SDS - Changelings - 4/13
CHANGELINGS
[ masterpost]
Chapter Four: The Ides of March
"Caesar: The ides of March are come.
Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone."
-Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
* * *
Several letters which were sent out of the window of the Gryffindor Common Room, Christmas of '72:
Sirius Orion Black
Black Household, London
Sirius,
We don't think you meant to skip out on us. What's going on, mate?
Peter
Sirius Black
Someplace Blacky
London, England
Sirius,
It was the pumpkin juice, wasn't it? And your cousin, the blonde one who hangs out with Malfoy, with Snape always trailing after them like a lost little baby snake. She put it in, whatever it was.
I am trusting you to be perfectly fine and not dead in a ditch somewhere. Do not die when we all went to the trouble of sneaking off to Hogsmeade for your presents in the bitter cold. It would be a waste, my lad, a waste of our suffering.
You should know Remus doesn't blame you. He's a bit jumpy, but then, isn't he always? Blast, that was insensitive, wasn't it? Alice Shepperd's taken to glaring at me across the common room muttering "insensitive little prick". I have yet to show fear; be proud, good sir. However, I've no idea what she's on about. I think it's that thing I did to Evans's teeth right as she was about to leave, but I've no idea why that would merit such rage.
(Remus says I should've written "animosity" there instead of "rage", but then he went a bit pink and ran off, muttering to himself. Does that a bit, doesn't he?)
But really. It only took us a day or two to convince him you hadn't gone on your own, which is a tad slow for Remus Lupin Of The Higher Intelligence Than All You Gits. I think he's a little touchy on the You Know What subject. Don't worry, mate. He doesn't think you ran off on purpose. We all saw your awful Slytherin cousin come by, and he actually agrees with my pumpkin juice theory.
Happy Christmas, mate. See you after New Years.
James
P.S. We haven't talked him into writing you yet. He says if your parents see his name anywhere they'd likely go nutters. I tried to explain that they don't like my family either, and think Pete's isn't worth noticing, but he says it's different. We'll keep trying.
And One Letter Which Arrived:
Remus Lupin
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Gryffindor Tower
Scotland
Remus,
I'm sending along well-wishes from your mother and me. We were glad to hear nothing out of the ordinary has occurred, and you're free to enjoy your holidays. Your mother was worried you'd be alone in the castle, so it's good to know you have some classmates there. Remember not to become lax simply because there are fewer people around.
Your mother tried to send you a few letters, but she only got owl post half right. The right was that she used an owl, but of course it won't listen to her. Don't worry, she's not upset that I have to send this along for her - you know how she doesn't like feathers all over her kitchen.
Without further ado, your Mum:
Hello, Remus!
Your father looked at your mid-term marks for me and says you're studying hard. Good boy.
I'm sending along those photographs you asked for, for the Elvis Presley fan. They're a little faded, but I think they'll suffice.
Remus - it's good that you're doing nice things for people, like this girl, but please be careful. You know what I mean, love.
Happy Christmas,
Mam
P.S. We're so sorry about the bunker door. Your father tried to Charm the ice off, but I think he's out of practice. More snow and ice just pours into the hinges. I'm sure they'll thaw out in time for Easter, and we can see you again.
It's strange that year, Christmas and the reunion with Sirius after. Because Remus hadn't sent any mail, his Christmas present is the only one Sirius gets from his friends. The rest his parents take before he can touch them and say, "You'll get these when your behaviour improves."
Sirius is fairly certain his behaviour has never improved in his entire life. It's been a downhill slope ever since he was drawn down the garden trellis to the distant lights of Soho all those years ago. Since he first gulped air on the railing over the stinking banks of the Thames.
It's a book, of course, that Remus hands him. The wrapping job is atrocious and messy, and he's used an old copy of the Prophet for the paper. Overall, Remus looks embarrassed to have to show it to him. Sirius is not embarrassed. He doesn't even care, finally, that it's book. The Daily Prophet rips away easily.
It's Spellwork Beyond the Wand.
"I thought this was a library book?" says Sirius. Remus shrugs, hands in his pockets.
"It's copied from the library book," he murmurs, the tiniest light of fun in his eyes, so small that Sirius isn't sure whether it's an illusion. "Pince would never let me get away with nicking it. There's a neat charm to copy lots of ink onto blank pages." Another shrug, and a hand running through his flyaway brown hair. "I didn't want to send it to you over the holidays."
There's no I told you so. But nor is there any mention of Wizarding copyright laws, which Sirius is sure Remus knows. They share a little grin over that. It's so nice, Sirius thinks, when a mind can keep up with his.
Sirius runs all the way up to the owlery with the book stuffed under his robes. He sinks down on a bench, doing his best to avoid owl droppings, and studies the book. Some tell-tale details are off. The ink pictures move slowly, in a stutter-stop motion. He runs his fingers over them, but they don't respond. Remus did that, then. Sirius wonders how long it took. He imagines Remus quietly working away on this on Christmas morning, settled in one of the squashy armchairs watching Peter and James devoir Bertie Botts and dare each other with Cockroach Clusters. His wand would've moved with quiet surety over the parchment, a little almost-frown on the edges of his murmured spells.
There is a hot, fierce feeling of regret somewhere under Sirius's collarbone. Even if it wasn't his fault, he should have been there.
He thumbs through Spellwork Beyond the Wand, not really looking at the spells - the wandless spells he can pour over later. Even when his fingers are numb and owls have begun roosting on his shoes, Sirius still flips the pages.
He's not even thinking about spells anymore. He's thinking about the sliver of waning moon hovering just outside the wide owlery windows in the milky sky. Aside from Astronomy lessons, Sirius has never paid much attention to the moon, but he's got the phases mostly memorized; it's the only way to keep his marks up. He looks at it now, smoothing the pages absently. Because he can't sit still a moment longer, he gets up to pace.
The owls coo reproachfully. The moon throbs in the twilight sky, wrapped in tendrils of mist off the Forbidden Forest. Sirius feels the weight of the book in his fingers, the wind in his hair. No matter how many times he looks away and then back again, the moon is always there, brighter and brighter in the growing twilight.
It isn't until late February that they have the idea to go to Hogsmeade on the full moon, and…see. That's how they said it, just "see".
"We need to understand," says James. "We can't pretend we don't know where he's going and that we don't know what's happening to him. What kind of friends will we be if we don't even try?"
So they follow him. The full falls on the night of the fifteenth of March.
When the night comes, Peter is shaking; they feel it under the cloak all through the halls of the castle to the hunchbacked statue, but he doesn't say a word against what they're doing. Just keeps striding steadily down the tunnel, wand up with lumos on its tip. That's the bravery of Peter. James thinks it must be exhausting.
He and Sirius get tunnel vision that makes nothing more important than their goal. Sirius is imagining the grounds above their heads, dewy grass awash in light, and the moon flinging itself wildly across the sky, whirling like a dervish. There is no thought of detentions, not even a glimpse of consideration of just how close they're going to get to a Werewolf. He licks his lips and picks up his stride. James and Peter follow along, swearing softly when they hit a tree root or a stone lodged in the tunnel floor.
It's hard to think "Werewolf" when he thinks of it as "Remus". James warned them all to be careful, but Sirius often has a very different definition of careful, which his friends know all too well. James probably gave him the loophole on purpose.
The air tastes like earth with a tang of something that sets the hair on the backs of their necks on end. They don't recognize this as the feeling of being prey. They ignore it.
The tunnel is sloping upwards and the smell of sugar and spices is wafting down, for those who care to notice. The Honeydukes cellar is not far. James trails his hand on the ceiling and before long, his fingers hit the trapdoor.
"Alohamora," he whispers with a grin. Even on a night like this, he can take a little pleasure in breaking and entering.
Sirius climbs out first, because his reflexes are as quick James's and he isn't carrying the cloak under his arm. No one is there. He beckons his friends up, and they throw the cloak over themselves. The last Sirius sees of them is Peter's pale hair disappearing into the shadows. Then there is cloth being thrown over Sirius's own head.
They spell the doors of Honeydukes locked behind them and creep down the sleeping streets. It is cold still, just the fifteenth of March, and the streets are muddy with snowmelt. It's strange in the night-time. Even the cheery lights are out in the houses and the Three Broomsticks. Down the way, they pass the only light in the village. The Hogs Head never really closes.
They hear Remus before they realize he's the one making the noise. It's far off, and just sounds like the wind in the Forbidden Forest. At the outskirts they begin to climb, leaving the neat hedgerows and still winter-dead gardens behind. The way becomes rocky, like the crags and caves in the mountain beyond. The whispers on the wind become more defined. James has his wand up in lumos. Sirius draws his own, and Peter copies him.
On a rocky hilltop above their path, the shack looms closer. The howls become easily discernable; shrieks too. This is an animal alive with rage and agony.
Something deep inside themselves tells them to turn back.
Sirius doesn't take orders well, even when they come from his own instincts. He slips out from under the cloak, ignoring Peter's surprised squeak. Except for his face and his hands, Sirius is dark hair, dark eyes, and his long black school cloak whipping around him in the March wind. He is a sliver of a shadow. James strips off the Invisibility Cloak and he and Peter follow at a trot.
The shack is alive. It is trembles, it roars; it is a chaos of the howl of destruction. The moon illuminates it all. They should be glad for the light, Sirius thinks, it helps them to see, which is what they've come to do. But the three of them halt twenty feet from walls which look too weak to contain the raging presence of the Werewolf within. Knowing who it is in the shack, trapped in that body, makes it all harder to see than Sirius expected.
Sirius and James exchange glances. It's not fair to Remus if they can't even look at him, if they give into the agony that is just listening to the howls and wet growls and screams a wolf should not be able to make. They have to go closer.
"That's Remus," says Peter thickly, blue eyes wide.
He says it more out of shock than anything, of a desire to make a noise that sounds human amidst all these animal screams. However, the boys beside him take it as a reminder. They edge closer.
It's sheer coincidence that they're approaching downwind of the Werewolf. It can probably sense them, but it can't smell them. Their feet crunch on the stony earth, but they don't even consider the wolf's ears until they're just two paces from the shack's wall.
The Werewolf charges across the shack impossibly fast - they can hear its feet drum on the floors - and slams into the rickety wooden barrier in front of them. There is a glance of gnashing teeth and tawny fur through the slats.
Peter shouts. It's swallowed by the wind, this wickedly cold, furious wind from the north. Sirius's hand is fisted in the sleeve of James's robe, half to steady the both of them and half of a mind to drag them away.
He drops James's arm and grits his teeth. This is a Werewolf. This is also Remus.
"He doesn't want us to see him like this," says James. None of them had really realized just what they'd find here.
Sirius's breath hisses between his clenched teeth. His eyes are narrowed against the wind and the noise, but he doesn't close them, not even to blink.
It's more complicated than just that, he thinks. Remus doesn't want them to see him as a Dark Creature. He doesn't want them to have to witness it. But he'll never believe that they've truly accepted him if they've never seen him at his worst.
So Sirius shakes his head and makes up his mind. He doesn't bother explaining to James and Peter. James will figure it out in a minute anyway; their minds are hardly ever more than the littlest bit unsynchronized. Sirius steps forward. The Werewolf must be racing about the house, searching for an exit which, hopefully, doesn't exist. A few more steps in the rocky soil. He could touch the shack now.
Because he can, he has to.
Sirius lifts his hand, shaking a little. His own skin looks alien and pale in the moonlight. The side of the shack is old wood, rough under his fingers and prone to splintering. He can't see anything through the slats.
"Sirius!" shouts James. Peter chokes. Sirius turns, hand still on the shack as if he cannot let go.
"Get away from there, Sirius!" James beckons, his black cloak whipping in the wind.
Sirius is thinking about being trapped. He's thinking of moths that beat at windowpanes. He's thinking of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, where he'll live forever after his father dies. He's thinking about Bellatrix waving her wand and leaving him petrified. He's thinking how it feels to be alone, and trapped, and mad with it. He's thinking, for the first time, that maybe Remus would be the person who understands it all.
"Sirius, listen to me, you git!" shouts James.
"What?" Sirius taunts. "Scared?"
Somehow he doesn't hear the wolf coming. One moment it's howling in some room across the shack, the next, with an almighty crash, it's right up against the wall, lunging for him through the wood. Something seizes his palm by the flesh, searing and jagged and gives an awful tug.
Sirius makes a guttural noise in the back of his throat of surprise and pain, and then Peter and James are each at his shoulders, wrenching him back and away.
"Merlin's fucking burning balls," shouts James, and the swearing startles even Peter out of panic. They tumble to the ground, Sirius holding his hand by the wrist and staring at the blood that's blooming so red across his palm.
"WERE YOU BITTEN?" shouts James, right in Sirius's ear. It's like Sirius can't hear him. He's looking at his hand. There is something pale stuck in it. "SIRIUS YOU BLOODY GIT, WERE YOU BITTEN?" James demands again, grabbing Sirius's shoulders and shaking.
"I don't know!" Sirius finds the voice to shout back.
"Let's get out of here," gasps Peter, tugging at their robes. James swears again, but he follows Peter, dragging Sirius behind.
Partway down the road to Hogsmeade Sirius collapses against a tree, its branches creaking in the wind, and draws his wand.
"Lumos," he pants. In wandlight he inspects the wound. Forces himself to look at the pale, hard thing imbedded in it.
A claw. It's wicked long, at least two joints of one of his fingers. He tugs it from his skin and lets a long breath escape. Sirius leans back and hands it to James.
"Just a scratch," he says as lightly as he can manage.
"Of course," James agrees weakly.
"I want to go back," Sirius says, standing.
James grabs him. He doesn't say anything, unlike Peter who is babbling in shock, his words lost in the fierce teeth of the wind. James just stares him down.
"Think about it, Sirius."
Sirius looks at the blood on his hand and listens to the Werewolf's frenzied howls in the distance. It's slamming itself against the wall of the shack, again and again, its shrieking in pain and outrage.
His face twists, but he goes with them. It feels like the most awful betrayal to leave Remus like that. James understands, Sirius can see it on his face, but James is looking at some bigger picture Sirius can't see. Sirius respects that, but keeps glancing over his shoulder.
If one of the little old ladies of Hogsmeade had poked her head out of a window, she'd see one boy, and if she was smart, the two more sets of footprints appearing in the stiff mud. The one boy would be lean and dark haired. He'd keep staring over his shoulder, as if he thinks the moon is following him. She'd think him strange, but she'd have seen stranger.
They go back faster than they came, through the sleepy streets and into the sugar-warm of the Honeydukes cellar; through the trapdoor.
"If you think about it," pants James as they race back down the tunnel, running to beat the dawn, "That was what Remus saw, wasn't it? The night he was bitten."
James stops dead in the tunnel, nearly knocking Peter off his feet. "Only there wasn't anything between him and the Werewolf. Even after seeing that, even after Sirius being a right idiot, none of us can imagine it."
"We'll help him James," says Peter, brushing dirt out of his blonde hair.
Sirius agrees so wholly that he cannot even speak. They have to. They've seen the before, and the during, and the after. There's no turning away now. There's no wanting to.
"Yes, we will," says James fiercely. In the dark, in a tunnel under the earth, in the night of the ides of March, it doesn't feel silly to make vows like this.
It's a couple days before they stop twitching at noises, and a week until Remus stops flinching when he feels anyone's eyes on him. They tell him the morning after. James thinks it's best. Don't keep it a secret.
"The groundskeeper keeps scarier pets than that in his cabin," James says, and Sirius nods, very nonchalant, from the windowsill. He's got his good leather gloves on, but it's still cold for March. There's no reason for Remus to suspect he's hiding a gash on his hand.
"Calm down, mate," says James to Remus's stiff form by the window. "You were just a bit…furrier than normal."
Even Remus grins a little. "Well, I certainly hope none of you lot are allergic."
Peter sneezes. James laughs, but Remus takes the chance to look carefully at Sirius. Under scrutiny, Sirius resists the urge to fidget. Lounging on a windowsill is cool. Fidgeting is not.
"Be right back!" says Sirius as soon as James catches his breath. He hops off the windowsill - best get rid of the possibility of fidgeting his way to an early grave, right? - and heads for the door. Right on the threshold Sirius realizes he has no idea where he's going or what he's going to do when he gets there. Possibly he should just keep going, and decide this is not an issue?
Then James says, "Hey, Sirius, don't you dare go waltzing off without me. We said we'd do that part of the prank together."
"You don't want a part in it," Peter says aside to Remus. "It involves that passageway in the dungeons, the one that's a mud pit."
"Is that were you decided to grow the Notoriously Nefarious Nettles then?" asks Remus. "Go wallow in the mud, you heathens."
"What's a heathen?" demands Sirius. "Do I make a good one? I do, don't I." He turns to James. "Heathen, I like it."
James puts his finger to his chin. "Hmm, not quite," he says, pondering it.
"Oh, and it rhymes with Hufflepuff," gasps Sirius. "No, that will not do. Never fear, we'll find another one."
He and James slip out the door to Remus's scream of "No, no, please, not rhyme - it's alliteration! I KNOW YOU KNOW IT'S ALLITERATION."
Certain Remus is not keen on following them to the muddy pit of Nettles (Sirius genuinely cannot see where the problem is) and sad graveyard for literary devices, the gloves are tugged off and thrown on top of a stack of Remus's books, where they will sit untouched in the common room. No Gryffindor touches anything even remotely near Remus's books - not even Shacklebolt, who is possibly as big as the four of them put together. Thus, the Book Zone is a great place to put expensive things one doesn't want stolen, but one is too lazy to put away in ones dormitory.
Sirius wouldn't go to all the trouble to take the gloves off in the first place, except the Nettle gets offended at the sight of gloves. Seems to think they don't trust it.
So it's in a state of glovelessness that they traipse through the portrait hole, ducking past the Fat Lady's glare - and running right into Madame Pomfrey, because they are just that lucky, apparently. She looks hassled and in a hurry and all three of them really, really don't want to spend any more time in close proximity. They jump apart rather quickly, but not before Pomfrey's gaze zooms in on the cut across Sirius's palm. It hasn't closed, and tends to seep blood every now and then.
"Mr. Black, how in the world did you get a cut like that and not come straight to the hospital wing?" she demands.
Sirius and James exchange quick, wide-eyed glances. They only know a little about Werewolves, more since they found out about Remus, but it feels like they've barely scratched the surface. What if Madame Pomfrey has a hidden lycanthropy obsession, and can spot a Werewolf slash from twenty paces? They'll be covering Werewolves sometime in fifth year - what if there are signs that differentiate a Werewolf wound from others, really clear signs any wizard fifteen and above can observe in a heartbeat, provided they're not a dunderhead?
Pomfrey is waiting. She arches an eyebrow and holds out her hand.
"I'd really rather keep the scar, Madame Pomfrey," says Sirius in a way he knows is just the right amount of boyish fun and his personal charm.
"Oh yes," breaks in James. "It's a terribly memorable…memory, you know. Sirius here," - he slings an arm around Sirius's shoulders - "has vanquished a terrible patch of Notoriously Nefarious Nettles, with only a little help from yours truly."
"They're growing in the school, Madame Pomfrey," says Sirius. He presses a hand to his heart and moans. James kicks him with a careful-there-mate look. "We were wandering about, looking for a loo down in the dungeons, after potions. So the four of us poked around a new corner -"
"The four of you?" asks Madame Pomfrey, looking from Sirius to James.
"Of course," says James, looking a little offended that anyone could expect them to be apart on such an important expedition.
"All of you at once, looking for a bathroom? Mr. Potter, please don't tell me you four have managed to synchronize your bladders, of all things."
She uses the ensuing, uncomfortable silence of Dear Merlin Have We Really? to grab Sirius's hand, where it's lain forgotten at his side. Sirius shouts "Hey!" and tries to yank away, but her grip is like iron.
Pomfrey glares. She whips out her wand and is halfway through muttering "Really, I don't understand what all the fuss is about" when she realizes her spell hasn't done anything. Sirius doesn't dare look at James, but his mind is racing. He feels oddly cold all over, because this is utterly his fault. He could've just waited to take the gloves off in the dungeon and not worry that dragon hide tends to start smelling in enclosed spaces like robe pockets oh Merlin-
Pomfrey frowns and murmurs another spell, waving her wand over his hand again. The fleshy edges of the cut wiggle in a sickening manner but make no move to knit back together. She stays staring at the hand for quite a while, not doing anything. Her fingers are dry and cool, wrinkles thick around the joints.
Finally she looks up, the faintest tremble to her lips. Sirius is very still. James is an inanimate shadow in the corner of his eye.
Pomfrey says, "This is not a wound inflicted by a Nettle."
Somehow Sirius grins. It takes an incredible amount of willpower. "Of course it is, matron," he says. She hasn't given his hand back.
Her eyes are brown; not noticeable unless one is staring straight into them for a prolonged period of time. She is kind, this woman, and she is good at her job.
"Nasty Nettle," mumbles James.
Pomfrey has yet to take her eyes from Sirius's. He doesn't give her an inch; let her see steely gray irises and lowered lids and nothing else.
"Mr. Black," she finally chokes out, apparently falling back on professionalism. She lowers his hand but does not let him go. "If this is…of a more serious nature, you must tell me or the Headmaster. Immediately."
Sirius has to bite back a laugh, of all things. None of them will say it! All three of them trembling with the secret, but no one will give voice to it. Better for Remus, he thinks darkly.
"Don't worry, Madam Pomfrey, the Notoriously Nefarious Nettle gave me its good side. No lasting harm done whatsoever." He waves her off with his other hand.
She only relaxes for a second. To replace the horror comes a spark of fury.
Her whisper is low and harsh, a candle blown by a fast breath and singeing its wax, claws on stone. "If I ever see another wound like this on any of the three of you, I'll see to it you're removed from the school for the protection of yourselves and those around you. Never again, Mr. Black, Mr. Potter, do you understand me?"
It's possible that they nod. Sirius isn't sure. There's a buzzing in the back of his head.
They turn to leave and Pomfrey grabs Sirius's arm again. "Black," she says, "I know you four, and the way you act, the risks you think nothing of taking. But one day one of you will do something so stupid it will be the end of at least one of your member. I am deadly serious. This is not one of your games!"
Sirius turns on his heel to face her and says shortly, "No, he is not."
It is Remus who suggests they put Flitwick's obsession with sticking Charms to better use. So far they've had plenty of practice, like spending the month of May panicking over an inability to stick a delicate tea service to the vaulted ceiling of Gryffindor tower (Remus), application to the paws of Lily Evans's cat (James. It was found on the ceiling of the Great Hall, looking very confused) or just generally being annoying in the dormitory (Sirius, Peter, and a sock mural).
"A little juvenile," Remus says in response to James's first suggestion. "And not in the way I normally mean. Just think, there must be something more spectacular. Something all the houses will notice."
"You look like you already know," says Sirius, narrowing his eyes.
"Spit it out then," snaps James, tossing a pillow. Remus dodges; it hits Peter who lobs it back at Remus, smacking him square in the back of the head.
"Oof," says Remus, and contemplates upping the ante and throwing a book. He's got a copy of Cheating Death: Charms of Defence in his hands, and it would be suitably ironic. However, it would probably break Peter's spine upon collision. He winces and puts it neatly in his trunk.
To the rest of them he says, "No, I don't know. I'm just pointing out that flipping the common room would be the first thought of anyone armed with a sticking charm and bad intentions."
James sticks up his nose and sniffs. "Not everyone, Remus. Apparently Evans believes they are to be used to do boring things like hang paintings."
"You obsess over Evans too much," groans Sirius. "Remus is right. We need something with a bang!"
"Er, maybe no bangs," says Remus hastily, "we're all on the same train; it could get messy."
There are two pairs of eyes - hazel and gray - lighting up in front of him, and two nearly identical scowls. Peter doesn't catch the comment, but he looks excited by the sudden shift in mood.
"Reeemuuuus, can't you say something straight out for once?" whinges Sirius, but he's grinning now.
"No," says Remus before he can think about it. It's not Slytherin cunning or a Dark Creature's inclination for lies and trickery (or so he hopes). Simply, it's more entertaining.
"Shut up, Sirius," breathes James. "Flip the Hogwarts Express. Oh, excellent my good sir! Simply excellent!" He pats Remus on the back hard enough that only those reflexes he's not sure he's supposed to have keep him standing.
Sirius grins and Remus catches him at it. "Oi," Remus says, "Don't laugh at my pain!" But once Sirius starts laughing there's no stopping him, and soon they're all in a shouting scuffle, too busy trying to breathe between guffaws for Remus to notice an angry red scar on Sirius's hand, when he forgets himself and draws it out of a pocket of his robes.
Well, nearly. No one can say Remus isn't observant. He stares at the scar, so familiar yet so alien on someone else's skin. It can't be. No one could be so insane, so reckless. Not even Sirius. And, Remus consoles himself, no one would ever dare get so close.
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