Prologue
If there was one thing Remus learnt in Fifth Year, it was the fact that the Marauders weren’t made out of four, it was two — Sirius Black and James Potter.
The Prank - what they had chosen to name the incident that almost killed three - had been the catalyst.
Severus Snape almost died that day, and though he was partly to blame for the incident, it didn’t help the resounding guilt that plagued Remus. James, despite being the absolute toe rag - Lily’s words - that he was, also almost died that day when he risked his life to save Snape. Remus, too, could have died that day. If Dumbledore had not taken matters into his own hands and prohibited Snape from speaking of the incident, his lycanthropy would have been revealed, and he would have been sentenced to Azkaban, or death.
Three people could have died that day because of a ‘prank’ that Sirius Black pulled, and only one of them received an apology — James Potter. That was the day that Remus learnt that the Marauders were two, not four.
James was quick to forgive Sirius for putting his life at risk, though Remus reckoned that receiving an apology might have helped speed up that process. Remus, on the other hand, found it hard to make sense of the situation. Sirius had been the one who first found out of his affliction and swore their friend group to secrecy. Sirius had been the one who suggested the Animagi change to accompany Remus during the full moons. How was it that the most perceptive boy that Remus knew, was the one to pull the cruelest prank that he ever experienced?
Remus only realised it then; Sirius Black might have been the most perceptive, but he too, was the most selfish person Remus had ever encountered. Sirius had always been the one to make distasteful jokes about his lycanthropy, without regards to how it might affect Remus. Sirius might have been the one who suggested becoming an Animagi, but he was also the one that did it not to help, but to interact with a real life werewolf.
Sirius was a lot of things, but a genuine friend to Remus, he was not. It was a shame that Remus only found that out months after developing the fattest crush possible on the boy himself. That, too, was a major contributing factor to the immense betrayal that he felt from the elder.
To Remus, Sirius had been the first of his friends to assure him that his lycanthropy would not change their friendship. He had been the one to grin at him across the classroom, whilst they were in the midst of a prank. Sirius was the one whom he shared textbooks and notes with, heads bent over an open book as they read together. Most of all, Sirius had been the one to break the news on their illegal Animagi statuses, by jumping up on him in the form of a shaggy black dog.
Remus only ever saw the good in Sirius until The Prank cracked through his rose-tinted glasses. Sirius saw no fault in his actions, and he remained unapologetic towards Remus. “You’re a werewolf, you’d be the one doing the hurting,” was his excuse, not understanding that that was exactly what Remus had been afraid of. They were at a stalemate — Remus insisting that Sirius had wronged him, and the latter convinced that Remus was overreacting.
That was when Remus learnt that his crush on the other was hopeless. That even if Sirius had reciprocated the feelings, he would never be someone that Remus could rely on. That he was selfish, and narcissistic, and Remus had better luck turning a straight man gay than to make Sirius understand his wrongdoings. He knew all that, and yet, a crush was still a crush.