Teddy Lupin had a monthly routine. A day before the full moon, he felt his blood boil and his joints ache with the pain of a transformation which would never come. The day of, his face would turn a horrible white, ghastly color, and he had a rather rough time keeping down his food. None of it tasted right—his body craved something it wasn't ever going to get. That night, ten 'til moonrise, Teddy would take the Marauder's map and sneak out of the castle through a hidden passageway, crawl under a large, Whomping Willow, and make his way into the dilapidated Shrieking Shack. Common knowledge said it was haunted—Teddy knew nothing had haunted it for years, but it felt so haunted to him. The walls were still caked with the brown blood and claw marks of a man who had been dead for years, whom he had never known and yet known better than he could ever know—if that wasn't haunting, Teddy wasn't sure what was.
James Potter could never understand why his best friend would do this to himself. He didn't transform—he didn't need to be locked up somewhere. Teddy would simply shake, become a bit irritable, and take a sleeping draught to get him through the night where he would sleep in the cold, disgusting house. At home, Teddy would curl up in bed. James thought that was normal. But at school, he could only describe the boy's routine as eerie and uncalled for. He just didn't get it, but one day he finally decided that he wanted to.
"I'm coming with you," James said rather abruptly, having used his invisibility cloak to sneak into the Hufflepuff boy's room.
"You're not," Teddy snapped. "You're eleven, you are out of your bed, and breaking about a dozen school rules just being in here—"
"You break a dozen rules every day!" James protested. Teddy shot him a look, his eyes flashing red for a moment.
"Not like this. Go home, James. Before I write you up myself."
"You wouldn't," James huffed. "You're family, you wouldn't dare."
Teddy raised a brow. "You want to try me? I'm a prefect—I have every right in the world to write you up."
"But you're breaking the rules too—sneaking out, going to that dreadful place every month alone—it's not right!" He exclaimed. "You shouldn't be alone—"
"I want to be alone," Teddy sneered. "You don't get it—I'm not a werewolf, I know, but I feel like one these nights," he explained poorly. James scoffed.
"If you aren't one, how do you feel—"
"I just do!" Teddy snapped. "I can't—you can never understand."
"Not if you don't let me try," James insisted. "I want to be there for you. Have fun trying to stop me, by the way—I know the way—"
"You'll get killed by the tree," Teddy seethed. "You can't go alone."
"Then you better let me come with you—because either way, I am going."
Teddy glared at his little cousin. Bloody Gryffindors, he thought to himself. Putting their noses where they don't belong, too brave to know what's good for them.
"Fine," he snapped. "But only because I don't want you to wind up dead—you mum would skin me."
Teddy couldn't—wouldn't—believe he was actually letting James do this with him. This wasn't something for young boys to see. He had never really interacted with James this close to the full moon either, and he wasn't exactly sure if they boy knew what he was getting into. With the help of the old Potter invisibility cloak, James and Teddy left the castle unseen. As soon as they were outside and away from any wandering eyes, they took off the cloak.
"You're not going to like what you see," Teddy warned his little cousin. James furrowed his brows.
"What, the shack? No, I can't imagine it looks very good, but—"
"No," Teddy forced out, his voice feeling shaky. "Me. I…It's not bad, but I get a bit off. Testy is one way to put it, but it's more like I'm sick," he groaned. "I don't look or feel right."
"You look like Teddy," James insisted. "That's enough for me." Teddy looked at James with a smile.
"You say this…"
"I do," James quipped. "It's the truth. I suppose you're a bit more annoying and slightly paler—"
Teddy snorted.
"—but you're still my best friend. I wanted to see this, remember?"
Defeated, Teddy pulled out his wand and slowly immobilized the Willow. He then led James down the path and James made a sort of disgusted sound.
"What's that smell?" He asked. Teddy shrugged.
"I…I don't know. I think just, you know, dirt and stuff," he suggested, though he had a feeling there was more of the stuff component to that.
"And your dad—and my granddad—used to use this path?" James asked. Teddy nodded.
"Every month, if we're to believe the stories. It makes me feel closer to them, in a way—walking the same path they used to. I like to imagine this is sort of what it was like, you know. Walking as friends through the tunnel."
"Then," James pondered, "Why do this alone for so long? If your dad—"
"My father," Teddy began, "Couldn't say no to his friends. They sort of…barged in, I guess. I, however, can say no," he said, pausing. "Or, well, I thought I could, but apparently not with you."
James chuckled. "I snuck past your defenses."
"I suppose so," Teddy said a bit darkly. The passage came to a halt, and the two boys descended up a flight of stairs.
"Smells worse up here," James complained. Teddy snorted.
"Yeah, you'll see why. Decades later and not much has changed—unlike the rest of the world."
The sight which befell the two boys was incredibly similar to that which their Marauder counterparts had been introduced to so many years ago. The walls, which had been painted so long before their time, were almost entirely brown. Where there wasn't paint (which was most places), there was wood, and the wood was in turn stained with blood—turning the wood a darker brown now. Claw marks were everywhere and had contributed to the peeling paint. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling was scratched and dented. There had once been some furniture: tables, chairs, a bed. All that remained were scraps of wood. There was a single, small window, positioned for Remus to know where the moon was—which Teddy now used for the same purpose. The room smelled musty and sickly, as though someone in it had died. Its main occupant had.
"This is…"
"Horrible?" Teddy spat. "Yeah, pretty much. The blood is all his—claw marks, everywhere, and these are just the ones that weren't dealt to his body. All before the potion, you see. This is what he had to go through every single month." Teddy paused, looking at James a bit painfully. "I used to hate him—just a bit. No one likes being cranky, feeling sick out of their control. I was annoyed that he had let down his defenses, married my mum, had me because of that…but I grew angry when I heard how many times he tried to leave us—"
"Leave?" James exclaimed. "But…but your dad loved you—"
"I know," Teddy said hoarsely. "Which made hating him worse. I don't anymore, of course—I'd pay anything to see them both again. But it didn't really change until I saw this room and I understood everything: he thought I'd have to live like this. Or, he thought I'd have a hell of a time getting over the fact that he had to live this way. Now, the place humbles me." Teddy snorted. "Imagine how lucky he would have felt to just go through what I do? Really puts it all in perspective. Being here, reading his journal, it's the closest thing I have to knowing how to cope with what I've got."
James fell silent. He had such a difficult time relating to his own father—he had never imagined what it would be like if your father was dead. He assumed Teddy Lupin and Harry Potter had more in common than they let on.
"But…you do manage well, right? I mean, you joke," James offered with a slight smile. Teddy rolled his eyes.
"Coping mechanism—it all is. I know I'm loved—really, your family has been so good to me—but it's not ever going to be the same. So, I make joked about having a 'time of the month' and 'the perks of dead parents' because if I get to control how I react to it, make people feel more at ease talking to me…it makes it manageable. But as you said," Teddy spoke wistfully, "You've broken my defenses. I'm actually talking about all of this to you—it's a lot for a boy to take in."
"But you had to take it in much younger than I," James insisted. "If you can live with this, I can too—"
"I didn't have a choice!" Teddy snarled, a shudder running down his spine. "It's this, or what? What's my alternative? Mope? Long for people who are never coming home?"
James looked scared. Teddy's face fell.
"I'm…I'm sorry. I'm just a bit, you know…"
"I know," James whispered. "Here, let's sit down," he suggested, taking a seat on the cold wooden floor. He looked around him—he couldn't imagine the pain his cousin's father had to go through. He was thankful Teddy only had a fraction of all of this. The Lupin boy sat down, cross-crossed, feeling tears build up as his face grew hot. He fidgeted, feeling his skin prick. James turned to his friend.
"Teddy?" He asked. "Are you—"
"Fine," Teddy grunted. "I'm fine." He groaned a little. "Hurts, is all." Another shudder. The moon came into sight and illuminated the shack for the boys. James could now see the worry lines that had begun to form on his friend's face—the boy was only fifteen, yet he was aging beyond his years. James had never noticed it before, but he assumed that was the point. Flecks of grey shone in Teddy's hair.
The boy caught James looking at him. "I'm a metamorphagus, remember? I don't like something, I change it, but…" he winced. "I can't really focus right now." His head hurt, pounding. Hopefully the sleeping draught he had taken would begin to work its magic.
"I'll take your mind off it," James suggested. "What should I talk about?"
"Anything," Teddy seethed. "Anything but this."
James told Teddy stories from their childhood together—pranks, hijinks, escapades, and everything in between. He even occasionally got Teddy to laugh. Eventually, James saw Teddy getting sleepy, and he took off his own robe and placed it around the boy. Teddy protested at first, bit he was in fact cold. James smiled, but noticed Teddy had tears running down his face.
"Teddy," James asked, concerned, "What's wrong?"
"He went through worse," the boy whispered, shutting his eyes tightly, trying to stop the tears. James placed a hand on his friend's back. "He went through worse and I…I can barely do this. I'm not brave like him."
"You are," James whispered. He had never gone through anything like this in his life—it made him wonder why Teddy hadn't been put in Gryffindor. Yet looking around at where he was, James had to admit that trying to feel solidarity with a dead man was about as loyal as you could get.