The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

The Dementor

TRIGGER WARNING: depression & self harm. The specific paragraph is bolded below to help readers avoid this section.

"Pomfrey's gonna skin you if she finds you in here," Remus murmured when he felt the weight of Sirius come up onto the bed beside him.

"How'd you know it was me?" came his voice from the air behind Rey. It was deeper than usual, more throaty, and Remus could tell from it that Sirius had either been crying or, at very least, trying extremely hard not to.

Remus's laugh was soft - a chuckle, really. He smiled, "Are there many invisible people in the castle? I've never seen any.."

"Well you wouldn't, would you? They'd be invisible."

"Touche." Remus said with a grin.

Sirius chuckled.

Remus felt Sirius shift until he was pressed against Remus, leaning over his torso so to be looking into his face and he reached up and gently pushed the invisibility cloak back to see Sirius's face and he smiled, "There you are... Hullo."

"Hi," Sirius answered.

Remus could see in his eye something was wrong. He stared into Sirius's eyes, getting lost in the grey. "What happened at patronus class?" he asked.

"Just - you know ... learned some... James worried about Evans as usual... some kids said some stuff so I hexed Mulciber... my brother was there."

Remus asked, "What's Mulciber saying?"

Sirius kissed his chin, "Nothing, Moonshine, that's the point for the jinx. I lang-loncked him." He smirked.

Remus laughed. "Well what'd he say before you lang-locked him?"

"Just some rubbish he ought not've done," Sirius replied with a shrug. Then, "You've done a load of research about the patroni, yeah?"

"Some, I dunno about a load, I mean there was one book and a few smaller bits in a couple other books, but --"

"Can people control what their patronus is?" Sirius asked.

Remus mused, "Well. Yes and no. Not consciously. I've discovered that the word Patronus stems from the same word we get patron from... Pater, latin for father or protector or defender. The shape of our patronus represents someone or something that one recognize as our protectors or defenders. Said in the book if someone feels unprotected or unsafe, they might not be able to produce a patronus, or at least not a corporeal one. Said the shapes can change if our views of who our protectors are change. The example the book used was a girl might have a patronus that represents her mother or father when she is young, but it may change to her husband when she's older, that sort of thing."

Siris asked, "Well what if someone wanted you to think they thought a certain person meant something to them? What then? What if there was a reason they wanted to fake it? Is there a way to cast a fake patronus?"

"Sirius, what's going on? Why don't we just talk about this straight instead of in riddles?"

Sirius sighed and he rolled off Remus's chest and laid next to him, half on the bed, half off, staring up at the ceiling. He sniffled and reached up to rub his eyes, the invisibility cloak having mostly fallen off him so that most of his upper half showed now. "He had Snuffles, Rey."

There was only one person that could mean. Regulus. Remus studied Sirius's face for a moment, then he asked, "Does Regulus know about Snuffles? I know he knows I'm a werewolf but does he know about the animagi?"