It was two weeks before Remus's seventh birthday. He was running by the lake, playing with the metal airplane his Muggle grandmother Margaret had given him as an early birthday gift. He made motor sounds with his lips, imitating the real propeller planes she had shown him today at the small aircraft show in Wales, in the little town his father's parents called home. He bounded over rocks and patches of dead weeds and flowers, the names of which he did not know yet, but which his mother Rowena had said were full of magical properties. He would learn them all one day, she promised.
Remus's parents and grandparents were within sight, a short distance away on the lake, reclining in wooden chairs behind his grandparents' cottage after dinner, sipping and warming their hands on mugs of his grandfather Jonathan's strong tea in front of the pale blue fire that his father, Owen, had conjured. Remus could see the their figures silhouetted in the golden light of the dining room window as they sat in their winter cloaks and talked in hushed voices about the things adults find interesting. In a few minutes, the family would all have cake; Rowena had said she would call him before they began.
The air was cold and still, the sky perfectly clear and pricked with stars. Remus didn't want to think about having to go back home tomorrow. His new airplane gleamed in the bright, early moonlight as he raised it and lowered it, sprinting along the edge of the water, making the sounds of guns and rockets. The imaginary enemy was pursuing his aircraft, but he would prevail. Swooping down behind a bed of rushes, he landed the plan deftly on the ground.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck quite literally stood on end. Remus had never felt this sensation before, although he had read about it happening to characters in stories. He stood up from behind the rushes, rubbing his neck, perplexed. He had the curious feeling of being watched. Looking into the trees, he thought he saw movement. Was it a deer? An owl?
"Friend or foe?" he called out.
His question was met with silence. He stepped through the rushes into the clearing that skirted the thicket of trees. He squinted, trying to see past the darkness into the woods beyond, but the moonlight didn't penetrate far enough. Did he hear a dog panting?
"Friend or foe?" he called again, more loudly.
Nothing. No movement, no sound. Not even the chirping of nighttime crickets. Remus began to feel agitated. It was too quiet, too creepy. He turned his back on the trees and reached through the rushes to pick up his airplane, wanting to be near his parents again.
Behind him, he distinctly heard a branch crack, then silence. Wheeling around, Remus raised his airplane as if it were a wand, and a blue spark flew from the nose of the airplane and landed on the damp ground. He shouted, "For the last time, friend or foe?"
A rush of grey and claws and teeth and blood, and he was on the ground looking up at the full moon. Who was that screaming? Him or his mother?
"Remus!" an urgent voice whispered. "Wake up, mate! You're dreaming, wake up, wake up!" James had yanked the bed curtains open and was holding Remus's flailing arms. Remus had kicked the bedcovers completely off, and his hair and pajamas were drenched in sweat. Sirius was standing well away from his friend's feet, trying to get closer to help James pin Remus down.
Finally Remus knew where he was, and he immediately stopped thrashing. It was Sunday night, he was in bed at Hogwarts, everything was normal. "I'm fine, I'm fine, let go," he whispered hoarsely. James released his arms as Sirius sat at the foot of the bed. Peter peered over at him from the next fourposter. Remus sat up, still panting, and rested his arms on his knees, hands dangling in front of him. Staring fixedly at his feet, he tried to regulate his breathing and wiped his brow on his sleeve.
"More of the same?" Sirius asked unnecessarily.
Remus nodded curtly, not meeting his friend's eyes, trying to will the other Gryffindor boys to stick their bloody heads back inside their own bloody bed curtains.
As if reading his mind, James strode to the center of the room. "Good evening, gawkers!" he announced sprightly. "What we have here is a young man with a terrible, unrequited crush on Professor Sprout. In no uncertain terms she told him it could never be, and now his dreams are haunted by her callous rejection. If you have a heart at all, let the man alone."
James, quite the athlete and the jokester, was admired by most of the Gryffindor sixth year boys, and several chuckled at his comic rebuking. Remus's nightmares still happened fairly frequently, and James finessed a different story each time, seemingly on the spot. One by one the boys reluctantly closed their bed curtains again, but they watched Remus carefully before they did so. Remus knew that several of the boys in his year thought he was insane, or at least quite weird, and remained wary of him. His recurrent nightmares, coupled with the mysterious scratches and wounds that periodically appeared on his face and body, had earned him the nickname of "Loony" from some of his dorm mates within his first year at Hogwarts. Thankfully, though, James and Sirius wouldn't allow the name to stick; so now the only one who used it to his face was Peeves, the poltergeist, who was always eavesdropping and had seized the nickname with delight, calling him "loony, loopy Lupin." There wasn't much Remus's friends could do about the ghost's harassment, however.
James approached Remus's bed again. "Now, don't you think it's time you let old Sprout go?" he winked.
"But it's such sweet suffering," Remus deadpanned. James and Sirius laughed and went back to their beds.
Remus lay back down and stared at the window for a long while. It was the end of January, almost two weeks before the next full moon, and he was becoming anxious, as usual. He would probably start losing sleep next week, until the transformation was over. Then he would sleep like the dead for three weeks or so, and the cycle would begin again.
He covered his eyes with his arm and tried to think of nothing at all.