The Boy Who Killed God

by SeraMGrigori

Sirius Black has a secret. Well, no, that's not true. Sirius Black has many secrets. His wand is dying, his parents more or less want to kill him, and there's the small matter of the cursed TOUJOURS PUR tattoo right above his heart, that he's had since he turned eight years old. Sirius Black is no stranger to secrets. Then, Remus Lupin walks into his life.

9. Black and Blue

CHAPTER NINE

Black and Blue

JANUARY 1, 1972

Remus blinked his eyes open and bit back a moan of pain. The early morning light was too-fucking-bright, so he squeezed his eyes shut almost immediately. He was still not used to waking up to the sunrise through the windows of the relatively-comfortable hospital wing the morning after the full moon. Until he came to Hogwarts, it had always been about trying to remember how just be human again despite the inexplicable ache in his bones, both from the aftershocks of the shift and from waking up in the cold, damp cellar on the edge of his parents' property, with a chain around his wrists and ankles.

Flopping an arm over his face, he tried to force his foggy mind to assess the damage from last night. His left knee twinged painfully, even as he lie on the hospital bed. From the cool draft he felt against his chest, Remus gathered that he was shirtless, which ordinarily only happened when Madam Pomfrey had to bandaged a chest wound.

Vague flashes of memories floated through his mind, slowly taking shape as he reluctantly surrendered to full wakefulness.

The wolf had been furious last night. Full moons were never exactly easy, and blue moons tended to be worse—hell, he'd been out of commission for nearly four days after December's first full moon—but this… this felt different, somehow, as though something had triggered the wolf's rage. His heart still pumped with the adrenaline that severely contradicted the deep ache he felt in his bones. His throat felt raw from howling, and he still tasted the bitter iron of his own blood on his tongue.

Remus had never told any of them the truth. Not his parents, or Dumbledore, or Madam Pomfrey. He loathed the depth of pity he saw in their eyes, when they thought he wasn't looking, and he couldn't stand the thought of their heartbreak if he told them he remembered every moment of his time as the wolf. Because… he did. From the moment the moon broke over the horizon, to the horrific breaking of every bone in his body, the tearing of his skin from his bones, his teeth—

Christ, his teeth.

He'd tried to grab them, hadn't he? Pried them from the wolf's maw, because—

No. The because wasn't important right now. Just… the teeth.

Remus's brain was a bit fuzzy, though the dull cloud of pain, but he distinctly recalled the sharp nick of the wolf's teeth against the palm of his hand.

He hadn't let go of them. They were probably around here somewhere, if Remus ever decided to actually open his eyes.

Later, maybe. Or, next week.

He groaned.

At some point in the early morning, not long after Madam Pomfrey had escorted him from the Shrieking Shack to his usual hospital bed, she'd more or less forced a pain potion down his throat, but it hardly seemed to be helping at all now. Madam Pomfrey tried her best, but there was only so much she could do for the cursed wounds of a feral Dark Creature. The wolf was ravenous most nights, taking out its fury at being held captive on Remus's own flesh, but last night, every one of its heightened senses had been on alert, and it had cried out to the moon, as if rending Remus's vocal chords would catch the attention of some lonely god lurking beneath a blanket of stars.

It wasn't the same, though, as it normally was. The wolf raged at its captivity, sure, but something was fundamentally wrong. The wolf had been afraid, not for itself, but because it tasted the wrongness in the air just as Remus now felt it in his bones. Unlike the lies he told his father whenever he'd asked, Remus retained a majority of the wolf's senses as a man, and right now, every single instinct he head rested on the knife's edge of full on panic.

Something was wrong, and Remus had no clue what it was.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Remus moved his free hand to his chest, to feel out the new scar the wolf had left him, but stopped when he realised that his index and middle finger were taped together, with a cool, metal splint in between them. His broken fingers twitched in a nervous tick he'd probably picked up from Sirius, and it sent a zing of pain up his left arm. Forcing his hand to still, he rested it on his chest.

"Fuck," he groaned into the crook of the arm he still had draped over his face.

Remus moaned pitifully when he felt the bed dip next to his hip. Expecting Madam Pomfrey, here to reapply the dose of dittany to his chest, every muscle in Remus's body tensed up when someone else entirely let out a dramatic sigh. Then:

"I can't believe you kept this from me for so long."

Lily.

Fuck.

His mind had been so twisted up in the pain and the wrongness in the air that he'd entirely missed the fact that Lily's scent had lingered in the hospital room since he'd tried to open his eyes the first time. She smelled like sunflowers in the dead of winter, which was entirely impossible, but so perfectly suited to Lily Evans that Remus had never really noticed the impossibility of it all until just now.

She wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to know.

He'd be expelled.

Remus forced himself to swallow around his own heartbeat as he lifted his arm just enough to peak out with one eye, to confirm what his nose had already told him.

Lily Evans sat on the edge of his bed, her long, red hair in a neat plait that hung over her shoulder. Her forest-green eyes shined bright in the early dawn light, and if not for the rather dire circumstances, Remus might have been willing to believe that Lily Evans was a goddess, waiting at his bedside to heal him from his tragic condition.

It was no real wonder to him that James Potter was in love with her. She was beautiful.

Lily, apparently ignorant to his impending doom, continued to talk. "I mean, I know we've only known each other for a few months, but this kind of secret should never be your burden to bear alone. It's too much for one person to endure."

Her tone was entirely too light for this topic of conversation.

And, Christ on a fucking cracker, he was shirtless. She'd see every scar that lined his chest, every gnarled and mangled bit of flesh on him. She'd see—

Fuck, she was sitting next to the brutal bite mark, just above his left hip. The one he'd just managed to keep hidden from Sirius that first week when Sirius had patched him up in the bathroom.

The bite mark he'd gotten from Fenrir Greyback.

Fucking hell, he felt like he was about to cry. Or scream. Or maybe howl at that bastard moon, even though he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was now well below the horizon.

"Lily, you don't understand." His voice came out hoarse, and broken, both from his rising panic and from having spent a good portion of the night howling out the wolf's malcontent with this world. "I'll be expelled. You can't know. It was part of my deal with Dumbledore. No one is supposed to find out."

Lily Evans smiled at him. "Why would Dumbledore expel you, Remus? Don't be ridiculous. You have nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, there are some of us that might even consider this remarkable—"

Remus let out a bitter, broken laugh. "Remarkable?! Evans, I'm a fucking—"

Before he could finish, Lily reached into her bag, pulled out a book, and dropped it right on the centre of Remus's chest, with no care whatsoever that his chest was covered in bandages. He let out a strangled cry.

"I mean, this book is beautiful, Remus," she said, glaring at him pointedly. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's a first edition, right?" It was. It had belonged to his mother. "I had to snoop around a bit to find it. And I kind of dug through your trunk. Sorry." She didn't sound sorry in the slightest. "And, look, Remus, I get it. Well, maybe, not all of it—it's your book, after all—but I'm Muggle-born, remember? I understand that there are some arseholes in the Wizarding World and at Hogwarts that would not hesitate to destroy such a… fine piece of literature just because it portrays beauty that is far afield from what their small, racist minds can properly comprehend."

Remus was fairly certain she was not referring to the book at all.

"Um…" he said, intelligently.

Lily plucked the book right off his chest and carefully flipped it open to the middle, gently caressing the pages. "I'm familiar with the concept, but I've never actually encountered this story before. It's about a brilliant and kind man, who, through no choice of his own, transforms into a monster that he can no longer control. Is that right?"

Now he knew they were not talking about the book.

"That's about the gist of it, yes," he breathed, resigned to his fate, because she still fucking knew. He'd be sent home, with his not-so-proverbial tail tucked between his legs, to face his mother's broken heart and his father's disappointment. Remus didn't think he could bear it.

Apparently picking up on his expression, Lily's features softened, and she reached out to take his unbroken hand. "I want you to know, Remus, that you can trust me with this… book. I understand I wasn't necessarily supposed to find out about it, but if you choose to share it with me, I want you to know that I'd guard it with my fucking life."

Remus was silent for a moment, unable to compose himself and desperately trying to control the panic that threatened to manifest in the broken, hysterical sort of sobs of a madman.

Or, even worse, a mad werewolf.

"How long have you known?" he croaked out, and if Lily hadn't been sitting right next to him—way too close to him, really, given his current state of undress—he was certain she wouldn't have heard him.

"About the book?" Lily asked, far too conspicuously for his comfort. "I suspected since the beginning. You have that look—"

Remus recoiled in horror, yanking his hand away from her and nearly flinging her off the bed in the process. He looked like a—

Lily's hand latched onto his bare shoulder, her nails digging into his skin, both to steady herself and make sure that she had his full attention. "I didn't mean that, Remus. I mean… I knew what to look for. I've heard a lot… about this book and I've always wanted to meet someone with—"

Remus laughed derisively and leaned away from her touch. "That book is cursed, Lily. It's the worst thing in the fucking world."

"Don't say that." Her voice was soft, but commanding, and brokered no argument, no matter how valid said argument may be. "I understand that wizards like Lucius Malfoy would throw this book into the fire without a second thought. But this…" She held up the book. "It's only a cover, Remus. It doesn't change the man. Because the man is brave and kind and clever and beautiful. The man is my friend. Fuck what anyone else says."

Despite the protests lodged in his throat, Remus felt tears well up in his eyes. "Lily—"

"Do not argue with me, Remus Lupin." Her no-nonsense tone hit him in the face like a gale-force wind. "I'm your fucking king."

Against his better judgement, his lip twitched upwards, and he said, "Yes, Your Majesty."

She beamed at him. Then, a second later, the smile was gone, replaced by a critical gaze that travelled up and down his scarred and battered chest. "How are you feeling?"

He rolled his eyes and gestured to the bandages on his chest with his broken fingers. "Like Mr. Hyde took a carving knife to my skin."

Lily had the decency to wince. "Sorry. I guess I walked right into that one."

Remus just shrugged. "Mr. Hyde leaves the scars, but Dr. Jekyll tends to heal pretty fast. Generally speaking. Even without Madam Pomfrey's help."

He prayed he followed that metaphor correctly. It'd been a while since he'd actually read that book. He wasn't a huge fan of it, to be honest. If it hadn't been his mother and smelled distinctly of a distant memory he had of her reading him the book in her garden of summer flowers, Remus wouldn't have brought it to Hogwarts at all.

At this, Lily tilted her head, the curiosity evident on her face. Clearly, his metaphor had been sound. "Really? Is that… feature in every… edition of this book, or just yours?"

It took him a minute to discern her meaning, and once more, he cursed the damn metaphor, but he had neither the freedom nor the courage to speak plainly about the wolf—not here, anyway—so he resigned himself to Lily's vague literary analogies.

"I don't know," he said. "This edition is the only one I've ever read."

Lily nodded, accepting that answer, but then seemed to shift uncomfortably. "I don't meant to pry, but… Was it given to you when you were born, or did you just… happen upon it?"

Remus wanted to laugh, because the answer was just so fucking obvious. All she had to do was look at him. So, in a moment of either utter foolishness that would end with his expulsion or what constituted as true Gryffindor bravery, Remus took Lily's hand and brought it to rest over the mangled bite mark just above his left hip.

Her eyes grew wide with understanding.

"It was given to me, by a monster of a man," Remus said.

Lily swallowed, but did not pull her hand away. "How old were you?"

"Four."

"Oh."

"I told you," Remus said, a heartbroken smile tugging at the open scars on his face. "That book is cursed. As is the man who owns it."

"I absolutely refuse to believe that." Lily straightened her back, squared her shoulders, and stuck out her chin. She squared off against him for a full minute, before her eyes drifted to the nightstand. "All right. I have one-hundred and thirty-four questions numbered and prioritised in a secret journal no one can open but me, but none of them are more pressing than this: Why are there teeth on your nightstand?"

Remus followed her gaze to the nightstand and the three, bloody teeth he'd so painstakingly stolen from the wolf in the haze of the early morning.

Ah. There they were.

Memories of that morning played back with slightly less fuzz around the edges, now. He'd manage to yank out both of the wolf's front incisors and a canine, all deadly ivory, covered in his own blood. Remus had been half-delirious, half-transformed, when he'd all but yanked the teeth free from the wolf's maw. He was pretty sure that was how the wolf had broken his fingers, as well as thoroughly gouged his right forearm: uneven and jagged, because of the wolf's missing teeth, but Madam Pomfrey had had to bandage them all the way to his elbow.

The wolf had wanted its teeth back.

But Remus had held onto them, so tightly, it seemed, that there were marks from the points of the teeth on the palm of his right hand. He vaguely recalled holding onto the teeth, despite Madam Pomfrey's insistence that she examine his injured hand and wrist. In the fog of his memory, he recalled the angry bough of Madam Pomfrey's Irish accent as she scolded him for hanging on to the teeth; she'd wanted to throw them aside.

She'd said it was best not to anger the wolf.

Remus was pretty sure he'd laughed through a mouthful of blood.

The wolf would heal—it did every month, no matter the injuries the wolf inflicted on Remus—and its teeth would be gleaming in the moonlight, as sharp and deadly as ever, at the rise of the next full moon.

There was something to be said about the magic inherent to the blood of a werewolf, no matter how Dark that magic may be.

Remus prayed the magic he'd stolen from the wolf would be enough, because he needed the teeth. No, that's not right. Because…

The because was the most important thing in the fucking world.

"Remus," Lily prompted. He'd nearly forgotten she was there. "Why do you have Mr. Hyde's teeth?"

Because, because, because…

"I've been working on a certain hypothesis," he began.

"Would this hypothesis have something to do with the inordinate amount of research you've been doing on wand-making?"

He blinked at her, because how could she possibly know about that too?

"Don't play stupid, Remus," Lily said, with a dramatic eye roll. "I've been with you basically the entire holiday. I've seen the books in your bag. And I went through your trunk."

"It was for our project with Rattleburn," he tried, but he was certain that it wasn't even remotely convincing.

"No. That's about wandless magic. You've been reading about wand craft. They're drastically different subjects."

"Lily—"

"Is it for Sirius? Say, specifically, for the same reason he refused to use his wand in class—at both the detriment of his grade, Gryffindor house points, and his relationship with McGonagall—yet he's easily the best in our class, if not our generation, at wandless magic? Is his wand broken? Or cursed? Or—"

Remus levelled her with his most deadly glare, which he secretly hoped was enhanced by the recent scarring across his face. "It's not my secret to tell."

Nor did Remus know the full secret. Sirius had clammed up really fast that day at the Whomping Willow.

Merlin, but Lily Evans had an unnerving habit of uncovering secrets.

Lily nodded once. "All right. You'll let me know if I can help with anything?"

"I will," he said, not entirely sure whether or not he was lying to appease her.

Lily clapped her hands together. "All right, then. That's quite enough time spent in the hospital wing. It's New Year's and I have plans. Get up, Remus."

He gaped at her, completely thrown by her change of tone. He glanced down at his own bare chest, covered in bandages, then raised an eyebrow at her.

"There's a good chance I might bleed out," he deadpanned.

She rolled her eyes. "Madam Pomfrey probably has a potion to help with that. Get up, you arse. I have something I want to show you."

"What, in Christ's name, do you need to show me that requires me to leave my very comfortable hospital bed at this ungodly hour of the morning?" he demanded.

She smirked at him. "You'll thank me later. Come on!"

"Lily, I—"

She cut him off by giving his arm a sharp tug, jarring his broken fingers.

"Fuck!" He yanked his arm back. "Christ, Evans, what has gotten into—"

"Sorry," she said, only looking moderately apologetic. Remus glowered at her. "Hurry up, or we'll get caught!"

"Jesus fuck, you're worse than Sirius," he muttered. "We'll get caught anyway. Madam Pomfrey usually checks my bandages around—"

Lily sighed dramatically and gave him an unimpressed glare. "Are you or are you not Remus Lupin, Marauder of House Gryffindor?"

He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and it was probably not going to end with him in this hospital bed, having a nice New Year's Day lie in.

"I… am." It sounded more like a question, even to Remus.

"Are you not the same Remus Lupin who hexed the ever-living shit out of Ravenclaw tower, locked all the doors, and aided in a maniacal plot to plant an indelible flag on the top of Gryffindor tower, immortalising not only yourself, but your fellow Marauders in the history books forever?"

He heaved a dramatic sigh. "I am."

"Then let's go!" She rose to her feet and forcefully tugged at his arm, this time avoiding his broken fingers.

Right then, something rather important occurred to Remus and he found himself fighting against Lily's grip. His face flamed red and he prayed it wasn't the sort of flush that travelled all the way down his chest.

"Erm, Lily? I'm rather… well… starkers under this sheet. And I—"

"I know," Lily said, with a heart-stopping, coma-inducing wink. "I already had a peek."

"I—what?"

For the life of him, he could not tell if she was being serious or completely fucking with him.

She did absolutely nothing to ease confusion and generalised embarrassment. "I brought you some clothes while I was fishing through your trunk for an excuse to come see you. I figured with Mr. Hyde and all, you would need proper attire for my plan to work."

She pointed to a neat stack of his Muggle clothes on the nightstand, and he smiled at her. He'd had his own set, of course, from last night, but he'd stripped out of them a half hour before the moon rose. He'd hidden them under a loose floorboard in the Shrieking Shack, lest the wolf—Mr. Hyde, he supposed—tear them to ribbons. Usually, Madam Pomfrey collected his clothes when she came for Remus the morning after, but she had a thoughtfully inconvenient habit of holding his clothes hostage until such time as she determined he was fit enough to leave the hospital wing. After the stunt he pulled with the teeth, he figured he wouldn't be seeing that particular set of clothes at least until dinner time.

"What exactly is your plan?" he asked. "And should I be afraid?"

She just smiled, sweet and charming and as bright as the fucking sun. "Your wand is there, too."

Raising an eyebrow, Remus leaned over and found his wand under the shirt Lily brought him. He twirled it in his fingers, revelling in the feeling of warmth that it brought him, and how easily his magic seemed to settle back into human skin.

He always left his wand behind, ever since he got it from Ollivander that last week of August. He never wanted to risk his wand's safety against the wrath of the wolf. Remus figured out quickly how much the wolf detested magic. Even tasting it fresh from Remus's own blood seemed to enrage it. Remus knew the wolf itself had magic native in its veins—Remus felt the wolf's power every time he whispered even the tiniest spell—but for whatever reason, the wolf had an instinctual distrust for the wizarding magic that coursed through Remus's very being.

It was as if the two halves of his magic were constantly at war with each other, and it was only when he was in control of himself that Remus was even able to have a modicum of a hold over the enormity of the magic buried beneath his skin.

He often found himself wondering if Sirius had a similar problem, controlling the wildness of his own wandless magic with his wand. But, for that to be the case, Sirius would have to be some sort of Dark Creature, and Remus would have most certainly been able to smell it if he were.

So many things about Sirius Black both confounded and amazed Remus. If Remus had any choice in the matter, he'd spend the rest of his days stitching together all the broken pieces of Sirius Black.

"Remus?" Lily shook him a little, which led him to believe this wasn't the first time she'd tried to get his attention. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry. Let's go."

Five minutes later, Remus was dressed and following Lily down the third floor corridor. His left knee was giving him occasional fits—especially when it came to the moving staircases—but Lily was gracious enough both to slow down and to not mention the pain he was so valiantly trying to ignore. She did, however, look immensely guilty—presumably from forcing him out of his hospital bed this soon after a transformation—once when he met her at the top of the stairs. She stopped at the end of the hallway, then ducked into an alcove predominantly occupied by a large statue of a rather hideous one-eyed witch.

"Lily, what are we—"

She turned to face him, so close that she nearly bumped her nose against his shoulder. "I am sharing this with you with the full knowledge that you will, more than likely, immediately share this with James Potter and Sirius and the little Pettigrew fellow, upon their return to Hogwarts."

Remus furrowed his brow, mildly offended that she thought him so indiscrete. He was a bloody werewolf, for Christ's sake. He breathed discretion. "If this is some kind of secret—"

"And I'm okay with that," she said, cutting him off. "On two conditions."

He opened and closed his mouth. "All right."

Lily held up a finger. "Number one. Knowledge of what I am about to show you will not be used in any pranks—whether they incendiary or benevolent—shenanigans, and/or escaping from any figures of authority who might be chasing you as a consequence of an aforementioned prank."

Remus shrugged. "Sounds fair."

A second finger went up. "Number two. When you inevitably ignore Rule Number One, you are not to mention that I am the one who told you about this, even under the pain of death. Am I understood?"

"Perfectly."

Lily turned fully to face the statue, drew her wand, then, with a flick of her wrist, said, "Dissendium."

The statue rumbled, then, with almost a groan more than likely only audible to Remus, the witch's hump shifted to reveal a—

"Is that a secret tunnel?" Remus asked.

Lily smirked, triumphantly. "Yep. Apparently, Hogwarts has loads of them. They're supposed to be hidden all over the castle and the grounds. If you believe the legends, that is."

Remus was familiar with the concept. There was a tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow. He used it every month.

"How'd you find this one? I can't imagine it's written in any book. The professors would have thrown it out."

"Prewetts," Lily said, by way of explanation, and really, that was explanation enough. "This is the only one they've managed to find, though. They said it's come in handy."

"Where's it go?"

"Hogsmeade," she said. "It's how they smuggled in the butterbeer on Halloween."

A slow, cautious smile spread across Remus's face. "I've never been to a wizarding village."

"Nor have I," Lily said. "Are you up for the walk?"

Remus looked down at himself. There was a bandage across his chest, a fresh set of scars currently healing beneath the bandages on his wrist, his left knee was just a bit wonky, and, imperially speaking, he was rather exhausted.

"Fuck yes." He climbed up to the witch's hump. "Let's go."

The tunnel was dark, but Remus kept his wand raised and a Lumos charm active as he led the way. The walls were cold and damp, and smelled deeply of earth and forest, despite the stone that lined all sides of the tunnel. Ordinarily, Remus tried to avoid being surrounded on all sides by stone—it brought back frighteningly haunting memories of waking up in his parents' cellar—but he found that he didn't mind the tunnel. It felt… different, in a way that had absolutely everything to do with the fact that it was buried beneath a magic castle.

After about five minutes, Lily sidled up close to Remus and looped an arm through his, slowing their pace. She seemed to study his face for a moment. "Remus," she hedged, sounding nervous enough that he slowed to a stop. "I… I really do have a million questions about… Mr. Hyde. If it's not to much, can I ask you some?"

Christ, he'd really hoped they were past all this werewolf business, but he supposed he couldn't fault her curiosity. He figured he'd have just as many questions if he were in her position.

He sighed. "I cannot guarantee I'll answer."

"That's perfectly fine. Can I—" She let go of his arm to rummage in her bag for a minute before pulling out a beautiful, leather-bound book. It had a gold clasp that seemed sealed shut and, on the cover, in gold filigree, was an embossed lily. "Can I write down what you say? For research. There's not a lot known about… Mr. Hydes. And most of what we do know is ancient superstition that has done nothing except perpetuate stereotypes. Even Newt Scamander himself never spoke to an actual were—fuck, a Mr. Hyde—before he classified the entire species as one of the most deadly magical creatures."

"Dark Creatures," Remus mumbled. "Werewolves are Dark Creatures."

Lily groaned and fixed him with a menacing glare. "You have a magic inherent to your soul, just like any witch or wizard. Whether or not you choose to use that magic for Dark things is up to you. No one is born evil, Remus."

"I wasn't born a werewolf."

"Nor did becoming one make you evil, you idiot." She paused, then gripped his arm again. "You wouldn't have kept Mr. Hyde's teeth if you were truly evil. You want to use them to help your friend. That's not evil. That's kind, Remus."

There was nothing kind about the wolf. It was a monster that haunted his every waking moment, his every nightmare. It tore him to pieces every month only to demand the same blood sacrifice from him at the rise of the next moon.

The wolf was born in darkness, raised in agony and torment, and it stalked the night, hungering for a taste of flesh.

That was, by Remus's count, every possible definition of evil.

"The wolf has to be a secret, Lily," Remus said, subtly shifting over to an argument he was sure he could win. "You can't write it down. Someone could find it."

Thankfully, Lily dropped the debate and instead, shoved the leather bound book into his hands. "They won't be able to read it. Here. Try to open it."

Skeptically, he tried fiddling with the clasp. It didn't budge. Then, with a quirked eyebrow, Remus pointed his wand at the clasp and whispered, "Colloportus." Then, he added the extra little flick-and-twist of his wrist that typically undid Sirius's locking charms. Still nothing. Giving up entirely, Remus put his wand in his mouth and tried to forcibly pry the book open.

"All right," he said, handing it back to Lily. "But just because I can't break into it doesn't mean that someone else couldn't. Sirius might be able to—"

Lily ignored him entirely, looking instead down at the book and reverently tracing the embossed lily. Her voice grew soft and distant, and so suddenly sad that Remus shut his mouth and just listened.

"My dad gave this to me right before I came to Hogwarts. He said it was a little expensive, and told me not to tell my sister or my mum. He was so proud that I was a witch and he said I needed to make my very own book of spells." She blinked, then seemed to come out of the haze of bittersweet memory. "Anyway, I got to Hogwarts, found a book on locking spells in the Restricted Section, and spelled it shut. I am the only one that can open this book."

Remus was silent for a moment. He leaned back against the stone wall. "Exactly how often do you visit the Restricted Section? Because Sirius and I have noticed that you bring it up quite a lot for a first year, especially considering that—"

"The point is," Lily continued, glaring at him, "The spell required a pass-phrase. The phrase can be spoken in any known language and must be both objectively and subjectively true to the person who is saying it."

"How can something be both objectively and subjectively true?"

"Easily," Lily said, with a wave of her hand. "I can say that the sky is blue. That is objectively true. It's a scientific fact. Doesn't change. I also personally believe that the sky is blue, therefore that statement is also subjectively true. If I truly believed, in my heart of hearts, that the sky was green, then the phrase 'the sky is blue' would not work, because I did not believe the sky to blue. You can believe a thing to be true both because it's a fact—an objective truth—and because you have faith. Faith is inherently subjective. It can be objective, but not always."

Remus took a second to make sure he followed that, then nodded. "So what's the phrase you've chosen?"

Even in the dim light of the tunnel, Remus could clearly see the flush that suddenly appeared on her cheeks.

"I'm not telling you," she muttered.

Then, Lily said something in a language he did not understand. Possibly in Russian.

The clasp on the book popped open.

"I memorised the phrase I chose in about ten languages, just to be safe," Lily explained, opening the book and thumbing to a blank page. "Even if you repeated exactly what I just said, with the proper pronunciations and inflections, it still wouldn't open because you wouldn't know what you're saying, therefore it couldn't be subjectively true to you."

"That's… impressive." He gestured to the book. "So, is it a diary, or just—"

"Christ, no," Lily said. "It's incredibly dangerous to give pieces of one's heart and soul to a magical book. My diary looks different. Marlene and Dee read it about once a week, but I don't care. This is more important. This is… Well, it's like my dad said. It's my book of spells and secrets."

She thumbed back through the book, then held out the page to Remus. On it, a list of questions, numbered one through one-hundred thirty four.

"You weren't kidding about that list, huh?" he muttered. Before he could get a proper look at the questions, she turned the book back towards her.

"I was not. So, what's the verdict? Can I write down your answers in my book of secrets?"

Remus considered for a moment, then reluctantly, he said, "Yes. So long as no one else sees it. I can't be expelled, Lily."

"You won't be. I swear, Remus. This secret will die with me, if that's what you want."

He'd very much like the wolf to die, but that was entirely out of his control.

"Now," she said, whipping out a ballpoint pen from seemingly nowhere. "We're going to walk and talk, because, really, we don't have all day and I'm supposed to meet Severus later. I will only ask you the first three questions on my list. The rest will be for later. Does that sound fair?"

Once more, Remus raised his wand to illuminate the tunnel, stuffing his other hand in his pocket as he started again towards Hogsmeade. "Fair enough."

"Right." Lily glanced furtively at her list. "First one's easy. I've seen conflicting reports on this, and really, I must know. One book said it's bullshit, but another—The Fading Moon—talks about it in detail. That book is ancient, and it's author wrote it anonymously, but he was rumoured to actually be a werewolf, as it's almost autobiographical. Unlike most of the other books on the subject, which are, like I said, more superstitious than—"

"Lily," Remus said. "Just ask your question."

As much as he appreciated her… enthusiasm on the subject of werewolves, it was pretty much his least favourite subject of all time, and he preferred just to get it over with.

"Sorry." She glanced up at him with wide eyes, then said in one breath, "Do the wolf's senses carry over when you're human?"

Remus blinked, then opened and closed his mouth. It wasn't necessarily a difficult question to answer. It's just… No one had ever bothered to ask that particular question, not even his father, who at one point, had made a career in hunting werewolves. To him, it seemed like a rather important question to ask.

"Yeah," Remus said, genuinely surprised at himself for volunteering the information. "I have a rather strong sense of smell and hearing. I don't really remember it any other way, but it's definitely more accurate than most everyone else. Plus, I tend to heal quickly."

Lily's eyes flicked to the scars on his face, but were back on her book a heartbeat later. "Thank fuck for that," she muttered. "Can you distinguish individual scents of people?"

Remus paused. "Is this your second question?"

"Follow-up. It doesn't count."

"Fine. Yes, I can."

"What do I smell like?"

"Sunflowers."

"And Potter?"

"Cinnamon and… brooms, I guess? It's a woodsy smell."

"Peter?"

"Sticky."

Lily frowned. "Sticky is not a scent."

"Yes, it is," Remus said, because saying someone smelled distinctly like rotten fruit was just rude. "Next question."

"What does Sirius smell like?"

"Magic."

He said it without thinking, really, but it was true. Both objectively and subjectively.

Sirius Black smelled like magic, wild and unconquered, every bit as reckless and brazen as Sirius himself.

"Huh. Interesting," Lily said, but she didn't press any further. "Now, question two is a bit… much. So… sorry? I guess."

"You're forgiven. Ask the question."

"What do you remember about the night you were bitten? Do you remember—" Lily swallowed around a lump in her throat. "—who bit you?"

Remus felt his jaw lock up, tighter than the clasp on Lily's book of spells.

He'd never spoken to anyone about that night. Not his mum, or his dad, nor the seeming-thousands of Ministry officials that had shown up the morning after his first shift. His father had acted quickly. He'd bandaged Remus's wounds—especially the gaping bite mark on Remus's left hip—wiped his tears, and made him presentable. None of the Ministry officials had ever even suspected that Remus had been bitten. They'd believed the lie his father had told: Fenrir Greyback broke into their house through the window in Remus's room, but Remus hadn't been in there. He'd had a nightmare and had been in bed with his mum and dad. When his dad had heard the window break, he'd managed to draw his wand and fight Greyback off.

Remus hadn't been able to say a word to confirm or deny his father's story to the Ministry officials, so they accepted it without question. He hadn't been able to say a word, period.

He'd been in astronomical pain and his throat had been raw from screaming.

After that night, Remus had decided that, like his father, he wasn't going to speak about it, and that maybe it would just go away. Maybe he wouldn't turn into a wolf. But, a month later, the moon had risen and his wolf had torn free, and that was that. His mum and dad had packed up and moved them from London to his mum's native Wales.

Over the years, Remus's parent's simply stopped asking about that night. He figured it was either because they didn't want to relive the trauma of having their only son turned into a monster, or because they figured he'd suppressed and forgotten the entire night and was merely doing his best to cope with the consequences.

Except Remus remembered every goddamned second of that night, from Greyback's glowing golden eyes outside his bedroom window, to the glass shattering and his flesh tearing, to his bones breaking and reforming, and Christ, all the fucking blood.

Every. Goddamned. Second.

Remus shook his head, forcing himself to return to the present. "No. No, Evans, I'm not talking about that."

She didn't even blink. Remus let out what he hoped was a relatively quiet sigh of relief.

"Last question. Have you told Sirius about… Mr. Hyde?"

Well. He hadn't been expecting that one either.

Vaguely, Remus found himself wondering as to how, exactly, Lily had prioritised this list of questions.

"No," he said. "I haven't told him. He… he thinks I'm going home every month and my parents are doing this to me."

Remus gestured helplessly at the scars marring his face.

"Well, there's a chance he's… projecting."

Remus didn't want to think about that. He'd been desperately trying to keep Sirius off his mind for the past two weeks. It was nearly impossible—given that, in the four months Remus had known him, Sirius had somehow managed to take up significant real estate in both Remus's conscious and unconscious mind—but he'd been afraid that if he thought of Sirius at home with his horrible family, he'd find himself breaking into McGonagall's office again and this time flooing over and rescuing Sirius.

Storming the castle, so to speak.

He may or may not have worked out the logistics of that plan, in detail, and with intricate battle strategies.

"He's seen the scars, so it's understandable that he'd have questions. And he's noticed that my eyes turn a bit gold to match the wolf's about a day or so before the moon is full. But he hasn't put it all together."

Lily was silent for a long minute. So long, in fact, that Remus could make out a faint light at the end of the tunnel. "I know it's none of my business, Remus, and it's your decision to make, but I really think that if there were one other person in this castle who would understand and sympathise with you, it'd be Sirius Black."

"He's a pureblood, Lily," Remus said. "And I'm a monster."

"Neither of you should ever be reduced to either of those things," Lily snapped. "You're both so much more, even if you can't see it. To the world and to each other. You are also both, unfortunately, mad fucking idiots."

She threw him a smirk and promptly closed her book of secrets.

Remus took the out for what it was: an end to the uncomfortable questions. "You're not wrong."

As they walked the tunnel grew narrower and the ceiling curved down low enough that Remus had to duck his head. A few paces later, and the tunnel abruptly ended, with a wooden trap door on the ceiling.

"Good thing you're as monstrously tall as you are," Lily muttered, and Remus tried not to visibly cringe at the ironic use of the word monstrously. He knew Lily didn't mean anything by it. "Give me a boost?"

Together, they drew their wands and used a levitation spell to open the trap door. Then, Remus hoisted Lily up before crawling up after her.

The smell assaulted Remus the second he popped his head through the front door. He covered his mouth and nose with his elbow, trying to suppress his gag reflex. "Christ, Evans, where the hell are we? It reeks."

They were in a basement, of some kind. Oak barrels lined one wall, wooden crates another, then, scattered throughout were half-opened boxes of sugar, spices, and what Remus sincerely hoped weren't actually millions of deceased cockroaches. The dirt floor shifted as they moved, kicking up dust and coating his lungs, making him cough and inhale the sticky-sweet stench of mildew, yeast, and every kind of sugary confection imaginable.

Including, it seemed, after a closer inspection on the label on one of the boxes, chocolate-covered cockroaches.

What a horrifyingly criminal use of chocolate. Remus was deeply offended.

"We're in the basement of Honeydukes. Wizarding candy shop." Lily inhaled deeply and let out a dreamy sigh. "I think it smells wonderful."

Remus pulled a face. It smelled like everything at once, and it was giving him a headache. "Yes, well. If we could get upstairs as soon as possible. These fumes are putting the potion lab to shame."

Lily laughed and started up the stairs. "Is that why you're doing so bad at potions? You can't stand the smell? I thought it was because you were trying to give Sirius a chance to feel smarter than you."

"He's plenty smart on his own already, I'll have you know, and he certainly doesn't need anyone inflating his ego. He'll be top of our class."

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

Lily paused at the top, carefully shouldered the hinge of the door, and pushed it open. When no one seemed to notice either the noise or the fact that two first years were coming up from the basement during early business hours, Remus followed her out into the brightly lit shop.

Honeydukes was moderately busy, considering it couldn't be much past nine in the morning on New Years Day. A few women with grubby-handed children lingered and argued with the shop-keeper at the checkout. A few teenagers perused the shelf of chocolate frogs, and a young couple leaned against one another near the discounted shelf of boxed Christmas truffles. Thankfully, the shop was spacious; high-ceilings and the open door letting in the cool, January breeze did wonders for the state of Remus's headache. Up here, out of the mildew-y basement, it really did smell heavenly.

Lily let out what could only be construed as a squeal of delight. She grabbed Remus's hand and together, they weaved through the shelves, until they found a small bin near the front of the shop with a crisp, gold label:

Free Samples. Please take only one.

Happy Holidays, M. Honeydukes.

Lily selected a firewhisky flavoured hard candy, while Remus went straight for the chocolate.

About three seconds later, Lily's face turned bright red and she scrunched up her nose. "My God, is that what firewhisky tastes like?"

Remus laughed. "I take it you're not a fan."

"Not even a little bit." But, to her credit, she did not spit the candy out.

Just then, a breeze came from the open door at Remus's back. Snow from the stoop swept into the store, as well as the cool, crisp scents of winter and pine and—

Remus froze.

He turned towards the window, the chocolate in his mouth reduced to ash, because there was absolutely no mistaking that scent.

He'd smelled it on Sirius, the first day they'd met. He'd smelled it again when Sirius had opened the letter from his mother, and…

And, the day Sirius had cursed Malfoy.

Remus would know that smell anywhere. It was fire and entrails and sweeter than ambrosia, but there was only poison underneath.

Across the street, and in stark contrast to the pure, white snow on the ground, stood the charred remains of what Remus assumed was once a shop. Now, it was nothing more than a husk with a roof, a shattered and splintered door, and shards of glass strewn about outside.

Remus was outside, and halfway across the street before he realised what he was doing. He stopped walking, just outside the perimeter of broken glass that surrounded the ruined shop.

"Remus!" Lily called, running after him. She slid up close to him, eyeing the shop. Her voice grew quiet as she moulded herself to his side. "Remus, I-I don't like this. Let's just go, all right? There's something wrong here."

Yes, there was.

"It smells like Dark Magic," he whispered, barely aware of his own voice.

He felt Lily's gaze boring a hole in the side of his face. She tugged on his arm. "All the more reason to get the fuck out of here."

Dark Magic hung heavy in the air, blanketing them, coating his insides with its sticky-sweet poison, but Remus made no move to walk away. There was… something. Something he didn't want to explain. An itch, a feeling, an instinct from the wolf, he couldn't say, but he found himself moving forward, his feet crunching on snow and broken glass, and Lily's fingernails digging into this bicep.

It was that same, creeping feeling of wrongness that seeped into his bones. He'd felt it when he'd woken up, and he felt it again now: wrongness so thick in the air that Remus could almost sift through it with his fingers.

Something horrible had happened, while the wolf had taken over his mind. Or, maybe it had happened days ago, and of the two of them, the wolf was the only one clever enough to recognise the wrongness for what it was: a veiled threat, an act of war, a taste of vengeance.

An omen of the darkness to come.

He crossed the threshold of the shop.

"Remus!" Lily hissed, but she did not let go of his arm.

Inside the shop, the sticky-sweet poison smell was even stronger. No part of the shop was untouched by whatever horror had happened here. The ceiling beams were half collapsed, the back wall was blown out entirely, and charred debris lined every inch of the floor. Remus's senses were on overdrive: the creak of the burnt wood, the howl from the wind whistling against the broken shards of glass in what remained of the front windows, and of course, that smell. It nearly blinded him.

Which was probably why he didn't notice they weren't alone until someone had their wand at his throat. Next to him, Lily screamed, tore her arm free, and stumbled backwards a few steps, fumbling for her own wand.

The wand against Remus's jugular glowed hot.

"One more move from either of you and I liquify his brain," hissed the voice, presumably attached to the wand at his throat.

Remus stayed frozen, staring straight ahead. In hindsight, he should have seen this coming, but the wolf's senses had been drowning in the wrongness and the tang of Dark Magic. Not for the first time that morning, Remus cursed the wolf for the mess he found himself in: bloody, injured, and precariously balancing on his one good knee.

Except now with a wand at his throat.

"Oh, love, he's a kid. He doesn't mean any harm," came another voice, from deeper in the shop.

"You don't know that! She has spies everywhere! Look what she did already! I'd be just like her to use fucking brats from Hogwarts!"

Behind him, Lily Josephine Evans fired a stinging hex at his attacker.

"Fucking—Jesus!" the woman shouted, jumping backwards, but she did not lose her grip on her wand.

Remus stumbled back to stand in front of Lily, and he was finally able to catch a glimpse at the odd couple in the shop.

The woman reeled for a moment, shaking off the stinging hex, then raised her wand again. "Why you fucking—"

Except the short, portly man stepped forward and snatched the wand right out of her hand. "Love, please don't. They're children."

"They broke in!"

The man let out a hallow laugh. "There's not much to break into. The door's been blown off." He stepped forward and placed a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder. "Why don't you play nice and ask them who they are?"

With a huff and a dramatic eye-roll that struck Remus as uncomfortably familiar, the woman turned back to face them. She stepped forward—wandless now, but no less intimidating—and crossed her arms. She was only a few inches taller than Remus, and pale. Her dark, curly brown hair was wild and out of sorts, disheveled like the rest of her appearance. Her eerily familiar silver eyes were red-rimmed, and lined with dark circles that looked almost like bruises.

"Fine," the woman said. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want?"

"Clearly those years of etiquette lessons payed off," the man grumbled.

"We're no one," Lily said, jutting out her chin and trying to appear taller. "Just some fucking brats from Hogwarts."

Remus smirked up at the woman. "Pleased to meet you."

He stuck out his hand for her to shake.

She recoiled instantly, wrinkling her nose at his offered hand.

"Oh, for God's sake," the man muttered, stepping forward. He didn't shake Remus's hand, but he gave him a warm, reassuring smile. "I'm Edward Tonks, owner—well, former owner—of this little shop. And this is—"

Tonks. He knew that name.

Remus's eyes widened and everything clicked into place. The woman's familiarity... From her pale skin and high cheekbones, to her silver eyes, and that weird and inexplicable aversion to physical contact.

He knew who she was.

"You're Andromeda Black," he said.

Andromeda froze. Her expression hardened and she raised a hand. Little sparks danced between her fingertips—not as many or as in control as the magic that Sirius could so easily summon—but Remus was not fool enough to think Andromeda's threat of wandless magic was inconsequential.

"And how the fuck do you know my name?"

Lily kept her wand raised and trained on Andromeda. "We're friends of Sirius. He said you were the good cousin."

And just like that, Andromeda's face softened. As though her strings had been cut, she slumped against a fallen beam, seemingly exhausted.

"You're—" She looked Remus up and down. "Are you the Lupin boy? The one who broke into McGonagall's office?"

Remus had to pause to think, because, Christ, that seemed like forever ago. "How did you—"

But then he stopped himself. He probably had one of the most recognisable faces in all of Wizarding Britain, what with his scars and all. His heart sank. The scars made him unforgettable.

Andromeda gave him a soft smile, and Merlin, she was beautiful when she smiled. Like some dark statue that suddenly had life breathed into it.

"Your eyes," Andromeda said. "Sirius said you had the most brilliant eyes that he'd ever seen."

And, well. Remus had no clue what to say to that, but he allowed his heart to soar. Just for a second.

"And you must be the Muggle-born," Andromeda continued, her eyes shifting to Lily. "The one James Potter plans on marrying."

Lily flushed bright red and Remus had to stifle a laugh.

"Sirius better not have introduced me like that," Lily growled.

"I assure you, Miss Evans, that he did not." Andromeda's eyes twinkled in a way that was so eerily similar to Sirius that it was a wonder that Remus didn't recognise her for who she was right away. "I've taught him better than that, thank you very much."

"Good." Lily put away her wand, then cast her gaze around the shop. "What exactly happened here?"

Andromeda's face darkened and she appeared to age about fifty years in an instant. Her eyes met Tonks's, and the short man stepped forward to pull Andromeda into his arms. He was only an inch or so taller than her, but she made herself small enough to tuck her face against his neck.

"Walburga Black happened. That's what," Andromeda said, her voice cold and emotionless.

Remus felt the cold fingers of dread creeping up his spine, clawing at his heart, tearing him to pieces in ways that even the wolf couldn't.

Lily placed her hand on his arm, apparently sensing his panic. "What does that mean?"

Andromeda straightened, her features suddenly entirely devoid of emotion. "I'm sorry, Ms. Evans, but the less you know about the affairs of the Blacks, the better."

Lily's face flushed red, her eyebrows furrowing. She opened her mouth, no doubt ready to tear Andromeda a new one, but Edward Tonks beat her to it.

"Andromeda—" Tonks began.

"No, Teddy! You said it yourself. They're just kids! There's no need to get them involved."

"We're already involved!" Remus snapped. "I've seen what Sirius's mother has done to him. And we both saw how terrified he was to go home. We know, Andromeda. And Sirius— Christ."

Suddenly there were tears in his eyes and his throat closed up.

Because Sirius was everything and Remus didn't have the words.

"Sirius is our friend," Lily finished for him.

Andromeda sighed. "This…" She gestured to the shop. "This is nothing compared to what the Blacks are capable of. I am telling you now, the less you know, the longer your life will be."

Lily exchanged a look with Remus.

"Yeah," Lily said. "We don't care."

"Longevity is overrated," Remus added, still trying to settle his racing heart.

Andromeda muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Bloody fucking Gryffindors," but then nodded to Tonks.

"Andromeda was meant to be engaged on Christmas," Tonks began.

"To a pureblood sycophant twice my age," Andromeda added.

"Yes, well. We'd concocted half a plan to make her something of an unattainable bride, but apparently Walburga Black was already leagues ahead."

"And now, in the eyes of Wizarding law and of pureblood society, I am engaged to Julius Fawley. I will bear him sons and play the part of the pureblood wife, and in return, he will get a significant portion of the Black fortune."

Andromeda reached into her pocket and held out a large, ostentatious ring. It had three bands, each curled like a snake, and made of the purest silver in the realm, given that Remus could almost smell the bite from the silver it from where he stood. The diamond was obnoxiously large and horrifyingly black.

"See?" Andromeda said, scoffing at their expressions. "I'm betrothed."

Tonks leaned over and kissed her forehead. "And I love you anyway."

She melted, and tucked the ring away to lean against him once more.

"All right," Lily said. "But how did this happen to your shop?"

Andromeda pulled a face. "Walburga had a spy."

Remus nearly swallowed his tongue. "Sirius?"

"No," Andromeda said. "Never Sirius. Sirius is unwaveringly loyal in all respects and wouldn't betray anyone he loved, even at his own expense. That's why he's in bloody Gryffindor."

All things considered, Remus knew that. He'd staked everything on Sirius's loyalty and bravery, from the very moment they'd met.

"Then, who?"

"His brother."

"Regulus?"

"He knew about Teddy. He knew about our relationship and he knew about this shop," Andromeda said.

"And he just turned on you?" Lily said. "That doesn't make sense. Sirius loves his brother and he wouldn't—"

"Unless Walburga threatened Sirius," Remus said, because if Regulus was anything like Sirius, that would be the only thing that would force him to turn traitor. It'd been why Sirius had cursed Malfoy in the first place.

Apparently, the love and loyalty of the Black brothers came at one hell of a price.

Andromeda's silver eyes met his and the icy claws of dread tore into Remus's very soul.

"She threatened Sirius, so Regulus gave you up."

Slowly, painfully, Andromeda nodded. "Regulus did what he had to do."

But was it enough?

There were tears in his eyes, daggers in his heart, and in his very soul, the wolf inside him howled in agony.

"Is Sirius all right?"

The question hung heavy in the air, heavy as the ash and stench of Dark Magic surrounding them inside and out.

"I don't know," Andromeda croaked. "I left as soon as I could. I… I couldn't help him, and I had to find Teddy." She reached for Tonk's hand and clutched it tight. "We Blacks are monstrous creatures, but we all have our priorities and impossible choices to make. I made mine and got out of there as soon as I could."

Remus felt as though his lungs had been ripped from his chest. It felt so much different now, when it was simply words rending his flesh from his bones, rather than the usual claws of the wolf.

Fucking Christ, this was worse.

Remus couldn't breathe.

"He's alive, Remus," Andromeda whispered, or maybe shouted. Remus was having trouble concentrating. "His mother needs him alive. But short of that, I don't know what state he's in."

The wolf howled its rage from somewhere deep inside of him.

If he's hurt, I'll tear her heart from her chest and devour it whole.

From their expressions, Remus gathered that he might have said that out loud. That should horrify him—he never allowed the wolf to get so close to the surface that it managed to gain control of his tongue—but Remus found he didn't care. He meant every damn word.

Still, he took deep breaths and fought to win back control.

Andromeda gave a slight tug on Tonks's hand and pulled him closer to her.

"Teddy and I are leaving. For good," she said. "I can't tell you where—Walburga has spies everywhere—but we're going to elope. We don't have much tucked away, but I'll sell Fawley's goddamned ring the second we land somewhere safe."

Lily and Remus exchanged a glance.

"But," Lily began, "Sirius needs you."

"Sirius needs his army of crazy, fucking Gryffindors ready and willing to go to war to keep him safe." Her silver glare landed on Remus. "He'll always have me. I promise you, I will write to him once it's safe, but for now, I need to be gone. The more distance between me and Sirius, the safer he'll be."

"Plus," Tonks added, helpfully, "I really don't want you to marry Fawley."

"God, me neither." She focused back on Remus. "The Hogwarts Express comes in tomorrow. Sirius needs his friends."

"He'll have them," Lily said, and Remus managed to nod. "Until the very end."

Tonks pulled out his pocket watch. "We best be off, love. Our portkey leaves in less than half an hour."

"Right," Andromeda said, nodding and brushing off her dress. "And, Remus?"

"Yes?"

"Tell him I love him," Andromeda said. "And tell him… Tell him he should really trust Uncle Alphard. He's on our side."

January 2, 1972

Remus hadn't slept.

Normally, Remus could barely keep his eyes open on the day following the full moon. The transformation was never easy, and this one in particular had been brutal, both because of the blue moon and because of Remus's effort to steal the wolf's teeth. Normally, he was fraught with exhaustion the morning after. Normally, he allowed Madam Pomfrey to force him to sleep most of the day and stay the night.

Normal wasn't a word Remus understood anymore.

He'd gotten maybe three hours of sleep in the past seventy-two hours.

Sirius haunted his every waking moment.

Whenever he closed his eyes, Remus saw the wolf pacing inside him, back and forth, baring its teeth, kneading the earth with its claws, hungry for a fight. Thirsty for vengeance. The wolf was furious at even the slightest hint that Sirius was in trouble.

Remus had no clue as to when or how the wolf had formed any sort of connection with Sirius Black, but it had, and now it howled for Remus to do something.

Except, there wasn't anything Remus could do, save for lie here all night staring at the canopy of the bed he'd been sharing with Sirius since the night after Sirius had found him in the bathroom.

So, he'd done nothing but wallow in silent agony and pray the old French prayers his mother had taught him as a child, hoping they'd be enough to keep Sirius safe until he was back at Hogwarts, where Remus could protect him.

At a quarter after ten in the morning, Remus hauled himself out of bed and into the shower. Every muscle in his body loudly protested the movement, and his knee almost gave out, but Remus grit his teeth and forced the movement anyway. He showered, brushed his teeth, and tried to do something with his hair, but it was mostly a lost cause, even with some of James's pilfered hair potion. The new scars on his face had closed and faded to pink, but even so, he looked like he'd just gone about twelve rounds too many with a hippogryph.

Honestly, Remus couldn't find it in himself to care too much.

He just wanted to see Sirius. Once he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sirius was all right, Remus could sleep.

Lily was waiting for him in the common room. Her hair was up, and her arms were crossed, but she smiled at Remus as he came down the stairs.

"How was your night?" he asked, conversationally, mostly in an effort to dissuade her from mentioning how horrible he looked.

After they'd left Hogsmeade, Lily had hurried off to meet Snape, leaving Remus alone. He'd wandered about the castle, aimlessly, for about an hour before the pain in his left knee forced him to Gryffindor tower. He'd tried to read, tried to get ahead in Ancient Runes, but he'd been unable to focus on on anything other than Sirius Black.

"All right," Lily said, as they crawled through the portrait hole and made their way down to the Great Hall. There was supposed to be a Welcome Brunch served in the Hall as soon as the Hogwarts Express arrived at eleven. "Severus and I had a bit of a tiff."

"Another one?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "He has certain… opinions about some legislation that will be up for a final vote of approval later this month. He's wrong."

Remus hadn't been aware that Lily followed the legislative process of the Wizengamot. Personally, he knew next to nothing about it and made a mental note to start reading up on it.

"Wrong?" he asked, because as with most conversations regarding Snape they'd had over the holidays, Remus had frightfully little to say. He knew Lily was close to Snape, and he had no desire to risk her vengeance and retaliation should he say the wrong thing.

"Yes, very, very wrong," Lily insisted, eying Remus like her response was supposed to mean something to him, though his exhausted mind was not cooperating enough to catch the subtleties. The way he saw it, Severus Snape was wrong about most things, outside the Potions classroom. Lily sighed. "Severus didn't used to be like this. He was… kind."

Kind was never going to be a word that Remus used to describe Severus Snape.

"He's been writing to Malfoy," Lily said. "He won't let me read the letters. I don't understand why Severus just can't…"

Remus raised an eyebrow at her. "Can't, what?"

"Be better."

"I think," Remus began, then took a breath. He almost reconsidered—almost—but frankly, it had to be said, and he was too damn tired to hold his tongue. "I think that maybe Snape is incapable of being better than he is."

Lily turned on him. "Remus Lupin, how dare you—"

"And maybe it's your responsibility as his friend to show him the kindness he is not capable of expressing, in the hopes that one day, perhaps, he might learn to be better in order to be worthy of your friendship."

"Hm." Lily was silent for a moment. When they reached the enormous doors of the Great Hall, Lily crossed her arms and smirked up at him. "You know, I was about to hex you there for a minute."

"I know."

Down a ways, around a corner and through the doors of the entrance hall, Remus could hear the excited voices of returning students on the thestral-drawn carriages. An icy breeze swept through the castle, bringing with it the scent of hundreds of students returning to Hogwarts. A few students who'd stayed over the holidays rushed past Remus and Lily to the entrance hall, in order to greet their friends as soon as the carriages came to a halt.

"Do you want to wait outside?" Lily asked, sliding close to him and hooking her arm through his.

"No," he said, because this was something he'd actually thought through in the early hours of the morning, staring up at his canopy. Remus figured it was best to wait by the Great Hall, rather than brave searching for Sirius in the crowd outside. Sure, he'd probably be able to find Sirius by scent alone, but they would not, in any way, shape or form, be in a private enough setting that Remus could assess the damages. If he waited here, the students would file in methodically, and if he smelled so much as the slightest hint of Dark Magic or blood on Sirius, he could easily whisk him away to the empty charms classroom just across the hall. So, despite every instinct he had just to run out the front doors and tear through the crowd just to find Sirius, Remus forced himself to remain where he was.

"It's too cold outside," he told Lily.

She stared at him for a long moment, as though she'd followed his every thought. Students began to pour into the hallway, and, behind them, some distant magic compelled the doors to the Great Hall to open. Exuberant voices surrounded them, as Lily Evans stared into his soul.

"He'll be all right, Remus," she whispered, then leaned her head on his shoulder. "He has to be."

Remus didn't have any words left to formulate a reply.

Five seconds later, Remus caught a whiff of cinnamon.

"Oi! Lupin!"

James Potter more or less hurled himself at Remus in what amounted to a quite literal bone-crushing hug. Remus laughed, then grunted, as James squeezed his bruised ribcage.

James pulled back slightly, but kept an arm slung around Remus's neck. Peter sidled up close to James and gave Remus a small wave in greeting.

"James and I have been planning pranks on the Slytherins the whole way here," Peter said, with a proud smile. "James claims he has a secret weapon for not getting caught, but he won't tell me what is just yet."

"Nope. It's a Marauders Only type of secret," James said. "Those gits won't know what hit them."

"Speaking of..." Remus strained his neck, trying to see over everyone in the crowd, searching for the mop of raven-black hair and eyes as silver as the moon. "Where's—"

But James's attention was already elsewhere.

"Remus," James interrupted. "I need to know. How is my beloved? Have you told her of my grand deeds?"

"He hasn't mentioned you once in the past two weeks," Lily said, turning to face them from where she'd been conversing with Dorcas and Marlene. "It's been a glorious holiday."

"Traitor," James muttered, half-heartedly, to Remus.

"Remus did you a favour, Potter," Marlene said, hooking her arm through Dorcas's.

"Yes, you know what they say," Dorcas added. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

James broke out in a ridiculous grin. With his glasses askew and his hair an absolute rat's nest, he extracted himself from Remus's side and strolled up to Lily. "Well, in that case—"

"Where's Sirius?" Lily said, her voice clipped and her eyes finding Remus's.

He shrugged and gave a slight shake of his head. The nauseating dread that had haunted Remus all night welled up inside him, and he did his very best not to panic outright. Christ, he couldn't even smell Sirius.

Had he come back to Hogwarts at all?

James sobered instantly, fast enough to give anyone whiplash.

"He, uh." James exchanged a look with Peter. "He said he was tired. He went up to the tower to sleep. Said he'd catch up with us later."

"What?" Remus said. "How'd we miss him, then? We've been here the whole time. He would have had to walk past us to get to the staircase—"

Peter shook his head. "He cut across the courtyard to the greenhouse. Used the back staircase. The one that doesn't move around as much. He said he didn't want to cause a fuss."

Remus tried to swallow around his heart heart that was trying to claw its way out of his chest.

"James," Remus breathed. "Was he all right?"

James let out a pained whimper, and cast a furtive look at Peter. "He…"

"He said he was tired," Peter said, eyeing Dorcas and Marlene.

Dorcas's face scrunched up in a frown. "Why… Why wouldn't Sirius be all right? He was talking with us on the train. He asked about my nan."

"Oh, darling," Marlene tutted. "There's a great deal you don't know about purebloods and their secrets. Best not to ask questions."

"But…" Dorcas said, with far less certainty than before. "He seemed fine."

"Mm, yes," Marlene replied. "The first thing you need to know about us purebloods is that we're remarkably good liars."

Absently, Remus found himself wondering just how much Marlene McKinnon knew about the Blacks.

Marlene took a step towards the Great Hall and grabbed Lily's arm. "Come on, Evans," she said. "This seems like a Marauder matter."

Lily walked backwards two steps, then locked eyes with Remus.

"Go check on him. Now, Remus."

Remus wasn't going to argue with her.

"Remus, wait." James made a grab for his arm, but missed. "We'll all go together—"

But Remus didn't wait.

He ran.

The smell assaulted him the moment he threw open the door to the dormitory: acrid and sweet, laced with hatred and infection. Dark Magic and blood.

God, there was blood.

Remus very nearly doubled over.

"Sirius?"

All four beds were empty, as was the rooftop where he and Sirius spent most nights. Frantic for a moment, thinking that maybe Sirius hadn't made it all the way up the stairs in the first place, Remus almost ran back out the door, but—

He heard a sob.

The bathroom door was closed.

Remus ran to the door, then pounded his fist against it when he realised it was locked. "Sirius? Siri, are you in there?"

Nothing, except the faint sound of laboured breathing that no one would be able to make out through the heavy oak door. Unless that someone happened to be a werewolf.

"Sirius, it's just me. Please, let me in."

More nothing.

"Goddamnit, Sirius, I don't give a shit about anything, okay? I just… Fuck, I just want to see you." Remus took a deep breath. "You told me that my scars didn't matter. You said you didn't give a fuck about them, even though they're all that most everyone else can see. It goes both ways, Siri. I don't give a shit what she did to you. I've been driving myself crazy not knowing, okay? Just let me help. Please."

He wiggled the door latch again and wondered if it would be over-dramatic to just bust the door down. Even with his injured knee and hand and distinct lack of sleep in the past few days, Remus knew he was more than strong enough to do so, especially with the adrenaline and fear currently coursing through his veins. The wolf was thirsty for violence and destruction, even if it were simply aimed at a door.

"Sirius, I'm going to unlock this fucking door." Remus let his forehead fall against the door with a thunk. "Please, just say something."

He waited. Tried to remember to breathe. Tried not to think about the last time he'd seen Sirius, how he'd pulled Sirius into his arms and cursed the stars when he'd had to let go.

Nothing.

Remus drew his wand and unlocked the door.

Sirius's back was to him, and he was hunched over a sink. He was shirtless, unreasonably pale and significantly skinnier than he had been two weeks ago. There was a burn mark on his back, marring the flesh along his spine and towards the hem of his trousers. Remus could see him trembling, head to toe. Sirius's hair was uncharacteristically unkempt and… And…

Remus met Sirius's eyes in the mirror, and nearly choked.

In the mirror, Remus could see the scars: two of them, in a criss-cross pattern across Sirius's chest, from his collarbone to his hip, both of them raw and open and infected.

And, right above Sirius's heart…

Remus knew what those words meant.

Sirius let out something of a manic laugh. It came out as a cough, partially garbled from the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"R-Remus?" Sirius croaked. "Are you real?"

"Yeah, Siri. I'm real." Remus wished he wasn't, wished this was some nightmare from which they'd both wake up.

"Been dreaming about you, I think. Every night. Don't wanna wake up, but you make me. Vipers. There's vipers and chocolate cake and riddles. Riddle? Can't remember the riddle. Cannon fodder and killing god. Something like that."

"Sirius." Remus took half a step forward. "Sirius, you're bleeding."

"It hurts, Re. It—"

Sirius's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and before Remus could cast so much as a cushioning charm, he collapsed in a heap on the bathroom floor.

Remus made a garbled noise in the back of his throat and found himself kneeling at Sirius's side in a second flat. His knee twinged painfully, but it hardly even registered in Remus's mind. Blood trickled from Sirius's lips to the tile floor. A mixture of pus and blood oozed from the open wounds on his chest.

"Christ, no," Remus muttered, and reached out to roll Sirius onto his back.

Sirius flopped over and let out a horrifying moan of pain before Remus jerked back, breathing hard.

Remus drew his wand, prayed he was remembered the wand movement correctly, and muttered, "Episkey."

It did absolutely nothing to the open, festering scars on Sirius's chest, but Remus tried it seven more times anyway, his voice growing hoarse and more frantic with each spell.

Numbly, his hand hovered over the fucking tattoo right above Sirius's heart and Remus cursed the fucking world.

Sirius was hurt and bleeding and he was so fucking useless. He couldn't touch, he couldn't do anything. The wolf clawed at Remus's throat, ready and willing to scream for help, when—

"Remus!"

James, in the other room. Remus heard his footsteps, pounding up the stairs.

"Bathroom!" Remus called, unable to keep the high note of desperation out of his voice.

"Holy shit." That was Peter.

"What—" James. "Mother of Merlin, Remus, what happened?!"

"Is… Is that a tattoo?!" Peter, again.

James knelt on Sirius's other eyes, panic written all over his face. James reached out a hand, and, well, Remus just reacted.

He drew his wand and hit James with a Knockback Jinx, sending James flying across the bathroom floor.

"What the fuck, Lupin?!" James yelled, jumping to his feet. "He's fucking bleeding! We need to—"

"Don't touch him," Remus bit out, with just enough presence of mind not to actually growl and bare his teeth at James. "Don't fucking touch him."

Remus did not lower his wand.

James glared at him, but gave him a slight nod. Then, in a measured voice, he said, "All right. What happened?"

"His fucking mother happened," Remus snarled.

James scrubbed a hand over his face. "We need to get him to the hospital wing. Now. Stand back, Remus, I'll levitate him—"

Remus didn't move, just shook his head furiously. He remembered what Sirius had said to him, when Remus had been the one bleeding on the floor of a different bathroom. "He's spitting up blood. He could have a broken rib, and if we levitate him, we could make it worse. Puncture something inside."

James gave a curt nod. "Pete, go find McGonagall."

That wouldn't work either. "No!"

"Remus, he needs help!"

Remus took a breath, tried to slow his heart enough to explain.

"The three of us—" He gestured between them. "—We swore that we wouldn't speak of the crimes of the Blacks with anyone without Sirius's permission. If we tell McGonagall, it'll fuck with our magic forever."

Remus silently cursed Sirius for weaselling that oath out of him. He understood it—Christ, did he understand the desire to protect a secret—but he fucking loathed it. Especially now.

"Then what the fuck do we do?!" James's voice hit a high note of panic.

"Lily." The answer was so simple. She knew about Sirius's family and she was cunning enough to not allow herself to be roped into any sort of ridiculous oath of silence.

"Right. She said she would distract Marlene and Dee. Pete, go get Evans."

Peter stood frozen, looking back and forth between James and Remus and Sirius, unconscious on the floor.

"Now, Peter!" Remus roared. "Run!"

Peter jumped, clearly terrified, but hurried out of the dormitory. Remus didn't have the capacity to feel bad about yelling at his friend right now. He'd apologise later, when Sirius was safe.

Remus took a breath, then reached for a lock of Sirius's tangled, black hair. He twirled it between his fingers, careful not to touch skin.

James slowly sank to his knees on Sirius's other side, his hands raised in a gesture of appeasement. Between them, Sirius let out a soft moan, but his eyes stayed close. His chest rose and fell, the trickle of blood slowing slightly.

"That's a real and proper tattoo," James said, breathless, as though the tattoo itself was the most frightful and shocking thing about their friend passed out and bleeding on the bathroom floor.

Remus just nodded.

"Toujours Pur?" James's French pronunciation was truly atrocious and would be the peak of comedy in any other circumstance. "What the hell does that even mean?"

"Always pure," Remus said, cold and detached. "It means he's marked. He can't ever touch either of us."

James's face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean, he can't touch us?"

"I… I think it's a curse. A blood curse, like the kind Malfoy used on Lily the first week. Just… permanent."

"Salazar's fucking tits." James ran fidgety hands through his hair. "And you think his mother did that over the holidays?"

"No." Remus forced out the words. "The scars might be new, but I think his mother branded him a long time ago."

"Fuck."

Fuck, indeed.

Remus twined his fingers through Sirius's hair, because, Christ, if he didn't touch some part of Sirius, he might as well take a nose dive off the fucking roof. He wasn't quite sure how long he and James sat there, keeping silent vigil over Sirius, before he heard the dormitory door burst open once again.

"In here, Professor." That was Lily. Thank God.

A second later, Lily was crouched by his side, her hand on his shoulder and tears in her eyes. McGonagall stood in the doorway of the bathroom, a cowering Peter right behind her.

"Sweet Merlin," McGonagall whispered, taking in the scene. Her eyes tracked over Sirius, then landed on Remus, and fuck, he knew what that look meant. He'd seen that look in his father's eyes, every month since he was four years old, when his father opened the cellar door to take in whatever atrocities the wolf had committed during the night.

For three solid seconds, McGonagall thought Remus had done this to Sirius.

Once more, Remus bit back a growl.

"Potter, what happened here?" McGonagall demanded.

But James couldn't answer, not without risking permanent damage to his magic. Instead, he let out a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

"Potter—"

"Oh, for Christ-sakes," Lily cried. "They didn't do this. This didn't happen at Hogwarts."

Something like comprehension washed over McGonagall's expression. Her lips tightened and there was just a hint of a tremor in her voice.

"Right," McGonagall said. "Speckles!"

James fell backwards and gave a squawk of surprise at the sudden crack of apparition. Remus had never seen a house-elf up close, but he was momentarily taken aback by the fondness with which Speckles looked up at McGonagall.

"Yes, Mistress?" said the house-elf.

"Please Apparate Mr. Black directly to the hospital wing and inform Poppy that I will be there shortly."

Speckles nodded and crouched by Sirius's head, her big eyes staring up at Remus.

"Master needs to let go of Mr. Black's hair," Speckles said. "Speckles promises not to hurt Mr. Black."

Remus didn't want to let go. He almost begged the house-elf to Apparate him to the hospital wing too, but then he felt Lily's hands on his, silently tugging him away.

Another crack, and Speckles and Sirius disappeared, along with all the air in Remus's lungs.

Without another word, McGonagall spun on her heel.

The door to the hospital wing was locked, and no matter how many unlocking spells Remus tried, it wouldn't fucking budge.

Remus pounded his fist against the solid mahogany for the thousandth time in the last three hours, since McGonagall had promptly slammed the door in his face. He'd broken the splint on his broken fingers in the first hour. Now, his left hand was bleeding and the pain registered somewhere in the back of his mind, but Remus didn't care.

"Remus, love, please come sit," Lily said.

Her voice was strained and exhausted, and he was pretty sure that wasn't the first time she'd asked him to sit. She was slumped against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest and head buried in her arms. James sat across from her, with Peter drooling and snoring on his shoulder. James hadn't said anything in the past three hours.

"Remus—"

"No!" He took a breath, tugged at the sleeves of his jumper. He gestured helplessly at the door. "He was—Christ."

For as long as he'd live, Remus would never forget the look in Sirius's eyes right before he'd passed out.

"I know," Lily whispered. She didn't offer any more platitudes, any consolation, or sympathy, nor did he want her to. He didn't think he could take it, given that he was barely hanging onto his sanity as it was.

Behind him, the door gave a loud creak before McGonagall slipped out. Remus was there in a second, nose to nose with McGonagall, and trying to shove his way past her before she slammed the door in his face for a second time that day.

"Mr. Lupin—"

He ignored her, tried to wiggle past her, but—

A cold hand clamped down on his shoulder. He met McGonagall's icy blue glare beneath her square spectacles. He'd never realised he was only a couple of inches shorter than her. He knew without a doubt he could push her aside and be by Sirius's side before she could so much as hex him. His wolf howled at him to move, and—

Her grip tightened, and Remus knew she could see the wolf, lurking in the corners of his eyes.

"Mr. Lupin, that's quite enough."

Behind him, Remus heard James, Peter, and Lily scrambling to their feet.

"How is he, Professor?" James asked.

Not breaking McGonagall's glare, Remus forced himself to take a step back.

"He's stable, Potter." Ever so slowly, McGonagall sighed and her gaze shifted to James. "Madam Pomfrey said he'll be in the hospital wings for a few days, but he will be all right."

"I want to see him," Remus demanded.

McGonagall frowned at him. "You may visit him tomorrow. After class."

"No, Professor, I need to—"

"After class, Lupin," she snapped. "The four of you—" She glared at each of them in turn. "—are not to speak of this with anyone. Am I understood?"

Behind him, there was a chorus of, "Yes, Professor."

Remus managed a sharp nod. He was already bound to silence by a different oath.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to write a letter to Professor Dumbledore. Dinner starts in an a few minutes. You lot are needed in the Great Hall."

With that, McGonagall brushed past Remus and disappeared around the corner.

Remus immediately started after her. "Professor—"

Except Lily grabbed his arm.

He turned to her, then gestured wildly in the direction McGonagall went. "I need to—"

"Remus." Her voice was hard and brokered absolutely no argument. Every muscle in his body tensed.

Lily shifted her gaze to glare at James and Peter over his shoulder. Nervously, Peter tugged on James's sleeve, urging him in the direction of the staircase that led to the Great Hall.

"Uh… We'll catch up with you later, Remus," James said, as Peter tugged him away. James nodded awkwardly at Lily. "Evans… Thanks. For… Sirius. Thanks."

Lily rolled her eyes.

Remus waited until they were well out of earshot.

"You knew about the tattoo."

"Yes."

"And what it means?"

"Yes."

He'd figured as much. He remembered how she'd covered Sirius in the duvet on Halloween and how she'd ushered him from the common room when it'd gotten to be too much for Sirius. He remembered how she'd sat on Sirius's other side after he'd gotten Slughorn's letter, how she implicitly knew when and how to comfort, and when to back down.

He remembered how Lily Evans seemed to have a knack for working out secrets.

"Thank you," he said.

Her face scrunched up in confusion. "For what?"

"For protecting him."

Lily was quiet for a long moment. She shuffled her feet around, her fingers still digging into Remus's forearm. "I thought you'd be mad at me. For keeping his secret."

"Never," he said, and meant it.

"Look, Remus, I've been working on a cure, or a counter-curse, or something, and I—"

There was an unreasonable and uninhibited flare of hope somewhere deep in his chest. "Have you found anything?"

"No. But I'm confident that I will find something."

He nodded. "I'll help. As much as you need, for as long as you need it, but right now—"

"Right now..." She let go of his arm and gave him a small smile. "Right now, you need to go speak to McGonagall. She knows enough now, I think, about what he's been through. Your magic won't be affected."

Remus had almost forgotten about that entirely. He had other things on his mind.

"I need to know he's okay." He met Lily's wide, green eyes and almost choked on the words. "He's been alone for two weeks, Lily. He was so—Christ. He didn't know if I was real. He thought he was dreaming. I need to—"

"Go." Lily nodded in the direction in which McGonagall disappeared. "And Remus?"

"Yeah?"

She smirked. "Give her hell and don't hold back."

Remus was halfway down the corridor when he stopped. He couldn't turn around, couldn't face her when he voiced his greatest fear.

"He told me it hurts to touch me more than anything he's ever felt. That's because of… Mr. Hyde, isn't it?"

"Yes." Lily's voice was hardly more than a breath of air. "I'm so sorry, Remus."

Remus burst into McGonagall's office without any pomp, circumstance, or preamble. He marched right up to the chair across from her desk, sat down, and crossed his arms over his chest. He resisted the ridiculous urge to put his feet up on her desk. Barely.

To his immense satisfaction, McGonagall appeared at least moderately surprised by his sudden presence in her office. She let out a long-suffering sigh and put down her quill.

"Mr. Lupin, I'm afraid my mind is made up. You may see Mr. Black tomorrow, after class." She gestured towards the exit. "Please close the door on your way out."

Remus didn't budge. "Do you or do you not have a duty of care for each and every student at Hogwarts, regardless of their House?"

McGonagall paused for a moment, seemed to contemplate whether it was wise to play this game with him.

It wasn't.

She wasn't going to win.

"I do," she said.

"Do you or do you not, as the Head of House, have a specific responsibility for the health and well-being of each and every student sorted into Gryffindor?"

"Of course, I—"

"Did you or did you not place the Sorting Hat on the head of Sirius Black, on September 1, 1971, and witness the Hat placing him in Gryffindor with your own two eyes?"

"Mr. Lupin—"

"Yes or no, Professor!"

"Mr. Lupin, I understand you've had a trying few days, but this behaviour is—"

He didn't give a single shit about his behaviour right now.

Remus Lupin, at his core, was a predator, always on the cusp of losing control of the ferocious, wild thing that prowled just below his consciousness. He wasn't about to back down from the kill.

"This is your fault!" he roared, rising to his feet.

McGonagall gave no visible reaction.

"Choose your next words very carefully, Lupin." She pressed her palms flat against her desk and fixed him with a glare that would have most first years trembling where they stood. "My duty of care begins and ends within the walls of this castle and I uphold my oath that I have always acted in the best interest of every student while they are under my care. Outside these walls, I am as powerless to stop child abuse as any witch, wizard, or Muggle—

"That's shit, and you know it!" Remus snapped. "If you knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that by leaving this school, a student will be harmed, you'd move heaven and earth to make sure that student remains in your care. That's why you insisted I stay over the holidays, isn't it? You said I was safer in Madam Pomfrey's care than in my dad's cellar. You called me up to your office so we could floo my parents and explain that the wolf might be violent because of the blue moon. I missed my mum's chocolate cake and mince pies because you insisted I'd be safer at Hogwarts." Remus took a breath. "You chose not to help Sirius because he's a Black, and that's the end of it."

For a long time, McGonagall said nothing. Then: "I do not answer to you, Lupin."

Remus almost laughed.

"No, you don't. But you'll have to wake up tomorrow morning and look in the mirror, and you need to know that Sirius is in that goddamned hospital bed because you refused to help."

That got him a reaction. "Excuse me?"

"He begged you!" Remus shouted, because now the monster was loose and it wouldn't leave any scraps for the carrion birds. "He sat in that goddamned chair and begged you to keep him here. Have you ever known a Black to beg for anything, Professor? He did everything possible to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays, and when it all went to shit, he came to you. He begged, Professor. I was there. I asked you to reconsider. And after we left, how long did Lily Evans spend in here trying to convince you to change your mind? But instead of helping him, you sent him straight to the fucking gates of hell!"

"There was no way I could have anticipated what would happen to him—"

A dark, cruel laugh escaped his throat. "Professor. There is nothing you can possibly say that will ever lead me to believe you didn't know that the Blacks were capable of this. Everyone's heard the stories. Even me and Lily, and we were mostly raised Muggle. What the fuck did you think would happen, when Sirius Black went home a Gryffindor?"

McGonagall said nothing, her gaze landing on the nothing-space behind Remus's head.

Remus turned to leave.

"You don't need to answer to me, Professor. But I hope one day you'll muster enough Gryffindor courage to answer to Sirius."

He opened the door and stopped.

"You were right, by the way. The wolf was violent. My knee hurts, my wrists need re-bandaged, I think I re-broke my fingers pounding on that fucking door, and I haven't slept in three goddamned days. I checked myself out of Madam Pomfrey's care against her advice, and I am now reaping the rewards. I think it's best if I spend tonight in the hospital wing. I anticipate I won't be attending classes tomorrow either, and I may need to stay another night.

"In reference to my behaviour, for my swearing and general insubordination, I will begin detention in your office on Tuesday night, after dinner, and will continue for the rest of the term, barring the nights of the full moons."

Still, McGonagall said nothing and her expression gave nothing away.

"Please inform Madam Pomfrey that I'm on my way and have her unlock the door. I'd hate to break more fingers."

This time, the hospital wing door opened as soon as Remus touched it. Remus didn't even break his stride, until he was about ten feet from Sirius's hospital bed, at the farthest end of the wing.

Sirius was propped up against several fluffy pillows roughly the same shade as his pale skin. He was still shirtless, his lower half covered by a heap of blankets and a quilt Remus knew Madam Pomfrey had knitted by hand. She'd wrapped Remus in that same quilt after his first full moon at Hogwarts, when the wolf had nearly torn him in two.

Remus could still smell the faint stench of infection in the air around Sirius, but it was nowhere near as potent as it had been in the bathroom a few hours ago. Instead, he smelled dittany and some sort of herbal poultice. Sirius's chest was wrapped and bandaged in a manner not all that dissimilar from Remus's own bandages under his robes. And, above his heart…

Those words would haunt Remus for the rest of his life.

Silver eyes met his, with far more cognisance and recognition than there'd been a few hours ago. Sirius had dark circles under his eyes, and nobody had yet done anything about his hair (which was a travesty, if Remus ever saw one), but the way that Sirius smirked nearly made Remus's heart stop.

"Hey, Re," Sirius said. "You look like shit."

Despite everything, despite the enormity of pain and suffering that lingered in the air between them, Remus laughed.

It tasted like magic.

"How'd you get in?" Sirius asked as Remus approached his bed. "Madam Pomfrey said the doors were locked."

"I, er…" Remus didn't particularly feel like explaining the last few hours just yet. He held up his left hand that was mostly covered by a broken splint and dried blood. "I broke my fingers."

Sirius frowned. "Doing what?"

"Er, well… Pounding on the door?"

It might not be a lie, but it was nowhere near the full truth either. Remus gave a helpless shrug.

"That was you?" Sirius asked. "Merlin, I thought that noise was just my head about to explode."

"It was probably a bit of both, Mr. Black," Madam Pomfrey cut in, hurrying over to Sirius's other side, carrying a tray of potions. She set the tray down, reached for a vial, and thrust it into Remus's hand over the bed. "Lupin, that's a pain potion with a drop of Skele-Grow, for your hand. Plus a little… extra. For everything else."

Sirius's eyes widened in alarm and he gave Remus a quick once-over. Remus cringed and tried to play it off by inhaling the potent stench of the potion. Now was not the time for Sirius to be worried about Remus's injuries.

"Everything else," Sirius said. "What is she—"

Thankfully, Madam Pomfrey came to his rescue. "Lupin, if you're here for the night, you will make yourself useful. Am I understood?"

Sirius let out a frustrated huff.

Remus downed the potion and nodded.

"Right," Madam Pomfrey said. She waved her wand in a zig-zag pattern over Sirius, in what Remus knew to be a quick diagnostic charm. "He's got a curse-burn on his back and Sectumsempra scars across his abdomen, both of which necessitate we change their wrappings in about three hours to avoid the most severe scarring. We won't be able to avoid it entirely, I'm afraid."

"Sectumsempra?" His mind stuck on that word. It took him nearly a full minute to process the rest of what Madam Pomfrey had said.

"Yes." Madam Pomfrey seemed equally horrified. "A curse I've seen far too often this year. If I ever see it again, it'll be far too soon."

Sirius wouldn't meet his eyes.

Madam Pomfrey flicked her wand, and a tray came floating in from seemingly nowhere. Remus wasn't entirely sure how he hadn't smelled that earlier, given the heavy, hearty scent of the beef broth, but the scent of food had somehow gotten lost behind the stench of pain and infection. Madam Pomfrey lowered the tray until it rested on Sirius's lap, and it was only then that Remus caught the look in Sirius's eye.

Remus knew that look. He saw it in the mirror, on the days leading up to the full moon.

Sirius was starving.

Fuck.

Madam Pomfrey holstered her wand and fixed Remus with a hard glare. "It is my understanding that Mr. Black has not had any actual food in at least several days." Sirius said nothing. He stared at his soup. "From what I can tell, he's been surviving on nutrition potions and the kindness of fate."

At this, Sirius laughed, and Remus knew why. Kindness and fate could never coexist peacefully within the same sentence.

Madam Pomfrey gaze moved to Sirius and softened immediately. "In either case, he's in grave need of actual food. He'll have to eat slow, if he doesn't want to lose his meal. If he can keep the broth down by the time we next change the bandages, I will have the house-elves bring up some bread. We'll keep him on the nutrition potions as well, for as long as necessary, but a good helping of solid food will do him some good. You, Lupin—" She waved a rather threatening finger in Remus's face. "—are to alert me immediately if he cannot keep the broth down."

Remus nodded.

Sirius picked up his spoon and shoved it in his mouth.

"Merlin, Sirius," exclaimed Madam Pomfrey. "Slow down. I know you're hungry, but it'll hurt a lot more if your dinner makes a sudden reappearance."

Sirius grimaced and obediently sipped his next spoonful. "I'm well aware."

Remus tried not to focus on that statement.

A second later, the threatening finger was back in Remus's face. "You are not to touch him under any circumstances, for any reason short of immediate mortal peril. Am I understood?"

It broke his heart, stole the air from his lungs, and his wolf howled in silent agony, but Remus said, "Yes, Ma'am."

"I'll leave you to it." Then, she spun on her heel and disappeared into her office on the other side of the hospital wing.

Remus closed his eyes and tried to focus. He took a breath, centring himself on the steady, staccato beat of Sirius's heart… Followed almost immediately by the ridiculous sound of Sirius slurping up the soup.

Remus took a breath. It wasn't enough, wasn't enough oxygen to his brain to fully comprehend the horror novel of Sirius Black's life. Behind his eyelids, all he could see was Sirius hunched over that sink in the Gryffindor bathroom.

"Sectumsempra," Remus whispered, his mouth moving on its own accord. He forced his eyes open. "You said your mother didn't leave scars."

"She didn't and she doesn't," Sirius said, letting his spoon fall into his soup. "Well, she left one."

A small, pale hand reached up and traced the edges of his tattoo, and Remus had a horrible realisation that he'd seen Sirius do that before. A thousand times, whenever Sirius was nervous, or those stolen moments when they were on the roof, discussing all the horrible secrets between them. He'd seen Sirius reach up, rub the spot right over his heart, just as he'd get that haunted look in his eyes that Remus knew so well. Remus had written it off as a nervous tick, a distant sign of trauma from a childhood filled with monsters, the same way Remus bit at his fingernails and paced the room when he was agitated. But this…

Christ, how had Remus not caught on?

Remus shook his head and forced himself to focus on the problem at hand. "Then who?"

Sirius bit his lip.

That was all Remus needed.

"Malfoy," Remus breathed. "Did Malfoy do that?"

Sirius was silent for so long, Remus didn't think he'd actually answer. Then: "Yes."

"Christ, Sirius." Remus started pacing, raking anxious, broken fingers through his hair and revelling in the pain. The wolf roared, its fury and lust for vengeance eating away at Remus's every nerve. The wolf had a name, now, a face upon which it could carve out its revenge. It had a name, and it had teeth and claws and—

For a second, Remus could taste Malfoy's blood—fresh and oozing and sweeter than the nectar of the gods—until he realised he'd bitten his lip.

Remus scrubbed a hand over his face and fought desperately for control.

"I'll fucking kill him." That wasn't the wolf. That was him, Remus Lupin, and he meant every word of it. He, Remus Lupin, was as much as a deadly hunter as the wolf, and he always went for the kill.

Sirius threw his spoon at Remus's head. It bounced off his forehead and clattered to the floor.

Remus stopped. Blinked. Turned to Sirius in confusion.

"You'll do no such thing," Sirius growled, looking ridiculously convicted for a guy covered in bandages, who hadn't eaten in nearly two weeks. "I fulfilled my debt to Malfoy, Remus. A curse for a curse. It's done."

"He tortured you!"

"No. I owed him a debt and I paid it. Everything else… well. That's different." Sirius tried to glare at him, but there were tears in his eyes. "If I can't hunt your monster, Remus, then you can't go after mine."

That stopped Remus in his tracks. Taking another deep breath, Remus bent to pick up Sirius's spoon. He hit it with a quick Scourgify, then handed it back, before carefully perching on the edge of Sirius's bed.

Sirius took another sip of the broth.

"What happened, Sirius?" Remus whispered. "Not just over the holidays. But with—" Instinct demanded Remus reach out and touch the tattoo, but he pulled his hand back at the last minute. "Please, Siri. What happened?"

So, Sirius told him.

Sirius's voice was cold and detached, as if recounting the story from someone else's diary of nightmares. He took a sip every once in a while, just often enough and in between the most important details that each sip of broth nearly gave Remus an aneurism.

Remus started pacing again, when Sirius got to the part where his mother forbade him food. He starting biting his fingers until he'd reached the bloody nail-beds when Sirius mentioned the Cruciatus, and the threat his mother had issued: Obey, or Regulus takes your place.

Remus didn't know what Walburga Black looked like. He'd never seen her face or a painting of her, and Sirius certainly never spoke about her appearance. But Remus could see her clearly, now, through the golden eyes of the wolf that shared his mind. He could see her eyes—silver and deadly, just like Sirius's—and he could taste the iron tang of her blood.

In the deepest, most ravenous part of his mind—that primal part of his soul that was irrevocably tethered to the wolf and untethered from the rest of humanity—Remus knew what it would feel like to snap Walburga Black's neck between his teeth.

When Sirius told him about Christmas, Remus almost let go of the mental chains keeping the wolf at bay.

Almost, but not quite.

"Don't really remember what happened after that," Sirius mumbled. "Until I got on that train, I thought it was Boxing Day. Don't think I've eaten since then."

"Jesus Christ, Sirius."

Sirius merely shrugged, and Remus got the distinct impression that this wasn't the first time his mother had tried to starve him out.

His jaw ached and he longed for the wolf's teeth.

Then, Sirius began a different story, one from years ago. One about arcane pureblood traditions, his mother's wand and hollow laughter, a ritual circle drawn in the blood of his ancestors, and the words that would seal his fate for eternity.

Toujours Pur.

Remus finally sank down on the edge of Sirius's bed—more for fear of cardiac arrest than anything else—when Sirius began explaining about the radical approach to blood purity taken by the Blacks, the Lestranges, and the Shafiqs. About his great-uncle Marius, driven to madness and suicide because of the uncaring, unconquerable magic branded onto his skin. About purebloods and blood traitors and a thousand incomprehensible, impossible choices.

Remus could barely breathe.

Half of him waited for the wolf to make a reappearance, for it to claw at his insides, demanding he act and rage and destroy everyone responsible for doing this to someone as inherently fearless as Sirius Black, but somewhere in the convoluted mess of the story with the magic tattoos and blood curses, the wolf had fallen silent.

It's fury had turned to… Well, it was that kind of bone-deep sorrow that rends your heart. shatters every piece of your soul, and leaves you choking on the very air you breathe.

The wolf, it seemed, was heartbroken at the prospect of never being able to touch Sirius.

Remus himself wasn't faring much better.

"What's it feel like?" Remus heard himself ask. "When I touch you?"

Because it might be more painful than a silver dagger through his eye socket, but both Remus and the wolf needed to hear it.

Beautiful, perfect, radiant silver eyes met his, and Remus nearly broke.

"Like I'm drowning in flames," Sirius whispered. "But it's infinitely better than nothing."

"What— What does that mean, Siri?"

Quick as lightning, Sirius reached out and grabbed Remus's unbroken hand. His fingers constricted around Remus's, even as Remus valiantly tried to break free of his grasp. Flashes of every other time they'd touched replayed in vivid, rapid-fire colour in Remus's mind.

He remembered Sirius taking his hand on the Hogwarts Express, and stream of curse words that had immediately followed. Remus had known then—hadn't he?—that something was fundamentally wrong. The wolf had sensed it, in that instinctual part of his mind that Remus tried desperately to ignore.

He remembered James shoving Sirius into him after the Sorting Ceremony, all the grimaces and muttered curses whenever he'd brushed against Sirius in the hall.

He remembered grabbing Sirius around the waist and using the wolf's strength to haul him off Malfoy before Sirius could kill him.

Sirius's screams echoed through his nightmares, reverberated through the depths of Remus's memory, until they manifested in the present.

Except Sirius was silent, so the wolf screamed for him.

Frantic, barely able to draw breath, Remus tugged at their joined hands.

"No, no, no, no, Sirius. Let go. Fuck, you need to— Please!"

His voice hit a high note and Remus tried to get away, tried to yank his hand free, because somewhere behind that horrifying mask of indifference he wore, Sirius was in agony. But Sirius held onto him like the world might end if he let go, and short of using the wolf's strength to break free, Remus was absolutely fucking helpless.

The only indication of pain was the clenching muscle in Sirius's jaw.

"It means," Sirius said, through his teeth, "that when I touch you, I know you're real."

Finally—fucking finally—Sirius let go.

Remus jerked away so fast he nearly fell flat on his arse, but thanks to reflexes that were more the wolf's than his own, he somehow managed to keep his feet under him.

On the bed, a few feet away—definitely out of grabbing range—Sirius squeezed his eyes shut. His breaths came in rapid bursts and he clenched and unclenched his fists. Remus could hear his heartbeat roaring like thunder over the highland moors.

"When they touch me, I feel nothing. Nothing, Remus. Do you understand?" Sirius's eyes flashed open, and there was lightning behind the starlight silver. Or, maybe it was just magic, so close to the surface, just threatening to spill over; as primal and unconquerable as the wolf. "The nothing is… infinitely worse. It eats at my flesh and gnaws on my bones, and if I let it, I'm pretty sure it'll swallow me whole."

It was the very definition of insanity, but it was the same madness that was buried in the darkest corners of Remus's own mind. And, oh, how the wolf revelled in that particular seal of darkness.

"So fuck it," Sirius said, with all the reckless abandon of a madman. "Blood curse or no, I'd rather have you."

And that was the end of it, wasn't it?

Slowly, ever so slowly, Remus approached the bed and sat on the edge by Sirius's hip, just out of reach.

"Budge over," Remus said, quickly summoning a pillow from the bed next over and settling it between them, just to be safe. "And eat your damn soup."

Sirius shot him a wicked smile, and obeyed.

A few hours later, when the soup was gone and still in Sirius's stomach, Madam Pomfrey appeared to change Sirius's bandages. She took one look at the two of them on the bed and shooed Remus away with her wand at his throat, threatening to hex him into a hospital bed of his own for breaking his promise not to touch her most recent patient. Before she could get too far into her tirade, Sirius's hand lashed out and once more clamped around Remus's fingers.

As gently as he could manage with only one (broken) hand free and whilst simultaneously trying to escape Madam Pomfrey and her high-pitched protests, Remus whacked Sirius in the head with the pillow that had been between them.

He might have missed spectacularly, but it made Sirius laugh hard enough to let go of him.

This time, Remus did fall on his arse.

With an indignant huff, Madam Pomfrey pulled the privacy curtain shut in Remus's face, effectively cutting him off from Sirius.

Half a second later, the curtain flared open again, only for Remus to see a smug looking Sirius and a rather flustered Madam Pomfrey, who kept looking between Sirius and the curtain.

Sirius smirked and wiggled his fingers, the little sparks of magic still dancing across his fingertips.

Madam Pomfrey pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine, then." She glared at Remus. "Lupin, get over here."

Remus scrambled to his feet and came around to the other side of Sirius's bed.

"How steady is your wand hand, Lupin?"

Remus felt himself go white. Under ordinary circumstances, the wolf's reflexes and instincts granted Remus a remarkably steady hand, which was why he excelled at all the charms and transfigurations that even Lily Evans stumbled over.

That being said, if Madam Pomfrey expected him to essentially perform surgery on Sirius Black, his wand hand was not going to be very fucking steady at all.

"Good. It's good. Steady," he lied, suddenly scared she might throw him out.

Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to notice. "Draw your wand and help me remove his bandages. Then, I need you to help me clean the scars with a steady stream of Aguamenti, before I apply more dittany. After the dittany is on, I will levitate him as you use your wand to rewrap the bandages. He's on enough pain potion to not pass out, but it won't exactly be pleasant either."

Remus thought he just might lose what little food he had in his stomach, but he nodded all the same.

"Do. Not. Touch. Him." Madam Pomfrey waved her wand right under Remus's nose to accentuate every word.

Sirius shot Remus a wink and smiled bravely.

Bloody fucking Gryffindor.

And so, Remus drew his wand and did as Madam Pomfrey instructed. She muttered continuously throughout about the absurdity of allowing a first year to assist with something such as this. Remus agreed wholeheartedly; it was absurd, and if it weren't for Sirius's continuous smiles of reassurances in between his pained grunts, Remus might have passed out from the sudden, rampant stench of infection and Dark Magic that consumed his senses the second the bandages were removed.

Turns out, dittany went a long way in not only healing cursed scars, but covering up the stench of rotting flesh. He hadn't been this close before, and though he'd certainly smelled the infection and sour tang of Dark Magic in the bathroom, he hadn't realised how bad it was. Green and yellow pus lined the perimeter of both scars, and in some cases, oozed and mixed with the blood. In some places, the skin around the scars had faded into blacks and blues, and Remus wasn't entirely sure if that was from the force with which Malfoy had hit Sirius with the curse, or from the infection that had set in after.

Sirius said he didn't remember any of the days after Christmas.

Vaguely, Remus wondered if anyone had bothered to tend to the wounds at all.

From the looks of it, Remus sincerely doubted it. It was something of a miracle that Sirius had made it though the entire train ride and up to the Gryffindor dorms before passing out.

Remus made it about halfway through before the stench of the infection became too much. Without really thinking, Remus snatched the open bottle of dittany from Madam Pomfrey's hand and started snorting the stuff, inhaling the cool, clean scent of oceans and wind in desperate gulps. Sirius gave him a strange, mildly alarmed look, but Madam Pomfrey simply rolled her eyes and snatched the vial back. Trying not to be too obvious about holding his breath, Remus sheepishly cast the next Aguamenti where Madam Pomfrey directed.

As they finished, Madam Pomfrey took one last look at the crisp, white bandages now covering the horrible scars on Sirius's chest and began muttering to herself about whether it would be practical just to stitch the wounds closed in the 'barbaric Muggle fashion', given how deep they were. The outcome of that particular one-sided argument was lost to the sands of time when Remus once again sat on the edge of Sirius's bed, this time far more cognisant of Sirius's fragility.

Sirius gave him a weak, exhausted smile, and muttered, "Thanks," before reaching behind himself and handing Remus a pillow to situate between them.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," Madam Pomfrey exclaimed. She flicked her wand, and another hospital bed, covered in clean, ivory sheets, whizzed over and stopped just feet away from Remus.

Both Remus and Sirius eyed the bed.

Sirius's face was blank for a long second, before it broke out into a polite, appeasing smile that Remus imagined he might have been practicing in the mirror for years. It had all the charm and quintessential grace expected of a pureblood heir.

It made Remus's stomach turn, because that smile was a lie, even if it was a well-told one.

"No, thanks," Sirius said, sweetly.

Remus smiled just as sweetly, just as fake, and he was certain it was far less effective, given the scars across his own face. "We don't need that."

Madam Pomfrey crossed her arms. "And where exactly do you plan on sleeping, Lupin?"

Sirius shifted over a few inches, grimacing as the movement jostled his injuries, but immediately plastering that same deceitful smile on his face just seconds later. "Here is good."

"Yep," Remus said.

Really, though, the bed was much too small, but it wasn't much of a problem if Remus didn't lay down. Despite the fact that he was exhausted down to his bones, Remus didn't exactly know how he was supposed to sleep after a day like today. He figured he'd stand vigil at Sirius's bedside, or pace the room. The wolf wouldn't settle anyways, until it was certain Sirius Black would still be breathing when he woke up.

What's one more night without sleep? He could catch a nap when James and Peter visited tomorrow and temporarily relieved him of his vigil.

Madam Pomfrey seemed to track every single thought as it tracked slowly across Remus's mind.

"Fine," she said, again. "Stand up, Lupin."

This time, Madam Pomfrey was quick enough to flick her wand and freeze Sirius's hand mid-air as it reached out to grab Remus.

"Only for a second, Mr. Black." She sounded extremely put out. Unwilling to test what little remained of her patience and good will, Remus obeyed.

"I ought to be constructing Hadrian's Wall between the two of you. Not doing you favours," she muttered as she cast an extension charm on the bed, with Sirius still on it. The bed shook, but he remained in place as it expanded until it was larger even than their bed in the dormitory.

Another flick of her wand, and she more or less constructed Hadrian's Wall out of pillows, lined up vertically on Sirius's left side, right down the middle of the bed. Almost as an afterthought, she shot the wall of pillows with a sticking charm.

"Just for tonight, Mr. Lupin," Madam Pomfrey said, with an exasperated sigh.

Remus smiled, triumphant. He'd always known she had a soft spot for him. He hopped up on the bed, careful not to jostle Sirius too much, and settled against the headboard.

"Your dinner will be up shortly," Madam Pomfrey continued. "There's an extra potion on the table to settle your stomach if the bread is too much, Black. Take it if you need it. The bandages will hold until morning. And Lupin?"

"Yes?"

"For Merlin's sake, and for the sake of my continuing sanity, please get some rest. There's a vial of Dreamless Sleep on the table as well, for both of you, if needed. You know how much to take?"

"Yes, Ma'am." She'd given him strict instructions about the potion after his first full moon at Hogwarts. Three drops, under the tongue. No more, or he'd risk addiction.

Sirius raised an eyebrow at him. Remus chose to ignore him.

Madam Pomfrey nodded once, muttered a goodnight, and left.

Later—so much later, in fact, that Remus thought Sirius might have been asleep—Remus shifted in the dark to the wall of pillows. He could make out Sirius in the fading moonlight, just a silver outline over the steady rise and fall of his chest. It was mesmerising, and utterly reassuring to have Sirius here and breathing, and something wild and manic finally calmed in Remus's heart.

After a moment, silver eyes met his in the moonlight.

"Your eyes are still gold, Re," Sirius whispered.

"Trick of the light," he said, automatically, but he knew it wasn't. Usually, his eyes went back to their normal, boring brown the morning after the full moon, but Remus had a sneaking suspicion that the wolf had stayed around longer just to make sure Sirius came home.

"Liar," Sirius said, but there was no bite to the accusation, so Remus let it go.

Remus shifted a little and tucked his right arm beneath his head. He let his newly-taped and still-sort-of-broken fingers rest on the pillows between them.

"Sirius?"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't you just tell me about the tattoo?"

Silver eyes—his beautiful fucking eyes that shone brighter than any star in the night sky—clouded with tears. "I was—I thought you… Fuck."

Even in the dark, Remus knew what that look on Sirius's face meant. He'd seen it the first day, after James had punched Sirius for not getting in trouble. He saw the guilt, the terror, the fear of being left behind forever. "You thought I would see you as a blood supremacist."

Sirius gave a miserable nod.

"You told Evans." This was no more of an accusation than Sirius's muttered Liar.

"Evans figured it out. She doesn't count."

"Ah." Remus tugged on a loose stitch on the pillow between them. "She does have a rather annoying habit of stumbling upon secrets."

Sirius hid a laugh in his pillow. "She figured yours out too, huh?"

"Yep."

"Lily Evans. King of Gryffindor. Cartographer of Secrets. Feared and respected by all."

"Truly a force to be reckoned with."

Sirius turned and quirked an eyebrow up at him. "Any chance you're gonna tell me that secret of yours, Remus Lupin?"

Oh, how he wanted to, but he was not nearly brave enough for that.

"Not unless there's a wand to my throat," Remus breathed.

"Hm." Sirius didn't seem all too offended by it. "Maybe tomorrow, then. I'm rather beat."

Remus stared at him for a long moment, desperately trying to commit every feature to memory. Sirius stared back, unabashedly doing the exact same thing. They didn't say anything—they no didn't need to—in this silent, sacred sanctuary they'd created for themselves, both of them teetering on the edge of consciousness.

Remus tried to fight the exhaustion, fight the overwhelming silence enveloping him, but he was so very tired of fighting. The sleep-deprived part of Remus's mind voiced a rather frightful thought that the silence might just swallow them whole and whisk them off to Sirius's nightmare world of darkness and so much nothing. Remus could taste it—this… Nothing Place—all around them, circling them like a ragged vulture, like a starving vampire desperate for the barest whisper of an invitation just to take and consume.

For a moment, Remus wasn't sure he could breathe, until he counted out the steady beats of Sirius's thundering heart.

They were alive. They were here, together, and maybe that was enough to make him brave. Just for a moment.

Remus forced his eyes open, then dared himself to ask, silence and nothing be damned: "Do you think we'll ever outrun them, Sirius? The monsters that live in our nightmares? The… the Nothing Place? The creatures and curses that keep us apart?"

The silence stretched between them, each moment gnawing away at what little remained of his conscious mind.

With a breath and a grunt and a few muttered curses, Sirius turned on his side to face Remus. Seeing the moon silhouette Sirius from behind, caressing him and outlining his form in the darkness, Remus didn't have the heart to tell Sirius to stay still, even to avoid the pain it so obviously caused him. Because, then, Sirius reached across the pillows. Because Sirius's fingers—the same fingers that tamed ancient and wild magic—ghosted over the scars on Remus's face—always desperate to touch, but not quite doing so, because touching meant pain and horror and heartbreak and the rending of souls.

And, Merlin, now was not a time for pain.

Or, perhaps…

Sirius's fingers brushed over the edge of the scar on Remus's nose, just for a second. Neither of them reacted, neither of them dared to breathe.

"I dreamed of you, Remus." Sirius's words echoed across the silence.

This was infinitely more than nothing.

This was real.

"You did?" His voice sounded strange, and Remus barely registered the question before it escaped his lips. He tried to breathe, tried to instruct his brain to pay attention, but…

Remus hadn't slept in three days. He was so goddamned tired.

And… Sirius had dreamed of him.

Sirius had said that before, hadn't he? In the bathroom? Remus had thought Sirius had been delirious—perhaps he, Remus, was delirious now—but that's what Sirius had said.

Sirius had dreamed of him, in that nightmare of a place.

"What…" Remus's voice no longer wanted to work, it seemed. His words drifted, slurred, lingered in the air with infinite bated breaths between them. "What… Was it… Nightmare?"

Remus was awake enough to know that most dreams in which he starred in any sort of a leading role were almost certainly nightmares.

A finger played with the edge of a one of his curls, twisting it, tugging slightly.

"No, Remus," Sirius breathed. "It wasn't a nightmare."

"Mm." His eyes drifted closed. Or, maybe they'd been closed for a long while. "Tell me."

"We were dancing," Sirius whispered. Or, maybe Remus dreamed it. "We were dancing, you and me, to a song that hasn't been written yet."

And, oh, how Remus prayed that he could find that song in his dreams.