Disclaimer -

There once was a wonderful book
With wizards and dragons and gook.
It belongs to J.K.
That's why I have to say,
"This is something I took from her book."

Specific warnings for this chapter: Mention of sexual acts. Implied child abuse (Sirius). Minor drug use. Hey, they're teenagers. Nothing actually described.

Chapter Three: 1971-1978

September 1st, 1971. My wand is in my pocket. I've never been to King's Cross before. Ambrose and Dad are with me. Dad is pushing the trolley with my trunk on it. Judging by the number of people in swimsuits and tweed trousers, much of the crowd is Hogwarts students. I am almost twelve and very aware that all the others here are ten and eleven, but most are no smaller than I. I never realized I was small for my age. There's no one quite my age at home. "See that barrier?" Ambrose asks, pointing. "We're about to walk through it." I pretend I don't think my brother has just gone insane. Oddly enough, I am able to fall right through the barrier – and I fall practically on a boy with glasses and messy black hair. I stammer an apology, but he offers a hand to pull me up. "No harm done," he says. "Are you a first year too?" I nod. "Remus Lupin," I manage. "James Potter," he replies. "Want to sit with me on the train? I'll help you with your trunk." I wonder whether he's offering because I look weedy. Well, he looks rather weedy himself, actually, and only an inch or two taller than I. I agree and each of us takes one side of my trunk.

James and I have said goodbye to our families and we're looking for an empty compartment. James glances in the window of one. "They look our age," says James, indicating. "What do you say?" I shrug. He slides open the door. "Hey, can we sit here?" he asks. The boys in it nod, so we come in, each dragging a trunk by its handle and probably contributing to the general destruction of the carpet. The two boys turn out to be first years indeed. The smaller one (smaller than me, I can't help but note) is blond and a bit round. The other is quite tall, with fine, silky jet-black hair and eyes of an intense deep blue. We talk. When I say I've already made inroads on the textbooks (Dumbledore sent me most of the list early), the smaller boy looks wondering. He has blue eyes too, but his are rather pale. His name is Peter Pettigrew and he seems a bit awed by all of us. It's strange and rather nice to be looked up to.

We're almost at Hogwarts. The black-haired boy hasn't said much. "So," James says in a tone of joyful accusation, "you haven't introduced yourself." The tall boy regards us all for a moment, as though surprised, then shakes himself, looking slightly chagrined, and says, "Black. Sirius. Pleased to meet you." I notice that he's in neatly pressed slacks and a dress shirt, where the rest of us are in jeans and tee-shirts. James looks like the name means something to him, but then goes back to leaning out the window. "Look!" he says suddenly. "There's the station. We'd better change." We rise and get our school robes from the top of the trunk. The other boys show no sign of changing into grey school trousers along with the black robe, so I don't either. I turn my back as I put on the sugar-white shirt, to hide my scarred chest. My back is smooth (hard to reach with my teeth) and should not draw suspicion. I turn again as I slide into the robe and Sirius is muttering something about wearing white in the first place. James and Peter are focused on their own clothing, so I'm the only one who notices a few faint scars on Sirius's back in the split second before he's covered again.

The castle is immense, full of cheery lighted windows. For me, it's like finally arriving at the Pearly Gates. James is threatening to push Peter out of the boat; Peter is giggling nervously. Sirius looks like he feels very much the same as I do.

15th December, 1972. I hate Potions. All I want for Christmas is to not have Potions anymore. I'm surprisingly good at everything except Potions. And why, why is this most dangerous of classes the one in which Gryffindor second years are paired with Slytherins? They must realize that the two houses group those most likely to detest one another. It's not inter-house rivalry, it's personality conflict. Lots and lots of them. I am cutting a goat's tongue into even sections. James glances over and yecchs. He's paired with Peter. He used to pair with Sirius but Sirius has to save me from my own ineptitude. I cut up nasty and smelly things for both of our pairs because I don't mind blood or mess. Also it's the only thing I'm good at. I push our neatly cubed goat's tongue toward Sirius and start on Peter and James's tongue. "You know," I comment, keeping my eyes on my work, "goat's tongue used to be used in torture. They'd coat your feet in honey or salt or whatever goats like and then let the goats lick you until they sandpapered off your feet." Sirius laughs. He finds the oddest things amusing. "Now, now, this isn't a funny potion, boys!" Slughorn booms genially. "Lupin, let's see you drop in some ingredients, my boy. You've got the head for more than grunt work." He taps my skull with a pudgy knuckle. Sirius rolls his eyes discreetly and switches places with me. He'll shred the holly now. I drop in the cubes of goat's tongue one by one. "Good," Slughorn booms, leaning uncomfortably closer. "Now stir. Good, good. Hurry up with the holly, Black! Come on, now. Why are you using a copper knife?" He can't possibly be that stupid. Sirius sighs heavily. He despises Slughorn, largely, I think, because Slughorn thinks he has great potential. "Now, Lupin, without sneaking glances at the board, what color should the potion turn when you add that holly?" I have no idea. I couldn't possibly glance around Professor Slughorn's bulk. I remember dull lavender being mentioned at some point. "Dull lavender?" I guess, and Slughorn beams. "Very good, boy!" I add the holly. I wouldn't call this color "dull," but it is definitely lavender. I begin to feel more confident. Sirius has given me a good start; maybe I won't botch this up. "What ingredient next?" Slughorn insists. "No peeking!" A competent student should be able to figure it out because they would know what the various grasses and toadstools ought to do with the goat's tongue and other nasty things. It should be instinct by now. It isn't. Giving Sirius a forgive-me glance, I select a rot-smelling green-spotted mushroom and drop it in. The potion releases a puff of sparkly pink smoke and rapidly congeals. Slughorn sighs and pats my shoulder heavily. "Better luck next time, boys. You can start chipping that out of your cauldron now, Lupin." I can hear Severus Snape laughing at me. I hate Potions.

"You know," says James that evening as I rummage through my trunk for a book, "we all really like you, Remus." I look up at him, touched. "I like you guys, too," I say. "Yeah," Sirius chimes in, "we really like you. Like, you know, if we found out you were a werewolf or something, we wouldn't care a bit." I stare at them in shock for a moment. James, Sirius, and Peter are all giving me knowing looks. I bury my face in my hands and burst out, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry and I know you hate me now, it's just that I'd never hurt any of you and if you want to tell people just wait till I've gone home, please, I can't handle the idea of the whole school looking at me and knowing, I'm sorry . . ." I chance a slightly blurred glance up, and they are looking at me in complete shock. What, did they expect me to deny it? Sirius kneels down next to me and says gently, "You haven't been listening to a word we're saying, you nitwit." I look at him and suddenly it penetrates. "You don't?" I whisper incredulously. "You really don't care?" Sirius slings a friendly arm around my shoulders. "Yeah," he says casually, "we've been kicking it around and we've decided to keep you on. You might be taking a pay cut, though." I look around, wanting to hug them all, and I think, No one ever told me it was this wonderful to have friends. I'll never undervalue these three. Never again.

January 30th, 1973. I have a midterm exam tomorrow morning. I'm trying to remember the name of the treaty that stopped the Goblin War of 1783 and started the Troll and Goblin War of 1784. I quickly grow distracted from my studies by Sirius and James on my left, and, at the next table, close enough to reach out and touch, Kira Adelais. She's almost in profile. Her hair – a rich, dark auburn – is a heavy cloud around her shoulders. She's sublimely gorgeous, six months younger than me and two and a half inches taller than me. I give up on the treaty and just watch Kira out of the corner of my eye. It can't possibly hurt to dream, can it?

An hour later, Sirius, James and Peter have gone elsewhere, leaving me bent over my notes in disturbingly close proximity to Miss Adelais. I have not found the name of the goblin treaty, though I have found a lot of other facts I didn't realize I took notes on. Tests like me, and tend to display things I actually have studied. Or maybe my teachers like me, or feel sorry for me, or some combination of the two, and can guess what I will study so they write their tests to that area. Or maybe I'm just having a long run of good luck. Kira stretches in her chair, yawns. The common room is less crowded now. I could move away, give her some breathing space. Or I could go and sit with her. No, I couldn't! I tell myself, scandalized. I couldn't possibly! Girls are not for me! Werewolves do not get pretty girls to date! Especially not pretty girls who are two inches taller! And I am not knocked silly by girls this way! I look up, and Kira has moved. She is rising, gathering her notes into a neat little pile with long-fingered, graceful hands. She turns. She looks at me, she asks me, "Do you remember the name of that treaty in between the 1783 war and the 1784 war?" I look at her in startlement for a moment, then I laugh out loud. "I have no idea," I tell her. "I was just thinking of asking you." And then I ask, naturally as breathing, "Would you quiz me, maybe?" And . . . she sits down across from me and says, "Sure. Um . . . what year was Eldric Waterford elected Minister?"

"Moony looks happy," Sirius says, voice accusing. I look up from my book and smile. "Why does Moony look happy?" Sirius inquires. I smile a little wider, and finally, as Sirius begins to fidget with impatience, I reply. "Mr. Moony looks happy because, while Mr. Padfoot has not yet won the favors of Miss Morningstar Mockridge of Ravenclaw, and Mr. Prongs has not yet won the glance of Miss Lily Evans of Gryffindor, Mr. Moony spent three hours yesterday studying History of Magic with Miss Kira Adelais." Sirius stares at me, and then, eyes sparkling, he announces: "Moony, old mate, this must be celebrated."

April, 1974. I hurt. Everything hurts. Everything. Hurts. I'll tell everyone I missed the train back from Easter break because my bag split and I dropped my books all over the train station. That they'll believe. They'll all figure they just missed me on the train at the beginning of break (which I wasn't on). I look up and over at Sirius. The white, sterile hospital-wing sheets swirl around him like clouds in a Modernist painting. He claims to have gotten into a fight on the train home. He's fast asleep, his eyelashes flat to his cheekbones. Madam Pomfrey pushes back the white curtain which she's erected around both of us. At first, we each had our own, but then Sirius came over in the middle of last night, while I was still bleeding and couldn't sleep, and crawled in bed with me. She purses her lips as she looks at Sirius. "Has he said anything?" she asks me in a low, conspiratorial whisper. I regretfully shake my head. "Not a thing," I mouth back. She sighs inaudibly, rests a caring hand on my forehead for a moment. Though her face is not yet lined, her hands are. She asks if I need anything and I tell her no, I'm fine, thank you, Madam Pomfrey. She glances again at Sirius and slides out. What happened to Sirius is worse, I want to tell her. Give your caring to him, because I have someone to care for me. What happened to me, just happened. Someone did these things to him.

The ninth of May, Sirius is torturing his brother. Regulus is trying to study, just as I am in the next aisle of books. Madam Pince rarely if ever comes to the back of the library, because students seldom if ever do. Except me. And apparently Regulus, too. By the sound of it, Sirius has Regulus's book and is trying to convince him to fight for it. Against my better instincts, I push On Magical Entomology and A Study of the Unicorn Flea to the other end of their shelf, so I can look through the bookshelves and watch. Sirius is holding Regulus's book above his head. Regulus dares not tackle his older brother because it would knock over a bookshelf and earn him detention for the rest of the year. Apparently, Regulus is reading Gone With the Wind, not studying. Sirius flips through it, still keeping a wary eye on his brother. "Oh, fiddle-dee-dee, I shall swear at radishes and pull my bodice down," Sirius says in a high, flirty voice. "Didn't think it of you, Reggie." Regulus says threateningly, "Give me my book back, traitor." Sirius throws his head back and laughs. "I suppose," he says in a dangerously friendly voice, "you identify with Scarlett and Rhett? The misunderstood aristocracy?" Regulus straightens, eyes afire. He and Sirius look very much alike for a moment. "I suppose," Regulus says in the same tone, "that you identify with Belle Watling?" Sirius is caught off guard, then he snarls and flings the book into Regulus's midriff. A short, sharp cough escapes Regulus and Sirius is striding away, clearly in a fine rage. Regulus straightens slowly and looks around, suddenly looking young, lost. I don't waste my sympathy on Regulus. My responsibility is Sirius.

June 30th, 1975. It seems that since I'm a friend of Kira's, I'm a friend of every female in the Gryffindor fifth year. I'm standing in a group of them, chatting with Kira and Lily Evans. James's face is a study in envy. The train whistles and Sirius yells, "Come on, Remus, if we want good seats!" I wave a hand at him and look back to the girls. "Well," I say, "have a great summer, all." They say it back. I look at Kira. The chances of seeing her on the train are fairly remote. If I'm to ask if I can write her over the summer, I have to ask now. I have to ask – right – now. I smile at her. "Good-bye, Kira," I say. "Good-bye, Remus," she says, and we both blush a little. "I'll see you next year," I tell her, and turn to go. "Remus –" she says, stopping me, and I turn back and suddenly she kisses me, a little peck on the lips. She pulls back and I grin like an idiot, and she smiles too. "I'll see you," she says, and runs off after the other girls. I raise my hand to my lips and feel my smile, reminding myself at the same time that werewolves don't get girls. And if I had the chance . . . I'd have to say no. Of course, telling her might do it. But then I'd be thrown out of school, because if one girl knows something all the girls know something. I wonder if it's worth it.

I say good-bye to the train with a measure of regret. Train rides are the times when I'm with James and Sirius and Peter, and yet, there are almost no distractions between us. I've had a lot of memorable experiences on trains. Peter is going to France with his parents, and though we haven't told Peter so he won't feel left out because he has to leave, Sirius and James are spending the first three weeks with me. Mr. and Mrs. Pettigrew come to collect their offspring, but I'm not sure how long it will be before my dad comes to collect his offspring. Dad has no clue how long it takes to hire a cab, and he might be late. I look around to watch the other parents and children. Severus Snape looks perfectly miserable. It's sort of sad. Lily is walking over to meet her parents, who are Muggles by the look of them, and have a blonde girl of about ten with them. Kira is going out the barrier. Kearney Shacklebolt and her older brother Kingsley are meeting their mother. Regulus Black is walking, shoulders a tense posture-perfect line, toward the people I recognize as Sirius's mother and father. I look over at Sirius, knowing he'll be wounded yet again by his parents' failure to notice him, but he's looking the other way. "Hey," he says, "is that who we belong to?" I look, and sure enough, Dad and Ambrose are weaving their way through the station. I wave. "How could you tell?" I ask Sirius, and he says in faint surprise, "Well, that must be Ambrose, he looks like you." I hadn't realized that Ambrose and I resemble one another but I suppose I see what he means. We meet. Ambrose is giving Sirius the "I want to paint that" look and I've gotten the look enough that I can see another masterpiece forming.

That night, James wakes me at about one and we creep downstairs so as not to wake Dad and Ambrose. Not that they'd mind, there are no serial killers here, and they trust me, but it would be rude to wake them up. We slide out the front door and into a green field. "Can anyone see us?" James whispers. "No," I tell him, "the nearest neighbors are the Whittakers, and they're over the hill." They share a glance. "No late-night walkers? Tramps? Drunkards?" Sirius suggests. "You are a tramp and a drunkard," I tell him, "and the town proper is two miles from here." James grins. "Great," he says, and suddenly James is no longer before me. The great, shaggy beast raises his head proudly and slowly shakes a great rack of antlers against the stars. His powerful shoulder is nearly a foot higher than mine. He stamps his hind foot and swings his great head to look at me reproachfully with hazel eyes that are suddenly much larger. I have stepped back a little and I come forward again and lay my hand on the shaggy deep-brown fur at his withers. The significance of what he has done does not escape me. "You did this for me?" I ask. James bobs his head in answer. "Sweet God," I say, and it's almost a prayer of thanks more than an exclamation. "Jamie, you could have gotten yourself killed." Suddenly there's a new presence and I jump. Sirius – of course it's Sirius – is leaping about my legs. He bowls me over in his enthusiasm and washes my face. "That is disgusting," I tell him, and he jumps up and down until I start scratching his ears. I look up at James and down at Sirius and I burst out laughing. "This is brilliant," I say. "I'd never have let you do it if I'd known." There's a small noise like the creaking of muscle and James is next to me again. There's a certain staglike dignity and latent strength about him and I wonder how I've never seen it before. "Of course," says James. "We knew you would, so we didn't tell you. Peter's working on it too." I bury my face in my hands. "And you knew," I say. "You didn't make up the nicknames randomly, you knew what you'd be. Peter's a mouse, isn't he?" Sirius transforms too, still half-lying across my lap. "A rat," he says. "And of course we didn't make them up randomly. Remember the Animagus-revelation potion?" I look at him. "No," I say. James laughs and sits down next to us. "We were counting on that," he says.

October 9th, 1976. Walking back to the dormitory after class, I happen to glance down a side corridor and I see an adult man with pale blonde hair leaning with one arm against the wall. In front of him, too close, face turned away from me, is a student. I pause. I know I'm probably up for prefect next year and what this resembles is illegal, very illegal. Then I see that it's Sirius. He looks up and says something softly. The man in front of him must be his older cousin-by-marriage, Lucius Malfoy, who's new this year to the board of governors. I keep walking as quietly as I can, wondering furiously about Sirius. Sirius who has dated close to every girl in our year and some in the years above and below. I marshal myself to accept it and decide not to talk to James. There's no real reason. It's not until that night when I hear Sirius crying softly that I remember last year and what Regulus said to him that angered him so. I want to go to Sirius but he would hate to know that I had seen. Either possibility would shame him if he's tried to keep it a secret. So I stay where I am. Sirius cries only a little longer. He would hate me if he knew I knew. I say nothing.

November 2nd. Professor McGonagall is reading my essay aloud to the class. I'm squirming in my seat, both in pleasure and embarrassment. James and Sirius are laughing at me. Professor McGonagall finishes and lowers my essay. "This," she says, "goes above and beyond what I asked for. It draws a neat and accurate conclusion from the presentation of evidence, both that I gave in class and that from outside knowledge." She comes to my desk and lays down the essay. Across the top, she has written, Keep this up and Dumbledore will be hiring you as my replacement next year. Superb work. I smile, and she smiles her thin-lipped McGonagall smile back at me. I guess she must have forgiven me for that incident with the lobsters and the suit of armor.

December 30th. I awaken on the floor again, but no one is with me. "James?" I call hoarsely. "Guys? Where are you?" I remain alone. The splintery floor rasps against my skin as I try to move, but an intense pain stops me. When I painfully move my neck, I see that the floor around me is soaked with blood. I pass a hand over my stomach and feel the tears left by my claws. There's another set of odd, dark bruises on my chest. I squint at them. They're stretched, warped, but they're in the shape of great cloven hooves. I try to sit up and fall back with a little moan. A tenderness on my face is probably another hoof-bruise. This one will not be recognizable, though, because it must have been on the muzzle to begin with. Where are my friends? And then I remember the confused scent-picture of last night. The three familiar ones, and then a foreign one which I only recognized after I saw him, the one who mocks me weekly in our double Potions, the one who could only have found me if someone helped him. And James – James. Damn. The hoof bruises will be a dead giveaway if Pomfrey puts two and two together. I close my eyes and steel myself, then slam my fist into the clearest bruise. If that one isn't clear, no one will be able to tell with the rest. It was Sirius. Sirius. It must have been Sirius. I lie where I am and wait for Pomfrey. Why? A bribe wouldn't work. A threat? Blackmail? A horrible cough and the taste of blood ends my bitter thoughts and I close my eyes and drift again.

It is June 12th, 1977. I am seventeen. It is eleven o'clock the first Saturday of my summer vacation. The full moon was Thursday and I am mostly recovered. Nonetheless, I am sitting in my room in my pajamas, in the center of the rug where the sun shines. Ambrose is playing swing music dowstairs. I'm reflecting on the capital unfairness of the fact that I will be eighteen a few days into my seventh year, and wondering how long it would actually take to grow a Whomping Willow if I started it at the correct season. A neighbor calls a hello to my father, who is planting cabbages in the front garden; my father calls back; the neighbor says something that has my name in it. The neighbors know about me and Ambrose. They're Muggles and they don't know what's wrong, exactly, but this is a tiny, backwards village which hasn't been interested in the outside world since Lloyd George was Prime Minister, and they've heard of the loup-garou, so some of them have their theories. Ambrose and I can enter the church, so they figure we're all right.

Half-past five that evening, I go to Mass, cross myself with the holy water, kneel in my accustomed pew. Mrs Whittaker does not show any hesitation in taking my scarred and bandaged hand for the Our Father, but gives me an encouraging smile. After Mass I go to the confessional. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." I run through the year quickly, starting with the Ten Commandments – "I have maintained a relationship with a girl who was already engaged. I have envied my friends their qualities. I have taken the Lord's name in vain." The priest listens gravely. "I have remained silent when I saw cruelty that I probably could have stopped." If he only knew that I meant I had let my friends turn their wands on a fellow student, what would he say? When I tell him, "I haven't been to Mass since the spring holiday," he laughs a little and tells me I had extenuating circumstances. He says this every year. He makes no sound when I confess to unspecified sexual sins, but I feel the unpleasant surprise through the screen. "Nineteen occasions," I add, so he can calculate the penance. It is a large one, of course. I pull the beads and crucifix from my pocket and begin to chant my rosaries on the way home.

Over the two miles of dirt road, counting off my penance by touch, I consider: How many almost-eighteen-year-old boys would understand this? How many have experienced pain so long they've learned to accept it as just another chemical message, experienced sex and found it mildly anticlimactic, read their way through entire shelves of an immense library just so they'll have enough background to be employable? How many have watched their friend try so hard to hide his pain, tried so hard to hide their own secrets? There are two sins I have never confessed. One, that I only go through the motions of Catholicism as a sort of meditation, or perhaps to appease a higher power which is clearly quite brassed off at me. Two, that I have represented so many lies to so many people that I doubt even Legilimency could untangle my lies from the truth.

1978. Monday, January the nineteenth. Early afternoon. NEWT-level Herbology. My tank of Gillyweed looks extremely murky. Professor Sprout is giving us all the evil eye, particularly, it seems, me and Sirius. Sirius and me, actually, to place it in grammatically proper order as well as order of intensity. "The reason this is only taught to my advanced class," she is telling us loudly, not nearly as merry as usual, "is because Gillyweed, though it has no physically addictive properties, is a dangerous psuedo-narcotic when used improperly. I can trust my NEWT students not to steal any." The look she shoots at Sirius denies her words. She has no trust. Since James is partnering Lily, he is exempt from The Glare. "They get an instruction manual on The Glare the summer before they start teaching, you know," I inform Sirius. He ignores me totally; he is eying Professor Sprout, waiting for something to occupy her so he can dip out a handful of Gillyweed and drop it in his pocket. James is complaining. "Gillyweed doesn't do anything," he tells Lily. "Whatever became of mandrakes?" Sirius laughs at that comment and sneaks another look at Professor Sprout. "I will not smoke that with you," I inform Sirius. His eyes gleam. "Oh, so that's how you take it?" he asks wickedly, and I sigh deeply. "Of course, you idiot," I tell him, "if you take it orally you have to go shove your head in the sink for an hour." He snickers at the puns possible for that sentence and I let out another long-suffering sigh.

The dorm is filled with almost odorless, slightly abrasive smoke. I breathe in and feel the not-entirely unpleasant rasp against the lining of my throat. I'm floating a little from the slipstream, and I've been staring at the same page of my Charms text for the last thirty minutes. My roommates must have finished their gillyweed an hour ago. I would have stopped it, and James would have refused, but it's non-addictive and besides, they'll never manage to pry any more out of the professors. It's never sold to minors, either. Sirius is at my bedside now. "Can I join?" I move over to make room for him, and he clambers between the sheets. I can smell the faint murk of gillyweed on his hair. I keep my eyes on my Charms text, even though I can hear Professor McGonagall's decisive footsteps on the stairs, and I don't say a word until she opens the door.

June. The moon is full and beyond that who cares? Sirius is beside me – Sirius is one of the few words I know, a powerful word that has a scent and a bark and a feel of fur with it. He yips 'Sirius!' at the moon. Skittering before me and rustling the leaves is Wormtail who is just a scent and a glimpse of scaly tail but I will not be the same werewolf without that scent among the leaves. Behind us is Jamie a great warm beast a Druid god a lacy antler-shadow against the coolly smiling silvermoon. Jamie is a word I still know, not James but Jamie and another word I know is end which is what this is. This is the end, end, end and I will never again run through this forest with this rat and this almost-wolf and this great stag under this moon. Never again, so let it go on. I fear the pain of moonset and the burn of the sun but more I fear the loss of these companions. From now on I will be caged and that is not a word I know but it exists in me, it is cold iron and hot silver and the moon smiling distantly through a ridiculous window and the shadow of bars cutting her light and the snarls and the splinters in the wood and the creaking of the Shack which is another word I do not know but I know it means cage. This is the end, end, end. I howl 'end' to the moon but she smiles alone and does not care. Sirius tries to howl with me but he can't quite do it so I gnaw on his ear a little until he springs stiff-legged and we roll down a little hill snapping in play. I scent the blood from a place where I clawed him but Sirius does not care and I will care in the morning but I do not care now because we are playing. I play instead of hurting and run instead of hurting and howl instead of screaming but this is the end, end, end, and the next time the moon smiles on me I will be alone in a cage. So make it good this time make it last make it never end if I can but make it good.

TBC