Marauder crack

A peek into the past

Second year at Hogwarts. Remus's feet dangle on the seat of Albus Dumbledore's office. The old professor looks at him from the other side of a thick and bushy beard. He doesn't know why he called him, nor he remembers doing anything wrong.

- Someone has entered the Forbidden Section of the library.

- It wasn't me, sir, I promise you.

- I know, Lupin.

"And then why did he call me?" thinks Remus. But he doesn't say anything because it seems to him that saying that would be rude. Curiosity at that point was driving him mad.

- You see, Remus, the person who has entered without permission, at night, and by illicit means that I have not yet been able to find out, consulted a single book. - Dumbledore has the soul of a novelist and makes a dramatic silence. -Specifically, a book about creatures of the night and more specifically, about vampires, and werewolves.

Remus swallows hard, his whole mouth now tasting like bilis.

- About werewolves?

- It seems someone at Hogwarts is curious about lycanthropy and he is not a professor with access to the Forbidden Section, so he must be a student with the ability, inventiveness, and total disregard for the rules that are needed for such mischief.

Sirius.

-Professor- Remus adventure- I really don't know what are you referring to.

But he knows it perfectly. Although he would rather forget it. Jinx himself with an "Obliviate!", look for a time turner, change the course of things.

- Lupin, it seems clear to me that someone suspects something about your condition, and I think the time has come to tell him.

Remus feels like if he were having a panic attack. He hasn't had one in his whole life, but now that he has the first one he recognizes it immediately. His hands' sweat. He has a cold nose. Sirius has been investigating about lycanthropy. Under James's cloak. Maybe with James himself.

-But professor ...- he protests.

-If they don't find out by your own means, they'll find out some other way- Dumbledore tries and reason to him. -There is no choice, Remus, except for you to trust that they will keep that secret for you, in the name of the friendship that links them with you.

Dumbledore looks down and begins to sort the scrolls in his table. It is the signal to indicate that there is no more to talk. Remus knows that he should get up but his legs are heavy. Dumbledore guesses he's scared, he can smell it in the rarefied air in the room. The panic of young children smells different, more intense.

- We owe a personal honesty debt to those we love. You have to give your friends a chance, if you really want them to be your friends.

- What if THEY don't give it to me, professor?

Dumbledore's eyes sparkle with a blaze of joviality, from the other side of his traditional half-moon spectacles.

- To be given a chance, you have to give it first.

That same night, as Remus digests the idea of ​​telling them everything, the full moon and the pains, the day after are so terrible that he gets permission from the nurse to stay in bed. Convalescence ends coming down with violent pneumonia and when he wakes up for the first time on the ninth day, his pijama sleeves are cut short. He always grows from sudden stretches. His mirror gives him back an image of him that barely recognizes. Taller, Slimmer, Older. 

He supposes that the time has come to grow up, whatever the price. The next time he sits in Dumbledore's office, his legs won't hang from the chair again. Maybe taller by then, but with no friends left.