Dream away (Remus/Sirius; Rated T; 17,5k words)

Chapter 6

'Don't chase the dog! Stop! Come back, your job is not finished here!'

Remus ignored the voice and kept running through the forest with the dog. He lost sight of the dog for a moment, and then suddenly someone was holding him tight in their arms. He was shaking, sobbing, and a stream of words was coming out of his mouth that even he himself couldn't follow, and Sirius was trying to speak over him, "-calm down, Moony, you're safe, everything is fine-".

He felt claustrophobic. His mouth was full of blood and bits of human flesh, and he needed to get out. He had to get away from them. He started to kick and thrash, and he bit Sirius's shoulder through the robe.

Sirius yelled and swore, and wrestled with him to pin him down.

"Sirius, don't hurt him!" screamed Lily.

~*~

Remus woke up in a cold sweat. The dream had been a blur of pain and blood and screams and vague, scattered visions. It took him a moment to reorient himself, to remember where he was.

Sirius was speaking feverishly, in a loud voice. "- and we need to find him. We have time to do it now that we aren't so busy figuring out a way to bring back Moony. I can go back to check out his parents' place again, see if I can find anything."

Sirius was pacing back and forth in the room, looking like a caged, frustrated animal. James was leaning against the wall next to the door, his face stoney and eyes following Sirius. They were too distracted to notice that he had woke up.

Sirius continued, "You and Lils can contact people, see if anyone has seen him. Just don't be obvious about it, we gotta find him before he knows we suspect him. We can set up-"

"Pads," said James. " No . There's more important stuff to do."

Sirius scoffed, and continued stubbornly, "If Moony could remember, he would tell you to stop being a naive plonker, and we could-"

"Please tell me you haven't been sprouting your stupid, delusional theories as truth to him," snapped James.

"It's not just my 'stupid theory'. If you call me paranoid one more fucking time-"

"But for Merlin's sake, Sirius, you have been paranoid," stated James with an unrelenting, hard voice. "First you lash out at Lily and threaten her. Why? Because her friendship with Snape years ago obviously made her a secret Death Eater sympathizer. Then when you finally believe she wants nothing to do with them, which should have been fucking obvious since it was one of the reasons she ended that friendship in the first place, you start going on about Moony being the traitor. And now suddenly you try to tell me it's been Peter all this time?"

James shook his head, took a deep breath, and continued, "Sirius, listen to yourself . It's not evidence if Remus says something vague to you in his dream, especially while he's still confused. It was a dream. Sometimes dreams don't mean anything, Pads."

Had Remus been talking nonsense in his sleep? The way James had worded it sounded odd.

And what the fuck, Sirius had meant Peter when he had been talking about the traitor?

Remus had to agree with James. This sounded mad. The look on Sirius's face made him too scared to sit up and voice his opinion aloud, though.

"I know that I'm right," Sirius growled.

"You want to believe you are right, and that's it," said James. "Because according to you, one of us has to be the traitor, and there can be no other explanation. You have some vague proof that points to Peter instead of Remus, and you want to believe it. Doesn't make it real."