𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐒 / 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐖𝐒 / 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐀𝐖𝐒

𝟏𝟕 - 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐞, 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐝

𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟑𝐭𝐡, 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟓

Remus knew exactly what you were doing from the exact moment you started doing it.

At first, no one else realized that anything was different about you or how you'd recently started carrying yourself—like you knew all of the secrets in the world and had no mouth to speak them with. Remus could almost convince himself that it was only lycanthropic paranoia. It was always much easier to blame everything he didn't quite understand on his wolf and it made all too much sense to him. The wolf that made him anxious around squirrels was the same wolf that made him question every tiny detail of your behavior from across the room. But no matter what it was, he was on edge from the moment you stopped raising your hand in class.

The phandom appendage of Remus's tail was wagging in contempt as he hunkered over the breakfast table that morning. Something was wrong. There was a new smell in the air—one that he hadn't known since fourth year. Mandrake and spearmint.

Your second period tended to run late on Wednesdays so Remus and Peter took it upon themselves to save you a plate before the magical spread was whisked away in preparation for the lunch rush come noon. You had made a lovely habit of popping in for a quick hello before rushing back out again to sprint across the castle before the bell rang. It was an impressive feat, he had to admit.

Remus toyed with the rim of the goblet resting square in front of him. Peter was idly ticking his way through that morning's crossword puzzle, frowning as the ink from his quill rolled off the page and onto his lap whenever he scribbled down the wrong letters. "Moony," he whined, blotting his robes with a cloth napkin. "What is 'something that is kept in the separation of close friends' with seven letters? I'm drawing blanks and these are new slacks." He grumbled that last part, furiously dabbing enchanted ink from his brown trousers.

Remus snatched his cup from the table and took a long, thoughtful sip. Pete had been spending an awful lot of time with you lately. He'd caught the two of you on several occasions sneaking around after dark through the map and spent hours glaring at your name mingling with his on the worn parchment in the back of the restricted section. Remus knew exactly what you were doing from the exact moment you started doing it, but that didn't mean that he had any intention of admitting it to himself. The only way he could bring himself to do that was if a certain mousy boy just so happened to tip him off.

"Secrecy," he said. If Peter noticed the contempt in his friend's voice, he was far too busy pinning his tongue between his teeth and scribbling down his new answer to acknowledge it. After scratching seven messy letters into the supplied space, he let out a small 'aha!' as the paper accepted it as correct.

Pettigrew was the weakest link in the chain. He would tell Remus anything and everything that he needed to know. And Peter knew it too.

"Have you noticed anything different about (Y/N) lately?" Remus asked, feigning calm as he swirled the goblet around in his hand.

Across the table, Peter choked and pumpkin juice sprayed out of his mouth and across the red tablecloth that adorned the Gryffindor breakfast table. The flock of girls sitting adjacent to them were quicker to scatter than Pete was to pull the cloth napkin to his lips in order to hide the fearful expression tugging at his face. But that was just about the only swift thing that he was able to manage.

"(Y/N) who?"

"The only (Y/N) you know, Wormtail."

Peter glanced up at Remus with a guilty look swimming around in his permanently frightened eyes. "Oh right," he chuckled nervously. "That one." He smoothed the napkin over his lap with twitchy fingers, avoiding eye contact like it was the bubonic plague.