SECOND YEAR
..-. .- -- .. .-.. -.--
Remus would miss the woods near his house as he spent the last two moons playing with his mum and dad. “Please try and be less destructive this year, RJ,” Lyall asked as they drove to Kings Cross Station.
“I just wished they didn’t leave me by myself”, Remus huffed in response. He felt really shitty.
“They don’t know you like we do”, added Hope as she fiddled with the radio. The radio crooned some song about Brandy being a fine girl. Remus wasn’t sure what that meant.
James walked next to his mum as his dad insisted on carrying his suitcase. “Now, can you at least get one less detention than last year?” his mother pleaded, a strained smile on her face. James laughed as they crossed the platform. He spotted Sirius with his cousin now caregiver Olga. The older woman at least smiled. The only time he saw Sirius’s mother, she was scowling so hard James thought her eyes would roll to the back of her head. “Hello, Sirius!” Euphemia greeted the small boy.
“Hello Mrs Potter, thank you for the Christmas presents”. Sirius happily launched himself at James, unapologetically giving him a warm hug. James watched as his mother shooed Sirius’s thank you’s. He saw Olga’s face brighten as she realised that Sirius was nothing like the rest of their family and they were nothing like Sirius.
Moments later, all four boys were now ready to board; Remus blushed as his mother gave him a squeeze. “Be careful with yourself. I only have one of you”, she whispered in his ear before she let go.
“Now, lads—”
James walked straight into a beanpole with a greasy black wig and the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. “Potter”
“Oh, sorry, Snape, no need ssssspit at me”, James bit back. Snape always rubbed him the wrong way, something about his cold, colourless eyes and his friendship with Lily.
“Hello, Evans.” Lily rolled her eyes. He gave her a smile, and Sirius gestured that they had found an empty compartment.
.-.. .- -.. ...
“I did not miss homework,” Sirius said as he charmed the paper plane he made to aim for Peter.
“I mean, can you miss something you barely do! Also, call this thing off. I have a phobia.”
“A phobia of what?” Sirius sat up straight. He couldn’t wait to hear what dumb thing Peter was going to say.
“Of getting a papercut in my eye! c’mon could you imagine?” Peter crinkled at the thought of it. James started to laugh. “are you kidding me?”
“Shut it, James, your eyes are protected.”
Remus put a hand on his shoulder. “Petey dude, you are so weird”.
The first moon of the second year bit Remus on the bum. He had gotten himself detention because he hadn’t noticed that Sirius turned his Transfiguration essay into another paper plane, this one dove and hit James in the back of the head.
When Professor McGonagall came down to meet him and Madam Pomfrey, she gave a stern glance and then softened, “Just make sure you keep a closer eye on your papers, Remus.”
“I will, no more leaving them near Sirius” she smiled at his response.
“How much do you remember after the moon?”
“A fair bit. Dad just mentioned my inhibitions are different” Remus emphasised the word inhibitions because it was his dad’s word.
Professor McGonagall nodded at his response. “You howl a lot. Are you okay in the shack?”
“I think I get sad and lonely”
“I’m sorry, dear.”
“It’s okay, it is what it is” as he said that he watched her face as it grew sympathetic and then just sad.
They let Remus inside and bid him a safe moon. They must have been slow to get there because the transformation snapped and cracked as the last ward was cast. He swore through the pain until his voice left him, and it was just barks and yowls. He scratched at the walls like a dog locked in a room, unaware of the splinters anchoring in his paws. He growled, cursing at the night and bit his hand in anger. He wanted to run. He even tried to do laps, but he couldn’t focus like that. He missed moving around, and the scents in this shack just started to smell like himself. As the sun rose, he went to scratch behind his ear. His claws had grown and gave him a slice down his neck. He’d regret that in the morning.
Every cut, scratch and slice would split more, bleed more and hurt more when the moon was over. But his body would begin to heal them the minute he was human Remus again.
“Good morning Remus! Oh no, I can smell the blood from here” Madam Pomfrey cleaned the room of blood and then began her work on Remus. “How— did you go to scratch behind your ear?”
Remus gave her a smile as he finished the last of her concoctions. “It was itchy and its instinct” he shrugged. She tutted and cleaned the rest of him up.
“Can you help me think of an excuse for the scar?”
“Hmmm…say I tried something for your migraines! no one will question it otherwise.”
Obliviousness was something James never wholly grew out of, but he did begin to match up with Remus’s mysterious migraines along with his fatigue and the moon. He had read about lycanthropy in the massive book his parents leave in the toilet so you have something read.
Every migraine, Remus would have a new white scar somewhere on his body. He turned to Sirius one night. Remus had bound off to the hospital wing.
“Sirius?”
“Yeah?” He looked up from his textbook. Peter was in the shower, so it was just the two of them, and he felt he could trust Sirius not to mock his curiosity. “Do you think Remus’s migraines are…suspicious?”
Sirius sat up, an eyebrow cocked. “Whatdya mean? that he gets them?”
“No, like the timing?”
“That they are at night?”
James gave him a look. “No, that they are always on a full moon.”
Sirius took a second, and the whites of his eyes widened. “Do you reckon he’s a werewolf?”.
“Well, he’s definitely not got his period”, James responded with light sarcasm.
Sirius snickered and laid back down. “What makes you think-?”. James, through his reasonings around in his head, “It’s a lot of little things, the scars he gets, literally always after a full moon, he seems quieter around them too, he also refuses to use specific cutlery, doorknobs and potion utensils.”
“Maybe he’s just weird”, Sirius posed.
A few moments of silence fell around them until Sirius suggested they wait until the next moon to confirm anything. James felt better having voiced his… was it a concern for his friend? Was he scared? he couldn’t place the feeling. Peter came out from the bathroom in a matching pyjama set, and James laughed as Sirius told him he looked like a “goddamn Christmas present”.
Every moon got harder, Remus was growing, and the room only felt smaller. Part of him worried about what would happen the next time he was home. He had overheard some other students mention werewolves before, and he read books in the library about them. His dad was being nice when he said that they weren’t accepted. They were considered extremely dangerous and cruel, and many people advocated for their capture and murder. This information sat on his chest and made it hard for him to feel anything but shame. Shame regarding his condition was new. He clawed at his side and nipped at his legs as a way to push through his anger until he bound into the empty fireplace, the bricks breaking around him. There was a cut on his face. He felt it when he opened his mouth to howl. The howls turned into whines as he bound around the room, waiting for morning.
“Merlin’s beard Remus you worked yourself up into a right state last night”, Madam Pomfrey exclaimed as she came to get him. He was sat wrapped in a blanket on the bed, he never knew the exact shade of his fur was a greyish brown, but he shed some on the bed last night.
“People hate me” He managed to get out.
She made a sympathetic face as she treated his wounds. She didn’t like to treat them in the castle just in case. She handed him several little beakers; he hadn’t asked what they were. He just knew it meant he could head straight to class.
“No one could ever hate you love, is that why this happened? oh, Remus dear”
She began to sort out his wounds as she tutted sympathetically.
“The scratch on your face—”
“It will scar, I know.”
“At least your eye is okay,” she said as she pulled out his uniform for him to get changed.
“Now, come see me if anything is wrong,” she said that every time they parted ways. Remus gave her a smile and headed down the hall.
“Remus! Here, I got you some toast” Sirius handed him the bread and some orange juice. He was grateful for the food.
“Thanks, dude, I am starving.”
“Vomiting again?”
“Huh- oh yeah, it was a hefty one last night” Remus watched Sirius’s eyes glaze over the new scar on his face. “You are going to ask about my face, aren’t you?”
“No, you look as ugly as normal” Sirius’s answer made Remus feel better, but he didn’t know what he thought. How do you explain random scars?
“Oh shut up, you twat!”
“I am the twat that made sure you were fed before potions!”
“Well, someone needs to make sure I stay this ugly”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Sirius guffawed.
“My brain tried to escape my head last night. Nothing I say will make sense.”
--.- ..- . ... - .. --- -. ...
James let it go for two moons before the curiosity became painful. He looked at the other boys. Sirius caught his eye as he attentively helped Remus finish the last few sentences of his homework, he saw his tired face, and he just blurted it out.
“Remusareyouarewerewolf?”
“Hmm? ...what?” Remus made a face illegible to James.
“I…are you a werewolf?”
Remus looked at his best friends. He never had friends let alone this much fun before. His chest always ached slightly because lying hurt. It hurt having to hide such a huge part of who he was and how his condition fucked with him. He was so scared they would leave him, but after his eye scar and few too many comments about him and the moon, he couldn't hide it anymore.
“Um…how do you know?”
They were sat on the floor of their room. The dorm was tidied enough recently that they could spread out and sit on the floor with their homework.
James explained his reasons, and Remus couldn't help but smile a little at how much the other boy noticed about him.
“You don't- you aren't scared of me?”
“You? scary?” Sirius scoffed. Remus nudged him. The other two also protested their fears and confirmed that he was still their Remus.
They asked a lot of questions, and Remus was happy to share, it had been so isolating. He showed them the bite mark and told them about the transformations and where he goes for them at school.
“You mean you've never attacked your parents?” Peter asked in awe. Remus shrugged. “When I transform, my brain is still mine, and I've known them since I was a puppy.”
“Isn't it cub for wolves?”
“Mum always called me a puppy, she said I reminded her of her childhood dog Sneaky, but I don’t rub my ass on the floor and my farts do not smell like something died up my ass."
Remus liked that they knew and liked that they promised to keep his secret. Sometimes one of them would crack a joke about it smelling like a wet dog or how he wolfs his food down.
He and Sirius were sat in the common room after their last class of the day. It was unusually scarce. He was inspecting the most recent scar on his hand. “What happened?” Sirius asked quietly, taking Remus's hand and looking at it himself.
“I think I bit my hand, I think I get lonely and claustrophobic and I take it out on myself”, he watched his friends face, his brows furrowed, and he looked sympathetic.
“Is it scary?”
“Which part?”
“Doing it alone?”
“Yeah… yeah, it's harder”, he swallowed.
Sirius made it easy to be vulnerable around him, having broken down recently and explained the previous horrors of his family and his home life pre-Olga.
They sat silently together, Sirius still assessing Remus's hand.
“I wish there was more we could do.”
-... .. --. / .. -.. . .- ...
Every moon after they found out, the other three boys worried about the fourth. “I hope he doesn't tear himself a new one”, James muttered as he cleared off his bed for the night.
“He was picking at the most recent one on his arm in Herbology,” Peter said as he tutted around looking for his stuffed griffin.
“I wonder if there was something we could do like so he wouldn't be alone,” Sirius said as he stared at the ceiling.
“I read that most werewolves don’t react to animals, and I don't personally know any lions so.”
“Did you pick lions because we are in Gryffindor? are you that predictable?”
“Look, maybe, but still, do you know animals?” James said as he threw around to Peter, “Gertie is under your bed, Pete.”
“I mean… McGonagall can turn into a cat?”
“Oh, come off it, you think Minnie is gonna go down and chum it with a giant dog?”
Sirius threw a pillow at James “10points from James for the shitty sarcasm”, James snickered as he sat up in bed.
“What if…what if we pulled a Minnie?”
“Become a professor?”
“No Peter, pay attention, obviously not that'd be Remus to become a Professor— I am saying we become animagi.”
“Dude, I have literally owned this thing for two years, and at the rate, we are going, they are gonna confiscate it” James jabbed his wand at Sirius.
The next morning, they were used to meeting Remus on the way to class. They shared worried glances as he missed Charms, History of Magic and Astronomy. No one could keep notes like Remus with his little diagrams and his attention to detail, but they tried. “I am getting really fucking worried”, Sirius hissed at the others. James's brow had been furrowed over his glasses all day while Peter was abnormally quiet. When it came time for dinner, and they still hadn't seen Remus, they stole away some dinner and went on the stomp down to the hospital wing.
Madam Pomfrey three worried little faces and quietly let them in. Remus had angrily thrown himself into the only solid brick wall last night. The scrapes on his face and shoulder were the only wounds visible, the rest of him bandaged up.
“Sorry to worry you,” he said in a hoarse voice. They all just stood there trying to comprehend his visage. “I had a bad night, rammed into a wall, broke a few bones, I think, which is a first”, Remus continued as they stood silently. “Why the hell—?” Sirius started, and Remus met his eyes
“I must have grown, I was bigger this moon, and it hurt more, and I get so. It is hard to explain.”
“Were you howling?” James asked as Remus's voice gave out at the end. “Yeah, most of the night.”
“We tried to take notes like you!” Peter chirped, showing him the papers. Remus laughed at their diagrams and the several small dicks bordering the pages.
For teenagers they remained incredibly sweet, only giving Remus 100% of the shit they gave each other three out of the four weeks on the month. James couldn't understand why everyone was laughing one morning until he caught a glimpse of his reflection “which one of you wankers drew a pair of tits on my face.” Trying not to laugh, Sirius turned to look at Remus, who was biting his lip. It was his idea, but Remus was better at being quiet and sneaky.
“This better come off, or I am taking a fat shit in everyone's beds.”
-. . .-. -..
Remus found that to catch up with his work post moon, he could plonk himself down in the library and catch back up in a few hours. After a few weeks of doing this, Lily began sitting with him mainly because he was closest to the fire and it was “colder than Santa's ballsack” in there. They quickly began working together, one would find the book/chapter/page that they needed, and the other would dictate the important parts.
“Okay, so the chapter says that dittany is dark green in colour and is somethings called burning bush, can let off flammable vapours… are you telling me this thing farts?” Remus muttered as they penned down facts.
“A high school kid back home was taken in an ambulance because he tried to light his fart on fire, singed his bum hairs and his right cheek”, Lily shared nonchalantly. Remus gave her an incredulous look. “Couldn't sit for weeks. Petunia called him Toasty for two years after.”
Remus relayed this information to the others it ended with detention. Sirius tried to set one of Peters farts off. Peter was the gassiest out of the four of them. It went wrong, Peter let a long motorbike sounding fart rip, and it set fire to a tapestry. The next day in History of Magic, Remus muttered, “Take your own notes, blister balls”, while looking Peter in the eyes as he shuffled in his chair. James fell off his chair at the tone of Remus’s utterance, luckily Binns had been on a tangent about what he considered the real disaster of 1922 in the US, and it was the lack of whiskey access.
.--. . -. .. ...
A letter came tucked in a book two weeks after Remus's 13th birthday. Hope was a liberated seventies woman and wanted her son to be correctly educated on puberty, sex and consent. He was used to her handing him books in preparation for discussions, but the title Your Penis is Powerful: Understanding Puberty and the Progression from Boy to Man-made Remus blushed next to his bowl of cereal. Sirius leant over and glanced at the book cover and snickered, “Oh Reemee, you are totally going to dick-tate this for us.”
Remus slapped him.
A week later, Remus was now fully aware of the changes in both male and female bodies. “You lot should know! My mum has a point. Hogwarts is doing us a disservice.”
Having finally convinced them, Remus did, in fact, teach them about their bodies upcoming changes and what girls would be going through simultaneously.
“Alright, Professor, explain the part about our voices again. Am I gonna sound hot in like six months?” James asked.
“Doesn't it have something to do with our balls dropping? I swear I heard that somewhere” Peter added. Sirius made a face and looked at Remus “Do they fall off?”
This was something they weirdly kept at, Remus doing anatomically correct diagrams to explain the parts of the body. The three other boys listened intently, only sometimes becoming shy and their cheeks coloured pink. Remus only really felt like that as he explained female anatomy and the menstrual cycle. “Labia majora, labia minora, the clitoris is the most sensitive part like the head of a penis” He tried to explain in a neutral tone.
“They have three holes down there?” Sirius asked incredulously as he pointed at the book's diagram.
“Yep, one to pee from, the actual vagina and obviously their arsehole”, Remus stated matter-of-factly. “Can we go through the menstrual cycle again?” James asked, his brow furrowed slightly.
Remus flipped a few pages in the book. “Once every 28 days an egg is released, if it goes unfertilised- that's with sperm, it will shed along with the lining of the uterus”, he pointed at the diagram.
“This shedding is them bleeding for about a week, and the side symptoms include mild to severe cramping, hormonal mood swings, pooping issues, headaches— I'm starting to feel really sad for vagina owners like this is horrifying.”
Remus was rather proud of his little sex-ed course as he noticed all three boys being kinder to the girls in their year. He notified his mother, who sent more books to educate them. He passed on information about safe sex and STI's and consent. Thankfully these conversations went over well. He at least thought it was safe to assume his friends weren't gross.
Hope wrote in her letters saying she hoped arming him with this information would mean he would make safe decisions. He told her he was grateful for the insight considering Hogwarts failed to cover basic anatomy and health education.
“Hey, Remus?”
“Yes, Sirius?”
“You know how you have your furry little problem?”
“I really hope you aren't referring to my penis.”
The three boys snickered and leant back on his chair. “No smartass, I was gonna say about—”
“I know what you meant”
“Good, so you know how is monthly?”
“I am very aware of it, yes.”
“Kinda like menstruating.”
Remus remained silent as he tried to predict where the hell Sirius was going to take this.
“Remus”, He whispered, his face lit up in a grin.
“Remus, I guess we could call it…moonstruating.”
James hacked a laugh, and Peter laughed to himself as he shook his head. Remus couldn't help but smile and also shake his head “really?”
“Oh, don't give me attitude because you are on your moons.”
“Oh, Moons”, James slapped him on the back. Remus held his eyes close and sighed.