A/N: This chapter is for DracoAngelOfLight and takes place during Denial and Hope. I hope you like it. Enjoy!

Moony's Guilt

Remus's POV

The sound of someone shifting around slowly brought me back to consciousness. I kept my eyes shut and began cataloguing my injuries; it must have been a rough night but I knew that I'd have felt worse without Madame Pomfrey's potions and bandages.

"You look like hell," I murmured when I saw James sat in the seat by my bed. It was true; he looked like he hadn't slept in weeks and he was holding his arm in a position that made me think he must have been injured.

"Look who's talking," he shot back with a weak smile that didn't reach his eyes. I couldn't hide my grin as he placed a pile of chocolate on the table next to me; it always made me feel better after a full moon.

"I have an excuse," I reminded him, holding up one of my arms so that he could see the bandages covering it. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Erm…" I noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned my head there was nothing there, so I looked back at James and waited for an answer. "The night before the full moon."

"You haven't slept in 36 hours?" I asked incredulously with more than a bit of worry, especially since his reply had sounded more like a question. "How are you still awake?"

"My utter awesomeness," he grinned cockily but I could see that it didn't reach his eyes and he quickly continued before I could speak. "Plus Sirius and Peter haven't slept either."

I chuckled, letting it go for now. "This is just proof I'm the only sane one in the Marauders."

Silence fell over us for a while as I struggled into a more comfortable sitting position. I let my gaze wander around the room for anybody else but it looked like James was there alone. Yet again, Sirius and Peter could have been under an invisibility cloak without me knowing any different. I wondered briefly where Madame Pomfrey was before just being grateful she wasn't forcing any nasty tasting potions on me, no matter how helpful they were.

"What do you remember from last night?" James questioned suddenly, breaking the silence. I blinked at him, startled; the other Marauders didn't usually ask me what I remembered because they knew that I liked to forget everything about being a werewolf.

James pulled the Marauders map out his pocket and avoided looking at me. I don't think he'd meant to ask me that, but once it was out he couldn't take it back and I knew it was important. Beginning to feel the first stirs of fear in my stomach, I let the memories of the night before drift to the front of my mind.

"Well," I started slowly, trying to make sense of my memories. "I have vague memories of the forest, and then it goes blurry." It was always difficult for me to understand the memories I kept from my nights as a wolf because they weren't really from my point of view; it was like trying to look through somebody else's eyes.

James closed his eyes and I saw some of the tension leave his body. "So you only remember the forest?" He asked hopefully.

"Um," I closed his eyes, thinking back as far as I could for clear memories. "We were in the forest, and then there was a shout," I opened my eyes in horror as the next memory assaulted my mind. "I remember tasting blood."

James looked away so that I couldn't see his eyes; the movement convinced me that my worst fear had come true; I'd attacked someone. I heard a distressed sound and realized that it had come from my mouth as I tugged on James's arm and forced him to face me.

"Who did I bite?" I demanded fearfully.

James hesitated before telling me everything that happened, starting with his time on Prefect duty with Lily. I could tell that he didn't want to tell me the story, each word was said unwillingly, but he continued stubbornly until got to the part about Lily shouting at him.

I jumped as if electrocuted and felt a wave of horror wash over me, I had to force down my panic and tears as I interrupted. ""Lily? I bit Lily? How badly is she hurt? Does she hate me?"

"No, don't worry," James soothed quickly, clearly trying to get me to calm down so that he could continue. "You didn't bite Lily."

Once I'd calmed down a little, James continued on with his story. I remained on alert as I listened and I could feel myself getting paler as I listened to what James was saying. I chocked as he told me about changing back to human in order to warn Lily and didn't try to stop my tears as he finally admitted that I'd bitten him.

"I'm sorry," I cried, ignoring the tears that I could feel pouring down my face. "I'm so so sorry!"

James got up and sat next to me on the bed, murmuring nonsense to me under his breath, most of what he was saying didn't make sense but it helped to get me to stop crying. I hadn't even realized I was still muttering 'sorry' until I stopped. James handed me some tissues and kept some for himself to get rid of his own tears.

"What are you going to do now?" I asked nervously. I didn't want to believe that any of the Marauders would ever betray me but I knew that by biting James I had technically betrayed him first. "Are you going to tell Dumbledore?"

"NO!" He exclaimed loudly before lowering his voice and beginning to speak quickly. "No, we're going to keep it secret. Well, Lily knows now, she knows about everything, but she promised not to tell too."

I smiled weakly at him, happy that he must have been close enough to Lily to actually trust her and relieved that he didn't seem to hate me. "How is this going to work?"

"We're going to do a lot of research and see what happens when two werewolves are put together," he told me calmly, showing no fear about the fact that he'd been turned into a werewolf and that his whole life had changed. "But we'll keep it secret, no one needs to know."

Silence settled over us again, but it was a thoughtful silence this time. "Thanks," I said eventually. I wasn't just thanking him for not telling Dumbledore, thus saving my life; I was also thanking him for not hating me and trying to protect me no matter what.

"We're still brothers," he assured me, as if he'd read my mind. "We always will be, this changes nothing."

Sniffing slightly, I nodded and smiled at him as he left the bed and climbed back into his chair. I felt a wave of exhaustion crash over me and had to stifle a yawn. I didn't want to go to sleep; I wanted to stay up and convince James that the best thing for him to do would be for him to get some rest and catch up on all of the sleep he'd lost, but my mind began to shut itself down and my eye-lids became too heavy to hold up.

A/N: I'm not sure if I like this, but it's done now. Please leave me a review! :)