Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Fifth Year

A violent something pulled Sirius Black to awareness. He opened his eyes looking for an enemy that wasn’t there, hand gripping air instead of a wand, his entire body humming with adrenaline. He was clammy, pajamas sticking to skin, and his breathing was heavy like he’d been running. He sat up, leaning forward to catch his breath.

“All right there, Padfoot?” James asked groggily from the next bed over.

And for a minute the vision—the nightmare—felt startlingly real. James had been dead. It had been all Sirius’s fault.

His throat was suspiciously tight. He swallowed.

No. He was in his fifth-year dorm room at Hogwarts, perfectly safe. He pulled back the bed curtains, just to be sure. There was James, leaning up on an elbow, hair flattened on one side, eyes seeming oddly small without his glasses, as usual.

James was fine.

But there was someone else Sirius had been worried about. James? Maybe. They had looked like James, hadn’t they? And Remus was there. But the memory of it was fading rapidly, only sensations and impressions remaining. A sadness so deep, he thought he’d never feel happiness again, and a jagged, aching guilt he would always remember.

“Just a bad dream,” Sirius said. “I think Snape was snogging my mum.”

James snorted, clearly not believing it, but closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

Eventually, after his heartbeat settled down into an easy rhythm, Sirius fell asleep, too.

He dreamed of a veil.

#

Sirius put the nightmare out of his mind, which was easy enough, as the images faded like dreams often did. At breakfast, he dropped into a seat next to James, with Remus and Peter across from them. Remus looked peaky as he always did before the full moon, and Sirius took a moment to feel bad for his friend. A short moment, but enough to assuage his guilt over his own excitement for that night. They’d learned that while transformed into Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs that the dangerous creatures in the Forbidden Forest steered well clear of werewolves, which meant they could explore the land more intimately than any other wizard would be allowed.

If the creatures of the forest thought something was off about the dog and stag keeping tabs on the wolf, Sirius would never know. In the forest, with a werewolf at their side, they were invincible.

The biggest threat was not making it back to the shack before Madame Pomfrey. Tracking time as an animal was tricky.

“Ugh, is Snivellus staring at Evans again? He’s pathetic,” James muttered into his porridge, glancing over his shoulder.

“I don’t think so,” Peter said, furrowing his brow and shrinking down in his seat. “I think he’s staring at us.”

“Even worse,” Sirius grumbled. “He can’t mind his own fucking business.”

Remus cleared his throat. “He’s been…lurking a lot,” he said. Remus was always diplomatic about these things.

“He’s spying, you mean,” James said.

“Maybe he suspects something,” Remus said quietly, acting like he was entirely focused on his breakfast. “He wouldn’t be wrong this time.”

“He’s not smart enough to figure it out,” Sirius said.

Remus shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s probably a good idea to be on our best behavior. Today, at least.”

“I’m never on my best behavior, according to my mother,” Sirius announced. She’d sent a letter the morning before about that very thing. Sirius was tired of living under her thumb, but he kept hoping one day things would get better. That she’d finally understand him. Until then, he craved an outlet that wouldn’t get him disinherited and disowned. He turned around, making a face at Snape who glowered and dropped his eyes back to his breakfast.

Snape had been lurking more than usual. Sirius had a few theories about it that mostly involved Snape being a pathetic nosy bastard who was obsessed with Lily Evans and James’s blatant pursuit of her. Whatever Snape thought the Marauders were up to, he clearly thought it would be something that could turn Evans against James.

If Snape only knew the truth, he’d piss his pants like the cowardly creep he was.

It gave Sirius a vicious pleasure to imagine Snape’s comical expression as he found himself facing a werewolf. Like Snape would ever have the guts to go near the Whomping Willow—let alone approach a werewolf.

Sirius was about to allude to as much to his friends when he was struck by a—vision. He was standing in one of the school’s corridors with Snape, exchanging insults, Sirius’s frustration with his family and Snape coalescing into one big, ugly feeling.

“You’re pathetic, Black,” Snape said. “You act confident, but your brother told everyone how you cried when your mother wouldn’t let you visit your friends over Christmas.”

Sirius blanched but kept his head. “Why are you so obsessed with me, Snivellus? I thought it was only Evans you had a boner for.”

“Shut up!” Snape snarled. “Keep pissing me off, and you’re going to regret it. I know what you and your friends are up to.”

“Oh really?” Sirius didn’t believe Snape knew anything concrete. And Snape was a spineless coward who would run in the face of any real danger. It would be funny to see him chicken out about going into the passageway beneath the Willow.

Sirius really didn’t consider it much further than that. He had an idea, so he saw it through. He didn’t bother to consider the consequences.

Sirius then explained to Snape exactly how to get past the Whomping Willow.

Another vision, this time of Sirius telling James what he told Snape.

“Sirius! Are you an idiot?”

“I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s never going to do it—”

But James was already off, racing out of the dorm. Sirius’s last thought was that James was wasting his time.

Another vision: sitting in Dumbledore’s office, being kicked off the quidditch team, forbidden from Hogsmeade trips, and assigned nightly detentions for the rest of the year.

“I never thought he’d really do it!” Sirius insisted. Beside him James heaved a loud sigh, like he couldn’t believe he was friends with such a moron.

“Do you really believe that, Mr. Black?” Dumbledore asked, voice coated in disappointment.

Then Sirius was apologizing to Remus in a similar fashion. “I didn’t think he’d actually do it! I thought he’d get bopped by the Willow and that’d be that.”

“It’s fine,” Remus said with a grimace that showed it wasn’t.

And Remus never held it against him in words, though he didn’t confide in Sirius like he had before. No more shared jokes about their canine habits. No confessions of wanting to eat bloody steak for every meal. No letting Padfoot nap at the end of his bed.

Then it was years later, at a meeting about a threat to James’s unborn son, and Sirius looked at Remus and thought, he probably hasn’t trusted me since that incident with Snape. Maybe he’s still angry about it…maybe he’s tired of hiding what he is. Voldemort is promising a lot of things to werewolves….

It wasn’t until after that night that Sirius realized how wrong he was. About Remus and Peter—and himself. But it was too late by then.

The vision faded, the guilt of his own arrogance still thrumming through Sirius’s veins. It had felt so real.

But Sirius was back in the Great Hall, looking up into Remus’s trusting hazel green eyes. He’d never described Remus’s eyes that way before, never noticed it, but they were. Trusting. Remus trusted him—so much more than he deserved. That same stab of guilt throbbed painfully. It felt like years of guilt had suddenly crowded into his chest.

“Just don’t go hexing him or something,” Remus said. “Can you do that for one day?”

Sirius’s grin wobbled for a moment, but he managed to tug the corners up. “For one day. I’ll just hex my brother instead.”

Then they were laughing like everything was normal, while on the inside Sirius was panicking. Had he just seen the future? Had he inherited some dormant divination gene he didn’t know about? He didn’t think predictions worked like that.

More likely, Sirius had inherited his family’s insanity and he’d just had his first hallucination.

The support for insanity only grew. Once again, just as he’d grasped the clearness of the vision, by the end of breakfast they’d faded like a dream, and Sirius was left feeling like he’d been confunded. All he could remember was that he’d done something to Snape in the vision—betrayed Remus’s trust somehow.

During Transfiguration that morning, Sirius felt that stab of guilt every time Remus looked at him. He felt shame for something he didn’t even remember. How stupid was that? Sirius sunk into his seat and tried not to look at his friend at all. The guilt was suffocating. Or maybe it was just that Sirius never really felt guilty about anything he did, and this guilt thing was completely normal for people who weren’t born from a long chain of incestual marriages.

After lunch, Sirius wasn’t able to avoid Remus anymore. They’d signed up for Care of Magical creatures while James and Peter had a free period.

“Did I do something?” Remus asked, shortly after they’d walked out into the cool, open air of spring.

“What? Why would you think that?” Sirius asked, knowing exactly why Remus would think that, but hoping to dismiss his concerns. Merlin, it somehow made Sirius feel even guiltier to rebuff him.

“You’re acting…weird,” Remus said. “You’re not looking at me. Did you cheat off my homework again?”

Sirius, in all honesty, had to think about it for a moment before he answered, “No, not recently.”

Remus scrunched his nose. “You wouldn’t act guilty over that, anyway.”

“I’m not acting guilty,” he denied, embarrassed that Remus had figured out the truth so easily.

“Then stop acting all sulky and twitchy,” Remus said, bumping his shoulder with a friendly smile.

And that would’ve been the end of it, but then another vision hit Sirius.

He and Remus were older. Remus had a smattering of gray hair and a tired smile. They were sitting in a cozy, unfamiliar kitchen, but Sirius knew it was Remus’s home they were in. Just the two of them.

“I’m sorry for bringing bad news, and putting you at risk, staying here. I don’t want to get you into trouble,” Sirius said.

“It was Dumbledore’s suggestion,” Remus said with a shrug. “And you have more important things to worry about than me.”

“It only took twelve years in Azkaban, but I do have a conscience, Moony,” Sirius said gloomily. “I know I didn’t…didn’t always think of others like I should have.”

Remus shook his head. “It’s the nature of young people to be a little self-absorbed.”

“I was a little worse than most. Don’t lie,” Sirius said, folding his arms stubbornly.

“You were, but I think you would’ve grown out of it, regardless of…” Remus trailed off awkwardly.

“Maybe,” Sirius said. Privately, he wasn’t so sure. He’d been a little shit, and seeing how Harry had turned out, despite all of his own hardships, was proof enough. Sirius had an awful family, sure, but that was no excuse for being a selfish, arrogant asshole. Especially to his own friends. Maybe if he’d only been a better friend to Remus and Peter…

Back at Hogwarts, walking beside Remus, Sirius shuddered at the vision. Fuck, he really hoped it wasn’t the future. Twelve years in Azkaban? None of it made any sense…

Sirius tried to take what he could from the vision, though. How could he be a better friend to Remus right now? The full moon was that night, and as much as Sirius anticipated the adventure, he knew it was the opposite for Remus.

“I guess…I’m just feeling guilty because I’m going to have a grand old time tonight, and I know it’s going to be total shit for you,” Sirius said at last, realizing as he spoke that it wasn’t entirely a lie. It was new, this feeling guilty thing, but there was truth in it.

And Remus looked so stunned, Sirius was a little offended. Was he really so insensitive that showing the least bit of empathy for his friend made Remus gape like a fish?

“Have you—have you been jinxed?” Remus asked.

“Fuck off.”

“No, really. This is very unsettling.”

“I’m trying to be a better friend!” Sirius mumbled. He stalked toward class faster, fixing his gaze on the path ahead.

Remus hurried to keep up. “Sorry. I appreciate what you said. It was just surprising. Surprising, but nice,” he said. “And you don’t need to feel guilty about it. You’ve more than made up for it after all the work you put into becoming Padfoot.”

When Sirius chanced a glance again, Remus’s ears were pink. The conversation was a little too heartfelt for two teenage boys.

“You’re right. I’ve earned enough friendship points to get away with murder, yeah?” Sirius said, the joke hitting differently as he struggled to hold onto the waning memory of a kitchen conversation with Remus…

“One murder. That’s it,” Remus said with a chuckle.

“I want that in writing.”

Soon he had Remus laughing so hard, that when Sirius spied Snape skulking in the bushes, he ignored it, congratulating himself on maturing past petty rivalries.

#

By the end of the afternoon, after potions with the Slytherins, Sirius had lost whatever grip he had on maturity. Snape was intolerably smug and condescending, and Sirius even heard Evans give an annoyed sigh as Snape commented to no one in particular about how perfect his potion looked.

But what really pushed Sirius over the edge was Snape’s remarks to Rosier.

“—I can’t wait until next year. OWLs should really weed out some of the less worthy students from this class.”

“—Slughorn should really look more carefully into students’ backgrounds before he allows them to take Advanced Potions. I’m not sure it’s safe for just anyone to learn some of the potions we’ll learn next year.”

“—I really think if a student is at Hogwarts on scholarship, they should have a limit for how many classes they can miss.”

Sirius clenched his teeth and leaned closer to James. “Forget magic. I’m just going to punch his stupid face.”

“Get in line,” James said. “Actually, maybe we could sell tickets for something like that.”

“A raffle, perhaps,” Sirius agreed.

And while the humor took the edge off, Sirius’s temper was still bubbling beneath the surface. It was only made worse when he found Regulus waiting for him after class.

“Mother wanted me to tell you something,” Regulus said.

Sirius signaled for his friends to go ahead. “What? I’ve already told her I’m not cutting my hair, and I’m studying for my OWLs as much as anybody else. What more can she want?”

Regulus grimaced. The kid didn’t enjoy being the messenger any more than Sirius enjoyed being the recipient. “Something she doesn’t want you to ignore if she writes you.”

“I thought as much,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes. Whatever it was, he knew he wouldn’t like it. Regulus was a “no excuses” way of giving him orders. Sirius also had a good idea of what she was going to say. “It’s about visiting the Potters over the summer, isn’t it,” he said coolly.

“Yes. She said you could visit for a week.” Sirius’s heart leapt in his chest for a moment, until Regulus continued. “But you have to get Outstandings in every subject on your OWLs and—and take Verbadora Bulstrode on a date.” Regulus’s cheeks faintly flushed as he said the last part.

“What?” Sirius hissed. “You made that last part up.”

“I didn’t,” Regulus said, smothering a laugh. “Mother will write to you tomorrow to confirm it.”

“I am not doing that.”

“Which part?”

“The—the date part!” Sirius squawked. Verbadora was pretty enough, Sirius supposed. She was a year older than Sirius. She had golden blonde hair that she curled magically into perfect ringlets, and she was tall and thin. But they were definitely related by blood, and Sirius had told his mother many, many times that he was not marrying anyone in the family. Or maybe anyone at all. He had more fun with his friends than he’d ever had on a date with a girl.

“Then you can’t see your friends over the summer,” Regulus said, uncaring. “You know I’m going to spend two weeks in Italy with—”

“Shut up, Reg. I don’t want to hear it,” Sirius said. He turned to leave. Maybe his friends had waited for him.

But when he turned the corner, instead he found fucking Snape—lurking again.

“Were you listening?” Sirius asked, in true disbelief. Why did Snape have any interest in that conversation at all? Sirius couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

“No. I forgot something in class,” Snape said, but he was smirking spitefully.

“I bet you forgot your favorite jar of grease. Here’s some advice, Snivellus, you’re plenty greasy naturally.”

Snape’s face contorted.

And then everything played out so familiarly. This was what he’d seen at breakfast, he suddenly remembered. What the hell? Why was it coming back to him now?

“You’re pathetic, Black,” Snape said. “You act confident, but your brother told everyone how you cried when your mother wouldn’t let you visit your friends over Christmas.”

Sirius blanched but kept his head. “Why are you so obsessed with me, Snivellus? I thought it was only Evans you had a boner for.”

“Shut up!” Snape snarled. “Keep pissing me off, and you’re going to regret it. I know what you and your friends are up to.”

“Oh really?” Sirius asked. Then it clicked together, everything from his vision rushing back. And it had to have been a true vision or this wouldn’t be happening. He knew what had happened next. He’d told Snape the secrets of the Whomping Willow.

Sirius remembered sitting at breakfast. Remus’s trusting eyes.

And the guilt Sirius didn’t quite understand sharpened like a blade in his gut.

However satisfying it would be to get one over on Snape, it wasn’t worth the consequences.

There had to be another, better way to do it. He just wanted the reaction—to see Snape put in his place. What did Snape care about? What would hurt him most?

Then he thought of it.

“I can’t believe Evans told you,” Sirius snapped, dipping into his best acting skills. “She said we could trust her.”

And Snape’s face pinched into something jealous and outraged and—yes, that was the look he’d been waiting for.

“So if you’re going to tattle on us, go ahead, but I doubt Evans will appreciate it since she’s helping us with it,” Sirius said. “But I guess she doesn’t like you much lately anyway. Whatever.”

Sirius went to dinner in the Great Hall, wondering when he’d started seeing the future, what he was going to do about Verbadora Bulstrode, and how many more hours until he could slip away with his friends to the Shrieking Shack.

Then he spotted Evans with Marlene and Dorcas, and he made a beeline over to them.

“Evans,” he said, deciding on the fly what to do as soon as he saw Snape taking a seat at the Slytherin table.

“Yes?” she asked warily.

“So, I know you aren’t interested in Potter,” he began, not entirely sure where he was going with this conversation.

“Or you,” she said. She glared like she might throw her potatoes at him.

“Oh, I see. It’s our traitorous prefect Loony Lupin that you like, huh?” Sirius asked, and as he spoke, he realized it made a lot of sense. Remus didn’t date—said he was too nervous about getting found out—but he was attractive and funny. Actually, maybe a bit more attractive than James even, because Remus’s hair was nice and normal, and he had badass scars that made him look mysterious. And Remus and Evans were prefects together. Of course she fancied Remus.

Evans’s cheeks turned fiery red like he’d never seen before.

“Evans!” Sirius cackled. James was never going to live this down.

Marlene rolled her eyes. “We all like Lupin better than the rest of you. That’s no secret.”

Dorcas nodded, the three friends banding together. “He’s smart and cute.”

“And quiet,” Evans added with a meaningful look at Sirius.

Yeah, James wasn’t quiet at all. No points there for the showoff.

“I see. I guess I’ll let Lupin know he has options—if he ever grows the balls to ask a girl out.”

Marlene sighed dramatically. “Some of us have already tried asking him to Hogsmeade and were turned down so cleverly we didn’t realize we’d been rejected until afterward.”

Sirius guffawed at that. He wished Remus didn’t have to miss dinners on the full. Sirius couldn’t wait to mercilessly tease him about this.

Lily seemed to have regained her footing because she raised an eyebrow at Sirius, looking amused herself. “Yes, do let Remus know how much we all like him. And be sure to tell him in front of Potter.”

Sirius clutched his chest. “Ouch, Evans.”

Though he would definitely do exactly that.

#

Yesterday, if Sirius had been told he’d start seeing the future, he would have been pleased. Bragged to his friends. Pretended he was going to wager on quidditch and make a ton of gold off his Sight.

Now that he was, maybe, actually seeing the future, Sirius wanted to keep it to himself. The future—potential future—terrified him. And it was slippery and mysterious. Why couldn’t he remember his visions more clearly?

Usually, he would confide in James about something like this, and he’d tried to. Several times. After he spoke to Snape. After dinner. Preparing to leave for the Shrieking Shack.

Every time, Sirius’s became tongue-tied. It was in the morning, listening to Remus’s screams as he transformed back into a teenage boy that Sirius put together exactly why he couldn’t tell James.

Sirius wasn’t just seeing any future. He was seeing what a shithead he was. Selfish. Cruel. Thoughtless. Because however vague the vision became afterward, that part lingered. He’d almost fucked up. Big time.

So there was nothing to brag about except that he’d learned what a prick he was.

He slept through breakfast, and missed the mail being delivered, but his mother’s owl eventually tracked him down to his dorm. The owl was far more polite than she had any right to be as Walburga Black’s owl.

Almond hooted lightly in the window, then fluttered over to his nightstand and did it again.

“Almond, here to deliver some shitty news, I take it?” he mumbled sleepily, peering out from under his pillow. He shook off the unnerving memory of a veil, something knocking him back…

The owl held out her foot patiently, then hopped over to Remus’s nightstand where a bowl of owl treats was always kept. Remus didn’t even have his own owl. He was just a softy.

Sirius smiled to himself for a moment before looking down at the letter. He didn’t want to read it, but part of him wanted to see if Regulus had been telling the truth or not, so his curiosity led him to break the seal.

Unfortunately, Regulus hadn’t lied.

“Verbadora Bulstrode?” Sirius gagged, reading over the letter again.

“So where are you taking her for your date?” James asked suddenly. He stood in the bathroom doorway, wet hair plastered messily against his forehead.

“I don’t want to go on a date with her!”

“But—that seems a small price to pay, yeah? You can spend the last week of the summer at my house doing whatever you want,” James pointed out. Sirius had already explained the conversation with Regulus to him the night before. James had immediately voted on going through with the date.

“But I don’t like her.”

“I’m sure your mum knows that. Maybe she’s counting on you to refuse?”

Just as Sirius considered this, another vision washed over him.

He saw himself with Verbadora at Hogsmeade, miserable and embarrassed as she flaunted him around to her friends, hanging on his arm and touching his hair. Sirius thought it was worth it to show his mother he could be agreeable if she let him see his friends, so he tolerated it with minimal politeness.

Then the vision continued, rapid scenes unfolding of being cooped up in Grimmauld Place,  dragged to one cousin’s house or another over the summer.

“If you don’t behave, you can’t go to the Potters!” his mother said, over and over. A constant threat over his head.

And in the end, when Sirius’s Outstanding OWLs had come back in August, she revoked the terms of their deal.

“I just don’t think they’re a good influence on you, Sirius. You’ve been such a good son all summer—”

“I’ve been pretending, you mean! Acting like I don’t hate almost everyone I’m related to!” Sirius shouted.

His mother narrowed her eyes. “Why are you so ungrateful? You’re practically a prince. Born into one of the greatest, purest families, and you—you can’t even—” Then she began to sniffle delicately, eyes watering.

“It’s not my fault everyone I’m related to is horrible.”

“No they are not! Why are you letting that Potter boy poison you against your own family, your own blood?”

“James isn’t doing anything—”

“I should’ve sent you to Durmstrang the moment you were sorted into that awful, muggle-loving house.”

“Too late now, isn’t it? I’m already tainted by the Gryffindor muggle-loving disease,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes and moving to leave the parlor and return to his sanctuary.

“It’s not too late,” she said desperately, clinging to her last hope. “Maybe a late transfer would be for the best.”

Sirius didn’t know what happened after that, the vision cutting off abruptly. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“No matter what I do, my mother isn’t going to let me visit any of you,” Sirius finally said to James. He crumpled the letter. “It won’t make a difference. She’s just playing another one of her games.”

James hesitated. “Are you sure? You were miserable last summer.”

Sirius merely shrugged. Almond hopped over again, finished with her snack. “I’m not sending a reply. You can go home, girl,” he told her, settling back into bed to wallow in his gloomy mood.

“Well, are you coming to class?” James asked, grabbing his book bag.

“Yeah, I’m coming. Someone needs to take notes for Lupin. And he hates borrowing Peter’s,” Sirius said, stumbling out of bed at last. Peter was usually the most rested of the four of them after a moon. He could doze off on Prongs’s antlers or draped across Padfoot’s neck. Sirius and James took the brunt of corralling the werewolf around the forest, leaving little for Wormtail to do.

“I can take notes,” James said nobly.

“Your notes are practically a language of their own. Hieroglyphs, illegible words, and unnecessary doodles of silly gnomes.”

James gasped. “I thought you liked the gnomes.”

“I do. But Lupin doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t?”

“He says they’re creepy.”

Disappearing to the bathroom, Sirius was still thinking about Remus and the foreign guilt still roosting in his chest every time he thought of him. Sirius decided to write the most detailed, tidy notes in the history of notetaking.

Maybe it would help.

#

With the full moon and the drama with his mother, Sirius forgot all about his plan to torture James about Evans. The opportunity came a few days later when Remus returned from prefect rounds.

Remus didn’t even bother with a hello.

“Padfoot, did you say something to Lily about me?” he asked, throwing the dorm door open.

“Oh, well, kind of,” Sirius explained absently. He was in the middle of a game of cards with James, while Peter studied beside them, all crowded on the bed together. James looked up eagerly at the mention of Evans.

“What’s this about?” James asked.

“Snape came to talk to her while she and I were doing rounds,” Remus said, giving Sirius a suspicious glance.

Sirius’s lip twitched. “Yeah? What did he want?”

“He said you’d told him she was all mixed up with Lupin and his ridiculous friends, and then Lily told him she had no idea what he was talking about.” Remus laughed. “Then she said, if this is about what I said to Black about fancying Remus, all the Gryffindor girls do, and it’s none of your business, anyway.” Remus did a rather decent imitation of Lily’s self-righteous manner of speaking.

“What?” James asked, his cards continuing to dance wildly on the bed as he dropped them—forfeiting the game. “Evans—and all the girls? Fancy you?”

Remus shrugged sheepishly. “I have no idea what she was talking about. But Snape turned purple and told me to stay away from her. Very dramatically. And then they started arguing about not liking each other’s friends. I had to stand there awkwardly waiting for them to finish.”

“And what did Sirius have to do with this?” Peter asked, looking warily at James who was having a much-needed episode of self-doubt. Sirius didn’t want to be the only one questioning himself.

“That’s what I’d like to know. Lily never explained that bit to me,” Remus said. “She complained about Snape all the way back to the tower.”

“Well. You see, I was just talking to her to rile up Snape, yeah?” And Sirius explained what had happened in the Great Hall with Marlene and Dorcas the night of the full moon. He left out the confrontation that had happened in the corridor. He didn’t want Remus to worry about it more than he had to, especially with OWLs coming up.

“Moony, what the hell?” James asked. “What kind of charm are you using on those girls?”

“I don’t harass them for dates, for one,” Remus said politely, walking over to his trunk to get out his pajamas.

“It’s the animal magnetism,” Sirius chimed in.

“All the secretiveness,” Peter added.

“It’s mysterious and alluring! I get it,” James said, latching on. “Maybe if I act uninterested in her, she’ll come around?”

“Maybe try just being polite and friendly,” Remus said.

James scoffed, chucking a pillow at him. “You’ve never even been on a date! Why should I take advice from you?”

“Maybe because all the girls in Gryffindor fancy him?” Sirius offered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Remus charmed the pillow to zap back to James’s face like a bludger.

“Unbelievable,” James said, catching the pillow with quick reflexes. “I thought most of them had a thing for Sirius.”

This was news to Sirius. “What? Why?”

“You’re all—you know,” James said, gesturing lazily.

Peter sighed when Sirius continued to stare in confusion. “The girls think you’re fit and dreamy, are you daft? You can pick any of them you want—”

“Except Evans!” James said.

“She wants Lupin,” Sirius corrected.

“I’m not going to subject anyone to dating a dark creature—not that I even like Lily,” Remus said in a placating tone while holding his toothbrush like a wand. Might as well use a wand to clean his teeth, Sirius and James always tried to say, but Remus’s muggle mother had ingrained the habit in him. He disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Sirius and Peter with an insecure James Potter.

“I bet she does fancy him,” James bemoaned.

“She told me exactly that,” Sirius said unhelpfully.

“He’s tall and doesn’t need glasses.”

“He’s a good listener,” Peter added.

“And obviously he likes her. She’s gorgeous and brilliant and perfect,” James said. “I doubt she’d care about the werewolf thing,” he added morosely.

Sirius blinked. “Wait. Are you wanting to set them up?”

“No,” James said. “I’m too selfish for that.”

“Maybe they’re already secretly dating,” Peter said.

“Why would you say that?” James whined, throwing one of his misbehaving cards at him. James’s aim was excellent, the card sticking to Peter’s forehead. Peter flicked it off without a word.

“What if I liked her? Would you let me date her?” Sirius asked.

“No!” James growled. “You’re my best friend.”

“I’m your best friend,” Sirius turned it around. “Shouldn’t you want me to be happy?” He was troubled over the idea of Lily and Remus. Lily would probably accept the werewolf thing. And they were both prefects and had muggle connections. It made a lot of sense. He remembered Lily’s blushing face. She hadn’t been lying about fancying Remus.

And then Sirius remembered Snape, and any thought of coupling Lily and Remus together scattered. Snape was already suspicious of Remus. If they started dating, Snape would be livid and jealous and pursue the subject even harder.

No. Lily would not be the right choice for Remus.

“You’re not interested in anybody, so why would I stand aside and let you have her?” James was saying, having been ranting about why Lily would never date Sirius while he was lost in thought.

“I’m interested in people,” Sirius said distractedly. His friendships were more important to him than anything in the world. “Just…no one worth the bother yet.”

Sometimes he thought something was a little wrong with him. While he could see some appeal in snogging and sex, there was no one he could really picture wanting to do it with. No one who made him crazy like Evans did James. He’d wondered if he was gay like his Uncle Alphard, but boys were as lackluster as girls.

When he was by himself in the shower, he thought only of shapeless, faceless bodies, inspired only by the physical need for relief, unlike James who once saw Lily in one of her muggle dresses and seemed to disappear several times a day for a week. And when Peter was partnered with Marlene, he’d looked constipated every second he had to stand beside her. It was a wonder he’d managed to brew the potion without blowing it up.

Remus was a little harder to pin down, accustomed to keeping things private as he was, but Sirius wondered if it was Evans who did it for Remus, too. He was taking an awful long time in the bathroom.

“So how do you go about making friends with a girl?” James wondered aloud.

“She’s not a different species. Ask her for help with a problem—homework or something,” Remus said, returning to the room with perfect timing. “And a genuine problem. She’ll see right through a fake one.”

James groaned in dismay. “There’s got to be an easier way to do this.”

#

For a while, the visions quieted. Sirius tried researching the phenomena in the library, but with OWLs approaching in addition to quidditch practice, he didn’t come up with anything to explain them. Sometimes, when he woke in the night to the last tendrils of a nightmare, cold sinking into his bones, he would think it’d be nice to have someone to talk to about it. He’d never had nightmares like these before. Bad dreams, yes, but not vivid visions of people he didn’t know, places he’d never been.

After a few weeks of it, he’d taken to writing in a notebook. A dream journal of sorts. Remus had kept one when he took divination back before he dropped the class. Sirius had teased him for documenting his wet dreams about Professor McGonagall until he’d spied the journal sticking out from under Remus’s pillow one night. And read it. Of course he’d read it. He was a shit person, he’d been learning.

A few pages was all it took for him to shut the book and put it back under the pillow. No one wanted to read that—horrific nightmares of eating his parents. His classmates. His friends. Of forgetting about the time and transforming in public.

Remus had even taken care to code it so that it could be construed as dreams of becoming a zombie or a vampire, but Sirius knew better.

Yes, he’d stopped teasing Remus after that. James and Peter kept at it, though, and Remus always let the jokes slide off him.

“Actually, the journal has been very helpful with organizing my mind,” Remus said with a haughty lilt to his words, but Sirius had wondered if he was telling the truth.

So now Sirius wrote in a dream journal of his own. One he kept locked with a charm because he wasn’t a trusting third year like Remus had been.

While the visions remained elusive, some bits he’d managed to write down.

A veil. Worry. Impatience.

Dementors. Hopelessness. Guilt. Misery.

James dead. Guilt. Despair. Betrayal.

Death everywhere. Doubt. Fear.

Nothing made sense, and if it was the future, what good was it to not remember any details? Sirius could barely summon the courage to look at his journal come morning. The only thing keeping him from melting down was the hope that this could be stopped. Like whatever would have happened with Snape that night. That mistake didn’t haunt his dreams, though he knew he’d had a vision about it. He must have fixed it. Snape was completely focused on Evans and Remus now, and the slimeball was lurking around her more than Remus. Remus looked relieved to be harassed for his supposed thing for Evans rather than his real, darker secret.

So maybe Sirius could help his friends. Prevent mistakes from happening. He didn’t want to take his friends for granted. He was more patient with Peter. He listened to Remus’s concerns about pranks. He helped James brainstorm ways to win Evans over.

But it didn’t feel like enough. Didn’t feel like he knew enough to do anything, anyway. Sometimes he woke up from a nightmare feeling terrifyingly young and helpless.

He wished Remus hadn’t dropped divination. Or better yet, that Sirius had taken it himself.

The week before OWLs began, Sirius’s nightmares grew worse. He thought he’d been managing it better, but worrying about the perilous future, his OWLs, and an impending summer at home, he was sleeping poorly, waking up frequently from visions or horrors yet to happen.

Sirius’s body jerked as he woke up, heart pounding too fiercely to sleep any longer. A vision lingered of a destroyed house, picking his way through the wreckage of a home, and finding James with unseeing eyes, his hand only faintly warm to the touch.

And the memory of James’s body was nothing new. It was one of the strongest visions he had. Maybe it meant…it was inevitable. Weren’t stronger visions more likely to happen than murky ones?

Sweaty and trembling, he took a shaky breath, a sob threatening to break through if he let it.

“Sirius?” a voice whispered.

Sirius held his breath. It was Remus.

“Yeah,” he whispered back, hoping it didn’t sound like he was on the verge of tears.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Not really. OWLs,” Sirius lied, grasping onto the easiest explanation.

“Want some muggle chocolate? My mum sent me some to get me through studying.”

And when Sirius poked his head out of the bed curtains, he saw Remus’s wand glowing and he was holding out a strange looking chocolate in a purple wrapper.

“All right.” He wasn’t going to fall back asleep easily, anyway. He shuffled over to Remus’s bed, and they closed the curtains and did a quick muffliato to keep from waking the other two.

Sirius didn’t ask Remus why he was awake. The full moon was two days away, and it wasn’t uncommon to find him up in the night, reading by wand light when he couldn’t sleep.

Settling at the foot of Remus’s bed, Sirius snorted as he saw the spread of textbooks in the middle.

“You’re studying? It’s three in the morning!”

“And eating chocolate,” Remus said defensively.

“That doesn’t help.”

Remus reached for the chocolate he’d given Sirius. “You can give that back then—”

“No, no, never mind,” Sirius yelped, clutching the chocolate bar to his chest. “I forgot what dangerous contraband this muggle chocolate was. No, this is a very cool thing for the boy all the Gryffindor girls fancy to do.”

“Everything you do is cool when all the girls fancy you, yeah?” Remus said with a devilish grin.

“I should’ve never told you that. It’s really gone to your head, hasn’t it?”

Remus laughed quietly. “At the Remus Lupin fan club meeting, they listed my humbleness as a top quality of mine.”

“Merlin, this has gone too far,” Sirius said, laughing despite himself.

“Yes, the weight of all these women in love with me is costing me my beauty sleep. How can I ever please them all?”

“I’d suggest a time turner. You’ll never have time otherwise.”

“If I had a time turner, I wouldn’t use it to pull girls,” Remus muttered.

“What would you use it for?”

“More time to sleep and study.”

“That’s so boring!” Sirius said.

Remus vanished his empty candy wrapper. “So what would you do?”

“Probably do some kind of prank and give myself an alibi. And yeah, your sleep idea is a good one. Boring as it is. I’ve been so tired. I’m…” And he realized if he was going to tell anyone, Remus would understand. “I’m having nightmares.” It came out as a mumble.

“Not about OWLs, I bet,” Remus said, picking up his cue perfectly.

“No.”

“Well, you’ve come to the expert on the subject. Want some half-arsed advice?”

“Please.”

“There’s always a dreamless sleep potion if it’s that bad. Or sometimes I practice the patronus charm before bed.”

“The patronus charm,” Sirius said thoughtfully. “That’s…that’s brilliant.”

“My fan club says that my intellect is another one of my top qualities.”

“Lupin!”

#

Summer 1976

There was something to Remus’s advice to practice the patronus charm before bed, and Sirius slept much better after that. It carried him through OWLs and to the end of the term. Unfortunately, the end of term also meant returning home.

At home at Grimmauld Place, Sirius had bigger problems than his visions: his family.

In preparation, Sirius had asked Remus to send whatever muggle items he thought would piss off a pureblood elitist like his mother, and Remus had mailed several lewd photos of partially naked muggle women, along with a few other things.

Sirius put them on the wall with a permanent sticking charm after being forced to attend a formal function with his many Black extended cousins. Verbadora had been there. Ugh.

It was mid-July, after seventeen arguments with his parents, four with Regulus, and even two with Kreacher the house elf, that Sirius began to wonder if he could survive to the end of the summer without any hope of seeing James or his friends before September first.

He was listening to the wireless in his room, dreading going downstairs for dinner, when the first vision in weeks hit him. It was oddly familiar. He argued with his mother about going to visit James. His mother threatened to send him to Durmstrang. In that vision, Sirius had argued far less with his parents in hopes of visiting his friend. He’d done everything his parents asked of him.

And now he realized that it would have been futile to try. If he pushed it any further, he knew without a doubt that his mother would send him to Durmstrang. Away from his friends. Hogwarts. Away from his own country.

Sirius lay motionless on his bed, lost in thought about what he could do, until Kreacher popped into the room. Sirius didn’t even flinch at the sound.

“Master Sirius is to be coming down for dinner,” Kreacher said, bowing lowly. The elf was always unfailingly polite, even when Sirius was seven and Kreacher had boxed his ears at his mother’s request. “Sorry, Master Sirius, you should be behaving better,” he’d said.

Sirius was fairly certain Kreacher wasn’t sorry at all. Kreacher had doted on Regulus, always giving him the best sweets and tucking him into bed with gentleness. Sirius was treated like a feared dictator, though maybe that wasn’t Kreacher’s fault. His mother was the one who told Kreacher what to do. And Mother favored Regulus, too.

Just as suddenly as the first, a second vision sprang to life.

This one of a much older Kreacher, skulking around a future Grimmauld Place that was in shocking disrepair. Sirius treating the elf poorly, watching the creature look at him with hatred in his eyes, more so than now—and telling Sirius about how Regulus was superior to him in every way. That Regulus had died doing something noble…

As the vision ended, Sirius scrabbled to hold onto it. To learn more about Regulus…

“Kreacher, I’ll be right down,” Sirius said politely. It embarrassed him suddenly, realizing how rude he usually was to an elf that was just doing its job.

Kreacher nodded but before he could disapparate, Sirius stopped him.

“If…if I’m not around anymore, you’ll look after my brother, right? I know I’m a disastrous blood traitor or whatever, but I still care about my little brother. If he ever needs help, if he’s in danger, and my mother or father can’t help… he can come to me. So can you. I’ll always be there for him. Okay?”

Kreacher bobbed his head in acknowledgement, “Yes, Master Sirius.” Then he was gone.

Sirius bumped into Regulus in the hallway, his brother scowled at him.

“Reg, you know I only argue with you because I don’t want you to make the wrong choices, yeah?” he said, not waiting another minute. The vision was already withering away, but he knew he had to reach out to Regulus—something was going to happen if he didn’t.

“You’re the one making the wrong choices,” Regulus said. “Your friends are amongst the worst of them.”

“I like my friends,” Sirius said. “They’re good people. And if this Dark Lord wants to treat them worse than a house elf,” he emphasized that word. He knew how soft Regulus was on Kreacher, “then I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“We have a duty as purebloods—”

“Save it, I’ve heard it all before,” Sirius said, waving his hand dismissively. “I just want you to know that if you ever figure out what an idiot you’re being, that I’ll help you out—no questions asked. I’m your big brother, forever.”

With that, Sirius went downstairs.

In the middle of the second course of dinner, he told his parents, “You can either let me visit the Potters next week, and I’ll be on my best behavior all summer, or I’m going to the Potters tonight, and I’m never coming home again.”

As expected, Sirius was settled in a guest bedroom at the Potters’ before nightfall.

#

Sixth Year

While Sirius and James had an excellent summer, even having a week where both Remus and Peter visited, they were eager to return to Hogwarts. Sirius’s visions had not made a reappearance, and he hoped that meant he’d corrected the course of the future. All that was left were the nightmares, which were managed by the patronus charm.

The Marauders gathered in their usual compartment. Remus was last to enter, and Sirius swore he’d grown even taller in the few weeks since he last saw him. Unfair. Sirius was only taller than Peter, and not by much.

“Only saying hello before I go join the prefects,” Remus said sheepishly. He always acted a little ashamed when he mentioned being a prefect, though he had earned it fairly—and Sirius certainly hadn’t wanted it for himself. Maybe James or Peter would’ve liked it, but James had enough to do with quidditch, and Peter didn’t have the brass for it.

“Yeah, yeah, get out of here, you swot,” Sirius said.

“Tell Evans—wait. No. Tell her nothing,” James said, remembering his proclamation at the end of term to stop pursuing Evans. Actively, that was.

Remus laughed. “I’ll be sure to tell her, ‘James says nothing.’ She’ll love it.” Then he darted out the door before James could throw something at him.

“Ugh. I’m regretting not being a more upstanding student in fourth year. I could be the swot about to spend time with Evans,” James lamented, falling back into his seat.

“I think Moony regrets it more than you,” Peter said. “He says it’s stressful being both a prefect and your friend.”

“We’ll try to behave a little more this year,” Sirius said, nodding to James. “This wannabe-swot plans to be head boy so he can impress Evans.”

Peter shrugged. “Less detention might be nice.”

“I said we’d only behave a little more,” Sirius repeated.

James was about to add something when the compartment door opened.

“Is Remus here?” Evans asked without any greeting. Her trunk floated behind her and kept bumping into her backside. Very unlike Evans to have such shoddy charms work. She held herself tensely, like she was ready to hex the next person who crossed her.

James bristled that she was asking for Remus, and Sirius spoke up before he could say something stupid. “He’s already at the prefects compartment.”

“Thank you,” she said. She left as abruptly as she arrived.

“Wonder what that was about?” Peter asked.

James only groaned, pressing his cheek against the glass of the window. “The love of my life wants to marry one of my best friends, that’s what. She’s going to be Lily Lupin, and I’ll have to buy them a nice wedding present so I don’t look like a jealous ass.”

Sirius barked a laugh. “Getting a head of yourself, aren’t you? He said he doesn’t like her.”

“And doesn’t want to date,” Peter said nervously, clearly torn between his loyalty to Remus who helped him with his homework and James who was a genius quidditch star.

“But it’s Lily Evans,” James insisted.

“Lupin is too good a friend to do that to you,” Sirius said.

Then the compartment door flew open again, this time it was Snape. He recoiled when he saw whose compartment he’d stumbled across. He looked ready to scurry away in fright, but then he straightened.

“You tell Lupin to stay away from Lily. I say that as her friend with her best interests at heart. You know how dangerous his kind are, yeah?” Snape looked at James. “I know you like her. Why would you let him anywhere near her?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Snape,” James said calmly, those his body looked ready to fight.

“Sure you don’t,” Snape said, his lip curled.

“Fuck off, Snape. Before I hex your dick into a peanut,” Sirius said lazily, grinning as he twirled his wand between his fingers.

Snape rolled his eyes but made a quick exit.

After he’d left, Peter whistled. “That’s not good.”

“Well, it’s not a surprise, is it?” Sirius said. “He was suspicious all last year.”

“He doesn’t have any evidence, but…he could spread rumors,” James said with a sigh. “Maybe we need to do some precautionary measures.”

Sirius nodded. “What did you have in mind? I could still hex his dick, though I’d rather not spend any more time thinking about it, personally.”

“I’m turning over a new leaf,” James reminded him. “So I was thinking we just spread other outrageous rumors about Remus, so no one knows what to believe.”

“Classic,” Sirius said.

“Genius,” Peter added eagerly.

“Some of the rumors can be flattering, but some will obviously have to be—err—not so flattering. To match with the whole—furry little problem,” James said, scratching his messy hair.

“Are you sure this isn’t just a way to turn Evans off him?” Sirius asked, earning himself a shove.

“Outside of blackmail or other less savory methods, I don’t know how to shut Snape up,” James said.

“We could ask Lily to talk to him?” Peter offered weakly, sinking into his seat when James glared at him.

“After what he called her last year? She shouldn’t speak to him ever again,” James said.

Sirius agreed. He’d never understood the Evans-Snape friendship, and he’d cheered when it finally appeared to be over. Snape was still struggling to accept it, as evidenced by the stalking.

“I wonder if she was trying to escape Snape when she dropped by looking for Lupin,” Sirius said, remembering how harried she’d looked.

“Remus would say she can handle herself,” James said, “but if I catch him bothering her again, I’m going to hex his dick into a peanut.”

Peter laughed but then asked, “Wait. Can you really do that?”

“Want a demonstration?” Sirius offered.

Peter squeaked.

#

When the sorting and the feast were over, Remus stood to escort the first years with the other prefects, and then he leaned down and whispered something to James but walked away before he could reply.

James wore a wary, confused look.

“What’d he say?” Sirius asked, turning to watch Remus. James didn’t answer.

Then something incredibly surprising happened. It unfolded so perfectly, it had to have been planned.

Snape marched toward where Evans and Remus stood near the Entrance Hall. Evans turned to Remus. She put her hand on his arm. She tilted her head back. Remus, much taller than Evans, had to stoop down.

And then they were kissing—in front of everyone. The giggling first years. The professors. Snape. And it was a very quick, chaste kiss from what Sirius could tell from across the Great Hall, but it was certainly a statement. Snape turned on his heel and stormed off.

“Uh,” Sirius said dumbly. “What just happened?”

“That was…something,” Peter said.

“He said, ‘Please don’t kill me for what I’m about to do,’” James muttered darkly.

Sirius was baffled. “He said he didn’t want to date!” And something like betrayal welled up inside him. He’d been working so hard not to betray Remus’s trust, and here the werewolf had turned traitor.

“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” James said. “Why else would they do that in front of so many people?”

“You’re right,” Sirius said, relief flooding through him. Why he was so relieved, he couldn’t say, but he was.

It was late by the time they made it up to the tower, and the whole common room was buzzing about Lily and Remus. James put on a genial grin and told Mary MacDonald that there were no hard feelings about it. Evans and Remus were still busy with the first years, or everyone would be grilling them instead of their friends.

“The best man won,” James even said, pretending to shed a tear.

But eventually the three of them were in their dorm, all of them pretending to be busy unpacking when really they were impatiently waiting for their fourth member to join.

Remus opened the door and immediately ducked as a bag of Bertie’s went flying at him.

James wasn’t feeling as calm as he was acting, then, Sirius thought, covering up a laugh.

“I’m sorry! Snape was bothering her all summer, asking for forgiveness and telling her to stay away from me and—I don’t know. She thought he’d back off if he saw real proof she wasn’t going to listen to anything he said,” Remus babbled in a rush.

“Couldn’t she have kissed someone else?” James glowered.

“Snape specifically mentioned me, so she thought that was important. And I told her, upfront, that I didn’t see her like a girlfriend, and—”

“Remus Lupin, you idiot,” James sighed, dropping onto his bed. “Lily Evans fancies you and wants to kiss you and—are you sure you don’t fancy her? I wouldn’t like it, obviously, but I wouldn’t stop being your friend if you wanted, you know, to go out with her.”

“I really don’t like her that way. I fancy someone else, and I told her that, too. And regardless, werewolves have no business dating anybody,” Remus said with a shrug.

“But Lily Evans fancies you!” James said, waving his arms wildly.

“I guess I can try to make myself less attractive. I’ll hunch over, and stop brushing my hair,” Remus said amiably.

James laughed weakly. “I have it on good authority that she doesn’t like messy hair, so that’ll do it.”

“Besides, it’s just—a little crush,” Remus said. “She even mentioned some muggle boy she’d gone to the movies with other the summer.”

Sirius walked over and slung his arm around Remus, “This is the saddest, strangest conversation I’ve ever been forced to listen to. But I’m proud of you, mate. You became a man, tonight.”

“What?” Remus asked, furrowing his brow.

“It took bollocks the size of a hippogriff to do what you did tonight. It’s gonna be the talk of the whole school,” Sirius said.

“It was just a little peck on the lips,” Remus said, turning red and sliding away from Sirius.

“But it was with Lily Evans,” James reminded him sourly.

“Had you kissed anyone before?” Peter asked, stifling a yawn from his cozy spot on his bed.

Remus turned redder. “Um, yeah. A couple muggle girls back home.”

Sirius squawked. “What? You didn’t say anything about this.”

“It wasn’t that interesting. Just fooling around.”

It was more than Sirius had done. He’d yet to find anyone he wanted to snog. Maybe he should try harder? It’d be nice to know what all the fuss was about.

“Wait. If you don’t want to date, why are you kissing girls at home?” Sirius asked.

“I don’t want a relationship. Fooling around is a different story,” Remus said with a smirk.

Then James tackled him and yelled, “You sly wolf!” and everything seemed settled between them again.

But Sirius was still thinking about Remus’s knowing smirk and the muggles he’d been kissing.

It was only after he went to bed and was half asleep that he remembered Remus saying he fancied someone.

A vision hit him then of a shabby Grimmauld Place and talking to Remus about who he’d fancied at Hogwarts. The vision was so mellow and Sirius so tired, that all he remembered of it was regret.

#

At breakfast the next day, Sirius made the mistake of looking over at the Slytherin table just as Regulus was sitting down with his nasty, mother-approved friends. Sirius always wondered what had happened to make him so different from his younger brother. Regulus yearned for approval from all the wrong people. Reg already had a pretty girlfriend—also a pureblood—who he seemed genuinely happy with. Sirius was two years older and didn’t have the faintest wisp of interest in anyone.

How had Sirius been sorted into Gryffindor? Even Andromeda had been sorted into Slytherin. Sirius had known at a young age that he didn’t believe what his family did. It hadn’t made sense, even when he was just a kid. Then James and Remus and Peter had shown him another way to believe, one that was accepting and kind, but no matter how Sirius tried, his family refused to listen. Even Regulus, who had always been the sensitive, perceptive one.

Now that he’d left home, he was afraid he was fated to watch his brother wander down a darker and darker path. Sirius turned back to his breakfast.

Well, there was nothing he could do about his brother, right?

And as soon as that thought crossed his mind, a vision hit. Powerful and terrifying. A vision nearly as awful as the one where he knew James somehow died.

Regulus died, too.

Sirius set down his fork. “I need the loo. See you in class, boys,” he said, rushing off before his friends could say anything.

Instead of the bathroom, he went straight to the library, tears still stuck in his throat. He headed immediately to the Divination section.

He began scanning the titles, grabbing ones that seemed promising, then putting them back just as quickly. Maybe there was something in the restricted section…

Just as the thought occurred to him, Madame Pince was suddenly beside him, silent as ever, her head not even reaching his shoulder. He jerked in surprise.

“Classes haven’t even begun yet,” she said suspiciously.

“I’m trying to get a head start,” he said, grinning.

“Hmm,” she said.

“And actually, I could use your help,” he said. He thought quickly, deciding how to word his request without gaining further suspicion. “I read something in my family’s library about seers and prophecies, and it mentioned a veil? But I didn’t understand the meaning of a veil if you saw one in a dream.”

Pince’s face was blank for several moments before she turned to the shelf and grabbed two books, and without saying anything checked them out to Sirius and sent him on his way.

He still had thirty minutes until class, so he stopped in a quiet nook and inspected the books.

Advanced Dream Interpretation for the Modern Seer and Follow Your Dreams to Unlock the Future. Sirius wanted to return the second one immediately because of its lame title, but he’d skim through it first.

He opened Advanced Dream Interpretation and went to the index first, searching for veil. There were several mentions of it, and he quickly flipped through the pages, hoping for answers. Something that would help his brother.

Most of it seemed like the kind of nonsense his mother would lap up eagerly.

Wearing the veil meant he was in denial. Dreaming of someone else wearing it meant they were concealing something. A veil across other objects meant a guilty conscience.

And if Sirius was honest, the guilty bit resonated with him, except the veil wasn’t exactly covering anything. It was a crumbling archway with a black veil hanging ominously.

“A black veil,” he whispered to himself. Was the color significant? Black always meant death. If that was true, then was he dreaming of inevitable deaths or preventable ones?

He grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill from his bag and began to write down anything relevant before he could forget.

Black—meaning death?

Veil—hiding something?

Visions triggered by decisions or thoughts.

That seemed right. Hadn’t he been thinking there was nothing he could do for Regulus? And Kreacher had caused one. And the letter from his mother, he’d decided not to go on that date with Verbadora Bulstrode. And what about that thing with Snape? Sirius couldn’t quite remember the details, but it had to do with Remus.

And as if he’d conjured him, “Sirius? You’re going to be late to class,” Remus called as he rounded the corner. He tucked away some parchment into his robes that was most certainly the Map.

“Whoops. Lost track of time,” Sirius said, hoping Remus wouldn’t ask about the books as he folded the parchment and tucked it into Advanced Dream Interpretation.

“Dream Interpretation?” Remus asked, falling into step beside Sirius on the way to Transfiguration.

Better Remus than James, who would hound him about it. “Yeah, just curious about something,” he said dismissively.

Remus tilted his head thoughtfully. “I could always try to help if you’d like. I was the only one of us who took Divination, after all.”

“And dropped it.”

“I still had a solid two years of it,” Remus said. “More than you.”

“You were terrible at it!”

“Because it’s an imprecise form of magic!” he retorted with a huff. “But fine. I was only offering. I thought it had to do with—your—err—nighttime problem.”

Sirius flushed. “You make it sound like I wet the bed or something.”

Remus chuckled but smiled sincerely. “I know how hard it is to ask for help. And I’m always here for half-arsed advice.”

“The…the patronus charm has helped,” Sirius said, feeling embarrassed but like he owed it to his friend to tell him. “Even practicing it without my wand helps.”

Remus smiled brightly. “I’m glad. So, your sudden interest in Divination has nothing to do with your nighttime problem?”

“Stop calling it that!” Sirius whined. “And…it’s a little related, yes.”

“You think your dreams are prophetic? But they were…”

“Nightmares, yeah. I’m hoping to prove they aren’t prophetic, just coincidence, but they feel…real. I don’t know. Don’t listen to me,” he said, laughing at himself in discomfort. He stared ahead, avoiding Remus’s expression. He probably thought Sirius was barmy.

“So you dreamt something, and it came true?” Remus asked slowly, skeptical. He probably thought Sirius was pranking him, though Remus could usually sniff those out a mile away.

“No. That’s the weird part. I was awake.” Sirius ran a hand through his hair, his fingers twitchy.

“Awake? That’s…different.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Sirius said quickly.

“But it’s bothering you enough to check out books the first day back. Before class even began,” Remus said. Always so perceptive. Ugh.

“I—I’m just—it was about Regulus,” Sirius said, and he hated that his voice cracked. Hated it. But if he was going to break down, he knew Remus would take it to the grave. “And I’ve seen one of James, too. They—they die. But I can’t seem to remember enough to know when or how—just that they’re going to die. And fuck, I need to know if it’s real. Because if it is, maybe I can stop it, and…”

“Hold on,” Remus said, taking his arm and dragging him into an empty classroom. He sat them down in a corner, out of sight from the doorway. He put a comforting arm around Sirius’s shoulders. “Now I see why you didn’t tell James like you usually do. So—tell me. I promise, no judging. And if you are going mad, well, you’ve always been a little bit mad, and we still like you.”

So Sirius told him about the intangible visions, the nightmares, and even his embarrassing dream journal. Remus was patient and kind, and validated Sirius’s concerns. It was such a relief to tell someone even as his heart pounded with nerves. It was a lot like the time he told James about what it was really like at Grimmauld Place over the summers. A little bit ashamed, a little bit hopeful.

“We’ll figure this out, Padfoot,” Remus said at the end, arm still heavy and warm on Sirius’s shoulders.

They were both late to class, but Remus only gave McGonagall a sheepish apology and went to sit beside Peter. Sirius dropped into his seat beside James.

“What were you two doing?” James whispered.

“Just lost track of time,” Sirius said vaguely. He’d have to come up with better excuses if he was going to keep something from James. It didn’t feel right to withhold information from his best friend, but he wasn’t ready to explain. It had taken a lot out of him just to tell Remus.

#

It proved challenging to find time to research his visions with the load of work from their professors along with quidditch practice. And the full moon was the second week of school, so it wasn’t until the end of September that Sirius and Remus finally had time to meet in the library to discuss a plan of action.

They squirreled away in a corner table during a free period after lunch. Remus had snatched up the Map so James and Peter couldn’t interrupt either.

“I feel bad leaving them out,” Remus said worriedly.

“You’re always worrying about people feeling left out. I think you’ve got a complex,” Sirius said, picking up Death: Signs, Symbols, and Imagery. Remus had managed to get the Arithmancy professor to sign him a note to access the restricted section, and the book was deserving of its placement. The cover felt cool to the touch, and opening it caused the book to wail pitifully before Sirius cast a silencing spell on it.

Remus ignored the book’s wail. “It’s not a complex. I just know what it’s like to be left out. Like when—” Remus clamped his mouth shut. “Never mind. I only think it would be better if all four of us worked on it.”

“When have you felt left out?” Sirius asked incredulously, ignoring Remus’s attempt to change the subject.

“You know. You and James are always doing things without me or Peter. You two are best friends. It’s fine. But James might think I’m stealing his best mate or something.”

Sirius snorted. “James will understand.”

“He probably will,” Remus admitted.

“And we don’t invite you along only when we know you won’t approve. We’re doing you a favor,” Sirius added, refusing to look up from the frightening book in front of him. Because that awful guilty feeling was roaring to life. “Next time, I’ll ask if you want to come along.” He chanced a glance at Remus and found him smiling down at his own book.

“You don’t have to. I don’t want to be a third wheel on your dates.”

“Well, he is the love of my life,” Sirius said breezily.

“Who’s the love of your life, Black?” Evans walked over, just as sneaky and quiet as Madame Pince, apparently.

“Professor Slughorn, of course,” Sirius replied.

Evans laughed. “You make a very cute couple.”

“So do you and Lupin here,” Sirius said, waggling his eyebrows. He knew that would get a rise out of her, and it did. Her cheeks went red.

Ever since The Kiss, as James called it, most of the school assumed Remus and Evans were dating, and because of Snape, neither denied it, although if they were pretending to be a couple, they were the purest, most chaste couple alive.

“You know very well that those rumors are exaggerated,” she said curtly.

“Don’t be an ass,” Remus added, kicking at Sirius under the table. “Did you need something?” he asked, politely addressing Lily while Sirius winced and rubbed his shin.

“I wondered if you were free next Friday evening? Not—not for a date.” She blushed and fidgeted with the book in her arms. “Just that some of us muggleborns and half-bloods are getting together to write some essays on our experiences with prejudice to send to the Prophet and Witch Weekly, and we only have two boys coming so far. It’d be nice to have a male perspective.”

“Sure. I’d love to help,” Remus said, and this time it was Sirius who kicked him.

“Next Friday? The eighth?” Sirius shook his head. “You said you were going to visit your mum, yeah?”

Remus didn’t even flinch at the kick. “Right. Right. The eighth. I completely forgot. My mum’s expecting me,” he said, giving Lily an apologetic look.

Lily furrowed her brow. “It’s fine. I’ll go try asking some of the fifth year Gryffindor boys. Half of them are scared of me,” she said with a distracted wave, leaving Remus and Sirius alone again.

“Poor Evans. You’re such a heartbreaker, Moony,” Sirius said.

“She wouldn’t like me if she knew me better. And I’ve been trying to talk James up to her, you know? I think she likes him more than she lets on.”

“Don’t tell James that. He’s been trying so hard to play it cool.”

Remus chuckled. “That he has. Maybe it’s working. She also said he’s much less annoying this year.”

“Hmm,” Sirius said, thinking for a moment. “And you’re sure you don’t fancy her?”

“Maybe in third year I did a little, but I think we’re too alike. And I wouldn’t want to subject her to—well, what I am. Muggleborns have it rough enough as it is,” Remus added, lowering his voice.

Then Sirius remembered something. He’d just been waiting for the opportunity to ask.

“And you fancy someone else. That’s what you said after The Kiss,” he said gleefully. He laughed as Remus hunched down in his seat and turned pink at the ears.

“Are you sure that was me?” Remus asked.

And Sirius was about to ask who it was when a vision trickled into his mind, and it was familiar. He’d seen it the first night back at Hogwarts but had inconveniently forgotten.

He and Remus were in Grimmauld Place, sitting near the fireplace in the sitting room that was shabbier and gloomier than the last time Sirius had been there. Remus and Sirius looked nearly as rundown as the house.

“Dung is an arsehole,” Sirius said. “Do you know what he asked me today?”

“Probably something rude and inappropriate,” Remus guessed.

“He asked, ‘So have you not had a shag since before you escaped?’”

“Masterfully insensitive. Did you hex him?”

“No. I asked if he was offering.”

Remus laughed. “Spectacular. I said something similar when he asked if I’d ever found anyone willing to snog a werewolf.”

“He’s a total perv, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m sure you’ve found plenty of women willing to snog a werewolf. The girls adored you back in school,” Sirius said.

Remus shrugged. “Nothing long-term, of course. Mostly muggle women. Some…some men, too, actually.”

Sirius’s mouth fell open. “What? You never said anything!”

“It was just one more thing that made me different. I wanted to keep it to myself.”

“Huh.” Sirius took only a few seconds to process the revelation. “Did you ever fancy me?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Of course you would ask that.”

“Well, I’m curious about these things,” Sirius said, feeling reckless. “I never really fancied anyone. Even before…”

“Never…never anyone?” Remus asked. He frowned in puzzlement.

“Girls. Boys. No one. Always thought that part of me was just…broken.”

Remus had an insightful response. “I like both, you like neither. We’re on the same scale of normal, just different ends.”

But Sirius couldn’t tell his oldest friend that he’d only entertained that kind of attraction with one person: Remus. It was a recent development, brought on by living together again, but Sirius wondered if things had been different back at Hogwarts…if he’d not screwed up so many times….

Then Sirius was back in the library, now completely disconcerted from his vision.

“Do you like anyone?” Remus prodded, still dodging the question.

“Wait. Before I forget—” He could already feel the connection to the vision slipping away. “Do you—do you like both girls and boys?” Sirius whispered it, his face burning hot as he realized he couldn’t even remember why he thought to ask that. Something in his vision. Somewhere in the future.

Across the table, Remus blanched and clenched his quill tightly in his hands. “What? Why would you ask that?”

Sirius held onto the Death book, letting the coolness of it ground him.

“I had a vision just now!” Sirius said defensively. “I don’t know. Something about it was in my vision.”

“Oh.” In the blink of an eye Remus had gone from pale to bright red. “That’s a little disturbing,” Remus said, staring down at his notes on the table. “And I didn’t even notice you having one…”

“So, it’s true?” Sirius asked, keeping his voice quiet. This was proof that his visions were real, which, yes, maybe a part of him knew that, but this was too blatant to ignore. Another part of him had still hoped he was going mad.

“I haven’t told anyone, Sirius. You couldn’t have known that without some kind of—” Remus gestured ambiguously. But Sirius understood.

“Sorry. That probably felt…a little invasive, huh?” Sirius said.

“More than a little,” Remus muttered. “You’re not poking around in my brain, are you?”

“I think you’d notice that.”

“Just checking.” Remus was still bright red, and it made Sirius think of something. He replayed what had happened just before his vision. The trigger had been bringing up who Remus fancied.

“I think I know why you’ve been so evasive about who you fancy. It’s because it’s a boy.” Sirius couldn’t stop himself. It was like a very engaging puzzle, discovering this other part of Remus. Like when they’d figured out he was a werewolf. Everything came together so neatly.

Then Remus looked up at him, as utterly stricken as he’d been when they’d confronted him about being a werewolf: terrified.

“Oh, it’s not a big deal, Moony,” Sirius said quickly, realizing damage control was needed. “And I won’t tell. Not even Prongs, if you’d like.”

Remus’s chin did a sad wobbly thing and then he managed a smile. “Thanks, Padfoot.”

And the words to smooth things over came so easily then. “I’ve never fancied anyone. Girls or boys,” he said with a careless shrug. “I’m probably the weirdo of the two of us.”

Remus’s expression warped into one of incredulity. “But you’re always flirting with girls.”

Sirius shrugged. “I like getting a rise out of people. I don’t know what I’d do with a girl if I actually had one.”

“You aren’t just saying this to make me feel better,” Remus said, a statement, not a question.

“I wish,” Sirius said. “That part of me is broken, I guess.” He didn’t mean to say that last part aloud. It was too much—too raw.

“No it isn’t. I like everyone, you like no one. It’s not so different.” Remus was so sincere, even with his cheeks still in flames.

It was Sirius’s turn to give a weak smile. “So you can see why I really don’t understand James’s obsession with Evans now.”

Remus laughed, his shoulders relaxing. “I thought you just really didn’t like her.”

“Evans is fine! But I’m not interested in seeing her naked.” Sirius paused. “But are you—?”

“I probably wouldn’t mind a look, no,” Remus laughed again, blushing. “She’s very fit! But the reasons for not dating her stand. Plus, Prongs. I couldn’t do that to him, no matter what he says.”

“So, who’s more attractive, me or Prongs?” Sirius asked, hoping to loosen the knot in his belly.

“With glasses or without?” Remus said innocently.

“Shut it. Okay, obviously I’m hotter. I still know what’s attractive.” Sirius hummed a moment. “But how about me or Evans? No one ever compares boys to girls.”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Are we including personality in this assessment?”

“Oh fuck off then, and let’s start on our depressing research,” Sirius said, returning to the book. Even with the dark magic surrounding the book, he couldn’t focus on it anymore. He kept thinking of Remus. Who was it he fancied, and how would it even work with a boy? A thrill of something burned through Sirius, imagining Remus kissing and touching a boy. It was intriguing, that was all, Sirius told himself.

#

The guilt in Sirius’s chest that arose whenever he thought too hard about Remus eased a little as the next week passed. Remus acted like he always did, but sometimes Sirius would catch him smiling at him oddly.

When Sirius asked him about it, he said, “I know I didn’t choose to tell you, but you knowing about it makes me feel a lot better. And knowing you trust me with—your own thing—it’s nice. I think my guilty conscience was bothering me more than I thought.”

“I know what you mean,” Sirius said. He felt lighter with his own secret off his chest, just as he had with the one about his visions. It made him believe he could eventually tell James and their other friends about it. Some day.

#

The night of the full moon, Sirius, James, and Peter lingered in the Great Hall after dinner. Tables emptied, professors and students dwindling to smaller and smaller numbers. The Marauders kept drinking tea, did homework, acting like total saints. Out in the open of the Great Hall, people generally believed they wouldn’t make any trouble.

They also didn’t have to worry about sneaking out of Gryffindor Tower. Teachers didn’t patrol the grounds like they did the corridors, so they could slip out the doors well before curfew without any hassle.

It was nearing sunset, and only Lily Evans remained at the Gryffindor table. She sat on the far end, scribbling madly on some parchment. Probably writing an essay for that gathering she’d told Remus about.

“Maybe she wants me to talk to her,” James said hopefully, casting longing glances her way.

“She doesn’t, mate,” Sirius said. “She’d come over to you if she did.”

“Right.”

“And we don’t need any unwanted attention,” Peter reminded him nervously.

“Right,” James repeated. “And I’m supposed to be playing it cool, or whatever Moony said.”

“He’s talking you up as much as he can. I think she’ll come around eventually,” Sirius said. It was total nonsense because Sirius would never understand how that girl’s mind worked, but he didn’t want James distracted when they’d promised Remus they’d be on time at the Shack tonight.

They waited a bit longer before agreeing it was time to leave.

Then Evans did something unexpected. “Potter,” she said, just as they passed her end of the table.

She might as well have put a jinx on him with how quickly James stopped in his tracks. Sirius and Peter shared looks of exasperation as they stopped to wait, too.

“Yes?” James asked.

“Do you think you could help me with something on my essay? I need a pureblood perspective,” she said, holding up her pristinely written essay.

Sirius knew James was dying inside as he asked, “Now?”

“If you’re not busy,” she said primly. “There’s a group of us getting together tonight, and I realized neglecting the pureblood point of view was a mistake. Maybe you and Black could both help? Even come along?”

Sirius held back a laugh. “Tonight?” James confirmed, sounding absolutely pained. Evans nodded. “I can’t tonight. Tomorrow. Or Sunday. Monday. Basically any other night, I would, but tonight—we’ve made plans.”

“And he’d be a traitorous friend if he bailed on us,” Sirius said, yanking James by the back of the collar. “We’re going to be late, actually. We’ll see you, Evans.”

“Sorry, Evans!” James said urgently. “I’d love to help next time!”

“It’s fine,” Evans said, unaffected. She started to pack up her own things.

“Maybe tomorrow we can do something—”

“Play it cool,” Sirius hissed, yanking James along while Peter stifled a laugh.

“It’s always reassuring to see Prongs fall apart like that around Evans,” Peter said. “I’ve missed it. Reminds me he’s human.”

“Shut up. I’m choosing to be a good friend over being with the love of my life. I should get a trophy,” James grumbled.

“I’ll be sure to tell Moony in the morning,” Sirius said. He paused. “Or not. He’ll feel bad. I’ll get you that trophy, okay, mate?”

“I want it made out of treacle tart,” James stipulated.

“Ooh, that sounds delicious,” Peter said. And soon they were discussing the best food to make a trophy out of, and they forgot to get the Map out to make sure the coast was clear before they reached the Whomping Willow.

“We’d better hurry up,” Sirius said as he looked at the sky.

“Yeah, Pete, get to it,” James said, steering clear of one of the Willow’s angry branches. The wind whistled with how hard the tree swung at him.

Peter’s transformation was so unlike Sirius or James’s. He shrunk so quickly it looked like he vanished.

A loud gasp from somewhere behind them stopped James and Sirius from transforming, too.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Sirius whispered under his breath.

“Relax. We can fix this,” James whispered back. “Just hide until I give the signal, Pete.”

They had discussed this possibility, though they never thought it would happen. They were—usually—very careful. Remus had actually been the one to insist they have plans in place in case they were discovered.

James held out his wand, “Revelio,” he said calmly, aiming it in the direction of the gasp.

Sirius wasn’t sure who was more stunned, him or James, when Lily Evans appeared, holding her wand defensively.

“Don’t even think of trying to obliviate me,” she snapped, her eyes darting between him and Sirius.

James said nothing, likely because that had been exactly one of Remus’s backup plans. James had studied memory charms more than any of them. Though Evans surely knew more and would easily block any attempts.

Fuck.

“Why were you following us?” James asked instead. “And don’t deny it. You were using charms to keep us from noticing you.”

Evans huffed in annoyance. “What are you doing here? And—” she glanced around nervously, searching for Peter. “And where on earth is Peter?”

“It’s none of your business,” Sirius said. Evans was a hard read. She acted like an uptight prefect most of the time, but Remus said she often let people off lightly when they found them during rounds. She cared about doing what was right, but would she think any of this was excusable? Breaking not just school rules, but Wizarding Law? Sirius didn’t know the answer.

“You’re right,” Evans said, lowering her wand an inch. “It’s just…Severus said something about Remus, and I didn’t believe it except…”

Sirius’s clenched his wand in his hand. “Evans,” he said darkly. “Whatever Snape said, Remus isn’t doing anything wrong.”

“It’s true, though, isn’t it?” she asked, not expecting an answer because she continued. “He’s always gone, every month. I never paid attention to the dates before, and when Severus pointed it out, I thought it had to be a coincidence. I didn’t want Severus to be right because he was such a toerag last term, and then I thought, even if he was right…I didn’t care.” She lowered her wand the rest of the way. “Remus is my friend. He’s your friend, too, so…whatever is going on here, I promise I won’t say anything. I can make an Unbreakable Vow if you need me to.” She jutted out her chin as she added the last part.

“If that’s how you feel about it, why did you follow us?” James asked. He lowered his wand, too.

“Honestly, that was pure curiosity. Because not only did Remus disappear, but you three as well. I asked one of the first-year boys to check on you last full moon, and he said none of you were in bed.”

An anguished scream interrupted their conversation, echoing across the hills. Sirius knew it meant the transformation had already begun. And as the scream continued on, it became eerily inhuman, the wolf consuming the man. No matter how many times he heard it, it never failed to send shivers down his spine.

“Damn. We’re late,” Sirius said, giving an aggrieved look to Evans. James couldn’t make it down the passageway as Prongs, and it wasn’t safe for him to use it as a human once Remus had turned. It was probably safe, but it was one of Remus’s rules.

Evans flinched. “That’s—that’s Remus?”

Neither Sirius nor James had the heart to answer.

“Oh. Oh, god,” she choked out, biting her lip.

“It’s…it’s a little easier on him if we help,” James said hesitantly. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” she said quickly.

James looked at Sirius questioningly.

Sirius resisted the urge to whine at Evans for ruining their night. He was trying to be a better person, after all. “I’ll go by myself tonight,” he said nobly. “You and Pete make sure Evans gets back to the castle, yeah?” He’d let James make the final call on what to do with Evans. Right now, the wolf was getting ready to tear itself apart.

“You sure?” James asked.

“Yeah. See you in the morning,” Sirius said. “Get the knot, would you, Pete?”

And then he was Padfoot. Everything was much simpler as a dog. He trotted down the passageway until he found his angry friend the wolf. The wolf perked up from where he was gnawing on his own back leg. They wagged tails and greeted one another, yipping in excitement.

It would be a bit boring, trapped in the Shack, but Sirius could be creative when he needed to be. Maybe they could play hide-and-seek…

#

Sirius found the invisibility cloak resting in the grass beside the Willow’s trunk when he crawled out the next morning. He yawned and swiped it up, putting it on as he hurried to get out of range before the Willow unfroze.

When he returned to the dorm, James and Peter were still asleep, and Sirius only had the energy to kick off his shoes before he flopped on his own bed and passed out. They’d talk later.

Later came sooner than Sirius wanted thanks to quidditch practice. James wanted to make sure they were all on the same page before any of them bumped into Evans again. And even though it was Evans, James had surprised even Peter by remaining tight-lipped about his friends’ secrets. Evans was brilliant, so she’d likely worked everything out, but better to give her—and them—the deniability.

“I think she’s all right with everything,” James said, a little distracted as he fiddled with the self-tying shoelaces he’d charmed himself. The laces had gone berserk and knotted up around his ankle.

“You’re probably right,” Sirius said. He hated to admit it, but it sounded like Evans was no worse than they had been when they’d become suspicious of their dormmate. It only rankled that it was because of Snape that she’d figured it out. Then again, they already knew Snape was suspicious. He’d been spreading rumors all term, which was why the Marauders had been spreading some outrageous rumors of their own that Remus was part-veela, was related to Celestina Warbeck, spent a week in muggle prison, and once fought an angry giant without a wand and won. To be extra thorough, they’d spread rumors about themselves—James had insisted on a rumor that he’d already been signed to play professional quidditch—and they’d added in other people from outside of Gryffindor—though Emmeline had jinxed James for spreading a rumor she was pregnant.

No one knew which rumor to believe, and everyone had dismissed them all as another one of the Marauders’ weird pranks.

“So who’s going to tell Moony about all this?” Peter asked. “Because I really don’t want to.”

“Ugh, me either,” James said. “He’s going to get all mopey.”

Sirius didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news either. “Whoever sees him first? Otherwise, we do it together.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fair,” James said.

They left for quidditch practice, Peter tagging along like always.

Practice was a disaster for Sirius, right up until he nearly fell asleep on his broom and took a bludger to the head. He was reprimanded for not valuing sleep when he knew he had practice the next day, and then kicked off the pitch.

Sirius couldn’t summon the energy to feel bad. He went straight back to their empty dorm, closed the curtains, and was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Babysitting a werewolf by himself had taken it out of him.

He couldn’t have been asleep long when he heard hushed voices—most notably, a girl’s voice. Evans. She was talking to Remus. Sirius froze. They hadn’t had a chance to explain it to Remus. Sirius was about to bolt off the bed when he realized he’d woken well past whatever explanations must have been made because they weren’t talking about the night before.

“If I don’t want to answer something, I’ll tell you,” Remus was saying, his tone reassuring.

Lily hummed. “So is that why you’ve not taken up my offer to go to Hogsmeade together? Or Marlene’s? I know she asked you last year,” she said with an embarrassed laugh.

“Partly,” Remus said. “I have to be careful. The more people who know, the riskier it is. And it doesn’t feel right keeping something so big from someone I’m dating.”

“Well, I know now,” Evans said shyly, almost flirtatious. Sirius almost ripped open the curtains to see it for himself.

“Right, you do,” Remus said it in the same way he corrected his friends’ assumptions about muggles. Polite and kind. “But I wasn’t lying before. There is someone else…someone I really fancy.”

“She probably fancies you, too,” she said, taking the rejection with aplomb. “You’re really likeable, you know that?”

Remus laughed, it came out a bit rough, like it often did after the full moon. A twinge of jealousy bubbled up when Sirius heard it. Remus and Evans were actually friends. Not just prefects together or study partners. He was relaxed, just like he was with the Marauders. Now Evans knew his secret and it wasn’t only theirs any longer.

“It’s probably just my proximity to James and Sirius,” Remus said modestly.

“They do bring a lot of attention, but they’re also terribly intimidating to the other girls.”

“Intimidating? James and Sirius?” Remus snorted with laughter.

“From what I gather, Black is so handsome and charming, girls end up dazed and flustered when he talks to them. And Potter is a quidditch prodigy and a transfiguration genius.”

“And I’m not intimidating because I’m ugly, stupid, and not good enough to play quidditch?” Remus teased.

“Shut it! You know what I meant,” she said, giggling. “You’re not a flirt or a showoff. And it’s easier to talk to you because you’re a half-blood. You know about television and the Beatles, but you can also talk about magic.”

“Yeah, James and Sirius keep trying, but they still have no idea what a TV is.”

Sirius frowned. He thought he knew exactly what a TV was. Maybe he should pay more attention in Muggle Studies.

“And you know how it is these days. Purebloods and all. Not that James and Sirius are bigots or anything—”

“No, they are best mates with me. A half-blood werewolf.”

“Right,” Evans said, quieter than before.

“You don’t give them enough credit, Lily. They’ve done a lot for me.”

Evans sighed. She sounded very put out by the idea. “I see that. I never would have thought any of them had it in them. How did they manage to become animagi and not fail all their classes?”

“Pete came close,” Remus said. “But they worked together, you know?”

“And somehow hid it from you, too. That’s…impressive.”

“I was probably even more stunned than you when I found out.”

Remus had been. He’d fallen over in surprise, Sirius remembered.

“So what is Potter’s form, anyway? I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t tell me.”

“But you know what Sirius and Peter are?”

“I saw them change. It was wild. I didn’t get a great look at Peter’s, but Black’s was as skillful as McGonagall’s.”

“James is very good, too. Maybe he’ll show you if you ask nicely,” Remus said, and Sirius could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Something to do with Prongs, right? I’ve heard your nicknames. Never understood them before. Prongs…all I can think of is a fork.”

“Close,” Remus said unhelpfully.

They laughed about James turning into a fork until Sirius, nearly drifting off again, heard the door open.

“Evans!” James squawked. “What are you doing here?”

“Just talking to Remus,” she said breezily.

“About his furry little problem, huh?” James asked, regaining some of his composure.

Evans gasped. “That’s what that refers to? God, how did I not see this sooner?” She sounded truly ashamed of herself.

“And did either of you notice Sirius is asleep over there?” Peter asked. Sirius didn’t even have time to pretend he was asleep before James pulled open the curtain.

“What the hell, Sirius?” Remus demanded. “I thought you were at quidditch practice.”

“I was too tired. I was up all night, if you recall,” Sirius said. He finally was able to see Evans and Remus were sitting with some distance between them on his bed. No canoodling or anything.

“You could have announced yourself,” Evans pointed out crossly. “How much did you hear?”

“I dunno. I woke up sometime around when my traitorous friend said I didn’t know what a TV was. I do so!” Sirius said.

“What’s a TV again?” James asked, proving Remus’s point from earlier.

“The box with the moving pictures,” Sirius said smugly.

“And how do the pictures get into the box?” Evans asked, eyebrows raised.

Sirius realized he’d made a mistake. “Electricity?”

“Closer,” Evans said with mock encouragement. Sirius was just proud he hadn’t fumbled “electricity,” which he’d had drilled in his head during Muggle Studies repeatedly.

“Good enough, isn’t it?” Sirius said dismissively. “Don’t make me bite you, Evans.”

Evans perked up then. “Can I see the dog again?” she asked. “I didn’t get a good look last night.”

“What about mine?” James asked.

“You’ll get stuck in the curtains again,” Remus said wisely.

Evans wrinkled her nose in thought. “Stuck in the—ah!” Sirius had decided to grant her wish, and instantly he’d transformed mid-leap, bounding onto Remus’s bed. He tackled Remus, who was used to such attacks, knocking into Evans with his big waggy tail.

Remus smelled especially good as a dog. Something canine and familiar, perhaps, but Padfoot was always drawn to it. He snuffled against Remus’s hand, then stretched across the bed until Evans was forced to get up or be smothered like Remus, whose legs were trapped beneath Padfoot’s weight.

“He’s huge!” Evans laughed, reaching to pet him without thinking. “Wait. Is it okay to pet him? I almost forgot Black is in there.”

“He loves it! He is a dog, you know?” James explained. Suddenly four sets of hands were ruffling Padfoot’s fur. It was embarrassingly enjoyable. His tail went wild.

“And what about you and Peter?” Evans asked.

Peter puffed out his chest. “Here it goes.” He transformed easily, scrabbling for purchase on the bed with his tiny little rodent hands.

“But Potter can’t transform or he’ll—end up in the curtains?” Evans asked. Even as a dog, Sirius could tell she was dying to know what James was, but for once, James was being modest. He really was taking Remus’s advice about dealing with Evans.

“It’s amazing,” Remus admitted, scratching behind Padfoot’s ear. “But he stands out a lot more than these two.”

“I’m magnificent, you mean,” James said, preening when Evans laughed.

“I still can’t figure out what it is. I figured out the prongs part, but I can’t get fork out of my mind yet,” she admitted.

As James and Remus continued to bait Evans about James’s animagus form, Padfoot grew sleepy and was soon having a dog nap on Remus.

He was awakened for lunch by Evans whistling for him and saying, “Come here, boy!”

Padfoot perked up, but kept his place across Remus’s legs. It was comfortable. And Remus, still recovering from the moon, was dozing now, too.

Padfoot shook his head before resting his head back on Remus.

“Fine, we’ll bring you two something back for lunch,” Peter said with a wave.

“Well, those two were up all night, unlike the rest of us,” James said, following Evans out the door.

Padfoot stretched once, then went right back to sleep.

He wasn’t asleep long before he was awoken again, this time by Remus nudging him.

“You’re too hot. Move over,” he said sleepily.

Sirius huffed in displeasure and transformed, sitting up at the end of the bed to give Remus some space.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Sirius said.

Remus rubbed his eyes. He still looked tired. “Neither did I. Hopefully seeing me drool has put Lily off me for good now.”

“That reminds me. Who do you ‘really fancy’, Moony?” Sirius couldn’t help asking. It had been quietly nagging him for ages since that day at the library. Who was the boy Remus liked? One of the Marauders? A Slytherin?

“I knew you were listening longer than you said.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Why do you want to know so badly?” Remus asked, sitting up and shifting to the edge of the bed—taking his comforting warmth with him.

“I’m just curious,” Sirius said. When Remus stared at him, not buying it, Sirius shoved aside his embarrassment and explained. “None of that stuff makes sense to me. Why does James like Evans so much? Or why does Snape, for that matter. And you seem so sensible, yet there’s someone you like enough to turn down Evans?”

It was quiet for a beat.

“Oh,” was all Remus said.

“No one makes me want to drop everything and snog their face off. And you know about me and my—issue, so you’re the only one I can ask.”

It was actually kind of nice, sharing this with Moony. Now that Evans had been let in on the Marauders’ biggest secrets, it was a relief to still have something. Yes, there were Sirius’s visions, though that was almost a secret Sirius was keeping from himself, for how little of them he remembered.

“It doesn’t matter who he is,” Remus said. “He doesn’t like boys.”

“Then why not just go out with Lily? She’d be a good distraction, yeah?” Sirius said, trying to make sense of it all.

“I don’t want to do that to her. Or James. He fancies her the way I fancy—” Remus cut himself off.

“Your mystery man,” Sirius filled in breezily.

Remus chuckled. “Yeah. And I know seeing him dating someone else would kill me, and I don’t want to do that to James with Lily. Especially because I don’t fancy her.”

“But you said you think she’s fit,” Sirius remembered.

“I think a lot of people are fit. Doesn’t mean I want to snog them.”

Sirius could understand that. He knew a lot of people were attractive. He just wasn’t attracted to them himself. He knew Evans was beautiful, but so were a lot of other girls. And James was good looking enough, though his hair was a mess. And Remus was definitely attractive. He even smelled good.

“How do you know you don’t want to snog them?” Sirius asked.

“Is this from an academic standpoint?”

“Yes.”

Remus wavered for a moment, thinking, before he answered. “I’ve never thought about it much before. Pete seems willing to snog any girl that will have him, James is particular—mostly Lily, but neither of them seem interested in snogging boys.”

“That we know of,” Sirius added.

“Right,” Remus conceded with a laugh. “It’s a lot like making friends with someone, if that comparison works for you. I’m not going to be best friends with just anybody, and I’m not going to snog just anybody either.”

“What about the muggles you were kissing over the summer?” Sirius waggled his eyebrows.

“That was just for fun.” Remus’s cheeks burned. “Casual fun.”

“Casual.”

“They knew and I knew that it was just a fling.”

Sirius wondered if he could figure out casual fun—just to see if he was missing anything. He’d save that idea for another time.