Miraculously, Remus managed to fall back asleep. He stayed that way until a knock sounded at the door—Remus' parents had removed the doorbell a long time ago because it hurt Remus' ears. That was before the Great Hall and Quidditch games, of course. Now that Remus was desensitized, he wasn't particularly bothered.

"Poppy!" he heard his mother exclaim. "Oh, thank goodness, I haven't known what to do and I'm so worried..."

"Where...?"

"Sitting room. This way."

"Lovely home," Madam Pomfrey commented, and Remus almost laughed out loud at the casual comment in the face of such weirdness. The school matron should not be in Remus' house. It was so incredibly strange and wrong.

He had just enough time to sit up and wipe off his face before Madam Pomfrey entered the sitting room. He grimaced. "Hello, Madam Pomfrey," he said. "Fancy seeing you here."

She snorted in amusement and knelt beside him. "You did very well, Hope. Considering."

"She did, and I'm fine," Remus grumped. "Absolutely fine."

"Don't start that. I'm not reluctant to start adding time to my visit," said Madam Pomfrey, and Remus' mum giggled. Madam Pomfrey, after Remus had displayed an unfortunate lack of descriptive word usage, had banned the word "fine" (and all its variations) from the Hospital Wing. She'd dropped a bottle cap in a jar and added five minutes to Remus' hospital stay every time he said it. Remus hated that stupid jar.

"Are you going to fix my hands?" he asked tentatively.

"No, Lupin, I'm just going to leave them like that. Of course I'm going to fix your hands," said Madam Pomfrey, rolling her eyes. "I brought a potion for the pain. It's right here."

"I don't need it," said Remus. "Worst is over."

"Well, it'll spoil otherwise, so I suggest you take it."

"Pain-Relieving Potions don't spoil," Remus pointed out. "You can't trick me, Madam Pomfrey."

"Sorry, did I say spoil? I meant that I would personally hurt you for real if you don't take it."

"Threatening a student?" said Remus in mock shock, dramatically placing his hand over his heart—and then wincing, because his fingers really did hurt. "I'm surprised at you, Madam Pomfrey!"

"Seeing as term is over," said Madam Pomfrey, "I believe that I am allowed to threaten you as much as I want. Take the potion."

"Or?" said Remus.

"I'll keep you in the Hospital Wing for an extra day during the September full moon."

There was a long silence, while Remus' mum looked on in confusion. Suddenly, both Madam Pomfrey and Remus started to laugh. "Fine, fine," said Remus. "But I'd like you to heal my right hand first, at least, so that I can take the potion myself."

Madam Pomfrey obliged, and then Remus took the potion obediently. The pain faded to a dull aching in an instant. "Don't be alarmed, Hope," said Madam Pomfrey. "I know exactly how to handle him."

"I don't need to be handled," argued Remus, but Madam Pomfrey immediately shushed him.

"Normal banter, Hope. I think it cheers him up, honestly."

"A little," Remus admitted.

Madam Pomfrey turned to Remus' mother, who was smiling brightly. Remus couldn't think why. "I need a wet cloth," Madam Pomfrey commanded. "And a glass of water, water optional."

Remus' mother didn't waste any time in getting the necessary items. As soon as she was out of earshot, Madam Pomfrey leaned closer to Remus and whispered, "How bad was the transformation? Scale of one to ten?"

"Ten being..."

"The worst. One being the best."

"One," said Remus with cheeky grin.

"Liar."

"Okay." Remus sighed. "That's complicated. It's not the worst. It's not much worse than any other of my... home transformations. But it's worse than the ones at school—because, obviously, I don't have professional medical care—and since I'm not used to it anymore, it felt worse than it is. But I can't tell. What do you think? You don't seem to be worried."

"Well, I'm trying to be sensitive towards your mother," said Madam Pomfrey. "I know she's feeling guilty. And, in all honesty, it's not awful. You've had certainly had worse."

"Exactly. I'm f—I mean, I'm okay—I mean, I'm still alive."

Madam Pomfrey smiled. "No, you're not. It's not awful, but it's definitely not good, either."

"Oh."

Hope re-entered the room with a washcloth and water. "Anything else I can do?" she asked breathlessly.

"Not at the moment," said Madam Pomfrey. "Remus? Anything else?"

"Nope. All good."

Remus watched Madam Pomfrey do a plethora of spells that he didn't recognize for the next twenty minutes. She chattered excitedly to both Remus and his mum the entire time, which made Remus feel a lot less awkward.

"How has your summer been so far, Remus?"

"I finished all my homework," he said.

"That doesn't surprise me one bit."

"Correction," said Remus' mum, smiling. "He finished his homework twice. He did it all, and then he completely started over."

"That..." Madam Pomfrey blinked. "Also doesn't surprise me one bit, actually. How about you, Hope?"

"It's been pleasant," said Remus' mum. "You know, the house used to be so quiet all day while Remus was at school and Lyall was at work. I'd expected it to be a little louder now that Remus is home, but..." She laughed. "I think I'd forgotten how well-behaved Remus was."

"Now that surprises me," said Madam Pomfrey. "He hasn't caused any trouble? None at all?"

"Except for when he sternly lectured me for telling you that he seemed sad," said Remus' mum.

Remus groaned. "Mummm."

"Well, he certainly causes plenty of trouble at school. Don't you, Remus?"

"That's not me," said Remus. "That's my friends."

"And you're not involved at all?"

"I didn't say that." Remus grinned. "But it wasn't me, I can tell you that."

"Oh, you don't need to be like that. I've told your mother everything, you know."

"So has he," interjected Remus' mum. "Multiple times."

Madam Pomfrey snorted. "Typical Hogwarts student. They all tend to chatter when coming home from school for the first time. This might hurt a bit, Remus."

Remus felt a shooting pain run up his leg. "Barely felt it," he boasted. Madam Pomfrey flicked him on the wrist, and he laughed.

They talked a bit more, and Remus discovered that chatting with Madam Pomfrey in his own home wasn't all that awkward after all. She just wasn't an awkward person, and Remus was thankful for the fact.

A little while later, an owl flew through the window. Remus didn't recognize it, and nobody else noticed it as it sat on the counter and pecked at the soup. "Mum, there's an owl eating your soup," Remus said.

"Oh! Maybe it's Lyall's owl." She rushed over, looked at the letter, and frowned. "It's addressed to you, Poppy," she said, a note of disappointment in her voice.

Madam Pomfrey frowned. "I swear, if it's Minerva asking me to come over for supper again..." She winked at Remus. "Don't tell her I told you this, but that woman cannot cook." Remus giggled. He couldn't imagine Professor McGonagall cooking.

Madam Pomfrey stood up, and Remus saw the splotches of blood on her frock. His stomach twisted with guilt, but for no real, rational reason. He was being stupid. Professor Questus would tell him that there was no helping it, wouldn't he? He'd say that Remus was being silly. She was just doing her job, and Remus wasn't doing anything wrong. Professor Questus would tell Remus to control his emotions, so Remus pushed the guilt down.

Madam Pomfrey opened the letter, and her face suddenly went grey.

"What's wrong?" said Remus.

"I need to go," said Madam Pomfrey, glancing towards Remus. There were many emotions running across her countenance, and Remus couldn't possibly identify a single one. "I can't stay. I'm so sorry."

"What is it, Poppy? Is something wrong?"

"No... yes. Maybe?" She shook her head. "But I can't tell you. It's confidential." She looked back at Remus and gave him a sort of shaky smile. "You'll be fine, Mr. Lupin. Stay off that leg for a while. And eat. Eat as much as possible."

"Yes, ma'am," said Remus.

"And don't worry about him, Hope. Goodness knows he's sturdier than he looks."

"Hang on a minute," said Remus, affronted. "Are you trying to say that I look weak?"

Madam Pomfrey shrugged and smirked. Then the smile fell off her face as she looked back at the letter. "I have to go right now. I'll see you in September, Remus. Or earlier, depending."

"Thank you very much for healing me," said Remus as politely as possible. "But... with all due respect... if I see you before September then I'll scream."

Everything was just fine (Remus could say that word now that Madam Pomfrey was gone) until the Pain-Relieving Potion wore off and everything started coming back. Remus' mother held his hand and patted his face and whispered poetry and hummed songs, but Remus still felt horrible. Fortunately, he didn't wake up until five am since he'd taken the Pain-Relieving Potion later in the day, so both of them got almost a full night's sleep.

Well, almost a full night's sleep. It did start raining quite hard in the middle of the night, but it only took Remus a couple of moments to fall back asleep after the heavy rain woke him up at one am.

Remus' father returned, dripping wet, at nine am. "How is he doing?" he asked breathlessly, practically flinging his hat and coat onto the rack. "How did it go? Is everything okay? I was so worried..."

"Madam Pomfrey visited," said Remus' mother with a smile. "Remus should be back on his feet in no time."

"Thank goodness," said Remus' father, collapsing into a chair. Remus' mum didn't even scold him for getting the chair wet. "Bless her," he added fervently. "That wonderful woman."

"Careful. There's room for only one wonderful woman in your life, Lyall," Remus' mother quipped. "So... the trial...?"

"The werewolf that we caught was proven guilty," said Remus' father.

"And...?"

He was silent.

"Lyall, I want more information than that."

Remus' dad sighed. "Martin L. Doves was his name. He was part of Greyback's... crowd. Executed."

"Oh," Remus' mum breathed. "Anyone hurt?"

"One person dead. Bethany Webb. But I don't think anyone was injured or bitten." He covered his face. "Greyback wasn't involved, according to Doves. We tried to get more information from him, but..." He shrugged. His voice was hoarse, Remus noted; hopefully, he hadn't been shouting at anyone. "No use."

"Did they catch any others?" Remus enquired.

Remus' father looked up, almost as if he'd forgotten that Remus was there. "No. Only Doves."

"How many were involved?"

"The werewolf hunter said that it looked like four were involved... Doves didn't hurt anyone; Bethany Webb was killed by a different werewolf."

Remus nodded, sensing that his father didn't want to talk anymore. It was always hard, discussing werewolf executions. Doves hadn't hurt anyone. He might have, yes, but he hadn't. The requirements for a werewolf execution were getting so lax that almost anything warranted the death penalty. "I'm going to sleep," Remus announced.

"Let me draw you a bath, Lyall," said Remus' mum. "You don't smell very good, I'm afraid."

"I concur," joked Remus.

She went upstairs, and Remus closed his eyes. But before he even started to drift off, his father's hoarse voice rang in his ears. "Remus, I need you to promise me something."

"Yeah?"

"I don't care if you get into mischief at school. I don't care if you're sarcastic with the people at the Ministry. I don't care if you get an attitude with us sometimes. But..." He hesitated. "Stay on this side of the law, Remus. Please."

"What do you take me for?" Remus mumbled, eyelids heavy. "I, Remus Lupin, hereby solemnly swear to be a goody two-shoes."

Remus' father laughed, probably for the first time in over twenty-four hours.

The attack was in the newspapers the next day, and Remus' parents wouldn't let Remus read a copy until they'd finished. Remus waited impatiently, tapping his non-broken fingers on his Gryffindor blanket. "Merlin's beard, you two are slow readers," he called.

No one even responded.

Time passed, and then Remus' father suddenly slammed his copy onto the coffee table, accidentally knocking two books to the ground. "This is STUPID!"

"I don't get it," said Remus' mum, frowning. "This isn't what you told me at all."

"Because it's not what happened!" Remus' father said. He crumpled the newspaper and threw it in the fireplace (they hadn't lit a fire because the smoke bothered Remus' nose, but it still had the same effect). The he stood up and started pacing furiously.

"Anyone going to fill me in?" Remus asked in a small voice.

"The Ministry," his father growled, "are trying to make themselves seem like they're doing more than they actually are. So they conveniently left out the part about three werewolves escaping, painted Doves as the perpetrator, and didn't even mention that they were Greyback's crowd."

"Lyall, calm down..."

"Don't tell me to calm down, Hope! This isn't the first time it's happened, and it won't be the last! Do you have any idea how wrong this is? The Ministry is sacrificing an informed public for a group of people who trust them and will follow their every command even though they're wrong!"

Remus looked up at his mum with pleading eyes, who smiled sadly and tossed him her copy of the paper (which was actually Remus', seeing as it had come from James' owl). Remus mouthed his mother a thank-you and scanned it as quickly as possible.

Werewolf Attack in Peebleton... Citizen Bethany Webb dead... the werewolf, Doves, has been captured and executed... citizens of Peebleton in safety once again...

"I suppose I understand," said Remus' mum in an effort to calm her husband down. "I don't agree, but I understand. They're trying to make the people feel safe; trying to avoid mass panic... If I knew that three werewolves were on the loose, I'd be..." She trailed off and looked at Remus. "I mean, er... I'd be fine with it, as long as they were upstanding citizens..."

Remus winked at her. "I'd be terrified, myself."

Remus' father rubbed the bridge of his nose so violently that he left a mark. "That doesn't matter! They're not doing it to prevent a mass panic! They're trying to make themselves seem more capable of dealing with the attacks so that people unquestioningly obey and trust their authority! This is..." He groaned, and the tempo of his pacing increased. "This is just like what they did with the werewolf law that they tried to pass last year. They pretend to be doing something so that they don't actually have to! In my opinion, Minister Jenkins should just step down already. Clearly, she isn't equipped to deal with this madness."

"There's nothing they can do," Remus said shortly. "They shouldn't be painting themselves as the hero and pretending that there is, but there's nothing they can do. What would you have Jenkins do about werewolf attacks? The only thing they can do is take away more of their rights, and it's not like that's going to solve anything." Remus wasn't sure, exactly, why he'd used the third-person plural when referring to werewolves and not the first-person plural, but he did think that maybe detaching himself from the whole situation would upset his parents less. They didn't often discuss werewolves, so this was an uncomfortable rarity.

"I suppose not," Remus' father said, sitting back down. "You're right, of course. Heaven forbid they take away any more werewolf rights. But they shouldn't be lying to the public."

For a couple of moments, the Lupin residence was entirely silent. Even Garrison did not rattle in the cupboard, and Bufo, who was sitting on Remus' lap, did not make even the tiniest croak.

"Would you like to draw a picture with me, Remus?" asked Remus' dad abruptly, and Remus nodded.

The fake smiles were back once again.

They did this, sometimes, on the days after the full moon. Remus' mother would lend them a sheet of white paper, and then Remus' father would pull over a chair, give Remus some colored pencils, and then the two of them would draw something. It was always different. Half of it was always upside-down, since Remus and his father could only comfortably draw together when facing each other. Besides, they were both terrible at drawing.

"What's that supposed to be?" said Remus, looking at an odd blob that his father was coloring in.

"Bufo, obviously."

"That is not Bufo. Bufo, tell him."

Bufo croaked.

"See, Bufo agrees."

"I think that he agrees with me, actually. You don't speak Frog, so you don't know whether that was an affirmative answer or not."

If it had been Madam Pomfrey or Professor Questus, Remus would have said something along the lines of "Maybe speaking Frog is just another werewolf superpower that you don't know about." But it wasn't Madam Pomfrey or Professor Questus, so he didn't. It wasn't that funny, anyway.

"So what are you drawing, Mr. I'm-So-Good-At-Art?" Remus' dad asked, and Remus giggled.

"What do you think?"

"It looks like..." Remus' dad tilted his head. "Hm. Is it..." He suddenly gasped in mock horror. "Remus! You can't portray your mother like that!"

"I'm noooot!" said Remus, now laughing. "How would you even...?"

Remus' dad started to point to various parts of Remus' picture. "That's her weird boxy frown. Those are her yellow eyes. Those are her freckles..."

"Mum doesn't have freckles!"

"Oh, so you just gave her twenty yellow eyes? I'm disappointed in you."

"No!"

"And that, right there, is an odd sort of red ear..."

"Not even close."

"And I'm not sure why you put a long stripe of blue at the top for the sky. That's preschool coloring, and you know it."

"You've got it all wrong," said Remus. "That is not a boxy frown; it is a table. And they're not yellow eyes; they're floating candles. And that's a red hourglass... I'm drawing three more later. And that's the ceiling, not the sky!"

"So it's some sort of odd... abstract drawing?" said his father.

"No! It's the Great Hall! Sheesh, Dad, I'm not that bad at drawing!" He considered. "I guess the only abstract part about it is the hourglass. It wasn't all red. Gryffindor ended the year with only 48.78 points."

"Yeah, you told us," said Remus' dad. "Four times."

"But did I tell you where the point-seven-eight came from—?"

"Yes!"

"And did I tell you how James and Sirius—?"

"Yes!"

Remus drew a red line over his father's depiction of Bufo, and his father hit him with a colored pencil.

The next few days were tiring, but Remus managed to heal up quite a bit. A week later, he was even feeling well enough to help his mother make dinner. It ended with peas spilled all over the floor, water dripping from Remus' hair, and a huge mischievous smile on his mum's face... but that was the best part.

They all sat down at the table together, and Remus' leg didn't even hurt at all. "Do you want to play Gobstones after dinner?" asked his father, and Remus nodded eagerly.

After supper, Remus took a very hot bath, which only stung his wounds and scrapes a little bit. Then his mum cut his hair, despite his protests.

"Mum, there is hair in my face," he said.

"Good for you."

"Hair does not belong on my face."

"Apparently it belongs on your father's," she said scornfully. Remus laughed. His father could never achieve more than a patchy stubble, so he constantly looked unshaven and unkempt. Remus' mum kept trying to get him to shave it all off, but he never would. He said it made him feel grown-up.

"There's hair on my hands, too," said Remus. "Hair does not belong on my hands."

"Well, deal!" she said. "Don't you dare move."

"Mum, there's hair on my nose, and hair does not belong on..."

"I know, Remus!"

Remus laughed again. If it had been Professor Questus or Madam Pomfrey, he would have made a joke about how hair did actually belong on his face and hands and nose... one night a month. But it wasn't Professor Questus or Madam Pomfrey, so he didn't say a word.

Now that he thought about it, the hair on his hands and nose and face was bothering him more than a little—now he was remembering being in the cellar, pacing on padded feet, fur everywhere... Now the mere tickling was turning into something wildly different, and panic rose in Remus' chest.

If it had been Professor Questus or Madam Pomfrey, Remus would have voiced his concerns. Professor Questus would have just told him that he was being silly, but Remus would have felt better anyway, because things always felt better when they were out in the air. Madam Pomfrey would have silently Vanished all of it in less than two seconds and then moved on.

But it wasn't Professor Questus or Madam Pomfrey, and telling his mother such things would only make her sad. She'd probably panic and stop cutting his hair, and try to brush everything off, and it would make Remus panic even more to see her panicking, and then she'd feel guilty about it for the rest of the day.

So he didn't tell her. He just gritted his teeth and clenched his hands and waited it out.

Then he went downstairs to play Gobstones with his father. His haircut looked kind of dumb, and it didn't cover up his face as much as he would have liked... but there was no one around but his parents to see, and there wouldn't be until September.

The thought was comforting, but at the same time, it wasn't.

AN: Unrelated, but eating Oreo cookies without milk should be a federal offense.