Chapter 15: Remus's Secret

Derek fell to the ground, spluttering out the liquid that was fouling up his mouth. He was glad that his mouth was numb, and he couldn't taste it. He didn't want to know what it was. He could barely feel anything at all, and he couldn't move. He had turned his head to the left so that he hadn't hit the ground face down. That might have been the end of him right there, but he still had control of his own neck. There were a few moments of silence after the thump of his landing. And then the world exploded.

"Crucio!"

Derek screamed, and though the pain was just as bad as he remembered it, it was a familiar pain at this point. It was too strong to get lost in, though. He couldn't forget himself and ignore the pain… even if he was numb all over. His spasms had brought him around to being on his back. He couldn't control any of his muscles now, not that he could think straight enough to realize that he might want to. All that filled him was the pain, and that left no room for thought or memory.

And then it stopped again.

The only sound in the retched place was the ragged breathing of the now seventeen-year-old wizard. The pain was not completely gone, and Derek was forced to cough again, and he couldn't turn his head, or try to get out of the way of what came out. He dealt with it.

And a voice, a voice like scratching on a chalkboard sounded loudly in his ear. "Goodbye, Derek. Avada Kedavra!"

"GRAAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Derek screamed, sitting up so quickly he nearly launched himself out of the bed. He was soaked, and so were the blankets and mattress cover that he was sleeping on. After he had regained his balance, he threw off the covers and stood up. He collected the covers that had fallen off onto the bed and put on the first clothes he came by in his trunk. When he was dressed, he then looked at the marauders.

James and Sirius were sleeping like babies. As it was completely normal for them to sleep through a duel, Derek didn't find this out of the ordinary. Peter was also a heavy sleeper, though not nearly as much of one as either of James or Sirius. When Derek's eyes rested on Remus's bed, he jumped. Remus was sitting quietly in his bed, watching him.

"Did I wake you?" Derek asked him in a whispered tone, even though had he shouted he probably would not have woken the other three boys.

"No," Remus replied in the same tones, though without the breathlessness that was understandably in Derek's voice. "I couldn't sleep."

Derek nodded. "And I don't need to tell you what happened to me."

Remus shook his head, and silence fell between the two boys. Derek turned and walked to the window that looked out upon the grounds from where they slept. They were quiet and bare, as was to be expected from the grounds at such an hour. "Remus, what time is it?"

"Probably about four. Don't you have your watch on?"

Derek shook his head. "I tossed it in my trunk before Quidditch practice, and I've yet to put it on again."

Derek sighed. This was becoming a very annoying tradition. It had happened in fits and spurts ever since the year began, but ever since that letter… that Merlin-cursed letter… he had had a similar dream every night without fail. He didn't always wake up in the middle of it, but it always was about his meeting with Lord Voldemort and generally ended with his death. When James apologized a few days after the letter came, that evening Derek escaped from the Death Eaters with his life and his wand in the dream he had that night.

But the dream had quickly become routine, and so, unfortunately, was the loss of sleep associated with such dreams. He had begun to lag behind in some of his classes, even though he scrambled at the study sessions to try to catch up. He imagined that the study sessions were the only reason he was able to keep up with the coursework, if not keep the same kinds of grades he used to be able to keep with no effort at all.

Lily was treading lightly around him as if he could just fall dead at a wrong breath. James didn't smile when he looked at him, but he didn't glare either. It was more of a forlorn look that James got when he looked over at Derek, whether Derek looked back or not. Sarah asked him what was wrong with such an unhappy look on her face a few days after the letter that he had told her about the letter. Once that had happened, Sarah greeted him with a hug and a sad look into his eyes.

Remus treated him the same, and that's what kept him sane.

That had been the constant factor. Since second year, Remus had been treating him the same way, and vice versa. Day in, day out, Remus and Derek had known where they stood with the other. They had known that when one of them was forced to go to the common room in the middle of the night because of something that was going on, the other would be there. Always there. Always willing to lend an ear and keep the secret with them to their graves. Derek had never told Sarah or Helga anything that Remus had told him on those nights, and Derek could swear the rest of the marauders didn't know anything about what he had told Remus.

It was this relationship that was brought to Derek's mind as he stared out the window at some ungodly hour in the morning with the only other person in the castle up sitting on one of the beds that was behind him. Derek turned around and walked over to Remus's bed and sat on the edge of it. Remus didn't speak or move; he had probably expected this eventuality, and the silence was kept save for the snores of their dorm mates until Derek broke it.

"Did James tell you?"

"That you two made up?"

"No; not that. Something far more important than that petty squabble."

Remus let a smile touch his lips. "Well, at least we knew it was petty. Did Lily really kiss you?"

Derek sighed. "Yes, but I want to talk about the important thing."

Remus's smile left as quickly as it had come, and he murmured an apology. "Go on then, Derek."

"My parents will most likely take me in front of Lord Voldemort during the Christmas Holidays."

Remus looked at him, not changing the look on his face much, but Derek could tell out of long practice that Remus was in thought. He waited for Remus to come to the conclusion that he wanted. "You told James this?"

"It brought to the fore just how pointless the whole thing is. He let it drop between that and that Lily's even more annoyed with him than she used to be. But much as I tell anyone, or ask anyone advice, they have nothing. No one knows what to do in the face of my problem."

"Running away won't work; there's nowhere to run away to."

Derek shook his head with a dark look taking over his face. "No. I'm stuck here until the holidays, and if when they do come I should happen to go against my parents' wishes and stay here, I will simply be delaying the inevitable, and make them angry at the same time."

Remus was quiet for a moment, and Derek had nothing more to say, so he let his gaze return to the window out across the top of the Forbidden Forest. "What would you gain?"

"What?"

"What would you gain if you were to delay? We know that you would be safe until the Easter Holidays, and that when they finally got their hands on you your parents would be extremely angry with you, but what could you gain with a delay? Would you be able to learn anything, get anything done that you couldn't in the next month or so?"

Derek turned back around to look at Remus again. "I know I wouldn't be able to deal with the dreams that long."

Remus shrugged. "Get a dreamless sleep potion."

Derek sighed. "I've tried to get some from the nurse, but she refuses because I can't bear to give her the reason I've been having the dreams. I was able to tell Dumbledore, but I can't imagine telling anyone that I haven't already told at this point."

"What if someone else did the telling for you?"

Derek shook his head, his eyes pleading. "No… that would also be bad. If it got out that my parents are Death Eaters and plan to bring me to a meeting over Christmas Holidays and have me initiated then, I would probably be in serious trouble with the Ministry."

"And that's worse than what you're in now?"

Derek gave a wry smile with no mirth. "Azkaban is the only punishment I can think of that would be worse than death."

Remus nodded. "Considering the crap we've all had to deal with, especially you, I imagine that there are many things that the Dementors would leave us with." There was another stretch of silence before Remus tried another solution. "You told Dumbledore?"

"Yes."

"And he didn't say anything that would help?"

"He said that he couldn't help. The only proof he had of their guilt was my word, and he saw that bring that out in the open would bring me into more danger than I already was in. So he said that I had to 'continue in my endeavor alone.' Not a pleasant thought, even with all the comforting words he had to give before that."

Remus nodded. "What he does is never really obvious as to how it will help us all, but I know that he cares about all of us. He has done many things to help us all, many things no one else would do…" He then stopped, though his tone of voice had suggested that there was more that he wanted to say.

Derek looked at him askance. "Is this your secret again?"

Remus nodded, though he didn't say anything.

Derek stood up, moving back over to the window and leaning on the sill. "It has something to do with something that Dumbledore has done for you. Something he had not done for anyone else. And something that no one else would have done for you. We'd never pried into each others' secrets before… but now there's the fact that I'm laid open for practically everybody this year. Do you think you can trust me with the secret you have?"

Derek looked upwards into the starlit sky. The moon was only visible during dawn and dusk since it was nearly new, so there was no bright silver disc in the sky. The ground was only lit by the weak starlight, though it was strong enough for Derek to make out the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid's hut and the lake. Having studied the outdoors enough, he turned back to his friend, who looked up from his thoughts at the same time.

"I can trust you," Remus said in a voice that was barely audible even compared to the whispers that they had been communicating in the first place.

Derek sat on the sill, more than slightly surprised that Remus was willing. "You don't have to Remus… I'm just saying that-"

Remus cut him off. "I know all of your secrets now; much more than the rest of them. Even they know this secret of mine, and I'm surprised that you haven't figured it out yourself.

"My mother is the healthiest witch you may ever meet. She has never been sick; she has simply been the excuse that I have been using to explain my many absences. Back in third year, the rest of this room figured it out… and they have been helping me through it ever since… I held off telling you because I didn't know how you would take it."

Derek stood up and walked over to the bed that Remus was sitting on. Remus didn't notice because he had looked down to the sheets of his bed during the whole monologue. When Derek put his hand on the other boy's shoulder, Remus looked up at him with fear in his eyes. Derek shook his head. "You are Remus Lupin. No more, no less. The Marauders are no less your friend because of this secret; it will be the same as me. You have been there for me through my secret troubles."

Remus held his gaze for a long moment before he looked down again, and sighed. Then he spoke, and it gave chills along Derek's spine.

"I am a werewolf."

Derek stared at Remus, as all of the gears began to click into place. Something had always happened to Remus's mother. Eventually, he had said that he visited his mother about every month, changing slightly each time to allow for when his father could be off from work while he was home. But it had always been on the full moons… though Derek had never noticed the pattern. He had noticed it was the full moon during two of the excursions, but the weirdest was when he woke up in the middle of the night just two weeks before… and found no one else in his dorm.

"And the Marauders… how do they help you?"

"They… they became Animagi. Peter's a rat, James is a stag and Sirius is a big dog. They go with me to where I am when I transform and they keep me from hurting myself too much."

Derek stood up and walked across the room again, looking out the window.

Remus sighed. "I knew I shouldn't have told you."

Derek shook his head. "No, you should have told me sooner. It's too late for me to be doing anything like becoming an animagus with the kind of time I have left, but I would have liked to have been in on all this. I can't believe I didn't notice sooner, with all of you gone once a month…" He whirled and marched back to Remus. "We all have our problems, Remus, and this is yours. Mine's that I'm going to die in a month."

Remus stared at him incredulously. "Don't say that!" he whispered heatedly.

Derek shook his head. "There's no reason to deny it. I certainly don't see any way out of this."

Remus stood up for the first time and put his hands on Derek's shoulders. "When I was bitten by the werewolf… I thought that my whole life would simply be a misery. Then Dumbledore helped me get into the school and put in measures so that I wouldn't bite any of you. Then the Marauders found out about it, and they helped me live. Not just exist between transformations… but live. You helped, Lily helped… everyone helped by being themselves… Look, the point is that things right now are much better than I could have ever imagined when I was ten, and thinking that I wouldn't be able to go to Hogwarts at all. Things can work out, Derek. You can make them work out."

Derek looked into his friend's eyes. "But how? How can I make it work, Remus?" he pleaded.

Remus looked away. "I think you may have to find that out yourself."