Remus walked along the halls with his head low. He would hate to admit it, but his self-esteem had been seriously damaged in the course of the last few hours. 

In Hogwarts, he could adapt to survive, at the end of the day, everyone there had something a little different about them and people accepted that. Goblins guarded the bank, centaurs roamed the forest, people would walk around with heads twice their normal size and limbs in the process of growing back as the result of a spell gone wrong-it was just normal. In the muggle world, the only scars you saw were from acne and were covered up by make-up most of the time. An oddity in a school was someone with a broken limb in plaster, or someone who had drastically changed their hair colour. A boy with scars covering any visible part of his body was a different species, an outcast, he didn't belong. 

Arriving at his class he stood slightly away from the others lined up, he hoped that either Sirius or James also had this class, though, with his luck, he highly doubted it. 

"Hey, it's Remus, isn't it?" Remus turned around to see George from his form class stood next to him. George was slightly shorter than him and had a very welcoming demeanour, Remus couldn't quite forget his girlfriend, though. 

"Hi, yeah, George, right?" Remus smiled back at George, wanting to be polite, but really not wanting to talk to anyone. Looking around, Remus recognised a few people from previous lessons.

Before George could speak again the teacher had beckoned the class in, George invited Remus to sit with him, which was a nice gesture, after all. 

However, it wasn't long before Remus regretted accepting this invitation.

"George! You've attracted Scarface!" James Arron and a peroxide blonde girl, who may well have been Sirius' 'flirt girl' walked towards them. 

"Don't be a dick, James." George replied calmly.

"Don't be a pussy, George." James fired back with an increasing aggression. He turned to Remus. "Just a bit of fun. Unless you're going to pull something smart like your friend?" He was trying to be threatening, but Remus was more scared of Mrs Norris than he was of James.

"Now why would I want to do that?" He asked, he didn't want to tempt an answer but he sure as hell wasn't going to sit back and pretend to be scared.

James was about to get quite angry, it seemed, until the teacher began the lesson, at last. 

Remus made every effort to focus on the lesson, but he wasn't even sure what he was learning about, something with an atom, some positive numbers? He wasn't sure at all. Staring at the textbook Remus was suddenly more aware than ever of the pounding headache and dully aching limbs he was home to. The full moon was Thursday and he was suddenly feeling it coming. This was only hindered by James blatantly introducing him to everyone within ear-shot as 'Scarface' ("He prefers that name, see, takes away the need for questions.") 

Every now and then, George would look at him and smile apologetically, it was clear that he had very little control over James. 

As people were moving about the classroom, they would slow as they walked past Remus, often chuckling and nodding with "Scarface" as if it was the polite thing to do. By the end of the lesson Remus had truly had enough, he remembered the English homework he had and decided to head straight for the library, food being the last thing on his mind. The piercing bell almost brought tears to Remus' eyes as he pushed past people, wishing just to disappear all together. 

James and Sirius quickly found the sports hall where they had Physical Education next, Sirius remembered it from his travels. The two boys were far more comfortable in the school since the music lesson, they were even excited at the thought of doing sports, although they had hardly done very much in the past. 

As they began following the rest of the class towards the changing rooms, a rather flustered looking Peter caught up with them.

"Peter! You've got PE too?" James asked. 

Sirius didn't wait for the response.  "Is Remus with you?" He asked, nothing calm about it. He was trying to look above heads to find him.

"Nah, he's got Chemistry."  Sirius was immediately less interested. 

The changing rooms were hot and smelled awful. James was appalled by this, though, he figured that  there must have been some kind of charm on the Hogwarts changing rooms. The rest of the class started changing as soon as they were through the doors, most seeming eager to start. James, Sirius and Peter, however, stood looking very out of place, as they had noting to change in to. 

The PE teacher soon came in and pointed the boys towards the 'spare kit' box, which was an ordeal in itself. 

To begin with, none of these items seemed to have been washed in years, they were practically damp to the touch, they all made a mental note to warn Remus of this.  The next issue, of course, was sizes. Sirius, being of average height and build, had no trouble finding some modest shorts and a rugby shirt, no matter how displeased he was with it. The difficulty, he found, was finding trainers to fit his size 5 1/2 feet. Peter, being somewhat on the rounder side, found the waist band of his shorts and the arms of his t-shit to be somewhat uncomfortable. And James, well, James had such long legs that all of the available shorts seemed to just be inappropriately short. But they dealt with it as they could. 

In the sports hall, the boys found a training circuit set up-wooden benches balanced precariously against wall ladders, mini trampolines set up alongside large wooden  frames, ropes hanging from the ceiling, weights, balls, skipping ropes, boxing gear-it was all set up at it's own station about the hall. Luckily for the boys, each station had its own set of instructions, they would have had no clue otherwise. 

The teacher instructed the class to get into pairs, James, Sirius and Peter shared a look. 

"Maybe he'll let us stay together." Peter suggested wishfully. 

"There's only two things on each station, genius." Sirius retorted, angry  about something, though he wasn't sure what. 

As it happened, there was an uneven number of boys in the class, meaning that Sirius could work alone. He had decided to leave Peter with James, he'd trained enough with James to know that it's not a pretty sight. 

Peter, as expected, was quite useless at pretty much everything, dripping with sweat only 30 seconds in, if nothing else, it was entertainment for Sirius and James. 

Quidditch had made James quite light on his feet and gave him a fair bit of core strength, both he and Sirius enjoyed the chance to work out some of the anger of the day. 

Sirius couldn't help but let his mind drift to Remus. He knew that Remus was having a hard time, they would call him names, they would stare, they would laugh, the more he thought about it, the harder he worked, as though trying to fight Remus' battles for him. Sirius also was burdened with the thought that Remus would soon have to do this. He would have to stand in shorts and a t-shirt, alone, in front of 30 strangers. Remus would would wear long sleeves on the hottest day of the summer, he kept his hair long to hide his face. Remus, as horrible as it may be, hated himself-Sirius knew this, and what was worse, there was nothing he could do about it. The thought nearly drove him to tears. 

By the end of the lesson, Sirius was more angry than he had been all day and all three boys were exhausted. 

They changed quickly just in time for the bell to ring, at last signalling lunch time. 

Peter, excited to get food, headed straight towards that atrium, hoping to find Ruby there. James knew that Sirius would want to find Remus as soon as possible, and Sirius knew that Remus would not be headed straight to where the entire school would soon be congregated. 

"We've got homework, he'll be in the library. I'll catch up with Pete. Try and get some food, though, I haven't seen either of you eat a full meal in weeks, and Remus probably needs it." James spoke low and quickly, but Sirius caught every word, he nodded in thanks and began pushing against the tide of people to get to the library.  

Sure enough, Sirius found Remus sat in the same secluded area of the library that they had been sat in earlier, his back facing him, he was clearly hunched over a book.

Remus had found a battered copy of Hamlet and was trying his best to take it all in, the words seemed to dance around the page, Remus was finding it almost impossible to focus. He had almost began to understand the play when he was sure he recognised the footsteps approaching.

"Remus." Sirius spoke softly in greeting, though Remus still flinched. "Sorry" he said, taking the seat next to him, "I didn't mean to scare you." A smile was playing on his lips, it felt like an aeon had passed since he last saw Remus.

Remus let out in involuntary shaky breath "You didn't." He whispered, afraid that a noise any louder may actually break him. 

Remus put the book down and Sirius got to really look at him now. He was pale, almost ghostly, his eyes were almost closed, as if willing all light to leave the room, he was clearly in the kind of pain that he certainly wouldn't discuss. Remus hadn't looked, or clearly, felt this bad in months, years even! He had been doing better, fine up until the day of the full moon, and not much but a little tired the day after, Sirius almost felt sick seeing him like this. 

"Remus..." Sirius had lowered his voice to a whisper now. "What's going on?" He knew this was a stupid question. It was this school, this place, these people, it was their doing and they didn't even know. 

Remus wanted to joke about how rough he apparently looked, but he didn't have it in him. He knew that he could only be honest with Sirius. 

"Just a bit stressed, this'll just take some time to get used to again, won't it?" Remus would to anything to stop Sirius worrying about him, he hated being fragile.

Sirius just looked at him with concern, clearly unconvinced. "It's not like this anymore, this isn't fair." The more he looked at Remus, the worse he felt. 

Remus laughed so lightly that it could have been mistaken for a sigh "It's just a headache, Sirius." 

Sirius gave in, there was not point pushing yet, they had the rest of the day to get through. "At least eat something then, it might make you feel better."

The thought of food nearly turned Remus sick, he shook his head. "No thanks, you go though, I've got a feeling I'm reading this for me and James." He said, picking the book back up, but Sirius wasn't about to just leave him, so he moved his chair closer to Remus' and began to read over his shoulder. 

Remus tensed all of a sudden, hearing something that Sirius hadn't. James Arron and his friends had just walked into the library, his laugh as painfully loud as the rest of his personality. 

"Bollocks" Remus muttered under his breath.

"What is it?" Sirius asked, concerned all of a sudden.

"Move your chair back." Remus whispered lower this time. "It's for your own good, honestly." 

Sure enough George led this loud group through the library. He was in search of a book, though the rest were there just to make unnecessary noise. George rounded the corner before the rest and smiled at Remus. 

Remus would have smiled back if James didn't follow close behind. "Scarface! And his queer little friend, fancy seeing you here!" He was so loud that Sirius could feel Remus wincing. 

Before Sirius could be angry, Remus shot him a warning look-he could fight his own battles. 

"Nice to see you too, James." Remus replied not even attempting to match James' volume, but at least raising his voice above a whisper. 

"Where's the other one, Scarface? Thought you two would be having it off in a corner somewhere by now." 

"You're so obsessed with sodomy, are you sure there isn't something you're hiding, James?" Sirius dared to laugh at this, which only upset James further.

"Who the fuck do you think-"

"Jesus, James, lay off them will you?" George intervened, clearly done with the whole situation.

James turned to George now. "Maybe if you stopped being a little fairy I'd get to have my fun."

George just sighed and walked off, the rest of the group following, though James shot one lat look at Remus and Sirius. Maybe James wasn't as powerful as he thought he was. 

"What the fuck Remus?" Sirius demanded,  back in a whisper now as Remus had practically sunk into his chair and was sat with his hands covering his face. "Has it been like that all day?"

Remus nodded, unsure if he was able to even speak anymore. 

Sirius felt a new kind of anger, he was running cold, he was determined to  make this stop, one way or another. 

The two sat, almost perfectly still, in silence for the rest of the hour. Remus eventually checked out the copy of Hamlet to read later that night. Sirius held him, tight and close, neither caring who saw, as the painstaking bell rang again, afraid that Remus may fall apart if left unsupported, Sirius could feel him shaking. This was the worst day either of them had faced in a very long time and they were both afraid that there may be worse yet to come.