October was crawling toward an end and the castle was being trussed up with pumpkins and reminders that Halloween was just about the corner, inciting a good deal of excitement in Sirius Black. "My favorite day of the year, this is," he announced happily, pouring over a parchment at his desk, drawing ideas for costumes to magic together for the occasion. He grinned about at the others as they sat in the boys' dormitories one evening. "I've had an idea." 

"Never were more terrifying words ever spoken," Remus murmured from his bed.

The nearer to the end of October they came, the nearer the full moon got, and the more awful Remus Lupin felt. It's a particularly terrible moon, he kept saying, but it seemed to the others that every moon recently had been a particularly terrible one, and that they kept getting worse and worse. This one had Remus's bones cracking in the days leading up to the full moon so that he couldn't walk anywhere without his knees and ankles snapping and popping as he moved and James had taken to carrying him nearly everywhere piggy-backed style. Every moment not spent in class, the four boys - and most usually Lily as well - spent gathered about in the boys' dormitory room, Remus with his legs up on a pillow, or on Snuffles's back. Today, it was pillows he was propped upon.

Lily asked, "Do I, as Headgirl, even want to know your idea, Sirius?"

Sirius's eyes twinkled, "It's nothing awful. Just imagine if we were to all dress up and we go Trick or Treating about the castle to all of the professors?"

Peter spoke up, "But how would they know that they were to keep treats on hand?"

"Oh we'll post about it, get everyone in the school in on it, it'll be marvelous fun." Sirius looked at Lily, grinning, "Just think, a wholesome activity for even the youngest of wee scholars to partake in."

Lily gave him a suspicious eye, but didn't see where the argument could lie with what he'd suggested, and she said, "I mean, if you wanted to talk to Dumbledore and arrange it..."

Sirius grinned. "Of course I meant to include Dumbledore." He hadn't even thought of it, really.

Remus groaned suddenly, clutching his side, and wincing. Outside, a near-to-full moon was rising and they all stared at the window a long moment. "Tea," Lily announced, "You need tea." And she waved her wand and on the desk behind Sirius there spun her little pink flowered tea pot, steaming and a tea cup with a saucer.

Two days before, Sirius had snuck into the dungeons in the middle of the night and into Slughorn's storeroom for some aconite from the little box on the shelves there. There was loads and loads of it, more aconite than Sirius had ever seen, in great stacks and bundles, piled high. He'd happily stolen whole fistfuls of the leaves, filling his pockets before running back up to the Gryffindor common room with his loot, turning out his pockets at the foot of Remus's bed with a grin on his face. "It must be for the Wolfsbane," Lily had pointed out the next day when she found out about what Sirius had done. Sirius had been afraid that she would chastise him and make him return the leaves, but on the contrary she was actually quite supportive of the idea of helping Remus out - even if it resorted to thievery. 

Now, Sirius put several of the aconite leaves into the tea pot and used his wand to make them swivel about, releasing an almost minty scent into the room. The smell alone seemed to have soothing properties on Remus, and he heartily drank down several cups of the tea, restoring some of the usual sparkle in his greenish-brown eyes, though there were deep, dark bags beneath them that seemed to grow each day. He leaned back into his pillows happily, having finished off the entire pot of the leaves, and sighed, his eyes droopy as the pain subsided and the sleepiness he'd been denied for several days taking over.

"C'mon you lot," whispered James, waving for the others to follow him, "I think Remus can skip over one Defense class in the name of catching up on some sleep."

Remus, who was nearly asleep already, murmured, "I can't miss class..."

"Don't worry, Moonpie, I'll take notes for you," Sirius said, reaching to stroke Remus's face. "The best bloody notes that ever did exist. I'll take down every detail of what you miss and you'll be enthalled. It'll be the most incredible revision you'll ever have."

Over Sirius's shoulder Lily signaled that she, too, would take notes for him, and Remus calmed. "Alright," he said, and Sirius kissed him deeply.

"I'll stay with you, Moony," Peter said, who didn't take the DADA classes anymore anyway. "I've got some divination work I wanted to do anyhow, and it's nice and quiet work that won't bother you, but you won't be alone, at least." He smiled.

Remus smiled, "Thank you, Wormtail."

James nodded at the door, "C'mon you lot, let's get downstairs before Garm turns us all into leeches or something for being late."

"Yes, excellent idea," Sirius nodded, turning and grabbing parchment and quills and a textbook from the desk behind himself.

"That's not the DADA textbook," Remus said, "That's the Charms book. DADA is the blue one..."

"I know that," Sirius said, grinning, and he switched books and hurried to the door, disappearing out it, followed by James.

Lily hovered a moment, eyes raised at Remus, a smirk on her face.

"I don't know how he's made it to seventh year," Remus muttered.

Lily's eyes flashed meaningfully, "I do." She pointed at Remus, then headed for the door. "Bye Pete."

"Bye," Peter was bent double over his bed, his rump in the air, as he dug through his trunk for his divination supplies.

Remus watched Peter rummage for a long moment, feeling his body sinking into his bed, the heat of the blankets warming him as he yawned and drooped further, his exhaustion slowly taking over him until Peter was quite blurry and Remus's mind was slipping away... There was something - he realized, his eyes popping open, only to begin slipping back shut - that he was going to talk to Peter about next time they were alone... but it'd been such a long time since they had been that he couldn't even really recall what it was that had been so important...

"Where is Remus Lupin?" Garm's voice carried through the classroom's silence, rough as though unused in some time. Mr. Frek was closing up the doors to the corridor as Garm sat behind the ornate desk, leaning back as far as he could possibly go, his legs up , feet on the table in big thick boots, not unlike Sirius's, his thick dreadlocks creating a great hairy pillow to rest his head upon. His eyes had scanned the room over his nose without ever raising his head and, of course, he focused upon the one missing boy, rather than any of the others in the room.

"Sick," James replied vaguely, "He's up in bed, sleeping it off.' He promptly made a job of it arranging his parchment to avoid Garm's gaze.

Garm's wooly eyebrow raised as Mr. Frek hurried up the center aisle to the plinth that the teacher's desk stood upon. "Sick?" Garm's voice trembled with incredulity. "Why doesn't he just go up to the hospital wing and have Old Poppy give him a tonic to be well?" He sat up as he said this, dropping his booted feet to the floor and his long dreadlocks fell over his shoulders, hanging in all their thick braided glory (Sirius stared wide-eyed at Garm's hair). A sardonic smile came over Garm's mouth as he leaned forward. "Certainly whatever he's ill with can be healed by Poppy Pomfrey."

"He's allergic," Lily said quickly. 

James and Sirius looked at her.

"Allergic." Garm repeated the word slowly. "Allergic." He looked at Mr. Frek. "Most unusual. Allergic to tonic."

Mr. Frek nodded, winded from running up to the front, "Yessir, most unusuals."

Garm looked back at Lily, Sirius, and James. "Tell me, is he allergic to all tonic or just the one that he's in need of?"

Lily floundered. "Just this one sir," she said, "I - I suppose." James looked down at the desk and Sirius closed his eyes, rubbing over the lids. Lily was mucking this up nicely.

Garm mused. "Well," he said. "Perhaps he should speak with Sluggy and see if he can't whip him up a new sort that will allow him to attend his classes."

"I'll suggest it sir," Lily murmured.

Garm's sardonic smile grew and he ran his fingers over the dreadlocks that had come up over his shoulders, and he said, "Since Mr. Lupin is too ill to attend his Defensive Dark Magic class, he can write me a paper on... oh, I don't know..." Garm drew this last word out, long and thoughtful, musing as he dropped backward into the chair once again, swiveling in it back and forth like a child might do, his knee bent so that one boot rested on the seat at the base of his spine while the other pushed the chair...back and forth... "Have him write me on the properties of the tonic he needs, and, once he's spoken to Slughorn about it, some of the alternative medicines that might be of use to him with his... condition."

"But sir, he's allowed to be ill," Sirius said hotly. "Without being punished for it!"

"Just pass along the assignment," Garm replied. "Unless you think your friend might be suddenly well enough to appear in class instead, in which case you are more than welcome to go and... fetch... him." He paused. "I'll gladly excuse the tardies."

They stared at one another, then James muttered, "It's fine Sirius, we'll just tell Professor McGonagall and she'll see to it that Remus doesn't get punished for being sick." He looked up at Garm, a challenge in his eyes.

"Oh, James, don't," Lily whispered, nervous at the expression on Garm's face as he and James locked eyes.

Everyone in the room was silent for several long seconds as the pair stared one another down. Even in the back, the Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and Slytherins in the room were waiting with baited breath for what would come next. Even Severus Snape stared up at the pair of them, his eyes travelling between Garm and James Potter, and, as he was unsure which he despised more, he wasn't sure which of the two he wished to win this stand off.

"He is being punished for missing class," Garm said coldly, firmly.

James stared directly into Garm's face, defiantly. "It isn't against the rules to be ill."

"That is what the hospital wing is for," Garm replied, "And seeing as he did not go to see Madam Pomfrey, and he does not have a note of excuse from class, then he should be here and if he is not here then he is breaking the rules and should be punished."

"You want a note of excuse from class?" James asked. He took a piece of parchment, and he quickly wrote upon it, reading aloud as he did, "I, James Potter, Headboy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, excuse one, Remus Lupin, from attending classes on today, 24 October, 1977, as he is ill. Any further questions about his illness and excusing him from class should be directed to the Headmaster or the Head of Gryffindor House, who will verify that he is, in fact, excused from class." James looked up as he signed the parchment with a flourish and held it up.

There was a long silence. Sirius stared at James, wide-eyed, and Lily covered her face with her hands, scared to see the reaction to that this would have.

Garm stared down at the parchment.

James flicked his wrist, fluttering the paper insistently. "Well? Are you going to take it or not?"

Garm nodded at Frek, and Frek waddled down off the plinth and snatched it from James's hand, then back up to where Garm sat. He unfurled the paper against his knee, reading it over, his mouth moving with the words and when he got to the final Potter, he shook his head and dropped the parchment onto the desk. "Fine," he snapped. Then he pinched his nose and stood up liquidly, "Mr. Frek... do the lesson, I've a headache..." and with that, Garm went, climbing up the spiraling staircase to his office, where he slammed the door.

Frek hurried to the chalkboard, and began stammering out a lesson.

Sirius leaned forward, looking at James, his face glowing with admiration. Lily looked like she might throw up, a stark contrast to Sirius's face and James thought for a moment of a muggle cartoon he once saw when a man was trying to make a choice and on his shoulders had popped an angel and a devil.

"Good one James," Sirius said.