The Second Moony (Sirius Black)

Ch 16

The next morning Luna wasn't feeling so confident. She had woken up and realized that Remus was definitely in the hospital wing by now, probably wondering where she was. She was going to have to tell him that Sirius, James, and Peter knew about his secret now. She wasn't sure how she was going to do that though, so maybe she should just sit in bed and think about that a little longer. But every second she sat in bed was another chance that they could get to Remus before her, and she knew that she had to be the one to tell him. 

She felt unbelievably ill as she got dressed. She didn't know if Remus would ever forgive her. And in the clarity of the morning, she realized that she had dealt with the situation in the stupidest way possible. She should've convinced them to go to a Professor about the werewolf and then let the adult handle the lying. Instead she may have cost Remus his friends. 

She reheated the hot chocolate with some magic, grabbed Remus' favorite sweater, and even packed a few pieces of her own chocolate stash. Luna was going to need all the help she could get for this reveal. She hurried to the hospital wing, deciding that living with the anxiety currently coursing through her was unfathomable for a minutes longer than it needed to be.

By the time Luna arrived, Remus was getting ready to leave. "Luna, where have you been?"

Luna couldn't look Remus in the eye. She had to get it over with right now. She couldn't put it off. He'd be even more mad if he found out later and from someone else. "Please sit down, Remus."

Remus sat back on the bed. He could read his twin well and knew that something was absolutely stressing her. He had never really seen this look on her before, at least not this intense. 

Luna continued staring at the floor. She looked briefly up at Remus' face, but her eyes immediately started tracing the pattern on the hospital bed blanket. "I don't think you can ever forgive me for this, Remus." She said. "I won't make you promise to not hate me once you hear this."

Remus' eyebrows furrowed together. "Of course I can forgive, Luna. And I'll never hate you" He couldn't dream of her doing anything that would make him hate her. 

"You can for this." She took a deep breath. "Last night...James, Sirius, and Peter had followed you down to the Whomping Willow. They saw a werewolf, and they ran back to warn me you were in danger. In my panic to stop them from doing something stupid and getting you or themselves hurt or some other wildly messed up thing, I told them the truth. I told them you are a werewolf." The whole confession was said to a piece of dust on the floor, but at the end of it Luna looked up at her brother's face. 

She had felt the air around her change as she said the words. It felt like it had been completely sucked out of the room, leaving her floating in a vacuum. It was hard to breathe, she felt impossibly hot and cold at the same time, and it seemed like no sound could escape. Or maybe it was just Remus sitting in silence, not knowing how to react. 

Then like a volcano, he exploded. "How dare you! You-you know how much they meant to me! How much being at Hogwarts meant to me! And now you've ruined it! You've ruined it! Are you so daft to think I could still attend school? I'm sure everyone knows by know, and they're readying their pitch forks as we speak. I'm going to be thrown out and forced to live my life in shame. I had friends for the first time in years, Luna! People I could talk to, people I could trust! And you just had to go and throw it all away! You selfish, spoiled, idiotic," 

Luna felt tears well up in her eyes. She knew she deserved this, but some small part of her had been hoping that Remus would remain the steadfast, calm boy he always had been. She was saved from further insults by Madam Pomfrey, who had rushed out to see what all the fuss was about. She gave Remus a calming potion and suggested that Luna leave the room.