Wednesday arrived, and Remus wasn't sure whether he looked forward to three pm or dreaded it. "You're visiting Questus today?" asked his mum, who hadn't been able to call Professor Questus by his first name. She'd said it was weird. Remus wholeheartedly agreed.

"Yeah," said Remus.

"Be back by five-thirty for supper, please."

Remus couldn't see himself staying for a whole two and a half hours. "I will," he said.

"This is so odd," said Remus' mother with a small smile. "Most mums say that, don't they? Be back before supper? But this is the first time I've ever said it." She chuckled. "And most mums say it before their children go off to play with their friends. Not when they go off to have tea with a former teacher. What do you even talk about?"

Werewolves, thought Remus, but he couldn't say that; it would only upset his mother. "Once we talked about Boggarts. He tells me stories of Auror assignments. And he gives me duelling tips. We talk about a lot."

"But you still don't consider him a friend?"

One benefit of being friends with James Potter was that Remus had perfected his eyeroll. It was quite an impressive eyeroll, if he did say so himself, and he did it now with vigor. "Mum! He's, like, four times my age. He's never going to be anything but my teacher."

"All right, all right," said his mum, smiling. "I just wish you had more friends, honey."

"I have four."

"But..." Remus' mum trailed off, but the unspoken words hung in the air.

It won't last long.

Only one of Remus' friends knew the truth about him (Hagrid, though he and Remus didn't spend an awful lot of time together), and the other three weren't likely to accept Remus when they inevitably found out. Remus would have to leave Hogwarts, and then he would lose Hagrid, too—and all the teachers who had been so kind to him for months and months—and a prospective education—and the Hogwarts library—and the moving staircases. Remus had never particularly liked those staircases, but he'd miss them all the same.

"I'm going upstairs," said Remus after some contemplation. His mother nodded, shamefaced, and Remus retreated to his room to stare at the wall and feel sorry for himself (a pastime that was quickly becoming one of Remus' favorites).

Remus knocked on the door. "Hello? Professor?"

"It's open," said Professor Questus, not bothering speaking any louder than a normal speaking voice. He'd been speaking a lot more quietly lately, actually—which wasn't surprising, seeing as he'd been dead exhausted last time Remus had seen him. But shouting hurt Remus' ears, so Remus was thankful.

"And don't call me Professor," added Professor Questus, and then Remus was significantly less thankful.

He opened the door and shut it behind him carefully. Professor Questus was sitting in an armchair, covered by a dark brown blanket and reading a book. He was wearing his spectacles, Remus noted. He also looked very, very ill. Absolutely exhausted. Remus had never seen him looking so poorly before, and it scared him a little.

"I'm not contagious, if that's what you're thinking," Questus said with a perfected eyeroll of his own. "Here, sit."

Remus sat in the armchair across from him. It wasn't a particularly comfortable armchair, but it would do. "You're not bleeding nearly as much as before," he said.

"Indeed," said Questus. "It's dying down. But the incessant bleeding, I'm afraid, has been replaced with utter exhaustion and chills. I can't catch a break. Pomfrey's pretty sure the curse is at least chronic, if not fatal."

"That's stupid," said Remus. "I mean, not what Madam Pomfrey said. She's usually right. But it's stupid how curses can be... chronic. Magic should be temporary, shouldn't it?"

"Well, I suppose it's only fair," said Questus. "We have magical solutions to all sorts of Muggle problems, so it's only fair that we should have some wizarding problems that Muggles don't have to worry about. Muggles wouldn't have stumbled across whatever I did..."

"What was it?"

"Can't tell you. Auror business. Well, I guess you have no one to tell. It was a building, that's all I'll say. I went inside a building that contained a few powerful curses. Possible that they mixed together in an unpleasant sort of way. With luck, we'll find out soon—on way or another. Anyway. Muggles aren't often werewolves, either, are they?"

"No, not often. But sometimes."

"I imagine they don't last long as werewolves."

"No. They don't usually survive the first transformation, and if they do, then they don't have potions and charms and things to heal them up afterwards." Remus suppressed a shudder. He couldn't imagine his mother healing him, without magic, after every full moon. There was no way he'd've made it past his sixth birthday.

"Hm," said Questus. "What other kind of people survive that first transformation, then? You mentioned that you survived because of... what was the phrase?... dumb luck."

Remus didn't want to talk about this. Wasn't there anything else they could talk about? Anything? Anything at all? "Yeah, it's just luck, I think. Adults can make it through most of the time. It's a toss-up with children, but they just have to be... you know. Not too fragile." Remus suddenly remembered James calling him a fragile china doll and giggled a bit, which felt inappropriate under the circumstances. Then again, Questus didn't particularly care about what was appropriate.

"Makes sense," said Questus thoughtfully. "So what have you been doing lately?"

"Er..." said Remus, startled by the sudden topic change (but thankful nonetheless). "Mum and I have been reading Hogwarts, a History. And I wrote to my friends." Remus didn't really want to tell Questus about the notebook. For some reason, it felt like a secret, even though it had never been officially established as such. "I haven't been writing much, though," he said, which was the truth. "Not as much as they have, anyhow. I can't easily visit them, and I want to... keep my distance. For now."

"Why?" said Questus, looking impatient. "You really should enjoy them while you have them. I've told you that multiple times, Lupin. Take advantage of the fact that you have them for now..."

"I know! But it's making me sad, to write to them, when I can't actually see them. It's not... it's not the same." Remus changed the topic again. "Oh, and Madam Pomfrey visited yesterday. She talked with my mum for a few hours. I mostly stayed in my room."

"I bet you listened to every word, though," Questus teased.

"Only the ones about me," said Remus, smiling. "So what have you been doing, then?"

"I took exactly fourteen-and-a-half naps. Keeping a tally." Questus gestured towards a notepad on the end-table, which contained exactly fourteen-and-a-half tally marks. "You know, I've been trying to convince myself that I'm not old yet (despite your rude remark the other day), but I feel extremely so."

"You're wearing your spectacles."

"And I only wear them when I'm tired," responded Questus. "Usually I just deal with the bad eyesight. Spectacles are a bit of a burden, really. And you know what else is a burden? I'm on strict orders to not leave this armchair. It's horribly unpleasant."

"Are you just going to sleep there?" asked Remus. He'd always slept on the couch after full moons, but there had been two full moons that had occurred directly after the Lupins had moved to a new house. Remus had ended up sleeping on a blanket on the floor on one of them, and the armchair on the other. The armchair, he remembered, had been very uncomfortable. So had the blanket, but that was besides the point.

"Yes. For now. Pomfrey said that I should be a bit better at the end of the week—better enough to walk to another room, at least. Apparating is out of the question. Fortunately, this house is only one story, so I don't have to worry about stairs."

Remus had lived in a couple of one-story houses, himself. He very much preferred them. "Do you want me to make tea?" he asked. "Since you can't get up."

"Ah, sure," said Professor Questus. "Kitchen's over there."

Remus wandered into the kitchen. "Where are the...?"

"Kettle's in the top left cabinet. Cups are right next to it. I'm sure you and your ridiculous werewolf senses can find the ingredients on your own." Indeed, Remus and his ridiculous werewolf senses could do so without a problem.

He handed Professor Questus a cup and sat down. "Does the kettle whistling bother you?" said Questus. "You mentioned the other day that mine was louder than yours."

"It is... but I'm pretty used to it at this point."

"Hm." Questus took a sip of tea. "This is much better than the tea that Pomfrey made yesterday."

Remus smiled. "I used the same ratio that you use. Madam Pomfrey typically uses..."

"Far too much milk, yes." He took another sip. "I suppose that's another thing that amplified senses are good for. You must be an excellent cook."

Remus was, actually. Not excellent, but certainly efficient. Downright decent.

"You said you're used to the kettle whistling by now?" asked Questus. "What about when you weren't used to it? What was all that like?"

Remus squirmed. He had really hoped that they could talk about something else, and he was a bit worried about how much Professor Questus would restrain himself when it came to questions. After all, he wasn't Remus' professor anymore. He could technically ask whatever he wanted with no repercussions. It was no longer unprofessional to do so (not that Questus had ever cared about being professional). "Er," said Remus. "I was five. I don't remember it exactly."

"What do you remember?"

Remus let out a breath with a small whooshing noise. "I was kind of... out of it. For the whole month. I was young, you know, and it was... a lot."

"I wonder about this all the time," said Questus. "All the blood in your body was being replaced, the curse was traveling at a very quick rate, I'm sure, and you were too young to deal with it all...?"

"I wasn't really supposed to survive," said Remus with a shrug. "I was in and out of consciousness for the whole month, so I think I was able to... ease into it? But I remember a few things. Eating was really hard for a while, and I made my father remove the doorbell—he kept doing that, you know, in every house we've ever lived in." Remus chuckled weakly before continuing. "And I made my parents speak more quietly, too. Then I guess I just... got used to it."

"I've noticed that you speak half as loudly as your peers. Then again: your friends, in particular, are very loud."

"Yeah. Peter's voice gets a little screechy when he's excited, and James and Sirius are screechy all the time."

"And, regarding the amplified sense of taste," said Questus with a grin, "I'm sure Hagrid's rock cakes are horrible for you in particular."

Remus laughed. "Well, there's the same difference between rock cakes and normal food for me as there is for you. And after choking down so many of Madam Pomfrey's potions, I'm desensitized."

"But you can't eat on the day of the full moon?"

"No... but some of that is... just because I'm nauseous. And the fact that everything is amplified makes it impossible to eat. Sometimes I can manage a bit of tea in the early morning, but mostly..." Remus shrugged. "I make my parents eat outside, too."

"You have good parents."

"I didn't think you liked them much."

"Oh, please. The fact that they kept you around is reason enough to like them. You realize how many parents would have turned you out?"

"Yes," said Remus shortly. "The vast majority. I know."

"My parents did."

Remus blinked. "What?"

"My parents. Turned me out. As soon as I was of age. And I'm not even a werewolf."

"Why? What did you do wrong?"

"A great many things. Not sure if you noticed, but I'm not likeable."

"Really?" said Remus, feigning wonder. "That explains a lot." He sensed that the topic was exhausted for now, so he switched topics again masterfully. "So... was the Ministry still unhappy with you when you came back to be an Auror a few months ago?"

"Oh, yes," said Professor Questus. "Absolutely. All my former co-workers looked at me with pure contempt. Even got lectured sternly on the subject of self-control by one of the older Aurors." He smiled. "I don't need a lecture on self-control. It wasn't that I couldn't control myself when I insulted Orion and got sacked... I just didn't want to."

Remus laughed politely, but something was bothering him. "Is there a difference?" he asked.

"Of course there's a difference. It's a calculated risk versus a spur-of-the-moment decision."

"Oh," said Remus. He'd been thinking of the full moon—when his mind and motives were changed. It wasn't that he couldn't control himself then, not really. It was just that he didn't want to... he wanted to hurt people... he wanted to slash himself to bits and claw at the furniture. It wasn't that he didn't have free will, necessarily; it was just that he had different motives, a different personality, and different priorities. But if controlling oneself was always calculated, then...

"I can almost follow your train of thought exactly," said Questus. "Your face betrays you."

Remus raised his eyebrows and then rearranged his face into what he thought was a decent poker face. "Really? Then what was I thinking?"

"Self-control. Full moon. It's not that you can't control yourself, it's just that you don't want to—with the new mind and motives."

"Wrong," said Remus. "Not even close."

"Liar. Hey, tell me about it."

Remus froze. "What?"

"The full moon."

"What about it?"

"Tell me about the full moon. Start to finish. All the details."

"I..." Remus blinked. "Don't you know the details?"

"Yeah. But I've never heard them from you."

"There's... there's a reason you've never heard them from me, Professor! I don't like to talk about it! I already have to live it every month!"

"Don't call me Professor. I understand. That's why I never made you talk about it... much... before. But I'm no longer your teacher, and I am extremely curious."

"But... you already know!"

"Yeah. But I want to hear it from you."

"But, Professor..." Remus felt his face turn red, and then he felt it grow even redder because he was embarrassed that it was turning red. "But I don't want to," he said lamely.

"For heaven's sake, Lupin. It's as you said: I already know what happens. There's no need to be embarrassed. And don't call me Professor."

"Maybe I should get home," Remus mumbled. His hands were shaking a bit, he noticed. That was weird. Was he cold? He didn't think so.

"Lupin!" said Questus, exasperated, and Remus realized that Questus had been calling his name for quite some time. Remus had spaced out a bit. Oops. "Look, if you don't want to tell me, I'm not about to force you. Calm down."

Remus took a breath.

In through his nose. Out through his mouth.

"I just... it's a living nightmare," he said. "I like talking about werewolf-related things sometimes... but this is too much. I hate talking about the transformations. I hate them."

"Of course," said Questus. "And I definitely won't make you. I don't want you fainting in my armchair—that would certainly be a bit of a nuisance. But you've never gotten like this before at the mere mention of the full moon, Lupin. Anything specifically wrong?"

"Just..." He clenched his hands into fists in an effort to stop their annoying quivering. "I dunno. Unexpected. And being asked to... tell the whole thing... is different from specific questions, you know?"

"May I ask specific questions, then?"

"No," said Remus. "Now I'm..." Flashes of pain and dark cellars and full moons filled his head. What was wrong with him? "I'm sorry; it hasn't been like this in a while..."

"Your lycanthropy is taboo in your family, isn't it?" said Questus, frowning. "You don't talk about it much?"

"No. My dad gets guilty, and my mum gets all weepy."

"You've been home for over a month now. You've probably regressed."

Regressed?

Remus didn't like that word.

Really? Could all of the work he'd done not-thinking-about-sheep and talking-about-werewolves and talking-to-people... could that go away? Could he really lose everything he'd worked so hard for? Would he have to start over completely, just as uncomfortable and uncertain as he'd been at the beginning of his first year? Would he lose all the peace of mind he'd had before?

Or was Professor Questus just telling him that as a classic manipulative Slytherin? Was it all just a story to get Remus to talk?

Perhaps it was, but Remus didn't care. Questus had made a good point: Remus was going to go back to school in a few weeks, and he really needed to desensitize himself again. He could tell this story. Just this once. Couldn't he?

"Where should I start?" he asked.

"Lupin, you don't have to..."

"Where should I start?" he repeated.

Questus studied his face. "Days leading up?"

In through his nose. Out through his mouth. Calm down. "The days leading up just make me feel ill," said Remus. "Starts about three or four days before, but I can always feel it getting closer. Even up to a week and a half before, though it's not usually awful until the day of the full moon. It feels like a more severe version of the Muggle flu—minus the runny nose—plus some pain in my bones and muscles. And then, on the day of the full... well, it's different every time, you understand. Always pain, always fatigue... I've lost my voice once or twice... spots in my vision... that one time I was fainting left and right..."

"I remember that," said Questus, an amused look on his face.

"Shush, I'm trying to forget about that. And my senses are heightened, obviously, so I can't eat."

"And then?"

"And then Madam Pomfrey wakes me up at... somewhere between five-thirty and five-forty-five. Then we walk to the Shrieking Shack. If I'm home, my dad brings me down at around six-thirty. Seven. Seven-thirty. It depends."

"That's late," commented Questus. "Don't you transform at around eight?"

"Around, yeah. But the hours preceding a full moon are... well, they're hard. And private. My parents have seen it, but I don't want... anyone... Madam Pomfrey shouldn't have to..."

"All right," said Questus simply, blessedly interrupting Remus' incoherent speech. "What happens then?"

Remus was thankful for the questions, for the first time ever. They provided as a sort of guide so that he wasn't rambling for hours. "Well, first there's the fact that I'm dead terrified."

"You are? Even after so many full moons?"

"Yes. Every time. I'm always scared out of my mind. Then I start shaking like mad—but not just because I'm afraid. I think it's because..."

"Like a triple shot of adrenaline," Questus mused. "Because of the physical pressure."

'I... guess," said Remus. "And sometimes I'll... you know. Only if I'm stressed, not all the time... sort of... episodes, for lack of a better word. It's all normal one minute, and then I can't breathe and everything hurts. They don't last long."

"Hm," said Questus. "Never read about that in books before."

"Well, I'm not making it up."

"I believe you."

"Good, because I'd have no reason to lie about that. And then, at about eight pm, everything just sorta goes... still. I stop shaking. My heart rate drops. And everything's deathly quiet and still for about six seconds (sometimes I count). And then I transform."

"Must be nice to have some warning," said Professor Questus.

"It's mostly just scary," muttered Remus. "Hearing everything stop and go totally silent is like something out of a horror movie."

"I suppose. What does the transformation feel like, then?"

"Well..." Remus could feel his cheeks going red again, and he swiped at them as if to return them to their normal color. "Like... like you said before. Like everything you said before." Questus had read quite a lot about werewolves in the Hogwarts library, and he often made offhand comments about some of the more painful bits of the transformation. He already knew everything, and he'd made it quite clear.

"Well, yes. I know the technical things. But how does it feel? All the books I read were written by humans, you know. Not werewolves."

"Well... it's just the technical things," said Remus. "It's like... I dunno. It hurts. All over. Like the Cruciatus... kind of, but it more of an... inside pain... you know, more stretching, breaking, bending... than an outside pain. Not quite as intense, but I can feel it happening."

Questus leaned forward slightly. "Uh-huh," he said slowly. "And how do you know what the Cruciatus curse feels like?"

"Ah..." Remus thought he'd told Professor Questus, but he supposed he hadn't. He knew he'd told Dumbledore, at least, on that horrific day in his office after Dumbledore had seen... oh, fiddlesticks, he'd forgotten that he'd shown Dumbledore a full-moon memory that one time. He was sure that his face was probably bright, bright red now. Red was Remus' second-favorite color, but he wasn't a fan of it at the moment.

"I was eight," started Remus. "Durmstrang boys in the neighborhood found out about me. They thought they were doing something noble. It was only for a few seconds, and they were only teenagers. I doubt they'd done it before, so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. My dad was just on the bench nearby, reading the paper, and he got them to stop... but it didn't feel pleasant."

"Didn't feel pleasant." Questus snorted. "Understatement of the century. All right. Back to the transformation. It lasts thirty to forty seconds, doesn't it?"

"I don't really know," said Remus. "But I think so."

"And then afterwards...?"

"I transform back."

"And how do you feel?"

"Completely numb for about ten to fifteen minutes. Dad thinks it's an aftereffect of all my nerves reshaping themselves. He says it takes a while for them to come back."

"And then?"

"I'm... me, I guess. Discombobulated, sometimes. Other times I'm perfectly fine. Madam Pomfrey gives me a Pain-Relieving Potion, and I usually fall asleep while she's healing me. And... that's it, really. That's all."

Remus had managed to tell the whole story, and he hadn't spontaneously combusted. Not even once. He was immensely proud of himself, and he half-expected some praise from Professor Questus... but none came.

There was a long moment of silence.

It was awkward.

Why was it so awkward?

"How?" asked Questus abruptly.

"How what?"

"How do you do it, exactly? How do you go through all that every month without going insane?"

"I never said I wasn't insane," joked Remus. "I'm friends with James and Sirius. Of course I'm insane."

Questus snorted in amusement, but he still looked as if he was waiting for a genuine answer.

"I don't know, honestly," admitted Remus. "More luck, I guess. When I feel myself slipping, I tell myself that, if I could do it as a tiny five-year-old with no pain tolerance and no understanding of what was happening, then it shouldn't be hard to do it now."

Questus snorted again. "Suppose. And—back to the transformation itself—does the mind change happen gradually? Or all at once?"

Remus made a face. He'd thought they were done talking about that. "Sort of gradually, I think. But I'm not really paying attention. It just feels like I'm going mad from the pain."

"So the transformation starts, and when it stops, you're not you at all?"

"I am me," said Remus. "That's the worst part. I'm still me—I'm completely and totally me. But it's like you said before: I'm a version of me who wants... different things. I don't have a sense of right and wrong. But I can remember the whole full moon when I transform back: my actions, my instincts, and my reasoning."

"So..." said Questus, and Remus knew from his tone of voice that he was about to ask something very unpleasant. "Explain your reasoning, then."

Remus' hands were shaking again (he'd thought they were done!), but he barreled on. "Like... itching. Instinct. Everywhere. It's like... a need, of sorts. Paired with intense hatred of literally everything. I remember things from the daytime, but only flashes, and... there's just a lot of itching. And I can't tell myself that it's wrong. My conscience is just gone. I'm still me, but I don't remember... who I am... kind of."

"Would you remember human speech?"

"I... I don't know if I don't understand human speech, or if I just don't care. I don't think in human speech. Just images and feelings. I don't remember names, at least. But I remember faces."

"So you're telling me that you have some semblance of human logic, and you scratch yourself to bits anyway."

"You don't understand," said Remus, shaking his head. "There's logic, yeah, but the instinct always comes first. And there's nothing around but me and the furniture. But there's logic in the sense that I know some things about my surroundings, past, and future, and then I apply it. I know that I'm going to transform back, and I know that someone's going to heal me. But... I don't care how I feel when it's not the full moon, as long as I survive to see the next one. So my injuries won't ever be fatal, at least—I know when to stop, and that's sort of logic."

"Sort of logic?"

"Any logic that I have on the full moon isn't Remus-logic—well, it is Remus-logic—but it's wolf-logic. But it's still logic. It's not... it's me, but it's not... me-me."

"That doesn't make much sense," said Questus. He sighed, and then he forced out his next words with great difficulty. "I apologize for pushing you, Lupin. I know you don't like to talk about it."

Remus nearly choked on his tea. Professor Questus had only ever genuinely apologized once. Ever. For anything. And it had been on the seventh of September—almost a year ago now. Had it been that long? It was unthinkable.

Remus realized that he was returning to Hogwarts in a few short weeks. He wasn't sure whether to be excited or terrified.

"But," Questus continued (apparently he wasn't done), "I'm very curious about such things. And once I get started, I find it difficult to stop." He peered at Remus through his thin, wire spectacles that were so different from both James' rectangular ones and Dumbledore's half-moons. "There's just... something I need to know about you. But I don't know what, and I don't know why. I suspect I'll figure it out someday. Call it an itching feeling—like the way you described full-moon instinct—but it's not quite the same thing because I definitely don't want to murder anyone."

"I understand," said Remus.

"You do?"

"No."

Questus laughed. "Well, I think it's good for you to talk about it sometimes, anyway. It helps, don't you think?"

Remus considered. His insides felt lighter, somehow, now that it was all out in the air. There was nearly nothing now that Questus didn't know. In fact, he knew more about things than Remus' own parents did—they'd never asked about the full moons. And now there were exactly two people besides himself that knew all the details: Dumbledore and now Questus. Sharing the burden felt so much better than bearing it alone. Remus had enough secrets to keep, and it was relieving that this didn't have to be one of them. "I think it does help," he said quietly.

"Good."

"Did it help you figure out the... itching?" said Remus. "My dad's in Ravenclaw. He has his own obsessions that Mum and I always tease him about."

"Yeah, you've mentioned that," said Questus, the corners of his mouth tipping upwards. "No. I haven't. I know you explained best as you could, but it didn't do it justice."

"Sorry."

"Quite all right."

"What are you doing for supper?" Remus asked. "If you can't get up? Do you need help?"

"I'm a wizard, Lupin. I can levitate things pretty well."

"Oh," said Remus, feeling silly.

"But come to think of it... would you and your family be interested in coming over for supper on Sunday evening? I should be on my feet by then." He sighed. "I'm still bored. Terribly bored. Horribly bored. I don't understand how people get through life without shooting curses at Dark wizards every couple of seconds."

Remus grinned. "I've had enough curses to last me a lifetime, so..."

"Oh, yeah. Me too, apparently. But—back to the topic of Sunday dinner—do you think your father will be okay with that? I'm hoping I can make a better impression on your family so that they'll come for tea when you're at school."

"Top-tier manipulation, I see," teased Remus. "Yeah, it should be fine as long as I'm not having dinner with the Minister for Magic or the Queen of England on that day. Sundays are often busy."

Questus rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. You know, I'm terribly embarrassed to be enlisting the company of a twelve-year-old werewolf and his family—especially a twelve-year-old werewolf who has a date with the Queen—but it's the only thing that will keep me relatively sane at this point."

"I'm bored, too," said Remus with a smile. "Home is so uneventful compared to Hogwarts."

"I bet. Your parents don't seem quite up to par with Potter and Black."

"Yeah. Talking of my parents, please don't tell them that I'm comfortable speaking about werewolves, okay? Just don't mention it to them. I really don't want them to know... then they'll feel even more guilty and sad."

"Fine. Sure. Hey, tell me about your relationship with Evans," said Questus suddenly. "I've been curious. You seem to be close one minute, and then the next minute she's shouting at you, and then she's aloof and distant the next." His eyes lit up suddenly. "You're not...?"

"Not what?" said Remus.

"Is there any preteen romance involved?"

Remus inhaled sharply and immediately started coughing. "What the... why...? Romance?" He looked up at Questus, who was laughing. "Oh, shut up. There's no..." He started laughing, too, and wiped some tears from his eyes that had formed during his coughing fit. "Oh, ew. You know very well I can't ever be involved with someone."

Questus stopped laughing. "Why not?"

"Werewolf. I am not putting anyone through that."

"Oh." He stopped, considering. "You've mentioned that before. Yes, I suppose that's reasonable. What a pity; the world needs more Lupins."

Remus suppressed another coughing fit. "Merlin's beard, Professor. Shut up."

"So..." Questus prompted, still smiling. "Evans."

"I... we were friends. At first. But she's been best friends with Snape since before Hogwarts, and my friends don't like him much. So her loyalty is to her first friend, and my loyalty is to my own. So we mutually decided to stop being friends, and now we're just... acquaintances. She's got a bit of a temper, and she takes it out on me sometimes when my friends are rude to Snape. I don't mind, though."

"She has a nasty streak, all right," said Questus. "Why don't you just ask your friends to stop harassing Snape?"

"They won't listen. They'll just get angry with me for spoiling their fun. They have before. And I... don't want to lose them prematurely. I haven't got much time left, anyhow, and I want to..."

"Yes, of course. If you ask me, both Evans and Snape need to stop being so dramatic."

Remus remembered what Evans had let slip about Snape's father—Snape didn't have the best home life, apparently—and he felt a stab of hot remorse. "I think my friends are at fault, too," he said quietly. "But I'm not about to tell them that. I only ever tell them off for treating Peter badly, and that's only because they don't seem to mind it when I do."

"You need them, you know, for as long as possible," said Questus. "As someone who has too much firsthand experience with boredom, you should stay at Hogwarts for as long as possible before coming back to this torture chamber of a place to live."

"You say that as if you have more experience with boredom than I do. You've been here for mere days."

"Feels like longer," said Questus sagely. "Anyway. My point is, you don't need to feel bad about doing what you need to do to keep your friends."

"Then Evans doesn't need to feel bad about doing what she needs to do to protect hers," said Remus firmly. "Everybody needs friends, not just me."

"True," said Questus, "but your peers have their whole lives to make friends. You have a few months, I'd wager."

"Do you really think that..."

"I think that they're going to find out very soon."

"And..."

"I don't think they'll try to do something as stupid as murder you. They've got more sense than that. I'm assuming they'll be disgusted and they'll want to tell everyone, but Dumbledore can prevent that. They might make you leave. Perhaps you can stay, if you sleep somewhere else. I don't know. But I don't think you'll very well want to stay when three of your classmates think you're a monster."

Remus shivered at the word. "No, I don't think I will." He glanced at his watch. "It's five-twenty! I need to get home!"

"Very well," said Questus. "See you Friday?"

"Of course," said Remus. "And Sunday if the Queen lets me off the hook." He got up and turned to leave, but Professor Questus stopped him.

"Lupin..." Professor Questus closed his eyes, and he suddenly looked more tired and ill than Remus had ever seen him. "Thank you," he said finally. "I know this is terribly awkward, but I appreciate it very much."

Remus wasn't sure how to respond. He didn't get thanked very often; usually, he was the one doing the thanking. How did he want people to respond when he thanked them for things...? Oh, he remembered now.

"Don't start getting sentimental on me now, Professor," he said, rolling his eyes and shutting the door behind him.

"Don't call me Professor," said Questus' voice from behind the door, but there was no mistaking the laughter in his tone.

Remus smiled and walked home, feeling much lighter and less worried than when he had arrived.

AN: I'm sorry if you're getting bored of these conversations, but I do need to cover some things before Remus goes back to school. It's mostly just Professor Questus until Chapter 10 lol, and Remus goes back to Hogwarts in 14. If these conversations aren't your jam, then feel free to leave and come back—then you can either skim them or skip them entirely. I promise I won't be offended. And if they ARE your jam (they're certainly mine), then you're in for a very pleasant couple of weeks.

On that note, I'm going to go with Sunday and Thursday for updates from here on out (probably in the evening). Sorry again that it has to slow down, but I really do believe it'll make the continuity quality better in the long run. Trust me, though, I understand your disappointment entirely—I got used to getting nice feedback every other day, too :(

FORTUNATELY, that does mean that I'll get a chapter out tomorrow evening! A bit of a bonus, if you will 😎