so i'm back from my holidays. and i've updated.
thanks to all my lovely reveiwers-you're so encouraging!:D
to those returning, if you haven't read the bit about sirius being a werewolf (or is he?) in the last chapter then you need to go back. i added it at a later date.
the reason that there is a couple of gaps with the words 'to indicate the passing of time' is because i couldn't get the editor thingy to let me put in little squiggles or dashes to indicate the passing of time. so i had to write it. :S
anyway, sorry for all this preamble, please read on.
The next morning, Remus couldn't even get out of bed. The headache that had started the night before had turned into a full-blown migraine behind his eyes and at his temples. His lips felt crusty and sore, as if he had been chewing them in his sleep and he couldn't have opened his eyes if he had wanted to. He lay very still, breathing shallowly as even the slightest movement caused a wave of nausea to sweep through his entire body. After what felt like hours but was probably only 30 minutes, Remus managed to open his eyes and lift his wrist in front of his face so he could check the time.
Unlike most wizards, Remus carried a watch. His father had bought it for him from a small electrical shop in Newcastle. Remus couldn't remember why they were there but he knew that he had been very small and his mother had been against buying it. "He'll just lose it," she said "And besides, he can't even tell the time." Remus' father had bought it anyway and Remus had learnt to tell the time within the week. Now, as he looked blearily at it's cracked and worn face, he saw that it was 4:45. For the next 3 hours, Remus lay in bed, hardly breathing, trying to ignore the pain and to think about things other than Sirius and the night before.
This proved impossible. The images were like and old film in his head, flickering from one disjointed scene to the next and not making any real sense. The night before, Sirius had been a prick-what was new-but even in his own state of dismal self-pity, Remus felt sorry for him. Sirius liked to think of himself as a sensitive artiste and was good at picking up on other people's moods and feelings, and comforting them. But he wasn't very good at picking up on his own feelings. Yesterday, and in fact since James' injury, Sirius had been acting a bit like a lost and confused little boy. He ran from one comfort to another-girls, sex, booze- hiding and pretending to himself and those around him that he was carefree and in control when all the while he didn't understand his mixed emotions and he knew that he was careering out of control. Last night, Sirius had tried to cover up his confusion and distress with coarse jokes and bad 'humour'. It was the way that Sirius dealt with all uncomfortable situations and was what caused the other half of the school who didn't love him, to hate him.
I surprised him, thought Remus gloomily, I was too blunt. I should have built up to it slowly, let him into it gently. What did I think he would say when I told him I beat him up because he'd kissed me? What would I have said?
And the whole Werewolf thing. It was stupid. It was stupid and pointless and one of the most bastardish things I could have said. I wanted to hurt him, shock him. Make him stop for a second and have to contemplate the same terrible future of prejudice and exclusion that I have to.
Of course Sirius isn't a werewolf. If he was he would have known about it before now. He would have felt the wolf growing inside him, slowly, slowly, like a baby that you carry in the centre of your being, steadily preparing for the full moon. And right now he'd be in agony. It's terrible the first time. He'd be new to the pain wracking his body, he'd not have that layer of old skin that builds up inside you to protect you from the pain; I'd be able to hear his groans of pain from my bed.
If he's in his bed.
Remus turned over carefully. His migraine was receding and as he turned onto his side he glanced at his watch-it was 7 o'clock. If he felt well enough to go to breakfast, he'd have to get up soon.
In the bed next to his, there was nothing. The covers were slightly rumpled but otherwise unslept in and the pyjamas were still in a true Sirius-style pile at the end on the floor.
Where had Sirius gone the night before? Remus couldn't think. He'd been in such pain last night that all he managed to do was cast a silencing charm around his bed before he fell into his nest of agony. He didn't know if Sirius had gone to bed, or stayed in the bathrooms or gone down to the common room. Sirius could have left the school for all that Remus would have known about it.
"God" groaned Remus as this new thought entered his head. He'd better not have left the school. Clenching his jaw to stop any moans of pain escaping his lips, Remus gently slid out of bed. As he got dressed in silence, Remus watched the sleeping Peter.
I barely know him, he thought as Peter turned over in his sleep, mumbling something about frogs. I've walked around with him, crept along the secret passages with him, spent every full moon with him, and sat next to him at most meals for the past 5 ½ years, and yet I hardly know anything about him. What's his favourite colour? What kind of boxers does he wear? What does he want to be when he grows up? What did he get from his parents for his 11th birthday?
How did this happen? How can you know someone for almost 6 years and not know these sort of trivial questions about them?
I know them about Sirius;
Blacky-blue (the colour of night skies, ravens' feathers and bruises.), cotton ones-his favourites are the tartan ones that James gave him for Christmas in our second year, an auror, a huge bedspread and hangings that he burnt in a massive bonfire that got the muggle police to come to his road.
Remus shook his head. I'll make sure that I find them out about Peter. He's ignored too much in our group. It's not good for a person to be so overlooked. It does things to them. If we don't watch out, Peter might turn into a complete sociopath.
The corners of Remus' mouth curled imperceptibly at the thought of Peter being dangerous. Then his thoughts turned once again.
But for now Sirius is my priority. I need to find him.
Remus spent the next hour and a half before breakfast fruitlessly searching the halls and corridors of the school, checking every cupboard and hidden nook. But there was no Sirius. When the stairs started filling up with hungry students making their way towards the great hall, Remus followed them, his stomach growling and protesting at the lack of food it was receiving.
At the Gryffindor table, there was no Sirius either. Lily and Peter were sitting together, talking to each other conspiratorially but stopped immediately when Remus came over.
"Oh hey Remus," said Lily guiltily "We were just talking about you."
"Where's Sirius?" asked Peter, passing Remus the jug of Pumpkin juice as he sat down, "We thought he must be with you."
"Well he wasn't," said Remus, pouring the juice into a glass, "In fact I was out looking for him."
He paused, unsure of whether to go on and then continued in a rush of words, "We had a row last night and we both said some pretty bad things, I don't know if he went to bed last night but he wasn't there this morning so I went looking for him. I didn't find him"
"Shite" Lily blew air out of her cheeks. "If James was here none of this would have happened."
"What sort of argument?" Peter asked suspiciously "You must have said something terrible to make Sirius disappear."
"I did" said Remus, staring dispiritedly into his glass of pumpkin juice. The other two waited for him to go on. He looked up, "I don't want to talk about it right now, maybe later?"
His friends looked slightly disappointed but they just shrugged their shoulders and looked back at their forgotten breakfasts. The great hall was emptying rapidly and after a couple of minutes of sitting in silence, Peter left, muttering about homework and parchment.
Lily spoke again, "He better show up at lessons. I'm surprised you two haven't been called into Dumbledore's office to talk about all the work you've been missing. You're going to fail your NEWTs if you don't start working."
Remus made an I-don't-know sort of grunt. To tell the truth he hadn't thought about why he hadn't been called to see the headmaster. Anyone could see that something was wrong with him and at least one teacher must have commented on all the lessons he had been missing. It was unusual for the old Professor not to notice such big disturbances among his pupils.
Maybe he thinks we can work it out better on our own, thought Remus. Lily interrupted his thoughts once again by standing up to leave.
"Well, I just hope he doesn't do anything stupid, that's all." She sighed and picked up her bag, "Don't forget to come to lessons ok?"
"Sure."
"I'll see you in potions before lunch; I have Runes and muggle studies first."
"Cool, ok"
Remus was left on his own at the Gryffindor table as the rest of the sixth years left and only a few late-breakfasters stayed behind, dotted along the tables.
Just as Remus was draining the last of his juice, a shadow fell over him. His whole body tensed as he listened to the breathing of the person behind him. After a couple of seconds, a piece of paper floated down onto the table. He didn't dare look behind him and only once he had heard the footsteps leave did he pick up the note between his trembling fingers.
Tonite, same place, 8 o'clock. you wont need supper
Something twisted in his stomach and he felt like a was about to throw up his pumpkin juice.
Tonight? But it couldn't be tonight. Tonight was the full moon, at 8 o'clock he would have to be at the shrieking shack, waiting for it to get dark and for that fatal beam of moonlight to touch his skin.
But wait.
I knowThat's what she had said on their last meeting. But she couldn't know, not if she wanted to see him tonight. Why would she want to see him tonight if she knew he was going to turn into a monster?
Unless she was a complete masochistic freak. But no, not even Branwen would be that stupid.
Which meant that she didn't know.
Remus felt his full moon anger swelling up inside him and he didn't try to control it. If he was standing opposite himself he would have seen his eyes turn yellow and the pupils turn into slits. He clenched his fists, digging the nails into his palms until he drew blood.
He would go tonight. He would already be waiting for her when she came at 8 o'clock, a brooding shadow at the back of the room. She would lock the door to make sure he couldn't escape and then she would come for him. But he would have a surprise for her. He would let her get him up against a wall, he would pretend to be too weak to push her off and then, just when she thought she had him, he would push her off. He would keep on pushing her until she tripped backwards and fell on to the cold, hard floor. He wouldn't hurt her, not just then. They would wait together in that room, for a moon beam to come through one of the windows and to touch his skin. Once the transformation was complete, he would rip her from limb to limb and smear her blood along the walls. It was inevitable that he would break out of the room but Remus didn't care. He could kill everyone in the school, he was going to die anyway. Nothing mattered to him anymore.
She wanted to know his secret? He would show her.
If Remus had been in a reasonable mood, i.e. not feeling like a mad werewolf, he would never have even started along the destructive path his mind was taking him. But the reasonable Remus had taken too much to bear over the last month and was only too glad to let go completely and give up to the crazy Remus.
Even if it meant his own undoing.
to indicate the passing of time
Sirius didn't show up all day. Remus began to suspect that he was probably hiding in the shrieking shack but his mind was too taken up with thoughts of Branwen and that night to give it too much thought.
Lily and Peter were just as worried about him as they were before and plied him with thousands of questions but this time he was able to put them off with the excuse that it was a full moon.
The lessons dragged on and Remus dreamed through most of them. His headache had returned as a dull throbbing behind his ears and his whole body felt exhausted. Teachers became exasperated with him when he didn't know the answers to the simplest of questions and by the time the end of the day came, Remus just wanted to curl up and never have to wake up again.
to indicate the passing of time
Remus huddled behind the piles of chairs and desks at the front of room 30, where the teacher would normally have stood if a lesson had been in progress. There wasn't a lesson in progress as it was and it didn't look as if a lesson had been taken in here for a very long time. The house elves had been neglecting it; there was a thin layer of dust over the stacked tables and chairs and it smelled faintly of whisky. As Remus waited, he wondered if a teacher had used this room as a secret place to drink.
Time stretched on and Remus shivered in the cold room. It was now well into November and it was getting much colder. He blew on his hands to try and warm the numb fingers and he glanced at his watch. Twenty to eight.
Outside it was dark and Remus knew that somewhere in the cold, black sky, there would be a full moon. Although he wasn't in contact with any sort of moonlight, Remus could feel his body preparing for the changes that would soon take place. The hairs all over his body became thicker and stronger and as he waited, he slowly sprouted a short, grey beard. His eyes under his thick grey eyebrows turned completely yellow, their pupils becoming black slits. Suddenly, at five to eight, his nails fell out and long, curling claws grew in their place.
At 8 o'clock, Branwen sidled through the door. Remus felt the hairs all along his spine stand on end and he had to prevent himself and running towards the crack of moonlight that made it's way through the small gap created by Branwen's entrance.
Remus watched as Branwen paced the floor of the room, not bothering to light any candles this time. He watched as she sat down on different bits of random furniture and then stood up again, pick her nose and eat it, fart in the way you do when you think no one's watching, and hum tunelessly.
At a half past eight he stood up.
"Hello Branwen"
She jumped, her face a picture of shock and surprise. It must have been the gloom because she didn't notice his beard or slightly elongated ears.
"I thought you weren't going to show up."
"Well here I am."
They stood, facing each other across the room.
"Came back for more did you?" Branwen asked with a smirk.
Remus began to close the distance between them.
"You don't know my secret." He stated.
"No" she laughed openly, "But it must be a pretty big secret if you're scared enough to come back a second time."
Remus didn't say anything and she carried on, "Unless you liked it. You probably did as well, you masochistic bastard. I heard what you did to Black. You could have done that to me if you'd really wanted to."
Remus felt jolted at the sound of Sirius' name and a part of him that was still sane woke up and began trying to fight it's way through the mess of confusion and emotion that it was tangled in. Stop! It was saying, Stop! But Remus just shook his head and ploughed on.
"Can we just get this over with"
"Ooh, eager aren't we," crowed Branwen, "Well maybe this time I'll find out your secret"
She took a step towards him. Remus felt a shiver of revulsion go through him but nonetheless took another step towards her.
"Maybe I'll tell you."
She closed the distance between them and pressed herself against him. Despite himself, Remus stumbled backwards, surprised at her force. She began pushing him towards a wall, the wall to his left and once they were there she pushed her mouth against his and shoved her tongue in.
It was disgusting. Images of the first time were flashing through Remus' mind and other images too, images of James lying on the ground, of Sirius on the floor of the showers, his own image on the pages of Sirius' sketchpad, and the kiss from Sirius, all ran flickering through his head. He wanted to push Branwen off him, to beat her to a pulp on the floor of the classroom. He tried to control himself but couldn't help giving her a small push off him.
"What's the matter honey? Don't you like it?" she sneered
"You hurt James" he panted
"Oh, remembered that little episode have we?" she laughed, "Well, I have to say he was easy, but not as easy as you eh?" her laugh was raucous and loud in the small room. Remus was beginning to re-evaluate his plan, the sensible Remus was getting through.
"Don't talk about him like that." He growled
"Aw, doesn't Remy like me calling his friends easy? What about your little man-slut friend, Sirius Black? I heard he's real easy"
"Don't say his name." Remus' voice was low and angry, he was finding it hard to control the wolf inside him.
"What?"
"I said, don't say his name."
"What? Sirius Black? Dirty little Sirius Black who sleeps with anything that moves? Do you know, I think my good friend Lola French was right, you do have a thing for each other. Maybe you want to be the one that Black is fucking? Hahahahahahahahaha!" she laughed in his face.
"SHUT UP!" he yelled.
She pushed his arms up against the walls and grinned.
"You're hot when you're angry"
Remus couldn't control himself any longer. He was going to kill her right now. He could feel the blood pumping hard in his veins, the hairs prickling all over his body, all his muscles tensed. Just as he was about to let out an animal scream, the door was opened.
A figure was framed in the moonlight flooding into through the doorway.
"Remus?" came a worried and confused voice.
As soon as the moonlight entered the room, the wolf went mad. Remus flung Branwen off him and she flew through the air, landing with a thud on the ground. She was out cold.
"Remus, what are you doing...?"
The voice registered but there was no way Remus could respond. Great spasms of pain were wracking his entire frame and he knew that he was going to transform. One word was going through his mind.
Sirius.
It was Sirius who was standing in the doorway. His plan was shattering inside his skull and any shred of sane thought was lost in the rushing noise that was engulfing his brain. All he knew was that if he didn't get out of the school, he was going to hurt Sirius. He couldn't do that.
He turned, and stumbled blindly towards the door, pushing past Sirius. He turned left and ran down the corridor until he reached the top of the stairs. There he gripped the hand rail and continued trying to run, stumbling down the stairs two at a time.
The hairs all over his body were growing longer and thicker, covering his neck and shoulders and pushing the silky tawny strands from his head, leaving them like traces of gold draped on the slabs and stairs. His shoulders were hunching and the shoulder blades were growing larger, breaking through his shirt. His skin was stretching and thickening to accommodate his larger bone structure. As he ran along the second floor corridor, his teeth fell out one by one, clattering on the stone floor, and new, longer, sharper ones took their place. The bones in his hands and arms were breaking and changing shape, his muscles were lengthening and the claws were growing longer. His shirt was in ribbons underneath his robes. He could no longer hold the hand rail as he ran desperately down the second flight of stairs and his nose and face elongated. He winced mentally at the sound of his own jawbone snapping and tried to howl in pain. All that came out was a choked human scream that was soon cut off by his changing tongue and his moving voice box. His spine was lengthening and his ears were growing. Tears of pain spurted from his eyes until the tear ducts were shut off. A tail sprouted through the fabric of his pants and he stumbled, howling in pain. Doggedly, he continued along the first floor. His eyes were already colour-blind and as he approached the last flight of stairs, his sensitive wolf ears picked up the sound of someone following him.
Run faster, he thought and he tried to speed up.
On the last flight of stairs, the bones in his legs snapped and broke, the muscles growing and the joints moving and reshaping. His trousers a tore and he left his shoes behind as his feet became slimmer and the toes disappeared. He tumbled down the hard stone steps like a broken doll the sound of his bones hitting each stone step echoing in his sensitive wolf's ears. At the bottom, he lay in a heap, his school robe pooled around him in a dark mass and the school-boy socks tangled around his back paws.
The transformation was complete.
"Remus?"
Someone came panting up beside him.
Food! Thought the wolf, Run! Thought Remus.
The wolf got to it's feet, and ignoring it's instincts to rip, tear, kill and maim, it ran towards the great doors, trying to shake the remnants of garments still trying to cling to it's body. It pushed at the heavy oak, until the doors opened enough to let through, and then sped into the night.
Behind him, the someone followed, this time in the shape of a dog.
T.B.C
(SiriusGirl23-you owe me biscuits! )