FIRST YEAR
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The new scars were easier to hide under his clothes. Remus considered this as they rubbed against his new shirt. They made it onto platform 9 ¾, his father pulling his suitcase. He let go of his mother's hand but stayed close to her as his senses became overwhelmed. Hope kneeled unphased by the magical commotion occurring around her. “Remus, everything will be great, okay— you are gonna make friends, you are going to have fun, and you are going to be okay”.
She shared the intense quiet eye contact with her son as he nodded at her words. She hugged him goodbye, and Lyall helped him onto the train “You'll do wonderful things, owl us when you get a chance.”
“Sure thing, dad” Remus pulled his father in for a hug. He was going to miss his parents. They had been his world his entire life, and now the world seemed too big, too loud and too much.
“Hi! I'm James, Sirius and Peter” the boy with glasses gestured accordingly.
“Huh-lo'm Remus”, he answered through a mouthful of his mums chocolate chip muffin.
“Cool if we sit here?”
Remus nodded enthusiastically as he moved his things closer to him. “Did you want some muffins?” he showed them the container of muffins.
“Oh my god, we are going to be friends forever.”
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James did not let go of his promise, and the four boys fell into inseparability. Remus wrote about them to his parents detailing each boy so they could picture them. Remus enjoyed everything, even detentions, but he probably wouldn't say that out loud. He almost forgot to meet Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey the night of his first moon alone.
He had met with her his third night here, and they wanted to get some basic health checks done so she could compare post moon. She was younger than his mum, and her little name badge said her name was Poppy. She eyes that said kind things and a smile that could soothe a wound. Her hair was in braids that cascaded down her back.
“Hello Remus, how are you feeling so far?” Madam Pomfrey questioned as they waited for McGonagall to arrive at the hospital wing.
“Same as every other moon”, Remus quipped, unsure of how to explain that due to the past months' constant constantness, his body was achy and his head foggy and sore.
He followed behind the two women, under the weirdest tree he had ever seen, and into the rundown house, he was told about. They bid him goodnight, and Professor McGonagall muttered the wards over the door and the house. They didn't know that he spent the last seven years, 84 moons under his parent’s watchful eye. He didn’t know what he would do alone. He looked around the room. It was an old bedroom, tidied but not cleaned. There was water in a bowl for him, and before he could feel anything about that, the moon took over.
Remus padded around the room, the smell was very different, and it worried him. His howls and barks went unanswered. He became restless and frustrated. He tried to break down the wooden door. He ran a large paw through the window; it shattered but didn’t let him out. He could smell his own blood and then the pain he cried, his whines loud and fractured. He was antsy still, and he limped around the room until the rusty smell overwhelmed him. He never slept during the moon, so he jumped up onto the mattress and laid there as he howled all night.
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“Where were you last night?” Sirius asked as he got into Transfiguration.
“I get migraines sometimes. Pomfrey let me sleep there last night because I started vomiting”
Remus explained as he pulled out his things.
“What happened to your hand?”
“I knocked over the glass of what she gave me, and then as I tried to pick up the glass—”
Peter looked queasy. “Alright, we get it”.
Remus was a little surprised but grateful at the other boy’s blatant obliviousness that lasted his first year at Hogwarts. Moon Remus had a bad habit of hurting himself, he didn’t like how lonely he felt those nights, but he was more than happy to go it alone if it meant he could spend the other 29 days of the month with his friends.