Chapter Text
Now, while Remus was meticulous about keeping track of which days led up to the full moon, all of the phases and their exact timing lined up for at least the next two months memorized, he wasn’t exactly the best at remembering which moon it was.
He had been unfortunate enough to realize that some types of full moons affected his transformation. He was always incredibly drained after blue moons, and harvest moons always made him positively ravenous afterwards.
And then there were supermoons.
He didn’t realize it, as he folded up his clothes (not a uniform, mind you, just simple too-big jumper and pants) and Peter (as a rat) pulled them away to their safe nook in the Shrieking Shack, but he was in for a big night.
He felt his skin start to crawl, as it always did, but there was something else so very, very, very wrong.
“Shit- uh, guys??” Remus’ voice already was rasping as he could feel the bone melting transformation rob him of anything even remotely human.
“You have to run, it’s a supermoon!” he shrieked as he was swallowed whole with the need to kill.
It wasn’t just the heightened bloodlust and hunger that made supermoons dangerous.
He was even more physically massive, stronger, faster.
The last thing he registered was the animal faces of his friends, all frozen in fear.
Usually he had the mental wherewithal to simply scratch and howl but now he needed, absolutely needed to feel the shred of flesh under his claws.
They all stood stock still, Peter still on his shelf, Sirius and James both standing at the entrance to the stairwell.
They all barely glanced at each other before nodding just slightly, even in animal form it was clear they were about to try something stupid and with only the smallest chance of success, with a huge risk of death.
Oh well.
Better test a theory.
Sirius ran to the other side of the room, bounded on top of a broken bedframe, and transformed back into his human form.
“Remus!” he said, as if Remus hadn’t immediately noticed a person in the room.
“Remus Lupin, you’ve got to calm down mate!”James shouted, having turned back when Remus’ back was to him. The murderous look in the wolves eye shifted to confused, a slight pause with muscles tense as a bowstring.
“Remus Lupin, snap out of it!” Peter said from on top of the shelf, also human. Remus shook himself, almost dazed, but he snarled and bounded for Sirius atop the bed.
“Remus Lupin,” Sirius said with all the courage of someone who loved him so very deeply, “I love you, you gotta come back to me.”
Remus had put a single paw on the frame before his body convulsed.
It was always horrifying to watch him turn back, but each of the boys were too busy holding their breath to see if it had actually worked to be terrified.
Remus was curled up, just a boy shivering since he had no shirt on in the dead of night.
Peter let out a whoop and the spell was broken as he jumped down, hurriedly giving Remus his jumper.
He was always disoriented when he changed back, and now even more so, eyes shining as he looked up at his friends.
“Wha- how??” he said breathlessly.
James and Sirius were both smiling so crazily they appeared to be entirely mad, Sirius not being able to hold back hugging onto Remus like he had come back from the dead.
“It was all Sirius, he was dead set on that myth!!” JAmes slapped Sirius on the back.
“I found the couple of accounts of people claiming it worked, and just. Put together the pieces,” Sirius was glad Remus couldn’t see the tears threatening to spill over.
Remus was so shocked all he could do is hug back (Only half as fierce but he was always tired after changing back), “But… how?”
“We found out that it was most likely saying the full name multiple times, and only happened on certain moons,” James explained because Sirius was too busy wiping away tears.
Remus bit back the bitterness that this wasn’t a cure all. He pulled back to look at Sirius, and up at James and Peter. Not a single eye was dry.
“C’mere ya sods, group hug,” he said, and they obliged him.
Maybe the Marauders weren't perfect.
But he had the best friends in the world.