Bluntly
Sirius is not a superstitious person.
He tried to ignore the way magical media skewed ideas and generalized people, but in the end he is just a twelve year-old boy, living for years under the impression that half-breeds are brutes, that house-elves are lessers, that the best magic is the ancient, crude kind Dark wizards still put into play.
Of course, a few months among any company his parents can't censor – like his friends and peers at school – would steer him in a more moderate direction, but Sirius still has that inkling of doubt – of suspicion.
And so he enters the dormitory that cool night with a pained conscience, trying not to appear frightened or angry – but Remus is there all alone and that terrible knowledge weighs so heavily on his shoulders and before Sirius knows it, he was saying,
"So you're a werewolf."
Remus stares.
Sirius stares back.
Honestly, this wasn't planned, but Sirius was never as close to Remus as the boys liked to pretend and he's so confused and guilty right now. In fact, he's so confused and guilty that he doesn't even register the next few lines of dialogue. He just knows it must be something bad because suddenly they're rolling on the floor, grunting and wrestling in the most impulsive hand-to-hand combat there ever was. Me and my big mouth, Sirius thinks as he lets Remus punch him in the eye. Tears well up and blood is streaming from someone's nose.
He didn't mean to call his friend out on it – actually, he didn't even mean to discover the secret for himself. What kind of boy starts to chart his friend's absences, weigh his excuses in his mind, question the validity of every word? A bad one, Sirius suspects, which is why he's curled up on the ground staring at the droplets of red sliding down the floorboards. Faintly the smell of piña colada meets his nose. He doesn't know why.
Remus sits back and, breathing hard, clenches his fists and furrows his brow. He's thinking about something, Sirius dimly notes while making no effort to rise.
He's actually comfortable here, basking in the blurred reality of the fight. It was a nice wake-up call.
"I don't want you to tell anyone," Remus says harshly, with a little tremble in his voice. It's probably not the first time he's been confronted like this, but judging by the shaking of his hands and the muddled expression on his face, it's the first time he's reacted so violently.
It's in your nature, Sirius wants to tell him, laughingly. Because being in the Black family has taught him that; one can only ignore his breeding and bone for so long.
He smiles cruelly at himself, thinking he's really not a superstitious person.
Author's Note: So here's the oneshot I said I would write.
Sirius is based on myself, actually. I pretty much blindly followed my parents' belief system until I hit high school and start to think and consider what I really wanted from life. Same with him.
But truthfully, we can never really forge a new life, only differ slightly from those before us so our successors might be a little more tolerable. If that makes sense.
