A werewolf?
“James Potter” (again)
“Shut up!” Sirius whisper-shouts, while I stumble over my feet because Peter made me laugh. I glance over at Peter and we give a look. “Hey hey hey! I don’t know that look. What does that look mean!” Sirius cries.
I pat him on the back and me and Peter laugh again. He looks at us from the corner of his eye.
“So we’re just going to wait here till madame Pomfrey lets us in in the morning? Couldn’t we just come back later on?” I ask them. This time they share a glance which I don’t understand.
I sigh and we set ourselves on the ground, waiting.
A few hours go by and we’re bored out of our minds. We’re sitting on the ground, and Peter is on my shoulder, sleeping. Sirius is sitting on my other side, head against my shoulder, but still awake.
“What do you think happens with Remus?” Sirius asks me with a small voice. “I don’t know, but he’ll be fine, I know he will!”
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“James, James! Sirius! Wake uppp!!” Peter’s voice rings in my ears. Sirius and me wake with a startle, just in time to see Pomfrey hushing Remus inside.
He’s hunched into himself and there’s a blanket thrown over him. His normally tall posture is tucked in, so not Remus like. We gasp at the same time and stare at each other.
We knew already that he got hurt often, but it’s not normal anymore.
We slip from under James’ cloak and walk to the door to the infirmary. Sirius barges in and we follow behind him.
“Boys! Not now!” Pomfrey shrieks, voice high. “You can wait outside! Or come back in half an hour or so.”
“No,” Sirius and me say in unison, we give each other a look.
We are Not backing down. We need to know what’s going on.
Pomfrey looks at us, shocked that we refused ans then sighs deeply. “Let me check with Lupin first, see if he want to talk to you,”
She closes her eyes and squeezes the bridge of her nose tightly. She turns around and leaves, entering the curtains that are pulled in front of Remus’ bed, hiding him from view.
I can hear the quiet murmering of Pomfrey and then Remus’ voice peaking in. When Pomfrey continues again he raises his voice a little. Pomfrey lets out a deep sigh and comes back out. She shakes her head and my shoulders slump down. But Sirius refuses to back down and Peter is quick to follow him.
“Come on, professor,” I say, “yes please professor,” Sirius whines. “We just want to talk to him,” Peter adds. “I’m sorry boys, but Remus doesn’t want to see you at the moment,” a sad apologetic smile on her lips.
Sirius huffs and tries to barge over to Remus’ bed, but Pomfrey steps between him and the bed. “He said no. You better respect his opinion, Sirius. Now, go have your breakfast and go to your lessons, try and hop in again in the afternoon,” she ends, her tone getting softer at the end.
We all sigh in unison and turn around to leave. Peter a little sad, but Sirius is mad. Sirius mumbles some stuff hnder his breath and clenches and unclenches his fist.
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“Where’s Remus?” Lily asks us, when we enter the great hall. “In the hospital wing,” I answer. She frowns, her eyebrows moving towards each other and it’s cute. “Again?” She questions and Peter shrugs. Sirius sets himself on the bench and starts eating, ignoring all the looks from the people around him. Lily looks up at me with a question in her eyes and I wave it away.
She nods and looks back down at her own food. Mary and Marlene are sitting in front of her, so I sit beside her while Peter sits beside Marlene.
“What were you talking about?” I ask, joining in on their conversation they had before we entered. “The holidays,” Marlene tells us.
Sirius lets out an excasperated sigh and I look at him. “You could come over to mine over the holidays,” I suggest, but he’s shaking his head, before I’ve finished. “I need to go home, my parents are expecting me, plus Regulus probably wants to see me.”
There’s pain jn his voice when he talks about his little brother, scared about might have happened while he was here.
“Well I’m going home too, but Petunia probably won’t be happy to see me,” Lily tells us, looking at Sirius with pitty. She reaches over the table and lays her hand on his. “You’ll be okay, it’s two weeks, we know you’ll be okay,” Lily tells him to try and comfort him. He gives her a small smile, showing her it worked a little and she beams.
It’s adorable, her red hair flies all around her and the light in her eyes shining brightly when the people around her are happy. The freckles on her skin, damped because of the winter, but are still beautiful as ever.
“Now,” Peter starts, stopping my spiral of thoughts, “we need your help with Remus.” “Peter!” Sirius shrieks, kicking him hnder the table harshly. Peter squirms away, but then sits up straighter, “what, Sirius, you don’t know what’s going on do tou. Maybe Lils does, she’s very close with Remus too!” Sirius thinks about these words and then he lets go reluctantly.
“Fine,” he mutters. “What’s going on with Remus?” Mary asks a little worried. “We don’t know, that’s the point,” I tell them, “he has been in the infirmary like four times already and we’ve only been here for four months.”
Mary and Marlene swap confused and worried glances, but Lily looks deep kn thought. “Maybe he’s sick or something,” she tries. “Not possible, he always gets back with bruises,” Sirius interrupts her, a little rudely I find.
“Well then, maybe he just gets into a lot of fights,” she tries again, but she doesn’t sound to convinced. “Remus? No, that’s not it. But wathever it is, Pomfrey knows,” Peter says.
“Maybe we should do some research, maybe we’ll find something there,” Marlene peaks in, we think about it for a while and then nod. “Good idea,” Mary pipes in, “me, Lils and James could go to the library and Marlene, Sirius and Peter could ask about it from some teachers,”
“We have free third period,” I tell them, “we could start then.”
There’s mutters of agreement and then we eat our breakfast in silence.
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“You ready?” Mary asks us. We nod and off we go.
The library is quite close to our lesson we had before so we’re their in no time. “Okay, so you should look at books about magical disappearances,” Lily starts, taking the lead, “and Mary, you can start at the books about wounds and I’m going to look at the magical animals,” we both look at her and she sighs, “I’ve though about it a lot during our lessons and I have a theory, but I hope I’m wrong.”
A little anxious we split up and I’m left alone with my thoughts.
What does Lily thinks is happening to Remus?
Why does she not like it?
My hands grab a book automatically, seen as I’m out of it a little. I open it to a randum page and start reading. There’s nothing really important in here. It’s more about long term dissapearinces, not short ones like Remus’.
It’s also what you can do to find people who have dissapeared, but we donwant to do that.
I sigh and close the book again. I put it back on the shelf where it belongs and grab a new one. This ons isn’t even about dissapearences and I sigh frustratedly.
A sharp gasp makes me jolt up. I walkt through the halls of the library and find Lily standing over a book.
There’s a page open and on the page-.
No.
It can’t be.
I stare up at her face and she stares back up at me, shock, worry and fear plastered on her face. I shake my head, but she nods, her lips in a tight line.
“How do you know for sure?” I ask, hopelessly hoping it’s not true.
Sje waves me over and shows me. “You told me he’s been in their four times in the last four months, that’s once a month. There’s a full moon every month.” I shake my head and my hands are shaking viciously. I’m begging for her to stop talking, but she doesn’t listen. “He comes back with bruises and he has a big scar on his face. He gets a little restless every month before and then he’s in the hospital wing the next day.”
I look up at her and she smiles sadly.
“James, our best friend is a werewolve,”
No.
The image breaks before me and everything that happened with him in the past couple months flash before my eyes.
No.
Remus who’s kind, Remus who helps other children, Remus who’s quiet, Remus who helps with all the pranks and manages to never get caught, Remus who has stoled Sirius heart, even if they both don’t know it yet because they’re too young to know, my Remus, Sirius’ Remus, Peter’s Remus, Lily’s Remus.
No.
I refuse to believe this. Remus is too nice and kind to be a werewolf. “James,” Lily says softly and I look down at her, “Remus is still Remus, you know. It’s not because he’s a werewolf that he’s a bad person all of a sudden. He’s still your best friend and he’s still my best friend, nothing’s changed.”
My eyes are wet and I bet they’re rimmed with red, but Lily is right. Remus is still Remus.
He will still help other people, he’s still kind and funny and quiet and thoughtful. He’s still mine and Sirius’ and Lily’s and Peter’s. He’s still our Remus.
I smile at her and we’re joined by Mary, who lets out a sharp breath when she sees wich page is open. “Is he?” She asks, not believing it. We both nod, “We think so,” I mumble.
She breaths out and sets her shoulders. “Okay, lets go find Sirius and break the news, he better still love Remus or I’ll kill him. You still love Remus right?” She asks, eyeing us suspiciously. “Alright,” she says when we both nod.
Lily puts the book back in it’s place and we head out of the library, we bump on Sirius, Peter and Marlene on the way out. “Oh, hey!” Sirius grins. It seems like all three of them have been laughing. “Found something?” he asks us and when we nod yes, the grin falls off his face.
“Come on,” Lily says pulling him with us.
We go to our dorm and sit in the common room, we sit on the sofa’s and seats scattered in front of the fireplace.
Mary, Lily and me look at each other hesitantly and the others notice. The mood changes immediately and everyone’s nervous.
Lily takes the word and I’m so thankful for her. She tries to bring the news softly, but it doesn’t matter. Sirius immediately refuses to believe it and Peter turns a sick pale color. The only one who seems a little okay is Marlene, her mouth is open in shock, but she seems fine for the rest.
I calm down Sirius and pull him into a hug. “It’s fine, he’s still our Remus,” I mutter. “I know, but do you know what happens to him every full moon? He didn’t tell us and was carrying the pain all by himself.”
“I know, Sirius, I know. But we’ll be with him and all we can do is try to carry some of his pain. But Sirius you need to be ready for him to try and push us away,” I tell him, mumbling it in his hair. “But we won’t let him, will we,” Sirius says, a small smile returning to his face. “No, we won’t,” I smile.
“So Remus is a werewolf?” Peter asks, his voice high as if he’s scared for his life. “He won’t do anything Peter. He’s our Remus.”
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We visit Remus in the hospital wing, but don’t bring up that we know he’s a werewolf, or well we think he is. Sirius forgets all about his madness form that same morning and hugs Remus tightly. I give Remus a hug as well, even though it’s not as overrompelend as Sirius’. Peter stays at his side but doesn’t do anything. His eyes fly everywhere, not daring to look in Remus’ eyes and Sirius looks at him angrily.
Peter his eyes land on mine for a second and linger their, fear in his eyes. I give him a stern look and mutter: “still our Remus.”
Peter relaxes a little bit, considers what he’d been doing and turns bright red of embarrassment. “What?” Remus asks confused. I wave him of and he shrugs, turning back to where Sirius is telling him a story.
Peter then tries to have a talk with Remus, trying to make up for his mistake form earlier, even though Remus doesn’t even know it.
Sirius catches my eye and I can see what he’s thinking. I look back and he understands me too. He shrugs and then tells Remus he brought him some lunch.
Remus’ eyes light up as the food is presented for him. He takes it all in and then starts eating, munching all the food down. It’s gone in record time and Sirius laughs. Remus turns a little red, but then he chuckles and we all join in.
Pomfrey hushes us back out when lessons begin and keeps Remus for a little longer. That’s strange, because normally he’s released in the afternoon.
“How are we going to bring it up to him?” Sirius whines and Peter nods, agreeing with him. “We’ll see, we just need to bring it up at the right time and show him we still love him the same,” I say.
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Remus is released from the infirmary in the late afternoon, when our lessons are just done. We find him in our dorm and we shuffle our feet a little awkwardly. He eyes us up and down and arches an eyebrow in question.
We hesitate and look at each other. “Uh,” Peter begins. “Do you want to stay with me over the holidays?” I ask, because I can feel we’re not ready yet. The Christmas holidays are in two weeks and a half.
Remus opens and closes his mouth and hesitates. “Uhm, sure, but maybe just the first week, I don’t want to intrude.” “You won’t be,” I reassure him and I can see he feels uncomfortable. Sirius nudges me and I move my gaze from Remus to Sirius.
He gives me a look and I breathe in deeply.
The full moon is at the end of the Christmas holidays. “Oh, uh, okay. You don’t need to stay for the two weeks,” I say.
Remus stays for all the holidays most of the time, because he would have to go back to the orphanage. Sirius isn’t allowed to stay, he’s expected home and Peter is also expected to come home because his mother misses him. I could stay behind, but it seems nicer that he experiences a Potter’s Christmas.
The anxiety leaves his face as soon as I tell him he doesn’t need to stay the second week. “I might be able to stay a few days of the second week though,” he tells me.
“That’s good, Peter will come visit too,” I tell him happily. Then the mood takes a drastic swing as we stare at Sirius apologetic. He shrugs, “it’s fine, I’ll see Reggie again. I hope they weren’t too hard on him,” he tells us, his face turning into one of pain when he imagines what they might’ve done to Regulus.
“He’ll be fine Sirius,” I tell him, pulling him into a tight hug. He sinks into it, hugging me back tightly.
“He’s just so small,” he begins in a small voice, “he doesn’t dare to say anything to our parents.”
Sirius sounds so small, so scared, so un-Sirius-like.
I glance at Peter and Remus over his shoulder and our faces are plastered with worry. “He’ll be okay,” I mutter in his hair.
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The rest of the month pass by quickly and soon the lessons end with our teachers wishing us a nice Christmas holiday.
“You ready?” I ask Remus when we’re sitting in the Hogwarts express on our way home. He nods and I smile at him softly.
The train stops and we walk out. We all give Sirius long hugs one after the other. “We’ll see you in two weeks,” I mumble in his ear, when I hug him lastly. He gives me a small, reassuring smile and turns on his heels, his parents didn’t show up. Instead his elf, Kreacher, is waiting on him.
Remus and me say our goodbyes to Peter and he tells us we can expect him in a few days. “Lets go,”
My parents are waiting on us impatiently and a giant smile beams up on their faces when their eyes land on me. I sprint away, leaving Remus behind for a minute and jump in their arms. They laugh and then eye Remus behind me. “So you’re Remus? Welcome to the family,” my dad says and Remus’ face turns bright pink.
They bring us home and Remus stares at Potter manor in awe and shock, his mouth hanging open. “Welcome, to Potter Manor,” I whisper in his ear.