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“Bloody hell, Lupin, you fight like a girl,” Sirius spat in disgust.
“He nearly had you, though, didn’t he,” Peter said lazily from the tree, where he sat with a great pile of seed balls harvested at great risk to life and limb because he’d read they could be used to create a powerful belch-propelling potion.
“That’s what I mean--as soon as you had an advantage you stopped. You let me win.” He glared at Remus, knowing he was unreasonably angry but still nearly panting with the unfairness of it. His head rang with the laughter of his girl cousins, who always let him win and let him know it: ‘Oh, Sirius, you’re so strong.’ “Stupid worthless bastard.”
He didn’t even see Remus move. It felt as if someone had dropped rocks on him, and there was a dreadful sound. He found himself on his back staring up at the brilliant leaves making a lacework of the sky. Remus was up there too, he noticed, his face a mask of absolute horror. Sirius tried to sit up and say it was all right, they were still mates, but the pain hit then; and he saw nothing but darkness.
An artefact of Sirius’ privileged childhood was that he had never broken a bone; when he woke in the infirmary he found he had three, and wanted to keep them for posterity, or at least a night’s worth of sympathy. Madame Pomfrey snorted and healed them over his protests. She did let him keep the bruises, which were blue and black and purple and green, which was very satisfactory. Half his face was swollen and his lip was split and gory. He told Pomfrey he wanted to look dangerous, and she patted him on the head and told him to run along.
He was stiff and slow as he walked back to the dormitory, and news of the fight must have spread: people hadn’t given him such a wide berth since the incident with the Flatulence Flu. A thin chill rain fell steadily outside, and the cold wind that seeped through the castle made Sirius ache horribly.
He winced his way through the Fat Lady’s portrait and limped up the dormitory stairs. As he opened the door, James and Peter’s heads swivelled and they stared at him, flat secretive stares. Sirius felt instinctively that this might be a bad time to show off his bruises.
“Where’s Remus?”
James leaned back with studied casualness through which his anxiety shone like a beacon. “Took off, didn’t he?” He looked at Peter, a challenging look: there was an on-going argument, apparently, into which Sirius had walked all unawares.
“Listen, Sirius,” Peter said, and shoved an open book into his hands. “Listen, all right? Remus is a werewolf, he’s one of those--“ his finger stabbed an illustration; it growled at him—“he admitted to it after he attacked you.” Peter was flushed. “Ever see him at a full moon? Ever wonder about where he goes every month? He’s a monster.”
Sirius glanced down, and then shut the book with a snap. He knew all about werewolves: hadn’t his grandfather killed nearly an entire pack outside Vladivostok? As a child he’d loved the great furry werewolf carpet in front of the library fireplace, loved the thrill of horror as he stuck his hands in the great jaws. The carpet had been made from a werewolf during transformation: the limbs had been oddly elongated, and the glass eyes were human and malevolent.
“Werewolf,” he said, tasting the word, rolling it across his tongue because he didn’t dare swallow it. He tried desperately to think of a time he’d seen Remus with the moon.
“He didn’t so much admit it,” James said to no one in particular, “as not deny it when you yelled for him to keep his goddamned werewolf paws away from Sirius.” He glanced at Sirius. “I thought he was going to faint, too, but then he turned and ran.”
“McGonagall and that lot must know, don’t you think?” Peter said. “You’d think they were trying to get us killed.”
“Don’t be an ass.” James picked balls of wool off his blanket and flicked them at Peter. “They make him go somewhere, chain him up or something. He always misses a day or two, remember last year he almost didn’t make his exams on time?” Sirius stared at James: a note of pleading had slipped into his arguments. James was slipping, and to judge by Peter’s smug look he knew it well.
Sirius looked out at the grey landscape, the inky smudges of trees, the wind-tossed lake. He grabbed his cloak and Remus’ as well. “Don’t be so bloody stupid,” he said, giving both of them the full Black hauteur. “It’s not some bogeyman, it’s Remus. If you want to be scared of something, you can worry about what I’ll do to you if you don’t save us some dinner.”
Peter’s eyes had crinkled up. “What… where…?”
Sirius tried to convey just how pathetic he found this with a sweeping glance. “I’m going after Remus,” he said, as if it was bloody obvious that James and Peter were fools for not doing so already, and slammed the door behind him. He could hear James’ raised voice rallying all the way down the stairs.
Remus was small at the water’s edge, his back pressed tightly against the great stone that jutted out into the water, as if he were trying to be absorbed into the granite. His shoulders were nearly higher than his ears, and water dripped steadily down from his hair across his face. Sirius sat down next to him, painfully, and not at all sure that he’d be able to get up again.
“It’s like this,” he said, as if they’d been speaking all along. “I always thought a werewolf was a wolf disguised as a person. And now I know that a werewolf’s just a regular kind of person, except for being the sneaky sort who pulls his punches.”
“Not always,” Remus said, and Sirius looked at him out of the corners of his eyes. Remus’ face was pinched and desolate. “I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” Sirius said grandly. “Next time punch Peter instead.”
Remus sniffed, just once, and Sirius handed him his cloak. He’d put the same spells on it as on his own, and as Remus wrapped it around himself Sirius could see some of his tension dissipate in the warmth. In the rainy gloom, the black wool was nearly as good as an invisibility cloak.
“I really liked it here,” Remus said, well muffled.
“We won’t tell anyone,” Sirius said, shocked. “James is in laying down the law for Peter, he’ll come around or be lectured to a painful death. Bastard,” he added idly. “How long’s he known, anyway?”
Remus shook his head. “I wasn’t to tell anyone,” he said miserably.
“And you still haven’t,” said Sirius the voice of sweet reason. “You haven’t said werewolf once. Is it horrible?”
“You can’t imagine,” Remus said darkly.
“Well, we’ll take care of you,” Sirius said. “Starting with dinner. I’m hungry. You must be hungry. Head back?”
Remus sighed and pushed himself up, his cloak and trousers conspiring to give Sirius a good view of his knobbly ankles. Sirius pulled one foot under himself and grit his teeth as he stumbled gracelessly upright. Remus grabbed his arm just in time to keep him from launching headfirst into the lake.
“I’m sorry,” Remus said, his fingers tight as he solicitously manoeuvred Sirius over the dark shore of treacherously slippery rocks. Sirius pretended that he put up with it because he was being magnanimous, and not because all his bruised muscles and repaired bones had congealed painfully in the cold. “Did you see Pomfrey?”
“You broke three ribs, Remus, did you know that? Have you some kind of supernatural werewolf strength?”
“I was angry.” They entered the tail of the Forbidden Forest. Remus moved easily through the trees, his feet soundless on the wet leaves. “Three, really?”
“I’ll show you my bruises,” Sirius offered.
“Disgusting.”
“You could sign them.”
“I think I will.” Remus’ voice was smiling, thoughts of well-sharpened quills undoubtedly filling his head.
They manoeuvred the forest cautiously; the steady sound of the rain hid any odd rustlings and animal noises. Sirius wasn’t sure that was good.
“You’re safe in the Forest with me,” Remus said abruptly. “Most creatures in here won’t come near me. Well. Now you know why.”
“Werewolf,” Sirius snickered, and jabbed his elbow sharply into Remus’ side. “Creature of the night.”
“Arrooo,” Remus agreed. “What were we fighting about in the first place? I can’t remember.”
Sirius shrugged. “Quidditch, I think, or some Muggle song. Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’m going to have to develop a rapier wit as I can’t beat anyone up successfully.”
“You could get Peter to teach you some of his aikido or sumo or whatever it is.”
“I could hire you as my bodyguard. Would you guard my body, Lupin, through thick and thin?”
“I’m what you need to be guarded against.” Remus’ feet kicked at the sodden leaves, raising a smell of decay. “I mean. It’s not a joke, all right? When I am… when… I could kill anyone, my own mother or father or you or James or Peter. I would want to.”
“How long’s it been?” Sirius asked curiously, trying to ignore the water that was pooling in his boots.
Remus paused. “Five years,” he said, his voice that of someone holding their cards very close to their chest indeed.
Sirius had lots more probing questions to ask, but in the darkness he hooked his toes under some lying-in-wait tree roots and propelled himself face-first into still more tree roots. Pain went through him like fire, and he gasped for breath open-mouthed, his treacherous eyes filling with more tears than he could blink away.
He was rolled over by strong hands and had the further indignity of getting rain in his face. Rough wool rasped at his face, wiping away tears and possibly blood. He took refuge in very bad language, although the wheeze with which he delivered his imprecations and the hiccup of pain he made every time Remus touched his nose or his chest made the idea of maintaining a façade laughable. Not that he was thinking of laughing.
Remus had his wand out and was muttering something. He made another pass over Sirius’ face and then sat back on his heels. “I think you just bruised your bruises, mostly, but your nose might be broken. Can you walk?”
Sirius sat up, with great difficulty. “Never been better,” he said in a voice that was barely better than a whisper.
“I could levitate you,” Remus said doubtfully.
Sirius had a vivid recollection of Remus’ textbooks all shooting up to crash into the ceiling of the Charms room, and it taking several hours for Flitwick to get them down.
“Walk,” Sirius said, and this time he leant unashamedly all over Remus and dribbled blood on him besides. Remus fortunately knew a secret and shorter passage up to the Infirmary, and Sirius once again found himself the object of Pomfrey’s attentions.
“Fighting again, boys?” she asked, tugging on Sirius’ nose as she tapped it with her wand. He yelped, sneezed blood, and then poked it experimentally.
“What—you think he can take me in a fight?” Sirius said dismissively, and Remus looked up over the dinner tray Pomfrey had summoned; fortunately, he had just forced a cheek-extending quantity of meatroll into his mouth, and no amount of annoyed chewing would let him respond in time.
Pomfrey handed Sirius and Remus both large goblets of an absolutely foul concoction (‘to prevent colds,’ she said; but Sirius could tell by Remus’ face that he didn’t believe her, either) and told them to eat and get out, didn’t they have lessons to do and she’d have a word with McGonagall besides.
They both protested (Remus rather unintelligibly) but it did no good. The following three nights found them back in the Forbidden Forest in the rain, searching for Night-blooming Man-eaters and Nightshade and Heart-of-Darkness with Ogg the groundskeeper. By the time they had been thoroughly punished, Peter had his belch-propulsion potion ready, and plans for the next prank were underway; that is to say, life was back to normal.
Before the next full moon, Remus showed Peter the Shrieking Shack and all its protections, just to convince him that it really was safe, and Peter seemed to feel that whatever drawbacks there were to having a werewolf in the dorm were more than balanced by having a secret headquarters, just like in his Master Marauder Mysterio! comics. It was James who said that they ought to try the Animagus spell, but the nickname Marauders was pure Peter.