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Remus Lupin had three friends. They each healed him in their own way.
Peter gave him comfort. From the very first moments on the train, staring in awe at his scars, yet talking to him as if he were normal, even admirable, and Remus realized he might not to spend the next seven years as lonely as the last six. To the first several weeks when he tried to sequester himself, afraid to connect lest someone notice, afraid he might let something slip, and yet Peter never caught on and cluelessly followed him around, preventing the isolation Remus tried so hard to impose on himself. To the first few years as, for the first time, Remus began to know the pain of coming back to himself, raw and bleeding and exhausted after spending a nightmare completely alone—and Peter would scramble under his bed as soon as Remus came back to their room, dragging out handfuls of treats from his constant store and piling them on his lap, all too eager to share. To the quiet moments in the library, when Peter plied him with questions about homework and it was such a relief to go over the mundane once, twice, three times, such a relief to be bored and preoccupied with Peter’s grades rather than his own worries.
To the days before his transformations, when sounds became too chaotic and light became too bright and he wore dark glasses when indoors and sat in class with his hands over his ears, struggling to concentrate, distracted by the buzz of a gnat from across the room as it walked along the wall and the sound of a student tip-toeing by in the hall, and Peter was the first one to copy him with his own glasses and make him feel less abnormal. To the times when he felt too ill to eat and Peter would sneak with James and Sirius down to the kitchen and insist on being the one to carry Remus’s mug of steaming milk tea back up to their room. To the times where he fell asleep, exhausted, in the library because he was so behind on homework, and Peter would run all the way to the dormitory and drag his own blanket back with him to put over Remus’s shoulders. To the times where he felt too weak to run, and Peter was content to sit with him in the shade of the willows by the lake, playing Exploding Snap and Gobstones and chess while Sirius and James raced each other through the skies and tussled in the grass, and didn’t seem to mind constantly losing and was only all the more ecstatic when Remus let him win.
*
Sirius gave him the ability to laugh. A miracle in itself; an unlooked-for blessing in his jokes’ borderline offensive lightheartedness. It was subtle at first, as though Sirius was testing the waters, and Remus almost didn’t catch it. From the start, “Howl-o there, Remus, what’s for breakfast this morning?” and Remus looked sideways at him, unsure whether he should feel upset or not, and then Sirius continued, “What’s your sweater made out of?” and Remus said uncertainly, “Wool…?” and then Sirius theatrically choked on his pumpkin juice and sputtered in a hoarse whisper, “But then are you a wolf in sheep’s clothing?” and James and Peter had looked at him, slightly alarmed, and an unexpected, sharp laugh burst out of Remus, shocking even himself. The humor was Sirius’s gift to him—a relief of the tension inside of him—a spike of joy that blew away a piece of the intense depression inside when he realized he could laugh at himself, that Sirius recognized his lycanthropy but didn’t fear it, and Remus loved him for it, and the burden became easier to bear.
“REMUS,” bellowed a Howler from Sirius over the breakfast table during the summer holidays, startling his mother so that she dropped a glass which shattered on the floor. “I’VE DECIDED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR SEPARATION AND FINALLY SPEAK TO YOU IN THE LANGUAGE OF YOUR PEOPLE.” And Remus’s parents were horrified, but Remus laughed until he cried and tried to explain—Sirius was not making fun of him. Sirius was telling him that his lycanthropy didn’t matter; Sirius was telling him that his friends were there for life, and they were never going to leave him.
And then Peter and James joined in, and James would enter the library and whisper to Peter, “Werewolf?” and Peter would grin and point in his direction and answer excitedly, “There-wolf!” and then when Peter became paranoid that his bad grades meant a professor was out to get him, Remus found himself commenting dryly, “Don’t cry wolf, Peter. That’s my job.” And Sirius let out the barking laugh of his—the laugh that somehow vibrated in sync with Remus’s soul and ignited his own smile, and it was like standing outside of himself, arms linked in a chain with his friends, looking in at the lycanthropy and laughing at it. Not because it wasn’t serious—it was—and not because it wasn’t a burden—it was—and not because it was funny—it wasn’t—but because he didn’t fear it quite so much, because he finally saw it as a part of him, but not as something that defined him. He even saw it as something that could be turned to his own benefit in wild nighttime explorations, in a deeper life of experiences. It was Sirius’s animated ideas for each month’s explorations that got Remus’s blood pumping. It was a large black dog that made the wolf playful. Sirius was the bolt of lightning in his gray: the spark of life that burned away timidity: the painless shove that threw him over the edge of the cliff into glorious recklessness and indomitable exhilaration.
*
James gave him the confidence to overcome. The one who never gave up, when Remus didn’t feel like he could get out of bed and James would say, “Yes, you can.” But then add, “But if you can’t, we’ve got you covered, mate.” The one who refused to listen when he thought he should just leave Hogwarts for good. James, the one who paid minimal attention in history class for most of the month but wrote so furiously he almost copied the lecture word-for-word when Remus was absent. The one who, in Defense Against the Dark Arts, spoke up in class, challenging the passage in the textbook that suggested werewolves were unalterable wild beasts, dangers to society that must be segregated off, or kept in solid “houses” (a euphemism for a prison, or madhouse), if not put down (a euphemism for “murdered”) outright. James, who presented his own opinion furiously and scathingly, but then turned and said, “Don’t you think so, Remus?” and Remus suddenly found the inspiration to stand up and defend himself against the others who didn’t even know they were supporting his death sentence.
James, who pushed him beyond the monotony of study and grades. Who dragged him out of bed in the middle of the night to prowl about the castle, who believed with casual finality that he could and would get a date for Valentine’s Day if anybody with a lick of sense still lived in this castle, who suggested that the three of them would wait by the castle doors for him at the end of every full moon when Madame Pomphrey brought him back up from the Whomping Willow.
Sirius was the one who first suggested becoming Animagi: James was the one who masterminded the plot to follow through. James was the one who led the rule-breaking, the risk-taking, the authority-flaunting. James was the one to successfully speak all of their minds. They all thought that Remus was worth it: James was the one to look him in his eyes and tell him so. They all sympathized with Remus’s struggle: James was the one to say, “I’m sorry it’s so rough, mate.” They all helped him in every way they could: James was the first one to ask, “What can we do?”
What they could do for his lycanthropy was limited. What they did for Remus was priceless.