Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Chapter Two
Remus woke up the next morning feeling absolutely terrible. His head hurt, his body ached all over, and he had a feeling lingering over him that something terrible had happened the previous night. That in itself was odd, because Remus never remembered anything that happened when he was in werewolf form.
He blearily opened his eyes and looked around: the white walls told him he was in the hospital wing as usual. The sun shone through the window behind him illuminating his bed and the one beside him. That bed was empty but the one diagonally opposite him had the curtains drawn around it. Remus assumed it was occupied, and that the person didn't want anyone intruding on them. However it hadn't been like that the night before so someone must have taken ill in the night.
Suddenly, the hospital wing doors burst wide open and three figures ran towards him. The first two to reach the bed jumped onto the bed next to him, jolting his leg rather painfully. The third, who was slightly shorter and plumper than the other two, decided it would be a better idea to sit on the chair beside the bed, rather than to jump on top of his friend.
"Wake up, Remus!" shouted Sirius, rather too loudly for the hospital wing.
"I'm awake!" Remus protested. "And you're sitting on my leg."
"Sorry," said Sirius. He shifted so that he was sitting on the end of the bed instead of on his friend. Then a dismayed look spread across his face as he realised that Madame Pomfrey had emerged from behind the curtains and was walking towards them, looking quite angry.
"You three out now!" she said sternly. "Remus needs rest, and you're disturbing my other patient." At this, James and Sirius began to loudly protest, until Madame Pomfrey finally gave in. "Okay, you can stay for a while, but no shouting." She then went back to tending her other patient, leaving the four of them in silence.
"So, how are you?" asked Peter, feeling the need to say something.
"Awful. You know how it is," replied Remus, sitting up and rubbing his head. "Who do you think's in that bed over there?" he asked, pointing over at the bed with the curtains around it.
"No idea," said Peter. "I wish this didn't have to happen every month. Me, James and Sirius are going to become-"
"Peter!" James put his hand over his friend's mouth. Peter had almost blurted out that they were planning on becoming Animagi. "Not in front of Madame Pomfrey," he hissed into his friends ear. It was loud enough so that Sirius and Remus could also hear, but not loud enough that Madame Pomfrey would.
"What Peter means is that James thinks he's found a way to help," explained Sirius. He still didn't quite believe that it would work. How could it? They were only in their second year! Most people found the magic difficult to manage when they were of age, and didn't one also have to obtain some sort of permission from the Ministry first? It was highly illegal and could very well go horribly wrong.
"I know I have. All we have to do is a little research," said James. "We weren't going to tell you until we were sure it would work though - just in case it didn't."
"We still don't know if it'll work," said Sirius.
"Stop being so pessimistic, Sirius," said Peter.
"Is this what you've been hiding from me?" asked Remus. He'd been beginning to worry why the other three had been holding secret meetings without him, throughout almost the whole of last year. In fact, ever since they'd discovered he had been a werewolf, the previous November, they had been a bit secretive. At first he'd thought they were plotting a prank on him, and that they didn't want to be friends anymore because he was a werewolf. He'd spent the remainder of his first term in a sulk, believing his friends thought of him as nothing but a monster. Eventually James had persuaded him that they didn't think of him like that at all, but still wouldn't tell him about the secret meetings in the library. The thought hadn't occurred to him for a moment, that what they were doing was to help him!
"Yeah. We're really sorry about all that. We'll tell you later, in the dormitory – where Poppy won't overhear us," said James. "Speaking of Poppy…"
Indeed, Madame Poppy Pomfrey was heading towards them for the second time. The expression on her face was entirely grave, and Remus wondered what on earth had suddenly happened to make her look that way.
"You three need to leave now. Lessons will be starting soon," she said, "and I need to talk to Remus about something private."
"But lessons won't be starting for over half an hour!" whined Sirius. "We've hardly been here for any time at all!"
"Let them stay. I'll probably tell them everything anyway," said Remus, looking back up at her with pleading eyes.
"Are you sure? It's to do with your, uh, problem."
"They know about my lycanthropy already," said Remus matter-of-fact-ly.
"Alright, they can stay. But I'm afraid they might not take it very well," said Madame Pomfrey.
"What could be worse than knowing I'm a werewolf?" asked Remus. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. Yes, he was aware there were many things worse than being a werewolf: being murdered, or sent to Azkaban, or being eaten alive by a giant slug were to name but a few. But of course there were other worse things - worse things that were also to do with being a werewolf.
"Well," began Madame Pomfrey. She was obviously having a lot of difficulty getting the words off her tongue. And every second of silence that passed, Remus felt an increasing feeling of dread. "Last night, you broke out of the shrieking shack," she explained. "You ran into the forbidden forest, and happened upon a student-"
"Oh God, please no. Please don't say I killed someone!" wailed Remus.
"No, they're not dead, but you did manage to bite them," said Madame Pomfrey calmly. "They've lost a lot of blood too."
By now Remus was crying, rocking backwards and forwards and muttering "no, no, no!" under his breath. James was trying to hold him still and comfort him, to no avail.
"Remus, calm down. We know it wasn't you who did that. It wasn't your fault," said Sirius. Remus continued crying, and saying he was a monster over and over again. Sirius and James felt rather clueless with regards to how they were supposed to make their friend feel better.
"Rem, you're not a monster. Anyone with half a brain can see that you're not," said Peter.
"Yeah, you never hurt anyone. Not even slimy Slytherins!" said James. That was true. Whenever they taunted Snivellus, Remus would always remain quiet and restrained.
"But whoever I've bitten... They're gonna hate me!" cried Remus. "What if they make me go to Azkaban!"
"Remus, you're not going to go to Azkaban for something you have no control over," said James, putting an arm around his friend. "If anything, it's the schools fault for not providing enough security."
"But they're not going to see that, are they? They're just going to think I'm a monster! What have I done!"
It took about twenty minutes of positive comments before they felt they could leave Remus and head off to class.
"Wh-who was it?" asked Sirius, as they walked out of the hospital wing.
"I can't tell you that just yet," replied Madame Pomfrey, sincerely.
"Why?"
"I don't think it's appropriate right now," was the reply.
…..
That morning, the three of them had potions with Slytherins, and Transfiguration. Potions class was not at all fun, especially for Sirius. All of last year, James and he had been paired together, but this year they had decided to swap partners. With James and Peter now together, Sirius had promised Remus that they would be partnered when he was out of the hospital wing. However, despite all his protests, cheerful and unhelpful as ever, Professor Slughorn had partnered him with none other than Severus Snape.
The "no talking" rule prevented any fight that would have broken out between them. However, it didn't stop Snape from sneering at him every time he did something wrong. In all honesty, Sirius was too anxious about Remus to be bothered with putting the right ingredient in the cauldron at the correct time. He hadn't really brought it up earlier for fear of upsetting his friend further, but he knew that others probably wouldn't forgive his friend as readily as he, James and Peter had. It was unlikely their friend would be sent to Azkaban, but if enough people complained Remus could easily be expelled from the school. Sirius knew how unhappy that would make him - he would be completley cut off from wizarding society. At the end of the lesson, Sirius rushed off, eager to put as much distance between himself and Snape as was physically possible.
"Sirius, wait!" called James. He stopped for long enough for his two friends to catch up with him and then continued marching towards Transfiguration. The lesson wasn't nearly as bad as he had thought it would be. McGonagall started off with a lecture about how second year would be much harder and require a lot more effort than first year. Both he and James groaned at this. After that, they were given a quick lecture on transfiguration theory and were each given an item to transfigure into an animal.
Five minutes later, two rabbits were hopping across Sirius and James's desks, earning them five points each to Gryffindor. Peter had managed to tranfigure a furry cup with ears and a tail.
"See, Sirius? If we can transfigur objects into animals this easily, it shouldn't be too hard to transfigure our selves," whispered James. Sirius nodded but said nothing. If Remus were expelled, they wouldn't be able to help him anyway.
At the end of the lesson, very few people had managed the spell. Only James, Sirius and Lily had perfect rabbits on their desks, and Gryffindor had received fifteen points for their efforts. Professor McGonagall was pleasantly impressed at their efforts: in her previous class only one student had managed it. She dismissed the Gryffindors off to lunch, but called Sirius back to talk to him.
"We'll be in the Great Hall when you're done," called James, as he and Peter went off to lunch. Sirius was left standing with just McGonagall.
"What do you want Professor? I swear I haven't done anything, yet."
"You're not in trouble," said the Professor. She was giving him the same look that Madame Pomfrey had been giving Remus: the one that said that something dreadful had happened that the person didn't know how to talk about. "Something's happened that I need to talk to you about."
"What happened?" Sirius asked, rather afraid of the answer.
"It's about your brother," said the Professor. "Last night he ventured into the Forbidden Forest and was attacked."
Sirius gasped out loud. Inside he was praying that the incident with Remus was a coincidence, but he knew it wasn't. There had only been one bed occupied other than Remus's.
"Can I see him?" he asked. McGonagall nodded, and Sirius followed her in silence all the way to the hospital wing. He was really worried about what he might find when he got there. He hadn't heard anything coming from the bed with the curtains arounds it and he was sure that, had Regulus heard he was there, he would have at least said something. He hoped Regulus had been asleep and not just so injured that he couldn't say anything.
Luckily Remus was asleep when Sirius burst into the hospital wing – otherwise he would have wondered what his friend was doing. Sirius didn't know how to tell him what had happened. Merlin, he wasn't even sure what to make of it all himself. Earlier he'd told his friend that everything was fine, but now he wasn't so sure. Sirius threw an accusing look at Madame Pomfrey for not telling him earlier and headed straight for the bed with the curtains around it. What he saw shocked him:
There on the bed lay his little eleven-year-old brother's sleeping form. The boy was ghostly pale, and every visible part of him except for the face was covered in bandages. One arm lay outside the blanket, and Sirius could see blood already seeping through the white bandages. Across his brother's cheek were four deep scratches – probably from the werewolf's claws.
Sirius felt sick at the sight and incredibly guilty too. He'd been horrible to Regulus the previous night! He'd called him a coward. Regulus wasn't a coward: he might be childish and a Mamma's boy, but he wasn't a coward. Nor any of the other things Sirius had called him. Had Regulus been so upset at what had been said that he'd run into the forest? It seemed likely. Sirius knew the odd way his brother applied logic – it wasn't that dissimilar to the way his own thought processes worked. He could have stopped this.
He felt like a terrible brother. Regulus was younger than him and looked up to everything that he did. He, Sirius, was supposed to be the responsible one; he was the one that was supposed to make sure that nothing ever happened to Regulus. He'd certainly failled at that - probably from the start.
He took hold of Regulus's hand. It was cold and limp, but when he touched it, the fingers curled around his own. Sirius spent the rest of his lunch hour like that, before he had to rush off to Herbology, but Regulus didn't show any other signs of being alive.
…..
AN: Thanks for reading. Next chapter is coming soon.
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