CHAPTER II.

"Have you heard about Madam Pomfrey?" Lily asked Remus one night over a study session in the library.

"I have in fact heard of her, yes," Remus said dryly.

Lily rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she set down her book (it was a rather large tome; Remus pitied her arms). "She's apparently taken on an apprentice."

Remus, who had previously been flicking lazily through his copy of Quintessence: A Quest in search of a topic for his Charms essay, looked up at this. "Has she, now?" he asked, equal parts intrigued and concerned. "Any chance you know who it might be?"

"No, I'm afraid," Lily told him sadly. "I heard it from Marlene, who heard it from Mary, and you know how the rumour mill is. . . details get lost in the fine print, or something like that." She waved a hand distractedly.

To his credit, Remus did a rather good job of acting like he was not panicking for the remainder of their study session, but as soon as he could he dashed madly off for the Gryffindor common room, where he found his friends lazing about on one of the cushy sofas.

"Pomfrey's got an apprentice," Remus said at once as he took his seat in an armchair directly adjacent to Sirius, who raised an eyebrow.

"O-kay," Sirius said slowly. "Want to tell us why this is so pressing?"

"Because," Remus sniffed impatiently, "whoever it is might find out. You know, seeing as —" he glanced furtively around, and to his relief no one seemed to be in earshot "— seeing as I'm there so often."

"Come on, Moony," James all but whined. "Don't you ever stop worrying? You'll go grey at twenty with the amount of it you do, I expect."

Remus deigned not to mention that the average life expectancy for a werewolf was not even twice that. He leaned back against the armchair, picking sullenly at a piece of lint on his jumper. "You know what this means, Prongs," he said darkly. "Whoever this apprentice is. . . I won't be able to avoid them. When I'm — when I'm there."

At this, his three friends sat up, seeming to catch on to his train of thought. Brilliant though they were, they had never caught onto the way Remus's mind always seemed to jump to the possibility of him being found out.

"You could talk to Madam Pomfrey," Peter suggested, and they all looked at him. He turned a little pink.

"Yes," Remus said, feeling a little faint. He had not been so worried about someone finding out about his condition since the incident with Snape in their fifth year. That had blown over now, though he knew that Sirius was still torn up with guilt over it — not because he had nearly killed Snape, but because he had hurt Remus. "Yes, I think I will."

━━

But he didn't speak with the school matron until the middle of September, on the day of the first full moon of his last year at Hogwarts. Remus was feeling, as was usual at this time of the month, like a great big pile of horse dung. Sitting on the edge of the bed Madam Pomfrey had ordered him to rest on for the afternoon, Remus wondered distantly if he was feverish.

"Remus?" Madam Pomfrey asked as she set down a pain potion on his bedside table. She frowned at him in that concerned, motherly way of hers. "Is everything alright, dear?"

He was about to lie and say that yes, everything was perfectly fine, splendid even — but he couldn't swallow his worry. At any moment, he expected an eager student to come through the Hospital Wing's great big double doors, eager to help Madam Pomfrey brew healing draughts and change bedpans. Or whatever it was the matron did when he wasn't there.

But no. No, Remus wasn't alright. Because if Madam Pomfrey, shrewd woman that she was, had taken an apprentice, it had to be someone brilliant. Someone brilliant enough to figure out Remus's secret in an instant.

And so, voice hoarse with exhaustion, Remus put words to his fears. "I've heard. . . rumours. About you having an apprentice."

Pomfrey, of course, recognized what Remus was getting at immediately. "Ah." She took a seat in the chair conveniently placed beside his bed. "This is about Miss Bancroft, isn't it?"

Remus's stomach lurched. "What?"

Madam Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "My apprentice?"

"Oh." Remus felt sick. He hadn't known that Zelda Bancroft — just my luck, he thought miserably — was interested in Healing. He filed this away as an important thought to consider later, when he wasn't delirious from the various pain potions Madam Pomfrey had all but forced down his throat. "Yes. I don't want her — or anyone," he added hastily, "to find out."

He knew she was good at keeping secrets. Somehow, to Remus's astonishment, she had managed to full the entirety of Slytherin House — and, indeed, the rest of the school — into thinking she was pureblood. He still didn't know how she had gotten around the fact that the teachers surely must know her true origins.

"Not to worry," Madam Pomfrey said primly. "You should know that I have already discussed this with the headmaster, and while it would be rather — ah — obvious for me to ask Miss Bancroft to take a day off every month around the full moon, I have already insisted she not come to Hospital Wing for the next two days." She gave him a small smile.

"But — but what about the next full moon? And the one after that?" Remus spluttered. "They keep coming, you know."

"Yes," Madam Pomfrey sighed. "Unfortunately so. But it's like I said, Remus — I will take great care to ensure that Miss Bancroft does not find out. Please do try not to worry."

Remus sighed. Why did everyone keep telling him that?

━━

He came to with a gasp.

Sirius, James, and Peter swam into clarity above him at the same time as the vaulted ceilings of the Hospital Wing. Remus blearily took in his surroundings. His head hurt.

"Morning, Moony," Sirius said brightly. Remus winced in pain, to which Sirius looked rather sheepish and lowered his voice. "Sorry."

His friends were all leaning over him; they moved aside as he sat up slowly, taking stock of the sensations in his too-thin body. His wrist was bandaged, but he could tell it was just a scratch that would quickly scar over with some essence of dittany. There were some cuts on his arms and bruises on his chest, but that was typical (at least there were no new scars on his face). Oh, and his head was pounding.

"We didn't get plastered last night, did we?" Remus joked hoarsely.

James cracked a smile. "Not sure the wolf would've been so willing to down some Firewhisky, mate."

With a groan, Remus sank back onto his mountain of pillows. His friends were always annoyingly serious after a full moon, all wide-eyed and pitying, soft voices and gentle hands galore. He hated it. "Where's Pomfrey?"

Peter and Sirius, who were seated next to each other on his left side, exchanged a look. James ruffled his hair nervously. Finally, Peter cleared his throat. "She's outside," he said. "Trying to convince her apprentice to leave."

Heart suddenly thundering, Remus bolted upright, ignoring James's placating hand on his chest. "What?"

Sirius sighed. "It's a Slytherin. That Bancroft girl — the one who's friends with Malfoy's sister," he informed Remus. At the horrified look he received in return, he added, "Don't worry, she didn't see you. We pulled the curtains around your bed, and James pretended to have a broken arm."

"Woe is me!" James cried instantly, pretending to cradle his perfectly fine arm. "A Bludger pommeled me, Poppy, you must come to my aid — !"

"Why do you insist on using her first name?" Remus sighed, trying to banish all thoughts of Zelda from his head.

James plowed on, unbothered. "I'll have you know that we're old friends, Poppy and I."

"Are we, Potter?"

Almost comically, James slowly turned his head to see Madam Pomfrey standing just to his left, having approached them without any of the four boys noticing. Sirius dissolved into a fit of distinctly un-manly giggles. Beside him, Peter sniggered.

Remus only sighed again as Madam Pomfrey shook her head, steadfastly ignored James's poor attempts to cover for himself, and began to inspect Remus's wounds. "Looking better still," she was saying happily just as James gave up. "It seems the wolf is growing more tame with age. . ."

This was, of course, untrue — the truth of the matter was that ever since Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs had started sneaking him out of the shack and joining him on late-night adventures through the Forbidden Forest, the full moons had simply gotten easier. Over Pomfrey's shoulder, Sirius shot Remus a knowing look while James and Peter shared a fist bump. Remus smiled wanly.

The blessing that was his friendship with James, Sirius, and Peter was hardly lost on Remus.

━━

He often dreamt of the wolf during the nights surrounding the full moon. He dreamt of the forest, of roots beneath enormous paws, of howling at the starless but moonlit night sky. He remembered the moons, sometimes, but only bits and pieces.

Remus sighed and squinted down at the map, resting on his knees. He often nicked it from their dormitory on nights like these, choosing to watch Dumbledore pacing in his study or the prefects do their nightly rounds instead of lying awake, staring at the canopy of his four-poster bed —

He shot upright, the map sliding to the floor with a rustle of parchment. Shit. He was supposed to be on prefect duty tonight. James, as Head Boy (some mystery, that — they'd had a real laugh when the badge had come by owl post over the summer holiday), often told Remus not to worry about it whenever he was scheduled for patrol around the full moon. Remus never obliged, of course, but he always appreciated it. James was unfailingly thoughtful where it counted.

Grabbing his discarded Gryffindor cloak and shoving the map into his pocket beside his wand, Remus thanked his lucky stars he was still wearing his school uniform and that he hadn't changed into pyjamas already. Climbing out of the portrait hole and ignoring the Fat Lady's sleepy protests, Remus began his journey to the third floor, where he knew he was supposed to patrol that night.

The castle was dark, lit only by flickering sconces set along intervals on the walls, illuminating the snoozing portraits. It was raining outside, as was typical for the region of Scotland's Highlands which housed Hogwarts Castle and its grounds; Remus could hear the pitter-patter of droplets sliding down the stained glass windows as he passed them, hands in his pockets.

He found nary a person about the castle this late, apart from a snogging couple on the second floor, whom he scolded and threatened to deduct points from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw if they didn't return to their respective common rooms. Remus hardly ever deducted points, though, and always felt bad whenever he did. He scoffed quietly as he watched the couple retreat down the hall and part ways with another kiss; some prefect he made.

"You're out late," said a voice. "Careful, or I'll have to deduct — oh. Never mind."

What he would do for a vial of Felix Felicis, Remus thought bitterly as he turned and was met with a frowning Zelda Bancroft. His luck certainly needed it these days.

"Sorry," Zelda amended quietly, clearly doing her best to avoid eye contact. "I didn't realize — I mean, I didn't see your badge."

Her own prefect badge glinted green and silver in the dying candlelight of the corridor. There was a ring on her left index finger. Remus, though not in any sense an expert on jewelry, could tell that it was slightly lopsided; a dainty gold thing, with a pearl set into the middle, only the pearl was slightly to the side of her finger instead of in the middle. He watched as she adjusted it, no doubt feeling the weight of his gaze, and looked away.

"It's alright," Remus mumbled. "It's dark."

"Yes."

They stood there, shrouded by a painfully awkward silence, for what felt like an hour rather than just a second. Remus felt his cheeks heating up. Merlin, she was pretty. Something entirely different could be said of her character, considering her house and her spectacularly crafted lie of seven years, but then he supposed it was in line with him being a seventeen-year-old boy that the first thing he noticed was the way her hair tumbled down her shoulders and brought out her eyes.

He was, not for the first time, suddenly glad that he'd never told his friends about his wayward crush. Because it wasn't a crush, not really — not when it had started with him simply being fascinated by her, by the fact that she'd been so nice only to have then been sorted into Slytherin, of all houses. And then there was the fact that she, a Muggle-born, had been sorted into Slytherin at all.

It was fascinating. Remus had consulted library books, wondering if she was the first Muggle-born to be sorted into Slytherin, and was now entirely sure that she was, given that his research had come up with nothing.

"Aren't you supposed to be patrolling the third floor?" Zelda asked then, breaking the tense silence.

Remus blinked.

"I checked the schedule," Zelda explained, but this did nothing to slow the frantic pace of Remus's heart.

Candlelight danced, reflecting the sconces, in her eyes. They were brown. He knew this, of course, but it seemed a relevant fact for his brain to so helpfully point out. She had checked the schedule. Had she checked it for him, or had she just read the whole thing over? He knew it was most likely the latter, but that didn't stop him from wondering.

"Yes," he finally choked out, thinking he probably sounded immensely silly. Yes? What kind of stupid. . .

He wondered what she would do if she knew there was a werewolf — a monster — prowling the corridors of the castle, masquerading as a prefect, blushing at the mere thought of her knowing smirk, of the way her robes were perfectly arranged, of the way her hair fell.

She would probably be even more scared of him than she already was.

Remus wasn't daft — he knew full well that she was terrified of him revealing her secret. He never did, of course, mainly because he somewhat pitied her, and maybe even understood. It wasn't remotely near the magnitude of the secret he kept, but he still felt a pang of sympathy, of knowing, whenever he thought of it. It was probably the real reason why he never told.

He wanted to ask. The urge pounded against his ribcage, fighting to get out, to demand an explanation. He was curious, unfailingly so, and longed to know why — why she felt such a need to be like the other Slytherins. To pretend she was like Sirius's family, or like the Malfoys, whose youngest he knew she was friends with.

But then, Remus supposed he already knew. He saw how the Slytherins treated Lily and Mary, and even him occasionally, despite him only having one Muggle parent and not two. He could only imagine what they might do should they find out there was a Muggle-born, a child of the otherworld, hiding among their ranks.

"You would've been better in Ravenclaw," Remus blurted, then immediately closed his eyes, mortified. God, he thought. You daft prick. He opened his eyes to find Zelda's brown eyes blown wide in surprise. "I mean —"

"I know what you meant," she snapped, all traces of shock gone from her face. Remus winced at her affronted look. "Take it up with the Sorting Hat if you really think so." She muttered something that sounded like God knows I already have, and then pushed past him, flicking her tawny hair over her shoulder as she stormed down the corridor.

Remus stood there, dumbfounded and rather warm in the face.

Yeah, said a voice in his head that sounded not unlike James. You're never going to get a date with her.

But, he considered as he continued on his path to the third floor, did he really want one?

━━

UK SLANG: 

plastered — drunk