Chapter 7

HELLO! So, summer has been awesome which is why I haven't updated in... forever. But don't worry, this will be finished eventually. I've got a busy schedule so the updates won't be very frequent there either.

Thanks always to my wonderful readers and reviewers, and Rasa! Enjoy.

Several hours before sunset, Remus packed up a neatly folded set of clothes and headed towards the door of the dorm. He suddenly froze. "Um," he started as he turned to look at his roommates.

They looked up from their various activities.

"Are you joining me tonight?" Remus asked without much certainty. He wasn't 100% sure how the full moon would go with Kylie, and he didn't want to risk hurting another student. "Like a dolt," he now thought, he hadn't given their situation much thought over the past month.

"Of course," Sirius replied thickly, who had only just walked in several minutes ago ("Is that perfume on your oh-so-manly body?"), and then went back to playing exploding snap with James.

"But,"

James looked almost as uncertain as Remus, which was saying something. The four sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Peter piped up. "There's going to be two of you...so...maybe it's not such a good idea..."

Remus's heart sunk like a beazoar to the bottom of a potion.. He didn't want Kylie to hurt herself the way he did when he was shut up in the Shack, but he knew that his friends probably wouldn't be able to control the both of them.

"Nonsense, everything will be dandy!" Sirius exclaimed, with his usual blind confidence- nearly falling over while getting up from his game.

"How about I see how it goes this time, then perhaps you can join me on the next?" Remus said, more of a statement than a question.

James, who seemed to be the mediator between Sirius's complete irrationality and Remus's over-cautiousness, shook his head. "We'll be there, but we won't let either of you out of the Shack." He grinned, "Then, neither of you will look like you've been attacked by a dragon, and there are no potentially injured students."

Sirius sighed with disapproval. "It'll be fine, and much more fun, to go out into Hogsmeade. Why stay cooped up?"

"I prefer James's idea," Remus said as he walked towards the door again. "I shall see you shortly?"

"We miss you already," said Peter, and Remus left.

Remus met up with Kylie a few corridors away from the hospital wing. They looked at eachother awkwardly; one with a brave face, the other with anticipation. They exchanged an awkward greeting and continued walking, each holding their own bundle of clothes.

Lily Evans walked by, her nose buried in a book on Dark Arts, and looked up briefly at the two of them. "Say hello to your mother for me," she commented smartly and walked past them. Not two seconds later, Remus heard a sort of strangled gasp and a book hit the stone floor. He turned around. Lily's face held an expression of horrified realization. It changed to disbelief, relief, confusion and then back to horror within only a few seconds.

"You…" she whispered, looking back and forth between Kylie and Remus. Remus's heart sank to the soles of his shoes as all the colour drained out of his face. Kylie looked at Lily, confused.

Before Kylie or Remus could say anything, Lily picked up her book and hurried off in the other direction. Kylie looked back to Remus with the even more confusion in her soft features, her perfectly manicured eyebrow completing the x-raying expression Remus was more familiar with seeing on the headmaster.

"Don't worry about it," he said dismissively, but inside he was crushed. Lily meant a lot to him, and he was absolutely certain her realization had cost him their friendship. He wouldn't know until he spoke with her later, but he was convinced for the moment. He put on a brave face for Kylie and the two of them made their way to the Infirmary.

By the time the two had changed into hospital gowns and gotten to the Shack, Remus thought the awkward silence would never end. He, of course, had no idea what to say to her. 'Sorry what I did to you is about to cause you incredible amounts of pain?' That probably wouldn't turn into a good conversation, though he wished it could.

"I put my clothes on top of that dresser in the corner, so they won't get ripped to bits." He immediately frowned at the wording of his statement. A bit of shame and blush started to settle in his cheeks from the mutilated room. Kylie looked fearfully at the scratch and bite marks that covered the furniture and floor, meeting his eye again after each new horror.

"Don't worry," he added quickly and blusteringly, "My friends will make sure we don't hurt ourselves or each other."

Kylie looked him in the eye, amber meeting umber, completely alarmed.

Dammit.

"Um, I'll explain that later." He probably should have mentioned that before, he cursed himself. "You can, um, sit down. It'll be a bit."

So they sat in silence. In truth, Remus couldn't hope for anything more than that. He wasn't sure which he would've preffered for his first full moon: the topical knowledge of what was going to happen, or sweet obliviousness. At five years old, his mother hadn't told him a thing as to why he needed to sleep in the recently built cellar for that night. It might've been better if he had known, but he really couldn't blame his parents for keeping it from him. How would they explain something like that to a five year old?

"What do you mean, your friends will make sure we don't hurt each other?" Kylie asked, glaring.

Remus sighed a ran a tired hand through his tired hair. "Werewolves are more keen on um, human blood. Sirius, James and Peter are uh..." How should he put this?

"Animagi." Kylie finished with an arched brow in that familiar expression.

Remus frowned at her. "How did you know?"

Kylie looked at the floor and didn't answer, kicking the rough wood.

"Oh..." Remus whispered, realizing she must have seen Sirius change on the night of the attack.

"You know, you should really keep a handle on Sirius," she remarked suddenly, perking up, though not really happy.

Remus blinked. "What?"

"He just needs to learn that most girls are trying to have a friends-with-benefits relationship like he is. He's really playing with quite a few girls' emotions, and thats a low blow."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. Reg said he ran into you when being chased after a couple of days ago."

Remus raised a brow at her use of 'Reg'. "Reg?"

"Yes, Regulus Black."

"I know that, I mean, are the two of your friends of some sort?" Remus couldn't imagine Regulus having friends outside of his Slytherin group.

"He's not as pure-blood maniac as everyone thinks, you know. It just must be a bit of pressure to be the good kid in the family."

Remus figured Regulus always had his heart in the right place, but with Sirius's constant complaints about his younger counter part, he didn't try to convince anyone else of that.

"I wouldn't know; I'm an only child."

The two fell into silence yet again.

"I have a little brother," she whispered suddenly as the two continued to sit on the wooden floor. Her tone held little tension, but more of an overly relaxed state.

Remus made eye contact with her before looking back at the floor, his chin on his knees.

"He's ten. He likes to ask questions and he knows I was in the hospital a month ago. Mom and Dad had to get my Uncle Alan to babysit him for the week that I was there."

Remus felt a sick sort of confusion arise in the pit of his stomach, or maybe that was his dinner.

"He's shown signs of being a wizard, and he loves looking at the pictures in my textbooks. I think my mom was hoping that he would be a muggle like her because she must feel left out." She paused and started to draw invisible doodles on the floor with her finger. "He says he's going to be an adventurer. He has this book he carries around with him, his 'Adventure Book'. He has the most creative imagination, writing up overly exaggerated tales of his day. It's almost full, so I'm buying him another one for Christmas. He's going to get all of them published and make millions of galleons." She started to giggle and she leaned back onto her palms and looked up at the decrepit ceiling. "He's told me all about what adventures hes going to go on when he gets older. He's going to fight vampires and giants and werewolves." She sardonically giggled a little louder and shook her head. "Did you hear that? My ten year old little brother is going to fight werewolves."

Remus's feeling of confusion turned into overwhelming nausea. He watched her lean over her knees and laugh harder until she calmed herself down. She wrinkled her forehead and gripped the floor as she stared at her knees as if trying doing calculus. Looking up at Remus with watery eyes, she choked, "How am I supposed to tell him that his sister is one of the monsters in his books?"

Before Remus could even fathom an answer, a muscle in his arm twitched. He looked up, alarmed.

"What?" she asked, sensing his panic.

Another twitch stuck his thigh. Then another in his back. Kylie must have started feeling the twitches too, as she started rubbing her arms and legs.

"Its happening, isn't it?" she whispered, her voice cracking at the end of her question. She didn't wait for Remus to respond. "Is it going to hurt?"

Remus knew that Kylie was a very well-read student with high grades. She had undoubtedly written several essays or read books about werewolves and transformations. Remus knew that she already had a good idea of what was about to happen to her, but all the same he was screaming on the inside.

"Is it going to hurt?" Remus's ears were ringing with that question. He finally understood how his friends could look at him without cringing. He didn't see any sort of monster inside Kylie, which must be truth for him as well. He wanted to tell her no, that it didn't hurt, that it was just like falling asleep. He wanted to explain that she'd be a bit sore when she woke up, but that was just because her muscles weren't used to stretching like they were. She would have no recollection of what happened the previous night, physically or mentally. Her own screams wouldn't echo in her ears for weeks after the first couple of full moons as she really started to understand what it was like to be a werewolf. He wanted to lie and lie to her until his face turned blue and his lungs gave out. But nature beat him to it.

Kylie moaned in pain as the twitches got more and more violent. With her eyes shut, she grabbed Remus's hand and squeezed it tightly. He squeezed it back as he tried to figure out how much time they had left before it got really bad.

Suddenly, Kylie looked up at him with wide, panicked, eyes. It looked like the reality of the situation had just dawned on her. Her breathing got very quick, very fast.

"Wait," she whispered, looking around wildly, "No! I don't want to do this, wait, make it stop!"

Remus's heart shattered more and more with each word. He ground his teeth together to keep from crying out at the transformation that had begun.

"Please," she begged, her eyes welling up with tears, "Make it stop! I don't want to do this, Remus, it hurts, make it stop!"

Remus pulled her close to him and wrapped a shaking arm around her shoulders. "We're going to be ok," he whispered, trying to sound as convincing as possible, "we're going to be ok." He didn't know what he was doing, or how he was doing it. It was some sort of instinct to protect her and make her feel safe, something that was impossible at the moment. He held her and did his best not to grunt from the increasing pain inside of his body.

"Make it stop!" she sobbed into his chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her blonde hair, "I'm so sorry."

And then she started to scream.

Remus couldn't remember much after that.

So what did you think? Lemme know :)

's Good...leaves the reader interested in what's to come