"You lot are being oddly nice to me," said Remus one night in the dormitory. "It's really weird. Someone care to tell me why?"
There was silence as Remus' friends looked at each other awkwardly.
And then... Sirius started to laugh.
"You really think we were being nice to you?" said Sirius, now laughing quite hysterically.
James nodded his agreement; he was smiling, too. "Of course we weren't being nice! We were only acting nice because we were terrified of you... because we found out that you're a werewolf!"
Remus stared at them in horror. "What?" he said.
"We found out!" James ran his hand through his hair, grinning. "We just didn't want to tell you yet. We were scared. But we've just reported you to the Ministry, and now this whole mess will be over..."
Remus looked out the window; a full moon hung in the sky. "This is another nightmare, isn't it?" mumbled Remus. "So I can do whatever I want. Don't transform, don't transform, don't transform..."
It didn't work.
Remus woke up and promptly noticed that every inch of his body was in pain. Due to tonight's full moon, he was more sore than the normal aches that he got from after nightmares (during particularly awful nightmares, he often tensed his muscles to the point that he was sore afterwards), and it was terrible. Remus groaned quietly and ran both hands through his hair, mussing it thoroughly. He felt awful.
He checked his watch. Three am. That was unfortunate; he usually had at least another hour and a half before he woke up on full moon mornings.
Remus swung his legs over the side of the bed and rested his forehead in his hands. His head felt like jelly, and his bones felt like hot iron rods beneath his skin. Everything hurt—everything. Just as he was getting up the courage to try to walk on his burning legs, he heard James get out of bed.
Well, fiddlesticks.
"Remus? All right there?" The floor creaked as James walked closer to Remus' bed. Without permission, James pulled back Remus' curtains the rest of the way and sat beside him. Remus stiffened. He was very uncomfortable being so close to his friend when he was feeling like this. There were certain people who were allowed to see Remus when he was poorly, and James Potter was not one of them. Well, except for that time Remus had cut up his leg in the Forbidden Forest... but that had been an entirely different situation.
"Fine," said Remus. "I'm ill."
He'd used that excuse quite recently, so he really didn't want to use it again... but he was sure that he looked terrible, so he had no choice.
"It's the full moon, too," James mused, and Remus bit his tongue in horror. "So your dad's probably away keeping the werewolves under control."
Remus squeezed his eyes shut—that had been a close one. "Er... yeah. Yeah. I have to go home to help Mum out, but I'm not sure what to do since I'm ill."
"Have your dad hire a private Healer later," said James. "You know, for your mum. I'll take you to the Hospital Wing, and you can spend the day there—or the next few days, if you need to. Dunno when you'll be... feeling better."
"I don't think Madam Pomfrey's up yet," Remus mumbled. "Maybe I'll go back to sleep." He scooted to the side a bit, and a wave of pain washed over him. He drew in a sharp breath, and James gave him a very concerned look.
"That's not a great idea, mate. You're obviously in pain. You'll never get to sleep."
"Yeah... my head hurts from... lack of oxygen... the blood disease, you know..."
James held up a hand. "You don't have to explain yourself if you don't want to. Let me help you get to the common room, and we can talk there. I'll start up a fire. You're shivering."
"I'm not... it's the... fever... from the illness..."
"I believe you. Here." James stood up and held out a hand, and Remus took it hesitantly. Gently, James hauled Remus to his feet, and Remus tried to ignore the stabbing pains in his feet and legs and arms and head and... well, everywhere else. "Must be a pretty nasty illness," James said cheerfully. "I didn't know you went through this every month."
Remus panicked and toppled over, and James caught him expertly with Quidditch reflexes. Remus hissed as his arm was yanked backwards in the uncomfortable hold. "James, that hurt. You should have just let me fall," he grouched.
"And wake up Sirius and Pete? No way. I think that—"
"What do you mean 'every month'?" Remus interrupted, still panicked. His whisper was getting loud, so he lowered his voice for fear of waking his friends up. "I don't get sick every month. Only some months. Some weeks, I mean. It's not regular. It's probably triggered by pollen, Mum thinks. Perhaps—"
"Calm down," said James. "I'm not asking any more questions, remember? You don't need to share all that. I don't care what you have. I only noticed that it seemed to be around every month, with some irregularities..."
"You've been keeping track?" said Remus, trying for a casual tone. He failed miserably, but hopefully James hadn't noticed.
James shushed him and ushered him out of the room. It hurt to take steps, but Remus gritted his teeth and soldiered on all the way to the common room. "I'm not keeping track," said James, helping Remus onto an armchair by the fire. Remus looked away. He knew he probably looked terrible, and the dimly-lit common room didn't keep him as hidden as the darkness of the dormitory did. "It doesn't make sense that it's every month, anyhow. You visit your mum on full moons, and you have to be perfectly well when you do that, hm? But you're ill now. So it's not perfectly regular."
Remus nodded fervently. "Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I do. It is. Which is why I'm staying at the castle today... yeah. James, you should go back to sleep. I'll be fine. I'll go to the Hospital Wing in a few hours... maybe I'll just read a bit for now."
"I'm not tired," said James, shrugging. "I'm a creature of the night. I don't need sleep."
"Well," said Remus. "I'm not a creature of the night, and I do need sleep." The second part was true.
James put a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter, which seemed like a little much for such a stupid joke. He'd done that last time Remus had made a joke like that, too. "Shut up, Remus. You're not going to sleep. You're ill. Here, let's just talk. Let's talk about the statue prank! That was funny."
"I'm not..." Remus murmured. "Are you sure you're okay with this? Seeing me ill? I know it's disconcerting." His throat was scratchy, and it hurt a bit to talk.
"S'nothing," said James. "Hey, I've got an idea! Let's write to John!"
Remus blinked, bewildered. "Questus?"
"Yeah! You write to him a bunch. Ooh, what if we write it in the notebook? Then we can rip out the page when we're done. Both of us can write at the same time."
Indeed, James had bought the Marauders enchanted notebooks last year—using their code names (which were terribly stupid and not likely to stick), the four of them were able to write to each other instantly. The notebooks were linked in the sense that anything written on one page would appear on the other notebooks as well, which was quite convenient. And also (in this case) a little stupid.
"That's a stupid idea," said Remus.
"I live for stupid ideas," announced James. "Come on, Remus, it'll be fun."
"Didn't bring my notebook."
"I'll get it! It's in your bag, right? The brown one that you bring to visit your mum?"
"Yes... would you get Bufo, too? And his pillow? I might have to stay the night—"
"In the Hospital Wing, yeah. Okay. Back in a flash!"
Remus watched James go, and then he leaned back and exhaled.
He felt awful. This was much worse than normal. And James was obviously close to the truth... was it time for Remus to go home? Should he leave now, before they found out? Should he minimize casualties?
Alas. He knew it was the responsible thing to do... but he didn't think he could bear it. His friends, it seemed, had made Remus a much less responsible person.
He'd be fine for a few more weeks, right?
He closed his eyes and sighed, letting the quiet of the common room wash over him like a waterfall. In the distance, James' footsteps grew louder and louder; soon, he was clomping down the stairs with Remus' things in hand. Remus opened one eye and watched as James plopped Remus' bag in his lap. Remus flinched slightly as it touched his sore muscles.
James looked absolutely distraught. "Oops, sorry! I'm so sorry, Remus! Did I hurt you?"
"No. You don't have to treat me like this, you know—like I'm going to fall apart at any minute. I've been ill like this before. I can deal with it. I'll be fine."
"That doesn't mean I want to hurt you," James said dismissively.
"But—"
Remus wanted to argue, but it was too late; the moment had gone, and James Potter had moved on already. "You can still write, yeah, Remus? You're all shaky."
"I can write," Remus affirmed.
"Good. You start."
Remus rolled his eyes and pressed the nib of his quill to the paper. His handwriting was a little shaky, but he knew Questus wouldn't really care—his own was just as bad on occasion.
Dear Professor Questus,
It's three am, and I'm in the common room with James Potter
Remus stopped writing and watched James' messy scrawl take up the next bit of parchment.
As if you know any other Jameses.
"That's actually pretty cool," Remus murmured. He continued writing.
I don't, but Professor Questus might. There are probably other Jameses (is that the plural?) in this school, you know.
Not as good as me! I'm the best James. The Jamesiest. The James to end all Jameses.
Maybe the plural is "Jami"? Anyway, I'm in the common room with James. I'm feeling ill again, and James thinks it's funny to annoy me when I'm ill
I'm not annoying you!
James, you annoy me with your very existence. As I was TRYING to say, we're here together and James wanted to write to you. I'm not sure what he wants to write to you about.
Dunno. Remus just seems like he likes writing stuff down. You wouldn't believe how much time he spends doing schoolwork—the sheer amount of pages of notes he takes in class is ridiculous.
The sheer lack of notes you take in class is ridiculous.
Well, people who have brilliant memories like mine don't need to take notes. Anyway. What do you usually write to John about?
Usually, we just discuss how annoying you are. Professor Questus doesn't think you're very good at Quidditch. We were going to take a bet about who was going to make the team this year, but it's pretty hard to work out the logistics since we're both betting against you...
James made a sort of furious scribble.
Kidding, kidding, wrote Remus. His whole chest ached with silent laughter—and with the shadow of the impending transformation, but Remus didn't need to worry about that right now. Come on, James. Writing this letter was your suggestion in the first place. If you don't want to write about your Quidditch skills, then what do you want to discuss?
I DO want to discuss my Quidditch skills. I just don't want to discuss them with YOU. What about the statues the other night? Let's talk about those. Wait... is John gonna write to Albus Percival Wulfric Brian if we tell him that we were _ _ _?
I assume you're trying to write "out after curfew"? Or "breaking the rules"? Or "doing a prank"? No. I hope not. Even if he does, then Professor Dumbledore will probably let me off the hook if I tell him that you coerced me into it—so you don't have to worry about ME. Don't worry, I won't feel a bit guilty if I pin all the blame on you.
You git. Anyway, we were out after curfew, and we were decorating the suits of armor to look like the teachers! The staff, really. We made one into Rubeus and one into Argus. And we used the Colovaria Charm and some Transfiguration to make them really look realistic, and then I used a spell that made them say things that were. What's the word? In-character. The Minerva statue had a little bun... and there was a Mrs. Norris statue... and we didn't know what Kirsten Craff looked like, but Remus did and he helped. Only he gave her a moustache, I think.
Remus watched James' handwriting materialize and relaxed—it was more tiring to write than Remus cared to admit. Why was he so tired and sore this month? Perhaps it was just because he'd been stressed lately. Nevertheless, he was glad James was taking over and writing paragraphs so that Remus did not have to.
...So then we decided to go to the Forbidden Forest, but we saw Peeves, and he was yelling a lot. Then Remus made him grow a TAIL and he flew away, and then we duelled in the Forest (I won).
Remus rolled his eyes. Only because Sirius physically tackled me, James. I have no upper OR lower body strength, so I was at a severe disadvantage.
Pish-posh. Anyway, the next day was magnificent chaos. People were talking to the statues and the statues were talking back. It was soooo funny. Someone walked up to the Pensley statue and asked what she thought about the whole thing, and the statue said, "It's so creative! Brilliant! Phenomenal!" It was spot-on. And Statue-Albus kept offering people sweets and crumpets. And statue-Rubeus had the same accent, and statue-Minerva kept telling people to go to class. Filius managed to get rid of all of our spells while we were still in first period, BUT the prank still served its purpose. And Sirius got a photograph of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian talking to statue-Albus-Percival-Wulfric-Brian! We even got him to sign it. Real Dumbledore, that is. Not statue-Dumbledore.
He's not exaggerating, Professor, Remus wrote. The school was in an uproar. People were talking about it all day.
Wish you still worked here. I'd've made a great statue for you. Never mind, I DON'T wish you still worked here. It's not worth it—Sirius and I HATED you (no offense). Oh, and the Mrs. Norris statue had ears and meowed! And hissed, mostly. Remus! How did your meditation with Pensley go? You had one only a few days ago, didn't you? It was a little bit shorter this time.
I don't want to talk about it. It was the same as last time, only she was all dejected this time because she thought it'd be "working better".
She's so funny.
She's not funny.
Remus' hands were shaking now from the pain and fatigue—not as severely as they did directly before the full moon, but enough to greatly impact his handwriting. James, apparently, noticed.
We've been writing for a long time now and my hand is getting tired. Remus and I should probably stop. He needs to go to the Hospital Wing—we're just waiting in here because he woke up at THREE AM. Anyway. I'd say "see you soon!", but I'll probably never see you again. Bye!
"How should I sign it?" asked James. "D'you want me to sign your name for you, too?"
"Of course not," said Remus, a bit embarrassed to be fussed over by his friend. "I'm capable of writing my own name, James."
"I know, but your handwriting is..."
"Perfectly normal, thank you very much."
"Oh." James fell silent for a minute, examining Remus' very-shaky-and-definitely-not-normal handwriting. "How do you usually sign it?" he asked. "First name only? Feels weird to be writing to a teacher."
"I usually sign 'R.J. Lupin' since he doesn't like first names much. He's never used my first name, so it feels weird to be signing with it. But I use initials because he knows the rest of my family, too."
"Well, I'm not using my middle initial," said James.
Remus almost laughed. James Potter harbored an intense hatred of his middle name, and it had been a well-kept secret for as long as Remus had known him. "I knew you didn't like your first name," said Remus, "but really? The mere first letter is so offending that you won't use it?"
"I just don't want to give you any clues!"
"Fine, fine," said Remus, laughing. It hurt his chest a little, but he ignored it. "Here, you sign first."
J. Potter
and
R. Lupin.
"There, nice and uniform," said Remus. "Do you actually want me to send it, or...?"
"Of course I want you to send it! We wrote it, didn't we? There's nothing else to do with it besides send it."
Remus carefully ripped the pages out of the notebook, and the pages fell out of James' notebook, too. "Cool," said James, picking up the pages and examining the jagged edges. "I love this thing."
Remus smiled, folded the pages, and stuck them in his bag. "What do we do now?" he said, and his was voice alarmingly hoarse. He didn't usually talk this much the morning of the full moon.
"Well," said James. "We can talk. It's still super early, and no one's listening. If there's anything you want to tell me, feel free. Any dark secrets? Secret fears? Tragic pasts?"
Remus pursed his lips. "I thought you had stopped pushing for answers."
He wondered, vaguely, if James was merely pretending to be nice so that he could coax the truth out of Remus. That was what Questus had suggested, after all, and James was certainly clever enough to know that one caught more flies with honey than with vinegar... oh, Remus was beginning to get a stomachache.
"I have!" protested James. "I'm not pushing for answers, Remus! I just... sometimes it helps, to talk, and I want you to know that... you can talk to me if you ever need to. I don't judge. Ever. No matter what it is, you're still my friend."
"What makes you think I have secrets in the first place?" asked Remus, more panicked by the second.
"I don't! You just don't like to talk about things, but it helps, I promise!"
Remus sighed and played with the cuff of his pajama sleeve. "I'm not hiding anything, James, and I don't want to talk."
"Okay. I just thought you should know, since you're pretty frequently embarrassed. I thought a lot of awful things about you when I was trying to figure out your secret—and I know you don't have a secret, fine, but you have to admit you were very suspicious, mate—really, though, I don't care if your home life is all complicated. I don't care if your mum is a werewolf. I don't care if you're a werewolf, even. Or a vampire. Or a Pygmy Puff. And I don't care if you're secretly one of those Death Eater terrorists or the Queen of England or an Animagus. I don't care if you're a pirate or a Fairy or a..."
He kept pattering on, but Remus wasn't listening. His blood felt as if it had frozen in his veins. I don't care if you're a werewolf. I don't care if you're a werewolf...
"James?" he said in a low voice, once his throat had stopped constricting, and James stopped talking and looked at him eagerly. "Are those... all things that you've considered?"
"'Course not!" said James. "Being a pirate or a Fairy or a werewolf or a vampire is ridiculous, hm? I'm just joking."
"Yes," said Remus. He felt like he was going to trip over his words and end up flat on his face at any minute. "Yes. It is. They are."
"But I really don't care. I don't care who you are, and I don't care about your background or anything of the sort. I know you, and I know you're a good person, no matter what..."
You will, Remus thought. You will care. You'll find out, and you'll hate me, and you'll abandon me or try to kill me and I'll have to leave. It's easy to say all that now, but when you know, you won't believe it anymore.
"Of course I'm a good person," said Remus. "I don't understand why you'd think any differently. Besides, you've said all that before, and it's getting a little annoying and repetitive. James, I'm feeling... I mean, would you...?"
"Hospital Wing?" said James. "Of course. C'mere, I'll help you up. You have Bufo, right? Need help carrying anything?"
"I don't need help," said Remus, forcing himself to stand. The world spun, but he didn't faint. "I can walk there on my own. But thanks for the offer."
"Sorry, mate, but it's pretty obvious that you need help. I'll walk with you."
"No."
"Yes!"
"No. I'll walk on my own. Go back to sleep. Thanks... for whatever this is, James. But I don't like being fussed over; really I don't."
James rolled his eyes and ruffled his hair again. "You're so stubborn, mate."
"That's me," said Remus, smiling faintly. He took a few steps towards the door, trying to walk as normally as possible. "See? Fine. Go back to bed."
Remus walked off, pretending that he wasn't in debilitating pain.
He still had a stomachache.
"Madam Pomfrey," he said. His voice was a bit croaky; he didn't usually talk so much on the day of the full moon.
He heard scuffling noises coming from the inside of the Hospital Wing and immediately felt guilty for waking her up. She opened the door, fixing her mussed hair and rubbing her eyes. Yeah, he'd definitely woken her up.
"Mr. Lupin!" she said, and her voice was a bit croaky, too. "You're quite early today. We usually have until half four at the earliest. Come in, come in..."
"I'm so sorry for waking you up, Madam Pomfrey."
"Oh, it's no issue. None at all. You look terrible."
"I know." Remus walked through the main ward and sat on his bed, tremors running through his fingers. He rested his hand on the bedsheet and watched his fingers jump around, unbidden, like Bufo when he was particularly excited. "I really am sorry for waking you," he said softly.
Madam Pomfrey dropped a cap in the jar. "Stop apologizing. This is my job. Do you think you're in for a particularly rough one, then?"
"S'hard to tell," Remus murmured. "Sometimes I feel awful, but then the moon isn't all that bad. It's unpredictable, unfortunately."
"Can you sleep?"
"I... I don't think so." He took off his shoes, placed Bufo and his pillow on the nightstand, and then burrowed under the bedsheets. "I'm shaky and I hurt all over," he complained.
"Sleeping Draught?" offered Madam Pomfrey.
"Yes, please, Madam," said Remus with a grateful sigh, and he drank the concoction eagerly before immediately collapsing into a blissful slumber.
James Potter was going to be the death of him, but Remus figured it wouldn't be a terrible way to die.
AN: I had a suspiciously good day today. Everything ran like a well-oiled machine—I didn't even hit any stoplights. Something's gonna go wrong, I can feel it