Remus is bleeding.

It's not a lot—just enough that he's lightheaded and having trouble keeping the cloth pressed against his wound without his hands shaking. He doesn't really remember getting here—just the coarse carpet beneath his toes and the way open wounds seemed to burn as he pulled on his Hogwarts uniform.

He's back in the castle, thank Merlin, and he snuck back into the dorm carefully enough that no one spotted him (or, if they did, didn't suspect anything). Remus opens the door to the dormitory toilet and closes it behind him, hands still trembling. He's doesn't know what happened—it's all so tainted, like a painting splattered with tar, and suddenly all he can see is the blood staining the front of his shirt.

He feels sick.

Remus locks the door behind him, smearing scarlet streaks over the handle, and staggers to the sink. It's a one-room toilet, as it's only meant for the four Gryffindor second-years, and for that he's grateful. What if someone sees him like this? He can hear himself now, breathing in and out like he's about to be attacked; that must be why his hands keep shaking. He opens the cabinet with one hand.

He wonders if it's going to scar.

He put a container of bandages under the sink a few months ago—where are they? Merlin, what if one of the other boys found them? How would he explain why he needed them? How would he explain the blood fingerprints around the container's edge? There's blood, so much of it that he wants to cry. Whenever this happened at home, his mum was always there to soothe him, to bandage his wounds and tell him everything was gonna be okay, but now he's all alone and there's blood all over the floor now. How much blood…

He wakes up on the ground, and there's noise at the door. "Hey! Open the door!" The doorknob rattles. "Remus? Hey! Open up!" His head aches—did he fall, too? The blood seems to have slowed, clotting behind his shirt, but it hurts so much. How did he get here?

There's another voice, and he recognizes it as James. "Remus! C'mon! Don't make me kick it down!"

Peter's voice. "I don't think you can." They must've heard him fall.

"Yeah? 'Course I can." A thump against the door, and a curse. "Remus!"

"C'mon, answer us," says Peter. "Are you okay?

"I'm fine," he croaks back, His voice sways inside of his still-dizzy head, so his answer only worries them further. He hisses in pain.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Yeah, where were you?"

"You've been gone for ages, Remus, just tell us what's going on!"

He swallows. "No-nothing! I just w-went to go vis—um, visit my ma, I told you—I just came back, and—and I fell, I-I didn't mean to—"

"At four in the morning?" asks Peter.

"Yeah!" James asserts. "Why were you out so late! It's Monday, Remus! You missed class—"

"I-I—" he tries; the words scramble inside of him, scattering over empty space. "I didn't mean to, I just—just fell asleep, the train conductor wouldn't—um—didn't wake me up—I was on my way back, I promise! Please, I promise—" It hurts so, so bad, and as he tries to get up, violet spots his vision, and he hits the ground again, letting out a moan of pain.

"Remus—"

"Are you okay?"

"What happened?"

"Nothing, nothing!" he says, frantic now, shaking his head, but the pain is worsening with all of his talking. "I promise—it's nothing—I-I-I just fell—I'm okay—please, go b-back to bed, I'm fine!" Half-crawling with one arm over his stomach and one holding him up, he manages to keep quiet this time as he gets up, to find the bandages again, but as he does so, he knocks over several bottled potions, one of which shatters upon impact, and their shouting gets louder. "Remus, seriously, open the door!"

"I'm fine!" he shouts back. "Leave m-me alone! I'm fine!" He tries to unbutton his shirt but it's so hard, and he ends up tearing it a little in his struggle, so he just pulls it up to remove the cloth there. It's horrifying and disgusting, his own claw marks swollen and welling with blood, slimy and wet and this is too much—

"I know you're lying—where were

you?" James asks.

He tries to wrap the bandages around his stomach but his arms won't let him twist that far— "What's happening? Are you hurt?"

"Remus, we went to the station to wait for you—you weren't there!"

"Let us in, or we're getting a prefect!" Peter demands.

"Stop lying! Tell us what happened! Why didn't you—"

"I'm not lying!" he screams, and all of his sudden he's sobbing, tears sliding down his ugly face, half-choking on his tears. "Go a-away!"

The voices fall quiet, so quiet that his crying becomes the only sound anyone can hear. "James?" whispers Peter, and Remus ignores them all. He has his wand on him, but he's only a second year, os he doesn't know all of those fancy healing spells. What if he dies like this: curled up by the sink like a baby, bleeding from his own wounds, shaking like a coward? He cries harder.

"Go get Sirius," says James. "He'll know what to do."

Remus hiccups; he can't do this. He couldn't get the bandages and now there's more blood, so he just lays down on the white tile, back against the wall, curling up to protect the worst of his wounds. Maybe they'll all go away. He wishes it was over already—he wishes that this had never happened, that they had never heard him fall, that had never asked so many questions. He hiccuped again, sniffling, sinking back into his head. It was safer there, warmer, nothing like the cold hurt of reality. It's all too much—the blood, the pain, the thought of discovery…

"Remus?"

It's Sirius.

'I, uh, heard you got yourself in a bit of a situation here—what'd you do, rob Gringotts?" He clears his throat, and his voice takes on that mischievous edge. "If y'did, mate, we can help you out. Bury the money and all that. Well, James'd probably spend it all on chocolate frog cards, that greedy bastard, but…"

Remus smiles.

"...I'm sure you'd put the money to good use—buy a whole new section for the library, right? You'd buy twenty brand-new copies of 'Hogwarts, A History,' yeah?"

He laughs a little through his tears. "Yeah," he says, a little shaky.

"Yeah, that's right." He pauses. "Thing is, only way I can really give you advice on that money is if you let me in, mate. Wanna unlock the door? I won't even let those other morons in. It'll just be me. Only me."

He closes his eyes. What will happen once Sirius knows? Will he tell their other friends? Of course, once they know they'll want him kicked out of their dormitory, and then he won't have any friends at all. Who will want him after they know what a monster he is?

A sob escapes him. But he needs help.

"Remus?"

He crawls over to the door and turns the knob before backing away again. Sirius is the only one who enters, and he does so gingerly, like he's expecting there to be corpses littering the floor. When his blue eyes fall on Remus, he softens. Remus loves those eyes. "You are definitely not fine," he says first, eyes falling to his bloodied shirt.

Remus watches him with glazed eyes. He doesn't know what to expect: disgust, horror, sympathy?

All Sirius does is give him that little half-smile and kneel beside him to start unbuttoning his shirt. "I guess we'd better see how bad it is, yeah? Don't wanna be waking up the whole hospital wing for a papercut." He helps him sit up, pulling the sleeves off of Remus' arms. The scars never seem to end; Remus hates them. "Sorry it took me so long to get here, mate—fell asleep in the common room again. Stupid, right?"

Remus nods.

He hisses in surprise. "That's a big papercut, Remus; how many books did you read?"

His jokes are so stupid. Any other day, Remus might've scoffed and rolled his eyes at his friend, but right now he just starts crying again. "I-I-I…"

Sirius is already done winding a bandage around his waist and is applying salve to its edges before Remus can even gather up the courage to explain why. "Bet I could snag a Blood-Replenishing Potion from the girls' dorms, whaddaya think? At least a Pain-Reducing one for sure."

"Could someone please tell me what's going on?" shouts James from the other side of the door.

"Shut up, you impatient prick!" Sirius shouts back. "You and Peter go steal some potions from the girls!"

"I did it last time!"

"Too bad! Go!"

James grumbles in protest. As the footsteps recede, Remus stares emptily at the fresh bandages around his torso. "Don't you" —he's so quiet that the silence swallows him— "wanna know what happened?"

Sirius smiles at him, and Remus wants to cry again. "I already know, mate."

"Wh-what?"

"You can't leave your best friends" —best, Remus echoes— "once a month coming back with dog scratches without someone connecting the dots. I know what a werewolf looks like, mate."

"Do—d-do they know?"

Sirius scoffs. "Nah. I don't think they'd know a werewolf if one came and bit them on the arse. And I wasn't about to tell them—not if you weren't ready."

Remus slumps back. The pain's a lot, but it's easier not to think about it when Sirius is near. "Do you want me to leave now?"

"What? Why?"

"Now that...you know."

He smiles. "We're the Marauders, remember? You, me, James, Peter… That means we stick together, mate. Nah, mate. You're one of us. Just 'cause you've got some badass scars" –Remus ducks his head— "doesn't mean you don't belong with us. 'Cause you do. You belong."

There's knocking at the door. "We got 'em! Can we come in now?"

Sirius adds, "No matter how many potions we gotta steal for you."

Remus sniffles. "I-I guess you can let them in."

Sirius beams. "Okay."

He wipes at his eyes and the scratches on the back of his hand sting from his tears.

"Don't worry, Remus," Sirius assures him. "They won't judge you, I promise. We're your friends. You belong with us."

Remus smiles. I belong, he thinks to himself, and his fear starts to dissipate. I belong.

[1758 words]

Journalism: Task #1: Write about someone unsuccessfully hiding the truth about something.

Writing Club

Writing Month MAY [1758]

Mini Golf Mania - (only Gryffindor Characters) - Hole 1

Choose a Side - Jedi (color) blue

International Workers Day - Rosa Luxemburg [era] Marauders - Teacher [character] Remus Lupin

Game of Life - Career - (era) Marauders

Murder Mystery May - (character) Remus Lupin

Days of the Year - April 4th - Tell a Lie Day: Write about someone getting caught out in a lie

Spring Themed Prompts - (word) fresh

Color prompts 6 - scarlet

Tarot Cards - (theme) belonging

Geek Pride - Merlin - Write about someone having to hide something.

Are You Crazy - 227 - Hurt/Comfort