slowly. He knew it was coming – by Merlin he knew it was coming, how could he ever forget, what with the way it was ingrained in him and the way his mother sent him a panicked owl almost every day – but he'd put off thinking about it, deciding that he'd worry about it when it came. He began to feel the tell-tale aches a week before the date, and that was nothing much. An aching back, a twinge in his shoulders, in his knees, a crackling burn through his bones; he was used to just as much. He slept restlessly, tossing so violently that he frequently woke himself or others up. Twice he jolted awake to Sirius standing by his bed, shaking him, asking him if he was alright because he was thrashing about like a madman.
When the time came an owl arrived from Dumbledore, a simple scrap of parchment that read:
Madam Pomfrey will see you after your last class this evening. Meet her in the hospital wing. Perhaps a suitable excuse for your friends would aid you in keeping your condition a secret.
"Mum's sick," he said at breakfast that morning, "and I have to go home for the night. Maybe two nights, if things are bad." He watched the post arrive, the flood of owls swooping and filling the ceiling of the hall. "I leave this afternoon."
"Sick?" James echoed, a crease between his brows. "How sick? Deathly sick?"
"No," said Remus uncertainly, "she's – she's just sick?"
"Good," Sirius said around a mouthful of bacon.
"Good?" Peter repeated in confusion.
"Yeah. Good. It's – it's a good thing she's not dying," Sirius explained. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and smirked at Remus. "Tell her I say hi. No, hang on, tell her I send my love."
"I'll tell her nothing of the sort," Remus replied smartly, noting the vulgar tone, and Sirius tipped his head back and laughed.
He asked James to take notes for him – he wouldn't, Remus knew he wouldn't, James never did, didn't even need them, was smart without trying – and then after his last class he said goodbye to his friends and crept to the hospital wing, trying to be seen by as fewer people as possible.
Madam Pomfrey looked at him like he was a drowned kitten, a soft little dear thing that was lost and needed to be looked after. She smiled at him, introduced herself, and then told him the plan. They'd planted a tree on the grounds – Whomping Willow, he made a note to research it later – and beneath it was a passageway to a house that would be his holding cell until the danger had passed.
"A bit cruel, if you ask me," she said, "but Professor Dumbledore was insistent."
Remus had spent a fair amount of time chained up in his cellar at home, and therefore considered being allowed an entire house to himself during his transformation a great treat in comparison.
They walked across the lawn when it was dark and they were certain they wouldn't be seen by anyone looking out of a window. Madam Pomfrey chattered to him about how she'd been a trainee at the school when his parents were there – ("I remember your father broke his leg in three places after he was dared to slide down the banister of a staircase. It was moving, at the time. Silly boy. How is he these days?") – and how it was her nephew's eighth birthday in a week's time and she was lost for what to get him.
"Here we are," she said once they'd reached the tree, which was as whomping and as willowy as the name suggested.
It swung its branches viciously and with a kind of blind, aimless anger that made Remus hesitant to go anywhere near it, let alone right up to it.
"They've been accelerating its growth," she explained conversationally as it slammed a thick branch into the ground repeatedly, breaking loose clumps of dirt, "and judging by its mood-swings and volatile temperament, I'd say it's reached puberty."
"And so I – I what – I just... walk right up to it? Politely ask it to step aside?" Remus croaked around a nervous lump in his throat.
Madam Pomfrey glared at him – his tone was clearly unwanted – and said stiffly, "You need only cast a spell." She removed her wand from her pocket and flicked it at the tree, saying, "Immobulus!" Immediately the branches froze.
"Come on," she said a little sharply.
They approached the trunk, which was as thick as Remus was tall. An earthy hole big enough for a grown man to fit through was at the base, hidden between the roots.
"Through there's a tunnel, it'll lead you to the Shrieking Shack," she told him simply. "Lock the door after you once you're in there. It wouldn't do for you to get out again."
Remus blinked at her. He had expected her to walk him to the shack.
"Oh, don't be like that," she said in a softer voice than she had used previously, "you'll be fine. It's not a long way."
"Okay," he agreed, nerves burning through his bloodstream like a current through a livewire. "Thanks, Madam Pomfrey," he added.
She smiled at him, and there was pity in her eyes. "I hope it passes quickly."
He didn't reply to her, instead he crawled through the hole under the roots and entered the tunnel, coughing dirt from his lungs as he did.
When his body began to change, when his limbs buckled and snapped into new shapes, he didn't try to stay quiet.
He came back ragged and aching and covered in bruises. Madam Pomfrey cast away the visible injuries, but left the ones that were easily hidden under clothes.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, using a voice more suited to delivering bad news in a waiting room, "the more often you're given a Healing spell, the less potent they become. It's for the best."
He sat in the hospital wing on one of the beds and he kicked his feet like pendulums, back and forth, back and forth. His knees ached badly, but moving them helped distract him from the pain. Madam Pomfrey hovered in front of him, testing his eyesight and his hearing and then demanding he walk up and down the wing in a straight line.
"You'll live," she said gruffly once he'd proven himself able-bodied, and then sent him off with a sad smile.
"See you next month," he called back. It wasn't until the words were past his lips that he realised how upset they made him.
They sat in the common room in the chairs by the fire, Peter asleep and drooling on himself, Sirius flipping aimlessly through a textbook, James reading through his hastily-scrawled Potions essay, and Remus trying to catch up on the work he'd missed in his absence.
"So, how's your mum?" Sirius asked, fatigue leeching the usual energy from his voice. It was a Thursday and they were all verging on exhaustion.
"Huh?" Remus asked, looking up from his work and rubbing his eyes.
"Your mum." When Remus only squinted in confusion Sirius groaned and reminded him dryly, "She was sick. You had time off to go and visit her."
"Oh!" gasped Remus, just a little too late, just a little too obliviously. "Yes! Mum! Oh, she's great. She's – uh – she's getting along much better. Miraculous recovery. Really good. Strong as an ox, even."
Sirius only looked at him, watched him over his book, let him gnaw at the inside of his cheek until the skin came away.
"That's good, then," James interjected sleepily.
Remus nodded, mostly to himself, and then went back to his work.
"Men," said James one day when they were seated at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, "I'm going to marry that woman."
"Not Evans again," groaned Sirius, who was often witness to James's long sonnets about Lily Evans's radiant beauty.
"Always Evan, Sirius," James whispered in reply, his eyes glued to the girl. Remus turned in his seat to watch her enter the hall alongside her friends. "It's love."
"It's pathetic, that's what it is, mate," Sirius sighed, and he helped himself to a piece of buttered toast from James's plate. James was too enraptured to notice or care.
Peter, who was stirring his porridge with a fork, said, "Her hair's nice and red."
"Yes, Peter," James agreed in a drifting voice, his eyes still on Lily who was now glaring at him from the opposite end of the table and shaking her head, "nice and red."
Sirius rolled his eyes and let them fall on Remus with a smirk. Remus smiled warmly and busied himself with eating his scrambled eggs.
"Help me insert my fangs," Sirius pleaded, chasing after Remus with a set of plastic novelty fangs in his hand. They were covered in saliva from several failed attempts at attaching them properly. "I'm useless with sticking charms."
Remus rolled his eyes, sighed fondly, and instructed Sirius to stand still and open his mouth. Sirius did exactly as he was told, and Remus gently helped put the fangs into his mouth before whispering the incantation to keep them in place.
"You look ridiculous," he said once they were firmly attached to his friend's teeth and weren't likely to fall out at inopportune times as they had been all night.
"And you," Sirius huffed, his speech slightly illegible now that there were fake fangs in his mouth, "look like a party pooper."
It was Halloween and Remus hadn't dressed for the occasion, unlike the majority of the school. Dumbledore, in all his questionable wisdom, had decided that a Halloween ball was a fantastic idea and that costumes were to be encouraged.
Sirius had come as a vampire, much to Remus's dismay. He looked more like a Muggle's interpretation than he did the real thing. He'd slicked his black hair down with gel, combed it back over his scalp so it was sleek and smooth, and had dribbled fake blood down his chin so it looked as though he'd just been biting innocents. His fangs, which were far too big, kept him from closing his mouth properly. He wrapped up the costume with a dark cloak with a rather severe collar that made his cheekbones look frighteningly sharp.
"I'd rather be a party pooper than a... whatever Peter's supposed to be," Remus drawled, looking sideways at Peter who was trailing hopelessly after James (who was dressed as an Egyptian mummy, wrapped over and over again in white bandages pilfered from the hospital wing), who was trailing hopelessly after Lily (who was dressed as a troll, complete with an authentic club in her hand).
"Werewolf," Sirius told him, and Remus flinched so violently he bit his tongue, drawing sour blood that pooled in his mouth and made him grimace. "That fluffy thing on his head? It may appear to be a bath mat, but it's actually werewolf fur. He's a dangerous man-eating beast, that one."
"Oh," Remus managed shakily. Hearing the word from Sirius... it had startled him... made him tremble.
I'm a werewolf, he thought, I'm a werewolf, Sirius, I'm a real one. No bath mat necessary.
"I think he nicked it from the dormitory bathroom, but it could just be something he found dead in the forest and decided to strap to his – hey, are you alright?"
"Yes!" croaked Remus very unconvincingly. He nodded a little too eagerly and his vision blurred in response. "I'm just fine! Perfect! Peachy! Uh, peachy? Is that the right word? Peachy?"
Sirius eyed him suspiciously, his ridiculous fangs hanging down past his lips. "I'm going to get you a glass of water," he said slowly, carefully, as though Remus was a wild animal than might bolt at a loud or sudden noise. "I'll be right back. Don't... don't disappear on me, okay?"
Remus nodded, waited for Sirius to leave, and then ran back to the dormitory.
There was only so much he could take before he started having panic attacks.
He woke up in the Shrieking Shack covered in his own blood and struggling to breathe through what he suspected might be a punctured lung. Just my luck, he thought bitterly.
Madam Pomfrey healed him with the same sad look in her eyes that she adopted whenever he came to her. When she was done and the majority of his bruises were gone he thanked her and staggered back to Gryffindor tower, utterly exhausted despite how early in the morning it was. He'd been gone two days, he calculated.
When he entered the dormitory he fell face-first on to his bed before falling asleep, still dressed in his robes and wearing his shoes.
He woke up several hours later to Sirius shaking him, asking him if he wanted anything for breakfast, and was he okay? He looked sick. Should he go and get McGonagall?
"M'fine," slurred Remus, eyes shut, body aching. It still hurt to breathe. "Tired, s'all."
"Okay," Sirius said, sounding less than pleased about the situation. "If you say so."
Remus slept for a full day and when he woke he still ached through his entire body.
"I once read that if you bruise too easily it might be a symptom of a disease, like that thing Muggles get – cancer, or something," James said all-too-casually one morning as the four of them made their way to Potions class.
Remus acted as though he hadn't heard a word James had just said, and inwardly made a mental note to ask Madam Pomfrey about glamours the next time he saw her. He'd have to start hiding the dark bruises over his body, since his friends were no longer oblivious to them.
"Remus, are you being bullied?" Peter asked directly, and Sirius let out an appalled gasp and shoved him.
"Subtlety!" hissed Sirius, and Peter grunted apologetically.
"I'm fine," Remus said angrily, because he was, wasn't he? It was nothing he couldn't handle – it was nothing he hadn't done a hundred times before.
He lay awake in bed, his friends' even breathing assuring him that they were asleep, well past waking up and asking him about his bruises or his absences or the alarmingly dark circles around his eyes left from nights of restless sleep. He raised an arm above his body, freeing it from the warmth of the blankets, and let his fingers flex in midair.
There were bones in him, hundreds of them. He'd heard that the adult body contained 206 bones. He wasn't an adult yet – nowhere close – but one day he would be. 206, all of them holding him together, keeping him upright, keeping him alive.
He flexed his fingers, turned his hand this way and that, and wondered how his bones allowed him to mutate so horrifically once a month. How could something so solid and powerful, something so strong, let him change so drastically?
He fell asleep wondering how many bones he had in his body when he was a werewolf, and when he dreamed that night he dreamed of his screams as his body shifted against his will, as his bones stretched and snapped and aided in his own destruction.
He was in the library finishing his Potions essay when Lily Evans entered, arms laden with books and scrolls of parchment, followed closely by Severus Snape. Remus had long ago learned that Severus wasn't the kindest person in the school, and that there was nothing but hostility between Severus and Remus's friends. Remus himself had nothing against him – his mother had always said to give everyone a chance, hadn't she, not that she'd thought he'd ever have to put that action into practice.
Lily hissed at Severus over her shoulder, clearly perturbed that he had followed her, and Severus hissed something in return. She looked ready to yell at him when she spotted Remus. Immediately she made a beeline for him, with Severus hot on her tail.
"Remus!" she gasped, her voice lighting with something akin to relief. He didn't think they'd ever spoken to each other before. He hadn't realised she knew his name.
"Lily?" he returned, sitting a little straighter and pulling his Potions essay closer to him – she was better than him at Potions and he didn't want her laughing at something stupid he'd written.
"Is it alright if I sit with you?" she asked, already putting her things down on the table. She saw Remus glance at Severus, who was looming over them both like a storm cloud, and hastily added, "Severus was just leaving. Sev?"
Severus – or Sev, Remus noted, looking between them both a little curiously – scowled and folded his arms over his chest. His robes fit him wrong; his sleeves ended halfway down his forearms, leaving his bony wrists exposed.
Satisfied, Lily sat down, let out a sigh, and began to get to work.
Severus showed no signs of leaving. "Lupin, isn't it?" he asked, his drawling voice twisted and bitter.
Remus raised his eyes to Severus and felt his face heat up. "Uh, yes. You're Severus Snape, right?" He felt it only polite to ask him in return.
"Don't play the fool, I know you know who I am," Severus snapped, and Remus balked guiltily. "Lily," Severus continued, looking at her again, sounding almost desperate, "let's study by the lake."
"It's November, Severus! It's freezing outside!" she exclaimed with her bright green eyes were blazing. Remus had to commend Severus for bravery in the face of danger.
Aware that the librarian was watching them cautiously for any signs of disruption, Severus turned abruptly and left. His too-small robes flapped after him and Remus, whose own robes were quite shabby, wondered if he'd purchased his second-hand, too.
"I'm sorry about all of that," Lily grumbled once they were alone, sounding quite embarrassed. She'd abandoned the essay she had in front of her and had her face hidden in her hands. "He's quite insistent."
"You're friends with him, though?" Remus asked, not unkindly. He didn't want to upset her any further.
"We know each other from outside of school," she answered, and Remus was surprised at that, because wasn't Lily a Muggle-born? Before he could ask her anything about it, she continued, "Hey, wait a minute, are you okay? You were absent recently. I thought maybe you were sick."
He shook his head slowly, giving himself time to remember what his excuse had been. "My mum," he said, because he'd reused that excuse with his friends, he'd claimed that her illness had returned, "she's been sick, I was needed at home."
Her eyes softened, and Remus thought he could understand why James liked her so much.
Quidditch began, and James fidgeted through the entire match. Remus thought it was far too cold to be outside and was a shivering mess beneath his Gryffindor scarf and hat. He'd never been to a Quidditch match before – didn't really find it all that exciting – but his friends made it bearable.
"I could've made that," James moaned several times through the game, and Sirius had to pat him sympathetically on the shoulder before he'd stop grieving for the missed goal.
"Try out next year," Sirius suggested offhandedly. "That way you won't get to complain that the team sucks."
"I'd have tried out this year!" James replied sulkily. "And I'd have made it, too! If I hadn't had that damn detention with Filch..."
Remus smiled and accepted a sandwich from Peter when he was offered one. The rest of the match seemed to fly by quickly.
Professor McGonagall came around the common room with a list, writing down the names of the students who were staying for the holidays. Christmas was coming, and Remus was eager to spend it with his parents.
"Are any of you staying?" Sirius asked apprehensively, looking nervous for once. From what he'd told them he didn't have a very pleasant relationship with his family, especially not now that he'd been sorted into Gryffindor.
Remus shook his head, Peter ate a chocolate frog, and James said sympathetically, "Mum'd flay me alive if I did."
"Damn," Sirius murmured, "I'd have stayed if any of you were."
"It's such a shame," his mother whispered, pushing his hair back and kissing him on the forehead like she'd always done. She sounded close to tears. Remus didn't look at her when she pulled away.
His father rocked back on his heels, his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his trousers. "He'll be fine," he told his wife nonchalantly, "he's done this before."
Remus wondered where Madam Pomfrey was. Did she stay at Hogwarts during the Christmas break? He supposed she would, since there was the chance of children being injured during the break. So she'd have to stay. But what about her own family? Did she have any children of her own? She'd never mentioned any, but Remus had never asked -
"We'll be right upstairs," his mother told him through tears, as though she thought that knowing they were within close proximity while he was a rabid beast would help soothe his nerves. For a teacher, she lacked a lot of common sense.
Their footsteps clapped loudly against the cellar stairs as they climbed back into the house. His father locked the door after him, and then Remus was alone in the dark, a cool steel manacle around his ankle and a short length of chain keeping him fixed to a pipe.
He adjusted himself so he was able to lie on the ground and he spread himself out so that when the transformation began, when his body shifted, he wouldn't tangle himself in the chain. It was entirely lightless in the cellar and there was no difference between lying with his eyes open or closed. It was black either way.
His thoughts turned to his friends. They'd sent him letters which had arrived early on Christmas morning. Sirius's had been as long as any essay he'd ever done for school, and Remus wondered if maybe that was how he was spending his time – locked in his room, writing to his friends, wishing he was back at school.
Peter sent him a mince pie, James sent him a large supply of Honeydukes chocolate, and Sirius sent him a book on Greek mythology.
You mentioned you wanted to know more about that kind of stuff, and then I saw this book, and I thought of you, Sirius had said in his letter, and Remus had sat and wondered what it was he'd done that had made him so deserving of such wonderful friends.
His body began to twist then, and all thoughts of Sirius and books were wiped cleanly from his mind and replaced with pain.
His mother's healing spells had always seemed so powerful when he was a child, but now he could still feel the sting in the healed cut on his arm. Madam Pomfrey's -
But no, Madam Pomfrey wasn't there, and what good would it do whining about it? He shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts. He looked at his hands, at the scrapes over his knuckles and the blood caught in the cuticles of his nails.
They were sitting in the dining room, gathered for dinner, and Remus still hurt all over. He looked like a corpse, if his mother's worried glances were any indication, and no matter how many times he washed his mouth out his food still tasted like blood and dirt. He wanted to sleep, wanted to hide away from his parents and their probing questions about his classes, his schoolwork, his friends.
"Have you told them?" his mother asked, looking older and more worried than she'd ever seemed. There were thin lines around her eyes that Remus had never noticed before, and the creases in her forehead had grown deeper. Her hair was lighter in the places where grey was creeping through. She was getting old.
"No," he said. He felt the familiar jolting feeling in his stomach that came whenever he even thought of telling his friends about his condition. He scratched his forearm where a scab was healing and he wet his chapped and peeling lips before whispering, "I'm not stupid."
"No," his father vehemently agreed, sounding like Peter when he finally knew the answer to something and just had to shout it out, "you're not. You've done well. And we're very proud of you." He smiled at him from across the table but his eyes were sad, just as they were always sad. Remus often had the feeling that his father wasn't quite sure how to act around him; didn't know what to say, what to do, how to interact with the boy he'd brought into the world.
His mother, who looked so small now that Remus had seen so much of the world, made a tittering sound like a trapped bird before she said, "So, Remus, tell us about them. Your letters make them sound like a boisterous group." She tried to smile but it wavered nervously and fell flat.
Remus smiled faintly at the thought of his friends and the things he'd wrote home about (and more importantly, the things he'd neglected to share in his letters). "They're a little boisterous, yes," he agreed. He thought of Sirius, of the way he grinned, so sharp and wild, and the way his eyes shone when he was bursting with energy. "They're wonderful," he assured them, feeling a touch defensive. The last thing he wanted was for his parents to disapprove of his friends and ask him to cut ties with them.
The high sounds of their cutlery scraping against their dishes filled the room, and Remus's chest felt tight and ready to burst. He waited for his mother to clear her throat and tell him, croaky and sad, that it would be for the best if he stopped seeing his friends so often. If maybe he distanced himself. Just to be safe. Just in case.
She didn't, though.
"McGonagall still there?" his father asked, not looking up from his plate as he cut his steak.
"Yes," Remus said. He felt relieved, but also dismissed.
He understood what they were doing. They were hoping his friends would leave him before they had to intervene. When each of his letters arrived they probably prayed that this would be the one to tell them about his falling out with his friends. They probably prayed for it.
"Tell her I said hello," he instructed, and Remus nodded with no intention of doing so.
On James's 12th birthday he received an enormous care package from home. It was so full that it bulged at all sides, and when James carefully cut it open it spilled sweets all over his bed.
"I love my parents," he breathed, eyes wide and amazed. He tipped the rest of its contents out on to the bedspread and the flow of chocolates and lollies seemed endless. "This'll last us a month!"
"A month? James, you underestimate us. We can polish this off in a week if we skip enough meals," Sirius told him wisely, coming to pilfer a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans from the pile. He tossed a handful of beans into his mouth and chewed on them with a reckless grin.
"I hope you get earwax flavour," James told him, and Sirius only poked his tongue out. James tossed Remus a box of sugar quills. "Here you go, Remus. Dig in."
"Thank you," he said, genuinely touched. He sounded so sincere that it startled both James and himself.
James offered him one of those blindingly honest smiles he sometimes burst out with, and Remus flushed.
He held the box in his hands and smiled to himself; his chest felt warm and full and his face was prickling hot. He couldn't help feeling as though his life was going perfectly. He had friends. Friends who shared their birthday presents with him. Friends who sent him books for Christmas. He had friends.
They were sitting outside, taking advantage of the surprisingly nice weather. Remus was trying to do his homework despite frequent interruptions from his friends who held little regard for homework or schoolwork in general.
Lily and Severus were sitting across the yard, heads bowed as they read together. James hadn't taken his eyes off them from the moment he'd spied them. He reminded Remus of an animal on a hunt, sniffing the air and waiting for a chance to catch his prey.
"Don't know why she's always with Snivellus," James huffed sulkily. "He's so... so..."
"Unfortunate looking?" Sirius offered lazily. He was lying back in the grass, propped up on his elbows. His eyes were shut and he had his face lifted to the sun like a flower seeking its light. "Greasy? Smelly? Slytherin?"
"Yes!" James agreed, nodding and looking pleased. "Yes, all of that! Greasy and smelly and Slytherin. He's just – he's so gross."
"You sound like you're afraid he's diseased," Sirius snorted with a breathy, sleepy laugh. "Watch out, Evans," he said, mimicking James, "Snivellus'll give you cooties." He disappeared behind chuckles.
"Laugh now," James said direly, "but when Evans is sent to St. Mungo's because of all the diseases he's given her, you'll know I was right."
Remus looked up at Lily and Severus who were now talking amiably, completely oblivious to James's watchful gaze. Remus remembered the time they'd approached him in the library. Lily had sat with him several times since then – she was a great help with his Potions work. However she'd not brought Severus with her since, which was wise, since Remus had the impression that Severus hated him. The last thing Remus needed was for James to start a fight with Severus, which Lily would then scold Remus for not preventing the next time they studied together.
"She told me they know each other from outside of school," Remus said as he chewed on the end of his quill. "They must live near each other or something."
James stared at him with enormous eyes that swirled with a dangerous mixture of emotions. "What."
"She sits with me in the library sometimes," he explained with a shrug. "We talk."
"You talk?" James echoed with astonishment."Why didn't you tell me this immediately?" he wailed, and he shook Remus by the shoulders.
"Hey, hey, hey! Hands off the little guy, he's easily bruised," Sirius pointed out, watching them from between his dark eyelashes.
James released him instantly and Remus glared at Sirius, who only smirked back at him and then shut his eyes entirely and tipped his head back to let the sun touch more of his skin. Remus didn't like them treating him as though he might break at any second. He didn't like them treating him differently.
"I didn't mention it because it didn't seem important," Remus answered eventually, his tone dry.
"Everything about Evans is important, Remus," James moaned with great distress. Then to Sirius he said, "I always just assumed they met on the train, didn't you?"
Sirius didn't open his eyes. "Yep."
James looked at Remus again. "If you value my friendship, you will convince Lily Evans to date me."
"I do, and I won't," Remus replied, fighting a grin. "You're on your own, there. I'll put in a good word, but I'm not about to tell her you're her Mr. Right."
"You're a cruel man, Remus Lupin," James sighed. He ran his hand through his hair and adjusted his glasses, looking morose. He stared longingly after Lily.
"Uh," Peter interrupted, tapping Remus on the arm and looking quite frustrated, "how do you spell 'McGonagall'? I think I've left out an 'e'."
"My cousin Annette's getting married," Remus lied, staring intently at his shoes, "and I have to go. It's a big deal. Big – it's a big family thing."
James snorted and said, "Yeah, weddings usually are."
"But we have a Charms test tomorrow," Sirius reminded him, not that Remus had forgotten – Merlin, how could he? He'd spent weeks studying for the thing.
"I'm going to fail it," Peter said mournfully, and no one contradicted him.
Remus put on a brave face and said, "I'll just have to do it some other time. Flitwick'll understand."
"I hope so," James murmured, watching Remus with the kind of gentle pity that made Remus's skin flush and itch.
That night when he and Madam Pomfrey crossed the yard towards the Whomping Willow, he felt burning worry crawling through his veins.
He spent the next night in the hospital wing because Madam Pomfrey thought his condition was 'concerning'. He felt ill enough to agree with her prescription of a good night's rest, and he slept without complaint.
"You're a growing boy and you're heading into puberty," she began when he woke the next day, still aching and covered in blotchy dark bruises, "so I think we can expect your transformations to be more difficult. At least until you stop growing."
"So it'll be worse for years."
"Only a little," she affirmed, but from the way his joints ached, he worried she was being gentle on him.
He was running out of excuses. He was running out of imaginary cousins, imaginary weddings, imaginary grandparents, and imaginary funerals. There were only so many times his mother could have pneumonia and require his immediate presence at her side.
It was clear that his friends were suspicious. They met his lies with half-hearted inquiries that were more for his sake than their own, and when he returned, battered and bruised and gasping at sudden aches and pains, they watched him with undisguised pity in their eyes.
"You know, Remus," Sirius murmured the night before they were going home for the summer, when the others were asleep and the dormitory was warm and quiet, soft with the sound of sleep, "we'd never judge you. About anything."
"That's good to know," Remus managed to whisper in a warbled voice. His heart threatened to rise into his throat and choke him dead. His fingers clenched at the sheets and all he could hear was the thundering chorus of his own brain screaming.
He knows, he knows, he knows.
Sirius rolled to his side to face him. Remus wanted to close his eyes and turn the other way.
"In fact," Sirius said, sounding cautious, like he knew just how frightened Remus was and just how carefully he had to tread, "we might even understand."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about," Remus lied, pretending to find the whole conversation bemusing.
Remus couldn't breathe around his fear. His friends were going to figure it out. They were going to realise that his absences always coincided with the full moon, that the scratches and bruises all over his body weren't from a clumsiness he didn't possess, that he wasn't the person they thought he was. They were going to leave him, like he'd known all along that they would, because hadn't it always been too good to be true? They'd find out, and he'd be alone again, just like his parents wanted.
"Remus-"
"Sirius," he croaked thickly, the act abandoned, "please don't."
His friend sighed, sounding sad and disappointed. Whether at himself or at Remus, he couldn't tell.
"Alright," he acquiesced gently. "Alright – sure – I'll... I'll drop it."
Remus lay awake until he was certain Sirius's deep, even breathing meant he was asleep, and then he crawled out of bed and rushed to the bathroom to heave into the basin. He threw up twice before his stomach emptied. He clung weakly to the stone basin and tried to breathe evenly. The acidic stink of vomit was thick in the air, and it made him feel even sicker.
He splashed water over his face, and somehow managed to calm down. Eventually, after a very long time of standing still with his eyes clenched shut, he looked up at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
They can't know, he thought. He was unsure if he was trying to convince himself, or if he was trying to make it true. They can't.
"Don't forget to write to me," Sirius reminded Remus once they'd stepped off the Hogwarts Express the following afternoon. "I know where you live, and if I don't receive weekly letters I'll start sending Howlers. Howlers in the plural, Remus. Multiple Howlers. I'm sure mum has loads of blank ones hidden around the house, jammed in cupboards and hidden under piano lids. Hell, she probably has so many she's giving them away. She probably wipes her arse with them."
Remus grinned at him and bumped their shoulders together playfully. "I'll write you daily," he promised. "I'll tell you about everything that's happened since the last letter." He pretended to write in the air with an imaginary quill as he said, "Dear Sirius, today I had a sandwich. It was a little dry. Tomorrow I think I'll have soup instead. I'm wearing grey socks and I have an itch behind my ear. Sincerely, Remus J Lupin."
"On second thought," Sirius teased, "maybe you shouldn't write to me. Keep all that fun stuff stored up and you'll have more to tell me when we see each other again."
There was a sharp call of "Sirius!" from somewhere in a crowd of waiting parents, and Sirius's eyes snapped in that direction. His face seemed to freeze before Remus's eyes.
James, who was behind them struggling with his trunk, asked in a strangely subdued tone, "Your parents?"
Sirius only nodded.
"Good luck," James said solemnly. "If it gets too bad-"
"I know," Sirius interrupted, "and thanks. I'll – I'll write if..." He trailed off. "Well," he said, turning a smile to them all, one that didn't reach his eyes, "I'd best be off. I'll see you around, gentlemen."
Peter waved. "Seeya, Sirius," he said a little sadly.
"Bye," Remus murmured. He didn't know what else to say.
James and Sirius looked at each other for a moment before James nodded his head and Sirius returned the gesture. Remus felt a twinge of jealousy at their easy companionship, at their closeness. The moment of bitter emotion was gone, however, the moment Sirius's face shuttered off again and he turned and left for his parents.
"Poor son of a banshee," James muttered once he had disappeared through the crowd. "I don't envy him, living in that household. They're all insane, the whole lot of 'em."
Remus gnawed painfully on his lip and prayed the break would go by quickly.
TBC