CW: dark thoughts

"You have no idea how worried we've been."

Dad and I had arrived home, I'd told him every single tiny detail of what had happened. Well, almost. I didn't tell him about the satisfaction I'd felt after killing Monifa. I wasn't even sure if that was normal, and I didn't want him to think I was even worse than he probably already thought of me now.

He'd bought me an antidote for the Veritaserum at Diagon Alley on the way home, so I no longer had to constantly tell the truth.

"Where's Mum?" I asked, wanting her more than ever.

"She's coming back soon," he told me. "She just… it… it's OK, though." He paused, then said, "Son, I'm very proud of you."

"How could you possibly be proud of me?" I said, slightly angrily. "I'm not only a monster, but I'm a murderer now, too."

"You went to help your friend, Sirius," he said. Did he just not want to talk about the fact that his son was now a murderer? "You are such an amazing friend."

"Last time I checked, good friends don't kill each other," I said, a little coldly.

"It's not your fault," he said. "I'm really sorry about your loss."

"It was her blood on my hands," I said through gritted teeth. "My teeth on her body."

"Everything's going to be OK," he said, his voice soft.

"NO, IT'S NOT!" I shouted. "Sorry, but after this, how could anything be OK? How could anything ever be OK again? Everyone knows what I am! What I did! And I ruinedeverything… imagine dying when you're twelve!"

"Not everyone knows," he said quietly.

"Oh yeah, just two of my best friends, Fenrir Greyback, Dumbledore, the Minister of Magic, and not to mention an entire jury, plus at least fifty people who just came to watch the trial. So, yeah. It's fine. Everything's going to be OK," I said, clenching my fists. I shouldn't be taking my anger out on him like this. Did I even deserve to mourn?

"Please calm down, Remus," said Dad. "Everyone was sworn to secrecy."

"As if that's going to happen," I snapped. "And Monifa's dead… I killed her..."

"One day in the future this will seem like a small problem that happened a long, long time ago," Dad told me. "When you're an old man with an old wife and you have fully grown children and little grandchildren… it will all be OK."

I didn't respond, I just sat down, not being able to stop replaying the scene in my head and cursing myself.

"Well, in a little over a month you'll be going back to Hogwarts. And you'll be with your great friends again, and studying magic again!" he said, smiling encouragingly.

"They definitely don't want to see me."

"They accept you, though," said Dad. "They're sad about their friend's death, of course, but they're not angry with you."

"They were just being nice today," I said, staring into the fireplace.

"No, I'm sure they—"

Just then, the doors burst open and my mum came through, and as soon as she saw me she started crying.

"Remus!" she cried, running to me and throwing her arms around me. "We've been worried sick, we went to pick you up from James's, but only James and Sirius were there, they said their parents had told them to stay there while they went to look for you and Monifa, James and Sirius were trying to find a way to get out since their parents had locked the doors and taken the brooms… Oh, I'm just so glad you're OK, is your friend Monifa OK, too?"

Silence came for about thirty seconds, before I managed to say, "She… she's dead."

Mum breathed in sharply, staring at me. "I'm… I'm so sorry, hun, if you ever want to—"

"I killed her," I added. I couldn't meet her eye, and all I wanted to do was die.

"Oh."

"It… it was full moon," I said, feeling tears coming to my eyes again. "And Greyback put her in a cave with me, then I transformed, and… killed her. No. Destroyed her."

Mum closed her eyes, shaking her head. "This can't be happening. We need to find a cure."

"We've tried," said Dad. "We've tried everything, Hope! I'm surprised Remus hasn't died from drug overdose!"

"There has to be something else!"

"Don't throw any more money away for me," I said. "Don't waste your money on more possible cures that probably won't even work, then we won't have any money and then… and then we'll be struggling again, because of me."

"Remus, stop blaming yourself for every single little inconvenience in our lives," said Dad, crossing his arms. "It's annoying."

"Sorry," I said.

"You don't need to say sorry," said Mum, smiling kindly but sadly.

"Sorry. Oh, I said it again, sorry…"

"It'll be OK, Remus," Mum said. "I promise you that."

I didn't believe her, but I decided to just put on a smile and nod.

In the lead up to my return to Hogwarts, my mental state of slowly dripping into near insanity. I couldn't stop thinking about that moment of satisfaction I'd felt after I'd killed Monifa. It was like… something I'd needed for a long time, but didn't realise it. It took over my thoughts throughout the rest of summer. The following full moon I spilled a lot of blood, and although thankful it was me I was tearing apart once again, as I looked at my fresh cuts the next morning, all I could think of was how I'd torn Monifa up as well, and she'd ended up dead.

And I'd done a bloody good job.

Shut. Up. Shut up, Remus!

I wanted to cry every single day, but my parents seemed to want to be with me all the time, so I was left to remaining silent in my own horrible thoughts of the time.

On September 1st, 1972, I awkwardly walked into a compartment on the Hogwarts Express to join Sirius, James and Peter. They were all sitting in silence, and Sirius smiled at me faintly.

I'd thought about this moment a lot over summer. I'd expected them to be angry, to scream at me, leave the compartment, throw a punch or a curse, but they did none, they just remained silent, all staring at me. I sat down nervously, being careful to sit a fair distance away from the others to not make them uncomfortable.

We all sat in silence for quite some time, James was pretending to be very interested in the scenery outside, and Sirius often glanced over at me and gave a small smile, before looking away again. Even Peter was fidgeting, and looked incredibly uncomfortable. They must have told him. They had to of.

"Is it true you're a werewolf?" Peter asked after almost an hour, breaking the silence.

I inhaled silently, flashing a look at Sirius and James. My suspicions were confirmed.

"No way we could keep it from him," said Sirius. "He… he said he was really busy at the time, so he couldn't come to you know, get me from my psycho parent's grasp. And, well all he knew was that Monifa was… was killed by a werewolf, and well, we told him the rest. Sorry."

"OK," I said, feeling slightly annoyed they'd told Peter without my permission. I probably would have told him anyway, as it wasn't exactly fair for Sirius and James to know and not him, but I'd wanted to tell him myself. But I kept the annoyance to myself, because now that they knew my secret they could do anything with it. Not that I didn't trust them… of course I trusted them, but it could accidentally slip out and then the entire school would find out and I'd be expelled and thrown into Azkaban…

You're a murder, remember, said a cold voice at the back of my head. You should be in Azkaban. The sight of Monifa's dead body came flashing into my mind.

"Remus?" Sirius asked. "You're sweating like crazy! Are you OK?"

"Yep," I said, nodding vigorously.

"I promise you we're not angry," he said. "Not at you. But we are angry at Fenrir Greyback. How could he do this to you?"

"There needs to be a way we can help you," James added. They sounded like they'd planned this.

"Help… me?" I breathed, my eyes widening.

"What if we get rid of the moon?" James suggested. "So you don't have to transform into a werewolf anymore!"

"How would we do that, genius?" Peter asked.

"And like I told you, if you did that, the effects on the rest of the earth could be detrimental," said Sirius.

James and Peter were looking at him with blank faces, and he sighed. "Have any of you been paying attention in Astronomy?"

"What if we came with you?" James asked.

"No way," I said. "Not in a million years. You'd all be torn to pieces."

"Not if we're careful," said James.

"You don't understand," I said. "M-Monifa was trapped in a small room with me. If she'd somehow managed to open the rock, I would have followed her. Only a human can open the door of the Shrieking Shack, so you opening it to leave would mean that I'd get out."

"The Shrieking Shack?" said Sirius. "That's where you go?"

"So it's not haunted, then," said James glumly. "It's just you… howling."

"Um… can you all promise not to tell a soul about this?" I said, feeling embarrassed.

"I promise," said James and Peter.

"I'd be willing to make the Unbreakable Vow," Sirius told me. His face looked dead serious, and he was looking my right in the eyes. I felt my face heat up, then nodded.

"Thank you, guys," I said, looking away from Sirius to talk to all three of them. "That means a lot."

"We need to be able to help you, though," said James. "We can't just leave you for bait to your own claws, like look at your face! We can't let it get any worse!"

"Can we talk about something else please?" I asked, looking out the window.

"OK," said Sirius, understanding. "I promise we'll help you with this, though. Somehow."

My face seemed to be on fire, and I watched the scenery go by and the four of us chatted about other things. I hoped I would be able to move forward. Maybe not yet, but eventually.