Scars and Bruises

Reveal

SIRIUS.

Christmas break was coming to an end and Sirius was determined to finally clean the boys' bedroom. House elves had washed and folded all the clothes that he left on the floor, and now they neatly laid in their closet. Pile of garbage had also disappeared and the room looked much better, but still there was a pile of parchments and books on Remus's bed.

Sirius was ready to finally finish sorting all the papers, because Alex was studying in her room and he now had a free afternoon to do that. He sat on the Remus's bed and picked up couple of papers. And then he saw once again the letter addressed to Alex, he had completely forgotten about that.

He picked it up; Sirius knew that reading the letter would be unfair towards Alex, but something inside made him do it. He bit his lip and touched the broken seal on the letter.

Then he opened the envelope and took the letter out. He slowly unfolded it and looked at it. Letter was once soaked and the big part of words was disappeared from parchment. He looked at the top of the letter and saw there October's date. The letter were sent to Alex on October's full moon. That was the same day he saw Alex and Remus together on the bench by the lake.

That explained the fact how letter ended up in their bedroom. Sirius looked at the handwriting that was very neat and calligraphic; Alex's mother wrote it presumably because the last name of the sender was the same as Alex.

Still unsure of his actions Sirius started to read the letter, at least the parts, which still was readable. It was not long, so there was just some words and phrases remaining on the parchment.

... today we wanted to remind you... you are not... we are ashamed... your fault... your brother would never got in a situation... we expected great things from you... ruined all our dreams... disgrace to our family... you will not accomplish anything... your fault that you are a werewolf... suggest to spend Christmas at school... such a disappointment...

Sirius with wide eyes looked at word "werewolf". Alex is a werewolf?! No fucking way! He reread the part "your fault that you are a werewolf" repeatedly; he realized that his hands were shaking. He put the letter back on the bed and stood up, he started to pace around the room.

How it was possible that Alex was a werewolf? How he hadn't notice that? He himself ran around with a werewolf every month, possibly that was the reason he had not notice that there was another werewolf in this school. Sirius stopped and scratched his head; he was so confused.

He was pleasantly surprised that Alex had hidden it so well from others, but on the other hand... Alex was very mysterious. All those late night walks around the castle, late night snacking in the kitchens, skipping classes – it all made it much simpler for her. Nobody would not notice her disappearing once a month if she did that at least once a week.

Suddenly everything fell into place, Sirius even smiled a little. That's why Alex had bruises and scratches all over her body, that's why she sometimes looked more tired than other days, that's why she was so strong. Because in all of these years which he spend with the Marauders and they had gotten into some fights with Slytherins and amongst themselves, only James had broken his nose no matter how many hits he had gotten. And Alex did it without even trying.

Sirius sat on the bed and, resting his elbows on knees, grabbed his head. Alex was a werewolf and nobody knew that, well, Remus probably knew. Now Sirius understood why Remus had protected Alex so much. He knew about Alex. And that probably was the reason why Alex and Remus didn't stay together but decided to become friends instead. They could understood each other the way nobody could.

Sirius was not sure that Alex have been a werewolf all her life, because in that case he would have noticed something. Sirius stood up once again, he realized something – at the end of the fourth year Alex was ill for a very long time, a couple of months at least, he now remembered that. There was a talk that she would not be able to finish that year, but she still did it. That must have been the time when she was bitten, and that's why Sirius hadn't noticed anything because in the fifth year he finally became animagus and he was out running all around with Remus.