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fox_confessorTitle: These Four Kings (First Year 7/7)
Author: Dani (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
escribo)
Word Count: 2400
Rating: PG
(Pairings: in the future will be remus/sirius, lily/james)
Timeline: June 2 (Friday) 1972
Summary: Peter discovers that there are all sorts of truths
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. I've not made nor seek any profit.
one/ two/ three/ four/ five/ six
Dinner was Welsh rarebit that day, Peter's favorite, and he had been talking around it for nearly a half hour solid about the possibility of England recruiting the Norwegian beater, Olaf Masterson. He'd repeated statistics and game plays to Sirius, who stared back at him blankly, his fork poised over his plate, though he hadn't moved in at least five minutes. Sirius was funny like that sometimes and usually James could tease him out of it, but James had been held back in Charms for having turned Lily Evans' teacup into a great fat beetle with pink polkadots. He'd said it was an accident and Peter had almost believed him, until he'd caught the glance that passed between James and Sirius and knew it hadn't been an accident at all.
So it was up to him, Sirius was, because Remus wasn't being any help either. He was slumped over his book, never raising his eyes, and though Peter had been tempted give him a little nudge in Sirius' direction by kicking his ankle, he hadn't taken the chance. He wasn't sure about that sort of thing anymore. And what had started out as blank, Sirius' expression, had turned into a scowl after a while and Peter knew that Sirius could start yelling at him at any minute, or fighting with someone, maybe Edmund Gordon Forbes, the first year Hufflepuff sat directly behind Sirius, who kept chirping like a bird, loudly, anytime one of his mates took a drink from their goblets. Peter couldn't imagine what that was about and wished he would stop, wished he knew a spell to just make everything stop, and then suddenly James was there.
"Masterson's not got a chance, mate," James said, cutting across Peter's monologue, and Peter stopped, grateful, and took a breath. James dropped his bag onto the floor and as he sat, grinned down the table at Lily, who tossed her braids and refused to look back at him.
"But you remember that save he made in the game against Germany. He's got the best chance. Do you remember, Sirius?" Peter asked, turning back to Sirius and reaching for another serving of carrots and parsnips. "Masterson dove fifty feet and nearly fell off his broom."
"Are you all right?"
It was James again, interrupting Peter before he could get to the best part, the play against France two seasons ago. Peter stopped talking, still looking at Sirius, waiting for his answer to James' question, but Sirius had turned to look at Remus and now Peter did, too.
"I'm fine," Remus said, still not lifting his eyes from his book.
"You haven't eaten." Sirius set his fork down with a clatter onto his plate and Peter noticed now that Sirius hadn't really eaten either.
"I'm not hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"I'm not." Peter watched as Remus pinched his lips around whatever else he wanted to say, clearly not willing to start the fight that Sirius was itching to finish. Instead, Remus shook his head and stood. "I think I'm just going back up to the dorm."
"Do you want one of us to go with you? In case you need to go to the infirmary."
Remus gave James such a quizzical look that Peter was sure he knew they knew and he felt a thrill run down his spine. Surely, it was true, he thought and nervously reached for a lemon tart.
"No. I don't need a babysitter. I'll see you lot later." They watched as Remus gathered his things and walked out of the Great Hall, looking back at them twice before he disappeared behind the tall doors.
"We should tell him tonight that we know," Sirius said. "Before he leaves."
"Not yet," James said. "Not until we're sure."
"I thought we were sure."
James shook his head, reaching for another helping and the tomatoes at the same time. "We have to be sure sure."
Peter really didn't understand. James and Sirius thought that Remus was a werewolf, that he got, but nobody was to know. And Remus wasn't supposed to know that they knew. He'd asked James about the professors, about the headmaster, if maybe they shouldn't tell at least Professor McGonagall. Sirius had sneered at him and called him stupid, but it made sense. You couldn't just have a werewolf running about. His brother had told him all about werewolves and vampires, about how they'd kill you in your sleep and suck your blood, at least the vampires would. His brother had been a little sketchy on the details of werewolves, but they had to be just as bad.
"Why can't we just ask him?" Peter asked, though he didn't really think he wanted to hear the answer.
"That'd go over a treat, wouldn't it. 'Excuse me, Remus, but is it true that you're actually a dark creature?' He didn't even tell us about his birthday until two months after."
"Keep your voice down, Sirius," James hissed, though he kept on eating even when Sirius slumped down on the bench in a sulk. "Besides," he added, pointing his fork at Peter, "we might still be wrong."
"We're not," Sirius bit out.
"But we need to be sure."
If Peter was honest, the whole thing made him uneasy, like maybe he'd like to go have a lie down as well. He liked Remus, he did. Without him Peter knew that he would never pass Astronomy, and he was always good to go to when Peter was stuck on his homework. James joked so much that Peter was never sure he was getting the right answers, and Sirius would get impatient and angry and end up sending him to Remus anyway. Remus always explained things the right way and never made him feel stupid for asking.
No, James was right and it wouldn't matter if Remus was a werewolf. Second year was meant to be twice as hard as first and Peter was sure he'd never get on without Remus' help. "How are we going to be sure?"
Finally James put down his knife and fork and pushed away his plate to lean forward on the table. The light glinted off his glasses and it was all Peter could see for a moment, lending to James' words a particularly eerie tone. "Tonight, when he leaves the dorm, we're going to follow."
"Tonight? At the full moon?" Peter asked, his round face going pink as he clasped his hands in front of him. "What if he is one?"
Sirius shared a look with James. "James and I will go. You stay in the room in case someone asks where we are."
"I'm serious, though. What if he is one? Will we tell then?"
"Do you really think Dumbledore doesn't already know?"
"Do you think he does?"
"Of course he knows," James said. He tapped his chin with his finger, looking thoughtfully over to the High Table where most of their professor still sat enjoying their dinners. "I bet McGonagall knows, too. She'd have to."
"And Pomfrey," Sirius added. "She has to take care of him, after. She must."
"I still don't get that part," Peter said. It was hard to miss Remus' scars even though he worked hard to keep them covered. Even worse were the cuts, scrapes, and bruises that Remus still got even after James and Sirius managed to stop the Slytherins from bullying Remus, at least mostly stopped them. Sirius was silent on the subject but James said that Remus must be doing it to himself somehow. That it must be part of it, part of being a werewolf, which didn't make any sense because they had all seen Professor McGonagall turn into a cat and it didn't hurt her at all. "Can we ask him? After."
James' eyes flickered to Sirius but neither answered and Peter sighed.
"Well, how about Professor Kettleburn?" Peter asked. "Wouldn't he know?"
"Why would he know?"
Peter recognized the look in Sirius' eyes and knew he was in a dangerous mood to begin with but really, it seemed like an obvious question. "Because werewolves are beasts."
"Remus isn't a beast," Sirius said, his voice raising, and Peter thought that Remus being a werewolf couldn't be half as bad as Sirius being Sirius sometimes.
"We don't know that he's anything," James snapped at them both. Sirius sat back on the bench, his arms crossed over his chest but he didn't say anything else. "Look, Snape is watching, the greasy git. Let's just go up to the Common Room."
Later, when they got back up to the room, they found that Remus was already gone, that he likely had never been there, and Sirius stood in the middle of the room, staring at Remus' empty bed for a long time. Peter sat on his own bed, secretly watching Sirius from beneath his fringe as Peter lay back with his arms beneath his head. He was glad Remus was gone. Now they couldn't follow him because no matter what they said, with the sun quickly disappearing into the horizon and night coming on, the thought that their roommate was a werewolf was scary and Peter was back to not wanting to know.
"He'll be in the infirmary," Sirius said after such a long silence that Peter jumped, his thoughts having skipped along to the essay due on Monday morning, the chance of playing chess with James later, the letter he'd planned to write (finish) to his mother. "We could still follow."
"Follow to where? If he's in the infirmary--"
"They wouldn't keep him there," James said as he went to stand next to Sirius. "It has to be someplace safe."
"Like the dungeons?"
Sirius shook his head. "We've been all through the dungeons."
"When?" Peter asked but didn't get an answer. He didn't really need one. He knew about Remus and his map, had even taken out the worn piece of parchment once when Remus had gone to the library and saw Sirius' spiky handwriting all over it. He wondered if James knew about it, too.
"You stay here, Peter," James said finally, turning away from the window through which Peter could see the last rays of the sun cutting across the sky and turning the low clouds pink and orange. "If anyone asks, say that we've gone to the library."
Nobody asked. Peter had stayed in the room all night, waiting for James and Sirius to come back before finally falling asleep. When he woke, it was because Sirius had thrown his shoes beneath his bed, thumping them against his trunk, and the sky was lightening now. It was past dawn.
"Were you two out all night?" Sirius didn't answer. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor, huffing out a breath as he pushed his hair out of his face. Peter looked to James instead, who was standing where Sirius had last night and staring at Remus' bed. "What happened? Is he one?"
"Yeah. Madame Pomfrey took him to the Whomping Willow. We followed them. She made the branches stop and they disappeared inside."
"Like a secret passage?"
"Yeah."
"But how did they get inside."
"I don't know, Peter."
"So we're sure now?"
"Yeah, we're sure."
"Are we going to tell him we know?"
"No. We're not going to tell anyone," Sirius said, his voice breaking on the last word. He had stood still with his back to Peter while he and James talked but he turned now, his fists clenched at his sides. His face was terrible, angry and scared, and Peter had to look away, his stomach roiling with a sudden fear. After a moment's silence, Sirius grabbed his pajamas and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"We waited until the sun came up," James said as soon as Sirius was gone. "That's when Madame Pomfrey came back. Remus is hurt. His leg was bleeding badly. He was--"
James stopped and Peter waited to see if he would say anything more but James only took his glasses off and polished the lenses with the tail of his shirt. There was something there, something in James' face, that stopped Peter from asking anything else. It was enough to know that it was real, that Remus was a werewolf. That was enough. He laid back down on his pillows and covered his face with his hands, glad when James didn't say anything else, just laid down on his bed and twitched his curtains closed. After a while, Sirius came back into the room and crawled into his own bed, pulling the curtains closed as well.
Peter knew that he wasn't going to sleep anymore and stood and stared for a few minutes, not sure what he should do. In the end, he just got dressed and went down to breakfast by himself. He sat with Christine Whitcher and Davy Gudgeon at the Hufflepuff table and found out why Edmund Gordon Forbes had been chirping at dinner--a lost bet. Later, he went with them to the greenhouses and by the time he got back to the tower, it was late and Remus was back, sitting up on his bed and playing chess with James while Sirius was stretched out next to them, sleeping.
And that's how it was for the rest of the school year. Remus was a werewolf and nobody else knew, and if Remus knew that Peter, James, and Sirius knew, he never let on. Peter passed Astronomy. James and Sirius had earned a detention clear through to the first week of their second year. The first week! And Peter had owled his brother to ask if you could tell just by looking if someone was a werewolf. He didn't mention Remus. His brother said that it was a widely known fact that werewolves in their human form smelled like hay lofts on account of that was where they slept when it wasn't a full moon, but Remus just smelled like Remus, soap and sometimes the closed in smell of the library when he'd been studying for a long time. Peter thought maybe his brother really was full of shit.
continued...
Author: Dani (
escribo)
Word Count: 2400
Rating: PG
(Pairings: in the future will be remus/sirius, lily/james)
Timeline: June 2 (Friday) 1972
Summary: Peter discovers that there are all sorts of truths
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. I've not made nor seek any profit.
one/ two/ three/ four/ five/ six
Dinner was Welsh rarebit that day, Peter's favorite, and he had been talking around it for nearly a half hour solid about the possibility of England recruiting the Norwegian beater, Olaf Masterson. He'd repeated statistics and game plays to Sirius, who stared back at him blankly, his fork poised over his plate, though he hadn't moved in at least five minutes. Sirius was funny like that sometimes and usually James could tease him out of it, but James had been held back in Charms for having turned Lily Evans' teacup into a great fat beetle with pink polkadots. He'd said it was an accident and Peter had almost believed him, until he'd caught the glance that passed between James and Sirius and knew it hadn't been an accident at all.
So it was up to him, Sirius was, because Remus wasn't being any help either. He was slumped over his book, never raising his eyes, and though Peter had been tempted give him a little nudge in Sirius' direction by kicking his ankle, he hadn't taken the chance. He wasn't sure about that sort of thing anymore. And what had started out as blank, Sirius' expression, had turned into a scowl after a while and Peter knew that Sirius could start yelling at him at any minute, or fighting with someone, maybe Edmund Gordon Forbes, the first year Hufflepuff sat directly behind Sirius, who kept chirping like a bird, loudly, anytime one of his mates took a drink from their goblets. Peter couldn't imagine what that was about and wished he would stop, wished he knew a spell to just make everything stop, and then suddenly James was there.
"Masterson's not got a chance, mate," James said, cutting across Peter's monologue, and Peter stopped, grateful, and took a breath. James dropped his bag onto the floor and as he sat, grinned down the table at Lily, who tossed her braids and refused to look back at him.
"But you remember that save he made in the game against Germany. He's got the best chance. Do you remember, Sirius?" Peter asked, turning back to Sirius and reaching for another serving of carrots and parsnips. "Masterson dove fifty feet and nearly fell off his broom."
"Are you all right?"
It was James again, interrupting Peter before he could get to the best part, the play against France two seasons ago. Peter stopped talking, still looking at Sirius, waiting for his answer to James' question, but Sirius had turned to look at Remus and now Peter did, too.
"I'm fine," Remus said, still not lifting his eyes from his book.
"You haven't eaten." Sirius set his fork down with a clatter onto his plate and Peter noticed now that Sirius hadn't really eaten either.
"I'm not hungry."
"You're always hungry."
"I'm not." Peter watched as Remus pinched his lips around whatever else he wanted to say, clearly not willing to start the fight that Sirius was itching to finish. Instead, Remus shook his head and stood. "I think I'm just going back up to the dorm."
"Do you want one of us to go with you? In case you need to go to the infirmary."
Remus gave James such a quizzical look that Peter was sure he knew they knew and he felt a thrill run down his spine. Surely, it was true, he thought and nervously reached for a lemon tart.
"No. I don't need a babysitter. I'll see you lot later." They watched as Remus gathered his things and walked out of the Great Hall, looking back at them twice before he disappeared behind the tall doors.
"We should tell him tonight that we know," Sirius said. "Before he leaves."
"Not yet," James said. "Not until we're sure."
"I thought we were sure."
James shook his head, reaching for another helping and the tomatoes at the same time. "We have to be sure sure."
Peter really didn't understand. James and Sirius thought that Remus was a werewolf, that he got, but nobody was to know. And Remus wasn't supposed to know that they knew. He'd asked James about the professors, about the headmaster, if maybe they shouldn't tell at least Professor McGonagall. Sirius had sneered at him and called him stupid, but it made sense. You couldn't just have a werewolf running about. His brother had told him all about werewolves and vampires, about how they'd kill you in your sleep and suck your blood, at least the vampires would. His brother had been a little sketchy on the details of werewolves, but they had to be just as bad.
"Why can't we just ask him?" Peter asked, though he didn't really think he wanted to hear the answer.
"That'd go over a treat, wouldn't it. 'Excuse me, Remus, but is it true that you're actually a dark creature?' He didn't even tell us about his birthday until two months after."
"Keep your voice down, Sirius," James hissed, though he kept on eating even when Sirius slumped down on the bench in a sulk. "Besides," he added, pointing his fork at Peter, "we might still be wrong."
"We're not," Sirius bit out.
"But we need to be sure."
If Peter was honest, the whole thing made him uneasy, like maybe he'd like to go have a lie down as well. He liked Remus, he did. Without him Peter knew that he would never pass Astronomy, and he was always good to go to when Peter was stuck on his homework. James joked so much that Peter was never sure he was getting the right answers, and Sirius would get impatient and angry and end up sending him to Remus anyway. Remus always explained things the right way and never made him feel stupid for asking.
No, James was right and it wouldn't matter if Remus was a werewolf. Second year was meant to be twice as hard as first and Peter was sure he'd never get on without Remus' help. "How are we going to be sure?"
Finally James put down his knife and fork and pushed away his plate to lean forward on the table. The light glinted off his glasses and it was all Peter could see for a moment, lending to James' words a particularly eerie tone. "Tonight, when he leaves the dorm, we're going to follow."
"Tonight? At the full moon?" Peter asked, his round face going pink as he clasped his hands in front of him. "What if he is one?"
Sirius shared a look with James. "James and I will go. You stay in the room in case someone asks where we are."
"I'm serious, though. What if he is one? Will we tell then?"
"Do you really think Dumbledore doesn't already know?"
"Do you think he does?"
"Of course he knows," James said. He tapped his chin with his finger, looking thoughtfully over to the High Table where most of their professor still sat enjoying their dinners. "I bet McGonagall knows, too. She'd have to."
"And Pomfrey," Sirius added. "She has to take care of him, after. She must."
"I still don't get that part," Peter said. It was hard to miss Remus' scars even though he worked hard to keep them covered. Even worse were the cuts, scrapes, and bruises that Remus still got even after James and Sirius managed to stop the Slytherins from bullying Remus, at least mostly stopped them. Sirius was silent on the subject but James said that Remus must be doing it to himself somehow. That it must be part of it, part of being a werewolf, which didn't make any sense because they had all seen Professor McGonagall turn into a cat and it didn't hurt her at all. "Can we ask him? After."
James' eyes flickered to Sirius but neither answered and Peter sighed.
"Well, how about Professor Kettleburn?" Peter asked. "Wouldn't he know?"
"Why would he know?"
Peter recognized the look in Sirius' eyes and knew he was in a dangerous mood to begin with but really, it seemed like an obvious question. "Because werewolves are beasts."
"Remus isn't a beast," Sirius said, his voice raising, and Peter thought that Remus being a werewolf couldn't be half as bad as Sirius being Sirius sometimes.
"We don't know that he's anything," James snapped at them both. Sirius sat back on the bench, his arms crossed over his chest but he didn't say anything else. "Look, Snape is watching, the greasy git. Let's just go up to the Common Room."
Later, when they got back up to the room, they found that Remus was already gone, that he likely had never been there, and Sirius stood in the middle of the room, staring at Remus' empty bed for a long time. Peter sat on his own bed, secretly watching Sirius from beneath his fringe as Peter lay back with his arms beneath his head. He was glad Remus was gone. Now they couldn't follow him because no matter what they said, with the sun quickly disappearing into the horizon and night coming on, the thought that their roommate was a werewolf was scary and Peter was back to not wanting to know.
"He'll be in the infirmary," Sirius said after such a long silence that Peter jumped, his thoughts having skipped along to the essay due on Monday morning, the chance of playing chess with James later, the letter he'd planned to write (finish) to his mother. "We could still follow."
"Follow to where? If he's in the infirmary--"
"They wouldn't keep him there," James said as he went to stand next to Sirius. "It has to be someplace safe."
"Like the dungeons?"
Sirius shook his head. "We've been all through the dungeons."
"When?" Peter asked but didn't get an answer. He didn't really need one. He knew about Remus and his map, had even taken out the worn piece of parchment once when Remus had gone to the library and saw Sirius' spiky handwriting all over it. He wondered if James knew about it, too.
"You stay here, Peter," James said finally, turning away from the window through which Peter could see the last rays of the sun cutting across the sky and turning the low clouds pink and orange. "If anyone asks, say that we've gone to the library."
Nobody asked. Peter had stayed in the room all night, waiting for James and Sirius to come back before finally falling asleep. When he woke, it was because Sirius had thrown his shoes beneath his bed, thumping them against his trunk, and the sky was lightening now. It was past dawn.
"Were you two out all night?" Sirius didn't answer. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor, huffing out a breath as he pushed his hair out of his face. Peter looked to James instead, who was standing where Sirius had last night and staring at Remus' bed. "What happened? Is he one?"
"Yeah. Madame Pomfrey took him to the Whomping Willow. We followed them. She made the branches stop and they disappeared inside."
"Like a secret passage?"
"Yeah."
"But how did they get inside."
"I don't know, Peter."
"So we're sure now?"
"Yeah, we're sure."
"Are we going to tell him we know?"
"No. We're not going to tell anyone," Sirius said, his voice breaking on the last word. He had stood still with his back to Peter while he and James talked but he turned now, his fists clenched at his sides. His face was terrible, angry and scared, and Peter had to look away, his stomach roiling with a sudden fear. After a moment's silence, Sirius grabbed his pajamas and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
"We waited until the sun came up," James said as soon as Sirius was gone. "That's when Madame Pomfrey came back. Remus is hurt. His leg was bleeding badly. He was--"
James stopped and Peter waited to see if he would say anything more but James only took his glasses off and polished the lenses with the tail of his shirt. There was something there, something in James' face, that stopped Peter from asking anything else. It was enough to know that it was real, that Remus was a werewolf. That was enough. He laid back down on his pillows and covered his face with his hands, glad when James didn't say anything else, just laid down on his bed and twitched his curtains closed. After a while, Sirius came back into the room and crawled into his own bed, pulling the curtains closed as well.
Peter knew that he wasn't going to sleep anymore and stood and stared for a few minutes, not sure what he should do. In the end, he just got dressed and went down to breakfast by himself. He sat with Christine Whitcher and Davy Gudgeon at the Hufflepuff table and found out why Edmund Gordon Forbes had been chirping at dinner--a lost bet. Later, he went with them to the greenhouses and by the time he got back to the tower, it was late and Remus was back, sitting up on his bed and playing chess with James while Sirius was stretched out next to them, sleeping.
And that's how it was for the rest of the school year. Remus was a werewolf and nobody else knew, and if Remus knew that Peter, James, and Sirius knew, he never let on. Peter passed Astronomy. James and Sirius had earned a detention clear through to the first week of their second year. The first week! And Peter had owled his brother to ask if you could tell just by looking if someone was a werewolf. He didn't mention Remus. His brother said that it was a widely known fact that werewolves in their human form smelled like hay lofts on account of that was where they slept when it wasn't a full moon, but Remus just smelled like Remus, soap and sometimes the closed in smell of the library when he'd been studying for a long time. Peter thought maybe his brother really was full of shit.
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