Emma stood at the sink in the girl's third-floor lavatory, staring at herself in the mirror. She looked terrible, but she didn't feel as bad as she looked. Emma stared at the dark circles around her eyes and sighed. The night had been miserable in the dorms, and she was tired of getting sick every month. The weird potion that Remus had her take again really did wonders for how she felt but didn't help how she looked. She could do with a nap, and she wondered if Remus would let her leave class early for a kip. It was a double, and surely he wouldn't mind if she left half-way through.

She frowned as she leaned forward on the sink. It had been a long time since she had let Persephone cut her hair. As Emma stared at herself, she had to concede that it had gotten far too long. Emma made a mental note to ask Persephone to cut it for her over the weekend. She didn't trust herself to do it herself, and she didn't need Remus to have a fit. She could almost hear his voice in her head as he scolded her for touching something sharper than a butter knife.

Tilting her head quizzically, she lifted her fringe, wondering if she should grow it out or keep it. She dropped her fringe and fixed it with a frown. Out of curiosity, she parted it to the side. After staring at herself for a few more moments, she decided that she would leave her fringe and just start parting it to the side to grow out. It was rather cute.

The lavatory door suddenly burst open, causing Emma to let out a yelp as she flinched back from the noise.

"I can't believe him!"

Hermione Granger was pacing the floor at a frantic pace, an incredulous look on her face. It seemed that she didn't even realize someone was in the room with her until she finally froze, pointing an accusatory finger at Emma. "You!" Hermione practically roared. "I can't believe you!"

"Er, pardon?" Emma asked, watching Hermione in the mirror for a moment before turning to the very frazzled witch. Hermione immediately pointed her wand at the door and locked it with a muttered spell. "What's going on, Hermione?"

"Professor Snape! He was teaching for Professor Lupin today. I told him that we weren't studying werewolves yet and then he took points away from Gryffindor and I –"

"Wait, back up a moment," Emma said, crossing her arms over her chest. "My dad wasn't teaching today? Werewolves? Hermione, what are you on about?"

"Of course not. Why would he be teaching?"

Emma raised her eyebrows at Hermione, finding herself at a loss. Remus not teaching was news to her. "Why wouldn't he be teaching?" Emma scratched her head, turning to look at herself in the mirror again. "Maybe he had to do something with my grandfather today…"

"Wasn't there a full moon last night?" Hermione asked, exasperated.

"Yes, and what's your point?"

"My point is that Professor Lupin – your father – is a werewolf. That's why Professor Snape was teaching, wasn't it? It's obvious, and I want to tell everyone, but I can't! He's brilliant, but he's a werewolf. And I certainly don't understand why you never said anything!" Hermione continued pacing, still ranting on and on about Emma and Snape and Remus.

If Emma's heart wasn't caged in her chest, underneath her ribs, she was sure that it would have burst out of her body. A chill ran down her spine at Hermione's words. Emma had always thought that she knew the truth, but hearing someone else say it made her uncomfortable. She still had her suspicions, but Remus never said one way or another. To have the information come from Hermione and not from Remus? That stung in a way that she didn't expect. If Hermione was telling her, it had to be true. Hermione was very rarely, if ever, wrong.

Emma swallowed hard against the lump that had formed in her throat and turned herself around to look at Hermione. She gripped tightly onto the sink behind her.

"Hermione, I'm sorry," Emma said slowly, watching as Hermione skid to a halt. "What did you say? Did you just say that my father is a werewolf?"

Hermione stared at Emma, the gears in her brain turning as she tried to process what was happening. Clearly, the conversation she rehearsed in her head was not what was not going to plan, and Emma had just thrown her off completely.

"I…well, yes," Hermione stammered, her eyes wide in surprise. "But you knew that, didn't you?" Hermione continued to stare at Emma, taking in her blank expression. After a beat, Hermione gasped and covered her mouth. "You didn't know?"

"Well," Emma said slowly, looking down at her feet. "I think a part of me had figured he might be – especially after our first year – but he's never said that he is." She frowned as she noticed a brown rat scurrying across the bathroom. It had to be another student's rat that had gotten lost, and Hermione's exhausted sigh answered that.

Hermione rushed over to the rat and scooped it up in her hands. "Ronald really needs to pay more attention to you, Scabbers," Hermione said quietly, running a finger over the rat's head before turning back to Emma. "You live with him! I would think he would tell you."

"Yes, you would think that he would, but that would only be if he was a werewolf," Emma scoffed. "What makes you think that he's a werewolf? Other than the full moon being last night, of course. Of all of the things that you could suggest, this is the most outlandish thing I've ever heard."

"Well, he wasn't in class today," Hermione started, looking away from Emma and running through her thoughts. "Professor Snape assigned us an essay on the werewolf chapter and I –"

"He probably had to do something with my grandfather today," Emma repeated, taking a deep, shuddering breath. She would think Remus would tell her such a thing if that was the case. "It's just coincidence that the full moon was last night."

Hermione looked at Emma as though she had been slapped across the face. "You can't tell me that you don't see it," Hermione said quietly. "You've lived with him for nearly three years, and you don't think that he's a werewolf?"

Emma turned back around and looked at herself in the mirror before turning her gaze to Hermione's reflection. Emma tried to channel the coolness that Remus sometimes had, wanting desperately to appear impassive. "How positive are you that he's a werewolf?"

"Very," Hermione said. "I have no doubt…"

"Tell me why."

"Well, he's been sick around the full moon, hasn't he?"

Emma scoffed at the notion. "Yes, but so have I."

There was a slight flicker of fear in Hermione's eyes, and she quickly averted her gaze. "Are you a werewolf?"

"Hermione, I think I would know if I was a werewolf," Emma laughed. "I assure you I'm not turning into a bloodthirsty wolf every month. I'm absolutely positive that I would know if that were the case."

Hermione nodded slowly, barely meeting Emma's eyes. "You know his Boggart is the full moon, right?"

Emma didn't, but that meant nothing. She had a perfectly reasonable explanation, "And you know he was attacked by a werewolf, right?"

As soon as the words left Emma's mouth, it sounded incredibly stupid. She knew he was attacked by Greyback, but he was very deliberate in not telling her when he was attacked. It was clear to her that his evasion to her questions was so that he didn't have to tell her it was during the full moon. Her thoughts immediately went back to the morning they sat at the kitchen table, and he showed her the extent of the scars on his arms. Remus's scars were caused by cursed wounds…Greyback had been transformed.

Remus was a werewolf.

Emma met Hermione's sympathetic gaze, and she leaned heavily against the sink. "He's a werewolf," Emma whispered, almost to herself. It was the first time she had ever said it out loud without being able to deny it. She quickly straightened up in a panic and pointed a finger at Hermione.

"You can't tell anyone, Hermione. I need you to promise me that you won't say a word of this to anyone. He…he deserves to have that secret. He's a really good man. If people were to find out, I don't know what would happen to him."

Hermione looked torn as if she wanted to desperately tell everyone. The rat in Hermione's hands seemed to have completely relaxed and finally stopped squirming, almost as if he was listening.

"Hermione, please," Emma pleaded. "You know how he is. He wouldn't dare hurt anyone. He's nothing like how the books make werewolves seem. He's not…he's not a monster like Greyback is. This is the happiest I have ever seen him, and he needs to be here – I need him here. Please – if not for him, then for me."

Silence stretched between the two witches, both unsure of what to do. It was tense, and it was incredibly uncomfortable, and neither wanted to back down. Emma's loyalty would always remain with Remus, but Hermione had a desire for justice. If Hermione felt that Remus shouldn't be allowed at the castle just because of what he was, that could be an issue. Emma just hoped that Hermione's need to see what was best for people would prevail. She was a Muggleborn, so she wouldn't have been raised with the prejudices against werewolves. Emma just had to believe Hermione could see reason and hold true to that Gryffindor loyalty and be faithful to her friendship.

Even though their friendship wasn't as close as it could have been, they had been each other's first magical friends. The two witches shared an experience that only two people thrown into an unfamiliar situation could.

"Okay," Hermione said quietly. "I won't tell anyone…"

Emma let out a sigh of relief, pressing a hand over her heart. Her fingers found the small sun pendant on her necklace, and she pulled it between her fingers. She was the sun. She was the sun because he wanted to escape the moon. Such a simple declaration made last Christmas made so much more sense. It gave her a much deeper understanding of his gift choice.

"Thank you," Emma whispered. "Really, thank you."

Hermione worried her lip and tucked Scabbers into her pocket. "You really didn't know that he was a werewolf?"

"I wasn't sure," Emma said quietly, turning back around to look at herself in the mirror with a frown. She inspected the dark circles around her eyes. Why did she get sick around the full moon like Remus? "I thought maybe it was a possibility, but he's my father. Who can honestly look at their father and be able to think of them being a werewolf?

"Why were you looking up werewolves so much in our first year, then?"

"I was genuinely trying to figure out who Greyback was. Remember? You were the one who told me where to look to find out who he was." Emma turned back around with a huff. "I came across a few things that might have matched up with Remus, but I just wanted to find out who Greyback was. I think I've known since then, but I can't see it – my father being a werewolf? It sounds ridiculous."

"But it's true…"

"It has to be," Emma said quietly, meeting Hermione's gaze. "But tell me why else you think he's a werewolf."

Emma felt incredibly ill by the time she finally left the girl's lavatory to go to class. She was late, and Hermione had left at least a half-hour before to make it to her next class on time, but Emma stayed. She needed some time to process her thoughts.

He's a werewolf, he's a werewolf, he's a werewolf.

The words repeated through Emma's head as if her life depended on it. It was a broken chant, a mantra to the new confusion that she was experiencing. Her thoughts were spiraling quickly out of control. A part of her had always known the truth, she had seen the signs herself, but now she couldn't deny it. After listening to Hermione, she had no doubts. After hearing how the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw class went, Emma was sure that this one wouldn't be any better. Snape was trying to make it was glaringly obvious to everyone else.

Emma had always been able to easily write off Remus's quirks as something else over the years. She had readily accepted Remus's disappearances as work-related. She had figured that he would get sick from his lack of sleep and overworking so often. It was logical, and it made all the sense in the world. After all, she certainly got sick from not sleeping enough, so why wouldn't he?

Those were the easiest things for her to explain to herself, though.

Remus always seemed to know when something was amiss, almost like having a sixth sense. He seemed to always pick up on how her emotions changed, sometimes before she even registered them herself. He was always anticipating her next move, ready to step in whenever he was needed. Emma thought of his avoidance of chocolate, very rarely indulging in the sweet when she offered. She thought of the way he winced at particularly harsh scents and thought of how easily he seemed to navigate in the dark. Remus had a terrible habit of forgetting to put the light on sometimes, but she chalked it up to knowing the house. There were a lot of things she could quickly write off, but the real explanation made things much more apparent.

An involuntary shudder crept through Emma as she remembered how angry Remus was when she and Persephone went out the night of the full moon. The look on his face had been twisted with an anger that she had never thought possible from the generally sweet man. A part of it had to have been Greyback's intrusion, but what if there was a much darker reason for his anger? What if Remus had wanted to bite her?

"You're late, Lupin," Snape said sharply when Emma finally made her way into the classroom.

Emma sat next to Persephone and fixed Snape a sneer as he paused his stalking through the aisles. "Woman issues, professor," Emma retorted. It was the last thing she wanted to say out loud, but it was the only excuse she could think of. Her nerves were already making her shaky and agitated, and she wasn't really in the mood to deal with Snape for the next hour and a half. "I wasn't expecting to see you twice today. Don't you have your own class to teach?"

The look on Snape's face was pure revulsion, which filled Emma with glee. "Yes, but my sixth years can handle a class period reading from a book," Snape drawled. "As it would turn out, you're all completely useless in this class and need all the help you can get. Although I don't have much hope. Turn to page 394."

Persephone gave Emma a look, watching as she slowly flipped to the back of the book. "Are you all right?" Persephone asked under her breath. "I thought you were on the potion?"

"Fine," Emma answered quietly, frowning as she reached page 394. "Decided to stop taking the potion…It was making me sick."

Both complete lies, but Emma wasn't about to correct herself. If she was going to need to keep Remus's secret, she was going to have to start to learn how to keep her own. Remus being a werewolf didn't change how she felt about him. Still, she knew that other people's opinions would change quickly. There had been such a wave of unexpected anger in Quirrell's class when he taught them how to clean werewolf inflicted wounds. Her classmates did not like werewolves.

As they carefully mixed dittany and silver together to learn the proper ratios, she listened to her classmates. Several of the boys said that they would gladly kill a werewolf if they met one. She had seen first-hand how people hated werewolves, only offering a half-hearted agreement because she didn't understand the animosity. Werewolves were human every other day of the month – why were they being judged on the one night they couldn't control? It wasn't as though people went around getting bit on purpose. Though she was scared of werewolves herself, her fear was based on a single person, and that was Fenrir Greyback.

If people were to find out that Remus was a werewolf, she didn't want to know what would happen. At least half of the people in the very room she was in would turn against him. They would hear the word werewolf and shut him out as if that one fact alone made him a completely different person. Remus was always going to be Remus to her. If she had to lie to every single person she knew to keep Remus safe, she would do it.

Even though Hermione had already prepared her for the lesson, it was still jarring to read the words 'Werewolves – Man or Beast?' She took a deep breath, looking up to meet Snape's dark gaze.

"Were you planning on teaching, professor?" Emma asked bitterly, mildly alarmed at the sudden rage that she felt. "Or were you planning on just standing there all day?" There was a sharp intake of breath from someone, and the quiet mutterings began.

"Quiet," Snape said sharply to silence the class, his eyebrow quirking up. "I suggest you bite your tongue, Lupin, or else you will be joining me in detention."

Emma really couldn't understand what possessed her, or what was going through her mind, but she was angry. She leaned forward on the desk, and mirrored Snape's raised eyebrow, and spoke words that she never would have said if she was thinking rationally. "My father will hear about this," she said, trying to keep her voice level. Emma could hear the shocked murmurings of the class, but she couldn't back down. Not now.

Snape glared back at Emma, his lip beginning to curl, but to everyone's surprise, he said nothing in response. He understood her threat loud and clear. He walked to the front of the class and stood behind the desk, his hands planted in front of him as he scowled at the class.

"Easy there, Emma Malfoy," Persephone hissed under her breath, giving Emma a swift kick under the desk. "What's your deal?"

The lesson was mostly unremarkable as Snape lectured. Emma could barely pay attention; her mind still too focused on her conversation with Hermione. This was all things that Emma already knew but had mostly ignored. She was starting to get aggravated with Remus the longer the lesson went on. Why didn't he tell her? Why was Hermione Granger the one to come to her in an absolute snit and tell her that Remus was a werewolf? Granted, Hermione had no idea that she was there, but still. It just didn't make sense.

She had given him so many opportunities to tell her the truth, but he never did. He just went along as if absolutely nothing was amiss. Would he have even admitted it to her if she had been brave enough to outright ask him? Emma couldn't be entirely sure, and that worried her. How far was Remus willing to go to not tell her?

The general mood shifted as the chapter moved along from identifying a werewolf to killing them. The chapter shift was the point that Snape decided to break out the projector, and Emma refused to look up from her book.

"Lupin," Snape said sharply, forcing Emma to look away from her book and at Snape. She had already pushed him several times that class, and she didn't want to test him further. It was best for her to just give in to whatever he wanted. The last thing she wanted was detention with the man. "I seem to recall that you were heavily researching werewolves in your first year. I would imagine you would be knowledgeable about the beasts. I imagine you're so knowledgeable that it would be almost as if you've lived with them before. Tell us, how do you kill a werewolf?"

Emma felt her blood run cold as she glanced at the photo showing on the screen. Snape was really trying to sell the illusion that werewolves were absolute monsters with finding gruesome images to display. "Professor?"

"The fact I need to repeat my question has proved how utterly useless you, in particular, are. How does one kill a werewolf?"

If Hermione's explanation didn't make things obvious, Snape's obvious contempt would have done it for Emma. Was this a schoolboy grudge like Remus had been telling her, or was this evidence of the issues people had with werewolves? She wouldn't put it past Snape for it to be both, and now she was singled out, and it was disgusting. Emma could respect Snape's potions skills, but she could no longer respect him as a person.

Emma took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, glancing over at the office door. She desperately hoped that Remus wasn't listening at the door. Emma couldn't let Snape win, not when he wasn't in his own classroom. This was Remus's domain and damn it, as annoyed as she was becoming with him, she would defend it. The last thing she wanted to do was explain how to kill a werewolf, but she was a Lupin. Lupins were stubborn.

"There are three guaranteed ways to kill a werewolf," Emma said, clearing her throat. She could get through this. "Two methods are more effective than others."

"And what are the methods of executing a werewolf?" Snape drawled each word out for maximum emphasis. He was trying to get under her skin, and Emma knew it. She scratched anxiously at her arms with a slight frown. Perhaps he already had.

"The first method is by removing its heart," Emma said. "Although when you're dealing with an angry werewolf, this method is difficult. Often this method involves the other person being bit or killed, but there are known records in history of this method being effective." Emma felt her throat tighten. She didn't want to continue being in the class, but if she left, she knew it would make people suspicious. Maybe if she could force herself into thinking about Greyback, this conversation would be much easier.

"What is the second method?"

"D-decapitation."

"Why?"

"It-it's arguably more effective than removing a werewolf's heart, but just as difficult," Emma said, her voice shaky. The more she tried to pull Greyback's twisted smile up in her mind, the more Remus's face showed up instead. Persephone put a hand on Emma's knee, picking up on how uncomfortable she was getting. The thoughts flooding through Emma's mind were terrible, and she could only hope that it was all coincidence. Hermione had to be wrong. Remus couldn't be a werewolf; he just couldn't.

"And what is the final method of execution?"

Execution. It was a very deliberate word choice on Snape's part, and it only fueled the sick feeling Emma felt.

Emma took in a deep breath to try and steady herself. The only thing that worked in her favor was her aversion to talking about death in any capacity. Everyone in that room would be thinking of her suicide attempt. It helped that she had a minor and unexpected meltdown when she made it to Remus's class the Friday prior. Snape had been antagonizing her over her incident last term the entire class, and she completely lost it when she made it upstairs. This was just another Friday in Defense.

"The final method is waiting until a werewolf is in its human form. One can then utilize typical magical…methods, however, the werewolf's ability to heal often makes these methods equally as difficult." Emma leaned forward towards Snape. She could land one final blow, and she did it with a smirk. "Werewolves are notoriously hard to kill in case you didn't know."

The contempt Emma felt of herself was nearly palpable as she sat back. She shouldn't know all of this information, and she shouldn't be the one to be sharing it. Especially with the possibility… Snape stared at Emma through narrowed eyes but seemed pleased enough as he returned to leading the lecture.

"Breathe," Persephone whispered, squeezing Emma's knee gently. With a small nod, Emma took a breath, trying to push aside her lightheadedness.

Emma's eyes flicked back up to the office door, wanting desperately to burst through them and question Remus, but she couldn't. Instead, she found the clock – only a half-hour left of class and then another hour and a half until she was meant to see him. In two hours, she would finally have her answers.

The only problem was that she wasn't sure she was ready to know the truth.

Canonically, I'm well aware that this lesson isn't meant to happen for another month. HOWEVER, a certain She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named literally did not understand the importance of having an accurate full moon calendar with a werewolf character. For the sake of the story, and for the sake of my sanity, I've moved this lesson earlier.

I'll stick to a lot of the canon for this book but please keep in mind that a lot is going to be shifted to genuinely fit the moon calendar.