Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

*

Finding Outs

*

Even though the Slytherins' expulsion and Azkaban sentences did take away Remus's fear, they wouldn't make James and Peter any more forgiving. Maybe they would have been readier to believe and forgive Sirius if both the Grim Animagus and Remus hadn't been so good friends with Snape. However, they were convinced that Sirius was in the same plot with Snape, and they'd somehow framed the Slytherins who had been arrested and punished.

However, as it was at the moment, Sirius was not by Remus's side at all times. Right now, the young werewolf was sitting in a little side room of the Hogwarts library, with nobody else around. Well, that is, until Lily Evans walked to his table and landed her bag on it, pulling out the chair opposite to him.

"Oh, hi, Lily," Remus said, glancing up at her. "What brings you here? Nobody else usually comes here, and I thought you prefer studying on the other side of the library."

Lily took a deep breath and shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Remus," she said, determined to do what she had come to do. "I know what you are."

The small boy's head jerked up, his eyes full of fear. "W-what did you say?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

~*~

Peter and James stopped their conversation as they saw Sirius froze some way further in the corridor. The black-haired teen clutched at the base of his neck on the left side, murmured something and began running along the corridor.

"What was that?" Peter asked, a bit worried.

"I bet it's about Remus," James replied. "You've noticed how he always rubs that mark when Remus is near him? And that time when he once slapped it, exactly like he just did, mumbled, 'Remus,' and ran off -- only to find out that Remus had been knocked out in an explosion in his Advanced Charms class?"

"Do you think it could be something like that this time, too?" Peter asked, sounding rather worried.

"I don't know what it is," James replied, "but I bet my head something's wrong with Moony."

"Should we try and follow him, what do you think?" the smaller boy suggested.

"Maybe," James said, "maybe it would be the best."

"He said he'd be in the library this afternoon," Peter said, remembering a short conversation with Remus from earlier. "Let's go."

They increased their pace, hurrying after Sirius, swearing students and dropped stuff leading their way as they travelled through the school corridors.

~*~

Lily fixed her eyes at the boy in front of her. "I know," she said, "that you're a werewolf."

Lily was petrified by the sudden change in Remus. At first the boy flinched away, like he'd been hit, his right hand clutching his left arm for no seeming reason. Then he crouched down, bringing his hands defensively before him, glaring at her with his narrowed eyes. They looked nearly golden now -- almost like a wolf's.

She swallowed nervously as the boy revealed his teeth, growling deep in his throat. His teeth were white and shiny, like they had always been, but it wasn't until now, when she knew what to look for, that she noticed the slightly sharp tips of the teeth, like she hadn't noticed the pointiness of his ears before she had known what to look for.

"Remus?" she asked nervously. "Remus -- are you all right?" She cursed herself in her mind. 'Never, never, never again,' she swore quietly in her mind. How could she have been this stupid? She should have at least told someone where she was going and what she was going to do. James, for example. He certainly knew already, considering all his mysterious hints and puns. But no, she had been a real Gryffindor and gone to tell a werewolf she knew his secret, without thinking for even a second that this might frighten the boy and push him on a self-defensive mood, especially this near the full moon.

Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the odd look on Remus's face disappeared. He blinked slowly, shaking his head as in an attempt to clear his thoughts. For a while he fixed his gaze on his hands, then brought his eyes to meet Lily's gaze.

"I'm sorry," the boy whispered. "I'm sorry if I frightened you. I wouldn't have hurt you -- I was only scared."

"It's okay, Remus, really," she smiled, now much more self-confident than just a moment ago. "Don't worry -- I won't turn you in."

"You won't?" the boy asked, his voice filled with hope.

"I won't," she repeated firmly. "I trust Dumbledore. He wouldn't have let you here if you weren't safe to be around -- other than at the full moon night, of course." She tried to smile reassuringly.

The boy replied her smile a bit nervously. Then he sighed and closed his eyes, leaning against his hand. "How did you find out, however?" he asked.

"We're both in Advanced DADA, remember?" she said. "I happened to see how you shivered as professor Metaphor gave us our assignments - and it wasn't when he gave your assignment, it was when Black got werewolves."

"I don't think that's enough to come to that result," Remus pointed out dryly. "Come on. I know that's just the beginning."

"So it is," she admitted. "I of course started to wonder just what could distract you so much, and read a few books about werewolves and Lycanthropy. I then noticed that your illnesses followed right the phases of the moon, and that werewolves are usually fond on chocolate --" Remus smiled a bit at that point -- "not to forget that when I knew what to look for, I noticed your pointy ears and the way you always seem to sniff the air and always know who is in the room with you without looking."

"Werewolf senses, at least nightsight, hearing and smell, are superhuman," Remus explained. "I could tell by the smell what you ate for breakfast."

They were interrupted as the door was banged open. Sirius rushed inside, looking worried.

"Moony!" he exclaimed as he saw the smaller brunet. "Is something wrong?"

"No, Sirius, I'm fine," the other boy chuckled. "Or at least I guess I am. I just got frightened." He got on his feet and walked towards the tall boy.

Sirius wrapped his arms around him, and the werewolf buried his head against his shoulder. "What frightened you, love?" Sirius asked softly, placing a tiny kiss on the top of Remus's hair. He behaved like Lily hadn't been there -- or, at least, like her presence hadn't mattered at all.

"Sirius," Remus said, raising his eyes at Sirius's. "She knows. About me." He gestured towards Lily.

"What?" the other boy said sharply, his piercing blue eyes bouncing at Lily. "She knows that -- you are --"

"A werewolf?" Lily finished the sentence. "Yes, I know. Don't worry, though," she said as she saw the threatening expression Sirius immediately adopted as he heard her words. "I have no intentions to tell anyone about it."

"You'd better not," Sirius murmured. "I won't let anyone harm my Remus."

The door opened once again, and yet two more boys ran inside. James and Peter.

"Remus!" Peter exclaimed as they stepped inside. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," James said. "We saw the bastard clutching his neck and assumed something was wrong -" It wasn't until now that he noticed Lily's presence. "Oh shit," he said, turning very pale.

"It's okay, Prongs," Remus sighed, crumbling his eyebrows a bit at James's choice of word to describe his boyfriend. "She's found out about me. She also promised not to tell anyone."

Sirius nodded in silent agreement. Then he brought one of his hands up to rub the joint of his neck and shoulder. After this little, seemingly subconscious manner he returned his hand to hold Remus's smaller body.

Lily, however, was not blind or deaf, nor was she stupid. She put two and two together - in this case, James's seemingly innocent words about Sirius's earlier behaviour and that little gesture - and got exactly four.

"You two are mated, are you?" she asked, pointing a finger at Remus and Sirius.

Remus blushed a bit, but Sirius merely nodded. "We are." James and Peter both pulled a scornful expression that made her very confused. She chose to ignore it, however.

"Oh, that must be wonderful," sighed Lily. "To have somebody you love so much that you want to spend the rest of your life with them." To her great surprise, the boys all tensed at her words.

"Er... Lily?" asked James. "Can we finish this conversation somewhere else? This is, after all, a public place, and I think that our flight through the school might have attracted some attention. The last thing we want is Remus's secret being spilled out to the whole school."

"You're right," Lily said. "Let's go to your dormitory, there we can be in peace."