Marauder crack

Confessions from a Hogwart's Werewolf

December 1972.

It's his second Christmas at Hogwarts. In the Great Hall, the students' choir and the frogs rehearse for Christmas Eve dinner and the little ones try not to miss the note when The Bloody Baron and Sir Nicholas walk through the tables and break the stained glass on their ghostly horses.

Remus Lupin is twelve years and almost eight months old and has just confessed to his only friends he has ever had, that he is, in fact, a werewolf. He believes twelve years is a good age to die.

- A Werewolf? - babbles Peter. - But ... Werewolves ... are dangerous, right? They are ... - he has that horrified look that Remus has seen countless times. - They are beasts, aren't they?

-Don't say that, Peter!- James reproaches him.

Sirius is sitting in a dim corner of the common room. Right in front of Remus who has his head down and tries not to look up, so as not to see the rejection, the horror, the disappointment, the fear.

He knows what will happen now. Once they know it, once it's public, they will all mark their distance so that the wolf does not bite them. They all step aside, and if you are lucky, they smile at you compassionately and if you are less lucky, you get stuffed in a cornered memory pocket and then ignored for the rest of his life.

- But it cannot be! - Peter insists. - Werewolves are monsters!

That word. Monster. And that other. Beast. Remus wants to replicate andprotest - I'm not a monster! - but it's useless because Peter doesn't say more than what everyone thinks. Monstrous. Bestial. Remus is more than that, but he can't deny that once a month is exactly that.

That's why he didn't want to say it. That is why he would have wanted them not to know. Never. He wished that Sirius hadn't paid attention to the lesson about Werewolves during "Defense Against the Dark Arts." Nor he wouldn't have wanted to James to have seen his scars in the common showers. That everyone had overlooked that night a month he spends out of bed at Gryffindor. That they had been blind and deaf to his misery. Mute and ignorant. That, above all else, Dumbledore would not have forced him to tell the truth.

Twelve years and Remus has lost almost everything in life, but the mere possibility of losing them terrifies him. He always knew that will happen and now that it is about to happen he knows that it was impossible to be prepared.

-A Werewolf...- Peter repeats, more to himself than to the rest. - A Werewolf at Hogwarts...

Remus gets up and leaves. Or at least he wants to get up and leave but his legs won't let them, nevertheless, he doesn't want to cry in front of anyone. He is taken by surprise by Sirius's voice from the corner.

- Let's see, Pettigrew, you are dumber than a basket, more tiresome than a three-hour Potions lesson, and more cumbersome than a house-elf drugged with an obedience filter. Answer one thing. Did I spend the day telling you that you are an underdeveloped dwarf with no personality that parasitises on James' popularity day and night because you don't fucking dare to do anything for yourself?

Peter blushes, thinks about it for less than a second, and denies it with a gesture. He seems so mortified that Remus feels sorry for him.

- And why don't we do that, Peter?

- Because you are my friend?

He says it, the poor man, without much conviction.

- You said it. So won't you ever say that word again to Remus, or I'll make sure I put hell pepper in your underpants every morning until your genitals are so small that they look like a gnome's.Remus's heart begins to beat a little faster. Sirius doesn't seem terrified, nor full of compassion for him. Sirius seems only like Sirius. Half-serious, half-joking, determined, somewhat oblivious, more primary good, dazzling nobility.

- I'm sorry, Remus- Peter apologises.

"Did he just ask me for forgiveness?"

- No problem, Pete.

It just can not be. James doesn't seem concerned. Sirius is obviously not worried. None of them have run away. He doesn't give credit. It is not the usual reaction when you confess to someone that you are a beast that feeds the nightmares of children.

- You haven't said anything that isn't true, Peter.

A beast. A monster. A Werewolf. It's true. But Sirius doesn't think the same. Sirius stands up and moves the chair towards the center of the room and stares into his eyes. More steadily than no one ever looked at him in his whole life.

- Saying that you are a monster, Lupin, is the same as saying that I am a Black. It's not truth or a lie, it's just a fucking injustice.

Remus Lupin is twelve years old and he still doesn't know what it's like to be loved. He only knows that at that moment his heart skips a beat and he goes straight down to the stomach.

- And now seriously, when do you turn into a wolf, how big are you exactly?

- Yes, mate- James wants to know - do you have terrifying fangs and everything?

Of all the reactions, he didn't expect that teenage curiosity. Remus babbles.

- You are right. I guess so.

- Fuck with the skinny Top-of-his-class- protested Sirius. - Seriously, mates, if someone had to be a werewolf among all of us, it shouldn't be me?

Peter and James look at each other and nod but Remus can only see Sirius as if he saw him for the first time. He still has a quite serious expression and gloomy gesture that suddenly, when he smiles sideways, winks at him, and makes everything, even being a werewolf, look bright, festive, and worthy of a prank. At only twelve, Remus Lupin has never been in love but when he looks at Sirius, he is there. That heart murmur, that strange sensation in the stomach that he still cannot identify.