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Remus’ eyes snapped open, his heart racing as he awoke from the most recent nightmare. It took a few seconds for him to figure out that he was still in his room at Hogwarts, safe among his sleeping friends.
Slowly, his heartbeat steadied and he began to be able to breathe freely again. His skin was still damp with sweat and his limbs still shook, but he felt a little less like his panic attack was going to kill him.
He heard nothing but the soft sounds of the other Marauders breathing in sleep, but through the open drapes around his bed, he could see that the curtain that was supposed to cover their bedroom window had been left partly open. Through the clear glass, the moon mocked him, lighting their small room with silver light from a moon that was nearly full.
Remus sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. It wasn’t just the cold floor that made him shiver as he crossed the room to approach the window, but the pale light sliding over his skin, sending a chill through him as though the light waves were tangible things.
As his fingers brushed the heavy curtains, he heard a soft rustle somewhere in the darkness behind him and a sleepy whisper.
“Moony? What are you doing?” Sirius’ half-awake voice asked.
“Just closing the curtain.” Remus tugged the curtain over the window, effectively blocking out the offending moon.
“Why?”
“It was too bright. I couldn’t sleep.”
There was silence for a few seconds, then a dim glow appeared from Sirius’ wand, illuminating the dark room.
Remus felt Sirius’ eyes on him as he walked back to his bed, grateful for the warmth of his blankets. They couldn’t quite take away the chill of his dreams or the moon’s touch, but it was at least a small comfort.
He had just pulled the blankets up to his chin when more rustling from Sirius’ direction made him sit up again and look over to see what his friend was doing. To his surprise, Sirius had climbed out of bed, wand in hand, and was crossing the room to Remus.
“Move over,” Sirius ordered, shoving the blankets back and pushing his way into Remus’ small bed.
“And what exactly do you think you’re doing?” Remus graced Sirius with his best prefect glare, which did nothing to daunt the other Marauder.
“Keeping you company,” Sirius responded, leaning against the headboard and grinning at Remus.
“Why?”
A shrug. “You look like you need it.”
Remus sighed and leaned back against the bed’s headboard as well, his shoulder brushing against Sirius’.
“So. Was it just the light that was keeping you up or was it something else?”
Remus resisted the urge to sigh again. Sometimes Sirius could be frighteningly perceptive. “Bad dream.”
“About?”
Remus didn’t respond, the sense of panic threatening to rise up and suffocate him again. In the dim glow of Sirius’ wand, he could see his friend look towards the hidden moon, comprehension appearing in his expression.
Sirius firmly pushed his shoulder against Remus’, providing a soft warmth against the werewolf’s arm. Unlike the tentative comfort of his blankets, this small touch cracked the frozen chill inside his body, fighting against the moon’s terror.
“Anything you want to talk about?”
“It was just another pre-moon nightmare. Nothing I haven’t had before.”
“Tell me about it.”
Remus fidgeted with his blanket, wrapping his trembling fingers in the soft cotton. “Having you three around didn’t calm the wolf when I transformed. I killed you all. I could…I could taste your blood and see your bodies in the Shrieking Shack. Then I ran into the forest. The wolf was happy about his freedom and didn’t care that he’d left you all behind. Then I woke up.”
“We’re still here,” Sirius said softly.
Remus lifted his gaze to meet his friend’s, Sirius’ eyes sparkling in the wand’s light. “And one day you might not be. One day I might wake up after the full moon to find that my nightmares have become reality. I couldn’t live with that guilt. I couldn’t live knowing what I’d done to you.”
“It won’t happen.”
“How can you be so sure?” Remus had to fight to keep his voice down in order to not wake the other two Marauders. “How do you know that one day you won’t be enough to calm the monster inside of me? It’s not worth you lot risking your lives for me every full moon.”
“So you’ve said before.”
“And yet you fail to listen.”
“Do you think we enjoyed seeing you hurt every transformation?” Sirius asked, his tone turning sharp. “Do you think we liked coming to visit you in the hospital wing and seeing you with new scars and a fake smile and even less hope in your eyes? We didn’t become animagi just for the hell of it – we found a way to help you, and we took it. I, for one, don’t regret that choice. I don’t care about the risk. You’re worth more than any danger.”
Remus stared at Sirius for a long moment, then let out a short laugh. “You are so unbelievably stubborn.”
“And you are far too unaware of how much you mean to us. We knew what we were getting into. It’s not like we didn’t think about it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Sirius rolled his eyes at Remus’ tone. “Yes, I’m sure. We aren’t completely brainless, you know.”
Remus managed a smile, earning an even bigger grin from his friend. “I suppose I’ll never be able to be rid of you, will I?”
“Nope,” Sirius replied cheerfully. “You got stuck with us the day we met. It’s far too late to get rid of us now.”
The silence that followed was comfortable, the frozen fear inside of Remus shrinking to a small spot inside of him. Even the warmth and assurance of one of his closest friends could never eliminate it completely, but at least the terror could be temporarily hushed.
“Are you alright now?” The question was followed by a yawn.
Remus felt a twinge of guilt at keeping Sirius awake. “Better. Go back to bed; you know you won’t be able to stay awake in class tomorrow if you sit here all night.”
“Can I stay?”
Remus hesitated for only a second. “If you like.”
Sirius gave him another grin as he doused the wand’s light. “Thanks, Moony. Nothing like your own personal animagus guardian to help keep your nightmares at bay.”
“If you say so.” Remus burrowed down underneath his blankets, shoving some of the fabric at Sirius, who immediately tunneled underneath it, only his vague outline visible in the darkness.
“It’s a scientific fact.”
“Right. Because so many werewolves have an animagus friend who comes to steal their blankets in the middle of the night.”
Sirius laughed, shamelessly curling up next to Remus. “Sleep well, Moony.”
“Goodnight, Padfoot.”
The fear inside him disappeared a little bit more until it was just a whisper in his mind. Remus let his eyelids flutter shut, soothed back to sleep by the warmth and protection of a friend beside him. The moon could not touch him again that night, not with an animagus guardian at his side.