The Bed We Lie In by Kihin Ranno

There is nothing Remus Lupin likes better than the dawn.

In his lupine state, he can sense the motions of the heavens and all of their ministrations. He feels the moon’s pull, submitting to her will with bowed head and a canine growl. He howls his obedience, knowing better than to cry a warning of subversion. The moon is more powerful than man, and certainly more powerful than werewolf, the feral middle child she acknowledges but once a month.

But he can also sense her waning and her setting. And when the sun begins to rise above the horizon to chase away her cold light, to replace the darkness with orange warmth, a part of him becomes conscious once more. It is as if he is waking from a nightmare, and he sings with relief as the sun breaks over the trees. It’s the end to yet another of countless nights where his body betrays him to a pale satellite. With the dawn, he can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that it will be another four weeks before his bones break once again.

The wolf begins to recede and the boy begins to return. Changing back is always so much less painful than going the other way. Remus thinks it’s because the moon is at last relinquishing her hold rather than grasping with her own claws. Perhaps he’s wrong, and for once, he doesn’t dwell on it too much. All that he cares for is that he is turning back into Remus Lupin. He can’t say he’s becoming human again, because he’s never really that. But at least he can trust that he’ll look human enough to fool everyone into accepting him just enough.

He prowls the forest edge as the grey, coarse hair begins to draw back into his skin. His claws turn into fingernails as his paws shift and his thumbs return opposable. He feels his snout shortening into what he has to concede is a rather unfortunate nose. He feels all these changes and wonders what scars he will bear from this evening. It’s been particularly rough. He can only pray that he’s left his face unscathed.

Though no matter where they are, explaining the marks to Sirius and Jamie and Pete will still be hard. Perhaps he can hide them until they leave school. He only has a few weeks. It’s just possible he’ll do it.

His haunches straighten into knobby pre-adolescent legs and his tail… well, he doesn’t really care to think about just what his tail does. If Sirius knew, he’d have a few choice things to say about it. But Sirius doesn’t know. Nobody knows, and if they did….

He doesn’t think about what would happen if they did.

Finally, Remus Lupin is not-quite-human again. Humanoid, he thinks, mouthing the word from one of Jamie’s science fiction novels. Slowly, painfully slowly, Remus curls into himself, testing the limits of his muscles. They shriek in agony from a night of running no human could hope to endure and a young boy-cub werewolf can scarcely manage. He can still feel his bones shifting beneath his skin, sliding perfectly into place. A rib heals its own break with an audible crack.

His face feels wet. He gingerly touches his cheek, whimpering at the soft pressure, and pulls it away. His fingertips are coated with red. His stomach roils, and the last vestiges of wolfish sense lay his fears to rest. It’s blood from a deer, nothing more.

He exhales and his breath shakes. His last transformation at Hogwarts for his second year. He can rest easy at being discovered for the next few months.

He starts to push himself to his knees in hopes of meeting Madame Pomfrey back at the Shrieking Shack. Remus hates when she has to come fetch him from the forest. She never says anything, but he can tell by the set of her white hat that she isn’t pleased.

A twig snaps.

Remus whirls around, bearing teeth on a reflex that isn’t entirely his own. His eyes quickly focus on three boy-shapes shadows, and he covers his mouth.

Sirius, as always, is at the head of the group, his wide eyes opened wider. “Cor…. Remus?”

When the world spins away from him in a flash of color and pain, it’s a relief.

There is nothing Remus Lupin likes better than the dawn, but if he had known what the light would reveal, he would have hidden in the dark forever.

-----

It’s three days before Remus can open his eyes without immediately calling out for a potion.

If he’s perfectly honest with himself, the pain isn’t that bad. True, it was a rough night and his body has borne the brunt of his condition, but he’s certainly had worse and not needed so much sleep to get through it. More to the point, Madame Pomfrey has never been so conciliatory with her potions.

But then it’s no secret to them why Remus is so desperate to stay asleep.

In the oblivion of dreams, he can forget of seeing and of being seen. He doesn’t have to see the shock and horror on his friends’ faces. He doesn’t have to imagine the scorn they will heap upon him. He doesn’t have to hear the echoes of future screams as they run from him even as he tries to explain, “No, I’m just a boy. Don’t you understand? I’m just like you, only… different.”

It’s a lie, of course, but he’s not above resorting to it.

He hates being alone.

But after three days of sleeping, he knows he has to wake up. If he doesn’t make the decision, Madame Pomfrey will make it for him. He wants her to be proud of him, although that will be a small comfort.

So he opens his eyes and stares into the darkness of the hospital wing. It’s night. He almost always wakes up at night after a transformation. The moon is still too close to full not to have him under some of her thrall. He looks around at the rows of empty beds and marvels at his disappointment.

What was he expecting? There’ll be no late night visits from his roommates now. Pete won’t dump armloads of sweets on his lap. Jamie won’t tell him about all the ways that barmy Lily Evans irritates him. Sirius won’t regale him with fantastical tales of their exploits. And never again will any of them venture a guess as to the nature of his mysterious illness.

They certainly know what ails him now, don’t they?

“Finally.”

All of sudden, the empty air beside his bed shifts as if fabric is passing through the air. A moment later, Sirius appears, emerging from the folds of Jamie’s invisibility cloak. “I never thought you’d wake up! Is that a thing with you lot? You sleep a lot?”

It takes Remus all of a second to realize what his happening. Of course. Sirius Black does not scare easy, if at all. Rather than run from the monster, he’s decided to poke it with a stick. Apparently, Sirius doesn’t think he’ll bite back.

Remus has no idea if he should be comforted or insulted.

“Do you have to, Sirius?” Remus murmurs sleepily.

Sirius narrows his eyes in that way that makes him look so much older than twelve. “Do what?”

“Make fun of me.”

Sirius scoffs, throwing the cloak at him for emphasis. “What are you on about? Nutter. Why’d I be making fun of you?”

Remus manages not to point out that making fun of other people is sort of Sirius’s specialty. “Well, because I’m… I’m a….”

Sirius waves his hand at Remus flippantly. “Oh, that? Why’d I make fun of you for that when it is obviously the most brilliant and amazing thing ever?”

Remus does not know how to respond. “Er.”

Oblivious to Remus’s obvious pain, Sirius hops onto the bed, jostling Remus’s legs. “Why didn’t you say anything? I mean, if I were a werewolf I’d tell everyone! Why haven’t you told everyone, Moony? That’s what I’ve decided to call you now that I know you’re really a werewolf. I think it’s very clever. Don’t you think it’s clever, Moony?”

Remus thinks it’s horrifying, but he’s still so mystified by Sirius’s odd behavior (though really, when doesn’t Sirius act completely mad?) that he can’t respond to that question. He’s entirely too preoccupied by the first. “What do you mean, why haven’t I told? Of course I haven’t….” He feels all the blood drain from his face. “Sirius, please tell me you haven’t said anything.”

Sirius exhales, his black bangs momentarily standing at attention. “No. Dumbledore said we couldn’t. Don’t know what got his knickers in a twist about it. Doesn’t he want everyone to know how out of sight you are?”

Remus is nothing short of amazed that simply ordering Sirius to keep his mouth shut has worked. He wonders just what McGonagall threatened him with. “Sirius, this isn’t… you can’t talk about this like it’s a good thing.”

Sirius blinks. “Well, no. Because it’s clearly the best thing ever! Definitely cherry.”

If Remus could lift his arms, he would beat Sirius’s head into a wall. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“Maybe you’re not making fun of me,” Remus murmurs, though he is still not willing to let go of this possibility entirely. “But you’re being… stupid.”

It is the worst thing Remus has ever said to him, but Sirius barely bats an eyelash. “Am not,” he insists with the obligatory raspberry.

“If you think that being a werewolf is… cherry, then you are. It’s… it’s the worst thing ever.”

Sirius frowns, no doubt imagining the worst thing ever and finding it doesn’t line up with being a werewolf at all. “I don’t get it.”

Remus shuts his eyes. There are some things he cannot say without the comfort of the dark.

“It hurts,” he whispers. “It hurts so much… more than you could ever imagine. You said you broke your leg when you were ten, yeah? Well imagine that once a month. But it’s not just your leg. It’s every bone in your body. Everything breaks, but that’s not even the worst of it because after they break, they fuse back together in a different shape. They grow or they shrink until you don’t look human anymore. Then you’re nothing but… nothing but a monster.

“I don’t remember anything I do when I’m…. Not a thing. I could kill somebody, and I wouldn’t know it, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I wake up with scars I can’t explain and I’m always covered in blood. I never know if it’s my own or not. Sometimes I notice it quick enough so that I can figure out what it came from, but sometimes I don’t, and I’m always so afraid those days.”

Fear washes over him and nearly makes him sick. His eyes fly open. “Sirius, how long were you and… how long were you there?”

“Not long,” Sirius says, but he looks at Remus too intently and it’s obviously a lie.

Remus is too tired to call him on it. He sinks further into the bed. “How did you know?”

Sirius scoffs. “You disappear once a month around the full moon. I know you’re the cleverest of all of us, but give us a little credit, mate.”

The use of the word ‘mate,’ the one Remus knows will be denied to him now, stings like a bite. “Why did you come?”

“Pete didn’t believe it.”

Remus sighs. “Guess he does now.”

“Yeah,” Sirius murmurs. “He’s being an idiot about it. Pissed himself when he saw you – I mean really pissed himself.”

Pete has always struck Remus as one of the more sensible members of the group. “And Jamie?”

Sirius frowns. “He’s been weird. Kind of quiet. Let me borrow the cloak though. Said to tell you hello.”

But he didn’t come himself of course. Too much to expect, even from James Potter.

“Moony?”

Remus almost forgets to answer to the nickname. “Hm?”

“So it… it really hurts?”

Remus swallows. “Yeah.”

“A lot?”

“More than a lot.”

“Oh,” Sirius murmurs. “Can’t… Can’t they give you something?”

Remus shrugs. “I heard something about someone researching a new potion, but werewolves aren’t that important to people.”

“They’re the idiots,” Sirius says staunchly.

It borders so close to loyalty that it aches. “Do you hate me?”

“What? No! I mean, I’m annoyed you lied, but—"

“Are you afraid of me?”

“No,” Sirius insists. “You wouldn’t hurt me.”

Remus grinds his teeth together, reassuring himself of their size and shape as much as he is venting frustration. “I told you, if I was a wolf, I wouldn’t know the difference.”

“What am I, soft? I’m not gonna go poking you with a stick when you’re all hairy and growly.”

Because Remus has met Sirius, he sincerely doubts this, and says as much.

“Remus, I am Pureblood,” Sirius reminds him in that aristocratic tone of voice that sounds so weird coming from someone so young. “I know werewolves aren’t to be played with.”

Remus pauses. “Oh.”

“But, I mean, you’re still Remus, aren’t you?” Sirius muses, working it out for himself even as he says it. “You haven’t changed. You’re still too skinny and too pale. You’re still going to come up with brilliant plans for pranks. You’re still going to make Snivellus go cross-eyed just by breathing on him, and you’ll still look all disapprove-y when I clock him. You’re still going to be able to tell when I’m about to tackle you when you’re reading, which I’m guessing is a werewolf thing.” He waits for Remus to confirm this with a nod. “You’re not going to start, I don’t know… shedding and scratching the furniture and marking territory, right?”

“Not most days,” Remus admits.

“See?” Sirius maintains. “So you’re still Remus. Just now you’re Moony too.” He pauses. “Do you get a tail?”

Remus sighs. “Yeah.”

“Bet it would be groovy to have a tail.”

Remus smiles a little. “It kind of is.”

Sirius elbows him far more gently than he normally would. “Idiot.”

Remus swallows. “So, you’re… you’re sure? You don’t… You’re not going to stop being friends with me?”

“Is that what you were worried about?” Sirius asks, mystified. “Merlin, you’re mad,” he informs Remus solemnly.

Remus is so relieved he could practically cry. But Sirius Black is a boy-king, and one does not cry in front of the boy-king. Or any boy for that matter if you don’t want to get clobbered. Instead, he yawns.

“Yeah, everyone says I’m exhausting,” Sirius agrees, offering a little yawn of his own. “Budge over.”

Remus complies, lifting the cover so Sirius can burrow into the covers. “Madame Pomfrey won’t be happy to see you.”

“It’ll be fine,” Sirius says, kicking his shoes off. “Secretly, she thinks I’m adorable.”

“Just like everyone else,” Remus says, mimicking his father’s driest tone.

Sirius flashes a too-bright smile. “Just good taste!”

“Uh-huh,” Remus mumbles. “Night, Sirius.”

“Night, Moony.”

Remus lays there in the dark, listening to Sirius’s breaths shift from shallow to deep. And once the boy starts mumbling about “stupid Bella,” a sure sign that he is asleep, Remus allows himself to grin until his cheeks hurt. Maybe Peter will stay scared, and maybe James won’t know how to act, but Sirius will stay. Sirius will always stay.

The day will dawn tomorrow, and Remus will still have a friend. He can like nothing better.