When the Werewolf Comes Out of the Shrieking Shack, It's All Over

The dream was lucid this time. For the past few months it had been hazy around the edges, like someone had taken an eraser to the lines of the sky and trees. The setting was the same: The forest near his parents' home. A full moon, still pale against the summer evening sky. The clearing in the center of the woods. His father's dark blue robes. A basket of food. As with all his dreams, Remus couldn't smell anything, but he didn't need to. In the waking world, the scent of fresh grass and pine needles, especially when the night was hot and humid, always drove a spike of terror through him.

In the dream, the wolf was simply there. He never saw it approaching. As it drew closer, Remus's legs froze in place. He loved dogs, cats, rabbits, animals of any kind, and wanted to know more about this one. It was strange and dangerous and silenced the life around it. He stepped forward, even though instinct told him he shouldn't.

"Remus!"

The voice never changed, either. It was always his father, panicked.

"Remus!"

He wanted to touch the animal, overwhelmed by its radiant energy. When it moved in front of him, it blocked the full moon, and the light caught the edges of its fur. Its eyes were yellow, but the color was uneven, mottled. The steamy heat of the werewolf's breath enveloped Remus's fingers as he reached forward.

The dream always spared Remus the pain of the initial bite, even though he could look down and see the werewolf's jaws on his thigh. Here he was numb, immune to pain. When his father arrived, wand brandished, chasing the werewolf, his leg only felt lighter for what had just happened. Remus knew he should feel pain, the kind of pain so sharp it rendered him unconscious. He had to be in pain. There was blood everywhere, his blood, on his trousers, on the grass, on the werewolf's teeth as it drew back from the curse thrown by his father. In the slow hours just before the full moon rose every month, he mused that his body's natural defenses must have blocked the moment he was bitten, everything from the look of the wolf to the pain of the wound in his leg. Though he never told anyone, especially not Sirius and James, he sometimes sat quietly in a candlelit room -- naked, legs folded, in a semi-meditation -- on the night of the new moon. On those nights, he relaxed his mind and tried to recall the elusive minute that changed his life, but nothing ever came except in the dream.

Remus never had the dream when the moon wasn't full. And it wasn't true what all the other kids said about dreams. It wasn't true that if you died in your dream, that if you hit the ground after the long fall, or if the weight of your legs became too much to bear and you couldn't run from the monster that chased you, you would never wake. What he never bothered to clarify was that sometimes, waking from the lethal dream was worse than the either the cliff or the monster.

Dreams, Remus knew, were where the impossible happened. His dreams couldn't reverse his lycanthropy, because it had been a part of his life for so long he didn't remember how to exist without it. What the dream did reverse was what happened after his father rescued him. The theme had variations. Sometimes his father looked down, shook his head, and left Remus sitting on the red-stained grass. Sometimes he cried over Remus's body while Remus shouted, "I'm not dead! I'm not dead!" Sometimes he lectured Remus for running away from him and getting bitten by the werewolf while Remus bled to death as the sky turned gray with the sunrise. But always, always, his father abandoned him.

He knew nothing of the sort had happened. He knew from the stories his father had picked him up and carried him home, where a Healer was summoned. Remus knew he spent months in St. Mungo's Hospital with at least one of his parents at his bedside at all times. Still, as he did this morning, he always woke in a panic. While his waking thoughts on the first morning of the waning moon used to be of his parents, now they were of Sirius, James, and Peter, his family at Hogwarts.

*~*

Remus groaned as he opened his eyes. He hadn't felt this weary the morning after the full moon since last summer. His bones felt like lead and he'd been grinding his teeth in his sleep. New scabs were woven tight on his skin. He didn't remember any of last night, and that didn't surprise him. The dream always erased anything that may have happened the night before, like his memory was a clock the dream reset. When he lifted his arm and saw his own tooth and nail marks, though, he knew something had gone terribly wrong between the time Madam Pomfrey left him at the Shrieking Shack and when she came to retrieve him at sunrise. He never harmed himself anymore, not since Sirius, James, and Peter had mastered their Animagus transformations. If he was hurt, it meant they hadn't been there. They had never missed the full moon before. Something had to be very, very wrong.

"Moony, you're awake."

Turning toward the sound, he saw Peter sitting in a chair by his bedside. Peter looked pale and slightly green, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Remus was used to finding one or more of his three friends by his side when he woke after the full moon, but none of them had ever looked so worn before. That was strange, he thought. If they hadn't been with him the night before, what had they done that Peter looked so tired, even sick?

"Hey." Remus's throat felt thick and dry.

"Here. Drink this." Peter offered him a glass of water and stood to help him sit up. Secretly, Remus was glad Peter was there, and alone. Peter's quiet nature, more like his own, was a comfort after a night that left him disoriented and aching. Sirius and James always meant well, always did whatever they could to cheer him up, but this morning, he wasn't really in the mood for their boisterousness. His bed in the hospital wing wasn't anywhere near as comfortable as his bed in Gryffindor, and he wanted to leave but knew he couldn't.

"Thanks." The cool water had a sweet aftertaste, and Remus suspected Madam Pomfrey had put something in it to dull his pain. "I hurt." He leaned back against his pillows and Peter sat again, resting his elbows at the edge of the bed.

"I know. I'm sorry." Peter looked down, twisting a pinch of the blanket between his fingers. "I'm so sorry." It was barely more than a whisper.

"It's okay, I... Wait. What are you sorry for? Did something happen? Is everyone all right?"

"Yes. No." A pause. "Well, almost." Remus hadn't seen Peter this ill at ease in a long time. He didn't even try to look at Remus's face, and Remus saw that the skin around his fingernails was bleeding in places, bitten and torn. "James stopped it. He...he was so close."

"Who was so close?"

The words came from Peter in a furious cascade now. "And I didn't think I could run fast enough, but I just didn't...I couldn't let Sirius do that. I mean, Snape's a rotten sort but he didn't deserve that so I had to tell him and now I don't even know if Sirius knows it was me! I was up all night waiting for them but it was two in the morning and they still weren't there so I changed and went down to the Whomping Willow and let myself in but when I got to the Shrieking Shack you were all alone and I knew I couldn't handle you all by myself so I went back but I don't know if they ever came back because I fell asleep when I didn't mean to and they weren't speaking to each other at breakfast and it's all a huge mess." After saying most of this in one breath, Peter buried his face in his hands and looked to be on the verge of tears.

"Wormtail, what are you talking about?" Remus's head had cleared a little. Whatever potion Madam Pomfrey gave him was working. "Slow down. What happened? You're not making any sense."

Peter sat up and let go of the blankets. For a minute, he said nothing, but Remus saw that the muscles in his neck and across his cheekbones were tense, and his eyes were vacant. It was a look Remus had seen before. Peter had the words but didn't want to say them. Whatever he had to say, he knew it was going to hurt. "I promise I won't be mad at you," reassured Remus. He lifted his head for a moment to be certain they were alone.

"You're not the one I'm worried about being mad at me."

"Who are you worried about being mad at you?" None of this made any sense, and Remus was of half a mind to wring Peter's neck if he continued to speak in such vague terms. His first instincts seemed to be right: Something had gone wrong last night, something involving Snape and Sirius. Waiting for Peter to put the words together in an order that actually formed a complete sentence was agony.

"Sirius!" Peter said indignantly, as though he expected Remus to know the answer.

"Peter, I am not a mind reader. Please, you have to start at the beginning and tell me everything."

"I'm so sorry, Moony. So sorry. You must... You look like you hurt so much. Is it bad?"

"I'll be fine," said Remus, "but I need for you to tell me why Sirius and James aren't speaking. Is it because of last night?" He did his best to keep calm against his rising worry. If he raised his voice, he might scare Peter away, and he had to know what Peter was babbling about.

"Of course it is!" Peter looked around. Seeing no one, he sighed and continued. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell. Okay." He took a deep breath. "Last night, Sirius almost got Snape killed."

"How...but why..."

"Snape knows about you."

Remus was glad he'd had nothing to eat for almost twenty-four hours, because he knew anything in his stomach would have ended up on the floor in that moment.

"He saw you," said Peter, his voice strained.

"When?"

"Last night."

"Is he...?" Remus could barely speak. Damn his memory loss. "I didn't hurt him, did I?" He took another sip of water.

"No, no, he's fine, but that's why Sirius and James aren't speaking."

"Because I didn't hurt him?"

"Because... It's because of Sirius that Snape knows about you and James had to bail him out."

Horror seized Remus. His fingers weakened around the glass. "Sirius told him? Why would he do that?" Why would Sirius, one of the few people in the world he thought he could trust, be so disloyal? He felt more empty and alone in that moment than he had on the day when he was told there was nothing more the Healers could do, that once a month for the rest of his life he would turn into a monster.

Peter shook his head. "Sirius didn't tell him. He found out because of what Sirius did."

"And that was?"

"Moony, before I tell you, you have to promise that you're not going to get mad at Sirius, or James, or me."

Remus didn't like this. Hiding a secret as big as the one he had made him generally untrusting of others, and he didn't like being told what to think before he had all the facts. "I can't make any promises without having the truth."

Biting his lip and nodding, Peter spoke. "That's fair, I guess." He looked back to his hands and exhaled through his nose. "Snape found Sirius last night, maybe around eight or nine, and told him -- Sirius said 'demanded' -- that he knew something was funny with you. He saw Madam Pomfrey taking you across the grounds to the Whomping Willow and wanted to know where you were going. He wouldn't leave Sirius alone. Followed him halfway around the school. Sirius tried to hex him, but as much as I hate that greasy git, he's not stupid. Probably countered every curse Sirius had and—"

"Peter," warned Remus.

"Sorry, sorry. Anyway, you know what Sirius is like. He likes to play jokes, but he's not dangerous or anything, right? I mean, he just does it for laughs. He likes pranks. So I guess he thought it'd be funny to tell Snape how to get into the Whomping Willow, and he told Snape that if he got through the tree, he'd find out where you went last night."

"He said what?" It was almost too ridiculous to believe, but there was no way Peter would have made it up. "Does he know Snape would have died? Did he bother to tell Snape that if he got to the end of the tunnel he'd be ripped to shreds by a werewolf?" Fury and revulsion raged through Remus. "Did Sirius even give a shit?"

"I'm sure he cared," said Peter, but he didn't sound convinced. "You know Sirius wouldn't do anything that would really hurt anyone. He just likes to play, and you know how he'll take any chance he can get to pick on Snape."

"You're making excuses for him?" Yelling was a drain on what little energy he had, but he was angry and shocked. He always thought Peter had far more common sense than James and Sirius, and he couldn't believe Peter was placing Sirius above blame for a deadly action because of their friendship. Peter wasn't the type to stand up for anyone, even himself. "Peter, it's one thing to hex Snape's ink so it burns holes in his homework, but Sirius could have sent him to die! You know what I'm like at the full moon. You know I could easily have killed him. Easily. I don't like Snape any more than you do, but there are limits!"

"I don't think Sirius had that in mind. He's not mean, just, you know, spirited. He wanted to scare Snape." Peter sat back in his chair, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

"Oh, he'd have scared him. That's for damn sure. And then, Snape would have gone from scared to hamburger. Bet Sirius would have thought that was really fucking funny when Dumbledore announced to the school that Snape was dead." His sarcasm, usually light and in stride, stung.

"Moony, calm down. You'll hurt yourself."

Remus lifted his pajama top to expose his stomach, which was covered with bright gashes from the night before. "Thanks for the warning. It would have been more useful last night. But, oh wait. Sirius was too busy trying to kill Snape to make it out to the Shrieking Shack to worry about me hurting myself." He dropped the hem of his shirt and pulled the blankets to the middle of his chest.

"It wasn't personal."

"No? Then where were all of you last night?"

Peter blanched. "Remus, please... It wasn't about you... Sirius just..."

"Sirius just what, Peter? Just didn't care? Just thought it'd be funny to get someone killed because of me? Just liked the idea of getting me thrown out of school?"

"He didn't do it to hurt you."

"No. He did it to hurt Snape. I know perfectly well why he did it, thanks. But that doesn't change things."

They sat in silence for a while. Remus drank the rest of his water. When he went back to sleep, he turned on his side, away from Peter.

It was nearly one o'clock when he woke again, and Peter was asleep in the chair next to his bed. Sirius and James must have visited earlier, because there was a bag from Honeydukes on his bedside table. Remus was tempted to throw every piece of candy straight into the trash, but he didn't have the strength. He still felt like he could sleep for the rest of the week.

Peter stirred in his chair and opened his eyes. "You awake, Moony?"

"Yeah. I see Sirius and James were here."

"I don't know. I fell asleep. Do you want anything? Water? Lunch? You've got to eat sometime." He stood, scratching his cheek.

"If Sirius thinks I'll forgive him for a bag of sweets, he's—"

"Snape's fine," interrupted Peter. "Just so you know."

"Well, I figured since I woke up and you didn't say, 'By the way, Remus, you killed Snape last night,' that things were mostly okay." What was the point of Peter telling him this?

"That's what I didn't get to tell you, though. He's fine because of James."

"What do you mean?"

After glancing quickly over one shoulder, Peter sat again, wringing his hands in his lap. "I was the first person Sirius ran into after he told Snape what to do with the Whomping Willow. I was in the common room and he came in and he was really pleased with himself. Could barely stop laughing. I asked him what was so funny and he told me and I got this -- I don't know how to describe it -- just a strange feeling in my stomach, like something was wrong. I sort of liked the idea of playing a joke on Snape, and I didn't want to make Sirius mad because you know how he gets, but..."

"So not making Sirius mad is more important than someone's life?"

"It's not like that." Remus could feel Peter's agitation.

"Then what is it like?"

Peter sighed. "When Sirius got done telling me what he did, I went to find James. I don't know why Sirius didn't tell him first. Probably because he just didn't see him. But anyway, I ran upstairs and got the map and saw that he was at Charms club, so I went and got him. I didn't tell Sirius where I was going. But I ran, and at first James didn't believe me, but I just kept telling him what Sirius told me. When he realized what was going on, he took off. I've never seen anyone run so fast. Later, he told me that he'd caught Snape in the tunnel, you know, the one that leads to the Shrieking Shack. When he got back to Gryffindor, he had a black eye. Said Snape gave it to him. He had to drag Snape out of the entrance to the Shrieking Shack, but it was too late. Snape said he saw you and he knew what you were and he was going to tell everyone in school."

When Remus opened his mouth, no sound came out. This was the end. He was going to be thrown out of school. Snape was going to tell everyone that he was a werewolf. He was going to spend the rest of his life in exile, with no education and no hope for meaningul work. They were going to snap his wand. What if they fed him Veritaserum and he told about his Animagi friends? "So what...what...did Snape tell anyone?"

"I don't think so." Peter shook his head. "I didn't hear anyone talking about it at breakfast. Don't know why they don't know, but I'm not asking any questions. You'll be okay, Moony. Things will work out." A false smile accompanied Peter's smoothing of the blankets.

"You said James and Sirius weren't speaking."

"Oh, that. Breakfast was awful. They just sat and glared at each other. And they asked me for everything. 'Peter, would you tell Sirius to return my extra set of Quidditch gloves?' 'Peter, tell James that he can do his own Potions homework from now on.' They wouldn't even pass each other the salt."

Remus wasn't the sort to cry, but he felt his throat close at Peter's description of the way Sirius and James behaved. If they were fighting, two people who were closer than anyone he knew, what did it mean for their foursome, for their nights of adventure and mischief? He couldn't bear to lose any of them. They meant the world to him.

He'd always been a loner as a child, especially when he first came to Hogwarts. Sirius and James latched onto each other immediately. Kindred spirits. Remus felt lucky when they chose him as their friend and secretly harbored a fear that one morning, they would wake up and decide that he had no place in their lives. It was a fear that governed everything he did and said to them. He was honest when asked for his opinion and always happy to give advice, but he almost never challenged what they did or said, including some of their more malicious pranks.

Remus wasn't like Peter. He didn't outwardly make excuses for Sirius and James or try to justify actions of theirs that he didn't agree with. However, and he knew that sometimes this was just as bad, he never tried to dissuade them once they got an idea in their heads. It was a risk he couldn't take. If their friendship dissolved, they could ruin his life with very little effort, and although he was pretty sure that James would be the type to simply part quietly, he couldn't always be certain about Sirius. This incident was a prime example of the side of Sirius that drove Remus mad, the side that never thought before it acted, the side that had a direct connection from his mind to his mouth and wand with no protective barrier. However, this unpredictability was often the thing Remus liked best about Sirius. Sirius was so unlike him, brash and impulsive, and never afraid to voice his thoughts.

"Do you...Do you think they'll be talking to each other anytime soon?" asked Remus, reaching for his water glass.

"Yeah, I think so." Peter rubbed his nose. "Takes a lot to get between those two. I think it's more a matter of Sirius being mad at James for ruining his great idea."

"Isn't Sirius mad at you for telling James?"

Peter thought on this for a moment and replied, "You know, I'm not sure James told Sirius it was me who told him, although I don't know what else Sirius would think, since I was the only one there when he got into the common room. In the meantime, I'm not arguing. Last thing I need is for Sirius to be mad at me."

"Know how that goes," said Remus.

They sat in an understanding silence for a while after that. Remus closed his eyes but didn't go back to sleep. He was feeling a little better by then, enough to eat the chicken soup and bread Madam Pomfrey brought him late in the afternoon.

Not long after the final bell, Sirius and James entered the hospital wing. They were quiet, their faces solemn, but they seemed to have made up, at least for the time being. The two of them pulled chairs over to the side of Remus's bed and looked at each other.

James spoke first, and his voice was hoarse. "We're sorry, Moony. We really are. We won't ever let it happen again." He paused. "Are you okay?"

"As okay as I could be, considering." At this, James looked away and flushed with guilt, mumbling more apologies.

"Are you mad at us?" asked Sirius. He twisted the strap of his bag over the back of his hand.

"Not really," replied Remus. It was truth enough for now. He wasn't mad at James, or at Peter, but he was too weak still to tell Sirius how he felt. And even if he was feeling up to it, mad wasn't the right word. "I'm just glad everyone's okay. Even Snape."

Sirius's lip curled at the mention of Snape's name, but James held his hand to the side in a sign of warning. "We don't think Snape's told anyone about your, you know, fur," said James. "We haven't heard a word all day, and you know we would if he did. Dumbledore must have something really good on him to get him to shut up."

"He went to see Dumbledore?"

"Dumbledore came to see us. He was there when we climbed out of the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Knows everything, that man. He didn't say anything to me, just kind of looked at me with that 'I'll get you later' look. I didn't hear anything they said. Snape didn't look back at me, either. Seems like the most logical explanation to me, anyway, that Dumbledore's got something on him." James shrugged and stood to look over Remus to his bedside table. "She didn't bring you any ice cream?"

The four of them sat for a while, talking about everything that had nothing to do with the previous night. They shared the bag of Honeydukes sweets and James did a page of Remus's Transfiguration homework. Throughout their conversations, Sirius didn't say much. James and Peter didn't seem to notice, but Remus was unnerved. Sirius usually made enough noise for the four of them.

"Want to go to dinner?" inquired James, checking his watch and standing.

"Definitely," replied Peter. "No offense, Moony, but..."

"It's all right," said Remus. "Go on. I'm not that hungry. I'll see you three later tonight."

"Actually, I'll stay here too. Is that okay?" Sirius looked to James, then to Remus. "I'll get something from the kitchens later. Thanks for loaning me your cloak." He smiled.

"Suit yourself." James and Peter collected their bags and books and left the hospital wing.

For a while Sirius sat bent forwards in his chair, pressing his lips together and shifting his glance from Remus to his feet. Several times, he looked up and took a breath as though to speak, but the air always left him in a thin, disappointed sigh through his nose.

"I'm sorry, Moony. I thought..." Discomfort twisted Sirius's back, and he stretched his shoulders.

"You thought it'd be funny," whispered Remus, "and you didn't care about what happened to anyone else."

"I did care! I—"

"I trusted you, Sirius!" Remus's shout echoed off the high ceilings in the empty hospital wing.

Sirius turned white, and he swallowed before speaking. "I know you did. I didn't do it to hurt you. Sometimes I just...I act without thinking and—"

"Tell me something I don't know." Remus folded his arms across his chest.

"What do you want from me? I said I was sorry. I know what I did was wrong and stupid and I'm not going to do it again."

"How do I know that?"

"Remus, how long do you plan to punish me for this? You know I didn't do it to kill Snape. I'm not like that. I would never hurt him like that intentionally."

A mild dizziness took over Remus, and he leaned back, taking deep breaths. "I don't know that. You hate Snape more than anyone. I just...I'm not sure of anything right now." Another thought occurred to him. "What'd Dumbledore say to you?"

"Nothing yet, but I'm probably doomed to detention for the rest of my natural life. Or summers and holidays at my parents' house. If he's going to say anything to me, I wish he'd just say it and get it over with. I'll probably find out tomorrow. But please know, I didn't...I wouldn't do this to you on purpose. You're one of my best friends."

One of. Remus's heart felt heavy at Sirius's words. He knew Sirius and James were close in a way that neither he nor Peter shared with either of them, but it was never enough just to be able to accept that. It felt to him like Sirius said, "You're one of my best friends, but you'll never be what James is." This terrified Remus in a way he told himself was irrational. All friendships, he knew, couldn't be equal. It wouldn't do him any good to be jealous of Sirius and James. At the same time, he was never certain that they fully accepted him and put an enormous daily effort into not disturbing the balance of their friendship. It meant that he often held his tongue, or looked the other way while they played some pranks he didn't agree with. This divergence of conscience, though, was a small price to pay for all the times James or Sirius came to him for advice, or when they heeded his warnings.

"I...I know you didn't do this to hurt me." Remus wanted to say more, like, "but you need to start thinking before you act," and "but I could still be thrown out of school," but he stayed silent. Right now, it wasn't worth picking a fight with Sirius, who to Remus's dismay didn't seem to understand how deeply he had betrayed him.

"So you forgive me?" asked Sirius, with an overtone of hope in his voice.

Resignedly, Remus nodded. "Yes." He hated lying to any of his friends, but he also knew a hopeless situation when he saw it. Years could pass, or a lifetime, before Sirius would be able to see past his hatred of Snape and, more importantly, the fact that his thoughtlessness put all of their lives in jeopardy. Until this point, Remus, like Peter, was always able to make excuses for Sirius. He was privileged. He was energetic. He had charisma, money, and good looks, and was used to getting what he wanted. It didn't occur to him that he could be held responsible for his actions and not be able to charm or buy his way out. Now, however, was not the time to lecture him on the finer points of personal responsibility. Remus wanted to get dressed and leave the hospital wing. The scratches and bruises would take until the end of the week to heal, but tonight, he could go back to Gryffindor and make his usual excuses.

He pushed his blankets aside and stood so fast his knees buckled, and Sirius caught him. "Easy, Moony. Sit here. I'll get your robes."

"I can get them myself, really, it's fine," Remus protested, but his robes were in his hands before he finished his sentence. Sirius turned away as he dressed, and a minute later, they were on their way to Gryffindor. Just before they got to the portrait of the Fat Lady, Sirius apologized again.

"I'll make this up to you. Promise. I've got something great planned for next month, Moony. It'll be fun." He smiled. "Trust me."

Remus looked into Sirius's eyes, and turned away.