Remus arrived at Questus' on Friday and knocked on the door. Questus didn't answer. Remus inhaled—he was definitely in there, so why wasn't he answering?

An irrational shiver of fear coursed through Remus as he, against his better judgement, entertained the notion that Questus was in serious trouble. Questus was cursed, he had looked awful the other day, and he lived alone. Remus could faintly hear him breathing through the door, and it didn't sound particularly even or healthy. "Hello?" called Remus. "If you're sleeping, I'll just go home..."

"Not sleeping," said Questus, and his voice was a bit hoarse. "Making tea. Come in."

Remus opened the door and walked to the kitchen, where Questus was standing by the kettle and frowning. "You look really awful," said Remus. Indeed, Questus was looking worse than he ever had. He was leaning heavily on the cane, his face was an odd shade of grey, and his breathing was labored. Remus could almost feel the heat radiating off of him from the fever. "Maybe I should go home," he said.

"It's not catching."

"I know, but... maybe you need to sleep or something."

"Nope. You know, I'm feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. You said all this the other day, didn't you? Look, Lupin, I woke up ten minutes ago. Been sleeping all day. It's worse today, for some reason; I think it's the weather. It's been raining a lot."

"Hm," said Remus. He sensed Questus didn't really want to talk about it anymore, so he changed the subject. "Talking of feeling ill... this is the last day Mum and Dad are going to let me come over. Full moon's on the twenty-fourth."

"Ah. When do you think you'll be healed?"

"I don't think I will be. Not before school starts."

"Doesn't it usually take you two to three days to heal up? And you're usually more or less fine by the second day."

"Yeah, at school... but not when I'm home. Madam Pomfrey's a professional Healer; my parents aren't. We haven't got..." Remus flushed a bit. "We haven't got a lot of money, you know, and potions to speed up the healing process are... few and far between. It can take up to a week and half—sometimes two—to do what Madam Pomfrey can do in a day. If I'm being honest, I'm still feeling the last full moon."

"That's unfortunate," said Questus. He frowned at the barely-touched kettle on the stove, took a slightly shuddery breath, and then closed his eyes. "I seem to have overestimated my abilities again," he said quietly. "This tea is not working. I'm too dizzy to fetch and pour things."

Remus grinned. "Go sit down," he said, irrationally glad that he was the one doing things for Questus and not the other way 'round. He fetched a few cups from the cabinet as Professor Questus made his way to the armchair. "Don't worry about it," called Remus. "I like making tea. Other people tend to mess it up. At this point, I can only trust myself."

Remus made tea in silence for a bit. Questus didn't seem like he much wanted to talk. But then...

"I don't know how you do it," said Questus.

"Make tea? Well, first you..."

"No. Let other people do things for you. Right humiliating."

"Well," said Remus again. "First, you think about what you want to do. Then... you don't do it."

"It's really not as simple as that," said Questus, but he was smiling now.

Remus handed him a finished cup of tea and made a face. "Believe me, I know. Remember when I started crying because I couldn't button my pajama shirt?"

Remus was referring to the day that Madam Pomfrey had been too busy to care for him following one of his full moons in first year. Professor Questus, a former Auror who knew a bit about healing magic, had taken over. That full moon in particular had been one of Remus' worst, and he'd been sort of a mess the whole time. Questus had been relatively patient—Remus thought, at least. He couldn't really remember the whole thing. He typically tried not to think about it.

"I do remember that," said Questus. "If I recall correctly, though, you did end up getting the top two buttons. At... what?... ten-thirty pm?"

"About," said Remus, a little embarrassed now. He regretted bringing it up.

"Yes, it's all flooding back now," said Questus, grinning. Remus didn't think it fair that Questus was making fun of him after Remus had so magnanimously avoided making fun of Questus—well, mostly. But Professor Questus was ill, so Remus would let him have his fun.

"You also had a pretty nasty concussion that day," added Questus after a moment's thought.

"I did?" said Remus. "I don't remember that."

"Oh, yes. Slurred speech. Completely delirious. Started quoting Emily Dickinson. Laughing at everything."

"Laughing... at...?"

"I'm not surprised you don't remember. Very bad concussion. I wasn't exactly sure what to do." Questus smirked. "What do you remember, then?"

Remus rubbed his head. What had happened on that first December full moon? Ugh, he really didn't want to think about it. "I remember falling asleep... I remember waking up and buttoning those top two buttons on my shirt... I remember waking up again at one..." He colored slightly. "...when the Pain-Relieving Potion wore off."

"Ah, right," said Questus. "Impressive, that. Wouldn't have expected you to fall back asleep. Definitely wouldn't have expected you to make so many snarky comments."

"I did?" said Remus. He couldn't remember it that well, only the horrible, horrible pain and Questus shining a light into his eyes and Remus trying to pretend like nothing was happening but failing miserably.

"Nothing particularly clever. Told me you felt 'brilliant' and 'wonderful'. Took you fifteen minutes tops to fall back asleep."

"I was very tired."

"I'm sure. Anyway. What else do you remember?"

"Erm... I remember waking up, and... oh, everything was blurry. And then... I dunno, we talked for a bit, didn't we? And then Madam Pomfrey came back and gave me a potion with... frog's eyes. And then everything cleared." He frowned. What had they talked about, exactly?

"There is no frigate like a book to take us worlds away," quoted Questus, and everything came flooding back.

"Fiddlesticks!" Remus said, bringing his hands up to his face and groaning.

Questus was laughing, which Remus thought was very rude of him. "I'm enjoying this very much," he informed Remus, which was unfair and not very nice at all.

"Oh my gosh," said Remus, pressing his fingers into his eyes. "I have never wanted to die so much in my entire life."

"You've never gotten that red in your entire life," jested Questus. "It wasn't appropriate to bring it up when I was your teacher, but... oh, that was priceless. I couldn't resist."

"You are a horrible human being," said Remus, his voice muffled through his hands. His face felt hot. "A horrible human being."

"Debatable," said Questus, still laughing.

"Aghhhhhhhh," said Remus.

"I have never heard a person prolong the letter S to such a length as you did that morning," said Questus. "I don't know why the effects of the concussion were so delayed. Probably brought on by the potions wearing off; magic does strange things to people. But my goodness—your slurred speech was hilarious."

"It was not," said Remus.

"And that panicked look on your face when you lost your toad..."

"Professor!"

"Don't call me that. And you were passing out, I remember. And quoting Robert Frost. Lewis Carroll. The works."

"Yeah, well..." Remus fumbled for something to say. Perhaps he could turn the conversation back to Questus—push the blame on him. That might work. "You dropped me! When we were walking back to the Hospital Wing. You let go of me and I had to catch myself!"

"So much for 'I can walk'," Questus mocked.

"Shut up," said Remus. "I hate you so much."

"Most do."

"Can we just..." Remus groaned and removed his hands from his face. It was still bright red, and Questus laughed harder at the sight of it. "Can we just never mention any of that ever again?"

"I am definitely not agreeing to that," said Questus.

"Okay. Fine. We'll make a deal. You never mention that particular full moon ever again, and I won't tell Madam Pomfrey that you told me I'd be homeless."

Questus blinked. "What?"

"When I was wandering the corridors and found a Boggart, and then I turned it into a plate, and then you told me to come to your office for tea for the first time, and it was really awkward. And then we talked about my friends, and you told me I wouldn't have many opportunities, and then you told me not to tell anyone you said this or Dumbledore would throw you out of a window... but you said I might be homeless and jobless and alone on the streets..."

Questus raised his hand. "Yes, yes, I remember. But if I remember correctly—and I always do—I've already gotten your word that you wouldn't tell a soul. So I don't need to get it from you again."

Remus groaned. "Well, I'm sure my parents would like to know that you blasted me into a wall several times during our duelling lessons."

"I'm going to call your bluff. There's no way you'll tell them that."

"Would I?" said Remus, attempting to be mysterious and daring.

"You would not."

"You're right," said Remus, sighing. "Fine. This isn't fair. You don't do nearly any embarrassing things at all."

"Nope," said Questus. "I've been told I have no shame. I'll just hold onto that deal, actually. I'll let you know when you can do something big enough to make up for it."

"Fine," said Remus again.

"In fact, I have plenty of other embarrassing stories about you, now that I think about it..."

"You know what? I'm never making you tea again."

Remus had known for a long time that Professor Questus didn't much like to talk about himself. He knew all about Remus, but it felt sometimes like Remus didn't know a thing about Professor Questus. He'd been an Auror. He had no filter. He always told the truth. But Remus didn't know much else—every time the conversation turned towards Questus, he was very careful to turn it back to Remus.

And that was all right by Remus. It made sense; most of the personal conversations they'd had had been intended to help Remus through something. Questus had been Remus' teacher, so it was quite unprofessional to share. And Remus liked talking about himself (as selfish as that seemed), because he wasn't able to do it much with his parents.

It made sense that Questus did not want to talk about his own maladies. He was stubborn and proud like that. Remus would have expected him to turn the conversation back towards Remus' maladies any day—indeed, he would have seen that coming from a mile away. Remus was always the one who needed help, so Remus was always the one whom they talked about.

Still, it was very rude of him to make fun of a person with a severe head injury.

But Remus didn't mind, really. Honestly, he was just happy to help.

Saturday finally, finally arrived, and Remus woke up at six-thirty. His mum came downstairs. "Are you feeling okay, honey?" she asked, yawning. "You're up early."

"I'm fine!" said Remus. "I'm just excited. What time are we leaving again?"

"Not till eleven. We'll shop for an hour, have lunch, and then finish up and go home."

"I'm meeting my friends at the Leaky Cauldron, remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

"And James is coming alone, so his mum and dad won't be there."

"You told me."

"But Peter's mum will. And Sirius is staying with James until school starts, so he's showing up with James."

"Mm-hm. Remus, dear, you told me all this."

"Just making sure. And both you and Dad are coming?"

"Yes, but..." She sighed. "If you want to wander off somewhere with your friends... we decided that's okay."

"Really?" said Remus, wide-eyed. "You mean it?"

"Of course. You do it at Hogwarts all the time."

Remus leaped up and hugged her tightly. "That's brilliant, Mum. I promise I'll be safe. I swear it."

"I know you will." She sighed again. "You're growing up too fast. Whatever happened to tiny five-year-old Remus just learning how to read? You left for ten months, and then you came back five years older."

"Bufo feels left out," said Remus. "He left for ten months, too. He's grown up quite a bit."

Bufo croaked into Remus' ear, and Remus' mum laughed.

They arrived at the Leaky Cauldron right on time, and Remus knew that James and Sirius were already there before he even opened the door. A little shiver of excitement ran through him, and he gripped his bag tighter.

Sure enough, the first thing he saw was James' messy hair; moving up and down as he nodded his head to something Sirius was saying. Sirius was leaning back in his chair perilously far.

"Remus!" shrieked James suddenly, and a witch in red robes shot him a nasty look.

"James!" said Remus, significantly quieter.

"Remus!" said Sirius, much, much louder.

"That's the fourth time I've had to ask you to be quiet," said the bartender. "Out, you two."

James ran up to Remus and grabbed his wrist. "Come on. We'll wait by the entrance. Pete'll find us. How was your summer? You've hardly written to us at all. I was hoping you could come over and visit, but you haven't done that either. You look a little paler than usual. How was your health? Your mum's looking pretty good. Mrs. Lupin! Hellooooo!"

Remus laughed. "Slow down, James."

"I actually think the bartender wants us to hurry up," said Sirius, poking his thumb in the direction of the angry bartender. James started pulling Remus to the entrance, and Remus glanced back at his parents.

"Remus, dear," his mother called, with a soft, sad sort of smile. "We're going to walk around London for a bit. Meet us here no later than twelve? And earlier if you need to? We won't go far."

"Of course," said Remus. "Bye, Mu—"

He was cut off by James pulling him through the entrance and the bricks rearranged themselves behind him.

And just like that, it was exactly like old times.

"He's late," grumbled James. "Leave it to Peter to be late. He came over to my house a few times last summer, Remus, and he was always late."

"Not his fault that you're not interesting enough to be early," Remus jested, and James hit him good-naturedly.

"Well, the same applies for you. Otherwise he'd be here already."

Remus sensed Peter behind the bricks. "He'll probably be here soon," said Remus, and sure enough, the bricks rearranged themselves to reveal a smiling, very out-of-breath Peter.

"Remus!" said Peter.

"Oi, what about us?" said Sirius. "Are you really too thick to notice James and—"

"It's so good to see you, Peter!" said Remus, hoping to change the subject before Sirius potentially said something nasty. "How have you been?"

Peter beamed. "Great! It's good to see you, too. My mum was on for ages about how polite you were when she met you in Easter. She's in love with you, I think. Every time I went over to James', she asked if you'd be there. Thinks you're a good influence."

"Oh, I am most definitely not a good influence," said Remus. "See, look." He fiercely poked James in arm, and James yelped. "Not a good influence at all."

James sighed. "I'd poke you back, but you're a..."

"Don't say it."

"Fragile china doll."

"Git."

It was a glorious thing, to be back with his friends. They walked to Flourish and Blotts together, and everything was perfect. The weather was beautiful—not too humid or hot—and everyone was in a good mood. Being a Marauder again was wonderful. James and Sirius and Peter kept chattering about their visits together, and Remus couldn't help but feel left-out—but it was his own fault, anyway. He hadn't even asked to visit James that summer, not after his parents' reaction to the last time James had invited him over.

Well, there hadn't been too much of a reaction. They'd just said "no" and felt guilty about it afterwards. But Remus didn't like hearing "no", and he certainly didn't like seeing his parents guilty like that, so he'd elected not to ask again.

"Did you know that John retired?" asked James; apparently, he was still calling all adults by their first names. He'd come up with the idea in first year, and now every Marauder did it but Remus (who felt guilty about disrespecting the Hogwarts staff members who had given up so much to allow Remus to attend Hogwarts). "My dad's an Auror," continued James, "and he told me that John quit teaching to rejoin the Auror department. But apparently he got hurt somehow and he had to quit. He only lasted a month. But the important part is: he's not teaching again."

"Good riddance," murmured Sirius.

Well, now that the cat was out of the bag, Remus could most definitely tell them. "I know," he said cheerfully. "He's my next-door neighbor now."

Silence.

"What?" said James, completely stunned.

"My next-door neighbor."

"Yeah, I heard you, but... I want more elaboration than that, mate. You can't just drop something like that on us."

"Well, 'next-door neighbor' is a term that typically denotes a person who lives in the house next to another person..."

"Remus, shut up and give us the details," interrupted Sirius, and Remus laughed.

"My parents and I live somewhere with clear air, away from people—for my mum's health, you know," Remus explained. "Dumbledore recommended the area to Professor Questus, and now he lives in the house across from ours. It's extremely awkward."

"That is awkward," said James. "Does he... do you... I dunno. I know you were close, kinda."

"We had every intent to avoid each other at the beginning, but he's very bored. So I come over for tea sometimes, and we had dinner together this past Sunday."

"That's..." James shook his head. "I am so sorry, mate."

"It's rather weird."

"That's no excuse for not writing us," said Sirius grumpily. "Why didn't you tell us? That's the kind of info that should be shared immediately, but you didn't write to us all summer. We'd thought you'd died or something."

"I did write you!"

"Not much," said Peter. "Not as much as we were doing."

"I was busy."

"We spent hours writing in that notebook, Remus," said James. "You hardly ever wrote us back. You barely ever joined in."

"I was busy. I could never catch you while you were still there."

"You did! A couple times!"

"Look, I'm sorry." Remus hesitated. Dare he use this excuse again? "Mum was really, really ill."

James' expression suddenly softened. "Is she still..."

"Alive? Yes. You saw her just a few minutes ago, remember? She's doing a lot better now. But in July, she was... it was scary. I didn't want to talk."

"Remus, that's what we're here for," said James. "We're your friends. You can talk with us. It'll make you feel better."

"It doesn't help, to talk about it," Remus muttered.

"Yes, it does," said Sirius. "And you should more often. Feels a little like you're ignoring us, and we can't tell whether you even want to be our friend. We've been talking about it a lot. Sometimes you can't stay away from us, and sometimes you can't even be bothered to write to us."

"I... of course I want to be friends! I just... get busy!" Panic was flooding Remus' chest. Was this it? Perhaps he wasn't going to lose his friends because he was a werewolf; perhaps he was going to lose them because he was a bad friend... that was almost worse, because Remus had been trying so hard to be a good friend.

"Fair enough, mate," said James. "Don't get all worked up. You're just... distant, sometimes, and we're trying to find out why. Anyway. What do you think about the new books for Defense? I've never heard of them."

"They're Muggle," said Remus, thankful for both James' understanding nature and the change in subject. "Shakespeare. Like the book in my scavenger hunt."

"D'you think they're even in Flourish and Blotts?"

"Doubt it," said Sirius. "I don't think they sell Muggle books."

"If they don't have them, then maybe we can stop by a Muggle bookshop later," said Remus hopefully. "My mum can take us, probably."

"Yeah!" said James. "But that last one—Mindfulness Made Easy—that one might be in Flourish and Blotts. Let's go ask if they have Shakespeare, just in case, while we're here."

"You should have seen Professor Questus' face when I told him the book list," Remus mused. "I think he's regretting retiring."

"Mindfulness Made Easy," scoffed James. "Sounds like it's gonna be a stupid class."

"Anything's better than John," said Sirius. "Hated him."

"If possible, he hates you more," said Remus.

"Shut up."

They entered Flourish and Blotts, and Remus inhaled. It smelt of books—of books and people and parchment and ink and school. He had missed this place. "We're looking for Shakespeare," announced James.

"He's dead," said the manager. Remus snickered, and the manager smiled at him. "I'm joking. I've had a ridiculous number of people looking for Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. Are they on the school lists this year?"

"Yes, sir," said Remus.

"Odd. That school gets weirder every year, I tell you. Well, we don't carry Shakespeare here. But we do have Mindfulness Made Easy. That's the other one, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"So polite," said the manager. "That shelf. Back there. Don't tell anyone I told you this, but it's an awful book."

"Thank you, sir," James mimed, imitating Remus, and Remus hit him.

James started flipping through his new copy of Mindfulness Made Easy and gasped. "This book is... Merlin's beard."

"What's wrong?"

"Poetry," James hissed. "It's poetry." He read silently for a minute, and then gagged. "It's not even good poetry."

"Poetry?" said Remus, flipping it open excitedly.

Autumn Leaves
by Joy Pensley

The apple-cider air of autumn
is such a sweet and lovely type of air.
It swoops over orchards, bringing sweet smells
and child's cries on swings and in the leaves.
and then
the leaves,
like the autumn apple air,
s-w-o-o-p
through my heart
like an apple-cider airy ask-for-more
and the autumn apple air is filling
me up like
apple pie.

"Oh no," Remus murmured. "This... I... oh, ew. Ack."

"I take it you won't be memorizing that one," said Sirius, who knew all about Remus' penchant for memorizing poetry.

"Oh, no," said Remus. "Please tell me we won't be reading trashy poetry in DAD this year. I will die. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

"I'll die right along with you," said Sirius. "How shall we do it? Drown ourselves in the Black Lake? Walk right up to the Whomping Willow and let it whomp us? Or we could let James chatter about Quidditch until we die."

James was watching Remus' face carefully at the mention of the Whomping Willow. Remus had panicked a little last year when his friends had threatened to touch the thing, but they weren't about to catch him losing his cool again—Remus was much better at controlling his emotions after spending so much time with Professor Questus. So, instead of blowing his top, Remus merely laughed and shook his head. "Anything's preferable to that last one."

"Oi!" said James.

"Ode to Sweet," read Peter. "Do they mean Ode to Sweets?"

"Nope, singular," said Remus. "Probably the concept... of the sensation of... sweet?"

"This is stupid," said James.

"Professor Questus," said Remus, grinning, "is going to have a fit."

Peter started giggling. "Can you even imagine John assigning something like this?"

Sirius adopted a very Questus-esque expression and lowered his voice. "Energy of Life. By John Questus. Can you feel it? The energy: the pure, unadulterated energy running through your body like a fizzy drink? That's life—that's the ever-present energy of effervescent life..."

Remus clutched his stomach and grabbed on to a pole to keep from falling over. "So this is how I die," he wheezed. "This poetry is so bad. Merlin's beard."

"Your every nerve is nervous, and your every thought is clear... the buzz is like a bumblebee, like wings, like stinging fear... but it's nothing to be afraid of... so let yourself relax... it's just... the energy... of all... living... things..."

James snatched the book out of Sirius' hands and continued in a bad impression of Professor McGonagall.

And Remus could feel it. He could definitely feel the energy of life.

Or maybe that was just the buzz of lightheadedness from laughing too hard.

AN: My hatred for bad poetry is just as strong as my love for good poetry. But I must admit that it is fun to laugh at.