"Yes! That's it! I've got you now, Potter." Sherlock Holmes cried as he leapt up from the sofa in the Ravenclaw common room and bounded out of the door, clutching a piece of paper in his hand. Curious eyes followed him out of the door, and irritated students swore at him as he ran into them, knocking books out of hands and onto the floor with a crash. But then Sherlock was always like that, running round like a tornado when he had an idea, leaving a trail of chaos in his wake – but then again, you always knew how to find him.
He ran down the corridors, jumping ahead of the staircases as they moved and ignoring the cries of people telling him to slow down. He soon came to the entrance hall, and stopped suddenly, becoming alert as he searched for the person he was looking for amongst the hordes of people leaving the hall after dinner. He stood on tiptoe, knowing that he would be there, because he always came down to dinner at 7, and left again at half past 7. He impatiently glanced at his watch, bemoaning the fact that all these boring people had to eat, and talk whilst they ate. "Why do they have to do that?" Sherlock thought, "Why do they have to listen to the inane prattle whilst they digest?" As soon as he thought this, he picked out a figure in the crowd. He moved over towards Severus Snape, shouting his name and waving his bit of paper in the air, like a scientist who had just said, "Eureka!" Snape walked over to him, "What do you want, Sherlock?" He said, glancing over his shoulder at a red headed girl who was talking animatedly to another girl, "I want to tell you that I've figured it out." Sherlock said, gritting his teeth as Snape replied distractedly, "What? You've figured what out?" Sherlock sighed, and snapped his fingers in Snape's face, so he at least had his attention. "I've worked out why Lupin is away all the time. I can expose him for who, no, what, he really is." Now he had his attention.
"You've got them? You've got Lupin? Is it true? Was I right?" Colour rose in Snape's sallow cheeks, and he seemed almost out of breath with the excitement, because what he wanted was finally within touching distance. "Yes, you were correct, Snape," Sherlock said, and Snape glowed with pride, "Now, can we go somewhere private? I want to talk to you about this properly."
In the library, they sat at a desk in the corner, heads together, though not too close, as even Sherlock found Snape's greasy hair quite unpleasant. "So, how did you do it?" Snape whispered.
"It was hardly difficult deduction," Sherlock replied, already bored with how stupid Snape was turning out to be. "You see, Lupin's disappearances always collide with one event, and that event is the full moon. Lupin's a werewolf, that's why he always comes back with scratches on his face, and he always seems very tired, classic symptoms of lycanthropy."
"So I was right," Snape mused, "I was right all along."
"But you needed me to get the final proof."
"Yes, well, that's not important. But I suppose I didn't see all of the signs…" His voice trailed off. He was now annoyed that Sherlock was bound to take all the glory, when he'd been brewing this idea for years.
"You see but you do not observe, Snape." Putting his fingers together and resting his chin on them.
"I do observe!" He cried indignantly, "And anyway, that's not the point. The point is; how are we going to expose him?"
"Don't worry about that, I've got someone on the inside. He can help me."
John didn't much like Potter and Black, but he quite liked Remus and that other one, Peter, even though he was a bit of a wet blanket. On the other hand, Sherlock had said that John wouldn't be doing anything to hurt Remus, it would just be a little revenge on Sirius and James after that Quidditch incident involving himself, James and Sirius, and a bludger: An overzealous Sirius had thought it would be really funny to lob a bludger right at John and see if he could hit it, which was done after much egging on from James. John couldn't hit the bludger, and he had ended up in the hospital wing, funnily enough, right next to Remus, who seemed to have hurt himself very badly, because there were scratches all over his face and his arms and legs had bandages on them. Even though James and Sirius had issued an apology, John had hated their guts ever since that day, and, whilst he wasn't too keen on revenge, he was happy to help Sherlock in exacting it.
"Oi, Potter! Black!" He shouted over to them in the common room, it was late on the Saturday morning, and almost everyone else had gone into Hogsmeade, but Black and Potter had stayed, preferring to have the castle to themselves for some reason. "What do you want, Watson?" Sirius shouted back, not looking up from whatever it was that he and James were doing. In answer to that, John threw a stink bomb right at them, like a grenade. It exploded right on them, and they ran at John, who had disappeared out of the portrait hole and was hoping to Merlin that they wouldn't catch him before he got to the grounds.
The two boys ran after John, not caring that they smelt like a blocked drain and had actually made a Hufflepuff called Molly gag over the side of the staircase. "I can't believe that he'd do that to us!" Sirius hollered to James, panting a little.
"I can!" James called back, as they rounded a corner, following John's patterned sweater into the entrance hall.
"Oh yeah, I remember now. He's probably still pissed off about the whole bludger thing."
"Yeah, I guess he is," James called out to John, "Forgive and forget, John! Forgive and forget!"
"Give peace a chance!" Sirius crowed, running out into the sun drenched grounds, and following John to a spot under a large oak tree. A crowd of people had gathered around the tree, and Sherlock Holmes and Snape were standing directly under the tree, both of them looking like the cats that got the cream. Sherlock saw them coming, John darted into the crowd and Sherlock and Snape shouted in unison, "Levicorpus!" James and Sirius were pulled up from the ground and were left hanging in the air, still smelling like blocked drains. "Can this get any worse, Padfoot?" James asked, concerned that he was about to be beaten by Snivellus and Sherlock Holmes. "I hope not, Prongs, I really hope not." Sirius muttered. Suddenly, both boys came crashing down on the hard ground, "Yep, it can," Sirius said, "If you've broken my arse, Holmes, then you're in big trouble!" James had landed on his face, and blood was seeping out of his nose and onto his shirt, "My face," He cried, mopping up the blood, "My beautiful face!" He shouted at Sherlock before they tried to draw their wands and remembered that they weren't there, they were sitting in the common room, but Sherlock and Snape didn't seem interested. "John!" Sherlock shouted, "Where's Lupin? I told you to make sure we had all four of them, but especially Lupin!"
"I thought you said that we were getting revenge on Sirius and James, I didn't think it was important to bring Remus and Peter –"
"Well it was important! So now you're going to have to do it all again. These two are unimportant." He waved a hand at James and Sirius who looked indignant. "But my mummy said I was special…" James said mockingly, looking at the floor and pouting. "Shut it, Potter," Snape said, pointing his wand at them again, "Besides, you'll want to stick around for what's coming next…" Sherlock was talking to John in a lowered voice now, and Sirius watched as John's face grew angry, concerned, and then back to nothing. "Prongs, I don't know about you, but I have a bad feeling about this."
"Me too, Padfoot, me too. You don't think he's going to tell everyone about Moony's, erm, problem, do you?" James said, watching as John broke into a run and went back into the castle, presumably looking for Remus.
"He can't do that. He can't even know about that. No one knows about that. No one knows."
"But what if he's worked it out?"
Remus yawned, and walked slowly down the stairs to the common room, wincing a little as he put weight on his heavily bandaged leg. He was still recovering from the full moon of a few days ago, and was looking forward to a day with Sirius and James, wandering around the castle and hunting for all the secrets it held. "I don't need any breakfast before we go, I've got some chocolate and that's enough, so shall we get started?" He questioned the empty common room. He furrowed his brow, why had they left without him? "Pete?" He called back up the stairs at the chubby teen that was following him, rubbing his eyes after a long night with little sleep – he had to finish his homework at some point. "What's up, Remus?" Peter asked, blinking sleep out of his eyes.
"Do you know where Sirius and James have got to?"
"No, sorry, I've been asleep, just the same as you."
"Oh, that's alright. I'll go and look for them; you get dressed and get some breakfast or something." He said, preoccupied now with his friend's disappearance. It was very unusual for them to just go off without him, he was sure that they would never do that, not unless something really important came up. It was then that he caught site of the open parchment and two wands that were sitting on the table in the corner of the room. He wrinkled his nose up at the lingering smell of a blocked drain just by their table, and turned the parchment over in his hands, wondering if they'd left a note, but it was blank. "So where are you…?" He said to himself, wandering around the common room, trying to think of what would have made them leave so suddenly. It was then that John Watson burst into the common room, his cheeks bright red and his forehead dripping. "Remus," He panted, leaning on the wall, "You need to go down to the grounds. Sherlock is… Sherlock is…." But he couldn't finish.
"Sherlock's what?" Remus said, "Are you OK, John?" He said, trying to guide him over to the sofa, but John flinched away from his touch. "No, I'm fine, honestly, I'm fine." He wouldn't look into Remus' face, nor would he make eye contact. He couldn't. Not now he knew what he was. "Well, should I go and find him?" Remus asked, concerned because John was usually friendly, not like this. "Yes, yes, you should go and…" John couldn't speak properly anymore, and he made to walk over to the stairs to the dorm. Remus followed him, beginning to grow angry with John because he wouldn't talk to him properly. "Look, John, what the hell is going on? Where are James and Sirius? And what is Sherlock doing?" Remus demanded, pulling John back from the stairs.
"Remus," John began, trying to loosen his grip, "I think you should go and talk to Sherlock, he's with James and Sirius in the grounds." John shrugged Remus off and ran up the stairs, slamming the door to his dorm. Remus sighed, trying to keep one thought out of his mind. But it wouldn't budge, and it kept nagging away at him: he'd seen that expression before, on many people's faces. He'd seen the look of horror, fear, and sometimes loathing that materialised on faces once they found out what he was. It meant that even his closest friends, people who loved him and people who he loved would not go near him. They no longer saw Remus as he was, but he became Remus the werewolf, and, bar his three friends, no one could see past that. He pulled the sleeves down on his jumper, hiding the scars despite the warmth of the day, ashamed of what he was because of what it did to normal people. He supposed that he should be angry, because he knew that, as with all prejudices, there were exceptions and it usually turned out that the victims were much better than all the others. But you didn't get that with werewolves, and, Remus thought, who could blame them? Virtually all werewolves were horrible, evil people who were the same in normal life as they were when the full moon came out because their own minds were twisted and warped, so when they lost them every month, they remained almost the same. But Remus didn't want to be like this. He didn't want to be segregated from all of society, he didn't want to be a monster, because he wasn't a monster, and he knew that. He realised then that Sherlock Holmes was about to tell the entire school that he, Remus Lupin, was a werewolf, and that he would sneak into their dormitories at night and kill them, or worse, make them like him. Sherlock Holmes was going to ruin everything that he'd ever had. Sherlock Holmes was going to get him expelled. The depression at the same old reactions turned to anger when he realised what Sherlock Holmes was going to take away from him. He wasn't going to let that happen. Dumbledore had given him this wonderful opportunity and he knew that he had to make the most of it. He wasn't about to let it be snatched from his fingers by some stuck up git who thought he was better than everyone else. Well, Remus thought, he would prove that Sherlock Holmes was the worst of all.
He ran out of the portrait hole, determined to stop Sherlock before he got into one of his awful yet rather impressive speeches. "Bloody leg," He muttered as the pain shot up his leg when he began to run, "Keep going, Remus, keep going." He kept going, but he didn't leap over the moving staircases, nor did he make poor Molly gag, instead, he ran as fast as he could until his leg was hurting so much that he thought he might collapse. He leant on a corner, trying to get his breath back, and clutched at his leg. The cut was bleeding again, he was sure, and it wouldn't be long before the scarlet blob would seep through and he would have to go to Madam Pomfrey again, and he would have to endure her, "This place is like your second home, isn't it, Remus?" Which he was sure she didn't mean insultingly, but it was awful to have to think that he spent more time in there than with his friends.
A pair of black Converse trainers appeared in his view, he followed the leg in grey jeans and all the way up past the spotty t-shirt to the face of one of his only female friends, Flo. "Are you alright, Remus?" She said, peering into his face, "You look very pale, but your face is red at the same time."
"I'm fine," He said, standing up and gritting his teeth through the pain of his leg, "I'm really fine. Smashing, in fact."
"Well you don't look very smashing, it has to be said," She smiled, "Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to take you to the hospital wing or something?"
"I'm fine," He was just about to go, but then he remembered, Flo was in Ravenclaw, so she might know where Sherlock was – he didn't fancy walking round the entire grounds. "But have you seen Sherlock?"
"Yeah, I have. I saw him in the grounds, underneath that massive oak tree, the one that Sirius set fire to in the first year, remember?"
"Brilliant, thanks, Flo." He got up to run outside, but then he wondered if she knew anything more, "Do you know what he was doing out there, Flo?" She thought for a moment, and then said, "He said something about exposing someone for what they really are. I tried to ask him about it but he wouldn't talk to me. But then, no one talks to me anyway." She smiled ruefully at the ground. Remus felt deeply sorry for her, especially as she didn't have a horrible condition that turned her into a monster every month, and yet still no one in her own house would talk to her. "Thanks, Flo, you're brilliant." She smiled at him,
"Glad I could help. I'm off to the library now, so I'll see you later, I suppose."
"I'll meet you there later, I promise." He said, knowing he was wasting time, and that he could have been in the grounds by now, but he couldn't leave her looking all sad and lonely.
"Sounds like my kind of date!" She said, smiling brightly, before turning on her heel and walking off into the castle, her auburn hair glowing like fire in the bright sunlight that spilled through the windows. Remus smiled, and then remembered what he had to do. So once again, he broke into a run, pushing open the heavy oak doors and running out in to the grounds.
He managed to find them all soon enough, because there was a huge crowd that began to cheer as he ran into its midst. Chants of "Loony loopy Lupin!" Rang out into the sky and Remus saw James and Sirius standing in the shade of the oak tree, and just after that he noticed Sherlock standing under the oak tree, he saw Snape standing next to him. He drew his wand just as Sirius and James ran up to him, and Remus shouted, "I thought you were low, Sherlock, but working with Snivellus, that's going to hurt your reputation," Snape flicked his wand, but Remus defended himself and sent the disarming charm flying back at Snape, before whispering to Sirius and James, "If I'm going to go out of here, then I want to at least go out fighting."
"Good on you, Moony," Sirius whispered, "He's going to tell everyone, and then I'm going to kill him."
"I get to punch him in the nose and teeth." James muttered.
"Sounds good, gentlemen, then I get the cheekbones." Remus said, trying to keep up his rapidly fading bravado.
"I might rip the collar off that coat, maybe that's the source of his intellect." Sirius said. Just as they were beginning to advance on the pair, Sherlock cried, "Now, let's do this properly. Levicorpus!" Remus was pulled into the air, despite James and Sirius trying to pull him down. "Oh dear, are you two going to be a bother?" Snape sneered, "Well we can't have that, Levicorpus!" James and Sirius were pulled into the air, and they were all three hanging upside down, much to the delight of the onlookers, who whooped and hollered as if someone had just scored a point in Quidditch. "The blood is rushing to my head, Prongs," Sirius shouted, "If it explodes, direct the contents onto those two buggers."
"Gladly." James replied, glaring at Sherlock and Snape. Remus remained silent, as if he was waiting to be executed. Sherlock stood there, a ringmaster to all that was about to happen, and said, "So, shall we begin?" Snape muttered,
"Get on with it, Holmes, I want to get this done now."
"So, let's get on with it. The revelation of the century!" He cried, and the baying crowd cheered, "I wonder, have any of you noticed something different about Remus Lupin?"
"You may have noticed," Snape said, bouncing up and down on his toes, like a child about to get a treat, "That Remus Lupin has a lot of time off school."
"Truanting?" Snape said mockingly.
"My mother is…" Remus cried weakly, seeing the look on Sherlock's face. He'd got him exactly where he wanted him. He was doomed.
"Oh yes, your desperately ill mother, that must be it. Why then, does he come back from visiting his mother with scratches and scars, hmmm?" He looked at Remus, waiting for an answer, "No answer? Pity." Sherlock circled them, as a cat would circle and taunt a bird. "So, do you want me to tell the people just why you've been away? Do you want me to tell them the truth about what you really are?"
"No!" Remus cried, the blood banging in his ear from being upside down for so long, "Please, Sherlock, don't do this. You don't understand what you're doing."
"Oh don't I?" Sherlock said through gritted teeth, "I know exactly what I'm doing, and I know why I'm doing it."
"Then tell me why!"
"I'll give you one little word and it starts with an r…"
"Revenge?! But I've never done anything to you! None of us have!"
"It is a dish best served upside down, don't you think, Lupin?" Sherlock walked back into the centre of the circle, and Snape was trying his hardest to remain calm, otherwise it would break the spell, and they might have to start all over again. Sherlock was about to open his mouth when, from behind them, they heard the sound of running feet pounding on the dried out grass behind them, one pair of feet seemed to stop, but one continued and shouted, "Muffliato!" Sherlock's smile faded as he was hit by the jinx, but he continued to move his mouth, he looked rather like a fish gasping for air. The same person shot the jinx at Snape, who lost his concentration and James and Sirius came crashing down, charging at Sherlock and breaking his eye contact, Remus fell to the floor. He scrambled up and ran at Snape, punching and kicking at everything he could find, just so neither of them could spill his secret. "Get off me, Lupin!" Snape shouted, standing up, Remus held onto him, and shouted in his ear, "Watch it, Snivellus, I might bite you or something." Snape reeled round and punched Remus in the nose, James and Sirius were practically on top of Sherlock, and Remus could see that Sirius had him in a headlock, and James was punching him in the nose and teeth. Remus went in for Snape's eye, and got him with surprising force, before Snape lunged at him and they were both on the floor, Remus kicking out with his good leg and Snape trying to hit his bad. "Oi, Moony, do you want to get the cheekbones?" Sirius shouted, as Sherlock tried to hit him in the face,
"Yes! Just let me deal with this!" They both jumped up, and Remus swung his leg round and Snape was down, unconscious on the floor. He was just about to hit Sherlock right in the face, when from behind someone hit him with a branch that had fallen from the tree. "Remus, Sirius, Toe rag, stop this now!" Lily was standing behind them, with Flo and another girl called Tea at her side, all three were holding branches and Tea was trying to prise the boys apart. James' head snapped up once he saw Lily, and he immediately stopped hitting Sherlock, who was lying on the ground, along with Sirius, who Remus thought had been knocked unconscious by a curse that Sherlock had fired at them, because he was gradually turning a rather bright shade of orange. "I'm sorry, Lily," James said, standing up and quickly losing his balance, "So you fired the jinx? You saved Remus from being expel- from all that?"
"Oh no, Potter, I didn't do that, I don't know who did. But I did think that you should stop attacking each other before one of you got killed."
"So who cast the spell?" Remus asked, his voice hoarse.
"I have no idea," Tea said, flatly "All I know is that you lot are going to be lucky not to get expelled."
"She's right," Flo said, grabbing onto Remus, who was about to collapse onto the ground, "None of us know who did it, but we do know that you're all going to come to the hospital wing right now, whether you like it or not." As Tea levitated Sherlock, Snape and Sirius, Flo took Remus and James by the shoulders and Lily opened all the doors for them, Remus looked round and saw, standing by the oak tree, John Watson.
Sun streamed in through the thin blinds of the hospital wing, throwing light on the five figures that lay in the beds, who were lying or sitting up. Sherlock was sitting up, reading the Daily Prophet and trying very hard not to look at the person in the bed next to him, Sirius had spent all of the last night throwing various things as Sherlock when Madam Pomfrey wasn't looking, these objects had ranged from the relatively harmless, (grapes) to the rather large and possibly dangerous, which was a book. Sherlock had asked to be moved to the other side of the room, but Madam Pomfrey said that it was Dumbledore's orders that they should all settle their differences. James was in the next bed, and was also trying very hard to ignore the person in the bed next to him. Snape, who also kept being asked to move, but not because of James, who was ignoring him because he wanted to impress Lily, but because he wanted to be away from Remus. Remus effectively had his own bed in the hospital wing, and he was counting the dust motes that you could see in the sunlight when John, Peter and Lily walked in. Peter was carrying several chocolate frogs, and Lily had a bunch of flowers, which James wrongly thought were for him, and he was slightly annoyed because they were given to Remus, because Lily said that he was the real victim in the situation. John had five bunches of grapes which he plonked on their bedsides, and Sherlock promptly announced that he didn't like green grapes. Sirius didn't like red ones, but neither would swap with each other. "John," Remus called, trying to sit up in his bed, but he went dizzy and lay back down again, "I never said thank you for yesterday."
"It doesn't matter, and besides, none of you were making a lot of sense at the time."
"Oh!" James piped up, "What did we say?"
"Yeah, did we predict the future or something crazy like that?" Sirius exclaimed.
"Erm, no, you just said that you looked like a bloody Satsuma and James kept asking if his face was OK."
"Well, my face is very important." James said huffily.
"I don't still look like a bloody Satsuma do I?"
"No, it's more of a dodgy tan now, mate, you're alright." James reassured him.
John turned to leave, and Remus remembered that he never asked him something, "John, Sherlock, Snape, why did you want to do all of that stuff to me, anyway?"
John looked at the floor, and Sherlock made a huge fuss in rustling the pages of his newspaper, Snape suddenly decided to peel a grape, and was looking at it rather intently, well, looking at it from the eye he could see out of. "We, erm, we wanted to exact a revenge of some sort."
"Although I knew nothing about all this werewolf stuff," John said quickly, "I thought that we were just doing it because of the bludger incident."
"It was a combination of things that have happened to all three of us." Snape said, still looking at the grape.
"So, let me get this straight," James said, sitting up in bed, "John wanted to get revenge for the bludger thing, Snape for, presumably, something to do with Lily and Sherlock… I don't think we've ever done anything bad to you."
"Yes, you have," He said through gritted teeth, "You put that love potion on Molly, and then gave it to Lestrade and then to that Irene girl. It was awful. They were chasing me around for days."
Remus, Sirius, James, John and Snape all looked at each other for a split second and then they burst out laughing. "Oh yes! I remember it well!" Sirius cried, "We wanted to find him a date for the Christmas party, and he wouldn't go with anyone."
"He said that no one could tempt him!" Remus shouted, almost crying with laughter at the memory.
"So I gave the potion to Molly," James said, "And then Remus gave it to Irene, and Sirius, you gave it to Lestrade!" They all collapsed in their beds, laughing. After Madam Pomfrey came in and told them all to calm down, Remus wiped his eyes and got out of bed. He walked over to Sherlock and offered out a hand. Sherlock looked at it, "I won't bite, you know." Remus said. Sherlock took his hand and shook it, "Only when it's a full moon." Sherlock whispered.
"Yes, only at a full moon. You should avoid me then."
"Let's call it a draw, shall we, Remus?" Sherlock said.
"I think we should, otherwise we're all going to end up killing each other."
"That would be tremendously ambitious." He said, turning back to his newspaper.
"John," Remus extended his hand again, and, without hesitation, John shook it, "Thank you so much for saving my bacon yesterday. And thank you for not being too repulsed by me."
"I'm sorry about that, I really am. I don't know what happened. I was just scared, I suppose."
"He can be quite frightening if he wants to be, you know." Sirius said conversationally.
"I guess I can be. But only when I'm furry, I'm not too bad otherwise."
John smiled, and Sirius and Sherlock exchanged their grapes with bandaged hands.
When they left the hospital wing, the four boys went down to the lake with the bit of parchment that they had intended to do something with a few days ago. They sat in the sun, and began to write. Remus' furry little problem had got in the way of their grand plans at the weekend, but, as with the full moon, he changed for a few days and then, as quickly as the sun rose, he was just Remus again. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes saw this now, but Severus Snape, that remained to be seen. However, Remus was sure that they would never strike up a close friendship, as Lily had just agreed to go out with James. Remus sat there in the sun with the friends who had become like brothers, and looked out at everything that Sherlock Holmes had come so close to taking away from him.