Remus was small when he was bitten. So fragile when skin was broken, psyche ruined, all pretense of safety left ripped and bloody.
He was small for years, except on full moons, when his body was cracked and stretched into a monster’s. There was no way to treat a monster gently. Not really. Even if the monster was really only a small boy. No one handled him with care. The shadow of a monster always looming over him.
When he hit his growth spurt, the one every young man was meant to have, he was finally treated with kindness. And all he’d done in the face of this kindness was to rip skin in return. The Marauders had become Animagi for him. It was wonderful. Scary, but wonderful. Beyond anything Remus could ever imagine. He never knew if he could repay it. But he’d also tried to warn them. There was no predicting the wolf, and the last thing on earth or the heavens he wanted to do was hurt any of them. He made it clear he’d refuse the idea entirely unless they agreed to never accompany the wolf again should he hurt one of them.
One moon, it happened. Sirius had been late for some reason or another. It didn’t really matter in the end. The means never mattered in the face of the ends. And the end of that night still made Remus’s stomach curdle years later. By the time Padfoot had arrived that night, the wolf was already restless and agitated. Sirius wasn’t afraid of playing rough with the wolf, no matter how many times Remus warned him to stop. Because Sirius showed he knew how to handle it. He never injured himself, and so Remus trusted him. It did make the wolf happy. As long as neither of them gained any scars, perhaps there’d be no harm.
He should’ve known better.
Padfoot had also been stressed, either from his late arrival or whatever had caused it (later Remus learned it had been a fight with Regulus). He wasn’t quite as attuned to the wolf as he usually was. In a flash of claws and barely avoided teeth, flesh was rent from bone. Remus woke that morning with only Wormtail beside him, and blood dripping from his own face.
The hospital wing was never fun, but when he walked in to see Sirius, thin smile and sickly skin, it was the worst he’d ever felt. He would’ve walked right back out if he could’ve, if anyone had let him. This was it. The moment he’d always expected. And feared. Remus finally showed how dangerous he truly was. It didn’t matter how much he cared for someone. He hadn’t truly been small and harmless since he was four years old. There was only one inevitable end to people being around him, and that was hospital beds and blood and cracked bones, and none of it was okay despite whatever Sirius’s reassurances were. Even James looked rattled, as well he should. Remus was dangerous, it was his nature to break just as he had been broken. It wasn’t his choice, it wasn’t a narrative he was telling himself, it was truth, plain and simple.
“Moony, it wasn’t you fault,” Sirius tried to call after him as Remus numbly hobbled to the other side of the infirmary.
He stopped briefly, only turning his aching head to ask incredulously, “How can you say that?”
“Remus.” From the scuffle Remus heard behind him, it seemed Sirius tried to move from the hospital bed. Remus didn’t worry about it. James was there to stop him. James knew how to care for people, especially Sirius. Shame there wasn’t a way to care for Remus, not one that was safe.
Remus awoke in the evening. James and Peter had left, and Remus decided to leave before they returned. Golden light was streaming through the windows, but to Remus’s eyes it might as well have been red. It felt quite fitting that the newest scar over his face was so close to his eye. He’d never be able to see the world the same, not with the barest memories of Sirius’s blood under his claws, under his nails, mixing deservedly with his own. He debated whether to check on Sirius, realized he couldn’t help himself, and briefly ducked his head between the curtains drawn around Sirius’s bed. He just needed to see the rise and fall of his chest, that he was okay. Okay as he’d ever be now that Remus had hurt him. Now that Remus had given him a scar that would never disappear, marring his pale skin.
Seeing messy black hair and bloodless sheets satisfied Remus, so he began to leave when-
“Moony?” A gentle voice said. Sirius’s head lifted from the mass of sheets. How he’d cocooned the thin hospital sheets around him so thoroughly Remus didn’t know. Gray eyes immediately traced the new, bright red scar running along Remus’s face. “Remus, come here.” There was a new pain in his voice that hadn’t been there a moment before. It was probably from how he repositioned himself to sitting on the bed. How his arms pulled his wounds as they reached out for Remus. Most certainly couldn’t have been the sight of Remus's new scar.
Remus wanted to refuse, to keep a safe distance between them, but it was always so impossible to refuse Sirius, especially when he reached his hands out to him. Tentatively, Remus stepped closer, tucking his hands behind his back, away from any part of Sirius he could scratch, even if his nails had returned to normal, bitten down to the quick from a horrid day in the infirmary, for insurance that he couldn’t hurt anyone else. He stepped into Sirius’s space, Sirius’s hands immediately came to cup his face, so gently coming to Remus’s cheeks, so carefully avoiding the sprawling new cut.
Sirius studied his face, all sadness and concern Remus in no way deserved. “Moony,” he whispered shakily. It almost sounded like he was sorry for it all. A ridiculous notion.
“You have it worse,” Remus said matter-of-factly. Sirius shook his head, brows drawing together in the middle. Remus wanted to jerk out of his touch, even if he tore himself open again, but he wouldn’t risk jostling Sirius. After all, Sirius never could tell when it was time to let go.
The look on Sirius’s face was too much, too sad. Remus couldn’t take it anymore, so he said “Show me yours then.”
“Remus,” Sirius tried to stop him, pain so clear in his voice.
“None of you are coming with me on full moons again anyway. You might as well show me.”
Sirius set his mouth in an unhappy line, but also gently brushed a thumb along the edge of Remus’s cheekbone. He needed to stop. God he needed to stop. Remus couldn’t take this. Yet he managed to wait.
A sigh was let out into the room, the warm air brushing over Remus’s face. Finally, Sirius removed his hands, pulling up his own sleep shirt. It was hard to see the extent of the damage through the bandages, but blood had seeped through in long lines across his entire abdomen. Remus nearly threw up.
“Remus,” Sirius grabbed him again. Remus didn’t realize he’d moved his arm until Sirius laid a gentle hand over his wrist, thumb pressed to his pulse. The other hand returned to its place on his face. “It’s really alright. I promise. It looks worse than-“
“Don’t lie. Please.” The last word barely clawed its way from Remus’s throat, a guttural, desperate thing.
“But it is all right. James was there, we handled it-“
“No.” Remus said with finality.
“If you think I’m going to let you go off on your own and slice yourself up again, then you’re dead wrong.”
“And you’ll be dead next time if you try to follow me.”
“This wasn’t your fault,”
“How? How is it not my fault? I’m a werewolf, Pads, and those are werewolf scratches. I don’t care if you think it’s all right, because whatever you say or think, it’s not.”
“You’re not the wolf.”
Remus laughed bitterly at that.
“You’re not.” Sirius insisted. “This was not your choice. I know it never would’ve happened had you had a choice.”
“But here we are. It still happened Sirius. Nothing can erase that.” Remus nearly reached his free hand out to skim over the cuts hidden beneath layers of fabric and bandages before remembering the danger in even that, tucking it behind himself again. Away from the person that still held his other arm. Away, where it'd always belong.
“This could still work. One bad moon out of over a dozen isn’t bad.” Determination shone in his eyes. A determination so unique to Sirius, and so unwise.
Remus somehow worked a downtrodden smile onto his face. “This doesn’t work at all if you get hurt.”
“So what? This only works if you’re the only one who gets hurt?” Sirius could be so fierce when he cared about something. Remus wished he hadn’t chosen such a lost cause to care about.
“Yes,” it was honest, pleading. A too simple answer to a too loaded question.
Gray eyes burned like fire through Remus’s resigned ones. Sirius opened his mouth to argue when a door opened and Madam Pomfrey rattled the curtains to find them. Remus only realized now how dim and cold the room had become, the sun having set. Everything awash in eerie blue. The wake of violence and warmth.
“Oh, good, you two are both awake.” Madam Pomfrey remarked, barely giving a second glance to where Sirius's hands were.
As carefully as he could, Remus pulled Sirius’s hands away from himself. Another new pain added to the rest lying in the open on Sirius’s face.
***
Sometimes Remus forgot how many of his burdens he shared. He knew his friends cared about him, and that only made it harder because he couldn’t accept their care and didn’t even know how to begin to reciprocate it.
For the next month he devised ways of keeping the Marauders from their usual full moon activities. He had yet to convince them not to continue. Arguments of how dangerous it was for them were met with counter arguments that it was dangerous for him, especially alone. When Remus pointed out their original agreement to stop the moment he hurt any of them, at first they brushed it off casually. And when that only made Remus angry they turned to explaining how they’d always thought it was stupid and never planned on following it. As if that didn’t make Remus even angrier.
Despite his anger, Remus was more careful than he’d ever been to keep physical distance between himself and his friends at all times. If he even so much as twitched in aggravation, he berated himself for it.
At first, he thought maybe it could be as simple as making them forget it was a full moon at all. Then he remembered how Sirius had mentioned he memorized when every full moon was for the next ten years. Besides, they could always look up at the sky and notice at any given moment. And Remus didn’t want to try any memory charms. They were far too risky.
In the meantime, daily life seeped back to normalcy. Any sad looks thrown his way at the notice of his prominent new scar Remus met with the reminder of what he’d done to Sirius. Sirius still hadn’t even shown him the extent of his new scar. It wasn’t his first, Remus knew. Growing up in a house like his isn’t an experience you can get away from without some scars, but the one Remus had given him was by far the biggest, the ugliest. Remus hated even the idea of it. He didn’t know if he had the right to ask to see it. Not if Sirius didn’t want to show him. Really, they should be keeping their distance anyway.
That never lasted for long.
One Saturday morning, Remus and Sirius were alone in their dorm room. James up early and out at Quidditch practice. Peter off doing whatever it is Peter does. Sirius taking a long shower. Remus was content with lazing around reading for a little while in a pocket of peace when the bathroom door opened. Steam poured from the door, revealing Sirius without a shirt and still toweling his hair dry. Remus froze to the spot, but not for the usual reason he would when seeing Sirius’s bare torso. For his torso bore four wide, jagged new lines, angrier and redder from the shower.
Sirius met his eyes, walking over to Remus’s bed to stand directly over him. Remus almost audibly gulped, taking care to tuck his hands under himself, but before he could Sirius caught his wrist. He moved Remus’s hand to splay across his abdomen, across the scars. At first Remus didn’t move aside from the shaking. Sirius pressed his hand harder into his stomach and then let go.
Remus surprised himself by not pulling away immediately. Though maybe he shouldn’t be surprised at all. He always pushed his luck, hoping that maybe he could care and touch and hold like normal people. But this was the very proof he couldn’t.
Remus spread his fingers as far as they could stretch, running them over the widespread claw marks and realizing the entire width of his hand didn’t reach each mark. His human hand was too small.
“I’m not afraid of you, Remus. I could never be afraid of you. You or your wolf.”
A snort slipped from Remus’s mouth, but Sirius’s face remained solemn.
“I’ll be here for as long as it takes to convince you that you aren’t the monster you think you are.”
Sirius took Remus’s hand again, moving it to his lips and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. It was slow and purposeful. Softer than the velvet of flower petals. The action stole Remus's breath.
“How do you not blame me?”
Remus had barely finished when Sirius responded.
“If I’d blame anything, I’d blame the moon. But I’m afraid I’m quite partial to the night sky, so I think I’ll have to love you both anyway.”
Remus’s vision blurred with tears, an almost tragic thing considering the sight before him. Sirius at his most genuine, soft and real. Remus pulled himself up to sit on the edge of his bed, leaning his head forward to kiss each of Sirius’s new scars. One, two, three, four, for each memory of a claw. He couldn’t erase the damage, but damn him if he couldn’t at least show it tenderness. Sirius brushed a hand through Remus’s hair.
“If it makes you feel any better, I like this scar far more than my others.”
“I’m sorry.” The words muffled by the way Remus pressed his cheek to Sirius’s torso.
“Remus.”
The boy hummed in response.
“I love you more than the moon.”
“I love you more than anything.”
***
Still, come the next full moon, Remus found a way to steal the wands of each Marauder and managed to lock them into their own dorm room. He’d gotten the girls’ help. They’d reluctantly agreed to keep their wands safe and pacify the boys the best they could. He told them how to unlock the door’s spell, but they could only do so come morning. Lily was especially against his plan, concerned for all parties involved, but eventually agreed with his logic. Though she made it abundantly clear how much she disliked it. Well, so did Remus, but it's what needed to be done.
It was the only full moon Remus tried to do alone.
When the wolf finally left him in the dingy dawn light of the Shrieking Shack, Remus found he’d nearly gutted himself, claws digging deep into his stomach. He passed out before Madam Pomfrey came to collect him.
When he woke again, eyes creaking open, it was to a hand running through his hair and Sirius’s face hovering closely above him. It was obvious he’d been crying. Gray eyes red-rimmed.
“There you are Moony. You’re all right.” His voice broke its way through the words. Tears started streaming down his perfect face, glittering in the sunlight. Sirius really didn’t deserve to go through this. He handled Remus with so much care and Remus couldn’t keep from fucking it up over and over.
Remus hummed, trying desperately not to choke on a cough. He cleared his throat the best he could. “I’m here. I’m right here, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He hardly had the energy to cry.
Sirius pressed tear-soaked lips to Remus’s cheek, catching the very corner of his mouth. “I know, I know darling.” He gave Remus a shaky smile that quickly turned threatening. “If you ever try doing something like that again…”
“You’ll what?” Remus challenged, managing to raise his eyebrows.
Sirius pouted, it was such a wonderfully childlike, petulant expression, it drew a laugh from Remus that quickly turned into a choked hiss of pain. Concern overtook the lines of Sirius’s face again.
Once Remus settled, Sirius said, “I’ll never let you out of my sight.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.” He couldn’t help the dopey smile that came to his face, a grin stretching Sirius’s face too.
“You won’t do it again?”
“I hardly think it’s worth it. As long as you’ll stay near, that is.”
“Nowhere else I’d rather be, Moony.”
***
Harry was only two days old when Sirius and Remus met him. He was so, so small. It was the first thing Sirius commented when James passed Harry into his waiting arms.
“Keep his head supported, like this,” James instructed. Lily watched tiredly from a few steps back.
“Merlin, he’s tiny. You’re sure he’s all right?"
“Perfectly healthy,” Lily said proudly.
“He’s a baby, Padfoot, they’re meant to be small,” James chided.
“I know, I know. I just didn’t realize he’d be this small.”
“To be honest, I didn’t realize he’d be this small either.” Lily said. “But he’s the most perfect thing you’ve ever seen, isn’t he?”
Sirius hummed agreement.
And Harry was perfect. So infinitely fragile. In need of all the protection in the world. Delicate bones and lungs and innocent baby cheeks and chubby, grabby little hands. Remus stood to the side of this first meeting of godfather and godson. Seeing his partner cradle baby Harry in his arms, knowing that Sirius was one of the best people to hold Harry and protect him and be gentle with him.
“I’m your godfather, Harry,” Sirius addressed the bundle in his arms with awe and a smile.
James and Lily exchanged tired, proud looks, happiness nestled deep within each line of exhaustion.
Remus stepped forward, brushing his pointer finger along the back of Harry’s hand, untucked from its blankets. Harry murmured slightly in his sleep.
“He sleeps so well, doesn’t he?” Lily asked, leaning into James's shoulder.
“Just like his father,” Remus remarked. “Though I hope he doesn’t wake quite as early.
“Remus, you should hold him,” Sirius said. It seemed quite a sudden shift to Remus.
“What?”
“C’mon, don’t you want to? Just for a moment. It’s incredible.”
“I don’t think I should.”
“Please Moony,” James said, “there’s nothing to be scared of. Trust me.”
“But what if I-“
“Remus,” Lilly cut in. “We trust you. As a chosen uncle, we expect you to hold him.” She said it in that stern, caring way that was nearly impossible to argue with.
Remus did expect to hold him, but not until Harry was older by a few years. He saw the scenarios of holding a chaotic, restless toddler that needed wrangling, not taking a peacefully sleeping, perfect newborn baby into his scarred arms.
Sirius said his name again, and Remus found himself holding his arms out, Sirius shifting Harry’s weight into his arms and showing him how to support his head. And then Sirius was pulling back, and Remus had a baby in his arms.
It’s not that he hadn’t held anything precious before. He held Sirius every night, and that was nothing short of miraculous.
This was different.
Harry babbled only for a moment before completely settling into Remus’s long arms. Remus’s jaw relaxed at this. It was insanity that every human starts out this small only to grow so big.
“Hello Harry,” he greeted gruffly. It felt like the start of something extraordinary. To be a part of the life of something so small. To see it grow. Perhaps he’d even be able to help protect him. To prevent at all costs the things that had happened to Remus when he was young and small and helpless.
Then Harry was four and Remus couldn’t help but see himself in the child. Of course, he was all James besides the eyes which were all Lily, but it brought back memories of when he was that small. When the ground was so close because his legs were so short and monsters hadn’t been real at all until they were, with his blood on their maws. He’d help this child with any monster, real or imagined.
Uncle Moony always was best at checking for monsters.