Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs

DISCLAIMER: I don't own a thing, everything is with their rightful owners. No money is made of this.

*Author's Note* Just another old snippet I found on my computer and really wanted to share with you. I hope you'll enjoy it! Have a look at my other Harry Potter texts as well if you'd like!

"Moony."

Remus groaned and pulled his pillow over his head, trying to ignore James.

"Good morning!"

A throbbing headache and the prospect of another night of torment were not exactly his idea of a good morning.

Someone kicked his bed and a slightly annoyed, equally familiar voice said: "Damn it, Lupin, get up, we'll be late for Charms and then you won't stop fretting all day."

His mood hitting zero, he realised there was no use in pretending to be asleep any longer. He forced his eyes open and looked up at his three friends, already dressed.

James's tie knot was still a little lopsided, but it did look better than usual - they had to be waiting for quite some time, if he'd had the chance to re-tie it four or five times. It was a mystery to Remus why James Potter, presumably in the top five of the smartest students in school, did not get the hang of tying a tie.

"Go ahead," he muttered, his speech slightly slurred. "I'll catch up with you in a minute."

"C'mon, Moony, we've been through this for almost five years," Peter gave back.

"Yeah, we'll wait or you'll go right back to sleep." Sirius shook his head, his raven-black hair falling gracefully in his eyes like in a Muggle shampoo advertisement, and pulled Remus's blanket off him. "Get up."

Grumbling an incomprehensible reply, Remus got to his feet, swayed slightly but stood and started looking for a fresh shirt.

"I know you get mood swings like my mother at her worst around this time of the month, but usually you at least get up on time. Is it, like, extra-full full moon or what?" Sirius muttered, handing him his trousers and a washed-out pullover.

Remus shot him a dirty look and decided a reply would be a waste of breath.

Shouldn't it be obvious that having to pass the OWLs in three days, a slight cold, the fact that even Peter had a Hogsmeade date while he'd be out cold in his bed all day tomorrow and just being a sodding werewolf did not really add up to a day worth leaving his bed for?

A wave of sickness overcame him when he bent down to tie his shoelaces, and a rush of anger at the whole unfairness of it followed right after. A ton of swearwords were at the tip of his tongue, but he didn't voice them. Because he feared he'd throw up if he opened his mouth.

"Cheer up, Moony, at least you'll be done with it for another month."

Remus considered having a go at James for this stupid nickname - he might even get people to guess the true nature of his "condition" - but then quickly swallowed it, cursing the aggressiveness rushing through his veins twelve hours too early. He hated this. He hated everything from his aching head to his heavy feet and the fact he was snapping at his friends.

And they had got far too used to that nickname to drop it anyway. It had been another of Sirius's strokes of genius he'd come up with around last year, telling him with a grin that it was both a perfect description of his state of mind and the reason behind it, without giving away too much. Remus thought it was dumb, but, as so often, none of them listened to him and he was fairly certain it would be him the whole thing would land in trouble in the end.

"You're right, James," he said instead. "I mean, why would I be down if I have double History of Magic to look forward to?"

It was a feeble joke and probably a sign of what great friends they were that they laughed at it. Remus sighed and decided he was being a damn ungrateful git - so what if he felt like could crawl in a corner and die, he had three wonderful friends who were making an effort to keep him going.

He grabbed his bag and staggered down the spiral staircase.

"That's the spirit," Sirius said with a grin and patted his shoulder while Peter passed Remus his tie.

"You'd better be wearing it, remember the fit McGonagall had last time I forgot?"

He did indeed remember and it even brought a slight smile on his face.

"You're doing worse than me, Moony," James commented, watching as Remus struggled with the tie without slowing down his steps, and casually pushed a door open before Remus could run into it.

"Fine motor skills aren't a wolf thing," he muttered and gave up.

Sirius gave a tired wave with his wand and the tie wrapped itself very tightly around Remus's neck. He choked, hurried to loosen the knot and croaked a "thanks" in Sirius's direction.

His friends shoved him to the Great Hall and directed him to his seat so casually that even the sharp eyes of Severus Snape wouldn't notice how off-track Remus was.

Sirius poured him a huge cup of tea, Peter gathered every bit of meat within his reach and put it on his plate and James even produced a bar of chocolate.

Remus threw them a shaky smile.

Sometimes he wondered whether they even knew how much all that meant to him.

Every month, his shins were black and blue even before the transformation - from where Sirius and James had kicked him underneath the table to keep him from falling asleep. Just this once, one of them even took notes - usually, that was Remus's job.

"Come on, Moony," James said right before Herbology, their last lesson of the day, and threw him an encouraging smile, "cheer up. We've got something to show you, wait 'til you see it."

His mood was dangerously low again, the all too familiar pointless anger inside him making him feel jumpy and aggressive, and it took him an awful lot of effort to return James's smile and feign a little interest.

"Feel free to yell at me if it makes you feel better, mate," James replied with a knowing little smirk.

"I don't think it would," Remus answered in a horrible imitation of his usual pleasant tone and grimaced. "And I suppose Sprout would mind, don't you think?"

James shrugged and, with a bored expression on his face, started levitating the shrivelfigs they were supposed to be working with and sent them zooming through the air towards a group of Hufflepuff girls.

"Stop it, James," Remus ordered quietly while he rummaged through his bag, trying to become as invisible as possible; he knew already that it was pointless. James sure enough ignored him completely.

"James, for Merlin's sake, you know what McGonagall said-" Remus had re-emerged, a slight blush creeping over his extremely pale face. "she'll suspend you from the Quidditch team if you lose any more points-"

"Merlin, don't be such a bore," his friend gave back in a slightly exasperated voice. "She wouldn't do that, she wants Gryffindor to win just as much as we do, she's just talking big."

"Do you have any idea of how ridiculous you make me look?" Remus hissed, fighting to keep his voice down. Yup, there it was - typical pre-wolf aggressiveness, but he couldn't help it. "I ought to have taken roughly two hundred points from Gryffindor for all the shit you've done right under my nose - how am I suppose to be taken seriously by anyone when I let you and Sirius do whatever you want?"

"You hear that, Sirius?" James asked merrily while sending another dozen of shrivelfigs towards the girls. Lily Evans shot him a deadly glare and sure enough turned to Remus afterwards with a reproachful expression of why-don't-you-do-something-about-it.

"I thought this was you trying to hold us back," James went on in the same cheerful tone, but Sirius, sitting several rows away, caught his eye and ran a finger over his throat, nodding towards Remus whose hands had started to shake slightly.

With one quick glance at his friend's face, James put the wand down on his desk, even managing to bring a faint contrite look in his eyes. "Sorry."

It was too late, though, for one of his last shrivelfigs soared right into Professor Sprout. She seemed to be in a temper matching Remus's, put up an unusually stern face, held up the fig and demanded:

"Who was that?"

James paled slightly - clearly he wasn't as convinced of what he'd said earlier as he pretended to be.

Remus bit his lip, throwing his friend a sideward glance. The entire house would be furious if James was banned from the Quidditch pitch - they were one match away from winning the cup.

So, with a sigh and silently praying that he wouldn't get detention because he sort of didn't have the time tonight, he raised his hand very slowly. James threw him a shocked look.

"What-" he hissed, but shut up as Remus stepped on his foot.

"Sorry, Professor. It was a bit of an… accident," he said, his voice rather weak and shaky. He knew he hadn't convinced a single of his fellow students.

Sirius turned in his chair and threw him a confused look.

"You're supposed to work with them, Lupin," Sprout said sourly. Remus was so relieved she'd swallowed it he didn't react to her taking ten points from Gryffindor at all.

James was still shaking his head, looking like he was about to walk up to their teacher and set it right, while both Sirius and Lily Evans stared at Remus.

"What did you do that for?" James stammered finally, having apparently found his voice again. "I could have-"

"Make sure I won't have to do it again, because next time, you can take the consequences yourself," Remus gave back icily, trying to fight back the anger and the nausea that had suddenly returned.

"Thank you," James whispered, but he barely heard it.

He didn't miss Lily throwing him another look, a different one this time - it looked sympathetic, almost pitiful.

Great. She'd guessed, and the next time James did something to annoy her, which would probably take less than a day at the rate he was going, she'd spill the beans.

But at the moment, he couldn't really bring himself to care. He felt sick, and dizzy, and very hot, and all he could do was stare at the table top and sit stiffly on his chair, every muscle tense.

Merlin, he hated this so much.

So much.

"C'mon, Remus, we gotta get going."

"We aren't doing anything," he croaked and heaved himself out of the armchair. "I am going now to have all my bones broken and scratch myself half to death."

"Yes. And we're coming with you," James declared with a wide grin, appearing in the doorframe behind Sirius.

"I'm in no condition to discuss this, James," Remus said in a hoarse, faint voice, knowing he ought to leave now or he wouldn't make it in time.

"That's right, so we won't discuss it," Sirius answered cheerfully, shoving him towards the portrait hole. "Go on, you'll be late."

"You can't come… it's not safe," he muttered, shaking his head weakly and trying to shove Sirius's arm off him, but his limbs were rebelling against him by now.

"Not safe for people," James said very clearly. "But we won't be people. Come on now."

"Won't be…?"

James rolled his eyes and stopped. "Show him, Pete. Hurry."

Remus, his head spinning a little, watched as Peter got out his wand, fumbled with it for a moment and muttered an incantation he didn't recognise.

"Took us almost three years to work out how it's done," Sirius commented happily.

"We've been working on it ever since we found out about you."

"Working on what?"

In the same moment, Peter vanished right in front of their eyes. To be fair, he didn't vanish completely - Remus blinked a couple of times and pinched his arm hard, but the rat on the floor was still there, right were Peter had stood.

"I… you… what?"

"Very articulate, Remus. I'm impressed," Sirius teased.

"Animagus, you've turned him into an-," Remus stuttered, then, finally overcoming the first shock, turned to stare at James and Sirius instead. "what the hell did you do that for?"

"Not just him," James was positively beaming with pride, "all three of us. You won't be a danger to us. We can keep you company."

"You're crazy," Remus breathed.

"Nope, we're pretty bloody amazing," Sirius answered.

"This could have gone so wrong…"

"Well, it didn't," James gave back.

"Because we're brilliant," Sirius added.

"And anyways, we're running late. Come on now."

"But-"

"Come on, Remus, we can't have a werewolf running wild round here," James hissed and dragged him on.

"But, James-" he stammered, stumbling alongside his friend.

"Shut up, no discussion, we're running late," Sirius snapped and Remus couldn't deny he was right. He could feel the familiar heat creeping through his bones and he was having more and more trouble stringing his sentences together.

"Pomfrey," he just muttered, looking at James and hoping he'd understand.

"Sirius and I have the cloak and Pete doesn't exactly draw much attention," he said, grinning down at the rat that hurtled along the corridor alongside them.

"Insane," he repeated breathlessly, speeding up his steps.

"Brilliant," came Sirius's voice from right next to him, though Remus couldn't see him because he and James had already disappeared under the cloak.

Remus had neither the time nor the strength to argue, so he just hurried on, oddly distracted by the noise of eight other feet beside him. Merlin, he was late, awfully late, possibly too late - he was fairly certain he could feel the fur growing underneath his shirt.

"Lupin," Pomfrey whispered when he finally reached her, careful to bring some space between them. "Well, hurry it up, boy, wherever have you-" She suddenly let out a high-pitched yelp and jumped. Then, glancing at the grass at her feet distrustfully, she shook her feet and breathed: "I hate rats. Well, on you go, Lupin, on you go… hurry…"

Remus felt rooted to the spot, he wanted to go (or so he thought) but he couldn't… then a hand shoved him forward roughly and he staggered towards the Whomping Willow, sick with fear even more than usually.

If this goes wrong, I'll personally rip your heads off, was his last conscious thought.

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