Chapter Text
24 January, 1977
“How are you feeling, Moony?”
It was an idiotic question. How was he bloody feeling? Honestly?
Remus was feeling like his skin was too tight, a sausage casing stuffed with too much offal, threatening to split open and spill out his gory insides in an embarrassing mess. He was feeling a bit like every hair follicle in every one of his pores was sprouting teeny tiny barbs, giving every last bit of him an uneasy, tingly itch, as infuriating as those inner ear itches one’s finger could never never wiggle quite deep enough to alleviate. He was feeling a little like his bones were made of liquid fire, molten and gooey, at once threatening to incinerate him and to leave him in a pathetic heap of meat on the floor of the Shack. He was feeling like his eyes were going to burst from the pressure inside his skull, like his spine was the lit fuse of a bomb, like his jaw was too small to accommodate his starving need to bite down.
But Remus didn’t say any of that. He held his tongue with the last vestiges of the mild manner and self-restraint he exhibited roughly twenty-eight nights each month and replied, “Oh, I’m alright. I have done this before, you know.”
Sirius looked unconvinced, solicitously squeezing Remus’ shoulder. Even with all the magma-boned, too-tight, too-much of his impending transformation, the simple touch from his boyfriend sent a thrill down Remus’ excruciating spine and straight to his groin. He was always like that leading up to the moon, hair trigger arousal competing with the gnawing moon-ache for dominion over his body. It had been that way since puberty had wrought havoc in his body around third year, the week of the moon becoming not only fraught with bone-deep pain beyond his years, but laced with the humiliation of frequent (and often ill-timed) erections, sexual fantasies, and wet dreams. That would have been bad enough, but realistically, he was far from the only thirteen-year-old boy thus afflicted. But unbearably, his new carnal preoccupations tended to feature his male best friend in a starring role, and often skewed into urges more violent and visceral than his naive brain could make heads or tails of. Through a combination of denial, shame, desensitization, and distraction, Remus had just about learned to grit his teeth and live with it, but then a few months ago, Sirius, wet-haired and drastically beautiful, had leaned over and kissed him, smelling green and lush with summer and sweet sweat. And then later Sirius had been his, and he wanted to be touched, and tasted, and fucked, and not only did he not mind, but he liked when Remus was rough, and sometimes he begged for it, and he came harder if Remus told him to come with a hand around his neck, and he would give Remus a proud, private smile when beautiful bruises bloomed on his pale skin as if to spell Remus’ name. A low growl escaped Remus despite his gritted teeth and, mistaking it for a groan of pain, Sirius’ arms came around him, “Oh, Moony, cut the stoic act, I know it bloody hurts.”
Sirius’ arms were warm around him, and strong, and Remus could feel the contours of his toned chest through his robes. The scent of him enveloped Remus, the warm sharpness like spiced brandy, the comforting home-ness like baking pastry, the heady wild perfume of earth and trees and the wind through black hair that was also black fur that was also Black blood. Feeling a little like the leering wolf in the old cartoons he’d occasionally watched with his mum, dragged through the air by a scent trail that tugged him nose first, Remus turned his head and buried his face in the side of Sirius’ neck, under his jaw where the smell was strongest and the artery pulsed strong against his lips. Sirius chuckled, sensing the change in Remus as he’d learned to over the last few lunar cycles. His breath disturbed the hair on top of Remus’ head, but the rhythm of the blood fluttered faster, “Ooh,” Sirius said, and Remus could hear the lascivious grin in his voice, “Again, Remus? Blimey, the moon makes you insatiable!”
“No, you make me insatiable,” he corrected, muttered against Sirius’ skin before he tasted it in an open-mouthed kiss, the sweat-salt tang of it like ambrosia.
Sirius chuckled again, but his voice was lower when he spoke, the desire Remus could smell in his blood--so close he could almost taste it--audible in his tone, “I just make you hard,” Sirius said, flippantly, pressing closer to the evidence against his abdomen, “It’s the moon that makes you bloody insatiable, a hug doesn’t count as foreplay with you the rest of the month.” He was right, of course, but with the wolf so close to the surface, the cheekiness felt like an affront and he nipped the skin just under the rim of his jaw hard, making Sirius gasp. “R-right,” he stammered, as if responding to the unspoken reprimand, one arm slipping from Remus’ waist, “Either way, good thing Prongs and Wormy aren’t getting here ‘til later,” his palm skimmed over Remus’ throbbing erection through his trousers and the lightning bolt sensation of it served to bring Remus back to his senses.
“No way, Pads, we can’t,” he choked out, unconvincingly, even as his hips thrust involuntarily into Sirius’ touch.
“Aww,” Sirius pouted, his hand stilling, and Merlin’s balls, was there anything Remus would refuse him when his eyes were so dark in the low light and his hair fell so gracefully across his brow and the bow of his lips was the most tempting thing surely anyone had ever seen? “You don’t want me?”
“Christ, you fucking prat!” Remus muttered, the words lost somewhat between searing kisses. Under the insistence of his own, Sirius’ lips unfolded from the world’s most tempting pout to the world’s most dizzying fucking grin, teeth hard and smooth against Remus’ tongue. It no longer seemed cold, not at all, even though the draft whistled through the boarded up windows in a dreamy prolonged whine. The opposite, everywhere their skin met seemed searing hot. Glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife, Remus’ brain supplied, unironically. Nothing had ever felt so good, or felt so right. Remus wasn’t sure through the moon-haze or the music unfolding like an incantation in his head how long exactly he’d been kissing Sirius, when exactly he’d crowded him against the peeling wallpaper, but it had been a stroke of genius to start, he thought, as he rutted against him, “Of course, I fucking want you,” he growled into their kiss.
“Fuck, Moony,” Sirius panted, his hands on Remus’ arse pressing them tight together, “You’ve no idea how sexy you are like this.”
Remus grinned wolfishly into their frenzied kisses, “You never finished telling me before,” he teased, burying one hand in Sirius’ hair to tug his head none-too-gently aside, baring his neck. He smiled against his skin before opening his mouth, the recent memory of their afternoon rendezvous in the secret passageway by the library fresh and vivid in his head.
“You made it--ah!--” Sirius gasped as Remus lips and teeth traversed the sensitive skin of his neck, “Difficult to keep--oh, fuck--talking, the, the way you--oh-oh!--kept doing that thing with y-your tongue!” Remus swirled his tongue around Sirius’ earlobe not unlike the ‘thing with his tongue’ he’d been doing before, and Sirius shuddered. An instant later his hands were tugging determinedly at Remus’ robes, fumbling to undo his trousers impatiently and his lips brushed Remus’ ear as he said, “Have to get you out of these before you change anyway.”
“Padfoot,” Remus said, urgently, remembering with a stuttering shock that the fire in his veins, the drumming heartbeat pounding in his ears, was more than a physiological response to Sirius, “Sirius, we don’t have time--”
“We don’t need a lot of time,” Sirius insisted, flashing Remus a dangerously suave smile as he dropped to his knees, yanking Remus’ clothes aside, “I can do the tongue thing, too, you know how fast I can--”
“Sirius, I don’t want you to see me,” Remus pleaded, even as his newly freed cock strained towards the unspeakable sweetness inside Sirius’ mouth. Sirius halted, his grey eyes darkly gleaming in the dim of the Shack, his eyebrows pitching up in that wonderfully doggish way. Remus had been adamant that his friends always leave the room while his body underwent its horrible change.
“Moony,” Sirius said, softly, gently, one hand rising to cup Remus’ cheek, the pad of his thumb drifting across Remus’ kiss-swollen lower lip, grazing the high point of his cheekbone, “You know I love you,” he said. Remus knew it, he did, they’d said it a few billion times, after all, since they’d finally admitted it around Halloween, but it still felt like a miracle to him every time Sirius said it. Improbable, impossible, incredible that this brash whirlwind of a boy, gorgeous and potent as a natural disaster, with all the poor impulse control and unflagging loyalty of a hound, the best friend he could ever have dreamed, loved him too, “I love every part of you,” Sirius went on, “Nothing you could show me could change that.”
He said it in the same earnest tone that had assured Remus at twelve years old that his lycanthropy wouldn’t change their friendship and just as it had then, it went straight to the heart of him. Sirius was so often glib, so often petulant, flippant, nearly cruel in his jokes, and Remus himself knew he himself could be sardonic and aloof. It was hard to be so unflinchingly sincere. It wasn’t the language of teenage boys, even ones fumbling their way through being in love with each other. He wanted to believe it, though, couldn’t help but believe it with Sirius looking at him as if he was everything. And Merlin, he loved him.
A second later he was falling to a level with Sirius, too distracted to care that his moon-sore knees hit the wooden floorboards just on the wrong side of too hard. All that existed was Sirius, and love, and the sweet, young heat of their bodies so close together. Their hands got tangled in their eagerness to tear their clothing out of the way, skin hungrily seeking skin as their mouths crashed together, unmindful of knocking teeth and spit slick on their chins. Remus’ consciousness shrank down to the delicious point of contact where his rigid length nestled against the side of Sirius’, sliding along the clammy yielding of skin and curls, off-set by the way Sirius gasped into his mouth each time their cocks would touch.
It came as a surprise-- like a blast of buckshot to the chest, like an upturned cauldron of scalding oil, like getting smeared across the road by an oncoming lorry. In the space of an instant everything being pleasure shattered into everything being pain. His spine was breaking, making room for new vertebrae, his ribs were cracking into the other shape, his organs twisting and roiling like so many agonizing fish in his belly. He knew it was his voice screaming inarticulately but he couldn’t control it. His skin was being flayed by new fur, his hands and feet tearing open to accommodate claws. His legs snapped and bent themselves into new shapes as his arms gave way to forepaws, planted still on either side of the prey quivering and making noise beneath him.
Sirius, the other’s voice was crying plaintively in the back of the wolf’s mind, Sirius--! Change! Run! Get away from me!--fading quickly to silence as he took back his skin. The squirming prey smelled familiar, almost like the dog, but much more appetizing. The prey was squeezing its eyes shut, its mouth moving and making little sounds, its expression constipated with fear or frustration. The wolf’s tongue lolled out to lick its lips as parts of the prey grew hair, as the prey’s ears got bigger. It might have looked a little unusual, but as the wolf’s teeth sank into the meat of the prey’s shoulder, it tasted just the way prey should taste.
It screamed like prey should scream.
***
26 January, 1977
When Sirius’ eyes opened, he was greeted by the sight of Albus Dumbledore. Well, he thought, that can’t be good. His head was pounding but he tried to take stock of his surroundings quickly, before the lecture he surely must be about to receive began.
Hospital wing, judging by the starched white sheets, the privacy screen around the bed where he lay, and not least of all, the pain that pulsed through his body. Quidditch injuries, maybe? He tried to remember an incoming Bludger but no, it was still another two weeks before the game against Ravenclaw, wasn’t it? And besides that, Madam Pomfrey would have sorted out simple broken bones straight off, unless maybe he’d severely cracked his skull or something. His head did bloody hurt, now that he thought of it, but the lack of bandages constricting his head led him to believe it wasn’t a whack from a zealous Bludger or Beater’s bat.
Had it been a duel, then, maybe? That might explain the lapse in his memory, and the being bedridden. And come to think of it, the tight throbbing in his left shoulder, arm, and along his chest felt more like magical injury than purely physical damage. Had they confunded him or something? Sirius concentrated but could remember no duel.
“Ah, Mr Black,” Dumbledore said. He appeared to have realized that Sirius had woken, and straightened his half-moon spectacles, “How are you feeling?”
How are you feeling, Moony? Sirius’ own words echoed back to him in his head. They were like the infinitesimal movement that may trigger an avalanche, and suddenly it was all rushing back to him like so many tonnes of ice.
The moon, the full moon looming minutes away, Prongs and Peter delayed by detention, Remus’ eyes and hands on him catching like fire. Fear. Remus’ body breaking and contorting and screaming, worse than anything he could have imagined based solely upon the sounds of the transformations he’d heard from the other side of a door. The arresting, mortal terror freezing his limbs, magic faltering under the paralysis of fear, Padfoot refusing to come to his aid. Teeth, blood, pain, the stag glimpsed through hazy eyes. And then waking up here.
“R-Remus, where’s Remus?” Sirius’ voice finally choked out, and it sounded both hoarse and too loud in his own head. He’d have their bloody hides if they’d hurt Remus separating them.
Fuck, Merlin fuck, even if he was unharmed, Remus had to be hysterical right now.
Dumbledore’s silvery eyebrows lifted, “I assure you, Mr Black, Mr Lupin is being taken care of,” he said, before asking again, “But how are you feeling?”
“Headmaster, please!” what did that mean, taken care of, oh fuck, that could mean anything, “Please, it’s not his fault! Don’t punish him! Merlin-- don’t hurt h--”
“Sirius, please, do lay back down,” Dumbledore said, gently but firmly, and Sirius realized then that he had sat up in bed, “Your injuries are rather complicated ones to treat, and Madam Pomfrey will have my head if she thinks I have allowed you to disrupt the healing process by jumping out of bed.”
“Merlin fuck,” Sirius said, as he reluctantly lay back down, his mind piecing together what kind of complicated injury he had. His racing mind ground to a halt, “I’m a fucking werewolf.”
Dumbledore inclined his head, appearing unruffled by Sirius’ profanity. Hell, perhaps he even agreed with Sirius that under the present circumstances strong wording was called for, “Yes,” he confirmed, blue eyes considering Sirius plainly, “I’m afraid your infection was already beyond intervention when you reached Madam Pomfrey’s care. You--”
“Is Remus alright?” Sirius interrupted. He’d been an amateur lycanthropy expert for years now, he didn’t need it mincingly explained to him. He knew as well as Dumbledore did that the infection ‘had been beyond intervention’ the instant Remus’ fangs had broken skin. He didn’t need to listen to this tripe, what he needed was to know that Remus was okay.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled curiously behind his spectacles but he nodded, “Mr Lupin suffered no serious injuries last night.”
“But is he okay?” Sirius pressed, impatient, frustrated. Would it cost the old man so much to just give a straight answer for once in his life? “He must be round the twist with guilt and-and--” Sirius’ heart seemed to have taken up residence in his throat but even around the obstruction he managed to plead frantically, “Please, oh fuck, you can’t expel him! Don’t report him! He, it’s not his bloody fault, and he’ll punish himself enou--”
“Mr Black, please,” Dumbledore said, but his bland smile wasn’t very encouraging, “No disciplinary action has yet been taken, in light of your need for medical attention,” he canted his head curiously to the side, “Mr Lupin seemed rather determined to be expelled, but Mr Potter and Mr Pettigrew made a strong case for waiting to hear your side of events.”
Sirius sucked in a few deep breaths as he tried to parse this information, “James and Pete,” he said, suddenly feeling unable to meet the Headmaster’s gaze.
“They are also well, you have my word,” Dumbledore assured him, before he could ask, “Mr Potter was given a clean bill of health last night.”
“Last night?” Sirius blurted out, looking around as if to ascertain the time of day from the window, forgetting that his view was blocked by the privacy screen around his bed, “What day is it?”
“It is Wednesday, the twenty-sixth of January,” Dumbledore replied calmly, “And judging by my stomach, which is quite reliable in these matters, it is nearing dinnertime.”
Sirius appreciated the effort at humor but did not crack a smile, “James was hurt,” he said, more statement than question.
“He sustained some injuries saving you from Mr Lupin, yes,” Dumbledore said, carefully, “But as I have said, he has healed.”
Sirius tried to picture the scene, and winced in something worse than embarrassment, trying to imagine the stag retrieving his bloodied and half-naked body from the rabid wolf. Of course, he’d been injured. Then he noticed the knowing look on the Headmaster’s face and something occurred to him, and he jolted upright again, the lie tumbling out of his mouth faster than he could think them, “I-I figured out Remus’ secret, of course, and, and I, I followed him! Yeah, I followed him past the Whomping Willow and--”
“Sirius, you have proven yourself more than capable at the keeping of secrets but this one is no longer yours to guard,” Dumbledore interrupted, his voice almost suspiciously benign, “Mr Potter and Mr Pettigrew have already informed me of the impressive dedication to Mr Lupin that you all share,” he paused, “And the risks you undertook to try and... intervene.” Dumbledore was quiet for a moment and Sirius watched the older wizard’s hand stroke thoughtfully through his beard, “I cannot say I approve, but I was impressed to hear of your magical accomplishments.” Sirius managed to make eye contact again, as Dumbledore continued, “I ought to have monitored you four more closely, that much is now apparent.”
Sirius swallowed around the lump in his throat, hating the sudden prickle of tears in his eyes. He’d ruined it, blown their cover, let Remus do exactly what they had been trying to prevent. He squeezed his eyes shut, Remus must hate me.
“Mr Black, you’ve suffered a great shock,” Dumbledore said gently, and Sirius heard the rustle of robes as the old man got to his feet. His eyes shot open, urgent once more.
“Please, Professor,” he said, before Dumbledore could say more, “Please, tell me Remus won’t be punished, he did nothing wrong.”
Dumbledore surveyed Sirius over the tops of his spectacles, and for a second, Sirius had the queasy sense that Dumbledore somehow knew exactly what sort of rashness had precipitated his bite. He said, “You will permit my saying so, I hope, but you may not feel so forgiving after your first full moon, Mr Black.”
Sirius rolled his eyes and ignored the way it made his head spin, “I don’t care about that!” he insisted, “I care about him.”
“As you say, Mr Black,” Dumbledore said, and Sirius thought he might be trying not smile judging by the way his eyes were twinkling, “It is too easy to underestimate the resilience of young love at my advanced age, but I am inclined to believe you. Since you came to Hogwarts, in all your… exploits, shall we say, it cannot be said you have ever been found wanting of conviction, Mr Black.”
“So, you won’t punish him?” Sirius repeated, uninterested in Dumbledore’s long-winded half-compliments. What he needed was confirmation.
Dumbledore nodded, “I shall not.” Sirius slumped back against the pillows in relief, and Dumbledore added, with pleasant finality, “And now, I believe I shall leave you to convalesce in peace. A speedy recovery to you, Mr Black.” He parted the curtain and was gone.
No sooner than he had left, Madam Pomfrey appeared, and judging by her sympathetic expression she had heard most of their discussion. This suspicion was confirmed for Sirius as she watched him obediently gulp down a potion that smelled vaguely like over-cooked cabbage and said, “Have patience with Remus,” worry lines creasing her brow, “He’s not going to want to let you forgive him.”
Sirius licked his lips and shuddered, trying to rid his mouth of the potion’s trenchant aftertaste. Normally he would have bristled at anyone acting as though they knew Moony better than he did, but Madam Pomfrey had been there for the lion’s share of Remus’ most vulnerable moments since they had started at Hogwarts, and the two shared a certain affinity anyway, as two people so fluent in the ways of discretion. He was quiet for a moment as the medi-witch carried out a series of diagnostic spells before finally finding the nerve to quietly ask her, “Was he very upset?”
Madam Pomfrey frowned, “Despondent,” she said, with an admirable degree of honesty. Sirius cringed, knowing that even that probably did not begin to encompass it.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Sirius insisted, as Madam Pomfrey began to unwind the bandages from his shoulder.
“I believe you, dear,” Madam Pomfrey said, “But you’ll have a hard time of convincing Remus,” Sirius opened his mouth, but she went on, “Just be patient with him.”
Sirius chewed on his lip, trying to see the wisdom in Madam Pomfrey’s advice, trying not to grimace with pain as she cleaned and anointed the fateful bite. He wondered what it looked like, new and surely different from the long-healed one that Remus bore on his side, distorted by how much his skin had grown since his bite. At the same time, he was somewhat grateful that it was located where he could not see it without a mirror, he could make out only some bruised edges. The wound was fresh, figuratively as well as literally, and Sirius knew, really, that Madam Pomfrey was right. Remus was not one to be rushed, he followed his own timetable and opened up only when and how he pleased.
But hadn’t Sirius done his waiting? They’d waited months and months back in second year before they’d finally gotten Remus’ secret out in the open. Then it’d taken almost two years for all three of them to master the Animagus spell and he’d kept that quiet the whole time. Not to mention, Sirius had waited almost two years before acting on his feelings for Remus after they had first taken root. And even then, it was longer before they’d actually bothered to use words to communicate. And then he’d had to resist admitting that it was love, and not just fancying, in a pointless last ditch effort to not seem overeager. He’d waited three years before Remus had allowed him to stay in the same room while his transformation occurred.
That last, of course, hadn’t gone so smoothly, he told himself, as an involuntary shudder went through him at the thought of Remus’ body twisting and breaking inches from his own.
His stomach flipped at the thought of his own body doing that in a few weeks, just as Madam Pomfrey asked if he was hungry. He shook his head mutely, and was grateful that she didn’t argue. He was even more grateful a moment later when she put a cup of Dreamless Sleep in his hands. He drank compliantly and laid back against his pillows.
He didn’t feel like a werewolf, hell, he didn’t even really feel like he was sixteen, even though he had been for a couple of months. Perhaps sensing his distress, Madam Pomfrey pet the top of his head, smoothing out his hair over the pillow, tenderly, the way a mother might. A normal, loving, not batshit mother, of course, the antithesis of his own. She’d never been big on touching. He almost smiled at the knowledge that this surely would have gotten him disowned if he hadn’t already accomplished that last year just by virtue of his rebellious, blood traitorous ways. He would have had to open her Howlers where she couldn’t out him to the entire school, he reckoned with dwindling clarity.
Seconds later, he was asleep.
Notes:
Thank you for reading! I have the whole fic pre-written and will try to update weekly!
Music referenced in this chapter:
Paradise By the Dashboard Light, Meat Loaf
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