By the time the summer has ended, Sirius also knows that there is nothing he can do about it.
He has spent the entire summer thinking about Remus. Dreaming about him too. And he has never in his entire life looked forward to something as much as he is looking forward to seeing Remus Lupin at King’s Cross Station on the first day of term. He even prepares for it. He takes a shower that morning, and is careful with his hair and his clothes and his shoes and if his parents can’t understand why he’s gone out and spent a fortune on Muggle clothing it doesn’t matter because he does. He makes sure his teeth are brushed and that he’s eaten so that he can greet Remus with his mouth instead of his stomach and that he’s packed and ready to leave so that he won’t get there as late as is possible while still being on time.
He is prepared for everything except actually seeing Remus.
The sight of Remus comes like a blow to Sirius’s stomach
when they meet at the station. It would seem that over the course of the summer, Remus has grown a few inches and well into himself. He doesn’t look like a little boy anymore. And Sirius no longer wants to kiss him. What he wants to do, actually, now that he comes to think of it, is fling Remus down on the pavement, unheeding of the hundreds of people bustling around, and inhale him. Sirius, of course, has no idea of whether or not this is physically possible, but it does nothing to bury the feeling which is quite insistent in the fact that he ought to try doing this anyway. The thought of how his mother would react upon finding out that her Gryffindor-sorted traitor of a son is queer manages to stop him just in time. He does not, honestly, care what his mother thinks, or care if she throws a hissy fit right there at the station, threatening double murder. He does know, though, that he could not possibly subject Remus to that.
He is trembling like he’s just drunk a potion gone bad when he finally gets onto the train and it is all he can do to say hello to James and Peter and Remus before he turns into a mass of quivering jelly. He thinks he does a fairly good job of covering up how he’s feeling and he gives himself an actual pat on the back when they get off the train at the Hogsmeade station hours later and he hasn’t done what it is killing him not to do.
Of course, this is before he realizes that he now has to get through an entire year of Remus being everywhere again and then another year after that and then yet another after that before he’ll finally have some peace. When he does realize this, he excuses himself from the table and goes running to the bathrooms to retch.
By the time he emerges, he knows there is no way in the world that he can handle this. He knows that he can’t. There is absolutely no way in the world that he can survive taking the same classes with Remus, eating at the same table, sleeping in the same room. He just can’t. There has to be some kind of potion he can take to make this all go away, this wonderful nightmare that is thrilling at the same time that it is terrifying.
The trouble is that he can’t do anything about it. At all. So he takes a fierce interest in making the life of Severus Snape an absolute living hell because there is no reason the stinking Slytherin deserves to be happy when he hasn’t had a moment’s peace in a year. Snivellus simply doesn’t deserve it and since that is the only simple thing he knows now, he acts on it.
Of course, now that the summer is over, he has lessons to take his mind off of the urges that have only become stronger since the day at King’s Cross. And if every teacher they have is shocked that he’s sitting closer to their desks instead of further away, he doesn’t explain. All it means is that he can’t look at the back of Remus’s neck all day. It works for a few days, and the Sirius finds himself itching to turn around so he can see Remus’s face. However, since he’s now sitting in the front of the classroom, he can’t, and halfway through the second week, moves back to his regular seat.
He is not the only one who is relieved by this return to normalcy. His closeness was causing palpitations amongst the older staff and they feared every day for some prank or the other. When none came, it was nearly worse than if one actually had.
And then there is becoming Animagi. They are closer to doing it and all three know it. They are creeping away to empty classrooms whenever they can manage so that they can practice. At this point, they already know the animals they’re going to become: a stag for James, a rat for Peter and a dog for Sirius.
They are alternatively pleased and upset with this turn of events as all the books they have read indicated that a wizard’s Animagi form chooses him and not the other way around. They needed someone small to dart through the branches of the Whomping Willow to press the knot and freeze it and in their Animagi forms, Sirius and James would both be big enough to hold the werewolf in check. The fact that they are a dog and stag respectively is, again, a tremendous stroke of luck: anything bigger would either attract too much attention or be out of place in the village if they were spotted.
On the other hand, Peter is quietly furious about the weakness of his form and Sirius is embarrassed by the lack of masculinity to his. They have yet to actually take on the shapes of their animals, but in Sirius’s mind, no matter how big of a dog he might prove to be, he will never be able to think of himself as anything more than a puppy.
James is, possibly, the only one who is content.
And so Sirius throws himself into the becoming of something else. As something else, he tells himself, he will be able to control himself. He has to. He must be able to do this or he will lose his mind. They start slowly, the way all of the books have told them they must. They take turns as well, heeding warnings that the animal mind is overwhelming at first. And it is.
The first time James takes on the mind of a stag, he charges at everyone, daring every boy who walks past him, including some of the professors, and paws the ground whenever a girl is in his range of vision. He is particularly embarrassing when Professor McG passes by them just outside the Great Hall. If she gives any indication that she has an idea of what they’re doing though, she doesn’t let on. Sirius and Peter are both eternally and privately thankful that Lily has already left for the holidays–she would have just stood there and laughed at James, which, it is safe to assume, would have only made it worse. And probably would have resulted in James charging at her as well.
Sirius, though, is still sure that he can keep a hold on the dog they are bringing out of him and convinces the others that it won’t be a problem for him to do so in their room. He actually manages until he realizes he needs the bathroom and, well...the room never smells quite the same after that.
Assuming Peter can’t cause any real damage as a rat, he makes the change for the first time in their dormitory as well and actually makes a good attempt to burrow straight through the walls before James and Sirius can stop him.
In short, they are a complete and utter disaster.
But they practice and they practice and they practice until they can keep control of the animals inside of them. Secretly, Sirius marvels at Remus. He can not even begin to imagine having something thrust upon you like the werewolf is forced upon him every month. The dog inside of him makes him eager, and slightly simple in the head, but he’s safe. He shudders every time he thinks of having a wolf take him over and he knows, with more conviction than he ever has before, that he must do this for Remus. It isn’t fair that Remus has to go through this all alone, month after month after month....
And finally, in February, it is done.