Consequences

Chapter Two

Confessions

Sirius took a depth breath and pushed open the door to the hospital wing. The room was dimly lit, as was usual in the evening. Sirius glanced nervously at the curtains that surrounded the bed by the window at the far end of the room. He knew Remus would be recuperating in that bed and remembered with a shudder how ill and weak his friend always looked after his transformations.

'Right on time, Mr Black,' announced Madam Pomfrey, marching up to meet them, looking even more disapproving than she usually did when she found Sirius lurking around the hospital wing. 'I see you've brought Mr Potter with you as well. Perhaps we should consider surgery for you, too - the two of you really are joined at the hip.'

'How is he...Remus...is he all right?' Sirius asked awkwardly, unable to look the matron in the eye.

'Why don't you go and see for yourself?' she replied briskly.

'Er...yes...OK...thanks.' Sirius appeared to have lost the power of rational speech. His stomach knotted uncomfortably. What is wrong with me? he wondered.

'Thank you, Madam Pomfrey. We'll be right along,' said James with his best 'I'm A Good Boy, Really' smile. 'Padfoot, come on.'

Sirius allowed James to drag him to the end of the hospital wing and through the curtains into Remus' cubicle. He felt sick as he looked at his friend sitting propped up in bed, wearing a pair of school pyjamas. Oh Merlin, he's going to hate me, he's going to hate me so much... He shifted nervously until James pushed him down onto a seat beside the bed.

'Oh, so you've decided to put in an appearance, have you?' asked Remus tetchily. 'What happened last night? Did you get caught sneaking out or something?'

'Not exactly,' responded James grimly, nudging Sirius forcefully between the shoulder blades. Sirius grimaced back at him. He's still not helping...

'Well, I wish you had been there,' said Remus, leaning towards his friends as he dropped his voice to a whisper. 'You know...you know I can hardly remember what happens during my transformations while I'm on my own? Well, last night...I think something happened...I don't know...I think someone came near the Shack.'

Sirius could hardly bear to look at Remus, he looked so afraid. He forced himself to answer, his voice barely more than a whisper. 'Moony...look, someone did get into the tunnel last night.' Remus' eyes widened in horror. 'It's OK, though,' Sirius added hastily. 'They weren't hurt or anything...Prongs went and...got them out...before...well, no one got hurt.'

Remus looked relieved for a moment but then asked, 'Did they see? Did they see...me...what I am?' Sirius nodded miserably. 'Oh, no,' whispered Remus, sinking back into the pillows, his brow furrowed with worry. 'Oh, no!'

'Moony, you don't need to worry about that,' James assured him. 'Dumbledore told me that he...well...that your secret is safe.'

Remus turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow in quiet disbelief. 'How can he be so sure? Not many students would come face to face with a werewolf without wanting to make sure they told the tale they'd lived to tell, to as many people as possible.' He frowned. 'Who was it, anyway?'

Sirius sat mutely, chewing his lip nervously, desperately wishing he was anywhere else in the world. James kicked him lightly on the shin and answered for him. 'It was Snape.'

'Snape!' Remus exclaimed a little too loudly. 'Snape?' he repeated, more quietly this time. 'Of all the people. How did he manage to get inside the tunnel?'

Still Sirius didn't speak. His knee was bouncing up and down of its own accord, and he felt hot and nauseous. He knew Remus and James were both looking at him - James glaring openly and Remus with a confused expression on his face. 'I...' he began at last, 'I...it was me...I told him how to get in.'

'You did what?'

'I told Snivell - Snape...I told him that if prodded the knot on the Willow with a stick, he'd be able to get into a secret tunnel and_'

'You told Snape how to get into the tunnel?' asked Remus, incredulous.

'I'm sorry.' Sirius finally looked Remus straight in the eye. 'I'm really, really, sorry, Moony.'

'You're sorry?' Remus spluttered. 'You're sorry? You nearly made me kill someone, and you just sit there calmly telling me that you are sorry? You didn't borrow someone's broom without asking or forget to return a library book. This is attempted murder!'

'I didn't mean to try and kill him!' said Sirius, suddenly alarmed by his friend's reaction.

'And what exactly did you hope to achieve then?' Remus hissed, turning around so that his face was just inches away from Sirius'. His face was white with anger, eyes blazing. Sirius blanched _ he had never thought he would have cause to feel afraid of Remus.

'I...I don't know...' he stuttered. 'I know it was stupid...I'm sorry.'

'Tell me why!' Remus wasn't lying down now. He was kneeling up on the bed, leaning towards Sirius threateningly.

'I just...I...I didn't mean to...I'm sorry.'

'That isn't an answer. Why did you do it?'

'To frighten him!' Sirius gasped, 'I was sick of him following you around...making his sneaky comments, and I wanted to shut him up...I wanted to scare him.'

Remus threw himself on Sirius, grabbing him by the shirt collars, and pushed him and the chair he was sitting in onto the floor. Sirius let out a howl of surprise but made no move to fight back as Remus pinned him down. Remus was still weak after his transformation, and he was shaking violently. He leant over and shouted in Sirius' face, 'You wanted to frighten Snape, so you thought you'd send him to your pet werewolf, eh? IS THAT ALL I AM TO YOU? A FREAK SHOW?'

'NO,' cried Sirius. 'It wasn't like that! I don't think you are a freak at all!'

Remus couldn't answer. He looked away from Sirius, panting with exhaustion. James stepped forward and put a hand under his elbow, gently pulling him back onto the bed. 'Moony, look, it's not so bad,' he said nervously. Remus glared at him derisively. James looked more nervous than ever, his gaze shifting uncomfortably between Remus' angry, trembling features and Sirius, still on the floor, looking shell-shocked. 'He really is sorry and...'

'Just get him out of here,' said Remus scornfully. 'I don't even want to look at him.'

Sirius scrambled to his feet. 'Moony, please, I'm sorry,' he pleaded.

'I trusted you. I thought you were my friend,' Remus said bitterly.

'I am your friend.'

Remus just looked away, disgusted. Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but James held up a hand to stop him. 'Let him be,' he said calmly, before jostling a bewildered Sirius out of the hospital wing.

************

Ten minutes later, James ushered Sirius back into the dormitory. Peter was sitting on the edge of his bed, chewing his fingernails. He looked up anxiously when he heard the others come in, and he paled visibly when he saw the stricken expression on Sirius' face.

'So...how did it go?' he ventured timidly. James scowled, and Sirius looked away. Peter tried to force a smile. 'Not too good then, ey?'

'Not too good?' scoffed Sirius. 'It was a complete and utter disaster. He hates me!'

'Oh, for Heaven's sake, Padfoot, stop being so melodramatic!' James said in exasperation. 'He's just a bit cross. He'll come around.'

'A bit cross? Prongs, were you even paying attention in there?' Sirius cried. 'He jumped on me and pinned me to the floor, accused me of treating him like a freak, and then said that I'd completely betrayed him and he never wants to be friends with me ever again.'

Peter's eyes widened in shock. 'Did he really say that?' he asked James.

'Well, yes...sort of...more or less...' James admitted. 'But he didn't really mean it; he was just, well, upset and a bit tired. You know what a stroppy bugger he can be sometimes. He'll get over it.'

'Prongs, will you please stop trying to pretend this is nothing!' exclaimed Sirius. 'Moony was right; this isn't just some trivial fight over a lost textbook. He DOES hate me, it IS a big deal, and it ISN'T just going to blow over!'

'Will you stop making such a song and dance routine out of it?' James yelled back. 'It will all be fine in a day or two if you and Moony just calm down a bit - '

'Calm down a bit - '

'YES, CALM DOWN! You are making far too much out of this, as usual. Why do you always have to be so...so extreme about everything? I'm the one that had to risk his neck pulling the greasy little slimeball out of there, and you don't hear me whining on about it!'

'You said you weren't angry with me!'

'I'm not angry about what happened,' said James with a voice of forced calm, 'but I am bloody annoyed that you've been behaving like some self-obsessed child about it.' Sirius opened his mouth to protest, but James pressed on. 'Moony's angry now, but he never stays that way for long. Just...let him sleep on it and go and see him again tomorrow. It'll all be fine.'

Sirius wasn't convinced, but James was so determined there was no point arguing. 'OK,' he said quietly. 'I'll try and talk to him again tomorrow.'

'Good,' said James.

'And I'll try not to whine so much.'

James smiled weakly. 'That would be nice.'

'And Prongs...thanks...for, you know...'

'That's okay,' said James, sounding a little tired. 'I don't want to talk about it anymore. You go and see Moony tomorrow, sort it all out. Then we can just forget about it and get back to normal.'

************

'Padfoot?'

Sirius looked up blearily. 'Wormtail?' he asked, blinking at the boy hovering by the side of his bed. 'What do you want? It's two o'clock in the morning.'

'I couldn't sleep either.' Peter smiled slightly. 'I've brought you some biscuits. I...well, you missed dinner. I thought you might be hungry.'

Sirius smiled back and moved up. 'Thanks, Wormtail,' he said. 'Here, sit yourself down.'

They sat quietly for a few minutes, munching away on Peter's stash of slightly broken biscuits, a product of an earlier kitchen raid. Judging by the chewiness of the biscuits, Sirius suspected they may have been lurking in Peter's trunk since the previous term. Sirius chewed slowly, eyeing the smaller boy with some curiosity. It was obvious that he wanted to say something, and Sirius wondered whether his bed would be completely overrun with biscuit crumbs before he managed to actually come out with it.

'Padfoot,' Peter began timidly.

'Yes, Wormtail?' Sirius did his best to sound encouraging but suspected he hadn't been entirely successful in keeping the bite of annoyance out of his voice.

'It will be all right, you know. Moony, I mean. He'll be fine.'

Sirius shrugged. 'You and Prongs both seem fairly certain about it. I'm not so sure. You didn't see him, Wormtail, it was scary. I've never seen him get so angry.'

'Well, that's just it, you see. People get angry with you all the time...'

'Is that supposed to make me feel better?' Sirius interrupted.

'No, wait.' Peter flushed. 'People do get angry with you, but they never stay angry for long. Even the teachers - no matter how often you get into trouble, you always manage to get back into their good books. Moony just won't be able to stay angry with you...no one ever does.'

Sirius frowned slightly, contemplating what Peter had said. He did have a point - with the exceptions of his family and members of Slytherin House (like I care what they think), he didn't really have any enemies. He had been in a lot of fights over the years, but most of them had been quickly forgotten, just as James had said.

'So you're sure he wouldn't stay angry with me?' he asked Peter.

'Positive,' Peter replied, brushing biscuit crumbs off his pyjamas. 'He just seemed angry tonight because...well, it was shock for him, and he probably wasn't feeling so good after the full moon. He freaked out a bit, but that doesn't mean he'll stay like that forever. He can sleep on it tonight...calm down a bit, y'know. Then tomorrow, he'll remember how much he likes you, and he won't be angry anymore.

'Thanks, Wormtail,' Sirius grinned. 'I do feel a bit better now.' Peter beamed with pleasure at his friend's approval. I wish he wouldn't do that, thought Sirius, it makes him look like a house-elf. 'You can go back to bed now. I'll be fine.'

'Sure you are OK?' asked Peter as he got up.

'Yeah. You did help me - you're a good mate, Wormtail,' Sirius muttered as he settled back down into bed, closing his eyes so he wouldn't see Peter's face contort into the expression of ecstatic devotion that always made Sirius imagine his head mounted on a plaque.