Remus was in the forest behind his house, gazing up at the full moon with large blue eyes. He sat on the grass, looking up at the stars and feeling the flowers underneath his hands. With a recognisable pop, the small boy heard his father apparate home from work. Twisting around where he was sitting, he turned to see his father hastily push his way into the house, looking nothing short of terrified, and slam the door shut behind him, not realising that his son was outside. The boy shrugged and went back to staring up at the skies.
Time passed and Remus was woken from his daydream by the sound of the door bursting open. John Lupin was scanning the forest frantically calling for his son at the top of his lungs. The boy stood up and looked at him with wide-eyed curiosity.
'Remus! Get inside! Quickly!' John called, the urgency in his voice clear.
Worried, the boy hesitantly began to jog towards the house. Halfway there, a large, strong creature pounced on top of him and held him against the ground. Its massive paws crushed his ribs whilst its claws tore along the terrified boy's stomach. Excruciating pain tore through his whole body and Remus began to scream and try to tear away but was held down to hard.
'HELP! HELP ME! PLEASE!' he screamed as the animal tore its way through his arm. The small boy felt a hot liquid surround him and panicked. He turned his head to look at his arm and immediately wished he hadn't. A huge chunk of his flesh had been practically excavated from him and the bone was visible through the river of blood. His head began to spin and he squirmed harder than ever, screaming at the pain from his upper body.
The creature suddenly kicked out its back legs and came down hard on Remus's leg, and a sickening crack echoed around the forest as the bone snapped clean in two. The worst scream exploded from Remus's lips and red sparks began to fly past his face. John Lupin was charging towards the beast that was attacking him, firing spells and shouting incoherent strings of words. In one swift movement, the creature raised itself onto its hind legs and pushed John away, the strength behind it sending the wizard flying backwards a good few metres.
Remus raised his head to look at the animal and saw that it was a wolf with the most terrible long sharp teeth and blood dripping from its coat. Remus's blood. The boy began to scream once more as the wolf bent its head down and bit into Remus's shoulder. More pain than he had ever experienced ripped through his shoulder and he felt blood seeping into his hair.
'PLEASE! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME! PLEASE!' he cried, slightly weakly as he began to fall out of consciousness.
The wolf looked down on him and Remus could swear that it was grinning. 'Now you're a monster,' he heard it say. 'A monster, just like me.'
Remus continued to scream long after the world went black.
'HELP! HELP ME! PLEASE!'
James woke with a start and tumbled out of his bed, onto the floor. Untangling himself from the curtains he looked around the room. Sirius and Peter were slowly waking up as well and pulling their curtains apart.
'Who's getting murdered?' Sirius asked groggily, squinting in the dark to see James.
With a look at the other two boys being awake, James knew whom the cry had come from. Getting up off the ground he ran over to Remus's bed, followed instantly by Sirius and, a little bit behind, Peter. James wretched open the curtains whilst Sirius lit the bedside lamp to see Remus flailing about covered in cold sweat, tears running down his face and fast asleep. The three wakeful boys shared a worried and confused glance at each other that was quickly interrupted by a heart-stopping scream.
'REMUS!' James started yelling, grabbing at his friends arms to stop them from flailing about so much. 'REMUS! WAKE UP!'
Sirius got onto the boys bed and sat on his legs to stop them from kicking James in the face and Peter grabbed onto the sleeping boys shoulders, yet Remus continued to scream.
'We've got to wake him up!' James said through gritted teeth, using all of his strength to keep the boys arms down. For someone so small and weak looking, Remus was really very strong.
'REMUS!' Sirius bellowed, but to no avail.
Peter looked around, not quite knowing what to do, and promptly ran into the bathroom, returning with a glass of water which he placed on Remus's nightstand.
'He'll need that when he wakes up,' he explained.
'If he wakes up,' Sirius corrected. 'REMUS! PLEASE WAKE UP!'
'PLEASE! PLEASE, SOMEONE HELP ME! PLEASE!' Remus shrieked, his head coming right off the pillow as he struggled against whatever force was holding him down in his dream.
'Remus, please wake up,' Peter cried, feeling tears sting his eyes as he looked down on his friend, scared of what was going on.
'REMUS!' James and Sirius screeched, their throats hurting for the decibels they kept emitting.
'We need to go and get someone!' Peter shouted. 'Someone else will know what to do!'
James looked at Peter and leaned over past his shoulders and tipped the contents of the water onto Remus's head.
With a strangled sort of noise from gasping and screaming at the same time Remus bolted into sitting upright in his bed, coughing from the water and promptly vomited off the edge of his bed. The three boys jumped backwards and let go of their friend. Remus lay there, coughed weakly and relaxed his tense muscles, defeated.
Sirius, Peter and James hesitantly walked forwards.
'Remus, mate, don't lie like that,' James whispered, and Remus obediently rolled over onto his back. His face was so pale it was tinged with grey; his hair was matted and stuck to his face with the sweat that covered his face. His yellow eyes were closed and his tears finally stopped as he breathed deeply.
Sirius climbed onto the bed and sat on the edge of it. After Remus didn't object, James and Peter joined him; so all three were sitting cross-legged on the boy's bed, watching him worriedly.
'Remus. Remus, are you ok?' Sirius asked, reaching forward and putting his hand on the boys arm. He flinched at how cold it was but didn't pull his hand away.
Remus opened his eyes but didn't speak. He looked at his friends and opened his mouth as if to speak but turned once more to vomit off the edge of his bed.
'Oh Merlin, right, come on,' James said, standing up. 'We've got to get him to the bathroom. Remus, mate, can you stand up?'
The pale boy looked at him blankly as if he didn't register what had been said but pulled back the covers and swung his legs around. He heaved himself into a standing position and the three boys noticed that he was shaking. Remus tried to take a step and swayed dangerously. Sirius ran over and Remus felt strong arms around his waist. James ran to the other side of the boy whilst Peter went to open the door and get Remus another glass of water. Once inside the bathroom, James and Sirius carefully let go of Remus who slid to the ground and pressed the back of his head against the cold tiles of the wall and closed his eyes once more.
'Remus? Can you hear me, mate?' James asked.
'Hmm?' Remus replied, opening his eyes slightly. James tried not to flinch at how empty they looked. 'I'm sorry I woke you guys up.'
'Don't be, mate. Its fine,' Sirius told him, trying to hide the worry in his eyes.
'What's wrong, Remus?' Peter asked, passing him the glass of water.
'Nothing, just a nightmare, that's all,' Remus replied, taking a sip of the water with difficulty as his hands were still shaking.
'Want to talk about it? It must have been pretty horrible,' James murmured, taking the glass from Remus's hands.
'No, it's fine. I just want to sleep,' the pale boy replied.
'Ok, mate. We'll give you a hand back to bed, yeah?' Sirius said, his tone soft. He slung Remus's arm over his shoulder and place his own around his friend's waist, James mirroring him on Remus's other side. Peter placed the glass on Remus's nightstand and emptied their bin out of the window, placing the empty bin next to Remus's bed.
'Just in case he's sick again,' Peter explained after receiving confused looks from James and Sirius. Sirius nodded and, after helping James settle Remus down, used a vanishing spell to get rid of the vomit from the ground. Almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, Remus closed his eyes and his soft breathing indicated that he had fallen asleep. James, Sirius and Peter looked at each other and, in that moment, they knew that none of them were going to get any more sleep that night.
Each of them clambered onto their own bed. They had left the curtains of Remus's bed open and did the same with their own. James sat crossed-legged in the middle of his bed, Sirius lay on his stomach with his hands supporting his chin and Peter got into his bed and pulled the covers up but propped himself up on his elbows and they all turned and looked at Remus. The way he had been so pale and so terrified had scared them. What could he possibly have dreamt about that had made him physically ill? As hard as they tried, they couldn't get the image of the pale boy screaming, sweating, crying and thrashing around out of their heads and they looked at him, worried. Occasionally, they would see the boy twitch in his sleep and would be ready to run out of bed to help him again, but it would pass as soon as it came. The three Gryffindors stayed awake all night observing their friend, and barely noticed as the moon disappeared and was replaced by the sun of the next morning, bringing with it the day of the full moon.