Sins Sing
The halls feel like a stranger.
Hogwarts feels foreign like a place he’s never been before. Never acquainted, lived, loved, or laughed. It doesn’t feel like home. it doesn’t feel like anything. Remus doesn’t feel anything; he’s numb and empty. He walls the halls like some of the mute ghosts, riddled with horrors from the past life. Clinging to their bodies and now allowing them to move on.
Remus hasn’t felt whole since that day. He can feel the searing pain that had been unlike any other transformation. The taste of blood in the air and the blood-curdling shrieks were nothing compared to the ones in his head. He barely feels like himself anymore, like half was contorted and lost. Nothing feels right anymore, everything is shifted half off the line where it should be—what it once was. He walks around like a living corpse, barely alive enough to feel anything.
But when he does it’s taking half of his soul with it. He’s so fractured and so angry he doesn't know what to do with himself. He grieves and he’s furious and he’s so consumed there’s barely anything else he thinks off. he relives the moment over and over, flashes of the blood soaking the floors when he wakes. The silver chains around his body hold him back, the remainder of that searing pain lingering.
He thinks of how he hates everything, hates the reality in which he’s living day in and day out. He hates that something so good was destroyed. And after the pain, the crippling ache that follows him everywhere. He’s left with unmistakable rage. That Sirius—that he did this to him, created him into a monster that Remus always knew he was. Made him into a true monster, with blood on his hand, nearly death too.
And that anger is contained through his body spreading everywhere until he can’t think of anything else. His hands shaking and his mind scrambling to try to comprehend this rage.
Nothing's right and maybe that's what bothers him the most.
James and Peter can pretend but they know good as well, just as Remus does that nothing is right. Sirius is James’s brother so far past just a friend and even Peter needs Sirius to live in these dynamics.
But as hurt as he is, the only outward emotion is rage. Shaking and silent harboring it like a beast. The things he thinks—the things he dreams of acting on. The urges are what truly make him a beast. Sure, his anger stemmed from hurt, the worst type of betrayal. But the anger is turning him rampant and that’s what truly makes him a monster.
He wants to punish Sirius, he wants Sirius to hurt. The same agonizing pain he has felt every day since. He wasn’t given any salvation when he was turned into a beast. When he chased Severus through the grounds of Hogwarts intent on killing him. Wanting to kill him. Craving the taste of his blood. Among them, all those are the thoughts that haunt him, the enormous desire.
There is no salvation in that, why should there be for Sirius?
Remus snaps out of his crazed dazing filled with thoughts that probably make him sick and twisted. He looks around the library watching to see if anyone caught that. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees it empty. It’s early morning but he’s here who’s to say someone else wouldn't be?
He does that a lot. Finds himself alone in the library, or the infirmary. There’s an old alcove in the back of the infirmary, a secret passage coming up from the floor below that allows him to go in and out as he pleases. Remus isn’t sure if it’s from the first war or what devastation caused the wreckage. But there’s a balcony half decimated looking over the shrieking shack and the grounds around.
Remus likes it and finds it cathartic to look down at the one place he’s imprisoned in one night a month. He no longer roams the ground, although he was never supposed to. It had been Sirius’s idea. But the accommodations are different now. The shrieking shack is now charmed; he couldn't get out even if he wanted to. But he’s also locked in an iron cage that he locks himself into. McGonagall did it one month saying she needed to be able to know for herself. She lasted one night and never did it again.
It must be as horrifying to watch as it is to transform.
He’s alone. Peter and James wander outside all night, and Moony can smell it. But they don’t come inside. They try but Remus doesn't let him. He almost killed Severus and them and he will not risk that again.
Ever.
He’s turned bitter and cold and there’s no room in his pitiful heart to care. Everything is a pathetic mess and it’s truly laughable. Their dorm is the biggest shit show, he goes in there to sleep and Sirius avoids it. He comes in at odd times of the morning drunk and drugged.
That—Remus admits, that gets to him. Sirius drowning his pain in alcohol and drugs, the shattered look on his face as he slinks in. But he won’t admit that, he doesn’t have it in him.
He’s not strong enough.
James and Peter hang around but he admits his company isn't pleasant. Lily is around more but she knows better to talk to him. She and James seem closer and the idiot doesn't even have it in him to even seem excited about it.
He pages through a book—the only book he finds himself reading. A personal journal from a lycanthropist during the years before the war, and Voldemort himself. He found it half ripped up hanging off the shelf of the restricted section, but the book wasn’t charmed. He took it with ease.
He lingered on one page, stained and worn thin as his fingers traced over the words.
Pain surrenders, it breaks the mouth of the strongest and opens the mouth of the weakest. Pain makes the canary sing. In my life, anonymous letters I have subjected myself to in hopes of lightening the stigma around people like me. They all ask one thing. Everyone asks about the pain, the unimaginable, unthinkable pain I survive month after month. Yet the pain is the last thing I think of. Their lips curl up as I tell them, I’ve gone through this curse too long to lie anymore. I tell them how my skin splits, my bones crack and shatter. I tell them how I cry out and wish to die and how the monster is inside of me. The beast puts me back together once more. Yet what I never tell them is how he is his being. His thoughts press against mine overwhelming mine. For that one day, every month he runs rampant. I'm not a crazed man and I know when to stop so I never tell them how the wolf devours anything it can. Mice, rabbits, deer, anything with a warm pulse. How I threw up everything the monster ate. The first thing they think of is the pain swarming in my body. But all I think of is how that's my punishment. Sins cannot go without punishment.
Remus breathes the words as he writes them. He lives the words like it’s’ the closest truth he has ever found. He’s read the journal over and over every time finding something new to awe in. Something new to feel in the pits of his heart as his own.
The floor creaks and he snaps the book close and whips his head around. A wave of red fills his vision.
Lily.
“ Shit” she curses under her breath quietly and looks up from the floor, her green eyes infamously guilty. She picks up the book that dropped to the floor and stands there with a half grimace half smile.
“ Here” she waved.
“ What are you doing here?” he bristled. If he knew better it seemed like she was spying on him. He didn’t need to be spied on, he didn’t need to be looked over and mothered.
He had one back in Wales, he didn’t desire another.
“ Can I help you?” he asked, tucking the book back into his robes, he was already dressed. The quicker he got out of the dorms the better he didn’t want to see Sirius slink back in. He didn’t want to see Sirius at all.
Because when the anger faded he didn’t even want to linger over the emotion then. She flinched at his tone but didn’t turn and run, she was better than James in that sense. James did not discuss it with him and he knew why, no matter how angry he was. How much he sided with Remus, Sirius was his brother and this pained him. And as angry as he was he didn’t want to cause pain to James. “ That might work with Peter and James Remus but it won’t with me so you can try again if you want,” she said her hand migrating to her hip.
“ I’ll fix it then,” he said standing up and walking past her, but before he walked away she grabbed the cuff of his robes. He turned back, not yet ripping his arm away because she wasn’t strong enough to hold him.
Green met brown.
“ You’re hurting, angry, whatever emotion you want to feel because it’s your right. But I also know whether you like it or not. You love him, he’s family” she said as he moved to pull away. “ He’s an idiot and he’s hurt you and he's done something unimaginable but don't think you’re alone in this. Your friends have sided with you, they care enough about you to condemn Sirius. That's not nothing for James' ' her voice broke. “ For him, you know that's not nothing.”
He stared at her almost not believing the guilt trip she was giving. He scoffed “If you care for Jame’s wellbeing so much, maybe go up there and apologize for the years he pinned you over and you called him an arrogant ass. Don’t talk to me about this again Lily.”
He pushed past her leaving her there. He didn’t talk about this with anyone, especially not her. If she wanted to come to his defense she could at least try it with someone else.
He didn’t have room for anyone else's emotion, barleys had enough for his own.
He was drowning and a part of him wanted to let go and drown. He was a pathetic idiot for thinking a monster like him could have it. A family and friends. He didn't deserve this and this was just his karma.
There was no happy ending for people like him.
Atlas Wallace was caught and killed by the ministry in 1801, the writer of the book in his robe.
All people like him died.
…
Sirius looked like death, ghostly pale in a way he didn’t remember. Not just pale in his usual likeness but pale gray with hues of green. He looked like he was teetering on the verge of death. And it sank a stone in his stomach no matter how much he hated that.
His hair was half tossed up with his wand, coated with a sheen of grease that was a far cry from his usual shiny hair that showed health not grime. He limited any sight of Sirius he got but transfiguration was the one class it was unavoidable not that it stopped Sirius from not attending.
He was here today.
He sat in his spot next to James but chose not to sit next to him, stead Peter sat in the middle instead of the side. Every one of them is stiff with uncomfortable. He turned his body towards the aisle, his face cradled in his hand as he stared off and listened to the soft lectures of Professor McGonagall.
He didn’t turn and look, he didn’t even peak. He averted his gaze and felt his heart fracture that much more. His mind was sound in his feelings—his anger. But something in his body called to it, Sirius’s presence had been normal. His presence was like soft security and that didn’t just stop. But he ignored it, he had to.
He could feel Sirius looking, that's much of what he did, just stared off with this blank empty expression. No more were the days of bright and lively smiles. Just dark blank faces that were void of any emotion.
James nudged his shoulder to get his attention as he turned back around. “ You ok?” He asked.
He nodded. What the hell would he say otherwise?
When class ended he was the first one out the doors, no longer waiting in the back until Siirus scrambled to pack up all the parchment he eventually crumpled up and shoved in his bag. He walked out of the room as fast as he could, turning down the corridor to the right with no destination in mind. There was a time when life seemed unimaginable without the routine he had for the last four years.
Now he barely recalled what it felt like. He had the memories- he held onto those. But the feeling is tied to them. Maybe Remus was too numb to recall those memories and feel emotion so strongly it would bring something back. He was a shell that was cracking.
With his bag slung over his shoulder, he trudged through the halls, even Hogwarts seemed to be feeling his moods. The stone, seeming dull and dusty like the castle itself, was slowly crumbling. He didn’t even bother holding onto his wand, thrown in his bag.
Magic was everything and suddenly everything seemed so obsolete.
“ Remus” a voice yelled, a low desperate cry for a voice. Stopping him in his tracks as something like sickness filled his stomach. His knees locked and his eyes lowered to the ground.
He knew it was Sirius before he said another word, and knew how his name sounded in his mouth. Could feel his stealthy presence only intensified by Padfoot. Could hear his light clobbering footsteps and the smell of mahogany and smoke. Which smelled more like dirt and sweat but the essence that Sirius wore still lingered if only under the grime and liquor Sirius consumed.
But he didn’t turn around, his body simply didn’t allow him to. Like somehow his body knew how harmful this was to him. His mind knew, his body knew, and they all screamed at him to run away. To turn the corner and not look back but his heart had him frozen.
“ Can you just give me a second?” Sirius pleaded, his words coming out in a shy chopped-up tone. He paused for a moment before continuing with what Remus presumed was guilt.
Damn right, he thought bitterly. He didn't know what he wanted from Sirius, maybe it was just as simple as acknowledging what he did to him. What he created, but then again he had been a monster all along. This was just the first time he had blood on his hand. This was the first markup to prove how dangerous he was. No matter what, once a month for an entire night he turned into a beast. A foul blood-curdling monstrous creation.
His entire body bristled as he turned his body around, and when he did so he immediately regretted it. Sirius was crumpled, that was the only way he could describe that. Sirius sunk over hair tied up in an attempt to hide how greasy it was. His eyeballs were purple and dark. His skin made him look dead and he looked so entirely pitiful and small it sank something in his stomach.
“ What” the word is crash and immediately upon impact Sirius winces as if he’s been struck across the cheek. His blood-red lip quivered as he opened his mouth to speak. His arms tremble with nerves and anger but his heart has been shattered into two. Remus realizes there is a bloody disease together, killing each other bit by bit. Needing each other. They’re going to kill each other he decides, for any other end seems too soft for them.
Under the love friendship, and yearning they had always been the most vicious. Their fights were unlike any other, they’re words got hot and cruel aimed to wound. They’d had plenty of drunk or angry brawls, unlike James who refused to hit Sirius back. Together it was kerosene and fire.
Sirius lifts his head. “ We don’t talk anymore” he gnaws at the side of his cheek nervously waiting to decide if he will storm away or scream bloody. This is a Sirius he doesn’t see often, soft and meek. It makes his blood boil, it’s flipped poor Sirius and monster Remus.
Always a monster, always a beast. He bites his tongue trying to allow Sirius to say his entire peace before his patience wears thin. His nails dig into the palm of his hand, a nice pain that distracts him from everything for a split second.
Sirius shrugs his shoulder and signs a mighty sigh wrecking his small frame. “ I don't know what to do. I try and you ignore me. So just tell me because—am I going home and never speaking to you again? Is this it? I fucked up royally and I know it’s my fault fuck! I’m on the verge of expulsion, don't know if I’ll ever come next year. That's enough Remus I just need to know.”
Remus heard him, his whole speech that was probably better when he rehearsed it in their dorm. But his ear caught onto one word. Expulsion. They had gone over this, unless Snape pressed the board Sirius was fine to stay. With months of detention and strict rules on off-campus activity. Remus hadn’t pressed charges and hadn't caught justice. Out of everything he thought that was passed him.
“ You’re not going anywhere and neither am I. We aren’t friends and you aren’t my mate. We share Pete and James and that's it. I’ll ask McGonagall about the expulsion or Snape '' he signed, turning his shoulder and not watching Sirius’s face as he left. The words burned into his head and he ignored the tear that dripped down his cheek as he got further down the corridor. Plenty of things Remus was trying to ignore.
Sirius for one, the fact he almost killed Snape, his damp existence, and the upcoming summer. Summer wasn’t a good time, not unless Sirius somehow snuck or convinced his parents to go to Potter Manor. But that was rare, especially now. Sirius was on a spiral, and a month away from returning home. Remus knew how impulsive he had become, how careless, and he didn’t see that as being good for returning home. The thought of what ifs, what he had seen them capable already. What a mother and father had done to their sons didn’t go over his head. It was pressed in his memories.
This summer was different, he was dreading going home. To his father who had heard how true of a monster his son was. His mother could barely keep her hands still when looking at him. He looked forward to months in a mental cage, chained down. Nowhere to run, or exert the pain into energy. Nothing. He had to sit in the shed in his backyard so heavily charmed it’d kill him if he ever managed to get out.
Maybe he and Sirius aren’t so different he thinks, as he slips into bed. Maybe summer will kill them both and maybe then they both can be free.