Chapter Text
Moony stares at the forever unchanging sky as he waits. They promised him they’d figure it out, so they would! … right? Right.
So he stares and he waits and… is that a cloud?! Moony perks up at the sight of it, something different! Everything in the forest stays the same unless he changes it himself, but now there’s a cloud! And actual-and another!
Moony watches, mesmerised, as more and more clouds show up, gathering quickly as they begin to grey, covering most of the sky as Moony begins to hear voices.
“-never loved you, how could she have? No wonder she made Regulas heir,” a mean voice sneers.
“Like I care what she thinks.”
Moony perks up again at Sirius's voice.
“Yeah, fuck off,” and James!
But they don’t sound happy? The first voice says a word that sounds like gibberish to him, then James yelps like he was hit. James’s hurt.
Moony’s smashing the boy against the wall a second later as he pulls the wand (the wand that hurt James) from his grip, and bares his teeth.
“You don’t get to hurt him,” he snarls in the boys face.
“You-“ the boy starts.
“No.”
Moony stares deep into the boys eyes for a long second, before dropping him and throwing his wand down the hall as far as he can, leaving the boy to scurry after it.
“Damn, Remus, didn’t know you had it-”
Moony whirls around to fling himself at him.
“Sirius!”
“-in you-wha-Moony?!”
“Like, Moony Moony?”
“James!” he cheers, throwing himself at him next.
“Yup, Moony Moony,” James answers himself, wrapping his arms around him.
“But… it’s not a full moon?”
“Peter!”
Peter squeaks as he too is tackled in a hug.
“Yeah, so, how’s Moony here?” Sirius chimes in.
“Moony? Do you know?” James asks.
“Well, the sky got cloudy, then grey, then I heard a voice being mean to Sirius, so I stopped it!”
“Stopped-“
“The mean voice,” Monny finishes, sending a glare down the hall the mean boy had gone.
“I thought you couldn’t come out by yourself unless it’s a full moon?” Sirius asks.
“Or… maybe we’re thinking about it wrong,” James starts, opening his arms in a request that Moony happily complies to, jumping back into his arms. “What if it isn’t the full moon that brings Moony out, but Remus’s… distress? Upset? Feeling a little blue?”
“Feeling a little blue?” Sirius snickers.
“I don’t know how to put it! And that’s not the point. If I’m right and Remus was upset about what Avery was saying to you-“ Moony quickly puts ‘Avery’ on his mental shit list. “-maybe that’s what pulled Moony forward, maybe in some kind of defence?”
“Hm, so to get Moony out we have to upset Remus?” Sirius grins.
“Remus has to be more than a little upset, he’s been upset since he took the potion and Moony hasn’t come out. He has to be, ‘feels like my bones are all breaking at once, and I may or may not kill someone’ or ‘imma beat the shit out of this bitch’ before Moony comes out.”
“He wasn’t gonna-“
“You didn’t see his face, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Remus had castrated him.” Sirius smiles a little at that, and James rolls his eyes. “Now, how are we gonna get Moony out again without making Remus want to castrate us?”
Sirius seems to think for a second, before turning to Moony, who lights up at the attention.
“Moony, how do you get Remus out?” he asks.
“I go back to the forest and push him out.”
“And you can’t come back out yourself?”
“Remus is in the way,” he replies, shaking his head.
“So… Remus would have to go into the ‘forest’ to let you out?”
Moony tilts his head, thinking it over.
“Maybe?”
“Well, we’ll get him to try it out later, for now we need to spend some time with our Moony here,” James interrupts.
“Really?!” Moony cries.
“Really,” Sirius answers, and Moony throws himself at him with a laugh.
“Thank you!”
He doesn’t see James and Sirius share a worried look over his shoulder.
&&&
Moony is content.
He’s with his pack, head in James lap as he runs his fingers through his hair, stomach full of delicious foods, and chocolate! He’s so, so happy, but he knows it can’t last.
“Moony?” James starts.
“Hm?”
“It’s getting late, and Remus needs to be up early tomorrow,” he explains sadly.
Moony curls up with a whine he can’t quite hold in.
“I know,” James coos, pulling him up into a hug, “but after classes tomorrow Remus can start trying to swap with you! Then we can hang out way more often, okay?”
Moony sniffs, nodding into James neck as he gives him one last squeeze, before he’s falling back down into the forest.
&&&
Remus blinks, cheeks wet, nose pressed against something warm, someone’s arms wrapped around him and his around them. He pulls back, wiping at his cheeks with a sniff.
“The fuck?”
“Remus?” Sirius calls.
“What- why am I-” he turns back to the person he was hugging, “-James? What-what did Moony do while I was out?”
“Just hung out, he seemed really happy to be out of ‘the forest”,” James explains. “We’ve-we’ve left him there so long, and he still looks happy to see us every time…”
“That’s not your guys fault, we’ve been trying to find a way to let him out since the first time,” Remus protests.
Sirius perks up at that.
“Speaking of, I have an idea! I was thinking, what if ‘the forest’ is your mindscape?”
“What? How would I even access that?”
“Occlumency!”