"Severus!" She cried in alarm, jolting Sirius momentarily. Carefully she laid Sirius' head against the floor, and crept to the wall, eerily aware of the fact that it could collapse at any moment. She found a gap in the stone wide enough she could fit her whole hand through, and she called into it. "Severus, over here!"
First an eye, and then a hand appeared through the hole. Lilly grasped Severus' cold, bloodied fingers with both her hands, gasping at how cool they were. "Severus, thank god you are alright. Is Remus there?" Severus' hand twitched, and he was silent for a couple of seconds.
"He is for now, but... the werewolf bit him. He is sort of... hallucinating. I think," Severus added at the end. Lilly frowned, and reminded herself not to panic. Severus was good with potions, he would be able to mix something that would slow the effects of the bite.
"Oh Severus, why are you even here?"
"I was doing my potions homework. Why are you here?"
"The school was attacked by a rove of dark wizards. I heard a collapse over here, so I came. All of the boys are alive, but Sirius got caught really badly in the collapse, he is trapped. The others went to get help, but that was a while ago. They have not come back yet Severus." Lilly clutched the cool hand between hers tightly. "You do not suppose they were attacked by an enemy, do you?"
"No," Severus replied, "They will be fine. James has that magic map, remember? Anyways, what is Sirius' condition?"
"He is unconscious. He has been coming back to me every once and a while, but he is looking really bad, and bleeding a lot. I am scared Severus." Severus caught his breath, looking to the chains around the shaking supply cupboard. He was also scared.
"You will be alright Lilly, I promise. I will find something to help stop the bleeding, so you stay with Sirius, alright?"
"Alright," Lilly said from across the void, her warmth drifting away from his icy digits. Severus pulled his hand back into the half demolished lab and surveyed his surroundings. Most of the potions supplies were alright, and he still had his textbook with him, so he most likely could whip up a quick tincture to help Sirius.
I'm helping the Marauders of my own free will. Severus thought, amused. I didn't think I was such a good person. He flipped open his text book, ignoring the burning pain in his shoulder and upper back where a rogue claw had sliced through his shirt and flesh. The book margins were stained with blurring lines of notes Severus had made on the different tinctures; methods of making them, and their effectiveness. He found with ease a mixture that guaranteed it would stop bleeding when applied to a wound.
The supplies were significantly harder to dig out of the chaos. When he pulled the stalk of a damaged plant from under a slab of broken counter top, it caused a small avalanche of stones, prompting Lilly to cry in alarm, "Severus!"
"I am alright," Severus replied, squeezing purple juice from the thick nettle-like stalk into a small black cauldron. He could not find a spoon, so Severus pried half of a bent metal chair leg from a splintered seat and stirred the mixture until it began to thicken.
After what felt like hours Severus found he could barely pull the hunk of metal out of the pot, as the tincture had become so sticky. He got up from where he had been kneeling, his knees aching from being in the same position and his feet snipped and sliced. His arms wailed with exhaustion, and his hands burned cold from touching the plant raw. Severus found a glass transporting tube, and filled it with as much of the medicine as he could, stopping the top with a black rubber cork. "Lilly," he called through the gap.
Lilly slipped to the wall, her shins bloodied from kneeling next to Sirius. "Severus," she replied, both far too tired for more than one word conversations. Severus' hand appeared in the gap, a clear glass tube as long as a foot and as thin as a bottleneck grasped in it. Lilly took the tube. Severus' hand was speckled with frosted grey welts that felt cool to the touch. "How do I use it?" Lilly asked, turning the tube in her hands as she looked at the dark, chunky substance inside. The potion was hardly moving inside the container; it jiggled only slightly when Lilly shook it as fiercely as she could.
"You have to put it on the wound. I could not make one he could ingest." Severus explained breathlessly. Lilly nodded.
"I'll try it. How is Remus?" Lilly asked.
"No change." Severus replied. Lilly moved away from the wall, falling into the position of kneeling beside Sirius that made her body groan in protest. She tucked an arm under his sweat bdampened shoulders and tugged his body towards hers. Sirius' eyelids fluttered. His eyes met Lilly's, and then looked through them. Lilly realised with a start that Sirius could not see her.
Sirius' lower back was sticky with dried blood, and his leg being trapped made it difficult for Lilly to move him. He cried out in pain every time she attempted to sit him up. "Severus," the red-haired girl whispered to herself. "I hope this potion works." Lilly gritted her teeth and tugged his entire body straight in one go. Sirius screamed.
