AN: Um… it will work out in the end, I promise. But it'll be a rocky road until then. This story has started to write itself. I hadn't intended them to kiss in chapter 12, and I did not foresee that little bit of werewolf trivia in chapter 13. But there is a reason for it, it just takes my original idea a bit farther than I had anticipated.
And yes, I did choose the form Sirius changes into in this chapter because of the song. And many apologies to Dr. Ramose, my 10th grade Latin teacher, for butchering his favorite language in this and all future chapters.


"Enchanted by the power
Licked by the grace
One beautiful black flower
The end of human race

Interested in what I see
Try that Rorcharch test on me
Have you seen the beauty of
The enchanting beast?"

~ Wolf & Raven, Sonata Artica

Sirius was nearly giddy by September 1st. It was the start of another school year. Another year with his friends, and another year with Remus.

Io had seen him to King's Cross, and then left him to his own devices from there. Which he didn't mind, it was much better than riding the bus all the way there with that heavy trunk. He quickly made his way to Platform 9 and 3/4 and started looking around for his friends. Neither James, Peter or Remus were in sight, but he did see someone else he recognized.

"Hello Mr. Lupin!" Sirius said brightly as he approached him. Tiberius Lupin jumped and turned to look at Sirius with a wild and rather fearful expression until he actually registered who was speaking to him.

"Oh...hello Sarz," Tiberius said casting a nervous glance towards the Hogwarts Express.

"Sirius," he corrected absently. "Is Remus already on the train?" he asked politely. Tiberius nodded once before he seemed to shake himself out of his stupor and turned to leave. "Bye!" Sirius called after him before making a b-line for the part of the train Remus' father had been staring at.

It wasn't that difficult to find Remus, he was curled up on the window seat of the last compartment, staring out the window blankly.

"Hi Remus, how are you?" Sirius said, smiling at him. The other boy didn't even acknowledge his presence. "Remus?" he tried again going to stand in front of the other boy.

"Leave me alone Sirius," Remus said softly, still not looking at him. Sirius reached out and put a hand on the other boy's shoulder.

"What's wrong Remus?" he asked, suddenly very worried about him. But without taking his eyes from the window Remus reached up and pushed Sirius' hand off.

"Don't touch me," he said in that same soft flat voice. 'Oh no, what did I do?' Sirius thought desperately.

"R-Remus, what ever it is...I'm sorry? I-I..." he stuttered out. He'd thought, after their trip to Diagon Alley, that maybe? But then why was Remus suddenly acting like this?

"Go away, Sirius," Remus said, slightly louder.

"No! At least tell what I did to piss you off!" Sirius pleaded loudly before grabbing Remus by the shoulders and forcing the smaller boy to look at him. Remus immediately pushed him away, sending him crashing into the seats across the compartment.

"Go away! Get away from me and leave me alone! I don't want to talk to you, I don't want to look at you, I don't want to have to think about you ever again!" Remus said, his voice starting out quiet but building in volume until he was screaming.

Sirius stared at him for a long moment. And he swore he could feel it as his heart gave a sickening twist and shattered into a million pieces. Hurt and pain swirled inside of him and started to boil down into anger, and before he realized what he was doing he'd pulled back his fist and punched Remus across the face.

Both boys stared at each other in shock.

"R-remus...oh god, I-I didn't..." he tried to explain, to apologise but fell silent at the look in Remus' bright gold eyes. Bright, flat, and cold.

"Get. Out." Sirius ran.

James and Peter had eventually found him, curled up, much like Remus had been, in a compartment near the front of the train. They tried to get him to tell them what was wrong, but he just shook his head and said nothing. Most of the trip was spent in silence, broken only when James or Peter whispered to each other, trying to figure out what was wrong. James finally got the courage to talk to him at around sunset.

"Where's Remus?" he asked cautiously. Sirius cringed and curled up tighter.

"I don't know...he doesn't want to talk to me?" he croaked out. He saw Peter open his mouth to say something, but James prudently clapped a hand over the other boy's mouth.

"Did...did anything happen after I left?" James asked quietly. Sirius looked at him and smiled mirthlessly.

"Yeah...he kissed me," he said before turning back to looking out the window. "And now he wants nothing to do with me...he didn't even tell me what I did wrong?"

They spent the rest of the trip in silence, and the carriage ride from the train, and the welcoming feast, by the time they made it to the common room the silence was so thick around them, and Sirius especially, that they started attracting stares from the other Gryffindor.

Sirius sat down in one of the chairs close to the fire and told James and Peter to go on up to bed.

"You're going to sleep down here, aren't you." James said and Sirius just nodded.

"Do you really think I'd be able to sleep up there?" he asked dully.

"You're right. Come on Peter," James said, heading up to their dorm. Peter protested meekly, but still followed the bespecalled boy up the stairs.

But he didn't sleep. Sirius spent the whole night staring off into space, thinking. Wondering how he could get Remus to forgive him, both for whatever had made him so mad in the first place and for hitting him.

His mind drifted back to the plan he had thought up over the summer. Of seeing if there was a way for Sirius to be with him during the full moon, so that Remus wouldn't have to face that alone anymore. The next full moon was the upcoming Saturday. Sirius had started looking up the lunar charts early last year and was pretty sure that by now he knew when the moon would be full for the next five years.

Maybe whatever had made Remus pull away had been a werewolf thing. The smaller boy did tend to take that rather seriously. So maybe...if he showed Remus that his lycanthropy wasn't a problem, he'd forgive him.

Sirius spent the week immersed in the book he brought with him, the 'Ex Magus ad Bestia'. The animagus process would take too much time, and he needed to know that Remus' wolf form wouldn't attack him in animal form before he tried something that permanent. He briefly considered becoming a werewolf himself, but concluded that Remus would not be pleased if he did that. He finally decided on the 'commuto cornix' spell, which would turn him into a raven for twenty-four hours.

So the night before the full moon Sirius went up to the top of Gryffindor tower and started casting the spell. The words of the spell weren't that complex, but the power that had to be put behind the spell and the focus that was needed to achieve the desired results were near impossible, in Sirius' opinion. He cast it over and over again, getting more and more frustrated until finally he grabbed his wand in both hands, pointed it at his chest and yelled the spell at the top of his lung.

It worked. His body immediately started to ripple and shift beneath his skin. It wasn't painful, but it was truly terrifying. As he watched, his arms drew in and his fingers fused together, and large black feathers started to sprout from beneath his skin. His body started changing shape and he doubled over, trying to cry out in fear, but all that came out was the screaming wail of an angry raven.

As soon as it had began, it stopped. And Sirius blinked down at a pair of scaly and clawed black feet, with eyes that no longer had completely binocular vision. He shook himself, causing his wing and tail feathers to rustle before letting out an experimental caw. The noise startled him so badly that he took two large hopping steps back and shook himself again. 'This,' he thought philosophically, 'is weird.'

He looked up to see where the moon was in the sky. He had twenty-four hours until the spell wore off so he'd have to leave before the moon was at the same height tomorrow night. He got another shock when he realized that it was dawn. He tried to smile and found that he no longer had to muscles or lips to do so. He'd be able to spend the entire night with Remus, if his theory worked.

He spent about half of the day trying to take a nap so that he wouldn't be so tired buy nightfall. But, having never seen ravens sleep, he had no idea how he was supposed to do that comfortably. And ended up try all manner of strange contortions before finding that it was most comfortable on his back with his feet sticking up in the air and his wings spread out. He new real ravens couldn't possibly sleep like that, but by that point he was too tired to care.

He woke up some time in the late afternoon. At first he nearly had a panic attack until he remembered what he'd done to himself. And after a couple of failed attempts he managed to get back up onto his feet. He stayed up on the top of Gryffindor tower until dusk, when he was Madam Pomfrey leading Remus out onto the grounds. 'She's not just going to let him run loose in the Forbidden Forest, is she?' he thought. And then realized something that he hadn't figured into his original plan. He was on top of a tower, and Remus was all the way down on the ground.

'Sirius, you're a bird, birds can fly,' he pointed out. But it still didn't stop him from being rather terrified as he looked down at the ground that suddenly looked very far away. 'How do birds learn to fly again?' he thought silently, racking his brain. 'Oh, yeah, they fall out of trees and hope they don't break their neck.' He looked down at the ground. There really wasn't anything else for him to do, he couldn't open the door to go back down through the castle, so either he stayed here all night and all his effort was wasted, or he taught himself how to fly on the way down to the ground.

He inched closer to the edge of the parapet and, without looking down, jumped. He immediately started falling like a rock until he remembered to stick his wings out and flap. And after a few false starts managed to get enough of the feel for it that he only hit the ground with a soft 'thump' instead of breaking every bone in his body. 'Let's not ever try that again,' he thought, trying to calm himself down.

He managed to follow Madam Pomfrey and Remus to where they stopped at the Whomping Willow in time to hear he say,
"Cheer up dear, you'll be fine in the Shrieking Shack. It'll be just like every other year," She said comfortingly. Remus just nodded, and disappeared behind the abnormally still tree.

'The shack? That's where he goes?' It made sense in a way. And since Sirius was pretty sure he couldn't get there the same way as Remus. He started to half fly half hop towards Hogsmeade as fast as he could.

He got to the shack just as the sun was setting and frantically searched for a place for him to get in. Finally spotting a break in the boards covering one window, that should be big enough to let him through.

After many failed attempts, he managed to fly the short distance up to the window and slip inside to land on the window ledge. What Sirius saw made him hold his breath.

He stared in amazement as the light of the full moon fell onto the room from the cracks in the windows and played upon Remus' body. He was beautiful. Even as his body started to change, fur, teeth and claws sprouting as Remus arched his back and screamed. Even as his feet lengthened and thighs shortened, his chest becoming deeper and his shoulder blades moving under the skin to form hackles. And even, finally, as his jaw and mouth, already pulled back into a fierce snarl, lengthen into the mussel of the wolf.

Sirius stared in amazement and awe as the change ran its course. How could anyone call something so beautiful a monster? The tawny wolf got up on shaky legs and shook itself, sniffing at the air and looking around its environment. 'Now or never,' Sirius prompted slightly. Jumping down from the windowsill and fluttering haphazardly to the ground.

The noise immediately caught the wolf's attention and it walked towards him, snarling slightly. 'please let this work, please let this work?' Sirius thought as the-wolf-that-was-Remus came closer. Hot breath ruffled his feathers as the wolf sniffed at him, it even went as far as to press its wet nose under one of Sirius' wings, causing Sirius to puff up and shake his wings out. 'that tickles, damn it!'

The wolf jumped back and flattened its ears at the motion, whining softly. 'oh, sorry moony,' Sirius thought at him. Wait? 'It worked! He's not attacking me!' Sirius crowed in triumph, which only cause the wolf to crouch down farther and blink at him. He immediately calmed down when he saw this. 'You're scaring him you git! Quiet down!' he berated himself.

With slow tentative steps he approached the wolf again. It met him halfway and sniffed at him again. It seemed to conclude that he wasn't a threat, because it leaned in and licked the side of his head. 'oh, yuck, werewolf slobber,' Sirius groused silently. But he was happy. His idea had worked, and now he knew that there was a way to be with Remus during the full moon, he wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

They spent most of the night just looking at each other. At one point the wolf decided it wanted to play and chased Sirius around the room a couple of times before getting tired of the game and settling down to take a nap.

But Sirius didn't sleep. He took the time to just look at him. Remus was beautiful, no matter what form he was in. 'I don't think I could stand you hating me. I just wish I knew what I'd done wrong, so I could make it right,' he thought to the sleeping wolf.

The wolf didn't wake up until nearly dawn. It got up and stretched, its back arching and its jaws wide in a yawn that exposed it's sharp white teeth. Sirius cast a glance to the window and saw the first beginnings of light on the horizon. 'He should be changing back soon,' he thought to himself. Put froze as a rippling spasm when through his own body.

'Oh, shit!' Sirius thought as he felt his body start to change back to his original form. He tried to fly up to the window he'd come in through, but couldn't get high enough on wings that were already shifting back to arms. He fell to the floor with a thump and his body quickly reverted as he lay there watching the wolf-that-was-Remus with worried eyes. And it watched him too.

Its head was cocked and it sniffed at the air, looking puzzled by the new scent of human in the room. But suddenly its whole body snapped to attention and it started towards him, snarling.

"Remus, come on it's me, Sirius," but the werewolf didn't hear him. It continued to approach him, its hackles raising at it got closer. "Remus...please," Sirius whispered. But the wolf didn't respond to his pleas. Instead it crouched down, it's muscles tensing before pouncing onto Sirius and knocking him backwards.

The wolf stood over him, its claws scraping against his shoulders as it pinned him to the floor. It looked down at him and sniffed again, breathing hot breath onto his face and neck as it sniffed from his ear down his throat to his shoulder.

Suddenly it licked at the skin just above the collar of his shirt and then started to growl. The wolf lifted its head back up and snarled, exposing sharp white teeth. And Sirius suddenly knew that it was preparing to bite him, to curse him.

It was very lucking for Sirius that the sun took that moment to start to rise and signaled the shift from night into day.

And the shift of wolf back into boy.