Madam Pomfrey kept Remus overnight for two nights in a row, even though Remus was feeling okay. "I just want to make sure," she said, though Remus didn't entirely trust her motives. He knew he wasn't ill, and he knew he wasn't deathly injured—she likely just wanted to keep him because he looked sad or something, which was totally ridiculous. Remus didn't argue, though. It would do him no good.

She let him leave the next morning after a hearty breakfast. Remus wanted to go to classes to distract him from it all, but unfortunately, it was Saturday. "I'm not sure I want you going to Hogsmeade today," said Madam Pomfrey. "It might be hard to walk around like that, and I don't want you overexerting yourself..."

"I'm going to Hogsmeade," said Remus.

"Yes, I thought so. Why do I even try?"

As Remus was leaving the Hospital Wing, he came across his friends. "Remus!" said Peter. "We were just coming to see you!"

"Have you been cleared to go to Hogsmeade?" asked James.

Remus held up two thumbs and smiled. "Yep. All good. And I already ate breakfast."

"Excellent," said James. "So… broomstick shop first?" The other three Marauders groaned, and James started laughing. "Only joking!"

They stood in the clearing near the Shrieking Shack again—like last time, no one was around, so Sirius could take off the Cloak. "Why do you suppose no one comes 'round here?" asked Peter. "It's really nice."

"Because the Shrieking Shack contains a terrifying monstrous spirit," said Remus, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "They're afraid."

James shrugged. "It's not that scary, though. You can barely hear it. It just sounds like you're in pain, not like you're gonna kill anyone."

"Hold on. What? How would you know that?"

James looked at Sirius and Peter, and then back at Remus. "We might have snuck out to Hogsmeade Wednesday night," he admitted. "Under the Cloak. We only wanted to hear."

Anger and horror immediately swelled up in Remus' chest, but he did his best to ignore it and took a deep breath: in through his nose, out through his mouth. Now that the full moon was over, it was much easier to control himself.

Even still, Remus hated the fact that his friends had gone against Remus' wishes because of mere curiosity, and he hated that they'd wanted to hear him—didn't they know that it was embarrassing? Remus wasn't a museum. He wasn't something to gawk at!

And he didn't want his friends to hear the horrible noises he must have made when he was transforming—whatever howls and yelps he had made as a wolf—the screaming that he did when he transformed back. Even when he didn't remember screaming, he was sure that he did, because he always found himself in his new form with screams ringing in his ears and a raspy throat.

Yes, Remus was angry with his friends... but it wasn't his place to be so. It wasn't anybody's place, really. They were friends with a werewolf, and they were doing their best. There was no rulebook for that.

"As long as you didn't go down there and try to see me," he finally said. "Better it's me making those noises and not you."

Sirius guffawed and slapped Remus' back. "Ha! Wormtail thought you'd be angry. I knew you wouldn't be angry. That's our Moony."

Remus allowed himself a smile. Yes, everything was better when he just let his friends do what they wanted. It didn't matter, anyhow: the Marauders were forces of nature that couldn't be stopped by any means, so why did Remus even try?

The rest of the morning (and well into the afternoon) was spent at Zonko's, the broomstick shop, and the Three Broomsticks. James and Peter even agreed to go to the bookshop with Remus, but Sirius said that he couldn't stomach that. "Reminds me too much of my parents' library," he said. "It's all stuffy and gross. I'm gonna stay in Zonko's." So he waited in Zonko's, staying out of sight under the Cloak, while the three remaining Marauders browsed the bookshop.

The bookshop reminded Remus a bit of Mitchell's, but he tried not to dwell on it.

Remus' parents gave him some pocket money every year, but he'd never used it all before. His pocket money this year, however, was much more than it had been last year, since the Lupins' money had been inflated a bit by Professor Questus' assets. Remus went ahead and bought a book on duelling.

"Don't you still have that notebook of duelling tips that Professor Questus gave you, though?" whispered James as he watched Remus check out.

Remus stuck the book underneath his arm and led James outside the bookshop. "I finished reading it a long time ago. I still need to memorize it all and figure out how to apply it, but I've read it through multiple times. I figured I'd get another book—after all, Professor Dilley's duelling club is going to start up sometime soon, though, and I want to be ready."

"You'll be the best duellist there," said Peter. "You're the only one who's actually studied duelling. And you trained under a former Auror."

"Yeah, Questus was the best duellist ever, next to Dumbledore," said Remus, "and that will make it all the more embarrassing if I'm not any good."

They promptly found Sirius and went to Honeydukes together, where James bought eleven boxes of Bertie Bott's. Remus even sampled a few with his friends, even though the tastes bothered him immensely.

The world felt so much bigger and brighter when Remus was out of the Hospital Wing, and he wanted to experience everything in it while he still could.

"Did you all read the chapter?" asked Dilley. He was standing in the front of the room next to Max, large hands placed firmly on his stocky hips. "Well?! One of you must have a question! Ask questions! That's what I'm here for!"

There were a few questions, and Dilley answered them all (somewhat) patiently. He gave a quick overview of the next chapter. He gave them a pop quiz, except the pop quiz had absolutely nothing to do with the chapter that they were reading. It was about cursebreaking, just like most everything that Dilley talked about was, and Remus didn't think he had done very well. Once they had finished, Dilley graded each and every one of the quizzes directly in front of them.

Finally, he seemed to be finished. The class listened with rapt attention while he cleared his throat dramatically. Even Max seemed to be intrigued.

"There are fifteen students, in all twelve of my classes, who achieved perfect scores on this quiz," Dilley announced. "They are as follows." Dilley began to list a couple of names that Remus didn't recognize, but one of them, he knew, was Head Girl. Then he heard Basil's name, and he nearly knocked over his inkwell in surprise.

He remembered Basil! Basil was another boy at Hogwarts—a Hufflepuff seventh year—with a chronic illness. He and Remus had met in the Hospital Wing last year; they'd snuck out of the Hospital Wing in the middle of the night to find Madam Pomfrey and had ended up having a marvelous chat. Basil had wanted to be Remus' friend, but Remus had declined for fear of Basil finding out about his condition (that was back when Remus' friends were only just starting to suspect about Remus). Remus still heard Basil in the Hospital Wing every so often—Basil experienced frequent fainting spells and had to be looked after—but he'd never talked to him again.

Remus stayed lost in though until Dilley called his name—and then he really did knock over his inkwell. "Er," he said, doing his best to clean up the mess, "yes, Professor?"

"You got a perfect score on the quiz," said Dilley. "And the remaining four are Lily Evans, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Severus Snape. I was surprised that five out of fifteen were third-years. That's impressive. Clever class you've got here."

Max barked at Remus, who was still trying to clean up the ink. Evans was giving Remus nasty looks, because he'd spilled a bit on her robes. Even Francine looked miffed (but she always looked miffed at Remus. It was an improvement from downright terrified, at least).

Dilley Vanished the ink impatiently. "Those of you who got a perfect score, I'd like you to stay after. The rest of you can skedaddle. Class dismissed."

Peter skulked off, clearly feeling left out, and then Remus was alone in the classroom with Evans, Snape, James, and Sirius. And Dilley, of course, who was a large and imposing presence all on his own.

"Okay!" said Dilley, clapping his hands. "There is a war on the horizon—"

Remus was reminded of Professor Questus, but he tried not to think about that.

"—and I want Hogwarts to be as safe as possible! So we're going to go on adventures, scouring the castle for signs of curses, and then break them before they can hurt anyone else! We're going to make this castle as safe as humanly possible! Your perfect quiz scores have hereby officially inducted you into the Association of… no, the Dilley… the Curse-Breaking… ah, the name's still in progress. But it's a club, and you'll all be a part of it, along with the ten other students who were chosen!"

"I have to work with them?" said Evans, wrinkling her nose at James and Sirius. Snape didn't look pleased, either.

"You'll have to work with many people over the course of your life, Evans, like it or not. Get used to it."

"Yeah," said James. "I, for one, can't wait to work with Snape. We're going to have so much fun together, aren't we? I went shopping at Zonko's on Saturday… just for you." He leered at Snape, who scooted his chair away from James even more.

"Good!" said Dilley. "I'm glad to see that some of you already know each other! We'll meet on Thursdays. You're dismissed. We'll talk here, Thursday, six pm sharp. Got it?"

"Yes, sir!" said Sirius with a salute.

"When is Duelling Club starting up?" asked Remus.

"Probably sometimes next month. Professor Flitwick and I are still working out the details. Besides, curse-breaking is far more important! Now scram!"

Remus scampered out of the classroom, following closely behind his friends. He wasn't sure how to feel about all this.

They met up again on Thursday, just as Dilley had asked. Unfortunately, Dilley was late (perhaps on purpose), so all fifteen of them were crammed into a small classroom, utter strangers to one another. It was unbelievably awkward.

That is, until Basil burst into the room, loose sheets of parchment flying out of his bag and shaggy brown hair mussed. "I'm sorry I'm late!" he panted. "I know that you said six pm sharp, but I sort of tripped in the corridor and tumbled down half a flight of stairs, but don't worry! I'm okay…" He blinked. "Oh. Dilley's not here, is he?"

"No," said Evans. "But Max is." She gestured to Max, who was staring at Basil reproachfully.

"Ah," said Basil. "Well. Max isn't going to snitch, is he?"

"I doubt it," said Remus. "But you never know. I'm told he's a very clever dog."

Basil's mouth fell open, and then it split into a very wide grin. "Remus! It's you! I didn't think I'd ever see you again! I saw you round the corridors, on occasion, but I never got up the courage to talk to you…."

"Hi," said Remus. He'd thought that Basil would be angry at him, for some reason, but he didn't seem to be; instead, he slid into the seat directly next to Remus (James was sitting on Remus' other side, and Sirius was next to James).

"And you're James Potter," babbled Basil. "My sis is a huge fan. Her name's Saffron. Do you know her?"

James ran his hand through his hair and grinned lazily. "Oh, Saffron… yeah, she tried out for Beater last year, didn't she? Didn't make it. Pity. She trying out again this year?"

"Yes!" said Basil, the words practically exploding out of his mouth. "She'll make it this year. I know it!"

"I'll be playing Beater, too," said James, and Basil looked as if he was going to have a heart attack from excitement. "We'll be partners if she makes it."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Confident there, mate."

"Have no reason not to be," James chortled.

A few sixth-year girls started chatting, and then the rest of the students followed suit. As soon as the room was loud enough to cover the sounds of a new conversation, Basil leaned over to Remus. "How's that... genetic disease of yours?" he whispered.

"Getting much better, actually," said Remus, recognizing the lie that he had told to Basil on the day they'd met. He glanced sidelong at his friends. "Much better," he amended. "I'm feeling great. How's yours?"

"Eh," said Basil noncommittally. "Same as ever. What do you suppose Dilley's going to have us do?"

Remus recognized the tone in Basil's voice, not to mention the fact that his heart rate had increased significantly and he seemed to be sweating a bit. He was very reluctant to talk about his disease, for whatever reason. No matter. Remus wouldn't make Basil talk about it. "I'm not sure," said Remus. "I'm feeling a bit apprehensive."

"Me too," confessed Basil. "Most everyone knows about my disease now, unfortunately. Sorta fainted a few more times in the middle of class. Some kid got the whole story out of me, and now it's spread all around the seventh-years. Everyone knows."

"Ah…" said Remus. So that was why Basil had been reluctant to discuss it—he had probably been doing far too much of that recently. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah. My fainting's a little bit more frequent than it used to be, so I suppose it was inevitable. But I'm really worried about fainting in front of all these people. Especially Valencia." Basil lowered his voice to a whisper and jerked his head towards the Head Girl. "I've got… well, I'm afraid I fancy her just a bit. If I happen to faint, could you just make sure that no one steps on me? And that I don't hit my head, if at all possible."

"I could use a Reviving Charm," said Remus.

"That's no good; I'll just faint again. Have to wait till my blood pressure raises again. Just make sure I don't look stupid in front of Valencia, okay? And keep me away from the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey wants me to go to her whenever I faint, but I... well, I don't want to do that."

Remus smiled. "Of course I'll help. I'm rather sick of the Hospital Wing, too."

"Good," said Basil, evidently relieved. "I like you a lot, Lupin."

"You're not so bad yourself."

It was another five minutes before Dilley stalked into the room. "You're all still here. Good," he said, not even acknowledging the fact that he'd been late. "Today we're going to split up into groups. Seven on one team, eight on the other. I want to put the third years together, since they're the youngest, but I'll need two volunteers to join their team."

Basil's hand flew into the air. "I'll do it!" he said.

"Good," said Dilley. "I need one more person."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Remus heard Valencia's voice from behind him. "I'll do it, too," she said, smiling at Dilley with her perfectly-glossed lips.

Remus watched Basil's mouth twisted as he desperately tried not break into a goofy grin.

"Perfect," said Dilley. "That's that, then. Team One—the one with Valencia—you come back next week. Same time, same place. Team Two can come back tomorrow. Now get out of my classroom."

"How do you know Basil Huckleby?" asked James that night in the dormitory.

Remus was trying to hold Francine as gently as possible, but she kept trying to squirm away. "Met him in the Hospital Wing last year," said Remus. "He—well, I suppose it's common knowledge now—he has a chronic illness. We could talk about things. We had similarities… though being a werewolf isn't technically a disease."

"So does he know…?"

Remus made a face. "Gosh, no. He doesn't know I'm a werewolf. He knows hardly anything about me. But he's really nice, isn't he?"

"I think so," said Peter.

"You think everyone is nice, Wormtail," said James. "Oi, Moony, did you know that Wormtail got letters from Pensley all last summer? A bit like you got letters from John, except... well, a very different person."

"What?" said Remus, accidentally squeezing Francine too hard in shock. Francine squeaked, and he quickly apologized and put her back into her container.

"Yep. They've been writing about poetry and things, though they've mostly stopped now that Pensley is busy writing her new book."

"I... wow. That's a lot."

And it was a lot. It was horrifying. Shocking. COnfusing. Remus knew that Pensley had liked Peter, and he was happy that Peter had a pen-friend... but he couldn't help feeling a bit betrayed. "Pensley?" he repeated, hoping that it wasn't true.

Peter stuck his chin out. "She said that I was the most promising student she'd ever come across."

Yes, Remus really did feel betrayed, even though there was no sense in it. He so wanted to feel happy for Peter, but he'd hated Pensley so much, and he just wanted to be rid of her. Yes, that was why Remus felt betrayed, because Peter had known how much Remus despised Pensley, yet he was writing to her anyway... but there was another emotion, too, that Remus couldn't quite place at first.

Jealousy.

Not because it was Pensley, of course. Remus would have hated writing letters to Pensley, so he didn't envy Peter for doing that. But... Remus missed writing letters to Professor Questus.

Remus had completely relied on Professor Questus as a lifeline, as someone to talk to whenever he was stressed, for advice… and, like Peter's newfound relationship with Pensley, Professor Questus had thought that Remus was promising. Professor Questus had taught Remus to duel, something that Questus had loved himself. Professor Questus had helped Remus through every rough patch that Remus had come across since his first year… and he'd even taken him in when his parents had died… wait, no, that had never happened. But still!

Now, Remus no longer had any of that. But Peter did?

Peter wasn't a werewolf! Peter didn't need someone to talk to like Remus did, because Peter didn't experience the pain and prejudice about which Remus had discussed with Professor Questus whenever it become too much. Why did Peter have a mentor like that? It wasn't fair.

Remus worked his jaw, trying to neutralize the negative emotions welling up inside of him. None of this was rational. Making Peter feel guilty for writing to Pensley wasn't going to bring Questus back, nor would it make Remus feel any better. Remus wasn't being rational at all—he was being totally selfish and ungrateful, and he needed to stop.

He was undermining Peter's troubles just because Peter wasn't a werewolf, and it wasn't fair of him to do so. Just because people didn't have to transform every month didn't mean that they had perfect lives. Bad things did not become good things just because there were worse things out there.

Besides, Remus hadn't lost everything when Questus died. He had three friends, and James and Sirius accepted him much more than they accepted Peter. Remus had Madam Pomfrey. He had a relatively close relationship with Professor Dumbledore—closer than the other students at Hogwarts, at least. He had two parents, whilst Peter only had one. Even Professor McGonagall had a relationship with Remus that she did not have with Peter. And Peter didn't have a toad or a Bowtruckle.

Remus had not lost his only means of support. Even after losing Questus, Remus still had more people to talk to than Peter did.

Remus decided that he wasn't envious, nor did he feel betrayed. He only... well, he missed Professor Questus. He missed him so much he felt sick sometimes. He missed him so much that Remus felt he was the center of the world, because nothing else could possibly exist with such a massive hole in Remus' life. Remus missed Professor Questus to the point that he was thinking irrationally, and Questus would have hated that.

So he forced a smile, ignoring the snake-like creatures twisting in his stomach. "Tell me more," he said, and Peter jumped into a starry-eyed story about the things that Pensley had told him about life and magic and writing poetry. And Remus didn't envy Peter, not one bit.

But even so, Remus made sure to use the Pensieve before he fell asleep. He didn't want any nightmares—not tonight. And his stomach still felt all twisty for some reason.

But Remus Lupin did not envy Peter. Peter was his friend—his best mate—and by golly, Remus was going to be happy for him.

He breathed: in through his nose, out through his mouth. Then he thought of sheep until he fell asleep. He hadn't needed to count sheep for a long time, but it felt necessary tonight.

AN: A very merry Christmas (for those of you in EST time or earlier!).