Here's to Never Growing Up

First Year: The Monster Under the Bed

The Monster Under the Bed

Sirius couldn't sleep.

He curled onto his side.

He felt his stomach tingle with anxiety, feeling as though it was trying to digest itself.

Last month he'd been in too much of a shock to actually process what was going on, and he hadn't been one hundred percent sure he was right, so it hadn't affected him like this then.

Now he knew, of course, where Remus went, and what was going on with him.

He rolled over.

Remus was a werewolf.

Somewhere out there, he wasn't Remus, but a creature feared by many wizards. A creature hunted by many wizards. God, that was a scary thought, Remus being hunted.

It deeply unsettled him.

He turned onto his back again.

It was hours until daylight.

Sirius wondered how Remus was doing— if he kept his mind as a werewolf. He didn't think so. But then again, his information on werewolves wasn't very accurate, he'd learned.

Sirius wondered how it felt.

It must hurt, he thought.

His entire body would be rearranging, every bone, every muscle.

Sirius shivered at the image. He couldn't imagine what it was like. It had to be horrible.

The feeling in his stomach grew stronger and he rolled over onto his side again.

He hadn't closed his curtains all the way, and the moonlight shone through a sliver between the cloth.

His stomach twisted and he hugged his pillow tighter to his chest, sitting up, and pulling away the curtains slightly to look out.

The moon was full — obviously — and was shining brightly, a spectacular white against the obsidian sky. The stars surrounded the moon, blinking and shimmering. The stars always reminded Sirius of his family and their everlasting obsession with the cosmos, but he'd always enjoyed the moon. He'd always thought it was beautiful, gleaming light in the darkness. Something about it had always given him a sense of hope in the Black house.

But now the sight of it made his insides screw up.

He padded over to the window sill and pulled himself up on top of it, sitting with his back to the wall. He couldn't fall asleep, so he might as well just wonder. Where did they keep Remus? It was somewhere safe for everyone, he knew, but Remus had never told him where. He and Remus hadn't actually spoken about it since the day he came back last time, so Sirius really didn't know much.

There was a draft in the room, coming through a small crack in the window, (he and James may have gotten slightly carried away during one particularly intense game of dorm room dodgeball, where James had thrown one of the balled up socks they'd transfigured into balls and it hit the window, cracking it) and a breeze was coming through. Sirius and James were too sheepish to ask McGonagall or the house elves to fix it, so they hadn't been able to mend the glass. Now Sirius wished he'd at least put on a jumper, but he didn't feel like getting up again.

He wrapped his arms tightly around his legs and pulled them to his chest, trying to take in all the body heat he could. He could hear Peter's snores and wished they could learn a silencing charm, to keep out the noise. Sirius shivered again, as bad memories of certain punishments he and Reg would get in the Black household surfaced. One time, Sirius had used a potion to dye his aunt's hair red, pouring it in her drink before she drank it. You'd think his relatives would be better about checking what they consumed with Sirius around, but they'd learned nothing. His mother had been furious, and they had been unable to get the dye out of her sister's hair and just had to let it eventually fade. She confiscated the potion (which had cost Sirius a month's worth of allowance in Diagon Alley) and used the silencio charm on him. She hadn't removed it for a week. It'd been one of the worst weeks of Sirius' life, and scariest. Not being able to speak or use his voice terrified him, and not being able to scream when his mother crucioed him sounded unnatural, and eerie.