Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Transformations

Remus cracked open an eye and rolled over onto his back. As soon as he did that, however, he regretted it. His back screamed in pain at the movement, and the sticks and twigs underneath him on the forest floor didn't exactly help matters; they prodded into his bare skin, each like a pinprick. Throwing his head back and opening his mouth in a silent scream, Remus squeezed his eyes shut against the early morning sunlight and tried desperately to remember what had happened last night.

He remembered walking back from the Shrieking Shack with Sirius, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Snape, and Peter. When they were about halfway there, the moon had appeared from behind some clouds and…then everything went blank. Remus thought he could recall some flashes of Padfoot keeping him away from the children, but he wondered how much of that was simply wishful thinking.

Shaking his head, he tried to force his mind back to safer topics. Sirius was innocent. Things had happened so quickly last night, he'd barely had time to register it or to get used to the idea. All those years that he had spent hating Sirius, because Remus thought him responsible for killing James, Lily, and Peter - none of it had been true. He had been wrong.

Remus wondered where Sirius was now. So much still had been left unsaid last night, and he felt like they needed some time together to finish sorting things out. Merlin, Remus hoped that they had gotten Peter to the castle and were able to prove Sirius's innocence. If Remus's foolishness in forgetting to take his potion ruined that in any way, he'd never forgive himself.

Just then, Remus noticed a warm wetness under his back. As the seconds passed, it seemed to grow, and without even looking, he knew he was bleeding. Maybe he should worry about getting himself back to the castle and getting himself taken care of before he spent the entire morning lying in the woods hoping that he hadn't mucked things up too much.

Remus turned his head to his left, in the direction of the castle. He was quite a distance in the forest, and through the trees, he could just make out Hogwarts, quite small and very far away. Remus groaned. There was no way in hell he'd be able to make it all the way back there on his own, and he certainly wasn't keen on the idea of any of the students seeing their naked teacher walking out of the forest.

Remus started looking around the forest floor in the hopes that he'd see some of his clothes lying nearby. But he knew he wouldn't. He had transformed much closer to Hogwarts, and he'd gotten much too far into the forest to be anywhere near them. However, he couldn't very well lie there all day, hoping that someone might come for him. As of right now, he was on his own.

Sucking in a harsh breath, Remus rolled over onto his side once more and slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, using his hands for support. His back screamed in pain and his head got swimmy, so he paused and closed his eyes for a moment. When the dizzy sensation passed, he looked behind him, at the spot where he had been laying, but then he wished he hadn't. A rather large pool of blood had spread out underneath him, red against the green of the grass like some sort of sadistic Christmas, and the sight of it made his head feel fuzzy again. Then he thought he felt more warm blood trickling down his back to drip onto the ground. Clenching his teeth, Remus willed himself to stay awake. He looked around for any sort of cloth he could use to cover himself, or even for something that he could press to his bleeding wound, but he found nothing.

All of a sudden, everything seemed to be growing darker. It was almost like night was falling, but it wasn't. It was Remus's vision, getting darker from the edges with each passing second, almost like it was closing in on him. He tried to cling to consciousness, but then he started seeing little dots of blackness flashing before him, making everything darker yet and clouding what little he could see.

Remus clenched his fingers into the grass beneath him, clinging to it, as if it might help him to remain lucid. But he was losing a fighting battle. He knew he'd lost too much blood and was still too weak from the transformation. As his eyes rolled back in his head, he silently prayed that someone would find him.

"Good lord, Moony, you sure do pick the spots."

Remus's mind slowly swam to the surface of consciousness. He wasn't entirely sure if he was really hearing Sirius, or if his pain and blood loss were making him delusional. Remus opened his eyes again, but the world seemed to be tilting at odd angles like a seesaw. He caught a brief glimpse of a black head of hair just before he squeezed his eyes shut again against the sickening movement.

"P-Padfoot?"

"For once in your life, just be quiet for a moment, would you?"

"M' quiet. You're the loud one. 'Member?"

"Yeah well, let's keep it that way. You need to save your strength."

About a million questions were flying through Remus's head. He wanted to ask if the kids were all right, and what had happened to Peter, but he realized that Sirius was right. He didn't feel like he had the energy to voice them right now, and he'd do well to save the little he had. At least until he got back up to the castle, or at least until he was more coherent. There would be time for questions later.

He could feel Sirius moving around him, pressing against his various bruises. It didn't even occur to Remus to be embarrassed about his current state of undress. He had been naked around Sirius so many times after various transformations, and even their twelve year separation hadn't been able to destroy the ease that they had around each other. It was reassuring to Remus; somewhere in the back of his mind, he held on to the hope that they could one day be as close as they used to be.

It was then that Remus realized how cold he was. Early morning dew was littered all over the forest floor, clinging to his skin and drawing out goose bumps. He shivered.

"Sorry," Sirius said. Remus heard some rustling before he was covered with something warm and soft. It felt familiar, like one of Remus's own robes. "I was trying to see where the damage was."

"'S bad?"

"No," Sirius said reassuringly. "You lost a little blood, and you're bruised up quite a bit, but it's not bad." He gently placed his hands under Remus's right arm and back and said, "Here, turn over."

Remus didn't exactly want to move, because he knew it would hurt like hell, but Sirius kept pushing at him softly. Gritting his teeth, Remus squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly and rolled over onto his left shoulder. He gripped the damp grass with one hand, as if it might help to absorb some of his pain.

Remus felt a draft on his back as Sirius moved aside the robe that was covering him. A moment later, Sirius was wiping at his back with a cloth, cleaning up the blood. Then Sirius pressed something small and warm against the small of his back where it must have been bleeding. Remus hissed in a breath.

"Sorry," Sirius apologized. He adjusted the cloth that he had placed against Remus's skin, and the pain began to subside. "Better?"

Remus nodded.

"That would be my fault," Sirius said apologetically. "Threw you into a tree."

"The kids. Did I-?" Remus got out, hoping that Sirius would understand what he was trying to say. He didn't have the energy for every word, but Sirius knew what he meant. Sirius always knew.

"No, they're fine," Sirius said firmly. "You didn't hurt anyone."

"Then - don't care," Remus whispered. "Not if you chucked me off - cliff."

"I could never do that. I'd miss you too much."

"After twelve years?"

"Always, Moony."

Remus heard the sound of fabric tearing behind him, but he didn't look for the source, nor did he ask what it was; he didn't have the strength.

Sirius then moved aside the rest of the robe that was covering Remus, causing the werewolf to gasp at the cool air against his skin. "Sorry," Sirius apologized again. He reached around Remus next, pulling what Remus realized was a torn strip of material around his middle. Sirius tried his best to wedge it under Remus's waist without jostling him too much, and successfully tied the ends together.

"That should stop the bleeding," Sirius said, pulling the robe back over Remus's shivering form, "but you're going to have one hell of a bruise there."

Remus shook his head, still not caring whether he was completely broken or not, just as long as he hadn't hurt anyone in the wake of his transformation.

"The rest is all just shallow cuts and bruises," Sirius said, surveying Remus once more.

"M'hand's killing me," Remus muttered.

"Which one?"

"Right."

Sirius stood up, coming around to Remus's front. As soon as he took one look at Remus's hands, he said, "Well, if you would stop clinging onto the grass for dear life, maybe it wouldn't hurt as much."

Remus immediately felt a blush creeping up in his cheeks. He hadn't even realized that he still had his hands desperately clenched to the green blades, trying to find some - any - relief from the pain he was in. At first, he was scared to release them, as if that might make the pain come back twice as worse. Remus clenched his teeth instead, opening his fingers and letting the grass go. When his pain level remained the same, he opening his mouth and released a gentle breath. He started to relax a little more, and the swimmy feeling in his head even began to subside a bit.

Sirius reached out for Remus's right hand, opening his fingers even more and inspecting the damage. "Okay," Sirius said, sounding slightly embarrassed, "so I lied."

Remus simply looked up at his best friend through narrowed eyes.

"That would be my fault, too. I bit you," Sirius admitted sheepishly. "It's not bad, but I imagine it hurts like a bitch."

"Understatement."

"Sorry."

Remus could only shake his head in response. Once again, he couldn't care less what Sirius did to him, just as long as he had kept everyone else safe.

Sirius sat down cross-legged, and he began ripping at the bottom hem of one his trouser legs. When Remus looked up at him questioningly, Sirius explained, "I don't exactly have a first aid kid out here, mate, or a wand. Have to make due with what's available."

Through the haze of his pain, Remus still felt deeply confused. He was wondering why Sirius didn't just take him back up to the castle and let them deal with it. Now that Sirius had slowed the bleeding for his worst wound, whatever else was bothering Remus could wait until he got back to Hogwarts. "Why?" Remus asked, hoping that that would be enough for Sirius.

When Sirius finished tearing off about a two inch strip from his pants, he went to work wrapping it around Remus's bloody hand. Sirius sighed heavily and said, "I can't exactly take you back to the castle myself. I'll have to send up sparks or something and wait for someone else to find you. I want to make sure you're stable enough to wait that long." When Sirius finished tying the makeshift bandage around Remus's hand, he asked, "Anything else I should look at?"

Remus shook his head, his pain mostly forgotten in his confusion. Nothing made any sense to him. "But…why?" Now it wasn't his pain that was keeping him from forming a full question, but his own puzzlement. Every question that Remus had wanted to ask seemed like it was trying to push its way out of his mouth, and they all got jammed up there, so nothing came out.

There was a tree nearby, so Sirius moved to sit in front of it, leaning his back up against the trunk. He watched Remus for a long time, not wanting to tell him the truth. Not wanting Remus to think that any of this was his fault. Finally, after what felt like forever, Sirius closed his eyes and admitted, "Peter got away."

The silence that stretched between them this time was even longer than the previous one. Things were starting to make sense to Remus, but he almost didn't want to acknowledge it. "You're still wanted."

Sirius put up his eyebrows. It was the expression that Sirius used when he wanted to pretend that he didn't care about something, although Remus knew he did. "I've been wanted for twelve years," Sirius said nonchalantly, "so what's a few more?"

"When I transformed, wasn't it?"

"Moony-"

"Wasn't it?" Remus's own anger at himself was growing to push any pain he was feeling to the darkest recesses of his mind.

"Yes," Sirius replied, "but don't you dare-"

"Shite." Remus brought up his right hand, the one that Sirius had bandaged, and pressed it over his eyes. A tiny part of him hoped that that might make this horrid turn of events disappear, even though he knew it wouldn't. "I'm so sorry, Padfoot."

"-Blame yourself," Sirius finished. "This isn't your fault."

"Like hell it isn't."

"Moony, look at me." Sirius leaned forward, wrapping his fingers around the hand that Remus had over his eyes. He pulled it away gently, giving his best friend the most reassuring smile that he could. "I could never blame you, just like you could never blame me for what happened to James and Lily."

Remus opened his mouth to respond, but then he realized that there wasn't anything he could say that wouldn't make him sound like a hypocrite, so he shut it again.

Sirius looked amused, almost like he could read Remus's entire thought process. Sometimes, when they had been at school together, Remus often got the feeling that Sirius could in fact read his mind. He came to realize that it was just one of those things that developed between best friends, but it never ceased to amaze him nonetheless. The way that Sirius always seemed to know what he was thinking.

"I could have done a lot of things to prevent it, you know," Sirius mused, letting go of Remus's hand. "Like not going after Peter and getting myself arrested in the first place. That would have been a good thing."

Remus didn't really want to do this. He didn't want to sit here with Sirius for hours, talking about whose fault everything was. They both knew they were to blame for various things. Despite what Sirius had said, they had both made mistakes and could have done things better, or at least differently, but they really didn't need to beat the subject into the ground. "How about we just blame the rat instead for orchestrating all this rubbish in the first place?" Remus suggested.

Sirius pressed a couple fingers to his lips in thought. After several seconds, he shrugged. "I'm fine with that, I guess."

"What happened after I transformed?" Remus asked. So many things still didn't make sense to him. "If Peter got away…what about the Ministry and the dementors…?"

"It's a long story," Sirius said, squinting his eyes and scratching his head. "I don't even really understand a lot of it myself. After I chased you off into the woods, I ran after Peter, but the dementors surrounded me. Harry chased them off, but we both lost consciousness as a result. When I came to, I was locked in a tower in Hogwarts, awaiting the Dementor's Kiss."

Remus lifted his head up from the grass in shock, his pain all but completely forgotten. "How the hell did you get out of that?" he asked breathlessly.

"Harry," Sirius said proudly. "And Hermione. They rescued me from the tower on that hippogriff of Hagrid's."

"The one that was sentenced to die yesterday evening?"

"Yeah," Sirius replied, sounding just as bewildered as Remus. "Don't ask me where he came from, but they gave him to me to escape on." Sirius shook his head and shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Harry was up to some fancy footwork, because I doubt a lot of that was even humanly possible. I don't know, you'll have to ask him for his side of things, but suffice it to say, I'm sure James would have been proud."

Remus was silent for a long time, trying to process all of this, but then he realized something. "They gave you the hippogriff to escape on, and you're still here." He sounded only slightly accusing.

"I couldn't just leave you!" Sirius cried. "I knew you'd be waking up here in the woods in Merlin only knew what kind of shape. I didn't know if they'd send anyone out to look for you, but I had to make sure. Now I'm very glad I did."

"Me, too." It wasn't very often that Remus admitted that he needed help, but this time, it was quite obvious to the both of them. "I woke up a bit ago and tried to get up - I couldn't even do that. Right before I passed out again, I kept wondering if anyone would come after me. Little did I know it would be you."

Sirius smiled. "I'll always be here to come after you."

"How…did you even find me?"

"With a lot of help from Buckbeak," Sirius said. "The forest doesn't seem so big when you've got a hippogriff flying you over it."

"You need to be careful," Remus reminded. When Sirius frowned, he corrected, "Don't think I'm not grateful, because I am. If you hadn't come along when you did, I might just have stayed here until all my blood was spent on the forest floor."

"Moony-"

"But flying around the Hogwarts grounds on a hippogriff?" Remus cut him off. "For heaven's sake, Padfoot. That's hardly inconspicuous."

Sirius didn't say anything right away, but he just watched his best friend and the quiet indignation written on his face. "Well, it was for you, Moony. Where you're concerned, I'll risk going back to prison. I'll risk everything just as long as I know you're safe."

God, how Remus had missed that. He was never one to admit that he needed protection, but ever since he had first met Sirius as a scared eleven-year-old, that was precisely what Sirius had always been to him, even more so after he learned of Remus's lycanthropy. Just like with a lot of things, it was something that Remus didn't think he needed or would even miss until it was gone. But now it was back. He closed his eyes against the wave of emotions that threatened to consume him.

"Moony, what?"

"I just missed you is all," Remus whispered. "A lot."

The very corner of Sirius's lips twitched upwards. It was that self-satisfied smile he always used when he was particularly proud of himself. "I missed you, too, but…don't know if I believe that," Sirius said teasingly. "Once you found out I was a murderer, you were probably quite happy to see me go."

Remus frowned, considering this. "Maybe missing you wasn't the right way to put it. Well, I did, but…I guess I missed the you that I thought I knew."

"You do know me," Sirius said firmly. "Better than I think I even know myself sometimes."

Remus rolled over onto his back again, looking up at the canopy of trees overhead and at the sunlight that was peering through the leaves. He wasn't sure what Sirius had done, but the pain in Remus's back had faded to a dull throb. Sirius certainly didn't have any painkilling potions with him or anything, so Remus wondered if it was just the rightness of having his best friend back to help him through a transformation again.

"But if I had known you at all," Remus said wistfully, "I never would have believed you to be guilty."

"Nor would I," Sirius agreed. "I always prided myself on knowing you like no one else did. Especially when you put up all these walls around yourself and never let anyone in. But if I had known you at all, I never would have even entertained the idea of you being the spy."

They were doing it again. Falling into the trap of blaming themselves for everything that had happened. "I thought we agreed not to do this," Remus reminded. "That we would blame the rat instead for everything."

"And so we did," Sirius sighed. "I guess old habits die hard."

Remus shook his head, amused. "The proper expression would be 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks.'"

"That, too."

"REMUS!"

Both Sirius and Remus jumped at the shouts echoing through the woods. Sirius scrambled up onto his knees, peering around the tree trunk he had been leaning against. "They're coming to find you."

"You didn't send up sparks?" Remus asked, confused and slightly sad. It had been ages since he and Sirius had been able to talk like this, and he thought it was good for them to be able to do so. He wasn't quite ready for it to end yet. Remus felt fine now; the pain was nothing worse than what he endured every full moon, and he was hoping to spend at least a little more time with Sirius before he had to go.

"No," Sirius responded. "I was going to wait awhile, at least until we finished talking, but now…" Sirius bowed his head and turned around to face Remus. His face looked a little bit lost, probably a mirror image of Remus's own. "I have to go," Sirius said quietly.

The last thing Remus wanted was to endanger Sirius's freedom anymore than he already had, but he still wasn't ready to let go. He held out his left hand for Sirius to grab, a symbol of that want, which Sirius did. He wrapped his own left hand around Remus's so tightly, they'd probably lose feeling in their fingers if they stayed like that for a long period. Sirius then placed his right hand on Remus's head, pushing some of the stray brown and grey hairs out of his face.

"You'll be okay now," Sirius said firmly.

Remus wasn't entirely sure of that. Oh, he knew he'd be fine physically, thanks to Sirius, but emotionally was a whole different story altogether. He'd only gotten his best friend back, and now he had to say goodbye to him all over again.

"It's not goodbye, Moony," Sirius said, once again making Remus think he had read his mind. He moved his right hand from Remus's head and placed it on Remus's chest, over his heart. "Not really." Sirius smiled. "I told Harry the same thing just a few hours ago. The ones we love never really leave us, because you can always find them in here." He pressed down on Remus's chest gently. "Even when I was in Azkaban all those years, I don't think I left it, did I?"

"No," Remus gasped, his throat feeling tight, "never. You - the Sirius I always thought I knew - never left it."

Sirius gave Remus's hand one last squeeze. "I'll see you again soon. I promise." Without another word, Sirius let go and got to his feet, running for the shelter of the woods.

It was then that Remus noticed the robe that was covering him was very threadbare. It wasn't his own, however. It was pale and dark grey striped - Sirius's own prison robe. Remus hadn't even realized that Sirius was now only dressed in his trousers and shirt from Azkaban.

"Padfoot," Remus called. When Sirius stopped at the edge of the clearing and turned back to him, Remus held up a handful of the robe atop him. "This is yours."

"Keep it," Sirius said around a smile. "You need it more than I do."

Remus wasn't so sure about that. He'd be naked without it, of course, but that would only be until the others found him. Surely they had something with them, or else they could conjure something to cover him with until they got him back up to the castle. Sirius was on the run. He didn't have the luxury of getting another robe whenever he wanted, and Remus thought that he needed all he could get right now, especially protection from the elements. But he knew that Sirius wouldn't change his mind. Sirius would have given him the shirt off his back if he'd needed to.

"Thank you," was all Remus could say.

Sirius winked at him once before finally disappearing into the woods for the last time. Remus's right hand, the one that was bandaged, closed around the hem of the robe and the bandage itself, the only remaining signs that his best friend was back.

The end