I didn't know what to say, so I just stared pitifully up at James and waited.
'Hi, Remus,' he whispered. I'd never seen him like this - he looked terrified.
'Hey,' I replied. My voice came out just as quiet as his did, and the nervous quiver added to its hoarseness just made me sound even more pathetic. 'I don't remember... did I... are you all ok?' He looked away but I kept my eyes firmly locked on his, trying to see in then what he was thinking, but I couldn't read him.
'Yeah, yeah we're all fine. We ran pretty fast when we saw it. You.' He stared fiddling with a loose cotton on his sleeve, concentrating hard on it. We both stayed silent for what was probably only a minute but seemed like so much longer. I felt the trail of one burning hot tear tracing down my cheek. This was what I'd been waiting for, what I knew was inevitable from the start. What my father had always warned me about. Suddenly, with a forceful conviction that almost made me jump, James looked me directly in the eye.
'Dumbledore pulled the three of us into his office last night and made us promise not to say anything to anyone. I want you to know now that that isn't the reason we're keeping your secret - we would have done it anyway. We've suspected it for months, Remus. If it bothered us, we would have done something about it a long time ago. It doesn't change who you are, and it doesn't change us being friends. We were stupid, and we got carried away with the excitement of it. I wish we'd just asked you about it rather than charging off trying to find out for ourselves, but now we've seen it with our own eyes, well I can see it's nothing to laugh about. So I'm sorry - can you forgive me? Forgive all of us? And we can go back to how things were before?'
I blinked, tears falling freely down my face now, stinging the cuts on my chest as they landed. He was asking me to forgive him? Had I hit my head last night during my transformation? An uncontrollable grin spread across my face, just as I heard a commotion from the door of the hospital wing and saw Madame Pomfrey being pushed aside by a gangly figure. Sirius loped next to James and looked down on my appraisingly.
'Merlin, Remus. You look awful! And why's he crying?' He said, looking uncertainly at James.
'I was just telling him how it doesn't matter to us that he's a werewolf', James explained.
'Oh, right. Well of course it doesn't! In fact, we think it's pretty cool, don't we James?' he looked at my bandaged torso and backtracked a bit. 'Well, it's obviously not so cool for you, but...' I smiled painfully, 'but we're here to help you through it now. So no more secrets, ok?'
'Ok.' I replied, unable to believe my luck. At this point, Madame Pomfrey, who had obviously been waiting for a break in conversation, bustled back over to us and herded Sirius and James out of the room. 'Come on now, Remus needs his rest. He'll be back with you in Gryffindor Tower tomorrow morning, you'll have plenty of time to talk then'. I relaxed back into my pillows and fell at once into an exhausted, but happy, sleep.
