*3 Weeks Later*

The small room she'd been allocated was pleasant, if a little boring. At least her bed was comfortable, she'd been spending enough time in it. The window opposite her bed was charmed in a similar way to the ceiling in the Great Hall, only it changed according to the patient's mood. Whenever she was upset, the scene before her changed to an image of the beach at St Andrew's, where Abi had grown up. Now however it showed the Great Lake with Hogwarts in the background. The Healers laughed whenever they walked in to see this particular scene.

"The only teenager who's desperate to go back to school," they'd chuckle.

Clearly you went to Durmstrang, she thought. She hadn't met a student at Hogwarts yet who hated it there. There was a soft knock at the door, it opened slowly and a familiar face appeared round the door frame.

"Hey," he said in his usual soft manner. "Can I come in?"

She nodded and managed a small smile as Lupin stepped inside and closed the door. For a week or so after she'd regained consciousness, she couldn't be near him: flashbacks of the attack would send her into panic attacks. Now she was slowly beginning to accept that the boy before her would rather nearly bite his own leg off than purposefully attack her and they'd been spending a few hours together every other day under the Healer's and Dumbledore's encouragement.

Remus took a seat next to her bed and cleared his throat. "I...umm... I need to talk to you about something... that's not going to be easy to hear."

"Chocolate Frog?" she offered abruptly, catching him off-guard.

"Uh... the packet's empty," he replied, his dark eyes darting from the wrapping clutched in her pale outstretched hand to her watery eyes. He cleared his throat again, about to start the dreaded conversation when she threw the empty wrapping aside.

"Dammit, Sirius!" she muttered angrily. "He came to see me with a whole bundle of them then proceeded to eat his way through them while he was here! He said he'd left me one as well. Lying git."

Lupin seemed at a loss for words then comprehension dawned and he bit his lip nervously. It was the week leading up to the full moon after all. "Right... well, like I was saying... There's a full moon coming up and-" He trailed off as she burst into tears and awkwardly patted her hand, not knowing what else to do. "I'm sorry, Abigail, I'm really so sorry. But you need to know what to expect. Do you want me to come back later?"

She shook her head and lifted a pale shaking hand to wipe the tears away. "No it's okay. Well not okay, it's a hellish nightmare, but I need to hear it at some point soon so it might as well be now." She stared at the window which had changed to show the calming scene of the waves crashing onto the beach.

Remus took a deep breath and launched into the details. Of course she already knew where to go, though whether the shack would be big enough for two werewolves was another question. He reluctantly explained how the transformation happened which brought another flood of tears, how she'd need to rest for at least a day afterwards (depending on her injuries) and how she might get more irritable than usual in the run-up. Finally he finished and fell silent, allowing her time to absorb the information.

"When you say injuries," she said shakily. "Are they self-inflicted?"

He hesitated then nodded. "During the transformation... we tend to bite ourselves, out of frustration more than anything else. I don't know how it works when werewolves are together... if they attack each other or not."

She closed her eyes and fell back on the pillows. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Me either," he whispered back. He closed his own eyes and began to tell her a story he'd told no one else, not even the other Marauders. "I was five when I was bitten. My father and I used to go on this annual camping trip down in the countryside and that year we went I... I couldn't sleep." Remus rubbed his forehead and forced himself to continue with the story. "I could remember my father telling me that when you couldn't sleep you should count sheep, and I took him literally. I wandered away from the campsite towards the nearby farm and... the rest is history."

He opened his eyes to see her throwing back the covers and easing herself over to the edge of the bed. Before he could ask she held out her hand and asked quietly, "Help me up?"

He jumped to his feet and before she could protest he had placed his hands on her waist and lifted her up off the bed and then down onto her feet. She stared at him for a moment then started to giggle despite herself. "Normal guys would just have given me their arm."

Flustered he stepped back and let a rueful grin spread across his face as his arms fell back at his sides. "Yeah I guess they would have..."

Sirius stepped back to look at the masterpiece the five of them had created and grinned. "It looks great!"

Lily pulled a face as she looked at the hand-made banner draped across two of the nearby shelves, the squinty coloured letters spelling out: WELCOME HOME ABI! Every so often bursts of silver glitter would erupt from the top two corners, before long creating two growing sparkling pyramids on the old carpet.

"If you say so," she replied dubiously. The glitter suddenly reminded her of her own last minute addition. "Oh I got party hats!"

She delved into her bag and grabbed the brightly coloured cones with a smile. She placed a green one on her own head then pushed a purple one down onto Sirius's unruly mane.

"Hey watch it!" he complained. She just smiled at him and passed out the remaining hats to the other boys, all of whom glanced at each other in trepidation before donning them as well, realising it would be much simpler just to wear them than annoy Lily.

As Avery straightened his new yellow headgear at his watchpost near the door, he spotted Abi limping slightly down the corridor towards the library accompanied by a slightly familiar looking Gryffindor student. "She's coming!" he hissed. "And there's someone with her."

Lily ran to peer out of the window and she gasped in surprise, her green eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "It's Remus Lupin!"

Snape's mouth set in a thin line until his lips had almost disappeared and he pulled off his party hat. Regulus glared at him.

"Put it back on," he insisted coldly taking a step forwards. His anger toward the older boy had been building inside him for weeks and now it threatened to finally erupt. Silence fell among the group as Snape slammed the hat down on the desk and made for the door.

Abi was still uncomfortable with any actual physical contact she shared with Remus despite how attentive, for want of a better word, he had been in St Mungo's. His right hand was holding her left elbow gently as they walked in silence towards the library, her usual place of refuge with the others at this time. She winced as they passed a couple of Slytherin girls in her year who immediately started whispering to each other as they watched them go. Well, that was the rumour mill started now. Mustering a smile, she looked up at him.

"I can manage myself, Remus. I promise not to collapse on you."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't mind."

"I'm sure," she said as they arrived outside the library. She paused, unsure whether he was going to follow her in or whether she should say goodbye. He seemed to be having a similar dilemma.

"You've probably got a lot of homework to catch up on," she said politely and he nodded. "I'll see you later then."

He echoed the farewell and headed back down the corridor. Abi watched him until he disappeared from sight then pushed the door open. Her mouth fell open at the chaos inside. "What the hell..."

Sirius grinned at her and bounded over to stick a red hat on her head. "Welcome back to madness!"

Regulus had Snape on the floor, both yelling insults at each other and trying to land as many punches as possible while Lily and the librarian tried to pull them apart, the latter screeching loud enough Abi was surprised the glass wasn't rattling in the windows. Avery stood to the side of the overturned table, yelling encouragement while glitter shot out of a torn-in-half banner above his head and landed in his hair and on his shoulders.

"Like magical dandruff..." she said to herself, then creased up laughing. It was good to be back to normal.

Remus ducked through the portrait hole into the familiar red and gold common room and spotted Pettigrew sitting by himself, seemingly doing nothing. No change there then, he thought to himself as he walked over to the other boy. It was reassuring to know at least one thing had remained the same throughout this whole mess.

"James is off somewhere with MacKinnon, I don't know where Reg is," Peter said in answer to the unspoken question. He was holding a large stack of Chocolate Frog cards and started to shuffle them, before drawing one out of the pile at random. Seemingly unhappy with his choice, he sighed and stuck the card back into the pile before re-shuffling. Remus watched the strange ritual for a few minutes before stretching and standing up.

"Think I'll have an early night," he muttered. "See you."

Peter grunted in response. As Remus made to go up the stairs, he looked back to see Peter slamming another card down on the table in apparent frustration. The blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore sparkled up at him from the table. Frowning, Remus shrugged it off and headed off.

The next day, the smell of food wafting down the corridors from the Great Hall drew Regulus toward it like a magnet, his stomach grumbled loudly just in case he wasn't totally aware of how hungry he was. His eyes scanned the corridor ahead nervously, on the lookout for three certain Gryffindors he'd managed to avoid since the accident. Too intent on looking for the red and gold tie, he missed the silver and green one that stopped right in front of him. He jumped and stopped in his tracks abruptly to avoid running into her. She looked down her nose at him suspiciously.

"I know your secret, Featherwing," she said crossing her arms. "Why didn't you tell any of us you'd become an animagus?"

"Ssh!" he hissed. Looking around at the stream of students still trickling steadily into the Hall he grabbed her wrist and pulled her in the opposite direction towards the deserted Charms classroom. "How did you find out?"

She snorted. "It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, Reg. Remus let slip that his friends call him Moony. Lily and I both know you've been spending a lot of time with Potter recently, and that was no ordinary owl down at the Shack. Add that all together and the fact that you were the ones to "find" us that night and you can see how I came to the conclusion."

Regulus stared at her for several moments, trying wildly to think of anything to say that could change her mind until her eyes softened and she pulled him into a hug.

"Thank you," she said, pulling away again. Regulus could see tears brimming in her eyes and he looked away uncomfortably, being unused to dealing with emotional displays.

"Your welcome," he replied gruffly. "But I still don't know what you're talking about."

"Doesn't matter," she said with a shrug. "I can just ask Remus."

He tilted his head slightly to the side and frowned. "You and Remus are spending a lot of time together."

She sat down on one of the empty tables. "Is there a problem with that? You spend a lot of time with him too. At least I don't hide it."

"I don't spend time with him in the way you spend time with him though," he replied, raising his eyebrows and for a split second, he looked exactly like Sirius. Carefully, he tried to put into words what the others had been whispering about since she'd gotten back. "It's a bit strange… considering what happened."

"Considering he's the only other one of my kind at Hogwarts, I don't think so," Abi replied defensively. "And besides, none of that was his fault and you know it, Regulus Black."

"I'm just saying…" he said holding up his hands in surrender. "Now if you're quite finished interrogating me, I'm going for dinner."

Not sure when the next chapter will be up, got exams then I'm staying in an area with no internet connection, then it's Christmas... so we'll see :) I stuck another poll regarding this story up on my profile page, if you could take a look I'd appreciate it!