Warning: This chapter is from Sirius’s POV (gotta keep you lot on your toes!). In case you don’t get it from the chapter, it’s a week after the end of the last chapter (so there’s still a week left to go before winter break), and it’s the night of the full moon.
Chapter 9
I stand under the tree by the lake, staring in the direction of the Whomping Willow. It’s nearly sunset, but I still haven’t decided if I’m going to join the others tonight.
I shiver in the cold and shift from foot to foot. The packed snow crunches beneath my boots.
Part of me can’t believe I’m even considering missing tonight. I haven’t missed a full moon since I mastered the animagus spell. I’ve never wanted to before.
The rest of me is hurt and confused – and desperate not to be present when the uninhibited werewolf takes over the body and mind of the person I once considered my closest friend. I don’t think I could handle watching the wolf curl up to sleep with the stag-that-is-usually-the-boy-who-used-to-be-my-friend. It would be the final blow.
I’ve spent the last week trying to avoid my dorm-mates. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been failing spectacularly. I can’t seem to go anywhere without running into the boys I used to try to spend all of my time with. It seems like every time I turn around, there they are, the two of them holding hands, cuddling together, exchanging quick kisses that they seem to think are innocent, but I know what those so-called innocent kisses really mean, and it’s not at all wholesome and family-friendly. It’s almost as if they’re following me around, which is just stupid. They’re probably trying to sneak off to be by themselves, but since I’m doing the same, we keep ending up in the same out-of-the-way places. I should probably stop trying to avoid them and just let them avoid me, it would probably work better for all of us.
Of course, I realize this whole situation is my own fault. I never told the-boy-who-used-to-be-my-friend how I felt – even when he tried to confront me about it – because he’d confessed his own feelings to me all those ages ago, and I know how awful it is to like someone only to find out your friend likes the same person. No. I’m lying to myself. It is awful to find out you and your friend like the same person, but that’s not why I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell him because I couldn’t admit it to myself, much less to someone else. I was too scared to admit that I might have feelings for one of my best friends.
When I’m not with him, I want to know where he is, what he’s doing, who he’s with. And every time I see him I want him. I want to grab him and kiss him and hold him and never let go. Yes, I want to do more than kiss and hold him, but as long as I could be with him, I’d be happy. Well, I could learn to be happy.
It wasn’t so bad until
No. I can’t blame him. I should have known he wouldn’t wait for Evans forever, especially since she obviously refuses to admit she likes him. It’s good for him to move on. But did he have to move on to him? It’s not fair. I know I sound like a five-year-old, but it’s simply not fair.
I stare up at the darkening sky. Not long to go now. I have to make a decision.
“I should go,” I whisper to the chilly air, knowing it’s the right thing to do, and hoping that if I say it aloud, I can convince myself. “Just because I’m too much of a coward to tell him how I really feel is no reason to punish him.”
“Problems in paradise?” sneers the last voice in the world I want to hear.
I whip around. “Snivellus.”
Snape’s jaw clenches, then eases into a twisted smirk. “Upset
you lost your boyfriend to your best friend?” he mocks. “And so soon after his
fling with
I’m aiming my wand at him, but don’t even remember reaching for it. “Watch your mouth, Snivellus,” I growl at him.
The tip of his wand is instantly hovering inches from my nose. Stalemate.
“He can’t stand up for himself?” the prick taunts. “Or do you think defending his honor will convince him you’re worth keeping around?”
“I’m warning you,” I hiss, wand-hand steady despite the fact that the rest of me is starting to shake with anger. How dare he?
“Don’t have the balls to tell him you like him. Not that he’d ever go for an arrogant wanker like you. I’m surprised enough that he’d stoop so low as to be seen in public with Potter, but at least Potter wasn’t disowned by his family.”
I grit my teeth.
“Then again…” he pauses to consider. “You’d think a miserable half-blood like Lupin would be willing to bend over for anything pureblooded, even a disinherited disgrace like you.”
A flicker of movement catches my eye, and I glance towards the castle doors.
Two figures move swiftly in the gathering darkness from the
castle towards the
Snape turns and follows my gaze. I turn back to him just as
recognition lights twin malicious sparks in his hollow eyes. A wicked gleam
crosses his face as he sees the
“What’s your boyfriend doing with the nurse?” the slimy git taunts, turning back to me. “Is that why you’re so upset, then? The slut’s with her, too? Is that what he sneaks off to do every month? Or should I say whom he sneaks off to do? Potter must be more understanding than I gave him credit for.”
Something in me that has been gradually fraying over the past week finally snaps. “Why don’t you follow them and find out? If you go in after moonrise, you’ll see exactly what Remus sneaks off to do.”
He hesitates, and I know he wants to distrust anything I tell him, but in the scant light of the dying sun I can see the greed and curiosity glistening in his dark eyes.
He wants to know.
“Just hit the knot in the trunk like they did?” he asks at last.
I nod, a fierce and bitter fire burning somewhere in my chest. “Just follow the tunnel inside.”
He smirks nastily, then glides off, obviously having gotten what he wanted. It hadn’t occurred to me that he had been here for any reason other than to be nasty.
“You know, Black,” he throws over his shoulder, by now far enough away that he has to shout, “if you’d just associate with the proper people, you might not be such a disgrace to your name.” Then he’s gone, and I’m left alone once more with my thoughts.
I return my stare to the
I look up at the sky. The sun has set. It won’t be long now.
I watch the sky get darker. Maybe I should talk to James. Maybe if he knows how I feel, he’ll… what? Give up his own happiness for mine? I can’t ask that of him. Of either of them.
I can’t abandon them
tonight, either.
Feeling vaguely detached, I start back for the castle as well, thinking to tell the others, if they’re still inside, so they can come watch the sport of Snivellus running screaming from the passage after seeing a werewolf. It will be entertainment for us before we transform and a warning for the slimy git. Maybe then he’ll watch what he says, I think contemptuously. He’ll never bother us again if he knows what we can do to him if we should choose to. Once he knows, he’ll never even think of insulting…
I stop dead, foot poised above the step in front of me as the reality of what I’ve just done hits me.
Once he knows.
No one’s supposed to know! Ever!
Oh, by all that is mischief, what have I done? What have I done?
All at once I’m in motion again, running headlong up the stairs and down corridors, hoping against all reason that I’ll make it back to the dorm before James and Peter leave.
Must tell James, I think as I run. He’ll know what to do. What have I done? What have I done? It becomes a mantra, turning over and over in my head in time with the echo of my footfalls in the empty stone passages.
I don’t know why I assume James will have the solution; I’m running on pure, terrified instinct.
I burst into the common room, panting, scanning frantically for my friends. They’re not here.
Fighting the panic that’s threatening to swamp me completely, I race up the spiral staircase and throw the door wide.
Inside, to my intense relief, James and Peter look up, startled at my abrupt appearance. James is holding his invisibility cloak and Peter is holding a ratty old bit of parchment and his wand, poised to utter the words that will turn the blank page into the map we’ve been working on for nearly a year.
James raises an eyebrow at me. “Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you, Padfoot?” he asks. “Where’ve you been?”
I shake my head, lungs screaming for oxygen. “No time,” I gasp.
Both eyebrows go up this time. “We have plenty of time,” he says. “The moon’s not up yet, and we can’t join Rem until after he’s transformed, anyway. I was just pulling your tail.”
“No!” How can he be making jokes? There’s no time for that! I have to make him see. “No time! Snape’s going into the tunnel!”
James’s face goes completely blank. “What?”
“Outside!” I say frantically, waving my arms. “Was upset. Didn’t want to go tonight. You and Rem killing me, because I want me and Rem, but Snape showed up and almost fought but saw Rem go into the tunnel with the nurse and was saying awful stuff and I told him to go in after moonrise!”
Horror is slowly dawning on James’s face. Peter looks lost. I can’t deal with him now.
“You did what?” James finally roars.
I take a step back at the ferocity in his tone. I’ve never seen James this angry. It’s frightening.
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” I tell him, voice much lower now. The urgency of the whole situation is thrumming in my veins, but he has to understand. “I wasn’t going to go tonight. I can’t handle being around you and Remus. I want you to be happy, but I can’t handle seeing you together. It’s killing me.” It doesn’t matter who knows. Not now. “I’m in love with him, James. And then Snape showed up, and he saw Rem go into the tunnel with the nurse, saw them hit the knot, and then I told him. And I think that’s what he was after the whole time, but I didn’t realize until it was too late. And now he’s going to find out about Remus!”
“Find out?” James whispers. “You think that’s the worst of it?” his tone is low, deadly. “He could die. Remus could kill him. What do you think that would do to Remus, hm? Do you think he could live with himself if he killed another student?”
Oh, no. I hadn’t thought – What have I done?
“And why?” it’s a growl. “Because you were jealous and couldn’t admit that you were in love with Remus!”
My voice won’t work. What have I done?
“And the whole thing was a lie!” James is screaming now. “Lily and Remus and I were trying to get you to admit that you loved him, so we made it up! Remus and I were pretending to be a couple so you would realize that you wanted to be with him!”
I don’t understand…
“Remus is in love with you, you arrogant prick! He would never have been with me except Lily convinced him it was his only chance to be with you. He doesn’t care about me like that. He cares about you. And even if he did like me as more than a friend, it never would have worked. The wolf wants you. And werewolves mate for life.”
Mate for life… he wants me?
“Now I have to go and fix what you’ve done before someone gets hurt.” The rage is rolling off my furious friend in almost visible waves. “May anything that goes wrong be on your head.”
And he’s gone.
I’m left standing dumbstruck in the middle of the dormitory, staring blankly at nothing.
I dimly hear Peter making confused sorts of noises, but I’m past actually registering them as words.
I don’t understand. What have I done? What will he do if he hurts someone? What if James gets hurt? What if he gets hurt? Was it really all a lie? I never knew werewolves mated for life. How does that… work? Does he get a choice? Is it forced on him? Could he really be in love with… me? Will he still want me after what I’ve just… Oh, what have I done?
TBC