Chapter 2
Proving that Remus was a werewolf turned out to be much more difficult than Sirius anticipated.
Even though Sirius was more certain than ever that he was correct, gathering evidence that was irrefutable enough to convince James and Peter was proving to be difficult. He thought that the evidence he already had should have been more than enough – why else would he be mysteriously absent for two consecutive full moons? – but his friends were as stubborn as ever in their determination not to believe him.
Sirius was ready to tear his hair out at how deliberately obtuse they were being. If they weren’t going to believe him, then Sirius would make them believe him. Remus was good at keeping secrets, but he wasn’t that good – he had to have a tell of one sort or the other. Something that would prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that Sirius was right.
So, Sirius set to work to find that tell.
First, he’d smuggled one of the orchids that they were supposed to turn into soup ladles out of McGonagall’s transfiguration classroom and snuck it under Remus’ bed. “Werewolves have heightened senses,” he’d explained to James and Peter, when they’d watched him do this with expressions of utter bewilderment. “Neither of you can smell this unless you get really close, right? If Remus comes in here and knows this flower is there, that’ll prove that he’s got a werewolf’s sense of smell.”
And sure enough, Remus had noticed the orchid almost as soon as he entered the dormitory, taking one step toward his bed and furrowing his eyebrows, his nose twitching for a few moments. He immediately reached under his mattress and pulled out the orchid Sirius had planted, wondering aloud whether it had accidentally been left by the house-elves before throwing it into the garbage.
But, much to Sirius’ fury, this did nothing to convince his other two friends. “You did put it under HIS bed, mate,” Peter had said reasonably, once Remus had left to go shower. “Makes sense that he’d smell it when we couldn’t. And besides, having a good nose doesn’t automatically make somebody a werewolf.”
Then he’d tried feeding Remus a blood-flavored Bertie Bott’s bean under the guise of it being raspberry. When Remus had gone deathly pale and fled the room to spit it out, Sirius was sure that would convince them – why else would he react to the taste so strongly? – but they’d immediately dismissed this, too. “Nobody likes the taste of blood, Sirius,” James had said, rolling his eyes. “The only thing you’ve proved is that Remus definitely is not a vampire.”
He hated himself for all the scheming he was doing in his efforts to expose Remus– it felt cruel, and far too Slytherin for his liking, and he’d done his best to squash those traits down the moment he’d been sorted into Gryffindor – but with Remus so determined to keep his werewolf status a secret, and James and Peter all too happy to let him, Sirius just didn’t know what else to do.
But his next plan was sure to work. It had come to him in potions earlier that day, after he’d accidentally given himself a chemical burn (in an incident that was certainly not his fault, thank you very much), and the solution was so obvious that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. The circumstances weren’t ideal – Peter was off serving a detention for Professor Slughorn, so only James was here to witness it – but his time frame for enacting his plan was limited. If he wanted to act, he had to act now.
He draped himself dramatically across his armchair in the common room, his head hanging upside down as he stared imploringly at Remus and tried his best to look innocent. "Remus, my love?"
Remus rolled his eyes, looking up from his textbook at Sirius. "What?" He asked tiredly.
"Well, seeing as I'm grievously injured–"
"You burned your hand trying to slip Arabian Fire-Chilis into Snape's caldron during potions–"
"– grievously injured, my hand likely won't ever be the same," Sirius continued loudly as if he hadn't heard Remus, holding up his bandaged left hand for effect, "Would you pretty please go up to our dorm and grab my money pouch? I'm trying to fill out an order form and I need to enclose some coins."
Remus gave a weary sort of sigh, closing his book and slowly rising to his feet. "Dramatic git," he muttered, tone much more fond than exasperated as he turned towards the spiral staircase to grab Sirius' money.
James sat up from where he was sprawled in front of the fire and gave Sirius an odd look as Remus disappeared up the staircase. "I thought Madam Pomfrey mended your hand already," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.
Sirius grinned. "Oh, she did. The bandage is just for show. I'm not actually trying to order anything, I just want to prove to you that I'm right about Remus."
The confusion on James' face was quickly replaced with exasperation. "Oh, for the love of– will you please let this go, Sirius? Remus is not a werewolf. And how's asking him to get your money pouch proving anything?"
"Because." Sirius lowered his voice, leaning closer to James conspiratorially. "I was thinking about the symptoms of lycanthropy, and one of them is that– werewolves can't touch silver, right? It'll burn them. So, I–"
"Alright, Sirius, I got your money bag." Remus reappeared quickly at the foot of the stairs, making Sirius snap his mouth shut. "And it's really heavy. What could you possibly need all this money for?"
"Gotta spend that Black family fortune before I'm disinherited. How else am I gonna fund all of my illegal trips to Hogsmead?" Sirius grinned as Remus sat back down in his armchair. "Anyway, I need five Knuts. Mind getting them out for me? My fine motor skills are lacking a bit at the moment." He waved his bandaged hand once more.
Remus rolled his eyes. "Well, maybe that'll be a lesson to you about using volatile ingredients responsibly."
Sirius watched out of the corner of his eye as Remus pulled open the little drawstring bag, almost reaching his hand inside but then stopping himself abruptly. He had gone incredibly still, staring down into the bag, making no move to remove any coins from it. "There's– uh… there's no Knuts in here, Sirius," Remus said after a moment, his voice tight with what Sirius recognized as barely-concealed panic. "Only Sickles."
James' head snapped up, realization dawning on his face. He gave Sirius a furious look, but Sirius didn't take his eyes off of Remus.
He knew there were no Knuts in that bag, nor were there any Galleons. He'd taken them all out himself earlier that day. "No, I'm pretty sure there's some at the bottom. Dig around a bit in there and see if you can find them, would you?"
Remus still didn't move. His gaze flicked back down towards the money pouch again, something fearful and a bit wild in his large amber eyes, almost like a caged animal. Then, ever so slightly, his lower lip started to tremble.
This seemed to be the final straw for James, who reached across the table and snatched the bag out of Remus' hands in a frantic sort of way. "Come on, Black, don't make poor Remus do all your dirty work," he said, and though his tone was light as ever, the look he sent Sirius as he threw the money pouch onto the round table was absolutely murderous. "I've got some Knuts in my bag. Come upstairs with me, Sirius."
Before Sirius even had a chance to react James had grabbed him roughly by the wrist and started to drag him up the spiral staircase, despite his yelp of surprise and his indignant protests as he tried to free himself from James' grip.
"Ow!” Sirius scowled as they reached the top of the staircase. "Blimey, mate, loosen up a bit, before my wrist starts chafing–"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" The moment they were alone in the dormitory James rounded on Sirius furiously.
“What?” Sirius said irritably, rubbing his smarting wrist. “I didn’t do anything! I wasn’t going to let him actually hurt himself, I just wanted to see how he’d react–”
“It doesn’t matter if he actually got hurt or not! Did you see his face? You had him bloody terrified! Why would you do that to Remus?”
“I’m sorry, mate, okay? I don’t feel great about it either. But you and Peter just wouldn’t believe me without proof, I had to find a way to show you somehow.”
"And burning our friend with Sickles was the only way you could think of?"
"Aha!" Sirius exclaimed triumphantly, pointing a finger in James' face. "So you admit it! You admit that the silver would have burned him, because he is a werewolf!"
“I–!” James didn’t seem to have a response to that. His whole body seemed to deflate, all the fight leaving him, and he sank weakly onto his four-poster bed, putting his face in his hands. “... Bloody hell,” he whispered after a moment, his voice hoarse. “Bloody hell. Remus is a werewolf.”
"Glad you're finally catching on," Sirius huffed, throwing himself onto the four-poster next to James.
“... Bloody hell.”
“You stuck on repeat or something? Want me to knock you on the head?”
“Stop. This isn’t– this isn’t funny, Sirius.” James’ voice was hoarse. He raked a hand through his – already quite messy – hair. “Remus is a werewolf. What are we going to do?”
“... Do?” Sirius repeated uncertainly. “There’s nothing to do, mate. Like I said, Remus is our friend, werewolf or not. Unless you disagree? Because if you’re planning on ratting him out–”
“I’m not! Of course I’m not.” This seemed to snap James out of it, and he gave his head a little shake. “You’re right. It’s just… I never would have guessed… a werewolf at Hogwarts. Only Dumbledore would do something so barmy.” James swallowed, looking nervously over at Sirius. “Is it really as dreadful as you said? All of Remus’ injuries and stuff… he did that to himself?”
“The wolf did it to him.” Sirius sighed, all of his annoyance from earlier draining from him, leaving nothing but bone-deep exhaustion. “The transformation is supposed to be really painful, too. All your bones break and rearrange. It’s no wonder he always seems so sore when he comes back.”
“Merlin,” James said weakly. He put his face back in his hands, and several long moments passed before he spoke again. “...We’ve got to tell him. That we know.”
Sirius couldn’t help but snort. “Yeah, that’ll go real well. Remember how he looked the last time he thought we’d found out his secret? Looked like he’d seen a bloody dementor.”
“Yes, I know. That’s exactly why we’ve got to do it. He’s obviously terrified of us finding out, because he thinks we’ll… well, I don’t know what he thinks. But he obviously expects we won’t react well.” James swallowed. “We’ve got to tell him that we’re okay with it. I don’t want him to go on any longer thinking that we could ever hate him.”
Sirius contemplated this for a moment. He was reluctant to confront Remus with their findings– he couldn’t envision a version of that conversation that didn’t end in disaster, not when Remus was already so on-edge and defensive– but at the same time, James was right. It wasn’t fair to Remus to leave him stewing in his own anxiety.
Sirius heaved a long sigh. “...Fine. You’re right,” he conceded, slowly rising to his feet and smoothing out robes that didn’t need smoothing. “Should we do it now?”
“No. We’ll wait for Peter to get back from detention, and tell him what we found out.” Sirius bit back the irritated impulse to correct James, because they hadn’t found out anything, Sirius had known for days and James and Peter were just too stubborn to believe him– but no, now wasn’t the time for that. James believed him now, and that was all that mattered. “Then we’ll all tell him together.”