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The Shrieking Shack


James’s voice echoed through the tunnel. “Bloody hell… we’ve been walking forever.” Really, it had only been about ten minutes. Their wands lit up the dark passageway, roots and stones sticking out here and there from the compact dirt that made up the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel. Peter was looking warily up at the ceiling, as though expecting it to cave in, and kept tripping over his own robes. “How much longer?” James whined.

“Not much,” Remus answered. “We’re nearly there now.”

“Bloody hell, this is the longest tunnel ever,” James complained.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Sirius demanded, turning his wand back to light up James’s face.

James bat the wand away as Peter ducked under Sirius’s outstretched arm. “Don’t point that thing at me, Black,” he said in a mock angry tone, a smile spreading across his mouth, “Unless you mean to challenge me to a duel?”

“Because you in a duel is such a frightening thing?” Sirius chided him, “I saw you against Snivelley Snape. I’m not worried.”

James raised his wand, “Oh?”

Remus cleared his throat.

Both James and Sirius looked up.

“If you lot aren’t too busy hexing one another back there, we’ve arrived.” Remus waved his wand behind him and illuminated a trap door that Peter’s back end was just wriggling through.

“Brilliant,” James grinned, and he leaped past Sirius, headed for the trap door, to follow Peter in.

Sirius smirked as James bounded off, “What lucky timing for you, Potter, just before I was about to blast you to smithereens!” He followed, though, and a moment later all four boys were standing in the little kitchen of the Shrieking Shack.

It was truly a mess in there. A year of being inhabited by a werewolf on the full moon would do that to a place. There was broken bits of furniture and ripped papers and books around on the floor, shattered plates and spots where Remus had bitten himself so hard that blood had been drawn and the blood had stained the floorboards. The windows were boarded up, curtains shredded in strips from having been clawed. There was a small ratty ball of blankets in the corner, covered with big clumps of fur.

“Shedding, are you, mate?” Sirius asked with a nervous laugh.

This was the first time that they’d really seen any actual evidence of Remus’s transformations. It was the closest encounter they’d yet had with the werewolf within him. It was quite uncomfortable for Remus, whose face was growing hot as they looked about his “lair”. He felt rather exposed and a lump rose up in his throat. Prior, the only person who had ever seen the destruction that he caused in his wolf form was his mother. He stared down at his feet, not wanting to see the looks on their faces. Especially Peter’s. Peter looked downright terrified.

Seeing the look of shame on Remus’s face, James decided to make the best of things. “This is spiffing!” he declared, looking about the torn up interior of the Shrieking Shack as though it were the Taj Mahal. “I mean, sure, it’s a bit gloomy, but for the most part it’s rather brilliant. Rather like a clubhouse, really, isn’t it?” He bent and stood up a chair that had been knocked over, but not actually broken, and set himself into it, tossing his feet up on another chair and leaning back as though he were in the lap of luxury. “I wouldn’t mind coming here once a month!”

Remus scowled, “You might once the moon rises and your skin starts to boil fur out of you and your spine cracks a dozen times and your feet split up into paws and claws and your face feels like it’s stretching, or melting, like wax, and you gnaw your own flesh raw as you go insane.”

The other three paused in what they were doing to stare at Remus in shock and horror - horror far greater than the looks they’d worn when they’d seen the state of the shack itself for now it wasn’t just the shack that was a mess, it was Remus himself. Sirius’s eyes moved to Remus’s arms, remembering the scars there.

“I’m just saying it’s not all fun and games out here,” Remus muttered, tucking his arms behind him and turning away from them. “I don’t come here to have adventures, don’t forget. What happens to me here is terrible and I hate it and I hate myself when I’m here. Look at how awful I am.” He waved his hand about at the colossal mess. He bent down and picked up one of the ruined books on the floor. It was his History of Magic textbook from the term before - he’d had to write home and ask for a new copy after he’d destroyed it. His mum had sent him a new one. It made his heart ache to think of all the things he’d destroyed in his lifetime that she had had to replace and how she had not once complained about it.

“Did you tell Binns that a dog ate your homework?” Sirius asked, pointing at the book, a smirk growing on his face.

Remus tossed the book into a trash bin. “Can we go back to Hogwarts now, please?”

“I’m only joking, Rey,” Sirius said. “Trying to lighten the mood a bit, you know?” He nudged Remus’s side a bit with his elbow. “You know we aren’t judging you for all this, yeah?”

Remus nodded, though a bit bitterly.

“Do you want to put the tunnel on the map?” James asked.

Remus hesitated, tugging the map from his pocket and staring down at the parchment. “I s’pose. But the Shack won’t fit. It’s too far off the grounds.” He went over to the table and laid the parchment flat, pulling the quills out of his pockets as well. He hesitated, the quill hovering over the Whomping Willow. “What if this ends up in bad hands?” he asked, looking ‘round at the others. “What if we lose it and someone else figures out how to get in here and I’m found out? What if it’s on a night with a full moon and I… I attack someone?”

“Then best hope it’s Snape,” Sirius joked with a laugh.

James put his palm over Remus’s hand. “Hey. I won’t let that happen, mate, alright? We’ll keep the map safe. And if anyone ever tried to get down here… well, I’d stop ‘em myself, alright? We’ll protect you. Always.”

Remus took a deep breath. “Alright,” he said, and with a sweeping motion, he quickly drew in the tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow, leading off to the edge of the parchment. He stared down at the passage he’d drawn and blew on the ink to help dry it. “Well, there you have it,” he said, and he reached up to fold the map back onto itself until it fit into his robes pockets. The other three had clustered around him, Peter eating the pasties he’d shoved into his pocket, James smiling reassuringly, and Sirius beaming with excitement as he looked ‘round the room at everything. Remus smiled back at James. Maybe, he thought, next time he was out here all alone and in the midst of changing over he’d remember they’d been there and it would help keep him sane. Maybe he’d be able to hold onto himself this time. Maybe… just maybe.

The boys all tromped back through the long tunnel and onto Hogwarts grounds, laughing and poking one another as they made their way through the passageway. James and Sirius sang a song they’d heard on the radio that Lily Evans had one of the nights hanging out in the Gryffindor common room - by a muggle man named James Taylor, their arms slung over each other’s shoulders.

Just call out my name and you know where ever I am, I will come running to see you again… Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall… all you gotta do is call…. And I’ll be there…

Peter looked up at Remus and offered him one of the pasties from his pocket. Remus took it and they ate as they walked, watching James and Sirius trip over each other’s robes, laughing and singing loudly. The pastie was a bit warm and smooshed from Peter’s pocket, but still delicious, and Remus thought he couldn’t have asked for a better group to be mates with. Peter looked very much like he might’ve been thinking the same thing as he smiled after James and Sirius’s fading shadows ahead of them.

When they reached the end of the tunnel, Remus showed them the lever within that immobilized the tree and they all got out of the hole - except Peter, who needed to be pulled out by Remus and James while Sirius shoved him up from below. They tumbled across the grass as Peter’s weight gave way and he spilled from the tunnel’s mouth. When Sirius had climbed out from behind him and the hole had sealed itself back up, the boys ran out from under the tree’s branches, still laughing and singing as they went up the path to the stairs that led up into the castle. They were so busy talking that they never paused to consider that they hadn’t put on the invisibility cloak….

James pushed open the door of the castle and stepped into the Entrance Hall, followed by Sirius and Peter and Remus, and the moment the door of the castle closed behind them, they heard the clear behind them inside the castle and froze, their palms against the door.

“Oh bloody hell,” muttered James.

They all four turned around slowly and there, sitting on the third step up from the bottom, clutching his mangy old cat and stroking her head, was Mr. Filch. Mrs. Norris purred loudly, her tail swishing about as she sat in Mr. Filch’s arms contentedly, watching on at the student’s discomfort. “My, my, my,” croaked Mr. Filch, grinning so that the gold teeth in his jaw glinted a bit in the torchlight, “Thought it might be a good night for a walk, did’ja?”

“A bit nippy, actually,” answered James, boldly, “Think we’ll just pop off to bed now, but thanks for waiting up for us.” He started to move up the steps and the others stared on with wide, disbelieving eyes at James’s audacity.

Mr. Filch however struck out his palm and stopped James midstep, a grin creeping across his face and his eyes twinkled evilly.

But however terrible Filch’s detentions were - and they were terrible, mind you - every moment of it was worth it to Remus when, at the end of November, when he traversed the tunnel back out to the Shrieking Shack alone, on the night of the full moon, and the memories of his friends haunted him all the way through. Even more so later, after the change had stretched and burned and ached its way through his body, and he ran through the shack, teeth bared and howling desperately… his nose twitched at a funny scent. He paused in his destructive state, breathing heavily and sniffed deeply of the smell. Nose pressed to the wood floor, he found it -- a necktie, dropped from the pocket of Sirius Black, where it’d been shoved carelessly once it had been tugged off from ‘round his neck at dinner. The wolf that was Remus Lupin sniffed and pawed upon it and the memory of the other three sitting ‘round the table suddenly flooded him. It may not have been much to most people, but to Remus it was everything because for a moment - however short it may have been - he came to mind himself long enough for one, fleeting good thought about his friends. It was the one bright spot amongst all the darkness that surrounded him, inside and out.