A/N: I don't own Harry Potter. This was written for I Am A Book Ninja's competition, Princess Bride Quote Challenge. As always, enjoy and don't forget to R&R!
Sirius POV:
"Hey guys? Come here." Remus looked up suddenly from the book he was reading, a worried expression adorning his face. Remus was usually so laid-back, it was strange to see him so tensed up.
James quickly got a hold of the snitch he was playing with and looked up at Remus. "Yeah, what's up?" he asked lightly.
"Uh, there's something I need to tell all of you. I should've told you a while ago, I guess." Remus slowly placed a bookmark in the page he was on and gently shut the novel he was in the middle of.
"Well out with it, already." I grinned at him, shaking back my long tangled hair.
"Not here. Come on, I'll take you to where we can talk." He glanced around to make sure no one was near before taking out a sheet of parchment, yellowed with age. Remus opened it delicately, and took out his wand. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." he chanted, and tapped his want against the paper once. Immediately, lines of ink began to form on the parchment, and soon turned into a map of Hogwarts. Small, labeled footsteps formed on the page and began waking around, as if they were actual peoples' steps.
"Whoa, where'd you get that?" asked Pettigrew, looking at Remus in awe.
"I made it. It was quite simple actually. It shows where anyone and everyone is in the castle right now. Look, there's Severus under his tree." Remus pointed to a spot on the map and, sure enough, there was a pair of footsteps standing still, and in small cramped handwriting it was labeled Severus Snape.
"That's bloody brilliant," said James, obviously impressed at him.
"Aw, it was nothing, really." said Remus, blushing slightly, "But that's besides the point. Follow me, guys."
Remus stood up and began walking to the castle, and the three of us followed behind him. Soon we were in the dungeons, not a person in sight. "It also shows passageways out of the castle." Remus told us, pushing aside a slab of rock that was covering a hole in the ground, followed by a long flight of stairs.
"This is so cool. What if we get caught?" I asked him.
"We'll be able to tell. Everyone is labeled on the map, so we'll know if anyone's near the entrance of the passage so we'll know not to come through it.
"That's genius." I remarked, and Remus blushed a little yet again, rubbing the back of his neck.
Once we had all passed through the damp stairway, the four of us emerged into a field of tall, yellowed grass. There were faint ripples in the weeds due to wind, and the sky was bright blue, and not too warm, not too cool. It was basically a perfect day weather-wise.
"Hey, is that Hogsmeade? James shielded his eyes from the sun and pointed out to a small village about two miles away.
"Yep. And this, my friends, is the Shrieking Shack." Remus pointed to an old, run-down, one-room building that was about twenty feet away from them. It loomed over them like an impenetrable shadow. They could tell immediately that this was not a friendly place. Bad things had happened here, and the air was filled with the stench of molding wood and the faint twinge of death. "This is a safe place I can tell you guys." He began to trudge through the weeds towards the small building.
The three of us looked at each other uncertainly before following him. We could trust Remus enough to know that he wouldn't take us anywhere too dangerous.
The wooden door creaked open, and the smell of mold and mildew immediately flooded our noses. We needed to hold back our coughs, but Peter loudly sneezed, breaking the eerie silence that hung in the air and throttled us like a damp towel. The room we were greeted by was black, the darkness only penetrated by the light we let in when opening the front door and a few beams of sunlight that managed to find their way down through the few holes in the unstable roof that threatened to collapse on us at any moment.
Remus navigated the darkness like he had done it dozens of times before and, with the peculiar way he'd been acting lately, I didn't doubt it for one second. He sat down a few feet away, and called us over to do the same. "Lumos." he muttered, projecting light from his wand that was bright enough to let us see the whole room for the most part.
"So what's so important that you dragged us all the way out here to say it?" asked James, shooting Remus his trademark, winning smile that let him get away with so much.
"Well, um, you guys aren't going to believe me, probably," said Remus, suddenly sounding completely unsure of himself.
"Come on, the suspense is killing me. I promise we'll all believe you." I really wanted to hear what he was going to say now, since he was drawing it out so much.
"Well, um," his voice dropped to a whisper so we all needed to lean in to hear him, "I'm a werewolf." His voice was so quiet by the end I wasn't sure I heard him right.
"You're a what?" I asked, pretending to clean out my ears.
"I'm a werewolf." he said again simply.
"Oh, okay then." I glanced at everyone else, unsure of what to say next.
"How'd it happen?" prodded James, who was seemingly unaffected by what Remus just disclosed to us.
"Well, it's kind of a long story." he said slowly, like he was a bit unwilling to tell us about it.
"Come on, we won't judge you, no matter how badly you screwed up this time." James joked, which seemed to make Remus ease up a bit more.
Remus took a deep breath, and began to tell us the whole story.