THIRD YEAR
.... --- --.
“Honey, put all your clothes in the laundry, and I’ll do a big load”, Hope yelled from the kitchen as she made herself, Lyall and Remus a tea. Remus ran from his room to the laundry and dumped all his clothes from school into the machine. He knew his clothes were clean, but he enjoyed them smelling like home as much as they could. Lyall was still at work, so Hope collected Remus on her own this time, Remus introduced her to Euphemia and his friends.
“Why do your friends call you Moony, dear?”
She asked as they stacked his textbooks into his little library. Remus went bright red with worry and shame. “I know I wasn’t supposed to…but they guessed, and when I told them, they weren’t even scared.” His mother’s face went soft, and her eyes widened. “Don’t tell your father, but I am so so so glad for you, dear.” Remus felt her arms squeeze him tight.
“I do miss moons at home, and it’s a gory mess at school”, he showed her his scars.
“They heal pretty quick, but because they are magical, the scar is forever.” His mum just frowned, and her eyes went sad again. He knew she hated how his lycanthropy was treated by society. “I’ll make your favourite tonight, okay,” she said as she kissed his head.
He would have liked to invite the others to come to stay, but he caught a bird and ate the first moon home. The carnivorous act shocked Hope and Lyall as their 14-year-old son gorged himself on the small creature.
Remus clearly had more energy after his meal, the raw meat sustaining him as he bounded around the shrubbery as barked at his parents to watch him. “RJ?” Remus looked up, his head tilted and sat down.
“RJ, come here” Lyall pointed to the spot in front of him. The wolf padded over and sat down. Remus nudged his mum’s knees and then licked her hand. “Remus?” he tilted his head.
“I feel like I should document this” Lyall pulled out his quill and parchment and charmed it to quick-quote him. He asked Remus questions and instructed him to do things, which he happily obliged.
“Hopey, can you get your hands on a video recorder? I want to document all of this. I feel like we are onto something for lycanthropes.”
Lyall gave Hope a big smile, one that told her he felt good about something. She leant down and scratched Remus’s head.
On the next moon, he was home before school. His father had everything set up. “I want to run some stuff by you, RJ, then I want to ask you questions after the transformation”, Lyall explained as he set up the camera and his notes. “Sure, I mean, I remember most of the moon anyway.”
“That’s unheard of. Normally people would say they become more animalistic.”
“Maybe I’m just domesticated?” Remus shrugged and as he fiddled with the polaroid camera.
Dinner that night was pizza and a Greek salad. “Mum’s been reading about how the Mediterranean diet makes you live longer.”
“Well, Rem, I see it as, if it works then great! I added some years on. If not, I am enjoying a bowl of fresh veggies and feta. You can’t go wrong!”
-- .- - . ...
James, Remus and Peter had to board the train, unsure of where Sirius was. “Olga’s pumpkin soup sometimes cleans me out so….”
“You nearly missed the train because you were taking a shit?”
“Blame Olgie, not my fault. I love a good soup.”
Remus just laughed and scooted over so Sirius could sit down. “So, how have we been?”
Remus informed them of his dad's endeavours to change people’s perspectives on werewolves and how his mum was happy they knew. James told them of his quidditch practice and his new broom. Peter’s family visited his sister in LA. “God lads, the girls there totally had a moment with a girl named Olive.”
“Petey baby, you realise you look like a little lad who likes berries and cream from the Victorian era”, James laughed as he put a hand on his back.
Sirius explained that Cousin-caretaker Olga was his Uncle Alphard’s only daughter. “This uncle is absolutely fucked with cash.”
Remus made a face at the imagery of being fucked with cash. You don’t know where it's been. After his parents officially fucked off and joined a cult. “Similar to the Nazi’s to be quite honest, they really wanted us to join, but Olga worked her magic. She thinks it's better and safer if we are with her anyway” Sirius shrugged. Olga was actually very lovely and cared immensely for Sirius. He did, however, have some scaring around his legs from a curse he didn’t want to repeat. “Olga stopped her before she could do anything else.”
Remus changed the topic to break the tension, “so, I have been fiddling with that map.”
“The one we started in first year?” James said with a mouthful of Hope’s annual train muffins.
“Yeah, I want to map the entire school.”
“We could have it tell us where everyone is”
“Why would we need to know that?”
“So I don’t have to that Snunt ever again”, James hissed, spitting muffin everywhere.
“Snunt? Jamie babes, that was bad?”
Peter snorted and apple juice leaked from his nose. “Nice one, the both of you. You juiced Pete’s brain.”
Happy to be back with his boys, Remus slept well up until Moon eve. “Moony, I am sympathetic to your situation, but if I hear you toss and turn one more time, I will circumcise you”, James threatened. Remus mumbled an apology and shut his curtains, and cast muffliato. A hand popped through his curtains, and Remus grabbed it, attached was Sirius. “I can’t sleep either. Let me in?”
Remus scooted over, and Sirius laid down next to him. “Moon things?”
“I never get this restless, normally if anything, I am more tired.”
“I was reading. Olga lets us read whatever we want in the family library now, but yeah, I was reading about lycanthropy” Remus noticed Sirius’s tone shifted. It was soft and low, like he was embarrassed. “Find anything out?”
“I did. I found an old tome from a werewolf dude in the 30s. I have it in my bag. I thought you might want to—”
“Um, hell yeah, I have literally read all I can, and I just want to know what lycanthropic puberty will be like.”
“He wrote about that. Let me get it.”
Remus and Sirius went through the book, and each read a part out loud. “Do you poop during a moon?”
“I ate a bird once.”
“Ew, that’s like hardcore goth.”
Remus liked this guy. His name was Maxwell Koulogenis; he was bitten at age 9 by a wolf under the influence of drugs. Maxwell felt bad for her because she was bitten. After all, she befriended a drug dealer. He detailed his moons similar to Remus’s.
“Do you sniff and piss on everything?”
Remus stayed quiet. “Oh my god, you do?”
“Look, just because I am present doesn’t mean my brains are like not in the wolf zone.”
Sirius nudged him as he laughed softly. Sirius skipped to Maxwell’s entries about puberty. He answered a lot of Remus’s questions. Yes, he was going to get bigger. His human appearance will alter, and his normal pubescent journey will be altered as he meets maturity as a wolf. What those alterations would look like are subjective and personalised for each werewolf.
They fell asleep, the book on Remus’s chest. Sirius’s soft snores were comforting to Remus as he realised today was the day. The moon. Maxwell said his aches were different as a teenager, and Remus now understood why. He had the same bounce, but his joints felt dry like they needed oiling. Sirius opened his eyes and glanced up at Remus. “Good morning, Moony.”
“Morning, can you peak and see what the time is?”
“6:09 am, nerd, we have an hour.”
Remus laid back down. “Thank god, my joints ache, and I feel…itchy?”
“I have some cream in the bathroom, its au nat-u-ral…get your mind outta the gutter, you wank”
Remus chuckled and left the curtains. Peter was fast asleep, and James was out for quidditch practice. Remus found the cream in a nice little jar. He stripped and started lathering. The itchy feeling seemed to have occurred bc his body hair was courser. This seemed to have occurred overnight. This was not concerning, just annoying, but it gave him time to look over his body again. His scars were the same pinky silver, his milky white skin now smooth with lotion. He turned to the mirror and saw no changes in his face. Not till he opened his mouth, his canines now pointer and more pronounced, the more he ran his tongue over them, the weirder they felt in his mouth. He continued to scan his face. His pupils stayed dilated. He tried to focus his eyes further away, and to his shock, his vision was wolf-like.
He poked his head out of the bathroom door and whispered for Sirius, who fumbled out of bed and into the bathroom.
“Fuck me. The lights are bright. What couldn’t you find it?”
“No, Maxwell was right.”
“Well, I mean, it didn’t seem like he was lying”
“I’m itchy because my body hair is thicker…overnight” Remus grabbed Sirius’s hand and had him feel his arm and leg. “Oh, feels…pubey.”
“Thanks, fucker”
Sirius grinned. Remus moved and sat on the edge of the bath. “My eyes… I can see like I do during the moon and look” he opened his mouth and showed him his canines.
“Shit, okay…I mean, they look cool.”
“Are they obvious?”
“No super obvious, someone like Evans may notice, though, so we can just say I jinxed ya.”
The door of the bathroom opened, and James screeched. “You could lock the door!”
“Jamie honey, shut up. Moony has moon things happening.”
James made an oh face and shut the door. Peter’s snores confirmed he was not disturbed by James’s banshee impression.
They told James about their new friend Maxwell and how he basically predicated Remus’s current predicament. “The eye thing is a bit jarring, but you have lovely brown eyes, so they just look darker than normal.”
“Aw, thanks, mate.”
“That’s okay, the fangs are cool, and I agree with Sirius definitely pubey.”
Remus rolled his eyes and went to get dressed.
“Also, Moony, the freckles on your left ass cheek make a smiley face.”
-- --- --- -. ... .... .- -.. --- .--
Every class Remus has that day felt long and hard, but he pushed through doing his diagrams, waving his wand and taking notes on the properties of unicorn hair. He sat in their spot on the Gryffindor table.
“Moony, you feel okay?” James asked as he sat next to him.
“I think the moon is early today. I feel like arse.”
James put an arm around him “m’sorry, Moony Moo.” Remus laid his head on his shoulder as he waited for dinner to appear. Sirius and Peter sat opposite them. Concern washed over Sirius’s face. “His head is hurting, but he’s hungry, so he’s gonna eat and stomp off to the Pomf.”
Remus could hear the wink wink in James’s voice, and it made him smile. He did eat, and he ate three plates of whatever the fuck dinner was. His mastication was quick and wolfy. He started to feel his bones crack, and his jaw ached the way the moon triggered it. “I gotta go, I gotta go now, fuck.”
Remus made it just in time. Madam Pomfrey was waiting for him. “Remus, we need to go now, don’t we?”
He nodded at her, and she shot a look at Professor McGonagall, who seemingly understood the nurse's eye-words. “We will get outside the castle and apparate to the shack this evening.”
Remus nodded as he could feel the slow pull apart of his bones, his organs beginning to rearrange.
The shack looked different than what he assumed, the brick front and the sage green door. He was curious as to who left it abandoned. “Let’s get you inside”, they went through the door and passed the first few rooms to the back where the door had been replaced since the last time he was here.
“Have a safe moon Remus.”
He let out a low woof.
Finally, his body could complete the move from human to wolf. He had a brief thought about how soft his fur was and whether it also felt pubey. Luckily that thought did not last long as his paws met the ground. He adjusted his body so he could move around; the room had been cleaned this time, there was no leftover smell of blood. He gave the room a once over, and the only new smells were from the family of mice that recently moved in. He noticed birds outside the window and yelled at them. His howl caused one to fly into the glass. His brain snickered. He did another lap and another.
He tried to ignore the yearning in his chest for freedom, for company, for at least fresh air. It was the yearning and the loneliness that caused the aggressive and brutal responses. He chewed on his wrist until the metal taste of his own blood touched his tongue. He clawed his left leg and his torso in a move that had him fall off the bed. Then he started to howl broken-hearted sobs.
It was the cool breeze of morning that first touched his now bloodied skin. The transformation back could only be explained like the snapping of a million rubber bands. He sat up and found the blanket to wrap himself in. He wished he could at least have access to the rest of the house in the morning. He could at least take a piss.
“Another bad moon?” Madam Pomfrey asked as she peeked in.
Remus just nodded and showed her the nights damage. She tutted quietly, cleaning him up. She passed him the several potions to scull as she bandaged his wrist. “Be careful with your arms, dear, and there are vital veins there don’t want you bleeding out overnight.”
He nodded, his throat burning from the howling. “Drink some tea before class this morning for that throat.”
What a blessed solution.
Sirius saw Remus stumble into sight, his eyes wide and alert, but his body screamed tired. He caught sight of the bandages, and a pang of sympathy rang like a bell through Sirius’s body.
“Fuck Remus, here gimme your bag.” he took Remus’s bag off him with no argument, which worried Sirius even more.
“What hurts?”
“Fucked up my wrist, stomach and my leg.”
“Babes, you are turning yourself into shredded cheese.”
Remus snickered. “Sprinkle me on spaghetti Saturday.”
James and Peter caught sight of Remus. “Oh Moony, you have to start telling Pomf that you're having a rough time.”
“She knows, dude, she can’t do much.”
“If only they could let you pop home for the moons”, Peter suggested as he checked his bag. Remus shrugged. “I guess because it’d look a little suss, me pissing off once a month, I mean, I didn’t even leave the vicinity, and you lot guessed.”
“It’s because I read,” James stated proudly.
“Glad you know how sweetheart.”
This moon particularly set Remus back a bit in his studies, and he was sat with Lily one Friday night as he caught up. “Remus, can I ask you a question?”
“You just did” He gave her a dumb smile.
“Oh, don’t be silly. You and I are friends, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You’d tell me things like I’ve told you stuff.”
Lily had told Remus the issues she had with her sister, that she thought she wasn’t straight, and the bullying she faced from some girls about her looks.
He nodded, having a feeling he knew where this was going.
“Remus, do you have lycanthropy?”
“I…yes, yes I do.” He looked down, worried. Her tone didn’t indicate that she hated him, but he was prepared for the worst.
“Thank you for being honest.” she caught his eye, a kind smile on her face.
“You don’t have to— don’t feel like you have to be my friend still.”
“Remus, are you being serious? I wanted to know because I was worried, not because I hold some weird bigoted idea about, ya know.”
“Look, I have to be prepared for that response. I didn’t actually think you would”, he laughed as he stretched out on his chair.
She nodded. “Am I allowed to ask questions or—?”
“Go for it.”
“What’s it like?” She asked the question slowly. She wasn’t prying; she wanted to understand.
“The transformation hurts a lot; my bones snap into their new position, and then my organs rearrange to accompany them. The moons at home were nice, and my parents used to hang out with me. I was allowed to run around in some woods near our house, here they lock me in a room in a house in Hogsmeade.”
She listened. Her eyes widened as he told her how hard they were at school and why the scars were so prominent on his skin. He told her about Maxwell and how he predicated his new changes. “See my fangs, and maybe people will guess I am vampire instead.”
She looked. “Do they have both top and bottom ones?”
“Sirius was right. You would notice shit like this” He laughed, and she smiled, embarrassed.
“It's okay, Flower, you are just very observant. It’s not a bad thing.”
“Your boys know?”
“Course they know, they mother me a lot, I am very grateful for them.”
“James mentioned that you sometimes teach them stuff.”
“When were you talking to Potter, Evans?”
“Shut up, we sit together after class sometimes to write to-do lists, and he actually asked me if I was feeling okay when he saw the pad slip out from my sleeve.”
“My mother is a liberated woman, and she sent me a book about sex ed, so I taught the others.”
“Well, you did a bloody good job. The kid saved my life. He charmed his jumper, so it was warm because my cramps were so bad.”
“Aw, how cute, Mrs Potter.”
“Shut it, Moony— oh, that’s why they call you that.”
-. .. --. .... - -- .- .-. .
The moon before school finished for the year Remus was dreading it. His body no longer ached. It vibrated, he couldn’t sit still anymore, and his brain felt askew in his head. He rambled to the others as he waited for 6 pm before making his way to the hospital wing.
“Toes definitely would have named themselves toes if they could, like it makes sense.” He stated seriously as he wriggled his toes. Peter just hummed as he wrote a letter to his mother. James shot a look at Sirius, who shot a look at Remus. “Babes, I think you’ve lost the bloody plot.”
“I am not wrong, though”, Remus said with his eyebrows raised.
“I mean, I agree toes do look toe-y”, James said, looking at his own feet.
“James, don’t encourage this.”
“Jam, listen, I just come up with a joke. A Fungi moves in. He doesn’t need mushroom.”
James' lip quivered as he broke down to laugh at Remus’s sheer enthusiasm. Sirius couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Moony, babes, keep ya day job.”
“It was funny, though.”
“Can wolves give puppy dog eyes?”
The high lasted up until the transformation. As his bones shifted and his body played Tetris once again, he heard something snap, and a strangled half scream half yelp broke from his throat. His right shoulder blade was broken, so all night, he screamed and ripped at his skin to get to the pain. To fix it. It was like both parts of him were present and trying to figure out how to fix it.
“Remus John Lupin, what in merlins name happened?”
“Shoulder blade, bad.”
Madam Pomfrey assessed the damage and realised he would most likely need a full bottle of skele-gro and some rest. She bandaged the shreds and had him on a stretcher down back to the wing. “Please don’t pass out Remus, I just need you to drink the skele-gro”
“Is bad?”
“You broke your clavicle and scapula, and then it seems to have cracked your collar bone in several places.”
He nodded, looking up at her, his vision blurred. The early morning allowed him to be bought in with no issues, but the three other boys were up to bring him breakfast and saw him in the stretcher.
“I cannot believe we can’t see him”, Sirius hissed as they made their way to Transfiguration.
“Let's leave it till after dinner. He should be okay by then?” Peter said hopefully.
“I, we have to do something— Sirius, let’s pull a Minnie.” Sirius went wide-eyed at James's declaration and decided that they would begin researching the Animagus process from then.
-.-. .- .-. . -.. / ..-. --- .-.
As the day dragged on, the three only grew more concerned for the fourth. Remus will never realise the gap his absence leaves with the others. At the end of dinner, Peter carried bread rolls, and Sirius hid a plate full of various meat, and James carried dessert (Apple pie, a Remus favourite). They got to the hospital wing, and a few lamps lighted the room. Only one bed had a partition. “Yes, boys?” Madam Pomfrey appeared in the doorway, her eyebrows twisted in curiosity. “Um, we …we wanted to see Remus? We bought him dinner,” James spokesperson-ed for them. Her face went soft at their kindness “he has only just woken up, but I am sure he’ll be happy to see you.”
She pulled the partition; Remus’s eyes were half-open. As he registered their presence, they slowly widened. “Hi!”
“Don’t overdo it, Remus”, Madam Pomfrey chided. He gave her a look, and she laughed. “Not too long, boys.”
“What the fuck, Moony? we thought you were dying” Sirius started on him as he passed him the plate of meat. “No, broken bones didn’t like it, ripped them up”, Remus drawled. He moved to show them the bloody bandages. “When’d it happen?”
“As soon as the moon.”
Remus tried to bring the food to his mouth. Unsuccessful, he huffed, “Moons, do…do you want me to help?” Sirius whispered. Remus was hungry, and he knew the food could help. He nodded, and Sirius pronged some onto the fork and fed him. Remus couldn’t process the kindness and wasn’t even aware he was tearing up until the first tear rolled down his face. “Remus, don’t cry” James put his hand on Remus’s.
“Yeah, Remus, you’ll choke.”
“Good one Pete”
James wanted to stay longer but needed to be up early for quidditch practice, and Peter had to leave because he was going to poop his pants. “go poo, Pete,” Remus managed. Sirius pulled the only chair up to the bed.
“Κοιμήσου τώρα γλυκιά μου”
Remus raised an eyebrow at Sirius’s Greek. “Mum’s side is Greek, had to go to Greek school and everything” Sirius gave him a small grin. “I said, sleep now, my sweet.”
Remus reached out and held Sirius’s hand, and he squeezed it.
“Oh Remus, here are my notes from last week” Lily handed him a shuffle of papers from her lilac binder. “How’d yo—”
“James told me where you were when he noticed my face when I didn’t see you.”
“Ah, hanging out with James again?”
“We sometimes cross paths Remus John Lupin” She blushed pink.
He laughed at her as he flicked through his History of Magic textbook. “This is clearly a filler lesson. How in fresh hell is there a chapter on wizard robes?”
“Well, wizards were nude before the robe-ings.”
“Robe-ings?”
“Read the bloody chapter.”