The wolf ran in circles, frantic, miserable. It slammed its weight against the walls; it hurtled out onto the second-floor landing, towards the stairs. It threw itself against the banister — a creaking groan, an echoing split — and suddenly he was falling, spiraling fast towards the ground…a terrible, splintering crack…his paw splayed out behind him. A howl that tore like muscle and bone.

Remus sat up abruptly, panting. In the pitch black of his closed bed hangings, his fingers went scrabbling to his face, his neck, his chest, searching for scratches, the fresh spill of cursed blood. There was none. He sank back against his pillows in relief. It was all right. No one would know.

Tentatively, he pulled back the curtains from his four poster bed. The dormitory was dark, hidden in the heavy shadows of night. Only a pale patch of moonlight slipped through the window, pooling on the worn rug beneath his feet. Instinctively, he pulled his toe from its touch, but this waning moon could not hurt him. He had twenty-one days left. For another twenty-one days, he was free.

His watch, a slightly battered but beloved hand-me-down from his father, told him it was half-past four in the morning. Never mind. He wouldn't fall back asleep now, not when the wolf prowled so dangerously near the surface. He folded himself into the cozy crevices of his bed, propped his lit wand on the headboard behind him, and began to read his Ancient Runes textbook. He was still scrambling to catch up with the classes he'd missed from the full moon, and even with Lily Evans's notes (he swallowed a nervous but pleasant flutter that she'd thought of him at all), he was struggling. Yet as he pored over the indecipherable runes, his treacherous mind kept slipping down other unwelcome corridors. Specifically, his friends.

They were acting very peculiar.

Well, that is, more peculiar than usual. They were hiding something from him, and what was worse, they were doing it poorly. Remus had known they were up to something ever since James had developed a sudden passion for research in the library. He had figured it would reveal itself sooner or later in the form of some spectacular prank — like the time they'd charmed the dinner plates to repel anything that hit them, accidentally-on-purpose causing an inter-house food fight of epic proportions for which Professor McGonagall had still not forgiven them. (It had been, Remus reflected, rather an affront to her dignity to be splat in the face with potato gratin.)

However, as the weeks passed and no such prank materialized, their undertakings became increasingly absurd. Their latest bit was to keep a small Mandrake leaf in their mouth, despite its disgusting flavor. Remus assumed it had started as a dare — as so often some calamitous bit of mischief did — but why they were so adamant about keeping it up, he couldn't understand. It had been six days, and from what Remus could tell, it was a constant struggle: spitting and gagging over a toothbrush, retching through repulsive meals, lisping their way through conversations. They barely spoke in class anymore, and they'd completely given up on saying Sirius's name. (Except for James, of course, who found it wildly hilarious.)

And they wouldn't give him an inch. No matter what, they refused to tell him what was going on. Every time he asked, he just got deflected with a lisping joke.

"Really, Remuth, it tathe like a thweetie, want a lick?"

He sighed. As always, he felt the familiar panic at being left out. They don't want you involved, said the spiteful beast that breathed inside him. Wonder why…? Because you're a prefect? Because you're a werewolf? Because you're a smarmy stick-in-the-mud who would ruin their fun?

Remus did his best to ignore the beast. Hadn't his friends proven time and again that they weren't going to leave him? Why did he still ache for reassurance? Didn't he trust them? Sure, said the beast. You trust them. But you don't trust yourself. You're not good enough for them, and you know it.

"Shut it," Remus muttered into the dark, refocusing his attention on deciphering 'calc' and 'cealc.'

It was several hours later when his friends at last awoke.

"I'm going to vomit," James's voice announced from beyond the bed hangings, accompanied by a series of loud gagging noises.

"You thay that every morning," yawned Peter, leaf still stuck to tongue.

"Becauthe every morning I wake up and there'th a fetid leaf in my mouth. It'th getting thoggy."

"Peter," came Sirius's gravelly morning voice. "Will you throw your shoe at Jameth for me?"

Remus pulled open his bed hangings and gave his friends a suspicious glare that was becoming redundant. "Are you ever going to tell me why you're doing this? And don't say it's just a laugh…it's been six days!"

"But who'th counting, right?"

"Look, I get that I'm a prefect now, but you used to tell me when you were planning something big. I wish you still would."

"Remuth," lisped James consolingly. "It hath nothing to do with you being a prefect! Do you really think we'd let a thilly badge get in the way of corrupting you? It'th better thith way. You don't want to know yet. It'll only worry you."

"I'm already worried."

"You'll find out thoon enough, promithe."

Remus sighed, defeated. "This sounds very ominous."

Breakfast was an ordeal involving a lot of moaning and drooling. All three boys carefully spooned bits of tasteless porridge into the back of their throats, miserable looks drawn across their faces.

"I juth want a big piece of bacon that doethn't tathte like it'th died," moaned Peter.

"You do realize," Remus pointed out, "that all bacon is dead, having once been a poor little pig?"

"Thath not what I meant."

About half-way through the meal, Remus glanced up from his Ancient Runes textbook to see them all staring at him with big, watery, puppy eyes. He groaned. He knew what they wanted. It was a joke that had started the week prior, when James wistfully requested that Remus tell them about the taste of his pure, unsullied and Mandrake-free breakfast. Remus had been amused at first and played along, describing his toast and butter and jam with an almost lyrical verve, but the joke had gotten old, and frankly, he wasn't in the mood this morning.

"Moony…" Sirius began.

"No."

"Oh, go on," said James, his hands propped under his chin, gazing pitifully at Remus's breakfast.

"Stop it. It's weird. Just spit the leaf out, and eat your own porridge."

"Juth…tell uth what it tathe like, really. You form your wordth tho well."

"Like poetry," sighed Sirius. "Erotic breakfast poetry."

"It tastes like porridge. Perfectly normal porridge for sane people who don't keep strange plant matter in their mouths."

"Tell me about brown sugar again. I can't remember about brown sugar…"

"And bacon. Bacon that doethn't tathe like excrement…"

"You know," said Remus loudly, in an attempt to change the course of the conversation. "I think I found another Boggart yesterday."

It worked. James and Sirius both stopped drooling at him and exchanged a mischievous glance. Remus knew rather a lot about Boggarts on account of his father, and this information over the years had been a source of great entertainment for his friends.

"Where?" asked James.

"Crammed into the grandfather clock on the sixth floor. It was creaking and moaning a good bit, and definitely chiming more than once an hour."

"Oi," interrupted Sirius. "McGee alert. Moufs shut." And they all clammed up, assuming a look of perfect innocence that fooled absolutely no one. Professor McGonagall narrowed her eyes as she passed.

Remus sighed. "You're all idiots."

"And you're a cruel man, Lupin," said Sirius, shaking his head. "You know not how we thuffer."

"Nor why," retorted Remus, snapping his book shut.

And then there was all the meditating. Remus had returned one evening to find the dormitory unusually quiet. At first, he'd thought it was empty until he'd realized that all three boys were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, eyes shut, palms laid open over knees. Peter was humming quietly.

Remus stared at this bizarre scene for a moment before one of James's eyelids slid open to survey the room. "Oh," said James, eye landing upon Remus. "Hi Remuth."

"Er — hi. What are you doing?"

"Meditating."

"Oh. Why?"

To this, they all responded at once.

"New Quidditch technique," said James.

"Anger management," said Sirius.

"It's good for the skin," said Peter.

"Huh," said Remus, and he crawled into bed and left them to it.

This continued for days and nights, and days and nights again. The gagging, the complaining, the lisping, the meditating. Eventually — mercifully — Sirius had discovered that by rolling the leaf to the back of his tongue, he could communicate nearly lisp-free, and the others quickly followed suit. This did not stop James from referring to his friend as 'Thiriuth' as often as possible, but it was an improvement, nonetheless. So far, Remus's only theory to explain their antics was that they had all gone completely off their collective rockers…and left him behind, alone in the dull realm of sanity.

On Wednesdays, Remus was temporarily rescued from this madness by prefect duties with Lily Evans. Over all, Remus thought being a prefect was a bit of a wash. He suspected that Lily was right, that Dumbledore had hoped Remus might reign in his friends, but that was a terribly naive assumption, the idea that Remus had any control over the Marauders whatsoever. He didn't. If anything, all his new badge had done was make his friends withdraw from him, push him out of the loop.

Nonetheless, he found he rather looked forward to patrolling the halls with Lily Evans. She was nice company. He'd always liked her well enough, in the vague way eleven-year-old boys like girls, but he'd intentionally kept her at arms length for the past four years, the way he did everyone who wasn't James, Sirius, or Peter. He already had three friends who liked him and accepted him. One mustn't get greedy. It was dangerous getting too close to other people; they might work out his secret.

But Lily, who he saw outside of classes now at least once a week, had this really agreeable habit of not asking him about his scars. He knew she noticed them. She was perceptive, and so was he. He saw the way she frowned ever so slightly when she met him immediately following the full moon. He knew he looked horrible, but after simply asking, "Feel any better?" and listening to his, "Oh yes, yes, my terrible immune system, blah, blah, blah," she'd dropped it. This restraint was a rare gift, and Remus appreciated it.

She was also funny, and clever, and yeah all right, rather pretty, and…just, well…kind. Really, really kind. Remus loved his friends. James, Sirius, and Peter meant the absolute world to him, but they weren't kind.

No, that wasn't fair. They all possessed deep wells of kindness for their own friends, kindness they had shown time and again to Remus. Still, Remus had watched for years as they tormented Severus Snape, and yes, Snape contributed his share of aggression to the enmity, but sometimes Remus thought his friends were just a touch out of line. Not that he ever said anything about it. He often wondered why he didn't…because he loved them too much to criticize? Because he was a coward?

But it wasn't just Snape. They were a bit trigger happy with everyone these days, and frankly sometimes their sense of humor was a little cruel. They could be quite harsh to each other, too. Especially Sirius.

But that was just boys, wasn't it? That's what his dad said. Boys will be boys. Whatever that meant. These were all things that Remus had to learn, having had no friends at all until he was eleven years old. He often felt that he had missed some important lesson on how to be a teenage boy. Maybe there was a book in the library: Expressions of Aggression and Exuberance in the Adolescent Male.

Perhaps that was why he enjoyed spending time with Lily so much. Her feminine, friendly attentions were far less fraught with danger. They talked about novels and art and all sorts of things Remus didn't really talk about with his mates. It was nice.

Presently, he and Lily were strolling along through a winding corridor on the ground floor. It was a quiet night; they hadn't really done much more than tell off a third year for bullying a first. Rain thrummed against the windowpanes as they chatted amiably.

"And I worked on it for hours and still only got an Acceptable!" Lily was saying, referring to their most recent Ancient Runes homework. "Honestly, sometimes I wish I'd just signed up for Muggle Studies instead. I'd be so good at that class."

Remus grinned. "I almost did, you know. Sign up for Muggle Studies, I mean. Since all my friends did."

Lily shot him a sideways glance. "Black and Potter take Muggle Studies? Why?"

"Sirius wanted to irritate his parents, James thought it'd be a laugh, and Peter was going to do whatever James did, regardless."

"So why didn't you?"

"Oh, I had romantic ideas about archeology and curse-breaking, so I took Ancient Runes instead. Also, I thought it might be cheating a bit, my mum being a Muggle and all."

Lily stopped abruptly and turned to him in surprise.

"What? Your mum's a Muggle?"

"Er — yeah?"

"You never told me that!"

"I — er — well, I didn't think it mattered much," said Remus, bewildered.

"It doesn't matter." Lily resumed their walk, her hands tucked into pockets. "It's just…I didn't know. It's nice." She suddenly looked very embarrassed. "I don't have many friends that know much about Muggles. Can't tell you how often I feel like an alien around here, the things that come out of my mouth that no one understands. Gets kind of lonely."

Remus was a bit startled by this. Of course, he'd known Lily was Muggle-born, but for some reason it seemed an entirely foreign concept to him that someone like her — someone pretty, funny, well-liked — could ever feel isolated or lonely. Now this seemed rather short-sighted of him, and he felt guilty.

"I never thought about it," he admitted. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Nothing to be sorry for, I'm just…pleased. Is that weird? Sometimes it feels like everyone's a pure-blood but me." She looked sad for a moment, distant and weary, but then she laughed and shook her head. "So, tell me about your mum! How did your parents even meet? I'm fascinated…"

But just as Remus began to regale her with what was actually quite a good story about his parents' first encounter, they rounded a corner and Remus felt his heart sink. There were his friends: James, Sirius, and Peter were hovering around the door to Filch's office, undoubtedly up to no good. Peter was clutching an old suitcase and, with a feeling of dread, Remus thought he knew what was inside. His suspicions were all but confirmed as the suitcase gave an angry little shiver.

"Damn," Sirius was saying. "The git must've had someone put a security charm on it. Alohomora won't work."

"Well, that's not too surprising after we flooded it last week," James mused.

"What are we going to do with thith Boggart, then?" asked Peter, who hadn't quite mastered the trick of speaking lisp-free. He eyed the suitcase nervously; it gave a furious little thump in response.

Before Remus could wrap his head around what to do, or better yet, convince Lily to turn around and head the other way, Lily was striding towards them, a hard look on her face. "Excuse me."

Sirius groaned. "Oh, look, it's the Prefect Brigade."

Remus scowled at him. He noticed his friend shifting the Mandrake leaf in his mouth, and in a moment of uncharacteristic spite, Remus hoped it tasted really, really foul.

"Are you honestly trying to put a Boggart in Filch's office?" Lily demanded, hands on hips.

"The poor thing just needs a home," said James, patting the suitcase affectionately. "How would you like to live in luggage?"

Lily ignored this and addressed Sirius. "You know Filch can't do magic. He wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

"And therein lies the amusement," said Sirius, as though she were being purposefully thick.

Lily gave him a disgusted look. "That's cruel. Really, I don't care if it is Filch, that's just mean."

"Oh, come on," said James airily. "He'd probably just see muddy footprints and an empty bottle of Mrs. Skower's Magical Mess Remover."

Lily bestowed one withering look his way before turning to Peter. "Give me the suitcase," she demanded. Poor Peter glanced quickly between Sirius and James, awaiting instruction.

"Oh, forget it," said Sirius. "It was a stupid prank anyway. Here." He grabbed the suitcase from Peter and shoved it towards her. "Have a blast." But as he handed it over, his fingers fumbled the clasp, and the suitcase slipped open. They all instinctively stepped back as it fell to the floor with a resounding thud. There was one quick moment — quiet and still — as all five stared at the suitcase. Then something horrible happened.

From the depths of the luggage rose, impossibly, a man. Black robes hung off his body, his face obscured by a stark, skull-like mask. A Death Eater, Remus thought with a horrible, sinking feeling in his gut. It turned to Lily, who was closest, and she stared at the Boggart, her mouth slightly open; she hadn't yet thought to go for her wand. Of course she'd see a Death Eater. The Boggart, perhaps sensing her hesitation, her fear, moved towards her and raised its arm…

Remus hurried forward, but James got there first, and the Death Eater was transformed into a woman in lime-green robes, a foreboding look of professional sympathy drawn upon her face. Before she could speak, James said, "Riddikulus," and the woman stumbled. He took advantage of this to jab his wand a second time, and the Boggart crumpled back into the suitcase. He hurriedly shut it, locking the clasp with his wand. No one said anything for a moment. When at last Lily spoke, her voice seemed to take everyone by surprise. It was cold and hard.

"I hope you enjoyed your prank."

Then she bent down, grabbed the suitcase by the handle, and marched off.

Remus hesitated. Should he go after her? But then Sirius muttered, "She really needs to get a sense of humor," and thoughts of pursuit were pushed aside as Remus turned sharply to his friend.

"You thought that was funny, did you?"

"Well, not that," said Sirius, waving a hand as if what had just happened had been inconsequential, "but just, you know, in general. What are you looking at me like that for? I didn't drop it on purpose."

"Didn't you?"

"No, I didn't! And even if I had, how was I supposed to know it would turn into…one of them?"

"You could try using your brain for once," said Remus. Sirius gave him a look of mingled surprise and irritation. "You know," Remus plowed on, "when I told you about the Boggart, I didn't mean you should use it to torment Filch again."

"Oh, come on, Moony," said James. "A perfectly good Boggart just sitting there, waiting for a home? How could we resist?"

"You're just peeved because it was Lily Evans that caught us," said Peter sagely.

"Yes, I am. Would it kill you to sit quietly in the dorm on nights I have patrol?"

They all laughed. "We don't sit quietly very well, Remus."

"You've been doing it for weeks. No meditation tonight, then?"

"We got bored."

"But still sucking on the stupid Mandrake leaf, I see." For some reason, his anger was bubbling up in a way he rarely allowed it.

"Respect the Mandrake, mate," said James, waggling his tongue. James…with his infuriating ability to remain calm and cheerful through anything.

"You don't make any sense, any of you," Remus snapped, and they all looked at him in astonishment. Remus almost never lost his temper. Not with them. "Meditating one night and stealing Boggarts the next, talking behind my back — don't think I haven't noticed because I have — and keeping those bloody leaves in your mouth like idiots, and for what? For no good reason? For shits?"

"That's not fair," Peter interrupted, his face flushing salmon-pink. "We're only doing it because of you—"

"Shut up, Pete!" hissed Sirius.

"What? Me?"

"Don't mind him," said James genially. "Mandrake's gone to his head."

Remus let the anger wash over him in crashing waves. "I'm so sick of this! Of all of you talking down to me and pretending like I'm too stupid to realize you're up to something."

"All right, something's definitely up, because I'm pretty sure it's not your time of the month, and you're acting like a pissy bitch," said Sirius.

"Fuck off, Sirius," snarled Remus, and he began to storm away before turning back and adding, "And you know what? Lily wasn't wrong. It was a cruel prank to pull on Filch. I didn't take you lot for the sort to harass squibs."

At this, Sirius's expression grew guilty, Peter fidgeted uncomfortably, but James said with quick indignation, "Hang on! We don't prank him because he's a squib. We prank him because he's a fun-hating sadist."

Remus sighed. The anger that had erupted inside him so rapidly was already dissipating. "Whatever." He began to walk away again. "But next time, just save it for a Thursday, all right?"

"Hang on, Remus." James was hurrying after him. "Look, I know we've been acting weird lately, but—"

"James," said Remus wearily. "I'm trying to storm off dramatically."

"Oh."

"And you're messing it up."

"Right. Sorry. Off you go."

"Thanks."

And Remus stormed off.