Remus' friends did not come to visit him the next day, which was odd. Even when they had classes, they always ate meals with him in the Hospital Wing (when Remus wasn't napping, that was). And, what was even more perplexing, they didn't even have classes today. It was Sunday.

Madam Pomfrey seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Where are your friends?" she asked that evening while reading another letter from Remus' mother.

"Dunno," said Remus. "Maybe Sirius is just really uncomfortable in here. Can't blame him."

"But I'd expect that Potter or Pettigrew would have stopped by to say hello. They know how lonely you get."

Remus rolled his eyes. "I'm not lonely."

"You are lonely. The only company you have is a toad, a Bowtruckle, and me. I'll go check with Professor McGonagall—I'm sure they've just forgotten or something."

Remus reckoned he'd rather his friends make a conscious choice not to visit him, actually, rather than forget he existed completely… but he didn't say so. "Please don't," he said. "I'm sure they have their reasons."

"Too late," said Madam Pomfrey, and then she left.

Remus was completely alone now, and being alone was much worse than being lonely in times like these. Even when Madam Pomfrey wasn't in her office, he always took solace in the fact that somebody was nearby in case something were to go wrong. He liked to be alone on occasion, but doing so while he was so dizzy that he could hardly keep his eyes open, found it hard to breathe because of the pain, and had a bleeding leg… well, it wasn't the right time to be alone, and Remus wished she hadn't left.

Madam Pomfrey understood this, however, and it was only about eight minutes before she returned. "They've been in the library," she said, puzzled.

"Well, yeah. They said that they were going yesterday."

"No… Remus, they've been in the library all day. Since eight in the morning, Professor McGonagall said. She's as puzzled about it as I am."

"Even Sirius?"

"Even him. He got thrown out a couple of times for being too loud, but he's there. And Potter has been dead silent for hours, flipping through books…."

"Books about what? Quidditch? If so, then it's perfectly understandable."

"Minerva wondered about that, too," said Madam Pomfrey. Remus nearly laughed. He and Madam Pomfrey spent so much time together that she occasionally slipped up and called another teacher by his or her first name in front of him. She had even slipped up and called Professor Questus quite the nasty word in Remus' first year, but didn't speak of that.

"Potter said that he was studying Transfiguration," Madam Pomfrey continued, "and he was indeed poring over a copy of a very advanced Transfiguration tome. Pettigrew was writing down whatever Potter told him to, and Black was reading another Transfiguration book… do you have any idea what's going on?"

Remus truly and honestly did not know. "James really wants to do well in all his electives this year," he said, even though he didn't think that that was it at all. "Wants to prove everyone wrong, you know… so maybe he's working on that."

"Perhaps." Madam Pomfrey did not sound convinced, which was well and good, because neither was Remus. "Well. Now that we've solved that little mystery, I'm afraid I need to change the dressings on your leg again."

Remus groaned. "Can't you wait just a few minutes? Let me mentally prepare?"

"No. You needn't suffer through it in your head before doing it for real."

Remus looked away as Madam Pomfrey knelt next to him, knowing that he would likely be a sobbing mess near the end and highly embarrassed about the fact. He'd been mortified about crying in front of Madam Pomfrey when he was younger, yes, but it seemed even worse now that he was thirteen. He was a proper teenager, and teenagers didn't cry.

Bandages always hurt coming off, but Remus' leg was so inflamed and swollen that the removal of this one felt like sheer torture. The dried blood had caused it to stick to what was left of his skin, which was thoroughly unpleasant. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He grit his teeth and curled his fingers, reminding himself that it was not so bad as a transformation, at least. It did not hurt as much as that, so he could handle this.

He'd been so careful not to let anything touch his leg over the past twenty-four hours. He hadn't moved it, even, unless he'd absolutely had to. He had stayed in a lying position nearly all day, even though he felt so much more dignified sitting up, simply because he'd been dreading moving his leg even the slightest amount. But now it had to be touched and jostled; it felt horrible, especially since the dressings had to be tight to be effective.

When it was over, Remus was biting his lip to the point of breaking the skin and quivering all over. Madam Pomfrey gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I'd give you a Pain-Relieving Potion, but you know it doesn't mix well with long-term use of Blood-Replenishing Potion, and I'm afraid you need the latter far more than the former."

There was a numbing solution that would have been an option for any other student. It could have been applied directly to his leg, and then Remus wouldn't have had to endure such high levels of pain. But the solution contained small traces of wolfsbane, and it was very likely that it would inflame the wound even more. Oh, Remus hated being a werewolf.

Madam Pomfrey washed her hands again (which were covered in blood, to Remus' dismay) and offered Remus a Calming Draught (he refused it). "Your leg's getting better," she said. "I know it doesn't feel it, but I promise it's improving."

"Really?" said Remus. His voice was raspy, but he managed to speak all right. "Do you think I'll get to go early, then?"

She sighed. "Stop asking. No. It's getting better, but it's not going to heal like a normal wound. It is cursed, Remus—you know that. Honestly… unless you can come up with a fantastic excuse for limping, you might be here all month."

"ALL MONTH? But, Madam Pomfrey…."

"Remus Lupin."

"No! No, I can't… I can't transform, and then stay in the Hospital Wing all month, and then transform again! I need something in between! Madam Pomfrey, please… I'll do anything."

"You didn't let me finish. I absolutely agree that you shouldn't stay here all month—so you need to start thinking of good excuses, young man. You had a very close call, and it's going to take ages to heal properly."

Remus wanted to argue more, but he knew that it was useless. With a defeated moan, he fell back onto his pillows, stifled a pained gasp when he accidentally moved his leg, and waited for sleep to arrive.

Hours in the Hospital Wing meant that Remus ended up asking the same questions over and over, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. There was nothing else to do, really.

"Who's going to tutor Miles?" he asked Madam Pomfrey for what was probably the third time.

"Professor Dumbledore has agreed to do it himself for the time being."

"Is Dilley angry that I missed his club?"

"Professor Dilley knows your circumstances."

"Did my friends come by when I was asleep?"

"…No, they didn't."

"What about someone else? Anyone?"

"No, Remus."

"I'm bored," he said.

"I know," she replied.

He looked to his left and promptly realized that he'd forgotten all about the parcel and the record player. "Could you hand me that?" he asked Madam Pomfrey, gesturing towards the parcel. Yes, this was just what he needed: a quiet, sedentary activity to keep his mind off of the pain in his leg.

She handed Remus the parcel, and he opened it. Remus had only asked for the twentieth Adamson record, but his parents had sent him ten of them. Remus wondered how on earth the owl had managed to carry it all. "You have the record player?" he asked Madam Pomfrey.

"I do. I'll put it on your bedside table. Do you know how to work it?"

Remus shook his head, a little embarrassed. No, he had no idea how to work a record player. His parents had never owned one—well, not one that Remus could remember—and the one that Professor Questus had left them almost seemed too sacred to touch.

Madam Pomfrey taught him patiently, and it wasn't long at all before Remus heard Adamson's energetic voice floating through the air. He grinned, remembering the afternoons spent listening to this voice with Questus. "Who is this?" asked Madam Pomfrey.

"Alexander Adamson. Werewolf advocate and scientist. Professor Questus was obsessed with this bloke. He had twenty-three records."

"Ah," said Madam Pomfrey. She hadn't liked Professor Questus one bit, so she always looked a bit uncomfortable at the mention of his name. "Yes, I remember that he came across a few of his articles in your first year, didn't he?"

"Yeah. He sent me one for Christmas that year. Adamson's really… well, I should probably warn you that some of this might be a bit gruesome. Adamson's kind of clinical. He likes talking about all of the medical details and such."

Madam Pomfrey gave Remus a very odd look. "Have you forgotten that I'm the matron?" she asked.

"Oh… right." Truth be told, Remus wasn't worried about how Madam Pomfrey was going to handle it. He was worried about how she was going to worry about him handling it—which was convoluted and confusing, but that was how he felt. "I've already heard all these," he said, hoping that it would help her pending shock. "I think they're interesting."

"Hm," said Madam Pomfrey.

Adamson was talking about werewolf bone structure now. "Bones break during a werewolf transformation, yes, but they don't only break—they also actively change shape: they bend about themselves like putty, stretch, lengthen, and grow. Anyone who's ever had Skele-Gro will understand, to a point, how unpleasant this can be—though a werewolf transformation is far worse, since every single one of the bones must change shape, along with the muscles, tendons, skin, and even veins. Save for the eyes, there is not one facet of a werewolf's body, either inner or outer, that does not change with the moon."

Remus grimaced. He didn't mind hearing things like this—he already knew all of it, obviously—but he didn't like the way that Madam Pomfrey was staring at the record player, horrified. He hadn't noticed how gruesome it was with Professor Questus. It was comfortable listening to this sort of thing with Questus; he didn't pity, he found it fascinating rather than disturbing, and he understood that it was just a fact of Remus' life and treated it as such. He'd used to stop the record (even though it took a while to get it going again from the same spot) and then cast a scrutinizing look at Remus, ask, "Is that right?" and then let Remus either nod or further elaborate. It was always right, of course: Adamson was very accurate.

Listening to this with Professor Questus had not been awkward, but it was with Madam Pomfrey—very much so. He almost regretted sending for the records, though he knew that listening to it with his parents wouldn't be all that much better. They would, in fact, be much worse. This was the best time to do it, and Remus was going to take advantage of that.

"It's interesting to note that the brain here also changes structure, though not as much as one would expect. One should also note that werewolf brains are very different from wolf brains, even on the full moon. I talked to a werewolf recently—"

Here, Professor Questus had stopped the record and smiled, satisfied. "He gets all his information directly from werewolves," he'd said. "That's nice, isn't it? I imagine you're tired of people telling you how to feel."

"You just did it yourself," Remus had said.

Questus had scoffed at that. "Am I wrong?" he'd said, and he hadn't been. He nearly never was.

"—who explained to me how that particular process felt," continued Adamson, and Remus tried not to look at Madam Pomfrey's face. "If I may quote her directly…" There was the shuffling of papers, and then Adamson cleared his throat and continued. "I don't feel that part. My head hurts, yes, but really the whole process hurts so much that I couldn't possibly pick out an individual sensation. It doesn't last very long, you understand—though it feels like an eternity—and the whole thing is rather a blur. It doesn't feel as if my mind is reforming and making me into something else; it feels as if I'm going mad from the pain." Another shuffling of paper.

Professor Questus had looked over at Remus at this point, a faraway look in his eyes, and had nodded. "That seems accurate, yes," he had said.

"Like you would know," Remus had said a bit scornfully.

In the present day, however, Madam Pomfrey crinkled her eyebrows and shut off the record player. "Are they all like this?" she said.

"More or less, yeah."

"They're awful! This is terribly graphic!"

"I know it all already."

"So why should you have to listen to it? Why would Questus make you listen to that nonsense?"

"It's not nonsense. It's entirely accurate. Adamson's very researched."

"That doesn't answer my question! Why would he make you hear that? You're delicate! You don't like hearing things like that!"

Madam Pomfrey had that in common with Questus: she really liked to tell Remus how he felt, and, unlike Questus, she was often wrong. "I don't mind it at all!" said Remus. "And I'm not delicate! Look, Madam Pomfrey—I know you were fond of him, but I liked Professor Questus. He treated it like it was nothing at all. He didn't pity, he was always very scholarly, and it was nice to talk about sensitive subjects without feeling like they were sensitive. I enjoyed listening to these with him very much! He was really interested, and it was funny…."

"It's not funny. It's unprofessional."

"Well, he wasn't my professor anymore, was he? He didn't need to be professional. I didn't mind, Madam Pomfrey, I swear it."

"I think you just convinced yourself that you didn't mind because you wanted him to like you."

"He didn't like anyone, so I couldn't have cared less." Remus shifted slightly, ignoring the stabs of pain traveling up his leg. "I like talking about it. I do. Could we keep playing the record, please? There's something in there that I really want to hear."

Madam Pomfrey did not keep playing it. "Remus, you idolize him, but he was not a good person. I don't want you to think that you want to be anything like him."

"Madam Pomfrey! He only died a few months ago!"

"I don't want you to think that you have to talk about things that make you uncomfortable, because you don't."

"I want the right to talk about it!"

"Of course you have the right to talk about it—you just don't have the duty. You owe nobody information, and I don't want you thinking you do, because that's how people manipulate you."

"If I have the right, then I want you to keep playing it. The record doesn't even pertain to our conversation. Please let it play."

Madam Pomfrey sighed, but she let it play.

Remus listened to a few more anecdotes, theories, and more complicated medical jargon before the part that he'd been waiting for finally arrived. Madam Pomfrey was back in the room now (she'd left when Adamson had started discussing a werewolf's pain tolerance), and she was pulling faces at Adamson's relentless attempts to explain the unexplainable horrors of being a werewolf.

"Interestingly enough," said Adamson, "amputated limbs do not carry over to a werewolf form. There are certain things that a full-moon-werewolf must have, and four legs is one of them. Injuries may carry over, depending on the severity, but werewolves often partially heal when shifting into their wolf forms—after all, a werewolf is dangerous by definition, so anything that impairs the werewolf's danger will heal upon the transformation. That said, injuries from wolf forms do carry over to human forms, and are sometimes made worse by the wear and tear of the jarring shift from human to wolf."

"There!" said Remus. "That's what I wanted to know. I wasn't really listening all that much when I heard this one with Professor Questus. I was too busy laughing at him."

"What was he doing?" asked Madam Pomfrey faintly.

"He just had a funny expression, that's all. He was fascinated by these. Loved Adamson. Adamson is probably one of the only werewolf researchers who talk to werewolves instead of just using them as test subjects, so he knows a lot—and since he's not a werewolf himself, he's actually produced. Self-produces, mostly, in anti-werewolf times like these, but he's still the most popular pro-werewolf scholar on the planet." Remus smiled. "Professor Questus could ramble about him for ages."

"I can see why he liked him," said Madam Pomfrey. "He always wondered about those things. Didn't allow you any privacy."

Remus summoned all his courage. "Madam Pomfrey," he said carefully, "please. He's dead. I know you had a bit of a grudge, but I don't want to argue about whether he was or wasn't a good person. He sort of wasn't, and I get that—but he's dead, okay? There's no point in continuing to berate him."

Madam Pomfrey looked at Remus, evidently stunned. "You don't often speak up like that," she said. Remus didn't respond, and then Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Which means that you're very serious about it. I get it. Understood. I shall certainly stop."

"You never told me about that grudge, by the way," said Remus. "It sounded like something happened between you. You might as well tell me now."

Madam Pomfrey pressed her lips together.

"Is it about his girlfriend being killed by a werewolf? My parents already told me about that. So did Professor Questus, actually."

Madam Pomfrey blinked. "Er… yeah. Yeah, that was it."

Then she walked out of her office a bit briskly, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "you promised, Poppy…."

Remus didn't know what to think, but he had complete faith that Professor Questus would have told him if it had truly been important. After all, Questus had a great many faults, but withholding information was not one of them. With this in mind, Remus sat back and listened to the rest of the speech, and it distracted him from the pain in his leg wonderfully.