Disclaimer: characters are not mine - I just mess with them.

Three Moons

November

As Remus walked wrapped in his thick wool cloak towards the Whomping Willow he tried not to look back. He knew he wouldn't see anything anyway – the guys were under James' Invisibility Cloak – but it unnerved him to know that people were following him even if they were his best friends. It was the first time Pomfrey was letting go to the Shack on his own and he was torn between wanting to keep some privacy for his transformation and desperately wanting someone to be with him as he tore himself apart – just the once, just so he would have one time when he didn't have to bear it on his own.

Carefully dodging the half-heartedly swinging branches he pressed the knot in the tree and heard its sigh as its boughs settled peacefully. Slipping through quickly, he heard the others move up closer behind him so they would be able to fit through, nevertheless he heard as one of them got hit by a fast-awakening branch. Once they were all safely in the tunnel Remus paused to let them take the cloak off, which much fumbling and cursing.

"Next time you're transforming Pete! There's no way I ever want to be that close to either of you ever again!" James exclaimed.

Sirius just laughed as he tried to extricate himself from the folds of the cloak, while Pete slunk up beside Remus, away from the confusion of James pulling and Sirius struggling.

Remus threw his head up suddenly, seeming to stare up through the ceiling of the tunnel. Sirius tensed as he saw the humour die in his friend's face. "We're running late." And suddenly he was running down the tunnel, stripping off his cloak to leave it strewn vaguely near the door. With a brief glance at each other the others followed, pounding after him towards the Shack.

When they got there they found him already in his room, his clothes strewn all over the floor and furniture, some looking distinctly ragged from his haste to get them off. Remus himself was curled on the floor, rocking back and forth, nails lifting out chunks of the ancient, decaying carpet. His eyes screwed shut, his face mashed into the floor all Remus could do was yell "Change!" at them before his own transformation overtook him.

He kept his nails biting through the carpet and into the floorboards as long as he could to stop himself tearing at his melding flesh. He heard himself scream, but couldn't stop it or the sobs that tore out of him at the thought of his friends seeing him this way. All at once he felt a cold nose prod his side and he let go of the floor to lash out blindly only to have his wrist neatly caught between sharp teeth, just loose enough not to break the skin. As he looked round into Sirius' doggy face he felt the fur rush in a wave down his back and his eyes change to wolf-yellow. He screamed once more as his arms and legs finished their adjustments to become fore- and hind-legs, but by that time it came out as more of a howl, one which Sirius joined him in – mourning his pain and greeting the moon in the same breath.

They frolicked the night away, Remus revelling in having his friends with him as he always did at this time. Bloodlust nagged at his mind, the smell of his human friends would have driven him to insanity, but the smell of his animal friends had become like home to him – his pack with him always. He and Sirius took turns chasing Peter and dodging James' growing horns and he stretched his wolf muscles luxuriously, revelling in the strength and ease of movement, sniffing out strange smells in his home and snapping up a mouse who had ventured into the wrong house. One of the things that sometimes distressed him the most was how much he was coming to enjoy his wolf times; how he was starting to merge more and more with the wolf. But in the middle of the night, with his friends around him he couldn't seem to care too much.

That all changed as the moon set. The winter had made it a long night, but even still it had to end eventually and soon enough Remus felt his transformation pains start again and howled at the injustice of it all. His fur itched and his more lupine mind couldn't stand it. He tried to resist it, but soon enough he was scratching long gouges out of the floor and tearing his fur out with his claws. While his thick wolf pelt held up he would be relatively safe from his own claws, but the transformation was taking fast hold. In the last few months the calm he had felt at spending his time with friends had been enough to help him keep his wits throughout the worst of it, but now there they were, watching him, watching his body betray him and he clawed himself as much out of the frustration of it all as at the shifting feeling under his skin.

Then there was a big furry presence on his back, pushing him to the floor and knocking some of the wind out of him. His arms (for arms they were starting to be) were pinned out to the sides and his legs were caught uncomfortably underneath him while Sirius panted hot dog breath on the back of his neck. He bucked and writhed under his companion until the worst of the pain was over and he had a human throat once again, and then panted, "Sirius get off. My joints…then can't adjust with you on top of me."

Sirius hurriedly got off and Remus cried out as he rolled onto his back releasing his shoulders and hips to pop naturally back into place. Finally it was over and he simply lay there panting, tears running down his cheeks. When the big black dog lay down and sniffed at him cautiously Remus could only manage to roll on to his side and bury his face in the fur, words of reassurance lost to him. The dog sidled closer, blending slowly and gracefully to become Sirius lying down with him and pulling his robes round to cover them both when Remus shivered violently and started to tremble.

"Pete, grab his cloak from the tunnel will you? James, give me a hand."

And then were cradling him as gently as could be managed to the mattress that always laid waiting for him in his room for when he couldn't move any further after the change. Pete came back and the cloak was wrapped snugly round him and he fell dreamily asleep to the sound of familiar voices…

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