About Werewolves
Peter squeezed gingerly through the half-open door of the darkened potting shed and jumped when Sirius grabbed his wrist, tugging him in among a row of pots that clattered alarmingly.
Peter shook himself free and accidentally-on-purpose elbowed Sirius in the ribs.
"Oww!"
"Hush," Peter said, a little smugly.
"All right," James said. He'd somehow moved into a dim crack of light so that he was all the other two could see. Peter wondered how he did it. "What do we know about werewolves?"
That Remus is one , Peter thought. That we've been sleeping in the same room with him and he's not even human . That might not bother Sirius, who was used to house-elves, and might sneer if Peter pointed it out. He would wait to see what James said, he decided. That was safest.
"Turn into wolves at the full moon and eat people. Not good," Sirius said.
"They're dark creatures," Peter said.
"What does that actually mean , though?" Sirius asked.
"They're evil," Peter said.
Sirius looked skeptical. "You get bitten and it turns you evil ? That's weird."
"It's true, though."
"Remus doesn't act evil," James said.
"Well, we might not notice." That seemed more likely to Peter than all the books being wrong, although he could tell that James and Sirius were sure they knew better.
"I expect if he were doing dark magic or poisoning people or cutting up cats, we'd notice," Sirius said.
"I don't think werewolves do that stuff," James said. "I think they just bite people."
"Has anybody been bitten by Remus, then?"
"Not that I know of," Peter said. "But ..."
"Have any students actually been eaten? And don't say 'not that I know of,' because we'd know."
"No," Peter said grudgingly.
"But we do think he's a werewolf, don't we?" James asked.
There was a pause. Peter knew he did. James had shown them the calendar with all the dates marked. He'd looked at it and remembered the marks he'd seen once when Remus had been re-bandaging his arm after Herbology, the deep scores up his arm and the fainter white lines of older, better-healed scars.
He'd had nightmares after that, ugly scars on his own arms, his hands curving into claws. Once after a bad dream he'd heard the faint hoarse sound of Remus's breathing from the next bed; it sounded like he was struggling not to cry. He had wanted to get up and go over to the bed, but he'd remembered those scars and hesitated, and after a while he'd thought Remus was probably asleep again, and anyway he didn't know what to say.
"Yes," Sirius said finally. "He's a werewolf. So who's going to tell him?"
"Tell him what?" James asked, thrown off his stride for the first time.
"That we know, and that we don't care."
Peter looked at James. "Don't we?"
"Don't be stupid," Sirius said. "Of course we don't."
Just like Sirius , Peter thought sourly; he always thinks he can avoid all the difficult questions.