All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Third Year : New Secrets

Wednesday 12th September 1973

When Sirius had discovered that his friend was a werewolf, he’d expected a little danger. He’d expected to keep secrets, and he’d expected that he’d have a lot of learning to do. He’d expected that he’d notice things that were different about Remus because of his condition, like the way his magic seemed stronger sometimes or how he could eat like a man on the brink of starvation.

What Sirius didn’t expect was how bloody annoying his friend would be once it got close to a full moon.

“Ugh, go back to bed, Lupin!” He punctuated this complaint with a shoe, thrown at the offending party’s head.

“Sorry!” Remus whispered, and there was the sound of the curtains whooshing shut, swallowing the sunlight that had assaulted Sirius’s eyes.

It was five in the morning, far too early for any sane person to be awake. But Remus always had more energy when it got closer to a full moon. Though he tried to hide it, Sirius had noticed; he was more likely to be up for late-night strolls around the castle under the invisibility cloak, and he could never sit still in class. When the other marauders went to bed, Sirius would see wandlight coming from behind Lupin’s curtains, indicating that he was still wide awake. And then there were mornings like this one, when he’d hop out of bed at ungodly hours and wake everyone else up by opening the curtains and flooding their dorm with harsh morning light.

Sirius listened to the soft padding across the room, the tell-tale creak of door hinges, and the receding footsteps down the staircase that indicated Remus had left. He had no idea what the boy could possibly be doing at five in the bloody morning, but he was too tired to care. With darkness restored, Sirius rolled over into a cocoon of soft blankets, drifting back to sleep…

*  *  *

His dreams were patchworked; sticky and nonsensical. The smell of pine, a bruising sunset, the soft scrape of something slithering. In the dream, he listened, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from, what was approaching him. He spun in circles, and the pine became maple, and the sky turned dark. The moon was full. Whatever was coming for him was getting closer, and, with the strange certainty one sometimes has in dreams, he knew that running would be useless. The forest around him shifted imperceptibly; bloody leaves became bare branches; it was winter, and there was snow beneath his feet. He couldn’t move.

The sunlight was skull-piercing, shaking him back into his body. James had opened the curtains. He whistled cheerfully as Sirius groaned and rolled over, shoving his face into his pillow to block out the light. James often got up early to go down to the quidditch pitch and practice, and though it wasn’t so early as the ungodly hour at which Remus had woken him, it was still far too soon to get up.

Behind him, he heard the quiet movements of Peter getting up, yawning as whispered, “Good morning,” to James.

“Morning!” The other boy responded brightly, making no effort to lower his voice, and Sirius groaned again in protest. James snorted.

There was the sound of footsteps; the door opened and shut, signalling James’s exit from the room. Sirius breathed deeply and tried to sink back into sleep, half aware of Peter’s muffled movements. He, at least, made an effort to stay quiet as he gathered his things and went into the bathroom to shower.