5. Loony, Loopy Lupin

The life of Remus Lupin was a constant cycle of night and day. He never did like the darkness, especially as a child. Darkness meant that he was alone, and no matter how his parents had checked in the wardrobe or under the bed, the monster still came. It came with wild eyes and sharp teeth and it tore a hole in his mattress, in his side and in his life. Ever since that day, he was the monster.

Yes, he separated his existence into night and day, in so many ways. Day was the sunlight, and the warm breeze. Night was the stars and the clouds and sometimes the moonlight. Day was the boy he was born, it was Remus John Lupin, it was that smile and that laugh and that calm kindness. Night was the wolf, the monster, the anger and the bloodlust. Night was the years between the bite and Hogwarts, with the hiding and the loneliness. Day was James and Sirius and Peter, it was Moony and his Furry Little Problem, it was late-night wanderings and sheepish detentions...it was the four of them, the breakers of rules, the marauders of Hogwarts. They were his sunlight, as Lycanthropy was his moonlight. They were the balm to his wounded being, as lycanthropy was the curse that tore him from his own skin. They made the day worth living, and worth the pain of the night.

And the pain of October's night woke him close to noon.

He would have bolted upright when he woke if it weren't for the aches. The wolf had been wild last night and the boy was paying for it.

Remus could not even groan out the discomfort, he merely flinched and squinted his eyes against the light. He appeared to be in the isolation ward at the back of the hospital wing - Avery and Mulciber were obviously still recovering next door.

'Good morning, Remus,' spoke the voice of the Headmaster, so softly that it could have lulled him back to sleep.

He grunted an acknowledgement of his presence as he took inventory of the aches and pains throughout his body. His wrist had been broken and was now healed (amazing how he could tell these things now), there was a healing wound in his side above a formerly broken rib or two, and the wolf had gnawed on its foreleg enough to shear away several layers of skin but the reverse transformation had evidently fixed that as it merely resembled a bad graze now.

All limbs accounted for, he looked to Dumbledore, who sat on the edge of his bed with an expression that was kind but exuded a sense of duty.

'What happened?' he asked hoarsely, a definite measure of panic to his voice. The Headmaster would check up on him from time to time, but he always smiled widely, never shallow and never with that air of seriousness about him.

'Relax, Remus,' he urged. 'Please. Madam Pomfrey will have my head if you over-exert yourself in my presence.' He smiled a little wider and placed a comforting hand on Remus's arm. 'You hurt no-one, do not worry yourself.'

The relief felt somewhat bitter, as though he should feel guilty for accepting it.

'What happened?' he repeated. 'Where are the others?'

'I believe that your friends have been trying to visit all morning. Alas, neither Madam Pomfrey nor myself believed it to be in your best interest just yet.'

In his best interest?

'There was an incident last night,' Dumbledore continued, and Remus's heart sank. He did something, something bad, something serious. 'As I said, nobody was hurt-' this did not make him feel any better '-and you are not in any trouble.'

A moment's silence dragged awfully.

'Your friend Sirius Black decided to play, well, I suppose one could call it a joke, he apparently found it quite amusing at the time of execution-'

'Is he okay?' The pain in his side seared as he jolted. Had they done something dangerous? Had they gone too far and got themselves hurt? If he had been there, maybe he could have stopped them, maybe-

'In a manner of speaking, yes,' said Dumbledore. 'It seems that Severus Snape witnessed Madam Pomfrey leading you to the Whomping Willow last night. Mr. Black, acting rashly and no doubt motivated by anger, suggested that he follow you and revealed exactly how to do so.'

The blood in his veins barely seemed able to carry enough oxygen to his brain, but it still ran cold. It was like a bottleneck had formed somewhere in his chest, so much fear flooding into it that a suffocating pressure built and pressed his heart into his ribcage.

'Severus foolishly did as he suggested. Fortunately Sirius told your friend Mr. Potter what he had done and James bravely went after Mr. Snape, though not before he glimpsed you at the end of the tunnel. Nobody was harmed, I truly do want you to know that. None of this was your fault, the guilty parties have been punished accordingly and Severus has been sworn to secrecy. Given that emotions within your friendship group are running rather high at the moment, I felt that it was better that you hear the events from an unbiased party.'

'What do you mean?' His voice was barely a whisper and he felt weak. Something warm pushed through the fear and his hands shook as though the transformation were upon him again. For in his minds eye he recalled a human face, recalled James, recalled a spell sent in his direction. He saw the fear in Snape's eyes as though it were happening right in front of him, felt the hunger and excitement of the wolf as though it was his own.

'Ah, it appears that Mr. Potter was not too happy with Mr. Black's attempt to see you this morning,' Dumbledore said, looking away. 'Madam Pomfrey was not at all pleased with the ensuing brawl outside her doors.'

Remus sank back into his pillows, his mind and his body completely numb.

'Okay,' he said quietly. 'Thank you, Headmaster.'

Strange, it seemed that the sun was a little dimmer today.

It was with reluctance that Madam Pomfrey discharged him the next afternoon. His wounds were adequately healed, but she seemed to concern herself over his morose mood. In the end, she chalked it up to 'teenage stuff' and let him go halfway through his free class.

The truth was that the entire day had felt like one uncomfortable dream, and now he walked through the empty corridors of the castle as though he was sleepwalking, with no idea where he was going or what he would do when he got there.

There was Transfiguration, he needed to catch up on that and McGonagall had stopped by that morning to summarise what they had covered in the lesson he had missed. He needed to see Flitwick too, to collect his essay. Or had James or Sirius or Peter picked it up for him?

'Hello, Remus,' greeted Nearly-Headless Nick halfway down a fairly uninteresting wing of the castle. 'Feeling better today?' He couldn't even manage a half-wave in response.

It wasn't until he was almost to the end of the deserted wing that a sound pierced through his oddly haunting stupor.

'Remus!'

Sirius ran towards him, and there were footsteps too in the corridor he had ran from. His usually pristine hair was untidy and there were bags beneath his eyes, like angry bruises against his pale complexion. Evidently Remus was not the only one who had not slept the previous night (and he hazarded a guess that Madam Pomfrey had not exasperatedly walked into the fifth year Gryffindor boys' dormitory at one o'clock in the morning and all but poured a sleeping potion down Sirius's throat, as she had for him).

Now that they stood face to face, Sirius seemed to be at a loss for words. And the whining that had been following Remus all around the castle continued.

'Remus, we...I... We need to talk.'

'I don't want to talk.' It didn't even sound like his voice. It sounded robotic and cold.

'Then just listen. Please!'

Remus nodded and cocked his head towards an empty classroom behind them. He had barely pushed on the door when the approaching footsteps grew louder and James walked round the corner. He froze upon seeing the two of them, swallowed, but said nothing. And they were all quiet as they walked into the classroom, as Remus breathed steadily through his nose. He could almost feel a migraine starting.

'Moony, I am so sorry!' Sirius said as the door quietly closed. The sound of his nickname stung, like sunburn. 'I didn't-'

'You didn't mean to do it,' scoffed James. Sirius looked at him, his grey eyes hard and almost challenging.

'I did mean it,' he said quietly. 'I wish I could say that I didn't but I'm not going to lie, not to either of you.'

'You're lying to yourself, mate.'

'Would you shut up?' Sirius yelled. James didn't even flinch, just continued to stare at his best friend as though he were covered head to toe in dragon dung. 'This doesn't concern you.'

'It concerned me when I was dragging Snape out of that tunnel!' James shouted back. 'It concerned me when I was fixing your problem!'

'Oh, go boil your head in goblin piss, Potter. I didn't do this to you, I did this to him-'

'You're mental, actually mental if you think that anything you have to say will fix what you did!'

'SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU, SHUT UP!'

At first, Remus was not sure that it was he who had spoken (or screamed). It did not sound like his voice, did not feel like his emotion. Because he was always so in control, always so calm and collected. Rage was for the wolf, not the boy. Yet he recognised now what it was that afflicted him, and Madam Pomfrey had no spell or potion or secret remedy to cure this ailment.

'This is not about you, it's not about either of you!' He couldn't look at them, so instead he closed his eyes and grasped his hair tightly in both hands.

Breathing deeply and steadily, he pushed the rage back down in his chest and relinquished his grip, losing himself to the manufactured calm.

'The wolf,' he said quietly, choking on the mingled fear and sadness, 'is this shadow, this blackness that has hung over me since I was four. I've been afraid of it my whole life. I don't...I don't remember what my life was like before I was bitten, I don't remember what it was like to be normal. It's all the same to me. I was only four... But mum, and dad...they were the ones that suffered, they were the ones that lost something and they can't ever forget.'

His parents, so in love even after all these years, so happy since he found his friends and thrived at school. It had taken seven years for them to get their lives back. He didn't even know why he was saying all this, just felt that he had to get it off his chest, that it led somewhere.

'It's always the people around me,' he said. His voice was nasally and wet now. 'My parents suffered because of what I am. I had to stay away from other children for their safety. Once a month I'm locked up in that Shack so that I don't tear someone apart, don't curse them like that thing cursed me.'

'Remus...' Sirius's voice was almost as soft as his, but there was nothing soft about the emotion that drew Remus's eyes up.

'When I met you,' Remus said, spitting out the words. 'When we became friends...it was the happiest I'd ever been. I'd never had friends before. And when you found out what I was, and you didn't care...when you saw me and not the wolf...'

'Moony-'

'DON'T CALL ME THAT!' Because in the end it was only manufactured calm, and the rage left him with a volcanic fury at the sound of that name from those lips. 'YOU USED ME!' And then, his voice broke horribly. 'You used me. For some stupid revenge plot. For a prank. Is that all I'm worth to you?'

Sirius shook his head, stepped forward.

'I didn't use you,' he insisted. 'I didn't think, I just-'

A fresh fireball exploded as Sirius stepped closer and Remus threw out his arms, pushed him back into a nearby table, almost sent him flying over the back of it. He had a wand, but there was something so cathartic about this raw, physical rage.

'NO, YOU DIDN'T THINK! You know how I feel about my condition.' You helped me deal with it, he wanted to say. But he didn't. Because he had never felt so angry in his life, and truly it was fifteen years' worth of anger spilling out; anger at the world, at the creature that bit him...at the friend who had almost fed an innocent boy to the wolf, had almost fed the fear that haunted the night. 'You treated it like a joke, treated me like a joke! You betrayed my trust.' He moved forward again, pushed his hands into Sirius's chest again, ignoring the sharp pain in his side. 'You betrayed our friendship.' Again, he pushed, and the table Sirius had been backed into was now pressed against the teacher's desk so that there was nowhere for either of them to go. 'You betrayed me! I have never felt so hurt or so humiliated in my life.'

He was laughing, but he was not. Maybe he was going insane. It sure felt like it. He wanted to tear his hair out, wanted to slam his fist into the wall. He had never felt like this in his life, and it was horrible. And it was all due to him, to this boy who was like a brother to him. He would have taken the pain of the full moon over this.

The grey eyes were haunted, and it only fed the beast. He didn't want him to be contrite, didn't want him to feel guilty or ashamed, he wanted him to fight back, to display that infamous Black temper. But he didn't. He just stood there looking like he wanted to cry or puke or maybe both.

Remus's upper lip twitched and he lashed out again, pounding his fist hard into Sirius's shoulder.

'YOU NEARLY KILLED HIM!' Thump. 'YOU NEARLY MADE ME HURT AN INNOCENT PERSON!' Thud. 'You used me!'

With one huge surge of energy, he balled his fist and it connected with Sirius's face, knocking him off the edge of the table and onto the floor. He angled himself up for one more, grabbed the front of Sirius's robes-

'Stop it!' James shouted, and he pulled them apart. 'Remus, stop, this isn't you!'

'Get off me!' he cried, shrugging him off. His vision blurred, nails dug painfully into his palm. A bruise had already began to flower in the corner of Sirius's eye and the tones of purple and red suddenly seemed to cancel out the white hot fire that had driven the punch.

There were many emotions now, and his brain and his heart couldn't seem to figure out which was more important. The anger was still there, and there was shame and the desire to just forgive him and let it all be over. There was a new fear and there was sadness, and the self-deprecating sense of worthlessness that had driven him to a desire to flee when he realised that his friends had figured out his affliction.

'Ooh, someone's lost their temper!' cackled a loud voice up above as Peeves materialised and looked down upon them in glee. 'And it's wee little Lupin! Loony Loopy Lupin. Loony Loopy Lupin!'

'Get lost, Peeves!' shouted Remus and James at the same time. They caught eyes for a brief moment before Peeves swore at them and Remus turned away, kicking aside a chair on his way to the door.

Time passed rather slowly when you spent most of it on your own, Sirius found. He had not slept much the night following his fight with Remus, had been told off for not paying attention in every class the next day, and today's lessons had not gone much better. Although he had successfully executed a near-perfect vanishing spell, he had missed his rat entirely and managed to vanish Justus Aberton's chair right out from under him.

Meals had been the worst. He had taken to skipping breakfast entirely and spent most of lunch in the library until he became dizzied watching the third-year Ravenclaw boy Quirrell study (in his lunch hour?) and wandered outside to find Peter, who had smuggled some food out of the Hall for Sirius, only to have apparently eaten it when he could not find him. Mary Macdonald had grabbed him at lunch that day and forced him to sit with her and her friends and he spent most of that staring at his plate while Lily Evans piled more food onto it and Marlene McKinnon, apparently rather taken with Divination, attempted to read the pulp in the bottom of his empty goblet of pumpkin juice (no, really).

It was the strange kind of couple of days that he would usually have laughed about with James. But oh yeah, James wasn't speaking to him. Remus had calmed down significantly and sometimes he caught him looking over, like there were words on the tip of his tongue, but he did all that he could to avoid hearing them - they wouldn't be anything good.

It wasn't until the afternoon of the second day really that he started to feel...well, anything at all. You see, over the years he had become rather skilled at blocking out unpleasant feelings. It was the only way he could deal with the bile that spilled from his mother's lips as she told him, over and over again, how worthless he was, how embarrassed she was to have a child like him and how Regulus was a much better son than he was. It was the only way he could deal with his father, a very tall and rather well-built man, who would grab him by the back of the neck and throw him out of the room like he was an unwanted dog.

But it stung, because it wasn't Walburga, and it wasn't Orion. It was James, and it was Remus. It was someone he truly cared about. And he had done something horrible, something he could not forgive himself for. How could he ever hope that they would forgive him? How could he ever dare ask?

The feeling that came to him was pain and weakness, radiating from the pit of his stomach. His limbs felt weak, his extremities numb, and every breath that he drew came with a stabbing pain. He barely pulled himself through Charms, shrugging off Professor Flitwick's concern with a claim that he wasn't any paler than usual, the purple and blue bruise on his cheek (who knew Moony could pack such a punch?) just made it appear so, and no, he wasn't going to ask Madam Pomfrey to heal it. He didn't tell Flitwick it was because he felt that he deserved that bruise, and the yellowing ones on his chest and shoulders.

'You don't look so good,' said Reed at dinner, but he waved it off. He was fine, he was just feeling sorry for himself as usual.

Regulus had tried to speak to him earlier, but it was evident almost immediately that he had taken the falling-out as a sign that perhaps his big brother was, at long last, coming round to the family's way of seeing things. Sirius did not mince his words when telling Regulus where he could shove this idea.

Even so, it was Regulus who approached the Gryffindor table with Professor Slughorn, his fellow Gryffindors eyeing the young Slytherin with a measure of wariness.

'You know what, Regulus? I think you may be right.' Sirius tried to lift his head at the sound of the Potion Master's voice, but it felt so heavy. 'Sirius, I think perhaps you should see Madam Pomfrey; you're not looking at all like yourself.'

''m fine,' he said, but his mouth was dry and he was shivering now.

'Don't be a bloody martyr,' said Hendricks.

A hand pressed against his forehead.

'You're all clammy,' said Marlene. 'Come on, Sirius, you've been looking like you're ready to collapse since lunch.'

As he attempted to look up at her, he caught the eye of James further down the table. Whatever interest he had taken in the sudden gathering of students, whatever he thought of whatever had drawn the concern of so many, Sirius never found out because he turned to Regulus, who had begun to pull him up off the bench with the help of a surprisingly strong Marlene.

'I think I'm going to have to insist,' said Slughorn. There was a concern he had never seen before on the ageing man's face and suddenly a wave of pure pestilential feeling passed over him. 'Come on, I'll take you.'

A much thinner arm than Slughorn's supported him as he tried to retain some dignity and walk confidently out of the Great Hall. His legs felt like spaghetti. Like tentacles. Maybe they should just throw him in the Great Lake and let him live with the giant squid.

'You never make things easy for yourself, do you?' Regulus whispered. And perhaps it was his delirious state of mind, but Sirius found himself agreeing with his brother.

Remus continued to stare at his palms long after the crescents his nails had made faded. He had never wanted to lose his temper like that, never planned it or even anticipated that it would happen. He was a pretty level-headed guy when it came down to it.

Perhaps he was prone to moments of explosive anger as a consequence of bottling everything up? It was all steam and pressure, wasn't it? If you didn't release it every now and then, it all built up and eventually a rivet or two had to blow. And everyone had their own anger: Peter's was quiet and huffy, James's was like a wind-up toy rattling on before it eventually ran out of steam, and Sirius's was like gunpowder at a firework display. Maybe his was just volcanic, building up over many years and terrifying all when it came.

Or maybe it was the wolf.

Sirius had not healed the bruise he had given him, though he wished that he would. He couldn't even look at him without being reminded of how he had lost his temper and done some pretty stupid things. And maybe Sirius thought that he avoided his eye because he was still mad, but the truth was that he wasn't. He probably should have been, but the anger just wasn't in him any more. Pain, sometimes, yes, but not anger, not blame.

The common room was empty when Lily returned, and he was still there. Sirius was evidently spending the night in the hospital wing and Peter had gone to bed some time ago, James following huffily.

'Still up?' she asked conversationally, lowering herself into the armchair opposite him.

'Waiting for James to fall asleep,' he said. 'Think I'll give it another half hour.'

Lily raised an eyebrow quizzically.

'You planning on telling me what's going on between the four of you?'

'You haven't heard?' Remus gave an empty smile.

'Everyone has their theories,' said Lily.

'And what's yours?'

Lily laughed, throwing her long red hair over her shoulders.

'You know I don't subscribe to gossip, Remus,' she said. 'That being said, I did hear that James kicked up quite a fuss outside the hospital wing earlier...any idea what that was all about?'

Remus laughed. It was because of that little happening that he had left James to run out of steam on his own; he was getting rather tired of hearing how Madam Pomfrey was being ridiculous and unhelpful.

'He tried to see Sirius after dinner,' he explained. 'They...uh... Last time Madam Pomfrey saw the two of them together they were wrestling outside the hospital wing, trying to get in to see me. Seems that she remembered that because she wouldn't let him in.'

Lily looked a little surprised and leaned forward in her chair.

'I thought they had fallen out?'

'So did Madam Pomfrey,' Remus said, and he laughed but stopped when he realised that Lily had not joined him. So he sighed and racked his brain for the correct words to express something he had never thought he would need to explain to anyone...and indeed wondered if it was at all possible. 'You have a sister, right?' Lily nodded. 'And you don't get on?' She shook her head solemnly. 'If something happened to her, if she took ill, would you just ignore it?' She bowed her head, seeming to understand. 'James and Sirius are like brothers. They could be flinging curses at each other in the halls, but they'd still take a curse for the other if someone else fired it.'

'Did they say what was wrong with him?' Lily asked quietly.

Remus shrugged, and tried to shoo away the creeping concern, to a spectacular degree of failure.

'He's fine, apparently,' he said. It had taken him almost half an hour to calm James down enough to wrangle the answer out of him. 'That's all she would say.'

Lily hummed, mulled over a thought or two.

Remus wondered if he should have tried to visit Sirius himself. Really, he was too afraid. Afraid of what he might say or do, of growing angry again, of making him feel worse than he evidently did, of forgiving him a little too easily.

'Look, I don't know what happened between you,' she said. 'But Sirius sat with us at lunch today and he didn't seem like himself at all. He was almost tolerable. And I don't think it had anything to do with his illness...'

He tried hard not to meet her eye, and swallowed when he failed.

'He did something...reckless,' he said, feeling that he owed her at least some explanation for his recent moodiness. Lily laughed.

'Sirius Black, do something reckless?' her voice dripped with friendly sarcasm.

'He's never reckless with his friends,' he said seriously. 'And I know it wasn't a slight against me, but it affected me and...'

He just didn't know how to word what he felt. How could he explain to her the fear he held, aimed at none other than himself? It was not just Snape who had been in danger that night, it was James too. The night after he returned from the hospital wing he had woken in a clammy sweat, having watched himself tear Snape apart, then turn on James, and Sirius, and Peter. He had watched the light leave their eyes, watched the blood pool beneath them. And when he had woken...

It was Sirius who looked down at him with worry etched upon his face, shaking him and whispering his name. A moment later, he had jumped back, as though he had suddenly remembered that they were not speaking. It was but hours after Remus had blackened his eye, and yet he had roused him from a nightmare that saw his sheets soaked through with sweat.

I'm sorry, he had whispered, as he retreated back to his own bed. On the surface it was an apology for waking him, for touching him or even looking at him after what had happened. But Remus saw beyond that, saw that what he had really meant was I'm sorry that I gave you this nightmare.

'Things are strange when you're ill,' she said. 'It's like the whole class feels your absence. The other boys, they...they're quiet. There has never been a prank when you are away and I could probably count on one hand the times I've seen them genuinely smile. They care about you. A lot. So whatever he did...I don't think he meant to hurt you.'

It was funny how he had been telling himself the same thing all day, but it was only when she said it that he started to truly accept it.

AN - Thanks for reading! This update is a little later than I intended but I just got distracted, sorry! Thanks to everyone who has favourited/followed since the last chapter - seems that there were more people than usual reading even if there were no reviews. I'm thinking perhaps I lost some people with the last chapter due to the length, so I apologise for the long update and I'm going through the rest of the story and cutting things down a bit to keep it more condensed.

In other news. I've written the entire story out now, just finished it! So it's going to give me a lot more time to go over and edit/trim/prune/polish it all before I post so I can focus on the writing rather than the story now. So keep letting me know you're interested and want more and I'll keep bringing it (let me know too how frequent you would like updates - if you want them closer together, further apart, etc.).

Thanks again, and please review! :)