A/N Ok, so I know that I used the title 'shrieking shack' before, but please just… forget that. Or just accept that the omniscient narrator can use that name but it didn't actually exist yet, k? thanks. Sorry, I HATE errors like that so I needed to excuse myself. Also, just so you know, the books in this story aren't related to the story… it's more whatever book is physically closest to me when I pick a book for Remus to read. Just so you don't try to… care about their book choices at all.

Chapter 8: the Haunted House of Hogsmead

On Sunday, the four went into Hogsmead. Their first stop was Honeydukes, getting the most maddening for Sirius out of the way. The fact that he was not to indulge himself in chocolate was a surprisingly large hindrance for him considering it was Remus who was the true chocoholic, but, for Sirius, not being allowed to have something multiplied its desirability ten fold. Remus didn't help. Though normally Sirius would've been fine with the sugar quill upon which he sucked, at present, he wanted nothing more than to rob his smug friend of all his chocolate frogs and munch to his little heart's content.

Next, they made their way to Zonko's, where they split up into three, Sirius tagging along with James, and purchased as many things as possible without the help of Sirius' considerable fortune. He was never one to feel bad about blowing his parent's money on useless pranks, but he did feel that having been turned into a dog meant his friends should treat him.

After that, they marched over to a small ice cream parlor on a side street, their arms loaded with new ways to entertain themselves. As they all ate their second sugary treats of the day—Remus, chocolate, Peter, Lemon Sherbert, James, cookie-dough and Sirius, whatever bites of the latter two's he could snatch—they wandered the leaf-strewn streets, grey in the overcast light of the frigid, autumn afternoon. Sitting on a bench, they joked and laughed and lounged about, discussing the upcoming quidditch match and who would sub for Sirius.

A group of third years passed by, two boys each leading a girl down the mostly deserted path. "They call it the shrieking shack!" said a boy in a dramatic voice. "They say you can hear wild howling in there some nights. It's haunted!" The other boy joined in by coming up between the girls and shouting 'boo!'

"That's all nonsense," rebuffed a girl, indifferent to the boys' antics while the other looked uneasy.

"No! It's not! Cross my heart!" assured the other boy, doing just that. "Stan told me! He said he sneaked out here one night, and he could hear it! It's not human! It's haunted I swear!"

The sounds of the boys attempting to creep out the girls disappeared as they walked down the road to the aforementioned shack. The four were silenced.

"Haunted…" said Remus quietly. He shouldn't have been surprised. People had talked about the shack since he first started going. He was sure the wolf wasn't bothered with stealth and howling like that really merited an excuse. But to hear it in such an official way; the Shrieking Shack; the haunted house of Hogsmead. "So that's the excuse they've come up with." Sirius whined and nuzzled against Remus' limp hand, but the limp was presently withdrawn. "We should get back." Remus rose and began to walk back into the main town, followed shortly by his silent friends. The four stopped for a quick drink in the Three Broomsticks where James flirted with the young barmaid, Rosmerta and Peter and Sirius tried to cheer up Remus. He smiled and laughed and chatted with Rosmerta as well—they were regulars and she made a point of not telling Dumbledore when the boys were to be found in her pub on weekdays when they had no business off campus—but his heart wasn't in it. After a single butterbeer they let the landlady get back to her work and made a B line for the castle.

The common room was crowded that night, so Peter and Remus sat upstairs while James flirted with Lily and Sirius napped by the fire while girls stroked his hair soothingly. Normally Peter would've been following someone around, but he had new Zonko'z treats to tinker with and was worried about Remus. The lycanthrope's eyes were glazed over, completely stationary as he stared blankly at the same word in his History of Magic text book without attempting to make progress.

"Hey, mate. You alright?" asked Peter, making Remus start a bit.

"Yeah.. fine," replied the bookworm tiredly.

Peter was about to drop it, but when he looked up Remus had closed his eyes in defeat and rested the book against his chest.

"I can't imagine how that feels…" started Peter again, tentatively. "To have people call you… a monster."

"Not like I haven't gotten worse," muttered Remus, running his fingers through his hair.

"Yeah but this one upset you," pointed out the shorter of the two. "I know they didn't mean it as offence—they don't know it's you—but they're calling the shack haunted. They're making a show of it and everything. That can't feel good." Peter hoped he wasn't just jabbing the wound, but he wanted so badly to be able to help his friends.

"I just…" Remus sighed and then exploded. "I just don't want to be a monster anymore!" he swung his arm and the text book flew across the room and crashed into the wall. Several pages were folded in awkward directions—a terrible offence, in Remus' opinion—but he didn't give it a second look. "And I know they need a story to explain the noises! Hell, this is probably a good thing! I just am so tired of these constant reminders of what a freak I am! Everything I do! Everything! Why can't I just be normal? Why can't anything just be normal?" he choked back tears with all of his might, and even though he knew it was the wrong time to ask, Peter wanted to hear it from Remus.

"Remus, are you gay?"

Remus started sobbing. He knew his friends knew. James had even said it. But he had never been asked; never had to give a concrete answer.

"I can't be gay! It's just not fair! It's not fucking fair! I just wanted one thing to be normal for once in my fucking life!"

Peter suddenly felt like he was in way over his head. He'd wanted to help but he didn't know how. He didn't know what it felt like to be shunned for your blood status, your sexuality, your species or for being poor. And they were things that wouldn't go away. He was chubby, childish and a bit of a pathetic sort of follower, but he'd never known self-loathing on such a level, and all of a sudden he wished James or Sirius were here to think of something to say. Peter was never good at thinking for himself. He preferred to mimic James. But James wasn't there, so he just held his friend and waited for the sobbing to stop. "I won't tell anyone. And neither will James. I promise. You know we would never tell or judge you or anything, right?" Remus nodded, but Peter was sure he'd needed to be told. He was sure Remus couldn't even let himself trust his closest friends to accept him. He couldn't before and that self-consciousness had never really changed.

By the time the others ascended the stairs to their room, all signs of Remus' outburst were hidden and Peter was sworn to secrecy. While Sirius was generally okay with letting his close friends see his weak side, Remus wasn't the sort to let himself vent.

Beginning the journey of reading the Scarlet Letter aloud gave Remus a certain amount of perspective. After letting himself have a good cry—which he never does—he was already feeling better, and, awful though it may be, nothing brightened his mood quite like telling Sirius the tale of an adulterer in a strict, puritan society. Whether he was happy to live in a more accepting age or whether it was the pure schadenfruede of it lifting his mood was anyone's guess, but he went to bed that night feeling better.

He woke up feeling like Hell. He had a headache from crying, a crick in his neck from letting his head roll off the pillow and whatever soothing power had lulled him to a calm sleep had long since abandoned him and he was back to his neurotic self. Nonetheless, he dragged himself down to breakfast and tried not to let his bad mood show.

James, who had the least desire to arrive at potions in a timely manner, took over Sirius watch for the task of escorting the dog the Hospital Wing, where he and Remus had scheduled a check-up for him. Sirius was less than thrilled.

"Bye, Midnight!" cooed James, scratching affectionately behind his ears as he made to leave for class. Madame Pomfrey checked her watch pointedly, far from amused at the boy's obvious prolonging of the goodbye, no doubt to avoid his first class. "Alright! I'm off!" he announced, walking backwards from the room, still waving to the dog. "Be good! Call me! Get better!"

Madame Pomfrey rolled her eyes and began prodding and examining the dog. She took his temperature. After taking a closer look at the festering wound on his shoulder, she rebadged it and then insisted he wait in the hospital wing until lunch when Remus could pick him up. It may very well have been the dullest part of his imprisonment in that infernal dog body yet. He decided the best waste of time would be to follow around Madame Pomfrey obsessively. It was passably entertaining, but he absolutely leapt for joy when Lily appeared at the door.

"Remus had to stay to clean up an exploded potion so I volunteered to fetch Midnight," she explained to the Nurse.

"Very well," agreed the woman, a look of relief on her face now that she was relieved of the obnoxious shadow that had haunted her all morning.

"Come on, boy," said Lily with a smile, patting the dog's head as she exited. "In case you were wondering," she started, now addressing Sirius, "those other two couldn't come because they're 'supervising' the cleaning operation." Sirius inwardly laughed. They were plenty helpful to their potion-challenged friend, but that didn't mean they wouldn't give him a hard time when he screwed up. "Marauders," muttered Lily, rolling her eyes. "What nonsense."

Sirius licked her hand and she smacked him.

James was proud of Peter. This rarely happened. He was fond of the boy, he was one of his best friends and he'd known him longer than Remus or Sirius, but it was a rare day when he looked at Peter and thought 'you just did something good completely independent of me and for that I respect you.' But while the pair sat on Slughorn's desk, eating Bertie Bott's Every Falvour Beans and watching Remus toil away by hand on the mess across the room, occasionally shouting encouragement, Peter had recounted the previous night's activities, leaving out any mentions of crying, and James was legitimately proud of the stocky boy.

"I should've been there. That was really decent of you, though, Petey," said the boy, patting his friend on the back. Remus' swearing could be heard across the vacant dungeon. "Need help there, Moonshine?"

"Are you actually offering?" asked Remus, willing the blotchy stains to just clean themselves already.

"No. Just wondering," said James, pleased at his little jibe.

"Anyway, I think he's having a bad day. Probably best not to say anything though," mused Peter. "He's not big on the… addressing problems thing."

"Yeah, probably right. Hm….. Bored now!" announced the bespectacled teen, thumping the oaken desk as he jumped up and crossed the room, Peter in tow. As he passed Remus, he flicked his wand and ridded the floor of the mess in an instant.

"Oi! Slughorn said no magic! No magic!"

"Come on! Lunch!"

"Ugh…" Remus glanced from his quickly-disappearing friends to the already-gone mess and as his stomach gave a loud growl, ran to catch up with a sigh of exasperation.

"Oh and genius," said James with a smirk. "He charmed the stain to resist scrubbing. Guess you exploded one too many potions for his liking this week. Right vindictive bloke, ole' Sluggy is." Peter laughed along and Remus just smacked the back of his head lightly.

"Could've told me that!"

James shrugged. "I wasn't hungry yet."

"Bastard."

The three met up with Sirius and Lily about fifteen minutes into lunch and, as Sirius was already seated beside her, James and Peter took that as an invitation to do the same. Remus followed, but he at least looked sorry and said excuse me before making a girl move over for him.

Remus, James and Peter each envied Sirius to some extent. Sure the nausea, boredom and imminent threat of lycanthrope must suck, but Sirius wasn't cooped up in class on what was shaping up to be an unseasonably perfect afternoon. Both Peter and James fell asleep during at least one afternoon class. They were very lucky to have Remus as a friend and loyal note-sharer.

That night they all went to bed as usual and Remus read to Sirius. At about 11, he closed the book and muttered "nox," but he didn't go to sleep. He stared at the cloth hanging above his head and let his mind dwell a bit on how the gold strands in the pattern managed to glimmer without any light source at all but he knew he was just stalling. There was something he wanted to do and he wanted to do it before he freaked himself out again. He heaved an enormous breath and closed his eyes before speaking to the dozing (but not sleeping) lump in his arms.

"Sirius?"

The dog wagged his tail once as a sign of life.

"Can I tell you something?"

Wag.

"Well… James and Peter already know—I didn't tell them—but I figure it's only fair that you know too…"

He breathed for a minute, savoring what he was quickly becoming sure would be the last moment of friendship with Sirius of his life, and became aware of Sirius lifting his head to give him more attention. He knew it was dumb, but he was so nervous he actually began to tear up. He was immensely grateful for the dark shielding the fear and wateriness of his eyes. He knew he couldn't keep Sirius in suspense any more and he couldn't back out.

"I'm gay."

Sirius couldn't say anything, couldn't voice the surge of hope or the complete and utter acceptance he wanted Remus to feel, but he did his best. He nuzzled in closer, licking him affectionately, and cuddled that way until the werewolf fell asleep.

When Remus awoke the next morning, he saw that random items had been retrieved from canine-accessible parts of the room and arranged in a heart on the floor beside his bed. It was the color scheme that made him smile. The items had been carefully chosen and arranged in a rainbow. He knew everything would be ok.

A/N Yeah… So I tried to think of a plausible thing that was quirky enough for Sirius and would do a cute job of saying it's ok to be gay. Now I really wish my dog had done this for me when I came out. Actually, I don't think I ever told my dog I'm bisexual… wow this Author's Note just took a turn for the weird. Anyway, hope you guys found that last bit cute and liked the chapter. PLEASE REVIEW!