Remus stayed in his dormitory all day the next day, trying to work up the courage to watch a full moon memory for his Arithmancy project.

He suspected that his friends weren't going to be back all day. It was ten in the morning, and they had been gone since before Remus had woken up. It was odd to wake up in the morning without the chatter of his friends, the footsteps and murmurs of his parents, or the rustling of Madam Pomfrey's skirt. Remus had opened his eyes, and he hadn't heard anything but the faint noise of students in the corridors and the beating of his own heart.

He had gotten dressed alone. He had brushed his teeth alone. He had changed the dressings on his leg alone. He was glad about that, actually: it had hurt very much, and the wound was still kind of awful. It was still rather deep, though Madam Pomfrey had managed to seal most of it, and there were streaks of bruising and broken skin running all up and down his leg. It wasn't very comfortable to walk on, but Madam Pomfrey had given him enough Pain-Relieving Potion for a week (as long as he took very, very small doses and didn't take any for the nighttime. Pain-Relieving Potion wasn't good for long-term use, and it couldn't be taken twice within twenty-four hours).

Remus didn't go down to breakfast that morning, even though he knew that Madam Pomfrey would be furious. He was rather afraid that his friends would be there, and he didn't really want to face them. He rummaged through James' trunk and nicked a few Chocolate Frogs. He was certain that James, who got sweets from his parents every week, wouldn't miss them.

Now Remus was sitting on the floor, left leg bent and right leg stretched out to soothe the wound, staring at the empty Pensieve with fear in his heart.

He wasn't sure he was going to be able to do this.

He had a small chart with every single variable that he could think of to his left. He had a plan, too: he'd go in, measure something, come back out, jot it down, and then go back in.

But here he was, staring at the Pensieve, and he still hadn't done it.

He almost wanted to wait and do it another day, but that didn't make any sense. No, he'd do it now, when he had plenty of time, and when the memory was still perfectly fresh.

Just as he was getting ready to extract the memory, he heard his friends coming down the corridor. Remus considered hiding, but there was no reason to hide from them. He was being silly. Instead, he awkwardly waited until they entered the room.

"Hullo, Moony!" said James. "What are you doing? Ooh! Are you getting ready to watch that full moon memory for your Arithmancy project?"

"Er, yeah," said Remus.

"Oi! Did you nick my Chocolate Frogs?"

Remus looked at the wrappers on the floor. "Yeah," he said again. "Didn't feel up to going down for breakfast."

"Are you okay? Are you hurt? How's your leg? Can you walk down the stairs? We can get you food, you know."

"Give it a rest," said Remus, rolling his eyes. "I'm fine. Now, er… I know you've been out of the dormitory for hours, but… I want to do this alone, sort of. I've never seen a full moon memory before."

"I can go in with you," said James automatically. "It'll be fun."

"What?" Remus could practically feel his eyes bulge out of his head. "No! That's insane! You can't… I mean, it's horrible. You can't possibly… no!"

"You shouldn't have to do it alone!"

"Are you kidding? I do it alone every month for real!"

"Yeah, but you shouldn't have to do that."

"What…? No, I… what are you talking about?" Remus spluttered. "James, you absolute idiot! I'd kill someone! What do you mean 'I shouldn't have to do it alone'? Of course I should!"

"Hm, okay," said James, but he didn't sound convinced.

Remus stood up, ignoring the pain in his leg, and pointed his wand at James. "If you're planning on trying to find me on the full moon, then I'll blast you into next week before you can get yourself killed," he hissed.

James held up his hands. "Merlin's beard, Moony! Fine! No one's going to come find you on the full moon. We're only saying…"

"Don't care what you're saying." Remus sat back down with a slight groan and shook his head. "Please don't even entertain the notion."

"John was right," James mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Go on, Remus… just let me come in with you."

"I'm going in about ten times," said Remus. "Have to measure loads of different variables."

"Just let us come the first time."

"No. I'm not letting you see that. You're thirteen."

"So are you!"

"Well, I'm a werewolf," said Remus angrily. "Why don't you just go leave me alone like you've been doing for the past couple of weeks, James?"

He hadn't meant to say that—it was extremely self-pitying and ungrateful of him to do so. James looked at him, stunned. "Has that really bothered you?" he asked

Remus shrugged. He didn't want to lie. He'd been doing enough of that in his first year. "It's a lot more pleasant when you come to visit me," he admitted, "but it's not fair to expect you to do so. I shouldn't have said that."

James pursed his lips. "I'm really sorry, mate. We didn't know you genuinely wanted visitors. John told us last year that your… condition… was isolating and that you wanted visitors, even though you wouldn't say it, but…"

"But you're just so quiet," said Peter. "You always seem to want to be alone, so we thought you wouldn't mind. We thought that you tolerated our visits… we didn't know that you wanted them."

"Maybe I do just a little," Remus admitted. "You've been doing a lot without me lately, and I only thought… that maybe you didn't want to be my friends anymore. And besides, two weeks in the Hospital Wing was downright awful."

"I can imagine," said Sirius. "I might die if that were me."

"I s'pose we weren't really thinking," said James. "We were really busy, and we sort of got caught up in the moment."

Remus shrugged once again. "It's fine. I really shouldn't have said all that. You're free to do whatever you please." He thought about that for a moment. "Well, not whatever you please. You can't, for instance, watch this memory with me. I actually do want to be alone right now."

James dropped to his knees. "Please," he said. "Please, Remus, I am begging you. Pleeeeaaase. You can't do it alone. I want to see."

Remus made a face. "If you really want to see, then you don't understand at all."

"But it'll be… good for our human transfiguration research! It'll be an educational experience!"

"I am not a test subject."

"But…!"

"No! That's my final answer."

Peter tugged on James' sleeve. "He's not going to say 'yes', Prongs."

James sighed angrily. "You're an idiot, Moony," he said. "Fine. We'll leave. We wanna come another time, though."

"No."

"We'll see about that."

With that, Remus' friends left in a huff. Remus thought that James' last sentence almost sounded like a threat… what if they visited him against his will on the full moon? They would die! Remus nearly stood up to run after them and yell at them a bit more until they understood, but his leg seemed to be stuck in its position. Besides, he was probably being paranoid. He'd been paranoid earlier when he'd thought that his friends didn't like him anymore, and now he was doing it again.

And then it finally hit him. His friends still liked him. They weren't tired of him. He still had friends.

Remus breathed an audible sigh of relief and then looked back at the Pensieve, whose calming white color seemed to be mocking him. He could do this, couldn't he? All he was doing was observing. He'd check to see what time the symptoms started to get bad. He'd leave and write that down. He'd go back in and check to see what time he transformed. He'd go back and write that down. Then he'd go back in and measure the weather conditions… the cloud coverage… the temperature… and anything else he could think of. Then he'd go back out, write all that down, and then go back in and see what time he transformed back.

He could do this.

He brought his wand up to his temple and recalled the memory… and then he dropped the wispy strand into the Pensieve. He watched it float and dissipate. He could do this. It was now or never.

He took a deep breath—it was so deep, in fact, that he started to cough—and then, when he was finished coughing, he plunged his face into the Pensieve before he could change his mind.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the Whomping Willow. He spun around, looking for himself—was he already in there?—no, there he was: he was walking to the Willow with Madam Pomfrey. Remus ran closer. His leg still hurt when he was in a memory (which was strange), but it was bearable.

Memory-Remus was leaning heavily on Madam Pomfrey's arm, his breathing ragged. He was limping slightly from exhaustion. He was quivering slightly, but it wasn't terrible yet. He was pale, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was obviously feverish.

Remus cringed. He'd never seen himself so close to a full moon before. He knew that he looked bad, but he didn't realize that it was that bad.

Now that he wasn't determinedly staring at the ground, he caught Madam Pomfrey's pitying gazes. He cringed at that, too. She was a lot better at hiding pity now than she had been in Remus' first year, but it was still obvious that she pitied him, especially now that Remus was watching her do so with a clear mind and good health.

Remus watched as Madam Pomfrey froze the Willow and half-dragged Memory-Remus down the tunnel. Real-Remus followed.

The Shrieking Shack was nearly as terrifying now as it usually was before a full moon. The wind lashed against the sides of the house. It was still bright outside, but the walls and floor were dark and dusty enough that it created the illusion of something much scarier than broad daylight near a bustling town and a magical castle. Remus watched himself collapse into the armchair.

He watched as Madam Pomfrey asked him whether he was afraid. He watched as Remus demanded she leave. He watched as she climbed back through the tunnel, leaving Memory-Remus afraid and alone.

Remus walked up to himself and stared. He looked awful.

He didn't know that he looked that bad on the full moon, and suddenly, he felt very self-conscious. He wasn't sure exactly how he was going to survive the next one, knowing that he looked so dreadful. It wasn't that Remus was vain or cared very much about his appearance—he already knew that he wasn't particularly attractive like some people—but here, he looked so incredibly weak and fragile, like a baby bird… or a china doll… but not a wolf. Not yet.

Memory-Remus slid off of the armchair and managed to walk to the other side of the room before letting himself collapse again—he sat on the floor, head buried between his knees.

Remus could hear the clock ticking.

He sat down and waited for what seemed like hours, watching himself try to read, recite poetry into the darkness, and overall try to get a grip on himself… and then Remus watched as the symptoms seemed to start becoming unbearable. Memory-Remus was shaking and quivering and clutching his chest and crying a little bit (no, not crying—tearing—Remus didn't cry).

He glanced at the clock. Seven-eighteen. That was much later than he'd expected. He and Madam Pomfrey always left for the Shrieking Shack around five-thirty, but perhaps after he finished the project he could leave nearly an hour and a half later and still be in the Shack before the symptoms made it difficult for him to walk.

He left the memory and wrote down the time (19:18), and then he sighed and told himself to go back.

He had to. This was important. He could do it, couldn't he?

He brought his wand to his temple and recalled the couple of minutes before he'd transformed… and then he dropped it in the Pensieve… and watched it float.

He couldn't stop to think about it too long; otherwise he'd never go in. So he willed his muscles to move, willed his brain to shut off, and then…

No, he'd changed his mind. What was he thinking? He couldn't watch this.

Yes, he could—if only because Madam Pomfrey thought he couldn't!

Professor Questus would say that Remus was being stupid and self-pitying, wouldn't he?

Yes, he would. With that thought, Remus placed his face into the Pensieve, for real this time.

And then he was watching himself once again. He looked terrible; even worse than before. The clock continued ticking, and Real-Remus stood there, terrified, even though he knew he didn't have nearly so much to fear as Memory-Remus did.

The quivering stopped at exactly eight-fourteen, which was also later than Remus had expected. He was going to stay and watch the actual transformation, but he couldn't. He removed his head from the Pensieve just as it started, and then he hurriedly wrote down the time.

Now he had to do it again. Now he had to do it for real. He didn't have to watch the transformation from boy to wolf, but he did have to see what time he'd transform back. At the very least, that meant that he would have to see himself as a wolf—a wolf that had nearly bitten off its leg, no less.

He sat there, staring at the chart that he was filling out, slowly tracing the numbers 20:14 again and again and again. He did not want to do this. He couldn't.

His friends entered the room an hour later. Remus was still staring at the Pensieve.

"Did you do it?" asked James.

"Couple times," said Remus airily, "but I didn't do the last part yet."

"So did you see…?"

"Saw myself waiting for the full moon. Saw a split second of the front end of the transformation."

"But you didn't…"

"See myself as a wolf, no. That's next."

"It's been three hours, mate."

Remus looked at the clock. "Oh," he said. He hadn't realized that he'd been here for so long. "Okay. I'll just… erm… I'll do it on my bed, then. Help me up, someone? My leg hurts a bit."

Peter grasped Remus' wrist and helped heave him to his feet, and Remus only winced a little. "You don't have to," said Peter. "Watch the memory, I mean."

"I… I do, I think. I mean, I want to. Mostly. I'll just do it on my bed." Remus collected his things and spread them out on his bed. Then he drew the curtains shut.

"Moony, please let me come," begged James.

"No."

Remus was starting to think that it would be better with James there, actually, so he thought that it was best to do it as quickly as possible before James managed to convince Remus to let him come. James Potter sure could be persuasive.

The next thing he knew, Remus was standing in the Shrieking Shack again. It didn't take long before he noticed the wolf skulking in the corner.

It took a few seconds before Remus realized that it was actually him. Even though he knew it, deep down, it took a while to register—that was him. That was Remus—Remus John Lupin—in the flesh. That was him.

The creature (Remus) was bigger than Remus had expected—absolutely massive, really. Remus had seen wolves like this before. He'd seen one on the night that he was bitten. His father's Boggart was a werewolf, and Remus saw that one all the time. But it was different, seeing one in person that Remus actually knew to be himself.

The fur was brownish-greyish, thick, and shaggy. The claws were deadly sharp, and the lips pulled back in a silent snarl (Remus wondered for an instant if Memory-Remus could actually see him, but no—that was impossible). The teeth were long and razor-sharp, and Remus had very clear memories of hurting himself with those very teeth.

Remus was frozen in place for a few moments, but then he got closer—ever so slightly—and he saw the nose, which was a little like Max's, and the whiskers (Remus had never really thought about having whiskers. He knew they were there on full moons, but he'd never actively thought the words, "Hey, I have whiskers." He did now).

The ears were cocked, as if listening to something in the distance. Remus tried to remember what he'd been listening to: it was probably the people in Hogsmeade, who always tantalized full-moon-Remus with their happy chattering and distant scents.

Memory-Remus snorted and turned in a circle, and then Remus noticed the tail. He remembered having a tail. He never really understood the purpose of the tail, not even on the full moon. It was just sort of there. He'd never had any reason to wag it or anything. He remembered with a jolt that Greyback's tail had been wagging on that fateful February sixteenth. He didn't like thinking about that, so he kept staring at himself.

There was blood on the floor. There were puddles of saliva and fur. Memory-Remus' leg was injured to the point that he wasn't even standing properly—he was limping on three legs, and the fur on the fourth was wet and dark. Remus walked closer (after all, this particular werewolf could not hurt him), and reached his hand out to touch Memory-Remus' back—his hand went right through, of course. Remus almost wondered what petting a werewolf would be like.

All of a sudden, Memory-Remus turned around, snarled again, and Remus fell backwards, surprised. He squeaked.

This was him… but it reminded him so much of Greyback. He couldn't help feeling like the five-year-old boy that he'd been so many years ago, confronted by a giant wolf with dripping fangs. The comparison, even though it was only in Remus' head, was terrifying. Remus did not want to be compared to Fenrir Greyback. Not for any reason.

The scariest part of Memory-Remus, however, was not the whiskers. It was not the tail. It was not the claws nor teeth. It wasn't even the distant relation to Fenrir Greyback.

It was the _eyes. _

The eyes of Memory-Remus were not yellow and glowing, like a lot of the literature said (a lot of the literature was wrong, anyhow). No, they were Remus' own eyes. They were just the right shade of hazel-brown, and Remus felt for an instant that he was looking into a mirror. That moment was scarier than the whole excursion put together.

Memory-Remus howled, and Remus clapped his hand over his ears and scrambled to the other side of the Shack. Now Memory-Remus was gnashing its teeth and pawing and the ground in agony, and then its snout seemed to change shape, and… Remus couldn't watch this.

It was 7:41. Remus kept his eyes on the clock until the noises of pain stopped (Merlin's beard, that was embarrassing), and then he dared to glance back at his now-human, utterly injured, terrifically-normal self. He looked dreadful, yes, but he had looked infinitely more dreadful as a giant wolf. At least he'd arrived after the most violent, desperate part of the night had already ended—the part when Remus-the-Wolf had realized that escape attempts were futile and took to tearing at his own skin. He was glad that he had missed whatever he had done to his leg. The real memories were still there, yes, but it felt infinitely different watching them from an outside perspective.

He exited the memory and wrote down the time. Then he flopped back onto his pillow.

"Moony?" called James. "Everything okay?"

"Fine," said Remus.

"How did it go?"

"Fine."

"You saw yourself as a wolf?"

"Yeah."

"And it was…?"

"Fine."

"Come on, you've got to tell us more than that," said Sirius.

Remus pulled back his curtains. "I'm absolutely terrifying on the full moon, I'm a lot bigger than I thought I was, and I could murder twelve children in half a second." He tried to sound totally indifferent. "Didn't watch the transformation. I won't if I don't have to."

"I'm so sorry," said James, making a motion as if to pat Remus' shoulder.

Remus moved away. "Don't be. I'm going to bed now, if none of you have anything else to say. Oh, wait! James, would you check over my Arithmancy essays? I'm not sure if they're right, and I really need to be good at that subject if I'm going to finish this project."

"Sure," said James.

For the next hour and a half, James helped Remus with Arithmancy while Sirius bounced a ball against the wall and Peter played with Bufo. James was probably only helping Remus out of pity, but pity was to Remus' benefit every once in a while.

He had a nightmare that night, and James was by his side in a second, patting his head (which was weird, but James would be James) and saying over and over that it was only a dream. Still, Remus couldn't go back to sleep. He went down to the common room and read over his schoolwork for the next couple of hours, waiting for day to come. Peter sat with him after a while, and Sirius threw a paper airplane at him to cheer him up.

Even though Remus' friends were annoying, coddling, and had pretended that Remus didn't exist for the past couple of weeks… they were very good friends indeed.

AN: Hope everyone had a good day :D