Discovering Wolf

Sirius knew that Remus was lying about where he really went every month.

It was a bit of an open secret at this point– at least, it was for Sirius, James, and Peter. Sure, they'd bought the stories Remus had fed them for a few months– that his mother was gravely ill, that none of his family knew how much time she had left and that he had permission from Dumbledore to regularly leave the castle to help take care of her whenever she'd suffer bouts of sickness. They'd had no reason to question anything at first – it explained why Remus always seemed so closed-off and solemn before he'd disappear, and why none of the professors ever questioned why he was gone so often. Why would they, if he had expressed permission from Dumbledore?

It wasn't until they reached their second year that they began to notice something… off. About Remus' behavior, his demeanor, his explanations for his frequent disappearances. If his mother's illness was truly as fatal as Remus always implied it was, how was it that she was still alive after a year and a half? Why hadn’t she (as James had once unkindly put it) “snuffed it” by now? She even sent Remus regular letters by owl post, and (on the rare occasion Sirius managed to peer over Remus' shoulder and read them without Remus noticing) they all seemed to be completely normal, even cheerful; no mentions of any chronic illnesses, or requests for Remus to come visit her at home…

And it wasn't just that Remus was quiet and stressed before his visits home– he was always downright sickly-looking, pale and sweaty with dark circles under his eyes and a tremor in his hands. Why was he the one who looked fatally ill? And why did he always come back from these "visits" looking like death warmed over, littered with scrapes and cuts? 

Sirius felt guilty for pondering all of this at first – what kind of friend was he for accusing Remus of lying about his mother's fatal illness? – but eventually he couldn't force himself to try to look past all of the various inconsistencies any longer. 

There were holes in Remus' story. Far too many holes for it to be entirely true.

Eventually Sirius confronted Remus about it – with the help of James and Peter, who'd grown suspicious at around the same time Sirius did – and Remus, in a moment that shocked all three of them, lost his cool completely. Ordinarily Remus had the best hold on his temper of the lot of them, offsetting James and Sirius' hot-headedness, but for the very first time in the year and a half that the boys had known him, Remus had actually shouted at them– insisting that Sirius had it all wrong, and that they had no idea what they were talking about, and demanded that they never bring up his disappearances again. Sirius, James, and Peter had hastily agreed, more out of shock than anything else, just to get Remus to calm down.

"I just don't understand," James griped later that night in the common room, once Remus had stormed off to bed, not bothering to bid them good night. "We know he's lying. He knows we know he's lying. Why not just fess up at this point?"

"Maybe it's something really embarrassing," Peter offered. "Or it's just too personal for him to tell us."

"But best friends aren't supposed to keep secrets," James insisted stubbornly. "He should know we aren't going to judge him for anything!" James suddenly sat up straighter in his chair, going a bit pale. "Unless… you don't think he's doing something illegal, do you? And the mum thing is just a cover-up?"

"It couldn't be illegal," Peter reasoned. "All the professors know about it, they wouldn't let him leave the castle every month if he was doing something wrong. And, anyway…" Peter shifted a bit in his seat, hesitating. "I don't guess it really matters where he goes every month, does it? I don't think he's lying to hurt us. If he's this set on sticking to his story, maybe we should just let him. I… I trust Remus."

James deflated a bit, his face softening. "I trust him, too. Of course I do." He sank back down in his chair, staring at the wooden table with all of their abandoned homework spread out across it. "I know lying upsets him, and he's probably doing it for a good reason… it's just driving me mad that he thinks he can't tell us." He turned his gaze to Sirius, who hadn't said a word since Remus disappeared up the spiral staircase. "You're awfully quiet over there, Sirius. What do you think?"

Sirius didn't respond, keeping his gaze trained on the dying embers of the fire. He thought about the time a few months ago when Remus had come back after a visit home with a poorly-concealed limp that he hadn't quite been able to keep hidden under his robes, and the visit before that when one of his eyes was swollen shut from a large gash across his face that he claimed had come from the family dog. He thought about the way Remus' scarred, gaunt face had gone pale with terror when the other boys confronted him, the way his anger wasn't quite enough to mask what was unmistakably fear in his eyes.

Wherever Remus was really going, he was downright terrified of them finding out.

"... I think we should leave him be. For now," Sirius said quietly, still staring at the weakly flickering flames in the hearth. "We'll just have to figure it out on our own."

***

Following Sirius' advice, they didn't try to confront Remus any further after that. It worried Sirius deeply every time he saw Remus slip out of the portrait hole looking pale and shaky, and every time he returned more scarred than when he'd left, but what could he do? Remus was Gryffindor stubborn– no matter how much they pleaded or begged, Remus was not going to tell them where he was going. The other three marauders had wracked their brains countless times in an effort to conjure up a reasonable explanation, but they always came up empty.

After a while, the topic of Remus' disappearances became… well, something of an inside joke among the other three boys. They'd long accepted that they would likely never find out where Remus was really going, but they amused themselves anyway by regularly presenting outlandish theories about Remus' secret to the other boys, each more absurd and unlikely than the last. Their "theories" started out as simply far-fetched, something incredibly unlikely but not impossible for a student at Hogwarts to achieve ("I bet Remus has a pet dragon in Hagrid’s hut that he sneaks off to see"), but eventually they devolved into scenarios that were so absurd that they could barely get the words about before they collapsed into fits of giggles ("I bet Remus is secretly shagging one of the centaurs in the forbidden forest.")

At first they were careful to never make these jokes in front of Remus, for fear of setting off another angry reaction like the one in the common room. But when Remus walked in on them one day having a heated debate about whether or not he was secretly half house-elf, they'd been forced to fess up about their little game. Remus hadn't seemed thrilled by their antics, but (perhaps due to the relief that they were no longer grilling him about the true reason he was gone so often), he made no effort to stop them from theorizing, even occasionally playing along whenever they presented him with something particularly outlandish. It wasn't uncommon for Remus to come into the common room after one of his monthly “visits home” and be greeted with a triumphant "I've figured out where you go every month!" from one of the other boys. This was then followed by their most recent far-fetched theory regarding Remus' whereabouts, which ranged anything from "I know you're secretly the world's youngest Auror" to "I know you moonlight at a wizard’s night club as a stripper.”

And though it amused Sirius greatly to see Remus heave one of his long-suffering sighs as they launched into their latest detailed explanation, that little niggling feeling of worry never quite left, always prodding at the back of his mind every time Remus returned from home looking wracked and weak.

He would find out where Remus was going one day. 

*****

Several months had passed since the beginning of their second year, and Sirius, James, and Peter were all awake in their common room, despite it having been dark outside for quite some time. They'd just returned from their Astronomy class, and they decided they might as well get an early start on the homework Professor Sinistra had assigned while they waited for Remus to return– since he was, once again, "visiting home", having left the previous night. For a while the three boys sat in silence as the rest of the Gryffindors slowly retired up to their dormitories, textbooks propped up on their knees and astronomy charts spread out across the round tables.

"Full moon was last night," Peter remarked idly as he consulted his lunar chart, the end of his quill in his mouth.

"Good thing astronomy was today then, huh?" James said with a grin. He immediately abandoned his own assignment (Sirius largely suspected he’d been looking for an excuse to do so for quite some time now) and sat up in his armchair, turning towards Peter. "Wouldn't want to get attacked by a werewolf." He tilted his head up and howled.

"Idiot," said Sirius, crumpling one of his failed essay attempts into a ball and chucking it at James' head. "There are no werewolves on Hogwarts grounds."

"Are, too!" James argued. "I swear, sometimes when I'm up in bed in the middle of the night I can hear a wolf howling. You know I'm a light sleeper."

"Have you really?" said Peter, going pale.

Sirius clicked his tongue irritably. "Of course he hasn't. Like I said, there aren't any."

"But–but what about the forbidden forest? I heard a seventh year say that werewolves can live in there–"

"And they just run around starkers in the woods for the other thirty days of the month? Get a grip, Pete." Sirius rolled his eyes. "There are no werewolves living in the forest. And even if there were, they couldn't get inside the castle. I think you'll be okay."

"Maybe Remus is a werewolf," said James with a yawn. He grabbed his half-finished essay and stuffed it carelessly into his bag without bothering to roll it up. "And that's where he goes every month. To wolf out in the forbidden forest."

Sirius snorted. "Yeah, Remus is a werewolf. I've definitely read that "chocolate addiction" is a common symptom of lycanthropy."

"What the hell is lycanthropy?"

"It means being a werewolf."

"Since when do you know fancy academic terms like lycanthropy?"

 "You know my family, they're obsessed with the dark arts. I grew up learning all about werewolves, vampires, hags–"

"Hang on, I thought dogs couldn't eat chocolate?" Peter cut in curiously as Sirius ticked more creatures off on his fingers. "A werewolf couldn't have a chocolate addiction."

"A werewolf's not a normal dog, though," James pointed out. "And besides, this is obviously all just a joke."

"What's all a joke?"

The other three boys turned. Remus was climbing through the portrait hole, his tawny hair falling into his eyes and his robes hanging loosely off of his shoulders. He seemed to be in relatively high spirits, however, as he made his way gingerly across the common room, his bag hanging off of his shoulders. 

"Ah, speak of the devil!" James cried as Remus leaned heavily against the arm of Sirius' chair, sitting up straighter and pointing a theatrical finger. "Remus, you may as well fess up now, because we've finally figured out where you go every month."

"Have you, now?" Remus said dryly. Last time this happened, they'd presented him with all the evidence that confirmed he was having a sordid affair with Madam Rosmerta. "Please, enlighten me."

"We think," James began, taking a pause for dramatic effect. "that you, Remus Lupin… are a werewolf."

Remus' bag slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor with a dull thud.

Usually when one of the others presented Remus with one of their "theories", Remus would laugh, or roll his eyes, or sigh in an exasperated (but secretly amused) sort of way. Now, though, there was no amusement in his expression. His whole body had gone rigid, and every drop of blood had drained from his face, leaving him white as a sheet and absolutely petrified. 

"...What?" he whispered hoarsely, his voice barely audible even in the deserted common room. "You… what?"

James blinked, looking bewildered. "Well– I mean, we were just doing our Astronomy homework and Pete noticed that yesterday was a full moon, so we started joking that you might be a werewolf, and that's why you…" James trailed off, exchanging a glance with Peter, clearly taken aback by Remus' reaction. "... I mean, we were just messing around, obviously. We don't really think you're a werewolf, mate."

Remus still didn't move, his face still holding that same terrified, slightly wild look. His eyes flicked frantically between the other three boys, as though he thought one of them was about to jump up and attack him. Several long beats passed, James and Peter staring at Remus as though he'd grown a second head. 

Then, Remus finally let out a single, shaky laugh, much too late and far too strained. "Erm… right, yeah. Of course, a joke. Funny. Hah." Remus stooped down to pick up his dropped bag, color slowly creeping back into his scarred cheeks. "Uh… I'm actually quite tired. I think I'm going to head up to bed."

"Wait, don't go yet, we need to tell you about the Astronomy homew–"

But James hadn't even finished his sentence before Remus practically fled towards the spiral staircase and disappeared.

"What's up with him?" Peter asked, eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "Why'd he look so upset?"

"Beats me," James said, his gaze still fixed on the spot where Remus had just been. "Maybe it was just a rough "visit home" and he's not in the mood for jokes."

James and Peter both still looked thoroughly baffled, but Sirius suddenly didn't feel confused at all. He was quite certain he knew exactly what had caused Remus to react like that, and he felt his heart drop like a stone as the realization dawned slowly upon him. 

No. Godric, no.

"... James," he said slowly, feeling dread start to creep up on him. "Last month, Remus was gone on Frank's birthday, wasn't he?"

James frowned at the sudden change of topic. "Er… yeah. Cause he was all bummed about missing it, even though Frank said he didn't mind."

"That would have been… the thirteenth, right?"

"Yeah, I think so, but why…?"

James watched apprehensively as Sirius picked up Peter's lunar chart off of the table and raked his eyes over the dates that were scrawled upon it. His heart sank even further, a leaden weight dropping into his stomach. 

He looked back up at the other two boys. "...The thirteenth was also a full moon."

James caught on first. He suddenly sat up straight in his chair, his bemusement quickly replaced with anger. "No. No way, Sirius. That's not funny."

"No, it isn't. Does it look like I'm bloody laughing?"

James shook his head, somewhat frantic. "Well, if you're not joking, then you're barking. There's no way you're actually suggesting–"

"What else could it possibly be? It all fits!" 

"What all fits?" Peter cut in desperately.

James looked downright furious now. "Sirius is suggesting that Remus – our best friend Remus who's only ever been patient and kind to us, who won't kill spiders – is actually a werewolf."

“You– what? Sirius, that’s just mad–”

"Is it really so ridiculous?" Sirius said as Peter continued to splutter in shock.

"Yes!" James said fiercely. "There's no way– I mean, it's just impossible, not Remus–"

"And how are you so sure it's impossible?" Looking between James and Peter, he folded his arms. "How much do either of you actually know about werewolves?"

"Well… not much," James admitted. "But I know enough to be sure that Remus–"

"Because I grew up learning about dark creatures, remember? And one of the biggest reasons so many werewolves choose to just run wild during the full moon is because the alternative is isolation, which is much more painful. When a werewolf has no humans around to go after, it attacks itself. Bites and scratches itself to hell. Which would explain why Remus always comes back from one of his home visits looking like he just got trampled by a stampede of hippogriffs."

"But… that can't be the only explanation, there's gotta be another–"

"And doesn't Remus always look ill right before he goes home? I always chalked it up to nervousness, but now that I think about it, werewolves do experience flu-like symptoms right before a transformation–"

"Sirius, knock it off, I'm not kidding–"

"Hell, no wonder he freaked out so much when we confronted him about where he was really going. I don't blame him for keeping up the lie, I sure wouldn't want my mates figuring out I turned into a bloodthirsty–"

"STOP!!" 

Sirius flinched, shrinking away instinctively at the look on James’ face. His hazel eyes were blazing, angrier than Sirius had ever seen him before. “Sirius, stop,” James said again, a note of pleading mingling amongst the anger in his voice. “Just stop. You’re wrong. Remus isn’t a werewolf. He’s not a monster. He’s our friend. Remus is good.”

Sirius sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He supposed he should have expected this type of reaction. It made sense that James – loyal to a fault and fiercely protective of his friends – would get so heated when Sirius accused him of being a bloodthirsty, monstrous beast. “... I never said he wasn’t good,” Sirius said softly. “Remus can still be our friend, werewolf or not. Werewolves aren’t all bad, you know.”

James raised an eyebrow. "Really? You said yourself they're dark creatures. I would have thought your family would want werewolves hunted for sport or something."

Sirius' face darkened. "They do. But since when have I ever agreed with anything my family does?"

James looked a bit conflicted now, some of the anger leaving his face. "Well… even if that is true, even if some werewolves can be good… there's no way Remus is one. He just isn't."

Sirius bit back another sigh. He knew Remus was a werewolf, he’d never been so sure of anything in his life. But he also knew that it would take more than his conviction to convince James and Peter.

“I guess I’ll just have to prove it to you, then.”