A/N Oh hey! Sup? So I just started school again, so the whole getting time to write thing is getting harder, but I'll try to update more frequently anyway. Sorry, btw, for the lateness of both this and the last updates. I'm being so lazy! I haven't updated my pokemon fic like ALL summer! Anywho,
Chapter Five: Freedom at Last
It was Wednesday morning and, despite the feeling of nausea that had started to well up in his stomach more often (no doubt from the venom passing through his veins), Sirius sprang up from bed bright and early, ecstatic at the prospect of seeing something other than the inside of his infernally human-friendly dorm room. He had been sore and sick ever since the bite, but today, he knew, was getting worse. Supposedly, when Remus had questioned Madame Pomfrey, she had said that there would be pain and it would fluctuate throughout the week. Today was uncomfortable, but not bad enough that Sirius had any intentions of letting it stand between himself and freedom. He doubted there were many things in life that could at this point.
"Someone excited?" asked Remus, getting up groggily and rummaging through his bedside table's drawer. Moments later, his hands reemerged with a mystery object which was almost instantly shoved roughly over Sirius' head and left around his neck as Remus departed to the bathroom before Sirius had any time to question.
Sirius wandered over to the full length mirror on Peter's side of the room and craned his neck awkwardly in such a way that he could fully examine his new accessory, which appeared to be a makeshift collar created from a magically shrunken belt of James and a old, plain pendant, most likely borrowed from Lily, the only female likely to hand over such a thing to Remus without question. The tag read 'Midnight' in a curvy handwriting that must've been done magically, as it far surpassed the handwriting skills of any of the three human roommates.
"Like?" asked Peter, emerging already dressed from the other side of his bed. Sirius nodded. "James's belt and a necklace Lily was willing to get rid of." Sirius had been spot on.
"I'm off to breakfast. Make sure to bring down James when you come," said Peter, waving. It was a serious comment. James was late to everything when not accompanied by his friends.
Remus entered again, wiping his mouth with the back of his bare arm. He walked over to his trunk and pulled out a clean uniform. As he got dressed, Sirius took it upon himself to make sure James was ready. Within five minutes, the trio was headed down to breakfast, James still tightening his messy tie as they passed through the portrait door and into the corridor.
Upon arrival it was very quickly established that Hagrid had opted out of breakfast that morning, and therefore Remus volunteered to skip breakfast with just a bit of toast for him and the dog, so that he had time to properly introduce his new pet to Hagrid and Claw.
"Hallo, Hagrid," said Remus pleasantly, glancing briefly under the towering man's arm to see Claw laying lazily in his well-cushioned corner of the hut.
"Hullo, there, Remus!" boomed Hagrid jovially. "Wha' can I do fer you this fine mornin'?" he asked, gesturing widely for the small boy to enter his home.
"I just thought you and Claw might like to meet Midnight," said Remus, entering the humble abode followed shortly by the afore mentioned beast. "He's my uncle's, but I've been lent him for a month while my Aunt and Uncle vacation in France." Remus said this all smoothly, but not in a no over-rehearsed sounding voice.
"Hello," said Hagrid, leaning down and terrifying Sirius momentarily with the thought that he might perhaps scoop him up and examine him in some way, but he ended up just being looked at and pet rather more gently than one would expect from hands of Hagrid's size. "He's a bit scruffy, but a good-sized dog," appraised Hagrid. That was when he noticed the loosely bandaged wound on the thing's shoulder. "What happened, here?"
Remus had an answer for that, too. "Another dog bit him a bit before I got him. It's not that bad a wound, but it got infected, so I've needed to take care of it. Nothing that won't heal soon enough, though." Essentially, a true story.
"Aw, well you don't need ter worry about that with good ol' Claw, 'ere. Nicest dog I ever come across," said Hagrid, smiling proudly at the creature who, upon noticing another canine presence in the room, stood and wandered over to examine it.
True to Hagrid's word, and contrary to Sirius' previous misgivings, Claw was quite tame, if a little excited about his new friend. The worst of it was that Sirius had to put up with some sniffing in unwelcome places, and felt the need to return the favor so as not to come off as a complete odd-ball, but that was bearable and quickly over.
"Thanks, Hagrid. Good to know. Midnight is a smart dog, he's just gonna wander about campus while I'm in class, but now he knows where to find a friend if he gets bored." And with that, Sirius and Remus took their leave, being followed briefly by Claw, but left alone soon enough when the loyal dog fatefully returned to the calls of his owner.
"Well. That went well," commented Remus matter-of-factly. He smiled fondly down at his companion, who seemed to agree, and then, checking his watch, quickly recounted his schedule to the dog and ran off to Potions, arriving impressively before the arrival of Slughorn, but just barely.
"Cutting it a bit close, aren't we?" asked James cheekily as Remus collapsed breathlessly into a chair beside him. Instantly upon this statement, Slughorn himself entered through the door that Remus had just passed through.
"Today," announced Slughorn in his hearty voice, passing a blind eye to the panting student who had just let his head collapse on the pile of large text books in front of him, "we work some more on our Draught of Sleep…"
Between the pair of them, Remus and Peter, on his other side, managed to make a passable potion by the end of class, of which they were extremely proud. The class however, passed slowly and dully, and, as usual, concluded with Slughorn passing blindly past their cauldron, exclaiming excitedly when he reached Lily's, and ignoring or forgetting all that he had yet to appraise, being too caught up in the excitement of such a fine student.
"This might be a stupid question," started Peter in an aggravated tone, "but isn't he supposed to actually….. care about some of his students other than his one favorite?"
"Yeeeah, kinda," drawled James sarcastically. Potions, though all of the four aside from Remus were just about as gifted in it as in all their other classes, was not and would never be amongst their favorite classes, partially due to the absurdly obvious biases of their professor.
Next, the trio headed off to History of Magic, where their roles were switched for an hour and a half, while Remus resumed his usual activity of diligent note taking while begrudgingly and discretely joining in the note passing that was the primary and essentially only activity being attempted by the other two. Though Binns's droning was repetitive and boring in every sense of either word, Remus still managed, somehow, to get the drift of the important dates in the class by about half way through, and then decided it was safe to engage in conversation with his friends, having a knack for sensing when a class had just stopped being informative.
"I wonder where Sirius is," he wondered aloud, quietly, but not altogether discretely.
"Ah! Moons has decided to join us!" greeted James ecstatically, having just gotten about the same amount of intellectual stimulation from Peter's conversation as Remus had just gotten from Binns. "And, of course, he's already talking about his boyfriend," added James snidely.
"Shut up," muttered Remus in a voice that had distinct, if subtle undertones of disappointment, thwacking James lightly on the arm. "I was just wondering what he's up to. I mean, what does one do when they're a dog?"
"Considering this is Sirius we're talking about…" started Peter.
"He probably does just about what he always does," finished James, flatly.
Remus then drifted off, only partially aware of himself giving dethatched responses when his opinion or ascent was required in the debate or conversation occurring. He was pondering Sirius, what he could be doing at that precise moment, if he was bored, if he was sick or in pain, if he missed Remus, too. Probably not.
Meanwhile, and much as Remus had guessed, Sirius was not, at that precise moment, missing Remus, which was actually rare nowadays. Instead, he was scaring small animals in the forest. He had exhausted much of the morning finding young students and charming them into giving him food. It was quite an enjoyable pastime, and it caused Sirius to mentally make a note never to deny a begging dog food again. He then paid Scar a very brief visit, finding the novelty and entertainment of the situation wearing off after the first ten minutes or so, and he contentedly wandered elsewhere with an affectionate lick to Hagrid's bear-paw of a hand as he took his leave. That almost immediately led him back to where he was as Remus thought of him: pettily scaring small creatures as he loped wildly through the forest.
"ARF!" he called loudly, letting the sound ring through the woods, sending the nearest birds into flight with a start. He then spotted a new target, and quickly startled a mouse from a place it was scurrying amongst the leaves, surely doubling its already-impressive heart-rate as he did so. Another bark quickly turned into a yelp, however, when his wound suddenly shot pain through all his nerves, making his hair stand on edge and his feet loose their grace as they skidded across the leaf-strewn forest floor. He slid a yard or two, coming to a halt mere inches from an enormous tree. He used his limp legs to push himself the short distance and lent against the tree for a while as he recovered from the sharp pain and ache it left behind.
"Where the hell is he?" asked James, frantically, wandering around the particular section of the grounds they were searching at the moment.
"He's probably off just relishing freedom and lack of curfew," suggested Peter, who was in a similar, if less frantic state than Sirius.
Remus said nothing. It had been approximately twelve minutes ago, about twenty minutes past the beginning of dinner, that he had pretty much started moving or speaking only when the other two had moved far enough that it was required of him to follow in order to keep them in his line of vision. He was sort of in a state of shock. See, after finding out that he had possibly infected his best friend and crush with the disease that made his own life a living hell, he had been in a permanent state of over-protection. Hence, he was currently in a rather useless state of shock, which, for the time being, the other two accepted without question.
Then an audible bark came from the forest as Sirius came ambling out, slowly but not weakly. That effectively snapped Remus out of his trance as he, followed quickly by the other two, ran to the aid of his crush.
"Sirius! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL! DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE FUN TO JUST STAY IN THE FOREST ALL NIGHT WITHOUT TELLING US?" shouted Remus.
"Rem, I'm sure he has a rea-"
"WHY WEREN'T YOU AT DINNER?"
Peter shut up.
Sirius made an obvious gesture at his wounded shoulder with his nose, and Remus' rage turned to worry that was mirrored by all in an instant.
"Let's go to Madame Pomfrey!" said Remus. He was really quite frantic sometimes, but only on the extremely, perhaps yearly occasions on which he actually managed to lose his cool. When he lost his cool, he really lost his cool.
Sirius made a noise of protest and James put a hand on Remus' arm, calming and quieting him with one action.
"Sir, is it bad?" Sirius just shook his head. "Just a momentary thing? A twinge of pain, like we knew would happen?" He nodded. "And I suppose you just needed a rest to recover and lost track of time?" Another nod. "Great, that's settled. Don't scare your boyfriend like that from now on, he almost had a panic attack. Hungry?" finished James matter-of-factly, giving the others no time to protest the boyfriend comment. James figured the least he could do to hurry the pair along was to keep the awkwardness level high and the thought of romance in the air. What better way than mockery?
As Sirius was, indeed, hungry, the group returned to the great hall just in time to scavenge the scraps with the other late-diners, some of whom were extremely interested in Sirius. Of course he had had his run ins with students that morning, but now he could be properly introduced, and they would not get in trouble for having a dog in the hall with so few students present.
"Can I pet him?" pleaded a second-year girl known as Louisa, sounding as though she would gladly steal the charmingly mangy mutt were she given the chance or permission. Shortly after a good percent of the younger female population of dining hall lingerers and several boys as well crowded around the dog, saving Remus the trouble of feeding him as the observers seemed intent on shoving whatever bits of their own meals into the dog's mouth as they possibly could manage.
Surrounded by people fawning over him, Sirius felt closer to his human self than he had since getting stuck this way. Still, after an exhausting but exciting day, Sirius wasn't altogether disappointed when he was led from the fuss by an amused James, an exasperated Peter and a faint-seeming Remus.
"You did nearly give me a panic attack," said Remus as he tucked himself into bed beside his pet, book in hand with his thumb marking the place he was to pick up that night. Sirius whined and nuzzled in under Remus' arm. "I've just been stressed, you know? I just… I can't believe I deluded myself into believing that nothing like… like this could ever happen. We… I need to be more careful. And I just couldn't… I honestly don't know how I would have ever forgiven myself if you had…. become like me. I can't put someone through that. I can't put you through that," Remus faded away feebly, but his heart throbbed when he felt the dog give him a small lick on his arm, not like usual, as a way to show undignified, undiluted affection or to merely gross someone out, but as merely the most genuine expression of comfort and love he could muster in such a form. Had Sirius been able to transform at that moment, it would have been a moment out of a movie or a muggle soap opera, in which all of their reasonable inhibitions faded instantly and all that mattered was kissing away the tears and making everything stop hurting. As it was, however, Remus had to be content, but heart wrenchingly dissatisfied with lying there with his love in his arms, reading the middle-most chapters of his favorite Dickens book aloud until they both independently drifted off to a restless sleep.
A/N Sorry for how long it took. You know, school and stuff. I will write more soon. Please do read and review :D XOXOXO I'll also try to make more… plot developments and such. Maybe even some conflict of some sort, I dunno, just so it isn't JUST a romance fic… Idk, being sure at this point might give you all the wrong idea that I plan things or know what I'm doing, and THAT would be false advertising. KEEP READING! REVIEW!