A/N: Hello, gentle readers! I hope you're enjoying the story so far. Please take the time to leave me a review when you've finished the chapter. I am so very needy, you see. :p

"Oi, er, Remus!"

Remus looked up in surprise at the sound of his name. He stopped short in the middle of the corridor as his eyes fell on a gesturing Hagrid, who was trying to beckon him discreetly from the doorway of an empty classroom. Unfortunately, being discreet at Hagrid's considerable size was difficult, and Remus had to pull away from an inquisitive Sirius and James before he could edge through the bustling crowd of students and reach the gamekeeper.

"Er, hello," he said quietly, allowing himself to be pulled into the classroom, and tried to meet Hagrid's smile with one of his own. To tell the truth, Remus felt vaguely nervous. He had never so much as spoken to Hogwarts' new gamekeeper since Hagrid's appointment to the position in Remus' first year.

Both Sirius and James had made particular efforts to get to know the giant of a man, convinced that the Hogwarts gamekeeper would have access to unfathomable supplies of mischief-making materials. However, as they had reported to Remus and Peter, it seemed that Hagrid was more involved in raising a puppy than in creating magical mayhem. This had rather raised the gamekeeper in Remus' estimation, but he knew nothing more of Hagrid.

Until this moment, Remus had believed that Hagrid was similarly oblivious to his existence. Whatever could the gamekeeper want with him?

Hagrid cleared his throat, tugging on his black tangle of a beard in what appeared to be some discomfort, and gazed down at Remus with crinkling black eyes.

"Yeh look a good sort," he muttered, as if to himself, "and Dumbledore's a great man, accommodatin' like. Fang'll like it too. Well, why not," he said in a louder voice, startling Remus somewhat, who was beginning to wonder what on earth Dumbledore had to do with this rather awkward meeting. "Yeh can call me Hagrid, by the way."

Remus nodded, mystified, but offered a small smile to the beaming gamekeeper.

"If yeh like, yeh should drop down to me cabin after your lessons today. I hear yeh- yeh get along with dogs fairly well, and my Fang'd like ter meet yeh."

Remus started as Hagrid gave him an enormous wink and left the classroom abruptly, his moleskin overcoat whipping around the corner before there was a chance to say anything further. As his stomach began to ache with a familiar dread, Remus leaned back heavily against a nearby desk and stared at the door. There was no doubt in his mind that somehow Hagrid knew his secret. But why on earth would the gamekeeper want to have tea with a werewolf?

And what kind of dog was Fang, anyway?

"He's an enormous boarhound," Sirius explained casually, propping his enormous black boots on the desk and grabbing at James' neck to regain his balance. The black-haired boy ignored James' gurgled sounds of protest. "A simply massive puppy. Looks vicious, but attacks only with his tongue. I wholeheartedly approve."

"You would," muttered James as he ripped Sirius' hands from around his neck and tipped his friend backwards. Remus cringed.

"Oi," Sirius said indignantly from the floor, ignoring the fact that his chair had splintered, and glared at James. "There's nothing wrong with dogs, okay?"

"Dogs I can deal with," James said dryly. "Fang is something else. He's like a giant… a giant, insane, evil beast, with a twelve-foot long tongue and- and muddy paws!"

Sirius snorted. He smoothed his black hair and placed his arms behind his head, crafting a perfect image of disdain. "So Hagrid made you give him a bath. It was understandable really. You tried to ride him into the lake. No wonder his paws were muddy, you nonce."

James crossed his arms haughtily. "I was embarking on a noble quest to slay the Giant Squid, remember? You were right there next to me. And I told you we should have used my broomstick instead. It handles better, anyway."

"You and your broomstick," Sirius drawled, rolling his eyes and earning a kick in the shin from his bespectacled friend.

"Broomsticks," intoned a dry voice from above them all, "have little to do with boggarts, Black and Potter, unless your greatest fear involves sweeping the dungeons in detention later this evening. I suggest you return to your seats and studies immediately if you wish to avoid this."

Remus, hurriedly reaching for his parchment and quill at the sound of Professor Webb's disapproval voice, cringed as he awaited his friends' predictable response. He was not disappointed.

"Our greatest fear," Sirius began, a winning smile evident in his earnest tone, "is your dissatisfaction, Professor." He nudged James with his toe rather obviously as he mended the broken chair with a casual flick of his wand.

James kicked him in response, before smiling beguilingly at Professor Webb. "Indeed, to suggest that we meant to disrupt the class is quite riddikulus."

Remus sighed inwardly as their Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor succumbed to James' terrible pun. He never knew whether to be relieved, amused or disgusted by the ease with which his friends extracted themselves from trouble in class.

"I am mollified by the knowledge that some of my students pay attention in their reading, if not in class," Professor Webb declared from the front of the classroom. "For those who have been listening, facing a boggart in today's practical lesson will be a simple matter. Wands out, please."

As the class shuffled to their feet, wands clasped nervously in their hands, Remus stared at the rattling desk near the front of the room with that familiar heavy feeling of dread. His worst fear appeared all too often in the night's sky. Surely his lycanthropy would be immediately evident to any of his classmates when they saw that his boggart was the pale, shining face of the full moon…

A sharp nudge from Sirius distracted Remus from his growing trepidation, and he glanced at his friend, who stared back at him with an expression of concern.

"You alright, mate?" Sirius asked, frowning. "You've gone all pale."

Remus choked out a laugh, coughed in an effort to sound more normal, and ended up having to suppress a hiccough. "I'm fine," he wheezed finally, flapping his fingers at Sirius, turning red as he realised that Professor Webb had once more adopted a disapproving stance at the end of his desk.

"It's more of a flick of the wand at shoulder height, Lupin," she said calmly, "but if you continue talking in my class, you may find yourself trapped in the desk with the boggart and without your wand."

"They say fear is the quickest way to get rid of the hiccoughs," whispered James conspiratorially, before winking at Professor Webb, who pointedly ignored him, returning swiftly to the front of the class.

"Form a line, please," she ordered, and the class shuffled backwards as one, leaving a startled Peter alone at his desk, his fellow students flocked a step behind him.

"Er," he stammered, but Professor Webb had charmed the top drawer open without ceremony before he could construct a useful sentence.

The class gasped as one as a long, mahogany coffin suddenly blocked Professor Webb's desk from view, looming from a shadow that seemed to ripple outwards from the corners of the room. Remus, whose heart was pounding in his chest, could see that the coffin lid hung open, but only Peter was close enough to have the chance of viewing what lay within.

As long tendrils of darkness reached his untidily-tied sneakers, Peter let out a broken cry and threw his arms in front of his face. Remus reached forwards instinctively to help his friend, and as he leaned closer to Peter, his eyes flew wildly across to the open coffin. And then he saw.

It was sickening. It was Peter, white, limp, dead, stretched out in the coffin. Only his firm grasp of the real Peter's shirt allowed Remus any sense of reality in the face of this terrible image. He swallowed, turning himself and his friend away, coming to face the rest of the class, the horror on Sirius and James' faces echoing his own.

"Well," said Professor Webb, as she strode quickly passed Remus and a terrified Peter, "well, another volunteer please." Remus noted, his shock fading, that she completely ignored the boggart's projection of her own worst fear, flicking her wand and transforming a prowling Grim into a scampering puppy with a sound like a whip-crack.

At Professor Webb's impatient prompting, Percival Walton stepped forward, wielding his wand at shoulder height with such tension that it looked to Remus as though the Slytherin's weedy arm had frozen into place.

"Wonder what Walton's worst fear is?" Remus heard Sirius sneer to James in a whisper. "Carpal tunnel syndrome?"

Remus only had the time to wonder fleetingly at Sirius' awareness of the muggle medical condition before Walton's boggart took shape. In an instant, all of Remus' tentative composure collapsed as a terrible howling rent through the classroom's sudden silence. Clutching his hands to his ears in agony, in sympathy, in horror, Remus staggered blindly backwards, eyes squeezed shut. Through growing numbness, he dimly registered that he could move no further. His back was plastered to the classroom wall. Without opening his eyes, he slid silently to the floor.

The allure of that familiar howl was unbearable. Why, in the absence of a full moon, did Remus feel the urge to submit, to transform, to join his fellow werewolf in hunt? Self-disgust flooded through his slumped body, flaring with a sudden host of ghostly sensations, half-memories from moonlit nights. These were shadows of agonies banished by daylight, but summoned and renewed under the pale watch of each full moon.

Unconsciously, he itched at old scars, hidden carefully beneath layers of cloth.

"Oi, stop that," a familiar voice whispered roughly into his ear, and Remus flinched as a hand grabbed at his arm. He was able to wrench open his eyes purely due to carefully honed willpower. He stared, with renewed panic, at Sirius' expression of apprehension, and forced himself to draw deeper, painful breaths. He suddenly realised that the howling from the front of the classroom had stopped.

"Is he alright?" James asked quietly, crouching next to Sirius and glancing quickly behind him before focussing his attention on Remus, who was consumed by a new fear.

"I- I felt faint," he stammered, wiping sweat from his forehead and attempting to straighten. He gave no protest as both Sirius and James pushed him straight back against the wall, but tried to look past his friends, stricken by anxiety.

"Nobody noticed but us, mate," James muttered, trying to look reassuring, though his concern was obvious. "They're all gawking at whatever the boggart turned into after that werewolf."

"Pretty horrible, wasn't it?" Sirius said lightly, obviously under the impression that Remus' reaction had been galvanised by the appearance of the werewolf. He had hit the nail on the head there, Remus knew- but Sirius couldn't know why.

"Terrifying," James shuddered, seating himself next to Remus, and resting his head against the wall. "Wouldn't want to meet one of those after dark."

"Wouldn't be dark, would it?" Sirius said dryly. "Being a full moon and all."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," James responded, and reached for his friend in what could have turned into a typical tussle (much to Remus' heartfelt relief) when a shadow fell over the three. They all looked up simultaneously. Remus could almost summon a smile when he heard Sirius' low groan.

"Comfortable?" Professor Webb asked, her tone decidedly lacking in benevolence. "Black, I believe it must be your turn to face the boggart."

Sirius pulled a face for the benefit of Remus and James, and rose leisurely from his crouched position to follow Professor Webb to the front of the classroom.

"Your worst fear isn't a werewolf, is it, Black?" Professor Webb sighed. "I've had quite enough of this class' hysterics."

Sirius didn't respond; instead, he pulled his wand out of his pocket and stepped confidently towards the boggart, which immediately transformed from the Bloody Baron into-

Remus slowly climbed to his feet, his fear having drained away in the presence of his friends. Clambering over James, he moved slightly forward, peering to the front of the room, suddenly overcome with curiosity. What could Sirius, the confident mischief-maker, the poised, pompous Black, possibly have to fear?

His eyes widened as he took in the scene that had appeared before Sirius, who was watching, motionless, his wand hanging loosely in a limp hand.

There, in front of Sirius, stood two figures, both of whom seemed to be aiming their wands at some kind of tapestry. A tall woman with black hair and a familiar nose had her arms clutched about someone's shoulders, someone who joined in the woman's cruel laughter. With a shock, Remus saw that it was Sirius. As the class watched silently, boggart-Sirius turned to the tapestry, raised his wand, and began blasting names from what appeared to be an embroidered family tree, laughing all the while.

Without so much as lifting his wand, real-Sirius whirled away from the terrible scene and stormed past his fellow students, slamming the door behind him. He had not even glanced at Remus or James, who now stared at each other, James still propped against the wall.

"I'll go find him," Remus said, and not even waiting for James' nodded response, left the classroom, ignoring Professor Webb's remonstration. Once outside, he glanced both ways down the corridor, and just caught sight of a black cloak sweeping around the corner before it disappeared. He hurried down the corridor and turned the corner, grasping Sirius' elbow from behind when he came into reach.

"Get off!"

Hurt, and full of concern for his friend, Remus fell back slightly, matching the length of Sirius' stride from behind. He shook his head, still confused by the scene that the boggart had produced in the classroom. Sirius had never been willing to talk about his family, or the time he spent at home during the holidays, but Remus could hardly reconcile the boggart-apparition with his own imagined portrait of the Blacks.

"Are you okay, Sirius?" he asked quietly, feeling strongly the irony that he of all people should ask this question of someone else. When Sirius came to a sudden halt in front of him, Remus reached out and placed his hand on his friend's back, trying to provide some comfort.

"Don't talk to me," Sirius bit out, shaking Remus' arm from his shoulder and continued stalking down the corridor. "You of all people wouldn't get it."

A mixture of bitter anger and worry collided in Remus' stomach, creating a rush of feeling that set his shoulders back and sent him hurrying down the corridor after his friend. What fear did Remus not understand? What had he not faced, locked in a battered shed next to a lake that glittered eerily beneath a swollen moon?

"And what wouldn't I get?" Remus asked calmly, forcing down swells of resentment. He reminded himself of the futility of bitterness. He had to do this often.

Sirius stopped once more, and pivoted, his face set in a mask of rage, but Remus could sense the fear behind the anger. His intimacy with fear had become like a sixth sense.

"You must be the ideal son, Remus," Sirius hissed. "You're studious, you're polite, you don't get into trouble, you're in an honourable bloody House. You're probably everything they could want you to be."

Despite himself, Remus responded with a dry, hollow laugh. Sirius' glare barely faltered.

"I've never met your parents, Remus. They're probably great people. They probably love you, don't they? They're probably bloody proud of you."

"You know what, Sirius?" Remus exploded, clenching his fists as the finely tuned balance of his nerves collapsed, bolstered by the fear he had suppressed during Defence Against the Dark Arts. "You're talking absolute bollocks. You have no idea what my parents are like. You have no idea if they're proud of me."

Remus barely noticed that Sirius' rage had dropped, leaving shock and the remnants of fear lining his handsome face. All Remus could feel was the heat of his anger; but in the ensuing silence, even that faded, leaving the old numbness, that old retreat. His breathing quietened, but he continued staring at Sirius.

When Remus finally spoke again, his voice was quiet and strained.

"You don't even know me."

For a moment, the two boys remained motionless, facing each other stiffly, each with shuttered eyes. But, as Remus had known, this could not last, and soon he was being drawn into a rough hug by Sirius. He made no protest.

"M'sorry," Sirius muttered into Remus' shoulder, "Shouldn't've said that, I'm sorry."

The rarity of such an apology suddenly hit Remus, and he felt the iciness that had gathered about him begin to melt and become warmth, the warmth that his friends could always generate.

They stood there in the corridor for what seemed like a very long time. Remus held his arms tightly about Sirius, becoming more comfortable with the unfamiliarity of the embrace in the knowledge that his friend needed this contact, this support. When at last Sirius roughly shoved him away, Remus didn't mind. He knew Sirius too well.

"What's your greatest fear, anyway?" Sirius asked curiously, his arm slung companionably about Remus' shoulders as they walked down the corridor together towards the Gryffindor portrait hole. "Sneakoscopes?"

Remus chuckled, and then joined Sirius in laughing, suddenly able to remember the incident on the Hogwarts Express without cringing with anxiety. He swiped at the back of Sirius' head, dodging a returning blow, and the remainder of his worries seemed to effervesce as afternoon sunlight filtered through dusty windows and lit the corridor ahead.

"I always wanted a dragon, yeh know," Hagrid said conversationally, thrusting his shaggy head into the depths of a cupboard. "Where's that blasted teapot? Ah, here we are," he announced with satisfaction, and pulled out said crockery, turning back to Remus with a smile.

"A dragon?" Remus asked, with vague misgiving. "What would you do with one of those?" He jumped slightly as Hagrid laughed, plonking the teapot gracelessly on the table, and waved his enormous hands around his small cabin.

"Raise 'im as a pet, 'o course," he said, a dreamy expression evident through his beard, "give Fang a bit 'o company. What I wouldn't do for just one little dragon egg…"

Remus almost smiled. What an incredible aspiration for a man who lived in a small wooden cabin. Almost as amazing as a werewolf graduating from Hogwarts, a bitter voice whispered inside his head.

Remus' smile faded, and he found himself nodding in sympathy to a story of Hagrid's dismay as a boy in discovering that dragons were banned as pets. Remus knew all too well the weight that crushed hopes maintained throughout the years.

"It's all wizard prejudice, yeh know," Hagrid said suddenly, shooting a sidelong glance at Remus, who stopped nodding abruptly. "Most people don' know nothing'. An' they don' try to learn, either. Some people…"

Remus' discomfort transformed into dismay as the giant of a man paused to give an enormous sniff and swipe roughly at his eyes. What had this conversation turned into?

"Some people," Hagrid continued bravely, "think that size, or- or certain… characteristics-"

"Such as the ability to breathe fire," Remus inserted with a shaky laugh, his eyes dropping to the floor as Hagrid straightened, and stared back at him with an intensity that made him wish that he was invisible.

"Yeh should never be ashamed of what yeh are, Remus," Hagrid said, his voice dropping in tone, moving to stand right beside the hunched boy. "Me Dad told me that, an' I kept holding to that through some o' the worst moments of my life."

Slowly, Remus raised his head and met Hagrid's serious gaze with his own. A silent moment passed as each weighed the other up. Both knew what the other was. After the conversation that had just taken place, there was not a doubt in Remus' mind of the nature of Hagrid's identity as a half-giant.

Neither turned away.

Finally, Hagrid smiled. "He's a great man, Dumbledore. Took me in as gamekeeper when I could've been left alone, with nothin' for me in the world. It isn't what yeh are that matters to 'im, it's who, and yeh gotta remember that, Remus. Yeh gotta."

Hagrid pulled away, affixing a great floral apron about himself as he bustled about the kitchen, picking up the teapot once more.

"Tea?"

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. All seems misery and pain to Remus, but what do you think is the coolest thing about being a werewolf?

2. Who would win in a fight: vampire or werewolf?

Thanks for reading,

Froody