What Sirius never said

Chapter 83

I heard the door open and close behind me and then the footsteps stopped.
"Shit, sorry" I heard a voice mutter behind me. My breath caught in my throat. That was Sirius's voice. I'd missed that voice. He sounded sad. I picked my bag up from the table and walked past him, trying not to look. 
"It's okay, you can have the room" I replied.
"Trudy" he said as I passed him.
I wasn't ready for this. I still didn't know what to say. I tried the door handle but it wouldn't work.
"Alohamora" I tried, pointing my wand at the lock. I could have sworn I heard the lock click but when I tried the door again it still wouldn't budge. A voice sounded from outside.
"We've barred it Trudy. It won't open. Short of blasting the door out the way, which I don't think you'll do for fear of breaking the school, you can't get out" was that James?
Another voice chimed in. "You guys need to talk. You're both miserable and you refuse to do anything about it."
"Andy?" I asked. Since when would Andy and James team up?
"Come one Tru. You need to talk to him" Andy said more quietly. "We won't let you out until you do."
I glanced back at Sirius behind me. He was watching me nervously, almost scared. He still held his school bag on his shoulder but he seemed so uncertain of what to do. I met his eyes, they looked so sad. All I wanted to do was make him smile again.
"Okay, let's talk" I said to him quietly. I moved back towards the front desk and gestured for him to follow. I wanted to be as far from the door as I could. I didn't want Andy and James overhearing this.
I put my bag down on the table and took a deep breath. I wasn't entirely sure what to say so I figured I would start at the beginning and cover the basic questions.
"Was I right? Are you an animagus?" Sirius nodded but didn't speak.
"When?"
"In our fifth year" he replied quietly.
"Who?"
"Me and James and Peter. Remus is..."
"I know about Remus" I interrupted. "How did you do it?"
"James and I worked it out. It's not that hard. And we... We helped Peter do it."
"Are you registered?" I asked. I was pretty sure they weren't. They hadn't been on it when I checked in our lessons last year. And I was right, Sirius shook his head.
"Why?" I asked. My voice cracked as I did so. I don't know why this one question meant so much to me. For some reason I had built it up in my head. If he could justify why he had done it, if he had a valid reason, then I could forgive him and we could move on. But if his reasons were selfish... Well, Andy was right. It would be better to find out sooner rather than later. I finally found the courage to look up at him. I met his eyes and my heart melted. I missed him.
Sirius took a deep breath, then started talking. "We worked out Remus's secret in our first year" he explained, starting at the beginning. "Every month he would disappear for a few days and it wasn't long before we worked it out. He kept asking to catch up on our school notes and soon James and I figured out he kept asking for our astronomy notes during the full moon. We worked it out and we kept his secret but there was nothing we could do to help him. We just had to sit and watch as he dreaded each month, as he withdrew into himself every four weeks. It wasn't right. So we promised ourselves we would find something to help. We researched werewolves religiously. Every full moon, when Remus went with Healer Simpkins, we would go to the library to read up on his condition. And then in our fourth year, Peter found a passage that said werewolves didn't react to animals. So some werewolves would have a pet because it was a companion they would keep with them during their transformation. It helped them keep more of themselves. We considered getting him a pet, we really did, but then we thought, what if we became animals. So... So that's what we did. I remember the first time we all transformed together. We made it to his secret hideout in our animal forms. That took some working out. I went out first. I figured James and Peter had people who loved them but if something went wrong, well... I'd either no longer be a disappointment to my parents or I would go live with Remus. I clambered out of the trap door, as well as you can when you've got four legs. I remember seeing him for the first time. This great wolf. He had been biting his own leg Tru! It was heart breaking. The house around him was completely destroyed. Furniture ripped to shreds so he was biting himself. And he turned around and he saw me. His eyes were black, there was no Remus there but then I barked and it was like... It was like he came back. You have no idea what that was like, to have your best friend come back from being a monster. And when he came back to school afterwards.... I've never seen him so happy Tru. He wasn't the hollow shadow of his usual self, he was happy and confident. We couldn't not go and visit him every month after that and... Well we got excited about all the possibilities. And bored of being in that house. So we... We decided to venture further and push the boundaries and we never really stopped to think about what we were doing because we were having so much fun doing it all together." He hung his head. But I couldn't be mad at him. I was about to speak but he interrupted me. "When things started getting serious with us, I couldn't tell you because I had sworn not to tell anyone about Remus and... He was kind of pivotal to the whole plan. I'm sorry I didn't tell you but we all swore not to tell a soul his secret and..."
"I wasn't even going to ask that" I told him. "I just.... Why didn't you fight for us Sirius?" I was watching his face and his mouth fell open. "When we got together you promised me that if anything happened, you would fight for us."
"This was me fighting for us Trudy" he took a step towards me. "I was giving you space to process your thoughts. I wasn't going to let this end without talking to you but... I was ashamed. I felt awful for what I had done, for what you pointed out. I've been trying to get my own thoughts in order before I talked to you because you had a very valid point and I felt like shit about it. I never stopped loving you Tru, I never stopped fighting for you. Did you really believe I had?" He took another step towards me.
"I didn't know Sirius" I squeaked out. It was my turn to feel a bit ashamed this time. "You didn't say anything. I thought you were mad at me for getting involved. I thought I had been a kill joy and ruined your" Sirius cut me off by kissing me fiercly.
I let him. I did not have the strength to refuse and to be honest, I didn't want to. I had forgiven him and I just wanted us to be back to normal. He tried to pull away but I pulled him closer instead. He chuckled against my lips. Eventually I did let go.
"So we're okay then?" He asked me, scratching the back of his neck with his nerves. I nodded and bit my lip. "We're okay" I grinned. He kissed me again.
A few minutes later we picked up our bags and headed towards the door. "Next time, can we just talk about things from the get go?" Sirius asked. "I didn't like not talking to you and I didn't like not knowing what you were thinking. I mean, look at this. Turns out we could have fixed this whole situation a week ago if we had just talked about it."
"Don't tell Andy that" I groaned "or he'll never let me live it down." Sirius chuckled and tried the door. It still wouldn't budge.
"You can let us out now" I called out to our friends.
"You've talked?" James called back.
"Well we didn't just sit there in silence" Sirius replied sarcastically.
"Good" I heard some grunting from the other side of the door then it swung open to reveal a sweaty faced James grinning in at us.
"Hi Trudy" he called in, as if nothing had happened. "How did it go?" I noticed Sirius give a thumbs up from behind me then, to my surprise, James swooped in for a hug.
"What's this for?" I asked.
"I'm just really happy for you both" he grinned and I rolled my eyes.
Once he let me go I looked around the corridor. The statue of the hinkupunk that they had used to block the door was still partly across the door way but other than that the corridor was empty. "Where's Andy?" I asked.
"He had to go to his thingymajig practice" James explained.
"Shouldn't you be at practice too?" Sirius asked.
I watched the realisation hit James as his eyes widened and he slapped his forehead.
"Shit! Quidditch!" He took off down the corridor at a sprint as Sirius and I laughed behind him.
When he has disappeared around the corner, Sirius took my hand and we started walking.
"So, now that everything is good with us again, do you want to go on a date on Saturday?"