𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐎 | remus lupin

𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘 𝐒𝐈𝐗

[ 𝐂 𝐇 𝐀 𝐏 𝐓 𝐄 𝐑  𝐓 𝐖 𝐄 𝐍 𝐓 𝐘  𝐒 𝐈 𝐗 ]

𝓬𝓻𝓪𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓭𝓸𝔀𝓷

WINNIE WOKE UP dazed and in pain. Before she opened her eyes, she could feel a heavy weight pressing against her palm—James's hand.

"James?" Winnie whispered, her eyes still shut. The pain in her chest was beginning to bloom and spread, whatever was keeping her asleep was wearing off quickly.

James perked up next to her, immediately falling to his knees so their heads were level. "Winnie? Winnie! Don't move, hold on." He turned and called for Madame Pomfrey.

While he did that, Winnie slowly began to blink the sleep away from her eyes, squinting as she adjusted to the bright sunlight filtering in the window. When she looked down, she could see she had been changed into an oversized sleep shirt, and just below the collar, she could see layers of gauze and tape covering from her shoulders down her chest.

She reached out her hand and James immediately took it.

"What happened? Why am I here? Where are the others?"

James scrunched his eyebrows in concern. "You mean you don't remember what happened?"

Winnie shook her head.

"It was a full moon two nights ago, remember? You and Ev broke up and you were up here. Then you—"

"—saw Snape and followed him out," Winnie finished slowly, the memory of what happened flooding over her. "Remus! Oh my god, Remus! Is he okay? Oh, he must be feeling terrible!"

"I knew you'd worry about him," James said with a soft smile, moving to brush her curls back into a bun. Winnie tried briefly, but the sharp pains that accompanied raising her arms weren't worth it.

"Why didn't he tell me?" Winnie demanded, tears welling up in her eyes. "I wouldn't have hated him!"

"Calm down, you know it wasn't like that. You'll have to ask him later."

Winnie wiped her eyes and sniffled. "Well, where is he? Where's Pete and Sirius for that matter? Don't they care that I've been injured?"

"Remus and Sirius both felt too guilty to come so they went to mope in the dorm. Pete had to stay to make sure they didn't tear each other to shreds."

Winnie was confused. "Why would Sirius feel guilty? Why would they fight?"

"Sirius was the one who told Snape where to find Remus."

"Why would he do that?" Winnie demanded. She loved Sirius, she really did, but what the fuck. James just shook his head.

Winnie sat in silence for a few moments, thinking things over in her head.

"I'm mad at all of you, except Remus," she decided. James spluttered and coughed on what he had been drinking.

"What did I do?"

Winnie narrowed her eyes. "You didn't tell me you were all animagi!"

James jumped up and covered her mouth. "Shut up, would you! Do you want us to get arrested?"

"Arrested! James, you could've gotten expelled! And none of you thought to ask me to join!"

"Well Remus never told you about him. We couldn't have told you what we were doing without giving him away!"

"Yes you could have!" Winnie argued. "A simple 'Hello my twin who I supposedly tell everything to, the boys and I are planning to become animagi just for fun, want to join?' I wouldn't have questioned anything, you know that!"

"Well, we didn't think about that!"

"Obviously not!" Winnie ran her hands down her face and sighed. "I think I need some time to think. I haven't had the chance to process anything these last few days."

"Come on, Win—"

"No, James. Please just go." Before seeing if he'd make any more protest, she pulled the blanket over her head and turned as far away from her twin as her injuries would allow.

///

Winnie liked change. Only, it's been starting to feel like too much change. First there was everything with Ev, and oh, she hadn't even begun to process that before everything with Remus.

Sirius sold him out, they were all animagi, except Remus who was a werewolf, and she'd been injured in the discovery.

What a wonderful time.

Winnie was mad. She knew she was mad. She could feel the anger sizzling under her skin just waiting to come out. But aside from being mad, she was scared and upset. But she didn't want to be, so she'd shove those down and settle on anger. For now.

She was angry at Everett for taking her heart and her trust and stomping on it.

She was angry at James, Peter, and Sirius for keeping the fact they were animagi away from her.

She was angry at Snape for going out there. Who could be that stupid?

And she was angry at Sirius. For betraying Remus's trust and telling Snape.

But when she thought about Remus, she couldn't bring herself to be angry. She realized his regular illness had been once a month since she'd known him. Winnie thought of Remus, smaller than he was at 11, forced to go through the transformations.

She didn't know how long he'd been a werewolf, but she knew that it was a long enough time that it was basically a part of him.

She couldn't be mad at him for hiding that. Not when the entire wizarding world would shame his very existence. Sure, she was hurt he hadn't trusted her, but something like that was different. At least, that's what she'd tell herself until she got an explanation.

She knew Remus enough to know that he'd be beating himself up over her injuries. He'd blame himself, hate himself. Winnie, however, didn't blame him in the slightest.

She just had to make sure he knew that. 

~~~~

Sorry this took so long to finally get up. I had a ton of school things going on, a bunch of migraines, and then vacation. I'll try to be a bit more consistent from now on :) Anyways, if any of you are in the mood to read about our lovely Mr. Regulus Black, zoom on over to my profile.