* * * * * * * * * * *

"Damn it, Remus, can you get the door? This box is heavy."

"I'm trying," replied Remus, "but my box isn't exactly feather-light."

They were standing outside an abandoned Prefects' room high up in Gryffindor Tower. They needed to be away from the common room, because what they were doing was a surprise for James and Lily. Almost a year had gone by since the two of them had begun dating, and Remus had come up with the idea to put together a photo album for them, filled with memories of then and now, and everything in between. They had gathered together as many photographs as they could, but they needed privacy to put it all together, and so they'd slipped away while the others were off working on homework.

Sirius sighed in exasperation. "Yours is half the size of mine," he grumbled. "Here, I'll do it." He struggled with the latch.

Remus watched him. "It might be smaller," he muttered, "but it's DENSE. Kind of like you."

He waited a moment.

"Oh, shove over," he said, and he set down his box and took out his wand. "Alohomora!"

The door swung open. Remus smirked triumphantly at Sirius before taking his box and swooping inside.

"Showoff," grunted Sirius. Remus chuckled and gave him a playfully stern look.

"If you'd pay attention in Charms..." he began.

Sirius grinned.

"But it's BORING!"

Remus ignored the familiar complaint. He set his box down on the floor and held his wand aloft once again.

"Lumos!" he said, and the room filled with light.

Sirius dumped his box next to the other, sending up a cloud of dust.

"Ick."

Remus laughed clucked his tongue at Sirius.

"Don't worry, Blanche. Your hair will survive." He sat down on the floor, ignoring the dust, and tugged his box toward him.

Sirius shook his head, and his fine dark hair settled around his shoulders. "I'll have to wash it again," he whined. Remus looked up, bemused.

"The horror."

"Piss off, Moony," Sirius glowered. He looked around and flapped his arms, helplessly. "I need something to sit on."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Oh, you're such a prima donna!" he exclaimed. He withdrew his wand again. "Wingardium leviosa!"

A small footstool flew across the room and landed at Sirius's feet. Remus pocketed his wand with a flourish and made a sweeping gesture with his hands.

"Your seat, my liege."

Sirius smirked. "Hey! Some of us have an image to maintain," he said, as he sat down. "Thanks." He looked down at the box at his feet with a dubious expression. "I hope Lily and James appreciate this," he mumbled, and started pulling at the lid.

"I'm sure they will," said Remus. "If they knew about it, they'd probably appreciate it already." He opened his box and gasped. "Bloody hell! There must be hundreds of photographs in here." Eyes wide, he reached in and picked out a handful of pictures.

Sirius opened his own box and whistled low. "I didn't realize there were so many," he said.

Remus laughed. "We're either very vain," he said, "or very bored."

Sirius shot him a dirty look.

"Watch it."

Quietly they looked through the photographs, Remus separating them into small piles depending on the subjects. He took his time studying each one carefully, sometimes with a smile of nostalgia or a frown of concentration.

When he pulled a fairly large picture out of the pile, Sirius leaned over suddenly, pushing his hair away from his face and squinting for a better look.

"What's that picture from?

"Quidditch match, toward the end of our first year." Remus paused, in thought, and watched the figures in the photograph - James, Frank Longbottom, and Micah Davies, another Gryffindor, jumped up and down celebrating a victory. Remus sighed.

"I think Peter took this one because James was mainly watching Lily and not the match, and Peter wanted proof of this blatant display of insanity," he explained, with a little smile.

"I- I wasn't there," he added, softly.

Sirius frowned and touched the picture with a tentative finger.

"Then that means this was..."

His voice trailed off as Remus nodded.

"That was the night you found out."

++++

Sirius was perched at the window, staring after the full moon long after it had set below the horizon. He was worried; Remus hadn't shown up for a pivotal Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and there were few things Remus liked more than Quidditch. Sirius had looked all over the school for him, missing the match himself, but Remus had seemingly vanished. It wasn't the first time.

Remus went missing often, at least once a month, and always with an excuse. Sirius knew from experience that if Remus didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be, but that didn't keep him from looking round corners and peeking into classrooms, and worrying. They'd only known one another for a short time - from the beginning of term - but Sirius was the sort who, upon making a friend, became attached very quickly.

After the Quidditch match had ended - with a Gryffindor victory - and Sirius's fruitless search of the castle had yielded nothing but a Boggart on the third floor, he'd attempted to go to bed. James Potter assured him that Remus would turn up by morning, as he had done following every one of his previous disappearing acts, and Sirius tried to close his eyes on that happy thought.

After several hours of staring at the ceiling, running through Charms spells in his head and mentally listing the ingredients to Sleeping Death, Sirius gave up on sleep and took up vigil at the window, where he waited out the moon and fought the exhaustion creeping through his body. He would stay awake until Remus came back.

When the door to the dormitory burst open he jumped, nearly out of his skin. Sirius watched in open-mouthed shock as Remus stumbled through it, disheveled and exhausted, and wide-eyed with terror at the sight of Sirius staring back at him.

"S-Sirius?" His voice was thick and hoarse. "Wh- why are you still awake?"

Sirius leapt down from the windowsill. "I was worried about you," he whispered, so that the others wouldn't wake up. He peered at Remus through the darkness and frowned. "What happened?"

Remus rubbed his head as though he were in pain. "N-nothing, Sirius," he said, weakly. "I'm all right. You should be asleep, though. We've a quiz in Potions tomorrow... Have you even studied?"

He swayed suddenly, so violently that he reached out and grabbed Sirius for support without thinking. Sirius caught him easily.

"I don't give a damn about Potions," said Sirius as he guided Remus over to the nearest bed and steered him into it. "Remus, you're like a ghost..."

Remus made a soft sound of protest as he crawled onto the bed and began to burrow under the duvet.

"Just... need to sit... lay down..." he mumbled, almost incoherently. He curled up with his back to Sirius and continued to speak into the pillows. "M'fine, Sirius."

Sirius hovered beside him, unsure of himself.

"Shall I get Madame Pomfrey?"

"No..." came the muffled reply, accompanied by a weak wave of Remus' hand from beneath the duvet. "No," he echoed. "I saw Madame Pomfrey already."

A choked sob. "I'm sorry."

Panic began to carbonate just beneath Sirius's skin. He patted the blankets around Remus' huddled body, helplessly, and was shocked to feel them trembling.

"Remus, you're shivering."

The small mound began to quake even more. Remus' voice sounded up close and far away at the same time, from his hidey-place beneath the duvet.

"Sirius... don't tell anybody..." His voice was soft and high with terror. "I'm so sorry..."

Sirius bit his lower lip. "Let me get Dumbledore," he started to say, but Remus gave a frightened yelp and a small hand shot out and grasped his arm.

"No!" cried Remus. No, Dumbledore..." Another sob, this one wet and quivering. "He knows..."

Remus rolled over suddenly, the blankets twisting around him. His eyes were red and his face bitten by pain. Sirius shuddered. He'd never seen someone so pale who wasn't a Hogwarts ghost.

"He knows what?" he asked, in the hoarsest whisper. "Remus... Are you sick?"

Remus squeezed his eyes shut.

"Not sick," he breathed. "Sirius..."

Remus turned and buried his face against the pillows again.

"I'm not supposed to tell," he said, so softly that his voice was almost lost to Peter Pettigrew's snores.

Carefully, Sirius sat on the bed beside him, and reached out a tentative hand to place upon his back. He tried not to wince when his fingers brushed the sharp angles of Remus' spine, jutting up grotesquely beneath his thin shirt.

"You can tell me," he said, gently. "You can tell me anything. I won't tell anyone, promise."

Impulsively, he leaned over and gave Remus an awkward half-hug. Remus' skin was both hot and slicked with a cold sweat, and he smelled of blood and earth, and something else Sirius couldn't place.

When Sirius let go, Remus exhaled deeply against the sheets, and mumbled something so quietly that Sirius couldn't hear. He leaned closer, until little puffs of breath tickled his ear.

"I didn't hear you, Remus," he said. "What did you say?"

"I said that I'm a werewolf."

With a little yelp Sirius started, lost his balance and tumbled off the bed. He landed on the floor with a soft thump, and muttered something unkind under his breath before frowning up at Remus.

"Very funny, Remus," he muttered, rubbing his backside. "That hurt!"

Remus stared back down at him at him without blinking. Fresh tears had begun trickling unchecked from his eyes that Sirius could now see clearly, by the light of the rising sun. They were bright yellow, completely unlike the soft blues he'd spent a year becoming accustomed to. Sirius opened his mouth to say something but did not. He gaped at Remus, fear crawling into his throat in a silent scream.

He scrambled to his feet. "Tell me you're joking," he said, his voice low and cracked. "Remus? You're joking, aren't you?"

A look of pure heartbreak crossed Remus' face then, twisting his mouth down and casting a shadow across his eyes. Sirius could see that they were slowly fading back to blue, but the yellow in them still glowed golden, like the light of a great, fat moon.

"I wish I could," said Remus, quietly, ducking his head. "But I can't. I am a werewolf."

For a moment neither of them could speak.

Then Sirius sat down on the bed once again, slowly and carefully, and keeping some distance between him and Remus.

"How?" he asked.

Remus fidgeted, nervously. "I was three," he explained, in a tiny voice that Sirius thought might be the echo of his younger self. "It killed my parents before it came after me. I got away," Remus said wearily, "but not before it could bite me."

"Oh..." Sirius breathed.

Remus continued, staring at the floor. "My grandmother wouldn't let them take me away. They were going to put me away-"

He paused and swallowed, his voice strained and raspy.

"They were going to put me away in St Mungo's," he went on. "But Mam wouldn't let them, and she took me home."

He turned away, suddenly, burying his face in the duvet again.

"Didn't want anybody to know," he whispered, and a violent sob shook his body from the inside out. Sirius put his hand carefully on Remus' shoulder, willing it not to shake, though in spite of himself he was afraid.

"I won't tell," he said.

Remus was shaking. He looked up, his bright eyes red and wet. Sirius stuck his chin out, a little, and nodded.

"I won't. I don't care if you're a werewolf." He patted Remus' arm. "I'll keep it secret."

Remus blinked. "You will?"

Sirius nodded.

"But..." Remus frowned. "Why?" He wiped his nose on his sleeve. "I mean, don't you hate me now?"

Sirius snorted. "Why would I hate you? You got bitten when you were a baby - you didn't do this on purpose. It was an accident. I can't hate you for an accident!"

Remus shrugged. "Lots of people do."

"Well, lots of people are stupid," declared Sirius.

Remus almost cracked a smile, but it quickly faded when he looked down and noticed that Sirius's hand on his shoulder was trembling, slightly.

"You're afraid of me, though," he said, quietly.

Sirius looked away. "I know. I'm sorry. I just have to get used to it, I guess. I don't know that much about werewolves."

He looked back at Remus. "I'm going to learn, though. Everything there is to know. I'll even find a cure for it!"

Remus sniffed. "Only cure's a silver bullet," he said, bitterly.

"What about potions?" suggested Sirius.

"Nothing," said Remus, with a small sigh. "My grandfather has spent years looking for one. Hasn't found anything yet."

He sat up, knees curled against his chest and his arms wrapped around himself, protectively. "Nobody knows anything about werewolves," he explained. "They don't want to get close enough to one to ask. They just shoot us and kill us or they lock us up."

Sirius scooted closer. Remus looked up in surprise, and Sirius smiled.

"Close enough?" he asked.

This time, Remus did laugh. "James is right. You ARE out of your tree."

Sirius grinned.

"I'm a Gryffindor, Remus. We're not afraid of anything!"

Remus rolled his eyes. A yawn forced its way out of his throat, a thick sound that reminded Sirius of a bark.

"I have to sleep, Sirius. I've been up all night, and classes tomorrow..."

Sirius nodded and scooted off the bed. "I won't let anybody bother you," he said, rearranging the blankets for him. "I'll tell them you have a cold."

Remus smiled. "Thanks."

He crawled under the duvet and curled up into himself again.

"Sirius?"

"Yeah?"

"It's cold."

Without hesitation, Sirius climbed into bed and under the blankets, laying as close to Remus as he dared.

"Better?"

"Mm."

"Goodnight, Remus."

"G'night."