Thanks to everyone who reviewed the prologue and part one – it's always great to see that people are enjoying my writing. :)
Also, I just realized that ff.n has been removing my part/scene divisions when I upload my files. I'm sorry if that's caused the story to be more difficult to read. I've added them back into this part and will fix part one this weekend.
On to part two…
~Part Two~
"Sirius!" James cried urgently, "We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey!"
I nodded dumbly but didn't move from where I'd fallen. I'd seen Remus in pretty bad shape several times. It came with the territory of being good friends with a werewolf. After transformations during which he'd nearly killed himself, I'd seen him with bites, fang marks, and shockingly deep gashes. It had always been horrible. But this… This was something entirely different. Someone had done this to him. Someone had done this to him.
Who!? Who was responsible for this? What inhuman monster could have done this? If I knew what lowlife animal had brutalized my friend I'd–
"Now, Sirius!" James prompted, climbing to his feet and pulling out his wand. Moments later he'd muttered a charm and Remus was floating a few feet in the air.
Finally nodding, I forced myself to quell my growing anger and say something. "You bring him back to the castle. I'll run ahead and warn Mrs. Pomfrey." I didn't even wait for James to respond. Instead, I sprinted through the trees as fast as I could. The truth was that I couldn't stand to look at Remus' broken body any longer.
James arrived in the hospital wing with Remus at nearly the same moment that Dumbledore, having been summoned by the nurse, came rushing in. "What happened?" the Headmaster asked immediately, staring sadly down at my miserable friend through his half-moon spectacles.
"Put him here," Madam Pomfrey instructed hurriedly, motioning towards one of the many beds that filled the room.
James quickly did as instructed. As soon as Remus was resting on the indicated bed, Prongs ended his Levitation Charm and I rushed over to stand beside our supine friend. In the bright light of the infirmary I immediately noticed the sickly tint his skin had taken but didn't have enough time to make any other observations as the nurse insistently pushed me out of the way so that she could begin her own examination.
"You three," she ordered briskly, "Out."
I opened my mouth to protest but she stopped me. "As soon as I determine his condition I'll let you know." Then she sighed and looked at James and me in turn. "The best thing you can do for your friend right now is give me space to work."
Reluctantly, I followed James and Dumbledore out into the waiting room. There were many comfortable chairs in which to sit but all three of us remained standing. After a few moments of silence the Headmaster questioned us again, his voice grave. "What happened?"
James was the one who answered, sounding small and choked. "I found him like that." The fact that we didn't know who was responsible went without saying.
Those were the only words we exchanged. Almost as soon as they were spoken I began pacing the room. I couldn't just sit here. I couldn't just stand here. My thoughts would not still and neither would my body. How had this happened? Who had done this to him? This was Hogwarts! It was supposed to be safe! It was supposed to be isolated from the turmoil of the outside world! It was supposed to be– I wasn't even sure what it was supposed to be. It just wasn't supposed to be like this.
I shook my head. How could anyone have done this to Remus? The more I asked myself that question the angrier I became. What was wrong with people that they could do something like this? They had nearly killed him! Why? Because he was a werewolf? Because he had Muggle blood? Or had there even been a reason at all?
I nearly scoffed at the idea. Reason? Reason? No conceivable 'reason' could justify this. No person that was at all human, no person that had any amount of compassion or decency, could have done this. No. The 'reason' didn't matter. Finding out who had done this did. Because whoever it was needed to pay for their misdeed.
Damn it! I just didn't understand! A person didn't just do something like this! A person didn't just beat another person until he was barely recognizable, until he was barely breathing, until he was barely living…
Oh God.
Remus.
My feet suddenly and resolutely refused to cooperate, bringing me to a complete stand-still. This was so eerily familiar that it was almost surreal. Not so long ago I'd been in another hospital, waiting on news for another friend… Waiting for hours. Just waiting. It was horrible, having to wait. It was horrible not knowing. It'd taken them so long to tell us. It'd taken them so long to determine whether James was going to live or die. And all the while I hadn't been able to stop thinking, hadn't been able to stop worrying that somehow it was all just going to get worse, that somehow it was all just going to fall apart.
And now… James was fine. He'd recovered and he was fine. But then Remus' mum and grandmother had died… And now Remus himself had been…brutally assaulted. When was it going to end? Bad things always happened, of course, but why were they all happening now? Why did everything have to be going wrong at the same time? And how could it be that everything was going to hell but that this still wasn't what I was worried about, still wasn't the storm I feared so deeply?
Was this the first real sign of the approaching tempest? The approaching war? Was this the first of the Banshee Vipers? It had to be. It had to be. Because if it wasn't… What sort of storm could follow warnings worse than all the things that had already happened this year? Remus was in a terrible state… How could that not be one of the signs I'd been searching for? God, how could something be worse than this?
Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if all the things that had gone wrong had been accidents but they weren't. Someone had tampered with the Bludgers. That was why they'd started chasing after the Gryffindor players. That was why James had ended up with a concussion that had nearly cost him his life. I wanted to believe that it'd been an accident, that whoever had done it had only been fooling around and had never meant for anyone to get hurt. I wanted to believe that.
Of course with Remus it wasn't even a possibility. What had happened to him, what had been done to him, had been very deliberate. Deliberate enough to just make everything feel so…cold. How was it that any of this surprised me anymore? Remus had told me what the kids at school had done to him as a child, I knew how he'd been bullied and teased and once, nearly killed. I'd learned what the Ministry did to werewolves that bit other people while transformed. I'd seen the Werewolf Confinement Center. I knew how deep people's hatred could run, how deeply in ran in my own family, and still it always managed to surprise me how truly despicably people could behave.
How was it that some people were capable of despising so completely?
"Madam Pomfrey."
I turned when Dumbledore spoke the nurse's name. She had just entered the waiting room. There were blood stains on her clothes and she looked…alarmed.
Oh no. Please no.
"Albus," she turned her full attention on the Headmaster. "He's suffered severe internal bleeding. He will die if it is not treated. I have a potion that will stop it…the Osane Potion."
Dumbledore's eyes seemed to darken. "Indeed," he replied. "That is…unfortunate." The moments of silence that followed that statement seemed to stretch out unbearably. "You will, of course, give it to him." He smiled suddenly. "It is, after all, preferable to the alternative. I'm sure that the young Mr. Lupin will agree when he awakens."
Madam Pomfrey nodded slowly. "Very well." Then she looked towards my friend and me. "Mr. Lupin will recover," she informed us with a small smile.
Mr. Lupin will…
He was going to recover! I could have hugged her! Grinning broadly, I thumped James on the shoulder instead. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! He was going to be all right. He didn't have to be transferred to St. Mungo's, we didn't have to wait hours to find out, he was going to be all right. I couldn't stop smiling. He was going to be all right!!
James was ecstatic too. He wasn't really smiling but I could see it in his eyes. They were practically alight.
"When will he wake up?" I managed to ask as Madam Pomfrey moved to leave.
The slightly overweight nurse paused. "Not for a good many hours. You can see him in about twenty minutes, as soon as the Osane Potion begins to take effect." Her tone faltered when she mentioned the potion and it was then that I noticed the marked uneasiness in her eyes. It made me…uncomfortable.
Rather persistently, the absurdity of what had transpired only minutes earlier managed to intrude on my joy. Why had Dumbledore told Madam Pomfrey how to treat Remus? Why had Madam Pomfrey asked him? It didn't make sense. Why was the Headmaster giving the nurse permission to administer the potion that would heal Moony's internal bleeding? What did he know of it? Granted, he was probably the wisest wizard alive today but surely her medical knowledge surpassed his?
I met James' gaze and we shared a concerned look. He was thinking the same thing.
"Excuse me, Madam Pomfrey," I stopped her just as she would have left the room.
"Yes?" She turned around as she addressed me, looking a little impatient.
"Is the potion…dangerous?" Was there some sort of risk involved in giving it to Remus? There had to be. Or else the nurse would have had no reason to seek Dumbledore's approval.
"No," she assured me immediately, "The Osane Potion is quite safe."
I was going to question her further but she hustled out of the waiting room too quickly. I shifted my attention to the Headmaster himself but was cut off before I could begin. "I will, of course, be conducting a thorough investigation on what occurred here tonight. I will contact you if I need any information from either one of you."
James and I both nodded.
Then, with just as much severity as I'd ever seen in his usually twinkling eyes and light gait, Dumbledore left James and me to wait alone. Contemplatively, I continued to stare after him long after he'd faded from sight. There was something about that potion they weren't telling us. Medicine and healing concoctions were not my specialty but they didn't need to be. I could tell them something was a little…off.
She had said that Remus would recover though. So what, exactly, was the problem?
When Madam Pomfrey returned to the waiting room and told James and me that we could see Remus if we wanted to, I was a little scared. It'd been so hard to look at him with all the blood and bruises. They had made him seem so fragile and helpless. They had made me feel so furious towards whoever had done this to him. I didn't want to go in there and see him lying unconscious on a hospital bed. I just wanted to go back to the dormitory and find him studying or reading. I just wanted this entire night to have never happened.
It wasn't as bad as I'd expected, though. Madam Pomfrey had cleaned up all the blood and bandaged all the wounds. They practically covered his entire body. Besides their dwarfing presence, the only thing that remained of the gruesome sight James and I had last been confronted with was the clothing. It hadn't been changed and was still torn and blemished by large stains. I wanted to take it and replace it with a set of clean robes. I wanted to peel away the cloth that concealed the wounds he'd suffered and find only unblemished skin. I wanted to eliminate all signs of this tragedy but could do no more than simply stand there feeling powerless and confused.
I simply couldn't understand how this had happened. Maybe I didn't even want to.
"Who did this to him? Who did this?" I asked James as I watched Remus' steady and now silent breathing. "Why?"
I didn't have to be watching Prongs to know that his response was accompanied by a listless shrug. "I don't know, Sirius." He sighed. "I don't know."
As much as James and I wanted to be there when Remus regained consciousness, the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall would not hear of our missing classes. They said it was admirable that we'd like to support our friend but that we would have to wait until after our lessons were finished for the day. I'd wanted to protest but they'd both been obviously adamant and I'd given it up as a lost cause.
Attending classes as if nothing had happened was an entirely futile endeavor. After telling Peter and Lily about the attack, James and I continued through the day without saying much of anything at all. For my part, I didn't find that there was anything useful to say. Remus was in the hospital because someone – perhaps even a group of people – had assaulted him. What were we supposed to talk about? The weather? Nothing seemed to matter in the face of what we'd seen last night.
I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd barely slept because the image of Remus' mauled body haunted my dreams whenever my eyes managed to drift shut for more than a few moments. It was horrible, having that image in my mind. I'd thought that the sight of Remus transforming was difficult to bear. I'd thought that the sight of him pale, trembling, and covered in wounds was difficult to bear. I'd never thought that I'd see him in a state worse than the one induced by the full moons. I'd never thought that anything like last night would happen. And now I couldn't forget it, couldn't wipe the vision from my mind.
It was horrible. He'd looked so horrible…
I couldn't pay attention to what the various professors were lecturing on. I couldn't pay attention to the coursework or the assignments given. It took all my will to open my Potions textbook and look up that potion that Madam Pomfrey had given Remus to heal his internal bleeding. I hoped to find some useful information there, something to explain why she'd been so hesitant to administer it, but was disappointed. There didn't seem to be anything unusual about the potion. It did exactly what it was supposed to do and had no side effects to speak of. It stayed in a person's system for a rather long time – two months, to be exact – but there was absolutely nothing there that satisfied my curiosity.
Why had Madam Pomfrey consulted Dumbledore before giving it to him? There had to be a reason.
My last class of the day ended late. James, Lily, and Peter were already with Remus by the time I arrived at the hospital wing. When I entered the room where he was recovering, I found him propped up by several pillows and surrounded by our friends. Since the previous night when Madam Pomfrey had forced Prongs and I to leave, some of the color had returned to Moony's face and many of the bandages had been removed. There was one that still covered his forehead and several others that were visible on his arms and legs. Also, his clothing had been changed. He was now wearing a pajama-like hospital gown.
I faltered a few feet away from Remus' bed. No one was speaking. James, Peter, and Lily were alternating between sharing nervous glances and observing Moony concernedly. It was obvious that no one had any idea how to behave. Remus himself was silently staring at the ceiling, eyes and expression resigned and so weary.
I tried to announce my presence but immense sadness stole my voice. Poor Moony. His mum and grandmother were dead and now this. No wonder none of our friends knew what to say. 'I'm sorry' didn't quite cover it.
Lily was the first to see me. Nodding slightly, she placed a hand on Remus' shoulder and drew his attention to me. "Padfoot." His tone was gravelly and overly subdued.
Shaking myself, I took the last two steps that had me standing by his side. "Remus," I responded just as quietly. Then I floundered in the same way that James, Lily, and Peter were obviously floundering. What in the world was I supposed to say?
Remus smiled ever-so-slightly, clearly understanding. "Thank you for coming."
I almost frowned. "Where else would I be?"
Moony's smile broadened before disappearing. He kept his eyes focused on me but didn't speak.
Clearing my throat uncomfortably, I asked an obvious question. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm not in any pain," he assured me. "Madam Pomfrey has seen to that. I'm just a bit…sore and drowsy."
"And how long are they going to keep you here?" It was another obvious question. Asking them was easier than trying to have any sort of meaningful discussion about what had happened to him.
"A few more days," he supplied.
A few more days. Was that all? It was amazing what magic could do. Last night he'd been in an awful state but in two or three days he'd be released and except for exhaustion and a handful of lingering scars and bruises, all signs of this travesty would be gone.
"And…" I hesitated. "How are you…doing?"
A brief shadow flickered across his eyes. "I'm not in any pain," he repeated with forced steadiness.
I glanced at James but he wasn't looking at me. "That's not what I meant."
"I know you and Prongs were the ones that found me but I'm sure it looked worse than it actually was." He sighed. "It's not as bad as you think."
James, Peter, Lily, and I all shared disbelieving looks. "Not as bad as you think," I repeated dubiously. "Remus, exactly what happened to you last night?"
He responded with clinical, deceptive calmness. "I was walking back towards the castle when I was hit by some sort of charm. It stunned me, temporarily blinded me. When I fell to the ground, I heard several people rush towards me. They…attacked me. I tried to fight them off but I was sluggish and couldn't see. There were too many of them."
"You don't know who's responsible, then." Lily stated, voicing the disappointment I was sure we all felt.
"No," Remus replied as if it had been a question, "I don't."
"And why did they attack you?" I pressed.
"Sirius," James whispered fiercely, tone warning.
"Why do you think?" Remus returned, still entirely composed. "Obviously, someone other than Severus has discovered my secret."
For a while I just stared at him, searching his eyes and face for some sign that this was truly bothering him, for some sign that this was different than the other times he'd awoken in the hospital wing, times following the full moon. There was nothing, though. Aside from the sad acceptance that I'd noticed upon first entering, there was nothing. He didn't seem angry, hurt, in shock, or anything at all. It was like what was happening with his mum and Grams; it was like he was denying everything, refusing to feel.
"And what did they do to you, Remus?" I inquired after awhile.
"Sirius," James repeated more loudly, this time pushing my shoulder rather forcefully.
I ignored him. I felt bad for making Moony answer these questions but…I just wanted him to confront what had happened. I knew that this had happened to him before, years ago. Before coming to Hogwarts he'd been the victim of another hate crime. As a child, a fellow classmate had nearly killed him for being a werewolf. When he'd first told me about it…it'd been so hard for him. It'd been inconceivably painful for him to remember and even though we'd rarely discussed it since then I knew that the memory wasn't easier to bear. Now I was supposed to believe that what had occurred last night hadn't affected him at all?
"They broke my wrist and four of my ribs," he began, eyes never leaving mine. "They fractured my jaw and nose. They beat me severely, causing multiple contusions, cuts, and bruises, as well as internal bleeding and two concussions. Apparently one of them nearly choked me, which almost crushed my trachea. Shall I continue?"
I swallowed, unnerved at how emotionlessly he could say all of that and appalled at what had been done to him. "And all of that," I gestured vaguely, voice guttural, "is not as bad as I think?"
My friend didn't have an answer to give and I was glad of that.
An uncomfortable silence descended over the room. I could feel James, Peter, and Lily's eyes on me but refused to meet any of their gazes. They thought I'd been too harsh. Maybe they were right. Maybe they were right. I just didn't understand. I'd awoken several times from nightmares just remembering the way he'd looked and he was…perfectly fine?
When Lily abruptly stepped away from Remus' bedside and left the room, all of us traced her departure with uncomprehending eyes. James, I could tell, was about to follow when she returned moments later, carrying a blanket which she promptly spread out and gently smoothed over Moony's body.
"Thank you," he murmured quietly, tugging it up until it touched his chin.
Lily smiled.
I suppressed a smile of my own. Leave it to Lily. I hadn't even realized Remus was cold.
For whatever reason, Lily's action broke the tension that had extended between us. "Is there anything you want us to bring you?" James wanted to know.
Remus shook his head. "No."
"What about–"
"Prongs," Remus interrupted him, "It doesn't have to be any different."
James looked confused. The rest of us probably did as well.
"I mean, you don't need to be acting any different or talking about anything different. Just…" he exhaled slowly. "What would we be normally talking about? Isn't there…a prank you're itching to pull or something about the wedding that you want to plan?"
The answer to both of those questions was always yes and so Remus' desire to just have some sort of normal conversation propelled us into an hour-long discussion of all sorts of meaningless unimportant things that led into a more serious exchange about the wedding ceremony. James had already asked me to be his best man and pleasantly surprised Moony by requesting that he stand with us as well. Remus' response was a sincere grin – the first true sign of joy I'd seen on him since the news about his mum and grandmother – and an instantaneous acceptance. On that rather pleasant note, we all excused ourselves because it was obvious that Moony was getting tired.
Lingering for a few minutes after the others had gone, I pulled an envelope out of one of the inner pockets of my school robe and set it on the small stand next to Remus' bed. "I almost forgot… It's a letter from your uncle. Since owls aren't allowed inside the hospital wing the one that delivered this was left flying about uncertainly in the Great Hall until I flagged him down."
"Thanks," he murmured, yawning.
"I'll…leave you to it, then," I said by way of farewell, walking towards the waiting room where I was certain to find James. He'd most likely told Lily and Peter to go on ahead so that he could have a word with me. I knew what he wanted to talk about and I almost wished there was another way out of this room so that I wouldn't have to deal with it.
"Sirius?" Remus' tentative, almost faltering voice stopped me.
Hearing a touch of pain and vulnerability that had been entirely absent before, I immediately turned back to look at him again. "Yeah?"
He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. In the greatest flux of feeling I'd seen since that night when he'd received the tragic news from his uncle, he was clearly waging a battle of conflicting emotions. He wanted and didn't want to tell me something. As much as I hoped he'd talk to me – really talk to me – I already knew what his decision would be.
"You'll be back tomorrow?" he finally asked, not surprising me.
"Yeah," I answered the question it'd been pointless to ask. "I'll be back tomorrow." He made no immediate comment but I remained in the doorway until it became obvious he wasn't going to say anything else. Then I turned and walked away.
"You need to back off," James told me as soon as I stepped into the waiting room. "I know that Remus doesn't seem to be dealing with anything – not what happened to his mum and grandmother and certainly not what happened last night – and I know that you're worried about him, but you can't solve everything yourself."
I didn't stop to speak with him, instead I kept walking and forced him to fall into step beside me.
"You always want to fix everything but some things are just too big. I mean, you became an Animagus because you wanted to help Remus, you helped save his life when you refused to accept that he was the one that killed Evelyn, and you've done countless other things for Remus, Peter, and me when you got it in your head that you had to help somehow." He paused.
It was standard Ministry policy to arrest all local registered werewolves when someone was killed by one. Just earlier this year, that fate had befallen a Hogwarts student – Evelyn Milay. Thanks to a series of unfortunate events, it hadn't been clear whether Remus was responsible. However, seeing as how he was the only registered werewolf in the area, the Ministry had assumed he was and taken him to the Werewolf Confinement Center, a thoroughly despicable place. I, however, had been unwilling to believe that Remus had killed her and in the end James and I had been able to prove that he indeed had not. It had, in fact, been an unregistered werewolf.
James was watching me. When it became evident that I had no intention of arguing with any of what he'd said so far, he continued. "And those are all brilliant things. I mean, the things that you do for your friends…
"Sirius, you have this way of caring about people so much that you just become so involved in everything and don't seem to understand that there are some things that you just have to let be." James grabbed my shoulder. Forcing me to stop walking, he spun me to face him. "Padfoot," he caught my gaze in his own, "Sometimes all you can do for your friends is be there. Sometimes that has to be enough."
"James…" I didn't step away or break the eye contact between us even though I wanted to. "His mum and grandmother are dead."
"I know."
"He was nearly killed last night. Probably because he's a werewolf but maybe for some other reason. It probably doesn't even matter why. He was nearly killed last night."
"I know," he repeated softly, understandingly.
"And he's acting as if when he gets out of here in a few days everything will be all right."
James released my shoulder and took half a step back. "I'm worried about him too."
I already knew that. Of course he was worried. We were all worried. "So don't we have to try and help? Shouldn't we do more than just visit him in the hospital wing?"
"What else do you think we can do in this situation?" he demanded. Even though he knew he had me, even though he knew I didn't have an answer for that, his tone was sympathetic and not triumphant.
I stared at him helplessly. I didn't know what else we could do but there had to be something. There had to be something.
"Hey Wormtail, where's Prongs?" He'd practically begged me to keep him company while he looked through various wedding magazines in an attempt to pick out a tuxedo he liked and had then up and vanished. Unfortunately, he also had the Marauder's Map.
Peter, who was sitting on the floor in front of his bed reading a book and looking entirely bored, shrugged. "He left about a half hour ago with Dumbledore."
Dumbledore? If Dumbledore had wanted to see James it probably had something to do with what had happened to Remus. We hadn't heard anything about it since the night of the attack and I was extremely interested in learning whether they had any idea who was responsible.
Nodding, I lingered uncertainly in the center of the room. I wanted to go visit Remus in the hospital wing but wondered if I should instead wait for James. I didn't particularly relish the idea of giving tuxedo advice but if I stayed I'd be able to ask him if he knew anything about how the investigation was proceeding.
Ambling over so that I could look out the window, I froze when I saw James, Dumbledore, and two other wizards – probably Ministry workers – heading in the direction of where the attack had taken place. Maybe they wanted a first-hand account of how and where James had found Remus. Maybe they were looking for more evidence.
Sighing, I studied Moony's neat, empty bed. I'd go see him tomorrow morning before class. Right now I wanted to know if Dumbledore and the Ministry had any suspects. I wanted to know who was responsible for nearly killing one of my best friends.
"They're what?" I exclaimed angrily, not believing what James had just told me.
"The Ministry is closing the investigation," he repeated tiredly, picking up the stack of tuxedo magazines he'd left on his pillow and letting it fall untidily onto the floor.
"Why?" I demanded.
Prongs grabbed his pillow and fluffed it rather aggressively back into shape. Though he was certainly a great deal calmer about it he was just as frustrated by this news as I was. He was normally not as vocal as me in venting his anger, preferring instead to let it show in his eyes and mannerisms. "Sirius, you know why. You know why."
Dejectedly, I used my thumb and forefinger to rub slow circles around my eyes. Yeah. I knew why. I hated to admit it but I knew why. Remus was a werewolf, after all. What did the Ministry care if he was persecuted and discriminated against? What did the Ministry care if he was assaulted and nearly murdered?
