Moonlight

Chapter Four

The Furry Little Problem

"Potter! Black! Lupin!" Professor Sprout snapped during herbology.

Remus, James, and Sirius all looked up at the sound of their names. James had just been telling Remus and Sirius about his Invisibility Cloak, which had once belonged to his father, even though they were supposed to be paying attention to their first herbology lesson. Peter had been listening intently as well, but as he hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise, he hadn't been caught whispering while Professor Sprout had been talking.

"Unless you want to end up in the hospital wing covered in burns from this nasty phloxseed bush," Professor Sprout reprimanded, "it would behoove you to be quiet and pay attention. Five points from Gryffindor."

The Slytherins, with whom Gryffindor had herbology that year, sniggered.

Lily rolled her eyes, just as she always did when Remus, James, and Sirius were making mischief.

"Now," Sprout continued to the class at large, "I am going to put you all into pairs, and these will be your pairs for the remainder of the year. Today, your jobs are to deal with these phloxseed bushes. They're in dreadful need of pruning. Now, how exactly do you do that? Well, I'll show you...."

When she'd given the instructions, Professor Sprout delegated the pairs, most of which were what people were alright with, but a few she made to prevent any further loss of focus. This meant splitting up the trio of James, Sirius, and Remus. So, she put James with Severus (both were not the least bit delighted about this), Sirius with Peter, and Remus with Lily.

Remus couldn't understand it, but as he moved over to sit with Lily at their phloxseed bush, his palms became rather sweaty.

"Everyone set to work now!" said Professor Sprout.

As soon as everyone dived into work, Lily rounded on Remus with a suddenness that nearly knocked him off of his stool.

"Let's get one thing straight here, Lupin," she said firmly, "you and I are stuck with each other for the rest of the year, so let's talk only when necessary, so as not to get a bad grade, alright?" She held out her hand for him to shake it.

Remus felt weird shaking her hand, and hoped she didn't notice how sweaty his palms were. As he did, however, he asked, "Erm...sorry, but did I do something wrong to you?"

"You hang around with that Potter and his mate Black," said Lily as she passed him his pair of gloves. "What more is there to say?"

"That's a little judgmental," said Remus, raising his eyebrows as he accepted his gloves from her, "considering you don't even know me. Or James and Sirius, for that matter."

"All they do is pick on people," said Lily, "and think they're better than everyone else."

"I don't think I'm better than everyone else," said Remus as he passed Lily her pair of flame-resistant pruning shears.

"Well...you're just as clever as they are," she argued, accepting her pair of shears from him. "You're clever enough to be just as snotty as they are."

"But I'm not," said Remus quietly. "You don't ever see me act snotty, do you?"

"Well...no, but...why would you want to be friends with big-headed idiots like them anyway?"

"So they're already big-headed idiots to you now, are they? Only after two days at Hogwarts?"

"Oh please. Have you seen the way they strut about the corridors?"

"No. They walk just like me. Like everybody else." Remus paused to glance at James and Severus, who both looked like they were about to slice each other to ribbons with their pruning shears. "I think you talk to that Severus Snape too much."

"He's my friend!" Lily hissed. "My best friend!"

Remus held up his hands defensively.

Lily blinked at him, slightly taken aback; clearly she'd been expecting him to argue with her.

"I'm sure you are," said Remus. "What I'm trying to point out, however, is that while you're attacking me about the friends I choose, I wondered if you had at all noticed the new friends your best friend is making in Slytherin?"

"Severus isn't making friends there," said Lily, but she paused in her pruning. "He told me. He told me he didn't have anybody, and felt so lonely without me."

"Do you know Lucius Malfoy?" asked Remus. "He's a Slytherin prefect."

"So?"

"So, I've noticed that he's sort of taken your mate Severus 'under his wing'. And not in what you might believe is a good way either. I don't s'pose you've heard the rumors about what Lucius and his lot do for fun?"

"Well...er...I've heard some...."

Remus started picking up where she left off in her pruning. "I'm not asking you to believe me. I just wish that you and I could be on better terms, so that our time in herbology isn't something we both dread."

"You're actually a rather nice person," said Lily, helping Remus continue to prune.

"Thanks."

"Why do you hang out with toerags like Potter and Black, then?"

It was Remus' turn to pause while pruning. "Well...." He hesitated. "I've never had friends before, and well...they're the first people to ever be just...nice to me. Unconditionally." He went back to pruning.

"I see," said Lily.

They did not say anything except what was necessary for the rest of the lesson--however, this time there were no hard feelings between them, but rather more of a bond of confidentiality. It was like they were two beings from entirely different worlds, and then every herbology lesson they met and while they worked they discussed the issues facing them in their separate worlds, which sometimes collided beyond herbology (like if James had hexed Severus for the umpteenth time). But no matter what happened, while Lily still glared at James and Sirius whenever possible, she at least saved a fleeting, soft glance for Remus.

Even when near the end of that first herbology lesson, James made Severus prune in the wrong spot so that a jet of flames burst from their phloxseed bush and scorched the length of Severus' forearm.

~

Peter Pettigrew tagged along with Remus, James, and Sirius everywhere, and while Sirius was the one who found it the most annoying, James liked to think of Peter as a sort of groupie. Indeed, as the weeks in September went by, James, Sirius, and Remus had all proved to be exceptionally clever (many people wondered why they hadn't all been put in Ravenclaw, and only Remus admitted that the Sorting Hat had considered putting him there--it was the closest Remus came to anything short of bragging), and Peter loved basking in their glory, especially in James and Sirius', since they actually went around boasting about it, while Remus stood beside them, shyly.

Once they met Peeves the Poltergeist in the corridors when no one else was around. He was sticking a wad of chewing gum into the keyhole to a broom cupboard, which would leave Filch unable to unlock it to get to his brooms.

"Oh, excellent," said Remus mischievously. "Now I can show you that spell I made up."

"Oh, yeah," said James. He and Sirius looked eager, while Peter looked confused.

Remus cleared his throat, pointed his wand, and cried, "Waddiwasi!"

The wad of chewing gum flew out of the keyhole and shot into Peeves' left nostril. Bristling, the poltergeist zoomed away down the corridor as he shouted all manners of swearwords.

"Oh, what do you know? It worked," said Remus, grinning as he stowed his wand back in his robes.

"That was excellent, mate," said Sirius, clapping Remus on the shoulder.

"I'll have to try that on Snivellus sometime," said James.

Peter was clapping and whooping excitedly. "That was so cool!"

"Oh, look at that, Sirius," said James as he observed Peter's praising. "How can you get rid of a rabid fan like that, eh? Can't we just keep him?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Sirius, rolling his eyes.

"James, he's not a dog," said Remus with a laugh as he and Sirius started heading on their way down the corridor.

"I know," said James. "C'mon, Peter," he added fondly to Peter. "Best of friends stick together, right?"

~

On the day of the September full moon, Remus was to be at the hospital wing at 5:00pm sharp. Madam Pomfrey would then lead him down to the Whomping Willow that Dumbledore had had planted a week before school started specifically for the purpose of keeping Remus and others safe during Remus' monthly transformations. His instructions were to let Madam Pomfrey lead him down to the Willow, where she would then touch the knot on it that froze its wildly waving, threatening branches, and then descend into the tunnel that opened at the roots. Madam Pomfrey would unfreeze the knot after he'd gone, while he took the secret tunnel that led all the way from the Whomping Willow to an empty house built on a lonely hill on the edge of Hogsmeade village. There, inside the house, he would be able to transform, without anyone seeing or becoming endangered by him in his werewolf state. He would remain there until morning, when Madam Pomfrey would return to the Willow, travel down the tunnel herself, and bring him back up through the tunnel to the castle, where he would need to remain in the hospital wing for the rest of the day to regain his strength and health.

So, at a quarter to five that afternoon, it wasn't surprising that Remus could not concentrate on his homework and submitted to staring listlessly out of the window in the Gryffindor common room, hugging his knees as he sat on the window seat.

"Something up, Remus?" Sirius asked from the table nearby where the four of them had been writing their latest potions essay.

"W-What?" said Remus, shaking his head as he looked around at the other three gazing at him concernedly.

"Yeah, we don't hear your quill scratching incessantly," said James, sticking his own back in his bottle of ink.

"He's stopped working altogether," Peter chimed in.

"That's not like you, Remus," said James laughingly.

Remus smiled feebly. "I'm alright," he said softly.

"You sure, mate?" Sirius asked, standing up and walking over to Remus and sitting beside him on the window seat. "You don't look so good."

"I'm fine," Remus insisted.

"I thought you looked bad from where I was sitting," said Sirius. "But you look worse up close."

"Maybe I'll go to the hospital wing then," said Remus, noting the time. He had seized the perfect opportunity to make his departure. He hopped down from the window seat, gathered up his school things, and took them up to his bed. He then reappeared and did not chance a glance over his shoulder to see if the others were watching him as he climbed through the portrait hole.

"Ah, there you are, Mister Lupin," said Madam Pomfrey pleasantly when he arrived at the hospital wing, though she sounded slightly nervous as well.

Remus was not at all surprised. He accompanied her down to the grounds, and stopped short at the sight of the immense Whomping Willow. How they'd managed to plant something that huge without having it hit anyone was beyond him.

He watched Madam Pomfrey expertly dodge the branches as they began to set themselves upon her, and as soon as she'd prodded the knot on the tree, the branches froze.

"Right then," she said as she climbed out from the immobilized branches in mid-attack. "Off you go then."

Remus stepped through the frozen branches and descended into the dark tunnel. Behind him he vaguely heard Madam Pomfrey unfreeze the tree. He heard his own heart thudding in his chest as he made the long walk to the other end. This darkness could not compare to the darkness he would shortly be facing. When he emerged into the abandoned house at the other end of the tunnel, he closed the trapdoor in the floor out of which he'd just come. The house itself, he was told, was just made to look old: it was actually built at the same time the Whomping Willow was planted, at the same time the tunnel that connected them was dug out.

The windows, however, were boarded up, with only slits in between the slats of wood to allow light through. After Remus had stripped himself down completely, and set his clothes down folded neatly in the tunnel for Madam Pomfrey to find in the morning, he peered through one of these slits at a window in the foyer, to see the faint glow of a full moon rising over the mountains. Remus heard his own breathing louder than ever as he watched the top of that silvery celestial orb poke out from the summit, and as the full moon rose higher and higher, the image of its circular shape more and more complete as the light hit his eyes....

The roaring sounded deafeningly in his ears like a fierce howling wind rushing past him. He became rigid, and his limbs began to shake uncontrollably. The pain erupted in the pit of his stomach--that was where it always started--and he bent double as it continued to spread rapidly throughout the rest of his body, giving him the terribly agonizing sensation that every atom of his being was being violently and mercilessly ripped apart. He gave strangled screams and yells, falling to his knees and convulsing on the floor like he were having a great seizure. Bones shattered and reformed themselves, and muscles rent themselves and then sewed themselves up again, and skin stretched, as his entire body shape changed into that of what looked like a regular wolf, only it was slightly larger with a hunched back. This was where the pain reached its peak--when his spine forced itself into the hunched shape with a sickening crack--and this was where Remus lost his mind to the darkness, which only seemed to last for a second before he suddenly regained it again, slowly, as a dull ache pulsed through his body.

He opened his eyes to see James, Sirius, and Peter surrounding him as he lay in a bed in the hospital wing.

"Hey, he's coming around," said Peter excitedly.

"We can see that, Peter," said Sirius rather irritably.

"I guess you really were ill," said James. "You look awful."

"That's how I feel," Remus whispered hoarsely.

"Where'd all the scratches and stuff come from?" Peter asked.

"What?" Remus managed to raise his hand--though it felt very heavy--and examined it languidly to see a huge scratch running across the back of it.

But at that very moment, Madam Pomfrey saved him the trouble of explaining--perhaps deliberately--by coming over with some more medicine to administer to him, and shooed James, Sirius, and Peter away.

"Go on!" she ordered. "You'll see him again tonight when I release him. Go on, go on!"

James, Sirius, and Peter left the ward, giving Remus worried backward glances as they disappeared through the door.

When they were gone, Remus asked Madam Pomfrey about the scratches, more of which could found on his arms and legs.

"I would deduce," said Madam Pomfrey as Remus knocked back the horribly tasting potion she was now administering to him, "that these scratches and bites--"

Remus spit out his potion. "Bites?" he sputtered. "From what?"

"From yourself," Madam Pomfrey explained, pouring more potion. "You see, unable to scratch and bite anything else because you were cooped up in that house, I believe you--you being you in your lycanthropic state--resorted to biting and scratching yourself."

Remus gulped. "Maybe I shouldn't be confined to the house, then?" he suggested while Madam Pomfrey gave him a fresh dosage of potion.

"I've already spoken to Professor Dumbledore," said Madam Pomfrey, watching him knock back the medicine. "He said it won't become life-threatening. You may, however, develop some scarring, but that is about all."

Remus gulped the potion. "Scarring?"

"Believe me, Professor Dumbledore isn't keen on it either, but he's even less keen on simply turning you loose when you transform. What if you were lost or killed?"

Remus had to admit she had a point, but he said nothing.

~

And thus was the routine on the full moon of every month following. As for escaping from his friends to the hospital wing, he made up all sorts of stories: that his mother was ill and he had to leave the school for a day to see her, for instance. The bites and scratches worsened, and while some healed and disappeared from his skin, others remained as scars, and from then on Remus swore that he would never again wear another short-sleeved shirt or pair of shorts as long as he lived.

Despite his struggle with recovering from the full moon, he was quite able to catch up with his missed classes quickly. In his view, he ought to be proud of himself for this, and so he was. In his first herbology lesson following the full moon there would always be a concerned Lily asking about where he'd been, and he'd feed her the same story he'd fed his friends: that he'd been ill, or his mother had, or something like that. He was relieved that Lily never spoke to James, Sirius, and Peter, because sometimes he wondered if he ever fed each party two different stories for the same full moon.

He also couldn't stand this lying. He knew he should be honest, but he was afraid his friends would abandon him the moment they learned the truth. Nobody wants to be in any way associated with a half-breed mutant monster. He hated lying to Lily too. He was afraid if she learned he'd been lying, she'd not only be scared away by his being werewolf, but also turn cold because he'd lied to her. And he was afraid James, Sirius, and Peter would also turn cold for that reason.

One day in January of the New Year, Remus was returning to the dormitories after his monthly stay in the hospital wing, and he was about to open the dormitory door, when he noticed that it was slightly ajar, and that he could hear the voices of James, Sirius, and Peter within. Curious to know a little bit about what they talked about in his absence, he listened.

"...be students at Hogwarts?" Peter's voice said anxiously. "They're so dangerous."

"Only once a month, Peter," said Sirius' voice rather exasperatedly. "And Dumbledore's the trusting sort. He'd be willing to give it a try. But why didn't Remus tell us in the first place?"

"Probably scared he'd scare us off," James' voice supposed sagely. "And I wouldn't blame him. But, really...we're getting ahead of ourselves here. We're not even sure he really is--"

"Come on, James," Sirius' voice argued. "He goes away once every month, around the same time every month--"

"But has every time he's been gone been exactly during the full moon?"

"I dunno. I wasn't always paying attention."

"Neither was I. What about you, Peter?"

"No."

"See?"

"Well...alright, but...can we not discuss this now? Remus might come in at any minute. He told us before he left he'd be back about this time...."

Remus let out a silent sigh of relief. For now they weren't positive of what was the truth. However, they would get closer to it. He was certain that from now they'd start checking to see if the day he left them each month happened to also be the day of the full moon.

~

February came and went, as did March and April. But never again did Remus overhear his friends discussing their theory of his being a werewolf. Perhaps they had discarded the possibility.

One rainy afternoon in April, Remus was returning to the Gryffindor common room after full moon and he came in from the portrait hole to find James, Sirius, and Peter all snoring as they slept soundly over their homework. He shook his head, but he was smiling. He crossed over to them, and was about to wake them up when he noticed a very large book that James was now using as a pillow. It was the title of the book that caught Remus' interest: Animagi.

James snorted and woke up, yawning hugely. "Oh, hey, Remus. Back already?"

"I guess so, seeing as I'm here," said Remus. "What're you reading about Animagi for?"

James blinked at him then glanced down at the book under his arms. "Oh. This?" he said innocently, stowing it in his bag. "Bit of light reading. That's all."

Remus quirked an eyebrow but decided not to argue the point and took a seat beside Sirius at the table.

"Wake up," James said, nudging Sirius. "Remus is back."

"Remus?" Sirius looked about. "Oh," he said when he found Remus sitting next to him. "There you are. How's your mum?"

"She's doing better," said Remus. Oh how he hated lying.

"Oy, Peter, look lively," said Sirius, giving Peter a kick in the shin from across the table.

"Ouch!" Peter exclaimed as he sat up straight and clutched his shin.

"Sirius, why do you have to pick on Pete so much?" James asked. "It's not like he's Snivellus."

"Alright, I'm sorry about that Pete," said Sirius. "Really, I am. I guess it comes from being the older brother of a git I loathe from the very bottom of my heart and soul."

~

"How is your mother doing?" Lily asked Remus the next day during herbology.

"Oh, er...fine." Remus looked at her. To lie to those emerald green eyes was just as awful as lying to James, Sirius, and Peter. He always tried to make sure he never told more lies than he had to, so he never expanded on the details of his monthly disappearances, unless he was asked to.

"It isn't...bad, is it?"

"What? Oh, no. No, it's nothing bad. Nothing serious. Why do you ask?"

"You just look awfully worried. You always come back from a visit to her looking ill. I mean I know you also sometimes go away because you're the one who's ill but.... Have you and she always had these illnesses?"

Remus thought a moment, and came up with something that he knew was at least a half-truth, and this made him feel slightly better about himself. "No, my mother got it just when I'd started school, and me well...I've had mine since I was seven." And that was entirely true! Sure, he hadn't told her that his illness was lycanthropy, and as his for his mother, from what he'd read in letters from home, she did get headaches from time to time caused by her maternal anxiety for him-- so then maybe he was lying by omission.

He glanced at Lily, and felt even worse about himself instead of any better, because he saw her pretty features etched with a concern he felt he did not deserve. When they parted after herbology, he joined James, Sirius, and Peter for lunch. Then, after transfiguration and potions, they returned to the Gryffindor common room, where they did homework and studied until dinnertime.

Remus was writing the last line of his essay for astronomy before packing up and following everyone else to the Great Hall, when he heard James say, "Remus: Sirius, Peter, and I would like a word with you." He sounded rather like a juvenile teacher when he said it. Remus looked up at James sitting in a squashy armchair by the fireplace with his astronomy book. He did not like the grin on James' face as he said, "We'll wait until everyone else leaves."

Remus looked around questioningly at Sirius and Peter: Sirius was mirroring James (but then wasn't he nearly always, and vice versa?), but Peter looked positively anxious.

He glanced over his shoulder, and saw Lily was the last one leaving the common room to go to dinner. He caught her eye, and she gave him a rather shy smile before disappearing through the portrait hole.

He turned back to the other three.

"So, Remus," said James, closing his book. "Sirius, Peter, and I have worked out the secret of your...furry little problem."

Remus' heart sank as the blood drained from his already pale face. He sighed and laid down his quill beside his essay. "I should've known this was coming."

"You're bloody well right," said Sirius. "Why didn't you tell us?" His tone was reprimanding, but there was also amusement in it.

Remus didn't understand. Shaking his head, he said, "I thought if I told you, you'd all...abandon me, you know? Who wants to be friends with a--with something like me?"

"You mean a werewolf?" asked Peter.

"Of course that's what he means," said Sirius exasperatedly.

"You can't have met many kids who've wanted to be your friend once they found out what you are then, have you?" James suggested shrewdly, raising an eyebrow.

"No," Remus admitted, lowering his gaze.

"Well, I think they were all barking mad!" James laughed.

Remus lifted his eyes, amazed. "What?" he croaked, looking from James, to Peter, and then to Sirius.

"Yeah," said Sirius. "I think this is totally cool. I mean--you're a werewolf!"

"Miss you during full moon though," said James wistfully.

"Yeah, wish we could tag along," said Sirius in the same wistful timbre.

Remus laughed. "Don't be thick. It's way too dangerous. I'm not myself as a werewolf. I lose control of everything. The monster takes over, but...I'd never forgive myself if I killed one of you in my werewolf state...or bit one of you...any of you...."

Peter nodded vigorously, as if agreeing.

Sirius and James however exchanged fleeting glances, their impish grins widening.

"Yes, it is way too dangerous," said James.

"For us as humans, anyway," said Sirius.

Peter groaned.

"What's this all about?" Remus asked warily.

James stuck his astronomy book back in his bag and pulled out a different one: Animagi.

Remus couldn't help but grin impishly himself. "A bit of light reading, huh?" he said. His grin faded as the truth of what they were planning to attempt sank in. "You're not really going to try and do it, are you? I mean you're clever and all, but...becoming an Animagus...?"

"Yeah, it'll be a while," said Sirius, his expression turning humorless.

James' had done so as well. "We reckon we can get it by about fifth or sixth year though."

Remus shook his head. "Why are you doing this? You shouldn't be trying to figure out how to be with me during my most dangerous time; you should be backing up against the wall now, threatening to hex me if I come near you!"

Peter's hand flinched, as if he were about to go for his wand and do just what Remus had said they should do. But Sirius flashed him a warning glance and stopped Peter in his tracks.

"Friends have got to stick together, right, mate?" said James fondly.

Remus smiled sheepishly.

"What's it like?" Sirius asked. "Being a werewolf?"

Remus stopped smiling and looked up at them. "Terrible," he said darkly. He lifted himself off his stomach and sat up, hugging his knees. "It's painful the moment the moonlight hits my eyes, but when it rises, I'm drawn to it, in a trance-like sort of way. I can't help but look at its light. Half-way through my mind goes dark. Like I'm unconscious. So, next thing I know it's morning and I'm human again. I can only guess what I've done as a werewolf. Sometimes I wake up with blood on my lips and hands, and that usually means I probably slaughtered something. If I feel full as well, that means I probably ate it. Or, like those bites and scratches. I had no idea they were there. They were just there all of a sudden when I woke up, and only after I talked to Madam Pomfrey did I learn that they'd come from biting and scratching myself, because I'd been confined in that house Dumbledore built to keep me in during my transformations."

"You mean that house people are saying is haunted?" Peter asked. "The place they've been calling the Shrieking Shack?"

Remus nodded.

Peter gasped. "Blimey! We've forgotten about dinner!"

"Don't worry," said James. "We can all nick something from the kitchens later. We'll use my Invisibility Cloak."

There was a moment of silence, which Remus broke by saying, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It's just...I didn't want to lose the first friends I'd ever had. I swear I've got nothing else to hide from you."

"Don't sweat it," said Sirius. "If anything, I'm doing more of everything my dear mother always told me not to as a little boy. And that's just fine with me."

Despite the fact that Remus felt quite unworthy of their friendship because of how he'd lied and all, he could not help but smile and gleefully rejoice in his good fortune in having made such accepting and loyal friends.

~

"Lily! Hey, Lily!"

Lily looked around and seemed surprised to see Remus running after her down the corridor.

"What do you want, Lupin?" Severus demanded with a scowl.

"Sev!" Lily scolded.

When Remus reached them he waited to catch his breath. Then he straightened up, ignoring Severus completely as he spoke to Lily. "Can we talk? Now? Alone? In private?" Without realizing it he'd taken her hand in his while he was talking.

"Of course we can, Remus," said Lily.

"What?" Severus squawked indignantly.

"It'll only be a minute," said Lily. "It's just about herbology, right Remus?"

Remus nodded. "She and I are partners in that class."

"I know that," Severus argued. "But--"

"Just go on to breakfast without me," Lily called over her shoulder as Remus started to lead her away by his hand still joined with hers. "I promise I'll only be a minute!"

Remus did not relinquish his hold on her hand until he'd led her to a deserted corridor, where he turned to face her. Taking a deep breath, he said, "Lily, I have to tell you something."

"Well, what is it?" Lily asked, peering anxiously at Remus.

"There's something about me that I haven't told you the truth about."

"What?"

"I'm a werewolf," Remus said without further preamble.

Lily blinked. She stammered incoherently a moment, seeming not to know whether or not she should laugh.

"It's why I'm gone once every month," Remus went on quickly. "If you'd notice, you'd see I'm always gone at the full moon. So...my mother isn't ill but...well...." He chuckled nervously. "I guess I'm ill. Not unless you count her anxiety headaches. But I was--"

"You lied to me?" Lily finally sputtered. "You? You lied...?"

"Just about this," Remus said, fearful of the anger and hurt he saw in Lily's green eyes. "Please. I was scared--nobody knew--" He hesitated, and then desperately he blurted out, "Werewolves don't make friends very easily, you know!"

Lily took a step back at his unexpected ferocity. Then she gazed deep into his eyes.

Remus felt the heat rise in his face.

And then, to his intense relief, she smiled. "Oh, Remus...."

"Are we cool then?" Remus asked her.

Lily lowered her gaze, still smiling. "Yes. Yes, of course we are." She glanced back up at him, her green eyes kind. "Well, I'd better get some breakfast. I'm sure Sev's anxiously watching the Gryffindor table." She turned on her heel, her dark, fiery red hair flashing briefly before Remus' eyes.

"Lily?" Remus called after her.

"Yeah?" Lily asked, spinning around to face him, but walking backwards as she continued down the corridor.

"Promise me you won't tell anyone about my--my problem," Remus said earnestly, half-aware that his feet were carrying him towards her, following her. "Not even Severus. Please."

Lily stopped.

Remus stopped too.

Lily continued to smile her utterly radiant smile. "I promise you, I won't. Not even Severus." She turned and disappeared from the corridor. Then her head poked back out from around the corner. "You know, Remus," she said, her smile suddenly somewhat playful, "one reason I'm willing to make a promise to you like this is because unlike your best friends, you're at least nice enough not to make fun of my best friend's name." She disappeared again, leaving Remus temporarily stunned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ted snored softly as he slept on his bed, still fully dressed in the clothes he'd worn that day. He lay on his back, with one hand at his side, while the other was at his chest. It held to it the next journal in the series--the one labeled "1972" on the spine--face open. His head was turned to the side, opposite the picture of his parents on his bedside table.

In his sleep he twitched. His nose had suddenly started prickling with that pins and needles feeling one gets when their leg or foot falls asleep. He sneezed and bolted awake, sitting straight up in bed, the journal falling to his lap. He was breathing hard as if he'd been running for miles and then stopped.

His nose continued to prickle.

And it made him sneeze again. He looked about his dark bedroom and saw that it was night. His clock read 2:32am. He got up and crossed to his window, where his box of tissues sat on his desk. On the way, however, his foot caught on the foot of his wardrobe and he toppled forward and hit the floor on his hands and knees. Yet another reason why he couldn't believe someone like Victoire would fancy him: except when he was on a broom, Ted was a bit accident prone due to an unfortunate characteristic of klutziness. According to Harry, he'd inherited it from his mother.

Cursing under his breath at the pain in his hands and knees caused by the hard contact with the wood flooring, he got to his feet and plucked a tissue from the tissue box. He blew his nose, noticing the prickling only grew more intense.

He also noticed movement in the darkness outside. Or was the night playing tricks on him?

He wished he could shed some light on the shadows below. Whatever was out there wished to remain out of the light of the lit lamppost across the South London street. And although he couldn't see it because of the town's lights, the moon in the sky was a waxing crescent. He knew this from the lunar poster on his bedroom wall. And while he thought of it, the shadow in the shadows fled into the even deeper obscurities behind a large dustbin near the lamppost. As it disappeared, the prickling in his nose lessened gradually until at last it was gone completely.

He rubbed his nose absently for a moment, and then crawled back into bed.