*****


"Oh my god, Frank! What happened to him?"

Frank jerked his head up, fumbling slightly to get a better hold of Lupin in his arms as the kid's head lolled to the side. "Emily?" He asked, almost in disbelief as the school's potions master came running up to the two of them from the opposite end of the hallway. He didn't know her that well. In fact, the only interaction he'd had with her so far had been during staff meetings where he'd tried to get her to see that Remus wasn't dangerous or stupid.

So far he hadn't been entirely successful. Although from the concerned look on her face, now might be his chance.

"He looks awful, the poor lamb," she cooed softly, pulling Remus' dirty hair off of his face and gingerly feeling around the black eye Remus had gotten from James and the new scratches Remus had across his left cheek.

As for the 'poor lamb', he'd probably have conniptions if he heard one of his hated professors crooning over him the way Emily was right now.

"It's the morning after the full moon," he explained, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice at her blank gaze. "It's not as bad as it looks, you should have seen him after his first full moon here. Poppy actually had to give him about twenty stitches." Actually, that had been a sobering moment for him as well. Seeing Remus, seeing such a small scrawny kid subjected to self-mutilation because of his condition, really seemed to drive home why Defense Against the Dark Arts was so important and why its applications had to be taught in real world contexts. Theory didn't mean shit when faced with a snarling beast that would either kill you or leave your life a living hell.

"You mean," he could see the light dawning in Emily's eyes as the realization struck, "he does this to himself? When he changes-"

"When he turns into the wolf and realizes he's trapped in the shack with no way of acting on the instinct that the werewolf instills in him, he attacks himself and draws his own blood instead."

She looked positively horrified at the words. "I-I had no idea."

"Not many people do," he added with a nonchalant shrug as he hiked Lupin's limp body up in his arms again and headed for the infirmary. He could hear Emily trailing after him and he managed a chagrined smile at the thought. She may have some blind prejudices, but she wasn't a wholly bad person. She just had a tendency to see things in black and white sometimes, and he assumed that before now she'd seen Remus' affliction as a reflection of Remus' soul.

"Poor lamb, it must be so hard for him," she murmured softly as they walked into the room and she was given a fresh look at him under the harsh lights of the infirmary instead of the dim candles of the hallway.

"He manages." Frank smothered his grin as he laid Remus down on the first available bed. Emily was such a soft touch. Remus complained to him sometimes—in the long list of complaints he had about Emily—that she fell for every sob story the students told her.

"Still, I never thought," she frowned, "I never guessed it would be like this." She gestured.

"Oh, that reminds me," he decided to throw in casually. Remus would thank him for it later. Or bitch about how Frank let the professor Remus hated cry over him, but he supposed that was probably an age and stage thing. "Remus wanted me to tell you that he's colorblind. That's why he has so many problems in your class and why he upended that cauldron on Sirius last month."

"Oh," she managed, looking more stunned—if that were possible—than she had when she'd spotted them in the hallway. "Oh, now I just feel awful," she frowned, looking miserable.

"What for?"


"Oh, don't play dumb with me, Frank. You know exactly what it is that I should feel bad about, I wager. That boy follows you around like you're Merlin reincarnated. He completely idolizes you. I just," she paused, "I was-"

"A lot of people are scared of what they don't understand," Frank tried to reassure gently.

"But that's no excuse, don't you see?" She sighed heavily. "It doesn't help that he's in the same house and rooming with that Potter boy."

"I know. I think that definitely added some to the prejudice he's been subjected to from the professors." Frank added, hating the irony of the situation and hating the way the situation had insidiously set a lot of professional adults against Remus before the kid had even had a chance to prove himself. "When you see one child who has lost his mother to a werewolf in a horrific manner which was sensationalized wildly in the papers and then realize that you've put him in the same room with a werewolf and that he sleeps no less than ten feet away from that werewolf every night," he sighed. "None of the professors were comfortable with that juxtaposition."

"You were."

"Yeah, well, it's my job to understand people like Remus a bit better than most," he managed sheepishly as she shot him a faint smile.

"Poor lamb," she crooned softly once more, smoothing the hair off of Remus' forehead. Frank wondered if she saw the irony in that particular pet name, but decided not to say anything as he settled down into the chair on the opposite side of the bed.

"Poppy usually shows up in about fifteen minutes to patch him up. He'll sleep most of the day away regaining his strength."

"Poor, poor little lamb-"

Neither adult noticed that Remus' breathing had changed halfway through the conversation. Neither adult had noticed that Remus had been awake and fully conscious of every word they'd said upon entering the infirmary.

*****

Remus looked up from the book he was reading for the fifth time in ten minutes to sneak a glance at Potter, who was sitting cross legged on the bed, no less than ten feet away from him. He wondered idly for a moment if it had been the same werewolf before dismissing the thought from his head completely.

It didn't matter. What was done was done. And no one knew better than him that once something had happened no one could turn back the clock and fix it. All the time turners in the world couldn't have prevented him from getting bitten.

Once infected, that was it.

He glanced over at Potter again. If Potter knew his secret…

Well, it was probably for the best that they hated each other's guts, he decided. They'd never been able to be friends with something like this hanging between them. Remus may not have been a saint, but even he couldn't stomach the thought of lying about his disease to someone who knew firsthand how deadly the disease could be.

It wasn't like he'd wanted to be friends with Potter, he told himself. What was so great about the uptight prick, anyway? Even if Remus had wanted friends—which, he assured himself, he most certainly did not—he wouldn't have wanted to be friends with some snobby stuck up prat that thought he was better than everyone else. It really wasn't that big of a loss.

"Argh! Quit fucking staring at me, already!"

Remus blinked momentarily, shaking off his thoughts as Potter stomped over to his bed and shoved him hard on the shoulder. Potter looked thoroughly hacked off. Which, Remus assured himself, was not his problem. "Just can't get your ugly mug off my mind," he quipped back lightly before pulling his book back up and burying his nose in it. "You fight like a girl," he added for good measure.

He'd been wasting his time mourning the loss of a was-never-going-to-happen-anyway friendship. He and Potter were just destined to rub each other the wrong way. Werewolf victims just didn't go around being friendly to werewolves. It would upset the natural balance of the universe.

"At least I don't look like one," Potter ground out before storming back off to his own bed, muttering underneath his breath.

"Yeah, you'd make an ugly girl." Remus returned calmly, flipping a page.

"You are such a freak," Potter muttered again. "You're two sandwiches short of a picnic, you are."

And for a moment, Remus was furious.

Oh, like Potter was just the picture of perfect mental health. The guy had looked like shag carpeting up until Remus had taken a scissors to his hair. Remus didn't literally drool over the brooms in the Quidditch supply room. Remus wasn't the one who talked about Quidditch and flying until it made people want to rip their ears off, if just to stop the torture of Potter's voice. He wasn't the crackpot who put chips and pickles on his granola in the morning.

He wasn't fucking crazy!

He was a werewolf, but he wasn't crazy. So he got a bit moody sometimes. Who didn't? So maybe he didn't have any friends. Who wanted to be friends with these bastards? So maybe he wasn't like everyone else. Big Fucking Deal. What the hell did they know?

"Hey, at least I got parents that'll make me picnics," Remus snarled back softly. It was a pot shot, and he knew it. He had no right to be mouthing off like that to Potter. If one of the professors heard him, they'd probably slap him. He'd probably deserve it, too.

As it was, Potter's face turned a motley shade of red. "Take it back."

"Oh, did I hurt ickle Jamie's feelings again. Poor baby," he sneered. He could feel his heart beating hard against his chest though as Potter's face screwed up in a mixture of pain and anger. It was almost as if Remus had looked into the mirror and seen his reflection the morning after a change. Potter, he was sure, would not have appreciated the comparison. The words just flowed out though, in awful little poisonous sentences. "Poor ickle Jamie's all alone in the world. Boo-fucking-hoo."

"I'm not alone." Potter's voice was almost eerily calm.

"You might as well be. I mean, check out the loads of presents you got this year," Remus mocked, and his heart pounded harder. This was Potter's jugular. He knew that intuitively. All Potter had received for Christmas from family had been a stack of galleons and an absentminded letter from a father who wasn't completely dealing in reality anymore. Remus knew, he'd read the letter out of curiosity when Potter had been otherwise occupied. "Yeah, you're the center of your daddy's universe," he scoffed.

"At least if I died, he'd notice. Who would notice if you dropped off the face of the planet, Lupin? Peeves?" Potter yelled back. "I didn't see the presents piling up for you, either. A couple packages from your parents, and that was it. Nobody likes you here. I don't like you. Sirius doesn't like you. Peter just doesn't count. Everyone in class thinks you're a complete nutter. The professors fucking hate you. The only one who can stand to be in the same room with you for any length of time is Longbottom, and everyone knows that he's taking off next year for auror training. Why don't you just do us all a favor and take a long walk off a short cliff."

Remus' book fell from his limp hands as Potter gathered his own books and stormed out of the room, presumably to study in the relative quiet and solitude of the common room.

Not that it mattered any longer to Remus.

Professor Longbottom wasn't going to be teaching here next year.

The only person in the whole fucking school who gave two damns about him wasn't even going to be around. Maybe he hadn't given Potter enough credit. Remus had picked this fight, convinced that the odds would be in his favor since Potter was such a pansy most of the time. But Remus had been wrong, because obviously the kid had known exactly how to go for Remus' jugular as well.

The thought that maybe Potter had been lying crossed his mind. But why would Potter lie about this? Why even try to bring it up unless it was true? No, Potter had said it with entirely too much sincerity for Remus to doubt him. Longbottom was leaving. And the fucking bastard had been stringing him along the whole time. Reassuring him that things were going to get better. That eventually he'd fit in. That no one would find out his secret.

What was the fucking point? At least if he told his secret, people would at least acknowledge that he existed.

That wasn't really an option though. He couldn't disappoint his parents like that. They loved him. They loved him more than he probably deserved, he imagined. No one wanted a monster for a child. But it had been three years, and they still loved him. They hadn't left him at the werewolf farm like the ministry official had so strongly suggested after that horrifying first full moon. They'd fought for him when he'd been put under observation and rehabilitation by the auror team for two months shortly after he'd received the bite. They'd held him every night they could for the three months after that experience when he woke up screaming at the memories.

Quitting school wasn't an option. At the very least, he owed them that much.

But the idea of having to come to this fucking hell hole next year without a single ally…

The thought made his heart hurt.

Burrowing under the covers, he prayed that Potter stayed down in the common room for the rest of the fucking night. Because he couldn't stop the miserable tears from falling, or stop the miserable little whimpers as he sniffled. Potter's father may not have been everything a kid looked for in a parent, but at school Potter was loved.

The professors fell all over themselves to talk to Potter and draw Potter out of his shell. Their classmates genuinely liked Potter and liked spending time with Potter. The guy was fun to be with and knew how to make even the most boring of events seem exciting.

Potter fit.

And Remus hated him for it.

They spent the rest of their Christmas vacation in silence.

*****