Chapter 22: The Talk

That night we had a small party in the dormitory to celebrate. We invited the girls for butterbeers and chocolate frogs.

"So are you going to tell us now?"

"Yeah, any reason for the Potter gang to be in the library has to be important."

We showed them the map. And we laughed when they tried to open it. I must admit the insulting charm worked wonderfully, I've never seen Lily's face so red.

"So that's your big idea? A map that insults people?" Lily was very mad over some things the map had said. I'm not going to repeat them.

"No, try this." I whispered the password to Erin. She frowned but pick up the map

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good?" Their frowns vanished as a detailed map of Hogwarts spread over the page.

"Wow." Lily gasped. We grinned.

"So that's what you've been working on?"

"Today, yes." We were sat in silence for a while. I could see James was dying to tell Lily everything, to just pour it out and beg her forgiveness. So was I. It was hard to keep secrets from Erin. It's not that I didn't trust her. I just didn't want her to worry. And there was always the chance we could get caught. If that happened they might get in trouble too for not telling. I didn't know what Remus was thinking. He was watching us with a hard to read expression on his face. Then he sighed and motioned for us to come over. We followed him down the stairs, wondering what he had in mind.

" I can see you're dying to tell them." Remus gave us his " You can't fool me" face.

"Well, I'd like too. But I'll never tell them if you don't want to." I said.

"Same for me." James added.

"You two are suffering, I can see it. Tell them."

"What?" We both asked together.

"Tell them," he repeated, smiling patiently, " James, you love Lily. And Sirius, you love Erin. Don't deny it. I have eyes." He smiled at our red faces. "You shouldn't keep secrets from the people you love." My heart twisted with guilt at that phrase.

"But aren't you worried about what they might say?"

"Lily and Erin? Hell no. I can trust them. I told Addi, didn't I?"

"It's not that I don't trust them. I just don't want them worrying." I said

"And the chance that they might get in trouble if we get caught."

"Really? I have two friends who taught me in life you have to take chances. Otherwise you never have fun." That cracked smiles on our faces. It was very familiar advice.

"Okay, tomorrow we tell them." James looked from face to face. Remus took a deep breath. I met his gaze without fear. Peter looked at the ground and only shrugged

"Agreed." We shook on it. We climbed back up the stairs. The girls were waiting for us.

"Lily, Erin. We have something we want to tell you."

"Really? What?" Erin looked up for the book she was reading.

"I, we can't tell you tonight." I said.

"Why not?" Lily sat up.

"We just can't."

"Please, we need you to understand."

"Alright. When then?" Lily got up off the bed.
"Tomorrow night. Meet us in the three broomsticks."

"Okay." Then the girls left. James flopped down on his bed. Remus went to bed and Peter followed. But James held me back. The other boys pulled their curtains closed and soon we heard Peter snoring.

"Sirius, I need to ask you something."

"What?" We kept our voices down in case Remus was still awake.

"That lady, what she said. Do you think He'll really try to do anything?"

"I don't know, James. What's bothering me is…" I hesitated, not wanting to accuse one of my friends." Peter." I said, staring at the ground for a moment before raising my head to look at James.

"What about him?" James's face scrunched up in confusion as he looked at me.

"Well, lots of things."

"Like?"

"Well, why didn't he come? And why didn't they ask him about the promise and …" The other thing I didn't want to tell him.

"What? What's wrong?"

"I can't, I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"When we agreed and she showed us, ya know."

" I wish I didn't," he mumbled, staring at the ground. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"That really doesn't give me a good feeling."

"It was a wearing! Warnings aren't usually pleasant things"

"What did you see?" I asked.

"What did you see?" he countered. I thought for a second, debating.

" I don't know. Not really. I saw a house, or what used to be a house, and I heard things and I knew what was going on. I felt things. "

"Well, what did you hear?"

"A baby crying. Fire crackling. Some one sobbing."

"What did you feel?"

"Pain like I was hurt, like there was something killing me from the inside out." I closed my eyes and shook my head. "It felt like, like" I was having a hard time putting my feelings into words. "Like when my Dad died. Like something had been ripped out of my chest.  And there was something else." I said, finally looking at James.

"It felt like someone had stabbed me in the back, like I couldn't believe it, the pain was so hard, so sharp. There was disbelief, horror, and…"  I paused, unable to put to words my feelings

"Betrayal." James's voice was cold and I nodded.

"Yeah, and I heard a name. God James, this voice, I couldn't even tell who it was, there was so much hate, so much anger in it." I shuddered as I heard that rasping cry in my mind again.

"What name?"

" Wormtail." I said, staring into James's hazel eyes.

"Peter?"

"Yeah." There was a long pause as I shuddered and forced the whisper from my mind.

"Are we going to tell the girls this?" James asked. I shrugged.

"I don't' know. I don't want to tell Pete or Remy. He'll only worry. Besides if we tell him about the year he'll flip."

"I know." James gave a small grin " I mean, if he knew about what we did, I don't know what he would do."

"He'll say ' you've already done so much for me. And the girls would, well I don't know what they would do either."

"And I just don't want him to know. He doesn't deserve this. It's not fair."

"Tell me about it." Then I asked a question he had been avoiding.

"James, what did you see?" he closed his eyes.

"I really don't want to talk about it, Sirius."

"But I told you mine." James shook his head.

"No, Siri."

"But James-" I began, but he whirled on me and the anger was flashing in his eyes like I'd never seen.

"I said no, Sirius! Drop it!" his voice was loud and hard as he shouted at me. I held up my hands, relenting.

"Alright Jamie. Alright." James said nothing else as he stormed over to his bed and yanked the curtains closed, not even bothering to get undressed. I stared after him for a long moment, frozen to the stone floor before I did the same, pulling the covers above my head and shutting out the world.

When we woke up the next morning, Remus was already up. James never said a word about his outburst from the night before and I didn't bring it up. It took us a while to realize Remus had never shown up for breakfast or Charms. I leaned over to James in class.

"It's not the full moon, is it?"

"No, that's next week." He shook his head, watching his frog hop around soundlessly before tapping Peter's with his wand. "Silencio." Peter's frog was silent.

"Then where is he?" We asked around, but no one had seen him. After pulling out the map, we saw his dot hovering in the passage under the Willow. Peter decided to stay, saying that he had work to do and sped off towards the Library. James and I ducked the Willow's branches and pushed the knot the stun the tree. No one said a word as we made our way down the low passage.

Sure enough Remus was setting on the bed on the second floor of the Shrieking Shack.

"Remy, there you are. We've been looking for you all day." He didn't look at us. In fact he didn't move.

"Remus?" I walked over to him. Nothing. I waved my hand in front of his face. His hand shot out and grabbed mine.

" Stop it, Sirius." He growled. I frowned and tried to pull my hand back. But he wouldn't let go.

"Remy, let go." I tried to laugh but it died in my throat. He didn't answer. I pulled harder. He only tightened his grasp. I couldn't believe how tight he held my hand. James had come over.

"Remus, what's wrong?" He asked, as I tried not to wince as Remus's fingers left bruises on my wrist.

"Last night." Remus's voice was cold, hard, a growl etched into each word.  "I heard you. You thought I was asleep. I wasn't. Tell me." His amber eyes met mine and I dropped my gaze, fighting to remain submissive and calm the wolf that lurked in Remus's mind.

"Tell you what, Remus?" I asked, keeping my tone light. Remus was having none of it though. He jerked my wrist so I was pulled towards him and he forced me to meet his eyes. For the first time in my life, I was scared of Remus, scared of the wolf inside him, the wolf I knew could rip me apart if he wanted.

"What you did. The night you took the potion. Tell me everything." My wrist throbbed in pain and I winced.

"Let go of Sirius, Remus. You're hurting him." James said, softly, moving forward.  Remus eyed James warily and let go of my wrist. I drew back and rubbed it gently. There were  red marks all around it, I knew in the morning they would be bruises. Remus did not spare my injury a glance as he watched James now.  

"Tell me." The growl was more evident in his voice now, making his words seem like a bark.

"There's nothing to tell." I murmured. Remus didn't believe me for an instant.

"You did something." His eyes moved between the both of us, "Something you didn't want to tell me. Something about that night, the night you became animagi."

"Remus, we did something that will make sure you are safe. It's not very important." I knew that would never satisfy him, but I had to try.

"What do you mean?" He asked. The wolf retreated some from his eyes and for the first time, he glanced at my wrist, a slightly worried look now on his face.  James and I shared a long look. We really didn't want to tell him, but he wouldn't let us leave until we did. And I never wanted to see Remus that angry again. He had looked so much like the wolf in that second that I could have sworn he was. James made the decision for us.

"Okay."

We told him about what the Lady said. We took turns telling the story, adding in details the other had forgotten.

"She asked us if we wanted to do one more thing."

"She said Voldemort had seen what we did for you. And that he would try to use it against us. That he knew we would do anything for you and the others."

"So she asked us if we wanted to do something that would make sure Voldemort could never hurt you guys."

"What did you do?" Nether one of us wanted to say it.

" She asked us to give up one year." James said.

"One year? One year of what?"

'Our lives." I whispered. I wasn't sure he had heard me. I wanted to believe that he hadn't, but I had forgotten about werewolf hearing. His eyes widened and he shook his head.

"You didn't. Please tell me you didn't." We didn't answer him and he stood up and paced around the room. Our silence was enough of an answer for him. " Oh God. You did." Remus stopped pacing and turned to us.

"Why?"

"Remus, You are our friend. More like a brother. We would die for you." I told him, giving him a weak smile, which he did not return.

"And I for you, but give up a year of your lives? Why?"

"We couldn't live with ourselves if Voldemort killed you in order to get to us." James added.

"But Voldemort isn't after you." James's eyes shut tight. I guessed what he was seeing. And I knew Voldemort would be after James sometime.

"There's something else you aren't telling me." Remus said softly.

James opened his eyes. "When we gave up a year, she showed us some thing. A warning." He said, speaking slowly as if the words were being forced from his mouth.

"What was the warning?"

"She showed us a wearing for the future."  James said softly.

 "What did you see?" he asked.

There was silence. Then James spoke.

"Tell him what you heard, Sirius." I thought for a moment.

" There was smoke, and it was raining. I heard a baby crying, but I couldn't find it. And someone was speaking, in this voice that seemed, so, so full of hate, of anger, of betrayal. They kept saying Wormtail." I didn't tell him how it had seemed that I knew the voice. That even as it was choked in tears and twisted with hate, it had sounded like my voice.

"Wormtail? Peter? What about him?" Remus cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy.

"I don't know. " I shrugged, wanting the subject dropped.

"Well, we should warn him." Remus said.
"No! If we tell him, he might tell someone else and they'll ask him how he knew. And then he'll tell everything." I said.

"He's right. We didn't even want to tell you." James was looking at a particularly interesting speck of dust on the bed.

"I know." Remus gave me the first small smile I'd seen from him all day.

"It's not that we don't trust you. We just thought you'd worry too much or something." Remus took a deep breath.

"Well, I'm glad you did. I just can't believe you would do that for me. You've done all this for me and I haven't done anything for you." He said, sighing. I shook my head, grinning at him.

"Yes you have. You've given us the adventure of a lifetime every full moon. We never would have done this if it hadn't been for you. We wouldn't have known we could do this. That's all we need." James told him.

"Thank you, " Remus whispered, his eyes suddenly bright." You don't know how much that means to me." We left the Shrieking Shack, arms around each other, our fears and worries lifted for the moment. But that would soon change.