CW: Brief mention of weight insecurity

I was gripping onto my wooden school seat in the Charms classroom so tight that I was sure I would have a massive, very painful splinter before the end of the lesson.

It was the last lesson of the day of a full moon, and I had agreed to the marauders and I to go into the forbidden forest, them in their Animagus forms and me in my werewolf form.

I regretted agreeing to it within less than a minute of agreeing to it, but I didn't want to turn around and say no now. They were all so excited (well, Peter not so much), and wouldn't shut up about all the things they wanted to do, like getting to run faster than they ever could in their human form.

They were excited for me, too. Especially Sirius. He kept saying how great it was that I would finally get to run free. But what he didn't realise, is that I could run free whenever I wanted, but my wolf could not, and I was scared that once it was finally able to run free it would go crazy and kill everything in its sight, including maybe even the other marauders.

The thought of that made my stomach squirm, and I felt like I was going to throw up, and I clutched onto the seat even harder, causing my hand to hurt even more than it already had been.

"Are you alright?" Sirius said to me in a low voice, placing his hand on my hand that was gripping the classroom chair.

"We can't go to the forbidden forest tonight," I said, my throat dry.

"Why?" said Sirius. "Do you want to go somewhere else? Like, around the grounds? So there are no creatures around?"

"Padfoot, we can't leave the shack," I said.

"Why? It will be good for you, Moony. I thought you said..." Sirius started, but then James realised what we were talking about and came into the conversation.

"Why don't you want to leave the shack?" he asked.

"It's not safe," I said, so quietly that I could barely even hear myself. "I've only not been locked up during a full moon twice. One of those was the night I killed Monifa, and the other was the night I was involved in the attack on Hogwarts."

Sirius and James were both quiet and clearly didn't have any idea what to say to that.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't mean for that to turn all dark..."

"It's OK, you don't need to be sorry," said Sirius, squeezing my hand under the table on top of the seat again. "We know that you won't hurt anyone. But if you don't feel comfortable, we can stay in the shack."

I wanted to kiss him, but we were in the classroom with loads of other people in there, so I just said, "Thank you."

I was afraid that that night would be awkward between the four of us, but it wasn't at all, thank the lord.

But the morning after, I was so tired that I literally collapsed and fell asleep as soon as I transformed back into myself. I hadn't even realised that this had happened, so I was absolutely mortified when Sirius told me about it that afternoon when he visited me in the Hospital Wing.

"I felt so bad... none of us caught you, we didn't see it coming and didn't have time to process it... you hit your head hard," said Sirius.

"It's alright, I don't think anyone's reflexes are that fast," I said. "And I feel fine, anyway."

That wasn't entirely true. My head was throbbing, but only lightly. I felt almost completely fine. I just didn't want to make Sirius feel worse if he already felt bad for something that wasn't even his fault.

"Do you know why you were so tired?" Sirius asked, drawing the curtains of the Hospital four-poster and casting a silencing charm, then moving closer to me, still sitting cross-legged. Part of me wished he'd come under the covers with me, but the other half of me just wanted him to leave so I could sleep again. I was that exhausted. "I mean, I know you're always tired after a moon, but I don't think you've ever gone straight to sleep that quickly... I mean, what if we hadn't been there and you'd been really injured? You would have been bleeding, then maybe you would have bled out, and... oh my god, you could've died, and..."

"But I didn't," I said softly. "Because I have two amazing best friends and one absolutely stunning boyfriend who became bloody Animagus just to keep me safe."

"Did... did you just refer to me as your boyfriend?" Sirius said suddenly.

"Um, yeah?" I said, my tone coming out sounding questioning. "Is that OK?"

Sirius smiled. "Yeah, it's OK! I just... we've never... I didn't know I was your boyfriend."

"How did you not know?" I asked, "After the number of times we've snogged and told each other we love each other...?"

"I dunno," said Sirius, running his fingers through a curl of my hair. "I guess I did know. But usually, labels are only for a girlfriend and a boyfriend, not... two boyfriends."

"Yeah, because with boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, other people usually know about it, but with us, not many other people know about it. But I'd say you're my boyfriend, even if it is private," I said.

Sirius smiled even wider and planted a soft kiss on my lips, then said, "I love you, my dear boyfriend."

"Love you too, Padfoot," I said, gripping his hands and snogging him back.

In the week leading up to Hallowe'en, the other marauders and I started obsessing over making Jack O' Lanterns that would sing a song in a very annoying voice to whoever even looked at it.

Our goal was to make a hundred of them, and so far we'd made twenty, with five days left until Hallowe'en, and if we kept going at the rate we were going, I was almost sure we'd be able to make a hundred by this Sunday (which was the day of Hallowe'en) easily.

"This is going to be so great," James laughed as we sat in our dormitory and he blasted a hole through the pumpkin he was holding with his wand. "Maybe I should make one of them sing a love song, and it only works when Evans looks at it?"

Sirius laughed. "Are you going to let her know it's you who made it?"

"Obviously," said James. "She already knows I like her, what's the point in trying to deny my feelings for her?"

"You're right," said Sirius. "I think the song should be something really meaningful, really personal to her... like, in the lyrics, talk about all the things you like about her."

"Yeah..." said James, then grabbed some parchment and started writing lyrics for Lily. "God, this is easier than I expected... there are so many things I love about her... oh, but I want the song to sound good, too..."

"It will sound good," I said. "And how are you going to make sure she hears it?"

"I'm going to put it at the bottom of the stairs to the girl's dormitory on Saturday night, so it's the first thing she sees on Sunday morning," said James, not looking up from his parchment. "Should I say more about her appearance or her personality?"

"Personality," I said. "Obviously say that she's pretty as well, but mainly talk about how great her personality is."

"Pretty?" said James, finally looking up at me, disgust all over his face. "Why would I call such a drop-dead gorgeous, beautiful, stunning, hot, sexy girl – no, not girl, woman, like Lily Evans such a huge understatement of pretty?"

"God, sorry I suggested it," I said as James looked back to his parchment.

"Prongs, I get you think she's really beautiful, but you're being a bit dramatic about her appearance," said Peter. "I mean, Evans is pretty, sure, but like... compared to some of the other girls... who probably would likeyou back... like, why aren't you going after them? A lot of them are hotter than Evans."

James looked slowly up from his parchment with his eyes only, not moving his head at all. "Well, those other girls who are supposedly more beautiful than Evans in your opinion, why don't you go after them?"

Peter laughed. "They wouldn't like me. You're the one the girls want. You and Sirius. Not me. What would be the point of me... who's five foot two and fifteen stone, going after someone like... Mary Macdonald, with those fucking amazing tits, or Marlene bloody McKinnon, who's literally the love of my life!"

The silence that followed Peter's statement was loud, and I felt like something was ringing in my ears.

"Wormtail... Marlene's a lesbian, remember?" said James, his tone. "I'm... I'm sure if she wasn't, though, she'd like you!"

"Yeah, right," said Peter. "Well, um... now you all know who I fancy, and it's getting late, I'm going to go to bed."

He placed the pumpkin he'd been holding down, then climbed into his four-poster and drew the curtains. It wasn't late at all, and we'd only gotten back from dinner twenty minutes ago.

"Should we talk to him?" said Sirius, but James shook his head.

"Just give him some space, at least for the rest of the night," said James. "It seems like he'd been keeping that in for quite some time..."

James got up really early on the morning of Hallowe'en so he could put his love pumpkin at the bottom of the staircase of the girls' dormitory. He didn't intentionally wake any of us up, but he went to the toilet before leaving, and I heard the sound of the toilet flushing, which woke me up. Bloody werewolf senses.

Peter hadn't spoken about his feelings for Marlene or feelings about himself since he'd first blurted it out, and neither James, Sirius, or I brought it up because we thought we'd let him talk about it if he wanted to, and if he didn't, we didn't want to pressure him into talking.

The day of Hallowe'en was spent the same way any Hallowe'en at Hogwarts would be spent: eating junk, and watching as the younger students ran around in costumes they'd gotten from Hogsmeade and asking the teachers for sweets.

"Do you guys remember when we did that in first year?" said James, smiling as four second-years sprinted past us, all dressed as ghosts.

"Imagine if someone dressed as You-Know-Who," I said, stifling a laugh.

"That would not be funny," said James. "Maybe like, if we'd already defeated him, but definitely not now."

"Talking about defeating You-Know-Who," I said, "would you guys want to join the Order of the Phoenix after we finish here?"

"Well, yeah," said James. "That's been my intention since I was thirteen."

"Well, I'm going to be an Auror, so yeah," said Sirius.

"Um, sure... I suppose if you guys all are," said Peter, his tone uncertain.

"OK, cool," I said. "But hopefully we won't have to, because I hope that this bloody war is over before we finish school."