Painted Scars // WOLFSTAR

Year One: Professor Binns

For the next few weeks, Sirius couldn't find anything at all.

He'd looked in just about every book about scars he could find, but nothing was right. Nothing that explained the mysterious late-night disappearances, the steady increase in the number of scars on Remus' body, or even anything that warranted all the secrecy. As expected, Sirius was getting increasingly frustrated that his search was coming up empty. That was, until Professor Binns sparked an idea in his head.

"Of course, magical beasts are none to be trifled with," the professor said in his tedious drawl, floating about. "Even beasts that don't seem threatening at all could be fatal if it were to come to it." History of Magic was by far one of Sirius' least favorite classes. The teacher was boring, the books were long, and the homework was hard. So the fact that he'd caught onto any of the words being said was a miracle. "An example of a seemingly non-threatening beast you may encounter would be a centaur. Can anyone tell me what a centaur is? Yes, Mrs. McKinnon."

"A half-man, half-horse," she explained. "There are supposed to be some in the Forbidden Forest."

"Yes, indeed. Now, centaurs are interesting creatures, because they are all very different. One centaur could be very noble, while another could rip you apart with his bare hands." He was seemingly very excited about the topic, (or as excited as that man could be,) and he had a rare glint in his eye. "I once came across an aggressive centaur, would anyone like to hear the story?"

The thing about Professor Binns was that he was a very kind man, soft-spoken and passionate, but he was much too quiet and too boring for Sirius to ever care to listen. But when he had a story, no one could resist listening in. He received a yes from the class.

"It was a very long time ago, over a hundred years maybe, when a young man in my class had dared me to venture into the Forbidden Forest for a couple of galleons. I was foolish enough to say yes." Sirius perked up, leaning on his arm. "After a few minutes of being in the forest, I'd believed that it wasn't really dangerous at all. But suddenly, a beast–a centaur–had appeared in front of me, and he was not the noble sort. I was lucky to have my wand with me, I'm not sure where I'd be without it. We got into a brawl, and I was able to escape, but not unscathed." He began to roll up the transparent sleeve of his shirt to reveal a crystalline arm with a large scar, much bigger than the one Remus received, seemingly from the claws of a beast. "Even in death, I couldn't rid myself of the scar."

And that's when it hit him.

He shouldn't be looking in books about scars, no. He should be looking in books about beasts! That's what it was, wasn't it? Some unknown creature that caused the continuous flow of scars, a beast that'd followed Remus to Hogwarts.

"Enough of that, though. Can anyone tell me the origins of The Centaur?" Sirius was no longer paying any attention to the professor. Instead, he was bouncing in his chair, much too antsy to listen to the actual History of Magic.

"Do you have to pee, mate?" Peter said a few minutes later when his leg was bouncing in urgency. He replied yes, instantly jetting out of his seat when class was finished.

"I gotta piss, don't wait up," he said to the others, using Pete's excuse in an attempt to get to the library. Class had felt much longer today.

"Hang on, I'm going to watch Gryffindor practice, did you want to come with me?" James asked, grabbing his arm and slinging his bag over his shoulder.

"Yeah, whatever, maybe later, but I really gotta go." With that, Sirius pulled himself from James' grip and ran out the door. He was getting a bit tired of the whole library visiting routine, but he actually had hope in this idea; but what could it be? Remus didn't seem the type to get in brawls with centaurs, especially not frequently, so it had to be something else.