Remus had just set his trunk down in the dormitory when Sirius ran in and flung himself onto his bed.

"My bed!" he cried, his voice muffled. "I love my bed!"

Remus looked over at Peter, who was looking at Sirius in confused amusement.

"Sirius?"

Sirius looked up at them. "You think anyone would notice if I just didn't leave in June? I mean, if I just didn't get on the train back? You think Dumbledore would mind?"

"That bad?" Peter asked, and Sirius nodded miserably before laying his head back down.

"They're completely mad. The whole lot of them. Absolutely nuts. And they hate me just as much as I hate them." An ugly scowl on his face matched the bitterness in his voice.

"Who do we hate?" James asked cheerfully as he entered, dragging his trunk behind him.

"Guess," Sirius muttered.

"Your psychotic family?" Without waiting for an answer, he shoved his trunk into place and opened it. "I have something that I bet will cheer you up." He was practically shaking with excitement. "I got it for Christmas. My dad said it's been in the family for generations, and he figures that now that I'm at school and training to be a wizard, I ought to have it." He was pulling clothes and books out of his trunk and throwing them on the floor behind him. "My mom said to be careful with it, though, and to be responsible, and not to do anything stupid. My dad said it's great for sneaking food from the kitchens."

"What is it?" Sirius asked, his curiosity getting the best of him. He rolled off the bed and crawled over next to James.

"Here it is!" James cried, pulling it out. It was a silvery cloak. Remus, Peter and Sirius all looked at James in confusion.

"Girly dress robes will help you sneak food from the kitchens?" Sirius asked, bemused.

James waggled his eyebrows, and pulled the cloak over his head. All three of his friends gasped as he disappeared from view.

"No way," Sirius said in awe, reaching out into the air where James had just stood.

"Ouch!" James cried. "Sirius, you poked me in the eye!" He pulled the cloak off of his head, rubbing his eye. Now he just appeared to be a head and an arm, suspended in mid air.

"That is so weird," Peter said, shaking his head.

"We should go exploring!" Sirius said excitedly. "Tonight, after everyone is asleep!"

Remus was getting ready to say he didn't think that was a good idea, but to his surprise, James beat him to it. "I have to be careful," he said. "If we get caught, I'm sure it'll get confiscated. I think we should save it for a worthy occasion."

----------

The morning of the full moon, Remus made up his mind that he was not going to sneak off again. He would tell his friends that he was leaving. He was in Gryffindor, after all. He was brave enough to tell his friends that he would be gone for a night. Apprehension made him quieter than usual that afternoon, which worked in his favor.

"What's wrong?" James asked on the way to dinner that night. "You look tired, and you've hardly said two words today."

Remus jumped on the opportunity. "I don't feel too well, actually," he said. "Not sure what's wrong with me." As they headed into the Great Hall, he split off. "You know, I think I'm going to go see Madame Pomfrey."

He couldn't tell if there was suspicion mingled in with the concern in his friends' looks, but regardless, he figured it had to be better than the disappearing act he pulled the last time. As he walked up the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, he felt reasonably optimistic. At the very least, he didn't feel that gloomy dread that had hung over him during his previous trips to the Shrieking Shack.

----------

"We took notes for you again," Sirius said the next evening. Remus had woken up when he heard them come into the room.

"And brought you food." James handed him the napkin piled high with sandwiches.

"Thanks," Remus said, grabbing the top sandwich and taking a huge bite. He had slept through lunch, and he was starving.

"How do you feel?" Peter asked.

"Fine," Remus answered truthfully. Aside from the usual fatigue, some bruises on his torso, and a scratch on his leg, he was in good shape. In fact, as far as full moons went, he thought that this month had gone pretty well.

He realized that his friends weren't talking. They were just standing there quietly, watching him eat.

"What?" he asked around a mouthful of food. There was something about the way they were looking at him. It wasn't suspicion or anger. The closest name that Remus could put to it was disappointment, but that wasn't quite right either.

"Nothing," James said quietly. "We'll let you rest." Remus watched in confusion as they filed out silently.

----------

In the following weeks, things seemed perfectly normal most of time. In fact, Remus couldn't tell if the strange moments he noticed were real, or if he was just being paranoid. He was sure at times that he had seen his friends exchange meaningful looks, or that they had stopped talking the second he walked into the room, but since they were continuing to treat him the same as ever, he decided it must be his imagination.

"I'm sick of this weather," James said one night, staring out the window of the dormitory. The others were getting ready for bed. "I'm ready for it to be spring. I want to be able to go outside again. You know, sunshine, clear skies..."

The powdery snow that had been so entertaining in November was now just gray, February slush. Aside from the miserable treks out to Herbology, students had been castle-bound since Christmas.

"You don't have a broom here," Sirius said. "You couldn't fly even if the weather was nice."

"I know," James said longingly, but he continued to stare out the window anyway.

"Besides," Peter said, "we have a ton of homework over the next couple of weeks."

"Don't worry about it, Peter," Sirius said. "We'll get it done."

Peter, true to his word to Remus, had been trying not to put his work off to the last minute. More often than not, he worked side by side with Remus while James and Sirius goofed off. Remus would do his own work, and once he finished, help Peter. Nothing in the world, however, could prompt James and Sirius to do their work early.

"You still worried about Charms?" Remus asked, and Peter nodded. "Yeah, I'm a little worried about that one too. We'll practice Thursday, before class on Friday, okay?"

"We have that Potions assignment due Friday as well," Sirius reminded him.

"Right," Remus said, making a face. "Fine, we'll practice charms on Wednesday."

The room went strangely silent, and Remus knew there was no chance he was imagining the looks his friends were giving each other now.

"What?" He looked at each of them, but they were all staring determinedly at something else, and shooting furtive glances at each other. "What?"

"That's probably not going to work," Sirius said finally.

"Why not?" Remus was completely baffled. Sirius finally looked up.

"Isn't your grandmother going to be sick on Tuesday night?"

It was the strangest sensation. Remus actually felt like the world was closing in around him. Part of his brain was counting the days, realizing that yes, Tuesday was indeed the full moon. Another part was spinning, panicked, and telling Remus to run for the door, to get as far away as he could. Then, in the back of his mind, a tiny part of his brain simply thought, You knew this was coming all along. That part combined acceptance and despair in a permeating, black fog.

"Remus?"

Remus tried to pull himself out of that fog. Sirius, James and Peter were all staring at him, waiting. His chest was tight, and he realized he wasn't breathing. He took a moment to concentrate on inhaling and exhaling while he tried to figure out what to say next. No words came.

"We wanted to see you," Peter said. "When you were sick."

"We thought it was the 'worthy occasion' we had been saving the cloak for." James sounded almost apologetic. "We got to the hospital wing, and you weren't there. And between all your injuries and the fact that you were lying to us..."

"It was the lying more than anything," Sirius said quietly. "We knew it had to be something huge for you to lie to us like that. And not just then. We're not stupid, Remus – we knew that you'd been lying to us before."

"When we got back from the hospital wing, we were talking about it in here," James continued. "Trying to figure out what was going on. And the full moon was shining in the window..."

He didn't have to finish. From there, it would have been a simple matter of looking at a calendar. Remus nodded, still searching for words. He finally found two: "Excuse me." He choked on them as he spoke, clumsily getting to his feet from the bed and heading for the door. Sirius locked it with a flick of his wand.

"We can talk about it in the common room, if you'd prefer," James said. "But it really might be best to talk about it here. Don't you think?"

Remus walked back to his bed and sat down. He buried his head in his hands, trying to force his mind to work properly.

"Come on, Remus," Sirius said softly. "Say something."

I will not cry, he told himself sternly. I am in Gryffindor. I will not cry. He took a shuddering breath, and in a voice that sounded far raspier than his own, he said aloud the thought that had haunted him since before he had ever laid eyes on Hogwarts.

"They'll kick me out."

"Who will?" James asked sharply.

"If parents find out. They'll write to Dumbledore, and he'll have to expel me. He'll have no choice." He felt an impatient surge of anger at himself as he noticed how much his voice was shaking.

"So we won't tell our parents," Sirius said blankly.

Remus shook his head, which still didn't seem to be working right, and looked up at his friends.

Peter and Sirius were both sitting cross-legged on their beds. James was still standing in front of the window. They were all watching him, more serious than he had ever seen them.

Serious, he realized, but not scared. Not repulsed. In fact, they looked stubborn and determined.

He wanted to say about a million things. He wanted to say that he was sorry for lying, and to offer to move out of the room if they didn't want him to stay there, and to ask them why they weren't scared, and to explain to them what it was like, but he couldn't get his brain to pick just one thought.

"How old were you?" Peter asked timidly, breaking the silence. "When you got bit?"

A straightforward question with a straightforward answer. He could handle that. "I was six."

"Six?" James swore under his breath. He looked horrified, and angry. Remus searched his face again for a sign of disgust or fear, but again, he found none.

"Where do you go every month?" Sirius asked.

"The Shrieking Shack, in Hogsmeade." His voice sounded more like own again, less raspy. "There's a tunnel from under the Whomping Willow."

"That's why they planted it!" Peter said, making the connection. "I heard some of the professors talking about how it was new back at the start of last term, and I couldn't understand why on earth they would plant something like that."

James and Sirius both let out very small laughs, and Remus managed a small smile. He still wasn't breathing quite regularly enough for laughter.

"Does it hurt?" James's question wiped the smiles off of their faces. Remus saw that now, he did look a little scared.

"Yes."

"They say the Shrieking Shack is haunted. That terrible sounds come from it. Crashing and breaking and sounds like animals in pain." It was Sirius who spoke this time, his voice sounding small and timid, and far more like Peter than like himself. "They say that it's ghosts."

"No ghosts," Remus said softly to his shoes. "Just me." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius shudder.

They sat in silence for a minute. When Remus looked up, all three of them were frowning, apparently deep in thought. They looked troubled.

"You guys..." he began, but he didn't know how to finish the thought. You guys don't hate me? You guys still want to be my friends? You guys aren't scared? He couldn't bring himself to actually say any of those things.

"Nothing changes, Remus," James said. "We're still us."

"And you're still one of us," Peter added.

"Nothing changes," Remus echoed to himself under his breath, blinking furiously.

"Nothing," James repeated.

"No more lies." Remus looked up at Sirius. "We tell each other the truth from now on. Deal?"

Remus looked at each of them in turn, and nodded. "Deal," he said quietly.

It was as though an official meeting had been adjourned. Peter crawled under his covers, Sirius closed the hangings around his bed, and James changed into his pajamas. Remus continued to sit on the side of his bed, trying to get his brain to tell his lungs that it was okay to breathe now.

James paused before he closed the hangings around his bed. "You all right?"

Remus considered for a moment. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm all right." He was trying very hard to pretend like his face wasn't at all wet.

"Good," James said. "It's late. Get some sleep, Moony."