It had been two years already. Two long years since James, Sirius, and Peter began their secret Transfiguration training with Professor McGonagall. Two years of missed evenings, coded glances, and whispered conversations that always seemed to stop when Remus walked into the room.
At first, Remus had convinced himself that it was nothing. Then he convinced himself it was just coincidence. And then eventually… he stopped trying to convince himself at all.
He watched them grow closer, while he grew distant, shoved into silence and under the shadow. The more he was excluded, the more he buried himself in the Map creation project… until even that began to feel pointless. And so, one night, he stopped working on it. He let the ink dry. He didn't even bother to clean his quill. He thought they were already working on it without him.
And then one particularly stormy evening, Remus had wandered aimlessly through the secret passage into the Shrieking Shack, seeking solitude. He wasn't expecting anyone there. But then he heard voices echoed down the corridor, faint but unmistakably familiar.
He froze.
"James, I know we're keeping it a surprise for Remus…" Sirius's voice drifted through the broken slats of the wall, "but don't you think it's getting a little too complicated? It's been too long. Remus must be lonely."
There was a pause. Then James sighed.
"I know. I feel terrible too. But for a better tomorrow, we have to suffer today. If Remus knew we were trying to get ourselves killed for him, he'd never let us go through with it. Just a little longer. We've done most of it now anyway."
Remus's heart caught in his chest. He pressed himself silently against the wall, his breath shaking.
Trying to get themselves killed… for me?
And suddenly, the months of being shut out made a little bit of the sense but not to the point of forgiving. If they were trying to help him… why abandon him? Why hurt him? And leave him alone?"
He didn't stay to listen anymore and ran away.
Then for days, Remus said nothing. Not to them. Not to himself. And just wrestled with guilt, anger, heartbreak and something deeper like a manifestation that maybe they were still his friends. A creeping thought that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't a burden.
And then, something clicked. He stood up and went out to find them.
He found them on the Quidditch pitch. James was practicing loops for the upcoming match, Sirius tuning his broom mid-air, and Peter sat quietly nearby, snacking as usual.
Remus marched forward, eyes shadowed, jaw tight.
Sirius spotted him first, dropping his broom. "Remus!"
James noticed and flew down at once, his expression shifting from excitement to confusion.
"Hey, mate, you alright?" James asked, stepping off his broom, panting. "You look…"
"How far have you all progressed in Transfiguration?" Remus interrupted, voice sharp, emotion buried just beneath the surface.
Sirius blinked. "How do you… know?"
James stepped forward slowly, like approaching a spooked Hippogriff. "Remus…"
"I know you're doing it for me." Remus's voice cracked slightly. He looked down, then raised his eyes to meet James's. "Is it worth it?"
There was a moment in this moment.
Then James smiled a gentle, unwavering response, "It's worth everything."
Remus let out a trembling breath, his eyes stinging. "I knew you'd say that."
From the inside of his coat, he pulled out a small, leather-bound book, worn and dog-eared.
He handed it to James. "Here. This will help with advanced Transfiguration—it's obscure stuff, not in the library. I didn't know how far you all are but I thought… maybe it'd be useful."
James stared at the book, and for a second, his voice caught. Then he pulled Remus into a hug so tight it knocked the wind out of him.
"Potter, don't kill him!" Sirius said, leaping in and throwing his arms around them both.
Peter, mouth still full of a biscuit, waddled over and wrapped his arms around Remus's waist. "Sorry, mate. I…I wanted to tell you… so many times…"
"I thought you lot hated me," Remus whispered. "I thought… because I'm a monster—"
"No." James cut him off, holding him by the shoulders. "You are not a monster. You're Remus. Our mate. Our brother."
"It wasn't about hiding it to be cruel," Sirius added. "We just knew you'd try to stop us."
"And you'd have succeeded too," Peter mumbled.
Remus let out a soft laugh, choked by tears.
"I'm still mad at you," he sniffed.
"Fair enough," Sirius said, patting his back. "But don't stay mad too long. We've still got a map to finish."
Peter chuckled, " Yeah! And you know if you had seen us embarrassing ourselves, you definitely would have stopped us!"
...
The next term began. It was now year four at Hogwarts—and year three of their quest.
Their next challenge? A place. One they'd only heard about in whispers.
The Room of Requirement.
It all began one chilly weekend, when they were gathered in Sirius Black's ancestral home, sitting awkwardly in the drawing room under the watchful eyes of grumpy portraits and creaky floorboards.
Kreacher shuffled in with a tea tray, grumbling to himself.
"I just don't understand where the Room would be," Peter said, reaching for a biscuit. "If it's even real—"
"I've asked half the castle," Sirius muttered. "No one's even heard of it."
James was pacing, wand flipping through his fingers.
That's when Kreacher, seemingly muttering to the tea tray, spoke without looking up.
"To access the Room of Requirement, walk past the section of blank wall three times, concentrating on what you need. The room will show itself."
They all froze.
James blinked. "What?"
"Kreacher," Sirius said, "where did you hear that?"
The elf just grunted, poured the tea with extra sloshing, and tottered out of the room.
James looked at the others, eyes wide. "Did that just happen?"
Sirius stood up, already grabbing his cloak. "That just happened."
Remus smiled. "we have got a start."