4.

The full moon has just begun to rise.

James decides that hiding out in the common room until dinner and staying well out of both Sirius' and Remus' way for the rest of the night afterward is the wisest possible course of action he and Peter can take. He can monitor Remus from a safe distance on the Map until this particular full moon is over, and he can keep an eye on Paddy too that way. He has a very bad feeling about what the rest of the night may bring, but he can't think of any way to diffuse the ill-omened, oppressive atmosphere that seems to be brewing.

The Marauders' Map shows that Remus has apparently decided to banish the world and hole up in the Shack early; he enters it around five that afternoon and doesn't budge again as the afternoon darkens into night. Sirius' movements on the Map are a great deal more varied; he is apparently careening around the school and grounds at a great pace and entirely at random. James is reminded of the erratic path of a rogue Bludger, and he pities anyone unlucky enough to get in Sirius' way tonight. But he assures himself that one look at Sirius' no doubt murderous expression ought to be enough to warn even the most oblivious observers off.

Peter has been pestering him with anxious questions continually ever since the two of them parted company with their mates outside of Potions, and some of those questions, naturally, have been rather … sticky. James will have to start thinking of some nice, inconsequential answers sometime soon; he can't very well let poor Pete stew all night long. In the meantime, dinner is about to be served, and James knows that nothing cheers old Wormtail up like a good meal. He sighs, checks the Map once more (Remus is pacing to and fro in the Shrieking Shack, and Sirius appears to be stomping up and down stairs in the Astronomy Tower), and then folds it up and puts it in his pocket.

"C'mon, Peter," he says to his anxious friend. "Let's see if we can get down to the Dining Hall before those godless Slytherins eat up all the chipolatas, what do you say?"

The full moon is rising outside.

Sirius is observing its first faint glimmer from the observation platform of the Astronomy Tower. He has to stuff his hands in his pockets to keep them from worrying incessantly at his hair. It's a particularly asinine nervous habit, in his opinion, and if he must have a tic of some sort, he wishes it didn't have to be one that makes him look like such a vain, brainless idiot. Fingernail-chewing or even thumb-sucking would be better, he thinks, and then a moment later he wonders why on earth people have to have such random, trivial thoughts skittering all willy-nilly through their heads just when they need them the least. A few minutes after that, though he doesn't know it, he's raking his fingers through his hair again.

He's grown tired of clumping up and down steps, but he is still too distraught to stop moving, and shortly he decides a moonlit stroll through the Forbidden Forest might be just the thing. And while he's on his way down there, he supposes, he might just stop by the Whomping Willow for a moment, and he might just accidentally press a certain special knot on its trunk, or then again, he might not. Only time will tell, on that score, he thinks, and in any case, even if he doesn't press that knot himself, he can certainly make sure no one else does while he's there. He has not forgotten that Severus Snape has been expressing some interest this year in where Remus goes when he periodically disappears.

Having formed a plan of sorts, however sketchy, renews Sirius' sense of purpose, or at least provides some momentary illusion of purpose. He hurtles down the tower steps recklessly, taking them two and three at a time, and the idea that he might well take a dive on the way down and kill his stupid self in the process has a great deal more appeal just now than it should.

Sirius makes it down to the bottom of the Astronomy Tower without mishap, however, and glances up at the moon as he walks out onto the grounds. A soft, odd sound comes out of his throat as he notes that the full moon is rising, a sound somewhere between a low growl and desperate groan, with, perhaps, a small, plaintive whine from Padfoot thrown in. Remus is transforming right now, Sirius knows; he is as intimately familiar with the progressive minute variations in the quality of the moonlight, and how each will affect Remus, as he is with the back of his own hand.

In the Shrieking Shack, right now, Remus is screaming, his body is turning into a house of pain as it forces itself into a cursed configuration it was never made to assume. Remus is shifting, this moment, Remus is transforming alone. Sirius knows this, he knows it in his head, and worse, he feels it, he feels it in the precise angle at which the moonlight touches his skin.

He is so full of frustration and fear and fury and a depth of passion so intense it might move the earth itself, that as he rushes past a shadowed stand of yews on the left, he is easily suckered by a slyly outstretched foot and ankle; the oldest trick in the book, and he trips and takes a spectacular headlong tumble.

Severus Snape steps out of the shadows of the trees, smiling coolly and covering the tumbling figure of Sirius with his wand.

"Why, it's Sirius Black," Snape says, without even waiting to see if Sirius will break his neck in the fall or not. "Rushing off to parts unknown. I thought I might find you lurking about out here tonight."

Sirius hears and recognizes the voice long before the forces of gravity are quite done with him. He has his own wand out in the space between one heartbeat and the next, and is already twisting before he lands so that he can face Snape directly once he fetches up, with a loud thud, on the cold hard ground. The impact smacks most of the breath out of him, but his wand hand remains steady nonetheless.

"Snivelly!" he barks, just as soon as he can find enough breath for it. "What a coincidence. I was just thinking about you."

"How strange. Throw that wand of yours over here, why don't you, by the way."

"This wand? This old thing? Come and get it."

"I think not," Snape grinds out.

"I thought not too, Severus. Cute trick with the outstretched foot, though. Haven't seen that since first year."

"Yet you did, if I may be forgiven a small pun, fall for it."

"Well, you always were a real cutie, Sevvie," Sirius replies, cautiously getting back to his feet, wand never wavering from its bead on Snape's head. "Even when you were just an ickle first year grease-blot, anyone could see that. No doubt I'll have a truly brilliant bruise on my arse tomorrow. What an accomplishment! You must be thrilled!"

Snape detests being called 'greasy' and, what's even more galling; he knows that Sirius knows how much he hates it. Black may be a snotty, conceited, egomaniacal git, but he is very clever indeed about sensing things, one must admit. Snape racks his brains for a suitable counterattack, and escalates the hostilities by a considerable margin.

"Out here chasing after your little half-blood tart, Black? Has he slipped away to who knows where once more? He didn't turn you down again, did he? They're all so uppity, aren't they, these mixed blood bastards? I suppose that's part of the appeal for you, but to my mind it's hardly worth the effort. Why don't you just put him on the payroll; he certainly looks like he could use the money. "

This remark has a certain malign ingenuity; there's a nasty barb in it from every conceivable direction. If Sirius were not in such a towering rage, he might well take a moment to admire Snape's supernaturally sharp tongue.

"Ooh - oooh, you puffed-up, fatuous, self-deluding little toerag," Sirius spits, almost too livid to form coherent words. "Snape the Mediocre, looking down his prodigious nose at the lowly Muggle-borns. When you're not too busy trotting along after me or Malfoy with your tongue lolling out, that is."

Sirius raises his own aristocratic nose to its most arrogant angle, he lifts his chin and shakes his hair back out of his face and blasts the plainer boy with the haughty good looks he himself ordinarily thinks very little of.

"What do you know about money? Or family, for that matter? Or anything else? How dare you even talk to me about blood? Mine is so old it's rotten. But you - your family is nothing – that pure fucking blood you're so proud of is nothing – and you are nothing. Remus Lupin makes ten of you on his worst day."

For Snape, this is a response that goes beyond escalation and into outright war. There are elements of truth in it so piercing that it's nearly insupportable. Snape decides to take his heaviest weapons out in retaliation; he has recently been made privy to certain information that he has been assured will make Sirius Black very uncomfortable indeed.

While Sirius enunciated each cutting phrase loud and clear, Snape lowers his own voice to a hissing, spiteful whisper. Both boys are beside themselves with wrath; they have a peculiarly horrendous effect on one another, perhaps because, when all is said and done, there are quite a number of similarities between them.

Matter and anti-matter. Snape opens his mouth and triggers the coming explosion in earnest.

"Odd that you should mention family, Black. It so happens that I was actually looking for you tonight for that very reason. I've got a message for you from a member of your own family. Bellatrix sends her regards and says she wonders if a return engagement would be out of the question. She said you'd know what it meant."

Sirius goes a strange ashy white and he suddenly becomes very still. The only sound he makes is an involuntary one: a faint, low-pitched growling, deep in his throat. Padfoot too, it seems, has an opinion on this matter. Sirius grips his wand so tightly that it snaps in his hand, although Snape does not notice this.

"But just in case you don't," Snape goes on blithely, noting Sirius' initial reaction with malignant satisfaction. "She also told me what it meant. So I could remind you, in the event you'd moved on to other … conquests … over the past few weeks and forgotten."

Sirius manages to find his tongue, and is momentarily surprised to learn that he hasn't bitten it off. He also manages to take a stiff step or two toward Snape, getting too close, really, for safety. But Snape, infuriated and armed with knowledge that is clearly having a powerful effect, is too foolhardy, in this moment, to back away.

"Bellatrix Black?" Sirius asks, softly now. "Deign to speak to you? Impossible. She's even more of a sneering pureblood lunatic than you are, Snape. You're making it up. You don't know anything about Bella. Or me."

"Oh, yes? Do you think so? I do know that you have a small, sable, key shaped birth-mark on the base of your penis. Hardly common knowledge, is it? Or - come to think of it - perhaps it is?"

Now Sirius can't talk at all. All he can do is growl and move further and further into Snape's space.

And Snape still won't give way. He has no idea of his peril; the sad fact is, he rarely ever does.

He lowers his voice still more, hisses even more vindictively as he adds one last turn of the screw.

"Bella says it's adorable. She wouldn't mind kissing you there right now. Again."

Like lightning striking, Sirius backhands Snape across the face; Snape's head snaps back and his nose instantly starts gushing blood.

Snape is momentarily blinded by pain and is absolutely stunned. Severus and Sirius are only sixteen, but they have both been active wizards for quite a long time, all the same. It is rare indeed for any dispute between magical people to come to physical blows; normally, angry wizards would trade hexes. It occurs to Snape - rather distantly, considering how his brains have just been bounced about - that perhaps his informant has not been entirely forthcoming with him. Is it possible that there are a few things Bella hasn't told him? His remarks on the subject were only supposed to embarrass and annoy Sirius, not turn him into a homicidal maniac.

Snape is also too stunned at being slapped like this, both physically and mentally, to think to get his wand hand up and a counter-curse ready for a moment, and that moment is all the time Sirius needs. He's a bit bigger than Snape is, and he is now far angrier. He's on the slightly smaller boy instantly, twisting the wand out of his grip with one hand and grabbing the lower half of Snape's face with the other, digging his long fingers into Severus' cheeks and chin.

"You hit me!" Snape points out in almost prim disbelief, pronunciation considerably garbled by Sirius' unyielding grip on his face.

"You - miserable - little - fuck," Sirius grates harshly, punctuating each word with a small but vicious shake of Snape's face, gripped tightly in his hand. "Jealous, were you? Getting off on it, were you, Sevvie? Listening to that bitch's vile gossip and getting hard imagining all the little details? Just dying to see my birthmark, are you, you homely, greasy, pathetic gobshite?"

Sirius presses closer still into Severus' space, until he's just a millimeter or two short of full body contact with his enemy. He forces Snapes' now furiously flushing face up with his fingers and moves his own too-pretty face too close, much too close; Snape can feel Sirius' breath on his skin, he can taste it on his own lips. Sirius' fingers are digging in so deep that he's raising bruises and he's still tilting Snape's face up, tilting it at such an angle that a suddenly panicked Snape is not sure whether Sirius intends to kiss him or sink his teeth into him. And it seems terribly strange to him, just now, that he is equally horrified by either possibility.

"Did you really think I didn't know, Sevvie? Do you honestly believe I can't feel it, right now? All that hot, hungry wanting, all twisted up inside you? I can smell it on you."

Snape would like to spit in response to this last verbal assault. He would like to spit in Sirius' pretty grey eyes and shake his tapered, pinching fingers off and hammer his lithe, graceful body with enough blows to make it disappear altogether, once and for all. Because what Sirius is suggesting is not entirely untrue, or so Severus has sometimes, in his most miserable, confused, most self-hating moments, reluctantly suspected.

And hearing what Bellatrix Black had to say about her cousin had been arousing; her illicit tales of tangled white limbs and silky black hair and taboos willingly and wickedly exploded in the silver moonlight had been blackly exciting and he had been hard as he'd listened and imagined … he had been so hard …and how could Sirius know this if what he was saying wasn't true?

And now Sirius is kissing him, pressing his jaw open with his fingers and pushing inside. But this kiss isn't meant for pleasure; it's a lacerating expression of the utmost contempt and Snape is too humiliated and too astounded to fight Sirius off and when Sirius is finally finished plundering his mouth he shoves Snape away roughly and spits on the ground and laughs and laughs, barking, for all the world, just like a dog.

"It's not true," Snape hisses poisonously, shaken and mortified and angrier than he can ever remember being in his life. "It is not true. Take it back. It's not true."

Sirius nods shakily and replies through a new outburst of manic laughter. "Oh - ah - actually, you're quite right, Sevvie. It's not true. Close, but not - quite right. I was mistaken; so sorry. I could taste it, just now, you know. I could feel it in the set of your stiff, knobby little spine. It's not true. It's actually much worse. It's not me at all, is it? It's Bella you really want, isn't it?"

Severus is too thunderstruck to reply, because this assertion does have the startling punch of absolute truth, not like a mere suspicion or gnawing dread, but with that weird mental thwock of perception dovetailing perfectly with experience and snapping snugly into place. Snape's mouth drops open almost comically, he simply cannot believe that Sirius Black, of all people, could have figured a thing like that out before he did.

"Oh, don't look so surprised, Sevvie, old boy," Sirius adds with a grotesque sort of false bonhomie. "Gape like that too much longer and something unpleasant is apt to fly down your throat. I don't blame you for being confused; the two of us do look quite a bit alike."

"Stop–" Severus starts to say, but Sirius cuts him off.

"Of course, Sevvie, you have overlooked one or two fundamental differences–"

"Can't you stop–"

"And it doesn't hurt that she's a Black, not for a social-climbing, ambitious little swine like you. The fact is - I am finding it a bit difficult to imagine the social situation in which she'd even consider taking an interest in you, Sevvie. Right offhand, I can only think of one-"

"STOP CALLING ME 'SEVVIE', CAN'T YOU, YOU SMUG, SELF-SATISFIED, ARROGANT PRICK!" Snape finally screams.

Sirius grins in response, a horrible, wretched expression. His smile reminds Severus, for some inexplicable reason, of an angry, hurt and growling hound wrinkling his muzzle back from his teeth.

"Want a tip then, Severus, old mate? Just between us blokes? Frankly, you'd have as much chance of shagging my lovely cousin as you'd have of climbing into Heaven armed with a ladder and a ball of string, but if you really want to fuck her, I can tell you how you can manage. Just tell her 'no'. Just tell her you don't want her and ask her to leave you the hell alone, and I guarantee, she'll be on you like a bitch in heat in no time. Certainly worked for me."

All of Snape's guiltily held and highly detailed adolescent fantasies about how it would have been between Sirius and Bellatrix suddenly begin to rearrange themselves in his mind and take on a much uglier construction. He now realizes he's been putting himself in Sirius' place in all of them, and that Sirius' place in these lusty little scenarios is no longer a very good place to be.

Snape tries to shout at Sirius - who has always had everything so easy - who has looks and talent and a brilliant mind and friends who love him and who would die for him, who has a powerful, well-known family and all the Dark Arts built right into his bloodstream and who will inherit everything in time, who was born with everything Snape has ever wanted plus a silver fucking spoon in his mouth on top and who doesn't care a whit about any of it, and who, it seems, has even slept with the first woman Snape has ever desired for himself and now claims not to have ever wanted her in the first place – he tries to shout at Sirius but all the spit in his throat and mouth has dried up and he cannot.

He can only get a dry, scratchy whisper out. "That's not true, either, what you're saying. She never forced you. You're lying," he says, but he already knows from the terrible look on Sirius' blanched face that he is not. Black is many things, and most of them drive Severus Snape stark, raving mad, but Black is not a liar.

"I'm not lying," Sirius says, flatly. "I wish I were."

"But ... but she said-"

"I'm sorry, Snape. I really am. It doesn't matter what she said. If she didn't tell you how it really was, and then sent you out here to get in my face about it – then she double-crossed you too. So here's some honest advice now, no games this time, from me to you. Are you listening? Stay away from that woman. She's poison."

But Snape cannot hear this; not now; he cannot hear it. Because he has already believed Bellatrix Black about other things, he has already made commitments that he cannot now unmake. He has allowed Bella to lead him into dark associations and darker days and ways and he now bears a secret tattoo on his arm that cannot be removed. And if all that Sirius is saying is true, then Severus has allowed himself to be led into nothing but lies and evil - cock first.

If what Sirius is saying is true, then he, Severus Snape, is the worst kind of fool.

Boys are not men. Sirius and Severus are only sixteen years old and although they will both be obliged to take on adult tasks and adult tragedies long before their time, they are not yet men, not quite, not tonight. They have both been victimized by someone who is a little older and much more cruel, and who is more truly evil than either of them will ever be. But Severus Snape is not the kind of boy who is capable of cutting himself any slack. There is very little tolerance in him, not for himself, not for anyone else, and there never will be.

"The Dark Mark," Black is now saying, using that frightening, maddening fucking intuition of his that Severus both despises and envies in equal, bitter measure. "That was the one social situation I could think of, just now. She was recruiting. She talked you into it, didn't she? You let that insane, lying bitch make a Death Eater out of you, didn't you, Severus?"

"I was just so tired of being passed over," Severus replies dully. There's an odd sort of prickly commonality between the two boys just now; they have both been victims of sexual attacks, in a way, and both have been attacked by the same rapist. It doesn't even occur to Severus to lie to Sirius about where Bella has led him. "You wouldn't know what that's like – never being wanted, never being chosen, never the first choice, anyway – always last, always invisible. You can't imagine - people notice you."

"Even when I wish they wouldn't, Severus. And you don't know what that's like. You don't change who you are just by putting on a mask. You have to change what you believe, what you do. Didn't you ever think there might be other ways?"

"There aren't any other ways. You don't understand. How could you?"

"No, actually, I understand quite a lot about wanting to be someone else. And I understand that now you're a Death Eater - but you're still just 'Snivellus' in the end. When are you ever going to stop whining about it?"

"I believed her. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe it all."

Sirius shakes his head, almost sadly. "But you didn't, did you? I doubt you ever really believed a word. You bloody fool."

There's a certain cold, empty, still void at Snape's core as he makes his reply. What he says next, he believes, will probably kill one of them, either Black or himself, and right now, Snape is not at all sure that he much cares which.

"Bella was also wondering about something else," he says, evenly and quietly, gazing at Sirius in the same glazed way one might gaze at an oncoming avalanche. "She thought I might know, since I'm one of your classmates. And, in fact, I do know, although I haven't quite decided whether I'll tell her, yet."

Now Snape is lying. He has, in fact, decided, only within the past few minutes, actually, that he will never tell Bellatrix Black, or any other of his new, secret associates, what he knows. Not as long as he lives. But he neglects to inform Sirius, who, after all, has still had everything far too easy for far too long, even if his life is not quite as perfect as Snape has always imagined.

And he loathes Sirius for being the one to open his eyes to his own colossal stupidity at last.

"You repeated a name to her, I believe, in a weak moment?" Snape asks. "She would very much like to know to whom you were referring. She's asked me several times already. 'Moony' is the name she mentioned."

Snape cannot help but feel a certain doomed satisfaction to hear Sirius gasp quietly and to see him go even more bloodlessly white than he already is.

"And 'Moony'," Severus goes on. "Is the affectionate nickname you and all your absurd little Gryffindor friends use to refer to Remus Lupin."

Snape then folds his arms over his skinny chest and watches Sirius Black come unhinged.

The full moon is still rising.

Outside, under the moon's cool and tricky light, Sirius Black and Severus Snape are poised together in a precarious balance that could turn deadly at any passing moment.

In the Shrieking Shack, Remus Lupin is long gone and the Wolf that has taken his place throws himself against the doors and walls and attacks his own supernatural flesh because there is no other flesh to attack.

In the Dining Hall, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew are just finishing a subdued dinner without their mates and are rising from the table.

"Do you think Sirius might be back yet, James?" Peter asks timidly as they leave the table. "He didn't come in for dinner."

"I'm guessing he might not be too hungry tonight, Pete," James answers quietly. The stifling feeling of formless dread that has been troubling him all evening has not diminished as time has passed. If anything, it has grown worse.

"Well, maybe he's up in the tower by now, then?" Peter suggests.

He is desperately unnerved by the current disarray in all of his friends' normal habits and attitudes. He often finds it difficult to understand what the three cleverer, braver boys are thinking, or why any of them do the things they do. Because it is sometimes hard for him to keep up with them, he often relies on regular, expected patterns of behavior to show him the way. He also defines his own place in the group through familiarity, and this night, with all its disruption of the standard order of things, has left him not knowing exactly where he stands.

James is looking at Peter, and he smiles reassuringly. Unlike Peter, he understands a good bit of his friends' private motivations, and he understands very well how upset Peter must be.

"Well, we'll just see where Sirius is, shall we, Pete?" he says, and takes the Marauders' Map out of his pocket. "Let's get out by the stairs for a bit of privacy and we'll have a look."

Once out of the Hall and into the corridor, they find a shadowy little alcove under one of the staircases to slip into. James awakens the magical Map with a tap of his wand and the usual incantation, and they both peer at its surface as the usual complex lines and figures and names appear.

They search for 'Sirius Black' among all the various souls that are moving about Hogwarts tonight, and James is the first to find him.

"Bloody hell!" he shouts, startling Peter badly. Peter stares at the parchment where James is pointing with his wand.

On the Map, 'Sirius Black' is standing toe to toe with 'Severus Snape'.

James goes cold thinking of just how murderous Sirius looked the last time James saw him tonight, of all the horrible pressures his much-loved but somewhat erratic friend has been enduring for weeks, and of how Snape and Sirius are like two unstable elements in a potion – elements that should never, ever be mixed. He wonders, anxiously, how long the two of them have already been in conversation, and how long it will take him and Peter to get out onto the grounds to where they are.

"Right," he says to Peter. "We're going out there right now, Pete. The fastest way, get me?"

"We are? The fastest way?" Peter squeaks, uncomprehending.

James snorts impatiently. There are times when Petey drives him a bit mad. "Yes - the fastest way, you thick prat! As soon as we get outside - out by that garden with all the hawthorn bushes – we transform, see? I won't have time to wait for you - you just scamper after quick as you can, all right? Meet me here-" he stops to tap at the Map once more, so that Peter can see where they are going. "Right here on the path to the Forest. See it?"

"Oh – mmm – yes, I see it. Is – is everything all right, James?"

James is beginning to feel a bit frantic.

"No," he answers. "I really don't think it is."

Outside, in the night, the rising moon reaches its apogee.

Sirius is experiencing a very strange kind of dislocation. The past weeks have strained him past all his normal limits to begin with, Severus Snape has just provided the final shove, and Sirius is now operating well outside himself.

When he opens his mouth to talk to Snape, it's a fifty-fifty proposition whether Sirius will be speaking or Padfoot will be barking. Overwhelming stress has altered the generally stable separation between Sirius' two sets of world-views and mixed both together in a dangerously volatile combination. Boy and dog are making the decisions in concert now, and they are completely united in their awful fear and their profound rage.

"You are not going to say anything to anyone about Remus Lupin," Sirius says to Snape. He is using words, as it turns out, but he is snarling them through his teeth. "Not anything. Not now, not ever. Not EVER."

This, in fact, is Severus' intention precisely. But he still can't quite bring himself to admit that to Sirius, whom he now understands a good bit better than he ever has before, but who he also still loathes, perhaps more than ever.

And he still doesn't see just how far out of control Sirius is. It's entirely possible that he is choosing not to see.

"Oh, yes? Doing a bit of Divination, then, Black?" Snape says. "And yet, you do have to admit, Lupin is a very interesting sort of fellow. So mysterious. So intriguing the way you and Potter and Pettigrew are always hovering around him in a pack, screening him from view, as it were."

"And you've been slithering around all year long trying to get a better look, haven't you, you back-stabbing bastard?" Sirius bites off. "Always looking for where the weak link is. Always looking for the right place to plunge in your little knife. And always after Remus because you don't quite have the bollocks to come after James or me. When he's never done a single thing to offend your pathetic, precious pride, not even once."

"He's the one who has a secret, though, Black. Some secret – something you're all hiding. Lupin's a harmless enough milksop on his own, I'll concede – but he has terrible taste in friends. And it's already got him into serious trouble – hasn't it? Trusting in you? I'm not the one who whispers about him when I'm having it off with my cousin, am I?"

Bellatrix Black would recognize the oddly detached, speculative look that comes into Sirius' eyes now. But Severus Snape does not.

"You're getting off the subject at hand, Sevvie. We're not talking about me or that -'harmless milksop's' - secrets just now. We're talking about you."

Somewhere inside Sirius, altogether too close to the surface, Padfoot is applying strictly canine methodology to the problem before him. There is an intruder in his yard, threatening his family. This he will not tolerate. Sirius may have a number of tiresomely complicated moral views that restrict his, and by extension, Padfoot's behavior, but Padfoot has gone into emergency mode and is throwing them all off. He is steadily and ruthlessly working out the most effective pack hunting strategy to destroy the enemy.

"No, we're talking about secrets, Black. Yours – and mine. But you and your friends have a deal too many secrets, in my opinion. How about this for a proposition: you trade one secret for another. You tell me what you're all hiding about Lupin, and I'll promise never to tell Bellatrix what I know."

Sirius immediately understands this proposition of Snape's for exactly what it is. Severus will not want it generally known that he has sworn himself to Voldemort. Certainly not while he is still at Hogwarts, and especially not while Albus Dumbledore is the Headmaster. He may be questioning his own decisions in hindsight, but he cannot now go back and unmake them. Even from the far outer edges of control and reason which he is currently skirting, Sirius can momentarily admire Snape's cool calculation. Perhaps "Snivellus" really is a more worthy adversary than he or James have ever previously given him credit for. Credit where credit is due. It is clever of him to try and use Remus as a bargaining chip.

But it is also intolerable. Sirius could almost kill him for it. He has only the thinnest layer of reservation left.

Padfoot has no reservations at all; he has already determined to kill the enemy if he can. The primal, savage geometry of the cooperative hunt is assembling itself rapidly in his doggish mind – feint, counter-feint, nip, fall back; decoy the prey toward where the deadliest hunter in the pack will be waiting.

And, ultimately, Padfoot and Sirius are merging. There is not a single magic in Severus' and Sirius' world that does not carry its own concomitant cost, not even the simplest. One cannot perform Animagus spells regularly without also experiencing some attendant merging of human and animal identity. Under extreme pressure, the line between what Sirius intends and what Padfoot intends has become so blurred as to be nearly nonexistent.

"I won't tell you what Remus' secret really is, Snape -" Sirius says; his voice has an almost dreamy quality. It is, perhaps, the very last thing he will say, purely as himself, tonight.

Then, he goes on; he and Padfoot and Bella and Remus and the Wolf and too many terrible weeks of rage and fear and shame and love and hate all speaking together.

"I'll never tell you that – whatever threats you may have coiling about in your greasy little head – all ready to spring. But I will tell you this. If you think you really have to know – if you really must find out for yourself - there is a way."

"What way?" Severus asks, taking the bait down whole, as is his nature.

"Beneath the Whomping Willow, Severus, at the roots, you'll find an opening – an opening that leads into an underground passage."

"How thick do you think I am, Black? That tree would knock me senseless before I got within three feet of its roots."

"You're pretty much on the 'less' end of senseless already, Sevvie, as far as I'm concerned. But if you're the relentlessly persistent pest which, of course, we all know you are – you'll eventually find a certain knot on the trunk. Press it, and the Willow stops whomping, for a moment or two."

"I don't believe you. You're lying again."

"Am I? Then you'd be much better off not even trying it, wouldn't you? I think I'm going to say good night, now, Sevvie, pleasant as it's been. I think I've had about enough of you to last me a lifetime."

"Ah. At last we can agree on something, Black. Enough for two lifetimes."

Sirius turns his back on Snape and starts to walk away. It seems to him as though the ground under his feet is strangely distant as he walks, as though he is not fully connected to it, and it seems as if he and Severus have been out here in the moonlight together for centuries, ages, even eons. He thinks that although he'll take the well-known path back to the castle now, on this night, the path might not lead the way back at all. On this night, any path, even the most familiar, might easily lead one wildly astray.

"Some lifetimes are shorter than others," he says over his shoulder. "You may want to keep that in mind. Good night, Sevvie."

Severus answers abstractedly. He is already pondering all that Sirius has just said, and all that he has not said. "Mm-hmm. Good night. Oh – one thing. Sirius?"

Sirius stops, surprised. He can't remember when, if ever, he has heard Severus Snape address him by his given name.

"Yes?" he says, turning back to face Snape. "One thing?"

Severus smiles, and actually laughs, a bit. Sirius is struck by the transformation just a little laughter works on his face. He looks almost … pleasant… when he smiles.

"Sirius. Haven't I asked you not to call me 'Sevvie'?"

Sirius smiles too. "Why, so you have. Forgive me - so you have. And something you might want to ask yourself is whether you actually have the right to uncover some secrets, just because you can. Something else you might want to ask yourself, given all you know now, is why I'd ever voluntarily tell you anything at all. Good night – Severus."

Overhead, the full moon, having reached and passed its zenith, is setting.

Sirius is slowly treading the path back to the castle, still locked in his nightmarish sense of disconnection. He is horribly tired now – exhausted and depressed – and he cannot remember a time in his life, ever, when he has not felt the earth under his feet as a presence and a source, as he does not now. He has never before felt so unutterably lost.

When he encounters a stag on the path, he is, for a moment, unable to recognize Prongs, his best friend and his reliable moral compass; instead he takes the stag as merely another surreal sight in an ever-spreading and possibly inescapable dreamscape.

Hands on his shoulders, then, and a familiar voice in his ears. Hands shaking him.

"Sirius? Sirius!"

"James?"

It is James – shaking Sirius roughly to get his attention and looking desperately apprehensive.

Why? Sirius wonders; why does James look so frightened? It's something about Snape, isn't it? Severus Snape? He feels a strange sense of canine satisfaction as he remembers Snape, but he can't think why this should be.

"James?" Sirius asks. "What's happening, James? Do you know?"

"Where's Snape, Sirius? You haven't...? You…what … what did you do with him?"

Sirius shakes his head vaguely. "Not quite sure. I may have killed him."

James sucks in his breath in a hiss and shakes Sirius harder.

"Sirius! Talk sense! Where's Snape?"

"Or maybe Padfoot did it," Sirius goes on, head snapping back and forth loosely to James' shaking. "Or he may have killed himself. We had a talk. It was really very… confusing."

James wants to smack the terrible, abstracted look out of his friend's eyes; he wants to shake him until he is recognizable as himself once more. But he doesn't. He doesn't because he knows that such methods will not work on Sirius. Blows and shoves don't work on Sirius. He takes his friend's face into his hands instead, a gentle touch, and holds him still so he can look right into his eyes.

"Sirius. Look at me. Right here. Look at me."

He blows a quick breath across Sirius face, and the other boy's eyes begin to focus on him. "Look at me, Sirius."

Sirius does. He does look at James, and after a few moments, he starts to really see him.

"James? Yes, James? What is it?"

"What happened to Snape, Sirius? Where is he? What did you do?"

With James' hands on his skin and James' voice in his ears and James' eyes boring into his, Sirius begins to feel more grounded. He can use the physical reality of James as a sort of anchor, and as he does, he begins to come back to himself in quicker and quicker stages. Reality reasserts itself.

"Oh …oh, Godric's blood, James. Oh, no. Oh, fuck. What'd I do?"

He now feels not merely grounded but heavy, weighted with dread. With James before him, still holding his face gently and forcing him to focus, Sirius, just as he did four weeks earlier on another awful night that apparently isn't over yet, tells James everything. His recital, just as it was before, is quick and complete. It doesn't take long.

"Daft," James croaks, aghast. "You're daft. Completely round the bend. C'mon."

"No," Sirius says, and plants his feet firmly in the ground. "Not like this. You go – Prongs is the fastest, you can get to the Willow before…before…before whatever. I'll catch up."

James nods quickly. Sirius is right. "All right. I'll need Paddy. In case … in case we have to control the Wolf."

Sirius shakes his head again. "Not Paddy. Not tonight. I can't trust me …him …we can't…just go. I'll catch up."

"But maybe Snape didn't … you told him not to …"

"Oh, he did. I'm sure he did. He's at least as daft as I am, tonight. Just go."

James does not waste any more time. He turns away from Sirius and has become a stag even before the turn is complete. Sirius can see his white tail flashing momentarily in the darkness before he bounds away.

Sirius' first instinct is to bound after Prongs, to offset his own mental disarray with the consolation of movement. But he forces himself to stand still, to put some order to all his chaotic thoughts and impressions, to actually think, perhaps for the very first time in weeks. He runs his shaking hands through his hair once, and then presses them both against the sides of his head, almost as though he has a killer headache.

"Sirius?"

It is Peter, trembling on the path and out of breath. "Sirius? Isn't James here? He said to meet him here. And where's Snape?"

Sirius turns to Peter and when he speaks to him; his voice is almost even and controlled. There is hardly any tremor in it at all, and his hands have almost stopped shaking.

"He's been and gone, Pete. Snape too. I'll be following in a minute. Now here's what I want you to do-"

"But where'd he go? Why-"

"Shut up, Peter - please! Listen to me. Do as I tell you. Go get Dumbledore."

"Get the Headmaster?" Peter bleats, horrified. "Are you barmy? We'd all get detention for life! James'd kill me!"

Sirius twists his hands together rather than twisting them round Peter's throat and somehow manages not to shake the smaller boy until his teeth rattle right out of his head. He is desperately aware of how quickly time is fleeting by. He stares into Peter's eyes and holds him still with nothing more than sheer force of will. He has to convince Peter to do as he says.

"Goddamnit, Pete … look …Peter … please. This is trouble. We can't handle it on our own anymore. People are going to get killed. We need help."

"Killed? Who's going to get killed-"

"You are, if you don't do what I say! And Severus Snape. And James. And Remus too, probably, all right? So can you PLEASE stop arguing with me and just go – get – Dumbledore!"

"But – what'll I tell hi–"

Sirius fairly leaps on Peter and grabs his shoulders and physically turns him around toward the castle. He starts frog-marching Peter in the direction he wants him to go while gabbling urgently, right in his ear. "I sent Snape to the Willow and told him how to get in and James went to stop him and they are both going to be a midnight snack if the Wolf gets hold of them and we need some fucking help here so get Dumbledore and tell him what I did or so help me I am gonna kick your fat arse all the way to the castle from here and-"

Pete wedges his feet into the ground and stops them both with a jerk while his face turns slightly green. "Willow? Snape? Wolf? James? Oh – no – oh, Sirius, you – you didn't!"

Sirius takes his hands off Peter and regards him evenly.

"I did. What in hell do you think I've been trying to tell you? Now are you going to go get the Headmaster or not?"

Peter gulps audibly. "Oh – my – God …" he moans.

"Right," Sirius says.

"Oh, shite," Peter says.

"Too right," Sirius confirms.

"You mad bastard," Peter says.

"You see the problem, then," Sirius says.

Peter shudders. "I'm off," he says, and dashes away toward the castle in an instant.

Sirius watches him momentarily to make sure he has a good start and doesn't trip over his own damn feet or something, and then he's off toward the Willow himself at a sprint, squeezing every bit of speed he can out of the long stride fortunate genetics have given him.

In the Shrieking Shack, the Wolf is bristling with endless rage and frustration and snaps at shadows and bites at himself and paces round and round, claws clicking wickedly against the wooden floor. He suddenly stops when a familiar scent comes wafting faintly into his prison, stops dead and stands still, quivering with lust as he raises his muzzle into the air and casts about for the source of the magnetic, metallic scent.

Blood. Human blood. He can smell it in the air. He can feel each separate molecule of fragrance coating the secret inner channels of his snout and resting like satin against his tongue and igniting an unquenchable blaze in his brain.

He locates the source in moments and shrieks, howling like a hurricane as he throws his full weight against the locked wooden door that leads down into the tunnel under the Willow.

Inside that tunnel, with only a small light at the tip of his wand to hold back some of the oozing blackness, Severus Snape hears the Wolf shrieking and instantly knows, through the pre-rational logic of nerve-endings and twisting guts, that he is hearing the voice of death itself. He instantly understands that he is the prey in a way that is more than knowing. It is primal, it is totality. The Thing he hears is howling for blood. His blood.

He is momentarily paralyzed, as stilled by terror as any small woodland creature suddenly facing death by tooth and nail has ever been.

I'm dead, he thinks. And if I do somehow manage to get out of this alive - I am going to have that nancy prick Black's guts for garters – I swear it on Merlin's sainted drawers. I am going to eat that cousin-fucking, inbred, snot-nosed sonofabitch's heart!

"Hullo, Snape," says James Potter from right behind him. "Let's run like hell, shall we?"

Snape is so startled he literally jumps by at least a foot and screams shrilly and clutches his chest where his heart feels as though it is trying to thump its way right out of his ribcage.

But at least his paralysis is broken. James grabs his free wrist and yanks him around toward the Willow end of the tunnel. The Wolf is howling and snarling and baying like all the Hounds of Hell in chorus at the other end, and then the sickening crack of wood splintering fills the darkness all around them like the crack of doom.

"You scream like a girl, Snivellus," James remarks, and then they are both running flat out for the end of the tunnel and the dubious safety of the open night beyond.

The tunnel seems to Severus to be elongating as they run its length, stretching out like black taffy ahead of them, and darkness as well as some howling collection of bloodlust and savagery is closing in behind. He runs faster than he has ever run before in his life and whenever he starts to slow, or to try to steal a glance behind them, Potter yanks him forward again and never lets up or loosens his death-grip on Severus' wrist. The baying and shrieking of whatever is behind them grows louder and a triumphant note of hellish eagerness begins to be audible in the Thing's voice and then Severus can hear the pounding of paws on earth, echoing and multiplying all through the tunnel and sounding as though it is right on their heels.

"…fuck …fuck … fuck…" Potter pants as he puts on yet another burst of speed.

"…bugger …oh, bugger … bugger …" Severus pants, matching Potter stride for stride and unable to stop twisting his neck and peering behind himself, much as he would like to stop.

The mouth of the tunnel is drawing near at last and the final pale rays of the sinking moon silver the open night outside. Severus wonders, for a moment, why he has never noticed how beautiful moonlight really is before, and then when he glances back the way they have come, he can make out a dim, hulking shape in the tunnel behind them, a darker shadow amongst shadows, a horribly familiar shape common to many, many traditional nightmares.

"… werewolf …Lupin…" Snape pants, somehow pulling another few degrees of speed out of his pumping legs and pounding feet. "… werewolf ..?"

"…werewolf …" James confirms, also somehow finding a bit more speed somewhere inside himself and pulling Snape along after. "…don't … miss … much …do you ..?"

"… gah-hhhh …Potter …" Severus replies, somewhat senselessly.

"…Willow … up ahead …root, pull … freeze…out …up …press the knot again …starts whomping …"

Severus feels disproportionately relieved to hear that Potter does have some sort of an escape plan in mind. Not that, realistically, he thinks much of the proposed plan's efficacy. The ravening, howling version of Remus Lupin just behind them sounds like he could and would eat the Whomping Willow whole in order to get his teeth on their bones.

"…bet … our …lives … on … a tree …Potter …idiot …typical …"

"…want …to …stop and … brew up… a potion… Snivellus …wanker ..?"

"…ugh …git …hate …moron …guuhhhh …"

They gain the mouth of the tunnel and James grabs at an unusually crooked root that hangs in the opening, slightly to the left, and gives it a good yank. Then both boys burst out of the tunnel in a flurry of flying clods of earth and many seasons' falls of dead willow leaves. Snape tumbles to a halt in the dirt of the steep hollow around the tunnel opening and the rich smell of earth fills his nose. Potter is already scrabbling frantically at the trunk of the tree with one hand while he covers the entrance to the tunnel with his wand. Snape raises himself to his knees, gasping for air, and starts to raise his own wand in a trembling hand when he is bowled over once again by a black, furry shape flying past and he hears a series of sharp, staccato barks.

He can hear Potter shouting "No – Sirius – don't!" but all he can see as he rights himself is Potter standing still as some dumb rock with his wand out and what looks like the tail end of a big, black mutt disappearing down into the blackness of the tunnel. What the hell is Potter on about?

"Potter!" he screeches. "Potter – press – the fucking – knot!"

Potter shakes himself as though he's just been startled out of a deep sleep and then presses the charmed knot on the trunk of the Willow. He drops to his belly immediately and crawls up and out of the hollow, pressing himself as flat against the ground as he can get. Snape too begins to squirm his way up the earthen walls around him as the boughs of the Willow overhead begin to creak and swish ominously. Neither boy stops crawling on his belly until they are both well out of the whomping range of the truculent tree.

When they have both gasped for air long and hard enough to catch their breaths a little, Snape glances at Potter, glasses askew, white as a sheet, and hair standing on end, lying in the dirt beside him.

"You just saved my life, Potter, you miserable, four-eyed fuck," Snape wheezes, and for some reason, all he really wants to do at this moment is laugh and laugh and laugh, if he could only find enough breath for it. "I'll get even with you for that if it's the last thing I do."

James is already laughing hysterically, not even trying to hold it in. He thumps Snape on the back companionably, just as though they have been the best of mates for years and years.

"You do that, Severus," he huffs and puffs in reply, still giggling madly. "You just go on ahead and do that. In fact, I'll expect nothing less."

Meanwhile, in the darkened tunnel, Padfoot and the balked, frustrated, incensed Wolf are having a nonverbal discussion of the canine kind. The Wolf is snarling and drooling and baying at the top of his lungs as he still smells the luscious scent of blood right outside the tunnel and just past the familiar form of his pack-mate, who has chosen an extremely inconvenient time to put in an appearance, to say the least. The Wolf does not really remember why, but he does remember that he is already angry with this particular pack-mate, and right now, the big black dog is also standing between him and the veritable feast that the Wolf has only just missed securing by cold inches.

The Wolf flattens his ears as he stares the dog down, and he vocalizes a series of growls, rumbles and whirrs that mean, in effect: Get your mangy arse out of my way at once or suffer the consequences.

The dog slowly lowers his tail and his ears and his eyes and whines briefly: The prey is gone – you'll never get past the big tree-that-hits outside and even if you could I'm not getting out of your way anyway and so that's it then.

The Wolf's hackles bristle and he throws his head back and howls furiously: You flea-bitten, kitten-chasing, tail-wagging cur – this is all somehow YOUR fault!

Padfoot lowers himself to the ground, rolls over, goes belly-up and splays out his paws, and then whines once more: Yes, you're right, it is. Here's my belly. Kill me if you must.

The Wolf is very angry indeed with Padfoot, but he has no intention whatsoever of killing a pack-mate; it's a preposterous idea. He does, however, intend to give the black dog a beating he will never forget and one which the Wolf is certain, in some vague way, that Paddy richly deserves.

The Wolf leaps on the dog, and in the course of administering the following extended lesson in canine etiquette to his pack-mate, although the Wolf growls and snarls and snaps alarmingly and shows his fangs often and frequently rakes Padfoot's thick black fur with his claws, he never once bites hard enough to break the dog's skin.

He soon has expended all his frustration and fury through the medium of a thoroughgoing thrashing, and finds that he is tired. The Wolf does not know how he knows it, but outside the tunnel, in the night, the moon has set, and the dawn is only an hour or two away. A time of change is coming soon, the Wolf feels it. He noses the now bedraggled Paddy once or twice, receives a faint chuff in response to assure him that all is well and no permanent damage is done, and after having a pee in several different corners of the space around them, the Wolf stalks off toward the Shack end of the tunnel.

Padfoot huffs softly and licks his paws for a few minutes, just until he has regained enough composure to raise his tired, beat-up body to a standing position. He looks off down the tunnel, in the direction where the Wolf has gone, and sniffs the air, peers into the darkness, sniffs again. Nothing. The Wolf has had enough jaw-grinding frustration for one night, it seems, and has gone back to the Shack to await the transformation to come.

Padfoot then limps to the mouth of the tunnel and listens for a moment. He can hear various voices just outside. He cannot make out what they are saying, not because he can't hear them well enough, but because he needs to think as Sirius thinks in order to understand the words.

He can, of course, understand the emotions behind the words perfectly well; it is a kind of understanding all dogs share, and there are times when Padfoot understands what is really being said far more clearly than Sirius can. He knows the voices – he can hear his great friend James' wild and diminishing giggles interspersed with his despised enemy's rising tones.

Just the sound of Snape's voice makes Paddy's lips curl back from his teeth and he thinks of Snape's unique smell – a complex array of subtle individual scents that will mark Severus Snape's identity in Padfoot's memory forever. Padfoot can see and taste and hear very well, but he evaluates and judges almost entirely by scent. His utter condemnation of Snape is irrevocable and complete; he would still kill this enemy if he could.

But not tonight. That time has passed; perhaps it will come round again on some other night. The dog coils down into his haunches, gathering his strength, and then leaps straight up into the black space above him and catches the crooked root in his teeth. He drops back to the earthen floor of the tunnel as the faintly rustling boughs of the Willow outside cease their movement and sigh gently into silence. The human voices Padfoot can hear are not interrupted in their flow; James and Snape have not noticed the Willow's stillness or the cessation of its low creaking.

Padfoot slinks through the mouth of the tunnel, crouched low to the ground, hidden in the gloom of the hollow, padding soft on his paws. He hears James laughing at something Snape has said, and uses the sound as cover as he jumps up out of the hollow and fades around to the far side of the great trunk of the Willow. He moves away from the tree and the voices, trotting from patch of shadow to dark shadow, as silent as a shadow himself, and as black. He makes for a group of standing stones not far away, near the path that leads to Hagrid's cabin, and lies down in their lee when he gets there.

The hunt is done, though the danger has not passed. Now the harsh and elegant simplicity of the hunt is not enough, now he must see shades of grey and consider all sides. The danger has not yet passed, but it has passed beyond Padfoot's scope and comprehension. Now he must think as Sirius – he must be Sirius. A small stirring of air, a soft ruffling of fur, a spiraling eddy of black sparks, and he is Sirius, lying in the shadow of the great stones where Padfoot used to be. Sirius rises to his feet, shaking the lingering traces of powerful magic out of his hair where they cling and crackle faintly, like charged motes of dust.

He begins to walk back to the Whomping Willow, and finds he must favor his right ankle, which feels as though it is sprained. He can taste blood, and after a brief inventory of his mouth, decides his nose must have been bleeding. Certainly it feels puffy and stuffed. Other little hurts and small injuries make themselves known as he trudges along. An infuriated Moony must have done a touch more damage then he'd originally reckoned.

Sirius looks into the night sky above him and the part of him that is still Padfoot sniffs the cool night air. All parts determine that the dawn is coming soon. He sighs. It has been a very long night, and an even longer day is likely to follow. He wishes there were a way he might persuade Dumbledore and Severus and various other interested parties to just let him sleep for a week or two before the inevitable post mortems of this ghastly night's doings begin.

At least, so far as he can tell, all the participants seem to have managed to get through the night alive. That, at least, is something.

Well, hasn't this been one hell of a party, Sirius thinks with savage self-mockery. I'm just the perfect host. Mayhem, madness, and let's not be stingy with the mortal danger. Never a dull moment. Bella would be green with envy. Her and all her silly Samhain rubbish. Phfffft.

He continues to limp back toward the Willow.

Back in the shadow of the great tree, James and Severus have managed to collect themselves some, at least enough to get over their initial giddy astonishment at finding themselves still alive after all the evening's adventures.

As they have regained their breath and their wits, they have, of course, begun to argue.

"That bloody homicidal mate of yours needs to be locked up in a padded room at once, before he kills someone else. And I don't mean the werewolf," Snape is saying.

"What do you mean, 'someone else', Snivelly? You're not dead just yet, are you?" James objects.

"No thanks to Black, or his pet monster. You do know he has some sort of disgusting crush on that thing, don't you?"

"That thing has a name. He's the fellow who sits two desks away from you in Potions. Whose notes from History of Magic go for around two Sickles a foot on the black market because he's the only student in the whole school who can stay awake long enough to take notes. Who tutors the first years in Defense and who sometimes saves parts of his breakfast to feed to the squid at lunch. Who's never said a single cross word to you in six years of school."

"He looked decidedly cross tonight though, didn't he, Potter? I can't believe you maniacs have been hiding a Dark Creature on school grounds all this time! The sheer depth of the stupidity is mind-boggling – even for you and your friends."

"One of my friends is the 'Dark Creature' you're talking about. And if you're thinking that now you'll go squealing your greasy head off about him to anyone who'll listen - if Sirius doesn't make you sorry you were ever born - I will!"

"I knew we'd get down to threats eventually, Potter. That's all you know, isn't it? But then, you do keep what brains you have in your broomstick, don't you?"

"Snivellus, all you have to ask yourself is do you really want to fuck with us? Do you really think we'll be all pip pip and cheerio and sporting about this? That we'd meet you on the field of honor for a nice, civil dueling practice - one at a time? We haven't been very nice to you, Snape, I'll admit it. But if you're thinking it can't get any worse than it's been, you had better think again."

"Strangely enough, I actually can't quite imagine anything much worse than trying to feed me to a werewolf!

"Sirius did that by accident, Snape. Believe it or not, he wasn't thinking clearly at the time. Imagine what he could come up with if he actually put his mind to it. And you wouldn't have just him to deal with."

"So, I keep quiet about what I saw tonight or you set your flesh-eating monster and your murdering loony loose on me? Any other secret weapons in your little army you want to warn me about?"

"None that I want to warn you about. I'll keep a few in reserve. But there's also me, Snape, in case you were forgetting. And there are also a few facts that you need to get through your thick, antisocial skull. Sirius is my best friend. He tells me everything. Everything. Tell him something, and you've just told me too. There's not a word you said to him tonight that I haven't already heard. Understand? At this point, you have a few secrets of your own in the balance."

Snape flushes angrily at this reminder of the bizarre little heart-to-heart chat he and Black had earlier, and he thinks now of all the things he would much prefer he had not said then. He tries to control his temper enough to frame some sort of thinking reply to Potter, and finds it very hard going indeed.

Just as he opens his mouth to say something, whatever it might be, he is interrupted by a third voice, coming out of the night behind them and instantly recognizable.

"Among many ancient mages, a full moon was said to be an ill-omened time for the sharing of secrets," says Albus Dumbledore. He is standing on the path from the castle behind them, accompanied by a panting Peter Pettigrew, out of breath and clearly apprehensive. Peter's worried face splits into a relieved grin when he sees James, alive and apparently unhurt.

"Judging from what I know of tonight's events so far, it seems they may have been right," Dumbledore remarks further. "Good evening, Mr. Potter, Mr. Snape. How pleasant to find the both of you alive."

Snape groans in utter, uncontrollable disgust. "Salazar's Suds! Just when I thought this entire disaster could not possibly get any worse! What idiot sent for the Headmaster?"

"That would be me, Severus," Sirius answers quietly, hobbling out of the darkness to the right of tree. "I rather thought we could use a bit of help. Thanks, Pete, that was quick work. Hullo, James, glad you're not killed. Good evening, sir, I am solely responsible for everything. It's all my …mmm …fault, and…and…"

Sirius finds that he is unable to complete his thought. He is suddenly extraordinarily light headed, his ankle feels like a hot, swelling balloon filled with bits of ground glass, and he has quite reached the end of his normally abundant supply of nervous energy. He sways momentarily, then simply folds up and lands with a small, dull thud on the ground.

"Er …" he says faintly. "I hope no one minds if I … sit down?"

Dumbledore, Pettigrew, Potter and Snape are all staring at him as though lobsters are crawling out of his ears. He can't think why for a moment, until Snape finally speaks.

"What the hell happened to you, Black? You look like a sack of ground meat!"

Sirius suddenly remembers his bloody nose and all the other bumps and bruises the angry Wolf must have left on his face and body, and is caught totally flat-footed. How can he possibly explain how he got so beat up without giving away the last secret he and his friends have managed to retain?

He can see James' eyes narrowing in nonplussed alarm as he tries to think of a credible excuse for his appearance, and then Pettigrew unexpectedly steps into the breach.

"Err …" says Peter. "I did it. When Sirius told me what he'd done and sent me for the Headmaster … I …guess I got a bit …hot about it. I roughed him up."

Snape snorts in disbelief and Dumbledore raises his eyebrows a bit. Peter is almost a foot shorter than Sirius and weighs maybe half of what he does. Sirius blushes in abject humiliation before he bites the bullet and confirms Peter's story.

"He's a fierce one, small as he is," Sirius says with the greatest reluctance. "We all try not to get on Pete's bad side."

"He's the terror of the Gryffindor Tower, you know," James adds, nodding vigorously. There is a suspicious twitching about the corners of his mouth as he says it, Sirius notes with a certain amount of annoyance.

Professor Dumbledore steps in. "Well, gentlemen, it appears we all have much to discuss. My office, I think. Mr. Black, are you able to make it back to the castle without assistance?"

"Yes, sir," Sirius answers, far more stoutly than he feels.

"And …Mr. Lupin?" Dumbledore asks him.

Sirius glances up at the sky for a moment, and surreptitiously sniffs the air once more. The night sky has gone a pale shade of grey in the east. "Sleeping it off in the Shack by now, I expect, sir," Sirius answers.

Severus Snape glances back and forth between Dumbledore and Sirius for a moment, a surprised look on his face.

"Very well, then," Dumbledore says. "Gentlemen, follow me. All of you."

He sets off toward the castle without glancing back, and the four boys trail after him, each in his own time, James and Peter first, Severus a bit more slowly, and Sirius, crippled by his injured ankle, last.

Snape allows himself to fall back a bit in order to speak to Sirius, hobbling along behind him.

"He knows," Severus says. "About Lupin, I mean."

"Of course he knows," Sirius answers irritably. "Did you think the Willow just grew on the grounds by accident? Most of the school staff knows, I'll be bound. Certainly Pomfrey does, even you could have guessed that. And McGonagall, too, I expect."

"But why on earth would he allow-"

"Oh, for God's sake, Severus! Open your eyes. The whole world doesn't think like you do. Or like my family does. Or like Voldemort does. Remus is a wizard. He deserved a chance to go to school, just like all the rest of us. Dumbledore gave him that chance, because he's a fair and good man, and because-"

"But it's madness! Lupin is dangerous, he's-"

"And because that's what he does, Severus, gives people the chances no one else will. Lucky for you that he does that, wouldn't you say? Lucky for both of us. I expect you and I will both need a lot of second chances today."

Snape stops walking and drops his hand on Sirius' shoulder, stopping him abruptly too. He stares, hard, right into Sirius' eyes.

"What are you going to tell him, Black? How much of what we talked about earlier are you going to repeat?"

"Worried your bargaining position isn't quite as strong as you thought it was, Sevvie? Now that you know Remus' secret isn't as much of a secret as you imagined? Get your hand off me."

Severus scowls, but drops his hand off Sirius' shoulder. "Well? What are you going to say to Dumbledore?"

Sirius sighs tiredly. "I'm going to tell him the truth. What else? I'm going to tell him everything. Quite frankly, I am sick to death of trying to sort it all out myself. Maybe Dumbledore can manage, it's clear enough I can't. And you know what, Severus? That's probably your best bet too. But that's not really what you're asking, is it?"

"No, it isn't," Severus answers evenly.

"All right. Dumbledore knows about Remus – maybe a few others do as well. But not everyone does. And Bella doesn't know about 'Moony'. Agree to keep it that way, Snape, and I promise you, I'll never say a single word to Dumbledore about you. Not ever. I won't tell, if you won't. Satisfied?"

Snape searches Sirius' eyes, weighs the expression on his bruised face, judges the timbre of his voice. After a moment, he replies. "There's your mate, Potter…what about him?"

Sirius shakes his head. "He wont say anything if I ask him not to. And I will."

"But you can't be certain he won't-"

"Oh, shut it. You still don't really understand this stuff, do you? I can be certain. He's my best friend. He'll do what I ask. Just as I would do for him. So let's stop niggling about and just settle it, all right? I'm tired. I don't want to debate with you all morning. Are we agreed?"

Severus Snape thinks, for a moment, of his own small circle of friends, cronies, really, mostly Slytherin house-mates. He contrasts what he knows of their loyalty to him with what he's learned of the loyalty Potter, Lupin, Black and Pettigrew have to one another. He thinks of how Potter risked his own life simply to undo the ill his friend Black had done, and he thinks now of the absolute faith Black has just expressed in Potter. He thinks of the infinite value of loyalty and love, and he hates Sirius all the more.

"All right, then," he says, harshly. "Done. We're agreed."

He stalks off toward the castle quickly, trying to leave Sirius behind and out of sight as fast as he can.

But he is not quite fast enough. Sirius calls to him. "Severus?" Sirius stops and smiles to himself, a bit. His faintly amused smile looks rather disturbing on his bruised and bloodied face. "One thing …"

Snape recognizes this reference to their earlier conversations and scowls again, but he does stop for a moment. "Yes, Sirius? One thing?"

"Well, I don't really know why I should try to give you advice, but I will. I won't tell Dumbledore any of your secrets; we've agreed. But that doesn't mean that you can't tell him."

Severus moves a step or two closer to Sirius without quite knowing that he's doing it.

"And why would I want to do that?" he asks, softly. There is no sneering in his voice at all; it is almost as though he wants Sirius to confirm what he himself already knows.

"You're already wishing that you hadn't made some of the choices you've made, aren't you? I think you are, anyway. You're – you're not really a bad sort, Severus. You're a nasty, vindictive git with a stick up your bony arse, to be sure, and I personally couldn't be bothered to piss on you if you were on fire, but you're not evil. Not really, not yet. Why don't you see if you can loosen up that stiff neck of yours and ask for some help? Dumbledore does say that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

Snape regards Sirius intently. "What makes you think I need any help, Black?" he asks.

Sirius shrugs. "It doesn't matter what I think, Severus. The question is – don't you think that you need some help?"

Snape does not answer but stands still, considering. After a time, Sirius slowly limps past him and away toward the castle. Snape doesn't stir until quite a bit later.