"Moony, buddy! How are you?" Sirius supported me by the shoulder with concern, while I tried not to show my frankly surprised and lost look too obviously.
"Everything is fine. Just the night, heh, turned out to be particularly rough," I smiled a little tightly, not finding the strength in myself for more thorough acting. The sight of James, Sirius, and Peter... a strange duality of feelings, in which one part of me was seeing this group of crazy teenagers for the first time, and the second considered them my best and only friends...
"Oh, this is so complicated!" I grimaced in displeasure, fighting the urge to painfully grab my temples that were throbbing with pain.
"It shows... I mean, you don't look so good. Maybe you should go to Madam Pomfrey? She'll prescribe you her favorite potions," James worried about me quite sincerely, unlike the proud scion of the House of Black, not even trying to hide this very concern behind feigned cheerfulness and joking.
"Do you want to finish me off completely, James?" I snorted, jerking my chin up. "After our mediwitch's potions, it's better to jump straight into a coffin. There will be less suffering."
"That's true too," the guy smiled after such a simple joke, while Black finally allowed me to fall onto my own bed. For which I thanked him, because I had hobbled to our room with outright difficulty. "So, you're just going to rest?"
"Why, do we have any plans for today?" I asked cheerfully, inwardly freezing in tension. With the mush in my head that I currently had instead of brains, I could easily have forgotten about some little thing promised to the company of Gryffindors.
"What plans, Remus? We just have some minor mischief, as Dumbledore likes to broadcast," Sirius laughed with a barking laugh, leaving no doubt in me about exactly what his animagus form would be. A dog is a dog, even in Britain. Although right now the guy hadn't mastered animagus transformation yet, even though my whole company had been delving into the study of this topic for a long time.
"Going to pester Snape again?" I asked without a smile, knowing perfectly well what my buddies meant by "minor mischief."
"Snivellus has completely gotten out of hand lately! Imagine, while you were gone, that slug poured another of his concoctions into Peter's plate... and how he even managed it, that bastard..." James immediately bared his teeth, hating the dark-haired boy from Slytherin more than the others.
And not without reason, I must admit. Snape is quite a pain in the ass, annoying two houses at once just by his presence. He infuriates the Slytherins because of his half-blood status and the fact that the snakes, following the internal charter of their house, are forced to support this outcast in public. He infuriates the Gryffs because of his interactions with Lily Evans—the formal leader among the girls in our year...
And in general, the gloomy, dark-haired, and big-nosed boy was not a very pleasant person. Prickly, proud, vindictive, and completely disrespecting the unwritten rules of Hogwarts... That was exactly what young Snape was like, which was why he almost always got it. If not from me and the guys, then from the snakes themselves, who hadn't killed him yet only because of the kid's excellent academic performance.
"So that's how it is... Well, I leave the revenge for Peter, who died a brave death, to you guys. I'm sure two proud lions will manage to trample one overly cheeky snake into the ground," I smiled, frankly chuckling at the combative mood of James and Sirius.
"Hey, I'm actually still alive! And I've even returned from the hospital wing!" Peter Pettigrew feigned indignation—the shortest member of our company, who also suffered from mild obesity. Otherwise, however, Peter was an ordinary, albeit somewhat cowardly, boy. It's hard to even believe that this is the very guy who is supposed to defect to the Dark Lord's side in the future.
The latter, by the way, had already made himself known in Magical Britain a few years ago. And even if for now all his influence ends with a rather aggressive struggle for the post of Minister of Magic... But some unhealthy stirrings from the henchmen of the "Lord of Destinies" are already making all Muggle-borns and even half-bloods tense up.
"Damn it, I have to take these guys into account too..." I grimaced mentally, seeing off the trio of teenagers who set off to exact their revenge. "And I'll also need to think carefully about the reason why I'll try not to bully Snape anymore. No matter what an asshole he is, bullying a child is somehow undignified. Even if sometimes he himself is just begging for a good beating..." I immediately made a note to myself, rapidly expanding an already considerable to-do list.
I decided to start, however, with a good, healthy sleep. Because the night in the Shrieking Shack, and then all this mess with memories, severely exhausted even such a resilient and healthy body as the one I now possessed. I wanted to sleep incredibly! And I didn't deny myself such a pleasure, not forgetting, however, to spend another half an hour thinking about various things before fatigue finally took its toll...
Well, on the other hand, the next morning started for me deep in the night. At about three in the morning, which, however, is not surprising. I fell asleep at lunchtime, and even the nervous exhaustion, which I was unhappily forced to state in myself, could not break me. The werewolf's body recovered quite quickly after all the shocks. True, I wanted to eat incredibly after something like that...
But I steadfastly refrained from night walks, realizing that I still wouldn't find food at night... Unless I raided my own stash of milk chocolate cookies, somehow, but calming the wild hunger.
"I wonder if such an appetite should be recorded as a plus or a minus of my own physiology?" I philosophically rolled a lazy thought in my head. On the one hand, eating a lot and not getting fat is cool. On the other hand, managing to get a lot of food is still something you need to pull off, which is not such a big problem right now, but in general, the situation might one day not turn out for the best. "Although, that's the pessimism of my predecessor speaking in me," I shook my head, no longer doubting that Lupin and I were completely different people.
During sleep, someone else's memory finally consolidated in my head, at the same time losing its former gloss and emotional saturation. However, the same could be said about the memory of Andrey Ryabov... Because of which I experienced truly mixed emotions, spending the whole next week getting used to the reality that was new to me.
Which, naturally, was noticed by both my friends-buddies from the house and the Hogwarts teachers, in whose lessons I became more absent-minded and less prepared. It took me far more than one day to remember and comprehend the curriculum already covered. And I haven't even mentioned the practical exercises, with which I sometimes had a complete block.
I had to master Lupin's knowledge almost from scratch, which, taking into account the severe lack of time, did not have the best effect on my academic performance... And I also wanted to start physical training as soon as possible and search the library for at least something that could save me from having my mind read by other wizards.
Yes, by the fourth day in the new body, I somehow suddenly realized that at the moment, only luck and the rarity of Legilimency—the magic that allows reading minds—would save me from very serious problems. But honestly, it can't go on like this forever.
Sooner or later, someone will definitely, perhaps even out of pure curiosity, try to get into my brains, and then... What will happen then—I have no fucking idea, but definitely nothing good.
"Hey, James, Sirius, tell me, do you know anything about magic that works with human consciousness?" After some thought, I still decided to draw my buddies into the problem... They hadn't quite grown into friends yet, but I couldn't perceive them as complete strangers either.
"Magic for working with human consciousness? Are you talking about Occlumency or Legilimency?" Sirius perked up, casting suspicious glances in my direction... He generally felt the changes that had happened to me more acutely than the others. And it wasn't like the young, for now, heir to the House of Black liked them.
"Probably yes... I was just thinking about the fact that I never thought about even the theoretical possibility of fighting my... ahem, furry little problem." I started to "confess," at the same time giving the guys an explanation for my thoughtfulness and detachment over the past few days. "So now I'm thinking and looking for ways, if not to neutralize, then at least to alleviate my problem."
"Hmm, so that's why you've been running around so lost lately," James "realized" everything, nodding quickly to Sirius. "And we were already starting to think that Snivellus had cursed you or slipped you a potion."
"Well, I just can't get rid of the thought that there might be a way to deal with my lycanthropy in the world, and I'm not even trying to find it, being close to the largest magical library in all of Britain," I simply shrugged, having already gotten used to my new role and exactly how it was best to communicate with the company of teenagers surrounding me.
"Heh, well you should have said so right away. I could perhaps have asked my father about this. My father interned at the Auror Office in his time, so he should definitely know a lot about werewolves," James became inspired, making me wince slightly.
"I don't think that's a good idea. I doubt you'll be able to keep the reasons for your interest in such a specific topic a secret from your parents," I shook my head, knocking down the mood of the young heir to a wealthy magical family. "Besides, at the moment I'm mainly concerned with... what did you say? Occlumency and Legilimency? That's where I want to start my searches, especially since it won't be superfluous in any case."
"Reasonable. My old folks have been forcing me to study Occlumency since childhood... I'm not very good at it, though. And I don't like all this muck with mental magic. It generally differs little from the dark arts..." Sirius drawled his words magnanimously, throwing cheerful glances at me. "But for your sake, Moony, I can contact my father. I'll tell him I finally decided to, hahaha, come to my senses!"
"If you do that, I'll be truly grateful to you, Sirius," I nodded seriously, not hiding a cheerful smile on my face, however. This way I supported Black's mood and expressed my joy from the promise I received.
I'm afraid, however, that my buddy's parents might get very angry if it turns out that their son asked for knowledge for someone else... Oh well, I'll figure out how to get out of this situation. In the extreme case, I will personally force Sirius to study mental magic. I already know how to persuade this brat to do the tedious practice of anything. Black is practicing animagus transformation, despite everything, and that's also quite a test for a teenage mind.
So the main thing here is to choose the right words and arguments, and then Sirius will do everything himself... Providing us all with an alibi before the House of Black and giving me the opportunity to somehow protect my own memory. For which I will be especially grateful to him, and even mentally promise myself to return the favor to this boy if the opportunity arises.
Because I frankly doubted that books on such complex disciplines as Occlumency and Legilimency were in the regular library. It's far from a fact that they are even in the Restricted Section, let alone the general departments... The information there is generally presented mostly on basic subjects. According to the father of this body, anything more specific hasn't been kept in the Hogwarts library for a long time.
The Ministry of Magic or even the Headmaster himself removed all "questionable" knowledge from public access. And the faction of pureblood, noble wizards is only glad of such a development of events, consolidating their informational advantage over Muggle-borns and ordinary laymen of the magical world.
Although it is still necessary to look for the necessary information in the library. Completely trusting the words of a wizard who is quite biased towards the current authorities is more trouble than it's worth. And it's not for nothing that the Hogwarts library is considered one of the largest in the British Isles. Only the Ministry's archives can compare with it, and even then, it's very unlikely.