Chapter Text
Sirius stirred in his sleep. Something was wrong. He felt wrong all over. His hand hurt and his head was throbbing with pain, the sunlight agitating his eyes even through closed eyelids. Was it morning already?
Something happened, last night, Sirius was sure of it. Something happened and he couldn’t remember what. His mind was a mess, a jumble of half memories and feverish dreams. Was the full moon already over? He usually remembered being Padfoot, running around the forest with Prongs, Wormtail and Moony. But today, his mind was empty, and Sirius was exhausted. Still, he forced himself to turn over and open his eyes.
He was in the medical wing. There were people around him, whispering in hushed voices and looking solemn. He couldn’t recognise them in the bright morning light, but he thought the tall, messy haired figure could be James, the slightly shorter and somewhat wider one was Peter, and the tall, skinny one must be Remus. There were some people he couldn’t quite place, but he didn’t really care about them. His attention was fully fixated on the fact that Moony was there, standing at the end of his bed, when he should be sleeping and recovering from the long night he was sure to have had. For the matter of fact, why were there so many people here?
Sirius tried to sit up, and every face in the room promptly turned towards him. An awful silence fell over the infirmary. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
“Um, good morning everybody? What’s going on?” His voice felt sore and not quite his own. After a moment’s silence, his three best friends jolted awake from their shock.
“Sirius!”
“Oh Padfoot…”
“You’re awake!”
James and Peter both came running up to him and enveloped him in the tightest hug he’s ever been given, almost suffocating him in the process.
“Gerroff, you wankers! What’s all this about then?” he tried to laugh, lightheartedly.
Finally, Peter and James backed off and let him breathe a little easier. Now, he saw both their faces clearly for the first time, and immediately, his smile dropped. There was clear evidence Peter had been crying beforehand, his eyes rimmed with red. James was looking exhausted, like he hadn’t slept in days. The dark mess on his head he called hair was in even worse condition than usual, and his eyes didn’t carry that mischievous glint they always shone bright with. Remus hung in the back, his scarred face a tired, but otherwise unreadable mask. Sirius searched for his eyes, but they wouldn’t meet his own.
“What’s going on? What happened?” Something was terribly wrong, and he was desperate for answers. The room stayed silent, everybody was looking away again.
Luckily, madam Pomfrey came to his rescue.
“Sirius, dear, you’ve woken up! Why are there so many people in here? The boy needs his rest! Everybody, out! Yes, even you, Minerva, interrogations can wait a little longer. No, Remus, you stay, and drink that sleeping draught I’ve set out for you…”
The crowd was quick to filter out after that. There were mostly professors, whispering sharply amongst themselves, which surprised Sirius. Some offered him a weak smile, while the others looked at him with something else in their eyes. He had a feeling that what he was seeing was mostly pity, and fear. Of course, James and Peter were the last to leave, after madam Pomfrey had to threaten them with multiple detentions and a mild curse. Remus quietly sat on his own bed far from Sirius, still not meeting his eye.
“Moony? What is happening? Why aren’t you sleeping, it was a full moon yesterday, no?” Sirius thought he heard his friend’s breath hitch, and after a silent moment, there was a quiet, but sure, sob. Remus turned towards him. His eyes landed on Sirius’s left arm. It was heavily bandaged, reeking of a strong healing potion and something else, a throbbing pain piercing through his forearm.
“Padfoot…” Remus wanted to say more, Sirius knew he wanted to, but all he managed to do was shake his head and bolt for the toilet, hiding his tears. He shut the door hard after himself.
He stared after him for a long moment, wondering what on earth could have happened to throw his Moony, an unshakeable force of nature, so out of loop. His memories were still out of order, so he turned to the only other sensible person besides Remus he knew.
“Madam Pomfrey? What happened to me? Please, I don’t remember much…”
“You don’t remember? Oh, you poor dear… How can I even begin to explain such a horrible thing?”
The medi-witch approached his bed and sat on the wooden stool beside him. She started talking, and as she recounted the events of last night, and as Sirius felt his life as he knew it crumble around him, all he could think about was: I’m in his bed. I’m in Moony’s bed. He’s supposed to be here, not me. I’m supposed to be sitting on that chair, and he’s supposed to be here, sleeping off just another moon.
But that was not how things would work from now on.
***
There was an accident.
He was bitten.
Sirius was a werewolf too, now.
It was Snivellus’ fault. Of course it was. Sirius felt his memories come back to him more vividly than if he’d experienced them again, as madam Pomfrey told him the story. Of course, there was a lot she didn’t know, but her explanation triggered a chain reaction in his brain, remembering every gruesome detail and replaying it over and over, until the story was complete.
Apparently, Severus has had his suspicions about Remus for a long time now. He shared multiple classes with the Gryffindor boys, and between lessons and the ongoing prank war the Marauders and Snape were engaged in since their first year, they saw each other quite more often than either side would prefer. One day, he was bound to notice Remus’s suspiciously routine absences. All it took was checking the moon calendar and noticing Remus’s new scars on his face that appeared a few weeks into the first term of fifth year, and he knew.
Severus tried to catch him “in the act,” whatever that meant, ever since he realised his classmate might be a werewolf. His only problem was figuring out where they put him during the transformation. That was until last night. He had been apparently following Remus around all day beforehand, the little git. When it was time for Remus to go to the shack, Snape hid behind some bushes and watched madam Pomfrey calm the tree with a tickling charm, carefully aimed at the tree knot, to let Remus through to the hidden tunnel.
The boy, in Sirius’s humble opinion, lacked any and all common self preservation instincts when he decided to follow them right there, the moment he saw madam Pomfrey exit and head back to the castle. Snape never was all that bright, where common sense was concerned.
Peter, Sirius and James were, of course, already inside the shack with Remus, waiting for the moon to take hold. It was the new normal, since they became animagi.
Remus was already transformed when they heard the door open. Sirius, in his dog form, recognised the scent of their fellow pupil immediately. With a bit of Prongs’ and Wormtail’s help, he managed to usher Moony to the upper floor and away from Snape. Sirius trusted Prongs’ strong antlers to make do if the wolf tried anything funny, and bolted downstairs, changing back to his human form mid-stairs and falling over, directly onto the boy below him. They both crashed hard onto the wooden floor, groaning in pain.
“Black?! What the hell are you -” Severus started, getting up, but Sirius, furious out of his mind, cut him off mid-sentence.
“Severus, you have to get out. Now! I don’t know what the hell you think you are doing here, but you have. to. get. out!”
There was loud scratching directly above them, then a loud thump and a pained howl. Sirius’s heart started beating a mile a minute. It was a risk, being human around a werewolf. He knew Moony could smell them, and he knew Moony had no control over his actions. All the wolf knew was hunger, and there were two quite satisfactory meals just out of his reach. I have to go up, I have to help James, he’s not going to be able to keep him away much longer…
Severus seemed to share no such worries. A smug smile crept onto his face as he leaned onto the nearby wall, crossing his arms.
“I was right, wasn’t I? Lupin’s apparently not only a freak by default, he’s also a werewolf. You all knew, of course, you and your miserable friends probably spend every moon in here with him, taking care of the bloody beast. Does it let you pet its fur? It’s worth quite a lot, you know, if you know where the sales are best…”
Sirius saw red when he charged towards him, his wand already pointed at Snape’s throat.
“You are going to get out now, you slimy git, and you are going to say nothing to anyone, if you want to see another day. Is that understood?” The fighting above was getting louder and louder. He had to go and help James, soon.
“Oh, but why would I? You seem to get along with it just fine -”
“Sirius, watch out!” Peter cried out from somewhere above them. Sirius had just enough time to watch Snape’s eyes widen in fear before something heavy and infinitely strong slammed at him from behind and sunk its teeth deep into his forearm.
After that, nothing much was clear anymore. Just a mess of blood, pain and screams, really.