Word count: 2,241

Chapter 15

In the Twilight

Remus looked forward to his tutoring sessions with Lily. She was able to explain potion making to him in a way that made far more sense than anything that came out of Slughorn's mouth. Though Remus would admit that his dislike for the Potions Master was at least partially to blame.

"That's it?" Remus asked. "That's only, like, three steps. Slughorn made it sound more complicated than that."

"It is. Timing is everything with contraception potions. Even more so than for a lot of other complicated potions. If you get it just a few seconds off, the potion can be ruined, and it can be hard to tell it's ineffective from inspecting it, even for a trained eye."

"Remind me to never brew anyone's birth control," Remus muttered as he scribbled what Lily had explained onto his parchment. "Screwing up Felix Felicis is one thing. Giving someone an unexpected baby is another."

Lily giggled.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about. No one I know would trust a birth control potion from anyone other than a trained professional. Those can be risky enough. The world is desperately in need of a better contraceptive potion, but I think most potion makers don't consider it a priority. It's a shame. Maybe I'll go into potions and change that one day."

"You'd be great at that," Remus said with a nod.

Lily grinned before motioning towards him.

"What are you doing after Hogwarts?"

Dread coated Remus' stomach like ice. He hadn't expected Lily to deflect the attention to him.

"No idea." He kept scribbling, his eyes on the parchment. "For once, I'm as unprepared as Sirius."

When it was quiet for too long, he raised his eyes and wasn't surprised to see Lily watching him.

"It's confusing, isn't it?" she asked. "Figuring out what we're meant to do, I mean. There are so many options that there's no way I've thought of them all. How am I meant to know which is the best if I haven't considered all of my options?"

She left the rest of it unsaid: that it was becoming harder to be hired as a Muggleborn every day. She didn't need to.

Remus reached across the table to take her hand in his, giving it a squeeze.

"We'll figure something out."

She smiled at him, and he desperately hoped that, for her at least, it was true.

Remus paused when he saw the light emanating from behind the curtains of Hagrid's hut. The gamekeeper had been gone for more than a week with no explanation, and Remus had been checking for signs of life anytime he went by that part of the grounds. It was a bit of a surprise to finally find something again.

He hurried across the grass and began hurriedly knocking on the door, not quite able to contain the anxiety he'd felt since Hagrid's mysterious disappearance.

Hagrid opened the door looking a little worse for wear. Though someone had patched him up, a faded bruise still covered much of his face that wasn't covered by his beard.

"What happened?" Remus asked, all thoughts of a greeting fleeing his mind.

"Oh, err, nothin'," Hagrid said, stepping aside to let Remus in the house.

He busied himself with fixing tea as Remus settled in, seemingly not noticing that Remus had his gaze fixed on him as he tried to ascertain how Hagrid Had achieved his injury.

Hagrid's love for magical creatures was well known. For all Remus knew, Hagrid had tried to befriend another one that hadn't taken kindly to him. There was nothing hinting that the injury was a consequence of dark magic. Nothing except Remus' own gut feeling.

"That can't be nothing," he said as Hagrid sat down across from him, sliding a large cup of tea to him across the table. "Something has to cause a bruise like that. Even if it was tripping and falling flat on your face."

Hagrid sighed as he added several sugar cubes to his cup and stirred.

"This might' as well be nothin' in my work," he said, taking a sip of his tea. "Don't be worryin' abou' me. Yeh have plenty on yer plate at the moment. Don't think I don' know the full moon isn' far off."

Remus sighed. There was no hiding that he was feeling the effects of the oncoming transformation. While he didn't pay much attention to his appearance usually, he would have been hard pressed to miss the dark circles under his eyes whenever he stood in front of a mirror.

"That's a different subject," he pointed out.

"Yeh make sure those friends of yers are helping yeh out," Hagrid said, ignoring Remus' words.

Remus sighed and nodded.

When Remus was eleven, the Shrieking Shack, though it wasn't yet called that, had been a terrifying place. He had disliked the dark since he was a toddler, but his fear had taken on a new dimension since he'd been bitten. Though the transformations were only once a month, he came to associate nighttime with them.

His parents had locked him in rooms for years, so having the run of an entire house was scary. He couldn't believe that it would keep him contained. He place was dark and full of shadows. Remus had curled up on the bed that first full moon and hidden his eyes until his wolf overtook him.

When he looked at the house as a seventeen-year-old, it held none of the intimidation it once had. It was ironic, he supposed. Over the years, the house had come to look much older than its actual age due to Remus' aggression. His transformations had also given the place its haunted reputation that stoked fear in the heart of many a Hogwarts student. Yet the person who it had scared first no longer found it scary.

Perhaps that was because of the continuous exposure, but he thought it had more to do with the presence of his friends. Though he had long associated the house with his transformations just like he did the dark, he associated it with transformations spent with the other Marauders. Those transformations may have been as painful as any other, but they came with far less guilt and self-loathing than when he went through them alone.

The shack had almost become a safe haven. A place where he could let his wolf free with less fear, even if that safety had been rattled a couple years previously. The Shrieking Shack may have been covered in dust and littered with splintered furniture, but it was the only place Remus had transformed without paranoia over how easily he could break free and harm someone while a wolf.

There were only a few minutes until the moon was full, and Remus found himself on the same bed he'd curled up on as an eleven year old, though this time he wasn't hiding from the house. The bed had suffered over the years. One leg was broken, causing the whole thing to tilt, and the blankets that had once been there had been shredded long ago.

His friends had taken their usual places around the periphery of the room, waiting for the sign that they, too, should transform.

"Thank you."

The words were out before Remus could stop them. He hadn't thanked them before a transformation since the third full moon they'd spent with him when Sirius had threatened to stop coming if Remus kept thanking them every single time.

Enough time had passed to render that threat moot.

Years later, Sirius still wasn't having it though. He raised an eyebrow from where he was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

"What's brought your sudden gratitude on then?"

Remus shrugged, though he knew what it had been.

"We only have a few more of these," he said.

"And then we'll find a new place for you to transform where we can join you," James said. "Don't act like it's the last time the four of us will experience a full moon together."

"Yeah, Moony," Sirius said, stepping forward until he was hovering over the bed. "It's not like any of us would pass up the opportunity to see each other when we won't be up each other's arses all the time."

Sirius paused, tapping his chin.

"Maybe I shouldn't use that phrase anymore…"

He pretended to think about it for a few more seconds before he shrugged. Remus was sure he'd use it again by the end of the week.

"They're right," Peter said. "It's not like we're going to hate the distraction once we have all our adult responsibilities to deal with every day."

Remus often forgot that gathering in the shack each full moon was fun for his friends in a way it wasn't for him. He enjoyed having them there of course. It made things bearable, but he'd still have rathered not been a werewolf at all if it was an option. They couldn't take his pain away. They experienced the fun with none of the downsides Remus dealt with, which was fine with him if it kept them around.

"Right," Remus said, doing his best to sound like he believed them, "we'll figure it out."

The transformation hit him soon after, leaving him with only flashes of the rest of the night.

Remus glanced up from his attempts at making progress on his Defence essay for the fifth time in as many minutes. Sirius paused in his finger tapping, smirking at the glare Remus shot him.

"I'm bored," he said, not for the first time.

Remus rolled his eyes.

"Then go do something else. I'm not making you stick around, Padfoot."

With a pout, Sirius crossed his arms in front of his chest. His own Defence essay laid abandoned in front of him. He'd managed to get down one sentence of the second paragraph.

"What am I meant to do?" he asked. "James is off with Lily, and Peter's off with Sandra. Neither of them are any fun anymore. All they do is spend time with their girlfriends. We've been abandoned, Remus, and you're dealing with your grief through homework," he ignored Remus' scoff, "which is fine, but I can't do that."

Sirius held a hand over his heart, leaning back in his chair so that it rested on its back legs. Remus glanced around for signs of Madam Pince, but she was occupied with something else and hadn't honed in on Sirius and his dramatics yet.

"I'd like to finish this before you get us kicked out. Thanks."

For a second, Sirius just watched him. Remus went back to his essay, hoping, though he knew it was futile, that Sirius would as well.

"How many pranks have we pulled this year?" Sirius asked, mostly to himself. "James went all Head Boy on us, and we've hardly done anything. This year should be our last hurrah, and instead we're studying like we've never studied before."

"Our entire future depends on our NEWTs."

"Which is ridiculous," Sirius said, jabbing int Remus's direction with his quill to emphasize his words.

He swept his hand over his essay.

"When in my life am I going to need to remember the correct protocol for a stalemate in a duel? There's a war happening, Remus. No one's following proper dueling etiquette, and there certainly aren't any stalemates."

"There could still be a stale—" He paused at Sirius' glare. "Nevermind. Look, I get it. It's not like I plan to be dueling much either, but if playing by the rules is the only chance I have of getting a job, I'm going to do it. You do whatever you want."

"I can't!"

Remus hurriedly motioned for Sirius to keep his voice down, and he obliged, though his following words were no less passionate.

"What I want is to plot epic pranks with my best mates and sneak around the castle every night, but none of you will help me."

He quickly continued before Remus could speak.

"Don't you dare suggest I should try to pull off a prank by myself. You know I swore those off after The Incident."

Remus could hear the capitalization of Sirius' words in the emphasis he placed upon them.

"Sirius, that was two years ago. I think you could pull off a solo prank without almost killing somebody."

Sirius slumped down in his chair, looking dejected enough that Remus felt as if he were seconds away from giving in.

"It's not really the potential of becoming a murderer that bothers me. Pulling pranks on my own just isn't as fun."

He was staring down at his parchment without seeing it. Remus rolled his eyes even as Sirius managed to tug on his heart strings. He kicked Sirius' foot gently, prompting his friend to look at him.

"Look, I really need to get this essay done. It's important, but if you want to pull a prank, then we can come up with something later, okay?"

He was surprised at how quick the transformation was. Sirius sat up straighter and offered him his usual grin.

"Deal."

He even picked up his quill as if he, too, were going to get back to work on his homework, but he scribbled one word before looking back up at Remus.

"Do you mind if I...?"

He motioned towards Remus' essay, and Remus rested his face against the table with a groan.