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Title: The Tipping Point
Character(s)/POV: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black. Mentions of James Potter and Peter Pettigrew.
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Rating: T
Notes: This is set during MWPP's Hogwarts years, just before Moony discovers his friends' work to become Animagi.
Timeline: MWPP Hogwarts Years
Disclaimer: Characters, etc., you recognise belong to J. K. Rowling.
Summary: Remus has had enough.
In your considered opinion, there is nothing good about your monthly transformations except when moonset arrives and they are over. This opinion, instilled by experience early on, becomes even more ingrained after you arrive at Hogwarts and have to fend off the natural curiosity of your roommates as to where you go every month and why you come back looking so battered. You’re desperate to keep your dual nature concealed from them because all you’ve known since it happened, from anyone outside the close circle of family, is fear, loathing, and rejection.
Of course, trying to hide anything from the fierce intelligence of Potter and Black is futile from the start; they’re clever enough to assemble all the clues and make the obvious deduction. You suspect they’ll discover the truth at some point, but the speed of their achievement both surprises and frightens you; it’s only in the past few months they’ve somehow convinced you they are sincere about not getting you expelled for the simple fact of what you are.
Black’s – Sirius’ – reaction, in particular, stuns you; your father warned you, before you came to Hogwarts, to be wary of him as his family’s reputation preceded him. But when Sirius and James and Peter blindside you with the fact they know, Sirius is first to pull you into a hug and comfort you. Sirius isn’t like his family. He isn’t.
Or so you’d thought.
For the past few weeks, though, Sirius has been ever so slightly off with you, along with the others – as it happened, ever since the first Full Moon of the new year. You’ve nothing you can pin down as a precise symptom of this, nothing you can hope to hold up as evidence and not get laughed out of the room, but it’s there – almost tangible, but always just out of reach. At the same time, you’ve noticed a change in the way Sirius touches you – again, that has always been a Sirius thing; nebulous and, perhaps because of that, oddly indefinable. That same nebulousness makes it almost impossible to detect what in the quality of Sirius’ touching has changed. But defining what has changed, and how, changes nothing about the simple knowledge it has. Again, though, nothing happens in a way in which you can pass reasonable comment on it – or not in your own mind, at least.
But you can’t stop thinking about it; it’s there, in your brain, eating away at you. And, as the days blend themselves together in the march towards the next Full Moon, you see all three of them seem to withdraw from you and it does nothing but distress you more and more. What have you done to deserve this? James and Peter don’t even seem to want to meet your eyes. Sirius’ behaviour also changes – again – but he, in typical Sirius fashion, appears to be bucking the trend and becoming even more handsy than hitherto. That brings its own problems; you find it more and more difficult to control your body’s reaction to Sirius’ near-constant touching.
The way Sirius makes you feel answers many of the questions you have about why you are so disinterested (you’d use a better word if you had one, but this will have to do) in the opposite sex, but also poses a slew of new ones. Chief amongst which is whether Sirius means anything by this change in behaviour; Sirius never does anything without intent, you know this after knowing him all these years, but there’s no way you want to lose your only real friends by over-reacting to something that might, in the end, just be Sirius being overfriendly in the way only Sirius can be.
The week of Full Moon arrives. You’ve been antsy for days, as is normal for you at this time of the month. But, about halfway through this particular week, your patience with the situation disintegrates. You somehow manage to hold on until after dinner but, when you’re all back in the Common Room and Sirius is sliding into a seat next to you, you act. You push Sirius’ hands away from you, putting necessary distance between you whilst all the while refusing to acknowledge you can see anything in Sirius’ expression. No disappointment, no hurt, no strong emotion of any sort. If you acknowledge it, then you’ll have to admit it is there, and you don’t have the emotional strength for it right now.
“Stop it.”
“Remus?” Sirius’ whole face is a question, but you ignore him.
“I can’t deal with this any more. Just stop, Sirius; stop it!”
Without waiting for Sirius to react, you are on your feet. Seeing James open his mouth to speak, you turn towards him.
“When I want your opinion, James, I’ll ask for it. Which, unless you can tell me what I've done to deserve you and Peter refusing to so much as look at me the last few weeks, will be a bloody long time coming!”
Aware you are almost shouting at this point, you move towards the portrait hole; you are desperate to get away for a while to at least try to calm down. You see, out of the corner of your eye, Sirius get up as if to follow you.
“Sirius, just leave me alone, all right?”
Then you are through the portrait hole, and out; as it creaks closed behind you, you hear Sirius shouting at James.
“Are you happy now? I told you we have to tell him!”
Tell me what?
Now frustrated and confused, you let your feet carry you away from the Common Room towards the Library. They – well, Sirius, if you are honest – know you well enough to make it easy to find you if they want to, but for the moment you need time and space to think.
What the hell is going on?
