A/N:

I'm writing this chapter to take my mind off a terrible fanfiction that I wrote when I was eight. I found it this morning and am still shuddering! Hopefully, writing this will make me feel better XD

But over the next few days, Remus went from being pale and peaky to hardly being able to move.

James, Peter and Sirius worried whether they'd done the right thing by letting Remus carry on with work, whether they should've said something to Madam Pomfrey.

On Wednesday morning, Remus was so weak and tired that he skipped breakfast and went to the Hospital Wing at last. He simply couldn't take it any more. Every inch of him ached and his stomach kept churning.

All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep.

Sirius offered to go with him, but Remus waved him away. It was much better for him to deal with this alone.

He couldn't risk them finding out the truth.

Madam Pomfrey, the school matron, wasn't pleased when Remus stumbled, white-faced, into the ward.

"You should've come to me yesterday," she said sharply, trying to force some foul-tasting pain relief down his throat. "Of course, you'll only feel worse over the next few days, but at least you can rest here. You'll be excused from lessons until you're better."

"What about homework?" asked Remus anxiously, as he was pushed into a bed at the end of the long room and tucked under the covers.

"Homework?" sniffed Madam Pomfrey. "You need sleep, not homework. If I see so much as a corner of a textbook, I'll keep you in here for an extra day."

"But I need to keep up!"

"No 'buts', Mr Lupin. And no working until the moon's over and done with. That's my final word on the matter. Now, lie down and go to sleep."

Knowing it would be pointless to argue any more, Remus lay back against the pillows and tried to sleep. Even though he was tired, it was still very difficult.

Especially with the sunlight streaming through the curtains and when horrible thoughts kept creeping into his mind.

What if he bit somebody? What if something went wrong and he ended up loose in the grounds? What if someone recognised his symptoms and realised what he was? What if Dumbledore decided it was too dangerous to have a monster like him around, after all? Would he be sent home on Friday? How would he even manage without his parents? They'd always been there to support him in the past...

Still dwelling on these worries, Remus finally drifted off into an uneasy, restless sleep.

"Do you reckon Remus is all right?" James asked on Friday evening, just after nightfall.

All the other Gryffindor first-years were lounging around talking.

Sirius shrugged and looked out of the window. A huge full moon had risen high in the sky and the night was almost cloudless. "I don't know. But we still have an hour or so until curfew. We could go down to the Hospital Wing and see him."

Peter put aside his Transfiguration essay, which he'd been begging James for help on. Transfiguration was James' best subject. "Yeah," he said, rubbing his small, watery eyes. "Let's go. I can deal with this stupid thing another day."

Sirius and James stood up, and Peter followed them. Then the three of them hurried down to the Hospital Wing.

James knocked on the door.

A harassed-looking Madam Pomfrey opened it, holding a bottle of dittany and, for some reason, a jar of powdered silver.

"Can we see Remus?" James asked her, as politely as he could. "We wanted to see him yesterday, but we ran out of time. Is he okay?"

Madam Pomfrey stared at them. Then she shook her head. "He's... not here," she said at last. "I'm sorry, boys, you can't see him."

Sirius looked outraged. "What do you mean, 'he's not here'? Of course he's here! He came to see you on Wednesday because he was feeling ill."

"Well, he isn't here now," said Madam Pomfrey stiffly, looking incredibly anxious, not to mention taken aback. "So I suggest you go back to your dormitory-"

"But where's Remus gone? He's not in St. Mungos, is he?"

"No," said the matron. "He isn't. He's... he's gone home to visit his... his mother." She took a shaky breath and straightened her robes. That had been what Remus had told her to say, anyway.

James deflated. "Oh. Is his mother all right?" He ignored the quizzical looks that both Peter and Sirius were giving him. There would be more time to explain when they got out of here.

"Yes. Yes, she's fine," said Madam Pomfrey airily, waving a hand. "Nothing to worry about. Mr Lupin'll be back in a day or two."

"is Remus ill?" Peter asked anxiously. "Is he ill, as well as his mother?"

"Oh..." The matron didn't seem to know quite what to say. "He was a little ill, yes. But he should be all right by the time he gets back. Anyway, I need to get moving. I have lots to do..." She bustled off, still holding the dittany and the silver.

"What's she got powdered silver for?" James asked, as the Hospital Wing doors swung shut and the three boys trudged slowly back to Gryffindor tower. "I didn't know that it was a common ingredient in medicines. I thought it was just used to heal werewolf bites..."

Sirius shrugged. "Search me. I don't know anything about that sort of thing. Anyway, I'm sure Madam Pomfrey knows what she's doing."

"I hope Remus really is okay," said Peter worriedly, biting his lip. "If his mother's ill... What do you think's wrong with her?"

"She has some kind of muggle disease," said James, remembering what Remus told him last week. "And sometimes Remus is affected by it too."

The other two looked at him in astonishment.

"How the ruddy hell do you know that?" Sirius asked.

"Oh... He told me," James admitted. And he told his friends all about his walk with Remus.

"So you're telling me that you and Remus went wandering around the castle, at night, without us?" Sirius said loudly, once James had finished. "You went under the invisibility cloak?"

"Well, I was going to go alone, at first, but..." James began, then he sighed as he caught sight of his friends' faces. "Look, you two were asleep. You can come another night-"

"Password?" asked the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"Grindylows," replied James, not even looking at her, and the portrait hole swung open.

"What's the time?" asked Sirius, once they were in the common room.

James checked his watch. He had finally remembered to extract it from the bottom of his trunk. "Nearly ten O'clock. C'mon. Let's go to bed. We can go down to the Hospital Wing and see if Remus is there tomorrow."

"Sounds good," said Sirius, reaching the spiral staircase first. He leapt up the stone steps, two at a time, while the others ran behind.

As soon as they'd eaten breakfast the next morning, the first thing the boys did was sprint down to the Hospital Wing and pound on the door.

"Oh, it's you three," Madam Pomfrey said, when she opened it and saw them standing there.

James looked up at her imploringly, begging her to understand. "Is Remus back yet?"

The matron sighed and opened the door a little wider, stepping out into the corridor beyond. "Yes, he came back a little while ago. But he's still not very well, poor thing. And you can't see him just yet," she added sternly, pulling the door closed again; Sirius had been standing on tiptoe to try and catch a glimpse of Remus over Madam Pomfrey's head.

"Why not?" asked James irritably.

"Because he's asleep. You come and see him later, when he's had some rest." And she backed into the ward and closed the door in their faces.

"Why can't we just go in and see him?" growled Sirius angrily, as they sat in Potions ten minutes later. "Why? It's not like he doesn't want to see us. I'm sure he'd be happy to be woken up, if he knew it was us visiting. We haven't seen him for three days. Four, if you count this one."

"We'll go back after dinner," James promised, tipping horned slugs into his potion. "Madam Pomfrey can't refuse us then."

And they did.

This time, Madam Pomfrey let them in - but grudgingly.

"Remus!" yelled James as he spotted his friend lying in a bed at the end. "How's your-?" He'd been going to say 'mum', but stopped abruptly at the sight of Remus' face.

Several new, deep cuts had appeared on it and he looked ash-grey.

"What happened?" he whispered instead, sinking onto the edge of Remus' bed.

Sirius and Peter hovered nearby.

"Oh, nothing," said Remus in a falsely bright voice, trying to avoid looking at his reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. "We just have a cat at home and he's- he's not very friendly."

"Clearly," muttered Sirius, looking at Remus' scars with awe. "You look like a wild beast has attacked you!"

Remus smiled weakly. "Well, if you can call a cat a 'wild beast' then, yes, I suppose a wild beast has attacked me."

"Poor you," said Peter sympathetically. He reached over to straighten Remus' blankets. "How's your mum? James told us about her muggle illness... She's not dying, is she? She'll be okay?"

Remus nodded. "Yeah, she's... she's fine. She was pleased to see me, but she's... yeah."

The others mistook his loss of words for emotion at the fate of his mother.

"I'm sure she'll be all right, Rems," said Sirius awkwardly, patting Remus' hand. "And you've always got us if she... you know. If she isn't."

Remus smiled, his eyes feeling slightly watery all of a sudden. He glanced down at the duvet. "Thanks, guys," he said quietly.

Even if they didn't know the real reason why he was lying in the Hospital Wing covered in scars, it was good to know that his friends cared about him.

When, that is, they didn't know what a monster he was.

Noticing that they were all watching him, Remus sharply changed the subject. "How much work have I missed? Have we got any homework?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Honestly, Remus, you want to know if we have any homework? Why? You should be taking advantage of being ill. You shouldn't be asking for work - we get enough as it is."

Remus smiled. "Just answer the question. I need to keep up, don't I? I'll fall behind if I'm not careful."

"Nah, you won't, Remus," James assured him. "But we'll fill you in on homework and stuff when you're back to normal. Speaking of which, when will you be allowed out of here?"

"Tomorrow, I hope," said Remus, looking slightly perkier at the thought. "I still feel a bit tired, but I'm much less achy than I was. And that's how it normally is."

"How what normally is?" asked Peter curiously.

Remus hastened to cover his slip-up. "Oh... I meant when I get ill. I usually feel better after a day or so."

"Right..." said James, who thought this was an odd thing to say - after all, wasn't that how an illness worked?

But he let it slide.

Remus came out of the Hospital Wing the next day, just as he'd predicted.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing he did was bully his friends into spilling the beans about homework, wanting to know exactly what topics he'd missed and what they did during lessons. He then spent the next four hours of his free time 'catching up' on everything he'd missed.

Professor McGonagall was very surprised when he handed in a fully-completed Transfiguration essay the next time she saw him.

"You know," she said sharply, scanning his work several times and placing it on the pile with everyone else's. "You really didn't have to do the homework. You already know that special circumstances have been made for you and I quite understand that you might feel too ill to do the work. Please don't overstretch yourself, Mr Lupin."

But, just as he'd done with Peter, James and Sirius, Remus waved her words aside. "I have to work, Professor. If I don't, I'll just be lowering my chances of getting good grades. And I need all the good grades I can get. Honestly, Professor," he said, when Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "I want to study."

Torn between wanting to please him and wanting to help him, Professor McGonagall sighed. "Oh, all right," she said reluctantly. "But I really wouldn't want to see you pushing yourself too far."

"I won't, Professor," said Remus as he turned to leave the classroom. "I promise." Then he headed back to Gryffindor Tower.

Meanwhile, in their friend's absence, James, Sirius and Peter had been brainstorming pranks ideas. Sirius was 'bored' and tired of doing his homework.

"This is stupid," he'd said to the others, shaking his head and flinging down his quill. It bounced off his History of Magic essay and hit Peter's knee. "And I'm bored out of my mind. Let's do something fun."

"Like what?" asked James, abandoning his own essay and slamming 'A Study of Warlocks Since the Tenth Century' shut.

"Like... I dunno, like a prank?" suggested Sirius. "We've been dull little swots for the past week. I'm tired of sticking to the rules."

"Yeah, me too. What did you have in mind?"

Sirius thought for a moment. "We could send a teacher a pile of dragon dung? Or bewitch a suit of armour to shout rude words at everyone who passes?"

"Or," said Peter worriedly, "We could play a game of Gobstones? If you're bored-"

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Peter," said James impatiently, yawning widely with his arms over his head. "Let's do something different. Something funny, something silly, something-"

But he broke off; someone had just climbed through the portrait hole.

"'Sup, Remus?" said Sirius lazily, sprawling out over the carpet as Remus came in with his bag over his shoulder.

Remus didn't miss a beat. "The sky," he quipped, sitting down with his friends and crossing his legs. "So. I've just given McGonagall my essay. What's new?"

"Nothing much," said Sirius, watching Remus drop his bag on the floor next to him. "We're thinking up a new prank."

"What?" Remus' head snapped up. "A prank?"

"Yeah." It was James who answered this time. "We were thinking of sending a teacher dragon dung or something-"

"Or making a suit of armour shout at people in the corridors," added Sirius.

Remus stared at them both. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Um, they're not," Peter helpfully pointed out. "They actually want to do that."

"Seriously?"

James nodded. "Yeah. We won't get in trouble, I promise. Not if we use my father's-"

But Remus shook his head. "Excuse me. We are not enchanting a suit of armour to shout at people."

Sirius and James stared at him.

"Exactly," said Peter, nodding with delight, glad that he'd found someone to take his side. "We'd get into so much trouble-"

"Not," continued Remus, as though he hadn't even heard Peter, "When we can enchant it to chase people as well."

Still, James and Sirius stared at him.

Peter gaped soundlessly, looking utterly gobsmacked.

"Are you-? Are you serious?" croaked Sirius at last, looking at his friend as though he'd never seen him properly before.

Remus raised an eyebrow. "I'm Remus, actually," he said. Then, when Sirius continued to look amazed, he added, "Oh, come on. You walked right into that one."

"But- but-" spluttered Sirius.

James wondered if Remus had a temperature or something. Maybe he was getting ill again. "You want to do that?" he asked. "You actually want to do that?"

Remus said nothing and Sirius began to laugh. "Wow. Are you feeling all right, mate?"

Remus smiled, the corners of his lips curving upwards. "Actually, I'm feeling a bit... a bit mischievous."

Grinning, James shoved aside his homework. "Awesome. Right, let's get pranking."

Peter groaned under his breath.

A/N:

I'm very happy to say that I've stopped cringing and feel much better.

I hope you liked the chapter and thank you so much for sticking with this story! I haven't written fanfiction for a long time, so I apologise if I'm a bit rusty :)

Keep being amazing, stay safe and have an awesome day 3

Also, if you have any headcanons that you would like to see in future chapters/books, I'd love to hear them and will definitely use them in the story. I want to please Harry Potter fans, not do everything in a particular way.

Your input and opinions mean a lot to me as a writer - I definitely wouldn't be able to do this without you all!

See you soon,

~ Lacy