Somewhen during his 4th year at Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardry, poor Remus Lupin was simply trying to get some rest and recover after a bad moon night. Yes, it was the morning after the full moon, and the boy was resting on one of the infirmary’s beds; not one of those with rock hard mattresses, but a soft one Madame Pomfrey had bought just for him.
Madame Pomfrey, the school’s nurse, had long grown fond of him, so he had special treatment from her. Of course, she had to deal with his lengthy protests for that, at first. He did not need any special treatment, he wasn’t a charity case.
But in the end she won the argument, a result that occurred too often. After all, being a werewolf, he was in that sterile ward every single month, he was a regular patient at this point.
Eventually, Remus had a small room all for himself inside the infirmary.
It was complete with a comfy bed, soft cushioned chairs, a little wardrobe on one side and even a tiny wooden table on the other, with a few of his books on it. On a bedside table, were a bottle of healing potion and a cup of dark tea, charmed to always stay warm and ready to drink for him whenever he felt like his stomach could finally keep something down.
But Remus didn’t know all that right now.
He felt too sick to even realise where he was, convinced he was sleeping in his dorm room. Sleeping, before being loudly awoken.
Why. Won’t. They. Shut. The fuck up.
Remember how he was trying to get some rest?
They can’t, it isn’t in their nature. They can’t help it.
Remus rolled his eyes at his own inner voice, trying to concentrate on the sleep he was quickly losing.
What??? They’re your friends, not mine. You chose to be friends with them, so why are you looking at me like that now?! I told you, I’ve tried to warn you before-
Ohformerlinsake shut up! You too! Alright, I get it, you told me so. You’re right. Now silence!
Wow. What an attitude, love. Wolf bit your ass?
That’s it. He was quite done arguing with himself. His brain was surprisingly argumentative, considering the state of confusion it was in.
He was feeling so disoriented and in pain. Nothing new for him, really.
But trying to fight off his headache was the priority.
Something he could only resolve if his dear, dear friends shut their mouth this very instant. And his second priority was going back to sleep, he had homework to do the next morning. If he could solve these two things, his head would surely feel a lot less foggy tomorrow.
But he could still hear them whispering to each other behind their dorm room’s door. And it was driving him insane, because they weren’t really whispering, they only thought they were. Or maybe Remus just had a more sensitive hearing, which, okay, he conceded was true.
What kind of sick prank were they planning, still up this late?
What he needed right now was silence, in the meantime his headache had quickly become a healing potion emergency.
He made a noise of protest as he blindly reached for the potion he always kept close by on his night stand, trying to maintain his eyes closed. He refused to wake up at all costs.
His muscles stretched painfully, and just as he closed his hand around the tiny bottle, a sudden cramp made him push it off the night stand. The loud noise of glass hitting the floor was enough to instantly worsen his headache. Oh, it was a thousand times worse.
He tried to adjust into a sitting position on the bed, but suddenly felt extremely nauseous, and before he could register it he was vomiting all over himself.
Wonderful.
“REMUS!” two cold hands gripped his cheeks.
Sirius.
“Evanesco” he heard James’ say, and all the disgusting vomit disappeared. Peter made a gagging noise from somewhere in the room.
They must’ve rushed inside after hearing all the noise.
“Pads. Stand back, give him some space” said James exasperated, “and maybe this towel”
Half a second later, Sirius was frantically rubbing a towel on Remus’ bare chest, sitting so close to him. Remus quickly saved the memory for a later time, but kept his eyes closed; the light in the room was too bright for his headache. He could still feel Sirius staring at his face, though, probably trying to detect the cause of his sickness. When his eyes moved to Remus’ body, his hands came to an abrupt stop, he made a loud gasp, “Remus…”
Remus decided he was in too much pain to deal with all of them right now. He wanted his pain potion, and he wanted to go back to sleep.
“H-headache” he tried to communicate just that, but at this point he could barely speak, “p-potion”
For a few moments nobody seemed to move or say anything. He opened one eye to investigate and regretted it immediately, with a loud complaint. He heard some steps.
“Pain potion, here” James handed him the tiny vial he had dropped on the floor earlier. He immediately gulped it all down in one big sip, already feeling the beneficial effects settling into his system. He was going to feel much better in a few more minutes.
When Remus finally managed to open his eyes without repercussions, all three of his friends were staring at him with various degrees of shock.
He looked around the room and realised to his horror that he was in the infirmary room. Not their dorm room. His post-moon recovery infirmary room. That could only mean…
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck” he quickly pulled the bedsheets over his battered body, covering his left shoulder, very much aware of the huge werewolf bite that sat there, marked on that spot forever when he was only four years old. The bite was standing out, bright red against pale skin, a favour from the moon last night. “Fuck. Why are you all here?”
Silence, at last.
But the silence was now unwanted, too scary.
What were they thinking? What do his best friends think of him now that they know the truth about him? The truth about who he was, about what he was. He was feeling sick again.
This is not the way he intended to tell them. He would’ve told them, at some point. Soon. But this… not like this. This was humiliating and scary. He didn’t want to lose his friends like this.
The silence didn’t last much longer.
“Merlin’s balls” Sirius got closer to him again, then seemed to rethink it and took a step back. “Remus? What is that, Remus?”
He took a step back. He’s afraid of me now.
“What happened to Remus?!” he demanded, turning to James.
James for his part stayed silent, still looking where Remus’ shoulder was.
So Sirius moved closer to Remus and made to grab him by the shoulders, but thought better of it and just placed his hand on Remus’ arm,
“you’ve been bitten by a werewolf.”
Werewolf.
Werewolf.
Werewolf.
“Yes.” there was no way of denying it, and he wouldn’t anyway. He was going to do this now, no more waiting for the right moment to tell them. He braced himself for any kind of reaction.
And yet, he wasn’t prepared for James Potter to burst into tears and launch himself onto his bed.
“Where the hell did you go yesterday, all alone? Only you could get attacked by a werewolf at Hogwarts!” he grasped his hands, “we need to hide you from the Ministry. Do you have any idea how they treat werewolves, Remus? No! No, you clearly have no idea.”
“James” he was vaguely aware of Sirius’ voice.
James stood up and started going for the door, then changed his mind and turned back to Remus, “don’t worry Moony, we’re going to figure this out together.”
Remus and Peter could only watch in despair as a very distressed James paced around the room, torn between tears of dramatic desperation and his ever present need to make a plan for anything.
All the while Sirius was following him, trying to stop him, “Prongs-”
“Where’s Madame Pomfrey? She has to swear secrecy — and make sure that you’re actually fine.”
“James.”
“I’ll go get Dumbled-”
“James!” this time Sirius raised his voice, “it didn’t happen yesterday, you moron!”
“What?” that finally stopped him, and he looked at Remus for answers, “he knew?”
“He didn’t know. But it was pretty clear from his reaction, Potter.” everybody turned to the controlled voice coming from the doorstep; Lily Evans’ voice, “do you think he would just sit there, relatively okay, had his life just changed completely forever in the span of one single night? Anyone would have an existential crisis! — no offence, of course” she gave Remus an apologetic look.
Remus was not offended, he just wanted to know what the fuck was going on in his life. “Why are you all here?” he tried again, now for the second time. He was left with no answer.
“Evans?” was all James managed to say while drying his tears with his quidditch jumper’s sleeve.
Peter wouldn’t dare speaking; he was dreadfully pale, so he just took a sit on a chair in the corner and watched the scene.
“Evans, get out, you’re not supposed to be here” Sirius tried to push her out the room, “forget everything you heard!”
“Hey!” she pushed back, “Don’t push me. I knew Remus was a werewolf before all of you.”
“What?!” they all asked in unison. Remus included, because – what?
“You told Evans, but not me?” demanded Sirius, a threatening pout on his face.
“Remus is a werewolf?!” he heard a new voice screaming; it was Marlene, and she was holding Dorcas’ hand. They made an equally scandalized expression.
Remus had had enough. His small infirmary room was filling with too many people and his secret went from, — well, being a secret –– to becoming public domain information for anyone who passed close by.
Five more minutes and the gossip could’ve reached the Slytherins’ dungeons. Six, and the Minister of Magic Himself was knocking down Hogwarts’ doors to arrest Remus and confine him in a filthy cage for eternity. He had to control the emergency this very instant.
He was about to address the situation, he had literally just opened his mouth, when yet another new voice interrupted him. This time, professor McGonagall walked into the room, seizing them all with a glacial stare. Shit.
“Good morning, everyone. May I ask what are you doing in this room? It is reserved to patients only — not to mention that it is seven in the morning, on a Sunday.”
“Yes! Yes. Thank you. That’s what I’m saying.” she raised an eyebrow at Remus, “err — good morning. Professor. I meant.” it was too early for this.
All of his friends quietly said their good mornings to the professor.
Except for Peter.
“Remus is a werewolf!” is what he blurted out from the corner he had taken refugee in. No, he had not run away in fear at the sight of McGonagall. Or Remus. Everybody was now giving him nasty looks. Sirius almost jumped at him, but James restrained him.
Oh, Peter. Never knows what’s the right thing to say. Or the right time to say it.
Knowing Peter, he had no bad intentions at all; he had probably processed what happened with a bit of delay.
“Twenty points from Gryffindor. Choose your words more carefully when you speak about your friends’ private lives, Mr. Pettigrew.”
Peter was visibly mortified, and everyone in the room was even angrier at him now. Not Remus though. Remus was simply too tired to feel any kind of way about anything in the world.
“What is this commotion? Get out of my infirmary, at once!” Madame Pomfrey had finally noticed something was off in her ward,
“Minerva, escort them to their common room, please.” she put her hand in the middle of McGonagall’s back.
“I was doing just that, my– Poppy.” McGonagall patted the nurse’s shoulder awkwardly.
That exchange raised some eyebrows in the room, judging from the subtle glances the students were giving each other. There were rumours going around about the type of relationship between the two women. But most of them kept their heads low and followed McGonagall out of the room.
Of course, Sirius and James weren’t going anywhere.
“We’re not going anywhere.” they confirmed, “Yeah, we’re staying.”
“Mr. Potter, Mr. Black. I was referring to you two as well” Madame Pomfrey, exasperated, had expected the fight from them,
“Remus needs to sleep right now, I won’t let you offend my patient any further.”
“I’m not offended” intervened Remus, finally able to have a say on his own life, “and I don’t need sleep, I need answers.”
“Remus–”
“Please, Madame Pomfrey” he tried to make his voice sound as sweet as possible, he knew she couldn’t say no to him when he used that tone,
“can you let me speak with my friends for five minutes? Just five minutes, it’s- it’s important for me. Please.”
She sighed, “Five minutes” victory
“after that, you are going back to sleep, and these two are heading back to their common room.” that said, she exited the room, her heels hitting the marble floor a background noise in the distance.
“Why did you come here?” Remus immediately started his attack on the two boys, “I remember telling you, on multiple occasions, that I want to stay alone when I’m sick.”
“We tried to stop him Moony, trust me, but he insisted that something had happened to you” tried James.
“I had a bad feeling, Moony” pleaded Sirius.
“You had a nightmare, Pads.”
“You woke me up because you had a nightmare?” Sirius pouted.
He had to look away at the sight, that pout had the power to overwhelm him easily.
“I was worried about you” he replied, genuine.
Remus wasn’t even angry about that any more, he wanted to address the most urgent question. So he did.
“You can’t tell anybody. Well, anybody else” he conceded, annoyed by the fact that so many people now knew his secret against his will, “about what I am, I mean.”
They immediately assured him that they would never tell anyone without his consent. That none of them would, even the others that weren’t with them in the infirmary right now. Remus tried to believe them, even though some part of him was worried about his friends’ temper and impulsiveness; this had led them to take some awful decisions in the past, especially Sirius.
But he could trust them with this, surely. This was a deadly secret, after all.
“So that’s what happens to you every month? That’s why you get so sick…” Sirius said that with something like a sharp pain in his voice, like he was hurting for him.
“Yeah. But it’s alright, it’s not that bad any more” he lied, to reassure them. He could tell none of them believed him.
“When- how long…?”
“Since I was four.” he replied to James’ question as shortly as he could. He hated talking about that night.
“Four… that’s a baby” whispered Sirius, taking a sit next to him on the bed. His face seemed paler than usual; his new-found shade, coupled with his features, reminded him of a Greek sculpture’s marble.
Beautiful. Even in distress. How.
He tried to regain his focus.
“So… you’re okay with that?” the only question that mattered to him,
“you’re not scared of me? Or disgusted?”
He feared the answer to those questions more than anything else in the world; he needed his friends in his life, anything else– he could survive.
“Moony” started James, “of course we’re okay with that, mate. We don’t mind about you being a– werewolf. Are we surprised? Yeah. A little. That’s a big thing. Are we scared or disgusted? Remus. You wear the same jumpers my dad wears, and your favourite food is choccy milk. I can confidently state that no, we’re not scared of you. We’re worried for your health, if anything” he got lost in his thoughts for a moment, then came back, “what I mean is. Remus, we love you. You’re a marauder. You’re our best friend, and we will support you through anything.” he smiled, “Right, Sirius?” he looked at the other boy.
But Sirius’ eyes were fixed on Remus.
During James’ moving speech, he had somehow moved closer to Remus on the bed, and was now staring at– Remus’ lips. Remus panicked internally, but he had no time to ask any other question, because Sirius quickly stopped all the thoughts inside his brain by covering the distance between their faces with a firm kiss. A proper kiss, on his lips.
At first, Remus froze a little, it was so sudden and unexpected.
But not really that unexpected, was it?
They had been dancing around each other for months now, so close to this, but never quite finding the courage to take that first step.
More than a few times they were almost there, but chickened out at the last second. So really, it was about time that one of them took the initiative, and Remus would’ve told him about his lycanthropy sooner, had he known Sirius would’ve reacted this way. He had no problem reciprocating that kiss now, enthusiastically.
But jokes aside, he knew that Sirius kissing him had nothing to do with his lycanthropy, per se. It had everything to do with the intimacy of the moment, with his feelings for Remus, with how much he cared for him.
And Remus was moved by this realisation, it hit him like a wave.
It almost hit him as hard as James was hitting them with a pillow right now, trying to separate them. They stopped the kiss, but were still holding each other.
“WHAT THE FUCK GUYS?”
“Yeah, I knew about that too.” Lily Evans had reappeared on the doorstep at some point.
“Evans?” James voice suddenly went from screaming to barely audible,
“how come you’re here again?”
“I came to check on Remus, after what happened” she looked between Remus and Sirius for a moment smirking, “but I see you reacted well to the news.”
James chocked on air, “HE! He reacted like– that! I reacted in a friendly way.”
“Dunno, Sirius here seemed more friendly to me” Remus couldn’t help himself. Sirius, next to him, snorted.
They watched as poor James turned bright red, once again.
“Oh, get a grip, Potter! I know I wish someone would kiss me like that”
If possible, James turned even more red after that, for the millionth time that day. He had never seen his usually unashamed friend more embarrassed than today.
Lily, smart as she was, had somehow figured it all out on her own. Some things, possibly, even before Remus himself understood them.
No wonder she had the highest marks in Divination.
They were going to survive this one, too. His friends were too nice, they wouldn’t have a problem with Remus’ lycanthropy. Or homosexuality.
They had a lot to learn and to get used to, but they would never treat Remus differently for his identity. This thought reassured him, all the weight on his shoulders dissolved.
He squeezed Sirius’ hand, and Sirius instantly squeezed his back.
They were alright, for now.