Author's note: the virus has hit my county so I told my boss I am self quarantining to protect my mom, so there will be an extra chapter out sometime this week! Probably Wednesday. Hope everyone is staying safe!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

After Defense Against the Dark Arts, the four Marauders puttered around trying to figure out what to do when suddenly James snapped his fingers. "We need to make plans. Mandrake plans, I mean."

"We need a name for the mandrake plan," Sirius said brightly. Of course as the one in the group who was the worst at naming things he immediately followed up with, "I can pick one—"

"NO!" All three Marauders shouted.

Sirius pouted. "Jerks."

James decided that the best thing for their mandrake plot was doing some recon with the greenhouses. They burst outside, nearly crashing into a group of older Gryffindors who began complaining at them being so rowdy.

"You're why we lose so many points!" one of them said.

James spun around, walking backwards, a big grin on his face. "Check the hourglasses, buddy-boy, we got Gryffindor thirty points in one class." He whirled back around, strutting off with his friends following, snickering. Remus glanced over his shoulder, seeing the older Gryffindors scowling. He smiled then hurried forward as they went around the castle towards the greenhouses. There were seven of them, as well as a huge round greenhouse attached to the actual tower.

The Marauders sat on and around a large rock several yards away from the greenhouses so they could get a proper lay of the land while looking hopefully casual. There was a large group of Slytherins and Ravenclaws going into Greenhouse Five, none of which seemed to notice them. The way the greenhouses were laid out put Greenhouse Three very close to the wall of the castle. There were windows looking out over the greenhouses but because of how close Three was, it'd be hard for anyone to see anyone going in and out unless they had their faces pressed up against the glass.

"Are they kept locked?" Peter wondered.

They stared at the greenhouses then Remus got up, walking over, ignoring their furious whispers to get back here! He kept going up to the door then cautiously put his hand on the door. He twisted, pushing the door open. He smiled back at his friends then went inside. It was weird being in a greenhouse without the class, without Sprout.

A venemous tentacula sat by one end, its vines reaching out towards him. He skirted around one of the table, going deeper in, keeping his eye out for dangerous plants. He had to hop back several times and crashed into a table at trying to avoid a very vicious looking flower trying to spit something at him. Finally he reached the back where the mandrakes were kept.

Am I really doing this? he wondered as he approached the tables. He wiped his sweaty palms off on his trousers then took one of the small pots, not even thinking anything else as he slipped it into his bag. Then he saw a shadow outside the greenhouse. Swearing softly, he put the pot back onto the table and quickly left, more sweat soaking into his clothes.

"What are yeh lot doin' here?"

It was Hagrid, surveying the three boys who were standing near the greenhouse now, then at Remus coming out of the greenhouse. The other Marauders looked rather horrified but Remus just smiled, pulling his Herbology book out of his bag.

"I f-f-forgot this in class t-today," he said, waving the book a little.

Hagrid smiled, shaking his head. "Yeh need ta be careful, the greenhouses are dangerous."

"I know, I was very c-c-careful. I just d-didn't want to wait until Sp—Sprout was done with her other c-class, since I have an essay t-to do."

"All righ' then, back into the castle, all of yeh."

"Yes, sir!" James and Sirius chorused, then promised they'd come see him over the weekend. Then all four of them headed back to the castle, Remus in the back, his heart pounding hard in his chest.

"I found out one thing," he said quietly as they reached the doors. "The pot fits well in my schoolbag. Should be easy to take."

"You didn't take it?" James asked incredulously. "You had it right there!"

Remus sighed, marveling a little at his friend's stupidity. "No! I didn't know who was outside the greenhouse! Even with lying about my book like that, I'd be the suspect if a plant went missing!"

Sirius began nodding. "He's right, he did the right thing. We'll have to use the cloak, I think. That way nobody will see us around there." Then he flashed a grin at Remus. "That was bloody brilliant though. Just walking in, cool as a cucumber. Very impressive."

Remus smiled rather shakily, still feeling scared of what could have happened, still feeling scared of what they were intending to do. He hoped to be able to convince them to abandon this plot however figured it wouldn't work. They were determined. So, he'd help them. And hopefully not get caught.

/\/\/\/\/\

The first lesson back with Miss Fawley was a disaster, at least for Remus. He had been able, at the end of his first year, to slightly resist her mental pushing. Not much, just enough for her to notice. However that was completely gone. Plus after only two attempts he had a violent headache again. He wound up crying because he felt so stupid and inadequate. Fawley rested her hand on his shoulder, promising him it was fine, it was to be expected, blah-blah-blah. Remus didn't really pay much attention, he was too furious with himself. Plus she asked him, once, if he was hit over the summer which infuriated him even though he knew she'd probably ask. His parents loved him, they didn't hurt him, and the few times Lyall did physically hit Remus it was for a reason. Discipline. Which Remus deserved. So he lied and said no, hoping she wouldn't see it in his memories the two times Lyall had smacked him during the summer holidays (both of which he probably deserved). Thankfully she didn't as he tried to focus mostly on the past couple days, however he couldn't offer up any sort of fight against her probes into his mind and they wound up cutting the lesson a little short since Remus got so annoyed.

He went back to the Gryffindor tower, tugging at the hem of his vest, muttering about how dumb he was. Only two months... only two months! And what tiny progress he made had ebbed away like the tide at the beach. It would come back eventually except what if it just went away? What if it was constantly like a wave? What if he couldn't sustain this much-needed ability? What if one day he met a legilimens who looked into his head and saw him as a wolf?

At the tower he struggled getting into the common room since the hole was raised up off the floor. He usually had trouble, quite often falling on his face. Like this time. He got to his feet, rubbing his temples as noise assaulted his sense of hearing. Someone had turned the radio up pretty loud which meant the general chatter was louder than normal too. He trudged across the floor, intending to bury himself in (or under) his bed but in his dorm was also loud music, as well as his friends being quite rowdy. He rather wished he had nicked a pair of those silencing earmuffs from Herbology...

That night he had his first real nightmare since arriving back at school. There was music playing, getting louder and louder, irritating him rubbing him the wrong way, pushing him until the wolf burst out of him, going on a rampage to stop the painful sounds. He had just dug his claws into a faceless student when he woke up with loud gasps and shuddering cries, soaked in sweat. He pressed his hands against his face, hoping he hadn't woken Sirius up. He listened carefully for a moment then slid out of bed, quietly padding into the bathroom to wash his face off.

When he looked in the mirror he immediately recoiled. He looked worse than he expected. The dark smudges under his eyes looked like bruises, his thin hair clung to his skull from the sweat, and he was definitely pale. His fingers skimmed along his cheekbones, wondering why he looked so awful with being in the middle between the moon phases. Stress? Depression over the whole Occlumency thing? His fingers brushed against the dark circles then he pushed away from the sink, returning to bed. He tossed and turned a lot, taking forever to get back to sleep. He didn't get much sleep at all so was exhausted and extra grouchy throughout Wednesday despite the fact they didn't have class first thing so they were able to sleep in. His friends were able to tell he wasn't in the best of moods so they didn't bother him too much. At lunch Remus slept, not eating anything which didn't help his mood though he did feel more rested. He wound up not eating much at supper, instead he scarfed one sandwich down before going to the library to start working on one of Prewett's essays.

"You doing all right?" Lily asked when she came in just before six.

"Huh? Yeah..." Remus rubbed his face, yawning loudly. "I didn't sleep well last night."

"You got ink all over your face."

He looked at his ink-splotched hands then sighed, shaking his head. "Perfect."

Lily sat next to him, noticing the word at the top of his parchment. "Why are you writing an essay about gytrashes? We don't have one like that, do we?"

"No... it's..." He rolled the parchment up quickly, shoving it into his bag. "It's nothing." He felt a little awkward confessing to her about what Prewett was doing for him, worrying that she'd view it as unfair. He was beginning to think it was completely unfair, feeling rather guilty for this opportunity. "My own thing."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Because you're not already the smartest in our year, you have to write essays about things we aren't even learning about." She didn't sound very annoyed at least. More amused than anything else. At least she didn't bring it up in front of the others.

That night he stayed up late to finish it, having a good excuse with James and Sirius wanting to explore the school again under James's cloak. This time they invited Peter along. They asked Remus too but Remus declined, stating he wanted to do some homework instead. Sirius called him a nerd before they left.

The Marauders returned at around two in the morning however Remus stayed up a little bit later to put the finishing touches on the essay.

/\/\/\/\/\

"Did you get any sleep last night?" Lily asked. It was the next morning and Remus slept through breakfast, jerking awake at her question.

"A bit..."

"What did you do?" He just yawned, rubbing at his face, feeling something sticky. He quickly grabbed a napkin to wipe at the jam. "Remus, you still have ink on you. From last night. You didn't get a shower?"

"I forgot."

Lily gave him a scathing look. "What were you even doing?"

"Homework." He took a bite of his toast though wasn't really tasting it.

"We don't have that much homework."

He didn't reply, just chewed silently. He had a whole month to finish the essays for Professor Prewett so why did he feel the need to finish them as soon as he could? He had four of the ten done, including the hardest one. He'd be able to finish the rest over the weekend. He had hoped to be able to hand in five to Prewett today but four would do. He just... needed to know he could do it. That he wasn't as godawful at Defense Against the Dark Arts as he spent his entire first year thinking. There was something about the curriculum that pulled at him. He had loved the books, just despised the teacher. Maybe with Prewett it'd become one of his favorite classes. Be interesting to see if it beat out Transfiguration, although the main reason Transfiguration was his favorite was because he liked McGonagall so much. If they had a better History teacher, he'd probably like History of Magic the most.

"Remus!" He jumped at Lily's voice. "It's time for class," she said.

He looked at his hand, at the half-eaten toast. He just dropped it onto his plate, wiped his mouth off, and followed his friends outside to the greenhouses. He felt rather guilty as they went in, as if Sprout could guess he had been snooping around the other day however she just went into their lesson which had nothing to do with mandrakes but Remus was on edge the entire time, knowing it was going to be worse after they actually stole the plant.

/\/\/\/\/\

Defense Against the Dark Arts had a lecture from Prewett about a variety of creatures, then he tested out their skills much like he had Remus, Peter, and Nettle. Only this time he told them what spells to use on the dummy. He went alphabetical order, so Sirius went first who did well over half the spells with ease, a handful of them with trouble, and a few of them he couldn't do at all. Once he finished Prewett let him leave early. Colgate went next, then Inkwood, then Remus who did every spell although some of them took some effort.

Remus left class, relieved to see Sirius waiting. Soon Magpie left, McNab, Nettle, then finally Peter came out.

"How'd you do?" Remus asked.

"N—not that bad actually," Peter admitted. "I was able to do seven of the spells."

"Hey, not bad!" Sirius said, holding up a hand for a high five which Peter gladly gave.

James soon strutted out, suggesting they go do some pranks on someone but Remus mumbled that he needed to talk to Prewett. "About what?" James asked.

"Stuff," Remus said, fiddling with his sleeve. "I'll catch up with you."

"We'll wait with you," Sirius said.

"You d-don't need to!" Remus protested.

"We don't mind," Peter said brightly, the others agreeing. They sat down on the bench across from the classroom door, passing the time by naming spells they knew alphabetically. James said a spell, then Sirius, then Peter, then Remus, then back to James, all of them trying to go as fast as they could. Sirius was trying to think of J spell when Spinnet came out, eyeing the four of them suspiciously.

"Jelly-legs curse," Sirius said and Spinnet quickly retreated.

"That's not the spell itself, you lose," James laughed.

"Aw come on, I can't think of any J spells!" Sirius protested. "I bet there's none!"

"Jubilius," Remus said rather lazily.

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "That's not a spell."

Remus pulled his wand out of his pocket. "Want me to prove it? It's a spell that makes you happy. Jubilee."

"Hmph. This is a dumb game."

"What about K?" Peter inquired.

They all looked at Remus who ducked his head. "Klackum. Makes your shoes noisy."

"Yeahhhh there's no point playing this against Remus, he'd win every time," James said.

"Brains," added Sirius, smiling though.

Struthers came out a few minutes later then finally Twycross who, like Spinnet, looked suspicious at the Marauders just sitting there. Remus hopped up, knocking at the door, going in at Professor Prewett's voice.

He was putting the dummy back in its corner. "Ah, Mr. Lupin, can I help you?"

"I—wanted t-to turn these in," Remus said, fumbling for the four rolls of parchment. Prewett accepted them with a frown. "The, um, essays. F—four of them, I'll—I'll have the r-rest by Tuesday, I expect."

"Didn't I say you have until the end of the month?" Prewett asked.

Remus looked at his feet. "You d-did. But I got those done. I, er, f-figured I might as well hand them in. Haveagoodday!" He rushed out of the classroom, a touch afraid he'd be lectured for handing them in so quickly due to the fact Prewett's brow was furrowed pretty deeply. As soon as his friends saw him going so quickly they immediately jumped up, hurrying along with him, wanting to know if he had done something to cause trouble. "No," Remus said as he slowed down. "I just worried I annoyed him."

"Just because Dedenne didn't like you doesn't mean he does," James said, assuming that's what was going on. "He doesn't know your father, does he?"

"No..." Remus wasn't sure whether or not to tell them about this. Finally he decided to share. "I saw him on Sunday."

"You never told us!" Peter squeaked.

"I—I wasn't sure whether or not to do so," Remus confessed, guilt eating away as three sets of eyes bore into him. "It was about my grades from last year. It... it embarrasses me. He—he t-talked to me about—well, he offered me a chance to change my grades from last year."

"WHAT?!" All three of them spun around to gape at him openly now.

Remus felt increasingly uncomfortable. Perhaps he shouldn't have spoken, kept this inside. "He knew it w-was unfair. How she treated me. Um, graded me. He g-got permission from D—Dumbledore to offer me an opportunity to make up for them. That's wh—why I've been doing so much homework, he assigned me some essays to do this month." As he spoke he thought it wasn't fair. Pete didn't get good grades in this class yet he wasn't being offered this. Ugh, he shouldn't have said anything!

All three of them spoke at the same time. "That's great!" from Sirius, "Merlin, that's awesome!" from James, and, "Wow, that's so nice of them!" from Pete.

They all pat his shoulders, congratulating him, none of them sounding bitter about this event which sent relief flooding through Remus's body. Even Peter was grinning. Actually, so broadly that Remus realized one of his teeth was missing. Remus mentioned this and Peter replied it had been his last baby tooth.

"I feel so dumb for still having one," he admitted.

"My brother still has two," Sirius said which cheered Pete up. "I only just lost the last of mine about a year ago."

"I still have one!" James said, opening his mouth wide to point at one of his teeth.

"I l—lost mine a while ago," Remus said, awkward since he suspected the reason his had fallen out so early was due to the wolf, and the stress his teeth went through transforming each month. Luckily his adult teeth had grown in pretty quick afterwards which was also probably due to the whole werewolf thing—regeneration, and all that.

James began poking at his baby tooth then stopped, squinting suddenly at Remus. "Wait, if he gave you all month why have you been obsessing on getting them done so quick?"

Remus just shrugged. "I wanted to."

"Nerd," Sirius said. "You looked awful yesterday, though. Don't overdo it."

"I won't," Remus promised.

"Hey! Potter!" a voice called from down the hall. A group of older Gryffindors. Remus tensed up, expecting a fight, then realized it was the Quidditch girl. Bell. She approached their group, eyes sparkling. "Saturday at ten?"

"On the dot!" James replied excitedly. "Are there a lot of signups? I haven't checked."

Remus pressed his lips thin, trying not to snort. That was a rampant lie. He knew for a fact that James checked the piece of parchment in the common room at least three times a day, making comments about those who had put their names down.

"We've got about a dozen right now," Bell replied, "and I figure if it goes at this rate probably at least four more before Saturday, likely more." She glanced at her group of friends then bent in. "None as good as you, though."

Remus swore he could see James's head inflating. "Yeah well," James said, trying to sound modest as he mussed his hair up. "I guess we'll find out for sure Saturday!"

The fifth years headed one direction while the second years headed another, James swaggering quite a bit. A tiny part of Remus hoped there'd be some good competition just to knock him down a peg however, despite his lack of Quidditch knowledge, he did know that James was really, really, really good. He had read the book James gave him for his birthday (Quidditch Through The Ages) but it hadn't really soaked into his brain much. James's tryouts would be the first time really watching anything Quidditch-related. He'd probably wind up going to some practices, and of course the three games. He sighed a little as they walked, hoping the games wouldn't happen at the same time a full moon was going. He knew James would understand him being sick... he just didn't want to draw so much attention to him not being there.

/\/\/\/\/\

The Marauders' plan to steal the mandrake that afternoon was dashed when they went outside to find the door wide open and several older students inside tending some plants, badges on their robes proclaiming they were from the Herbology club. The boys quickly returned to the castle, hoping they'd have time to next day. Peter suggested during lunch but James shot that down, insisting he wanted to try the broom-up-the-girls-stairs thing during that time.

"Why not during supper tonight?" Pete asked.

"More students likely to be at lunch than supper," James pointed out, ending the short discussion.

They were just about to go up a flight of stairs when they were stopped by a voice again, this one younger, this one calling out for Sirius. They turned to see Regulus coming towards them. A brief smile flickered on Sirius's face before it went neutral.

"Heya," Sirius said, running his fingers through his hair. "How's it going?"

Regulus eyed the other three then averted his gaze to the floor. "May we speak alone?"

"Al—? Sure. Uh, yeah, come on." They traipsed off towards a side corridor where Remus could still hear their murmurs. Not all of the words, just a few snatches here and there. Remus, Peter, and James sat on the stairs waiting for Sirius while Remus tried his best not to listen in. It had something to do with the fight on Sunday, with Snape, Wicket, and Fox. There was something about 'mother' which caused Sirius to say 'bollocks to her' and Regulus to snap back at him to 'stop with that attitude'. Their voices raised and judging by James and Peter's faces, they could hear some of it too.

"I'll stop when she stops!" Sirius snarled out.

"I'm only trying to HELP!" Regulus snapped back.

Peter coughed, turning away, face going red. James jumped to his feet. "Let's wait at the top of the stairs," he suggested then without waiting seized Peter's shirt and Remus's shirt, yanking them to their feet. They clamored up the steps, but Remus could still hear the two brothers arguing. He wanted to put his hands over his ears however since the other two couldn't hear anymore he didn't want them to know he could. Regulus informed Sirius that he was 'only hurting himself' then Sirius said something that made Remus's blood run cold.

"Wow! All this time I thought it was them hexing me but it's been myself all along! Congratulations, Reg, on figuring it out!"

What did that mean? Surely he didn't mean... he couldn't mean... Did Sirius's parents... hex... him...? Hurt him?

"You don't have to be such a—a—a brat!" Regulus squeaked. "I'm only wanting to help you!"

"And you don't have to be such a boot licker but here we are."

Remus cringed back as Sirius appeared in the hall, storming up the stairs, face white with fury. Regulus stepped out of the side corridor, face also white, staring at Sirius's back. His eyes met Remus's gaze, some pink appearing in his cheeks as he quickly spun around, fleeing the other direction.

"Everything okay?" James asked having not heard those last bits.

"Dandy," Sirius growled, tugging at his tie, undoing it, ripping it off. "C'mon, let's go" He continued on without even waiting, leaving his friends to scramble after him.

Remus stumbled along, cold dread trickling through his body, confusion clouding his head. He wanted to vomit. It wasn't hard evidence but—but—now he truly did suspect that Sirius was being what Fawley accused Remus of being. Hurt, by his parents. Physically hurt. That's what he alluded to, right? His head ached trying to sort through this new information. If it was true, what did he do about it? Maybe it wasn't true? Maybe it was a misunderstanding? Like with Fawley, and Remus's father disciplining him. Maybe Sirius just meant hexing him metaphorically? Maybe he meant—he couldn't—

Remus clutched his stomach, knowing asking Sirius would end in a disaster, wishing he had the courage to do so.