Chapter Text
It was cold in the basement of Malfoy Manor.
Draco hunched in the corner, hugging his knees to his chest. It had only been an hour, but the shackles around his wrists and ankles had already rubbed his skin raw. The scent of blood was sure to drive him mad once the change came over him.
Already, day was turning to night. Draco could just see the long, looming twilight shadows through the barred window high up on the stone wall. The sky was the color of velvet. Draco craned his neck as he studied the stars, scattered like crushed diamonds through the sky, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of the constellation that was his namesake. Draco for dragon—a strong name, a name worthy of the Malfoy family.
Draco did not deserve his name.
He buried his head in his knees. Soon, the moon would rise, and the hunger would take hold. It would show him just how unworthy he was.
It had been months since Voldemort had ordered Draco punished, since he had sent Fenrir Greyback to teach the Malfoys a lesson. But no matter how much time passed, Draco would always remember the pain: the feeling of fangs sinking into the flesh of his forearm, claws cleaving apart the skin of his chest and back, jaws sinking into the sensitive base of his throat.
Fenrir Greyback was a messy eater.
When he had come to school even paler than usual, when he started wearing long sleeves even in summer, everyone had thought he was hiding the Dark Mark.
They thought wrong.
Draco leaned his head back against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes. How could he complain? He had brought this upon himself. Wasn’t it as much as he deserved?
The change started small. At first, it was just an uncomfortable itch along his arms and legs. He scratched absently, staring out the small, high window as starlight trickled in. The moon had just started to rise.
The itching got worse, and Draco scratched harder, only stopping when he felt something warm and wet underneath his fingers. He looked down.
His arms were covered in deep gauges, weeping crimson where his nails had cut into his skin. No—not nails, not anymore. His fingers had sharpened into claws , tipped with razor edges that rent flesh like a hot knife cut through butter. The cuts would hurt in the morning, but for now, Draco only felt the itching. He snarled and kept scratching.
As the moon rose higher in the sky, white fur sprouted from Draco’s skin, and he cut his tongue on the fangs that had started to grow in his mouth.
Draco hated this part—the in-between. When he was beast enough for the urges to slam into him with the force of a freight train, but still man enough to know what was happening. He hunched his shoulders, trying to block it out: the voice in his head telling him to hunt, chase, kill . There was nobody here, nothing that he could hurt—but the blood matted in his thick white fur was starting to smell awfully appealing.
Snap . Draco cried out as the first of his bones broke, and his scream sounded too much like a howl. Agony coursed through him, white-hot and burning, like liquid fire in his veins.
His frame twisted, turning into something alien, something other. Every time, he watched the moon rise and prepared for what was about to come. Every time, he thought he was ready. And every time, he was wrong.
Because this pain was unbearable.
Draco’s shoulders popped out of their sockets, his elbows bent backwards. There was a terrible stretching in his back, like his spine was growing longer, like his vertebrae were being pulled apart. The delicate bones in his hands and feet shattered, reforming before his eyes into paws—
It wasn’t long before he couldn’t even scream. As his face morphed, as teeth sprouted from his growing snout, Draco turned his face toward the moon and howled.
There was no reply. Draco fell to the ground, panting, writhing as his broken body tried to put itself back together again.
And as his joints snapped, as his bones broke and reformed, Draco was completely and utterly alone.
***
The lock clicked. A second later, the door swung open, and Sirius stepped inside.
Remus looked up, the corner of his lips kicking up into a wry smile. “You’re late.”
“I’m always late.” Sirius’s eyes darted over Remus’s hunched form. “Why are you chained up?”
Remus’s throat worked. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You never hurt me before.”
“James and Peter were there before.”
Sirius padded across the floor and dropped into a crouch in front of his friend. Remus’s face was covered with even more scars now than it had been twelve years ago. He reached out, brushing a finger over the newest of them—a freshly healed gash on Remus’s cheek, still the fresh pink color of a recent injury. Sirius might’ve been imagining it, but it felt like Remus leaned into the touch. “I’m not going to leave you this time. You had to bear it alone for twelve years, but not anymore.”
“But what if I—”
“Stop.” Sirius shook his head. “I’m going to be fine, and so are you. Now stop being such a git and let me help you.”
Remus snorted. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a rotten job of it.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel better, I’m just telling you how it’s going to be.” Sirius shifted his body so that he was sitting next to Remus, their shoulders barely brushing as Sirius leaned against the wall.
Remus let out a long, trembling breath. He was frightened—of the pain, or of hurting his friend, Sirius didn’t know, but it made his heart ache all the same. How many times had Remus done this all alone? How many times had he shackled himself to the wall and bore the pain quietly? Sirius should’ve been there.
The full moon was the worst night for Sirius to bear in Azkaban. The dementors tormented him, forced him to think of all the pain his friend was bearing. They filled his mind with the sound of Remus’s screams, and when he closed his eyes, all he saw was Remus’s petrified face looking back at him.
Sirius, please. Help me.
And the fear on Remus’s face now… it brought him back to that place of dark and shadow, where he couldn’t remember the sight of Remus’s smile or the sound of his laugh. Where he could only remember the screams.
“The change is going to start soon,” Remus said. “If you’re going to stay, you should at least transform.”
“I will,” Sirius said. “But not yet.”
“Sirius—”
“For God’s sake, Remus, I’ll be fine,” Sirius growled. “Stop being such a mother hen.”
Remus laughed tiredly, resting his head against his friend’s shoulder. Sirius froze, afraid that if he moved wrong, if he so much as breathed too deeply, Remus would pull away—and Sirius wouldn’t be able to bear it if Remus pulled away. “I missed you, Sirius.”
Sirius’s fingers brushed against Remus’s. “I know you did, you old sap. How in the world did you last twelve years without me?”
“They were the worst twelve years of my life,” Remus said, voice hardly above a whisper. He shifted where his head rested on Sirius’s shoulder, and he started to scratch at the pale, scarred skin of his forearms.
Sirius grabbed Remus’s hands and pulled them away, tangling their fingers together. “Stop that.”
“I can’t. It itches—”
“I know, but you’re only going to make yourself bleed.” Sirius ran his thumb back and forth over the back of his friend’s hand.
Remus buried his face in the silken mass of Sirius’s hair as a shudder rocked through his body. “Don’t leave me.”
Sirius’s eyes fluttered closed. “I’m not going to leave you, Remus.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Another shudder coursed through Remus’s frame. He was several inches taller than Sirius, but he had never looked smaller than he did right now, tucked against Sirius’s side. “You need to transform. If you’re human when I turn, I won’t be able to control myself.”
“I will, but not just yet.”
“Sirius—”
“Shh. You’ve got nothing to worry about, Remus.”
Claws started to burst through the tips of Remus’s fingers, and he gasped, his breathing shallower than it had been just minutes before. Sirius pulled Remus more fully into his arms, cradling him as the fit worsened, as fur started to sprout over Remus’s face. He rocked Remus back and forth as he whimpered.
“Sirius, please,” Remus panted through a mouthful of fangs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Remus’s back arched. Sirius felt something snap underneath his hands, felt bone shifting and rearranging. Bile rose in his throat. The change hadn’t been so bad when James and Peter were here, but it was different this time. It was worse. The pain… it had to be unimaginable.
Gently, Sirius lowered Remus’s writhing body to the floor. “Shh, Remus. You’re almost there.”
A ragged scream tore from Remus’s throat. It took everything Sirius had not to pull Remus back into his arms, to soothe him and rock him and tell him everything would be okay. But he had waited too long already.
For Sirius, the shift was easy. One minute he was a man, and the next he was a giant black dog, almost as big as Remus’s wolf. But for Remus, the pain wasn’t over yet. He howled, clawing at himself with hands that were slowly morphing into paws, blood soaking his sandy-blond fur.
There was nothing Sirius could do now. He rested his head on his paws and waited.
After what seemed like hours, the shift was complete. A giant wolf lay in the middle of the floor, panting, eyes dull with pain. Sirius stood and trotted to the front of the wolf, then started to lick his wounds clean. When it was done, he curled up next to Remus, and when their eyes met, he saw something in his friend’s gaze. Something like gratitude.
Remus’s joints snapped. His bones broke and reformed. But for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t alone.