A/N: Well, I had a couple of ideas about how this particular chapter should go, but I finally decided on the version here. I hope that it's satisfying! Thanks again for all of your continued support. I can't believe this story is 1 follower away from having 100 followers! Please read and review.

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Chapter 34: The Confrontation

A nagging ache woke Remus some time later. Blearily, he tried to sit up and his whole body protested the movement—the adrenaline had worn off a while ago and the effects of his run around the castle, while still recovering, had settled in.

He sighed, realizing he had better return to the Gryffindor Tower before Filch found him. He wasn't looking forward to reuniting with the other boys and the inevitable, incredibly awkward conversation waiting for him, but he knew there was no way around it. Maybe it could wait until morning though? How late was it anyways? Perhaps the others were already asleep? It seemed unlikely.

He stood slowly and, making sure he didn't leave James' book behind, Remus walked out into the hall. He'd become used to the warmth of the strange room and the hallway felt incredibly cold by comparison. It was still dark out, although he had no idea what time it was. He began to make his way towards the tower but he didn't make it far before he was intercepted by Professor McGonagall.

"Mr. Lupin!" she called out from behind him. Remus turned to face her, already resigned to the fact that he was probably going to receive a detention for being out after curfew. Strangely, he wasn't bothered by the thought at all though.

"Oh, thank Merlin!" McGonagall sighed as she reached him. Without a moment's hesitation she flicked her wand and several green sparks came out of it and shot off in different directions. Remus frowned in confusion.

"Where on earth have you been?!" The deputy headmistress looked pale and worried.

"I was just over there," he gestured towards the corridor he'd come from.

"It's nearly one in the morning! Half of the staff is out looking for you!" She scolded.

"Looking for me?" He repeated densely—students missed curfew all the time, he'd never heard of the professors getting involved in what was a Prefect's duty.

"Mr. Potter came to me earlier this evening. He said there'd been a disagreement and that you'd run off—he was very concerned." McGonagall looked frazzled.

"Oh," he replied meekly, shifting the book in his arm to hide the title. He fixed his attention on his feet, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left; it was just a misunderstanding…" Even as he said it, he hoped that it was true and that he hadn't misread the signs.

Professor McGonagall huffed and Remus looked back up at her.

"It wasn't very Gryffindor-like of me to run away…" he added timidly and the deputy headmistress' expression softened ever so slightly.

"You're back now and that's what matters," she replied gently after a moment. "Let's return you to the tower…" As she moved to lead, however, McGonagall froze and took a sharp breath in.

"Mr. Lupin, you're bleeding!" She indicated to his arm. Remus raised it to inspect it with an odd sense of detachment—blood was running down his hand; clearly he'd been bleeding for a while.

The professor grabbed his arm and rolled up his sleeve, revealing the blood-soaked bandage. She sighed minutely and Remus couldn't help but wonder what she'd expected to find.

"This is from Thursday night?" It was more of a statement than a question, but he nodded. "We'll have to make a quick stop to the infirmary then." He didn't protest—the longer he was away, the greater the chance was that the others would have gone to bed; delaying the conversation he was dreading.

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Unfortunately, Madam Pomfrey managed to patch Remus up in a matter of minutes and sent him on his way with only a very brief lecture. Professor McGonagall guided him along, silently.

By the time they reached the Fat Lady's portrait, the werewolf was overwhelmed with doubt: he wondered if they might reject him after all. Remus suspected that his apprehension was showing on his face because McGonagall placed her hand on his shoulder and said, "If you ever feel the need to talk to someone, my office door is always open." Then she stepped back and nodded towards the portrait.

"Fanged Geranium…" He sighed and the door swung open. Remus glanced back at McGonagall once more, hoping she'd come to her senses and take him back to her office to assign him detention, but she only looked back at him expectantly. Begrudgingly, he stepped through the hole and into the common room, he heard the portrait fall back into place behind him.

For a split second it seemed as though the room was empty, but then James' head popped up from behind a couch in front of the fireplace.

"Remus?" He called out uncertainly, then, upon realizing that the boy in question was in fact there, he stood up and exclaimed, "Remus!"

"Huh?" Peter and Sirius' heads also appeared and, faster than the werewolf could react, he was surrounded by the three pale-faced boys.

For a moment they all just stood there, no one quite sure where to begin or what to say.

James managed to find his voice first and blurted out, "Remus, we know about…" he drifted off, apparently uncomfortable with the actual word 'werewolf', he fumbled for a moment, "About your… er… your… furry little problem," Sirius cringed, "and we just want to tell you that we don't care what you get up to on full moons."

Something about hearing the words coming directly from his friend filled Remus with dread, despite the good intention of James' message: it felt so much more real. All three boys seemed to misinterpret his obvious discomfort and James tried to correct the situation.

"Er… what I mean is—" but Sirius cut him off.

"What James means to say is that we do care about what happens to you during the full moon because everything we've read about it says that it's a bloody nightmare, but that doesn't change the way we feel about you."

Remus was speechless. He looked at each boy uncertainly, waiting for them to realize the full severity of the situation, but none of them budged.

"We didn't mean for you to find out the way you did," Peter added.

James and Sirius nodded.

"We were going to wait another week or so—give you a chance to recover from… well, you know…" James trailed off.

There was another long and painful pause. Remus knew his silence was unsettling his friends who began exchanging nervous glances.

"How'd you figure it out?" he asked finally. His voice sounded small and defeated, his heart was pounding painfully in his chest despite his best attempts at remaining calm.

"We just guessed." Sirius said, trying to catch Remus' eye, but he couldn't quite meet any of their gazes yet. He nodded weakly in reply.

"After we found out that you were sick, we tried to sneak into the Hospital Wing late at night for a surprise visit, but you weren't there." James explained, "We thought you'd been taken to St. Mungo's, but the next morning you were there again and Madam Pomfrey told us you'd been there the whole time."

"That's when we started researching," said Peter.

"We couldn't find much. We'd even started looking up Muggle illnesses. When you got sick again in December, we went to the library—there was a book on, well… werewolves" James whispered the word despite the emptiness of the common room, "sitting on the re-shelving cart and something just sort of clicked," he concluded.

"Oh," Remus felt faint.

"We don't mind though," Sirius added quickly, "Honest. In fact, we think that it's kind of cool…"

The daze Remus was in seemed to lift a bit at that statement and his eyebrows shot up.

"Cool?"

Obviously they didn't fully grasp what a werewolf was, but he certainly wasn't about to shatter the illusion for them if it meant he got to stay at Hogwarts.

James gave Sirius a warning look but he ignored it.

"Well, I mean, how many people can say that they've got a werewolf as a best friend?"

Best friend, something about Sirius using the term so casually seemed to finally drive the point home for Remus.

"How can you not mind?" He sounded much meeker than he'd meant to.

All three boys paused and looked confused as if they'd never thought about why they didn't care.

Eventually James shrugged, "Remus, you're still you…"

He eyed James warily; a small part of him still expected to discover that their acceptance was just some cruel joke. Seeing the apprehension on the werewolf's face, James closed the gap and pulled Remus into a tight hug.

"Of course we don't mind."

A small wolf-like whimper forced its way out but rather than James pulling away in surprise, Remus felt Sirius and Peter's arms loop around him as well.

The group hug only lasted for a moment but it was enough to dispel the lingering doubt.

Remus pulled away, feeling as though he would start crying if they said one more kind thing—he hastily reached into his robe pocket and pulled out James' book on werewolves. He handed it to him, not quite managing to meet his friend's gaze.

"Here. Sorry, I didn't mean to take it when I ran off."

James accepted it wordlessly and Remus risked a quick glance at him: he was blushing slightly.

"I hope it's not a library book," he added and James laughed.

"I'm afraid it is," he began flipping through the pages distractedly, "I was planning on saying I'd lost it and paying the fine."

Sirius clapped his hands impatiently, "Well, I'm knackered." The other three murmured in agreement and they made their way up the stairs to the dormitory.

Remus changed into his pajamas quickly in the bathroom. He was quite pleased that the conversation hadn't been nearly as awkward as he'd expected it to be, but as he walked back out into the dormitory, it became all too clear that the conversation hadn't actually ended.

The Marauders were watching him expectantly as he made his way towards his bed.

As he sat down James seemed to burst.

"How old were you?" Remus frowned slightly, not quite sure how to respond. James pressed on, "A couple of months ago you told me you'd been sick since you were little. How old were you when you… er… got sick?"

"I was four," the words came out so softly, he worried that his friends hadn't heard them and that he was going to have to repeat himself—but their shocked expressions confirmed that they'd heard.

"Four?" Peter sounded ill.

"How… how did it happen?" Sirius asked and for a split second Remus saw a flash of a little boy lying in bed followed by a flash of matted grey fur and teeth. But as he tried to focus on the image, it seemed to slip further away from him.

"I don't remember," he admitted.

"So, every month since you were four, you…?" James didn't seem to have the strength to finish the question. Remus nodded silently.

"And it hurts?" Peter almost sounded hopeful that Remus would deny the fact.

"Yes," he replied, hollowly. "Every time."

Shifting uncomfortably, James asked, "Where do you go?"

"To transform?" He nodded. "I go to the Shrieking Shack. There's a tunnel under the Whomping Willow." All three boys' eyes widened.

"Oh…" was all the messy-haired boy managed to say as he, undoubtedly, began making connections to several fairly recent events.

"So, does all the staff know?" Sirius tilted his head curiously.

"No, just Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, and Slughorn. And Madam Pomfrey, of course." He frowned, feeling as though he'd forgotten someone, "Oh right! And Hagrid knows."

James chuckled softly, "Why am I not surprised?"

"That's it?" Peter asked skeptically; he quickly counted on his hand, "Six? Six people in the entire school know?"

"Well, nine now," Sirius corrected.

"You can't tell anyone," Remus added urgently, "If anyone else finds out, I'll have to leave the school."

"Do you think we're stupid?" Sirius retorted, but Remus wasn't satisfied.

"Please, promise me you won't say anything!"

Sirius rolled his eyes but James looked at him earnestly, "We solemnly swear, Remus: we won't tell a soul." Peter nodded enthusiastically.

"So," Sirius continued eagerly, "Do you have special werewolf-y powers?"

"Sirius!" James hissed before shooting Remus a wary glance. The werewolf couldn't help but laugh and James visibly relaxed.

"Honestly, I'm a little curious as well," he confessed, grinning sheepishly. Remus couldn't help but smile along with him.

They didn't care that he was a werewolf. Not one little bit. They were curious; perhaps a little concerned for his wellbeing, but there was no fear, no revulsion, no hatred. He was, genuinely, still just Remus to them—in his wildest fantasies, he'd never even dared to hope for that level of acceptance.

He found that he was actually quite happy to answer their ridiculous questions and did so until the grey light of predawn crept in through the windows, when all four boys finally drifted off to sleep.