Chapter 41

Confronting the Werewolf.

James woke that morning to Sirius screaming quite loudly. He moaned and tried to register in his brain what the annoying sound actually was.

James sat up and was instantly blinded by the light coming in from the window. He wished that they had kept it closes last night. He quickly became alert when he remembered last night and got up to wake Sirius up.

"Sirius! Sirius!" Sirius moaned and hid his face under a pillow.

"Too bright." He complained and James went an shut the blinds over the window. Sirius slowly got up.

"You alright?" Sirius just nodded.

"What's going on?" Peter asked finally waking up.

"Sirius had a nightmare." James explained, but it was pretty clear Peter was too tired to listen.

"Remus!" Sirius said loudly, remembering what his dream was about. He got up quickly, grabbed a random pile of clothes from his trunk and rushed into the bathroom.

"What's wrong with Remus?" Peter asked again.

"Remus is sick." James answered, he didn't feel like explaining right now. He grabbed some clothes and changed into them. Well he tried to. Sirius came out of the bathroom and started telling them to hurry up, which was really just making it take longer as it caused James to get nervous and accidentally try to put his head though his sleeve. When he finally had all the appendages though the right holes he climbed out from behind the curtains around his bed.

"Finally!" Sirius said and grabbed James' arm. He proceeded to drag James out of the dorm, with Peter following obviously confused.

"Um.. Did you brush your hair?" James asked, shocked that Sirius actually left the dorm without spending four hours in the bathroom.

"Is that really that important right now?" Sirius answered.

"I guess not. It's just that... Oh never mind."

When they got to the hospital wing they didn't bother to stop at the doors. Though they did attempt to be quiet.

"Please let him not be here! Please let him not be here! Please let him not be here!" James repeated as they looked around for him, at first it didn't look like he was there.

Until they saw one of the beds had someone hidden under the covers. James and Sirius walked up to it slowly, as though they were afraid to find out who it was. Peter just watched them like he thought they were crazy. When they got up to the bed they gave each other a frightened look, deciding who was going to pull back the covers. James lost. He reached up to the covers and pulled them back.

Peter jumped back at the sight of Remus under the blanket. Sirius and James just froze. There were deep gashes all over his face, and teeth marks on his arms. He looked worse then horrible. It was like something from the books in Sirius' home library.

"Remus." James whispered and knelt to the floor beside the bed. He couldn't hold himself up any longer. Sirius had been right. Remus was a werewolf, there was no doubting that now. One of his best friends had been going though the closest thing this Earth had to hell this whole time, and James hadn't even noticed. "Oh, God, Remus." He cried. He couldn't stop himself. He hid his face in his arms and bawled. He felt Sirius' hand on his back as Sirius sat on the floor beside him. Sirius didn't cry. He was too scared to cry. Remus looked like some dog's chew toy. How could anyone survive wounds like that.

"Black! Potter! Pettigrew! What do you think you are doing!" They looked up and saw Madam Pomfrey, glaring at them. They couldn't answer her. Peter was so confused.

"What's going on? Why is Remus hurt?"

"That isn't any of your business.."

James blew up.

No one had ever seen him so mad. They were worried his mind had finally snapped. Even Madam Pomfrey, who certainly wasn't known for her cowardice, looked scared of him.

Sirius watched him yell for a moment, before Remus started to moan. "James calm down."

James then got mad at Sirius, but Sirius didn't budge.

"You're going to wake up Remus." James seemed to visibly calm himself down and looked at Remus who was opening his eyes.

"Oops." He said quietly and walked back over to Remus' bed.

"James?" Remus said weakly.

"I'm sorry I woke you up, Remus." James sat back down on the floor and glared at Pomfrey as though it was her fault. Remus looked around and saw the rest of them too.

"What are you doing here?" He asked. Sirius answered this time.

"We came to check up on you, Remmy." Sirius ran his hand though Remus' hair, hoping it would comfort him. Remus looked worried and tried to cover himself up as much as he could with the blankets. Sirius noticed. "You don't have to hide any more. We already know." Remus gave a weak look of shock and Madam Pomfrey gasped.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about."

James gulped, he really didn't want to accuse Remus of being a liar. "We know your mum isn't really sick, Remus. Sirius figured it out last night." Remus looked at Sirius.

"We don't blame you for lying to us." Sirius told him. Peter gave them a confused look, but chose to remain silent.

Remus attempted to keep up the charade, in case they came to the wrong conclusion. "I really don't know..." He started but Sirius interrupted him, earning him a glare from James.

"We know you're a werewolf." He said quickly. Peter squeaked but held his mouth shut. Remus closed his eyes.

"How?" was all he said.

"I had some of the dates written down, and found out they were all on full moons." Sirius said, giving him a much shorter version than he'd given James. Remus moaned, he was expecting them to walk out on him at any time.

"Like Sirius said, we don't blame you for lying to us. We know we would have done the same thing if we were you." James added.

"I'm sorry." Remus choked out.

"Don't be sorry, Remmy. It isn't your fault. Bad things happen to good people." James said quickly hoping to kill any guilt Remus felt, and hoping to let him know they weren't going anywhere.

"What?"

"What he means is that we're here for you no matter what. We're not leaving no matter what, we wouldn't abandon you even if you wanted us too. It's too late, you've made friends with us, now you've go to deal with us. Even if we drive you completely crazy, we'll still come see you in the loony bin." Sirius smirked at Remus' surprised face.

"You're not mad?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Or afraid?"

"Only of loosing you." Remus looked at him with doubt. Sirius needed to prove to him it was true. "I had a nightmare last night. A lot of them actually." Remus looked worried. "You want to know what they all had in common?"

"Me?" He said quietly.

"Ya, and not just as a werewolf either. Most of them completely skipped that part and showed you lying in a hospital bed. You died in all of them." Remus watched his facial expression for a while and nodded showing Sirius he believed him. Sirius gave a huge smile.

"Yes!" James cheered. He was glad that Sirius did most of the talking. He still felt like crying.

"Remind me to hug you when you get better. If I do it now I know at least two people in this room who would kill me." Sirius said happily, referring to James and Pomfrey.

"You'd hug a werewolf?" Remus asked, still not quite getting it.

"No." He said quickly. James glared at him. "But I hug Remus all the time. Why wouldn't I want to do it now?" He said before James could hit him. Remus laughed, he felt as though a huge burden was lifted off of his shoulders. He was so happy, maybe even happier than he had been when he first met them. He couldn't even feel any pain anymore. Or he didn't until he thought that. He winced as it all came back. They turned to him.

"You okay Remus?" Remus just smiled at them.

"I'm fine." They didn't believe him.

"Alright, now I want you boys out of here." Madam Pomfrey ordered, though she looked like she had been crying. James was going to protest, but Remus beat him too it.

"Can they stay? Please. I promise they won't be real loud or anything." She watched him for a moment.

"Fine but if I hear any yelling they're gone. Got that?" She said to them. They nodded excitedly. She left the room to get Remus something to help with the pain. He drank it without complaining about how bad it tasted for once.

"I still can't believe you actually thought we would dump you when we found out." James pouted. Remus was going to apologize again but Sirius had to put his two cents in first.

"It's the moon's fault it makes him kind of looney." They laughed. "Actually, I think it makes him rather Moony." Sirius laughed. "I like that word. Moony. Ha, that's your new nickname, since you hate Rem and Remmy so much. You're Moony now." Remus sighed.

"Sirius, Moony isn't much better than Remmy."

"I don't care, Moony." He said happily. James laughed.

"Sirius..."

"Give up Moony, You know how he is with his random nicknames." James added

"You don't have to encourage it you know."

"I'm not Moony." He said defensively.

"Yes you are, you're using the nickname too."

"Oh I am." He said in fake surprise. "I guess it just fits so well I didn't notice." He teased causing both him and Sirius to laugh, and Remus tried to hide a smile.

"You guys are mean." He teased them back. "I'm sick, you're supposed to be nice to sick people."

"Sorry Moony, but we have to have a little revenge. I mean, you scared us half to death, you know." James said with humor etched on his face.

"No I didn't, how did I scare you?"

"Are you Moony?" Sirius laughed a little at his own joke. "Have you even looked at yourself?"

"I try not to." he said truthfully. Why would he want to look at himself when he was like this.

"Well you look like a corpse." James told him.

"You look worse then a corpse. Every corpse I've seen looked better than you do." They stared at him.

"Do you.. um... see corpses often?" James asked, he hated it when Sirius said stuff like that.

"No, but the few I have seen looked better then he does." The gave him a freaked out look. "Oh come on guys! Like you've never been to a funeral! Merlin, you people." He said exasperatedly.

"Oh, um, right. Of course I knew you meant at a funeral. Moony, Peter, how could you guys think something like that?" James said turning red. Sirius sighed.

"What did you think? That my parents killed people in front of me? They may be freaks, but they aren't sickos." Sirius paused for a moment. "Anyway even if they did kill someone, there would be no way it'd look better than Remus does."

"Guys, I would appreciate it if we didn't talk about death right now." Remus said. "I am in the hospital right now you know." He reminded.

"Sorry, Moony."

"You're never going to stop calling me that are you, Sirius."

"Nope."

"Darn, and I was almost getting used to Remmy."

"Sorry Moony."

"No you're not."

"You know me so well." Sirius smirked.

"You're not going to call me that in public are you?"

"Yes."

"You can't, what if people ask questions?"

"Then we tell them to buzz off." James answered for Sirius.

"Then they'll know we're hiding something."

"So, normal people don't really care. As long as you give them something gossip about then they're happy."

"What are we going to give them to gossip about?"

"That James has a crush." Remus and Peter looked at James in confusion, while James looked a Sirius the same way.

"I do not."

"You do to."

"Who?"

"Evans." He said with a smirk.

"Do not!" James had to control the urge to tackle him, or they would be kicked out.

"Oh stop it, you so do."

James turned around and faced Remus with his eyes closed.

"Don't punch him, don't punch him." He repeated to himself at least five times.

"I don't know James, you two would look good together." Remus teased.

"Eww are you kidding. She's so annoying."

"You know you want to kiss her."

"Not if she were the last girl on the planet."

A/N) Awwwwww. Best Friends Forever. Or at least until Peter stabs them in the back. STUPID PETER! If you can't tell I added a little bit of revenge for Peter. He had to find out that Remus was a werewolf and didn't have a chance to really make a choice on whether or not he wanted to remain friends. SO HA! Stupid rat. ^_^ See ya next time!