Sirius hadn't intended to let the school know about James's overreaction at the Shrieking Shack that night, but it slipped out during the consequent bragging rights they'd gained. They didn't have to worry too much about the teachers finding out because their endeavour was only spread around Gryffindor, and the unspoken Gryffindor rule was that no one grassed up anyone to the teachers, no matter what. This resulted in Sirius going a little far and embellishing details. According to him, the fence they'd climbed over was akin to a huge brick wall, he'd broken into the house through the front door by knocking it down with his own strength and Remus and Peter had fought off a ghost. None of them corrected him. Except when he bragged about hiding in the wardrobe and scaring James so much that he ran straight out of the house (and to his credit, this was the only detail Sirius didn't exaggerate. He could have easily said that James had screamed like a girl and wet himself, but he was loyal enough not to). James was adamant that Sirius was lying about this, however, and Remus and Peter gave non-committal confirmations, not wanting to make Sirius out to be a liar, but not wanting to embarrass James so much that he stopped talking to them.

Sirius did apologise, even if it was rather vague, but James just wouldn't let it go. He hated people thinking he was some sort of scaredy cat. He loved being the perfect example of a Gryffindor; courageous, adventurous, bold, but now he was the guy who ran before Peter Pettigrew, and Peter wasn't holding back from the limelight either. According to him, he had explored the entire house top to bottom before anyone else had even been brave enough to enter the first room, and once again, none of them corrected him. Per the second rule of their friend group: any lies or exaggerations said by any of them were immediately backed up by the others, no questions asked. Unless of course any of the lies or exaggerations were damaging to one of them, which James certainly thought at the moment.

The only distraction he had, which everyone thought would finally put his humiliation to rest, was the Quidditch positions being announced near the middle of November. The list was pinned up outside the Great Hall and James was one of the first to rush past everyone and stick his nose inches away from the piece of paper.

"Brilliant!" he shouted, jumping up in celebration. Remus, Sirius and Peter had been hot on his heels, so at least they could celebrate with him without him looking like a prick on his own. The list clearly stated that he had landed the chaser position, along with Marlene McKinnon. Marlene and Lily were there soon after him and they had their own mini celebration, joining in with the boys. Remus read the rest of the list.

"Hey, fantastic!" he alerted. "Jethro got keeper!"

"Did Owain get beater?" asked James. Remus looked at the list again and deflated a little.

"No. John Bell from third year."

"Damn, would've been fun if we'd all got on the team."

"What do you mean all?" replied Sirius defiantly. "Peter and I aren't on the team."

"Well then try out. Remus you have to get the commentator job now. It'll be a laugh."

"Alright I'll try, but don't get your hopes up." They walked into the Great Hall, James beaming from ear to ear. Any negative feelings he'd had previously about the Shack Incident disappeared in an instant and he was practically bouncing. If the entire school didn't know about James being on the Gryffindor team they probably did by the time he sat down at the table. He wouldn't shut up about it, but to the school's credit, everyone was patting him on the back, congratulating him, especially the Gryffindors who had previously witnessed how good he was during practice sessions.

Jethro and Owain were already at the table, Jethro looking considerably brighter than his friend, especially with everyone congratulating him as well. Owain was happy for him, but he was clearly disappointed.

"You can try again next year, mate," said Tobin, who was sitting next to them and successfully showing an equal amount of pride for Jethro as he was sympathy for Owain. "I think one of the beaters is leaving. Which one?"

"Kingsley Shacklebolt," replied Jethro, taking up Tobin's prompt.

"Yeah I guess," replied Owain. "It's just a shame though, because I bet I would've got it if I hadn't let that bludger go rogue at the end."

"Not necessarily," interrupted James. "Loads of people made mistakes. So did I. So it probably wasn't that."

"So they just didn't like me then."

"No, I didn't mean it like that, I mean..."

"I know what you mean, it's alright."

"No, I meant that you were really good, it was just one mistake which everyone makes. It's just there was only one position and so many beaters trying out."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Thanks." Owain smiled at James and James looked relieved that he'd been able to save his usual disastrous attempt at comfort. Nevertheless, Owain tried to cheer up a bit, and his attention turned back to congratulating those who'd got on the team.

"You lot better start practicing and stuff," said Sirius, spooning food onto James's plate. Eggs, bacon, even a thin slice of salmon. All stuff he said was high in protein and therefore necessary for a Quidditch player. James took half of it off his plate.

"I don't eat bacon and I don't like salmon," he said. "Toast is fine."

"I've been your friend for two years, since when do you not eat bacon?" asked Sirius.

"Since forever, you moron. Do you not notice anything?"

"You can talk, a cauldron exploded in potions class a week ago and you didn't even notice."

"I was thinking about Quidditch tactics. The class was boring." Sirius rolled his eyes and continued plating up food for all the new Quidditch players. Marlene was accosted with a bowl of porridge.

"Did you eat, Jeth?" he asked.

"Sirius, you're not a dinner lady," said Remus as Sirius held a bowl of cereal in front of Jethro's face.

"What's a dinner lady?"

"A lady who serves dinner."

"Yeah, and you'd be a pretty crap one," continued Jethro, pushing the bowl of cereal away.

"No I'm not! Do you want bacon?"

"I don't eat bacon, it's not kosher."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I can't eat it because I'm Jewish."

"Oh. Does anyone here eat bacon?"

"Eat it yourself," interjected James. "Now sit down, you weirdo." He pulled Sirius back from his half-standing position and Sirius crossed his arms to his chest, pouting. Remus laughed.

"You can pour me a glass of pumpkin juice if you want," he said, holding his glass out.

"Get it yourself. You don't get my services until you become part of the Quidditch team." He stuck his tongue out at Remus, and Remus did it back.

The table was cheerful that day, with the conversations flowing all over the place. Remus was sitting next to Lily, so he was able to start a conversation with her about muggle music, which Lily knew enough about to follow Remus's train of thought, although she admitted most of her knowledge of music came from her father's limited collection of records and none of them were dated any more recently than than the early 60s.

"Other than that I listen to the radio," she explained. "But I mainly like the sketches on the BBC. Did you ever listen to Round the Horne?"

"Yeah! With the Julian and Sandy bit at the end?"

"Mm, that was always my favourite. I miss that show, I listened to it when I came home from primary school for lunch." Remus listened to Round the Horne all the time on Hope's crackly radio. It was on when he was younger, around six or seven, and there wasn't much else for him to do, so he tuned in every week. He found the Julian and Sandy sketches to be the funniest, even if he didn't understand everything of what was being said. They used a lot of slang words that neither he nor his mum understood, but when the audience laughed he couldn't help but join in. The characters were so jolly sounding.

"I recorded the sketches when I got bored on my uncle's tape recorder. I listen to them sometimes." He hadn't actually listened to them for a while, and he wasn't sure if he even remembered where he'd put the tapes. All he remembered was the phrase from the first episode that he and his mum always quoted to each other: "How bona to vada your dolly old eek!" From context, they had decided that the phrase meant how nice it was to see your lovely old face.

"Did you ever wonder what they were saying?" Remus asked.

"Yeah, sometimes. But they didn't use weird words often, so it was still funny."

The conversation switched again, this time to Lily asking if it was true that they had snuck out to the Shrieking Shack and if James really had run away. Remus confirmed, and the two laughed about it for a bit until James caught them and stared daggers. They hid their giggles behind their fists, but they weren't exactly subtle about it.

James interrogated him about it later.

"You have to stop telling people what happened," he ordered. "Especially to people like Lily." Remus raised his eyebrows at him.

"Me stop? Sirius is the one who mentioned it."

"Yeah, but people were about to forget about it with all the Quidditch stuff going on, and then you tell Lily!"

"Why are you so against Lily knowing?"

"Because... I think she thinks I'm a bit of an idiot."

"You are."

"No not in like a jokey way like Sirius is an idiot and so are you, and Peter. But like... she thinks I'm immature—" James stopped Remus before he could state the obvious. "I know, but I don't want to keep embarrassing myself in front of her because she talks. She's always talking with her friends and they're always giggling and stuff. It's annoying."

"Well you don't exactly help yourself."

"Yeah but isn't it that girls mature faster than boys and all that?" Remus shrugged. "Well it's not my fault then that she and her friends are all acting like adults and laughing at me. She's... annoying."

"Hey, I think she's great, and she's my friend too."

"Then why does she keep hanging around with that Snape guy? You know he hangs out with death eaters, right?"

"Lily says he doesn't." James rolled his eyes.

"Lily says this and Lily says that. If I'm being honest, I don't like her. No offence."

"I mean I can't force you to like her." Remus had no idea that James had any particularly strong feelings towards Lily Evans, and he wasn't sure where this admittance was coming from. He didn't even think that James had been aware of Lily enough in the first place to gain any sort of opinion, but Remus had clearly thought wrong. "Maybe if you talked to her, you'd realise that she's nice."

"She doesn't like talking to me, and we don't have anything in common. You two are always talking about muggle stuff and that doctor."

"What doctor?"

"The one you don't know the name of." Remus thought for a second and then struggled to contain his laughter.

"You mean Doctor Who?"

"There you go again, you'd think if you talked about him so much you'd know his name."

"James?"

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot."

Another thing that came out of their nightly wanderings was a growing obsession they all now had with refining the map. James would spread it out on the table when everyone else had gone to sleep and the four of them would pour over it for hours, Peter neatening up his sketches and Remus ordering the parchment until it was easier to fold, flattening the edges and sticking things in the right place. James and Sirius wanted to explore Hogwarts more so they could map the entire place. Peter thought it was a little excessive, but once James— and Sirius to an extent— had got an idea in their head, they couldn't move on until it had been successfully executed.

This began a long campaign of them growing so familiar with sneaking out at night that they almost forgot about the risks it held. They wanted to find all the secret passages to add to their map, new routes in and out of the castle, hidden staircases to get them to the kitchens without being spotted, and anything that could help them avoid Mrs. Norris's prowlings.

Finding new passageways was the most exciting, but finding passageways that were inexplicably blocked up were just as intriguing to them. It warranted more exploration, to find out where it originally led to, and what the alternative route was. Since they didn't have ample time, nor were they allowed to be doing this in the first place, it was hard to conduct any thorough investigations. So a lot of blocked up corridors were added to the map with no extra information about them. They only usually found where a blocked passage led to when it intercepted another one they'd drawn on the map.

Sometimes it felt like the map would never be complete. Hogwarts was so sprawling, with corridors leading this way and that. Peter liked detail, to the point where he'd even drawn the beds in the dorm rooms, but it was getting on a month now since they'd started and they had only just finished the first few floors. Not to mention the fact that they were going out nearly every night, which wasn't good news for Remus as the full moon was growing closer. In the week leading up, he tried all he could to convince them to take a break from the map, and it was only luck that Peter and James agreed. Sirius enjoyed the exploration too much to want to stop, but James wanted to go back to practicing for the Quidditch match in January while Peter said he was tired of drawing. They agreed not to resume the map-making until the new year.

Remus hoped, therefore, he'd have at least two months without worrying about the others being present during the full moon. The previous month started to fade away as he forgot about the Shack Incident, which everyone else seemed to have moved on from as well. Christmas was nearing and Gryffindor were intent on the new Quidditch team finally beating Slytherin.

Remus, Sirius and Peter went to watch the players train so they could cheer on James and Jethro. They supported Marlene as well, even if they hadn't interacted with her much. She was still a classmate, and for Remus, she was Lily's friend. The training gave him more opportunity to talk with Lily, as well as Tobin and Owain, and it was a nice atmosphere. They could chat with the players as well after training, so the boys became more acquainted with Marlene. It turned out that she was very fun to hang out with, quite loud and animated, with an infectious laugh that got to them all. Sirius took to her instantly.

James on the other hand was always slightly irritated after each training session. It wasn't that he wasn't doing well, because he was. He'd made a few good goals and he hardly ever dropped the ball. He seemed to get on okay with his teammates as well, so Remus couldn't work out what he was in a mood about.

But one evening, he and Sirius went down to the Quidditch grounds a few minutes before the session had actually ended and Remus heard some of the older team members lightly mocking James here and there. It was only a bit of fun, not in a nasty way, but they howled occasionally behind James's back and kept pointing suddenly to make him look. If he ever fell for it they'd laugh at him. They'd quickly make up for it by thumping him on the back and putting an arm round his shoulders, but James was clearly still sensitive about the subject. The more it went on, the more angry he got. But he seemed to cool down soon after they returned back to Hogwarts, so Remus didn't pay it much attention.

He probably should have.

The full moon was upon them, and Remus had to pay careful attention to sneak out without waking the others, who seemed to sleep fairly lightly nowadays. He didn't use the map, because he knew his route out of the castle like the back of his hand. His only problem was accidentally running into someone, or a certain cat, but unfortunately the map couldn't help with that, so there was no point. The map was mostly used by James who needed it to sneak out to the Quidditch pitch, but ever since he got onto the team and had regular training sessions, he didn't sneak out as much as he had.

Remus thought he was safe, and he arrived at the Shack with no trouble. He was actually a little early this time, and curiosity caused him to poke around a little to see if anything had changed since the last time he and his friends had been here. There was nothing of course, but he noted that the window was still open. He went over to close it, but as he did, the moonlight streamed in and he had to stop midway. His transformation began with little warning, the wind whistling in through the open window, and for the first time since he'd been in the Shack, he transformed in the room by the front door. He had no opportunity to go back to the other room and lock the door behind him.

At least his wolf form would be able to feel the breeze in its fur from the open window.

Remus was pretty groggy the following morning. He was still in the Shack, lying on the floorboards, and the previous evening rushed over him in a wave of confusion. He couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what. He stood up, checking himself over. He seemed fine, a few scratches but nothing major. Certainly nothing that he'd remember. He pushed the feeling to the back of his mind and refocused on his surroundings. He had to walk his way through the tunnel and back to where Madam Pomfrey would be waiting.

She didn't have to fuss over him this time, with no proper injuries to tend to, so she just let him sleep off the effects. He woke up quite a while later; the clock on the wall informing him that it was after dinner, and the light outside was slowly dying. Everything was a little foggy, so he didn't notice somebody sitting next to him until he turned over to face them.

"Hi," Remus greeted, sitting up a little. It was James, and he didn't say hello back. In fact, he didn't even smile, just stared at him. His expression didn't give anything away, but since he was on his own, and wasn't greeting Remus with any sort of smile or gesture, Remus was already unnerved.

"What's wrong?" Remus asked. James shifted in the seat he was sitting in.

"I don't have long," he began. "Madam Pomfrey said I was allowed five minutes."

"Okay."

"I didn't want to tell the others until I'd checked you were here. You are here."

"Tell the others what, what are you on about?" The feeling Remus had experienced back in the Shack was creeping back up on him from where he'd shoved it to the back of his head. He still couldn't put his finger on what was causing it, but he couldn't help but feel that he was about to find out.

"You were there, in the Shack last night. Or at least, it wasn't you, it was a monster. But you weren't in bed, I checked, and now you're here—" James started talking faster as he continued his explanation, and while his thoughts seemed to be all jumbled up, it didn't take a genius to figure out what he was talking about. Remus's heart plummeted, and he felt a wave of deja vu from when Tobin had figured out his secret. Although, this time it was even worse, because it was James. And no doubt it would be Sirius and Peter soon because James would never keep anything from them, least of all something this big.

His friends had found out he was a werewolf. Remus had failed in hiding it from them, and who knew what their reactions would be. Unless, he could convince James that it was just a coincidence. That it wasn't him in the Shack. It couldn't have been too hard...

"James, slow down. I don't know what you're saying." James took a breath, and tried to put his words in order.

"Last night, in the Shack, there was something there. A werewolf, I think. It looked like one, and it was a full moon." So James had definitely seen him. Remus was collecting as much information as he could before he decided what to say to him, whether to lie to his friend or not.

"Hold on... what were you doing at the Shack last night?"

"I got sick of people calling me a scaredy cat or whatever. I wanted to prove to them I wasn't, so I went back. I was going to go inside, but I saw... you through the window." Typical. The one night Remus transformed in the front room, and it was the night James went snooping around through the window overlooking it.

"Why do you think it was me? I was here all night."

"No you weren't. I checked. When I got back to the dorm I saw you weren't there and I checked. There's no point lying, Remus. I just can't believe it took so long for me to figure it out. It all makes sense! Why you're in here all the time, and it was always on the full moon, wasn't it? I never really noticed, but it was!"

"James, stop! You don't know what you're on about. Are you sure you weren't dreaming?" It was a stupid thing to say, but Remus knew there was nothing else he could say, and truth was… he didn't want to. He never thought about the long term, because he never thought he'd have such close friends, but he wanted to be friends with James and Sirius and Peter forever, he knew that. He couldn't lie to them forever, and the longer he kept it up for, the more they'd hate him for it.

But he wasn't prepared for what the outcome might be when they knew, even if he didn't have a choice in the matter anymore. He regretted asking if James had just been dreaming, though, once he saw the look on his face.

"Why won't you just tell me?" asked James, looking hurt that Remus was accusing him of making things up. Tobin had been the same of course, and Remus didn't know why he kept thinking he could get away with it.

"Because if it got out, my life would probably be ruined." James looked a little taken aback, both from the resigned admittance and from the bluntness of the statement.

"So... it was you?" Remus sighed.

"Yeah. It was. You're right, I'm a werewolf."

"Oh." Oh? What did that mean? Was that good or bad?

"I wanted to tell you, of course I did." Which wasn't fully true, because he knew if there was any opportunity not to ever tell his friends, he'd probably take it. "But I was too scared. You must know how the wizarding world sees werewolves, right? We're monsters, half-breeds. Banned from school and jobs and everything." James scooted his chair closer.

"Is it really that bad?" he asked, his voice softer now.

"Worse. I don't even know why I'm at Hogwarts to be honest. Dumbledore let me come, but by rights I shouldn't be here. Everyone hates me."

"I don't hate you." Remus looked up at him, meeting his eyes.

"You don't?"

"No. Of course not, you're still Remus and I know you're not dangerous. And... I suppose I understand why you didn't tell us."

"I should say, Tobin already knows—" James's eyebrows raised in surprise, and Remus interrupted before James could get angry at the news that Tobin knew before he— Remus's best friend— did. "I didn't tell him, he just found out. I didn't have a choice." James leant back and ran a hand through his messy hair, thinking.

"I'm sorry you didn't have a choice this time either," he said, with no note of anger in his voice anymore. Remus lifted his knees to his chest.

"I do," he replied. "I can choose to tell Sirius and Peter, and I want to."

"You do?" Remus nodded. He couldn't not tell them by this point, and at least this way it was finally on his terms. It made him think about telling them that he was trans too, but... one secret at a time. He just hoped they'd understand why he took so long to tell them when the time came. If the time came.

"Yeah, I do. I'll tell them tomorrow." At that moment, Madam Pomfrey— who luckily hadn't heard a word they'd said (she always retired to her office when people visited so they could talk in peace)— came bustling in through the curtain pulled around Remus's bed and shooed James out of the room. As a result, they didn't have a chance to talk anymore, but it didn't matter, because they could talk tomorrow. They could all talk. And Remus could finally explain everything.

He just hoped by this point tomorrow, Sirius and Peter wouldn't be terrified of him.