Forgiven in Blood

He shifts restlessly in his bed, unable to sleep. His eyes are large, the pupils dilated, the irises glittering amber though there is no light. He knows that if one of the other boys were to wake, they would see his eyes glowing brightly and be curious, and he doesn't want them to be curious. He doesn't want to have to explain himself, his glowing eyes and restless mind, not to anyone.

He slides out from beneath his blankets silently. He doesn't want to be here, in the dark, with only his thoughts, but neither does he want company.

He clambers down the stairs, barefoot and clad only in his old, patched pajama bottoms, the only article of clothing that he usually wears once the day's over and he's finished with anything that might take him out of the Common Room, or his dorm. He doesn't even pause at the foot of the stairs to grab a blanket from the pile on the nearest armchair--the one that he likes is on the bottom, and he doesn't want to leave a mess--but continues towards the dying fire at the other end of the room.

He rubs one hand absently through his shock of tawny hair, trying to sweep his unruly bangs out of his eyes, but they spring back as soon as his hand falls. His skin, in the firelight, seems paler than usual, which almost seems impossible, because he's so pale to begin with.

He traces the scars--all of them--with his eyes, working from the fingertips of his left hand to his shoulders, and then from the fingertips of his right hand to that shoulder. Next he traces the scars that he's gathered in a lifetime worth of changes, starting with the ones on his face, then the ones on his neck, which are followed by the ones on his back and chest. Once he reaches his waist, he stops, and focuses on the scars on his feet. As he touches each one, he remembers the night when it happened, and how it occurred.

While it's not a good thing to think about--he's got far too many scars already to be comfortable with the activity--it keeps him from doing other, more destructive things, and from thinking about tomorrow night.

He stares into the fire, tracing the tattoo--his I.D. number--along the curve of one hipbone. 11350042, it reads, and it is who he is. He is, to the Ministry, nothing but a number, something to be checked up upon and watched over. He is nothing but a number, and he resents it.

But he'll never tell anyone.

He throws another log onto the fire, and decides that he needs to walk, to find a place where he can forget his thoughts for a while. He decides he'll do the same thing that he does the night before every full moon, the routine that he's adopted at Hogwarts, and with that in mind, he slips out through the portrait hole.

The stone floor is cool against his feet as he makes his way to the Entrance Hall. He doesn't worry at all about being stopped; on the contrary, the night before the full moon the Headmaster allows him free run of the place he calls home, knowing that he could never sleep. Knowing that the wolf in him would keep him too restless, until he just dropped where he stood.

He runs, barefoot and shivering, to the lake, where he quickly strips down to his skin under the light of the almost-full moon and jumps, gasping, into the frigid depths. The moonlight on his skin makes him even more restless than before, until he suspects that he might burst with the tension that pulls the wolf to just below his outer shell, the one that hides the wounded boy within.

Lap after lap he swims, his body numb and his mind unfunctioning, until he sputters for breath each time he comes up, and the giant squid has to gently push him to shore. His teeth chattering--the lake is still cold in early April--he thanks the squid, though he knows that it probably can't hear him. After shaking himself off in a rather dog-like manner, he yanks his pajamas back on, and trots back up to the castle.

Once back in the Common Room, he strips off the damp garment, lays it before the fire, grabbing a blanket from another pile on the armchair beside him, uncaring of which one he uses. Pulling the rough wool tight around his shoulders, he settles into a chair, waiting for warmth and, hopefully, sleep.

But sleep doesn't come to his troubled mind, though he does grow warm. What if the boys find out that I'm not like them, he wonders. I don't want to leave... but it's so dangerous for me to be here...

Firelight glimmering on his face, he is sunken into the world of his memories; memories of the transformations and what happens, what he remembers... It's not pretty, none of it, though he recognizes that he hasn't bitten a human. There's no way to be sure, but he hasn't smelled human blood on himself when he's awoken, and he knows that he would smell that.

Lost in his thoughts, he doesn't hear the light footfalls on the stairs, the ones that stop halfway down and then retreat. He doesn't hear the sighing of bedsprings, a sound that echoes through the room softly, because he's not listening as he reaches toward the fire. Certainly, then, he doesn't know that two boys stand at the bottom of the stairs, watching him with sleepy eyes.

Almost trancelike, he reaches one hand into the fire and grabs the wood he'd put there earlier, noting distantly that it's no more than flesh warm on the unburned part. Laying his left arm out before him, he presses the glowing end against it, and his breath hisses out between his teeth at the incredible red-hot pain.

He drags it along his arm, grinding his teeth together, until there's a streak of raw, burned flesh that runs from his knuckles to just above his elbow. Grimacing, he pushes the brand--for that's what it's become--back into the fire, and focuses on his arm, from which the pain is already ebbing, because he's already healing. Watching, he notices how the skin knits back together and the muscle beneath it rebuilds, and the bruise-colored patch fades as the blood starts flowing again. How wonderful it is to be almost immune to injury.

It's another step in his night-before ritual, his burning himself and watching the burns heal clean and smooth; a reminder that he is, once again, different. Different in the way that's bad, in the way that makes him lonely.

Different, because he can't tell anyone.

He draws the wood out of the fire again, and stretches his right arm out before him, then presses the burning tip firmly against his hand. A whimper of pain--one that he doesn't hear--shivers for a moment in the air, startling the boys at the foot of the staircase into action.

He's concentrating so hard on what he's doing that he doesn't even know that they're there until a pair of hands closes on each wrist, and his arms are forced apart. He struggles, putting up a good fight, but now that he's tired, his superior strength isn't enough to fight them. So he gives in for the moment, knowing that from the impressions of each boy that he's received--one jet and sable, the other grey and charcoal--that it'll do him no good to argue.

Still holding his arms, the boys both settle to their knees, looking hard at their friend, who won't meet their eyes. Tears are visible on his face, and anguish, but he makes no sound, not even one of pain.

"Remus. How could you...?" prods one of them, the boy of grey and charcoal, the one holding his burned right arm. "Why would you do a thing like this?" His voice is quietly dangerous, anger and sorrow and fear all melted together, all of the sharp edges rounded, as he tries to understand.

"Why didn't you say something?" It's the boy holding his left arm, the one of jet and sable, who asks this. "Do you think we don't care?"

Remus' silence is damning, even in his own eyes. "There's nothing to say, James."

James carefully lets go of his left arm--which Sirius grabs--to take the smoldering stick and toss it back into the fire where it belongs.

"Obviously there is something, mate, or we'd've never found you like this."

The only thing that disturbs the silence for an eternity is the crackle and pop of the fire. None of the three wants to be the first one to talk; each of them feels that there's so much to say, yet somehow they haven't got enough words in which to say it.

He feels Sirius' eyes on him and knows that it's only a matter of time until they see his burn, which is healing closed. And then the two boys will do what all of the others did--ostracize him. Thinking about it, the tears begin to fall a little faster, and he wrenches his arms away from Sirius's firm grip.

Sirius' hands fall into Remus' lap, unprotesting and limp. Looking up, he meets James' eyes, the sable eyes so full of pity that Remus flinches back, and refuses to look again. Meticulously, he folds his arms, arranging and rearranging them until he thinks of nothing else, not the burning hands on his leg, nor the face of the person that they belong to--

"I'm going to go and get something from the kitchen," says James softly. "I'll be sure to get some chocolate, too." He gets his Invisibility Cloak from the staircase, where he'd left it, and heads out through the portrait hole.

Remus wants to look up so badly that it almost hurts, but he won't. He stares at his fingers, tracing old scars again, remembering the year, and the month, and the moon, and the giver. He doesn't want to look up; to have to find, and give, another excuse about why he wouldn't be around tomorrow. He doesn't want to lie anymore.

"My Aunt Patrice died Saturday," he says slowly, refusing to meet Sirius' eyes. "I have to go home for a couple of days."

After a few minutes of silence, in which Remus becomes certain that Sirius believes him, Sirius opens his mouth. "Aunt Patrice can only die one time, you know," he remarks conversationally, as though this is something that he says every day. "This is the third time this year that you've gone home because Aunt Patrice has died. I won't even count up how many times that makes, total, throughout the last three years. What's really going on?"

Remus stares at the fire, and Sirius' hand, made daring by the suffering that's written there, creeps to Remus' right wrist. Gently, he pulls at the arm, and Remus allows him to extend the arm, dreading what always, every time, comes next.

Sirius runs one hand along the smooth skin of his forearm, as though certifying that there wasn't a burn there. "Wow. That was fast," he comments, his voice conveying only a slight surprise. "I thought it took longer than that usually."

Remus was startled into looking at Sirius. "What, no panic? No 'oh, he heals fast, let's cut him and see if it's different this time?'" His voice is bitter, defeated. He doesn't want to do this. Not now, not ever.

"No. Why would I do something like that?"

Remus pulls himself out of the chair, wrapping the blanket around his waist. Striding over to the fire, he watches Sirius' eyes track his movements, horror stirring in them. Halting on the hearthstone, he kneels, facing sideways so that he can see Sirius' face.

"Well, then. Watch this," he snarls, driving his hand into the fire, grasping a handful of coals and feeling them sear his skin. He can feel his skin crisping and splitting, but he can't look away from Sirius' face, from the terror, the heartache, that seems as though it's indelibly etched there.

Through a supreme force of will, he turns his back to his friend. There's his hand in the fire, the one that burns, like the rest of him, with the disease that can't be cured by anything but moonlight. He hates it, and fears it, but he loves it, just a little, too.

He's knocked suddenly sideways by something large and warm, something that has to be Sirius, and his hand is yanked out of the fire as he falls. Pinned beneath Sirius, his eyes blazing with firelight, he is blinded by it. The pain blinds him, too, and for the first time, he hears his own agonized breathing.

He squirms beneath Sirius, trying to fight his way free. He can't let this boy see him weak, see him defenseless, as so many others have. He doesn't want his pity. And most of all, he doesn't want Sirius understanding him, or trying to understand him. He just wants to be alone.

Sirius is panting, out of breath from an unanticipated blow to his stomach. "Remus," he gasps, still somehow grimly clinging to the other boy's wrists, "how stupid do you think we are, James and I?"

Remus falls still, unsure of where this could be leading. "Not very, unless you're trying to be."

"So hasn't it occurred to you," he says, still gasping a little bit, "that James and I," he pulls free Remus' burned hand, and brings it to his face, "might already know that you're a werewolf?" He strokes the healing flesh with a gentle hand, and then kisses it softly.

Remus is stunned, only partially by the unexpected words. They already know? No. No, this must be some cruel joke. Who would be my friend once they knew what I was?

In his confusion, he almost misses Sirius' response to the unasked questions that are whirling through his brain.

"James figured it out, and checked his theory with Lily, at the end of first year. She wouldn't say anything when he asked her. Of course," he grins, "James told me, a couple of weeks before end of term."

Remus' voice, when he finds it, is hoarse. "And you still," he gulps, "wanted to be my friends? Even though you knew how... dangerous... I was?" He tries to pull his hand from Sirius' grasp, but finds that he can't, without hurting it, do so.

Sirius gets up and helps Remus into a chair before sitting down as his feet, his eyes dancing with amusement. "Of course! By then, you were our mate. Never mind that you could kill us--we didn't think you would."

"Didn't think?" he whispers disbelievingly. "It's not like I can control myself when I've TRANSFORMED!" The sheer audacity of their judgment stuns him.

"Well, and then James 'n me, we figured out a way to make it better for you," Sirius blindly continues. "McGonagall said something one time about human transfiguration, remember?"

"Yeah..." He doesn't like where this is leading.

"Well, me 'n him found out how to do it."

Remus is dumbfounded, completely unable to credit what Sirius is saying. McGonagall said that it takes years to learn how to do something like that... and that it's illegal before you're of age!

"You... You did what?!" He rubs his healing hand to help stay the impulse to do something that he'll later regret. "You can't be serious! Do you remember that she said you can't be an Animagus until you've come of age? Did you at least register with the Ministry, or... or... take some type of measures so that you can be identified? And... what about Peter?" he asks, his questions flooding his brain and spilling out through his mouth.

"No, we... didn't register with the Ministry, although I think that McGonagall knows that we are. We had to ask her about some of the material, like what things could be called and where they could possibly be found, but she just looked at us funny. Then James asked her for the assignment, because that was a day that you weren't feeling well, and she told us everything we needed. I think she's known since then, but hasn't 'officially' heard anything that would make her regret telling us. And as for identification, James had a great idea--he thought that we should write down our progress every day, and include pictures of ourselves when we'd finished the whole process. That was last week."

He takes the leather-bound book that Sirius offers him and stares at it.

"Well? Are you going to stare at it all night, or are you going to open it?" Sirius prods when many long minutes have passed and Remus is still just staring at the cover. Running his fingers over the cover, he wonders what can possibly be inside the cover of this book. Well, there's only one way to find out.

He opens the book and reads the title: The Adventures of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. He's not sure what that could mean, and, curious, he turns the page.

There is Sirius, eyes bright, hair shaggy, grinning like a maniac. Padfoot, reads the inscription below it. Occasionally, Sirius transforms into a large, gaunt, black dog, which pants happily and frolics in and out of the frame before transforming back.

Below his is a picture of Remus, one in which his hair sticks out every which way, and his eyes are not quite awake. Every so often, he offers up a sleepy smile, which makes Remus think that this is one of those pictures that someone's taken when he's not quite paying attention. Moony, it says. Werewolf.

At least there's no pictures of me transforming, he thinks.

On the next page is a picture of James. His hair is mussed, as though he's just gotten off of his broomstick, and his eyes are mischievous as he shifts a little bit. Prongs, it reads below his picture. And sure enough, he transforms into a magnificent stag with thick, sable fur and a fine pair of antlers. The stag then walks around in the frame for a little bit, and transforms back.

The last picture on the second page is one that he'd never expect to see in reference to an Animagus--Peter's. His dark hair is slightly stringy, and his watery blue eyes are full of pride. Grinning crazily, he transforms into a large, sleek, grey rat, scampers around for a little while, and transforms back. Wormtail, states the inscription below his picture.

Remus turns the page to find two more pictures, pictures that he's never seen before.

One is a picture of the four boys together, a flurry of motion as the pounce on one another and wrestle cheerfully. The second is a picture of four animals; the dog and the stag keeping the werewolf in check, while the rat scurried along behind them.

He flips through some of the other pages, reading their observations at the change in each other's behavior as the spells progressed. Once, he sees, amused, James said of Peter, I fear that he won't ever get it, because he can't sit still long enough to even think about discovering his inner animal!

He scans some more, finding days when they'd had problems that were resisting being solved, and reading what Sirius had written there: Sometimes I wish we could ask Remus, because I have no doubt that after he was done being anxious about it, he could solve something like this. Still, I can't ask him since we're doing this FOR him, so I'll have to make do.

After reading various bits and pieces of the other three's notes and dialogues, he finds a blank section at the end, titled only as Transformations.

"That's for if you wanted to put your transformation in there, too. We weren't sure if you'd want to."

Sirius' eyes are bright with hope, now, and Remus can guess that he's supposed to be proud of his friend. He is--but there are a myriad of other things he's feeling, too. And not the least of them is awe.

"You... did all of that for me? Why? Why would you do that for someone as... dangerous... someone as... as... as beastly, as cursed, as... as different... as me?" his voice cracks, and tears rise in his eyes; he pulls himself free of Sirius' grasp to get up from the chair and walk away from the fire. He doesn't want him to know how much this means, how much more than it would mean for any other boy; he doesn't want to let Sirius see the hope in his eyes, because he's afraid that Sirius won't understand.

Hands seize his shoulders, and he blinks away the tears in his eyes, hoping through the lump in his throat that Sirius won't notice the wetness of his face. He doesn't want to hurt any more than he already does, and he knows what'll happen if he dares to show so much as a glimpse of what he's feeling toward the other boy.

"Because we care about you, believe it or not," murmurs Sirius, his head dropping to rest on Remus' shoulder as he pulls Remus closer to him. Remus notices that he smells of wet dog and sweet soap, sweat and smoke. And chocolate, which brings a small, tremulous smile to his face. "Because I can't bear to see you do this to yourself. Because I don't want you to be alone anymore, don't want you to have to feel like you have to be all noble and suffer alone, in the dark."

He stops for a moment, and waits. Remus doesn't even know how to take this, unsure of what message Sirius is trying to send him, but hoping that it means what he thinks it does. He waits, hope rising in his heart, for Sirius to finish.

Sirius, deciding that Remus has nothing to say, plunges on. "Because..."

Remus takes a deep breath, and turns, facing the other boy, tears standing in his eyes again. Sirius' eyes are on his face, his hands hanging helplessly at his sides, looking as though he's said the words that condemned one of his best friends to death. Remus smiles sadly at him, his eyes just meeting Sirius', and he aches inside his heart to know that he's going to kill Sirius' with his reply.

"Sirius. Sirius, I know. I've felt it since the middle of second year, but I hadn't actually named it until a few days ago."

Sirius' head rises a little bit, his eyes mirroring that hope that had, so recently, shone from his own eyes. "Then..."

Remus shakes his head, then looks at the floor bitterly. His voice is unwontedly gentle as he says, "No, Sirius. I--we--can't. As much as I want to--and believe me, I really do... I'm too dangerous." He takes one of Sirius' hands and strokes it, then lets it fall back to its place, and turns to leave, thinking that he might head back to the lake after all--or into the Forest, perhaps, because nothing'll bother a Dark creature like himself in there.

Sirius catches his arm once more, and pulls him close. Through the tears on both of their faces, he manages to look forgiving as he presses his lips to Remus' in a clumsy, boyish kiss, and Remus can't pull away, because his body has betrayed the iron control of his aching soul.

Somehow, he finds himself kissing Sirius back, his arms loosely wrapped around Sirius' waist, feeling Sirius' arms wrap around his shoulders and admitting to himself, while he can still think, that this is what he's always wanted.

James climbs back through the portrait hole, two heavily-laden house elves following him. When he sees the two boys, he motions to the house elves that they should be silent, and that the food is to go on a low table, which then goes near the fire. With the table in place, he dismisses them silently. Then he slips into the shadows, past the two boys, and into the dorm.

When the two boys finally draw apart, Remus looks at Sirius. "Sirius--we can't."

Sirius looks at him, and his resolve, and feelings, show in his face. He silences Remus' weak protests with a kiss. "Remus," he whispers, "we already are."

"I'm too dangerous," Remus protests weakly, acutely aware of Sirius' tentative hand stroking his hair.

"What does that mean, dangerous?" he inquires softly, kissing Remus again and finding himself rewarded by the flush that creeps into his face. "You're only as dangerous as you choose to be. And I've learned something about werewolves." He presses another kiss onto Remus' face, smiling slightly.

"What?" Remus is breathless, giddy from Sirius' sweet kisses.

"You'll have a lot more control over the wolf if you just accept it." Sirius' voice is serious, quiet, and Remus is stunned by this revelation. He's also filled with some unnamable emotion, something that he only feels when he remembers being cursed, something that only rises with the wolf.

"Accept it?" Remus says incredulously as he tries fruitlessly to extract himself from Sirius' firm embrace. "Accept that something that I can't control could kill someone, and I might not even remember? Or that I'll be unable to stop myself? Accept that I house a demon?" His voice is quiet, but vehement.

"Yeah, but at least you get to exercise your demon. Regular people don't have that freedom." Sirius' arms grow a little tighter about his waist as he struggles to be free. It makes no difference, though, if he struggles, because Sirius is stronger than he is.

The wolf isn't going to help him here, because it wants this. It is lonely, he knows, all of the time, howling in his subconscious for the life it's never known. It wants a mate, and it thinks that Sirius will be a good one.

" At least I 'get to exercise' my demon? I don't think you understand. I am the demon. The demon is me."

"But you don't accept that."

"Would you accept it if you knew that you might kill someone? That you could condemn someone to death by fire, or by silver? That you..." here he falters, his voice dropping to the lowest whisper that he's yet used.

"That you bit your own sister, and that you left her alone? Alone in blood. Alone in fire, in pain. Alone in silver. As alone in death as the poor girl, your beautiful baby sister, the one who trusted you with her life, was when she lived..."

The anguish written on his face hurts Sirius more than anything else. He wants so badly to take it all away and make it better, to make his Moony whole and unbreakable and unbroken, but he can't. He's not a god, and he knows it, but he can't help aching for his Moony's wounded heart.

"I'm..." Sirius starts, and then decides that this is the wrong thing to say to Remus, the boy who, after so many silent, tortured years, has finally spilled his heart to someone who loves him. No, sorry just doesn't cut it when someone shares something like that.

Remus' head drops to Sirius's chest, and the tears flow for real this time as Remus draws his arms up to his own chest to hide his face. Sirius just waits, realizing that there is nothing that he can do until--unless--Remus is ready for him to do so.

Carefully, Sirius unlatches one arm from around Remus' waist, just long enough to grab a blanket from the chair, which is just within his reach. Clumsily, without bending, he manages to get the blanket spread on the carpet in front of the armchairs, just in front of the hearthstone. Then, slowly, he walks around to the front of the chairs, bringing Remus with him, and they sink down, until Sirius is seated on the floor, leaning against the chair.

Remus' heart feels as though it's been shattered, broken into a thousand, million pieces from the pain that he carries, all the time, that no one sees. To find out that if I'd just accepted it, I might have saved Katrin's life... It's too much for him to bear, to know that he could have prevented his beloved sister's death, the death that he'd given her in ignorance.

Eventually, his tears slow, although Sirius' hand, rubbing his back, doesn't. For the first time, he doesn't feel so alone, so burdened, as he always has. He thinks that, although it's going to be a long journey, he might, with Sirius' help, come out of his moon changes a whole--well, closer to a whole--boy.

Sirius looks into his eyes, just once, as he says, "Thank you," before transforming into a big, shaggy black dog, one whose fur smells of chocolate, in his arms. Padfoot--as Remus thinks of the dog--turns his great head toward Remus, and when Remus tentatively pets him, he wags his tail, just once, and licks his hand. Then his great brown eyes meet Remus', and his face seems covered in a doggy grin, one just for him.

Remus buries his face in Padfoot's fur, letting the tears fall, bitter and empty and full of memories, into the silkiness that surrounds his face. Ever so slowly, his breathing eases, and he falls into an exhausted sleep, his arms relaxing around Padfoot's inert form.

Only when he's certain that Remus is asleep does he dare to slowly curl his long doggy body around the other boy. Some time later, he drifts into an uneasy sleep, thinking just before he does that their situation is ironic: the dog's protecting the wolf, as they sleep together by the fire.