"Are you sure it was Linkin?" asked Tonks the next morning, after the boys had told her about the caretaker's late night scamper across the grounds.

"Pretty sure. He had the same limp, and the moon was still almost full, so it was pretty light outside," Remus said as he scanned the bulletin board for announcements concerning first years.

"He was probably just out on some caretaking thing, but he was moving towards the forest faster than I really think anyone in their right mind would," said Adam, leaning back against the wall next to the board, "Especially so close to full moon."

"Hey, flying lessons after lunch!" said Tonks, pointing to the notice before groaning, "Figures we'd get stuck with the Slytherins, though."

Remus almost groaned along with her, but not even Slytherins could ruin flying, could they? Surely nothing short of pure evil could take away the joy of being in the air. And it wasn't Snape teaching, so it was a definite improvement over one of the other classes they shared with the Slytherins.

"Well, come on then, you two, before you starve to death," she said, and Adam pushed away from the wall with an indignant huff.

"We don't eat that much," said Remus, but the two boys followed obediently after Tonks.

"Oh, but you do. At times, I'm actually stunned at the sheer amount of food you two consume at each meal."

Adam rolled his eyes behind her back and looked at Remus, "She's just jealous."

"Yes, that's what it is, I'm jealous of the fact that your stomachs have apparently unlimited capacity."

"Well, why wouldn't you be? It's quite a talent," said Remus, coming up on one side of her as Adam took the other.

"I can barely think of any reasons," she said, answering Adam's eye roll with one of her own when he responded, "Exactly!"

The morning passed slowly in the anticipation of the coming lesson, and when lunch was finished the Gryffindors streamed eagerly across the grounds to where Madame Hooch, the strict looking flying instructor, stood in between two long lines of brooms. The brooms looked rather worse for the wear, twigs sticking out at funny angles, handles notched and the polish worn off in places, but a broom was a broom, thought Remus.

He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in his excitement as Madame Hooch strolled slowly between the two rows, neatly divided between the Slytherins and the Gryffindors. She stopped for a moment in front of Remus, hawk-like yellow eyes lingering on the scar, and he kept himself from self-consciously covering it with his hand by thinking about the fact that he'd never met someone else whose eyes were as amber as his were before.

She looked away from him and turned at the head of the column of students, giving them another look over before she spoke, "All right, class. I'm Madame Hooch, and while you are under my instruction, you will follow everything I say to the letter. I will not have you putting yourself or any of your classmates in danger because you think daddy or mummy or big brother taught you everything you need to know about a broomstick. Understood?" The class nodded, and she smiled slightly before continuing.

"Everyone standing by a broom? Good. Now, stick your right hand out, and say 'Up!' Like you mean it, class, like you mean it!"

Various shouts of 'Up!' filled the air, with equally varying degrees of success. Remus's broom shot up to his hand almost immediately, and he watched as McNair's did the same in the row across from him. Tonks and Adam's brooms came up after a few insistent calls, and soon, almost everyone was holding on to a broom. When Madame Hooch turned her back, Daisy reached down quickly to pick hers up, and Remus couldn't hold back a small smirk.

"Now, swing one leg over, and do try to do this without tripping and impaling yourselves on the broom of the person next to you," Madame Hooch said, and without realizing it, Remus reached out towards Tonks to steady her and nearly missed his own broom. But Tonks wasn't even the slightest bit unsteady, and she sent him an angry look as Madame Hooch moved around, correcting their grips.

"Everyone on? On my whistle, kick off hard from the ground, hover for a few seconds, and then return to the ground. Do not go any higher than a few meters, and do not remain in the air for more than a few seconds. Bring your brooms back down to the ground by leaning forward slightly. Ready?" she asked, and gave a short blast of her whistle.

Remus dug his toe into the hard ground, and felt it drop away from under him. A breath of freedom filled his chest, and he could barely keep from beaming as the class rose up around him, and then returned to the ground. Because of his long legs, his toes still brushed the grass as they rose again, but that didn't manage to diminish the absolute joy of being in the air.

They continued this exercise for the remainder of the class period, eventually ascending almost ten meters into the air, slowly and with no other direction but straight up, but still, it was flying. And most of the Slytherins were concentrating so hard on staying on their brooms that they couldn't say anything snide to any of the Gryffindors.

When the bell finally rang out across the grounds, Madame Hooch brought them to the ground one last time and told them their next lesson would be next week, same day, same time, and dismissed them.

Remus was still flying high when dinner rolled around despite the fact that Tonks seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder. But the rest of the boys were just as excited as Remus was, and spent most of the two class periods after the lesson bragging to the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, who didn't have their first lesson until the day after tomorrow. The girls spent most of this time rolling their eyes.

He spent most of dinner trying to figure out how to get Tonks to talk to him, but when he looked up at the High Table, Remus saw one of the doors behind the table open. Linkin slunk in, the collar of his overcoat pulled up over his face. He was just about to turn to point the caretaker out to Adam and, if she would listen to him, Tonks, but Linkin met his eyes.

And when their eyes met, the caretaker let his collar fall away and smirked at Remus with a mouth full of sharp pointed teeth, and suddenly all Remus could see was Greyback all that time ago, sneering at him in the early morning light. He wanted to run as far as he could as fast as he could, but Tonks wrapped a hand around his arm.

"Remus, what's wrong? You're as white as Nearly Headless Nick."

"Nothing," he said, shaking a little, but turning back to his food. Tonks just shook her head at him and turned back to her conversation with Lewis. As soon he cleared his plate, he got up and left the Great Hall, not bothering to wait for Adam or Tonks. He couldn't think about anything but getting away from Linkin and his strange new teeth.

"I can take care of myself, you know." Remus looked up from Tom Sawyer to see Tonks standing in front of him, arms crossed. He wasn't sure how she'd found his hiding place, a tiny table at the very back of the library surrounded by huge shelves, but he wasn't really surprised.

"I know," he said, and she sat down across from him.

"Than how come today when Hooch mentioned tripping, you automatically reached towards me? I don't need you to always rescue me, Remus."

"I know."

"Than why do you do it all the time?"

"I don't want you to fall," he said, and she seemed taken back by his answer, "That's how friends are supposed to be, right?"

She scoffed and shook her head, "That's what friends are for? Remus, you know I'm glad we're friends and that you do that for me, because everyone knows I need it, but you won't let us help you. It's like trying to get past a dragon, getting you to talk about what's bothering you."

"What do you mean?" Remus asked, and Tonks shook her head again.

"Today, you looked like you were just about scared to death by something, and you wouldn't even talk to me about it. And today's not the first time. Why is it so hard for you to open up? You're there to catch me time and time again. In Charms today, you helped Adam understand the Levitating Spell, which had been giving him trouble for almost a week. You're the first one to offer to help someone, but you can't bring yourself to let us into a little bit of what's bothering you."

Remus stared for a moment, and then quietly said, "He looked like Greyback."

"Who?" asked Tonks.

"Linkin. He looked at me, and smirked, and his teeth looked just like Greyback's. And it terrifies me."

"Greyback?"

Remus nodded, "He's always a part of my life. Every time I look at the moon, he's there. Every time a full moon comes around, I can't sleep. And today, when I looked at Linkin and saw those teeth, all I could think was 'Run.' I can't escape him, despite the fact that I haven't seen him in over five years. Because even if you lock me in a room with no windows and let me lose all track of time, I've got this," he said, gesturing to his scar. "Whenever I look in the mirror, or take a shower, or go swimming, I'm reminded that he is out there, waiting for me."

"And you don't think other people will understand?" said Tonks, looking like she was building up a head of steam to yell at him.

"No, I don't think it matters if other people understand or not. Because other people shouldn't have to put up with this. I shouldn't be this terrified. I haven't seen Greyback in five years. I'm going to school in one of the safest places in the wizarding world. I've got plenty of people all around me to help protect me. And yet today when I saw Linkin's teeth, which probably have nothing to do with Greyback at all, well, you said it yourself, I looked half scared to death."

"And that's okay," said Tonks, moving her chair around the table, all anger gone from her voice. "Because doesn't that sometimes feel like falling? And isn't that what friends are for? If we all refused to share the parts of ourselves that are terrified of things, than we'd be even more confused then we are now."

Remus laughed, "You're really good at that."

"At what?"

"Using my words to make your point when you're trying to get me to come around to your point of view."

It was Tonks turn to laugh, "Must be a heredity thing. My mom's really good at it too. Now come on, I convinced Adam not to come with me and threaten to beat some sense into you, but I half expect him to come bursting in at any moment." She scoffed for a second, then shook her head and stood up.

"What?" he asked, as he followed her out, Tom Sawyer in one hand.

"You two can be such boys sometimes," she said, pulling a face that made Remus laugh. "You really like flying, don't you?"

Remus was a little surprised by the question, but nodded before asking, "Why?"

"You're usually pretty quiet, but today, you talked about the lesson more than any of the other guys. Lo and Win are usually pretty quiet too, but Adam can really talk if you get him going, and I honestly don't know if Jeremiah knows how to stop talking. But you put all of them to shame. You looked like a little kid on Christmas morning."

Remus smiled, and shrugged, "I really like flying. It's like," he paused for a second, than looked down at the book in his hand, "It's like a book. It's an entirely different world, and sometimes the people have problems and sometimes they don't and sometimes it's a good story and sometimes it's not, but for a couple hours at a time, nothing about my life matters. The same with flying. Up there, nothing matters but that moment. Sometime you catch the Snitch, sometimes you hit a tree branch, and really, none of it matters once you hit the ground again." He shrugged. "I don't know, sometimes it's nice not to have to worry about stuff."

"Nobody writes books about your scar," she said, and Remus was about two seconds from totally freaking out, because Tonks really needed to stop reading his mind.

"Actually, they do. I signed several copies of them when I went to get my school stuff," he said, wanting to draw back into his shell, but instead smiling when Tonks shoved him and rolled her eyes.

"You know that's not what I meant at all," she said, and then considered him for a moment, "Other people's adventures always have a truer sparkle than our own, and they hold none of our own memories, our own old terrors." Remus looked at her strangely and she shrugged, "You're not the only one who reads. My dad's a big fan of Muggle poetry, can't get enough of it."

"I'm glad to see that I don't have to beat some sense into him," said a voice, and Adam stopped a little way down the corridor from them, looking just a little sheepish.

"Honestly, you two are always rushing off to be all manly and such, when I've clearly got everything under control."

"We apologize for trying to solve problems," said Remus, and Adam nodded as he fell into step with the other two.

"Since you two usually cause the problems, and then try to solve them with either violence or silence, it's probably best if you stay away from the whole 'solving' thing. Though I have to say I admire the effort."

The trio walked in silence for a few flights until Tonks turned to Remus. "His teeth looked like a werewolf's?" she asked, and quickly told Adam about Remus's earlier statements concerning Linkin at the other boy's confused look.

"Yeah. I mean, not huge like Greyback's when he was a werewolf, but the same kind of teeth, different than people teeth."

"Well, we did see him hurrying into the Forbidden Forest late at night. Maybe he's into some creepy stuff. It was even the night after the full moon. Maybe he charmed them to look like that?" said Adam, and Remus shrugged.

"I don't know. It just freaked me out. I'm probably just overreacting. I sometimes do, when it comes to this kind of stuff, with Greyback and all. Except, well," he said, but shook his head, until Tonks gave him a pointed look and he continued, "He was trying to hide it with his collar, but he had this huge cut across his cheek, kind of like a big claw mark."

"Well," said Adam, considering it for a second, "You're either totally crazy or Linkin is. I'd vote for Linkin, because honestly, the man gives me the creeps. But I want you to know that, even if you are crazy, I will still be your friend."

Remus considered that for a second before answering, "You know, Adam, that's actually surprisingly comforting."

"I'm a surprisingly comforting person."

"And conversations like this are the reason I have to solve all the problems."

I can't tell you what poem Tonks quotes from, because I haven't read it in years, and can't remember anything except that one line. Don't hate me for it. Also, in case you haven't been able to figure this out yet, Remus is a huge bookworm, and seeks comfort in books, like all good bookworms. And Adam and Tonks are still awesome friends.