Boys Will Be Bugs

Chapter 109: Dumbledore

It was the early evening, around six o'clock. Remus was in bed with Sirius sitting beside him quietly. It had been two weeks since the surgery, and while Remus still needed a few potions to get him through the day, his scars had healed enough for him to be able to start getting up and moving around bit by bit. He couldn't move much; what with the surgery and the days of bed rest, he was feeling far weaker than he usually did, and sometimes even his cane wasn't enough to keep him upright for longer than about ten minutes or so. He was worried that the bed rest had proved too much for his muscles and he'd never reach a point where he could move normally again, but Madam Pomfrey assured him that he just needed to take things slow and steady, and maybe start doing some simple exercises to increase his strength once he'd fully recovered.

"It would do your muscles good anyway," she said. "Physiotherapy works wonders when done correctly." Remus took the advice into consideration, although at the moment, he couldn't think of anything he'd want to do less than exercise. He really just wanted to sleep, and the main benefit of these long weeks of recovery was that at least he could catch up on some of the sleep he'd lost throughout the rest of his life.

At the moment, though, he was sitting in silence idly doodling on Sirius's skin. He could understand why Peter enjoyed it so much. It was therapeutic in a way. Remus loved drawing patterns, spirals that wound round and round, circles and zigzags that grew inward into a full sleeve against Sirius's arm. The patterns were interrupted by flowers, strings of tiny flowers and leaves that mimicked the pattern theme. Tiny flowers with a tiny circle in the middle and five larger circles surrounding it. Sirius just sat and let him, reading his own text books. Remus thought he was studying; he was too engrossed to check what Sirius was reading, but after about an hour Sirius finally turned away from his book and observed Remus's artwork. He smiled.

"Wow," he murmured. "You've been busy." Remus fiddled with the marker lid, which he had been chewing on for the good part of an hour. It had visible bite marks on it.

"Sorry," he said. "I got a bit carried away."

"It's beautiful," replied Sirius. "I didn't know you could draw like that."

"I can't really, I just... I just enjoy patterns and stuff." He replaced the cap on the lid and moved away from Sirius's arm in case he risked giving into the urge to draw over the rest of him. Sirius continued to observe his arm, until he pointed his wand at it. He voiced a few charms, ones which Remus didn't recognise. Nothing happened, and he furrowed his brow in concentration.

"What are you doing?" asked Remus. "It'll wash off, you know." He assumed that Sirius was trying to remove the doodles, because he couldn't think what else Sirius would want to do with them. Sirius said nothing, and tried again. After receiving no results, Sirius turned back to his book and studied the page he was on, his finger tracing the words he was reading. After a moment, he shut his eyes, breathed and turned back to his arm. He tried once more.

To Remus's surprise, he saw some of the flowers move, as if they had been gently disturbed by a light breeze. Sirius didn't stop there though, and as he grew more confident in the spells he was trying, Remus saw his patterns changing colour, reds and blues and purples and greens, shimmering in the dim light of the room. They weren't stark or bold, they were more like a thin layer of colour that simply highlighted the patterns, but it was rather mesmerising to look at.

"What—." Sirius looked up and grinned at him.

"Magical tattoos," he replied in response to Remus's unspoken questions. Remus sat back against his pillows and watched the flowers sway in the invisible breeze, in awe at Sirius's own handiwork. Sirius never failed to continuously surprise him.

It was a week before the full moon when Remus was finally able to leave his bed for most of the day. He only needed a single vial of painkiller potion to numb the dull pain in his chest, which meant he was less tired and could join in with his friends more. Madam Pomfrey started him on some basic exercises to try to increase his strength back to what he was, taking walks outside in the grounds being her main suggestion, and the fact that he was able to get through it with little more than his cane for help meant that he was truly near the end of the worst of his recovery. He was getting more and more excited over the fact that he was so close to revealing his chest for the first time. He felt like he constantly had butterflies in his stomach, leaving him too nauseous to eat much, especially with how overwhelming the last week before the full moon was. There were check-ups and potions and dressings and discussions and eventually, Remus wanted nothing more than to be left alone. He felt fine. A little weak, a little nervous, but overall fine. He didn't need Madam Pomfrey constantly fussing over him.