"Madam Pomfrey Madam Pomfrey Madam Pomfrey please may I leave the Hospital Wing," Remus babbled. "Sirius just ran off, and I'd really like to go help, but obviously I can't do that if I'm stuck here…."

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Yes, I heard," she said. "You may go. You've been here nearly all day, and nothing happened last time you were poisoned… but you must promise to come back if anything feels off, yes?"

"Yes! I promise!" Remus hopped out of bed. "James went to go comfort him, but… er… comforting people isn't really James' strong suit. Come on, Peter."

Peter had lagged behind, professing that he wanted to stay with Remus, but Remus suspected that it was just because he wanted to stay out of conflict. Well, it was too late for that. Remus was about to step into the fray, because his friends had comforted him enough that he was going to return the favor if it was the last thing he ever did.

"Bye, Madam Pomfrey," he said, and then he and Peter were off to find their friend.

Down corridors and hallways they walked, stepping through crowds of students, avoiding the portraits that seemed particularly fond of relentlessly talking to whomever passed them, and ignoring Peeves with a passion (he was currently throwing Zonko's rubber chickens at a sixth-year Hufflepuff). Past classrooms and cupboards they wandered, peering inside each one to make sure that Sirius or James were not inside. They went to each of Sirius' regular haunts: the Kitchens, an abandoned broom cupboard, the owlery, the Quidditch pitch… but finally, after about twenty minutes of rapid searching, they were both breathing heavily and ready to admit defeat.

"Aren't werewolves supposed to be really good trackers?" Peter panted.

"It's hard with so many students around," Remus responded, breathing just as heavily. "Besides, I've never exactly practiced that skill enough to be good at it. It's weird and creepy."

"Oh."

They leaned against a wall, breathing, and then Remus decided that now was the perfect time to practice it. He'd never liked the prospect of tracking—that's how Greyback had found him all those years ago—but Remus presently decided that avoiding everything that Greyback did was a stupid way of going about things. After all, Greyback walked places. Was Remus going to stop walking places just because Greyback did that? Of course not!

So he stood up straight, faced the direction of the wind (they were currently standing on the Hogwarts grounds, a ways away from the Whomping Willow. It was getting to be dusk). Slowly, he turned in a circle, inhaling, trying to catch a familiar scent….

And then…

He did.

Pure luck, that's what it was. Remus wasn't usually very good at that particular skill.

"This way," he said, grabbing Peter's wrist and pulling him toward the Forbidden Forest.

Remus and his friends had frequented the Forbidden Forest every so often last year. They'd had a lot of fun running around and pretending to defeat Death Eaters. But when Remus had come across a girl Transfigured into a tree on his thirteenth birthday… well, that had made things a little bit more real. Sneaking out to a dangerous place and pretending to fight Death Eaters wasn't nearly as appealing when everywhere was a dangerous place and the threat of real Death Eaters was palpable and omnipresent.

But Remus pulled Peter through the trees nonetheless, following two of the most familiar scents that he knew—and, soon enough, they could see James and Sirius through some heavy foliage. Sirius was sitting on a rock, glaring at a tree, and James was patting his back.

Sirius wasn't pushing him away.

"Wait," whispered Remus, pulling Peter behind a bush. "I think… I think that James has it under control."

"…I'm just scared," Sirius was saying. "With my family, I'm going to be at the forefront of all of this no matter what. Mum and Dad don't approve of violence, of course, but they love Voldemort's ideals… why am I so bloody sensitive, Prongs?! I can't deal with this. I can't deal with anything. I can't even think about blood without gagging."

"It's not your fault. Just a random phobia."

"I hate thinking about anything remotely painful or gory, though. I hate it. It makes me feel so sick, and I hate feeling sick so that makes me feel worse, and…"

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"I'm not going to stop being friends with Moony or anything," said Sirius, and Remus' heart jumped, "but it's really hard being friends with him sometimes, don't you think? Misfortune seems to follow him around, doesn't it?"

"It does," said James, but he didn't answer Sirius' other question. Remus was thankful. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"It's just," continued Sirius, waving his arms around slightly, "I'm squeamish, right? I don't like blood and things. And there Remus is, every single full moon… not that I've ever seen him directly afterwards, but I'm sure it's pretty terrible. And it's because of Remus that I was connected in any way to the massacre last summer. Otherwise, I wouldn't have dwelt on it for more than a few seconds. And it's because of Remus that we almost died in that secret passage. And I saw Remus get poisoned… twice… and now I have to be all nervous for it to happen again. And Remus lost his hearing last month. And Remus has all those terrible scars. And Remus is injured all the time. And my dad tried to poison Remus himself last year, didn't he?"

Remus remembered that, although poison was a bit of a strong word for it. Veritaserum contained trace amounts of wolfsbane, which meant that Remus tended to get very ill when he ingested it. Orion Black, who had been Remus' case worker at the Registry, hadn't really cared.

"And then Remus has to get through the full moon every single month. Every single month! I found that werewolf book the other day…."

"The one that John gave me?" asked James.

"Gave us, but yes. Was flipping through it a bit. I saw a bloke named Elios Warrington."

"Oh," said James. "Yeah. I remember Elios."

"There was a photograph of him."

"Yeah, I remember that photograph."

"Do you remember how awful he looked? He looked so awful. Half dead."

"Yeah, I remember."

"And he'd been a werewolf for ten years. Moony's at nine!"

"Yes, but Moony has good parents, good medical care, and…"

"Do I look like I care, James? That's not my point! My point is that I don't like blood, I hate being scared, I hate watching stuff like this, and now I'm expected to babysit a friend who attracts stuff like that like Mari Devons attracts boys!"

Remus had no idea who Mari Devons was, but apparently it had been a funny joke, judging by James' snort.

"And I feel so bad about it," continued Sirius, "because I know I'm a right awful git if I feel this way. And it's not like it's going to get much better. What's going to happen when we actually have to watch the real thing? I don't think I can do it…."

Suddenly, Peter stood up. "Hullo!" he said loudly, which was quite uncharacteristic for Peter. "Hi! Hullo, Prongs! Padfoot! Hi! I'm here! With Moony! The two of us! Are listening! Hi!"

"Oh!" said James, and his voice was far too cheerful. "How long have you two been here?"

"Not long," said Peter. Remus, disgruntled, stood up from behind the bush and brushed some dirt of his robes. He knew why Peter had blown their cover, of course—Sirius had been about to mention the Animagus thing, and they still thought that Remus didn't know about that.

And Remus, of course, had to play along. "What do you mean, the real thing?" he asked, pretending to be confused. He gritted his teeth and prepared to accept whatever idiotic excuse his friends could come up with.

"The real war," said Sirius quickly. "It's gonna get worse. Right? And when it gets worse, then people will be dying every day. We'll be right there in the thick of it, and we'll have to watch."

Huh. That hadn't been a bad lie at all. "Oh, okay," said Remus. "I'm really sorry, Padfoot. It must be hard being squeamish in the middle of a wizarding war."

"Yeah," said Sirius. "Must be hard being a werewolf, too."

"Yeah."

The four of them stood in silence for a while, and then Sirius said, "You aren't going to blow up at me?"

"What?" said Remus.

"I mean, I'm not sure how long you were sitting there exactly, but I'm pretty sure you must have heard what I said before that. You know. About you attracting trouble like Devons attracts boys."

"Yeah. I heard. What of it? You're precisely right."

"I thought you'd be angry, though. Because I'm pitying you and all that."

Remus sighed, and then he made his way over the rock and say beside Sirius. "You're not pitying me," he said. "You're making a very fair observation, and it's one I've made myself about a million times. I'm a horribly unlucky person, and I know it must be hard being my friend. I wouldn't ever be angry with you for that."

"Okay, maybe not angry," Sirius conceded, "but you might get all self-pitying. It's what happened in first year when I called you high-maintenance behind your back."

Remus laughed. "Right. Well, I'm no longer in first year, am I? Besides… Professor Questus once told me something that helped quite a bit, I think."

"What did he say?"

"He said that, in any type of relationship, we're always settling for things. So, naturally, there are some things you don't like about me. Professor Questus said that wasn't a bad thing, though; he said that, if you were still my friends, then the good things must outweigh the bad things. So the more bad things there are about being my friend, the better of a friend it means I am." Remus grinned. "So I must be a pretty excellent friend is all I'm saying, and you're free to complain all you want. They're only compliments in my eyes."

"Thanks, Moony," said Sirius thoughtfully. "That does make me feel better… in a couple of ways, actually. Thanks."

"Thank Professor Questus, not me," said Remus, which earned him a bit of a watery laugh.

The Marauders walked back to the school together, Sirius sticking very close to James (who had apparently done very well in cheering Sirius up after all—imagine that). Remus walked along, shivering slightly in the cool weather, very thankful indeed that his friends were not Legilimens.

Because, though Remus wasn't offended that Sirius had pointed out his affinity for awful luck, one word in Sirius' little tirade had made him feel a bit squeamish—babysit.

I'm expected to babysit a friend who attracts stuff like that like Mari Devons attracts boys.

…Babysit?!

Remus was not a baby, and he did not need to be sat. He did not need to be coddled. He did not need to be watched—and saved—and helped like some infant incapable of doing anything for himself. Like some damsel in distress. Like some incapable idiot.

And perhaps some of that was because of how Remus had been raised. His parents had coddled him his whole life, and the independence that came with boarding school was intoxicating. Remus had only ever had caretakers, but now he had friends. He wanted to be their equal, not some sort of… some sort of pet, some sort of child, some sort of thing that was to be pitied.

Because that wasn't a friendship, not really. That was a friendship between three boys and then Remus, who tagged along but wasn't really an equal. Three boys playing house. Three boys playing parents. Remus, who'd fooled himself into thinking that he was an equal, when he was really just a supplemental add-on to the Marauders—there for entertainment value, but not really a valuable peer on equal footing.

And everything his friends had been doing, every single little thing, just proved Remus' dark suspicions.

Especially the Animagus project.

He wondered what Professor Questus would say about all this.

But Remus didn't want to upset anyone, because he'd been doing enough of that lately, so he merely plastered a smile on his face and kept walking, talking, and laughing with his friends. Ten minutes later, he was feeling all right again. Because, pity or no, his friends really were excellent, and they never failed to take Remus' mind off the Other Things that plagued his head from time to time.

"What's this?" asked Sirius, catching a letter in midair from his owl over breakfast one sunny morning. "Is it something amazing, perhaps? The Minister for Magic telling me how talented I am? The Queen complimenting my good looks? Kenton Fraughterton, star Quidditch player, giving me free money?"

"You don't need free money," scoffed Remus.

"Can't hurt," said Sirius simply. "Ah, no. It's another letter from my mum. I suppose she was feeling bored last night and thought, 'Oh, yes, let's use my leisure time to chew out my son Sirius.' Mighty kind of her, eh?" He handed the letter to James. "Read it, Prongs. To yourself, not aloud. Just make sure there's nothing interesting there."

"Why do you care?" Peter asked. "I mean, if it doesn't matter what she thinks of you, then failing to read a letter shouldn't be a big deal. What could she possibly say that's so important?"

"Well, like it or not, she's my only connection to the rest of the family right now," Sirius explained. "And I feel disconnected, somehow, if I don't read them. Even though they're usually nothing but insults."

"But I don't see why you would want to be connected to the family. You don't even like your family."

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, and then he closed it. He blinked. Looked at Peter. James. Remus. Said, in a weirdly cheerful tone, "Hey, Wormtail. I reckon you're right."

And then, before Remus' very eyes, Sirius snatched up the letter and ripped it to shreds.

"Woah!" shouted James. "Woah, woah! What are you doing?"

"I don't care what my mother says!" said Sirius, and there was a manic gleam in his eye. "I can't believe I didn't think to do this earlier! I just thought it was some sort of duty to stay connected to my family, you know? But it's not! I don't have to! What's she gonna do, hunt me down if I don't come home for holidays like she wants me to? She couldn't possibly! I don't need her, and I certainly—don't—need—the—rest—of—them!" Sirius punctuated each word with another violent rip to the letter. "Goodbye, Mum!" he said, now laughing quite hysterically. "Au revoir, Dad!"

Alarmed, Remus tried to bring Sirius out of whatever hole he'd dug for himself. "You can't just never see them again," said Remus. "You'll have to go home at some point."

"I'll go to James' for Easter hols… but yeah, I'll have to go back this summer," said Sirius with a shrug. "Part of it, at least. Mum already made it clear that she wants me back, and James' mum could get in trouble for kidnapping me or whatever if I don't go."

"So aren't you afraid of punishment?"

Sirius laughed. "What can she do to me? She only ever insults people in that screechy voice of hers, and I can bear a few hours of getting screamed at. Easy!"

"She might not let you go to James' house later in the summer."

"She will. She'll want me out of the house. She hates me." Sirius smiled and tucked the scraps of the letter into his bag. "It's a good day," he said. "Thanks for pointing that out, Wormtail."

Peter looked like he didn't know whether to be regretful, for he had undeniably released a monster, or pleased. "You're welcome," he said.

Another owl flew above the Marauders, and it landed directly in front of Remus. "Is this for me?" Remus asked. "I've already gotten my letter from my parents."

The owl blinked up at Remus in an affirmative sort of way, so Remus took the letter from its talons and scanned it quickly. "Great heavens," he murmured. "It's from Miles."

James frowned. "Miles…?"

"Rosenblum. Craff's son. The boy I used to tutor. But after Craff died, he went home to recover, remember?"

"Yeah. What does the letter say?"

"Dunno," said Remus with a grin. "You lot haven't shut up long enough to let me read it properly. Leave me alone, will you?"

James rolled his eyes and started pattering to Peter and Sirius about Quidditch; Remus returned to the letter and read it carefully.

Dear Remus,

I know I don't know you especially well and all but I need a favor.

I'm sure you remember when my mum died a while ago, and I went home. I went to my dad's house and he's not doing especially well. He's ill. So I was staying with him but now he's doing a little better and he really wants me to go back to Hogwarts. I'd like to go. I think I can. But I'd like to go back during Easter holidays when no one's there so I can adjust. Professor Dumbledore said that James and Sirius would both be gone and he asked me to ask you if I could stay in your dormitory for Easter holidays so that I'm not sleeping alone (because all of my friends are at home). Is that okay?

Thank you so much!
Miles R.

Remus sighed. "Well, Wormtail, how do you feel about getting another roommate to replace James and Sirius?"

On the day before Easter holidays, Remus and Peter went to see Professor Dumbledore while James and Sirius were packing to go. They stepped into his office, glancing only briefly at the covered-up portraits, took their seats, and politely refused the biscuits that Dumbledore offered them.

"How are you today?" Dumbledore asked them.

"Fine," chorused Remus and Peter.

Dumbledore smiled. "Ah, Remus, I believe Madam Pomfrey would not be very happy with you for saying that word."

"She's not here right now," said Remus, "and even I wouldn't be able to hear this conversation all the way from the Hospital Wing."

"Very well," said Dumbledore with a chuckle. "Well, I am certain that you both know what I wish to discuss. Miles has told me that the both of you have agreed to give him a place to stay in your dormitory. Is this true?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. Now…" Dumbledore rested his elbows on his desk, steepling his thumbs and frowning, "I suggested the two of you for two reasons. Do you know what they are?"

"Because I knew Miles?" asked Remus.

"Yes, exactly. Miles didn't have many friends, and I wanted him to room with someone he knew. Do you know the other reason?"

Remus and Peter looked at each other, completely lost, and shook their heads. "No, sir," said Remus.

"Both of you have lost someone," said Dumbledore simply. "Losing someone close to you is something that one can never begin to imagine until they have experienced it. When it is sudden and unexpected, this becomes even more true. Every loss is different, so neither of you will understand exactly what Miles is going through… but at least you will come closer than, say, his roommates would. I ask the both of you to remember what it was like in the aftermath of an important person's death—Remus, I imagine you are still living it at times—and do for Miles what you would have wanted people to do for you."

Peter frowned. "But I don't hardly remember losing my dad. I remember some things, but hardly anything."

"I find it tends to flood back when watching someone else go through the same thing," said Dumbledore. "But if not, then simply treat Miles as he wants to be treated. Just be the patient, kind people that I know you both to be. That is all I ask."

"Patient and kind," mused Remus. "Yes, we can do that."

And then, as soon as Peter and Remus were walking back to the dormitory, Remus leaned closer to Peter and whispered, "Patient and kind?—so that's why he waited until Sirius and James were gone," and Peter dissolved into surprised giggles.