The Marauders: Year Four

The Blood-Thirst of a Werewolf

The Blood-Thirst of a Werewolf

Sirius sat himself down on the porch steps in front of the Shrieking Shack, his head in his hands. The sun was setting and he was trying to decide what he wanted to do, if he was going to go in and face Remus or just go back to the castle. He only had a couple more minutes to decide before the transformation would occur. He used his wand to draw a pattern in the dirt by the path. He stared at the rays of sunlight slipping behind the edge of the trees and watched as the light disappeared from sight. He closed his eyes, feeling guilty... waiting for the sound of the mournful howl that would indicate Remus's change had been made...

I should have been there, Sirius thought, I should've been there with him all day. We should have been talking and hanging out; not him with some boy that doesn't even know him like I do.He wondered how it was that Remus Lupin had come to trust someone so deeply so quickly that he was willing to tell his secret to another person in the castle...

Suddenly, breaking the night that had fallen, there came the deep, guttural howl from within the Shack, the cry of the wolf shivering the very wood of the house. The pain that came from the depths of Remus Lupin echoed through the howl as it warbled from his throat, carrying out into the darkness and sending a great shiver up Sirius's spine.

It didn't make sense, Sirius realized for the first time. Hearing the pain in the werewolf's cry had made him realize it... Remus Lupin's greatest fear was that someone would find out about his furry little problem... He hadn't even told him, Sirius, his best mate, until almost a year had gone by... and Sirius had to basically tell Remus that he knew already before he had admitted to it. Even then it had been a big deal and Remus had been quite obviously terrified about the other boys knowing about his condition... No way would Remus have told somebody in under a month of knowing them. No way.

So then, if he hadn't told somebody, then how would he have explained the Shrieking Shack to bring somebody out there? Why he needed to stay when the other person went back to the castle? Obviously, there couldn't be a boyfriend. The idea suddenly seemed supremely absurd and Sirius felt like a total idiot for not realizing it sooner -- what a blithering nincompoop he'd been!

But then who had that been that Sirius had seen through the window? For he had seen somebody through the window... he knew he had... Was it Dumbledore, perhaps? Dumbledore had gone to check on Remus before...

Really, it didn't matter, though, he thought. It wasn't a boyfriend. That's all that mattered. Remus didn't have a boyfriend.

Well bloody hell, he will now, Sirius thought and he stood up, suddenly bold. He had to see Remus - even if it was in his wolf form - had to see him right then, so he strode to the door and flung it open.
The wolf had been waiting at the door, able to smell the thick scent of blood through the wood, and had been salivating at the mouth-watering richness of Sirius Black, just on the other side. When Sirius opened the door, the wolf came crashing through and knocked him down, sending him flying backward off the porch so that he landed on his back on the path, scraping his elbows so that they bled and the wind was knocked out of his lungs violently.

The werewolf came bounding out and Sirius rolled and quickly transformed to his animagus form as he did, sliding behind the overgrown brush beside the porch steps, half-Sirius-half-Snuffles, so that the wolf couldn't get at him as easily as he could've done in the open as his skin rippled into fur and his spine cracked. He'd been an idiot for opening the door like that without looking, and as the final pops and snaps of his spine cracked through him, he peered out through the leaves with his keen dog eyes to see the wolf was running off across the field... toward Hogsmeade.