"We're going to do a project today," Dumbledore announced as Remus and James walked into Arithmancy together. They were slightly late (James had gotten held up trying to fit under a bench so that he could pop out and scare students), but Dumbledore didn't seem to mind. "I know we've been doing a lot of independent work since Professor Craff left us, but this is an Arithmancy class and I am determined to teach you Arithmancy—at least, until we can find a suitable new teacher."

"Cool!" said James. "You know, I can be the new teacher if you want. I know all about Arithmancy."

Dumbledore smiled. "I doubt that, James," he said lightly. "Now, if you'll all take out a quill, some parchment, and your textbooks—" there was a flurry of movement— "and open up to page 219."

For the next hour or so, Remus obediently took notes on irregular number substitution and the w-axis.

It felt cruel to admit it, but Dumbledore was actually a very good teacher—better, even, than Professor Craff had been.

"Are you still planning on going home for Christmas holidays?" asked James that afternoon when the Marauders were in the dormitory. Sirius was playing a Dave Hippo song, Remus was working on his project (the w-axis was actually very helpful when doing full moon calculations), and Peter was taking a nap.

"Yeah," said Remus. "Full moon's on the tenth, so it should be pretty easy. I won't even have to transform at home."

"Cool. Maybe we'll pop over and visit. Sirius and I are spending Christmas holidays with Peter."

For an instant, Remus felt a bit left-out. They hadn't invited him—hadn't even told him... but no, he was being silly. They were allowed to do things without him. "That'd be great," he said. "I'm sure Mum and Dad won't mind. And I'm going to try to learn more about that passageway…."

Sirius groaned dramatically. "There's no passageway, Moony," he said.

"There is a passageway."

"No, there's not!"

"There is," insisted Remus, refusing to be put off by Sirius' pessimism. "And it's probably the coolest thing ever. It's all right—I'll allow you to come over and see it, as long as you're nice to me."

"There won't be anything to see," grumbled Sirius, but he didn't argue further.

"Anyway," James said, "Peter and Sirius and me are working on a present for you, Remus, but it won't be ready until…"

"Seventh year," said Peter quietly.

Remus' head swiveled to face Peter. "Seventh year?" he cried. "That's ridiculous! You needn't do anything for me, much less a gift that takes four years to make!"

"Peter's only joking," said James impatiently. "He only means a very long time. But it's the best gift ever. Seriously. The best!"

Remus sighed. "Don't make it too big. I'd feel guilty."

"Oh, it is big. It's huge. You'll love it. And we're doing it no matter what. We only wanted to warn you so that you don't expect any other gifts until it's here."

"In fact," said Sirius, "I think that we should stop giving each other gifts entirely."

There was a shocked silence.

"But Sirius," said James plaintively, "I've already bought you gifts for your birthdays and Christmas for, like… three years into the future."

Sirius shrugged. "You can give me those whenever. I won't complain about a mistimed present, I promise. I'm only saying… since you're the only one with money, Prongs, it's a bit awkward to borrow it all the time to buy each other gifts."

"But Sirius!" James moaned. "I don't mind!"

"Yeah, but we do. It doesn't feel like much of a gift when we're borrowing your money."

"But we have to do something for Christmas and birthdays! Please, Sirius! I look forward to buying gifts all year!"

"Don't you have my gift to work on?" Remus muttered. "If it'll take four years, then you'd better get a move on before you lose interest."

James' eyes lit up. "Hey, that's right! I can just work on that instead! I have a lot to plan out for that, after all."

And he did.

He planned while Sirius left to fulfill Assistant Headmaster duties.

He planned while Remus and Peter left to go to Duelling Club, saying that he was too busy to go.

He planned while Remus did his Ancient Runes homework.

He planned instead of going to supper.

When Remus returned to the dormitory that evening, James was still planning. There was ink on his nose, his hair was horrifically mussed, and the sleeves of his robes were rolled to his elbows. He looked exhausted: even his glasses were askew. "Still planning?" Remus asked, and James jumped. He hadn't even heard Remus come in, evidently, and he rushed to cover up whatever it was that he was working on.

"Yeah," James sighed. "Moony, this is all your fault. It's too hard to hide things from you."

"Why is it hard?"

"Because of your superhuman werewolf senses, of course. I can't think of anything that you won't smell or hear or something. I can't do anything around you! I even thought about distracting you... like with animals in your room or something... but you'd know before you even entered!"

"I am slightly disturbed that you even considered that."

"Okay, but four hippopotamuses in your room. Can you imagine the chaos?"

"Can you imagine the carnage?"

"But imagine your face!"

"I imagine my face would be very angry, and yours would be very dead."

James laughed. "Right. Anyway. I'll have to keep thinking about it. You're just too omniscient."

"I'm not omniscient."

"Still!"

"You know, the simple solution is just not hiding things from me. It's still a gift if you tell me what it is, you know. If it's going to take four years, then I think I deserve to know."

"It's not going to take four years. Peter was joking."

"But it's going to take a long time."

"Well, sure. All the best presents do."

"Come on, Prongs. Just tell me what it is."

"No."

Remus sighed, but he knew it was futile. "Well, then will you at least help me with my Arithmancy homework? I'm not exactly sure what the difference is between…"

But James wasn't listening. He was staring at a spot behind Remus, a look of sheer terror on his face. All of a sudden, he jumped up, chair clattering to the floor, and sprinted to his bed, where he huddled in the corner and pulled his legs up to his chest.

"What's wrong?" asked Remus. He looked behind him, but he didn't see anything. "There's nothing here."

James' lips were white, and he was shaking a bit. "It's a… I mean, it's a… a…."

Suddenly, Remus' sensitive ears picked up on a slight scuttling noise. He turned his head in that direction, and he caught a tiny, moving blur out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, it's a cockroach," said Remus.

They watched in silence as the cockroach darted across the wall and then started to crawl across the floor.

"Kill it," whispered James.

Remus stared at the cockroach. "Er," he said.

"Kill it," repeated James.

Remus shrugged and them clambered up onto James' bed, pulling his legs up to his knees just like James had. "No," he said. "I don't kill bugs."

"You don't… what do you mean?!"

"I mean that I have entirely too many murderous tendencies once a month anyway. I don't want to kill a defenseless creature. How many people want to kill me because I'm a little bit scary-looking and might possibly spread a disease? Cockroaches are misunderstood. I feel bad for them. Same reason I'm a vegetarian."

James did not look moved by Remus' speech. Anyone who knew James Potter well knew that he was immensely brave—except when it came to cockroaches. James had a deathly phobia of cockroaches, for a reason that was unknown to James himself. He was all right with spiders, snakes, and fleas, but he could not handle the mere thought of a cockroach. "I don't care about your stupid morals," said James. "Kill the thing, Moony, or else I'll kill you."

"See, this is what I'm talking about. What if it was a puppy? Puppies are animals, too. Why are we okay with killing cockroaches and not puppies? If a puppy were running about in our dormitory, you'd be playing fetch with it—not begging for me to step on it, crush its insides, and brutally end its life. Stray puppies can spread diseases, too, so there's no difference, really—it's all about what looks more appealing."

"Kill it," James commanded again.

"No."

"Yes!"

"I'm not snuffing out a life simply because its bodily host is a little bit ugly! Look, it's staying away from us! It's not even trying to spread diseases or bite us or anything! That's what I do on full moons, and you tell me that it makes me a good person!"

"Cockroaches aren't PEOPLE, REMUS!"

"Yeah? How many people say that about werewolves?!"

"KILL THE COCKROACH, REMUS!"

"Isn't there already enough death and carnage surrounding us? Why add to it?"

"KILLING A COCKROACH IS NOT THE SAME AS KILLING A PERSON."

"Well, it's the same as killing a puppy!"

"IT'S NOT!"

"Why not?"

"Because cockroaches' brain-to-body ration is much lower than puppies'! They're less intelligent! They can't reason like we can. Kill the cockroach! It won't even know what's going on!"

"Oh, so you're saying that it's intelligence that makes us worthy of life. I'm less intelligent than you! Does that make me less worthy of life?"

"Look, Remus, I don't want to discuss moral philosophy with you right now! KILL THE COCKROACH!"

"And I'm not going to compromise my ethics just because you're scared of a cockroach!" said Remus, but he really did feel bad. James was crying a little bit now, which was entirely out-of-the-ordinary for James Potter. Still, Remus wasn't going to kill the cockroach. He wasn't James' murder weapon. He wasn't anybody's murder weapon.

Fortunately, Remus heard Peter's footsteps coming down the corridor. "Peter!" he yelled. "James and I need some help!"

Peter opened the door. "Yeah?"

"Shut the door don't let it escape," hissed James, and somehow, he seemed to pronounce the phrase in a single syllable.

"Don't let what escape?"

"The dangerous werewolf," deadpanned Remus. "No. Not the dangerous werewolf. The cockroach."

"There's a cockroach?" said Peter, wrinkling his nose. "Ew."

"Yeah. We need you to kill it."

"Where is it?"

"I don't know," said Remus. "It was on the floor, but it crawled away."

"Are you scared of cockroaches, too, Moony?"

"No. I just don't want to kill it." Remus glanced at James, who was a quivering mess. "It's okay, Prongs. Peter's here to save the day."

"I am not leaving this bed until the cockroach is dead," said James. "Never. Not even if you bribe me with Quidditch."

"I'm looking for it," said Peter, "but I don't see it."

"Keep looking," commanded James.

Peter did.

Thirty minutes later, Sirius returned from his Assistant Headmaster duties. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Prongs saw a cockroach and freaked out, but I don't kill bugs, and Peter's looking for it, but he can't find it, and James won't leave the bed till it's dead," summarized Remus.

And so Sirius joined the hunt. Remus comforted James while Sirius and Peter overturned chairs and trunks and picked dirty clothes off of the floor—and, as for James, he was looking greener by the minute. "Hurry," he begged.

But it was another thirty minutes before Peter and Sirius finally decided that the search was futile. "I can't find it," said Sirius. "I think it's impossible. It probably left. Hey, Prongs, maybe it went out the door when I opened it."

"No," said Remus. "I can still hear it scuttling every so often, but I can't tell where it's coming from."

Suddenly, Sirius threw his hands up so violently that Peter jumped. "Remus Lupin! You mean to tell us that you can hear the cockroach?"

"…Yes? Can't you?"

"No! Come and help us, unless you're too scared to leave the bed, too!"

"Oh, that's a good point," said Remus. Perhaps if he got closer, he would be able to tell exactly where the sounds were coming from. "You'll all have to be quiet, but I'll probably be able to point you in the right direction, at least." He swung his legs over the the side of the bed and hopped off. "If you could all just stop breathing for a second then maybe… oh, no."

"What?" said James hysterically. "WHAT IS IT? Moony, is it ON ME? IS IT ON ME?"

"No! No, it's not. But I think…" Remus lifted his shoe. "Ah, yes. I stepped on it accidentally." He turned to glare at Sirius. "I blame you. You were making entirely too much noise. I might've known that it was there if you'd have been quieter."

James breathed a long, heavy sigh of relief. "Thank you, Moony," he said. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou."

"No problem," said Remus bitterly. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to go wash my shoes. Padfoot, Wormtail? Do you mind cleaning the floor up?"

"Not at all!" said Sirius. "Ooh, look at all those roach guts…."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't try to make James sick, because then you'll have to clean that up, too."

"Fair," said Sirius, grinning, and Remus retreated to the lavatory to clean cockroach guts off of his shoe.

When Saturday dawned, Remus had already been awake for hours.

It happened every so often. Remus' joints were bad, his bones were weak, and his muscles were constantly sore. Time and time again, he woke up early in the morning, and the pain—more discomfort than pain, actually—woke him and distracted him just enough that he could not go back to sleep. He wasted time in the common room for a while, pacing by the fireplace, but at around eight o'clock, he decided to take advantage of the empty corridors of Hogwarts and talk to Professor Finley about Ancient Runes.

He knocked on the door, praying that Finley was as awake as he usually was on Saturday mornings. "Professor Finley?" he said timidly. "Do you have a moment?"

"Remus. Yes, of course. Come in." Professor Finley smiled at Remus and cleared some stray papers off of his desk. That was fortunate, for Remus was in dire need of some Arithmancy assistance. "What can I do for you, Remus?"

Remus stared at Finley, wondering when on earth he had achieved first-name basis with the man. "Er, I just needed some help. I feel like I'm behind. I try my best to catch up after... absences, but I still don't quite get a couple of things."

"That's to be understood," said Finley, still smiling. "Ancient Runes is one of the hardest classes that Hogwarts has to offer, surpassed only by Arithmancy. Dumbledore says that you have quite the affinity for that class as well."

"I don't have an affinity, sir, but I certainly try," said Remus with a small huff of laughter. "My friend James—now, he's the one with the affinity."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Potter," said Finley. "He is naturally talented, yes, but natural talent only gets you so far."

"My first-year Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher told me that people who aren't naturally talented often develop better critical thinking in the subject."

"I remember John Questus," said Finley. "Yes, I think I agree with that. I didn't always agree with him, but I agree with that. Now, why don't you have a seat and tell me exactly what you need help with? I must admit that I was hoping you'd come by."

"Why, sir?" asked Remus as he started taking his things out of his bag.

"I like the way you think," said Finley simply. "You have an interest in both language and history, which is essential in Ancient Runes, and you're willing to put the work in—hence why you're here right now. It's rare to have a talented student like Mr. Potter, but it's even rarer to have a willing student such as yourself. I quite enjoy teaching you."

Remus smiled. "Thank you, Professor," he said. "And… that's a good thing, probably, because I have a lot that I need your help with. I don't really understand indirect commands."

And so they sat, translating sentences and reading fairy stories, until it was time for Remus to return to his dormitory.

When Remus returned, however, his friends were missing.

He knew that James didn't have Quidditch practice today—with the amount that James talked about Quidditch, one had no choice but to accidentally memorize every single time and date of each Quidditch practice a full month into the future.

He knew that Sirius wasn't on Assistant Headmaster duties—no, Sirius' bag was still sitting next to his bed.

And he knew that Peter was wherever James and Sirius were, because that's where Peter always was.

It seemed that they had disappeared once again to work on whatever "project" they'd been talking about for the past couple of months. Birthday present? Research project on buildings? Remus wasn't sure he believed any of their claims.

But, for whatever reason, they were keeping it from Remus—and Remus wanted to find out why.

James' Invisibility Cloak was still there, so Remus grabbed it and wrapped it around his shoulders and over his head, only feeling a small bit of remorse for stealing it to sneak behind his friends' backs. After all, they'd been sneaking behind his back—and, when Remus had been keeping a secret of his own in first year, they hadn't granted him his privacy then. No, they'd cajoled and pestered and sneaked until they'd finally found out about his lycanthropy, terrifying Remus half to death in the process. So why grant them their own privacy? What Remus was doing was perfectly fair!

He crept to the library; after all, their project seemed to involve that particular location quite frequently. As soon as he arrived, he inhaled, unashamed for once to use his werewolf tracking abilities to find his friends.

And there they were: sitting at a table together in the back right corner and whispering back and forth. Remus tip-toed behind them, slowly, carefully, until they were completely within earshot—he didn't have to move far; after all, his senses were literally superhuman.

"This looks really hard," Remus heard Peter say. "Like, really, really hard."

"We'll help you," said James, and Remus could practically hear the eyeroll in his voice. "Really, Wormtail. We've told you that dozens of times."

"I don't even like that name all that much," confessed Peter at the mention of his nickname. "And I'm a mouse, not a rat. Why can't I have a cooler name? Like Whiskers or something?"

"That sounds like the name for a cat," James scoffed. "Stop complaining and distracting me, Wormtail. Still good to come to my place over Christmas hols and work on it more?"

"How're we even going to find one of those?" asked Sirius abruptly, reaching over to stab a page in the book with his index finger.

"Dunno yet," said James, frowning.

There was a bit of silence. Remus only heard the scratching of James' quill for a moment. And then…

"Remus has been being weird," said Peter. "Have any of you noticed?"

"Yes," said James immediately.

"What?" asked Sirius. "How do you mean?"

James rolled his eyes. "You're about as sympathetic as a brick wall, mate," he said, but not unkindly. "He's been a bit shorter with us, haven't you noticed? He's sort of more… open to things, which is nice, but… he's also kind of sullen. Busy. Annoyed. And sometimes he just seems confused."

"Well, to be fair," said Peter, "he's had a very bad summer. I think he'll be okay as soon as all that wears off."

"You think he's okay?" asked James.

Sirius shrugged. "He hasn't said otherwise."

"Would he really tell us if he weren't?"

There was a moment of silence. Even though both Professor Questus and Remus' parents had assured Remus on many occasions that humans could not hear heartbeats, Remus was worried that his friends could indeed hear the frantic pounding of his heart.

"No," said Peter. "No, he wouldn't. He never does."

"Well, he does sometimes," chortled James. "Should've seen him after I nearly killed Kirsten for something she said about him… was completely and utterly angry, and it was sort of scary. Do you know what I reckon?"

"What?" asked Sirius.

"I reckon he's acting funny because of two things. The first is that he's feeling all emotionally turbulent—you know, like he usually is, but more so because of what happened to John and the town. That's a bad thing. The second is that he's actually feeling comfortable enough around us to express his emotions, and that's a good thing."

"A good thing," repeated Peter. "Are you sure?"

"Oh, absolutely. That's what I think, anyhow."

"But that means that he's not feeling anything new," said Sirius. "He's just talking about it more, and he's always felt this sort of thing."

"Exactly," said James, "which is why we need to finish this project. It'll help him, I promise. So let's go—we've gotta at least do this part of the research before curfew."

Research? That didn't sound like a birthday plan. Ignoring the pains in the pit of his stomach, Remus leaned over James' shoulder in order to see what he was working on…

Suddenly, as if he'd heard him (although Remus knew he hadn't; it was just luck, at James Potter tended to experience), James stood up. Remus had to step back, and he nearly stumbled into the bookshelf. Fortunately, he managed to keep both feet firmly planted on the floor, and he stayed hidden. For now.

"Let's go check on him," said James. "I'm kinda worried about him. He's been alone for a while, hasn't he?"

"He likes being alone," said Sirius.

"Nah, he doesn't really. Did you see how morose he was after we didn't visit him every day that one week in the Hospital Wing?" James frowned. "I worry about what he does when he's alone."

Sirius was frowning now, too. "What do you think he does?"

"Worries himself sick. Probably tortures himself with those full moon memories over and over again."

Remus resented that. He didn't do it to torture himself; he did it to help himself… and besides, he didn't need a babysitter. Never mind the fact that he did indeed tend to worry himself to pieces when his friends weren't there to distract him. Never mind the fact that he'd wanted them around every second that they weren't there. Never mind any of that! He didn't need a babysitter, because he was thirteen years old—definitely, definitely not a baby.

But he couldn't argue with James as an invisible entity, so he ran up the stairs to the dormitory as quickly as he possibly could, and he even slowed his friends down by tapping a bit on the staircase (he knew just the spot to tap to make it move to the right).

Then he waited on his bed with a book, heart still slamming back and forth inside his chest.

He wished he'd never gone to follow his friends, because now he had a myriad questions that could not be asked.

AN: Am I craving fruit? Or do I just need to drink more water? The world may never know.