Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
-
Moony,
Looking forward to seeing you again - I'll be back from good old Australia on the 23rd.
Do you mind if I crash in your flat for a bit? I sold mine when I came out here, and it won't
be long. I'll stay for the moon if you want, before I move into another flat.
Hope you're well,
Padfoot.
Pads,
I'd like to see you again. It must have been about five months since I last saw you properly. You've probably got a brilliant tan,
and a new girlfriend as well. You're welcome to crash in my flat, just make sure you remember to play the Lilly card with
James, or he'll flip out that you didn't ask him. Peter's got a new girlfriend. Her name is Jenny. She sounds very nice but he
doesn't seem to like talking about her.
Moony.
-
Sirius got back on Thursday the 22nd, at eleven pm. He hailed a taxi to the block of flats Remus lived in, and, lugging his three suitcases along behind him, trailed up the several flights of stairs, (the lift wasn't working).
"Moony?" He knocked loudly on the door. "Moony, open the door or I shall!" No answer. Sirius frowned, shrugged, and squeezed his wrist through the letterbox, stretching his hand out sideways to press down the latch and push the door open. It was a trick he'd worked out last year, when Moony first moved into his pokey little flat.
"Mooooony? Where are you?" The house was silent, and none of the lights were on. "Moony?" His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness. 'Maybe he's alseep.' Sirius thought, dropping his suitcases by the door and shrugging off his black leather jacket to hang it on the stand. 'Though,' He frowned, 'Moony's usually a light sleeper.' Dismissing the thought from his mind, Sirius decided to go to sleep in dog form on the sofa, and talk to Moony in the morning.
He made the change.
A few second later, Sirius was back in human form, his eyes puzzled. "Moony!" He screamed up the stairs. "Moony!" He flicked the light switch, but nothing happened. "Bulb must be broken, but he would have fixed it..."
Sirus opened his suitcase and fumbled for his torch. It cast a narrow beam on the rickety stairs. "Remus? Are you there?" He asked the still air around him. He let the beam move slowy up the stairs. The turned a sharp corner right at the top, where they met the landing.
Nothing.
But...wait. There was something. A long thin thing, blue. Looked like...Oh! Sirius sighed with relief. It was a pair of jeans. Remus must have left them there. Maybe he was in the bath, then.
Sirius, smiling now, advanced up the stairs to pick up the jeans and put them in Remus' bedroom. He'd wait for Remus to get out of the bath, and then tell him he'd come back a day, (or night, whatever) earlier, just so he didn't come down in the mornign and have a heart attack, which is what Remus had threatened to do last time Sirius had stayed without telling him.
Sirius was almost at the top of the stairs now. He turned the corner-
-and bit back a scream.
"Moony! God, Remus, what's wrong? Remus, tell me what's wrong, what the fuck is wrong!"
Remus was lying, with one jean-clad leg on the stair, seemingly passed out. But...There was dust on him. And his position didn't look exactly comfortable.
"Moony, are you dead? James would have told me if you were dead though, right? And there would have been a funeral and- Moony, talk to me!" Sirius got onto his knees and shook the man. "Remus!" There was no response. Sirius started. "Gotta call Mungo's." He hurtled down stairs. "Curse you fucking bloody fireplace! Why aren't you there?"
Sirius took a deep breath. "No fire, no fire...Aparate! But I can't take us both-" Then a gleam came into his eye. "Motorbike!" He announced proudly, like a child saying his first word. He raced out onto Moony's balcony and pulled the cover off it. "Missed you!" He exclaimed, and ran back inside, picking up Remus and carrying him out. He balanced Remus behind him on the motorbike, and then moved him round into front and checked he could still see past his unconsious friend. "OK."
The flight to St. Mungos was uneventful. Sirius, even more worried now he'd carried Moony and realised how little the man weighed, kept one hand on Remus' heart the whole way, checking it was still beating.
-
When he got in and explained the situation, Remus was immediately whisked off, leaving Sirius to sit in the waiting room. Or rather, pace. A woman with dark hair and a small child on her arm entered the waiting room.
"Now Jonathan, Jamie will be fine. They'll let us go talk to him in a little bit, but we'd better just sit here quietly for a while, Hmm?" Sirius looked up. The woman smiled at him and sat down on a couch pulling Jonathan down beside her. When she saw Sirius was still pacing, she frowned. "Sit down, dear! You're making me dizzy!" She laughed goodnaturedly and Sirius sat down. "So why are you here?"
"A friend of mine."
"Oh. It's my son. Got into a fight with Jonathan." She ruffled the hair on the boy's head. "They're twins, and they fight almost constantly. Anyway, Jonathan hexed Jamie, and I have no idea where he learnt it, he's only eleven, but Jamie had to be taken up here. They say he'll be fine, and we can take him home soon, but Jonathan was so worried Jamie was gonig to die...I've never seen the poor dear so upset. So what's wrong with your friend?"
"I don't know. They just whisked him off..."
"Oh, you poor thing!" Sirius noted the woman seemed to enjoy using the word poor. "Well, I'm sure he'll be fine. Jonathan? What do you want to eat? They sell food over there." She dragged the boy over to the vending machine.
'I suppose I'd better eat as well..." Siriud dragged himself over to the food vendor and chose a bacon and cheese roll as long as his arm.
-
"Sir?"
"Hmm?" It was four am. The bacon and cheese roll was long gone as Sirius sat on the couch, trying desperately to keep his eyes open.
"You really ought to go home, sir." The healer politely told him.
"I can't. I suppose I can't see Mr. Lupin yet?"
"No sir, I'm afraid you can't. You aren't a relative. I strongly suggest you go home."
"What room is he in?"
-
Having gained the knowledge that he needed, Sirius walked outside, changed into Padfoot, and slunk back in, racing through the hospital until he reached Remus' room. Then he changed back, and knocked.
"You can't come in!" A female healer snapped as soon as she saw him. "Now go home! You can visit in the morning! I've had enough of people sneaking into wards so they can visit people who aren't HAVING VISITORS!"
"I'm going!" Sirius muttered, backing away with his hands raised thearectically. "But floo James Potter, Godric's Hollow, as soon as you-" Sirius stopped.
"What?" The healer asked.
"Never mind. But could you send someone outside when he can have visitors?" Then he sloped off.
-
Outside, Sirius regretted leaving his jacket at Moony's. But he wasn't going back to the flat. He had to stay. So, sitting on his motorbike, he sat, staring blankly into space and trying to ignore the cold.
In the end a healer came outside and asked him if he'd like to book into the hotel across the street.
"My wallet's in my jacket." Sirius told the healer reproachfully, as though the healer was to blame.
"And where's your jacket?"
"Moony's." Sirius mumbled, then righted himself. "Mr. Lupin's flat."
"And you won't go back because-?"
"S'creepy. Plus, I migh'..."
"You might?" The healer prompted. Sirius fell off his bike. "Oh, well." The healer bodily dragged Sirius inside and put him in a ward near Remus' though Sirius didn't know that.
"My name is Healer Kathrine, and I suggest you get some rest."
"Gotta...stay awa'...'ny."
"I'll tell you as soon as you can see him." Sister Kathrine informed Sirius. She'd been informed of the problem already, and wasn't prepared to have any nonsense, as she put it to the other members of staff.
-
The next morning Sirius awoke in a strange bed. He blinked as the events of last night returned to him, and then shot out of bed and across the hall.
"Let me in! It's daylight, let me see him!"
-
And they did.
Remus was pale and wasn't moving. His eyes were closed, and he looked almost as bad in the harsh hospital light as he had at his flat, except that his face had been cleaned.
There was no horrible, horrible dust anymore. He'd looked so scary, with dust on his face. He must have been there ages.
"Remus? Remus, if you can hear me, wake up. Wake up. Wake up."