The bath was a quiet place, and that was why Remus liked it. White tiles, white porcelain, the glint of morning sun upon silver fixtures, the rumble of hot water filling the tub. He discarded his robes in a heap on the floor and lowered himself in, flinching at the near-boiling bathwater on his skin. It was almost too hot, but that was good. Heat was cleansing.

Remus never bothered with the prefects' bath. It was too grand, too pretentious. He liked the comfort of his own, slightly shabby bath in the dormitory. There was peace in familiar rituals. And besides, James and Sirius had booby-trapped this one enough that none of the other Gryffindors bothered with it anymore. Total privacy was essential when one needed to think.

Remus desperately needed to think.

Like rough soap over skin, he scoured his memory for images of the night before, but they came only in unruly fragments.

A dog growling, hackles up.

A stag skidding down the stairs.

The scurry of a rat's feet across floorboards.

The night remained a blur, and the only proof he had that it hadn't been a complete catastrophe was that Sirius, James, and Peter had all sat around him in the shack at dawn, limbs intact. He hadn't spoken with them since. They didn't show up at the hospital wing first thing in the morning the way they usually did, a fact that caused him gut-churning anguish until he got back to the dormitory and found them all passed out on their beds, fast asleep. Well, of course they were, he chided himself. They'd been up all night too.

Remus sunk lower into the tub until the water tickled his earlobes. He nudged the tap with the heel of his foot and threads of icy water curled through the bath. He liked to feel the cold water against his skin. He liked the shiver that ran through his body…it reminded him that it was his body again. Human. Thoughts swirled tempestuously through his mind. He just couldn't process it, what they'd done. He wasn't sure if even they realized the magnitude of it.

For the first full moon since he'd been bitten over a decade ago, Remus hadn't been alone.

There were still moments, more than ten years later, when images of the 'First Wolf' flashed before him. That's what he called the werewolf that first attacked him, the one that turned him. He knew these so-called memories had to be at least partially fabricated, for how could he possibly remember the creak of a window, the scrape of claws against the floor? Pain…that he could understand remembering, for it had been pain unlike any the then four-year-old Remus had ever known. Claws slashing against his stomach like knives…teeth sinking into the soft flesh of his leg…searing, screaming pain.

But if his memory of the initial attack was a mere blur of gray and black and blood…well, the first full moon that followed was much clearer. He could still see the tears streaming down his mother's face, still hear his father's agonized voice as he told his son to "be brave." And little Remus, who had just turned five and was very proud of it, looked up with confusion as his parents locked the door of his bedroom, with him on the other side. And then, in a spill of evil moonlight, the wolf returned…as Remus would soon learn he always, always would.

Of course, it took him a while to understand what was actually happening, this monthly torture. He'd begged his parents not to lock him up. He'd screamed. He'd pleaded. "Daddy, I don't want the wolf to get me again!" But eventually, he'd learned. Every full moon, for the rest of his life, Remus would face the wolf. Alone.

Until now.

"We've slept through History of Magic."

"Well, to be fair, we would've slept through it anyway."

"Good point."

"We should go see Moony."

"Yeah, but if we try to go to Pomfrey during class, she'll kick us out."

"And probably tip off McGonagall. I swear they're in cahoots."

"How long 'til lunch?"

Remus stood at the door to his dormitory, bath-pruned fingers hovering over the doorknob, listening to the muffled voices coming from the other side. He didn't know why his heart had suddenly begun to hammer, and he didn't know how to stop it. The thought of facing his friends after last night — after what they saw — was unthinkable. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to run away, to hide, to do anything but go through that door…

But what else could he do? He turned the doorknob.

Sometimes, after a really important thing has happened — when you feel absolutely certain that the very core of life has been shaken, that something fundamental has been dramatically, irrevocably altered — then there is nothing more unsettling than finding that everything appears exactly the same. From the threshold of his dormitory, Remus took in an all too familiar scene: James was sitting cross-legged on the floor, spinning a Quaffle on his finger, while Peter watched from the sofa, his hand submerged in a box of fudge flies, and Sirius lay sprawled upside down on his bed, his dark hair spilling towards the carpet.

"Ah!" said James brightly as he turned to see Remus enter. "Speak of the devil. We were just talking about you."

"Oh," said Remus. He couldn't bring himself to meet James's gaze. Looking anywhere but at his friends, Remus crossed the room and sat down on his own bed, trying to keep breathing normally. They've seen him, whispered the beast in his head. They've seen the wolf. He stared rigidly at his hands, clasped before him in a miserable knot.

"Are you all right?"

"Mm," said Remus, still not looking at them. He could feel their stares. He wondered what they were thinking; surely they were picturing the transformation, the way his fingers had curled into claws, the lengthening of his monstrous snout…

But then Sirius let out an exasperated growl. "Oh, Moony, stop it already. We knew you'd be like this. Look, he's got his brooding teenage werewolf eyes on and everything."

Startled and slightly irritated by this comment, Remus looked up at him to scowl.

Sirius grinned. "There. Now he'll look at us."

"That's the trick," said James, tossing his Quaffle into his open trunk. "Just got to offend him enough that he forgets he's studiously ignoring us. Quick! Make fun of his sweaters before he looks away!"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Remus muttered.

"You," said Sirius, sitting up and brushing his dark hair out of his face with an irritable swoop. "You always do this. The second anyone sees anything the slightest bit personal or uncomfortable, you freeze up and ice us out."

"That's not—"

"You're acting like we're eleven again," said Peter matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," laughed James. "I almost expected you to tell us that wasn't actually you in the shack, really you were in Wales with your sick mum."

"Oh, shut up," said Remus, and he felt himself go slightly pink.

"Aha," said Sirius. "I recognize that particular shade of flush. He's worrying we don't want to be friends anymore."

"I'm not—"

"He's an idiot," said James mournfully.

"A proper twit," agreed Peter.

"Really," said Sirius, "if anything were going to dissuade us from being your friend, it wouldn't be your monthly cycle."

"Yeah, not when there's so much else to choose from!"

"Like your snoring."

"Your weird obsession with vegetarianism."

"Your mismatched socks, one of which is usually stolen from me."

"Your incredibly potent Welshness."

"The way you always eat all the good Bertie Bott beans, and then leave the box full of bogies lying around, all innocent-like…"

"The way you always lose your quills, most of which are usually stolen from me—"

"All right, all right!" Remus half-groaned, half-laughed. "I get it, okay? I think you're trying to make me feel better, but honestly, you can stop anytime."

"Have we mentioned the sweaters?"

"And the books…the musty old library books that smell of sick."

Remus buried his face in his hands, a hoarse laugh escaping through his fingers. "Gits," he said, and with that, the great weight of anxiety he'd borne all morning melted away.