A/N: This one's short and sweet - or rather, angsty and abrupt. Thanks to those who responded to my 'study questions' for the last chapter. Your input, as you shall see, was gratefully adapted.
"So who'd win in a fight?"
Remus lolled back against a broad oak, closing his eyes to the glare of mid-morning sunlight. He had long since stopped contributing to his friends' conversation. Besides the subject matter being (predictably) inane, his opinion never seemed to stand fast against James' adamant assertions and Sirius' obstinacy. No; Remus was quite content to pass a quiet morning ignoring his friends, as he had on so many other occasions.
"What, out of a mandrake and the Whomping Willow?"
Remus heard Sirius' irritated exhalation. "No Peter. We solved that one. Last week, remember?"
"Oh, right. That tree's got a mean left-hook, doesn't it?"
"The mandrake flew straight into the lake, screaming all the way," Sirius reminisced happily. "Hope the Giant Squid was wearing earmuffs."
James snickered. "Next, can we try the Whomping Willow versus Snape?"
Sirius laughed, and there was a silence as, Remus presumed, the three boys turned to observe the Slytherin, who sat hunched over a book at the edge of the lake, scribbling without pause.
"I'm going to test that out some day," Sirius murmured. "But come on, answer my question: who would win, a werewolf or a vampire?"
Sprawled against the tree, Remus stiffened.
"The vampire, obviously," James said lazily. "A werewolf can only transform during the full moon. Any other night, it would be completely vulnerable. And anyway, vampires are hot."
"The only thing sexier than a werewolf is a zombie," Peter stated promptly, glancing eagerly at James for a sign of amusement.
Remus watched through slitted eyes, trying to be amused, as Sirius grabbed James by the front of the shirt and yanked him close.
"Oh, zombie James, I've given you my heart, but all you want are my brains."
"Who'd want your brains?" James scoffed, shoving Sirius away.
"And vampires have fangs," Peter added quickly, before the boys could begin to grapple properly, "and they can fly."
"Of course you'd agree with Jamesie, wouldn't you, Pete?" Sirius sighed. "But me, I'd go for the werewolf. Fangs are nothing against claws."
"Drag either into the sunlight and you'd have a very boring contest," James noted dryly, collapsing next to Remus, his head resting on a protruding tree root. "At least a vampire is effective on every night of the lunar cycle."
"Vampires are undead," Remus said softly, opening his eyes. He could no longer pretend to be unaffected by this conversation. He shifted slightly in order to be able to see James' serene face, comfortably propped in shadow.
"So?"
"Werewolves are people. People don't want to be 'effective' every night of the lunar cycle."
"I thought you were scared of werewolves, Remus," Sirius teased, smirking up at his friend from his reclined position on a sunny patch of grass. "Remember Defence last week? You practically fainted when that boggart started howling."
Remus flushed hotly, though determined to maintain an appearance of calm. "I'm not scared of werewolves, Sirius."
"Nothing to be ashamed of, mate," James said soothingly, "and besides, you weren't exactly alone in your quaking boots. Half the class seemed ready to run out the door."
"I almost wet myself," Peter added rather unhelpfully. "That howling just tears into you, doesn't it?"
You have no idea, Remus thought grimly to himself. He sat up straight abruptly, squinting against the light, searching desperately for a distracting topic of conversation. Better they think him mortally afraid of werewolves than have them suspect otherwise.
A sudden movement from James drew Remus' attention, and his heart sank a little at the sight of that familiar expression on his friend's face. Here was the surest sign of a prank in formation, that calculating look of intelligence and mischief. Remus didn't need to take Divination to predict that whatever madness followed was going to end badly.
"You've thought of something for Halloween, haven't you?" Sirius asked with delight, and rolled onto his stomach so that he could pay full attention to his enlightened friend. "It has to be good this year. Regulus needs a special introduction to our little tradition."
Remus sighed to himself. Halloween was James and Sirius' favourite celebration. Their methods of celebrating tended to be explosive, much more terrifying than any hairy or skeletal decoration strung around the castle by an enthusiastic Hagrid. Since the beginning of term, Remus had been dreading this moment, when the inevitable plotting would begin.
James cleared his throat, wafting his hands affectedly through the air, as if calling for silence. Remus saw Sirius rolling his eyes as Peter twitched forward eagerly, and smiled despite himself.
"Inspiration has finally struck me, my friends. Beneath this most fruitful oak tree has sprouted the bud of a prank so insidious that it must surely ensnare all those who attend our most austere academy. What is Halloween, my friends, but a festival of fear, a feast of fright, a fiesta of- of-"
Sirius prodded James in the side with a long stick that he'd somehow procured, prompting the bespectacled boy to pause in his alliteration and smack the stick away.
"Anyway, if werewolves scare Remus and Peter so much, the entire school should go mad if we borrow Fang on Halloween, extinguish all the candles in the Great Hall, and charm him to howl!"
"Excellent!" Sirius cried with relish, jabbing the stick skyward in victory. "Halloween's a full moon, isn't it?"
"Indeed it is," James grinned, and the two boys rolled towards each other, quickly producing a piece of parchment and a quill and beginning to scrawl away madly. Peter scrambled to his knees and peered over their shoulders, squeaking every so often in excitement.
Remus stared down into the icy blue depths of the lake unseeingly. Suddenly cold, he pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself. He had forgotten that the 31st of October coincided with the full moon this year. What a cruel joke that werewolves should be incorporated into his friends' annual Halloween prank.
Remus mentally slapped himself for not having diverted the conversation further to something relatively harmless, like Basilisks, or dragons. Despite his internal tumult, he almost smiled. If a dragon had been involved in the prank, Hagrid would almost certainly have been willing to give them a hand in their mischief-making. His amusement drooped as thoughts of Hagrid reminded him of Fang's role as a make-shift werewolf.
Why on earth had he befriended two of the brightest students in Hogwarts? What sly fate had led him to become close to two of the most prying pranksters in the school's history? And how, in Merlin's name, had he been able to keep his lycanthropy a secret from James and Sirius for more than two years?
Each successive transformation since his arrival at Hogwarts had filled Remus with a greater fear of being discovered. His monthly absence could scarcely fail to be noticed by his friends, whose suspicions had been satisfied only with long-winded tales of his family's history in irregular illnesses. Remus was very thankful to Peter, who pressed the others to support these excuses. It seemed that Peter belonged to a family of hypochondriacs, and could quite easily relate to Remus' fabrications.
More difficult, however, was explaining away the visible injuries that each visit to Remus' family seemed to produce. Long sleeves and a clandestine stash of his mother's foundation were his only defence until the shallow cuts would heal.
Remus forbade his friends from asking about his deeper scars. He pretended not to notice the staring of his fellow students whenever the inevitable happened, and his shirt rode up an inch, or his long hair was tussled unfortunately by the wind, or James transfigured articles of his clothing.
He pretended that they all laughed off the patchwork nature of his skin as a sign of his clumsiness, perhaps, or maybe an overly close encounter with a pet when a child. None of his friends had ever mentioned the network of shining scars that criss-crossed his back and arms. Remus pretended that his efforts at showering and changing in utmost privacy had been successful.
In his heart, he knew that James, Sirius and Peter had seen the scars. When all jokes had died down, and pranks had ceased, and a momentary peace held the four boys in silence, he could see the truth in the dark intensity of Sirius' eyes.
Remus was always first to look away.
In the bright, disorienting sunshine, his friends scribbled and snickered and squeaked in front of him. Remus sighed, swiping a hand over his eyes and, like normal, hating himself with no small measure. There was nothing for it. He would join his friends in their preparations for this unfortunate prank – though with the proper and unsuspicious degree of disapproval expected from him. Upon the arrival of Halloween morning, one of his family members would suffer some misfortune or illness (all of them being of a particularly weak constitution.) Like normal, Remus would be summoned away.
Unlike normal, however, the howls emerging from a startled Fang's snout would be echoed across the grounds. This Halloween, the swollen moon would receive the baying of two canines, although her cold eye would be turned from one of the creatures.
Remus could only pray that his friends' eyes, and minds, could be as easily diverted from his terrible secret.