It was an utter pain in the arse to walk all the way down to the kitchens from the seventh floor, just to walk all the way back up, but Remus didn't really have much choice. He was feeling rather light-headed after his confrontation with Dumbledore, he'd barely eaten lunch for nerves, and he would have to eat soon anyway if he wanted to have any food in his stomach before his required three hours of pre-Wolfsbane fasting kicked in.
So he trudged down eight flights of steps, promised Tippy he would be back for whatever nauseatingly romantic basket she was planning to put together for dinner, and escaped from the kitchens relatively unscathed, with a decent snack in hand. Then he trudged all the way back up to the seventh floor hallway that was home to the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, munching on a large sandwich and a napkin full of crisps he had enchanted to float alongside him as he walked.
He called forth the door to the Room of Hidden Things and had barely crossed the threshold before he stopped, stunned, at the sight: a room even larger than the Great Hall containing what could only be described as a cityscape of abandoned items. The books alone could fill a library larger than any house Remus had ever lived in! For a moment he lost himself imagining all of the knowledge he could glean, the secrets of magic he had always been desperate to learn, ever since his father had sat him down five years before he expected to receive his Hogwarts letter and warned him it might not come anymore…
But he shook himself out of his reverie because he had a job to do and a tight deadline. Remus wound his way through piles of broken furniture, clothing, and prank items, keeping an eye out for telltale glimmers of glass and diamonds. He passed plenty of jewelry, but never the right kinds- opals set in silver, rubies in bronze, even diamonds and gold separately, paired with other gems and other metals. He stopped to examine a wooden crate full of empty potions vials, but they were too small for his purposes.
After a half hour of distracted searching- his eyes still drawn every other second to the intriguing titles of each book he passed- an especially large diamond caught his attention. It was set in an ancient, delicate tiara. The metal didn't appear to be gold, exactly- maybe extremely tarnished silver? But the diamond was so large that maybe it would be worth the effort of extracting it to pair it with gold from another source?
Remus leaned closer to the tiara, trying to guess its age, and noticed tiny words etched into the front of the band: wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure. Remus jerked up suddenly, sucking in a sharp breath. How the hell had the lost diadem of Ravenclaw ended up in the Room of Hidden Things?! He already had one hand extended to pick it up before he remembered how much cursed jewelry Filius had mentioned occupied the space.
Snatching his hand back, Remus started casting spell after spell on the diadem, checking for curses. None of the usual suspects got any results, but one of his more nebulous diagnostic charms congealed into a deep, vivid black so instantaneously upon casting that Remus almost physically recoiled. Upon second thought, he did indeed take a step back, and then another one, and then another. Whatever horribly dark magic was in that thing, he didn't want to take any chances with it. Maybe the diadem was better off lost after all.
With that, Remus resumed his search as originally planned, eventually coming across a large glass jar and a few pieces of only moderately-cursed gold and diamond jewelry that he was able to clean up and pocket for further experimentation.
He got back to his quarters with just enough time to stash the jewelry in the bottom drawer of his desk and cast several charms on the glass jar before Severus appeared with his steaming goblet of Wolfsbane.
"Lupin," Severus said as he passed it over. Remus' breath caught in his throat and all the stress he'd felt over obliviating a colleague came rushing back all at once. But it appeared that the obliviation still held, and also that yelling at Dumbledore was some convoluted way to earn Severus' esteem, because he followed the greeting with none of his usual insults or insinuations. He just turned around and left.
"Thank you!" Remus called at his retreating form. Severus did not respond.
Remus gulped down the rancid potion with his nose plugged and then whipped out the Map.
As soon as Severus' dot turned off the entrance hall toward the dungeons, Remus made his own way to the ground floor, slipping left off of the Entrance Hall toward the kitchens.
Tippy was ready with a truly enormous basket of food and asking questions about how Remus' lady friend liked last night's surprise. Remus realized he'd left the food with Sirius in order to return an unconscious Severus to his quarters, and therefore had no idea what said surprise was. Instead of trying to lie to Tippy, he fled. It didn't matter, he told himself, whether Tippy thought his behavior suspicious anymore, because in less than two hours he would be a wolf and then by the time he wasn't, his fate would be decided.
Outside the doors to the Entrance Hall, he slowed to a stop in order to shrink and pocket the basket of food he'd fled with. He also checked the Marauder's Map, confirmed Harry was already in position, and then strode leisurely through the doors and across the Hall. He slipped quietly into the small chamber to the right of the main doorway, leaving the door open just wide enough for a skinny thirteen year-old to squeeze through behind him.
A few moments later the door creaked shut seemingly of its own accord, then Harry materialized in front of him. He was pulling the invisibility cloak off his shoulders with a grin full of mischief, and in that moment even the vibrant green of Lily's eyes couldn't lessen his stunning resemblance to James.
"Hi, Professor Lupin," he said, and Remus' heart started beating again. He felt certain he might have stopped breathing altogether if Harry had called him Moony.
"Harry," Remus' voice still came out rather breathy; he cleared his throat determinedly. "Thanks for doing this. I need to speak to Prongs."
"I figured," Harry grinned. "Expecto patronum!"
Remus quickly shot several locking and silencing spells at the door behind him before he finally turned back to Prongs. He set an alarm charm first, then conjured the alphabet grid they had tested out just two days (was it really only two days?) earlier.
"You know what Pads and I are planning, yeah?"
Prongs nodded.
"Can you tell me more or less where he is right now?"
Prongs nodded, then stepped forward and started nosing at letters. Remus whipped a self-inking quill and spare pit of parchment from his pocket and jotted down words as Prongs spelled them out. He got "northeast from shack between old quarry pond and where we met Ronan, has been sleeping in rabbit hole near pile of boulders," before Remus' wand vibrated.
"Damn, we're out of time; I have to get going. This should be a really good start, though- thanks." Remus spared a nervous grin for both Harry and Prongs before striding back into the Entrance Hall and out of the castle. He hurried across the grounds and into the Willow Tunnel, his bones starting to protest their layout, skin itching with the expectation of fur. By the time Remus burst into the shack, he estimated he had maybe ten minutes before the transformation hit.
"Here, start eating," Remus said as he thrust the basket of food at Padfoot. "Actually- Let me just do one more check."
He paced the entire perimeter of the shack, inside and out, diagnostic spells flying from his wand. It was quite literally a pain, given the searing protests of his body, but also a great relief to confirm that he had indeed destroyed the last of Minerva's surveillance charms the night before. He grit his teeth and kept going, checking the trees surrounding the shack, because he had to be thorough, or else everything would fall apart at the last second; he just had to check one last- but no, he was out of time. Remus ran back inside to find Sirius cross-legged on the floor, working his way steadily through what appeared to be an entire feast.
"Moony!" Sirius called through a mouthful of turkey leg. "Guess what Tippy sent tonight!"
"No time," Remus huffed, digging through his robe pockets. "Got held up with Prongs- here, take this-" he flung the Marauder's Map, then the jar, then his own wand, then his cloak at Sirius in quick succession. "'Bout to transform- stay here."
Remus practically sprinted into the next adjoining room he could find, frantically shucking items of clothing as he went.
"Is that really necessary?" Sirius called after him. "It's nothing I haven't seen before!"
Well, Remus wasn't so sure about that- the twelve years' worth of Fulls he'd spent alone had basically doubled the amount of scar tissue all over his body. It was enough to make anyone self conscious, let alone-
But the wandering of his human insecurities was ground to a screeching halt as the moon took hold of his body and pain washed through every single one of his nerve endings. Remus screamed and screamed until he physically couldn't anymore, and it became a howl instead. His joints cracked, broke, and re-formed; his body hair elongated and thickened; his teeth doubled, grew, and sharpened.
The transformation was several times more excruciating when he was human through the whole thing, and Remus was still panting through the residual pain a few minutes later when Sirius cracked open the door and poked his head around it.
"Moony?" he asked.
Remus let out a pitiful whine in response.
"I gotta tell you, being around you as a human is way more terrifying than it was as a dog."
Remus whined again.
"Er, can you maybe stop whining for a sec and do the code we agreed on, before I decide I'm done for?" His words sounded casual enough but Remus could smell the nervousness starting to leak from his pores.
Remus huffed and clambered to his feet. He stomped his left hind paw twice, wagged his tail, howled, wagged his tail again, then scrunched up his nose and bared his teeth.
"Damn, Moons, your teeth are truly terrifying in full color. Boy am I glad you just proved your ability to retain conscious thought."
Remus rolled his eyes.
"Okay, you never got around to telling me what Prongs said, so I'm just gonna let you out the door and then I'll follow your lead."
Remus wagged his tail and trailed Sirius to the front door of the shack. Sirius opened it and Remus stepped out into the brisk winter night.
The fresh air and the myriad smells of the forest washed over Remus all at once. The wolf still niggling at the back of his brain roared into prominence at the sensation, dashing away his inhibitions. Before he could make a conscious decision, Remus had bounded out of the decrepit old house and thrown himself into the nearest patch of snow; he was happily rolling around in it on his back when he registered the human face looming above him, laughing.
"Look at you, Moony, you great sodding puppy."
Remus tried to bark at him but it came out as rather more of a mortifying yip.
"Well, as fun as this looks- and it really does look fun; I think you've just single-handedly cured my Azkaban blues- we do have a rat to catch and we only have all night, so."
Remus rolled back over onto his feet and shook himself vigorously, sending clumps of snow flying in all directions. The wolf brain had caught him off guard when he first stepped into the forest, but he needed to be in control, because he had a job to do.
Well, he didn't want to be entirely in control… Remus shut his eyes and tried to slow his own thoughts. Tried to reach back into that ignored corner of his brain that housed the wolf. It leapt at the invitation, expanding its own consciousness, staining all of Remus' thoughts with hunger, with dominance and loneliness and instincts older than humans themselves; with the pull of the moon and the primal urge to reproduce, to survive and prosper.
It was a heady mix of emotions, compelling and confusing and terrifying to imbibe all at once. Remus howled before he could stop himself; he just had to let all of the feelings out somehow and he didn't know what else to do with them.
Sirius' two-toned face paled, and then a second later he was Padfoot, and the wolf's emotions all changed at the first whiff of him. The wolf was elated to be reunited with Padfoot again, with friend, with pack, and all the other instincts and urges fell away. Remus felt his whole body relax with relief; he wagged his tail to convey his thanks to Padfoot.
Padfoot scrunched his muzzle at Remus in question, and Remus once again pushed back the wolf's reaction in order to focus on their mission. Probing tentatively at his wolf mind again, Remus sifted slowly through the kaleidoscope of sensations until at last he touched upon an instinct that made his heart thump faster and his muscles tense in anticipation.
He drew the hunt slowly to the front of his mind, focusing carefully on his memories of Wormtail and the feelings of anger and betrayal he'd begun associating with the rat over the last two weeks. It took the wolf a few minutes to stop screaming for human flesh and understand that they had new prey to catch, but luckily the wolf understood threat to pack as easily as it understood pack. Once it registered that Wormtail was no longer the latter but the former, the wolf caught on quickly enough.
Remus walked around the trees for a few minutes, sniffing at things here and there, making sure he was able to draw on the wolf without being overpowered by it. Eventually, he felt sure enough in himself to direct the hunt without allowing the wolf to drown him out.
For the first time in his life, he really felt like Moony and all that the nickname entailed, and it felt good.
Moony howled strong and proud at the moon, and Padfoot joined in. It was pack and home and also mate all at once. It was invigorating; it was right.
Padfoot nudged Moony on the shoulder and he snapped back into the hunt, this time drawing on the images Prongs had described for him. Moony bounded out through the forest, his packmate close on his heels. He knew from Fulls past that there was a pond nearby with strangely square rocks along its edge, and even though it had been so long since he'd last hunted in this forest, he was a natural navigator. Soon he reached the edge of the pond, where he turned and set off towards a clearing where he and his friends had once encountered a man-horse (a centaur, the Remus half of his brain knew). He prowled much more slowly this time, keeping his nose to the ground. He smelled many scents, scents of animal and man and strange beast alike; scents of plants and dirt and excrement and magic itself; but he paid them but a passing interest. Only one scent mattered tonight.
There! An old scent, as familiar as the smell of the dog at his side, but sharper, stronger. The rat smelled much more strongly of fear than the dog had. And this was right, because the rat made Moony's hackles rise and lips pull back in a snarl… He returned his nose to the ground, snuffling constantly, following the scent of rat between trees and under bushes, leaping over a small creek the rat had crossed on a rotting log.
The trail ended abruptly at what appeared to be a large pile of rocks. But Moony wasn't fooled, because the stag had warned him. He sniffed carefully along the rocks until the smell of rat grew stronger, and there! A hole in the ground. Moony tried to bite his way through the layer of earth on top, but the dirt was frozen solid. He tried to stick his nose into the hole, but his snout was too big and the tunnel in the earth too small.
Moony whined pitifully, scratching at the hole with his paw. The rat had smelled him now, he was certain, because the smell of fear had grown stronger. That only added power to the thrill of the hunt skittering along Moony's spine; he had tracked and located his prey, and soon it would be his.
A cold wet nose pushed into the side of Moony's face and he stepped aside to let Padfoot sniff at the frozen dirt. The next moment, Padfoot was gone and a human was there instead.
The wolf's brain lit up prey! but Remus bore down on it in a fury, banishing the wolf's urges to the darkest smallest corners of his mind. Remus untensed his hind legs, which had been coiled to pounce, but it was too late; Sirius reeked of panic. Remus did his best impression of a friendly yip, and when that didn't work, stomped his left hind foot and wagged his tail.
"Yeah yeah," Sirius said. "Just don't do it again."
Remus let his tongue loll out of the side of his mouth; Sirius finally cracked a grin.
"Okay," he said, crouching down by the rabbit hole. "You ready?"
Remus nodded.
Sirius pointed his wand at the ground and started shoveling dirt away. Remus waited in an expectant crouch as the smell of Wormtail grew stronger. Sirius kept digging. Suddenly, there was a flash of brown among the black of the dirt and a holler from Sirius. But Remus paid him no mind; he was already turning and springing in an instant, lunging, his jaws gnashing-
The rat dodged to the left and scampered away, but Remus gave chase, and he was faster. Wormtail shook him off under a dense shrub but Remus tore the whole thing out of the ground with his powerful jaws and ran after the rat again. In just a few steps he had caught up; he was looming right over the rat; he lunged again and his jaws closed around a warm, wriggling body.
The wolf surged forward from the back of his brain again, howling kill, howling shred, eat, destroy, but Remus pushed it away. His human mind too, fantasized about crushing the rat in his grasp but he knew he needed their prey alive.
Sirius crouched down to the level of Remus' face. "Wormtail," he said, ice stabbing through every syllable. "Fancy seeing you here."
Wormtail squeaked and wriggled frantically in Remus' mouth. After a little bit of careful jostling, Remus got his pointy rat head poking out between Remus' incisors, with the rest of his chubby body trapped inside Remus' mouth behind long canines.
"Here's the deal, Pettigrew," Sirius spat. "Moony here will bite your little rat body in half the second you try to escape. If you even think about transforming to get away, you better think again, because you'll force Moony to bite you before he even realizes what's going on, and even once he does he'll probably still bite your body in half before you manage to get away."
Remus growled as best he could with his mouth full, just to make sure the message really sank in.
"And if you're not already scared enough of Moony, you should know I've spent the last twelve years dreaming of hexing you to pieces, and the only reason I haven't made good on it yet is because Moony here talked me out of it. But he won't be capable of speech for at least the next ten hours so you better not push your luck, Wormtail."
Sirius' haunted grey eyes gleamed bright with hate and cruelty, and Wormtail smelled of nothing but fear. Remus' inner wolf howled in victory, practically gushing its own pheromones. Strong mate, it crooned, capable, powerful mate!
Remus told the wolf to kindly shut the hell up, and honestly, now was really not the time for this.
He pushed past Sirius and led the way back to the shack, only stopping to let Sirius open the door. Once inside the main parlor room, Sirius picked up and unscrewed the large enchanted glass jar and held it under Remus' mouth. Remus tilted his head down and opened his jaws, letting the rat drop with a satisfying clunk into the jar. Wormtail's frantic squeals were quickly muffled by Sirius screwing the lid back on and sealing it soundly with several spells.
Sirius sat back on his heels and stared at Wormtail, then Remus, then Wormtail, then Remus.
"We did it, Moons," he rasped with a voice of utter shock.
Remus howled his agreement.
"We found- I can't believe it- we caught Wormtail."
The incredulous mutters continued for several more minutes, but Remus couldn't do much more than stand silently at Sirius' side and offer a warm body to lean on.
Eventually, Sirius patted Remus' flank and hauled himself back onto his feet. "Well, all in a good night's work, Moonykins," he said. "But you've still got lots to do tomorrow, yeah? Why don't you go get some sleep, and I'll keep watch over Wormtail."
Remus wanted to offer some better suggestions but his vocal cords just were not up to the task. With a disgruntled huff, he loped up the stairs and curled up in the giant dog bed labeled 'Paddy.' If Sirius asked, he would say he feared the creaky four-poster bed couldn't bear the wolf's weight. And hey, the dog bed was comfortable enough and it smelled nice.