Fact #3: Remus was allergic to garlic.

It didn't have anything to do with being a werewolf. He just was, and it was very unfortunate (seeing as people already got werewolf and vampire rumors mixed up as it was).

Which was why it was very unfortunate that the strange range of wizarding sweets available at Honeydukes now included (as of this year), Garlic Gumdrops. What was even more unfortunate was that James' parents had bought him four bagfuls, and the three Marauders who were not allergic to garlic were sitting in Remus' room, munching on Garlic Gumdrops with great gusto.

"Want some?" asked James, offering a large bag of them to Remus.

"No, thanks," said Remus. The powdered garlic in the air was beginning to make his eyes water.

"Why not? Some weird vegetarian thing?"

"No. I don't eat meat. Garlic is not a meat. I just… don't like it."

"Come on, Moony! Everyone likes garlic!"

"I don't. Those look disgusting."

"Just try one," wheedled James. "You might like it!"

Remus rolled his eyes, swallowed his inhibitions (trying his best not to swallow the garlic in the air as well), and admitted, "I'm allergic to garlic."

There was a stunned silence.

"You're joking," said Sirius flatly.

"No, I'm not. I am legitimately, completely, allergic to garlic. Mildly, of course."

James was practically choking with mirth. "But that's..." Now Remus' friends were laughing, which was unfortunately exactly what Remus had expected to happen. "That's a vampire thing!"

"I'm aware."

"A were... wolf!" quipped Sirius, which was the dumbest joke Remus had ever heard.

Remus groaned, and his friends laughed more hysterically. "Sometimes I really hate you lot," he said, but he didn't.

After all, it really was kind of funny.

The garlic thing, that was. Not the pun.

Fact #4: Remus was a vegetarian.

His friends already knew that, of course. This one was because of the lycanthropy, but it was still a choice on Remus' part. Eating meat didn't do anything magical to his werewolf body, and Remus didn't think he had more meat cravings than the normal person (although, since he hadn't tasted meat since the age of four, he guessed he probably couldn't be sure).

But there was just something so animalistic about eating something that had once been an animal, and Remus couldn't find the desire within himself to indulge in a creature that had once had a life, desires, and a brain. It was a personal choice that stemmed from centuries of stereotypes surrounding werewolves and meat… and perhaps it was slightly because—only slightly—okay, maybe mostly, but what was the distinction, anyway?—because Remus was afraid.

He was terrified that he'd enjoy it. He was terrified that he'd develop cravings. He was terrified that the full moons would become worse when he knew what meat tasted like, because that werewolf on the full moon was Remus, and since Remus hadn't tasted meat, Wolf-Remus hadn't, either.

How much worse, then, would it be if Wolf-Remus had a taste for flesh? How much more would that horrible itching that came from instinct overload be? Wolf-Remus was still Remus, just Remus stripped of his morals and (basically) humanity. Remus remembered everything that went on in his head during the full moons—he remembered his reasoning, his actions, his thoughts, and his desires. They haunted him, and he feared how much more graphic they'd be if Wolf-Remus had a taste of meat.

Which, technically, probably wouldn't do much. First of all, it was a known fact that transformed werewolves were only interested in human meat. Second of all, Remus did have a taste for human flesh on the full moon—he tore himself apart with his teeth and claws every evening when the moon shone bright, so he knew exactly what human flesh and blood tasted like.

But still. It was the principle of the thing, and Remus Lupin was not going to play into stereotypes by eating meat. He stuck with a vegetarian diet day and night, and he enjoyed it. He would not feast on an innocent creature. He would not enjoy munching on the roasted bodily host of another soul. He would not eat fried flesh, not now, not ever. Nope. That wasn't for him.

It made meals at Hogwarts rather isolating occasions, mostly because his friends liked to tease Remus for his vegetarianism, and now they'd taken it to Remus' house. It had started as an innocent dinner: Remus' mother had made vegetarian lasagna, one of Remus' favorite meals, and Remus' friends were complaining about the lack of meat involved. "It's just so much better with the meat," Sirius said. "I mean, you're wonderful, Mrs. Lupin, and this lasagna is great. But… it's better with the meat!"

Remus sighed. "If you think you're going to convince me to eat a cow, pig, or other innocent creature, then you're wrong."

"I miss the meat so much that I can practically smell it in the air," James moaned.

"Something's in the air," said Remus. "Most notably your stupidity, closely followed by garlic. Why can I still smell the garlic? Merlin's beard, I can't stop sneezing."

"You're missing out on so much delicious food," said Peter. "The house-elfs are always so sorry that you don't like their cooking, I bet."

"Most of Hogwarts loves their cooking. Tell them that a ninety-nine percent approval rate is still excellent."

Remus starting piling his plate with vegetarian lasagna. He was glad, at least, that Madam Pomfrey wasn't around to watch him eat like a vulture of sorts. She usually watched him during feasts, just to see how much Remus would eat—by the fervency with which she wanted Remus to gain weight, Remus often wondered if she was personally compensated with a Galleon for every pound he gained.

"So, Remus," said Remus' father once Remus had sat at the table with his vegetarian lasagna, "I wasn't sure when to bring this up, because I know you already know. But… the full moon falls on…"

"September first." Remus sighed. "Yeah, I know. The most inconvenient full moon possible."

"I've been writing back and forth with Professor Dumbledore. Of course we agree that you're in no state to be riding the train the day of the full moon."

"Of course," said Remus with another sigh. "I'll have to go late, shan't I?"

"Well, that was what I suggested... but Dumbledore thinks you might prefer to come early."

Remus nearly choked on his lasagna. "Early?" he wheezed. "How early, exactly?"

"Just twenty-four hours early. There's a staff dinner the night before, and Dumbledore thought you might want to attend. He's very adamant that you receive every benefit that your fellow students receive, including the start-of-year feast. He says he doesn't want you to miss out on a single thing because of your lycanthropy."

"That's… really nice of him," said Remus. Peter was patting him on the back now, trying to relieve Remus' choking. "But it seems very awkward, doesn't it? Just me and the staff?"

"That's why he's also invited Peter, Sirius, and James," said Remus' father with a smile. "He knows your friends are instrumental to the healing process, Remus, and he wants them by your side whenever possible. All four of you are invited to Hogwarts at five o'clock on Saturday evening. You'll arrive by Floo, you'll eat a good supper with the staff, and you'll all sleep in the Hospital Wing so that Poppy can keep an eye on you. The next day, Remus' full moon routine will go back to normal, and the rest of you will eat the feast with your peers and sleep in the dormitory, just like you normally do."

"Wow, that's… I don't know how to feel." Remus looked at his friends. "How do you all feel about this?"

"Let me clarify," said James, a nearly evil smile spreading across his face. "You're saying that, for a whole twenty-four hours, we have Hogwarts all to ourselves?"

"Essentially, yes."

"We'll do it!" said James and Sirius with a cheer, and Peter nodded and laughed.

Remus smiled. "I guess we're doing it, then," he said.

Fact #5: Remus' friends had Mandrake leaves in their mouths.

In Remus' first year, his friends had been curious as to where he went every month (like any good group of friends would be). Remus hadn't told them, obviously, because his lycanthropy was a secret, and flat-out telling them would have been something of a giveaway. So, like most preteen boys, he'd lied.

He'd told them that his mother had a long-term illness, primarily, and he'd used the excuse again and again. Unfortunately for Remus, he had very clever friends. It didn't take them long to notice the patterns of Remus' disappearances. But… even when they did match everything up to a lunar chart, even when they did realize that Remus had a better sense of hearing and smell than most, even when Sirius' father spotted Remus at the Werewolf Registry in January… they didn't find out that Remus was a werewolf.

They'd thought that Remus' mother was a werewolf.

Which, in hindsight, sort of fit… if one succumbed to a very high level of stupidity. Remus' friends thought that Remus could keep his mother company on the full moon because he wasn't human—he was half-werewolf—and when they'd discovered that half-werewolves didn't exist, they'd assumed him to be an Animagus.

They'd figured out the truth eventually, but apparently, the idea of Animagi hadn't left their minds. In Remus' third year, he figured out what they were trying to do (even though they tried to cover it up as a mysterious "three-person project").

But Remus, in true Marauder fashion, hadn't told them that he'd figured it out (because the Marauders had never been particularly good at the fine art of communication). Instead, he tried his very best to sabotage their attempts, because reason did not work on the Marauders.

As a result, James, Sirius, and Peter had been working on the first step for about a year now. It was like clockwork: they put those Mandrake leaves in their mouths on the full moon, Remus sabotaged them in some secret way, and then the other three Marauders blamed it on Snape (which was cruel, but worked out quite well for Remus' purposes).

Unfortunately for Remus, he had very clever friends. They didn't just stick Mandrake leaves in their mouths—no, they shrunk them down, stuck them to the roofs of their mouths with Temporary Sticking Charms that they reapplied every morning and night, and even changed the coloring of the leaves, rendering them totally invisible. The only reason Remus knew they were there was because of the stench of Mandrake that filled the room whenever they opened their mouths.

But no one else knew, which meant that Remus had to deal with it himself. And removing Mandrake leaves from people's mouths when they were stuck and disguised was a very difficult endeavor indeed—still, Remus always managed it.

Why? Because Remus could not let his friends turn into Animagi for him. It was a dangerous process, it was likely to go wrong, and Remus would not let his best friends in the whole world accidentally kill themselves to relieve Remus a little bit of pain. He locked himself up every month for this very reason—he did not want to murder anyone, accidentally or otherwise.

That meant that Remus needed a Grand Master Plan before the next full moon to get those Mandrake leaves out of their mouths. He hadn't had many chances this summer, what with all the swimming, running, and chasing, and he was running out of time. Otherwise, his friends would be able to remove the Mandrake leaves on the next full moon, brew a potion with them, and move onto the most dangerous steps of the plan. These steps were the ones that were likely to kill them, mutilate them, turn them into horrid, half-human creatures… and Remus couldn't let that happen. No, sir. He was going to save his friends lives by sneaking behind their backs and ruining their hopes and dreams, because that was (counterintuitively) the noble thing to do.

Fortunately, he had one last night at home. Tomorrow, his friends would arrive at his house, and they would stay until six o'clock, during which time they would Floo to Hogwarts. Remus had one last night to make a plan, and he had one last day to execute it before arriving at Hogwarts.

He sat at his desk and pulled out some parchment, a quill, and his Potions textbook. Outside the window, the moon was growing fuller, mocking him.

"You can't stop me," he murmured, opening the Potions textbook to the index and dragging his finger down the page. Suddenly, he noticed the perfect thing. His finger stopped, and he opened to the relevant page, smiling widely.

Perfect.

Remus crept into his parents' room, socks hitting the carpet quietly and robes swishing. "Dad?" he whispered.

His father shot up like an arrow. "Remus!?" he cried. "All right? Everything okay?"

"It's Remus?" said Remus' mother, sitting up just as quickly. "Oh, my goodness. What happened?!"

"Everything's fine," said Remus. "I just had a question for Dad, that's all." He looked at his parents' white faces, confused. "What did you think it was?"

Remus' father looked slightly hysterical. "Well, I don't know," he said, oceans of sarcasm pouring from every syllable. "It's almost as if we have bad experiences of things happening to you at night while you're sleeping in your bed!"

"Oh," said Remus. "Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Sorry about that."

"No, I'm sorry," said Remus' father. He leaned back, and his head hit the headboard of the bed with a dull thud. "My fault. I overreacted. What's wrong?"

It felt silly to ask now. "I was hoping… you'd help me make a potion before my friends get here. I'd make it myself, only you have all the ingredients and I didn't want to do anything like that without permission… also, I need to set a fire."

"Remus, it's five in the morning," said Remus' father tiredly.

"I know. But it takes some time to brew, and I need to have it finished by the time my friends get here."

"Why? What is it?"

"It's, er… for a joke."

"A joke?"

"Yeah."

"You still haven't told me what it is."

"It dissolves plant life."

"I'm sorry," said Remus' father. "You want me to help you to brew a potion that dissolves plant life? For a prank? For your friends?"

"I was going to put it in their drinks… and then I thought we could eat salad for supper. It would be really funny if the salad just dissolved in their mouths."

Remus' father stared at Remus for a solid ten seconds, and Remus squirmed. "No," he said, and then he crawled back under the covers and closed his eyes. Remus' mother shrugged sympathetically and then followed.

"Right," muttered Remus. "That makes sense."

Then he went back to his room for Brainstorming Session Part Two. He hadn't really expected his father to get up at five in the morning to brew a potion with him, but it had been worth a try.

He found his Charms textbook next, because he didn't need his father's help to learn a charm. He could semi-legally do magic at home when his father was home, after all—the Ministry could only detect location of magic, not the performer of it. It was a clever way to make sure that students could practice magic at home as long as they had supervision of a competent wizarding adult.

So Remus found some potential charms and started practicing.

"Well, Marauders," said James. They were on the field next to Remus' house, the grass was green, the sky was blue, and it was a beautiful day. "I never thought I'd be excited to go to school early, but here I am. Sometimes it's nice having an ill friend, isn't it? We're going to have twenty-four hours of free reign of the castle."

"No, we're not," said Remus. "We'll eat supper, and then we'll be stuck in the Hospital Wing so that Madam Pomfrey can 'keep an eye on us'. And I'll be too tired and ill to do anything." He grimaced. "If I get migraines again this month, I'm going to chuck something out a window. Maybe myself."

"Ah, but Remus. We do have free reign. I mean, you're right. You'll be stuck in the Hospital Wing. But the rest of us have an Invisibility Cloak, and there will be no Prefects to catch us! Not a single one! But… we'll have to leave you behind."

Remus flopped backward onto the grass. "I changed my mind," he said.

"About what? About going early?"

"No, about what I want to chuck out the window. It won't be me. It'll be you."

Sirius laughed. ""Don't worry, we'll be around all day, you prat. It'll just be the night that we'll be gone, and we'll get back before four in the morning. Can't have Poppy notice we're missing, now can we?"

"Talking of not sleeping," said James, looking at Remus intensely, "you didn't sleep much last night, did you?"

"No. I was busy."

"Busy doing what?"

Remus sucked a deep breath in and sat up. It was now or never. In quick succession, he pointed his wand at each of his friends and shouted "Respignis!" three times in a row.

Then he waited.

Nothing was happening.

Just when Remus was about to try again, James coughed and blew a long stream of flames from his mouth. It landed on the ground, igniting the grass, and then went out. Sirius was next, and Peter was third: in no time at all, all three of them were blowing plumes of fire into the air and onto the ground. Remus watched in amusement.

"What was that?" asked James, coughing up sparks. "Did you… hex us?"

"Sure did," said Remus proudly. "Fire-Breathing Hex. The fire is non-damaging to all living things, fortunately. I thought it would be funny. A nice little end-of-summer joke, if you will."

Sirius started to laugh. "That was brilliant!" he said. "Absolutely brilliant! I never expected that from you, Moony! And it tasted so funny, too… like a warm hot pepper! Hilarious! Merlin's beard, if only I'd thought of that fir…"

Sirius trailed off, and a horrified look spread across his face. He glanced at James and Peter, who wore twin expressions.

"Moony," said James patiently, with restrained anger, "I know you have no idea what you've just done, so I'm going to give you a pass. But never—ever—ever do that again."

"Why not? You hex people all the time, even innocent first-years."

"It's fine," said James. "Not your fault. Just bad timing… oh, I can't believe we have to start over again! It's been a whole year, and we haven't even gotten past the research step… and we were so close! I was so sure that we would do it this time, since Snape isn't around to sabotage us!"

"Is this about the three-person project?" Remus asked, so as not to seem suspicious.

"Yes, and you've just messed it all up!" James groaned and jammed his fingers into his eyes. "Ughhhh."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," said Remus, even though he didn't mean it.

"Yeah, I know. Not your fault. Just… argh! I'm going indoors and getting a glass of water. You lot coming with me?"

Remus watched them go. He needed some time to himself to wipe the stupid grin off his face that he was sure was going to materialize shortly.

The fire hadn't been damaging to living things, like the grass and the Marauders… but it had completely disintegrated the dead, dried Mandrake leaves attached to the roofs of his friends' mouths. One small joke had led to another month of safety. Remus (and his friends) were going to be just fine, and now Remus could head off to Hogwarts without a care in the world.

Well, besides the rampant Death Eater activity, the threat of the Ministry's response of tighter werewolf regulations, and the impending terror of the upcoming full moon.

But Remus was used to all that.