MBP – the Ministry scene is one of my favorites, I had fun with it. And continuity is very important to me so I'm glad you noticed the Prank tie-in. Thanks, as always, for your review. :)

Vee-sama – thrilled that you're enjoying it! Thanks for reading and I hope you like the rest of the story.

Nina – thanks for your consistent reviews, I always like getting them and am happy that you continue liking the fic. =)

Oookay, last part before the epilogue!

~Part Nine~

"I never took you for the hiding type." Remus' half-amused comment caught me off guard. I hadn't heard him enter, nor had I expected him so soon. I'd gone to a set of secret passages and rooms that Remus and I had discovered during the Christmas holidays first year. We'd never told the others about it, not even when we created the Map, and it had since become a secret meeting place where we could talk and not have to worry about anyone overhearing.

Invariably, when I was truly troubled, I found myself there. Occasionally, I'd lose track of time and Moony would come searching for me. Sometimes I'd tell him what was wrong and others he'd just sit there with me until I was ready to return to our dormitory. I couldn't count the times I'd gone off on how horrible my family was or the hours I'd spent listening to Remus discuss various things relating to his condition and werewolf rights.

There were two places that we'd recently frequented. One was the foot of an old staircase and the other was this room, small and containing only an old bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a fireplace that hadn't been lit in years. I'd known that Moony would look for me here first but had thought he'd stay in the dormitory a bit longer. He must have remained for no more than a few minutes before coming.

I was sitting near the fireplace with my back against the wall. The door and the fireplace were on the same side of the room. Since Remus had apparently decided to remain in the doorway, I couldn't see him from where I was. Of course, he couldn't see me either. How did he know I was in here?

"I'm not hiding," I finally replied, immeasurably grateful for the fact that we were still beyond each other's vision.

"Really?" I could hear his smile. "What are you doing here then?"

"I was trying to take the easy way out but that never works, does it?" He came further into the room. I could see his indistinct figure out of the corner of my eye.

"It doesn't seem to." He moved to stand in front of me and when I looked at him I wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or repulsed. There were bruises on his face, some old and some very fresh. It looked like someone had used a knife to take a slice out of his right cheek; the scab was thick and red. He also looked haggardly tired; deep, dark circles surrounded his eyes. An unkempt beard contributed to his disheveled appearance. Remus was always clean shaven.

My heart was thudding, sending waves of frigid blood through my body. How had it been for him in that dreadful place? Driven crazy and forced to endure the taunts and physical bullying of the guards? I'd never forget the Werewolf Confinement Center. I'd only been there twice: once to visit Remus when he was mistakenly arrested for Evelyn's murder and once to visit Jeremy, the true werewolf responsible for her accidental death. In total, I couldn't have been within its walls for more than forty minutes. It was enough, though. Enough for me to remember the vile odor of excrement and the filth of unsanitized cells stained with blood. And I would certainly never forget how utterly hopeless Remus had looked when I saw him there.

And it was because of me that he'd been sent there again.

He'd been curled into a fetal position, more wounded than I wanted to remember. How much blood had he lost? How much had seeped out through open cuts to cover his body? The bruises had been ugly – blue and purple and swelling – and they'd been everywhere.

Then there'd been the anger in his eyes. The brutality. The violence… He'd attacked Snape. He'd attacked me. Quiet, withdrawn, soulful Remus had attacked two people because of the blue moon. And then there'd been the remorse. Searing, overwhelming mortification had flooded his wide eyes.

Because of me. It had all been because of me.

Despite my nearly insurmountable guilt, I met his gaze and his eyes almost made me smile. They were gentle eyes, calm and so full of regret. They were the eyes I'd grown used to seeing, the astute ones that were always observing, always contemplating. They were green and brilliant and expressive. They were the eyes of my friend, of Remus.

And they held no anger or censure, only concern, remorse, and weariness. The concern was for me. Trust Remus to come out of hell and still find it inside himself to worry about how I was doing and why I was here. It made me feel worse because I knew I didn't deserve it.

Smiling, he sat down across from me on the floor and pulled his legs up to his chest so that he could rest his chin on his knees. "Sirius, you did the right thing. You did what I should have. A ceremony, however important, isn't worth putting people's lives in danger. I should have gone to Dumbledore as soon as I felt myself slipping. Obviously my judgment was impaired almost from the very beginning."

Oh. Right. James had obviously told him what he thought was bothering me.

"You did the right thing," he repeated. "But you know that. You have to know that."

"I know." The most sensible thing would be to tell him that that wasn't it at all, that I had a horrible confession to make, but I couldn't. Even though just seeing him increased the crushing weight of my guilt, I didn't know how to begin. Words hadn't been invented that could properly express how dreadful I felt.

He was my friend and because of me my brother had…

He frowned a little. "Then why are you here?"

For reasons he deserved to hear but I couldn't bring myself to explain. "I was just worried you'd…hate me for having done it…because of the funeral. I thought you'd blame me…" I continued the charade, adding in a kernel of truth at the end. "I didn't help you."

His eyes expressed his disbelief and the furrow in his brow increased. Leaning forward a little, he repeated my words very quietly. "Didn't help me? How can you even say that?"

I broke eye contact. "I didn't do anything. I just watched you lose yourself a little bit more every day. I should have made more of an effort, talked to you more. Maybe you would have lasted longer. Instead, I got you put back in the Confinement Center."

"Sirius, it was because of the intolerance of our government and of people in general that I ended up there. Not because of you. And there's nothing more you could have done. The potion wasn't working. I was lost from the moment I transformed back. I just refused to admit it." He touched my arm and waited for me to look at him. "Don't tear yourself apart for things you couldn't have changed. You did all you could."

"What? What did I do?" Besides being the reason it had all happened to him, what had I contributed to this nightmare?

He shook his head, as if he couldn't believe I was asking. "You cared." His eyes spoke of his sincerity.

I smiled tentatively. If only he knew. He wasn't at all annoyed with me – I could see that easily – but what would he do when he found out the truth? I cared? Of course I cared. But what did that matter in the face of what my family had done? What did that matter in the face of anything?

If it hadn't been for my parents and brother, there never would have been a choice for me to make. Remus wouldn't have been attacked. He would have been able to take the potion he needed and the blue moon wouldn't have affected him. There would have been no reason for him not to go to the funeral.

"More than that… I think you helped keep me sane for longer than I would have stayed otherwise." At my confused look, he made a confession in a voice turned thick by terrible remembrances. "I was struggling the entire time I was here… As soon as they took me to the Confinement Center, walked me down that long hallway, and threw me into that cell…I lost it. I was just…gone."

Didn't that prove my point, though? If I'd tried harder, made more of a connection and given him something to hold onto, wouldn't he have held on longer? Wouldn't it have been easier for him to stay in control? I'd never know and the uncertainty, the doubts, would always stay with me. Just like my guilt over having told Snape how to get past the Whomping Willow and my guilt for having brought all this down upon Remus. I'd forgiven myself for the Prank. I'd always feel bad but I'd forgiven myself. I didn't think I'd ever forgive myself for the torture Moony had endured because of me.

"You don't have anything to apologize for," he continued, withdrawing his hand. "Nothing at all."

It was the perfect opening. All I had to do was explain how wrong he was and tell him I had more to apologize for than he might believe. "Remus, I–" The words were swallowed by the almost convulsive clenching of my throat. How was I to do this? Our friendship would be over, broken by an insurmountable chasm and rightly so. Couldn't I cling to it for a little while longer? Couldn't I keep it safe and whole before shattering it?

Remus studied me intently, intently enough to see that something was truly bothering me and that it had nothing to do with my being afraid of his not forgiving me for turning him in. He didn't question me, though. He let his eyes speak of his undeserved concern; he let his eyes lend me silent support.

"Neither do you," I forced the words out, trying to ignore my own wretched guilt and ever-present apprehension. "You have nothing to apologize for either."

His expression didn't change but I knew he wanted to believe me. "I already know what you're going to say," he murmured, voice sad and regretful. "It wasn't my fault. It wasn't me. The wolf did those things. I didn't. But Sirius, even you can't change…"

"Can't change what?" I prompted gently, trying to focus on anything but my own emotions.

He closed his eyes. "You can't change the fact that when I came back to myself, your blood was on my hands. It was on my hands."

I silently studied his face, so marred by remorse and self-recriminations. Just as I'd feared. How could I make him see? How could I stop him from blaming himself for this, from losing sleep over this? How could I stop this from haunting his thoughts? He already had enough ghosts in his memory. "Remus," I took his hands in mine and held them palms up. "Open your eyes."

Moony did as I asked, expression torn.

"This isn't you," I squeezed his hands. "These hands aren't you."

His gaze flickered down to his hands.

"You're who you are on the inside, Remus. The wolf takes control of your body. The wolf forces it to do things you'd never do. You remember it because you're still in there somewhere but those things you see yourself doing, in nightmares and in memories, you didn't do any of them." My words were genuine and fervently spoken; I wanted him to know I felt them.

He stayed quiet and very still for a few minutes, eyes unmoving. When he finally looked up at me, his guilt had not faded. "But it's our actions that define us."

I suppressed a sigh. "That's true. But the things you've done don't include hurting your friends or hurting anyone, for that matter. You are a good, kind, and caring person, Remus. If you weren't, you wouldn't feel so horrible for something that's beyond your control."

"If I had fought harder, held on longer… I attacked you, Sirius. If I'd bitten you, who knows what might have happened. Who knows what I might have turned you into. How can you forgive that? How can you forgive me for so much?" I could tell he just didn't understand. He didn't understand how I could not blame him; he probably couldn't even accept the fact that I was telling him the truth, that I wasn't angry with him or repulsed by what he'd done. Words could be easily dismissed, after all. I'd just have to show him that nothing had changed for me, at least nothing about my opinions regarding his condition.

"You fought as hard as you could, you did the best that you could. What more can you ask of yourself?" I let go of his hands. "And don't forget that you stopped yourself. You could have kept going but you didn't. You'd lost control but somehow you pulled through again and stopped the wolf from hurting me more. You did. When you ran out of the dormitory, so horrified at what you'd done, that was you."

"I'm sorry, Sirius." He swallowed. "You might be able to draw a clear line between the wolf and me but I can't. Not anymore. I know that you don't blame me. I know that you don't want me to blame myself. I know. I can't help it, though. I try to tell myself that it wasn't me, that I wasn't the one who punched and kicked you, but those words don't sound real to me. I could have killed you."

I sighed. Why did he have to make things so hard on himself?

"And I know you don't want to hear it but I need to say it. I'm so sorry, Sirius." I could barely understand him he uttered it so softly. "I'm so sorry."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," I assured him but since that wasn't what he wanted from me, I continued. "But if you need to hear me say it, I forgive you."

He nodded distantly. "I don't know what I'll do if I ever actually kill you."

"You won't." By now these words were ineffective but I couldn't stop myself from trying. "Even when you're transformed, a part of you still recognizes me. Even before the blue moon, you still knew who I was and stopped yourself from hurting me more. If the wolf didn't kill me after the Prank and didn't kill me for turning you in, it's because of you. And I trust you, Remus."

He didn't say anything and for a few minutes, neither did I. We both sat there in silence. Remus had his guilt and so did I. I also had my fear, though. I couldn't bring myself to tell him. I wanted to bury the entire incident and never think on it again. I wanted things to continue as if nothing had happened. I just wanted everything to be okay between us.

I was a coward.

I was a coward on so many levels. If I had any courage I'd just tell Remus the truth and allow our friendship to crumble. It was what I needed to do if I truly cared about him. It just wasn't worth the risk. Being my friend had made his life miserable after the Prank. Being my friend had nearly gotten him killed and was the reason he hadn't been able to take the potion that would have preserved his sanity. What else would being my friend do to him?

"Let's get out of here," he suggested, breaking the stillness. "I need to go to the hospital wing so that Madam Pomfrey can treat the wounds I suffered."

I grimaced slightly. That Confinement Center needed to be destroyed and the guards that worked there deserved to be in Azkaban. Remus had been at the mercy of the beast inside him. How could they have hurt him further when he'd already been in such a miserable state? "Was it…really bad?"

He hesitated. "Yes. It was. I don't remember it all very clearly…it'll come back to me later, but they took special delight in tormenting me."

Suddenly, I was grateful that his clothing was probably concealing most of his wounds. "I'll come with you," I offered.

"I'd appreciate that." He stood and held out his hand.

I took it and allowed him to pull me to my feet. We left the room side by side.

"So I've noticed that Peter's a bit quieter than usual. Did anything happen while I was gone?" Remus wondered.

James glanced at me. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to explain, he did. "Peter's rightfully angry because both of us know where you were these last few weeks and wouldn't tell him. He still doesn't know about the blue moon or about the Confinement Center. Sirius didn't want to break his word to you and I…knew you'd have held me to the same promise."

"Oh," Remus paused, clearly trying to figure out what to do about that. "I'll talk to him…just have to figure out something to say."

"You can tell him the truth," Prongs offered. "He'll understand. He really will."

Moony didn't seem so sure. "It's not so easy for me to believe that…I'm the one with the condition people don't accept. Whenever something else happens I have to wonder…"

"Wonder what?"

Remus shook his head. James looked at him intently but I understood. I knew what he was thinking. He always wondered whether now would be the time we'd turn against him. He accepted that we cared for him but always worried that somehow he might do something that would make us change our minds about the werewolf thing.

"I can't believe how much I have to catch up on," Moony groaned. "I'll never make it."

"Yes you will. We'll help you. Both of us," he gestured in my general direction. "Seriously, Remus. Any help that you need, as much time as it takes, just ask."

He smiled. "Thank you."

"We have something for you." He looked at me again but I made no motion to move or speak. I was listening and paying attention but in a constant state of apprehension and self-loathing. I had to tell Remus about my family. I had to. I just didn't want to. Would it be easier to just let things rest? "This was put together by Lily, Peter, Sirius, and myself."

Remus watched curiously as James rummaged through his things, emitting a triumphant sound when he found the notebook he was searching for. Handing it to Moony, he barely allowed our friend to flip through it before telling him what it was. "See, between the four of us we have all the same classes you do. We copied all our notes for the last few weeks. It should make doing the assignments a lot easier."

Moony practically lit up. "Brilliant. Thank you."

"It was Sirius' idea."

When Remus nodded in my direction, I smiled dully.

"Dumbledore must have talked to my professors," he continued, sending me a concerned look. "They've all made a point of seeing me and saying that they'll devote any extra time necessary to explaining the material I missed."

"Great," James grinned.

I sighed, more loudly than I'd intended. Both of my friends shifted to look at me. Had James told Remus I'd been rather…depressed lately or was it that obvious that I wasn't feeling well? I could tell that Moony was worried. He had been since our conversation in the old abandoned room. I felt bad for that. The last thing I wanted was to add to his troubles. I just couldn't seem to break out of my dejected mood. Everything had turned out so dark lately.

"Oi!" Prongs nearly yelled, causing both Remus and I to start. "I'm supposed to meet Lily in the common room. I nearly forgot."

Rolling my eyes, my lips tweaked up a bit as James practically ran from the dormitory.

Remus chuckled before returning to his studies.

Closing my eyes, I rearranged myself on the bed until I was comfortably lying on my back. It was unfortunate that I wasn't skilled at Memory Charms. If I was, I could wipe away all knowledge of my family's actions and be happier for it. I'd have been better off not knowing who had been responsible for the attack and the blue moon fiasco. I saw my brother practically everyday. It'd been hard before, now it was nearly impossible. He rekindled my anger just by entering my field of vision. I even found myself wishing we'd never been close. Maybe then this wouldn't hurt as much. Maybe then I wouldn't feel the level of personal betrayal that I did.

"Sirius?" Moony's tentative voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Yeah?" I didn't open my eyes.

"Ian says that it was a beautiful ceremony," his tone was wistful and I immediately gave him my full attention when I realized what he was talking about. Before the Confinement Center he'd barely acted as if anyone had died at all. "My mum wasn't religious so instead of getting a priest my dad simply recounted his fondest memories of her, including how they first met. When he was finished he asked other people to share their recollections. My dad had them both buried with the rest of their family, like they wanted."

I smiled. "I know. I was there."

I opened my eyes just in time to see his surprised expression. "Really? My uncle must not have seen you."

"I…er…borrowed James' Invisibility Cloak," I admitted, hoping he wouldn't delve too far into this.

He set aside the papers he was looking at. "Why? You would have been welcome. Ian would have been happy to sit with you."

"I know. I just… It felt odd to be there without you and…" It had also seemed wrong for me to be there with Remus locked away and I hadn't wanted to speak with Ian, not with the knowledge I had about the attack on his nephew.

"And?"

"It doesn't matter," I lied, knowing he'd hear the deception and hoping he'd let it rest.

There was a long pause before he answered. He was probably debating what to say. Remus was so careful with his words. He finally settled on, "Thank you for going."

I shrugged. "It was the least I could do. How…how are you doing with…that?"

Again, he seemed to consider before answering. "Sometimes I think it gets a little bit harder everyday."

The response and the painfully child-like tone of it almost broke my heart but I also felt a small measure of relief. At least he wasn't pretending he was over it, like he had before. "I wish I knew what to tell you."

I was so worried about him. I worried how he would take having been unable to defeat the wolf. I worried how he would deal with having attacked Snape and having attacked me. I worried about how the Confinement Center would affect him. He seemed to be relatively okay, considering everything. I could see his guilt almost every time I looked at him and he was grieving for his losses, but that was normal. He barely mentioned the Confinement Center itself. Last time it'd been so hard for him and he'd only been there a day. This time could hardly have been any easier considering his own state of mind when he entered.

"Don't tell me anything. You don't have to." His gaze fell to the notebook we'd put together for him. "Are you going to Hogsmeade tomorrow?"

"I wasn't planning on it. James and Lily are gonna look at tuxes but…" I didn't feel like weighing down their day with my melancholy. I didn't want to be there if I couldn't be as involved as I should be, as I wanted to be. "I'll just stay here, I think."

"I'm going to visit the cemetery where my mum and Grams are buried. If it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience–"

"I'd be–" I'd planned to say, 'happy to go with you' but that didn't sound quite right. The words 'happy' and 'cemetery' weren't at all related to one another. "Of course I'll go with you."

His lips moved but the sound they made didn't reach me. It didn't mater, though. I knew what he'd said. 'Thank you.'

Remus went back to looking over some of the material that he'd missed and I closed my eyes again. A few minutes passed, just enough for me to think our conversation was over and to be a little caught off guard when he spoke again. "If you'd like to talk to me about anything, I'll listen. You don't have to feel like you shouldn't bother me because I've got so much to do or because of everything that's happened to me recently." He fell silent for just a moment. "Just so you know."

I let my eyes drift open but by the time I looked at my friend he'd returned his attention to studying. I stared at him for awhile, long enough for him to feel my gaze and shift back towards me. Wordlessly, we held each other's eyes. I'd never know what he read in mine but his contained sorrow and a level of concern that awed me. How could he have suffered so much and still feel such worry for me?

Remus slept late the next morning. Usually, on the day following the full moon, he'd rest for a little while and attend classes. If he was exceptionally tired, he'd miss his first class but make it to all the rest. The fact that Moony didn't wake up until past eleven in the morning, well after the others had gone to Hogsmeade, was an expression of how exhausted he'd really been.

We barely spoke to each other as he dressed and had breakfast. It was by wordless consent that we left the castle together. When we stopped at a small flower shop on the way to the cemetery, I watched from the counter as he looked through their entire selection before purchasing two small bouquets.

It was warm and sunny by the time we reached the cemetery, which was located in the beautiful rolling hills of the country. His mum and grandmother were buried with the rest of their family so Remus knew exactly where to go. With a heavy step, he walked through the lonely rows of plaques and markers. Stopping occasionally for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom, he'd stare at the inscriptions left over some of the graves or look aimlessly into the distance, at the clouds that lined the sky. Then he'd nod and continue.

I trailed behind him, hoping he'd find my silence support enough.

We arrived first at his grandmother's grave. He stood before it for a few minutes, head bowed, before leaning forward to place one of the bouquets against the base of the tombstone. Then he collected himself and slowly walked the short distance to where his mum was buried. Here, he sat down on the grassy area in front of the headstone, holding his single remaining bouquet of flowers in front of him in trembling hands.

Swallowing, I stood back a pace and simply watched. If he hadn't wanted me to join him I would have thought I was intruding. Surely this was a very private moment.

I wasn't certain how much time had passed when Remus spoke. "My uncle says I should give my father another chance."

"What? Why?" Remus' father was a bastard. He barely spoke to his son, barely looked at him, not since the night Remus had been bitten. He'd forced Remus to transform and spend his full moons inside a small cage that had only magnified the horrible experience. He probably would have turned him out on the streets if it hadn't been for his wife, who had loved her son regardless of the curse that had befallen him.

"He says there's a lot I don't understand." His voice was full of so much pain that it pulled me forward a step. "My father was raised Catholic. Unlike Ian, he never turned from it. I don't know much about the religion but I've always thought he hates me because, somehow, he believes I have the devil inside me…or some nonsense like that."

I really had no idea what he was talking about. I knew very little about Catholicism, the devil, heaven, or hell. I did know, from my course in Muggle Studies, that their religions contributed to a great deal of intolerances and prejudices, just as they did for us. Taking that into consideration, what he said was certainly plausible.

"Ian says I'm wrong, though. He says my father loves me and that he always has. He says the reason he won't talk to me is because…he feels guilty. He blames himself for my condition. He thinks he should have watched me closer that night, that if he had I never would have run off and been bitten."

I couldn't tell by his tone whether he believed Ian or not. "What do you think?"

"If he'd told me this before my mum was…killed, I would have dismissed it out of hand. Now…" he shrugged. "I don't know. I really don't. I'd love to…fix things between us, he's my dad, but I can't forget how he's treated me. But my mum is dead," his voice broke. "And everyday it seems a little more real a-and I miss her a little more."

His shoulders were trembling slightly and suddenly I realized he was crying. It'd been so long since I'd seen him cry. Not since first year, when he'd been an insecure eleven-year-old boy afraid of his friends learning his secret and turning away from him or worse, turning on him. I wasn't sure what to do. I couldn't just stand here, though. I couldn't just stand here.

Stepping forward until I was next to him, I lowered myself to the ground. Remus turned his head to look at me. His cheeks were wet and his eyes were pools of water. Every few seconds a bead of liquid spilled onto his face and trailed down it. When he blinked, more tears fell.

"I tried so hard to bury it all," he continued, voice tremulous but not as tremulous as I expected. "After I heard the news, I thought it'd be easier if I just didn't let myself feel or think about it. I forced myself to just make it through each day as if nothing had changed." He squeezed his eyes shut. "It didn't work, though. Instead of pain, I just felt empty."

I stared at him helplessly when he began to cry harder.

Taking several deep breaths, he allowed his eyelids to slowly open. "Making amends with my dad, I think it would make this easier, somehow. It wouldn't make the pain…go away but it'd be easier."

Feeling awkward, I placed my hand on his shoulder.

Remus tried to smile. "Will it get easier?"

What a question. Was there really an answer for it? I'd never lost anyone that important to me. If James or Remus died I could only imagine how difficult it would be, how painful. I'd probably never stop missing them. It'd lessen after time, the acute hurt and sadness, but would it really get easier? "I don't know."

"Neither do I," he murmured, sniffing a little.

His tears gradually subsided over the next few minutes. Eventually, he leaned forward and placed the flowers he'd purchased over his mum's grave. I hadn't noticed before but they were all different kinds and different colors. His grandmother's were all the same. I didn't know the name of the flower but they were purple.

"Mum loved flowers so much," he commented. "I wasn't sure what her favorite kind was. I'm not even sure she had one."

I remembered Moony's house well. It was small and old – they'd used most of their money trying to find a cure for him – but his mum had brought it to life with her flowers. They'd been in every room. Fresh ones and dried ones, in vases and hanging in arrangements on the walls.

He smiled. "I think I'll miss her flowers." Then he shook his head. "I'm sorry. We've been out for hours. I should have just come alone."

I dismissed his concerns easily. "You know that we can stay as long as you want."

His eyes brightened with gratitude because he knew that I meant it. And I did.

It took a long time for Remus' breathing to return to normal and for the unsure, frightened look to fade from his wide eyes. Even when it did, his skin remained clammy and his disheveled hair, stuck and matted to his face in wild disarray, told of the terrors he'd witnessed in the world of his dreams.

I stayed with him while he calmed, as was my habit. It'd been a long while since the last time I'd had to wake Remus from a nightmare. They'd grown more infrequent as time passed but were no less horrible when they did strike. It wasn't hard to understand why. I wouldn't want the dreams that being a werewolf would surely bring.

"What did you see?" Normally I didn't ask that question but this time it slipped out before I could stop it.

It took Remus so long to answer that I almost thought he wasn't going to. "Flashes from when I was at the Confinement Center… It was different than the last time I was there. When Evelyn was killed I had the capacity to understand and contemplate the cruelty and injustice of a system that creates a place like the Confinement Center. Knowing that people think I deserve that fate made it more difficult to bear.

"This time, I had no such thoughts in my mind. I was wild and enraged. I hurt myself as often as the guards hurt me. I didn't understand anything, only my thirst for violence." He brushed the damp tangled locks of his hair from his face. "When I dream it's my memories that haunt me. I remember throwing myself at the walls, sometimes trying to reach the guards and sometimes out of a need to feel the pain. When I was at my worst, I used my nails to cut my wrists."

As he spoke, I imagined the things he described. I could see it in my head, his face contorted by primal fury as he ran his body into the walls or energy barrier, crying out in reaction to the painful shock. In my mind he was crouching in a corner, digging his blunt nails into his skin again and again until finally, blood seeped out. I could see the guards too. The same one that had been there when I'd visited Remus, along with a couple others, holding him down and taking turns–

Everything I imagined was because of me. It was all my fault and I finally couldn't stand to hold my tongue any longer. He needed to know. "It's because of me," I admitted raggedly. "It's all because of me. Everything you've suffered, from the attack to the blue moon… I'm to blame."

Remus looked at me as if I'd sprouted horns. "Whatever are you going on about? I know you think highly of yourself but surely you're past the point of believing the world revolves around you and Prongs?"

It was a joke but I didn't smile. He simply didn't understand.

His slight smile faded. An apology in his eyes. He was wishing he had spoken with more care.

Retrieving my wand from the nightstand by my bed, I muttered a Silencing Charm so that if James and Peter happened to actually wake up they wouldn't hear us.

Seeing that I was dead serious and seeming to understand that this was what was bothering me, Remus scooted back on his bed so that there was room for me to settle across from him. Once I was sitting on the mattress, I closed the curtains of his canopy and drew my legs under me. I'd created a floating Lighting Charm – a radiant ball that followed the spell caster – before springing across to Moony's bed to wake him. Now it seemed magnified within the enclosed space. I was struck by how it brought Remus' features into sharp relief, making it all that much easier to read his emotions. Somehow, I wanted his eyes and face to be obscured. I was afraid of what his reaction might be.

I took a deep, steadying breath but refused to meet my friend's gaze. I'd told Remus about the Prank and about having gone to Dumbledore. I could do this as well. And I did. From beginning to end, without pause, I explained everything that my brother had told me the night I'd confronted him. It was made easier by the fact that I said it all while looking at my hands and without stopping. If I'd paused for so much as a second I would have lost the courage to admit what had been plaguing me for what seemed an eternity.

Remus listened to my miserable confession in complete silence. Even when I finished, he sat there without saying so much as a single word. The first few minutes were easy to handle, he needed time to grasp what I was saying, but as they multiplied and dragged on I feared that my apprehension would cause my heart to pound its way free of my chest.

I wanted to give him as much time as he needed to wrap his mind around what I had told him but his lack of a response was nearly painful to endure. I needed to know what he was thinking. "Remus, please say something. You don't have to worry about sparing my feelings. Believe me, I don't think it could get much worse for me."

"Sirius–"

"If you blame me, that's fine. You should. I blame me. And if you'd rather that I not have anything more to do with you, I understand. You should feel that way."

"Sirius–"

"I mean, you didn't trust me for the last seven years to have me be the reason so much awful shit happened to you." I was at the point where I wasn't even sure what I was saying, exactly. It just helped to talk, to form the words and focus solely on maintaining the flow of sound. "I just wanted you to know, to hear it from me. And even if you don't think you can ever trust me again, I'd just like to say that I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen."

"Sirius!" I looked up when his hands came to my shoulders and shook me, hard. "You are infuriating. First you ask me to say something and then you babble on so that I can't get in a word edgewise."

Lowering my eyes before they could catch sight of the emotion in his, I nodded glumly. I was simply very nervous. Telling him helped – at least my guilt was no longer secretly born – but I still could not forget that it was all because of me. Everything that had been done to him was because of me.

Remus released me. "I must admit that I'm a bit…shocked. I knew that I was attacked because I'm a werewolf." It wasn't an easy thing for him to say. His voice was strangled by sorrow. "I'd never thought… I mean, I never even considered that someone might have done it specifically to ensure I couldn't take the Branimir Potion. Even after all that's happened to me and everything I've seen, I never would have imagined that someone could be that…" he struggled to find the appropriate word to express himself, "…cruel. How can the world contain people that are so…heartless? I try and imagine what others are feeling, to understand where they are coming from, but that's something I simply can't comprehend."

No decent person could.

"Realizing such people exist is…hard. None of what's happened to me recently has been easy but, Sirius, I don't blame you for it. I don't blame you for any of it," he seemed…astounded by the mere thought of doing such a thing. "You and James, and Dumbledore, and Peter, of course, are the reason that I can stand to think of such things. It's easier to see how malicious people can be when I have friends to remind me that there is still kindness in this world as well."

I should have felt ecstatic. I should have felt insanely relieved. Instead, all I felt was confusion. I understood the words and heard the absolute sincerity with which they were spoken but couldn't believe them. Was he daft? Hadn't he heard what I'd told him? My family had done all of this to him because they had known it would hurt me. That made it all my fault. Yes, they hated him because he was a werewolf but they wouldn't have gone out of their way to make things this hard for him if it weren't for me. How could he sit there so calmly and say it was all right?

"You can't forgive me," I protested, finally looking into his eyes. "You can't. This isn't something you forgive. You nearly died. And then your…humanity was ripped away from you. I'm not sure which one of those things is worse. Maybe it doesn't matter. In the end they're both horrible. And my family did that to you. It's reprehensible! It's disgusting and they did it on purpose to get to me… You can't just forgive me."

"Sirius," he whispered, gripping my arm comfortingly. "Your family is…beyond atrocious. But you aren't them. You didn't tell them to do this or ask them to do this. You weren't at your brother's side when his friends and him attacked me. You didn't do anything at all. Certainly nothing to feel sorry for. Forgive you? I don't forgive you because there's nothing to forgive. You didn't hurt me."

His eyes held more worry for me than they did anything else. I couldn't stand to see it anymore than I could grasp what he was so ardently telling me. How could he say those words? How could he believe them? What was wrong with him? "If you'd never met me none of this would have happened to you. How does that not make it my fault?"

"Your family did it because of you but that doesn't mean it's your fault." His voice was just as loud and fervent as it ever was. "You can't help being related to them anymore than you can control their actions. You're not them and you didn't do any of this to me."

I stared at him in silence. I didn't know what else to say. He didn't hold me responsible. And I…I wasn't sure what to think. I hadn't…lost him. I'd been horrified of what his reaction would be. I'd expected him to hate me as much as I hated myself. I'd expected him to turn away from our friendship and strangely…that had offered a small parcel of comfort.

It was contradictory, I knew. First I'd been worried that he would blame me for not being able to attend the funeral and then I'd been worried he'd blame me for everything. Thinking that I'd lose him as a friend had been…painful. But at least then I wouldn't be able to ruin things for him again. At least then I wouldn't find some way of doing something worse.

"Sirius, why do you want me to blame you?" he surprised me by the directness of the question and by how well he'd understood the heart of my protestations.

"I…" It was so difficult to explain. It would have made more sense for me to be pleased by his reaction but perhaps I'd always been more concerned about my own guilt and how similar to my family I was than I'd been about Remus holding me responsible. I didn't really want him to blame me, I just thought it'd be better that way. I didn't want to lose him as a friend, I just thought it'd be better that way. I was just like my parents and brother. I could hurt people just as badly as my family could. It'd be safer for Remus, for James, and for everyone else to detach themselves before I could hurt them as well. "I've already seriously hurt you."

"The Prank?" he surmised. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"What's to stop me from doing it again?" I entreated. "If I can do something like that, and my family can do something like this," I gestured towards one of the many new scars he'd acquired due to the attack, "What's to stop me from doing something worse?"

"It was a mistake. People learn from their mistakes." He tightened his hold on my arm and smiled encouragingly. "You have."

"No. I haven't."

He looked incredulous again. "You've changed a lot since then. You don't pull any pranks that'll hurt or seriously humiliate anyone. Not even on Snape, not unless he hexes you first. When James purposefully goes off to torment him, you stay behind. You never used to. You study more now, do all your homework, try to be considerate… How can you say you haven't changed?"

"I nearly killed my brother," I admitted with difficulty, telling Remus what I hadn't even told James.

"What?"

"When I confronted him about what he'd done to you…I-I nearly killed him. I used the Erdrosseln Charm and I enjoyed it. I didn't even think about it. I almost stood there and watched him suffocate. It would have been so easy to watch him…"

I couldn't tell whether Remus was taken aback. He absorbed the information without showing any surprise or disgust and took a few moments to collect his thoughts before replying. "But you didn't."

"What?"

"You didn't watch him suffocate," he smiled, eyes accepting and reassuring. "You stopped. You stopped yourself. And now you feel horrible. That alone shows how unlike your family you are. Your brother's proud of what he did to me. You hate yourself for what you almost did to him. You were angry, Sirius and you reacted without thinking. That doesn't mean–"

"I get angry and react without thinking a lot, don't you think?" I demanded, almost despairingly. "It's the reason I told Snape how to get past the Whomping Willow. It's the reason I almost attacked Snape and it's the reason I almost attacked you."

"Almost attacked me?" he repeated in disbelief. "You pushed me, you didn't almost attack me. You didn't even hurt me."

"I wasn't even angry with you. I was angry with Snape but I vented it on you anyway. Without thinking. What if next time I do something worse? What if next time I don't stop myself and I really do…kill someone. Without thinking."

"You won't," he said simply.

I frowned at how much conviction those two words carried. "How do you know?"

"Because I trust you," he smiled. "If you can trust me not to kill you when I transform, even when we're alone in the Shack and there's no one to help you deal with me, then I can trust you not to ever go that far either. Maybe we can both trust each other in what we're not willing to trust ourselves."

I stared at him, unsure of what to say. When I looked at him I knew he'd never do what he was so afraid of. I knew that Moony would never kill Padfoot no matter how wild or out of control he was. I knew. Even if Remus didn't, I did. Did he feel that same conviction regarding me?

"When I look at you, I feel horrible, Sirius," his tone was frank but gentle. "I see how much I hurt you and I feel horrible. And it doesn't matter that you don't blame me. I still feel horrible. Then I remember what I said to you about the Prank and breaking your word and I feel worse. And I know what you'll say about that too. I didn't mean what I said so it doesn't matter, right?"

I nodded.

A sad sort of joy flickered in his eyes. "Look at me and tell me that what I said didn't hurt you," he requested softly.

Shifting uncomfortably, I lowered my gaze. I couldn't say that.

"That's what I thought. And so I feel guilty for that, too. When I think about all of that, Sirius, when I think of all the times I've hurt you or James during one our full moon adventures, I sometimes wish that you'd stop being such a good friend to me. Sometimes I think it'd be easier to lose you then it would be to deal with seriously hurting you. But no matter what I do, you're still there," he smiled brightly.

I was struck by the similarity of our emotions. Was that really how he felt? I never thought… I realized he was constantly worried about harming me while transformed but I never knew the emotion ran so deep. I never knew he was that terrified of what he might do, terrified enough to partially wish I'd stop being his friend because at least then I'd be safe.

"Sometimes it scares me but most of the time…it's brilliant. Well…I'm going to do same thing for you now. I'm going to stick around even though you're afraid of hurting me or someone else you care about because I know you won't do it. I know."

So again he could forgive me where I couldn't forgive myself. I… What was I supposed to say to that? He was my friend. After all of this, he was still my friend. It was amazing and I was grateful but…it didn't change the way I felt. It didn't change my own fears or guilt. Of course, I'd never been able to change his either. In the end, we each had to do that on our own.

"I know you feel horrible right now. I can see the guilt in your eyes. I saw it after the Prank as well. I also saw it fade," he finally released my arm and leaned back. "This will fade, too. The guilt that I carry… It doesn't really get easier for me but I've learned to deal with it better and eventually I'll learn to deal with it for everything I've done recently too. Just give it time."

Just give it time. Maybe he was right. It'd been hard for me after the Prank but things had improved. It had taken months but the force of my guilt had softened and I had learned that it wasn't a bad thing to feel sorry for what I'd done and always carry that sorrow with me. This would get easier too. Nothing stayed the same forever. I wouldn't feel this horrible forever. And if this changed me just as the Prank had changed me then maybe I wouldn't turn out like my family. Maybe I wouldn't always be capable of doing horrible things out of anger. If I worked on it, remembered all the reasons why I had to work on it, maybe I could master my tendency to act without thinking.

Maybe. It wasn't a guarantee but it was something.

Remus smiled. "We'll be okay. In time. You'll see."