Year 5
The lantern on the table whined in protest of being out for so long. Peter was half slumped in his seat, half leaning on Remus. Remus’s quill dripped ink onto his half written parchment. At some point, Remus realized, he had zoned out and hadn’t been bothered to zone back in. To his credit the full moon was in only a few days time and the upcoming potions exam was not helping him ease his mind. He could feel how close it was, in the way his muscles protested at every human movement, in the way his senses sharpened, in the way his friends' pitying eyes scanned him for signs of unease.
Remus knew they meant well but sometimes it was overwhelming, though he supposed he’d be the same way if any one of his friends experienced even half the pain Remus was used to on a monthly basis. His eyes briefly glanced across the table, James’s head was slumped on both hands over a book, drool threatening to spill over his bottom lip onto the page. Sirius however looked bored, idly taping his fingers on his cheek as his stormy eyes scanned the page as if not actually reading. His eyes met Remus’s for a brief moment before Sirius cleared his throat.
“What would happen if we just got rid of the moon?”
Remus blinked. Once. Twice.
“Come again?”
“You know with your whole” Sirius gestures wildly towards Remus as Peter stirs and James rolls his head to one hand to look at Sirius. “Furry little problem?”
“Pads, mate, what the hell are you on about?” James stifles a yawn trying to understand exactly what idea their imaginative friend concocted on such little sleep.
“What if we took the moon, and just- poof” Sirius makes a little explosion gesture with his hands “there would be no more fulls”
Remus chews his lip considering the logistics of Sirius’s proposal.
“Besides the environmental impact?” He supplies in lieu of an actual answer as Remus wasn’t quite sure he knew the actual answer.
“What environmental impact”
“The moon, it controls the waves or something, I dunno. I didn’t pay all that close attention in grade school science class” Remus meets Sirius’s eyes with a shrug. James laughs.
“How can the moon, way up there, control the ocean!”
Remus rolls his eyes, he was unfortunately both blessed and cursed by being the only marauder with a muggle primary education. His mother insisted on it when he was young, he’s glad she did usually, but not in moments like these.
“I dunno Prongs, if you’d clean your ears you’d know I just said that. Some muggle somewhere proved it, I don’t remember who or what exactly”
“No matter, your dodging the question” Sirius ever so seriously points out
“I dunno pads, without lunar cycles I supposed I’d be stuck in whatever stage I was in when it disappears.” Remus concludes.
A wicked grin spreads from Sirius to James to Peter
“No.”
“Why not? If it would stop you from being in pain couldn’t we try?-“
“No”
“But Moony-“
“No.”
Despite Remus’s protests, ¾ of the marauders spent the next couple months researching how far wizards can apparate and the effects of distance on spell casting. They were all very put out to report the moon is too far away for them to blow up. Remus thought that was the last of it. How foolish he was.