Waking up was the worst part of it all. He'd grown up with this disease that took over every aspect of his life, so he knew with painful clarity each step, all the way up to the black-out inducing painful transformation. The blur of memories the next morning often took days to sort through, the strong feelings much easier to recognize of what had been done. If he'd eaten anything, it was even more clear for some reason.

His stomach was empty, his mind lingered in a state of despair, and he was in fact ten times more sore than usual, so he knew something must have happened. Even with his friends there the past few times though, that moment of consciousness where he first opened his eyes into the unknown haunted him. Who had he hurt this time?

His eyes slowly flickered open, taking a shorter amount of time to adjust than others, but not understanding what he was seeing any better at first. There was no roof over his head, the Shrieking Shack could have been a million miles away, but that he was still on the Hogwarts grounds he knew without a second glance. He tried to sit up and groaned in protest, so instead let his head flop to the side miserably, and with growing worry as he found himself on the edge of the lake.

Like all corners of these grounds, it was a spot the Marauders knew well. They'd spent countless hours under the shade of that tree, hid many a things in that bush just over there. The waters were calm, and mirrored back without disturbance his blood-soaked visage, and Peter standing over him.

"You're bleeding," Remus slurred in concern, rolling his head gingerly to the other side as he saw his hand pressed to the side of his head, even though there was a thick stream going all the way down to his neck.

"And you need these," Peter had to use one hand to toss a pile of clothes onto his feet from the school bags that had still managed to follow them along all this time.

"When did you- how-?" He tried to string together while also quickly trying to dress and not fall back down from exhaustion all at the same time.

"Since we were in the dorms," Peter shrugged without really looking at him, and it wasn't to spare his decency Remus knew. "When Regulus' shoes didn't spontaneously come back I thought, well you lot were all worried about the werewolf part which, you know made sense, but I figured you'd appreciate-"

Remus' eyes were still tracking faster than his brain could keep up, he saw Sirius jogging towards them but didn't recognize the look on his face until he'd plowed into Peter, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

"You stay the bloody hell away from him!" He snarled, voice so contorted it wouldn't surprise him if he still had a few of Padfoot's other traits.

"Sirius, wait," Remus tried to get to his feet, to cobble together what had happened while he tried to kill them all. He still remembered the confession, the sting of betrayal fueling Sirius was not alone, but unlike the hothead standing between them drawing his wand, he was trying to keep the two firmly separated in his head just like he had for Sirius this entire time. "It's not him, look at him-"

"Sirius, Remus, I couldn't, you know I couldn't have-"

Sirius wasn't listening, he shot a jet of blue light that made Peter squeal while he spat out a mouthful of dirt. "You left us for dead while you ran and saved your own stinking skin, again!"

Remus caught Sirius' wrist and finally stumbled to his own feet, but Sirius jerked his arm away easily, Remus' hand coming away still slick with blood. He fell back to his knees as much for his own instability as the disgust in himself.

He didn't know what Sirius would have done next, only escalation he was sure, until the only person who could have stopped this stepped in.

"Enough Sirius," James spoke quietly and calmly, he didn't have to do anything more than get Sirius' attention and Padfoot lowered his wand.

Sirius was still shaking all over, it was only with the greatest restraint alive he lowered his wand but still kept a daggering glare. James walked past him regardless, offering his hand to Remus, both wincing as he got to his feet. "Remus, are you alright?"

"Am I alright?" He slurred, painfully aware that was James' own blood soaking through his shirt. "What the bloody hell happened to you three?" It took agonizing seconds to put together, it wasn't computing in his head, why they were injured so badly. They'd learned their own healing charms, equal to Madam Pomfrey's in tandem with learning their Animagus practice for such an event, but none of them were bothering to apply them as they stood on guard waiting for someone else to make the next move.

Remus did, as he twisted on the spot and vomited. "Oh, Moony-"

"Back off!"

He could barely hear the quarrel between Peter and Sirius erupting again or what James said this time, he felt a hand on his shoulder guiding him away from the puddle of sick, only just being blown away by the wind as his knees gave out and he stumbled into the bush and refused to get up again.

It was impossible to get the image out of his head, where the other four were. He knew he hadn't killed them, he'd know that, but what he'd done to his friends only one step below as far as he was concerned. He'd never hurt them so bad before, not even the very first time where he'd treated them like a free meal. They'd done so much better at defending themselves, only coming off with a few deep scratches and one bite mark across Prongs shoulder he'd shrugged off. It was only the four pinpricks of light across the lake that caught his attention and made them all realize they were surely about to have company that set them into motion.

"Nothing has to change!" Even in the roar of his own ears, Remus could hear the desperation in his voice as he tried to shuffle closer even though Sirius' hand tightened along his wand again. "We can, modify their memory's, make them forget-"

"Ha!" Sirius' sharp bark of laughter had a truly cruel, twisted edge to it the likes of which they'd never heard, not even last month when he'd laughed upon hearing what Snape had tried to do. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? We're not just going to forget though, even if we wanted to I doubt we could! The bloody magic we're tied up in doesn't seem likely to just let us zap a whole chunk of the story out of our heads! Stop trying to pretend you care about, about any of us!"

"Sirius, I couldn't! You guys, you know I couldn't do that-" His voice was rising.

"Tell me you wouldn't." James still hadn't shouted during all of this, he still spoke with the same soft, quiet demanding voice. "You keep saying you couldn't have done it Peter, but you haven't said you wouldn't do it. Tell me the thought's never crossed your mind, that you would never consider siding with Voldemort over us!"

Peter flinched, but if it was because James had used his name or the accusation he suddenly went silent for, they didn't know. Despite the shock of blood loss setting in, the void larger than Hogwarts itself growing between them, he could still see more than anything the shame in his tremoring lips, "I, I couldn't-" Then he clasped his hand to his mouth as he finally realized what had slipped out.

James shook his head, from Remus vantage he looked more disappointed than anything, though all he felt was stunned. "Just, just clear off for a while, yeah? Let us..." he didn't finish, he didn't have to. It was the exact same thing he'd said to Sirius a month ago, when they hadn't been sure if they'd ever speak to him again either.

Only by the now waning light of the full moon could Remus' eyes keep track of his seeming vanishment, as Wormtail likely set out to find the very edge of the perimeter they were trapped in. He hoped he stayed that way the duration of this madness they were traveling through, he didn't know how he was going to look him in the eye again.

Sirius could vividly remember the bloodlust he'd been described having, as he and Remus were about to kill their friend before Harry had stepped in. It had been the most vivid feeling they'd felt in Azkaban, before being quenched by Moony's abrupt appearance. Now he had to stand here and force himself not to go after him again as Padfoot could, to do what he wasn't quite sure, as he crouched down in front of Remus and began tending to his wounds.

"Don't," Remus tried to push his wand away. "Just-"

"Let him Remus," James whispered in the most world-weary voice that could ever exist. "Give him something to do before he tries blowing up the lake again."

The joke fell flat, the sentiment of reminiscing about their past adventures felt like a torture device, but Remus was too exhausted to bother protesting anymore as he slumped uncomfortably against the leaves regardless.

The three remained huddled around each other, not speaking the rest of the chapter, as Regulus' voice finally began echoing across the grounds for all to hear. It was a pathetic laugh James forced out as he heard the chapter title. Hermione's Secret of how she'd been getting to all of her classes had been the most trivial part to them this entire time. The revelation of what it was, a magic beyond them that manipulated time itself, would normally be idolized and drool worthy to the lot of them, but not now.

Another adventure for Harry took place, involving saving Buckbeak and Sirius, but his future son's life didn't seem any more apt for a good ending than his fathers right now, as Sirius was forced once more to simply go on the run. As Sirius' parting words praised Harry for making his father proud, James agreed, but it was with a bitter aftertaste in his mouth for what had caused this mess. His friends, whom he loved like brothers, had turned on each other this night, and he didn't know how to reconcile with that.

He wondered abstractly how Lily felt about all of this, what she saw now. Still the arrogant toerag, who blindly trusted his friends and got her killed, left their son in this mess? It occurred to him as he looked around once more, he didn't care. He looked at Sirius, tending Moony's wounds with a tender expression no one but them would ever see, Remus' exhausted eyes sinking closed, a vulnerability he couldn't dare show to any but them. He longed to see Peter hovering over the pair, trying to make the two laugh about what their next prank was going to be while he, James, kept an eye on the grounds for Madam Pomfrey coming to retrieve Remus from the Shrieking Shack like every full moon, but he finally knew what he'd refused to accept since the start of this travesty. Their life was never going to be the same again.

HPHPHPHP

I was originally going to have Regulus read the chapter with the other three and get their reactions to all this, but then I realized I had nothing left to say for the next chapter, leaving it extremely bland, so you just get two separate reactions, and the most important first. Hey, I could have reversed it and left it vague what these four were doing during this leaving it open-ended what the results were for yet another chapter, so I think you guys got the better deal.