Disclaimer: I own nothing. Damocles Belby owns the Wolfsbane Potion. Well, he invented it anyway. I'm not sure how exactly that works, since obviously any one can make it, provided they have the skill and ingredients, it's not like he has a patent on it. But, I digress.
Day 36: Moon
Remus stared at the empty goblet on his desk. It was still smoking slightly. Intellectually, he knew the potion would work. Its effectiveness had been proven again and again. Still, the less rational part of himself couldn't help but feel almost certain it wouldn't. He would be an exception somehow, the one werewolf the potion had no effect on. Or perhaps Snape, who had made no attempt to hide that his hatred for Lupin hadn't changed since their school days, had made it wrong on purpose. No, Dumbledore trusted Snape. Besides, even if Snape was malicious enough to do such a thing, which Remus wouldn't find very hard to believe, he wasn't fool enough to do it right under Dumbledore's nose. That hadn't stopped Remus from putting up every locking and protective charm he could think of on his office door to make sure if the potion didn't work, he wouldn't be able to get out and hurt anyone.
Remus turned away from the goblet on his desk and went to draw back the curtain and look out the window. His eyes sought not the shadowed grounds below but the moon rising into the sky, bright and full, and, to anyone else, Remus supposed, it would have been beautiful. He felt a shiver of revulsion go through him at the sight of it. He would know soon enough whether the potion had worked.
As the moon reached its highest point, Remus felt the pain, as familiar as it was terrible, tear through him. He groaned, doubling over where he stood. The transformation was as painful and terrifying as ever, and the part of his mind that could still think was sure the potion must have failed.
But then -as the transformation ended and the pain went away, something incredible happened. Remus did not feel the terrifyingly familiar urge to attack, to kill. He did not feel bloodthirsty or vicious, so driven by rage and hunger that any human thought was wiped away. He just felt…. like him. Like Remus. His senses were sharper than they had been moments before, and he was suddenly sleepy, but his mind was, undeniably, still human. With a great shout of laughter that came out instead as a wolf's bark, he began to bound around his office in sheer joy. His tail, wagging furiously, swept the empty goblet off his desk, along with a stack of students' papers.
Remus had a sudden, ridiculous urge to roll in the papers like a dog. There was, perhaps, something a bit baser and more animal about his mind tonight but it was so vastly different from the monster he had become every full moon since he was a small boy that the human part of Remus mind was convinced this must all be some wonderful dream. Surely he couldn't be so lucky. Then he remembered the pain of the transformation, and the wolf in him let out a whine. That had certainly been no dream.
The potion really had worked. It was amazing. It was incredible. It was-
Remus felt his snout stretch wide in a yawn. The animal part of his mind didn't much care for his ruminations on one of the most wonderful things that had ever happened to him. It just wanted to sleep. Giving in to this instinct, Remus curled up on his office floor, his tail tucked over his nose, and soon enough, he was fast asleep, and if he was human, there would have been a smile on his face, even as he slept.
The information on Wolfsbane Potion isn't entirely clear, as Remus states it lets him keep his human mind but on Pottermore it says it renders him an "ordinary and sleepy wolf", so I tried to reflect both of those, a human mind but also the animal instincts. This one was quite fun to write, actually. I had to use Remus for the word moon, naturally.