Remus trembled under his bed. There'd been a monster and it had eaten him and spitten him out. He'd crawled under his bed to hide, his whole body aching from being eaten. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes and he wiped at them, his hand coming back stained with tears and blood.
The door creaked. He heard footsteps and tried to press himself against the wall. "Remus? Honey?"
His mom. It was his mom. The monster hadn't gotten her! "Mum!
He heard movement, and then his mother's face appeared. "Oh Honey," she said softly. "Come here, Remus. I'll make you feel better."
He moved a bit and peeked out from under the bed. "Mum? Mum please, t-there was a monster and he-he-"
"Come here," she whispered. "Remmy, come here."
He crawled to her, crying, tears mixing with blood on his cheeks from what the monster had done to him. "Mum please, please, I'm scared, I don't want it to come back. Mum please-"
The door opened roughly. Remus groaned and adjusted slightly. His friends. His friends were coming to check on him. He didn't want them to. He wanted them to leave him alone, because it had been a long night and a longer morning. His stomach had been swirling ever since he'd woken up an hour ago, and being able to hear the cheering from the quidditch match hadn't made him very keen on seeing anyone. It gave him a headache. As if he needed something else to cause him pain.
But when he lifted his eyelids, barely more than a millimeter, he realized that the door hadn't been opened by his friends at all. They hadn't come to see him yet. Which, he realized, just frustrated him more. Did they not even care? Did they not want to see him, to know that he was alright? He'd only just had a hell of a night of transformation, didn't they care?
Remus closed his eyes again, knowing her was overly dramatic and hating himself even more for it. His friends were some of the only people who knew about his condition, which made him all the more needy for their care and attention. It had been a problem for years.
The roughly opened door led, of course, to commotion within the hospital wing. Shouting about a player-no, a spectator-who'd been hit with a bludger. It was a rough go, Remus knew from occasionally playing quidditch with his friends. Bludgers were beasts, absolutely painful when they made contact with your body. He felt for the spectator (at least his capacity to feel sympathy wasn't broken) and hoped that Pomfrey would set them right. And maybe take a while to do it, so Remus could go back to sleep.
The realization that it could be Peter hit him all at once, and Remus sat up, body pained, to look frantically for his friends. "James?" he said, looking around without really seeing anything. "Sirius!"
No one seemed to pay him any attention. Remus shifted to get out of bed and check everything out, needing confirmation that his friends were okay. It was probably a bludger sent by a Slytherin who hated them, someone who knew Peter would be in the stands, probably alone because Sirius was off with some girl, and he'd be an easy target. Too easy of a target.
Remus got a little closer before Madame Pomfrey bustled over. "Back to bed, Mr. Lupin," she said, holding a potion in her hand, her headpiece askew like she'd still been getting ready for the day. How early into the quidditch match were they when the Slytherins hit Peter?
"Is it-"
"It's not," she said, and Remus felt every inkling of stress disappear.
"Okay," he mumbled, nodding, moving backward. "Okay. Okay, thank you."
She didn't respond and instead gave him a gentle push toward his bed. Remus laid down again and pulled the cover over his head, trying to block out the noise.
Sleep managed to come after a few minutes, and Remus floated in the peaceful space between dreams and consciousness.
Life came back too soon. A few hours later his friends were chatting quietly (or as quietly as they could, which wasn't very quiet at all) at Remus's bedside. He heard Sirius let out a hearty laugh as Peter munched on some crisps and he heard the telltale signs of little fluttering wings as James tossed a snitch around. James was a chaser, a good one at that, but quaffles were bigger and more likely to be noticed by teachers than a snitch.
Remus tried not to groan. The unconscious state had been peaceful, pleasant. "You lot can never quiet down." He muttered, shifting a bit in the bed.
"How're you feeling, mate?" James asked quickly, concern evident on his face. He put the snitch in his pocket and sat up a little straighter.
"Fine," Remus said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up a little. "Fine. I didn't-"
"We're good," Sirius said, stealing a crisp from Peter. "Not a scratch on anyone."
Remus let out a breath of relief. He'd needed to hear that. "Okay," he said. "Okay."
"Want some?" Peter asked, holding the package out to Remus.
"I'm good, Pete, thanks," Remus said, rubbing his face again. "I need outta here. You think Pomfrey will let me go?"
"Probably. She let Wallace go like an hour ago." Sirius said.
"Wallace?" Remus replied.
"Got hit in the head with a bludger," James replied. "Bettle sent it the wrong way, stupid bloke."
Bettle was a Ravenclaw. Remus was reminded that Slytherin wasn't even playing that day. It was Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw. "Did we win?"
"Course we did," James said, chest puffing up. "Thanks to yours truly."
"Wallace is okay too," Peter said. "Madam Pomfrey fixed her right up."
Remus shrugged. Wallace was in their year, but Remus didn't know her well. "Good. Everything's good then."
"Everything's good," Sirius agreed. "C'mon, mate, let's get you out of here."
It didn't take much convincing. Remus was ready to go, and when he checked with Madame Pomfrey, she sighed and agreed that he was probably fine. Sirius slung an arm around his shoulders, walking with him like they were sharing some kind of secret but laughing loudly. To any outsider, it would look like they were close friends. To Remus, it was his friends' subtle gesture of support, making sure he could walk alright after the transformation.
The weekend, after that, passed uneventfully. Remus and Lily went on patrol the next night and chatted about a Potions assignment. Remus did homework while his friends pretended to and played chess on the other side of their books. It was the good life at Hogwarts for one more month. Remus couldn't be more relieved.
Sunday night, however, had James fussing again. "It's ridiculous," he said, running his fingers through his already messy hair. "How can they expect us to do this? As if we haven't got practice every single night of the week. It's like McGonagall doesn't want us to win!"
"She does," Peter said, voice flat as he thumbed through a magazine.
Their dormitory was a mess, but it was just the four of them. There used to be more, but for some reason, the other boys had decided they couldn't stand living with them. Maybe it was the fact that Sirius would leave underwear drying on every surface - Remus didn't know why, but every now and then he'd hand-wash them - or perhaps it was the way James went on lovesick rants about Lily Evans. Regardless, after fourth year, it had just been the four of them. Sirius loved it, talked about living with all four of them together once Hogwarts was over. Remus smiled and catered to the idea even though he knew he'd never be able to afford a home with them. Who would hire someone like him?
"Why wouldn't she want us to win?" Sirius replied, tossing a ball up and down in the air. "She's the head of house."
"But fourteen inches?" James asked. "How the hell am I supposed to write fourteen inches!"
"I bet Evans would help you if you asked nicely," Sirius teased, smirking.
"Evans can't know that I can't write this essay," James said quickly. "She can't."
Sirius hopped up. "Really? Oh Evans - oh Evans!" He called, taking off running.
James leapt to his feet to follow him and Peter laughed. "You think Sirius is actually gonna tell her?"
"Depends on how fast James runs," Remus replied, flipping the page in his book. The essay was on conjuring furniture. Difficult, not impossible, but something McGonagall could of course do without question. Remus had already finished it, but James and Sirius (of course) had been putting it off for a while.
Peter laughed again. "Hope he runs fast. I swear I saw Evans staring at him the other day."
"Yeah?" Remus asked, looking up. He was with Lily multiple nights a week. She hadn't mentioned anything, but why would she? They were friends, sure, but he was better friends with James.
"Yeah," Peter said. "At dinner, Thursday. He didn't notice cause he was-"
"Potato eating contest with Sirius," Remus replied, smiling a bit. He hadn't felt well Thursday, but he'd still dragged himself down to the great hall for dinner. The less time he spent wallowing in his own misery, the better. He'd spent more than enough of his life doing that already, and he was only seventeen.
"Yeah," Peter echoed, smirking. "The one time he should have been paying attention and he wasn't."
Remus himself chuckled at that, because Peter was right. James had spent three full years chasing after Lily, but for some reason he'd calmed down in the last few weeks, even since they'd gone back for their last year. Remus was almost tempted to say he'd matured, but he needed to give James some more time before he made the claim.
Sirius came sprinting back into the room and threw himself behind Peter. "You can't! You can't!" he yelled.
James followed a moment later, red in the face. "I'll kill you! Damn it, Padfoot!"
Sirius laughed as he cowered behind their friend. "You should've seen his face, Wormtail!"
"You told her?" Peter gasped.
"Worse!" James yelled. "Moony, tell them to-"
"What happened?" Remus asked curiously.
"I didn't tell her about his homework," Sirius said, smirking. "I told her about his collection of stuffed rabbits."
Peter burst out laughing and James lunged at Sirius, tussling with him on the floor. "Damn it Padfoot!" he yelled again.
Remus laughed too, but headed out of the room to let his friends figure themselves out. His head still ached a little from Friday night, and the quiet of the library was preferable to their yelling.
His work was done, so he found a book on Charms and picked it up, heading to one of the back tables. It was their table - no one bothered to sit there. Their initials were carved into the wood of the windowsill it stood next to. Remus smiled fondly. Ridiculous as they were, he loved his friends.
On his way back, he noticed a couple other books that looked interesting. Remus stopped to flip through them, feeling peaceful. He liked the library. He liked the stillness. Nothing bad ever happened there, none of the people he despised hung around there, which meant it was a safe space. Remus had precious few of those in the classroom. The library, the Gryffindor tower, and the Room of Requirement. He could technically count the Shrieking Shack, if he really wanted to, but that wasn't a safe place in the way he wanted it to be. It was a place where no one but his friends would see him as the monster he truly was, but it was also a place where he tore himself apart once a month every year, like clockwork.
Remus brushed the tender skin under his chin, feeling the raised bump of a new scar. Madame Pomfrey was a miracle worker, but nothing would cure the ugly scars lining his body. Those were permanent. Self-inflicted reminders of everything that had plagued him since he was four years-old.
The table was customarily empty and Remus sat down, flipping the book open and letting the candlelight wash over the creamy pages.
