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In a dingy corner of the Shrieking Shack, Sirius waited with growing impatience while Moony told their story, Harry and his friends hanging on every word. He had waited so long for his revenge, so long in that dark, accursed place, and finally everything had fallen into place. He watched as the rat squirmed frantically in the redheaded boy’s grasp. Wormtail would get what was coming to him, the traitor. Sirius’ mouth twisted in a hungry leer.
“That was really dangerous!” the bushy-haired girl piped up suddenly, and Sirius’ attention immediately shifted. Eyes narrowed, he watched Moony’s face, waiting for a reaction.
“There were near misses, many of them,” his former friend replied. “We laughed about them afterwards. We were young, thoughtless - carried away with our own cleverness.”
Sudden relief washed through Sirius, a swell of feelings long forgotten. Moony still didn’t know; their secret was safe.
*
Concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, Sirius nudged the infirmary door with his foot. In a happy stroke of luck, the latch hadn’t quite caught properly, and the door swung gently open, allowing him to hear what was going on inside. Eavesdropping was the best way of finding things out, especially with Moony involved; the idiot could be annoyingly close-mouthed when it came to his health and general wellbeing.
Madame Pomfrey didn’t sound too concerned, though, and Sirius stifled a sigh of relief. Last night had been somewhat more... active than their usual jaunts. He rolled his shoulders, and bit back a groan as his bruises twinged.
“Here,” he heard Madame Pomfrey say. He pictured her handing Moony a goblet of some vile concoction, and grimaced.
“I don't like the look of your shoulder,” she continued. “How on earth you managed to bite yourself there, I'll never know.”
- a wild struggle, his mouth full of blood and fur -
Sirius closed his eyes, trying to will the memories away. Madame Pomfrey was going on about bandages and salve and pots of tea, and he let her calm voice wash over him. He was so engrossed in not thinking that he nearly missed his cue.
“All right then. Just don't forget. Do you need more bandages?”
“No, Madam Pomfrey, thank you. I've plenty up in the dormitory.”
Moony was starting to sound a little desperate, and that was all Sirius needed. Sweeping off the cloak and tucking it under his arm, he entered the room with a flourish, interrupting Madame Pomfrey in mid-sentence.
“Will you be— Oh, Mr Black. You do have an uncanny sense of timing.”
“It's part of my charm,” he replied, giving a wink and his best cheeky grin. It never failed to work on women, and Poppy Pomfrey was no different.
“Please escort Mr Lupin back to your dormitory.”
“My pleasure, Poppy, dear.” Sirius kept up the act, making a big show of settling Moony’s arm around his shoulders. She mustn’t suspect that anything was different about last night. “Let's go, you big galoot. How can someone as scrawny as you weigh so much?”
- pushing with all his strength against the mass of the wolf, who strained and snarled against him -
“Must you flirt with all the women?” Moony complained as they made their way out into the corridor.
“Of course,” Sirius replied airily. “It would be rude not to.”
“You have a rather warped sense of propriety.”
“Are you jealous? I can't help it if older women find me charming.” That distracted Moony, as he knew it would.
Before his friend could make a rude comment, however, Sirius’ concern got the better of him. “Hey, Moony, you alright walking? You're limping pretty badly.”
Moony did look fairly awful. Besides the limp, he was pale and drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. And Sirius hadn’t failed to notice the winces and gasps of pain whenever Moony shifted his weight.
- a howl of pain as Prongs hit home, and the wolf rolled away from him with a whimper -
“Why? Are you offering to carry me?”
There was an idea. “I might if I knew you weren't so bloody stubborn.”
“I'm not a bloody fairy tale princess.” They had reached the staircase, and Sirius could see him eyeing it with distaste. Maybe they should have risked the main staircase for once; this one was riddled with trick stairs, and would be hell for someone in Moony’s condition.
“Clearly,” Sirius replied, considering their options. “What has that got to do with anything?”
“I- Never mind. Give me a minute, all right?” Sirius was happy to wait as long as Moony needed. Until the next sentence left his lips. “And while we're waiting, what the devil happened last night?"
- a waft of scent and the wolf’s face changed, going from the joy of night exploration to a vicious, feral hunger -
He must have waited too long to reply; Moony looked horrified. “Oh, god, it was the Centaurs, wasn't it? What did I do? Did I—“
“You didn't do anything!” Sirius snapped. The look on Moony’s face tore at him, and the decision that had been floating in the back of his mind suddenly crystallised. “I know what you're thinking, and you know we'd never let you do anything like that, and anyway, it wasn't your fault.”
It was the first time he’d ever deliberately lied to his friend. A little white lie in the service of a prank didn’t count, but this wasn’t little, this was huge.
- the howl of the wolf and a desperate dash to stop him, the coppery scent of blood hanging in the air -
“What wasn't my fault?” Moony demanded.
“Can't this wait 'til we get back to the dorm?” He needed more time. Time to think, to figure out what the hell he was doing and how he was going to make this work.
“No.”
“Oh, for ...” Their entire year knew by now that there was no reasoning with Moony when he got that look on his face. Biting back a frustrated sigh, Sirius pulled his wand out of his pocket. ”Muffliato.”
“Look,” Sirius began, trying to keep his tone light. “It wasn't anything, really. We had a grand old time as usual. We were up on the other side of the forest, by that hill with the henge. You know, the one just before the peat bog?” Moony nodded. “Had to steer you back from the bog, like always. Don't know why you're so eager to go there. It's frozen over already. Bloody Scottish winter.”
If Sirius had hoped that telling the story so casually would put Moony at his ease, he was sadly mistaken. His friend’s hand was white where it gripped the banister, and he was shaking slightly.
“Anyway,” Sirius continued, stifling a yawn. Merlin’s balls, he was tired. “That wasn't it. It was when we got back. We were almost to the shack when some drunken bugger came staggering down the road from Hogsmeade.”
- a slurred song changing abruptly to a shriek of pain -
“Oh, fuck.” Moony looked positively green. “What-“
“I'm getting to that, aren't I?” Keep it together, Sirius told himself sharply. “The moon had almost set—we timed it pretty well, actually—but, not enough. You smelt him immediately, of course, and if the wind hadn't been coming from the north, you probably would have sooner, so that was lucky.”
- a frantic scrabble in the road, desperately trying to keep the slavering jaws away from vulnerable flesh -
“Peter scampered off to keep an eye on the old bugger, while Prongs and I ... Well, nothing happened. We stopped you. You fought us something fierce, though, and, well ... They're a bit pointy, you know.”
“Prongs poked me in the arse with his—his prongs?”
“I don't quite know that I'd use the word 'poked'. More like impaled, really. I wrestled you down and bit your shoulder.”
- the scent of the wolf’s blood mixing in his nose with the blood of the human, salivating at the heady bouquet -
“You should have seen it, Moony! Granted, you're never docile, but we've never had to restrain you like that before. It was exciting, really. You were a beast!” Sirius made a deliberate effort to smile, to sound like there was nothing wrong at all. After all, it had been exciting, just in a desperate, horrifying sort of way.
“Of course I was a beast, you bloody idiot! I'm a werewolf, for fuck's sake!”
“Would you keep your voice down?”
“Why? Is your charmwork that shoddy?”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Nothing happened!” Maybe if he said it enough, it would be true; an incantation for an unknown spell to alter the reality that none of them were prepared to face.
“What do you mean, nothing happened? I've got a fucking gash in my arse the size of Valles Marineris, and worse, not only did someone see us, but I nearly ate him!”
“But you didn't, did you? I told you, we'd never let you hurt anyone, and we didn't.” Sirius felt suddenly sick. He fought frantically to keep it off his face, pasting on a nonchalant grin. “It worked perfectly, just like we always said it would. We held you down long enough for you to change, and then we just carried you inside. After we stopped you bleeding to death, of course.”
“But ... What if he tells someone what he saw?”
This was the part that was going to be the easiest to deal with. “He's just a local boozer, isn't he? Completely pissed even before breakfast. Nobody would believe him. But he won't tell anyone anything. Peter took care of that, too. Hard to talk about something if you can't remember it.”
Wormy was getting damn good at memory charms, the little weasel. Still, it was hard to complain in circumstances like this. And while Moony’s claws had done a fair bit of damage, he didn’t think the poor sod had actually been bitten. With any luck, the locals would think the bloke had been wandering about in the Forbidden Forest and say no more about it. As long as it never got back to Dumbledore...
Moony was looking doubtful; he must have let the silence go on for too long. “I'll always protect you, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Moony replied softly. “Yeah, all right.”
And he would. He would talk to James and Peter, make sure they would keep quiet about what had really happened. Make a pact, the three of them, never to tell. Moony didn’t need to know, and neither did anyone else. This little family they had created, the four of them, were all Sirius had, and he wouldn’t let anything destroy that. Not if he could help it.
*
His time in Azkaban had dulled much of his past, memories blurring together as he fought to survive and retain his sanity. Strangely, though, the events of that night and the following day were just as sharp now as they had been back then, from the ululating howl of the wolf to the expression on Moony’s face when Sirius told him what had happened.
Harry and the other children were still listening raptly to Moony’s tale. Sirius smiled grimly, the expression still feeling strange on his face. It wouldn’t be long now. Once Moony had finished his explanations, Peter would get what he deserved. Soon, Sirius would hold their secret alone.