"Can you believe Remus just blew us off, again?" Sirius asked as he lay down on his bed. James circled a spell in his book for future uses, and laid down his pen.
"Since she's been blowing us off since we first met her, yeah, actually I can."
"What do you think she's doing?" Peter asked quietly in his mousy voice.
"Think she's seeing a guy?" Sirius asked as he stared up at the ceiling.
"Maybe she's hanging out with Lily." James said. Sirius sighed. Every time Potter mentioned Evans' name he went all dreamy.
"Or," he spoke up to break the dreamy spell, "she could just be having some time to herself. Girl's need that 'alone time' right?"
James nodded his head like it was a reasonable answer, but Peter was still sitting on his bed, messing with something. That kid was always fiddling with crap.
"Have you guys seen her scars?" he finally asked, his voice barely making it to Sirius and James. James really, really wished that boy would just speak up for a change. He final got Remus speaking clearly, now he just had to work on this little mouse.
"Yeah." Sirius and James both said. It was kind of strange to be talking about this. They all wondered what those scars were from, and they all knew the obvious reason for how they got there, but no one would say it.
"Do you think she gave them to herself?" Okay, exception: only people without brains would ever say it, especially around Sirius.
"Are you trying to say that Remus is a cutter?" Sirius bellowed. Peter flinched back towards the corner of his bed. James felt like sighing. It was the basic rule of their friendship. Rule #1: Don't piss off Sirius. And they all knew the one way to truly piss him off was to talk poorly about Remus.
"No, no, I'm just saying maybe she did when she wasn't in the….right…mindset."
"Are you calling her loony? Just because her father-"
"Sirius!" James stopped him from continuing. Poor Peter was already up against his corner. That kid got enough of this at home.
"What do you mean, Pete?" He asked as kindly as he could.
"Once a month, Remus blows us off, right?"
They both nodded their heads in agreement.
"It's always on the full moon." Peter said. "What if…what if she's a werewolf?" The room went silent. James was the first to loose his composure, and Sirius followed right behind him. They laughed so hard; Sirius rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a thud.
"That's great." James said, wiping a tear from his eye as another hand held his cramping stomach. "That's even better than Mr. Hagpit being a vampire."
"But he is! And what if-"
"Remus is not a werewolf." Sirius said in between laughs.
"How do you know?" Peter crossed his arms and looked dead into Sirius' dark eyes.
"Wormtail, Remus is the sweetest girl we've ever met, plus she can't lie to save her life. Do you honestly think that at the full moon she turns into a beast? If so, she'd be like the teddy bear of werewolves."
James began to laugh some more, "Yeah, she'd just roll around on the ground smelling flowers and apologizing to bugs she stepped on."
Peter hung his head. "I guess you guys are right."
"Damn straight, we are." James said. Sirius laughed.
"Careful, if Remus catches that foul mouth on you, she just might go werewolf on your hide."
If only they knew that a few miles away, in an abandoned house now dubbed the shrieking shack, there was girl trapped inside the body of a beast that was slowly tearing itself into shreds.