M O O N Y
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Her eyelids dropped slightly as a cool morning breeze surrounded her and the first birds to wake before the cloudy morning began to chirp. The bottom half of her body was absent, along with the boy next to her. This was due to their friend's invisibility cloak that draped across their shoulders. Only faces remained uncovered in order to grant cigarettes easy access to their lips. Puffs of smoke escaped in sighs and floated up into the air around them.

The anticipated sunrise would happen soon, and leave them to watch the sky turn vibrant against the surrounding mountains and seven story high castle. Though for now, they sat amongst the earliest animals to awake, and the dark blue sky that was only just beginning to fade.

The blonde put her cigarette out on the dewy grass by the lake on Hogwarts grounds and brought her knees up to her chest. She normally would not be up this early, especially since she knew she would not be getting any sleep that night as it was time for the inevitable full moon. However, the same dream of sunsets and falling had seeped into her mind again, and she was beginning to believe the dream was a nightmare. Or worse, a foreshadowing.

Part of her believed that maybe she should tell Dumbledore, or Remus, but she feared doing this all the same. The man would probably assume the whole Order business was too much for her, and remove her immediately. Though she doubted this assumption was nothing more than a worrying hoax played by her mind, it was one risk she would not take.

"Why were you up so early?" Sirius broke the silence as he reached into his pack for another cigarette.

"Couldn't sleep," she responded. Her scrutinizing gaze followed his fingers as the flame from his lighter sparked. "Although you should be the one sleeping. You won't get much tonight."

He shrugged, "Couldn't sleep either."

The Black boy looked as if he desperately wanted to add something to this. Surprisingly, after only a few moments, he opened his mouth again in order to speak rather than place the same cigarette back in between his lips as she had expected.

"James cries in his nightmares sometimes. They're mainly about dad. Hurts, you know? That he's in that much . . . I can't stand it, but he feels weak when I try and comfort him."

Her dark eyebrows rose at his leaked thoughts, but she said nothing. The information told by Sirius had quite honestly put her in a position of shock. He was rarely open with anyone, even with his friends, including Freya.

"Sirius —"

"It's fine. Don't say you're sorry. I don't know why I just said that. I usually tell Remus this shit but he's got enough trouble with tonight. I just . . ." He trailed off with a faux laugh.

The girl shook her head so rapidly that stray blonde hairs fell down from her already messy ponytail. She had put her hair up quickly and without a mirror that morning in the common room when Sirius invited her to accompany him. In fact, she still had on her cotton pajama pants and an old t-shirt.

"No, Sirius," she sighed, "It's not fine. You care so much about him, you know? You're worried about your best friend and I get that. That's why you snapped at Lily."

A moment's pause filled the tensed silence between them before she continued, "You know, she's liked James for awhile. She just never knew how much she liked him until he changed."

The half smile that began to raise the corner of Sirius's lips was this time genuine. The silence around them was immediately turned to a relaxed one, and Freya found herself smiling too.

"He's always said she'd never be able to resist him."

And then his smirk turned into a full on smile, teeth showing and all. The laugh that attracted so many fell from his lips and Freya let out a chuckle herself.

The noise quieted as lights filled some rooms of the castles. It illuminated through the window noticeably as dawn only just began to transform the sky into the beautifully colored canvas she was accustomed to. Sirius immediately threw the cloak over both himself and Freya as he used the same dewy grass to put out his own cigarette.

The two ventured back to the castle a moment later underneath the protection of the cloak to start the boring day filled with lessons, and the horrible night filled with the horrors to come.

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"I'm going to tell him," spoke the rather confident voice of Lily Evans as she met Freya in the hall between lessons. The two were going opposite ways as their courses brought them to two separate classes, but the connecting halls permitted them a moment's chance to talk.

Freya jumped in response to the girl's sudden appearance, but a large smile crossed her face despite her books slipping from her hands in the process of both excitement and startle.

"When?"

"Now," Lily responded as if it was the most obvious thing ever. A spell was uttered from the corner of her mouth and with the help of her wand, Freya's fallen books returned to her awaiting arms.

An unfathomable look crossed the blonde girl's face as her eyebrows furrowed and she said her next statement slowly, "You, Lily Evans, are going to skip class . . . to tell James -- James Potter -- that you like him?"

The girl shook her head as if the statement had just sunk in, "No, of course not. After lessons, I meant. I just got excited."

"I can tell," Freya noted with an amused tone as she watched the girl speed ahead of her in order to reach her destination on time. Lily's long robes trailed behind in her hurry, and she was out of sight in a matter of seconds.

Little did she know, the next time she would see Lily Evans, the girl would have a huge grin on her face, and a date with James Potter marked onto her calendar.

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The cycle always began and ended with one feeling. Pain.

Pain was the only sense of familiarity he felt between himself and the monster. At least he could feel something. Though his friends were unrecognizable, and his brain a whole different creature -- the pain was hauntingly familiar, never to leave his side throughout the process.

Flesh became covered with fur as his nails became claws. His stature multiplied as the moon seemed to shine brighter in the sky outside of the rundown shack.

The three friends sat as animals against the opposite side of the torn apart room. They watched the werewolf with sad eyes as it once again consumed their friend completely.

As always, the last bit of humanity faded from the eye of the beast as it stood from the ground, sniffing with an uninterested attitude towards the direction of the animals. The smallest of them all tensed slightly from where it perched on the back of a large stag.

The werewolf paid them no interest. After only a few moments of sniffing through the area of damp, creaking floorboards and moth eaten furniture, it gave up its effort to find a human to infect. The lack of this murderous craving drove it to begin to claw at its own body as usual. Howls fell from its mouth and scared the villagers outside, reassuring them that the place was indeed haunted.

Thought it was impossible to tame such a creature, an onlooker would look at the four animals and assume the animagus forms of James, Sirius, and Peter had some sort of control over it. In an unorganized manner that each played a part in, they were able to successfully steer the werewolf from the shack. From there they directed it around the grounds of Hogwarts.

Though he was still trapped in the body of the beast, Remus's mind became less wolfish when he was around them. All the same, the appearance of a human could quickly change all that.

Time always went by faster as they dodged trees in the Forbidden Forest, dashed across the campus of Hogwarts, and crept back into the Shrieking Shack as their time came to a close.

Despite the fun they may have temporarily had, the night of the full moon ended as expected. Just as it invariably did. In pain.

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Kisses scattered down onto his forehead one at a time from Freya. A half smile crept onto his face, but she pulled away with a narrow frown. There was no reason for him to ask why, because it was obvious. The injuries and the infirmary bed bothered her, they truly did.

He obviously hated it there too. The stiff bed, the overly sanitized smell, the bandages, the magical healing. It reminded him of his curse.

"I brought you your coffee like I promised. It's from the kitchens. Hopefully it's still hot, you slept in later than I thought you would."

A lukewarm cup of dark brown liquid was held out to him by Freya, and he immediately enveloped the cup between his hands. Remus shifted slightly which caused his eyes to squint in reaction to the sharp pain that hid underneath a bandage on his right side.

It faded eventually as he stopped moving around so much on the cramped bed which was held up by wheels, and Remus was finally able take a sip of his favorite coffee.

Freya smiled as she spoke, "Guess who got a date with our very own James Potter."

"Not you I hope," he snorted sarcastically, "Well I'll take an impossible guess and say Lily."

"Yes!"

The coffee in his mouth spat out across the sheets as he coughed. As much as he had wanted Lily and James to get together, and even sometimes believed they would, it shocked him nonetheless.

Loud laughs escaped her lips behind the palm she had pressed over her mouth in an attempt to silence them. She used her other hand to stutter a spell through and make the coffee somewhat disappear from the sheets before Madam Pomfrey caught sight of the mess.

He studied her face as she did so, the bags under her eyes were harshly prominent and he felt partially guilty for giving her something to worry about throughout the night.

"Hey, why don't you get some sleep?"

She raised an eyebrow at this, "I can't sleep in the infirmary. I'm not sick."

Just as she said this, a loud snore sounded from the bed next to them from Peter himself, who had fallen asleep after waiting with Remus and Freya during his free period.

"Correction. I'm not sick and I'm not Peter."

Their other friends all had lessons that afternoon, and Mary and Marlene probably believed the same excuse they had given everyone else this time. Remus's mother's health had yet again acted up, and he was at home temporarily to visit her.

"Besides, I should write a letter to mum and dad. You're tired though, so you should sleep. Besides, Pomfrey will kick me out soon enough."

Remus shook his head, "Why would I sleep when I can talk to you? I'll wait until she kicks you out, or when Sirius comes in so he doesn't get me into any inevitable trouble."

She felt bad for keeping him awake as well, but she didn't nag him to sleep. Besides, he had a full cup of coffee in his system and a previous nap of five hours, she couldn't expect him to snooze. Plus, she enjoyed talking to him far too much to cease the chatter with sleep.

In the middle of their conversation, James Potter strode in with his usual face, but as soon as he saw his friends it cracked into a look of pure joy. "Moony, you won't believe it! I got a date with Evans! Evans! Can you believe it?"

"Oh shut up Potter it's not like you're going on a date with a bloody princess," Lily teased as she walked into the room and plopped down on the bed next to them. Despite the fact she had practically landed on top of the small boy, Peter did not stir.

James snorted as he landed next to her, "You're right. You're more of a queen."

Lily rolled her eyes in return as she shoved him slightly.

This time Peter groaned from underneath the wait of the two, "Would you get off before I end up in this Infirmary bed permanently?"

As if things could not get more chaotic with the new arrivals, Sirius had somehow snuck in, probably with the invisibility cloak as usual. The Marauders always brought the cloak when visiting Remus in the infirmary so if they were thrown out for breaking the rule of number of visitors, they could hide under the cloak and stay with their friend.

"I'll get him off of you, Wormtail," the onyx haired boy grinned as he loosened his Gryffindor colored tie before he dramatically tackled James to the ground.

A nearby bed made up with linen sheets rolled slightly from where it was meant to be as James's leg kicked it. The attention of Madam Pomfrey was caught as she narrowed her eyes and strode over to them. Luckily, the cloak had slid under the bed and out of sight rather than hiding part of their bodies and alarming the poor woman.

"Remus Lupin! I tell you every single time not to invite them."

Madam Pomfrey continued talking as she neared, "How are people supposed to believe you are taking care of your sick mother if you are causing this much attention? You're lucky you're the only sick one in today."

The figure of Sirius dodged the woman as she arrived at the bed, and she let out a frustrated groan. While it looked like he was playfully hiding to raise the matron's blood pressure even more, he was actually retrieving the cloak from the bed it had slid underneath.

"Get out. No Sirius, no sweet talking! Out. Trouble seems to always follow when you four are together. You too, Potter. Out."

The two left with many complaints, and a wink signifying they would be back soon underneath the cloak, and with more trouble following them on their way.

➤

AUTHORS NOTE:
this is rushed and not as good as it could have been soz

qotd: favorite marauder?
aotd: sirius af