It was late afternoon before Remus was finally allowed to leave the hospital wing, when he finally escaped Madame Pomfrey's fussing he hurried straight back up to Gryffindor Tower, he had not been prepared for how cold the corridors would be and he shivered all the way up the many staircases to the portrait of the Fat Lady. The common room was lovely and warm though, he stood for a moment breathing in the smell of the fire, then glanced around to check if his friends were anywhere to be seen, they weren't, Remus felt a wave of relief even more pleasant that the warmth of the fire waft over him. They must have been playing in the snow, it was only early December and for most students the novelty of it had not quite worn off yet. Remus shivered again at the very thought, at the moment he had very different ideas about what would be the perfect way to spend a winter's Sunday afternoon, he was going to use these precious hours to rest more before the questions came again, as they did every month. He knew the dorm would be colder but on balance he decided that it would be easier to sleep there because it wasn't full of excitable first years playing Russian roulette with Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. And so, wearily he climbed the boys staircase and opened the door to his dormitory, where he was surprised to find his three best friends sitting on their beds looking almost as if they had been waiting for him.

"Hello Remus," said Sirius, there was a certain measuredness in his tone that made Remus wary of what he was going to say next.

"Are you feeling alright?" asked Peter, "You don't look very well."

"I'm just tired," replied Remus, "I was up all night... with my mother... in St. Mungo's."

"Don't lie to us Remus, we're your friends and you've lied to us enough already. Now, do you want to tell us or do we really have to ask?"

"Forget asking James," said Sirius, "you know he won't give us a straight answer. Remus, we know you're a werewolf."

They knew then, this time they really knew, Remus had suffered great paranoia since starting Hogwarts the year before, constantly on edge because he was sure someone had discovered his secret. In this paranoid state he would lie awake at night imagining this very moment, carefully planning what he would say, but now all of that vanished from his mind, he just stood there, completely stunned with his mouth hanging open, forgetting even to breathe. Only when his dizziness returned did he breathe again, and even then his breathe came as a shaky gasp. He felt tears coming and he knew it was pointless to stop them, the charade was over. He sank to the floor where he stood and let the tears fall, huge sobs racking his aching ribs.

James, Sirius and Peter exchanged unnerved glances as their friend sank to the floor, none of them had expected this, they had discussed a huge range of possible responses from Remus after their confrontation, but all of them had involved some sort of denial at least. This was completely unprecedented, they had never seen their friend cry before, this was almost as scary as finding out he was a werewolf in the first place. Peter mouthed 'what do we do?' and Sirius shrugged, it was James who stepped forward. As he looked at the sickly distraught boy crying his eyes out with his head in his knees he could not think of him as a monster, he was just Remus, the quiet boy who loved reading by the fire in the common room, who was always nervous about breaking rules, who never quite recovered from his monthly sicknesses, but who always maintain that he was 'fine'.

"Remus," he said tentatively, "Remus are you ok?"

Remus did not reply, even with his habitual 'I'm fine'.

"Remus we know you're a werewolf but... but you're also our friend," James glanced at his friends for some sort of back up, or even just some reassurance, "and you're sick, you're just sick that's all, and we're your friends so we're going to help you."

Remus looked up, his face was angry but his eyes pleading.

"You'd do the same for any of us wouldn't you?" James smiled.

"Liar," said Remus simply, lowering his head again.

"That's a bit rich coming from you," said Sirius, but his voice has not angry, in fact he gave a short bark like laugh before James kicked him in the shin, "I'm sorry Reme, you know me I just couldn't resist it, it was too good to let slip you know."

To James and Peter's surprise Sirius's joke actually drew Remus out of his shell a little, he scanned each of their faces in turn.

"Wha.. what do you mean?"

"I just mean I'm good with all this deep serious stuff, kind of ironic really, see there I go again."

"No, not that, I mean what James said."

"Well, at first we were scared, freaked out you know, but in a way that was just because we couldn't be sure, then when we were more or less certain we knew what was going on we realised that all the teachers knew, and you were still their favourite, looking back on it it was obvious, so anyway we knew you must be safe, if the teachers all knew and everything. We talked about it a lot and..."

"Yeah I bet you did. Just tell me one thing, how many people have you told?"

"We haven't told anyone," said Peter.

"We thought it wouldn't be right unless we at least talked to you first, I mean at first we were going to go to the teachers, but then like I said we figured out that they already knew so..."

"We've been wanting to just come out and ask you for ages," said Sirius, "but it's not really the kind of thing you can just ask is it? I mean, what if your mum really was sick? So we decided to let one more full moon pass, just to make sure we were right..."

"Are you going to everyone now then, now that you're sure you're right?"

"No," said Sirius firmly, "we couldn't have gits like Snivellus knowing could we? They'd never let it go, they'd make your life a misery, then me and James would have to hex him half to death and probably both end up in Azkaban for the rest of our lives. So that's just be a lose lose situation wouldn't it?"

Remus stared at him incredulously, he seemed once again unable to speak, Sirius just gave him his best winning smile.

"Think about it Reme," said Peter, "won't it be so much better with us knowing, you won't have to pretend all the time, you'll have people to talk to, we swear we won't tell anyone anything else."

"And now that we know," said Sirius, "we can go a bit easier on you, you know? Like if it's near the full moon and you're not feeling great, and all you really want to do is sleep, and we're being really noisy or something you can just tell us the shut up and we will."

"Instead of just chucking stuff at you," finished James, "Blimey, we've been such inconsiderate berks, but now that we know we won't be any more, promise."

"You mean," said Remus, his voice tiny, "that you'll still be friends with me?"

"Of course," the three of them said in unison, at which Remus broke down into tears again.

"Are you alright Remus?" said James, crouching down next to him, "I bet we're being inconsiderate berks again aren't we, we shouldn't have sprung this on you so soon after the full moon."

"I just can't believe I can stay," said Remus, and although he was still weeping uncontrollable when he looked up he was smiling weakly but earnestly, "I always thought I'd have to go if anyone found out, I thought I'd have to live on my own as muggle, I thought I'd have to..."

After that brief period of sense he lapsed back into hysterical sobs interspersed with coughs and short moans of pain and attempts to speak.

"Come on Reme, we'll get you into bed, you're not well. I'm sorry, we should have waited a bit..."

Sirius and Peter each took one of Remus's arms and helped him up, meanwhile James pulled back the covers on his bed and together they took off his shoes and helped him into bed. They didn't take off any on his clothes, Remus had always been funny about getting undressed in front of the other boys, even though the others would without a second thought. Once in bed Remus immediately rolled over onto his side, curled up in a ball, and all but buried himself under the blankets. He continues to sob for what seemed like ages, but gradually his breathing slowed and soon James, Peter and Sirius were pretty sure he was fast asleep.

"We've done the right thing," said Sirius quietly, so as not to wake their sleeping friend.

"Yeah, I still can't quite believe it, can you? Little Lupin a werewolf, it's mad," said James.

"He admitted it though didn't he?" said Peter.

"Yeah I wasn't expecting that," said Sirius.

"No but look at him, he looks so well... so small and weak, it doesn't really fit with the whole werewolf image does it."

"But that book said that was one of the ways you can tell someone is a werewolf," said Peter.

"I guess if Dumbledore really has made it safe for him to come to Hogwarts the only one that really suffers is him."

"Did you see his face when you said we knew?"

"Yeah, he looked bloody terrified didn't he, you know what, I reckon he was more scared of us that we ever were of him."

"That's what my mum used to always tell me about spiders and stuff," said Peter with a little half laugh, "it's still a bit scary don't you think?"

"Since when have we ever let that stop us?" replied Sirius.