Not my characters, etc.

Remus obeyed Dumbledore's instructions to the letter and returned to the Gryffindor Tower, where his own bed seemed to have transformed in the hours since he had woken from the stifling hot den of sleepless guilt to a deliciously cool and comfortable respite from his own mind. Just as Dumbledore recommended, he slept away the entire morning.

However, he couldn't sleep perpetually, and by mid-afternoon he could no longer stand to stay in bed. He had hoped that his friends might have stopped back up over lunch once they noticed he wasn't in class, but between the fight the day before and his strange mood in the morning they must have felt it was best to leave him alone. He felt a little hurt but pulled out his Potions textbook to start reviewing the material he missed that morning to distract himself. With his second detention that evening, he wouldn't have much time for it otherwise.

The sun was low in the sky by the time he heard his friends on the stairs. Prepared to be miffed at the afternoon they passed without him, he was surprised at how eagerly they burst in, grinning and clearly brimming with news. "Moony, we have something to show you!" James announced.

James and Sirius had their tell-tale look of having made a particularly impressive plan, and Peter was beside himself, grinning hugely and hopping from foot to foot so that Remus was half-tempted to ask if he needed the bathroom. James pulled out a ratty-covered old book from his bag and held it out towards Remus.

"From the Restricted section," he said proudly, eyes aglow.

"Oh James, it's not dirty pictures of veela again, is it?" Remus asked, unable to read the faded title.

Sirius snorted as James looked a little insulted. Hadn't they all enjoyed that one? "No! Moony . . . Moony, this is the answer."

"The answer?" Remus asked. What was the question?

"The answer to how we're going to make sure you're not lonely on full moon anymore," James explained as if it were obvious, or at least something they had been pondering for a long time. Had it been?

Finally, unable to contain himself as James continued his interminable buildup, Sirius announced: "We're going to become Animagi!"

There was a pause as Remus tried to make sense of this. "You mean, like McGonagall?" he asked. "I thought she was born that way?"

James gave Sirius an irritated look for stealing his thunder. "It's a process," he explained. "A long and complicated one. But not impossible. And we're going to read this to figure out how to do it." He held up the book.

"Of course, we'll have to cross-check a couple other sources before we go through with anything," Sirius assured him. Remus doubted he had heard the likes of "cross-check" and "sources" ever come out of Sirius's mouth before; Sirius was about as enthused about book-study as he was his eldest cousin, much more devoted to the method of Just Try It- And If It Doesn't Work, Try To Fix It. But he looked serious about doing this correctly. "And we're going to have to learn a lot of complicated techniques, some things I don't think we're supposed to learn until NEWT level, if they even teach it at Hogwarts at all."

"So . . . we're not going to be ready by next month or anything," James said with disappointment, as if there had even for a moment been an expectation of this possibility. "But we'll start tonight, by reading this."

"Do you know what form you'll take?" Remus asked.

"No. We don't choose," James explained. "It's like a Patronus; the form it takes is based on who you are."

"But it doesn't ever change once it's been decided. It's more like your wand; it chooses you," Sirius added.

"But we already know if we're in our animal forms, you won't attack us, so it's perfectly safe. Werewolves only crave human blood," Peter explained, trying to sound as informed as the other two, though this information was readily available in their schoolbooks and something Remus had told him countless times before.

Remus's mind whirled with this new information. It was so much to soak in all at once, so many questions to ask, but there was one thing he knew with absolute clarify: his friends hadn't been ignoring him at all, but scouring the library and plotting their life-changing plan, something that would exhaust unforeseeable amounts of time and energy and burden them with the secrecy of illegal magical for life—all for Remus.

He thought he might cry- he had spent so much of the past two days crying, it was practically as automatic as breathing by now- but instead, out came a laugh. He sounded like a mad person, collapsing into insane blissful cackles, but his friends surrounded him, embracing him to hold him up and laughing themselves. He couldn't even bring himself to choke out a "thank you," but he was certain the three of them already understood. He belonged at Hogwarts, he belonged with his friends, and for once he truly believed it.