Remus had tried to convince them not to come this time. He had no idea how the wolf would react. All he knew was that for days ahead of this moon, this particular moon, he had been furious, impatient, and nearly aggressive, fighting for dominion over his mind in a way he had never been before except for the actual moon. The week of the moon was always rough, the overstimulation of sights and sounds and smells, the twisting nausea, the deep ache in his joints always led to him snapping at his friends, to a shorter temper and sharper words. But he'd never felt as if the wolf had any control over him without the full moon, if anything, the wolf was dormant all other times. This moon was different, a supermoon, the likes of which he'd never experienced; the full would be closer to Earth than usual, and at its closest orbit point, it would be bigger and brighter, more powerful.
For days, Remus' hands ached because of how much he had clenched them into fists, his jaw was sore from gritting his teeth as he tried not to lose his mind. It was the small things, like the crinkle of Peter's sweets wrappings, and James' incessant pitchy humming, the scratch of Sirius' quill on dry parchment, that made every muscle in his body seize up with the need to throw something, scream, and start a fight. The smells of the dorm, the Great Hall, and the sheer amount of Mary's perfume sent him over the edge. He kept performing accidental magic when it all became too much; the dorm bathroom mirror shattered when he'd snapped at Sirius to turn the music down, and his textbook sailed across the room of its own accord in transfiguration, smacking Snape in the back of the head after a particularly nasty comment about Lily (Remus didn't mind that one too much), and the silverware at lunch had shaken furiously next to his plate when Peter let out a high pitched giggle that grated at his sensitive ears.
The wolf had never felt so close to him before, so soon, unchained, wild, vengeful, and furious with Remus for shoving him aside. All week Remus had the urge to rip someone's throat out, to disembowel someone, to get his hands dirty, to finally unleash the violence hidden under that rough scarred skin of his, dwelling inside an awkward teenage boy who wore soft jumpers and kept chocolate bars on his nightstand.
"Moony would never hurt us! We're his pack, and I know you don't believe us, Remus, but he's practically an overgrown puppy," James argued, talking over Remus' adamant protests, waving his arms, "Last month, he protected Wormtail from getting snatched by that kneazle and wrestled with Padfoot over a stick."
"Calling him an overgrown puppy is a gross understatement," Remus didn't ever use Moony to describe the wolf, the childish nickname felt far too kind for the reality. To his friends, the wolf was their friend too, in some twisted way, but to Remus, the wolf was responsible for the collapse of his future, the destruction of his body, and the brokenness of his family. He hated the wolf, he always would. "An overgrown puppy can't kill or maim you like a werewolf can, overgrown puppies don't have an entire sect of people working to eliminate them from society, and overgrown puppies don't have the most dangerous classification of dark creatures!"
"None of those people have ever met a werewolf. All they know is inherited prejudice and scary stories about Greyback," Sirius said, leaning against the desk Remus was sitting at with his arms crossed, Remus rubbing at his temples in a fruitless attempt to relieve the migraine plaguing him all week. "Trust me, if any of those people met you, they'd abandon all of those foolish laws and nonsense, you can't be afraid of a werewolf that cries over Jane Austen books and pulls his jumper sleeves over his hands."
Remus shoved Sirius off the corner of the desk so he stumbled to his feet, ignoring his huff of annoyance, "You're being purposefully daft, and you know it! Some of those scary stories are real, you wanna know how I know? It happened to me! A big bad werewolf came into my bedroom and bit me, turning me into the monster you so insist is innocent, as if it wasn't a werewolf that ruined my life in the first place, as if I'm not capable of doing the same to all of you." He pushed to his feet, collecting the charms essay he'd been meaning to write, and began packing his quill and ink to take to the hospital wing with him. His migraine pulsed and his bad leg threatened to buckle, his joints protesting his sharp movements but he didn't attempt to slow, too furious to care about his current limitations.
"Moony—" Sirius began, reaching out to steady him when he wavered, but Remus ignored him, bumping his shoulder when he passed to get to the door.
James stepped forward to grab the crutch leaning against his bedpost, "Wait Moons, don't forget your cru—"
"Eat shit, Potter," Remus spat nastily, slamming the door behind him, the beast inside tearing at him already, a hunched and shadowed form in his mind taking up more and more space as the sun continued to set.
Of course, the marauders didn't listen. Why would they? It's Remus. James and Peter had the good sense to look semi-apologetic about it when they entered the shack, but Sirius only looked defiant and smug, practically daring Remus to try removing them. Their appearance hadn't surprised him in the slightest, they hadn't missed a moon since they became animagi in fourth year, not once. He still chose to ignore their presence, his anger ever-present and only growing as the moon began its ascent. James and Peter played cards by the fireplace to pass the time, speaking in low tones while Remus curled up on the dirty, stained brown mattress, old blood, and an accumulation of dirt and dust from the rundown shack. Sirius was the only one bold enough to approach Remus, unafraid of getting his head bitten off for it, and sat on the mattress, back to the wall.
There were no blankets or pillows on the filthy mattress, the wolf would tear them to shreds if there were, same with any other furniture in the shack. James and Sirius had spoken about making it less dreary, paint and armchairs and rugs, but Remus had told them it'd be a waste of time in the end. So, the hours before the full often looked like this: Remus shivering with fever on the lumpy mattress, wrapped in Sirius' jacket and head pillowed on his legs until touch began to feel like a prison and his bones began to splinter, James lighting the fire to bring some warmth as was characteristic of him; James Potter— light bringer, golden summer incarnate, easier than a breezy day. Peter normally pulled him into a game of cards to pass the time, exploding snap was often too loud for Remus' migraines, so they avoided that one.
"C'mere Moony. Mooony," Sirius spoke to Remus' back, trembling with electric nerve pain and writhing muscle spasms, but stubbornly turned away from the lot of them. Sirius poked his shoulder, walking his fingers along the bony line of them and the clammy cold of his neck, earning him a growl of annoyance, which he ignored, continuing his journey tracing the bones and muscles of his spasmodic back until Remus gave in. Remus huffed, finally turning to look at him, several shades paler than usual, all eggshell white and furrowed lines of grumpiness and pain.
"I could bite your fingers off, you know," He grumbled, even as he let Sirius fist a hand in his jumper, tugging him closer until Remus' head rested on his thighs.
"You won't though, you like me too much," Remus relaxed when Sirius threaded pianist's fingers through his hair, releasing a relieved sigh, eyes slipping closed. "There you are, you stubborn bastard, was that so hard?" Sirius said, soft where his words seemed rough-edged.
"I can feel him," Remus said in a near whisper as Sirius tried to smooth the lines of tension on his face, pressing the space between his furrowed brows, massaging the hinge of his clenched jaw, "He's closer and stronger than I can ever remember him being, and I couldn't stand it if anyone got hurt because of him, because of me." He looked up at Sirius beseechingly, his eyes always closer to golden than brown when the full is rising, "Please don't let me hurt anyone, even if you have to hurt me to do it. Do anything you have to, to stop me."
"Moony's never once tried to hurt any of us," Sirius responded, instinctively defensive of the wolf. "Any time we've gotten hurt has been from roughhousing or being stupid, not because he's aggressive or dangerous toward us."
Remus shook his head, frustrated, "Promise me you'll stop me at any cost. Promise me you won't let me hurt anyone. I— I couldn't do it, Sirius, I can't wake up with their blood on my hands, in my teeth, or yours, not knowing what I've done," Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but Remus gripped his arm, begging, "Please, I'm already a monster, please."
He released a sigh, but it was more of a punched-out sound, the desperation written on his love's face left him feeling breathless in that aching way, "Alright, alright, darling, it'll be okay. I promise, okay? I promise, but that's not going to happen, you're not a monster, you're my Moony, and my Moony, has never been a monster."
Sirius hadn't told the entire truth when he said Moony had never been aggressive or dangerous towards them. Moony was a wild beast, and he communicated as such, he growled if he thought Padfoot would take the rabbit he'd killed from him, he swiped at them with his long sharp claws when he was especially angry or annoyed at them. They'd just learned how to dodge and read the danger cues, learned when to stay out of the way, and when to intervene so he didn't hurt himself. They'd agreed early on that there were things they'd never tell Remus about their nights with Moony, not that he wanted to hear much of it anyway, except for triple-checking that nobody got hurt because of him each month. If Remus knew half the things Moony had done on those nights, he would've forbidden them from helping him years ago, so Sirius lied, and he'd do it again.
This moon was worse. Moony got irritated, sure, but he'd never tried to really hurt them before. There was something more animalistic about Moony, the pull of the moon made him purely wild like they've never seen. There were these moments when they were chasing prey, or wrestling, that Moony's eyes would change, go slightly darker and he'd suddenly snap. It was like he forgot they were his pack, that he played with them each month and was typically so excited to do so. There was a feral, frenzied energy about him, their Moony at one moment, and the next, a wild beast, roaring in their faces and suddenly chasing them as if they were the prey. Padfoot and Prongs spent the night, spent hours, swinging wildly between fighting for their lives while trying to avoid hurting Moony and playing with him apprehensively when he seemed to come back.
"Shit, shit, shit," James cursed as they led a human and unconscious Remus back into the shack through the narrow tunnel, bobbing in between the two of them with Sirius bringing up the rear, clutching his shoulder with a grimace, dislocated and probably fractured, seeing as Moony slammed into him at full speed and tried to rip his throat out.
James and Peter deposited him carefully on the bare mattress, James limping with blood dripping down his leg from three slashes he'd taken to the hip while trying to force Moony off of Padfoot. Remus let out a low noise of pain but thankfully stayed unconscious, bare-arsed and caked in dirt, puncture wounds all over his chest and torso from Prongs' antlers. Prongs had to practically launch him off of Padfoot before Moony came back to himself, whining with pain and prodding Padfoot with his cold nose to check if he was okay, confused as to why his pack members were bleeding.
They'd agreed early that if one of them were to get injured, the hospital wing was out of the question for fear of raising suspicions about their monthly activities with Remus, so Sirius and James had taken it upon themselves to learn what healing spells they could. James wasn't as adept at them as Sirius was; he didn't have steady enough hands, shaky at the sight of blood, where Sirius was unphased, probably due to his lovely childhood. They'd taught them to Peter too, but he could barely perform a stupefy strong enough to lift a toddler, so neither of them would rely on him to fix anything. Peter, of course, was the only one unscathed, he'd fled the moment things got dicey and hid somewhere under the brush until the sun rose, which is when he reappeared to help Remus back to the shack.
"Pete, press this against the wounds and tell me if he starts to wake up," Sirius ordered, throwing James' flannel at him and pushing James into a rickety three-legged chair sat in the corner, vanishing the blood underneath them. "Listen, we need to minimize the damage as much as possible before he finds out or he'll never speak to us again. We tell him we were trying to protect him from turning on himself, that he was more aggressive because of the supermoon, so Prongs used more force than usual and accidentally skewered him. We'll say Prongs got swiped on accident because Moony was trying to shove him away."
"He was downright batty, and you want to lie about it? What about the massive scars James will have? What if the scratches are deep enough to turn him?" Peter questioned incredulously.
"It wasn't his fault," James and Sirius snapped in unison.
"They're not that deep, it's barely anything," James assured even as he winced, pale cheeked and sweaty, Sirius muttering various spells to clean the long slashes of bloodied flesh, "Sirius is right, it's better to insist he was trying to hurt himself. We don't say a word about Moony coming for us, we tell him it was like any other moon. He'll be upset about us being hurt regardless, but it's better if he thinks it's because we were careless."
"So we're not going to talk about what the hell that was? Like he didn't almost ki—"
Sirius whirled around with fire in his eyes, glancing at Remus' unconscious form before glaring at Peter, venom on his tongue, "Pettigrew, I swear to Godric shitting Gryffindor if you breathe a word of this to him, if you even imply something different happened tonight, I will force your tongue so far down your throat you shit it out. You didn't do a damn thing to help us back there, so stop being a waste of space and help him or leave."
Peter's face twisted angrily but he shut his mouth, turning back to Remus sharply, covering him with Sirius' jacket, and checking the wounds to see if the blood had slowed before pressing down again. Muscle twitching in his jaw, Sirius turned back to James, who was watching him with a frown, disappointment clear in his eyes as Sirius summoned the murtlap essence they kept under the floorboards to spread over his wounds. James always hated how rude and careless he could be with Peter, but Sirius wasn't like him, he wasn't unfailingly patient or gracious to everybody like he had rainbows coming out of his arse. In Sirius' opinon, Peter was cowardly, loyal when it served him, and it usually did, but any time trouble came their way he'd be suspiciously missing. He didn't hate Peter, but he hardly liked him either, tolerated him more than anything else for James' sake.
"I know you're stressed, Pads, it was a rough night, but that was cruel," James told him lowly as Sirius used a stitching spell to close the wounds as fast as he could, eager to get to Remus and heal him too. He wanted to clean them up as much as he could before Remus woke up, he'd smell the blood and know, so there was no way to completely lie about it, he would if there was. The only thing he could do was heal them as much as possible and make sure Remus wasn't utterly bowled over with guilt when he woke up.
"No offense, Prongs, but I really couldn't give a damn right now."
James sighed but didn't argue, casting the bandaging spell on himself when Sirius finished the stitches, "Do you need me to put your shoulder back in?"
"He's starting to wake up," Peter said tersely.
"Damn," Sirius cursed, as James shoved his shirt back down to hide his bandaged side.
Sirius had been hoping to get his shoulder in order before he awoke so he wouldn't have to explain it away, but it was too late now. He moved to his boyfriend's side, ignoring Peter's huff of irritation as he essentially pushed him aside and took over holding the soaked flannel over the puncture marks. He heard Peter mutter something to James but tuned it out, focused on Remus' fluttering eyelids, sweat and dirt on his brow, smears of crimson on his neck.
"S'ris?" Remus mumbled, the pain hitting him before he was fully awake, making him groan. It hurt to breathe, every movement of his chest set him on fire, he felt like those pinned butterflies. "S'ris? Pr'ngs?"
He cracked his eyes open to find Sirius above him, wrinkles of tension in the corner of his mouth, something carefully guarded about his expression, carefully monitored. There wasn't much about Sirus that was careful, he was the exact opposite of Regulus that way, he was explosive, and so were his emotions, unavoidable and unabashed, except for very particular moments. The smells hit him next, his senses were still stronger than usual right after the moon, and what he recognized as the muddy clay smell of murtlap essence, seasalt sweat and earth, and the iron tang of blood immediately invaded his nose, a lot of blood.
Remus jolted, waking up a little more as he tried to take in the shack and each boy in it, needing to make sure they were okay, remembering distinctly how quickly the wolf took him over, how exceedingly furious he had been. James and Peter both looked fine, though James seemed a little pale, sat in the old chair in the corner, rubbing a hand through his hair in an anxious motion. It was hard to tell with Sirius so close to him and Remus being unable to move, but he didn't smell any blood coming from him directly, at least.
Sirius' hand on his shoulder kept him still, the other pressing against his chest, which Remus realized belatedly was soaked, "I'm right here. Don't move darling, you're still bleeding a lot. Accio blood replenisher." A potion in a deep red bottle flew toward them, Sirius momentarily removing his hand from his shoulder to catch it.
"Jus' me?" He slurred, the same thing he said every month, copper on his tongue.
"I need you to take this potion for me," Sirius said instead of answering, lifting his head carefully with a wince, pouring the potion slowly into his boyfriend's mouth.
"Blood—" Remus mumbled after swallowing, "Is it me?"
Sirius lowered his head carefully, biting his lip hard like he was trying to keep something in, sweat beaded on his brow, "Prongs got a bit roughed up trying to stop you from hurting yourself, but he's completely alright," He answered without looking at him, moving the flannel off his chest and beginning to spell the puncture wounds clean.
Fear stirred in Remus' gut, his eyes snapping to James again, trying to glance around Sirius to see better, but Remus was boneless and without strength to move, "Prongs?"
James gave him a too-wide smile from where he was seated, "All good, Moons, I got you way worse. Sorry about that, Moony was pretty strong and I used too much force, got you with my antlers. Don't worry though, barely a scratch on me and Pads patched me up already."
"I scratched you?"
Sirius shot James a look over his shoulder like shut up idiot, before quickly turning back to healing as if nothing happened. He was casting with his left hand, Remus realized belatedly, as he looked between the two of them, and Peter off to the side, pointedly silent and stoic, a stone sinking in his gut. Something was wrong.
James hurried to correct himself, shaking his head, "No, I mean— yes, technically, but really, it was nothing. Inconsequential."
"Let me see," Remus snapped, wincing and letting out a shuddering cough when Sirius started closing up some of the wounds, his boyfriend's face concentrated and something else Remus couldn't pin down, pulled taut from stress.
"You're working yourself up over nothing, Moons," Sirius intoned, careful careful careful. Sirius didn't say things carefully, he was reckless with his words, his gestures, with almost everything. "You need to relax, darling."
He grabbed Sirius' arm, anxiety rising with every passing second, copper in his throat, his mouth, the smell permeating the room heavily despite there being none on James' clothes or the floor. He grabbed Sirius' arm to demand answers, but he didn't expect his boyfriend to wince, and not just wince, but actually gasp in pain. Remus dropped his hand as if he'd been burned, heaving now, recoiling from Sirius' reaching hands, understanding what hadn't been said. He'd hurt them last night, and not bruises and scrapes from tumbling around. James' blood in his nose, Sirius' gasp of pain in his ears, all of their racing heartbeats a kicking bass drum, Remus had hurt them.
"Moon— Remus, Remus, we're all okay, I'm fine," Sirius blurted, wild-eyed, pain creased, "Stop, stop moving, please, let me heal you."
"D—Don't touch me," Remus stuttered, pressing himself against the wall, half his wounds healed, the other half bleeding again. He heaved with pain and panic, coughing and splattering red droplets on the mattress, copper in his throat, his mouth. "Stay away from me, you lied to me. I hurt you."
Remus' vision began tunneling, either from panic, exhaustion, or blood loss, he wasn't sure, the last thing he saw before he passed out was James limping toward him and Sirius' mouth moving rapidly but he couldn't make out any of the words, both of their hands reaching for him when the darkness took over.
Remus wouldn't see them. He told Pomfrey not to let them in to the hospital wing, and when he was released, he spent the entire rest of the day with his curtains spelled shut. He stole the map so they couldn't find him, and sat with Lily in all of their classes, disappearing somewhere in the castle when there wasn't class. He looked distinctly sick whenever he did look at them, which was rare, and James had taken to changing in the bathroom so Remus wouldn't have to see the scars on his hip.
They gave him four days of moping before they kidnapped him from the corridors, James under the invisibility cloak, pushing him through the open door of an empty classroom and locking it behind him, Sirius waiting further inside. Remus huffed, leaning heavily on his crutch, still not recovered from the moon because he hadn't been resting as he should, wired and guilty, plagued with nightmares. James sprawled in front of the door like he was afraid Remus would try to tackle him to escape as if he couldn't take down Remus with a strong breeze. Remus had werewolf strength, but he wasn't fast, and his body was weakened by pain, so even if he tried, it wouldn't work.
"Sit down, Remus," Sirius said shortly, though it sounded more like an order than anything else. Remus glared at him, opening his mouth to tell him to piss off, but Sirius cut him off before he could, adding in a tired voice, "Please."
Remus lowered himself into the closest desk carefully, swallowing a groan of pain and stretching out his bad leg, crutch laying across his knees. For a long minute they all just stared at each other, unsure where to begin. Remus was looking at their feet, stealing fleeting glances at their faces every now and then, feeling trapped. He wasn't angry really, he was too tired to be angry, especially after spending a week feeling nothing but rage bubbling under his skin. Remus was tired, and sad, and he wanted to be left alone.
"Listen, Moons, we're sorry for how we handled everything, but we were just trying to protect you," James started, abandoning his post at the door to sit at a desk adjacent to him.
"Protect me?" Remus echoed, at a loss for words.
"Yeah, Rem, it's just— you take every scrape or bump we get on the moons so personal, even if it has nothing to do with you. You carry this constant guilt about it every month, and we wanted to protect you from that." Sirius continued, pulling on his fingers, he wasn't good at apologies, or saying the right thing, or even doing the right thing, it felt like.
"I could've turned you or killed you with that scratch, but you were worried about protecting me? Do you realize how ridiculous you sound right now?" Remus said incredulously, clutching his crutch tightly.
"The point is that you didn't. You didn't turn or kill me, I'm right here, perfectly healthy, and you're acting like I've died. Look at us, Moons, we're here, we're okay, you don't have to keep punishing yourself."
"The point is that I still could. I didn't this time, you got lucky, this time," Remus responded emphatically, feeling more than a little insane, "Neither of you listens to me at all, you talk about protecting me like I'm not the monster. Don't you understand that I don't want to wake up to find out that I've killed the people I love most in the world? Don't you understand that I should be alone? Who cares if the monster tears himself to shreds every month if it means he cannot hurt anyone else?"
"Don't you dare insinuate that it's better for you to be alone in that shack, hurting and afraid," Sirius snapped harshly, stepping forward, brimming with righteous fury, "We do it because we love you, you daft bastard! We do it because we promised you you'd never have to do it alone again, and we've kept that promise."
"It's not that we're not listening Moons, it's that we love you too much to leave you alone. We're smart enough to take care of ourselves, and we have on every single moon for years now. So, I got hurt this time, so what? That's why we do it together, so we can help each other. A little scratch is nothing if it makes things easier for you, makes you safer." James said, much softer.
Remus looked away from them, finding it too hard to see Sirius' anger and James' kindness, two sides of the same coin, really. Sirius' protectiveness translates to anger and defensiveness, an undeniable fierceness about it. James' translates to kindness, a soft place to land and a promise to keep. He shook his head, trying so hard to keep the walls up, the wolf alone kept everyone safer. "It's not worth the risk, it never was."
Sirius' shoes came into view first, then his fingertips tracing the years-old criss-crossing scars on Remus' neck and cheek, and finally holding his chin, lifting his head to make Remus look at him, "You've always been worth the risk, you're worth every risk. You're our Moony."
"I hurt you," Remus whispered, eyes falling to his right shoulder. There was no evidence of the injury now, no wince of pain when Sirius moved, only the memory lingering in dark corners of his mind and behind his eyelids.
"I've survived much worse," Sirius replied easily, a blink and the anger was gone, replaced by such gentleness, "I won't let you be alone, and I won't break my promise to you either, so I need you to trust me when I say that we've got it handled. I need you to let me love you." Remus took a stuttering breath, winded by the words, a little devastated by them too. Sirius smiled like he understood, even though Remus hadn't said a word, kissing the scar on his cheek and tugging him into a hug, "Alright, Moons, we'll be alright."