Lupercalia

Lupercalia

It was the one day out of all the year that he was dangerous. They needed no moon charts, needed no Inner Eye to know. Today was February fourteenth and the next day Remus Lupin would be a werewolf, yet not in the sense that he was whenever the moon was full. Two years ago, they had been lucky and the full moon coincided with February fifteenth, however, this year it did not. Ironically, Remus Lupin wasn't too dangerous around the fifteenth each year. If anything, he was creepier for his lycanthropy harkened back to what most likely started the Muggle rumours of werewolves before the beasts escaped into the Muggle world back in 1582.

Sirius and he were up in the seventh-year Gryffindor boys' dormitory. Sirius was sitting on his bed, one leg hanging off of it, the other bent as though he was about to sit cross-legged. His shoulders were slightly slumped so that his elbows rested on his thighs. He was trying to think of something to say, but they were both running out of time. This was something that James and Peter just couldn't participate in ever. If anything, the other two Marauders most likely suspected that Sirius and Remus were together and had some odd reason for disappearing together every February fifteenth for a few years now.

Sirius' dark grey eyes looked over at Remus as the older and ever-so-slightly taller teenager paced. Remus always paced. It was the way he could think clearer and keep from being too nervous. He remembered third-year when Remus seemed to be going to his grandmother's house only days after returning. It had made no sense and so one day Sirius followed Remus, and that's when Sirius found out what Remus was doomed to every February fifteenth.

"I wish I never met you."

Sirius snorted. "I'm sick in love with you too, Moony."

Remus glanced at him through narrowed eyes and turned to face Sirius before sighing. "Sirius, I meant it for your own sake. I can't believe I've been dragging you into this."

"I've gotten used to it," Sirius rocked back and forth absentmindedly.

"Really?" Remus scoffed. "How?"

Sirius stopped rocking abruptly and blinked. "Ah...er..."

"I thought so."

"Moony - "

"Don't change the subject with some line like 'I see silhouettes in the window' or 'Is that James down there?' Actually, don't talk," Remus added and returned to pacing.

Sirius opened his mouth then closed it as he watched Remus pace again. Sighing inwardly, he glanced out the window at the setting sun. That next night they would be ready for the ritual.

~*~

They were stand in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. Sirius looked down at the clothes in front of him and then ran a hand over the armband on his right arm feeling the strands of fur under his fingers. He had a fur band on each arm that went from his wrist to his elbow. Attached to the armband were flaps of fur that extended over the backs of his hands with a loop for his middle fingers to hold it in place. He wore shorts of tanned hide and had leg bands much like the arm bands only they didn't cover his feet like the armbands covered a part of his hands. He wore a vest of sorts made the same way as the bands and a bit of the same tanned leather was tied around his head. He wore no shoes.

Remus had a band around his head that matched his armbands and leg bands much like Sirius', only Remus' arm bands didn't continue over onto his hands. He wore no shirt and wore hide shorts much like Sirius' only his was adorned with fur. The fur on his costume was the same colour as Moony's fur, an incandescent silver and long, whereas Sirius' was a yellowish brown, thick, and much shorter.

"It's close to time," Remus spoke quietly, his voice slightly lower.

Sirius glanced over at him and licked his lips, swallowing. This always made him nervous. He wasn't made for ritualistic cultish deeds in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. Remus had explained why he had to go out there many times, he had explained what all was going on more times than Sirius could count, but still he approached the event with trepidation.

"You can back out at any time," Remus continued in the same detached voice.

Sirius went to say something but merely nodded quietly. He wanted to tell Remus that he would be there. That every year he would go through the bizarre Lupercalia ritual but he couldn't. He could barely say anything.

Then his eyes grew heavy and he felt the muscles in his body relax to an almost jelly state. His senses seemed heightened and he wasn't aware of what he was doing. It was almost like a pull, as though the fur was compelling him to do whatever he was doing. He barely registered Remus going through the same movements. His mouth felt dry and his teeth felt sharper. He felt slightly disoriented as his senses heightened bringing him to his Padfoot senses in his human body.

Then he was running. It was faster than any human body could go though briefly, yet he didn't feel human. He felt as though he was Padfoot only in an out-of-body experience. As he glanced over at Remus who was just a bit faster than he was, Sirius recognized that it wasn't Moony, but it wasn't Remus either. Then he felt his eyes grow heavy and he knew he was giving in. His mind fought against it. He knew that Remus was far-gone, but Sirius had to keep from giving in, he had to. Yet, as every time before, Sirius gave in to the ritual.

~*~

Two dark grey eyes snapped open instantly and Sirius shot up into a sitting position only to flop back down in the mud with a groan. He was dirty, itchy, sore, and could feel a foreign coppery taste in his mouth. Stripping off his armbands, he scratched at his arms as he sat up slowly, trying to gather where he was. Again, as always he was right where he started laying just a metre, maybe less, from his clothes.

Looking over to his right, Sirius took in Remus. The anaemic lycanthrope lay on his side with his back to Sirius. His breathing was shallow but it always was like that after he transformed or they went through the Lupercalia ritual. Sirius sat up and exchanged the furs and hides for his clothes before walking over to Remus. When he first joined Remus in this ritual, he ran off the first morning leaving Remus alone. The next time he went to run but ended up sitting up waiting, then there was a full moon, which meant normal full moon escapades then the year before he woke Remus up.

Sirius wasn't sure what he wanted to do now. He was always scared to touch Remus after things like this. Staring down at the almost waxy pale eighteen-year-old, Sirius fought the urge to nudge Remus with his foot to cheek to see if he was still alive. He thought about turning into Padfoot, but somehow the idea didn't seem quite right either. So, he stared down at Remus and felt helpless and lost. All the books he had read about werewolves spoke of how the werewolf couldn't function when they lost the person they loved the most, but Sirius wondered if he could function if someday when he came to wait for Remus to wake, the older Gryffindor wouldn't wake.

Then Remus stirred as though he knew someone was watching him and rolled over running a hand over his eyes before looking up at Sirius, groaning slightly. "What time is it?"

Sirius looked up at the sky through the trees. Neither had brought a watch just in case someone found their pile of clothes and took valuables. "I think it's morning," Sirius offered his best guess. "I'd bet that everyone's in class right now."

Remus nodded and rose from the ground, his knees popping as he did so. Exchanging the furs and hides for his clothes, he rubbed his wrists where the bands had cut into his skin. "Now we must throw them to the river."

Sirius nodded as they both gathered the hides and furs together and headed deeper into the Forbidden Forest. Soon they came to a small river that was too big to be a creek. Looking between each other, Remus gave Sirius and nod, they both let the hides, and furs tumble into the river for purification and the end of Lupercalia for 1978.

The End