Full Moon
March 15th, 1976
Sirius
He doesn’t know why he’s done this.
Sirius sprints down the grounds not far behind James, forgoing the cloak and map, without even Peter there with them to still the Whomping Willow. James dodges the branches with skill as if he’s done so a million times and slides down the hole into the entrance to the shack.
The sounds of Remus turning are haunting from down the hall, they echo against the wood ominously.
“Sectumsempra!” He hears Snape shout, followed by pained whimpers and an agitated growl. James and Sirius burst into the room where the two are, James lunging right for Snape to drag him out, casting a defensive spell to deflect the claws that swipe for them. Moony howls in rage, and Sirius stands frozen on the spot as James continues pulling Snape along to safety. He’s never seen the wolf outside of Padfoot’s view, where the perspective of everything is a bit distorted with the canine senses. He can’t raise his wand, paralized with fear and awe. Seeing the gaping wound across the wolf’s nose renders him unable to react as Moony’s large paw comes down again, nearly gutting him. As it is, he’s sent flying across the room, hot blood soaking quickly through his shirt. He did that. It may have been Snape’s spell that left that gash across his friend’s face, but it’s him that brought this on. He hurt Moony. Remus. This is only fair.
James comes back for him, heaving him over his shoulder and making a beeline for the exit. Sirius’ dead weight and the tree, swinging its branches wildly, prevents them from making a quick escape, and Moony catches up to them, making a grab for James’ leg and clawing him through his pants. He screams out, but still drags Sirius along, with a defined limp, back to the castle.
They don’t make it to the doors before Madame Pomfrey rushes out to reach them. She swears when she sees the state that Sirius is in, conjuring a stretcher to levitate him to the hospital wing immediately, James limping along behind them.
Sirius faintly registers Snape’s shouting and McGonagall trying to get him to keep quiet as they follow the three of them before everything is black.
March 16th, 1976,
Remus
Remus is beyond confused when he wakes up in the hospital wing instead of the shrieking shack, even more so when he realizes that his parents are on either side of his bed.
“What?” He starts to ask, when he looks past his mother and sees James sitting in a chair beside Sirius, unconscious in another bed. James’ parents are also there, speaking with Dumbledore and McGonagall in Pomfrey’s office. He shoots straight up, pain flaring in every bone in his body. “What happened?” He asks in alarm, and James turns to look at him with wide eyes. He tries to get up, but collapses back down into his chair, and it’s then that Remus notices his bandaged leg.
Hope shushes him and tries to ease him gently back into lying down, but he shoves her hands away, and looks to his father. Lyall will tell him the hard truth. “Dad, what did I do?” His lip trembles as he jumps to the worst conclusions.
“You didn’t bite anyone,” Is the first thing Lyall says, and the initial relief Remus feels is enough for him to let his mother lay him back down onto his pillows. His face feels itchy, but when his hand comes up to scratch it, all he finds are thick bandages he hadn’t yet noticed in his panic.
“Another student got into the shack,” his father continues. “He hit you with a cutting curse, but James and the Black boy got there before you could hurt him. You wounded both of them, and we’re waiting for the Potter’s to finish with Dumbledore so we can sort this whole thing out.
Remus feels a devastating dread settle in his gut. “I’m going to Azkaban, aren’t I?”
“No, no, you’re not, Cariad.”
He ignores his mother’s meaningless reassurances, looking to James, who offers him a weak smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. His own eyes trail to Sirius, either sleeping or unconscious. “Will Sirius be okay?”
His father sighs heavily. “Yes, he will be, and his family will remain unaware of this, if we can help it. So no, you’re not going to Azkaban, but you’ll likely be coming home with us for good. Remus… you should know, it was Black that told the Snape kid how to get to you.”
“Lyall, he doesn’t need that right now.”
The rest of what his parents say falls on deaf ears.
Sirius wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that to Remus. He can be impulsive and hotheaded, but he wouldn’t…
He’s impulsive and hotheaded and spiteful. To Snape, he would do that without thinking of how it would affect Remus as well.
Remus looks back over to Sirius, his ears ringing. James must know that he’s been told, because he tries to get up again, managing to stand on his feet this time. Remus shakes his head, silently telling James not to come over. The other boy gets the message and sits back down looking crestfallen.
James always backs Sirius, in everything, and Peter follows him. Remus is alone now. Perhaps more than he’s ever been now that he knows what it feels like to not be alone.
The next time Remus wakes up is to shouting.
“You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Sirius!” Comes Regulus’ voice. “You’ve always got to go around causing trouble without caring who you’re hurting in the process.”
Remus cracks his eyes open, and sees his parents still sitting beside him, looking shocked at the outburst across the room Regulus is there, screaming at Sirius, who is now both awake and looking immensely confused.
Regulus goes on. “You could have just ruined Remus’ life, you know that? You could have been the reason he killed someone! He trusted you, and this is what you do with it?”
Sirius seems too guilt-stricken from that last comment to bother questioning why Regulus is there, or even knows what happened. He’s now looking down at his hands, fumbling with the thin hospital sheet over him.
Remus is stricken as well. He knew that Regulus and he had become acquaintances of a sort, but he hadn’t realized that the younger would care about what had happened last night, let alone this much.
“Why’s that one here?” Lyall asks quietly, looking at Remus.
“We’re…” Remus isn’t sure for a moment, then looking back to Regulus and seeing the rage on his face, he knows. “We’re friends.”
His father looks displeased by this, but says nothing more, other than. “You told him?”
“He figured it out.”
Dumbledore strides over to the brothers. “Mr. Black, I assure you that Sirius’ discipline will be carried out once he’s healed, but for now, I do not believe that you are helping that process.
“Good.” Regulus says. “He should be expelled for this.” He begins to turn away, but then looks back at Sirius with nothing but disdain on his face. “Mother would be proud.”
Sirius flinches violently at the words, curling in on himself and burying his face in his hands. Regulus composes himself, walking over to Remus as if his outburst just now hadn’t even happened. Lyall stiffens, and Regulus ignores it, simply placing a chocolate bar on Remus’ lap. A muggle one, that Remus is sure he had to go looking for.
“Get better soon, Remus. “He uses Remus’ first name for only the second time. “It’ll be a nightmare not having you to study with, and you’re O.W.L.s are coming up.”
“I won’t be taking them, so I don’t have to worry about it,” Remus tells him. Regulus only scoffs and rolls his eyes, as if Remus is full of shit, and swiftly leaves the room.
Perhaps Remus isn’t alone.
February 27th, 1980
Remus
The Full moon is coming up in just three short days, and Remus can tell it’s going to be a bad one. He’s been separated from his pack for far too long, and it’s like Moony can sense that they won’t be there for him for this moon.
He’s laying in his bed, too sore and fatigued to even move to the library today, so he’d summoned a handful of books to himself to study there. It’s tiring, continuing to work through the thick tomb of old wizarding families, even more so when there’s no guarantee he’ll even find anything connecting to Voldemort in it.
A knock on the door sounds just a moment before Regulus pushes it open.
“I thought you were still asleep this late in the day, Lupin,” he says, then squints at him. “Are you ill?”
“It’s just the moon,” Remus waves it off. “It’s gonna be worse than usual this month, being away from the others.
“What do you mean?” Regulus tilts his head, reminiscent of a curious cat. “It’s not like they’re ever with you for the moons anyway.”
Remus looks down, flicking a page in the book. “Yeah, right.” He clears his throat. “Did you need anything? Find something?”
“No,” Regulus says simply. Remus thinks he’s going to leave, or hopes, at least. But instead, he leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “What aren’t you telling me?” He shoots straight up again, taking several paces closer. “Lupin, if you bit my brother-”
“No!” Remus nearly shouts in horror. “No, they uh… the three of them, they became animagi… in fifth year, to help me through the transitions. It’s perfectly safe for an animagus to be near a werewolf, see, if it’s someone the wolf is close to, they’ll recognize them and form a sort of pack bond.” He explains rapid fire, then trails off at the end, thinking of his brother. “Other werewolves, uh, they may recognize each other as pack, or sometimes they’ll see each other as a threat, no matter who it is.”
Regulus seems to be struggling to process this, face making several expressions in quick succession to each other. “So, you-” He cuts himself off, running a hand down his face with a sigh, and then scoffs a laugh. “Of course they would, those bloody idiots. I can even imagine it was probably my insane brother’s idea.”
“He came up with the theory, yeah,” Remus confirms sheepishly. “There’s not much research on werewolves, as you know, other than how to kill them or fend off an attack by one. Sirius learned that we’re not usually a threat to animals in the wild, unless it’s a wolf’s normal prey, so, he had the thought that it may be the same for an animagus.” He shrugs, as if four teenagers becoming illegal animagi to spend full moons with their werewolf friend was nothing special, as James had when they’d revealed their accomplishment to him. He supposes he’s used to it.
“Right, so…” Regulus appears both at a loss for words, and deep in thought. “When you spend a moon away from them, it’s pretty hard on you, more so than normal.”
“Right.”
The younger turns on his heel and leaves without another word, though there’s an odd look of determination on his face. Remus wishes he didn’t know what it meant, but it’s rather heartwarming.
Regulus
“Kreacher.”
The elf appears at once. “Yes, Master Regulus?”
“Please bring me every book in my father’s collection you can find on animagi. You may go to other unoccupied Black properties if you must.”
Kreacher bows once and disappears with a crack. When he returns several hours later with around a dozen books, Regulus tears into them immediately.
For an entire month, from full moon to full moon, the wizard must carry a mandrake leaf in their mouth. Be wary! Note that speaking and eating will pose a challenge, but if it is swallowed or spit out, the process must begin again.
Regulus thinks vaguely back to the summer before his fourth year, in which Sirius had managed to go an entire month without getting in trouble by staying completely silent and staying out of their mother’s way. He smiles faintly at the memory, now realizing the reason story behind his oddly quiet behavior. It was also the one month that Regulus had seen his mother in a better mood than she ever usually was.
He summons Kreacher again, this time asking him to acquire a mandrake leaf for him.
March 1st, 1980
Sirius
The roof of Potter manor is frosty, dampening the bottom of his pants while he sits and stares up at the sky, the full moon already bright, high up in the sky.
He’d tried to turn into Padfoot and curls up on the shingles to watch the sky, but there had been something so, so very wrong about being Padfoot on a full moon without having Moony there with him, chasing each other through some secluded wooded area, Prongs galloping after them with Wormtail hanging onto an antler.
His cold breath mingles with the smoke from his lit, but untouched cigarette. He can’t bother to cast a warming charm over himself. The biting cold is a reminder that he’s alive, however much he wishes he wasn’t. He hopes that the sleepiness beginning to take over is the hypothermia setting in. He lays back against the roof, giving in to the ice underneath him, silently apologizing to the person that has to dig his grave into the frozen dirt.
He thinks it’s some time later that he vaguely registers the voices of James and Peter, and the feeling of them carrying him back inside off the roof, through his bedroom window. He doesn’t welcome the warmth inside of Potter Manor, wishing they’d put him back outside, somewhere far into the forest for the wolves to have him, but he has no strength to fight against them.
James
James has felt fear before, during skirmishes with death eaters, during the first transformation they spent with Remus, during quidditch matches when he’s nearly had bad accidents. But those all came with a rush of adrenaline that he thrived on, a feeling of excitement.
The adrenaline that comes with nearly losing Sirius is not in the least bit exciting. It’s pure terror coursing through his veins. He’d known Sirius wasn’t dealing with his guilt and grief well, but to realize that it was to the point of self-destruction like this is a horror James has never felt before.
He watches helplessly as the healer his mother called over, a family friend of theirs, works several spells on his unconscious best friend, forcing potion after potion down his throat.
The only thing that grounds him is Lily’s tight grip on his arm, her face pressed into his shoulder as she whispers to him over and over that Sirius is going to be alright. She would never lie to him.
Peter
At least he’s not suffering the pain of transformations anymore, Peter thinks to himself as he watches the moon through the window, listening to the healer work on Sirius in the other room. James’ parents are sitting together on the couch a few feet away, clutching each other in fear of losing their son.
Of his three friends, Peter had always been closest to Remus, probably wouldn’t have been friends with James and Sirius at all if it weren’t for him.
He does feel the guilt of what he’s done and is still doing, when he’s with these people. He feels sorrow for the unborn Potter baby and the world it’s going to be born into, and hopes for Euphemia and Fleamont’s sake, for the kindness they’ve always given him, that James and Sirius will make it through the war, even if the family has to be forced into hiding.
He doesn’t love any of them enough to die for them. When he’d been captured by death eaters and given the choice between joining their cause and dying, he wishes he could say he at least hesitated. Hell, he wishes he was the type of person that could’ve told them to go fuck themselves and gone to his death bravely, but he isn’t. Perhaps he could’ve gone to Dumbledore as soon as he got out, but they’d taken him to the Dark Lord, who’d marked him then and there, tying them together for the rest of his life.
All the guilt he feels, yet he isn’t sorry for doing what he needed to do to survive.
He hears the relieved cries from the other room and assumes that Sirius has pulled through. He almost backtracks on his previous thoughts, wondering if death would actually have been kinder than what’s still coming for them all sooner than later.