Disclaimer: Well, I wasn't J K Rowling last chapter, and I don't seem to have changed much, so I still own none of the Harry Potter world

Rating: T

Summary: Has Remus' secret been discovered?

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Remus was not at breakfast the next morning. None of the three boys said anything, though they exchanged significant glances. Neither did he turn up in Transfiguration or History of Magic. Professor McGonagall made no comment on his absence. Nor did Binns, but since he only seemed vaguely aware he had a class at all, that could not be taken to mean anything.

He reappeared at lunch, sickly pale, looking as though he had not slept in weeks, and with one hand bandaged.

"Had a bit of an accident, Loopy?" asked James casually.

"Mmm." Food had appeared on the plates, and although Sirius, James and Peter were tucking in with great enjoyment, Remus merely pushed it around his plate with his fork. Once or twice he scooped up a forkful but barely got as far as lifting it off the plate before giving up completely.

"You don't look very well," remarked Sirius. Remus took a bread roll and began picking at it, tearing off miniscule portions and chewing them very slowly.

"I do feel a bit ill," agreed Remus.

"Catch a chill last night, did you?"

"Er... no."

"It's the wrong time of year to be wandering round the grounds all evening," said James. Both he and Sirius were watching Remus intently. Peter glanced up, frowning, then suddenly seemed to realise what they were doing. His eyes grew very round and he carefully laid down his fork to watch.

"Too cold," said Remus, sounding very uncertain.

"That's why we gave up and came back in."

Remus looked even sicker than before. He had gone bone white and had stopped even trying to eat. His eyes flicked from one to the other of them.

"I thought it was the Slytherin common room you were interested in exploring, not the grounds."

"Oh, well, we saw something to change our minds." James did not elaborate. Remus glanced down to see that he had unconsciously crushed the bread roll in his fist.

"I... um, I think I'll go see if Madam Philpot has anything to settle my stomach," he said, talking breathily and far too fast. "See you in class." He got to his feet and almost ran from the room, causing several other people to look up curiously.

"It's just Loopy," James heard a Slytherin say scornfully. "He spends so much time in the hospital wing I'm surprised they don't just leave him there."

"Well, you definitely had him rattled," remarked Sirius. "What was he doing out there?"

But James wasn't listening. "He is ill a lot, isn't he?"

"Hmm? Yeah, I guess so." Sirius frowned. "Actually, you're right. He never looks well after he's – ah – been to see his mum."

"Maybe he catches it off her?" suggested Peter. James and Sirius rolled their eyes.

"Peter, you prat, that might have explained it, except that now we know he doesn't actually go and visit her."

"Oh." Peter went red. "Oh, I suppose so."

"I wonder..." James had obviously had an idea, but as he didn't seem about to share it, Peter returned to his lunch, only occasionally glancing up to see James still staring into the distance, chewing absent-mindedly. Sirius started flirting with his neighbour, a third year girl who seemed to enjoy the attention.

They arrived outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom just as the bell went, to find Remus already waiting there. He was leaning against the wall of the corridor with his arms crossed and his eyes closed, looking no better than he had at lunch. The winter sunlight falling on his face highlighted the veins that showed through his pale skin and a couple of scratches across one cheek that they had not noticed earlier.

"Well, in you go!" Professor Salbre walked through the milling students to open the door. "Mr Lupin, this is lesson time; you can sleep later." Salbre had taken an instant dislike to Remus at the beginning of their first year and never missed an opportunity to show it. Remus opened tired eyes and stooped to collect his schoolbag. His eyes fell briefly on James, Sirius and Peter, but he looked away again immediately and followed Professor Salbre into the classroom with his head down, speaking to no one.

He still did not speak when Peter and James took their accustomed places on either side of him and began emptying their schoolbags of textbooks, quills and parchment.

"You will open your textbooks at page one hundred and seventy-three; today we will be studying Grindylows." He tapped the blackboard with his wand while the class flicked through their books to the correct page, and proceeded to lecture them on the creature and ways to protect themselves from it.

Another tap on the board and an assignment appeared; an essay on the habitat of the Grindylow, the dangers it presented to a witch or wizard and the various methods of escaping an attack. For a while the classroom was silent save the scratching of quills on parchment and the rustling of pages in textbooks being turned. Professor Salbre, as was his habit, patrolled the classroom with an eagle eye for misbehaviour or inattentiveness. To begin Remus kept half an eye on Peter, waiting to be asked for help, but Peter seemed to have the hang of this topic, and so he turned his attention back to his own essay.

"Potter!" snapped Professor Salbre, inches behind Remus' head. Remus jumped half out of his seat, as did James; they had not realised the Professor was in their section of the classroom. "As admirable as your enthusiasm for the subject is, today we are studying Grindylows. Kindly turn your attention to the task in hand." James hurriedly pulled his parchment towards him; he had been reading far ahead in the textbook, on a topic they would not be covering until much later in the year. As he turned back to the relevant section Remus saw the heading of the page he had been reading. Werewolves.

Coincidence, he told himself, trying to concentrate on his work. Professor Salbre would seize any excuse to reprimand him; he did not intend to give him one. Coincidence. James was just reading ahead; I know it's one of his favourite subjects...

But those questions! He shuddered as he thought back to the interrogation he had got at lunch. There was no other explanation; the other three had seen him in the grounds last night, after he had told them he was going home to see his mother. They must have guessed. They knew his secret. All they had to do was look back over the last year and work out that his disappearances were four weeks apart, on the full moons.

What would they do? Go to a teacher, perhaps. All the teachers knew what he was already, but how they would react to the pupils finding out was anyone's guess. If too many people objected, not even Dumbledore would be able to keep him in the school.

The bell rang. Remus glanced at alarm at his parchment as Salbre announced their homework was to finish it, for handing in next lesson. He had written barely half a foot; that would be more work to catch up on, on top of Transfiguration and History of Magic. And if James and Sirius knew about him, they would want nothing more to do with him. He would have to find someone else's notes to borrow... He almost laughed at himself, what a stupid, mundane thing to be worrying about now.

He sat with the others in Herbology, worrying the whole time about what they would do, whether he would be allowed to stay at Hogwarts. He had been so happy when he realised these boys, normal boys, wanted to be his friends. They might call him Loopy, and tease about his bookishness and shyness, but they were friends. He had lived most his childhood being solitary, but now he did not know if he could go back to being alone, always alone.

After Herbology he made it easy for the others to leave without him, delaying the inevitable confrontation as long as possible. He took his time packing his belongings back into his bag, then headed to the Tower instead of the Great Hall, only going down to dinner after sitting on his bed for ten minutes trying to school himself into a semblance of calm. As he had expected, the tables had all filled up, and though a gap had been left beside Peter for him, he pretended not to see them at all and sat instead at the very end of the long table, eating quickly and skipping desert so he could leave before them.

"He's been avoiding us all afternoon," remarked Sirius as they saw Remus leave the Hall, not once looking back for them. "What can he not want us to know that much?"

James, who had been very quiet since Defence Against the Dark Arts, swallowed his mouthful of treacle tart. "I need to talk to you to about that," he said. "I think I might have figured it out."

There was no sign of Remus in the common room, and James hurried the other two back to their dormitory.

"How often does Loopy disappear?"

Sirius thought back carefully. Apart from the regular visits to his mother, occasionally Remus went missing for a day or two with a different explanation; usually that he'd been taken ill. He was so sickly that they had never thought much of it. "About once a month, all in all."

James nodded. "Can you remember exactly when the last one was?" he asked. He pulled out a calendar from his trunk and marked last night on it.

"About a week before Christmas," replied Sirius.

"Yes, I remember," added Peter eagerly. "He missed Potions, so it must have been a Wednesday."

James marked that on the calendar too. "And before that, he missed the Ravenclaw-Slytherin Quidditch match." There was exactly four weeks between each of the marks. He looked up at Sirius, who was studying the calendar with a thoughtful frown, and Peter, who was watching him expectantly. He had been thinking about this all afternoon but was not sure how to put it to his two friends.

"Last night was a full moon," said Sirius quietly, plainly having followed the same line of thought as James. He counted back the weeks to the next mark, and again to the third. "Three full moons."

"And he always comes back looking ill, and often with little injuries. I suppose Madam Philpot must deal with anything major."

Sirius had reached the same conclusion that James had done at lunch. "You were reading about werewolves in Salbre's lesson," he remembered. "Do you think..."

James nodded soberly. "Yes, I do."

"What?" squeaked Peter. "W... werewolf? But..." All the blood drained from his face. "We have to tell someone. Tell Professor Dumbledore..."

"Don't be stupid, Peter," snarled Sirius. "All the teachers must know or he wouldn't have been able to come here."

"But..."

James took pity on Peter, who looked positively terrified. "It's not so bad, Pete. They've obviously got safety measures in place. Madam Philpot would have been taking him somewhere secure last night, I'd guess."

"Yes," agreed Sirius, "somewhere he can't get out of. And then he stays in the hospital wing until he's recovered..."

"But..." Peter still did not seem convinced. "He seems so normal."

"Well, it isn't his fault. You don't think he asked to be bitten?"

"No, no..." Peter took a deep breath. "I suppose he is normal for most of the month, isn't he?"

"I can't believe he didn't tell us," said Sirius.

"Do we tell him we've figured it out?"

"He must know we have, or at least that we were on our way to... that's why he's been avoiding us all afternoon."

"Maybe we'll leave him guessing for a little while?" suggested James. "After all, he left us guessing for over a year."