James felt Sirius go completely rigid beside him when the curtain was drawn back. Remus looked awful, and desperate, besides. There was something he did not want them to know, something he was going to go to extreme measures in order to hide.

Remus did not look like himself. He looked considerably more healed than he had hours earlier when James had seen him, but his scarred face was pale and sickly looking. "You have to go," Remus said, reaching out to try and draw the curtains back, "Go, please, go now."

There was raw panic in the boy's voice, a side of Remus that James had never seen. He did not want to leave his friend here, hurting in this hospital bed, until he figured out what had really happened. So he did not go. He did not move an inch from where he stood, though Sirius had started to tug urgently on his sleeve.

"Really, James," Sirius said, and James was startled to detect that there was fear in his voice, "Let's go."

Remus looked sharply at Sirius, giving him a calculating look before he looked down it terror at the faintest scar on his collarbone. With great speed, he tugged the blanket over his neck, nestling it right under his chin. He avoided looking at Sirius, and James couldn't understand what had transpired between the two of them in that one silent moment.

"What's going on, Sirius?" James demanded, but Sirius shook his head quickly.

"Not now, James, please come on, please." Sirius had never begged anything of James before, but even so, James couldn't bring himself to leave Remus alone.

"Don't worry about Madam Pomfrey, Sirius," James said, sure this was why Sirius was acting strangely. "You took care of that."

Remus was trying to hide himself under the covers when Sirius turned to him with the most enraged look he had ever seen. "DO YOU WANT TO TELL HIM WHAT YOU'VE KEPT FROM US? OR SHOULD I?"

And then Remus started crying and James was shaking Sirius' arm and Sirius was trembling, a combination of fear and anger overtaking him. "He's sick, Siri. Please calm down," James begged, and Remus only began to sob harder.

"You can't tell," Remus whispered fiercely to Sirius, "I wasn't trying to hurt anybody, that's the only reason I didn't tell you. You know I'm not dangerous. I'm not! I'm still Remus!"

"The Remus we knew would have told us something like this before we had to figure it out ourselves," Sirius said bitterly, but with no real bite behind his words. "We could have helped."

James stood still, utterly confused as Remus continued to sob. Sirius no longer sounded angry, just sad, and James couldn't understand what had happened.

"No one could have helped, Sirius. Not the doctors at St. Mungos, not the greatest Potions Master in the entire world, and especially not you." It was Remus' turn to sound bitter.

Sirius looked as if he'd been slapped, and then, ever so carefully and deliberately, he stepped forward towards Remus, sliding the blanket back so that the boy's collarbone was revealed once more. With shaking hands, Sirius pointed to the scar James had seen earlier.

"Remus," Sirius said, voice shaking even more than his hands. "Remus, tell James what that scar is." But Remus was crying again, and he couldn't bring himself to formulate the words, so Sirius did it for him. "James, Remus is a Werewolf."

This could quite possibly be the shortest thing I've written besides a Drabble. Hope you enjoy this little taste, and thank you for the reviews :)

I promise you'll get a really long chapter next time. I just kind of wanted to stop it at a cliffy.