Even though it seemed like it would never, ever happen, Remus eventually left the Hospital Wing.

He did so on a Saturday, which meant that he had plenty of time to catch up with his teachers on work that he had missed. It was October twenty-seventh, and Remus had been in the Hospital Wing for a little more than two weeks. If he'd known that he would be out for so long, then he would have picked up his work beforehand so that he could do it in the Hospital Wing—an action that wasn't often necessary when he only missed three days, but was certainly necessary when he had missed two weeks. Remus had a newfound determination to start his Arithmancy project, because lack of preparation had certainly hurt him this month.

He stopped by the dormitory first so that he could drop off his things. He hoped that his friends would be there, because he hadn't seen them in ages…

They weren't.

James' school robes were thrown haphazardly over his bed, and his Quidditch gear was gone. That made sense, seeing as Quidditch tryouts were in only a few weeks, but Remus was still mildly angry that James had skipped out on visiting Remus for some stupid Quidditch practice. Remus had even been writing in the notebook intermittently, but no one had responded. Not even Peter, who often sappily stared at the notebook before bed because he was so surprised and happy that he was included.

Had they forgotten that Remus was abandoned, all alone, in the Hospital Wing? Or had they seen his desperate pleas to be entertained and distracted and just… ignored them?

Well, his pleas hadn't been that desperate. Remus wasn't downright pitiful. But he'd definitely implied—if only slightly—that some company would be really nice in his time of need.

Remus set his full-moon satchel down and picked up his school bag. He shot one last, scornful look at James' discarded school robes and then went to stop by his classes to pick up his work.

He went to Professor Finley first, seeing as he'd missed a test. Professor Finley squinted at him as he entered. "Lupin? Where have you been? I thought you'd dropped my class." He almost sounded disappointed that Remus had not, in fact, dropped his class—but Remus didn't dwell on it. He knew that Professor Finley wasn't totally comfortable around Remus, and that was perfectly okay.

"Oh, no, sir," he said earnestly. "Runes are fascinating. I'd never. I was only… indisposed. Injured. Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey only just let me out, and I thought I might pick up my schoolwork so that I can do some this weekend."

"Ah, yes. She might have mentioned that," said Finley. "You won't be able to catch up completely, I'm afraid—Ancient Runes is a difficult subject, and it moves extremely quickly. You're good friends with James Potter, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. He seems to have an aptitude for my subject, so you may ask him if you have questions. We've covered the next ten chapters in the textbook, up to the conjugation of irregular verbs and the believed magical properties of conjugation. We've also translated an ancient fairy story. I can lend you a class copy." Finley ducked beneath his desk and rummaged around for a few moments, and then he pulled out a small paperback book. "There. Come back as soon as possible with a fully translated text. It's not very long, but it should take at least three hours to translate. We did it together in class."

"Okay," said Remus. "Yeah, I can do that."

Finley was obviously uncomfortable around Remus, so Remus felt bad for keeping him... but he still had a few questions. He lagged behind for a moment, wondering whether he should ask them. On one hand, Finley clearly wanted Remus to leave. On the other hand, Remus would feel guilty if he didn't take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with which Dumbledore had provided him. On the other hand (Remus didn't have three hands, but this was metaphorical), Remus didn't want to risk another person hating him. The whole business with Craff made him exhausted enough. On the other hand, though, Remus was curious. He genuinely wanted to know the answer to this question, and he felt he would burst if he didn't ask it.

Remus sat there, warring with himself, and after a long, hard battle... the second and fourth hands won.

"Er… and… I had another question," Remus said slowly. Finley nodded reluctantly, so Remus cautiously proceeded. "Okay, so in chapter eight, the textbook says that some ancient runes were inspired by Latin. But I don't recognize any Latin in anything that we're learning. What parts are inspired by Latin, exactly?"

Finley looked a bit taken aback. "You've read up to chapter eight?"

"There wasn't much else to do, sir," said Remus with a wry smile. "I only read up to nine, though, so I'll have to do the final one this weekend."

"Do you know any Latin?"

"Well… er, vaguely. I could probably translate something simple."

Finley sill looked a bit taken aback. "How do you know Latin?"

"Same answer as before. There wasn't much else to do. I was quarantined at home for… er, six years. A bit more than that, actually. It was dangerous to be out playing with other children." Remus winced at his own wording: it had made him sound like he was the dangerous one. "I mean… dangerous for me… I wasn't about to hurt anyone, but…."

Finley mercifully interrupted his babbling with an unexpectedly warm smile. "I learned a bit of Latin after I left Hogwarts, myself. Fascinating language. Always nice to see someone with an appreciation for it, especially since wizards tend to look down on Latin—it was popular at around the same time as runes were, so most wizards opt for rune study instead. To answer your question: no, runes are not like Latin. The alphabets are different, as is the vocabulary and such. The nouns, however, are declined based on what part of speech the word is—that's like Latin. And some of the later words are derived from Latin, especially since runes gained much popularity during the time of the Roman empire. Caseuhz, for instance, derives from the Latin word for—"

"Cheese."

"Right. And drazo is dragon. Runes borrows from a lot of languages: it's a lot like English in that sense. There's much superstition surrounding it, and the words were passed on through travel and word-of-mouth. It borrows from Latin because the ancient Romans were seen to be the most magically successful group of people in history—that's why so many spells derive from Latin. There was a real magical revolution right around that time."

"We talked about that in History of Magic," said Remus. "One of the mysteries of the ancient magical world, isn't it? Some think that Latin gained popularity because the words derived from spells—"

"—and some think that the spells derived from popular words, yes. Rare that I find someone who actually listens in History of Magic."

Remus smiled. "Well, language interests me."

"And me as well, obviously. Do let me know if you have any other questions, Lupin. I'm always happy to answer them."

"Thanks, Professor."

"How much of the textbook have you read beyond chapter eight? It doesn't sound like you stopped there."

"Er… I might have flipped through it a bit past that."

Finley smiled. "That's always good to hear." Then, after a pause: "I would be happy to help you translate that fairy story, by the way. I've some free time today."

Remus grinned, surprised out of his wits. "That would be amazing, sir! I have to pick up some more schoolwork, but… may I come this evening? Six, maybe?"

"That's perfect. Feel free to bring dinner along with you and eat it in here. Translating runes can be a grueling process, and I rather find that food helps soften the blow. And you may make up the test whenever you feel you're ready, as long as you do so before I assign the next one."

Remus couldn't stop smiling as he left the Runes classroom. Who knew that all it took was some rambling about Latin to get someone who was afraid of werewolves to like him?

Craff was next, and she was not nearly so kind. That was to be expected, though.

"Who's been helping Miles?" she asked.

"Professor Dumbledore."

"Why doesn't he help Miles all the time?"

"He… I mean, he's the headmaster. He's busy, I expect."

"Then I don't know why he let you tutor him, since you're out doing who-knows-what once a month."

Dumbledore had said that he would talk to her, Remus remembered. Hadn't he? Why was she still so hostile? "Anyway… I just need my assignments," blurted Remus, unsure of how to respond to Craff's criticism. "How far did you go in the textbook?"

"Chapter twelve," she said snippily.

Remus had read to chapter twenty-eight. He was trying to finish the book as soon as possible so as to start and finish his project in time. "Okay," he said. "Thank you."

"Four essays due. Here are the prompts." She shoved a piece of parchment into his hands. "Due Monday."

"Yes, Professor. And, er… never mind." He'd been about to ask her another question about his project, but he figured he'd just ask Dumbledore.

He left the classroom as soon as possible.

Sprout told him not to worry about the test. "And as long as you read the assigned chapters, I won't make you do the practical lessons," she'd said. That was very kind of her, though Remus suspected it was only because she didn't want to spend any more time with him than she had to. She didn't hate Remus, but Remus sometimes got the impression that she wasn't thrilled by the presence of a werewolf in her classroom.

Slughorn asked him to make up a test right then and there, and Remus did so admirably. His potion was not perfect, no, but it was decent. He'd get an A, at least.

Sidus hadn't assigned a test, but he'd had his class fill out a few star charts. Remus decided that he'd finish those in the library the next day.

Kettleburn told Remus that "learning about creatures can't be done in textbooks", but had assigned him reading anyway, and had given him full points for the week since he'd tamed Francine.

McGonagall and Flitwick both gave him comprehensive mini-lessons, gave him all the homework (and explained the instructions for each part), recommended books for further understanding that he could find in the library, and told him that the work wasn't due for a week and a half.

It was pretty clear who Remus' favorite teachers were.

Remus arrived in the library directly after speaking with his teachers to get started on his homework. He sat near Madam Pince (who always looked more comfortable when she could easily see Remus and make sure he wasn't eating the students and tearing apart the books or something), and pulled out his Arithmancy homework to do first, because Craff would be the least forgiving if he turned it in late.

He wrote the first essay, but the words didn't seem to flow out of him like they usually did. He felt like he wasn't making any sense—like something was blocking his mind—like he had forgotten how to write. He crumpled it up and started over.

He was starting on the second essay when his friends entered the library. James was wearing his library disguise, and he also reeked of sweat (though Remus wasn't sure that anyone else could smell it). James was whispering to Sirius—something about stags and rats and dogs, though Remus couldn't make heads or tails of it. Remus wanted to clear his throat loudly so as to alert them of his presence (perhaps they'd explain why they'd abandoned their suffering friend in the Hospital Wing), but Madam Pince was still staring at him, and Remus was a bit frightened of her.

Suddenly, James looked over at Remus and nearly jumped out of his skin. "MOONY!" he yelled. Remus cringed. So did Madam Pince.

"Shhhh!" she hissed, and Remus started packing up his things as quickly as possible.

"Come on," he whispered to his friends, throwing his satchel over his right shoulder and walking very briskly out of the library.

For one terrifying second, Remus was afraid that they wouldn't follow him.

But they did, albeit slightly reluctantly. They congregated in a corner of the corridor; no one else was around, so they could talk freely. "Er, I'm back," said Remus. He didn't really know what else to say. It wasn't as if he was about to confront them about not visiting him, because Remus hated confrontations.

"Yeah, welcome back," said Sirius. "Is your leg okay? It looked bad."

"You were out for two weeks," said Peter anxiously. "That's forever."

James didn't say anything; he just stared at Remus with a bit of a frightening expression on his face.

"My leg's fine, but I'll be limping," said Remus. "It hurts a bit. I know it's a lot to ask, but if you could… I dunno, walk next to me sometiems so that the other students… don't notice? Anyway… yeah. The full moon was pretty bad this time. Worse than it's been since the first December full moon of first year, I think, except I was out for longer this time because I nearly tore off my leg."

"Don't," said Sirius, making a face.

"You're gonna have to get used to it, Sirius," snapped James.

Remus stared. "What are you on about?"

"Ignore James," said Sirius to Remus. "You're okay now, though?"

"Yeah, mostly. Madam Pomfrey wants me to come by before breakfast every day for checkups... but I think I'll be fine. I was… I mean, I was wondering…" Remus was bright red, and he was painfully aware of the fact—but he kept going nonetheless. "I was only wondering why you didn't visit me this time."

"We did visit you," said Sirius. "The first day, remember?"

"Yeah, but… I was there for two weeks. It's fine, of course. You're not obligated to visit me or anything. I was only wondering... because you used to come every day during meals, at least, and then afternoons and evenings besides."

"Well, we were busy, mate," said James. "I'm going out for Beater soon, and I've got Div and Muggle Studies and all that. I'm taking all the electives, remember?"

"I was doing Arithmancy and Ancient Runes in the Hospital Wing. It might have been nice to study with you." Remus got even redder. "But… you didn't have to. I was only reminding you that the option was open."

"I like studying in the dormitory and the library. It's nice and quiet."

"As opposed to me, who is mean and loud?"

James laughed. "You know what I mean," he said, but Remus didn't. He didn't know at all.

"I wrote to you in the notebook," he said, still feeling absolutely betrayed. He tried not to sound it, but the quavering in his voice betrayed him, too—it seemed liked everyone and everything was a traitor today, even his voice. "You never responded."

"Oh!" said James. "We're sorry! We should have checked. We were only busy."

"Busy," repeated Remus, thinking of all the times that he'd been stuck in bed, unbearable pain coursing through his body, in dire need of a distraction or something—in want of a small shred of happiness to chase away the darkness that always seemed to occupy the back of his mind after a full moon—just something, anything that wasn't the torturous monotony of the Hospital Wing. "Busy," said Remus again. "Okay… yeah, okay. That's fine. I only wanted to know."

Sirius snorted at Remus' expression. "I don't see any Dementors," he said, "so lighten up, mate. You've no reason to be so upset, especially since you told us last year that we weren't expected to visit you. In fact, you didn't even want visitors. So stop looking like someone just cast the Killing Curse on your Puffskein."

"Unless you really want us to visit you," said James, staring at Remus as if he could see right through him. "Like Sirius said, we never got the impression it was something you actually wanted. Do you want us to visit?"

"Erm." Remus looked past them at a wall. "Well. You don't need to, but it's nice sometimes."

"Okay. We're not trying to be cruel, but... if you tell us it's not a necessity, we won't consider it a necessity. It's as simple as that."

Remus sighed. "I'm sorry for all that," he said. "I was only wondering. So… anything interesting that I missed?"

"Nah," said James. "Just lots of revising. My library disguise is getting some good use."

Where was the James who always rambled to Remus about the tiniest things in the Hospital Wing after difficult transformations? Where was the James who would detail every facet of his Quidditch practice, down to the wind speeds and weather conditions? Where was the James who pitied Remus? Remus never liked pity, but it was better than full-blown apathy.

Suddenly, Remus had a terrible thought.

What if his friends didn't really want to be his friends anymore? What if he was becoming tiring? They'd done so much for him, so it was the least he could do to retreat a bit and let them have some time to themselves. Right?

With that horrible thought in mind, Remus blinked hard, smiled, and said, "I'm going back to the dormitory. You can go finish up whatever you wanted to do in the library."

"Really?" said James. He looked thrilled, which hurt Remus even more. Why was he so excited to be rid of Remus? Wasn't he going to invite him to go to the library with them? "Brilliant. Let's go," continued James, which implied that the answer was a decided "no".

Remus watched them go. They were all laughing and talking—even Peter—and Remus reckoned that wounds like these hurt almost as much as the wound on his leg.

Almost.

Remus' friends did not return to the dormitory. Remus almost considered going to the library and joining them, but he truly didn't want to bother them—and besides, he already had a prior commitment with Finley.

He showed up in Finley's classroom with his dinner, as requested, and Finley was already there with his own. "Welcome," he said. He still sounded a bit apprehensive (or was it simply Remus' imagination?), but he definitely wasn't scared. That was a step forward, at least.

Remus sat down and pulled out the fairy story, two pieces of parchment, and some ink. "I've never translated anything before, save the sentence samples in the textbook," he said.

"I figured. It's all right, I'll help. We did this together in class, and I plan on bringing you fully up to speed. Now, a bit of background—this story was written in the seventeenth century. People believed that runes had magical properties, so they used to carve good luck charms on walls. Many graduated from that and wrote full stories in the hopes that one of the main themes would come true. Runes were believed to affect the future."

"But they don't?"

"Probably not, but the history of them is still a fascinating subject. We can learn a lot about these ancient civilizations by studying how they used runes. Learning about runes reveals their wishes, which reveals their values, which reveals their motivations and later explains their actions. It's truly fascinating."

"Wow. Yeah." Remus opened the story to the first page and stared at the markings. "That first word is… it means 'a long time ago', doesn't it?"

"It does, actually! I would recommend reading the whole page before writing any of it down. Sometimes you learn through context clues."

"Right. Okay."

Together, Remus and Professor Finley puzzled through the story—Finley corrected Remus whenever he got a word wrong and gave him hints whenever he couldn't remember a translation or couldn't figure out what a word meant in context. It was fun, actually, and Finley had been right—it was so much better with food.

They wrapped up about two hours later. "You're quicker than the rest of my class," said Finley. "Very well done."

"It was a good story," said Remus. "But… you said that the writers created it because they wanted it to come true."

"A main theme of it, yes."

"The story was about a whale that became human… and then died in the end… because it turned back into a whale ten miles from the sea. Who would want that?"

Finley laughed. "I don't know for sure. Can you think of any themes that the writer might have wanted to come true?"

Remus could, actually. He'd want to be human, if only for a little while. Would he sacrifice his life for it? He wasn't sure, but it was still a nice thought.

"I guess… the whale got something that it wanted. It got to be human, which is…" Remus turned red and started over. He didn't want to be self-pitying and make things personal and awkward. "And… people missed it when it died. It had friends, remember? So, even though it was actually a whale and not a human... people had liked it anyway, and its memory lived on, I guess."

Finley looked thoughtful, and a little taken aback. "Most people say it's because the whale got rich near the end of the story after winning a footrace."

"Oh," said Remus. "Yeah, that makes more sense."

"It doesn't, actually," said Finley. "The point of riches, after all, is to use them. The whale got everything that it ever wanted, but it died before it could use any of it. So you're proposing that the memory of a good thing is something to be desired more so than the good thing itself?"

"No," said Remus, "because the whale was dead. It didn't have any memories." Remus thought that over, trying to figure out how to put his thoughts into words. "I suppose I'm saying that some things are worth dying for, and also that making an impact is more eternal than anything else, even life itself. I think that the writer wanted something a bit more eternal than superficial desires—wanted something worth suffering for, maybe."

Finley met Remus' eyes, which was a bit surprising: he seemed to be warming up to Remus, yes, but he still hadn't looked him in the eye. "That's an excellent interpretation."

"Thanks."

Finley hesitated. "May I ask… I mean, you sound like you're making a personal connection, and I'm only wondering how it relates to your own life. It seems like it would. You don't have to answer, of course."

"Oh. Er, yeah. Give me a second to think about how I want to phrase it." Remus went silent, choosing his words carefully. The clock ticked. It reminded him of the Shrieking Shack.

"I live a very dangerous life," he finally started, "and I'm in constant danger of being discovered and possibly killed. So… coming to Hogwarts in the first place was a bit… like that. It was something that was worth it—that was worth possibly dying for—and a whole lot better than what I had before." He twiddled his fingers, staring at the table. "I think that something worth dying for is just as important as something worth living for. Or maybe it's the same thing, I don't know. But… yeah. I feel like a whale sometimes. I'm really only pretending to be human, and I'm quite far away from what's safe."

Remus took a sip of water and swished it around in his mouth like James often did after he took a sip of something. "Professor Dumbledore's here, though, so I assume I'm as safe as I could possibly be. I was really never in any danger—well, kind of, but not really—so I suppose it's not the same thing."

Finley was silent for a moment. "Well, I'm glad the good parts of the story came true for you, even if they didn't come true for the author. And... I sincerely hope that you don't turn back into a whale ten miles away from the sea."

Remus laughed. "Yeah, me too."

His friends didn't arrive back in the dormitory until after curfew. Sirius' leg was bouncing, as it always bounced like that when he was forced to sit still for long periods of time. What had they been doing?

"Did you finish your essays, Moony?" asked James breathlessly. "I can help you if you want. Peter reckoned that you might need me to catch up."

Remus did want a bit of help on a particular Arithmancy concept that he was having trouble understanding, but he didn't want to go to James—not if his friends didn't want to be his friends anymore. He shrugged. "I think I'm okay," he said.

"Minerva took off some points because we were out after curfew," said James, "but we had a lot of work to do. Like, a lot. I'm going back out under the Invisibility Cloak. Need to check some books in the Restricted Section."

"Why?" asked Remus. "What would you possibly need from the Restricted Section?"

"Oh, nothing," said James with a dismissive wave of his hand. "See you in a bit, Moony."

They left.

They did not "see Remus in a bit", actually; Remus was asleep far before they returned to the dormitory—and when Remus woke up the next morning, they had already left. Perhaps they hadn't come back at all.

Remus felt very out-of-place. For the first time since his friends had discovered and accepted his secret, Remus felt like the whale from the story: alone, obtrusive, and very far from home.

AN: Cue Michael Giacchino's "Spider-Man: Far From Home" soundtrack. Highly recommend btw. Great music.