There's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear
Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?
"Remus! I gotta show you something," Sirius said, bounding over to the table where Remus was sitting in the library, being very loud and rambunctious and everything you weren't supposed to be in a library.
"Can it wait until I've finished the last foot of my charms essay?" Remus said, not looking up from where he was writing their beginning of the year review assignment about possible practical applications of several of the charms they'd learnt in their first four years of school.
"It won't take that long, I swear."
"And last time you said that I ended up with detention and singed eyebrows."
"Okay, well I have no fireworks this time and this isn't about mischief."
"Sirius Black doing something for reasons other than mischief, well I'll be damned," Remus teased lightly, finally looking up from his homework.
Sirius just stood there for a moment, not saying anything, just looking at , suddenly, it wasn't Sirius standing there looking at him anymore—it was a huge shaggy black dog.
"Sirius?"
The dog just barked in response.
Remus looked, dumbfounded, at the black dog—which was apparently Sirius—for what felt like forever, just trying to wrap his head around just what the hell was going on. Obviously Sirius had managed to somehow turn himself into a dog, but Remus really had no idea how or why.
The moment of confused silence ended when Remus heard Madam Pince coming around the shelves behind him, clearly coming to investigate why on Earth she could hear a dog barking in the library.
"Shit," Remus whispered, trying to figure out how he was going to explain why he was sitting in the library with a giant dog—a dog that he had not entered the library with, for that matter. Before he could say or do anything else, Sirius just crawled under the table, still a dog, blending in with the ends of Remus's robes and the shadows in the dimly lit library.
"Mr. Lupin, care to explain why I just heard a dog barking from this part of the library?" Madam Pince asked sternly, looking displeased, which was not a surprising look to see on her face, though it usually wasn't directed at him.
"It might have something to do with the third years Ravenclaws I saw trying to get into the restricted section, Ma'am," Remus said. "They were probably trying to use one of those new distraction charm firecrackers that they've just come out with at Zonko's in order to distract you and sneak in." Remus was lying through his teeth. There hadn't been anyone in this section of the library, one of the furthest corners, nearest the restricted section, and distraction charm firecrackers didn't exist (although, he might try and create some now that he's had the idea), but he could hardly say that the source of the noise was his idiot best friend that happened to somehow be a dog right now. That would, at best, cause him to be thrown out of the library and for Sirius—who was already on thin ice with Madam Pince—to become the first Hogwarts student to be permanently banned from the library. In reality, it'd be much worse, since Remus was fairly sure that whatever Sirius had done was against the rules, if not illegal.
Madam Pince just nodded sternly, face looking even more pinched than usual, before she turned and headed straight toward the restricted section, leaving Remus at his table alone, save for his essay and Sirius.
"Alright, Sirius. Just what the hell is going on," Remus hissed to Sirius, who was still under the table and a dog, once he was sure that Madam Pince was out of earshot.
Sirius crawled back out from beneath the table, and, before Remus could so much as blink, Sirius was turning back into regular human Sirius, not looking all that different from when McGonagall went from cat to stern professor, which was not filling him with a sense of ease. Neither was the mildly guilty expression on Sirius's face, for that matter.
"Well, you know how you have your, uh, little problem," Sirius started.
Remus nodded, not liking where he was pretty sure this was going.
"And you know how in Defense in third year we learned that Werewolves can only affect humans and not animals?"
And, yeah, Remus really didn't like where this train of thought was headed.
"So, y'know," Sirius said vaguely, gesturing to himself.
Remus couldn't bring himself to say anything. Sirius had somehow become an animagus? At Fifteen? For him? Surely not. Remus must have missed something.
He just looked at Sirius, who was looking back at him like he expected Remus to say something in his response to his non-explanation. Remus didn't though—couldn't really. All he could do was pack up his essay, ink well, and quill and walk toward the library doors.
"Remus?" Sirius said, once he got up from sitting shocked at the table and caught up to Remus, now following close behind him as he seemed to flee from the library.
"Remus, say something," Sirius said again when Remus didn't say anything and just kept walking.
"I can't," Remus said lowly, still walking.