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The Dream


“NO! NO! NOOO NO! NO!” Remus sat up in bed, panting, his heart beating a tattoo against his ribcage so hard that he was sure the bones would puncture it or else it would seize up in a cramp.

Lumos!” A lighted wand tip shone across the room, and Sirius held it aloft. All three of the others were sitting up, looking at Remus from their beds. James grabbed his glasses and quickly lit the lantern on his bedside table. “What’s the matter, Rey?” Sirius asked, worry in his eyes.

Remus hadn’t had the nightmare since he was a kid. He’d had it frequently then - but that had been years and years ago, he’d nearly forgotten it since. But things had been awoken in him lately - deep things. He covered his eyes and folded nearly in half, sobs wrecking through him. Sirius couldn’t take it. He got out of bed and hurried over to Remus, jumping up on his bed so he was sitting next to him and he pushed the hair off Remus’s face and tugged him to his shoulder so that his tears fell into the crook of Sirius’s neck.

Peter looked down, away from them.

“What happens in this dormitory stays in this dormitory,” Sirius said heavily. “We take care of each other here first and foremost and nobody talks about it or makes jokes about it outside these four walls. Understood?” He looked at Peter mostly. “I don’t give a damn how… silly… it looks. If one of us needs the others, we’re going to bloody be there for them any way we can.”

“Agreed,” James nodded.

“Yes,” squeaked Peter.

“Alright.” Sirius cupped his hand to the back of Remus’s head. “Rey… it’s okay. We’re here for you. All of us are. You’re okay.”

Remus choked and pulled back, face red and crumpled, and James threw over his handkerchief. Sirius caught it and handed it to Rey. “Here,” he said, “Potter’s lent you his handkerchief.”

Remus pressed it to his face.

“What happened, Rey?” Sirius asked gently.

Peter nodded, “Yeah, what happened? Talking it out might help you feel better ‘bout it.”

“Greyback,” whispered Remus, “I dreamed of Greyback.”

It wasn’t strictly true - Greyback was there, link a lingering presence. The dream was much more than that, though. He’d had it reoccurring since he’d been a child, though not anywhere near as frequently in recent years. He’d stopped having it after Dumbledore had come and offered him his place at Hogwarts on his eleventh birthday, really. It had only happened twice since then. Once while he stayed in St. Mungo’s, when he’d had the argument with his father about continuing at the school, and just now, tonight, with the threat of Greyback returning looming over him.

In the dream, Remus sat at the Lupin family dinner table, but it was, oddly, in the middle of the woods, in a clearing filled with dozens and dozens of flickering fireflies that zipped and hovered around the table. It would’ve been quite pretty, save for the shadows moving just beyond the treeline. There, in the trees, Remus caught flashes - glimpses of a horribly scarred face sneering and grinning as the moon rose overhead. The clouds overcast, keeping the changes at bay. The face would peer around a tree and Greyback would lick his lips and his teeth and a low cackle would echo through the woods. Remus turned to his father, sitting to his right at the head of the table, reading a scroll as though it were the morning paper. In big black letters on the side Remus was looking at read The Werewolf Restriction Act. Lyall’s voice was much more robotic than he ever sounded in real life, but he was sitting there, listing off the reasons why werewolves are nasty and why werewolves don’t deserve rights, as though he were reciting it for an academic test, almost a chant… Remus took in the juxtaposition of the list and the grinning face of Fenrir and it created an anxiety in him that built and built, like a volcano…

The next part of the dream had diverged from it’s usual pattern only slightly, but the slight change was a huge change. Usually at this point, Hope would come from some mysterious location carrying a plate full of raw steaks and put the plate down before Remus and she would push back his hair and kiss his forehead as she did so. This time, though, it was Sirius, and on the plate was a stack of rabbits, and Sirius came over and he grabbed hold of the hair at Remus’s forehead and pulled his head back so that Remus was looking up at him and he kissed him full on the mouth. “Another reason werewolves are disgusting,” said Lyall at the head of the table, “They eat raw meat and they snog their mates. Filthy, disgusting things. They shouldn’t be allowed. Take the silver bullet to the lot of them.”

“He can’t help it,” said Sirius in the dream, his fingers caressing Remus’s head, as Hope’s had always done in the dreams prior as he said the words she usually said, “He’s just a boy, Lyall!”

“He is no boy,” Lyall said thickly. “Dreaming of kissing other boys!” (That part was new.)

“He’s our son!” Sirius said (it was what Hope had always said).

“Greyback murdered our son. This is not our son.” Lyall said. “I have no son.”

And then Greyback came from the trees, hissing, and the moonlight shone down, the clouds parting, and Greyback laughed and circled the table, coming closer and closer, and he bit into Lyall’s neck and then came ‘round and grabbed Sirius by the hair and the shoulders, pushing him down against the plate and Sirius’s head and neck were where the rabbits had been and Greyback leaned in and hissed into Remus’s ear, “Eat, like you were made to do.” And Remus was famished and he’d opened his mouth and his teeth had torn into the flesh at Sirius’s neck and the blood fell across his chin, hot and delicious and ---

And that was when he’d woken up.

Now, in the dormitory, Remus clutched to Sirius. “I didn’t want to,” he muttered sobbing, “He made me do it, he made me bite you.”

Sirius rubbed Remus’s back, “I know,” he said, even though he had no idea what Remus was talking about. “I know, it’s alright, Rey. It’s going to be okay.”

Remus’s tears were streaming over his face and off his chin, soaking through Sirius’s pyjamas. James had got up and come over and sat on the other side of Remus, not knowing what to do, but wanting to be closer to help out, too. Even Peter had inched ot the edge of his bed, facing Remus’s.

But Sirius alone touched him, holding him close and running his fingers over Remus’s spine in the most soothing manner he could think of. He was imitating the way Dora Potter had held him that very first night at the Potter house… which was something he thought of often.

“What if he comes and I lose control?” Remus choked, “What if he comes and he makes me bite everyone I love?”

“You won’t bite anyone,” Sirius said, shaking his head, “We’re getting you in control, remember? You were you.”

“But if Greyback comes… he made me. I must be his omega…”

“You’re not his omega,” Sirius growled, “You’re my beta.”

“But what if he comes and it turns out I’m his?” Remus choked, “You heard Veigler when I asked. He didn’t know how that would work. What if it turns out that I’m his?”

“You aren’t his,” Sirius said, shaking his head, “You are mine. And I won’t let you bite anybody.”

The words were oddly comforting.

James touched Remus’s shoulder, “None of us will let that happen, mate,” he said.

“Yeah,” squeaked Peter.

“We’ve got your back, Rey,” Sirius said.

Remus pulled back, “Promise me again, all of you, that if I ever -- ever -- try and bite somebody… promise me that you’ll use the killing curse on me before you’d let it happen. Promise me.”

James looked disturbed at the thought of it.

“I already swore to you I would,” Sirius said solemnly.

Peter stammered, “I’m not even certain I could do the killing curse. Isn’t it very advanced magic?”

“Not so much advanced as much as… as you’ve got to really mean it,” said James, “Otherwise it just… is a fancy green spark.”

Remus looked imploringly at them, his hands still holding tight to Sirius’s forearm, as though his very breath depended on keeping Sirius within arm’s reach. “You’ve got to mean it. You’ve got to kill me if I ever try to bite someone. I wouldn’t want to live if I did anyway. Promise me you’ll do it and you’ll mean it when you do.”

“I promise,” James said, though he felt queasy at the idea of it.

Not wanting to be the only one that didn’t do it, Peter said, “Me, too.”

Remus felt a bit better. He took a deep breath and he let go of Sirius’s arm finally. It wasn’t until he let go that he realized he’d been holding on at the place where he’d scratched Sirius, where the scar showed pink against his tanned skin. Tears sprang to Remus’s eyes.

“Moony, it’s going to be alright,” Sirius said again.

He nodded. It was only when Sirius said it that Remus truly believed it.

They sat and talked a bit, all four of them, trying to calm Remus down, make him laugh, clear the air of the weight of the past hour’s talk. Finally, Peter fell asleep and James was drooping, so Sirius suggested they all go to sleep and he tucked Peter into his blankets as James crawled into his bed. Remus sat in his own, staring down at the place where Sirius had been sitting, at the impression his body had made on the blankets and the mattress. He wanted Sirius to stay - to come and be Snuffles like he used to do, but he didn’t know how to ask for it, and he was terrified the answer would be no.

He didn’t want to be a puffer fish.

But when Sirius had finished tucking Peter in, he looked over at James with a question in his eyes and James nodded to encourage him. Sirius turned into the dog, the shaggy fur sprouting over his body and relief coming into Remus’s eyes as he jumped up onto the bed. Just the weight of the big shaggy dog was enough to comfort Remus. Snuffles pressed against him, warm and soft and his nose turned in against Remus’s neck and he closed his eyes and he knew everything would be okay: Sirius was there to make sure of it.