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It used to be bittersweet to see the full moon.
I know, a monster takes over my senses every month, torturing me as it rips my skin apart to climb into power; yet a part of me cannot resist the small bite of happiness I used to be allowed with my friends running alongside me. Only few years of kindness permitted to me, but they feel so sacred – more real than anything else I remember, even the night I was bitten.
Brighter.
“So where do you live now, Moony? Back in Inverness?”
Padfoot is staring at me with his eyes still tired from worry and long days of work. We had tracked the Order, spending some sleepless nights explaining the same thing over and over again: Voldemort is back, the Ministry is useless, Dumbledore needs us. James and Lily’s son needs us.
We just had our first meeting.
It takes me a while to register the question.
“Crashing at the place you saw in Bradford. A bit shabby,” I admit, trying to laugh it off. It is awful and unconvincing. “But it's safe. I like it.”
“That's nice, not even a first year would have believed that lie,” Padfoot remarks.
I give him a half-smile which does nothing to soften the expression he has on. I know that expression—I know most of his expressions—and it means he is not letting me snivel out of this.
“Don't overreact, Padfoot,” I say quickly. “I’m just in a bit of a bind.”
“Is it called: ‘The world – those bigoted assholes’?”
I pretend to be shocked. “How did you know? Are you psychic?”
The slightest smirk passes my friend's face. “Only on full moons.”
“Ah.”
“Crash with me,” Sirius offers and my stomach turns upside down.
Excitement? Shame? Pride? I don't know which it is, but it overwhelms me and my reaction is instinctively to refuse.
“No, I’ll be fine. Snape’s making me my potion…”
“I wouldn't be drinking anything Snivellus makes if I were you,” Padfoot mutters. His mouth is twitching slightly in a disgusted expression. “Could he be any more insufferable? I bet he's deriving pleasure from the fact you ask him for that potion. Can't anybody else make it?”
“Even if they could, I trust Snape,” I say, ignoring the puff of disbelief coming from my friend. “Plus, I would rather not announce to too many people about my—condition. Got me fired the last couple of times. One guy tried to curse me.”
A low rippling growl leaves Padfoot’s slightly parted lips and for a moment I can see the dog not the man. If I’d let him go on, there would be an entire speech about werewolf rights or probably an offer what to do with my cursing former employer; I do not have the energy to hear either. It is time for me to go if I want to make it on time for the transformation.
Padfoot sees me shift off the chair and stands up with me. Jumps, more like it.
“Stay,” he says but it was a plea. He seems desperate. “Spend the moon with me here. I hate this house; I hate staying here. Alone. With her.”
Padfoot doesn't have to nod towards the hallway for me to know he means his mother's portrait. I sigh.
I am staying, apparently. There was ever little chance I can say no to Padfoot.
~ ~ ~
Pain has always been part of the transformation. I drink the potion and hope for a better cycle, but it is a gamble whether it would rip me apart from the inside or be the usual familiar torture I was comfortable with.
I howl and beg and squirm as it happens; Padfoot stares at me with the striking grey eyes which relate him to his human form. He looks concerned, for a dog. Although, there is no place in my head for worry about his state of mind while I suffer. For a moment I wish I had the voice to tell him it’ll be alright.
I am however too busy screaming for lies.
I hate it: the moon, the pain, the potion, the dusty horrible room we’ve locked ourselves in, and the broken molten old stone building I pretend to call home when I wasn't here. I hate it.
Finally – out of breath, overwhelmed, and confused – I emerge on the other side. The grey eyes of an old friend stare at me and I recognize his scent even after all this time. The pain settles. I want to run but know I have no wish to be anywhere but here.
There is a memory of hate but little interest in pursuing it. I care little for hate while under the influence. Warmth, hunger, safety – those matter. Through the potion-induced haze of mind my wolf form has grown familiar with, I recognize I am still mad and in need of a good howl. Instead, I give a small puff through my muzzle and settle on the floor. Padfoot sneaks closer. He rests his head on my neck and nibbles on my ear.
I growl at him but he puffs and keeps nibbling.
Tosser.
~ ~ ~
It is a close call which pain is worse: letting the monster out or pushing him back in. He doesn’t always want to go, especially with the potion; he always leaves unsatisfied. Drugging him—it was more like trying to put a cork on a bottle of champaign which was already overflowing: you were getting less of a mess on the carpet, but the pressure underneath was still building up. I feared one day the cork would give up and everything will fizz out in an explosion of madness.
Tonight it stayed on and Padfoot was instrumental in it. While in his dog form, we chased around the room when we were bored; we barked and howled and jumped until it was time to sleep, both folded into each other as if two mare animals, unburdened by life or reality or hurt.
But the full moon is gone and it is time to awake. Torturous as it is to cram the monster back inside, I master it, with effort. He—It tries its best to remain in control, to catapult the cork out of the bottle, but I keep it in, intent on the task. Intellectually, I know it will leave without me trying but I never could resist that effort and the sense of victory after.
It always leaves me exhausted. Drained, I lay in the middle of the dusty room, most of the mess now on my clothes, and I wait for the fatigue to pass.
It doesn't.
I cannot smell Padfoot any longer but I know he is there. He is always there, even if it was just a memory in the years I thought I should hate him. How I despise myself for that betrayal – thinking it could be Sirius who would sink so low.
“I am the bigot,” I mutter, overwhelmed by exhaustion and guilt.
“Rest, old friend,” Padfoot whispers. I am surprised how close his breath is to my ear.
I sleep.
~ ~ ~
I wake up to Padfoot teasing me with a ham sandwich.
Tosser.
I eat it lying down, letting the crumbs fall wherever. This place is filthy anyway. He's brought me water too and I gulp it in big sips. For a moment, as my stomach fills and some energy returns to my body, I feel like I might get up. But then the food settles and my eyelids just close back shut.
My words are a mumble. “You don't need to stay here.”
“Rather the contrary,” Padfoot announces in a tired but determined voice. “Who will tuck you in?”
“There is nothing to use to tuck me in,” I protest, not knowing better.
I can feel my body is leaving the ground before I open my eyes. Under me, Padfoot smirks in his familiar way – assured, royal. Tosser-like. Relieved of choice and out of energy to argue, I let him spread the blankets he has brought while I’ve slept. He levitates me gently back down and, well—tucks me in.
“You’re a tosser,” I inform him. “Giant one.”
“I am delightful,” he rasps back but I can hear his smile.
I do not expect him to linger but he does: Padfoot lies next to me, elbow on the floor, head resting on his palm. The grey in his eyes is tired but happy. I have not seen him this way for a while. We are both worried too often lately.
“What was that bigot talk earlier?” he asks all of a sudden. “Were you being delirious?”
“No,” I admit but say nothing more. Shame is too strong a force to push through. And I am too tired for admissions.
“Moony. Talk.”
“Shut up and let me sleep.”
“No.”
“Tosser.”
I stay silent for a while but the determined look on Padfoot’s face tells me he is not giving up. I sigh. “Fine,” I say. “It was just that I felt—uncomfortable with how easily I believed in your guilt over James and Lily.”
“We’ve settled this,” Padfoot says simply. “I was guilty of the same.”
“Did you believe I did it because I was a werewolf?”
“No! Of course not!”
I ignore his offence and continue, “Well I thought you were the traitor because of who you were. Because you were talented and pureblood and with a family of bigots. I thought that you played a bit with us and when you got tired of your toys you ran back to their side.”
I turn my back to Padfoot to not see his shocked face anymore; it would not be the best thing to see it turn to hurt. “I am a monster in human form too.”
Silence. And then, “Oh shut it, you stupid twat!”
Padfoot shoves me but I do not turn until he forces me on my back again. He is angry – understandable.
“Maybe I didn’t justify it the same way, but I believed in your guilt as much as you believed in mine. I called you horrid names in my head as well, despised you. I felt betrayed, because—”
Padfoot doesn't finish but the look in his eyes makes me wish he did. He sighs and crashes next to me on the old dusty floor. His black hair is grey in some places now – with age and with dirt. And possibly hardship too.
He looks almost as old as I do, and I had always looked way beyond my age, especially after full moons.
“Stay here,” Padfoot says and gets up. I have no strength to argue but I hope when he comes back he won't be angry anymore. Or that he’d finish that sentence.
He comes back with tea. It smells magnificently and my energy returns again as the scent fills the air, replacing the smell of dust. Padfoot is beaming.
“Here. Drink.”
He passes me a cup. It is solid gold but bent at one side and by the way Padfoot is eying it grumpily, I suspect until a minute ago it had the Black’s family crest on the side of it. I ask nothing and drink my tea. It's warm and perfect.
“Tea makes everything better,” Padfoot announces as he sips loudly from his cup. It's a habit he developed to drive his parents insane (one of many) and not even Mrs Potter could get him to stop it – he had just gotten too used to doing it.
“I wish I had known,” I say.
“Tea, my friend, is the secret to happiness!”
“I thought those were chocolate frogs,” I remind him of the old joke and he snickers.
“Old news,” Padfoot says and sets his empty cup on the floor. It's still steaming. “Keep with the times, Moony.”
“My bad. Wolf-brain.”
I point at my head. We both laugh at the stupid joke. I set my cup down too and tuck myself back under the blanket. Padfoot joins. He stares at me and it drives me insane that I cannot close my eyes while they are locked with his; I am too tired but he is not releasing me.
“There was some devil’s claw to ease the hurt,” Padfoot announces in a while. “In the tea. I am waiting for it to settle.”
“Thank you,” I say, not knowing what else there is to add.
I had forgotten what my friends did for me. I had forgotten how much easier it was with somebody around to care. Sirius has always been there, even just as a memory or a hope or a wish upon the cursed stars, but tonight he was not a fantom any longer. Those nights he had stayed late to make sure I was getting better; those times he and James and Peter had come to the Hospital Wing to make sure I was resting, bombarding Madam Pomfrey with questions of what potions I was taking to help me recover. Those weekends they cursed homework and instead dug through books to search for pain relief brews, or something to ease my symptoms, or some ways to heal my wounds for the times I was not at Hogwarts. They could not come every full moon during the summer but when they did—
Sirius has always been there for me. I remember now what it is to rest for a moment.
Hope. What a horrible curse it is.
“You’re welcome,” Padfoot says an age later. I realize we both have been staring at each other for minutes now, not speaking. My eyes are begging me to shut them but I cannot.
I have just noticed something.
“You have that look about you again,” I note.
Padfoot smirks. “What look is that, Mr Moony?”
He knows what look I mean. His smirk tells me as much so I don't dignify him with a response but I linger at the places where the giveaways are: his full mouth slightly pouted, his striking grey eyes glistening, his head leaning forward as if it was too heavy for his neck. His index and middle fingers brushing against each other again and again in a nervous tick.
I know all his expressions. I know what this one means too.
“You’re planning to kiss me again,” I inform him of the obvious.
“Not as much planning, as finding it is needed.”
He has a smirk on his face to hide the question in his eyes. It's useless to hide with me.
“I am too tired to think this through, Padfoot,” I warn him.
“I don't care.”
He leans in. His lips are as soft as I remember but less eager. We are not children anymore and I know there are as many questions now as there were after our first kiss, but I decide that if Sirius doesn't care, neither should I. We melt into it, as if it was yesterday that we last did this, and my hand lifts to cup Sirius’s face just as his slides up my back until it has reached my shoulder. It doesn't rest there; instead, it squeezes lightly in rhythm with the kiss, which is deep and tender and long-overdue.
I know there are questions. I don't care.
We rest our foreheads against one another and I sleep. It's the happiest I've been in a decade and a half.