The Boy Who Killed God {Sirius Black | Marauders Era Fanfiction}

Black and Blue

JANUARY 1, 1972

Remus blinked his eyes open and bit back a moan of pain. The early morning light was too-fucking-bright, so he squeezed his eyes shut almost immediately. He was still not used to waking up to the sunrise through the windows of the relatively-comfortable hospital wing the morning after the full moon. Until he came to Hogwarts, it had always been about trying to remember how just be human again despite the inexplicable ache in his bones, both from the aftershocks of the shift and from waking up in the cold, damp cellar on the edge of his parents' property, with a chain around his wrists and ankles.

Flopping an arm over his face, he tried to force his foggy mind to assess the damage from last night. His left knee twinged painfully, even as he lie on the hospital bed. From the cool draft he felt against his chest, Remus gathered that he was shirtless, which ordinarily only happened when Madam Pomfrey had to bandaged a chest wound.

Vague flashes of memories floated through his mind, slowly taking shape as he reluctantly surrendered to full wakefulness.

The wolf had been furious last night. Full moons were never exactly easy, and blue moons tended to be worse—hell, he'd been out of commission for nearly four days after December's first full moon—but this... this felt different, somehow, as though something had triggered the wolf's rage. His heart still pumped with the adrenaline that severely contradicted the deep ache he felt in his bones. His throat felt raw from howling, and he still tasted the bitter iron of his own blood on his tongue.

Remus had never told any of them the truth. Not his parents, or Dumbledore, or Madam Pomfrey. He loathed the depth of pity he saw in their eyes, when they thought he wasn't looking, and he couldn't stand the thought of their heartbreak if he told them he remembered every moment of his time as the wolf. Because... he did. From the moment the moon broke over the horizon, to the horrific breaking of every bone in his body, the tearing of his skin from his bones, his teeth—

Christ, his teeth.

He'd tried to grab them, hadn't he? Pried them from the wolf's maw, because—

No. The because wasn't important right now. Just... the teeth.

Remus's brain was a bit fuzzy, though the dull cloud of pain, but he distinctly recalled the sharp nick of the wolf's teeth against the palm of his hand.

He hadn't let go of them. They were probably around here somewhere, if Remus ever decided to actually open his eyes.

Later, maybe. Or, next week.

He groaned.

At some point in the early morning, not long after Madam Pomfrey had escorted him from the Shrieking Shack to his usual hospital bed, she'd more or less forced a pain potion down his throat, but it hardly seemed to be helping at all now. Madam Pomfrey tried her best, but there was only so much she could do for the cursed wounds of a feral Dark Creature. The wolf was ravenous most nights, taking out its fury at being held captive on Remus's own flesh, but last night, every one of its heightened senses had been on alert, and it had cried out to the moon, as if rending Remus's vocal chords would catch the attention of some lonely god lurking beneath a blanket of stars.

It wasn't the same, though, as it normally was. The wolf raged at its captivity, sure, but something was fundamentally wrong. The wolf had been afraid, not for itself, but because it tasted the wrongness in the air just as Remus now felt it in his bones. Unlike the lies he told his father whenever he'd asked, Remus retained a majority of the wolf's senses as a man, and right now, every single instinct he head rested on the knife's edge of full on panic.