~Variations on a Theme by Rowling~
"Severus was very interested in where I went every month," Lupin told Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "We were in the same year, you know, and we – er didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James' talent on the Quidditch field…anyway, Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be – er – amusing, to tell Snape all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it – if he'd gotten as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf – but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back up, at great risk to his life…Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was…"
-Prisoner of Azkaban
I.
"Checkmate! It's checkmate, James!" Peter squirmed in his seat and burst into applause when James' bishop marched triumphantly across the board and smacked Sirius' king in the face.
"They play dirty, the buggers," Sirius muttered, watching his king attempt to stand back up under the weight of James' four remaining pawns, who were suddenly a lot more energetic than they had been four minutes ago.
James leaned back in an oversized chair of Gryffindor-scarlet and smirked. "It surprises me too. You'd think that after so many wins they wouldn't care anymore."
"What's this? So many wins. My arse. You know very well that the score stands at…" Sirius looked up with the pained expression of someone doing complicated math in his head. "247-213, advantage me, I believe? What's it at, Peter?"
There was a soft rustle of parchment from Peter's pocket and then, "247-212. Sirius in the lead." He grinned up at James.
"Ah, 212, not 213. I was being unnecessarily kind."
James snorted and shook the hair out of his eyes. "We'll see where that score is in a month, Black."
"Indeed we will." Suddenly Sirius sat up in his chair smacked his forehead. "Bloody hell, James! I almost forgot!"
James cocked an eyebrow at him and Peter leaned forward.
"Tonight boys, our good friend Snape is in for a real…how should I put this. Treat."
Nothing Sirius had in store for Snape could ever be classified as a treat, but James grinned and folded his arms across his chest, waiting to hear more. "Oh?"
"Yes…" Sirius drawled cryptically, lifting himself from his chair. "What say we take a little trip down to the Whomping Willow? I believe there's a show due to start there any minute."
There was a pause, and the pawns on the chessboard abandoned their prey as a fist came crashing down on top of them.
II.
The intense hatred shared between Potter, Black, and Snape was nothing new to Hogwarts, so when people began to hear that the three of them had spent the better part of the night in the Headmaster's office, no one was particularly surprised.
"I saw them all come out together. I was up early. For Quidditch practice…"
"Dumbledore's office. The whole night. Can't imagine what for."
"The three of them got in big trouble last night, I heard."
"I bet they got into a huge fight. Bigger than usual even."
"Heard Snape and Potter got into one hell of a fight, hexes flying and everything."
"Potter and Snape almost killed each other last night! Rather glad I'm not mixed up in their feuds."
"Almost took each other's heads off! Fighting's gotten worse than usual, I expect. Never seen a case as simple as pure hatred before…"
As Lily Evans walked through the gossip-lined halls to class, she shook her head sadly and continued to wonder why those two couldn't ever do anything nice for each other.
III.
Eaten? Ripped to shreds? Who would let a werewolf into the school? A danger to the students! A menace to society! At a school? OUR children's school! Werewolf? Should be locked up! Isolated! A menace, a threat! My child could have died. Died. The poor Snapes. Only son. Only a child. Werewolf in the school. And who let him in. Dumbledore. Headmaster. Supposed to be. How could he. How could you. Werewolf. Locked away forever, who could let a thing like this happen, you will pay, my child could have died all our children don't you care monster put him away irresponsible headmaster put away forever you'll burn for this dumbledore we don't forget…
"Riddikulus!" Dumbledore points his wand at the morphing wail of parents' cries and accusations, and the boggart disappears in a puff of gray smoke as it tries to pry the duct tape from its mouth.
"Thank Merlin," he mutters to himself, and closes the door to his cupboard.
IV.
Peter will bring Remus two Chocolate Frogs when he visits him in the hospital wing after breakfast. He will have to go by himself because James will be in Dumbledore's office again, and Sirius will have the covers up to his chin, feigning sleep.
Before that, Peter will wake up after a night of tossing and turning, and nightmares and cold sweat. There will be bags under his eyes, but then maybe they've always been there. Sirius' curtains will be drawn and James' bed will be empty, and Remus' sheets will still be made from the previous morning.
And even before that, Peter will peer through the small window of their dormitory and watch Sirius run out into the grass, calling after James in a way that he wants to sound casual. And before that, James will rush out of the Gryffindor common room and down an uncountable number of stairs. Peter will think to himself that running is not his strong point, so he won't go after either of them when he hears Sirius slip through the portrait hole in pursuit.
And much before that, Peter will set aside ten Chocolate Frogs to bring to Remus for his stay in hospital wing the next day. He can't know in advance that his shaking hand will unwrap eight of them for himself during the course of the night.
V.
One afternoon, when Poppy Pomfrey is taking her niece through the picturesque streets of Hogsmeade, the little girl points to a small house with boarded up windows and no door and asks, "What's that, Aunty?"
That's the Shrieking Shack. Or rather, that's what the residents call it. It's really the prison Dumbledore had built for one of the students at Hogwarts. He's a werewolf, and once a month he undergoes a horrible and painful transformation that leaves him scarred and bleeding and mostly unconscious for the next twenty-four hours. I have to lead him down to the passage that takes him to that house, and watch the slouch of his back fade to darkness as he retreats into the tunnel. And I have to go down there when the sun rises and wrap his limp body in a cloak and bring him back to the castle so that I can heal his self-inflicted wounds and try to cover up the means by which they got there. People say that house is haunted, but the sounds they hear are just the cries of Remus Lupin's skin tearing over his bones, and fate laughing at its own cruel joke.
She doesn't say any of that, but she thinks it all the time, even when her niece isn't there to ask. What she doesn't think about is how someone almost died in that house. How when she went at dawn to take Remus back, there would have been trails of blood streaked across the floorboards, broken furniture and shreds of mismatched clothing in every corner of the room. How the smell of blood and death would have lingered in the air, and Remus, god Remus, how his life would have been over.
"Well?" her niece insists, tugging at her aunt's robes.
"That's the Shrieking Shack." And she leaves it at that.
VI.
"Remus."
"…"
"Remus."
"…"
"Remus, will you put your book down and look at me?"
"Why."
"Because I need to talk to you."
"Do you now."
"Remus…"
"What, Sirius."
"Please don't be angry."
"…"
"Remus."
"…"
"I…I'm sorry."
"…"
"Remus."
"I heard you, Sirius."
"Remus, would you please stop reading for a second?"
"I said I heard you."
"And?"
"And."
"I said I was sorry."
"And I said I heard you."
"…Are you angry with me?"
"…"
"Remus?"
"What do you think, Sirius."
"Yes."
"…"
"And…and you have every right to be."
"…"
"I didn't think…"
"No, that's never really been in your capacity, has it."
"Ouch."
"…"
"…"
"You have no right to be hurt right now, Sirius. After what you did to me…"
"I know."
"…"
"And I'm sorry. God, Remus, I'm so sorry."
"…"
"Please. Please. I don't know what to do…"
"…"
"Remus, please…"
"I'm going to take a nap."
"What?"
"'I'm going to take a nap."
"…Ok."
"If I sleep through dinner don't wake me."
"Oh…ok. Can…can I bring you something back? If you do. A…a chicken leg maybe?"
"…Ok. Yeah."
"Ok."
"…"
"Sleep well."
"Yeah."
"…"
"I'll try."
VII.
He kept staring at me all through Potions the next day. James Bloody Potter. Staring at me like I was going to pass out or fall over, like his wolf-in-boy's-clothing accomplice was going to leap over the tables and attack, and this time succeed. But no, the only threat facing me was being paired up with Pettigrew, and I'd already managed to stave off disaster with him twice.
He kept looking over his shoulder while Black rambled, and didn't even notice when their potion started emitting a dark green smoke whose smell was vaguely reminiscent of sulfur and industrial waste. He wouldn't turn away.
Stop looking at me. I didn't die like your friend over there wanted me to.
I hated Potter and Black because they personified everything that was wrong with the world. They were obnoxious and arrogant, and got away with it more than the rest of the world put together. They were mean and spiteful, and I'm not sure if it was in their capacity to change. I hated them because their sole purpose in life was to make mine miserable.
I hated Black because he deserved it.
But I hated Potter even more.
He saved my life. And I don't think you can hate someone after that.
Finale.
It's hard to remember what goes on when the wolf takes over. You try not to think about it later, between the starched sheets of the hospital wing. During class, during meals, playing chess. You try not to think about it but then you do anyway, like something's tapping at your subconscious, telling you to stop denying a part of yourself that you know exists.
So sometimes, when the grain of the sheets is coarse against your skin, or Peter's concentration is focused like a laser beam on your rook, you try to remember what it's like, what goes on. Except it's as if there's layer upon layer of gauze blocking your view, and whenever you try to squint through the pores another sheet falls down on top of you, tangling between your fingers if you try to struggle.
Instead you're left with a flurry of detached senses, sights and sounds and smells that aren't aligned and that you can't piece together. Stretch of sinew, and how your human skin begins to feel unfamiliar over bones whose movements are escaping your will. Dank smells of ground and dirt, and the glue that keeps the gray (someone told you it was yellow) wallpaper over the wood.
Once you woke up the next morning with a strange taste in your mouth, and when you blinked your eyes you suddenly knew the taste of mouse flesh, crunch of fragile bones and tang of blood that you knew wasn't your own. There's always the taste of blood, phantom bitterness and too-rich salt. The sensation pricks at your tongue when you look in the mirror and find a new tear across your back, gouged into the skin and bleeding through the surface of Madam Pomfrey's tape and cotton.
You can't figure out why your fingernails hurt until the blur of a scarred door, thin shards of wood peeling from the surface and dusting the floor, presses itself against the back of your eyes for half a second. Smell of animals, people, in the room, on the other side. You can't remember. You just know that the gray of the room and the smell of flesh and blood is always there, a mist so constant you lose all awareness of it.
But there's one scene you can always remember. The sight of a black cloak spiraling around and fluttering into darkness at the end of a tunnel. Muffled voices and how you lunged after it before it vanished. The memory still haunts your dreams, sharp and real and very, very clear.