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That night, Sirius lay awake staring at the crimson curtains he’d tightly pulled shut hours earlier.
He couldn’t even focus on Snivellus’ words from earlier about his family. Instead, his mind whirred with everything he’d ever heard about the Shrieking Shack. Locals had spoken of screams, growls and howling and other weird sounds they couldn’t exactly fathom too, but those had no bearing on Sirius right now.
Sirius could only imagine the screams—the wails, as some wizards had called them.
He tried to push the thoughts far from his mind. There was no way the most haunted house in Britain had acquired its infamous name because the boy a bed over with russet tawny hair who ate the same strange piece of toast every morning cut in four equal measures and loved Bowie almost as much as he did, if that was even possible, cried in horror as his body mutated excruciatingly into that of the wolf’s.
Not Remus.
Sirius knew the transformations were painful, but he refused to believe they were horrible enough to be the thing of ghost stories passed from mouth to mouth and told from parent to child as some freakish warning of the dilapidated shed-like house on the hill. His chest tightened horribly just thinking about the possibility.
“Jamie,” Sirius whispered, wading over abruptly. James had quidditch early in the morning and Sirius would usually just wait another night to talk to him, but this really couldn’t wait. He was afraid he’d never stop thinking about it if he didn’t speak to James, and it wasn’t like Sirius could openly ask questions to Remus. He’d been annoyed enough as is any time Sirius had shown even a modicum of worry on his face in the past.
“Tosser,” James spat, “I was just starting to fall asleep. Why didn’t you come before?”
“M’sorry,” Sirius muttered, uncharacteristically. At that, James sat up and pulled Sirius in by his blouse and closed the curtain around them, quickly bubbling them in the privacy of a silencing charm. Sirius was aware he hadn’t really apologised for anything since first year. He knew it must have thrown James through a loop, even if he couldn’t find it in himself to care at the moment.
“Is this about what that slimy git said earlier about your family? Because I swear—”
“No,” Sirius said, “no, nothing about that.”
James looked at Sirius expectantly.
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about,” Sirius murmured, tilting his head in the direction of Remus’ bed, almost as if he was wary to speak his name aloud in fear he’d hear them. “The shrieking.”
“I know,” James replied, looking down. “I was thinking about it, too. Before.”
“The tales,” Sirius spoke. “Your father spoke of them last time, said Rosmerta and others are often kept up for hours after hearing the blood-curdling screams that venture from the shack.”
“I know,” James repeated, despairing.
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Sirius admitted, his breaths coming a bit short. James only silently nodded his agreement.
“I’ve started counting off the days to each next moon every morning now.”
Sirius didn’t bother feign being surprised. He did the same. “Nine left.”
“Yeah,” James said, voice low. “He changes so much the days leading up.”
“It’s unfair.” Sirius knew life was unfair. He’d learned that quite young, indeed. Like how you couldn’t pick which family you were born into, the difference between being raised by the perfect Potters or by his crazy, blood-purist family, but this was different. There was something explicitly cruel about being bitten at the age of five and then being forced to co-exist in the same body with a murderous, ravenous creature for the rest of your life. It was worse than almost getting betrothed to your cousin, even.
Sirius almost felt like crying. He had to do something. The world couldn’t expect him to go on living normally when Remus was experiencing tremendous amounts of pain every month and Sirius was so acutely aware of it.
“James,” Sirius started.
“Yeah?”
“We have to,” Sirius said simply. Even in the darkness, Sirius could see the slight eyebrow quirk from James questioning what he was going on about. “I know it’s terribly difficult and unlikely and there’s room for so much error and we could get in so much trouble and—“
“Sirius,” James chastised, gripping Sirius’ shoulder and squeezing lightly to placate him into something hopefully less anxious, “we will. Swear.”
“Solemnly?”
“Solemnly.”