The Call of the Moon
Chapter Eleven
"What?"
"Are you a werewolf?"
"No! W-why would you think that?"
The question he had been dreading since the moment he stepped onto the Hogwarts Express for the first time, and the one he had somehow tried to deceive himself into believing might not be asked after all. Had he hidden it so badly?
He felt all three of them staring. The eyes of his friends burning through him as he practically felt the little colour he had drain from his skin.
Remus did the only thing he felt he could do in that moment. Without waiting for anyone to reply, to give him reasons why he was so easy to expose, he scrambled out from under the invisibility cloak and hurtled back toward the Common Room, stumbling over the staircase and nearly trapping his foot in a disappearing step.
Maybe it was stupid. Maybe he was really a coward who didn't deserve to be in Gryffindor after all. But how could he respond to that either way without giving himself away? Running back up to the boy's dormitory he buried himself under his covers, as if he could hide there and they wouldn't know he was just in his bed.
This was it. Not even halfway through his second year at Hogwarts and his cover had been blown. Goodbye magical education, and friends, and any kind of chance he had at a real life. He'd ruined it. He'd said he was ill one too many times. Now he had disappointed himself, and worse, he'd disappointed Dumbledore and proved his father right that it had been a bad idea.
"Oi, Lupin…" He heard Sirius' disembodied voice hiss from somewhere near his bed and then heard the fluttering of a cloak being pulled away. Remus didn't respond, didn't even look at them. He pretended to be asleep until they left him alone and got back into their own beds.
How long would it take before James and Sirius couldn't keep their mouths shut and a rumour started to spread? Or for Peter to accidentally blurt out their suspicions too loud or in the wrong company?
So he avoided them. The first friends he had ever made, and likely would ever have at all, and now he had to pretend he didn't even know them. He made sure he left for meals after they did, so they wouldn't come and sit with him. He didn't talk to any of them in class, and kept his head down, only answering questions directly asked to him by professors. Which unfortunately for him, was quite frequently.
It seemed to work, at least for a week.
A bag dropped down next to him on the bench and James promptly sat backwards on it, his arms crossed and a 'we know you're hiding something' expression on his face'.
"Are you going to tell us or not? Because if it isn't you know what, then it's something else."
"It's nothing. There's nothing. Leave me alone…" Leaving his breakfast half eaten, Remus grabbed his things and stumbled over his own feet in his rush to get out of the Great Hall.
"Lupin!"
Remus sighed and turned around where he had been standing, early as usual for the first period Charms the Gryffindors shared with the Slytherins.
Amycus Carrow, flanked by his twin sister Alecto, both Second Year Slytherins, with the same hooked nose and bitter sneer and each as spiteful as the other was, stood there with his arms crossed.
"Where's your friends? They finally realise what a freak you are?" Alecto sneered and Remus just sighed and turned around again, ignoring them until Amycus shoved his shoulder.
"No don't touch him." He heard Alecto laugh and glared over his shoulder. "You don't know how sick he is. He might cough on you."
"Hey, back off, what did Remus do to you?" A voice snapped and seemingly out of nowhere Sirius appeared, pulling a sour face at the Carrow twins who looked at the shaggy haired boy in amusement.
"Ah, guess that answers the question." Amycus scoffed and reached a hand into his robes reaching for his wand before Professor Flitwick hurried along the corridor towards the classroom, Lily Evans right behind him and glaring at the Slytherins.
"You will only withdraw that wand inside my classroom, Mister Carrow and not before." The professor, small though he was, was clearly intimidating enough for Amycus to back down and huff, glaring at Remus who had said nothing the whole time.
"Not very tough without a bodyguard are you, freak?" He hissed under his breath as the rest of the class started to arrive and the doors opened to admit them. Remus saw Sirius turn to him and open his mouth to say something and immediately avoided even making eye contact. Squeezing into the line of students he took a seat on the far side of the room from where Sirius, James and Peter would sit and pretended to be busy finding his textbook.
xxxXxxx
"I tell you, the only way he's going to say it, is if he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that we know." James murmured, making sure to keep their voices as quiet as possible in the almost empty Common Room. Peter, who had been throwing scraps of parchment into the fireplace bit his lip and shook his head.
"But we don't know for sure. You're just guessing."
"He ran away and hasn't spoken to any of us…or really anyone in nearly two weeks. I'm completely sure it's true." Sirius added and then in an afterthought, "Well…mostly sure…about eighty percent. There's a chance he might really actually be sick and that's not as funny."
"One way to find out…" The bespectacled boy's eyes twinkled behind his glasses and he pulled out a planner from his robes.
"Where did you get that?"
"What? A wizard can't have a muggle calendar…thing?" James asked innocently, looking between Peter and Sirius who were just raising their eyebrows at him. "Alright, Evans let me borrow it."
The eyebrows raised higher and disappeared into their owners' hair and Potter sighed.
"…I borrowed it out of her bag but I'll put it back right after this." He flicked through the pages and pointed at a specific date. "The full moon is this Thursday. We take the cloak and follow him, see where he goes if he gets all sickly again."
"I see no way this could possibly go wrong." Sirius scoffed, looking as serious as his name for all of two seconds before he grinned and nodded. "I'm in, Pete?"
"W-well…" Clearly unsure about the whole scheme, Peter glanced back and forth between his friends. The desire to fit in and belong to a group outweighing his obvious uncertainties about the plan, he finally nodded. "Alright…"
Sure enough, as predicted, Remus scurried out of the last class of the day, McGonagall's Transfiguration class before anyone else, having strategically taken the closest seat to the door. Stranger still, it had occurred to James that none of the teachers ever seemed to comment anytime Remus all but staggered out of their classroom.
"He'll get suspicious if we beat him to the Common Room for the cloak." Sirius muttered, "He always runs up there first before dinner even."
"I know… that's why I grabbed it before." James grinned, sidestepping into an empty classroom and pulling the Invisibility Cloak out of his bag. "Let's go catch a werewolf…or, potentially just find out whatever it is he's hiding that's not werewolf related. But I'd bet a hundred galleons that what it is."
Squashed together under the cloak, Potter, Black and Pettigrew sidled their way through the crowds of students, waiting outside the Fat Lady for Remus to re-emerge last of the entire house.
"He's got a rucksack…what's he doing?" Peter hissed and Sirius clapped a hand over his mouth as Remus paused and looked around before hurrying off down the staircase.
"Be quieter, idiot." Sirius muttered as they followed at a distance, outside the castle and shockingly watched Remus heading right towards the Whomping Willow.
James threw out his arm and stopped his friends on the hill close to the Groundskeeper's hut where the Willow stood proudly, his branches swaying threateningly as Remus, seemingly without fear, drew closer.
"I knew it. That tree only got planted before first term in our first year. It has something to do with Remus." Sirius stared, mouth agape as their mysterious and secretive friend levitated a twig through the branches towards the trunk. Whatever he'd done immobilised the tree and then as suddenly as the tree had stopped moving, Remus disappeared.
"What the…quick, let's go, before it starts moving again." Peter squeaked, and they ran, their ankles and knees flickering in and out of visibility as they sprinted toward the tree just beginning to move again.
"Where the devil did he go?"
"G-guys…the tree is starting to-ah!" Peter screamed suddenly, vanishing from between James and Sirius who wrenched off the cloak and gaped at the ground, a hole in the roots below the tree almost invisible unless you stood directly over it.
"Peter? You okay?"
"Fine…." A squeaky voice came from below. "I think I know where he disappeared…"
James and Sirius looked at each other and exchanged broad grins with each other before sliding down one after the other into the tunnel.
"Lumos…" Sirius muttered and the tip of his wand lit up as they pulled the cloak back over themselves, slowly picking their way down the tunnel.
"Oh this is so much better than finding secret passageways inside the castle." James murmured.
xxxXxxx
Would this be his last full moon at Hogwarts? Would Dumbledore know that his friends were onto his secret and be disappointed with him for not keeping it better? As if he didn't feel terrible already with the full moon ready to rise. Remus looked out the cracked but unbroken window of the shack, up at the sky almost dark.
He was snapped out of his daze staring at the rising moon by the squeak of hinges from downstairs. Whirling around, he ran to the landing to look down at the trapdoor. It surely couldn't be a professor, they must know it was too late now. But it wasn't a professor at all. No, it was much worse.
James Potter was climbing out of the trapdoor, his shoulder invisible where he was clearly carrying the cloak over his shoulder. Right behind him, Sirius, and then Peter last of all crawled out onto the floor. No. No this couldn't be happening. Just when he thought things couldn't have gotten worse, they had.
"Aha! Found him." James grinned up at him, Remus staring wide eyed, his skin clammy and cold.
"So, are we right?" Sirius crossed his arms, "Don't bother lying now, Remus, we know what's up."
"You can't be here. You need to leave now!" He shouted, his voice panicked and louder than he'd been expecting.
"Not until you tell us." James raised an eyebrow, "what is this place, and this is where you go all the time isn't it?"
"Please go…" The young werewolf insisted, starting to feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The moon was rising.
"Merlin's beard, you look like death." Peter added and Remus could feel the gaze of all three of them boring through his skin, quite apart from the burning that really was starting to spread.
The moon shone its first rays of light through a window and he stared in terror at his friends. Pupils dilating and teeth sharpening into points, he dug his nails, fingers stretching into claws right into the balustrade and in a scream that came out halfway to a growl shouted, "Get out!"
"…Yeah, we gotta go…"
The last thing Remus remembered before his human mind completely blacked out and he fell to the floor screaming in agony, was the trapdoor slamming closed.
xxxXxxx
This night was different. The monster was caged, no less confined than it always was but something was different. The werewolf, formerly known as Remus John Lupin, threw back its short snouted head and howled long and loud as it heaved its great body up on four paws. It breathed heavily, drawing great breaths through its mouth and scraping at the floor with its claws. The whole first floor shook as it leapt onto the ground floor and then its head shot to the side ferociously as it caught the scent. The scent that drove the bloodlust of werewolves, the only thing the beast craved. Human flesh.
The floor. The scent was somehow coming through the floor. The wolf roared hungrily, furiously and snapped at the floor, its claws scraping desperately and in vain straining to find the source.
Howling in frustration, it paced angrily, hurling itself at anything it could break.
An hour passed, before the tantalising smell of human blood became far more tangible.
The beast paced upstairs, growling deep and gnawing at the remains of a rat that had long since been dead. Then its ears pricked up, its snout lifted and it sniffed the air. Close. It was closer now.
Slowly the wolf stalked, one paw at a time as it sniffed, hunting after the smell it craved desperately. Then it heard it.
"Holy crap…"
Its head snapped to the side, halfway down the stairs and staring at the spot the noise had come from. It heard movement, it smelt blood but it saw nothing. Growling menacingly it lunged for the spot anyway, teeth flashing and claws scraping against wood as it found nothing.
Something clattered and it whirled around with a roar, snapping at the air and feeling the wisp of something brush past its muzzle.
xxxXxxx
Remus groaned, every part of him shaking as he slowly woke up, the sun beaming through whatever cracks it could and somehow managing to be directly in his eyes. Everything hurt and ached, his bones cracking and clicking as he slowly sat up. His mind too fuzzy to remember anything at first.
Someone cleared their throat and Remus froze, his head still down staring at the floor and arms trembling as they tried to hold himself up. Slowly he lifted his head, looking up with a sick feeling that had nothing to do with being a werewolf. Standing in the crumbling doorway, their eyes wide and arms crossed were James, Sirius and Peter. And then everything came washing back in a harsh wave of reality.
"So? Ready to talk about your hairy little problem?"
He remembered. He remembered everything. He remembered them bursting into his hiding place with the invisibility cloak and demanding answers. He remembered Sirius diving back down through the trapdoor as Remus' claws burst through his fingernails. There was no doubt now that they knew. He was ruined.
But now, with his energy completely drained and hardly able to see straight, it was all Remus could do to groan and hide his terrified expression until a pile of curtains.
"I'll l-leave…" He stammered out, his voice hoarse, and muffled by the pile of dusty curtains. This was how his magical education was going to end. His secret exposed and leaving himself humiliated. "I'll leave, but p-please don't tell…"
"You'll what?" Sirius snorted and he heard the floorboards creak as someone knelt down. James pulled the curtain off his head and raised an eyebrow.
"Are you kidding? This is…awesome!"
He had to have heard wrong. Or else James had knocked his head on something and was even more reckless than Remus had given him credit for.
"Say what now?"
"We're friends with a bloody werewolf, how cool is that?"
Before Remus could say anything the trapdoor creaked below and he stared at them in panic.
"That's Madam Pomfrey, you can't be here…"
"Relax, Remus…" James clapped him on the back and a few seconds later, he, Sirius and Peter all disappeared from sight.
Until she left, Remus' panicked eyes kept darting to the wall where the three boys had vanished under the cloak. Drinking his tonic to ease the pain and hungrily demolishing the near raw sausages on his plate he let out a sigh of relief as his sensitive ears heard every click and creak as the trapdoor closed again.
A few moments later Peter pulled the cloak off them and the three grinning boys reappeared just as Remus was pulling out his chocolate from his rucksack.
"Oh I knew it. I was one hundred percent sure right away." Sirius grinned toothily at him, a gesture which Remus, in his present state of illness and fatigue, could not return.
"He was eighty percent." Peter corrected and raised his eyebrows at the glare Sirius shot him.
"Whatever, the point is…this is amazing, why would you want to leave?"
"How long have you been one?"
"Do all the professors know?"
Remus closed his eyes and held his head, the shakes had slowed down and his body was calming down, but his mind was reeling as fast as a Nimbus at all the questions.
"I don't want to leave. But it isn't a secret anymore."
"Uh, why?"
"You don't think we'd tell do you?" James asked, popping a piece of Remus' breakfast into his mouth and spitting it straight out. "Well…that's raw bacon…"
"Yeah I…prefer it that way…" He muttered completely embarrassed by that and slowly looked up at his friends. As interested and downright fascinated as they all looked about the whole thing, they also all looked completely serious. "You mean…you wouldn't tell?"
"Remus….whatever your middle name was Lupin." Sirius crossed his arms and sat down backwards on a broken chair. "We're your friends whether you accept that or not."
"We'd never tell, buddy." Peter added.
"Yeah, you can always trust us." James nodded and stuck out his hand to Remus who was so overcome with how genuine they were being he couldn't stop the exhausted smile as he shook James' hand.
"You mean you're not scared of me? My father told me that's what would happen."
"Of you? Not in the least. I mean that wolf was kind of terrifying as hell last night but-"
"That's because you're too curious for your own good, Sirius. I told you not to go up again."
"And I did not listen, Pete. Kinda stepping on my point."
xxxXxxx
Keep his secret, they did. And not only that, but they would steal out of the castle to visit him and give him company on the days following the full moon when he was still confined. Peter took full responsibility for brining Remus his homework and classwork he needed to catch up on. A voluntary effort that both James and Sirius scoffed at, and stood firmly in their belief that being a werewolf was a damn good excuse for not doing his homework. Also their belief that Remus was crazier for wanting to stay ahead in his classes than he was for being a wolf.
The next two months were the easiest they had ever been for Remus. It was as if the terrible burden that he would carry as long as he lived was made slightly more bearable just to have a few select people he didn't have to hide from. Friends. Real ones who knew, and kept, his most terrible secret and didn't care that he was a monster.
When anyone questioned why they hadn't seen him in the hospital wing when he claimed to be ill, someone would back up his story for him now.
Though none of them had said a thing, or left any trace that they had been there with Remus in the shack, Remus had a feeling that somehow Dumbledore knew anyway. He had caught his electric blue eyes once or twice at a meal, sure the Headmaster had directly been looking at him. Maybe he'd kept his own secret poorly, or maybe, it had been Dumbledore's wish that Remus would make friends so true that he could share it with them and not fear the consequences.
Likewise, he knew was the greatest wish his mother had for him. His father however, would be terrified if he knew that more people outside of their family and the trusted professors of Hogwarts knew the truth. So for that reason, Remus neglected to mention it. For the entire remainder of the school term.
"So, on a scale of one to dragon, how furious will my mother get these holidays? Any bets?" Sirius cheerfully tucked his hands behind his head and leaned back in the compartment. "I'm thinking at least two threats to throw me out once she sees what I've got planned for my bedroom."
"What would that be?" Remus asked without looking up from his parchment with his exam results which he had looked over quietly proud four times now.
"Emblazon the whole thing in red and gold. I mean…I can't use magic outside of school and I'm not very good at Sticking charms yet so she'll rip it all down….but that just means I can put it back up again."
James chuckled, pushing his glasses up his nose and playing with his wand.
"You should all come around sometime these holidays. My folks would probably love it but you know, can't please everyone." He offered with a grin which both Sirius and Peter matched but Remus just grimaced at.
"My parents probably won't let me."
"What? Because of your…condition? That's stupid, you can't even visit your friends?" Sirius scoffed, although he knew perfectly well his parents would never allow a Black to visit a bloodtraitor family like the Potters, pureblood though they might be.
"You don't really know my father, he doesn't even like taking me to Diagon Alley."
"You didn't tell him that we know, did you?" Peter asked and Remus cringed and looked out the window.
"Pettigrew's right, you didn't."
"He'll hate it. He'll say 'I told you it wasn't safe' and might not let me come back." Remus muttered. He understood, to a point, where his father would be coming from but that didn't mean he had to approve of it.
Ignoring the frowns of his friends he said nothing else until the train slowed to a crawl into Platform 9 ¾. Together the group heaved down their trunks and clumped off the train behind Annette Negrescu of Hufflepuff and Quirinus Quirrell of Ravenclaw.
Remus' father was the first to greet them, clapping his hand, shaking slightly on Remus' shoulder. He looked even greyer than he had in the Christmas holidays.
Before he could so much as say a word, he was flanked by his three friends all of whom were grinning at his father.
"Mister Lupin?" James pulled out all the charm a Potter could and slung an arm over Remus' shoulders. "I'm inviting my mates here over to visit in the holidays sometime. Would you let Remus go? He said you wouldn't."
"James what are-"
"Shut up, mate, I'm talking to your dad since you haven't."
Lyall's thin lips got thinner and Remus could feel the exasperation in his father's eyes as he looked at him and then at the other boys. "You said that, Remus?...I'm sorry, Jake…"
"…It's James actually."
"Dad, I have three friends, how can you not remember their names?"
"-James then…I'm afraid that Remus will be having quite…busy holidays, there may not be time to allow for visiting friends."
"With all due respect, Remus' dad?" Sirius put his two sickles in and clapped Remus on the back. "You don't need to worry about him. His secret couldn't be safer."
I may have had a really, really great time writing the other three Marauders in this chapter.
Do please let me know what you're thinking of this story, or any suggestions that you may have, it really lets me know that people are enjoying it!