Chapter 2: Curtains

Remus woke in the all-too-familiar confines of the Hospital Wing. He cracked an eye open, taking in the whitewashed walls, a privacy curtain spelled with a Notice-Me-Not charm, and a brace of torches in wall brackets, charmed to burn twice as bright as the others in Hogwarts' corridors. Most of Hogwarts' torches were charmed to hold everlasting fire, which would flicker and lend a pleasant orange hue to castle's stone walls. These torches gave out constant white light, throwing Remus' scars and bruises into sharp, pallid relief.

Recovery involved several potions, which never tasted any better, rolls of bandages, and Madam Pomfrey tending to him with pity in her eyes.

He was used to the glances of pity from James, Sirius and Peter; they were tempered with resolve, and he knew that the pity was reserved for the wolf, not for him. It was still difficult though, when an adult looked at him, to see pity and coolness in their eyes. The sheltered lifestyle of Hogwarts, where he could live covertly under Dumbledore's protection, allowed him to enjoy some semblance of order, and happiness, in his daily life.

On occasion, when he was ensconced in his four-posted bed, struggling to fall asleep, he'd plan his future after Hogwarts. Freed from the stigma of his condition, he'd been able to delude himself that he had a future to look forward to, with a job to match his exemplary grades, and kept in contact with James, Sirius and Peter, as they all grew older together. These reveries never lasted for more than a few minutes, and then he'd feel disgusted with himself for his lapse, as the direness of his predicament took shape again.

Voices, damped through fabric, sounded on the other side of the curtain. Remus frowned. He was never this lucid waking after a full moon, even if his memories remained indistinct. Madam Pomfrey's absence was also strange. She'd usher him to his bed when he walked in around dawn, and be there when he woke several hours later, arranging vials of potions and meeting his claims of full health with severe looks.

Remus swallowed, and again there was the taste of copper in his mouth. Grimacing, he looked up and down his arms, searching for self-inflicted bites. His limbs, still pale against the bed sheets, were unscathed. His chest, for all the scars and darkened, damaged skin, was intact; there was no evidence of fresh bites or puncture wounds. A growing horror filled him.

He swung his legs off the bed, his mind working furiously to fashion any number of reasons why he'd woken with dried blood caked to his gums that wasn't his. Maybe the wolf had bitten its back. Who knew how flexible magical creatures were, anyway? His fingers traced the contours of his shoulder blades and spine, finding only old scar tissue. Maybe James and Sirius' concentration had dwindled, and they'd given the wolf too much space, allowing him to snaffle a woodland treat – a mouse or bird, perhaps. This had happened before, he told himself. He'd woken with matted feathers or fur in his mouth on occasion. Not a sensation he could forget quickly, despite his best efforts.

Remus scratched at his teeth and gums until they bled, looking just as feral as he had the night before, feeling for any sign of fur or feather, anything to show he'd bitten something rather than someone…

There were still hushed voices coming from the other side of the Hospital Wing. He pulled his privacy curtain back and looked across the room, clad in threadbare linen pyjamas. A similar curtain hid a bed near the far wall.

Attempts to explain the source of the blood were growing far-fetched. Perhaps the other Marauders had pranked him? Even they could see this would be in poor taste. He was sure Sirius wouldn't want to antagonise him; their friendship had suffered following the Snape incident before Christmas, and although both had acted after the New Year like nothing happened – Remus knew Sirius would never apologise – there was no more carefree joking between them. A line had been crossed and Remus didn't know if things could return to their previous state.

His mind was clutching at shortening straws. Perhaps a new treatment for werewolf bites and scratches had been found, and Madam Pomfrey had already administered it. Never mind that his parents had sat him down the morning after his first transformation, and told him in no uncertain terms, that there was no cure for the wolf inside him, and that Wolfsbane Potion cost more than the rent did.

Remus stood on unsteady legs, fingernails pitted with blood and made his slow way across the Hospital Wing, between the rows of beds, their headboards pushed back against enamel-white walls. The disgust he felt when he normally thought about his condition had increased a hundredfold. Ever since he'd been bitten, his parents, his friends, even Dumbledore – they all told him he wasn't like Fenrir Greyback, or other werewolves who made no attempt to protect others from their wolfish half. Liked the majority of werewolves, he posed little threat to others, only the misfortune to be tarred with the same brush as those who did. He'd come to terms with his condition, and hearing people voice their opinions on werewolves, just as his grandfather and the pastor had done, didn't bother him to the extent it used to.

There had been several lectures from Binns on werewolf scourges in the sixteenth century. Their undead professor had sensed a rare chance to hold his class' attention and delighted in eliciting horrified gaps from his students as he described hordes of 'foul, savages beasts' that lived only to ravage wizards and defenceless muggles alike. Peter had kindly dismissed it as 'propaganda' afterwards, sensing his discomfort; he'd received sympathetic looks from James and Sirius.

He recalled his childhood friends, perpetually slight and prepubescent in his mind's eye, and grimaced.

When they learnt he was the source of the eerie howls on the outskirts of their Kentish village, they wanted nothing to do with him.

He'd reached the privacy curtain. Shaking hands snatched at the white plastic, struggling for purchase on the smooth, synthetic material. A red fingernail, caked in drying blood, found the seam after several seconds of silent fumbling and pulled, the hoops on the rail above giving a metallic tinkle as they moved down the bar.

A rash of gooseflesh broke out across his neck, numbing the vertebrae which held the slope of his shoulders.

Two heads turned in his direction, one with a mass of wavy black hair, and the other topped with a thinning, sanding mop. Their expressions were so alien they could have been the sun and moon to Remus, meeting his stare with horrible, inhuman intensity. Behind Peter's rounded shoulders, covered in a grey sheen of sweat, a swell of bandages covering his left forearm, was James.