Classes continued hours after sundown. After which, I headed to the dining hall for a quick dinner and then straight to the library to finish readings and more assignments - one 3 ft long piece on Medieval Assembly of European Wizards that I was dreading.
When, at last, I had completed my homework, I returned to the dormitories before curfew, drained from walking up endless staircases, and was ready to settle down for the night when Sirius's voice woke me out of my trance.
"We've never talked about St. Mungos," Sirius said, noticing the scars on my body as I was disrobing. Most days, I changed in the showers, but today, I was far too tired to shower, leaving it for tomorrow morning.
"You know my secret," I said matter of factly, almost like a dare, fed up with the fear of being exposed as a werewolf and still exhausted from the full moon. "My condition."
I figured that Sirius Black had developed some fascination with me, being a dark creature. I assumed he would grow bored of me once he learned that I really was just regular Remus Lupin without the transformation during full moons.
Sirius regarded me silently.
"You don't seem so offput by it," I muttered when he hadn't replied.
I was taken by the impulse to explain the origins of my lycanthropy. I wanted him to know that I was only five when I had been bitten by Fenrir Greyback, angered by my father Lyall's comments on werewolf kind. I wanted Sirius Black to know that I was not always a monster, only transmuted into a dark creature every full moon, that the regular Remus Lupin he saw every day was, in fact, the real me.
But I held back.