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It had been a hard night for Remus Lupin. The full moon in itself was never a pleasant time, and longed for when it would be over and it would be around a month until he had to deal with the unpleasantries once more. Sure, the best thing would be to never experience it again, but it seemed highly unlikely that someone would come up with a cure for lycanthropy any time soon. No, that would mean his luck would turn, and he was pretty sure that he was generally not a lucky guy.
But while the full moon and the actual turning into a werewolf thing was pretty much hell on earth, he did like the feeling of it being over. Well, the disinfecting his wounds after attacking himself all night did hurt like a bitch, but after that, it felt like pure relief. Like the feeling of getting to sit down and drink a cup of water after running a mile.
It felt very good to sit at the Gryffindor table at breakfast the morning after, because it no longer felt difficult to force himself to chew his toast and he no longer felt like gagging when he drank pumpkin juice, which sometimes happened in the days leading up to the full moon. Being a werewolf was just great.
"Hey, Remus," James spoke up warily from seat across from him. He sounded strangely serious, which made his three closest friends all look at him weirdly. "Last night... In the Shrieking Shack... were you alone?"
Remus frowned. James was known to ask some stupid questions once in a while, but that must be some sort of record of stupidity. "Of course I was. It's not really the big social scene you think it is."
The Potter boy rolled his eyes at the sarcasm. "That's not what I meant. I was just wondering. I just- I've been thinking-"
"Uh oh, dangerous territory," Sirius muttered with a smug grin on his face. "Whatever it is, I'm in. Who are we pranking?"
"No one," James answered, but furrowed his brows and tilted his head as he realized how weird that sounded coming from him. "Well, probably someone. I don't know who yet. But that's not what I'm talking about."
"Then what are you talking about?" Peter asked, having lost track of the conversation by now.
James glanced around to make sure nobody was listening in on their conversation. He leaned over the table so he was closer to Remus and Peter. Sirius followed suit to hear better. "So, we all know Lee, right?"
Sirius nodded, though he noted in the corner of his eye that Remus clenched his jaw and warily glanced up from his plate just at the mention of the Hufflepuff girl. "Yeah, she's cool."
