New Scars
Their detention happened Monday afternoon - cleaning potion cauldrons in the dungeon - and Tuesday afternoon he spent studying with Sirius and Peter who wanted help in Charms. Tuesday night, Remus joined the trio sneaking out after curfew and hiding dung bombs in the dungeons and select hallways, just like Sirius wanted because when does Sirius not get what he wants?
The Wednesday after Hogsmeade, however, is the full moon.
-
Remus wakes up groggy. Early morning light pours through the infirmary windows, causing a low groan from him.
“Good, you’re up Mr. Lupin,” Madam Pomfrey says from beside Remus’s bed. “Can you sit up?”
Remus tries and winces, his whole left side screaming in pain. “Bloody hell,” he pants.
Madam Pomfrey shakes her head, ignoring the profanity. “Don’t push yourself. Let the potions take effect.”
Remus nods and takes a deep breath. Even that hurts. “How bad is it this time?”
Madam Pomfrey simply reorganizes his pillows and blankets. Remus frowns; she’s always been very honest about his condition, never avoiding the subject like she is now. “Madam Pomfrey?”
“You’ll have some new scars,” she admits gently.
Werewolf claws. Even her healing magic can’t avoid scarring from magical wounds like werewolf scratches.
“That’s nothing new, so why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
Madam Pomfrey purses her lips and hands Remus a hand mirror from the bedside table. “It’s a bit more complicated than previous times.”
Remus’s eyes widen, scanning the face in the mirror. His face. His green eyes are bloodshot from a restless. His sandy brown hair askew from sleeping. That’s his face looking back at him.
Except now that face includes a pink, fresh scar cutting down his cheek and across his nose.
Every other scar he has can be covered up. Over-sized turtleneck jumpers that cover his hands and long trousers to cover even his ankles; his wardrobe is specifically designed to hide all his imperfections and the huge secret others might find if those imperfections were seen.
But nothing can be done to cover up this very major imperfection from everyone’s attention.
The infirmary doors bang open. Both Remus and Pomfrey look towards the door, blocked by Remus’s closed privacy screen.
“Let me see who that is. You rest, okay? We’ll figure out the rest from there,” Madam Pomfrey says, taking the mirror away before walking away.
Remus numbly lays there, blocking out the sounds around him. He can’t hide what happens to him anymore. The wolf is getting too strong, stronger than Remus himself. He knew it was only a matter of time, but now that it’s here, Remus struggles to accept it.
People will ask questions. They’ll whisper. It is only a matter of time before someone marks the monthly pattern and realizes exactly what lingers in the hallways of Hogwarts.
“-want to see him!”
“Mr. Black, get away from there!”
Remus jumps slightly when his privacy screen gets pulled open, revealing Sirius Black, obviously concerned and out of breath, and a very pissed-off Madam Pomfrey.
“Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin needs rest-”
Remus raises a hand slowly, not taking his eyes off Sirius. Granted, Sirius has not stopped staring at him either. “It’s alright. He’s already here anyways.”
She looks ready to protest, but Remus gives her an ‘I-can-handle-this’ nod and she relents, making herself scarce.
Remus lifts himself to a sitting position, trying not to wince too bad at the sore muscles and bones. “What are you doing here, Black?”
Sirius laughs tensely. “Back to last names are we, Lupin?” Sirius sits in the never-before-occupied chair beside his bed and hesitates. “You didn’t eat dinner with us yesterday. You also didn’t come to the dorm last night. I got worried.”
“I, uh, fell,” Remus offers lamely.
For some reason, Sirius’s face reddens. When he speaks, his tone is harsh.“You fell? Seriously, that’s what you go with?”
Remus frowns. It seemed like a pretty reasonable excuse. Better than the truth. “What’s your problem? What does it matter what happened? I didn’t make it back to the dorm last night because I was stuck in here all night.”
“Really? You got here before dinner yesterday?”
Remus rolls his eyes. “Yes. Where else would I have been?”
Sirius shakes his head, his face getting redder with anger. “You weren’t here yesterday, because I snuck in here after curfew and every bed was empty.”
Shit. Of course, Sirius Black is the one person to notice his missing appearance and is one of the only people with such reckless dismissal of rules to do something about it, not to mention equipped with James’s invisibility cloak. Remus stills, thinking through his options.
Keep the secret safe. That’s his only goal.
“I don’t-”
“I’m not stupid, Remus. I know that the only injuries magic can’t heal are magical injuries.” Sirius gestures at the werewolf claw-mark scar. “You didn’t get that because you fell. It would have had to be a curse or magical creature-” Sirius stops in his tracks. “The full moon.”
Remus’s heart races, pounding in his ears, even as he manages a calm composure. “What are you talking about?”
Sirius stands up, pacing at the end of Remus’s bed. “In astrology, we’re talking about the moon’s phases right now. Last night was a full moon.” Sirius slows, counting in his head. “And last month, when you got sick for a few days, that was during the full moon too.”
Remus tries to choke out a laugh. “Sirius, you’re talking nonsense. You don’t even pay attention in astrology.”
“Shush, it’s all making sense now. All the disappearances, the unsigned note for Hogsmeade, the self-alienation, all those horrible jumpers. You’re a wer-”
“Don’t,” Remus nearly shouts. Sirius stops pacing, looking up at the other boy curiously. As if he doesn’t understand the line he’s crossing right now. “Don’t say it out loud. Please.”
Sirius returns back to his chair and sits. They're so close now, just a couple of feet. “Why not?”
Remus scoffs. Fucking cat’s out of the bag. “Because it’s true. Because the school will find out and then I will be kicked out of school. Because I’m a monster, a monstrosity.”
Sirius reaches out a hand but pulls it away quickly. “This is who you are, Remus. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can’t change it by torturing yourself. Trust me.”
Remus shakes his head, blinking away warm tears. “‘Nothing to be ashamed of.’ You won’t even touch me.”
Sirius raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t touch you because your whole arm is covered in bandages and I didn’t want to hurt you,” Sirius explains gently, a hint of a smile on his face.
Remus looks down at his arm in surprise. Sure enough, white bandages are wrapped from his shoulder to his wrist on the side that Sirius is on. He didn’t notice until now. It seems like such a small thing in comparison.
“So can I get the truth about what happened?”
“Seems you already know.”
“Well, yeah okay it was a full moon. Did you fight another werewolf in the woods? Did you win?”
Sirius definitely should not look as excited about that possibility as he does. “No, no, just me.”
That shocked him a bit. “You mean, you did this to yourself?”
Remus shrugs a bit. “The wolf can be… He gets angry and restless when he’s locked up. I usually wake up worse for wear the next day.”
“So why lock you up? If this is the consequence, why not let you roam the Forbidden Forest?”
Remus looks at him expectantly. “Really? Sirius, last night you broke curfew and snuck down here. What if you went outside to look for me? Or two students decided to rendezvous at the edge of the forest for a private makeout session? The wolf is not me. I would kill you, any person that I cross, and not even remember it the next morning.” Remus takes a deep breath. Just the thought of the possibility of killing someone in that way made him nauseous. “Or even worse, I could infect you.”
Sirius nods, as if this whole situation isn’t bothersome in the least. “You’re right, I didn’t think of it like that.” Sirius watches Remus, who lets the dark-haired boy finish sorting his thoughts. “I won’t tell anyone, of course.”
Remus relaxes his muscles he didn’t realize he was tensing. “Thank you.”
“But don’t hide from me. I don’t care that you’re a werewolf, you’re my friend. And James and Petter wouldn’t care either, but I’ll let you decide if you want to share with them.”
Remus nods slightly, leaning back in the bed. His body really does hurt.
They sit through a few minutes of comfortable silence. “Can you answer something honestly?”
Sirius raises an eyebrow. “Honest is my middle name.”
Remus would have rolled his eyes if he didn’t feel so anxious. “Is the scar bad? On my face?”
Sirius traces the scar with his eyes, a smile growing on his lips. “It makes you look pretty badass, actually.”
-
Remus walks out of the infirmary Saturday morning as breakfast is served. But instead of joining the rest of the school in the Great Hall, he limps slowly to the Gryffindor dorms. Madam Pomfrey told him to take it easy and not strain himself, but the full moon happened on a Wednesday, which means he has two days of classes to catch up on. Thank God it’s Saturday and he has the entire day to work on assignments.
He doesn’t admit to himself that he’s also trying to hide the still-pink scar from the rest of the school for as long as possible.
Before Remus opens the dorm door, he smells Sirius. Forest pine and the almost floral aroma of his favorite cologne. Remus sniffs in quietly but doesn’t smell anyone else in the room.
He wishes he could go down to the common room and work on assignments he won’t need books for, or to the library to research for the upcoming history essay. Unfortunately, he can’t avoid Sirius forever and it’s probably better to face him alone instead of with an audience.
Remus strides right to his bedside table, sorting through the books towering on top of it. He doesn’t bother glancing around the room. He can hear that Sirius is at his own bed on the opposite side of the room and that he stopped moving the second Remus opened the door.
The silence felt too heavy. “Why aren’t you at breakfast with the others, Sirius?”
“How’d you know it was me? You couldn’t even see me!”
“Your smell,” Remus answers honestly. He looks up to see Sirius’s confused face. “You do know that wer- I have an increased sense of smell and hearing? That’s not saying much, though. I think the Hufflepuffs might be able to smell that cologne in their common room.”
“My cologne is amazing and you know it.” Sirius grins goofily. He hands Remus a stack of parchment. “Here, the notes and assignments from class.”
Remus hesitates as he takes the stack. “What- I don’t understand.”
Sirius plops down on Remus’s bed and leans back. Remus tries not to think about how his stomach does a somersault for some reason. “Well, I made sure to take notes in class so you can rewrite them with your weird organization that I don’t understand. Except,” Sirius grimaces slightly, “I fell asleep in history both days, but James took pretty good notes. Those are in there too. He says he’ll need them back tomorrow because he and Lily are studying together, that simp.” Sirius rolls his eyes. “The only time James will study is if he thinks it’ll impress that poor girl.”
Remus stands there in shock. Sirius, who knows his darkest secret, had organized all of this himself. Sirius, who never takes notes in class, made an effort just so Remus could have an easier time. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you, Sirius.”
Sirius smiles widely and wriggles his eyebrows. “I’m awesome. It’s okay, you can say it.”
Remus smacks him with the parchment. “Don’t you have your own bed you can roll around in like a dog?”
“Yeah, but yours is so much comfier.”
Remus laughs softly and grabs the books from the bedside table that he needs. “Come on, you wanker, I’m going to study downstairs. I’ll let you choose the record.”
Sirius ends up putting on some ACDC record that Remus doesn’t know as he walks to the table in the corner of the empty common room.
“Are you limping?”
Remus winces and tries to straighten his posture. “Probably. My joints they’re, uh, sore from last night.”
Sirius doesn’t respond, so Remus takes the opportunity to sit, stretching out his legs under the table.
“Is it painful?”
Remus rolls his eyes. “What? The moon or the day after?”
“Either? Both?”
“Oh no, it feels like walking on clouds and flying through fields of sunflowers,” Remus sneers, finding his temper still on a short fuse from the moon.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine,” Sirius says, pulling out his own notes to study, “but don’t be hateful when I’m just- I’m trying to understand.”
Remus stays silent for a minute. He wants to bite back, to say that no one can understand, especially some pureblooded heir with no problems to deal with. But the logical side of Remus knows Sirius is honestly trying. And maybe he needs to stop bottling everything up inside all the time.
“You’re right. Sorry, my temper is usually bad around the full moon.” Remus taps a finger on the table, thinking through the next part. “The transformations are hard to describe, even if I wanted to. I can tell you that my joints dislocate, which is why I have such bad pain afterward. Then I have to deal with whatever injuries I have, such as…” Remus gestures to the fresh pink scar on his face.
Sirius looks at him without an ounce of pity in his eyes. He could kiss him just for that. “I guess I didn’t think about… I guess I thought it just was like, poof, werewolf.” Remus cringes at the word. “Like transfiguration; there’s not a long process the transfigured item has to go through, it just happens.”
“Well, it’s not. It’s a process, and I usually blackout before it’s over.”
“Blackout?! For how long?”
“‘Til morning. Dawn usually, if I’m not too banged up.”
“So you don’t remember any time as a werewolf?”
Remus looks up to the ceiling and takes a deep breath. Strangling him wouldn’t help anything, he tries to reason with himself. “Okay, I know we’re alone, but can you please stop using that word? No, I don’t remember anything and I don’t want to. It helps me believe I’m a normal teenager during the month.”
Sirius nods. “Okay.” He flips over a few of his notes. “So Slughorn mentioned something about-” And just like that, Sirius Black changes the subject, as if realizing that Remus couldn’t bear talking about this subject anymore.
They slip easily into their little routine, Remus copying the notes he missed while Sirius reads his texts, asking questions every few minutes. It’s peaceful and calming. A sense of normality.
Is this what it’s like to have a friend? Someone who knows the darkest facts about you, but continues to stand by your side?
Sirius knows he’s a dangerous, dark creature, but still looks relaxed sitting in such close quarters with him. As if it doesn’t matter.
“Remus, you’re staring.”
Remus jumps from his thoughts. His cheeks heat up slightly. “Sorry, lost in thought, I guess.”
“No problem,” Sirius says politely, focusing back on his notes. “Is there anything about me you’d like to know?”
Remus blinks slowly. “What?”
“Well, I know something pretty big about you that no one else knows. We can make it an even playing ground.”
“Oh please, Black,” Remus shakes his head, “as if you have things that you’ve kept secret from everyone. I’m sure Potter and Pettigrew know everything about you.”
“They don’t know that I’m bisexual.”
Remus freezes, his heart hammering in his chest. “Wait- you-”
“Like dick?” Sirius offers. He picks at the feathers on his fancy quill. “Yeah. I realized last summer, but… I don’t think James would judge me, but what if it changes his view of me? And I’ve heard Peter say some things about poofs, but I think he’s just repeating after others and not really meaning it, but what if I’m wrong? I have to share a dorm with them and I couldn’t stand it if they started treating me different.”
Remus doesn’t know a lot about homosexuality, even less about bisexuality, but he knows the taboo it has, the comments and slurs he hears both at home and in the hallways, and the articles in the papers about the indecency of it. It must be a scary thing to hear the same things and know that they’re talking about you.
Remus stretches out a hand and stops his friend - because that is certainly what Sirius has become - from completely destroying his quill. “Hey, thank you. For telling me. I know that wasn’t easy.”
Sirius looks up with those eyes so beautiful that it should be illegal. He gives a lopsided grin. “Now we both know each other's darkest secrets.”