AN: Getting stuff done and chapters up. We'll see how long it lasts.

Warning: Spanking in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

--

“Don’t want to wear that,” Remus pushed the nightshirt away. “I want real pajamas.”

“All right,” Sirius took out his wand and transformed the nightshirt into a pair of light blue pajamas.

“No, Remus shook his head, “don’t want blue. Blue’s for babies.”

“Fine,” Sirius changed the color to red.

“Too dark,” Remus frowned. “All dark like blood.”

Sirius began to lighten the red, and Remus shrieked, “Pink! I hate pink. It’s for girls.”

“Tell me what color you want the pajamas,” Sirius kept his voice level though he was starting to lose patience.

“Yellow – it’s my favorite,” Remus insisted.

Sirius had never known Remus to have any particularities for yellow, but he obligingly turned the pajamas to yellow.

“That’s too bright,” Remus objected. “It’s all happy. I don’t want happy pajamas.”

“Yellow is yellow – now get into them,” Sirius ordered, a tad short.

“Fine,” Remus grabbed the two pieces of clothing. “Well? Don’t look.”

“We lived in the same dorm room for seven years. Sixth year – James dared us to go skinny-dipping in the lake and he stole our clothes and we had to streak back to the dorm wearing only our shoes, remember?”

“Don’t care,” Remus marched behind his bed and glared at Sirius.

Sirius gave up and headed for the hall. He leaned against the wall, wondering how long he would have to indulge the tiny version of his friend.

After a few minutes, sounds of struggling drifting from bedroom, and Sirius peeked his head in. Remus had gotten the pajama bottoms on, but he fought with the top, trying to stick his head in one of the sleeves. Frustrated again, Remus yanked the whole thing off and threw it on the bed.

“Stupid shirt, stupid, stupid –”

Sirius grabbed the shirt and scooped up Remus with the other hand. He sat on the bed, propped Remus on one knee, and began opening the shirt.

“Put me down,” Remus protested. “Stop picking me up.”

“Stop struggling,” Sirius pulled the shirt over the little boy’s head and waited for him to poke his hands into the sleeves.

Now in the pajamas, Remus tried to scoot off Sirius’s knee, but the man held the boy tight for a moment.

“Wait, let’s take your potion first,” Sirius grabbed the bottle and pour out a dose into the spoon. “Swallow it.”

“Don’t like it,” Remus shook his head again. “It’s a yucky and Snape always makes it worse, I know he does. He doesn’t like me, and he’s mean, and no potion!” Remus reached out and stuck the spoon. The potion splattered over the bed.

“Remus, look what you did,” Sirius barked at him.

The little boy looked up startled. He started sniffing, like he was about to cry, but Sirius had reached the limit of his patience.

“You’re taking the potion and that’s it,” Sirius poured another spoonful and tightened his arm around the small boy. “Open up and no more fighting.”

Remus made a face, but the strong arm around his body held him still, and eventually he opened his mouth the smallest bit and let Sirius stick in the spoon. He gulped down the potion and began whining about the taste immediately.

“Go on and brush your teeth,” Sirius set him down on the floor and gave him a nudge towards the bathroom.

“Don’t want to – they’re clean,” Remus decided.

“Go brush your teeth,” Sirius ordered, trying not to raise his voice as he took his wand out to clean up the spilled potion. He watched the small boy walk, nearly stomp, to the bathroom, and Sirius wondered how long he would have to put up with such defiant behavior. Good grief, it wasn’t as if he were asking his friend to do anything hard. Put on his pajamas, take his potion, brush his teeth. He wondered if Remus had been that difficult as a child. By the time of Hogwarts, Remus had been the mildest mannered, least out-spoken of the four, very cheerful and compliant – a far cry from the little boy who had just stomped into the bathroom.

Two minutes later Remus came back, lip suck out stubbornly again. “I’m not tired,” he said, squinting his red eyes to keep them open. “I want to stay up.”

“Suit yourself,” Sirius stood up. “Why don’t you sit on your bed for a while and read a book? You can sleep when you get tired.”

Remus got into bed and promptly collapsed on his pillow, too exhausted to even reach for the book. Sirius resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead began to extinguish the lights.

“No!” Remus cried when the last candle went out, “no, it’s too dark.”

“I thought you liked the dark.”

“It’s so dark,” the little boy protested.

“That’s rather the definition of dark,” Sirius struggled to hold in his temper. “Do you want me to leave one candle on?”

“No, I’m not a baby. I don’t need a nightlight,” Remus shot back.

Calm deep breaths, Sirius reminded himself. “Would you like me to leave the door open?”

“Yes,” Remus snuggled into the pillow.

“Fine, then.”

“Good night, Sirius,” Remus called.

Sirius paused in the doorway to reply calmly, “Good night, Remus.”

Careful to leave the door open all the way, Sirius went into his bedroom and flopped on the bed, too worn out to even change his clothes. He stared up at the ceiling, wondering how many years more he would have to spend in Azkaban if he tossed Remus out the window and then went to murder Snape. He fell asleep imaging the different ways to torture a potions master before boiling him in his own cauldron.

--

Forty-two hours later, the afternoon of their third day at the small house, Sirius sat in a chair and wondered how far down the road he would have to go to get three bottles of fire whiskey to drown his sorrows. By the second day he had reached the conclusion that friends who got shrunken back into children should be sent far away and never seen again.

Everything seemed a struggle with Remus. The little boy didn’t want to eat anything. He would watch happily as Sirius cooked meals, but when the food was set in front of him, Remus would take one bite and declare he didn’t like it and he didn’t want it. When asked what he did want, Remus would reply, “Anything but this.”

Entertaining him proved a problem as well; Sirius thought they could take long walks together, but about a mile from the house, Remus complained that his legs were too tired to keep going. Sirius half-dragged, half-carried him home.

Yesterday afternoon, Sirius had sat in an armchair reading and had drifted off to sleep only to have a loud crash from the kitchen awaken him. He ran into the kitchen to see Remus covered with flour, the little boy thinking that large canister of flour was the biscuit jar.

Sirius had stepped forward, ready to smack the child for trying to climb up so high, but he caught himself just in time, reminding himself that Remus was really an adult inside.

However, Sirius kept finding it harder and harder to remember the child was his friend and not a brat sent to torment him.

“I want to play outside,” Remus suddenly appeared by the arm of chair.

“Oh, all right,” Sirius agreed, thinking it would be nice to have a few minutes of quiet. “Stay near the house.”

“Okay,” the little boy agreed, flying out the door and slamming with a bang that shook the whole house.

“Who cares?” Sirius muttered, leaned back in his chair. “Let him play and let me rest.”

He soon fell asleep and napped for an hour, enjoying the stillness of the house. When he woke, he grudgingly forced himself to stand up and wander into the kitchen. It was almost four, a perfect time for a spot of tea without having to worry about supper just yet. Knowing tea was the only thing Remus still like, Sirius went to the front door and called out, “Remus, do you want some tea?”

No answer came.

Sirius sighed and added, “You can have a biscuit with it.”

Still no answer.

Concerned, Sirius stepped outside and began to circle around the house. He went around twice before he realized that Remus was not near the house.

Slightly panicked, Sirius ran out to the road. Still no sight of him.

Fear churning in his stomach, Sirius shouted,” Remus? Remus, where are you?”

He ran up one side of the road and then the other, fighting against flat-out hysteria. He kept picturing what Remus looked like now: a sweet-faced boy with soft hair and big eyes. A pedophile’s fantasy.

There wasn’t much traffic out this way, but occasionally a car would come by or a walker, and Sirius could imagine a man talking to Remus, nicely asking him if he wanted to go for a ride or get a treat, and Remus going along happily . . .

Swearing under his breath, Sirius pulled out his wand. “Point me towards him,” he commanded, laying the wand flat on his open palm. The wand twitched, and then it began rotating until the tip pointed down the road to the right.

Sirius began running. He tried to run fast, but even he couldn’t push himself enough to get the images out of his head. He saw the pedophile doing horrible, unspeakable things to the little boy, and in each of the revolting pictures, Remus was crying out for Sirius.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Sirius promised, panting as he sprinted.

The road went around a bend, and as Sirius dashed around it, he saw a small boy sitting on the ground, head bowed.

“Remus!” he shouted.

The little boy looked up. “Oh, hi, Sirius.”

“Are you all right?” Sirius grabbed him with both hands, pulling him to his feet. “Did he hurt you?”

“Who?” Remus blinked in confusion.

“The man who took you away from the house.”

“I haven’t seen anyone. Just me.”

“What are you doing here?” Sirius said, still feeling sick.

“I walked down here. Then I got tired, so I decided to rest. Can we go home and have some tea?”

“You – you came out here by yourself?” Sirius barely kept from yelling. “I told you to stay near the house.”

“I was bored there,” Remus shrugged.

“You were bored there?” Sirius could barely his fury. “So you thought you’d just start off on your own? What if something had happened to you?”

“I can take care of myself,” Remus looked up, that stubborn bottom lip out again.

Sirius really thought he would burst a blood vessel. He grabbed the small boy, wrapped him arms tight around him, and Apparated back to the front of the house.

“Uh, I don’t like that,” Remus whined. “It made me all dizzy and – Sirius, let me down.”

Sirius kept his grip around the small boy as he marched into the house. Sirius had never felt such awful, overwhelming fear for someone else since the night Lily and James had died. He carried Remus over to the chair and sat down, shifting the boy over his knees.

“What are doing you?” Remus asked, finally worried. “Let me go – I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like having a stroke when you suddenly disappear,” Sirius growled as he lifted his hand and brought it down on the squirming bottom.

“Sirius, it’s me – your friend,” Remus protested. “We’re best friends.”

“Were best friends,” Sirius corrected, swatting him again and then again. “You are the child now, and I’m the adult. Yes, it’s horrible. Yes, we’d both like to thrash Snape within an inch of his life. But for the time being, I am taking care of you and you have to mind me.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus cried. “Really, sorry.”

“You knew better,” Sirius continued spanking him, grabbing Remus’s hand when the little boy threw it back to cover his bottom. “And even if you didn’t, I told you to stay near the house.”

“Stop spanking me,” Remus begged. “You can’t – I’m a grown-up.”

“And another thing,” Sirius went on with the lecturing and the swatting, “when I tell you to do something, I mean for you to do it now without arguing or cheek. I’m tired of cooking and listening to your complaints about the food. If I could let you cook your own meals, I would, but you’d burn yourself. So I have to do and you are going to eat it without complaining. It’s food you liked as an adult, and you’ll like it now, or you can go hungry.”

“All right,” Remus wailed, trying to wriggling his bottom out of the line of fire.

“And you’re going to go to bed and taking your potion and staying near the house like a good boy, or I’ll take a slipper to you,” Sirius threatened.

“You can’t!” Remus cried, his voice full of tears. “You’re – you’re not my father.”

“I am now,” Sirius told him sternly. “Later when you get returned to your real age and size, we can be old mates again, but for now you will obey me and respect me and act like a good little boy or I’ll make this second childhood something you’ll never forget.”

“Waaaah!” Remus bawled, grabbing onto Sirius’s leg for dear life. “Waaah-haaaah!”

Sirius dropped his hand, feeling rather dreadful. Had he been too harsh with the boy? Biting his lip, Sirius reached for the boy’s waistband, ready to pull his trousers down to see the damage.

“No!” Remus protested around his sobs. “Don’t spank me bare. No, Siwius, please. Siwius, don’t.”

Sirius felt relived that the child could still articulate his concerns, but he kept his hand on the boy’s waistband as he warned, “If you ever leave home like that again, the trousers come down. Do you understand?”

“Yeth, yeth,” Remus cried, sounding more babyish be the second.

“All right, you can get up,” Sirius stood Remus up between his knees, keeping his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I couldn’t face Dumbledore if something happened to you, and I couldn’t face myself either.”

Remus said nothing; he launched himself at Sirius, wrapping his chubby arms around the man’s neck and burying his face into his shoulder. Sirius scooped up the boy and held him tight, feeling Remus shake with muffled sobs.

“I hate being like this,” Remus sniffed, damping Sirius’s shirt with his tears.

“I know,” Sirius held him close. “I remember being little. As far as I’m concerned, the only good thing about childhood was when it ended. And I promise, once you’re grown-up again, I won’t bring this up ever.”

Sirius waited, hoping it might calm Remus to know that Sirius would not tease him about spanking him once they got Remus back to his original size, but the boy just held onto tighter.

They stayed like that for some time until Remus’s tears stopped and Sirius’s arm fell asleep.

--

Supper that night was quite different from any other meal eaten in the house before. Sirius cooked as usual, but Remus made no comment about the food, just picked up his fork and ate what he could.

“Why don’t you read for a while before bed?” Sirius suggested later as he washed up the dishes. “You got about hour.”

Remus made no complaint about going to bed at eight, but he seemed jumpy and restless the later the evening got. He got into bed by nine, having taken his potion and brushed his teeth, but Sirius heard him tossing on the bed long after telling the boy good night. Around nine, when the October evening was dark, Sirius heard a loud bump upstairs.

Frowning, he mounted the stairs and went into the child’s room. “You’re supposed to be asleep,” he scolded.

“Can’t,” Remus complained. “Full moon.”

“That’s right,” Sirius went to the window and looked up at the sky. The night was cloudless, a rarity in Britain, and the huge round moon glowed in the black sky. “So what happens when you take the potion? I’ve seen you as a werewolf, but not with the potion. What does it do?”

When he got no answer, Sirius glanced back to the bed. The little boy had disappeared. But instead of a small werewolf with its ugly face and razor teeth, a small wolf cub stood on the bed. Barely bigger than a puppy, with short fur and a tiny wolf’s snout, it ran to the edge of the bed and gave a weak howl at the full moon.